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4047176
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Johnstone%20%28Royal%20Navy%20officer%29
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George Johnstone (Royal Navy officer)
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He arrived at his capital, Pensacola, on 21 October 1764 and having established himself, went on to encourage immigration while keeping order among a relatively lawless pioneer population. He carried out skilful negotiations with the local Indians, and established the basics of civil government in the region. He oversaw the establishment of a fairly effective provincial legislative assembly, and the elections of representatives to it, which he worked well enough with to be able to pass a number of pieces of legislation. He did not enjoy a similar relationship with the military in society, through his claim of an authority over them which was contrary to usual colonial practice. By 1766 he had determined on the necessity of war with the Creek Indians, despite the government's attempts to secure peace in North America. He soon clashed with William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, the new Secretary of State for the Southern Department, which led to Shelburne's demand for Johnstone's removal. By now Johnstone had been frustrated in his hopes for commercial prosperity in the region, and enjoyed little popular support from civil society, and so decided to apply for a leave of absence. He left the colony on 13 January 1767, and never returned. Shortly after his departure the ministry removed him from his office. During his time in Florida he had begun a long-term relationship with Martha Ford, by whom he had four illegitimate children, all of whom he supported: George Lindsay Johnstone (later a member of Parliament), James Primrose Johnstone, Alexander Johnstone and Sophia Johnstone.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Johnstone%20%28Royal%20Navy%20officer%29
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George Johnstone (Royal Navy officer)
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Johnstone supported the Rockingham faction, which was opposed to North's policies in American affairs. He was particularly skilled at denunciations and obstructing legislation, attacking the 1773 Tea Act as 'criminally absurd', and argued that the Boston Port Bill would unite Americans against Britain. He also opposed the altering of the charter of Massachusetts and the 1774 Quebec Act. Other matters he spoke on in Parliament included his opposition to the penal laws in Ireland, the imprisonment of debtors and the Royal Navy's use of impressment. He also criticised the Atlantic slave trade, calling it "a commerce of the most barbarous and cruel kind that ever disgraced the transactions of any civilised people". He tended towards pragmatism on other affairs, believing that while taxing American colonists was legal, it was inexpedient, and that sending British troops to America would be ultimately fruitless and that to maintain order would require the garrisoning of forces in the colonies at great expense. Instead he urged conciliation to redress colonial grievances. His temper occasionally got the better of him, leading to difficult situations, and on one occasion a duel with Lord George Germain.
The Carlisle Peace Commission
Johnstone's stance on conciliation probably led to his selection by North to form part of the peace commission sent to America in 1778 under Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle. Confident of success Johnstone attempted to sway influential Americans with the argument that reconciling with Britain was preferable to dependence on France. In his communications he made vague hints of rewards to those who helped secure this outcome, and was eventually accused of attempting to bribe American general Joseph Reed with 10,000 guineas. The charge was never proved, but the Continental Congress voted to have nothing more to do with him, and Johnstone returned home in 1778, before the rest of the commissioners.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Johnstone%20%28Royal%20Navy%20officer%29
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George Johnstone (Royal Navy officer)
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Return to the Navy
In 1779 Johnstone was offered, and accepted, a post as commodore of the Lisbon Station, despite his previous attacks on the ministry, and his support for conciliation over military intervention. He justified himself with the argument that since France had entered the war on the American side, he could no longer support staying out of the war. He was promised an assignment on the Portuguese station, before which he cruised off the French coast in his flagship , looking for evidence of invasion preparations. It soon became known that the French and Spanish fleets intended to unite and form a large single fleet to invade England. Johnstone took Romney to join Admiral Sir Charles Hardy's Channel Fleet, and pressed him to seek battle. Hardy instead preferred to avoid action at first, wearing down the enemy fleet at sea while his own continued to refit and resupply from the naval bases along the English coast. Hardy's tactics were successful, and rather than confront a fresh and well-equipped British fleet, the enemy armada abandoned their plans and returned to French ports.
Johnstone went on to cruise off the Portuguese coast, making several captures that brought him a sizeable sum of prize money. In particular Romney, while cruising with and , chased down and captured the 34-gun Spanish frigate Santa Margarita on 11 November 1779. The following year his ships captured the 38-gun Artois on 3 July 1780, and the 18-gun Perle on 6 July 1780, both off Cape Finisterre. Despite these successes he still tried to maintain his influence in politics, suggesting that Spain be offered Gibraltar in exchange for leaving the war, but achieved no apparent backing or result.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Johnstone%20%28Royal%20Navy%20officer%29
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George Johnstone (Royal Navy officer)
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Johnstone at first made for the Cape Verde Islands, anchoring at Porto Praya to take on fresh water. Assuming there was no danger, despite records from the port office that a French frigate had arrived a month earlier and warned the inhabitants to prepare for the arrival of a larger French force, Johnstone anchored his fleet so that the warships were moored inshore, and the transports and merchants were outside the defensive lines. He further hampered his ability to fight his ships by sending his best men ashore to collect water, and leaving his decks encumbered with lumber and casks. On 16 April strange sails were seen approaching the harbour. These were the ships of Suffren's squadron, who also intended to take on water and was equally as surprised to discover an enemy fleet. Taking advantage of the situation he quickly ran up to HMS Isis with his 74-gun ships and , and the 64-gun , fired broadsides into her, and raised the French colours. Moored as he was Johnstone could not easily bring his remaining warships to engage the French, while his smaller ships were useless against the large French warships. In the smoke and confusion several of the transports fired into the East Indiamen.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Johnstone%20%28Royal%20Navy%20officer%29
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George Johnstone (Royal Navy officer)
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Recovering from their initial shock the British soon began to fight back effectively. Captain Ward of HMS Hero took men from nearby ships and used them to bring his ship into range of the French, whereupon he boarded Artésien, killed her captain, Cardaillac, and took twenty-five of her men away as prisoners. After two hours of heavy cannonading the French found themselves in a dangerous position, as Annibal lost her mizzen mast, followed shortly afterwards by her main and foremasts. She had by now sustained casualties of two hundred dead or wounded, and with the British preparing to board her, Suffren decided to retreat. He brought Héros in to tow Annibal to safety and made for the open sea, taking with him as prizes the East Indiamen Hinchinbroke and Fortitude, the fireship Infernal, and the storeship Edward. Johnstone immediately ordered a pursuit, but his heavily damaged ships took some time to get out of the harbour, by which time Suffren's fleet had disappeared. The British ships taken by Suffren were all recaptured over the next few days, as they were considered too badly damaged to be of use and were abandoned. Though Johnstone had beaten off the superior French force, the race was now on for the Cape. Johnstone assumed that Suffren would either make for the West Indies or Brazil to refit and resupply, but was mistaken. Suffren simply rigged temporary masts on Annibal and made for the Cape. Johnstone stayed at Porto Praya to carry out repairs, thus abandoning any chance of beating Suffren to his destination.
Arrival at the Cape and Saldanha Bay
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Johnstone%20%28Royal%20Navy%20officer%29
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George Johnstone (Royal Navy officer)
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Johnstone's forces arrived at the Cape, where he sent HMS Active ahead to reconnoitre. Active found a Dutch merchant, the Held Woltemande, which had recently departed the Cape, and after fooling her into thinking Active was a French frigate, captured her. From her Johnstone learnt that Suffren's forces had already reinforced the Cape, and that an attack would be futile. However he also learnt that a small convoy of richly laden Dutch merchants had been moved to the safety of Saldanha Bay. Johnstone decided to capture them, and on the morning of 21 July, arrived off the entrance to the bay. The Dutch squadron consisted of Dankbaarheid, Perel, Schoonkop, Hoogscarspel and Middleburg, under the command of Captain Gerrit Harmeyer of Hoogscarspel. Their stores and equipment had been stored on the packets Zon and Snelheid, which were sent further into the bay, near to Schapen Island. They had been given orders to burn their ships if attacked, while even if they were captured, the loss of their equipment on Zon and Snelheid would make them useless. However the Dutch were largely unprepared, and only on Middleburg had stores of combustible material been prepared. They cut their anchor cables and ran onshore, where their crews set fire to them, but the British were able to board them in their boats and extinguished the fires on all but Middleburg, to which Johnstone personally attached a line to, repeating the success of his youth, and had towed away from the remaining Dutch ships. The five ships fell into British hands, as did the two packets, which were captured without any attempt being made to destroy them. After equipping his ships, Johnstone left the bay with his prizes, leaving only Zon and Snelheid, which were considered too old to be of any use.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Johnstone%20%28Royal%20Navy%20officer%29
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George Johnstone (Royal Navy officer)
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Death and legacy
George Johnstone died at Hotwells, Bristol, possibly from Hodgkin's disease, on 24 May 1787. He was survived by his wife Charlotte, by whom he had one son, John Lowther Johnstone. He also had four illegitimate children, including George Johnstone (1764–1813), who became an MP.
John later succeeded his uncle, Sir William Pulteney Johnstone, as 6th Baronet of Westerhall. George Johnstone had achieved small-scale success as a naval officer, serving with undoubted courage, but had not been able to succeed when given a major command. His poor strategic planning had led to his force being badly surprised at Porto Praya, and despite having rallied and successfully beaten off the French, his assumption that Suffren would not head immediately to the Cape proved his undoing and handed the French an important strategic victory. He achieved some successes as the founder of the colony of West Florida, despite ultimately failing to win the support of his political masters and the wider civil society, and would later rate his time in Florida more highly than his comparatively greater success as a director of the East India Company. He was a renowned orator when speaking in opposition, but was never asked to join an administration and several of the high-profile causes he supported ultimately failed.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards%20Department
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Standards Department
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The Standards Department was a department of the English Board of Trade having the custody of the imperial standards of weights and measures.
History
As far back as can be traced, the standard weights and measures, the primary instruments for determining the justness of all other weights and measures used in the United Kingdom were kept at the Exchequer, and the duties relating to these standards were imposed upon the chamberlains of the Exchequer. The office of chamberlains was abolished in 1826 using the Receipt of the Exchequer Act 1783, but the custody of the standards and any duties connected to them remained attached to an officer in the Exchequer until that department was abolished by the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866. Meanwhile, in pursuance of recommendations of Standard Commissions of 1841 and 1854 and a House of Commons committee of 1862, the Standards of Weights, Measures, and Coinage Act 1866 was passed. This act created a special department of the Board of Trade, called the Standard Weights and Measures Department, and a head of that department styled the Warden of the Standards. His duty was to conduct comparisons, verifications and operations with reference to the standards in aid of scientific research and otherwise.
Directors
Henry Williams Chisholm, warden of the standards (1866–1878), father of Hugh Chisholm
Henry James Chaney (March 1842–13 February 1906), superintendent of weights and measures (1878–1906)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar%20Allahabadi
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Akbar Allahabadi
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Syed Akbar Hussain, popularly known as Akbar Allahabadi (16 November 1846 – 9 September 1921) was an Indian poet, regarded as one of the greatest satirist in Urdu literature. The most popular of Akbar's verse poked fun at the cultural dilemma posed by the onslaught of Western culture. His ire was mostly directed towards the natives he considered to be outlandishly pseudo-western. In the Indian community he became known as 'Lisanu'l-Asr' ().
Life and career
Early life
Akbar Allahabadi was born in the town of Bara, in the district of Allahabad, to a family of Sayyads who originally came to India from Persia as soldiers. His grandfather, Sayyid Fazl-i-Mohmmad, had Shia leanings but his three sons, Wasil 'Ali, Waris 'Ali and Tafazzul Husain were all Sunnis. Akbar's father, Moulvi Tafazzul Hussain served as a Naib Tehsildar to his brother Waris ' Ali, who was the Tehsildar, and his mother belonged to a zamindar family of Jagdishpur village from the Gaya district in Bihar.
Akbar received his early education in Arabic, Persian and Mathematics from his father at home. In 1855, his mother moved to Allahabad and settled in Mohalla Chowk. Akbar was admitted to the Jamuna Mission School for an English education in 1856, but he abandoned his school education in 1859. However, he continued to study English and read widely.
Career
On leaving school, Akbar joined the Railway Engineering Department as a clerk. While in service, he passed the exam qualifying him as a Vakeel (barrister) and subsequently worked as a Tehsildar and a munsif, and ultimately, as a sessions court judge. To commemorate his work in judicial services, he was bestowed with the title, Khan Bahadur.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serra%20do%20Bu%C3%A7aco
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Serra do Buçaco
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Serra do Bussaco ( ) is a mountain range in Portugal, formerly included in the province of Beira Litoral. The highest point in the range is the Cruz Alta at 549 m (1801 feet), which has views over the Serra da Estrela, the Mondego River valley and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Serra includes the buildings of a secularized Carmelite monastery, founded in 1628. The convent woods have long been known for their cypress, plane, evergreen oak, cork and other forest trees, many of which have stood for centuries and attained an immense size. A bull of Pope Gregory XV (1623), anathematizing trespassers and forbidding women to approach, is inscribed on a tablet at the main entrance; another bull, of Pope Urban VIII (1643), threatens with excommunication any person harming the trees. Located in the northwestern corner is the Mata Nacional do Bussaco (Bussaco Forest), an ancient walled arboretum.
Towards the close of the 19th century the Serra de Bussaco became one of the regular halting-places for foreign, and especially for British, tourists, on the overland route between Lisbon and Porto. The Palace Hotel of Bussaco (Palácio Hotel do Bussaco), built between 1888 and 1905 in an exuberant Neo-Manueline style, still attracts tourists.
In 1873 a monument was erected, on the southern slopes of the Serra, to commemorate the Battle of Bussaco, in which the French, under Marshal Masséna, were defeated by the Anglo-Portuguese Army, under Lord Wellington, on 27 September 1810.
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4047242
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indexing%20Service
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Indexing Service
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Indexing Service (originally called Index Server) was a Windows service that maintained an index of most of the files on a computer to improve searching performance on PCs and corporate computer networks. It updated indexes without user intervention. In Windows Vista it was replaced by the newer Windows Search Indexer. The IFilter plugins to extend the indexing capabilities to more file formats and protocols are compatible between the legacy Indexing Service how and the newer Windows Search Indexer.
History
Indexing Service was a desktop search service included with Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack as well as Windows 2000 and later. The first incarnation of the indexing service was shipped in August 1996 as a content search system for Microsoft's web server software, Internet Information Services. Its origins, however, date further back to Microsoft's Cairo operating system project, with the component serving as the Content Indexer for the Object File System. Cairo was eventually shelved, but the content indexing capabilities would go on to be included as a standard component of later Windows desktop and server operating systems, starting with Windows 2000, which includes Indexing Service 3.0.
In Windows Vista, the content indexer was replaced with the Windows Search indexer which was enabled by default. Indexing Service is still included with Windows Server 2008 but is not installed or running by default.
Indexing Service has been deprecated in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It has been removed from Windows 8.
Search interfaces
Comprehensive searching is available after initial building of the index, which can take up to hours or days, depending on the size of the specified directories, the speed of the hard drive, user activity, indexer settings and other factors. Searching using Indexing service works also on UNC paths and/or mapped network drives if the sharing server indexes appropriate directory and is aware of its sharing.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Mobley
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John Mobley
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John Ulysses Mobley (born October 10, 1973) is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker for eight seasons with the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL) from 1996 to 2003.
He is the cousin of former NBA player Cuttino Mobley.
Biography
One of nine children born to parents, Kevin and Vera, who divorced when he was thirteen years old, Mobley lived with his father until the age of sixteen. After his father suffered a stroke, Mobley moved in with his mother, who demanded he leave high school to help support his family. Mobley spent a year living on the street in an old car before a friend's family took him in.
Lacking the academic credentials for a Division I school, Mobley went on to play college football for Kutztown University in 1991. Mobley made the starting lineup as a freshman and recorded nine tackles and a sack in his first college game, and earned an honorable mention on the All-American team as a sophomore. Mobley's college career came to a sudden halt in 1993, however, when coach Barry Fetterman was fired as a result of an NCAA investigation into academic violations at the school. The team's new coach, Al Leonzi, carried out his own investigation and ended up declaring Mobley ineligible for the upcoming season.
Mobley subsequently resolved his academic status, and returned for the 1994 and 1995 seasons, earning first-team AP Little All-American selections as a junior and senior and a Division II invitation to the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama. He was drafted in the first round of the 1996 NFL draft by the Denver Broncos, making him the highest drafted player in the history of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, and just the third player from Kutztown ever to be drafted.
Mobley's best season occurred in 1997. He had 132 tackles and four sacks and was an All-Pro that season; however, he missed most of the 1999 season because of an injury.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polite%20number
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Polite number
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In number theory, a polite number is a positive integer that can be written as the sum of two or more consecutive positive integers. A positive integer which is not polite is called impolite. The impolite numbers are exactly the powers of two, and the polite numbers are the natural numbers that are not powers of two.
Polite numbers have also been called staircase numbers because the Young diagrams which represent graphically the partitions of a polite number into consecutive integers (in the French notation of drawing these diagrams) resemble staircases. If all numbers in the sum are strictly greater than one, the numbers so formed are also called trapezoidal numbers because they represent patterns of points arranged in a trapezoid.
The problem of representing numbers as sums of consecutive integers and of counting the number of representations of this type has been studied by Sylvester, Mason, Leveque, and many other more recent authors. The polite numbers describe the possible numbers of sides of the Reinhardt polygons.
Examples and characterization
The first few polite numbers are
3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, ... .
The impolite numbers are exactly the powers of two. It follows from the Lambek–Moser theorem that the nth polite number is f(n + 1), where
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polite%20number
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Polite number
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Some of the terms in this sum may be zero or negative. However, if a term is zero it can be omitted and any negative terms may be used to cancel positive ones, leading to a polite representation for x. (The requirement that y > 1 corresponds to the requirement that a polite representation have more than one term; applying the same construction for y = 1 would just lead to the trivial one-term representation x = x.)
For instance, the polite number x = 14 has a single nontrivial odd divisor, 7. It is therefore the sum of 7 consecutive numbers centered at 14/7 = 2:
14 = (2 − 3) + (2 − 2) + (2 − 1) + 2 + (2 + 1) + (2 + 2) + (2 + 3).
The first term, −1, cancels a later +1, and the second term, zero, can be omitted, leading to the polite representation
14 = 2 + (2 + 1) + (2 + 2) + (2 + 3) = 2 + 3 + 4 + 5.
Conversely, every polite representation of x can be formed from this construction. If a representation has an odd number of terms, x/y is the middle term, while if it has an even number of terms and its minimum value is m it may be extended in a unique way to a longer sequence with the same sum and an odd number of terms, by including the 2m − 1 numbers −(m − 1), −(m − 2), ..., −1, 0, 1, ..., m − 2, m − 1.
After this extension, again, x/y is the middle term. By this construction, the polite representations of a number and its odd divisors greater than one may be placed into a one-to-one correspondence, giving a bijective proof of the characterization of polite numbers and politeness. More generally, the same idea gives a two-to-one correspondence between, on the one hand, representations as a sum of consecutive integers (allowing zero, negative numbers, and single-term representations) and on the other hand odd divisors (including 1).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polite%20number
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Polite number
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Trapezoidal numbers
If a polite representation starts with 1, the number so represented is a triangular number
Otherwise, it is the difference of two nonconsecutive triangular numbers
This second case is called a trapezoidal number. One can also consider polite numbers that aren't trapezoidal. The only such numbers are the triangular numbers with only one nontrivial odd divisor, because for those numbers, according to the bijection described earlier, the odd divisor corresponds to the triangular representation and there can be no other polite representations. Thus, non-trapezoidal polite number must have the form of a power of two multiplied by an odd prime. As Jones and Lord observe, there are exactly two types of triangular numbers with this form:
the even perfect numbers 2n − 1(2n − 1) formed by the product of a Mersenne prime 2n − 1 with half the nearest power of two, and
the products 2n − 1(2n + 1) of a Fermat prime 2n + 1 with half the nearest power of two.
. For instance, the perfect number 28 = 23 − 1(23 − 1) and the number 136 = 24 − 1(24 + 1) are both this type of polite number. It is conjectured that there are infinitely many Mersenne primes, in which case there are also infinitely many polite numbers of this type.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verreaux%27s%20eagle-owl
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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Verreaux's eagle-owl (Ketupa lactea), also commonly known as the milky eagle owl or giant eagle owl, is a member of the family Strigidae. This species is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa. A member of the genus Ketupa, it is the largest African owl, measuring up to in total length. This eagle-owl is a resident primarily of dry, wooded savanna. Verreaux's eagle-owl is mainly grey in color and is distinguishable from other large owls by its bright pink eyelids, a feature shared with no other owl species in the world.
Verreaux's eagle-owl is a highly opportunistic predator equipped with powerful talons. Just over half of its known diet is composed of mammals but equal or even greater numbers of birds and even insects may be hunted locally, along with any other appropriately sized prey that is encountered. This species is considered of Least Concern by IUCN as it occurs over a wide range and has shown some adaptability to human-based alterations and destruction of habitat and adaptability to diverse prey when a primary prey species declines in a region. As a large, highly territorial species of owl, it does, however, occur at fairly low densities and some regional declines have been reported.
The common name commemorates the French naturalist Jules Verreaux. The type specimen that was later described by Temminck at the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie was collected by Verreaux while he was still in his teens.
Taxonomy
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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Among species with available genomes to study for DNA characteristics, it has been revealed that the fish owls, in particular the brown fish owl (Ketupa zeylonensis), is the third most closely related species to the Verreaux's. Notably, Konig & Weick did not test the DNA of other African eagle-owls that may bear relation to the Verreaux's eagle-owl based largely on their solid dark brown eyes, namely Fraser's (Ketupa poensis), greyish (Bubo cinerascens) and Shelley's eagle-owl, as opposed to other eagle-owls which have yellow to orange irises. Fraser's and Usambara eagle-owls also have a small amount of bare skin around their eyes but this tends to bluish in color and is not nearly as extensive as the pink seen in Verreaux's. Other large owls native to Africa, the fishing owls, also have uniform dark brownish eyes and are sometimes included with the genus Bubo but how closely related they are to modern eagle-owls is unclear. Pliocene fossil Bubo owls with clear similarities based on osteological characteristics to the modern Verreaux's eagle-owl (most are currently classified as Ketupa cf. lactea) from South Africa and Tanzania, indicate that the Verreaux's eagle-owl descended from slightly smaller ancestors that increased in size as they diversified from related species.
Description
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verreaux%27s%20eagle-owl
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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Despite the alternative common name of giant eagle-owl, Verreaux's eagle-owl is not the largest owl or eagle-owl in the world. It is, however, a very large and powerful owl species. This species is both the largest owl found in Africa and the world's largest owl to occur in the tropics. Among all the world's owls, it is fourth heaviest living owl, after Blakiston's fish owl (Ketupa blakistoni), the Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) and the tawny fish owl (Ketupa flavipes). In addition, it is the fourth longest extant owl (measured from the bill to the tip of the tail), after the great gray (Strix nebulosa), Blakiston's fish and Eurasian eagle-owls. Based on body mass and wing chord length, Verreaux's eagle-owl is about the same size as "medium-sized" races of Eurasian eagle-owl, such as those from Central Asian steppe (B. b. turcomanus) and the Himalayas (B. b. hemachalana), slightly smaller than most northern Eurasian races, considerably smaller than Siberian and Russian eagle-owls, and somewhat larger than the smallest Eurasian eagle-owl subspecies, such as those from the Iberian Peninsula (B. b. hispanus) and the Middle East (B. b. omissus or nikolskii).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verreaux%27s%20eagle-owl
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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Verreaux's eagle-owl ranges from in total length. This species has been reported as having an average wingspan of , but Mikkola referenced this as the wingspan of a smaller male. The largest known wingspan from a wild female measured nearly . While female owls are almost always larger than males, Verreaux's eagle-owl stands out as one of the most sexually dimorphic living owl species, some studies showing the female can average 35% heavier than the male. In comparison, the females of the nominate subspecies of Eurasian eagle-owls and great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) are reported to average approximately 20% and 25% heavier than the males, respectively. The full range of reported body mass in the species ranges from in males against a body mass of in females. In one study, 4 males were found to have averaged while 6 females averaged . Another study found 5 males to have averaged approximately while five females averaged . Unusually large sizes have been claimed in captivity with claims that specimens measuring up to in length and in wingspan but these are unverified and possibly misreported as these figures match the largest Eurasian eagle-owls. Males heavier than any in the wild have been verified in captivity to weigh up to . Among standard measurements, the female is reported to measure from , averaging , in wing chord, in the tail, while the same measurements in the male are from , averaging , and from in tail length. In both sexes, the tarsus has measured and the bill (in a small sample) . Based on wing chord size compared to body mass and other linear dimensions, the Verreaux's eagle-owl averages somewhat larger in the size of its wings relative to its body size than most other eagle-owls, excluding the Asian fish owls which are also relatively long-winged.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verreaux%27s%20eagle-owl
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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Overall, Verreaux's eagle-owl is a fairly uniform and somewhat pale gray, with light and fine brownish vermiculations on the underside. The back is more solidly light brown with white spots on the shoulder. The oval facial disc is paler, sometimes ranging into a whitish color, than the rest of the front side of the bird with strong black borders bracketing either side. One other feature that immediately distinguishes adult Verreaux's eagle-owls in good light are its pink eyelids. The ecological purpose of their colorful eyelids is not known; however, Brown (1965) opined that they replace the colorful yellow to orange eyes of eagle-owls in breeding and territorial displays, since they were very conspicuous in displaying males. Their eyes are dark-brown in color and like all eagle-owls, they have ear-tufts. The ear-tufts are blunter and smaller relative to those of other African eagle-owls. The ear-tufts of this species are relatively subtle and can be missed in the field, especially if they are held lax. In appearance, they are quite easily distinguished if seen well. They are much bigger and bulkier than most other co-occurring owls. The only eagle-owl species in range that approaches its size is the Shelley's eagle-owl (Ketupa shelleyi), which may (but is not confirmed to) co-exist with the Verreaux's in northern Cameroon and the southern sliver of the Central African Republic most likely in forest edge and mosaics, but that species is a much darker sooty colour overall with broad black bands on the underside. Shelley's eagle-owl also has considerably different habitat preferences, preferring deep, primary forests, and is much more rarely observed in the wild.
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The next largest owl in sub-Saharan Africa is the Cape eagle-owl (Bubo capensis). The individual home ranges, if not habitats, of the Verreaux's and cape eagle-owls may abut in nearly every part of the latter's distribution. Even in its largest race (Mackinder's eagle-owl, B. c. mackinderi) the cape eagle-owl is around 30% lighter in body mass on average than the Verreaux's eagle-owl, not to mention it being markedly different in almost all outward characteristics. Pel's fishing owl (Scotopelia peli), which occurs in west, central and inland southern Africa and may co-exist with the Verreaux's eagle-owl in much of its range (despite favoring wetland and riparian zones surrounded by wooded areas), can attain similar sizes as the Verreaux's eagle-owl but is dramatically different in color (a rather brighter rufous-cinnamon hue) and lacks ear-tufts. In combination, the characteristics of their pink eyelids, dark eyes, relatively uniform plumage and extremely large size render the Verreaux's eagle-owl as nearly unmistakable.
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Voice
The call of the Verreaux's eagle-owl is the deepest of any extant owl species and one of the deepest bird calls in the world, averaging slightly deeper than the calls of the Blakiston's and brown fish owls (Ketupu zeylonensis). The calls of Eurasian eagle-owls are less deep but are possibly louder and farther carrying. The male's song is an exceptionally deep gwok, gwok, gwonk-gwokwokwok gwokwokwok gwonk. The depth and quality of the song makes confusion by sound more likely with a leopard (Panthera pardus) than any other bird. The song is sometimes considered unmistakable. According to a study in Kenya, the voice is considered the second deepest bird call after the southern ground hornbill (Bucorvus leadbeateri), though that species has a fairly croaking call reminiscent of a large frog and in recordings appears to have a less sonorous call. Apparently, the song can carry up to away on quiet nights. The female's call is similar but higher pitched, as in all owls to some extent because the larger female tends to have a smaller syrinx. Like most Bubo owls, breeding pairs not infrequently call together but they are not as well-synchronized as the pair duets of spotted eagle-owls (Bubo africanus), which are often found in nearby ranges. The alarm calls of both sexes are often a sonorous whok or hook but variable grunting notes and raspy screams also seem to indicate alarm. Both the female and the young engage in high, piercing calls when begging for food at the nest (at which time the male does the food capture). One other vocalization recorded has included a raspy, drawn-out shrooooo-ooo-eh apparently uttered as a distraction display mainly by the male near the nest. While sound is important to some degree for inner-species relations and hunting behaviour to all owl species, the Verreaux's eagle-owl appears to have relatively small and uncomplicated ear openings compared to several smaller types of owl. This indicates that the auditory senses are relatively unimportant in this species compared to vision.
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This species inhabits mainly savanna with scattered trees and thorny vegetation. Verreaux's eagle-owls mainly inhabit rather dry regions, some bordering semi-arid areas. In central Mali, for example, near the extreme northwestern limit of the species range, the habitat that hosts these owls averages less than of rainfall annually. They also range into riverine forest adjacent to savanna and small, semi-open woodland surrounded by open country, though they are less likely to inhabit heavily wooded habitats. South African eagle-owls are not infrequently found around floodplains and marshes, which may provide the primary nesting habitat in some areas. In Uganda, they are largely associated with riparian woodlands. Verreaux's eagle-owl may live at nearly all elevations, from sea level to near the snow-line at around in elevation, such as in the Eastern Rift mountains. However, in general, they only sporadically inhabit rocky areas and so are generally very scarce in mountainous regions. The bushveld of southern Africa is near ideal habitat for Verreaux's eagle-owl and the species may be found at near peak numbers here. The species was historically rare to absent from the Kalahari Desert, but the introduction by man of invasive trees like conifers, eucalyptus and acacias, irrigation areas and prey species has allowed them to spottily occupy this region.
Behavior
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Verreaux's eagle-owls are nocturnal birds and roost by day in trees, with large, shaded horizontal branches of tall, old trees being preferred. In Kenya, the most often-used perch trees were Croton megalocarpus and invasive Eucalyptus. Elsewhere, Acacia trees may be used habitually. Despite normally choosing dense foliage to rest in, sometimes they may sit wherever their hunting path ends from the prior night, including relatively exposed perches. They reportedly sleep rather lightly and will awaken very quickly to defend themselves from attack in daylight hours. Family groups consisting of breeding pairs and their offspring frequently roost together and may engage in allopreening during this time. Reportedly some family groups include eagle-owls that had hatched up to three years prior, which if accurate is exceptional for any type of owl species. During extremely hot days, this species may flutter its throat for cooling purposes and has been known to bathe in rain and shallow water during extreme heat in the middle of the afternoon but usually drinks when possible during nighttime. Each breeding pair of Verreaux's eagle-owl defends a territory and these may be extremely large, ranging in size up to .
Food and feeding
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Verreaux's eagle-owl is considered an avian apex predator, meaning it is at or near the top of the food chain and healthy adults normally have no natural predators. In many known aspects of its hunting behaviour, it is typical of the members of the genus Bubo. This species hunts predominantly in early evening; however, they have been observed to swoop on prey during daylight. They usually fly to a different perch from their daytime roost to use as their habitual hunting perch. Verreaux's eagle-owls mainly hunt by gliding down on their prey from a perch. However, hunting on the wing has been reported, even of flying insects. On occasion, they hunt by flying low over a bush to catch prey by surprise or dash on the wing into dense foliage or through forests to catch a galago or other arboreal prey item. They will also sometimes run after prey on the ground, flapping their wings rapidly as they walk, or wade into shallow waters to pin down fish. The wing size of eagle-owls in general limits their flying speed and abilities in the open and so they require perches to execute most of their hunting behaviour.
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Even among the Bubo owls, most species of which are known to be highly opportunistic predators with indiscriminating diets, the Verreaux's eagle-owl is a particularly opportunistic predator. While earlier studies characterized great horned owl, one of the most well-studied members of the genus Bubo, as hunting whatever random species they first come across, more modern dietary studies have contrarily shown their prey selection is not completely random and that regionally they selected cottontails and hares as prey instead of other foods regardless of prey population trends and became regional specialists on such prey, to such an extent that it predictably causes owl population declines at times when leporid numbers decline. Furthermore, species-wide, great horned owls may select mammals as prey nearly 88% of the time. In contrast, studies have indicated that for the Verreaux's eagle-owl only around 56% of its diet is mammals and no single prey type predictably dominates their prey selection by biomass in multiple regions. To date, more than 100 prey species have been counted for this eagle-owl and, with only about half a dozen comprehensive dietary studies known to have been conducted, this probably only represents a small portion of the total prey selected. Estimated prey size for the species has ranged from insects weighing less than to ungulates weighing at least . This is the second broadest size range positively attributed to a single owl species for prey items after the Eurasian eagle-owl and the largest exceptional upper prey-size also after the Eurasian species.
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Mammals
The prey type most often associated with Verreaux's eagle-owl are hedgehogs. It appears that this species is the only routine predator of hedgehogs in Africa, most other predators of small-to-medium-sized mammals choosing to pursue other abundant mammals without the hedgehog's prickly defenses. In both the southernmost, from the western cape of South Africa, and northernmost, a partial study of the foods at nests in central Mali, food studies for this species have found hedgehogs to be the most significant contributor of biomass in Verreaux's eagle-owl nests. The two known hedgehog prey species taken are the four-toed hedgehog (Atelerix albiventris), which averages in adults, in the north and the southern African hedgehog (Atelerix frontalis), which averages in adults, in the south. When capturing hedgehogs, the eagle-owl descends silently with its soft-comb wings and ambushes the hedgehog by imbedding its talons about the face. After death, the hedgehog is skinned of its prickly back before being consumed by either the eagle-owl itself or the young at the nest. This may result in over a dozen hedgehog skins being found around Verreaux's eagle-owl roosts near their nests. The same method of dealing with hedgehogs is utilized by the Eurasian eagle-owl, which is likewise reported as the only routine predator of hedgehogs in its native continent. Studies in other areas have shown that, while hedgehogs are seemingly taken opportunistically, they are at best secondary as contributors of prey both in quantity and biomass.
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In general, the diet of Verreaux's eagle-owl is seemingly random and highly variable. Eagle-owl species from temperate zones may have no choice but to predate rodents which are rather small and this may require a nesting pair to capture up to a dozen rodents nightly. In comparison, the diversity and abundance of rodents is considerably greater in wild areas of sub-Saharan Africa and the Verreaux's eagle-owl seemingly ignores most small rodent species, with no rodent prey species known to average under in adult body mass. In Kenya, the most often recorded prey locally were Tachyoryctes mole-rats; however, these were recorded only slightly more often than other genera or species, including non-mammals. Several species of blesmol, a separate family also sometimes referred to as mole-rats, have also been recorded as prey. Several murid species have been hunted ranging in size from the southern multimammate mouse (Mastomys coucha) to the two non-native Rattus species, including the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus). Some larger rodents they've hunted have included the cape ground squirrel (Xerus inauris), the Gambian pouched rat (Cricetomys qambianus) and the lesser cane rat (Thryonomys gregorianus). The largest known rodent prey is the South African springhare (Pedetes capensis) at an average adult weight of . Avery, et al. (1985) opined that springhares may be only taken as carrion as they claim it be too large for the eagle-owl to overpower and indeed at least one South African springhare was fed on as roadkilled carrion. However, Avery, et al. (1985) also acknowledged that adult monkeys of larger size have verifiably been taken alive by the eagle-owls, so it certainly should not be ruled out that they also take live springhares.
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Many other mammals taken as prey by Verreaux's eagle-owl are seemingly any encountered except the much larger species, especially those that show a propensity for nocturnal or crepuscular activity. This species has hunted bats in several cases from the Lander's horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus landeri), the smallest known vertebrate prey species known for this eagle-owl, to Rousettus fruit bats that weigh over . Most other mammalian prey recorded or inferred as hunted by Verreaux's eagle-owl tend to be considerably larger. Both the scrub hare (Lepus saxatilis) and the cape hare (Lepus capensis) have been reported as food, the scrub species estimated to average when taken. In parts of Kenya, the scrub hare can be a particularly significant contributor of biomass to the eagle-owl's diet. Other assorted mammalian prey species include the golden-rumped elephant shrew (Rhynchocyon chrysopygus) and the cape hyrax (Procavia capensis), although it is possible that juvenile hyraxes are rather more commonly taken than adults.
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So far as is known, Verreaux's eagle-owl is the only living owl that preys upon multiple species of primate, although isolated incidents of predation (normally on young primates) has been reported in two to three other large, tropical owls. Multiple cases of predation against galagos have been reported, unsurprisingly as they represent all nocturnal primates in Africa, although they are seldom identified to species. Known galago prey species have ranged from the Thomas's bushbaby (Galagoides thomasi) to the brown greater galago (Otolemur crassicaudatus). Monkeys are also predated opportunistically. Particularly often reported in foods of the Verreaux's eagle-owl as primates go is the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus). Incidents of successful predation have included vervets that were half-grown, which the eagle-owl was able to fly off with (despite being about as heavy as the eagle-owl itself), and an adult vervet of an estimated weight of , which an eagle-owl took on the ground and subsequently dismembered. However, considering the formidable gauntlet of predators that vervet monkeys face, the Verreaux's eagle-owl is one of its more minor predators and attacks on them may be considered incidental, due in part to the monkey's primarily diurnal activities. Other monkey species believed to be occasionally vulnerable to attacks include the blue monkey (Cercopithecus mitis), which is similar in size to the vervet, patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas) and the young of the chacma baboon (Papio ursinus). Adult patas monkeys, averaging some , can be even larger than vervet monkeys but whether they take prime adults of the species is questionable.
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There are a few verified cases of Verreaux's eagle-owls feeding on ungulates; however, some authors such as Avery, et al. (1985) feel that these generally represent cases of scavenging on carrion. The remains of an adult grysbok (Raphicerus melanotis), weighing an estimated , was opined with certainty to have been taken as carrion per this study. Steyn (1982) accepted that this species could take live prey weighing up to on rare occasions; however, he stated in a case of an adult common duiker (Sylvicapra grimmia) being fed on by an eagle-owl that the duiker was likely roadkill. Scavenging on carrion is generally a rare behaviour in owls and has been reported in only a few cases where large owls are exceptionally hungry. Live ungulates verified to have been hunted have included piglets of common warthogs (Phacochoerus africanus), which have an average birth weight of only but grow to over in just a couple weeks. Adult Kirk's dik-diks (Madoqua kirkii), one of the smallest antelope species at an average of have also been hunted by Verreaux's eagle-owl.
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Among mammalian carnivores the bulk of predatory incidents have reportedly involved mongooses. Common, social species from savanna-edge such as the yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata) and the meerkats (Suricata suricatta) have been attacked, as well as larger, shy forest dwellers such as the Jackson's mongoose (Bdeogale jacksoni). An adult Meller's mongoose (Rhynchogale melleri) weighing about which was taken by a Verreaux's eagle-owl on the wing represents the second heaviest known object successfully flown with this species after the aforementioned half-grown vervet monkey. Other smallish carnivores known to fall prey to Verreaux's eagle-owls include the African striped weasel (Poecilogale albinucha) and its larger cousin, the striped polecat (Ictonyx striatus), which in one nest from the border of the Kalahari represented the sole prey species for a pair of eagle-owls. In southern Africa, both the cape genet (Genetta tigrina), averaging , and the black-footed cat (Felis nigripes), the smallest felid in Africa, have been included amongst their prey. The Verreaux's eagle-owl is thought to be a threat to even larger carnivores, including the bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis) and the aardwolf (Proteles cristata), although whether healthy adults of the latter are in danger is doubtful. A scientifically-observed attack on an adult male African wildcat (Felis silvestris cafra), which can weigh more than about , was aborted after the eagle-owl apparently deemed that the felid was too heavy to take flight with. However, domesticated cats of any size may fall prey to Verreaux's eagle-owl. At Lake Baringo Country Club in Kenya, this eagle-owl has apparently taken to habitually hunting outdoor cats, reportedly making the cats on the grounds highly skittish.
Birds
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Verreaux's eagle-owl takes a diverse range of birds as prey. More than 50 avian prey species have been identified and they may locally exceed mammals in importance in the diet, somewhat unusually for eagle-owls. No one type of bird can be said to be predictably favored as prey and any avian species unfortunate enough to have a nighttime roost or nest that happens to be in an eagle-owl's foraging path may fall victim to this species. Many cases of predation involve nest robbery, with nestlings or fledglings being taken, although adult birds may be taken just as often, especially for species with less conspicuous nests. In South Africa's De Hoop Nature Reserve, it was found that birds were somewhat better represented by both number, 43.3% of remains, and biomass, 57.84% of remains, than mammals or any other prey group. The species best represented in biomass in the prior study was the black-headed heron (Ardea melanocephala) with several adults estimated to average being found among the prey remains. Other fairly common, largish herons are also known to fall prey at night to Verreaux's eagle-owl including the common egret (Ardea alba), the grey heron (Ardea cinerea) and the purple heron (Ardea purpurea).
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Various upland birds recorded as prey include the Namaqua sandgrouse (Pterocles namaqua), the rock pigeon (Columba livia), the laughing dove (Streptopelia senegalensis), the Senegal coucal (Centropus senegalensis), the scaly-throated honeyguide (Indicator variegatus) and several species of hornbill, ranging in size from the northern red-billed hornbill (Tockus erythrorhynchus) to the silvery-cheeked hornbill (Bycanistes brevis). Among passerines, the most frequently taken are likely to be corvids, which are often favored by Bubo owls from around the world due to their large size, relatively open nests and frequently easy-to-find, communal nocturnal roosts. To date the cape crow (Corvus capensis) and pied crow (Corvus albus) are the corvids reported in dietary studies. In Ethiopia, thick-billed ravens (Corvus crassirostris), which at are possibly the heaviest corvid species in the world, mobbed them vigorously and seemed to consider them a primary threat. Smaller passerines are by no means ignored. White-eyes are among the more frequently taken smaller passerines, with the southern yellow white-eye (Zosterops anderssoni) being the smallest identified avian prey species, although penduline tits (Anthoscopus ssp.) are likely to be even smaller. The largest bird to be hunted by Verreaux's eagle-owl is complicated by the fact that they often take relatively small nestlings of larger species, such as ostriches (Struthio camelus) and grey crowned cranes (Balearica regulorum). The only avian prey items successfully attacked larger than other types of birds of prey (reviewed later) are likely bustards. Most predation records have reported on relatively small bustards, namely northern (Afrotis afraoides) and southern black korhaans (Afrotis afra), which average only and , respectively
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Other prey
Reptiles and amphibians are occasional prey for Verreaux's eagle-owls. Various snakes have been included in their diet ranging from the small, innocuous brown house snake (Boaedon fuliginosus) at to large and venomous Egyptian cobras (Naja haje) weighing over . Frogs were amongst the prominent prey recorded for suburban-breeding eagle-owls in South Africa, namely the African red toad (Schismaderma carens) and the guttural toad (Amietophrynus gutturalis). Unidentified frogs were fairly significant in the diet from Kenya. The largest herpetological prey known is the Nile monitor (Varanus niloticus), at a mean mature mass of , these primarily diurnal reptiles can provide a fulfilling meal but can be hard to subdue even if ambushed unaware.
Predation on fish has been reported but no fish have been observed firsthand in dietary studies. A surprisingly wide range of invertebrates have been reported in the diet for this species. In some cases, they may prey on insects as small as termites and even smaller invertebrates have been recorded in pellets such as oribatid mites and Sarcophaga flies, but are likely consumed incidentally while eating a larger item, either from carrion or the stomach of the prey itself. Unidentified scorpions, spiders and millipedes have also been reported in their foods. Most attacks on insects involve large ground beetles or dung beetles. Verreaux's eagle-owl has been known to feed on dung beetles among herds of African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) by night, boldly diving below the massive bovids’ legs, and will readily feed on beetles among elephant dung when available.
Interspecies predatory relations
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Sub-Saharan Africa has many species of owl, although there is less species diversity than in some areas of similar latitude in the neotropics and south Asia. It also hosts the most species of eagle-owl with approximately eight "typical" Bubo species and all three fishing owl species as well. Due to the diversity here, there are a number of distinctions between habitat preference, primary prey types and body size among the eagle-owls of Africa. The three smallest species of this genus reside solely in Africa, the akun eagle-owl (Ketupa leucosticta), the greyish eagle-owl (Bubo cinerascens) and the spotted eagle-owl (Bubo africanus), in rough order of increasing size. These species are all primarily insectivores and are much reduced in the size and strength of their feet and talons compared to most other contemporary species, although the spotted eagle-owl can be locally specialized to feed on small rodents as well. While the akun is a primary forest-dweller as are the medium-sized Fraser's and Usambara eagle-owl and large Shelley's eagle-owl and thus is not likely to co-exist with Verreaux's eagle-owls except in rare cases, the northerly-distributed greyish eagle-owl (which was at one point considered merely a subspecies of the spotted) and the southerly-distributed spotted eagle-owl have much more similar habitat preferences to the Verreaux's species. Of the non-piscivorous owls in Africa, the Cape eagle-owl can have a somewhat broad diet and a capability to take large prey but is more specialized to feed on a narrow range of mammals, mole-rats often supplemented with rock hyrax, than the Verreaux's eagle-owl. The Cape eagle-owl has a fairly strong preference for nesting and hunting within the confines of rocky and mountainous habitats, whereas the Verreaux's is at best sporadic in such areas
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Outside of the genus Bubo, other owls in Africa are much smaller than Verreaux's eagle-owls and are more likely to be viewed as prey than competition. Among the small-to-mid-sized owls that have fallen prey to this species are the barn owl (Tyto alba) and the African grass owl (Tyto capensis), both of which average around in body mass in Africa, the marsh owl (Asio capensis) and the southern white-faced owl (Ptilopsis granti). The only verified interactions with other typical eagle-owls have been predatory, as the spotted eagle-owl has been recorded among their prey in a few cases. There are several owls with broadly similar habitat preferences from African scops owls (Otus senegalensis) to African wood owls (Strix woodfordii) that have not been reported as food but are almost certainly occasionally threatened by Verreaux's eagle-owls. As is commonly the case with eagle-owls, the Verreaux's eagle-owl is perhaps the most serious predatory threat to diurnal raptors in its range, most often ambushing raptors on their prominent nests upon nightfall and freely killing birds of prey of any age from nestlings to adults. Such prey is not quantitatively significant as a food source but since raptors as a rule are sparsely distributed the habitual visitation of a single or pair of Verreaux's eagle-owl can potentially be devastating to a local population. Among the species of small-to-medium-sized raptors known to be attacked are the African harrier-hawk (Polyboroides typus), the pale chanting goshawk (Melierax canorus), the African marsh harrier (Circus ranivorus), the scissor-tailed kite (Chelictinia riocourii), the African goshawk (Accipiter tachiro) the common buzzard (Buteo buteo) and the Wahlberg's eagle (Hieraaetus wahlbergi).
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There are reports of Verreaux's eagle-owls attacking even larger raptorial birds. A case of the Verreaux's eagle-owl killing an adult Pel's fishing owl in Botswana was verified. At roughly in body mass, the fishing owl is of nearly the same size as the eagle-owl. Cases where they've attacked the nests of particularly large diurnal birds of prey have sometimes involved only nestlings being victimized, such as attacks on the hooded vulture (Necrosyrtes monachus) and the bateleur (Terathopius ecaudatus); none of the adults, which are about the same average adult body mass as the Verreaux's eagle-owls, have been reported as prey. However, in some even larger birds of prey, adults as well as nestlings and fledglings have been killed. Successful nighttime attacks have been reported on adults of the African fish eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer) and the secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius). In the Matobo Hills of Zimbabwe, the Verreaux's eagle-owl has been considered as one of the inferred predators of Verreaux's eagle (Aquila verreauxii), although whether adults or only nestlings are vulnerable is not definitely clear.
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Breeding
In the heart of their distribution, i.e. east Africa, breeding activity in this species can peak any time from February to September, but can occur nearly any month at the species level. The timing of breeding is said to be correspondent roughly to the regional dry season, so averages earlier in the northern part of the range (before February) and later (July to September) in the southern part of the range such as Kenya and South Africa. In the northern part of the range, breeding season commenced in November in Mali, in November and December in Senegal, December in Equatorial Guinea and January in Nigeria. The monogamous pair is quite stable, most likely mating for life. As in most owls, a courtship display is both to establish mates for a newly mature pair of eagle-owls or to strength pair bonds prior to nesting. Vocalizations during courtship displays consist of relatively rapid and excited calling, hooting and whining. The pair during courtship will bow to one another, flick open their wings and preen each other's feathers, with the male taking the more active part in the courtship ritual. Like all raptorial birds, Verreaux's eagle-owls are strongly territorial. The pair will defend their territory by their song and sometimes (though rarely) through duets. The territories of Verreaux's eagle-owls can range up to 7,000 hectares in size, although average territory sizes are seemingly unknown.
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Like great horned owls, but unlike Eurasian eagle-owls, the Verreaux's eagle-owls normally uses old nests built by other birds as their own nests. Usage of a nest site other than those constructed by other birds is considered rarer even than in the horned owl and is viewed as almost exceptional in some parts of this species range. Existent reports of this species building its own nest are certain to be dubious, as no known living owl builds a nest and only a small handful of owl species have been verified adding a small amount of nesting material to an existing surface or nest. The variety of bird nests they use is extreme. Large stick nests in sturdy trees are generally used. In southern Africa, recorded nest heights have ranged from off the ground. Like other Bubo owls, the large nest of large-bodied accipitrids are often popular for use, due to the often huge size and sturdiness of construction typical in this family, with the nest builders devoting up to four months to their construction. However, perhaps the constructor of nests that most often host Verreaux's eagle-owls are hamerkops (Scopus umbretta). In everywhere from Mali to South Africa the eagle-owl has been recorded using old nests built by this species. The unusual, massive nest is an enclosed circle of sticks with a side entrance that are often very large relative to the size of the hamerkop, a smallish, compact wading bird. Usually the eagle-owls nest on the flat top of the hamerkop nest rather than the interior which is usually too small for the eagle-owls to enter and this can provide a rather safe structure for the eagle-owl family to call home.
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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Other nest builders which are popular as hosts are vultures, eagles (at least eight species have built nests used by these eagle-owls), secretarybirds, crows and even much smaller birds such as weavers, which build huge communal nest structures which the eagle-owls then similarly nest on top of. Most nests are already abandoned when the Verreaux's eagle-owl take over it, in large accipitrids for example, many build alternate nests which are not used for years on end. However, if the nest is occupied, the Verreaux's eagle-owl pair readily displaces the occupants and sometimes feeds on the birds in them. Species known to be successfully displaced from their nests have ranged up in size to lappet-faced vultures (Torgos tracheliotos), which are more than three times heavier on average than the Verreaux's eagle-owl. In some cases, hamerkops have been known to try to defend their nest from the eagle-owls but are usually chased away. Verreaux's eagle-owls have been known to displace other opportunistic nest usurpers such as other owls and falcons in order to take over nest structures for themselves. In one case, a pair of eagle-owls nested on top of a hamerkop nest while the interior of the nest was occupied by Egyptian geese (Alopochen aegyptiacus), an unusual aggressive species of waterfowl that uses nests built by other species. In rare cases, Verreaux's eagle-owls have been recorded using large, old hollows, the stem of a palm tree or on a very dense tangle of creepers or orchids instead of birds' nests as a nesting site.
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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On average, the female lays two white eggs, which typically measure , with a range in height of and a range in width of . The eggs weigh from , the upper weight being the mean mass of the first egg and the lower weight being the mean mass of the second egg. The eggs are reportedly laid at up to 7 day intervals and may take up nearly seven days as well between hatching. Most nest reportedly contain two eggs, but some may contain only one, and no more than two has been recorded in this species. The adult female incubates the eggs for 33 to 39 days, the incubation stage being slightly longer than those of most other eagle-owls, at least the more northern species. On average at hatching, the young weigh about . The weight of the nestling can triple within five days after hatching. Due to the extreme interval between the hatching of the first and the second egg, the older owlet is always considerably larger than the second. As is widely reported in different kinds of raptorial birds, the smaller chick usually dies in the nest. This may be due to starvation upon being outcompeted for food by the older chick or the smaller chick may be being attacked and killed by its older sibling. Usually the smaller chick is gone within two weeks after hatching in this species. In rare cases, both chicks are reared and survive to leave the nest, although there are no known cases of two fledglings resulting from a Verreaux's eagle-owl nest in southern Africa. The young are covered in off-white down from hatching on and the pink eyelids may become apparent within the first week of life. By three weeks of age, the chicks down will thicken and darken to a greyish colour with some barring present. By six weeks, the young eagle-owl will start to somewhat resemble an adult, replete with the blackish brackets on the facial disc of the adult but still being fairly downy, particularly about the head. Only a week later, almost all the down is likely to be moulted.
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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The mother Verreaux's eagle-owl remains on the nest for nearly the entire incubation period while the male hunts for food for both of them. During the brooding stage, which lasts about 20 days after hatching, the female is still fed by the male, but resumes hunting thereafter. During the incubation and brooding stage, the male usually roosts near the nest during the day while the female continually sits about the nest. After the brooding stage, the female normally takes to a perch within a dozen or so metres of the nest. Both parents may use a favor perch near the nest at which they dismantle prey into pieces that can be more easily consumed by their young, these may be called "plucking" perches where birds are more commonly eaten or "peeling" perches where hedgehogs are the most regular prey. Most dietary studies for the species have been from researching the pellets and skins under such perches. The female is an extremely tight sitter both while incubating and brooding, and may not even be displaced from the nest even if shouted at or the tree is struck. When intruders approach too closely, including other eagle-owls, potential predators and humans, the most common response of the parent Verreaux's eagle-owl is to grunt lowly, often raising its ear-tufts and bill-clapping. Both sexes may engage in distraction displays when the area near the nest is encroached, but it usually the male and most displays occur during nighttime but are possible at any time of day or night. During such displays, the adult will fly over the ground with drooping wings, or alights and drags its wings and flaps about, often while bill-clacking and calling. Similar injury-feigning distraction displays have been recorded in the Eurasian eagle-owl and smaller owl species but are not known in most other Bubo species. In one case, feral dogs were successfully lured away from a young Verreaux's eagle-owl by its parents’ distraction display after the young bird had fallen to the ground
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On average, the young Verreaux's eagle-owl leaves the nest at around 62–63 days but cannot fly at this point. It may take roughly anywhere from another two weeks to a month after this before the fledgling is a competent flier. After leaving the nest, the fledgling is "remarkably inactive", making a minimum of effort to fly, and usually selecting a roost within a few feet of the nest which it has awkwardly climbed to or will drop to a large bush below the nest. In the nest, the chick will beg for food with a shrill or chittering noise, sometimes bobbing its head or swaying about and transferring its weight between its feet (sometimes called a "hunger dance") and it continues to rely on its parents for food well after leaving the nest. Sometimes after leaving the nest, the young eagle-owls are mobbed as are adults by other birds of prey and crows during the day, which is often heatedly directed at this species as adult eagle-owls regularly kill these birds at night. The young eagle-owl may dodge to denser branches to avoid being wounded during such attacks. Young Verreaux's eagle-owls may fall to the ground, often as a result of mobbing. If the young bird is discovered on the ground, it may feign death, lying prone with its head lax and its eyes closed. Even if picked up while death-shamming, the young eagle-owl may remain moribund. Upon being left without disturbance after "playing dead", the young Verreaux's eagle-owl will gradually open its eyes and return to a normal state.
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Verreaux's eagle-owl
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It is not until they are about 5 months old do most young Verreaux's eagle-owl show the ability to capture prey for themselves. However, the stage at which the young of this species becomes independent appears remarkably variable. One ringed 9-month-old moved away from its nest area and was thus seemingly fully independent. On the other hand, Verreaux's eagle-owls of over half-a-year in age who presumably can fly and hunt on their own have been seen to linger and continue to beg its parents to be fed into the next breeding season, and may even be fed by their father while he is also feeding the mother and a new nestling. In Kenya, when a biologist fed a wild juvenile eagle-owl mole-rats and chicken heads in its nest area, the young eagle-owl apparently became remarkably confiding towards the person. The tendency of young eagle-owls to linger into the next breeding season sometimes results in "family groups" roosting together, a very unusual occurrence for an eagle-owl species. One such group consisted of five birds together, including two parents and three owls from the preceding past three years and apparently the younger eagle-owls even helped bring food for the chick once the egg hatched.
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On average, sexual maturity in Verreaux's eagle-owls appears to be attained at three to four years of age. In most cases, a pair of Verreaux's eagle-owl is able to nest annually; however, in some cases they may nest only every two to three years, in probable situations of extreme food shortages. Annual mortality appears to be fairly low in this large owl species. Few species have been reported to hunt Verreaux's eagle-owls short of the aforementioned jackal attack, even nests have rarely been seen to be predated, although they may on rare occasions run foul of some predators such as larger felids with the ability to climb. That young birds usually leave the nest before they can fly would appear to endanger them but the threat and distraction display of parent eagle-owls are apparently often successful. Adult eagle-owls can appear nearly fearless, as they have been reported to stand their ground and engage in threat displays when encountered on or near the ground against much larger animals such as rhinoceroses and lions, and in such cases are apparently not approached further by the bigger animals although the eagle-owls could easily be killed by such animals if contact was made. The lifespan in the wild is not known; however, in captivity the species can live for over 15 years, and possibly up to 30 years in some cases.
Status
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Verreaux's eagle-owl is a seldom-encountered species, occurring at low densities and needing large territories for hunting and breeding purposes. The threats faced by this species are sadly typical of many large birds of prey from around the world. Not infrequently, they are locally rare due to persecution. The normal cause of persecution is their possible status as predators of small domestic stock, though this is certain to be rare, at least in areas with substantial wild prey populations. An additional threat is the residual effects of pesticides, as poison (usually through rodenticide or poisoned carcasses left out for scavengers such as jackals) consumed through prey may badly affect them. They may be killed by flying into novel man-made objects, including wires and massive dams along reservoirs.
Habitat destruction can also affect them, as they require ample trees with large bird nests in order to take residence in a given area. In some areas, however, they've been shown to be able to nest in peri-urban or suburban areas, showing greater adaptability to human-based land changes than many other large birds of prey. In Eswatini, the species is considered Near Threatened and the species has been recommended for threatened status in southern Africa overall. In west Africa and central Africa, the habitat is often marginal for this species, the distribution is sporadic and thus this eagle-owl is only encountered either uncommonly or rarely. The greatest regional stronghold for Verreaux's eagle-owls is seemingly east Africa, in countries such as Kenya, which may have numbers comparable to pre-colonial times. At the species level, they are widespread and currently not considered to be threatened with extinction.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold-containing%20drugs
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Gold-containing drugs
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Chrysiasis
A noticeable side-effect of gold-based therapy is skin discoloration, in shades of mauve to a purplish dark grey when exposed to sunlight. Skin discoloration occurs when gold salts are taken on a regular basis over a long period of time. Excessive intake of gold salts while undergoing chrysotherapy results – through complex redox processes – in the saturation by relatively stable gold compounds of skin tissue and organs (as well as teeth and ocular tissue in extreme cases) in a condition known as chrysiasis. This condition is similar to argyria, which is caused by exposure to silver salts and colloidal silver. Chrysiasis can ultimately lead to acute kidney injury (such as tubular necrosis, nephrosis, glomerulitis), severe heart conditions, and hematologic complications (leukopenia, anemia). While some effects can be healed with moderate success, the skin discoloration is considered permanent.
Other side effects
Other side effects of gold-containing drugs include kidney damage, itching rash, and ulcerations of the mouth, tongue, and pharynx. Approximately 35% of patients discontinue the use of gold salts because of these side effects. Kidney function must be monitored continuously while taking gold compounds.
Types
Disodium aurothiomalate
Sodium aurothiosulfate (Gold sodium thiosulfate)
Sodium aurothiomalate (Gold sodium thiomalate) (UK)
Auranofin (UK & US)
Aurothioglucose (Gold thioglucose) (US)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys%20Bronwyn%20Stern
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Gladys Bronwyn Stern
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Gladys Bronwyn Stern (17 June 1890 – 20 September 1973) or G. B. Stern, born Gladys Bertha Stern in London, England, wrote many novels, short stories, plays, memoirs, biographies and literary criticism.
Career
GB Stern was born on 17 June 1890 in North Kensington, London, the second, by some years, of two sisters. Her family lost their money in the Vaal River diamond crash. After that, they lived in a series of apartments, hotels and boarding houses. Gladys was schooled in England until the age of 16, when, with her parents, she traveled to Continental Europe and studied in Germany and Switzerland.
She wrote her first novel, Pantomime, in 1914 at the age of 24. Her first critical success came with Twos and Threes in 1916. Her most popular books were the series known by the name of the first, The Matriarch. This was first published as Tents of Israel in 1924. The others in the series are A Deputy Was King (1926), Mosaic (1930), Shining and Free (1935) and The Young Matriarch (1942).
The Matriarch series revolved around the Rakonitz and Czelovar families and were based on her own family. They are well-to-do and cosmopolitan Jews who settled in England from Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Austria. Like her family, they suffer through an economic crash.
The first book in the series, The Matriarch, centers around two characters, the matriarch Anastasia and her granddaughter, Toni. Anastasia was based on Stern's great-aunt, who was incensed with the portrayal until the book became successful. The book describes in detail the complicated, florid and noisy life of this Jewish-English family through both triumphs and failures, weddings and funerals.
Stern's plays include The Man Who Pays The Piper (1931), which was revived by the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London in 2013.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheshatshiu
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Sheshatshiu
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Sheshatshiu () is an Innu federal reserve and designated place in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The reserve is approximately north of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Some references may spell the community's name as Sheshatshit, the t spelling is more traditional in the Innu-aimun language, but the u is used more commonly in English to avoid inappropriate connotations. The name means "a narrow place in the river".
The community is inhabited by the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation, whose current chief is Eugene Hart.
History
In 1836 the Hudson's Bay Company established a trading post at North West River and the traders provided the Innu with European tools.
During the First World War, some Innu from Sheshatshiu fought overseas in the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. In 1915 the International Grenfell Association established a hospital in North West River to serve the European settlers and indigenous people of the region. This hospital was closed in 1983 and residents of Sheshatshiu and North West River now rely on Happy Valley-Goose Bay for medical services.
In 1946 elections were held to send delegates to the Newfoundland National Convention. This was the first time an election was held in Labrador. Lester Burry was elected to the convention and he supported future premier Joey Smallwood and his proposal of confederation with Canada.
In 1949 when Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada the Indian Act did not include the First Nations of the province. This was done to preserve their right to vote however it also prevented the Innu from protecting their land and culture.
The Innu of Labrador settled into permanent villages in the 1960s and were one of the last Aboriginal groups in Canada to do so. Previously, Sheshatshiu had only been used by the Innu as a coastal settlement and for trading with Europeans.
In the 1980s and 1990s the community of Sheshatshiu, along with the Innu Nation, protested against NATO low-level tactical training flights which utilized CFB Goose Bay.
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Sheshatshiu
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In 1997, Queen Elizabeth II visited Sheshatshiu and was presented with a letter by community leaders lamenting colonialization.
In November 2000, the community, along with Davis Inlet, took the unprecedented step of asking the Canadian federal government to step in and assist with a local addiction crisis. Due to a variety of factors, including economic adversity, alcoholism and gas sniffing were both rampant in the community, in some cases affecting children as young as five years old.
Labrador's Innu became status Indians under the Indian Act in 2002 and "Sheshatshiu 3" became a federal reserve in 2006.
In 2017, the Innu Nation stated that there are 165 Labrador Innu children in foster care, 80 of whom are placed outside their home communities of Sheshatshiu and Natuashish.
In October 2019, the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation declared a suicide crisis after 10 suicide attempts were reported within the community in a matter of days.
As of 2020, according to Innu Nation Grand Chief Gregory Rich, Sheshatshiu and Natuashish have a collective population of about 3,000 with about half of that being youths. Of that 167 of them are in the care of the Manager of Child and Youth Services.
Geography
Sheshatshiu is in Labrador within Division No. 10. It is adjacent to Inuit community of North West River. Sheshatshiu is connected to Happy Valley-Goose Bay by a 40 km paved road. The roads in Sheshatshiu and North West River are the most northern paved roads in Atlantic Canada. It is located roughly at the province's geographic centre.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry%20Walsh%20%28field%20hockey%29
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Terry Walsh (field hockey)
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Terence ("Terry") Arthur Walsh (born 20 November 1953) is a field hockey coach and a former player who played as a striker for Australia. He represented Australia in two Olympic Games, winning a silver medal at the 1976 Games in Montreal. Following his playing career, he became a coach and had successful spells with Australia and Netherlands. He also coached the Indian men's team and guided the team to its first gold medal at the Asian Games after 16 years.
Coaching career
Walsh was the head coach of the Australia men's national team during the 1990s. Under him, the team won gold medals at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and 1999 Champions Trophy and bronze at the 2000 Olympic Games. He then coached the Netherlands men's team to a silver medal finish at the 2004 Olympics. He was appointed as the coach of the India men's team in 2013, before he submitted his resignation in October 2014, citing "difficulty adjusting to the decision making style of the sporting bureaucracy in India" as the reason. However, he withdrew his resignation the next day. Under him, at the 2014 Asian Games, the team won the gold medal, its first in 16 years. Citing "bureaucratic interference", he quit again in November 2014. In 2014 he became the head coach of Kalinga Lancers in the Hockey India League.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie%20Haslam
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Annie Haslam
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Annie Haslam (born 8 June 1947) is an English vocalist, songwriter and painter. She is best known as the lead singer of progressive rock band Renaissance since 1971, and for her long and diverse solo singing career. She has a three-octave vocal range. From 2002, Haslam has developed a parallel career as a visual artist, producing paintings on canvas, painted musical instruments and giclées.
Early history
Originally a fashion student in Cornwall, Haslam worked for a Savile Row tailor in London. While there, she listened to the Beatles rooftop concert. She later began studying under opera singer Sybil Knight in 1970.
Career with Renaissance
In February 1971, Haslam became the new lead singer of Renaissance after answering an advertisement in the British periodical Melody Maker and auditioning for the band in Surrey.
Charles Snider stated: "Annie Haslam's voice, soaring high along with the melody, is the big news. Far more West End than Carnaby Street, it would come to define the band."
With Renaissance, Haslam was lead vocalist on seven studio albums during their classic period (1972–1979), four studio albums from 1981–present, and a number of live albums.
In August 1978 the band's single "Northern Lights" reached the top 10 in the UK singles charts.
Solo career
In 1977, Haslam began her solo career with her album Annie in Wonderland, produced by Roy Wood, who played most of the musical instruments and duetted with her on one track. The same year she performed on one track from the Intergalactic Touring Band album. She has since released eight studio albums, three of which were released through her own record label, White Dove. Haslam has also collaborated with Steve Howe on a number of projects.
Her 2006 Live Studio Concert, was also released as her first solo DVD. Haslam released an EP called Night and Day, her first solo recording for some years, with Welsh rock band Magenta in 2006.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%20Little%20Girls
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4 Little Girls
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4 Little Girls is a 1997 American historical documentary film about the murder of four African-American girls (Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Rosamond Robertson) in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The film was directed by Spike Lee and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary.
The events inspired the 1964 song "Birmingham Sunday" by Richard and Mimi Fariña, which was used in the opening sequence of the film, as sung by Joan Baez, Mimi's sister. They also inspired the 1963 tune "Alabama" by John Coltrane, which is also included in the soundtrack.
4 Little Girls premiered on June 25, 1997, at the Guild 50th Street Theatre in New York City. It was produced by Lee's production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, and Home Box Office (HBO).
In 2017, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Synopsis
A local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan placed bombs at the 16th Street Baptist Church and set them off as Sunday services prepared to commence on the morning of September 15, 1963. Four young girls, ranging in age from 11 to 14, were killed in the explosion, which also caused anywhere between 14 and 22 additional injuries. The deaths provoked national outrage, and, the following summer, the United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The bombing is marked in history as a critical and pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement.
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4 Little Girls
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The film covered the events in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 related to civil rights demonstrations and the movement to end racial discrimination in local stores and facilities. In 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.arrived in the town to help with their strategy and to speak at the funeral of the four young girls. People of the community met at the 16th Street Baptist Church while organizing their events. The demonstrations were covered by national media, and the use by police of police dogs and pressured water from hoses on young people shocked the nation. The large number of demonstrators who were arrested resulted in local jails filling capacity.
The film ends with the trial and conviction in 1977 of Robert Edward Chambliss, also known as Dynamite Bob, as the main person responsible for the bombing, though he is said to have been only one of four Klan members involved. The film also references black churches being set on fire in Birmingham in 1993, giving the impression that, while progress has been made, there are some things that still have not changed.
Lee uses interviews with family and friends of the girls, government officials, and civil rights activists, as well as home movies and archival footage, to not only tell the story of the four girls' lives but also to provide a greater historical and political context of the times.
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Production
Lee first became interested in making a film about the Birmingham bombing in 1983, when he was a student at New York University. After reading a New York Times Magazine article about the incident, he was moved to write to Chris McNair, the father of Denise, one of the victims, to ask for permission to tell her story on film. McNair turned down the young, aspiring filmmaker. "I was entering my first semester at N.Y.U. So my skills as a filmmaker were nonexistent, and at that time, Chris McNair was still hesitant to talk about it," Lee said in a 1997 interview with Industry Central's The Director's Chair. "I believe timing is everything. So it took ten years of Chris thinking about this and ten years of myself making movies for this to come together."
According to McNair, he changed his mind about supporting Lee's film idea due to learning about the depth and precision of Lee's research. McNair said, "[I]t's very important that this be done accurately and correctly. In all his research, he [Lee] showed that he was objective and seeking a broad section of opinion. I'm a stickler for the facts."
At first, Lee had intended to create a dramatic reproduction of the incident, but eventually, he decided that would not be the best approach, and the project became a documentary. Once he secured funding, he went to Birmingham with a small skeleton film crew, as he wanted the families to be as comfortable as possible during the interviews. Sam Pollard served as a producer and the editor and Ellen Kuras was the director of photography of the film.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam%20Commens
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Adam Commens
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Adam David Commens (born 6 May 1976) is an Australian field hockey coach and former player. He was born in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.
Commens was nicknamed Billy by his teammates, and earned 143 caps (20 goals) for Australia. He was a member of the team that won the bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
Commens was named head coach of the Belgium national field hockey team on 4 July 2007. He was coach and a key player of the Royal Antwerp Hockey Club (RAHC). His assistant was Murray Richards.
Commens became coach of the Australia women's team at the start of 2011. When he took over as coach, he dropped five experienced players from the national squad: Kate Hollywood, Fiona Johnson, Alison Bruce, Shelly Liddelow and Amy Korner.
Commens was stood down as coach after allegedly exposing himself to players at the 2016 Olympics. It is alleged he exposed himself and made lewd remarks to a group of Hockeyroos during celebrations after attending the hockey finals at the Olympics.
Since the Rio Olympic Games, Commens has been appointed as the High Performance Director of the Belgian Hockey Federation and won Belgium's first ever World Cup in 2018.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle%20Park%2C%20Queensland
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Middle Park, Queensland
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Middle Park is a residential south-western suburb in the Centenary Suburbs in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Middle Park had a population of 3,845 people.
Geography
Middle Park is located by road south-west of the Brisbane CBD.
Middle Park is bounded to the north by the McLeod Country Golf Club, to the West by Baronga Street and Horizon Drive, Lalina Street and Macfarlane Street, to the south by Sumners Road and to the east by Estate Road and Beanland Street.
All but 73 of the houses in Middle Park are stand-alone, with townhouses accounting for most of the remainder. Townhouses are commonly two-storey buildings on a small plot of land in a gated community.
The typical Middle Park house is 220 m2 in area on a block of land of 600 m2. It has a large open-plan living area, four bedrooms, two bathrooms (one ensuite) and a double garage. It is single-storey "brick and tile", built on a concrete slab, with a brick outer skin and plasterboard inner skin on wooden framing, and a tile roof on wooden framing. It has a pool in the back yard.
History
The suburb was named by Queensland Place Names Board on 8 January 1973. It was one of the six "Centenary Suburbs" developed by L.J. Hooker Real Estate . It was released for development in July 1976, the last of the 6 suburbs to be developed.
The western part of the original land holdings that became the Centenary Suburbs were part of the Wolston Estate, consisting of 54 farms on an area of 3000 acres, offered for auction at Centennial Hall, Brisbane, on 16 October 1901. Wolston Estate is the property of M. B. Goggs, whose father obtained the land forty years previously in the 1860s and after whom Goggs Road is named. Only three of the farms sold at the original auction.
Most housing was constructed between 1980 and 1990.
St Catherine's Anglican Church was dedicated in 1980.
Good News Lutheran Primary School opened on 31 January 1984.
Middle Park State School opened on 27 January 1987.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WADL%20%28TV%29
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WADL (TV)
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Analog-to-digital conversion
WADL shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 38, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 39, using virtual channel 38.
FCC spectrum auction and attempted WADL sale
In 2012, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it would hold a voluntary incentive auction for a portion of the radio frequency spectrum that is currently used by television broadcasters across the country. In 2014, WADL owner Kevin Adell announced he would participate in the auction, since it was estimated the station would net somewhere in the range of $170 million, much more than it would be worth on the open market otherwise. Since that time, the auction estimate had increased to somewhere between $360–$380 million.
Adell would continue to own and operate The Word Network. WADL's broadcast facilities would have been re-purposed for The Word Network, along with the transfer of roughly 33 WADL staffers.
WADL was ultimately not sold in the auction, which concluded in 2017.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FCC allowed some stations in Phase 8 (ending March 13, 2020) of their 600-MHz spectrum auction to delay their move to Phase 9 (ending May 1, 2020) on an as-needed basis. As a result, WADL was granted permission to delay being relocated to Phase 9, and moved from UHF 39 to UHF 27 on March 23, 2020.
Cable coverage in Canada
WADL and its The Word Network digital subchannel are carried on GosfieldTel in Essex County, Ontario, as well as Cogeco systems in some rural areas of Southwestern Ontario, primarily in areas formerly served by other cable providers that were purchased by Cogeco around 2000. It is not carried on Cogeco systems in Windsor.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker%20of%20the%20Dewan%20Rakyat
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Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat
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The Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat (, Jawi: ) is the highest-ranking presiding officer of the Dewan Rakyat, the lower house of the Parliament of Malaysia. They are responsible for convening sessions of the Dewan Rakyat, organising debates, and examining the admissibility of petitions, bills, and amendments. In the absence of the Speaker, one of their deputies will take their place.
The current speaker is Johari Abdul. He was elected on 19 December 2022 for the 15th Malaysian Parliament.
Functions
The Speaker determines when a sitting of the House should open and close, and may suspend the sitting for a brief period of time if necessary. He is also in charge of ensuring the Constitution and Standing Orders of the House are given due respect; disciplining members of the House; determining who shall have the floor during a sitting; calling a vote; and checking for a quorum when the House meets. He only participates in a vote when there is a tie. The Speaker also has powers some allege to be excessive, such as imposing limits on the posing of supplementary questions during Question Time — an important procedure for the legislature to examine the government's actions — the power to restrict the tabling of questions for Question Time, and the power to amend written copies of speeches made by members of the House before they are given verbally.
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4047493
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaciens%20Sans%20Fronti%C3%A8res
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Pharmaciens Sans Frontières
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Pharmaciens Sans Frontières Comité International (PSFCI) is the largest humanitarian association in the world specialized in the pharmaceutical sector. Founded in 1985 to retrieve unused drugs from chemists for use in developing countries, PSFCI extended its objectives to help developing countries set up a locally adapted health care system.
Like Médecins Sans Frontières, PSFCI was founded and based in France, but has since evolved to an international organization, with support from national associations in a number of countries, including Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Tunisia. PCFCI has organized missions in countries in Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia, the Far East, and Latin America.
The missions of PSFCI are typically either emergency missions to countries affected by natural, human, or economic disasters; development missions to improve healthcare in impoverished countries; and technical assistance missions.
PSFCI has received donations from the industry and members for its internal organization but claims that it relies heavily on government donations to finance international missions.
In October 2009, the French nonprofit organization Pharmaciens Sans Frontières – International Committee (PSF-CI), involved in reorganization proceedings since July 2009, wound-up by decision of the court. The French NGO Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development, one of the main charities in France, offered to take up some of the projects implemented by PSF-CI in order to continue their action in the field. Several other national and independent associations of the PSF network, like Switzerland, Denmark, Canada and Germany, are still active.
Award
Pharmaciens Sans Frontières was awarded the "practitioner of the year award" for their performance during 1999 by the FIP Foundation for Education and Research.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconry%20training%20and%20technique
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Falconry training and technique
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Strips of strong leather (nowadays often kangaroo) called jesses on both legs.
Very often, a telemetry transmitter, so that it may be recovered if lost during free flight.
Falcons (the long-wing family of raptors) are tethered perched on a block; large owls (during training only) and short-winged and broad-winged hawks are tethered to a bow perch or round perch, when not allowed to fly free in their mews, an Old English word for a raptor's chamber. (The term is "mews" whether singular or plural; the word "mews" came from French muer which means "to change" or "to molt", i.e. where the hawk was kept while it was molting.)
Jesses
There are three styles of jesses. Traditional is a single strap specially knotted onto the bird. Aylmeri is a two part restraint featuring an anklet that is grommeted on and a removable jess strap. Some Aylmeri jess straps have dental rubber bands on them to make it more difficult for the bird to pull out the jess, but they are still removable if the bird gets caught up outdoors. The third type of jesses is a combination of the two, referred to as "false Aylmeri." These use an anklet as well, but a brass eyelet is slipped through far enough away that the toes will not get caught in it; there are two straps attached to the anklet, flying jesses and mews jesses. Both can be removed. A good reference on these jesses is "Care And Management of Captive Raptors" by Lori Arent & Mark Martell, published by the University of Minnesota: this guide is very popular with zoos and wildlife centers, though it is not a traditional falconry book.
The singular of "jesses" is correctly "jess", but one jess is often mistakenly called a "jessie", by wrong back-formation from "jesses" treated as "jessies", which would be pronounced the same.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconry%20training%20and%20technique
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Falconry training and technique
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A weighing scale is used to weigh the bird and its food. The scale must be reliable. This is especially important when dealing with small birds, as they may be endangered by even small weight differences when at flying weight. The successful hunting weight of the bird may vary, usually increasing as the bird is flown and develops more muscle (which weighs more than fat), but there is a relatively narrow range which the falconer seeks. Below that weight, the bird will be unnecessarily (and perhaps even dangerously) low and weak. Even the jesses lying on the scale can change the reading, so the falconer has to be careful to lift them up while the bird is being weighed. Above that range of weight, the bird will be unresponsive in the field, lacking in motivation to hunt or return to the falconer in timely fashion.
Gauntlets
Gauntlets or gloves are used by the falconer to turn the arm into a suitable perching surface. Falconry gloves may only cover the fist and wrist, while gauntlets for larger species extend to the elbow. An eagle glove may cover the entire arm and a portion of the chest, or it may be a heavy sheath worn over a standard hawking glove. The glove will have to be replaced with wear.
Creance
A creance is a long light line which is tied to the swivel or jesses. This is used only when training the bird to fly between a perch and the fist, as an assurance that the bird will not be lost in these early stages. The end away from the bird is most often wound around the spindle like a kite string; the creance can be wound or unwound with a single hand. This provides a means of storing the creance, and also provides a drag weight if the bird decides to fly off.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconry%20training%20and%20technique
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Falconry training and technique
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Housing
A falconry bird is usually housed in a mew. Mews in the US have to be inspected for compliance with federal and state laws. These laws ensure that the facilities meet what is required to safely and humanely house a bird of prey. The mews (along with other perching equipment) are carefully designed to prevent bodily injury and especially feather damage. The laws and regulations generally prescribe characteristics that would allow a captive raptor some measure of security and health maintenance in the absence of an attentive experienced falconer. The mews may be used as a free-flight arrangement (especially during the summer molt or change of feathers) or it may provide a place for tethering the raptor during the night—during the day, when not actually hunting, the bird might be kept perched on a grassy lawn. Much depends on the species of raptor, the housing of the falconer, the weather, and the style of keeping, training and hunting. The less a bird is hunted, the more important the mews and domestic quarters.
In the UK the only law concerned requires the bird to be able to spread its wings in all directions, however in practice a much greater space is needed to avoid conditions such as bumblefoot and depression. This lack of laws in the UK is the source of much concern among raptor keepers.
Diet
There are different schools of thought when it comes to feeding falconry birds. Some falconers feed meat based on its nutritional value to control how hungry the bird is. If pure meat is fed, falconers must feed additional roughage, such as fur and feathers, as most raptors require them to digest properly. Roughage cleans out the crop, and is regurgitated in a football shaped pellet called a casting. Alternatively, falconers feed their birds whole food such as mouse or quail, reducing the need for supplements and additional roughage. All birds of prey eat a strictly carnivorous diet.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconry%20training%20and%20technique
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Falconry training and technique
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Today experienced falconers know how to rear an imprint so that it has few or none of these undesirable behaviors, but it is time-consuming and requires unswerving dedication for a period of about three months. During that time, the eyass is not allowed to ever become truly hungry, and in nearly constant company and visual range of human beings, so that the arrival of food is not specifically associated with the arrival of humans. This bird is still very much imprinted on humans, but not food-imprinted, so the human is not considered something to be screamed at or attacked when hungry. In order to further assure that such correlations are not made, when it becomes ambulatory, some will take the bird to a separate room/area and allow it to "find" a plate of food, rather than having that food delivered to its face for it, as a parent bird would do. Finally, the young eyass is allowed to wander about at Tame Hack and enjoy more autonomy than would be possible with a chamber or parent-reared bird (owing to that the bird's affinity towards humans will keep it relatively close by, an affinity lacking in the chamber/parent reared eyass.) This provides the imprint eyass with an opportunity to learn to use its wings and develop musculature as well as the ability to fly in adverse conditions—advantages that the chamber-raised bird does not have.
In the United States, the law requires that all hybrid raptors must be either imprinted or sterilized before they can be free-flown.
Telemetry
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconry%20training%20and%20technique
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Falconry training and technique
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Weight is key, especially in small species. Some falconers do not recommend that beginners start with a kestrel, a tiny species of falcon. They are ready sparrow hunters, and as they are so small one must pay close attention to their weight and training to avoid hurting them. Similarly, some falconers agree that the use of Harris's hawks by beginners is best as the birds are so forgiving that the novice falconer can make constant mistakes in the bird's care and still hunt successfully. If the bird is a non-imprinted captive-bred, it is very important to establish in the bird's mind that the falconer will facilitate hunting, and thus food. The bird will be getting accustomed to its new 'furniture' (equipment) as well as its new owner.
Since the success of the Harry Potter series, some novices are desperate to keep (or hunt with) an owl. Seldom does this lead to success. Many states in the U.S. provide for keeping a great horned owl for hunting, but it is a difficult venture. Owls can be extremely difficult to hunt with, as they find prey more by hearing than their diurnal (daytime) counterparts. Even the great horned owls and eagle owls, which can see well enough during the day, will still prefer hunting at night.
There is also greater risk to the owl when it is out during the daytime. All of the diurnal raptors see owls as mortal enemies in competition with them for food and territory. Accordingly, wild birds of prey will attack an owl mercilessly if given the opportunity, even killing it if they're able to do so.
Laws also carefully regulate falconry in many areas. Throughout the United States, for example, the falconer will be required to pass a written exam, build facilities, have them inspected, serve a two-year apprenticeship, and keep diligent records on his or her birds. In order to catch a wild bird, the falconer may need additional licensing and permission.
Contacting a local falconry club or association is usually the first step to learning.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral%20district%20of%20Fairfield
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Electoral district of Fairfield
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Fairfield is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Australian state of New South Wales in Sydney's West. Fairfield has historically been one of the safest seats in New South Wales and is considered a part of Labor's heartland in Western Sydney. It is currently represented by David Saliba of the Labor Party, who was elected at the 2023 New South Wales state election.
Fairfield was created in 1953.
Geography
On its current boundaries, Fairfield includes the suburbs of Carramar, Fairfield, Fairfield East, Fairfield Heights, Guildford West, Old Guildford, Wakeley, Woodpark, Yennora and parts of Canley Vale, Fairfield West, Guildford, Prairiewood, Smithfield and Villawood.
Demographics
Fairfield is similar to much of Western Sydney in the fact that a significant size of the population were either born overseas or have parents who were born overseas. Approximately 50% of the population which is more than double the Australian average at 22.2% were born overseas of which most were born in either East Asian countries such as Vietnam and China or from Middle Eastern countries like Iraq and Lebanon. Despite this high level of foreign born residents, 83.4% had Australian citizenship which is only slightly lower than the national average of 86.1%. As for languages spoken at home English was the most common language spoken by 29.5%, followed by Vietnamese with 14.5%, Arabic at 11.7% and Assyrian at 6.7%. No other languages were spoken by more than 5% of the population. Catholicism was the most common religion followed by nearly one third of the population at 32.6%. This was followed by Buddhism at 16.7%, Islam at 8.3%, Anglicanism at 8.1% and followers of Eastern Orthodox Christianity at 6.6% of the total population. Median incomes for the population aged 15 years and over was in all 3 categories lower than the national average.
Members for Fairfield
Election results
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4047596
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limnonectes
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Limnonectes
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Limnonectes is a genus of fork-tongued frogs of 91 known species, but new ones are still being described occasionally. They are collectively known as fanged frogs because they tend to have unusually large teeth, which are small or absent in other frogs.
Habitat
These frogs are found throughout East and Southeast Asia, most commonly near forest streams. Multiple species of Limnonectes may occupy the same area in harmony. Large-bodied species cluster around fast rivers, while smaller ones live among leaf-litter or on stream banks. The Indonesian island of Sulawesi is home to at least 15 species of this frog, only four of which have been formally described.
Lifecycle
Tadpoles of this genus have adapted to a variety of conditions. Most species (e.g. Blyth's river frog L. blythii or the fanged river frog L. macrodon) develop normally, with free-swimming tadpoles that eat food. The tadpoles of the corrugated frog (L. laticeps) are free-swimming but endotrophic, meaning they do not eat but live on stored yolk until metamorphosis into frogs. Before, L. limborgi was assumed to have direct development (eggs hatching as tiny, full-formed frogs), but more careful observations have showed it has free-swimming but endotrophic larvae; this probably applies to the closely related L. hascheanus, too. L. larvaepartus is the only known species of frog that gives live birth to tadpoles. Parental care is performed by males.
Species
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4047619
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.%20R.%20Gopinath
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G. R. Gopinath
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Captain Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar Gopinath (born 13 November 1951) is an Indian entrepreneur, the founder of Air Deccan, a retired Captain of the Indian Army, an author and a politician.
Early life
Gopinath was born in Gorur, Hassan, in a Kannada family and was brought up in a small village in Gorur in the Hassan district of Karnataka State. Gopinath's father Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar, a school teacher (not to be confused with Kannada Novelist Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar who is his mother's uncle), believed that schools were systems of regimentation and was resolved to teach Gopinath at home.
However, Gopinath was admitted to a Kannada medium school quite late and straight away he joined Standard V. Gopinath didn't clear the military school entrance on the first attempt because he wasn't fluent in English. After his headmaster wrote to the defence ministry, Gopinath was allowed to write the exam in Kannada and he cleared the entrance on his second attempt.
In 1962, after Gopinath cleared the admission test, he joined Sainik School, Bijapur. The school helped and prepared Gopinath to clear the NDA entrance exams. After 3 years of vigorous training, Gopinath completed education from the National Defence Academy, Pune. He then went on to graduate from the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun.
Career
After school, he earned a commission in the Indian Army. When he was graduating in 1971, his training was cut short when the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War broke out. He was 20 when he was first posted to Sikkim. He later rose to the rank of Captain. But he was not happy with waiting for a promotion in the army.
He took early retirement from Indian Army, at the age of 28. Upon retirement from the armed forces, he established an ecologically sustainable sericulture farm; his innovative methods earned him the Rolex Laureate Award in 1996. Next, he started the Malnad Mobikes (Enfield dealership) and opened a hotel in Hassan.
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4047621
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meristogenys
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Meristogenys
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Meristogenys is a genus of true frogs from Borneo. Its tadpoles are adapted to fast-flowing mountain streams and easily recognizable by their divided upper lip with ribs on the outside.
Taxonomy and systematics
Its closest living relative is apparently the hole-in-the-head frog (Huia cavitympanum), type species of the highly polyphyletic "wastebin genus" Huia. Meristogenys, having been proposed far more recently than Huia, might be included in the latter on grounds of phylogeny, as most if not all species placed in the Huia seem to belong elsewhere. But a group of species traditionally placed in Huia as well as the genus Clinotarsus are very close relatives, and therefore a taxonomic revision of this group is probably better deferred until the relationships of all taxa involved have been properly assessed. Meristogenys on its own is a monophyletic group.
Ecology
Meristogenys are common frogs around the mountain streams of Borneo and among the commonest frogs in the mountainous regions of the island. Tadpoles are specialized for living in strong currents and have a heavy body. The snout is broadly rounded with a relatively oral disk underneath it. The body is flat below and has a large sucker, covering a larger portion of the abdomen.
Description
The largest species is Meristogenys kinabaluensis; males reach and females in snout–vent length. Adults of different species are usually morphologically similar and difficult identify to species, and even difficult to distinguish from other ranid frogs, notably Hylarana. In contrast, and unusually, the tadpoles are easier to identify to species than the adults.
Species
There are 13 species:
Footnotes
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4047629
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General%20Education%20Board
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General Education Board
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The General Education Board was a private organization which was used primarily to support higher education and medical schools in the United States, and to help rural white and black schools in the South, as well as modernize farming practices in the South. It helped eradicate hookworm and created the county agent system in American agriculture, linking research as state agricultural experiment stations with actual practices in the field.
The Board was created in 1902 after John D. Rockefeller donated an initial $1 million () to its cause. The Rockefeller family would eventually give over $180 million to fund the General Education Board. Prominent member Frederick Taylor Gates envisioned "The Country School of To-Morrow," wherein "young and old will be taught in practicable ways how to make rural life beautiful, intelligent, fruitful, re-creative, healthful, and joyous". By 1934 the Board was making grants of $5.5 million a year. It spent nearly all its money by 1950 and closed in 1964.
History
The formation of the General Education Board began in early 1902. On January 15, 1902, two months after the Southern Education Board was founded, a small group of men gathered at the home of banker Morris Ketchum Jessup to discuss education. This meeting included John D. Rockefeller Jr., Robert Curtis Ogden, George Foster Peabody, Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, William Henry Baldwin Jr., and Wallace Buttrick. That day, the men discussed raising educational standards, and widening educational opportunities.
On February 27, 1902, a second meeting was held at John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s home. This meeting was attended by the guests of the original meeting but also included Daniel Coit Gilman, Albert Shaw, Walter Hines Page, and Edward Morse Shepard. At the climax of the meeting, it was announced that John D. Rockefeller Sr. would give $1,000,000 for the inauguration of an educational program. Thus, the General Education Board was born.
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4047629
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General%20Education%20Board
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General Education Board
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The General Education Board was incorporated by an Act of Congress that took place on January 12, 1903. Their main object being "the promotion of education within the United States of America, without distinction of race, sex, or creed"
The original members of the General Education Board were: William H. Baldwin Jr., Jabez L.M. Curry, Frederick T. Gates, Daniel C. Gilman, Morris K. Jessup, Robert C. Ogden, Walter Hines Page, George Foster Peabody, and Albert Shaw.
Upon evidence that this work would be effectively carried out, and Wallace Buttrick's 1905 observation that "the fundamental problem of the South is the recovery of the fertility of the soil," the program grew further. on 30 June 1905 he made an additional gift of $10,000,000 and in 1907 a further sum of $32,000,000.
Rockefeller eventually gave it $180 million, which was used primarily to support higher education and medical schools in the United States and to improve farming practices in the South. It helped eradicate hookworm and created the county agent system in American agriculture, linking research at state agricultural experiment stations with actual practices in the field. By 1934 it was making grants of $5.5 million a year. It spent nearly all its money by 1950 and ceased operating as a separate entity in 1960, when its programs were subsumed into the Rockefeller Foundation.
Programs
It had four main programs:
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4047629
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General%20Education%20Board
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General Education Board
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1. The promotion of practical farming in the southern states. Through the Department of Agriculture the board had made accumulative annual appropriations amounting in by 1912-1913 to $673,750 for the purpose of promoting agriculture by the establishment of demonstration farms under the direction of Dr. Seaman A. Knapp. About 236 men were employed in supervising such farms. In 1906 the General Education Board contributed $7,000, and due to the increased success of the programs in reaching the distant southern farming communities, G.E.B. contributions grew each year. In addition to promoting demonstration farms, instructors for the education of farmers were also furnished. The work of the Board also influenced the practical teaching of agriculture in the schools of the southern United States.
2. The establishment of public high schools in the southern states. Upon the General Education Board's foundation in 1902, it was stated that the immediate prerogative of the organization was to "devote itself to studying and aiding to promote the educational needs of the people of our southern states". For this purpose, the board appropriated for state universities or state departments of education in the South sums to pay for the salaries of high school representatives to travel throughout their states and stimulate public sentiment in favor of high schools. As a result of this work, 912 high schools had been established in 11 southern states by 1914.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General%20Education%20Board
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General Education Board
|
3. The promotion of institutions of higher learning. By 1914 the board had made conditional appropriations to the amount of $8,817,500, gifts towards an approximate total of $41,020,500. This money was expended throughout the United States. The General Education Board also provided funds to fund existing medical schools for Black students, such as Meharry Medical College and Howard University Medical School. However, the General Education Board encouraged graduates to stay working in the rural South. Schools with graduates that established private medical practices in the North received less funding. Additionally, fellowships awarded to Black medical programs discouraged medical scientific research projects and encouraged more remedial education. In a 1910 report, Abraham Flexner stated that Black schools should focus on "hygiene rather than surgery" and noted that for Black doctors, "their duty calls them away from large cities to the village and the plantation".
4. Schools for Negroes. By 1914, the board had made contributions, amounting to $620,105, to schools for Negroes, mainly those for the training of teachers. Anna T. Jeanes had contributed $1,000,000 for that purpose. The schools for Black Americans were often designed to teach rural agricultural skills that would keep them tied to the South and discourage migration to Northern cities. William H. Baldwin gave this advice to Black Americans:
"Learn that any work, however menial, if well done, is dignified; learn that the world will give full credit for labor and success, even though the skin is black; learn that it is a mistake to be educated out of your necessary environment; know that it is a crime for any teacher, white or black, to educate the Negro for positions which are not open to him; know that the greatest opportunity for a successful life lies in the Southland where you were born, where the people know you and need you, and will treat you far better than in any other section of the country."
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4047629
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General%20Education%20Board
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General Education Board
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Implications
The General Education Board emphasized the need for real world applicational skills. Two areas which the General Education Board highlighted was Demonstrative Farming as well as Industrial Education. Wallace Buttrick an influential member in the development of the General Education Board highlighted that, "the fundamental problem of the South is the recovery of the fertility of the soil". For this reason as well, the lack of literacy and overall knowledge on modern farming techniques the General Education Board implemented interactive learning techniques rather than "how-to manuals". Because these demonstrations were so effective at informing white and black farmers at the time, the General Education Board invested in committees which were more willing to build/sponsor programs which provided vocational and nonvocational information. Education in a time of racial discrimination became vehicles for African American empowerment. Because of the discriminatory philosophy of the time, African Americans were granted limited knowledge in the realm of industrial training. In most cases information ranged from basic skills to learning strong working habits, which in most cases was nowhere close to the information needed to obtain higher learning. However, because of this learning African Americans were able to secure better jobs, teach others industrial learning, and receive higher training to pursue increase educations.
Future
The work done by the General Education Board paved the way for philanthropic foundations which provided financial grants throughout the American south. These funds were distributed in areas to stimulate the growth of educational practices and bring men and women from all over the country to "promote enlightened and sympathetic understanding of the South’s educational problems following the Reconstruction period".
Peabody Fund (1867)
Slater Fund (1882)
Anna T. Jeanes Foundation (1907)
Jeanes Teachers
Julius Rosenwald Fund (1917)
Phelps-Stokes Fund
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4047648
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrixalus
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Micrixalus
|
Micrixalus (commonly known as dancing frogs, tropical frogs, and torrent frogs) is a genus of frogs from that are endemic to the Western Ghats in India. They are monotypic within the family Micrixalidae. Before being raised to the family level they were classified as the subfamily Micrixalinae within Ranidae. Micrixalus frogs, such as Micrixalus saxicola, are popularly known as "dancing frogs" due to their peculiar habit of waving their feet to attract females during the breeding season. Dancing frogs are extremely vulnerable as their habitat is severely threatened.
Description
The family is characterized by having a pectoral girdle that is firmisternal and tadpoles having a single row of labial teeth. Biju et al. (2014) list the following characteristic features as common to all species of Micrixalus:
Natural history
Dancing frogs are found in the vicinity of fast and slow moving perennial streams in the forests of the Western Ghats. Typical habitats include high altitude shola forests, wet evergreen forests, Myristica swamps, and secondary forests. Both the genus and the family are also known by the epithets "tropical frogs" and "torrent frogs".
During the breeding season, male dancing frogs call from spots close to running water and display their prominent white vocal sacs. Males tap their hindfeet and extend it, subsequently stretching the foot outward and shaking it, both at prospective mates and rival males. This type of hindleg movement has been termed as "foot-flagging" and has been observed in many, but not all, Micrixalus species and evidence inferred for a few other species as well. Foot flagging is done with either hindlimb and also while calling. The mating pair enter the water where the eggs are fertilised. The female dancing frog excavates in the streambed with her hindlimbs. The pair detach, the female lays her eggs in the chamber in the streambed and buries the spawn with sand and gravel using the hindlimbs.
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4047658
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank%20Norman
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Frank Norman
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Frank Norman (9 June 1930 – 23 December 1980) was a British novelist and playwright.
His reputation rests on his first memoir, Bang to Rights (1958), and his musical play Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be (1960), but much of the remainder of his work remains fresh and readable. Norman's early success was based in part on the frankness of his memoirs and in part on the style of his writing, which contained both renditions of cockney speakers and his own poor spelling. Jeffrey Bernard in an obituary of Norman wrote that he was
"a 'natural' writer of considerable wit, powers of sardonic observation and with a razor sharp ear for dialogue particularly as spoken in the underworld."
Early life
Norman was born in Bristol, England, in 1930 and was abandoned by his natural parents. After an unsuccessful adoption, he was committed to a succession of children's homes in and around London—the story of which is recounted in his childhood autobiography, Banana Boy (1969). After the homes came a succession of petty crimes for which he was imprisoned, finally leading to a three-year stretch at Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight.
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4047658
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank%20Norman
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Frank Norman
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Writing career
Released from prison in 1957, he started writing what was to become his best known book. Norman's several accounts of how he came to write are at variance with one another, but within a year of his release, he had published in Encounter magazine a 10,000-word extract from his prison memoir, Bang to Rights. Championed at first by the editor of Encounter, Stephen Spender, and subsequently by Raymond Chandler, who wrote the foreword to Bang to Rights, Norman's literary success was assured.
After the success of Bang to Rights Norman wrote a draft of what was to become the musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be. This draft found its way to Joan Littlewood who produced it for the Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, with Lionel Bart writing the music for the songs. The play transferred to the West End, and Norman won the Evening Standard Drama Award for best musical in 1960.
Around the same period Norman was writing Stand on Me, an autobiographical memoir of his life in Soho in the 1950s before imprisonment. His next book The Guntz was a follow-up to Bang to Rights, relating stories from his life as a successful writer. Soho Night and Day (1966) was a collaboration with Jeffrey Bernard whose photographs enlivened Norman's text. Two novels followed in quick succession: The Monkey Pulled His Hair in 1967 and Barney Snip – Artist (1968).
Later work
A further novel, Dodgem Greaser, published in 1971, contained the fictionalised memoirs of a fairground boy, certainly based on Norman's own boyhood fairground experiences.
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4047693
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wihtburh
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Wihtburh
|
Wihtburh (also Withburga or Withburge; died 743) was an East Anglian saint, princess and abbess. According to tradition, she was the youngest daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles, but Virginia Blanton has suggested that the royal connection was probably a fabrication. One story says that the Virgin Mary sent a pair of female deer to provide milk for Wihtburh's workers during the construction of her convent at Dereham, in Norfolk. When a local official attempted to hunt down the does, he was thrown from his horse and killed.
Withburh died in 743 and was buried at Dereham. Her body was said to be uncorrupted by age or decay when her tomb was opened half a century after her death, and the church and the tomb subsequently became a place of pilgrimage. When her relics were stolen on the orders of the abbot of Ely Abbey, the remains were re-interred at Ely next to her sisters Æthelthryth and Seaxburh. In 1106, Withburh's body was again examined and found to be intact.
Wihtburh's cult in Eastern England, which was never large, was closely linked with that of her sister Æthelthryth. It was suppressed during the Reformation in the 1540s, and her relics were all destroyed.
Family
Wihtburh was supposedly one of the daughters of Anna of East Anglia, a son of Eni, a member of the Wuffingas dynasty, and a nephew of Rædwald, king of the East Angles from 600 to 625. East Anglia was an early and long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom that corresponds with the modern English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Due to their rivalry for control over the Middle Anglian people, East Anglia and its neighbour Mercia probably became hereditary enemies, and Mercia's king Penda repeatedly attacked the East Angles from the mid-630s to 654.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wihtburh
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Wihtburh
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Saints' cults were a feature of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, and their remains attracted benefactions. Smaller monasteries may not have been able to resist the requests of places like Ely to acquire their relics, which accounts for the theft of the remains of Wihtburh in 974. The story of the theft, which appeared in the , was taken from an earlier Life of the saint. The abbey attempted to relate the story as an "appropriate holy sacrilege", which gave her honour, as she was being laid to rest close to the remains of her older sister, Æthelthryth.
At the site of Wihtburh's tomb outside the west end of the town's parish church, there is the remains of a holy well associated with the saint, which according to her legend rose on the site of her grave after her body had been stolen. Of a second spring, located further west and called Wihtburh's Well, which was recorded in the 18th century, no remains exist.
Wihtburh's interment at Ely is first recorded in the Hyde Register, an 11th-century list of the burial places of English saints. A sentence of the text of the register, now kept in the British Library as MS Stowe 944, reads:
According to the register, she was placed near Æthelthryth, Sexburga, and Ermenilda, Sexburga's daughter.
In 1106, when their remains were moved closer to the main altar, the bodies of Wihtburh and her sisters were publicly displayed before a group of bishops, abbots, and clergymen, including Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. It was found that the body of Æthelthryth had been preserved and that Wihtburh was so conserved but that her limbs were flexible, her cheeks were rosy, and her breasts were firm, a sign of her body's vitality, youthfulness and "burgeoning productivity".
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4047693
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wihtburh
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Wihtburh
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The description of her life and miraculous incorruptibility closely follows that of Æthelthryth, who was also a virgin who founded an East Anglian monastery. According to Blanton, "the prominence of the tombs [of Wihtburh and other members of her family at Ely] demonstrated that kinship was an important ideological construct that needed to be presented visually". This, and the family's inclusion in texts such the , "indicated a complementary focus on the strength and cohesion of this holy family as the cornerstone of the monastery's history". Other documents originating from the abbey show that the cults of Wihtburh and her sisters Æthelthryth and Seaxburh formed part of what the historian Virginia Blanton describes as Ely's "ideology of kinship". Ely strove to promote and enhance itself as a place renowned for its holiness and connections with the East Anglian royal family, something that was achieved by placing the royal tombs of Wihtburh and her sisters in close proximity, and documenting that the daughters of Anna were abbesses at Ely.
The relics of the sisters were all destroyed during the Reformation; no trace of the royal tombs, including that of Wihtburh, now exists.
Dissemination of the legend
The process by which the story of Wihtburh was disseminated is not known for certain. Between 1325 and 1340, the English chronicler John of Tynemouth included the of the Ely saints, including Wihtburh, in his . The work was enlarged during the 15th century and a revised edition printed in English by Wynkyn de Worde in 1516 and translated into English by Richard Pynson the same year.
Wihtburh is included as "St Withburge" in The Lives of Women Saints of our Contrie of England, also Some Other Liues of Holie Women Written by Some of the Auncient Fathers, written during the first half of the 1610s.
| 2.625
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4047698
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanorana
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Nanorana
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Nanorana is a genus of dicroglossid frogs. They are found in Asia, from the Himalayan region of northern Pakistan and northern India, Nepal, and western China east to montane southern China and southeast to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and northern Vietnam. Common names of these frogs reflect the complex taxonomic history of the genus (see below) and include Yunnan slow frogs (or simply slow frogs) and High Himalaya frogs (for the now-synonymized genus Altirana).
Taxonomy
The taxonomy of true frogs and their allies has been subject to numerous changes during the last decade and is not yet fully settled. Nanorana in particular has seen big changes. As currently delineated, Nanorana is a quite large genus with 28 species, resulting from considering Chaparana, Paa, and Feirana as junior synonyms. Currently these taxa may be recognized as subgenera, but their delineation is not entirely settled and not all species have been assigned to subgenera. Note, however, that species at one point placed in these (sub)genera might currently be placed also in genera other than Nanorana (Quasipaa, Ombrana, and Allopaa).
Species
The following species are recognised in the genus Nanorana:
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4047717
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral%20district%20of%20Ryde
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Electoral district of Ryde
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Ryde is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales.
It is currently represented by Jordan Lane of the Liberal Party.
History
Ryde was created originally in 1894 with the abolition of multi-member districts, from part of Central Cumberland and named after and including Ryde. It was abolished in 1904 with the downsizing of the Legislative Assembly after Federation, but recreated in 1913. In 1920, the electoral districts of Ryde, Burwood, Drummoyne, Gordon and Willoughby were combined to create a new incarnation of Ryde, which elected five members by proportional representation. This was replaced by single member electorates, including Ryde, Burwood, Drummoyne, Eastwood, Gordon and Willoughby for the 1927 election. Ryde was abolished in 1968, being partly replaced by Yaralla and Fuller. In 1981 Ryde was recreated from the part of the abolished district of Yaralla north of the Parramatta River and part of the abolished district of Fuller. In 1991, Ryde was abolished again, but in 1999, Gladesville and Eastwood were abolished and largely replaced by a fourth incarnation of Ryde and Epping.
In its previous incarnations, Ryde was a marginal seat that frequently traded hands between and the conservative parties. In its current incarnation, Ryde was originally a safe Labor seat before a massive swing to the Liberals at a 2008 by-election made it a safe Liberal seat. Dominello currently holds it with a majority of 11.5 percent. On 17 August 2022, Dominello announced his plan to retire at the upcoming state election. At the election in March, the Liberal candidate, Jordan Lane, won by a two-party preferred margin of 50 votes. The result was so close, a recount was held on 15 April which increased Lane's margin to 54 votes.
Geography
On its current boundaries, Ryde includes the suburbs and localities of Denistone, Denistone East, Denistone West, Macquarie Park, Marsfield, Meadowbank, Melrose Park, Ryde, North Ryde, West Ryde; and parts of Eastwood and Epping.
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4047742
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral%20district%20of%20Newcastle
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Electoral district of Newcastle
|
Newcastle is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales named after and including Newcastle. It is represented since the 2014 Newcastle by-election by Tim Crakanthorp of the Australian Labor Party.
Geography
The district takes in the eastern part of the City of Newcastle, including the parts of the suburbs from Hexham to Mayfield lying to the east of the Main North railway line, Broadmeadow, Hamilton South, Merewether Heights and Merewether and the suburbs further east, including central Newcastle and Hamilton. It also includes the Port Stephens Council suburbs of Fern Bay and Fullerton Cove.
History
Newcastle was created in 1859 from part of North Eastern Boroughs. It gained a second member in 1880 and a third member in 1889. With the abolition of multi-member electorates in 1894, it was divided into Newcastle East, Newcastle West, Kahibah, Waratah and Wickham. These changes to the electoral boundaries were debated. Newcastle was re-created in the 1904 re-distribution of electorates following the 1903 New South Wales referendum, which required the number of members of the Legislative Assembly to be reduced from 125 to 90. It consisted of Newcastle East and part of Newcastle West. With the introduction of proportional representation in 1920, it absorbed Kahibah, Wallsend and Wickham and elected five members. With the end of proportional representation in 1927, Newcastle was split into the single-member electorates of Newcastle, Hamilton, Kahibah and Wallsend.
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4047804
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern%20Ireland%20flags%20issue
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Northern Ireland flags issue
|
The Northern Ireland flags issue is one that divides the population along sectarian lines. Depending on political allegiance, people identify with differing flags and symbols, some of which have, or have had, official status in Northern Ireland.
Common flags
The flag of the United Kingdom, the Union Jack or Union Flag, is the only flag routinely used officially by the sovereign UK government, as well as being flown on most council buildings in Northern Ireland. The Union Flag is often flown by unionists but is disliked by nationalists. British law states that the Union Flag must be flown on designated days from central government buildings in Northern Ireland.
The Ulster Banner, the flag of the pre-1973 government of Northern Ireland, was used from 1953 to 1972 by the Stormont government to represent the government of Northern Ireland. That government was granted a royal warrant to fly the Ulster Banner in 1924, but this expired when the government was dissolved under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. It continues to be used by some sports teams representing Northern Ireland internationally, for example by the Northern Ireland football team, and by the Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games team.
The flag of Ireland or Irish tricolour is the state flag of the Republic of Ireland, disliked by Unionists and is regarded by republicans and nationalists as the flag of all of Ireland.
The Saint Patrick's Saltire represents Northern Ireland indirectly as Ireland in the Union Jack. It is sometimes flown during Saint Patrick's Day parades in Northern Ireland, and is used to represent Northern Ireland during some royal events.
Other flags flown by republicans include the Starry Plough, the Sunburst flag and even the flag of the Ulster province. Loyalists sometimes display the flag of Scotland as a sign of their Scottish ancestry. Ulster nationalists use the unofficial 'Ulster Nation flag', although it has now been adopted as an Ulster-Scots flag.
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4047804
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern%20Ireland%20flags%20issue
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Northern Ireland flags issue
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Controversies
The Flags and Emblems (Display) Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 prohibited the display of any flag which was "likely to cause a breach of public order", and gave the police powers to deal with it. However, it specifically excluded the Union Jack from its provisions. In 1956, the Stormont Minister of Affairs, George Hanna, banned an Irish Nationalist cultural demonstration planned for the annual Feis at Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh. The march proceeded anyway, and in response the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) launched a baton charge to seize a banner depicting Patrick Pearse but were unsuccessful. Police attempted a second baton charge which also failed and then resorted to using fire hoses against the crowds. Several people were injured during the disturbances, at least one seriously. The RUC had removed three Irish tricolours from the home of a parish priest during the previous year's Feis. In 1964, the RUC moved in to remove an Irish tricolour from the window of an office in Belfast, after Ian Paisley had publicly said that if they did not, he would do so personally. This resulted in serious rioting. The Act was repealed in 1987.
In some loyalist areas, the flying of flags supporting loyalist paramilitaries has proved controversial. Groups like the Ulster Defence Association, Ulster Volunteer Force, Young Citizen Volunteers, Red Hand Commando, and Loyalist Volunteer Force all have their own unique flags and although these flags usually appear alongside murals, they can occasionally be seen flying from lampposts in villages and towns or flying from houses in the run-up to the Twelfth.
After the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, flags continue to be a source of disagreement in Northern Ireland. The Agreement states that:
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4047822
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R10000
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R10000
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The R10000 is a four-way superscalar design that implements register renaming and executes instructions out-of-order. Its design is a departure from previous MTI microprocessors such as the R4000, which is a much simpler scalar in-order design that relies largely on high clock rates for performance.
The R10000 fetches four instructions every cycle from its instruction cache. These instructions are decoded and then placed into the integer, floating-point or load/store instruction queues depending on the type of the instruction. The decode unit is assisted by the pre-decoded instructions from the instruction cache, which append five bits to every instruction to enable the unit to quickly identify which execution unit the instruction is executed in, and rearrange the format of the instruction to optimize the decode process.
Each of the instruction queues can accept up to four instructions from the decoder, avoiding any bottlenecks. The instruction queues issue their instructions to their execution units dynamically depending on the availability of operands and resources. Each of the queues except for the load/store queue can issue up to two instructions every cycle to its execution units. The load/store queue can only issue one instruction. The R10000 can thus issue up to five instructions every cycle.
| 2.28125
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4047822
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R10000
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R10000
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Integer unit
The integer unit consists of the integer register file and three pipelines, two integer, one load store. The integer register file is 64 bits wide and contains 64 entries, of which 32 are architectural registers and 32 are rename registers which implement register renaming. The register file has seven read ports and three write ports. Both integer pipelines have an adder and a logic unit. However, only the first pipeline has a barrel shifter and hardware for confirming the prediction of conditional branches. The second pipeline is used to access the multiplier and divider. Multiplies are pipelined, and have a six-cycle latency for 32-bit integers and ten for 64-bit integers. Division is not pipelined. The divider uses a non-restoring algorithm that produces one bit per cycle. Latencies for 32-bit and 64-bit divides are 35 and 67 cycles, respectively.
Floating-point unit
The floating-point unit (FPU) consists of four functional units, an adder, a multiplier, divide unit and square root unit. The adder and multiplier are pipelined, but the divide and square root units are not. Adds and multiplies have a latency of three cycles and the adder and multiplier can accept a new instruction every cycle. The divide unit has a 12- or 19-cycle latency, depending on whether the divide is single precision or double precision, respectively.
The square root unit executes square root and reciprocal square root instructions. Square root instructions have an 18- or 33-cycle latency for single precision or double precision, respectively. A new square root instruction can be issued to the divide unit every 20 or 35 cycles for single precision and double precision respectively. Reciprocal square roots have longer latencies, 30 to 52 cycles for single precision (32-bit) and double precision (64-bit) respectively.
| 2.859375
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4047822
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R10000
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R10000
|
The floating-point register file contains sixty-four 64-bit registers, of which thirty-two are architectural and the remaining are rename registers.
The adder has its own dedicated read and write ports, whereas the multiplier shares its with the divider and square root unit.
The divide and square root units use the SRT algorithm. The MIPS IV ISA has a multiply–add instruction. This instruction is implemented by the R10000 with a bypass — the result of the multiply can bypass the register file and be delivered to the add pipeline as an operand, thus it is not a fused multiply–add, and has a four-cycle latency.
Caches
The R10000 has two comparatively large on-chip caches, a 32 KB instruction cache and a 32 KB data cache. The instruction cache is two-way set-associative and has a 128-byte line size. Instructions are partially decoded by appending four bits to each instruction (which have a length of 32 bits) before they are placed in the cache.
The 32 KB data cache is dual-ported through two-way interleaving. It consists of two 16 KB banks, and each bank are two-way set-associative. The cache has 64-byte lines, uses the write-back protocol, and is virtually indexed and physically tagged to enable the cache to be indexed in the same clock cycle and to maintain coherency with the secondary cache.
The external secondary unified cache supported capacities between 512 KB and 16 MB. It is implemented with commodity synchronous static random access memory (SSRAM). The cache is accessed via its own 128-bit bus that is protected by 9-bits of error correcting code (ECC). The cache and bus operate at the same clock rate as the R10000, whose maximum frequency was 200 MHz. At 200 MHz, the bus yielded a peak bandwidth of 3.2 GB/s. The cache is two-way set associative, but to avoid a high pin count, the R10000 predicts which way is accessed.
| 2.140625
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4047822
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R10000
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R10000
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Addressing
MIPS IV is a 64-bit architecture, but to reduce cost the R10000 does not implement the entire physical or virtual address. Instead, it has a 40-bit physical address and a 44-bit virtual address, thus it is capable of addressing 1 TB of physical memory and 16 TB of virtual memory.
Avalanche system bus
The R10000 uses the Avalanche bus, a 64-bit bus that operates at frequencies up to 100 MHz. Avalanche is a multiplexed address and data bus, so at 100 MHz it yields a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 800 MB/s, but its peak bandwidth is 640 MB/s as it requires some cycles to transmit addresses.
The system interface controller supports glue-less symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) of up to four microprocessors. Systems using the R10000 with external logic can scale to hundreds of processors. An example of such a system is the Origin 2000.
Fabrication
The R10000 consists of approximately 6.8 million transistors, of which approximately 4.4 million are contained in the primary caches. The die measures 16.640 by 17.934 mm, for a die area of 298.422 mm2. It is fabricated in a 0.35 μm process and packaged in 599-pad ceramic land grid array (LGA). Before the R10000 was introduced, the Microprocessor Report, covering the 1994 Microprocessor Forum, reported that it was packaged in a 527-pin ceramic pin grid array (CPGA); and that vendors also investigated the possibility of using a 339-pin multi-chip module (MCM) containing the microprocessor die and 1 MB of cache.
Derivatives
The R10000 was extended by multiple successive derivatives. All derivatives after the R12000 have their clock frequency kept as low as possible to maintain power dissipation in the 15 to 20 W range so they can be densely packaged in SGI's high performance computing (HPC) systems.
R12000
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4047822
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R10000
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R10000
|
The R18000 improved the floating-point instruction queues and revised the floating-point unit to feature two multiply–add units, quadrupling the peak FLOPS count. Division and square-root would be performed in separate non-pipelined units in parallel to the multiply–add units. The system interface and memory hierarchy was also significantly reworked. It would have a 52-bit virtual address and a 48-bit physical address. The bidirectional multiplexed address and data system bus of the earlier models would be replaced by two unidirectional DDR links, a 64-bit multiplexed address and write path and a 128-bit read path. The paths could be shared with another R18000 through multiplexing. The bus could also be configured in the SysAD or Avalanche configuration for backwards compatibility with R10000 systems.
The R18000 would have a 1 MB four-way set-associative secondary cache to be included on-die; supplemented by an optional tertiary cache built from single data rate (SDR) or double data rate (DDR) SSRAM or DDR SDRAM with capacities of 2 to 64 MB. The L3 cache would have its cache tags, equivalent to 400 KB, located on-die to reduce latency. The L3 cache would be accessed via a 144-bit bus, of which 128 bits are for data and 16 bits for ECC. The L3 cache's clock rate would be programmable.
The R18000 was to be fabricated in NEC's UX5 process, a 0.13 μm CMOS process with nine levels of copper interconnect. It would have used 1.2 V power supply and dissipated less heat than contemporary server microprocessors in order to be densely packed into systems.
| 1.914063
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4047826
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R3000
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R3000
|
The R3000 is a 32-bit RISC microprocessor chipset developed by MIPS Computer Systems that implemented the MIPS I instruction set architecture (ISA). Introduced in June 1988, it was the second MIPS implementation, succeeding the R2000 as the flagship MIPS microprocessor. It operated at 20, 25 and 33.33 MHz.
The MIPS 1 instruction set is small compared to those of the contemporary 80x86 and 680x0 architectures, encoding only more commonly used operations and supporting few addressing modes. Combined with its fixed instruction length and only three different types of instruction formats, this simplified instruction decoding and processing. It employed a 5-stage instruction pipeline, enabling execution at a rate approaching one instruction per cycle, unusual for its time.
This MIPS generation supports up to four co-processors. In addition to the CPU core, the R3000 microprocessor includes a Control Processor (CP), which contains a Translation Lookaside Buffer and a Memory Management Unit. The CP works as a coprocessor. Besides the CP, the R3000 can also support an external R3010 numeric coprocessor, along with two other external coprocessors.
The R3000 CPU does not include level 1 cache. Instead, its on-chip cache controller operates external data and instruction caches of up to 256 KB each. It can access both caches during the same clock cycle.
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4047829
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R4000
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R4000
|
The R4000 is a microprocessor developed by MIPS Computer Systems that implements the MIPS III instruction set architecture (ISA). Officially announced on 1 October 1991, it was one of the first 64-bit microprocessors and the first MIPS III implementation. In the early 1990s, when RISC microprocessors were expected to replace CISC microprocessors such as the Intel i486, the R4000 was selected to be the microprocessor of the Advanced Computing Environment (ACE), an industry standard that intended to define a common RISC platform. ACE ultimately failed for a number of reasons, but the R4000 found success in the workstation and server markets.
Models
There are three configurations of the R4000: the R4000PC, an entry-level model with no support for a secondary cache; the R4000SC, a model with secondary cache but no multiprocessor capability; and the R4000MC, a model with secondary cache and support for the cache coherency protocols required by multiprocessor systems.
Description
The R4000 is a scalar superpipelined microprocessor with an eight-stage integer pipeline. During the first stage (IF), a virtual address for an instruction is generated and the instruction translation lookaside buffer (TLB) begins the translation of the address to a physical address. In the second stage (IS), translation is completed and the instruction is fetched from an internal 8 KB instruction cache. The instruction cache is direct-mapped and virtually indexed, physically tagged. It has a 16- or 32-byte line size. Architecturally, it could be expanded to 32 KB.
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4047829
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R4000
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R4000
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Floating-point execution
The R4000 has an on-die IEEE 754-1985-compliant floating-point unit (FPU), referred to as the R4010. The FPU is a coprocessor designated CP1 (the MIPS ISA defined four coprocessors, designated CP0 to CP3). The FPU can operate in two modes, 32- or 64-bit which are selected by setting a bit, the FR bit, in the CPU status register. In 32-bit mode, the 32 floating-point registers become 32 bits wide when used to hold single-precision floating-point numbers. When used to hold double-precision numbers, there are 16 floating-point registers (the registers are paired).
The FPU can operate in parallel with the ALU unless there is a data or resource dependency, which causes it to stall. It contains three sub-units: an adder, a multiplier and a divider. The multiplier and divider can execute an instruction in parallel with the adder, but they use the adder in their final stages of execution, thus imposing limits to overlapping execution. Thus, under certain conditions, it can execute up to three instructions at any time, one in each unit. The FPU is capable of retiring one instruction per cycle.
The adder and multiplier are pipelined. The multiplier has a four-stage multiplier pipeline. It is clocked at twice the clock frequency of the microprocessor for adequate performance and uses dynamic logic to achieve the high clock frequency. Division has a 23- or 36-cycle latency for single- or double-precision operations and square-root has a 54- or 112-cycle latency. Division and square-root uses the SRT algorithm.
Memory management
The memory management unit (MMU) uses a 48-entry translation lookaside buffer to translate virtual addresses. The R4000 uses a 64-bit virtual address, but only implements 40 of the 64 bits, allowing 1 TB of virtual memory; the remaining bits are checked to ensure that they contain zero. The R4000 uses a 36-bit physical address, thus is able to address 64 GB of physical memory.
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4047831
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R5000
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R5000
|
The R5000 is a two-way superscalar design that executes instructions in-order. The R5000 could simultaneously issue an integer and a floating-point instruction. It had one simple pipeline for integer instructions and another for floating-point to save transistors and die area to reduce cost. The R5000 did not perform dynamic branch prediction for cost reasons. Instead it uses a static approach, utilizing the hints encoded by the compiler in the branch-likely instructions first introduced in the MIPS II architecture to determine how likely a branch is taken.
The R5000 had large L1 caches, a distinct characteristic of QED, whose designers favored simple designs with large caches. The R5000 had two L1 caches, one for instructions and the other for data. Both have a capacity of 32 KB. The caches are two-way set-associative, have a 32-byte line size, and are virtually indexed, physically tagged. Instructions were predecoded as they enter the instruction cache by appending four bits to each instruction. These four bits specify whether can be issued together and which execution unit they are executed by. This assisted superscalar instruction issue by moving some of the dependency and conflict checking out of the critical path.
The integer unit executes most instructions with a one cycle latency and throughput except for multiply and divide. 32-bit multiplies have a five-cycle latency and a four-cycle throughput. 64-bit multiplies have an extra four cycles of latency and half the throughput. Divides have a 36-cycle latency and throughput for 32-bit integers, and for 64-bit integers, they are increased to 68 cycles.
| 2.484375
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4047831
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R5000
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R5000
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The floating-point unit (FPU) was a fast single-precision (32-bit) design, for reduced cost and to benefit SGI, whose mid-range 3D graphics workstations relied mostly on single-precision math for 3D graphics applications. It was fully pipelined, which made it significantly better than that of the R4700. The R5000 implements the multiply-add instruction of the MIPS IV ISA. Single-precision adds, multiplies and multiply-adds have a four-cycle latency and a one cycle throughput. Single-precision divides have a 21-cycle latency and a 19-cycle throughput, while square roots have a 26-cycle latency and a 38-cycle throughput. Division and square-root was not pipelined. Instructions that operate on double precision numbers have a significantly higher latency and lower throughput except for add, which has identical latency and throughput with single-precision add. Multiply and multiply-add have a five-cycle latency and a two-cycle throughput. Divide has a 36-cycle latency and a 34-cycle throughput. Square root has a 68-cycle latency and a 66-cycle throughput.
The R5000 had an integrated L2 cache controller that supported capacities of 512 KB, 1 MB and 2 MB. The L2 cache shares the SysAD bus with the external interface. The cache was built with custom synchronous SRAMs (SSRAMs). The microprocessor uses the SysAD bus that is also used by several other MIPS microprocessors. The bus is multiplexed (address and data share the same set of wires) and can operate at clock frequencies up to 100 MHz. The initial R5000 did not support multiprocessing, but the package reserved eight pins for the future addition of this feature.
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4047836
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R8000
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R8000
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The R8000 is a microprocessor chipset developed by MIPS Technologies, Inc. (MTI), Toshiba, and Weitek. It was the first implementation of the MIPS IV instruction set architecture. The R8000 is also known as the TFP, for Tremendous Floating-Point, its name during development.
History
Development of the R8000 started in the early 1990s at Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The R8000 was specifically designed to provide the performance of circa 1990s supercomputers with a microprocessor instead of a central processing unit (CPU) built from many discrete components such as gate arrays. At the time, the performance of traditional supercomputers was not advancing as rapidly as reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessors. It was predicted that RISC microprocessors would eventually match the performance of more expensive and larger supercomputers at a fraction of the cost and size, making computers with this level of performance more accessible and enabling deskside workstations and servers to replace supercomputers in many situations.
First details of the R8000 emerged in April 1992 in an announcement by MIPS Computer Systems detailing future MIPS microprocessors. In March 1992, SGI announced it was acquiring MIPS Computer Systems, which became a subsidiary of SGI called MIPS Technologies, Inc. (MTI) in mid-1992. Development of the R8000 was transferred to MTI, where it continued. The R8000 was expected to be introduced in 1993, but it was delayed until mid-1994. The first R8000, a 75 MHz part, was introduced on 7 June 1994. It was priced at US$2,500 at the time. In mid-1995, a 90 MHz part appeared in systems from SGI. The R8000's high cost and narrow market (technical and scientific computing) restricted its market share, and although it was popular in its intended market, it was largely replaced with the cheaper and generally better performing R10000 introduced January 1996.
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4047836
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R8000
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R8000
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The integer register file has nine read ports and four write ports. Four read ports supply operands to the two integer execution units (the branch unit was considered part of an integer unit). Another four read ports supply operands to the two address generators. Four ports are needed, rather than two, because of the base(register) + index(register) address style added in the MIPS IV ISA. The R8000 issues at most one integer store per cycle, and one final read port delivers the integer store data.
Two register file write ports are used to write results from the two integer functional units. The R8000 issues two integer loads per cycle, and the other two write ports are used to write the results of integer loads to the register file.
The level 1 data cache was organized as two redundant arrays, each of which had one read port and one write port. Integer stores were written to both arrays. Two loads could be processed in parallel, one on each array.
Integer functional units consisted of two integer units, a shift unit, a multiply-divide unit, and two address generator units. Multiply and divide instructions are executed in the multiply-divide unit, which is not pipelined. As a result, the latency for a multiply instruction is four cycles for 32-bit operands and six cycles for 64-bit. The latency for a divide instruction depends on the number of significant digits in the result and thus it varies from 21 to 73 cycles.
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4047838
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahreza
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Shahreza
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Shahreza () is a city in the Central District of Shahreza County, Isfahan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. Shahreza was selected as the "National City of Pottery" in 1997. The reason for this choice was the high skill of the artists and the unique soil of this city.
History
It was one of the ancient territories of northern Pars (Persia) Satrapy in B.C.
In the north of the county there is canyon of Orchiny (Orchine) that the main Iranian north-south high way passes through. The huge castle of Qomsheh was the latest place constructed by the Safavid Empire before the occupation of the capital Isfahan in the last of Safavid ages when Afghans captured it.
Demographics
Population
At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 108,299 in 30,368 households. The following census in 2011 counted 123,767 people in 37,113 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 134,952 people in 43,478 households.
Overview
Shahreza is located 508 km south to Tehran and about 80 km south west to Isfahan and Zard Kooh mountain chain runs from north-west to south-east of the city, enjoying a cold climate. It is an old city which was first named Qomsheh, but later on its name was changed to Shahreza due to the existence there of the shrine of Shahreza. The most important tourist attractions are: Mahyar caravanserai, Shahreza caravanserai, the Shah Ghandab caves, located south-east of Shahreza, the Poodeh mosque, and Shahreza Imamzadeh. Other tourist attractions include the Amin Abad caravanserai, a Safavid Empire structure in Amin Abad, a village 42 km south of Shahreza.
Shahreza is a strategic city due to having large military bases, a rail transportation system, very fertile soil, having the second largest industrial town in Iran (Razi), and connecting the north to the south.
It is interesting that a part of the old Silk Road passed through the Choghad Shahreza area.
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4047838
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahreza
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Shahreza
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Souvenirs and handicrafts
Shahreza is known for its unique souvenirs and handicrafts. Among the most popular items are pomegranates, raisins, dairy products such as yogurt and shallot, kashk (fermented whey), and qara (a local dried yogurt). Shahreza's pottery is especially famous throughout Iran, and the city is also known for its ceramics and handwoven carpets.
Cuisine
Shahreza has a rich culinary heritage, with local dishes like koofteh berenji or koofteh chi (a rice meatball made with rice, meat, fava beans, and herbs) and ash-e omaj (a thick soup) being popular among locals. Another beloved traditional food is mas poost, a type of thick yogurt similar to strained yogurt but with a unique and delicious taste. Additionally, samanoo, a nutritious and traditional dish, is often made as a religious offering.
Tourist attractions
Among the main attractions of Shahreza is the Shahreza Imamzadeh, a shrine believed to be the resting place of the brother of Imam Reza. Due to the presence of ceramic shops and several parks around it, this site serves as a major tourist destination and is highly revered by the local population.
The Jameh Mosque of Shahreza, located at the start of the historical covered bazaar, is another attraction. Built during the Seljuk era in 739 AH (1338 CE), the mosque boasts a large prayer hall, a beautifully painted mihrab, a stone pulpit, and a high dome and minaret.
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