id
stringlengths 2
8
| url
stringlengths 31
381
| title
stringlengths 1
211
| text
stringlengths 1.02k
2.05k
| edu_quality
float64 1.91
4.03
| naive_quality
int64 0
0
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
The New York City Subway tried to keep its budget balanced between spending and revenue, so deferred maintenance became more common, which drew a slow but steady decline of the system and rolling stock. Furthermore, the workers were consolidated into the Transport Workers Union in 1968. A pension was set up, and workers were allowed to retire after 20 years of service without any transitional period. About a third of the most highly experienced staff immediately retired, resulting in a large shortage of skilled workers.
Rehabilitation started in the 1980s as part of a $18 billion financing program. Between 1985 and 1991 over 3,000 subway cars were overhauled and fitted with air conditioning to increase comfort, reliability and durability while deferring car purchases. The TA only replaced the oldest cars in each division, so it bought only 1,350 new vehicles. Increased patrols and fences around the train yards offered better protection against graffiti and vandalism. At the same time, the TA began an extensive renovation of the routes. Within ten years the tracks were thereby renewed almost systemwide. The Williamsburg Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, which had strong corrosion damage, were refurbished over the years.
The renovation of the stations was initially limited to security measures, fresh paint, new lighting and signs, but the TA also tried to improve the service that had been neglected. This ranged from new uniforms and training for the staff to correct destination signs on the rolling stock. Some subway services were also adapted to the changing needs of customers. Another stated goal was to reduce crime or at least an improvement in the subjective sense of security. At night, the railway police and members of the citizens' initiative Guardian Angels, formed in 1979, patrolled in the subway trains. In the 1990s, the crime in the city and its subway declined significantly.
| 2.703125
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
In 1973, the city's graffiti epidemic surged so that nearly every subway car was tagged with graffiti. It was worsened by the budgetary restraints on New York City, which limited its ability to remove graffiti and perform transit maintenance. Mayor John Lindsay declared the first war on graffiti in 1972, but it would be a while before the city was able and willing to dedicate enough resources to that problem to start impacting the growing subculture. The MTA tried rubbing the graffiti off with an acid solution, but maintaining the cars to keep them relatively graffiti-free was costing them around $1.3 million annually. In the winter of 1973, the car-washing program was stopped. Attempts to wash cars with an acid solution in September 1974 were detrimental to the fleets' upkeep.
As graffiti became associated with crime, many demanded that the government take a more serious stance toward it, particularly after the popularization of the Fixing Broken Windows philosophy in 1982. By the 1980s, increased police surveillance and implementation of increased security measures (razor wire, guard dogs) combined with continuous efforts to clean it up led to the weakening of the New York's graffiti subculture.
| 2.359375
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
An extensive car-washing program in the late 1980s ensured the elimination of graffiti throughout the system's rolling stock. In 1984 the NYCTA began a five-year program to eradicate graffiti. The years between 1985 and 1989 became known as the "die hard" era. A last shot for the graffiti artists of this time was in the form of subway cars destined for the scrap yard. With the increased security, the previous elaborate "burners" on the outside of cars were now marred with simplistic marker tags which often soaked through the paint. By mid-1986 the NYCTA were winning their "war on graffiti". On May 10, 1989, the rolling stock was made 100% graffiti-free, with the washing of the last train in the subway system that still had graffiti. As the population of artists lowered so did the violence associated with graffiti crews and "bombing".
Ridership and service cuts
Ridership in 1975 had decreased to a point last seen in 1918, with ridership decreasing by 25 million or more per year. The MTA reduced the length of trains during off-peak periods, and canceled work on several projects being built as part of the Program for Action, including the Second Avenue Subway and an LIRR line through the 63rd Street Tunnel to a Metropolitan Transportation Center in East Midtown, Manhattan. Ridership kept dropping rapidly, having decreased by 25 million passengers between June 30, 1976, and June 30, 1977; in the previous eight years, 327 million passengers had stopped using the subway. The proportion of the fleet that was in service during the morning peak period was reduced, and train headways were increased: on four local services, trains were reduced from once every four minutes to once every five minutes.
| 2.65625
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
On May 27, 1975, the NYCTA announced that in September of that year 94 daily IRT trips would be discontinued, accounting for 4 percent of then-existing service on the IRT. The trips were to be discontinued to cut operating deficits. Express service on the 7 train was to be discontinued between the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. and was to be replaced by more frequent local service. During the same month, the NYCTA was considering making the A train a local at all times except rush hours, when it would remain an express.
On December 17, 1975, the MTA announced that a 4.4 percent cutback of rush hour train service would take place on January 18, 1976. The cutbacks, the third of the year, trimmed 279 train runs from the previous 6,900. Service was most drastically reduced on the Lexington Avenue Line, with seven fewer southbound express trains during the morning rush hours. The cuts were the first of a three-phase program that was put in effect between January and July 1976. The cuts permitted a savings of $12.6 million a year for the NYCTA, which had an increasing deficit. Other subway services were changed or discontinued as part of the plan. On January 19, F trains were planned to stop running express in Brooklyn, and the GG was to be cut back to Smith–Ninth Streets.
| 2.1875
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
In April 1975 it was planned that all rush hour 1 trains would begin running to 242nd Street; these runs had previously terminated at 137th Street. During midday hours, trains on the 1 were to be shortened to five cars. In July, it was planned that the EE would be discontinued; N trains were to have been extended to Continental Avenue via the Queens Boulevard Line to replace it. Manhattan-bound N trains were to continue running express, while in the opposite direction they would run local. N trains would alternate between terminating at Whitehall Street or Coney Island during rush hours. CC trains, in July, were planned to be extended from Hudson Terminal to Rockaway Park replacing the E, which was to have been cut back to Hudson Terminal. The K was planned to be discontinued in July.
The changes that were supposed to take place in July instead took effect on August 30 with 215 more runs eliminated that date. In 1967 there were 8,200 daily trips, and on August 30, 1976, there were 6,337 daily trips.
On December 14, 1976, the NYCTA proposed another package of service cuts. The cuts, planned to take effect in January 1977, would have eliminated service on the Bowling Green–South Ferry Shuttle, the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, and AA service, which would be replaced by the A during late nights. GG service would be truncated to Queens Plaza during late evenings and late nights. B and N service would have been cut back to shuttles, running between 36th Street and Coney Island on their respective lines. It was also proposed that during off-peak hours 10-car trains would be cut to eight, six or four car trains.
In 1986, the NYCTA launched a study to determine whether to close 79 stations on 11 routes, spread across all four of the boroughs that the subway system served, due to low ridership and high repair costs. Numerous figures, including New York City Council member Carol Greitzer, criticized the plans.
Infrastructure
| 2.015625
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
The subway had been gradually neglected since the 1940s, and its situation had been exacerbated by the low fare. On May 20, 1970, two people died at the Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue station in the worst subway collision since the 1928 Times Square derailment. Following the 1970 accident, New York Magazine highlighted the subway system's condition in a lengthy expose. Even though each of the approximately 7,200 subway cars were checked once every six weeks or of service, four or five dead motors were allowable in a peak-hour 10-car train, according to some transit workers' accounts. About 85.8% of trains were on schedule in 1970, with 1,142 equipment-related delays in April 1970. However, issues such as broken lights, fans, and signs; defective doors, wheels, and brakes; and subway cars that often became uncoupled or "pulled apart", were still prevalent. One out of three IRT stations did not have running water in case of emergency. In addition, the system's staff were leaving in massive numbers, with 5,655 workers having retired or quit from early 1969 to mid-1970.
The system also had many slow-speed areas because of obstacles that could cause derailments, and every subway car had graffiti; fleet availability during rush hours declined from 5,557 in 1976 to 5,025 in 1977, and to 4,900 in May 1978. Mean Distance Between Failures (MDBF) rates were at all time lows, as the MDBF rate system-wide was 6,000 miles by 1980. In 1979, 200 retired R16 cars were reactivated because the newest rolling stock in the system, the R46, had cracked trucks, and were only allowed to operate during rush hours while they were sent for rehabilitation.
At the height of the transit crisis in 1983, on-time performance dropped below 50%. Hundreds of trains never made it to their destination and in 1981, 325 train runs were abandoned on a typical day. Additionally, cars caught fire 2,500 times every year.
| 2.34375
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
In December 1978 a New York Daily News article highlighted the worst parts of the subway. The Grand Central–42nd Street station was the worst underground station and the Middle Village–Metropolitan Avenue station was the worst elevated station. The subway cars in the worst condition were the R10s. The subway line with the worst signals was the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, so the signals were upgraded in the 1980s. The BMT Sea Beach Line had the worst track; its infrastructure had not been upgraded since its opening in 1915. Despite $800 million being allocated by the state in 1978, the TA had spent less than half of the $600 million allocated in 1967. The agency made some infrastructure improvements, though because they were not cosmetic improvements, the public still assumed that the subway had high crime, even during periods of decreased crime.
Due to deferred maintenance, the condition of the subway system reached dangerous conditions in the early 1980s, and the TA considered abandoning the Archer Avenue and 63rd Street projects. Structural defects were found in elevated structures systemwide and on the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges, causing frequent closures or delays on many subway lines during the 1980s. Reroutes from both bridges were necessitated; while the Manhattan Bridge, between 1986 and 2004, had two of its four tracks closed at a time for construction, the Williamsburg Bridge needed a shutdown from April to June 1988 for emergency structural repairs to be made. Federal funding for the repair of the BMT Jamaica Line was deferred throughout the 1980s due to the extremely bad state of the Williamsburg Bridge. Pigeon droppings corroded the bridge's steel, there were over 200 broken suspender cables, and concrete in the bridge began to come off and leave large holes.
| 2.5
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
In 1986, the MTA and Regional Plan Association again considered closing of above-ground lines to follow population shifts. They included the Jerome Avenue, Dyre Avenue, Franklin Avenue, Crosstown, and Rockaway lines, as well as parts of the Myrtle and Jamaica lines. The south end of the Culver Line and the north ends of the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue and White Plains Road Lines were also proposed for closure, as was all of the BMT Sea Beach Line. However, unlike the 1981 proposal, this plan called for a net expansion of the subway system, as of new underground and surface lines would also be built. Numerous figures, including New York City Council member Carol Greitzer, criticized the 1986 plans.
Crime
In the 1960s, mayor Robert Wagner ordered an increase in the Transit Police force from 1,219 to 3,100 officers. During the hours at which crimes most frequently occurred (between 8:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m.), the officers went on patrol in all stations and trains. In response, crime rates decreased, as extensively reported by the press. Due to another crime increase in the subway, the rear cars of subway consists were shut at night beginning in July 1974.
However, during the subway's main era of decline following the city's 1976 fiscal crisis, there were daily reports of crime. Two hundred were arrested for possible subway crimes in the first two weeks of December 1977 under an operation dubbed "Subway Sweep". Violence on the subway increased drastically in the last week of 1978, and six murders occurred in the first two months of 1979, compared to nine during the entire previous year. The IRT Lexington Avenue Line was known to frequent muggers, so in February 1979, Curtis Sliwa's Guardian Angels group began patrolling the train during the night. By February 1980, there were 220 Guardian Angels across the system.
| 2.296875
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
To attract passengers, in September 1978 the TA introduced the "Train to the Plane", a premium-fare service that provided limited stops along Sixth Avenue in Manhattan from 57th Street to Howard Beach, where passengers could transfer to a shuttle bus to JFK Airport. The service was staffed by a transit police officer, and the additional fare was paid on board. This was discontinued in 1990 due to low ridership and the high cost of its operation.
The increase of crime in the subway led to the firing of Transit Police Chief Sanford Garelik. There were about 250 felonies (equivalent to 13,000 per year) occurring in the system every week by September 1979; some police officers had to stop patrolling quality of life crimes and look only for violent crimes. Among other problems included:
While daily felonies were nearly halved between 1979 and 1980, decreasing from 261 to 154, overall crime increased by 70% in the same period. A series of window-smashing incidents on subway cars started in 1980 on the IRT Pelham Line and spread throughout the rest of the system, causing delays when damaged trains needed to be taken out of service. Over a thousand pieces of damaged windows were replaced between January 27 and February 2, 1985. Other actions included increasing the 60-cent fare to 65 cents to pay the salaries of additional transit police; putting a subway-crimes court in the Times Square station; and stationing a police officer in each car during night hours.
| 2.1875
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
Richard Ravitch, chairman of the MTA, said that even he was scared of going on the subway. Despite the MTA discussing methods to increase ridership, the 1982 figures fell to levels last seen in 1917. Within less than ten years, the MTA had lost around 300 million passengers, mainly because of fears of crime. In July 1985, the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City published a study showing this trend, fearing the frequent robberies and generally bad circumstances. As a result, the Fixing Broken Windows policy, which proposed to stop large-profile crimes by prosecuting quality of life crimes, was implemented. Along this line of thinking, the MTA began a five-year program to eradicate graffiti from subway trains in 1984, and hired one of the original theorists of Broken Windows policing, George L. Kelling, as a consultant for the program in 1985.
In the early afternoon of December 22, 1984, Bernhard Goetz shot four young African American men from the Bronx on a New York City Subway train. The incident got nationwide media coverage. That day, the men—Barry Allen, Troy Canty, Darrell Cabey (all 19), and James Ramseur (18)—boarded a downtown train (Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line express) carrying screwdrivers, apparently on a mission to steal money from video arcade machines in Manhattan. When the train arrived at the 14th Street station in Manhattan, 15 to 20 other passengers remained with them in R22 subway car 7657, the seventh car of the ten-car train.
| 2.390625
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
At the 14th Street station, Goetz entered the car through the rearmost door, crossed the aisle, and took a seat on the long bench across from the door. After Canty asked Goetz how he was, Goetz replied affirmatively, at which point the four boys supposedly moved over to the left of Goetz, blocking Goetz off from the other passengers in the car. They then asked Goetz for money. He fired five shots, seriously wounding all four men. Nine days later he surrendered to police and was eventually charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, and several firearms offenses. A jury found him not guilty of all charges except for one count of carrying an unlicensed firearm, for which he served eight months of a one-year sentence.
The incident sparked a nationwide debate on race and crime in major cities, the legal limits of self-defense, and the extent to which the citizenry could rely on the police to secure their safety. Although Goetz, dubbed the "Subway Vigilante" by New York City's press, came to symbolize New Yorkers' frustrations with the high crime rates of the 1980s, he was both praised and vilified in the media and public opinion. The incident has also been cited as a contributing factor to the groundswell movement against urban crime and disorder.
In 1989, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority asked the transit police (then located within the NYCTA) to focus on minor offenses such as fare evasion. In the early nineties, the NYCTA adopted similar policing methods for Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. In 1993, crime rates in the subway dropped, part of a larger decrease across the city.
On April 2, 1995, the New York City Police Department and the Transit Police Department merged.
Effects of the Program for Action
| 2.0625
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
Ironically, the Program for Action forced the closure of a large number of subway lines. The Bronx remnant of the IRT Third Avenue Line closed in 1973, to be provisionally replaced by a new subway under the Metro-North Railroad tracks on Park Avenue, one block to the west. The single-tracked Culver Shuttle between Ditmas Avenue and Ninth Avenue, once a three-tracked line, closed on May 11, 1975. On August 27, 1976, the service was truncated from Church Avenue to Smith–Ninth Streets, while service was discontinued on the K and EE routes. On December 15, 1976, GG service at the other terminal was shortened to Queens Plaza. The BMT Jamaica Line was truncated from 168th Street to 121st Street between September 11, 1977, and the early 1980s, replaced by the BMT Archer Avenue Line in 1988.
Debris falling from and on the tracks
Existing elevated structures posed a large danger; the New York Post published a story that featured debris that had fallen from the BMT Astoria Line. Debris from the IRT Pelham Line nearly killed a passerby, and debris from the BMT West End Line led to a lawsuit against the MTA. Concrete falling on the BMT Brighton Line near the Beverley Road station caused a months-long service disruption between November 1976 and February 1977.
Fare evasion
Fare evasion seemed a small problem compared to the graffiti and crime; however, fare evasion was causing the NYCTA to lose revenue. NYCTA's strategy for restoring riders' confidence took a two-pronged approach. In 1981, MTA's first capital program started system's physical restoration to a State-of-Good-Repair. Improving TA's image in riders' minds is as important as overcoming deferred maintenance. Prompt removal of graffiti and prevention of blatant fare evasion would become central pillars of the strategy to assure customers that the subway is "fast, clean, and safe":
| 2.265625
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
The dramatic decrease in evasion during this period coincided with a reinvigorated Transit Police, a 25% expansion of City police, and a general drop in crime in U.S. cities. In the city, crime rate decline begun in 1991 under Mayor David Dinkins and continued through next two decades under Mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Some observers credited the "broken windows" approach of law enforcement where minor crimes like evasion are routinely prosecuted, and statistical crimefighting tools, whereas others have indicated different reasons for crime reduction. Regardless of causality, evasion checks resulted in many arrests for outstanding warrants or weapons charges, likely contributing somewhat to public safety improvements. Arrests weren't the only way to combat evasions, and by the early 1990s NYCTA was examining methods to improve fare control passenger throughputs, reduce fare collection costs, and maintain control over evasions and general grime. The AFC system was being designed, and evasion-preventing capability was a key consideration.
TA's queuing studies concluded that purchasing tokens from clerks was not efficient. Preventing 'slug' use required sophisticated measures like tokens with metal alloy centers and electronic token verification devices. To provide better access control, the NYCTA experimented with floor-to-ceiling gates and "high wheel" turnstiles. Prototypes installed at 110th Street/Lexington Avenue station during a "target hardening" trial reduced evasions compared to nearby "control" stations. However, controls consisting entirely of "high-wheels" created draconian, prison-like environments, with detrimental effects on station aesthetics. Compromises with more secure low-turnstile designs were difficult, as AFC did not prevent fare evasion.
| 2.3125
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
On January 1, 1982, the MTA implemented the first of its five-year Capital Improvement programs to repair the existing system. Scheduled Maintenance Services were formed to proactively replace components, and the MTA conducted general overhauls of the R26 through R46 fleets. Older equipment (any car classes with contract numbers below R32s on the B Division and R26s on the A Division) were retrofitted with air conditioning. The red tag areas were incrementally repaired and replaced with welded rail. At the end of the century, the MDBF rates for the entire system were at record highs and steadily increasing. The Franklin Avenue Shuttle, however, was worse in 1989 than it was in 1980, and necessitated a complete renovation by 1998, because the MTA planned to abandon the line by the end of the century.
Projects during this time
Starting in the early 1970s, there were plans for improving the subway system.
In 1976, the MTA proposed abandoning the Franklin Avenue Shuttle to save money, but dropped the plan due to community pushback. The possibility of the discontinuation was revisited again in 1998, but again, fierce community opposition to it forced the MTA to rehabilitate the line.
In 1977, the Linden Shops opened in Brooklyn, enabling the MTA to build track panels indoors throughout the year, among other objects.
On January 16, 1978, the MTA opened three transfer stations:
Between the 14th Street station on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and the previously-connected stations on the BMT Canarsie Line and IND Sixth Avenue Line
Between the IRT Lexington Avenue Line at Canal Street and the local platforms of the BMT Broadway Line
Between the BMT Brighton Line, the BMT Fourth Avenue Line, and the IRT Eastern Parkway Line at Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center
| 2.09375
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
In December 1988, three transfers were opened between existing stations, and three brand-new stations were opened. The transfer points were:
Lexington Avenue / 53rd Street and 51st Street stations
Long Island City – Court Square and 23rd Street – Ely Avenue stations (now known as Court Square and Court Square – 23rd Street, respectively)
42nd Street – Port Authority Bus Terminal and Times Square – 42nd Street stations
The new stations were Sutphin Boulevard – Archer Avenue – JFK Airport, Jamaica Center – Parsons/Archer, and Jamaica – Van Wyck. Other service changes were implemented that day. Skip-stop service on the J/Z trains was also started on December 11, 1988. Additionally, IND Fulton Street Line express service was extended from weekdays only to all times except late nights. Discontinuous services on the , , and trains over the Manhattan Bridge were replaced by continuous services.
New subway cars were also purchased: the R62 and R62A fleets for the A Division and the R68 and R68A fleets for the B Division. The R62 in particular was the first New York City Subway car class built by a foreign manufacturer. These were all delivered between 1983 and 1989. The R10, R14, R16, R17, R21, and R22 car classes all were retired with the deliveries of the R62/As and R68/As. On May 10, 1989, the last train with graffiti was taken out of service; the subway has been mostly graffiti-free since this point.
On October 29, 1989, the IND 63rd Street Line was opened. It was nicknamed the "tunnel to nowhere" due to its stub end at 21st Street–Queensbridge, and also due to the fact that the three-station extension lay dormant for over a decade after completion. The 3.2 mile line included three new stations and cost a total of $868 million. The line was viewed as an enormous waste of money.
Revitalization and recent history
| 2.3125
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
Generally, ridership kept rising as the subway system improved in its maintenance, cleanliness, frequency, and on-time ratio; ridership started to increase as graffiti and crime rates dropped heavily after 1989. From 1995 to 2005, ridership on city buses and subways grew by 36%, compared with a population gain in the city of 7%. With dramatic increases in fuel prices in 2008, as well as increased tourism and residential growth, ridership on buses and subways grew 3.1% up to about 2.37 billion trips a year compared to 2007. This is the highest ridership since 1965.
By 2013, ridership had reached 1.7 billion riders per year (despite closures related to Hurricane Sandy), a level not seen since 1949. In April 2013, New York magazine reported that the system was more crowded than it had been in the previous 66 years. The subway reached a daily ridership of 6 million for 29 days in 2014, and was expected to record a similar ridership level for 55 days in 2015; by comparison, in 2013, daily ridership never reached 6 million.
Expansions
Several expansions started construction or were opened during the mayoralty of Michael Bloomberg from 2001 to 2013. The IND 63rd Street Line's connection to the IND Queens Boulevard Line was first, opened on December 16, 2001. To serve the new connection, the F train was rerouted via the 63rd Street Line, and to replace the F along 53rd Street, a new V train was created–running between Forest Hills–71st Avenue and Second Avenue via the Queens Boulevard and Sixth Avenue local tracks. The G, to allow for room to operate the V, was cut back to Court Square. Two out-of-system transfers were put into place; the first was to allow F passengers to continue to have a free transfer to the Lexington Avenue Line, which was lost when the line was rerouted–the transfer connects the Lexington Avenue/59th Street station and the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street stations. The second one connected the Court Square station with the 45th Road–Court House Square station.
| 2.53125
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
In 2003, money was allocated for the construction of a new station at South Ferry, and in 2005, construction commenced on the new station. Initially, the station's construction had been opposed because of the high cost and low perceived time savings. The South Ferry loop station only accommodates the first five cars of a train, so that the rear five cars of a 10-car 1 train cannot load or unload. Because of the curve at the station gap fillers are required, and as a result the new station was built as a two-track, full (10-car)-length island platform on a less severe curve, permitting the operation of a typical terminal station. The MTA claimed that the new station saved four to six minutes of a passenger's trip time and increased the peak capacity of the 1 service to 24 trains per hour, as opposed to 16 to 17 trains per hour with the loop station.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, talk began to circulate about taking up the construction of the Second Avenue Subway. Most New Yorkers regarded these plans with cynicism, since citizens were promised the line since well before the Third Avenue elevated was torn down in 1955. Funds have been set aside and environmental impact reports have been completed. A tunnelling contract was awarded to the consortium of Schiavone/Shea/Skanska (S3) by the MTA on March 20, 2007. This followed preliminary engineering and a final tunnel design completed by a joint venture between AECOM and Arup. A ceremonial groundbreaking for the subway was held on April 12, 2007, and contractor work to prepare the project's initial construction site at 96th Street and Second Avenue began on April 23, 2007.
In October 2007, the 7 Subway Extension construction contract was awarded, extending the IRT Flushing Line to 34th Street. Groundbreaking began in June 2008 and the tunnels were completed by 2010. The project, which was the first one funded by the city in over 60 years, was intended to aid redevelopment of Hell's Kitchen around the West Side Yard of the Long Island Rail Road.
| 1.945313
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
The 7 Subway Extension originally was expected to open in 2014, but did not open until September 13, 2015. According to The New York Times, the delay in the extension's opening was due to the installation of custom-made incline elevators that kept malfunctioning. The Fulton Center building opened to the public on November 10, 2014, completing a decade-long refurbishment of the Fulton Street station in lower Manhattan. It was controversially funded as part of the post-9/11 rebuilding project. As part of the opening of the Second Avenue Subway, W service, which had not run since 2010, was restored on November 7, 2016. On January 1, 2017, the Second Avenue Subway was opened.
2017 state of emergency
Underlying the fanfare of expansions, however, there was a gradual decline in maintenance of the subway, and consequently, fewer trains started arriving to their destinations on time. Maintenance spending declined before rising again from the 1990s to 2012, but on-time performance slowly eroded during that same time period. By 2017, only 65% of weekday trains reached their destinations on time, the lowest rate since the transit crisis of the 1970s. In the summer of that year, the subway system was officially put in a state of emergency after a series of derailments, track fires, and overcrowding incidents.
To solve the system's problems, the MTA officially announced the Genius Transit Challenge on June 28, 2017, where contestants could submit ideas to improve signals, communications infrastructure, or rolling stock. On July 25, 2017, Chairman Joe Lhota announced a two-phase, $9 billion New York City Subway Action Plan to stabilize the subway system and to prevent the continuing decline of the system. The first phase, costing $836 million, consisted of five categories of improvements; the $8 billion second phase would implement the winning proposals from the Genius Transit Challenge and fix more widespread problems. Six winning submissions for the Genius Transit Challenge were announced in March 2018.
| 2.203125
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
In October 2017, city comptroller Scott Stringer released an analysis of the effect of subway delays on the economy and on commuters. The study found that based on a normal wait time of 5 minutes and an average wage of $34 per hour in 2016, "worst-case" subway delays of more than 20 minutes could cost up to $389 million annually in lost productivity. By comparison, "mid-case" delays of between 10 and 20 minutes could cost $243.1 million per year, and "best-case" delays of between 5 and 10 minutes could cost $170.2 million per year.
In November 2017, The New York Times published its investigation into the crisis. It found that the crisis had arisen as a result of financially unsound decisions by local and state politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties. By this time, the subway's 65% average on-time performance was the lowest among all major cities' transit systems, and every non-shuttle subway route's on-time performance had declined in the previous ten years.
Several improvements were made in response to the transit crisis. In the short term, signals, trains, and tracks were improved under the "Fast Forward" program. Further, the MTA's 2020–2024 capital plan called for adding elevators and ramps to 66 subway stations and adding modern signaling systems to parts of six more physical lines, to be funded by congestion pricing in Manhattan. Additionally, several other changes were proposed to improve service. For instance, in February 2019, several politicians wrote a letter to the MTA, asking the agency to consider splitting the R train in half to increase reliability. In January 2020, Stringer sent a letter to NYCTA president Andy Byford stated that the "abundance" of shuttered entry points along subway routes was contributing to severe overcrowding and longer commute times, and requested that the MTA develop and publicize plans for restoring closed entry points. The state of emergency ended on June 30, 2021, after previously being renewed 49 times.
| 1.9375
| 0
|
1489099
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20the%20New%20York%20City%20Subway
|
History of the New York City Subway
|
Planning of new lines
There are several lines under consideration. This includes a subway line under Utica Avenue in Brooklyn; an outer-borough circumferential line, the Triboro RX; a reuse of the northern part of the Rockaway Beach Branch; and a line to LaGuardia Airport.
In November 2016, the MTA requested that the Second Avenue Subway's Phase 2 project be entered into the Project Development phase under the Federal Transit Administration's New Starts program. The FTA granted this request in late December 2016; The line will eventually comprise four phases, running as far north as 125th Street in East Harlem during Phase 2, and south to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan in Phases 3 and 4. The MTA began soliciting bids in July 2023 for the first Phase 2 construction contract.
COVID-19 pandemic and crime concerns
The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to the New York City area in March 2020 resulted in mass closures of gathering spaces. After the MTA recommended that only essential workers use the New York City Subway, ridership started to decrease. Part-time services were temporarily suspended. Starting on May 6, 2020, stations were closed overnight for cleaning, in what became the first planned overnight closure in the subway's history. The overnight closures were to be suspended once the pandemic was over, and bus service was added. In early May 2021, Governor Cuomo announced that the overnight subway closures would end on May 17, 2021, with 24-hour service resuming on that date.
In February 2021, the New York City Subway removed benches from several stations in an effort to reduce the number of homeless persons sleeping on them, which during the COVID-19 pandemic was considered to be unsanitary. This move drew considerable backlash from riders who alleged that the removal of the benches amounts to disenfranchising disabled people and senior citizens, as well as being unfair to homeless populations.
| 2
| 0
|
1489120
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port%20of%20Melbourne
|
Port of Melbourne
|
The Port of Melbourne is the largest port for containerised and general cargo in Australia. It is located in Melbourne, Victoria, and covers an area at the mouth of the Yarra River, downstream of Bolte Bridge, which is at the head of Port Phillip, as well as several piers on the bay itself. Since 1 July 2003, the Port of Melbourne has been managed by the Port of Melbourne Corporation, a statutory corporation created by the State of Victoria.
Most of the port is in the suburb of West Melbourne and should not be confused with the Melbourne suburb of Port Melbourne although Webb Dock and Station Pier, parts of the Port of Melbourne, are in Port Melbourne.
Port Melbourne (or Sandridge as it was known until 1884) was a busy port early in the history of Melbourne, but declined as a cargo port with the development of the Port of Melbourne in the late 19th century. It retains Melbourne's passenger terminal however, with cruise ships using Station Pier.
Infrastructure Victoria estimate that the Port of Melbourne will reach its capacity in 2055.
In September 2016, the port’s commercial operations were leased to the Lonsdale Consortium for a term of 50 years for more than $9.7 billion.
The Lonsdale Consortium comprises
Global Infrastructure Partners (40%)
China Investment Corporation (20%)
NTS, a Korean pension fund (20%)
Future Fund (20%)
Queensland Investment Corporation (20%)
Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (20%)
Facilities
The Port of Melbourne consists of several major man-made docks on the Yarra River and Port Melbourne, including (from upstream to downstream):
Victoria Dock
Appleton Dock
South Wharves
Swanson Dock
Maribyrnong Berth
Yarraville Wharves
Holden Oil Dock
Webb Dock
Station Pier
| 2.125
| 0
|
1489120
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port%20of%20Melbourne
|
Port of Melbourne
|
History
In Melbourne's early days, large ships were unable to navigate the Yarra River, so cargo destined for Melbourne had to be unloaded at either Hobsons Bay (now Williamstown) or Sandridge (now Port Melbourne) and transferred either by rail or by cargo lighter to warehouses which were concentrated around King Street. This was an expensive and inefficient process.
In 1877, Victoria's government resolved to make the Yarra more navigable and engaged English engineer John Coode to devise a solution. His solution was to change the course of the river by cutting a canal south of the original course of the river. This shortened it by a mile and made it much wider. It also created Coode Island, a name still used today although the northern course of the river has long since disappeared.
With these works, ships were now able to sail as far up the river as Queensbridge where a turning basin was constructed.
Coode also oversaw the construction of Victoria Dock in swampland to the west of the city. This opened in 1889.
Over time the docks moved progressively downstream as ships became larger and road bridges were built across the Yarra. The construction of the Spencer Street Bridge in 1928 and the Charles Grimes Bridge in 1975 each closed access to docks to the east. The barque Polly Woodside lying in the old Duke and Orr drydock, the warehouses of South Wharf and the Mission to Seafarers building are now the only reminders of the maritime history of this area.
Expansion
Development slowed during the Great Depression and World War II but resumed after the war with construction of Appleton Dock (1956), Webb Dock (1960) at the mouth of the Yarra and Swanson Dock, the first container terminal, on what was Coode Island.
Eventually Victoria Dock became too small to handle large container ships and was closed. Its fate was permanently sealed by the construction of the Bolte Bridge, part of CityLink, across its entrance in 1999. It now forms the centrepiece of the Docklands redevelopment.
| 2.78125
| 0
|
1489120
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port%20of%20Melbourne
|
Port of Melbourne
|
In 1991 a large fire at the Coode Island bulk liquid handling facility blanketed much of Melbourne in toxic fumes. The public outrage forced the government to investigate relocating the facility. Point Lillias near Geelong was considered. However, due to the high cost involved and local opposition the facility has remained at Coode Island.
The Port of Melbourne was also the scene of a watershed industrial battle in 1998 between Patrick and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA).
Recently further controversy has resulted from plans to dredge Port Phillip to deepen shipping channels to allow larger ships into the Port of Melbourne. This process commenced in 2008 and was completed in November 2009. It involved removing more than 22 million cubic metres of sand and silt to provide a minimum 14-metre draught at all times. Opposition to this project stems from potential environmental damage due to silting and loss of amenity for bayside residents due to the noise produced by the dredges. The project was subject to the strictest environmental testing and monitoring requirements in the world at the time. These activities will continue on for many years to help protect the Port Phillip Bay ecosystems.
In the future the Victorian Government will redevelop the Port of Melbourne to better integrate it with other modes of transport. The Melbourne wholesale fruit and vegetable market was relocated to Epping in 2013. Footscray Road is planned to be raised so that port users will have improved access to the rail facilities at South Dynon.
Facts and Figures
The Port of Melbourne is made up of the following:
| 2.15625
| 0
|
1489122
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian%20Museum
|
Russian Museum
|
The State Russian Museum (), formerly known as the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (), on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg, is the world's largest depository of Russian fine art. It is also one of the largest art museums in the world with a total area over 30 hectares. In 2022 it attracted 2,651,688 visitors, ranking twelfth on list of most-visited art museums in the world.
Creation
The museum was established on April 13, 1896, upon enthronement of the emperor Nicholas II to commemorate his father, Alexander III. Its original collection was composed of artworks taken from the Hermitage Museum, Alexander Palace, and the Imperial Academy of Arts. The task to restructure the interiors according to the need of future exposition was imposed on Vasily Svinyin. The grand opening took place on the 17 of March, 1898.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, many private collections were nationalized and relocated to the Russian Museum. These included Kazimir Malevich's Black Square.
Architecture
The main building of the museum is the Mikhailovsky Palace, the Neoclassical former residence of Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich, erected in 1819–1825 to a design by Carlo Rossi on Square of Arts in St Petersburg. Upon the death of the Grand Duke the residence was named after his wife as the Palace of the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, and became famous for its many theatrical presentations and balls.
Some of the halls of the palace retain the Italianate opulent interiors of the former imperial residence. Other buildings and locations, assigned to the Russian museum, include the Summer Palace of Peter I (1710–1714) with the Summer Garden, the Marble Palace of Count Orlov (1768–1785), St Michael's Castle of Emperor Paul (1797–1801), the cabin of Peter the Great, and the Rastrelliesque Stroganov Palace on the Nevsky Prospekt (1752–1754).
| 2.5625
| 0
|
1489133
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephrops%20norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus, known variously as the Norway lobster, Dublin Bay prawn, (compare langostino) or scampi, is a slim, coral colored lobster that grows up to long, and is "the most important commercial crustacean in Europe". It is now the only extant species in the genus Nephrops, after several other species were moved to the closely related genus Metanephrops. It lives in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean, and parts of the Mediterranean Sea, but is absent from the Baltic Sea and Black Sea. Adults emerge from their burrows at night to feed on worms and fish.
Description
Nephrops norvegicus has the typical body shape of a lobster, albeit narrower than the large genus Homarus. It is pale orange in colour, and grows to a typical length of , or exceptionally long, including the tail and claws. A carapace covers the animal's cephalothorax, while the abdomen is long and segmented, ending in a broad tail fan. The first three pairs of legs bear claws, of which the first are greatly elongated and bear ridges of spines. Of the two pairs of antennae, the second is the longer and thinner. There is a long, spinous rostrum, and the compound eyes are kidney-shaped, providing the name of the genus, from the Greek roots (nephros, "kidney") and ὄψ ("eye").
Distribution
Nephrops norvegicus is found in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean and North Sea as far north as Iceland and northern Norway, and south to Portugal. It is found in the Mediterranean Sea and is common in the Adriatic Sea, notably the north Adriatic. It is absent from both the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. Due to its ecological demands for particular sediments, N. norvegicus has a very patchy distribution, and is divided into over 30 populations. These populations are separated by inhospitable terrain, and adults rarely travel distances greater than a few hundred metres.
Ecology
| 2.78125
| 0
|
1489133
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephrops%20norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus adults prefer to inhabit muddy seabed sediments, with more than 40 percent silt and clay. Their burrows are semi-permanent, and vary in structure and size. Typical burrows are deep, with a distance of between the front and back entrances. Norway lobsters spend most of their time either lying in their burrows or by the entrance, leaving their shelters only to forage or mate.
Diet
Nephrops norvegicus is a scavenger and predator that makes short foraging excursions, mainly during periods of subdued light. They feed on active prey, including worms and fish, which they capture with their chelipeds and walking legs, and food is conveyed to the mouth using the anterior walking legs, assisted by the maxillipeds.
There is evidence that Nephrops norvegicus is a major eater of jellyfish.
Parasites and symbionts
Nephrops norvegicus is the host to a number of parasites and symbionts. A number of sessile organisms attach to the exoskeleton of N. norvegicus, including the barnacle Balanus crenatus and the foraminiferan Cyclogyra, but overall Nephrops suffers fewer infestations of such epibionts than other decapod crustaceans do. In December 1995, the commensal Symbion pandora was discovered attached to the mouthparts of Nephrops norvegicus, and was found to be the first member of a new phylum, Cycliophora, a finding described by Simon Conway Morris as "the zoological highlight of the decade". S. pandora has been found in many populations of N. norvegicus, both in the north Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea. Individuals may be found on most segments of the lobster's mouthparts, but are generally concentrated on the central parts of the larger mouthparts, from the mandible to the third maxilliped.
| 3
| 0
|
1489133
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephrops%20norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus
|
The most significant parasite of N. norvegicus is a dinoflagellate of the genus Hematodinium, which has caused epidemic infection in fished populations of N. norvegicus since the 1980s. Hematodinium is a genus that contains major pathogens of a wide variety of decapod crustaceans, although its internal taxonomy is poorly resolved. The species which attacks N. norvegicus causes a syndrome originally described as "post-moult syndrome", in which the carapace turns opaque and becomes highly pigmented, the haemolymph becomes milky white, and the animal appears moribund. Other parasites of N. norvegicus include the gregarine protozoan Porospora nephropis, the trematode Stichocotyle nephropis and the polychaete Histriobdella homari.
Life cycle
The typical life span of N. norvegicus is 5–10 years, reaching 15 years in exceptional cases. Its reproductive cycle varies depending on geographical position: "the periods of hatching and spawning, and the length of the incubation period, vary with latitude and the breeding cycle changes from annual to biennial as one moves from south to north". Incubation of eggs is temperature-dependent, and in colder climates, the duration of the incubation period increases. This means that, by the time hatching occurs, it may be too late for the females to take part in that year's breeding cycle. In warmer climates, the combined effects of recovery from moulting and ovary maturation mean that spawning can become delayed. This, in turn, has the effect of the female missing out a year of egg carrying.
| 3.328125
| 0
|
1489133
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephrops%20norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus
|
Adult male Nephrops norvegicus moult once or twice a year (usually in late winter or spring) and adult females moult up to once a year (in late winter or spring, after hatching of the eggs). In annual breeding cycles, mating takes place in the spring or winter, when the females are in the soft, post-moult state. The ovaries mature throughout the spring and summer months, and egg-laying takes place in late summer or early autumn. After spawning, the berried (egg-carrying) females return to their burrows and remain there until the end of the incubation period. Hatching takes place in late winter or early spring. Soon after hatching, the females moult and mate again.
During the planktonic larval stage (typically 1 to 2 months in duration) the nephrops larvae exhibit a diel vertical migration behaviour as they are dispersed by the local currents. This complex biophysical interaction determines the fate of the larvae; the overlap between advective pathway destination and spatial distributions of suitable benthic habitats must be favourable in order for the larvae to settle and reach maturity.
Fisheries
The muscular tail of Nephrops norvegicus is frequently eaten, and its meat is known as scampi or langoustine. N. norvegicus is eaten only on special occasions in Spain and Portugal, where it is less expensive than the common lobster, Homarus gammarus. N. norvegicus is an important species for fisheries, being caught mostly by trawling. Around 60,000 tonnes are caught annually, half of it in the United Kingdom's waters.
| 3.046875
| 0
|
1489133
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephrops%20norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus
|
The North East Atlantic individual biological stocks of Nephrops are identified as functional units. A number of functional units make up the sea areas over which a total allowable catch (TAC) is set annually by the EU Council of Ministers. For example, the TAC set for North Sea Nephrops is based on the aggregate total tonnage of removals recommended by science for nine separate functional unit areas. This method has attracted criticism because it can promote the overexploitation of a specific functional unit even though the overall TAC is under-fished. In 2016, the UK implemented a package of emergency technical measures with the cooperation of the fishing industry aimed at reducing fishing activity to induce recovery of the Nephrops stock in the Farn(e) Deeps off North East England which was close to collapse. A stock assessment completed in 2018 by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) shows that fishing pressure has been cut and this stock is now below FMSY and that stock size is above MSY Btrigger meaning that the Farne Deeps nephrops stock is being fished at a sustainable level. However, ICES also warn that any substantial transfer of the current surplus fishing opportunities from other functional units to the Farne Deeps would rapidly lead to overexploitation. This suggests that controls on fishing effort should continue at least until the biomass reaches a size that is sustainable when measured against the level of fishing activity by all fishermen wanting to target the stock. In July 2023 the area north-east of Farnes Deep was one of three sites designated as a Highly Protected Marine Area.
Discards from Nephrops fishery may account for up to 37% of the energy requirements of certain marine scavengers, such as the hagfish Myxine glutinosa. Boats involved in Nephrops fishery also catch a number of fish species such as plaice and sole, and it is thought that without that revenue, Nephrops fishery would be economically unviable.
Taxonomic history
| 2.234375
| 0
|
1489133
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephrops%20norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus
|
Nephrops norvegicus was one of the species included by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of , the starting point for zoological nomenclature. In that work, it was listed as , with a type locality of ("in the Norwegian sea"). In choosing a lectotype, Lipke Holthuis restricted the type locality to the Kattegat at the Kullen Peninsula in southern Sweden (). Two synonyms of the species have been published – "Astacus rugosus", described by the eccentric zoologist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1814 from material collected in the Mediterranean Sea, and "Nephropsis cornubiensis", described by Charles Spence Bate and Joshua Brooking Rowe in 1880.
As new genera were erected, the species was moved, reaching its current position in 1814, when William Elford Leach erected the genus Nephrops to hold this species alone. Seven fossil species have since been described in the genus.
Populations in the Mediterranean Sea are sometimes separated as "Nephrops norvegicus var. meridionalis Zariquiey, 1935", although this taxon is not universally considered valid.
| 2.28125
| 0
|
1489146
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowen%20Bridge
|
Bowen Bridge
|
Design
The foundational design primarily aimed to ensure the river piers could withstand impacts from barges traveling at operating speeds () assisted by the current (). All piers were specifically engineered to endure an impact force of at an angle of up to 45 degrees from the pile cap centre line, while other directions could sustain a force of . This approach accounted for potential impact from future river barges of up to of deadweight tonnage. The underlying philosophy involved creating substantial gravity-based foundation structures capable of generating adequate force to absorb the energy and deform the bows of barges during impact.
The design strategy also allowed for future reinforcement to withstand a force of , accommodating potential deadweight tonnage impact of . To meet these ship impact criteria, the river pier foundations were constructed as massive reinforced concrete caisson structures, measuring in outer diameter with wall thickness, built from the ground up.
The deepest among the nine piers extended to below mean sea level. Noteworthy statistics include a total concrete mass of , a reinforcing steel mass of , and a cumulative length of steel tendons reaching .
Construction
Leighton Contractors implemented a highly efficient balanced cantilever construction technique, notably avoiding the use of falsework within the river – a pioneering approach in Australia at that time. To streamline the construction process, segments were match cast, enabling the deck to be constructed concurrently with the establishment of substantial foundations. This segmental design facilitated swift assembly of the superstructure. The superstructure itself consists of two individual box girders that were erected side by side and connected by an in situ longitudinal joint. The segments were cast in the sequence of their installation. Subsequent segments were directly cast against preceding adjacent segments, utilising a debonding agent on the adjacent surface to allow for separation.
| 2.546875
| 0
|
1489149
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Lake%20Khasan
|
Battle of Lake Khasan
|
The confrontation was triggered in July 1938, when Far Eastern Front and Soviet State Security (NKVD) Border Guard troops reinforced the Khasan border with Manchuria. This was prompted in part by the defection one month before (13 June) of Soviet General G. S. Lyushkov, in charge of all NKVD forces in the Soviet Far East at Hunchun, in the Tumen River area. He provided the Japanese with intelligence on the poor state of Soviet Far Eastern forces and the purge of army officers.
Build-up
On 6 July 1938, the Japanese Kwantung Army decoded a message sent by the Soviet commander in the Posyet region to Soviet headquarters in Khabarovsk. The message recommended that Soviet soldiers be allowed to secure unoccupied high ground west of Lake Khasan, most notably the disputed Changkufeng Heights, because it would be advantageous for the Soviets to occupy terrain which overlooked the Korean port-city of Rajin, as well as strategic railways linking Korea to Manchuria. In the next two weeks, small groups of Soviet border troops moved into the area and began fortifying the mountain with emplacements, observation trenches, entanglements and communication facilities.
| 2.46875
| 0
|
1489149
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Lake%20Khasan
|
Battle of Lake Khasan
|
On July 10, 1938, the deputy head of the Posyetsky border detachment, Major Alexander Alekseev, reported to the military headquarters in Khabarovsk that the height is engaged in a reserve outpost, in addition to the outposts Podgornaya and Pakshekori. The conflict started on 15 July, when the Japanese attaché in Moscow demanded the removal of Soviet border troops from the Bezymyannaya (сопка Безымянная, Chinese name: Shācǎofēng = 沙草峰) and Zaozyornaya (сопка Заозёрная, Chinese name: Zhāng Gǔfēng = 张鼓峰 (Changkufeng)) Hills to the west of Lake Khasan in the south of Primorye not far from Vladivostok, claiming this territory by the Soviet–Korea border. The Soviets were performing trench works and built rock heaps and laid several land mines on slopes of the hill, not only on the Soviet slope of the hill, but also on Manchurian territory. The Japanese embassy protested, demanding that the status quo will be restored, but the Soviet government denied those accusations.
On July 15, Colonel Grebennik reported that the readiness of trench work was 80%; barriers were 50%; and that three cell trenches had been opened in full profiles, each for one compartment. Meanwhile, Frinovsky’s special group reached the headquarters of the 59th Posyet border detachment, from where they moved to the Zaozernaya hill. The formal pretext for an official of such a high rank (the second person in the NKVD) to go to the very border line was the same “investigation” of Lyushkov’s escape. To accompany this retinue, Lieutenant Vinevitin was assigned as a sniper.
At first, the Japanese Korean Army, which had been assigned to defend the area, disregarded the Soviet advance. However, the Kwantung Army, whose administrative jurisdiction overlapped Zhāng Gǔfēng (Changkufeng), pushed the Korean Army to take more action, because it was suspicious of Soviet intentions. Following this, the Korean Army took the matter to Tokyo, recommending that a formal protest be sent to the Soviet Union.
| 2.234375
| 0
|
1489149
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Lake%20Khasan
|
Battle of Lake Khasan
|
On 31 July, Sato's regiment launched a night sortie on the fortified hill. In the Changkufeng sector, 1,114 Japanese engaged a Soviet garrison of 300, eliminating them and knocking out 10 tanks, with casualties of 34 killed and 99 wounded. In the Shachofeng sector, 379 Japanese surprised and routed another 300 Soviet troops, while knocking out seven tanks, for 11 killed and 34 wounded. Thousands more Japanese soldiers from the 19th Division arrived, dug in, and requested reinforcements. High Command rejected the request, as they knew General Suetaka would use these forces to assault vulnerable Soviet positions, escalating the incident. Japanese troops defended the disputed area. In 1933, the Japanese had designed and built a "Rinji Soko Ressha" (Special Armoured Train). The train was deployed at "2nd Armoured Train Unit" in Manchuria and participated in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Changkufeng conflict against the Soviets, transporting thousands of Japanese troops to and from the battlefield, displaying to the West the capability of an Asian nation to implement western ideas and doctrine concerning rapid infantry deployment and transport.
| 2.28125
| 0
|
1489149
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Lake%20Khasan
|
Battle of Lake Khasan
|
On 31 July, People's Commissar for Defence Kliment Voroshilov ordered combat readiness for 1st Coastal Army and the Pacific Fleet. The Soviets gathered 354 tanks and assault guns at Lake Khasan, including 257 T-26 tanks (with 10 KhT-26 flame-throwing tanks), three ST-26 bridge-laying tanks, 81 BT-7 light tanks and 13 SU-5-2 self-propelled guns. The chief of the Far East Front, Vasily Blücher, arrived at the front line on 2 August 1938. Under his command, additional forces were moved up and from August 2–9, the Japanese forces at Changkufeng were attacked. Such was the disparity of forces that one Japanese artillery commander observed that the Soviets fired more shells in one day than the Japanese did in the two-week affair. Despite this, the Japanese defenders organized an anti-tank defense, with disastrous results for the poorly coordinated Soviets, whose attacks were defeated with many casualties. Thousands of Soviet troops were killed or wounded and at least 46 (or 45 unoperational because of gun fire and getting stuck in the marshes or damaged or 80 of which 24 completely destroyed) tanks were knocked out, with another 39 damaged to varying degrees.
| 2.265625
| 0
|
1489149
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Lake%20Khasan
|
Battle of Lake Khasan
|
After the Japanese pushed the Soviet border security unit, later reinforced by the 40th Rifle Division, from the hill and other positions the Japanese dug in while the Soviets reinforced their troops. Unlike the Japanese the Soviets didn't have a railway close to the battlefield, but instead a single unpaved road so when Soviet reinforcements got to the battlefield the Japanese were already well entrenched. The Soviets had attacked Japanese positions by air during the preparations for a ground attack. On the morning before the Soviet attack, 13 Soviet aircraft attacked the hill and 12 the rear of the Japanese forces, even though this isn't documented by all sources. This was followed by an attack of three Soviet infantry regiments, but this attack didn't have artillery or air support, either because of poor preparations or in the case of air support possibly fog. Some sources, however, do claim that two artillery batteries supported the attack. The attack was supported by a tank regiment but regardless it soon stalled. This was largely due to the low preparedness of the Soviet troops. Some of the artillery was not ready, little was known of the Japanese dispositions, communications had not fully been set up and the left wing was not ready to start the attack at the appointed time. Despite the poor state of the Soviet force and the knowledge that the enemy was well entrenched the attack was ordered to go ahead. The tank crews had not been prepared for the hostile terrain so they weren't able to keep up the momentum. During the attack a number of commanders including the commander of the 40th rifle division's tank battalion abandoned their troops.
| 2.046875
| 0
|
1489149
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Lake%20Khasan
|
Battle of Lake Khasan
|
On August 6 the Soviets renewed their attack. First multiple waves of bombers attacked the Japanese positions. This attack was delayed either because of fog or poor preparations. After the bombers an assault by tanks and infantry, including mechanized troops, supported by artillery was made. In the difficult terrain the tanks suffered heavy losses, only individual tanks made it to their objectives, all of which were destroyed or retreated later. During the attack an outflanking movement was made. The Soviets pushed back the Japanese after heavy fighting, the subsequent days the Japanese counterattacked but were unable to recapture their positions.
The Japanese were pushed back by the Soviet attacks but were still on the battlefield. Despite this, it was clear that the local Japanese units would not be able to keep Changkufeng without widening the conflict. On 10 August, Japanese ambassador Mamoru Shigemitsu asked for peace. Satisfied that the incident had been brought to an "honourable" conclusion, on 11 August 1938, at 13:30 local time the Japanese stopped fighting and Soviet forces reoccupied the heights.
Consequences
More than 6,500 Soviet officers and soldiers were awarded the orders, decorations, and medals of the Soviet Union; 26 of them were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and 95 were awarded the Order of Lenin.
| 2.3125
| 0
|
1489149
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Lake%20Khasan
|
Battle of Lake Khasan
|
Soviet losses totaled 792 killed or missing and 3,279 wounded or sick, according to their records and the Japanese claimed to have destroyed or immobilized 96 enemy tanks and 30 guns. Soviet armoured losses were significant, with dozens of tanks being knocked out or destroyed and hundreds of "tank troops" becoming casualties. Japanese casualties, as revealed by secret Army General Staff statistics, were 1,439 casualties (526 killed or missing, 913 wounded); the Soviets claimed Japanese losses of 3,100, with 600 killed and 2,500 wounded. The Soviets concluded that this was because of poor communications infrastructure and roads as well as the loss of unit coherence due to poor organization, headquarters and commanders and a lack of combat supply units. The faults in the Soviet army and leadership at Khasan were blamed on the incompetence of Blyukher. In addition to leading the troops into action at Khasan, Blyukher was also supposed to oversee the trans-Baikal military district's and the far eastern fronts move to combat readiness using an administrative apparatus that delivered army group, army and corps level instructions to the 40th Rifle Division by accident. On 22 October, he was arrested by the NKVD and is thought to have been tortured to death.
The Japanese military, while seriously analyzing the results of the battle, engaged with the Soviets once more, with disastrous results, in the more extensive Battles of Khalkhin Gol (Nomonhan) in 1939. This second engagement resulted in the defeat of the Japanese Sixth Army. After World War II, at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in 1946, 13 high-ranking Japanese officials were charged with crimes against peace for their roles in initiating hostilities at Lake Khasan.
| 2.25
| 0
|
1489163
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogyen%20Trinley%20Dorje
|
Ogyen Trinley Dorje
|
There are four main websites – Dharma Treasure, Adarsha, Ketaka, and Dharma Ebooks – each one dealing with a different format, tool, or translation. Adarsha, for example, makes the Kangyur, Tengyur, and Tibetan masterpieces available in digital format and has been catalogued under the guidance of Ogyen Trinley Dorje.
108 Translations
108 Translations was initiated in 2015 by Ogyen Trinley Dorje in order to produce a needed body of reading material that can promote the reinvigoration of Tibetan language. Rather than focussing on translating a few famous works that match the interests of a small group of well-educated readers (which has been the case for translations into Tibetan up to the present), 108 Translations aims to provide a plethora of good and easily accessible reading materials for average Tibetan readers. The translations must be easy to understand and pronounce in Tibetan, and the selected works need to meet the interests of the readership.
Supporting the female Buddhist community
Ogyen Trinley Dorje has taken an interest in the welfare of the female Buddhist community, and encouraged equal rights and opportunities for women practitioners. He has, in particular, taken the responsibility to restore full ordination for Tibetan nuns.
Buddhist vegetarianism
On January 3, 2007, Ogyen Trinley Dorje mandated a purely vegetarian diet in all his monasteries and centers and strongly urged vegetarianism among all his students, saying that generally, in his view, it was very important in the Mahayana not to eat meat and that, even in Vajrayana, it is preferable for students and practitioners not to eat meat.
| 2.59375
| 0
|
1489172
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle%20Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Wilhelmine Marie Eberhardt (17 February 1877 – 21 October 1904) was a Swiss explorer and author. As a teenager, Eberhardt, educated in Switzerland by her father, published short stories under a male pseudonym. She became interested in North Africa, and was considered a proficient writer on the subject despite learning about the region only through correspondence. After an invitation from photographer Louis David, Eberhardt moved to Algeria in May 1897. She dressed as a man and converted to Islam, eventually adopting the name Si Mahmoud Saadi. Eberhardt's unorthodox behaviour made her an outcast among European settlers in Algeria and the French administration.
Eberhardt's acceptance by the Qadiriyya, an Islamic order, convinced the French administration that she was a spy or an agitator. She survived an assassination attempt shortly thereafter. In 1901, the French administration ordered her to leave Algeria, but she was allowed to return the following year after marrying her partner, the Algerian soldier Slimane Ehnni. Following her return, Eberhardt wrote for a newspaper published by Victor Barrucand and worked for General Hubert Lyautey. In 1904, at the age of 27, she was killed by a flash flood in Aïn Séfra.
In 1906, Barrucand began publishing her remaining manuscripts, which received critical acclaim. She was seen posthumously as an advocate of decolonisation, and streets were named after her in Béchar and Algiers. Eberhardt's life has been the subject of several works, including the 1991 film Isabelle Eberhardt and the 2012 opera Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt.
| 2.328125
| 0
|
1489172
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle%20Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Eberhardt
|
Eberhardt was well educated; along with the other children in the family, she was home-schooled by Trophimowsky. She was fluent in French, spoke Russian, German and Italian, and was taught Latin, Greek, and classical Arabic. She studied philosophy, metaphysics, chemistry, history, and geography, though she was most passionate about literature, reading the works of authors including Pierre Loti, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Leo Tolstoy, Voltaire and Émile Zola while she was a teenager, and was also an admirer of the poets Semyon Nadson and Charles Baudelaire. At an early age she began wearing male clothing, enjoying its freedom, and her nonconformist father did not discourage her. The children of deMoerder resented their stepfather, who forbade them from obtaining professions or leaving the home, and effectively used them as slaves to tend to his extensive gardens. Eberhardt's sister Nathalie married against Trophimowsky's wishes in 1888, and was subsequently cut off from the rest of the household. Nathalie's departure had a profound effect on Eberhardt's childhood, as she had been responsible for most of the home duties; the household subsequently suffered from a lack of hygiene and regular meals.
| 2.75
| 0
|
1489172
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle%20Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Eberhardt
|
Move to North Africa
Sometime prior to 1894, Eberhardt began corresponding with Eugène Letord, a French officer stationed in the Sahara who had placed a newspaper advertisement for a pen pal. Eberhardt asked him for every detail he could give her about life in the Sahara, also informing him of her dreams of escaping Geneva alongside her favourite sibling, Augustin. Letord encouraged the two of them to relocate to Bône, Algeria, where he could assist them in establishing a new life. In a series of circumstances that remain unclear though involving financial debts and ties to Russian revolutionist groups with which he was affiliated, Augustin fled Geneva in 1894. Eberhardt probably assisted him initially but was unable to keep track of his whereabouts despite making constant inquiries. In November 1894 Eberhardt was informed by a letter that Augustin had joined the French Foreign Legion and was assigned to Algeria. Though she was at first furious with Augustin's decision, Eberhardt's anger did not last; she asked him to send her a detailed diary of what he saw in North Africa.
In 1895, Eberhardt published short stories in the journal La Nouvelle Revue Moderne under the pseudonym of Nicolas Podolinsky; "Infernalia" (her first published work) is about a medical student's physical attraction to a dead woman. Later that year she published (), a story about North African religious life. Eberhardt had "remarkable insight and knowledge" of North Africa for someone acquainted with the region only through correspondence, and her writing had a strong anti-colonial theme. Louis David, an Algerian-French photographer touring Switzerland who was intrigued by her work, met with her. After hearing of her desire to move to Algiers, he offered to help her establish herself in Bône if she relocated there. In 1895, he took a photograph of Eberhardt wearing a sailor's uniform, which would become widely associated with her in later years.
| 2.75
| 0
|
1489172
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle%20Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Eberhardt
|
Travels to Europe
Eberhardt spent her money recklessly in Algiers, and quickly exhausted the funds left to her by her mother; she would often spend several days at a time in kief dens. Augustin, ejected from the Foreign Legion due to his health, returned to Geneva alongside Eberhardt in early 1899. They found Trophimowsky in poor health, suffering from throat cancer and traumatised by the loss of Eberhardt's mother and Vladimir, who had committed suicide the previous year. Eberhardt nursed her father, growing closer to him. She also commenced a relationship and became engaged to Riza Bey, an Armenian diplomat with whom she had been friends and possibly lovers when she was seventeen. Though Trophimowsky approved of the engagement, the relationship soon ended. Historian Lesley Blanch attributes the relationship's downfall to Bey being assigned to Stockholm. Trophimowsky died in May. Blanch attributes the death to a chloral overdose, with which Eberhardt may have intentionally euthanised him. Eberhardt intended to sell the villa, although Trophimowsky's legitimate wife opposed the execution of the will. After several weeks of legal contentions, Eberhardt mortgaged the property and returned to Africa on the first available ship. With both parents dead, she considered herself free of human attachments and able to live as a vagabond. Eberhardt relinquished her mother's name, and called herself Si Mahmoud Saadi. She began wearing male clothing exclusively and developed a masculine personality, speaking and writing as a man. Eberhardt behaved like an Arab man, challenging gender and racial norms. Asked why she dressed as an Arab man, she invariably replied: "It is impossible for me to do otherwise." A few months later, Eberhardt's money ran low, and she returned to Geneva to sell the villa; due to the legal troubles there was little to no money available.
| 1.992188
| 0
|
1489172
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle%20Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Eberhardt
|
Eberhardt made friends in the area and met Slimane Ehnni, a non-commissioned officer in the spahis. They fell in love, and eventually lived together openly. This alienated Eberhardt from the French authorities, who were already outraged by her lifestyle. During her travels she made contact with the Qadiriyya, a Sufi order. The order was led by Hussein benBrahim, who was so impressed with Eberhardt's knowledge of (and passion for) Islam that he initiated her into his zawiya without the usual formal examination. This convinced the French authorities that she was a spy or an agitator, and they placed her on a widely circulated blacklist. The French transferred Ehnni to the spahi regiment at Batna, possibly to punish Eberhardt (whom they could not harm directly). Too poor to accompany him to Batna, Eberhardt traveled to a Qadiriyya meeting in Behima in late January 1901 where she hoped to ask SiLachmi, a marabout, for financial assistance. While waiting for the meeting to begin she was attacked by a man with a sabre, receiving a superficial wound to her head and a deep cut to her left arm. Her attacker, Abdallah ben Mohammed, was overpowered by others and arrested. When asked why he had tried to kill Eberhardt he only repeated "God wished it; God still wishes it." Eberhardt suspected that he was an assassin hired by the French authorities. Others attribute the attack to SiLachmi; Eberhardt was his mistress, whom he had grown tired of, and it is speculated he was simultaneously trying to get rid of her and pin the blame for the attack on a rival tribe. She was brought to the military hospital at ElOued the following day. After Eberhardt recovered in late February, she joined Ehnni with funds from members of the Qadiriyya who regarded her survival as a miracle.
| 1.90625
| 0
|
1489172
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle%20Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Eberhardt
|
Later life and death
After a short time living with Ehnni's family, the couple relocated to Algiers. Eberhardt became disappointed with Ehnni, whose only ambition after leaving the army appeared to be finding an unskilled job that would allow him to live relatively comfortably. She increased her own efforts as a writer, and several of her short stories were printed in the local press. She accepted a job offer from Al-Akhbar () newspaper publisher Victor Barrucand in March 1902. Eberhardt became a regular contributor to the newspaper; Trimardeur began appearing as a serial in August 1903. Barrucand and Eberhardt formed a friendship, though Barrucand was frequently frustrated with his new employee's work ethic. Eberhardt's articles arrived irregularly, as she would only write when she felt like doing so. Her job paid poorly, but had many benefits. Through Barrucand's contacts, Eberhardt was able to access the famous zawiya of Lalla Zaynab. Eberhardt spoke highly of her time with Zaynab, though never disclosed what the two discussed; their meeting caused concern among the French authorities.
Eberhardt and Ehnni relocated to Ténès in July 1902 after Ehnni obtained employment there as a translator. Eberhardt was incorrigibly bad with her money, spending anything she received immediately on tobacco, books, and gifts for friends, and pawning her meagre possessions or asking for loans when she realised there was no money left for food. This behaviour made her even more of a pariah among the other European residents of the town. Eberhardt would frequently leave for weeks at a time, being either summoned to Algiers by Barrucand or sent on assignments. She was given a regular column in his newspaper, where she wrote about the life and customs of Bedouin tribes. Both Ehnni and Eberhardt's health deteriorated, with Eberhardt regularly suffering from bouts of malaria. She was also probably affected by syphilis.
| 2.28125
| 0
|
1489172
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle%20Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Eberhardt
|
At the marabout's zawiya, Eberhardt was weakened by fever. She returned to Aïn Séfra, and was treated at the military hospital. She left the hospital against medical advice and asked Ehnni, from whom she had been separated for several months, to join her. Reunited on 20October 1904, they rented a small mud house. The following day, a flash flood struck the area. As soon as the waters subsided, Lyautey launched a search for her. Ehnni was discovered almost immediately, saying that Eberhardt had been swept away by the water. Based on this information, Lyautey and his men searched the surrounding area for several days before deciding to explore the ruins of the house where the couple had stayed. Her body was crushed under one of the house's supporting beams. The exact circumstances of her death were never discovered. While suspicions regarding Ehnni have been raised by later biographers, Eberhardt had always believed she would die young and may instead have accepted her fate. Mackworth speculated that after initially trying to run from the floodwaters, Eberhardt instead turned back to face them. Blanch argued that due to Eberhardt's history of suicidal tendencies, she probably would have still chosen to stay in the area even if she had known the flood was coming. Lyautey buried Eberhardt in Aïn Sefra and had a marble tombstone, engraved with her adopted name in Arabic and her birth name in French, placed on her grave.
| 2.078125
| 0
|
1489172
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle%20Eberhardt
|
Isabelle Eberhardt
|
Legacy
At the time of her death, Eberhardt's possessions included several of her unpublished manuscripts. Lyautey instructed his soldiers to search for all of her papers in the aftermath of the flood, and posted those that could be found to Barrucand. After reconstructing them, substituting his own words where the originals were missing or too damaged to decipher, he began to publish her work. Some of what he published is considered to be more his work than Eberhardt's. Barrucand also received criticism for listing himself as the co-author of some of the publications, and for not clarifying which portions of text were his own. The first posthumous story, "Dans l'Ombre Chaude de l'Islam" (In the Warm Shadow of Islam) received critical acclaim when it was published in 1906. The book's success drew great attention to Eberhardt's writing and established her as among the best writers of literature inspired by Africa. A street was named after Eberhardt in Béchar and another in Algiers. The street in Algiers is in the outskirts; one writer at the time commented there was a sad symbolism in the fact the street "begins in an inhabited quarter and peters out into a wasteland". She was posthumously seen as an advocate of feminism and decolonisation; according to Hedi Abdel-Jaouad in Yale French Studies, her work may have begun the decolonisation of North Africa. Eberhardt's relationship with Lyautey has triggered discussion by modern historians about her complicity in colonialism.
In 1954, author and explorer Cecily Mackworth published the biography The Destiny of Isabelle Eberhardt after following Eberhardt's routes in Algeria and the Sahara. The book inspired Paul Bowles to translate some of Eberhardt's writings into English. Novelist William Bayer published Visions of Isabelle, a fictionalised 1976 account of her life. In 1981, Timberlake Wertenbaker premiered New Anatomies, a play about Eberhardt.
| 2.46875
| 0
|
1489201
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loughborough%20Echo
|
Loughborough Echo
|
The Loughborough Echo is a paid-for weekly local newspaper owned by Reach plc.
History
Founded by Joseph Deakin in 1891, the Echo has had four editors in its history. It is based in the town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, and circulates in the town and the surrounding area. There is also a special edition, the Shepshed Echo, serving the nearby town of Shepshed. Their combined circulation from 3 July 2006 to 31 December 2006 was 21,936. For the period 29 December 2008 to 28 June 2008 the circulation figures had fallen by 15% and according to the ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations UK) stood at an average of 18,628. This in turn fell again to 17,595 for the period 5 July 2010 - 2 January 2011.
The Loughborough Echo started life as a freesheet of four broadsheet pages and became a paid-for 18 years later, with a cover price of a halfpenny. In 1919, a man who was to play a major part in the Echo's success story, Charles Harriss, joined the paper as a reporter on being demobbed from the Army. In 1929, after the death of Joseph Deakin, he took over as editor, with Joseph's son, Arthur, as managing director. Over the years the circulation rose steadily. In 1977, Charles Harriss retired and John Rippin, who had joined the paper in 1955 as a trainee reporter, became the third editor. Within a few weeks, news replaced most of the adverts on the front page, and nearly seven years later the switch was made to tabloid. John Rippin retired in 2004 and was succeeded by Andy Rush, who remains in the editor's chair. Over the years the Echo has won a number of newspaper industry awards, and in 1997 was voted the best paid-for weekly in the whole of the Midlands and East Anglia.
Availability
The Loughborough Echo can be purchased from most newsagents and supermarkets in the Loughborough and Charnwood area.
| 1.929688
| 0
|
1489218
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porcelain%20crab
|
Porcelain crab
|
Porcelain crabs are decapod crustaceans in the widespread family Porcellanidae, which superficially resemble true crabs. They have flattened bodies as an adaptation for living in rock crevices. They are delicate, readily losing limbs when attacked, and use their large claws for maintaining territories. They first appeared in the Tithonian age of the Late Jurassic epoch, 145–152 million years ago.
Description
Porcelain crabs are small, usually with body widths less than . They share the general body plan of a squat lobster, but their bodies are more compact and flattened, an adaptation for living and hiding under rocks. Porcelain crabs are quite fragile animals, and often shed their limbs to escape predators, hence their name. The lost appendage can grow back over several moults. Porcelain crabs have large chelae (claws), which are used for territorial struggles, but not for catching food. The fifth pair of pereiopods is reduced and used for cleaning.
Evolution
Porcelain crabs are an example of carcinisation, whereby a noncrab-like animal (in this case a relative of a squat lobster) evolves into an animal that resembles a true crab. Porcelain crabs can be distinguished from true crabs by the apparent number of walking legs (three instead of four pairs; the fourth pair is reduced and held against the carapace), and the long antennae originating on the front outside of the eyestalks. The abdomen of the porcelain crab is long and folded underneath it, free to move.
Biogeography and ecology
Porcelain crabs live in all the world's oceans, except the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic. They are common under rocks, and can often be found and observed on rocky beaches and shorelines, startled creatures scurrying away when a stone is lifted. They feed by combing plankton and other organic particles from the water using long setae (feathery hair- or bristle-like structures) on the mouthparts.
| 3.25
| 0
|
1489230
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariq%20B%C3%B6ke
|
Ariq Böke
|
When Ögedei Khan died, a power struggle erupted, with leadership then passing to Ögedei's son Güyük in 1246, though Güyük died only two years later, in 1248. After another struggle, the sons of Tolui, Ögedei's brother, took power. The first of Tolui's sons to be Great Khan was Möngke, who proceeded with Kublai to conquer Southern China and the Southern Song dynasty. Their brother Hulagu led the Mongol advance westward, conquering Baghdad and proceeding into Syria and towards Palestine. During this time, all affairs of the Heartland were left under the control of their brother Ariq Böke.
When Möngke died in 1259, Ariq Böke was elected Khan in the absence of his brothers, and had the support of most of the ministers and powerful families in the capital of Karakorum, such as Möngke's family, and other princes of the Golden Horde family along with other forces in the capital of Karakorum including Torguud royal bodyguards and White Horde elites, as well as the Oirats, who were allied with him as one of the Oirat leaders was married to his daughter. However, when Kublai and Hulagu received news of Möngke's death, they aborted their own battles in order to return to the capital to decide the matter of succession. In May 1260, Kublai was elected khan by his own supporters, to rival the claim of Ariq Böke. A civil war subsequently broke out between the brothers for the leadership of the Empire. For example, when the Chagatai Khanate needed a new leader, Kublai attempted to send Abishqa, who was loyal to him. But Ariq Böke had Abishqa captured and eventually killed, and instead installed his own ally Alghu. Ariq Böke ordered Alghu to defend the area from both the forces of Hulagu, and the possible presence of Berke of the Golden Horde. But Alghu deserted Ariq Böke, killing his envoys for treasure, while Kaidu remained loyal to Ariq Böke. Alghu and Ariq Böke were soon in direct conflict, with Alghu winning the first engagement, but then at the second, Ariq Böke was victorious, and forced Alghu to flee westward.
| 2.265625
| 0
|
1489230
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariq%20B%C3%B6ke
|
Ariq Böke
|
Surrender
Eventually, as the war continued between Ariq Böke and his brother Kublai, the former's forces weakened. Kublai had powerful Mongol cavalry troops, Mongolian, Manchurian, Han, Kipchak and numerous Chinese and Goryeo infantry units. Kublai's supporter Kadan, a son of Ögedei, crushed Ariq Böke's force under General Alandar, and Ariq Böke twice lost control of the capital of Karakorum. Kublai also blockaded all trade to Mongolia from North China, in order to cut the food supply. Ariq Böke finally submitted to Kublai in 1264. He was imprisoned by Kublai and died mysteriously a few years after his surrender, leading to rumors that he had been secretly poisoned.
Legacy
According to scholar David Morgan, "Ariq Böke can be seen as representing an influential school of thought among the Mongols, which Kublai through his actions and attitudes after 1260 opposed. Some Mongols felt there was a dangerous drift towards softness, typified in those like Kublai who thought there was something to be said for settled civilization and for the Chinese way of life. In the traditionalist view, the Mongol center ought to remain in Mongolia, and the Mongols' nomadic life be preserved uncontaminated. China ought merely to be exploited. Ariq Böke came to be regarded as this faction's figurehead." This legacy was continued by Kaidu (Khaidu). Although Ariq Böke lost power, some of his descendants later became important figures in the Ilkhanate and the Northern Yuan dynasty, and the lineage of both Ilkhan Arpa Ke'un and Yesüder can be traced back to Ariq Böke.
Family
Ariq Böke had at least five wives and concubines and nine children.
| 2.375
| 0
|
1489244
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermanshah
|
Kermanshah
|
Kermanshah (Kurdish: کرماشان) (; ) is a city in the Central District of Kermanshah province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district.
The city is from Tehran in the western part of the country.
The 2016 National Census measured the population of the city as 946,651 (2021 estimate 1,047,000).
Etymology
"Kermanshah" derives from the Sasanian-era title Kirmanshah, which translates as "King of Kerman".
Famously, this title was held by the son of Shapur III, Prince Bahram, who was bestowed with the title upon being appointed governor of the province of Kirman (present-day Kerman Province).
Later, in 390, when he had already succeeded his father as Bahram IV Kirmanshah (388–399), he founded the city and his title was applied to it, i.e. "(City of the) King of Kirman".
History
Prehistory
Because of its antiquity, attractive landscapes, rich culture and Neolithic villages, Kermanshah is considered one of the cradles of prehistoric cultures. According to archaeological surveys and excavation, the Kermanshah area has been occupied by prehistoric people since the Lower Paleolithic period, and continued to later Paleolithic periods until late Pleistocene period. The Lower Paleolithic evidence consists of some hand axes found in the Gakia area to the east of the city. The Middle Paleolithic remains have been found in various parts of the province, especially in the northern vicinity of the city in Tang-e Kenesht, Tang-e Malaverd and near Taq-e Bostan.
Neanderthal Man existed in the Kermanshah region during this period and the only discovered skeletal remains of this early human in Iran was found in three caves and rock shelter situated in Kermanshah province. The known Paleolithic caves in this area are Warwasi, Qobeh, Malaverd and Do-Ashkaft Cave. The region was also one of the first places in which human settlements including Asiab, Qazanchi, Sarab, Chia Jani, and Ganj-Darreh were established between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago.
| 2.34375
| 0
|
1489244
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermanshah
|
Kermanshah
|
The carvings, some of the finest and best-preserved examples of Persian sculpture under the Sassanids, include representations of the investitures of Ardashir II (379–383) and Shapur III (383–388). Like other Sassanid symbols, Taghbostan and its relief patterns accentuate power, religious tendencies, glory, honor, the vastness of the court, game and fighting spirit, festivity, joy, and rejoicing.
Sassanid kings chose a beautiful setting for their rock reliefs along an historic Silk Road caravan route waypoint and campground. The reliefs are adjacent a sacred spring that empties into a large reflecting pool at the base of a mountain cliff.
Taghbostan and its rock relief are one of the 30 surviving Sassanid relics of the Zagros Mountains. According to Arthur Pope, the founder of Iranian art and archeology Institute in the US, "art was characteristic of the Iranian people and the gift which they endowed the world with."
One of the most impressive reliefs inside the largest grotto or ivan is the gigantic equestrian figure of the Sassanid king Khosrow II (591-628 AD) mounted on his favorite charger, Shabdiz. Both horse and rider are arrayed in full battle armor. The arch rests on two columns that bear delicately carved patterns showing the tree of life or the sacred tree. Above the arch and located on two opposite sides are figures of two winged angels with diadems. A noticeable border with flower patterns has been intricately carved around the outer layer of the arch. These same patterns can be seen on the official costumes of Sassanid kings.
Equestrian relief panel measured on 16.08.07 approx. 7.45 m across by 4.25 m high.
Behistun
The Behistun inscription is considered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Behistun Inscription (also Bisitun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون; Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the god's place or land") is a multi-lingual inscription located on Mount Behistun.
| 2.3125
| 0
|
1489276
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendon%20Brewery
|
Hendon Brewery
|
Hendon Brewery (originally Kingsbury and Hyde Brewery and not to be confused with the Darwin Brewery in Hendon, Sunderland) was started by James Robb for Mr William Field of Kingsbury House in Hendon, and seems originally to have been a domestic brewery for the house with Robb conducting a little business on the side by 1851.
With the growth of the Welsh Harp as a place of entertainment, Robb expanded the business by engaging engineers to build a new brewery in The Hyde by 1855. Having dug a new well, the water, which was raised by two horses, was itself sold as a valuable source of revenue. The trade was slow, and Robb was only managing to sell one barrel a week in low season. With the fluctuations in demand Robb was unable to meet the repayments of his debt from the expansion, and had to sell the brewery (c1861).
The next owner was Arthur Ocran Crooke, who reputedly purchased it for £140. Crooke was only in his early 20s but had come from a commercial brewing family, GW and FA Crooke of Guildford, and was able to manage the changes in supply and demand. With the construction of the railway a few years later he was able to supply the beer directly to Waring Bros and the hundreds of navvies engaged on the building of the line. From the money he made from this Mr Crooke bought up a number of inns in Hendon and Finchley, including the Surrey Arms (which he rebuilt). In 1872 a steam engine was introduced to speed up the process, and in 1874 he expanded.
| 1.960938
| 0
|
1489315
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homodyne%20detection
|
Homodyne detection
|
In electrical engineering, homodyne detection is a method of extracting information encoded as modulation of the phase and/or frequency of an oscillating signal, by comparing that signal with a standard oscillation that would be identical to the signal if it carried null information. "Homodyne" signifies a single frequency, in contrast to the dual frequencies employed in heterodyne detection.
When applied to processing of the reflected signal in remote sensing for topography, homodyne detection lacks the ability of heterodyne detection to determine the size of a static discontinuity in elevation between two locations. (If there is a path between the two locations with smoothly changing elevation, then homodyne detection may in principle be able to track the signal phase along the path if sampling is dense enough). Homodyne detection is more readily applicable to velocity sensing.
In optics
In optical interferometry, homodyne signifies that the reference radiation (i.e. the local oscillator) is derived from the same source as the signal before the modulating process. For example, in a laser scattering measurement, the laser beam is split into two parts. One is the local oscillator and the other is sent to the system to be probed. The scattered light is then mixed with the local oscillator on the detector. This arrangement has the advantage of being insensitive to fluctuations in the frequency of the laser. Usually the scattered beam will be weak, in which case the (nearly) steady component of the detector output is a good measure of the instantaneous local oscillator intensity and therefore can be used to compensate for any fluctuations in the intensity of the laser..
The generated current signal from the photodetector is often too weak to measure. It is therefore converted into a voltage using a transimpedance amplifier.
| 2.59375
| 0
|
1489317
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSNL
|
BSNL
|
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (abbreviated as BSNL) () is an Indian central public sector undertaking, under the ownership of Department of Telecommunications, which is part of the Ministry of Communications, Government of India with its headquarters in New Delhi, India. The central public sector undertaking was established on 1 October 2000 by the Government of India. Its highest official is designated as Chairperson and Managing Director, who is a central civil service group 'A' gazetted officer from Indian Communication Finance Service cadre or central engineering service group 'A' gazetted officer from Indian Telecommunication Service cadre. It provides mobile voice and internet services through its nationwide telecommunications network across India. It is the largest government-owned-wireless telecommunications service provider in India.
History
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is an Indian government enterprise and its history can be traced back to British India. The foundation of the telecommunications network in India was laid by the British sometime during the 19th century. During the British era, the first telegraph line was established between Kolkata and Diamond Harbour in 1850. The British East India Company started using the telegraph in 1851 and until 1854 telegraph lines were laid across the country. In 1854, the telegraph service was opened to the public and the first telegram was sent from Mumbai to Pune. In 1885, the Indian Telegraph Act was passed by the British Imperial Legislative Council. After the bifurcation of the Post and Telegraph department in the 1980s, the creation of Department of Telecom eventually led to the emergence of the government owned telegraph and telephone enterprise which led to the foundation of BSNL. Until early 2000s, BSNL is the only service provider for Indian Railways to control and administrative communication circuits later, they are separated as Railtel.
| 2.21875
| 0
|
1489317
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSNL
|
BSNL
|
For 160 years, BSNL had operated the public telegram service. In 2010, the telex network between its 182 offices was replaced with the "Web-Based Telegram Messaging System" which relied on internet connections rather than telex lines (which are more reliable where power outages are more common). This led to a decline in service, and the company applied the title "diminished service" to telegrams in 2010. Finally, on 15 July 2013, the public telegram service was shut down completely.
Products and services
Telephone and Mobile
BSNL provides both fixed line telephones and mobile telephony services on the GSM platform.
BSNL Mobile
BSNL Mobile is a major provider of GSM network services under the brand names CellOne and BSNL all over India. It has wide network coverage in both urban and rural areas of India. It has over 121.82 million customers across India.
BSNL Mobile offers prepaid, postpaid services and value-added services such as Free Phone Service (FPS), India Telephone Card (Prepaid card), Account Card Calling (ACC), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Tele-voting, Premium Rate Service (PRM). It also offers the IPTV which enables customers to watch television through the Internet and Voice and Video Over Internet Protocol (VVoIP).
BSNL Landline
BSNL Landline was launched in the early 1990s. It was the only fixed-line telephone service for the whole country before the New Telecom Policy was announced by the Department of Telecom in 1999. Only the Government-owned BSNL and MTNL were allowed to provide land-line phone services through copper wire in the country. BSNL Landline is the largest fixed-line telephony in India. It has over 9.55 million customers and 47.20% market share in the country as of 28 February 2021.
Internet
BSNL is the fourth-largest ISP in India, having a presence throughout the country. It also has the largest Firebase telecom network in the country, around 7.5 lakh kilometers, among the four operators in the country.
BSNL Broadband
| 2.3125
| 0
|
1489317
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSNL
|
BSNL
|
Horizontally, BSNL is divided into several administrative units, variously known as telecom circles, metro districts, project circles and specialized units. It has 24 telecom circles, two metro districts, six project circles, four maintenance regions, five telecom factories, three training institutions and four specialized telecom units. Each circle is headed by a Chief General Manager (CGM) who is an officer of Indian Telecom Service (ITS).
The organizational structure of BSNL is as follows: Chief General Manager being the head of the Circle who is the officer of HAG+ level, assisted by three or four Principal General Manager (PGM) who are the officer of grade HAG. The districts over a circle is being headed by the designations as General Manager officer of grade of SAG who looks over around two to four districts, while where the connections are less and the smaller district is being headed by Telecom District Manager (TDM) Officer of the grade of JAG and Telecom Divisional Engineer (TDE) officer of STS grade, all the officers above the post of TDE (including TDE) are of Group A, and they are the officers of grade of Indian Telecom Service (ITS) directly or promotive. Then the Group B consists of Additional Divisional Engineer, Sub Divisional Engineer and Junior Telecom officer and then the organization has Group C and D employees.
Merger and acquisitions
On 24 October 2019, the Government of India announced a revival package for BSNL and MTNL which includes monetizing assets, raising funds, TD-LTE spectrum, and a voluntary retirement scheme for employees. Apart from the package, the Ministry of Communications has decided to merge MTNL with BSNL. Pending this, MTNL will be a wholly owned subsidiary of BSNL.
On 24 October 2019, the Government of India announced a revival package for BSNL and has given its agreement to an in-principle merger (operational merger, i.e., only the operations of MTNL and BSNL would be merged, and they would be managed by BSNL) for MTNL and BSNL
| 2
| 0
|
1489319
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal%20Palace%2C%20Oslo
|
Royal Palace, Oslo
|
Permanent royal residence
The Bernadotte dynasty abdicated their Norwegian throne in 1905 and were succeeded by Prince Carl of Denmark, who took the name of Haakon VII when he accepted his election as king of a completely independent Norway. Haakon became the first monarch to use the palace permanently and the palace was therefore refurbished for two years before he, Queen Maud and Crown Prince Olav could move in. King Haakon would be the first monarch to greet the children's parade on the palace balcony during the Norwegian Constitution Day celebration in Oslo. It was also King Haakon VII who in 1905 introduced the tradition of weekly meetings with the Council of State, a tradition which is still practiced with the meetings always being held in the palace's Council Chamber where the monarch's throne is located.
Modernization and public access
During the reign and residence of King Olav V from 1957 to 1991, there was little funds for renovation, something the poorly built original structure direly needed. King Olav would therefore mostly reside at Skaugum and the Bygdøy Royal Estate, but relocated to the palace in 1968 when he gave the Skaugum estate as a wedding gift to his son Crown Prince Harald and his bride Crown Princess Sonja. Shortly after his ascension, King Harald V started a comprehensive renovation project of the palace. The renovations and improvements, all made by Statsbygg, included new fire alarm systems, the construction of new bathrooms, kitchens, offices and a general restructuring of the palace. The King was criticized because of the amount of money needed to bring the palace up to a satisfactory state even if much of this went to rectify construction deficits from a century and a half ago. With the renovations completed, the King and Queen relocated from Skaugum to the palace in 2001 as the Skaugum estate was to become the new home of Crown Prince Haakon and his family.
| 2.265625
| 0
|
1489341
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern%20Thailand
|
Eastern Thailand
|
Eastern Thailand is a region of Thailand bordering Cambodia on the east, Northeastern Thailand in the north, and central Thailand on the west.
Geography
Eastern Thailand lies between the Sankamphaeng Range, which forms a natural border with the Khorat Plateau to the north and the Gulf of Thailand to the south. The geography of the region is characterised by short mountain ranges (collectively grouped under the Chanthaburi Range) alternating with small basins of short rivers which drain into the Gulf of Thailand. Between the Chanthaburi and Sankamphaeng mountains lies the basin of the Bang Pakong River system.
Fruit is a major component of agriculture in the area, and tourism plays a strong part in the economy. The region's coastal location has helped promote eastern seaboard industrial development, a major factor in the economy of the region.
Islands off Eastern Thailand's coast include Ko Sichang, Ko Lan, Ko Samet, and Ko Chang.
National parks
Within the eastern region there are some eight national parks. Pang Sida National Park covering 844 km2 in Sa Kaeo province, it constitutes a part of the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex UNESCO World Heritage Site, covering in total around 6,100 km2. The total forest parent area is or 22.4 percent of this eastern region area (incl. Nakhon Nayok province). Mu Ko Chang National Park in Trat province includes 85 per cent of Thailands second largest island Ko Chang. The beaches on the western coast of Ko Chang have been excluded from the national park for reason of facilitating the tourism industry. Mu Ko Samet National Park in Rayong province is just 6 km long by 3 km wide with beaches covered with some of the finest white sand in the country.
Administrative divisions
According to the six geographical regions established by the National Research Council of Thailand, the eastern region includes seven provinces.
| 2.796875
| 0
|
1489377
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair%20catch%20kick
|
Fair catch kick
|
The fair catch kick is a rule at the professional and high school levels of American football that allows a team that has just made a fair catch to attempt a free kick from the spot of the catch. The kick must be either a place kick or a drop kick, and if it passes over the crossbar and between the goalposts of the opposing team's goal, a field goal, worth three points, is awarded to the kicking team. The fair catch kick has its origins in rugby football's goal from mark, which has since been abolished in both major rugby codes; a similar rule, the mark, is a major part of Australian rules football.
The fair catch kick is considered to be an obscure rule and it is rarely attempted. Because most fair catches are made well out of field goal range, and a team making a fair catch has possession of the ball and a first down, it is rarely to a team's advantage to attempt a fair catch kick rather than run a play from scrimmage. A team may attempt a fair catch kick if it makes a fair catch when the clock expires at the end of either half, as a half must be extended in order to allow a fair catch kick attempt. At the professional level, the most recent successful fair catch kick was made on December 19, 2024, by Cameron Dicker of the Los Angeles Chargers against the Denver Broncos; prior to that, the last successful attempt had occurred in 1976.
| 2.390625
| 0
|
1489377
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair%20catch%20kick
|
Fair catch kick
|
History
The fair catch kick found in American football originated in rugby football. A similar rule in rugby, the goal from mark, allowed a player who had fair caught a ball to attempt an uncontested free kick from the spot of the fair catch. Both major codes of rugby have eliminated the rule: rugby league abolished the goal from mark in 1922, and rugby union removed it in 1977. Australian rules football has retained the rule, and it is a vital part of the Australian game; a "fair catch" of a ball kicked more than 15 meters in the air is called a mark, and the player making the mark is then awarded a free kick. The fair catch kick has been present in the NFL rulebook since the league's inception, and also remains in the NFHS rulebook. The fair catch kick is not legal in National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) football; the NCAA abolished the fair catch in 1950, but re-added it a year later. When the fair catch returned to the rulebook, however, the option to attempt a kick after the fair catch was removed.
Usage
The fair catch kick rule is very rarely invoked, and it is one of the rarest plays in football. The rule has been regarded as "obscure", "bizarre", and "quirky". A unique set of circumstances is required for a fair catch kick to be a viable option. For one, the fair catch would need to be made at a point on the field where a field goal attempt has a reasonable chance of being successful; most fair catches are made well outside of field goal range.
| 2.40625
| 0
|
1489377
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair%20catch%20kick
|
Fair catch kick
|
Furthermore, for a fair catch kick to be a viable option near the end of the fourth quarter, the team attempting the kick needs to be either tied or behind by three points or fewer; even if such a situation were to occur, a coach might still decline to attempt a fair catch kick. For example, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, known for his knowledge and utilization of obscure football rules, declined the opportunity to attempt a 75-yard fair catch kick at the end of regulation in Super Bowl LI. Although kicker Stephen Gostkowski was able to kick the ball that far and the game was tied, Belichick felt the risk of a return touchdown by the opposing team off a failed kick outweighed the opportunity to score from the kick. Art McNally, who led the officiating department of the National Football League from 1968 to 1990, said that even in the event a fair catch is made within field goal range, most teams would attempt to score a touchdown unless there is not enough time left to score one. Accordingly, most fair catch kick attempts occur when a team has fair-caught a ball from a punt from deep in their opponent's territory but there is not enough time left in the half to go for a touchdown.
| 2.203125
| 0
|
1489377
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair%20catch%20kick
|
Fair catch kick
|
Despite its drawbacks, there are several unique advantages to using the fair catch kick. Because the play does not start until the ball is kicked, the kicker can take a running start before kicking as opposed to the typical two steps taken on regular field goal attempts. Similarly, the kicker does not have to worry about a low snap because the ball is not snapped. Because the defense cannot come within 10 yards of the kicker before the ball is kicked, the kicker can give the ball a lower trajectory than a field goal kick from scrimmage without the threat of it being blocked. The fair catch kick would also be of a shorter distance than a normal field goal attempt from the same spot, because the fair catch kick is taken from the spot of the catch, while a typical field goal is taken seven yards behind the line of scrimmage.
Known attempts in the NFL
The NFL does not keep a record of fair catch kick attempts, so the exact number of attempts is unknown. Out of the 33 recorded fair catch kick attempts in regular season and postseason games, ten were successful; all five known attempts in exhibition games were unsuccessful. Since 1933, all known fair catch kick attempts were made within the last 30 seconds of either the 2nd or 4th quarter. The last attempt was made on December 19, 2024, by Cameron Dicker of the Los Angeles Chargers. At 57 yards, it is the longest successful kick to date.
Regular season and post-season games
Exhibition games
| 2.125
| 0
|
1489421
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl%20Ludwig%20Willdenow
|
Carl Ludwig Willdenow
|
Carl Ludwig Willdenow (22 August 1765 – 10 July 1812) was a German botanist, pharmacist, and plant taxonomist. He is considered one of the founders of phytogeography, the study of the geographic distribution of plants. Willdenow was also a mentor of Alexander von Humboldt, one of the earliest and best known phytogeographers. He also influenced Christian Konrad Sprengel, who pioneered the study of plant pollination and floral biology.
Biography
Willdenow was born in Berlin and studied medicine and botany at the University of Halle. After studying pharmaceutics at Wieglieb College, Langensalza and in medicine at Halle, he returned to Berlin to work at his father's pharmacy located in the Unter den Linden. His early interest in botany was kindled by his uncle J. G. Gleditsch and he started a herbarium collection in his teenage years. In 1794, he became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He was a director of the Botanical garden of Berlin from 1801 until his death. In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt helped to expand the garden. There he studied many South American plants, brought back by Humboldt. He was interested in the adaptation of plants to climate, showing that the same climate had plants having common characteristics. His herbarium, containing more than 20,000 species, is still preserved in the Botanical Garden in Berlin. Some of the specimens include those collected by Humboldt.
Humboldt notes that as a young man, he was unable to identify plants using Willdenow's Flora Berolinensis. He subsequently visited Willdenow without an appointment and found him to be a kindred soul only four years older and in three weeks he became an enthusiastic botanist.
| 2.296875
| 0
|
1489428
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British%20Heart%20Foundation
|
British Heart Foundation
|
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is a cardiovascular research charity in the United Kingdom. It funds medical research related to heart and circulatory diseases and their risk factors, and runs influencing work aimed at shaping public policy and raising awareness.
In 2021, a study conducted by YouGov ranked the British Heart Foundation as the top charity or organisation in the UK by per cent of adults who hold a positive opinion of the organisation.
Foundation
The British Heart Foundation was founded in 1961 by a group of medical professionals who were concerned about the increasing death rate from cardiovascular disease. They wanted to fund extra research into the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of heart and circulatory diseases.
Leadership
Dr Charmaine Griffiths has been the BHF's Chief Executive since February 2020, succeeding Simon Gillespie OBE.
Professor Bryan Williams OBE became the charity's first Chief Scientific and Medical Officer (CSMO) in December 2023, after Professor Sir Nilesh Samani stood down as Medical Director after more than 7 years in the role.
The BHF's Board of Trustees is made up of up to 14 Trustees, and is a mix of medically-qualified and lay members:
Mark Ashton-Rigby
David Boynton
Dr Sarah Clarke
Roisin Donnelly
Professor Sadaf Farooqi
Mark Fitzpatrick
Karen A. Frank
Timothy Howe KC
Dr Annalisa Jenkins
Professor David Lomas
Sharron Pamplin
Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed
Professor Brian Walker
Karen A. Frank is the Chair of the Board of Trustees.
King Charles III has been the BHF's Patron since May 2024, succeeding Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Activities
The British Heart Foundation's main focus is to fund cardiovascular research, aiming to spend around £100 million a year funding scientists around the UK. They are currently funding over 1000 research projects.
| 2.5625
| 0
|
1489428
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British%20Heart%20Foundation
|
British Heart Foundation
|
Centres of Research Excellence
Since 2008 the BHF has been investing in Centres of Research Excellence. The six current centres bring together scientists from a number of disciplines to work on research projects to beat heart and circulatory disease.
The current Centres of Research are:
University of Cambridge
University of Edinburgh
University of Glasgow
Imperial College London
King's College London
University of Oxford
University of Manchester
Centres of Regenerative Medicine
In 2013 the BHF committed to funding three multi-institution Centres of Regenerative Medicine, investing £7.5 million over four years to fund scientists looking for new treatments for heart failure.
BHF Clinical Research Collaborative
The British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Collaborative was launched in 2019, hosted by the British Cardiovascular Society. Designed to support the planning of high-quality national cardiovascular research, it brings together professional societies, research groups and patient and public involvement to better coordinate and prioritise research efforts. It also launched a fund to support the development of clinical research in cardiovascular disease, providing grants from £5,000-20,000, and all topic ideas will be considered.
| 2.28125
| 0
|
1489428
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British%20Heart%20Foundation
|
British Heart Foundation
|
Other patients and public activities include:
Information – BHF provides information to help the public reduce their own heart health risk. It also provides numerous resources for patients to better manage their conditions, including the Heart Matters magazine and online hubs on risk factors such as blood pressure and obesity.
Campaigning – BHF influences government to establish policies that minimise the risk of developing heart and circulatory disease, including the funding of reports and research
Support – offering advice to those with heart conditions via their website, information booklets or heart helpline.
Life saving skills – the BHF currently offers free CPR kits to schools and is working with the Department of Health to distribute defibrillators throughout England.
In 2020, The British Heart Foundation had a net income of just over £107m. In the same year, the BHF spent over £93m on funding cardiovascular research.
The Global Cardiovascular Research Funders Forum
The charity announced, in June 2021, that it had joined forces with leading cardiovascular research funders around the world to form the Global Cardiovascular Research Funders Forum (GCRFF). In addition to the British Heart Foundation, the Forum's members are:
The American Heart Association
(The Danish Heart Foundation}
(The Dutch Heart Foundation)
(The Swiss Heart Foundation)
(German Centre for Cardiovascular Research: DZHK)
The Leducq Foundation
The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research
The National Heart Foundation of Australia
The National Heart Foundation of New Zealand
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
| 2.234375
| 0
|
1489428
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British%20Heart%20Foundation
|
British Heart Foundation
|
The Big Beat Challenge
In 2019, The British Heart Foundation launched the Big Beat Challenge, a global competition with a single award of £30m for the research team who proposed a transformational solution to any cardiovascular disease. The Big Beat Challenge was open to applications from any country globally, and accepted proposals in any research area related to cardiovascular disease. Based on a panel of BHF research-funding committee members and an International Advisory panel, a shortlist was finalised in January 2020 to include a robotic heart, a 'Google map' of atherosclerosis, a project harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and wearables to create a cardiovascular digital twin of a patient, and a genetic cure for inherited heart conditions.
CureHeart, led by co-PIs Professor Hugh Christian Watkins and Professor Christine Seidman, which aims to find a cure for genetic cardiomyopathies, was announced as the winner of the Big Beat Challenge in July 2022.
Fundraising
BHF fundraising events accounted for nearly £54m of income in 2019-20.
The BHF won the bid to be named as the London Marathon charity partner for the 2022 raise, aiming to raise £3m through the partnership to invest in clinical research.
The annual London to Brighton Bike Ride is a flagship fundraising event, with over 16,000 cyclists and raising over £2.8m. The event was cancelled in 2020 and 2021, and was expected to return in 2022 with PureGym as the sponsor.
Retail Division
The BHF runs the largest network of charity shops in the UK, and generates income through online sales too. As of 2021, they run around 730 shops which include over 160 furniture and electrical shops selling up to 85,000 items daily. The BHF Retail division makes roughly £30 million every year.
| 2.171875
| 0
|
1489428
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British%20Heart%20Foundation
|
British Heart Foundation
|
Facts and figures
Since the BHF was established, the annual number of deaths from heart and circulatory diseases in the UK has fallen by around half.
Heart and circulatory diseases cause a quarter of all deaths in the UK, totally around 160,000 deaths.
Around 1.4 million people alive in the UK today have survived a heart attack.
Since 1961 the UK death rate from heart and circulatory diseases has declined by over three quarters.
Healthcare costs relating to heart and circulatory diseases are estimated at £9 billion each year.
Over 3,800 Heartstart UK schemes to educate people what to do in various emergency situations (not just cardiac emergencies). More than 3.5 million people have been trained by Heartstart UK in schools (for example via the Saving Londoners' Lives project) and the community.
Every year 1 in every 145 babies are born in the UK with a congenital heart defect.
Criticism
Animal research
In June 2011, the British Heart Foundation was one of several health charities, alongside Cancer Research UK, the Alzheimer's Society and Parkinson's UK, targeted by animal rights pressure group Animal Aid, in a series of newspaper advertisements urging the public not to donate to the organizations under the pretence of funding experiments on animals. The pressure group argued that 100 dogs had died since 1988 during the experiments.
The BHF has responded to these criticisms by saying the charity only funds animal research after grant applications have gone through an independent peer review process and follows the three Rs principles when considering such grants.
| 2.65625
| 0
|
1489460
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud%209%20%28play%29
|
Cloud 9 (play)
|
Cloud Nine (sometimes stylized as Cloud 9) is a 1979 British two-act play written by British playwright Caryl Churchill. It was workshopped with the Joint Stock Theatre Company in late 1978 and premiered at Dartington College of Arts, Devon, on 14 February 1979.
The two acts of the play form a contrapuntal structure. Act I is set in British colonial Africa in the Victorian era, and Act II is set in a London park in 1979. However, between the acts only twenty-five years pass for the characters. Each actor plays one role in Act I and a different role in Act II – the characters who appear in both acts are played by different actors in the first and second. Act I parodies the conventional comedy genre and satirizes Victorian society and colonialism. Act II shows what could happen when the restrictions of both the comic genre and Victorian ideology are loosened.
The play uses controversial portrayals of sexuality and obscene language, and establishes a parallel between colonial and sexual oppression. Its humour depends on incongruity and the carnivalesque, and helps to convey Churchill's political message about accepting people who are different and not dominating them or forcing them into particular social roles.
Cloud Nine is one of Churchill's most renowned works. The play was featured in The Royal National Theatre's NT2000 poll of the 100 most significant plays of the 20th century and was also selected for Time Out New Yorks list of the "best plays of all time". The New York production opened at Lucille Lortel's Theatre de Lys on 18 May 1981 and finished on 4 September 1983, and was directed by Tommy Tune with an original incidental music score by Maury Yeston.
| 2.234375
| 0
|
1489460
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud%209%20%28play%29
|
Cloud 9 (play)
|
Interpretations and observations
Act I
Act I of Cloud 9'' invites the audience to engage with Britain's colonial past, but does so by challenging "the preconceived notions held by the audience in terms of gender and sexuality". Churchill also subverts gender and racial stereotypes, using cross-gender and cross-racial casting: Betty is played by a man in Act I, but by a woman in Act II; Joshua is played by a white man; and Edward is played by a woman in Act I and by a man in Act II. Churchill deliberately uses this cross-gender, -racial and -age casting to unsettle the audience's expectations. In the introduction to the play, Churchill explains why Betty is played by a man in the first act: "She wants to be what men want her to be ... Betty does not value herself as a woman." Michael Patterson confirms this, writing that "Betty is played by a man in order to show how femininity is an artificial and imposed construct". James Harding suggests that by cross-casting Betty and Edward in Act I, Churchill is also playing it safe: It makes same-sex relationships visibly heterosexual and normative.
The black servant, Joshua, is played by a white man for similar reasons. He says, "My skin is black, but oh my soul is white. I hate my tribe. My master is my light"; Amelia Howe Kritzer argues that "the reversal exposes the rupture in Joshua's identity caused by his internalization of colonial values". Joshua does not identify with his "own" people; in act I, scene 3, Mrs. Saunders asks if he doesn't mind beating his own people and Joshua replies that they are not his people, and they are "bad". By the end of the act, of course, he realises the oppressive nature of colonialism after atrocities are committed by British troops (which result in the death of his parents); hence his decision to fire his rifle at Clive.
| 2.390625
| 0
|
1489460
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud%209%20%28play%29
|
Cloud 9 (play)
|
Act II
The second act is set in London 1979, but for the characters only twenty-five years have passed. Churchill explains her reason for this in the introduction: "The first act, like the society it shows, is male-dominated and firmly structured. In the second act, more energy comes from the women and the gays." In Act II, British colonial oppression remains present, this time in the armed presence in Northern Ireland. Michael Patterson writes that "the actors ... established a 'parallel between colonial and sexual oppression,' showing how the British occupation of Africa in the nineteenth century and its post-colonial presence in Northern Ireland relate to the patriarchal values of society" Churchill shows the audience different views of oppression, both colonial and sexual. She amplifies social constructs by linking the two periods, using an unnatural time gap. Amelia Howe Kritzer argues that "Churchill remained close to the Brechtian spirit of encouraging the audience to actively criticize institutions and ideologies they have previously taken for granted".
There is a great deal of difference between the two acts: Act II contains much more sexual freedom for women, whereas in Act I the men dictate the relationships. Act II "focuses on changes in the structure of power and authority, as they affect sex and relationships", from the male-dominated structure in the first act. Churchill writes that she "explored Genet's idea that colonial oppression and sexual oppression are similar." She essentially uses the play as a social arena to explore "the Victorian origins of contemporary gender definitions and sexual attitudes, recent changes ... and some implications of these changes."
| 2.46875
| 0
|
1489464
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action%20Medical%20Research
|
Action Medical Research
|
Action Medical Research, previously The National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases, is a major British medical research charity, founded in 1952, that funds research to prevent and treat disease and disability in babies and children.
Its aims include:
tackling premature birth and treating sick and vulnerable babies
helping children affected by disability, disabling conditions and infections
targeting rare diseases that affect children.
It does this by:
identifying and funding UK medical research most likely to benefit babies, children and young people
assessing the impact of the funded research and sharing the results
raising research funding
History
Founded in 1952 as the National Fund for Poliomyelitis Research by Duncan Guthrie, the charity's original aim was the eradication of polio. During the 1940s and 1950s, epidemics of paralytic poliomyelitis were frequent in the UK, and the charity helped to fund the first British polio vaccine. After the steep reduction in paralytic poliomyelitis resulting from the introduction of the vaccine, the charity's activities diversified. It became The National Fund for Research into Poliomyelitis and Other Crippling Diseases in 1960 and The National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases in 1967, becoming known informally as Action Research for the Crippled Child. It was renamed Action Research in 1990, and became Action Medical Research in 2003. The World Health Organization's 2002 declaration that Europe is free from polio coincided with the charity's fiftieth anniversary.
Guthrie, the founder, initially sought to raise funds to defeat polio, a condition that affected the lives of many thousands of children including his own daughter Janet. His mission was realised when within 10 years, the first UK polio vaccines were introduced. Since then the charity has supported many significant medical breakthroughs – breakthroughs that have helped save thousands of children’s lives and changed many more.
| 2.75
| 0
|
1489464
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action%20Medical%20Research
|
Action Medical Research
|
Projects and breakthroughs
A major focus has been on pregnancy and conditions affecting babies, with involvement in projects including the rubella vaccine, ultrasound scanning in pregnancy, intrauterine blood typing, folic acid in the prevention of spina bifida, and the diagnosis of retinopathy in premature babies. Projects in older children include diet in liver disease and treatment of burns in children. Other projects include treatments for epilepsy. The charity has also been involved in hip replacement surgery and the development of aids for the elderly and severely disabled, including communication aids, the shapeable 'matrix' wheelchair and the 'Tools for Living' programme. The charity has also funded research into osteoporosis, nerve repair, hydrocephalus and myasthenia gravis.
Breakthroughs – helping more babies by:
Helping introduce ultrasound scanning in pregnancy.
Discovering the importance of taking folic acid before and during pregnancy to help prevent spina bifida in babies.
Developing an infra-red scanner to help minimise the risk of brain damage in babies.
Pioneering a unique portable fetal heart rate monitor to make pregnancy safer for babies at risk.
Contributing to the development of groundbreaking cooling therapy to prevent brain damage in newborn babies deprived of oxygen at birth, reducing the risk of death and severe disability (now being adopted in UK hospitals).
Helping develop routine screening for congenital hypothyroidism (CHT – a thyroid disorder in newborn babies) which was introduced in the early 1980s for all newborn babies across the UK.
Funding research to reduce stillbirth, which led to new advice for pregnant women to go to sleep on their side, rather than their back, in the third trimester of pregnancy, helping to save around 130 babies a year in the UK.
| 2.75
| 0
|
1489466
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald%20Emmett%20Carter
|
Gerald Emmett Carter
|
Gerald Emmett Cardinal Carter (March 1, 1912 – April 6, 2003) was a Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Toronto from 1978 to 1990, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1979.
Biography
Youth and ordination
The youngest of eight children, Emmett Carter was born on March 1, 1912, in Montreal, Quebec, to an Irish Catholic family. His father was a typesetter for The Montreal Star, his brother, Alexander, would become Bishop of Sault-Sainte-Marie, and two of his sisters would become nuns.
Carter attended the Collège de Montréal before studying at the Grand Seminary and the Université de Montréal, where he obtained his Licentiate in Theology in 1936. He was ordained to the priesthood by the Auxiliary Bishop of Montreal Alphonse Emmanuel Deschamps on May 22, 1937.
Parish work
Carter then did pastoral work in the Archdiocese of Montreal until 1939, when he became the first director of the English section of Jacques-Cartier Normal school.
During his tenure as chaplain to the Catholic students at McGill University from 1942 to 1956, where he played a key role in establishing the Newman Centre of McGill University, he was also named director of the English section of Catholic Action (1944) and president of the Thomas More Institute (1946), and earned his doctorate in theology in 1947.
Archbishop of Toronto
He was Bishop of London, Ontario, from 1964 to 1978, when he was appointed Archbishop of Toronto. He retired in 1990 and was succeeded by Aloysius Ambrozic.
In 1976, he received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University. In 1982 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. The library at King's University College at the University of Western Ontario in London is named after him, as are Cardinal Carter Catholic High School in Aurora, Ontario, Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts in Toronto, Ontario and Cardinal Carter Catholic Secondary School in Leamington, Ontario.
| 2.109375
| 0
|
1489468
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-9%20Desna
|
R-9 Desna
|
The R-9 (; NATO reporting name: SS-8 Sasin) was a two-stage IRBM of the Soviet Union, in service from 1964 to 1976.
History
Designed in 1959 and first tested in 1961, the R-9 was a great improvement over previous Soviet missile designs. The missile, capable of delivering a payload about up to to an accuracy of , was not only very accurate, but was also far more tactically useful to the Soviet Union. Previous Soviet designs, fuelled with cryogenic LOX and kerosene, commonly took hours to fuel and launch. The R-9, on the other hand, could be launched 20 minutes from the time a launch order was given. NPO "Electropribor" (Kharkiv, Ukraine) designed the missile's control system.
First put into active service in 1964, the R-9 carried a 1.65 to 5 Mt warhead. Though the last Soviet missile to use cryogenic propellant, this design is one of the most widely deployed ICBMs to use cryogenic fuel. OKB-456 (later renamed to NPO Energomash) developed the first stage engine RD-111 with a thrust of 1,385 kN, a four-chambered closed cycle design with flexible pipelines and gimbals for thrust vectoring together with Vernier thrusters. The second stage, connected by trusses to the first stage (much like the modern Soyuz rocket) was the four-chambered RD-0106 engine, but utilized an open cycle design with vacuum optimized combustion chambers more suited to very high altitudes. This rocket engine was a product of the OKB-154 design team. Guidance of the warhead, like most ICBMs before and after it, was totally inertial save the final ten seconds before detonation of the warhead, which was controlled by a radio-altimeter correction system.
| 2.3125
| 0
|
1489477
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-5%20Pobeda
|
R-5 Pobeda
|
The R-5 entered military service in 1955. The R-5M entered service in March 1956 with the designation "8K51". On 2 June 1956, the R-5M was introduced into the Strategic Rocket Forces. 48 missiles were deployed, primarily at sites close to the USSR's western borders, over the course of the next two years. They were put on alert for the first time in 1959. The road-transportable missiles could be set up vertically for launch at any soil-stabilized or concrete-covered site. It took about five hours to ready the missile for firing, where it could remain at the ready (with a reaction time of about 15 minutes) as much as one hour.
Initially deployed with nuclear warheads of 80 kt yields or more, one megaton thermonuclear warheads were later installed on missiles on duty in the Baltic states, Crimea, and the Russian Far East. In 1959, the R-5M was installed at Vogelsang, Zehdenick and Fürstenberg/Havel in East Germany, the first Soviet nuclear missile bases outside the USSR.
Known by the American Department of Defense as the SS-3 and by NATO as the "Shyster", the R-5M left service in 1967, superseded by the more effective R-12.
Variants
A scientific version of the R-5, the R-5A, was finished in 1958. Its first flight was 21 February 1958, and in its subsequent three flights, the rocket carried pairs of space dogs to altitudes of more than , offering nine minutes of zero gravity. Other variants of the R-5, including the R-5B, R-5V, and Vertikal, were used until well into the 1970's for test of equipment and for scientific research.
Operators
Soviet Army
| 2.40625
| 0
|
1489496
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanka%20Sama%20Samaja%20Party
|
Lanka Sama Samaja Party
|
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party, often abbreviated as LSSP (literally: Lanka Equal Society Party, Sinhala: ලංකා සම සමාජ පක්ෂය, Tamil: லங்கா சமசமாஜக் கட்சி), is a major Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka. It was the first political party in Sri Lanka (then British Ceylon), having been founded in 1935 by Leslie Goonewardene, N. M. Perera, Colvin R. de Silva, Philip Gunawardena and Robert Gunawardena. The party is currently led by Tissa Vitharana. The party was founded with Leninist ideals, and is classified as a party with socialist aims.
The LSSP emerged as a major political force in the Sri Lankan independence movement during the 1940s, during which time the party was forced to go underground due to its opposition to the British war effort. The party played an instrumental role in the Indian independence movement and later Quit India Movement through the Bolshevik–Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma (BLPI). Its efforts contributed to India and Sri Lanka's independence from the British Empire in 1947 and 1948, respectively.
In the late early 1950s, the LSSP spearheaded the 1953 Hartal strike, caused by vast food price inflation under the United National Party (UNP) government. Maintaining the price of rice at 25 cents had been an electoral promise by the UNP in the 1952 elections, and the introduction of the new rate of 70 cents elicited massive public anger.
| 2.234375
| 0
|
1489496
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanka%20Sama%20Samaja%20Party
|
Lanka Sama Samaja Party
|
History
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was founded on 18 December 1935, with the broad aims of Sri Lankan Independence and Socialism, by a group of young politicians. The group at the foundation numbered a bare half-dozen, and composed principally of students who had returned from study abroad, influenced deeply by the ideas of Karl Marx and Lenin. The original group consisted of Leslie Goonewardene, N.M. Perera, Colvin R. de Silva, Philip Gunawardena and Robert Gunawardena.
Origins
The LSSP grew out of the Youth Leagues of Ceylon – societies of young people, mainly intellectuals, who wanted independence for the British ruled Sri Lanka – in which a nucleus of Marxists had developed. The party's leaders were predominantly educated returnees from study in London; youth who had come into contact with the ideas of the European Left and were influenced by Harold Laski, an English political theorist and professor at the London School of Economics. Dr S.A. Wickremasinghe, an early returnee and a member of the State Council from 1931, was part of this group. The Youth Leagues campaigned for independence from Britain, notably organising opposition to the so-called 'Ministers' Memorandum', one which in essence called for the colonial authorities to grant increased power to local ministers.
Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills Strike
The group, through the South Colombo Youth League, became involved in a strike at the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills in 1933. The mills; the island’s largest textile factory at that time with 1,400 workers (two-thirds of Indian origin and one-third Sinhalese), gave the members of the Youth League a chance for leadership as well as experience in trade union agitation. During this period, the collective published an irregular journal in Sinhala, Kamkaruwa (The Worker).
| 2.421875
| 0
|
1489517
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-14%20Chusovaya
|
R-14 Chusovaya
|
The R-14 Chusovaya (, named for the Chusovaya river) was a single stage Intermediate-range ballistic missile developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was given the NATO reporting name SS-5 Skean and was known by GRAU index 8K65. It was designed by Mikhail Yangel. Chusovaya is the name of a river in Russia. Line production was undertaken by Facility No. 1001 in Krasnoyarsk.
Overview
Development of the R-14 began by directive on 2 July 1958. The preliminary design was completed in December 1958, with flight tests beginning in June 1960 and completed in February 1961. The missile was accepted into service on 24 April 1961; initial operational capability for the first division of four launchers was achieved on 31 December 1961, with the first regiment organized the next day. By the end of 1962 two regiments were fully operational in Ukraine and Latvia, with later surface launch pad sites in Kaliningrad and Belarus. A regiment consisted of two divisions, with eight launchers total; by the 1970s one mobile regiment consisted of 3 control units and 4-5 launchers. Upon introduction, the primary targets of R-14s were Thor missile sites in Britain, Jupiter missile sites in Italy and Turkey, and the Polaris missile submarine base at Rota, Spain. Production of the missile was initially done at Factory 586 in Dnepropetrovsk and Factory 1001 in Krasnoyarsk, with the RD-216 engine built only at Factory 586. From 1962 onward, production was shifted exclusively to Aviation Factory 166 in Omsk.
Prior to the onset of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union planned to deploy two regiments with 32 R-14 IRBMs and 16 launchers to Cuba. By the time the United States declared a quarantine of the island, 24 one-megaton warheads had arrived but no missiles or launchers had yet been shipped. The warheads were removed and the deployment of the R-14 to Cuba was cancelled after the crisis was resolved.
| 2.25
| 0
|
1489519
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential%20Palace%2C%20Helsinki
|
Presidential Palace, Helsinki
|
The palace was completed in 1845, though repairs had to be made from time to time as mostly it stood empty and was not regularly heated. It was visited for the first time by a member of the Imperial family nine years later, in February 1854, when Emperor Nicholas I's younger son, Grand Duke Constantine, stayed there for a month. His brother Nicholas stayed there in June of the following year, after Nicholas I's death. In 1856, the palace was also visited by the new Emperor's three oldest sons – Nicholas, Alexander, and Vladimir. It was during the reign of their father, Alexander II, that the palace had its most brilliant time. He visited the city in 1863 and 1876, staying on both occasions at the palace. In 1863 the Diet of Finland was opened by Alexander II in the Great Ballroom. The Ballroom was accordingly converted into a Throne-Room, with the Imperial throne placed on a dais. Alexander returned to the palace again in 1876 to open that year's session of the Diet. The Throne-Room continued to be used as the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Diet until 1906.
That was the last Imperial festivity in the palace. Alexander III did stay there in 1885 (although he resided at his Finnish residence in Langinkoski more often). The palace was refurbished during 1904–1907 by Johan Jacob Ahrenberg. He built a new suite of reception rooms, including a new Throne Room (the present Hall of State) where the sculpture Psyche and Zephyr by Walter Runeberg was placed, and a reception vestibule facing Mariankatu. The palace was last visited by a member of the Imperial family when Nicholas II visited the palace for one day in 1915.
Post-imperial use
| 2.15625
| 0
|
1489568
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaji%20N.%20Karun
|
Shaji N. Karun
|
Biography
Shaji N. Karun was born on New Year's Day, 1952, as the eldest son of Mr. N. Karunakaran and Mrs. Chandramati in present-day Kollam district in the former state of Travancore state (now Kerala), India. The family moved to Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the state in 1963. He did his schooling in Palkulangara H.S. and took a bachelor's degree from University College, Thiruvananthapuram. In 1971 he entered the Film and Television Institute of India, where he took his diploma in cinematography. His diploma film Genesis (1974), directed by Rahul Dasgupta, got many awards and started his career. He won the GOLD medal on graduation in 1974. After graduation, he worked in ISRO Ahmedabad, Mumbai TV, Madras Film Industry on contract basis until 1975 when Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC) was about to realize. He became responsible with founder Chairman P R S Pillai, and its then Managing Director G.Vivekanandan for the planning, designing future visions of KSFDC to bring back the Film Industry that was until then rooted in Madras. His role with the participation in meaningful cinema activities through the contribution of KSFDC and well-known giants in Malayalam filmmakers resulted in many landmark achievements to the Malayalam Cinema nationally and Internationally.
| 2.09375
| 0
|
1489625
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American%20shrew%20mole
|
American shrew mole
|
The American shrew mole (Neurotrichus gibbsii) is the smallest species of mole. It is the only living member of the genus Neurotrichus and the tribe Neurotrichini. It is also known as Gibb's shrew mole and least shrew mole. It is not closely related to the Asian shrew mole (Uropsilus in Urotrichini). Its shrew-like fur and typical mole head make the common name "shrew mole" fitting.
Habitat
It is found in damp, forested or bushy areas with deep, loose soils in the northwestern United States and southwestern British Columbia. In the most northern part of its habitat, it lives along streams or moist dense woods and in the most southern part of its habitat, it is found in swampy areas that are overgrown with vegetation such as sedges or shrubs.
Morphological features
Like shrews, it has a pelage with guard hairs and underfur. Its fur is dense and soft. The color ranges from dark gray to a sooty bluish-black. Its tail is about half the length of its head and body. Its tail is also covered with scales and scattered coarse hairs. It has a long, flattened snout, and a short but thick, bristled tail. It is the smallest of the American moles. It is about in length including a tail, and weighs about . It has a zygoma and auditory bullae, which are absent in shrews, but present in moles. The enamel that covers its teeth is white instead of mahogany or reddish-brown, like it is in shrews. It also lacks a penis bone. Its front paws are smaller and do not face outwards from the body as in more fossorial moles, and so are more similar to those of shrews. The front paws are also broad with bifurcate phalanges, which provide more support for the claws in order to dig. Also, the three middle claws of the front paws are elongated and the eyes are also completely covered by skin.
| 3.0625
| 0
|
1489625
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American%20shrew%20mole
|
American shrew mole
|
In addition to the front paws, the rest of its morphological features allow it to be highly fossorial and subterranean. It has a streamlined body that allow it to move smoothly through tunnels and short appendages that are kept close to the body. It also has no ear pinnae, which is the external part of the ear. These features reduce drag when it digs and when it moves through tunnels.
Digging and burrowing
The shrew-mole is often confused with pocket gophers, another group of fossorial subterranean mammals, because they have similar habits but they differ greatly in the methods for burrowing. Most fossorial mammals, including the pocket gophers dig with their forepaws held directly below their body, but shrew-moles dig using lateral-strokes. This method of lateral-stroke burrowing in shrew moles is an evolutionary adaptation due to the modification of the pectoral girdle and bones of the forelimbs. The pelvic girdle is small and unmodified, but the pectoral girdle contains a special joint that causes the clavicle to join with the humerus instead of the scapula. The humerus bones are unique to shrew-moles because they exist as massive rectangular shapes, unlike other fossorial mammalian groups. The humerus also has a large surface area for the attachment of well developed muscles used for digging.
| 3.15625
| 0
|
1489625
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American%20shrew%20mole
|
American shrew mole
|
The shrew-mole makes permanent tunnels by digging with its forelimbs and using its forefeet to soften the soil that will be removed to make a hollow tunnel. The tunnels form complex networks that interconnect and lead to burrows. The tunnels are rarely ever deeper than 30 centimeters below the surface, so they are not as deep as the tunnels of other mole species. The burrows are made beneath decaying leaf litter and have an opening on the ceiling that leads to the surface, which serves the purpose of ventilation. The shrew-mole also makes shallow surface runways by moving the front part of its body 45 degrees to the right and then to the left. Then back again to the right, then left, and so on. When it moves to the right, the left forepaw is thrust up rapidly lifting soil in the process and when it moves to the left, the right forepaw is thrust up to lift soil.
As the shrew-mole continues to dig through the soil, the amount of prey in the soil is significantly less than the amount present in soil that has not been dug through by them. In addition, it spends a lot of its energy to dig through the soil. Due to these factors, it is common for shrew-moles to forage through tunnels that have been dug by other shrew-moles because it is more energetically efficient and more prey might be present in tunnels that have been abandoned.
Skull and dentition
It has a long and narrow rostrum, which is the projection that forms the snout. The junction between the skull bones turns into bone early on in their age, which makes it difficult to identify their age based on looking at their skull bones. The maxillary only turns into bone in the adults and the roots of the upper molars are exposed in immature shrew-moles. The first upper incisor is flat and it does not have an elongated crown, like shrew do.
It has 36 teeth, which consist of incisors, canines, pre-molars, and molars.
| 3.5625
| 0
|
1489625
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American%20shrew%20mole
|
American shrew mole
|
Diet and digestion
This mole is often active above ground, foraging in leaf litter for earthworms, insects, snails and slugs. It is also known to eat some vegetation such as mycorrhizal fungi and even salamanders, but earthworms are the most important food item in its diet. Its diet also depends on the type of available food sources, so it may eat more vegetation than anything else if there are no insects or other arthropods within its vicinity. It is able to climb bushes to forage for food, although that is not its main eating resource.
Like all shrew-moles, the stomach size of this shrew mole in inversely proportional to its body weight. Their intestinal tract is quite short and digestion occurs rapidly.
Predators
Predators include owls, hawks and mustelids such as weasels, fishers, and pine martens.
Additional predators include red and gray foxes, raccoons, and skunks. Dogs and cats can kill them as well, but do not eat them. Venomous and non-venomous snakes, bullfrogs, and opossums have also been reported to hunt them.
The most common ectoparasites found on these shrew moles are fleas and mites.
The endoparasites found in shrew-moles consist of twenty species of coccidian protozoans, at least five species of nematode, two species of trematode, and two species of acanthocephalan.
Physiology
When underground shrew-moles can suffer from a low levels of oxygen, high levels of carbon dioxide, and high levels of humidity. In order to cope with these conditions, shrew-moles contain lungs that can hold large volumes and sometimes even more than 20% of their body weight.
They also experience stages of sleep that are similar to humans such as rapid eye movement sleep. It is believed that the reason why they experience stages of deep sleep is because they are subject to less danger than other mammals.
They have well-developed hearing.
| 3.203125
| 0
|
1489625
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American%20shrew%20mole
|
American shrew mole
|
Economic status
Shrew-moles usually live in areas where it is difficult to cultivate so they are usually economically neutral, but there are some cases where they do damage people's homes. There are many different methods that people use for getting rid of these moles. The most common non-commercial method is trapping because it is practical for homes with little land, but unpractical for large areas of land. Other methods include catching moles by spading where a spade is put behind the mole as it creates a surface tunnel or repairs a tunnel and is then lifted up or by hand, where the mole is picked up by its fur. Chemical control agents can also be used. Using bait is another method used to control these shrew-moles. The bait usually consists of some type of cereal grain that is treated with chemicals. The type of cereal grain and chemicals used depends on the manufacturer, but a common chemical is an anticoagulant that inhibits their normal platelet function in the blood, which causes internal hemorrhaging and leads to death. Some other approaches are to force the animal away somehow or to get rid of their food source.
There are also many home remedies that are used to get rid of these shrew-moles, but whether or not these methods are successful are usually not evident. These methods include using noisemaker devices such as placing empty soft drink bottles at an angle with the bottom in the tunnel while the neck is sticking. It is believed by some that the sound that the wind produces as it goes through the bottle scares the shrew-moles away. Materials consisting of offensive and unpleasant smells and materials that cause injury are also sometimes placed in the tunnels such as broken pieces of glass, razors, exhaust fumes, moth balls, gum, and thorns.
| 2.59375
| 0
|
1489628
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital%20account
|
Capital account
|
Portfolio investment refers to the purchase of shares and bonds. It is sometimes grouped together with "other" as short-term investment. As with FDI, the income derived from these assets is recorded in the current account; the capital account entry will just be for any buying or selling of the portfolio assets in the international capital markets.
Other investment includes capital flows into bank accounts or provided as loans. Large short-term flows between accounts in different nations commonly occur when the market can take advantage of fluctuations in interest rates and/or the exchange rate between currencies. Sometimes this category can include the reserve account.
Reserve account. The reserve account is operated by a nation's central bank to buy and sell foreign currencies; it can be a source of large capital flows to counteract those originating from the market. Inbound capital flows (from sales of the nation's foreign currency), especially when combined with a current account surplus, can cause a rise in value (appreciation) of a nation's currency, while outbound flows can cause a fall in value (depreciation). If a government (or, if authorized to operate independently in this area, the central bank itself) does not consider the market-driven change to its currency value to be in the nation's best interests, it can intervene.
Central bank operations and the reserve account
Conventionally, central banks have two principal tools to influence the value of their nation's currency: raising or lowering the base rate of interest and, more effectively, buying or selling their currency. Setting a higher interest rate than other major central banks will tend to attract funds via the nation's capital account, and this will act to raise the value of its currency. A relatively low interest rate will have the opposite effect. Since World War II, interest rates have largely been set with a view to the needs of the domestic economy, and moreover, changing the interest rate alone has only a limited effect.
| 2.53125
| 0
|
1489628
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital%20account
|
Capital account
|
When a currency rises higher than monetary authorities might like (making exports less competitive internationally), it is usually considered relatively easy for an independent central bank to counter this. By buying foreign currency or foreign financial assets (usually other governments' bonds), the central bank has a ready means to lower the value of its own currency; if it needs to, it can always create more of its own currency to fund these purchases. The risk, however, is general price inflation. The term "printing money" is often used to describe such monetization, but is an anachronism, since most money exists in the form of deposits and its supply is manipulated through the purchase of bonds. A third mechanism that central banks and governments can use to raise or lower the value of their currency is simply to talk it up or down, by hinting at future action that may discourage speculators. Quantitative easing, a practice used by major central banks in 2009, consisted of large-scale bond purchases by central banks. The desire was to stabilize banking systems and, if possible, encourage investment to reduce unemployment.
As an example of direct intervention to manage currency valuation, in the 20th century Great Britain's central bank, the Bank of England, would sometimes use its reserves to buy large amounts of pound sterling to prevent it falling in value. Black Wednesday was a case where it had insufficient reserves of foreign currency to do this successfully. Conversely, in the early 21st century, several major emerging economies effectively sold large amounts of their currencies in order to prevent their value rising, and in the process built up large reserves of foreign currency, principally the US dollar.
| 2.53125
| 0
|
1489628
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital%20account
|
Capital account
|
International Monetary Fund
The above definition is the one most widely used in economic literature, in the financial press, by corporate and government analysts (except when they are reporting to the IMF), and by the World Bank. In contrast, what the rest of the world calls the capital account is labelled the "financial account" by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA). In the IMF's definition, the capital account represents a small subset of what the standard definition designates the capital account, largely comprising transfers. Transfers are one-way flows, such as gifts, as opposed to commercial exchanges (i.e., buying/selling and barter). The largest type of transfer between nations is typically foreign aid, but that is mostly recorded in the current account. An exception is debt forgiveness, which in a sense is the transfer of ownership of an asset. When a country receives significant debt forgiveness, that will typically comprise the bulk of its overall IMF capital account entry for that year.
The IMF's capital account does include some non-transfer flows, which are sales involving non-financial and non-produced assets—for example, natural resources like land, leases and licenses, and marketing assets such as brands—but the sums involved are typically very small, as most movement in these items occurs when both seller and buyer are of the same nationality.
Transfers apart from debt forgiveness recorded in the IMF's capital account include the transfer of goods and financial assets by migrants leaving or entering a country, the transfer of ownership on fixed assets, the transfer of funds received to the sale or acquisition of fixed assets, gift and inheritance taxes, death levies, and uninsured damage to fixed assets. In a non-IMF representation, these items might be grouped in the "other" subtotal of the capital account. They typically amount to a very small amount in comparison to loans and flows into and out of short-term bank accounts.
| 2.296875
| 0
|
1489628
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital%20account
|
Capital account
|
Capital controls
Capital controls are measures imposed by a state's government aimed at managing capital account transactions. They include outright prohibitions against some or all capital account transactions, transaction taxes on the international sale of specific financial assets, or caps on the size of international sales and purchases of specific financial assets. While usually aimed at the financial sector, controls can affect ordinary citizens, for example in the 1960s British families were at one point restricted from taking more than £50 with them out of the country for their foreign holidays. Countries without capital controls that limit the buying and selling of their currency at market rates are said to have full capital account convertibility.
Following the Bretton Woods agreement established at the close of World War II, most nations put in place capital controls to prevent large flows either into or out of their capital account. John Maynard Keynes, one of the architects of the Bretton Woods system, considered capital controls to be a permanent part of the global economy. Both advanced and emerging nations adopted controls; in basic theory it may be supposed that large inbound investments will speed an emerging economy's development, but empirical evidence suggests this does not reliably occur, and in fact large capital inflows can hurt a nation's economic development by causing its currency to appreciate, by contributing to inflation, and by causing an unsustainable "bubble" of economic activity that often precedes financial crisis. The inflows sharply reverse once capital flight takes places after the crisis occurs.
As part of the displacement of Keynesianism in favor of free market orientated policies, countries began abolishing their capital controls, starting between 1973–74 with the US, Canada, Germany and Switzerland and followed by Great Britain in 1979. Most other advanced and emerging economies followed, chiefly in the 1980s and early 1990s.
| 2.671875
| 0
|
1489680
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%20Coronae%20Borealis
|
R Coronae Borealis
|
R Coronae Borealis is the prototype of the R Coronae Borealis class of variable stars. It is one of only two R Coronae Borealis variables bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, along with RY Sagittarii. Much of the time it shows variations of around a tenth of a magnitude with poorly defined periods that have been reported as 40 and 51 days. These correspond to the first overtone and fundamental radial pulsation modes for an extreme helium star slightly under .
At irregular intervals a few years or decades apart R Coronae Borealis fades from its normal brightness near 6th magnitude for a period of months or sometimes years. There is no fixed minimum, but the star can become fainter than 15th magnitude in the visual range. The fading is less pronounced at longer wavelengths. Typically the star starts to return to maximum brightness almost immediately from its minimum, although occasionally this is interrupted by another fade. The cause of this behaviour is believed to be a regular build-up of carbon dust in the star's atmosphere. The sudden drop in brightness may be caused by a rapid condensation of carbon-rich dust similar to soot, resulting in much of the star's light being blocked. The gradual restoration to normal brightness results from the dust being dispersed by radiation pressure.
| 2.734375
| 0
|
1489680
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%20Coronae%20Borealis
|
R Coronae Borealis
|
In August 2007, R Coronae Borealis began a fade to an unprecedented minimum. It fell to 14th magnitude in 33 days, then continued to fade slowly, dropping below 15th magnitude in June 2009. It then began an equally slow rise, not reaching 12th magnitude until late 2011. This was an unusually deep and exceptional long minimum, longer even than a deep five year minimum which had occurred in 1962–7. It then faded again to near 15th magnitude, and by August 2014 it had been below 10th magnitude for 7 years. In late 2014, it brightened quickly to 7th magnitude but then began to fade again. By mid-2017, it had been below its "normal" brightness for ten years. It also reached a new record faintest at magnitude 15.2.
Spectrum
R Coronae Borealis at maximum light shows the spectrum a late F or early G yellow supergiant, but with marked peculiarities. Hydrogen lines are weak or absent, while carbon lines and molecular bands of cyanogen (CN) and C2 are exceptionally strong. Helium lines and metals such as calcium are also present. The spectrum is variable, most obviously during the brightness fades. The normal absorption spectrum is replaced by emission lines, especially HeI, CaII, NaI, and other metals. The lines are typically very narrow at this stage. Helium emission lines sometimes show P Cygni profiles. In deep minima, many of the metal lines disappear although the Ca doublet remains strong. Forbidden "nebular" lines of [OI], [OII], and [NII] can be detected at times.
The spectrum at maximum indicates that hydrogen in R Coronae Borealis is strongly depleted, helium is the dominant element, and carbon is strongly enhanced. At minimum, the spectrum shows the development of carbon clouds that obscure the photosphere, leaving chromospheric lines visible at times.
Properties
| 2.578125
| 0
|
1489680
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%20Coronae%20Borealis
|
R Coronae Borealis
|
R Coronae Borealis is about 90% helium and less than 1% hydrogen. The majority of the remainder is carbon. This classifies it as a carbon-enhanced extreme helium star. Modelling the pulsations suggests that the star's mass is . The temperature at maximum is reasonably well known at 6,900K and appears to decrease during the fades as the photosphere is obscured by condensing dust.
The distance of R Coronae Borealis is not known exactly, but is estimated at 1.4 kiloparsecs from assumptions about its intrinsic brightness. The absolute magnitude of −5 is calculated by comparison with R CrB variables in the Large Magellanic Cloud whose distances are known quite accurately. The luminosity is estimated from helium star models to be and the star has a radius around . The Gaia data release 1 parallax also gives a distance of 1.4 kpc although with a considerable margin of error.
There is a fainter star 3" away from R Coronae Borealis, but it is believed to be a distant class K dwarf. Its colour and apparent magnitude are not consistent with being at the same distance as R Coronae Borealis.
Formation
There are two main models for the formation of R CrB stars: the merger of two white dwarfs; or a very late helium flash in a post-AGB star. Models of post-AGB stars calculate that a star with the appearance of R CrB would have a mass around so it is thought to have formed by the merger of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf and a helium white dwarf. The detection of significant lithium in the atmosphere is not easily explained by the merger model, but is a natural consequence of a late helium flash. Evolutionary models of post-AGB stars give a mass of for R CrB, but with a considerable margin of error.
| 2.25
| 0
|
1489689
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa%20Engineering%20College
|
Goa Engineering College
|
Goa Engineering College or Goa College of Engineering (abbreviated and colloquially referred to as GEC) is a public college in Goa, India, offering courses in engineering disciplines and affiliated to Goa University. Founded in 1967 and situated at Farmagudi plateau, Ponda, it is the oldest engineering college in Goa, with over 2,200 students.
Academics
Academic programmes
The college started in 1967 with undergraduate courses in mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering. The electronics and telecommunications course was introduced in 1982, computer science in 1988, information technology in 2001, and mining in 2011. In 2022, a course in electronics in VLSI was introduced in recognition of the growing semiconductor industry in India. All courses in the college are affiliated to Goa University.
It currently has eight masters programmes, the duration of each being two years:
The college is recognized as a research institute under Goa University. The affiliation to Ph.D. programs in civil, mechanical, electrical and electronics, computer science and engineering, and electronics and telecommunication engineering are recognized from academic year 2014–15 onwards.
The college has a memorandum of understanding with IIT Bombay, and many of its faculty go there to pursue Ph.D. degrees.
The Farmagudi campus also houses National Institute of Technology Goa and Indian Institute of Technology Goa.
Accreditation and ranking
The National Board of Accreditation has accredited six branches of the college – the computer, mechanical, civil, electrical and electronics, information technology, and electronics and telecommunications branches. This means the academic curriculum and the teaching-learning process is of a good standard, with adequate infrastructure and faculty, acceptable to the All India Council of Technical Education.
A study conducted in 2006 by the magazine Dataquest India ranked the college at 75th in India. In Dataquest's 2011 survey the college was unranked.
| 2.125
| 0
|
1489689
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa%20Engineering%20College
|
Goa Engineering College
|
As part of the golden jubilee celebrations, it was announced that the college would soon house an incubation centre for boosting entrepreneurship on campus.
Campus
The college has one of the largest libraries in the state. It is home to over 86,000 books, journals, and magazines, catering to all the subjects taught in the college. The library has a multimedia section that houses electronic modes of information such as encyclopedias. The library has a book bank facility with which students can obtain books for the entire year and return after the completion of the year, by paying a small fee.
With the largest campus in Goa, spread well over 285 acres atop Farmagudi hill, the college has five boys' and two girls' hostels, staff housing, and guest house facilities for visiting faculty and students. The campus also hosts IIT Goa and NIT Goa until they get their permanent campus. The campus also has bicycles, donated by the alumni, for use by the staff and students.
Besides the main canteen and multiple mess facilities, the college has small stalls and a restaurant that are frequented by students. The campus shopping complex has a restaurant, as well as shops that cater to student needs ranging from photocopying to stationery and other day-to-day needs. The campus has a post office and a computer center.
The college gymkhana houses a power gym, which is accessible to students during non-working hours. There is an indoor badminton court, a basketball court, and a full-length natural grass football ground that can be used as a cricket field.
Notably, the Electronics and Telecommunications branch features a robotic arm – the KUKA KR-16 Industrial Robot, used in assembly lines across many industries, for training its students.
Student life
Student clubs and associations
The students of Goa Engineering College call themselves Engicos. However, not all post-graduate students identify themselves with this term.
| 1.9375
| 0
|
1489706
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter%20J.%20Brennan
|
Peter J. Brennan
|
Peter Joseph Brennan (May 24, 1918 – October 2, 1996) was an American labor activist and politician who served as United States Secretary of Labor from February 2, 1973, until March 15, 1975, in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford. Brennan had previously been the president of both the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York, and he returned to the former position after leaving the Ford administration. He was a strong opponent of affirmative action measures to increase the number of minority construction workers. After organizing a demonstration in support of the Nixon administration that turned into the Hard Hat Riot of May 8, 1970, where construction workers violently attacked student anti-war protesters, Brennan was wooed by the Nixon administration as a potential supporter in the 1972 presidential election. His work for Nixon in that election was crucial in increasing the vote for Nixon in New York and in the union movement.
Early life
Brennan was born in New York City in 1918. His father was an ironworker who died from influenza. He graduated from Commerce High School, then received a B.S. degree in business administration from the City College of New York. While in college, he became an apprentice painter and joined Local 1456 of the Painter's Union.
After the US entered World War II, Brennan enlisted in the Navy, serving as a chief petty officer aboard a submarine home ported in Guam. Brennan's career as a union official started when he was elected business manager of Local 1456 in 1947. In 1951, he became the director of the New York Building Trades Council's Maintenance Division.
Brennan married the former Josephine Brickley in 1940, (she died in 1987). The couple had one son, Peter Joseph Brennan, Jr., and two daughters, Joan Brennan and Peggy Brennan.
| 2.25
| 0
|
1489706
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter%20J.%20Brennan
|
Peter J. Brennan
|
The Nixon Administration, under Labor Secretary George P. Shultz, announced the Philadelphia Plan in the summer of 1969 to increase minority membership of skilled building trades to twenty per cent within five years. Brennan and the skilled labor unions were determined to stop the introduction of such a system. They persuaded George Meany, President of the AFL-CIO and a former plumbing union official in New York City, to sponsor Congressional and legal challenges to the plans, but these efforts failed.
In February 1970, the Labor Department announced that it would support local construction industry affirmative action hiring plans provided that they were consistent with the Philadelphia Plan. Brennan was having a great deal of trouble persuading either the Department of Labor or the Lindsay administration to his way of thinking. The Lindsay administration stated that it wanted 4,000 minority trainees as part of the plan, but Brennan wanted no more than 1,000 trainees. Schultz warned labor leaders that the federal government would implement the Philadelphia Plan in 18 cities if suitable local plans were not implemented quickly.
Hard Hat Riot
On May 4, 1970, four students were shot dead at Kent State University in Ohio while protesting the Vietnam War and the incursion into Cambodia. As a show of sympathy for the dead students, Mayor Lindsay ordered all flags at City Hall to be flown at half mast the same day.
| 1.976563
| 0
|
1489706
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter%20J.%20Brennan
|
Peter J. Brennan
|
Brennan organized a rally of construction workers to show support for Nixon's Vietnam policies and American soldiers fighting in Vietnam. At 7:30 a.m. on May 8, several hundred anti-war protesters (most of them high school and college students) began holding a memorial at Broad and Wall Streets for the four dead students at Kent State. By late morning, the protesters—now numbering more than a thousand—were demanding an end to the war in Vietnam and Cambodia, the release of "political prisoners" in the U.S., and an end to military-related research on all university campuses. At five minutes to noon, about 200 construction workers converged on the student rally at Federal Hall National Memorial from four directions. At first, the construction workers only pushed but did not break the thin line of police. After just two minutes, however, the workers broke through the police line and began chasing students through the streets. The workers selected those with the longest hair and swatted them with their hard hats. Attorneys, bankers and investment analysts from nearby Wall Street investment firms tried to protect many of the students but were themselves attacked. Onlookers reported that the police stood by and did nothing. A postal worker rushed onto the roof of City Hall and raised the American flag to full mast. When city workers lowered the flag to half-mast, the construction workers stormed City Hall, overwhelming the police. Deputy Mayor Richard Aurelio, fearing the building would be overrun by the mob, ordered city workers to raise the flag back to full mast. The construction workers then ripped the Red Cross and Episcopal Church flags down from a flag pole at Trinity Church. They then stormed two buildings at nearby Pace University, breaking windows with clubs and crowbars and beating students. More than 70 people were injured, including four policemen. Six people were arrested
| 2.140625
| 0
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.