brummietory

Travel

2009-03-24T01:45:00.000-07:00

Travel is the change in location of people on a trip through the means of transport from one location to another. Travel is most commonly for recreation (as part of tourism or to visit friends and family), for business or for commuting; but may be for numerous other reasons, such as migration, fleeing war, etc. Travel may occur by walking or human-powered mode, or through mechanical vehicles, either as private or public transport.

Travel may be local, regional, national or international. In some countries, non-local internal travel may require an internal passport, while international travel typically requires a passport and visa.

The word originates from the Middle English word travailen ("to toil"), which comes from the Anglo-French word travailler ("travail")[1]. A person who travels is called a traveler (US) or traveller (UK).

2008-05-01T09:20:00.001-07:00

Anglo-America is a term used to describe those parts of the Americas in which English is the main language, or having significant historical, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural links to England/United Kingdom or the British Isles in general. Alternatively, Anglo-America is the American portion of the Anglosphere. Anglo-America is distinct from Latin America, a region of the Americas where Romance languages derived from Latin (namely, French, Spanish and Portuguese) are prevalent.
Anglo-America includes the United States and Canada in North America, and the term is frequently used in reference to the two countries together. In Middle and South America, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and several other Caribbean territories may also be included, as is Bermuda (a British possession 1000 kilometres east of the American mainland); when referring to this broader group, the term Anglophone America is sometimes used. Suriname is not a part of Anglo-America because Dutch is the official language there, like in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. English is also the official language of the Falkland Islands.
The adjective Anglo-American is used in the following ways:
As a noun, Anglo-American can refer to an English speaking European American, sometimes shortened to Anglo. This usage occurs most frequently in the discussion of the history of English-speaking people of the United States and the Spanish-speaking people residing in the western U.S. during the Mexican-American War. This usage generally ignores the distinctions between English Americans, German Americans, Irish Americans, and other northern European descent peoples, comprising the majority of English-speaking Europeans in the United States.

to denote the cultural sphere shared by the United Kingdom, the United States, and sometimes English Canada. For example, "Anglo-American culture is different from French culture." Political leaders including Sir Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan have utilized the term to discuss the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom.
to describe relations between the United Kingdom on one hand and the Americas, in particular the United States, on the other. For example, "Anglo-American relations were tense before the War of 1812." Sources

2008-04-30T09:18:00.001-07:00

Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen (born Goes, the Netherlands, 5 April 1941) is a member of the Princeton University Philosophy department, currently in phased retirement. He will finish his phased retirement at the end of the 2007-08 academic year and will then take up a tenured post at San Francisco State University . He previously taught at Yale University, the University of Southern California (USC), and the University of Toronto. He coined the term constructive empiricism in his 1980 book The Scientific Image. Van Fraassen earned his B.A. (1963) from the University of Alberta and his M.A. (1964) and Ph.D. (1966, under the direction of Adolf Grünbaum) from the University of Pittsburgh.
A philosopher of science, van Fraassen's 1989 book Laws and Symmetry attempted to lay the ground-work for explaining physical phenomena without using the assumption that such phenomena are caused by rules or laws which can be said to cause or govern their behavior. Van Fraassen has also done work on the philosophy of quantum mechanics, philosophical logic, and epistemology.
Paul M. Churchland is a vocal critic of van Fraassen, who in his essay "The Anti-Realist Epistemology of Bas van Fraassen's The Scientific Image ", contrasted van Fraassen's idea of unobservable phenomena with the idea of merely unobserved phenomena, among other theories.
Van Fraassen is also known for his pioneering work in philosophical logic.
He is the laureate of the 1986 Lakatos Award for his contributions to the philosophy of science.
Van Fraassen is an adult convert to the Roman Catholic Church. [in: New Blackfriars Vol. 80, No. 938, 1999]

Published books

The Empirical Stance, Yale University Press, 2002.
Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist View, Oxford University Press, 1991.
Laws and Symmetry, Oxford University Press 1989.

French translation and introduction by C. Chevalley. Paris: Vrin, 1994.
The Scientific Image, Oxford University Press 1980.
- Co-winner, Franklin J. Matchette Prize for Philosophical Books, 1982.
  Co-winner, Imre Lakatos Award for 1986.
  Italian Edition, with new preface, Bologna 1985.
  Japanese Edition, with new preface, Tokyo 1987.
  Spanish Edition, Mexico, 1995.
  Chinese Edition, Shanghai, 2002
  Derivation and Counterexample: An Introduction to Philosophical Logic (with Karel Lambert), Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc. 1972.
  Formal Semantics and Logic, Macmillan, New York 1971
  - Spanish Translation, Mexico (Universitat Nacional Autonoma de Mexico), tr. J.A. Robles, 1987.
    An Introduction to the Philosophy of Time and Space, Random House, New York 1970.
    - Spanish Translation, Barcelona (Editorial Labor, S.A.), tr. J-P.A. Goicoechea, 1978.
      Second edition, with new preface and postscript. Columbia University Press, 1985.

2008-04-29T09:31:00.001-07:00

The Morris Canal was an anthracite-carrying canal that incorporated a series of water-driven inclined planes in its course across northern New Jersey in the United States. It was in existence for about a century -- from the late 1820s to the 1920s.
The Morris Canal stretched from Phillipsburg on the Delaware River at its western end to Jersey City on the Hudson River at its eastern end. Completed to Newark in 1831, the canal was extended eastward to Jersey City between 1834 and 1836. It greatly facilitated the transportation of anthracite coal from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley to northern New Jersey's growing iron industry and other developing industries in New Jersey and the New York City area. It also carried iron ore westward through New Jersey to iron furnaces in western New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, until the development of Great Lakes iron ore caused them to decline. By the 1850s, the canal began to be eclipsed by the construction of railroads, although it remained in heavy use throughout the 1860s. It was leased to the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1871, taken over by the state of New Jersey late in 1922, and formally abandoned in 1924. Although it was largely dismantled in the following five years, portions of the canal and its accompanying feeders and ponds are preserved in places across northern New Jersey. It was considered a technical marvel because of its extensive use of inclined planes to overcome the large elevation changes necessary to cross the northern New Jersey hills.

Description
On the canal's western end, at Phillipsburg, a cable ferry allowed Morris Canal boats to cross the Delaware River westward to Easton, Pennsylvania, and travel up the Lehigh Canal to Mauch Chunk, in the anthracite coal regions, to receive their cargoes from the mines. From Phillipsburg, the Morris Canal ran eastward through the valley of the Musconetcong River, which it roughly paralleled upstream to its source at Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey's largest lake. From the lake the canal descended through the valley of the Rockaway River to Boonton, eventually around the northern end of Paterson's Garret Mountain, and south to its 1831 terminus at Newark, on the Passaic River. From there it continued eastward across Kearny Point and through Jersey City to the Hudson River. The extension through Jersey City was at sea level and was supplied with water from the lower Hackensack River.
With its two navigable feeders, the canal was 107 mi (172 km) long. Its ascent eastward from Phillipsburg to its feeder from Lake Hopatcong was 760 ft (232 m), and the descent from there to tidewater was 914 ft (279 m). The surmounting of the height difference was considered a major engineering feat of its day, accomplished through 23 locks and 23 inclined planes. The planes were essentially short railways that allowed canal boats to be carried in open cars uphill and downhill, the plane cars being driven by a water-powered winch. The use of such devices had advantages over locks for large elevation changes in that they did not require the large amount of water needed by a "staircase" of locks and required less time to travel the vertical distance.

2008-04-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

The Burning of Washington is the name given to the burning of Washington, D.C., by British forces in 1814, during the War of 1812. Strict discipline and the British commander's orders to burn only public buildings are credited with preserving most residences, and as a result the facilities of the U.S. government, including the White House, were largely destroyed. The attack was in retaliation for the U.S. invasion of York, Upper Canada (now Toronto, Ontario, Canada), at the Battle of York in 1813, in which U.S. forces looted and burned the city, including the Parliament Buildings of Upper Canada.
Only the exterior walls remained, and they had to be torn down and mostly reconstructed due to weakening from the fire and subsequent exposure to the elements, except for portions of the south wall. A legend emerged that during the rebuilding of the structure white paint was applied to mask the burn damage it had suffered, giving the building its namesake hue. This is unfounded as the building had been painted white since its construction in 1798. Of the numerous spoils taken from the White House when it was ransacked by British troops, only two have been recovered — a painting of George Washington, rescued by then-first lady Dolley Madison, and a jewelry box returned to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939 by a Canadian man who said his grandfather had taken it from Washington. Most of the spoils were lost when a convoy of British ships led by HMS Fantome sank en route to Halifax off Prospect during a storm on the night of November 24, 1814.

Events
The thick sandstone walls of the White House survived, although scarred with smoke and scorch marks. Reconstruction of the Capitol did not begin until 1815, and it was completed in 1864. Of Britain's four objectives in its retaliatory invasion of the United States—Lake Champlain, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.—this was the only successful attack. The British had successfully diverted the attention of Washington away from the war and prevented further American incursions into Canada, and had landed a humiliating blow to the Americans. The attack was not as demoralizing as Cockburn intended, but it did contribute to the signing of the Treaty of Ghent next year.

2008-04-26T08:33:00.001-07:00

The dollar or dala was the currency of Hawaii between 1847 and 1898. It was equal to the US dollar and was divided into 100 cents or keneta. Only sporadic issues were made which circulated alongside US currency.
Hawaii's first coins were issued in 1847. They were copper cents bearing the portrait of King Kamehameha III. The coins proved unpopular due to the poor quality portrait of the king and the misspelling of the denomination (hapa haneri instead of hapa heneli).
In 1883, silver coins were issued in denominations of one dime (umi keneta in Hawaiian), quarter dollar (hapaha), half dollar (hapalua) and one dollar (akahi dala). These coins, which pictured the then-King David Kalakaua, were minted in San Francisco to the same specifications as the US coins and circulated beyond the US annexation in 1898. Eventually, many of these coins were melted down and they are consequently rare today.
In 1895, the newly formed Republic of Hawaii issued both gold and silver coin deposit certificates for $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100. These were the last Hawaiian notes and all are extremely rare today.

2008-04-25T09:04:00.001-07:00

Mohammed Atef (Arabic: محمد عاطف ) (also transliterated as Muhammad Atef, Muhammed Atef, Muhammad 'Āṭif and several other ways) (1944-2001) was the alleged military chief of the international terrorist organization al-Qaida.
Among his known aliases are Abu Hafez, Abu Hafs, Abu Hafs al-Masri, Abu Hafs El-Masry El-Khabir, Taysir, Sheikh Taysir Abdullah, and Abu Khadijah.
Atef was a police officer in his native Egypt and a member of the group Egyptian Islamic Jihad before he joined Al-Qaeda.
U.S. prosecutors claim that he instigated the attacks on U.S. forces in Somalia in 1993. However, he first became wanted by the U.S. government after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, when he was indicted for having directly planned that attack. The FBI offered a five million dollar bounty for his capture.
In January, 2001 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Atef's daughter married Mohammed bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, and still a fugitive from his U.S. indictment in the 1998 Embassy bombings, Atef appeared on the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by President Bush on October 10, 2001.
Atef was killed when a U.S. air-strike struck his home near Kabul during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan on November 16, 2001. His death was confirmed when the ambassador of the Taliban, Abd Al-Salam Dhaif said three days later, "Abu Hafs al-Masri died from injuries he suffered after US warplanes bombed his house near Kabul."
He appeared in a video released in September 2006, that showed the planning of the September 11th attacks.[1]

2008-04-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

Host desecration is a form of sacrilege in Christianity, involving the mistreatment or malicious use of a consecrated Host, or communion wafer. Throughout history, a number of groups have been accused of desecrating hosts; because of the religious importance of the consecrated wafer, the accusation is one of metaphysical evil and hostility towards God.
Accusations against Jews were a common pretext for massacres and expulsions throughout the Middle Ages in Europe. Similar accusations were made in witchcraft trials; the witch-hunter's guide Malleus Maleficarum mentions the desecration of hosts by witches a number of times. It is part of many descriptions of the Black Mass, both in ostensibly historical works and in fiction.

Background
History · Timeline · Resources Racial · Religious · New AS Antisemitism around the world Arabs and antisemitism Christianity and antisemitism Islam and antisemitism Nation of Islam and antisemitism Universities and antisemitism Anti-globalization and antisemitism Allegations Deicide · Blood libel · Ritual murder Well poisoning · Host desecration Jewish lobby · Jewish Bolshevism Usury · Dreyfus affair Zionist Occupation Government Holocaust denial
Publications On the Jews and their Lies The Protocols of the Elders of Zion The International Jew
Persecutions Expulsions · Ghetto · Pogroms Judenhut · Judensau · Yellow badge Inquisition · Segregation Holocaust · Nazism · Neo-Nazism Organizations fighting AS Anti-Defamation League Community Security Trust EUMC · Stephen Roth Institute Wiener Library · SPLC · SWC · UCSJ
Categories Antisemitism · Jewish history Accusations of host desecration levelled against Jews were a common pretext for massacres and expulsions throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, and in many German cities, according to Ocker's writings in the Harvard Theological Review. According to William Nichol in Christian Antisemitism, "over 100 instances of the charge have been recorded, in many cases leading to massacres."

Examples

¿Quién robó los panes del horno?
Los perros judíos, los perros judíos.

Who has stolen the loaves from the oven?
The Jewish dogs, the Jewish dogs.
This is a riddle, or refrain, sung by Chilean schoolchildren in the 1960s. It has been noted to be sung as late as 2006.

See also

2008-04-23T08:36:00.001-07:00

This is a list of cities and towns in Saudi Arabia.

2008-04-22T10:29:00.001-07:00

Overview
Humans have evolved as omnivorous hunter-gatherers over the past 250,000 years. The diet of early modern humans varied significantly depending on location and climate. The diet in the tropics tended to be based more heavily on plant foods, while the diet at higher latitudes tended more towards animal products. Analysis of postcranial and cranial remains of humans and animals from the Neolithic, along with detailed bone modification studies have shown that cannibalism was also prevalent among prehistoric humans.

History

The first recorded nutritional experiment is found in the Bible's Book of Daniel. Daniel and his friends were captured by the king of Babylon during an invasion of Israel. Selected as court servants, they were to share in the king's fine foods and wine. But they objected, preferring vegetables (pulses) and water in accordance with their Jewish dietary restrictions. The king's chief steward reluctantly agreed to a trial. Daniel and his friends received their diet for 10 days and were then compared to the king's men. Appearing healthier, they were allowed to continue with their diet.
c. 475 BC: Anaxagoras states that food is absorbed by the human body and therefore contained "homeomerics" (generative components), thereby deducing the existence of nutrients.
c. 400 BC: Hippocrates says, "Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food."
1500s: Scientist and artist Leonardo da Vinci compared metabolism to a burning candle.
1747: Dr. James Lind, a physician in the British navy, performed the first scientific nutrition experiment, discovering that lime juice saved sailors who had been at sea for years from scurvy, a deadly and painful bleeding disorder. The discovery was ignored for forty years, after which British sailors became known as "limeys." The essential vitamin C within lime juice would not be identified by scientists until the 1930s.
1770: Antoine Lavoisier, the "Father of Nutrition and Chemistry" discovered the details of metabolism, demonstrating that the oxidation of food is the source of body heat.
1790: George Fordyce recognized calcium as necessary for fowl survival.
Early 1800s: The elements carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen were recognized as the primary components of food, and methods to measure their proportions were developed.
1816: François Magendie discovers that dogs fed only carbohydrates and fat lost their body protein and died in a few weeks, but dogs also fed protein survived, identifying protein as an essential dietary component.
1840: Justus Liebig discovers the chemical makeup of carbohydrates (sugars), fats (fatty acids) and proteins (amino acids.)
1860s: Claude Bernard discovers that body fat can be synthesised from carbohydrate and protein, showing that the energy in blood glucose can be stored as fat or as glycogen.
Early 1880s: Kanehiro Takaki observed that Japanese sailors developed beriberi (or endemic neuritis, a disease causing heart problems and paralysis) but British sailors did not. Adding milk and meat to Japanese diets prevented the disease.
1896: Baumann observed iodine in thyroid glands.
1897: Christiaan Eijkman worked with natives of Java, who also suffered from beriberi. Eijkman observed that chickens fed the native diet of white rice developed the symptoms of beriberi, but remained healthy when fed unprocessed brown rice with the outer bran intact. Eijkman cured the natives by feeding them brown rice, discovering that food can cure disease. Over two decades later, nutritionists learned that the outer rice bran contains vitamin B1, also known as thiamine. Antiquity through 1900

Early 1900s: Carl Von Voit and Max Rubner independently measure caloric energy expenditure in different species of animals, applying principles of physics in nutrition.
1906: Wilcock and Hopkins showed that the amino acid tryptophan was necessary for the survival of mice. Gowland Hopkins recognized "accessory food factors" other than calories, protein and minerals, as organic materials essential to health but which the body cannot synthesise.
1907: Stephen M. Babcock and Edwin B. Hart conduct the Single-grain experiment. This experiment runs through 1911.
1912: Casimir Funk coined the term vitamin, a vital factor in the diet, from the words "vital" and "amine," because these unknown substances preventing scurvy, beriberi, and pellagra, were thought then to be derived from ammonia.
1913: Elmer McCollum discovered the first vitamins, fat soluble vitamin A, and water soluble vitamin B (in 1915; now known to be a complex of several water-soluble vitamins) and names vitamin C as the then-unknown substance preventing scurvy. Lafayette Mendel and Thomas Osborne also perform pioneering work on vitamin A and B.
1919: Sir Edward Mellanby incorrectly identified rickets as a vitamin A deficiency, because he could cure it in dogs with cod liver oil.
1922: McCollum destroys the vitamin A in cod liver oil but finds it still cures rickets, naming vitamin D
1922: H.M. Evans and L.S. Bishop discover vitamin E as essential for rat pregnancy, originally calling it "food factor X" until 1925.
1925: Hart discovers trace amounts of copper are necessary for iron absorption.
1927: Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus synthesizes vitamin D, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1928.
1928: Albert Szent-Gyorgyi isolates ascorbic acid, and in 1932 proves that it is vitamin C by preventing scurvy. In 1935 he synthesizes it, and in 1937 he wins a Nobel Prize for his efforts. Szent-Gyorgyi concurrently elucidates much of the citric acid cycle.
1930s: William Cumming Rose identifies essential amino acids, necessary protein components which the body cannot synthesize.
1935: Underwood and Marston independently discover the necessity of cobalt.
1936: Eugene Floyd Dubois shows that work and school performance are related to caloric intake.
1938: The chemical structure of vitamin E is discovered by Erhard Fernholz, and it is synthesised by Paul Karrer.
1940 UK institutes rationing according to nutritional principles drawn up by Elsie Widdowson and others
1941: The first Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) were established by the National Research Council. 1900 through 1941

1992 The U.S. Department of Agriculture Introduces Food Guide Pyramid
2002 Study shows relation between nutrition and violent behavior
2005 Obesity may be caused by adenovirus in addition to bad nutrition Recent
There are six main classes of nutrients that the body needs: carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water. It is important to consume these six nutrients on a daily basis to build and maintain healthy bodily function.
Poor health can be caused by an imbalance of nutrients, either an excess or deficiency, which, in turn, affects bodily functions cumulatively. Moreover, because most nutrients are involved in cell-to-cell signalling (e.g. as building blocks or as part of a hormone or signalling cascades), deficiency or excess of various nutrients affects hormonal function indirectly. Thus, because they largely regulate the expression of genes, hormones represent a link between nutrition and how our genes are expressed, i.e. our phenotype. The strength and nature of this link are continually under investigation, but recent observations have demonstrated a pivotal role for nutrition in hormonal activity and function and therefore in health.
According to the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO: 1996), more than starvation the real challenge today is malnutrition-the deficiency of micronutrients (vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids) that no longer allows the body to ensure growth and maintain its vital functions.
Recognising the inherent potential of the micro-alage Spirulina (Spirulina Platensis) to counter malnutrition and its severe negative impacts at multiple levels of the society especially in the developing and Least Developed Countries (LDC), the international community affirmed its conviction by joining hands to form the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition, IIMSAM.

Nutrition and health
The body requires amino acids to produce new body protein (protein retention) and to replace damaged proteins (maintenance) that are lost in the urine. In animals amino acid requirements are classified in terms of essential (an animal cannot produce them) and non-essential (the animal can produce them from other nitrogen containing compounds) amino acids. Consuming a diet that contains adequate amounts of essential (but also non-essential) amino acids is particularly important for growing animals, who have a particularly high requirement.

Essential and non-essential amino acids
Mineral and/or vitamin deficiency or excess may yield symptoms of diminishing health such as goitre, scurvy, osteoporosis, weak immune system, disorders of cell metabolism, certain forms of cancer, symptoms of premature aging, and poor psychological health (including eating disorders), among many others.
As of 2005, twelve vitamins and about the same number of minerals are recognized as "essential nutrients", meaning that they must be consumed and absorbed - or, in the case of vitamin D, alternatively synthesized via UVB radiation - to prevent deficiency symptoms and death. Certain vitamin-like substances found in foods, such as carnitine, have also been found essential to survival and health, but these are not strictly "essential" to eat because the body can produce them from other compounds. Moreover, thousands of different phytochemicals have recently been discovered in food (particularly in fresh vegetables), which have many known and yet to be explored properties including antioxidant activity (see below). Other essential nutrients include essential amino acids, choline and the essential fatty acids.

Vitamins
In addition to sufficient intake, an appropriate balance of essential fatty acids - omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids - has been discovered to be crucial for maintaining health. Both of these unique "omega" long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids are substrates for a class of eicosanoids known as prostaglandins which function as hormones. The omega-3 eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) (which can be made in the body from the omega-3 essential fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid (LNA), or taken in through marine food sources), serves as building block for series 3 prostaglandins (e.g. weakly-inflammation PGE3). The omega-6 dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid (DGLA) serves as building block for series 1 prostaglandins (e.g. anti-inflammatory PGE1), whereas arachidonic acid (AA) serves as building block for series 2 prostaglandins (e.g. pro-inflammatory PGE 2). Both DGLA and AA are made from the omega-6 linoleic acid (LA) in the body, or can be taken in directly through food. An appropriately balanced intake of omega-3 and omega-6 partly determines the relative production of different prostaglandins, which partly explains the importance of omega-3/omega-6 balance for cardiovascular health. In industrialised societies, people generally consume large amounts of processed vegetable oils that have reduced amounts of essential fatty acids along with an excessive amount of omega-6 relative to omega-3.
The rate of conversions of omega-6 DGLA to AA largely determines the production of the respective prostaglandins PGE1 and PGE2. Omega-3 EPA prevents AA from being released from membranes, thereby skewing prostaglandin balance away from pro-inflammatory PGE2 made from AA toward anti-inflammatory PGE1 made from DGLA. Moreover, the conversion (desaturation) of DGLA to AA is controlled by the enzyme delta-5-desaturase, which in turn is controlled by hormones such as insulin (up-regulation) and glucagon (down-regulation). Because different types and amounts of food eaten/absorbed affect insulin, glucagon and other hormones to varying degrees, not only the amount of omega-3 versus omega-6 eaten but also the general composition of the diet therefore determine health implications in relation to essential fatty acids, inflammation (e.g. immune function) and mitosis (i.e. cell division).

Fatty acids
Several lines of evidence indicate lifestyle-induced hyperinsulinemia and reduced insulin function (i.e. insulin resistance) as a decisive factor in many disease states. For example, hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance are strongly linked to chronic inflammation, which in turn is strongly linked to a variety of adverse developments such as arterial microinjuries and clot formation (i.e. heart disease) and exaggerated cell division (i.e. cancer). Hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance (the so-called metabolic syndrome) are characterized by a combination of abdominal obesity, elevated blood sugar, elevated blood pressure, elevated blood triglycerides, and reduced HDL cholesterol. The negative impact of hyperinsulinemia on prostaglandin PGE1/PGE2 balance may be significant.
The state of obesity clearly contributes to insulin resistance, which in turn can cause type 2 diabetes. Virtually all obese and most type 2 diabetic individuals have marked insulin resistance. Although the association between overfatness and insulin resistance is clear, the exact (likely multifarious) causes of insulin resistance remain less clear. Importantly, it has been demonstrated that appropriate exercise, more regular food intake and reducing glycemic load (see below) all can reverse insulin resistance in overweight individuals (and thereby lower blood sugar levels in those who have type 2 diabetes).
Obesity can unfavourably alter hormonal and metabolic status via resistance to the hormone leptin, and a vicious cycle may occur in which insulin/leptin resistance and obesity aggravate one another. The vicious cycle is putatively fuelled by continuously high insulin/leptin stimulation and fat storage, as a result of high intake of strongly insulin/leptin stimulating foods and energy. Both insulin and leptin normally function as satiety signals to the hypothalamus in the brain; however, insulin/leptin resistance may reduce this signal and therefore allow continued overfeeding despite large body fat stores. In addition, reduced leptin signalling to the brain may reduce leptin's normal effect to maintain an appropriately high metabolic rate.
There is debate about how and to what extent different dietary factors -- e.g. intake of processed carbohydrates, total protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake, intake of saturated and trans fatty acids, and low intake of vitamins/minerals -- contribute to the development of insulin- and leptin resistance. In any case, analogous to the way modern man-made pollution may potentially overwhelm the environment's ability to maintain 'homeostasis', the recent explosive introduction of high Glycemic Index- and processed foods into the human diet may potentially overwhelm the body's ability to maintain homeostasis and health (as evidenced by the metabolic syndrome epidemic).
Antioxidants are another recent discovery. As cellular metabolism/energy production requires oxygen, potentially damaging (e.g. mutation causing) compounds known as radical oxygen species or free radicals form as a result. For normal cellular maintenance, growth, and division, these free radicals must be sufficiently neutralized by antioxidant compounds, some produced by the body with adequate precursors (glutathione, Vitamin C in most animals) and those that the body cannot produce may only be obtained through the diet through direct sources (Vitamin C in humans, Vitamin A, Vitamin K) or produced by the body from other compounds (Beta-carotene converted to Vitamin A by the body, Vitamin D synthesized from cholesterol by sunlight). Different antioxidants are now known to function in a cooperative network, e.g. vitamin C can reactivate free radical-containing glutathione or vitamin E by accepting the free radical itself, and so on. Some antioxidants are more effective than others at neutralizing different free radicals. Some cannot neutralize certain free radicals. Some cannot be present in certain areas of free radical development (Vitamin A is fat-soluble and protects fat areas, Vitamin C is water soluble and protects those areas). When interacting with a free radical, some antioxidants produce a different free radical compound that is less dangerous or more dangerous than the previous compound. Having a variety of antioxidants allows any byproducts to be safely dealt with by more efficient antioxidants in neutralizing a free radical's butterfly effect.

Sugars

Main article: Gut flora Intestinal bacterial flora
A growing area of interest is the effect upon human health of trace chemicals, collectively called phytochemicals, nutrients typically found in edible plants, especially colorful fruits and vegetables (see Whole Foods Diet, below). The effects of phytochemicals increasingly survive rigorous testing by prominent health organizations. One of the principal classes of phytochemicals are polyphenol antioxidants, chemicals which are known to provide certain health benefits to the cardiovascular system and immune system. These chemicals are known to down-regulate the formation of reactive oxygen species, key chemicals in cardiovascular disease.
Perhaps the most rigorously tested phytochemical is zeaxanthin, a yellow-pigmented carotenoid present in many yellow and orange fruits and vegetables. Repeated studies have shown a strong correlation between ingestion of zeaxanthin and the prevention and treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). At the most basic level, the question "should you eat eggs?" is complex to the point of dismay, including misperceptions about the health effects of cholesterol in egg yolk, and its saturated fat content.
As another example, lycopene is prevalent in tomatoes (and actually is the chemical that gives tomatoes their red color). It is more highly concentrated, however, in processed tomato products such as commercial pasta sauce, or tomato soup, than in fresh "healthy" tomatoes. Yet, such sauces tend to have high amounts of salt, sugar, other substances a person may wish or even need to avoid.
The following table of phytochemical groups and common sources, arranged by family, is taken in part from the Wikipedia article on phytochemicals.

Anti-inflammatory

Phytochemicals

Nutrition and sports
The protein requirements of athletes, once the source of great controversy, has settled into a current consensus. Sedentary people and recreational athletes

Protein
Maintaining hydration during periods of physical exertion is key to good performance. While drinking too much water during activities can lead to physical discomfort, dehydration in excess of 2% of body mass (by weight) markedly hinders athletic performance. It is recommended that an athlete drink about 400-600 mL 2-3 hours before activity, during exercise he or she should drink 150-350mL every 15 to 20 minutes and after exercise that he or she replace sweat loss by drinking 450-675 mL for every 0.5 kg body weight loss during activity. More usually, the condition occurs in long-distance endurance events (such as marathon or triathlon competition and training) and causes gradual mental dulling, headache, drowsiness, weakness, and confusion; extreme cases may result in coma, convulsions, and death. The primary damage comes from swelling of the brain, caused by increased osmosis as blood salinity decreases. Effective fluid replacement techniques include Water aid stations during running/cycling races, trainers providing water during team games such as Soccer and devices such as Camel Baks which can provide water for a person without making it too hard to drink the water.

Water and Salts
The main fuel used by the body during exercise is carbohydrates, which is stored in muscle as glycogen- a form of sugar. During exercise, muscle glycogen reserves can be used up, especially when activities last longer than 90 min. Because the amount of glycogen stored in the body is limited, it is important for athletes to replace glycogen by consuming a diet high in carbohydrates. Meeting energy needs can help improve performance during the sport, as well as improve overall strength and endurance.

Carbohydrates

Nutrition and longevity
Heart disease, cancer, obesity, and diabetes are commonly called "Western" diseases because these maladies were once rarely seen in developing countries. One study in China found some regions had essentially no cancer or heart disease, while in other areas they reflected "up to a 100-fold increase" coincident with diets that were found to be entirely plant-based to heavily animal-based, respectively.

Whole Plant Food Diet

Main article: French paradox The French "paradox"
Since the Industrial Revolution some two hundred years ago, the food processing industry has invented many technologies that both help keep foods fresh longer and alter the fresh state of food as they appear in nature. Cooling is the primary technology used to maintain freshness, whereas many more technologies have been invented to allow foods to last longer without becoming spoiled. These latter technologies include pasteurisation, autoclavation, drying, salting, and separation of various components, and all appear to alter the original nutritional contents of food. Pasteurisation and autoclavation (heating techniques) have no doubt improved the safety of many common foods, preventing epidemics of bacterial infection. But some of the (new) food processing technologies undoubtedly have downfalls as well.
Modern separation techniques such as milling, centrifugation, and pressing have enabled upconcentration of particular components of food, yielding flour, oils, juices and so on, and even separate fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Inevitably, such large scale upconcentration changes the nutritional content of food, saving certain nutrients while removing others. Heating techniques may also reduce food's content of many heat-labile nutrients such as certain vitamins and phytochemicals, and possibly other yet to be discovered substances. Because of reduced nutritional value, processed foods are often 'enriched' or 'fortified' with some of the most critical nutrients (usually certain vitamins) that were lost during processing. Nonetheless, processed foods tend to have an inferior nutritional profile than do whole, fresh foods, regarding content of both sugar and high GI starches, potassium/sodium, vitamins, fibre, and of intact, unoxidized (essential) fatty acids. In addition, processed foods often contain potentially harmful substances such as oxidized fats and trans fatty acids.
A dramatic example of the effect of food processing on a population's health is the history of epidemics of beri-beri in people subsisting on polished rice. Removing the outer layer of rice by polishing it removes with it the essential vitamin thiamine, causing beri-beri. Another example is the development of scurvy among infants in the late 1800s in the United States. It turned out that the vast majority of sufferers were being fed milk that had been heat-treated (as suggested by Pasteur) to control bacterial disease. Pasteurisation was effective against bacteria, but it destroyed the vitamin C.
As mentioned, lifestyle- and obesity-related diseases are becoming increasingly prevalent all around the world. There is little doubt that the increasingly widespread application of some modern food processing technologies has contributed to this development. The food processing industry is a major part of modern economy, and as such it is influential in political decisions (e.g. nutritional recommendations, agricultural subsidising). In any known profit-driven economy, health considerations are hardly a priority; effective production of cheap foods with a long shelf-life is more the trend. In general, whole, fresh foods have a relatively short shelf-life and are less profitable to produce and sell than are more processed foods. Thus the consumer is left with the choice between more expensive but nutritionally superior whole, fresh foods, and cheap, usually nutritionally inferior processed foods. Because processed foods are often cheaper, more convenient (in both purchasing, storage, and preparation), and more available, the consumption of nutritionally inferior foods has been increasing throughout the world along with many nutrition-related health complications.

Nutrition, industry and food processing

Nutrition and Learning
In the U.S., Dietitians are registered with the American Dietetic Association and are only able to use the label "Dietitian" when they have met strict, specific educational and experiential prerequisites and passed a national registration examination. Anyone may call themselves a Nutritionist,including unqualified personnel, as this term is unregulated. Most governments provide guidance on nutrition, and some also impose mandatory disclosure/labeling requirements for processed food manufacturers and restaurants to assist consumers in complying with such guidance.
In the US, nutritional standards and recommendations are currently controlled by the US Department of Agriculture. Dietary and exercise guidelines from the USDA are presented in the concept of a food pyramid, which superseded the Four Food Groups. The Senate committee currently responsible for oversight of the USDA is the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Committee hearings are often televised on C-SPAN as seen here.
Canada's Food Guide is another governmental recommendation.

Governmental policies
Nutrition is taught in schools in many countries. In England and Wales the Personal and Social Education and Food Technology curricula nutrition included, stressing the importance of a balanced diet and teaching how to read nutrition labels on packaging. However, in developing countries it is a distant dream; misconceptions, gender bias, ignorance of hygienic conditions, etcetera, are still existing in their full strength.

Teaching
Research indicates that improving the awareness of nutritious meal choices and establishing long-term habits of healthy eating has a positive effect on a cognitive and spatial memory capacity, potentially increasing a student's potential to process and retain academic information.
Some organizations have begun working with teachers, policymakers, and managed foodservice contractors to mandate improved nutritional content and increased nutritional resources in school cafeterias from primary to university level institutions. Health and nutrition have been proven to have close links with overall educational success (Behrman, 1996). Currently less than 10% of American college students report that they ate the recommended five servings of fruit and vegetables daily. .
There is limited research available that directly links a student's Grade Point Average (G.P.A.) to their overall nutritional health. Additional substantive data is needed to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that overall intellectual health is closely linked to a person's diet.

Nutrition and its effects on the learning process
Challenging issues in modern nutrition include:
"Artificial" interventions in food production and supply:
Sociological issues:
Research Issues:
Practising Nutrition The roles and qualifications of practitioners in the area of nutrition is an area frequently up for discussion. In both the USA and UK the term dietitian is protected by law and may only be used by persons attaining specific criteria. The term nutritionist however is not protected and as such may be used by anyone offering food and dietary advice. This is being addressed by a register of nutritionists held by the Nutrition Society in order to protect the public. http://www.nutritionsociety.org/index.asp?nsm=2&page=33

Should genetic engineering be used in the production of food crops and animals?
Are the use of pesticides, and fertilizers damaging to the foods produced by use of these methods (see also organic farming)?
Are the use of antibiotics and hormones in animal farming ethical and/or safe?
Is it possible to eat correctly on a low income? Is proper nutrition economically skewed? How do we increase access to whole foods in impoverished neighborhoods?
How do we minimise the current disparity in food availability between first and third world populations (see famine and poverty)?
How can public advice agencies, policy making and food supply companies be coordinated to promote healthy eating and make wholesome foods more convenient and available?
Should food stamps be distributed to obese families?
Do we need nutritional supplements in the form of pills, powders, liquids, etc.?
Does the developed world promote good worldwide nutrition by minimizing import tariffs and export subsidies on food transfers?
How do different nutrients affect appetite and metabolism, and what are the molecular mechanisms?
Can a whole plant food diet, replete with diversity and colors, be instituted and implemented to improve health and reduce medical costs?
What yet to be discovered important roles do vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients play in metabolism and health?
Are the current recommendations for intake of vitamins and minerals appropriate?
How and why do different cell types respond differently to chronically elevated circulating levels of insulin, leptin, and other hormones?
What does it take for insulin resistance to develop?
What other molecular mechanisms may explain the link between nutrition and lifestyle-related diseases?
What role does the intestinal bacterial flora play in digestion and health?
How essential to proper digestion are the enzymes contained in food itself, which are usually destroyed in cooking (see Living foods diet)?
What more can we discover through what has been called the phytochemical revolution? Issues
Main list: List of basic nutrition topics
Biology:
Dangers of poor nutrition
Food:
Food (portal)
Healthy diet:
Lists:
Nutrients:
Profession:
Related topics

Main article: Health Bibliography

2008-04-21T09:54:00.001-07:00

56,000+
The Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They are the westernmost nation within the Six Nations or Iroquois League. While unknown for sure, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada, on and off reservations around Buffalo, in Oklahoma and near Brantford, Ontario.

Name
The Seneca traditionally lived in what is now New York between the Genesee River and Canandaigua Lake, with some recent archaeological evidence indicating that they lived all the way down to the Allegheny River into what is now northwestern Pennsylvania. The Senecas were by far the most populous of the Haudenosaunee Nations, with the ability to raise over ten thousand warriors by the seventeenth century..
Notable Senecas in history include Deerfoot, Red Jacket, Sayenqueraghta, Cornplanter, Guyasuta, Handsome Lake, Ely S. Parker, Governor Blacksnake, Halftown, Half-King, Little Beard, Skunny Wundy, Mary Jemison, Arthur Parker, Isaac Newton Parker, Robert Hoag, Willam C. Hoag, Frank Patterson, Cornelius Seneca, George Heron, Lionel R. John, Martin Seneca Sr., Duwayne 'Duce' Bowen, Solomon McLane, Barry Snyder Sr., William Seneca, and Catherine Montour.

History
During the colonial period they became involved in the fur trade, first with the Dutch and then with the British depending on the age and gender; however, slavery and execution were also possible, though this was usually limited to captured soldiers.

Contact with Europeans
During the American Revolutionary War, some Senecas sided with the British and Loyalists and as a result, in 1779 came under attack by United States forces as part of the Sullivan Expedition. On July 8, 1788, the Senecas (along with some Mohawk, Oneida, Onondagoes, and Cayogas tribes) sold rights to land east of the Genesee River in New York to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts. On November 11, 1794, the Seneca (along with the other Haudenosaunee nations) signed the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States agreeing to peaceful relations. On January 15, 1838, the Treaty of Buffalo Creek was signed relocating the Senecas to a tract of land west of Missouri. The Seneca formed a modern government, the Seneca Nation of Indians, in 1848, but the traditional tribal government still governs the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians.

Interactions with the United States
While it is unknown exactly how many Seneca people there are, approximately ten thousand Seneca live near Lake Erie.
About 7,800 Seneca people are citizens of the Seneca Nation of Indians. These enrolled members live or work on five reservations in New York: the Allegany (which contains the city of Salamanca), the Cattaraugus near Gowanda, New York, the Buffalo Creek Territory located in downtown Buffalo, NY, the Niagara Falls Territory located due east of Niagara Falls, and the Oil Springs, near Cuba, New York. Few Seneca reside at the Oil Springs, Buffalo Creek, or Niagara Territories due to the small amount of land present-- in the case of the last two, because those territories are specifically laid out for casinos.
Another 1,200 or more Seneca people are citizens of the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians and live on the Tonawanda Reservation near Akron, New York.
Other Seneca descendants are members of the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma near Miami, Oklahoma, plus a considerable number are citizens of Six Nations and reside on the Grand River Territory near Brantford, Ontario, Canada.
Other enrolled members of the Seneca Nation live throughout the United States.

Today
The Seneca commenced an action to reclaim land that allegedly was taken from it without the approval of the United States on August 25, 1993, in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York. The lands consisted of several islands. In November 1993, the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians moved to join the claim as a plaintiff which was ultimately granted. In 1998, the United States intervened in the lawsuits on behalf of the plaintiffs in the claim in order for the claim to proceed against New York in light of its assertion of it immunity from suit under the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Land claims

Economy
The Senecas have a diversified economy that relies on construction, recreation, tourism, retail sales, and have recently become involved in the gaming industry.
Several large construction companies are located on the Cattaraugus and Allegany Territories. There are also many smaller construction companies that are owned and operated by Seneca people. A considerable number of Seneca men work in some facet of the construction industry.
Recreation is one component of Seneca enterprises. The Highbanks Campground plays host to several thousand visitors every summer, as people take in the scenic vistas and enjoy the Allegheny Reservoir. Several thousand fishing licenses are sold each year to non-Seneca fishermen. Many of these customers are tourists to the region. Tourism in the area often comes as a direct result of several major highways adjacent or on the Seneca Nation Territories that provide ready accessiblity to local, regional and national traffic. Many tourists visit the region during the autumn for the fall foliage.
A substantial portion of the Seneca economy revolves around retail sales. From sports apparel to candles to artwork to traditional crafts, the wide range of products for sale on Seneca Nation Territories reflect the diverse interest of Seneca Nation citizens.

Tax free gasoline and cigarette sales
The Seneca Nation began to develop its gambling industry during the 1980s when bingo was introduced. In 2002, the Seneca Nation of Indians signed a Gaming Compact with the State of New York to cooperate in the establishment of three class III gambling facilities (casinos). Currently the Seneca Nation of Indians owns and operates two casinos: one in Niagara Falls, New York called Seneca Niagara and the other in Salamanca called Seneca Allegany. The third, the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino, is under construction in downtown Buffalo. There are groups that are opposing the Seneca Nation's establishment of the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino. They include Upstate Citizens for Equality and Citizens for a Better Buffalo, who recently won a lawsuit challenging the legality of the proposed casino in Buffalo.

Casinos
Many Seneca people are employed in the local economy of the region as professionals, including; lawyers, professors, physicians, police officers, teachers, social workers, nurses, and managers.

Employment

Seneca language
Gaasyendietha
Ganondagan State Historic Site
Seneca Trail
Seneca Rocks Notes

Dating the Iroquois Confederacy essay by Bruce E. Johansen, ND.
Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (New York: Vintage Books, 1969). ISBN 0-394-71699-X.
William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983). ISBN 0-8090-0158-6
Robert H. Keller & Michael F. Turek, American Indians & National Parks (Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1998). ISBN 0-8165-2014-3

2008-04-20T10:03:00.001-07:00

Combatting Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults is a non-fiction work by Steven Hassan. The author describes theories of mind control and cults based on the research of Margaret Singer and Robert Lifton as well as the cognitive dissonance theory of Leon Festinger. The book was published by Park Street Press, in 1988.
Hassan is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is a former member of the Unification Church.

Critical viewpoints

Cults
List of cult and new religious movement researchers

2008-04-19T09:57:00.001-07:00

Honshū (help·info) (本州 literally "Main State") is the largest island of Japan, called the Mainland; it is south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Strait. It is the seventh largest island, and the second most populous island in the world after Java (see the list of islands by area, population).
The island is roughly 1,300 km long and ranges from 50 to 230 km wide, and its total area is 230,500 km², around 60% of the total area of Japan. It is larger than the island of Great Britain, and slightly larger than the state of Minnesota. Honshū has 5,450 km of coastline.
Mountainous and volcanic, Honshū has frequent earthquakes (the Great Kantō earthquake heavily damaged Tokyo in September 1923); the highest peak is the active volcano Mount Fuji at 3,776 m, which makes it the world's 7th highest island. There are many rivers, including the Shinano River, Japan's longest. The climate is highly variable from the cool north to the subtropical south.
It has a population of 98,352,000 (as of 1990; in 1975 it was 89,101,702), mostly concentrated in the available lowlands, notably in the Kantō plain where 25% of the total population reside in the Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and Yokohama, Kawasaki, Saitama and Chiba cities. Other cities include Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, Hiroshima and Sendai. The island is nominally divided into five regions and contains 34 prefectures, including metropolitan Tokyo.
The regions are Chūgoku (western), Kansai (southern, east of Chūgoku), Chūbu (central), Kantō (eastern), and Tōhoku (northern).
Historical centers are also present, such as Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura.
The island also includes important agricultural regions. Niigata is noted as an important producer of rice. The Kantō and Nōbi plains produce rice and vegetables. Yamanashi is a major fruit-growing area, and Aomori is famous for its apples.
A mountain range runs along the length of Honshū from end to end. In addition to Mt. Fuji, the Japanese Alps are features of Honshū. The mountains are responsible for a marked difference in climate between the eastern or southern (Pacific or Inland Sea coast) side, and the western or northern (Sea of Japan coast) side.
The prefectures are:
Honshū is connected to the islands of Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku by tunnels or bridges. Three new bridge systems have been built across the islands of the Inland Sea between Honshū and Shikoku (Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge and the Ohnaruto Bridge; Shin-Onomichi Bridge, Innoshima Bridge, Ikuchi Bridge, Tatara Bridge, Ohmishima Bridge, Hakata-Ohshima Bridges, and the Kurushima-Kaikyo Bridge; Shimotsui-Seto Bridge, Hitsuishijima Bridge, Iwakurojima Bridge, Yoshima Bridge, Kita Bisan-Seto Bridge, and the Minami Bisan-Seto Bridge), and the Seikan Tunnel connects Honshū with Hokkaidō.

Chūgoku region — Hiroshima-ken, Okayama-ken, Shimane-ken, Tottori-ken, Yamaguchi-ken.
Kansai — Hyōgo-ken, Kyoto-fu, Mie-ken, Nara-ken, Osaka-fu, Shiga-ken, Wakayama-ken.
Chūbu — Aichi-ken, Fukui-ken, Gifu-ken, Ishikawa-ken, Nagano-ken, Niigata-ken, Toyama-ken, Shizuoka-ken, Yamanashi-ken.
Kantō — Chiba-ken, Gunma-ken, Ibaraki-ken, Kanagawa-ken, Saitama-ken, Tochigi-ken, Tokyo-to.
Tōhoku — Akita-ken, Aomori-ken, Fukushima-ken, Iwate-ken, Miyagi-ken, Yamagata-ken.

2008-04-18T08:27:00.001-07:00

Ghost marks are trade marks which closely simulate ordinary words or phrases used in the course of trade, and which are not intended to be used as genuine trade marks.
In the case of Imperial Group v. Philip Morris 1982 FSR 72, the plaintiff endeavoured to register the trade mark "MERIT" for cigarette products, but was unable to do so on the grounds that the trade mark was too descriptive. Instead, it registered the mark "NERIT", without any intention of using the mark, but in order to prevent other traders from using the mark "MERIT" because it would be considered too similar to the registered mark "NERIT". The intention was the obtain a de facto monopoly over the unregisterable mark "MERIT".
The defendant began using the mark "MERIT" for cigarettes and was sued by the plaintiff for infringing its mark "NERIT".
The court struck down the registration for "NERIT" on the basis that the plaintiff had no genuine intention to use the mark (despite some "trivial and insubstantial" efforts at launching a NERIT-branded product).
Prior to the decision in Imperial Group, ghost marks were a commonplace tactical procedure for trade mark owners. Ghost marks are now rarely filed following this decision. A somewhat similar protection to that offered by ghost marks are available through the use of defensive trade marks.

2008-04-17T09:04:00.001-07:00

The Adventure of Black Peter is a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle. This tale is in the collection, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, but was published originally in 1904 in the Strand Magazine and Collier's.

Trivia
Forest Row, the setting for this frightful murder, is a real place just east of East Grinstead. It is also only 11 km from Crowborough, where Arthur Conan Doyle lived for many years.

2008-04-16T09:57:00.001-07:00

Downland
Between the bands of limestone and chalk are wide Tertiary clay vales with large flood plains, which sustain many small settlements and dairy farms. The most notable of the valleys are those of the Stour and Frome. The Stour flows into the north of the county at Gillingham, into a wide basin, the Blackmore Vale, where it collects from many small tributaries. The river then flows south, through a gap in the chalk and across the healthand of south east Dorset. The Frome collects water from the aquifer of the Dorset Downs, forming in the hills in west Dorset, and flowing through Dorchester into a wide estuary, Poole Harbour, where it reaches the weak sands in the south east of the county.

Valleys
South-east Dorset, around Poole and Bournemouth, and the New Forest, lie on very unresistant Tertiary beds: Eocene clays (mainly London Clay and Gault Clay), sands and gravels. These thin soils support a heathland habitat which supports all seven native British reptile species. Dorset Heath, a species of the genus Erica, grows in this area, and in 2002 was chosen as a symbol of the county by Plantlife's "county flower" competition.
The River Frome estuary runs through this weak rock, and its many tributaries have carved out a very wide estuary. At the mouth of the estuary sand spits have been deposited turning the estuary into Poole Harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world (after Sydney Harbour, though since artificial expansion Sydney's claim is disputed). The harbour is very shallow in places and contains a number of islands, notably Brownsea Island, famous for its Red Squirrel sanctuary and as the birthplace of the Scouting movement.
The harbour, and the chalk and limestone hills of the Purbecks to the south, lie atop Britain's largest onshore oil field. The field, operated by BP from Wytch Farm, produces a high-quality oil and boasts the world's oldest continuously pumping well (Kimmeridge, since the early 1960s) and longest horizontal drill (5 miles, ending underneath Bournemouth pier). The clay pottery produced by Poole pottery from the local clays is famous for its quality.

Coastline

Dorset
Geology of England
Geology of the United Kingdom
List of Dorset beaches
List of Wikipedia images of Dorset
UK topics

2008-04-15T07:59:00.001-07:00

Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (HKSKH) (traditional Chinese: 香港聖公會), also known as Hong Kong Anglican Church (Episcopal), is the Anglican Church in Hong Kong and Macau. It is the 38th Province of the Anglican Communion. The Most Reverend Paul Kwong is the second Archbishop and the Primate of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui and Bishop of the Diocese of Hong Kong Island. In addition, there are two other bishops. The Bishop of the Diocese of Eastern Kowloon, The Rt. Rev. (Louis TS TSUI) (traditional Chinese: 徐贊生) and the Bishop of the Diocese of Western Kowloon, The Rt. Rev. (Thomas Yee-po SOO) (traditional Chinese: 蘇以葆).

Dioceses
Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui consists of three dioceses and one missionary area. The dioceses are:

All Saint's Church 諸聖堂

The Church of the Epiphany 基督顯現堂

Church of the Divine Love 主愛堂

Crown of Thorn's Church 荊冕堂

Kei Oi Church 基愛堂

St Andrew's Church 聖安德烈堂

St. Joseph's Church 聖約瑟堂

St. Matthias' Church 聖馬提亞堂

St. Peter's Church 聖彼得堂

St. Philips' Church 聖腓力堂

St. Thomas' Church 聖多馬堂

(The last two dioceses are divided by the KCR East Rail line.)
The missionary area is:

The Diocese of Hong Kong Island
The Diocese of Eastern Kowloon
The Diocese of Western Kowloon
All Saint's Church 諸聖堂
The Church of the Epiphany 基督顯現堂
Church of the Divine Love 主愛堂
Crown of Thorn's Church 荊冕堂
Kei Oi Church 基愛堂
St Andrew's Church 聖安德烈堂
St. Joseph's Church 聖約瑟堂
St. Matthias' Church 聖馬提亞堂
St. Peter's Church 聖彼得堂
St. Philips' Church 聖腓力堂
St. Thomas' Church 聖多馬堂
Macao Missionary Area

2008-04-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE (b. August 8, 1928) is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute. His best-known group is the Don Burrows Quartet: Don Burrows (multiple woodwind), George Golla (guitar), Ed Gaston (bass) and Alan Turnbull (drums). Burrows has played with world-renowned musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, James Morrison, Tony Bennett, the Sydney Symphony, Stéphane Grappelli, and Cleo Laine.

Awards
Burrows lives near Paynesville in the Gippsland Lakes district of Victoria.
He has had a lifelong hobby of black and white photography, beginning in his 20s as an active participant in the Sans Souci and Caringbah camera clubs in Sydney. He sees the creativity of music and photography having significant similarities.

2008-04-13T10:11:00.001-07:00

North East Fife may mean or refer to:
North East Fife (UK Parliament constituency)
North East Fife (Scottish Parliament constituency)
North-East Fife, a former local government district

2008-04-12T09:20:00.001-07:00

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (born January 14, 1965) is a British celebrity chef and TV presenter, noted for his mildly eccentric antics and back-to-nature philosophy.
Hugh's mother is gardener and writer Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall. Born in London and raised in Gloucestershire, Fearnley-Whittingstall first became interested in cookery as a young child but he chose to study at St Peter's College, Oxford University, after attending Eton College, and then began his career with conservation work in Africa in preference to commencing a career as a young chef.
After the work in Africa he spent a brief period as a sous-chef at The River Café, but was made 'redundant', although Whittingstall has made references to his being fired for 'being messy' and 'lacking discipline', he regards it an event that has since helped shape his current career. a nettle-flavoured ale, with the Hall and Woodhouse brewers.

2008-04-11T09:17:00.001-07:00

Concept and creation
Pure-blood wizards claim to have no Muggle blood at all in their genealogical pedigree. In response to fan questions, Rowling has said that to be considered pure-blood, all of one's grandparents must have been wizards: some of the more severe schools of thought may require several more generations of wizards to be considered pure-blood. She has also said that true pure-blood wizards do not exist in the Harry Potter universe (if they ever did exist in the past), and that they merely erase Muggles and Squibs off their family trees.

Pure-blood

Pure-blooded families
Most of the members of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black were advocates of blood purity, and many were involved with the Dark Arts. The Black family home at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London, contains many artifacts of dubious origin and/or dangerous ability
Andromeda Black, cousin of Sirius, was disowned for marrying "Muggle-Born Ted Tonks" (who had in Order of the Phoenix been said by his daughter Nymphadora to have been a Muggle-born wizard). The Black family
The Crouch family figures prominently in the plot of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. They are a once-great and respected family of wizards

The Crouch family

Main article: The House of Gaunt The House of Gaunt
The Lestrange family consisted of Rodolphus, his wife Bellatrix (née Black), and his brother Rabastan.

The Lestrange family
Known living members of the Longbottom family include Neville Longbottom, his grandmother Augusta, and his parents, Frank and Alice Longbottom, who are both mentally incapacitated from being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. Frank and Alice are in a special ward for permanent residents at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
The Longbottoms are not as poor as the Weasleys: Cedrella Black was disowned for marrying Septimus Weasley, but her sister Callidora, who married Harfang Longbottom, remains on the Black family tapestry.

The Longbottom family
The Malfoy family is one of the last In the epilogue of the final book, it is revealed that Draco has a son named Scorpius.

The Malfoy family
The Potter family was a very wealthy.

The Potter family
Molly Weasley's family, the Prewetts, were also a pure-blood family.

The Prewett family

Main article: Weasley family The Weasley family
Half-blood wizards are not Muggle-born, but their heritage includes one or more Muggle ancestors. Half-bloods are the most common kind of wizard (Rowling has stated that of the Hogwarts annual intake, 50% are half-bloods.
While Lord Voldemort is a half-blood, he desires blood purity in the wizarding world.

Half-blood
Some half-bloods are products of unions between human wizards and magical beings

Muggle-born
A Squib is a person of wizarding heritage who lacks magical ability;.

2008-04-10T08:52:00.001-07:00

The Housing and Development Board (Abbreviation: HDB; Simplified Chinese: 建屋发展局; Malay: Lembaga Pembangunan dan Perumahan) is the statutory board of the Ministry of National Development responsible for public housing in Singapore. It is generally credited with clearing up the squatters and slums of the 1960s and resettling residents into low-cost government-built housing.

History
About 80-90% of Singapore's population are currently living in HDB flats, with high-density housing being a solution to the problem of overcrowding. There are a number of eligibility conditions in order for a flat to be purchased. A buyer must be a Singaporean citizen, and be 21 years of age and have a "proper family nucleus". Other requirements concern household status, time requirements, income and other special requirements (see here for details).
Ownership in public housing is limited to a 99-year lease. There are several types of public and semi-public housing available, classified on the basis of the number of rooms and size of the flat. Semi-public housing is governed under HUDC instead of HDB and have a much larger floor area. Size is usually denoted by the terms such as four-room, five-room or similar, and is based on the number of rooms in addition to the living room but newer five-room apartments come with only 3-rooms & dining room. Some newer HDB developed flats in new towns include some condominium facilities.
Most of the residential housing developments in Singapore are publicly built. Thus, public housing in Singapore is not considered a sign of poverty or a lower standard of living; as compared to public housing in other developed countries where land constraint is a non-issue and property pricing is significantly cheaper. Very few people in Singapore live below the poverty line.
For example, a HDB 4-room flat depending on age, environment and surrounding amenities can have a sale value of between S$200,000 to above S$300,000 and a HUDC Executive maisonette above S$500,000. However, in contrast a privately developed condominium type housing can cost as much as S$1,000,000 and above. The largest HDB flats (in terms of floor area) ever built are two-storey Executive Masionettes built in the 1990s which can have floor area ranging from 160 - 190 m².

Eligibility and price
Singapore maintains a quota system of ethnicities within the HDB program. There are strict requirements as to who can move into an HDB flat, based on whether they are Chinese, Indian, Malay, or that they belong to another race. Singapore maintains that there must be a certain ratio of ethnicities within the HDB blocks, and any move-in or move-out must adhere to this policy. The HDB declares that this is to promote homogeny amongst Singapore's diverse population, in order to prevent racialism and racial segregation and preventing heterogeneous racial blocks from forming. This system arose after Singapore's 1965 split from Malaysia, due, in part, to their dissatisfaction with Ketuanan Melayu, a Malaysian system of racialist beliefs that benefits only the Malays who are said to be Bumiputeras ("Melayu" is the Malay word for "Malay").
Other considerations for granting the application of a HDB flat include the priority given to buyers, as well as citizenship and residency requirements, based on the number of children.

Candidacy
Buying a new flat through HDB can be done by three different modes, Build To Order, Walk In Selection and Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme.

Main Upgrading Programme (MUP), launched in March 1992
Interim Upgrading Programme (IUP), launched in August 1993
Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS), launched in August 1995
Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP), launched 2001
Interim Upgrading Programme Plus (IUP Plus, a combination of IUP and LUP), launched on 20 May, 2002) New flats and upgrading programmes
HDB's headquarters were previously located at Bukit Merah. They were moved to their new premises at the HDB Hub at 480 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh on 10 June 2002 [1]. The existing Bukit Merah premises became the headquarters for Surbana One.

Headquarters

Ang Mo Kio New Town
Bedok New Town
Bishan New Town
Bukit Batok New Town
Bukit Merah
Bukit Panjang New Town
Choa Chu Kang New Town
Clementi New Town
Geylang
Hougang New Town
Jurong East New Town
Jurong West New Town
Kallang/Whampoa
Pasir Ris New Town
Punggol New Town
Queenstown
Sembawang New Town
Serangoon New Town
Sengkang New Town
Simei New Town
Tampines New Town
Toa Payoh New Town
Woodlands New Town
Yishun New Town HDB precincts

Public housing in Singapore
Design, Build and Sell Scheme
List of properties managed by the HDB
HLM (France)

2008-04-09T09:03:00.001-07:00

Ford Dam, officially known as Lock and Dam No. 1 is on the Upper Mississippi River and is located between Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota just north of the confluence of the Mississippi with the Minnesota River. The dam portion is owned by the Ford Motor Company, which operates a hydroelectric power station to feed electricity to its Twin Cities Assembly Plant on the east side of the river. The dual-lock facility is operated by the St. Paul district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Mississippi Valley Division.

2008-04-08T10:16:00.001-07:00

Simon Vratsian was born in 1882 in Great Sala village of New Nakhichevan, Russia and died in 1969 in Beirut, Lebanon. He was an Armenian political figure and the last Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Armenia.
After education at Armenian and Russian schools he joined the Dashnak party. He received further education at the Gevorgian seminary from 1900 to 1906. Vratsian returned to Nor Nakhichevan as Dashnak party worker and took part in the 4th general congress of Dashnaktsutiun at Vienna in 1907; where he supported the adoption of socialism.
In 1908 he travelled to St. Petersburg to study law and education. He travelled to the United States in 1911 where he edited the Hairenik newspaper. In 1914 he made his way to the 8th general congress of Dashnaktsutiun in Turkey. He was elected to the party's Bureau and mixed with the leaders of the Young Turks. In August 1914 he was jailed as a Russian spy, but escaped to Transcaucasia, where he became involved with the Armenian volunteer units who fought with the Russian army. After the disbandment of the units he attended the Moscow state conference, the Armenian National Congress, and was elected a member of the National Council. Hovhannes Qajaznuni asked him to accompany him on his tour of Europe and America in 1919, but he was refused a visa by the British as they saw him as a radical socialist. In the same year he was appointed to ministry of labour, agriculture and state positions in Aleksandr Khatisyan's Cabinet. His positions carried over to the government of Hamo Ohanjanyan; he also assumed responsibilities for information and propaganda. After the resignation of the government and the failure of Hovhannes Qajaznuni to form a coalition, Vratsian accepted post of Prime Minister on 24 November 1920. On 2 December he handed over Armenia to the Bolsheviks. He subsequently went into hiding, and later emerged as President of the Committee for the Salvation of the Fatherland. He also appealed to Europe and Turkey for assistance against the Bolsheviks. Vratsian then travelled over Europe, settling in Paris to edit the Droshak from 1923 to 1925. In 1945 he presented a petition to the UN General Assembly at San Francisco demanding the restoration of Wilsonian Armenia held by Turkey to Armenia.
During his lifetime he edited various now defunct Armenian periodicals and newspapers, including Harach and Horizon.

2008-04-07T09:38:00.001-07:00

Safdarjüng Airport (IATA: N/A, ICAO: VIDD) is an airport in New Delhi, India, in the neighbourhood of the same name. It is home to the Delhi Flying Club. It used to be known as Willingdon Airfield and served as Delhi's main airport before the construction of the Indira Gandhi International Airport at Pälam. It is still used for general aviation purposes and small propeller planes take off and land from the airport. However, planes are cautioned when landing, since the airport is situated right next to a flyover highway. Indira Gandhi International Airport is the current airport serving New Delhi; a significantly larger airport with multiple runways and over sixty domestic and international carriers serving it.

2008-04-06T09:43:00.001-07:00

History
By the late 19th century, due to the influence of Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner, artists and intellectuals in the capital city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire started to take interest in Buddhism. Karl Eugen Neumann (1865-1915), who had met the composer Wagner in his father's house. took great interest in what he had heard about Buddhism. In 1884 he decided to become a Buddhist and study the original languages to be able 'to see for himself'. He managed to translate large parts of the Pali Canon into German before dying in Vienna at the age of fifty.
In 1913 in Java Arthur Fitz, a man from Graz became the first recorded Austrian to be ordained as Buddhist monk, taking the name Bhikkhu Sono.
1923 saw the foundation of a "Buddhist Society" in Vienna and Austrians were among the participants at the 2nd International Buddhist Congress in Paris in 1937. The political situation — an alliance between the Fascist regime and the Catholic Church from 1933 to 1938 followed by Hitler's conquest of Austria and the Second World War — was highly unfavourable to the development of Austrian Buddhism.

Early years
In 1949 the "Buddhist Society of Vienna" was founded and interest for Buddhism started to flourish again. Due to personalities like Fritz Hungerleider, who had returned from exile in the People's Republic of China in 1955 to become the society's president, and Dr. Walter Karwath, who had spent years in Asia practicing medicine, Buddhism took a step out of literary and intellectual circles toward the world of daily life. The late 1970s saw the establishment of Dannebergplatz, the first Buddhist Centre in Vienna; the purchase of a rural property intended to become a retreat centre (Buddhist Centre Scheibbs); and the establishment of the first Buddhist Association outside Vienna (the Salzburg Buddhist Association). The latter was founded by Friedrich Fenzl, who had been a student at the Ryukoku University in Kyoto and who invited Kosho Otani, the Patriarch of the Nishi-Honganji branch of Jodo Shinshu to visit Austria. Hemaloka Thero, Geshe Rabten, the 16th Karmapa, the 14th Dalai Lama, and other eminent representatives from different Buddhist traditions visited the country, gave talks, and attracted dharma students.
In 1979, Genro Koudela, who was ordained as a Zen priest in California by Joshu Sasaki, returned to Vienna, his city of origin, and established the "Bodhidharma Zendo" there. The new Buddhist Centre at Fleischmarkt, in the very centre of Vienna, became the home for Zen, Kagyu and Theravada groups.

After World War II
When official recognition was granted by the government in early 1983 a new era of Austrian Buddhism was ushered in. A widely visible 'Peace Stupa' was opened at the banks of the river Danube and a retreat and study centre, Letzehof, affiliated with the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism was opened in the western province of Vorarlberg. Vanja Palmers, a Zen monk of the Japanese Soto school, and Brother David Steindl-Rast, an Austrian-American Bendedictine monk, founded a retreat centre high up in the Salzburg alpine region. The first centre in the south of the country, a retreat centre in the Burmese Theravada tradition was established in the early 1990s.
In 1993, Austria hosted an annual general meeting of the European Buddhist Union, which drew participants from a dozen European countries. A series of visits to the city of Graz by the Dalai Lama in 1995, 1998 (for the consecration of a large stupa), and in 2002 (to speak on "Kalachakra for World Peace") became a strong encouragement for Buddhists in Austria.

Buddhist religious instruction at Austrian schools

Buddhism in Russia
Mahayana Buddhism
Buddhism
Culture of Austria

2008-04-05T10:29:00.001-07:00

ca. 18 800 (2007)
Vietnamese Norwegians are Norwegians of Vietnamese descent who trace their ancestry to Vietnam and are residents and/or citizens of Norway. Norway has received Vietnamese refugees since 1975.
When this article describes Vietnamese living in Norway, it primarily means persons with two parents born in Vietnam. Thus, statistics used in this article does not include Vietnamese-descended persons with only one parent, or no parents born in Vietnam.

History
As of 1 January 2007, the Norwegian Statistisk Sentralbyrå reported that there were 18 783 Vietnamese Norwegians in Norway. Vietnamese Norwegians was at the time the fourth largest non-western immigrant group after Pakistani, Iraqi and Somali immigrants.

Demographics
Around 5000 Vietnamese-Norwegians live in Oslo, where they are the 8th largest immigrant group. There are also significant groups of Vietnamese living in Bergen, Kristiansand and Trondheim. They are the largest immigrant group in Kristiansand, and the next largest in Bergen and Trondheim.

Settlement

Cultural Profile
Vietnamese culture places heavy emphasis on education, and this gives them an edge when compared to many other non-western immigrants. A survey from 2006 reported that 88 percent of Vietnamese finished college, the same percent as ethnic Norwegians.

Education
Vietnamese in Norway are not active in the country's politics. As of December 2006, there was only one Vietnamese in a municipality council in Norway.

Politics
As a result of most Vietnamese coming to Norway as political or war refugees fleeing the Communist Vietnam, they are in general critical of the Vietnamese government. Fleeing the country was viewed as treasonable by the Vietnamese government during the 1970's and 1980's. However, the trend has turned and Vietnam now view the overseas Vietnamese as assets to the country's rapidly growing economy.
The Vietnamese are one the immigrant groups in Norway that most often send money to families in their home country. Over 60 percent of those who came to the country as adults reported as regularly sending money home to their families. The number regularly sending money to Vietnam among Vietnamese born in Norway or arrived in the country as children, were over 40 percent. The Vietnamese coming to Norway as adults send more and more money, the longer they have stayed in their new country.

2008-04-04T09:48:00.001-07:00

This article is about the St. George's Bay in Canada; for the bay in Beirut, Lebanon, see Saint George Bay.
St. George's Bay is a large bay on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland comprising a sub-basin of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The bay measures approximately 64 km wide at its mouth, between Cape Anguille in the south, and Cape St. George in the north. Its northern shore measures approximately 60 km in length from the head of the bay at Stephenville Crossing to Cape St. George, located at the western tip of the Port au Port Peninsula. The southern shore measures approximately 100 km from Stephenville Crossing to Cape Anguille.
Communities along the shoreline of St. George's Bay include (from northwest to east to southwest):

Cape St. George
Petit Jardin
Grand Jardin
De Grau
Red Brook
Loretto
Marches Point
Sheaves Cove
Lower Cove
Ship Cove
Jerrys Nose
Abraham's Cove
Campbells Creek
Man of War Cove
Felix Cove
Aguathuna
Bellmans Cove
Port au Port
Port au Port East
Romaines
Kippens
Stephenville
Stephenville Crossing
Mattis Point
Barachois Brook
Seal Rocks
St. George's
Sandy Point
Shallop Cove
Flat Bay
Flat Bay West
St. Teresa
Journois
Fischells
Heatherton
Robinsons
McKay's
St. George's Fire
Jeffrey's
Bay St. George South
St. David's
Maidstone
St. Fintan's
Loch Leven
Highlands
Cape Anguille

2008-04-03T09:12:00.001-07:00

Draught beer (also called draft beer or tap beer) has several related though slightly different understandings. The majority of references to draught beer are of filtered beer that has been served from a pressurised container, such as a keg or a widget can. A narrower meaning is beer that is served from a keg (or tap), but not from a can, bottle or cask, is also used. A more traditional definition is beer that is served from a large container, which could be either a keg or a cask. The different understandings may at times overlap and cause confusion. Some traditionalists object to the more modern use of the word when applied to canned beer. The slight usage differences of the term is due to the history and development of beer dispensing.

History of draught

Main article: Keg beer Country differences
Smooth flow (also known as cream flow or just smooth) is the name brewers give to beers pressurised with nitrogen; either from a can or bottle with a widget, or from a pressurised keg.

Canned and bottled "draught"

Cask ale
Keg beer
Beer tap

2008-04-02T09:50:00.001-07:00

Southerly is the name of a storm or front of air coming from the south. In the Southern Hemisphere these can be cold and have bad weather. In Wellington, New Zealand these storms are normally short and frequently have winds gusting between 120 km/h and 160 km/h though higher speeds are known. In Sydney, NSW, Australia these events are known as southerly busters.
In the hot Sydney summer, the land heats up rapidly each morning, and faster than the sea. The prevailing wind is a light south west breeze that blows from land to sea, but by mid to late afternoon, the land rapidly cools and a north east convection current wind sweeps in from sea to land. This is a typical "Offshore Sea breeze", but often it is strong offshore gale bringing a rapid fall in temperature, and a short, violent rain/hail storm.
A more persistent but potentially violent Sydney NE storm is known as a "Black Nor'Easter" [The "Easter" refers to the compass point, not to the religious festival]. This is not a convection wind, but a storm system that develops offshore which can last several days. This is heralded by the rapid build-up of dense black cloud that can convert to a gale in well under one hour.
Occasionally, when there is a strong cold system to the south west, the temperature is broken by an equally violent storm-laden south west wind, and it is this that is known as a "Southerly Buster".
All these wind storms have been known to cause widespread damage onshore, and to sink small craft on the water. Yachtsmen on Sydney Harbour in the summer know to keep looking at the flags near Garden Island Naval base for the black flag that warns of these strong winds, to listen to the Marine Weather Channel 67 VHF and to watch for the "Roll Clouds" that precede the cold front ahead of a cold southerly change.

2008-04-01T09:56:00.001-07:00

Related terms

Distributaries in other countries
In Louisiana, the Atchafalaya River is an important distributary of the Mississippi River. Because the Atchafalaya takes a steeper route to the Gulf of Mexico than the main channel, it has captured more and more of the Mississippi's flow over several decades, including capturing the Red River, which was formerly a tributary of the Mississippi. The Old River Control Structure, a dam which regulates the outflow from the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya, was completed in 1963 to prevent the Atchafalaya from capturing the main flow of the Mississippi and stranding the ports of Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
An example of inland distributaries is the Teton River, a tributary of Henrys Fork in Idaho, which splits into two distributary channels, the North Fork and South Fork, which join Henrys Fork miles apart.

North America
The Casiquiare is a distributary of the upper Orinoco, which flows southward into the Rio Negro and forms a unique natural canal between the Orinoco and Amazon river systems. It is the largest river on the planet that links two major river systems.

South America

The IJssel, the Waal and the Nederrijn (Lower Rhine) are the three principal distributaries of the Rhine.
The Akhtuba River is a major distributary of the Volga.
The Tärendö River in northern Sweden is a real distributary, far from the mouth of the river. It begins at the Torne River and ends at the Kalix River. Asia
See History of the Nile Delta.

The Nile River has two distributaries, the Rosetta and the Damietta branches. According to Pliny the Elder it had in ancient times seven distributaries (east to west):

The Pelusiac
The Tanitic
The Mendesian
The Phatnitic
The Sebennytic
The Bolbitine
The Canopic
The Okavango River ends in many distributaries in a large inland delta called the Okavango Delta. It is an example of distributaries that do not flow into any other body of water.

2008-03-29T09:01:00.001-07:00

Jason Marsalis (March 4, 1977, New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American jazz drummer and member of the famous New Orleans Marsalis jazz musical family. He is the youngest son of Delores Ferdinand Marsalis and Ellis Marsalis, Jr. .
His brothers are Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Ellis Marsalis III (1964), Delfeayo Marsalis, and Mboya Kinyatta (1971). Branford, Wynton, and Delfeayo are also jazz musicians. Ellis is a poet, photographer, & network engineer based in Baltimore. Mboya is autistic.
Jason has not only inherited the virtuosity and compositional skills associated with the Marsalis family, but has also developed a distinctive, polyrhythmic drumming style. Though his first professional gig was with his father at the age of twelve, he studied classical percussion at Loyola University in New Orleans, and worked as a sideman with straight-ahead combos, funk fusion bands, a Brazilian percussion ensemble, and even a Celtic group. He introduced percussionist Bill Summers to trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and together they co-founded the wildly successful Los Hombres Calientes. Then, at the height of that band's popularity, Jason left to join up with acclaimed pianist Marcus Roberts. Jason Marsalis still sits in with his father on many occasions, and gigs regularly with many other musicians.

2008-03-28T10:30:00.001-07:00

Simplified Chinese character (Simplified Chinese: 简体中文 or 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體中文 or 簡體字; Pinyin: jiǎntǐzhōngwén or jiǎntǐzì) is one of two standard sets of Chinese characters of printed contemporary Chinese written language, simplified from traditional Chinese by the People's Republic of China in an attempt to promote literacy. It is used in mainland People's Republic of China, Singapore, and Malaysia. However, it is one of many simplifications made of the character set over many centuries.
Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and many overseas Chinese communities, but simplified characters are gradually gaining popularity among overseas Chinese as more mainland Chinese emigrate and travel abroad.
Simplified character forms are created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizeable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some characters were simplified by applying regular rules; for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simpler variant. Some characters were simplified irregularly, however, and some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictable from traditional characters. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies.

Extent

Origins and history
Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1950s and 60s, character simplification predates the PRC's formation in 1949. Cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed (they date back to as early as the Qin Dynasty (221 - 206 BC), though early attempts at simplification actually resulted in more characters being added to the lexicon).
One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lu Feikui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China. Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and therefore proposed that a reform be initiated. It was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the "writing of ox-demons and snake-gods" niúguǐ shéshén de wénzì (牛鬼蛇神的文字). Lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, "If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die." (漢字不滅，中國必亡。) Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the economic problems in China during that time
Within the PRC, further character simplification became associated with the leftists of the Cultural Revolution, culminating in a second round of character simplifications (known as erjian 二简), or "Second-round simplified characters", which were promulgated in 1977. In part due to the shock and unease felt in the wake of the Cultural Revolution and Mao's death, the second-round of simplifications was poorly received, and in 1986 the authorities retracted the second round completely. Later in the same year, the authorities promulgated a final list of simplifications, which is identical to the 1964 list except for six changes (including the restoration of three characters that had been simplified in the First Round: 叠, 覆, 像; note that the form 疊 is used instead of 叠 in regions using Traditional Chinese). Although no longer recognized officially, some second-round characters appear in informal contexts, as many people learned second-round simplified characters in school.
Simplification initiatives have been aimed at eradicating characters entirely and establishing the Hanyu Pinyin romanization as the official written system of the PRC, but the reform never gained quite as much popularity as the leftists had hoped. After the retraction of the second round of simplification, the PRC has stated that it wishes to keep Chinese orthography stable and does not appear to plan any further reforms in the future, nor restore any characters that have already been simplified.

Mainland China
Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification, eventually arriving at the same set of simplified characters as Mainland China.
The first round, consisting of 498 Simplified characters from 502 Traditional characters, was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 1969. The second round, consisting of 2287 Simplified characters, was promulgated in 1974. The second set contained 49 differences from the Mainland China system; those were removed in the final round in 1976. In 1993, Singapore adopted the six revisions made by Mainland China in 1986.
Malaysia promulgated a set of simplified characters in 1981, which were also completely identical to the simplified characters used in Mainland China.

Singapore and Malaysia
There are several methods in which characters were simplified:
Since traditional characters are sometimes merged, confusion may arise when Classical Chinese texts are printed in simplified characters. In rare instances, simplified characters actually became one or two strokes more complex than their traditional counterparts due to logical revision. An example of this is 搾 mapping to the previously existing variant form 榨. Note that the "hand" radical on the left (扌), with three strokes, is replaced with the "tree" radical (木), with four strokes.

Replacing complicated components of common characters with simpler shapes:

對 → 对; 觀 → 观; 風 → 风; etc.
Changing the phonetic:
- 潔 → 洁; 鄰 → 邻; 極 → 极; etc.
  Omitting entire components:
  - 廣 → 广; 寧 → 宁; 滅 → 灭; etc.
    Using grass script shapes:
    - 書 → 书; 長 → 长; 馬 → 马; etc.
      Adopting ancient forms that are simpler in form:
      - 涙 → 泪; 網 → 网; 傑 → 杰; etc.
        Creating new radical-radical compounds:
        
        體 → 体; 塵 → 尘; 竃 → 灶; etc.
        Creating new radical-phonetic compounds:
        
        護 → 护; 驚 → 惊; 膚 → 肤; etc.
        Merging a character into another one that sounds the same or similar:
        
        餘 → 余; 穀 → 谷; 後 → 后; etc.
        Merging several characters into a newly created and simpler character:
        
        髮 & 發 → 发; 儘 & 盡 → 尽; etc.
        Systematically simplifying a shape, so that every character that uses it is simplified:
        
        門 → 门; 閉 → 闭; 問 → 问; etc (an exception to this type of simplifying is the word for "open": 開 → 开, where the door radical (門) is entirely omitted.) Method of simplification
        Mainland China and Singapore generally use simplified characters. They appear very sparingly in printed text produced in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities, although they are becoming more prevalent as China opens to the world. Conversely, the mainland is seeing an increase in the use of traditional forms, where they are often used on signs and in logos.
        
        Distribution and use
        The Law of the People's Republic of China on the National Common Language and Characters implies simplified Chinese as the standard script, and relegates Traditional Chinese to certain aspects and purposes such as ceremonies, cultural purposes (e.g. calligraphy), decoration, publications and books on ancient literature and poetry, and research purposes. Traditional Chinese remains ubiquitous on buildings predating communist rule, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese is also often used for commercial purposes, such as shopfront displays and advertisements, though this is officially discouraged.
        The PRC also tends to print material intended for Taiwanese, people in Hong Kong and Macau, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, the PRC prints versions of the People's Daily in traditional characters and both the People's Daily and Xinhua websites have versions in traditional characters using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use Traditional characters on its displays and packaging to communicate with consumers (the reverse is true as well). Also, as part of the one country, two systems model, the PRC has not attempted to force Hong Kong or Macau into using simplified characters.
        Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. Some traditional character publications other than dictionaries are published in mainland China, for domestic consumption. Moreover, it is possible for residents in Guangdong to receive Chinese language television in Cantonese from Hong Kong (though the politically sensitive issues in news and other current affairs programs may be censored). In addition, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters, thereby exposing mainlanders to the use of traditional characters.
        
        Mainland China
        In Hong Kong, traditional Chinese characters are officially and customarily used, but the increasing influence of mainland China on Hong Kong has boosted the use of simplified characters.
        With the growing influence of Mainland China, simplified Chinese characters often appear in tourist areas; however textbooks, official statements, newspapers, including the PRC-funded media, show no signs of moving to simplified Chinese characters. However simplified Chinese character version of publications are becoming popular, because these mainland editions are often cheaper.
        It is common for Hong Kong people to learn both sets of characters. For use on computers, however, people tend to type Chinese characters using a traditional character set such as Big5, but if needed, encode it later into simplified Chinese using available conversion software. In Hong Kong, as well as elsewhere, it is common for people who use both sets to do so because it is much easier to convert from the traditional character set to the simplified character set because of the usage of the aforementioned methods 8 and 9 of simplification.
        
        Hong Kong
        Simplified Chinese characters are not officially used in governmental and civil publications in Taiwan. However, it is legal to import simplified character publications and distribute them. Certain simplified characters that have long existed in informal writing for centuries also have popular usage, while those characters simplified forcefully by PRC government are much less common in daily appearance.
        In all areas, most handwritten text will include informal character simplifications (alternative script), and some characters (such as the "Tai" in Taiwan: traditional 臺 simplified/alternative 台) have informal simplified forms that appear more commonly than the official forms, even in print. A proliferation of the Japanese hiragana character の　being used in place of the more complex 的 is common. Japanese characters and Chinese simplified characters are not acceptable to use in official documents in Taiwan.
        
        Taiwan
        In general, schools in Mainland China and Singapore use simplified characters exclusively, while schools in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan use traditional characters exclusively.
        For overseas Chinese going to "Chinese school", which character set is used depends very much on which school one attends. Not surprisingly, parents will generally enroll their children in schools that teach the script they themselves use. Descendants of Hong Kongers and people who emigrated before the simplification will therefore generally be taught traditional (and in Cantonese), whereas children whose parents are of more recent mainland origin will probably be taught simplified.
        
        Education
        In December 2004, Beijing's educational authorities rejected a proposal from a Beijing CPPCC political conference member that called for elementary schools to teach traditional Chinese characters in addition to the simplified ones, but to use simplified characters exclusively. The conference member pointed out that most mainland Chinese, especially young people, have difficulties with traditional Chinese characters; this is especially important in dealing with non-mainland communities such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The educational authorities did not approve the recommendation, saying that it did not fit in with the "requirements as set out by the law" and it could potentially complicate the curricula. [2]
        
        Mainland China
        Since the 1990s, students in Hong Kong have commonly adopted a hybrid written form, comprising some simplified characters, along with traditional Chinese characters to speed up writing in public examinations. These simplified Chinese characters are considered acceptable by examination administrators.
        
        Hong Kong
        Most universities on the west coast of the United States teach the traditional character set, most likely due to the large population of Chinese Americans who continue to use the traditional forms. The largest Mandarin Chinese program in North America, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, switched to simplified characters at least a decade ago, although the majority of the surrounding Chinese Canadian population, who are non-Mandarin speaking, at that time were users of traditional characters. In places where a particular set is not locally entrenched, e.g., Europe and some of the east coast and midwest of the United States, instruction is in or is swinging towards simplified, as the economic importance of mainland China increases, and also because of the availability of inexpensive decent quality textbooks printed in mainland China. Teachers of international students often recommend learning both systems.
        
        Chinese as a foreign language
        The traditional versus simplified characters (繁簡之爭, more recently: 正簡之爭) debate has existed for a long time among users of Chinese. The debate has stirred up heated responses from supporters of both sides as it has implications of political ideology and cultural identity in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is important to note that while they reject the set of Simplified Chinese Characters created by the People's Republic of China since the 1950s, traditional characters supporters may not necessarily reject the idea of simplification. (Simplified characters here exclusively refer to those characters simplified by the People's Republic of China )
        The effect of simplified Characters on the language remains controversial decades after their introduction:
        
        Debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters
        
        Proponents say that the Chinese writing system has been changing for millennia: it has already passed through the Oracle Script, Bronzeware Script, Seal Script and Clerical Script stages. Moreover, some simplified characters are drawn from conventional abbreviated forms that have been in use for centuries such as the use of 礼 instead of 禮 Cultural legitimacy
        
        Proponents feel that simplification makes the Chinese writing system easier to learn. Literacy rates since simplification have risen steadily in rural and urban areas since the simplification of the Chinese characters, though this rise in literacy may not necessarily be due to simplification alone.
        Opponents argue that the literacy rates is determined by level of access to affordable public education, and the literacy rates of Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan compare favorably, so simplification does not display an obvious correlation with literacy rate. For example, the CIA World Factbook lists the literacy rate as of 2002 as 96.1% in Taiwan compared to 90.9% in mainland China. However, because of the huge disparity in socioeconomic condition between these areas, an analysis of the effect of one factor upon literacy rate is inherently a complex issue. Moreover, the different economic policies pursued in mainland China on the one hand, and Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau on the other, naturally has a dominating effect on both the level of education and the resources dedicated to improving literacy. On a purely theoretical level, opponents of the simplified system argue that the greater etymological coherence of the traditional set may give an advantage when learning to write. It is unclear, however, whether this would outweigh the immense typographical complexity of many traditional characters (e.g. compare jī ("chicken"), a common character, written in Traditional as 雞 (18 strokes) and in Simplified as 鸡 (7 strokes)). Disambiguation
        
        Proponents say that many common characters have far too many strokes in traditional form. For example, the common character 邊 (biān, meaning "side") has 18 strokes in traditional form, while its simplified form 边 has only five strokes.
        Opponents say that the speed advantage of simplified Chinese becomes less relevant in the computer age. With modern computing, entering Chinese characters is now dependent on the convenience of input method editors or IMEs. Some IMEs use phoneme-based input, such as pinyin romanization or bopomofo. Others are grapheme-based, such as cangjie and wubi. These have mainly sidelined the speed issues in handwritten Chinese, as traditional and simplified Chinese often have the same input speed, especially with phoneme-based IMEs. Furthermore, even when it comes to handwriting, a majority of people resort to semi-cursive script to reduce strokes and save time; cursive script is also commonly seen in personal notes as shorthands, which is even more simplified than simplified characters, though in this case readers other than the writer themselves may have a hard time understanding the content. Speed of writing
        
        Proponents: Chinese characters are most often made up of a pronunciation-indicating part (called the phonetic) and a part that indicates the general semantic domain (called the radical). During the process of simplification, there are some attempts to bring greater coherence to the system. For example, the shape of 憂 (yōu), meaning "anxious", is not a good indicator of its pronunciation, because there are no clear radical and phonetic components. The simplified version is 忧, a straightforward combination of the "heart" radical to the left (indicating emotion) and the phonetic 尤 (yóu) to the right.
        Opponents point out that some simplified forms undermine the phonetics of the original characters, e.g 盤 (pán, plate) has the phonetic component 般 (bān) on top, but the simplified form is 盘, whose upper part is now 舟 (zhōu). 盧 (lú, a family name) and 爐 (lú, "furnace") shares the same component 盧 in their original forms, but they were inconsistently simplified into 卢 and 炉 respectively, so that 炉 now has the less helpful 户 (hù) as its phonetic. Some characters were radically stripped of all phonetic elements. Perhaps because of its common recurrence in political vocabulary, the second character in zhǔyì, doctrine, was reduced from 義 with the phonetic element 我 (wǒ) to the unrecognizable 义. Phonetics
        
        Proponents say that the radical system is imperfect in the first place. For example, 笑 (smile, laugh) uses the "bamboo" radical.
        Some argue that simplification results in a broken connection between characters, which makes it more difficult for students to expand their vocabulary in terms of perceiving both the meaning and pronunciation of a new character. For example, 鬧 (din, fuss) is now 闹, with a door radical that is not indicative of its meaning. Radicals
        
        Proponents claim the amount of spoken and written deviation of Classical Chinese and the modern vernacular is a greater factor, and has already brought about incompatibility with ancient texts. They also claim that the ambiguity brought about by the merger of characters is minimal.
        Opponents: Simplified Chinese characters frequently include merged characters, which opponents view as baseless and arbitrary: 後 (hòu, "behind") and 后 (hòu, "queen") are both simplified into 后. Likewise, 隻 (zhī, a measure word) and 只 (zhǐ, "only") are merged into 只; 發 (fā, "happening") and 髮 (fà, "hair") are merged into 发; 穀 (gǔ, "crop") and 谷 (gǔ, "valley") are merged into 谷, and so on. Opponents say that such mergers make Classical Chinese texts in simplified Chinese characters difficult to understand. They discourage the proliferation of such homographs. Merger of characters
        
        Traditional Chinese Characters are often used as the de facto standard characters set in Chinese calligraphy in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and even in the People's Republic of China, presumably because of its aesthetic value or partly thereof . This is one of the very few exceptions that the PRC government permits the use of traditional Chinese Character in mainland China.
        Some people feel that the simplified characters chosen by Mainland China violate the traditional aesthetics of Chinese writing. For example, the use of grass script shapes in simplified Chinese characters is viewed as being incompatible with writing in the regular script or the running script. The symmetry of the character, an age-old principle, was apparently not a criterion in its simplification: for example, 廣 became 广. Supporters of simplified Chinese characters note that character "symmetry" has never been an overriding principle when both traditional and simplified sets have characters like 弋 in 巡弋 (cruise of warships). Aesthetics
        The sheer difficulties posed by having two concurrent writing systems, which hinders communications between Mainland China and other regions, are used by both sides of the debate to support their arguments. Translating an entire document written using simplified characters to traditional characters, or vice versa, is not a trivial task. For human translators, some simplified Chinese characters can look vastly different from their traditional counterparts to the extent that the two have no signs of simplification and instead appear completely irrelevant to each other (though many other characters are derived systematically). Others claim that it is not difficult for a person educated in one system to become familiarized with the other system quickly through exposure and experience. For computer automated translation, one simplified character may equate to many traditional characters, but not vice versa. Some knowledge of the context of the word usage is required for correct mapping; but it has been difficult for computers to work with word usage perfectly. As a result, direct computer mapping from simplified to traditional is not trivial and requires sophisticated programming. (This line of reasoning is used both by traditional Chinese advocates opposed to simplification, and simplified Chinese advocates opposed to the continued use of traditional characters.)
        In addition to those practical considerations, many minds link simplified characters with the idea of communism and traditional characters with anticommunism or at least "non-communism". Thus the political implications and affiliations of the writing systems are seen by some as the emotional impetus for the debate. This view interprets most of the back-and-forth debate on the merits of the system, ultimately, as rationalizations.
        Indeed, the rationale for the simplified form of some characters is hard to trace. Many members of the Committee for Language Reform were purged in the Anti-Rightist Movement or the Cultural Revolution. They had no mandate to consult the broader Chinese academic community. Their personal notes, and the discussion behind this innovation in an ancient language, are lost.
        Another perspective on the emotional investment in the debate follows a similar issue with computer programming languages: people skilled in any particular language system derive more value from their pre-existing learning investment when more people use and produce works in the language. This provides a selfish motivation for people to encourage others to learn what they already have learned regardless of the details of the system, for the system's details are irrelevant in the face the value of compatibility. Programming language debates have argued over the use of GOTOs, the use of object orientation, and compilation versus interpretation that are sometimes seen later as having been largely pointless or overwhelmingly in favor of one side or the other (see History of programming languages). The basic message of this interpretation is that, as long as there are more than one language, languages will be fiercely promoted and debated no matter what the relative merits of their details are.
        
        Some teachers in areas where traditional Chinese characters are used often scold students who use simplified characters, even to the extent of calling them "uneducated". This, in addition to other matters, has enforced a prejudice held by some traditional Chinese character users that traditional Chinese is for the educated and cultured, while simplified Chinese is for the illiterate, dumb, even the barbaric. Social
        In computer text applications, the GB encoding scheme most often renders simplified Chinese characters, while Big5 most often renders traditional characters. Although neither encoding has an explicit connection with a specific character set, the lack of a one-to-one mapping between the simplified and traditional sets established a de facto linkage.
        Since simplified Chinese conflated many characters into one and since the initial version of the GB encoding scheme, known as GB2312-80, contained only one code point for each character, it is impossible to use GB2312 to map to the bigger set of traditional characters. It is theoretically possible to use Big5 code to map to the smaller set of simplified character glyphs, although there is little market for such a product. Newer and alternative forms of GB have support for traditional characters. In particular, mainland authorities have now established GB 18030 as the official encoding standard for use in all mainland software publications. The encoding contains all East Asian characters included in Unicode 3.0. As such, GB 18030 encoding contains both simplified and traditional characters found in Big-5 and GB, as well as all characters found in Japanese and Korean encodings.
        Unicode deals with the issue of simplified and traditional characters as part of the project of Han unification by including code points for each. This was rendered necessary by the fact that the linkage between simplified characters and traditional characters is not one-to-one. While this means that a Unicode system can display both simplified and traditional characters, it also means that different localization files are needed for each type.
        The Chinese characters used in modern Japanese have also undergone simplification, but generally to a lesser extent than with simplified Chinese. Reconciling these different character sets in Unicode became part of the controversial process of Han unification. Not surprisingly, some of the Chinese characters used in Japan are neither 'traditional' nor 'simplified'. In this case, these characters cannot be found in traditional/simplified Chinese dictionaries.
        
        Computer encoding
        The World Wide Web Consortium recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hans as a language attribute value and Content-Language value to specify web-page content in simplified Chinese characters.
        
        See also

2008-03-27T09:59:00.001-07:00

Christine Sutton is a physicist associated with the Particle Physics Group in the Physics Department of the University of Oxford.
Sutton is active in outreach programs for particle physics and has previously represented the United Kingdom in the European Particle Physics Outreach Group. She is by far the most prolific contributor to the 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica, with 24 articles on particle physics:
which is nine more articles as the next most prolific contributor, J. Gordon Melton (15 Micropædia articles).
She is also active in physics education and has developed several innovative programs for introducing quantum physics to schoolchildren.
Sutton is the author of three books, Spaceship Neutrino, The Particle Connection and The Particle Explosion (together with Frank Close and Michael Marten).

Argonne National Laboratory (Micropædia article)
Colliding-Beam Storage Ring (Micropædia article)
DESY (Micropædia article)
Electroweak theory (Micropædia article)
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Micropædia article)
Feynman diagram (Micropædia article)
Flavour (Micropædia article)
Gluon (Micropædia article)
Higgs particle (Micropædia article)
Linear accelerator (Micropædia article)
Particle accelerators (in part, Macropædia article)
Quantum chromodynamics (Micropædia article)
Renormalization (Micropædia article)
SLAC (Micropædia article)
Standard model (Micropædia article)
Strong nuclear force (Micropædia article)
Subatomic particles (Macropædia article)
Supergravity (Micropædia article)
Superstring theory (Micropædia article)
Supersymmetry (Micropædia article)
Tau (Micropædia article)
Unified field theory (Micropædia article)
Weak nuclear force (Micropædia article)
Z particle (Micropædia article)

2008-03-26T10:06:00.001-07:00

Victoria (IPA: /vɪk.toʊɹ.i.ə/) is the capital city of British Columbia, the westernmost Canadian province. Located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Victoria is a global tourism destination seeing more than 3.65 million visitors a year who inject more than one billion dollars into the local economy. Victoria is a cruise ship port where cruise liners stop at Ogden Point terminal. The city also receives economic benefits from its close proximity to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, the Canadian military's main Pacific naval base. Downtown Victoria also serves as Greater Victoria's regional downtown, where many night clubs, theatres, restaurants and pubs are clustered, and where much larger regional public events occur. In particular, Canada Day fireworks displays and Symphony Splash concerts draw tens of thousands of Greater Victorians and visitors to the downtown core.
The city has hosted various sports events including the 2005 Ford World Men's Curling Championship tournament, the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and 2006 Skate Canada. Victoria also co-hosted the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup at Royal Athletic Park.

Location and population
The city's chief industries are tourism, education, federal and provincial government administration and services. Other nearby employers include the Canadian Forces (the Township of Esquimalt is the home of the Pacific headquarters of the Canadian Forces Maritime Command), and the University of Victoria (located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich). Other sectors of the Greater Victoria area economy include: investment and banking, online book publishing, various public and private schools, foodstuff manufacturing, light aircraft manufacturing (Viking Air), technology products, various high tech firms in pharmaceuticals and computers, engineering, architecture and telecommunications. A large West Corporation call centre is also located in the region (Saanichton), along with call centres of other corporations. Maximus Inc. and EDS corporations operate call centres after winning contracts to administer and operate Medical Services Plan services, formerly run directly by the British Columbia provincial government. Elections BC, an independent agency of the BC Legislature, operates a temporary call centre from Victoria whenever there is a BC provincial general election or by-election.
Vancouver Island Advanced Technology Centre (VIATeC) is an umbrella organization, partnership between industry and education, promoting high tech industry development in the Victoria region. VIATeC members include Abebooks.
The May 24, 2007 edition of the Victoria Times-Colonist newspaper reported that for the first time in Victoria history, high technology has over taken tourism as the top performing economic sector in Greater Victoria. A gala awards event was staged at the Victoria Conference Centre for business executives and companies that achieved excellence in their respective fields.
The Victoria Region is experiencing a booming real estate economy. The labour shortages and high cost of housing seem to mirror the economic trends of other booming Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary.

Economy
The Port of Victoria consists of three parts, the Outer Harbour, used by deep sea vessels, the Inner and Upper Harbours, used by coastal and industrial traffic. It is protected by a breakwater with deep and wide opening. The port is a working harbour, tourist attraction and cruise destination. Esquimalt is also a well-protected harbour with large graving dock and shipbuilding and repair facilities.

Port
Prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the late 1700s, the Victoria area was home to several communities of Coast Salish peoples, including the Songhees. The Spanish and British took up the exploration of the northwest coast of North America beginning with the voyage of Captain James Cook in 1776, although the Victoria area of the Strait of Juan de Fuca was not penetrated until 1791. Spanish sailors visited Esquimalt Harbour (within the modern Capital Regional District) in 1790 and again in 1792. Erected in 1843 as a Hudson's Bay Company trading post on a site orginially called Camosun (the native word was "camosack", meaning "rush of water") and known briefly as "Fort Albert", the settlement was later christened Fort Victoria, in honour of the Queen. The opponents of amalgamation state that separate governance affords residents a greater deal of local autonomy. The proponents of amalgamation argue that it would reduce duplication of services, while allowing for more efficient use of resources and the ability to better handle broad, regional issues and long-term planning.

History
Victoria has a temperate climate that is usually classified as Marine west coast(Cfb),
Daily temperatures rise above 30°C (86°F) on an average of one or two days per year and fall below -5°C (23°F) on an average of only 2 nights per year. During the winter, the average daily high and low temperatures are 8.2°C (47°F) and 3.6°C (38°F), respectively. The summer months are equally mild, with an average high temperature of 19.6°C (67°F) and low of 11.3°C (52°F). Victoria does occasionally experience more extreme temperatures. The highest temperature ever recorded in Victoria was 36.3°C (97.3°F) on July 11, 2007, while the coldest temperature on record was -15.6°C (4°F) on December 29, 1968 and January 28, 1950. Victoria has not recorded a temperature below -10°C (14°F) since 1990.
Total annual precipitation is just 608 mm (24in) at the Gonzales weather station in Victoria, contrasted to nearby Seattle, (137 km/85 miles away to the southeast), with 970mm (38in) of rainfall, or Vancouver, 100 km away, with 1,219 mm (48 in) of rainfall. Perhaps even more dramatic is the difference in rainfalls on Vancouver Island. Port Renfrew, just 80 km from Victoria on the wet southwest coast of Vancouver Island receives 3,671 mm (145 in). Even the Victoria Airport, 25 km north of the city, receives about 45 per cent more precipitation than the city proper. One of the most striking features of Victoria's climate is the distinct dry and rainy seasons. Nearly two thirds of the annual precipitation falls during the four wettest months, November to February. Precipitation in December, the wettest month (109 mm/4 in) is nearly eight times as high as in July, the driest month (14 mm/.5 in). During the summer months, Victoria is the driest major city in Canada.
Victoria averages just 26 cm (10 in) of snow annually. Every few decades, Victoria receives very large snowfalls, including the more than 100 cm (39 in) of snow that fell in December 1996. On the other hand, roughly one third of winters will see virtually no snow, with less than 5 cm (2 in) falling during the entire season. When snow does fall, it rarely lasts long on the ground. Victoria averages just 2-3 days per year with at least 5 cm (2 in) of snow on the ground.
The rain shadow effect also means that Victoria gets more sunshine than surrounding areas. With 2,223 hours of sun annually, Victoria is one of the sunniest places in British Columbia, and gets more sunshine than most other cities in Canada except those in the southern Prairies. The benefits of Victoria's climate are evident through the city's gardens, which are more likely to display drought-tolerant oak trees, eucalyptus, arbutus, and even bananas, than they are likely to feature evergreen conifers, which are typically associated with the coastal Pacific Northwest environment.

Victoria's equable climate has also added to its reputation as the "City of Gardens". With its mild temperatures and plentiful sunshine, Victoria boasts gardens that are home to many plant species rarely found elsewhere in Canada. Several species of palms, eucalyptus, and even certain varieties of bananas can be seen growing throughout the area's gardens. The city takes pride in the many flowers that bloom during the winter and early spring, including crocuses, daffodils, early-blooming rhododendrons, cherry and plum trees. Every February there is an annual "flower count" in what for the rest of the country and most of the province is still the dead of winter.
Due to its Mediterranean-type climate, Victoria and its surrounding area (southeastern Vancouver Island, Gulf Islands, and parts of the Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast) is also home to many rare, native plants found nowhere else in Canada, including Quercus garryana (Garry oak), Arctostaphylos columbiana (Hairy manzanita), and Canada's only broad leaf evergreen tree, Arbutus menziesii (Pacific madrone). Many of these endangered species exist here at the northern end of their range, and are found as far south as Central and Southern California, and even parts of Mexico.

Climate
The landscape of Victoria was molded by water in various forms. Pleistocene glaciation put the area under a thick ice cover, the weight of which depressed the land below present sea level. These glaciers also deposited stony sandy loam till. As they retreated, their melt water left thick deposits of sand and gravel. Marine clay settled on what would later become dry land. Post-glacial rebound exposed the present-day terrain to air, raising beach and mud deposits well above sea level. The resulting soils are highly variable in texture, and abrupt textural changes are common. In general, clays are most likely to be encountered in the northern part of town and in depressions. The southern part has coarse-textured subsoils and loamy topsoils. Sandy loams and loamy sands are common in the eastern part adjoining Oak Bay. Victoria's soils are relatively unleached and less acidic than soils elsewhere on the British Columbia coast. Their thick dark topsoils denoted a high level of fertility which made them valuable for farming until urbanization took over.

Physiography and soils
The following is a list of neighbourhoods in the City of Victoria, as defined by the city planning department. For a list of neighbourhoods in other area municipalities, see Greater Victoria, or the individual entries for those municipalities.
Other city districts often regarded as neighbourhoods include:

Burnside
Downtown
Fairfield
James Bay
Fernwood
Harris Green
North Jubilee
North Park
Oaklands
Rockland
South Jubilee
Victoria West
Chinatown
Rock Bay
Oak Bay Border
Uplands
Songhees
Selkirk Neighbourhoods of Victoria
Beacon Hill Park is the central city's main urban green space. Its area of 75 hectares adjacent to Victoria's southern shore includes numerous playing fields, manicured gardens, exotic species of plants and animals such as wild peacocks, a petting zoo, and views of the Straight of Juan de Fuca and the Olympic mountain range. The sport of cricket has been played in Beacon Hill Park since the mid-nineteenth century. Each summer, Beacon Hill Park plays host to several outdoor concerts, and the Luminara Community Lantern Festival.
The extensive system of parks in Victoria also includes a few areas of natural Garry oak meadow habitat, an increasingly scarce ecosystem that once dominated the region.

Parks
In the heart of downtown are the British Columbia Parliament Buildings, The Empress Hotel, the gothic Christ Church Cathedral, and the Royal British Columbia Museum, with large exhibits on local Aboriginal peoples, Natural History, Modern History, along with travelling international exhibits. In addition, the heart of downtown also has the Emily Carr House, Royal London Wax Museum, Victoria Bug Zoo, Market Square and the Pacific Undersea Gardens, which showcases marine life of British Columbia. The oldest (and most intact) Chinatown in Canada is located within downtown. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is located close to downtown in the Rockland neighbourhood several city blocks from Craigdarroch Castle built by industrialist James Dunsmuir and Government House, the official residence of the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia.
Numerous other buildings of historic importance or interest are also located in central Victoria, including: the 1845 St. Ann's Schoolhouse; the 1852 Helmcken House built for Victoria's first doctor; the 1863 Temple Emanuel, the oldest synagogue in continuous use in Canada; the 1865 Angela College built as Victoria's first Anglican Collegiate School for Girls, now housing retired nuns of the Sisters of St. Ann; the 1871 St. Ann's Academy built as a Catholic school; the 1874 Church of Our Lord, built to house a breakaway congregation from the Anglican Christ Church cathedral; the 1890 St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church; the 1890 Metropolitan Methodist Church (now the Victoria Conservatory of Music; the 1892 St. Andrew's Cathedral; and the 1925 Crystal Gardens, originally a saltwater swimming pool, restored as a conservatory and most recently a tourist attraction called the B.C. Experience, which closed down in 2006.
CFB Esquimalt navy base, in the adjacent municipality of Esquimalt, has a base museum dedicated to naval and military history, located in the Naden part of the base.
North of the city on the Saanich Peninsula are the Butchart Gardens, one of the biggest tourist attractions on Vancouver Island, as well as the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, part of the National Research Council of Canada, Victoria Butterfly Gardens and Centre of the Universe planetarium. There are also numerous National Historic Sites in close proximity to Victoria, such as the Fisgard Lighthouse, Craigflower Manor and Schoolhouse, Hatley Castle and Hatley Park and Fort Rodd Hill, which is a coastal artillery fort built in the late 1890s, located west of the city in Colwood. Also located west of the city is Western Speedway, a 4/10th-mile oval vehicular race track and the largest in Western Canada.

Tourism and landmarks
The Victoria Symphony, led by Tania Miller, performs at the Royal Theatre and the Farquhar Auditorium of the University of Victoria from September to May. Every BC Day weekend, the Symphony mounts Symphony Splash, an outdoor event that includes a performance by the orchestra sitting on a barge in Victoria's Inner Harbour. Streets in the local area are closed, as each year approximately 40,000 people attend a variety of concerts and events throughout the day. The event culminates with the Symphony's evening concert, with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture as the grand finale, complete with cannon-fire, a pealing carillon and a fireworks display to honour BC Day. Pacific Opera Victoria and the Victoria Philharmonic Choir both stage two or three productions each year at the Macpherson or Royal Theatres.
The Theatrical Arts have had somewhat more difficulty making their mark. The Bastion Theatre, a professional dramatic company, functioned in Victoria through the 1970s and '80s and performed high quality dramatic productions calculated to appeal to a middle-brow audience but ultimately was obliged to declare bankruptcy, Victoria's transient and geriatric population with roots elsewhere in Canada not providing sufficient demand for so expensive a cultural enterprise. Other regional Theatre venues include: Phoenix Theatre student theatre at the University of Victoria.
The only Canadian Forces Primary Reserve brass/reed band on Vancouver Island is located in Victoria. The 5th (British Columbia) Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery Band traces its roots back to 1864, making it the oldest, continually-operational military band west of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Its mandate is to support the island's military community by performing at military dinners, parades and ceremonies, and other events. The band performs weekly in August at Fort Rodd Hill National Historic Site where the Regiment started manning the guns of the fort in 1896, and also performs every year at the Cameron Bandshell at Beacon Hill Park.
The current major sporting and entertainment complex, for Victoria and Vancouver Island Region, is the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre arena. It replaced the former Victoria Memorial Arena, which was constructed by efforts of World War II veterans as a monument to fallen comrades. World War I, World War II, Korean War, and other conflict veterans are also commemorated. Fallen Canadian soldiers in past, present, and future wars and/or United Nations, NATO missions are noted, or will be noted by the main lobby monument at the Save On Foods Memorial Centre. The arena is the home of the ECHL (formerly known as the East Coast Hockey League) team, Victoria Salmon Kings, owned by RG Properties Limited, a real estate development firm that built the Victoria Save On Foods Memorial Centre, and Prospera Place Arena in Kelowna.
A number of well-known musicians and bands are from Victoria, including Nelly Furtado, David Foster, Bryce Soderberg, Swollen Members, Armchair Cynics, and Hot Hot Heat. From the film industry, Hollywood director Atom Egoyan was raised in Victoria.

Entertainment
The Victoria International Airport has non-stop flights to and from Toronto, Salt Lake City, Seattle and many cities throughout Western Canada. Multiple scheduled helicopter and seaplane flights are available daily from Victoria's Inner Harbour to Vancouver International Airport, Vancouver Harbour, and Seattle. The BC Ferries Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal, located 29 kilometres north of Victoria, has bi-hourly sailings to Tsawwassen (a ferry terminal south of Vancouver) and to many of the Gulf Islands. The Washington State Ferry terminal in Sidney provides ferry service to Friday Harbor, Orcas Island, and ultimately Anacortes, Washington. In Victoria's Inner Harbour, an international ferry terminal provides car ferry service to Port Angeles, Washington, high-speed catamaran service to downtown Seattle, and seasonal passenger ferries to destinations in Washington including Friday Harbor, Port Angeles, and Bellingham. Victoria also serves as the western terminus (Mile Zero) for Canada's Trans-Canada Highway, the longest national highway in the world. The Mile Zero is located in the southern part of the city at the corner of Douglas Street and Dallas Road, where there is a small monument.
Public transportation is run by the Victoria Regional Transit System, which is part of BC Transit. In 2000, they introduced the first double decker buses for public transit use in North America.

Transportation
The city of Victoria lies entirely within the Greater Victoria School District. There is one high school located within the city boundaries, Victoria High School, founded in 1876, making it the oldest High School in North America north of San Francisco and west of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Most of the elementary schools in Victoria now offer the popular French immersion programmes in addition to programs in English. The educational needs of the local francophone community are served by the recently-completed Ecole Victor Brodeur. In addition, within the city proper there are several smaller schools serving segments of the community such as the Chinese School in Chinatown, St. Andrew's Elementary School or the Anglican School adjacent to Christ Church Cathedral. Numerous other private schools are located in the municipalities adjacent to Victoria, including St. Michael's University School, Glenlyon-Norfolk House, St. Patrick's Elementary School, St. Margaret's and Pacific Christian Schools.
The Victoria area has three public post secondary educational institutions: University of Victoria (UVic), Camosun College, Royal Roads University. UVic was once rated the 2nd and 3rd best comprehensive university in all Canada by MacLean's magazine's college/university ratings issue.Notable Canadian politicians like former British Columbia cabinet minister Andrew Petter and Stockwell Day were once students of UVic. Day was the former Canadian Alliance Party leader and currently Public Security Minister in Stephen Harper's Conservative Party of Canada government. There is one international school, in Metchosin Municipality, devoted to the ideals of a united world of peaceful cooperation and coexistence, Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific. Pearson College is named after former Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and architect of the United Nations Peace Keeping program.
There are also several private vocational and English (ESL) training schools available for people who want to learn the English language or upgrade new job market skills. University Canada West is a private degree granting school headed by former UVic President David Strong.

Education
Victoria has four Sister Cities:

Suzhou, People's Republic of China
Morioka, Japan
Napier, New Zealand
Khabarovsk, Russia Sister cities

The Victoria Cougars are perhaps the most famous sports franchise the city has known, winning the Stanley Cup as members of the PCHA in 1925. They exist today in the form of a Junior 'B' team playing in the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League and there was also a team called the Victoria Cougars in the WHL, but are now the Prince George Cougars. Other Victoria sport teams include:
Victoria Salmon Kings (ECHL)
Victoria Grizzlies (British Columbia Hockey League)
Victoria Shamrocks (Western Lacrosse Association)
Victoria Rebels (CJFL)
Victoria United (Pacific Coast Soccer League)
Victoria Vikes teams at the University of Victoria
Chargers sports teams of Camosun College Sports teams

Victoria Capitals (Canadian Baseball League) Defunct teams

Former NASCAR driver Rick O'Dell is from the city.
Two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash, although born in South Africa, grew up in Victoria.
MLB pitcher Rich Harden grew up in Victoria.
Former NHL stars Russ Courtnall and Geoff Courtnall are from the Victoria area.
Lacrosse players Gary Gait and Paul Gait were born and raised in Victoria.
Former field hockey international Deb Whitten was born in Victoria.
NHLer Matt Pettinger was raised in Victoria.
Former NHLer Don Barber
Hockey Hall of Fame member Lynn Patrick Media outlets

Victoria Times-Colonist
Monday Magazine
The Martlet - UVic student newspaper
Black Press
The Nexus - Camosun College student newspaper
LookOut - CFB Esquimalt navy base newspaper Print

AM 900 - CKMO, Camosun College campus radio
AM 1070 - CFAX, news/talk AM radio

FM 88.9 - CBUX, Espace musique
FM 90.5 - CBCV, CBC Radio One
FM 91.3 - CJZN (The Zone @ 91-3), modern rock
FM 92.1 - CBU-2, CBC Radio Two
FM 98.5 - CIOC (Ocean 98.5), soft adult contemporary
FM 100.3 - CKKQ (100.3 The Q!), active rock
FM 101.9 - CFUV, University of Victoria campus radio
FM 103.1 - CHTT (Jack FM), adult hits
FM 107.3 - CHBE (Kool FM), hot adult contemporary Television

List of mayors of Victoria, British Columbia
Canadian cities
Monarchy in British Columbia
School District 61 Greater Victoria

2008-03-25T08:21:00.001-07:00

The Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna) is a political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 1964 but did not enter parliament until 1985 in an electoral cooperation with the Centre Party and on their own accord in 1991. The leader since April 3, 2004 is Göran Hägglund. He succeeded Alf Svensson, who had been the party's leader since 1973. The three most important issues for the party are:

Improving the care for elderly
Freedom of choice for families with children in selecting their childcare
Decreasing regulations on companies, lowering taxes to promote growth and combat unemployment History
The party had its roots in a movement against the Swedish government's decision in 1963 to remove religious education from the elementary school syllabus. The organisation called "Christian Social Responsibility" that would later become the Christian Democratic Unity organised several marches against the decision, one of which became one of the largest in Swedish modern history. Despite the public outcry and over 2.1 million protest signatures, the decision went through. The group which had worked in the campaign felt it was a sign that Swedish politics needed a Christian Democratic Party.
It should be noted the political and social origins of the Swedish Christian Democracy clearly differs from those of the European continental Christian Democratic parties (like in Italy or West Germany). In those countries, Christian Democracy represented the mainstream of the social-conservative political forces and was closely tied to majoritarian religious practice. In, Sweden Christian Democracy surged as minority grouping amongst the center-right forces and was tied to religious minority tendencies in society (the Free Churches).

Reasons for founding the party
In the beginning 1964 Lewi Pethrus, founder of the Swedish Pentecostal movement and chief editor of the Swedish newspaper Dagen, discussed the idea of a Swedish Christian democratic party on the editorial pages of Dagen. He stated that many people had contacted him about the idea, and that the current Swedish political climate was dominated by atheist economic materialism.
Principal Algot Terel hosted a conference in February 7 the same year. The topic of the conference was "Christianity and Politics", and during the conference the idea of starting a Christian Democratic Party was discussed. A committee consisting of Lewi Pethrus and 8 other Free Church leaders was formed.
A large and widespread debate followed this decision to create a commitée. Dagen published an interview with the leader of the Norwegian Christian Democratic Party Kjell Bondevik and there were talks about creating a Christian Democratic Party in Finland as well.
On March 20, 1964 the party was founded as the Christian Democratic Unity (Kristen Demokratisk Samling). At first it was only an organisation, but at a board meeting later that year it was decided the organisation would be revamped into a party and that it would run for the national elections in Sweden. The first roughly 100 members elected Birger Ekstedt to the post of party chairman and Lewi Pethrus to the post of vice chairman.
Then began the intensive work of spreading the party all over the nation and preparing the necessary infrastructure in preparation for the elections. The party grew rapidly, by the end of the year it had 14 500 members.

The founding
The party was sometimes called the "Air and Water" party at a start because of the party's strong emphasis on environmental politics. At that time the Green Party of Sweden did not exist and thus the Christian Democratic Unity had a unique position with its environmentally friendly politics. In the Swedish national elections in 1964 the party gained 1,8%, not enough to get any seats in the riksdag, but the party already gained influence on the municipal level. In the municipal elections of 1966, the party gained 354 seats.
At this time the established major parties of Sweden began discussing new ways of prohibiting minor parties in Sweden from getting into the riksdag. In 1971 the riksdag was reformed, and with it came the D'Hondt method of voting. The threshold was set to 4%, which meant that the political breakthrough was far away for the KDS.
In 1972, the 51 year old Birger Ekstedt died only a few days after having been reelected as the party chairman. An emergency congress was called, and the relatively unknown chairman of the youth-wing of the party was elected chairman. His name was Alf Svensson, and he later became one of the most important figures in modern Swedish politics. In the national elections in 1973 the party gained the same result as the two preceding elections, 1,8%.
Before the national elections in 1976 there was a strong call for a change to a right-wing government in Sweden. The organisation "Vote right-wing" was formed to promote the change to a right-wing government. The KDS however announced they didn't want to be placed on the traditional right-wing/left-wing scale, a measurement system they felt was outdated. Therefore, the Vote right-wing organisation started a campaign of negative campaigning against the KDS with the slogan "Don't vote for KDS, don't throw away your vote" as the KDS party had not climbed the 4% threshold the last elections. The effects of a large campaign on a small and relatively new party like the KDS was disastrous, and the party only gained 1.4% of the votes in the election.
In the beginning of the 1980s, the party revamped their entire political manifesto. The party abandoned its conservative stance on abortion and instead assumed a moderate pro-choice stance and stated they wanted to work to lower the total amount of abortions in Sweden through preventive measures instead. In the 1980 Nuclear power referendums they party supported the "no" campaign, which meant a no to any further construction of new nuclear power-plants in Sweden and the phase-out of all nuclear power plants in Sweden within 10 years complete with increased investments in alternative energy.
In 1982 the Christian Democratic Women's league was founded and the party gained 1.9% of the votes, for the first getting more than 100 000 votes.

The way into the riksdag
In 1987 the party manifesto was revamped once again (although not as heavily as the last time) and the party changed its name to Christian Democratic Social Party (Kristdemokratiska Samhällspartiet). In the 1988 national elections the party grew significantly and gained 2.8% of the votes. But the Centre Party did not want any further electoral cooperation and the KDS MP had to leave the riksdag. Something had happened however. The party was now recognised as one of the major parties in Sweden, and Alf Svensson had become famous. According to many polls, he was in fact the most popular politician in the entire nation.
Several famous people joined the party and in the right-wing breakthrough national elections of 1991 the party grew explosively yet again and gained over 7% of the votes. The right-wing bloc gained a majority and the KDS formed government with the right-wing bloc. Several Christian Democrats got positions within the new government; Alf Svensson as the minister of foreign aid (and vice foreign minister), Inger Davidson as minister of civilian infrastructure and Mats Odell as minister of communications.
After the right-wing bloc lost the 1994 elections, the KDS managed to stay in the riksdag and had assumed a permanent position within Swedish national politics. In 1996 the party changed its name to the current form, Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna). The party believed this would help deter the belief that it was a religious party. In 1998 the party had its best elections ever, gaining over 11% of the votes, it established itself as the 4th largest party in Sweden, becoming larger than their former electoral partner the Centre Party. In the 2002 national elections the party got less votes but still held on to its position as the 4th largest party.
In 2004, the famous Alf Svensson stepped down in favor of his long designated successor Göran Hägglund.
At the end of 2005, the party had 24 202 confirmed members making it the 4th largest party in size as well. Its one of the few parties in Sweden not continuously losing a lot of members. The Christian Democrats are represented in almost every municipality and region in Sweden.

The real breakthrough
Ideologically it is a centre-right Christian Democrat party, having a big part of their voter base among those who belong to evangelical denominations, known in Sweden as free churches - Pentecostals, Methodists, Baptists, etc. These churches have many followers in Småland, which is the region where the party is strongest. Other important voter groups are senior citizens and young families. Party's political message has been called 'neo-liberalism with a human face.'[1]
The party is a member of the European People's Party (EPP).

Voter base

Christian Democratic Politicians

Party chairman
This list is not yet complete.

Vice chairman
This list is not yet complete.

Second vice chairman

Party secretary

Group leader in the riksdag

Peter Althin, MP and judicial spokesman
Jerzy Einhorn, cancer researcher and MP 1991-1994
Gert Fylking
Bror Stefenson, Chairman of the Christian Democratic Senior League
Anders Wijkman, MEP Other famous Christian democrats

Christian Democratic Youth League
Christian Democratic Student League
Christian Democratic Senior League
Christian Democratic Women's league
The foundation Civitas
Study organisation Framtidsbildarna Affiliated organisations
* - This type of election did not occur this year because of the electoral system.
** - The Christian Democrats stood on a joint list with the Centre Party, and thus no separate election results. The number supplied is the number of tickets with Christian Democratic candidates that were voted with under the common name.

Literature

Alliance for Sweden
Government of Sweden
Parliament of Sweden
Elections in Sweden
European People's Party

2008-03-24T08:29:00.001-07:00

History
Malmö is located at 13°00' east and 55°35' north. Its location in southernmost Sweden makes it closer to the Italian city of Milan than to the northernmost Swedish town Kiruna.
Malmö is part of the transnational Oresund Region and since 2000 the Oresund Bridge crosses the Oresund strait to Copenhagen, Denmark. The bridge was inaugurated July 1, 2000, and measures 8 kilometres (the whole link totalling 16 km), with pylons reaching 204.5 metres vertically. Apart from the Helsingborg-Helsingør ferry links further north, most ferry connections have been discontinued.

Geography
The shores of Scania, where Malmö is situated, have a temperate climate and is according to Köppen climate classification part of the Maritime Temperate climates. This means that the average temperature is above 10 °C in the warmest months, and the coldest month average is above −3 °C.

Climate
Commuter trains pass the bridge every 20 minutes connecting Malmö to Copenhagen, and the Copenhagen Airport. Also some of the X2000 and Intercity trains to Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Kalmar pass the bridge. All these trains stop at Copenhagen Airport.
In March of 2005, digging began on a new railway connection called Citytunneln (The City Tunnel). The tunnel will run from under Malmö Central Station to Triangeln continuing to Hyllievång (Hyllie Meadow), where it will emerge to connect with the Oresund Bridge, effectively changing Malmö Central from being a terminus to being a transit station.
Beside the Copenhagen Airport, Malmö has an airport of its own, Malmö Airport, today chiefly used for low-cost carriers, charter flight routes, and domestic Swedish destinations.
The motorway system has been incorporated with the Oresund Bridge; the European route E20 goes over the bridge and then, together with the European route E6 follows the Swedish west coast from Malmö–Helsingborg to Gothenburg. E6 goes further north along the west coast and through Norway to the Norwegian town Kirkenes at Barents Sea. The European route to Jönköping–Stockholm (E4) starts at Helsingborg. Main roads in direction of Växjö–Kalmar, Kristianstad–Karlskrona, Ystad, and Trelleborg start as freeways.

Transportation

Main article: Malmö Municipality Municipality
After 1971, Malmö had 265,000 inhabitants, the population then dropped to 229 000 by 1985.
In Malmö, 2007, there are 170 different nationalities.

Yugoslavia (8,962)
Denmark (6,497)
Iraq (6,373)
Poland (5,654)
Bosnia-Herzegovina (5,502)
Turkey (1,232)
Chile (1,102)
Iran (1,006)
Serbia (899)
India (622) Demographics
The economy of Malmö was traditionally based on shipbuilding (Kockums) and construction related industries, such as concrete factories. The region's leading university, along with its associated hi-tech and pharmaceutical industries, is located in Lund about 16 km to the north-east. As a result, Malmö had a troubled economic situation following the mid-1970s. Between 1990-1995, 27,000 jobs were lost, and the budget deficit was more than billion Swedish crowns. In 1995, Malmö had Sweden's largest unemployment rate.

Skanska -- house construction: 3,025 employees
ISS Facility Service AB -- hospital service, cleaning, etc: 1,725 employees
Sydkraft -- electricity: 1,025 employees
Sydsvenskan -- newspaper: 1,025 employees
Pågen -- bakery: 975 employees Economy
Malmö has the country's eighth largest school of higher education with the university college Malmö Högskola established in 1998. It has 1,300 employees and 21,000 students (as of 2003).
In addition, the venerable Lund University (established in 1668) has some education located to Malmö:
The UN World Maritime University is also located in Malmö. The World Maritime University (WMU)[4] operates under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations. WMU thus enjoys the status, privileges and immunities of a UN institution in Sweden.

Malmö Art Academy (Konsthögskolan i Malmö)
Malmö Academy of Music (Musikhögskolan i Malmö)
Malmö Theatre Academy (Teaterhögskolan i Malmö)
The Faculty of Medicine, which is located in both Malmö and Lund. Education
A striking depiction of Malmö was made by Bo Widerberg in his engaging debut film Kvarteret Korpen (Raven's End) (1963), largely shot to the shabby Korpen working-class district in Malmö. With humour and tenderness it depicts the tensions between classes and generations. The movie was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Movie in 1965.
In 1944, one of the city's most enduring cultural hubs was inaugurated, namely the Municipal Theatre, with several stages (the main stage is the most expansive theatre room in Sweden) and a repertory, then as now embracing both stage theatre, opera, musical, ballet, musical recitals and theatrical experiments. In the 1950s, Ingmar Bergman was the Director and Chief Stage Director of the place and made it one of the most vital scenes of the nation; many of the people he would bring to stardom in his sixties movies he encountered here (for example Max von Sydow and Ingrid Thulin). Later stage directors include Staffan Valdemar Holm and Göran Stangertz.
Since the 1970s the city has also been home to a rich, if fluctuating, array of independent theatre groups and some show/musical companies. It also hosts a rich rock/dance/dub culture; in the 1960s The Rolling Stones played the Klubb Bongo, and in recent years stars like Morrissey, Nick Cave, B. B. King and Pat Metheny have made repeated visits.
The Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, founded in 1988 by the Swedish art collector and financier Fredrik Roos and housed in a former power station which had been built in 1900, was one of the foremost centers for contemporary art in Europe during the 1980s and '90s. By 2006, most of the collection had been sold off and the museum was on a time-out; the future of the museum foundation and the house are still undetermined.
The Opera of Malmö (Malmö Opera och Musikteater) is well-known in Sweden and a wide range of operas, musicals and plays have been performed there.

Culture
The oldest parts of Malmö were built between 1300-1600 during its first major period of expansion. The central city's layout as well as some of its oldest buildings are from this time. Many of the smaller buildings from this time are typical Scanian two story urban houses that show a strong Danish influence.
Recession followed in the ensuing centuries. The next expansion period was in the mid 19th century and led to the modern stone and brick city. This expansion lasted into the 20th century and can be seen by a number Art Nouveau buildings for which the city is known. Malmö was one of the first cities in Sweden to be influenced by modern ideas of functionalist tenement architecture in the 1930s. Around 1965, the government initiated the so called Million Programme, intending to offer affordable apartments in the outskirts of major Swedish cities. But this period also saw the reconstruction (and razing) of much of the historical city center.
Recent years have seen a bolder more cosmopolitan architecture. Västra Hamnen (The Western Harbor), like most of the harbor to the north of the city center, was industrial. In 2001, however, its reconstruction began as an exclusive, albeit secluded, urban residential neighborhood. The houses are extremely unique and inventive and most were part of the exhibition Bo01. Among the new buildings towers the Turning Torso, a spectacular twisting skyscraper, 190 metres (623 ft) tall, the majority of which is residential. It quickly became Malmö's new landmark within Sweden.

Architecture
The beach Ribersborg in the western harbour, is a man-made shallow beach, stretching along Malmö's coast line. Despite Malmö's chilly climate, it is sometimes referred to as the "Riviera of the North" or the "Swedish Riviera." It is the site of Ribersborgs Kallbadhus, an open air bath opened in the 1890s, where people go swimming all year round, braving the icy waters after a hot sauna in wintertime.
The long boardwalk at The Western Harbour has become a new favourite summer hang-out for the people of Malmö and is a popular place for bathing.

Other sights
In the third week of August each year a festival, Malmöfestivalen, fills the streets of Malmö with different kinds of cuisines and events.
BUFF, the International Children and Young People's Film Festival in Malmö, takes place every year in March.
Malmö was also the host of the Eurovision Song Contest 1992, after Sweden won it the previous year.

Events
Sydsvenska Dagbladet, founded in 1870, is since 2000 Malmö's only full-size daily newspaper, and also one of its larger employers (see section #Economy). It has an average circulation of 130,000. Apart from Sydsvenskan, there are few media companies in the city, though a number of free-of-charge papers, generally dealing with entertainment, music and fashion have local editions (for instance City, .SE, Rodeo, Metro and Nöjesguiden). There are regional Scanian TV and radio broadcasts; these do however serve most of Scania, and are also attained on the other side of the strait.

Media
The most popular football (soccer) team in Malmö is Malmö FF, in the top-level Allsvenskan. They had their period of glamour in the 1970s and 1980s, when they won the league several times. In 1979, they advanced to the finals of the European Cup, now the UEFA Champions League. Then followed some meager years, until they in 2004 won the Allsvenskan again. This is also where Zlatan Ibrahimović started his professional football-career.
The second most notable team is Malmö Redhawks, in ice hockey. They were the creation of a millionaire and quickly rose to the highest rank in the 1990s.

Sports
As of 2006, Malmö has town twinning treaties or treaties of co-operation signed with 11 cities. Of these, co-operation is closest with Newcastle, Tallinn, Chieti and Vaasa. All cities:

Province of Chieti, Italy -- co-operation treaty signed in 2001.
Florence, Italy -- twin towns since 1989.
Kaliningrad, Russia -- co-operation treaty (signed ?)
Newcastle, UK -- co-operation treaty signed in 2003.
Port Adelaide, Australia -- twin towns since 1988.
Stralsund, Germany -- twin towns since 1991.
Szczecin, Poland -- twins towns since 1990.
Tallinn, Estonia -- twin towns since 1989.
Tangshan, China -- twin towns since 1987.
Vaasa, Finland -- twin towns since 1940.
Varna, Bulgaria -- twin towns since 1987. See also

2008-03-23T09:00:00.001-07:00

Value added tax (VAT), or goods and services tax (GST), is tax on exchanges. It is levied on the added value that results from each exchange. It differs from a sales tax because a sales tax is levied on the total value of the exchange. For this reason, a VAT is neutral with respect to the number of passages that there are between the producer and the final consumer. A VAT is an indirect tax, in that the tax is collected from someone other than the person who actually bears the cost of the tax (namely the seller rather than the consumer). To avoid double taxation on final consumption, exports (which by definition, are consumed abroad) are usually not subject to VAT and VAT charged under such circumstances is usually refundable.
The VAT was invented by a French economist in 1954. Maurice Lauré, joint director of the French tax authority, the Direction générale des impôts, as taxe sur la valeur ajoutée (TVA in French) was first to introduce VAT with effect from 10 April 1954 for large businesses, and extended over time to all business sectors. In France, it is the most important source of state finance, accounting for approximately 45% of state revenues.
Personal end-consumers of products, consumers and services cannot recover VAT on purchases, but businesses are able to recover VAT on the materials and services that they buy to make further supplies or services directly or indirectly sold to end-users. In this way, the total tax levied at each stage in the economic chain of supply is a constant fraction of the value added by a business to its products, and most of the cost of collecting the tax is borne by business, rather than by the state. VAT was invented because very high sales taxes and tariffs encourage cheating and smuggling. It has been criticized on the grounds that it is a regressive tax.

Comparison with a sales tax
The standard way to implement a VAT is to say a business owes some percentage on the price of the product minus all taxes previously paid on the good. If VAT rates were 10%, an orange juice maker would pay 10% of the $5 per gallon price ($0.50) minus taxes previously paid by the orange farmer (maybe $0.20). In this example, the orange juice maker would have a $0.30 tax liability. Each business has a strong incentive for its suppliers to pay their taxes, allowing VAT rates to be higher with less tax evasion than a retail sales tax.

Collection Mechanism
Consider the manufacture and sale of any item, which in this case we will call a widget.

Example

A widget manufacturer spends $1 on raw materials and uses them to make a widget.
The widget is sold wholesale to a widget retailer for $1.20, making a profit of $0.20.
The widget retailer then sells the widget to a widget consumer for $1.50, making a profit of $0.30 Without any sales tax
With a 10% sales tax:
So the consumer has paid 10% ($0.15) extra, compared to the no taxation scheme, and the government has collected this amount in taxation. The retailers have not lost anything directly to the tax, but they do have the extra paperwork to do so that they correctly pass on to the government the sales tax they collect. Suppliers and manufacturers have the administrative burden of supplying correct certifications, and checking that their customers (retailers) aren't consumers.

The manufacturer pays $1.00 for the raw materials, certifying it is not a final consumer.
The manufacturer charges the retailer $1.20, checking that the retailer is not a consumer, leaving the same profit of $0.20.
The retailer charges the consumer $1.65 ($1.50 + 10%) and pays the government $0.15, leaving the same profit of $0.30. With a North American (Canadian Provincial and U.S. State) sales tax
With a 10% VAT:
So the consumer has paid 10% ($0.15) extra, compared to the no taxation scheme, and the government has collected this amount in taxation. The businesses have not lost anything directly to the tax, but they do have the extra paperwork to do so that they correctly pass on to the government the difference between what they collect in VAT (output VAT, an 11th of their income) and what they spend in VAT (input VAT, an 11th of their expenditure).
Note that in each case the VAT paid is equal to 10% of the profit, or 'value added'.
The advantage of the VAT system over the sales tax system is that businesses cannot hide consumption (such as wasted materials) by certifying it is not a consumer.

The manufacturer pays $1.10 ($1 + 10%) for the raw materials, and the seller of the raw materials pays the government $0.10.
The manufacturer charges the retailer $1.32 ($1.20 + $1.20x10%) and pays the government $0.02 ($0.12 minus $0.10), leaving the same profit of $0.20.
The retailer charges the consumer $1.65 ($1.50 + $1.50x10%) and pays the government $0.03 ($0.15 minus $0.12), leaving the same profit of $0.30. Limitations to example and VAT
The "value added tax" has been criticized as the burden of it relies on personal end-consumers of products and is therefore a regressive tax (the poor pay more, in comparison, than the rich). However, this calculation is derived when the tax paid is divided not by the tax base (the amount spent) but by income, which is argued to create an arbitrary relationship. The tax rate itself is proportional with higher income people paying more tax but at the same rate as they consume more. If a value added tax is to be related to income, then the unspent income can be treated as deferred (spending savings at a later point in time), at which time it is taxed creating a proportional tax using an income base. Such taxes can have a progressive effect on the effective tax rate of consumption by using exemptions, rebates, or credits.
Revenues from a value added tax are frequently lower than expected because they are difficult and costly to administer and collect. In many countries, however, where collection of personal income taxes and corporate profit taxes has been historically weak, VAT collection has been more successful than other types of taxes. VAT has become more important in many jurisdictions as tariff levels have fallen worldwide due to trade liberalisation, as VAT has essentially replaced lost tariff revenues. Whether the costs and distortions of value added taxes are lower than the economic inefficiencies and enforcement issues (e.g. smuggling) from high import tariffs is debated, but theory suggests value added taxes are far more efficient.
Due to the fact that exports are generally zero-rated (and VAT refunded or offset against other taxes), this is often where VAT fraud occurs. In sectors or countries where VAT fraud is prevalent, attempts by authorities to control fraud may have unintended consequences, and raise costs for honest companies. This problem is also true of other types of taxation, however.
Certain industries (small-scale services, for example) tend to have more VAT avoidance, particularly where cash transactions predominate, and VAT may be criticized for encouraging this. From the perspective of government, however, VAT may be preferable because it captures at least some of the value-added. For example, a carpenter may offer to provide services for cash (i.e. without a receipt, and without VAT) to a homeowner, who usually cannot claim input VAT back. The homeowner will hence bear lower costs and the carpenter may be able to avoid other taxes (profit or payroll taxes). The government, however, may still receive VAT for various other inputs (lumber, paint, gasoline, tools, etc) sold to the carpenter, who would be unable to reclaim the VAT on these inputs. While the total tax receipts may be lower compared to full compliance, it may not be lower than under other feasible taxation systems.
In Europe, the main source of problems is called 'carousel' fraud. Large quantities of valuable goods (often microchips or mobile phones) are transported from one member state to the other. During these transactions, some companies owe VAT, other acquire a right to reclaim VAT. The first companies, called 'missing traders' go bankrupt without paying. The second group of companies can 'pump' money straight out of the national treasuries.
This kind of fraud originated in the 1970s in the Benelux-countries. Today, the British treasury is the main victim. The British judicial system is considered by such criminals as the weakest in the EU. Collaboration with other member states is poor, and the trial-by-jury system makes convictions difficult.

Criticisms

VAT systems
A common VAT system is compulsory for member states of the European Union. The EU VAT system is imposed by a series of European Union directives, the most important of which is the Sixth VAT Directive (Directive 77/388/EC). Nevertheless, some member states have negotiated variable rates (Madeira in Portugal) or VAT exemption for regions or territories. The regions below fall out of the scope of EU VAT:
Under the EU system of VAT, where a person carrying on an economic activity supplies goods and services to another person, and the value of the supplies passes financial limits, the supplier is required to register with the local taxation authorities and charge its customers, and account to the local taxation authority for VAT (although the price may be inclusive of VAT, so VAT is included as part of the agreed price, or exclusive of VAT, so VAT is payable in addition to the agreed price).
VAT that is charged by a business and paid by its customers is known as output VAT (that is, VAT on its output supplies). VAT that is paid by a business to other businesses on the supplies that it receives is known as input VAT (that is, VAT on its input supplies). A business is generally able to recover input VAT to the extent that the input VAT is attributable to (that is, used to make) its taxable outputs. Input VAT is recovered by setting it against the output VAT for which the business is required to account to the government, or, if there is an excess, by claiming a repayment from the government.
Different rates of VAT apply in different EU member states. The minimum standard rate of VAT throughout the EU is 15%, although reduced rates of VAT, as low as 5%, are applied in various states on various sorts of supply (for example, domestic fuel and power in the UK). The maximum rate in the EU is 25%.
The Sixth VAT Directive requires certain goods and services to be exempt from VAT (for example, postal services, medical care, lending, insurance, betting), and certain other goods and services to be exempt from VAT but subject to the ability of an EU member state to opt to charge VAT on those supplies (such as land and certain financial services). Input VAT that is attributable to exempt supplies is not recoverable, although a business can increase its prices so the customer effectively bears the cost of the 'sticking' VAT (the effective rate will be lower than the headline rate and depend on the balance between previously taxed input and labour at the exempt stage).
Finally, some goods and services are "zero-rated". The zero-rate is a positive rate of tax calculated at 0%. Supplies subject to the zero-rate are still "taxable supplies", i.e. they have VAT charged on them. In the UK, examples include most food, books, drugs, and certain kinds of transport. The zero-rate is not featured in the EU Sixth Directive as it was intended that the minimum VAT rate throughout Europe would be 5%. However, zero-rating remains in some Member States, most notably the UK, as a legacy of pre-EU legislation. These Member States have been granted a derogation to continue existing zero-rating but cannot add new goods or services. The UK also exempts or lowers the rate on some products depending on situation; for example milk products are exempt from VAT, but if you go into a restaurant and drink a milk drink it is VAT-able. Some products such as feminine hygiene products and baby products (nappies etc) are charged at 5% VAT along with domestic fuel.
When goods are imported into the EU from other states, VAT is generally charged at the border, at the same time as customs duty. "Acquisition" VAT is payable when goods are acquired in one EU member state from another EU member state (this is done not at the border but through an accounting mechanism). EU businesses are often required to charge themselves VAT under the reverse charge mechanism where services are received from another member state or from outside of the EU.
Businesses can be required to register for VAT in EU member states, other than the one in which they are based, if they supply goods via mail order to those states, over a certain threshold. Businesses that are established in one member state but which receive supplies in another member state may be able to reclaim VAT charged in the second state under the provisions of the Eighth VAT Directive (Directive 79/1072/EC). To do so, businesses have a value added tax identification number. A similar directive, the Thirteenth VAT Directive (Directive 86/560/EC), also allows businesses established outside the EU to recover VAT in certain circumstances.
Following changes introduced on July 1, 2003, (under Directive 2002/38/EC), non-EU businesses providing digital electronic commerce and entertainment products and services to EU countries are also required to register with the tax authorities in the relevant EU member state, and to collect VAT on their sales at the appropriate rate, according to the location of the purchaser. Alternatively, under a special scheme, non-EU businesses may register and account for VAT on only one EU member state. This produces distortions as the rate of VAT is that of the member state of registration, not where the customer is located, and an alternative approach is therefore under negotiation, whereby VAT is charged at the rate of the member state where the purchaser is located.
The differences between different rates of VAT was often originally justified by certain products being "luxuries" and thus bearing high rates of VAT, whereas other items were deemed to be "essentials" and thus bearing lower rates of VAT. However, often high rates persisted long after the argument was no longer valid. For instance, France taxed cars as a luxury product (33%) up into the 1980s, when most of the French households owned one or more cars. Similarly, in the UK, clothing for children is "zero rated" whereas clothing for adults is subject to VAT at the standard rate of 17.5%.

Åland Islands (Finland)
Heligoland island, Büsingen territory (Germany)
Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion (France)
Mount Athos (Greece)
Ceuta, Melilla, The Canary Islands (Spain)
Livigno, Campione d'Italia, Lake Lugano (Italy)
Gibraltar, The Channel Islands (United Kingdom) European Union

Where most of the trade is business-to-consumer, displayed prices must include VAT and VAT must be charged.
Where most of the trade is business-to-business, displayed prices do not have to include VAT. For business transactions the following rules apply:

VAT must be charged if the buyer is in the same country as the seller. The buyer may be able to reclaim the VAT from the tax authorities.
VAT does not need to be charged if the buyer is in a different country. The seller must record the VAT number of the buyer.
Certain EU companies are VAT exempt, these companies must not be charged VAT, regardless of whether they are in the same or different country to the seller. Rules on pricing within the EU
MOMS (Danish: Meromsætningsafgift, Norwegian: merverdiavgift (abriviated MVA), Swedish: mervärdesskatt, earlier mervärdesomsättningsskatt) is a Danish, Norwegian and Swedish sales tax. MOMS is the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish term for VAT. Like other countries' sales and VAT taxes, MOMS is a regressive indirect tax.
In Denmark, VAT is only applied at one level, and is not split into two levels as in other countries (e.g. Germany), where VAT is split into VAT for foodstuffs and VAT for nonfood. The current percentage in Denmark is 25%. That makes Denmark one of the countries with the highest value added tax, alongside Norway and Sweden.
In Norway, VAT is split into three levels: 25% is the general VAT, 14% (formerly 13%, up on January 1, 2007) for foods and restaurant take-out (food eaten in a restaurant has 25%), 8% for person transport, movie tickets, and hotel stays. Most printed matters are still free of VAT.
In Sweden, VAT is split into three levels: 25% for most goods and services including restaurants bills, 12% for foods and hotel stays (but breakfast at 25%) and 6% for printed matter, cultural services,and transport of private persons. Some services are not taxable for example education of children and adults if public utility, but education is taxable at 25% in case of courses for adults at a private school.
MOMS replaced OMS (Danish "Omsætningsafgift", Swedish "omsättningsskatt") in 1967, which was a tax applied exclusively for retailers.

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (MOMS)
In India, VAT replaced sales tax on 1 April 2005. Of the 21 Indian states, eight did not introduce VAT. Haryana had already adopted it on 1 April 2004. The "empowered committee" of the basic framework for uniform VAT laws in the states. Due to the federal nature of the Indian constitution, the states do have the power to set their own VAT rate.

India
In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Pradesh Value Added Tax Act, 2005 came into force on 1 April 2005 and contains six schedules. Schedule I contains goods generally exempted from tax. Schedule II deals with zero rated transactions like exports and Schedule III contains goods taxable at 1%, namely jewellery made from bullion and precious stones. Goods taxable at 4% are listed under Schedule IV. The majority of foodgrains and goods of national importance, like iron and steel, are listed under this head. Schedule V deals with Standard Rate Goods, taxable at 12.5%. All goods that are not listed elsewhere in the Act fall under this head. The VI Schedule contains goods taxed at special rates, such as some liquor and petroleum products.
The Act prescribes threshold limits for VAT registration - dealers with a taxable turnover of over Rs.40.00 lacs, in a tax period of 12 months, are mandatorily registered as VAT dealers. Dealers with a taxable turnover, in a tax period of 12 months, between Rs.5.00 to 40.00 lacs are registered as Turnover Tax (TOT) dealers. While the former category of dealers are eligible for input tax credit, the latter category of dealers are not. A VAT dealer pays tax at the rate specifed in the Schedules. The sales of a TOT dealer are all taxable at 1%. A VAT dealer has to file a monthly return disclosing purchases and sales. A TOT dealer has to file a quarterly return disclosing only sale turnovers. While a VAT dealer can buy goods for business from anywhere in the country, a TOT dealer is barred from buying outside the State of A.P.
The Act appears to be the most liberal VAT law in India. It has simplified the registration procedures and provides for across the board input tax credit (with a few exceptions) for business transactions. A unique feature of registration in Andhra Pradesh is the facility of voluntary VAT registration and input tax credit for start-ups.
The Act also provides for transitional relief (TR) for goods on hand as of 1 April 2005. However, these goods ought to have been purchased from registered dealers between 1 April 2005 to 31 March 2006. This is a bold step compared to the 3 months TR provided by several developed countries.
The Act not only provides for tax refunds for exporters (refund of tax paid on inputs used in the manufacture of goods exported), it also provides for refund of tax in cases where the inputs are taxed at 12.5% and outputs are taxed at 4%.
The VAT Act in Andhra Pradesh is administered by the Commercial Taxes Department (department to collect VAT and other taxes) using a networked software package called VATIS. The personnel were trained prior to the Act coming into force. VATIS is used to process documents and forms received and to generate registration certificates and tax demand notices.
VAT, to be successful, relies on voluntary tax compliance. Since VAT believes in self assessments, dealers are required to maintain proper records, issue tax invoices, file correct tax returns etc. The opposite seems to be happening in India. Businesses are still run on traditional lines. Cash transactions are order of the day. The unorganised sector dominates the market. The hope of higher tax compliance and lesser evasion is still a far cry in Andhra Pradesh. This is reflected in the high percentage of return defaulters (14%), credit returns (35%) and nil returns (20%). That is, roughly 70% of VAT dealers are presently not paying any tax. Filing of credit returns is rampant among FMCG, Consumer Durables, Drugs and Medicines and Fertilizers. The margins are low in this sector (ranging between 2 to 5%). The value addition is not enough to yield revenue as of now. Credits offered by manufacturers compounds the problem. The question is, in a typical purchases and sales scenario, can there be more output tax than input tax? When purchases consistently exceed sales, can output tax exceed input tax? If a VAT dealer can balance his/her purchases and sales, can there be a net tax to the State? Is there a mathematical model or paradigm which can give value added tax and which can reduce the percentage of credit returns? There are no ready answers for these queries. The only remedy seems to be the restriction of input tax to the corresponding purchase value of goods put to sales. In fact a two tier system can be adopted to counter the credit returns - allow full input tax to manufacturers and restrict input tax to the purchase value of goods put to sale to traders. Restricting input tax to 4% in the case of inter state sales and in the case of products taxable at 12.5% seems to be another solution.

The Andhra Pradesh experience
Impuesto al Valor Agregado (IVA, "value-added tax" in Spanish) is a tax applied in Mexico and other countries of Latin America and Spain. In Chile it is called Impuesto a las Ventas y Servicios, in Spain Impuesto sobre el Valor Añadido and in Peru it is called Impuesto General a las Ventas or IGV.
Prior to the IVA, a similar tax called impuesto a las ventas ("sales tax") had been applied in Mexico. In September, 1966, the first attempt to apply the IVA took place when revenue experts declared that the IVA should be a modern equivalent of the sales tax as it occurred in France. At the convention of the Inter-American Center of Revenue Administrators in April and May, 1967, the Mexican representation declared that the application of a value-added tax would not be possible in Mexico at the time. In November, 1967, other experts declared that although this is one of the most equitable indirect taxes, its application in Mexico could not take place.
In response to these statements, direct sampling of members in the private sector took place as well as field trips to the European countries this tax was applied or it was soon to be applied. In 1969, the first attempt to substitute the mercantile-revenue tax for the value-added tax took place. On December 29, 1978 the Federal government published the official application of the tax beginning on January 1, 1980 in the Official Journal of the Federation (Diario Oficial de la Federación).

Mexico
Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a Value Added Tax introduced in New Zealand in 1986, which is currently 12.5%. It is notable for exempting few items from the tax...

New Zealand
Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a Value Added Tax introduced in Australia in 2000 which is collected by the Federal government but given to state governments.

Australia
In the United States, the state of Michigan uses a form of VAT known as the "Single Business Tax" (SBT) as its form of general business taxation. It is the only state in the U.S. to use a VAT. When it was adopted in 1975, it replaced seven business taxes, including a corporate income tax. On August 9, 2006, the Michigan legislature approved voter-initiated legislation to repeal the Single Business Tax. The repeal will be effective after December 31, 2007.. In many stores, the price tags and/or advertised prices do not include the taxes, these will be added at the cash register before the customer pays. In many states, no sales tax is charged for services. This is a key difference between most sales taxes levied throughout the United States and the value added taxes in other countries.

United States

Tax Rates

EU countries
Note 1: Some Canadian provinces collect 14% for harmonized sales tax, a combined federal/provincial VAT. In the rest, the federal GST is 6% and if the province charges sales tax it is separate and is not a VAT. No real "reduced rate" but rebates are generally available for new housing effectively reducing the tax to 4.5%
Note 2: These taxes do not apply in Hong Kong and Macau, which are financially independent as special administrative regions.
Note 3: The reduced rate was 14% until 1 March 2007, when it was lowered to 7%. The reduced rate applies to heating costs, printed matter, restaurant bills, hotel stays, and most food.
Note 4: VAT is not implemented in 2 of India's 28 states.
Note 5: The VAT in Israel is in the process of being gradually reduced. It was reduced from 18% to 17% on March 2004, to 16.5% on September 2005, and was set to its current rate on July 1, 2006. There are plans to further reduce it in the near future, but they depend on political changes in the Israeli parliament.
Note 6: In the 2005 Budget, the government announced that GST would be introduced in January 2007. Many details have not yet been confirmed but it has been stated that essential goods and small businesses would be exempted or zero rated. Rates have not yet been established as of June 2007.
Note 7: The President of the Philippines has the power to raise the tax to 12% after January 1, 2006. The tax was raised to 12% on February 1.
Note 9: The States of Jersey has for the few years, preparing for the introduction of a goods and sales tax to plug a large budget deficit in the island's government budget. It will be held at a flat rate of 3%, with possible exceptions to local food (food not subject to an "island tax" of 5%) and children's clothing.
Note 10: Except Eilat, where VAT is not raised.

Non-EU countries
VAT registered means registered for VAT purposes, i.e. entered into an official VAT payers register of a country. Both natural persons and legal entities can be VAT registered. Countries that use VAT have established different thresholds for remuneration derived by natural persons/legal entities during a calendar year (or a different period) by exceeding which the VAT registration is compulsory. Natural persons/legal entities that are VAT registered are obliged to calculate VAT on certain goods/services that they supply and pay VAT into particular state budget. VAT registered persons/entities are entitled to VAT deduction under legislatory regulations of particular country. The introduction of a VAT can reduce the cash economy because businesses that wish to buy and sell with other VAT registered businesses must themselves be VAT registered.

See also

2008-03-22T09:57:00.001-07:00

William Marcus Fulcher (February 9, 1934 in Augusta, Georgia) served as the football head coach for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in 1972 and 1973. He played college football at Georgia Tech, and he played for the Washington Redskins in the National Football League.

2008-03-21T09:36:00.001-07:00

In mathematics, a series is often represented as the sum of a sequence of terms. That is, a series is represented as a list of numbers with addition operations between them, for example this arithmetic sequence:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... + 99 + 100.
In most cases of interest the terms of the sequence are produced according to a certain rule, such as by a formula, by an algorithm, by a sequence of measurements, or even by a random number generator.
A series may be finite or infinite. Finite series may be handled with elementary algebra, but infinite series require tools from mathematical analysis if they are to be applied in anything more than a tentative way.
Examples of simple series include the arithmetic series which is a sum of an arithmetic progression, written as:

and finite geometric series, a sum of a geometric progression, which can be written as:

Infinite series
Mathematicians usually study a series as a pair of sequences: the sequence of terms of the series: a₀, a₁, a₂, … and the sequence of partial sums S₀, S₁, S₂, …, where S_n = a₀ + a₁ + … + a_n. The notation

represents then a priori this pair of sequences, which is always well defined, but which may or may not converge. In the case of convergence, i.e., if the sequence of partial sums S_N has a limit, the notation is also used to denote the limit of this sequence. To make a distinction between these two completely different objects (sequence vs. numerical value), one may sometimes omit the limits (atop and below the sum's symbol) in the former case, although it is usually clear from the context which one is meant.
Also, different notions of convergence of such a sequence do exist (absolute convergence, summability, etc). In case the elements of the sequence (and thus of the series) are not simple numbers, but, for example, functions, still more types of convergence can be considered (pointwise convergence, uniform convergence, etc.; see below).
Mathematicians extend this idiom to other, equivalent notions of series. For instance, when we talk about a recurring decimal, we are talking, in fact, just about the series for which it stands (0.1 + 0.01 + 0.001 + …). But because these series always converge to real numbers (because of what is called the completeness property of the real numbers), to talk about the series in this way is the same as to talk about the numbers for which they stand. In particular, it should offend no sensibilities if we make no distinction between 0.111… and /₉. Less clear is the argument that 9 × 0.111… = 0.999… = 1, but it is not untenable when we consider that we can formalize the proof knowing only that limit laws preserve the arithmetic operations. See 0.999... for more.

History of the theory of infinite series
The idea of an infinite series expansion of a function was first conceived in India by Madhava in the 14th century, who also developed the concepts of the power series, the Taylor series, the Maclaurin series, rational approximations of infinite series, and infinite continued fractions. He discovered a number of infinite series, including the Taylor series of the trigonometric functions of sine, cosine, tangent and arctangent, the Taylor series approximations of the sine and cosine functions, and the power series of the radius, diameter, circumference, angle θ, π and π/4. His students and followers in the Kerala School further expanded his works with various other series expansions and approximations, until the 16th century.
In the 17th century, James Gregory also worked on infinite series and published several Maclaurin series. In 1715, a general method for constructing the Taylor series for all functions for which they exist was provided by Brook Taylor. Leonhard Euler in the 18th century, developed the theory of hypergeometric series and q-series.

Development of infinite series
The study of the convergence criteria of a series began with Madhava in the 14th century, who developed tests of convergence of infinite series, which his followers further developed at the Kerala School.
In Europe however, the investigation of the validity of infinite series is considered to begin with Gauss in the 19th century. Euler had already considered the hypergeometric series

on which Gauss published a memoir in 1812. It established simpler criteria of convergence, and the questions of remainders and the range of convergence.
Cauchy (1821) insisted on strict tests of convergence; he showed that if two series are convergent their product is not necessarily so, and with him begins the discovery of effective criteria. The terms convergence and divergence had been introduced long before by Gregory (1668). Leonhard Euler and Gauss had given various criteria, and Colin Maclaurin had anticipated some of Cauchy's discoveries. Cauchy advanced the theory of power series by his expansion of a complex function in such a form.
Abel (1826) in his memoir on the binomial series

corrected certain of Cauchy's conclusions, and gave a completely scientific summation of the series for complex values of

m

and

x

. He showed the necessity of considering the subject of continuity in questions of convergence.
Cauchy's methods led to special rather than general criteria, and the same may be said of Raabe (1832), who made the first elaborate investigation of the subject, of De Morgan (from 1842), whose logarithmic test DuBois-Reymond (1873) and Pringsheim (1889) have shown to fail within a certain region; of Bertrand (1842), Bonnet (1843), Malmsten (1846, 1847, the latter without integration); Stokes (1847), Paucker (1852), Tchebichef (1852), and Arndt (1853).
General criteria began with Kummer (1835), and have been studied by Eisenstein (1847), Weierstrass in his various contributions to the theory of functions, Dini (1867), DuBois-Reymond (1873), and many others. Pringsheim's (from 1889) memoirs present the most complete general theory.

Convergence criteria
The theory of uniform convergence was treated by Cauchy (1821), his limitations being pointed out by Abel, but the first to attack it successfully were Seidel and Stokes (1847-48). Cauchy took up the problem again (1853), acknowledging Abel's criticism, and reaching the same conclusions which Stokes had already found. Thomae used the doctrine (1866), but there was great delay in recognizing the importance of distinguishing between uniform and non-uniform convergence, in spite of the demands of the theory of functions.

Uniform convergence
A series is said to be semi-convergent (or conditionally convergent) if it is convergent but not absolutely convergent.
Semi-convergent series were studied by Poisson (1823), who also gave a general form for the remainder of the Maclaurin formula. The most important solution of the problem is due, however, to Jacobi (1834), who attacked the question of the remainder from a different standpoint and reached a different formula. This expression was also worked out, and another one given, by Malmsten (1847). Schlömilch (Zeitschrift, Vol.I, p. 192, 1856) also improved Jacobi's remainder, and showed the relation between the remainder and Bernoulli's function

Genocchi (1852) has further contributed to the theory.
Among the early writers was Wronski, whose "loi suprême" (1815) was hardly recognized until Cayley (1873) brought it into prominence.

Semi-convergence
Fourier series were being investigated as the result of physical considerations at the same time that Gauss, Abel, and Cauchy were working out the theory of infinite series. Series for the expansion of sines and cosines, of multiple arcs in powers of the sine and cosine of the arc had been treated by Jakob Bernoulli (1702) and his brother Johann Bernoulli (1701) and still earlier by Viète. Euler and Lagrange simplified the subject, as did Poinsot, Schröter, Glaisher, and Kummer.
Fourier (1807) set for himself a different problem, to expand a given function of x in terms of the sines or cosines of multiples of x, a problem which he embodied in his Théorie analytique de la Chaleur (1822). Euler had already given the formulas for determining the coefficients in the series; Fourier was the first to assert and attempt to prove the general theorem. Poisson (1820-23) also attacked the problem from a different standpoint. Fourier did not, however, settle the question of convergence of his series, a matter left for Cauchy (1826) to attempt and for Dirichlet (1829) to handle in a thoroughly scientific manner (see convergence of Fourier series). Dirichlet's treatment (Crelle, 1829), of trigonometric series was the subject of criticism and improvement by Riemann (1854), Heine, Lipschitz, Schläfli, and DuBois-Reymond. Among other prominent contributors to the theory of trigonometric and Fourier series were Dini, Hermite, Halphen, Krause, Byerly and Appell.

Fourier series

In general, the geometric series

converges if and only if |z| < 1.

converges if r > 1 and diverges for r ≤ 1, which can be shown with the integral criterion described below in convergence tests. As a function of r, the sum of this series is Riemann's zeta function.

converges if the sequence b_n converges to a limit L as n goes to infinity. The value of the series is then b₁ − L.

A geometric series is one where each successive term is produced by multiplying the previous term by a constant number. Example:
The harmonic series is the series
An alternating series is a series where terms alternate signs. Example:
The series
A telescoping series Some types of infinite series
Main article: absolute convergence.
A series

is said to converge absolutely if the series of absolute values

converges. In this case, the original series, and all reorderings of it, converge, and converge towards the same sum.
The Riemann series theorem says that if a series converges, but not absolutely, then one can always find a reordering of the terms so that the reordered series diverges. Moreover, if the a_n are real and S is any real number, one can find a reordering so that the reordered series converges with limit S.

Absolute convergence

Main article: convergence tests Convergence tests
Several important functions can be represented as Taylor series; these are infinite series involving powers of the independent variable and are also called power series. For example, the series

converges to

e

for all x. See also radius of convergence.
Historically, mathematicians such as Leonhard Euler operated liberally with infinite series, even if they were not convergent. When calculus was put on a sound and correct foundation in the nineteenth century, rigorous proofs of the convergence of series were always required. However, the formal operation with non-convergent series has been retained in rings of formal power series which are studied in abstract algebra. Formal power series are also used in combinatorics to describe and study sequences that are otherwise difficult to handle; this is the method of generating functions.

Power series

Main article: Dirichlet series Dirichlet series
Asymptotic series, otherwise asymptotic expansions, are infinite series whose partial sums become good approximations in the limit of some point of the domain. In general they do not converge. But they are useful as sequences of approximations, each of which provides a value close to the desired answer for a finite number of terms. The difference is that an asymptotic series cannot be made to produce an answer as exact as desired, the way that convergent series can. In fact, after a certain number of terms, a typical asymptotic series reaches its best approximation; if more terms are included, most such series will produce worse answers.
Cesàro summation, (C,k) summation, Abel summation, and Borel summation provide increasingly weaker (and hence applicable to increasingly divergent series) means of defining the sums of series.
The notion of series can be defined in every abelian topological group; the most commonly encountered case is that of series in a Banach space.

Generalizations
Analogous definitions may be given for sums over arbitrary index set. Let a: I → X, where I is any set and X is an abelian topological group. Let F be the collection of all finite subsets of I. Note that F is a directed set ordered under inclusion with union as join. We define the sum of the series as the limit

if it exists and say that the series a converges unconditionally. Thus it is the limit of all finite partial sums. Because F is not totally ordered, and because there may be uncountably many finite partial sums, this is not a limit of a sequence of partial sums, but rather of a net.
Note, however that needs to be countable for the sum to be finite. To see this, suppose it is uncountable. Then some would be uncountable, and we can estimate the sum

This definition is insensitive to the order of the summation, so the limit will not exist for conditionally convergent series. If, however, I is a well-ordered set (for example any ordinal), one may consider the limit of partial sums of the finite initial segments

If this limit exists, then the series converges. Unconditional convergence implies convergence, but not conversely, as in the case of real sequences. If X is a Banach space and I is well-ordered, then one may define the notion of absolute convergence. A series converges absolutely if

exists. If a sequence converges absolutely then it converges unconditionally, but the converse only holds in finite dimensional Banach spaces.
Note that in some cases if the series is valued in a space that is not separable, one should consider limits of nets of partial sums over subsets of I which are not finite.

Summations over arbitrary index sets
For real-valued series, an uncountable sum converges only if at most countably many terms are nonzero. Indeed, let

be the set of indices whose terms are greater than 1/n. Each I_n is finite (otherwise the series would diverge). The set of indices whose terms are nonzero is the union of the I_n by the Archimedean principle, and the union of countably many countable sets is countable by the axiom of choice.
Occasionally integrals of real functions are described as sums over the reals. The above result shows that this interpretation should not be taken too literally. On the other hand, any sum over the reals can be understood as an integral with respect to the counting measure, which accounts for the many similarities between the two constructions.
The proof goes forward in general first-countable topological vector spaces as well, such as Banach spaces; define I_n to be those indices whose terms are outside the n-th neighborhood of 0. Thus uncountable series can only be interesting if they are valued in spaces that are not first-countable.

Examples

Convergent series
Divergent series
Sequence transformations
Sequence

2008-03-20T10:00:00.001-07:00

In physics, mechanical energy describes the potential energy and kinetic energy present in the components of a mechanical system.

Simplifying assumptions
Scientists make simplifying assumptions to make calculations about how mechanical systems react. For example, instead of calculating the mechanical energy separately for each of the billions of molecules in a soccer ball, it is easier to treat the entire ball as one object. This means that only two numbers (one for kinetic mechanical energy, and one for potential mechanical energy) are needed for each dimension (for example, up/down, north/south, east/west) under consideration.
To calculate the energy of a system without any simplifying assumptions would require examining the state of all elementary particle(s) and considering all four fundamental interactions). This is usually only done for very small systems, such as those studied in particle physics.

2008-03-19T10:08:00.001-07:00

Santiago de Tezanos (born June 25, 1971 in Montevideo, Uruguay) is a Uruguayan architect. He earned his degree at the School of Architecture, National University in Uruguay (Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad de la República). He has an especialization in e-business and e-marketing, with 10+ years experience in these fields.
Since the start of his professional career, he has worked on a globalized scale, melding the worlds of architecture and information technology. This has led his practice to achieve a new level in the development of architectural design processes.
He is the principal of Santiago de Tezanos Architects, a de-localized architecture office with operations in Montevideo, Miami and Shanghai. The firm provides the full range of architectural services from simple consulting to complete projects. It has established collaborative relationships with several investors and contractor firms throughout the world, becoming their operations and design center. The firm's activities, based in the Business Process Outsourcing model, have turned it into a key player of this market.
The Harvard Graduate School of Design selected the firm as case study in Business Process Outsourcing in the field.
Recent projects (compeleted, under construction and in design phase) are scattered across the planet in such diverse locations as the United States, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, Ireland, Bermuda, Virgin Islands, New Zealand, Morocco and Cayman Islands.
For several years Mr. de Tezanos held a teaching position in "Architecture and Technology" at his college Alma Mater, Instituto Crandon, in Montevideo.
Some other of his interests and studies include film production, a strong background in information technology (being among the pioneer users of the Internet in Uruguay ca. 1991), lifelong activities as amateur astronomer and eclipse chaser, along with a command of several languages such as English, Spanish, French and German, together with basic knowledge of Greek.

List of (some) recent Projects designed by the firm:

Hotel Terre, Marrakech, Morocco
Maison des Iles, Sark, Channel Islands
Dixcart Bay Hotel expansion, Sark, Channel Islands
Oukaïmeden Ski Resort, Oukaïmeden, Morocco
Sanctuary Health&Spa Resort, Marrakech, Morocco
Olive Street Tower, Los Angeles, California, United States
FitzGerald House, Kilminnin, Ireland
Playa Potrero family residence, Playa Potrero, Costa Rica
Los Pargos family residence, Costa Rica
Residences in Morris County, New Jersey, United States
Private residence, Scottsdale, Arizona, United States
Private residence, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands
Landscape Architecture projects 100+ Residences, New Jersey, United States

2008-03-18T08:31:00.001-07:00

Telephones - main lines in use: 17.336 million (1999)
Telephones - mobile cellular: 38.6 million (2004)
Telephone system: generally adequate, modern facilities domestic: NA international: 22 coaxial submarine cables; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (1 Atlantic Ocean and 1 Indian Ocean), NA Eutelsat; tropospheric scatter to adjacent countries
Radio broadcast stations: AM 208, FM 715, shortwave 1 (1998)
Radios: 13.1 million (1997)
Television broadcast stations: 228 (plus 2,112 repeaters); note - these figures include 11 television broadcast stations and 89 repeaters in the Canary Islands (September 1995)
Televisions: 16.2 million (1997)
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 49 (1999)
See also: Broadband Internet access worldwide#Spain
Country code (Top-level domain): ES
Only recognised by Turkey.

2008-03-17T10:16:00.001-07:00

Registered Cossacks (Ukrainian: Реєстрові козаки, Reyestrovi kozaky, Polish: Kozacy rejestrowi) is the term used for Ukrainian Cossacks (mostly from the Zaporizhian Sich) who were part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth armies. Registered Cossacks were a part of Commonwealth army from 1582 until the year 1699. The idea came from Polish king Stefan Batory and the first register had 500 names.
Registered Cossacks formed an elite among Cossacks, serving in the military under commanders (starshyna) and main otaman, who were responsible before Grand Crown Hetman (Commonwealth highest military commander). A substantial percent of Cossacks formed skilled light cavalry units (choragiew), excellent skirmishers trained in mounted archery (and later using firearms), making lightning raids, harassing heavier, slower formations and disengaging. Those units were often used as support for heavy elite Commonwealth cavalry, the hussars, and were much cheaper to form than a hussar unit. Cossack units were also known for their tabor formation.
Registered Cossacks had many privileges, including personal freedom, exclusion from many taxes and duties, and the right to receive wages (although the Commonwealth military was plagued with fiscal problems, leading to extremely delayed wages, often paid in items like clothes or weapons instead of coin).
Many Cossacks were skilled warriors, and Cossacks' major income source came from raids on the southern neighbors of the Commonwealth (Ottoman Empire and its vassals). However only a small number were actually 'registered Cossacks' - the exact number was from few hundred to few thousands and varied in time, usually being increased during wartime. This has led to many social and political tensions, especially as szlachta (Polish and Ukrainian gentry) continually attempted to force Cossacks into submissions as peasants, while Cossacks demanded the significant expansion of the Cossack register. Furthermore, the Cossack-szlachta conflict was aggravated as Cossacks often supported Commonwealth monarchs (like Wladyslaw IV Waza), who were often at odds with Polish szlachta, wishing to further limit the monarch's powers. The tensions between Cossacks and Polish szlachta grew and from the late 16th century resulted in several uprisings (the greatest of which was the Khmelnytsky uprising of 1648), with registered Cossacks often forced to choose sides between supporting their own people or the szlachta-backed Commonwealth forces.
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Leazes Park is a park in Newcastle upon Tyne. It lies to the west of the city centre. It is the city's oldest park, opened in 1873. It contains a lake above the course of the Lort Burn. It is next to St James' Park and the Royal Victoria Infirmary.
Leazes Park is separated from Spital Tongues by Castle Leazes, an area of common land similar to the Town Moor.