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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio%20Units
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Audio Units
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Audio Units (AU) are a system-level plug-in architecture provided by Core Audio in Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. Audio Units are a set of application programming interface (API) services provided by the operating system to generate, process, receive, or otherwise manipulate streams of audio in near-real-time with minimal latency. It may be thought of as Apple's architectural equivalent to another popular plug-in format, Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology (VST).
Because of the many similarities between Audio Units and VST, several commercial and free wrapping technologies are available (e.g. Symbiosis and FXpansion VST-AU Adapter). Celemony Software and PreSonus have also developed the Audio Random Access (ARA) extension, which works for both AU and VST, allowing greater integration between the plug-ins and DAW software.
Use
Audio Units allows sound file audio time stretching and pitch scaling (e.g., timestretch), sample rate conversion, and streaming over a Local Area Network. It also comes with a set of AU plug-ins such as EQ filters, dynamic processors, delay, reverb, and a Soundbank Synthesizer Instrument.
AU are used by Apple applications such as GarageBand, Soundtrack Pro, Logic Express, Logic Pro, Logic Pro X, Final Cut Pro, MainStage and most 3rd party audio software developed for macOS such as Ableton Live, Amadeus Pro, Ardour, Audio Hijack, DaVinci Resolve, Digital Performer, Gig Performer, REAPER, and Studio One.
Competing technologies
Avid's Avid Audio eXtension (a successor to the RTAS format)
Digidesign's Real Time AudioSuite (now obsolete)
LADSPA and Disposable Soft Synth Interface (DSSI) for Linux
LV2 (crossplatform successor to LADSPA)
Microsoft's DirectX
Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology
References
Music software plugin architectures
macOS APIs
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47643446
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward%20Quayle
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Edward Quayle
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Edward Quayle (1802 – 14 June 1862) was a Manx merchant navy officer who served as commanding officer of numerous Isle of Man Steam Packet Company vessels. Quayle was amongst the first captains of the line, retiring with the rank of Commodore. Captain Quayle was said to have been a thorough seafarer and an attentive and warm-hearted man.
Early life
Edward Quayle was born on the Isle of Man in 1802.
Career
For a number of years prior to the introduction of the steamship, Capt. Quayle was Master of the clipper packets which sailed on the mail run between Douglas and Liverpool his final command prior to him joining the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company was that of the barque Eleanor.
Isle of Man Steam Packet Company
Captain Quayle's reputation led to his appointment as Master of the Mona on 5 October 1833, and subsequently as the company continued to grow he succeeded Captain William Gill in taking command of the [[SS Mona's Isle (1830)|Mona's Isle]]. In turn Capt. Quayle commanded all of the company's steamers from the early 1830s onwards, gaining a high reputation amongst his passengers and crew.
His early command of the Mona saw him undertake the winter role, that is the continuation of the link between Douglas and Liverpool through the winter months, a hazardous undertaking in a small ship of 150 tons, battling the numerous winter storms of the Irish Sea.
On 25 March 1835, under the command of Capt. Quayle, the Queen of the Isle was involved in a collision with the Irishman in the Mersey Estuary. On 26 July 1839, Mona Isle rescued the crew of Nancy, which was wrecked on the Pollock Rocks, in Douglas Bay. Quayle was awarded a silver medal by Lloyd's of London for his actions.
Following Capt. Gill's retirement from the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company in 1852, Capt. Quayle succeeded him as Commodore of the line. His final command was that of the Douglas.
Retirement
In July 1860, as a consequence of failing health and of injuries received during rough weather in service, Capt. Quayle retired from the command of the Douglas. However he still continued in the service of the IOMSPCo on land.
Death
From the time of Capt. Quayle's retirement his health continued to decline. He passed away at his home on Prospect Hill, Douglas, Isle of Man, on Saturday 14 June 1862.
Capt. Quayle's funeral was reported to have been very well attended with numerous Steam Packet directors in attendance. The service was conducted by the Reverend William Drury, after which his body was interred at Braddan Parish Cemetery.
Awards
Pollock Rocks Rescue
In 1841 Capt. Edward Quayle received awards from Lloyd's of London and the Royal Humane Society for rescuing the crew of a vessel which were stranded on the Pollock Rocks, Douglas Bay, during an easterly gale.
On the night of Saturday 6 February, a smack named New Volunteer'' was making its way into Douglas Harbour in challenging conditions, having made passage from Whitehaven. Laden with a cargo of coal, freestone and gunpowder she struck upon the bar at the harbour entrance during which the tiller in the rudder head was broken resulting in the ship being driven onto the Pollock Rocks - a jagged crop of rocks situated on the northern side of Douglas Harbour.
Capt. Quayle led the rescue in the first of several small boats which made their way to the rocks, successfully taking off all the crew members.
In addition to the awards bestowed on him by Lloyd's of London and the Royal Humane Society, and on the recommendation of Sir William Hillary, Capt. Quayle was awarded a Silver Medal on behalf of the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck - the second time that particular award had been bestowed on him.
References
English sailors
Manx people
Steamship captains
1802 births
1862 deaths
British Merchant Navy officers
Manx culture
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1759647
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%20Bader%20%28computer%20scientist%29
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David Bader (computer scientist)
|
David A. Bader (born May 4, 1969) is a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute for Data Science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Previously, he served as the Chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Computational Science & Engineering, where he was also a founding professor, and the executive director of High-Performance Computing at the Georgia Tech College of Computing. In 2007, he was named the first director of the Sony Toshiba IBM Center of Competence for the Cell Processor at Georgia Tech. Bader has served on the Computing Research Association's Board of Directors, the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure, and on the IEEE Computer Society's Board of Governors. He is an expert in the design and analysis of parallel and multicore algorithms for real-world applications such as those in cybersecurity and computational biology. His main areas of research are at the intersection of high-performance computing and real-world applications, including cybersecurity, massive-scale analytics, and computational genomics. Bader built the first Linux supercomputer using commodity processors and a high-speed interconnection network.
Bader is an IEEE Fellow, an AAAS Fellow,, SIAM Fellow, and an ACM Fellow. He has won awards from IBM, Microsoft Research, Nvidia, Facebook, Intel, Accenture, and Sony. He has served on numerous conference program committees related to parallel processing and has edited numerous journals. In 2018, Bader was recognized as one of the most impactful authors in the history of the IEEE International Conference on High-Performance Computing, Data, and Analytics (HiPC).
Early life
Bader is the son of chemistry professor Morris Bader and his wife Karen. He is an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America, receiving this designation in 1985. Bader graduated from Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1987. He received a B.S. in computer engineering in 1990 and an M.S. in electrical engineering in 1991 from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He then received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1996 from the University of Maryland, College Park. While at UMD in 1992, Bader was awarded a NASA Graduate Student Researchers Fellowship by Gerald Soffen, project scientist for the Viking missions to Mars, at Goddard Space Flight Center.
Career
Bader was hired as an assistant professor and Regents' Lecturer in the electrical and computer engineering department at The University of New Mexico in 1998. In 2003, he was elected chair of the IEEE Computer Society's technical committee on parallel processing. Bader remained at UNM until 2005, when he accepted a position with the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. Shortly after arriving at Georgia Tech, Bader began working, along with several other faculty members, to establish a School of Computational Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. Two years later, in 2007, these efforts resulted in the school's establishment as an official academic unit, and Bader became a full professor in 2008 as one of the school's founding faculty. Richard M. Fujimoto was named the school's first chair, and Bader was later named the second chair of the school of CSE in July 2014. He served in that role until his term expired in June 2019.
Bader was involved in a number of research partnerships between Georgia Tech and the public and private sectors. In November 2006, Sony, Toshiba, and IBM selected Bader to direct the first Center of Competence for the Cell Processor. In 2010, Bader was a lead investigator on the Nvidia Echelon project, a $25 million DARPA Award through the Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) program. The four-year research collaboration with Nvidia covered work to develop new GPU technologies required to build the new class of exascale supercomputers. Bader and his lab partnered with Nvidia again in April 2019 to develop data analytics solutions for their GPUs.
In 2011, Bader began working with the Georgia Tech Research Institute on the Proactive Discovery of Insider Threats Using Graph Analysis and Learning (PRODIGAL) project. On July 29, 2015, President Barack Obama announced the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI). Bader was invited by the White House on October 20–21, 2015, to serve as a panelist at the White House's National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) Workshop. Following this, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) invited Bader to serve as a panelist at the NITRD High End Computing (HEC) Interagency Working Group (IWG) and Big Data Senior Steering Group (SSG) "Supercomputing and Big Data: From Collision to Convergence" Panel, at the 27th IEEE and ACM Supercomputing Conference (SC15), Austin, TX, November 18, 2015. On July 29, 2016, Bader was an invited attendee to the White House's National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) Anniversary Workshop. Bader also co-founded the Graph500 List in 2015 for benchmarking "Big Data" computing platforms.
Bader was elected as an IEEE Fellow in 2009. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), from 2013 to 2017 and serves as an Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC). Bader has been an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, IEEE DSOnline, Parallel Computing, and the ACM Journal of Experimental Algorithmics, and has published over 250 articles in peer reviewed journals and conferences. In October 2018, Bader was named Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions.
In July 2019, Bader joined the New Jersey Institute of Technology as a Distinguished Professor in the Ying Wu College of Computing Sciences and was named the first director of the school's new Institute for Data Science. The institute combines existing research centers in big data, medical informatics, and cybersecurity at NJIT and conducts both basic and applied research. In May 2020, Bader joined the leadership team of the NSF-sponsored Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub as its inaugural seed fund steering committee chair.
Bader is the 2021 General Co-chair of the IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing Symposium (IPDPS).
Awards and recognitions
2005
NSF CAREER Award
2006
IBM Faculty Award for making fundamental contributions to the design and optimization of parallel scientific libraries for multicore processors.
2007
Georgia Tech College of Computing Dean's Award
2009
IEEE Fellow
2010
In June 2010, Intel supported Bader's research on graph analytics with a 3-year award from the Intel Labs Academic Research Office for the Parallel Algorithms for Non-Numeric Computing Program.
Golden Core Member of the IEEE Computer Society
IEEE Computer Society Meritorious Service Award
2011
AAAS Fellow
InsideHPC "Rock Star of High Performance Computing"
2012
HPCWire "People to Watch"
University of Maryland's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering presented Bader as the first recipient of their Distinguished Alumni Award.
2013
IEEE Computer Society's Technical Committee on Parallel Processing Outstanding Service Award
2014
Georgia Tech College of Computing Outstanding Senior Faculty Research Award
HPCWire "People to Watch"
2015
Accenture Open Innovation Award.
2016
IBM Faculty Award in Big Data / Analytics for optimizing graph analytics for cognitive computing.
2019
SIAM Fellow
Facebook AI System Hardware/Software Co-Design Research Award to develop "high-performance AI solutions for existing as well as future AI hardware."
2021
ROI-NJ recognized Bader on its inaugural list of technology influencers.
IEEE Computer Society Sidney Fernbach Award "For the development of Linux-based massively parallel production computers and for pioneering contributions to scalable discrete parallel algorithms for real-world applications."
ACM Fellow "For contributions to high-performance computing systems, graph analytics, and technical leadership in parallel computing."
Personal life
Bader has one child, Sadie "Sage" Rose, who is an avid artist.
References
External links
David Bader's New Jersey Institute of Technology website
American computer scientists
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Liberty High School (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) alumni
Georgia Tech faculty
Living people
1969 births
People from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Fellow Members of the IEEE
University of Maryland, College Park alumni
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8593106
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul%20D.%20Thacker
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Paul D. Thacker
|
Paul D. Thacker is an American journalist who reports on science, medicine, and the environment. He was a lead investigator of the United States Senate Committee on Finance for Senator Chuck Grassley, where he examined financial links between physicians and pharmaceutical companies.
Early life
Thacker was raised in California and Texas, and joined the US Army after high school, where he was deployed in Saudi Arabia and Iraq during the Gulf War. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, with an emphasis in ecology and evolution, from the University of California, Davis in 1997. He worked as a laboratory technician at Emory University before turning to journalism, leaving Emory for an Audubon magazine internship in 2000.
Career
After 2000, Thacker wrote for publications such as The New Republic and Salon and was a staff writer with Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Here he published a series of exposés that a senior ACS official claimed showed an anti-industry bias, culminating in an article on the Weinberg Group that resulted in him being fired by the journal in 2006. In Thacker's Weinberg Group story he wrote about a letter that group sent to DuPont outlining a plan to protect DuPont from litigation and regulation over Teflon. The Weinberg Group had done similar work for Big Tobacco and then began working in Europe to defeat alcohol regulations. ACS editor Rudy Baum called the Weinberg article a "hatchet job". In 2006, the Weinberg article won a second place prize in annual awards presented by the US Society of Environmental Journalists. Later that year, Thacker's work was profiled on Exposé: America's Investigative Reports.
In 2007, Thacker joined the United States Senate Committee on Finance for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, investigating medical research conflicts of interest. Among his work he identified several physicians who had failed to disclose payments from drug and medical companies, including psychiatrist Charles Nemeroff. He also led the committee's investigation of the drug Avandia, which included a report that a medical journal had published a ghostwritten article promoting the drug. He left the committee in 2010 to join the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog organization.
From 2012 to 2014, Thacker completed two fellowships at Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics.
In November 2021, The BMJ published a piece by Thacker alleging there has been "poor practice" at Ventavia, one of the companies involved in the phase III evaluation trials of the Pfizer vaccine. The report was enthusiastically embraced by anti-vaccination activists. Questioning Thacker's work in Science-Based Medicine, David Gorski wrote that his article presented facts without necessary context to misleading effect, playing up the seriousness of the noted problems. Some experts have expressed skepticism over the allegations made in the report. Prominent vaccination expert Paul Offit has criticized the issues outlined in the report as being vague and has cautioned against assuming the claims made in it are true.
Thacker received the 2021 British Journalism Award for Specialist Journalism for a series of articles in The BMJ investigating undisclosed financial interests among medical experts advising the US and UK governments on vaccines. The award judges said “[t]his was expertly researched and written journalism on a subject of huge national importance.”
Notes
External links
Thacker interview. "Science Fiction", Exposé: America's Investigative Reports, PBS
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
American medical journalists
University of California, Davis alumni
American science journalists
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34220488
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC%2062443
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IEC 62443
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IEC 62443 is an international series of standards that address cybersecurity for operational technology in automation and control systems. The standard is divided into different sections and describes both technical and process-related aspects of automation and control systems cybersecurity. It divides the cybersecurity topics by stakeholder category / roles including: the operator, the service providers (service providers for integration and for maintenance) and the component/system manufacturers. The different roles each follow a risk-based approach to prevent and manage security risks in their activities.
History
As an international standard, the IEC 62443 family of standards is the result of the IEC standards creation process where all national committees involved agree upon a common standard. Multiple organizations and committees submitted input to the IEC working groups and helped shape the IEC 62443 family of standard.
Starting in 2002, the International Society of Automation, a professional automation engineering society and ANSI-accredited standards development organization (SDO) established the Industrial Automation and Control System Security standards committee (ISA99). The ISA99 committee developed a multi-part series of standards and technical reports about Industrial Automation and Control System (IACS) cyber security. These work products were submitted by ISA for approval and then published as North American ANSI standards. The ISA standards documents originally referred to as ANSI/ISA-99 or ISA99 standards were renumbered to be the ANSI/ISA-62443 series in 2010. The content of this series was submitted to and used by the IEC working groups.
In parallel, the German engineering associations VDI and VDE released the VDI/VDE 2182 guidelines in 2011. The guidelines describe how to handle information security in industrial automation environments and were also submitted to and used by the IEC working groups.
In 2021, the IEC approved the IEC 62443 family of standards as 'horizontal standards'. This means that when sector specific standards for operational technology are being developed by subject matter experts, the IEC 62443 standards must be used at the foundation for requirements addressing cybersecurity in those standards. This approach serves to avoid the proliferation of partial and/or conflicting requirements for addressing cybersecurity of operational technology across industry sectors where the same or similar technology or products are deployed at operating sites.
Structure
The IEC 62443 Industrial communication networks - Network and system security series of standards consists of the following parts:
Part 1-1: Terminology, concepts and models (Technical Specification, Edition 1.0, July 2009)
Part 2-1: Establishing an industrial automation and control system security program (International Standard, Edition 1.0, November 2010) This section of the standard is aimed at operators of automation solutions and defines requirements for how security during the operation of plants is to be considered (see ISO/IEC 27001).
Part 2-3: Patch management in the IACS environment (Technical Report, Edition 1.0, June 2015)
Part 2-4: Security program requirements for IACS service providers (Technical Report, Edition 1.1, August 2017) This part defines requirements ("capabilities") for integrators. These requirements are divided into 12 topics: Assurance, architecture, wireless, security engineering systems, configuration management, remote access, event management and logging, user management, malware protection, patch management, backup & recovery, and project staffing.
Part 3-1: Security technologies for industrial automation and control systems (Technical Report, Edition 1.0, July 2009)
Part 3-2: Security risk assessment for system design (International Standard, Edition 1.0, June 2020)
Part 3-3: System security requirements and security levels (International Standard, Edition 1.0, August 2013) Technical requirements for systems and security levels are described in this part.
Part 4-1: Secure product development lifecycle requirements (International Standard, Edition 1.0, January 2018) Section 4-1 of IEC 62443 defines how a secure product development process should look like. It is divided into eight areas ("Practices"): management of development, definition of security requirements, design of security solutions, secure development, testing of security features, handling of security vulnerabilities, creation and publication of updates and documentation of security features.
Part 4-2: Technical security requirements for IACS components (International Standard, Edition 1.0, February 2019) This section defines technical requirements for products or components. Like the requirements for systems (Section -3-3), the requirements are divided into 12 subject areas and refer to them. In addition to the technical requirements, common component security constraints (CCSC) are defined, which must be met by components to be compliant with IEC 62443-4-2:
CCSC 1 describes that components must take into account the general security characteristics of the system in which they are used.
CCSC 2 specifies that the technical requirements that the component cannot meet itself can be met by compensating countermeasures at system level (see IEC 62443-3-3). For this purpose, the countermeasures must be described in the documentation of the component.
CCSC 3 requires that the "Least Privilege" principle is applied in the component.
CCSC 4 requires that the component is developed and supported by IEC 62443-4-1 compliant development processes.
Maturity and Security Level
IEC 62443 describes different levels of maturity for processes and technical requirements. The maturity levels for processes are based on the maturity levels from the CMMI framework.
Maturity Level
Based on CMMI, IEC 62443 describes different maturity levels for processes through so-called "maturity levels". To fulfill a certain level of a maturity level, all process-related requirements must always be practiced during product development or integration, i.e. the selection of only individual criteria ("cherry picking") is not standard-compliant.
The maturity levels are described as follows:
Maturity Level 1 - Initial: Product suppliers usually carry out product development ad hoc and often undocumented (or not fully documented).
Maturity Level 2 - Managed: The product supplier is able to manage the development of a product according to written guidelines. It must be demonstrated that the personnel who carry out the process have the appropriate expertise, are trained and/or follow written procedures. The processes are repeatable.
Maturity Level 3 - Defined (practiced): The process is repeatable throughout the supplier's organization. The processes have been practiced and there is evidence that this has been done.
Maturity Level 4 - Improving: Product suppliers use appropriate process metrics to monitor the effectiveness and performance of the process and demonstrate continuous improvement in these areas.
Security Level
Technical requirements for systems (IEC 62443-3-3) and products (IEC 62443-4-2) are evaluated in the standard by four so-called Security Levels (SL). The different levels indicate the resistance against different classes of attackers. The standard emphasizes that the levels should be evaluated per technical requirement (see IEC 62443-1-1) and are not suitable for the general classification of products.
The levels are:
Security Level 0: No special requirement or protection required.
Security Level 1: Protection against unintentional or accidental misuse.
Security Level 2: Protection against intentional misuse by simple means with few resources, general skills and low motivation.
Security Level 3: Protection against intentional misuse by sophisticated means with moderate resources, IACS-specific knowledge and moderate motivation.
Security Level 4: Protection against intentional misuse using sophisticated means with extensive resources, IACS-specific knowledge and high motivation.
Concepts
The standard explains various basic principles that should be considered for all roles in all activities.
Defense in Depth
Defense in Depth is a concept in which several levels of security (defense) are distributed throughout the system. The goal is to provide redundancy in case a security measure fails or a vulnerability is exploited.
Zones & Conduits
Zones divide a system into homogeneous zones by grouping the (logical or physical) assets with common security requirements. The security requirements are defined by Security Level (SL). The level required for a zone is determined by the risk analysis.
Zones have boundaries that separate the elements inside the zone from those outside. Information moves within and between zones. Zones can be divided into sub-zones that define different security levels (Security Level) and thus enable defense-in-depth.
Conduits group the elements that allow communication between two zones. They provide security functions that enable secure communication and allow the coexistence of zones with different security levels.
Certification to Standards
Processes, systems and products used in industrial automation environments can be certified according to IEC 62443. Many Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) companies are offering product and process certifications based on IEC 62443. By accrediting according to the ISO/IEC 17000 series of standards, the companies share a single, consistent set of certification requirements for IEC 62443 certifications which elevates the usefulness of the resulting certificates of conformance.
Accredited Certification Schemes
IEC 62443 certification schemes have been established by several global testing, inspection, and certification (TIC) companies. The schemes are based on the referenced standards and define test methods, surveillance audit policies, public documentation policies, and other specific aspects of their program. Cybersecurity certification programs for IEC 62443 standards are being offered globally by many recognized Certification Bodies (CB), including Intertek, SGS-TÜV Saar, TÜV Nord, TÜV Rheinland, TÜV SÜD and UL.
A global infrastructure of National Accreditation Bodies (AB) ensures consistent evaluation of the IEC 62443. The ABs operate per the requirements of ISO/IEC 17011, a standard that contains requirements for the competence, consistency, and impartiality of accreditation bodies when accrediting conformity assessment bodies. ABs are members of the IAF for work in management systems, products, services, and personnel accreditation or the ILAC for laboratory accreditation. A Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA) between ABs will ensure global recognition of accredited CBs.
TIC companies are accredited by an AB to provide inspection according to the ISO/IEC 17020, testing laboratories according to ISO/IEC 17025 and certification of products, processes, and services according to ISO/IEC 17065.
IECEE CB Scheme
The IEC System for Conformity Assessment Schemes for Electrotechnical Equipment and Components (IECEE) Certification Body Scheme (CB Scheme) is a multilateral agreement that facilitates market access for manufacturers of electrical and electronic products. Under the CB Scheme processes, products and systems can be certified according to IEC 62443.
The origin of the CB Scheme comes from the CEE (former European "Commission for Conformity Testing of Electrical Equipment") and was integrated into the IEC in 1985. Currently, 54 Member Bodies are in the IECEE, 88 NCBs (National Certification Bodies), and 534 CB Test Laboratories (CBTL). In the field of product certification, this procedure is used to reduce the complexity in the approval procedure for manufacturers of products tested and certified according to harmonized standards. A product that has been tested by a CBTL (certified testing laboratory) according to a harmonized standard such as the IEC 62443, can use the CB report as a basis for a later national certification and approval such as GS, PSE, CCC, NOM, GOST/R, BSMI.
ISCI ISASecure
The ISA Security Compliance Institute (ISCI), a subsidiary of the International Society of Automation, created a proprietary conformity assessment scheme aligned with the IEC 62443 standards. This scheme is used to certify industrial automation control systems, components and processes. Companies certifying to the ISASecure certification scheme are accredited to the ISASecure technical readiness requirements and have their Test Laboratories and Certification Body accredited to the ISO 17025 and ISO 17065 standards, respectively.
The ISCI offers multiple certifications under the ISASecure brand:
SSA (System Security Assurance) certification of systems according to IEC 62443-3-3 and IEC 62443-4-1
CSA (Component Security Assurance) certification of automation components according to IEC 62443-4-1 and IEC 62443-4-2
SDLA (Secure Development Lifecycle Assurance) certification of automation systems development organizations according to the IEC 62443-4-1
EDSA (Embedded Device Security Assurance) certification of components based on the IEC 62443-4-2. This certification was offered in 2010 and phased out when the IEC 62443-4-2 standard was formally approved and published in 2018.
See also
Cybersecurity standards
Functional safety
International Electrotechnical Commission
References
External links
IEC website
IECEE website
Computer security standards
Information assurance standards
Control system
62443
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1804464
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consulting%20firm
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Consulting firm
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A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expert advice for a fee. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad range of domains, for example, management, engineering, and so on.
Management consultants, in particular, typically work with company executives and provide them with generalists and industry-specific specialists, known as subject-matter experts, usually trained in management or in business schools. The deliverable of a management consultant is usually recommendations for achieving a company objective, leading to a company project.
Many consulting firms complement the recommendations with implementation support, either by the consultants or by technicians and other experts. This is called outsourcing.
Consulting services are part of the tertiary sector and account for several hundred billion dollars in annual revenues. Between 2010 and 2015, the 10 largest consulting firms alone made 170 billion dollars growth revenue and the average annual growth rate is around 4%.
Segments
The segmentation of advisory services varies widely across organizations and countries. Categorization is unclear, in part because of the upheavals that have occurred in this industry in recent years.
One approach is to separate services into four broad service delivery families, considering the managers they are targeting:
Services related to the company's overall strategy, which are addressed to the CEO,
Services related to marketing, communication, sales and public relations, which are addressed to the CMO,
Services related to management, financial management, taxation, accounting, compliance with regulations, for the CFO,
Services related to the company's operations, including information technology, intended for operational management, which may be different depending on the industrial sector (technology director, plant managers, operations directors, Research and Development managers), for instance COO and CTO.
Types
There are different types of Consulting Firms serving different sectors. They mainly fall under the following fields:
Architecture and Engineering
Financial services
Health care
Hotel and hospitality industry
Human resources
Information technology
Legal
Management
Music
Regulatory compliance
In addition to the above-mentioned fields, there are consulting firms that serve niche sectors such as
advertising/marketing/public relations consulting
environmental consulting
entertainment/media consulting
energy consulting
logistics consulting
consulting in politics and the public sector
real estate consulting
recycling consulting
Small Business Consulting
commodities consulting
Successful Consulting Firm Cases
Mexico
In 2013, there was a randomized trial in Mexico where 432 small and medium enterprises were allowed access to management consulting services for one year. As a result of this trial, there were many positive impacts. Such positive impacts include: increase in entrepreneurial spirit, increases in employment and higher wages for employees. Even after 5 years after the trial, positive impacts are still active. These results were achieved by advertising a consulting program to 432 enterprises and recorded data on the positive effects.
Money Laundering in Consulting Firms
A consulting firm is a suitable instrument for money laundering. Illegally obtained money is laundered by the employment of consulting companies. The reason consulting firms are so effective at laundering money is because consulting services are immaterial, therefore, pricing is non-transparent.
Another reason consulting firms are effective at laundering money is because sometimes consultants regularly leverage their clients into charging higher prices. When a client of the consulting firm is satisfied, the consultant can charger higher fees through more leverage while setting prices through the contracting prices. Therefore, when auditors inspect financial statements provided by the consulting firm, the consulting firm can state that a certain consulting project costed an 'x' amount of money and auditors are unable to detect fraud, thus allowing money laundering to occur.
Impact of Consulting Firms in Emerging Economies
Negative Impacts
The impact of consulting firms on local businesses in emerging economies do not always have positive effects. One reason for this is that firms in emerging economies suffer from the inferiority of their technologies and innovation capabilities, thus although they have access to consulting firms, they cannot make the most of the advice given. Advice given by consulting firms to clients may not be used efficiently as clients firms in emerging markets tend to suffer due to a lack of infrastructure, organisation, and education. Another reason firms in emerging economies struggle to effectively use consulting services is that innovation is very costly and risky.
Positive Impacts
As noted above (Add link to Mexico CASE), consulting firms in emerging economies do also have positive impacts. Positive impacts include: increases in employment, increase in entrepreneurial spirit and higher wages for employees.
Impact of Consulting Firms in Developed Economies
One study shows that there is a significant difference between efficiency between consulting firms in America (Developed Economy) and consulting firms in Asia Pacific regions (Emerging Economy). Efficiency scores of consulting firms in America were significantly higher than consulting firms in Asia Pacific regions. This is because firms in developed economies have better infrastructure, organisation and education, thus advice given by consulting firms is used efficiently.
See also
Financial services
Information technology consulting
Management consulting
Human resource consulting
Hospitality industry
Regulatory compliance
References
Further reading
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40586690
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ting-Chao%20Chou
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Ting-Chao Chou
|
Ting-Chao Chou (born 1938 in Taiwan, Chinese name: 周廷潮) is a Chinese American theoretical biologist, pharmacologist, cancer researcher and inventor. His 457 scientific articles have been cited in 30,929 papers in over 754 biomedical journals as of February 10, 2019. He derived the median-effect equation (MEE) from the physico-chemical principle of the mass-action law, and introduced the median-effect plot in 1976. With Paul Talalay of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he derived the combination index equation (CIE) for multiple drug effect interactions, and introduced the concept of combination index (CI) for quantitative definition of synergism (CI<1), additive effect (CI=1), and antagonism (CI>1) using computerized simulations. One original article in Advances in Enzyme Regulation 22:27-55, 1984 by Chou-Talalay on CI has been cited 3,637 times internationally in a broad spectrum of journals. Integration of MEE and CIE resulted in Econo-Green bioresearch and new drug development. This integrated theory and algorithms allow conducting small number of data points, conservation of laboratory animals and reducing the number of patients in clinical trials. Consequently, this allows saving time and cost and resources as well as increasing efficiency an effectiveness in medical, pharmaceutical research and new drug development. With colleagues, T.C. Chou is inventor/co-inventor of 40 U.S. Patents, mainly for anticancer agents.
Biography
Chou was born in Changgangling Village, Hukou Township, Hsinchu County, Taiwan on September 9, 1938 to Chao-Yun Chou and Sheng-Mei Chen.
Ancestry
His birthplace in Taiwan is Chou family's ancestral hall with a large insignia on the center “濓溪第:” (The Lianxi Place), “汝南堂” (Rue-nan Tarn), listing the family tree for 293 years. “Chou (Zhou) Lianxi” is Chou Tun-i's posthumous name. Chou Tun-i (1017-1073) (周敦頤) was a Neo-Confucian philosopher and cosmologist of the Northern Song Dynasty. His brief essay On Praising Lotus Flower (愛蓮說) was recited by many hundred millions of school children since it was selected in the standard high school textbook in both mainland China and Taiwan. T.C. Chou is an eighth-generation descendant of the Hakka Stream moving from Zhaozhou in Guangdong to Taiwan during the first year of Yongzheng Emperor of Ching Dynasty in 1723.
Education
Under Japan's rule of Taiwan 1895-1945, the Chou family established a private family school teaching Chinese characters and classics. His father was the teacher. After his father died, the widowed mother sent him to Hsin-Chu Normal School affiliated primary school with three-hour round-trip daily commute in the sixth grade. After the Taiwan Provincial Hsinchu High School, he entered Kaohsiung Medical University School of Pharmacy where he graduated summa cum laude. He was accepted by the Pharmacological Institute of National Taiwan University College of Medicine and received the master's degree under the mentorship of Chen-Yuan Lee, Director of the Institute, and Dean of the Medical School. In 1965, he received the Gibbs Scholarship from Yale University where he devoted to the mathematical aspects of quantitative biology. He received a Ph.D. degree with high honors under the mentorship of Professor Robert E. Hanschumacher. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine under Chairman of the Pharmacology Department, Paul Talalay, for two years, 1970-1972.
In 1972 he joined the Laboratory of Pharmacology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City as an Assistant Professor, affiliated to Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences. He became a Member and Professor in 1988. After 40 years of service at MSKCC, he retired on June 1, 2013 from the Directorship of Preclinical Pharmacology Core Laboratory, Molecular Pharmacology & Chemistry Program of MSKCC.
Publication and Citation Metrics
T.C. Chou's 273 publications are listed in Thomson Reuters Web of Science, which includes citation numbers, trends, along with the top 20 citing scientists, institutions, and collaboration scientists, institutions, research fields and global distribution maps, as well as total citations each year in the past 20 years).
Peer Reviewed Articles
The 326 peer reviewed articles have been cited 18,946 scientific papers published in over 800 bio-medical journals as of May 5, 2017. These include original articles, reviews, perspectives, commentaries and editorials.
Other publications
These include books, book chapters, encyclopedia and handbook chapters, meeting abstracts, computer software, and patents. These publications are not included in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science. Also published are 7 reviews, 10 perspectives, 5 commentaries, 2 editorials, 15 book chapters, 4 encyclopedia and handbook chapter, 4 sets of computer software, 224 international continence/symposium abstracts, and inventor/ co-inventor of 40 US patents. Based on "Ting-Chao Chou-Google Scholar Citations", Mr. Chou has a total citation of 26,292 with H-index of 68 and i10-index of 253.
Theory, Algorithm and Definition
The Median-Effect Equation
The median-effect equation (MEE) of the mass-action law was delivered by Chou in 1974 through the derivation of over 300 rate equations of enzyme dynamics, followed by mathematical induction and deduction.
The ratio of the fraction affected (fa) vs the fraction unaffected (fu) is equal to the dose (D) vs the median-effect dose (Dm) to the mth power, where Dm signifies potency and m signifies the sigmodicity (shape) of the dose-effect curve. This median-effect equation, i.e. where fa + fu = 1, is the unified form for the Michaelis-Menten equation for enzyme substrate saturation, the Hill equation for ligand occupancy at high order, the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation for pH ionization, and the Scatchard equation for the receptor binding. Thus, the half-affected (Dm) is equivalent to half-saturated (Km), the half-occupied (K), half-ionized (pK) and half-bound and half-free (Kd). MEE is the simplest possible form for all the above equations in biochemistry and biophysics. The “median” is the common-link for single and multiple ligand interactions, and the universal reference point for the first-order and higher order dynamics.
The Median-Effect Plot
Also introduced by Chou in 1976 was the median-effect plot which is a plot of log (D) vs log [(fa)/(1-fa)] or log [(fa)/(fu)] yields a straight line with slope (m) and the x-intercept of log (Dm), where Dm equals to the anti-log of the x-intercept. This unique theory holds true for all dose-effect curves that follows the physico-chemical principle of the mass-action law, for all entities regardless of the first-order or higher-order dynamics, and regardless of unit or mechanism of actions. MEE is derived by system analysis using enzyme kinetics and mathematical inductions and deductions where hundreds of mechanism specific individual equations are reduced to a single general equation. Both left and right sides of the MEE are dimensionless quantities. When the m and Dm are determined, the full dose-effect curve is defined. Since the median-effect plot yields straight lines, the theoretical minimum of only two data points allow the drawing of the full dose-effect curve, when the effect is accurately determined. This fundamental revelation defies the common held belief that two data points cannot draw a defined does-effect curve. The main significance of MEE is the mediation that "Dose" and "Effect" or "Mass" and "Function" are interchangeable. The "Mass" vs "Energy" was defined E=MC2 for subatomic fission and fusion; Now "Mass" vs "Action" is defined by MEE for supramolecular dynamics.
The Combination Index Theorem
The combination index (CI) concept was introduced by Chou T.C. and Talalay P. during 1983-84[3] The derived combination index equation for two drugs is:
Where (Dx)1 is for (D)1 “alone” that inhibits a system x%, and (Dx)2 is for (D)2 “alone” that inhibits a system x% whereas in the numerator, (D)1 + (D)2, “in combination” also inhibit x%. Note that the denominators of the last two terms are the expression of MEE. The CI Value quantitatively defines synergism (CI<1), additive effect (CI=1) and antagonism (CI>1).
The Combination Index Plot
Based on the above MEE and CI algorithms, a plot of CI values at different effect levels (fa's) can be determined by computer simulation (e.g. CompuSyn or CalcuSyn software, www. Combosyn.com, free download). Entering a series of "dose (D) and effect (fa)" into computer for each drug alone and their combinations, the software will automatically simulate the CI values at different fa levels in seconds, based on the CI algorithm. This plot is also called the Fa-CI plot or the Chou-Talalay plot. Depending on the experimental design, the combination mixtures can be at constant ratio or at non-constant ratios. The CI equations for three or more drug combinations have also been derived and can be subjected to computer simulation.
The CI theorem is developed for drugs (or effectors) regardless of mechanism of actions, and regardless of dynamic orders and or the units of each drug in the combination. The method has been applied in the combination of anti-cancer drugs, anti-HIV agents, drug-radiation, and traditional Chinese herbal medicines. On March 16, 2016 the publisher/global website, Elsevier had a news release indicated "Chou & Talalay paper from 1984 makes history"
The Isobolograms
The idea of isobologram, i.e. the equi-effective curve at various concentrations or doses of two drugs, has been around for a century. However, only until 1984 the formal derivation of its equation in the general form was introduced by Chou and Talalay. The isobol equation is just a special case of the CI equation. Thus automated computerized construction of either the classic isobologram (at constant ratio combinations) or the normalized isobologram (at non-constant ratio combination) can be performed in seconds using CompuSyn software. In addition, the isobol method is now amendable for three or more drug combinations. Both Fa-CI plot and isobologram yield identical conclusion of synergism or antagonism. The Fa-CI plot is effect-oriented whereas isobol is dose-oriented. Both graphics can be considered two-sides of the same coin. However, Fa-CI plot is visually more convenient to use than isobologram since data point over crowding in isobologram at various effect levels can be avoided.
The Dose-Reduction Index (DRI)
The DRI is a measure of how many folds the dose of each drug in a synergistic combination may be reduced, at a given effect level, compared with the doses of each drug alone. The inverted terms in the CI equation, are the DRIs for the corresponding individual drugs in the combination. The reduced dose which will reduce toxicity at the increased effect would lead to beneficial clinical consequences. The algorithm and computerized simulation of the DRI plot at different effect levels (i.e. the Fa-DRI plot or Chou-Martin plot) has been available using the CompuSyn software. DRI=1 indicates no dose reduction, whereas DRI>1 and <1 indicate favorable and unfavorable dose-reduction, respectively.
The Polygonogram
Taking the advantage of facile CI determination, a new simple graphic representation of three or more drug combinations has been introduced by T.C. Chou and J. Chou in 1998. This method allows visual inspection of two-to-n drug combinations in the same circular frame which can be used to project the plausible semi-quantitative projection of what would happen at the higher numbers of drug combinations, form the low numbers of drug combinations. Using heavy red solid lines representing strong synergism and heavy blue broken lines representing strong antagonism, and thinner solid or broken lines for weaker interactions, a grading system can be established. It is easy to obtain the overall perspectives for planning the cocktail design of multiple drug combinations. The polygonogram graphics for five anticancer drugs with different mechanism of actions has been featured on the front-cover of May 2011 issue of Integrative Biology,[3] published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge UK (see the External Link).
Applications of the Theory
With the median-effect equation as the unified theory of the mass-action law and its combination index theorem for multiple effector interactions, these algorithms can be applied to virtually all aspects of quantitative biology and medical sciences as shown in over 754 different bio-medical journals. The conventional approach of dose-effect analysis in the past centuries has used numerous data points to draw the empirical dose-effect curve to best fit the available data by least square regression or other statistical means. This old approach is under the premises of assuming dose and effect relationships are random events. By contrast, the MEE theory is to use small number (usually 3-7) of data points to fit the mass-action law to yield its parameters (i.e. m, Dm and r), and to lineage all dose-effect curves with the automated median-effect plot. This led to "the theory of minimum of two data points" for easily defining the dose-effect curve with the m and Dm parameters.
Econo-Green Bio-Research
Two Data Points Theory
The revelation that all mass-action law based dose-effect curves can be transformed into straight lines with the median-effect plot leads to the theory that the theoretical minimum of two data points are required to define the entire dose-effect curve. In conjunction with the median-effect principle of the mass-action law, the referred “two data” points actually has the third data point at dose zero. In addition, the median-effect dose (Dm) is the fourth point which serves as the universal reference point and the common link to all dynamic orders. T.C. Chou has not contemplated to use only two data points for experimentation due to the fact that it requires highly accurate measurement and low variability for the high r values. However, this mass-action theory leads to a green revolution in bio-medical research and effective and efficient drug development, as manifested in Chou's laboratory and elsewhere.
Computer Software and Utilities
The major applications of the drug combinations are against the most dreadful diseases such as cancer and AIDS as indicated in the citation metrics.Broad application includes drug-radiation combination, combination of insecticides and combinations of different modalities of effectors at different combination ratios, schedules and regimens. For single entity or drug, it calculate mass-action law parameters such as Dm values (IC50, ED50, LD50, ICx, EDx and LDx, etc.), m values (shape of dose-effect curves and dynamic orders) with computerized automation.
Other applications include: (i) Low-dose risk assessment of carcinogens, toxic substances and radiation, singly or in combination for environmental protection; (ii) Agricultural utilization of insecticides, and interaction of environmental factors; (iii) Topological analysis of receptor binding site for exclusivity and competitiveness; (iv) Calculation of Ki from IC50; (v) conservation of laboratory animals in research; and (vi) Efficient design of drug combination clinical trials using small number of patients, and thereby reducing time and cost.
Patents
U.S. Patents:
Collaboration of pharmacologists with organic chemists and the employment of the mass-action law principle resulted in 40 U.S. patents, of which one is for the solo inventor. These are accomplished with small number of personnel and limited financial support. Some invented compounds have been in clinical trials in cancer patients.
International Patents
Some patents with promising utilities are selected for international patent applications. These include synthetic microtubule targeting epothilone compounds against solid tumors and leukemias, such as Fludelone and Iso-Oxazole-Fludelone; Immunosuppressants for organ transplantation, such as Ardeemins and Ningalins; and synthetic cyto-protective Panaxytriols (inspired by Chinese/Korea ginseng) for reducing chemotherapy-induced toxicities such as body weight loss, peripheral neuropathy, alopecia, and death, and alleviation of radiation-induced toxicities.
Illustration of Ancient Philosophy
The algorithms of the median-effect equation and the combination index theorem of the physico-chemical principle of the mass-action law and their computer simulation offer the new interpretation/illustration of the ancient Chinese philosophy. This revelation of correspondence and complementarity have been presented or published at the following major national or international philosophical congress, conference, forum, or symposium: (i) American Philosophical Association East Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD 12/28/2007; (ii) World Congress of Philosophy, Seoul, Korea 8/3/2008; (iii) Peking University School of Life Science and Department of Philosophy, Beijing, China 10/24/2008; (iv) 16th International Conference of Chinese Philosophy sponsored by International Society of Chinese Philosophy, Taipei, Taiwan 7/8-15/2009; (v) 13th Yijing World Congress, Wuxi, China 6/14/2010; (vi) 7th International Forum on the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China 9/21-23/2011; (vii) Bio-IT World Europe Bio Informatics 2011, Hanover, Germany 10/11-13/2011.
• Confucian Doctrine of the Mean (i-iii, vii): Median is the universal link
• Harmony and Daoism (v, vi, vii): Harmony is pure non-competitiveness
• Wuji er Taiji and Wu-Hsin (i, ii, v, vi): Material dynamics and equilibrium
• Fu Xi Ba Gua (ii, iii, v): Entity, time, space, vector, order and dynamics
Publications
1. Web of Science, Google Scholar, ResearchGate and All Publications
http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-4111-2009, by Thomson Reuters Web of Science for "Ting-Chao_Chou" [Citation Metrics, Collaborations, Institutions, Disciplines & Map] (273 articles been cited 18,975 times in 754 journals, as of 5/5/2017)
https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=xjcodA8AAAAJ&hl=en [Google Scholar Citations - Ting-Chao Chou] All Publications [Cited 26,324 times with h-index of 68, as of 5/5/2017]
https://synapse.mskcc.org/synapse/people/7144-TingChao_Chou [MSKCC Chou Web Site]
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ting_Chao_Chou [Chou's Bibliometrics by ResearchGate]
2. Topics Listing
http://www.labome.org/expert/usa/memorial/chou/ting-chao-chou-833059.html [Topics, Collaborations]
http://www.gbv.de/dms/bs/toc/016060059.pdf [Book, Academic Press, 1991 by Chou & Rideout]
http://patent.ipexl.com/inventor/Ting-Chao_Chou_1.html [Patents Full Listing]
3. The Unified Theory
(Cited 5,133 times by 754 bio-medical journals as of 5/5/2017)
(Cited 2,036 times in 505 bio-medical journals between 2007–5/5/2017)
(Cited 452 times)
(Cited 1360 times in 321 journals)
(Cited 310 times)
(Cited 230 times) (Chou - Talalay Theory, 1977).
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n2/full/nm0200_200.html [Nature Medicine 6:200-206, 2000] [Cited 890 times as of 5/5/2017]
(Journal Inauguration First Article)
http://regulatoryaffairs.pharmaceuticalconferences.com/speaker/2015/ting-chao-chou-pd-science-llc-usa [Pharmaceutical Regulatory Affairs -Keynote Speech, Orlando, FL Aug..3 2015]
http://www.worldjournal.com/3369299/article-《人物》科學家周廷潮-理論引用世界第一/ [World Journal Weekly Article about Chou's Theoretical Work, August 9, 2015] (in Chinese)
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q=%22author:Chou+author:Ting-Chao.%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,31 [Chou TC, 457 Publications & Their Citations]
4. Econo-Green Bio-Research and Computer Software
http://blogs.rsc.org/ib/2011/05/05/hot-one-equation-to-lead-the-way-to-greener-biomedical-sciences/ [Integrative Biology journal blogs]
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/86/20/1517 [Theory in Clinical Trials & Applications, 1994, Cited 479 times]
http://www.bio-itworldexpoeurope.com/bio-it_europe_content.aspx?id=106874&libID=106831 [Bio-It World 2012, Featured Speaker for Drug Discovery Informatics, Hanover, Germany]
http://www.worldcat.org/title/dose-effect-analysis-with-microcomputers/oclc/20772177 [Software by J.Chou & TC Chou, Biosoft, Cambridge, UK, 1985]
http://www.biosoft.com/w/calcusyn.htm [CalcuSyn Software by Chou & Hayball, 1998, Biosoft, Cambridge, UK]
http://www.combosyn.com/ [CompuSyn Software by Chou & Martin, 2005, Combosyn, Inc., Paramus, NJ. Free download. 2012- ]
5. The 40 U.S. Patents
http://patent.ipexl.com/inventor/Ting-Chao_Chou_1.html [Full Listing]
http://patents.justia.com/search?q=Ting-Chao+Chou&page=3 [Listing]
http://radaris.com/p/Ting-Chao/Chou/ [Partial Listing]
http://www.faqs.org/patents/inventor/ting-chao-chou-paramus-us-1/ [Statistics]
https://archive.today/20130923161420/http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/8513429/description.html [US Patent on Epothilones, Issued 8/20/2013]
http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/WO2008103916 [Panaxytriols Patent]
6. Philosophy
http://www.pdcnet.org/wcp22/content/wcp22_2008_0002_0021_0039 [World Congress of Philosophy, 2008, Seoul]
http://philpapers.org/rec/CHOANL [Philpapers online blogs]
http://core.ac.uk/download/files/77/287932.pdf [(Nature Precedings, npre.2008.2031.1 ] [GPS Bio-Informatics by Chou]
http://www.yijing.co.uk/conferences/2010-china/talks.html [Yijing World Conference- 2010. Wuxi, China. Press Release]. (Honorary Guest/Speaker)
http://tingchaochou.blogspot.com/ [Chou's M-theory]
http://pkunews.pku.edu.cn/zdlm/2008-10/21/content_130609.htm [Peking University Speech, 10/24/2008]
References
External links
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/advances-in-biological-regulation/news/-chou-talalay-paper-from-1984-makes-history [Chou & Talalay paper from 1984 makes history. Elservier Press Release 3.16.2016]
http://precedings.nature.com/documents/2064/version/2 [T.C. Chou, The Mass-Action Law for Bio-Informatics. Nature Precedings, 7/22/2008]
http://laoyouji000.blog.sohu.com/102704065.html [Comments on Chou's Speech in Beijing by Muyu in Sohu Blog, in Chinese]
http://libgallery.cshl.edu/items/show/32731 [Chou's letter to Prof. James D. Watson. 10/6/1974, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives Repository]
https://www.mskcc.org/blog/finding-treatments-nature [MSKCC News]
http://blogs.rsc.org/ib/2011/05/05/hot-one-equation-to-lead-the-way-to-greener-biomedical-sciences/ [Integrative Biology Blogs, Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, UK]
http://grisham.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/CenterNews-Dec-2005b.pdf (MSKCC Center News 2005)
http://www.bio-itworldexpo.com/Bio-It_Europe_Content.aspx?id=106874&libID=106831 [Featured Speech BioIT World 2012. Hanover, Germany, on Drug Discovery Informatics]
http://www.pubfacts.com/author/Ting-Chao+Chou [Chou Publication Links]
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/synergy/editorial-board/
http://regulatoryaffairs.pharmaceuticalconferences.com/speaker/2015/ting-chao-chou-pd-science-llc-usa [ Chou Opening Keynote Speech]
http://en.wikitally.com/wiki/Ting-Chao_Chou.html [WikiTally Statistics]
周廷潮 [Chou TC Chinese Wikipedia 2017]
http://sp.mc.ntu.edu.tw/sopPage.php?malangue=&myrub=news&flanum=72884116445NWstLUUDpXSM6 [Natl. Taiwan Univ-P Seminar Announcement 11/14/2016]
http://www.nibs.ac.cn/newsshow.php?cid=0&sid=14&id=408 [China Natl. Inst. Biol. Sci., Beijing Seminar announcement 10/23/2008]
1938 births
Cancer researchers
Living people
American people of Chinese descent
Taiwanese people of Hakka descent
People from Hsinchu
Kaohsiung Medical University alumni
National Taiwan University alumni
Hakka scientists
Yale University alumni
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9073662
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syhunt
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Syhunt
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Syhunt is a world wide web network security software company with headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Syhunt was founded on August, 2003, by Felipe Daragon, a network security specialist.
History
The company's operations are currently centered on the development of software relating to the assessment of web servers and web applications.
In 2003, Syhunt released a web application security assessment software known as Sandcat, which focuses on Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) and the SANS Institute vulnerabilities. Syhunt has also produced a number of security software utilities, including worm removal tools (during worm outbreaks), server hardening and log analysis tools.
Today the company is still engaged in the development of web application security assessment software and also participates the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) initiative.
See also
Penetration testing
References
External links
Computer security software companies
Software companies of Brazil
Companies based in Rio de Janeiro (city)
Information technology consulting firms
Software companies established in 2003
Consulting firms established in 2003
Brazilian brands
2003 establishments in Brazil
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49944721
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps%20toolchain
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DevOps toolchain
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A DevOps toolchain is a set or combination of tools that aid in the delivery, development, and management of software applications throughout the systems development life cycle, as coordinated by an organisation that uses DevOps practices.
Generally, DevOps tools fit into one or more activities, which supports specific DevOps initiatives: Plan, Create, Verify, Package, Release, Configure, Monitor, and Version Control.
Toolchains
In software, a toolchain is the set of programming tools that is used to perform a complex software development task or to create a software product, which is typically another computer program or a set of related programs. In general, the tools forming a toolchain are executed consecutively so the output or resulting environment state of each tool becomes the input or starting environment for the next one, but the term is also used when referring to a set of related tools that are not necessarily executed consecutively.
As DevOps is a set of practices that emphasizes the collaboration and communication of both software developers and other information technology (IT) professionals, while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes, its implementation can include the definition of the series of tools used at various stages of the lifecycle; because DevOps is a cultural shift and collaboration between development and operations, there is no one product that can be considered a single DevOps tool. Instead a collection of tools, potentially from a variety of vendors, are used in one or more stages of the lifecycle.
Stages of DevOps
Plan
Plan is composed of two things: "define" and "plan". This activity refers to the business value and application requirements. Specifically "Plan" activities include:
Production metrics, objects and feedback
Requirements
Business metrics
Update release metrics
Release plan, timing and business case
Security policy and requirement
A combination of the IT personnel will be involved in these activities: business application owners, software development, software architects, continual release management, security officers and the organization responsible for managing the production of IT infrastructure.
Create
Create is composed of the building, coding, and configuring of the software development process. The specific activities are:
Design of the software and configuration
Coding including code quality and performance
Software build and build performance
Release candidate
Tools and vendors in this category often overlap with other categories. Because DevOps is about breaking down silos, this is reflective in the activities and product solutions.
Verify
Verify is directly associated with ensuring the quality of the software release; activities designed to ensure code quality is maintained and the highest quality is deployed to production. The main activities in this are:
Acceptance testing
Regression testing
Security and vulnerability analysis
Performance
Configuration testing
Solutions for verify related activities generally fall under four main categories: Test automation, Static analysis, Test Lab, and Security.
Packaging
Packaging refers to the activities involved once the release is ready for deployment, often also referred to as staging or Preproduction / "preprod". This often includes tasks and activities such as:
Approval/preapprovals
Package configuration
Triggered releases
Release staging and holding
Release
Release related activities include schedule, orchestration, provisioning and deploying software into production and targeted environment. The specific Release activities include:
Release coordination
Deploying and promoting applications
Fallbacks and recovery
Scheduled/timed releases
Solutions that cover this aspect of the toolchain include application release automation, deployment automation and release management.
Configure
Configure activities fall under the operation side of DevOps. Once software is deployed, there may be additional IT infrastructure provisioning and configuration activities required.
Specific activities including:
Infrastructure storage, database and network provisioning and configuring
Application provision and configuration.
The main types of solutions that facilitate these activities are continuous configuration automation, configuration management, and infrastructure as code tools.
Monitor
Monitoring is an important link in a DevOps toolchain. It allows IT organization to identify specific issues of specific releases and to understand the impact on end-users. A summary of Monitor related activities are:
Performance of IT infrastructure
End-user response and experience
Production metrics and statistics
Information from monitoring activities often impacts Plan activities required for changes and for new release cycles.
Version Control
Version Control is an important link in a DevOps toolchain and a component of software configuration management. Version Control is the management of changes to documents, computer programs, large web sites, and other collections of information. A summary of Version Control related activities are:
Non-linear development
Distributed development
Compatibility with existent systems and protocols
Toolkit-based design
Information from Version Control often supports Release activities required for changes and for new release cycles.
See also
Continuous delivery
Continuous integration
Agile software development
WinOps
References
Software design
Software development process
Programming tools
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18105369
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian%20Foundation
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Symbian Foundation
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The Symbian Foundation was a non-profit organisation that stewarded the Symbian operating system for mobile phones which previously had been owned and licensed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian Foundation never directly developed the platform, but evangelised, co-ordinated and ensured compatibility. It also provided key services to its members and the community such as collecting, building and distributing Symbian source code. During its time it competed against the Open Handset Alliance and the LiMo Foundation.
Operational phase (2009-2010)
The Foundation was founded by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo, Motorola, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics and AT&T. Due to a change in their device strategy, LG and Motorola left the Foundation board soon after its creation. They were later replaced by Fujitsu and Qualcomm Innovation Center.
During its operational phase (from 2009 to 2010), it also provided:
platform development kits and tools
documentation and example code
discussion forums and mailing lists
application signing (Symbian Signed)
application distribution (Symbian Horizon)
idea gathering and feedback (Symbian Ideas)
an annual conference (Symbian Exchange and Exposition, abbreviated "SEE")
Members
The Symbian Foundation invited companies to join as members, and attracted over 200, from a large number of categories:
Device manufacturers (e.g. Nokia, Fujitsu)
Financial services companies (e.g. Visa)
Semiconductor vendors (e.g. ARM, Broadcom)
Mobile network operators (e.g. China Mobile, Vodafone, AT&T)
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Closure of Symbian Foundation
Following "a change in focus for some of [the] funding board members", the Symbian Foundation announced in November 2010 that it would transition to "a legal entity responsible for licensing software and other intellectual property", with no operational responsibilities or staff. The transition is a result of changes in global economic and market conditions (widely attributed to the stiff competition with other OS such as iOS and Android). Along with this announcement, Nokia announced it would take over governance of the Symbian platform. Nokia has been the major contributor to the code, and has been maintaining their own code repository for the platform development ever since the purchase of Symbian Ltd., regularly releasing their development to the public repository. On 17 December 2010 all Symbian Foundation public web sites, wiki and code repositories were shut down and Nokia launched a new Symbian site.
However that year both Samsung and Sony Ericsson left the Foundation in favor of Google's Open Handset Alliance and the Android operating system, leaving Japan's NTT Docomo as the only major Nokia partner. Then with the announcement of Nokia's partnership with Microsoft in February 2011 and the transition to Windows Phone OS as the primary platform, the development of Symbian stopped and was outsourced to Accenture. Nokia closed this service at end of 2012.
After the transition completed in April 2011, the Symbian Foundation will remain as the trademark holder and licensing entity, and will only have non-executive directors involved.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala
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Kerala
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Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Canara, and Travancore. Spread over , Kerala is the twenty-first largest Indian state by area. It is bordered by Karnataka to the north and northeast, Tamil Nadu to the east and south, and the Lakshadweep Sea to the west. With 33 million inhabitants as per the 2011 census, Kerala is the thirteenth-largest Indian state by population. It is divided into 14 districts with the capital being Thiruvananthapuram. Malayalam is the most widely spoken language and is also the official language of the state.
The Chera Dynasty was the first prominent kingdom based in Kerala. The Ay kingdom in the deep south and the Ezhimala kingdom in the north formed the other kingdoms in the early years of the Common Era (CE). The region had been a prominent spice exporter since 3000 BCE. The region's prominence in trade was noted in the works of Pliny as well as the Periplus around . In the 15th century, the spice trade attracted Portuguese traders to Kerala, and paved the way for European colonisation of India. At the time of Indian independence movement in the early 20th century, there were two major princely states in Kerala: Travancore and Cochin. They united to form the state of Thiru-Kochi in 1949. The Malabar region, in the northern part of Kerala, had been a part of the Madras province of British India, which later became a part of the Madras State post-independence. After the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, the modern-day state of Kerala was formed by merging the Malabar district of Madras State (excluding Gudalur taluk of Nilgiris district, Lakshadweep Islands, Topslip, the Attappadi Forest east of Anakatti), the taluk of Kasaragod (now Kasaragod District) in South Canara (Tulunad), and the erstwhile state of Thiru-Kochi (excluding four southern taluks of Kanyakumari district, and Shenkottai taluks).
Kerala has the lowest positive population growth rate in India, 3.44%; the highest Human Development Index (HDI), 0.784 in 2018 (0.712 in 2015); the highest literacy rate, 96.2% in the 2018 literacy survey conducted by the National Statistical Office, India; the highest life expectancy, 77 years; and the highest sex ratio, 1,084 women per 1,000 men. Kerala is the second-least impoverished state in India according to the Annual Report of Reserve Bank of India published in 2013. Kerala is the second-most urbanised major state in the country with 47.7% urban population according to the 2011 Census of India. The state topped in the country to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals according to the annual report of NITI Aayog published in 2019. The state has the highest media exposure in India with newspapers publishing in nine languages, mainly English and Malayalam. Hinduism is practised by more than half of the population, followed by Islam and Christianity. The culture is a synthesis of Aryan, Dravidian, Arab, and European cultures, developed over millennia, under influences from other parts of India and abroad.
The economy of Kerala is the 8th-largest in India with in gross state domestic product (GSDP) and a per capita net state domestic product of . The tertiary sector contributes around 65% to state's GSVA, while the primary sector contributes only 8%. The state has witnessed significant emigration, especially to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf during the Gulf Boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, and its economy depends significantly on remittances from a large Malayali expatriate community. The production of pepper and natural rubber contributes significantly to the total national output. In the agricultural sector, coconut, tea, coffee, cashew and spices are important. The state is situated between Arabian Sea to the west and Western Ghats mountain ranges to the east. The state's coastline extends for , and around 1.1 million people in the state are dependent on the fishery industry which contributes 3% to the state's income. Kerala is one of the prominent tourist destinations of India, with coconut-lined sandy beaches, backwaters, hill stations, Ayurvedic tourism and tropical greenery as its major attractions.
Etymology
The word Kerala is first recorded as Keralaputo ('son of Chera [s]') in a 3rd-century-BCE rock inscription left by the Maurya emperor Ashoka (274–237 BCE), one of his edicts pertaining to welfare. At that time, one of three states in the region was called in Classical Tamil: and are variants of the same word. The word refers to the oldest known dynasty of Kerala kings and is derived from the Proto-Tamil-Malayalam word for 'lake'. may stem from the Classical Tamil 'declivity of a hill or a mountain slope' or 'land of the Cheras'.
One folk etymology derives Kerala from the Malayalam word 'coconut tree' and 'land'; thus, 'land of coconuts', which is a nickname for the state used by locals due to the abundance of coconut trees.
The earliest Sanskrit text to mention Kerala as Cherapadha is the late Vedic text Aitareya Aranyaka. Kerala is also mentioned in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the two Hindu epics. The Skanda Purana mentions the ecclesiastical office of the Thachudaya Kaimal who is referred to as , synonymous with the deity of the Koodalmanikyam temple. The Greco-Roman trade map Periplus Maris Erythraei refers to Kerala as Celobotra.
Kerala was alternatively called Malabar in the foreign trade circles. Earlier, the term Malabar had also been used to denote Tulu Nadu and Kanyakumari which lie contiguous to Kerala on the southwestern coast of India, in addition to the modern state of Kerala. The people of Malabar were known as Malabars. Until the arrival of the East India Company, the term Malabar was used as a general name for Kerala, along with the term Kerala. From the time of Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th century CE) itself, the Arab sailors used to call Kerala as Male. The first element of the name, however, is attested already in the Topography written by Cosmas Indicopleustes. This mentions a pepper emporium called Male, which clearly gave its name to Malabar ('the country of Male'). The name Male is thought to come from the Malayalam word Mala ('hill'). Al-Biruni () is the first known writer to call this country Malabar. Authors such as Ibn Khordadbeh and Al-Baladhuri mention Malabar ports in their works. The Arab writers had called this place Malibar, Manibar, Mulibar, and Munibar. Malabar is reminiscent of the word Malanad which means the land of hills. According to William Logan, the word Malabar comes from a combination of the Malayalam word Mala (hill) and the Persian/Arabic word Barr (country/continent).
History
Traditional sources
According to the Sangam classic Purananuru, the Chera king Senkuttuvan conquered the lands between Kanyakumari and the Himalayas. Lacking worthy enemies, he besieged the sea by throwing his spear into it. According to the 17th-century Hindu mythology work Keralolpathi, the lands of Kerala were recovered from the sea by the axe-wielding warrior sage Parasurama, the sixth avatar of Vishnu (hence, Kerala is also called Parasurama Kshetram 'The Land of Parasurama' in Hindu mythology). Parasurama threw his axe across the sea, and the water receded as far as it reached. According to legend, this new area of land extended from Gokarna to Kanyakumari. The land which rose from sea was filled with salt and unsuitable for habitation; so Parasurama invoked the Snake King Vasuki, who spat holy poison and converted the soil into fertile lush green land. Out of respect, Vasuki and all snakes were appointed as protectors and guardians of the land. P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar theorised, that Senguttuvan may have been inspired by the Parasurama legend, which was brought by early Aryan settlers.
Another much earlier Puranic character associated with Kerala is Mahabali, an Asura and a prototypical just king, who ruled the earth from Kerala. He won the war against the Devas, driving them into exile. The Devas pleaded before Lord Vishnu, who took his fifth incarnation as Vamana and pushed Mahabali down to netherworld to placate the Devas. There is a belief that, once a year during the Onam festival, Mahabali returns to Kerala. The Matsya Purana, among the oldest of the 18 Puranas, uses the Malaya Mountains of Kerala (and Tamil Nadu) as the setting for the story of Matsya, the first incarnation of Vishnu, and Manu, the first man and the king of the region.
Ophir
Ophir, a port or region mentioned in the Bible, famous for its wealth, is often identified with some coastal areas of Kerala. According to legend, the King Solomon received a cargo from Ophir every three years (1 Kings 10:22) which consisted of gold, silver, sandalwood, pearls, ivory, apes, and peacocks. A Dictionary of the Bible by Sir William Smith, published in 1863, notes the Hebrew word for parrot Thukki, derived from the Classical Tamil for peacock Thogkai and Cingalese Tokei, joins other Classical Tamil words for ivory, cotton-cloth and apes preserved in the Hebrew Bible. This theory of Ophir's location in Tamilakam is further supported by other historians. The most likely location on the coast of Kerala conjectured to be Ophir is Poovar in Thiruvananthapuram District (though some Indian scholars also suggest Beypore as possible location). The Books of Kings and Chronicles tell of a joint expedition to Ophir by King Solomon and the Tyrian king Hiram I from Ezion-Geber, a port on the Red Sea, that brought back large amounts of gold, precious stones and 'algum wood' and of a later failed expedition by king Jehoshaphat of Judah. The famous 'gold of Ophir' is referenced in several other books of the Hebrew Bible.
Cheraman Perumals
The legend of Cheraman Perumals is the medieval tradition associated with the Cheraman Perumals (literally the Chera kings) of Kerala. The validity of the legend as a source of history once generated much debate among South Indian historians. The legend was used by Kerala chiefdoms for the legitimation of their rule (most of the major chiefly houses in medieval Kerala traced its origin back to the legendary allocation by the Perumal). According to the legend, Rayar, the overlord of the Cheraman Perumal in a country east of the Ghats, invaded Kerala during the rule of the last Perumal. To drive back the invading forces the Perumal summoned the militia of his chieftains (like Udaya Varman Kolathiri, Manichchan, and Vikkiran of Eranad). The Cheraman Perumal was assured by the Eradis (chief of Eranad) that they would take a fort established by the Rayar. The battle lasted for three days and the Rayar eventually evacuated his fort (and it was seized by the Perumal's troops). Then the last Cheraman Perumal divided Kerala or Chera kingdom among his chieftains and disappeared mysteriously. The Kerala people never more heard any tidings of him. The Eradis of Nediyiruppu, who later came to be known as the Zamorins of Kozhikode, who were left out in cold during allocation of the land, was granted the Cheraman Perumal sword (with the permission to "die, and kill, and seize").
According to the Cheraman Juma Mosque and some other narratives, "Once a Cheraman Perumal probably named Ravi Varma was walking with his queen in the palace, when he witnessed the splitting of the moon. Shocked by this, he asked his astronomers to note down the exact time of the splitting. Then, when some Arab merchants visited his palace, he asked them about this incident. Their answers led the King to Mecca, where he met Islamic prophet Muhammad and converted to Islam. It is assumed that the first recorded version of this legend is an Arabic manuscript of anonymous authorship known as Qissat Shakarwati Farmad. The 16th century Arabic work Tuhfat Ul Mujahideen authored by Zainuddin Makhdoom II of Ponnani, as well as the medieval Malayalam work Keralolpathi, also mention about the departure of last Cheraman Perumal of Kerala into Mecca. The Maharajahs of the kingdom of Travancore in pre-Independence India would say at their swearing in, "I will keep this sword until the uncle who has gone to Mecca returns".
Pre-history
A substantial portion of Kerala including the western coastal lowlands and the plains of the midland may have been under the sea in ancient times. Marine fossils have been found in an area near Changanassery, thus supporting the hypothesis. Pre-historical archaeological findings include dolmens of the Neolithic era in the Marayur area of the Idukki district, which lie on the eastern highland made by Western Ghats. They are locally known as "muniyara", derived from muni (hermit or sage) and ara (dolmen). Rock engravings in the Edakkal Caves, in Wayanad date back to the Neolithic era around 6000 BCE. Archaeological studies have identified Mesolithic, Neolithic and Megalithic sites in Kerala. The studies point to the development of ancient Kerala society and its culture beginning from the Paleolithic Age, through the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Megalithic Ages. Foreign cultural contacts have assisted this cultural formation; historians suggest a possible relationship with Indus Valley Civilization during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age.
Ancient period
Kerala has been a major spice exporter since 3000 BCE, according to Sumerian records and it is still referred to as the "Garden of Spices" or as the "Spice Garden of India". Kerala's spices attracted ancient Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians to the Malabar Coast in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. Phoenicians established trade with Kerala during this period. Arabs and Phoenicians were the first to enter Malabar Coast to trade Spices. The Arabs on the coasts of Yemen, Oman, and the Persian Gulf, must have made the first long voyage to Kerala and other eastern countries. They must have brought the Cinnamon of Kerala to the Middle East. The Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BCE) records that in his time the cinnamon spice industry was monopolized by the Egyptians and the Phoenicians.
The Land of Keralaputra was one of the four independent kingdoms in southern India during Ashoka's time, the others being Chola, Pandya, and Satiyaputra. Scholars hold that Keralaputra is an alternate name of the Cheras, the first dominant dynasty who ruled Kerala, and had its capital at Karur. These territories once shared a common language and culture, within an area known as Tamilakam. The region around Coimbatore was ruled by the Cheras during Sangam period between 1st and the 4th centuries CE and it served as the eastern entrance to the Palakkad Gap, the principal trade route between the Malabar Coast and Tamil Nadu. Along with the Ay kingdom in the south and the Ezhimala kingdom in the north, the Cheras formed the ruling kingdoms of Kerala in the early years of the Common Era (CE). It is noted in Sangam literature that the Chera king Uthiyan Cheralathan ruled most of modern Kerala from his capital in Kuttanad, and controlled the port of Muziris, but its southern tip was in the kingdom of Pandyas, which had a trading port sometimes identified in ancient Western sources as Nelcynda (or Neacyndi) in Quilon. Tyndis was a major center of trade, next only to Muziris, between the Cheras and the Roman Empire. The lesser known Ays and Mushikas kingdoms lay to the south and north of the Chera regions, respectively. Pliny the Elder (1st century CE) states that the port of Tyndis was located at the northwestern border of Keprobotos (Chera dynasty). The North Malabar region, which lies north of the port at Tyndis, was ruled by the kingdom of Ezhimala during Sangam period. The port at Tyndis which was on the northern side of Muziris, as mentioned in Greco-Roman writings, was somewhere around Kozhikode. Its exact location is a matter of dispute. The suggested locations are Ponnani, Tanur, Beypore-Chaliyam-Kadalundi-Vallikkunnu, and Koyilandy.
According to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a region known as Limyrike began at Naura and Tyndis. However the Ptolemy mentions only Tyndis as the Limyrike'''s starting point. The region probably ended at Kanyakumari; it thus roughly corresponds to the present-day Malabar Coast. The value of Rome's annual trade with the region was estimated at around 50,000,000 sesterces. Pliny the Elder mentioned that Limyrike was prone by pirates. The Cosmas Indicopleustes mentioned that the Limyrike was a source of Malabar peppers.Das, Santosh Kumar (2006). The Economic History of Ancient India. Genesis Publishing Pvt Ltd. p. 301. In the last centuries BCE the coast became important to the Greeks and Romans for its spices, especially Malabar pepper. The Cheras had trading links with China, West Asia, Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire. In foreign-trade circles the region was known as Male or Malabar. Muziris, Tyndis, Naura, Nelcynda, and Barace, were among the principal ports at that time. Contemporary Sangam literature describes Roman ships coming to Muziris in Kerala, laden with gold to exchange for Malabar pepper. One of the earliest western traders to use the monsoon winds to reach Kerala was Eudoxus of Cyzicus, around 118 or 166 BCE, under the patronage of Ptolemy VIII, king of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. Roman establishments in the port cities of the region, such as a temple of Augustus and barracks for garrisoned Roman soldiers, are marked in the Tabula Peutingeriana, the only surviving map of the Roman cursus publicus.
Merchants from West Asia and Southern Europe established coastal posts and settlements in Kerala. The Israeli (Jewish) connection with Kerala started in 573 BCE. Arabs also had trade links with Kerala, starting before the 4th century BCE, as Herodotus (484–413 BCE) noted that goods brought by Arabs from Kerala were sold to the Israelis [Hebrew Jews] at Eden. In the 4th century, the Knanaya or Southist Christians also migrated from Persia and lived alongside the early Syriac Christian community known as the St. Thomas Christians who trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. Mappila was an honorific title that had been assigned to respected visitors from abroad; Israelite (Jewish), Syrian Christian, and Muslim immigration account for later names of the respective communities: Juda Mappilas, Muslim Mappilas, and Nasrani Mappilas. The earliest Saint Thomas Christian Churches, Cheraman Jumu'ah Masjid (traditionally dated to "629 CE" by the Mappilas)—regarded as "the first mosque of India"—and Paradesi Synagogue (1568 CE)—the oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth of Nations—were built in Kerala.
Early medieval period
Namboothiri Brahmins migrated to Northern Kerala from Tulu Nadu during the early Middle Ages. Apart from introducing the caste system, they also changed the socio-economic life of the people by commissioning new religious centres. A second Chera Kingdom (c. 800–1102), also known as Kulasekhara dynasty of Mahodayapuram (present-day Kodungallur), was established by Kulasekhara Varman, which ruled over a territory comprising the whole of modern Kerala and a smaller part of modern Tamil Nadu. During the early part of the Kulasekara period, the southern region from Nagercoil to Thiruvalla was ruled by Ay kings, who lost their power in the 10th century, making the region a part of the Kulasekara empire. Under Kulasekhara rule, Kerala witnessed a developing period of art, literature, trade and the Bhakti movement of Hinduism. A Keralite identity, distinct from the Tamils, became linguistically separate during this period around the seventh century. The origin of Malayalam calendar dates back to year 825 CE. For local administration, the empire was divided into provinces under the rule of Naduvazhis, with each province comprising a number of Desams under the control of chieftains, called as Desavazhis. Mamankam festival, which was the largest native festival, was held at Tirunavaya near Kuttippuram, on the bank of river Bharathappuzha. Athavanad, the headquarters of Azhvanchery Thamprakkal, who were also considered as the supreme religious chief of the Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala, is also located near Tirunavaya.
Sulaiman al-Tajir, a Persian merchant who visited Kerala during the reign of Sthanu Ravi Varma (9th century CE), records that there was extensive trade between Kerala and China at that time, based at the port of Kollam. A number of foreign accounts have mentioned about the presence of considerable Muslim population in the coastal towns. Arab writers such as Al-Masudi of Baghdad (896–956 CE), Muhammad al-Idrisi (1100–1165 CE), Abulfeda (1273–1331 CE), and Al-Dimashqi (1256–1327 CE) mention the Muslim communities in Kerala. Some historians assume that the Mappilas can be considered as the first native, settled Muslim community in South Asia. The known earliest mention about Muslims of Kerala is in the Quilon Syrian copper plates.
The inhibitions, caused by a series of Chera-Chola wars in the 11th century, resulted in the decline of foreign trade in Kerala ports. In addition, Portuguese invasions in the 15th century caused two major religions, Buddhism and Jainism, to disappear from the land. It is known that the Menons in the Malabar region of Kerala were originally strong believers of Jainism. The social system became fractured with divisions on caste lines. Finally, the Kulasekhara dynasty was subjugated in 1102 by the combined attack of Later Pandyas and Later Cholas. However, in the 14th century, Ravi Varma Kulashekhara (1299–1314) of the southern Venad kingdom was able to establish a short-lived supremacy over southern India. After his death, in the absence of a strong central power, the state was divided into thirty small warring principalities; the most powerful of them were the kingdom of Zamorin of Kozhikode in the north, Kollam in the far-south, Kochi in the south, and Kannur in the far north. The port at Kozhikode held the superior economic and political position in Kerala, while Kollam (Quilon), Kochi, and Kannur (Cannanore) were commercially confined to secondary roles. The Zamorin of Calicut was originally the ruler of Eranad, which was a minor principality located in the northern parts of present-day Malappuram district. The Zamorin allied with Arab and Chinese merchants and used most of the wealth from Kozhikode to develop his military power. Kozhikode became the most powerful kingdom in the Malayalam speaking region during the Middle Ages.K. V. Krishna Iyer, Zamorins of Calicut: From the earliest times to AD 1806. Calicut: Norman Printing Bureau, 1938. In the 14th century, Kozhikode conquered larger parts of central Kerala after the seize of Tirunavaya from Valluvanad, which were under the control of the king of Perumbadappu Swaroopam (Cochin). The ruler of Perumpadappu was forced to shift his capital (c. CE 1405) further south from Kodungallur to Kochi. In the 15th century, the status of Cochin was reduced to a vassal state of Kozhikode. The ruler of Kolathunadu (Kannur) had also came under the influence of Zamorin by the end of 15th century.
At the peak of their reign, the Zamorins of Kozhikode ruled over a region from Kollam (Quilon) in the south to Panthalayini Kollam (Koyilandy) in the north. Ibn Battuta (1342–1347), who visited the city of Kozhikode six times, gives the earliest glimpses of life in the city. He describes Kozhikode as "one of the great ports of the district of Malabar" where "merchants of all parts of the world are found". The king of this place, he says, "shaves his chin just as the Haidari Fakeers of Rome do... The greater part of the Muslim merchants of this place are so wealthy that one of them can purchase the whole freightage of such vessels put here and fit-out others like them". Ma Huan (1403 AD), the Chinese sailor part of the Imperial Chinese fleet under Cheng Ho (Zheng He) states the city as a great emporium of trade frequented by merchants from around the world. He makes note of the 20 or 30 mosques built to cater to the religious needs of the Muslims, the unique system of calculation by the merchants using their fingers and toes (followed to this day), and the matrilineal system of succession (Marumakkathayam). Abdur Razzak (1442–43), Niccolò de' Conti (1445), Afanasy Nikitin (1468–74), Ludovico di Varthema (1503–1508), and Duarte Barbosa witnessed the city as one of the major trading centres in the Indian subcontinent where traders from different parts of the world could be seen.Gangadharan. M., The Land of Malabar: The Book of Barbosa (2000), Vol II, M.G University, Kottayam.
The king Deva Raya II (1424–1446) of the Vijayanagara Empire conquered about the whole of present-day state of Kerala in the 15th century. He defeated the Zamorin of Kozhikode, as well as the ruler of Kollam around 1443. Fernão Nunes says that the Zamorin had to pay tribute to the king of Vijayanagara Empire. Later Kozhikode and Venad seem to have rebelled against their Vijayanagara overlords, but Deva Raya II quelled the rebellion. As the Vijayanagara power diminished over the next fifty years, the Zamorin of Kozhikode again rose to prominence in Kerala. He built a fort at Ponnani in 1498.
Late medieval period
The maritime spice trade monopoly in the Arabian Sea stayed with the Arabs during the High and Late Middle Ages. However, the dominance of Middle East traders was challenged in the European Age of Discovery. After Vasco Da Gama's arrival in Kappad Kozhikode in 1498, the Portuguese began to dominate eastern shipping, and the spice-trade in particular. Following the discovery of sea route from Europe to Malabar in 1498, the Portuguese began to expand their territories and ruled the seas between Ormus and the Malabar Coast and south to Ceylon. They established a trading center at Tangasseri in Quilon during 1502 as per the invitation of the then Queen of Quilon to start spices trade from there. The Zamorin of Kozhikode permitted the new visitors to trade with his subjects such that Portuguese trade in Kozhikode prospered with the establishment of a factory and a fort. However, Portuguese attacks on Arab properties in his jurisdiction provoked the Zamorin and led to conflicts between them.
The ruler of the Kingdom of Tanur, who was a vassal to the Zamorin of Calicut, sided with the Portuguese, against his overlord at Kozhikode. As a result, the Kingdom of Tanur (Vettathunadu) became one of the earliest Portuguese Colonies in India. The ruler of Tanur also sided with Cochin. Many of the members of the royal family of Cochin in 16th and 17th centuries were selected from Vettom. However, the Tanur forces under the king fought for the Zamorin of Calicut in the Battle of Cochin (1504). However, the allegiance of the Mappila merchants in Tanur region still stayed under the Zamorin of Calicut.
The Portuguese took advantage of the rivalry between the Zamorin and the King of Kochi allied with Kochi. When Francisco de Almeida was appointed as Viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, his headquarters was established at Fort Kochi (Fort Emmanuel) rather than in Kozhikode. During his reign, the Portuguese managed to dominate relations with Kochi and established a few fortresses on the Malabar Coast. Fort St Angelo or St. Angelo Fort was built at Kannur in 1505 and Fort St Thomas was built at Kollam(Quilon) in 1518 by the Portuguese. However, the Portuguese suffered setbacks from attacks by Zamorin forces in South Malabar; especially from naval attacks under the leadership of Kozhikode admirals known as Kunjali Marakkars, which compelled them to seek a treaty. The Kunjali Marakkars are credited with organizing the first naval defense of the Indian coast. Tuhfat Ul Mujahideen written by Zainuddin Makhdoom II (born around 1532) of Ponnani in 16th-century CE is the first-ever known book fully based on the history of Kerala, written by a Keralite.A G Noorani. Islam in Kerala.
Books It is written in Arabic and contains pieces of information about the resistance put up by the navy of Kunjali Marakkar alongside the Zamorin of Calicut from 1498 to 1583 against Portuguese attempts to colonize Malabar coast. Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, who is considered as the father of modern Malayalam literature, was born at Tirur (Vettathunadu) during Portuguese period.
In 1571, the Portuguese were defeated by the Zamorin forces in the battle at Chaliyam Fort. An insurrection at the Port of Quilon between the Arabs and the Portuguese led to the end of the Portuguese era in Quilon. The Muslim line of Ali Rajas of Arakkal kingdom, near Kannur, who were the vassals of the Kolathiri, ruled over the Lakshadweep islands. The Bekal Fort near Kasaragod, which is also largest fort in the state, was built in 1650 by Shivappa Nayaka of Keladi.
In 1602, the Zamorin sent messages to Aceh promising the Dutch a fort at Kozhikode if they would come and trade there. Two factors, Hans de Wolff and Lafer, were sent on an Asian ship from Aceh, but the two were captured by the chief of Tanur, and handed over to the Portuguese. A Dutch fleet under Admiral Steven van der Hagen arrived at Kozhikode in November 1604. It marked the beginning of the Dutch presence in Kerala and they concluded a treaty with Kozhikode on 11 November 1604, which was also the first treaty that the Dutch East India Company made with an Indian ruler. By this time the kingdom and the port of Kozhikode was much reduced in importance. The treaty provided for a mutual alliance between the two to expel the Portuguese from Malabar. In return the Dutch East India Company was given facilities for trade at Kozhikode and Ponnani, including spacious storehouses.
The Portuguese were ousted by the Dutch East India Company, who during the conflicts between the Kozhikode and the Kochi, gained control of the trade. They lost to Dutch at Quilon after 1661 and later, the Portuguese left south-western coast. The arrival of British on Malabar Coast can be traced back to the year 1615, when a group under the leadership of Captain William Keeling arrived at Kozhikode, using three ships. It was in these ships that Sir Thomas Roe went to visit Jahangir, the fourth Mughal emperor, as British envoy. In 1664, the municipality of Fort Kochi was established by Dutch Malabar, making it the first municipality in Indian subcontinent, which got dissolved when the Dutch authority got weaker in 18th century. The Dutch in turn were weakened by constant battles with Marthanda Varma of the Travancore Royal Family, and were defeated at the Battle of Colachel in 1741. An agreement, known as "Treaty of Mavelikkara", was signed by the Dutch and Travancore in 1753, according to which the Dutch were compelled to detach from all political involvement in the region. In the 18th Century, Travancore King Sree Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma annexed all the kingdoms up to Cochin through military conquests, resulting in the rise of Travancore to pre-eminence in Kerala. The Kochi ruler sued for peace with Anizham Thirunal and the northern and north-central parts of Kerala (Malabar District), along with Fort Kochi, Tangasseri, and Anchuthengu in southern Kerala, came under direct British rule until India became independent. Travancore became the dominant state in Kerala by defeating the powerful Zamorin of Kozhikode in the battle of Purakkad in 1755.
British era
The island of Dharmadom near Kannur, along with Thalassery, was ceded to the East India Company in 1734, which were claimed by all of the Kolattu Rajas, Kottayam Rajas, and Arakkal Bibi in the late medieval period, where the British initiated a factory and English settlement following the cession. In 1761, the British captured Mahé, and the settlement was handed over to the ruler of Kadathanadu. The British restored Mahé to the French as a part of the 1763 Treaty of Paris. In 1779, the Anglo-French war broke out, resulting in the French loss of Mahé. In 1783, the British agreed to restore to the French their settlements in India, and Mahé was handed over to the French in 1785.
In 1757, to resist the invasion of the Zamorin of Kozhikode, the Palakkad Raja sought the help of the Hyder Ali of Mysore. In 1766, Hyder Ali defeated the Zamorin of Kozhikode – an East India Company ally at the time – and absorbed Kozhikode into his state. The smaller princely states in northern and north-central parts of Kerala (Malabar region) including Kolathunadu, Kottayam, Kadathanadu, Kozhikode, Tanur, Valluvanad, and Palakkad were unified under the rulers of Mysore and were made a part of the larger Kingdom of Mysore. His son and successor, Tipu Sultan, launched campaigns against the expanding British East India Company, resulting in two of the four Anglo-Mysore Wars. Tipu ultimately ceded the Malabar District and South Kanara to the company in the 1790s as a result of the Third Anglo-Mysore War and the subsequent Treaty of Seringapatam; both were annexed to the Bombay Presidency (which had also included other regions in the western coast of India) of British India in the years 1792 and 1799, respectively. Later in 1800, both of the Malabar District and South Canara were separated from Bombay presidency to merge them with the neighbouring Madras Presidency. The company forged tributary alliances with Kochi in 1791 and Travancore in 1795.
By the end of 18th century, the whole of Kerala fell under the control of the British, either administered directly or under suzerainty. Initially the British had to suffer local resistance against their rule under the leadership of Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja, who had popular support in Thalassery-Wayanad region. The municipalities of Kozhikode, Palakkad, Fort Kochi, Kannur, and Thalassery, were founded on 1 November 1866 of the British Indian Empire, making them the first modern municipalities in the state of Kerala. The Malabar Special Police was formed by the colonial government in 1884 headquartered at Malappuram. British in Malabar also converted Thiyyar army, called as Thiyya pattalam into a special regiment centered at Thalassery called as The Thiyyar Regiment in 1904.Nagendra k.r.singh Global Encyclopedia of the South India Dalit's Ethnography (2006) page.230, Google Books There were major revolts in Kerala during the independence movement in the 20th century; most notable among them is the 1921 Malabar Rebellion and the social struggles in Travancore. In the Malabar Rebellion, Mappila Muslims of Malabar rebelled against the British Raj. The Battle of Pookkottur adorns an important role in the rebellion. Some social struggles against caste inequalities also erupted in the early decades of 20th century, leading to the 1936 Temple Entry Proclamation that opened Hindu temples in Travancore to all castes.
Post-colonial period
After India was partitioned in 1947 into India and Pakistan, Travancore and Kochi, part of the Union of India were merged on 1 July 1949 to form Travancore-Cochin. On 1 November 1956, the taluk of Kasargod in the South Kanara district of Madras, the Malabar district of Madras (excluding the islands of Lakshadweep), and Travancore-Cochin, without four southern taluks and Sengottai taluk (which joined Tamil Nadu), merged to form the state of Kerala under the States Reorganisation Act. A Communist-led government under E. M. S. Namboodiripad resulted from the first elections for the new Kerala Legislative Assembly in 1957. It was one of the earliest elected Communist governments anywhere. His government implemented land and educational reforms.
Geography
The state is wedged between the Lakshadweep Sea and the Western Ghats. Lying between northern latitudes 8°18' and 12°48' and eastern longitudes 74°52' and 77°22', Kerala experiences humid tropical rainforest climate with some cyclones. The state has a coast of and the width of the state varies between . Geographically, Kerala can be divided into three climatically distinct regions: the eastern highlands; rugged and cool mountainous terrain, the central mid-lands; rolling hills, and the western lowlands; coastal plains. Pre-Cambrian and Pleistocene geological formations compose the bulk of Kerala's terrain. A catastrophic flood in Kerala in 1341 CE drastically modified its terrain and consequently affected its history; it also created a natural harbour for spice transport.
The eastern region of Kerala consists of high mountains, gorges and deep-cut valleys immediately west of the Western Ghats' rain shadow. 41 of Kerala's west-flowing rivers, and 3 of its east-flowing ones originate in this region. The Western Ghats form a wall of mountains interrupted only near Palakkad; hence also known Palghat, where the Palakkad Gap breaks. The Western Ghats rise on average to above sea level, while the highest peaks reach around . Anamudi in the Idukki district is the highest peak in south India, is at an elevation of . The Western Ghats mountain chain is recognised as one of the world's eight "hottest hotspots" of biological diversity and is listed among UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The chain's forests are considered to be older than the Himalaya mountains. The Athirappilly Falls, which is situated on the background of Western Ghat mountain ranges, is also known as The Niagara of India. It is located in the Chalakudy River and is the largest waterfall in the state. Wayanad is the sole Plateau in Kerala. The eastern regions in the districts of Wayanad, Malappuram (Chaliyar valley at Nilambur), and Palakkad (Attappadi Valley), which together form parts of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and a continuation of the Mysore Plateau, are known for natural Gold fields, along with the adjoining districts of Karnataka.
Kerala's western coastal belt is relatively flat compared to the eastern region, and is criss-crossed by a network of interconnected brackish canals, lakes, estuaries, and rivers known as the Kerala Backwaters. Kuttanad, also known as The Rice Bowl of Kerala, has the lowest altitude in India, and is also one of the few places in world where cultivation takes place below sea level. The country's longest lake Vembanad, dominates the backwaters; it lies between Alappuzha and Kochi and is about in area. Around eight percent of India's waterways are found in Kerala. Kerala's 44 rivers include the Periyar; , Bharathapuzha; , Pamba; , Chaliyar; , Kadalundipuzha; , Chalakudipuzha; , Valapattanam; and the Achankovil River; . The average length of the rivers is . Many of the rivers are small and entirely fed by monsoon rain. As Kerala's rivers are small and lacking in delta, they are more prone to environmental effects. The rivers face problems such as sand mining and pollution. The state experiences several natural hazards like landslides, floods and droughts. The state was also affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and in 2018 received the worst flooding in nearly a century.
Climate
With around 120–140 rainy days per year, Kerala has a wet and maritime tropical climate influenced by the seasonal heavy rains of the southwest summer monsoon and northeast winter monsoon. Around 65% of the rainfall occurs from June to August corresponding to the Southwest monsoon, and the rest from September to December corresponding to Northeast monsoon. The moisture-laden winds of the Southwest monsoon, on reaching the southernmost point of the Indian Peninsula, because of its topography, divides into two branches; the "Arabian Sea Branch" and the "Bay of Bengal Branch". The "Arabian Sea Branch" of the Southwest monsoon first hits the Western Ghats, making Kerala the first state in India to receive rain from the Southwest monsoon. The distribution of pressure patterns is reversed in the Northeast monsoon, during this season the cold winds from North India pick up moisture from the Bay of Bengal and precipitate it on the east coast of peninsular India. In Kerala, the influence of the Northeast monsoon is seen in southern districts only. Kerala's rainfall averages 2,923 mm (115 in) annually. Some of Kerala's drier lowland regions average only 1,250 mm (49 in); the mountains of the eastern Idukki district receive more than 5,000 mm (197 in) of orographic precipitation: the highest in the state. In eastern Kerala, a drier tropical wet and dry climate prevails. During the summer, the state is prone to gale-force winds, storm surges, cyclone-related torrential downpours, occasional droughts, and rises in sea level. The mean daily temperature ranges from 19.8 °C to 36.7 °C. Mean annual temperatures range from 25.0 to 27.5 °C in the coastal lowlands to 20.0–22.5 °C in the eastern highlands.
Flora and fauna
Most of the biodiversity is concentrated and protected in the Western Ghats. Three quarters of the land area of Kerala was under thick forest up to 18th century. , over 25% of India's 15,000 plant species are in Kerala. Out of the 4,000 flowering plant species; 1,272 of which are endemic to Kerala, 900 are medicinal, and 159 are threatened. Its 9,400 km2 of forests include tropical wet evergreen and semi-evergreen forests (lower and middle elevations—3,470 km2), tropical moist and dry deciduous forests (mid-elevations—4,100 km2 and 100 km2, respectively), and montane subtropical and temperate (shola) forests (highest elevations—100 km2). Altogether, 24% of Kerala is forested. Four of the world's Ramsar Convention listed wetlands—Lake Sasthamkotta, Ashtamudi Lake, Thrissur-Ponnani Kole Wetlands, and the Vembanad-Kol wetlands—are in Kerala, as well as 1455.4 km2 of the vast Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and 1828 km2 of the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve. Subjected to extensive clearing for cultivation in the 20th century, much of the remaining forest cover is now protected from clearfelling. Eastern Kerala's windward mountains shelter tropical moist forests and tropical dry forests, which are common in the Western Ghats. The world's oldest teak plantation 'Conolly's Plot' is in Nilambur.
Kerala's fauna are notable for their diversity and high rates of endemism: it includes 118 species of mammals (1 endemic), 500 species of birds, 189 species of freshwater fish, 173 species of reptiles (10 of them endemic), and 151 species of amphibians (36 endemic). These are threatened by extensive habitat destruction, including soil erosion, landslides, salinisation, and resource extraction. In the forests, sonokeling, Dalbergia latifolia, anjili, mullumurikku, Erythrina, and Cassia number among the more than 1,000 species of trees in Kerala. Other plants include bamboo, wild black pepper, wild cardamom, the calamus rattan palm, and aromatic vetiver grass, Vetiveria zizanioides. Indian elephant, Bengal tiger, Indian leopard, Nilgiri tahr, common palm civet, and grizzled giant squirrels are also found in the forests. Reptiles include the king cobra, viper, python, and mugger crocodile. Kerala's birds include the Malabar trogon, the great hornbill, Kerala laughingthrush, darter and southern hill myna. In the lakes, wetlands, and waterways, fish such as Kadu, Red Line Torpedo Barb and choottachi; orange chromide—Etroplus maculatus are found. Recently, a newly described tardigrade (water bears) species collected from Vadakara coast of Kerala named after Kerala State; Stygarctus keralensis.
Subdivisions
The state's 14 districts are distributed among six regions: North Malabar (far-north Kerala), South Malabar (north-central Kerala), Kochi (central Kerala), Northern Travancore, Central Travancore (southern Kerala) and Southern Travancore (far-south Kerala). The districts which serve as administrative regions for taxation purposes are further subdivided into 27 revenue subdivisions and 77 taluks, which have fiscal and administrative powers over settlements within their borders, including maintenance of local land records. Kerala's taluks are further sub-divided into 1,674 revenue villages.
Since the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution of India, the local government institutions function as the third tier of government, which constitutes 14 District Panchayats, 152 Block Panchayats, 941 Grama Panchayats, 87 Municipalities, six Municipal Corporations and one Township.
Mahé, a part of the Indian union territory of Puducherry, though away from it, is a coastal exclave surrounded by Kerala on all of its landward approaches. The Kannur District surrounds Mahé on three sides with the Kozhikode District on the fourth.
In 1664, the municipality of Fort Kochi was established by Dutch Malabar, making it the first municipality in Indian subcontinent, which got dissolved when the Dutch authority got weaker in 18th century. The municipalities of Kozhikode, Palakkad, Fort Kochi, Kannur, and Thalassery, were founded on 1 November 1866 of the British Indian Empire, making them the first modern municipalities in the state of Kerala. The Municipality of Thiruvananthapuram came into existence in 1920. After two decades, during the reign of Sree Chithira Thirunal, Thiruvananthapuram Municipality was converted into Corporation on 30 October 1940, making it the oldest Municipal Corporation of Kerala. The first Municipal Corporation founded after the independence of India as well as the second-oldest Municipal Corporation of the state is at Kozhikode in the year 1962. There are six Municipal corporations in Kerala that govern Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kochi, Kollam, Thrissur, and Kannur. The Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation is the largest corporation in Kerala while Kochi metropolitan area named Kochi UA is the largest urban agglomeration. According to a survey by economics research firm Indicus Analytics in 2007, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kochi, Kollam, Thrissur are among the "best cities in India to live"; the survey used parameters such as health, education, environment, safety, public facilities and entertainment to rank the cities.
Government and administration
Kerala hosts two major political alliances: the United Democratic Front (UDF), led by the Indian National Congress; and the Left Democratic Front (LDF), led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)). 2021 Kerala Legislative Assembly election, the LDF is the ruling coalition; Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is the Chief Minister, while V. D. Satheesan of the Indian National Congress is the Leader of the Opposition. According to the Constitution of India, Kerala has a parliamentary system of representative democracy; universal suffrage is granted to residents. The government is organised into the three branches:
Legislature: The unicameral legislature, the Kerala Legislative Assembly popularly known as Niyamasabha, comprises elected members and special office bearers; the Speaker and Deputy Speaker elected by the members from among themselves. Assembly meetings are presided over by the Speaker and in the Speaker's absence, by the Deputy Speaker. The state has 140 assembly constituencies. The state elects 20 and 9 members for representation in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, respectively.
Executive: The Governor of Kerala is the constitutional head of state, and is appointed by the President of India. Arif Mohammad Khan is the Governor of Kerala. The executive authority is headed by the Chief Minister of Kerala, who is the head of government and is vested with extensive executive powers; the head of the majority party in the Legislative Assembly is appointed to the post by the Governor. The Council of Ministers has its members appointed by the Governor, taking the advice of the Chief Minister. The executive administration is based in Thiruvananthapuram at State Secretariat complex. Each district has a district administrator appointed by government called District collector for executive administration. Auxiliary authorities known as panchayats, for which local body elections are regularly held, govern local affairs.
Judiciary: The judiciary consists of the Kerala High Court and a system of lower courts. The High Court, located in Kochi, has a Chief Justice along with 35 permanent and twelve additional pro tempore justices . The high court also hears cases from the Union Territory of Lakshadweep.
The local government bodies; Panchayat, Municipalities and Corporations have existed in Kerala since 1959, however, the major initiative to decentralise the governance was started in 1993, conforming to the constitutional amendments of central government in this direction. With the enactment of Kerala Panchayati Raj Act and Kerala Municipality Act in 1994, the state implemented reforms in local self-governance. The Kerala Panchayati Raj Act envisages a 3-tier system of local government with Gram panchayat, Block panchayat and District Panchayat forming a hierarchy. The acts ensure a clear demarcation of power among these institutions. However, the Kerala Municipality Act envisages a single-tier system for urban areas, with the institution of municipality designed to par with the Gram panchayat of the former system. Substantial administrative, legal and financial powers are delegated to these bodies to ensure efficient decentralisation. As per the present norms, the state government devolves about 40% of the state plan outlay to the local government. Kerala was declared as the first digital state of India on 27 February 2016. The India Corruption Survey 2019 by Transparency International declared Kerala the least-corrupt state in India. The Public Affairs Index-2020 released by the Public Affairs Centre, India, designated Kerala as the best governed Indian state.
Economy
After independence, the state was managed as a democratic socialist welfare economy. From the 1990s, liberalisation of the mixed economy allowed Licence Raj restrictions against capitalism and foreign direct investment to be lightened, leading to economic expansion and an increase in employment. In the fiscal year 2018–19, the nominal gross state domestic product (GSDP) was . GSDP growth; 11.4% in 2018–2019 and 10.5% in 2017–2018 had been high compared to an average of 2.3% annually in the 1980s and between 5.1% and 6.0% in the 1990s. The state recorded 8.9% growth in enterprises from 1998 to 2005, higher than the national rate of 4.8%. The "Kerala phenomenon" or "Kerala model of development" of very high human development and in comparison low economic development has resulted from a strong service sector. In 2019–20, the tertiary sector contributed around 63% of the state's GSVA, compared to 28% by secondary sector, and 8% by primary sector. In the period between 1960 and 2020, Kerala's economy was gradually shifting from an agrarian economy into a service-based one.
The state's service sector which accounts for around 63% of its revenue is mainly based upon Hospitality industry, Tourism, Ayurveda&Medical Services, Pilgrimage, Information technology, Transportation, Financial sector, and Education. Major initiatives under the industrial sector include Cochin Shipyard, Shipbuilding, Oil refinery, Software Industry, Coastal mineral industries, food processing, marine products processing, and Rubber based products. The primary sector of the state is mainly based upon Cash crops. Kerala produces a significant amount of national output of the cash crops such as Coconut, Tea, Coffee, pepper, Natural rubber, Cardamom, and Cashew in India. The cultivation of food crops began to reduce since 1950's. The Migrant labourers in Kerala are a significant workforce in its industrial and agricultural sectors. Being home to only 1.18% of the total land area of India and 2.75% of its population, Kerala contributes more than 4% to the Gross Domestic Product of India.
Kerala's economy depends significantly on emigrants working in foreign countries, mainly in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and the remittances annually contribute more than a fifth of GSDP. The state witnessed significant emigration during the Gulf Boom of the 1970s and early 1980s. In 2008, the Persian Gulf countries together had a Keralite population of more than 25 lakh(2.5 million), who sent home annually a sum of 6.81 billion, which is the highest among Indian states and more than 15.1% of remittances to India in 2008. In 2012, Kerala still received the highest remittances of all states: US$11.3 billion, which was nearly 16% of the US$71 billion remittances to the country. In 2015, NRI deposits in Kerala have soared to over , amounting to one-sixth of all the money deposited in NRI accounts, which comes to about . Malappuram district has the highest proportion of emigrant households in state. A study commissioned by the Kerala State Planning Board, suggested that the state look for other reliable sources of income, instead of relying on remittances to finance its expenditure.
A decline of about 300,000 in the number of emigrants from the state was recorded during the period between 2013 and 2018. The total remittances received by the emigrants stood at in the year 2018. According to a study done in 2013, was the total amount paid to migrant labourers in the state every year. The tertiary sector comprises services such as transport, storage, communications, tourism, banking, insurance and real estate. In 2011–2012, it contributed 63.2% of the state's GDP, agriculture and allied sectors contributed 15.7%, while manufacturing, construction and utilities contributed 21.1%. Around 600 varieties of rice, which is Kerala's most used staple and cereal crop, are harvested from 3105.21 km2; a decline from 5883.4 km2 in 1990. 6,88,859 tonnes of rice are produced per year. Other key crops include coconut; 899,198 ha, tea, coffee; 23% of Indian production, or 57,000 tonnes, rubber, cashews, and spices—including pepper, cardamom, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
As of March 2002, Kerala's banking sector comprised 3341 local branches: each branch served 10,000 people, lower than the national average of 16,000; the state has the third-highest bank penetration among Indian states. On 1 October 2011, Kerala became the first state in the country to have at least one banking facility in every village. Unemployment in 2007 was estimated at 9.4%; chronic issues are underemployment, low employability of youth, and a low female labour participation rate of only 13.5%, as was the practice of Nokku kooli, "wages for looking on". (On 30 April 2018, the Kerala state government issued an order to abolish Nokku Kooli, to take effect on 1 May.) By 1999–2000, the rural and urban poverty rates dropped to 10.0% and 9.6%, respectively.
The Grand Kerala Shopping Festival (GKSF) was started in 2007, covering more than 3000 outlets across the nine cities of Kerala with huge tax discounts, VAT refunds and huge array of prizes. Lulu International Mall at Thiruvananthapuram is the largest Shopping Mall in India.
The state's budget of 2020–2021 was . The state government's tax revenues (excluding the shares from Union tax pool) amounted to in 2020–21; up from in 2019–20. Its non-tax revenues (excluding the shares from Union tax pool) of the Government of Kerala reached in 2020–2021. However, Kerala's high ratio of taxation to GSDP has not alleviated chronic budget deficits and unsustainable levels of government debt, which have impacted social services. A record total of 223 hartals were observed in 2006, resulting in a revenue loss of over . Kerala's 10% rise in GDP is 3% more than the national GDP. In 2013, capital expenditure rose 30% compared to the national average of 5%, owners of two-wheelers rose by 35% compared to the national rate of 15%, and the teacher-pupil ratio rose 50% from 2:100 to 4:100.
The Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board is a government owned financial institution in the state to mobilize funds for infrastructure development from outside the state revenue, aiming at overall infrastructure development of the state.
In November 2015, the Ministry of Urban Development selected seven cities of Kerala for a comprehensive development program known as the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). A package of was declared for each of the cities to develop service level improvement plan (SLIP), a plan for better functioning of the local urban bodies in the cities of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode, and Palakkad.
Information Technology
Kerala has focused more attention towards growth of Information Technology sector with formation of Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram which is one of the largest IT employer in Kerala. It was the first technology park in India and with the inauguration of the Thejaswini complex on 22 February 2007, Technopark became the largest IT Park in India. Software giants like Infosys, Oracle, Tata Consultancy Services, Capgemini, HCL, UST Global, NeST and Suntec have offices in the state. The state has a second major IT hub, the Infopark centred in Kochi with "spokes"(it acts as the "hub") in Thrissur and Alleppy. , Infopark generates one-third of total IT Revenues of the state with key offices of IT majors like Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, Wipro, UST Global, IBS Software Services etc. and Multinational corporations like KPMG, Ernst & Young, EXL Service, Etisalat DB Telecom, Nielsen Audio, Xerox ACS, Tata ELXSI etc. Kochi also has another major project SmartCity under construction, built in partnership with Dubai Government. A third major IT Hub is under construction centred around Kozhikode known as Cyberpark. Kerala is the first Indian state to make Internet access a basic right. As on 2019, Kerala's Internet penetration rate is the second-highest in India only after to Delhi.
Industries
Traditional industries manufacturing items; coir, handlooms, and handicrafts employ around one million people. Kerala supplies 60% of the total global produce of white coir fibre. India's first coir factory was set up in Alleppey in 1859–60. The Central Coir Research Institute was established there in 1959. As per the 2006–2007 census by SIDBI, there are 14,68,104 micro, small and medium enterprises in Kerala employing 30,31,272 people. The KSIDC has promoted more than 650 medium and large manufacturing firms in Kerala, creating employment for 72,500 people. A mining sector of 0.3% of GSDP involves extraction of ilmenite, kaolin, bauxite, silica, quartz, rutile, zircon, and sillimanite. Other major sectors are tourism, medical sector, educational sector, banking, ship building, oil refinery, infrastructure, manufacturing, home gardens, animal husbandry and business process outsourcing.
Agriculture
The major change in agriculture in Kerala occurred in the 1970s when production of rice fell due to increased availability of rice all over India and decreased availability of labour. Consequently, investment in rice production decreased and a major portion of the land shifted to the cultivation of perennial tree crops and seasonal crops. Profitability of crops fell due to a shortage of farm labour, the high price of land, and the uneconomic size of operational holdings. Only 27.3% of the families in Kerala depend upon agriculture for their livelihood, which is also the least curresponding rate in India.
Kerala produces 97% of the national output of black pepper and accounts for 85% of the natural rubber in the country. Coconut, tea, coffee, cashew, and spices—including cardamom, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg are the main agricultural products. Around 80% of India's export quality cashew kernels are prepared in Kollam. The key cash crop is Coconut and Kerala ranks first in the area of coconut cultivation in India. In 1960–61, about 70% of the Coconuts produced in India were from Kerala, which have reduced to 42% in 2011–12. Around 90% of the total Cardamom produced in India is from Kerala. India is the second-largest producer of Cardamom in world. About 20% of the total Coffee produced in India are from Kerala. The key agricultural staple is rice, with varieties grown in extensive paddy fields. Home gardens made up a significant portion of the agricultural sector. Related animal husbandry is touted by proponents as a means of alleviating rural poverty and unemployment among women, the marginalised, and the landless. The state government promotes these activities via educational campaigns and the development of new cattle breeds such as the Sunandini.
Though the contribution of the agricultural sector to the state economy was on the decline in 2012–13, through the strength of the allied livestock sector, it has picked up from 7.0% (2011–12) to 7.2%. In the 2013–14 fiscal period, the contribution has been estimated at a high of 7.8%. The total growth of the farm sector has recorded a 4.4% increase in 2012–13, over a 1.3% growth in the previous fiscal year. The agricultural sector has a share of 9.3% in the sectoral distribution of Gross State Domestic Product at Constant Price, while the secondary and tertiary sectors have contributed 23.9% and 66.7%, respectively.
There is a preference for organic products and home farming compared to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Forest gardens are common and known by the name home gardens. According to the English horticulturist Robert Hart, Kerala is "from the agroforestry point of view, perhaps the world's most advanced country, with an extraordinary intensivity of cultivation of some forest gardens."
Fisheries
With of coastal belt, 400,000 hectares of inland water resources and approximately 220,000 active fishermen, Kerala is one of the leading producers of fish in India. According to 2003–04 reports, about 11 lakh(1.1 million) people earn their livelihood from fishing and allied activities such as drying, processing, packaging, exporting and transporting fisheries. The annual yield of the sector was estimated as 6,08,000 tons in 2003–04. This contributes to about 3% of the total economy of the state. In 2006, around 22% of the total Indian marine fishery yield was from Kerala. During the southwest monsoon, a suspended mud bank develops along the shore, which in turn leads to calm ocean water, peaking the output of the fishing industry. This phenomenon is locally called chakara. The waters provide a large variety of fish: pelagic species; 59%, demersal species; 23%, crustaceans, molluscs and others for 18%. Around 10.5 lakh(1.050 million) fishermen haul an annual catch of 668,000 tonnes as of a 1999–2000 estimate; 222 fishing villages are strung along the coast. Another 113 fishing villages dot the hinterland.
Background radiation levels
Minerals including Ilmenite, Monazite, Thorium, and Titanium, are found in the coastal belt of Kerala. Kerala's coastal belt of Karunagappally is known for high background radiation from thorium-containing monazite sand. In some coastal panchayats, median outdoor radiation levels are more than 4 mGy/yr and, in certain locations on the coast, it is as high as 70 mGy/yr.
Transportation
Roads
Kerala has of roads, which accounts for 5.6% of India's total. This translates to about of road per thousand people, compared to an average of in the country. Roads in Kerala include of national highway; 1.6% of the nation's total, of state highway; 2.5% of the nation's total, of district roads; 4.7% of the nation's total, of urban (municipal) roads; 6.3% of the nation's total, and of rural roads; 3.8% of the nation's total. Kottayam has the maximum length of roads among the districts of Kerala, while Wayanad accounts for minimum. Most of Kerala's west coast is accessible through the NH 66 (previously NH 17 and 47); and the eastern side is accessible through state highways. New projects for hill and coastal highways were recently announced under KIIFB. National Highway 66, with the longest stretch of road () connects Kanyakumari to Mumbai; it enters Kerala via Talapady in Kasargod and passes through Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Guruvayur, Kochi, Alappuzha, Kollam, Thiruvananthapuram before entering Tamil Nadu. Palakkad district is generally referred to as the Gateway of Kerala, due to the presence of the Palakkad Gap in the Western Ghats, through which the northern (Malabar) and southern (Travancore) parts of Kerala are connected to the rest of India via road and rail. The state's largest checkpoint, Walayar, is on NH 544, in the border town between Kerala and Tamil Nadu, through which a large amount of public and commercial transportation reaches the northern and central districts of Kerala.
The Department of Public Works is responsible for maintaining and expanding the state highways system and major district roads. The Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP), which includes the GIS-based Road Information and Management Project (RIMS), is responsible for maintaining and expanding the state highways in Kerala. It also oversees a few major district roads. Traffic in Kerala has been growing at a rate of 10–11% every year, resulting in high traffic and pressure on the roads. Traffic density is nearly four times the national average, reflecting the state's high population. Kerala's annual total of road accidents is among the nation's highest. The accidents are mainly the result of the narrow roads and irresponsible driving. National Highways in Kerala are among the narrowest in the country and will remain so for the foreseeable future, as the state government has received an exemption that allows narrow national highways. In Kerala, highways are wide. In other states, national highways are grade separated, wide with a minimum of four lanes, as well as 6 or 8-lane access-controlled expressways. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has threatened the Kerala state government that it will give higher priority to other states in highway development since political commitment to better highways in Kerala has been lacking. , Kerala had the highest road accident rate in the country, with most fatal accidents taking place along the state's national highways.
State transport corporation
Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) is a state-owned road transport corporation. It is one of the country's oldest state-run public bus transport services. Its origins can be traced back to Travancore State Road Transport Department, when the Travancore government headed by Sri. Chithra Thirunnal decided to set up a public road transportation system in 1937.
The corporation is divided into three zones (North, Central and South), with the headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala's capital city). Daily scheduled service has increased from to , using 6,241 buses on 6,389 routes. At present the corporation has 5373 buses running on 4795 schedules.
The Kerala Urban Road Transport Corporation (KURTC) was formed under KSRTC in 2015 to manage affairs related to urban transportation. It was inaugurated on 12 April 2015 at Thevara.
Railways
Southern Railway zone of Indian Railways operates all railway lines in the state connecting most major towns and cities except those in the highland districts of Idukki and Wayanad. The railway network in the state is controlled by two out of six divisions of the Southern Railway; Thiruvananthapuram Railway division and Palakkad Railway Division. Thiruvananthapuram Central (TVC) is the busiest railway station in the state. Kerala's major railway stations are:
The first railway line in the state was laid from Tirur to Chaliyam (Kozhikode), with the oldest Railway Station at Tirur, passing through Tanur, Parappanangadi, Vallikkunnu, and Kadalundi. The railway was extended from Tirur to Kuttippuram through Tirunavaya in the same year. It was again extended from Kuttippuram to Shoranur through Pattambi in 1862, resulting in the establishment of Shoranur Junction railway station, which is also the largest railway junction in the state. Major railway transport between Chaliyam–Tirur began on 12 March 1861, from Tirur-Shoranur in 1862, from Shoranur–Cochin Harbour section in 1902, from Kollam–Sengottai on 1 July 1904, Kollam–Thiruvananthapuram on 4 January 1918, from Nilambur-Shoranur in 1927, from Ernakulam–Kottayam in 1956, from Kottayam–Kollam in 1958, from Thiruvananthapuram–Kanyakumari in 1979 and from the Thrissur-Guruvayur Section in 1994. The Nilambur–Shoranur line is one of the shortest broad gauge railway lines in India. It was established in the British era for the transportation of Nilambur teaks and Angadipuram Laterite to United Kingdom through the port at Kozhikode. The presence of Palakkad Gap on Western Ghats makes the Shoranur Junction railway station important as it connects the southwestern coast of India (Mangalore) with the southeastern coast (Chennai).
Kochi Metro
Kochi Metro is the metro rail system in the city of Kochi. It is the only metro rail system in Kerala. Construction began in 2012, with the first phase being set up at an estimated cost of . The Kochi Metro uses 65-metre long Metropolis train sets built and designed by Alstom. It is the first metro system in India to use a communication-based train control (CBTC) system for signalling and telecommunication. In October 2017, Kochi Metro was named the "Best Urban Mobility Project" in India by the Urban Development Ministry, as part of the Urban Mobility India (UMI) International Conference hosted by the ministry every year.
Airports
Kerala has four international airports:
Kollam Airport, established under the Madras Presidency, but since closed, was the first airport in Kerala. Kannur had an airstrip used for commercial aviation as early as 1935 when Tata airlines operated weekly flights between Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram – stopping at Goa and Kannur. Trivandrum International Airport, managed by the Airport Authority of India, is among the oldest existing airports in South India. Calicut International Airport, which was opened in 1988, is the second-oldest existing airport in Kerala and the oldest in the Malabar region. Cochin International Airport is the busiest in the state and the seventh busiest in the country. It is also the first airport in the world to be fully powered by solar energy and has won the coveted Champion of the Earth award, the highest environmental honour instituted by the United Nations. Cochin International Airport is also the first Indian airport to be incorporated as a public limited company; it was funded by nearly 10,000 non-resident Indians from 30 countries.
Other than civilian airports, Kochi has a naval airport named INS Garuda. Thiruvananthapuram airport shares civilian facilities with the Southern Air Command of the Indian Air Force. These facilities are used mostly by central government VIPs visiting Kerala.
Water transport
Kerala has one major port, four intermediate ports, and 13 minor ports. The major port in the state is at Kochi, which has an area of 8.27 km2. The Vizhinjam International Seaport, which is currently classified as an intermediate port, is an upcoming major port under construction. Other intermediate ports include Beypore, Kollam, and Azheekal. The remaining ports are classified as minor which include Manjeshwaram, Kasaragod, Nileshwaram, Kannur, Thalassery, Vadakara, Ponnani, Munambam, Manakodam, Alappuzha, Kayamkulam, Neendakara, and Valiyathura. The Kerala Maritime Institute is headquartered at Neendakara, which has an additional subcentre at Kodungallur too. The state has numerous backwaters, which are used for commercial inland navigation. Transport services are mainly provided by country craft and passenger vessels. There are 67 navigable rivers in the state while the total length of inland waterways is . The main constraints to the expansion of inland navigation are; lack of depth in waterways caused by silting, lack of maintenance of navigation systems and bank protection, accelerated growth of the water hyacinth, lack of modern inland craft terminals, and lack of a cargo handling system.
The long West-Coast Canal is the longest waterway in state connecting Kasaragod to Poovar. It is divided into five sections: long Kasaragod-Nileshwaram reach, long Nileshwaram-Kozhikode reach, Kozhikode-Kottapuram reach, long National Waterway 3 (Kottapuram-Kollam reach), and long Kollam-Vizhinjam reach. The Conolly Canal, which is a part of West-Coast Canal, connects the city of Kozhikode with Kochi through Ponnani, passing through the districts of Malappuram and Thrissur. It begins at Vadakara. It was constructed in the year 1848 under the orders of then District collector of Malabar, H. V. Conolly, initially to facilitate movement of goods to Kallayi Port from hinter lands of Malabar through Kuttiady and Korapuzha river systems. It was the main waterway for the cargo movement between Kozhikode and Kochi through Ponnani, for more than a century. Other important waterways in Kerala include the Alappuzha-Changanassery Canal, Alappuzha-Kottayam-Athirampuzha Canal, and Kottayam-Vaikom Canal.
Demographics
Kerala is home to 2.8% of India's population; with a density of 859 persons per km2, its land is nearly three times as densely settled as the national average of 370 persons per km2. , Thiruvananthapuram is the most populous city in Kerala. In the state, the rate of population growth is India's lowest, and the decadal growth of 4.9% in 2011 is less than one third of the all-India average of 17.6%. Kerala's population more than doubled between 1951 and 1991 by adding 15.6 million people to reach 29.1 million residents in 1991; the population stood at 33.3 million by 2011. Kerala's coastal regions are the most densely settled with population of 2022 persons per km2, 2.5 times the overall population density of the state, 859 persons per km2, leaving the eastern hills and mountains comparatively sparsely populated. Kerala is the second-most urbanised major state in the country with 47.7% urban population according to the 2011 Census of India. Around 31.8 million Keralites are predominantly Malayali. The state's 321,000 indigenous tribal Adivasis, 1.1% of the population, are concentrated in the east.
Gender
There is a tradition of matrilineal inheritance in Kerala, where the mother is the head of the household. As a result, women in Kerala have had a much higher standing and influence in the society. This was common among certain influential castes and is a factor in the value placed on daughters. Christian missionaries also influenced Malayali women in that they started schools for girls from poor families. Opportunities for women such as education and gainful employment often translate into a lower birth rate, which in turn, make education and employment more likely to be accessible and more beneficial for women. This creates an upward spiral for both the women and children of the community that is passed on to future generations. According to the Human Development Report of 1996, Kerala's Gender Development Index was 597; higher than any other state of India. Factors, such as high rates of female literacy, education, work participation and life expectancy, along with favourable sex ratio, contributed to it.
Kerala's sex ratio of 1.084 (females to males) is higher than that of the rest of India and is the only state where women outnumber men. While having the opportunities that education affords them, such as political participation, keeping up to date with current events, reading religious texts etc., these tools have still not translated into full, equal rights for the women of Kerala. There is a general attitude that women must be restricted for their own benefit. In the state, despite the social progress, gender still influences social mobility.Antherjanam, Lalithambika. Cast Me Out If You Will. New York: The Feminist Press, 1997.
LGBT rights
Kerala has been at the forefront of LGBT issues in India. Kerala is one of the first states in India to form a welfare policy for the transgender community. In 2016, the Kerala government introduced free sex reassignment surgery through government hospitals. Queerala is one of the major LGBT organisation in Kerala. It campaigns for increased awareness of LGBT people and sensitisation concerning healthcare services, workplace policies and educational curriculum. Since 2010, Kerala Queer Pride has been held annually across various cities in Kerala
In June 2019, the Kerala government passed a new order that members of the transgender community should not be referred to as the "third gender" or "other gender" in government communications. Instead, the term "transgender" should be used. Previously, the gender preferences provided in government forms and documents included male, female, and other/third gender.
In the 2021 Mathrubhumi Youth Manifesto Survey conducted on people aged between 15 and 35, majority (74.3%) of the respondents supported legislation for same-sex marriage while 25.7% opposed it.
Human Development Index
, Kerala has a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.770, which is in the "high" category, ranking it first in the country. It was 0.790 in 2007–08 and it had a consumption-based HDI of 0.920, which is better than that of many developed countries. Comparatively higher spending by the government on primary level education, health care and the elimination of poverty from the 19th century onwards has helped the state maintain an exceptionally high HDI; the report was prepared by the central government's Institute of Applied Manpower Research. However, the Human Development Report 2005, prepared by Centre for Development Studies envisages a virtuous phase of inclusive development for the state since the advancement in human development had already started aiding the economic development of the state. Kerala is also widely regarded as the cleanest and healthiest state in India.
According to the 2011 census, Kerala has the highest literacy rate (94%) among Indian states. In 2018, the literacy rate was calculated to be 96%. In the Kottayam district, the literacy rate was 97%. The life expectancy in Kerala is 74 years, among the highest in India . Kerala's rural poverty rate fell from 59% (1973–1974) to 12% (1999–2010); the overall (urban and rural) rate fell 47% between the 1970s and 2000s against the 29% fall in overall poverty rate in India. By 1999–2000, the rural and urban poverty rates dropped to 10.0% and 9.6%, respectively. The 2013 Tendulkar Committee Report on poverty estimated that the percentages of the population living below the poverty line in rural and urban Kerala are 9.1% and 5.0%, respectively. These changes stem largely from efforts begun in the late 19th century by the kingdoms of Cochin and Travancore to boost social welfare. This focus was maintained by Kerala's post-independence government.
Kerala has undergone a "demographic transition" characteristic of such developed nations as Canada, Japan, and Norway;. as 11.2% of people are over the age of 60, and due to the low birthrate of 18 per 1,000. According to the 2011 census, Kerala had a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.6. All district except Malappuram district had fertility rate below 2. Fertility rate is highest in Malappuram district (2.2) and lowest in Pathanamthitta district (1.3). In 2001, Muslims had the TFR of 2.6 as against 1.5 for Hindus and 1.7 for Christians. The state also is regarded as the "least corrupt Indian state" according to the surveys conducted by CMS Indian Corruption Study (CMS-ICS) Transparency International (2005) and India Today (1997). Kerala has the lowest homicide rate among Indian states, with 1.1 per 100,000 in 2011. In respect of female empowerment, some negative factors such as higher suicide rate, lower share of earned income, child marriage, complaints of sexual harassment and limited freedom are reported. The child marriage is lower in Kerala. The Malappuram district has the highest number of child marriage and the number of such cases are increasing in Malappuram. The child marriages are particularly higher among the Muslim community. In 2019, Kerala recorded the highest child sex abuse complaints in India.
In 2015, Kerala had the highest conviction rate of any state, over 77%. Kerala has the lowest proportion of homeless people in rural India, <0.1%, and the state is attempting to reach the goal of becoming the first "Zero Homeless State", in addition to its acclaimed "Zero landless project", with private organisations and the expatriate Malayali community funding projects for building homes for the homeless. The state was also among the lowest in the India State Hunger Index next only to Punjab. In 2015 Kerala became the first "complete digital state" by implementing e-governance initiatives.
Healthcare
Kerala is a pioneer in implementing the universal health care program. The sub-replacement fertility level and infant mortality rate are lower compared to those of other states, estimated from 12 to 14 deaths per 1,000 live births; as per the National Family Health Survey 2015–16, it has dropped to 6. According to a study commissioned by Lien Foundation, a Singapore-based philanthropic organisation, Kerala is considered to be the best place to die in India based on the state's provision of palliative care for patients with serious illnesses. However, Kerala's morbidity rate is higher than that of any other Indian state—118 (rural) and 88 (urban) per 1,000 people. The corresponding figures for all India were 55 and 54 per 1,000, respectively . Kerala's 13.3% prevalence of low birth weight is higher than that of many first world nations. Outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis, and typhoid among the more than 50% of people who rely on 3 million water wells is an issue worsened by the lack of sewers. As of 2017, the state has the highest number of diabetes patients and also the highest prevalence rate of the disease in India.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization designated Kerala the world's first "baby-friendly state" because of its effective promotion of breast-feeding over formulas. Over 95% of Keralite births are hospital delivered and the state also has the lowest infant mortality rate in the country. The third National Family Health Survey ranks Kerala first in "Institutional Delivery" with 100% births in medical facilities. Ayurveda, siddha, and endangered and endemic modes of traditional medicine, including kalari, marmachikitsa and vishavaidyam, are practised. Some occupational communities such as Kaniyar were known as native medicine men in relation to the practice of such streams of medical systems, apart from their traditional vocation. These propagate via gurukula discipleship, and comprise a fusion of both medicinal and alternative treatments. The Arya Vaidya Sala established by Vaidyaratnam P. S. Warrier at Kottakkal (about 10 km from Malappuram) in 1902, is the largest Ayurvedic medicinal network and health centre in the state. It is also one of the largest Ayurvedic medicinal brands in the world.
In 2014, Kerala became the first state in India to offer free cancer treatment to the poor, via a program called Sukrutham. People in Kerala experience elevated incidence of cancers, liver and kidney diseases. In April 2016, the Economic Times reported that 250,000 residents undergo treatment for cancer. It also reported that approximately 150 to 200 liver transplants are conducted in the region's hospitals annually. Approximately 42,000 cancer cases are reported in the region annually. This is believed to be an underestimate as private hospitals may not be reporting their figures. Long waiting lists for kidney donations has stimulated illegal trade in human kidneys, and prompted the establishment of the Kidney Federation of India which aims to support financially disadvantaged patients. As of 2017–18, there are 6,691 modern medicine institutions under the department of health services, of which the total bed strength is 37,843; 15,780 in rural areas and 22,063 in urban.
Language
Malayalam, one of the six Classical languages of India, is the most widely spoken language in Kerala, where its teaching in schools is mandatory. There is a significant Tamil population in Idukki district, which accounts for 17.48% of its total population. Tulu and Kannada are spoken mainly in the northern parts of Kasaragod district, each of which account for 8.77% and 4.23% of total population in the district, respectively.
Religion
Hinduism is the most widely professed faith in Kerala, with significant Muslim and Christian minorities. In comparison with the rest of India, Kerala experiences relatively little sectarianism. According to 2011 Census of India figures, 54.7% of Kerala's residents are Hindus, 26.6% are Muslims, 18.4% are Christians, and the remaining 0.3% follow another religion or have no religious affiliation. Hindus represent the biggest religious group in all districts except Malappuram, where they are outnumbered by Muslims. Kerala has the largest population of Christians in India. As of 2016, Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others account for 41.9%, 42.6%, 15.4% and 0.2% of the total child births in the state, respectively.
The mythological legends regarding the origin of Kerala are Hindu in nature. Kerala produced several saints and movements. Adi Shankara was a religious philosopher who contributed to Hinduism and propagated the philosophy of Advaita. He was instrumental in establishing four mathas at Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri and Jyotirmath. Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri was another religious figure who composed Narayaniyam, a collection of verses in praise of the Hindu God Krishna.
Islam arrived in Kerala, a part of the larger Indian Ocean rim, via spice and silk traders from the Middle East. Historians do not rule out the possibility of Islam being introduced to Kerala as early as the seventh century CE.Katz 2000; Koder 1973; Thomas Puthiakunnel 1973; David de Beth Hillel, 1832; Lord, James Henry 1977. Notable has been the occurrence of Cheraman Perumal Tajuddin, the mythical Hindu king that moved to Arabia to meet the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and converted to Islam. Kerala Muslims are generally referred to as the Mappilas. Mappilas are but one among the many communities that forms the Muslim population of Kerala. According to the Legend of Cheraman Perumals, the first Indian mosque was built in at Kodungallur with the mandate of the last the ruler (the Cheraman Perumal) of Chera dynasty, who converted to Islam during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632). According to Qissat Shakarwati Farmad, the Masjids at Kodungallur, Kollam, Madayi, Barkur, Mangalore, Kasaragod, Kannur, Dharmadam, Panthalayini, and Chaliyam, were built during the era of Malik Dinar, and they are among the oldest Masjids in Indian Subcontinent. It is believed that Malik Dinar was died at Thalangara in Kasaragod town. According to popular tradition, Islam was brought to Lakshadweep islands, on the western side of Kerala, by Ubaidullah in 661 CE. His grave is believed to be located on the island of Andrott. A few Umayyad (661–750 CE) coins were discovered from Kothamangalam in the eastern part of Ernakulam district.
According to some scholars, the Mappilas are the oldest settled Muslim community in South Asia.Miller, R. E. "Mappila" in The Encyclopedia of Islam Volume VI. Leiden E. J. Brill 1988 pp. 458–66 The monopoly of overseas spice trade from Malabar Coast was safe with the West Asian shipping magnates of Kerala ports. The Muslims were a major financial power to be reckoned within the kingdoms of Kerala and had great political influence in the Hindu royal courts. The Koyilandy Jumu'ah Mosque contains an Old Malayalam inscription written in a mixture of Vatteluttu and Grantha scripts which dates back to 10th century CE. It is a rare surviving document recording patronage by a Kerala king to the Muslims of Kerala. A 13th century granite inscription, written in a mixture of Old Malayalam and Arabic, at Muchundi Mosque in Kozhikode mentions a donation by the king to the mosque. Travellers have recorded the considerably huge presence of Muslim merchants and settlements of sojourning traders in most of the ports of Kerala. Immigration, intermarriage and missionary activity/conversion—secured by the common interest in the spice trade—helped in this development. Most of the Muslims in Kerala follow the Shāfiʿī school of religious law (Samastha Kerala Jamiat-ul-Ulema) while a large minority follow movements that developed within Sunni Islam. The latter section consists of majority Salafists (Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen). There is a large Keralan diaspora in the Middle East.
Ancient Christian tradition says that Christianity reached the shores of Kerala in 52 CE with the arrival of Thomas the Apostle, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ.Menachery G; 1973, 1998; Mundalan, A. M; 1984; Podipara, Placid J. 1970; Leslie Brown, 1956 Saint Thomas Christians include Syro-Malabar Catholic, Syro-Malankara Catholic, Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Syrian Anglicans of the CSI and several Pentecostal and evangelical denominations. The origin of the Latin Catholic Christians in Kerala is the result of the missionary endeavours of the Portuguese Padroado in the 16th century. As a consequence of centuries of mixing with colonial immigrants, beginning with the Portuguese, Dutch, French, British and other Europeans, there is a community of Anglo-Indians in Kerala of mixed European and Indian parentage or ancestry. Kerala has the highest population of Christians among all the states of India.
Judaism reached Kerala in the 10th century BCE during the time of King Solomon. They are called Cochin Jews or Malabar Jews and are the oldest group of Jews in India.Weil, Shalva. India's Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle, Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2009. [first published in 2002; 3rd edn.]. Katz 200/* Religion */ 0; Koder 1973; Menachery 1998 There was a significant Jewish community which existed in Kerala until the 20th century, when most of them migrated to Israel. The Paradesi Synagogue at Kochi is the oldest synagogue in the Commonwealth. Jainism has a considerable following in the Wayanad district.
Buddhism was popular in the time of Ashoka but vanished by the 12th century CE. Certain Hindu communities such as the Samantan Kshatriyas, Ambalavasis, Nairs, Thiyyas and some Muslims around North Malabar used to follow a traditional matrilineal system known as marumakkathayam, although this practice ended in the years after Indian independence. Other Muslims, Christians, and some Hindu castes such as the Namboothiris, most of the Ambalavasi castes and the Ezhavas followed makkathayam, a patrilineal system. Owing to the former matrilineal system, women in Kerala enjoy a high social status. However, gender inequality among low caste men and women is reportedly higher compared to that in other castes.
Education
The Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics flourished between the 14th and 16th centuries. In attempting to solve astronomical problems, the Kerala school independently created a number of important mathematics concepts, including series expansion for trigonometric functions. The Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics was based at Vettathunadu (Tirur region). In the early decades of the 19th century, the modern educational transformation of Kerala was triggered by the efforts of the Church Mission Society missionaries to promote mass education. Following the recommendations of the Wood's despatch of 1854, the princely states of Travancore and Cochin launched mass education drives mainly based on castes and communities, and introduced a system of grant-in-aid to attract more private initiatives. The efforts by leaders such as Vaikunda Swami, Narayana Guru, Ayyankali, and Kuriakose Elias Chavara in aiding the socially discriminated castes in the state—with the help of community-based organisations like Nair Service Society, SNDP, Muslim Educational Society, Muslim Mahajana Sabha, Yoga Kshema Sabha (of Nambudiris) and congregations of Christian churches—led to the further development of mass education in Kerala.
According to the first economic census, conducted in 1977, 99.7% of the villages in Kerala had a primary school within , 98.6% had a middle school within and 96.7% had a high school or higher secondary school within . In 1991, Kerala became the first state in India to be recognised as completely literate, although the effective literacy rate at that time was only 90%. In 2006–2007, the state topped the Education Development Index (EDI) of the 21 major states in India. , enrolment in elementary education was almost 100%; and, unlike other states in India, educational opportunity was almost equally distributed among sexes, social groups, and regions. According to the 2011 census, Kerala has a 93.9% literacy, compared to the national literacy rate of 74.0%. In January 2016, Kerala became the first Indian state to achieve 100% primary education through its Athulyam literacy programme.
The educational system prevailing in the state's schools specifies an initial 10-year course of study, which is divided into three stages: lower primary, upper primary, and secondary school—known as 4+3+3, which signifies the number of years for each stage. After the first 10 years of schooling, students typically enroll in Higher Secondary Schooling in one of the three major streams—liberal arts, commerce, or science. Upon completing the required coursework, students can enroll in general or professional undergraduate (UG) degree-college programmes. The majority of public schools are affiliated with the State Council of Educational Research and Training, Kerala (SCERT Kerala). There are 15,892 schools under the SCERT, of which 5,986 are government schools, 8,183 are aided schools, and the rest are either un-aided or technical schools. Other educational boards are the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE), and the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). English is the language of instruction in most self-financing schools, while government and government-aided schools offer instruction in English or Malayalam. Though the cost of education is generally considered low in Kerala, according to the 61st round of the National Sample Survey (2004–2005), per capita spending on education by the rural households was reported to be for Kerala, more than twice the national average. The survey also revealed that the rural-urban difference in household expenditure on education was much less in Kerala than in the rest of India.
CMS College, Kottayam, established in 1817, is the first western-style college, and one of the oldest colleges, in India. Government Brennen College, Thalassery, founded by philanthropist Edward Brennen in 1862, and Government Victoria College, Palakkad, founded in 1866, are among the oldest educational institutions in India.
The KITE Kerala is a state owned special purpose company under education department of the Government of Kerala. It was developed to support ICT enabled education for schools in the state. The erstwhile IT@School Project was transformed into KITE for extending its scope of operations in August 2017. Kerala is the first Indian state to have ICT-enabled education with hi-tech classrooms in all public schools. Kerala topped in the School Education Quality Index published by NITI Aayog in 2019.
The Indian Naval Academy, located at Ezhimala, is Asia's largest, and the world's third-largest, naval academy.
Culture
The culture of Kerala is composite and cosmopolitan in nature and it is an integral part of Indian culture. It is a synthesis of Aryan, Dravidian, Arab, and European cultures, developed over millennia, under influences from other parts of India and abroad. It is defined by its antiquity and the organic continuity sustained by the Malayali people. It was elaborated through centuries of contact with neighbouring and overseas cultures. However, the geographical insularity of Kerala from the rest of the country has resulted in the development of a distinctive lifestyle, art, architecture, language, literature and social institutions. Over 10,000 festivals are celebrated in the state every year. The Malayalam calendar, a solar sidereal calendar started from 825 CE in Kerala, finds common usage in planning agricultural and religious activities.
Malayalam, one of the classical languages in India, is Kerala's official language. Over a dozen other scheduled and unscheduled languages are also spoken. Kerala has the greatest consumption of alcohol in India.
Festivals
Many of the temples in Kerala hold festivals on specific days of the year. A common characteristic of these festivals is the hoisting of a holy flag which is brought down on the final day of the festival after immersing the deity. Some festivals include Poorams, the best known of these being the Thrissur Pooram. "Elephants, firework displays and huge crowds" are the major attractions of Thrissur Pooram. Other known festivals are Makaravilakku, Chinakkathoor Pooram, Attukal Pongala and Nenmara Vallangi Vela Other than these, festivals locally known as utsavams are conducted by many temples mostly on annual basis. Temples that can afford it will usually involve at least one richly caparisoned elephant as part of the festivities. The idol in the temple is taken out on a procession around the countryside atop this elephant. When the procession visits homes around the temple, people will usually present rice, coconuts, and other offerings to it. Processions often include traditional music such as Panchari melam or Panchavadyam. Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are celebrated by the Muslim community of the state while the festivals like Christmas and Easter are observed by the Christians.
Onam
Onam is a harvest festival celebrated by the people of Kerala and is reminiscent of the state's agrarian past. It is a local festival of Kerala consisting of a four-day public holidays; from Onam Eve (Uthradam) to the fourth Onam Day. Onam falls in the Malayalam month of Chingam (August–September) and marks the commemoration of the homecoming of King Mahabali. The total duration of Onam is 10 days and it is celebrated all across Kerala. It is one of the festivals celebrated with cultural elements such as Vallam Kali, Pulikali, Pookkalam, Thumbi Thullal and Onavillu.
Dance
Kerala is home to a number of performance arts. These include five classical dance forms: Kathakali, Mohiniyattam, Koodiyattom, Thullal and Krishnanattam, which originated and developed in the temple theatres during the classical period under the patronage of royal houses. Kerala natanam, Thirayattam, Kaliyattam, Theyyam, Koothu and Padayani are other dance forms associated with the temple culture of the region. Some traditional dance forms such as Oppana and Duffmuttu were popular among the Muslims of the state, while Margamkali and Parichamuttukali are popular among the Syrian Christians and Chavittu nadakom is popular among the Latin Christians.
Music
The development of classical music in Kerala is attributed to the contributions it received from the traditional performance arts associated with the temple culture of Kerala. The development of the indigenous classical music form, Sopana Sangeetham, illustrates the rich contribution that temple culture has made to the arts of Kerala. Carnatic music dominates Keralite traditional music. This was the result of Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma's popularisation of the genre in the 19th century. Raga-based renditions known as sopanam accompany kathakali performances. Melam; including the paandi and panchari variants, is a more percussive style of music: it is performed at Kshetram-centered festivals using the chenda. Panchavadyam is a form of percussion ensemble, in which artists use five types of percussion instrument. Kerala's visual arts range from traditional murals to the works of Raja Ravi Varma, the state's most renowned painter. Most of the castes and communities in Kerala have rich collections of folk songs and ballads associated with a variety of themes; Vadakkan Pattukal (Northern Ballads), Thekkan pattukal (Southern Ballads), Vanchi pattukal (Boat Songs), Mappila Pattukal (Muslim songs) and Pallipattukal (Church songs) are a few of them.
Cinema
Malayalam films carved a niche for themselves in the Indian film industry with the presentation of social themes. Directors from Kerala, like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mankada Ravi Varma, G. Aravindan, Bharathan, P. Padmarajan, M.T.Vasudevan Nair, K.G. George, Priyadarshan, John Abraham, Ramu Karyat, K S Sethumadhavan, A. Vincent and Shaji N Karun have made a considerable contribution to the Indian parallel cinema. Kerala has also given birth to numerous actors, such as Mohanlal, Satyan, Prem Nazir, Madhu, Sheela, Sharada, Miss Kumari, Jayan, Adoor Bhasi, Seema, Bharath Gopi, Thilakan, Mammootty, Vijaya Raghavan, Kalabhavan Mani, Indrans, Shobana, Nivin Pauly, Sreenivasan, Urvashi, Manju Warrier, Suresh Gopi, Jayaram, Murali, Shankaradi, Kavya Madhavan, Bhavana Menon, Prithviraj, Parvathy (actress), Jayasurya, Dulquer Salmaan, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Nedumudi Venu, KPAC Lalitha, Innocent and Fahad Fazil. Late Malayalam actor Prem Nazir holds the world record for having acted as the protagonist of over 720 movies. Since the 1980s, actors Mohanlal and Mammootty have dominated the movie industry; Mohanlal has won five National Film Awards (four for acting), while Mammootty has three National Film Awards for acting. Malayalam Cinema has produced a few more notable personalities such as K.J. Yesudas, K.S. Chitra, M.G. Sreekumar, Vayalar Rama Varma, V. Madhusoodanan Nair, M.T. Vasudevan Nair and O.N.V. Kurup, the last two mentioned being recipients of Jnanpith award, the highest literary award in India. Resul Pookutty, who is from Kerala, is only the second Indian to win an academy award for sound design, for the breakthrough film Slumdog Millionaire. As of 2018, Malayalam cinema has got 14 awards for the best actor, 6 for the best actress, 11 for the best film, and 13 for the best film director in the National Film Awards, India.
Literature
The Sangam literature can be considered as the ancient predecessor of Malayalam. Malayalam literature starts from the Old Malayalam period (9th–13th century CE) and includes such notable writers as the 14th-century Niranam poets (Madhava Panikkar, Sankara Panikkar and Rama Panikkar), and the 16th-century poet Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, whose works mark the dawn of both the modern Malayalam language and its poetry. For the first 600 years of Malayalam calendar, the literature mainly consisted of the oral Ballads such as Vadakkan Pattukal in North Malabar and Thekkan Pattukal in Southern Travancore. Designated a "Classical Language in India" in 2013, it developed into the current form mainly by the influence of the poets Cherusseri Namboothiri, Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, and Poonthanam Nambudiri, in the 15th and the 16th centuries of Common Era.Freeman, Rich (2003). "Genre and Society: The Literary Culture of Premodern Kerala". In Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia Unnayi Variyar, a probable poet of 17th/18th century CE, and Kunchan Nambiar, a poet of 18th century CE, have also influenced a lot in the growth of modern Malayalam literature in its pre-mature form. The Bharathappuzha river, also known as River Ponnani, and its tributaries, have played a major role in the development of modern Malayalam Literature.
Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar and Kerala Varma Valiakoi Thampuran are noted for their contribution to Malayalam prose. The "triumvirate of poets" (Kavithrayam): Kumaran Asan, Vallathol Narayana Menon, and Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer, are recognised for moving Keralite poetry away from archaic sophistry and metaphysics, and towards a more lyrical mode. The poets like Moyinkutty Vaidyar and Pulikkottil Hyder have made notable contributions to the Mappila songs, which is a genre of the Arabi Malayalam literature.Pg 167, Mappila Muslims: a study on society and anti colonial struggles By Husain Raṇdathaṇi, Other Books, Kozhikode 2007 The first travelogue in any Indian language is the Malayalam Varthamanappusthakam, written by Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar in 1785. The prose literature, Malayalam journalism, and criticism began after the latter-half of 18th century. Contemporary Malayalam literature deals with social, political, and economic life context. The tendency of the modern literature is often towards political radicalism. Malayalam literature has been presented with 6 Jnanapith awards, the second-most for any Dravidian language and the third-highest for any Indian language. In the second half of the 20th century, Jnanpith winning poets and writers like G. Sankara Kurup, S. K. Pottekkatt, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, M. T. Vasudevan Nair, O. N. V. Kurup, and Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri, had made valuable contributions to the modern Malayalam literature. Later, writers like O. V. Vijayan, Kamaladas, M. Mukundan, Arundhati Roy, Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, have gained international recognition.
Cuisine
Kerala cuisine includes a wide variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes prepared using fish, poultry, and meat. Culinary spices have been cultivated in Kerala for millennia and they are characteristic of its cuisine. Rice is a dominant staple that is eaten at all times of day. A majority of the breakfast foods in Kerala are made out of rice, in one form or the other (idli, dosa, puttu, pathiri, appam, or idiyappam), tapioca preparations, or pulse-based vada. These may be accompanied by chutney, kadala, payasam, payar pappadam, appam, chicken curry, beef fry, egg masala and fish curry. Porotta and Biryani are also often found in restaurants in Kerala. Thalassery biryani is popular as an ethnic brand. Lunch dishes include rice and curry along with rasam, pulisherry and sambar. Sadhya is a vegetarian meal, which is served on a banana leaf and followed with a cup of payasam. Popular snacks include banana chips, yam crisps, tapioca chips, Achappam, Unni appam and kuzhalappam. Seafood specialties include karimeen, prawns, shrimp and other crustacean dishes.
Thalassery Cuisine is varied and is a blend of many influences.
Elephants
Elephants have been an integral part of the culture of the state. Almost all of the local festivals in Kerala include at least one richly caparisoned elephant. Kerala is home to the largest domesticated population of elephants in India—about 700 Indian elephants, owned by temples as well as individuals. These elephants are mainly employed for the processions and displays associated with festivals celebrated all around the state. More than 10,000 festivals are celebrated in the state annually and some animal lovers have sometimes raised concerns regarding the overwork of domesticated elephants during them. In Malayalam literature, elephants are referred to as the "sons of the sahya". The elephant is the state animal of Kerala and is featured on the emblem of the Government of Kerala.
Media
The media, telecommunications, broadcasting and cable services are regulated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The National Family Health Survey – 4, conducted in 2015–16, ranked Kerala as the state with the highest media exposure in India. Dozens of newspapers are published in Kerala, in nine major languages, but principally Malayalam and English. Kerala has the highest media exposure in India. The most widely circulated Malayalam-language newspapers are Malayala Manorama, Mathrubhumi, Deshabhimani, Madhyamam, Kerala Kaumudi, Mangalam, Chandrika, Deepika, Janayugam, Janmabhumi, Siraj Daily and Suprabhaatham. Major Malayalam periodicals include Mathrubhumi Azhchappathippu, Vanitha, India Today Malayalam, Madhyamam Weekly, Grihalakshmi, Dhanam, Chithrabhumi and Bhashaposhini. The Hindu is the most read English language newspaper in the state, followed by The New Indian Express. Other dailies include Deccan Chronicle, The Times of India, DNA, The Economic Times and The Financial Express.
DD Malayalam is the state-owned television broadcaster. Multi system operators provide a mix of Malayalam, English, other Indian language and international channels. Some of the popular Malayalam television channels are Asianet, Asianet News, Asianet Plus, Asianet Movies, Surya TV, Surya Movies, Mazhavil Manorama, Manorama News, Kairali TV, Kairali News, Flowers, Media One TV, Mathrubhumi News, Kappa TV, Amrita TV, Reporter TV, Jaihind, Janam TV, Jeevan TV, Kaumudy TV and Shalom TV. With the second-highest internet penetration rate in India, Digital medias including Social medias and OTT services are a main source of information and entertainment in the state. Malayalam version of Google News was launched in September 2008. A sizeable People's science movement has taken root in the state, and such activities as writer's cooperatives are becoming increasingly common. BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone Idea Limited, Jio are the major cell phone service providers. Broadband Internet services are widely available throughout the state; some of the major ISPs are BSNL, Asianet Satellite Communications, Reliance Communications, Airtel, Vodafone Idea Limited, MTS, RailWire and VSNL. According to a TRAI report, as of June 2018 the total number of wireless phone subscribers in Kerala is about 43.1 million and the wireline subscriber base is at 1.9 million, accounting for the telephone density of 124.15. Unlike in many other states, the urban-rural divide is not visible in Kerala with respect to mobile phone penetration.
Sports
By the 21st century, almost all of the native sports and games from Kerala have either disappeared or become just an art form performed during local festivals; including Poorakkali, Padayani, Thalappandukali, Onathallu, Parichamuttukali, Velakali, and Kilithattukali. However, Kalaripayattu, regarded as "the mother of all martial arts in the world", is an exception and is practised as the indigenous martial sport. Another traditional sport of Kerala is the boat race, especially the race of Snake boats.
Cricket and football became popular in the state; both were introduced in Malabar during the British colonial period in the 19th century. Cricketers, like Tinu Yohannan, Abey Kuruvilla, Chundangapoyil Rizwan, Sreesanth, Sanju Samson and Basil Thampi found places in the national cricket team. A cricket franchise from Kerala, the Kochi Tuskers, played in the Indian Premier League's fourth season. However, this team was disbanded after the season because of conflicts of interest among its franchises. Kerala has only performed well recently in the Ranji Trophy cricket competition, in 2017–18 reaching the quarterfinals for the first time in history. Football is one of the most widely played and watched sports with huge in this state support for club and district level matches. Kochi hosts Kerala Blasters FC in the Indian Super League. The Blasters are one of the most widely supported clubs in the country as well as the fifth most followed football club from Asia in the social media. Also, Kozhikode hosts Gokulam Kerala FC in the I-League as well as the Sait Nagjee Football Tournament. Kerala is one of the major footballing states in India along with West Bengal and Goa and has produced national players like I. M. Vijayan, C. V. Pappachan, V. P. Sathyan, U. Sharaf Ali, Jo Paul Ancheri, Ashique Kuruniyan, Muhammad Rafi, Jiju Jacob, Mashoor Shereef, Pappachen Pradeep, C.K. Vineeth, Anas Edathodika, Sahal Abdul Samad, and Rino Anto. The Kerala state football team has won the Santhosh Trophy six times; in 1973, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2004, and 2018. They were also the runners-up eight times.
Among the prominent athletes hailing from the state are P. T. Usha, Shiny Wilson and M.D. Valsamma, all three of whom are recipients of the Padma Shri as well as Arjuna Award, while K. M. Beenamol and Anju Bobby George are Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award winners. T. C. Yohannan, Suresh Babu, Sinimol Paulose, Angel Mary Joseph, Mercy Kuttan, K. Saramma, K. C. Rosakutty, Padmini Selvan and Tintu Luka are the other Arjuna Award winners from Kerala. Volleyball is another popular sport and is often played on makeshift courts on sandy beaches along the coast. Jimmy George was a notable Indian volleyball player, rated in his prime as among the world's ten best players. Other popular sports include badminton, basketball and kabaddi. The Indian Hockey team captain P. R. Shreejesh, ace goalkeeper hails from Kerala. International Walkers from the state include K. T. Irfan.
For the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup in India, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Kochi), was chosen as one of the six venues where the game would be hosted in India. Greenfield International Stadium at located at Kariavattom in Thiruvananthapuram city, is India's first DBOT (design, build, operate and transfer) model outdoor stadium and it has hosted international cricket matches and international football matches including 2015 SAFF Championship.
Tourism
Kerala's culture and traditions, coupled with its varied demographics, have made the state one of the most popular tourist destinations in India. In 2012, National Geographic's Traveller magazine named Kerala as one of the "ten paradises of the world" and "50 must see destinations of a lifetime". Travel and Leisure also described Kerala as "One of the 100 great trips for the 21st century". In 2012, it overtook the Taj Mahal to be the number one travel destination in Google's search trends for India. CNN Travel listed Kerala amongst its '19 best places to visit in 2019'.
Kerala's beaches, backwaters, lakes, mountain ranges, waterfalls, ancient ports, palaces, religious institutions and wildlife sanctuaries are major attractions for both domestic and international tourists. The city of Kochi ranks first in the total number of international and domestic tourists in Kerala. Until the early 1980s, Kerala was a relatively unknown destination compared to other states in the country. In 1986 the government of Kerala declared tourism an important industry and it was the first state in India to do so. Marketing campaigns launched by the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation, the government agency that oversees the tourism prospects of the state, resulted in the growth of the tourism industry. Many advertisements branded Kerala with the tagline Kerala, God's Own Country. Kerala tourism is a global brand and regarded as one of the destinations with highest recall. In 2006, Kerala attracted 8.5 million tourists, an increase of 23.7% over the previous year, making the state one of the fastest-growing popular destinations in the world. In 2011, tourist inflow to Kerala crossed the 10-million mark.
Ayurvedic tourism has become very popular since the 1990s, and private agencies have played a notable role in tandem with the initiatives of the Tourism Department. Kerala is known for its ecotourism initiatives which include mountaineering, trekking and bird-watching programmes in the Western Ghats as the major activities. The state's tourism industry is a major contributor to the state's economy, growing at the rate of 13.3%. The revenue from tourism increased five-fold between 2001 and 2011 and crossed the 190 billion mark in 2011. According to the Economic Times Kerala netted a record revenue of INR 36,528.01 crore from the tourism sector in 2018, clocking an increase of Rs 2,874.33 crore from the previous year. Over 16.7 million tourists visited Kerala in 2018 as against 15.76 million the previous year, recording an increase of 5.9%. The industry provides employment to approximately 1.2 million people.
The state's only drive-in beach, Muzhappilangad in Kannur, which stretches across five kilometres of sand, was chosen by the BBC as one of the top six drive-in beaches in the world in 2016. Idukki Dam, the world's second arch dam, and Asia's first is at Idukki. The major beaches are at Kovalam, Varkala, Kozhikode, Fort Kochi, Cherai, Alappuzha, Ponnani, Kadalundi, Tanur, Chaliyam, Payyambalam, Kappad, Muzhappilangad and Bekal. Popular hill stations are at Ponmudi, Wayanad, Wagamon, Munnar, Peermade, Ramakkalmedu, Arimbra, Paithalmala of Kannur district, Kodikuthimala, and Nelliampathi. Munnar is 4,500 feet above sea level and is known for tea plantations, and a variety of flora and fauna. Kerala's ecotourism destinations include 12 wildlife sanctuaries and two national parks: Periyar Tiger Reserve, Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary, Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, Kadalundi Bird Sanctuary, Karimpuzha Wildlife Sanctuary, Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary, Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary, Eravikulam National Park, and Silent Valley National Park are the most popular among them. The Kerala backwaters are an extensive network of interlocking rivers (41 west-flowing rivers), lakes, and canals that centre around Alleppey, Kumarakom, Ponnani, Nileshwaram, and Punnamada (where the annual Nehru Trophy Boat Race is held in August), Pathiramanal a small island in Muhamma. Padmanabhapuram Palace and the Mattancherry Palace are two nearby heritage sites. Padmanabhaswamy Temple in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram holds the record as the wealthiest place of worship in the world, with assets of at least .
See also
Outline of Kerala
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bose, Satheese Chandra and Varughese, Shiju Sam (eds.) 2015. Kerala Modernity: Ideas, Spaces and Practices in Transition. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan.
Chathukulam, Jos, and Joseph Tharamangalam. "The Kerala model in the time of COVID19: Rethinking state, society and democracy". World Development 137 (2020): 105207. online
Devika, J. "The ‘Kudumbashree woman’ and the Kerala model woman: Women and politics in contemporary Kerala". Indian Journal of Gender Studies 23#3 (2016): 393–414 link.
Jeffrey, Robin. "Legacies of matriliny: The place of women and the 'Kerala model. Pacific Affairs (2004): 647–64. online
Jeffrey, Robin. "Testing concepts about print, newspapers, and politics: Kerala, India, 1800–2009". Journal of Asian Studies 68.2 (2009): 465–89. online
Jeffrey, Robin. Politics, women and well-being: How Kerala became "a model". (Springer, 2016).
Ramanathaiyer, Sundar, and Stewart MacPherson. Social Development in Kerala: Illusion or Reality?'' (2nd ed. Routledge, 2018).
External links
Government
The Official Site of the Government of Kerala
The Official Site of Kerala Tourism
General information
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States and territories established in 1956
States and union territories of India
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline%20of%20file%20sharing
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Timeline of file sharing
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This is a timeline of events in the history of networked file sharing.
1970s
1976 – Xmodem a point-to-point binary transfer protocol by Ward Christensen.
February 1978 – Ward Christensen's CBBS becomes the first Bulletin board system. BBS access is limited to phone lines until the early 1990s.
1979 – Usenet conceived by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. Its primary purpose is to facilitate focused discussion threads within topical categories (Usenet newsgroups), but it also allows the transfer of files. alt.binaries.* newsgroups continue to serve files.
1980s
Most file sharing in this era was done by modem over landline telephone, at speeds from 300 to 9600 bits per second. Many file systems in use only supported short filenames. Computer memory and speed was very limited, with 33 MHz CPUs only being accessible to consumers at the end of the decade.
1981 – Kermit (protocol) – a binary protocol that can be used with telnet or other BBS systems to transfer binary data.
January 1984 – In Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., the Supreme Court of the United States finds that making individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting is fair use. This case would create some interpretative challenges to courts in applying the case to more recent file sharing technologies available for use on home computers and over the Internet.
1984 – Fidonet, an inter-BBS protocol that became widely available, is founded by Tom Jennings.
October 1985 – File Transfer Protocol is standardized in RFC 959, authored by Postel and Reynolds. FTP allows files to be efficiently uploaded and downloaded from a central server.
1985 – Ymodem – a minor improvement to Xmodem.
1986 – Zmodem – another point-to-point binary transfer protocol, which had superior long-distance (high latency) transmission.
August 1988 – Internet Relay Chat is created by Jarkko Oikarinen.
1990s
FTP, IRC and Usenet were the main vehicles for file sharing in this decade. Data compression technologies for audio and video (like MP3, AAC and MPEG) came into use towards the end of the 1990s. Copper wire was common with fibre optic cable only becoming available late in the decade.
1990 – Michael Sandrof adds Client-to-client protocol functionality to IRC client ircII allowing users to share files.
November 1990 – The World Wide Web is formally proposed by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau.
December 1991 – The Moving Pictures Experts Group chooses an audio codec developed by Karlheinz Brandenburg and his colleagues at Fraunhofer Society with input from AT&T and Thomson to serve as the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) ISO/IEC standard. This allows songs on CDs to be converted into small computer files.
June 1992 – RFC 1341 establishes the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions(MIME) standards for sending audio and images by email, paving the way for the alt.binaries hierarchy on Usenet.
1992 – Software Publishers Association runs an anti-copyright infringement campaign Don't Copy That Floppy
July 1994 – The Fraunhofer Society released the l3enc mp3 encoding software as shareware, the first of its kind.
September 1995 – The Fraunhofer Society released WinPlay3, the first software mp3 player for Windows.
June 1996 – Mp3 warez group Rabid Neurosis founded. Using connections inside record companies, they rip pre-release music CDs, and make the mp3's available for others to download. Mirabilis developed ICQ a chat client for Windows that can do file transfers up to 2 GBs.
1997 – Scour Inc. is founded by five UCLA Computer Science students. Early products provide file search and download using the SMB protocol, as well as a multimedia web search engine released in 1998. Scour attracted early attention and support from media industry insiders before declaring bankruptcy in October 2000.
April 1997 – Winamp audio player is released, including the ability to make playlists, leading to increased use of MP3 files.
May 1997 – AOL launches AOL Instant Messenger with file transfer capabilities.
August 1997 – Hotline is announced at MacWorld, and allows chat, forums, and file transfers. It becomes popular among Mac users.
September 1997 – Windows Media Player 6.1 includes support for mp3 playback for the first time.
November 1997 – MP3.com is founded by Michael Robertson and Greg Flores. Initially an FTP search engine, MP3.com becomes a hosting service for unsigned artists. It serves 4 million audio file downloads per day at its peak and becomes the largest technology IPO in July 1999. The release of My.MP3.com in January 2000, which allowed users to stream their own files, would prompt litigation. In May 2000, UMG v. MP3.com, would be ruled in favor of the record labels. MP3.com would settle for $200 million and discontinue the service.
January 1998 – Musicmatch Jukebox is released providing easier to use CD-ripping software for creating mp3's on Windows.
March 1998 – The MPMan F10, the first portable MP3 player, is launched.
July 1998 – SoundJam MP released allowing mp3 playback and CD-ripping on Macintosh computers. In 2000, Apple bought this program, and used it as the basis for iTunes.
September 1998 – Rio PMP300 MP3 player is shipped by Diamond Multimedia. Its popularity leads the RIAA to file a temporary restraining order in October, without success.
October 1998 – Digital Millennium Copyright Act is unanimously passed by the US Senate. DMCA provides a 'safe harbor' ensuring that Internet Service Providers cannot be sued for the activities of their users.
November 1998 – Audiogalaxy is created by Michael Merhej. Initially an FTP search engine, the Audiogalaxy Satellite P2P client would reach 1 million downloads in 2001. In May 2002, a suit by the RIAA would force Audiogalaxy to block sharing of illegal songs. In June 2002, Audiogalaxy would settle the suit for an undisclosed amount and make its services opt-in. In September 2002, Audiogalaxy would discontinue P2P services in favor of Rhapsody, a pay streaming service.
December 1998 – MP3 Newswire, the first digital media news site, is launched.
February 1999 – China's Tencent launches QQ, a chat client with file transfer capability.
June 1999 – Napster was created by Shawn Fanning. Napster let users search across all users' shares. Napster provided a centralized server that indexed the files, and carried out the searches. Individual files, however, remain on the hosts' computers and were transferred directly from peer to peer.
November 1999 - The Direct Connect network is created.
November 1999 – iMesh is launched.
December 1999 – The first lawsuits were filed against Napster.
2000s
In computer science terms, modern file sharing begins in the 2000s. Several file sharing protocols and file formats were introduced, along with nearly a decade in protocol experimentation. Towards the end of the 2000s, BitTorrent became subject to a "man in the middle" attack in TCP mode – and this has led most file sharing protocols to move to UDP towards the very end of the decade. Client and tracker software in this era was in development as much as the transmission protocols, so the file trading software was not always as reliable as it could have been.
2000
January – My.MP3.com is released by MP3.com.
March – Scour Exchange is released as a P2P file exchange service to compete with Napster. In addition to audio files, it also supports sharing of other media as well as software.
March – Gnutella becomes the first decentralized file sharing network with the release of a network client by Justin Frankel and Tom Pepper of Nullsoft. Like Napster, users could share large numbers of files at once, and search across the entire network for files.
March – Phex (formerly FURI) Gnutella client released.
May – UMG v. MP3.com causes My.MP3.com to shut down. MSN Messenger 3.0 becomes the first version to include file transfer capability.
June – Slyck.com (originally Slyway.com) launches.
July – Freenet is created by Ian Clarke. Its goal is to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network which focuses on protecting anonymity. Files are distributed across the computers of Freenet's users. Ian Clarke's paper would become the most-cited computer science paper of 2000. Freenet would become a darknet in 2008.
September – eDonkey2000 client and server software is released by Jed McCaleb, introducing hashing into decentralized file sharing.
October – Scour Exchange is shut down as Scour Inc. files for bankruptcy in the face of copyright infringement litigation.
October – Napster is credited with driving Radiohead's Kid A album to the top of the Billboard charts.
December – Peer-to-peer file sharing client WinMX 1.8 beta is released, providing users with another way to connect to Napster (later OpenNap) networks.
December – Bearshare was launched as a Gnutella-based peer-to-peer file sharing application.
2001
February – A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.
February – Napster peaks at 26.4 million users.
March – Kazaa and the FastTrack proprietary protocol are released by Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis, and Priit Kasesalu. The Kazaa Media Desktop client came bundled with malware. Legal action in the Netherlands would force an offshoring of the company, renamed Sharman Networks. In September 2003, the RIAA would file suit against private individuals allegedly sharing files via Kazaa. In September 2005, UMA v. Sharman would be ruled against Sharman by the Federal Court of Australia. Sharman's non-compliance would prompt censorship of the program in Australia. In July 2006, the MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. would cause Sharman to settle for $100 million and convert Kazaa to a legal-only file sharing program.
April – Morpheus is released by MusicCity (later StreamCast), after licensing the FastTrack protocol. MusicCity had previously operated OpenNap servers. Morpheus would become a popular FastTrack client, with 4.5 million users, until licensing disputes and a protocol switch in February 2002. In March 2003, the Morpheus client was re-released to operate on Gnutella, using Gnucleus servant as its core. In June 2005, a redesigned Morpheus client would be released. In June 2005, MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. would be decided against StreamCast. In June 2008, the Morpheus client would become no longer available for download.
April – gtk-gnutella client is released.
July – Napster shuts down due to injunction. Many former Napster users move to OpenNap servers.
July – Audiogalaxy Satellite client reaches 1 million downloads.
July 2 – BitTorrent released by Bram Cohen. Users only upload one or a small number of files at a time, but all peers are forced to seed to other peers from the parts of a file they have received so far. Initially, programs did not include a search function, so indexing sites sprung up. Downloads for popular files tend to be faster than on many other networks.
August – ShareReactor eDonkey network index site founded. It would be taken down by police in March 2004.
September – Sony Music Entertainment admitted that they had included digital rights management software on Michael Jackson's You Rock My World single, perhaps the first such scheme to be implemented.
October – Mutella client is released. By 2007, it would no longer be functional.
October – Apple released the first iPod, which would eventually become the most popular portable mp3 player.
October – Windows Media Player 8 includes the ability to rip CDs to mp3 for the first time.
October 2 – The MPAA and the RIAA file a lawsuit against the developers of Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster that would lead to the US Supreme Court's MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. decision in 2005.
November – GNUnet is first publicly announced.
November – DC++ is created for the Direct Connect network and would become the most popular client.
2002
January – JASRAC and RIAJ vs Yugen Kaisha Nippon MMO in Tokyo district court, causing File rogue(ファイルローグ) ordered to shut down on April 9.
February – The Kazaa protocol switch shuts out Morpheus.
May – eMule is released and soon becomes the eDonkey2000 network's most popular client
May – Audiogalaxy takes steps to block illegal files due to RIAA lawsuit.
May 27 – RapidShare one-click hosting service was founded by Christian Schmid.
June – Audiogalaxy settles RIAA suit for undisclosed amount, its file sharing becomes limited.
June – First release of Shareaza by Michael Stokes.
June – Applejuice released.
July – Overnet introduced by the creators of eDonkey2000 implementing the Kademlia algorithm.
July – Soribada (소리바다) was closed on July 11 by Suwon District Court South Division.
August – P2Pnet is founded by Jon Newton. Apple releases OS X 10.2 including the iChat client which includes file transfer capabilities.
September – Audiogalaxy discontinues P2P services.
September – Tor was released.
October – Soulseek file sharing program released.
October – Suprnova.org torrent index goes online.
November – Gnutella2 protocol is announced.
2003
January – isoHunt torrent index founded by Gary Fung. , it serves over 40 million unique searches per month.
March – The Open Music Model is published, advocating a business model for the recording industry based on file sharing
April – Demonoid torrent index founded. , it is the second-largest public torrent tracker in the world.
May – Poisoned is released. It is the first Kazaa client for the Mac OS X platform.
May – The iTunes Music Store is launched by Apple, selling music by individual tracks, with digital rights management to prevent file sharing
May 15 – First hearing before House Committee of Government Reform on inadvertent file sharing, Overexposed: The Threats to Privacy & Security on File Sharing Networks. Inadvertent File Sharing was a security concern detailed by researcher Nathaniel Good at HP Labs describing how user interface issues contributed to users of KaZaA inadvertently sharing personal and confidential information over p2p networks.
June 17 – Second congressional hearing before Senate Judiciary Committee on inadvertent file sharing The Dark Side of a Bright Idea: Could Personal and National Security Risks Compromise the Potential of P2P File-Sharing Networks?
July – Torrentse and Sharelive sites both shut down as a result of the MPAA starting to take action against BitTorrent sites.
September – TorrentSpy is registered. It would be shut down in March 2008, and in May 2008 it would be ordered to pay the MPAA $110 million in damages.
September 8 – The RIAA begins filing lawsuits against individuals allegedly sharing files on P2P networks such as Kazaa.
November – Winny source code is confiscated by the Kyoto Police
November 21 – The Pirate Bay (TPB) bittorrent tracker is founded by Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, and Peter Sunde. It is based in Sweden. It has remained active despite numerous legal actions and a police raid in May 2006. As of February 4, 2013, it is the 73rd most popular site on the Internet according to Alexa.
2003 – eMule introduces the Kad network, which implements the Kademlia protocol. Invisible Internet Project (i2p) is launched to provide an anonymizing layer for p2p programs.
2004
January 17 – The initial version of the Advanced Direct Connect protocol is introduced for the Direct Connect network.
March 10 – ShareReactor shut down by Swiss Police.
May 10 – Winny developer Isamu Kaneko is arrested for suspected conspiracy to commit copyright violation.
June 1 – Shareaza becomes open source with the release of v2.0 of the software. , almost all of the major clients on its supported networks (gnutella, Gnutella2, eDonkey) are open source.
October 28 – The RIAA files an additional 750 lawsuits aimed at alleged copyright violations from file sharing.
December 14 – Suprnova and many other torrent indexes closed after cease and desist orders by MPAA.
December 14 – LokiTorrent refuses to comply with cease and desist orders, quickly gains 680,000 users, and $40,000 in legal fund donations. Its legitimacy would later be questioned and it would be taken over by MPAA in February 2005.
December 15 – US Federal Trade Commission Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Workshop entitled Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Technology: Consumer Protection and Competition Issues
2005
January – Mininova torrent index goes online as a successor to Suprnova. It has served 5 billion downloads as of May 2008.
January – eXeem goes online and rumored/adversed as "the revenge of suprnova". The program failed to gain popularity and was eventually abandoned months later.
February – LokiTorrent indexing service shut down and is taken over by MPAA. YouTube comes online.
March – WinMX reported as the most popular music service with 2.1 million users followed by iTunes and LimeWire with 1.7 million users each.
March – Avalanche BitTorrent alternative proposed. Is criticized by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen.
March 21 – Megaupload one-click hosting service is launched.
May – TV show torrent tracker/search engine eztvefnet.org is launched.
June – A redesigned Morpheus client would be released.
June – A busy CD music MP3 download site Boxup closed down and membership transfer to coxoo, then discontinued 2006/03.
June – Grokster developers are found guilty by the United States Supreme court of encouraging copyright infringement
June 30 – EzPeer wins its case vs IFPI Taiwan in Shilin district court. The high court would later reject an appeal, but ezPeer would settle with IPFI Taiwan. , it is a legal music download service.
August – Yahoo! Messenger adds drag and drop file sharing capability with version 7.
September 5 – UMA v. Sharman
September 13 – WinMX servers owned by Frontcode are shut down due to a cease and desist letter from the RIAA. Developer groups would set up new servers days later.
September 9 – Kuro (酷樂) loses its case vs IFPI Taiwan in Taipei local court. It would also lose its case vs Push Sound Music & Entertainment on December 19, 2006. Kuro would lose its appeal in the Taiwan high court on July 16, 2008. Chairman Chen Shou-ten (陳壽騰), CEO James Chen (陳國華), president Chen Kuo-hsiung (陳國雄), and one of Kuro's 500,000 members Chen Chia-hui (陳佳惠), were sentenced to fine and jail. It shut down its P2P services in 2006, and has become a legal music download service.
September 28 – MetaMachine Inc. discontinues the development and maintenance of the original eDonkey2000 client and of the Overnet network following a cease and desist letter from the RIAA.
October – Programmer Mark Russinovich revealed on his blog that Sony Music Entertainment had started shipping music CD's that surreptitiously install a rootkit on Windows PCs designed to prevent copying. Developers at Delft University of Technology and VU University Amsterdam release Tribler, a Bittorrent client which tries to provide anonymity for seeders and downloaders.
November – Bram Cohen, the author of the peer-to-peer (P2P) BitTorrent protocol and the BitTorrent program, made a deal with the MPAA to remove links to illegal content on the official BitTorrent website. The deal was with the seven largest studios in America. The agreement means the site will comply with procedures outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
November 12 – TorrentFreak is launched.
2006
February 21 – Razorback2, a Swiss indexing server and one of the biggest on the eDonkey network, is raided and taken down.
May 31 – The servers of the Swedish website The Pirate Bay are raided by 50 Swedish police officers, causing it to go offline for three days.
June, July – AT&T and Comcast stop offering Newsgroups. Sprint, Time Warner Cable and Verizon drop the alt.* or alt.binaries.* hierarchy.
August 21 – "Weird Al" Yankovic releases "Don't Download This Song" exclusively as a digital download via MySpace and YouTube lampooning several events in the music filesharing history to this point.
October – YouTube announced the introduction of a "content identification architecture" which allows them to locate videos under copyright, and remove them. If copyright holders choose to leave the video up, YouTube agrees to pay them a share of the advertising revenue. Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group all agree to this approach. Mediafire, file host, is launched.
2006 – Anonymous friend-to-friend client Retroshare is first released.
2007
EMI gave up using digital rights management on their audio CD's, the last music company to do so.
August 9 – Microsoft launches Windows Live SkyDrive in the United Kingdom and India. They gradually made it available in more countries, and in January 2014, the service was renamed OneDrive.
August 21 – Suprnova.org is relaunched by The Pirate Bay.
September – Amazon.com begins selling mp3's free of digital rights management.
October 12 – RIAA files a lawsuit against Usenet.com, accusing it of being an illicit peer-to-peer file sharing site.
October 23 – OiNK's Pink Palace BitTorrent Tracker is raided and shut down by a joint effort between Dutch and British police.
October 24 – The civil-court jury trial for Capitol v. Thomas, the first lawsuit by major record labels against an alleged file sharer, concludes with a verdict for the plaintiffs and a statutory damage award of US$9,250 for each of 24 songs, for a total of $222,000. This was vacated due to an error in jury instruction, and a new trial was held in 2009.
November 9 – The Demonoid BitTorrent tracker shuts down until April 2008 citing legal threats by the CRIA.
December 20 – Shareaza.com, the homepage of Shareaza, is taken over by Discordia Ltd., a company closely related to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). It now distributes software containing spyware and adware.
2008
Sony BMG opens up their music catalog for sale over internet DRM-free, the last music company to allow this.
January 10 – A trademark claiming the name Shareaza is filled by Discordia Ltd.
March 24 – TorrentSpy shuts down citing hostile legal climate.
April 11 – Demonoid comes back online.
May 7 – TorrentSpy is ordered to pay $110 million in damages by US court.
May 8 – Freenet darknet rewrite is released.
August 8 – Italy prevents their citizens from accessing The Pirate Bay and forwards their traffic to IFPI instead.
September – Dropbox launches to the public.
October 10 – An appeal by The Pirate Bay's lawyers succeeds in lifting the Italian ban.
October 29 – Morpheus website taken down; client is no longer available.
November 27 – A Danish court rules that ISPs must block access to the website The Pirate Bay.
December 16 – ShareReactor is reopened by The Pirate Bay.
December 19 – The RIAA claims to have ended its P2P litigation campaign against individuals in the U.S., which had been losing money, in favor of a three strikes campaign. However, some new lawsuits continued to be filed.
2009
January – Apple's iTunes store began offering all of its digital tracks free from Digital Rights Management.
February 16 – The Pirate Bay trial starts.
February 23 – OneSwarm is released.
April 17 – The Pirate Bay trial concludes with a guilty verdict; each defendant is sentenced to one year in jail and a total of 30 million SEK (US$3.6 million, 2.7 million EUR) in fines and damages. The people behind The Pirate Bay declare they will appeal the ruling.
April 24 – Legal fees in record industry lawsuits cause SeeqPod to sell its technology; the site closes until it finds a buyer.
June 15 – In the retrial of the 2007 Capitol v. Thomas case, a jury again finds in favor of the plaintiffs, and awards statutory damages of $80,000 per song, for a total of $1.92 million.
June 30 – Swedish gaming company Global Gaming Factory says it has an interest in purchasing The Pirate Bay. Global Gaming factory eventually lose funding to do so. (GGF).
September 9 – 6 alleged members of the mp3 warez group Rabid Neurosis were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. Two were acquitted. Four pleaded guilty, and served 3-month prison sentences.
September 14 – Demonoid experiences hardware damage from power outages causing a three-month downtime.
September 30 – Global Gaming Factory fails to produce the funds to purchase The Pirate Bay and the deal is put to an end.
November 26 – Mininova has removed torrents to all copyrighted content that it does not have official agreements for.
December – BtChina and about 530 other sites registered in China were closed down.
December 13 – Demonoid is back online.
2010s
In computer science terms, there have been few significant developments in the 2010s. The BitTorrent protocol and clients have become more stable, adopting UDP to defend against transmission problems related to TCP. IPv6 support increased with clients and trackers.
2010
October 26, 2010 – US federal court judge Kimba Wood issued an injunction forcing LimeWire to prevent "the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, and/or all functionality" of its software (see Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC). As a result, LimeWire May 5, 2011 and newer have been disabled using a backdoor installed by the company.
November 9, 2010 – First release of a modified version of LimeWire Pro with all undesirable components removed (such as ad- and spyware, as well as dependencies to LimeWire LLC servers) under the name of "LimeWire Pirate Edition", enabling access to all advanced features of the professional version for free.
November 26, 2010 – The verdict in The Pirate Bay trial was announced. The appeal court shortened sentences of three of the defendants who appeared in court that day. Neij's sentence was reduced to 10 months, Sunde's to eight, and Lundström's to four. However, the fine was increased from 32 to 46 million kronor.
2011
March 2011 – A case involving LimeWire is announced, with an attempt to sue the company for up to $75 trillion.
June 2011 – Malaysia government blocked 10 file sharing sites.
October 2011 – Foxy (P2P) shut down. British Telecom received a court order to block access to Newzbin2.
2012
January 2012 – The office of EX.UA was raided and service shut down. It was restored in February.
February 2012 – The domain names of the popular one-click hosting service Megaupload were seized and the site was shut down by the United States Department of Justice, following the indictment and arrests of the owners for allegedly operating as an organization dedicated to copyright infringement.
February 2012 – FileServe and Filesonic, both popular file sharing sites voluntarily stop all sharing services, while another site, uploaded.to, begins blocking all IP addresses from the U.S.
February 2012 – Btjunkie, one of the most popular BitTorrent sites voluntarily shuts down.
April 2012 – Google launches its Google Drive service.
June 2012 – FDzone in Hong Kong and Macau was shut down.
August 2012 – Seized Demonoid BitTorrent sites up for sale. Filesonic, which previously disabled its sharing services following Megaupload's shutdown, goes completely offline.
September 2012 – The file sharing site uploaded.to switches its domain to uploaded.net; in addition, it starts allowing IP addresses from the U.S.
2013
January 2013 – Mega, the successor to Megaupload, was launched from New Zealand.
October 2013 – As part of a settlement with the MPAA, Gary Fung shuts down Torrent index site Isohunt, but mirrors soon pop up.
December 2013 – Hotfile shuts down following a settlement made with the Motion Picture Association of America.
2014
May 2014 – launched its Windows app (Public Beta).
November 2014 – Tencent, the Chinese internet company behind QQ and WeChat sued Netease for streaming 623 songs it claims it held exclusive licenses for. At the time, Netease was offering a Grooveshark-like free music service.
December 2014 – IsoHunt release the source code for Pirate Bay allowing anyone to deploy their own version of The Pirate Bay.
2015
January 2015 – Launch of anonymous P2P network ZeroNet, which relies on TOR for anonymity
March 2015 – RapidShare – once the most famous file hosting service – shuts down
April 2015 – Grooveshark, music streaming site, shuts down
August 2015 – Video sharing website Openload.co comes online.
The FBI seize the file sharing site ShareBeast and arrest its administrator, Artur Sargsyan. The Recording Industry Association of America considered it America's most prolific file sharing site.
2016
July 2016 – The world's largest torrent site KickassTorrents shuts down.
August 2016 – Torrent meta-search engine Torrentz.eu takes its torrents down, but is soon replaced by torrentz2.eu.
November 2016 – Private music tracker what.cd shut down.
References
External links
2008-04, Top P2P applications by percent as measured by 1.6 million PCs.
2008-04, Filesharing Report Shows Explosive Growth for uTorrent
Google trends: kazaa, limewire, torrent, emule – comparison of networks/clients over time.
Google trends: suprnova, mininova, pirate bay, torrentspy – comparison of torrent trackers and search engines.
2003–04, average simultaneous total p2p users.
2003–05, total broken by ed2k DC kazaa Gnutella Overnet
current ed2k stats
cachelogic 2005 file formats
Slyck.com
Freedom-to-tinker.com
2006 cachelogic p2p as percent of total traffic
File sharing
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux%20%28mascot%29
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Tux (mascot)
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</noinclude>
Tux is a penguin character and the official brand character of the Linux kernel. Originally created as an entry to a Linux logo competition, Tux is the most commonly used icon for Linux, although different Linux distributions depict Tux in various styles. The character is used in many other Linux programs and as a general symbol of Linux.
History
Origins
The concept of the Linux brand character being a penguin came from Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. According to Jeff Ayers, Linus Torvalds had a "fixation for flightless, fat waterfowl" and Torvalds claims to have contracted "penguinitis" after being nibbled by a little penguin on a visit to the National Zoo & Aquarium, Canberra, Australia, joking that the disease "makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them". In an interview Linus commented on the penguin bite:
At Canberra zoo a sign said in 2009 that staff believed the "original Tux" was still resident in the penguin enclosure.
In 1996 after an initial design suggestion made by Alan Cox, use of an image Torvalds found on an FTP site, showing a penguin figurine depicted in a similar style to the Creature Comforts characters created by Nick Park, the concept for Tux was further refined by Torvalds on the Linux kernel mailing list.
Torvalds was looking for something fun and sympathetic to associate with Linux, and he felt that a slightly fat penguin sitting down after having eaten a great meal perfectly fit the bill.
The final and original design was a submission for a Linux logo contest by Larry Ewing using the first publicly released version (0.54) of GIMP, a free software graphics package. It was released by him under the following condition:
Since Tux won none of the three competitions that were held Tux is formally known as the Linux brand character and not the logo.
The first person to call the penguin "Tux" was James Hughes, who said that it stood for "(T)orvalds (U)ni(X)". However, tux is also an abbreviation of tuxedo, the outfit which bears resemblance in appearance to a penguin.
Tuz 2009
Tuz, a Tasmanian devil wearing a fake penguin beak, was the brand character of the 2009 linux.conf.au conference. It has been chosen by Linus Torvalds as the logo for version 2.6.29 of the Linux kernel to support the effort to save the Tasmanian devil species from extinction due to the devil facial tumour disease.
The image was designed by Andrew McGown and recreated as an SVG using Inkscape by Josh Bush, and released under the CC BY-SA license.
Linux for Workgroups 2013
For the Linux 3.11-rc1 release, Linus Torvalds changed the code name from "Unicycling Gorilla" to "Linux for Workgroups" and modified the logo that some systems display when booting to depict a Tux holding a flag with a symbol that is reminiscent of the logo of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, which was released in 1993.
Uses and reception
In some Linux distributions, for example Gentoo, Tux greets the user during booting with multi-processor systems displaying multiple images of Tux, one for each processor core.
Video games
Tux has taken on a role in the Linux community similar to that which Mario holds in the Nintendo community. The character has been featured in open-source look-alikes of other mainstream games, such as Tux Racer, Extreme Tux Racer, Tux Math Scrabble, TuxWordSmith Tux Math, SuperTux, SuperTuxKart, and Tux Paint. See also List of video games featuring Tux below.
Female Tux versions in video games
Some games that star Tux also include explicitly female penguin characters, allowing the players to play as one of those characters instead of Tux. One such female penguin is Tux's friend "Gown". Gown is variously depicted as being a pink version of Tux (XTux) or as having a somewhat less fat appearance and wearing items of clothing such as a red and white short skirt and a hair bow (e.g. TuxKart and A Quest for Herring).
In SuperTux and SuperTuxKart, there is a different female penguin called "Penny" who is purple and white (SuperTuxKart once had Gown and still has a map called "Gown's Bow"). In the arcade game Tux 2 there is a female penguin called "Trixi", and in FreeCiv the female leader name for the Antarctican civilization is "Tuxette".
Tux in popular culture
In a Froot Loops advertisement, Tux appears as a squeaky toy, the "secret weapon" to distract a pack of dogs pulling a sled containing the villain.
In the comics Hellblazer, in issue 234 "Joyride, part 1", a Tux plush toy makes an appearance, set on the side of the road where a little girl was killed in a hit-and-run accident.
Tux appeared as a character during one arc in the webcomic User Friendly.
Other uses
In 1999, Corel Linux Deluxe included a free Linux Penguin (Tux) toy.
Since around 2001, there was a Linux-based web server named TUX, which was deprecated around 2006.
In 2006, Tux had an uncredited use in the Al Gore's Penguin Army video.
In 2007, Tux was used by the German cutlery producer WMF in the Sealion set for children.
In 2008, Tux has also been made as a virtual pet under the name Tux Droid by Kysoh for Linux and Windows, has many features including reading tweets from Twitter and checking the weather.
Since 2009, TuxGuitar, a free guitar tab reading/editing program, features Tux holding a guitar as its brand character.
In 2010, a prototype of a Tux monument with wings was presented in the Russian city of Tyumen by the local Linux user community.
The avatar of Electronica artist Ephixa is based on Tux (around 2011).
In April 2016, Tux was adapted to a designer toy called a Gwin and was distributed by October Toys. The toy was redesigned by different artists and sold in short collectible runs through the October Toys website and other collectable vinyl toy sites. October Toys has since ceased operations.
List of video games featuring Tux
Several computer games, mostly free and open-source and/or for Linux, have included Tux, including:
OpenArena: contains a character named "Penguin", who is a man dressed in a costume resembling Tux.
Pingus: A Lemmings clone in which the lemmings are replaced by penguins in reference to Tux.
FreedroidRPG: An ARPG featuring Tux as the main protagonist who has to save the world from a robot apocalypse.
Team Fortress 2: A team-based FPS that has an in-game Tux doll, which was awarded to Linux players from 14 February to 1 March 2013.
SuperTux: a platform game inspired by Super Mario Bros.
Tux Kart and SuperTuxKart: Kart racing games similar to the Mario Kart series.
TuxMathScrabble: Math version of the popular family game starring Tux.
TuxWordSmith: Scrabble in over 80 languages, starring Tux.
Tux Paint: A drawing program for young children, most likely inspired by Kid Pix.
Tux, of Math Command: a free-software math tutoring arcade game.
Tux Typing: a free-software educational game designed to teach typing.
Tux Racer/Extreme Tux Racer: A game similar to snowboarding video games, in which the player controls Tux sliding downhill on his belly rather than humans snowboarding down a track.
FreeCiv: A Civilization clone; the leader name of the Antarctican civilization is "Tux". In addition, the Colossus is an enormous Tux statue, depending on the tile set selected.
WarMUX: A turn-based strategy game inspired by Worms, featuring many free and open-source software brand characters, including Tux.
Frozen Bubble: A free-software puzzle game, featuring Tux-esque penguins.
LinCity-NG: A free-software strategy game that allows you to build a Tux statue.
There is a Pet (creature who will fight alongside your character) in the online game DragonFable that is a penguin named "Linus". Along with the tagline on the pet, he is shown to be a version of Tux.
Open Surge, in a test level by Celdecea.
Super Tux Party: A party video game inspired by Mario Party.
Microsoft Edge: Tux appears part of the offline Surf game.
E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy: An FPS-RPG hybrid, Tux appears as an easter egg in the form of graffiti on some rubbish bins.
Black Mesa: A third-party remake of Half-Life, Tux can be found on cans of "Linux cola".
Gallery
See also
List of computing mascots
BSD Daemon, the mascot of various BSD releases
Glenda, the Plan 9 Bunny, the mascot of Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Kiki the Cyber Squirrel, the mascot of Krita
Konqi, the mascot of KDE
Mozilla (mascot), the mascot of Mozilla Foundation
Puffy (mascot), the mascot of OpenBSD
Tux Droid
Wilber (mascot), the mascot of GIMP
References
External links
Linux
Bird mascots
Computing mascots
Fictional penguins
Free software culture and documents
Linus Torvalds
Linux kernel
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid
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Aeneid
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The Aeneid ( ; or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.
The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.
The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgil's masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Latin literature.
Story
The Aeneid can be divided into halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1–6 (Aeneas' journey to Latium in Italy) and Books 7–12 (the war in Latium). These two-halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odysseys wandering theme and the Iliads warfare themes. This is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind.
Journey to Italy (books 1–6)
Theme
Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme (Arma virumque cano ..., "Of arms and the man I sing ...") and an invocation to the Muse, falling some seven lines after the poem's inception (Musa, mihi causas memora ..., "O Muse, recount to me the causes ..."). He then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story: the resentment held by the goddess Juno against the Trojan people. This is consistent with her role throughout the Homeric epics.
Book 1: Storm and refuge
Also in the manner of Homer, the story proper begins in medias res (into the middle of things), with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, heading in the direction of Italy. The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home. It has been foretold that in Italy he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgment of Paris, and because her favorite city, Carthage, will be destroyed by Aeneas' descendants. Also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be the cupbearer to her husband, Jupiter—replacing Juno's daughter, Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe (Deiopea, the loveliest of all her sea nymphs, as a wife). Aeolus agrees to carry out Juno's orders (line 77, "My task is / To fulfill your commands"); the storm then devastates the fleet.
Neptune takes notice: although he himself is no friend of the Trojans, he is infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain, and stills the winds and calms the waters, after making sure that the winds would not bother the Trojans again, lest they be punished more harshly than they were this time. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa, where Aeneas rouses the spirits of his men, reassuring them that they have been through worse situations before. There, Aeneas' mother, Venus, in the form of a huntress very similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and recounts to him the history of Carthage. Eventually, Aeneas ventures into the city, and in the temple of Juno he seeks and gains the favor of Dido, queen of the city. The city has only recently been founded by refugees from Tyre and will later become a great imperial rival and enemy to Rome.
Meanwhile, Venus has her own plans. She goes to her son, Aeneas' half-brother Cupid, and tells him to imitate Ascanius (the son of Aeneas and his first wife Creusa). Thus disguised, Cupid goes to Dido and offers the gifts expected from a guest. As Dido cradles the boy during a banquet given in honour of the Trojans, Cupid secretly weakens her sworn fidelity to the soul of her late husband Sychaeus, who was murdered by her brother Pygmalion back in Tyre, by inciting fresh love for Aeneas.
Book 2: Trojan Horse and sack of Troy
In books 2 and 3, Aeneas recounts to Dido the events that occasioned the Trojans' arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the war described in the Iliad. Cunning Ulysses devised a way for Greek warriors to gain entry into the walled city of Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a warrior, Sinon, to mislead the Trojans into believing that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest Laocoön saw through the Greek plot and urged the horse's destruction, but his protests fell on deaf ears, so he hurled his spear at the horse. Then, in what would be seen by the Trojans as punishment from the gods, two serpents emerged from the sea and devoured Laocoön, along with his two sons. The Trojans then took the horse inside the fortified walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged from it, opening the city's gates to allow the returned Greek army to slaughter the Trojans.
In a dream, Hector, the fallen Trojan prince, advised Aeneas to flee with his family. Aeneas awoke and saw with horror what was happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight the enemy, but soon he lost his comrades and was left alone to fend off the Greeks. He witnessed the murder of Priam by Achilles' son Pyrrhus. His mother, Venus, appeared to him and led him back to his house. Aeneas tells of his escape with his son, Ascanius, his wife Creusa, and his father, Anchises, after the occurrence of various omens (Ascanius' head catching fire without his being harmed, a clap of thunder and a shooting star). At the city gates, they notice they lost Creusa, and Aeneas goes back into the city to look for her. He only encounters her ghost, who tells him that his destiny is to reach Hesperia, where kingship and a royal spouse await him.
Book 3: Wanderings
Aeneas continues his account to Dido by telling how, rallying the other survivors, he built a fleet of ships and made landfall at various locations in the Mediterranean: Thrace, where they find the last remains of a fellow Trojan, Polydorus; Delos, where Apollo tells them to leave and to find the land of their forefathers; Crete, which they believe to be that land, and where they build their city (Pergamea) and promptly desert it after a plague proves this is not the place for them; the Strophades, where they encounter the Harpy Celaeno, who tells them to leave her island and to look for Italy, though, she prophesies, they won't find it until hunger forces them to eat their tables; and Buthrotum. This last city had been built in an attempt to replicate Troy. In Buthrotum, Aeneas meets Andromache, the widow of Hector. She is still lamenting the loss of her valiant husband and beloved child. There, too, Aeneas sees and meets Helenus, one of Priam's sons, who has the gift of prophecy. Through him, Aeneas learns the destiny laid out for him: he is divinely advised to seek out the land of Italy (also known as Ausonia or Hesperia), where his descendants will not only prosper, but in time rule the entire known world. In addition, Helenus also bids him go to the Sibyl in Cumae.
Heading into the open sea, Aeneas leaves Buthrotum, rounds the south eastern tip of Italy and makes his way towards Sicily (Trinacria). There, they are caught in the whirlpool of Charybdis and driven out to sea. Soon they come ashore at the land of the Cyclopes. There they meet a Greek, Achaemenides, one of Ulysses' men, who has been left behind when his comrades escaped the cave of Polyphemus. They take Achaemenides on board and narrowly escape Polyphemus. Shortly after, at Drepanum, Aeneas' father Anchises dies of old age. Aeneas heads on (towards Italy) and gets deflected to Carthage (by the storm described in book 1). Here, Aeneas ends his account of his wanderings to Dido.
Book 4: Fate of Queen Dido
Dido realises that she has fallen in love with Aeneas. Juno seizes upon this opportunity to make a deal with Venus, Aeneas' mother, with the intention of distracting Aeneas from his destiny of founding a city in Italy. Aeneas is inclined to return Dido's love, and during a hunting expedition, a storm drives them into a small covered grove in which Aeneas and Dido presumably made love, after which Juno presides over what Dido considers a marriage ceremony. But when Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty, he has no choice but to part. At the behest of Mercury's apparition, he leaves clandestinely at night. Her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself upon a pyre with Aeneas' sword. Before dying, she predicts eternal strife between Aeneas' people and hers; "rise up from my bones, avenging spirit" (4.625, trans. Fitzgerald) is a possible invocation to Hannibal.
Book 5: Sicily
Looking back from the deck of his ship, Aeneas sees the smoke of Dido's funeral pyre, and although he does not understand the exact reason behind it, he understands it as a bad omen, considering the angry madness of her love.
Hindered by bad weather from reaching Italy, the Trojans return to where they started at the beginning of book 1. Book 5 then takes place on Sicily and centers on the funeral games that Aeneas organises for the anniversary of his father's death. Aeneas organises celebratory games for the men—a boat race, a foot race, a boxing match, and an archery contest. In all those contests, Aeneas is careful to reward winners and losers, showing his leadership qualities by not allowing antagonism even after foul play. Each of these contests comments on past events or prefigures future events: the boxing match, for instance, is "a preview of the final encounter of Aeneas and Turnus", and the dove, the target during the archery contest, is connected to the deaths of Polites and King Priam in Book 2 and that of Camilla in Book 11. Afterwards, Ascanius leads the boys in a military parade and mock battle, the Lusus Troiae—a tradition he will teach the Latins while building the walls of Alba Longa.
During these events, Juno, via her messenger Iris, who disguises herself as an old woman, incites the Trojan women to burn the fleet and prevent the Trojans from ever reaching Italy, but her plan is thwarted when Ascanius and Aeneas intervene. Aeneas prays to Jupiter to quench the fires, which the god does with a torrential rainstorm. An anxious Aeneas is comforted by a vision of his father, who tells him to go to the underworld to receive a vision of his and Rome's future. In return for safe passage to Italy, the gods, by order of Jupiter, will receive one of Aeneas' men as a sacrifice: Palinurus, who steers Aeneas' ship by night, is put to sleep by Somnus and falls overboard.
Book 6: Underworld
Aeneas, with the guidance of the Cumaean Sibyl, descends into the underworld. They pass by crowds of the dead by the banks of the river Acheron and are ferried across by Charon before passing by Cerberus, the three-headed guardian of the underworld. Then Aeneas is shown the fates of the wicked in Tartarus and is warned by the Sibyl to bow to the justice of the gods. He also meets the shade of Dido, who remains unreconcilable. He is then brought to green fields of Elysium. There he speaks with the spirit of his father and is offered a prophetic vision of the destiny of Rome.
War in Italy (books 7–12)
Book 7: Arrival in Latium and outbreak of war
Upon returning to the land of the living, Aeneas leads the Trojans to settle in Latium, where King Latinus received oracles pointing towards the arrival of strangers and bidding him to marry his daughter Lavinia to the foreigners, and not to Turnus, the ruler of another native people, the Rutuli. Juno, unhappy with the Trojans' favourable situation, summons the fury Alecto from the underworld to stir up a war between the Trojans and the locals. Alecto incites Amata, the Queen of Latium and the wife of Latinus, to demand that Lavinia be married to noble Turnus, and she causes Ascanius to wound a revered deer during a hunt. Hence, although Aeneas wishes to avoid a war, hostilities break out. The book closes with a catalogue of Italic warriors.
Book 8: Visit to Pallanteum, site of future Rome
Given the impending war, Aeneas seeks help from the Tuscans, enemies of the Rutuli, after having been encouraged to do so in a dream by Tiberinus. At the place where Rome will be, he meets a friendly Greek, King Evander of Arcadia. His son Pallas agrees to join Aeneas and lead troops against the Rutuli. Venus urges her spouse Vulcan to create weapons for Aeneas, which she then presents to Aeneas as a gift. On the shield, the future history of Rome is depicted.
Book 9: Turnus' siege of Trojan camp
Meanwhile, the Trojan camp is attacked by Turnus—spurred on by Juno, who informs him that Aeneas is away from his camp—and a midnight raid by the Trojans Nisus and Euryalus on Turnus' camp leads to their death. The next day, Turnus manages to breach the gates but is forced to retreat by jumping into the Tiber.
Book 10: First battle
A council of the gods is held, in which Venus and Juno speak before Jupiter, and Aeneas returns to the besieged Trojan camp accompanied by his new Arcadian and Tuscan allies. In the ensuing battle many are slain—notably Pallas, whom Evander has entrusted to Aeneas but who is killed by Turnus. Mezentius, Turnus' close associate, allows his son Lausus to be killed by Aeneas while he himself flees. He reproaches himself and faces Aeneas in single combat—an honourable but essentially futile endeavour leading to his death.
Book 11: Armistice and battle with Camilla
After a short break in which the funeral ceremony for Pallas takes place, the war continues. Another notable native, Camilla, an Amazon character and virgin devoted to Diana, fights bravely but is killed, poisoned by the coward Arruns, who in turn is struck dead by Diana's sentinel Opis.
Book 12: Final battle and duel of Aeneas and Turnus
Single combat is proposed between Aeneas and Turnus, but Aeneas is so obviously superior to Turnus that the Rutuli, urged on by Turnus' divine sister, Juturna—who in turn is instigated by Juno—break the truce. Aeneas is injured by an arrow but is soon healed with the help of his mother Venus and returns to the battle. Turnus and Aeneas dominate the battle on opposite wings, but when Aeneas makes a daring attack at the city of Latium (causing the queen of Latium to hang herself in despair), he forces Turnus into single combat once more. In the duel, Turnus' strength deserts him as he tries to hurl a rock, and Aeneas' spear goes through his thigh. As Turnus is on his knees, begging for his life, the epic ends with Aeneas initially tempted to obey Turnus' pleas to spare his life, but then killing him in rage when he sees that Turnus is wearing Aeneas' friend Pallas' belt over his shoulder as a trophy.
Reception
Critics of the Aeneid focus on a variety of issues. The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas, the one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology, or drive towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus' victory at Actium in 31 BC. A further focus of study is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to constantly waver between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas' emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters the Latin warrior Turnus.
The Aeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4 and 6 to Augustus; the mention of her son, Marcellus, in book 6 apparently caused Augustus' sister Octavia to faint. The poem was unfinished when Virgil died in 19 BC.
Virgil's death, and editing
According to tradition, Virgil traveled to Greece around 19 BC to revise the Aeneid. After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara. Virgil crossed to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, and died in Brundisium harbour on 21 September 19 BC, leaving a wish that the manuscript of the Aeneid was to be burned. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, to disregard that wish, instead ordering the Aeneid to be published with as few editorial changes as possible. As a result, the existing text of the Aeneid may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However, the only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e., not a complete line of dactylic hexameter). Other alleged "imperfections" are subject to scholarly debate.
History
The Aeneid was written in a time of major political and social change in Rome, with the fall of the Republic and the Final War of the Roman Republic having torn through society and many Romans' faith in the "Greatness of Rome" severely faltering. However, the new emperor, Augustus Caesar, began to institute a new era of prosperity and peace, specifically through the re-introduction of traditional Roman moral values. The Aeneid was seen as reflecting this aim, by depicting the heroic Aeneas as a man devoted and loyal to his country and its prominence, rather than his own personal gains. In addition, the Aeneid gives mythic legitimization to the rule of Julius Caesar and, by extension, to his adopted son Augustus, by immortalizing the tradition that renamed Aeneas' son, Ascanius (called Ilus from Ilium, meaning Troy), Iulus, thus making him an ancestor of the gens Julia, the family of Julius Caesar, and many other great imperial descendants as part of the prophecy given to him in the Underworld. (The meter shows that the name "Iulus" is pronounced as three syllables, not as "Julus".)
The perceived deficiency of any account of Aeneas' marriage to Lavinia or his founding of the Roman race led some writers, such as the 15th-century Italian poet Maffeo Vegio (through his Mapheus Vegius widely printed in the Renaissance), Pier Candido Decembrio (whose attempt was never completed), Claudio Salvucci (in his 1994 epic poem The Laviniad), and Ursula K. Le Guin (in her 2008 novel Lavinia) to compose their own supplements.
Despite the polished and complex nature of the Aeneid (legend stating that Virgil wrote only three lines of the poem each day), the number of half-complete lines and the abrupt ending are generally seen as evidence that Virgil died before he could finish the work. Some legends state that Virgil, fearing that he would die before he had properly revised the poem, gave instructions to friends (including the current emperor, Augustus) that the Aeneid should be burned upon his death, owing to its unfinished state and because he had come to dislike one of the sequences in Book VIII, in which Venus and Vulcan made love, for its nonconformity to Roman moral virtues. The friends did not comply with Virgil's wishes and Augustus himself ordered that they be disregarded. After minor modifications, the Aeneid was published. Because it was composed and preserved in writing rather than orally, the text exhibits less variation than other classical epics.
Style
As with other classical Latin poetry, the meter is based on the length of syllables rather than the stress, though the interplay of meter and stress is also important. Virgil also incorporated such poetic devices as alliteration, onomatopoeia, synecdoche, and assonance. Furthermore, he uses personification, metaphor and simile in his work, usually to add drama and tension to the scene. An example of a simile can be found in book II when Aeneas is compared to a shepherd who stood on the high top of a rock unaware of what is going on around him. It can be seen that just as the shepherd is a protector of his sheep, so too is Aeneas to his people.
As was the rule in classical antiquity, an author's style was seen as an expression of his personality and character. Virgil's Latin has been praised for its evenness, subtlety and dignity.
Structure
The Aeneid, like other classical epics, is written in dactylic hexameters: each line consists of six metrical feet made up of dactyls (one long syllable followed by two short syllables) and spondees (two long syllables). This epic consists of twelve books, and the narrative is broken up into three sections of four books each, respectively addressing Dido; the Trojans' arrival in Italy; and the war with the Latins. Each book has roughly 700–900 lines. The Aeneid comes to an abrupt ending, and scholars have speculated that Virgil died before he could finish the poem.
Themes
Pietas
The Roman ideal of pietas ("piety, dutiful respect"), which can be loosely translated from the Latin as a selfless sense of duty toward one's
filial, religious, and societal obligations, was a crux of ancient Roman morality. Throughout the Aeneid, Aeneas serves as the embodiment of
pietas, with the phrase "pious Aeneas" occurring 20 times throughout the poem, thereby fulfilling his capacity as the father of the Roman people.
For instance, in Book 2 Aeneas describes how he carried his father Anchises from the burning city of Troy: "No help/ Or hope of help existed./
So I resigned myself, picked up my father,/ And turned my face toward the mountain range." Furthermore, Aeneas ventures into the underworld, thereby fulfilling Anchises'
wishes. His father's gratitude is presented in the text by the following lines: "Have you at last come, has that loyalty/ Your father counted on conquered the journey?
However, Aeneas' pietas extends beyond his devotion to his father: we also see several examples of his religious fervour. Aeneas is consistently subservient to the gods, even in actions opposed to his own desires, as he responds to one such divine command, "I sail to Italy not of my own free will."
In addition to his religious and familial pietas, Aeneas also displays fervent patriotism and devotion to his people, particularly in a military capacity. For instance, as he and his followers leave Troy, Aeneas swears that he will "take up/ The combat once again. We shall not all/ Die this day unavenged."
Aeneas is a symbol of pietas in all of its forms, serving as a moral paragon to whom a Roman should aspire.
Divine intervention
One of the most recurring themes in the Aeneid is that of divine intervention. Throughout the poem, the gods are constantly influencing the main characters and trying to change and impact the outcome, regardless of the fate that they all know will occur. For example, Juno comes down and acts as a phantom Aeneas to drive Turnus away from the real Aeneas and all of his rage from the death of Pallas. Even though Juno knows in the end that Aeneas will triumph over Turnus, she does all she can to delay and avoid this outcome.
Divine intervention occurs multiple times, in Book 4 especially. Aeneas falls in love with Dido, delaying his ultimate fate of traveling to Italy. However, it is actually the gods who inspired the love, as Juno plots:
Dido and the Trojan captain [will come]
To one same cavern. I shall be on hand,
And if I can be certain you are willing,
There I shall marry them and call her his.
A wedding, this will be.
Juno is speaking to Venus, making an agreement and influencing the lives and emotions of both Dido and Aeneas. Later in the same book, Jupiter steps in and restores what is the true fate and path for Aeneas, sending Mercury down to Aeneas' dreams, telling him that he must travel to Italy and leave his new-found lover. As Aeneas later pleads with Dido:
The gods' interpreter, sent by Jove himself –
I swear it by your head and mine – has brought
Commands down through the racing winds!...
I sail for Italy not of my own free will.
Several of the gods try to intervene against the powers of fate, even though they know what the eventual outcome will be. The interventions are really just distractions to continue the conflict and postpone the inevitable. If the gods represent humans, just as the human characters engage in conflicts and power struggles, so too do the gods.
Fate
Fate, described as a preordained destiny that men and gods have to follow, is a major theme in the Aeneid. One example is when Aeneas is reminded of his fate through Jupiter and Mercury while he is falling in love with Dido. Mercury urges, "Think of your expectations of your heir,/ Iulus, to whom the whole Italian realm, the land/ Of Rome, are due." Mercury is referring to Aeneas' preordained fate to found Rome, as well as Rome's preordained fate to rule the world:
He was to be ruler of Italy,
Potential empire, armorer of war;
To father men from Teucer's noble blood
And bring the whole world under law's dominion.
It is important to recognize that there is a marked difference between fate and divine intervention, as even though the gods might remind mortals of their eventual fate, the gods themselves are not in control of it. For example, the opening lines of the poem specify that Aeneas "came to Italy by destiny", but is also harassed by the separate force of "baleful Juno in her sleepless rage". Even though Juno might intervene, Aeneas' fate is set in stone and cannot be changed.
Later in Book 6, when Aeneas visits the underworld, his father Anchises introduces him to the larger fate of the Roman people, as contrasted against his own personal fate to found Rome:
So raptly, everywhere, father and son
Wandered the airy plain and viewed it all.
After Anchises had conducted him
To every region and had fired his love
Of glory in the years to come, he spoke
Of wars that he might fight, of Laurentines,
And of Latinus' city, then of how
He might avoid or bear each toil to come.
Violence and conflict
From the very beginning of the Aeneid, violence and conflict are used as a means of survival and conquest. Aeneas' voyage is caused by the Trojan War and the destruction of
Troy. Aeneas describes to Dido in Book 2 the massive amount of destruction that occurs after the Greeks sneak into Troy. He recalls that he asks his men to "defend/ A city
lost in flames. Come, let us die,/ We'll make a rush into the thick of it."
This is one of the first examples of how violence begets violence: even though the Trojans know they have lost the battle, they continue to fight for their country.
This violence continues as Aeneas makes his journey. Dido kills herself in an excessively violent way over a pyre in order to end and escape her worldly problem: being heartbroken
over the departure of her "husband" Aeneas. Queen Dido's suicide is a double edged sword. While releasing herself from the burden of her pain through violence, her last words
implore her people to view Aeneas' people with hate for all eternity:
This is my last cry, as my last blood flows.
Then, O my Tyrians, besiege with hate
His progeny and all his race to come:
Make this your offering to my dust. No love,
No pact must be between our peoples.
Furthermore, her people, hearing of their queen's death, have only one avenue on which to direct the blame: the already-departed Trojans. Thus, Dido's request of her people
and her people's only recourse for closure align in their mutual hate for Aeneas and his Trojans. In effect, Dido's violent suicide leads to the violent nature of the
later relationship between Carthage and Rome.
Finally, when Aeneas arrives in Latium, conflict inevitably arises. Juno sends Alecto, one of the Furies, to cause Turnus to go against Aeneas. In the ensuing battles, Turnus
kills Pallas, who is supposed to be under Aeneas' protection. This act of violence causes Aeneas to be consumed with fury. Although Turnus asks for mercy in their final encounter,
when Aeneas sees that Turnus has taken Pallas' sword belt, Aeneas proclaims:
You in your plunder, torn from one of mine,
Shall I be robbed of you? This wound will come
From Pallas: Pallas makes this offering
And from your criminal blood exacts his due.
This final act of violence shows how Turnus' violence—the act of killing Pallas—inevitably leads to more violence and his own death.
It is possible that the recurring theme of violence in the Aeneid is a subtle commentary on the bloody violence contemporary readers would have just experienced during the Late Republican
civil wars. The Aeneid potentially explores whether the violence of the civil wars was necessary to establish a lasting peace under Augustus, or whether it would just lead to more violence in the future.
Propaganda
Written during the reign of Augustus, the Aeneid presents the hero Aeneas as a strong and powerful leader. The favorable representation of Aeneas parallels
Augustus in that it portrays his reign in a progressive and admirable light, and allows Augustus to be positively associated with the portrayal of Aeneas.
Although Virgil's patron Maecenas was obviously not Augustus himself, he was still a high figure within Augustus' administration and could have personally
benefitted from representing Aeneas in a positive light.
In the Aeneid, Aeneas is portrayed as the singular hope for the rebirth of the Trojan people. Charged with the preservation of his people by divine authority, Aeneas is symbolic of Augustus' own accomplishments in establishing order after the long period of chaos of the Roman civil wars. Augustus as the light of savior and the last
hope of the Roman people is a parallel to Aeneas as the savior of the Trojans. This parallel functions as propaganda in support of Augustus, as it depicts the Trojan people,
future Romans themselves, as uniting behind a single leader who will lead them out of ruin:
New refugees in a great crowd: men and women
Gathered for exile, young-pitiful people
Coming from every quarter, minds made up,
With their belongings, for whatever lands
I'd lead them to by sea.
Later in Book 6, Aeneas travels to the underworld where he sees his father Anchises, who tells him of his own destiny as well as that of
the Roman people. Anchises describes how Aeneas' descendant Romulus will found the great city of Rome,
which will eventually be ruled by Caesar Augustus:
Turn your two eyes
This way and see this people, your own Romans.
Here is Caesar, and all the line of Iulus,
All who shall one day pass under the dome
Of the great sky: this is the man, this one,
Of whom so often you have heard the promise,
Caesar Augustus, son of the deified,
Who shall bring once again an Age of Gold
To Latium, to the land where Saturn reigned
In early times.
Virgil writes about the fated future of Lavinium, the city that Aeneas will found, which will in turn lead directly to the
golden reign of Augustus. Virgil is using a form of literary propaganda to demonstrate the Augustan
regime's destiny to bring glory and peace to Rome. Rather than use Aeneas indirectly as a positive parallel
to Augustus as in other parts of the poem, Virgil outright praises the emperor in Book 6, referring to Augustus as a harbinger for the glory
of Rome and new levels of prosperity.
Allegory
The poem abounds with smaller and greater allegories. Two of the debated allegorical sections pertain to the exit from the underworld and to Pallas' belt.
Aeneas' leaving the underworld through the gate of false dreams has been variously interpreted: one suggestion is that the passage simply refers to the time of day at which Aeneas returned to the world of the living; another is that it implies that all of Aeneas' actions in the remainder of the poem are somehow "false". In an extension of the latter interpretation, it has been suggested that Virgil is conveying that the history of the world since the foundation of Rome is but a lie. Other scholars claim that Virgil is establishing that the theological implications of the preceding scene (an apparent system of reincarnation) are not to be taken as literal.
The second section in question is
This section has been interpreted to mean that for the entire passage of the poem, Aeneas, who symbolizes pietas (piety or morality), in a moment becomes furor (fury), thus destroying what is essentially the primary theme of the poem itself. Many have argued over these two sections. Some claim that Virgil meant to change them before he died, while others find that the location of the two passages, at the very end of the so-called Volume I (Books 1–6, the Odyssey), and Volume II (Books 7–12, the Iliad), and their short length, which contrasts with the lengthy nature of the poem, are evidence that Virgil placed them purposefully there.
Influence
The Aeneid is a cornerstone of the Western canon, and early (at least by the 2nd century AD) became one of the essential elements of a Latin education, usually required to be memorized. Even after the decline of the Roman Empire, it "remained central to a Latin education". In Latin-Christian culture, the Aeneid was one of the canonical texts, subjected to commentary as a philological and educational study, with the most complete commentary having been written by the 4th-century grammarian Maurus Servius Honoratus. It was widely held to be the pinnacle of Latin literature, much in the same way that the Iliad was seen to be supreme in Greek literature.
The strong influence of the Aeneid has been identified in the development of European vernacular literatures—some English works that show its influence being Beowulf, Layamon's Brut (through the source text Historia Regum Britanniae), The Faerie Queene and Milton's Paradise Lost. The Italian poet Dante Alighieri was himself profoundly influenced by the Aeneid, so much so that his magnum opus The Divine Comedy, itself widely considered central to the western canon, includes a number of quotations from and allusions to the Aeneid and features the author Virgil as a major character – the guide of Dante through the realms of the Inferno and Purgatorio. Another continental work displaying the influence of the Aeneid is the 16th-century Portuguese epic Os Lusíadas, written by Luís de Camões and dealing with Vasco da Gama's voyage to India.
The importance of Latin education itself was paramount in Western culture: "from 1600 to 1900, the Latin school was at the center of European education, wherever it was found"; within that Latin school, Virgil was taught at the advanced level and, in 19th-century England, special editions of Virgil were awarded to students who distinguished themselves. In the United States, Virgil and specifically the Aeneid were taught in the fourth year of a Latin sequence, at least until the 1960s; the current (2011) Advanced Placement curriculum in Latin continues to assign a central position to the poem: "The AP Latin: Virgil Exam is designed to test the student's ability to read, translate, understand, analyze, and interpret the lines of the Aeneid that appear on the course syllabus in Latin."
Many phrases from this poem entered the Latin language, much as passages from Shakespeare and Alexander Pope have entered the English language. One example is from Aeneas' reaction to a painting of the sack of Troy: Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt—"These are the tears of things, and our mortality cuts to the heart" (Aeneid I, 462). The influence is also visible in very modern work: Brian Friel's Translations (a play written in the 1980s, set in 19th-century Ireland), makes references to the classics throughout and ends with a passage from the Aeneid:
Urbs antiqua fuit—there was an ancient city which, 'tis said, Juno loved above all the lands. And it was the goddess' aim and cherished hope that here should be the capital of all nations—should the fates perchance allow that. Yet in truth she discovered that a race was springing from Trojan blood to overthrow some day these Tyrian towers—a people late regem belloque superbum—kings of broad realms and proud in war who would come forth for Libya's downfall.
English translations
The first full and faithful rendering of the poem in an Anglic language is the Scots translation by Gavin Douglas—his Eneados, completed in 1513, which also included Maffeo Vegio's supplement. Even in the 20th century, Ezra Pound considered this still to be the best Aeneid translation, praising the "richness and fervour" of its language and its hallmark fidelity to the original. The English translation by the 17th-century poet John Dryden is another important version. Most classic translations, including both Douglas and Dryden, employ a rhyme scheme; most more modern attempts do not.
Recent English verse translations include those by British Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis (1963), who strove to render Virgil's original hexameter line; Allen Mandelbaum (honoured by a 1973 National Book Award); Library of Congress Poet Laureate Robert Fitzgerald (1981); Stanley Lombardo (2005); Robert Fagles (2006); Sarah Ruden (2008); Barry B. Powell (2015); David Ferry (2017); Len Krisak (2020); and Shadi Bartsch (2021).
There have also been partial translations, such as those by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (Book 2 and Book 4) and Seamus Heaney (Book 6).
Adaptations
One of the first operas based on the story of the Aeneid was the English composer Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1688). The opera is famous for its aria "Dido's Lament" ('When I am laid in earth'), of which the first line of the melody is inscribed on the wall by the door of the Purcell Room concert hall in London.
The story of the Aeneid was made into the grand opera Les Troyens (1856–1858) by the French composer Hector Berlioz.
The Aeneid was the basis for the 1962 Italian film The Avenger and the 1971–1972 television serial Eneide.
In the musical Spring Awakening, based on the play of the same title by Frank Wedekind, schoolboys study the Latin text, and the first verse of Book 1 is incorporated into the number "All That's Known".
Ursula Le Guin's 2008 novel Lavinia is a free prose retelling of the last six books of the Aeneid narrated by and centered on Aeneas' Latin wife Lavinia, a minor character in the epic poem. It carries the action forward to the crowning of Aeneas' younger son Silvius as king of Latium.
A seventeenth-century popular broadside ballad also appears to recount events from books 1–4 of the Aeneid, focusing mostly on the relationship between Aeneas and Dido. The ballad, "The Wandering Prince of Troy", presents many similar elements as Virgil's epic, but alters Dido's final sentiments toward Aeneas, as well as presenting an interesting end for Aeneas himself.
Parodies and travesties
A number of parodies and travesties of the Aeneid have been made.
One of the earliest was written in Italian by Giovanni Batista Lalli in 1635, titled L'Eneide travestita del Signor Gio.
A French parody by Paul Scarron became famous in France in the mid-17th century, and spread rapidly through Europe, accompanying the growing French influence. Its influence was especially strong in Russia.
Charles Cotton's work Scarronides included a travestied Aeneid.
In 1791 the Russian poet N. P. Osipov published ().
In 1798, "Eneida"—Ukrainian mock-heroic burlesque poem, was written by Ivan Kotliarevsky. It is considered to be the first literary work published wholly in the modern Ukrainian language. His epic poem was adapted into an animated feature film of the same name, in 1991, by Ukranimafilm.
See also
Brutus of Troy
Franciade
Greek mythology
Gulliver's Travels
Les Troyens
List of literary cycles
Odyssey
Parallels between Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 31
Prosody (Latin)
Roman mythology
Sinbad the Sailor
The Voyage of Bran
Footnotes
Further reading
Buckham, Philip Wentworth; Spence, Joseph; Holdsworth, Edward; Warburton, William; Jortin, John, Miscellanea Virgiliana: In Scriptis Maxime Eruditorum Virorum Varie Dispersa, in Unum Fasciculum Collecta, Cambridge: Printed for W. P. Grant; 1825.
Paperback reprint: Vintage Books, 1990.
Virgil: The Aeneid (Landmarks of World Literature (Revival)) by K. W. Gransden
Virgil's 'Aeneid': Cosmos and Imperium by Philip R. Hardie
Brooks Otis, Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry, Oxford, 1964
Lee Fratantuono, Madness Unchained: A Reading of Virgil's Aeneid, Lexington Books, 2007.
Joseph Reed, Virgil's Gaze, Princeton, 2007.
Kenneth Quinn, Virgil's Aeneid: A Critical Description, London, 1968.
Francis Cairns, Virgil's Augustan Epic, Cambridge, 1989.
Gian Biagio Conte, The Poetry of Pathos: Studies in Vergilian Epic, Oxford, 2007.
Karl Gransden, Virgil's Iliad, Cambridge, 1984.
Richard Jenkyns, Virgil's Experience, Oxford, 1998.
Michael Burden, A woman scorned; responses to the Dido myth, London, Faber and Faber, 1998, especially Andrew Pinnock, 'Book IV in plain brown paper wrappers', on the Dido travesties.
Wolfgang Kofler, Aeneas und Vergil. Untersuchungen zur poetologischen Dimension der Aeneis, Heidelberg 2003.
Eve Adler, Vergil's Empire, Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
Nurtantio, Yoneko (2014), Le silence dans l'''Énéide, Brussels: EME & InterCommunications,
External links
Translations
– Latin text, Dryden translation, and T.C. Williams translation (from the Perseus Project)
Gutenberg Project: John Dryden translation (1697)
Gutenberg Project: J. W. Mackail translation (1885)
Gutenberg Project: E. F. Taylor translation (1907)
Gutenberg Project: Rolfe Humphries translation (1951)
Fairclough's Loeb Translation (1916) StoicTherapy.com (Complete)
Fairclough's Loeb Translation (1916) Theoi.com (Books 1–6 only)
The Online Library of Liberty Project from Liberty Fund, Inc.: The Aeneid (Dryden translation, New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1909) (PDF and HTML)
Text
Aeneidos Libri XII Latin text by Publius Vergilius Maro, PDF format
Menu Page The Aeneid in several formats at Project Gutenberg
Latin Text Online
Sequels
The Thirteenth Book of the Aeneid: a fragment by Pier Candido Decembrio, translated by David Wilson-Okamura
Supplement to the twelfth book of the Aeneid by Maffeo Vegio at Latin text and English translation
Illustrations
Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (about 900 images related to the Aeneid)
Commentary
Commentary on selections from the Latin text at Dickinson College Commentaries
Four talks by scholars on aspects of the Aeneid'': Virgil's relationship to Roman history, the Rome of Caesar Augustus, the challenges of translating Latin poetry, and Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas, delivered at the Maine Humanities Council's Winter Weekend program.
Notes on the political context of the Aeneid.
Perseus/Tufts: Maurus Servius Honoratus. Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil. (Latin)
1st-century BC Latin books
Julio-Claudian dynasty
Greece in fiction
Italy in fiction
Poems published posthumously
Poetry based on the Iliad
Poetry based on the Odyssey
Roman underworld
Underworld in classical literature
Unfinished poems
Depictions of Augustus in literature
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace
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DriveSpace
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DriveSpace (initially known as DoubleSpace) is a disk compression utility supplied with MS-DOS starting from version 6.0 in 1993 and ending in 2000 with the release of Windows Me. The purpose of DriveSpace is to increase the amount of data the user could store on disks by transparently compressing and decompressing data on-the-fly. It is primarily intended for use with hard drives, but use for floppy disks is also supported. This feature was removed in Windows XP and later.
Overview
In the most common usage scenario, the user would have one hard drive in the computer, with all the space allocated to one partition (usually as drive C:). The software would compress the entire partition contents into one large file in the root directory. On booting the system, the driver would allocate this large file as drive C:, enabling files to be accessed as normal.
Microsoft's decision to add disk compression to MS-DOS 6.0 was influenced by the fact that the competing DR DOS had earlier started to include disk compression software since version 6.0 in 1991.
Instead of developing its own product from scratch, Microsoft licensed the technology for the DoubleDisk product developed by Vertisoft and adapted it to become DoubleSpace. For instance, the loading of the driver controlling the compression/decompression (DBLSPACE.BIN) became more deeply integrated into the operating system (being loaded through the undocumented pre-load API even before the CONFIG.SYS file).
Microsoft had originally sought to license the technology from Stac Electronics, which had a similar product called Stacker, but these negotiations had failed. Microsoft was later successfully sued for patent infringement by Stac Electronics for violating some of its compression patents. During the court case Stac Electronics claimed that Microsoft had refused to pay any money when it attempted to license Stacker, offering only the possibility for Stac Electronics to develop enhancement products.
Consumption and compatibility
A few computer programs, particularly games, were incompatible with DoubleSpace because they effectively bypassed the DoubleSpace driver. DoubleSpace also consumed a significant amount of conventional memory, making it difficult to run memory-intensive programs.
Bugs and data loss
Shortly after its release, reports of data loss emerged. A company called Blossom Software claimed to have found a bug that could lead to data corruption. The bug occurred when writing files to heavily fragmented disks and was demonstrated by a program called BUST.EXE. The company sold a program called DoubleCheck that could be used to check for the fragmentation condition that could lead to the error. Microsoft's position was that the error only occurred under unlikely conditions, but fixed the problem in MS-DOS 6.2.
The fragmentation condition was related to the way DoubleSpace compresses individual clusters (of size, say, 8K), and fits them on the disk, occupying fewer sectors (size 512 bytes) than the fixed number required without DoubleSpace (16 sectors in this example). This created the possibility of a kind of internal fragmentation issue, where DoubleSpace would be unable to find enough consecutive sectors for storing a compressed cluster even if plenty of space was available.
Other potential causes of data loss included the corruption of DoubleSpace's memory areas by other programs, DoubleSpace's memory areas were not protected, because MS-DOS ran in real mode. Microsoft attempted to remedy this in the MS-DOS 6.2 version of DoubleSpace (via a feature called DoubleGuard that would check for such corruption).
The fact that the compressed contents of a compressed drive was stored in a single file implied the possibility of a user accidentally deleting all his/her data by deleting just that file. This could happen if the user inadvertently got access to the host drive, containing this file. The host drive was usually mapped to the letter H: by the compression driver. However, if the compression driver had failed to load the user might see it as drive C:
Turning off the computer before DoubleSpace could finish updating its data structures could also result in data loss. This problem was compounded by Microsoft making write caching enabled by default in the SMARTDRV disk cache software that came with MS-DOS 6.0. Because of this change, after exiting an application, the MS-DOS prompt might appear before all data had been written to the disk. However, due to the lack of a controlled shutdown procedure (as found in modern operating systems), many users saw the appearance of the MS-DOS prompt as an indication that it was safe to switch off the computer, which was typically the case prior to MS-DOS 6.0.
Microsoft addressed this issue in MS-DOS 6.2 where the write caching was still enabled by default, but where the cache would be flushed before allowing the command prompt to reappear.
Add-ons
AddStor, Inc. offered an add-on product called Double Tools for DoubleSpace. It contained a number of tools to enhance the functions of the version of DoubleSpace that came with MS-DOS 6.0. This included various diagnostic features, the ability to have compressed removable media auto-mounted as they were used, as well as support for background defragmentation of DoubleSpace compressed drives.
To defragment files in the background, it was possible to let DoubleTools replace the low-level DoubleSpace driver (DBLSPACE.BIN) with one supplied by DoubleTools. Replacing the driver also enabled other enhanced functionality of the product, such as the use of 32-bit code paths when it detected an Intel 80386 or higher CPU, caching capabilities and - in addition to its supporting the use of the Upper Memory Area - also permitted the use of Extended Memory for some of its buffers (reducing the driver's total footprint in conventional and upper memory, albeit at the cost of somewhat reduced speed). Another function was the ability to split a compressed volume over multiple floppy disks, being able to see the entire volume with only the first disk inserted (and being prompted to change discs as necessary). It was also possible to share a compressed volume with a remote computer. Double Tools also had the capability to put a special utility on compressed floppy disks that made it possible to access the compressed data even on computers that didn't have DoubleSpace (or Double Tools).
Vertisoft, the company who developed the DoubleDisk program that Microsoft subsequently licensed and turned into DoubleSpace, developed and sold a DoubleSpace add-on program called SpaceManager, which contained a number of usability enhancements. It also offered improved compression ratios.
Other products, like later versions of Stacker from Stac Electronics, were capable of converting existing DoubleSpace compressed drives into their own format.
Later versions
MS-DOS 6.2
MS-DOS 6.2 featured a new and improved version of DoubleSpace. The ability to remove DoubleSpace was added. The program SCANDISK introduced in this release was able to scan the non-compressed and compressed drives, including checks of the internal DoubleSpace structures. Security features (known as DoubleGuard) were added to prevent memory corruption from leading to data loss. The memory footprint of the DoubleSpace driver was reduced compared to the version shipped in MS-DOS 6.0. A fix was made to the fragmentation issue discussed above.
MS-DOS 6.21
Following a successful lawsuit by Stac Electronics regarding demonstrated patent infringement, Microsoft released MS-DOS 6.21 without DoubleSpace. A court injunction also prevented any further distribution of the previous versions of MS-DOS that included DoubleSpace.
MS-DOS 6.22
MS-DOS 6.22 contained a reimplemented version of the disk compression software, but this time released under the name DriveSpace. The software was essentially identical to the MS-DOS 6.2 version of DoubleSpace from a user point of view, and was compatible with previous versions.
DriveSpace in Windows 95
Windows 95 had full support of DoubleSpace/DriveSpace via a native 32-bit driver for accessing the compressed drives, along with a graphical version of the software tools. MS-DOS DriveSpace users could upgrade to Windows 95 without any troubles. Furthermore, the Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 pack contained version 3 of DriveSpace. This version introduced new compression formats (HiPack and UltraPack) with different performance characteristics for even greater compression ratios along with a tool that could recompress the files on the disk using the different formats, depending on how frequently the files were used. One could upgrade from DriveSpace 2 to DriveSpace 3, but there was no downgrade path back to DriveSpace 2. One could, however, decompress a DriveSpace 3 drive. The DOS device driver of DriveSpace 3 had a memory footprint of around 150 KB because of all these new features. This caused difficulty for users rebooting into the MS-DOS mode of Windows 95 for running games, because of the reduced amount of conventional memory that was available.
DriveSpace 3 also shipped with Windows 95 OSR2 but many features were disabled unless Plus! was also installed. DriveSpace could also not be used with FAT32, making it of little use on PCs with large hard drives.
DriveSpace in Windows 98
Windows 98 shipped with DriveSpace 3 as part of the operating system. Functionality was the same as in Windows 95 with Plus!.
DriveSpace in Windows ME
Because of the removal of real mode support, FAT32 going mainstream and the decreasing popularity of DriveSpace, DriveSpace in Windows ME had only limited support. DriveSpace no longer supported hard disk compression, but still supported reading and writing compressed removable media, although the only DriveSpace operation supported beside that was deleting and reallocating compressed drives.
It is possible to restore full function of DriveSpace 3 (unofficially) in Windows ME, copying the executable file from a Windows 98 installation and using it to replace the executable included with Windows ME. After that, one could compress new drives as they could do on Windows 98.
Support outside Microsoft
DMSDOS, a Linux kernel driver, was developed in the late 1990s to support both the reading and writing of DoubleSpace/DriveSpace disks. However, reading and especially writing to compressed filesystems is reliable only in specific versions of the 2.0, 2.1 or 2.2 versions of the kernel.
While DR-DOS supported its own disk compression technology (originally based on SuperStor, later on Stacker), Novell DOS 7 in 1993 and higher introduced an emulation of the undocumented pre-load API in order to provide seamless support for DoubleSpace as well. Since the DR-DOS drivers were DPMS-enabled whereas the MS-DOS ones were not, this did not offer any advantages for DR-DOS users, but allowed easier coexistence or migration due to the possibility of shared use of already existing compressed volumes in multi-boot scenarios. DR-DOS 7.02 and higher also added support for DriveSpace in 1998.
References
Further reading
External links
DoubleSpace Overview
Mapping DOS FAT to MDFAT
DoubleSpace Compressed Volume File Layout
Microsoft Real-time Compression Interface (MRCI)
Data compression
Compression file systems
DOS technology
Windows 95
Windows 98
Discontinued Windows components
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket%20%28service%29
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Pocket (service)
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Pocket, previously known as Read It Later, is a social bookmarking service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Released in 2007, the service was originally only for desktop and laptop computers, and is now available for macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Kobo eReaders, and web browsers.
History
Pocket was introduced in August 2007 as a Mozilla Firefox browser extension named Read It Later by Nathan (Nate) Weiner. Once his product was used by millions of people, he moved his office to Silicon Valley and four other people joined the Read It Later team. Weiner's intention was to have the application be like a TiVo for web content and giving users access to that content on any device.
Read It Later obtained venture capital investments of US$2.5 million in 2011 and $5.0 million in 2012. The 2011 funding came from Foundation Capital, Baseline Ventures, Google Ventures, Founder Collective and unnamed angel investors. The company rejected an acquisition offer by Evernote after showing concerns that Evernote intended to shut down the Read It Later service and amalgamate its functionality into Evernote's main service.
Initially the Read It Later app was available in a free version and a paid version that included additional features. After the rebranding to Pocket, all paid features were made available in a free and advertisement-free app. In May 2014, a paid subscription service called Pocket Premium was introduced, adding server-side storage of articles and more powerful search tools.
In June 2015, Pocket was included in Firefox, via a toolbar button and link to a user's Pocket list in the bookmarks menu. The integration was controversial, as users displayed concerns for the direct integration of a proprietary service into an open source application, and that it could not be completely disabled without editing advanced settings, unlike third-party extensions. A Mozilla spokesperson stated that the feature was meant to leverage the service's popularity among Firefox users and clarified that all code related to the integration was open source. The spokesperson added that "[Mozilla had] gotten lots of positive feedback about the integration from users".
On February 27, 2017, Pocket announced that it had been acquired by Mozilla Corporation, the commercial arm of Firefox's non-profit development group. Mozilla staff stated that Pocket would continue to operate as an independent subsidiary but that it would be leveraged as part of an ongoing "Context Graph" project. There are plans to open-source the server-side code of Pocket, with more than 50 repositories already available on the company's GitHub account, including their iOS app.
Functions
The application allows the user to save an article or web page to remote servers for later reading. The article is then sent to the user's Pocket list (synced to all of their devices) for offline reading. Pocket removes clutter from articles, and allows the user to add tags to their articles and to adjust text settings for easier reading.
Userbase
The application had 17 million users and 1 billion saves, as of September 2015. Some applications, such as Flipboard, Google Currents, and Twitter use Pocket's API. Pocket was listed among TIMEs 50 Best Android Applications for 2013.
Reception
Kent German of CNET said that "Read It Later is oh so incredibly useful for saving all the articles and news stories I find while commuting or waiting in line." Erez Zukerman of PC World said that supporting the developer is enough reason to buy what he deemed a "handy app". Bill Barol of Forbes said that although Read It Later works less well than Instapaper, "it makes my beloved Instapaper look and feel a little stodgy."
In 2015, Pocket was awarded a Material Design Award for Adaptive Layout by Google for their Android application.
See also
IFTTT
Pinboard (website)
References
External links
2007 software
2017 mergers and acquisitions
Android (operating system) software
Application software
BlackBerry software
Cross-platform mobile software
Google Chrome extensions
IOS software
Mozilla acquisitions
Online bookmarking services
Firefox
Firefox extensions merged to Firefox
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DreamFactory%20Software
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DreamFactory Software
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DreamFactory Software is a Las Vegas, Nevada-based software company. DreamFactory develops both commercial and open source software that provides integration-platform-as-a-service to multiple applications in cloud-based or on premise environments. DreamFactory may be deployed on premise or in the company's cloud environment.
History
DreamFactory Software was founded in 1998 by technology entrepreneur Bill Appleton. DreamFactory™ is the namesake of the proprietary authoring software Appleton developed during his tenure as president of Cyberflix. The software was used in Cyberflix’s CD-ROM video game Titanic: Adventure Out of Time. Appleton currently serves as the company’s president. DreamFactory is a private, venture-backed company based in Campbell, California, with an additional development center in Atlanta.
In 2013, the company launched DreamFactory Services Platform (DSP) to connect mobile apps to enterprise back-end infrastructures in the cloud. It provides a standards-based service palette and can be installed on any cloud or enterprise datacenter.
The DreamFactory legacy suite includes cloud development for IT; release management and data migration for administrators; visual studio for operations; and project, document and performance management for teams. The company’s products integrate with Salesforce.com, Windows Azure, Cisco Connect, Intuit and Amazon Web Services. Clients include Salesforce.com, Nike, Apple Computer, American Express, and Merck.
Now under new ownership, DreamFactory has evolved into an integration-platform-as-a-service offering an enterprise platform for creating and managing multiple database APIs. Furthermore the platform has developed several new security features that allows DreamFactory users to work hand in glove with all modern authentication services such as Active Directory, OAuth, Okta and many more. Along with standard database API creation, DreamFactory integrates with file storage services, email providers, IoT devices, caching services and any third party APIs via a HTML universal connector.
Funding
DreamFactory took on a $5.6 million Series A round of funding from New Enterprise Associates in 2006. Greg Papadopoulos, former chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems and a partner at NEA, sat on the DreamFactory board during this time.
In 2018 DreamFactory was acquired by Xenon Partners, a tech-centric private equity fund that has funded companies such as Right Signature, Dropbox and Earth Class Mail.
Open Source Version
With the release of 3.0, DreamFactory's open source version has seen the biggest development in the platforms history. Several popular features which were free and open sourced were required to be moved to the commercial license due to an increased demand in support services for particular elements such as MySQL and scripting. While they claim that there was an official announcement the open source community was highly furious on their official forum for the lack of transparency and while there was some consternation regarding the removal of these features, DreamFactory OSS is still frequently downloaded via github and the AWS marketplace. The OSS community believes that the features which were part of the OSS license were made commercial which is illegal and require media and legal attention.
Commercial Version
DreamFactory offers a Silver and Gold license as part of Small Business, Professional or Enterprise packages that differentiate themselves in terms of their ongoing support and configuration services. The primary feature differentiation between Silver and Gold is the addition of logging, limiting, auditing and scheduling capabilities held within the Gold license.
Recent version releases have focused on enhanced UI, bespoke connectors as well as refined scripting engines. Users of the DreamFactory commercial product include such names as Monin, McKesson, Intel, E.C. Barton and many more.
References
External links
Software companies based in California
Software companies established in 1998
Software companies of the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam%20Greenblatt
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Sam Greenblatt
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Sam Greenblatt Was the chief technology office and architecture (CTO) in the Enterprise Solution Group of the Dell Corporation. Sam's group at Dell committed to differentiating Dell in the marketplace by delivering solutions enabled through workloads. Sam helps provide these solutions, to have strong alliances, develop cross-line of business offerings and offer a cohesive architecture that will make customers’ offerings run better with the workloads that meet these needs. He has two groups the Infrastructure Group will focus on IaaS, PaaS, and HPC (Red Hat OpenStack, Azure, HyperV, VMware). The Business Solutions will focus on Analytics, Big Data, and Enterprise Applications (SAP and Oracle). His group provides a more direct link between customer pain points and the technical product and solutions roadmap. Providing the ability to integrate other Dell products and solutions into the Enterprise Solutions roadmap to solve customer problems and the broader Dell Go-to-Market engine. His group expands the diversity of our offerings and the ability to deliver relevant client offerings through our strategic relationships with leading software vendors such as Red Hat, Oracle, Microsoft, Cloudera, SAP, and VMware. He was the CTO. His group was recognizing the synergies of our workload enablers and technology to create effective solutions. His responsibility was for the field capabilities through the enterprise technologists and provides providing technical education and technical training to ensure we can fulfill our customers’ needs in this area.
Prior he was Chief Technology Officer for webOS and technical strategy and projects at Hewlett-Packard Prior to that he was in charge of Enterprise Business Solutions architecture as the CTO, previously CTO for HP.com and CTO for the LaserJet Enterprise Solutions group and General Manager of Core Technologies IPG within Hewlett-Packard's Imaging and Printing Group. He also ran the Core Technology Group which is responsible all software within both LaserJet and Inkjet Technology. Greenblatt spearheaded HP's move into alliance partnerships with Adobe and Microsoft by transitioning internal developed software to partner software. He has transformed HP's IPG software development process by moving them to Agile software development, metrics-based testing, and joint quality programs with customer support and external partners to increase IPG market share through usability and quality.
Career
Sam is tthe Chief of Quantum Wormhole. The Quantum Wormhole is a nonprofit corporation to advance the further use of quantum computing and enabling real quantum computing in the cloud and on-premise. After studying the many offerings and commercial and public corporations, we've decided to put the top experts globally to work with us on a photonics-based computer very similar to the work that has performed in Toronto and Helsinki. We plan complete programming, compilation, and execution environment for its quantum processor. We believe that in conjunction with Cloud Authority. The easiest way to make quantum computing a reality through open source and the Quantum Physics Associations. The current environments are based on binary approximations, not Quantum Mechanics.
He serves on the board of The Naashville Group. A multidiscipline corporation. He served on the board oof Z-Impact, He served on the advisory board of Nexenta. He was Executive in Residence at Nano Global working in health care technology.
He was manging partner of Cognitive and Quantum Labs which helps clients untangle the complexity of molecular and chemical interactions leading to the discovery of new medicines and materials. Enable ultra-efficient logistics and supply chains, such as optimizing production of a product using 3D technology. Helping find new ways to model financial data and isolate key global risk factors to make better investments. Quantum will make aspects of artificial intelligence such as machine learning in cognitive learning.
Sam Greenblatt is a Technologist In Residence at Nano Global focusing on this new technology; nanotechnology has the potential to impact to change every aspect of the world. The area that has the greatest promise is manipulating properties and structures at the nanoscale in medicine. He will work with Nano Global, universities, start-ups and universities. He works with Steve Papermaster (CEO), Steve served as a presidential advisor and co-chaired the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Steve was founding panel member of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. He helped coordinate $15 billion in US investments for R&D activities in nanoscale science, engineering, technology, and related efforts, across 26 different agencies and programs.
Sam an Critical Systems Management at HP working with the delivery and the client organizations on complex integrations, software development, architecture, cloud, product management, and project management for all Americas customers having critical issues. He will assist and participate in the transition and transformation of critical situations and develop new operational models for each account as needed. Sam’s goal is to resolve critical existing situations and assist in business development to prevent issues that will result in satisfied shareholders and customers. He was responsible for turning around USPS, Ohio Taxation, and several military projects for HP.
He was the chief technology office and head of technical strategy for openwebOS. He guides HP openwebOS strategy around open collaboration. He is responsible for the technical engineering around the open sourcing openwebOS. The focus is on the practice of openly developing openwebOS and the belief that the open source development model produces great software and the goal of making software based on the concept of web technology (HTML5 and webkit). Sam has many years of open source experience including being on the board of OSDL (Linux Foundation), Eclipse,OMG and a long history in software development including being a CTO at HP, Chief Innovation Officer at CA Technology, and CTO at Candle Corporation (IBM). He was the Chief Technology Officer for HP.com he has directed the key transformation from Web publishing to a digital communications platform which incorporates dynamic web content, advanced metadata, faceted search and semantic analysis. He works with outside design firms and technology companies to enable a world-class technology stack to create a total digital experience for Hewlett-Packard using advanced technology. He works with social media and mobile media to ensure that the platform encompasses all technology. Sam Greenblatt was ithe Chief Technology Officer for the LaserJet Enterprise Solutions group and General Manager of Core Technologies IPG within Hewlett-Packard's Imaging and Printing Group. He also runs the Core Technology Group which has a $100 million budget with 365 people and is responsible all software within both LaserJet and Inkjet Technology. He spearheaded HP's move into alliance partnerships with Adobe and Microsoft by transitioning internal developed software to partner software. He has transformed the IPG software development process by moving them to the agile environment, metrics-based testing, and joint quality programs with customer support and external partners to increase IPG market share through usability and quality. He ranStrategic Programs for the corporate office of Hewlett-Packard and was responsible for competitive analysis and industry analysis of HP's position in the marketplace. He presented to the board of directors and the executive committee on key analysis of HP’s position
Prior to joining Hewlett Packard Sam was the senior vice president of Innovation for CA. He ran CA’s intellectual property portfolio, labs and technical leadership council. Prior to that he was Chief Architect for the Linux Technology Group at Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA), is responsible for the cross brand integration of Linux technology. He worked with CA’s strategic customers and the IT industry to help formulate strategy in emerging Linux technologies. A recognized expert in networked computing, system management and object technology, Mr. Greenblatt worked closely with customers to deliver solutions that focus on emerging technologies. Mr. Greenblatt joined CA in 1994 and has held senior management positions in development and cross- platform product strategy. He has contributed to the development of CA’s Unicenter and eTrust solutions and has served on technical advisory boards for several of CA’s largest customersAs the Senior Vice President, and Chief Architect of the Linux Technology Group, Mr. Greenblatt was responsible for the formulation of IBM's business and investment strategy development of products and management of the company's Linux business opportunity activities. He sat on CA's Strategy Team, which focused on the long-term strategic issues and opportunities for the company, and as a member of the Technology Team that examined the near-and long-term
technical developments and trends which could impact both CA and the IT industry.
Sam was appointed Senior Vice President and Chief Architect in July 2002. In this capacity, he was responsible for shaping CA’s overall software strategy and directing CA's $1.3 billion emerging software business. Sam has played a leading role in the growth of CA’s Unicenter Brand since its inception in 1995. He was Senior Vice President responsible for CA's strategy for the mainframe and distributed software solutions for e-business.
Greenblatt was the senior vice president of Innovation for Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA). He ran CA's intellectual property portfolio, labs and technical leadership council. Previously he was Chief Architect for the Linux Technology Group at CA, where he was responsible for the cross brand integration of Linux technology. He worked with CA's strategic customers and the IT industry to help formulate strategy in emerging Linux technologies. A recognized expert in networked computing, system management and object technology, Mr. Greenblatt worked closely with customers to deliver solutions that focus on emerging technologies. Greenblatt joined CA in 1994 and has held senior management positions in development and cross-platform product strategy. He contributed to the development of CA's Unicenter and solutions and has served on technical advisory boards for several of CA's largest customers.
Before CA, Greenblatt was Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research and Development at Candle Corporation, where he managed key software application projects in communications, distributed processing, applications and development tools, and project management techniques in systems management. Prior to Candle, Greenblatt held management positions at ARCO, Commodore International and Arthur Andersen.
Boards and Teaching
Greenblatt has served on the graduate faculties of Temple University and La Salle University, was on the board of the Object Management Group and sat on the Open Source Development Lab Board (Linux Foundation), Eclipse and the Plone Foundation which he founded. He sat on the board of Ingres. He was a member of the Architecture Board at The Open Group and was the chairman of the DMI Committee on systems management. He is well known for his work on object protocols and their abstraction. He is a recognized expert in Linux and open source. He was on the Advisory board of Linux World Magazine for which he has also been an author. He was the keynote at Linux World 2004 and Linux World Japan in 2003.
Patents
Greenblatt is a co-inventor on three key U.S. patents: USP 5848234 entitled “Object Procedure Messaging Facility” covering object message passing, and USP 5809238 entitled “Data Server with Event Driven Sampling” covering object data stores and USP 6718399 “Communications on a Network”.
See also
Inkjet technology
External links
Q&A: Sam Greenblatt -- Application Development Trends
Sam Greenblatt quotes
Ingres Board
/ Linux World
/ Greenblatt leaves HP
/ WebOSnation]
Sam As A Penguin
Fox School of Business and Management alumni
Hewlett-Packard people
Living people
Businesspeople from Philadelphia
American chief technology officers
Year of birth missing (living people)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual%20machine%20escape
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Virtual machine escape
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In computer security, virtual machine escape is the process of a program breaking out of the virtual machine on which it is running and interacting with the host operating system. A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". In 2008, a vulnerability () in VMware discovered by Core Security Technologies made VM escape possible on VMware Workstation 6.0.2 and 5.5.4. A fully working exploit labeled Cloudburst was developed by Immunity Inc. for Immunity CANVAS (commercial penetration testing tool). Cloudburst was presented in Black Hat USA 2009.
Previous known vulnerabilities
Xen pygrub: Command injection in grub.conf file.
Directory traversal vulnerability in shared folders feature for VMware
Directory traversal vulnerability in shared folders feature for VMware
Xen Para Virtualized Frame Buffer backend buffer overflow.
Cloudburst: VM display function in VMware
QEMU-KVM: PIIX4 emulation does not check if a device is hotpluggable before unplugging
The x86-64 kernel system-call functionality in Xen 4.1.2 and earlier
Oracle VirtualBox 3D acceleration multiple memory corruption
VENOM: buffer-overflow in QEMU's virtual floppy disk controller
QEMU-KVM: Heap overflow in pcnet_receive function.
Xen Hypervisor: Uncontrolled creation of large page mappings by PV guests
Xen Hypervisor: The PV pagetable code has fast-paths for making updates to pre-existing pagetable entries, to skip expensive re-validation in safe cases (e.g. clearing only Access/Dirty bits). The bits considered safe were too broad, and not actually safe.
Xen Hypervisor: Disallow L3 recursive pagetable for 32-bit PV guests
CVE-2017-5715, 2017-5753, 2017-5754: The Spectre and Meltdown hardware vulnerabilities, a cache side-channel attack on CPU level (Rogue Data Cache Load (RDCL)), allow a rogue process to read all memory of a computer, even outside the memory assigned to a virtual machine
Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
VMware ESXi, Workstation, Fusion: SVGA driver contains buffer overflow that may allow guests to execute code on hosts
VMware Workstation, Fusion: Heap buffer-overflow vulnerability in VMNAT device that may allow a guest to execute code on the host
VMware Workstation, Horizon View : Multiple out-of-bounds read issues via Cortado ThinPrint may allow a guest to execute code or perform a Denial of Service on the Windows OS
Oracle VirtualBox: shared memory interface by the VGA allows read and writes on the host OS
VMware ESXi, Workstation, Fusion: Uninitialized stack memory usage in the vmxnet3 virtual network adapter.
: "Microarchitectural Data Sampling" (MDS) attacks: Similar to above Spectre and Meltdown attacks, this cache side-channel attack on CPU level allows to read data across VMs and even data of the host system. Sub types: Microarchitectural Store Buffer Data Sampling (MSBDS), Microarchitectural Fill Buffer Data Sampling (MFBDS) = Zombieload, Microarchitectural Load Port Data Sampling (MLPDS), and Microarchitectural Data Sampling Uncacheable Memory (MDSUM)
, , , , Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
: Xen Hypervisor and Citrix Hypervisor: Allows guest virtual machines to compromise the host system (denial of service and rights escalation)
(critical), : Windows 10 and VMWare Workstation using AMD Radeon graphics cards using Adrenalin driver: attacker in guest system can use pixel shader to cause memory error on the host system, injecting malicious code to the host system and execute it.
: ZombieLoad, ZombieLoad v2, Vector Register Sampling (VRS), Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS), Transactional Asynchronous Abort (TAA), CacheOut, L1D Eviction Sampling (L1DES): L1 cache side attacks on CPU level allow virtual machines to read memory outside of their sandbox
CVE-2020-3962, CVE-2020-3963, CVE-2020-3964, CVE-2020-3965, CVE-2020-3966, CVE-2020-3967, CVE-2020-3968, CVE-2020-3969, CVE-2020-3970, CVE-2020-3971: VMware ESXi, Workstation Pro / Player, Fusion Pro, Cloud Foundation: Vulnerabilities in SVGA, graphics shader, USB driver, xHCI/EHCI, PVNVRAM, and vmxnet3 can cause virtual machine escape
See also
Hyperjacking
References
External links
Cloudburst (Hacking 3D And Breaking Out Of Vmware) Blackhat 2009 (Video)
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/MS17-008
Virtualization software
Computer security exploits
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6543509
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium%20on%20Logic%20in%20Computer%20Science
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Symposium on Logic in Computer Science
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The ACM–IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS) is an annual academic conference on the theory and practice of computer science in relation to mathematical logic. Extended versions of selected papers of each year's conference appear in renowned international journals such as Logical Methods in Computer Science and ACM Transactions on Computational Logic.
History
LICS was originally sponsored solely by the IEEE, but as of the 2014 founding of the ACM Special Interest Group on Logic and Computation LICS has become the flagship conference of SIGLOG, under the joint sponsorship of ACM and IEEE.
Since the first installment in 1988, the cover page of the conference proceedings has featured an artwork entitled Irrational Tiling by Logical Quantifiers, by Alvy Ray Smith.
Since 1995, each year the Kleene award is given to the best student paper. In addition, since 2006, the LICS Test-of-Time Award is given annually to one among the twenty-year-old LICS papers that have best met the test of time.
LICS Awards
Test-of-Time Award
Each year, since 2006, the LICS Test-of-Time Award recognizes those articles from LICS proceedings 20 years earlier, which have become influential.
2006
Leo Bachmair, Nachum Dershowitz, Jieh Hsiang, "Orderings for Equational Proofs"
E. Allen Emerson, Chin-Laung Lei, "Efficient Model Checking in Fragments of the Propositional Mu-Calculus (Extended Abstract)"
Moshe Y. Vardi, Pierre Wolper, "An Automata-Theoretic Approach to Automatic Program Verification (Preliminary Report)"
2007
Samson Abramsky, "Domain theory in Logical Form"
Robert Harper, Furio Honsell, Gordon D. Plotkin, "A Framework for Defining Logics"
2008
Martin Abadi, Leslie Lamport, "The existence of refinement mappings"
2009
Eugenio Moggi, "Computational lambda-calculus and monads"
2010
Rajeev Alur, Costas Courcoubetis, David L. Dill, "Model-checking for real-time systems"
Jerry R. Burch, Edmund Clarke, Kenneth L. McMillan, David L. Dill, James Hwang, "Symbolic model checking: 10^20 states and beyond"
Max Dauchet, Sophie Tison, "The theory of ground rewrite systems is decidable"
Peter Freyd, "Recursive types reduced to inductive types"
2011
Patrice Godefroid, Pierre Wolper, "A partial approach to model checking"
Joshua Hodas, Dale A. Miller, "Logic programming in a fragment of intuitionistic linear logic"
Dexter Kozen, "A completeness theorem for Kleene algebras and the algebra of regular events"
2012
Thomas Henzinger, Xavier Nicollin, Joseph Sifakis, Sergio Yovine, "Symbolic model checking for real-time systems"
Jean-Pierre Talpin, Pierre Jouvelot, "The type and effect discipline"
2013
Leo Bachmair, Harald Ganzinger, Uwe Waldmann, "Set constraints are the monadic class"
André Joyal, Mogens Nielson, Glynn Winskel, "Bisimulation and open maps"
Benjamin C. Pierce, Davide Sangiorgi, "Typing and subtyping for mobile processes"
2014
Martin Hofmann, Thomas Streicher, "The groupoid model refutes uniqueness of identity proofs"
Dale A. Miller, "A multiple-conclusion meta-logic"
2015
Igor Walukiewicz, "Completeness of Kozen's Axiomatisation of the Propositional Mu-Calculus"
2016
Parosh A. Abdulla, Karlis Cerans, Bengt Jonsson, Yih-Kuen Tsay, "General decidability theorems for infinite-state systems"
Iliano Cervesato, Frank Pfenning, "A Linear Logical Framework"
2017
Richard Blute, Josée Desharnais, Abbas Edalat, Prakash Panangaden, "Bisimulation for Labelled Markov Processes"
Daniele Turi, Gordon D. Plotkin, "Towards a Mathematical Operational Semantics"
2018
Martín Abadi, Cédric Fournet, Georges Gonthier, "Secure Implementation of Channel Abstractions"
Samson Abramsky, Kohei Honda, Guy McCusker, "A Fully Abstract Game Semantics for General References"
2019
Marcelo P. Fiore, Gordon D. Plotkin, Daniele Turi, "Abstract Syntax and Variable Binding"
Murdoch Gabbay, Andrew M. Pitts, "A New Approach to Abstract Syntax Involving Binders"
2020
Luca de Alfaro, Thomas A. Henzinger, "Concurrent Omega-Regular Games"
Hiroshi Nakano, "A Modality for Recursion"
2021
Aaron Stump;, Clark W. Barrett, David L. Dill, Jeremy R. Levitt, "A Decision Procedure for an Extensional Theory of Arrays"
Hongwei Xi, "Dependent Types for Program Termination Verification"
Kleene award
At each conference the Kleene award, in honour of S.C. Kleene, is given for the best student paper.
See also
The list of computer science conferences contains other academic conferences in computer science.
Notes
External links
LICS home page
Theoretical computer science conferences
Logic conferences
Logic in computer science
IEEE conferences
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560804
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003%20in%20video%20games
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2003 in video games
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2003 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Final Fantasy X-2, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain. New intellectual properties included Beyond Good & Evil, Call of Duty, Manhunt, PlanetSide, True Crime: Streets of LA, and Viewtiful Joe.
The year's best-selling video game worldwide was Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, the fifth time a Pokémon title was the annual worldwide top-seller (since 1998). The year's most critically acclaimed titles were Grand Theft Auto Double Pack (compilation of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City from previous years) and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (North American release of 2002 game).
Events
February 27 – Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; inducts Yu Suzuki of Sega to the AIAS Hall of Fame.
March 6–9 – Game Developers Conference hosts 3rd annual Game Developers Choice Awards and Gama Network's 5th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF).
April 1 – Enix Corporation and Square Co., Ltd. officially merge, forming Square Enix Co., Ltd.
May 14–16 – 9th annual E³ (Electronic Entertainment Expo) held at Los Angeles Convention Center; 6th annual Game Critics Awards for the Best of E3.
July – IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) hosts 4th annual Executive Summit.
July 16 – Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) renamed as Entertainment Software Association (ESA).
September 12 – Valve releases their game distribution software Steam out of beta.
October 1 – DreamWorks SKG and Tecmo announce a movie adaptation of the video game Fatal Frame has been fast-tracked with John Rogers and Steven Spielberg involvement.
October 20 – Families of Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede, two young adults shot by teens William and Josh Buckner (who in statements to investigators claimed their actions were inspired by Grand Theft Auto III), file a US$246 million lawsuit against developer Rockstar Games, publisher Take-Two Interactive Software, retailer Walmart, and console-maker Sony Computer Entertainment America.
October 31 – British Academy of Film and Television Arts announces that nominations for the 6th annual BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards will instead be split between the 1st annual BAFTA Games Awards for video game publications and (on November 24) the BAFTA Interactive Awards for multimedia technologies; ceremonies to be held in February 2004.
November – Kazushige Nojima resigns from Square Enix.
Hardware
February 14 – Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance SP, an enhanced version of the Game Boy Advance.
March 23 – Nintendo stops production of the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color worldwide.
September 23 – Nintendo stops production of the NES and Super NES worldwide.
Nokia releases the hybrid N-Gage handheld console and mobile phone.
First PlayStation Portable prototype shown by Sony.
Nintendo states that its next generation console would be fully compatible with the GameCube.
Business
Early 2003 – Compile goes defunct.
February 19 – Microsoft announces a deal to buy Connectix Corporation.
Take-Two Interactive buys TDK Mediactive, Inc.
May 7 – Infogrames Entertainment, SA rebrands all its subsidiaries under the Atari brand.
Enix Corporation officially absorbs Square Co., Ltd., forming Square Enix Co., Ltd.
CNN Money reports that video games are a US$10 billion industry
April – Pan European Game Information (PEGI), a European video game content rating system, comes into use.
May – The 3DO Company announces bankruptcy and closes down its New World Computing subsidiary.
June 12 – Obsidian Entertainment founded.
August 1 – Virgin Interactive is renamed to Avalon Interactive by its owner Titus Software.
August – Microsoft announced ATI as the developer of the GPU for their next generation console, Project Xenon. Their previous contract with Nvidia was finished but the GPU of the Xbox continued in production.
September – Silicon Dreams Studio goes defunct.
December – Interplay closes its Black Isle Studios division.
Late 2003 – Nintendo buys shares from Japanese toy and animation conglomerate Bandai making Nintendo one of Bandai's top 10 shareholders.
Late 2003 – Data East goes defunct.
Trends
Computer games continue to lose ground to console video games with a US sales drop of 14% in 2003. Total 2003 entertainment software sales in the United States grew slightly to US$7 billion; console sales increased to $5.8 billion and computer games accounted for the remaining $1.2 billion.
Video game consoles
The dominant video game consoles in 2003 were:
Sony's PlayStation 2
Nintendo's GameCube
Microsoft's Xbox
Sony's PlayStation
Handheld game systems
The dominant handheld systems in 2003 were:
Nintendo's Game Boy Advance
Additionally, two new handheld consoles were introduced in 2003, the Game Boy Advance SP (an enhanced GBA) and Nokia's N-Gage.
Best-selling video games
Japan
United States
PAL regions
Titles with notable critical reception
Metacritic (MC) and GameRankings (GR) are aggregators of video game journalism reviews.
Critically acclaimed titles
Critically panned titles
Notable releases
References
Video games by year
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26122833
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricut
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Cricut
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Cricut is an American brand of cutting plotters, or computer-controlled cutting machines, designed for home crafters. The machines are used for cutting paper, felt, vinyl, fabric and other materials such as leather, matboard, and wood. In March 2021, Cricut filed for an IPO.
Models
The original Cricut machine has cutting mats of , the larger Cricut Explore allows mats of 12 × 12 and 12 × 24. The largest machine will produce letters from a half inch to 23 inches high. Both the Cricut and Cricut Explore Air 2 require mats and blades which can be adjusted to cut through various types of paper, vinyl and other sheet products. The Cricut operates as a paper cutter based upon cutting parameters programmed into the machine, and resembles a desktop printer. Cricut Cake produces stylized edible fondants cut into various shapes from fondant sheets, and is used by chefs in the preparation and ornamentation of cakes.
Cartridges
Designs are made from components stored on cartridges. Each cartridge comes with a keyboard overlay and instruction booklet. The plastic keyboard overlay indicates key selections for that cartridge only. However recently Provo Craft has released a "Universal Overlay" that is compatible with all cartridges released after August 1, 2013. The purpose of the universal overlay is to simplify the process of cutting by only having to learn one keyboard overlay instead of having to learn the overlay for each individual cartridge. Designs can be cut out on a PC with the Cricut Design Studio software, on a USB connected Gypsy machine, or can be directly inputted on the Cricut machine using the keyboard overlay. There are two types of cartridges, shape and font. Each cartridge provides for hundreds of different cuts. Currently over 275 cartridges are available, with new ones regularly released. While some cartridges are generic in content, Cricut has licensing agreements with Disney, Pixar, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, DC Comics and Hello Kitty. The cartridges are interchangeable, although not all options on a cartridge may be available with the smaller machines.
Software
Proprietary
To use Cricut cutters, users must use the company's own web-based design software, Design Space, which allows users to draw designs, select and combine designs from its own online library, or upload vector or bitmap files they've created in other software.
On 12 March 2021, Cricut announced it would be limiting users to 20 free uploads per month to Design Space at an unspecified date; the old unlimited uploads would remain available under a paid subscription. This announcement was criticized by users at the company's unofficial subreddit, and a petition was launched in protest. Following the backlash, its CEO apologized, and Cricut scrapped the plans a few days later.
Past software
The Cricut Craft Room software enabled users to combine images from different cartridges, merge images, and stretch/rotate images; it does not allow for the creation of arbitrary designs. It also enables the user to view the images displayed on-screen before beginning the cutting process, so the end result can be seen in advance.
Citing Adobe's abandonment of Flash, Cricut announced it would be closing Cricut Craft Room on 15 July 2018. Users of "legacy" machines were offered a discount to update to models compatible with Design Space. As of 16 July 2018, Design Space is the only official software available to compose projects. Some third party programs are available and can be used to input the files into Design Space.
Third-party
Provo Craft has been actively hostile to the use of third-party software programs that could enable Cricut owners to cut out designs and to use the machine without depending on its proprietary cartridges. In a comparative review of die-cutting machines, review site TopTenReviews identified being "limited to cutting designs from a collection of cartridges" as a major drawback of the Cricut range, though the review noted that it could be a preference for some.
Two programs which could formerly be used to make and then get Cricut machines to cut out arbitrary designs (using, for example, arbitrary TrueType fonts or SVG format graphics) were Make-the-Cut (MTC) and Craft Edge's Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL). In April 2010 Provo Craft opened legal action against the publishers of Make-the-Cut, and in January 2011 it sued Craft Edge to stop the distribution of the SCAL program. In both cases the publishers settled with Provo Craft, and removed support for Cricut from their products. The programs continue to be usable with other home cutters.
According to the text of its legal complaint against Craft Edge, "Provo Craft uses various techniques to encrypt and obscure the USB communications between Cricut DesignStudio [a design program supplied with the hardware] and the Cricut e-cutter, in order to protect Provo Craft's proprietary software and firmware, and to prevent attempts to intercept the cutting commands". Provo Craft contended that in order to understand and replicate this obscured protocol, Craft Edge had disassembled the DesignStudio program, contrary to the terms of its End User License Agreement, thereby (the company asserted) breaching copyright law. Provo Craft also asserted that Craft Edge were violating its trademark in the word "Cricut" by saying that its software could work with Cricut machines. Provo Craft asserted that this was likely "to cause confusion, mistake or deception as to the source or origin of Defendant's goods or services, and [was] likely to falsely suggest a sponsorship, connection, license, or association of Defendant's goods and services with Provo Craft".
References
Further reading
"Gadgets to Help Make Homemade Crafts." CBS News.
"Even Martha Stewart loves Provo Craft's latest: Cricut Cake." Deseret News.
External links
Handicrafts
Food and drink decorations
Paper art
Companies listed on the Nasdaq
2021 initial public offerings
South Jordan, Utah
Companies based in Salt Lake County, Utah
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4187004
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political%20families%20of%20India
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Political families of India
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Although India is a parliamentary democracy, the country's politics has become dynastic, possibly due to the absence of party organizations, independent civil-society associations which mobilize support for a party, and centralized financing of elections. The dynastic phenomenon is present at the national, state, regional, and district level. The Nehru–Gandhi family has produced three Indian prime ministers, and family members have largely led the Congress party since 1978. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also has several senior dynastic leaders. In addition to the major national parties, other national and regional parties such as Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal Secular, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, AIMIM, and the Nationalist Congress Party are dominated by families.
Nehru–Gandhi family
The Nehru–Gandhi family's involvement with the Congress Party began with Motilal Nehru in the 1920s, when India was still part of the British Empire. The family became more influential under his son, Jawaharlal Nehru, who became a prominent figure in India's nationalist movement. After Jawaharlal's death, his daughter Indira Gandhi became his political heir (her surname came from her husband, Feroze Gandhi. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has dominated the Congress Party since Indian independence in 1947. The party was defeated in the 2014 elections, however, and high-level defections took place in Maharashtra, Assam, West Bengal, and Jammu and Kashmir. The family still has widespread name recognition.
Congress Party
Motilal Nehru - Freedom fighter, politician and lawyer
Jawaharlal Nehru - Freedom fighter, First Indian Prime Minister, 1947–1964 (son of Motilal)
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit - Member of Parliament, diplomat (daughter of Motilal)
Kamala Nehru - Congress Party leader (wife of Jawaharlal)
Indira Gandhi - Prime Minister, 1966–1977 and 1980–1984 (daughter of Jawaharlal)
Rajiv Gandhi - Prime minister, 1984–1989 (son of Indira)
Sonia Gandhi - President of the Congress Party, leading it to victory in two successive Lok Sabha elections (wife of Rajiv)
Rahul Gandhi - Member of Parliament, Congress Party president (son of Rajiv and Sonia)
Priyanka Gandhi - Congress Party general secretary (daughter of Rajiv)
Sanjay Gandhi - Politician (son of Indira)
Varun Gandhi - Former Member of Parliament (son of Sanjay)
Uma Nehru - Member of Parliament (cousin of Indira)
Arun Nehru Former minister (nephew of Indira, son of Uma)
BJP
Maneka Gandhi - Cabinet member of Narendra Modi's government (widow of Sanjay)
Varun Gandhi - Member of Parliament - (son of Sanjay)
Mahatma Gandhi family
Mahatma Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) led the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Gandhi was called the "Father of the Nation" by Subhas Chandra Bose on 6 July 1944 in an address on Singapore Radio. On 28 April 1947, Sarojini Naidu also called Gandhi the Father of the Nation.
In 1885, Gandhi and his wife Kasturba (née Kasturbai Makhanji Kapadia) had their first baby; the baby survived only a few days. They had four more children, all sons: Harilal in 1888, Manilal in 1892, Ramdas in 1897, and Devdas in 1900. Gandhi's family has been less active in politics than Nehru's.
Ambedkar family
B. R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) - Father of the Constitution of India, first Minister of Law and Justice, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, labour member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, opposition leader in the Bombay Legislative Assembly, member of the Bombay Legislative Council
Yashwant Ambedkar (1912-1977) - Leader of the Republican Party of India, member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council (son of B. R.)
Prakash Ambedkar - Leader of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, former Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MP (son of Yashwant)
Anandraj Ambedkar - Leader of the Republican Sena and the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (son of Yashwant)
Sujat Ambedkar (born 1995) — Activist, leader of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (son of Prakash)
Reddy family
Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy ("YSR")Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh from 2004 to 2009
Y. S. Vivekananda ReddyMP and MLA from Andhra Pradesh (brother of YSR)
Y. S. VijayammaChairperson of the YSR Congress Party and MLA in Andhra Pradesh from 2011 to 2014 (wife of YSR)
Y. S. Jaganmohan ReddyChief Minister of Andhra Pradesh since 30 May 2019
Y. S. SharmilaNational chairperson of the YSR Congress Party
Bihar
Yadav family
Lalu Prasad YadavFormer Chief Minister of Bihar, former Union Railway Minister of India, former Lok Sabha member, president of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)
Rabri Devi Yadav — Former CM of Bihar, member of the Bihar Legislative Council (wife)
Tejashwi Yadav — Former Deputy CM of Bihar, leader of the opposition and member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly (son)
Tej Pratap Yadav — Former Minister of Health and Environment in the government of Bihar, member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly (son)
Misa Bharti — Rajya Sabha member (daughter)
Mishra family
Lalit Narayan MishraFormer Railway Minister of India
Jagannath MishraFormer Chief Minister and Union Cabinet Minister (brother of Lalit)
Vijay Kumar MishraMLA, former MP from Janata Dal (United) (son of Lalit)
Nitish MishraRural Development Minister and MLA (son of Jagannath)
Sinha family
Thakur Jugal Kishore SinhaFreedom fighter, member of the first Lok Sabha, known as the father of India's cooperative movement
Ram Dulari SinhaFreedom fighter, member of the first Vidhan Sabha, former Union Minister and governor (wife)
Chhattisgarh
Jogi family
Ajit Jogiformer Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh
Renu Jogi - MLA from Kota, Bilaspur (wife of Ajit)
Shukla family
Shyama Charan ShuklaChief Minister of Madhya Pradesh
Amitesh ShuklaChhattisgarh Rural Development Minister, 2002–2003 (son)
Kashyap family
Baliram KashyapLok Sabha MP from Bastar
Dinesh KashyapLok Sabha MP from Bastar (son)
Singh family
Raman SinghFormer Chhattisgarh Chief Minister
Abhishek SinghLok Sabha MP from Rajnandgaon (son)
Goa
Alemao family
Churchill AlemaoFourth Chief Minister of Goa, former MP from South Goa and MLA from Navelim, MLA from Benaulim
Joaquim AlemaoFormer MLA from Benaulim and Cuncolim (brother)
Bandodkar family
Dayanand BandodkarFirst Chief Minister of Goa, former MLA from Mandrem and Marcaim
Shashikala KakodkarSecond Chief Minister of Goa, former MLA from Ponda, Bicholim and Maem (daughter)
Dhavalikar family
Sudin DhavalikarMLA from Marcaim
Deepak DhavalikarFormer MLA from Priol (brother)
D'Souza family
Francis D'SouzaFormer MLA from Mapusa
Joshua D'SouzaMLA from Mapusa (son)
Gauns family
Gurudas GaunsFormer MLA from Pale
Pratap GaunsFormer MLA from Pale (brother)
Monserrate family
Atanasio MonserrateMLA from Panaji, former MLA from Taleigao and St. Cruz
Jennifer MonserrateMLA from Taleigao (wife)
Rane family
Pratapsingh RaneThird Chief Minister of Goa, MLA from Poriem, former MLA from Sattari
Vishwajit Pratapsingh RaneMLA from Valpoi (son)
Saldanha family
José Matanhy de Saldanhaformer MLA from Cortalim
Alina SaldanhaMLA from Cortalim (wife)
Sequeira family
Jack de SequeiraFirst opposition leader from Goa, former MLA from Panaji and St. Cruz
Erasmo de SequeiraFormer MP from South Goa (son)
Vaz family
John Manuel VazFormer MLA from Mormugao
Giovanni Karl VazFormer MLA from Mormugao (son)
Zantye family
Harish Narayan Prabhu ZantyeFormer MP from North Goa, former MLA from Bicholim and Maem
Pravin ZantyeMLA from Maem (son)
Haryana
Chautala family
Chaudhari Devi Lal (1914–2001) – Deputy Prime Minister of India (1989–91), Chief Minister of Haryana (1977–79 and 1987–1989)
Om Prakash Chautala – Former Chief Minister of Haryana (son)
Ranjit Singh Chautala – Former MLA and Minister of Haryana (son)
Abhay Chautala – MLA in Haryana and former MLA in Rajasthan (son of Om)
Ajay Chautala – MLA, Former MP from Haryana (son of Om)
Naina Chautala – MLA in Haryana (wife of Ajay)
Dushyant Chautala – Current Deputy Chief Minister, former Member of Parliament from Haryana (son of Ajay)
Jindal family
Om Prakash Jindal (1930–2005) – Minister of Power of Haryana (2005), Lok Sabha member (1996–1997), member of Haryana Legislative Assembly (1991–1996, 2005)
Savitri Jindal (1950–) – Member of Haryana Legislative Assembly (2005–), Minister of Power of Haryana 2005–2010 (wife)
Naveen Jindal (1970–) – Lok Sabha member 2004–present (son)
Himachal Pradesh
HP Singh family
Virbhadra Singh (23 June 1934 – 8 July 2021), popularly known as Raja Saheb, was Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, member of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, and a Union Minister in Manmohan Singh and Indira Gandhi's governments. He was a Lok Sabha member from Mandi and Shimla.
Pratibha Singh (born 16 July 1956) – Congress Lok Sabha MP from Mandi (wife)
Vikramaditya Singh (born 17 October 1989)Congress member of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly (son)
Dhumal family
Prem Kumar Dhumal (born 10 April 1944)Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh (March 1998March 2003 and 1 January 200825 December 2012), former Lok Sabha member from Hamirpur
Anurag Singh Thakur (born 24 October 1974)Lok Sabha member from Hamirpur, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs in Narendra Modi's government (son)
Sukh Ram family
Sukh Ram (b. 27 July 1927)Minister of Communications and Information Technology from 1993 to 1996 in the P. V. Narasimha Rao government, Lok Sabha member from Mandi and an MLA
Anil Sharma (b. 30 June 1956)Congress MLA from Mandi in 1993, 2007 and 2012, and a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA in 2017; rejoined the Indian National Congress in 2019 (son)
Jammu and Kashmir
Abdullah family
Sheikh Abdullah - Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir
Begum Akbar Jehan AbdullahMember of Parliament (wife)
Sheikh Mustafa Kamal - MLA (son of Sheikh Abdullah)
Farooq Abdullah - Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (son of Sheikh Abdullah). Farooq's children:
Omar Abdullah - Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and former Union Minister, Government of India (son of Farooq)
Sara Abdullah - Wife of Sachin Pilot former Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan, former Member of Parliament and former Union Minister, Government of India (daughter of Farooq)
Sayeed family
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed - Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir
Mehbooba Mufti - Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (daughter)
Karnataka
Devegowda family
H. D. Devegowda - Former Prime Minister of India, only prime minister from Karnataka , Former Chief Minister of Karnataka and Current Member of Rajya Sabha
H. D. Kumaraswamy - MLA and former chief Minister of Karnataka.(Son of H. D. Devegowda)
Anitha Kumaraswamy - Member of Karnataka Legislative Assembly. (Wife of H. D. Kumaraswamy)
H. D. Revanna - MLA, former Minister of the Karnataka Public Works Department(Son of H. D. Devegowda)
Prajwal Revanna - Member of the 17th Lok Sabha from Hassan (son of H. D. Revanna)
Suraj Revanna - Member of Legislative Council from Hassan Constituency (Son of H. D. Revanna)
Bhavani Revanna - Member of Zilla Panchayth Hassan. (Wife of H. D. Revanna)
Madhya Pradesh
Singh family (Churhat)
Rao Shiv Bahadur Singh (1894–1955) from ChurhatMember of Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet, imprisoned for bribery
Arjun Singh - Former Union Minister for Human Resources Department and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh (son of Rao)
Ajay Arjun SinghFormer cabinet minister in the Madhya Pradesh government and former opposition leader (son of Arjun)
Chaudhary family
Chaudhary Dilip Singh ChaturvediMLA from Bhind
Chaudhary Rakesh Singh ChaturvediFormer cabinet minister, former leader of the opposition, MLA from Bhind (son)
Chaudhary Mukesh Singh ChaturvediMLA from Mehgaon (son)
Chaturvedi family
Vidyawati ChaturvediMLA from Laundi
Satyavrat ChaturvediMember of the Rajya Sabha (son)
Nath family
Kamal NathFormer Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, former Minister of Urban Development, former member of the Lok Sabha from Chhindwara
Alka NathFormer MP from Chhindwara (wife)
Nakul NathMember of the Lok Sabha from Chhindwara (son)
MP Singh family
Balbhadra SinghMLA from Raghogarh
Digvijaya Singh15th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh (son)
Lakshman SinghMLA from Raghogarh (son)
Mool SinghMLA from Raghogarh (nephew)
Vajpayee family
Atal Bihari Vajpayee10th Prime Minister of India
Karuna ShuklaMember of the 14th Lok Sabha (niece)
Maharashtra
Thackeray family
Uddhav Thackeray - Chief Minister of Maharashtra
Aditya Thackeray - Cabinet minister in the Government of Maharashtra (son)
Pawar family
Sharad Pawar – Former Defence Minister of India and Chief Minister of Maharashtra
Supriya Sule – Member of the Lok Sabha From Baramati (daughter)
Ajit Pawar – Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra (nephew)
Rohit Rajendra Pawar - Member of Maharashtra assembly (nephew's son)
Odisha
Patnaik family
Biju Patnaik - Former Chief Minister of Odisha (earlier known as Orissa)
Naveen Patnaik - Chief Minister of Odisha (son)
Biswal family
Basant Kumar Biswal - Former Deputy Chief Minister of Odisha
Chiranjib Biswal - Former deputy opposition leader of the Odisha Legislative Assembly (son)
Pondicherry
Reddiar family
V. Venkatasubha ReddiarFormer Chief Minister of Pondicherry and freedom fighter
V. Vaithilingam ReddiarFormer Chief Minister of Pondicherry (son)
Farook family
M. O. H. FarookFormer Chief Minister of Pondicherry
M. O. H. F. ShahjahanFormer Education Minister of Pondicherry (son)
Punjab
Badal family
Prakash Singh Badal – Former Chief Minister of Punjab
Sukhbir Singh Badal – Former Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, MP (Lok Sabha), president Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) (son)
Harsimrat Kaur Badal – Member of the Lok Sabha (wife of Sukhbir Singh)
Bikram Singh Majithia – Former minister, Punjab (brother of Harsimrat Kaur)
Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon – Minister, Punjab (son-in-law of Prakash Singh)
Brar family
Harcharan Singh Brar-Former Chief Minister & former power minister punjab
Gurbinder Kaur Brar-Former MP (wife)
Kanwarjit Singh Brar (sunny)-former MLA (son)
Karan Kaur Brar former MLA (Daughter in law)
Jaswinder Singh Brar – Former Corporate Minister of Punjab
Mantar Singh Brar – MLA and Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Punjab SAD (son)
Singh (Amarinder) family
Amarinder SinghCM Punjab, former Lok Sabha member, member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly
Preneet KaurMember of the Lok Sabha, former member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly (wife)
Sidhu family
Navjot Singh SidhuMember of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, former minister in the Amarinder Singh government, former Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha member
Navjot Kaur SidhuFormer member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly (wife)
Tamil Nadu
An M. G. Ramachandran Family - AIADMK
M. G. Ramachandran (1917–1987), Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and Founder of AIADMK
V. N. Janaki Ramachandran (1924–1996), Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu; wife of Ramachandran
The V. K. Sasikala Family - Multi Parties
VK Sasikala, Indian Busniesswoman turned Politician and Expelled AIADMK Leader
T. T. V. Dhinakaran, Founding General Secretary Of Ammk
V.K.Dhivakaran, Founding General Secretary Of Anna Dravidar Kazhagam
The Karunanidhi family - DMK
M. Karunanidhi – former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
M. K. Muthu (son of Karunanidhi) – Indian Actor, Singer and Politician.
M.K. Stalin (son of Karunanidhi) – Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
Udhayanidhi Stalin (son of M.K. Stalin) – Tamil cinema producer, actor, politician and MLA.
M.K. Alagiri, son of Karunanidhi – former Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers
Dayanidhi Azhagiri, son of Azhagiri – Tamil cinema producer and distributor.
Kanimozhi (daughter of Karunanidhi) – Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
Murasoli Maran (nephew of Karunanidhi) – former Union Minister, Government of India
Dayanidhi Maran (son of Maran) – former Union Minister for Textiles
Kalanidhi Maran (son of Maran) – Chairman and Managing Director of Sun Group, which was the most profitable television network in Asia.
The Ramadoss Family - PMK
S. Ramadoss – PMK founder, Tamil Nadu politician
Anbumani Ramadoss – former Cabinet Minister and Member of Parliament (MP) from Rajya Sabha
Dr. M. K. Vishnu Prasad - Member of Parliament INC(Lok Sabha-Arani Constituency) and son of former MP M.Krishnasamy (Former TNCC Leader) who is also father in law of Anbumani Ramdoss.
The Kumaramangalam Family [multi-party]
Kumaramangalam family is in politics for 4 generations (great grandfather, grandfather, father & son and aunt)
P. Subbarayan – Premier (Prime Minister) of Madras Presidency, 1926 - 1930.
Radhabai Subbarayan (wife of Dr. P. Subbarayan)
Mohan Kumaramangalam – Politician of Indian National Congress and Union Cabinet Minister, Government of India
Parvathi Krishnan – Member of Parliament (MP) from Communist Party for 3 terms.
Rangarajan Kumaramangalam – Politician of Indian National Congress and Union Cabinet Minister, Government of India
Lalitha Kumaramangalam – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician
R. Mohan Kumaramangalam, an alumnus of MIT, USA (grandson of Mohan Kumaramangalam) presently the Working President of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, President of TN Professional Congress & Coordinator of Southern Chapter (5 states & 1 UT) of AIPC.
The Rajagopalachari Family - Congress
Late C. Rajagopalachari, Chief Minister of Madras Presidency (1937–40), Madras State (1952–54), Governor of West Bengal (1946–48), Governor-General of India (1948–50). Union Minister in Government of India (1950–52).
Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Governor of West Bengal.
C. R. Narasimhan, Former Member of Lok Sabha from Krishnagiri.
The C.P.Ramaswami Iyer family - Congress
C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, Member of Madras Legislative Council and Diwan of Travancore.
C. R. Pattabhi Raman, Former Member of Lok Sabha from Kumbakonam.
The Bhaktavatsalam Family - Congress
M. Bhaktavatsalam, Chief Minister of Madras state (1962–1967).
Jayanthi Natarajan, Former Member of Indian Parliament.
The G. K. Moopanar Family - TMC
Late G. K. Moopanar, Indian politician and founder of the Tamil Maanila Congress.
G. K. Vasan, Former Union Minister in Government of India.
The Vaiko Family - MDMK
Vaiko, founder of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Durai Vaiyapuri, Internet wing MDMK.
An O. Panneerselvam Family - AIADMK
O. Panneerselvam (1951–), Former Chief Minister And Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and Coordinator of AIADMK
P. Ravindhranath (1980–), Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha; son of Panneerselvam
The P.T.R Family - DMK
P. T. Rajan, Chief Minister of Madras Presidency in 1936.
P. T. R. Palanivel Rajan, former Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and Minister in the State Cabinet.
P.T.R.Palanivel Thiyagarajan , finance minister of Tamil Nadu.
The Durai Murugan Family - DMK
Durai Murugan (Current Minister for Water Resources of Tamil Nadu)
Kathir Anand Member of Parliament from Vellore (Lok Sabha constituency) (Only Son of Durai Murugan)
The T R Balu Family - DMK
T R Balu Member of Parliament from Sriperumbudur (Lok Sabha constituency)
T R B Rajaa an MLA from Mannargudi constituency
The V. Thangapandian Family - DMK
V. Thangapandian Former MLA Aruppukottai (state assembly constituency)
Thangam Thennarasu, Son of V. Thangapandian. Minister for Department of Industries , Tamil Official Language, Tamil Culture and Archeology Minister of Tamil nadu]]
Thamizhachi Thangapandian, Daughter of V. Thangapandian. She is member of Parliament Chennai South (Lok Sabha constituency)
The I. Periyasamy Family - DMK
I. Periyasamy, 2021 Minister of Co-operation, Government of Tamilnadu.
I P Senthil Kumar, Son of I.Periyasamy, an MLA from Attur (state assembly constituency)
The Anbil P. Dharmalingam Family - DMK
Anbil P. Dharmalingam, was one of the founder-members of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)
Anbil Poyyamozhi, son of Anbil P. Dharmalingam, Former minister of School Education of Tamil Nadu,
Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, son of Anbil Poyyamozhi a member of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Minister for School Education in Tamil Nadu
Anbil Periyasamy, son of Anbil P. Dharmalingam, Former Member of the Legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu, Tiruchirappalli – II
The K. Anbazhagan Family - DMK
K. Anbazhagan, Former minister of Finance.
A.Vetriazhagan, Grandson of K. Anbazhagan, an MLA from Villivakkam (state assembly constituency)
The K. Ponmudy Family - DMK
K. Ponmudy, Minister of Higher Education of Tamil Nadu
Gautham Sigamani, Son of K.Ponmudy, an MP from Kallakurichi (Lok Sabha constituency)
The Aladi Aruna (alias) V Arunachalam Family - DMK
Aladi Aruna, Former Minister of Law
Poongothai Aladi Aruna, Daughter of Aladi Aruna, Former minister of Tamil Nadu for Information Technology
The N. V. Natarajan - DMK
N. V. Natarajan, founding member of DMK. He was former minister for Labour and Backward classes in Tamil Nadu Government during 1969 - 1975
N. V. N. Somu Son of N. V. Natarajan. He was former Lok Shaba member.
Kanimozhi NVN Somu Daughter of N. V. N. Somu Member of Rajya Shaba from DMK.
The Arcot N. Veeraswami Family - DMK
Arcot N. Veeraswami Former treasurer of DMK, Former Minister of DMK
Kalanidhi Veeraswamy Member of Lok Shaba from North Chennai constituency
Tripura
Tripura Singh family
Sachindra Lal Singh - Former chief minister of Tripura
Asish Lal Singh - State president of Trinamool Congress (son)
Uttar Pradesh
UP Yadav family
Mulayam Singh Yadav – former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, former Defence Minister of India
Shivpal Singh Yadav – Minister in the government of Uttar Pradesh (brother)
Ram Gopal Yadav – Minister in the UP government (brother)
Akhilesh Yadav – Former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (son of Mulayam)
Dimple Yadav – Lok Sabha MP (daughter-in-Law of Mulayam)
Singh (Kalyan) family
Kalyan SinghFormer Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and governor of Rajasthan
Sandip SinghMinister of State in Uttar Pradesh (grandson)
West Bengal
Subhas Chandra Bose family
Subhas Chandra BoseIndian nationalist
Sharat Chandra Bose
Subrata Bose - Member of parliament (MP) from Barasat Lok Sabha constituency 2004-2009 (youngest son of Sarat Chandra Bose and nephew of Subhas Chandra Bose)
Sisir Kumar Bose
Krishna Bose - MP from Jadavpur 1996-2004 (wife of Sisir Kumar Bose, Subhas Chandra Bose's nephew)
Sugata Bose - Lok Sabha MP from Jadavpur 2014-2019 (Sisir Kumar Bose and Krishna Bose's son)
Dasmunsi family
Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi - Former cabinet minister in the government of India
Deepa Dasmunsi - Former Minister of State for Urban Development in the government of India (wife)
Banerjee family
Mamata Banerjee - Chief Minister of West Bengal
Abhishek Banerjee - MP from Diamond Harbour constituency (nephew)
Bandopadhyay family
Sudip Bandyopadhyay - MP from the Kolkata Uttar constituency
Nayana Bandyopadhyay - MLA (wife)
Ahmed family
Sultan Ahmed - MP and former Union Minister of State for Tourism Department, government of India
Sajda Ahmed - MP from the Uluberia constituency (wife)
Iqbal Ahmed - MLA and former deputy mayor of Kolkata (brother)
Chatterjee family
Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee - MP from Hoogly
Somnath Chatterjee - Speaker of the Lok Sabha and MP from Bolpur (son)
References
India politics-related lists
Lists of Indian families
Lists of political families
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22923569
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecureWare
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SecureWare
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SecureWare Inc., founded in 1986 developed software and encryption technology for securing Unix-based operating systems. Its secure operating system was used to help secure the world's first internet bank, Security First Network Bank (S1 Technologies). SecureWare also worked closely with HP's federal division to develop security products, such as the trusted operating system, used by the U.S. Department of Defense for certain military information.
In 1996, SecureWare's internet system security division was sold to Hewlett Packard. The rest of SecureWare was acquired by Security First Network Bank later that same year.
References
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_Dec_4/ai_17799106/
"SecureWare sells Internet system security to HP, concentrates on Internet application security.." The Free Library. 1996 Business Wire 19 Feb. 2016
Defunct software companies of the United States
Computer security software companies
Hewlett-Packard acquisitions
Companies established in 1986
1986 establishments in the United States
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33704625
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaGlest
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MegaGlest
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MegaGlest is a free and open source real-time strategy computer game in a fantasy world, mixing elements of re-imagined past civilizations, magic and steampunk. It is an actively developed fork of the 2004 game Glest, which is no longer under development.
Gameplay
MegaGlest is set in a fantasy world with seven factions: Magic, Tech, Indians, Egypt, Norsemen, Persian and Romans, which together form the Megapack. Each come with their own set of units, buildings and upgrades, advantages and disadvantages, which allows for variation in strategy while keeping a balanced gameplay. For example, the Tech faction uses traditional human warriors and has medieval mechanical devices in its arsenal, and are strong in melee combat while the Magic faction is designed for more advanced players with most of their units morphed from or summoned by others. Magic lacks the hand-to-hand combat strength of the Tech faction but features more versatile units. Tilesets are selected at the new game setup menu and determine the graphical nature of the MegaGlest game world. MegaGlest provides cross-platform online multiplayer LAN/Internet support.
Because of the modability of the engine, MegaGlest can play games from a variety of player-created mods and total conversions, spanning very different themes. The Japanese mod is an artistic mod with units and buildings inspired by historic Japanese warfare. Prax is another fantasy-themed tech tree which bears some similarities to MegaGlest's Magic and Tech factions but improves upon them, bearing both units and structures with very different properties and making use of newer engine features. The Military Glest and Enemies and Allies mods have a contemporary warfare theme and the Vbros Mods have a variety of factions; British, Western, Pirates, Canadians, Crusaders, Dark Knights, USA, Moon, Chess, Penguins, and much more.
Game engine
While the term MegaGlest is usually used to refer to the complete game, the game engine, referred to as MegaGlest Engine, may also be used to create separate games. At this time, there is one released game which is built on the MegaGlest Engine: Annex - Conquer the World, another free and open source real-time strategy game, has a futuristic scenery with Manga elements, vehicle and hero units, and is therefore quite different from MegaGlest. Two more games are under development, planning to combine the open source engine with proprietary assets.
Development
MegaGlest, a cross-platform game, is a continuation of real-time classic Glest, which has not been developed since April 2009. The MegaGlest game intends to continue in Glest'''s spirit and with similar gameplay, while improving existing features and adding more functionality, and therefore continues to use the Glest versioning scheme. The MegaGlest engine is designed to be moddable, with game elements defined by editable XML files. While a map editor and a model viewer are included, additional game assets can also be developed using separate open source applications (such as Blender) and are stored in open and documented formats (PNG, JPEG, Ogg) and the software's own G3D Glest model file format.MegaGlest focuses on stable releases which provide reliable cross platform multi-player games while implementing new features and delivering new game content. The engine is continuously improved but this is of secondary exiguity after stability. Another Glest fork, GAE, was primarily oriented towards extending the game engine and providing more options for full conversions, and was more experimental in nature. In 2011 it was suggested that the two forks should merge, but due to different philosophies and goals amongst the developers of both forks this effort was called off during the planning stage.
Hosted originally on SourceForge, in 2013 the project migrated to GitHub.
Reception
MegaGlest was positively reviewed by several gaming sites,Echtzeitstrategie Mega Glest für Linux und Windows on golem.de by Jörg Thoma (12.7.2010) and downloaded 300,000 times alone from SourceForge between 2010 and 2016.
TuxArena.com: Except for the game saving issue, MegaGlest has everything you would expect from a 3D RTS.'' (MegaGlest 3.6.0)
Softsea.com: Rating: 5 of 5 stars (as of November 2012)
SourceForge: User Rating: 98% recommended (as of February 2013).
FreewareFiles.com: Editors Pick, User Rating: 4.74 of 5.00 stars (as of February 2013).
Linux Games DB: User Rating: 8.1 of 10 (as of February 2013).
Softpedia.com: User Rating: 4.9 of 5.0 stars (as of February 2013).
MacGameScout: User Rating: 4.9 of 5.0 stars (as of February 2013).
PenguSpy.com: User Rating: 9.53 of 10.00 stars (as of February 2013).
A golem.de review in 2010 was favorable. In 2012 a Free software magazine review called the game "a fantastic, free software strategy 3D game".
See also
List of open source games
References
External links
Free software programmed in C++
Strategy video games
Open-source video games
Linux games
Windows games
AROS software
Real-time strategy video games
Software that uses wxWidgets
Creative Commons-licensed video games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
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1513791
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-52%20%28cipher%20machine%29
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C-52 (cipher machine)
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The (Hagelin) C-52 and CX-52 were cipher machines manufactured by Crypto AG starting 1951/1952. These pin-and-lug type cipher machines were advanced successors of the C-38/M-209. The machine measures . The device is mechanical, but when combined with an electric keyboard attachment, the B-52, the resultant system is termed the BC-52. The B-52 is larger, measuring .
The Hell 54 was a licensed copy of the C-52 by German company Hell.
Structure and operation
Both C and CX models are equipped with six pinwheels. In the C-52 version, these six wheels are chosen from a possible set of 12, with the number of pins on each wheel being 25, 26, 29, 31, 34, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 46, and 47. The C model had a fixed stepping system with a large wheel cycle due to the mutually prime factors in the pin counts. The CX-52 version has 6 pinwheels with 47 pins each and a flexible wheel movement system. The lug cage of both models contains 32 movable bars: 27 of the bars are used for encryption and the remaining 5 bars control the stepping of the pinwheels. The early CX models used the control bars also for encryption but due to complications in creating acceptable lug settings later CX models used these bars only for controlling of the wheel stepping. The stepping of the CX wheels was controlled by adjustable lugs on the control bars.
The C-52 and CX-52 were very flexible machines that could be produced in various ways, creating a unique machine with unique cryptographic characteristics for each customer. There were special detachable wheel movement bars and their position on the drum could change, interchangeable print wheels, custom pinwheel labels, versions with One-time Tape reader instead of wheels, versions that only enciphered numbers, and many other details that influenced the enciphering process.
Breaking and compromising
There is some speculation that the CX-52 might have been broken by communist signals intelligence services of East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Many of the C-52 and CX-52 machines sold by Crypto AG were compromised to benefit the US and British national signals intelligence agencies, National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), respectively. For details, see Crypto AG § Compromised machines.
See also
Operation Rubicon (Crypto AG)
M-209
C-36 (cipher machine)
CD-57
Notes and references
External links
H. Paul Greenough, Cryptanalysis of the Hagelin C-52 and similar machines a known plaintext attack, Cryptologia, 23(2), July 1999, pp139–156.
Louis Kruh, The Hagelin Cryptographer, Type C-52, Cryptologia 3(2), April 1979, pp78–82.
Jan Bury, From the Archives: CX-52 Messages Read by Red Poles?, Cryptologia 33(4), October 2009, pp347–352.
Jan Bury, Polish Cold War Codebreaking of 1959–1989: A Preliminary Assessment, Cryptologia 36(4), October 2012, pp341–379.
Technical details of the C-52 and CX-52 Encryption principle and machine variations, by Dirk Rijmenants
Dirk Rijmenants' Hagelin BC-52 Simulator
The HAGELIN cryptographer CX-52 by Torbjorn Andersson — a write-up, photograph and a QBASIC simulator.
Jerry Proc's page on the CX-52 — also covers the B-52 keyboard unit.
Photographs: , , , , ,
Jerry Proc's page on the Hell 54 — a licensed copy of the C-52 by Hell
Descriptions from sales of C-52 and CX-52 equipment
CX-52 Cryptographic Machine & B-52 Motorized Base
CX-52-related Stasi files
Encryption devices
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17258562
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITGC
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ITGC
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IT general controls (ITGC) are controls that apply to all systems, components, processes, and data for a given organization or information technology (IT) environment. The objectives of ITGCs are to ensure the proper development and implementation of applications, as well as the integrity of programs, data files, and computer operations.
The most common ITGCs:
Logical access controls over infrastructure, applications, and data.
System development life cycle controls.
Program change management controls.
Data center physical security controls.
System and data backup and recovery controls.
Computer operation controls.
General Computer Controls
ITGCs may also be referred to as General Computer Controls (GCC) which are defined as:
Controls, other than application controls, which relate to the environment within which computer-based application systems are developed, maintained and operated, and which are therefore applicable to all applications. The objectives of general controls are to ensure the proper development and implementation of applications, the integrity of program and data files and of computer operations. Like application controls, general controls may be either manual or programmed. Examples of general controls include the development and implementation of an IS strategy and an IS security policy, the organization of IS staff to separate conflicting duties and planning for disaster prevention and recovery.
Global Technology Audit Guide (GTAG)
GTAGs are written in straightforward business language to address a timely issue related to information technology (IT) management, control, and security. To date, the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) has released GTAGs on the following topics:
GTAG 1: Information Technology Controls
GTAG 2: Change and Patch Management Controls: Critical for Organizational Success
GTAG 3: Continuous Auditing: Implications for Assurance, Monitoring, and Risk Assessment
GTAG 4: Management of IT Auditing
GTAG 5: Managing and Auditing Privacy Risks
GTAG 6: Managing and Auditing IT Vulnerabilities
GTAG 7: Information Technology Outsourcing
GTAG 8: Auditing Application Controls
GTAG 9: Identity and Access Management
GTAG 10: Business Continuity Management
GTAG 11: Developing the IT Audit Plan
GTAG 12: Auditing IT Projects
GTAG 13: Fraud Prevention and Detection in the Automated World
GTAG 14: Auditing User-developed Applications
GTAG 15: Formerly Information Security Governance--Removed and combined with GTAG 17
GTAG 16: Data Analysis Technologies
GTAG 17: Auditing IT Governance
See also
Information technology controls
Internal Audit
Internal Control
SOX 404 top–down risk assessment
References
GTAG 8: Christine Bellino, Jefferson Wells, July 2007
GTAG 8: Steve Hunt, Enterprise Controls Consulting LP, Enterprise Controls Consulting LP, July 2007
ISACA Glossary of terms
External links
The Institute of Internal Auditors
Information Systems Audit and Control Association
Auditing
Information technology audit
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42172992
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die%20Gstettensaga%3A%20The%20Rise%20of%20Echsenfriedl
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Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl
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Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl (The Gstetten Saga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl) is a 2014 Austrian science fiction and fantasy film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner and starring Sophia Grabner, Lukas Tagwerker and Jeff Ricketts.
The absurdist comedy deals with the politics and hype behind media technology and nerd culture. Grenzfurthner calls his film a contemporary way to talk about the critique of the spectacle and commodity fetishism. The film was co-produced by art group monochrom and the media collective Traum & Wahnsinn, and created for the Austrian television channel ORF III. It features music by Kasson Crooker, Starpause, and many others.
Plot
The growing tension between the last two remaining superpowers - China and Google - escalates in the early 21st century, and results in the global inferno of the "Google Wars". But as the decades go by, radioactive dust settles on old battlegrounds, and a New World rises from the ashes of the old.
Fratt Aigner, a seedy journalist, and Alalia Grundschober, a nerdy technician, live and work in Mega City Schwechat: the biggest semi-urban sprawl in the foothills of what remained of the Alps. Thurnher von Pjölk, who invented the printing press and runs the only newspaper around, feels threatened by the rise of a new generation of tech-savvy DIY nerds, who he fears will ruin his monopoly. He gives Alalia and Fratt the task to venture into the depths of Niederpröll and conduct a tele-o-vision interview with Echsenfriedl; a mythical genius that has a large fan base among the nerds.
Pjölk sends off Alalia and Fratt equipped with a broadcasting vehicle (a wheelbarrow full of recording equipment) to live broadcast the interview with Echsenfriedl on tele-o-vision. Fratt is very skeptical of leaving the safety of the Mega City, but Alalia is a huge fan of Echsenfriedl and has investigated into his hiding place on earlier occasions. She sees this as a golden opportunity to find Echsenfriedl and boost her agenda of social change through technology.
The road to finding Echsenfriedl is not an easy task and things start to go wrong as soon as they reach the border, which is protected by the Postal Service, who try to uphold civilization and fight structurelessness. The Postal Service confiscates their recording equipment and send Alalia and Fratt away in despair. They are abducted by a group of barbarians: descendants of farmers, in a cargo cult based on relics of office material, bureaucracy and vague memories of European Union agricultural grants. Alalia and Fratt have to blast their way out and manage to escape before they end up as a sacrifice.
Aliana and Fratt wander the post-nuclear boondocks until they stumble upon a mining colony. They find shelter in a seemingly-abandoned underground structure, but discover a wondrous old lady, Philine-Codec Comtesse de Cybersdorf, who used to be married to Pjölk until he tried to kill her in a rage, which ends in her losing a leg. She tells Aliana and Fratt that it was actually Echsenfriedl who was the re-inventor of the printing press, and he the creative brain behind Pjölk's ideas and thoughts. Pjölk was the man in public only because it was impossible for Echsenfriedl. The Comtesse is about to tell them crucial information about Echsenfriedl, but then cannibalizing undead striking miners invade the room and kill her before she gets the chance to reveal the truth.
Having managed to escape the working-class zombie miners, they encounter the bearded libertarian drag queen Heinz Rand of Raiká, who leads a group of tinsel-dressed free market enthusiasts living on trading useless pre-war electronics for more useless pre-war electronics. Alalia sees that Heinz has the equipment that the Postal Service took from them and she trades it back by helping the group to get their useless electronics working again. Having helped out Heinz, he then tells them where to find Echsenfriedl and even offers his daughter Ayn as a guide to the location.
Alalia and Fratt, with the guidance of Ayn, finally reach their destination and prepare for the live broadcast. They contact Pjölk, who happily commands them to begin the transmission, then he turns off his tele-o-visor and sits down in front of his typewriter to create the headline article for tomorrow's issue of his tabloid. He fabricates an entire story based on how he is distressed for being responsible for killing the nerd viewers, and where he makes a statement saying that there should be a law banning tele-o-vision forever. Not yet aware of the danger they are putting themselves in, Alalia and Fratt start broadcasting and begin their quest through the lair, following Ayn of Raiká.
On seeing Echsenfriedl, Ayn gets turned into stone: Echsenfriedl is a basilisk. Hiding behind a corner and out of view, Echsenfriedl tells Alalia and Fratt about his life. By dating the Comtesse, he upset his greedy partner Pjölk. Pjölk's sinister plan was to murder all the early adopters of tele-o-vision with a single broadcast of Echsenfriedl's deadly eyes. The nerds can hear the audio of this broadcast, and react with repulsion and anger, attacking Pjölk's office. Echsenfriedl hires Alalia and Fratt as his crew to build a new media empire based on his marvelous new technologies. The films ends with Alalia and Fratt live broadcasting a lynch mob of book-burning nerds, who are the fervent supporters of Echsenfriedl's New World Order of technological dominance.
Cast
Sophia Grabner ... as Alalia Grundschober
Lukas Tagwerker ... as Fratt Aigner
Martin Auer ... as Thurnher von Pjölk
Roland Gratzer ... as Postal Officer Böllerbauer
Evelyn Fürlinger ... as Postal Officer Wottl
Jeff Ricketts ... as Chairman of Farmers' Association
Eva-Christina Binder ... as Philine-Codec Comtesse de Cybersdorf
David Dempsey ... as Heinz Rand of Raiká
Harald Homolka-List ... as Chief Auctioneer of Raiká
Conny Lee ... as Ayn of Raiká
Joe Baumgartner ... as the voice of Echsenfriedl
Production
Writing
The basic script, although many scenes were improvised, was written by Johannes Grenzfurthner and Roland Gratzer in a couple of days in November 2013, based on their theatre performance Campaign (Volkstheater, 2006). Some of the ideas were brainstormed at a coffee shop in Vienna with the entire production crew. The film contains dialogues in English, German, a variety of slangs, dialects, accents, and fictitious languages. Subtitles are an integral part of the story.
Financing
The film was commissioned by Austrian broadcasting station ORF III as part of the series "Artist-in-Residence" for a budget of approximately 5000 EUR. It can therefore be considered microfilmmaking or guerrilla filmmaking.monochrom also used an embedded prank to raise money. The movie contains a text insert similar to watermarks used in festival viewing copies. The text insert asks the viewer to report the film as copyright infringement by calling a premium-rate phone number (1.09 EUR/minute). The film aired on Austrian national television in March 2014. Grenzfurthner co-financed the film with proceeds from the premium-rate number. According to Telepolis he calls this new strategy 'crowdratting.'
Filming
Principal photography commenced on December 2, 2013, and ended January 19, 2014, but only a total of 5 days of principal photography. That left around 5 weeks for post-production and editing.
Music
Due to the fast production process and the financial limitations, no film score was composed for "Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl". Grenzfurthner instead uses an assortment of 8bit, synth pop and electronica tracks. Grenzfurthner chose songs with a specific retro quality because "they may sound old-school to us, but not in the world of the Gstettensaga, where all retro electronic music is still impossible and futuristic."The film features music by Symbion Project (Kasson Crooker), Max Beseda, Yakov, Robot City, Robert Glashüttner, Christoph Burstup Weiss, Krach der Roboter, BLEO and Starpause, Stefan Franke, Leigh Howells.
Distribution
The film first aired on March 10, 2014, in Austria on ORF III.It screens at film festivals and conventions like Gen Con 2014, Fright Night Film Fest 2014, Hackers on Planet Earth 2014, Roswell Filmfest and Cosmicon 2014, PhutureCon 2014, NYC Independent Film Festival, the International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema 2015 (London).The film was released online on December 25, 2015.
Reception
Critical response
Amy R. Handler of Film Threat gave the film 5 (of 5) stars: "Grenzfurthner's outspoken, swiftly flying little flick is the must-see indie of 2014, as far as I'm concerned. Everyone, be they intellectuals, political-types, or simply those that love great blackly comic, sensual horror, will fall madly in love with 'Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl'. See it, as soon as possible, and I promise you'll never be bored at the movies again." Net culture magazine Furtherfield calls it a "hackploitation art house film" that reimagines "the makerspace as grindhouse", a "retro-futuristic post-cyberpunk adventure in the tradition of cinema grotesque". Gstettensaga's "fascinating cinematic pastiche is more than just a firework of rhizomatic intertextuality, a symptom of the depthlessness of postmodern aesthetics or excessive enthusiasm for experimentation in the field of form. In their infamous 1972 book Anti-Oedipus, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari have identified the technique of bricolage as the characteristic mode of production under 'schizophrenic' capitalism, a facet triumphantly magnified by the filmmakers." Hacker magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly interprets the film as a call to class consciousness for hackers: "Setting the film in the future forces hackers to confront a choice: Will we let ourselves and our ingenuity be recuperated by all-consuming market forces? Or will we come together - as is our potential - as the class that ends capitalism's conquest to secure all means of production?" Pop culture theorist Stefan Tiron comments that he is "overenthusiastic about Gstettensaga - because it distracts the Hollywood canon, because it is such a genre bender, a satiric H bomb, a horror movie and ex-auction house vaudeville going for the unexpected dialectical turns of current history, and leading us into the untrodden and definitely outrageous wastelands that could be populated by the likes of Surf Nazis Must Die, Escape from New York, Steel Dawn or America 3000." Jason Scott Sadofsky calls it "the best kind of low-budget filmmaking", it is like "watching an absurdist play by Beckett, if Beckett decided to work on the Mad Max franchise." V. Vale was "struck by the beautiful imagery and sound, mythological plot dimensions" and Richard Kadrey calls it a "mad post-collapse satire of information culture and tech fetishism, in a weird sort of melding of Stalker, Network, and The Bed-Sitting Room." Political scholar Sebastian Vetter interprets the satirical dimension of the plot: "The old world has been reduced to ashes by the earlier beacons of hope (China stands for Maoism and Google for alternative culture). All that remains are stretches of land governed by idiocy and dialects. As Marxists, the people from Monochrom know that only the revolution can free us from capitalism. And yet the revolution is no more alive than unicorns are." Film critic Bonni Rambatan says that the film "forces us to think deeper about the fact that much of today's romanticized revolutions often go eerily hand in hand with the development of digital capitalism. Few films today, if any, manage to do such a feat." German online magazine Telepolis praised the eclectic, multi-layered humor.The film has a fan following in the hacker and tech community.
Awards
The film won Best Foreign Horror Feature at the 2014 Indie Gathering International Film Festival, won Best Hacker Feature at the 2014 PhutureCon Festival, won Best Foreign Cult Movie at the 2014 Fright Night Film Fest and won Best Narrative Feature at the Maker Film Festival. It was nominated for Best Feature at Colortape International Film Festival and Best Foreign Language Feature Film, Best Director of a Foreign Language Film and Best Soundtrack at the 2015 International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema (London). Microfilmmaker Magazine awarded the movie an Award of Superiority (9.5/10). The Indie Fest awarded the movie an Award of Merit. The 2015 'DIY Film Festival' in Los Angeles awarded the film a 'honorable mention'.
See also
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
References
External links
Official homepage
Film online on Vimeo
2014 television films
2014 films
2010s science fiction comedy films
2010s fantasy-comedy films
2014 independent films
Absurdist fiction
Austrian comedy films
Austrian satirical films
Austrian films
Austrian independent films
Austrian television films
Cyberpunk films
Dystopian films
English-language films
Films about nuclear war and weapons
Films about technological impact
Films set in Austria
German-language films
German-language television shows
Monochrom
Post-apocalyptic films
Films directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGov%20Foundation
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OpenGov Foundation
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The OpenGov Foundation is a United States non-partisan, non-profit organization that bridges the gap between citizens and government with modern technology, data and design thinking. The organization conducts user-centered research inside legislatures like the United States Congress, develops software for those who serve in government, and helps governments create policies and rules that support openness and effective engagement with the public.
The organization was co-founded by Seamus Kraft and Congressman Darrell Issa in 2012, and it is currently funded primarily by the Democracy Fund, Twilio.org, Todd Park and Matt Cutts. In the past, The OpenGov Foundation has been funded by the Knight Foundation, Shuttleworth Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation and the Consumer Technology Association. The organization is based in Washington, D.C and has offices in Philadelphia, PA and Wichita, KS.
The OpenGov Foundation grew out of the 2011-2012 protests against SOPA and PIPA, creating a platform called Madison that allowed the public to directly and effectively engage alongside Members of Congress in the legislative process. It received a $200,000 grant from the Knight Foundation in 2013, an additional $750,000 from Knight in 2014, and over $700,000 from the Shuttleworth Foundation since 2014. In 2017, The OpenGov Foundation received $150,000 from the Twilio.org Impact Fund and $100,000 from Todd Park.
In May 2017, The OpenGov Foundation released the fourth and last version of the Madison open source legislative engagement software. In June 2017, it began development of Article One, a cloud-based voice and SMS tool that supports meaningful engagement at scale between citizens and their Members of Congress.
Current Projects
Article One
In May 2017, Twilio.org's Impact Fund awarded The OpenGov Foundation $150,000 to support the development of the Article One prototype. In June 2017, The OpenGov Foundation began in the U.S. Congress the development of Article One, a cloud-based communications tool that efficiently connects citizens and those who serve on their behalf in government.
Article One leverages Twilio, Google Speech and Amazon Web Services to translate constituent communications into understandable, useful and actionable information for elected officials and government staff. The product is designed to help government better handle the skyrocketing volume of constituent telephone calls and other forms of communications, more effectively hear what their constituents are saying, and become more responsive to those they represent.
Article One integrates directly with existing government communications infrastructure and constituent management software; for example, in the U.S. Congress Article One is integrated directly with constituent management system software provided by Fireside21 and Intranet Quorum. In February 2017, GovTech.com reported that seven Members of Congress were using Article One to better engage with their constituents.
The OpenGov Foundation publicly demonstrated Article One to the Third Congressional Hackathon organized by Congressman Steny Hoyer and Congressman Kevin McCarthy in November 2017. This was the first public product demo of Article One, which CSPAN's "The Communicators" featured on May 20, 2018.
In May 2018, The OpenGov Foundation and U.S. Congressman Rick Crawford launched an SMS-based engagement prototype as the second feature of Article One.
User-Centered Research: "From Voicemails to Votes"
During 2017, The OpenGov Foundation conducted the first-ever user-centered research on the United States Congress, publishing its findings and data under an open license as "From Voicemails to Votes." To conduct the research, a team of four researchers embedded in 20 Congressional offices for four months, shadowing 58 staffers in both Washington, D.C. and district offices. According to Wired, the research "shows that despite how fractured Congress appears, constituent outreach really can work."
"From Voicemails to Votes" focuses on answering three core questions about Congressional operations and constituent communications. First, how do Congressional teams manage the process and operations of constituent engagement? Second, how does constituent input shape actions and decisions made by Members of Congress and their staff? And third, what capacity do Congressional teams have for change?
In "From Voicemails to Votes," The OpenGov Foundation published user stories for every role in a Congressional office, assessed technologies and mapped workflows currently in use for communicating with constituents, and put forward actionable recommendations to improve the efficiency, responsiveness and satisfaction of constituent engagement operations on Capitol Hill.
The Congressional Digital Service
During 2015 and 2016, The OpenGov Foundation developed the plan for the Congressional Digital Service (CDS) "to enable a more responsive and open Congress" with modern technology, design thinking and data science. The Democracy Fund supported the development of the CDS plan with a $175,000 grant. In 2017, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer drafted legislation to adopt The OpenGov Foundation's plan and create the CDS within the U.S. Library of Congress. As of May 2018, The Congressional Digital Service Act is awaiting formal introduction.
CDS was inspired by two things. First, the successes of the government digital services teams founded under President Barack Obama—the United States Digital Service and 18F—which pioneered public sector adoption of modern product and service design practices. Second, a nation-wide series of Congressionally-focused hackathons co-organized by The OpenGov Foundation and the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation--#Hack4Congress—demonstrated both growing interest for public service within the tech sector and the demand for better digital services within the U.S. Congress.
The OpenGov Foundation's Executive Director Seamus Kraft has spoken widely on the need for CDS. At a March 13, 2017 event at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Kraft underscored the need for the CDS, saying, "Congress has been in the middle of a slow-motion Healthcare.gov crisis for decades. We have a Congress that is struggling with tech and the Internet age."
People
Staff
The OpenGov Foundation's full-time staff includes Executive Director Seamus Kraft, Deputy Executive Director Patrick Bateman, Director of Product Aaron Ogle, Senior Engineer Tanner Doshier, and Senior Engineer Seth Etter.
The OpenGov Foundation's contract staff includes: Mollie Ruskin, Esther Kang, Hanya Moharram and Meag Doherty.
Board of Directors
The OpenGov Foundation Board of Directors for 2017-2018 includes: Phaedra Chrousos (Chair), Laurent Crenshaw (Vice-Chair), Rich Hirshberg (Treasurer), Seamus Kraft (Secretary), Michelle Lee (Director) and Aaron Snow (Director).
The OpenGov Foundation Board of Directors for 2012-2016 included: Congressman Darrell Issa (Chair Emeritus), Seamus Kraft (Vice-Chair), Chris Birk (Director), Abhi Nemani (Director), Lanham Napier (Director), the Honorable Tom Davis (Director), Lawrence Brady (Director) and James Lacy.
Board of Advisors
In addition to a Board of Directors, The OpenGov Foundation has established a Board of Advisors to provide issue-specific expertise to the staff and Board of Directors. The OpenGov Foundation's 2017-2018 Board of Advisors includes: Dr. Anne Washington, Brandon Andrews, Jo-Marie St. Martin, Scout Addis, Karien Bezuidenhout, Janine Gianfredi, Peter Karman and Bob Sofman.
Awards & Recognitions
In 2012, TechCrunch named The OpenGov Foundation co-founder and Executive Director Seamus Kraft one of "The 20 Most Innovative People in Democracy" for his efforts creating the Madison policymaking platform. Other awardees included President Barack Obama, U.S. Senator Cory Booker, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Google's Eric Schmidt and President of Estonia Toomas Hendrick Ilves.
In 2016, the American Library Association awarded The OpenGov Foundation team and Executive Director Seamus Kraft its highest honor, the James Madison Award, which is given annually "to honor individuals or groups who have championed, protected and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know at the national level." Other recipients of the award include U.S. Senator John Tester, U.S. Senator John Cornyn, Aaron Swartz and U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren.
The Washington, DC Legal Hackers have twice awarded The OpenGov Foundation a "Le Hackie." In 2014, the Le Hackie was for "Organization of the Year" for spearheading the nation-wide Free Law Founders movement. In 2018, the Le Hackie was for conducting and publishing the first-ever user-centered research done on the United States Congress, "From Voicemails to Votes."
Past Projects
Madison
Madison is a government policy co-creation platform that opens up laws and legislation. Issa's congressional team launched Project Madison in December 2011 to support opposition to SOPA and PIPA in the U.S. Congress. A group of U.S. representatives and senators used Madison to develop alternative legislation, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act.
Fast Company described the Madison beta version as "a stripped-down interactive blogging platform, which allows citizens to select individual passages of legislation, and strike or add their own language, with comments for each suggestion. Citizens are encouraged to like or dislike each change, with the most popular suggestions rising to the top."
Madison has since grown and been adopted by governments across the country and globe, including Washington, DC, the federal government of Mexico, and the United Nations. In February 2015, The White House used Madison to crowdsource its Public Participation Playbook.
In 2016, Bloomberg Philanthropies "What Works Cities" program and the Sunlight Foundation began using Madison to develop municipal open data policies in the initiative's member cities, including Buffalo, NY, Syracuse, NY, Memphis, TN, Nashville, TN and Arlington, TX.
In May 2017, The OpenGov Foundation released Madison 4.0 as open source software and ceased active development of the platform.
Open Source Software and Open Data in Government
The OpenGov Foundation has provided expert guidance to policymakers and staff on the use of open source software and open data at all levels of government in the United States.
At the national level, The OpenGov Foundation spearheaded successful efforts in 2015 to allow Members of Congress to both use open source software and actively participate in open source software development. In a Huffington Post interview on the impact of the ruling, U.S. Congressman Jared Polis said, "By taking advantage of the newest technology and collaborating with the open source community, we can improve everything from the accessibility of congressional websites to the efficiency of business on the House floor. Personally, I can’t wait to begin integrating open source technology into my office’s daily operations.”
At the local level, The OpenGov Foundation and the Free Law Founders coalition, which it co-founded in 2013 and continues to co-lead, have achieved two major victories advancing the public's access to the public laws in open data formats. In 2014, the City of San Francisco, CA, at the urging of then-Supervisor Mark Farrell, became the first city in the United States to adopt an open legal data framework for local laws. During the same year, the City of New York, NY became the first city in the United States to formally require its laws and legal codes be published in open data formats. New York City Council Member Ben Kallos drafted the "Law Online Act," which New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law in August 2014.
The State Decoded
The State Decoded is an open source platform that displays legal codes, court decisions, and information from legislative tracking services to make it all more understandable. It was originally created by Waldo Jaquith for the Commonwealth of Virginia. The OpenGov Foundation subsequently launched a version for the state of Maryland in May 2013 and followed with Baltimore, MD, launched with the Baltimore Mayor's Office in July 2013. It has since launched in a total of eight city and state governments across the country, including San Francisco, Chicago, Florida, and Washington, DC.
Hack4Congress
In early 2015, The OpenGov Foundation partnered with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation to organize a series of civic hackathons across the country, dubbed "Hack4Congress." The events, held in Cambridge, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, drew hundreds of participants, including over a dozen Members of Congress, to build open source software prototypes to make Congress more efficient.
Work in Maryland
The OpenGov Foundation has worked in Maryland and its largest municipality, Baltimore, to custom develop software and data sets that increase government transparency, help citizens participate in their state and city governments, and hold them accountable. The Baltimore Sun described OpenGov's work as a "test case for trying to make state and local government more transparent and participatory using technology."
The OpenGov Foundation's work in Maryland is funded by a grant awarded in 2013 by the Knight Foundation.
Work in Chicago
In March 2015, The OpenGov Foundation partnered with the City of Chicago to launch ChicagoCode.org, a product of The State Decoded, to make the city's laws and regulations more accessible to citizens.
In March 2016, then-Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza and The OpenGov Foundation launched Envision Chicago, a scholarship contest in which Chicago high school students found city laws of interest to them using ChicagoCode.org and then proposed improvements to the law to their city officials. Four students won $1,000 scholarships through Envision Chicago. In addition to then-Clerk Mendoza, Alderman Ameya Pawar, Alderman Roberto Maldonado, Alderman Carrie Austin and Alderman Anthony Napolitano participated in the initiative.
On July 20, 2016 the Chicago City Council passed legislation celebrating Envision Chicago and recognizing The OpenGov Foundation and all participating students. In remarks to the City Council, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel highlighted the importance of the initiative and the impact of The OpenGov Foundation's work with the City Council and community at large.
References
Political and economic research foundations in the United States
Politics and technology
Open government in the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenstone%20%28software%29
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Greenstone (software)
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Greenstone is a suite of software tools for building and distributing digital library collections on the Internet or CD-ROM. It is open-source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and has been developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO in Belgium.
The developers of Greenstone received the International Federation for Information Processing's 2004 Namur Award for "contributions to the awareness of social implications of information technology, and the need for an holistic approach in the use of information technology that takes account of social implications."
Greenstone may be used to create large, searchable collections of digital documents. In addition to command line tools for digital collection building, Greenstone has a graphical Greenstone Librarians Interface (GLI) used to build collections and assign metadata.
Through user selected plugins, Greenstone can import digital documents in formats including text, html, jpg, tiff, MP3, PDF, video, and Word, among others. The text, PDF, HTML and similar documents are converted into Greenstone Archive Format (GAF) which is an XML equivalent format.
A project on SourceForge was created in October 2005 for version 3 of Greenstone.
In 2010, Greenstone version 2.83 was included, along with the Koha Integrated Library System, in an Ubuntu Live-Cd.
References
K. T. Anuradha and R. Sivakaminathan. 2011. [http://www.ipcsit.com/vol1/60-S105.pdf Enhancing full text search capability in library automation package: A case study with Koha and Greenstone digital library software.] 2009 International Symposium on Computing, Communication, and Control (ISCCC 2009) Proc .of CSIT vol. 1, p. 330-333.
George Buchanan, Matt Jones and Gary Marsden. 2002. Exploring small screen digital library access with the Greenstone Digital Library. Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2458/2002, p. 583–596, .
Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Alton Chua, Davina Anqi Khoo, Emily Boon-Hui Khoo, Eric Bok-Tong Mak, and Maple Wen-Min Ng. 2006. A checklist for evaluating open source digital library software, Online Information Review, 30(4):360–379. Includes evaluation of Greenstone relative to other digital library software.
Michael Lesk. 2004. Understanding digital libraries. Second edition. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, p. 171-172.
K.S. Raghavan, A. Neelameghan and S. K. Lalitha. 2010. Co-creation and development of digital library software. Information Studies 16(2):65–72.
K. Rajasekharan, K.M. Nafala, and Bimal Kanti Sen. 2009. Digital archiving of audio content using WINISIS and Greenstone software: a manual for community radio managers. New Delhi: UNESCO Office New Delhi, p. 73-92.
Art Rhyno. 2004. Using open source systems for digital libraries. Westport: Libraries Unlimited, p. 83-84.
B.S. Shivaram and T.B. Rajashekar. 2005. Building Indian language digital library collections: Some experiences with Greenstone software. Digital Libraries: International Collaboration and Cross-Fertilization Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005, 3334/2005:189-211, .
Sharad Kumar Sonkar, Veena Makhija, Ashok Kumar, and Dr Mohinder Singh. 2005. Application of Greenstone Digital Library (GSDL)software in newspapers clippings. DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology, 25(3):9–17.
Walter E. Valero, Claudia A. Perry, and Thomas T. Surprenant. 2007. History on a postcard. Library Journal Net Connect, Winter 2007:6–9.
Allison B. Zhang and Don Gourley. 2006. Building digital collections using Greenstone digital library software.Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 11(2):71–89.
External links
Eprint archive containing easy-to-follow documents on Greenstone Digital Library Software
Greenstone beginner's guide
Greenstone Support for South Asia
The New Zealand Digital Library, built with Greenstone
Free institutional repository software
Digital library software
University of Waikato
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational%20Software%20Architect
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Rational Software Architect
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Rational Software Architect is a modeling and development environment that uses the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for designing architecture for C++ and Java EE (JEE) applications and web services. Rational Software Architect is built on the Eclipse open-source software framework and includes capabilities focused on architectural code analysis, C++, and model-driven development (MDD) with the UML for creating applications and web services.
Overview
Rational Software Architect is a family of three products:
Rational Software Architect: Provides an integrated design and development tool with UML Support.
Rational Software Architect for WebSphere Software: A platform optimized for SOA, JEE and Websphere applications.
Rational Software Architect Design Manager : Collaboration tool to share and manage design information.
Rational Software Architect version 7.5 includes the following capabilities:
Built on Eclipse version 3.4
Supports UML version 2.1
Supports model-to-code and code-to-model transformations.
Forward transformations go from:
UML to Java
UML to C#
UML to C++
UML to EJB
UML to WSDL
UML to XSD
UML to CORBA Interface Description Language (IDL)
UML to structured query language (SQL)-based logical data models as supported by IBM Rational Data Architect software.
Reverse transformations go from
Java to UML
C++ to UML.
.NET to UML
Includes all of the capabilities of Rational Application Developer
Enables model management for parallel development and architectural re-factoring, e.g., split, combine, compare and merge models and model fragments.
Provides visual construction tools to expedite software design and development
It also has integrations with other Rational tools, such as ClearCase version control and ClearQuest configuration management.
All Rational software products, including Rational Software Architect (RSA), are engineered as plugins that sit on top of the open-source Eclipse development platform. Installing Rational Software Architect gives the developer the option to either install RSA on top of an existing Eclipse v3.2 installation, or to install a new Eclipse v3.2 instance.
Since RSA is Eclipse-based, it can take advantage of the market of third-party plugins for Eclipse, as well as plugins specifically for Rational tools.
History
Rational Software has a long history in application modeling, beginning in the early 1990s with the work of Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh and Ivar Jacobson. They combined competing modeling approaches to form what eventually became the Unified Modeling Language.
Rational Software's first visual modeling and development tool was Rational Rose, a stand-alone modeling tool that integrates at the application programming interface (API) level with third-party Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) to support a variety of programming languages and other implementation technologies.
While Rational Rose was an important step in bringing Model-driven development (MDD) closer to practicing software developers, it was found that only a small fraction of developers used modeling on a routine basis. A key problem was identified - developers didn't like to leave their IDE. They wanted visual modeling to be integrated—not with their IDE, but rather inside their IDE.
Rational responded to this need in 2002 with Rational XDE software, providing an extended development environment for the next generation of programming technologies emerging at the time: Java and Microsoft .NET. IBM Rational XDE was characterized as the next generation of IBM Rational Rose — not a new version of it (hence the name change), and not necessarily a replacement for Rose (since IBM Rational XDE was purposefully restricted to support only a select number of IDEs and implementation technologies). However, with each addition of a tool or capability came another point-to-point integration requirement. As more and more capabilities were added, Rational began to reach the practical limits of this style of tool integration.
For the next-generation MDD products, it was only natural to build additional model-driven development functions on top of Eclipse to form a more complete MDD tool. IBM Rational Software Architect, IBM Rational Software Modeler and IBM Rational Systems Developer are the result of these changes, transforming the silos that previously defined modeling, development and code analysis into an integrated and unified design and development experience. RSA now co-exists with IBM Rational Rhapsody (acquired from Telelogic in 2008) and several other products, with the two mentioned being the major MDD solutions within Rational.
Benefits
None
Rational Software Architect Versions
V7.0: Released December 2006. Based on Eclipse v3.2, UML v2.1 and Rational Application Developer v7.0
V7.0.0.1: Released January 2007. Includes bug fixes.
V7.0.0.2: Released January 2007. Includes support for UML to SOA transformations, including Service Creation Description Language (SCDL), BPEL, WSDL and XSD.
V7.0.0.3: Released July 2007. Includes support for asynchronous web services (JAX-WS) and support for new Java 5.0 UML stereotypes.
V7.5.0: Released September 2008. Based on Eclipse v3.4.
V8.0: Released August 2010. Based on Eclipse v3.6.
V8.5: Released July 6, 2012.
V8.5.5: Released September 13, 2013.
V9.0: Released June 14, 2013. Based on Eclipse v4.2.2. Includes support for OS X.
V9.1: Released June 13, 2014. Based on Eclipse v4.2.2.2.
v9.1.1: Released October 31, 2014.
v9.1.2: Released June 5, 2015.
v9.5: Released September 18, 2015.
v9.6: Released September 22, 2016.
v9.6.1: Released November 27, 2017.
v9.7.0: Released November 27, 2018.
See also
Comparison of integrated development environments
References
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University%20of%20Victoria
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University of Victoria
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The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary institution established in the province of British Columbia in 1903. It was reincorporated as the University of Victoria in 1963.
UVic hosts Ocean Networks Canada's deep-water seafloor research observatories VENUS and NEPTUNE, the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, and two Environment Canada labs: the Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and Analysis and the Water and Climate Impacts Research Centre. The Ocean Climate Building housed at the Queenswood location is dedicated solely to ocean and climate research. The Institute of Integrated Energy Systems is a leading center for research on sustainable energy solutions and alternative energy sources. The University of Victoria is also home to Canada's first and only Indigenous Law degree program along with dedicated research centers for Indigenous and Environmental law. The Faculty of Law was instrumental in the establishment of the Akitsiraq Law School by founding its first class in Iqualit, Nunavat. Along with The University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, UVic jointly founded and co-operates TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, which houses the world's largest cyclotron. Altogether UVic operates nine academic faculties and schools including the Faculty of Law and Peter B. Gustavson School of Business.
The campus is situated 7 km north of downtown Victoria and is spread over 403 acres. UVic also has an offsite study center at the Jeanne S. Simpson Field Studies Resource Center in Lake Cowichan. The six-hectare Queenswood campus was acquired from the Sisters of St. Ann and converted into a national laboratory. The Legacy Art Gallery on Yates Street and a proposed redevelopment on Broad Street make up the properties owned by the university in downtown Victoria.
Based in the capital city of British Columbia, the university has educated many prominent jurists and politicians including Jody Wilson-Raybould, Rona Ambrose, and Russell Brown. In recent years, the university counts amongst its alumni the founders of several leading technology companies, including Flickr, Slack, and Hootsuite. UVic alumni and faculty have also worked on Nobel Prize winning research teams. As of 2020, 7 Guggenheim Fellows, 3 Killiam Prize winners, 14 members of the Order of Canada, 11 Rhodes Scholars and 79 Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada have been affiliated with the university.
History
The University of Victoria is the oldest post-secondary institution in British Columbia, established in 1903 as an affiliated college of McGill University before gaining full autonomy through a charter on July 1, 1963. Victoria College, which had been established in 1903 as an affiliated college of McGill University, gained autonomy and full degree granting status on March 1, 1963. The non-denominational university had enjoyed 60 years of prior teaching tradition at the university level as Victoria College. This 60 years of history may be viewed conveniently in three distinct stages.
Between the years 1903 and 1915, Victoria College was affiliated with McGill University, offering first- and second-year McGill courses in Arts and Science. Administered locally by the Victoria School Board, the college was an adjunct to Victoria High School and shared its facilities. Both institutions were under the direction of a single Principal: E.B. Paul, 1903–1908; and S.J. Willis, 1908–1915.
The opening in 1915 of the University of British Columbia, established by Act of Legislature in 1908, obliged the college to suspend operations in higher education in Victoria. University of British Columbia was created in 1908. A single, public provincial university, it was modeled on the American state university, with an emphasis on extension work and applied research. The governance was modeled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which established a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate (faculty), responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and to perform institutional leadership.
In 1920, as a result of local demands, Victoria College began the second stage of its development, reborn in affiliation with the University of British Columbia. Though still administered by the Victoria School Board, the college was now completely separated from Victoria High School, moving in 1921 into the magnificent Dunsmuir mansion known as Craigdarroch Castle. Over the next two decades, under Principals E.B. Paul and P.H. Elliott, Victoria College built a reputation for thorough and scholarly instruction in first- and second-year arts and science. It was also during this period that future author Pierre Berton edited and served as principal cartoonist for the student newsletter, The Microscope. Between the years 1921–1944, the enrolment at Victoria College did not very often reach above 250. However, in 1945, 128 servicemen returned from World War II. This pushed enrolment up to 400, and in 1946; 600.
The final stage, between the years 1945 and 1963, saw the transition from two-year college to university, under Principals J.M. Ewing and W.H. Hickman.
During this period, the college was governed by the Victoria College Council, representative of the parent University of British Columbia, the Greater Victoria School Board, and the provincial Department of Education. Physical changes were many. In 1946 the college was forced by postwar enrolment to move from Craigdarroch to the Lansdowne campus of the Provincial Normal School, the current location of Camosun College's Lansdowne Campus. The Normal School, itself an institution with a long and honourable history, joined Victoria College in 1956 as its Faculty of Education. Late in this transitional period (through the co-operation of the Department of National Defence and the Hudson's Bay Company) the 284-acre (1,1 km2)--now 385-acre (1.6 km2)--campus at Gordon Head was acquired. Academic expansion was rapid after 1956, until in 1961 the college, still in affiliation with UBC, awarded its first bachelor's degrees.
In the early part of this century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law and medicine. Graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis was introduced. The policy of university education initiated in the 1960s responded to population pressure and the belief that higher education was a key to social justice and economic productivity for individuals and for society.
The university gained its full autonomy in 1963 as the University of Victoria. The University Act of 1963 vested administrative authority in a chancellor elected by the convocation of the university, a board of governors, and a president appointed by the board; academic authority was given to the senate which was representative both of the faculties and of the convocation.
University of Victoria's Arms were registered with the Canadian Heraldic Authority on April 3, 2001. The historical traditions of the university are reflected in the coat of arms, its academic regalia and its house flag. The BA hood is of solid red, a colour that recalls the early affiliation with McGill, as do the martlets in the coat of arms. The BSc hood, of gold, and the BEd hood, of blue, show the colours of the University of British Columbia. Blue and gold have been retained as the official colours of the University of Victoria. The motto at the top of the Arms of the university, in Hebrew characters, is "Let there be Light"; the motto at the bottom, in Latin, is "A Multitude of the Wise is the Health of the World."
Department of Political Science Chilly Climate Report
On May 11, 1992, the Department of Political Science created the committee to Make the Department More Supportive to Women as a response to concerns regarding experiences of graduate and undergraduate students. The committee was made up of five female undergraduate students and Dr. Somer Brodribb, an untenured professor working in the department. Later, this committee was unofficially called the “Chilly Climate” or Climate Committee within the department. “Chilly Climate” is a term used by the Project on the Status and Education of Women.
A preliminary report published by the Climate Committee to the Department of Political Science on March 23, 1993, which looked at the experience of both faculty and students at University of Victoria issued recommendations that, in their eyes, would make the department more hospitable to female students while also highlighting the experiences of female students which the committee found troubling. These recommendations included the establishment of a committee for addressing issues that were raised in the report, the creation of formal policies addressing race and gender discrimination, and workshops for faculty on race and gender issues in the classroom environment. Notably, the preliminary report also highlighted the importance of including classroom content from feminist perspectives and more texts authored by female scholars.
In response to this report, the tenured professors of political science department Robert Bedeski, Colin Bennett, Ron Cheffins, Warren Magusson, Terry Morley, Norman Ruff, Rob Walker, and Jeremy Wilson challenged what they perceived to be slander from Dr. Brodribb, who chaired the committee. They requested that Dr. Brodribb allow an investigation into the allegations of sexist behaviour in the Chilly Climate report. Dr. Bodribb refused, stating that this went against the agreement her committee made with the women interviewed and could expose them to further discrimination. If the evidence was not handed over the tenured professors requested a complete withdrawal of the statements made in the Chilly Climate report and an apology that would be distributed to all those who saw the report. They also mentioned seeking further action if Dr. Brodribb did neither of these things. To review documents related to the report, one can go to the University of Victoria Libraries Special Collections.
A review committee was established by University of Victoria President David Strong, requesting advice from lawyers Beth Bilson and Thomas R. Berger to assist in evaluating the climate of the political science department. They published a report in August 1993, which included recommendations that University of Victoria President David Strong later endorsed.
Campus and grounds
With a total area of on its main site alone, the campus lies on the border between the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, divided almost perfectly down the centre of campus (with the northeast half being located in Saanich and the southwest half in Oak Bay). This municipal boundary is marked and commemorated by undermount plates and a bronze line near the main quadrangle. Despite its name, no part of the university's main campus is located in the City of Victoria proper. The campus is several hundred feet from the Pacific Ocean at Cadboro Bay.
The campus of the University of Victoria was originally designed by American architectural firm of Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons, which had previously achieved fame for having completed major buildings at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. The principles and concept of the original design are still being followed, with the academic portions of the campus located inside the Ring Road, forming a perfect circle in diameter. This academic ring is a distinctive feature of the University of Victoria and was intended to foster interaction, intellectual sharing, and collaboration. The area outside of Ring Road hosts important parts of the university, including the residential colleges (now residence halls), Student Union Buildings, sports facilities, as well as some of the newer academic facilities which have expanded outwards in recent years (The Faculties of Law and Theatre for example).
The following is a list of prominent buildings on the University of Victoria campus:
Michael Williams Building – Formerly known as the Administrative Services Building. Accommodates the university's executive team as well as other administrative functions such as accounting, research services, pension, and payroll.
World War II Army Facilities – Nine single-storey, wood-frame utilitarian hut facilities from the Second World War (1940) on the northern part of the University of Victoria campus. These structures are retained for their historical significance and are listed on the Registry of Historic Places of Canada
Bob Wright Centre – Home to the School of Earth & Ocean Sciences, the Department of Chemistry, and the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling & Analysis (CCCMA). Also features the Department of Astronomy dome and telescopes, lecture theatres, offices, meeting rooms, labs, and SciCafe dining outlet.
Business and Economics Building – Besides the obvious, the Business and Economics building also houses the offices of senior university administrators and contains a student computing facility.
Campus Security Services – Security Officers patrol and respond to Campus needs, provide first aid, and maintain a safe campus. Office also contains parking services, emergency planning, and lost & found.
Campus Services Building – Includes Career Services, the UVic Bookstore, the Computer Store, the Centre for Accessible Learning, and a Starbucks.
Clearihue Building – Organized around a central court (or quadrangle), it is home to the Faculty of Humanities, houses the Departments of English, French, Germanic and Slavic Studies, Greek and Roman Studies, Hispanic and Italian Studies, History, Linguistics, Medieval Studies, Pacific and Asian Studies, Philosophy, and Gender Studies. Contains numerous classrooms as well as student computing facilities, including the Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) facility and the Computer Help Desk. It is the location of the Department of University Systems, which is largely responsible for the systems, networking and support of the university, including student computing facilities and language labs. Clearihue is the oldest building on campus, originally constructed in 1962 and augmented by an addition in 1971. It is named after Joseph Clearihue, who was chairman of Victoria College from 1947 until it gained university status in 1963. In 2013, the Clearihue Building underwent a major $15 million redevelopment.
Cornett Building – A sprawling complex of different courts and staircases, which includes classrooms and houses the Departments of Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology. Cornett building is often described by freshmen undergraduates as being an unrelenting maze.
Cunningham – Contains the Department of Biology, the Centre for Forest Biology, a herbarium, and numerous specialized research facilities.
CARSA Building – CARSA is the new Centre for Athletics, Recreation and Special Abilities on the UVic campus. It houses the UVic Vikes athletics and recreation programs, as well as offices, labs and a machine shop for CanAssist, which develops customized technologies, programs and services for people living with disabilities.
David Strong Building – Contains classroom spaces, including seminar rooms, breakout rooms, and the Mathews and McQueen auditorium.
David Turpin Building – The David Turpin Building is best known as the home of the UVic Department of Political Science, one of the largest and best known faculties at the University of Victoria. The building also includes the School of Environmental Studies, Statistics, and Mathematics. The Turpin Building also hosts the government-funded Water & Climate Impacts Research Centre (W-CIRC). It includes a grass roof and high-quality LEED energy efficient engineering.
Elliott – Includes the Departments of Chemistry and Physics and Astronomy, as well as a number of offices, classrooms, and laboratories. The building is topped by the Climenhaga Observatory.
Engineering Buildings – Includes the Engineering Office Wing (EOW), the Engineering Lab Wing (ELW) and the Engineering/Computer Science building (ECS). Home to the Faculty of Engineering, which includes the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Software engineering.
Fine Arts – Contains the departments of Writing and History in Art as well as many offices, classrooms, a major lecture theatre, a photography darkroom, Arts Place dining outlet, and a multi-purpose lobby that may be used for readings and performances.
First Peoples House – Anthropological building that provides for Indigenous students. Features two large statues in front of the modern, glass building. It is located between Centre Quadrangle and West Quad.
Fraser Building – Formerly known as the Begbie building. Houses the Faculty of Law and the Institute for Dispute Resolution. The building also contains classrooms, seminar rooms, a moot courtroom, and the Diana M. Priestly Law Library.
Halpern Centre for Graduate Students – Colloquially known as "The Grad Centre", the building houses the Graduate Student Society (GSS) general office, the "Grad House" restaurant, which is open to the public, and the David Clode lounge. There is also a meeting space (boardroom) that can be booked by contacting the GSS Office.
Hickman Building – Formerly called the Centre for Innovative Teaching. Includes "Smart" classrooms featuring closed-circuit cameras and remote projection systems to link teachers and students with classrooms at remote locations.
Human and Social Development Building – Classrooms and offices for Child and Youth Care, Dispute resolution, Health Information Science, Indigenous Governance, Nursing, Public Administration, and Social Work.
Ian Stewart Complex – A former recreational facility containing tennis courts, squash/racquetball courts, an outdoor pool, a dance studio, a physiotherapy clinic, a gym, and a weight room. Only the ice rink remains in use, as other services have moved to McKinnon and CARSA. Also contains the Alumni Services, Development, Corporate Relations, and Advancement Services departments. Currently being redeveloped as part of a major expansion to house more post-graduates and international students.
MacLaurin Building – An extensive modernist complex which includes the Faculty of Education and School of Music, as well classrooms, the David Lam Auditorium, the Curriculum Library, and Mac's Bistro.
McKinnon Building – Encompasses the School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, an indoor swimming pool, fitness and weight room, dance studio, outdoor tennis courts, squash courts and a gymnasium.
McPherson Library and William C. Mearns Centre for Learning - The McPherson Library is the major research library of the University of Victoria. It houses University of Victoria extensive holdings, including the university archives, special collections, and map library. Following a major donation, the 2008 expansion to the McPherson Library created the William C. Mearns Centre for Learning, which contains the state-of-the-art Learning Commons, Media Commons, International Centre, classrooms, and several group study rooms.
Medical Sciences Building – The home of Island Medical Program, the future home of the University of Victoria Medical School.
Petch Building – the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry, and School of Earth and Ocean Sciences.
Phoenix Theatre – a major academic building notably located outside of Ring Road, it serves as the home of Theatre department and includes many offices and classrooms. It has two theatre stages; the Chief Dan George, and the Roger Bishop.
Sedgewick – An Advanced Research Complex which houses the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives (CAPI), Centre on Aging, Centre for the Study of Religion in Society, Centre for Global Studies; as well as fundraising and administration offices.
Student Union Building – popularly known as the "SUB", it houses a movie theatre, many restaurants, a stationary stores, several book vendors, and the headquarters of several clubs, societies, and campus organizations, including the University of Victoria radio station (CFUV). There is also a large student bar located in the SUB, known as Felicita's Campus Pub.
Jamie Cassels Centre – Formerly known as University Centre, but renamed in 2020 after departing President Jamie Cassels. A major complex with a distinctive copper-roof adjacent to West Quad. It includes the Registrar's Offices, as well as many administrative departments (Admissions, Accounting, Payroll, Academic Advising, Career Services), the main public restaurant, and the Farquhar auditorium.
The university offers on-campus housing for over 3,200 students. A variety of housing is available, including single and double dormitories, Cluster Housing (apartment-style housing with four people per unit), bachelor and one-bedroom apartments, and family housing. Four buildings in one of the oldest residential complexes at the university are named for Emily Carr, Arthur Currie, Margaret Newton, and David Thompson. Construction on the South Tower Complex was completed in January 2011. The largest residence building in terms of capacity is Ring Road Hall, which holds 294 beds and is split into three wings. The campus has become increasingly cycling-friendly.
Much of the university estate and endowment lands have been preserved as a nature setting, notably Finnerty Gardens and Mystic Vale, a forested area and park. The large campus is home to deer, owls, squirrels and many other wild animals native to the area. A large population of domestic rabbits was a feature of the campus previously. In May 2010, the university began trapping and euthanizing the rabbits as they had been known to put athletes at risk in the playing fields and cause extensive damage to university grounds. Local veterinarians offered to perform neutering of the male rabbits. As of July 2011, the UVic campus is free of rabbits. 900 rabbits were saved and sent to shelters. The majority of rabbits moved to shelters died between 2011 and 2016, after which the remaining survivors (147 rabbits) were relocated to a private sanctuary in Alberta.
Libraries and museum
The University of Victoria Libraries system is the second largest in British Columbia, being composed of three 'on-campus' libraries, the William C. Mearns Center for Learning/McPherson Library, the Diana M. Priestly Law Library, and the MacLaurin Curriculum Library. The Library System has undergone significant growth in recent years thanks to the university's investment in library purchases and research. Amongst the highlights in the University of Victoria Archives and Special Collections are priceless items from Imperial Japan, to carbon dated original manuscripts of the Sancti Epiphanii. The collection also includes extensive histories of colonial Victoria and the Colony of Vancouver Island among other documents. The library's digitization programme is becoming increasingly active in making materials available. Renovations and new construction over the past decade have included special collections classrooms, an innovative Learning Commons and an art gallery. The UVic libraries collection includes extensive digital resources, over 2.0 million books, 2.3 million items in microforms, plus serial subscriptions, sound recordings, music scores, films and videos, and archival materials.
The University of Victoria houses the Education Heritage Museum, which displays educational history artifacts in the main hallway of the MacLaurin building. The collection consists of manuscripts, texts, photographs, audio-visual material, lesson plans, posters, bells, ink bottles, fountain pens, desks, maps, athletic clothing, photographs, and school yearbooks used in kindergarten to grade 12 schools in Canada from the mid-1800s to the 1980s.
The University of Victoria has two art collections (University and Maltwood) which host loan exhibitions, and exhibits of the works of students and faculty in the University Centre Exhibition Gallery. The University Collection, founded in 1953 by Dr. W.H. Hickman, Principal of Victoria College (1953-1963), consists of 6,000 works, mainly by contemporary artists practicing in British Columbia. The Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery, founded through the bequest of English sculptress and antiquarian, Katharine Emma Maltwood, F.R.S.A. (1878-1961), reflects her and her husband John Maltwood's taste. The collection of 12,000 works of fine, decorative and applied arts includes Oriental ceramics, costumes, rugs, seventeenth century English furniture, Canadian paintings and Katherine Maltwood's own sculptures.
Transgender Archives
The Transgender Archives are a part of the University of Victoria Libraries and are committed to preserving the histories of pioneering activists, community leaders, and researchers who have made contributions to the betterment of trans, non-binary, and two-spirit people.
Since 2007, at the Transgender Archives there has also been an active collection of documents, rare publications, and memorabilia of organizations or persons that had a hand in activism by and for trans, non-binary, and two-spirit people. The Transgender Archives are free and accessible to the public and can be found at the University of Victoria's main campus at the Mearns Centre for Learning- McPherson Library.
The Transgender Archives are the largest in the world, and were rated in the top 12 Most Enlightening LGBTQ Museums in the World in 2019. The records are over 160 metres in distance and go back over 120 years, spanning 15 languages, 25 countries, and 6 continents
Collections of the Transgendered Archive includes the Rikki Swin Institute collection, the Reed Erickson, the University of Ulster Trans-Gender Archive collection, and the Zenith Foundation. The second edition of the Transgender Archives book, 'Foundations for the Future', was released in 2016 and is available for free online at the University of Victoria's Transgender Archives home page. The book is written by Founder and Academic Director of the Transgender Archives, Aaron Devor. With the support of Grants and Awards Librarian Christine Walde, it was published by the University of Victoria Libraries. The book focuses on the history of trans activism and research, and also includes information regarding the origin of the Transgender Archives as well as multiple examples from the collection. The book's first edition, which was released in 2014, was a 2015 Lambda Literacy Awards finalist in LGBT nonfiction. In the same year, the book finished first for best offset print book at the 2015 College and University Print Management Awards.
Some key members of the Transgender Archives include Aaron Devor, the university's Chair of Transgender Studies; and Lara Wilson, a university archivist and the director of special collections at the University of Victoria, as well as she is chairperson of the Canadian Council of Archives. She has a master of archival studies from the University of British Columbia and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Victoria. Michael Radmacher he completed his MA in Political Science at the University of Victoria and also a Masters of Library and Information Science degree. He is the Administrative Officer to the chair in Transgenderd Studies Chair in Transgender Studies and works with the Transgendered Archive.
Off-campus facilities
The University of Victoria has acquired a portfolio of properties around Victoria, British Columbia and across Vancouver Island. These include the Legacy Gallery in downtown Victoria, the University Club, the Inter-urban campus, a former Saanich-based lodge and retreat, the Swans Hotel and Restaurant complex, and the Queenswood Property. The large, partially forested Queenswood property has been proposed as a site of future expansion for the university.
In 2017, the University of Victoria announced plans to develop a downtown campus/accommodation centre in the historic area of Victoria, BC including accommodation for students and other facilities. The new downtown campus will be centered in buildings donated to the university and located around the historic Broad Street area, beside the old Bay Centre. The downtown development has been suggested as a possible future home for UVic's Peter B. Gustavson School of Business.
The UVic endowment (estimated at $374 million) and large private donations have allowed for the university's estate to continue growing and for facilities to be upgraded and expanded on an ongoing basis.
Administration
Below is a list of undergraduate faculties, departments, and schools within the University of Victoria system.
Education, which includes Education, Kinesiology, and Recreation and Health Education
Engineering, which includes Biomedical, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Mechanical, and Software Engineering, as well as Computer Science
Fine Arts, which includes the departments of History in Art, Music, Professional Writing, Theatre, Visual Arts, and Writing
Human & Social Development, which includes Child and Youth Care, Health and Community Services, Health Information Science, Nursing, Social Work, and Public Administration
Humanities, which includes Applied Linguistics, Chinese Studies, English, French, Germanic Studies, Greek and Latin Language and Literature, Greek and Roman Studies, Hispanic Studies, History, Italian Studies, Japanese Studies, Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies, Linguistics, Medieval studies, Mediterranean Studies, Pacific and Asian Studies, Philosophy, Professional Writing, Religious Studies, Slavic Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, and Women's Studies
Law, which includes the Juris Doctor (J.D.) program
Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, which includes Commerce
Science, which includes the departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Biology, Chemistry, Earth and Ocean Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, and Physics and Astronomy
Social Sciences, which includes Anthropology, Economics, Environmental Studies, Geography, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology
UVic also offers a number of interdisciplinary undergraduate programs, including Applied Ethics, Arts of Canada, European Studies, Film Studies, Human Dimensions of Climate Change, Indigenous Studies, Latin American Studies, Social Justice Studies, and Technology and Society.
Peter B. Gustavson School of Business
The Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, formerly the Faculty of Business, was renamed following a donation by local entrepreneur Peter B. Gustavson. This business school offers a wide range of programs including the BCom, MBA and other business degrees, EQUIS and AACSB accredited. The program starts with two years of general studies (with 5 required classes) and then the 3rd and 4th year are business intensive. Three co-op work terms are also required.
MGB Program: The Peter B. Gustavson School of Business is also offering a program called the Master Of Global Business. This program is in partnership with Montpellier Business School (France) and Sungkyunkwan University (Korea). In September, The Peter B. Gustavson School of Business welcomes 35 students from 13 different countries. The module mostly focuses on MBS courses such as Finance, Supply chain management, marketing etc.
Engineering
The Faculty of Engineering admits approximately 400 students into first-year programs each year. Students can specialize in the following disciplines: Biomedical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Software Engineering.
Fine Arts
The Faculty of Fine Arts splits into five different departments: Art History and Visual Studies, the School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts and Writing. UVic's Department of Art History and Visual Studies has a long tradition of scholarship in the areas of Islamic art, South and Southeast Asian art, and Native arts of North America. It is one of few schools that has traditionally held two chairs of Islamic art, most recently filled by Anthony Welch and Marcus Milwright.
Humanities
The Faculty of Humanities consists of ten departments (English, French, Genders Studies, Germanic and Slavic Studies, Greek and Roman Studies, Hispanic and Italian Studies, History, Linguistics, Pacific and Asian Studies, and Philosophy), as well as three Programs (Latin American Studies, Medieval Studies, and Religious Studies). The faculty offers certificates, minors, and majors leading to both BA and BSc degrees, as well as MA and PhD degrees. Languages, narratives, philosophies, histories—the Faculty of Humanities brings these all together in a critical context of analysis, interpretation, research, and communication.
Law
The University of Victoria Faculty of Law is consistently ranked as one of the best and most-applied to law schools in Canada. It offers a hands-on work experience program for young lawyers and an intensive environmental law program, featuring a course at Hakia Beach, BC in association with the Tula Foundation. UVic Law has been deeply involved with many Aboriginal, ecological, and environmental cases in British Columbia, and continues this tradition today.
School of Earth & Ocean Sciences
The university's School of Earth & Ocean Sciences, within the Faculty of Science, has produced a large number of influential findings in its history. The School of Earth & Ocean Science also collaborate with the VENUS and NEPTUNE research institutes. The university was a founding member of the Western Canadian Universities Marine Sciences Society. UVic maintains this field station on the west coast of Vancouver Island, which is jointly run by the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary.
School of Public Administration
The UVic School of Public Administration specializes in its M.A., and PhD. programs but also offers a selective admission minors program for political leaders and mid-career civil servants.
Continuing Studies
Continuing education has been an integral part of the University of Victoria since its inception in 1963. Today, the Division of Continuing Studies provides adult and continuing education programming in co-operation with UVic faculties and community partners. The Division of Continuing Studies offers a comprehensive portfolio of programs in a range of academic disciplines, using diploma, certificate and other programming models to serve adult, part-time and internationally dispersed students.
Graduate programs
UVic is one of Canada's largest graduate schools, offering more than 160 graduate programs across the university's faculties and departments. Their most popular graduate degrees are in the following areas:
Business, The Gill School of Business. The UVic Gill Business School is known for its particular focus on International Business and Energy.
Political Science, includes a multi-disciplinary approach involving Economics, Geography, and Law.
Education, which includes Curriculum and Instruction, Educational Psychology & Leadership Studies, Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education, and Indigenous Education
Social Sciences, which includes Economics, Environmental Studies, Geography, Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology
Engineering, which includes Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Software Engineering.
Fine Arts, which includes Art History & Visual Studies, the School of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts, and Writing
Humanities, which includes English, French, Germanic and Slavic Studies, Greek and Roman Studies, Hispanic and Italian Studies, History, Linguistics, Pacific and Asian Studies, and Philosophy. The history department has a reputation for Digital History.
Human and Social Development, which includes Child and Youth Care, Community Development, Dispute Resolution, Health Information Science, Indigenous Governance, Nursing, Public Administration, Public Health and Social Policy, Studies in Policy and Practice, Social Dimensions of Health, and Social Work
Science, which includes Biochemistry and Microbiology, Biology, Chemistry, Earth and Ocean Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Neuroscience, and Physics and Astronomy
Law
UVic's Graduate programs range from individual interdisciplinary programs to graduate research programs. The university also offers students specialized degree options and doctoral options.
Academic profile
Admissions
Admission to the University of Victoria is based on a selective academic system and is highly competitive. Each year, the university receives far more applications than there are spaces available, making it one of the most applied to institutions in Canada. Applicants are required to submit applications with their grade points average (GPA) and personal statements in order to be considered for admission. The university may also accept qualified applicants studying under IB programs, AP programs or other international distinctions. Given its endowment, the University of Victoria is able to offer scholarships and financial aid to a large number of students.
International exchanges
The University of Victoria has partnered with a number of research institutions to provide UVic students with the opportunity to gain research experience abroad. International conferences and study abroad opportunities are encouraged for all students, with many students completing a gap year before commencing their studies. Both UVic undergraduate and graduate students may travel abroad with UVic's many partner universities.
The University of Victoria has partnered with institutions around the world, including Sciences Po, University of London, University of Washington, Hong Kong University, Utrecht University, and the National University of Singapore.
Reputation
The University of Victoria has ranked in a number of post-secondary rankings. In the 2021 Academic Ranking of World Universities rankings, the university ranked 301–400 in the world and 13–18 in Canada. The 2022 QS World University Rankings ranked the university 334th in the world, and fourteenth in Canada. The 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked the university 301–350 in the world, and 15–16 in Canada. In the 2022 U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking, the university ranked 334th in the world, and 13th in Canada. The Canadian-based Maclean's magazine ranked the University of Victoria first in their 2022 Canadian comprehensive university category, tied with Simon Fraser University.
Along with academic and research-based rankings, the university has also been ranked by publications that evaluate the employment prospects of its graduates. In the Times Higher Education's 2020 global employability ranking, the university ranked 176th in the world, and seventh in Canada. In QS's 2020 graduate employability ranking, the university ranked 251–300 in the world, and ninth in Canada.
Research
In 2018, Research Infosource named the University of Victoria the 19th best research university, with a sponsored research income of $114.922 million, and an average research income of $170,000 per faculty member in 2017.
The university's research performance has been noted in several bibliometric university rankings, which uses citation analysis to evaluate the impact a university has on academic publications. In 2019, the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities ranked the university 374th in the world, and 15th in Canada. The University Ranking by Academic Performance 2018–19 rankings placed the university 370th in the world, and 17th in Canada.
Research facilities operated by the University of Victoria include:
Bamfield Marine Research Station
The university maintains a field station on the west coast of Vancouver Island to conduct marine research. The facility is jointly run by the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary. Undergraduates at the University of Victoria have full access to research and learning at this facility.
SEOS Oceanic Vessel
In 2011 the university, in collaboration with the provincial government purchased and modified a state of the art ocean vessel capable of launching 'deep sea submersibles' and conducting long-range marine biology research expeditions. The 'floating laboratory' is undergoing upgrades and expansions currently and was scheduled to be in service by late 2011.
VENUS/NEPTUNE
The School of Earth & Ocean Sciences is also home to the VENUS and NEPTUNE research institutes responsible for seismic, oceanic and climate change research.
Centre for Law
Located in the Greater Victoria area the university's legal centre provides free legal assistance to the disadvantaged as well as dealing with important environmental cases in British Columbia. The UVic Law Center is the only full-time, term clinical program offered by a Canadian law school. The program reflects the faculty's emphasis on integrating legal theory, legal skills, and community service while providing students with unique education and research opportunities.
Vancouver Island Technology Park (VITP)
Located in the Greater Victoria, British Columbia area the Vancouver Island Technology Park is a state of the art, 35 acre commercial research facility. It is the largest university-owned technology centre in BC. The venture allows the university to work with leading technology and biomedical companies while provided students with unparalleled research opportunities. The facility focuses on fuel cell, new media, wireless, and life science/biotechnological research. The UVic Genome BC Proteomics Centre and a number of other research institutes are based out of the research park. The Capital Regional District is a major commercial hub for technology companies.
Culture and student life
Greek life
Several fraternities, sororities, and secret societies exist on the University of Victoria, despite the fact that the Students' Society does not recognize fraternities, sororities, or societies on the basis that they, by definition, seek to exclude portions of the membership. This issue was once a topic of debate in student politics at the University of Victoria in 2010.
Many years ago, University of Victoria students started a fraternity, two sororities and one non-exclusive, non-profit social-service club. Although the fraternities and sororities have no affiliation with the University of Victoria itself, they continue to thrive and have purchased nearby properties. The fraternities and sororities on campus are as follows:
The international fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon chartered the Beta Tau chapter in 2010, currently estimated at 150 members.
The international sorority Kappa Beta Gamma chartered a chapter in 2011, currently estimated at 100 members.
The local sorority, Alpha Chi Theta, was chartered in 2013, and is currently estimated at 55 members.
The Omega chapter of Phrateres was installed in 1961.
Radio station (CFUV)
CFUV is a long-standing campus radio station focusing on the campus and the surrounding community. CFUV serves Greater Victoria at 101.9, and via cable on 104.3, Vancouver Island and many areas in the Lower Mainland and northwestern Washington state.
Residence halls
The University of Victoria maintains several residence halls on campus, which were originally based on the Oxbridge Collegiate model of constituent colleges which serve as a smaller, more personal home environment to the students of the wider university. The university no longer operates these halls as individual colleges, but rather as halls of residences (as well as dormitories and apartments) as part of the Residence Life and Education department. Today, all halls of residence are equipped with Common Rooms and high-speed internet for students. Most UVic students live on campus or within a few blocks of the main site.
The oldest and most famous of these residence halls is Craigdarroch, which features large stone-clad buildings and ivy covered walkways and courtyards. The modernist Lansdowne Halls feature six buildings connected by a series of bridges, walkways, and tunnels, including the popular 'UVic Underground'. Gordon Head and Ring Road Hall feature rooms and amenities for students, organized around a series of large courtyards.
In the centre of the Residence Village is the Cadboro Commons and a number of restaurants operated by the university, where students may eat and study. A mixture of dorms, single rooms, apartments, cluster studios, and family housing are available but decided by lottery system. First year students are guaranteed accommodation in one of the Residence Halls of campus.
Student newspaper
UVic's oldest and most recognized weekly student newspaper, founded in 1948, is The Martlet. It is distributed all over campus and the Greater Victoria area. The paper is named after the legendary martlet bird, whose inability to land is often seen to symbolize the constant quest for knowledge, learning, and adventure. The Martlet is partly funded by student fees. The Martlet is the only independent campus newspaper at the University of Victoria, and therefore one of the only publications that has the time and resources to fully hold both the University of Victoria and the University of Victoria Students' Society (UVSS) accountable. The Martlet regularly reports on UVic Board of Governors and Senate meetings, as well as University of Victoria Students' Society Board meetings and elections.
Today, The Martlet has a wide circulation and can be found in coffee shops, theatres, grocery stores, offices, and street corners throughout Victoria, British Columbia. The newspaper maintains its strong editorial line and commitment to politics and activism. Many national journalists and columnists in Canada have gotten their start in writing journalism at The Martlet and it continues to produce opportunities for student writers to become professionals. Notable Martlet alumni include Andrew MacLeod of the Tyee, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, and Leader of the B.C. Green Party Andrew Weaver.
In recent years, The Martlet has broken stories about UVSS spending deficits, UVic's reputational enhancement project, divestment lobbying efforts by UVic student activists, issues with UVic's sexualized violence policy, the arrival of Starbucks on campus, problems in the UVic Sociology department, international student tuition hikes, student groups' support of the Unist'ot'en First Nation camp, pro-life vs. pro-choice protesters on campus, racism and antisemitism on campus, and the ongoing battle for UVic student Lilia Zaharieva to receive her life-saving medication for her cystic fibrosis.
The Martlet is currently undergoing a transformation as it slowly transitions to more exclusive web-only content, in line with the shifting tendencies of journalism worldwide. Along with the 5000 physical papers circulated around the UVic campus and the local community, The Martlet has over 3500 followers on Twitter and 1700 followers on Facebook.
Martlet stories are regularly picked up by larger publications including the CBC, CTV News, the Times Colonist, and Chek News.
University traditions, myths, lore
Cadborosaurus
Cadborosaurus is a mythical sea serpent in the folklore of regions of the Pacific Coast of North America that is rumored by students to live in Cadboro Bay, adjacent to the University Of Victoria. The Cadborosaurus, or 'Caddy' as he is colloquially named, has become a favourite for students.
Fight song
Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement and convocation, and athletic games, is 'Rack and Ruin', a reminder of the tradition of the founding Victoria College.
"Rack and Ruin,
Blood and Gore,
Victoria College
Evermore!"
Finnerty Gardens
UVic maintains an extensive series of gardens on campus which serve as a place of respite and peace for students, staff, and members of the public who visit them. The Garden's include some of the largest collections of West-Coast plants and are cared for by the Friends of Finnerty Gardens, a charity which raises funds and helps support the garden's growth. The Finnerty Gardens include ponds, trails, flower gardens, and benches throughout. The University Multi-Faith Centre is nestled neared the gardens.
Martlet icon
The martlet and its red colour adorn many parts of the University of Victoria, including the crest, coat of arms, and flag representing the university's previous affiliation to McGill University which also uses the martlet. The legendary martlet bird's inability to land is often seen to symbolize the constant quest for knowledge, learning, and adventure. The oldest student newspaper on campus, The Martlet, is named after the bird.
Weeks of Welcome
UVic Orientation/Weeks of Welcome takes place each year for all new students to the school. UVic Orientation includes events, activities, and workshops to help students adjust to university life. The main event of UVic Orientation, which takes place on the day immediately preceding the first day of classes, has gone by a number of names over the years. This event is currently referred to as New Student Welcome, and is UVic's largest Orientation event.
University Club
The University Club of Victoria is a private club located on the campus of University of Victoria. Faculty, Staff, and students are all members of the club and outside organization may also use the dining halls, meeting rooms, and other facilities. Alumni of the university often become members as well. The catering staff host dinners and awards celebrations frequently and the Holiday Roast Pig is a classic event on campus.
The University Club (formerly called the Faculty Club) opened on March 16, 1982. The building, located on campus, is surrounded by high trees in a quiet, wooded area.
The University of Victoria Students Society (UVSS)
The University of Victoria Students' Society is the second largest student society in British Columbia and represents the UVic undergraduate student body, plans campus wide events and operates the Student Union Building. The student society's leadership is elected annually during campus wide undergraduate student elections. As a multimillion-dollar organization, the UVSS is one of the larger student unions which exist in Canada. The UVSS also negotiates with local government and healthcare providers for Student Transit Passes and health insurance.
In 2014, the UVSS Student Union building underwent a major overhaul and renovation. In 2015, the university expanded and doubled the capacity of the public transit hub on campus which is adjacent to the Student Union building.
In 2016, plans began for the fundraising and building of a new, much larger Student Union Building to accommodate the growing student population.
The University of Victoria Graduate Student Society (GSS)
The University of Victoria has one of the highest percentages of graduate and doctoral students in the country. The GSS offers services and academic support for UVic's 3,000 Graduate students. The society's services include the Grad House Restaurant, health and dental plan, funding for grad student events, and reduced-cost membership in the Victoria Car Share Co-operative.
Athletics
The Victoria Vikes (more commonly known as Vikes Nation) represent the university in a number of competitive sports, including rowing, swimming, rugby, and basketball. The Vikes have especially long ties to competitive rowing having competed for several international titles. Sailing remains an important sport at the university and the UVic Sailing Club (UVSC) maintains training facilities and boats at the nearby Cadboro Bay.
Significant endowments, scholarships, and bursaries allow the university to recruit the best student-athletes, regardless of financial standing. UVic is a participating partner in the Canada West Universities Athletic Association (CWUAA) (the western division of ) and in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Basketball games were traditionally played in the 2,500 seat, McKinnon Gymnasium which was built in 1975.
An athletics facility was completed in 2015, which provides considerably more space and facilities for athletics. The $77 million Centre for Athletes, Recreation, and Special Abilities (CARSA), opened its doors on May 4, 2015.
The university currently has both men's and women's teams in each of the following sports:
Rowing
Sailing
Basketball
Cross country & track
Field hockey
Golf
Rugby
Soccer
Swimming
Rowing
UVic maintains a boathouse on Elk Lake in Victoria, British Columbia.
UVic and UBC rivalry
As the two oldest universities in the province, the University of Victoria (UVic) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) have long been fierce rivals in sports and athletics, including in Rowing, Rugby, and Soccer. The UVic Vikes and UBC Thunderbirds rivalry is a symbol of good sportsmanship, but has sometimes resulted in violence and less-than-polite behaviour by both sides. The "Annual UBC I UVic Soccer Classic" is one of the largest university sporting events in Canada and pits the UBC Men's Soccer Team against the UVic Men's Soccer Team. The annual classic alternates between the UVic Centennial Stadium and the UBC Thunderbird Stadium.
Vikes Nation fans and UBC Thunderbird fans pack into the Centennial stadium for the classic, with the UVic Cheerleaders and Marching Band also present. In 2015, UVic also constructed a new and expanded Athletics Facility (CARSA) which includes a major auditorium/gymnasium for Vikes Basketball Teams, and significantly more seating, stands, and court facilities.
Centennial Stadium
The Centennial Stadium is a historic stadium located on the campus of the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The large facility was built as a 1967 Canadian Centennial project to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Canadian confederation, but has undergone many repairs and upgrades since then. Today, it is one of the largest university stadiums in British Columbia and is home to the UVic Vikes.
Sports Hall of Fame
UVic Charter Inductees are:
Lorne Loomer: Rowing Coach – Builder/Administrator
Wally Milligan: Men's Soccer Coach – Builder/Administrator
Gareth Rees: Rugby – Athlete Category
Ken Shields: Basketball – Coach Category
Kathy Shields: Basketball – Coach Category
Johnny Franklin: water polo (All-Star)- Athlete Category (50in'15)
Championships
Men's basketball: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1997
Women's basketball: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2003
Men's cross-country: 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2015
Women's cross-country: 1981, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1995, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
Women's field hockey: 1985, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2018, 2019, 2021
Men's soccer: 1976, 1988, 1997, 2004, 2011
Women's soccer: 2005
Canadian University Championship Titles
Men's rugby: 1998, 1999, 2020
Men's rowing: 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2009, 2010, 2021
Women's rowing: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2012
Men's golf: 2003, 2005, 2006
Canadian Western Universities Championship Titles
Women's field hockey: 2015
Sport clubs and societies
UVic has 25 sport clubs that are administered by Vikes Recreation and run by students.
People
Chancellors
Presidents
W. Harry Hickman, 1963–1964 (acting)
Malcolm G. Taylor, 1964–1968
Robert T. D. Wallace, 1968–1969 (acting)
Bruce J. Partridge, 1969–1972
Hugh E. Farquhar, 1972–1974
Stephen A. Jennings, 1974 (acting)
Howard E. Petch, 1975–1990
David F. Strong, 1990–2000
David H. Turpin, 2000–2013
Jamie Cassels, 2013–2020
Kevin Hall, 2020–present
Notable faculty
Some of the university's noted faculty members, past and present, are:
Alan Astbury, physics professor emeritus who played a part in the Nobel-prize winning discovery of a new subatomic particle and winner of the Rutherford Medal and Prize for physics
Taiaiake Alfred, noted Indigenous scholar and founding director of the Indigenous Governance Program at UVic
Mowry Baden, sculptor and winner of the 2008 Governor General's Award in Visual Arts
David D. Balam, astronomer and namesake of asteroid 3749 Balam
Brendan Burke, Aegean Bronze Age archaeologist
Benjamin Butterfield, internationally acclaimed operatic tenor
Brian Christie, Associate professor of Medicine and Neuroscience and active researcher
Louis D. Costa, neuropsychologist
Ronald I. Cheffins, professor emeritus of law and political science, first lawyer to be appointed directly to the British Columbia court of appeal (1985), a Canadian Constitutional expert, advisor to five past British Columbia lieutenant-governors, Vice-chair on the Law Reform Commission of British Columbia (1991), special commissioner appointed by Lieutenant-Governor Clarence Wallace (1953)
Harold Coward, world-renowned scholar in religious studies and a president of Academy 2 of the Royal Society of Canada
Lorna Crozier, recent recipient of the Order of Canada
Aaron H. Devor, sociologist and sexologist known for transgender research and holder of the university's Research Chair in Transgender Studies, a world's first
William Gaddes, noted psychologist and one of the first specialists in learning disorders in British Columbia
Werner Israel, physicist who discovered the important phenomenon of mass inflation, and together with Stephen Hawking, coeditor of two important celebratory volumes
Stephen Arthur Jennings, mathematician who made significant breakthroughs in the study of modular representation theory
Mary Kerr, production designer for the 1994 Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies
Patrick Lane, poet and the recipient of almost every major Canadian literary prize
Hal Lawrence, World War II veteran and historian
Tim Lilburn, poet and winner of the Governor General's Award
Stephen Lindsay, cognitive psychologist in the field of memory
Joan MacLeod, playwright and creative writing professor
Marshall McCall, scientist and expert on the chemical evolution of galaxies
Giselle O. Martin-Kniep, educator focusing on learning communities
Erich Mohr, researcher in experimental therapeutics for central nervous system disorders
Julio Navarro, astrophysicist involved in formulating a density profile for dark matter halos
Jesse Read, musical conductor, composer, and bassoonist
Otfried Spreen, neuropsychologist and aphasia researcher
James Tully, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance and Philosophy
Don VandenBerg, internationally acclaimed astrophysicist for his work on modelling stars
Andrew Weaver, one of the world's leading climate researchers, member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which was co-awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with former U.S. vice president Al Gore, member of the British Columbia Climate Action Team, MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head from 2013 to 2020 and Leader of the BC Green Party from 2015 to 2020.
Anthony Welch, art historian and one of the foremost authorities on Islamic art & architecture
Christine Welsh, Métis filmmaker
Jin-Sun Yoon, 2015 recipient of 3M National Teaching Award
Anne Zeller, physical anthropologist specializing in the study of primates
Chase Joynt, joined the University of Victoria in 2019 as an assistant professor of Gender Studies. He teaches three courses; Queer Cinema, Popular Culture and Social Media, and Gender, Power and Difference. According to the University of Victoria undergraduate calendar - January 2021, GNDR 344 - Queer Film surveys "queer" representation in popular film. Particular attention is paid to critical analyses of gay, lesbian, straight, queer, transgender and transsexual embodiment on the screen. According to the University of Victoria undergraduate calendar - January 2021, GNDR 200 - Popular Culture and Social Media critically examines representations of gender, race, class and sexualities in popular culture and social media with a consideration of how historical, ideological, social and political forces influence media practices. According to the University of Victoria undergraduate calendar - January 2021, GNDR 100 - Gender, Power, and Difference is an interdisciplinary introduction to gender studies. Considers the way gender (i.e., our idea of what it is to be a "real" woman or man) is constructed across class, race/ethnicity, sexualities, (dis)abilities, age and geographical location. Examines the impact of these intersecting identities on social inequality through diverse topics, such as media, culture, language, work, health, globalization, colonization and activism. Situates Canadian topics in a broader, transnational context, emphasizing connections between the "local" and the "global."
Thea Cacchioni, currently an associate professor and chair of the gender studies department at the University of Victoria. Her research focuses on the medicalization of sex, gender, and sexuality; as well as specifically focussing on specific diagnoses such as Female Sexual Dysfunction and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Cacchioni has testified twice at the US Federal Food and Drug Administration against ‘pink viagra,’ an ineffective desire drug designed for women with harmful side effects.
Sikata Banerjee, is a Gender Studies professor who joined the University of Victoria in 2000. Banerjee offers six courses including; Gender Studies Seminar, Women, Race and Empire, Imagining India from Empire to Bollywood, Masculinities, Women in Contemporary India, and Gender, Nation, and War.
Annalee Lepp, an associate professor in the Gender Studies Department at the University of Victoria since 1993. Lepp teaches four courses which include; GNDR 201 - Gender, Food and Power, GNDR 302 - Sex Work, Trafficking and Human Rights, GNDR 400A - Critical Research Practices, and GNDR 400B - Research Seminar for Independent Project.
Andrea Walsh is an associate professor and Smyth chair in Arts & Engagement at the University of Victoria and a curator. Dr. Walsh is a visual anthropologist, specialized in 20th-century contemporary aboriginal and visual culture in Canada. Since 2011 Walsh has been the director of the Visiting Arts Program out of the Department of Anthropology as part of one of her courses; as well as teaching a course on museums and anthropology. She has been a curator in eight different exhibitions since 2000. Walsh's most recent exhibition, also curated by Dr. Sharon Fortney, “There is Truth Here: Creativity and Resilience in Children’s Art from Indian Residential and Day Schools,” featured surviving artwork attained from residential and day schools from several different places across Canada; this was featured in the Museum of Vancouver. This exhibit was part of her work as an Honorary Witness to Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. For her work on this exhibit in partnership with the survivors of the residential and Day Schools in Canada, she received a Community Award in 2020 from the BC Achievement Foundation.
Christine Sy is an Ojibway Anishinaabe professor of Gender Studies at the University of Victoria (British Columbia) from Bawatig (Sault Ste. Marie, ON). Sy is from obiishkikaang Lac Seul First Nation in Ontario, and is makwa odoodem meaning Bear Clan. Sy also has ancestry from north of Sault St. Marie, Ontario, in Island Lake. In 2016, Sy began as a lecturer at the University of Victoria, and in 2018, became an assistant professor. Sy's teaching and research specializes in Indigenous gender studies, and the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the land, and the politics surrounding their ongoing relationship with the more-than-natural world. Sy's recent research centres the sovereignty of the Anishinaabeg peoples, and uses feminist interpretive lenses to examine the relationships of Anishinaabeg women with the sugar bush across space and time. Sy holds her relationship with the Lekwungen and WSÁNEĆ lands, waters and peoples as a priority, as well as her relationship with her own nation in her research, her education and in her creative life.
Notable alumni
The university has over 88,000 alumni. Listed below are some of UVic's noted alumni:
Alumni in the arts
Kim Adams, internationally known sculptor
Bill Burns, conceptual artist
Mark Chao, Chinese/Taiwanese singer, actor and model
Calvin Chen, singer and actor as a member in the popular Taiwanese boy band Fahrenheit
Kyle Christie Journalist
Esi Edugyan, novelist
Nathan Fielder, writer and comedian
Leah Gibson, actress
Rick Gibson, sculptor and performance artist
Lori Hallier, actress
Aislinn Hunter, poet and fiction author
Erin Karpluk, actress currently starring as Erica Strange on CBC's Being Erica
W. P. Kinsella, novelist well known for his 1982 novel Shoeless Joe which was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams
Eva Markvoort, author who chronicled her life with cystic fibrosis which became the subject of the film '65 Redroses
Aaron McArthur, Global News BC television reporter
Charles Montgomery, writer
Peter Outerbridge, Genie-nominated actor in such movies as Kissed and Saw VI
Nilesh Patel, noted filmmaker
Chris Perry, Royal Canadian Navy Historian
Eden Robinson, novelist and short story writer
Tina Ross, noted archaeological illustrator working in the Aegean area
Melanie Siebert, poet
Jessica Stockholder, artist
Richard Van Camp, short story writer and novelist
D.W. Wilson, writer
Alumni in business
Stewart Butterfield (B.A. '96), entrepreneur, businessman, co-founder of the photo sharing website Flickr and its parent company Ludicorp; founded the team communication app Slack
Peter Ciceri, former vice-president, Compaq Computer Corporation, United States
Bob Cummings, Executive Vice-president, Guest Experience and Marketing of WestJet
Richard Flury, former chief executive of BP
Mark Hill, co-founder and former vice-president of WestJet
Ryan Holmes, founder and CEO of the online social media dashboard, Hootsuite
Jeff Mallett, former president and chief operating officer of Yahoo!
Tim Price, chair and director of Trilon Financial Corporation
Sheridan Scott, vice-president of Bell Canada; former head of the Competition Bureau of Canada
Benjamin Philip George, Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer of George Healthcare Berhad
Alistair Vigier, chief executive officer and co-founder of ClearWay Law
Kyle Vucko, chief executive officer and co-founder of Indochino
Alumni in government and public affairs
George Abbott, former BC Liberal cabinet Minister and member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Shuswap.
Rona Ambrose, Interim leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition, and federal cabinet Minister under Stephen Harper.
Jody Wilson-Raybould, former Liberal Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and current MP for Vancouver Granville. She was Canada's first Indigenous Minister of Justice.
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, public policy scholar and editor of the Journal of Borderlands Studies
Ric Careless, one of British Columbia's leaders in wilderness preservation, named Environmentalist of the Year (1991) by Equinox Magazine and River Conservationist of the Year (1993) by American Rivers
Murray Coell, former BC Liberal cabinet Minister and member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Saanich North and the Islands and former mayor of Saanich.
Fin Donnelly, former NDP Member of Parliament for New Westminster-Coquitlam and current member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Coquitlam-Burke Mountain.
Rob Fleming, NDP provincial cabinet Minister and member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Victoria-Swan Lake.
Barbara Hall, mayor of Toronto (1994–1997)
Colin Hansen, former BC Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Vancouver-Quilchena.
Lydia Hwitsun, former Chief of Cowichan Tribes
Judi Tyabji, former BC Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Okanagan-East.
Gary Lunn, former Conservative federal Minister, former Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
Lorna Marsden, former president of York University
Rabbie Namaliu, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea (1988-1992)
Adrian Norfolk, Ambassador of Canada to Qatar
Barry Penner, former BC Liberal provincial cabinet minister and member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Chilliwack-Hope and former president of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER).
Andrew Petter, Canadian constitutional law scholar, former NDP Attorney-General of British Columbia and member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Saanich South, and current president of Simon Fraser University
Carla Qualtrough, Liberal Member of Parliament for Delta and federal Minister.
Tamara Vrooman, former Deputy Minister of Finance of British Columbia and current Vancity CEO
Alumni in the sciences
Laurel Schafer, Canada Research Chair in Catalyst Development
Robert Campbell Aitken, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Trevor Van Damme, Aegean archaeologist
Alumni in sports
Kirsten Barnes, winner of two Olympic gold medals in rowing in 1992 in Barcelona
Ryan Cochrane, 2008 Olympic bronze medalist in men's 1500m freestyle swimming, and 2012 Olympic silver medalist in 1500m freestyle swimming
Stephanie Dixon, swimmer, gold medalist in the Paralympic Games in Athens (2004) and Sydney (2000), and numerous medals in the Pan American Games
Kyle Hamilton, gold medalist at the 2008 Summer Olympics in men's eights in rowing
Sarah Kaufman, former Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Championship holder, professional mixed martial artist, formerly with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, current Invicta FC Bantamweight Champion
Gareth Rees, CEO for Rugby Canada and Canada's all-time leading goal scorer in rugby
Ken Shields, former head coach of the Canadian national basketball team
Alison Sydor, three-time world mountain bike champion and recipient of the Velma Springstead Trophy as Canada's top female athlete in 1995 and 1996
Lauren Woolstencroft, eight-time Paralympics gold medalist in alpine skiing
Asteroid 150145 Uvic
The asteroid 150145 Uvic was named in the university's honour on 1 June 2007. UVic was the first university in BC to have an asteroid named for it.
Arms
See also
Adaptive Public License
Akitsiraq Law School
Camosun College, a nearby college
Education in Canada
Higher education in British Columbia
List of universities in British Columbia
University of Victoria Students' Society
Notes
References
External links
Official athletics website
1963 establishments in British Columbia
Educational institutions established in 1963
University of Victoria
Universities in British Columbia
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National%20identity%20cards%20in%20the%20European%20Economic%20Area
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National identity cards in the European Economic Area
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National identity cards are issued to their citizens by the governments of all European Economic Area (EEA) member states except Denmark, Iceland and Ireland. Ireland however issues a passport card which is a valid document in the EEA and Switzerland. Denmark and Iceland issue simpler identity cards that are not valid as travel documents. From 2 August 2021, new identity cards are harmonized as a common identity card model replaced the various formats already in use.
Citizens holding a national identity card, which states citizenship of an EEA member state or Switzerland, can use it as an identity document within their home country, and as a travel document to exercise the right of free movement in the EEA and Switzerland. However, identity cards that do not state citizenship of an EEA member state or Switzerland, including national identity cards issued to residents who are not citizens, are not valid as travel documents within the EEA and Switzerland.
Use
Travel document
As an alternative to presenting a passport, EEA and Swiss citizens are entitled to use a valid national identity card as a stand-alone travel document to exercise their right of free movement in the European Economic Area and Switzerland. National identity card ownership in most EU countries and Switzerland is much more widespread than passport ownership.
When travelling within the Nordic Passport Union, no identity documentation is legally required by Nordic citizens. When travelling within the Common Travel Area, other valid identity documentation (such as a driving licence) is often sufficient for Irish and British citizens.
At present, Denmark and Iceland do not issue identity cards that are valid as travel documents in the EEA member states and Switzerland. Strictly speaking, it is not necessary for an EEA or Swiss citizen to possess a valid national identity card or passport to enter the EEA and Switzerland. In theory, if an EEA or Swiss citizen can prove their nationality by any other means (e.g. by presenting an expired national identity card or passport, or a citizenship certificate), they must be permitted to enter the EEA and Switzerland. An EEA or Swiss citizen who is unable to demonstrate their nationality satisfactorily must, nonetheless, be given 'every reasonable opportunity' to obtain the necessary documents or to have them delivered within a reasonable period of time.
Additionally, EEA and Swiss citizens can enter the following countries and territories outside the EEA and Switzerland on the strength of their national identity cards alone, without the need to present a passport to the border authorities:
Turkey allows citizens of Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland to enter for short-term visits using a national identity card. Egypt allows citizens of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal to enter using a national identity card for short-term visits. Tunisia allows nationals of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland to enter using a national identity card if travelling on an organized tour. Anguilla, Dominica, and Saint Lucia allow nationals of France to enter using a national ID card, while Dominica de facto also allows nationals of (at least) Germany and Sweden to enter with a national ID card (as of March 2016). Gambia allows nationals of Belgium to enter using a national ID card. The United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies only allows EU (except Irish), EEA and Swiss citizens fulfilling specific requirements to use national identity cards, until at least 31 December 2025.
Although, as a matter of European law, holders of a Swedish national identity card are entitled to use it as a travel document to any European Union member state (regardless of whether it belongs to the Schengen Area or not), Swedish national law did not recognise the card as a valid travel document outside the Schengen Area until July 2015 in direct violation of European law. What this meant in practice was that leaving Schengen directly from Sweden (i.e., without making a stopover in another Schengen country) with the card was not possible. This partially changed in July 2015, when travel to non-Schengen countries in the EU (but not outside, even if the destination country accepts the ID card) was permitted.
Similarly, Finnish citizens cannot leave Finland directly for a non-EU/EFTA country with only their ID cards.
Additional checks for some citizens
At the external border crossing points of the Schengen Area, if a traveller presents a travel document without a machine readable zone and the border guard has 'doubt about his/her identity', the traveller may be requested to undergo a more in-depth 'second line' check. In practice, this means that Greek citizens who present a Greek identity card and Italian citizens who present an Italian paper identity card could be subject to additional checks and delay when entering/leaving the Schengen Area.
With effect from 7 April 2017, it is mandatory for border guards in the Schengen Area to check on a systematic basis the travel documents of all EEA and Swiss citizens crossing external borders against relevant databases. Until 7 April 2017, border guards in the Schengen Area were only obliged to perform a 'rapid' and 'straightforward' visual check for signs of falsification and tampering, and were not obliged to use technical devices – such as document scanners, UV light and magnifiers – when EEA and Swiss citizens presented their passports or national identity cards at external border checkpoints. They were not legally obliged to check the passports/national identity cards of EEA and Swiss citizens against a database of lost/stolen/invalidated travel documents (and, if they did so, they could only perform a 'rapid' and 'straightforward' database check, and could only check to see if the traveller was on a database containing persons of interest on a strictly 'non-systematic' basis where such a threat was 'genuine', 'present' and 'sufficiently serious').
According to statistics published by Frontex, in 2015 the top 6 EU member states whose national identity cards were falsified and detected at external border crossing points of the Schengen Area were Italy, Spain, Belgium, Greece, France and Romania. These countries remained the top 6 in 2016.
Identification document
Usage in own country
There are varying rules on domestic usage of identity documents. Some countries demand the usage of the national identity card or a passport. Other countries allow usage of other documents like driver's licences.
In some countries, e.g. Austria, Finland and Sweden, national identity cards are fully voluntary and not needed by everyone, as identity documents like driving licences are accepted domestically. In these countries only a minority have a national identity card, since a majority have a passport and a driving licence and don't need more identity documents. This is also true for Ireland where those who have a passport and a driving licence have less need for the passport card.
Usage outside own country
EEA and Swiss citizens exercising their right of free movement in another EEA member state or Switzerland are entitled to use their national identity card as an identification document when dealing not just with government authorities, but also with private sector service providers. For example, where a supermarket in The Netherlands refuses to accept a German national identity card as proof of age when a German citizen attempts to purchase an age-restricted product and insists on the production of a Dutch-issued passport or driving licence or other identity document, the supermarket would, in effect, be discriminating against this individual on this basis of his/her nationality in the provision of a service, thereby contravening the prohibition in Art 20(2) of Directive 2006/123/EC of discriminatory treatment relating to the nationality of a service recipient in the conditions of access to a service which are made available to the public at large by a service provider.
Usage in third countries
National identity cards are often accepted in other parts of the world for unofficial identification purposes (such as age verification in commercial establishments that serve or sell alcohol, or checking in at hotels) and sometimes for official purposes such as proof of identity/nationality to authorities (especially machine-readable cards).
As of 1 July 2021, EEA (except Irish) passports and identity cards are no longer accepted to prove the right to rent in the United Kingdom, so EEA citizens are required to provide evidence of lawful immigration status.
Common design and security features
European Union standards from 2006
On 13 July 2005, the Justice and Home Affairs Council called on all European Union member states to adopt common designs and security features for national identity cards by December 2005, with detailed standards being laid out as soon as possible thereafter.
On 4 December 2006, all European Union member states agreed to adopt the following common designs and minimum security standards for national identity cards that were in the draft resolution of 15 November 2006:
Material
The card can be made with paper core that is laminated on both sides or made entirely of a synthetic substrate.
Biographical data
The data on the card shall contain at least: name, birth date, nationality, a photo, signature, card number, and end date of validity. Some cards contain more information such as height, eye colour, start date of validity, sex, issue place or province, and birthplace.
Machine readable data
The biographical data on the card is to be machine readable and follow the ICAO specification for machine-readable travel documents.
The EU Regulation revising the Schengen Borders Code (which entered into force on 7 April 2017 and introduced systematic checks of the travel documents of EU, EEA and Swiss citizens against relevant databases when entering and leaving the Schengen Area) states that all member states should phase out travel documents (including national identity cards) which are not machine-readable.
However, as of 2021, Greece continues to issue solely non-machine readable identity cards, while Italy is in the process of phasing out the issuing of non-machine readable paper booklets in favour of biometric cards.
Electronic identity cards
All EEA electronic identity cards should comply with the ISO/IEC standard 14443. Effectively this means that all these cards should implement electromagnetic coupling between the card and the card reader and, if the specifications are followed, are only capable of being read from proximities of less than 0.1 metres.
They are not the same as the RFID tags often seen in stores and attached to livestock. Neither will they work at the relatively large distances typically seen at US toll booths or automated border crossing channels.
The same ICAO specifications adopted by nearly all European passport booklets (Basic Access Control - BAC) means that miscreants should not be able to read these cards unless they also have physical access to the card. BAC authentication keys derive from the three lines of data printed in the MRZ on the obverse of each TD1 format identity card that begins "I".
According to the ISO 14443 standard, wireless communication with the card reader can not start until the identity card's chip has transmitted a unique identifier. Theoretically an ingenious attacker who has managed to secrete multiple reading devices in a distributed array (eg in arrival hall furniture) could distinguish bearers of MROTDs without having access to the relevant chip files. In concert with other information, this attacker might then be able to produce profiles specific to a particular card and, consequently its bearer. Defence is a trivial task when most electronic cards make new and randomised UIDs during every session [NH08] to preserve a level of privacy more comparable with contact cards than commercial RFID tags.
The electronic identity cards of Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Portugal and Spain all have a digital signature application which, upon activation, enables the bearer to authenticate the card using their confidential PIN. Consequently they can, at least theoretically, authenticate documents to satisfy any third party that the document's not been altered after being digitally signed. This application uses a registered certificate in conjunction with public/private key pairs so these enhanced cards do not necessarily have to participate in online transactions.
An unknown number of national European identity cards are issued with different functionalities for authentication while online. Some also have an additional contact chip containing their electronic signature functionality, such as the Swedish national identity card.
Portugal's card had an EMV application but it was removed in newer versions from 16 January 2016.
New European Union standards from 2019
A new common format of electronic identity document is intended to replace and harmonize the various identity card models currently in use across the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). In accordance with its own laws, any Member State of the Union shall issue an identity card complying with the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2019/1157 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on strengthening the security of identity cards of Union citizens and of residence documents issued to Union citizens and their family members exercising their right of free movement, and articles 3/4/5 state that:
Identity cards shall be produced in ID-1 format and shall contain a machine-readable zone (MRZ).
Security standards shall be based on ICAO Document 9303.
The document shall bear the title ‘Identity card’ in the official language and in at least one other official language of the institutions of the Union.
It shall contain the two-letter country code of the Member State issuing the card, printed in negative in a blue rectangle and encircled by 12 yellow stars on the front side.
It shall include a highly secure storage medium which shall contain a facial image of the holder of the card and two fingerprints in interoperable digital formats. The storage medium shall have sufficient capacity and capability to guarantee the integrity, the authenticity and the confidentiality of the data. The data stored shall be accessible in contactless form and secured as provided for in Implementing Decision (European Union) C(2018) 7767.
Identity cards shall have a minimum period of validity of 5 years and a maximum period of validity of 10 years. But Member States may provide for a period of validity of less than 5 years for minors and more than 10 years for persons aged 70 and above.
Identity cards which do not meet the new requirements shall cease to be valid at their expiry or by 3 August 2031.
Identity cards which do not meet the minimum security standards or which do not include a functional MRZ shall cease to be valid at their expiry or by 3 August 2026.
Identity cards of persons aged 70 and above at 2 August 2021, which meet the minimum security standards and which have a functional MRZ shall cease to be valid at their expiry.
Article 16 states that this Regulation shall apply from 2 August 2021.
For several member countries the new requirements do not mean that the design or features of the existing cards change much, since they mostly fulfil the requirements already. For some this means a large redesign. A visible change for all countries is the country code inside the EU flag.
Identity cards not meeting the new requirements shall cease to be valid at their expiry or by 3 August 2031, whichever comes sooner. Identity cards which do not meet the minimum security standards or which do not include a functional machine-readable zone shall cease to be valid by 3 August 2026. Identity cards of persons aged 70 and above on 2 August 2021 which meet the minimum security standards and which have a functional MRZ shall cease to be valid at their expiry.
In addition, the new EU Regulation cannot be applied to travel documents like the passport card issued by Ireland, as stated at point (14) of the introduction chapter.
Implementation throughout the member states is ongoing with various timetables on a per-country basis. Cyprus began issuing identity cards conforming to the harmonised requirements as early as August 2020, becoming the first country to implement the new standard. It was followed by Malta the same month. France started pilot testing the new document in select departements in March 2021, with a wider, progressive rollout planned for the following months.
Overview of national identity cards
Member states issue a variety of national identity cards with differing technical specifications and according to differing issuing procedures.
See also
Passports of the European Union
Citizenship of the European Union
Visa requirements for European Union citizens
Schengen Area
European Economic Area
European Free Trade Association
List of national identity card policies by country
Identity document
European driving licence
Internal passport
European Health Insurance Card
Notes
References
External links
National identity cards in PRADO (The Council of the European Union Public Register of Authentic Travel and Identity Documents Online)
European Economic Area
Authentication methods
International travel documents
European Economic Area
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27831325
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genieo
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Genieo
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Genieo Innovation is an Israeli company, specializing in unwanted software which includes advertising and user tracking software, commonly referred to as a potentially unwanted program, adware, privacy-invasive software, grayware, or malware. They are best known for Genieo, an application of this type. They also own and operate InstallMac which distributes additional 'optional' search modifying software with other applications. In 2014, Genieo Innovation was acquired for $34 million by Somoto, another company which "bundles legitimate applications with offers for additional third party applications that may be unwanted by the user". This sector of the Israeli software industry is frequently referred to as Download Valley.
History
Genieo Innovation was founded in April 2008 by Sol Tzvi and Jacob Tenenboem.
The first version of Genieo was released in September 2009, and the beta version was launched at the Demo2010 conference in March 2010.
Genieo's website has been down and it is suspected that it has changed its name to InKeepr.
Overview
The software installs itself onto computers and makes it almost impossible for users to remove it. It hijacks the user's browser and tracks browser usage with the intention of mining information. Users complain that it acts like a virus and they need to run special programs to remove it.
Malware issues
Genieo is listed as malware in Apple Inc.'s XProtect anti-malware service, which built in to all Macintosh computers running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later.
In May 2013, a malicious installer, distributed by Genieo partner Softonic, was found by security software company Intego. The installer masquerades as a necessary update to Adobe Flash Player and attempts to install Genieo.app without user interaction. Dynamic libraries are added to the Safari browser, which intercept searches intended for Bing and Google.
Other versions of Genieo for Mac have also been offered as 'codecs' required for video playback. Testing carried out on Genieo for Mac in June 2013 found that it left active software behind even after using the supplied uninstaller, which required detailed manual removal.
In November 2013, another fake application installer was reported to include Genieo adware.
In January 2014, Sophos added Genieo for Mac to their threat list; in the category Viruses and Spyware : Trojan horse (computing) : Adware
.
As of November 2014, Genieo for Mac is flagged by Intego (mentioned above) and, according to an analysis at VirusTotal, by 25 (out of 55 surveyed) anti-malware solutions, including Ad-Aware, Avast!, Bitdefender, Comodo, Dr. Web, ESET, Fortinet, F-Secure, Kaspersky, Trend Micro Housecall, Sophos and Symantec
In July 2014, Genieo was acquired for $34 million by Somoto, another company which "bundles legitimate applications with offers for additional third party applications that may be unwanted by the user."
In August 2015, malware researchers discovered a Genieo installer which acquired access to the Mac keychain, by an automated click on "allow", when the permission dialog for the keychain was displayed. The code was in a Safari browser extension added by Genieo, and was also contained, but not immediately used, in earlier versions of the installer.
Genieo case became the impetus for the rapid emergence of similar adware: Only Search, MacShop Ads, MacVX, etc.
See also
Spyware
Personalization
Adaptive hypermedia
Behavioral targeting
References
Software companies of Israel
Adware
Online advertising
MacOS malware
Spyware companies
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2040954
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NYC%20Health%20%2B%20Hospitals
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NYC Health + Hospitals
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The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (NYCHHC), branded as NYC Health + Hospitals, operates the public hospitals and clinics in New York City as a public benefit corporation. , HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States with $6.7 billion in annual revenues, serving 1.4 million patients, including more than 475,000 uninsured city residents, providing services interpreted in more than 190 languages. HHC was created in 1969 by the New York State Legislature as a public benefit corporation. It is similar to a municipal agency, but has a board of directors. It operates eleven acute care hospitals, five nursing homes, six diagnostic and treatment centers, and more than 70 community-based primary care sites, serving primarily the poor and the working class. HHC's own MetroPlus Health Plan is one of the New York area's largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance and is the plan of choice for nearly half a million New Yorkers.
The organization is headquartered at 125 Worth Street in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhattan. Each year HHC's facilities provide about 225,000 inpatient admissions, one million emergency department visits and five million clinic visits to New Yorkers. HHC facilities treat nearly one-fifth of all general hospital discharges and more than one third of emergency department and hospital-based clinic visits in New York City.
The most well known hospital in the HHC system is Bellevue Hospital – the oldest public hospital in the United States. Bellevue is the designated hospital for treatment of the President of the United States and other world leaders if they become ill or injured while in New York City. The current president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals is Dr. Mitchell H. Katz.
The organization underwent a rebranding initiative in November 2015, shortening its name from 40 characters to 19 characters, as "NYC Health + Hospitals".
History
In 1736, HHC's oldest hospital, Bellevue Hospital was founded as an infirmary for smallpox and other contagious diseases on the top floor of a public workhouse and jail. Bellevue Hospital was formally named in 1825. At the turn of the 20th century, Bellevue's medical college merged with University Medical College into what would later become the New York University College of Medicine.
In 1920, Bellevue founded the Children's Psychiatric Service, the first program in the United States devoted to the study of child autism and training child psychiatrists. Bellevue continues to provide through this day comprehensive pediatric services and renowned psychiatric services, as well as highly regarded emergency and trauma services. Bellevue remains the principal teaching hospital for its affiliated New York University School of Medicine. HHC's other hospitals were founded in the late 19th century and early-to-mid-20th century.
In 1965, Medicare and Medicaid were created and quickly accounted for 86 percent of the income received by the municipal hospital system. Patients with private insurance opted to use private hospitals and Medicaid raised its eligibility. As a consequence, New York City hospitals saw patient numbers and funding decline precipitously. According to a 1967 study just two years later, the conditions and quality of care at public hospitals in New York City were deplorable.
In 1969, New York State created HHC to replace the city's Department of Hospitals in operating city hospitals and other health care facilities. HHC was formed as a quasi public agency to enable it to benefit from private revenues and funding. HCC's fiscal condition nevertheless has varied periodically since its formation, and it has gone through periods of instability. In June 1970 it took over the city's public hospitals.
Headquarters
The 125 Worth Street Headquarters of the HHC and the New York City Department of Health was built between 1932–35. Along the top of the building there are 29 last names of pioneers in various fields of medical science and patient care.
Facilities
NYC Health + Hospitals operates 11 hospitals across the city:
NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue
NYC Health + Hospitals/Coney Island
NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst
NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem
NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi
NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County
NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln
NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan
NYC Health + Hospitals/North Central Bronx
NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens
NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull
Community, diagnostic & treatment, and long-term care centers:
NYC Health + Hospitals/Belvis
NYC Health + Hospitals/Carter
NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler
NYC Health + Hospitals/Cumberland
NYC Health + Hospitals/East New York
NYC Health + Hospitals/Gouverneur
NYC Health + Hospitals/Morrisania
NYC Health + Hospitals/Renaissance
NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health, Roosevelt
NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health, Vanderbilt
Accolades
Awards and grants
HHC has won a number of awards and grants in recent years for its quality of care and innovative community-based programs. In 2006, a study by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ranked quality of care at HHC among the highest in New York City in the areas of heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia. HHC reported that of the 50 hospitals in New York City that voluntarily submitted quality data to CMS, HHC hospitals held seven of the top nine places – and all ranked in the top 17 – when judged by 10 specific measures of healthcare quality for the treatment of patients with life-threatening heart and pulmonary conditions, and that Brooklyn's Coney Island Hospital achieved a first place ranking among all New York City hospitals, public or private.
On September 30, 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded HHC a $10 million grant to be administered by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The grant, which will provide up to $30 million over three years, is to provide health services to non-responder populations in New York City affected by the World Trade Center attack. Under the grant, HHC will provide medical examinations, diagnostic testing, referral and treatment for residents, students, and others in the community that were directly affected by the dust and debris from the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on Sept. 11, 2001. Other recent grants to HHC include to expand access to neonatal care and to improve health literacy among low literacy patients.
Leading medical information technology systems
In recent years, HHC has received recognition for its advanced clinical information system which includes a comprehensive electronic health record (also known as an electronic medical record). HHC public hospitals have won the Nicholas E. Davies award for the use of clinical information technology. HHC President Alan Aviles received the CEO IT Achievement Award from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and Modern Healthcare Magazine for leading use of information technology to advance healthcare excellence. And HHC's North Bronx Healthcare Network was awarded Hospitals and Health Networks' Most Wired Award four consecutive years for its use of information technology in safety, quality, customer service, business processes and workforce training.
Restrictions
All who work for HHC are public employees. They are not allowed (by law) to strike.
Controversies
Lawsuit and allegations of abuse and neglect at HHC unit
Conditions at the psychiatric unit of the Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, one of 11 HHC hospitals, remain the subject of a lawsuit and scrutiny by the press. In May 2007, the New York State Mental Hygiene Legal Service, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Kirkland & Ellis, a private law firm, filed a lawsuit against Kings County Hospital. The plaintiffs charged that its psychiatric unit was "a chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger." The May 2007 lawsuit alleged that patients at the Kings County Hospital "are subjected to overcrowded and squalid conditions often accompanied by physical abuse and unnecessary and punitive injections of mind-altering drugs."
In December 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York began a separate investigation.
In June 2008, the plaintiffs in the May 2007 lawsuit released a video of Esmin Green, a 49-year-old patient, dying on the floor of a waiting room in King County Hospital after waiting to be seen by at the psychiatric emergency department for more than 24 hours. Shortly after the release of the video, which was highly publicized, HHC officials agreed in court to implement emergency reforms. Alan Aviles, HHC president, released a statement that he was shocked and distressed by the situation and promised a thorough investigation. Six HHC employees were fired and reforms were implemented. The particular conditions at Kings County Hospital appear to be largely limited to that unit. As part of a broader transparency initiative, HHC voluntarily reported health and safety data for 2008, showing significant declines in infection and mortality rates across its participating hospitals on its website. Procedures across HHC hospitals and centers, however, are largely unstandardized and conditions vary widely.
On February 5, 2009, the plaintiffs in the May 2007 lawsuit issued a joint statement acknowledging that reforms had been implemented but stating that further reforms are needed. Plaintiffs stated:
[T]he hospital remains a dangerous place where patient health and safety is at risk on a daily basis. … Clearly, much more works needs to be done. The federal government's involvement brings a vast array of expertise and resources, and we look forward to working with the DOJ and the U.S. Attorney's Office in our efforts to make Kings County Hospital a safe, effective, and therapeutic environment in which New Yorkers can receive the professional care and treatment they deserve. It is our hope and expectation that the express willingness of the defendants to work with DOJ and Plaintiff's counsel will, in fact, result in the change that KCHC so desperately needs.
Bloomberg has stressed the need for, and improvements in, accountability and transparency at HHC, stating in March 2009, “New York City's public hospitals are also national leaders in reporting on patient safety, including the rate of infections acquired during hospital stays – a very troubling problem nationwide. Our taxpayers deserve to know that. That's what accountability is about – and we need to make accountability the norm throughout the country, in big cities and small towns."
2009 state funding cut
In March 2009, HHC announced spending reductions of $105 million and said that it would eliminate 400 jobs because of Medicaid cuts, rising expenses and a growing number of uninsured patients. Alan Aviles, HHC President, said regarding the cuts, "We can try and ensure that patients who are adversely affected can be linked to alternative care. That, of course, will become more and more difficult as we have to dig deeper and deeper."
Local DC 37, a union representing some of HHC's 30,000 workers, announced: If there is one thing that should be obvious in this economic climate it is that layoffs are not a solution but only compound the problems we're facing. District Council 37 will address this issue aggressively. We are talking to the State to make sure that the federal stimulus moneys are used for the purpose for which they are intended.
Cutbacks will include four school-based health programs, three community clinics, two mental health day treatment programs, and the consolidation of three other hospital-based programs. At the time of the March 2009 announcement, Aviles said these cuts address a fraction of the problem and pointed to additional reductions in the future.
In early April, Aviles circulated a letter to HHC's employees and its community advisory board stating that due to decisions by Governor Paterson the cuts would be significantly deeper than those reported in March. The effect of the initial and additional funding cutbacks on the ability of HHC to deliver effective community care is unclear. The process by which the cuts were decided upon by Governor Paterson has not yet been reported. It is unclear whether the cutbacks will impact the efficacy in New York City of President Barack Obama's initiative to expand affordable access to healthcare, or how the cuts will affect New York City's ability to offer HHC's industry leading electronic health record system as a model for integrating modern information technology into the healthcare delivery system at the national level.
See also
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
List of hospitals in New York City
List of hospitals in New York
References
External links
The Fund For HHC
HHC Art
1969 establishments in New York City
American companies established in 1969
Health care companies established in 1969
Health care companies based in New York (state)
Public benefit corporations in New York (state)
Companies based in Manhattan
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41794922
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey%20encryption
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Honey encryption
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Honey encryption is a type of data encryption that "produces a ciphertext, which, when decrypted with an incorrect key as guessed by the attacker, presents a plausible-looking yet incorrect plaintext password or encryption key."
Creators
Ari Juels and Thomas Ristenpart of the University of Wisconsin, the developers of the encryption system, presented a paper on honey encryption at the 2014 Eurocrypt cryptography conference.
Method of protection
A brute-force attack involves repeated decryption with random keys; this is equivalent to picking random plaintexts from the space of all possible plaintexts with a uniform distribution. This is effective because even though the attacker is equally likely to see any given plaintext, most plaintexts are extremely unlikely to be legitimate i.e. the distribution of legitimate plaintexts is non-uniform. Honey encryption defeats such attacks by first transforming the plaintext into a space such that the distribution of legitimate plaintexts is uniform. Thus an attacker guessing keys will see legitimate-looking plaintexts frequently and random-looking plaintexts infrequently. This makes it difficult to determine when the correct key has been guessed. In effect, honey encryption "[serves] up fake data in response to every incorrect guess of the password or encryption key."
The security of honey encryption relies on the fact that the probability of an attacker judging a plaintext to be legitimate can be calculated (by the encrypting party) at the time of encryption. This makes honey encryption difficult to apply in certain applications e.g. where the space of plaintexts is very large or the distribution of plaintexts is unknown. It also means that honey encryption can be vulnerable to brute-force attacks if this probability is miscalculated. For example, it is vulnerable to known-plaintext attacks: if the attacker has a crib that a plaintext must match to be legitimate, they will be able to brute-force even Honey Encrypted data if the encryption did not take the crib into account.
Example
An encrypted credit card number is susceptible to brute-force attacks because not every string of digits is equally likely. The number of digits can range from 13 to 19, though 16 is the most common. Additionally, it must have a valid IIN and the last digit must match the checksum. An attacker can also take into account the popularity of various services: an IIN from MasterCard is probably more likely than an IIN from Diners Club Carte Blanche.
Honey encryption can protect against these attacks by first mapping credit card numbers to a larger space where they match their likelihood of legitimacy. Numbers with invalid IINs and checksums are not mapped at all (i.e. have probability 0 of legitimacy). Numbers from large brands like MasterCard and Visa map to large regions of this space, while less popular brands map to smaller regions, etc. An attacker brute-forcing such an encryption scheme would only see legitimate-looking credit card numbers when they brute-force, and the numbers would appear with the frequency the attacker would expect from the real world.
Application
Juels and Ristenpart aim to use honey encryption to protect data stored on password manager services. Juels stated that "password managers are a tasty target for criminals," and worries that "if criminals get a hold of a large collection of encrypted password vaults they could probably unlock many of them without too much trouble."
Hristo Bojinov, CEO and founder of Anfacto, noted that "Honey Encryption could help reduce their vulnerability. But he notes that not every type of data will be easy to protect this way. … Not all authentication or encryption system yield themselves to being honeyed."
References
External links
Eurocrypt 2014 Website
Werbegeschenke
Cryptography
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544227
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access%20machine
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Random-access machine
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In computer science, random-access machine (RAM) is an abstract machine in the general class of register machines. The RAM is very similar to the counter machine but with the added capability of 'indirect addressing' of its registers. Like the counter machine, The RAM has its instructions in the finite-state portion of the machine (the so-called Harvard architecture).
The RAM's equivalent of the universal Turing machinewith its program in the registers as well as its datais called the random-access stored-program machine or RASP. It is an example of the so-called von Neumann architecture and is closest to the common notion of a computer.
Together with the Turing machine and counter-machine models, the RAM and RASP models are used for computational complexity analysis. Van Emde Boas (1990) calls these three plus the pointer machine "sequential machine" models, to distinguish them from "parallel random-access machine" models.
Introduction to the model
The concept of a random-access machine (RAM) starts with the simplest model of all, the so-called counter machine model. Two additions move it away from the counter machine, however. The first enhances the machine with the convenience of indirect addressing; the second moves the model toward the more conventional accumulator-based computer with the addition of one or more auxiliary (dedicated) registers, the most common of which is called "the accumulator".
Formal definition
A random-access machine (RAM) is an abstract computational-machine model identical to a multiple-register counter machine with the addition of indirect addressing. At the discretion of instruction from its finite state machine's TABLE, the machine derives a "target" register's address either (i) directly from the instruction itself, or (ii) indirectly from the contents (e.g. number, label) of the "pointer" register specified in the instruction.
By definition: A register is a location with both an address (a unique, distinguishable designation/locator equivalent to a natural number) and a contenta single natural number. For precision we will use the quasi-formal symbolism from Boolos-Burgess-Jeffrey (2002) to specify a register, its contents, and an operation on a register:
[r] means "the contents of register with address r". The label "r" here is a "variable" that can be filled with a natural number or a letter (e.g. "A") or a name.
→ means "copy/deposit into", or "replaces", but without destruction of the source
Example: [3] +1 → 3; means "The contents of source register with address "3", plus 1, is put into destination register with address "3" (here source and destination are the same place). If [3]=37, that is, the contents of register 3 is the number "37", then 37+1 = 38 will be put into register 3.
Example: [3] → 5; means "The contents of source register with address "3" is put into destination register with address "5". If [3]=38, that is, the contents of register 3 is the number 38, then this number will be put into register 5. The contents of register 3 are not disturbed by this operation, so [3] continues to be 38, now the same as [5].
Definition: A direct instruction is one that specifies in the instruction itself the address of the source or destination register whose contents will be the subject of the instruction.
Definition: An indirect instruction is one that specifies a "pointer register", the contents of which is the address of a "target" register. The target register can be either a source or a destination (the various COPY instructions provide examples of this). A register can address itself indirectly.
For want of a standard/convention this article will specify "direct/indirect", abbreviated as "d/i", as a parameter (or parameters) in the instruction:
Example: COPY ( d, A, i, N ) means directly d get the source register's address (register "A") from the instruction itself but indirectly i get the destination address from pointer-register N. Suppose [N]=3, then register 3 is the destination and the instruction will do the following: [A] → 3.
Definition: The contents of source register is used by the instruction. The source register's address can be specified either (i) directly by the instruction, or (ii) indirectly by the pointer register specified by the instruction.
Definition: The contents of the pointer register is the address of the "target" register.
Definition: The contents of the pointer register points to the target registerthe "target" may be either a source or a destination register.
Definition: The destination register is where the instruction deposits its result. The source register's address can be specified either (i) directly by the instruction, or (ii) indirectly by the pointer register specified by the instruction. The source and destination registers can be one.
Refresher: The counter-machine model
Melzak (1961) provides an easy visualization of a counter machine: its "registers" are holes in the ground, and these holes hold pebbles. Per an instruction, into and out of these holes "the computer" (person or machine) adds (INCrements) or removes (DECrements) a single pebble. As needed, additional pebbles come from, and excess pebbles go back into, an infinite supply; if the hole is too small to accommodate the pebbles the "computer" digs the hole bigger.
Minsky (1961) and Hopcroft-Ullman 1979 (p. 171) offer the visualization of a multi-tape Turing machine with as many left-ended tapes as "registers". Each tape's length is unbounded to the right, and every square is blank except for the left end, which is marked. The distance of a tape's "head" from its left end, measured in numbers of tape-squares, represents the natural number in "the register". To DECrement the count of squares the tape head moves left; INCrement it moves right. There is no need to print or erase marks on the tape; the only conditional instructions are to check to see if the head is at the left end, by testing a left-end mark with a "Jump-if-marked instruction".
The following instruction "mnemonics" e.g. "CLR (r)" are arbitrary; no standard exists.
The register machine has, for a memory external to its finite-state machinean unbounded (cf: footnote|countable and unbounded) collection of discrete and uniquely labelled locations with unbounded capacity, called "registers". These registers hold only natural numbers (zero and positive integers). Per a list of sequential instructions in the finite state machine's TABLE, a few (e.g. 2) types of primitive operations operate on the contents of these "registers". Finally, a conditional-expression in the form of an IF-THEN-ELSE is available to test the contents of one or two registers and "branch/jump" the finite state machine out of the default instruction-sequence.
Base model 1: The model closest to Minsky's (1961) visualization and to Lambek (1961):
{ INCrement contents of register r, DECrement contents of register r, IF contents of register r is Zero THEN Jump to instruction Iz ELSE continue to next instruction }:
Base model 2: The "successor" model (named after the successor function of the Peano axioms):
{ INCrement the contents of register r, CLeaR the contents of register r, IF contents of register rj Equals the contents of register rk THEN Jump to instruction Iz ELSE goto to next instruction }
Base model 3: Used by Elgot-Robinson (1964) in their investigation of bounded and unbounded RASPsthe "successor" model with COPY in the place of CLEAR:
{ INCrement the contents of register r, COPY the contents of register rj to register rk, IF contents of register rj Equals the contents of register rk then Jump to instruction Iz ELSE goto to next instruction }
Creating "convenience instructions" from the base sets
The three base sets 1, 2, or 3 above are equivalent in the sense that one can create the instructions of one set using the instructions of another set (an interesting exercise: a hint from Minsky (1967)declare a reserved register e.g. call it "0" (or Z for "zero" or E for "erase") to contain the number 0). The choice of model will depend on which an author finds easiest to use in a demonstration, or a proof, etc.
Moreover, from base sets 1, 2, or 3 we can create any of the primitive recursive functions ( cf Minsky (1967), Boolos-Burgess-Jeffrey (2002) ). (How to cast the net wider to capture the total and partial mu recursive functions will be discussed in context of indirect addressing). However, building the primitive recursive functions is difficult because the instruction sets are so ... primitive (tiny). One solution is to expand a particular set with "convenience instructions" from another set:
These will not be subroutines in the conventional sense but rather blocks of instructions created from the base set and given a mnemonic. In a formal sense, to use these blocks we need to either (i) "expand" them into their base-instruction equivalentsthey will require the use of temporary or "auxiliary" registers so the model must take this into account, or (ii) design our machines/models with the instructions 'built in'.
Example: Base set 1. To create CLR (r) use the block of instructions to count down register r to zero. Observe the use of the hint mentioned above:
CLR (r) =equiv
loop: JZ (r, exit)
DEC (r)
JZ (0, loop)
exit: etc.
Again, all of this is for convenience only; none of this increases the model's intrinsic power.
For example: the most expanded set would include each unique instruction from the three sets, plus unconditional jump J (z) i.e.:
{ CLR (r), DEC (r), INC (r), CPY ( rs, rd ), JZ (r, z), JE ( rj, rk, z ), J(z) }
Most authors pick one or the other of the conditional jumps, e.g. Shepherdson-Sturgis (1963) use the above set minus JE (to be perfectly accurate they use JNZJump if Not Zero in place of JZ; yet another possible convenience instruction).
The "indirect" operation
Example of indirect addressing
In our daily lives the notion of an "indirect operation" is not unusual.
Example: A treasure hunt.
At location "Tom_&_Becky's_cave_in_pirate_chest" will be where we can find a map directing us to "the treasure":
(1) We go to location "Tom_&_Becky's_cave..." and dig around until we find a wooden box
(2) Inside the box is a map to the location of the treasure: "under_Thatcher's_front_porch"
(3) We go to location "under_Thatcher's_front_porch", jackhammer away the concrete, and discover "the treasure": a sack of rusty door-knobs.
Indirection specifies a location identified as the pirate chest in "Tom_&_Becky's_cave..." that acts as a pointer to any other location (including itself): its contents (the treasure map) provides the "address" of the target location
"under_Thatcher's_front_porch" where the real action is occurring.
Why the need for an indirect operation: Two major problems with the counter-machine model
In the following one must remember that these models are abstract models with two fundamental differences from anything physically real: unbounded numbers of registers each with unbounded capacities. The problem appears most dramatically when one tries to use a counter-machine model to build a RASP that is Turing equivalent and thus compute any partial mu recursive function:
Melzak (1961) added indirection to his "hole-and-pebble" model so that his model could modify itself with a "computed goto" and provides two examples of its use ("Decimal representation in the scale of d" and "Sorting by magnitude", whether these are used in his proof that the model is Turing equivalent is unclear since "the program itself is left to the reader as an exercise" (p. 292)). Minsky (1961, 1967) was able to demonstrate that, with suitable (but difficult-to-use) Gödel number encoding, the register model did not need indirection to be Turing equivalent; but it did need at least one unbounded register. As noted below, Minsky (1967) hints at the problem for a RASP but doesn't offer a solution. Elgot and Robinson (1964) proved that their RASP model P0it has no indirection capabilitycannot compute all "recursive sequential functions" (ones that have parameters of arbitrary length) if it does not have the capability of modifying its own instructions, but it can via Gödel numbers if it does (p. 395-397; in particular figure 2 and footnote p. 395). On the other hand their RASP model P'0 equipped with an "index register" (indirect addressing) can compute all the "partial recursive sequential functions" (the mu recursive functions) (p. 397-398).
Cook and Reckhow (1973) say it most succinctly:
The indirect instructions are necessary in order for a fixed program to access an unbounded number of registers as the inputs vary." (p. 73)
Unbounded capacities of registers versus bounded capacities of state-machine instructions: The so-called finite state part of the machine is supposed to beby the normal definition of algorithmvery finite both in the number of "states" (instructions) and the instructions' sizes (their capacity to hold symbols/signs). So how does a state machine move an arbitrarily large constant directly into a register, e.g. MOVE (k, r) (Move constant k to register r)? If huge constants are necessary they must either start out in the registers themselves or be created by the state machine using a finite number of instructions e.g. multiply and add subroutines using INC and DEC (but not a quasi-infinite number of these!).
Sometimes the constant k will be created by use of CLR ( r ) followed by INC ( r ) repeated k timese.g. to put the constant k=3 into register r, i.e. 3 → r, so at the end of the instruction [r]=3: CLR (r), INC (r), INC (r), INC (r). This trick is mentioned by Kleene (1952) p. 223. The problem arises when the number to be created exhausts the number of instructions available to the finite state machine; there is always a bigger constant than the number of instructions available to the finite state machine.
Unbounded numbers of registers versus bounded state-machine instructions: This is more severe than the first problem. In particular, this problem arises when we attempt to build a so-called RASP, a "universal machine" (see more at Universal Turing machine) that uses its finite-state machine to interpret a "program of instructions" located in its registersi.e. we are building what is nowadays called a computer with the von Neumann architecture.
Observe that the counter machine's finite state machine must call out a register explicitly (directly) by its name/number: INC (65,356) calls out register number "65,365" explicitly. If the number of registers exceeds the capability of the finite state machine to address them, then registers outside the bounds will be unreachable. For example, if the finite state machine can only reach 65,536 = 216 registers then how can it reach the 65,537th?
So how do we address a register beyond the bounds of the finite state machine? One approach would be to modify the program-instructions (the ones stored in the registers) so that they contain more than one command. But this too can be exhausted unless an instruction is of (potentially) unbounded size. So why not use just one "über-instruction"one really really big numberthat contains all the program instructions encoded into it! This is how Minsky solves the problem, but the Gödel numbering he uses represents a great inconvenience to the model, and the result is nothing at all like our intuitive notion of a "stored program computer".
Elgot and Robinson (1964) come to a similar conclusion with respect to a RASP that is "finitely determined". Indeed it can access an unbounded number of registers (e.g. to fetch instructions from them) but only if the RASP allows "self modification" of its program instructions, and has encoded its "data" in a Gödel number (Fig. 2 p. 396).
In the context of a more computer-like model using his RPT (repeat) instruction Minsky (1967) tantalizes us with a solution to the problem (cf p. 214, p. 259) but offers no firm resolution. He asserts:
"In general a RPT operation could not be an instruction in the finite-state part of the machine ... this might exhaust any particular amount of storage allowed in the finite part of the computer [sic, his name for his RAM models]. RPT operations require infinite registers of their own." (p. 214).
He offers us a bounded RPT that together with CLR (r) and INC (r) can compute any primitive recursive function, and he offers the unbounded RPT quoted above that as playing the role of μ operator; it together with CLR (r) and INC (r) can compute the mu recursive functions. But he does not discuss "indirection" or the RAM model per se.
From the references in Hartmanis (1971) it appears that Cook (in his lecture notes while at UC Berkeley, 1970) has firmed up the notion of indirect addressing. This becomes clearer in the paper of Cook and Reckhow (1973)Cook is Reckhow's Master's thesis advisor. Hartmanis' modelquite similar to Melzak's (1961) modeluses two and three-register adds and subtracts and two parameter copies; Cook and Reckhow's model reduce the number of parameters (registers called out in the program instructions) to one call-out by use of an accumulator "AC".
The solution in a nutshell: Design our machine/model with unbounded indirectionprovide an unbounded "address" register that can potentially name (call out) any register no matter how many there are. For this to work, in general, the unbounded register requires an ability to be cleared and then incremented (and, possibly, decremented) by a potentially infinite loop. In this sense the solution represents the unbounded μ operator that can, if necessary, hunt ad infinitim along the unbounded string of registers until it finds what it is looking for. The pointer register is exactly like any other register with one exception: under the circumstances called "indirect addressing" it provides its contents, rather than the address-operand in the state machine's TABLE, to be the address of the target register (including possibly itself!).
Bounded indirection and the primitive recursive functions
If we eschew the Minsky approach of one monster number in one register, and specify that our machine model will be "like a computer" we have to confront this problem of indirection if we are to compute the recursive functions (also called the μ-recursive functions )both total and partial varieties.
Our simpler counter-machine model can do a "bounded" form of indirectionand thereby compute the sub-class of primitive recursive functionsby using a primitive recursive "operator" called "definition by cases" (defined in Kleene (1952) p. 229 and Boolos-Burgess-Jeffrey p. 74). Such a "bounded indirection" is a laborious, tedious affair. "Definition by cases" requires the machine to determine/distinguish the contents of the pointer register by attempting, time after time until success, to match this contents against a number/name that the case operator explicitly declares. Thus the definition by cases starts from e.g. the lower bound address and continues ad nauseam toward the upper bound address attempting to make a match:
Is the number in register N equal to 0? If not then is it equal to 1? 2? 3? ... 65364? If not then we're at the last number 65365 and this had better be the one, else we have a problem!
"Bounded" indirection will not allow us to compute the partial recursive functionsfor those we need unbounded indirection aka the μ operator.
Suppose we had been able to continue on to number 65367, and in fact that register had what we were looking for. Then we could have completed our calculation successfully! But suppose 65367 didn't have what we needed. How far should we continue to go?
To be Turing equivalent the counter machine needs to either use the unfortunate single-register Minsky Gödel number method, or be augmented with an ability to explore the ends of its register string, ad infinitum if necessary. (A failure to find something "out there" defines what it means for an algorithm to fail to terminate; cf Kleene (1952) pp. 316ff Chapter XII Partial Recursive Functions, in particular p. 323-325.) See more on this in the example below.
Unbounded indirection and the partial recursive functions
For unbounded indirection we require a "hardware" change in our machine model. Once we make this change the model is no longer a counter machine, but rather a random-access machine.
Now when e.g. INC is specified, the finite state machine's instruction will have to specify where the address of the register of interest will come from. This where can be either (i) the state machine's instruction that provides an explicit label, or (ii) the pointer-register whose contents is the address of interest. Whenever an instruction specifies a register address it now will also need to specify an additional parameter "i/d""indirect/direct". In a sense this new "i/d" parameter is a "switch" that flips one way to get the direct address as specified in the instruction or the other way to get the indirect address from the pointer register (which pointer registerin some models every register can be a pointer registeris specified by the instruction). This "mutually exclusive but exhaustive choice" is yet another example of "definition by cases", and the arithmetic equivalent shown in the example below is derived from the definition in Kleene (1952) p. 229.
Example: CPY ( indirectsource, rsource, directdestination, rdestination )
Assign a code to specify direct addressing as d="0" and indirect addressing as i="1". Then our machine can determine the source address as follows:
i*[rs] + (1-i)*rs
For example, suppose the contents of register 3 are "5" (i.e. [3]=5 ) and the contents of register 4 are "2" (i.e. [4]=2 ):
Example: CPY ( 1, 3, 0, 4 ) = CPY ( indirect, reg 3, direct, reg 4 )
1*[3] + 0*3 = [3] = source-register address 5
0*[4] + 1*4 = 4 = destination-register address 4
Example: CPY ( 0, 3, 0, 4 )
0*[3] + 1*3 = 3 = source-register address 3
0*[4] + 1*4 = 4 = destination-register address 4
Example: CPY ( 0, 3, 1, 4 )
0*[3] + 1*3 = 3 = source-register address 3
1*[4] + 0*4 = [4] = destination-register address 2
The indirect COPY instruction
Probably the most useful of the added instructions is COPY. Indeed, Elgot-Robinson (1964) provide their models P0 and P'0 with the COPY instructions, and Cook-Reckhow (1973) provide their accumulator-based model with only two indirect instructionsCOPY to accumulator indirectly, COPY from accumulator indirectly.
A plethora of instructions: Because any instruction acting on a single register can be augmented with its indirect "dual" (including conditional and unconditional jumps, cf the Elgot-Robinson model), the inclusion of indirect instructions will double the number of single parameter/register instructions (e.g. INC (d, r), INC (i, r)). Worse, every two parameter/register instruction will have 4 possible varieties, e.g.:
CPY (d, rs, d, rd ) = COPY directly from source-register directly to destination-register
CPY (i, rsp, d, rd ) = COPY to destination-register indirectly using the source address to be found in the source-pointer register rsp.
CPY (d, rs, i, rdp ) = COPY contents of source-register indirectly into register using destination address to be found in the destination-pointer register rdp.
CPY (i, rsp, i, rdp ) = COPY indirectly the contents of the source register with address to be found in source-pointer register rsp, into the destination register with address to be found in the destination-pointer register rdp)
In a similar manner every three-register instruction that involves two source registers rs1 rs2 and a destination register rd will result in 8 varieties, for example the addition:
[rs1] + [rs2] → rd
will yield:
ADD ( d, rs1, d, rs2, d, rd )
ADD ( i, rsp1, d, rs2, d, rd )
ADD ( d, rs1, i, rsp2, d, rd )
ADD ( i, rsp1, i, rsp2, d, rd )
ADD ( d, rs1, d, rs2, i, rdp )
ADD ( i, rsp1, d, rs2, i, rdp )
ADD ( d, rs1, i, rsp2, i, rdp )
ADD ( i, rsp1, i, rsp2, i, rdp )
If we designate one register to be the "accumulator" (see below) and place strong restrictions on the various instructions allowed then we can greatly reduce the plethora of direct and indirect operations. However, one must be sure that the resulting reduced instruction-set is sufficient, and we must be aware that the reduction will come at the expense of more instructions per "significant" operation.
The notion of "accumulator A"
Historical convention dedicates a register to the accumulator, an "arithmetic organ" that literally accumulates its number during a sequence of arithmetic operations:
"The first part of our arithmetic organ ... should be a parallel storage organ which can receive a number and add it to the one already in it, which is also able to clear its contents and which can store what it contains. We will call such an organ an Accumulator. It is quite conventional in principle in past and present computing machines of the most varied types, e.g. desk multipliers, standard IBM counters, more modern relay machines, the ENIAC" (boldface in original: Goldstine and von Neumann, 1946; p. 98 in Bell and Newell 1971).
However, the accumulator comes at the expense of more instructions per arithmetic "operation", in particular with respect to what are called 'read-modify-write' instructions such as "Increment indirectly the contents of the register pointed to by register r2 ". "A" designates the "accumulator" register A:
If we stick with a specific name for the accumulator, e.g. "A", we can imply the accumulator in the instructions, for example,
INC ( A ) = INCA
However, when we write the CPY instructions without the accumulator called out the instructions are ambiguous or they must have empty parameters:
CPY ( d, r2, d, A ) = CPY (d, r2, , )
CPY ( d, A, d, r2 ) = CPY ( , , d, r2)
Historically what has happened is these two CPY instructions have received distinctive names; however, no convention exists. Tradition (e.g. Knuth's (1973) imaginary MIX computer) uses two names called LOAD and STORE. Here we are adding the "i/d" parameter:
LDA ( d/i, rs ) =def CPY ( d/i, rs, d, A )
STA ( d/i, rd ) =def CPY ( d, A, d/i, rd )
The typical accumulator-based model will have all its two-variable arithmetic and constant operations (e.g. ADD (A, r), SUB (A, r) ) use (i) the accumulator's contents, together with (ii) a specified register's contents. The one-variable operations (e.g. INC (A), DEC (A) and CLR (A) ) require only the accumulator. Both instruction-types deposit the result (e.g. sum, difference, product, quotient or remainder) in the accumulator.
Example: INCA = [A] +1 → A
Example: ADDA (rs) = [A] + [rs] → A
Example: MULA (rs) = [A] * [rs] → A
If we so choose, we can abbreviate the mnemonics because at least one source-register and the destination register is always the accumulator A. Thus we have :
{ LDA (i/d, rs), STA (i/d, rd), CLRA, INCA, DECA, ADDA (rs), SUBA (rs), MULA (rs), DIVA (rs), etc.)
The notion of indirect address register "N"
If our model has an unbounded accumulator can we bound all the other registers? Not until we provide for at least one unbounded register from which we derive our indirect addresses.
The minimalist approach is to use itself (Schönhage does this).
Another approach (Schönhage does this too) is to declare a specific register the "indirect address register" and confine indirection relative to this register (Schonhage's RAM0 model uses both A and N registers for indirect as well as direct instructions). Again our new register has no conventional nameperhaps "N" from "iNdex", or "iNdirect" or "address Number".
For maximum flexibility, as we have done for the accumulator Awe will consider N just another register subject to increment, decrement, clear, test, direct copy, etc. Again we can shrink the instruction to a single-parameter that provides for direction and indirection, for example.
LDAN (i/d) = CPY (i/d, N, d, A); LoaD Accumulator via iNdirection register
STAN (i/d) = CPY (d, A, i/d, N). STore Accumulator via iNdirection register
Why is this such an interesting approach? At least two reasons:
(1) An instruction set with no parameters:
Schönhage does this to produce his RAM0 instruction set. See section below.
(2) Reduce a RAM to a Post-Turing machine:
Posing as minimalists, we reduce all the registers excepting the accumulator A and indirection register N e.g. r = { r0, r1, r2, ... } to an unbounded string of (very-) bounded-capacity pigeon-holes. These will do nothing but hold (very-) bounded numbers e.g. a lone bit with value { 0, 1 }. Likewise we shrink the accumulator to a single bit. We restrict any arithmetic to the registers { A, N }, use indirect operations to pull the contents of registers into the accumulator and write 0 or 1 from the accumulator to a register:
{ LDA (i, N), STA (i, N), CLR (A/N), INC (A/N), DEC(N), JZ (A/N, Iz), JZ (Iz), H }
We push further and eliminate A altogether by the use of two "constant" registers called "ERASE" and "PRINT": [ERASE]=0, [PRINT]=1.
{ CPY (d, ERASE, i, N), CPY (d, PRINT, i, N), CLR (N), INC (N), DEC (N), JZ (i, N, Iz), JZ (Iz), H }
Rename the COPY instructions and call INC (N) = RIGHT, DEC (N) = LEFT and we have the same instructions as the Post-Turing machine, plus an extra CLRN :
{ ERASE, PRINT, CLRN, RIGHT, LEFT, JZ (i, N, Iz), JZ (Iz), H }
Turing equivalence of the RAM with indirection
In the section above we informally showed that a RAM with an unbounded indirection capability produces a Post–Turing machine. The Post–Turing machine is Turing equivalent, so we have shown that the RAM with indirection is Turing equivalent.
We give here a slightly more formal demonstration. Begin by designing our model with three reserved registers "E", "P", and "N", plus an unbounded set of registers 1, 2, ..., n to the right. The registers 1, 2, ..., n will be considered "the squares of the tape". Register "N" points to "the scanned square" that "the head" is currently observing. The "head" can be thought of as being in the conditional jumpobserve that it uses indirect addressing (cf Elgot-Robinson p. 398). As we decrement or increment "N" the (apparent) head will "move left" or "right" along the squares. We will move the contents of "E"=0 or "P"=1 to the "scanned square" as pointed to by N, using the indirect CPY.
The fact that our tape is left-ended presents us with a minor problem: Whenever LEFT occurs our instructions will have to test to determine whether or not the contents of "N" is zero; if so we should leave its count at "0" (this is our choice as designersfor example we might have the machine/model "trigger an event" of our choosing).
Instruction set 1 (augmented): { INC (N), DEC (N), CLR (N), CPY (d, rs,i, N), JZ ( i, r, z ), HALT }
The following table both defines the Post-Turing instructions in terms of their RAM equivalent instructions and gives an example of their functioning. The (apparent)location of the head along the tape of registers r0-r5 . . . is shown shaded:
Example: Bounded indirection yields a machine that is not Turing equivalent
Throughout this demonstration we have to keep in mind that the instructions in the finite state machine's TABLE is bounded, i.e. finite:
"Besides a merely being a finite set of rules which gives a sequence of operations for solving a specific type of problem, an algorithm has five important features [Finiteness, Definiteness, Input, Output, Effectiveness]" (italics added, Knuth p. 4-7).
The difficulty arises because the registers have explicit "names" (numbers) and our machine must call each out by name in order to "access" it.
We will build the indirect CPY ( i, q, d, φ ) with the CASE operator. The address of the target register will be specified by the contents of register "q"; once the CASE operator has determined what this number is, CPY will directly deposit the contents of the register with that number into register "φ". We will need an additional register that we will call "y"it serves as an up-counter.
So the following is actually a constructive demonstration or proof that we can indeed simulate the indirect CPY ( i, q, d, φ ) without a "hardware" design change to our counter machine/model. However, note that because this indirect CPY is "bounded" by the size/extent of the finite state machine, a RASP using this indirect CPY can only calculate the primitive recursive functions, not the full suite of mu recursive functions.
The CASE "operator" is described in Kleene (1952) (p. 229) and in Boolos-Burgess-Jeffrey (2002) (p. 74); the latter authors emphasize its utility. The following definition is per Kleene but modified to reflect the familiar "IF-THEN-ELSE" construction.
The CASE operator "returns" a natural number into φ depending on which "case" is satisfied, starting with "case_0" and going successively through "case_last"; if no case is satisfied then the number called "default" (aka "woops") is returned into φ (here x designates some selection of parameters, e.g. register q and the string r0, ... rlast )):
Definition by cases φ (x, y):
case_0: IF Q0(x, y) is true THEN φ0(x, y) ELSE
case_1: IF Q1(x, y) is true THEN φ1(x, y) ELSE
cases_2 through case_next_to_last: etc. . . . . . . . . ELSE
case_last: IF Qlast(x, y) is true THEN φlast(x, y) ELSE
default: do φdefault(x, y)
Kleene require that the "predicates" Qn that doing the testing are all mutually exclusive"predicates" are functions that produce only { true, false } for output; Boolos-Burgess-Jeffrey add the requirement that the cases are "exhaustive".
We begin with a number in register q that represents the address of the target register. But what is this number? The "predicates" will test it to find out, one trial after another: JE (q, y, z) followed by INC (y). Once the number is identified explicitly, the CASE operator directly/explicitly copies the contents of this register to φ:
Definition by cases CPY (i, q, d, φ) =def φ (q, r0, ..., rlast, y) =
case_0: IF CLR (y), [q] - [y]=0 THEN CPY ( r0, φ ), J (exit) ELSE
case_1: IF INC (y), [q] = [y]=1 THEN CPY ( r1, φ ), J (exit) ELSE
case_2 through case n: IF . . . THEN . . . ELSE
case_n: IF INC (y), [q] = [y]=n THEN CPY ( rn, φ ), J (exit) ELSE
case_n+1 to case_last: IF . . . THEN . . . ELSE
case_last: IF INC (y), [q] = [y]="last" THEN CPY ( rlast, φ ), J (exit) ELSE
default: woops
Case_0 ( the base step of the recursion on y) looks like this:
case_0:
CLR ( y ) ; set register y = 0
JE ( q, y, _φ0 )
J ( case_1 )
_φ0: CPY ( r0, φ )
J ( exit )
case_1: etc.
Case_n (the induction step) looks like this; remember, each instance of "n", "n+1", ..., "last" must be an explicit natural number:
case_n:
INC ( y )
JE ( q, y, _φn )
J ( case_n+1)
_φn: CPY ( rn, φ )
J ( exit )
case__n+1: etc.
Case_last stops the induction and bounds the CASE operator (and thereby bounds the "indirect copy" operator):
case_last:
INC ( y )
JE ( q, y, _φlast )
J ( woops )
_φlast: CPY ( rlast, φ )
J ( exit )
woops: how do we handle an out-of-bounds attempt?
exit: etc.
If the CASE could continue ad infinitum it would be the mu operator. But it can'tits finite state machine's "state register" has reached its maximum count (e.g. 65365 = 11111111,111111112 ) or its table has run out of instructions; it is a finite machine, after all.
Examples of models
Register-to-register ("read-modify-write") model of Cook and Reckhow (1973)
The commonly encountered Cook and Rechkow model is a bit like the ternary-register Malzek model (written with Knuth mnemonicsthe original instructions had no mnemonics excepting TRA, Read, Print).
LOAD ( C, rd ) ; C → rd, C is any integer
Example: LOAD ( 0, 5 ) will clear register 5.
ADD ( rs1, rs2, rd ) ; [rs1] + [rs2] → rd, the registers can be the same or different;
Example: ADD ( A, A, A ) will double the contents of register A.
SUB ( rs1, rs2, rd ) ; [rs1] - [rs2] → rd, the registers can be the same or different:
Example: SUB ( 3, 3, 3 ) will clear register 3.
COPY ( i, rp, d, rd ) ; [[rp] ] → rd, Indirectly copy the contents of the source-register pointed to by pointer-register rp into the destination register.
COPY ( d, rs, i, rp ) ; [rs] → [rp]. Copy the contents of source register rs into the destination-register pointed to by the pointer-register rp.
JNZ ( r, Iz ) ; Conditional jump if [r] is positive; i.e. IF [r] > 0 THEN jump to instruction z else continue in sequence (Cook and Reckhow call this: "TRAnsfer control to line m if Xj > 0")
READ ( rd ) ; copy "the input" into destination register rd
PRINT ( rs ) ; copy the contents of source register rs to "the output."
Schönhage's RAM0 and RAM1 (1980)
Schönhage (1980) describes a very primitive, atomized model chosen for his proof of the equivalence of his SMM pointer machine model:
"In order to avoid any explicit addressing the RAM0 has the accumulator with contents z and an additional address register with current contents n (initially 0)" (p. 494)
RAM1 model: Schönhage demonstrates how his construction can be used to form the more common, usable form of "successor"-like RAM (using this article's mnemonics):
LDA k ; k --> A , k is a constant, an explicit number such as "47"
LDA ( d, r ) ; [r] → A ; directly load A
LDA ( i, r ) ; [[r]] → A ; indirectly load A
STA ( d, r ) ; [A] → r ; directly store A
STA ( i, r ) ; [A] → [r] ; indirectly store A
JEA ( r, z ) ; IF [A] = [r] then Iz else continue
INCA ; [A] + 1 --> A
RAM0 model: Schönhage's RAM0 machine has 6 instructions indicated by a single letter (the 6th "C xxx" seems to involve 'skip over next parameter'. Schönhage designated the accumulator with "z", "N" with "n", etc. Rather than Schönhage's mnemonics we will use the mnemonics developed above.
(Z), CLRA: 0 → A
(A), INCA: [A] +1 → A
(N), CPYAN: [A] → N
(A), LDAA: [[A]] → A ; contents of A points to register address; put register's contents into A
(S), STAN: [A] → [N] ; contents of N points to register address; put contents of A into register pointed to by N
(C), JAZ ( z ): [A] = 0 then go to Iz ; ambiguous in his treatment
Indirection comes (i) from CPYAN (copy/transfer contents A to N) working with store_A_via_N STAN, and from (ii) the peculiar indirection instruction LDAA ( [[A]] → [A] ).
Footnotes
Finite vs unbounded
The definitional fact that any sort of counter machine without an unbounded register-"address" register must specify a register "r" by name indicates that the model requires "r" to be finite, although it is "unbounded" in the sense that the model implies no upper limit to the number of registers necessary to do its job(s). For example, we do not require r < 83,617,563,821,029,283,746 nor r < 2^1,000,001, etc.
Thus our model can "expand" the number of registers, if necessary to perform a certain computation. However this does mean that whatever number the model expands to must be finiteit must be indexable with a natural number: ω is not an option.
We can escape this restriction by providing an unbounded register to provide the address of the register that specifies an indirect address.
See also
Real RAM
Transdichotomous model
External links
Random Access Machine Emulator
Random Access Machine Emulator
Random Access Machine Emulator
References
With a few exceptions, these references are the same as those at Register machine.
Goldstine, Herman H., and von Neumann, John, "Planning and Coding of the Problems for an Electronic Computing Instrument", Rep. 1947, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Reprinted on pp. 92–119 in Bell, C. Gordon and Newell, Allen (1971), Computer Structures: Readings and Examples, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. }.
George Boolos, John P. Burgess, Richard Jeffrey (2002), Computability and Logic: Fourth Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. The original Boolos-Jeffrey text has been extensively revised by Burgess: more advanced than an introductory textbook. "Abacus machine" model is extensively developed in Chapter 5 Abacus Computability; it is one of three models extensively treated and comparedthe Turing machine (still in Boolos' original 4-tuple form) and recursion the other two.
Arthur Burks, Herman Goldstine, John von Neumann (1946), Preliminary discussion of the logical design of an electronic computing instrument, reprinted pp. 92ff in Gordon Bell and Allen Newell (1971), Computer Structures: Readings and Examples, mcGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. .
Stephen A. Cook and Robert A. Reckhow (1973), Time-bounded random access machines, Journal of Computer Systems Science 7(4):354-375.
Martin Davis (1958), Computability & Unsolvability, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. New York.
Calvin Elgot and Abraham Robinson (1964), Random-Access Stored-Program Machines, an Approach to Programming Languages, Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, Vol. 11, No. 4 (October, 1964), pp. 365–399.
J. Hartmanis (1971), "Computational Complexity of Random Access Stored Program Machines," Mathematical Systems Theory 5, 3 (1971) pp. 232–245.
John Hopcroft, Jeffrey Ullman (1979). Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation, 1st ed., Reading Mass: Addison-Wesley. . A difficult book centered around the issues of machine-interpretation of "languages", NP-Completeness, etc.
Stephen Kleene (1952), Introduction to Metamathematics, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Netherlands. .
Donald Knuth (1968), The Art of Computer Programming, Second Edition 1973, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts. Cf pages 462-463 where he defines "a new kind of abstract machine or 'automaton' which deals with linked structures."
Joachim Lambek (1961, received 15 June 1961), How to Program an Infinite Abacus, Mathematical Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 3. September 1961 pages 295-302. In his Appendix II, Lambek proposes a "formal definition of 'program'. He references Melzak (1961) and Kleene (1952) Introduction to Metamathematics.
Z. A. Melzak (1961, received 15 May 1961), An informal Arithmetical Approach to Computability and Computation, Canadian Mathematical Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 3. September 1961 pages 279-293. Melzak offers no references but acknowledges "the benefit of conversations with Drs. R. Hamming, D. McIlroy and V. Vyssots of the Bell telephone Laborators and with Dr. H. Wang of Oxford University."
In particular see chapter 11: Models Similar to Digital Computers and chapter 14: Very Simple Bases for Computability. In the former chapter he defines "Program machines" and in the later chapter he discusses "Universal Program machines with Two Registers" and "...with one register", etc.
John C. Shepherdson and H. E. Sturgis (1961) received December 1961 Computability of Recursive Functions, Journal of the Association of Computing Machinery (JACM) 10:217-255, 1963. An extremely valuable reference paper. In their Appendix A the authors cite 4 others with reference to "Minimality of Instructions Used in 4.1: Comparison with Similar Systems".
Kaphengst, Heinz, Eine Abstrakte programmgesteuerte Rechenmaschine''', Zeitschrift fur mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik:5 (1959), 366-379.
Ershov, A. P. On operator algorithms, (Russian) Dok. Akad. Nauk 122 (1958), 967-970. English translation, Automat. Express 1 (1959), 20-23.
Péter, Rózsa Graphschemata und rekursive Funktionen, Dialectica 12 (1958), 373.
Hermes, Hans Die Universalität programmgesteuerter Rechenmaschinen. Math.-Phys. Semsterberichte (Göttingen) 4 (1954), 42-53.
Arnold Schönhage (1980), Storage Modification Machines, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, SIAM J. Comput. Vol. 9, No. 3, August 1980. Wherein Schōnhage shows the equivalence of his SMM with the "successor RAM" (Random Access Machine), etc. resp. Storage Modification Machines, in Theoretical Computer Science (1979), pp. 36–37
Peter van Emde Boas, "Machine Models and Simulations" pp. 3–66, in: Jan van Leeuwen, ed. Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science. Volume A: Algorithms and Complexity, The MIT PRESS/Elsevier, 1990. (volume A). QA 76.H279 1990. van Emde Boas's treatment of SMMs appears on pp. 32–35. This treatment clarifies Schōnhage 1980it closely follows but expands slightly the Schōnhage treatment. Both references may be needed for effective understanding.
Hao Wang (1957), A Variant to Turing's Theory of Computing Machines'', JACM (Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery) 4; 63-92. Presented at the meeting of the Association, June 23–25, 1954.
Register machines
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23802238
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SES%20Platform%20Services
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SES Platform Services
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SES Platform Services GmbH (previously ASTRA Platform Services GmbH, later MX1, now part of SES Video) was a subsidiary company of SES (owner and operator of the Astra satellites) based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg . From its headquarters in Unterföhring near Munich, Germany, SES Platform Services operated a broadcasting centre, providing a wide range of services, including content management, playout, encryption, multiplexing, satellite uplinks and other digital TV media broadcast services for the broadcast industry.
Following completion of the acquisition by SES Platform Services of global digital media services provider RR Media in July 2016, the name of the merged company was changed to MX1 In September 2019, MX1 was merged into the SES Video division and the MX1 brand dropped.
Before changing to MX1, SES Platform Services distributed more than 300 digital TV channels (including HD)and radio stations, interactive services and data services. In August 2013, SES Platform Services won an international tender by Turner Broadcasting System, starting November 2013, to provide playout for the broadcast channels, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, glitz*, RT, TNT Film and TNT Serie (in both SD and HD) for the German-speaking market, digitization of existing Turner content, and playout for Turner on-demand and catch-up services in Germany, Austria, Switzerland the Benelux region.
History
Originally called DPC (Digital Playout Centre GmbH), SES Platform Services was founded in 1996 by Kirch, a German media company. The German Pay TV provider, Premiere (now Sky Deutschland) was part of the Kirch group and DPC provided (and, as SES Platform Services, continues to provide) Premiere/Sky Deutschland, as well as other private and public German broadcasters, playout, multiplexing, encrypted satellite uplinks and other media broadcast services. In June 2004, SES announced that it had bought the controlling interest in DPC from Premiere with the intention of launching an "open" pay-TV platform for Germany using Premiere-compatible digital set top boxes.
In December 2004, a requirement for regulatory approval from the German Federal Cartels Office (Bundeskartellamt) meant that the deal was changed to 100% of DPC, to give SES sole ownership. DPC was later renamed to ASTRA Platform Services GmbH (APS), and in April 2012 to SES Platform Services.
In February 2016, it was announced that SES Platform Services had agreed, subject to regulatory approvals, to purchase RR Media, a global digital media services provider to the broadcast and media industries, based in Israel.
Services
The main services provided to broadcasters by SES Platform Services are Content Management, Playout, Encryption, Distribution and Interactive services. Customers include Sky Deutschland and ProSiebenSat.1 in Germany, Top TV in South Africa, channels such as Home Shopping Europe, DSF, Tele 5, 9Live, and DMAX, and most German HDTV channels, including those from Discovery, Tectime TV and Anixe.
SES Platform Services' content management encompasses digitization of tape-based content, format conversion of video files, quality control, tape storage (now being superseded by digital storage), and a growing digital archive service with integrated digital asset management systems. SES Platform Services uses the DIVArchive digital archiving system from Front Porch Digital with (as of mid 2009), over 1 PB capacity storing tens of thousands of hours of content. New material is added at the rate of about 1000–2000 hours per month. Although SES Platform Services still provides videotape storage, this has reduced by more than half since digital archiving was introduced.
SES Platform Services undertakes the preparation and playout of content from tape or digital files according to the customer's supplied schedule. SES Platform Services provides customers with visual quality control, the incorporation of on-screen branding and graphics (in 2D or 3D), EPG data and expandable services that range from automatic small channel start-up systems to high-end systems with full-time monitoring and support.
Where needed, interactive services can also be provided to broadcasters, including HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV). SES Platform Services also designs and develops broadcasters’ web pages, and has developed the Blucom interactive TV-service that combines broadcasting and mobile technologies to offer services such as programme announcements, weather, lottery and sports results, and further programme information. Blucom enables interaction such as voting, downloads, chats, and advertising. It also gives mobile phones the ability to stream live TV broadcasts. Blucom synchronizes TV content with the additional information in real-time. Content is sent to a set-top box via satellite, then to a mobile phone via Bluetooth, or directly to the mobile phone via UMTS/GPRS. The return channel operates from the viewer’s mobile via SMS or UMTS/GPRS.
For pay-TV broadcasts, SES Platform Services provides channel encryption for subscription and pay-per-view protection with Conax, Cryptoworks, Irdeto, Nagravision, and NDS conditional access systems using DVB simulcrypt operation for broadcasts using multiple conditional access systems in parallel, this being a common practice in "free-to-air"(FTA) satellite TV broadcast markets such as Germany. SES Platform Services also provides Microsoft or Flash digital rights management for Internet streamed channels.
Although the majority of SES Platform Services broadcasting traffic is digital television channels in SD or HD uplinked to the Astra satellites, SES Platform Services can also distribute programming to mobiles as on-demand content, and as live or on-demand video over the Internet using Windows Media Player, QuickTime or Flash.
In April 2011, SES Platform Services opened a new playout centre at its headquarters in Unterföhring to handle expansion of the company, and its client list. The new network operations centre is in a purpose-built new building with the latest technologies including air conditioning based on groundwater cooling, fully redundant power distribution system, and LED screens and LED room lighting in the master control room to minimise heat generation. The old premises are being retained as back-up facilities and the new centre is expected to cope with growth for the next five years.
In June 2015 SES Platform Services launched its Fluid Hub managed cloud service for management, playout and distribution of video content for studios, content creators, broadcasting companies, telcos/platforms and other customers. By October 20, the service had 10 customers including Fox International Channels Germany and Turner.
See also
MX1
Digital television in Germany
Satellite television
SES
Astra
References
External links
SES Video website
Official Astra consumers/viewers' website
Official SES trade/industry site
SES S.A.
Satellite television
Interactive television
Satellite operators
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40698359
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah%20Dee
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Hannah Dee
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Hannah-Mary Dee is a British cognitive scientist and computer scientist specialising in computer vision, with specialisms in plant science, navigation, art, and medical imaging. In 2014, she was one of 30 women identified by the British Computer Society in the "BCS Women in IT Campaign.
Dee has organised many events for women in computing and for broader groups with a women-friendly stance, including an android programming family fun day (materials available in Welsh and in English).
Education
Dee received a BSc in Cognitive Science (1996), an MA in Philosophy (1998), and a PhD in Computing (2005), all from the University of Leeds,
Career and research
Dee has held postdoctoral researcher at Kingston University (2005-2006), University of Leeds (2006-2009), and Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (2009-2010). Since 2010, she is a Senior Lecturer in computer science at Aberystwyth University.
She has served deputy chair of her local BCS branch (BCS Mid Wales) since 2011.
Dee developed and runs the annual BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, the one-day conference for women computing students to encourage networking for women students from around the UK, in addition to gaining career development advice from successful women in computing.
Her research interests are in computer vision for the analysis of human behaviour; shadow detection and reasoning; and student attitudes to the study of computer science. She is noted for championing the cause of women in IT.
Publications
Dee's publications include:
Roscoe, Dee, Zwiggelaar, Coping with Noise in Ultrasound Images: A review, MIUA 2012
Ngoc-Son Vu, Hannah M. Dee and Alice Caplier "Face Recognition using the POEM descriptor", Pattern Recognition
Hannah M. Dee, Cohn, A. G. and Hogg, D. C. "Building semantic scene models from unconstrained video" Volume 116, Issue 3, March 2012, Pages 446.456
Paul Robson, Michal Mos, Hannah Dee, John Clifton-Brown and Iain Donnison (2011). Improving bioenergy crop yield and quality through manipulating senescence. In: Biomass and Bioenergy Crops IV. Aspects of Applied Biology 112, pp. 323–328.
Hannah M. Dee & Paulo E. Santos (2011): The Perception and Content of Cast Shadows: An Interdisciplinary Review, Spatial Cognition & Computation, 11:3, 226–25.
Dee, H. M. and Caplier, A. "Crowd behaviour analysis using histograms of motion direction", IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), 2010, Hong Kong.
Santos, P. E., Dee, H. M. and Fenelon, V. "Knowledge-based adaptative thresholding from shadows" Accepted at the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI), 2010, Lisbon, Portugal.
Awards and honours
In 2014 Dee was featured in the e-book of these 30 women in IT, "Women in IT: Inspiring the next generation” produced by the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, as a free download e-book, from various sources. In 2016, Dee was identified as one of the 50 most influential women in UK IT 2016 by Computer Weekly.
She was also the voted 15th most influential woman in UK IT 2014, and is active on the Committee of BCSWomen.
In 2015, Dee was identified as the 10th Most Influential Women in UK IT 2015, by Computer Weekly.
In 2018, Dee was added to the Computer Weekly 'Most Influential Women in UK IT' Hall of Fame alongside Chi Onwurah, Sarah Wood and Sherry Coutu.
References
Living people
Academics of Aberystwyth University
British computer scientists
British women computer scientists
Grenoble Institute of Technology faculty
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
Alumni of the University of Leeds
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utau
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Utau
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UTAU is a Japanese singing synthesizer application created by Ameya/Ayame (). This program is similar to the VOCALOID software, with the difference being it is shareware instead of under a third party licensing.
Overview
In March 2008, Ameya/Ayame released UTAU, a free, advanced support tool shareware software that was free-to-download from its main website. UTAU (), meaning 'to sing' in Japanese, has its origin in the activity of , where people edit an existing vocal track, extract phonemes, adjust pitch, and reassemble them to create a Vocaloid-esque singing voice. UTAU was originally created to assist this process using concatenative synthesis. UTAU is able to use WAV files provided by the user, so that a singing voice can be synthesized by introducing song lyrics and melody. It comes with AQUEST's voice synthesizer "AquesTalk" for synthesizing the voice samples of the default voicebank, Utane Uta (also nicknamed Defoko ( meaning 'Default Girl' in Japanese)) on UTAU's initial launch, after which the generator deletes itself. Voices made for the UTAU program are officially called "UTAU" as well, though they are colloquially known as "UTAUloids", a reference to VOCALOID. They are also called "voicebanks" (more common in English-speaking areas) and "(voice) libraries" in Japan. A myriad number of voicebanks have been developed by independent users. These voicebanks are normally distributed directly from their creators via internet download, but some are sold as part of commercial projects.
UTAU is mostly a Japanese program and thus many of its voices are created specifically for the Japanese language. However, the number of available languages has been expanded by the users. English is a common language for UTAU to sing in. While there are a high number of bilingual UTAU, there are also multilingual UTAU that can sing in three or more languages. Often, X-SAMPA format is used for English voicebanks. However, other formats based on X-SAMPA are also used, such as Cz Phonemes (or C-ZAMPA) for some English VCCV voicebanks. Regardless of the voice's language, a user's computer must be in the Japanese locale or use AppLocale in order to run the software. Most of its documentation is in Japanese, but the User Manual has been translated into English. The program's interface was translated to English by Ameya, and other translations are still pending. However, the program still requires support for Japanese text.
UTAU's project files are saved under the "" (Utau Sequence Text) extension. These files can be freely distributed, allowing different UTAU to sing the same piece. It is important to make note of the guidelines the UST creator has provided in terms of the distribution and use. Producers have developed several methods of producing their sound banks and results for the voicebanks vary because of this. UTAU also supports MIDI format and format.
Ameya/Ayame added support for Unicode in an unreleased newer version of UTAU as per the screenshots posted on Twitter. The corresponding backend support tail fixed region as well as several other audio encodings has already been released, while frontend support is yet to be released as of September 2020. Ameya also updated UTAU to be compatible with 64-bit systems.
Configuration
The editor is capable of placing notes, entering phonemes, and changing pitch and volume on the piano roll. Only one track can be created in UTAU, and notes cannot be placed on top of each other. By default, only notes are displayed on the piano roll, but display settings can be changed to show the pitch curve, volume intensity, envelope, and flags. UTAU uses flags to change aspects of the voice, such as with low-pass and high-pass filters, and reducing or adding breathiness. These flags differ depending on the resampler used. Score information and data in the voicebank is processed with a resampler and wavtool based on the score created with the editor. Only one resampler can be utilized in a single file. A formant filter is used to control changes in voice quality, which can be turned off.
The audio file to be loaded in is found by matching the symbols on the note with the audio file name in the voice library. However, a prefix.map file can change which subfolder the sample is taken from. The pitch of the synthesized voice is adjusted according to the difference between the original sound file and the pitch of the note in the editor. UTAU uses formant filters to prevent extreme changes in voice quality, which can be disabled. Batch processing is used to generate multiple notes at once. Cache files are created during this process. Depending on the resampler, the amount of cache files may increase. There are settings in the menu to delete cache files when the program is closed, or after a certain period of time.
There are built-in plugins which can automatically merge vowels, and the "Omakase/A la carte" settings which can add automatic pitch and vibrato to an entire file. Other plugins created by users can be added into the software, which preform various functions. The colors of the editor can also be changed in the setting.ini file.
Voices
As mentioned above, WAV files can be ported into UTAU. There can be hundreds, or in some cases, thousands, of these files in a single voicebank. Voices are installed by either placing them in the "voice" folder or dragging and dropping them onto the UTAU icon. These libraries also come with an file which determines the timing and configuration of each sample. When outputting audio from the score data in the editor, the program uses the to set timing and pronunciation. files can be created using UTAU's GUI, or in third party software made by users, the most notable of these third party programs being SetParam. Frequency tables ( files) are used to process the waveform when changing the pitch in the editor. Some resamplers use other file types instead of . The voices may also come with image files most commonly being the .bmp format and standalone voice dialogues as some Vocaloids do. They also often include readme files which contain software information and terms of use. Character information files, commonly seen as character.txt, are also often included, which hold information that can be viewed in the "Voice preview" section of the GUI which labels the voicebank author, the name, a sample file to be played on click of the "sample" button, and the Voicebank image. It can also contain other parameters specified by the creator, such as "genre".
Some voicebanks are monosyllabic, collectively referred to as "CV" (consonant-vowel), whereas others use triphones to produce a smoother sound.
These triphonetic voicebanks are collectively referred to as "VCV" (vowel-consonant-vowel). These take considerably more time and effort to make (being about seven times the size of a CV voicebank, in terms of lines in the file), but produce a more natural result.
Later UTAU voices would include phonemes composed of vowels+consonants (VC) to accommodate languages other than Japanese. Methods that employ this include "CVVC" (in which a VC phoneme is placed between two CV phonemes) and "VCCV" (in which a CV phoneme is placed between two VC phonemes). Two rarer voice recording methods are CVC, where one phoneme consists of a consonant-vowel-consonant and is split up in the program by using the , and a method called (), in which a series of CV syllables are recorded in multiple wav files in order to create a smoother result without resorting to full VCV.
Since the audio files are independent files, they can be used in other software such as a DAW.
Development
The development of UTAU started when Ameya began to use Audacity to recombine samples of other singers, and Melodyne to pitch correct the samples and set them to music. The act of doing this was referred to as "human-powered VOCALOID". LOLI.COM, a musician who posted his own rap music to Nico Nico Douga, used his own voice for human-powered Vocaloid and released an audio editing software which could help users do the same. Since the process of doing "human-powered VOCALOID" by hand took a substantial amount of time and effort, Ameya began to develop a new tool which would aid the process.
The tool was announced on Nico Nico Douga on January 11, 2008. At that time, it was possible to adjust the timing of the sound, change the envelope of a note, and generate batch files. On 5 February 2008, a video was released showing the GUI. Here, it was possible to time stretch samples, create oto.ini files, and adjust the pitch bends of notes. On 5 March 2008, a video explaining the program's specifications was released on Nico Nico Douga, and on 15 March 2008, the tool was renamed UTAU.
The creator was a programmer by trade and not a specialist in vocal synthesis, but used previous knowledge to create UTAU. After its release, Ameya continued to improve UTAU, and started developing it in collaboration with other text-to-speech developers.
In June 2008, Ameya rejected the label of for UTAU, calling it singing voice synthesis software instead.
Audio files and copyright
Since UTAU can create a singing voice using any WAV files, it is possible to take the voice of an existing person and use it as data. Often, actors, singers, and celebrities will have clips of their voices re-purposed for use in UTAU. The creator, Ameya, once created a voice using data from a voice actor's CD.
In May 2008, Ameya decided to stop using audio data without permission for the time being, unless the voice actor allowed it.
Cultural impact
Though the software is very popular in Japan, its origins and cultural impact are owed to the already established popularity of the Vocaloid software. UTAU itself was first made famous when the creator of Kasane Teto released the character posing as a Vocaloid character as part of an April Fool's joke in 2008. The influence of the Vocaloid software also led to both programs commonly being used side by side. Often popular UTAU mascots like Kasane Teto appear in VOCALOID-based media such as Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix or Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA.
Later, the UTAU software would have its own impact on Vocaloid and other vocal synthesizers, with a number of vocals either referencing UTAU or being produced for the engine to begin with. For example, Megurine Luka V4x was influenced by the UTAU vocal "Gahata Meiji". Wat from Crypton Future Media also spoke to someone very familiar with UTAU and said that the conversation was "very interesting". Macne Nana of the Macne series later would become both a UTAU voice and a Vocaloid voice. The voice provider of English Vocaloid Ruby, Misha, had previously produced a Japanese-language UTAU named Makune Hachi (). In addition, the vocalist for Dex, Kenji-B, created for UTAU, and AkiGlancy, the vocalist behind Dex's partner Daina, gave her voice to a UTAU called . Kikuko Inoue, the voice actress of Macne Coco White and Black () (see Macne series) went on to voice a Vocaloid5 product by the name of Haruno Sora (). The product came with two voicebanks, "Natural" and "Cool". After the release of Vocaloid 3 vocal Tohoku Zunko, her two sisters Tohoku Itako and Tohoku Kiritan received UTAU vocals. Kiritan would later hold a crowdfunding campaign for her to become a Voiceroid.
Its main attraction is not only based on it being freely distributed on the internet, but because it allowed a user to insert their own voice into the database for use for music, opening the doors for users to further develop their own music. UTAU owes its growing popularity to its ability to provide a free method of creating voices for music use and has established numerous music producers working with the software on sites such as Nico Nico Douga and YouTube. Users also see it as an alternative to the Vocaloid software, which only offers a more limited supply of voices at a costly price and may not offer the voice types they are seeking for music, as the large database of voices often has a much greater chance of offering the voice they seek. However, despite the number of voicebanks offered, the software has overall far fewer producers working with it than Vocaloid.
A radio station set up a 1 hour program containing nothing but Vocaloid and UTAU-based music.
In addition, an event called "The UTAU M@STER" was held regularly from 19 July 2012 onwards. The event was the main gathering of groups or circles and was held in a similar fashion to the Vocaloid-related event, THE VOC@LOID M@STER, which had existed since 2007.
Related software
Unlike Vocaloid, UTAU files are not restrictive as it is not a proprietary based license. Therefore, it is possible to use open-source license products with the UTAU software, such as those produced for the , released for the programs Reason 4 and GarageBand. These products were sold by Act2 and by converting their file format, were able to also work with the UTAU program. Later, the Macne packages Whisper☆Angel Sasayaki, Macne Nana 2S and Macne Petit 2S came with pre-built UTAU voicebanks.
The default voicebank "Defoko" (Uta Utane) borrows her voice from the software AquesTalk, specifically the voice "AquesTalk Female-1" produced by A-quest. Permission had been granted for her distribution free with the software. Koe Utane, Uta's "sister", also borrows her voice from the AquesTalk software. Namine Ritsu (), a vocal originally built for UTAU, also was later added to another software called "Sinsy" as "Namine Ritsu S". Another vocal originally developed for the UTAU software, Yamine Renri (), was also later added to a different software called "Synthesizer V".
Due to the software's own copyright agreement, non-open license software such as VOCALOID are not permitted to be imported into the UTAU software.
A number of plug-ins for the software have also been developed by users of the software which add and enhance the vocals of the software.
The software "Sugarcape", based on the same freeware intention as UTAU, has already entered beta stage.
There was an official Mac version of UTAU released on May 27, 2011, named UTAU-Synth. It has approximately the same features as the Windows version. UTAU-Synth version can import both voices and songs made with the Windows version, but its project files and voicebank configurations are not fully compatible with the Windows version.
In late 2017 it was mentioned that Plogue Art et Technologie, Inc. had a working redirect adaptation that would make UTAU vocals appear in its engine Alter/Ego.
"OpenUTAU" is an open-source unofficial successor to UTAU developed by Vocaloid producer StAkira, with a beta released in November 2021. The software was designed to be compatible with UTAU but with a modern user experience.
Usage in music
The licensed songs from the album Graduation from Lie, featuring Teto Kasane, were released for music downloads from Karen-T, under Crypton Future Media, as a special release. This is the first licensed release of any UTAU.
Kasane Teto is famous for singing "Ochame Kinou", a song famous for being catchy and having nonsensical lyrics. Momo Momone is also famous for singing "Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!", a song originally composed by and sung by the VOCALOID Hatsune Miku. This song was made popular with the YouTube video of "Nyan Cat".
See also
Nyan Cat
Dōjin music
Vocaloid
Cevio
Speech synthesis
References
External links
(macOS version)
Article on Japanese Wikipedia
Developer blog
Electronic musical instruments
Singing software synthesizers
Shareware
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United%20States%20v.%20Microsoft%20Corp.
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United States v. Microsoft Corp.
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United States v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001) is a noted American antitrust law case in which the U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the personal computer (PC) market primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java. At trial, the district court ruled that Microsoft's actions constituted unlawful monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed most of the district court's judgments.
The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft had abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser integration. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Windows operating system. Bundling them is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of IE. It was further alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera), since it typically took a while to download or purchase such software at a store. Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft had manipulated its application programming interfaces to favor IE over third-party web browsers, Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct.
Microsoft argued that the merging of Windows and IE was the result of innovation and competition, that the two were now the same product and inextricably linked, and that consumers were receiving the benefits of IE free. Opponents countered that IE was still a separate product which did not need to be tied to Windows, since a separate version of IE was available for Mac OS. They also asserted that IE was not really free because its development and marketing costs may have inflated the price of Windows.
The case was tried before Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The DOJ was initially represented by David Boies. Compared to the European decision against Microsoft, the DOJ case is focused less on interoperability and more on predatory strategies and market barriers to entry.
History
By 1984 Microsoft was one of the most successful software companies, with $55 million in 1983 sales. InfoWorld wrote:
The Federal Trade Commission began an inquiry in 1992 over whether Microsoft was abusing its monopoly on the PC operating system market. The commissioners deadlocked with a 2–2 vote in 1993 and closed the investigation, but the Department of Justice led by Janet Reno opened its own investigation on August 21 of that year, resulting in a settlement on July 15, 1994 in which Microsoft consented not to tie other Microsoft products to the sale of Windows but remained free to integrate additional features into the operating system. In the years that followed, Microsoft insisted that Internet Explorer (which, in addition to OEM versions of Windows 95, appeared in the Plus! Pack sold separately) was not a product but a feature which it was allowed to add to Windows, although the DOJ did not agree with this definition.
In its 2008 Annual Report, Microsoft stated:
Trial
The suit began on May 18, 1998, with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorneys General of twenty U.S. states (and the District of Columbia) suing Microsoft for illegally thwarting competition in order to protect and extend its software monopoly. In October 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice also sued Microsoft for violating a 1994 consent decree by forcing computer makers to include its Internet browser as a part of the installation of Windows software. While the DOJ was represented by David Boies, the States were separately represented by New York Attorneys General Alan Kusinitz, Gail Cleary and Steve Houck.
Bill Gates was called "evasive and nonresponsive" by a source present at his videotaped deposition. He argued over the definitions of words such as "compete", "concerned", "ask", and "we"; certain portions of the proceeding would later provoke laughter from the judge, when an excerpted version was shown in court. Businessweek reported that "early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying 'I don't recall' so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Many of the technology chief's denials and pleas of ignorance have been directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of email Gates both sent and received." Intel Vice-President Steven McGeady, called as a witness, quoted Paul Maritz, a senior Microsoft vice president, as having stated an intention to "extinguish" and "smother" rival Netscape Communications Corporation and to "cut off Netscape's air supply" by giving away a clone of Netscape's flagship product for free.
A number of videotapes were submitted as evidence by Microsoft during the trial, including one that demonstrated that removing Internet Explorer from Microsoft Windows caused slowdowns and malfunctions in Windows. In the videotaped demonstration of what then-Microsoft vice president Jim Allchin stated to be a seamless segment filmed on one PC, the plaintiff noticed that some icons mysteriously disappear and reappear on the PC's desktop, suggesting that the effects might have been falsified. Allchin admitted that the blame for the tape problems lay with some of his staff. "They ended up filming it—grabbing the wrong screen shot", he said of the incident. Later, Allchin re-ran the demonstration and provided a new videotape, but in so doing Microsoft dropped the claim that Windows is slowed down when Internet Explorer is removed. Mark Murray, a Microsoft spokesperson, berated the government attorneys for "nitpicking on issues like video production". Microsoft submitted a second inaccurate videotape into evidence later the same month as the first. The issue in question was how easy or hard it was for America Online users to download and install Netscape Navigator onto a Windows PC. Microsoft's videotape showed the process as being quick and easy, resulting in the Netscape icon appearing on the user's desktop. The government produced its own videotape of the same process, revealing that Microsoft's videotape had conveniently removed a long and complex part of the procedure and that the Netscape icon was not placed on the desktop, requiring a user to search for it. Brad Chase, a Microsoft vice president, verified the government's tape and conceded that Microsoft's own tape was falsified.
When the judge ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows which did not include Internet Explorer, Microsoft responded that the company would offer manufacturers a choice: one version of Windows that was obsolete, or another that did not work properly. The judge asked, "It seemed absolutely clear to you that I entered an order that required that you distribute a product that would not work?" David Cole, a Microsoft vice president, replied, "In plain English, yes. We followed that order. It wasn't my place to consider the consequences of that."
Gates and his successor as CEO Steve Ballmer were so worried about the outcome of the case that they discussed leaving Microsoft "if they really screw the company that badly, really just split it up in a totally irrational way", Gates recalled. Microsoft vigorously defended itself in the public arena, arguing that its attempts to "innovate" were under attack by rival companies jealous of its success, and that government litigation was merely their pawn (see public choice theory). A full-page ad run in The Washington Post and The New York Times on June 2, 1999, by The Independent Institute delivered "An Open Letter to President Clinton From 240 Economists On Antitrust Protectionism." It said, in part, "Consumers did not ask for these antitrust actions – rival business firms did. Consumers of high technology have enjoyed falling prices, expanding outputs, and a breathtaking array of new products and innovations. ... Increasingly, however, some firms have sought to handicap their rivals by turning to government for protection. Many of these cases are based on speculation about some vaguely specified consumer harm in some unspecified future, and many of the proposed interventions will weaken successful U.S. firms and impede their competitiveness abroad."
Judgment
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Software, RealNetworks, Linux, and others. Judgment was split in two parts. On April 3, 2000, he issued his conclusions of law, according to which Microsoft had committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Microsoft immediately appealed the decision.
On June 7, 2000, the court ordered a breakup of Microsoft as its remedy. According to that judgment, Microsoft would have to be broken into two separate units, one to produce the operating system, and one to produce other software components.
Appeal
After a notice of appeal was filed in the intermediate appellate court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the district (trial) court certified appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court under 15 U.S.C. §29(b), which gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction to hear direct appeals from the district court in certain antitrust cases initiated by the federal government if "the district judge who adjudicated the case enters an order stating that immediate consideration of the appeal by the Supreme Court is of general public importance in the administration of justice." The states also filed a petition for certiorari before judgment in the Supreme Court, which requested that the Supreme Court hear their appeals from the district court's decision without proceeding first through the court of appeals. However, the Supreme Court declined to hear the federal government's appeal, remanding the case to the court of appeals, and also denied the states' petition for certiorari before judgment.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Jackson's rulings against Microsoft. This was partly because the appellate court had adopted a "drastically altered scope of liability" under which the remedies could be taken, and also partly due to the embargoed interviews Judge Jackson had given to the news media while he was still hearing the case, in violation of the Code of Conduct for US Judges. Judge Jackson did not attend the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing, in which the appeals court judges accused him of unethical conduct and determined he should have recused himself from the case.
Judge Jackson's response to this was that Microsoft's conduct itself was the cause of any "perceived bias"; Microsoft executives had, according to him, "proved, time and time again, to be inaccurate, misleading, evasive, and transparently false. ... Microsoft is a company with an institutional disdain for both the truth and for rules of law that lesser entities must respect. It is also a company whose senior management is not averse to offering specious testimony to support spurious defenses to claims of its wrongdoing."However, the appeals court did not overturn the findings of fact. Although the D.C. Circuit found that it was possible to examine high-tech industries with traditional antitrust analysis, the court announced a new and permissive liability rule that repudiated the Supreme Court's dominant rule of per se illegality for tie-ins, due to the court's concern for the dynamic effects that a per se rule would have on innovation. The D.C. Circuit remanded the case for consideration of a proper remedy under a more limited scope of liability. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly was chosen to hear the case.
The DOJ announced on September 6, 2001 that it was no longer seeking to break up Microsoft and would instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty. Microsoft decided to draft a settlement proposal allowing PC manufacturers to adopt non-Microsoft software.
Settlement
On November 2, 2001, the DOJ reached an agreement with Microsoft to settle the case. The proposed settlement required Microsoft to share its application programming interfaces with third-party companies and appoint a panel of three people who would have full access to Microsoft's systems, records, and source code for five years in order to ensure compliance. However, the DOJ did not require Microsoft to change any of its code nor prevent Microsoft from tying other software with Windows in the future. On August 5, 2002, Microsoft announced that it would make some concessions towards the proposed final settlement ahead of the judge's verdict. On November 1, 2002, Judge Kollar-Kotelly released a judgment accepting most of the proposed DOJ settlement. Nine states (California, Connecticut, Iowa, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Utah, Virginia and Massachusetts) and the District of Columbia (which had been pursuing the case together with the DOJ) did not agree with the settlement, arguing that it did not go far enough to curb Microsoft's anti-competitive business practices. On June 30, 2004, the U.S. appeals court unanimously approved the settlement with the Justice Department, rejecting objections that the sanctions were inadequate.
The dissenting states regarded the settlement as merely a slap on the wrist. Industry pundit Robert X. Cringely believed a breakup was not possible, and that "now the only way Microsoft can die is by suicide." Andrew Chin, an antitrust law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who assisted Judge Jackson in drafting the findings of fact, wrote that the settlement gave Microsoft "a special antitrust immunity to license Windows and other 'platform software' under contractual terms that destroy freedom of competition."
Law professor Eben Moglen noted that the way Microsoft was required to disclose its APIs and protocols was useful only for “interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product”, not for implementing support of those APIs and protocols in any competing operating system.
Microsoft’s obligations under the settlement, as originally drafted, expired on November 12, 2007. However, Microsoft later "agreed to consent to a two-year extension of part of the Final Judgments" dealing with communications protocol licensing, and that if the plaintiffs later wished to extend those aspects of the settlement even as far as 2012, it would not object. The plaintiffs made clear that the extension was intended to serve only to give the relevant part of the settlement "the opportunity to succeed for the period of time it was intended to cover", rather than being due to any "pattern of willful and systematic violations".
Criticism
Economist Milton Friedman believed that the antitrust case against Microsoft set a dangerous precedent that foreshadowed increasing government regulation of what was formerly an industry that was relatively free of government intrusion and that future technological progress in the industry will be impeded as a result. In the January 2007 edition of the Business & Economic Research, Jenkins and Bing argue that, contrary to Friedman's concerns, the settlement actually had little effect on Microsoft's behavior. The fines, restrictions, and monitoring imposed were not enough to prevent it from "abusing its monopolistic power and too little to prevent it from dominating the software and operating system industry." They conclude that, remaining dominant and monopolistic after the trial, it had continued to stifle competitors and innovative technology.
Jean-Louis Gassée, CEO of Be Inc., claimed Microsoft was not really making any money from Internet Explorer, and its incorporation with the operating system was due to consumer expectation to have a browser packaged with the operating system. For example, BeOS comes packaged with its web browser, NetPositive. Instead, he argued, Microsoft's true anticompetitive clout was in the rebates it offered to OEMs preventing other operating systems from getting a foothold in the market.
Chris Butts, writing in the Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, highlighted that the United States government recognized the benefits of including a web browser with an operating system. At the appellate level, the U.S. government dropped the claim of tying given that—as laid out in Section 1 of the Sherman Act—it would have had to prove that more harm than good resulted from the instance of tying carried out by Microsoft.
See also
Antitrust, a 2001 film about "NURV", a large software company that presents a fictionalized Microsoft
Browser wars
Criticism of Microsoft
Microsoft Corp. v. Commission
Microsoft litigation
Removal of Internet Explorer
US antitrust law
References
Further reading
Articles
Andrew Chin, Decoding Microsoft: A First Principles Approach, 40 Wake Forest Law Review 1 (2005)
Kenneth Elzinga, David Evans, and Albert Nichols, United States v. Microsoft: Remedy or Malady? 9 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 633 (2001)
John Lopatka and William Page, Antitrust on Internet Time: Microsoft and the Law and Economics of Exclusion, 7 Supreme Court Economic Review 157–231 (1999)
John Lopatka and William Page, The Dubious Search For Integration in the Microsoft Trial, 31 Conn. L. Rev. 1251 (1999)
John Lopatka and William Page, Who Suffered Antitrust Injury in the Microsoft Case?, 69 George Washington Law Review 829-59 (2001)
Alan Meese, Monopoly Bundling In Cyberspace: How Many Products Does Microsoft Sell ? 44 Antitrust Bulletin 65 (1999)
Alan Meese, Don't Disintegrate Microsoft (Yet), 9 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 761 (2001)
Steven Salop and R. Craig Romaine, Preserving Monopoly: Economic Analysis, Legal Standards, and the Microsoft Case, 7 Geo. Mas. L. Rev. 617 (1999)
Howard A. Shelanski and J. Gregory Sidak, Antitrust Divestiture in Network Industries, 68 University of Chicago Law Review 1 (2001)
Books
External links
Final Judgment in U.S. v. Microsoft (injunction including final settlement terms approved by the court) (note that the copy posted on the district court's web site is actually an earlier version that the court declined to approve).
The United States DOJ's website on U.S. v. Microsoft
Microsoft's Antitrust Case, Microsoft News Center
Wired news timeline of the Microsoft antitrust case
ZDnet story on 4th anniversary of Microsoft antitrust case
ZDnet story on proposed concessions
Antitrust & the Internet: Microsoft case archive
"A Case of Insecure Browsing" by Andrew Chin. Raleigh News & Observer, September 30, 2004
Bill Gates deposition video at Microsoft on August 27, 1998 (Windows Media, Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis formats)
The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism
Nader 0, Microsoft 0 at Upside Magazine of December 31, 1997
An Interview with Marc Andreessen about Microsoft antitrust litigation and browser wars
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cases
United States computer case law
Microsoft criticisms and controversies
United States antitrust case law
Microsoft litigation
2001 in United States case law
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26322186
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoDock
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AutoDock
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AutoDock is a molecular modeling simulation software. It is especially effective for protein-ligand docking. AutoDock 4 is available under the GNU General Public License. AutoDock is one of the most cited docking software applications in the research community. It is used by the FightAIDS@Home and OpenPandemics - COVID-19 projects run at World Community Grid, to search for antivirals against HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. In February 2007, a search of the ISI Citation Index showed more than 1,100 publications had been cited using the primary AutoDock method papers. As of 2009, this number surpassed 1,200.
AutoDock Vina is a successor of AutoDock, significantly improved in terms of accuracy and performance. It is available under the Apache license.
Both AutoDock and Vina are currently maintained by Scripps Research, specifically the Center for Computational Structural Biology (CCSB) led by Dr. Arthur J. Olson
AutoDock is widely used and played a role in the development of the first clinically approved HIV-1 integrase inhibitor by Merck & Co.
Programs
AutoDock consists of two main programs:
AutoDock for docking of the ligand to a set of grids describing the target protein;
AutoGrid for pre-calculating these grids.
Usage of AutoDock has contributed to the discovery of several drugs, including HIV1 integrase inhibitors.
Platform support
AutoDock runs on Linux, Mac OS X, SGI IRIX, and Microsoft Windows. It is available as a package in several Linux distributions, including Debian, Fedora, and Arch Linux.
Compiling the application in native 64-bit mode on Microsoft Windows enables faster floating-point operation of the software.
Improved versions
AutoDock for GPUs
Improved calculation routines using OpenCL and CUDA have been developed by the AutoDock Scripps research team.
It results in observed speedups of up to 4x (quad-core CPU) and 56x (GPU) over the original serial AutoDock 4.2 (Solis-Wets) on CPU.
The CUDA version was developed in a collaboration between the Scripps research team and Nvidia while the OpenCL version was further optimized with support from the IBM World Community Grid team.
AutoDock Vina
AutoDock has a successor, AutoDock Vina, which has an improved local search routine and makes use of multicore/multi-CPU computer setups.
AutoDock Vina has been noted for running significantly faster under 64-bit Linux operating systems in several World Community Grid projects that used the software.
AutoDock Vina is currently on version 1.2, released in July 2021.
Third-party improvements and tools
As an open source project, AutoDock has gained several third-party improved versions such as:
Scoring and Minimization with AutoDock Vina (smina) is a fork of AutoDock Vina with improved support for scoring function development and energy minimization.
Off-Target Pipeline allows integration of AutoDock within bigger projects.
Consensus Scoring ToolKit provides rescoring of AutoDock Vina poses with multiple scoring functions and calibration of consensus scoring equations.
VSLAB is a VMD plug-in that allows the use of AutoDock directly from VMD.
PyRx provides a nice GUI for running virtual screening with AutoDock. PyRx includes a docking wizard and you can use it to run AutoDock Vina in the Cloud or HPC cluster.
POAP is a shell-script-based tool which automates AutoDock for virtual screening from ligand preparation to post docking analysis.
VirtualFlow allows to carry out ultra-large virtual screenings on computer clusters and the cloud using AutoDock Vina-based docking programs, allowing to routinely screen billions of compounds.
FPGA acceleration
Using general programmable chips as co-processors, specifically the OMIXON experimental product, speedup was within the range 10x-100x the speed of standard Intel Dual Core 2 GHz CPU.
See also
Docking (molecular)
Virtual screening
List of protein-ligand docking software
References
External links
AutoDock homepage
AutoDock Vina homepage
Molecular modelling software
Molecular modelling
Free and open-source software
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12664919
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM%201500
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IBM 1500
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The IBM 1500 instructional system was introduced by IBM on March 31, 1966, and its primary purpose was to implement Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI). Based around either an IBM 1130 or an IBM 1800 computer, it supported up to 32 student work stations, each with a variety of audiovisual capabilities.
Seeded by a research grant in 1964 from the U.S. Department of Education to the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences at Stanford University, the IBM 1500 CAI system was initially prototyped at the Brentwood Elementary School (Ravenswood City School District) in East Palo Alto, California by Dr. Patrick Suppes of Stanford University. The students first used the system in 1966.
The first production IBM 1500 system was shipped to Stanford University in August 1967.
Preliminary versions of course materials that educators could use with the IBM 1500 were developed by Science Research Associates, Inc., an IBM subsidiary.
Most educational programming on the IBM 1500 system was done in the specialized computer programming language called Coursewriter.
The IBM 1500 system and its learning environment was a modern step in the history of virtual learning environments.
Overview
Buck and Hunka wrote in their 1996 retrospective and historical paper that:
"The IBM 1500 Instructional System was the only commercial system produced by a single manufacturer that had an integrated student terminal configuration providing a keyboard and light pen response mode, CRT-based graphics, audio, and static film projection. Experimental instructional systems had been developed by IBM prior to a prototype version of the 1500 Instructional System, which was tested at Stanford University. A production version of the 1500 System with changes in the CPU and the audio system and having the capability to run a maximum of 32 student stations was installed in over 31 sites beginning in the late 1950s. IBM's commitment to the development of this system was extensive but short-lived, as most sites were unable to maintain funding support for the system. In retrospect, the IBM 1500 System had capabilities yet to be supported on the microcomputer systems of the 1980s."
Selected educational applications
The Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) Division of the U.S. Army Signal Center and School (USASCS) at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey evaluated CAI's success in teaching basic electronics by using material presented in the tutorial mode on the IBM 1500 System, utilizing the IBM Coursewriter language, an IBM 1510 Display Console, and an IBM 1512 Image Projector.
References
Further reading
"Mobilizing Minds: Teaching Math and Science in the Age of Sputnik: Mathematics Lesson on the IBM 1500 Instructional System, 1966", Smithsonian Institution.
Dick, Walter; Gallagher, Tom, "Systems Concepts and Computer-Managed Instruction: An Implementation and Validation Study", in Introduction to the Systems Approach, Education Technology Reviews Series, no.3, January 1973, pp. 19–25. Cf. especially p. 21 on the IBM 1500 and Coursewriter.
Hunka, S., "The Computer-Aided Instruction Activities of the Division of Educational Research Services at the University of Alberta", International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3, July 1973, Pages 329-336
Lipsitz, Lawrence, (Editor); Reisner, Trudi, The Computer and Education, Englewood Cliffs, NJ : Educational Technology Publications, January 1973. Articles selected from Educational Technology magazine. Cf. pp. 50, 80, 144 & various.
Terlet, R.H., "The CRT display subsystem of the IBM 1500 instructional system", AFIPS Joint Computer Conferences, Proceedings of the November 14–16, 1967, Fall Joint Computer Conference, Anaheim, California. Session on Display systems and equipment, pp. 169–176.
"CAI and the IBM 1500 System at DERS (Division of Educational Research Services)", University of Alberta, Canada.
External links
A list of IBM 1500 installations in North America
An informative video of the IBM 1500 system at the University of Alberta
Educational hardware
1500
IBM educational computers
IBM 1130
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189512
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-function%20printer
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Multi-function printer
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An MFP (multi-function product/printer/peripheral), multi-functional, all-in-one (AIO), or multi-function device (MFD), is an office machine which incorporates the functionality of multiple devices in one, so as to have a smaller footprint in a home or small business setting (the SOHO market segment), or to provide centralized document management/distribution/production in a large-office setting. A typical MFP may act as a combination of some or all of the following devices: email, fax, photocopier, printer, scanner.
Types of MFPs
MFP manufacturers traditionally divided MFPs into various segments. The segments roughly divided the MFPs according to their speed in pages-per-minute (ppm) and duty-cycle/robustness. However, many manufacturers are beginning to avoid the segment definition for their products, as speed and basic functionality alone do not always differentiate the many features that the devices include. Two color MFPs of a similar speed may end in the same segment, despite having potentially very different feature-sets, and therefore very different prices. From a marketing perspective, the manufacturer of the more expensive MFP would want to differentiate their product as much as possible to justify the price difference, and therefore avoids the segment definition.
Many MFP types, regardless of the category they fall into, also come in a "printer only" variety, which is the same model without the scanner unit included. This can even occur with devices where the scanner unit physically appears highly integrated into the product.
, almost all printer manufacturers offer multifunction printers. They are designed for home, small business, enterprise and commercial use. Naturally, the cost, usability, robustness, throughput, output quality, etc. all vary with the various use cases. However, they all generally do the same functions; Print, Scan, Fax, and Photocopy. In the commercial/enterprise area, most MFP have used laser-printer technology, while the personal, SOHO environments, utilize inkjet methods. Typically, inkjet printers have struggled with delivering the performance and color-saturation demanded by enterprise/large business use. However, HP has recently launched a business-grade MFP using inkjet technology.
In any case, instead of rigidly defined segments based on speed, more general definitions based on intended target audience and capabilities are becoming much more common . While the sector lacks formal definitions, it is common agreed amongst MFP manufacturers that the products fall roughly into the following categories:
All-in-one
An All-in-one is a small desktop unit, designed for home or home-office use.
These devices focus on scan and print functionality for home use, and may come with bundled software for organising photos, simple OCR and other uses of interest to a home user. An All-in-one will always include the basic functions of Print and Scan, with most also including Copy functionality and a lesser number with Fax capabilities.
In the past, these devices were usually not networked, and were generally connected by USB or Parallel. even inexpensive all-in-one devices support ethernet and/or Wi-Fi connections. In some cases the wireless devices require connection to a host computer by wire (usually USB) to initialize the device, and once initial setup is done, support wireless operations for all the work performed thereafter.
All-in-one devices may have features oriented to home and personal use that are not found in larger devices. These functions include smart card readers, direct connection to digital cameras (e.g. PictBridge technology) and other similar uses.
The print engine of most All-in-one devices is based either on a home desktop inkjet printer, or on a home desktop laser printer. They may be black-and-white or colour capable. Laser models provide a better result for text while inkjet gives a more convincing result for images and they are a cheaper multifunctional.
Some of these devices, like the Hewlett-Packard Photosmart C8180 printer, have a DVD burner and LightScribe functionality where the user could burn DVDs and create an image on a special Lightscribe DVD or CD using special software like Roxio or Nero AG Software Suite to create the image. To create a Lightscribe image takes about 10 to 25 minutes.
SOHO MFP
A large desktop or small freestanding unit, designed for Small Office/Home Office use. Often, the form factor of the MFP (desktop or freestanding) depends on the options added, such as extra paper trays.
Generally a SOHO MFP will have basic Print, Copy, Scan and Fax functionality only, but towards the larger end of the scale, may include simple document storage and retrieval, basic authentication functions and so on, making the higher end of the "SOHO" scale difficult to differentiate from the lower end of the "Office" MFP scale.
SOHO MFPs are usually networked, however may also be connected via USB or, less frequently, parallel. SOHO MFPs may have basic finishing functionality such as duplexing, stapling and hole-punching, however this is rare. In general, document output offset, sorting and collation are standard capabilities.
By comparison to an All-in-one product, a SOHO MFP is more likely to have an automatic document feeder, greater fax capabilities and faster output-performance.
Most SOHO MFPs have their history in low-end black and white photocopiers, and the print engine is accordingly based around this type of technology.
Office MFP
A mid-sized free-standing unit, designed as a central office system.
These units are usually the most fully featured type of MFP. They include the basic Print, Copy and Scan functions with optional Fax functionality as well as networked document storage with security, authentication using common network user credentials, ability to run custom software (often a manufacturer will supply a Software development kit), advanced network scan destinations such as FTP, WebDAV, Email, SMB and NFS stores, encryption for data transmission and so on.
Office MFPs usually have moderately advanced finishing functions as options such as duplexing, stapling, holepunching, offset modes and booklet-creation.
Office MFPs are almost always networked, however some have optional or standard (but infrequently used) USB and parallel connections.
Most Office MFPs have their history in mid-range photocopiers (both colour and black-and-white), and the print engine is therefore based around this type of technology, however, Hewlett-Packard recently introduced two Office MFPs based on fixed-head inkjet technology.
Production printing MFP
A large free-standing unit, designed as a central printing-device or reprographic-department device.
These devices, while far larger and more expensive than Office MFPs, generally do not have all of the advanced network functionality of their smaller relations. They instead concentrate on high-speed, high-quality output, and highly advanced finishing functionality including book creation with cover insertion (including hot-glue binding) and so on. Production printing itself is often further divided into "light" production printing and "heavy" production printing, with the differentiating factor being the speed. A 100ppm device for example, falls into the light production printing category by the standards of most manufacturers.
Because of the focus on printing, while most Production Printing MFPs have a scanner, it is infrequently used and often only has very basic functionality.
There are a variety of different print engines for Production Printing MFPs, however in the "light" end of the Production Printing market, most are based on the large Office MFPs, which themselves are based on photocopier technology as described above.
Production Printing MFPs may also be known as "Print on demand" devices, or "Digital presses". This latter term can also be used to refer to the print controller controlling the MFP, however.
Characteristics
It is useful to consider the features and functions of an MFP before integrating it into a home or office environment. It is possible to have an MFP with almost all of the features and functions listed below, however a typical AIO or SOHO MFP is unlikely to incorporate many of these.
An (incomplete) list of features that an MFP may offer or will vary depending on the MFP under consideration (in any segment):
Print features/functions
Input
Network print types available (Raw, LPR, IPP, FTP printing, print via email etc.)
Network, USB, Parallel or other connection types
PDLs (PostScript, PCL, XPS etc.) and direct interpreters (PDF, TIFF, etc.) supported
Printer drivers available for different operating systems
Output
Ability to print directly to the MFP's internal storage function
Capability of using the MFP's finishing functions (see below under Copy features/functions)
Direct CD/DVD Label Printing (usually only available on some InkJet AIO models)
Duplex printing capability - Whether the MFP can print on both sides of a sheet of paper without manual intervention by the user
Paper formats (what kind of paper sizes and stocks the MFP can output)
Printer technology (e.g. InkJet/Laser/Color Laser)
Printing speed (typically given in pages per minute or ppm)
Resolution DPI - this is an important metric for both printing and scanning quality. (Note that print DPI is rarely greater than 600dpi actual. Some MFPs use a system similar to sub-pixel rendering on computer displays to give "enhanced" resolutions of 1200x600 or 1800x600, however it is important to note that this is not a true resolution)
Scan features/functions
Input
Ability to retrieve a document from internal storage and send it as if it was a new "scan"
Automatic document feeder (ADF) - this allows multiple sheets of paper to be input without manually placing each piece of paper on the platen glass.
Duplex scanning capability (depends on the ADF) - Whether the MFP can scan both sides of a sheet of paper without manual intervention by the user.
Output
Scan file formats available (e.g. PDF, TIFF, JPEG, XPS, etc.)
Scan transfer methods available (e.g. FTP, WebDAV, Email, SMB, NFS, TWAIN)
Security of scanned documents - such as PDF encryption, digital signatures and so on.
Fax features/functions
Answering machine
Cordless telephone (generally only a consideration for AIO or smaller SOHO products)
Color Fax capability
PC Fax send and receive capability
Sent / Received Faxes Forwarding to E-mail capability (via SMTP)
TCP/IP Fax methods such as SIP Fax (Fax over IP), Network Fax (via SMTP), Internet Fax and so on
Copy features/functions
Document Finishing capabilities
Duplex output
Stapling
Single point
Staple positioning
Two point
Hole punching
International standard ISO 838 2-hole
Swedish "triohålning" 4-hole
US 3-hole
"888" 4-hole
Folding
Cover binding (generally only available on production printing models) - differs from "cover insertion", in that a cover is physically bound to the book instead of simply placing it around the other pages. Cover binding often uses hot glue to bind the cover to the finished book.
Cover insertion for booklets
Fold and centre staple (for Booklet pagination)
Half fold / crease
Tri-fold / Envelope-folding
Trimming for folded documents to avoid "creep"
Document editing modes
Booklet pagination / "perfect binding" booklet pagination
Image scaling / rotation
n-in-one (2 in 1, 4 in 1 etc.)
Page numbering / text & image stamping / watermarking
Plus, see items under "Print features/functions" output and "Scan features/functions" input
Document storage features/functions
Documents storage capability the MFP
Storage (HDD) capacity
User authentication for the stored document, and any relationship to the user authentication of the MFP (e.g. Network authentication with a server or custom software, internal only, etc.)
Network features/functions
Active Directory or other authentication functionality
Data encryption
IPv6 support
SNMP support - both private and public MIB specifications
Wireless network capability
Other features/functions
SDK availability and licensing model
Software - Many MFPs support advanced functionality through third party software such as optical character recognition. In some cases, these software components are not specific to the MFP being used, however it is important to determine this, as in other cases proprietary technologies are used that effectively tie the software to the platform.
User interface - By their nature, MFPs are complex devices. Many MFPs now include LCD screens and other user interface aids. Generally, AIO and SOHO products contain simple LCD displays, while Office MFPs contain advanced LCD panels resembling a custom computer-like user interface (some MFPs also offer optional keyboard and mouse attachments).
Internal architecture
Hardware
MFPs, like most external peripherals that are capable of functioning without a computer, are essentially a type of computer themselves. They contain memory, one or more processors, and often some kind of local storage, such as a hard disk drive or flash memory. As mentioned in the Types of MFP section, the physical print engine may be based on several technologies, however most larger MFPs are an evolution of a digital photocopier.
Security
When disposing of old printers with local storage, one should keep in mind that confidential documents (print, scan, copy jobs) are potentially still unencrypted on the printer's local storage and can be undeleted. Crypto-shredding can be a countermeasure.
Software
MFPs also run a set of instructions from their internal storage, which is comparable to a computer's operating system.
Generally, as the size and complexity of an MFP increases, the more like a computer the device becomes. It is uncommon for a small AIO or even a SOHO MFP to use a general purpose operating system, however many larger MFPs run Linux or VxWorks.
Additionally, many print controllers, separate, but integral to the MFP, also run computer operating systems, with Linux and Microsoft Windows (often Windows NT 4.0 Embedded, Windows XP Embedded).
On top of the core operating system and firmware, the MFP will also provide several functions, equivalent to applications or in some cases daemons or services.
These functions may include (amongst many others):
Bytecode interpreters or virtual machines for internally hosted third party applications
Image conversion and processing functions
MFP Panel control for user input
Network service clients for sending of documents to different destinations
Network service servers for receiving documents for print or storage
Raster image processing functions (although, often this task is handled by a separate print controller unit instead)
Web server for remote management functions
Software
Computer systems equipped with the proper software must be able to take advantage of the MFP's capabilities, an important requirement to research when considering integrating an MFP with an existing office. Some or all of the following functionality might be provided:
Device administration and configuration
Document imaging, such as ad hoc scanning
Document management such as remote scanning, document type conversion from text to PDF, OCR, etc.
Document type/paper input mode selection
Monitoring of print quotas, toner/ink levels etc.
Software development kits
In addition to specific software packages, many vendors also provide the ability for the user to develop software to communicate with the MFP through a Software development kit. Different vendors have different licensing models, from completely "closed" proprietary systems (often with large costs involved) to open strategies with no direct cost involved.
An incomplete list of these technologies is:
Nuance OmniPage
Canon MEAP (Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform)
HP Open Extensibility Platform (OXP)
Konica Minolta OpenAPI
Lexmark Embedded Solutions Framework (eSF)
Ricoh’s Device SDK
Samsung XOA - eXtensible Open Architecture
Sharp OSA (Open Systems Architecture)
Toshiba OPA (Open Platform Architecture)
Xerox EIP (Extensible Interface Platform)
In general, these technologies fall into one of two technical models - Server based, or MFP internal software.
Server based technologies use a method to communicate information to and from the MFP (often SOAP/XML based), running the operating code on a suitably powered computer on the network. This method has the advantage of being very flexible, in that the software is free to do anything that the developer can make the computer do. The only limit from the MFP itself is the capability of the MFP to display a user interface to the workings of the application. As many of the applications are based around custom printing, scanning and authentication requirements, the MFP manufacturers that use this method gravitate towards these core technologies in the user interface.
MFP internal software, by comparison, has the advantage of not requiring anything outside of the MFP. The software runs within the MFP itself and so even a complete network outage will not disrupt the software from working (unless of course the software requires a network connection for other reasons). MFP internal software is often, but not always, Java based and runs in a Java virtual machine within the MFP. The negative side to this kind of software is usually that it is much more limited in capabilities than Server based systems.
Manufacturers
MFP manufacturers/brands include
Brother
Canon
Dell
Epson
Hewlett-Packard
Kodak
Konica Minolta
Kyocera
Lexmark
Océ (Canon)
Okidata
Olivetti
Panasonic
Ricoh
Samsung
Sharp
Sindoh
Toshiba
Utax
Xerox
Infoeglobe
Note that not all of these manufacturers produce all types of MFP - some may only focus on AIO products, whilst others may only focus on Production Printing, while yet more may cover a wider range.
See also
PictBridge allows images to be printed directly from digital cameras to a printer, without a computer.
Computer printer
Canon NoteJet
References
Office equipment
Information technology management
Computer printers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence%20Livermore%20National%20Laboratory
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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States, founded by the University of California, Berkeley in 1952. Originally a branch of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore laboratory became autonomous in 1971 and was designated a national laboratory in 1981.
A Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), Lawrence Livermore lab is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and managed and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS), a partnership of the University of California, Bechtel, BWX Technologies, AECOM, and Battelle Memorial Institute in affiliation with the Texas A&M University System. In 2012, the laboratory had the synthetic chemical element livermorium (element 116) named after it.
Overview
LLNL is self-described as a "premier research and development institution for science and technology applied to national security." Its principal responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons through the application of advanced science, engineering, and technology. The laboratory also applies its special expertise and multidisciplinary capabilities towards preventing the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction, bolstering homeland security, and solving other nationally important problems, including energy and environmental needs, scientific research and outreach, and economic competitiveness.
The laboratory is located on a 1 sq. mi.(2.6 km2) site at the eastern edge of Livermore. It also operates a remote experimental test site known as Site 300, situated about southeast of the main lab site. LLNL has an annual budget of about $2.7 billion and a staff of roughly 7,400 employees.
History
Origins
LLNL was established in 1952, as the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Livermore, an offshoot of the existing UC Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley. It was intended to spur innovation and provide competition to the nuclear weapon design laboratory at Los Alamos in New Mexico, home of the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic weapons. Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence, director of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley, are regarded as the co-founders of the Livermore facility.
The new laboratory was sited at a former naval air station of World War II. It was already home to several UC Radiation Laboratory projects that were too large for its location in the Berkeley Hills above the UC campus, including one of the first experiments in the magnetic approach to confined thermonuclear reactions (i.e. fusion). About half an hour southeast of Berkeley, the Livermore site provided much greater security for classified projects than an urban university campus.
Lawrence tapped his former graduate student Herbert York, age 32, to run Livermore. Under York, the Lab had four main programs: Project Sherwood (the magnetic-fusion program), Project Whitney (the weapons-design program), diagnostic weapon experiments (both for the Los Alamos and Livermore laboratories), and a basic physics program. York and the new lab embraced the Lawrence "big science" approach, tackling challenging projects with physicists, chemists, engineers, and computational scientists working together in multidisciplinary teams. Lawrence died in August 1958 and shortly after, the university's board of regents named both laboratories for him, as the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.
Historically, the Berkeley and Livermore laboratories have had very close relationships on research projects, business operations, and staff. The Livermore Lab was established initially as a branch of the Berkeley laboratory. The Livermore lab was not officially severed administratively from the Berkeley lab until 1971. To this day, in official planning documents and records, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is designated as Site 100, Lawrence Livermore National Lab as Site 200, and LLNL's remote test location as Site 300.
Renaming
The laboratory was renamed Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLL) in 1971. On October 1, 2007 LLNS assumed management of LLNL from the University of California, which had exclusively managed and operated the Laboratory since its inception 55 years before. The laboratory was honored in 2012 by having the synthetic chemical element livermorium named after it. The LLNS takeover of the laboratory has been controversial. In May 2013, an Alameda County jury awarded over $2.7 million to five former laboratory employees who were among 430 employees LLNS laid off during 2008. The jury found that LLNS breached a contractual obligation to terminate the employees only for "reasonable cause." The five plaintiffs also have pending age discrimination claims against LLNS, which will be heard by a different jury in a separate trial. There are 125 co-plaintiffs awaiting trial on similar claims against LLNS. The May 2008 layoff was the first layoff at the laboratory in nearly 40 years.
On March 14, 2011, the City of Livermore officially expanded the city's boundaries to annex LLNL and move it within the city limits. The unanimous vote by the Livermore city council expanded Livermore's southeastern boundaries to cover 15 land parcels covering that comprise the LLNL site. The site was formerly an unincorporated area of Alameda County. The LLNL campus continues to be owned by the federal government.
Major projects
Nuclear weapons
From its inception, Livermore focused on new weapon design concepts; as a result, its first three nuclear tests were unsuccessful. The lab persevered and its subsequent designs proved increasingly successful. In 1957, the Livermore Lab was selected to develop the warhead for the Navy's Polaris missile. This warhead required numerous innovations to fit a nuclear warhead into the relatively small confines of the missile nosecone.
During the Cold War, many Livermore-designed warheads entered service. These were used in missiles ranging in size from the Lance surface-to-surface tactical missile to the megaton-class Spartan antiballistic missile. Over the years, LLNL designed the following warheads: W27 (Regulus cruise missile; 1955; joint with Los Alamos), W38 (Atlas/Titan ICBM; 1959), B41 (B52 bomb; 1957), W45 (Little John/Terrier missiles; 1956), W47 (Polaris SLBM; 1957), W48 (155-mm howitzer; 1957), W55 (submarine rocket; 1959), W56 (Minuteman ICBM; 1960), W58 (Polaris SLBM; 1960), W62 (Minuteman ICBM; 1964), W68 (Poseidon SLBM; 1966), W70 (Lance missile; 1969), W71 (Spartan missile; 1968), W79 (8-in. artillery gun; 1975), W82 (155-mm howitzer; 1978), B83 (modern strategic bomb; 1979), and W87 (LGM-118 Peacekeeper/MX ICBM; 1982). The W87 and the B83 are the only LLNL designs still in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the United States began a moratorium on nuclear testing and development of new nuclear weapon designs. To sustain existing warheads for the indefinite future, a science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) was defined that emphasized the development and application of greatly improved technical capabilities to assess the safety, security, and reliability of existing nuclear warheads without the use of nuclear testing. Confidence in the performance of weapons, without nuclear testing, is maintained through an ongoing process of stockpile surveillance, assessment and certification, and refurbishment or weapon replacement.
With no new designs of nuclear weapons, the warheads in the U.S. stockpile must continue to function far past their original expected lifetimes. As components and materials age, problems can arise. Stockpile Life Extension Programs can extend system lifetimes, but they also can introduce performance uncertainties and require maintenance of outdated technologies and materials. Because there is concern that it will become increasingly difficult to maintain high confidence in the current warheads for the long term, the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration initiated the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program. RRW designs could reduce uncertainties, ease maintenance demands, and enhance safety and security. In March 2007, the LLNL design was chosen for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. Since that time, Congress has not allocated funding for any further development of the RRW.
Plutonium research
LLNL conducts research into the properties and behavior of plutonium to learn how plutonium performs as it ages and how it behaves under high pressure (e.g., with the impact of high explosives). Plutonium has seven temperature-dependent solid allotropes. Each possesses a different density and crystal structure. Alloys of plutonium are even more complex; multiple phases can be present in a sample at any given time. Experiments are being conducted at LLNL and elsewhere to measure the structural, electrical and chemical properties of plutonium and its alloys and to determine how these materials change over time. Such measurements will enable scientists to better model and predict plutonium's long-term behavior in the aging stockpile.
The Lab's plutonium research is conducted in a specially designed facility called the SuperBlock, with emphasis on safety and security. Work with highly enriched uranium is also conducted there. In March 2008, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) presented its preferred alternative for the transformation of the nation's nuclear weapons complex. Under this plan, LLNL would be a center of excellence for nuclear design and engineering, a center of excellence for high explosive research and development, and a science magnet in high-energy-density (i.e., laser) physics. In addition, most of its special nuclear material would be removed and consolidated at a more central, yet-to-be-named site.
On September 30, 2009, the NNSA announced that about two thirds of the special nuclear material (e.g., plutonium) at LLNL requiring the highest level of security protection had been removed from LLNL. The move was part of NNSA's efforts initiated in October 2006 to consolidate special nuclear material at five sites by 2012, with significantly reduced square footage at those sites by 2017. The federally mandated project intends to improve security and reduce security costs, and is part of NNSA's overall effort to transform the Cold War era "nuclear weapons" enterprise into a 21st-century "nuclear security" enterprise. The original date to remove all high-security nuclear material from LLNL, based on equipment capability and capacity, was 2014. NNSA and LLNL developed a timeline to remove this material as early as possible, accelerating the target completion date to 2012.
Global security program
The Lab's work in global security aims to reduce and mitigate the dangers posed by the spread or use of weapons of mass destruction and by threats to energy and environmental security. Livermore has been working on global security and homeland security for decades, predating both the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. LLNL staff have been heavily involved in the cooperative nonproliferation programs with Russia to secure at-risk weapons materials and assist former weapons workers in developing peaceful applications and self-sustaining job opportunities for their expertise and technologies. In the mid-1990s, Lab scientists began efforts to devise improved biodetection capabilities, leading to miniaturized and autonomous instruments that can detect biothreat agents in a few minutes instead of the days to weeks previously required for DNA analysis.
Today, Livermore researchers address a spectrum of threats – radiological/nuclear, chemical, biological, explosives, and cyber. They combine physical and life sciences, engineering, computations, and analysis to develop technologies that solve real-world problems. Activities are grouped into five programs:
Nonproliferation. Preventing the spread of materials, technology, and expertise related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and detecting WMD proliferation activities worldwide.
Domestic security: Anticipating, innovating and delivering technological solutions to prevent and mitigate devastating high-leverage attacks on U.S. soil.
Defense: Developing and demonstrating new concepts and capabilities to help the Department of Defense prevent and deter harm to the nation, its citizens and its military forces.
Intelligence: Working at the intersection of science, technology, and analysis to provide insight into the threats to national security posed by foreign entities.
Energy and environmental security: Furnishing scientific understanding and technological expertise to devise energy and environmental solutions at global, regional and local scales.
Other programs
LLNL supports capabilities in a broad range of scientific and technical disciplines, applying current capabilities to existing programs and developing new science and technologies to meet future national needs.
The LLNL chemistry, materials, and life science research focuses on chemical engineering, nuclear chemistry, materials science, and biology and bio-nanotechnology.
Physics thrust areas include condensed matter and high-pressure physics, optical science and high energy density physics, medical physics and biophysics, and nuclear, particle and accelerator physics.
In the area of energy and environmental science, Livermore's emphasis is on carbon and climate, energy, water and the environment, and the national nuclear waste repository.
The LLNL engineering activities include micro- and nanotechnology, lasers and optics, biotechnology, precision engineering, nondestructive characterization, modeling and simulation, systems and decision science, and sensors, imaging and communications.
The LLNL is very strong in computer science, with thrust areas in computing applications and research, integrated computing and communications systems, and cyber security.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has worked out several energy technologies in the field of coal gasification, shale oil extraction, geothermal energy, advanced battery research, solar energy, and fusion energy. Main oil shale processing technologies worked out by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are LLNL HRS (hot-recycled-solid), LLNL RISE (in situ extraction technology) and LLNL radiofrequency technologies.
Key accomplishments
Over its 60-year history, Lawrence Livermore has made many scientific and technological achievements, including:
Critical contributions to the U.S. nuclear deterrence effort through the design of nuclear weapons to meet military requirements and, since the mid-1990s, through the stockpile stewardship program, by which the safety and reliability of the enduring stockpile is ensured without underground nuclear testing.
Design, construction, and operation of a series of ever larger, more powerful, and more capable laser systems, culminating in the 192-beam National Ignition Facility (NIF), completed in 2009.
Advances in particle accelerator and fusion technology, including magnetic fusion, free-electron lasers, accelerator mass spectrometry, and inertial confinement fusion.
Breakthroughs in high-performance computing, including the development of novel concepts for massively parallel computing and the design and application of computers that can carry out hundreds of trillions of operations per second.
Development of technologies and systems for detecting nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, and explosive threats to prevent and mitigate WMD proliferation and terrorism.
Development of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) for fabricating next-generation computer chips.
First-ever detection of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs), a suspected but previously undetected component of dark matter.
Advances in genomics, biotechnology, and biodetection, including major contributions to the complete sequencing of the human genome though the Joint Genome Institute and the development of rapid PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology that lies at the heart of today's most advanced DNA detection instruments.
Development and operation of the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC), which provides real-time, multi-scale (global, regional, local, urban) modeling of hazardous materials released into the atmosphere.
Development of highest resolution global climate models and contributions to the International Panel on Climate Change which, together with former vice president Al Gore, was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Co-discoverers of new superheavy elements 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, and 118.
Invention of new healthcare technologies, including a microelectrode array for construction of an artificial retina, a miniature glucose sensor for the treatment of diabetes, and a compact proton therapy system for radiation therapy.
On July 17, 2009 LLNL announced that the Laboratory had received eight R&D 100 Awards – more than it had ever received in the annual competition. The previous LLNL record of seven awards was reached five times – in 1987, 1988, 1997, 1998 and 2006.
Also known as the "Oscars of invention," the awards are given each year for the development of cutting-edge scientific and engineering technologies with commercial potential. The awards raise LLNL's total number of awards since 1978 to 129.
On October 12, 2016, LLNL released the results of computerized modeling of Mars's moon Phobos, finding that it has a connection with keeping the Earth safe from asteroids.
Key facilities
Biosecurity and Nanoscience Laboratory. Researchers apply advances in nanoscience to develop novel technologies for the detection, identification, and characterization of harmful biological pathogens (viruses, spores, and bacteria) and chemical toxins.
Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry: LLNL's Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CAMS) develops and applies a wide range of isotopic and ion-beam analytical tools used in basic research and technology development, addressing a spectrum of scientific needs important to the Laboratory, the university community, and the nation. CAMS is the world's most versatile and productive accelerator mass spectrometry facility, performing more than 25,000 AMS measurement operations per year.
High Explosives Applications Facility and Energetic Materials Center: At HEAF, teams of scientists, engineers, and technicians address nearly all aspects of high explosives: research, development and testing, material characterization, and performance and safety tests. HEAF activities support the Laboratory's Energetic Materials Center, a national resource for research and development of explosives, pyrotechnics, and propellants.
National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center: NARAC is a national support and resource center for planning, real-time assessment, emergency response, and detailed studies of incidents involving a wide variety of hazards, including nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, and natural atmospheric emissions.
National Ignition Facility: This 192-beam, stadium-size laser system is used to compress fusion targets to conditions required for thermonuclear burn. Experiments at NIF study physical processes at conditions that exist only in the interior of stars and in exploding nuclear weapons (see National Ignition Facility and photon science).
Superblock: This unique high-security facility houses modern equipment for research and engineering testing of nuclear materials and is the place where plutonium expertise is developed, nurtured, and applied. Research on highly enriched uranium also is performed here.
Livermore Computing Complex: LLNL's Livermore Computing Complex houses some of the world's most powerful computers, including the 20 petaflop Sequoia, the 5-petaflop Vulcan system; Jade and Quartz systems at 3 petaflops each; the 970-teraflop Zin system; 431-teraflop Cab system; and additional large multi-core, multi-socket Linux clusters with various processor types. The newest machine, Sierra, occupied the No. 3 position on the TOP500 list in June 2018. The complex has nearly 10,000 square feet of machine floor space, supporting both classified and unclassified national security programs.
Titan Laser: Titan is a combined nanosecond-long pulse and ultrashort-pulse (subpicosecond) laser, with hundreds of joules of energy in each beam. This petawatt-class laser is used for a range of high-energy density physics experiments, including the science of fast ignition for inertial confinement fusion energy.
Largest computers
Throughout its history, LLNL has been a leader in computers and scientific computing. Even before the Livermore Lab opened its doors, E.O. Lawrence and Edward Teller recognized the importance of computing and the potential of computational simulation. Their purchase of one of the first UNIVAC computers set the precedent for LLNL's history of acquiring and exploiting the fastest and most capable supercomputers in the world. A succession of increasingly powerful and fast computers have been used at the Lab over the years. LLNL researchers use supercomputers to answer questions about subjects such as materials science simulations, global warming, and reactions to natural disasters.
LLNL has a long history of developing computing software and systems. Initially, there was no commercially available software, and computer manufacturers considered it the customer's responsibility to develop their own. Users of the early computers had to write not only the codes to solve their technical problems, but also the routines to run the machines themselves. Today, LLNL computer scientists focus on creating the highly complex physics models, visualization codes, and other unique applications tailored to specific research requirements. A great deal of software also has been written by LLNL personnel to optimize the operation and management of the computer systems, including operating system extensions such as CHAOS (Linux Clustering) and resource management packages such as SLURM. LLNL also initiated and continues leading the development of ZFS on Linux, the official port of ZFS to the Linux operating system.
Livermore Valley Open Campus (LVOC)
In August 2009 a joint venture was announced between Sandia National Laboratories/California campus and LLNL to create an open, unclassified research and development space called the Livermore Valley Open Campus (LVOC). The motivation for the LVOC stems from current and future national security challenges that require increased coupling to the private sector to understand threats and deploy solutions in areas such as high performance computing, energy and environmental security, cyber security, economic security, and non-proliferation.
The LVOC is modeled after research and development campuses found at major industrial research parks and other U.S. Department of Energy laboratories with campus-like security, a set of business and operating rules devised to enhance and accelerate international scientific collaboration and partnerships with U.S. government agencies, industry and academia. Ultimately, the LVOC will consist of an approximately 110-acre parcel along the eastern edge of the Livermore Laboratory and Sandia sites, and will house additional conference space, collaboration facilities and a visitor's center to support educational and research activities.
Objectives of LVOC
Enhance the two laboratories' national security missions by substantially increasing engagement with the private sector and academic community.
Stay at the forefront of the science, technology and engineering fields.
Ensure a quality future workforce by expanding opportunities for open engagement of the broader scientific community.
Sponsors
LLNL's principal sponsor is the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) Office of Defense Programs, which supports its stockpile stewardship and advanced scientific computing programs. Funding to support LLNL's global security and homeland security work comes from the DOE/NNSA Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, as well as the Department of Homeland Security. LLNL also receives funding from DOE's Office of Science, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, and Office of Nuclear Energy. In addition, LLNL conducts work-for-others research and development for various Defense Department sponsors, other federal agencies, including NASA, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), National Institutes of Health, and Environmental Protection Agency, a number of California State agencies, and private industry.
Budget
For Fiscal Year 2009 LLNL spent $1.497 billion on research and laboratory operations activities:
Research/Science Budget:
National Ignition Facility – $301.1 million
Nuclear Weapon Deterrent (Safety/Security/Reliability) – $227.2 million
Advance Simulation and Computing – $221.9 million
Nonproliferation – $152.2 million
Department of Defense – $125.9 million
Basic and Applied Science – $86.6 million
Homeland Security – $83.9 million
Energy – $22.4 million
Site Management/Operations Budget:
Safeguards/Security – $126.5 million
Facility Operations – $118.2 million
Environmental Restoration – $27.3 million
Directors
The LLNL Director is appointed by the board of governors of Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS) and reports to the board. The laboratory director also serves as the president of LLNS. Over the course of its history, the following scientists have served as LLNL director:
1952–1958 Herbert York
1958–1960 Edward Teller
1960–1961 Harold Brown
1961–1965 John S. Foster, Jr.
1965–1971 Michael M. May
1971–1988 Roger E. Batzel
1988–1994 John H. Nuckolls
1994–2002 C. Bruce Tarter
2002–2006 Michael R. Anastasio
2006–2011 George H. Miller
2011–2013 Penrose C. Albright
2013–2014 Bret Knapp, acting director
2014–2021 William H. Goldstein
2021–present Kimberly S. Budil
Organization
The LLNL Director is supported by a senior executive team consisting of the Deputy Director, the Deputy Director for Science and Technology, Principal Associate Directors, and other senior executives who manage areas/functions directly reporting to the Laboratory Director.
The Directors Office is organized into these functional areas/offices:
Chief Information Office
Contractor Assurance and Continuous Improvement
Environment, Safety and Health
Government and External Relations
Independent Audit and Oversight
Office of General Counsel
Prime Contract Management Office
Quality Assurance Office
Security Organization
LLNS, LLC Parent Oversight Office
The Laboratory is organized into four principal directorates, each headed by a Principal Associate Director:
Global Security
Weapons and Complex Integration
National Ignition Facility and Photon Science
Operations and Business
Business
Facilities & Infrastructure
Institutional Facilities Management
Integrated Safety Management System Project Office
Nuclear Operations
Planning and Financial Management
Staff Relations
Strategic Human Resources Management
Three other directorates are each headed by an Associate Director who reports to the LLNL Director:
Computation
Engineering
Physical & Life Sciences
Corporate management
The LLNL Director reports to the Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS) Board of Governors, a group of key scientific, academic, national security and business leaders from the LLNS partner companies that jointly own and control LLNS. The LLNS Board of Governors has a total of 16 positions, with six of these Governors constituting an Executive Committee. All decisions of the Board are made by the Governors on the Executive Committee. The other Governors are advisory to the Executive Committee and do not have voting rights.
The University of California is entitled to appoint three Governors to the Executive Committee, including the Chair. Bechtel is also entitled to appoint three Governors to the Executive Committee, including the Vice Chair. One of the Bechtel Governors must be a representative of Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) or the Washington Division of URS Corporation (URS), who is nominated jointly by B&W and URS each year, and who must be approved and appointed by Bechtel. The Executive Committee has a seventh Governor who is appointed by Battelle; they are non-voting and advisory to the Executive Committee. The remaining Board positions are known as Independent Governors (also referred to as Outside Governors), and are selected from among individuals, preferably of national stature, and can not be employees or officers of the partner companies.
The University of California-appointed Chair has tie-breaking authority over most decisions of the Executive Committee. The Board of Governors is the ultimate governing body of LLNS and is charged with overseeing the affairs of LLNS in its operations and management of LLNL.
LLNS managers and employees who work at LLNL, up to and including the President/Laboratory Director, are generally referred to as Laboratory Employees. All Laboratory Employees report directly or indirectly to the LLNS President. While most of the work performed by LLNL is funded by the federal government, Laboratory employees are paid by LLNS which is responsible for all aspects of their employment including providing health care benefits and retirement programs.
Within the Board of Governors, authority resides in the Executive Committee to exercise all rights, powers, and authorities of LLNS, excepting only certain decisions that are reserved to the parent companies. The LLNS Executive Committee is free to appoint officers or other managers of LLNS and LLNL, and may delegate its authorities as it deems appropriate to such officers, employees, or other representatives of LLNS/LLNL. The Executive Committee may also retain auditors, attorneys, or other professionals as necessary. For the most part the Executive Committee has appointed senior managers at LLNL as the primary officers of LLNS. As a practical matter most operational decisions are delegated to the President of LLNS, who is also the Laboratory Director. The positions of President/Laboratory Director and Deputy Laboratory Director are filled by joint action of the Chair and Vice Chair of the Executive Committee, with the University of California nominating the President/Laboratory Director and Bechtel nominating the Deputy Laboratory Director.
The current LLNS Chairman is Norman J. Pattiz, founder and chairman of Westwood One, America's largest radio network, who also currently serves on the Board of Regents of the University of California. The Vice Chairman is J. Scott Ogilvie, president of Bechtel Systems & Infrastructure, Inc., who also serves on the Board of Directors of Bechtel Group, Inc. (BGI) and on the BGI Audit Committee.
Public protests
The Livermore Action Group organized many mass protests, from 1981 to 1984, against nuclear weapons which were being produced by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Peace activists Ken Nightingale and Eldred Schneider were involved. On June 22, 1982, more than 1,300 anti-nuclear protesters were arrested in a nonviolent demonstration. More recently, there has been an annual protest against nuclear weapons research at Lawrence Livermore. In August 2003, 1,000 people protested at Livermore Labs against "new-generation nuclear warheads". In the 2007 protest, 64 people were arrested. More than 80 people were arrested in March 2008 while protesting at the gates.
On July 27, 2021, the Society of Professionals, Scientists, and Engineers – University of Professional & Technical Employees Local 11, CWA Local 9119, went on a three-day strike over unfair labor practices.
See also
Center for the Advancement of Science in Space—operates the US National Laboratory on the ISS
Dielectric wall accelerator
List of articles associated with nuclear issues in California
Top 100 US Federal Contractors
Footnotes
References
External links and sources
Lawrence Livermore National Security, a Limited Liability Corporation (official website)
LLNL Industrial Partnerships and Commercialization (IPAC) (official website)
University of California Office of Laboratory Management (official website)
Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers (Union representing UC Scientists and Engineers at LLNL)
University of California LLNL Retiree Group (Legal Defense Fund for UC Retirees from LLNL)
Annotated bibliography for Livermore from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Laboratories in California
United States Department of Energy national laboratories
Federally Funded Research and Development Centers
Livermore, California
Livermore Valley
Research institutes in the San Francisco Bay Area
Nuclear research institutes
Nuclear weapons infrastructure of the United States
Supercomputer sites
University of California
Buildings and structures in Alameda County, California
1952 establishments in California
Superfund sites in California
Battelle Memorial Institute
Ernest Lawrence
Military in the San Francisco Bay Area
Military research of the United States
Research institutes in California
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum%20volume
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Quantum volume
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Quantum volume is a metric that measures the capabilities and error rates of a quantum computer. It expresses the maximum size of square quantum circuits that can be implemented successfully by the computer. The form of the circuits is independent from the quantum computer architecture, but compiler can transform and optimize it to take advantage of the computer's features. Thus, quantum volumes for different architectures can be compared.
In 2020, the highest achieved quantum volume (per ) rose from 32 for IBM's computer "Raleigh" to 128 for Honeywell's "H1", i.e. quantum circuits of size up to 7×7 have been implemented successfully. More recently in 2021, Honeywell's "H1", first achieved a measured quantum volume of 512., and within six months doubled that performance to 1024.
Introduction
Quantum computers are difficult to compare. Quantum volume is a single number designed to show all around performance. It is a measurement and not a calculation, and takes into account several features of a quantum computer, starting with its number of qubits—other measures used are gate and measurement errors, crosstalk and connectivity.
IBM introduced the Quantum Volume metric because a classical computer’s transistor count and a quantum computer’s quantum bit count aren’t the same. Qubits decohere with a resulting loss of performance so a few fault tolerant bits are more valuable as a performance measure than a larger number of noisy, error-prone qubits.
Generally, the larger the quantum volume, the more complex the problems a quantum computer can solve.
Definition
The quantum volume of a quantum computer is defined by Nikolaj Moll et al.
It depends on the number of qubits N as well as the number of steps that can be executed, the circuit depth d
The circuit depth depends on the effective error rate as
The effective error rate is defined as the average error rate of a two-qubit gate. If the physical two-qubit gates do not have all-to-all connectivity, additional SWAP gates may be needed to implement an arbitrary two-qubit gate and , where is the error rate of the physical two-qubit gates. If more complex hardware gates are available, such as the three-qubit Toffoli gate, it is possible that .
The allowable circuit depth decreases when more qubits with the same effective error rate are added. So with these definitions, as soon as , the quantum volume goes down if more qubits are added. To run an algorithm that only requires qubits on an N-qubit machine, it could be beneficial to select a subset of qubits with good connectivity. For this case, Moll et al. give a refined definition of quantum volume.
where the maximum is taken over an arbitrary choice of n qubits.
IBM's modified definition
The IBM's researchers modified the quantum volume definition to be an exponential of the circuit size, stating that it corresponds to the complexity of simulating the circuit on a classical computer:
Algorithmic Qubits (AQ)
Algorithmic Qubits is the level equivalent of quantum volume, introduced by IonQ, and defined as .
IonQ announced a quantum computer with a claimed AQ of 22 (quantum volume of 4,194,304) in October 2020, although these numbers have not been empirically verified.
Achievement history
See also
Quantum fidelity
References
Quantum information science
Quantum computing
Models of computation
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote%20work
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Remote work
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</noinclude>
Remote work, also called distance working, telework, teleworking, working from home (WFH), mobile work, remote job, and work from anywhere (WFA) is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, warehouse, or retail store. It is facilitated by technology such as collaborative software, local area networks, virtual private networks, conference calling, videotelephony, internet access, cloud computing, voice over IP (VoIP), mobile telecommunications technology such as a Wi-Fi-equipped laptop or tablet computers, smartphones, and desktop computers with landline phones. It can be efficient and useful for companies since it allows workers to communicate over long distances, saving significant amounts of travel time and cost. Common software used for remote work are Zoom, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack, and WhatsApp.
History
In the early 1970s, technology was developed that linked satellite offices to downtown mainframes through dumb terminals using telephone lines as a network bridge. The terms "telecommuting" and "telework" were coined by Jack Nilles in 1973. In 1979, five IBM employees were allowed to work from home as an experiment. By 1983, the experiment was expanded to 2,000 people. By the early 1980s, branch offices and home workers were able to connect to organizational mainframes using personal computers and terminal emulators.
In 1995, the motto that "work is something you do, not something you travel to" was coined. Variations of this motto include: "Work is what we do, not where we are." During the Information Age, many startups were founded in the houses of entrepreneurs who lacked financial resources.
Since the 1980s, the normalization of remote work has been on a steady incline. For example, the number of Americans working from home grew by 4 million from 2003 to 2006.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of workers were forced to start remote working for the first time. Many students were forced to switch to distance education. Many companies have mandated employees work from home either temporarily or permanently. Some companies paid for home office equipment.
Statistics
According to a Gallup poll in September 2021, 45% of full-time U.S. employees worked from home, including 25% who worked from home all of the time and 20% who worked from home part of the time.
In 2020, 12.3% of employed persons, including 13.2% of women and 11.5% of men, in the European Union who were aged 15–64, usually worked from home. By country, the percentage of workers that worked from home was highest in Finland (25.1%), Luxembourg (23.1%), Ireland (21.5%), Austria (18.1%), and The Netherlands (17.8%) and lowest in Bulgaria (1.2%), Romania (2.5%), Croatia (3.1%), Hungary (3.6%), and Latvia (4.5%).
U.S. federal government
The United States Government publishes a guide to telework for employees of the Federal government.
US federal law, most notably the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, requires each Executive agency to establish a telecommuting policy allowing eligible employees to participate in telecommuting to the maximum extent possible, so long as the employee's performance is not diminished.
Telework is not an employee right, i.e., Federal law mandates that agencies must establish telework programs, but does not give individual employees a legal right to telework.
According to the United States Office of Personnel Management, in fiscal 2020, 50% of all federal workers were eligible to work remotely and agencies saved more than $180 million because of telework in fiscal 2020.
Best times for worker engagement
Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Tennessee Knoxville proposed a tweeting frequency-based algorithm to measure work engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. They found people demonstrated the highest work engagements at 10:00-10:59 am, and the lowest at 11:00 am–12:00 pm when working from home.
Potential benefits and drawbacks
Telecommuting has been adopted by many businesses, governments and not-for-profit organizations. Organizations may use telecommuting to reduce costs. Telecommuting employees do not require an office or cubicle, a space which needs to be rented or purchased, and incurs additional costs such as lighting and climate control. Some organizations adopt telecommuting to improve workers' quality of life, as teleworking typically reduces commuting time and time stuck in traffic congestion. Teleworking may make it easier for workers to balance their work responsibilities with their personal life and family roles (e.g., caring for children or elderly parents). Some organizations adopt teleworking for environmental reasons, as telework can reduce traffic congestion and air pollution, with fewer cars on the roads.
Media richness theory: lack of "rich communication" in remote work
The technology to communicate is not advanced enough to replicate face-to-face office interactions. Room for mistakes and miscommunication can increase. According to media richness theory, face-to-face interactions provide the capacity to process rich information: ambiguous issues can be clarified, immediate feedback can be provided, and there is personalized communication (e.g. body language, tone of voice). Telecommuting requires the use of various types of media to communicate, such as the telephone and email. Emails have a time lag that does not allow for immediate feedback; telephone conversations make it harder to decipher the emotions of the person or team on the phone; and both of these forms of communication do not allow one to see the other person. Typical organization communication patterns are thus altered in telecommuting. For instance, teams using computer-mediated communication with computer conferencing take longer to make group decisions than face-to-face groups.
Workers tend to be satisfied with face-to-face interactions, phone conversations, and in-person departmental meetings to receive communications, but email and the Internet do not add to their communication satisfaction. This suggests that teleworking may not have the components for "rich communication" compared to face-to-face interactions, although one study found that virtual workers in a team were more satisfied with their technology-mediated communication than their in-person office communication.
Job characteristic theory: effect of remote work on employee behaviors and attitudes
According to job characteristic theory, changes in autonomy and feedback, which are affected by remote work status, influence work behaviors and attitudes more than a change in skill variety, task identity, or task significance. If five characteristics of a job are present (skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback), then the employee in that job will experience more internal work motivation, satisfaction with personal growth opportunities, general job satisfaction, higher job performance, and lower absenteeism and turnover. Many studies have provided evidence that job characteristics influence employees' behaviors and attitudes. Additionally, job characteristics can interact with individual differences to impact employee attitudes and behavior. Of these five job characteristics, telework specifically changes autonomy and feedback compared to face-to-face work and can thus influence employees' behaviors and attitudes.
Autonomy: increased freedom and fewer time restrictions
Autonomy influences experienced responsibility such that if the job provides freedom, independence, and scheduling flexibility, the individual should feel responsible for his or her work outcomes. Telework provides flexibility in scheduling and freedom because being outside the office gives the worker more choices. Teleworkers do not have to stick to office routines and can shift work to different times of day. Telework allows employees the freedom to choose where they work, when they work and even what they wear to work to allow their best work. Teleworkers may experience more responsibility to the extent that they feel in control and accountable for their work.
The autonomy of telework allows for lower work-family conflict. Teleworking provides the freedom to arrange work to avoid family conflicts. Increased control over life demands is one of its main attractions. The level of autonomy in telework felt by the employee depends on a variety of factors, including scheduling flexibility and the household size. In addition to reducing work-family conflict, conflicts with activities are also reduced. Increased freedom and fewer time restrictions allow workers to participate more in recreational activities, whether social or physical. However, studies also show that autonomy must be balanced with high levels of discipline if a healthy work/leisure balance is to be maintained.
Less employee feedback for remote workers
Feedback increases employees' knowledge of results. Feedback refers to the degree that an individual receives direct and clear information about his or her performance related to work activities. Feedback is particularly important so that the employees continuously learn about how they are performing. Electronic communication provides fewer cues for teleworkers and thus, they may have more difficulties interpreting and gaining information, and subsequently, receiving feedback. When a worker is not in the office, there is limited information and greater ambiguity, such as in assignments and expectations. Role ambiguity, when situations have unclear expectations as to what the worker is to do, may result in greater conflict, frustration, and exhaustion.
In other studies regarding Job Characteristics Theory, job feedback seemed to have the strongest relationship with overall job satisfaction compared to other job characteristics. While teleworking, communication is not as immediate or rich as face-to-face interactions. Less feedback when teleworking is associated with lower job engagement. Thus, when perceived supervisor support and relationship quality between leaders and teleworkers decreases, job satisfaction of the teleworker decreases. The importance of manager communication with teleworkers is made clear in a study that found that individuals have lower job satisfaction when their managers telework.
Communication personalized for individual needs is important for feedback interactions. People differ in their need for communication and their level of social connectedness to their environment, partially because of personality and temperament differences. Although the level of communication may decrease for teleworkers, satisfaction with this level of communication can be higher in some samples, like those who are more tenured and have functional instead of social relationships. Feedback and communication can also be affected by a manager's location. The clarity, speed of response, richness of the communication, frequency, and quality of the feedback are often reduced when managers telework.
More focus on individual work than group work reduces skill variety and meaningfulness
Three of the five job attributes: skill variety, task identity, and task significance, influence how much employees think their jobs are meaningful. Skill variety is the degree of activities and skills that a job requires in order to complete a task. An increase in skill variety is thought to increase the challenge of the job. Increasing the challenge of the job increases the individual's experienced meaningfulness, how much the individual cares about work, and finds it worthwhile. Telework may not directly affect skill variety and task meaningfulness for the individual compared to when he or she worked in an office; however, skill variety and meaningfulness of individual tasks can increase when working in a group. If the work done at home is focused on the individual rather than the team, there may be fewer opportunities to use a variety of skills.
Task identity is the degree that the individual sees work from beginning to end or completes an identifiable or whole piece of work rather than only a small piece. Task significance is the degree that the individual feels his or her work has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people within the organization or outside the organization. Telework may not change the job characteristics of skill variety, task identity, and task significance compared to working in an office; however, the presence of these characteristics will influence teleworkers' work outcomes and attitudes.
Different people have different reactions to remote work
Individuals may differ in their reactions to the job characteristics in remote working. According to job characteristics theory, the personal need for accomplishment and development ("growth need strength") influences how much an individual will react to the job dimensions of telecommuting. For instance, those individuals high in "growth need strength" will have a more positive reaction to increased autonomy and a more negative reaction to decreased feedback in telecommuting than those individuals low in "growth need strength".
Motivator-hygiene theory: Less motivators such as recognition and career advancement with remote work
Motivator-hygiene theory differentiates between motivating factors (motivators) and dissatisfying factors (hygienes). Factors that are motivators such as recognition and career advancement may be lessened with telework. When teleworkers are not physically present, they may be "out of sight, out of mind" to other workers in the office.
Management perception: Loss of control and decreased productivity
Additionally, telework may not always be seen positively by management due to fear of loss of managerial control.
A 2008 study found that more time spent telecommuting decreased the perception of productivity of the teleworker in the eyes of management.
Social information processing: fewer social cues
Social information processing suggests that individuals give meaning to job characteristics. Individuals have the ability to construct their own perception of the environment by interpreting social cues. This social information comes from overt statements from coworkers, cognitive evaluations of the job or task dimensions, and previous behaviors. This social context can affect individuals' beliefs about the nature of the job, the expectations for individual behavior, and the potential consequences of behavior, especially in uncertain situations. In telework, there are fewer social cues because social exchange and personalized communication takes longer to process in computer-mediated communication than face-to-face interactions.
Sociotechnical systems theory: remote work provides freedom to decide how and when to do tasks and more responsibility
Sociotechnical systems (STS) theory explains the interaction between social and technological factors. STS examines the relationships between people, technology, and the work environment to design work in a way that enhances job satisfaction and increases productivity. Originally developed to explain the paradox of improved technology but decreased productivity, the theory can be applied to the design of telework. One of the principles of STS is minimal critical specification. This principle states that, unless absolutely essential, there should be minimal specification of objectives and how to do tasks in order to avoid closing options or inhibiting effective actions. Telecommuting provides teleworkers with the freedom to decide how and when to do their tasks. Similarly, teleworkers have the responsibility to use their equipment and resources to carry out their responsibilities. This increase in responsibility for their work also increases their power, supporting the idea that teleworking is a privilege and in some companies, considered a promotion.
Adaptive structural theory: remote working forces changes in work practices
Adaptive structuration theory studies variations in organizations as new technologies are introduced Adaptive structural theory proposes that structures (general rules and resources offered by the technology) can differ from structuration (how people actually use these rules and resources). There is an interplay between the intended use of technology and the way that people use the technology. Telecommuting provides a social structure that enables and constrains certain interactions. For instance, in office settings, the norm may be to interact with others face-to-face. To accomplish interpersonal exchange in telecommuting, other forms of interaction need to be used. AST suggests that when technologies are used over time, the rules and resources for social interactions will change. Teleworking may alter traditional work practices, such as switching from primarily face-to-face communication to electronic communication.
Environmental benefits
Most studies find that remote work overall results in a decrease in energy use due to less time spend on energy-intensive personal transportation. Remote work has also led to cleaner air.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, the increase in remote work led to a decrease in global CO2 emissions.
However, the increase in remote work has led to people moving out of cities to larger homes that had room for home offices.
Job attitudes: increased employee satisfaction and loyalty
According to the job characteristic theory, the relationship between characteristics of the job and job satisfaction was moderately strong. Of the five task characteristics, autonomy has a strong relationship with job satisfaction such that greater autonomy leads to greater job satisfaction. Teleworkers may have increased satisfaction due to the flexibility and autonomy their jobs provide. Teleworkers were found to have higher satisfaction than office based workers. It was found that autonomy increased teleworkers' satisfaction by reducing work-family conflicts, especially when workers were allowed to work outside traditional work hours and be more flexible for family purposes. Additionally, autonomy explained an increase in employee engagement when the amount of time spent teleworking increased. Furthermore, a 2016 study from FlexJobs that surveyed over 3,000 people found that 81% of respondents also said they would be more loyal to their employers if they had flexible work options.
Increase in employee productivity and employee benefits
Telecommuting has long been promoted as a way to substantially increase employee productivity. In 2012-2103, an experiment conducted using 242 employees of Ctrip, a large Chinese travel agency, by professors at Stanford and Beijing University found that employees randomly assigned to work at home for 9 months increased their output by 13.5% versus the office-based control group. This improvement in output arose from working 9% more hours from saved commuting time and from 3.5% improved efficiency from quieter working conditions. The study also found that home-workers reported significantly higher job-satisfaction scores and their quit rates fell by almost 50%. However, home workers' promotion rates dropped by half due to apparent performance declines, indicating a potential career cost of home-working.
Since work hours are less regulated in telework, employee effort and dedication are far more likely to be measured purely in terms of output or results. Fewer, if any, traces of non-productive work activities (research, self-training, dealing with technical problems or equipment failures) and time lost on unsuccessful attempts (early drafts, fruitless endeavors, abortive innovations) are visible to employers. Piece rate, commissions, or other performance-based compensation also become more likely for telecommuters. Furthermore, major chunks of per-employee expenses are absorbed by the telecommuter himself – from simple coffee, water, electricity, and telecommunications services, to huge capital expenses like office equipment or software licenses. Thus, hours spent on the job tend to be underestimated and expenses under-reported, creating overly optimistic figures of productivity gains and savings, some or all of those in fact coming out of the telecommuter's time and pocket.
Turnover intention is lower for remote workers
Turnover intention, or the desire to leave the organization, is lower for teleworkers. Those teleworkers who experienced greater professional isolation actually had lower turnover intent. One study found that by increasing feedback and task identity through clear communication of goals, objectives, and expectations, turnover intent decreased in teleworkers and quality of work output increased.
2007 meta-analysis of advantages and disadvantages
A 2007 meta-analysis of 46 studies of telecommuting involving 12,833 employees conducted by Ravi Gajendran and David A. Harrison in the Journal of Applied Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), found that telecommuting has largely positive consequences for employees and employers. In their meta-analytic study, Gajendran and Harrison found that telecommuting had modest but beneficial effects on employees' job satisfaction, perceived autonomy, stress levels, manager-rated job performance, and (lower) work-family conflict. Telecommuting also reduces turnover intent, or the intention to quit one's job. Increased job satisfaction, decreased turnover intent and role stress related to telecommuting partly because of a decrease in work-family conflict. Additionally, the increase in autonomy from teleworking in turn increases job satisfaction.
Although a number of scholars and managers had previously expressed fears that employee careers might suffer and workplace relationships might be damaged because of telecommuting, the meta-analysis found that there are no generally detrimental effects on the quality of workplace relationships and career outcomes. Telecommuting actually was found to positively affect employee-supervisor relations and the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intent was in part due to supervisor relationship quality. Only high-intensity telecommuting (where employees work from home for more than 2.5 days a week) harmed employee relationships with co-workers, even though it did reduce work-family conflict. A factor analysis showed the overall distribution of people's experiences and how the advantages and disadvantages of WFH during the early weeks of the pandemic in Europe can be grouped into six key factors. The results indicated that most people had a more positive rather than negative experience of WFH during lockdown. Three factors represent the main advantages of WFH: (i) work–life balance, (ii) improved work efficiency and (iii) greater work control. The main disadvantages were (iv) home office constraints, (v) work uncertainties and (vi) inadequate tools.
Less motivation to lower usage of skill variety
Skill variety has the strongest relationship with internal work motivation. Jobs that allow workers to use a variety of skills increase workers' internal work motivation. If teleworkers are limited in teamwork opportunities and have fewer opportunities to use a variety of skills, they may have lower internal motivation towards their work. Also, perceived social isolation can lead to less motivation.
Greater distractions in remote work
Though working in an office has its distractions, it is often argued that telecommuting involves even greater distractions. According to one study, children are ranked as the number one distractions, followed by spouses, pets, neighbors, and solicitors. The lack of proper tools and facilities also serves as a major distraction, though this can be mitigated by using short-term coworking rental facilities. Also, some countries such as Romania have tasked the national labour inspectorate the burden of carrying out checks at teleworkers’ residences to see if the work environment meets the requirements.
Decrease in interpersonal contact, connectedness, and trust
Face-to-face interactions increase interpersonal contact, connectedness, and trust Therefore, 54% of teleworkers thought they lost out on social interaction and 52.5% felt they lost out on professional interaction in a 2012 study. Teleworking can hurt working relationships between the teleworker and their coworkers, especially if their coworkers do not telework. Coworkers who do not telework can feel resentful and jealous because they may consider it unfair if they are not allowed to telework as well. However, despite fewer interpersonal actions and professional isolation, a meta-analysis of telecommuting did not find support for negative telecommuter-coworker relationships or telecommuter-supervisor relationships.
More pressure on remote workers to show worth
Employees who telework may feel pressure to produce more output in order to be seen as valuable, and reduce the idea that they are doing less work than others. This pressure to produce output, as well as a lack of social support from limited coworker relationships and feelings of isolation, leads to lower job engagement in teleworkers. Additionally, higher-quality relationships with teammates decreased job satisfaction of teleworkers, potentially because of frustrations with exchanging interactions via technology. However, coworker support and virtual social groups for team building had a direct influence on increasing job satisfaction, perhaps due to an increase in skill variety from teamwork and an increase in task significance from more working relationships.
The inconsistent findings regarding telework and satisfaction may be explained by a more complicated relationship. Presumably because of the effects of autonomy, initial job satisfaction increases as the amount of telecommuting increases; however, as the individual telecommutes more, declines in feedback and task significance lead job satisfaction to level off and decrease slightly. Thus, the amount of time teleworking influences the relationship between telework and job satisfaction. Barriers to the continued growth of telecommuting include distrust from employers and personal disconnectedness for employees.
Harder to maintain relationships with co-workers
Communication and getting to know other teammates happen naturally when everyone works in the same space, so in the telework circumstance, employees and supervisors have to work harder to maintain relationships with co-workers. This is especially important for new employees so that they learn organizational habits even when working remotely.
Isolation of remote workers from daily company activities
Being remote can also distance people from each other and transfer important conversations to chat and email. An isolation from daily activities arise of the company and may be less aware of other things going on to the company and a possible hatred from other employees arises from other employees who do not telecommute.
Harder to share information amongst co-workers
Sharing information within an organization and teams can become more challenging when working remotely. While in the office, teams naturally share information and knowledge when they meet each other, for example, during coffee breaks. Sharing information requires more effort and proactive action when random-encounters do not happen. The sharing of tacit information also often takes place in unplanned situations where employees follow the activities of more experienced team members.
When teams are working remotely, it may also be difficult to obtain timely information, unless the regular sharing of information is taken care of separately. The situation where team members don't know enough about what others are doing can lead them to make worse decisions or slow down decision-making.
Information security risks
Employees need training, tools, and technologies for remote work. Remote work poses cyber security risks and people should follow best practices that include using antivirus software, keeping family members away from work devices, covering their webcams, using a VPN, using a centralized storage solution, making sure passwords are strong and secure, and being wary of email scams and email security.
In 2021, Vermont, South Carolina, South Dakota, Alabama, and Nebraska were named as the top 5 safest states for telecommuters based on data breaches, stolen records, privacy laws, victim count, and victim loss.
Drop in productivity
Managers may view the teleworker as experiencing a drop in productivity during the first few months. This drop occurs as "the employee, his peers, and the manager adjust to the new work regimen". The drop could also be due to inadequate office setup. Additionally, a 1999 study claimed that "70 minutes of each day in a regular office are wasted by interruptions, yakking around the photocopier, and other distractions". Over the long term, though, surveys found that the productivity of the teleworker will climb; over two-thirds of employers report increased productivity among telecommuters, according to a 2008 survey. Traditional line managers are accustomed to managing by observation and not necessarily by results. This causes a serious obstacle in organizations attempting to adopt telecommuting. Liability and workers' compensation can become serious issues as well. Weaker relationships between job dimensions and job outcomes, such as job performance and absenteeism, may explain why the results regarding performance and telework are conflicting. Some studies have found that telework increases productivity in workers and leads to higher supervisor ratings of performance and higher performance appraisals. However, another study found that professional isolation in teleworkers led to a decrease in job performance, especially for those who spent more time teleworking and engaged in fewer face-to-face interactions. Thus, similar to job attitudes, the amount of time spent teleworking may also influence the relationship between telework and job performance.
Less promotion opportunities
Teleworking can negatively affect a person's career. Companies rarely promote people into leadership roles who haven't been consistently seen and measured.
Harder to forge consensus
From an anthropological perspective, it has been reported that teleworking can interfere with the process of sensemaking (the forging of consensus or of a common worldview).
Lack of understanding of and additional taxation complications
Most US remote workers do not understand the tax implications of working remotely in another state.
Health detriments due to increased hours for remote workers
According to a 2021 report by the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization the expansion of teleworking, if it increases working time to over 55 hours per week, could potentially increase health loss among workers.
See also
Asynchronous communication – Async working allows employees to collaborate and complete their tasks on their own schedule or timezone. Unlike synchronous working where workers are expected to be in touch with their colleagues and managers throughout their shift, async work gives employees the freedom to respond when they are at their best.
Canadian Telework Association (CTA)
Comparison of office suites
Comparison of FTP client software
Comparison of file hosting services
Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
Comparison of web conferencing software
Company lease vehicle
Corporate wiki
COVID-19
Coworking – a social gathering of a group of people who are still working independently, but who share a common working area
Digital nomad – someone that works remotely while traveling and living a nomadic lifestyle
Distance learning
Distributed workforce – the conduct of organizational tasks in places that extend beyond the confines of traditional offices or workspaces
Desktop virtualization – the ability to access legacy applications or operating systems from a remote device
Digital divide
Environmental impact of transport
Flextime
Home Work Convention
Homeshoring – In British English, when the initiative comes from the company, the terms "homeshoring" and "homesourcing" are sometimes used.
Hot desking
Hoteling – Some companies, particularly those where employees spend a great deal of time on the road and at remote locations, offer a hotdesking or hoteling arrangement where employees can reserve the use of a temporary traditional office, cubicle or meeting room at the company headquarters, a remote office center, or other shared office facility.
Job characteristic theory
Labour market flexibility
Media richness theory
Outsourcing
Putting-out system
Small office/home office
Smart city
Study (room)
Telecentre
Telecommunication
Virtual assistant
Virtual team
Virtual volunteering
Virtual workplace
Work at home scheme – get-rich-quick schemes in which a victim is lured by an offer to be employed at home, very often doing some simple task in a minimal amount of time with a large amount of income that exceeds the market rate for the type of work
Work–family conflict
Zoom town – a community that is popular for remote workers.
References
Further reading
John O'Duinn, (2018) Distributed Teams: The Art and Practice of Working Together While Physically Apart',
Thomas L. Friedman, 'The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century''. 2005
External links
Working time
Working conditions
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atos%20Syntel
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Atos Syntel
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Atos Syntel is a subsidiary of Atos and a multinational provider of integrated technology and business services. The company is led by Rakesh Khanna. Atos Syntel was created by the acquisition of Syntel, Inc. by Atos S.E., which was announced on July 22, 2018, and completed on October 9, 2018.
Business
Syntel, Inc. operates its business through four segments: Application Outsourcing, Knowledge Process Outsourcing, e-Business and TeamSourcing. The Application Outsourcing segment provides outsourcing services for ongoing management, development and maintenance of customer's business applications. The Knowledge Process Outsourcing segment provides outsourced solutions for a customer's business processes, providing them with the process enhancement through optimal use of technology. The e-Business segment provides development and implementation services for a number of emerging and rapidly growing technology applications, including Web development, Data Warehousing, e-commerce, CRM, Oracle and SAP, as well as partnership agreements with software providers. The TeamSourcing segment provides professional information technology consulting services directly to customers on a staff augmentation basis and its services include systems specification, design, development, implementation and maintenance of complex information technology applications involving diverse computer hardware, software, data and networking technologies and practices.
References
Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq
Software companies based in Michigan
Companies based in Troy, Michigan
Software companies established in 1980
1980 establishments in Michigan
International information technology consulting firms
1997 initial public offerings
2018 mergers and acquisitions
American subsidiaries of foreign companies
Software companies of the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%20American%20T-28%20Trojan
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North American T-28 Trojan
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The North American Aviation T-28 Trojan is a radial-engined military trainer aircraft used by the United States Air Force and United States Navy beginning in the 1950s. Besides its use as a trainer, the T-28 was successfully employed as a counter-insurgency aircraft, primarily during the Vietnam War. It has continued in civilian use as an aerobatics and warbird performer.
Design and development
On September 24, 1949, the XT-28 (company designation NA-159) was flown for the first time, designed to replace the T-6 Texan. The T-28A arrived at the Air Proving Ground, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, in mid-June 1950, for suitability tests as an advanced trainer by the 3200th Fighter Test Squadron, with consideration given to its transition, instrument, and gunnery capabilities. Found satisfactory, a contract was issued and between 1950 and 1957, a total of 1,948 were built.
Following the T-28's withdrawal from U.S. military service, a number were remanufactured by Hamilton Aircraft into two versions called the Nomair. The first refurbished machines, designated T-28R-1 were similar to the standard T-28s they were adapted from, and were supplied to the Brazilian Navy. Later, a more ambitious conversion was undertaken as the T-28R-2, which transformed the two-seat tandem aircraft into a five-seat cabin monoplane for general aviation use. Other civil conversions of ex-military T-28As were undertaken by PacAero as the Nomad Mark I and Nomad Mark II
Operational history
After becoming adopted as a primary trainer by the USAF, the United States Navy and Marine Corps adopted it as well. Although the Air Force phased out the aircraft from primary pilot training by the early 1960s, continuing use only for limited training of special operations aircrews and for primary training of select foreign military personnel, the aircraft continued to be used as a primary trainer by the Navy (and by default, the Marine Corps and Coast Guard) well into the early 1980s.
The largest single concentration of this aircraft was employed by the U.S. Navy at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton, Florida, in the training of student naval aviators. The T-28's service career in the U.S. military ended with the completion of the phase-in of the T-34C turboprop trainer. The last U.S. Navy training squadron to fly the T-28 was VT-27 "Boomers", based at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, flying the last T-28 training flight in early 1984. The last T-28 in the Training Command, BuNo 137796, departed for Naval District Washington on 14 March 1984 to be displayed permanently at Naval Support Facility Anacostia, D.C.
Vietnam War combat
In 1963, a Royal Lao Air Force T-28 piloted by Lieutenant Chert Saibory, a Thai national, defected to North Vietnam. Saibory was immediately imprisoned and his aircraft was impounded. Within six months the T-28 was refurbished and commissioned into the North Vietnamese Air Force as its first fighter aircraft.
T-28s were supplied to the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) in support of ARVN ground operations, seeing extensive service during the Vietnam War in RVNAF hands, as well as the Secret War in Laos. A T-28 Trojan was the first US fixed wing attack aircraft (non-transport type) lost in South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. Capt. Robert L. Simpson, USAF, Detachment 2A, 1st Air Commando Group, and Lt. Hoa, RVNAF, were shot down by ground fire on August 28, 1962 while flying close air support. Neither crewman survived. The USAF lost 23 T-28s to all causes during the war, with the last two losses occurring in 1968.
Other combat uses
T-28s were used by the CIA in the former Belgian Congo during the 1960s.
The T-28B and D were the primary ground attack aircraft of Khmer Air Force in Cambodia during the war there, largely provided from the U.S. Military Equipment Delivery Team and maintained by Air America. On the night of 21 January 1971, PAVN sappers managed to get close enough to destroy the majority at Pochentong airbase. Replacements were quickly shipped in. On 17 March 1973 a pilot of a T-28, said to be Capt. So Petra, a common-law husband of one of the daughters of the overthrown Prince Norodom Sihanouk, machine gunned and bombed the palace of Lon Nol in an attempt to assassinate him, killing at least 20 and wounding 35, before defecting to Khmer Rouge held lands.
France's Armée de l'Air used locally re-manufactured Trojans, T-28S Fennec, for close support missions in Algeria.
Nicaragua replaced its fleet of 30+ ex-Swedish P-51s with T-28s in the early 1960s, with more aircraft acquired in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Philippines utilized T-28s (colloquially known as "Tora-toras") during the 1989 Philippine coup attempt. The aircraft were often deployed as dive bombers by rebel forces.
Civilian use
AeroVironment modified and armored a T-28A to fly weather research for South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, funded by the National Science Foundation, and operated in this capacity from 1969 to 2005. SDSM&T was planning to replace it with another modified, but more modern, former military aircraft, specifically a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. This plan was found to carry too many risks associated with the costly modifications required and the program was cancelled in 2018.
Aerobatics and warbird display
Many retired T-28s were subsequently sold to private civil operators, and due to their reasonable operating costs are often found flying or displayed as warbirds today.
Variants
XT-28
Prototype; two built.
T-28A
U.S. Air Force version with an Wright R-1300-1 radial engine driving a two-bladed propeller; 1,194 built.
T-28B
U.S. Navy land-based trainer version with Wright R-1820-86 radial engine driving a three-bladed propeller and fitted with a belly-mounted speed brake; 489 built from new and 17 converted from T-28.
T-28C
U.S. Navy version, a T-28B with shortened propeller blades and tailhook for carrier-landing training; 299 built.
T-28D Nomad
T-28Bs converted for the USAF in 1962 for the counter-insurgency, reconnaissance, search and rescue, and forward air controller roles in Vietnam. Fitted with two underwing hardpoints. The later T-28D-5 had ammo pans inside the wings that could be hooked up to hardpoint-mounted gun pods for a better center of gravity and aerodynamics; 321 converted by Pacific Airmotive (Pac-Aero).
T-28 Nomad Mark I - Wright R-1820-56S engine (1,300 hp).
T-28 Nomad Mark II - Wright R-1820-76A (1,425 hp)
T-28 Nomad Mark III - Wright R-1820-80 (1,535 hp)
Fairchild AT-28D
Attack model of the T-28D used for Close Air Support (CAS) missions by the USAF and allied Air Forces in Southeast Asia, which were nicknamed "Tangos" by their pilots. It was fitted with six underwing hardpoints and the rocket-powered Stanley Yankee ejection seat; 72 converted by Fairchild Hiller.
YAT-28E
Experimental development of the counter-insurgency T-28D. It was powered by a 2,445 hp (1,823 kW) Lycoming YT-55L-9 turboprop, and armed with two .50 in machine guns and up to 6,000 lb (2,730 kg) of weapons on 12 underwing hardpoints. Three prototypes were converted from T-28As by North American, with the first model flying on 15 February 1963. The project was canceled in 1965.
T-28S Fennec
Ex-USAF T-28As converted in 1959 for use by the French Armée de l'Air, replacing the Morane-Saulnier MS.733A. It was flown by their Escadrilles d'Aviation Légère d'Appui (EALA; "Light Aviation Support Squadrons") in the counterinsurgency role in North Africa from 1959 to 1962. Fitted with an electrically powered sliding canopy, side-armor, a 1,200 hp Wright R-1820-97 supercharged radial engine (the model used in the B-17 bomber), and four underwing hardpoints. It is referred to as the "S" variant because its engine had a supercharger on it; it has also been referred to as the T-28F variant – with the "F" standing for France.
For fire support missions it usually carried two double-mount .50-caliber machine gun pods (with 100 rounds per gun) and two MATRA Type 122 6 x 68mm rocket pods. It could also carry on paired hardpoints a 120 kg.[264 lb.] HE or GP "iron" bomb, a MATRA Type 361 36 x 37mm [1.45-inch] rocket pod, a SNEB 7 x 55mm [2.16-inch] rocket pod, or a MATRA Type 13 single-rail, MATRA Type 20 or Type 21 double-rail, MATRA Type 41 quadruple-rail (2 x 2), or MATRA Type 61 or Type 63 sextuple-rail (3 x 3) SERAM T10 heavy rocket launchers. Improvised napalm bombs (called bidons spéciaux, or "special cans") were created by dropping gas tanks loaded with octagel-thickened fuel inside, then later igniting or detonating the spilled fuel with white phosphorus rockets.
Total 148 airframes bought from Pacific Airmotive (Pac Aero) and modified by Sud-Aviation in France. After the war the French government offered them for sale from 1964 to 1967. They sold most of them to Morocco and Argentina. Argentina later sold some to Uruguay and Honduras.
T-28P
T-28S Fennec aircraft sold to the Argentinian Navy as carrier-borne attack aircraft. They were given shortened propeller blades and a tailhook to allow carrier landings.
T-28R Nomair
An attempt by Hamilton Aircraft Company of Tucson, Arizona to make a civilianized Nomad III-equivalent out of refurbished ex-USAF T-28As. It had a Wright Cyclone R-1820-80 engine to make it fast and powerful, but had to lengthen the wingspan by seven feet to reduce the stall speed to below a "street-legal" 70 knots. The prototype flew for the first time in September, 1960, and the FAA Type Certificate was received on 15 February 1962. At the time, the T-28-R2 was the fastest single-engined standard category aircraft available in the United States. It had been flown to a height of 38,700 ft. [11,800 m].
T-28R-1 Nomair I
A military trainer that had a tandem cockpit, dual instrumentation and flying controls, and hydraulically-actuated rearward-sliding canopy. Six were sold in 1962 as carrier-landing trainers to the Brazilian Navy and were modified with a carrier arrestor hook. They were later transferred to the Brazilian Air Force.
T-28R-2 Nomair II
Modified to have a cramped five-seater cabin (one pilot and two rows of two passengers) that opened from the port side. Ten aircraft were modified in all; one was sold to a high-altitude photographic company.
RT-28
Photo reconnaissance conversion for counter-insurgency use with Royal Lao Air Force. Number of conversions unknown.
AIDC T-CH-1
A derivative of the T-28 developed by AIDC in Taiwan, the AIDC T-CH-1 was powered by a 1,082 kW (1,451 hp) Avco Lycoming T53-L-701 turboprop engine. Fifty aircraft were produced for the Taiwanese Air Force between March 1976 and 1981. The type has since been retired.
Operators
Argentine Air Force - 34 T-28A
Argentine Naval Aviation. 65 ex-French Air Force T-28S Fennec aircraft. Last nine transferred to Uruguayan naval aviation in 1980.
Bolivian Air Force at least six T-28Ds.
Brazilian Navy - 18 T-28C
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Air Force of the Democratic Republic of the Congo - 14 T-28C, 3 T-28B, 10 T-28D
Cuban Air Force - 10 T-28As were ordered by the Batista regime but were never delivered owing to an arms embargo, although at least one T-28 seems to have been acquired at some stage which was put on display at a museum at Playa Girón
Dominican Air Force
Ecuadorian Air Force - nine T-28A
Ethiopian Air Force - 12 T-28A and 12 T-28D
French Air Force - 148 T-28A airframes modified in France (1959) to make the T-28S Fennec COIN model.
Haitian Air Force - 12 ex-French Air Force
Honduran Air Force - eight former Moroccan Air Force Fennecs. One delivered, seven others impounded at Fort Lauderdale
Japanese Air Self-Defense Force - one T-28B
Khmer Air Force operated 47 T-28s in total in service.
Royal Lao Air Force - 55 T-28D
Mexican Air Force - 32 T-28A
Royal Moroccan Air Force - 25 Fennec aircraft
Nicaraguan Air Force - six T-28D
Philippine Air Force - 12 T-28A
Republic of Korea Air Force
Royal Saudi Air Force - 25 T-28A
Republic of Vietnam Air Force
Tunisian Air Force - Fennec
ROC Air Force
Royal Thai Air Force - 88 T-28Ds delivered. Retired 1984.
United States Army
United States Air Force - 1194 T-28A, of which 360 converted to "D"
United States Navy - 489 T-28B and 299 T-28C
Uruguayan Naval Aviation - Fennec
Vietnam People's Air Force
Zaire Air Force
Surviving aircraft
Many T-28s are on display throughout the world. In addition, a considerable number of flyable examples exist in private ownership, as the aircraft is a popular sport plane and warbird.
Argentina
On display
T-28A
S/N 174112 (ex USAF 51-3574), formerly operated by the Argentine Air Force as E-608. Preserved at the Museo Regional Inter Fuerzas, Estancia Santa Romana, San Luis.
C/N° 174333 (ex-USAF 51-3795), formerly operated by the Argentine Naval Aviation. Preserved at the Argentine Naval Aviation Museum.
Australia
On display
T-28A
49-1583 - Australian Aviation Museum, Bankstown Airport, New South Wales, Australia.
T-28 TROJAN 50-221 "LITTL JUGGS". Toowoomba Australia
https://www.gluseum.com/AU/Toowoomba/287406544649061/T-28-Trojan-50-221-%22Littl-Juggs%22
Taiwan
On display
T-28A
51-3664 - Chung Cheng Aviation Museum, Taipai Airport, Taiwan.
Thailand
On display
T-28A
49-1538 - Prachuap Khiri Khan AFB in Bangkok, Thailand.
49-1601 - Don Muang Royal Thai Air Force Base, Bangkok, Thailand.
49-1687 - Loei Airport, Loei Province, Thailand.
51-3480 - Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand.
51-3578 - Chiang Mai AFB, Bangkok, Thailand.
51-3740 - Don Muang Royal Thai Air Force Base, Bangkok, Thailand.
153652 - National Memorial, Bangkok, Thailand.
T-28B
137661 - Royal Thai Air Force Museum, Bangkok, Thailand.
138157 - Royal Thai Air Force Museum, Bangkok, Thailand.
138284 - Royal Thai Air Force Museum, Bangkok, Thailand.
138302 - Lopburi AFB, Thailand.
United Kingdom
On display
T-28C
146289 - Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum, Flixton, The Saints, United Kingdom.
United States
On display
T-28A
49-1494 - National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. The aircraft is painted as a typical Air Training Command T-28A of the mid-1950s. It was transferred to the museum in September 1965. It is on display in the museum's Cold War Gallery.
49-1663 - Hurlburt Field, Florida.
49-1679 - Reese AFB, Texas.
49-1682 - Laughlin AFB, Texas.
49-1689 - Vance AFB, Oklahoma.
49-1695 - Randolph AFB, Texas.
50-0300 - Dakota Territory Air Museum, Minot, North Dakota.
51-3612 - Museum of Aviation, Robins Air Force Base, Warner Robins, Georgia.
51-7500 - Olympic Flight Museum, Olympia, Washington.
T-28B
137702 - Air Force Flight Test Center Museum, Edwards AFB, California.
137749 - Hill Aerospace Museum, Hill Air Force Base, Utah
137796 - Naval Air Station Anacostia, Washington, DC.
138144 - Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Florida.
138164 - Actively flying and performing in airshows with the Trojan Phlyers in Dallas, TX.
138192 - Aviation Heritage Center of Wisconsin, Sheboygan Memorial Airport, Sheboygan, WI
138247 - War Eagles Air Museum in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
138263 - Actively flying and based at KRLD Richland Airport, Richland, WA
138326 - National Naval Aviation Museum, Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida
138339 - Owned by Skydoc 1989–present (2019) Springfield, Illinois performing with the Trojan Horsemen 2003-2017, and Trojan Thunder 2017–present.
138353 - on a pole at Milton, Florida.
140047 - Actively flying and performing in airshows with the Trojan Phlyers in Dallas, TX.
140048 - National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio.
T-28C
138245 - WarBird Museum of Virginia in Chesterfield, Virginia.
140451 - Middleton Field in Evergreen, Alabama
140454 - Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts.
140481 - Pima Air & Space Museum adjacent to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona.
140557 - Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum, Cape May Airport, Rio Grande, New Jersey.
140659 - Southern Museum of Flight, Birmingham, Alabama.
YAT-28E
0-13786 - Private collection, Port Hueneme, California. One of two surviving air-frames, currently in storage awaiting restoration.
Specifications (T-28D)
See also
Lee Lue
References
Notes
Bibliography
Andrade, John. Militair 1982. London: Aviation Press Limited, 1982. .
Avery, Norm. North American Aircraft: 1934–1998, Volume 1. Santa Ana, California: Narkiewicz-Thompson, 1998. .
Compton, Frank. "November 79 Zulu: the Story of the North American Nomad". Sport Aviation, June 1983.
Donald, David and Lake, Jon. Encyclopedia of World Military Aircraft. London:Aerospace Publishing, 1996. .
Fitzsimons, Bernie. The Defenders: A Comprehensive Guide to Warplanes of the USA. London: Aerospace Publishing, 1988. .
Green, William. Observers Aircraft, 1956. London: Frederick Warne Publishing, 1956.
Hobson, Chris. Vietnam Air Losses, USAF/Navy/Marine, Fixed Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast 1961–1973. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 2001. .
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982–1985). London: Orbis Publishing, 1985.
Krivinyi, Nikolaus. World Military Aviation. New York: Arco Publishing Company, 1977. .
Pocock, Chris. "Thailand Hones its Air Forces". Air International, Vol. 31, No. 3, September 1986. pp. 113–121, 168. .
Tate, Jess. "Ultimate Trojan: North American's YAT-28E Project". Air Enthusiast, No. 99, May/June 1999. pp. 58–59. ISSN 0143-5450.
Taylor, John J.H. and Kenneth Munson.Jane's Pocket Book of Major Combat Aircraft. New York: Collier Books, 1973. .
Thompson, Kevin. North American Aircraft: 1934–1998 Volume 2. Santa Ana, California: Narkiewicz-Thompson, 1999. .
Toperczer, Istvan. MiG-17 and MiG-19 Units of the Vietnam War. London: Osprey Publishing Limited, 2001. .
United States Air Force Museum Guidebook. Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio: Air Force Museum Foundation, 1975.
Further reading
Adcock, Al. T-28 Trojan in Action. Squadron/Signal Publications Inc. 1989.
Cupido, Joe., "Veteran United: A T-28D Trojan Meets Up with a Former Pilot." Air Enthusiast, No. 83, September/October 1999, pp. 16–20
Genat, Robert. "Final Tour of Duty - North American's T-28 Trojans". North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 1996.
External links
North American T-28B Trojan – National Museum of the United States Air Force
Warbird Alley: T-28 page
T-28 FENNEC : History + 2006 inventory
T-28 Trojan Registry: The histories of those aircraft that survived military service
North American T-28 Trojan (Variants/Other Names: AT-28; Fennec)
T-28
1940s United States military trainer aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Low-wing aircraft
Carrier-based aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1949
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QoS%20Class%20Identifier
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QoS Class Identifier
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QoS Class Identifier (QCI) is a mechanism used in 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks to ensure carrier traffic is allocated appropriate Quality of Service (QoS). Different carrier traffic requires different QoS and therefore different QCI values. QCI value 9 is typically used for the default carrier of a UE/PDN for non privileged subscribers.
Background
To ensure that carrier traffic in LTE networks is appropriately handled, a mechanism is needed to classify the different types of carriers into different classes, with each class having appropriate QoS parameters for the traffic type. Examples of the QoS parameters include Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) or non-Guaranteed Bit Rate (non-GBR), Priority Handling, Packet Delay Budget and Packet Error Loss rate. This overall mechanism is called QCI.
Mechanism
The QoS concept as used in LTE networks is class-based, where each carrier type is assigned one QoS Class Identifier (QCI) by the network. The QCI is a scalar that is used within the access network (namely the eNodeB) as a reference to node specific parameters that control packet forwarding treatment, for example scheduling weight, admission thresholds and link-layer protocol configuration.
The QCI is also mapped to transport network layer parameters in the relevant Evolved Packet Core (EPC) core network nodes (for example, the PDN Gateway (P-GW), Mobility Management Entity (MME) and Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF)), by preconfigured QCI to Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) mapping.
According to 3GPP TS 23.203, 9 QCI values in Rel-8 (13 QCIs Rel-12, 15 QCIs Rel-14) are standardized and associated with QCI characteristics in terms of packet forwarding treatment that the carrier traffic receives edge-to-edge between the UE and the P-GW. Scheduling priority, resource type, packet delay budget and packet error loss rate are the set of characteristics defined by the 3GPP standard and they should be understood as guidelines for the pre-configuration of node specific parameters to ensure that applications/services mapped to a given QCI receive the same level of QoS in multi-vendor environments as well as in roaming scenarios. The QCI characteristics are not signalled on any interface.
The following table illustrates the standardized characteristics as defined in the 3GPP TS 23.203 standard "Policy and Charging Control Architecture".
Every QCI (GBR and Non-GBR) is associated with a Priority level. Priority level 0.5 is the highest Priority level. If congestion is encountered, the lowest Priority level traffic (highest Priority number!) would be the first to be discarded.
QCI-65, QCI-66, QCI-69 and QCI-70 were introduced in 3GPP TS 23.203 Rel-12.
QCI-75 and QCI-79 were introduced in 3GPP TS 23.203 Rel-14.
See also
LTE
References
LTE (telecommunication)
Mobile technology
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41556635
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%20Hartley%20%28computer%20scientist%29
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David Hartley (computer scientist)
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David Fielding Hartley FBCS (born 14 September 1937) is a computer scientist and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. He was Director of the University of Cambridge Computing Service from 1970–1994, Chief Executive of United Kingdom Joint Academic Network (JANET) 1994–1997, and Executive Director of Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) 1997–2002. He is now much involved with the National Museum of Computing.
He was involved in the development of the programming language CPL, whose influence can be traced on to C, and C++. He was president of the British Computer Society from 1999 to 2000 and chairman of the Computer Conservation Society from 2007 to 2011.
Student years
Dr Hartley became an undergraduate at Clare College, University of Cambridge in 1956. He read Mathematics for the first two years and studied Numerical Analysis and Automatic Computing in his third year, graduating BA in 1959. He then became a research student of computer science, developing the first programming language "Autocode", and its compiler for the EDSAC 2 computer, for which he was awarded a PhD degree in 1963. His thesis was entitled "Automatic Programming for Digital Computers".
Software development
As a member of the staff of Cambridge University's Mathematical Laboratory, he was joint author, with David Barron, John Buxton, Eric Nixon, and Christopher Strachey, of the early high-level programming language CPL. which was subsequently developed into BCPL which in turn influenced B and C.
From 1962 to 1967 he was a major contributor to the development of the Cambridge Multiple Access System that was developed for the Titan, the prototype Atlas 2 computer built by Ferranti for the university. This was the first time-sharing system developed outside the United States, and it influenced the later development of UNIX.
Hartley was successively Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, Fellow of Darwin College and then University Lecturer. He also did some pioneering work in video-tape recorded lecturers. In 1986, he was elected a Fellow of Clare College where he is currently secretary of the Alumni Association.
Computing service
Between 1970 and 1994, Dr Hartley was director of University of Cambridge Computing Service.
The service had been founded as the Mathematical Laboratory under the leadership of John Lennard-Jones in 1937, although it did not become properly established until after World War II when Maurice Wilkes became Director. Upon its foundation, it was intended "to provide a computing service for general use, and to be a centre for the development of computational techniques in the University" and Wilkes continued this strong service ethos. He learnt about electronic computation, reading John von Neumann's First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC and attending the final two weeks of the Moore School Lectures. EDSAC was the result, and Wilkes also supervised Hartley's PhD.
When Dr Hartley became Director, the Mathematical Laboratory was renamed the Computer Laboratory, with separate departments for Teaching and Research, and the Computing Service. One of Dr Hartley' most notable achievements as Director between 1987 and 1992, was to conceive and design the Granta Backbone Network, a fibre-optic network that joined up all of Cambridge's university and college sites.
Public service
From 1972 to 1974 Dr Hartley was chairman of the UK Inter-University Committee on Computing. He was a member of the Computer Board for Universities and Research Councils – which allocated government funds to purchase the large and expensive computers that the institutions needed – from 1979 to 1983 where he had special responsibility for network development. From 1981 to 1986 he was a member of the Prime Minister's Information Technology Advisory Panel. Having become a Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS) in 1968, Dr Hartley served on its Council in 1970–73, 1977–1980 and 1988 to 1990, was a Vice-President from 1987 to 1990, Deputy President in 1998–99 and President in 1999–2000.
Since ceasing to be Director of the University Computing Service, Dr Hartley has served both private sector and public sector bodies, but the latter have predominated.
From 1994 to 1997 he was Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association (UKERNA) whose objectives were to take responsibility for the UK academic community's networking programme, and to further opportunities with other communities, including industry. It developed JANET, the UK's joint academic network, which provides computer network and related collaborative services to UK education and research, including further- and higher-education organisations and the UK Research Councils.
From 1997 to 2002, Dr Hartley was Executive Director of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre which maintains the largest searchable database of experimentally-determined small molecule crystal structures. It performs analyses on these data and facilitates others' use.
Dr Hartley maintains strong ties with the University of Cambridge where he continues to be a Fellow of Clare College and an Honorary Member of the Computer Laboratory. He has recently become involved in the history of computing, serving for four years as Chairman of the Computer Conservation Society, a special-interest group of the British Computer Society. In 2012 he spent a year as part-time Museum Director of The National Museum of Computing and is currently a trustee of the EDSAC Replica Project.
Citations
External links
Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 2 May 2017 (video)
Sources
1937 births
Living people
People from Halifax, West Yorkshire
Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge
English computer scientists
British software engineers
Members of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
Fellows of Clare College, Cambridge
Fellows of the British Computer Society
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10705194
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald%20Harris
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Gerald Harris
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Gerald Harris (born November 19, 1979) is an American retired mixed martial artist and current middle school science teacher, who most recently fought in Bellator. He was a cast member of Spike TV's The Ultimate Fighter 7 and has also competed in World Series of Fighting, the UFC, DREAM, the Portland Wolfpack in the IFL, Shark Fights, Tachi Palace Fights, and Legacy Fighting Championship.
Early life
Gerald Harris attended East Central High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, then wrestled in college for Cleveland State University where he owns the all-time record for wins on the wrestling team. Also while attending CSU, Harris was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Mixed martial arts
Harris stumbled into mixed martial arts by accident after a friend convinced him to do it for fun and with Harris needing money, he agreed. He took an exhibition fight for $200, with the money he bought a "ragged Mustang to get around town." He beat his opponent so badly that he was invited to join the tournament and thus his professional fighting career began in August 2006. Harris won his first five matches before losing a controversial split decision to Fabio Leopoldo in his IFL debut.
After being on The Ultimate Fighter, Gerald went to train with Rampage Jackson for five weeks in Liverpool, England, and was very close to signing with Bellator Fighting Championships and taking part in their first season middleweight tournament.
When Gerald fell into financial problems, he was forced to move with his mother to Arizona, resulting in Gerald asking to be cut from his fight team, Team Quest. In Arizona he began training with C.B. Dollaway, Jamie Varner and Ryan Bader at Arizona Combat Sports. He left the team not long after starting and moved to Denver, Colorado to train with Trevor Wittman at the Grudge Training Center.
The Ultimate Fighter
Harris was on the Spike TV reality show The Ultimate Fighter as a member of Team Rampage. He got on the show by defeating Mike Madallo but lost by knockout in the second round to Amir Sadollah, who was the eventual winner of that season.
Ultimate Fighting Championship
Harris was signed to the UFC after calling into MMA Junkie Radio with the special guest being President of the UFC, Dana White. Harris called the show, changing his voice, and began praising himself in the third person. Finally, Harris came out and identified himself, then he informed White of his desire to fight for the promotion and told him of his current winning streak. White congratulated Harris and told him to call the office for a talk, the talk entailed getting Harris signed to a four fight deal with the UFC.
He was set to make his debut for the UFC against Mike Massenzio on January 11, 2010 at UFC Fight Night 20, replacing an injured Tim Credeur. Instead he fought John Salter, who stepped in for the injured Massenzio. He would later go on to defeat Salter by TKO in the third round and win Knockout of the Night.
In his second appearance in the UFC, he fought on the UFC Fight Night 21 card against recent signing Mario Miranda. The fight took place March 31, 2010 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Harris won the fight by TKO due to punches in the first round.
Harris next faced Renzo Gracie BJJ black belt, David Branch, on the under card of UFC 116. Harris won via knockout after a brutal slam at 3:25 of the third round. The knockout was awarded "Knockout of the Night," giving Harris his second post fight bonus and an extra $75,000 to his pay. The knockout was also shown on numerous sport's highlight shows, including ESPN's Sportscenter.
Harris was expected to face Alessio Sakara on August 28, 2010 at UFC 118, replacing an injured Jorge Rivera. However, Sakara was also forced off the card with an injury and replaced by Joe Vedepo. Then on August 18, it was announced that the Harris/Vedepo bout had been scrapped from the card. Harris was brought in as an alternative for the week of the event, and was given a fight purse for dieting, training and flying out to Boston.
Once again, Harris faced a UFC newcomer in Maiquel Falcão on November 20, 2010 at UFC 123 Harris lost the fight via unanimous decision and in a surprising move to many observers, was subsequently released by the promotion despite having won all 3 of his fights in it.
Post UFC
Following his release, Harris fought James Head on February 11, 2011 for Oklahoma's Xtreme Fight Night MMA. The fight was back and forth throughout the three rounds. Harris lost the fight via decision.
Harris then fought at Tachi Palace Fights 9 against journeyman Anthony Ruiz. He went on to win that fight via unanimous decision, and ended up breaking his hand in the process.
DREAM/ Legacy FC
On July 25, 2011, Harris announced on his personal Twitter that he had signed a multi-fight deal with Japanese promotion, DREAM. In his debut, Harris faced fellow UFC veteran Kazuhiro Nakamura at Dream 17. He won the fight via split decision.
Harris fought Eric Davila on Feb. 24, 2012 in the main event of Legacy Fighting Championship 10. He won the fight via unanimous decision.
Harris fought Mike Bronzoulis in his welterweight debut on May 11, 2012 at Legacy Fighting Championship 11. He defeated Bronzoulis by split decision.
World Series of Fighting
Harris signed with World Series of Fighting in late 2012 and made his promotional debut at WSOF 1 on November 3, 2012 against Josh Burkman. Harris lost the fight via unanimous decision.
In his second fight with the promotion, Harris fought Jorge Santiago at WSOF 4. The bout had a confusing first round where Harris slammed Santiago and believed he had tapped. However, the referee was stopping the action to deduct a point from Santiago for blatantly grabbing the cage during Harris' slam. Despite the confusion, Harris went on to win the fight via unanimous decision.
Harris announced his retirement from MMA on April 22, 2014.
MMA return
After two-and-a-half years away from the sport, Harris returned to active competition in December 2016. He faced Aaron Cobb at Legacy Fighting Championship 63 on December 2, 2016. What was originally scheduled to be a welterweight bout turned into a heavyweight bout after Cobb missed weight by showing up more than 50 pounds above the welterweight limit. Harris won the fight via knockout due to a slam in the first minute of the first round.
On October 21, 2017, Harris stepped into the cage for his last professional fight against Matt McKeon at Xtreme Fight Night at Tulsa Oklahoma. He went into retirement with a win via a violent slam.
Bellator MMA
Harris stepped in as a last-minute replaced for John Salter against Rafael Lovato Jr. at Bellator 198 on April 28, 2018. Due to the lateness of the booking, the bout was contested at a catchweight of 188 pounds. Harris lost the bout via submission in the first round. Soon after the Lovato fight, Harris signed a multi-fight deal with Bellator.
In his second fight for the promotion, Harris faced Yaroslav Amosov at Bellator 202 on July 13, 2018, losing via unanimous decision.
Harris faced Anatoly Tokov at Bellator 218 on March 22, 2019. Harris managed to drop Tokov during the fight, but Tokov recovered and eventually submitted Harris via ten-finger guillotine choke. Following the loss, Harris announced that the fight was the last fight of his contract, and retired for the second time in his career.
Despite retiring earlier in 2019, Harris returned to the competition again with hopes to jumpstart his career and faced Seth Baczynski at C3 Fights 48 on November 23, 2019. He won the fight via unanimous decision and once again declared his retirement from the sport.
Personal life
Gerald's brother Corey was killed in March 2009. A teenage driver making a quick left turn had collided with his motorcycle, killing him instantly. Despite this Gerald fought 7 days later and dedicated his victory to his brother.
Gerald Harris also teaches Social Studies in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Harris is married to his wife Nicci and they have a blended family of 8 children. Previously in an interview, Harris revealed that his biological children were taken away from him the weekend he fought Josh Burkman in 2012 during his divorce which was eventually overturned and he regained custody. In that same interview he said that he actually didn't retire from the sport in 2013, but was forced on a hiatus due to the ongoing divorce and custody issues but is now happily married.
Championships and achievements
Collegiate wrestling
Cleveland State University
Class of 2013 Athletic Hall of Fame (Wrestling)
Mixed martial arts
Freestyle Cage Fighting
FCF Middleweight Championship (Two times)
Titan Fighting Championship
TFC Middleweight Championship (One time)
Xtreme Fight Night
Welterweight Championship
Shark Fights
Shark Fights Middleweight Championship (One time, current)
Ultimate Fighting Championship
Knockout of the Night (Two times) vs. John Salter, David Branch
USA Today
2010 Knockout of the Year vs. David Branch on July 3
Mixed martial arts record
|-
| Win
| align=center|26–8–1
| Seth Baczynski
| Decision (unanimous)
| C3 Fights 48
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Newkirk, Oklahoma, United States
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|-
| Loss
| align=center|25–8–1
| Anatoly Tokov
| Submission (guillotine choke)
| Bellator 218
|
| align=center| 2
| align=center| 0:37
| Thackerville, Oklahoma, United States
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|-
|Draw
|align=center|
|Hracho Darpinyan
|Draw (majority)
|Bellator 210
|
|align=center|3
|align=center|5:00
|Thackerville, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
|Loss
|align=center|25–7
|Yaroslav Amosov
|Decision (unanimous)
|Bellator 202
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|align=center| 3
|align=center| 5:00
|Thackerville, Oklahoma, United States
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|-
|Loss
|align=center|25–6
|Rafael Lovato Jr.
|Submission (armbar)
|Bellator 198
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|align=center| 1
|align=center| 1:11
|Rosemont, Illinois, United States
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|-
|Win
|align=center|25–5
|Matt McKeon
|KO (slam)
|Xtreme Fight Night 344
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|align=center| 4
|align=center| 2:22
|Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
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|-
|Win
|align=center|24–5
|Brian Green
|Decision (unanimous)
|Xtreme Fight Night 343
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|align=center| 3
|align=center| 5:00
|Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
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|-
|Win
|align=center|23–5
|Aaron Cobb
|KO (slam)
|Legacy Fighting Championship 63
|
|align=center| 1
|align=center| 0:43
|Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
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|-
| Win
| align=center| 22–5
| Jorge Santiago
| Decision (unanimous)
| WSOF 4
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Ontario, California, United States
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|-
| Loss
| align=center| 21–5
| Josh Burkman
| Decision (unanimous)
| WSOF 1
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
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|-
| Win
| align=center| 21–4
| Mike Bronzoulis
| Decision (split)
| Legacy Fighting Championship 11
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| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Houston, Texas, United States
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|-
| Win
| align=center| 20–4
| Eric Davila
| Decision (unanimous)
| Legacy Fighting Championship 10
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| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Houston, Texas, United States
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|-
| Win
| align=center| 19–4
| Kazuhiro Nakamura
| Decision (split)
| Dream 17
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Saitama, Japan
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|-
| Win
| align=center| 18–4
| Anthony Ruiz
| Decision (unanimous)
| Tachi Palace Fights 9
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Lemoore, California, United States
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|-
| Loss
| align=center| 17–4
| James Head
| Decision (unanimous)
| Xtreme Fight Night 2: Harris vs. Head
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| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
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|-
| Loss
| align=center| 17–3
| Maiquel Falcão
| Decision (unanimous)
| UFC 123
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Auburn Hills, Michigan, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 17–2
| David Branch
| KO (slam)
| UFC 116
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 2:35
| Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 16–2
| Mario Miranda
| TKO (punches)
| UFC Fight Night: Florian vs. Gomi
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 4:49
| Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 15–2
| John Salter
| TKO (punches)
| UFC Fight Night: Maynard vs. Diaz
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 3:24
| Fairfax, Virginia, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 14–2
| Nissen Osterneck
| KO (punch)
| Shark Fights 6: Stars & Stripes
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 0:46
| Amarillo, Texas, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 13–2
| David Knight
| KO (punches)
| Slammin Jammin Weekend 2
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 1:38
| Red Rock, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 12–2
| Travis Doerge
| Submission (guillotine choke)
| C3 Fights: Knockout Rockout Weekend
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 2:32
| Clinton, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 11–2
| Jay Ford
| TKO (submission to punches)
| Freestyle Cage Fighting 25
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 3:43
| Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 10–2
| Mitch Whitesel
| Decision (unanimous)
| C3 Fights: Showdown 2
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Cherokee, North Carolina, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 9–2
| Brandon McDowell
| TKO (submission to punches)
| C3 Fights: Battle on the Border 2
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 1:21
| Newkirk, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 8–2
| Jeremija Sanders
| TKO (punches)
| FTP: Global Showdown
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 0:30
| Thackerville, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Loss
| align=center| 7–2
| Benji Radach
| TKO (punches)
| IFL: 2007 Semifinals
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 3:03
| East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States
|
|-
| Loss
| align=center| 7–1
| Fabio Leopoldo
| Decision (split)
| IFL: Connecticut
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 4:00
| Uncasville, Connecticut, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 7–0
| Curtis Stout
| KO (slam and punches)
| Titan FC 7
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| 4:57
| Kansas City, Kansas, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 6–0
| Travis Fowler
| Decision (unanimous)
| Freestyle Cage Fighting 9
|
| align=center| 3
| align=center| 5:00
| Ponca City, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 5–0
| Harvell Hunter
| KO (punches)
| Freestyle Cage Fighting 8
|
| align=center| 1
| align=center| N/A
| Ponca City, Oklahoma, United States
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|-
| Win
| align=center| 4–0
| Bubba McDaniel
| TKO (slam)
| Freestyle Cage Fighting 6
|
| align=center| 2
| align=center| 4:55
| Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 3–0
| Joe Bunch
| TKO (punches)
| FCF: Brawl For It All
|
| align=center| 2
| align=center| 1:58
| Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 2–0
| Chester Lauchner
| Submission (verbal)
| FCF: Brawl For It All
|
| align=center| 2
| align=center| 1:06
| Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center| 1–0
| Ryan Lopez
| TKO (submission to punches)
| FCFP: Friday Night Fights
|
| align=center| 2
| align=center| 0:49
| Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States
|
Mixed martial arts exhibition record
|-
| Loss
| align=center|1-1
| Amir Sadollah
| TKO (punches)
| The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rampage vs Team Forrest
|
| align=center| 2
| align=center| 2:36
| Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
|
|-
| Win
| align=center|1–0
| Mike Madallo
| Decision (Unanimous)
| The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rampage vs Team Forrest
|
| align=center| 2
| align=center| 5:00
| Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
|
References
External links
Living people
1979 births
21st-century American comedians
American male mixed martial artists
Mixed martial artists from Oklahoma
Middleweight mixed martial artists
Mixed martial artists utilizing collegiate wrestling
Sportspeople from Tulsa, Oklahoma
Sportspeople from Portland, Oregon
African-American mixed martial artists
Ultimate Fighting Championship male fighters
21st-century African-American sportspeople
20th-century African-American sportspeople
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34611673
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainya%20Music
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Mainya Music
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Mainya Music is an independent self-distributed record label formed by Isadar (Fabian I. Thibodeaux) in 1990. Mainya Music Entertainment was used as the label name to coincide with Isadar's (BMI) Broadcast Music, Inc. affiliated publishing company, Mainya Music Publishing. The label has evolved into Thibodeaux producing and releasing other types of music and videos, including recordings of antique music boxes, authentic Cajun music as well as holiday and classical genres. Other products the label manufactures and distributes are DVDs, software for the Yamaha Disklavier player-piano, and sheet music.
Roster
Dexter Thibodeaux
Howard & J.W. Thibodeaux
Isadar
Regina Music Box
Various Antique Music Boxes: including Symphonion 9 & 1/2", Troubadour 8 & 7/8" (with bells), Kalliope 13 & 1/4" (with bells), Polyphon 14 & 1/8" (with bells), Regina 15 & 1/2" (double-comb), and the Regina 27"
Discography
(1990) Near the Edge of Light (piano solos) – Isadar (MME-0100)
(1994) Elevations (Electronic Soundscapes) – Isadar (MME-0700)
(1997) Dream of the Dead – Isadar (MME-0200)
(1997) Dream of the Dead (Instrumental Version) – Isadar (MME-0225)
(1998) Cycles – Isadar (MME-0300)
(1998) Cycles (Instrumental Version) – Isadar (MME-0350)
(1999) Active Imagination (solo piano) – Isadar (MME-0400)
(1999) In Search for the Meaning of Christmas (solo piano) – Isadar (MME-0500)
(1999) Too Hot to Handel! (organ collection) – Dexter Thibodeaux (MME-0600)
(2000) The Journey (piano) – Isadar (MME-0800)
(2000) Memories of Christmas – Regina Music Box (MME-0900)
(2001) Near the Edge of Light – Yamaha Disklavier Software – Isadar (MME-0100YD)
(2001) Active Imagination – Yamaha Disklavier Software – Isadar (MME-0400YD)
(2001) in Search for the Meaning of Christmas – Yamaha Disklavier Software – Isadar (MME-0500YD)
(2001) The Journey – Yamaha Disklavier Software – Isadar (MME-0800YD)
(2001) Sampler: Lite Sounds – Yamaha Disklavier Software – Isadar (MME-1100YD)
(2003) The Purple Heart (improvisational solo piano) – Isadar (MME-0101)
(2003) The Purple Heart (improvisational solo piano) Yamaha Disklavier Software – Isadar (MME-1000YD)
(2005) Lessons in Love (3–disc set) – Isadar (MME-0110/0111/0112)
(2005) Lessons in Love (3–disc set) (Instrumental Version) – Isadar (MME-0113/0114/0115)
(2006) Private Property – Isadar (MME-0120)
(2006) Private Property (Instrumental Version) – Isadar (MME-0125)
(2006) Cajun Folk Music– Howard & J.W. Thibodeaux (MME-0150)
(2006) Scratching the Surface – Sampler (Disc One – Solo Piano) – Isadar (MME-0160)
(2006) Scratching the Surface – Sampler (Disc Two – Electro-Voice) – Isadar (MME-0165)
(2006) Scratching the Surface – Sampler (Disc Two – Electro-Voice) (Instrumental Version) – Isadar (MME-0167)
(2007) Antique Music Box Collection (6–disc set) – Various Antique Music Boxes (MME-0145)
(2007) LiFe v.2.o – Isadar (MME-0170)
(2007) LiFe v.2.o (Instrumental Version) – Isadar (MME-0175)
(2008) The Omega Point – Isadar (MME-0180)
(2008) The Omega Point (Instrumental Version) – Isadar (MME-0185)
(2008) Active Imagination – solo piano sheet music collection – Isadar
(2008) in Search for the Meaning of Christmas – solo piano sheet music collection – Isadar
(2009) The Journey – solo piano sheet music collection – Isadar
(2010) The Purple Heart (improvisational solo piano) – sheet music collection – Isadar
(2010) Near the Edge of Light (solo piano sheet music collection) – Isadar
(2010) ISADAR – Video Collection (Volume I – Disc One) DVD (MME-0191)
(2010) ISADAR – Video Collection (Volume I – Disc Two) DVD (MME-0192)
(2010) ISADAR – Video Collection (Volume II – Disc One) DVD (MME-0201)
(2010) ISADAR – Video Collection (Volume II – Disc Two) DVD (MME-0202)
(2010) ISADAR – Solo Piano (Volume 1) DVD (MME-0211)
(2010) ISADAR – Solo Piano (Volume 2) DVD (MME-0212)
(2010) ISADAR – Solo Piano (Volume 3) DVD (MME-0213)
(2010) ISADAR – Christmas Solo Piano DVD (MME-0220)
(2010) Solo Piano Anthology: 1990–2010 (6–disc set) – Isadar (MME-0230)
(2011) Antique Music Box Christmas Collection, Disc 1 – Various Antique Music Boxes (MME-0146)
(2011) Antique Music Box Christmas Collection, Disc 2 – Various Antique Music Boxes (MME-0147)
(2011) Scratching the Surface (solo piano sampler) – solo piano sheet music collection – Isadar
(2012) Reconstructed (solo piano) – Isadar (MME-0240) [produced by Will Ackerman]
(2012) O Christmas (solo piano) – Isadar (MME-0250)
(2012) O Christmas (solo piano) – solo piano sheet music collection – Isadar
(2013) Red (piano) – Isadar (MME-0260)
(2013) Red (piano) – solo piano sheet music collection – Isadar
(2013) The Grand Opera House of the South Presents: ISADAR (in solo piano concert) DVD (MME-0245)
(2016) Magical Fantasy Flute – Isadar (MME-0270)
See also
List of record labels
References
External links
Official site
American independent record labels
Record labels established in 1990
Cajun music
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20802481
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Script%20%28Unix%29
|
Script (Unix)
|
The script command is a Unix utility that records a terminal session. It dates back to the 1979 3.0 BSD.
Usage
A script session is captured in file name by default; to specify a different filename follow the command with a space and the filename as such: .
The recorded format of consists of plain-text timing information (for the whole session) and verbatim command output, including whatever ANSI escape code the program has printed for formatting. It uses a pseudoterminal for this purpose, so programs act exactly as if they were on a terminal. The util-linux command offers a replay function to its script, which supports using an extra timing file for character-level information. Some online services, such as the now-defunct shelr.tv, can also show the format as a low-bandwidth alternative to video screencasts.
Problems with script
One of the problems with the script command is that it only allows logging of a child process; and often there is a need to log the command in the current process without spawning a new process, such as when automation of a script is needed that can log its own output. The Unix operating systems make this possible by use of pipes and redirects. Consider the following model examples:
Bourne shell
All shells related to Bourne shell (namely: sh, bash, and ksh) allow the stdout and stderr to be attached to a named pipe and redirected to the tee command.
Example
LOGNAME="script"
rm -f $LOGNAME.p $LOGNAME.log
mknod $LOGNAME.p p
tee <$LOGNAME.p $LOGNAME.log &
exec >$LOGNAME.p 2>&1
The above script records to all output of the command. However, some interactive programs (such as python) do not echo their standard input when run under the resulting shell, although they do when run under the script command, again due to the detection of a terminal.
Alternatives to Script Command
The ttyrec program from 2000 provides the same kind of functionality and offers several bindings. The timing is similar to util-linux. A more modern take on the concept is "asciicast" JSON, used by asciinema.
See also
Command line interpreter
Shebang (Unix)
Bourne shell
Bourne-Again shell
C shell
Python (programming language)
Filename extension, Command Name Issues section
Perl
Scripting language
Unix shell
References
Unix software
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2883424
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DemoLinux
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DemoLinux
|
DemoLinux was one of the first Live CD Linux distributions.
It was created by Roberto Di Cosmo, Vincent Balat and Jean-Vincent Loddo, in 1998.
The DemoLinux CD was created to make it possible to use Linux without having to install it on the hard disk. It was the first Linux Live CD that made it possible to use the system in graphic mode and without any stage of configuration.
There are many other Live CD Linux distributions today. DemoLinux can be considered to be the ancestor of Knoppix.
DemoLinux offered the user hundreds of applications (among them KDE and StarOffice), owing to using to a compressed file system. The CD could be used without any modification to the hard disk; however, the user could use space on the hard disk to store their personal data and install additional applications using the distribution's standard tools. Version 1 was based on Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux), while versions 2 and 3 were based mainly on Debian. These later versions made it possible to install Linux on the hard disk. DemoLinux thus provided a very simple installation procedure for Debian and became a forerunner of later Linux distributions.
DemoLinux has been distributed with many computer magazines in several countries. It is still downloadable from the official website, but has not evolved since 2002.
References
External links
Official website
Discontinued Linux distributions
1998 software
Linux distributions
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17263548
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzztrax
|
Buzztrax
|
Buzztrax is a free software project to create a clone of the Buzz music composer. The driving motivation is to preserve the playability of the compositions made with Buzz. Songs are made by adding virtual sound generators and effects, connecting them, recording short musical phrases and arranging them in the sequencer. For distribution, songs can be exported to common audio formats such as OGG, MP3, WAV and many others.
History
In the middle of 2002 the main developers lost a song during a Buzz session as the result of a software error. As the sources of Buzz were known to be lost, they decided to start a new project. The project name Buzztard was chosen to link to its origin and also underline that the software is based on a mix of concepts. Development started between 2003 and 2004. A first version was released in October 2006. A demo was presented at Linux Audio Conference (LAC) 2007. Several releases have followed since. Starting with version 0.5 Linux distributions (such as Debian, Ubuntu and Arch Linux) have picked up the project and provide ready to install packages. In 2013 the project was renamed to Buzztrax after Google rejected the project for its Summer of Code program due to the name.
Features
The software is based on the GStreamer media framework. As it is the only music composer built on GStreamer it serves as a test-bed for related features. The graphical editor uses GTK+ for its GUI. It integrated with the GNOME desktop, but does not require it. The editor extensively supports copy & paste and unlimited undo & redo. A notable feature of version 0.6 is the editing journal that helps to prevent loss of data in the case of a crash.
Buzz users and the Linux press like the modernized look, but familiar layout.
The component architecture supports song import modules. Buzztrax can open songs both in its native and Buzz's format. A wrapper component allows using the existing Buzz-machine binaries under x86 Linux and open-source Buzz-machines on all platforms. A GStreamer bridge plugin makes them available to all GStreamer applications. Another GStreamer plugin enables the playback of buzztrax songs in each GStreamer based media-player. An interaction controller framework allows the use of MIDI devices and any input devices (such as joysticks or Wii Remotes) to be used to control parameters of sounds in real-time.
See also
List of free software for audio
List of Linux audio software
References
External links
Project wiki page
Sourceforge project resources
Activity and news
Audio trackers
Free music software
Audio editing software that uses GTK
Software that uses Clutter (software)
Software that uses GStreamer
Music software for Linux
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32734383
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden%20age%20of%20Spanish%20software
|
Golden age of Spanish software
|
The golden age of Spanish software () was a time, between 1983 and 1992, when Spain became the second largest 8 bit computer entertainment software producer in Europe, only behind the United Kingdom. The disappearance of the 8 bit technology and its replacement by the 16 bit machines marked the end of this era, during which many software companies based in Spain launched their career: Dinamic Software, Topo Soft, Opera Soft, Made in Spain and Zigurat among others. The name Edad de oro del soft español was coined by specialized magazines of the time and has been used to refer to these years until nowadays.
History
Rise (1983–1985)
In the year 1983, the first home personal computers started arriving in Spain, all of them 8 bit machines. ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC were the most sold in the country, followed by MSX and Commodore 64 among others. These were simple machines, with lesser resources, therefore easy to manipulate, so many young programmers all over the country started experimenting with them.
The Golden Era of Spanish Software officially starts with the launch of Bugaboo, by PACO & PACO, the first Spanish video game to get a massive international distribution. Shortly, Fred (Roland on the ropes for Amstrad), by others authors, this time under the company Made in Spain, was another success, and the owners of Made in Spain decided to create Zigurat, a mother company that would at first be dedicated to distribution, turning Made in Spain into a producing company for Zigurat, which also would at first distribute titles from independent companies. Years later, Made in Spain and Zigurat would completely merge into a single producer and distributor company.
Meanwhile, Dinamic Software made their first steps when they launched for ZX Spectrum Yenght, a text adventure. And in the field of distribution, Erbe Software, the main Spanish software distributor for more than a decade, started their activity. In their first years, Erbe tried also to produce their own titles, but in this activity they didn't last for long.
Peak (1985–1989)
In 1985, with the birth of magazines Micromanía and Microhobby, videogames gained massive popularity, and the rest of the top companies of the Era, Opera Soft in 1986 and Topo Soft in 1987 started their activity, the first one with Livingstone, I presume, and the second one with Spirits, after their authors programmed for Erbe Software Las tres luces de Glaurung (Conquestador).
The just born Zigurat had their biggest success on Sir Fred and El misterio del Nilo, unofficial version of the movie The Jewel of the Nile, which caused problems internationally because one of the characters of the game was too similar to Michael Douglas, and the authors were forced to change the graphic design of this character in the international versions.
Dinamic had their first huge successes in the Johny Jones trilogy, comprising Saimazoom, Babaliba, and mainly Abu Simbel Profanation. After this, they would start another trilogy, the Moves trilogy, comprising Army Moves, Navy Moves, and much later Arctic Moves. And little by little, publishing titles starring famous sportsmen became popular. Dinamic were the first, with Basket Master starring Fernando Martín, and they were followed by other companies, with titles starring Ángel Nieto, Carlos Sainz, Poli Díaz, Emilio Butragueño and others.
Meanwhile, Opera Soft published Goody, Sol Negro, Cosa Nostra, and above all, La Abadía del Crimen, based on Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, considered one of the best titles of all the Golden Era of Spanish Software and one of the best titles ever released on ZX Spectrum. On the other hand, Topo Soft, the last of the big ones, quickly arrived on top with titles like Mad Mix Game and its continuation, and Survivor among others.
Meanwhile, Dinamic published a text adventure version of Don Quijote, and after that, a section of Dinamic dedicated only to text adventures became independent, and they named themselves Aventuras AD, publishing titles like El Jabato among others.
Decline (1989–1992)
At the end of the 1980s, there arrived new 16 bit machines, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and little by little, IBM PC, followed by consoles like SNES and Sega Mega Drive. Although the Spanish companies did some tiny efforts to evolve, they never really switched to 16 bits and concentrated on the declining 8-bit market which, almost extinct in Europe, still had strength in Spain, mainly thanks to the rule Erbe Software, main distributor in the country, imposing a sales price of 875 pesetas (5,26 euros) for all their titles, trying to put an end to piracy.
But at this moment, Spanish companies started having serious financial problems, and one by one they launched their last titles. Topo Soft funders left the company in 1989 to establish Animagic, whose main title was Mortadelo y Filemon II (Clever and Smart II). Born in bad times, they did not last for long. On the other hand, Topo Soft launched Lorna, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and above all, Gremlins 2, is the first time a Spanish video game company managed to get an exclusive license for all Europe from a Hollywood movie. In 1991, aware of the importance of 16 bit, they tried to switch, with the project of creating a desktop environment for MS-DOS, but the project did not succeed, and Topo closed on bankruptcy in 1992.
Meanwhile, Opera Soft, after publishing Gonzalezzz, Mot and Angel Nieto Pole 500, starts decaying like the rest of the companies. In their last months, they launched titles like La Colmena and one dedicated to Barcelona 92, to disappear shortly after. Some of their components, like Gonzalo Suárez Girard (Gonzo Suárez), would later move to Pyro Studios launching titles like Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines among others.
Aventuras AD, paradoxically, had their most successful period during this time of decline, launching the most of their titles during this time, mainly the Ci-U-Than Legends trilogy, composed of La Diosa de Cozumel, Los Templos Sagrados and Chichén Itzá, being pioneers in Spain creating a predecessor of graphic adventures with La Aventura Espacial, a text adventure controlled by menus. Nevertheless, the sales did not last for long, and Aventuras AD disappeared in 1992.
Zigurat and Dinamic were the only companies which survived from the Golden Era of Spanish Software, although they had to transform and abandon their previous activity. Zigurat, after an 8-bit market collapsed, started developing coin up arcade games, lasting for many years. Dinamic Software, on the other hand, after publishing After the War, Narco Police and Risky Woods, closed on bankruptcy and was refounded as Dinamic Multimedia in 1993, having in PC Fútbol as their biggest success during the 1990s. However, the dot-com bubble finished Dinamic Multimedia in 2001, but before this, the original founders of the company, who had left it in 1999, had already founded FX Interactive, which is still known nowadays.
2010s resurgence
The 1990s and 2000s have been described as "lost decades" for the Spanish video game industry. However, Alberto Flores de Rio wrote in the Encyclopedia of Video Games that the 2010s may be a resurgence for Spanish-based game development. Akaoni Studio and MercurySteam started off the decade with financially successful games. Alejando Alcolea of Hobby Consolas called 2015 the possible start for a "second golden age of Spanish software".
References
Spanish software
History of video games
History of software
Home computer software
Science and technology in Spain
Video gaming in Spain
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1845497
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent%20%28software%29
|
BitTorrent (software)
|
BitTorrent is an ad-supported BitTorrent client developed by Bram Cohen and Rainberry, Inc. used for uploading and downloading files via the BitTorrent protocol. BitTorrent was the first client written for the protocol. It is often nicknamed Mainline by developers denoting its official origins. Since version 6.0 the BitTorrent client has been a rebranded version of μTorrent. As a result, it is no longer open source. It is currently available for Microsoft Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.
History
Programmer Bram Cohen designed the protocol in April 2001 and released a first implementation of the BitTorrent client on 2 July 2001. It is now maintained by Cohen's company BitTorrent, Inc.
Prior to version 6.0, BitTorrent was written in Python, and was free software. Very early versions released prior to December 30, 2001 were released into the public domain without a license. Versions up to and including 3.4.2 were distributed under the MIT license. The source code for versions 4.x and 5.x was released under the BitTorrent Open Source License, a modified version of the Jabber Open Source License. Versions 4.0 and 5.3 were relicensed under the GPL.
Version 4.20 of the client was dubbed Allegro by BitTorrent Inc., in reference to protocol extensions developed by the company to accelerate download performance and ISP manageability.
Version 5.30 of the client which is snapshotted at Internet Archive is the latest open source version.
Since version 6.0, the BitTorrent client has been a rebranded version of μTorrent. It is no longer open source.
Features
The BitTorrent client enables a user to search for and download torrent files using a built-in search box ("Search for torrents") in the main window, which opens the BitTorrent torrent search engine page with the search results in the user's default web browser.
The current client includes a range of features, including multiple parallel downloads. BitTorrent has several statistical, tabular and graphical views that allow a user to see what events are happening in the background. A host of views offer information on the peers and seeds to which the user is connected, including how much data is being downloaded from each and to how much data is being uploaded by each. It has an automatic recovery system that checks all data that has been handled after an improper shutdown. It also intermediates peering between itself, source file servers ("trackers") and other clients, thereby yielding distribution efficiencies. The client also enables users to create and share torrent files.
Release history
BitTorrent DNA
BitTorrent DNA (BitTorrent Delivery Network Accelerator) is a program designed to speed up the viewing of streaming video, downloading software (with or without the BitTorrent protocol) and playing online video games. It does so by distributing the end users' downloads between each other. In this way, the developers intend that content providers should take less load on their servers so the end users can receive the content faster. It runs in the background whenever the operating system is running.
BitTorrent DNA is different from traditional BitTorrent in that it relies on publisher HTTP servers in order to provide publishers with guaranteed minimum data delivery rate, as well as give publishers control over content delivery (peers must connect to the origin server before they can reach other peers), and collect information about content delivery to share with the publisher. The quality of the file transfer is specified in terms of a long-term average bitrate for data and in terms of meeting deadlines when streaming. It also can give bandwidth to TCP and other traffic.
DNA is also different from traditional BitTorrent in that it is a UDP-based protocol that has replaced regular TCP-based bandwidth throttling with a much more sensitive bandwidth management technique.
Apart from being installed by third party websites and software companies, the program for end users is also installed when the official BitTorrent client is installed (starting with the rebranded version 6.0). However, it can be independently uninstalled.
The first version of the DNA made it possible to keep the DNA application installed and yet temporarily stopped until the next system restart (through the system's control panel, in Windows XP). The DNA GUI was completely removed in the official BitTorrent version 6.1 and 6.1.1, but was re-introduced in version 6.1.2.
Since October, 2007 BitTorrent DNA has been offered by BitTorrent, Inc. as a commercial service that content providers can purchase (for an undisclosed price) and as a free background program for end users. Company President Ashwin Navin launched the product claiming that "Implementing BitTorrent DNA on top of legacy infrastructure has the profound impact of allowing our customers to deliver a better user experience, higher quality video, faster software downloads, all with the security and reliability of a managed service."
Navin in a podcast interview claimed that he attempted to sell BitTorrent DNA in January 2005. After finding that BitTorrent's brand was too polarizing for potential customers, they delayed the launch until after partnering with nearly 50 media companies in the BitTorrent Entertainment Network. That provided the company enough public validation to finally launch BitTorrent DNA two and half years later.
The service's first customer was the company Brightcove, that chose to use it to distribute streaming video files.
As of May 2009, the Asus support website is using BitTorrent DNA as an additional download method of their larger files in addition to their multiple somewhat internationally distributed HTTP servers and content delivery mirrors and other redirection facilities Asus has been known to rely in the present and past for their data delivery needs. Currently, a separate "P2P" icon is being presented for the DNA style downloads next to the "Global" and "Chinese" located servers as an example.
See also
Comparison of BitTorrent clients
Usage share of BitTorrent clients
References
External links
Glasnost test BitTorrent traffic shaping (Max Planck Institute for Software Systems)
Android (operating system) software
BitTorrent clients
C++ software
File sharing software
BitTorrent clients for Linux
MacOS file sharing software
Windows file sharing software
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62811443
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer%20engineering%20compendium
|
Computer engineering compendium
|
This is a list of the individual topics in Electronics, Mathematics, and Integrated Circuits that together make up the Computer Engineering field. The organization is by topic to create an effective Study Guide for this field. The contents match the full body of topics and detail information expected of a person identifying themselves as a Computer Engineering expert as laid out by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. It is a comprehensive list and superset of the computer engineering topics generally dealt with at any one time.
Part 1 - Basics
Character Encoding
Character (computing)
Universal Character Set
IEEE 1394
ASCII
Math
Bitwise operation
Signed number representations
IEEE floating point
Operators in C and C++
De Morgan's laws
Booth's multiplication algorithm
Binary multiplier
Wallace tree
Dadda multiplier
Multiply–accumulate operation
Big O notation
Euler's identity
Basic Electronics
Series and parallel circuits
RLC circuit
Transistor
Operational amplifier applications
Signal Processing
Signal processing
Digital filter
Fast Fourier transform
Cooley–Tukey FFT algorithm
Modified discrete cosine transform
Digital signal processing
Analog-to-digital converter
Error Detection/Correction
Parity bit
Error detection and correction
Cyclic redundancy check
Hamming code
Hamming(7,4)
Convolutional code
Forward error correction
Noisy-channel coding theorem
Modulation
Signal-to-noise ratio
Linear code
Noise (electronics)
Part 2 - Hardware
Hardware
Logic family
Multi-level cell
Flip-flop (electronics)
Race condition
Binary decision diagram
Circuit minimization for Boolean functions
Karnaugh map
Quine–McCluskey algorithm
Integrated circuit design
Programmable Logic
Standard cell
Programmable logic device
Field-programmable gate array
Complex programmable logic device
Application-specific integrated circuit
Logic optimization
Register-transfer level
Floorplan (microelectronics)
Hardware description language
VHDL
Verilog
Electronic design automation
Espresso heuristic logic minimizer
Routing (electronic design automation)
Static timing analysis
Placement (EDA)
Power optimization (EDA)
Timing closure
Design flow (EDA)
Design closure
Rent's rule
Assembly/Test
Design rule checking
SystemVerilog
In-circuit test
Joint Test Action Group
Boundary scan
Boundary scan description language
Test bench
Ball grid array
Head in pillow (metallurgy)
Pad cratering
Land grid array
Processors
Computer architecture
Harvard architecture
Processor design
Central processing unit
Microcode
Arithmetic logic unit
CPU cache
Instruction set
Orthogonal instruction set
Classic RISC pipeline
Reduced instruction set computing
Instruction-level parallelism
Instruction pipeline
Hazard (computer architecture)
Bubble (computing)
Superscalar
Parallel computing
Dynamic priority scheduling
Amdahl's law
Benchmark (computing)
Moore's law
Computer performance
Supercomputer
SIMD
Multi-core processor
Explicitly parallel instruction computing
Simultaneous multithreading
Redundancy & Reliability
Dependability
Active redundancy
Dual modular redundancy
Triple modular redundancy
High-availability Seamless Redundancy
N-version programming
RAID
Fault tolerance
Fault-tolerant computer system
Watchdog timer
Redundant array of independent memory
Memory
Computer data storage
Memory controller
Memory management unit
Static random-access memory
Dynamic random-access memory
Synchronous dynamic random-access memory
DDR2 SDRAM
Flash memory
Memory scrubbing
Data striping
Hard disk drive performance characteristics
Disk sector
Part 3 - OS, Software, Testing, AI
Operating Systems
Operating system
Multiprocessing
Concurrent computing
Computer cluster
Distributed computing
Trusted computing base
Embedded system
In-circuit emulator
Real-time operating system
Comparison of real-time operating systems
Rate-monotonic scheduling
Earliest deadline first scheduling
Least slack time scheduling
Deadline-monotonic scheduling
Round-robin scheduling
O(1) scheduler
Thread (computing)
Concurrency control
Synchronization (computer science)
Mutual exclusion
Device driver
Software Development
Software development process
Software requirements specification
Spiral model
Agile software development
Behavior-driven development
Cowboy coding
Lean software development
Extreme programming
Structured systems analysis and design method
List of software development philosophies
Programming language generations
Comparison of programming languages
Printf format string
Programming paradigm
Object-oriented design
Software documentation
Software design document
Object-oriented programming
Concurrent Versions System
Software maintenance
Revision control
Software configuration management
Software release life cycle
MIL-STD-498
Software assurance
Systems development life cycle
Software quality
Software quality management
Relational database
ACID
List of data structures
Semipredicate problem
Application Interface Specification
Homoiconicity
Domain-specific modeling
Unified Modeling Language
Test/Integration
Software testing
Test-driven development
Acceptance test-driven development
Integration testing
Software walkthrough
Code review
Software inspection
Software verification
Functional testing
Software testing
White-box testing
Black-box testing
Gray box testing
Verification and validation (software)
Correctness (computer science)
AI & Robotics
Speech processing
Image processing
Computer vision
Robotics
Speech recognition
Part 4 - Information Theory, Encryption, Networking, and Security
Information Theory
Information theory
Channel capacity
Shannon–Hartley theorem
Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem
Shannon's source coding theorem
Zero-order hold
Data compression
Modulation order
Phase-shift keying
Encryption
Hash function
List of hash functions
String searching algorithm
Avalanche effect
Rabin–Karp algorithm
Burst error-correcting code
Cryptography
Cryptographic hash function
Public-key cryptography
Viterbi algorithm
Networking
Computer network
List of network buses
Wide area network
Local area network
Network science
Non-return-to-zero
Manchester code
Ethernet
Internet
OSI model
Transmission Control Protocol
Point-to-Point Protocol
Exposed node problem
Circuit switching
Fiber-optic communication
Capacity management
Bandwidth management
Bandwidth (computing)
Throughput
Networking hardware
Wireless network
IEEE 802.11
Complementary code keying
Session Initiation Protocol
Message authentication code
Port Control Protocol
Network monitoring
Simple Network Management Protocol
Measuring network throughput
Reliability (computer networking)
Channel access method
Time division multiple access
Security
Computer security
Separation of protection and security
Information security
Information security management system
Internet security
Hacker (computer security)
DMZ (computing)
Firewall (computing)
Stateful firewall
Intrusion detection system
Denial-of-service attack
IP address spoofing
Part 5 - Misc
Multiple-criteria decision analysis
References
Computer engineering
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14224911
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20ministries%20of%20communications
|
List of ministries of communications
|
A Communications Ministry or Department of Communications is a ministry or other government agency charged with communication. Communications responsibilities includes regulating telecommunications, postal services, broadcasting and print media. The ministry is often headed by the Minister for Communications.
Ministries titled Ministry or Department of Communications
Some countries have such a department literally called Ministry of Communications:
Department of Communications and the Arts
Australian Government Department of Communications (1993–1994)
Australian Government Department of Communications (1980–1987)
Ministry of Communication and Traffic (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Ministry of Communications (Brazil)
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Burma)
Ministry of Communications (Iceland)
Ministry of Communications (Iraq)
Ministry of Communications (Israel)
Ministry of Communications (Japan)
Ministry of Transport and Communications (Lithuania)
Ministry of Communications of Morocco
Ministry of Communications of Pakistan functions as a central policy making and administrative authority on Communications and Transport Sector in Pakistan.
Ministry of Communications and Mass Media (Russia)
Department of Communications (South Africa)
Ministry of Communications (Soviet Union), the central state administration body on communications in the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1991
Ministry of Communications (Trinidad and Tobago)
Ministry of Communications (India) (2016-Present)
Ministries titled Ministry of Information and Communications
A number of countries have designated such a department as a Ministry of Information and Communications:
Nigerian Federal Ministry of Information and Communications
Ministry of Information and Communications (Rivers State)
Ministry of Information and Communication (South Korea)
Ministry of Information and Communications (Kenya), Kenya
Ministry of Information and Communications (Vietnam), Vietnam
Ministry of Information and Communication (Fiji), Fiji
Ministry of Information and Communications (Nepal), Nepal
Ministry of Information and Communication (Bhutan), Bhutan
Ministry of Information and Communication (Cuba), Cuba
Ministries titled Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
A number of countries have designated such a department as a Ministry of Communications and Information Technology:
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Afghanistan)
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Egypt)
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (India)
Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Indonesia)
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Iran)
Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (Colombia)
Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (Yemen)
Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (Thailand)
Department of Information and Communications Technology (Philippines)
Ministries with other names having authority over communications
Many countries have such a department, but under some other name:
Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology (Bangladesh), since 2014
Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications (Brunei), renamed from Ministry of Communications since 2018
Department of Canadian Heritage, formerly a part of the Department of Communications and Industry Canada which regulates the Telecommunications Act
Ministry of Transport and Communications (East Timor)
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications (Estonia)
Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (Germany), since 2013
Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (Ireland), a department of the Government of Ireland that is responsible for the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors and regulates, protects and develops the natural resources of the Republic of Ireland
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Japan), a cabinet-level ministry in the Government of Japan
Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (North Korea)
Korea Communications Commission and Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (South Korea)
Ministry of Communications and Multimedia (Malaysia)
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (Malaysia)
Ministry of Economic Development (New Zealand), including Communications and Information Technology Portfolio
Ministry of Transport and Communications (North Macedonia)
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, established in March 2008, is the state agency of the People's Republic of China responsible for regulation and development of the postal service, Internet, wireless, broadcasting, communications, production of electronic and information goods, software industry and the promotion of the national knowledge economy
Ministry of Communications and Information (Singapore), a ministry of the Government of Singapore. It is in charge of the creative industries, library, media, info-communications and government public relations.
Department of Communications (South Africa) is responsible for overseeing the South African communications, telecommunications and broadcasting industries.
Ministry of Transportation and Communications (Taiwan)
Ministry of Information, Communications, Transport and Tourism Development, Kiribati
Office of Communications (United Kingdom)
Federal Communications Commission (United States), an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute (see 47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154), and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President
See also
List of postal entities, for other countries
List of telecommunications regulatory bodies, for other countries
References
Communications
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65476124
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconnected%20%282021%20film%29
|
Disconnected (2021 film)
|
Disconnected is an upcoming Hong Kong action drama film directed by Danny Wong and starring Aaron Kwok as a cyber security engineer who develops an AI programme application which can potentially disable all of Hong Kong's networks. The film co-stars Simon Yam, Gordon Lam, Patrick Tam, Kenny Wong and Megan Lai.
Plot
A cyber security engineer and IT whiz (Aaron Kwok) develops an AI programme application, setting off an network technology crisis potentially disabling the entire online networking of Hong Kong, at the same time embroiled into the whirlpool of a transnational dog bite dog cyber crime. The mastermind behind the scene forces him to fall into a commercial crime conspiracy and threatening the safety of his family, and he face the challenge of reviving the city's network and rescuing his family from danger between life and death.
Cast
Aaron Kwok plays a cyber security engineer and IT whiz.
Simon Yam
Gordon Lam plays a character who he describes as one who will "viciously take on Kwok's character."
Patrick Tam plays a character who he describes as "difficult to tell whether a friend or foe to Kwok's character."
Kenny Wong
Megan Lai plays the wife of Kwok's character.
Tony Wu
Kathy Yuen
Zeno Koo
Wiyona Yeung
Terrance Huang
Ray Lui
Production
Principal photography for Disconnect'd began on 12 June 2020 in Ho Man Tin. In July 2020, production was temporarily halted due to the third wave outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong before resuming in August. Due to the pandemic affecting Hong Kong's film market, Aaron Kwok reportedly commanded only 70% of his normal salary to support the industry. A high tech office set for the film costed HK$2 million to build. Production forDisconnect'd officially wrapped up on 14 October 2020 after filming its final scene in a forest in Nam Sang Wai.
Release
Edko Films has picked up the worldwide distribution rights for the film.
See also
Aaron Kwok filmography
References
External links
斷網 Disconnected on Facebook
Hong Kong films
Upcoming films
Hong Kong action films
Cantonese-language films
Films about technological impact
Films about the Internet
Films set in Hong Kong
Films shot in Hong Kong
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Amsden%20Starkweather
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John Amsden Starkweather
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John Amsden Starkweather (August 30, 1925 – March 10, 2001) was an American Professor of Medical Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Starkweather was a clinical psychologist and a valued teacher by generations of clinical psychology interns and graduate students at UCSF. He was a pioneer in taking a psychologist's view of the emerging computer field and incorporating concepts as well as numbers to language processing.
Early years
Starkweather's father was an engineer and his mother was a poet.
He was raised in Seattle, Washington and served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II from 1943 to 1945.
Starkweather graduated from Yale in 1950 with a B.A. in Art and from Northwestern University in 1955 with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. He joined the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco in 1955, where he spent his entire career. He married his wife, Jean, in 1952 while he was a graduate student at Northwestern. The Starkweathers had three sons, David, Timothy and Stephen.
Studies in speech
Starkweather took an early interest in speech and language, and especially the expression of emotion in the voice. His dissertation, supervised by professor Carl Porter Duncan at Northwestern, was "Judgments of Content-Free Speech as Related to Some Aspects of Personality" and was the first to show that judges could distinguish reliably among different emotions from content-free speech, created by filtering out frequencies above 300 cycles. He went on to study spectral measures of voice and to show that such measures could track day-to-day changes in the degree of depression in hospitalized patients. However, he is best known for his contributions to computer science in relation to psychology, teaching, and medicine.
Contributions to computer science
The 1950s were remarkable for the introduction of the stored-program computer. As Starkweather pursued his voice-quality research, he created a real-time pitch spectrum analyzer that could generate a 20-band pitch spectrum every two seconds from voice recordings. The quantitative analysis demands of such data plunged him into the use of the primitive computer resources available in the early 1960s.
Starkweather began to realize that he might contribute to computer software development beyond simply being an informed research user. At that time most of the academic attention to computer software focused on quantitative analysis. For example, UCLA was developing the Biomedical Computer Programs, the first reliable and comprehensive statistical analysis package. Starkweather foresaw that psychology, education, and medicine would also need ways for computers to deal with language content. He first developed a programming language called COMPUTEST to allow students and teachers to access teaching materials and examinations by computer, even though the computer hardware needed to accomplish this at the time filled half of a classroom.
As hardware became smaller, he developed the PILOT language (Programmed Inquiry, Learning Or Teaching) that made it easy for non-programmers to write sequences of machine-administered teaching or testing using the time-share terminals in use in 1970, and then microcomputers when they became available a decade later.
The National Library of Medicine adopted PILOT as its primary computer language for the dissemination and exchange of computer-based instructional materials in the health sciences, and used it for instructing medical librarians in using MEDLINE. Starkweather chaired a working group for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers from 1987 through 1991 that established standards for PILOT. The language was in active use for many years. However, the introduction of microcomputers also attracted capital to a budding software industry, and this ended the early period when most non-business software was created in universities; Starkweather thereafter turned his energy to administration.
In the 1960s, Starkweather was the logical person to develop a computer center for UCSF, which he led for 15 years until its operation was ready for a non-faculty administrator. In 1983, he became Academic Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, and made major contributions to departmental planning and advising junior faculty regarding faculty advancement. Starkweather held this position until his retirement in 1993.
Contributions to UCSF
UCSF is a health science campus with no undergraduate programs, and when Starkweather joined the faculty in 1955 there were no degree programs in psychology, although the Clinical Psychology Internship at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute was already well known. Starkweather was one of the founders of the Psychology Ph.D. program established at UCSF in 1961 and he chaired the program in its early years. Under the leadership of George Stone, this program was later transformed into the first health psychology Ph.D. program in the country. Starkweather led the creation in 1971 of the UCSF Ph.D. program in Medical Information Sciences, and chaired that program for nine years.
Civic contributions
Starkweather was also a civic leader in the Marin County community where he lived since 1956.
He served 12 years on his local school board and 20 years on the city of San Rafael planning commission.
He and his wife were active environmentalists in the area.
The Jean and John Starkweather Shoreline Park was named for the family in 2003.
In 2007 the John Starkweather Learning Center was named for him in an affordable housing community center in San Rafael.
Honors and awards
Starkweather was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science "for contributions to medical information systems and the application of computers to instruction, inquiry, and learning," and Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics "for contributions to the field of medical information science." During his career, he served in many university-wide and campus-wide leadership roles, including Chair of the UCSF Academic Senate. Several of his students became leaders in their fields, including the psychologists Paul Ekman, Rudolph Moos, the psychiatrists Donald Langsley, Kay Blacker, and the computer scientist Gio Wiederhold.
Death
Starkweather died March 10, 2001 at the age of 75 from complications of Parkinson's disease.
References
Further reading
1925 births
2001 deaths
American psychologists
Health informaticians
University of California, San Francisco faculty
Northwestern University alumni
People from San Rafael, California
20th-century psychologists
Programming language designers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Culture
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The Culture
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The Culture is a fictional interstellar post-scarcity civilisation or society created by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks and features in a number of his space opera novels and works of short fiction, collectively called the Culture series.
In the series, the Culture is composed primarily of sentient beings of the humanoid alien variety, artificially intelligent sentient machines, and a small number of other sentient "alien" life forms. Machine intelligences range from human-equivalent drones to hyper-intelligent Minds. Artificial intelligences with capabilities measured as a fraction of human intelligence also perform a variety of tasks, e.g. controlling spacesuits. Without scarcity, the Culture has no need for money, instead minds voluntarily indulge humanoid and drone citizens' pleasures, leading to a largely hedonistic society. Many of the series' protagonists are humanoids who choose to work for the Culture's elite diplomatic or espionage organisations, and interact with other civilisations whose citizens hold wildly different ideologies, morals, and technologies.
The Culture has a grasp of technology that is advanced relative to most other civilisations that share the galaxy. Most of the Culture's citizens do not live on planets but in artificial habitats such as orbitals and ships, the largest of which are home to billions of individuals. The Culture's citizens have been genetically enhanced to live for centuries and have modified mental control over their physiology, including the ability to introduce a variety of psychoactive drugs into their systems, change biological sex, or switch off pain at will. Culture technology can transform individuals into vastly different body forms, although the Culture standard form remains fairly close to human.
The Culture holds peace and individual freedom as core values, and a central theme of the series is ethical struggle it faces when interacting with other societies – some of which brutalise their own members, pose threats to other civilisations, or threaten the Culture itself. It tends to make major decisions based on the consensus formed by its Minds and, if appropriate, its citizens. In one instance, a direct democratic vote of trillions – the entire population – decided The Culture would go to war with a rival civilisation. Those who objected to the Culture's subsequent militarisation broke off from the meta-civilisation, forming their own separate civilisation; a hallmark of the Culture is its ambiguity. In contrast to the many interstellar societies and empires which share its fictional universe, the Culture is difficult to define, geographically or sociologically, and "fades out at the edges".
Overview
The Culture is characterized as being a post-scarcity society, having overcome most physical constraints on life and being an egalitarian, stable society without the use of any form of force or compulsion, except where necessary to protect others. That being said, some citizens and especially crafty Minds tend to enjoy manipulating others, in particular by controlling the course of alien societies, through the group known as contact.
Minds, extremely powerful artificial intelligences, have an important role. They administer this abundance for the benefit of all. As one commentator has said:
The novels of the Culture cycle, therefore, mostly deal with people at the fringes of the Culture: diplomats, spies, or mercenaries; those who interact with other civilisations, and who do the Culture's dirty work in moving those societies closer to the Culture ideal, sometimes by force.
Fictional history
In this fictional universe, the Culture exists concurrently with human society on Earth. The time frame for the published Culture stories is from 1267 to roughly 2970, with Earth being contacted around 2100, though the Culture had covertly visited the planet in the 1970s in The State of the Art.
The Culture itself is described as having been created when several humanoid species and machine sentiences reached a certain social level, and took not only their physical, but also their civilisational evolution into their own hands. In The Player of Games, the Culture is described as having existed as a space-faring society for eleven thousand years. In The Hydrogen Sonata, one of these founding civilisations was named as the Buhdren Federality.
Society and culture
Economy
The Culture is a symbiotic society of artificial intelligences (AIs) (Minds and drones), humanoids and other alien species who all share equal status. All essential work is performed (as far as possible) by non-sentient devices, freeing sentients to do only things that they enjoy (administrative work requiring sentience is undertaken by the AIs using a bare fraction of their mental power, or by people who take on the work out of free choice). As such, the Culture is a post-scarcity society, where technological advances ensure that no one lacks any material goods or services. Energy is farmed from a fictitious "energy grid", and matter to build orbitals is collected mostly from asteroids. As a consequence, the Culture has no need of economic constructs such as money (as is apparent when it deals with civilisations in which money is still important). The Culture rejects all forms of economics based on anything other than voluntary activity. "Money implies poverty" is a common saying in the Culture.
Language
Marain is the Culture's shared constructed language. The Culture believes the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis that language influences thought, and Marain was designed by early Minds to exploit this effect, while also "appealing to poets, pedants, engineers and programmers". Designed to be represented either in binary or symbol-written form, Marain is also regarded as an aesthetically pleasing language by the Culture. The symbols of the Marain alphabet can be displayed in three-by-three grids of binary (yes/no, black/white) dots and thus correspond to nine-bit wide binary numbers.
Related comments are made by the narrator in The Player of Games regarding gender-specific pronouns, which Marain speakers do not use in typical conversation unless specifying one's gender is necessary, and by general reflection on the fact that Marain places much less structural emphasis on (or even lacks) concepts like possession and ownership, dominance and submission, and especially aggression. Many of these concepts would in fact be somewhat theoretical to the average Culture citizen. Indeed, the presence of these concepts in other civilisations signify the brutality and hierarchy associated with forms of empire that the Culture strives to avoid.
Marain itself is also open to encryption and dialect-specific implementations for different parts of the Culture. M1 is basic Nonary Marain, the three-by-three grid. All Culture citizens can communicate in this variant. Other variants include M8 through M16, which are encrypted by various degrees, and are typically used by the Contact Section. Higher level encryptions exist, the highest of these being M32. M32 and lower level encrypted signals are the province of Special Circumstances (SC). Use of M32 is reserved for extremely secret and reserved information and communication within Special Circumstances. That said, M32 has an air of notoriety in the Culture, and in the thoughts of most may best be articulated as "the Unbreakable, Inviolable, Holy of Holies Special Circumstances M32" as described by prospective SC agent Ulver Seich. Ships and Minds also have a slightly distasteful view of SC procedure associated with M32, one Ship Mind going so far as to object to the standard SC attitude of "Full scale, stark raving M32 don't-talk-about-this-or-we'll-pull-your-plugs-out-baby paranoia" on the use of the encryption.
Laws
There are no laws as such in the Culture. Social norms are enforced by convention (personal reputation, "good manners", and by, as described in The Player of Games, possible ostracism and involuntary supervision for more serious crimes). Minds generally refrain from using their all-seeing capabilities to influence people's reputations, though they are not necessarily themselves above judging people based on such observations, as described in Excession. Minds also judge each other, with one of the more relevant criteria being the quality of their treatment of sentients in their care. Hub Minds for example are generally nominated from well-regarded GSV (the largest class of ships) Minds, and then upgraded to care for the billions living on the artificial habitats.
The only serious prohibitions that seem to exist are against harming sentient beings, or forcing them into undertaking any act (another concept that seems unnatural to and is, in fact, almost unheard of by almost all Culture citizens). As mentioned in The Player of Games, the Culture does have the occasional "crime of passion" (as described by an Azadian) and the punishment was to be "slap-droned", or to have a drone assigned to follow the offender and "make sure [they] don't do it again".
While the enforcement in theory could lead to a Big Brother-style surveillance society, in practice social convention among the Minds prohibits them from watching, or interfering in, citizens' lives unless requested, or unless they perceive severe risk. The practice of reading a sentient's mind without permission (something the Culture is technologically easily capable of) is also strictly taboo. The whole plot of Look to Windward relies on a Hub Mind not reading an agent's mind (with certain precautions in case this rule gets violated). Minds that do so anyway are considered deviant and shunned by other Minds (see GCU Grey Area). At one point it is said that if the Culture actually had written laws, the sanctity of one's own thoughts against the intrusion of others would be the first on the books.
This gives some measure of privacy and protection; though the very nature of Culture society would, strictly speaking, make keeping secrets irrelevant: most of them would be considered neither shameful nor criminal. It does allow the Minds in particular to scheme amongst themselves in a very efficient manner, and occasionally withhold information.
Symbols
The Culture has no flag, symbol or logo. According to Consider Phlebas, people can recognize items made by the Culture implicitly, by the way they are simple, efficient and aesthetic. The main outright symbol of the Culture, the one by which it is most explicitly and proudly recognized, is not a visual symbol, but its language, Marain, which is used far beyond the Culture itself. It is often employed in the galaxy as a de facto lingua franca among people who don't share a language. Even the main character of Consider Phlebas, an enemy of the Culture, ready to die to help in its downfall, is fluent in Marain and uses it with other non-Culture characters out of sheer convenience.
It would have helped if the Culture had used some sort of emblem or logo; but, pointlessly unhelpful and unrealistic to the last, the Culture refused to place its trust in symbols. It maintained that it was what it was and had no need for such outward representation. The Culture was every single individual human and machine in it, not one thing. Just as it could not imprison itself with laws, impoverish itself with money or misguide itself with leaders, so it would not misrepresent itself with signs.
Citizens
Biological
The Culture is a posthuman society, which originally arose when seven or eight roughly humanoid space-faring species coalesced into a quasi-collective (a group-civilisation) ultimately consisting of approximately thirty trillion (short scale) sentient (more properly, sapient) beings (this includes artificial intelligences). In Banks's universe, a good part (but by no means an overwhelming percentage) of all sentient species is of the "pan-human" type, as noted in Matter.
Although the Culture was originated by humanoid species, subsequent interactions with other civilisations have introduced many non-humanoid species into the Culture (including some former enemy civilisations), though the majority of the biological Culture is still pan-human. Little uniformity exists in the Culture, and its citizens are such by choice, free to change physical form and even species (though some stranger biological conversions are irreversible, and conversion from biological to artificial sentience is considered to be what is known as an Unusual Life Choice). All members are also free to join, leave, and rejoin, or indeed declare themselves to be, say, 80% Culture.
Within the novels, opponents of the Culture have argued that the role of humans in the Culture is nothing more than that of pets, or parasites on Culture Minds, and that they can have nothing genuinely useful to contribute to a society where science is close to omniscient about the physical universe, where every ailment has been cured, and where every thought can be read. Many of the Culture novels in fact contain characters (from within or without the Culture) wondering how far-reaching the Minds' dominance of the Culture is, and how much of the democratic process within it might in fact be a sham: subtly but very powerfully influenced by the Minds in much the same ways Contact and Special Circumstances influence other societies. Also, except for some mentions about a vote over the Idiran-Culture War, and the existence of a very small number of "Referrers" (humans of especially acute reasoning), few biological entities are ever described as being involved in any high-level decisions.
On the other hand, the Culture can be seen as fundamentally hedonistic (one of the main objectives for any being, including Minds, is to have fun rather than to be "useful"). Also, Minds are constructed, by convention, to care for and value human beings. While a General Contact Unit (GCU) does not strictly need a crew (and could construct artificial avatars when it did), a real human crew adds richness to its existence, and offers distraction during otherwise dull periods. In Consider Phlebas it is noted that Minds still find humans fascinating, especially their odd ability to sometimes achieve similarly advanced reasoning as their much more complex machine brains.
To a large degree, the freedoms enjoyed by humans in the Culture are only available because Minds choose to provide them. The freedoms include the ability to leave the Culture when desired, often forming new associated but separate societies with Culture ships and Minds, most notably the Zetetic Elench and the ultra-pacifist and non-interventionist Peace Faction.
Physiology
Techniques in genetics have advanced in the Culture to the point where bodies can be freed from built-in limitations. Citizens of the Culture refer to a normal human as "human-basic" and the vast majority opt for significant enhancements: severed limbs grow back, sexual physiology can be voluntarily changed from male to female and back (though the process takes time), sexual stimulation and endurance are strongly heightened in both sexes (something that is often the subject of envious debate among other species), pain can be switched off, toxins can be bypassed away from the digestive system, autonomic functions such as heart rate can be switched to conscious control, reflexes like blinking can be switched off, and bones and muscles adapt quickly to changes in gravity without the need to exercise. The degree of enhancement found in Culture individuals varies to taste, with certain of the more exotic enhancements limited to Special Circumstances personnel (for example, weapons systems embedded in various parts of the body).
Most Culture individuals opt to have drug glands that allow for hormonal levels and other chemical secretions to be consciously monitored, released and controlled. These allow owners to secrete on command any of a wide selection of synthetic drugs, from the merely relaxing to the mind-altering: "Snap" is described in Use of Weapons and The Player of Games as "The Culture's favourite breakfast drug". "Sharp Blue" is described as a utility drug, as opposed to a sensory enhancer or a sexual stimulant, that helps in problem solving. "Quicken", mentioned in Excession, speeds up the user's neural processes so that time seems to slow down, allowing them to think and have mental conversation (for example with artificial intelligences) in far less time than it appears to take to the outside observer. "Sperk", as described in Matter, is a mood- and energy-enhancing drug, while other such self-produced drugs include "Calm", "Gain", "Charge", "Recall", "Diffuse", "Somnabsolute", "Softnow", "Focal", "Edge", "Drill", "Gung", "Winnow" and "Crystal Fugue State". The glanded substances have no permanent side-effects and are non-habit-forming.
Phenotypes
For all their genetic improvements, the Culture is by no means eugenically uniform. Human members in the Culture setting vary in size, colour and shape as in reality, and with possibly even further natural differences: in the novella The State of the Art, it is mentioned that a character "looks like a Yeti", and that there is variance among the Culture in minor details such as the number of toes or of joints on each finger. It is mentioned in Excession that:
Some Culture citizens opt to leave the constraints of a human or even humanoid body altogether, opting to take on the appearance of one of the myriad other galactic sentients (perhaps in order to live with them) or even non-sentient objects as commented upon in Matter (though this process can be irreversible if the desired form is too removed from the structure of the human brain). Certain eccentrics have chosen to become drones or even Minds themselves, though this is considered rude and possibly even insulting by most humans and AIs alike.
While the Culture is generally pan-humanoid (and tends to call itself "human"), various other species and individuals of other species have become part of the Culture.
As all Culture citizens are of perfect genetic health, the very rare cases of a Culture citizen showing any physical deformity are almost certain to be a sort of fashion statement of somewhat dubious taste.
Personality
Almost all Culture citizens are very sociable, of great intellectual capability and learning, and possess very well-balanced psyches. Their biological make-up and their growing up in an enlightened society make neuroses and lesser emotions like greed or (strong) jealousy practically unknown, and produce persons that, in any lesser society, appear very self-composed and charismatic. Character traits like strong shyness, while very rare, are not fully unknown, as shown in Excession. As described there and in Player of Games, a Culture citizen who becomes dysfunctional enough to pose a serious nuisance or threat to others would be offered (voluntary) psychological adjustment therapy and might potentially find himself under constant (non-voluntary) oversight by representatives of the local Mind. In extreme cases, as described in Use of Weapons and Surface Detail, dangerous individuals have been known to be assigned a "slap-drone", a robotic follower who ensures that the person in question doesn't continue to endanger the safety of others.
Artificial
As well as humans and other biological species, sentient artificial intelligences are also members of the Culture. These can be broadly categorised into drones and Minds. Also, by custom, as described in Excession, any artefact (be it a tool or vessel) above a certain capability level has to be given sentience.
Drones
Drones are roughly comparable in intelligence and social status to that of the Culture's biological members. Their intelligence is measured against that of an average biological member of the Culture; a so-called "1.0 value" drone would be considered the mental equal of a biological citizen, whereas lesser drones such as the menial service units of Orbitals are merely proto-sentient (capable of limited reaction to unprogrammed events, but possessing no consciousness, and thus not considered citizens; these take care of much of the menial work in the Culture). The sentience of advanced drones has various levels of redundancy, from systems similar to that of Minds (though much reduced in capability) down to electronic, to mechanical and finally biochemical back-up brains.
Although drones are artificial, the parameters that prescribe their minds are not rigidly constrained, and sentient drones are full individuals, with their own personalities, opinions and quirks. Like biological citizens, Culture drones generally have lengthy names. They also have a form of sexual intercourse for pleasure, called being "in thrall", though this is an intellect-only interfacing with another sympathetic drone.
While civilian drones do generally match humans in intelligence, drones built especially as Contact or Special Circumstances agents are often several times more intelligent, and imbued with extremely powerful senses, powers and armaments (usually forcefield and effector-based, though occasionally more destructive weaponry such as lasers or, exceptionally, "knife-missiles" are referred to) all powered by antimatter reactors. Despite being purpose-built, these drones are still allowed individual personalities and given a choice in lifestyle. Indeed, some are eventually deemed psychologically unsuitable as agents (for example as Mawhrin-Skel notes about itself in The Player of Games) and must choose either mental reprofiling or demilitarisation and discharge from Special Circumstances.
Physically, drones are floating units of various sizes and shapes, usually with no visible moving parts. Drones get around the limitations of this inanimation with the ability to project "fields": both those capable of physical force, which allow them to manipulate objects, as well as visible, coloured fields called "auras", which are used to enable the drone to express emotion. There is a complex drone code based on aura colours and patterns (which is fully understood by biological Culture citizens as well). Drones have full control of their auras and can display emotions they're not feeling or can switch their aura off. The drone, Jase, in Consider Phlebas, is described as being constructed before the use of auras, and refuses to be retrofitted with them, preferring to remain inscrutable.
In size drones vary substantially: the oldest still alive (eight or nine thousand years old) tend to be around the size of humans, whereas later technology allows drones to be small enough to lie in a human's cupped palm; modern drones may be any size between these extremes according to fashion and personal preference. Some drones are also designed as utility equipment with its own sentience, such as the gelfield protective suit described in Excession.
Minds
By contrast to drones, Minds are orders of magnitude more powerful and intelligent than the Culture's other biological and artificial citizens. Typically they inhabit and act as the controllers of large-scale Culture hardware such as ships or space-based habitats. Unsurprisingly, given their duties, Minds are tremendously powerful: capable of running all of the functions of a ship or habitat, while holding potentially billions of simultaneous conversations with the citizens that live aboard them. To allow them to perform at such a high degree, they exist partially in hyperspace to get around hindrances to computing power such as the speed of light.
In Iain M. Banks's Culture series, most larger starships, some inhabited planets and all orbitals have their own Minds: sapient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species, which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original creators. According to Consider Phlebas, a Mind is an ellipsoid object roughly the size of a bus and weighing around tons. A Mind is in fact a entity, meaning that the ellipsoid is only the protrusion of the larger four dimensional device into our 'real space'.
In the Culture universe, Minds have become an indispensable part of the prevailing society, enabling much of its post-scarcity amenities by planning and automating societal functions, and by handling day-to-day administration with mere fractions of their mental power.
The main difference between Minds and other extremely powerful artificial intelligences in fiction is that they are highly humanistic and benevolent. They are so both by design, and by their shared culture. They are often even rather eccentric. Yet, by and large, they show no wish to supplant or dominate their erstwhile creators.
On the other hand, it can also be argued that to the Minds, the human-like members of the Culture amount to little more than pets, whose wants are followed on a Mind's whim. Within the Series, this dynamic is played on more than once. In 'Excession', it is also played on to put a Mind in its place—in the mythology, a Mind is not thought to be a god, still, but an artificial intelligence capable of surprise, and even fear.
Although the Culture is a type of utopian anarchy, Minds most closely approach the status of leaders, and would likely be considered godlike in less rational societies. As independent, thinking beings, each has its own character, and indeed, legally (insofar as the Culture has a 'legal system'), each is a Culture citizen. Some Minds are more aggressive, some more calm; some don't mind mischief, others simply demonstrate intellectual curiosity. But above all they tend to behave rationally and benevolently in their decisions.
As mentioned before, Minds can serve several different purposes, but Culture ships and habitats have one special attribute: the Mind and the ship or habitat are perceived as one entity; in some ways the Mind is the ship, certainly from its passengers' point of view. It seems normal practice to address the ship's Mind as "Ship" (and an Orbital hub as "Hub"). However, a Mind can transfer its 'mind state' into and out of its ship 'body', and even switch roles entirely, becoming (for example) an Orbital Hub from a warship.
More often than not, the Mind's character defines the ship's purpose. Minds do not end up in roles unsuited to them; an antisocial Mind simply would not volunteer to organise the care of thousands of humans, for example.
On occasion groupings of two or three Minds may run a ship. This seems normal practice for larger vehicles such as s, though smaller ships only ever seem to have one Mind.
Banks also hints at a Mind's personality becoming defined at least partially before its creation or 'birth'. Warships, as an example, are designed to revel in controlled destruction; seeing a certain glory in achieving a 'worthwhile' death also seems characteristic. The presence of human crews on board warships may discourage such recklessness, since in the normal course of things, a Mind would not risk beings other than itself.
With their almost godlike powers of reasoning and action comes a temptation to bend (or break) Cultural norms of ethical behaviour, if deemed necessary for some greater good. In The Player of Games, a Culture citizen is blackmailed, apparently by Special Circumstances Minds, into assisting the overthrow of a barbaric empire, while in Excession, a conspiracy by some Minds to start a war against an oppressive alien race nearly comes to fruition. Yet even in these rare cases, the essentially benevolent intentions of Minds towards other Culture citizens is never in question. More than any other beings in the Culture, Minds are the ones faced with more the complex and provocative ethical dilemmas.
While Minds would likely have different capabilities, especially seeing their widely differing ages (and thus technological sophistication), this is not a theme of the books. It might be speculated that the older Minds are upgraded to keep in step with the advances in technology, thus making this point moot. It is also noted in Matter that every Culture Mind writes its own , thus continually improving itself and, as a side benefit, becoming much less vulnerable to outside takeover by electronic means and viruses, as every Mind's processing functions work differently.
The high computing power of the Mind is apparently enabled by thought processes (and electronics) being constantly in hyperspace (thus circumventing the light speed limit in computation). Minds do have back-up capabilities functioning with light-speed if the hyperspace capabilities fail - however, this reduces their computational powers by several orders of magnitude (though they remain sentient).
The storage capability of a GSV Mind is described in Consider Phlebas as 1030 bytes (1 million yottabytes).
The Culture is a society undergoing slow (by present-day Earth standards) but constant technological change, so the stated capacity of Minds is open to change. In the last 3000 years the capacity of Minds has increased considerably. By the time of the events of the novel Excession in the mid 19th century, Minds from the first millennium are referred to jocularly as minds, with a small 'm'. Their capacities only allows them to be considered equivalent to what are now known as Cores, small (in the literal physical sense) Artificial intelligences used in shuttles, trans-light modules, Drones, and other machines not large enough for a full scale Mind. While still considered sentient, a mind's power at this point is considered greatly inferior to a contemporary Mind. That said, It is possible for Minds to have upgrades, improvements and enhancements given to them since construction, to allow them to remain up to date.
Using the sensory equipment available to the Culture, Minds can see inside solid objects; in principle they can also read minds by examining the cellular processes inside a living brain, but Culture Minds regard such mindreading as taboo. The only known Mind to break this Taboo, the Grey Area seen in Excession, is largely ostracized and shunned by other Minds as a result. In Look to Windward an example is cited of an attempt to destroy a Culture Mind by smuggling a minuscule antimatter bomb onto a Culture orbital inside the head of a Chelgrian agent. However the bomb ends up being spotted without the taboo being broken.
In Consider Phlebas, a typical Mind is described as a mirror-like ellipsoid of several dozen cubic metres, but weighing many thousands of tons, due to the fact that it is made up of hyper-dense matter. It is noted that most of its 'body' only exists in the real world at the outer shell, the inner workings staying constantly within hyperspace.
The Mind in Consider Phlebas is also described as having internal power sources which function as back-up shield generators and space propulsion, and seeing the rational, safety-conscious thinking of Minds, it would be reasonable to assume that all Minds have such features, as well as a complement of drones and other remote sensors as also described.
Other equipment available to them spans the whole range of the Culture's technological capabilities and its practically limitless resources. However, this equipment would more correctly be considered emplaced in the ship or orbital that the Mind is controlling, rather than being part of the Mind itself.
Minds are constructed entities, which have general parameters fixed by their constructors (other Minds) before 'birth', not unlike biological beings. A wide variety of characteristics can be and are manipulated, such as introversion-extroversion, aggressiveness (for warships) or general disposition.
However, the character of a Mind evolves as well, and Minds often change over the course of centuries, sometimes changing personality entirely. This is often followed by them becoming eccentric or at least somewhat odd. Others drift from the Culture-accepted ethical norms, and may even start influencing their own society in subtle ways, selfishly furthering their own views of how the Culture should act.
Minds have also been known to commit suicide to escape punishment, or because of grief.
Minds are constructed with a personality typical of the Culture's interests, i.e. full of curiosity, general benevolence (expressed in the 'good works' actions of the Culture, or in the protectiveness regarding sentient beings) and respect for the Culture's customs.
Nonetheless, Minds have their own interests in addition to what their peers expect them to do for the Culture, and may develop fascinations or hobbies like other sentient beings do.
The mental capabilities of Minds are described in Excession to be vast enough to run entire universe-simulations inside their own imaginations, exploring metamathical (a fictional branch of metamathematics) scenarios, an activity addictive enough to cause some Minds to totally withdraw from caring about our own physical reality into "Infinite Fun Space", their own, ironic and understated term for this sort of activity.
One of the main activities of Ship Minds is the guidance of spaceships from a certain minimum size upwards. A culture spaceship is the Mind and vice versa; there are no different names for the two, and a spaceship without a Mind would be considered damaged or incomplete to the Culture.
Ship Mind classes include General Systems Vehicle (GSV), Medium Systems Vehicle (), Limited Systems Vehicle (), General Contact Vehicle (), General Contact Unit (GCU), Limited Contact Unit (), Rapid Offensive Unit (), General Offensive Unit (), Limited Offensive Unit (), Demilitarised ROU (), Demilitarised GOU (), Demilitarised LOU (), Very Fast Picket (–synonym for dROU), Fast Picket (–synonym for dGOU or dLOU), and Superlifter.
These ships provide a convenient 'body' for a Mind, which is too large and too important to be contained within smaller, more fragile shells. Following the 'body' analogy, it also provides the Mind with the capability of physical movement. As Minds are living beings with curiosity, emotion and wishes of their own, such mobility is likely very important to most.
Culture Minds (mostly also being ships) usually give themselves whimsical names, though these often hint at their function as well. Even the names of warships retain this humorous approach, though the implications are much darker.
Some Minds also take on functions which either preclude or discourage movement. These usually administer various types of Culture facilities:
Orbital Hubs – A Culture Orbital is a smaller version of a ringworld, with large numbers of people living on the inside surface of them, in a planet-like environment.
Rocks – Minds in charge of planetoid-like structures, built/accreted, mostly from the earliest times of the Culture before it moved into space-built orbitals.
Stores – Minds of a quiet temperament run these asteroids, containing vast hangars, full of mothballed military ships or other equipment. Some 'Rocks' also act as 'Stores'.
University Sages – Minds that run Culture universities / schools, a very important function as every Culture citizen has an extensive education and further learning is considered one of the most important reasons for life in the Culture.
Eccentric – Culture Minds who have become "... a bit odd" (as compared to the very rational standards of other Culture Minds). Existing at the fringe of the Culture, they can be considered (and consider themselves) as somewhat, but not wholly part of the Culture.
Sabbaticaler – Culture Minds who have decided to abdicate from their peer-pressure based duties in the Culture for a time.
Ulterior – Minds of the Culture Ulterior, an umbrella term for all the no-longer-quite-Culture factions.
Converts – Minds (or sentient computers) from other societies who have chosen to join the Culture.
Absconder – Minds who have completely left the Culture, especially when in doing so having deserted some form of task.
Deranged – A more extreme version of Eccentric as implied in The Hydrogen Sonata
Minds (and, as a consequence, Culture starships) usually bear names that do a little more than just identify them. The Minds themselves choose their own names, and thus they usually express something about a particular Mind's attitude, character or aims in their personal life. They range from funny to just plain cryptic. Some examples are:
Sanctioned Parts List – a habitation / factory ship
So Much For Subtlety – a habitation / factory ship
All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff – a warship
Attitude Adjuster – a warship
Of Course I Still Love You – an ambassador ship
Funny, It Worked Last Time... – an ambassador ship
Names
Some humanoid or drone Culture citizens have long names, often with seven or more words. Some of these words specify the citizen's origin (place of birth or manufacture), some an occupation, and some may denote specific philosophical or political alignments (chosen later in life by the citizen themselves), or make other similarly personal statements. An example would be Diziet Sma, whose full name is Rasd-Coduresa Diziet Embless Sma da' Marenhide:
Rasd-Coduresa is the planetary system of her birth, and the specific object (planet, orbital, Dyson sphere, etc.). The -sa suffix is roughly equivalent to -er in English. By this convention, Earth humans would all be named Sun-Earthsa (or Sun-Earther).
Diziet is her given name. This is chosen by a parent, usually the mother.
Embless is her chosen name. Most Culture citizens choose this when they reach adulthood (according to The Player of Games this is known as "completing one's name"). As with all conventions in the Culture, it may be broken or ignored: some change their chosen name during their lives, some never take one.
Sma is her surname, usually taken from one's mother.
da' Marenhide is the house or estate she was raised within, the da or dam being similar to von in German. (The usual formation is dam; da is used in Sma's name because the house name begins with an M, eliding an awkward phoneme repetition.)
Iain Banks gave his own Culture name as "Sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry".
Death
The Culture has a relatively relaxed attitude towards death. Genetic manipulation and the continual benevolent surveillance of the Minds make natural or accidental death almost unknown. Advanced technology allows citizens to make backup copies of their personalities, allowing them to be resurrected in case of death. The form of that resurrection can be specified by the citizen, with personalities returning either in the same biological form, in an artificial form (see below), or even just within virtual reality. Some citizens choose to go into "storage" (a form of suspended animation) for long periods of time, out of boredom or curiosity about the future.
Attitudes individual citizens have towards death are varied (and have varied throughout the Culture's history). While many, if not most, citizens make some use of backup technology, many others do not, preferring instead to risk death without the possibility of recovery (for example when engaging in extreme sports). These citizens are sometimes called "disposables", and are described in Look to Windward. Taking into account such accidents, voluntary euthanasia for emotional reasons, or choices like sublimation, the average lifespan of humans is described in Excession as being around 350 to 400 years. Some citizens choose to forgo death altogether, although this is rarely done and is viewed as an eccentricity. Other options instead of death include conversion of an individual's consciousness into an AI, joining of a group mind (which can include biological and non-biological consciousnesses), or subliming (usually in association with a group mind).
Concerning the lifespan of drones and Minds, given the durability of Culture technology and the options of mindstate backups, it is reasonable to assume that they live as long as they choose. Even Minds, with their utmost complexity, are known to be backed up (and reactivated if they for example die in a risky mission, see GSV Lasting Damage). It is noted that even Minds themselves do not necessarily live forever either, often choosing to eventually sublime or even killing themselves (as does the double-Mind GSV Lasting Damage due to its choices in the Culture-Idiran war).
Science and technology
Anti-gravity and forcefields
The Culture (and other societies) have developed powerful anti-gravity abilities, closely related to their ability to manipulate forces themselves.
In this ability they can create action-at-a-distance – including forces capable of pushing, pulling, cutting, and even fine manipulation, and forcefields for protection, visual display or plain destructive ability. Such applications still retain restrictions on range and power: while forcefields of many cubic kilometres are possible (and in fact, orbitals are held together by forcefields), even in the chronologically later novels, such as Look to Windward, spaceships are still used for long-distance travel and drones for many remote activities.
With the control of a Mind, fields can be manipulated over vast distances. In Use of Weapons, a Culture warship uses its electromagnetic effectors to hack into a computer light years away.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligences (and to a lesser degree, the non-sentient computers omnipresent in all material goods), form the backbone of the technological advances of the Culture. Not only are they the most advanced scientists and designers the Culture has, their lesser functions also oversee the vast (but usually hidden) production and maintenance capabilities of the society.
The Culture has achieved artificial intelligences where each Mind has thought processing capabilities many orders of magnitude beyond that of human beings, and data storage drives which, if written out on paper and stored in filing cabinets, would cover thousands of planets skyscraper high (as described by one Mind in Consider Phlebas). Yet it has managed to condense these entities to a volume of several dozen cubic metres (though much of the contents and the operating structure are continually in hyperspace). Minds also demonstrate reaction times and multitasking abilities orders of magnitude greater than any sentient being; armed engagements between Culture and equivalent technological civilisations sometimes occur in timeframes as short as microseconds, and standard Orbital Minds are capable of running all of the vital systems on the Orbital while simultaneously conversing with millions of the inhabitants and observing phenomena in the surrounding regions of space.
At the same time, it has achieved drone sentiences and capability of Special Circumstance proportions in forms that could fit easily within a human hand, and built extremely powerful (though not sentient) computers capable of fitting into tiny insect-like drones. Some utilitarian devices (such as spacesuits) are also provided with artificial sentience. These specific types of drones, like all other Culture AI, would also be considered citizens - though as described in the short story "Descendant", they may spend most of the time when their "body" is not in use in a form of remote-linked existence outside of it, or in a form of AI-level virtual reality.
Energy manipulation
A major feature of its post-scarcity society, the Culture is obviously able to gather, manipulate, transfer and store vast amounts of energy. While not explained in detail in the novels, this involves antimatter and the "energy grid", a postulated energy field dividing the universe from neighboring anti-matter universes, and providing practically limitless energy. Transmission or storage of such energy is not explained, though these capabilities must be powerful as well, with tiny drones capable of very powerful manipulatory fields and forces.
The Culture also uses various forms of energy manipulation as weapons, with "gridfire", a method of creating a dimensional rift to the energy grid, releasing astronomical amounts of energy into a region of non-hyperspace, being described as a sort of ultimate weapon more destructive than collapsed antimatter bombardment. One character in Consider Phlebas refers to gridfire as "the weaponry of the end of the universe". Gridfire resembles the zero-point energy used within many popular science fiction stories.
Matter displacement
The Culture (at least by the time of The Player of Games) has developed a form of teleportation capable of transporting both living and unliving matter instantaneously via wormholes. This technology has not rendered spacecraft obsolete – in Excession a barely apple-sized drone was displaced no further than a light-second at maximum range (mass being a limiting factor determining range), a tiny distance in galactic terms. The process also still has a very small chance of failing and killing living beings, but the chance is described as being so small (1 in 61 million) that it normally only becomes an issue when transporting a large number of people and is only regularly brought up due to the Culture's safety conscious nature.
Displacement is an integral part of Culture technology, being widely used for a range of applications from peaceful to belligerent. Displacing warheads into or around targets is one of the main forms of attack in space warfare in the Culture universe. The Player of Games mentions that drones can be displaced to catch a person falling from a cliff before they impact the ground, as well.
Brain–computer interfaces
Through "neural lace", a form of brain–computer interface that is implanted into the brains of young people and grows with them, the Culture has the capability to read and store the full sentience of any being, biological or artificial, and thus reactivate a stored being after its death. The neural lace also allows wireless communication with the Minds and databases. This also necessitates the capability to read thoughts, but as described in Look to Windward, doing this without permission is considered taboo.
Starships and warp drives
Starships are living spaces, vehicles and ambassadors of the Culture. A proper Culture starship (as defined by hyperspace capability and the presence of a Mind to inhabit it) may range from several hundreds of metres to hundreds of kilometres. The latter may be inhabited by billions of beings and are artificial worlds in their own right, including whole ecosystems, and are considered to be self-contained representations of all aspects of Culture life and capability.
The Culture (and most other space-faring species in its universe) use a form of Hyperspace-drive to achieve faster-than-light speeds. Banks has evolved a (self-confessedly) technobabble system of theoretical physics to describe the ships' acceleration and travel, using such concepts as "infraspace" and "ultraspace" and an "energy grid" between universes (from which the warp engines "push off" to achieve momentum). An "induced singularity" is used to access infra or ultra space from real space; once there, "engine fields" reach down to the Grid and gain power and traction from it as they travel at high speeds.
These hyperspace engines do not use reaction mass and hence do not need to be mounted on the surface of the ship. They are described as being very dense exotic matter, which only reveals its complexity under a powerful microscope. Acceleration and maximum speed depend on the ratio of the mass of the ship to its engine mass. As with any other matter aboard, ships can gradually manufacture extra engine volume or break it down as needed. In Excession one of the largest ships of the Culture redesigns itself to be mostly engine and reaches a speed of 233,000 times lightspeed. Within the range of the Culture's influence in the galaxy, most ships would still take years of travelling to reach the more remote spots.
Other than the engines used by larger Culture ships, there are a number of other propulsion methods such as gravitic drive at sublight speeds, with antimatter, fusion and other reaction engines occasionally seen with less advanced civilisations, or on Culture hobby craft.
Warp engines can be very small, with Culture drones barely larger than fist-size described as being thus equipped. There is also at least one (apparently non-sentient) species (the "Chuy-Hirtsi" animal), that possesses the innate capability of warp travel. In Consider Phlebas, it is being used as a military transport by the Idirans, but no further details are given.
Nanotechnology
The Culture has highly advanced nanotechnology, though descriptions of such technology in the books is limited. Many of the described uses are by or for Special Circumstances, but there are no indications that the use of nanotechnology is limited in any way. (In a passage in one of the books, there is a brief reference to the question of sentience when comparing the human brain or a "pico-level substrate".)
One of the primary clandestine uses of nanotechnology is information gathering. The Culture likes to be in the know, and as described in Matter "they tend to know everything." Aside from its vast network of sympathetic allies and wandering Culture citizens one of the primary ways that the Culture keeps track of important events is by the use of practically invisible nanobots capable of recording and transmitting their observations. This technique is described as being especially useful to track potentially dangerous people (such as ex-Special Circumstance agents). Via such nanotechnology, it is potentially possible for the Culture (or similarly advanced societies) to see everything happening on a given planet, orbital or any other habitat. The usage of such devices is limited by various treaties and agreements among the Involved.
In addition, EDust assassins are potent Culture terror weapons, composed entirely of nano machines called EDust, or "Everything Dust." They are capable of taking almost any shape or form, including swarms of insects or entire humans or aliens, and possess powerful weaponry capable of levelling entire buildings.
Living space
Much of the Culture's population lives on orbitals, vast artificial worlds that can accommodate billions of people. Others travel the galaxy in huge space ships such as General Systems Vehicles (GSVs) that can accommodate hundreds of millions of people. Almost no Culture citizens are described as living on planets, except when visiting other civilisations. The reason for this is partly because the Culture believes in containing its own expansion to self-constructed habitats, instead of colonising or conquering new planets. With the resources of the universe allowing permanent expansion (at least assuming non-exponential growth), this frees them from having to compete for living space.
The Culture, and other civilisations in Banks' universe, are described as living in these various, often constructed habitats:
Airspheres
These are vast, brown dwarf-sized bubbles of atmosphere enclosed by force fields, and (presumably) set up by an ancient advanced race at least one and a half billion years ago (see: Look to Windward). There is only minimal gravity within an airsphere. They are illuminated by moon-sized orbiting planetoids that emit enormous light beams.
Citizens of the Culture live there only very occasionally as guests, usually to study the complex ecosystem of the airspheres and the dominant life-forms: the "dirigible behemothaurs" and "gigalithine lenticular entities", which may be described as inscrutable, ancient intelligences looking similar to a cross between gigantic blimps and whales. The airspheres slowly migrate around the galaxy, taking anywhere from 50 to 100 million years to complete one circuit. In the novels no one knows who created the airspheres or why, but it is presumed that whoever did has long since sublimed but may maintain some obscure link with the behemothaurs and lenticular entities. Guests in the airspheres are not allowed to use any force-field technology, though no reason has been offered for this prohibition.
The airspheres resemble in some respects the orbit-sized ring of breathable atmosphere created by Larry Niven in The Integral Trees, but spherical not toroidal, require a force field to retain their integrity, and arose by artificial rather than natural processes.
Orbitals
One of the main types of habitats of the Culture, an orbital is a ring structure orbiting a star as would a megastructure akin to a bigger Bishop ring. Unlike a Ringworld or a Dyson Sphere, an orbital does not enclose the star (being much too small). Like a ringworld, the orbital rotates to provide an analog of gravity on the inner surface. A Culture orbital rotates about once every 24 hours and has gravity-like effect about the same as the gravity of Earth, making the diameter of the ring about , and ensuring that the inhabitants experience night and day. Orbitals feature prominently in many Culture stories.
Planets
Though many other civilisations in the Culture books live on planets, the Culture as currently developed has little direct connection to on-planet existence. Banks has written that he presumes this to be an inherent consequence of space colonisation, and a foundation of the liberal nature of the Culture. A small number of home worlds of the founding member-species of the Culture receive a mention in passing, and a few hundred human-habitable worlds were colonised (some of them terraformed) before the Culture elected to turn towards artificial habitats, preferring to keep the planets it encounters wild. Since then, the Culture has come to look down on terraforming as inelegant, ecologically problematic and possibly even immoral. Less than one percent of the population of the Culture lives on planets, and many find the very concept somewhat bizarre.
This attitude is not absolute though; in Consider Phlebas, some Minds suggest testing a new technology on a "spare planet" (knowing that it could be destroyed in an antimatter explosion if unsuccessful). One could assume – from Minds' usual ethics – that such a planet would have been lifeless to start with. It is also quite possible, even probable, that the suggestion was not made in complete seriousness.
Rings
Ringworld-like megastructures exist in the Culture universe; the texts refer to them simply as "Rings" (with a capital R). As opposed to the smaller orbitals which revolve around a star, these structures are massive and completely encircle a star. Banks does not describe these habitats in detail, but records one as having been destroyed (along with three Spheres) in the Idiran-Culture war. In Matter, the Morthanveld people possesses ringworld-like structures made of innumerable various-sized tubes. Those structures, like Niven's Ringworld, encircle a star and are about the same size.
Rocks
These are asteroids and other non-planetary bodies hollowed out for habitation and usually spun for centrifugal artificial gravity. Rocks (with the exception of those used for secretive purposes) are described as having faster-than-light space drives, and thus can be considered a special form of spaceship. Like Orbitals, they are usually administered by one or more Minds.
Rocks do not play a large part in most of the Culture stories, though their use as storage for mothballed military ships (Pittance) and habitats (Phage Rock, one of the founding communities of the Culture) are both key plot points in Excession.
Shellworlds
Shellworlds are introduced in Matter, and consist of multilayered levels of concentric spheres in four dimensions held up by countless titanic interior towers. Their extra dimensional characteristics render some products of Culture technology too dangerous to use and yet others ineffective, notably access to hyperspace. About 4000 were built millions of years ago as vast machines intended to cast a forcefield around the whole of the galaxy for unknown purposes; less than half of those remain at the time of Matter, many having been destroyed by a departed species known as the Iln. The species that developed this technology, known as the Veil or the Involucra, are now lost, and many of the remaining shellworlds have become inhabited, often by many different species throughout their varying levels. Many still hold deadly secret defence mechanisms, often leading to great danger for their new inhabitants, giving them one of their other nicknames: Slaughter Worlds.
Ships
Ships in the Culture are intelligent individuals, often of very large size, controlled by one or more Minds. The ship is considered by the Culture generally and the Mind itself to be the Mind's body (compare avatars). Some ships (GSVs, for example) are tens or even hundreds of kilometres in length and may have millions or even billions of residents who live on them full-time; together with Orbitals, such ships represent the main form of habitat for the Culture. Such large ships may temporarily contain smaller ships with their own populations, and/or manufacture such ships themselves.
In Use of Weapons, the protagonist Zakalwe is allowed to acclimatise himself to the Culture by wandering for days through the habitable levels of a ship (the GSV Size Isn't Everything, which is described as over long), eating and sleeping at the many locations which provide food and accommodation throughout the structure and enjoying the various forms of contact possible with the friendly and accommodating inhabitants.
Spheres
Dyson spheres also exist in the Culture universe but receive only passing mention as "Spheres". Three spheres are recorded as having been destroyed in the Idiran-Culture war.
Interaction with other civilisations
The Culture, living mostly on massive spaceships and in artificial habitats, and also feeling no need for conquest in the typical sense of the word, possesses no borders. Its sphere of influence is better defined by the (current) concentration of Culture ships and habitats as well as the measure of effect its example and its interventions have already had on the "local" population of any galactic sector. As the Culture is also a very graduated and constantly evolving society, its societal boundaries are also constantly in flux (though they tend to be continually expanding during the novels), peacefully "absorbing" societies and individuals.
While the Culture is one of the most advanced and most powerful of all galactic civilisations, it is but one of the "high-level Involved" (called "Optimae" by some less advanced civilisations), the most powerful non-sublimed civilisations which mentor or control the others.
An Involved society is a highly advanced group that has achieved galaxy-wide involvement with other cultures or societies. There are a few dozen Involved societies and hundreds or thousands of well-developed (interstellar) but insufficiently influential societies or cultures; there are also well-developed societies known as "galactically mature" which do not take a dynamic role in the galaxy as a whole. In the novels, the Culture might be considered the premier Involved society, or at least the most dynamic and energetic, especially given that the Culture itself is a growing multicultural fusion of Involved societies. The Involved are contrasted with the Sublimed, groups that have reached a high level of technical development and galactic influence but subsequently abandoned physical reality, ceasing to take serious interventionist interest in galactic civilisation. They are also contrasted with what some Culture people loosely refer to as "barbarians", societies of intelligent beings which lack the technical capacity to know about or take a serious role in their interstellar neighbourhood. There are also the elder civilisations, which are civilisations that reached the required level of technology for sublimation, but chose not to, and have retreated from the larger galactic meta-civilisation.
The Involved are also contrasted with hegemonising swarms (a term used in several of Banks' Culture novels). These are entities that exist to convert as much of the universe as possible into more of themselves; most typically these are technological in nature, resembling more sophisticated forms of grey goo, but the term can be applied to cultures that are sufficiently single-minded in their devotion to mass conquest, control, and colonisation. Both the Culture and the author (in his Notes on the Culture) find this behaviour quixotic and ridiculous. Most often, societies categorised as hegemonising swarms consist of species or groups newly arrived in the galactic community with highly expansionary and exploitative goals. The usage of the term "hegemonising swarm" in this context is considered derisive in the Culture and among other Involved and is used to indicate their low regard for those with these ambitions by comparing their behaviour to that of mindless self-replicating technology. The Culture's central moral dilemma regarding intervention in other societies can be construed as a conflict between the desire to help others and the desire to avoid becoming a hegemonising swarm themselves.
Foreign policy
Although they lead a comfortable life within the Culture, many of its citizens feel a need to be useful and to belong to a society that does not merely exist for their own sake but that also helps improve the lot of sentient beings throughout the galaxy. For that reason the Culture carries out "good works", covertly or overtly interfering in the development of lesser civilisations, with the main aim to gradually guide them towards less damaging paths. As Culture citizens see it these good works provide the Culture with a "moral right to exist".
A group within the Culture, known as Contact, is responsible for its interactions (diplomatic or otherwise) with other civilisations. Non-Contact citizens are apparently not prevented from travelling or interacting with other civilisations, though the effort and potential danger involved in doing so alone makes it much more commonly the case for Culture people simply to join Contact if they long to "see the world". Further within Contact, an intelligence organisation named Special Circumstances exists to deal with interventions which require more covert behaviour; the interventionist approach that the Culture takes to advancing other societies may often create resentment in the affected civilisations and thus requires a rather delicate touch (see: Look to Windward).
In Matter, it is described that there are a number of other galactic civilisations that come close to or potentially even surpass the Culture in power and sophistication. The Culture is very careful and considerate of these groupings, and while still trying to convince them of the Culture ideal, will be much less likely to openly interfere in their activities.
In Surface Detail, three more branches of Contact are described: Quietus, the Quietudinal Service, whose purview is dealing with those entities who have retired from biological existence into digital form and/or those who have died and been resurrected; Numina, which is described as having the charge of contact with races that have sublimed; and Restoria, a subset of Contact which focuses on containing and negating the threat of swarms of self-replicating creatures ("hegswarms").
Behaviour in war
While the Culture is normally pacifist, Contact historically acts as its military arm in times of war and Special Circumstances can be considered its secret service and its military intelligence. During war, most of the strategic and tactical decisions are taken by the Minds, with apparently only a small number of especially gifted humans, the "Referrers", being involved in the top-level decisions, though they are not shown outside Consider Phlebas. It is shown in Consider Phlebas that actual decisions to go to war (as opposed to purely defensive actions) are based on a vote of all Culture citizens, presumably after vigorous discussion within the whole society.
It is described in various novels that the Culture is extremely reluctant to go to war, though it may start to prepare for it long before its actual commencement. In the Idiran-Culture War (possibly one of the most hard-fought wars for the normally extremely superior Culture forces), various star systems, stellar regions and many orbital habitats were overrun by the Idirans before the Culture had converted enough of its forces to military footing. The Culture Minds had had enough foresight to evacuate almost all its affected citizens (apparently numbering in the many billions) in time before actual hostilities reached them. As shown in Player of Games, this is a standard Culture tactic, with its strong emphasis on protecting its citizens rather than sacrificing some of them for short-term goals.
War within the Culture is mostly fought by the Culture's sentient warships, the most powerful of these being war-converted GSVs, which are described as powerful enough to oppose whole enemy fleets. The Culture has little use for conventional ground forces (as it rarely occupies enemy territory); combat drones equipped with knife missiles do appear in Descendant and "terror weapons" (basically intelligent, nano-form assassins) are mentioned in Look to Windward, while infantry combat suits of great power (also usable as capable combat drones when without living occupants) are used in Matter.
Relevance to real-world politics
The inner workings of The Culture are not especially described in detail though it is shown that the society is populated by an empowered, educated and augmented citizenry in a direct democracy or highly democratic and transparent system of self-governance. In comparisons to the real world, intended or not, the Culture could resemble various posited egalitarian societies including in the writings of Karl Marx, the end condition of communism after a withering away of the state, the anarchism of Bakunin and Fourier et al., libertarian socialism, council communism and anarcho-communism. Other characteristics of The Culture that are recognisable in real world politics include pacifism, post-capitalism, and transhumanism. Banks deliberately portrayed an imperfect utopia whose imperfection or weakness is related to its interaction with the 'other', that is, exterior civilisations and species that are sometimes variously warred with or mishandled through the Culture's Contact section which cannot always control its intrigues and the individuals it either 'employs' or interacts with. This 'dark side' of The Culture also alludes to or echoes mistakes and tragedies in 20th century Marxist–Leninist countries, although the Culture is generally portrayed as far more 'humane' and just.
Utopia
Comparisons are often made between the Culture and twentieth and twenty first century Western civilisation and nation-states, particularly their interventions in less-developed societies. These are often confused with regard to the author's assumed politics.
Ben Collier has said that the Culture is a utopia carrying significantly greater moral legitimacy than the West's, by comparison, proto-democracies. While Culture interventions can seem similar at first to Western interventions, especially when considered with their democratising rhetoric, the argument is that the Culture operates completely without material need, and therefore without the possibility of baser motives. This is not to say that the Culture's motives are purely altruistic; a peaceful, enlightened universe full of good neighbours lacking ethnic, religious, and sexual chauvinisms is in the Culture's interest as well. Furthermore, the Culture's ideals, in many ways similar to those of the liberal perspective today, are to a much larger extent realised internally in comparison to the West.
Criticism
Examples are the use of mercenaries to perform the work that the Culture does not want to get their hands dirty with, and even outright threats of invasion (the Culture has issued ultimatums to other civilisations before). Some commentators have also argued that those Special Circumstances agents tasked with civilising foreign cultures (and thus potentially also changing them into a blander, more Culture-like state) are also those most likely to regret these changes, with parallels drawn to real-world special forces trained to operate within the cultural mindsets of foreign nations.
The events of Use of Weapons are an example of just how dirty Special Circumstances will play in order to get their way and the conspiracy at the heart of the plot of Excession demonstrates how at least some Minds are prepared to risk killing sentient beings when they conclude that these actions are beneficial for the long term good. Special Circumstances represents a very small fraction of Contact, which itself is only a small fraction of the entire Culture, making it comparable again to size and influence of modern intelligence agencies.
Issues raised
The Culture stories are largely about problems and paradoxes that confront liberal societies. The Culture itself is an "ideal-typical" liberal society; that is, as pure an example as one can reasonably imagine. It is highly egalitarian; the liberty of the individual is its most important value; and all actions and decisions are expected to be determined according to a standard of reasonability and sociability inculcated into all people through a progressive system of education. It is a society so beyond material scarcity that for almost all practical purposes its people can have and do what they want. If they do not like the behaviour or opinions of others, they can easily move to a more congenial Culture population centre (or Culture subgroup), and hence there is little need to enforce codes of behaviour.
Even the Culture has to compromise its ideals where diplomacy and its own security are concerned. Contact, the group that handles these issues, and Special Circumstances, its secret service division, can employ only those on whose talents and emotional stability it can rely, and may even reject self-aware drones built for its purposes that fail to meet its requirements. Hence these divisions are regarded as the Culture's elite and membership is widely regarded as a prize; yet also something that can be shameful as it contradicts many of the Culture's moral codes.
Within Contact and Special Circumstances, there are also inner circles that can take control in crises, somewhat contradictory to the ideal notions of democratic and open process the Culture espouses. Contact and Special Circumstances may suppress or delay the release of information, for example to avoid creating public pressure for actions they consider imprudent or to prevent other civilisations from exploiting certain situations.
In dealing with less powerful regressive civilisations, the Culture usually intervenes discreetly, for example by protecting and discreetly supporting the more liberal elements, or subverting illiberal institutions. For instance, in Use of Weapons, the Culture operates within a less advanced illiberal society through control of a business cartel which is known for its humanitarian and social development investments, as well as generic good Samaritanism. In Excession, a sub-group of Minds conspires to provoke a war with the extremely sadistic Affront, although the conspiracy is foiled by a GSV that is a deep cover Special Circumstances agent. Only one story, Consider Phlebas, pits the Culture against a highly illiberal society of approximately equal power: the aggressive, theocratic Idirans. Though they posed no immediate, direct threat to the Culture, the Culture declared war because it would have felt useless if it allowed the Idirans' ruthless expansion to continue. The Culture's decision was a value-judgement rather than a utilitarian calculation, and the "Peace Faction" within the Culture seceded. Later in the timeline of the Culture's universe, the Culture has reached a technological level at which most past civilisations have Sublimed, in other words disengaged from Galactic politics and from most physical interaction with other civilisations. The Culture continues to behave "like an idealistic adolescent".
As of 2008, three stories force the Culture to consider its approach to more powerful civilisations. In one incident during the Culture-Idiran War, they strive to avoid offending a civilisation so advanced that it has disengaged from Galactic politics, and note that this hyper-advanced society is not a threat to either the welfare or the values of the Culture. In Excession, an overwhelmingly more powerful individual from an extremely advanced civilisation is simply passing through on its way from one plane of the physical Reality to another, and there is no real interaction. In the third case it sets up teams to study a civilisation that is not threatening but is thought to have eliminated aggressors in the past.
List of books describing the Culture
Banks on the Culture
When asked in Wired magazine (June 1996) whether mankind's fate depends on having intelligent machines running things, as in the Culture, Banks replied:
In a 2002 interview with Science Fiction Weekly magazine, when asked:
Banks replied:
Notes
References
Bibliography
Primary Sources
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Secondary Sources
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Interviews and Reviews
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News Sources
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Further reading
Anarchist fiction
Communism in fiction
Artificial intelligence in fiction
Artificial wormholes in fiction
Cyborgs in fiction
Fiction about robots
Genetic engineering in fiction
Fiction about consciousness transfer
Nanotechnology in fiction
Fictional civilizations
Science fiction literature
Series of books
Space opera
Utopian fiction
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo%21%20Mail
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Yahoo! Mail
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Yahoo! Mail is an email service launched on October 8, 1997, by the American company Yahoo, Inc. It offers four different email plans: three for personal use (Basic, Plus, and Ad Free) and another for businesses. As of January 2020, Yahoo! Mail has 225 million users.
Users are able to access and manage their mailboxes using webmail interface, accessible using a standard web browser. Some accounts also supported the use of standard mail protocols (POP3 and SMTP). Since 2015, users can also connect non-Yahoo e-mail accounts to the webmail client.
For many years, users were able to open accounts using either "@yahoo.com" or "@ymail.com", or a national domain ("@yahoo.fr" in France, "@yahoo.co.uk" in the United Kingdom, "@yahoo.it" in Italy, etc.). Currently, Yahoo! only allows users to register "@yahoo.com" accounts.
History
1997–2002
Yahoo! made a deal with the online communications company Four11 for co-branded white pages. Marvin Gavin, who worked at Four11 as the director of international business development, said "We always had a bias about being acquired by Yahoo. They were more entrepreneurial than Microsoft. We had a great cultural fit – it made a lot of sense." In the end, Yahoo! acquired Four11 for $96 million. The purpose behind acquiring Four11 was the company's RocketMail webmail service, which launched in 1997. Yahoo! announced the acquisition on October 8, 1997, close to the time that Yahoo! Mail was launched. Yahoo! chose acquisition rather than internal platform development, because, as Healy said, "Hotmail was growing at thousands and thousands users per week. We did an analysis. For us to build, it would have taken four to six months, and by then, so many users would have taken an email account. The speed of the market was critical."
The transition to Yahoo! Mail was not easy for many Rocketmail users. On March 21, 2002, Yahoo! eliminated free software client access and introduced the $29.99 per year Mail Forwarding Service. Mary Osako, a Yahoo! Spokeswoman, told CNET, "For-pay services on Yahoo!, originally launched in February 1999, have experienced great acceptance from our base of active registered users, and we expect this adoption to continue to grow."
2002–2010
During 2002, the Yahoo! network was gradually redesigned. On July 2, the company website was changed, and it was announced that Yahoo! Mail and other services would also be redesigned. Along with this new design, new features were to be implemented, including drop-down menus in DHTML, different category tabs, and a new user-customizable color scheme. Yahoo! Network Services senior vice president Geoff Ralston stated that
On July 9, 2004, Yahoo! acquired Oddpost, a webmail service which simulated a desktop email client. Oddpost had features such as drag-and-drop support, right-click menus, RSS feeds, a preview pane, and increased speed using email caching to shorten response time. Many of the features were incorporated into an updated Yahoo! Mail service.
Competition
On April 1, 2004, Google announced its Gmail service with 1 GB of storage, however Gmail's invitation-only accounts kept the other webmail services at the forefront. Most major webmail providers, including Yahoo! Mail, increased their mailbox storage in response. Yahoo! first announced 100 MB of storage for basic accounts and 2 GB of storage for premium users. However, soon Yahoo! Mail increased its free storage quota to 1 GB, before eventually allowing unlimited storage. Yahoo! Mail had free unlimited storage from March 27, 2007, until October 8, 2013.
2011–present
On September 17, 2010, Yahoo! showed off a new Mail program to reporters. Codenamed "Minty", the 2011 release was announced on September 16, 2010. It included a new interface, enhanced performance, improved Facebook and Twitter integration, the ability to watch YouTube videos straight from email, and improved search. Public beta began on October 26, 2010. In May 2011, the new Yahoo! Mail became the default interface. As the new interface became mandatory for users, some users of Yahoo! Mail reported slow typing speeds, contradicting Yahoo's claims of faster performance. Yahoo! offered no resolution to the problem . Users also missed the ability to paste textual email addresses into the sender box. The new version disabled the use of the "secondary" addresses provided in the previous version. The new interface overrode the browser's right mouse button (making functions such as opening mails in new tab windows unavailable).
In 2013, Yahoo! redesigned the site and removed several features, such as simultaneously opening multiple emails in tabs, sorting by sender name, and dragging mails to folders. The new email interface was geared to give an improved user-experience for mobile devices, but was criticized for having an inferior desktop interface. Many users objected to the unannounced nature of the changes through an online post asking Yahoo! to bring back mail tabs with one hundred thousand voting and nearly ten thousand commenting. The redesign produced a problem that caused an unknown number of users to lose access to their accounts for several weeks.
In December 2013, Yahoo! Mail suffered a major outage where approximately one million users, one percent of the site's total users, could not access their emails for several days. Then Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer publicly apologized to the site's users.
Yahoo! Mail China officially announced its shutdown on April 18, 2013. Users were warned that all emails, contacts, and account settings would be inaccessible, unless users migrated to the American version of Yahoo! Mail. Individuals who made China Yahoo! Mail accounts during the Alibaba takeover were required to create new accounts under new usernames.
In January 2014, an undisclosed number of usernames and passwords were released to hackers, following a security breach that Yahoo! believed had occurred through a third-party website. Yahoo! contacted affected users and requested that passwords be changed.
In October 2015, Yahoo! updated the mail service with a "more subtle" redesign, as well as improved mobile features. The same release introduced the Yahoo! Account Key, a smartphone-based replacement for password logins.
In 2017, Yahoo! again redesigned the web interface with a "more minimal" look, and introduced the option to customize it with different color themes and layouts.
In 2020, Yahoo! added a feature to view NFL matches.
User interface
As many as three web interfaces were available at any given time. The traditional "Yahoo! Mail Classic" preserved the availability of their original 1997 interface until July 2013 in North America. A 2005 version included a new Ajax interface, drag-and-drop, improved search, keyboard shortcuts, address auto-completion, and tabs. However, other features were removed, such as column widths and one click delete-move-to-next. In October 2010, Yahoo! released a beta version of Yahoo! Mail, which included improvements to performance, search, and Facebook integration. In May 2011, this became the default interface. Their current Webmail interface was introduced in 2017.
Spam policy
Yahoo! Mail is often used by spammers to provide a "remove me" email address. Often, these addresses are used to verify the recipient's address, thus opening the door for more spam.
Yahoo! does not tolerate this practice and terminates accounts connected with spam-related activities without warning, causing spammers to lose access to any other Yahoo! services connected with their ID under the Terms of Service. Additionally, Yahoo! stresses that its servers are based in California and any spam-related activity which uses its servers could potentially violate that state's anti-spam laws.
In February 2006, Yahoo! announced its decision (along with AOL) to give some organizations the option to "certify" mail by paying up to one cent for each outgoing message, allowing the mail in question to bypass inbound spam filters.
Filters
In order to prevent abuse, in 2002 Yahoo! Mail activated filters which changed certain words (that could trigger unwanted JavaScript events) and word fragments into other words. "mocha" was changed to "espresso", "expression" became "statement", and "eval" (short for "evaluation") became "review". This resulted in many unintended corrections, such as "prreviewent" (prevalent), "reviewuation" (evaluation) and "medireview" (medieval).
When asked about these changes, Yahoo! explained that the changed words were common terms used in web scripting, and were blacklisted to prevent hackers from sending damaging commands via the program's HTML function. Starting before February 7, 2006, Yahoo! Mail ended the practice, and began to add an underscore as a prefix to certain suspicious words and word fragments.
Greylisting
Incoming mail to Yahoo! addresses can be subjected to deferred delivery as part of Yahoo's incoming spam controls. This can delay delivery of mail sent to Yahoo! addresses without the sender or recipients being aware of it. The deferral is typically of short duration, but may extend up to several hours. Yahoo! does not specifically document this policy in detail, although some information is available.
Controversies
Shi Tao arrest
In 2004, Yahoo's Hong Kong office provided technical information to the Chinese authorities about the account of journalist Shi Tao, who was subsequently sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for "leaking state secrets". Yahoo! was criticized by Reporters Without Borders for acting as a "police informant" to increase its profits. In August 2007, the United States Congress began an investigation into Yahoo's handling of the case. Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang testified before Congress. On November 6, 2007, the congressional panel criticized Yahoo! for not giving full details to the House Foreign Affairs Committee the previous year, stating it had been "at best inexcusably negligent" and at worst "deceptive". Representative Tom Lantos described its executives as moral "pygmies". Yang stated that Yahoo! no longer controlled its Chinese operations, and was collaborating with human rights groups to formulate ethical code for technology companies.
In a February 2006 hearing, Yahoo! executives swore that they had received no information about the investigation. Several months later, it was discovered that the document provided to Yahoo! China on April 22, 2004, by the Beijing State Security Bureau stated that "Your office is in possession of the following items relating to a case of suspected illegal provision of state secrets to foreign entities."
On November 13, 2007, Yahoo! settled with Shi for an undisclosed sum. Shi was released from prison in September 2013.
Username bans
On February 20, 2006, it was revealed that Yahoo! Mail was banning the word "Allah" in email usernames, both separately and as part of a user name such as . Shortly after the news of the ban, it was lifted on February 23, 2006. Along with this action, Yahoo! also made the following statement:
Exploit
In November 2012, an exploit for Yahoo! Mail was sold for $700 by an Egyptian hacker, allowing hijackers to hack Yahoo! Mail user accounts and redirect users to a malicious website. The attack used cross-site scripting which let hackers steal cookies. In January 2013, hacker and security researcher Shahin Ramezany pointed out another DOM-based XSS loophole that placed 400 million users at risk.
Deletion of accounts
In 2013, Yahoo! deleted accounts that hadn't been logged into for more than 12 months and gave those names to other users. This included accounts that had set up email forwarding to other accounts, who didn't notice and act upon the message to preserve their account. Spillover from this action resulted in some users losing access to accounts on other services as their email resets were no longer forwarded to them, but to the new owner of their former account.
Phishing attack
From 2007, Yahoo! was the email service used by New Zealand Telecom, which came under criticism in early 2013 following a spam and phishing attack that was described as the biggest to have ever hit the country. Telecom and Yahoo! automatically reset "about 60,000" users' passwords. In April, Telecom announced that despite the issue, it would retain Yahoo! as an email provider.
Account theft
On October 3, 2017, Yahoo! reported that all Yahoo! user accounts, approximately 3 billion, were affected by the previously announced August 2013 theft of accounts. This information updates the December 14, 2016, announcement that more than 1 billion user accounts were hacked in a breach that had occurred back in 2013. Earlier that year in September, Yahoo! announced that an additional 500 million user accounts had been breached in 2014. The company was said to have discovered about the breach that affected hundreds of millions of accounts years before their initial announcement.
Automated scanning of email content
The contents of Yahoo! Mail messages are scanned for the purposes of targeted advertising, in contrast to its main competitors Gmail (which ended the practice in late 2017) and Outlook.com (which did not employ the practice).
Content sharing with the National Security Agency
In 2015, Reuters reported that Yahoo! has implemented a functionality to scan all incoming emails for specific keywords and share email content in real time with the US National Security Agency.
Platforms
The mobile app for Yahoo! Mail can be downloaded from the App Store for iOS, and the Google Play Store for Android. Both versions of the app perform the same function, but are tailored to the mobile device's operating system. Some characteristics include replying to a message by opening a notification and separately archiving, deleting and starring notifications. It is available in several languages.
See also
Comparison of webmail providers
List of Yahoo!-owned sites and services
References
External links
Mail
Android (operating system) software
Computer-related introductions in 1997
Internet properties established in 1997
IOS software
Personal information managers
Universal Windows Platform apps
Webmail
Web applications
Yahoo! community websites
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%20v.%20Golb
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People v. Golb
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People v. Golb is an extensively litigated New York case in which Raphael Golb was convicted for sock puppetry (specifically identity theft, impersonation, harassment, and unauthorized use of a computer) relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls. His conviction was partially reversed on constitutional grounds, but was substantially affirmed.
Background
Raphael Golb (Golb) is the son of Norman Golb, a professor of Jewish history and civilization at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Professor Golb is a key proponent of the viewpoint that the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran were not the product of the Essenes, as many authorities argue, but rather were written elsewhere and moved to Qumran in anticipation of the Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem. Among the scholars who disagreed with Professor Golb, and instead insisted that the scrolls are the work of Essenes of Qumran, are Frank Moore Cross of Harvard University and Lawrence Schiffman of New York University.
In 2008, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences opened a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, and invited to lecture at the exhibit University of North Carolina professor Bart D. Ehrman, who had suggested that the Essenes were the likely authors of the Scrolls. Raphael Golb then sent an email from [email protected], and signed Frank Cross, to four scholars at the University of North Carolina, linking to an anonymous blog post by Golb in which he had said that the museum should not have invited Ehrman to speak because he was not a Scrolls expert. The Frank Cross email commented, "It looks like Bart has gone and put his foot in his mouth again,"
Later in 2008, the Jewish Museum in New York City held a scrolls exhibition and invited Lawrence Schiffman. Golb wrote an article, using the pseudonym Peter Kaufman, which accused Schiffman of plagiarizing (a "little-known case of apparent academic quackery") some of Professor Norman Golb's ideas. Golb then sent emails from his own [email protected] to four of Schiffman's students with this message and a citation to the "Kaufman" article:
Apparently, someone is intent on exposing a minor failing of mine that dates back almost fifteen years ago. You are not to mention the name of the scholar in question to any of our students, and every effort must be made to prevent this article from coming to their attention. This is my career at stake. I hope you will all understand.
Golb then sent a similar email message to every member of Schiffman's department at NYU. Next Golb sent emails to the university's Provost and the Dean of Graduate Studies, posing as Schiffman and asking them what he could do to counter the charges of plagiarism that the Kaufman article had raised against him. Golb then sent an email signed Lawrence Schiffman to NYU's student newspaper, imploring its staff "not to publish a word" about any plagiarism accusations against him.
Schiffman later testified that he felt "very attacked" by Golb's false emails, "and basically for like a month I couldn't do [any]thing but respond to people's inquiries."
In the fall of 2008, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto held a Scrolls exhibit. Golb sent an email from [email protected], and signed as Jonathan Seidel, to the museum's Board of Trustees, stating:
The public has the right to know whether the ROM exhibit will indeed present the two basic theories [regarding the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls] in a scientifically neutral manner ... or if it will rather stick to a "low-keyed assertion of the mainstream view." Furthermore, the public has a right to know if University of Chicago historian Norman Golb, who is widely considered to have debunked the traditional theory of the Dead Sea Scrolls in his book, will be excluded from participating in the museum's lecture series.
Golb later sent the Board of Trustees two follow-up emails (still posing as Jonathan Seidel), urging them to include Professor Golb's ideas in their lecture series. Golb then used his [email protected] account to ask Risa Levitt Kohn, the curator for the Toronto exhibit, whether she was "planning to answer Golb's critique of [her] catalogue."
Finally, Golb sent emails from his [email protected] account to dozens of Dead Sea Scroll scholars. These emails, however, disparaged his father's work. (SA 865–66, 884). Among other things, the emails announced that Norman Golb's "Chicago filth must be answered as quickly as possible, so please let me know if you're willing to help out." Golb signed two of these emails "Jonathan S," and a third as Jonathan Seidel.
Subsequently, New York prosecutors charged Golb with two counts of identity theft in the second degree, 15 counts of identity theft in the third degree, ten counts of forgery in the third degree, 20 counts of criminal impersonation in the second degree, three counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree, and one count of unauthorized use of a computer, In 2010, a jury of the Supreme Court, New York County, convicted Golb on 30 counts: two counts of identity theft in the second degree; 14 counts of criminal impersonation in the second degree; ten counts of forgery in the third degree; three counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree; and one count of unauthorized use of a computer, and he received a six-month sentence.
2013 ruling of Appellate Division
Golb appealed to the New York intermediate appellate court (the Appellate Division, First Department) and it modified the judgment. Golb's principal defense on appeal was that the emails were intended only to be satiric hoaxes or pranks, and therefore should not be held culpable. The court rejected the argument, denying that Golb's intent could have been parodic, because "parody must convey two simultaneous—and contradictory—messages: that it is the original, but also that it is not the original and is instead a parody." But here Golb only "intended to convey the first message to the readers of the emails, that is, that the purported authors were the actual authors. It was equally clear that defendant intended that the recipients' reliance on this deception would cause harm to the purported authors and benefits to defendant or his father." The court also held, "Nothing in this prosecution, or in the court's jury charge, violated defendant's First Amendment or other constitutional rights."
The court refused to interpret the definitions of "injure" or "defraud", as used in the forgery and criminal impersonation statutes, to "tangible harms such as financial harm." It also ruled that the requirement in the statute of "benefit" could be "any gain or advantage" to defendant or "to another person," such as defendant's father. "The fact that the underlying dispute between defendant and his father's rivals was a constitutionally-protected debate does not provide any First Amendment protection for acts that were otherwise unlawful." The court emphasized that the wrongfulness of Golb's conduct was not in the content of what he said but in his use of sock puppetry: "Defendant was not prosecuted for the content of any of the emails, but only for giving the false impression that his victims were the actual authors of the emails."
The Appellate Division overturned the identity theft conviction in the second degree, which was based on the theory that Golb attempted to commit the felony of scheme to defraud in the first degree, which means defrauding someone of $1000 or more in property. The court said that "there was no evidence that defendant intended to defraud one or more persons of property in excess of $1,000 or that he attempted to do so. The People's assertions in this regard rest on speculation."
2014 ruling of Court of Appeals
Golb appealed to the highest New York court, the Court of Appeals, and in a split decision it further modified the convictions but affirmed them in part. Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judges Victoria A. Graffeo, Susan Phillips Read, Robert S. Smith, Eugene F. Pigott Jr., and Jenny Rivera. Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman dissented in part.
Majority opinion
The counts for criminal impersonation in the second degree
Golb was convicted of 14 counts of criminal impersonation in the second degree. NY Penal Law § 190.25[1] makes guilty of this crime a person who "impersonates another and does an act in such assumed character with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another." Golb argued that the trial court's failure to properly limit and define the terms "injure" and "benefit" constituted reversible error because the jury could have interpreted the statute as capturing any benefit or harm. Thus, "when literally anything can be a legally cognizable benefit or harm, one can be found guilty of violating this law if one, for example, simply causes hurt feelings, mocks or criticizes" and "a benefit could be any gain or advantage, no matter how slight." Prior cases, however, applied the statute only to cases that involved monetary fraud or interference with government operations. Golb did not cause any pecuniary loss or interfere with governmental operations, the court said, but his acts did involve injury to reputation, which in academia can be serious, "and we believe the legislature intended that the scope of the statute be broad enough to capture acts intended to cause injury to reputation." Accordingly, the court concluded:
[A] person who impersonates someone with the intent to harm the reputation of another may be found guilty of this crime. Here, there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that defendant's emails impersonating Schiffman, Seidel and Cross were more than a prank intended to cause temporary embarrassment or discomfiture, and that he acted with intent to do real harm.
The court emphasized, however, that criminalization depends on intent to cause injury:
[T]he mere creation of email accounts in the names of Schiffman, Seidel, Goranson and Cross (in contrast to the use of those accounts to send emails) does not constitute criminal conduct under Penal Law § 190.25. The mere creation of email accounts that are not used does no substantial harm to anyone. Additionally, the email sent from the Seidel email address to Dr. Kohn, asking her opinion on the differing theories about the Scrolls and whether she was planning to answer Professor Golb's critique, is insufficient to support a conviction for criminal impersonation in the second degree. Unlike the other emails, this email sent in another person's name does not prove the requisite intent to cause injury, either to reputation or otherwise. Thus, we vacate the convictions on those counts.
The aggravated harassment charge
New York Penal Law § 240.30(1)(a) provides that "[a] person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the second degree when, with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm another person, he or she ... communicates with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, by telegraph, or by mail, or by transmitting or delivering any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm." The court agreed with Golb that this statute is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and that his conviction of three counts of aggravated harassment related to his conduct toward Schiffman, Goranson and Cargill must therefore be vacated. The court ruled that "any proscription of pure speech must be sharply limited to words which, by their utterance alone, inflict injury or tend naturally to evoke immediate violence."
The convictions for forgery in the third degree, identity theft in the second degree, and unauthorized use of a computer
New York Penal Law § 170.05 provides "A person is guilty of forgery in the third degree when, with intent to defraud, deceive or injure another, he falsely makes, completes or alters a written instrument." The court found that there was sufficient evidence to show that defendant deceived people by sending emails from accounts in the names of Schiffman, Seidel and Cross, and accordingly it affirmed his conviction on those counts.
But the court vacated the convictions on the counts of unauthorized use of a computer and identity theft in the second degree. Penal Law § 156.05 makes guilty of unauthorized use of a computer a person who "knowingly uses, causes to be used, or accesses a computer, computer service, or computer network without authorization." The term "without authorization" is defined as "to access a computer ... without the permission of the owner ... or after actual notice to such person that such use or access was without permission." Golb pointed out that he had permission to access the NYU computers as an NYU alumnus. The prosecution argued that using the computer to commit a crime cannot be an "authorized" use. However, the court ruled, the wording of the statute and the legislative history indicate that the statute is intended to reach a person who accesses a computer system without any permission (i.e., a hacker) and the statutory language thus does not apply to Golb's conduct here. "Thus, the People did not sustain their burden of proof that defendant was guilty of unauthorized use of the NYU computers, and we therefore vacate defendant's conviction under Penal Law § 156.05." Last, under Penal Law § 190.79[3], a person commits identity theft in the second degree "when he or she knowingly and with intent to defraud assumes the identity of another person by presenting himself or herself as that other person, or by acting as that other person or by using personal identifying information of that other person, and thereby ... commits or attempts to commit a felony." The attempted felony of which the prosecution accused Golb was first-degree falsifying of the business records of NYU, a crime that is committed when a person "commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof." Here the allegation is that Golb sought to falsify NYU business records by "manufacturing a subtle admission of plagiarism purportedly from Schiffman, with the intent that NYU would open an investigation of Schiffman." But the false emails that Golb sent in Schiffman's name to NYU addresses did not constitute the creation or falsification of an NYU business record that is "kept or maintained by an enterprise for the purpose of evidencing or reflecting its condition or activity." The court concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support this conviction, so that it must be vacated.
Lippman dissent
Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman saw no general constitutional impediment to prosecuting conduct similar to defendant's targeting Schiffman as second degree identity theft—"which requires for its proof evidence of intent to cause highly specific injury of a non-reputational sort—but concluded that the particular counts of identity theft with which defendant was charged in the indictment" counts were not sufficiently proved under that standard. Lippman agreed with the court in vacating parts of the conviction. "I, however, part company with the majority as to its dismissal of only some of the indictment's criminal impersonation counts and its determination to leave defendant's third-degree forgery convictions undisturbed."
Lippman disagreed with the majority on interpreting second-degree criminal impersonation under Penal Law § 190.25 to cover reputational injury as well as impersonation intended to cause economic injury or to interfere with government operations. In his view that interpretation criminalized such a vast amount of speech that it violated the First Amendment.
Lippman found the use of the third-degree forgery statute (Penal Law § 170.05) to the same end as the criminal impersonation statute "similarly objectionable." To treat sock puppetry (or pseudonymous emails) as forgeries "when they are made with some intent to injure in some undefined way is no different than penalizing impersonation in Internet communication for the same amorphous purpose." In his view:
Both treatments give prosecutors power they should not have to determine what speech should and should not be penalized. If defendant has caused reputational injury, that is redressable, if at all, as a civil tort, not as a crime. Criminal libel has long since been abandoned, not least of all because of its tendency in practice to penalize and chill speech that the constitution protects, and it has been decades since New York's criminal libel statute was repealed. The use of the criminal impersonation and forgery statutes now approved amounts to an atavism at odds with the First Amendment and the free and uninhibited exchange of ideas it is meant to foster. I would dismiss the indictment in its entirety.
Subsequent proceedings
The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Golb then moved the trial court for a new trial, but it denied the motion because he had not made it before his original sentencing. However, the court resentenced him to two months instead of the original six months. He then appealed but the Appellate Division held
that it would be procedurally "improper to consider or review" Golb's challenges regarding his conviction. The Court of Appeals then declined to review the Appellate Division's decision. Golb's two-month sentence was stayed, however, pending resolution of habeas corpus litigation.
Golb then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in which he challenged his remaining convictions for criminal impersonation in the second degree and forgery in the third degree. Since 1996, a federal court cannot grant a petition for a writ of habeas corpus based on a claim that was "adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings" unless a state court's decision:
"was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States"; or
"was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." The district court noted that this is a "highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings, which demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt."
Accordingly, the district court ruled that the court would have to give deference to the New York Court of Appeals ruling that Golb was not entitled to a new trial on constitutional grounds. Golb argued that the trial court had convicted him under laws that the appellate court found unconstitutional, so that there was no way to tell whether he would have been convicted if the trial court had applied the narrower, constitutional construction of the relevant statutes. But the district court responded that this principle applies only when earlier overbreadth would have adversely affected the outcome of the defendant's case. Applying that standard resulted in a conclusion that Golb was entitled to a new trial on two counts of criminal impersonation in the second degree, but not on the other seven criminal impersonation in the second degree nor on the ten counts of forgery in the third degree.
The New York Court of Appeals held that the statutory terms "injure" and "benefit" could not be construed to apply to any slight injury or benefit; instead, an intent to cause "real harm" or "substantial harm" must be shown. Therefore, "the Court of Appeals should have considered whether: (i) the overbroad statute gave Petitioner adequate notice that his conduct would be considered criminal; and (ii) the overbreadth of the jury instructions in Petitioner's case was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." Counts 33 and 37 of the indictment alleged that Golb committed criminal impersonation in the second degree when he sent emails from the account of "[email protected]" to dozens of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars on November 24 and December 6, 2008; these emails described Professor Golb's views as "filth," and asked if anyone "could help prepare a response." Then Golb sent other emails suggesting that he was counting on Jonathan Seidel's good name to help persuade the Toronto Museum to consider Professor Golb's work. The district court said that a properly instructed jury might not find that Golb sent the November 24 and December 6 emails to damage Jonathan Seidel's reputation or to cause any other kind of "substantial harm," given the other emails relying on Seidel's good name. The district court therefore held that "the Court finds that the overbroad jury instructions 'had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict' on Counts 33 and 37" and Golb "is therefore entitled to a new trial on these two counts."
On the other counts. the district court saw no reversible error. Counts 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 25, and 46 of the indictment alleged that Golb committed criminal impersonation in the second degree by sending five emails as Lawrence Schiffman, one email as Jonathan Seidel, and one as Frank Moore Cross. Golb "confessed" in these emails that he (as Schiffman) was guilty of plagiarism, which would likely cause him to be fired from his academic post. Another email could be seen as an attempt to secure a job opportunity for his father or "was attempting to persuade the [museum] to offer his father an opportunity to lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls." The overbroad jury instructions for these counts, the district court said, "were in fact harmless 'beyond a reasonable doubt,' and, a fortiori, did not have a 'substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict', [so that] no new trial is warranted." Count 46 alleged that Golb sent an email purporting to be from Frank Cross to four scholars at the University of North Carolina, where Bart Ehrman worked. The clear implication of this email was that Ehrman's professional opinions were so off-base that they were embarrassing to Frank Cross, who was a well-known Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. A properly instructed jury could find that Golb sent the email to Ehrman's colleagues with an intent to cause substantial harm to Ehrman's reputation.
The district court held that Golb was not entitled to a new trial on the forgery counts for a different reason. It rejected Golb's claim that the Court of Appeals had narrowed the forgery statute to cases of substantial harm. It found "no indication that the Court intended to limit the reach of the forgery statute to cases in which a defendant intends to cause substantial harm." Therefore, Golb was not convicted under a subsequently narrowed statute.
While the district court rejected Golb's claim that the statutes were overbroad on their face, it noted that it was not ruling, because Golb did not so argue, that they were not overbroad as applied to the specific conduct involved here. It said: "One could argue that certain of the emails at issue, such as the email to Dr. Kohn, were not intended to cause substantial harms (to reputation or otherwise), and as such were more protected by the First Amendment than punishable under section 170.05. However, Petitioner did not make this argument, and the Court will not make it for him."
Golb sought to argue that he should have been allowed to prove that his charges (plagiarism, etc.) were true, "inasmuch as he was charged with committing a crime by making statements that were calculated to injure someone's reputation." The district court held that Golb's claim "was procedurally defaulted" because he did not present it properly in the Appellate Division or Court of Appeals. He asserted only the state constitution and not the federal Constitution. "Consequently, New York State courts did not have a fair opportunity to consider" Golb's First Amendment rights.
The district court held, on January 21, 2016, "Petitioner's convictions on Counts 33 and 37 are reversed; the other convictions remain."
Disbarment and Reinstatement
Golb is a member of the New York Bar. The Appellate Division originally held that because he "was convicted, after a jury trial, of identity theft in the second degree (two counts) in violation of Penal Law § 190.79 (3), a class E felony," he should be disbarred. Both felony counts were vacated on appeal. On October 28, 2021, the original disbarment order was also vacated and Golb was reinstated in the bar.
Commentary
UCLA Professor Eugene Volokh, in the Volokh Conspiracy blog, maintained that Golb's conviction was "quite right, even after United States v. Alvarez (the Stolen Valor Act case)." Volokh insisted:
Intentionally trying to make others believe that someone did something (write an e-mail) that he did not inflicts specific harm on that other person, whether by harming his reputation or at least by making others think that he believes something that he doesn't (which will often be civilly actionable under the false light tort). To be sure, that usually leads to civil liability, but nothing in the Court's decision suggests that criminal liability in such cases is impermissible, especially when the law is limited to relatively clearly identifiable falsehoods, such as falsely claiming to be someone you are not.
Citing the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652E, Volokh concluded that "it seems to me that such impersonation is therefore indeed unprotected—as I said, against criminal punishment as well as civil liability."
Scott Greenfield, commenting on the Court of Appeals decision in the Simple Justice blog, said, "That there hasn't been huge interest in the trial and appeal of Raphael Golb remains a mystery to me," which he found "sad given that the case is fascinating" and that "the legal implications of the case for the rest of the internet are huge." He applauded the ruling that the harassment law was unconstitutional, but criticized the application of the criminal impersonation law to non-"slight" reputational injury because the majority opinion "offers no guidance on how to distinguish 'real' reputational injury from other injury, no matter how slight." He maintained that "when injury is based on subjective bases, feelings, it's reduced to a game of rhetoric, who can make up a compelling Queen for a Day story of misery and heartache, and will a judge will be sufficiently empathetic to feel the pain."
Greenfield criticised Volokh for significantly undervaluing Golb's parody claim for his gmail messages. "Neither the court nor Eugene recognize that professors sending serious emails don't use gmail accounts, or make outlandish confessions of wrongdoing." Greenfield argued that it is irrelevant that Schiffman "found nothing funny about the emails. So what? The targets of parody rarely do." He further argued:
The Court implicitly holds that what Golb did was not parody, because neither the judges, the prosecutor, nor targets like Schiffman thought it was funny. So good parody gets a hearty guffaw, and bad parody gets a conviction? Or more to the point, parody that escapes the technological limits of the judges on the New York Court of Appeals, who failed to appreciate what any slightly astute digital native would have immediately realized, that the emails Golb sent could not be real, is a crime.
In an earlier issue of his Simple Justice blog, Greenfield asserted that "the whole First Amendment aspect of the case fell through the cracks" the way the case was tried, because the trial judge first postponed determination of First Amendment issues until trial and then said that she had already denied them. He quoted Golb's lawyer as saying that the court "made hurting somebody's feelings a criminal act," but in New York "hurting people's feelings or being annoying is not a crime"; it is just normal daily behavior.
After quoting a comment by Schiffman on the conviction—"Let us hope that the field of Dead Sea Scrolls research can get back to its real business—interpreting the ancient scrolls and explaining their significance for the history of Judaism and the background of early Christianity"—Greenfield responded that Schiffman has "disgraced himself amongst the Dead Sea Scroll scholars by using a criminal prosecution to shut down his most vocal critic. He's now disgraced himself again within the academic community by ignoring that the issue arose from his having shut out Norman Golb from the scholarly dialogue, even denying Golb access to the scrolls lest he find something that undercuts Schiffman's claims."
Greenfield said he was not concerned with the implications for Dead Sea Scroll studies, but with the "broad and disastrous" implications of the conviction for the Internet:
If playing with a sock puppet on the internet, no harm done beyond some hurt feelings, is enough to land you in prison, we've got a lot of potential felons out there taking some major risks for a few laughs or to get the upper hand in an argument. The rough and tumble of the internet is no longer an issue of free speech, but hurt feelings. Read it and weep. We are all in some serious trouble now.
A 2013 New York Times article was critical of Golb, calling him "an online troll, stirring up controversy." The writer asks whether Golb is "really a cybercriminal, or just a particularly noxious partisan in a constitutionally protected academic debate, using guerrilla methods to advance a minority viewpoint?"
A 2012 comment in The Guardian asserted, "The case of Raphael Golb shows the real invasive power and perfidy of sock puppets." The comment alleges that Golb authored sock puppet accounts in Wikipedia, among other sites, "and then referenced back to these items to give the appearance of proper referencing, peer review and a growing body of academic acceptance for the ideas of his father." Arguing against the harmlessness of sock puppetry as "a form of free expression that should be protected and with the exception of egregious cases like Golb," the commentator insists:
The problem with sock puppetry is that academic discourse relies upon peer review and on active intellectual debate. These must not be replaced by self-published diatribes promoted by anonymous sock puppets who engage in acts of intimidation online. Debate can best be fostered by knowing who you are debating with, what their background philosophies and peer reviewed work are and thus ensuring a deeper discourse than mere mud slinging.
Tablet magazine quoted Professor Golb as criticizing the criminalization of the dispute over who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls:
Raphael's father, Norman Golb, the subject of Golb's email, was also shocked at the verdict. "Since when does a civilized society allow a prosecutor to invade the academic territory of learning and take sides?" he asked incredulously, in a recent interview. "Quarrels among scholars should be settled among scholars, not in court." His son agrees: "Schiffman should have picked up the phone and called my father, not the FBI," the younger Golb said in an interview after the hearing.<p>Golb argues that "she forbade me from defending the claim made in the email that Schiffman had plagiarized my father, and yet she allowed the prosecution to insist 170 times before the jury that I had made false allegations.'
Tablet asserts that "in recent years a subtle shift has occurred: Golb's theory has begun to approach the status of received wisdom," and "[m]any scholars seem now to be in agreement that some, many, or even most of the scrolls were not of sectarian origin" and came from Jerusalem. It also quotes Schiffman as stating that the controversy benefited him—" 'the opposite, I got a big raise out of it,' he said—noting his recent move from NYU to YU, where he makes more money than he did at NYU."
In an editorial published in the Forward, Arthur S. Hayes, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University, asserts that Raphael Golb was convicted for an "act of satire", and that "Golb never should have had to face criminal charges ... no critic should serve prison time because he intended to, or in fact did, disparage others, even if he does so by posing as someone else. That is a reasonable principle to draw from more than fifty years of First Amendment jurisprudence. Yet, partially exonerated Raphael Golb still fights to stay out of prison." Hayes notes that "the fear of being locked up in prison for a few imprudent words would likely discourage full-throated discussion, debate, criticism and reporting in our society."
References
External links
The Raphael Golb Trial – collection of briefs and materials relating to case and links; additional similar links
The Phenomenon of Internet Impersonation – links to materials on sock puppetry, prepared by Golb's attorneys
Link to portrait of Golb
Internet manipulation and propaganda
Internet trolling
United States First Amendment case law
Overbreadth case law
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence%20Community%20Directive%20301
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Intelligence Community Directive 301
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Intelligence Community Directive 301 is a United States Intelligence Community Directive issued in 2006 to push emphasis on making open source intelligence the source of first resort among the intelligence community. The 9/11 terrorist attacks drove this directive forward as there was a call for many intelligence disciplines to work collectively on assessing and predicting threats to the United States. Intelligence Community Directive 301 outlined responsibilities and established policies on the intelligence community regarding open source intelligence activities.
Background
Intelligence Community Directive 301 (ICD-301) took effect on July 11, 2006 when it was signed by the first Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, under the Bush Administration. The directive outlines the responsibilities for oversight and management needed for the implementation of open-source intelligence activities within the intelligence community.
The goal of ICD-301 was to establish priority of open source information as the intelligence community's first consulted source type, or "source of first resort". Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks there was a call for the intelligence community to utilize many different disciplines of intelligence collectively to better assess and predict threats to the United States.
ICD-301 outlined responsibilities of the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source, the Open Source Committee, the Open Source Advisors Board, the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Center (now the Open Source Enterprise) and the remainder of the intelligence community. These entities are held responsible for open source activities to be conducted in a way that is both effective and efficient. This directive repealed the Director of Central Intelligence Directive 1/7 intelligence community open source program set in place on September 26, 2000.
ICD-301 was ultimately rescinded in 2012, it was thought that ICD 113 provided ample guidelines for responsibility and oversight needed for open source activities. ICD 301 was the second directive in the 300 series, which addressed methods of collection. Among this series are; ICD-300 concerning management of intelligence collection and covert action this ICD prefaced ICD-301 being signed in 2006. ICD-302 concerning media exploitation was signed in 2007 and ICD-304 on human intelligence collection signed into action in 2009 were the two ICD's that followed ICD-301. ICD-310 and ICD 311 dealt with human based foreign intelligence collection and counter intelligence within and from outside the United States respectively.
Policies
ICD-301 established two main policies:
1)The Director of National Intelligence sought to further emphasize the use of open source information and analysis, through a more structured and fluid information sharing system among all intelligence community members.
2) Policies within the intelligence community:
Centralize strategy, oversight and evaluation under the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source.
Responsibility to share information to the maximum extent possible among intelligence community, public/ private sector, other United States Government agencies, and foreign partners.
Sharing open source collection and exploitation tools or capabilities to the fullest extent, to be validated by the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source and to be potentially standardized by the intelligence community.
Open source intelligence will support all other types of intelligence gathering and exploitation efforts.
Open source exploiters and analysts will follow proper information security protocol set by the Director of National Intelligence.
All open source exploiters will validate and verify their information sources appropriately set by the Director of National Intelligence.
Feedback processes will be coordinated with the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source to evaluate return on investment, customer satisfaction, and inform strategy on resource decision making.
Authorities and Responsibilities
ICD-301 outlines the authorities and responsibilities of five main groups as well as miscellaneous responsibilities:
1)Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source responsibilities;
Responsibilities and Authorities within the Open Source Enterprise;
Intelligence community open source strategy aligns with Presidential priorities.
Tasking, oversight, policy direction, and evaluation of open source intelligence exploitation organizations.
Advise tasking of open source collection activities outside the National Intelligence Program.
Oversight and deployment of National Open Source Enterprise.
Coordination between the Chief Financial Officer, and the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Customer Outcomes to establish program guidelines of Presidential priorities.
Oversight of the Program Manager compliance between the Chief Financial Officer, and the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Customer Outcomes.
Coordinating requirements that share common concern.
Oversight of collection tools and services for exploitation purposes.
Open source, interagency, information sharing oversight.
Guidance role to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, on behalf of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection.
Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source will provide the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Technology and the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence with capability information and report intelligence gaps that cannot be met with off the self capabilities either it be commercial or governmental.
The Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source will act as the chair of the National Open Source Committee.
Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source will manage the board of advisors for open source.
Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source will serve as the chair for the National Media Exploitation Center, and National Virtual Translation Center.
2) National Open Source Center responsibilities;
The National Open Source Center, is tasked to provide guidance to the National Open Source Enterprise, and consists of senior members from;
Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source as chair.
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.
Department of Homeland Security.
The Central Intelligence Agency .
National Security Agency.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Defense Intelligence Agency.
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Office of the Associate Director of National Intelligence and Chief Information Officer.
Other members as determined by the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source.
The Open Source Center will advise as well as report to the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collections and when requested;
Provide resource recommendation, and strategy.
Develop operational strategies in tradecraft, information verification, and training.
Coordinate with the Associate Director of National Intelligence and Chief Information Officer and the Associate Director of National Intelligence of Science and Technology to develop standards on data storage, interfacing, and metadata tagging.
Inform on open source intelligence gaps, and capabilities.
Provide recommendations to other intelligence agencies on open source exploitation.
The National Open Source Committee will form groups to address items of interest within the intelligence community.
3) The Open Source Advisors Board responsibilities;
Will consist of senior experts both within and outside the United States Government, The Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection is responsible for creating the board, it will provide guidance to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and other United States Government agencies.
When established the board will publish a carter that must be approved by The Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Collection, and will be reviewed annually.
4) Responsibilities of the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Center and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency as and Executive Agent;
Aid in exploitation of open source information as well as facilitates sharing of products, information, and services among United States Governmental agencies.
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, will act as the Executive Agent over the Center and will govern day-to-day operations ensuring compliance with the strategy set in place by the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source.
The Center will build on former Foreign Broadcast Information Service, that includes personnel from across the intelligence community and United States Government organizations.
The Center will act as a service on common concern and;
Support development and implementation of open source strategy, policy, and program decision.
Participates in the National Open Source Committee.
Makes open source information is available to all customers in a timely manner.
Helps United States Government partners and customers with open source exploitation.
Acquires proper licensing to provide access to all open source consumers.
Provides expertise to government agencies when requested.
Develop and promote open source programs to expose members of the intelligence community to open source, and trains them in exploitation.
Trains intelligence community personnel to follow proper information security protocol with open source intelligence.
The Center will provide common concern open source collection, analysis, procurement, dissemination, unless otherwise directed.
5) Responsibilities of the intelligence community elements;
Intelligence community elements will;
Collect, analyze, and disseminate open source materials, via the Associate Director of National Intelligence and Chief Information Officer's information sharing standard.
Make open source information available across the entire intelligence community unless forbidden by law.
Accurately source information and material to meet unique requirements.
Avoid duplication of information by keeping the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source up to date on activities.
Appoint an open source coordinator within each agency and department to participate in the Open Source Enterprise.
Provide participants for National Open Source Committee activities and working groups.
Support the Open Source Centers staffing needs.
Maximize use of open source information, expertise, and capabilities to aid collection strategies.
Institutionalize information sharing along Federal lines to help build a complete repository of open source information.
Implement a technological means for efficient data sharing that complies with common intelligence community policies, services and standards.
Inform the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source if there are any unique open source collection or analysis capabilities.
6) Additional miscellaneous responsibilities;
The Department of State will provide the Open Source Center with maps, foreign, publications, and geographic data when requested.
The National Geospatial Agency will provide imagery and geospatial data for other Federal agencies upon request.
The Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Management is responsible for executing the Director of National Intelligence's milestone decisions, and coordinating activities defined as important by the intelligence community.
The Associate Director of National Intelligence and Chief Information Officer is responsible for coordinating with other open source providers that proper technological means of information sharing are in place.
The Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis is responsible to making sure the intelligence community uses open source information efficiently and effectively.
The Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Customer Outcomes, is charged with developing a method to assess customer satisfaction, to be used in future strategies, return on investments, and resource decision making.
The National Counterintelligence Executive will support open source activities, tradecraft, exploitation, and information security trainings.
References
Espionage in the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal%20Soghoian
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Sal Soghoian
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Sal Soghoian is a user automation expert, software developer, author and musician. He joined Apple Inc. in January 1997 to serve as the Product Manager of Automation Technologies. These technologies include AppleScript, Services, the Terminal, Apple Configurator and Automator, among others. He left Apple in 2016 when his position was eliminated.
Soghoian has advanced Apple's incorporation of automation into its products by writing the scripting dictionaries for iWork, iPhoto, Aperture, and Photos, and the Mastered for iTunes automation tools. He designed and wrote the automation tools in the Apple Configurator application, which uses macOS automation to manage iOS device deployment. Apple Configurator consists of a central AppleScriptObj-C library and a set of Automator actions. Apple Configurator automation tools enable iOS devices to be prepared, managed and refreshed automatically upon their connection to a hosting macOS computer.
Soghoian's current projects include a collection of hundreds of voice-triggered dictation commands for controlling aspects of macOS, including the Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Photos, and the Finder applications. He created, hosts and manages a group of user automation resources at macosxautomation.com.
In late 2002, Soghoian joined an ad hoc team of engineers developing an application for creating and running automation workflows. After a year and a half of difficult but steady development, Soghoian showed the application to Steve Jobs. It was just one week before Apple's 2004 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Jobs was impressed with the new tool and asked Soghoian to appear at the WWDC keynote to demonstrate Automator for the first time to attendees. This innovative integrated workflow feature was introduced as part of Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger. Soghoian holds related U.S. patent #7428535.
During Soghoian's tenure, Apple's native automation scripting language, AppleScript, was revived and upgraded to be PowerPC native in Mac OS 8.5. It was also successfully transitioned to Apple's UNIX-based operating system, Mac OS X, becoming integrated with the native IDE, which included Project Builder and Interface Builder (the precursors to Xcode).
In the evolving releases of OS X from Lion to Mavericks, AppleScript added library support and direct access to the Cocoa frameworks through AppleScriptObj-C, a powerful fusion of AppleScript and the Objective-C programming language. OS X Yosemite introduced JavaScript for Automation (JXA), a peer to AppleScript providing access to Apple Events and Cocoa through an enhanced version of JavaScript Core.
Soghoian was an advocate for AppleScript years before being employed by Apple. As a consultant, he created automation solutions for the publishing industry in the 1990s. Soghoian also authored a popular script collection called Sal's AppleScript Snippets, the ShadowCaster Quark XTension, two books, including AppleScript 1-2-3, and numerous magazine articles about automation. He was a special guest at one Leopard Tech Talk. He was a featured presenter for Quark, Thunder Lizard Productions, Apple, Seybold, and the Macworld conferences.
Personal life
Sal Soghoian was born into a military family, and spent his childhood growing up on Marine and Naval bases, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from which he was evacuated during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In his college years, he attended the University of Virginia in 1969 for a short time, but later moved to Boston where he earned a degree in music from the Berklee College of Music. In the late 1980s he returned to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he worked at the digital printshop "Pixels." Although he is known for his work at Apple, he is also an avid jazz musician. During his time in Charlottesville, he played guitar in a band called "Blue Indigo". The band is notable because it was composed of Carter Beauford (drummer), LeRoi Moore (Saxophone), George Melvin (Hammond B3 organ), and Soghoian (guitar). Beauford and Moore would go on to later musical fame as founding members of the Dave Matthews Band. Jeff Decker and Phil Riddle joined, following their departure.
He is the uncle of noted privacy researcher & activist, Christopher Soghoian.
Bibliography
Soghoian, Sal. (1994). The Quark XTensions Book/Book and Disk. Hayden Books. .
Soghoian, Sal; Cheeseman, Bill. (2009). Apple Training Series: AppleScript 1-2-3. Peachpit Press. .
Discography
Blue Indigo, Catwalk
Sal Soghoian, To Be with You
References
External links
Sal Soghoian
Mac OS X Automation: Automator, Applescript, and Services
Automator.us
Sal Soghoian Music Biography
To Be with You [Liner Notes]
Mastered for iTunes
Living people
Apple Inc. employees
American people of Armenian descent
Berklee College of Music alumni
University of Virginia alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
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56903929
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS%20over%20HTTPS
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DNS over HTTPS
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DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is a protocol for performing remote Domain Name System (DNS) resolution via the HTTPS protocol. A goal of the method is to increase user privacy and security by preventing eavesdropping and manipulation of DNS data by man-in-the-middle attacks by using the HTTPS protocol to encrypt the data between the DoH client and the DoH-based DNS resolver. By March 2018, Google and the Mozilla Foundation had started testing versions of DNS over HTTPS. In February 2020, Firefox switched to DNS over HTTPS by default for users in the United States.
An alternative to DoH is the DNS over TLS (DoT) protocol, a similar standard for encrypting DNS queries, differing only in the methods used for encryption and delivery. On the basis of privacy and security, whether or not a superior protocol exists among the two is a matter of controversial debate, while others argue the merits of either depend on the specific use case.
Technical details
DoH is a proposed standard, published as RFC 8484 (October 2018) by the IETF. It uses HTTP/2 and HTTPS, and supports the wire format DNS response data, as returned in existing UDP responses, in an HTTPS payload with the MIME type application/dns-message. If HTTP/2 is used, the server may also use HTTP/2 server push to send values that it anticipates the client may find useful in advance.
DoH is a work in progress. Even though the IETF has published RFC 8484 as a proposed standard and companies are experimenting with it, the IETF has yet to determine how it should best be implemented. The IETF is evaluating a number of approaches for how best to deploy DoH and is looking to set up a working group, Adaptive DNS Discovery (ADD), to do this work and develop a consensus. In addition, other industry working groups such as the Encrypted DNS Deployment Initiative, have been formed to "define and adopt DNS encryption technologies in a manner that ensures the continued high performance, resiliency, stability and security of the Internet's critical namespace and name resolution services, as well as ensuring the continued unimpaired functionality of security protections, parental controls, and other services that depend upon the DNS".
Since DoH cannot be used under some circumstances, like captive portals, web browsers like Firefox can be configured to fallback to insecure DNS.
Oblivious DNS-over-HTTPS
Oblivious DoH is an Internet Draft proposing a protocol extension to ensure no single DoH server is aware of both the client's IP address and their message contents. All requests are passed via a proxy, hiding clients' addresses from the resolver itself, and are encrypted to hide their contents from the proxy.
Deployment scenarios
DoH is used for recursive DNS resolution by DNS resolvers. Resolvers (DoH clients) must have access to a DoH server hosting a query endpoint.
Three usage scenarios are common:
Using a DoH implementation within an application: Some browsers have a built-in DoH implementation and can thus perform queries by bypassing the operating system's DNS functionality. A drawback is that an application may not inform the user if it skips DoH querying, either by misconfiguration or lack of support for DoH.
Installing a DoH proxy on the name server in the local network: In this scenario client systems continue to use traditional (port 53 or 853) DNS to query the name server in the local network, which will then gather the necessary replies via DoH by reaching DoH-servers in the Internet. This method is transparent to the end user.
Installing a DoH proxy on a local system: In this scenario, operating systems are configured to query a locally running DoH proxy. In contrast to the previously mentioned method, the proxy needs to be installed on each system wishing to use DoH, which might require a lot of effort in larger environments.
Software support
Operating systems
Apple
Apple's iOS 14 and macOS 11 released in late 2020 support both DoH and DoT protocols.
Windows
In November 2019, Microsoft announced plans to implement support for encrypted DNS protocols in Microsoft Windows, beginning with DoH. In May 2020, Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 19628 that included initial support for DoH along with instructions on how to enable it via registry and command line interface. Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 20185 added graphical user interface for specifying a DoH resolver. DoH support is not included in Windows 10 21H2.
Windows 11 has DoH support.
Recursive DNS resolvers
BIND
BIND 9, an open source DNS resolver from Internet Systems Consortium added native support for DoH in version 9.17.10.
PowerDNS
DNSdist, an open source DNS proxy/load balancer from PowerDNS, added native support for DoH in version 1.4.0 in April 2019.
Unbound
Unbound, an open source DNS resolver created by NLnet Labs, has supported DoH since version 1.12.0, released in October 2020. It first implemented support for DNS encryption using the alternative DoT protocol much earlier, starting with version 1.4.14, released in December 2011. Unbound runs on most operating systems, including distributions of Linux, MacOS, and Windows.
Web browsers
Google Chrome
DNS over HTTPS is available in Google Chrome 83 for Windows and macOS, configurable via the settings page. When enabled, and the operating system is configured with a supported DNS server, Chrome will upgrade DNS queries to be encrypted. It is also possible to manually specify a preset or custom DoH server to use within the user interface.
In September 2020, Google Chrome for Android began staged rollout of DNS over HTTPS. Users can configure a custom resolver or disable DNS over HTTPS in settings.
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge supports DNS over HTTPS, configurable via the settings page. When enabled, and the operating system is configured with a supported DNS server, Edge will upgrade DNS queries to be encrypted. It is also possible to manually specify a preset or custom DoH server to use within the user interface.
Mozilla Firefox
In 2018, Mozilla partnered with Cloudflare to deliver DoH for Firefox users that enable it (known as Trusted Recursive Resolver). On February 25, 2020, Firefox started enabling DNS over HTTPS for all US-based users, relying on Cloudflare's resolver by default.
Opera
Opera supports DoH, configurable via the browser settings page. By default, DNS queries are sent to Cloudflare servers.
Public DNS servers
DNS over HTTPS server implementations are already available free of charge by some public DNS providers.
Implementation considerations
Many issues with how to properly deploy DoH are still being resolved by the internet community including, but not limited to:
Stopping third-parties from analyzing DNS traffic for security purposes
Disruption of DNS-level parental controls and content filters
Split DNS in enterprise networks
CDN localization
Analysis of DNS traffic for security purposes
DoH can impede analysis and monitoring of DNS traffic for cybersecurity purposes; the 2019 DDoS worm Godlua used DoH to mask connections to its command-and-control server.
In January 2021, NSA warned enterprises against using external DoH resolvers because they prevent DNS query filtering, inspection, and audit. Instead, NSA recommends configuring enterprise-owned DoH resolvers and blocking all known external DoH resolvers.
Disruption of content filters
DoH has been used to bypass parental controls which operate at the (unencrypted) standard DNS level; Circle, a parental control router which relies on DNS queries to check domains against a blocklist, blocks DoH by default due to this. However, there are DNS providers that offer filtering and parental controls along with support for DoH by operating DoH servers.
The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA)—a trade association representing British ISPs—and the also British body Internet Watch Foundation have criticized Mozilla, developer of the Firefox web browser, for supporting DoH, as they believe that it will undermine web blocking programs in the country, including ISP default filtering of adult content, and mandatory court-ordered filtering of copyright violations. The ISPA nominated Mozilla for its "Internet Villain" award for 2019 (alongside the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, and Donald Trump), "for their proposed approach to introduce DNS-over-HTTPS in such a way as to bypass UK filtering obligations and parental controls, undermining internet safety standards in the UK." Mozilla responded to the allegations by the ISPA, arguing that it would not prevent filtering, and that they were "surprised and disappointed that an industry association for ISPs decided to misrepresent an improvement to decades-old internet infrastructure". In response to the criticism, the ISPA apologized and withdrew the nomination. Mozilla subsequently stated that DoH will not be used by default in the British market until further discussion with relevant stakeholders, but stated that it "would offer real security benefits to UK citizens".
Inconsistent DoH deployment
Some DoH deployments are not an end-to-end encrypted, but rather only hop-to-hop encrypted because DoH is deployed only on a subset of connections. There are following types of connections:
from client device (computer or a tablet) to local DNS forwarder (home or office router)
from DNS forwarder to recursive DNS resolver (typically at the ISP)
from recursive DNS resolver to authoritative DNS resolver (usually located in a data center)
Every connection in the chain needs to support DoH for maximum security.
See also
DNS over TLS
DNSCrypt
DNSCurve
EDNS Client Subnet
References
External links
DNS Privacy Project: dnsprivacy.org
DNS over HTTPS Implementations
A cartoon intro to DNS over HTTPS
DNS over HTTPS (DoH) Considerations for Operator Networks (draft, expired on 12 March 2020)
Application layer protocols
Web security exploits
Domain Name System
Internet protocols
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20252320
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSSICS
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OSSICS
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OSSICS, an acronym for Open Software Solutions Industrial Cooperative Society Limited, is the first business enterprise for software development in the co-operative sector of Kerala, India.
OSSICS was started in the year 1998 and has its head office in Ernakulam in Kerala.
The co-operative society began working with a team of 11 software professionals. Currently, it has a strength of nearly 60 professionals. Its members include engineers, revenue-model experts and economy advisers.
Along with Cochin University of Science and Technology, IT@School Project of Government of Kerala and the Appropriate Technology Promotion Society in Kochi, OSSICS was one of the organisers of the
National Free Software Conference 2008
held in Cochin University of Science and Technology during 15–16 November 2008.
All products and services offered by OSSICS are in the GPL software platforms.
Services
The services provided by OSSICS include consultancy in business process reengineering,
content generation for building up information systems, system software development for Linux environments, porting of existing applications to Linux, database solutions based on PostgreSQL and MySQL and
web-portal solutions based on Linux, Apache, PHP, and PostgreSQL/MySQL.
Products
OSSICS owns one of the largest client base in Kerala in the free software sector.
The flagship product is Sanghamitra, an open source software targeted at the cooperative banks and societies in Kerala.
Smart Asset
Smart Asset is a package designed as a Fixed Assets Management System which captures the complete life-cycle from estimation to scrap sale. Within an enterprise, this software integrates the functions of the planning wing, the operations and maintenance wing and the audit and accounting wing into a single database. This product has been implemented in the Ernakulam Secondary Switching Area of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.
Collection Manager
Collection Counter is a package designed as a Collection Counter Management System and it provides a front-end interface for bill collection and integrates the back-end to existing legacy systems. The Ernakulam Central Telegraph Office of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited currently uses this package.
ERP@Printmedia
ERP@Printmedia is a package specifically designed to take care of all activities related to print media like circulation, advertisement, printing, publishing, store, etc. The newspaper Prajasakti Sahiti Samastha of Andhra Pradesh has implemented this package.
Sanghamitra
Sanghamitra, a Core Banking System, is a package intended for the cooperative sector. Some of the prominent clients of this package include P&T and BSNL Employees Credit Societies in Kerala, Central Excise Employees' Credit Society, Ernakulam, and Government Servants' Employees Cooperative bank, Kollam.
Kairali SCADA
SCADA stands for "Supervisory Control and data Acquisition Plant Monitoring System". This operates as a system for monitoring sensors, displaying data by providing a human-machine interface for plant operations. It has been implemented at the Super Thermal Power Plant at National Thermal Power Corporation, Talchar. Mejia Thermal Power Station (MTPS) of DVC at W.B.
References
External links
OSSICS home page
Free software companies
Cooperatives in Kerala
Companies based in Kochi
Software companies of India
1998 establishments in Kerala
Indian companies established in 1998
Software companies established in 1998
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11351021
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Bridges%20%28software%20developer%29
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John Bridges (software developer)
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John Bridges is the co-author of the computer program PCPaint and primary developer of the program GRASP for Microtex Industries with Doug Wolfgram. He is also the sole author of GLPro and AfterGRASP. His article entitled "Differential Image Compression" was published in the February 1991 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal.
Early work
In 1980 Bridges started his programming career at the NYU Institute for Reconstructive Plastic Surgery as a summer intern, working with sophisticated programmable vector graphics systems. He wrote editing tools and also updated and debugged software used for early 3D x-ray scanning research.
From 1981-85 Bridges wrote the RAM disk drivers, utilities, cracking software, task switching software, and memory test diagnostics for Abacus, a maker of large memory cards for the Apple II.
In 1982, he started working for Classroom Consortia Media, Inc., an educational software company, developing and writing Apple and IBM graphics libraries and tools for their software. During his tenure there he created a drawing program called SuperDraw for CCM, and on his own wrote the core graphics code for what would later become PCPaint, as well as develop the GRASP GL library format.
PCPaint
In 1984, Bridges developed the first version of PCPaint with Doug Wolfgram for Mouse Systems. PCPaint was the first IBM PC-based mouse driven GUI paint program. The company purchased the exclusive rights to PCPaint, and John continued development until 1990.
GRASP
In 1985, Bridges' PCPaint code and Doug's slideshow program morphed into a new program, GRASP. GRASP was the first multimedia animation program for the IBM PC and created the GRASP GL library format. GRASP was originally released as shareware through Doug's company, Microtex Industries. However, version 2.0 and after were sold commercially by Paul Mace Software. Doug sold his shares of both PCPaint and GRASP to Bridges in 1990, and Bridges' work on GRASP continued through 1994, when he terminated the contract with Paul Mace Software. Bridges' work on GRASP included several toolsets and add-ons, such as Pictor Paint, ARTools, HRFE (High Res Flic Enhancement), and PC Speaker sound code that caused Paul Mace Software to be threatened with a lawsuit by RealSound because of the use of frequency modulation, upon which RealSound held a patent.
A stripped-down version of GRASP 4.0 was also included with copies of Philip Shaddock's Multimedia Creations: Hands-On Workshop for Exploring Animation and Sound.
VIDSPEED
In 1987, Bridges released VIDSPEED, a freeware program that tests the speed of graphics cards by "[measuring] the throughput of writing constant
pixel data to video memory over the bus in graphics modes." VIDSPEED was well received in the community and was recommended in at least two books, Patrick Killelea's Web Performance Tuning and Stephen J. Bigelow's Bigelow's Computer Repair Toolkit, though Bigelow expresses concern over support and updates.
IBM Project
In 1986-87 Bridges authored a project for the IBM Multimedia Lab which played back full color
video in a 1/4 size window on the new IBM Model 30 (8 MHz 8086 CPU) which had the new MCGA 320x200 256-color video mode. Not only did it play full color video at such an early date in DOS history, but it did so smoothly on one of the slowest, most low-end IBM PS/2 models sold. IBM applied for a patent on algorithms he developed, though it was filed under the name of the project manager at IBM.
Those same algorithms were later published in an article by Bridges entitled "Differential Image Compression", which first appeared in Dr. Dobb's Journal in February 1991. It was later reprinted in that same magazine in July 2001 along with James H. Sylvester's 1993 article "Differential Compression Algorithms", which adapts Bridges' algorithms to generalized data, not just graphics.
IMAGETOOLS
Out of the IBM Project came IMAGETOOLS in 1987, a collection of high color (15bit, 24bit, 32bit) VGA/EGA image conversion and scaling tools. It was sold by MetaCreations Corp./Harvard Systems Corp (HSC Software).
PICEM
In 1988, Bridges authored a freeware image viewer program called PICEM. Other image viewers at the time were commercial. PICEM also allowed the user to adjust images' brightness and contrast and to save the image being viewed to other formats including the BSAVE (graphics image format). PICEM became popular enough that Microsoft offered tech help in using it in conjunction with QuickBasic.
VGAKIT
Also in 1988, Bridges released VGAKIT, the VGAKIT SVGA Programming Kit, as freeware. VGAKIT is an open source library for accessing extended graphics modes from DOS, which was not standardized before VESA VBE arrived. It was used in several open and closed source projects. The developer of UniVBE, a program that extended video cards' BIOS to become compatible with the new VESA VBE, said that Bridges "provided the information without which [UniVBE] would never have gotten started. The whole PC graphics community is deeply in his debt."
Author Michael Abrash, in his 1997 book Graphics Programming Black Book, says "Little other than my DDJ (Dr. Dobb's Journal) columns has been published about (Mode X), although Bridges has widely distributed his code for a number of undocumented 256-color resolutions, and I’d like to acknowledge the influence of his code on the mode set routine presented in [Chapter 47]." The codes to which Abrash refers are Mode X 360x480 256-color mode codes Bridges included with VGAKIT, and worked on any VGA, not just SVGAs. Abrash's DDJ articles were published circa 1991 before being compiled into GPBB.
Pictor Paint and ARTOOLS
When GRASP 3.5 was released, it included Bridges' newest version of PCPaint, Pictor Paint. Version 4.0 included Bridges' ARTOOLS, which was a collection of image manipulation tools which included an early morphing utility that tracked all points in source and destination images, creating all the in-between frames.
GLPro
In 1995, Bridges created GLPro for IMS as the newest incarnation of Bridges' ideas behind GRASP updated for Windows. In 2000 GLPro became property of GMedia PLC, which closed in 2001. Bridges stopped all GLPro work at that time.
A stripped down version of GLPro was included with Conrad R. Brandt's book GLPRO Foundations 2000.
AfterGRASP
In 2002, Bridges started work on a new program, AfterGRASP, designed to be backwards compatible with GLPro. Work is still continuing on that project.
Pictor PIC image format
The PICtor PIC image format is an image file format developed by Bridges for PCPaint. It was also the native file format for GRASP, and GLPro and was the first widely accepted DOS imaging standard.
See also
PCPaint
PICtor PIC image format
GRASP
GRASP GL library format
GLPro
References
External Pages
AfterGRASP Homepage
GLPro History
GLPro Mailing List Archive
GLPro History
Computer programmers
Free software programmers
Programming language designers
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
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16633817
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3801%20Thrasymedes
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3801 Thrasymedes
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3801 Thrasymedes is a mid-sized Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 6 November 1985, by astronomers with the Spacewatch survey at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, United States. The dark Jovian asteroid has a rotation period of 20.3 hours and forms an asteroid pair with 1583 Antilochus. It was named after Thrasymedes from Greek mythology.
Orbit and classification
Thrasymedes is a dark Jovian asteroid in a 1:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter. It is located in the leading Greek camp at the Gas Giant's Lagrangian point, 60° ahead on its orbit . It is also a non-family asteroid of the Jovian background population. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 5.2–5.4 AU once every 12 years and 3 months (4,486 days; semi-major axis of 5.32 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.02 and an inclination of 28° with respect to the ecliptic.
The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken at Palomar Observatory in April 1954, more than 31 years prior to its official discovery observation at Kitt Peak.
Asteroid pair
In 1993, Andrea Milani suggested that Thrasymedes forms an asteroid pair with 1583 Antilochus, using the hierarchical clustering method (HCM), which looks for groupings of neighboring asteroids based on the smallest distances between them in the proper orbital element space. Asteroid pairs, which at some point in the past had very small relative velocities, are typically formed by a collisional break-up of a parent body. Alternatively, they may have been former binary asteroids which became gravitationally unbound and are now following similar but different orbits around the Sun.
The astronomer describes the finding as statistically significant though difficult to account for by a regular collisional event. The Antilochus–Thrasymedes pair is not listed at the Johnston's archive.
Physical characteristics
Thrasymedes is an assumed, carbonaceous C-type asteroid, while the majority of larger Jupiter trojans are D-type asteroids.
Rotation period
The first two fragmentary rotational lightcurves of Thrasymedes, taken before 2015, gave a rotation period of 9.60 and 16.02 hours, respectively ().
In 2015, photometric observations by the Kepler space telescope gave two lightcurves. The best-rated one showed a period of hours and a brightness variation of 0.14 magnitude (). In June 2016, another period determination from 16 nights of observation by Robert Stephens at the Center for Solar System Studies in California gave a divergent hours with a notably large amplitude of 1.07 magnitude ().
Diameter and albedo
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Thrasymedes measures 34.28 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.066, while he Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for a carbonaceous asteroid of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 35.12 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 11.0.
Naming
This minor planet was named after the Greek warrior Thrasymedes, commander of 15 ships to Troy. He is the son of Nestor and brother of Antilochus, who was killed during a fight with Memnon. He was also one of the 30 warriors to enter the wooden Trojan Horse.
The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 31 May 1988 (). The citation also mentions that this Jovian asteroids may have a common origin with 1583 Antilochus, because their orbits are very similar.
Notes
References
External links
Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB), query form (info )
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books
Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000) – Minor Planet Center
Asteroid 3801 Thrasymedes at the Small Bodies Data Ferret
003801
003801
Minor planets named from Greek mythology
Named minor planets
19851106
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3727353
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian%20Krebs
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Brian Krebs
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Brian Krebs (born 1972) is an American journalist and investigative reporter. He is best known for his coverage of profit-seeking cybercriminals. Krebs is the author of a daily blog, KrebsOnSecurity.com, covering computer security and cybercrime. From 1995 to 2009, Krebs was a reporter for The Washington Post and covered tech policy, privacy and computer security as well as authoring the Security Fix blog. He is also known for interviewing hacker 0x80.
Early life and education
Born in 1972 in Alabama, Krebs earned a B.A. in International Relations from George Mason University in 1994. His interest in cybercriminals grew after a computer worm locked him out of his own computer in 2001.
Career
1999–2007
Krebs started his career at The Washington Post in the circulation department. From there, he obtained a job as a copy aide in the Post newsroom, where he split his time between sorting mail and taking dictation from reporters in the field. Krebs also worked as an editorial aide for the editorial department and the financial desk. In 1999, Krebs went to work as a staff writer for Newsbytes.com, a technology newswire owned by The Washington Post.
When the Post sold Newsbytes in 2002, Krebs transitioned to Washingtonpost.com in Arlington, Virginia as a full-time staff writer. Krebs's stories appeared in both the print edition of the paper and Washingtonpost.com. In 2005, Krebs launched the Security Fix blog, a daily blog centered around computer security, cyber crime and tech policy. In December 2009, Krebs left Washingtonpost.com and launched KrebsOnSecurity.com.
Krebs has focused his reporting at his blog on the fallout from the activities of several organized cybercrime groups operating out of eastern Europe that have stolen tens of millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses through online banking fraud. Krebs has written more than 75 stories about small businesses and other organizations that were victims of online banking fraud, an increasingly costly and common form of cybercrime.
Krebs wrote a series of investigative stories that culminated in the disconnection or dissolution of several Internet service providers that experts said catered primarily to cyber criminals. In August 2008, a series of articles he wrote for The Washington Posts Security Fix blog led to the unplugging of a northern California based hosting provider known as Intercage or Atrivo.
During that same time, Krebs published a two-part investigation on illicit activity at domain name registrar EstDomains, one of Atrivo's biggest customers, showing that the company's president, Vladimir Tšaštšin, recently had been convicted of credit card fraud, document forgery and money laundering. Two months later, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the entity charged with overseeing the domain registration industry, revoked EstDomains' charter, noting that Tšaštšin's convictions violated an ICANN policy that prohibits officers of a registrar from having a criminal record. In November 2011, Tšaštšin and five other men would be arrested by Estonian authorities and charged with running a massive click fraud operation with the help of the DNS Changer Trojan.
2008–2012
In November 2008, Krebs published an investigative series that led to the disconnection of McColo, another northern California hosting firm that experts said was home to control networks for most of the world's largest botnets. As a result of Krebs' reporting, both of McColo's upstream Internet providers disconnected McColo from the rest of the Internet, causing an immediate and sustained drop in the volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide. Estimates of the amount and duration of the decline in spam due to the McColo takedown vary, from 40 percent to 70 percent, and from a few weeks to several months.
Krebs is credited with being the first journalist, in 2010, to report on the malware that would later become known as Stuxnet. In 2012, he was cited in a follow-up to another breach of credit and debit card data, in this case potentially more than 10 million Visa and MasterCard accounts with transactions handled by Global Payments Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia.
2013–present
On March 14, 2013, Krebs became one of the first journalists to become a victim of swatting. On December 18, 2013, Krebs broke the story that Target Corporation had been breached of 40 million credit cards. Six days later Krebs identified a Ukrainian man who Krebs said was behind a primary black market site selling Target customers' credit and debit card information for as much as US$100 apiece. In 2014, Krebs published a book called Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime—from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door, which went on to win a 2015 PROSE Award.
In 2016, Krebs's blog was the target of one of the largest ever DDoS attacks, apparently in retaliation for Krebs's role in investigating the vDOS botnet. Akamai, which was hosting the blog on a pro bono basis, quit hosting his blog as a result of the attack, causing it to shut down. , Google's Project Shield had taken over the task of protecting his site, also on a pro-bono basis.
An article by Krebs on 27 March 2018 on KrebsOnSecurity.com about the mining software company and script "Coinhive" where Krebs published the names of admins of the German imageboard pr0gramm, as a former admin is the inventor of the script and owner of the company, was answered by an unusual protest action by the users of that imageboard. Using the pun of "Krebs" meaning "Cancer" in German, they donated to charitable organisations fighting against those diseases, collecting more than 200,000 Euro (245,000 USD) of donations until the evening of 28 March to the Deutsche Krebshilfe charity.
Prior to 2021, his investigation of First American Financial's prior data breach led to an SEC investigation that concluding that "ensuing company disclosures preceded executives’ knowledge of unaddressed, months-old IT security reports."
Awards and recognition
2004 – Carnegie Mellon CyLab Cybersecurity Journalism Award of Merit
2005 – CNET News.com listed Security Fix as one of the top 100 blogs, saying "Good roundup of significant security issues. The Washington Post's Brian Krebs offers a userful, first-person perspective".
2009 – Winner of Cisco Systems' 1st Annual "Cyber Crime Hero" Award
2010 – Security Bloggers Network, "Best Non-Technical Security Blog"
2010 – SANS Institute Top Cybersecurity Journalist Award
2011 – Security Bloggers Network, "Blog That Best Represents the Industry"
2014 – National Press Foundation, "Chairman's Citation Award"
2017 – ISSA's President’s Award For Public Service
2019 – CISO MAG’s Cybersecurity Person of the Year
Media appearances
Krebs speaks on computer security and cybercrime topics.
In October 2011, he gave keynote addresses at in Rotterdam, Secure 2011 in Warsaw, Poland, SecTor 2011, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and FIRST 2011 in Vienna, Austria.
See also
Mirai (malware)
Intuit#Lawsuits
0x80
mSpy
Russian Business Network
BlueLeaks
Dark0de
References
External links
Aghast at Avast’s iYogi Support
CNET News.Com "Blog 100" review
1972 births
Living people
Anti-spam
American business and financial journalists
American male journalists
Writers about computer security
American crime reporters
American investigative journalists
The Washington Post journalists
American online journalists
American activist journalists
George Mason University alumni
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMMV%20Survivor%20R
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RMMV Survivor R
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The RMMV Survivor R (presented SURVIVOR R by the company) is a medium weight armoured-wheeled vehicle developed jointly as the result of a strategic co-operation between Germany’s Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles (RMMV) and Austria’s Achleitner. Survivor R was publicly displayed for the first time at Eurosatory 2014. The first sale of Survivor R was announced in March 2017.
Development
The co-operation between RMMV and Achleitner is intended to combine the flexibility and innovative strength of a mid-size vehicle manufacturer with the global reputation, market presence and corporate resources of a leading European defense multinational corporation. Survivor R, which adds a 15-tonne GVW class protected wheeled vehicle to RMMV’s portfolio of multirole vehicles, is the initial result of this co-operation.
When shown for the first time at Eurosatory 2014, Survivor R was configured for the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear role. Survivor R was then shown at IDEX 2015 held in Abu Dhabi 22–26 February. This was the first time the vehicle had been shown in the Middle East, and the first time it had been shown in command and control configuration. Survivor R has since been shown in ambulance configuration (DSEi 2015) and Police/law enforcement configuration (Eurosatory 2016).
During June 2016 the UK Ministry of Defence confirmed that the five international companies had been shortlisted to compete for the final stages of the Package 2 element of the Multi-Role Vehicle - Protected (MRV-P) program. According to a report in Defense News, Survivor R was one of the five downselected for this requirement which would initially require 150 troop carrying vehicles and 80 ambulances but incremental orders would take eventually the numbers up to 300 of each. In February 2017 it was disclosed that RMMV had withdrawn from the competition.
The first sale of Survivor R was announced in March 2017, this to the Free State of Saxony, Germany. The first vehicle was delivered on 15 December, with the second scheduled for delivery prior to Christmas.
The second sale of Survivor R was announced in November 2017. The Berlin Police have ordered a vehicle tailored to the requirements of the Operations Directorate. The vehicle was delivered in July 2018 and the order was stated to be worth a six-figure euro amount.
On November 21, 2017, the Survivor Special Operations Vehicle concept was unveiled to the public at Milipol 2017.
RMMV was created in 2010 as a joint company between Rheinmetall AG and then-named MAN Nutzfahrzuege AG. RMMV inherited the expertise in protection and systems integration of Rheinmetall, and complementing this has access to Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components from the volume truck production of the now MAN Truck & Bus AG.
Description
To minimise both initial procurement and through life costs, Survivor R is based on a militarised MAN TGM 18-tonne gross vehicle weight (GVW) commercial truck chassis and automotives.
Survivor R uses only series-produced COTS components, with the bulk of the militarisation required integrated into the TGM production line at MAN’s truck plant in Steyr, Austria. Through-life support will be based on the worldwide service, support and manufacturing networks of Rheinmetall and MAN, this ensuring the Survivor R can offer users supportability, high levels of operational availability and genuine service longevity.
Survivor R is powered by a high-sulphur fuel tolerant MAN 6.9-litre, 6-cylinder water-cooled diesel engine, this rated at EURO 3 or EURO 6 emissions compliance and (at EURO 6) developing 340 hp and 1,250 Nm torque. A MAN 12 AS 1210 Tipmatic 12-speed automated gearbox and MAN G 103 2-speed transfer box are fitted. The MAN front axle is rated at 7.1-tonnes, the rear at 11.5-tonnes. Suspension is by parabolic leaf springs, shock-absorbers and anti-roll bars. Standard tyres are 365/85 R 20 Michelin XZL fitted with Hutchinson run flat inserts
Survivor R’s armoured steel monocoque cabin provides undisclosed STANAG-compliant levels of protection and one of the highest internal volumes in its class. With an unladen weight of 10.9-tonnes and up to 4.1-tonnes of military payload the Survivor R offers a respectable payload-to-weight ratio. This combination of protection, workspace and payload makes Survivor R well suited to requirements involving complex systems integrations.
Survivor R is air transportable by C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.
Optional equipment includes a central tyre inflation system, a fully automatic gearbox, a 10-tonne hydraulic self-recovery winch and a dozer blade.
RMMV lists numerous potential roles and applications as suited to the Survivor R, these including an internal security and/or law enforcement vehicle, riot control, trauma management/ambulance, a command and control vehicle, and logistics version with a rear cargo body.
Displayed variants
The primary mission of the CBRN reconnaissance variant will be to detect, identify, mark, sample and report chemical, biological and radiological contamination and provide forecast information to units deployed in the area of operations.
The CBRN Survivor R is equipped with fully automated detectors for nuclear radiation as well as sensors for identifying chemical warfare agents and other hazardous materials. These include a remote standoff sensor for detecting distant clouds of chemical agents, providing immediate analysis and warning. Moreover, the CBRN Survivor R can operate on the move.
In addition to its inherent identification capabilities the system can collect samples from soil, water, and ground for later reference analysis. It allows real-time transmission of all relevant CBRN information up the chain of command as well as immediate marking of contaminated areas to enhance the survivability and mobility of ground forces.
As shown at Eurosatory, the Survivor R CBRN variant was equipped with a comprehensive suite of CBRN detection equipment including an OWR sampling system, a Bruker MM mass spectrometer and a RMMV NBC Inspector.
When shown at IDEX 2015 the Survivor R command and control variant was displayed fitted with a battle management system, roof-mounted Kongsberg Nordic remote weapon station armed with a .50 machine gun, and banks of Rheinmetall, ROSY grenade launchers. This latest version of the Survivor R features twin doors at the rear, which allows it to be used for other roles, such as specialised ambulance, for which the vehicle could be fitted with equipment to assist in rapidly loading stretcher patients into the vehicle.
At DESI 2015, RMMV displayed Survivor R in a field ambulance configuration. In the configuration shown, the vehicle is able to transport two casualties on stretchers or three seated casualties plus one stretcher accompanied by two medical attendants. The medical equipment is comparable to a civilian paramedic ambulance. It contains advanced procedure equipment, heart monitors, medications and other supplies necessary to provide lifesaving tactical combat casualty care.
At Eurosatory 2016, RMMV displayed Survivor R in a Police/law enforcement configuration.
When marketed by Achleitner the slightly revised design is known as PMV Survivor II. The easiest way to differentiate the Survivor R from the PMV Survivor II is the differing bonnet style.
Operators
Survivor R
Following German state police forces (German: Landespolizei) use Survivor R vehicles under the denomination Sonderwagen 5:
Berlin Police - one vehicle delivered in December 2018
Saxony State Police - two examples ordered in March 2017. The vehicles form part of an extensive €15 million anti-terror package and are used to equip special police units in Saxony. The first example was delivered on December 15.
North Rhine-Westphalia Police - one vehicle delivered in December 2018
PMV Survivor II
EKO Cobra - Special operations forces of the Interior Ministry
WEGA - SWAT-unit of the Federal Police
Border Guard - Between 10 and 15 ordered around 2015.
Gallery
References
External links
Rheinmetall
Military vehicles of Germany
Military vehicles introduced in the 2010s
Armoured vehicles
Post–Cold War military vehicles of Germany
MAN SE
MAN vehicles
Off-road vehicles
Military logistics
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14086817
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-Patent
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Peer-to-Patent
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The Peer To Patent project is an initiative that seeks to assist patent offices in improving patent quality by gathering public input in a structured, productive manner. Peer To Patent is the first social-software project directly linked to decision-making by the federal government.
An initial pilot project in collaboration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was completed June 15, 2009. That pilot examined more than 220 patent applications in the fields of software and business methods. The Peer To Patent project has issued two anniversary reports from the initial pilot ( and), and a final report from the initial pilot is pending.
Following the conclusion of the initial pilot the USPTO undertook an evaluation of Peer To Patent assisted by students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. That evaluation concluded that the program had merit and should be continued. On October 19, 2010, the USPTO and New York Law School jointly announced a new pilot program commencing October 25, 2010, and continuing through September 30, 2011 (with the review period extending through December 31, 2011). This new pilot will not only include patent applications covering subject matter included in the initial pilot, it will now include telecommunications, speech recognition, translation, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biopharmaceuticals.
Other patent offices involved in pilot programs include IP Australia, the Japan Patent Office, and the Korean Intellectual Property Office. The UK Intellectual Property Office announced on November 4, 2010, that it would commence a pilot in 2011 and the pilot commenced on 1 June 2011.
Justification and purpose
Patents go to the heart of invention, a key driver of technological progress and economic vitality. When the patent system functions correctly, it rewards only meritorious inventions—those that are useful, novel, and not obvious. This in turn encourages more people to exercise their ingenuity and effort to create new inventions. However, for a proper balance to be struck, the system must avoid awarding patents to discourage inventions that lack merit. When the system becomes inconsistent in recognizing true invention, inappropriately issued patents become obstacles for innovation in that technology area. This raises, directly or indirectly, the costs of doing business in that particular area.
The number of patents in the most active jurisdictions (including the ones piloting Peer-to-Patent) has grown over the past few decades.
The rise in patent applications has also placed stress on the patent offices themselves. For example, the USPTO October 31, 2010 had a backlog of about 700,000 patent applications, which is one and a half times the highest number of applications the USPTO has processed in any given year.
Peer To Patent is focused on helping patent offices perform high-quality examinations of pending patent applications by enlisting the public to help find and explain prior art. Prior art are references that predate the date of conception of at least some of the features of a given claimed invention. Prior art can include earlier patents, academic papers, magazine articles, web pages, and even physical examples. Patent examiners compare a claimed invention with the prior art to determine if a given invention is both new (i.e. novel) and not obvious to a person of ordinary skill and creativity of the invention.
Prior to the initiation of Peer To Patent, U.S. patent examiners had the sole responsibility for searching for prior art. Patent examiners have a time budget of a few hours in which to conduct such searches. Peer To Patent attempts to improve the patent process by markedly expanding the prior art search. The reasoning behind the project is that if prior art exists for an invention, particularly non-patent prior art, someone in the world knows about it. This knowledgeable person may be a competitor in the same field, a student or professor, or the owner of an earlier embodiment of the invention. Peer To Patent encourages such people to submit examples of prior art and creates communities of people worldwide who are interested in discovering prior art.
Peer To Patent uses social software features to facilitate discussion amongst groups of volunteer experts. Users can upload prior art references, participate in discussion forums, rate other user submissions, add research references, invite others, and more. This helps the examiners focus their attention on the submission(s) of prior art that have the highest relevance to an application.
Theoretical underpinnings
An understanding of Peer To Patent's philosophical basis is valuable in order to comprehend its operation. The project also has a technological basis, lying in the potential for Internet technologies to structure public input into government processes much more effectively than agencies and legislators have done in the past. Thus, Peer to Patent is more than an intervention into the patent system; it serves as a demonstration of the potential to bring the public more fully into its own governance.
Attempts to involve the public in government decision-making (other than voting and referenda, which are frequently powerful, but are also intermittent and very restrictive of the public's capacity for subtle, expressive input) previously fell into two categories, both usually of minimal impact:
Free-form online forums. These are useful for the exchange of information, but lack the structures that would permit the formation of coordinated groups and sustained, constructive planning between the public and government officials.
Web sites with suggestion forms. These tend to draw ill-considered comments from marginally committed participants, lack mechanisms for follow-through, and provide no support for knowledgeable individuals to coordinate their efforts.
The paradigm underlying Peer To Patent is relatively novel, and involves clear goals, direction, and structure. The model is related, however, to many notions of civil society, particularly the theories deliberative democracy, communicative action (Jürgen Habermas), and strong democracy (Benjamin Barber). The more immediate underpinnings are best described in a series of papers by the creator of Peer to Patent, Beth Simone Noveck of New York Law School. Relevant papers include:
"Democracy of Groups" explains that "self-constituting groups" of volunteers can create value beyond what the individuals in them could accomplish alone. If formed online, such groups require tools to visualize their relationships and formalize contrasting approaches, so the groups can interact productively. New legal categories should also be created to recognize self-constituting groups—just as special categories for corporations now exist—and give them a voice.
"Electronic Revolution in Rule-Making" criticizes the doctrine of the "insulated bureaucrat" who has been assumed by governments to be the most effective and impartial judge of policy. The paper calls on more democratic input from "on-going communities of interest and expertise," but explains that government attempts to solicit such input generally fail because there is no process to let communities collaborate on input or to fashion input into a form that policy-makers can use. The article points to effective techniques such as allowing individuals to comment on each other's suggestions, providing tools for collaborative editing to bring up the quality of the suggestions, and allowing discussions with group moderation. Social norms and technological innovations must go hand in hand.
The promise of Peer To Patent also draws on the success of various other movements that have created effective, productive communities on the Internet from far-flung individuals: free software and open-source software development, peer-to-peer systems for the collaborative sharing of data and computer processing, and Wikipedia.
Operation of the project
The process described in this section is that used for the USPTO pilot.
Patent applicants
The USPTO pilot, officially announced in the USPTO's Official Gazette of 26 June 2007, was initially restricted to patent applications from Technology Center 2100 (Computer Architecture, Software and Information Security) that are voluntarily submitted to the project by the owner/assignee. The extended pilot has expanded to include so-called Business Methods patents (class 705) that fall under Technology Center 3600.
To be eligible for Peer To Patent review, a patent application must be filed during the period covered by the pilot. Furthermore, the USPTO tries to provide a representative sample of current patents by limiting the number of applications from any given applicant.
Incentives for submitting an application to the project include:
Expedited review. Public review begins one month after publication of the application. Review continues for four months, after which the patent examiner conducts an expedited examination of the patent application.
Potentially stronger patents. If Peer to Patent review works as expected, patents that survive the process have already undergone considerable scrutiny and will be less at risk of a successful challenge later.
Public service. Applicants can feel they are contributing to a valuable experiment in new models and technologies for public decision-making.
Applicants follow a procedure described on the project's web site to submit patent applications for review.
Community review
After a patent is published on the Peer To Patent web site, the public can post not only instances of possible prior art, but other useful comments such as common industry terms that might describe the patent. These terms, or Folksonomy tags, are useful to help other experts find prior art. The review process emphasizes and supports group collaboration in the following ways.
Communication: To notify people who sign up on the web site about new applications, summaries are distributed regularly by email. People visiting the web site can easily see the titles of recent applications and other useful information.
Productivity: To keep discussion constructive and on topic, each application's site has a facilitator, whose job includes inviting new participants, reminding participants of their goals, and flagging inappropriate postings.
Self-regulation: A key contribution by participants is to rate prior art submitted by their fellow participants for a particular application. The ten pieces that receive the highest rating are submitted at the end of the review period to the patent examiner assigned to the patent. This limit prevents the examiner from being overwhelmed by a flood of prior art.
Granularity: Peer-to-Patent breaks down the process of volunteering into single questions and tasks, allowing volunteers to more easily choose which roles to occupy and what to contribute. Participants can opt to post comments, submit prior art, evaluate postings, or be active in group discussion.
Community-building: a critical aspect of Peer-to-Patent is creating a sense of community among volunteers, which leads to the likelihood of continued participation and can entice volunteers with side benefits. Volunteers describe their interests and qualifications in their profiles, invite colleagues to join the discussions, respond to each other's comments, and enhance the reputations of productive volunteers by giving "thumbs-ups" to their prior art submissions. Examples of potential side benefits are job signaling (demonstrating skills that can lead to job opportunities for students or consultants) and finding colleagues for research projects.
The office action
The role of the patent examiner in Peer To Patent remains the same as with traditional applications, except that Peer to Patent applications move to the head of the queue, to reward patent applicants who participate, and the patent examiner is forwarded the ten highest rated submissions of prior art from the Peer To Patent community to aid in their examination.
Governance
The Peer To Patent project is an independent project set up by New York Law School and operated through the school's Center for Patent Innovations. An agreement between the USPTO and Peer To Patent allows the project to submit prior art to USPTO examiners.
The steering committee includes patent attorneys from major patent-holding companies. The computer industry provides most of the steering committee members, since the initial pilot focused on Technology Center 2100.
Peer To Patent is funded by project sponsors and by the USPTO. The sponsors include:
Article One Partners
General Electric
Hewlett Packard
IBM
Microsoft
Open Invention Network
Red Hat
Technology
Except where noted, content on the site is available for noncommercial use through a Creative Commons license.
A description of the technology used on the site is stated in their first anniversary report,
"The Peer To Patent Web site is built using open source technologies. It is an Internet application implemented using Ruby on Rails with a MySQL database on the Linux operating system. The system infrastructure includes hosted Web servers and database servers, as well as load balancers for traffic management. Interactive features include threaded discussions, e-mail alerts, RSS feeds, social bookmarks, video clips, tagging, ratings, and more."
Future evolution
The success of the initial pilot will likely lead to a gradual expansion of Peer To Patent to cover more and more categories of patents; for example the second U.S. pilot has been expanded to include speech recognition, telecommunications, biotechnology, and bioinformatics. Channels, standards, and protocols will be created to let inventors and other participants in the process integrate their own data and work flows.
One feature of the Peer To Patent site allows participants to rate each other's comments, just as they now rate each other's prior art submissions. A future stage of the project may allow patent examiners to consult the public during the office action, so that the public not only submits prior art but helps examiners better understand the relevant subject matter.
More broadly, Peer To Patent shows how the public can become more self-governing by interacting in an organized manner with government officials. Elements of this interaction include:
Clear goals
Transparency, created by publicizing and archiving all interactions
A guarantee that government officials with the power to make decisions will actually take the public input into serious consideration
Building trust among the community and the ability to listen to each other
Filtering and rating tools to improve the quality of results
Visualization tools that allow participants to quickly investigate each other's qualifications and viewpoints, group themselves into caucuses, and see how many people support each position
Evaluation
As of November 24, 2010, there had been 557,560 page views from 114,395 unique viewers in 173 countries or territories. More than 2, 800 people signed up to be reviewers.
Up-to-date statistics about the number of patent applications submitted to Peer To Patent, the number of community participants searching for prior art, and the amount of discussion around each patent can be obtained from the Peer To Patent web site.
Some highlights from the First Anniversary report:
Peer To Patent attracted more than 2,000 peer reviewers.
The first 27 office actions issued during the pilot phase showed use of Peer To Patent submitted prior art in nine rejections
On average, citizen-reviewers contributed 6 hours reviewing each patent application in the pilot
Although USPTO rules permit third-party prior art submissions on pending applications (but only before the applications have been published, or before a notice of allowance is issued, whichever comes first), the average number of prior art submissions on Peer To Patent applications was 2,000 times that of standard rule-based submissions.
92% of patent examiners surveyed said they would welcome examining another application with public participation, while 73% of participating examiners want to see Peer-to-Patent implemented as a regular office practice.
21% of participating examiners stated that prior art submitted by the Peer To Patent community was "inaccessible" directly to USPTO examiners.
Prior art submissions by Peer-to-Patent reviewers were four times as likely to include non-patent literature (any document that is not a patent, including Web sites, journals, textbooks, and databases) as compared to prior art submissions by applicants.
Criticisms
Criticism of the Peer to Patent project range from its goals to its likelihood of success to its unintended consequences. For instance, criticisms can be found in comments posted to two articles favorable to Peer To Patent on the well-known Patently Obvious (Patently-O) blog: articles about the announced launch and the actual launch of the pilot.
Here is a sampling of objections aired in various forums:
The patent system is too fundamentally out of kilter to be fixed by examining and rejecting individual patents.
By reviewing patents that belong to categories some people think do not deserve patents (notably software), Peer To Patent implicitly endorses the existence of such patents.
The problem with many bad patents does not involve the existence of prior art, but a definition by the patent office of "obviousness" that is too forgiving, and therefore allows obvious patents to be approved because they are not precisely the same as prior art.
The participation process that works for free software and Wikipedia will not work for the patent system because it presents steep challenges of its own. Few people in the general public understand the unique use of language in patent applications or the stages through which an application passes. The current pilot has drawn masses of participants because of its novelty and because computer-related patents are a particularly contested policy area, but this is no guarantee that similar participation will be seen in other areas and over a long term.
Potential infringers will be afraid to review patent applications because, if the patent is granted, the inventor could successfully argue in court that the infringer knew of the scope of the patent and therefore engaged in wilful infringement, potentially subjecting the infringer to triple damages. This assumes that assurances from the USPTO and Peer To Patent that reviewing an application does not constitute knowledge of the final patent are invalid and will be rejected in court.
Third parties will be afraid to help overturn a patent application for fear that the applicant (particularly if it's a large company) will retaliate later.
There are too many patent applications for the public to review every one adequately. Those who have the time and expertise to look for prior art will take their chances, waiting for the patent office to approve patents and then challenging the patents at the patent offices or in court.
Third parties who submit prior art during the patent application cannot argue in favor of that prior art during the prosecution of the patent (the discussion between the examiner and the applicant). During this ex parte discussion, the applicant has a definite advantage in arguing his or her case. Third parties will therefore wait and reserve their prior art for court cases where they have an equal chance to argue their point. This argument rests on the premise that third parties are willing to assume the hundreds of thousands (or often millions) of dollars in costs that a court challenge requires.
Large companies will devote resources to denying the applications of their competitors, and small companies will not be able to marshal the corresponding resources to knock out the patents of large companies. This argument assumes that the general public will not step up to the responsibility of reviewing patents.
See also
Public participation in patent examination
References
Adam B Jaffe and Josh Lerner, Innovation and Its Discontents, Princeton University Press, 2004.
Eli Kintisch, "U.S. Patent Policy: PTO Wants to Tap Experts to Help Patent Examiners," Science, Vol. 312., no. 5776, p. 982, May 19, 2006
Matthew Swibel, "Wiki-Patents," Forbes, August 13, 2007
Noveck, Beth Simone, Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful, Brookings Institution Press, 2009.
External links
Peer to Patent main web site
Peer-to-Patent Australia web site
Peer to Patent Japan web site
Patent law
Agencies of the United States government
Group decision-making
Crowdsourcing
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widelands
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Widelands
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Widelands is a free and open-source, slow-paced real-time strategy video game under the GNU General Public License. Widelands takes many ideas from and is quite similar to The Settlers and The Settlers II. It remains a work-in-progress game, with development still required in graphics and bug-fixing. The game runs on several operating systems such as AmigaOS 4, Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Gameplay
Widelands has single-player, local network and internet multiplayer modes, single-player campaign missions, and an internationalisation system with translations for British English, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Low German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Slovak, Spanish, and Swedish. Players may select one of four different tribes: the human-like "Empire", the "Barbarians", the "Atlanteans", and the "Frisians".
The game provides four basic tutorials and four tutorial campaigns. Advanced players can create their own maps with the included map editor. It is also possible to import and play original Settlers II maps.
Development
The first version of Widelands was published in August 2002. Widelands 1.0, the first stable version, was released 19 years later in June 2021.
Reception
The game was reviewed by Linux Journal which noted:
The German LinuxUser magazine reviewed Widelands in issue 4/2008 in a three A4-paged article.
The German c’t magazin wrote a short review of Widelands in their 4/2008 issue and included a Windows version of Widelands Build 11 on their magazin DVD.
The French free software website Framasoft remarked:
Widelands was selected in September 2010 as "HotPick" by Linux Format magazine.
See also
List of open-source games
References
External links
Official Widelands page
Widelands project page on GitHub
Amiga games
AmigaOS 4 games
Free software programmed in C++
Fangames
Strategy video games
Linux games
MacOS games
Open-source video games
Real-time strategy video games
Unix games
Windows games
Lua (programming language)-scripted video games
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraform%20%28software%29
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Terraform (software)
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Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code software tool created by HashiCorp. Users define and provide data center infrastructure using a declarative configuration language known as HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), or optionally JSON.
Design
Terraform manages external resources (such as public cloud infrastructure, private cloud infrastructure, network appliances, software as a service, and platform as a service) with "providers". HashiCorp maintains an extensive list of official providers, and can also integrate with community-developed providers. Users can interact with Terraform providers by declaring resources or by calling data sources. Rather than using imperative commands to provision resources, Terraform uses declarative configuration to describe the desired final state. Once a user invokes Terraform on a given resource, Terraform will perform CRUD actions on the user's behalf to accomplish the desired state. The infrastructure as code can be written as modules, promoting reusability and maintainability.
Terraform supports a number of cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Serverspace, Google Cloud Platform, DigitalOcean, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Yandex.Cloud, VMware vSphere, and OpenStack.
HashiCorp also supports a Terraform Module Registry, launched in 2017. In 2019, Terraform introduced the paid version called Terraform Enterprise for larger organizations.
Terraform has four major commands:
See also
Comparison of open-source configuration management software
References
External links
Cross-platform software
Cloud infrastructure
Free software for cloud computing
Systems engineering
Orchestration software
Free software programmed in Go
Software using the Mozilla license
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternopil%20Ivan%20Pul%27uj%20National%20Technical%20University
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Ternopil Ivan Pul'uj National Technical University
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Ternopil Ivan Pului National Technical University () is a university in Ternopil, Ukraine.
Ternopil Ivan Puluj National Technical University (abbreviated TNTU) – the leading higher technical educational institution in Western Ukraine, founded in 1960.
Today it is the only higher technical educational institution that provides training of all academic levels, DScs and PhDs for such regions as Ternopil, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne and Khmelnitsky.
The history of the university
The history of the university is inextricably connected with the history of Ternopil. Since the 1960s the city has developed due to the construction of a significant number of industrial plants, including the Ternopil harvester plant, the VATRA Corporation, later – the plants “The Saturn” and “The Orion”. These plants as well as dozens of smaller companies required highly qualified engineers. Lviv Polytechnic was the closest technical university. Thus to ensure this requirement of specialists on November 11, 1960 Ternopil Technical Faculty of the Lviv Polytechnic Institute with the extra-mural and evening forms of study was opened. This allowed the experienced workers to get higher education without leaving their jobs, and Ternopil gradually transformed into a student city.
The Candidate of technical Sciences, associate professor Stolyarchuk V.P. became the dean of the faculty. Together with twelve university teachers he arrived from Lviv. The faculty was located in the centre of the city in the building of the former women gymnasium named after Adam Mickiewicz. Later new modern buildings grew around this building.
On February 3, 1962 the Candidate of Chemical Sciences, Associate Professor Shcherbakov A.O. was appointed the dean of the faculty. The same year the full-time form of study was organized, that was beneficial both for local youth and for the development of the institution. Due to invitation of new university teachers with academic degrees and titles, development of the material and technical base of the institution and increase of the number of students on May 15, 1964, the faculty was reorganized into the Ternopil branch of the Lviv Polytechnic Institute.
At the same time the new departments of higher mathematics, descriptive geometry and graphics, technical mechanics, physics and energetics were formed. Associate Professor Shcherbakov A.O. became the head of the affiliate. During 1964-1968 new departments were formed. Among them: a department of social and political sciences, a department of theoretical mechanics, a department of foreign languages, a department of technology of metals, a department of machine tools and instruments, a department of physics, a department of general and theoretical electrical engineering, a department of physical education. At this time the institution prepared specialists in such important for our region fields as mechanical engineering, metal cutting tools and instruments, electrical measuring equipment. The first graduates started their work at the industrial plants and some of them joined the teaching stuff of the affiliate.
In March 1968 Polishchuk A.G., Ph.D. became director of the affiliate. It became a new stage in the development of institution. The study rooms and laboratories were equipped with the necessary equipment and machinery, the training areas were expanded, and the affiliates of departments in the production were created. Students had an opportunity to choose evening, full-time or extramular form of study. In the 70’s – 80’s the first scientific schools were established. The scientists of the affiliate executed scientific research and experimental development projects for the enterprises of not only Ternopil and Ukraine, but also the former Soviet Union (Moscow, Kaunas, Urengoy, etc.).
In October 1985, Doctor of Sciences, Professor Shabliy O.M was appointed the director of the Ternopil branch of the Lviv Polytechnic Institute. New specialties were opened: welding technology and equipment, automation of technological processes and production, instrumentation, biotechnical and medical devices and systems.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, scholars from Kyiv, Lviv, Moscow, Mogilev, Doctors of Technical Sciences, Professors Yasniy P.V., Rybak T.I., Molchanov A.D., Maziak Z.Yu., Yevtuh P.S., Candidates of Science., Associate Professors Tataryn B.P, Mastenko V.Yu., Yavorskyi B.I., Tkachuk R.A., Yukalo V.H. started their work at the university. They initiated new scientific directions of research, created research laboratories, became the heads of the newly established departments, and carried out significant work to open new specialties.
At that time, the first doctoral theses were defended by Hevko B.M., Nahorniak S.H., Rohatynskyi R.M., Didukh L.D., Stuhliak P.D.
Due to the active and effective work of the head and stuff of the institution on February 27, 1991, the Ternopil Instrument-Making Institute was founded on the basis of the Ternopil affiliate of the Lviv Polytechnic Institute. It was the second higher educational institution of such a direction in Ukraine. Professor Shablii O.M. was elected the first rector of the Institute. At that time the institute comprised 3 faculties, integrating 13 departments. 2420 students studied at the institute. 150 teachers worked at the institute, including 76 Doctors and Candidates of sciences. A new laboratory was built, for the connection of the training with production the buildings at the enterprises “Vatra”, Ternopil harvester-building, “Saturn” were bought. The foundation of the current sport complex “Polytechnic” was laid.
Since April 1995, the university bears the name of the famous Ukrainian scientist and public figure Ivan Puluj. In 1994 the Institute was accredited as IV level educational institution.
The creation of the Institute gave a powerful impetus to the new quality changes and further growth. The restructuring of the economy of the region and the necessity of providing staff for overcoming the crisis helped change the orientation of the Institute and carry out its considerable structural reconstruction. The Institute has practically lost its narrow applied line gradually transforming into the multibranch higher technical educational institution.
Considering the real developments and achievements of the teaching staff, the Regulation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine № 1536 from 30 December 1996 approved the creation of Ternopil Ivan Puluj State Technical University on the basis of Ternopil Instrument-Making Institute. Academician Shablii O.M. became the rector of the university.
New specialisms of (computer, electrical, food and economic directions) were launched at the university. 8 faculties were functioning within the university: Faculty of Computer Technologies, Faculty of Computer Information Systems and Software Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Food Processing Production, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Economics and Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Management and Business in Production, Faculty of Testing Instruments and Radio Computer Systems.
The 36 departments of the University trained bachelors, specialists and masters in 19 majors of basic and 22 majors of full higher education.
Our University is a prominent educational, scientific, engineering and cultural center in Western Ukraine. As of today in our region, this is the only comprehensive technical education institution that provides training of specialists of all educational qualification levels. This includes Doctors of Science, Doctors of Philosophy and Candidates of Science, and spans across area that not only includes Ternopil, but also Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytsky and Rivne regions.
Since 1999 the university has been a full member of the European University Association – an organization represents and supports more than 850 institutions of higher education in 47 countries, providing them with a forum for cooperation and exchange of information on higher education and research policies. Through its work and contacts with the European Commission, Parliament and other key decision-makers, EUA ensures universities’ interests and concerns are taken up with all key stakeholders. The university takes active part in fulfilling one of the main tasks of the association which is the creation of the European higher education space where students, teachers and scientists would be able to accomplish their own intentions and ideas on the basis of the established European educational norms.
On 16 September 2005 Ternopil Ivan Puluj State Technical University joined the European Declaration of the higher educational institutions of the Magna Charta Universitatum comprising fundamental principles, rights and duties of the universities as the outposts of culture, knowledge and research and uniting 816 Universities from 86 Countries.
In the same year under the guidance of Sc.D, Professor Yasniy P.V. the first regional academy CISCO and Institute of Entrepreneurship, that train specialists in the field of computer networks were created. After graduation graduates receive an internationally recognized certificate.
In 2003, the largest in the region sports and health, and social and cultural center “Polytechnic” was put into operation.
On March 16, 2007, Sc.D., Professor Merited Figure of Science and Technology of Ukraine Yasniy P.V. was elected the rector of the TSTU.
The Strategy and Concept of University Development up to 2020 have been developed and implemented. One of the main tasks of the university development concept are integration into the European scientific and educational space through organizational and structural reform, improving the quality of education, developing university autonomy, mobility of university teachers, scholars, postgraduates and students.
On December 11, 2009, with the decree of the President of Ukraine for a significant contribution to the development of national education and science, and taking into account the national and international recognition of the results of higher education, the university was granted a national status.
In 2007 the Center for training of foreign students was opened, and later, in 2011, it developed into the Foreign Students Faculty. Today more than 250 foreigners study at the preparatory department and take bachelor's and master's degree in Ukrainian and English. In 2007-2008, joint faculties were established with Shobhit University (New Delhi, India), with the Technological University of Tajikistan (Dushanbe, Republic of Tajikistan). In 2011, the first in Tajikistan local center of distance education was opened in Dushanbe. In 2012, the local center of distance education was created at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Detroit, Michigan (USA), and in June 2014, the graduate, who undertook his program defended his bachelor's thesis.
In 2009, students and teaching staff from the private Institute of Economics and Entrepreneurship joined the University. Thus new economic specialties – accounting and auditing, and finance and credit were opened.
The 2009-2010 academic year was marked by two remarkable events in the history of the University – the 165th birthday of Ivan Puluj and the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the institution. During the celebration of the anniversary of the University a presentation of a commemorative coin dedicated to Ivan Puluj was presented. The National Bank of Ukraine, continuing the series “Prominent People of Ukraine” introduced the coin on the occasion of the commemoration of the 165th anniversary of the birth of an outstanding scientist.
The reverse of the coin depicts a portrait of Ivan Puluj and his statement: “… There is no greater a respect for an intelligent man than to protect his national honor and to work faithfully without a reward for the good of his people in order to give them a better life”.
At the same time, Ivan Puluj museum was opened. Today many people visit it to become acquainted with the history of the university.
Since 2010, the Program of cooperation between the University, the Western Scientific Center of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Ternopil Regional State Administration and the Ternopil Regional Council is being implemented, and since 2011 the University's Cooperation Program with the Ternopil City Council has been put into action.
In 2011, at the initiative of the University, the Scientific Park “Innovation and investment cluster of Ternopil region” (director – Khymych H.P.) was created as a platform for wide activization of innovation activity in the Western Ukraine in the field of ecology, energy saving and information technologies.
During 2011-2015, the project proposals for the feasibility study for the City and Regional councils were developed within the framework of the City and Region Development Strategy (logistical hub based on Ternopil airport; digital Ternopil; hydropower of Ternopil region; automated energy accounting system for housing and communal services; investigation of Ternopil's transport and communications infrastructure, etc.). For the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine satellite monitoring systems were developed.
A university library is important cultural and informational center of the University. It plays an important role in the educational process. The university electronic library expands the possibilities of using electronic resources. Since the beginning of 2010, a trial access to the economics and law database “Polpred Database!” It's a depository of important publications manually collected. Database with subject heading list: 53 branches / 600 sources / 235 countries and territories / main materials / articles and interviews of 16000 chief executives. In 2011, access to the electronic books of the Center of Educational Literature and the largest publisher of the scientific journals EBSCO-Publishing in the world was opened. Since 2011, the reading room of the library has been providing the opportunity to work with literature and use the Internet in the WI-FI zone.
In 2012, the University Library became the member of the International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries (IATUL). The library website provides users access to up-to-date library information about the work of the library.
In 2012, the title of Honorary Doctor of TNTU (Doctor Honoris Causa) for the prominent scientists, that closely cooperate with the University was introduced. According to the decision of the Academic Council for the significant contribution to the development of science and education in Ukraine and fruitful cooperation with the university, this honorary title was given to the leading scientist of the Institute of Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Sc.D., Professor Shenderovskyi Vasyl Andriyovych (2012), well-known Ukrainian, Canadian and Swiss economist, public figure, philanthropist Bohdan Havrylyshyn (2013), world-renowned physicists, scientist, academician of the French Academy of Sciences, Chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honour, Professor of Pierre and Marie Curie University Jacques Fresaro (France) (2014) and Professor Piotr Kacejko, Rector of Lublin University of Technology (2014).
The structure
The range of specialties taught at the affiliate, institute and, finally, university has gradually extended, and presently the amount of specialties for bachelors, specialists and masters reaches the number of 28. Altogether they are united in 19 directions.
There are 4 faculties currently operating at the University: Faculty of Engineering of Machines, Structures and Technologies (FMT), Faculty of Applied Information Technologies and Electrical Engineering (FPT), Faculty of Computer Information Systems and Software Engineering (FIS), Faculty of Economics and Management (FEM). The 34 University departments carry out training of bachelors, specialists and masters in 28 programs and 19 majors. The annual licensed admission number of full-time students amounts to 3088 people.
University also incorporates such establishments as Technical Lyceum, Technical College, Husiatin College, and Zboriv College. This adds up to a total of approximately 5000 undergraduates, masters and PhD students who are all working towards higher-degree qualifications at the University.
Technical and structural asset base of Ternopil Ivan Puluj National Technical University consists of 11 educational and research buildings with a total area of almost 60 thousand square meters. There are 6 dormitories, a number of gyms, student cafeterias and buffets, as well as rooms for creative development and art activities.
Since 2012, students have participated in Double Degree Programs. All the university students have the opportunity to participate in the academic mobility programmes in Poland, Germany, the UK, France and the USA. Currently, 30 students study under Double Master's Degree Programme at the Lublin University of Technology (Poland), one student studies at the Opole University of Technology, and two students study under Ukrainian-German Double Degree Programme for the Bachelor's degree at the University of Applied Sciences Schmalkalden (Germany). Moreover, the university students studied at Glyndŵr University (Wrexham, Wales, UK). One postgraduate student undertook training and two students studied for their Master's Degree at the International Higher School of Computer Science and Information Technology (Cergy, France). The academic mobility programme «Polish Erasmus for Ukraine and Erasmus +» was implemented at TNTU. 14 university students study at 7 Polish universities under this programme
International educational centres, including: Regional Networking Academy CISCO (USA, 1999); Certification Centre VUE (2000); Regional Training Centre Schneider ЕІесtrіс (France, 2000); Microsoft IT Academy (USA, 2002); Authorized training centre ASCON (Russia, 2002); Training Centre QNX Software Systems (Canada, 2003); Training Center SUN Microsystems (USA, 2004); IBM Training Center (USA, 2006); University program STMicroelectronix (Switzerland, 2007); Business Institute СІSСО (USA, 2008); Authorized Training Centre of D-Link Company (Taiwan, 2010), Training centre C++ (2014). Program “Apollo” (Germany, 2010), the association “German Farmers’ Association” (Germany), “Agroimpuls” (Switzerland) conduct training for TNTU students.
Faculties
Faculty of Engineering of Machines, Structures and Technologies
131 Mechanical engineering
133 Industrial Machinery Engineering
181 Food Industry Technologies
192 Civil Engineering
208 Agricultural engineering
274 Automobile Transport
275 Transport Technologies (Automobile Transport)
Faculty of Applied Information Technologies and Electrical Engineering
141 Electrical Engineering
151 Automation and Computer-integrated Technologies
152 Metrology and Information-Measuring Engineering
153 Micro- and nano-system technology
163 Biomedical Engineering
172 Telecommunications and Radio Engineering
Faculty of Computer Information Systems and Software Engineering
121 Software Engineering
122 Computer Sciences
123 Computer Engineering
124 System Analysis
125 Cyber Security
126 Information System and Technologies
Faculty of Economics and Management
051 Economics
053 Psychology
071 Accounting and Taxation
072 Finances, Banking and Insurance
073 Management
074 Public Administration
075 Marketing
076 Business, Trade and Exchange
241 Hotel, Restaurant and Catering
281 Public administration
Teaching staff
Teaching staff is represented by 433 teachers; there are 15 Academicians and Corresponding Members of the Academies of Sciences of Ukraine, 52 Doctors of Science, Professors and 250 Doctors of Philosophy, Associate Professors.
Honored graduates
A lot of our graduates have connected their further work to the university, among them Academician of the Academy of Engineering Sciences of Ukraine, Rector, Sc.D. Petro Yasniy; Vice-Rector for Teaching and Educational Affairs, Sc.D. Ihor Lutsiv; the member of the Writer Association of Ukraine, public man, Vice-Rector for Humanitarian Education and Pedagogical Work, Ph.D. Oleg Herman; Head of Computer Technologies Department, Sc.D., Stukhlyak P.D.; Head of Mechanical Engineering Department, Ph.D., Yuriy Palyvoda; Head of Department of Management and Business in Production, Ph.D. Andriy Oksentiuk etc. We are proud of our graduates occupying responsible posts at Ternopil enterprises – amalgamation "Vatra", Combine Factory, factory "Saturn" as well as other enterprises in different regions of Ukraine.
Tntu specialized councils
Specialized Council D58.052.01 to defend the thesis for the Doctor of Science degree in the field:
01.02.04 "Malformed solid body mechanics" (engineering sciences)
01.05.02 "Mathematical modeling and computational methods" (engineering sciences)
Board chairman: prof. Petro Volodymyrovych Yasniy
Specialized Council D58.052.02 to defend the thesis for the Doctor of Science degree in the field
05.05.11 "Machines and mechanization of agricultural production"
Board chairman: prof. Tymofiy Ivanovych Rybak.
Specialized Council K58.052.03 to defend the thesis for the Ph.D degree in the field:
05.02.08 "Engineering Technology";
05.03.01 "Machining processes, machine tools and instruments";
Board chairman: prof. Bogdan Matviyovych Hevko
Specialized Council K58.052.04 to defend the thesis for the Ph.D degree in the field:
05.09.07 "Light Engineering and light sources"
Board chairman: prof. Volodymyr Andriyovych Andriychuk
Specialized Council K58.052.05 to defend the thesis for the Ph.D degree in the field:
08.00.04 "Economics and Management of Enterprises"
Board chairman: DSc in Economics Bogdan Mykolayovych Andrushkiv.
Specialized Council K58.052.06 to defend the thesis for the Ph.D degree in the field:
05.13.05 "Computer Systems and components"
05.13.06 "Information Technology"
Board chairman: prof. Mykola Volodymyrovych Pryymak
References
External links
Ternopil Ivan Puluj National Technical University
Ternopil Ivan Puluj National Technical University
Universities and colleges in Ternopil
National universities in Ukraine
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11044676
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aditi%20Technologies
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Aditi Technologies
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Aditi Technologies is an American IT company, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, United States with the largest center in Bangalore, India. Aditi was acquired by Symphony Teleca in April 2014. On 9 April 2015, Harman International Industries Incorporated acquired Symphony Teleca Corporation. On 12 November 2016, Samsung entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Harman International.
Corporate history
Early years
Pradeep Singh founded Aditi Technologies in 1994 after nine years in management positions at Microsoft, including General Manager of the Windows 95 mobile services group. Aditi began as a Microsoft Service Shop providing support services to Microsoft customers around the globe.
In 1999, Talisma (A Customer Relationship Management division of Aditi) was spun off in 1999. The founding of Talisma was driven by the concept of supporting customers through various modes of communication using the Internet. Pradeep Singh spent the next 10 years in Talisma building the company.
In 2008, Campus Management acquired the Talisma brand and Talisma Corporation Pvt. Ltd. in Bangalore and its higher education business unit based in Bellevue, Washington.
Growth period
In 2003 Pradeep Singh came back to Aditi and he shifted the focus of the company to the Outsourced Product Development space, an area that Aditi spent its first 12 years exclusively servicing Microsoft.
In 2004, Aditi partnered with PI Corporation for developing software targeted at the Linux environment.
Since 2006, it was involved in Product development and software testing based on Microsoft's software platforms.
In October 2007, Pradeep Rathinam was appointed as President and then Chief Executive Officer of Aditi Technologies.
In August 2010, Aditi Technologies partnered with Quest Software to migrate and upgrade customers to SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint Online.
In 2011, Aditi forayed into Cloud Services space with the acquisition of Seattle based Cloud Computing start-up Cumulux. With the acquisition, Aditi invested $5 million in Azure Acceleration Lab an Azure-based rapid application development offering to strengthen its Cloud Computing capabilities.
In May 2013, Aditi expanded its cloud capabilities with the acquisition of Get Cloud Ready, thus entering the AWS market.
On 10 April 2014, Aditi announced that it was being acquired by Symphony Teleca for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, Sanjay Dhawan took over as CEO and Pradeep Rathinam was appointed as President, with Aditi becoming an independent business unit of Symphony Teleca.
Acquisitions
In 2007, Aditi Technologies acquired Parlano based MindAlign, which was engaged in developing Enterprise Collaboration Applications and product IP-based solutions for global financial services institutions company
In 2010, Aditi Technologies acquired Infospace India development centre, which was engaged in online product development, software engineering and product testing
In Nov 2011, Aditi acquired Seattle-based cloud-computing start-up, Cumulux, for an undisclosed amount.
In May 2013, Aditi Technologies acquired Hyderabad based Cloud Consulting company Get Cloud Ready, which was started by Janakiram MSV. Get Cloud Ready provides Get Cloud Ready framework, which helps customers with cloud adoption and operations across cloud platforms.
References
External links
Aditi Technologies Official Website
Companies based in Bellevue, Washington
Software companies of the United States
International information technology consulting firms
Software companies of India
Outsourcing companies
Cloud computing providers
Internet of things companies
Internet of things
Information technology companies of Bangalore
1994 establishments in Karnataka
Software companies established in 1994
Indian companies established in 1994
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23187722
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter%20directive
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Interpreter directive
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An interpreter directive is a computer language construct, that on some systems is better described as an aspect of the system's executable file format, that is used to control which interpreter parses and interprets the instructions in a computer program.
In Unix, Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, the first two bytes in a file can be the characters "#!", which constitute a magic number (hexadecimal 23 and 21, the ASCII values of "#" and "!") often referred to as shebang, prefix the first line in a script, with the remainder of the line being a command usually limited to a max of 14 (when introduced) up to usually about 80 characters in 2016. If the file system permissions on the script (a file) include an execute permission bit for the user invoking it by its filename (often found through the command search path), it is used to tell the operating system what interpreter (usually a program that implements a scripting language) to use to execute the script's contents, which may be batch commands or might be intended for interactive use. An example would be #!/bin/bash, meaning run this script with the bash shell found in the /bin directory.
Other systems or files may use some other magic number as the interpreter directives.
See also
Architecture description language
Bourne shell
C shell
Command-line interface#Command-line interpreter
Filename extension#Command name issues
Shebang (Unix)
Unix shell
References
Command shells
Computing terminology
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270982
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truevision%20TGA
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Truevision TGA
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Truevision TGA, often referred to as TARGA, is a raster graphics file format created by Truevision Inc. (now part of Avid Technology). It was the native format of TARGA and VISTA boards, which were the first graphic cards for IBM-compatible PCs to support Highcolor/truecolor display. This family of graphic cards was intended for professional computer image synthesis and video editing with PCs; for this reason, usual resolutions of TGA image files match those of the NTSC and PAL video formats.
TARGA is an acronym for Truevision Advanced Raster Graphics Adapter; TGA is an initialism for Truevision Graphics Adapter.
TGA files commonly have the extension ".tga" on PC DOS/Windows systems and macOS (older Macintosh systems use the "TPIC" type code). The format can store image data with 8, 15, 16, 24, or 32 bits of precision per pixel – the maximum 24 bits of RGB and an extra 8-bit alpha channel. Color data can be color-mapped, or in direct color or truecolor format. Image data may be stored raw, or optionally, a lossless RLE compression similar to PackBits can be employed. This type of compression performs poorly for typical photographic images, but works acceptably well for simpler images, such as icons, cartoons and line drawings.
History
The TGA file format was originally defined and specified by AT&T EPICenter with feedback from Island Graphics Inc in 1984. AT&T EPICenter was an internal spin-off of AT&T created to market new technologies AT&T had developed for color frame buffers. What later became Truevision was the result of a leveraged employee buyout from AT&T in 1987.
EPICenter's first two cards, the VDA (video display adapter) and ICB (image capture board), used the first incarnations of the TGA file format. The file extensions ".vda" and ".icb" implied information about the board specific data contained.
It was later determined by Alan Wlasuk (then head of EPICenter), Brad Pillow (EPICenter) and Steven Dompier (Island's president) that a more codified file format was needed. The file format was created and implemented by Brad Pillow (EPICenter) and Bryan Hunt (EPICenter) and was developed in response to this need for a less board specific file format. A very simple extension was made to what was already in use, and contained information on width, height, pixel depth, an associated color map and image origin. A label field (up to 255 characters) was also included in the initial spec, but was rarely used.
At the time, another technically superior file format called TIFF also appeared, but its use for true color images was very limited as the implementation and sharing of files between applications supporting the TIFF specification was rather difficult and involved. The TGA file format's simpler nature and portability between platforms is the main reason for its widespread adoption and its continued success in a wide variety of applications worldwide to this day.
Initially the TGA file format was used in the ICB-PAINT and TARGA-PAINT programs (what later became known as TIPS) and for several projects in online real estate browsing and still-frame video teleconferencing.
The current version (2.0) includes several enhancements such as "postage stamps" (better known as thumbnails), an alpha channel, gamma value, and textual metadata, and was authored by Truevision Inc.'s Shawn Steiner with direction from Kevin Friedly and David Spoelstra in 1989.
At the time of its launching, it represented the state of the art in digital image processing. Even today, though its maximum color depth is not well suited for high-end pre-press, intensive image processing systems, TGA is still used extensively throughout the animation and video industry because its primary intended outputs are standard TV screens, not color printed pages.
Uncompressed 24-bit TGA images are relatively simple compared to several other prominent 24-bit storage formats: A 24-bit TGA contains only an 18-byte header followed by the image data as packed RGB data. In contrast, BMP requires padding rows to 4-byte boundaries, while TIFF and PNG are metadata containers that do not place the image data or attributes at a fixed location within the file.
32-bit TGA images contain an alpha channel, or key signal, and are often used in character generator programs such as Avid Deko.
Technical details
All values are little-endian; field and subfield numbers are per Version 2.0 of the specification.
Version 2 added the extension area and footer. The developer area exists to store application-specific information.
Header
Image ID length (field 1)
0–255
The number of bytes that the image ID field consists of.
The image ID field can contain any information, but it is common for it to contain the date and time the image was created or a serial number.
As of version 2.0 of the TGA spec, the date and time the image was created is catered for in the extension area.
Color map type (field 2)
has the value:
0 if image file contains no color map
1 if present
2–127 reserved by Truevision
128–255 available for developer use
Image type (field 3)
is enumerated in the lower three bits, with the fourth bit as a flag for RLE. Some possible values are:
0 no image data is present
1 uncompressed color-mapped image
2 uncompressed true-color image
3 uncompressed black-and-white (grayscale) image
9 run-length encoded color-mapped image
10 run-length encoded true-color image
11 run-length encoded black-and-white (grayscale) image
Image type 1 and 9: Depending on the Pixel Depth value, image data representation is an 8, 15, or 16 bit index into a color map that defines the color of the pixel.
Image type 2 and 10: The image data is a direct representation of the pixel color. For a Pixel Depth of 15 and 16 bit, each pixel is stored with 5 bits per color. If the pixel depth is 16 bits, the topmost bit is reserved for transparency. For a pixel depth of 24 bits, each pixel is stored with 8 bits per color. A 32-bit pixel depth defines an additional 8-bit alpha channel.
Image type 3 and 11: The image data is a direct representation of grayscale data. The pixel depth is 8 bits for images of this type.
Color map specification (field 4)
has three subfields:
First entry index (2 bytes): index of first color map entry that is included in the file
Color map length (2 bytes): number of entries of the color map that are included in the file
Color map entry size (1 byte): number of bits per pixel
In case that not the entire color map is actually used by the image, a non-zero first entry index allows to store only a required part of the color map in the file.
Image specification (field 5)
has six subfields:
X-origin (2 bytes): absolute coordinate of lower-left corner for displays where origin is at the lower left
Y-origin (2 bytes): as for X-origin
Image width (2 bytes): width in pixels
Image height (2 bytes): height in pixels
Pixel depth (1 byte): bits per pixel
Image descriptor (1 byte): bits 3-0 give the alpha channel depth, bits 5-4 give pixel ordering
Bit 4 of the image descriptor byte indicates right-to-left pixel ordering if set. Bit 5 indicates an ordering of top-to-bottom. Otherwise, pixels are stored in bottom-to-top, left-to-right order.
Image and color map data
Developer area (optional)
Version 1.0 of the TGA specification was very basic, and many developers had a need to store more information, and so opted to add on extra sections to their files, specific to their application only.
In Version 2.0 of the specification, these application-specific enhancements/extras are supported by the developer area. Only the offset and size of the developer area are relevant to the spec, and developers are free to add whatever they want in the area.
If a TGA decoder cannot interpret the information in the developer area, it will generally ignore it, since it is assumed to have been created by a different application. It is recommended that developers build logic into their applications to determine whether the data in the developer area is compatible with the application; one step towards this is to check the software ID in the file footer.
Extension area (optional)
File footer (optional)
If a TGA file contains a footer, it is likely to be a TGA version 2 file. The footer is the final 26 bytes of the file, of which the last 18 are constant.
Specification discrepancies
The older version of the TGA file format specification taken from the Appendix C of the Truevision Technical Guide states that run-length encoded (RLE) packets may cross scan lines: "For the run length packet, the header is followed by a single color value, which is assumed to be repeated the number of times specified in the header. The packet may cross scan lines (begin on one line and end on the next)".
However, page 24 of the TGA v2.0 specification states the exact opposite: "Run-length Packets should never encode pixels from more than one scan line. Even if the end of one scan line and the beginning of the next contain pixels of the same value, the two should be encoded as separate packets. In other words, Run-length Packets should not wrap from one line to another".
Consequently TGA readers need to be able to handle RLE data packets that cross scan lines since this was part of the original specification. However, when saving (creating) TGA files it will be necessary to limit RLE data packets to scanline boundaries in order to be compliant with the newer v2.0 TGA specification.
References
External links
TGA specification – previous version of the file format taken from the Truevision Technical Guide
TrueVision TGA 2.0 conformance suite – examples
Raster graphics file formats
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16469710
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4828%20Misenus
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4828 Misenus
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4828 Misenus is a larger Jupiter trojan from the Trojan camp, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 11 September 1988, by American astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker at the Palomar Observatory in California. The dark Jovian asteroid has a rotation period of 12.9 hours. It was named after Aeneas' trumpeter, Misenus, from Greek mythology.
Orbit and classification
Misenus is a dark Jovian asteroid in a 1:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter. It is located in the trailering Trojan camp at the Gas Giant's Lagrangian point, 60° behind on its orbit . It is also a non-family asteroid of the Jovian background population.
It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.9–5.4 AU once every 11 years and 9 months (4,288 days; semi-major axis of 5.17 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.04 and an inclination of 15° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its first observation at Palomar in August 1988, just one month prior to its official discovery observation.
Physical characteristics
Misenus is an assumed, carbonaceous C-type asteroid. It has a V–I color index of 0.92, typical for most D-type asteroids.
Rotation period
In April 1995, a rotational lightcurve of Misenus was obtained from photometric observations over three nights by Italian astronomer Stefano Mottola using the Bochum 0.61-metre Telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.33 magnitude ().
Diameter and albedo
According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Misenus measures 43.22 and 45.95 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.098 and 0.063, respectively. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for a carbonaceous asteroid of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 46.30 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 10.4.
Naming
This minor planet was named by the discoverer from Greek mythology after the Trojan Misenus, who was Aeneas' herald and trumpeter. He was drowned by Triton for challenging the gods to a musical contest by blowing on a conch shell. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 August 1991 ().
References
External links
Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB), query form (info )
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books
Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000) – Minor Planet Center
Asteroid 4828 Misenus at the Small Bodies Data Ferret
004828
Discoveries by Carolyn S. Shoemaker
Minor planets named from Greek mythology
Named minor planets
19880911
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24233616
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID
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SOLID
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In software engineering, SOLID is a mnemonic acronym for five design principles intended to make software designs more understandable, flexible, and maintainable. The principles are a subset of many principles promoted by American software engineer and instructor Robert C. Martin, first introduced in his 2000 paper Design Principles and Design Patterns.
The SOLID ideas are
The single-responsibility principle: "There should never be more than one reason for a class to change." In other words, every class should have only one responsibility.
The open–closed principle: "Software entities ... should be open for extension, but closed for modification."
The Liskov substitution principle: "Functions that use pointers or references to base classes must be able to use objects of derived classes without knowing it." See also design by contract.
The interface segregation principle: "Many client-specific interfaces are better than one general-purpose interface."
The dependency inversion principle: "Depend upon abstractions, [not] concretions."
The SOLID acronym was introduced later, around 2004, by Michael Feathers.
Although the SOLID principles apply to any object-oriented design, they can also form a core philosophy for methodologies such as agile development or adaptive software development.
See also
Code reuse
Inheritance (object-oriented programming)
Package principles
Don't repeat yourself (DRY)
GRASP (object-oriented design)
KISS principle
You aren't gonna need it (YAGNI)
References
Software design
Object-oriented programming
Programming principles
de:Prinzipien objektorientierten Designs#SOLID-Prinzipien
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34201152
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows%20Server%202012
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Windows Server 2012
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Windows Server 2012 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows 8 and succeeds Windows Server 2008 R2, which is derived from the Windows 7 codebase, released nearly three years earlier. Two pre-release versions, a developer preview and a beta version, were released during development. The software was officially launched on September 4, 2012, two months before the release of Windows 8. A successor was released on October 18, 2013, entitled Windows Server 2012 R2. Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows Server 2012 on October 9, 2018, and extended support will end on October 10, 2023.
Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 has no support for Itanium-based computers, and has four editions. Various features were added or improved over Windows Server 2008 R2 (with many placing an emphasis on cloud computing), such as an updated version of Hyper-V, an IP address management role, a new version of Windows Task Manager, and ReFS, a new file system. Windows Server 2012 received generally good reviews in spite of having included the same controversial Metro-based user interface seen in Windows 8, which includes the Charms Bar for quick access to settings in the desktop environment.
History
Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the fifth release of Windows Server family of operating systems developed concurrently with Windows 8. It was not until April 17, 2012 that the company announced that the final product name would be "Windows Server 2012".
Microsoft introduced Windows Server 2012 and its developer preview in the BUILD 2011 conference on September 9, 2011. However, unlike Windows 8, the developer preview of Windows Server 2012 was only made available to MSDN subscribers. It included a graphical user interface (GUI) based on Metro design language and a new Server Manager, a graphical application used for server management. On February 16, 2012, Microsoft released an update for developer preview build that extended its expiry date from April 8, 2012 to January 15, 2013.
Before Windows Server 2012 was finalized, two test builds were made public. A public beta version of Windows Server 2012 was released along with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on February 29, 2012. The release candidate of Windows Server 2012 was released on May 31, 2012, along with the Windows 8 Release Preview.
The product was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012 (along with Windows 8) and became generally available on September 4, that year. However, not all editions of Windows Server 2012 were released at the same time. Windows Server 2012 Essentials was released to manufacturing on October 9, 2012 and was made generally available on November 1, 2012. As of September 23, 2012, all students subscribed to DreamSpark program can download Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter free of charge.
Windows Server 2012 is based on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 8 and requires x86-64 CPUs (64-bit), while Windows Server 2008 worked on the older IA-32 (32-bit) architecture as well. Coupled with fundamental changes in the structure of the client backups and the shared folders, there is no clear method for migrating from the previous version to Windows Server 2012.
Features
Installation options
Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 can switch between "Server Core" and "Server with a GUI" installation options without a full reinstallation. Server Core – an option with a command-line interface only – is now the recommended configuration. There is also a third installation option that allows some GUI elements such as MMC and Server Manager to run, but without the normal desktop, shell or default programs like File Explorer.
User interface
Server Manager has been redesigned with an emphasis on easing management of multiple servers. The operating system, like Windows 8, uses the Metro-based user interface unless installed in Server Core mode. Windows Store is available in this version of Windows but is not installed by default. Windows PowerShell in this version has over 2300 commandlets, compared to around 200 in Windows Server 2008 R2.
Task Manager
Windows Server 2012 includes a new version of Windows Task Manager together with the old version. In the new version the tabs are hidden by default, showing applications only. In the new Processes tab, the processes are displayed in varying shades of yellow, with darker shades representing heavier resource use. Information found in the older versions are now moved to the new Details tab. The Performance tab shows "CPU", "Memory", "Disk", "Wi-Fi" and "Ethernet" graphs. Unlike the Windows 8 version of Task Manager (which looks similar), the "Disk" activity graph is not enabled by default. The CPU tab no longer displays individual graphs for every logical processor on the system by default, although that remains an option. Additionally, it can display data for each non-uniform memory access (NUMA) node. When displaying data for each logical processor for machines with more than 64 logical processors, the CPU tab now displays simple utilization percentages on heat-mapping tiles. The color used for these heat maps is blue, with darker shades again indicating heavier utilization. Hovering the cursor over any logical processor's data now shows the NUMA node of that processor and its ID, if applicable. Additionally, a new Startup tab has been added that lists startup applications, however this tab does not exist in Windows Server 2012. The new task manager recognizes when a Windows Store app has the "Suspended" status.
IP address management (IPAM)
Windows Server 2012 has an IP address management role for discovering, monitoring, auditing, and managing the IP address space used on a corporate network. The IPAM is used for the management and monitoring of Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are fully supported.
Active Directory
Windows Server 2012 has a number of changes to Active Directory from the version shipped with Windows Server 2008 R2. The Active Directory Domain Services installation wizard has been replaced by a new section in Server Manager, and a GUI has been added to the Active Directory Recycle Bin. Multiple password policies can be set in the same domain. Active Directory in Windows Server 2012 is now aware of any changes resulting from virtualization, and virtualized domain controllers can be safely cloned. Upgrades of the domain functional level to Windows Server 2012 are simplified; it can be performed entirely in Server Manager. Active Directory Federation Services is no longer required to be downloaded when installed as a role, and claims which can be used by the Active Directory Federation Services have been introduced into the Kerberos token. Windows Powershell commands used by Active Directory Administrative Center can be viewed in a "Powershell History Viewer".
Hyper-V
Windows Server 2012, along with Windows 8, includes a new version of Hyper-V, as presented at the Microsoft BUILD event. Many new features have been added to Hyper-V, including network virtualization, multi-tenancy, storage resource pools, cross-premises connectivity, and cloud backup. Additionally, many of the former restrictions on resource consumption have been greatly lifted. Each virtual machine in this version of Hyper-V can access up to 64 virtual processors, up to 1 terabyte of memory, and up to 64 terabytes of virtual disk space per virtual hard disk (using a new format). Up to 1024 virtual machines can be active per host, and up to 8000 can be active per failover cluster. SLAT is a required processor feature for Hyper-V on Windows 8, while for Windows Server 2012 it is only required for the supplementary RemoteFX role.
ReFS
Resilient File System (ReFS), codenamed "Protogon", is a new file system in Windows Server 2012 initially intended for file servers that improves on NTFS in some respects. Major new features of ReFS include:
Improved reliability for on-disk structures ReFS uses B+ trees for all on-disk structures including metadata and file data. Metadata and file data are organized into tables similar to a relational database. The file size, number of files in a folder, total volume size and number of folders in a volume are limited by 64-bit numbers; as a result ReFS supports a maximum file size of 16 exabytes, a maximum of 18.4 × 1018 folders and a maximum volume size of 1 yottabyte (with 64 KB clusters) which allows large scalability with no practical limits on file and folder size (hardware restrictions still apply). Free space is counted by a hierarchical allocator which includes three separate tables for large, medium, and small chunks. File names and file paths are each limited to a 32 KB Unicode text string.
Built-in resilience ReFS employs an allocation-on-write update strategy for metadata, which allocates new chunks for every update transaction and uses large IO batches. All ReFS metadata has built-in 64-bit checksums which are stored independently. The file data can have an optional checksum in a separate "integrity stream", in which case the file update strategy also implements allocation-on-write; this is controlled by a new "integrity" attribute applicable to both files and directories. If nevertheless file data or metadata becomes corrupt, the file can be deleted without taking the whole volume offline. As a result of built-in resiliency, administrators do not need to periodically run error-checking tools such as CHKDSK when using ReFS.
Compatibility with existing APIs and technologies ReFS does not require new system APIs and most file system filters continue to work with ReFS volumes. ReFS supports many existing Windows and NTFS features such as BitLocker encryption, Access Control Lists, USN Journal, change notifications, symbolic links, junction points, mount points, reparse points, volume snapshots, file IDs, and oplock. ReFS seamlessly integrates with Storage Spaces, a storage virtualization layer that allows data mirroring and striping, as well as sharing storage pools between machines. ReFS resiliency features enhance the mirroring feature provided by Storage Spaces and can detect whether any mirrored copies of files become corrupt using background data scrubbing process, which periodically reads all mirror copies and verifies their checksums then replaces bad copies with good ones.
Some NTFS features are not supported in ReFS, including object IDs, short names, file compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, hard links, extended attributes, and disk quotas. Sparse files are supported. Support for named streams is not implemented in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, though it was later added in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. ReFS does not itself offer data deduplication. Dynamic disks with mirrored or striped volumes are replaced with mirrored or striped storage pools provided by Storage Spaces. In Windows Server 2012, automated error-correction with integrity streams is only supported on mirrored spaces; automatic recovery on parity spaces was added in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Booting from ReFS is not supported either.
IIS 8.0
Windows Server 2012 includes version 8.0 of Internet Information Services (IIS). The new version contains new features such as SNI, CPU usage caps for particular websites, centralized management of SSL certificates, WebSocket support and improved support for NUMA, but few other substantial changes were made.
Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0
Remote Desktop Protocol has new functions such as Adaptive Graphics (progressive rendering and related techniques), automatic selection of TCP or UDP as transport protocol, multi touch support, DirectX 11 support for vGPU, USB redirection supported independently of vGPU support, etc. A "connection quality" button is displayed in the RDP client connection bar for RDP 8.0 connections; clicking on it provides further information about connection, including whether UDP is in use or not.
Scalability
Windows Server 2012 supports the following maximum hardware specifications. Windows Server 2012 improves over its predecessor Windows Server 2008 R2:
System requirements
Windows Server 2012 does not support Itanium and runs only on x64 processors.
Upgrades from Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are supported, although upgrades from prior releases are not.
Editions
Windows Server 2012 has four editions: Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter.
Reception
Reviews of Windows Server 2012 have been generally positive. Simon Bisson of ZDNet described it as "ready for the datacenter, today," while Tim Anderson of The Register said that "The move towards greater modularity, stronger automation and improved virtualisation makes perfect sense in a world of public and private clouds" but remarked that "That said, the capability of Windows to deliver obscure and time-consuming errors is unchanged" and concluded that "Nevertheless, this is a strong upgrade overall."
InfoWorld noted that Server 2012's use of Windows 8's panned "Metro" user interface was countered by Microsoft's increasing emphasis on the Server Core mode, which had been "fleshed out with new depth and ease-of-use features" and increased use of the "practically mandatory" PowerShell. However, Michael Otey of Windows IT Pro expressed dislike with the new Metro interface and the lack of ability to use the older desktop interface alone, saying that most users of Windows Server manage their servers using the graphical user interface rather than PowerShell.
Paul Ferrill wrote that "Windows Server 2012 Essentials provides all the pieces necessary to provide centralized file storage, client backups, and remote access," but Tim Anderson contended that "Many businesses that are using SBS2011 and earlier will want to stick with what they have", citing the absence of Exchange, the lack of ability to synchronize with Active Directory Federation Services and the 25-user limit, while Paul Thurott wrote "you should choose Foundation only if you have at least some in-company IT staff and/or are comfortable outsourcing management to a Microsoft partner or solution provider" and "Essentials is, in my mind, ideal for any modern startup of just a few people."
Windows Server 2012 R2
A second release, Windows Server 2012 R2, which is derived from the Windows 8.1 codebase, was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013 and became generally available on October 18, 2013, by Microsoft. A service pack, formally designated Windows Server 2012 R2 Update, was released in April 2014.
See also
Comparison of Microsoft Windows versions
Comparison of operating systems
History of Microsoft Windows
List of operating systems
Microsoft Servers
Notes
Extended Security Updates
Microsoft Announced in July 2021 they will distribute Extended Security Updates for SQL Server 2012, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2, for a maximum of three years after the end of Extended Support date.
End of Support
Microsoft originally planned to end support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on January 10, 2023, but in order to provide customers the standard transition lifecycle timeline, Microsoft extended Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 support in March 2017 by 9 months. With a final set end date, Windows Server 2012 will end Extended Support on October 10, 2023.
References
Further reading
External links
Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 on TechNet
Windows Server 2012 R2 on MSDN
Windows Server 2012 on MSDN
Tutorials and Lab Manual Articles of Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server
X86-64 operating systems
2012 software
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214554
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%20testing
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Stress testing
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Stress testing (sometimes called torture testing) is a form of deliberately intense or thorough testing used to determine the stability of a given system, critical infrastructure or entity. It involves testing beyond normal operational capacity, often to a breaking point, in order to observe the results. Reasons can include:
to determine breaking points or safe usage limits
to confirm mathematical model is accurate enough in predicting breaking points or safe usage limits
to confirm intended specifications are being met
to determine modes of failure (how exactly a system fails)
to test stable operation of a part or system outside standard usage
Reliability engineers often test items under expected stress or even under accelerated stress in order to determine the operating life of the item or to determine modes of failure.
The term "stress" may have a more specific meaning in certain industries, such as material sciences, and therefore stress testing may sometimes have a technical meaning – one example is in fatigue testing for materials.
Computing
Hardware
Stress testing, in general, should put computer hardware under exaggerated levels of stress in order to ensure stability when used in a normal environment. These can include extremes of workload, type of task, memory use, thermal load (heat), clock speed, or voltages. Memory and CPU are two components that are commonly stress tested in this way.
There is considerable overlap between stress testing software and benchmarking software, since both seek to assess and measure maximum performance. Of the two, stress testing software aims to test stability by trying to force a system to fail; benchmarking aims to measure and assess the maximum performance possible at a given task or function.
When modifying the operating parameters of a CPU, such as temperature, overclocking, underclocking, overvolting, and undervolting, it may be necessary to verify if the new parameters (usually CPU core voltage and frequency) are suitable for heavy CPU loads. This is done by running a CPU-intensive program for extended periods of time (usually 24 hours for home PC), to test whether the computer hangs or crashes. CPU stress testing is also referred to as torture testing. Software that is suitable for torture testing should typically run instructions that utilise the entire chip rather than only a few of its units. Stress testing a CPU over the course of 24 hours at 100% load is, in most cases, sufficient to determine that the CPU will function correctly in normal usage scenarios such as in a desktop computer, where CPU usage typically fluctuates at low levels (50% and under).
Hardware stress testing and stability are subjective and may vary according to how the system will be used. A stress test for a system running 24/7 or that will perform error sensitive tasks such as distributed computing or "folding" projects may differ from one that needs to be able to run a single game with reasonably reliability. For example, a comprehensive guide on overclocking Sandy Bridge found that:
{{quote|text=
Even though in the past IntelBurnTest was just as good, it seems that something in the SB uArch [Sandy Bridge microarchitecture] is more heavily stressed with Prime95 ... IBT really does pull more power [make greater thermal demands]. But ... Prime95 failed first every time, and it failed when IBT would pass. So same as Sandy Bridge, Prime95 is a better stability tester for Sandy Bridge-E than IBT/LinX.}}
An engineer at ASUS advised in a 2012 article on overclocking an Intel X79 system, that it is important to choose testing software carefully in order to obtain useful results:
Software commonly used in stress testing
Aida
IBM Teleprocessing Network Simulator
IBM Workload Simulator
Intel processor diagnostic test
Intel Burn Test
LinX (AVX)
Memtest86+ – memory
OCCT
Passmark Burn-in
Prime95, and derivatives such as HyperPi – CPU/heat
Siege
S&M
Tsung - free software tool
Software
In software testing, a system stress test refers to tests that put a greater emphasis on robustness, availability, and error handling under a heavy load, rather than on what would be considered correct behavior under normal circumstances. In particular, the goals of such tests may be to ensure the software does not crash in conditions of insufficient computational resources (such as memory or disk space), unusually high concurrency, or denial of service attacks.
Examples:
A web server may be stress tested using scripts, bots, and various denial of service tools to observe the performance of a web site during peak loads. These attacks generally are under an hour long, or until a limit in the amount of data that the web server can tolerate is found.
Stress testing may be contrasted with load testing:
Load testing examines the entire environment and database, while measuring the response time, whereas stress testing focuses on identified transactions, pushing to a level so as to break transactions or systems.
During stress testing, if transactions are selectively stressed, the database may not experience much load, but the transactions are heavily stressed. On the other hand, during load testing the database experiences a heavy load, while some transactions may not be stressed.
System stress testing, also known as stress testing, is loading the concurrent users over and beyond the level that the system can handle, so it breaks at the weakest link within the entire system.
Critical Infrastructure
Critical infrastructure (CI) such as highways, railways, electric power networks, dams, port facilities, major gas pipelines or oil refineries are exposed to multiple natural and human-induced hazards and stressors, including earthquakes, landslides, floods, tsunami, wildfires, climate change effects or explosions. These stressors and abrupt events can cause failures and losses, and hence, can interrupt essential services for the society and the economy. Therefore, CI owners and operators need to identify and quantify the risks posed by the CIs due to different stressors, in order to define mitigation strategies and improve the resilience of the CIs. Stress tests are advanced and standardised tools for hazard and risk assessment of CIs, that include both low-probability high-consequence (LP-HC) events and so-called extreme or rare events, as well as the systematic application of these new tools to classes of CI.
Stress testing is the process of assessing the ability of a CI to maintain a certain level of functionality under unfavourable conditions, while stress tests consider LP-HC events, which are not always accounted for in the design and risk assessment procedures, commonly adopted by public authorities or industrial stakeholders. A multilevel stress test methodology for CI has been developed in the framework of the European research project STREST, consisting of four phases:
Phase 1: Preassessment, during which the data available on the CI (risk context) and on the phenomena of interest (hazard context) are collected. The goal and objectives, the time frame, the stress test level and the total costs of the stress test are defined.
Phase 2: Assessment, during which the stress test at the component and the system scope is performed, including fragility and risk analysis of the CIs for the stressors defined in Phase 1. The stress test can result in three outcomes: Pass, Partly Pass and Fail, based on the comparison of the quantified risks to acceptable risk exposure levels and a penalty system.
Phase 3: Decision, during which the results of the stress test are analyzed according to the goal and objectives defined in Phase 1. Critical events (events that most likely cause the exceedance of a given level of loss) and risk mitigation strategies are identified.
Phase 4: Report'', during which the stress test outcome and risk mitigation guidelines based on the findings established in Phase 3 are formulated and presented to the stakeholders.
This stress-testing methodology has been demonstrated to six CIs in Europe at component and system level: an oil refinery and petrochemical plant in Milazzo, Italy; a conceptual alpine earth-fill dam in Switzerland; the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline in Turkey; part of the Gasunie national gas storage and distribution network in the Netherlands; the port infrastructure of Thessaloniki, Greece; and an industrial district in the region of Tuscany, Italy. The outcome of the stress testing included the definition of critical components and events and risk mitigation strategies, which are formulated and reported to stakeholders.
See also
Burn-in
Destructive testing
Load and performance test tools
Black box testing
Load testing
Software performance testing
Scenario analysis
Simulation
Software testing
White box testing
Technischer Überwachungsverein (TÜV) – product testing and certification
Concurrency testing using the CHESS model checker
Jinx automates stress testing by automatically exploring unlikely execution scenarios.
Highly accelerated life test
References
Software testing
Product testing
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165219
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitKeeper
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BitKeeper
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BitKeeper is a software tool for distributed revision control of computer source code. Originally developed as proprietary software by BitMover Inc., a privately held company based in Los Gatos, California, it was released as open-source software under the Apache-2.0 license on 9 May 2016. BitKeeper is no longer being developed.
History
BitKeeper was originally developed by BitMover Inc., a privately held company from Los Gatos, California owned by Larry McVoy, who had previously designed TeamWare.
BitKeeper and the Linux Kernel
BitKeeper was first mentioned as a solution to some of the growing pains that Linux was having in September 1998. Early access betas were available in May 1999 and on May 4, 2000, the first public release of BitKeeper was made available.
BitMover used to provide access to the system for certain open-source or free-software projects, one of which was the source code of the Linux kernel. The license for the "community" version of BitKeeper had allowed for developers to use the tool at no cost for open source or free software projects, provided those developers did not participate in the development of a competing tool (such as Concurrent Versions System, GNU arch, Subversion or ClearCase) for the duration of their usage of BitKeeper plus one year. This restriction applied regardless of whether the competing tool was free or proprietary. This version of BitKeeper also required that certain meta-information about changes be stored on computer servers operated by BitMover, an addition that made it impossible for community version users to run projects of which BitMover was unaware.
The decision made in 2002 to use BitKeeper for Linux kernel development was a controversial one. Some, including GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, expressed concern about proprietary tools being used on a flagship free project. While project leader Linus Torvalds and other core developers adopted BitKeeper, several key developers (including Linux veteran Alan Cox) refused to do so, citing the BitMover license, and voicing concern that the project was ceding some control to a proprietary developer. To mitigate these concerns, BitMover added gateways which allowed limited interoperation between the Linux BitKeeper servers (maintained by BitMover) and developers using CVS and Subversion. Even after this addition, flamewars occasionally broke out on the Linux kernel mailing list, often involving key kernel developers and BitMover's CEO Larry McVoy, who was also a Linux contributor.
In April 2005, BitMover announced that it would stop providing a version of BitKeeper free of charge to the community, giving as the reason the efforts of Andrew Tridgell, a developer employed by OSDL on an unrelated project, to develop a client which would show the metadata (data about revisions, possibly including differences between versions) instead of only the most recent version. Being able to see metadata and compare past versions is one of the core features of all version-control systems, but was not available to anyone without a commercial BitKeeper license, significantly inconveniencing most Linux kernel developers. Although BitMover decided to provide free commercial BitKeeper licenses to some kernel developers, it refused to give or sell licenses to anyone employed by OSDL, including Linus Torvalds and Andrew Morton, placing OSDL developers in the same position as other kernel developers. The Git project was launched with the intent of becoming the Linux kernel's source code management software, and was eventually adopted by Linux developers.
End of support for the "Free Use" version of BitKeeper was officially July 1, 2005, and users were required to switch to the commercial version or change version control system by then. Commercial users were also required not to produce any competing tools: In October 2005, McVoy contacted a customer using commercially licensed BitKeeper, demanding that an employee of the customer stop contributing to the Mercurial project, a GPL source management tool. Bryan O'Sullivan, the employee, responded, "To avoid any possible perception of conflict, I have volunteered to Larry that as long as I continue to use the commercial version of BitKeeper, I will not contribute to the development of Mercurial."
Move to open-source
During the release of version 7.2ce at May 9, 2016, BitKeeper announced that it is starting to move from proprietary to open-source license, eventually releasing the software under the Apache License version 2.
See also
List of revision control software
Notes
References
External links
BitKeeper's note about the Nov 2003 security breach
"Not quite Open Source" Article on Linux Weekly News, circa 1999, discussing features, licensing, Larry McVoy, and OSI.
"No More Free BitKeeper" Discusses BitMover's decision to phase out the free version of BitKeeper
discusses the BitKeeper fiasco from three viewpoints: Linus Torvalds, Larry McVoy, Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell (the alleged reverse-engineer who offers a short explanation of the situation)
How Tridge reverse-engineered Bitkeeper and Torvalds knifes Tridgell, two articles describing Tridgell's 2005 linux.conf.au keynote and comparing what he did to statements by Torvalds and McVoy
SourcePuller is the result of Tridgell's efforts
RMS: BitKeeper bon-voyage is a happy ending – Richard Stallman on the Linux/BitKeeper fallout (formerly on NewsForge, currently on Linux.com)
The Age Crunch time for Linus
BitKeeper at the "Better SCM" Site – a collection of articles and essays about BitKeeper and its history.
Version control systems
Formerly proprietary software
Free version control software
Distributed version control systems
Software using the Apache license
2000 software
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2778356
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolv.conf
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Resolv.conf
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resolv.conf is the name of a computer file used in various operating systems to configure the system's Domain Name System (DNS) resolver. The file is a plain-text file usually created by the network administrator or by applications that manage the configuration tasks of the system. The resolvconf program is one such program on FreeBSD or other Unix machines which manages the resolv.conf file.
Purpose
In most Unix-like operating systems and others that implement the BIND Domain Name System (DNS) resolver library, the resolv.conf configuration file contains information that determines the operational parameters of the DNS resolver. The DNS resolver allows applications running in the operating system to translate human-friendly domain names into the numeric IP addresses that are required for access to resources on the local area network or the Internet. The process of determining IP addresses from domain names is called address resolution.
Contents and location
The file resolv.conf typically contains search directives that specify the default search domains used for completing a given query name to a fully qualified domain name when no domain suffix is supplied. For instance, search example.com local.test configures the resolver to try additionally somehost.example.com and somehost.local.test.
It also contains a list of IP addresses of nameservers for resolution. For instance, nameserver 1.1.1.1 configures the resolver to query for the name server with IP 1.1.1.1. Additional nameserver directives after the first are only used when the first or last used server is unavailable. An example file is:
search example.com local.test
nameserver 10.0.0.17
nameserver 10.1.0.12
nameserver 10.16.0.7
resolv.conf is usually located in the directory /etc of the file system. The file is either maintained manually, or when DHCP is used, it is usually updated with the utility resolvconf.
In systemd based Linux distributions using systemd-resolved.service, /etc/resolv.conf is a symlink to /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf.
See also
Hosts (file)
nsswitch.conf
resolved.conf
systemd-resolved
References
External links
"resolv.conf" on Arch Linux wiki
"resolv.conf" on Gentoo Linux wiki
Domain Name System
Configuration files
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1419416
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Jupiter%20trojans%20%28Greek%20camp%29
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List of Jupiter trojans (Greek camp)
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This is a list of Jupiter trojans that lie in the Greek camp, an elongated curved region around the leading Lagrangian point (), 60° ahead of Jupiter in its orbit.
All the asteroids at Jupiter's point have names corresponding to participants on the Greek side of the Trojan War, except for 624 Hektor, which was named before this naming convention was instituted. Correspondingly, 617 Patroclus is a Greek-named asteroid at the "Trojan" () Lagrangian point. In 2018, at its 30th General Assembly in Vienna, the International Astronomical Union amended this naming convention, allowing for Jupiter trojans with H larger than 12 (that is, a mean diameter smaller than approximately 22 kilometers, for an assumed albedo of 0.057) to be named after Olympic athletes, as the number of known Jupiter trojans, currently more than 10,000, far exceeds the number of available names of heroes from the Trojan War in Greek mythology.
Trojans in the Greek and Trojan camp are discovered mainly in turns, because they are separated by 120°, and for a period of time one group of trojans will be behind the Sun, and the other will be visible.
Partial lists
, there are 6506 known objects in the Greek camp, of which 3264 are numbered and listed in the following partial lists:
List of Jupiter trojans (Greek camp) (1–100000)
List of Jupiter trojans (Greek camp) (100001–200000)
List of Jupiter trojans (Greek camp) (200001–300000)
List of Jupiter trojans (Greek camp) (300001–400000)
List of Jupiter trojans (Greek camp) (400001–500000)
List of Jupiter trojans (Greek camp) (500001–600000)
Largest members
This is a list of the largest 100+ Jupiter trojans of both the Greek and Trojan camp
References
Jupiter trojans (Greek camp)
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23110661
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Sei
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Ten-Sei
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is the 33rd studio album by Japanese singer-songwriter Miyuki Nakajima, released in November 2005.
Like some previous albums 10 Wings, Hi -Wings- and Tsuki -Wings-, Tensei is composed of the songs Nakajima wrote for her experimental musical Yakai. All the materials appeared on the album were originally performed on Yakai Vol. 14: "24-Ji Chaku 0-Ji Hatsu" which was taken place at the Bunkamura Theatre Cocoon during January 2004. Except "The Mirage Hotel" which was already included on her 2003 Love Letter (Koibumi) album (Ten-Sei features newly arranged version of a song), most of the songs appeared on the studio album for the first time.
From the album, "For Those Who Can't Go Home" was later released as a single (flip side was live recording version of "Relay of the Soul" which was taken from Yakai). It was featured as a theme song for the television drama Kemonomichi (adaptation of the novel written by Seicho Matsumoto) starring Ryoko Yonekura and aired on TV Asahi in 2006. "Relay of the Soul" was also used in the drama series called On'na no Ichidaiki aired on Fuji TV during autumn 2005.
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Miyuki Nakajima, arranged by Ichizo Seo
"" – 4:58
"" – 5:19
"" – 4:22
"" – 5:10
"" – 4:06
"" – 5:49
"" – 5:52
"" – 5:34
"" – 6:04
"" – 5:21
"" – 6:25
Personnel
Michael Thompson – Electric guitar, acoustic guitar
Nozomi Furukawa – Electric guitar, bouzouki
Shūji Nakamura – Acoustic guitar
Neil Stubenhaus – Electric bass
Satoshi Nakamura – Soprano sax, alto sax
Vinnie Colaiuta – Drums
Gregg Bissonette – Drums
Matarou Misawa – Cymbals, timpani
DJ Masterkey – Scratch
Jon Gilutin – Keyboards, acoustic piano, hammond organ, strings pad
Ichizo Seo – Computer programming, keyboards
Shingo Kobayashi – Computer programming, keyboards
Tomō Satō – Computer programming
Yousuke Sugimoto – Computer programming
Ittetsu Gen – Violin
Crusher Kimura – Violin
Sid Page – Violin (Concertmaster)
Susan Chatman – Violin
Mario De Leon – Violin
Kirstin File – Violin
Berj Garabedian – Violin
Peter Kent – Violin
Natalie Leggett – Violin
Robert Matsuda – Violin
Alyssa Park – Violin
Cameron Patrick – Violin
Robert Peterson – Violin
John Wittenberg – Violin
Takuya Mori – Viola
Denyse Buffum – Viola
Cheryl Kohfeld – Viola
Carole Mukogawa – Viola
David Stenske – Viola
Masami Horisawa – Cello
Tomoki Iwanaga – Cello
Larry Corbett – Cello
Maurice Grants – Cello
Dan Smith – Cello
Rudy Stein – Cello
Suzie Katayama – Strings conducting and contracting
Kazuyo Sugimoto – Harmony vocals
Fumikazu Miyashita – Harmony vocals
Julia Waters – Backing vocals
Oren Waters – Backing vocals
Maxine Waters – Backing vocals
Tery Wood – Backing vocals
Angie Jaree – Backing vocals
Wendy Fraser – Backing vocals
Carmen Carter – Backing vocals
Jim Glistrap – Backing vocals
Carmen Twillie – Backing vocals
Jess Wilard III – Backing vocals
Chart positions
Album
Single
Release history
References
Miyuki Nakajima albums
2005 albums
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11060761
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access%20Authentication%20in%20CDMA%20networks
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Access Authentication in CDMA networks
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Access Authentication in CDMA networks for telecommunications and computing provide network access for a mobile device. Specific methods such as CAVE-based Authentication (IS-95/1xRTT), and A12 Authentication (1xEV-DO) are possible. The serving network provides the mobile device access authentication mechanism.
The exact method employed depends upon the type of service being used:
CAVE-based Authentication – Used for access authentication in CDMA/1xRTT
AKA – 3G successor to CAVE-based authentication
A12 Authentication – Used for access authentication in 1xEV-DO
Note that 1xEV-DO Hybrid MS/AT devices may employ both CAVE-based and A12 authentication since these devices connect to both the 1xRTT and 1xEV-DO networks.
See also
Channel access method
List of authentication protocols
List of CDMA2000 networks
Mobile broadband
References
Code division multiple access
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7432187
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European%20Union%20Public%20Licence
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European Union Public Licence
|
The European Union Public Licence (EUPL) is a free software licence that has been created and approved by the European Commission. The licence is available in 23 official languages of the European Union. All linguistic versions have the same validity. Its latest version, EUPL v1.2, was published in May 2017. Revised documentation for was issued in late2021.
Software, mainly produced by European administrations, has been licensed under the EUPL since the launch of the European Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR) in October 2008, now part of Joinup collaborative platform.
History
EUPL was originally intended to be used for the distribution of software developed in the framework of the IDABC programme, given its generic scope it was also suitable for use by any software developer. Its main goal is its focusing on being consistent with the copyright law in the Member States of the European Union, while retaining compatibility with popular free software licences such as the GNU General Public License. The first IDABC software packages mentioned are CIRCA groupware, IPM and the eLink G2G, G2C, G2B specification software.
Comparison to other open source/free software licences
EUPL is the first open source licence to be released by an international governing body. A goal of this licence is to create an open-source licence available into 23 official languages of the European Union, and that is sure to conform to the existing copyright laws of the Member States of the European Union.
The licence was developed with other open-source licences in mind and specifically authorizes covered works to be re-released under the following licences, when combined with their covered code in larger works:
Many other OSI-approved licences are compatible with the EUPL: JOINUP publish a general compatibility matrix between all OSI-approved licences and the EUPL.
An overview of the EUPL licence and on what makes it different has been published in OSS-Watch.
In 2020, the European Commission publishes its Joinup Licensing Assistant, which makes possible the selection and comparison of more than 50 licences, with access to their SPDX identifier and full text.
Versions
EUPL v1.0 was approved on 9 January 2007.
EUPL v1.1 was approved by the European Commission on 9 January 2009. EUPL v1.1 is OSI certified as from March 2009.
EUPL v1.2 was published in May 2017. EUPL v1.2 is OSI certified in July 2017.
Version 1.2
The EUPL v1.2 was prepared as from June 2013 its decision process started in 2016 and released on 19 May 2017. A principal objective of the EUPL v1.2 is to update the appendix of compatible licences to cover newer popular licences such as the GNU GPLv3 and AGPLv3.
According to the EUPL v.1.1, the European Commission may publish other linguistic versions and/or new versions of the EUPL, so far this is required and reasonable, without reducing the scope of the rights granted by the Licence. Future upgrades will not be applicable automatically when software was expressly released "under the EUPL v.1.1 only".
New provisions cover the Application service provider loophole of software distribution: Distribution and/or Communication (of software) includes providing on-line "access to its essential functionalities".
A specificity of the EUPL v1.2 is that, at the contrary of the GPL, it is compatible with all other reciprocal licenses listed in the EUPL appendix. Compatibility means that after merging the covered code with code covered by a compatible license, the resulting (combined) derivative work can be distributed under the compatible license.
Another specificity of the EUPL is that it is interoperable, without any viral effect in case of static and dynamic linking. This currently depends on European and national law, according to the Computer Programs Directive (Directive 91/250 EEC or 2009/24). Recital 10 of this Directive defines interoperability and recital 15 states that for making two programs interoperable, the code needed can be copied, translated or adapted. For example take program A (new original code just written) and program B (a program licensed by a third party), the developer/licensor of A, who is also a legitimate holder or recipient of B may reproduce in A the needed code from B (e.g. the APIs or the needed data structures from program B) without copyright infringement and without authorization from the copyright holder of B. The licensor of A can do and distribute this without being bonded by conditions or limitations imposed by a licence of program B. This must stay compatible with the normal use of program B and cannot prejudice the legitimate interest of the copyright holder of B.
Unlike the "articles", the directive "recitals" are not transposed as such in national laws. However, recitals are part of European law: they are serving for understanding the scope and rationale of the law, and will be used by the court for interpreting the law, as the case may be. While recitals in EU Directives and Regulations are not considered to have independent legal value, they can expand an ambiguous provision's scope. They cannot restrict an unambiguous provision's scope, but they can be used to determine the nature of a provision, or to adapt it to new circumstances. For this reason, the German lawyer Niklas Plutte created for the EUPL the new category of "Interoperable copyleft licence".
Member states policies
As from 2010, EU member states adopt or revise policies aimed to encourage – when appropriate – the open source distribution of public sector applications. The EUPL is formally mentioned in some of these policies:
Malta
Spain
Estonia: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, Department of State Information Systems. Information Society Yearbook 2009.
Slovakia
France: Décret n° 2021-1559 of 1 December 2021, amending the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration, Article D323-2-1, et seq.
See also
Software using the European Union Public Licence
Comparison of free and open-source software licences
GPL linking exception
References
External links
Full English text of the licence (PDF)
Legal context and milestones of the elaboration of the EUPL (by Severine Dusollier) (PDF)
Article of professor Severine Dusollier with a particular reference to the EUPL (PDF)
"Speech of Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission", YouTube video
"The European Union can show off with its own, free, open source license", Linux magazine
EUPL - An overview (by Rowan Wilson)
The European Union Public Licence (by Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz) - A legal analysis in the IFOSSLR (International Free and Open Source Software Law Review), Vol. 5 n°2 (2013)
Computer law
Copyleft
Copyright law of the European Union
Free content licenses
Free and open-source software licenses
Copyleft software licenses
Information technology organizations based in Europe
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44589207
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chessboard%20detection
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Chessboard detection
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Chessboards arise frequently in computer vision theory and practice because their highly structured geometry is well-suited for algorithmic detection and processing. The appearance of chessboards in computer vision can be divided into two main areas: camera calibration and feature extraction. This article provides a unified discussion of the role that chessboards play in the canonical methods from these two areas, including references to the seminal literature, examples, and pointers to software implementations.
Chessboard camera calibration
A classical problem in computer vision is three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction, where one seeks to infer 3D structure about a scene from two-dimensional (2D) images of it. Practical cameras are complex devices, and photogrammetry is needed to model the relationship between image sensor measurements and the 3D world. In the standard pinhole camera model, one models the relationship between world coordinates and image (pixel) coordinates via the perspective transformation
where is the projective space of dimension .
In this setting, camera calibration is the process of estimating the parameters of the matrix of the perspective model. Camera calibration is an important step in the computer vision pipeline because many subsequent algorithms require knowledge of camera parameters as input. Chessboards are often used during camera calibration because they are simple to construct, and their planar grid structure defines many natural interest points in an image. The following two methods are classic calibration techniques that often employ chessboards.
Direct linear transformation
Direct linear transformation (DLT) calibration uses correspondences between world points and camera image points to estimate camera parameters. In particular, DLT calibration exploits the fact that the perspective pinhole camera model defines a set of similarity relations that can be solved via the direct linear transformation algorithm. To employ this approach, one requires accurate coordinates of a non-degenerate set of points in 3D space. A common way to achieve this is to construct a camera calibration rig (example below) built from three mutually perpendicular chessboards. Since the corners of each square are equidistant, it is straightforward to compute the 3D coordinates of each corner given the width of each square. The advantage of DLT calibration is its simplicity; arbitrary cameras can be calibrated by solving a single homogeneous linear system. However, the practical use of DLT calibration is limited by the necessity of a 3D calibration rig and the fact that extremely accurate 3D coordinates are required to avoid numerical instability.
Multiplane calibration
Multiplane calibration is a variant of camera auto-calibration that allows one to compute the parameters of a camera from two or more views of a planar surface. The seminal work in multiplane calibration is due to Zhang. Zhang's method calibrates cameras by solving a particular homogeneous linear system that captures the homographic relationships between multiple perspective views of the same plane. This multiview approach is popular because, in practice, it is more natural to capture multiple views of a single planar surface - like a chessboard - than to construct a precise 3D calibration rig, as required by DLT calibration. The following figures demonstrate a practical application of multiplane camera calibration from multiple views of a chessboard.
Chessboard feature extraction
The second context in which chessboards arise in computer vision is to demonstrate several canonical feature extraction algorithms. In feature extraction, one seeks to identify image interest points, which summarize the semantic content of an image and, hence, offer a reduced dimensionality representation of one's data. Chessboards - in particular - are often used to demonstrate feature extraction algorithms because their regular geometry naturally exhibits local image features like edges, lines, and corners. The following sections demonstrate the application of common feature extraction algorithms to a chessboard image.
Corners
Corners are a natural local image feature exploited in many computer vision systems. Loosely speaking, one can define a corner as the intersection of two edges. A variety of corner detection algorithms exist that formalize this notion into concrete algorithms. Corners are a useful image feature because they are necessarily distinct from their neighboring pixels. The Harris corner detector is a standard algorithm for corner detection in computer vision. The algorithm works by analyzing the eigenvalues of the 2D discrete structure tensor matrix at each image pixel and flagging a pixel as a corner when the eigenvalues of its structure tensor are sufficiently large. Intuitively, the eigenvalues of the structure tensor matrix associated with a given pixel describe the gradient strength in a neighborhood of that pixel. As such, a structure tensor matrix with large eigenvalues corresponds to an image neighborhood with large gradients in orthogonal directions - i.e., a corner.
A chessboard contains natural corners at the boundaries between board squares, so one would expect corner detection algorithms to successfully detect them in practice. Indeed, the following figure demonstrates Harris corner detection applied to a perspective-transformed chessboard image. Clearly, the Harris detector is able to accurately detect the corners of the board.
Lines
Lines are another natural local image feature exploited in many computer vision systems. Geometrically, the set of all lines in a 2D image can be parametrized by polar coordinates describing the distance and angle, respectively, of their normal vectors with respect to the origin. The discrete Hough transform exploits this idea by transforming a spatial image into a matrix in -space whose -th entry counts the number of image edge points that lie on the line parametrized by . As such, one can detect lines in an image by simply searching for local maxima of its discrete Hough transform.
The grid structure of a chessboard naturally defines two sets of parallel lines in an image of it. Therefore, one expects that line detection algorithms should successfully detect these lines in practice. Indeed, the following figure demonstrates Hough transform-based line detection applied to a perspective-transformed chessboard image. Clearly, the Hough transform is able to accurately detect the lines induced by the board squares.
The following MATLAB code generates the above images using the Image Processing Toolbox:
% Load image
I = imread('Perspective_chessboard.png');
% Compute edge image
BW = edge(I, 'canny');
% Compute Hough transform
[H theta rho] = hough(BW);
% Find local maxima of Hough transform
numpeaks = 19;
thresh = ceil(0.1 * max(H(:)));
P = houghpeaks(H, numpeaks, 'threshold', thresh);
% Extract image lines
lines = houghlines(BW, theta, rho, P, 'FillGap', 50, 'MinLength', 60);
% --------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Display results
% --------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Original image
figure; imshow(I);
% Edge image
figure; imshow(BW);
% Hough transform
figure; image(theta, rho, imadjust(mat2gray(H)), 'CDataMapping', 'scaled');
hold on; colormap(gray(256));
plot(theta(P(:, 2)), rho(P(:, 1)), 'o', 'color', 'r');
% Detected lines
figure; imshow(I); hold on; n = size(I, 2);
for k = 1:length(lines)
% Overlay kth line
x = [lines(k).point1(1) lines(k).point2(1)];
y = [lines(k).point1(2) lines(k).point2(2)];
line = @(z) ((y(2) - y(1)) / (x(2) - x(1))) * (z - x(1)) + y(1);
plot([1 n], line([1 n]), 'Color', 'r');
end
See also
Computer vision
Projective geometry
Pinhole camera
Photogrammetry
Camera calibration
Feature detection
Feature extraction
Canny edge detection
Corner detection
Structure tensor matrix
Hough transform
Further reading
M. Rufli, D. Scaramuzza, and R. Siegwart. "Automatic detection of checkerboards on blurred and distorted images." IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. (2008).
Z. Weixing, et al. "A fast and accurate algorithm for chessboard corner detection." 2nd International Congress on Image and Signal Processing. (2009).
A. De la Escalera and J. Armingol. "Automatic chessboard detection for intrinsic and extrinsic camera parameter calibration." Sensors. vol. 10(3), pp. 2027–2044 (2010).
S. Bennett and J. Lasenby. "ChESS - quick and robust detection of chess-board features." Computer Vision and Image Understanding. vol. 118, pp. 197–210 (2014).
J. Ha. "Automatic detection of chessboard and its applications." Opt. Eng. vol. 48(6) (2009).
F. Zhao, et al. "An automated x-corner detection algorithm (axda)." Journal of Software. vol. 6(5), pp. 791–797 (2011).
S. Arca, E. Casiraghi, and G. Lombardi. "Corner localization in chessboards for camera calibration." IADAT. (2005).
X. Hu, P. Du, and Y. Zhou. "Automatic corner detection of chess board for medical endoscopy camera calibration." Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Virtual Reality Continuum and Its Applications in Industry. ACM. (2011).
S. Malek, et al. "Tracking chessboard corners using projective transformation for augmented reality. International Conference on Communications, Computing and Control Applications. (2011).
References
External links
The following links are pointers to popular implementations of chessboard-related computer vision algorithms.
Camera Calibration Toolbox for MATLAB - MATLAB toolbox implementing many common camera calibration methods
Camera Calibration and 3D Reconstruction - OpenCV implementation of many common camera calibration methods
Multiplane Camera Calibration From Multiple Chessboard Views - MATLAB example of applying multiview auto-calibration to a series of chessboard images
MATLAB chessboard detection - MATLAB function from the Computer Vision System Toolbox for detecting chessboards in images
OpenCV chessboard detection - OpenCV function for detecting chessboards in images
MATLAB Harris corner detection - MATLAB function for performing Harris corner detection
OpenCV Harris corner detection - OpenCV function for performing Harris corner detection
MATLAB Hough transform - MATLAB function for computing the Hough transform
OpenCV Hough transform - OpenCV function for computing the Hough transform
mrgingham - tool for detection of chessboards
Feature detection (computer vision)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network%20mapping
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Network mapping
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Network mapping is the study of the physical connectivity of networks e.g. the Internet. Network mapping discovers the devices on the network and their connectivity. It is not to be confused with network discovery or network enumerating which discovers devices on the network and their characteristics such as (operating system, open ports, listening network services, etc.). The field of automated network mapping has taken on greater importance as networks become more dynamic and complex in nature.
Large-scale mapping project
Images of some of the first attempts at a large scale map of the internet were produced by the Internet Mapping Project and appeared in Wired magazine. The maps produced by this project were based on the layer 3 or IP level connectivity of the Internet (see OSI model), but there are different aspects of internet structure that have also been mapped.
More recent efforts to map the internet have been improved by more sophisticated methods, allowing them to make faster and more sensible maps. An example of such an effort is the OPTE project, which is attempting to develop a system capable of mapping the internet in a single day.
The "Map of the Internet Project" maps over 4 billion internet locations as cubes in 3D cyberspace. Users can add URLs as cubes and re-arrange objects on the map.
In early 2011 Canadian based ISP PEER 1 Hosting created their own Map of the Internet that depicts a graph of 19,869 autonomous system nodes connected by 44,344 connections. The sizing and layout of the autonomous systems was calculated based on their eigenvector centrality, which is a measure of how central to the network each autonomous system is.
Graph theory can be used to better understand maps of the internet and to help choose between the many ways to visualize internet maps. Some projects have attempted to incorporate geographical data into their internet maps (for example, to draw locations of routers and nodes on a map of the world), but others are only concerned with representing the more abstract structures of the internet, such as the allocation, structure, and purpose of IP space.
Enterprise network mapping
Many organizations create network maps of their network system. These maps can be made manually using simple tools such as Microsoft Visio, or the mapping process can be simplified by using tools that integrate auto network discovery with Network mapping, one such example being the IP Fabric platform. Many of the vendors from the Notable network mappers list enable you to customize the maps and include your own labels, add un-discoverable items and background images. Sophisticated mapping is used to help visualize the network and understand relationships between end devices and the transport layers that provide service. Mostly, network scanners detect the network with all its components and deliver a list which is used for creating charts and maps using network mapping software. Items such as bottlenecks and root cause analysis can be easier to spot using these tools.
There are three main techniques used for network mapping: SNMP based approaches, active probing and route analytics.
The SNMP based approach retrieves data from Router and Switch MIBs in order to build the network map. The active probing approach relies on a series of traceroute-like probe packets in order to build the network map. The route analytics approach relies on information from the routing protocols to build the network map. Each of the three approaches have advantages and disadvantages in the methods that they use.
Internet mapping techniques
There are two prominent techniques used today to create Internet maps. The first works on the data plane of the Internet and is called active probing. It is used to infer Internet topology based on router adjacencies. The second works on the control plane and infers autonomous system connectivity based on BGP data. A BGP speaker sends 19-byte keep-alive messages every 60 seconds to maintain the connection.
Active probing
This technique relies on traceroute-like probing on the IP address space. These probes report back IP forwarding paths to the destination address. By combining these paths one can infer router level topology for a given POP. Active probing is advantageous in that the paths returned by probes constitute the actual forwarding path that data takes through networks. It is also more likely to find peering links between ISP's. However, active probing requires massive amounts of probes to map the entire Internet. It is more likely to infer false topologies due to load balancing routers and routers with multiple IP address aliases. Decreased global support for enhanced probing mechanisms such as source-route probing, ICMP Echo Broadcasting, and IP Address Resolution techniques leaves this type of probing in the realm of network diagnosis.
AS PATH inference
This technique relies on various BGP collectors who collect routing updates and tables and provide this information publicly. Each BGP entry contains a Path Vector attribute called the AS Path. This path represents an autonomous system forwarding path from a given origin for a given set of prefixes. These paths can be used to infer AS-level connectivity and in turn be used to build AS topology graphs. However, these paths do not necessarily reflect how data is actually forwarded and adjacencies between AS nodes only represent a policy relationship between them. A single AS link can in reality be several router links. It is also much harder to infer peerings between two AS nodes as these peering relationships are only propagated to an ISP's customer networks. Nevertheless, support for this type of mapping is increasing as more and more ISP's offer to peer with public route collectors such as Route-Views and RIPE. New toolsets are emerging such as Cyclops and NetViews that take advantage of a new experimental BGP collector BGPMon. NetViews can not only build topology maps in seconds but visualize topology changes moments after occurring at the actual router. Hence, routing dynamics can be visualized in real time.
In comparison to what the tools using BGPMon does there is another tool netTransformer able to discover and generate BGP peering maps either through SNMP polling or by converting MRT dumps to a graphml file format. netTransformer allows us also to perform network diffs between any two dumps and thus to reason how does the BGP peering has evolved through the years. WhatsUp Gold, an IT monitoring tool, tracks networks, servers, applications, storage devices, virtual devices and incorporates infrastructure management, application performance management.
See also
Comparison of network diagram software
Opte Project
DIMES
Webometrics
Network topology
Idea networking
Notes
External links
Cheleby Internet Topology Mapping System
Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis
NetViews: Multi-level Realtime Internet Mapping
Cyclops: An AS level Observatory
DIMES Research Project
Internet Mapping Research Project
The Opte Project
Internet architecture
Network mappers
pt:Mapeamento da internet
sv:Internetmappning
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25027512
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explicit%20multi-threading
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Explicit multi-threading
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Explicit Multi-Threading (XMT) is a computer science paradigm for building and programming parallel computers designed around the parallel random-access machine (PRAM) parallel computational model. A more direct explanation of XMT starts with the rudimentary abstraction that made serial computing simple: that any single instruction available for execution in a serial program executes immediately. A consequence of this abstraction is a step-by-step (inductive) explication of the instruction available next for execution. The rudimentary parallel abstraction behind XMT, dubbed Immediate Concurrent Execution (ICE) in , is that indefinitely many instructions available for concurrent execution execute immediately. A consequence of ICE is a step-by-step (inductive) explication of the instructions available next for concurrent execution. Moving beyond the serial von Neumann computer (the only successful general-purpose platform to date), the aspiration of XMT is that computer science will again be able to augment mathematical induction with a simple one-line computing abstraction.
The random-access machine (RAM) is an abstract machine model used in computer science to study algorithms and complexity for standard serial computing. The PRAM computational model is an abstract parallel machine model that had been introduced to similarly study parallel algorithms and complexity for parallel computing, when they were yet to be built. Researchers have developed a large body of knowledge of parallel algorithms for the PRAM model. These parallel algorithms are also known for being simple, by standards of other approaches to parallel algorithms.
This large body of parallel algorithms knowledge for the PRAM model and their relative simplicity motivated building computers whose programming can be guided by these parallel algorithms. Since productivity of parallel programmers has long been considered crucial for the success a parallel computer, simplicity of algorithms is important.
Multi-core computers are built around two or more processor cores integrated on a single integrated circuit die. They are widely used across many application domains including general-purpose computing.
Explicit Multi-Threading (XMT) is a computing paradigm for building and programming multi-core computers with tens, hundreds or thousands of processor cores.
Experimental work published in 2011 and 2012 demonstrates significantly greater speedups for advanced PRAM algorithms on XMT prototypes than for the same problems on state-of-the-art multi-core computers.
Work published in 2018 shows that lock-step parallel programming (using ICE) can achieve the same performance as the fastest hand-tuned multi-threaded code on XMT systems. Such inductive lock-step approach stands in contrast to multi-threaded programming approaches of many other core systems that are known for challenging programmers.
The XMT paradigm was introduced by Uzi Vishkin.
The main levels of abstraction of XMT
The Explicit Multi-Threading (XMT) computing paradigm integrates several levels of abstraction.
The work-time (WT) (sometimes called work-depth) framework, introduced by , provides a simple way for conceptualizing and describing parallel algorithms. In the WT framework, a parallel algorithm is first described in terms of parallel rounds. For each round, the operations to be performed are characterized, but several issues can be suppressed. For example, the number of operations at each round need not be clear, processors need not be mentioned and any information that may help with the assignment of processors to jobs need not be accounted for. Second, the suppressed information is provided. The inclusion of the suppressed information is, in fact, guided by the proof of a scheduling theorem due to . The WT framework is useful since while it can greatly simplify the initial description of a parallel algorithm, inserting the details suppressed by that initial description is often not very difficult. For example, the WT framework was adopted as the basic presentation framework in the parallel algorithms books (for the PRAM model) and , as well as in the class notes . explains the simple connection between the WT framework and the more rudimentary ICE abstraction noted above.
The XMT paradigm can be programmed using XMTC, a parallel multi-threaded programming language which is a small extension of the programming language C. The XMT paradigm include a programmer's workflow that starts with casting an algorithm in the WT framework and proceeds to programming it in XMTC.
The XMT multi-core computer systems provides run-time load-balancing of multi-threaded programs incorporating several patents. One of them generalizes the program counter concept, which is central to the von Neumann architecture to multi-core hardware.
XMT prototyping and links to more information
In January 2007, a 64-processor computer named Paraleap, that demonstrates the overall concept was completed. The XMT concept was presented in and and the XMT 64-processor computer in . Since making parallel programming easy is one of the biggest challenges facing computer science today, the demonstration also sought to include teaching the basics of PRAM algorithms and XMTC programming to students ranging from high-school to graduate school.
Experimental work reported in for the Maximum flow problem, and in two papers by for the Graph Connectivity (Connectivity (graph theory)), Graph Biconnectivity (biconnected graph) and Graph Triconnectivity (Triconnected component) problems demonstrated that for some of the most advanced algorithms in the parallel algorithmic literature, the XMT paradigm can offer 8 times to over 100 times greater speedups than for the same problems on state-of-the-art multi-core computers. Each reported speedup was obtained by comparing clock cycles on an XMT prototype relative to the fastest serial algorithm running on the fastest serial machines.
XMT prototyping was culminated in , establishing that lock-step parallel programming (using ICE) can achieve the same performance as the fastest hand-tuned multi-threaded code on XMT systems. This 2018 result sharpens the contrast between XMT programming and the multi-threaded programming approaches employed by nearly all many other-core systems, whose race conditions and other demands tend to challenge, and sometimes even fail programmers .
References
.
.
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.
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.
.
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.
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Notes
External links
Home page of the XMT project, with links to a software release, on-line tutorial and to material for teaching parallelism.
Parallel computing
Distributed computing architecture
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43659152
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envivio
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Envivio
|
Envivio was a software-based video processing and delivery company. It was founded in 2000 in San Francisco by Julien Signes, the president and CEO. In 2015, the company was acquired by Ericsson. In 2019, Ericsson sold its television business unit to One Equity Partners, the resulting company is named MediaKind.
When founded, Envivio focused on developing technologies supported by the MPEG-4 standard, a standard for audio and video coding formats and related technology.
Envivio was headquartered in South San Francisco with offices in Singapore, Beijing, Denver (Colorado) and Rennes.
History
Envivio was created in 2000 as a spin-off of the France Telecom R&D Labs in San Francisco and Rennes. The co-founders were contributors to the specification and development of MPEG-4, which is available on most consumer devices. The company holds 17 patents dating as far back as 2000. Envivio went public on April 25, 2012.
In September 2015, Envivio was bought by Ericsson Television.
A video from Envivio is used as an MPD steaming example in the dash.js open source DASH web player.
Products
Envivio products include encoders and transcodes, network media Processors, gateways and multiplexers, management systems, quality controls and platforms. The company has been a pioneer in software-based, over-the-top delivery to multiple screens.
In 2014, Envivio was contracted to provide 4K UHDTV coverage of the French Open for TDF, to assist Globosat in providing 4K coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and also to provide the only live multi-screen coverage for Comcast, and to provide cloud-based video multiscreen transcoding services for Beijing Gehua CATV Network Co. using its Muse software.
See also
High Efficiency Video Coding
MPEG-2
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
IPTV
HDMI
References
External links
PRISA TV
Software companies established in 2000
South San Francisco, California
Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq
Companies based in San Mateo County, California
2000 establishments in California
Ericsson
2012 initial public offerings
2015 mergers and acquisitions
American subsidiaries of foreign companies
Software companies of the United States
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84686
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypoetes
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Polypoetes
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In Greek mythology, Polypoetes (; , Polupoitēs) was a name attributed to the following individuals:
Polypoetes, the Aetolian son of Apollo and Phthia, brother of Dorus and Laodocus. He was killed by Aetolus.
Polypoetes, son of Hippodamia and Pirithous. A native of the Thessalian city of Gyrtone (Γυρτώνη), he led the armies of Thessaly on the side of the Greeks during the Trojan War. He was among those who vied for Helen's hand in marriage, and later occupied the Trojan horse. Following the death of Patroclus, he won an early version of quoits, winning a 5-year supply of iron. After the war, he was present at the funerals of Calchas and Patroclus. His close companion was Leonteus.
Polypoetes, one of the Suitors of Penelope who came from Dulichium along with other 56 wooers. He, with the other suitors, was killed by Odysseus with the help of Eumaeus, Philoetius, and Telemachus.
Notes
References
Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Children of Apollo
Demigods in classical mythology
Kings in Greek mythology
Achaean Leaders
People of the Trojan War
Characters in the Iliad
Characters in Book VI of the Aeneid
Suitors of Penelope
Aetolian characters in Greek mythology
Characters in Greek mythology
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan%20Petigru%20King
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Susan Petigru King
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Susan Dupont Petigru King-Bowen (24 October 1824 – December 1875) was a 19th-century socialite, realist, fiction writer and novelist. Her work, which included Busy Moments of an Idle Woman (1853), Lily: A Novel (1855), Sylvia’s World: Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach (1859), and Gerald Gray’s Wife (1864), focused on subversive portrayals of South Carolina aristocracy, in which men toyed with women’s affections, women plotted against one another’s best interests, and mothers forced daughters to choose wealth over romance. Due to her lack of in-text references to the American Civil War, slavery or the abolitionist movement, Sue’s work has been widely ignored among critics. It is only recently, as part of a renewed interest in 19th-century women writers, that her writing has begun to receive critical attention.
Biography
Childhood
Sue King was born on October 23, 1824, as the youngest of four children. She was raised in her family’s spacious home on Broad Street, within the center of Charleston’s elite business and social district. Her father, James Petigru, was a successful attorney and politician, while her mother, Jane Amelia Petigru, presented a strong lineage as the daughter of a rich Charleston planter. Yet her childhood seemed a mostly unhappy one. James was gone at least four months of the year on business, and the rest of the time thoroughly preoccupied with work. Jane Amelia, already anxious and high-strung, suffered a sort of emotional breakdown when Sue was only two years old. Her oldest brother, eight-year-old Albert, died from a fall off their third-floor bannister. This event, coupled with caring for three young children and three of James’s adolescent sisters, left Jane Amelia a physical and emotional wreck. She began to develop a series of illnesses, some real and some feigned, which increased her social isolation and encouraged a strong, lifelong addiction to morphine. James’s sister Harriette wrote that Jane Amelia was an “unnatural” woman who “lies in bed from morning till night with every luxury about her & complains of poverty,” and furthermore “makes her husband’s time at home wretched.” Another sister-in-law, Louise Porcher, stated Jane Amelia possessed “heartless selfishness” and an obsession with “flattery & adulation,” all traits that would later be ascribed to her daughters. Sue, while living with her mother as an adult, referenced her past behavior: “Poor Mama! She has been accustomed to have Papa make-believe he thought her dying whenever she went on so, that she can’t give up the dodge and my conscience can’t let me perform such comedies. I must reserve my sympathy until it is really needed…”
Sue attended school first at Madame Talvande’s French School for Young Ladies in Charleston, along with classmate Mary Boykin Chesnut, and later at Madame Binsse’s in Philadelphia. At Talvande’s in particular she received a heavy dosage of French, the required language for both instructional and social dialogues, but she also studied chemistry, botany, astronomy, literature, rhetoric, German, art, dancing and music. Academic tutelage, however, was only one component of these programs. The young women attended social gatherings amongst their Madame’s acquaintances, during which they were expected to learn and practice their grace and etiquette. Sue, expecting the urban North to contain a world of excitement and adventure, was frequently discouraged by the social restrictions created by her father’s unwillingness to produce appropriate financing. She frequently wrote back complaining of malaise and depression, which her father claimed was feigned. Years later, Sue wrote that “it is so long since I have left this part of the country nine years; and when I was at the North, I was too young to appreciate or know its advantages.”
While he did not encourage her reckless spending, Sue’s father did encourage her love of reading and writing. He wrote Sue in a letter that “more than a week ago, I had the pleasure of hearing from you, and then resolved that I would take the very earliest opportunity of expressing the pleasure, which your well-formed and easily legible character of writing gave me. I never could enter into the refinement that sets no value on a fine hand…I will allow you an almost boundless latitude of innovation in other habits; such as reading – studying – I mean reading novels and studying amusements.” Yet, like many fathers interested in their daughters marriage prospects, James Petigru lamented that “Sue I am afraid will after all of our pains turn out a wit.” This ambivalence describes much of James’s devotion to his daughter: encouraging her ambitions and her self-expression, while at the same time pleading with her to compose her rhetoric, discourse and style in a more respectable manner. James himself recognized that Sue bore both his own wit and temperament, without any ability or desire to control it.
Marriage to H.C. King
Courtship
The Panic of 1837 was a detrimental blow to James Petigru’s financial affairs. He had invested heavily in Mississippi’s speculated land market, and the new requirement of gold specie backing forced him to sell, among other items, his land holdings, his rice plantation, and most of his 137 slaves. Payments to creditors took almost the entirety of his wealth, and left him with only his home and his law office. Because of these dramatic losses Sue’s mother, Jane Amelia, pushed both daughters to marry for wealth. Eldest Caroline was the first daughter to cede, marrying William Carson, a man twice her age, in 1841. Sue followed two years later, marrying Henry Campbell King in 1843.
The courtship between Henry and Sue was not an entirely romantic one. While not quite a catch, Henry King was considered the best Sue could hope for, considering her developing reputation as both saucy and outspoken. In terms of physical appearance, Sue was also less attractive than her fair-haired older sister. As historians Jane & William Pease described her, “Sue never made the splash as a belle that Caroline did. She lacked the winsome expression, the long curls, and the delicate coloring that contemporary ideas of beauty dictated. Severely nearsighted, she stumbled and bumbled when she most wanted to be graceful.”
Sue at first rejected Henry’s marriage proposal, much to the admonishment of her mother and sister. Her aunt Louise Porcher, on the other hand, considered it “safer & wise to refuse than accept,” for she could not “bear that so young a girl should be urged on that subject, as it is a step one cannot retrieve when once taken, & all the trials it may entail must be borne alone & in silence, as it is one of the few trial[s] that the sympathy of friends cannot alleviate but rather enhances.” Sue thought Henry “very short very broad & very round shouldered, & withal a little lame,” and Aunt Louise echoed that his looks presented a potential wife “substantial objection.” Yet Sue accepted his second request, and a month later their marriage capped off what her father called a “nine days’ wonder” of unexpected success. Sue was just nineteen, the youngest age at which any Petigru woman (of three generations) would tie the knot.
The marriage worked out well for Sue’s father, as James Petigru partnered in law practice with Henry and his own successful father, fellow attorney Judge Mitchell King. While Henry was almost as disinterested in his professional career as Sue King was in her domestic career, James eventually put Henry in charge of their practice’s many law students, a position in which he thrived.
Early marriage years
Henry was, in all aspects, an unambitious man. The newlyweds spent their first two-and-a-half years of marriage living with Henry’s parents, during which their only child, Adele Allston King, was born. They didn’t leave the Kings’ home, in fact, until Henry’s step-mother arranged for him to purchase an inherited house on Tradd Street through the funding of Henry’s father. Henry wrote frequently to his parents and extended family, often lamenting the lack of letters he received in turn. Despite the success of James, Mitchell and Henry’s law firm, Henry had few clients of his own, and his financial mismanagement, coupled with Sue’s lavish spending, forced him to borrow heavily from family members.
Their first years of marriage were amiable enough, with both partners humoring the other’s peculiar faults. Aunt Jane North described the tenuous relationship in a letter (slightly edited from source for clarity) to her sister Adèle: “for instance, [Henry] will say [Sue] is too lazy sleeping all day – well, Henry, says she, why did you not find that one before? It would have saved a great deal of trouble on both sides. Now, tho’ this is said in good humour and taken in good part, it is nevertheless playing with edged tools…” When Sue looked back fondly on her unmarried life, a time when “the hours did dance away right joyously,” Henry responded that she was “‘a great goose for talking so’ with a side glance at little [Adele] to point his remark.”
Six years into their marriage, what little warmth existed between Henry and Sue had declined precipitously, and she began a series of long, extended visits to the North with her sister Caroline. These trips were done under the auspices of Caroline’s ailing health, but for both women the more pressing reason was an escape from their troubled marriages. Caroline’s husband William had become an abusive alcoholic, and Sue tired of her husband’s malaise at home, as well as his drinking and gambling while away. Sue had also become cynical of “the stupid, self-sufficient, wearisome styles of young ladies” in Charleston. She criticized Southern women “who have not three ideas, who spoil a little French, who play a little music, and have not a grain of agreeability,” and proclaimed that “it was a wise dispensation of Providence which places no loftier aspirations within them.” These trips were taken sans Sue’s young daughter, Adele, and the prolonged absences may have provoked the later discord between mother and daughter.
Literary career
In 1853, the publication of Sue’s first book, Busy Moments of an Idle Woman, provided her with favorable critical notices and yet another reason for Sue and Caroline to leave home and tour the Northeast. One critic, while concerned over Charleston society's potentially negative reaction, called her first work "decidedly a clever book ... The Authoress is a true woman – her eye never fails to take in at a glance the whole dress of every lady she meets, and she reports it with, perhaps, rather too much detail." In Washington, Sue wrote that they “seem to have been followed by ‘the men,’ perfectly monopolized and idolized– even clergy-men followed in their train – they repeated that no women before had ever had such a successful career in Washington.” Sue’s father James was equally impressed with his daughter:
In 1855, Sue followed up Busy Moments with Lily: A Novel, and in 1959 a novel and short story collection under the shared title Sylvia’s World: Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach. Her family members responded favorably to the quality of her writing, but far less so to its clearly biographical content. One cousin called her stories “the mere embodifications of what she has seen,” while another found her characters “extremely mortifying” since “every body recognizes them." A third was discomfited that she was able "to recognize so many of the anecdotes" in Sue's satirical depictions of troubled marriages and courtships. King published her work anonymously, as encouraged by her father, who believed that “the interest would be better kept up by standing in the reserve and making the authorship a sort of secret … it can’t be more, considering how many are in the plot.”
Sue’s literary success and subsequent travels were paired with the increasing deterioration of her marriage to Henry. In the summer of 1856, Mitchell King wrote in his journal that his son’s “reference to Sue [was] very very unhappy,” and that Henry had provided him “very briefly & unsatisfactorily … a very lame account of their relations.” Cousin Carey North saw blame on both sides, calling Sue a “nearly mad, unfortunate woman, but others are not blameless” Rumor suggested Henry was carrying on a relationship with a slave woman. Sue’s writing, which focused almost exclusively on criticisms of marriage, could not have helped their precarious situation.
Henry's death
By 1861, Sue and Henry had unofficially separated which, by the nature of South Carolina’s marriage laws, was the farthest apart the two could hope to become. After joining the Confederate Army at the outbreak of the Civil War, Henry was shot in the stomach during the Battle of Secessionville, and died in the summer of 1862. Sue donned mourning, but cousin Carey North believed Sue had to “act considerably” in doing so.
The death of Henry was a blow to their daughter Adele, who had begun disassociating herself with her mother’s reckless behavior. “Aunts and cousins readily agreed that Sue had little sympathy for children and no talent as a mother,” according to Jane and William Pease. Sue was already mocking her daughter’s “affected & very absurd” behavior at age six, and the constant fighting between mother and father left the only child with little understanding of healthy social discourse. In later life Adele would make a complete break with her mother, and Sue would lament her inability to visit daughter and grandchildren.
The subsequent collection (mostly by Henry’s brothers and sisters) of her husband’s outstanding debts left Sue with little more than a $1,000. The war prevented her from finding suitable publishing for her next novel, Gerald Gray’s Wife, and its eventual release by Southern Field and Fireside provided no subsequent royalties. Public readings in the North were meagerly attended, and so she moved to Columbia, South Carolina to work as a clerk in the Confederate treasury office. In 1863, after the death of her father, Sue lived for almost a year with her widowed mother, although their relations were severely strained. Jane Amelia’s addiction had progressed to the point where she was begging Confederate officer George Alfred Trenholm to procure and smuggle morphine across enemy lines. At this point Sue was particularly depressed about her social affairs, writing that:
Sue left her mother in December 1863 to return to Columbia, where according to one cousin, she was determined “to make herself notorious during the sitting of the Legislature,” a prospect at which she wholly succeeded. Sue dressed in lavish outfits of bright coloring, equipped with the finest accoutrements her meager estate could provide. Her flirty behavior attracted the attention of a number of young soldiers and married officers from the Confederate army. Later in 1865, Sue was seen cavorting with victorious Yankees in Charleston, to which one gentleman responded “There goes Mrs K driven by a Yankee thief in my uncles Stolen Buggy.” Yet it was not until 1870, while working as a foreign-language clerk in Washington’s Post Office Department, that Sue participated in her most scandalous and damning public affair – her marriage to Radical Republican and carpetbagger Christopher Columbus Bowen.
Marriage to C.C. Bowen
Eight years her junior, Bowen was perhaps the only figure in Sue’s life whose notoriety exceeded that of her own. Born in Rhode Island, Bowen had worked a series of odd jobs until eventually making his way to Georgia, where he volunteered (after being threatened with conscription) in the Confederate cavalry. After forging a commanding officer’s signature on a furlough pass to gamble in Charleston and Savannah, Bowen was court-martialed and dishonorably discharged. He then hired a fellow soldier to murder said officer, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in Charleston. While Bowen was awaiting trial, the city of Charleston was successfully invaded by Union forces and Bowen, among other prisoners, was released. He then began working for the Freedmen’s Bureau, which he was fired from shortly thereafter for “irregularities in his accounts.” Afterwards he began acting as a pro-bono lawyer for newly freed slaves, and the connections he developed allowed him to become first a Republican delegate to South Carolina’s 1868 constitutional convention, and later the elected representative of its first congressional district.
In 1871, after marrying Sue, Bowen was arrested and tried on charges of bigamy brought by two former wives, one of which owned several brothels and was later convicted as a serial killer. Sue deftly and adamantly defended her husband both in court and in public, writing to one Washington newspaper that she knew “that he had been an orphan boy, without relations or friends; had drifted into the company of gamblers and prostitutes, and had lived their life until it had pleased the good god to lift him from the mire.” Bowen received a two-year prison sentence and a $250 fine, but Sue appealed to President Ulysses S. Grant, who eventually offered Bowen a full pardon.
Bowen was reelected in 1872, but an investigation by the House of Representatives deemed both his and his opponent’s campaigns too corrupt to be officially recognized. Yet Bowen had also been elected as sheriff of Charleston County, a position he would hold through Sue’s death in 1875.
Last years
Sue’s last years were spent in social isolation, shunned from both Charleston’s aristocracy and her extended family. Her marriage to Bowen, a man considered a thief, murderer, bigamist and traitor, was too much for even her few remaining supporters – aunt Adèle and sister Caroline – to bear. All ties were severed. Her daughter became her “worst enemy” and “bitterest foe.” Sue wrote that "of what constitutes ‘society,’ I have none. My parties are all given by myself: my guests are, for the most part, old & poor & forlorn – less friendless perhaps than I, but a great deal more destitute than I ever was.” Yet, unlike the rest of her family, Sue’s postwar years were spent in relative luxury, her husband having procured a fine mansion in a tony Charleston neighborhood, less than a mile from Sue’s childhood home on Broad Street. When she died of typhoid pneumonia in December, her legal will mysteriously disappeared, along with her remaining jewelry. Within a year, Bowen was remarried to the eighteen-year-old daughter of South Carolina’s Radical Republican governor, Daniel Henry Chamberlain.
Scandals
Before Sue’s penultimate scandal – her marriage to C.C. Bowen – she participated in a number of events whose details circulated around Charleston. Of much gossip between Sue’s aunts was her explosive temper during family visits, her extravagant and coquettish trips North with sister Caroline, and her stormy relationship with mother Jane Amelia. Many of these events were only hinted at, or briefly described, yet the facts alluded to suggest a connection between Sue’s writing and her own personal life. Some of the more shocking and/or disastrous occurrences are included below:
In 1854, following the success of Busy Moments of an Idle Woman, James Petigru toasted his daughter Sue as “quick in conception and easy in delivery.” According to family gossip, Sue raised her glass and toasted her father as “a man of large parts and deep penetration."
In 1855, Sue attended a party at her father’s Charleston home for a celebrated British writer William Makepeace Thackeray. Their first introduction, one year prior, had been a tense one: Thackeray told Sue he had heard that she was "a fast woman." Sue quipped back “And I have been told that you were a gentleman” The exchange has been retold in varying terms - this version is from Mace's page 61 reference (276) to "Note," 146-147. Lucy Baxter described the night's dinner discussion:
Thackeray himself described Sue in more mixed terms: "I got on by feeling and expressing a fellow-loathing for a certain person whose name I daresay you can guess. And yet vulgar as that Individual is I rather like h- bless me I was going to mention the Individuals sex!”
Also in 1855, J. W. Stuart sent a letter about Sue to his mother:
In 1856, Sue attended a costume ball as the “Marquise of Louis 14th time,” with powdered hair, piled and decorated with “a little pink silk hat with pink streamers,” and a dress “open and drawn attached with beautiful opals or pearls set with diamonds.” Most shocking was her jewelry, borrowed from actress Sara Felix, sister to the madam of a notoriously opulent Charleston brothel. Sue wrote an anonymous account of the event, “Bal Costume,” in the Charleston Courier. Considered a private affair, Sue was publicly scorned for her betrayal of the night’s events. She later claimed that “Bal Costume” was a private letter, published without her consent, but was not believed.
In 1861, when William Hurlburt, journalist, abolitionist, and Carolina native, traveled from New York to Charleston, the Charleston Mercury announced his arrival and declared Hurlburt a traitor to Southern causes. Hurlburt disappeared from public view, and it was widely supposed that Sue, his long-time friend, had hidden him away in her home. Sue published an anonymous letter to a newspaper proclaiming Hurlburt’s innocence, which only fueled further speculation. Her aunts Louise and Adèle, along with her father-in-law Mitchell, considered Sue’s behavior akin to treason, and cut off all communications. Hurlburt was later discovered in Georgia, where he was arrested and jailed without trial.
A letter by James M. Morgan, written sometime during the American Civil War, implicates Sue and himself in hiding gold for Confederate officer George Alfred Trenholm (the same blockade runner Sue’s mother was pleading with to acquire morphine). James wrote:
In 1864, Sue was attending a Columbia gathering at the home of friend and former classmate Mary Boykin Chesnut. One guest described Sue as “gorgeously” dressed in “the unenclothesed common,” and that she “went for Captain James, straight as an arrow." Later, Chesnut described a scene in which she asked Sue to put on a shawl. “Why?” asked Sue. “’Such shoulders &c &c – bare &c &c – make you look that willing – too willing, you know.’ ‘Willing for what?’ ‘Another husband.’”
Over fifty years after Sue’s death, her reputation was mentioned in the letters of one Yates Snowden. Yates wrote: “Noticeing [sic] considerable face powder on J. J. E’s shoulder one evening, a friend asked; ‘John, where did you get all that powder’? ‘Oh,’ said he, with a laugh; ‘I have just returned from a visit to Sue Petigru’! From which I would infer that ‘necking parties’ in Charleston were not unknown in the good old days – ‘when Plaucus was consul.’”
Religious beliefs
Sue bore no marks of the religious devotion that other Petigru women, including sister Caroline, ascribed to. Before the Civil War, Sue had “spoofed high-church ritual and cut short a brief flirtation with Methodism.” Immediately after the outbreak of war, Sue was confirmed in the Episcopal church, although this too was brief in tenure. Finally, shortly before her death, Sue flirted with Roman Catholicism (as she was being cared for by Roman Catholic nuns), but died before any actual religious conversion occurred.
Political views
For most of her life, Sue was characteristically dismissive of heated political debates although, like the rest of the slave-holding Petigrus, she was adamantly against any form of abolition. In 1850, amid constant talk of South Carolina’s possible secession, Sue wrote to her aunt Adèle of her decision to “laugh at the whole business – have not the slightest respect for the whole body of legislators.” Sue fantasized that if she were “Governor for a day or two … with what delight I would have responded to the [students] letters requesting ‘arms & ammunitions!’ There would have been such an order for pop-guns & pluffers and poison berries & peas issued from ‘Head Quarters.’” After the assault on Fort Sumter in 1861, however, Sue briefly became “a violent patriot,” and compared the Confederate siege to “Joshua before the Walls of Jericho." When the Civil War ended, she used her father’s outstanding reputation among Unionists to curry favor and flirtation within Washington’s social circles. Sue also helped to publish a political journal in support of her second husband’s campaign efforts, and their Charleston home was frequently visited by both white Republicans and black Freedmen.
Modern critical reception
From J.R. Scafidel’s Susan Petigru King: An Early South Carolina Realist:
Steven M. Stowe’s City, Country, and the Feminine Voice compares three female, Antebellum, South Carolina writers – Sue King, Mary Boykin Chesnut and Caroline Howard Gilman – to see how their writing interprets and draws distinctions between the city and the country, specifically in how these places shape women’s lives. Stowe’s essay describes:
Sandra Barrett Moore’s 2002 Ph.D. dissertation “Women in an ‘Age of Humbug’: Authority, Sentiment, and Pursuit of the Real in the Work of Louisa McCord and Sue King,” begins with two separate definitions of Antebellum South Carolina’s humbug as described by two very different Charleston women writers: Sue King and the “arch-conservative essayist” Louisa McCord. Whereas Sue King saw humbug in “a time of overblown artifice and argument over basic matters of social and cultural authority,” as well as “the sentimental constructs and hypocrisies that constrained individual expression and representation, especially of women, in her genteel society,” McCord took a different tack. She disagreed with “unconstrained expression and emotion – ‘the humbug cant’ and ‘sentimental whim’ – that galvanized initiatives of representation and reform” within abolitionist or Unionist arguments. One woman was a scandalous fiction writer, and the other a highly conservative essayist, yet Moore writes that “both women expressed dismay about the general exaggeration that defined the fashions in antebellum life and letters."
Nancy R. Mace’s 2003 M.A. thesis, “Susan Petigru King and the Culture of Antebellum Women in High Life,” considers the breadth of Sue King’s work, choosing in particular to focus on her less-critically examined short stories. Mace analyzes Sue King collective work for the ways in which it subverts the major themes of the Cult of True Womanhood, specifically piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. Mace concludes:
Complete list of works
Busy Moments of an Idle Woman. New York: Appleton, 1853.
Lily: a Novel. New York: Harper’s, 1855.
“Bal Costume.” Charleston Daily Courier, (10 March 1856).
“Woman’s Warning: An Allegory.” Russell’s Magazine, 1 (April 1857): 64-66.
“A Braid of Auburn Hair.” Russell’s Magazine, (June 1857): 219-223.
“Lucy Sheldon’s Dream.” Russell’s Magazine, (August 1857): 461-464.
“Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach: Gossip.” Russell’s Magazine, (October 1857): 47-51.
“Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach: Marriage of Persuasion.” Russell’s Magazine, (November 1857): 111-115.
“Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach: Male Flirt.” Russell’s Magazine, (December 1857): 201-211.
“Charles Kingsley’s ‘Two Years Ago.’” Russell’s Magazine, (1857): 169-174.
“Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach: The Best of Friends.” Russell’s Magazine, (January 1858): 355-365.
“Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach: A Coquette.” Russell’s Magazine, (March 1858): 545-555.
“How Gertrude was Married.” Russell’s Magazine, (June 1858): 244-252.
“A Little Lesson for Little Ladies: Cora’s Dream.” Russell’s Magazine, (August, 1858): 448-451.
“A Little Lesson for Little Ladies: The Story Her Uncle Told Lucy.” Russell’s Magazine, (October 1858): 73-77.
“Correspondence.” Russell’s Magazine, (July 1859).
Sylvia’s World: Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach. New York: Derby and Jackson, 1859.
“My Ball Tablets.” Russell’s Magazine, (January 1860): 355-363.
Gerald Gray’s Wife. First serialized in Southern Field and Fireside, (January 1864).
“My Debut.” Harper’s Magazine, (1867): 531-546.
References
Mace, Nacy R. (2003). Susan Petigru King and the Culture of Antebellum Women in High Life. (Unpublished M.A. thesis). University of Georgia, Athens.
Moore, Sandra Barrett (2002). Women in an "Age of Humbug": Authority, Sentiment, and Pursuit of the Real in the Work of Louisa McCord and Sue King. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved From UMI Dissertation Services. (3052058)
Pease, Jane H. & William H. A Family of Women: The Carolina Petigrus in Peace and War. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1999. Print.
Scafidel, J.R. "Susan Petigru King: An Early South Carolina Realist." South Carolina Women Writers: Proceedings of the Reynolds Conference, University of South Carolina, October 24–25, 1975 (pp. 101–115). Spartanburg, S.C.: University of South Carolina, 1975. Print.
Stowe, Steven M. "City, Country, and the Feminine Voice." Intellectual Life in Antebellum Charleston (pp. 295–324). Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986. Print.
Footnotes
Further reading
Calhoun, Richard J. (1970). "The Ante-Bellum Literary Twilight: Russell's Magazine." Southern Literary Journal, 3(1), 89-110.
Carson, James Petigru. Life, Letters and Speeches of James L. Petigru. Washington: Loudermilk, 1920. Print.
Helsley, Alexia J. "Henry Campbell and Susan Petigru King." The Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association, 2001 (pp. 11–18). Print.
Pease, Jane H. & William H. (1993). Introduction. In King, Susan Petigru, Gerald Gray's Wife and Lily: A Novel (pp. vii-xvii). Durham: Duke UP, 1993. Print.
Pease, Jane H. & William H. James Louis Petigru: Southern Conservative, Southern Dissenter. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995. Print.
Pease, Jane H. & William H. Ladies, Women, & Wenches: Choice and Constraint in Antebellum Charleston & Boston. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1990. Print.
External links
Busy Moments of an Idle Woman Full Text
Lily: A Novel Full Text
Sylvia's World: Crimes Which the Law Does Not Reach Full Text
American socialites
1824 births
1875 deaths
19th-century American novelists
American women novelists
19th-century American women writers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political%20positions%20of%20Newt%20Gingrich
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Political positions of Newt Gingrich
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Newt Gingrich has declared his position on many political issues through his public comments and legislative record, including as Speaker of the House. The political initiative with which he is most widely identified was the Contract With America, which outlined an economic and social agenda designed to improve the efficiency of government while reducing its burden on the American taxpayer. Passage of the Contract helped establish Gingrich's reputation as a public intellectual. His engagement of public issues has continued through to the present, in particular as the founder of American Solutions for Winning the Future.
Gingrich's policy reach covers everything from national security to personal responsibility, but Gingrich has been known to take stances that are different from the traditional Republican line. For instance, on immigration, he favors a strong border policy but also favors a guest worker program. He also supports the idea of electing presidents with the national popular vote instead of the Electoral College.
Gingrich has authored or co-authored 16 non-fiction books since 1982, several of them bestsellers. In recent years, his works have had a more large-scale policy focus, including Winning the Future, and the most recent, To Save America. In recent years, Gingrich has identified education as "the number one factor in our future prosperity", and received national attention for partnering with Al Sharpton and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to promote the issue.
"Replacement of the Left"
On November 18, 2010, Gingrich delivered a speech before the Republican Governors Association Conference in San Diego outlining 12 steps for what he called a "Replacement of the Left" strategy. In his speech, Gingrich said that the Republican election day victories of 2009 and 2010 should be followed by further victories over the next two years that would give the Republican party a large enough majority to replace what he called an increasingly leftist political system that has dominated American politics since 1932, largely through the influence of unelected bureaucracies. According to Gingrich, the strategy would be best pursued at the local level by lawmakers and activists in all 50 states rather than relying on leaders in Washington, D.C.
The 12 steps cover economic issues and entitlement reform, as well as education reform from K-12 through the collegiate level, including a "parents right to know" standards in education notifications. Specific steps address tying unemployment compensation to job training programs, replacing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) with state-based healthcare solutions and implementing ideas from business leaders to reduce the overall cost of government.
In December 2010, Gingrich began hosting the first of five scheduled Internet seminars to educate state lawmakers across the country about how to begin implementing the strategy before the 2012 elections.
Domestic policy
Abortion
Gingrich is generally regarded as a pro-life candidate. The policy section of Gingrich's 2012 campaign web site states that he would "end taxpayer subsidies for abortion by repealing Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood, and reinstating the 'Mexico City Policy' which banned funding to organizations that promote and/or perform abortions overseas".
In 1995, when he was Speaker of the House, Gingrich advocated taxpayer funding of abortion services in cases of rape, incest, or protecting the life of the mother. In 1998, influential Christian broadcaster James Dobson criticized Gingrich for not working hard enough to eliminate funding for family-planning programs. Gingrich has since modified his position to oppose federal funding of abortions in all cases.
In an interview with Jake Tapper of ABC News in late 2011, Gingrich stated that he believed life began at "implantation". He has been criticized by socially conservative Republican presidential primary opponents Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann for not consistently supporting the position that life begins at conception.
On December 12, 2011, he wrote to the board of The Family Leader that he "believes that life begins at conception". He promised on the first day of work as president to "sign an executive order reinstating President Ronald Reagan's Mexico City policy that prevents taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions overseas"; he will "repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood".
Judiciary
In 2011, while campaigning for the Republican nomination for president, Gingrich became the "loudest and fiercest critic" among a Republican field of "judicial-branch haters," frequently criticizing federal judges and judges. In December 2011, Gingrich termed the courts "grotesquely dictatorial and far too powerful" and said that as president, he would abolish whole courts whose decisions he disagrees with, asking "Are we forced for a lifetime to keep someone on the bench who is so radically anti-American that they are a threat to the fabric of the country?" Gingrich has particularly singled out the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for criticism, saying that it should be abolished because it is too liberal and "radically Anti-American."
Gingrich has said that if elected president, he would defy Supreme Court rulings that he opposed, citing the 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush as an example. Gingrich also said that if president, he might ignore a Supreme Court ruling recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
Gingrich has frequently criticized what he termed "judicial activism" and in an appearance on Face the Nation in 2011 suggested that Congress should subpoena federal judges and force them to explain themselves before Congress. When host Bob Schieffer asked how he would force federal judges to comply with congressional subpoenas, Gingrich said he would send the U.S. Capitol Police or U.S. Marshals to arrest the judges and force them to testify. Gingrich's proposal drew criticism across the political spectrum. Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe (who described it as "a frontal assault on the independence of the federal judiciary" and "one of the craziest and most obviously unconstitutional things the former Speaker has ever proposed"), prominent conservative lawyer Bruce Fein (who wrote that "Gingrich unwittingly is proposing to overthrow the Constitution that he would be pledged to uphold and defend if elected"), and U.S. District Judge John L. Kane (who wrote that Gingrich's proposal would contravene the rule of law and the notion of judicial independence as set forth in Federalist No. 78). Eventual 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, former Republican Attorneys General Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales, conservative attorney Edward Whelan and the nonpartisan Justice at Stake group all criticized Gingrich's comments for similar reasons.
Gingrich has stated that he believes the Warren Court misinterpreted Marbury v. Madison in its Cooper v. Aaron decision and went too far in asserting that only the Supreme Court has final and binding interpretive authority over the two other branches of the federal government in defining the meaning of the Constitution.
Child labor laws
Gingrich has said that children should be able to work at an earlier age. He said: "You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine," Mr. Gingrich said. "You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising." He later clarified his position, saying he was not proposing major changes in the law or encouraging children to seek jobs instead of attending school, but rather was "talking about working 20 hours a week and being empowered to succeed".
Campaign finance regulation
Gingrich opposes restrictions on campaign contributions, which he says make "it impossible for a candidate of average means to go out and raise the resources" needed for a campaign. In a 2006 article in the National Review, Gingrich stated that current campaign finance rules have moved the U.S. "dangerously closer to a plutocracy where the highest bidder can buy a seat."
Gingrich opposed the McCain–Feingold campaign finance reform bill, which was passed in 2002 and prohibits unrestricted donations to candidates from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions. In his book Winning the Future, Gingrich criticized McCain-Feingold for creating a "more irresponsible" system than before its passage, in which 527s and other extra-campaign activities increased, and "rich people ironically had an even greater impact" on elections. Among other unintended consequences, Gingrich writes, the election process has "devolved into an incumbency protection racket", whereby lobbyists and PACs raise large amounts of money for incumbents, discourage potential opponents, which frees incumbents to "spend more time at Washington PAC fundraisers". In addition, McCain–Feingold's "ridiculously low contribution limits" require candidates to spend even more time focused on raising money.
He has called for a system where individuals are allowed to donate unlimited amounts to Congressional candidates within their district, however requiring that all donations be reported online immediately.
Drug policy
In 1982, Gingrich wrote a letter supporting medical marijuana, a position he later abandoned. While serving in Congress, Gingrich introduced H.R. 4170, the Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996. The legislation would have required a court to sentence a first time drug importer to life in prison or a multiple-time offender to death.
In a November 2011 interview, Gingrich reaffirmed his support for giving the death penalty to some drug smugglers, such as cartel leaders, and said "we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we're going to have drugs in this country". He commented that places with "very draconian" drug policies like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that.
Education
Gingrich favors rigorous mathematics and science instruction in public schools, introducing competition between schools and between teachers, and permitting public school prayer.
In 2009, Gingrich, alongside civil rights activist Al Sharpton and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, Arne Duncan, visited a number of U.S. schools that were implementing education reforms, on November 15, 2009, they appeared together on NBC's Sunday morning news and interview program Meet the Press. During their interview Gingrich said that "education is the number one factor in our future prosperity, it's the number one factor in national security and it's the number one factor in [our] young people having a decent future. I agree with Al Sharpton, this is the number one civil right of the 21st century."
Gingrich's 2010 book To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, the chapter co-authored by Lisa Keegan, Nancy Sinnott Dwight, and Fred Asbell, states, "We must be an intellectually hungry, morally strong, and urgently demanding nation with an education system capable of responding to a voracious American desire to learn."
Student debt
During his 2012 presidential campaign, Gingrich criticized the Federal Direct Student Loan Program, saying it allowed students "to stay in college longer because they don’t see the cost." He further called it a "Ponzi scheme".
Electoral College
In 2014, Gingrich sent a letter to John Koza of National Popular Vote Inc. endorsing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, under which presidents would be elected by the national popular vote and not by the United States Electoral College. In 2016, following Donald Trump's electoral victory but loss in the popular vote, Gingrich explained Trump didn't set out to win the popular vote and prioritized winning the Electoral College, "Remember, in 49 states, [Trump] had a 2.2 million-vote majority, and then there’s California ... We don’t compete in California."
Energy policy
On energy policy, Gingrich is most closely associated with proposals that would increase domestic energy production, and with opposition to policies that would increase energy costs through regulation, taxation or international treaties that would limit energy production. He has described his approach to finding new domestic energy sources as an all of the above' energy strategy". As Speaker of the House in 1998, Gingrich spoke out against a proposed federal gas tax. He has repeatedly stated that creating new energy regulations and taxes during an economic downturn would be a "recipe for disaster". Conversely, he has argued that lowering energy prices would create jobs and save Americans money.
In 2009, Gingrich's organization American Solutions for Winning the Future launched a "Stop the Energy Tax" petition campaign which has collected over 230,000 signatures opposing the regulation of carbon by the Environmental Protection Agency and the enactment of any laws imposing "new energy taxes and/or establishing a national cap and trade system for carbon dioxide". Gingrich has opposed Barack Obama's proposed Cap-and-Trade legislation. In April 2009 he gave testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, saying it would have no impact on global temperatures while simultaneously hurting the American economy.
Also in 2008, American Solutions launched a widely noted campaign, "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less." The group began circulating an online petition calling for the government to authorize new drilling onshore and offshore in an effort to lower gas and diesel prices. The petition drew over 1,450,000 signatures. In September 2008, the group took credit for helping to influence Congress' decision to lift its 25-year ban on offshore drilling.
Gingrich also published Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: A Handbook for Slashing Gas Prices and Solving Our Energy Crisis, which outlines a plan for reducing both gas prices and America's dependence on foreign oil. Throughout the book, Gingrich argues that gas prices and overall rising energy costs are a reflection of bad government policy rather than a scarcity of resources. Gingrich proposes tapping into American oil reserves along with pursuing other energy resources including nuclear, coal and renewable energy resources.
Gingrich is an advocate of a flex-fuel mandate for automobiles sold in the United States. He has stated that flex-fuel vehicles are important for national security, while also providing greater competition in the fuel market and improving consumer choice. Gingrich's advocacy of ethanol has been criticized by some conservative publications, including National Review and the Wall Street Journal.
Beginning in February 2012, Gingrich responded to the rising price of gasoline nationwide by emphasizing his proposal for American energy independence as a major theme of his campaign. In a letter published by Human Events, Gingrich called for dramatically expanding the federal land open for oil and gas production with the stated goal of increasing supply. Citing oil prices of $1.13 a gallon on average from 1995 to 1999, and $1.89 a gallon when President Obama took office, Gingrich suggested $2.50 a gallon could be an attainable price with policies that permitted the maximum increase in gasoline production. On February 19, 2011, in an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Gingrich was critical of the Obama administration's energy policies and accused the president of being "anti-American–energy." Subsequently, President Obama announced a speech on energy policy on February 23, 2011, which news organizations including MSNBC, CBS and the Wall Street Journal attributed in part to Gingrich's criticisms.
Entitlement reform
In writings, speeches and interviews, Gingrich has argued that Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and other entitlement programs are fiscally unsustainable. Without reform, according to Gingrich, this will cause major financial problems, such as large benefit reductions or massive tax increases. In order to avoid these outcomes, Gingrich supports what he calls a "replacement approach" to entitlement reform. He argues that entitlement programs need fundamental restructuring in order to strengthen incentives for work and productivity. Gingrich cites the reform of Aid to Families with Dependent Children passed in the 1990s as a model for future policymaking. Gingrich has argued that the current welfare and unemployment insurance system continues to create work disincentives that trap people in poverty. He has proposed replacing these systems with an offer of guaranteed employment for the able-bodied, preferably in the private sector to save taxpayer money, or retraining. Beneficiaries who work enough hours would receive Medicare vouchers and housing assistance.
He also supports personal accounts for Social Security and Medicare, funded using the employee's portion of FICA payroll taxes, to replace all or part of the benefits paid under the current system. According to Gingrich, private accounts would offer workers retirement and medical benefits much better than what these programs currently offer while greatly reducing the need for government spending.
In May 2011, following an appearance on Meet the Press, Gingrich was criticized by some conservatives for using the phrase "right-wing social engineering" in apparent reference to Rep. Paul Ryan's voucher system plan for Medicare. In later statements, Gingrich said he was speaking to a general principle that major reforms require the support of the American people, and offered support for Ryan's efforts to promote reform.
Environment
Gingrich describes himself as a "Teddy Roosevelt Republican" and has professed a deep interest in conservation and maintaining biological diversity. Before being elected to Congress, he taught an environmental studies class at West Georgia College, and while in office, he was known as one of the most environmentally conscious Republicans. Gingrich co-sponsored the reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act and supported the 1990 Clean Air Act and the Rhinoceros and Tiger Fund.
In 2007, Gingrich released the book A Contract with the Earth, co-written with Terry Maple. In the book, Gingrich presented his policies for a market-based approach to environmentalism that incentivizes conservation and green technology, rather than relying on regulations or litigation. In particular, Gingrich has proposed using monetary prizes and tax incentives to spur environmentally friendly innovations, such as hydrogen engines, 100-mile-per-gallon conventional fuel engines and ethanol fuels that do not rely on corn or cane sugar.
In January 2011, Gingrich proposed the Environmental Protection Agency be replaced with a new organization called the Environmental Solutions Agency, which would be "dedicated to bringing together science, technology, entrepreneurs, incentives and local creativity to create a cleaner environment through smarter regulation". Gingrich criticized the EPA for focusing only on regulations and litigation, rather than innovation. He said the new agency's major energy projects would be working on developing clean coal and rewriting regulations governing the development of small nuclear plants.
Climate change
According to Science magazine, Gingrich changed his view on climate change "from cautious skeptic in the late 1980s to believer in the late 2000s to skeptic again during the [2016] campaign."
In February 2007 Gingrich stated that he "would strongly support" a cap and trade system for reducing carbon emissions based on the success of the Acid Rain Program enacted by Congress during his tenure. He later changed his position, saying that such a trading system "would lead to corruption, political favoritism, and would have a huge impact on the economy".
In April 2007 Gingrich called for "Green conservatism" and carbon-reduction tax credits. More recently Gingrich has expressed skepticism that mankind is significantly altering the climate and has preferred curbing carbon emissions through market-incentives instead of by taxes or cap-and-trade plans. He has opposed the Kyoto Protocol, stating that the protocols unfairly favor Europe, China and India to the disadvantage of the U.S.
In 2008, Gingrich accepted an invitation from Al Gore to appear with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a commercial produced by one of Gore's climate advocacy organizations. In the ad, Gingrich stated that he and Pelosi "agree our country must take action to address climate change". In 2011, Gingrich said his appearance in the ad was "the dumbest single thing I've done".
Free speech
Gingrich opposed a Senate amendment to the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that banned "indecent" content from the Internet, saying it "is clearly a violation of free speech and it's a violation of the right of adults to communicate with each other". The amendment remained in the enacted legislation, but in Reno v. ACLU (1997) the Supreme Court struck it down.
Gingrich was one of the 71 co-sponsors of a bill to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine after the Federal Communications Commission stopped enforcing the rule in 1987. In 2006, he indicated that free speech might need to be curtailed to fight terrorism, saying "Either before we lose a city or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people."
Health care
Gingrich opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Through his organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, Gingrich organized an online petition that secured over 100,000 signatures to support its repeal in the United States House of Representatives.
In February 2010, Gingrich and John C. Goodman, the founding president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, presented a 10-point consumer driven health care plan. Outlined in the Wall Street Journal, the plan proposes reforms to make health insurance more affordable, create alternatives to Medicare cuts, protect early retirees, cover the needs of the chronically ill, and protect doctors against frivolous lawsuits. In the book To Save America, also published in 2010, Gingrich described PPACA as "a dead end of higher taxes, bigger government, more bureaucracy and a decaying health system". With co-author Nancy Desmond, Gingrich outlined proposals for improving the American healthcare industry through a variety of means including: an overhaul of the U.S. medical research system that would reduce wastefulness, modernizing the FDA, eliminating Medicare fraud and abuse, and implementing a system of what they describe as "personalized medicine" that would improve care for individuals while reducing the costs associated with treatment. Gingrich has also called for transparency in the prices of medical devices, noting it is one of the few aspects or U.S. health care where consumers and federal health officials are "barred from comparing the quality, medical outcomes or price".
Gingrich supported the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, creating the Medicare Part D federal prescription drugs benefit program. While he has received some criticism from conservatives over the cost of the plan, Gingrich has reiterated his support in years since, saying that it represented necessary modernization of the system, as Medicare was created in the 1960s, before pharmaceutical drugs were in widespread use. He also stated that the costs of providing medication must be balanced against the decreased need for medical procedures. The same year, Gingrich founded the Center for Health Transformation to develop and advocate for "transformational" solutions that improve the quality of care, lower costs and expand coverage to all Americans. The Center has played a role in opposing PPACA, arguing that the plan will increase costs for both taxpayers and consumers and expand insurance coverage by growing government. The Center has released a series of charts highlighting different aspects of the legislation, focusing on the 159 new bureaucratic organizations it would create; the ten-year implementation timeline of nearly 500 related deadlines, mandates and taxes; and a claimed 1,968 new and expanded powers granted to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
In an April 2006 newsletter the Center defended the individual mandate in Romneycare, describing "[i]ndividuals who can afford to purchase health insurance and simply choose not to" as "free-riders." In a May 15, 2011, interview with David Gregory on Meet the Press, Gingrich repeated his long-held belief that "all of us have a responsibility to pay – help pay for health care", and suggested this could be implemented by either a mandate to obtain health insurance or a requirement to post a bond ensuring coverage. In the same interview he said: "I don't think right wing social engineering is any more desirable than left wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate." This comment caused a great deal of back-lash within the Republican Party and from conservative pundits. Later, on his web site, he expanded on his comments by saying he believes the federal mandate contained in the PPACA is unconstitutional and that he believes individual states should be able to decide the best way to implement healthcare programs for their citizens.
Jobs
Gingrich generally favors policies intended to stimulate job growth through reductions in government regulations and federal taxes. In September 1994, Gingrich co-authored the Contract With America, which included the Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act. The act advocated for capital gains cuts and strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act. His 1995 book, To Renew America, outlined related ideas, including employer initiatives to make employees key players in improving processes and products.
Gingrich has also spoken out against unions, saying they prefer protection over competition, which hurts the economy. He has also argued that industry lawsuits lower the incentive to create jobs and invest in the American economy.
Starting 2009, Gingrich's American Solutions advocacy organization launched a campaign called "Jobs Here. Jobs Now. Jobs First", also known as the "Real Jobs Tour", to address the issue of high unemployment levels, then approaching 10 percent across the United States. The plan put forth by the group outlined five major tax cuts to boost the American economy, including: a two-year, 50 percent reduction in payroll taxes; a 100 percent annual write-off for small businesses' new equipment purchases; adoption of the Irish corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent; and the abolishment of the estate tax and capital gains tax.
In December 2009, Gingrich hosted a jobs summit to rival one held by President Obama, focusing on tax cuts and other market-oriented incentives to spur job growth. Gingrich has been a consistent opponent of Obama's economic policies, and in October 2010 took part in his own 11-city tour to criticize the White House's economic agenda.
Lean Six Sigma
Gingrich has embraced the Lean Six Sigma principles for waste management and espouses their use in reducing the federal deficit. He was introduced to Lean Six Sigma in 2007, and has since encouraged the use of the methods for corporate and government waste reduction. In June 2011, Gingrich was the first Republican presidential candidate to sign the Lean Six Sigma "Strong America Now" pledge. The pledge commits to reducing federal government spending and starting to pay down the national debt by 2017. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation in August 2011, he stated that the waste cutting methods should be used to address the deficit, and estimated that through their application the government could identify a $3 trillion saving over 10 years by December 2011.
National security
During a 2008 appearance at Huntington, New York, Gingrich said: "The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping bad guys the less proof there is that we're in danger. The better they've done at making sure there isn't an attack the easier it is to say there was never going to be an attack anyway. It's almost as if they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us." He said: "I would divide the FBI into two agencies. I would have an anti-domestic crime FBI which was very cautious, very respectful of civil liberties, you are innocent until proven guilty. And I would have a small but very aggressive anti-terrorism agency. And I would frankly give them extraordinary ability to eavesdrop. And my first advice to civil libertarians is simple. Don't plot with terrorists."
Prison reform
Gingrich supports prison reform; he has stated that spending on prisons is too high, and increasing incarceration is unsustainable. According to a Washington Post op-ed Gingrich co-authored with Pat Nolan, as a supporter of the conservative "Right on Crime Campaign", he is in favor of diverting funding from prisons to probation services and "proven community corrections approaches". In April 2011, Gingrich wrote to the NAACP in support of its call for criminal justice system reform. The letter emphasized the need for "humane alternatives" to incarceration and the potential for prison reform to create savings for taxpayers. He also placed emphasis on the impact of current criminal justice policies on communities and stated that he supports a reform that includes "policies that will strengthen the families, neighborhood institutions, and places of worship that we as conservatives believe are the central pillars of society."
Religion
Speaking in San Antonio, Texas, on March 26, 2011, Gingrich said, "I have two grandchildren—Maggie is 11, Robert is 9. I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American." He referred to his decision to seek office again, pointing to a 2002 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional, saying, "I had been watching the courts grow steadily more secular and steadily more anti-religious starting with the 1963 school prayer decision. But for some reason this particular decision struck me as so blindingly stupid, so profoundly un-American."
Gingrich has described Sharia as a "mortal threat" and called for federal legislation that would ban its use throughout the United States. During a town hall meeting in South Carolina, after being asked whether he would endorse a Muslim for president, he replied that he would only do so if the person denounced Sharia or refused to impose it on others. In 2016, Gingrich advocated for the mass deportation of all American Muslims who practice Sharia.
Amid controversy surrounding the Park51 mosque envisioned to be built near the World Trade Center site, Gingrich announced his opposition to it, stating, "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over." He also said, "We as Americans don't have to tolerate people who are supportive of violence against us, building something at the site of the violence." He compared the construction of Park51 with "putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum".
Same-sex marriage
Although his half-sister, Candace Gingrich, is a lesbian LGBT rights advocate, Gingrich opposes gay marriage. Speaking in Iowa in 2011, Gingrich said he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman, and told reporters that he "would like to find ways to defend that view as legitimately and effectively as possible". He said that the U.S. government should be defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). His 2012 campaign web site says that he would "nominate conservative judges who are committed to upholding Constitutional limited government and understand that the role of the judges is to interpret the law, not legislate from the bench". Gingrich believes the Republican Party should accept the reality that several states allow same-sex marriage and accept the distinction between "a marriage in a church" and "a legal document issued by the state".
Gingrich had been criticized for opposing same-sex marriage while having been married three times and divorced twice. Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass) said he looks "forward to debating, to take one important example, the Defense of Marriage Act with Mr. Gingrich. I think he is an ideal opponent for us, when we talk about just who it is, is threatening the sanctity of marriage."
Space exploration
Gingrich is a lifelong astronautics enthusiast; he initially became fascinated with the United States/Soviet Union space race when he was a teenager. , he serves on the National Space Society Board of Governors.
Gingrich is an advocate of space exploration technology, and has stated that the United States should place more emphasis on realizing landmark achievements in space exploration. He has been a vocal critic of NASA, which he has described as too bureaucratic, inefficient, and no longer able to foster ambitious projects such as the 1969 moon landing. He has cited the building of the International Space Station as an example of a program that developed too slowly and was too expensive and the Space Launch System as a pork barrel project. Gingrich advocates greater reliance on the private sector and recommends incentivizing innovation through tax credits and by allocating 10 percent of the Nasa budget for prizes. He also supports initiating federally regulated commercial launch services. According to Gingrich, these changes would allow NASA to focus on advanced technological development and exploratory research. Gingrich's vision for the future of American space programs includes further solar system exploration, space travel for consumers and a sustained civilization beyond earth. He got the nickname of Newt Skywalker for his ideas.
Gingrich advocates the formation of a permanent manned lunar base by 2020, the presumed end of his 2nd presidential term, and has tried to introduce legislation in 1981, the Northwest Ordinance for Space, that would enable the moon colony to become the 51st state upon reaching a population of 13,000 residents. The colony concept was called an "ambitious goal" by Neil deGrasse Tyson who criticized its reliance on the private sector which Tyson describes as unwilling to solely fund such exploratory efforts. Tyson went on to explain that public/private efforts such as NASA partnering with private companies is already happening.
State bankruptcy option
As an alternative to federal bailouts, Gingrich advocates revising federal law to allow states to voluntarily declare bankruptcy. In a Los Angeles Times opinion article co-written with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Gingrich argued such a provision would allow states to reorganize their finances and free them from contractual obligations, specifically with government employee unions. In the op-ed, Gingrich wrote that many government employee pension systems are "bloated, broken and underfunded" and are "perhaps the most significant hurdles for many states trying to restore fiscal health." However, Gingrich also said the new laws must respect the sovereignty of the citizens of a state, as well as limit judicial power over the bankruptcy process.
Stem cell research
Gingrich supported stem cell research in the past, but now opposes embryonic stem cell research.
Taxes
Gingrich favors keeping federal and state taxes as low as possible in order to encourage economic growth. He has stated that he believes the corporate tax rate in the United States is too high and inhibits economic growth and job creation. Pointing to emerging competitors such as India and China, which offer lower corporate tax rates than the United States, Gingrich has recommended the U.S. adopt something similar to Ireland's 12.5% corporate income tax. Gingrich opposes efforts by some Democrats to increase taxes on capital gains. Instead he proposes eliminating the capital gains tax entirely, for both individuals and businesses, to increase incentives for entrepreneurship. Gingrich is an opponent of inheritance taxes, referring to current policy as the "death tax", and argues that abolishing the inheritance tax will create "hundreds of thousands" of new jobs. Gingrich also views the estate tax as a form of double taxation.
TARP
In late 2008, Gingrich voiced his strong opposition to the Troubled Asset Relief Program. He described the $700 billion plan as "socialism" and "just wrong", saying that "it's likely to fail, and it's likely to make the situation worse over time." Gingrich reiterated that the bailout was "essentially wrong" in other appearances on Fox News on September 23 and 24, 2008. Some commentators have speculated that he undercut John McCain by rallying the conservative elements in the House to vote no on the bailout.
On September 29, 2008, Gingrich reversed course and stated that he would "reluctantly and sadly" support the program. He also called for then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to resign. He stated, ""The Bush Administration has now provided three case studies in arrogance, isolation, and destructiveness: Michael Brown during Hurricane Katrina, Ambassador Jerry Bremer in Baghdad, and Secretary Paulson at Treasury."
Immigration
Gingrich has advanced "a nuanced position" on immigration reform that emphasizes border security and enforcement of immigration laws, as well as expanded immigration and visa programs for law-abiding workers. In a 2006 article in National Review, he called for the formation of "an intelligent center-Right coalition" that "would be for both security and immigration, for accuracy in identity (including a voter card with id and a biometric worker visa card) and patriotic integration of those who want to become American." In January 2011, Gingrich held a forum on Latino issues where he announced a goal to overhaul the country's immigration system so that every worker in the United States is legal within a decade.
Gingrich has argued the first priority for immigration reform is tighter border control. He has pushed for Congress to pass a narrowly written emergency border bill to finish the border fence between the United States and Mexico in less than a year and have complete border control within two years. In addition to greater border control, Gingrich has advocated for measures to discourage the hiring and harboring of illegal immigrants, such as shifting Internal Revenue Service resources to audit companies that employ illegal immigrants and cutting off federal aid to cities, counties or states that refuse to enforce immigration laws. He has frequently argued for using credit card companies to develop identification cards and a real-time system to verify citizenship.
Mr. Gingrich has proposed the building of a fence on the U.S.-Mexican border by Jan. 1, 2014, telling a Tea Party audience it was long overdue, "We won the entire second World War in 44 months, and now in 25 years we can't control the border when the entire Texas side of the border is a river."
Gingrich has been generally opposed to the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, but he has also decried complete amnesty, calling instead for "a humanitarian period of transition as we replace an illegal channel of immigration with a legal one." For example, he advocates using different rules for immigrants who came to the United States as children than those who came as adults, and he has called some parts of the DREAM Act "useful", although he objects to other parts of the bill. He has said the primary targets for deportation should be felons and gang members.
Gingrich supports an expanded temporary worker program, with a special open-ended visa for high value workers. He believes workers who immigrated illegally but have family and a clean criminal record should have first opportunity to get temporary worker visas, but they should be required to return to their country of origin to get the visa.
Gingrich is an advocate of making English the national language of the United States. He supports offering intensive English education to immigrants wishing to learn and has called for requiring immigrants to pass a test on American history in English. He also has said that immigrants should give up the right to vote in other countries to become an American citizen.
Gingrich said in a CNN debate held November 22, 2011 that: "I don't see how the party that says it's the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century." He also said: "And I'm prepared to take the heat for saying, let's be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship but by finding a way to create legality so that they are not separated from their families."
Foreign policy
Gingrich has called for a stronger foreign policy, along the lines of the "Reagan model" of toughness", having been critical of the "weakness" of recent administrations' policies. In 2006 Gingrich criticized George W. Bush's stance toward North Korea and Iran, stating that it was "a form of appeasement". He said, "We have accepted the lawyer-diplomatic fantasy that talking while North Korea builds bombs and missiles while the Iranians build bombs and missiles is progress." He has also severely criticized the foreign policy of President Obama for being too weak. Gingrich singled out Obama's responses to terrorism, North Korea, and Iran as particularly problematic. On North Korea he said, "There was amazing symbolism in North Korea deciding to launch a missile the very day President Obama was speaking to Europeans about his fantasy of nuclear disarmament. The West has talked with North Korea for over 15 years and they just keep building nuclear weapons and missiles. We have been talking with the Iranians for a decade and they continue to build nuclear capability and missiles."
Middle East
Afghanistan
Gingrich strongly supports the War in Afghanistan even though at times Gingrich has stated that the war in Afghanistan might not end well. Gingrich also stated in June 2011, "There is a radical Islamist war against America and our allies. It would be helpful if President Obama had found time in his speech tonight to explain to the American people how we are going to win this war. Giving a speech in isolation about our military operations in Afghanistan without explaining how it connects with a larger strategy for winning the war against radical Islamists does not help Americans understand what it will take to provide for the security of the American people."
Egypt
Gingrich has been very critical of Obama's handling of the crisis in Egypt, and has warned of the possibility that Egypt might "go the way of Iran". Gingrich said, "I think this is a period of tremendous challenge and is a sign of the general failure of our strategy of not dealing with radical Islamists and not being honest and aggressive of what's going on around the world." Gingrich also said that the Obama administration had failed to take the Middle East seriously and that Obama's 2009 speech in Cairo designed to improve relations with the Muslim world was a mistake. Gingrich said, "The president went to Cairo and gave his famous speech in which he explained that we should all be friends together because we're all the same people doing the same things and there are no differences between us. Well, I think there are a lot of differences between the Muslim Brotherhood and the rest of us."
Iran
In a November 2011 presidential candidates' debate, Gingrich "called for replacing the leadership of Iran and said that could be accomplished within a year".
In a 2009 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he had called for the withdrawal of funds from Durban II, suspending Iran's right to vote at the United Nations and cutting off supplies of gasoline to Iran in order to force regime change. Gingrich has also said he would "wage real cyber warfare" to initiate a regime change in Iran and would be prepared to use military force, as a last resort, to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. At the December 2011 New Hampshire GOP debate, Gingrich said that the idea of a bombing campaign to accurately take out all of Iran's nuclear program is "a fantasy. It would be a gigantic mess, with enormous collateral civilian casualties." Gingrich told the New Hampshire Union Leader in November 2011 that before agreeing to military action, he would first promote covert action and cyber warfare, fund dissident groups and wage economic warfare to effect regime change.
Iraq
Gingrich was supportive of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the deposition of Saddam Hussein from power. By 2006, Gingrich said the mission in Iraq was "clearly failing" and suggested the size of Iraqi forces be doubled and an "Iraqi Citizen Jobs Corps," in the style of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, be created to stabilize the region.
Israel
As an informal adviser to the Pentagon in June 2003, Gingrich prepared a six-page memo for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In the document, he outlined "Seven Strategic Necessities" for U.S. policy in the Middle East following the invasion of Iraq. His suggestions included advice on how to approach ongoing conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians, noting that "America does not have a doctrine for total war against an enemy who is hiding behind a civilian population." According to The Washington Post, Rumsfeld "put a small check next to that paragraph". In a 2009 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Gingrich called for creating an alternative to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In a December 2011 interview, Gingrich referred to the Palestinians as "an invented people" and called the Israeli-Palestinian peace process a "delusional" undertaking. He confirmed these statements in the Republican Presidential Debate on December 10, 2011, adding that he considers both Fatah and Hamas to be terrorist organizations. He has also said that there is no Palestinian right of return.
Libya
During the 2011 Libyan civil war, Gingrich changed his position on U.S. military intervention in Libya, for which he was criticized by some commentators.
On February 24, Gingrich told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that he supported getting rid of Gaddafi but without military force.
On March 7, however, Gingrich stated that President Obama should "exercise a no-fly zone this evening." On March 23, Gingrich said: "I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Gaddafi." In a subsequent statement on Facebook the same day, Gingrich attempted to clarify his remarks, stating that when President Obama publicly declared "it's time for Gaddafi to go" on March 3, he "put the prestige and authority of the United States" on the line and anything short of regime change would have been seen as a defeat for the United States. According to Gingrich, "the President should have moved immediately to consult with Congress to implement a no-fly zone" but instead "wasted weeks trying to get approval from the United Nations instead of Congress" resulting in a change of mission from ousting Gaddafi to one of humanitarian intervention.
Promoting democracy
In early 2011, Gingrich called for the promotion of democracy around the world, saying that the US should be encouraging countries to renounce dictatorial forms of government. Gingrich has stated he believes that the U.S. should push the message that "America stands for freedom". Gingrich specifically mentioned Egypt, Russia, China, and Cuba as places the United States should be applying pressure. As part of the promotion of democracy, Gingrich has said that he wants to re-think the current model of foreign aid. He says the focus of reform should be on shifting funding and responsibility away from governments and into NGOs. Gingrich has previously argued that government-to-government foreign aid programs are detrimental to the promotion of democracy since they "prop up" repressive governments and allow them to retain control.
Use of torture
Gingrich's position on the use of torture has changed over time. In 1997, while speaker of the House speaker, Gingrich raised the issue in a meeting with then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin, saying that "Republican leaders made explicitly clear our unwavering commitment to human rights and individual liberty" and that "There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention."
In a January 2009 interview, Gingrich stated: "I am totally opposed to the United States using any form of torture to obtain information as a matter of public policy. Under extraordinary circumstances, the government has a duty to do what it takes to protect Americans, but such cases must be personally authorized by the president."
In an April 2009 television appearance, when asked whether waterboarding was torture, Gingrich said that the question was "debatable" and that "I honestly don't know" the answer. Gingrich stated that however the practice was characterized, waterboarding was "something we shouldn't do" but then stated that there are "very rare circumstances where extreme measures" should be used. In a May 2009 interview, Gingrich said that "waterboarding is not torture" and defended the use of "specific enhanced interrogation techniques in specific circumstances against very high-level terrorists."
In a November 2011 Republican primary debate, Gingrich expressed support for "enhanced interrogation techniques" (a euphemism for torture). At a December 2011 campaign event, Gingrich took the position that waterboarding was technically not torture but that it should be used only at the direction of the president and in extraordinary circumstances.<ref>Ben Armbruster, Gingrich Changes His Position: 'Waterboarding Is, By Every Technical Rule, Not Torture', ThinkProgress (November 29, 2011).</ref>
United Nations
Gingrich supports the ideals of the United Nations Charter, but believes that the organization itself is deeply corrupt and in need of reform. Gingrich served as co-chair with former senator George Mitchell on the United States Institute of Peace's Task Force on the United Nations, which issued a report calling for the abolition of the current UN Human Rights Commission and replacement with a new Human Rights Council Gingrich sees the main problem at the United Nations being that a large group of developing countries, often referred to as the Group of 77, exploit the "one-country, one-vote" system in attempts to transfer wealth from the world's rich nations to themselves. Gingrich also points to fraud and embezzlement within the UN such as the Oil-for-Food scandal, anti-Western and anti-Israel bias within its human-rights organs, sexual assaults committed by peacekeepers, and a lack of sincere commitment to human rights as major problems that call for reform. Gingrich believes that the United States should spearhead an effort to reform the United Nations. Specifically, he calls for creating an independent oversight body, similar to corporate audit committees, to oversee financial matters, developing a clear-cut definition of terrorism emphasizing that violence against civilians is not acceptable, enhanced sanctions against human-rights violators, and a human rights body with rigorous standards for membership.
Ukraine
In September 2016 Gingrich stated in an interview to Europeiska Pravda that if Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election he would likely lift the ban on supplies of lethal weapons to Ukraine and called the ban "a defeat for the United States." (At the time Ukraine was embroiled in the War in Donbass.)
Criticism of Obama administration
Gingrich has been a longtime critic of Barack Obama, whom he described as "the most radical president in American history". Gingrich has argued that it is necessary to "save America" and stop Obama's "secular socialist machine". He has characterized the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as leading America towards authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and the end of democracy.
Gingrich was criticized in 2010 by Andy Card, George W. Bush's White House chief of staff, for remarks he made during an interview with National Review, in which he said "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? ... That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior." Card referred to Gingrich's comments as "not helpful" to Republicans trying to win in the 2010 elections.
In his book To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, Gingrich said, "The secular socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did."
Relationship with Donald Trump
During Gingrich's 2012 presidential campaign, Donald Trump kept it ambiguous whether he would endorse him or Mitt Romney. Trump eventually endorsed Romney.
During Trump's 2016 Republican primary campaign, Gingrich was supportive of Trump's candidacy though refrained from giving an outright endorsement, defending him against criticisms from other establishment Republicans. After Trump's primary win in Indiana, Gingrich endorsed Trump and expressed a willingness to serve as his running mate if he were to be selected. CNN described Gingrich as "one of Trump’s most blunt advisers," referencing Gingrich's criticism of Trump's attack on Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel for being biased against him due to his Mexican heritage. Gingrich called Trump's remarks "inexcusable" which led to Trump retorting on how it was "inappropriate" for Gingrich to publicly criticize him. Nevertheless, Gingrich remained a top pick for Trump's running mate, becoming a finalist alongside state governors Mike Pence and Chris Christie. Ultimately, Pence was chosen to be Trump's vice presidential pick, though Gingrich remained a contender for a possible cabinet position, specifically secretary of state, ahead of the general election. After Trump's electoral victory, Gingrich's involvement in the upcoming Trump administration continued to remain in speculation until he officially declined consideration on November 17, 2016.
Following the 2020 election, Gingrich wrote an article for The Washington Times'' declaring he would not accept Joe Biden as president and how he felt the election wasn't "legitimate or honorable". Ahead of the 2022 midterms, Gingrich and Trump started work on a new "Trumpified" Contract with America.
References
External links
Newt.org
Newt Gingrich
Gingrich, Newt
Gingrich, Newt
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30657057
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GroveSite
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GroveSite
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GroveSite is a privately held online collaboration software company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. The company offers secure online workspaces, sometimes called hosted wikis, to small and medium-sized businesses, and to larger enterprises who need to collaborate securely outside the Ipfirewall. Their flagship product, GroveSite 5.0, includes document management, web project management, wiki web pages, and other collaboration features. In January 2011, the company released an online relational database product that is also targeted at business users.
GroveSite signed its first two large customers, BearingPoint and Target Corporation, within a year of its 2003 launch. Most of its clients are in Consumer Packaged Goods, Professional Services, or Government and Non-Profit industries. Notable are OfficeMax, Restoration Hardware, Abt Associates, AARP, ACGME and California’s BTH Agency. The company and its features are compared to that of other online collaboration, project management and web database solutions, including those from Central Desktop, Basecamp, Trackvia, and QuickBase. Unlike those companies, GroveSite does some customization of features for particular clients. This makes their product less scalable, but more attractive to those customers. GroveSite is positioned as an end-user-oriented, customer focused, SharePoint alternative.
History
Grove Technologies LLC, dba GroveSite, was founded in 2002 by three principles, President Thomas I. Selling PhD, CMO Jane Hagen, and CTO Joseph S. McVicker. Prior to founding GroveSite, Mr. McVicker and Dr. Selling were with Thunderbird, the Graduate School of International Management. McVicker designed the school’s collaborative professor-student software, a well-liked alternative to Blackboard. The first GroveSite collaborative workspace offering was launched in January 2003; this is notable for making it a relative pioneer in the software-as-a-service space. The company has been profitable since 2005. Since 2006, the company has been women-owned. In 2007 the company was included in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Team Collaboration and Social Software; it was also included in the similar 2008 Magic Quadrant study.
Products
GroveSite 5.0 is offered in two plans: Intro and Pro. The Intro plan includes a single site and all the general collaboration features. The Pro plan includes multiple sites, enterprise site and user management, all general collaboration features and the custom online database offering.
GroveSite is a DabbleDB alternative and offers a data migration service to former DabbleDB customers.
Features
Secure Online Workspaces
Site Creation and Management
Customizable Branding and Navigation
Security, SSL Option, Strong Passwords
Member Enrollment and Management
Enterprise management: Hierarchies, Usage Reporting, Archiving
General Collaboration and Communication Tools
Document Management, Check Out/In
Discussion Forums
Wiki Web Pages
WYSIWYG Editing
Online Calendars
Member Directories
Email Notification, Email Digests
Image Handling
Web Project Management
Task Management
Milestones
Issue Tracking
Reports, Gantt charts
Dashboard
Task, Calendar Email Alerts
Custom Online Databases
Flat or Online Relational database
Custom Database Editor
Excel Import Wizard
Custom Views, Filters, Comments
Quick Edit
Import/Export
See also
List of relational database management systems
List of project management software
List of collaborative software
Online office suite
SaaS
Collaboration software
Project management software
References
External links
GroveSite
GroveSite Blog
Help Desk
Online databases
Project management software
Document management systems
Collaborative software
2002 establishments in Arizona
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28313813
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mewar%20University
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Mewar University
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Mewar University India is in Chittorgarh, India.
History
Mewar University India is promoted by the Mewar Education Society (MES) India. It is the first and only University in the district of Chittorgarh, Rajasthan State.
Campus
According to the University, Only one campus Mewar University, NH- 79, Gangrar, Chittorgarh, Rajasthan- 312901, Which is around 30 acres including playground, study area, hostels, mess, cafeteria and shopping complex.
Hostels
The University provides separate hostel facilities for boys and girls within the campus.
The hostels have a total capacity to accommodate around 3000 students. Each hostel is divided into separate wings with a separate common room. Each of the hostels is managed and looked after by a warden.
The hostels provide several sports facilities for its inmates, which include badminton, basketball, volleyball, cricket and indoor games such as table tennis, carom and chess. In order to ensure physical as well as spiritual fitness for its future professionals, the hostellers are provided with a gymnasium.
Academic Programmes
The University has set up following faculties, which run engineering, management and various other technical and professional courses, along with the conventional courses.
Faculty of Engineering & Technology
Faculty of Paramedical
Faculty Agriculture & Veterinary Science
Faculty of Computer Science and System Studies
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science
Faculty of Science and Technology
Faculty of Education & Psychology
Faculty of Humanities, Social Science & Fine Arts
Faculty of Legal Studies
Faculty of Management and Commerce
The following undergraduate degree programs are offered:
Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) - 4 Years (8 semesters)
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Computer Science Engineering
Electronics & Communication Engineering
Electrical & Electronics Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
B.E. (Part Time) Evening Program - 4 Years (8 semesters)
Computer Science and Engineering
Electronics & Communication Engineering
Civil Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Mining Engineering
BBA - 3 Years (6 semesters)
B.Com (Hons) - 3 Years (6 semesters)
BCA - 3 Years (6 semesters)
Integrated Dual-Degree Programme in BA (H) +B.Ed. - 4 Years (8 semesters)
B.Ed. -1 Year
B.Sc.(Hons.) - 3 Years (6 semesters/
B.sc (PCM, CBZ, CBG, CZB, PMG, PMCOMP.)
B.A. (Hons.) - 3 Years (6 semesters)
B.Sc. (IT)-3 Years (6 semesters)
B.Sc. (Agriculture)
B.Sc. (Forestry) (8 Semesters)
BMLT (Histopathology, Bio- Chemistry, Radio Imaging)
B.Pharm (8 Semesters)
LLB (Integrated) - 5 Years (10 semesters)
LLB - 3 Years
The university offers following postgraduate programmes:
Master of Technology (Full Time) - 2 Years (4 semesters)
VLSI
Digital Communication
Computer Science
Manufacturing Process
Ceramic Technology
Industrial Chemistry
Transportation Engineering
Metrology, Environmental Science & Engineering]]
nano Technology
Power System
Structural Engineering
Metallurgical & Materials Engineering
Master of Technology (Part Time) (27 Disciplines) - 3 Years (6 semesters)
M.Tech & B.Tech (Dual Degree-Credit Based Flexible) Integrated Program.
Discipline at B.Tech level
Automobile Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Computer Science Engineering
Electrical & Electronics Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Electronics & Communication Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
LLM -2 Years
MBA - 2 Years (4 semesters)
MBA - 2 Years Executive Programme
B.Tech & MBA (Dual Degree - Credit Based Flexible) Integrated Program Discipline at B.Tech level:
Computer Science Engineering
Electronics & Communication Engineering
Electrical & Electronics Engineering
Civil Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Automoblie Engineering
MCA - 3 Years (6 semesters)
Post Graduate Research Integrated in Journalism & Mass Communication (MJMC) - 2 Year (4 semesters)
Post Graduate Research Integrated (PGRI) Programme 4 Year (8 semesters)
Master of Arts (MA) in Education - 2 Years
Master of Arts (M.A.) - 2 Years (4 semesters)
Master of Social Work (M.S.W.) - 2 Years (4 semesters)
M.Sc (Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Zoology, Microbiology, Organic chemistry, Inorganic chemistry, Physical chemistry, Industrial chemistry, Biotechnology, Botany) - 2 Years (4 semesters)
M.Phil (Science; in Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Zoology, Botany) - 1 Year
M.Phil (Arts) (History, Economics, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, English, Geography, Anthropology, Public Admin) - 1 Year
MBA and Diploma in Insurance & Risk Management Brochure
EMBA -IT Executive MBA in information technology Management
The University offers two routes to the award of Doctoral degrees:
Ph.D (Doctoral Programme)
PGRI (Post Graduate Integrated Research Programme)
300 Acre campus all facility available here
Accreditation
All undergraduate and postgraduate programs of the university have been accredited by the National Board of Accreditation of AICTE.
United Nations Listing
Mewar University, Chittorgarh has been included in the list of Universities maintained by the International Association of Universities (IAU).
Research Facilities
M.Phil and Ph.D programmes are offered in various subjects such as Science, Technology, Social Sciences, Humanities, Vocational Education, Self Employment Programmes, Women Empowerment and Awareness Programmes, etc.
Government, Industry-University Interface & Foreign Collaboration
The University promotes active collaboration with the Government, trade and industry. Students are required to undertake industry oriented projects of their choice during their internship.
Training & Placement
This programme enables the students to get acquainted with the various aspects of industrial functioning and corporate culture, during their association with particular industry.
On successful and effective completion of training, students are bound to get placement offers from these organizations itself and this helps in addressing the most important aspect of getting a proper placement.
References
Education in Chittorgarh district
Universities in Rajasthan
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2734122
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock%20%28web%20browser%29
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Flock (web browser)
|
Flock is a discontinued web browser that specialized in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface.
Earlier versions of Flock used the Gecko HTML rendering engine by Mozilla.
Version 2.6.2, released on January 27, 2011, was the last version based on Mozilla Firefox.
Starting with version 3, Flock was based on Chromium and so used the WebKit rendering engine.
Flock was available as a free download, and supported Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and, at one time, Linux as well.
Support for Flock was discontinued in April 2011.
History
Flock was the successor to Round Two, who raised money from Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, Shasta Ventures and other angel investors. Bart Decrem and Geoffrey Arone co-founded the company. Flock raised $15 million in a fourth round of funding led by Fidelity Ventures on May 22, 2008, for an estimated total of $30 million, according to CNET. The company's previous investors, Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, and Shasta Ventures, also participated in the round.
In January 2011, Flock Inc. was acquired by Zynga. The browser has been discontinued, with support ending April 26, 2011.
Features
Flock 2.5 integrated social networking and media services including MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc. When logging into any of the supported social services, Flock could track updates from friends: profiles, uploaded photos, and more. Flock 2.5 added Twitter Search functionality, multi-casting of status updates to multiple services, and the introduction of instant messaging via Facebook Chat in the browser.
Other features include:
Native sharing of text, links, photos and videos
A "Media Bar" showing preview of online videos and photos as well as subscription to photo and video feeds
A feed reader supporting Atom, RSS, and Media RSS feeds
A blog editor and reader, allowing direct posting into any designated blog
A Webkit-mail component allowing users to check supported web-based email off site, compose new messages, and drag-and-drop pictures and videos from the "Media Bar" or webclipboard into a new email message
Support for third-party add-ons, including a number of Firefox extensions
Reception
Download.com rated it 5 out of 5
Ranked no. 6 on PC World's list of the 100 best products of 2008
In December 2007, Flock won the Mashable Open Web Awards for Applications and Widgets and in March 2008, Flock won the South By Southwest Web Award for Community.
CNET gave the Mac OS X version of Flock 1.0 the title of "Best Mac Software of 2007". PC World's Harry McCracken reviewed Flock as his "New Favorite Web Browser".
In February 2008, AOL announced that it would discontinue support for the Netscape browser, and recommended Flock and Firefox as alternative browsers to its userbase of Netscape 9 users. For the Netscape 8 userbase, AOL recommended only the Flock browser to its users. In March 2008, Flock announced that they had seen "nearly 3 million downloads" and a 135% increase in active users in the first two months of 2008. They also announced "more than 70 percent of Flock users making it their default browser of choice".
In May 2008, Flock won the Social Networking category of the Webby Awards. Flock was nominated for this award along with Facebook, Bebo and Ning.
When Flock's discontinuation was announced in April 2011, reviewer Joey Sneddon of OMG! Ubuntu! offered the analysis: "Whether this was down to poor implementation design wise (one needs only glance at 'Rockmelt' for an example of a social browser done right) or just general apathy towards having alerts from twitter, flickr, facebook, digg et al. in your face all of the time is moot: Flock has flocked off and for all its innovation it never quite lived up to its own hype."
Awards
Upon exiting beta, Flock won a number of awards:
Webby Award in social networking, 2008
SXSW community Award, 2008
Open Web Award for Applications and Widgets, 2007
"Eddy Winner": Flock 2.0 24th Annual Macworld Editors' Choice Awards
See also
Comparison of feed aggregators
Comparison of web browsers
List of feed aggregators
List of web browsers
RockMelt, a competing social web browser
Push technology
References
External links
Gopher clients
POSIX web browsers
MacOS web browsers
Windows web browsers
Free web browsers
Web browsers based on Firefox
Portable software
Gecko-based software
Software based on WebKit
2005 software
News aggregator software
Software that uses XUL
Discontinued web browsers
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