History.

Metasploit was created by H. D. Moore in 2003 as a portable network tool using Perl. By 2007, the Metasploit Framework had been completely rewritten in Ruby. On October 21, 2009, the Metasploit Project announced that it had been acquired by Rapid7, a security company that provides unified vulnerability management solutions.  Like comparable commercial products such as Immunity's Canvas or Core Security Technologies' Core Impact, Metasploit can be used to test the vulnerability of computer systems or to break into remote systems. Like many information security tools, Metasploit can be used for both legitimate and unauthorized activities. Since the acquisition of the Metasploit Framework, Rapid7 has added two open core proprietary editions called Metasploit Express and Metasploit Pro.  Metasploit's emerging position as the de facto exploit development framework led to the release of software vulnerability advisories often accompanied by a third party Metasploit exploit module that highlights the exploitability, risk and remediation of that particular bug. Metasploit 3.0 began to include fuzzing tools, used to discover software vulnerabilities, rather than just exploits for known bugs. This avenue can be seen with the integration of the lorcon wireless (802.11) toolset into Metasploit 3.0 in November 2006. Metasploit 4.0 was released in August 2011.

Metasploit Framework.

The basic steps for exploiting a system using the Framework include:  This modular approach – allowing the combination of any exploit with any payload – is the major advantage of the Framework. It facilitates the tasks of attackers, exploit writers and payload writers.  Metasploit runs on Unix (including Linux and Mac OS X) and on Windows. The Metasploit Framework can be extended to use add-ons in multiple languages.  To choose an exploit and payload, some information about the target system is needed, such as operating system version and installed network services. This information can be gleaned with port scanning and OS fingerprinting tools such as Nmap. Vulnerability scanners such as Nexpose, Nessus, and OpenVAS can detect target system vulnerabilities. Metasploit can import vulnerability scanner data and compare the identified vulnerabilities to existing exploit modules for accurate exploitation.

Metasploit interfaces.

There are several interfaces for Metasploit available. The most popular are maintained by Rapid7 and Strategic Cyber LLC.

Metasploit Framework Edition.

The free version. It contains a command line interface, third-party import, manual exploitation and manual brute forcing. This free version of the Metasploit project also includes Zenmap, a well known ports-scanner and a compiler for Ruby, the language in which this version of Metasploit was written.

Metasploit Community Edition.

In October 2011, Rapid7 released Metasploit Community Edition, a free, web-based user interface for Metasploit. Metasploit Community is based on the commercial functionality of the paid-for editions with a reduced set of features, including network discovery, module browsing and manual exploitation. Metasploit Community is included in the main installer.

Metasploit Express.

In April 2010, Rapid7 released Metasploit Express, an open-core commercial edition for security teams who need to verify vulnerabilities. It offers a graphical user interface, integrates nmap for discovery, and adds smart bruteforcing as well as automated evidence collection.

Metasploit Pro.

In October 2010, Rapid7 added Metasploit Pro, an open-core commercial Metasploit edition for penetration testers. Metasploit Pro adds onto Metasploit Express with features such as Quick Start Wizards/MetaModules, building and managing social engineering campaigns, web application testing, an advanced Pro Console, dynamic payloads for anti-virus evasion, integration with Nexpose for ad-hoc vulnerability scans, and VPN pivoting.

Armitage.

Armitage is a graphical cyber attack management tool for the Metasploit Project that visualizes targets and recommends exploits. It is a free and open source network security tool notable for its contributions to red team collaboration allowing for shared sessions, data, and communication through a single Metasploit instance.

Cobalt Strike.

Cobalt Strike is a collection of threat emulation tools provided by Strategic Cyber LLC to work with the Metasploit Framework. Cobalt Strike includes all features of Armitage and adds post-exploitation tools, in addition to report generation features.

Exploits.

Metasploit currently has over 1894 exploits, organized under the following platforms: AIX, Android, BSD, BSDi, Cisco, Firefox, FreeBSD, HPUX, Irix, Java, JavaScript, Linux, mainframe, multi (applicable to multiple platforms), NetBSD, NetWare, nodejs, OpenBSD, OSX, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, Solaris, Unix, and Windows.

Payloads.

Metasploit currently has over 547 payloads. Some of them are:

Contributors.

Metasploit Framework operates as an open-source project and accepts contributions from the community through GitHub.com pull requests. Submissions are reviewed by a team consisting of both Rapid7 employees and senior external contributors. The majority of contributions add new modules, such as exploits or scanners.  List of original developers:

The Metasploit Project is a computer security project that provides information about security vulnerabilities and aids in penetration testing and IDS signature development. It is owned by Boston, Massachusetts-based security company Rapid7.


The murder.

Marat (24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was one of the leaders of the Montagnards, the radical faction ascendant in French politics during the Reign of Terror until the Thermidorian Reaction. Charlotte Corday was a Girondin from a minor aristocratic family and a political enemy of Marat who blamed him for the September Massacre. She gained entrance to Marat's rooms with a note promising details of a counter-revolutionary ring in Caen.  Marat suffered from a skin condition that caused him to spend much of his time in his bathtub; he would often work there. Corday fatally stabbed Marat, but she did not attempt to flee. She was later tried and executed for the murder.

David's politics.

As well as being the leading French painter of his generation, David was a prominent Montagnard, and a Jacobin, aligned with Marat and Maximilian Robespierre. A deputy of the Museum section at the Convention, he voted for the death of the King, and served on the Committee of General Security, where he actively participated in the sentencing and imprisonment of many and eventually presided over the "section des interrogatoires". He was also on the Committee of Public Instruction.

Style.

Marat's figure is idealized. For example, the painting contains no sign of his skin problems, his skin appears clean and unblemished. David, however, drew other details from his visit to Marat's residence the day before the assassination: the green rug, the papers, and the pen. David promised his peers in the National Convention that he would later depict their murdered friend invocatively as ""écrivant pour le bonheur du peuple"" (writing for the good of the people). "The Death of Marat" is designed to commemorate a personable hero. Although the name Charlotte Corday can be seen on the paper held in Marat's left hand, she herself is not visible. Close inspection of this painting shows Marat at his last breath, when Corday and many others were still nearby (Corday did not try to escape). Therefore, David intended to record more than just the horror of martyrdom. In this sense, for realistic as it is in its details, the painting, as a whole, from its start, is a methodical construction focusing on the victim, a striking set up regarded today by several critics as an "awful beautiful lie"— certainly not a photograph in the forensic scientific sense and barely the simple image it may seem (for instance, in the painting, the knife is not to be seen where Corday had left it impaled in Marat's chest, but on the ground, beside the bathtub).  "The Death of Marat" has often been compared to "Michelangelo's Pietà". Note the elongated arm hanging down in both works. David admired Caravaggio's works, especially "Entombment of Christ", which mirrors "The Death of Marat"'s drama and light.  David sought to transfer the sacred qualities long associated with the monarchy and the Catholic Church to the new French Republic. He painted Marat, martyr of the Revolution, in a style reminiscent of a Christian martyr, with the face and body bathed in a soft, glowing light. As Christian art had done from its beginning, David also played with multileveled references to classical art. Suggestions that Paris could compete with Rome as capital and mother city of the Arts and the idea of forming a kind of new Roman Republic appealed to French Revolutionaries, who often formed David's audience.

Later history.

Widely admired during the Terror whose leaders ordered several copies of the original work (copies made in 1793–1794 by David's pupils to serve propaganda), "The Death of Marat" slowly ceased to be 'frontpage history' after Robespierre's overthrow and execution. At his request, it was returned to David in 1795, himself being prosecuted for his involvement in the Terror as a member of the Committee of General Security (he would have to wait for Napoleon's rise to become prominent in the arts once more). From 1795 to David's death, the painting languished in obscurity. During David's exile in Belgium, it was hidden, somewhere in France, by Antoine Gros, David's dearest pupil. In 1826 (and later on), the family tried to sell it, with no success at all. It was rediscovered by the critics in the mid-nineteenth century, especially by Charles Baudelaire whose famous comment in 1846 became the starting point of an increased interest among artists and scholars. In the 20th century, the painting inspired several painters (among them Picasso and Munch who delivered their own versions), poets (Alessandro Mozzambani) and writers (the most famous being Peter Weiss with his play "Marat/Sade").  The original painting is currently displayed at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, being there as a result of a decision taken by the family to offer it, in 1886, to the city where the painter had lived quietly and died in exile after the fall of Napoleon. Some of the copies (the exact number of those completed remains uncertain) made by David's pupils (among them, Gioacchino Giuseppe Serangeli and Gérard) survived, notably visible in the museums of Dijon, Reims, and Versailles. The original letter, with bloodstains and bath water marks still visible, has survived and is currently intact in the ownership of Robert Lindsay, 29th Earl of Crawford.  Other artists have also depicted the death of Marat, sometimes long after the facts, whose works refer or not to David's masterpiece. Among these later works, the "Charlotte Corday" by Paul Jacques Aimé Baudry, painted in 1860, during the Second Empire, when Marat's "dark legend" (the angry monster insatiably hungry for blood) was widely spread among educated people, depicts Charlotte Corday as a true heroine of France, a model of virtue for the younger generations. The versions of Picasso and Munch are less trying to refer to the original context in itself than to confront modern issues with those of David, in terms of style. Brazilian artist Vik Muniz created a version composed of contents from a city landfill as part of his "Pictures of Garbage" series.

The Death of Marat ( or "Marat Assassiné") is a 1793 painting by Jacques-Louis David of the murdered French revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat. It is one of the most famous images of the French Revolution. David was the leading French painter, as well as a Montagnard and a member of the revolutionary Committee of General Security. The painting shows the radical journalist lying dead in his bath on 13 July 1793, after his murder by Charlotte Corday. Painted in the months after Marat's murder, it has been described by T. J. Clark as the first modernist painting, for "the way it took the stuff of politics as its material, and did not transmute it".


Plot.

In 1947, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons), a middle-aged European professor of English literature, travels to the United States to take a teaching position in New Hampshire. He rents a room in the home of widow Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith), largely because he is romantically attracted to her 14-year-old daughter Dolores (Dominique Swain), also called "Lo", who he sees while touring the house. Obsessed from boyhood with girls of approximately her age (whom he calls "nymphets"), Humbert is immediately smitten with Lo and marries Charlotte only to be near her daughter.  Charlotte finds Humbert's secret diary and discovers his preference for her daughter. Furious, Charlotte runs out of the house, when she is struck by a car and killed. Her death frees Humbert to pursue a romantic and sexual relationship with Lo, whom he nicknames "Lolita". Humbert and Lo then travel the country, staying in various motels before eventually settling in the college town of Beardsley, where Humbert takes a teaching job and Lo begins attending Beardsley Prep School an all-girls Catholic school. Humbert and Lo must conceal the nature of their relationship from everyone- strangers they encounter when traveling as well as the administration at Beardsley. They present themselves to the world as a father and daughter. Over time, Lo's increasing boredom with Humbert, combined with her growing desire for independence, fuels a constant tension that leads to a fight between them. Humbert's affection for Lo is also rivaled by another man, playwright Clare Quilty (Frank Langella), who has been pursuing Lo since the beginning of the pair's travels. Lo eventually escapes with Quilty, and Humbert's search for them is unsuccessful, especially as he doesn't know Quilty's name.  Three years later, Humbert receives a letter from Lo asking for money. Humbert visits Lo, who is now married and pregnant. Her husband, Richard, knows nothing about her past. Humbert asks her to run away with him, but she refuses. He relents and gives her a substantial amount of money. Lo also reveals to Humbert how Quilty actually tracked young girls and took them to Pavor Manor, his home in Parkington, to exploit them for child pornography. Quilty abandoned her after she refused to be in one of his films.  After his visit with Lo, Humbert tracks down Quilty and murders him. After being chased by the police, Humbert is arrested and sent to prison. He dies in prison in November of 1950 due to a coronary thrombosis, and Lo dies the next month on Christmas Day from childbirth complications.

Production.

The first screen adaptation of the book, 1962's "Lolita", was credited solely to Nabokov, although it was heavily revised by Stanley Kubrick and James Harris and was directed by Kubrick.  The screenplay for the 1997 version, more faithful to the text of the novel than the earlier motion picture, is credited to Stephen Schiff, a writer for "The New Yorker", "Vanity Fair", and other magazines. Schiff was hired to write it as his first movie script, after the film's producers had rejected commissioned screenplays from the more experienced screenwriters and directors James Dearden ("Fatal Attraction"), Harold Pinter, and David Mamet. According to Schiff: Schiff added that Kubrick's film might better have been titled "Quilty", since the director had allowed the character of Quilty to "take over the movie".  Lyne states in the DVD commentary that he prefers location shooting even though it is more difficult in some respects; and that the home of Charlotte Haze was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Release.

"Lolita" premiered in the United States on Showtime on August 2, 1998. Due to the difficulty in securing a distributor, the film received a limited theatrical run in the US on September 25, 1998, in order to qualify for awards. Accordingly, the film took in a gross income of $19,492 in its opening weekend. "Lolita" grossed $1,147,784 domestically, against an estimated $62 million budget.

Critical reception.

Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 68% based on 25 reviews. Metacritic reports an average score of 46 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".  James Berardinelli praised the performances of the two leads, Irons and Swain, but he considered Griffith's performance weak, "stiff and unconvincing"; he considered the film better when she no longer appeared in it and concluded: ""Lolita" is not a sex film; it's about characters, relationships, and the consequences of imprudent actions. And those who seek to brand the picture as immoral have missed the point. Both Humbert and Lolita are eventually destroyed—what could be more moral? The only real controversy I can see surrounding this film is why there was ever a controversy in the first place."  The film was "The New York Times" "Critics Pick" on July 31, 1998, with its critic Caryn James saying, "Rich beyond what anyone could have expected, the film repays repeated viewings...it turns Humbert's madness into art." Writer/director James Toback lists it in his picks for the 10 finest films ever made, but he rates the original film higher.  Commenting on differences between the novel and the film, Charles Taylor, in "Salon", observes that "[f]or all of their vaunted (and, it turns out, false) fidelity to Nabokov, Lyne and Schiff have made a pretty, gauzy "Lolita" that replaces the book's cruelty and comedy with manufactured lyricism and mopey romanticism". Extending Taylor's observation, Keith Phipps concludes: "Lyne doesn't seem to get the novel, failing to incorporate any of Nabokov's black comedy—which is to say, "Lolita"'s heart and soul".

Soundtrack.

The film's soundtrack was composed by Ennio Morricone and released on the Music Box Records label. As the composer himself described the project: "With my music, I only had to follow on a high level the director's intentions to make "Lolita" a story of sincere and reciprocal love, even within the limits of the purity and malicious naiveté of its young subject."

Lolita is a 1997 drama film directed by Adrian Lyne and written by Stephen Schiff. It is the second screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel of the same name and stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Dolores "Lolita" Haze, with supporting roles by Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze, and Frank Langella as Clare Quilty. The film is about a middle-aged male professor, Humbert, who rents a room in the house of the widow Charlotte Haze and becomes sexually attracted to her adolescent daughter Dolores, also called "Lo" or "Lolita".


Overview.

Conferences usually encompass various presentations. They tend to be short and concise, with a time span of about 10 to 30 minutes; presentations are usually followed by a discussion. The work may be bundled in written form as academic papers and published as the conference proceedings.  Usually a conference will include keynote speakers (often, scholars of some standing, but sometimes individuals from outside academia). The keynote lecture is often longer, lasting sometimes up to an hour and a half, particularly if there are several keynote speakers on a panel. In addition to presentations, conferences also feature panel discussions, round tables on various issues, poster sessions and workshops. Some conferences take more interactive formats, such as the participant driven "unconference" or various conversational formats.  Some academic conferences include the Artificial Intelligence International Conference, TED, Festival of Marketing, and AliensFest.

Presentations.

Prospective presenters are usually asked to submit a short abstract of their presentation, which will be reviewed before the presentation is accepted for the meeting. Some disciplines require presenters to submit a paper of about 6–15 pages, which is peer reviewed by members of the program committee or referees chosen by them.  In some disciplines, such as English and other languages, it is common for presenters to read from a prepared script. In other disciplines such as the sciences, presenters usually base their talk around a visual presentation that displays key figures and research results.

Size.

A large meeting will usually be called a conference, while a smaller is termed a workshop. They might be "single track" or "multiple track", where the former has only one session at a time, while a multiple track meeting has several parallel sessions with speakers in separate rooms speaking at the same time.  The larger the conference, the more likely it is that academic publishing houses may set up displays. Large conferences also may have a career and job search and interview activities.  At some conferences, social or entertainment activities such as tours and receptions can be part of the program. Business meetings for learned societies or interest groups can also be part of the conference activities.

Types.

Academic conferences typically fall into three categories:

Infrastructure.

Increasing numbers of amplified conferences are being provided which exploit the potential of WiFi networks and mobile devices in order to enable remote participants to contribute to discussions and listen to ideas.  Advanced technology for meeting with any yet unknown person in a conference is performed by active RFID that may indicate wilfully identified and relatively located upon approach via electronic tags.

Organization.

Conferences are usually organized either by a scientific society or by a group of researchers with a common interest. Larger meetings may be handled on behalf of the scientific society by a Professional Conference Organiser or PCO.  The meeting is announced by way of a Call For Papers (CFP) or a Call For Abstracts, which is sent to prospective presenters and explains how to submit their abstracts or papers. It describes the broad theme and lists the meeting's topics and formalities such as what kind of abstract (summary) or paper has to be submitted, to whom, and by what deadline. A CFP is usually distributed using a mailing list or on specialized online services. Contributions are usually submitted using an online abstract or paper management service.  Increasingly, there has been a call for more sustainable academic conferencing, as flying to and consumption at conferences is one of the largest components of an academics environmental footprint. However, few conferences have enacted practices to reduce their environmental impact, despite guidelines being widely available. An analysis of academic conferences taking place in 2016, showed that only 4% of 116 conferences sampled offered carbon offset options and only 9% of these conferences implemented any form of action to their reduce environmental impact.

Fraud.

There have been accusations for fake, scam, or fraudulent conferences; see also BIT Life Sciences and SCIgen § In conferences.

An academic conference or scientific conference (also: symposium, workshop, meeting, etc.) is an event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals and Eprint archives such as arXiv, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.


History.

Discovery and early history.

The Crozet Islands were discovered on 24 January 1772 by the expedition of French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, aboard "Le Mascarin". His second-in-command Jules (Julien-Marie) Crozet landed on Île de la Possession, claiming the archipelago for France. The expedition continued east and landed in New Zealand, where Captain Marion and much of his crew were killed and cannibalized by Maori. Crozet survived the disaster, and successfully led the survivors back to their base in Mauritius. In 1776 Crozet met James Cook at Cape Town, at the start of Cook's third voyage. Crozet shared the charts of his ill-fated expedition, and as Cook sailed eastward he stopped at the islands, naming the western group "Marion" and the eastern group "Crozet". In the following years, sealers visiting the islands referred to both the eastern and western groups as the Crozet Islands, and Marion Island became the name of the larger of the two Prince Edward Islands, which had been discovered by Captain Marion on the same expedition.  In the early 19th century, the islands were often visited by sealers, and the seals had been nearly exterminated by 1835. Between 1804 and 1911, 153 vessels visited the island for seals, seven of which wrecked on the coast. Subsequently, whaling was the main activity around the islands, especially by the whalers from Massachusetts. In 1841 there were a dozen whaleships around the islands. Within a couple of years this had increased to twenty from the United States alone. Such exploitation was short-lived, and the islands were rarely visited for the rest of the century.  There were many shipwrecks on the Crozet Islands. The British sealer, "Princess of Wales", sank in 1821, and the survivors spent two years on the islands. The "Strathmore" was wrecked in 1875. In 1887, the French "Tamaris" was wrecked and her crew stranded on Île des Cochons. They tied a note to the leg of an albatross, which was found seven months later in Fremantle, but the crew was never recovered. For some time the Royal Navy dispatched a ship every few years to look for stranded survivors. The steamship "Australasian" also checked for survivors en route to Australia.

Recent history.

Between 1924 and 1955, France administered the islands as a dependency of Madagascar. Crozet Islands became part of the French Southern Territories in 1955. In 1938, the Crozet Islands were declared a nature reserve. In 1961, a first research station was set up, but it was not until 1963 that the permanent station Alfred Faure opened at Port Alfred on Île de la Possession (both named after the first leader of the station). The station is staffed by 18 to 30 people (varying by season). They perform meteorological, biological, and geological research, and maintain a seismograph and a geomagnetic observatory (IAGA code: CZT). The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization has listening equipment on the island and it was disclosed that two of its stations, the other being on Ascension Island, detected what is believed to be an underwater, non-nuclear explosion off the coast of Argentina and believed to be the fatal accident of the submarine in 2017.

Geology.

The islands lie on the Antarctic Plate roughly between the Kerguelen hotspot and Madagascar and southern Africa. The oldest East Island formed roughly 9 million years ago from a hotspot which has continued forming islands to the west until, ostensibly, the present. Despite this apparently young age, no volcanic activity has been observed to date on any of the islands.

Geography.

Not including minor islets or rock reefs etc., the Crozet group consists of six islands. From west to east:  The Eastern and Western Groups are apart (from Île des Pingouins to Île de la Possession)  The Crozet Islands are uninhabited, except for the research station Alfred Faure (Port Alfred) on the east side of Île de la Possession, which has been continuously manned since 1963. Previous scientific stations included La Grande Manchotière and La Petite Manchotière.

Climate.

The Crozet Islands have a maritime-influenced tundra climate (Köppen climate classification, ET). Monthly temperatures average around and in winter and summer respectively. Precipitation is high, with over per year. It rains on average 300 days a year, and winds exceeding occur on 100 days a year. The temperatures may rise to in summer and rarely go below, even in winter.

Flora and fauna.

The islands are part of the Southern Indian Ocean Islands tundra ecoregion that includes several subantarctic islands. In this cold climate plant life is mainly limited to grasses, mosses and lichens, while the main animals are insects along with large populations of seabirds, seals and penguins.  The Crozet Islands are home to four species of penguins. Most abundant are the macaroni penguin, of which some 2 million pairs breed on the islands, and the king penguin, home to 700,000 breeding pairs; half the world's population. The eastern rockhopper penguin also can be found, and there is a small colony of gentoo penguins. There is also an endemic subspecies of the duck Eaton's pintail. Other birds include black-faced sheathbills, petrels, and albatross, including the wandering albatross.  Mammals living on the Crozet Islands include fur seals, and southern elephant seals. Killer whales have been observed preying upon the seals. The transient killer whales of the Crozet Islands are famous for intentionally beaching (and later un-stranding) themselves while actively hunting the islands' breeding seal population. This is a very rare behaviour, most often seen in the Patagonia region of Argentina, and is thought to be a learned skill passed down through generations of individual orca families. These killer whales also seem to stay around the Crozet Islands year-round, feeding on mostly seals during the summer, and then feeding on penguins for the winter.  The Crozet Islands have been a nature reserve since 1938. Introduction of foreign species (mice, rats, and subsequently cats for pest control) has caused severe damage to the original ecosystem. The pigs that had been introduced on Île des Cochons and the goats brought to Île de la Possession—both as a food resource—have been exterminated.  Another on-going concern is overfishing of the Patagonian toothfish, as well as the albatross population, which is being monitored. The waters of the Crozet Islands are patrolled by the French government.

In popular culture.

A 2012 French film, "Les Saveurs du Palais", begins and ends with scenes in the Crozet Islands. The film's protagonist, a grandmotherly chef from the Périgord region of France who signed on as cook for the research station, had once been the personal chef to President François Mitterrand.  In the 1978 novel "Desolation Island", the fifth book in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin series, the fictional naval vessel HMS "Leopard" is severely damaged by a collision with an iceberg in the southwestern Indian Ocean. The crew attempts to make landfall for repairs on one of the Crozet Islands, but they miss the island and continue to drift towards the east, unable to reverse direction.  In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, the Pequod sails near the ‘distant Crozetts’, ’a good cruising ground for Right Whalemen’ in Chapter 52, ‘The Albatross’. See also chapter 58, ’Brit’.  "Biggles Cuts it Fine" by Capt. W E Johns is set mainly in the Crozet Islands, where a fictional Russian base is discovered on, what is called in the book, “Hog Island”.

The Crozet Islands (; or, officially, "Archipel Crozet") are a subantarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean. They form one of the five administrative districts of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.


Background.

Gömbös was born in Murga, Tolna County, Kingdom of Hungary, which had a mixed Hungarian and ethnic German population. He was the son of Gyula Gömbös de Jákfa (1858-1921), member of untitled Hungarian nobility and Maria Weitzel (b.1867). His father was the village schoolmaster. The family belonged to the Hungarian Evangelical (i. e. Lutheran) Church.  Gömbös entered the Austro-Hungarian Army as a cadet in Pécs and quickly became a member of the officer corps, serving as a captain during World War I. While in the army, Gömbös became a staunch advocate of Hungary's gaining independence from Austria and a bitter critic of the Habsburgs.  After World War I ended and Hungary split from Austria, Gömbös joined Conservative Hungarian forces in Szeged that were unwilling to support Communist Béla Kun, who had seized control of Hungary in 1919, forming his own paramilitary group, the Hungarian National Defence Association ("Magyar Országos Véderő Egylet", or MOVE). Gömbös became a close ally of Miklós Horthy, the leader of the anti-Communist government in Szeged, and played a leading role in organizing Horthy’s army. For his services, Gömbös was made minister of defense in the Szeged government.  After Kun’s government was ousted in August 1919, Gömbös helped direct the purge of Communists from Hungarian society. Gömbös supported certain political actions against Hungary's Jews.

Rightward.

Gömbös had been a Smallholder before the war, but veered sharply to the right in the upheaval following the breakup of Austria-Hungary. After Miklós Horthy was made regent of Hungary in 1920, Gömbös became the primary leader of Hungary’s emerging nationalist movement, which was gaining some support from the people in response to the brief period of Communist rule and the signing of the Treaty of Trianon, which resulted in Hungary losing two-thirds of its territory to neighboring nations.  Despite some disagreements with Horthy, Gömbös was active in the widespread purge of Hungarian Communists and later organized mass military opposition to the Habsburg pretender Charles IV's plan to regain his throne in 1921, a move which kept Horthy firmly in control of Hungary. Later that year, Gömbös became one of the primary leaders of the opposition to Prime Minister István Bethlen. In 1929, Gömbös was made a major general and appointed Minister of Defense in the Bethlen government by Horthy.

Prime minister.

In 1932, Horthy appointed Gömbös prime minister; Gömbös, in turn, acceded to Horthy's urging not to seek new elections. Upon taking office, Gömbös publicly recanted his previous antipathy to Jews. The country's Jewish political leadership under Bela Szanto supported the appointment of Gömbös and his programs in exchange for Gömbös promising not to enact any racially motivated laws, and not to cause economic harm to the Jews through his general policies. These promises Gömbös kept.  As prime minister, Gömbös was very active in international affairs, seeking support for revising the Treaty of Trianon and pursuing trade deals aimed at reviving the Depression-afflicted economy. One of his major goals was to align Hungary into an Axis with Italy and Austria. In 1933, Gömbös flew to Italy and visited Benito Mussolini. Mussolini conveyed to Gömbös his approval regarding the revision of the Treaty of Trianon. Also, Mussolini promised Gömbös Italy’s aid if Hungary went to war with Yugoslavia and Romania in an attempt to regain Hungary’s former territory from those nations.  Gömbös also formed, with rather greater reluctance, an alliance with Germany. When Hitler became Chancellor, Gömbös was the first foreign head of government to visit the Nazi leader. Shortly after, Gömbös signed a major trade agreement with Germany, doing so in the hope of reducing Hungary's unemployment rate as the 1930s progressed.  This amity, though, failed to endure. Not only did Hitler consider Gömbös to be far too pro-Jewish, but he made it clear to Gömbös that his support of Hungary had a price. While the German dictator voiced willingness to take Hungary's side in any effort that Hungary carried out to regain land from Czechoslovakia, he would not support Hungary against the territorial ambitions of either Romania or Yugoslavia. Unlike Mussolini, Hitler also resented Gömbös’ plans to expand the size and power of the Hungarian military.

Death in office.

However, Gömbös never lived to see his ambitious plans come to fruition. Gömbös, after a long illness, died of testicular cancer in Munich on 6 October 1936.

Burial.

Gömbös was buried at Kerepesi Cemetery among exceptional circumstances; his funeral procession was attended by hundreds of thousands of Hungarians, and his catafalque was visited by many dignitaries because he was the head of the government.

Gyula Gömbös de Jákfa (26 December 1886 – 6 October 1936) was a Hungarian military officer and politician, and served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1 October 1932 until his death on 6 October 1936.


Launch.

THEMIS was originally scheduled to launch on October 19, 2006. Owing to delays caused by workmanship problems with Delta II second stages—an issue that also affected the previous mission, STEREO—the THEMIS launch was delayed to Thursday, February 15, 2007. Due to weather conditions occurring on Tuesday, February 13, fueling of the second stage was delayed, and the launch pushed back 24 hours. On February 16, the launch was scrubbed in a hold at the T-4 minute point in the countdown due to the final weather balloon reporting a red, or no-go condition for upper level winds. A 24-hour turnaround procedure was initiated, targeting a new launch window between 23:01 and 23:17 UTC on February 17.  Favorable weather conditions were observed on February 17, and the countdown proceeded smoothly. THEMIS successfully launched at 6:01 p.m. EST. The spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle approximately 73 minutes after liftoff. By 8:07 p.m. EST, mission operators at the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) of the University of California, Berkeley, commanded and received signals from all five spacecraft, confirming nominal separation status.  The launch service was provided by the United Launch Alliance through the NASA Launch Services Program (LSP).

Mission status.

From February 15, 2007 until September 15, 2007 the five THEMIS satellites coasted in a string-of-pearls orbital configuration. From September 15, 2007 until December 4, 2007 the satellites were moved to more distant orbits in preparation for data collection in the magnetotail. This phase of the mission was called the "Dawn Phase" because the satellites' orbits were in apogee on the dawn side of the magnetosphere. On December 4, 2007 the first tail science phase of the mission began. In this segment of the mission scientists will collect data from the magnetotail of the Earth's magnetosphere. During this phase the satellites' orbits are in apogee inside the magnetotail. The scientists hope to observe substorms and magnetic reconnection events. During these events charged particles stored in the Earth's magnetosphere are discharged to form the aurora borealis. Tail science is performed in the winter of the northern hemisphere because the ground magnetometers that Themis scientists correlate the satellite data with have relatively longer periods of night. During the night, observations are not interrupted by charged particles from the Sun.  In 2007, THEMIS "found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the Sun," reconfirming the theory of solar-terrestrial electrical interaction (via "Birkeland currents" or "field-aligned currents") proposed by Kristian Birkeland circa 1908. NASA also likened the interaction to a "30 kiloVolt battery in space," noting the "flux rope pumps 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic!"  On February 26, 2008, THEMIS probes were able to determine, for the first time, the triggering event for the onset of magnetospheric substorms. Two of the five probes, positioned approximately one third the distance to the Moon, measured events suggesting a magnetic reconnection event 96 seconds prior to Auroral intensification. Dr. Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California, Los Angeles, who is the principal investigator for the THEMIS mission, claimed, "Our data show clearly and for the first time that magnetic reconnection is the trigger."

Extended mission.

On May 19, 2008 the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) at Berkeley announced NASA had extended the THEMIS mission to the year 2012. NASA officially approved the movement of THEMIS B and THEMIS C into lunar orbit under the mission name "ARTEMIS" (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun), which was revised to "THEMIS-ARTEMIS" in 2019. In February 2017, THEMIS celebrated ten years of science operations. As of August 2017, the three THEMIS inner probes continue to collect valuable data on the Sun's interaction with the Earth's magnetosphere.

ARTEMIS.

In early 2010, ARTEMIS P1 (THEMIS B) performed two lunar flybys and one Earth flyby, and approached insertion into a Lissajous orbit around a lunar Lagrange point. Lunar orbit insertion was targeted for April 2011. ARTEMIS P2 (THEMIS C) completed a lunar flyby and was on the inbound leg of the first of three deep space excursions on its way to a Lissajous orbit and was targeted for lunar orbit in April 2011.  On June 22, 2011, ARTEMIS P1 began firing its thrusters to move out of its kidney-shaped libration orbit on one side of the Moon, where it had been since January. On July 2, 2011 12:30 p.m. EDT, ARTEMIS P1 entered lunar orbit. The second spacecraft, ARTEMIS P2, moved into lunar orbit on July 17, 2011. Along the way, the two spacecraft were the first to ever achieve orbit around the Moon's Lagrangian points.  As of October 2019, both lunar probes are in stable orbits, and will remain operational for a long time.

Instruments.

Ground based.

As the satellites monitor the magnetosphere from orbit, twenty ground stations in North America simultaneously monitor auroras. Ground station mission and science operations are being managed by the University of California Space Sciences Laboratory.

Swales Aerospace.

Swales Aerospace, now part of Orbital ATK which is now part of Northrop Grumman, (Beltsville, Maryland) manufactured all five probes for this mission. Each was built-up and tested at the Beltsville facility, before being delivered to University of California, Berkeley for instrument integration. Swales was responsible for integrating the BAU, IRU, Solar Arrays, Antenna, Battery, and other components necessary for functionality. This was the second major satellite built by Swales, the first being the EO-1 spacecraft, which continues to orbit Earth. Swales was also responsible for designing and building the Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) used for monitoring the probes during all phases of pre-launch activities, including use at the launch site.

JPL.

After the installation of instruments at SSL, Berkeley, pre-launch testing including thermal-vac, vibration and acoustic tests, was conducted at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

FAST.

The Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer (FAST) mission supported THEMIS in 2008 and 2009 before being retired. FAST was a Small Explorer program (SMEX) mission launched in 1996.

The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission began in February 2007 as a constellation of five NASA satellites (THEMIS A through THEMIS E) to study energy releases from Earth's magnetosphere known as substorms, magnetic phenomena that intensify auroras near Earth's poles. The name of the mission is an acronym alluding to the Titan Themis.


Career.

Hellebaut started as a professional athlete with Atletiek Vlaanderen in the period from 2001 to October 2005. From 1 November 2006 she again became a professional athlete, this time at Bloso. During her most successful period, Hellebaut was trained by her partner, Wim Vandeven, at her club, Atletica 84.  At the 2006 European Championships and 2007 Indoor European Championships Hellebaut won the gold medal in high jump. The 2006 victory became especially notable, when just a couple of minutes later her close friend and compatriot Kim Gevaert completed a historical sprint double. The images of both athletes celebrating their victory together, wrapped in a national flag, became part of Belgian sports history.  In 2007 Hellebaut set the fourth best pentathlon score of all time, but chose not to contest the European Indoor Championships because of illness, choosing instead to compete only in the high jump, which she later won. Most of the remainder of her 2007 high jump season was hampered by an ankle injury. A shoulder injury, which made it difficult for her to throw the javelin, ended her career in heptathlon around this time.  For the 2008 indoor season, Hellebaut returned her focus to multi-events and became world champion of pentathlon at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, where she set a secord for the best high jump result in a women's multi-event competition, clearing 1.99 m.  At the 2008 Summer Olympics, held in Beijing, Hellebaut reached her pinnacle thus far by winning the gold medal in the high jump, ahead of the favorite, Blanka Vlašić of Croatia, with a new outdoor personal best of 2.05 m. Her achievement represented the first-ever athletics gold medal in the Olympics for a Belgian woman, and only the second of any color, one day after Belgium won their first (silver) medal in the 4 × 100 m relay (which later was upgraded to gold after the Russian team was disqualified because of a doping rules infraction by one of their athletes).

Retirement and comebacks.

On 5 December 2008 Hellebaut announced her pregnancy and retirement from professional athletics and that she would start working for a sports marketing company. The following year, on 9 June, her daughter Lotte was born.  Inspired by fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters' comeback to the WTA as a young mother, she unexpectedly announced her return to athletics on 16 February 2010, her 32nd birthday. Hellebaut also announced that she would be concentrating exclusively on the high jump and aimed to participate in the 2012 Summer Olympics.  Shortly after placing fifth at the 2010 European Athletic Championships in Barcelona by clearing 1.97 metres, her first major championships after her comeback, it was reported that Hellebaut was pregnant again. During a press conference on 17 August she confirmed that she had been pregnant for three months already, and that this had been a conscious choice. Although Hellebaut did not participate in any further 2010 events, she never officially announced that the new pregnancy would definitively end her career.  On 16 June 2011, 4 months after the birth of her second daughter Saartje, Hellebaut announced her second return, confirming that she aimed to defend her title at the London Games. She was the flag bearer of Belgium during the 2012 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations. She ended fifth in the high jump competition.  On 6 March 2013, after the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg, she announced her second retirement, saying that she could no longer challenge herself mentally in competition.

Sport consultancy.

In March 2019, Belgian football club Beerschot Wilrijk announced the take-over of amateur side Rupel Boom and lifetime Beerschot supporter Hellebaut was appointed advisor at Rupel Boom's football academy.

Tia Hellebaut (; born 16 February 1978 in Antwerp) is a retired Belgian track and field athlete, as well as a chemist, who started out in her sports career in the heptathlon, and afterwards specialized in the high jump event. She has cleared 2.05 metres both indoors and outdoors.


Concept.

The work started out as a comic strip, which initially ran in "Le Moustique" between 1956 and 1958, drawn by Sempé and written by Goscinny.  The books are told from the point of view of Nicolas himself, which gives the book a distinct and personal sense of humor. The narration is a pastiche of childish storytelling, with run-on sentences and schoolyard slang used in abundance, and much of the humor derives from Nicolas' misunderstanding of adults' behavior. At the same time, adults are as much a target of the book's satire as children, as the straightforward and uncomplicated worldview of the child narrator exposes the flaws of adult perception. This subversive element in "Le Petit Nicolas" made it an early example of modern children's literature that is centered on the experience of the child's interpretation of the world, rather than an adult's.

Characters.

The characters from the French edition include (with names from Anthea Bell's English translation in square brackets):  Other characters include Nicolas's parents, as well as teachers and administrators in the school. The teacher is hard-working and loves the children, although they usually exasperate her. The superintendent, Mr. Dubon (Mr Goodman), is known as "le Bouillon" ("Old Spuds").  The two main characters of another comic series by Goscinny, "Iznogoud", begin to take shape in the episode when Nicolas is in summer camp. He and the other children are forced to take a nap, so the conselor tells them a story about ""a caliph who was a very good man but who had a very evil vizier..."", then tells how the caliph dresses as a common man to find out what people think of him, and the evil vizier takes his place.

English edition.

An English edition with the title "Young Nicolas" was completed by Stella Rodway for Hutchinson & Co. in 1961. It was published in the USA by Bobbs-Merrill in 1962. The characters' names retain the French form. The title page lists the authors simply as "Sempé and Goscinny".  An English edition of the series with anglicized character names was released in 1978, translated by Anthea Bell. This contained five volumes: "Nicholas and the Gang at School", "Nicholas and the Gang Again", "Nicholas on Holiday", "Nicholas and the Gang", and "Nicholas at Large". The first volume was republished with more complete illustrations in 2005 by Phaidon Press as "Nicholas". Four further volumes followed from Phaidon, as "Nicholas Again", "Nicholas on Holiday" ("Nicholas on Vacation" in North America), "Nicholas and the Gang", and finally "Nicholas in Trouble" in 2008.  In this version, M. Dubon (nicknamed "le Bouillon") becomes Mr. Goodman (nicknamed "Old Spuds"). He derives his nickname from his habit of repeating constantly: "Look me in the eye." In French broth (bouillon) has eyes (blobs of fat on the surface), in the English version they become potato eyes. In the story 'Djodjo', the English exchange student becomes Flemish, and his nickname is changed from "Djodjo" to "Djocky".  Another English translation of "Le petit Nicolas", with the title "The Chronicles of Little Nicholas", was published in New York by Farrar, Straus Giroux in 1993. The translator is not named in this edition; the copyright page attributes copyright for the translation to Farrar, Straus & Giroux.  "Nicholas" was the subject of a Mildred L. Batchelder "Honour" for translated children's books in 2006 given by the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, and "Nicholas and the Gang" received the same honour in 2008.

Spanish edition.

For Latin America, the books were published by Alfaguara. Names for this edition were: Nicolas, Clotario, Alcestes, Eudes, Godofredo, Agnan, Joaquín, Majencio, Rufo, Eduviges, Luisa, Rex. "Le Bouillon" becomes "el Caldo", even though this expression is not commonly used in Latin America.

Le Petit Nicolas (Little Nicholas) is a series of French children's books. It was created by René Goscinny and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé and it was first published on March 30, 1959. The books depict an idealized version of childhood in 1950s France.


Biography.

Boznańska was born in Kraków during foreign partitions of Poland. She was the daughter of a railway engineer, Adam Nowina Boznański, and Eugénie "née" Mondan originally from Valence, France. In Boznańska learned drawing first with Józef Siedlecki, Kazimierz Pochwalski and Antoni Piotrowski, then studied at the Adrian Baraniecki School for Women. She débuted in 1886 at the Kraków Association of Friends of Fine Arts exhibition.  From 1886–1890 she studied art in the private schools of Karl Kricheldorf and Wilhelm Dürr in Munich - as women were not yet permitted at the Munich Academy. From then on she devoted herself mostly to portraits, still lifes and occasionally landscapes. She became well connected within the Polish artistic community of Munich, notably Józef Brandt who became her mentor. Her 1893 "Portrait of Paul Nauen" obtained her first public success - being awarded the gold medal at the International Exhibition in Vienna the following year.  In 1898, she joined the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka" and in the same year moved to Paris, where she became a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and started teaching at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and joined the Polish Society of Literature and Art (Polskie Towarzystwo Literacko-Artystyczne).  Her most famous 1894 portrait of an unknown child "Girl with Chrysanthemums" fascinated her contemporaries by its symbolist atmosphere and psychological insight. Boznańska received the French Legion of Honour in 1912, the Golden Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature in 1936, the Grand Prix at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques la Vie Moderne in 1937, and the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1938. The same year, at the Venice Biennale, one of her portraits was purchased by King of Italy Victor Emmanuel III. Her paintings can be found in the National Museums in Wrocław, Kraków, Poznań and Warsaw as well as Musée d'Orsay in Paris and Ca' Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice. She died in Paris at the age of 75.

Olga Boznańska (15 April 1865 – 26 October 1940) was a Polish painter of the turn of the 20th century. She was a notable female painter in Poland and Europe, and was stylistically associated with the French impressionism.


Types.

Several types of tray are used in different applications. A solid-bottom tray provides the maximum protection to cables, but requires cutting the tray or using fittings to enter or exit cables. A deep, solid enclosure for cables is called a cable channel or cable trough.  A ventilated tray has openings in the bottom of the tray, allowing some air circulation around the cables, water drainage, and allowing some dust to fall through the tray. Small cables may exit the tray through the ventilation openings, which may be either slots or holes punched in the bottom. A ladder tray has the cables supported by a traverse bar, similarly to the rungs of a ladder, at regular intervals on the order of 4 to 12 inches (100 to 300 mm).  Ladder and ventilated trays may have solid covers to protect cables from falling objects, dust, and water. Tray covers for use outdoors or in dusty locations may have a peaked shape to shed debris including dust, ice or snow. Lighter cable trays are more appropriate in situations where a great number of small cables are used, such as for telephone or computer network cables. These trays may be made of wire mesh, called "cable basket", or be designed in the form of a single central spine (rail) with ribs to support the cable on either side.  Channel Tray provides an economical support for cable drops and branch cable runs from the backbone cable tray system. Channel cable tray is used for installations with limited numbers of tray cable when conduit is undesirable.  Large power cables laid in the tray may require support blocks to maintain spacing between conductors, to prevent overheating of the wires. Smaller cables may be laid unsecured in horizontal trays, or secured with cable ties to the bottom of vertically mounted trays. To maintain support of cables at changes of elevation or direction of a tray, a large number of specialized cable tray fittings are made compatible with each style and manufacturer. Horizontal elbows change direction of a tray in the same plane as the bottom of the tray and are made in 30, 45 and 90 degree forms; inside and outside elbows are for changes perpendicular to the tray bottom. These can be in various shapes including tees and crosses. Some manufacturers and types provide adjustable elbows, useful for field-fitting a tray around obstacles or around irregular shapes.  Various clamping, supporting and splicing accessories are used with the cable tray to provide a complete functional tray system. For example, different sizes of cable tray used within one run can be connected with reducers.

Materials used.

Common cable trays are made of galvanized steel, stainless steel, aluminum, or glass-fiber reinforced plastic. The material for a given application is chosen based on where it will be used. Galvanized tray may be made of pre-galvanized steel sheet fabricated into tray, or may be hot-dip galvanized after fabrication. When galvanized tray is cut to length in the field, usually the cut surface will be painted with a zinc-rich compound to protect the metal from corrosion.

Fire safety concerns and solutions.

Combustible cable jackets may catch on fire and cable fires can thus spread along a cable tray within a structure. This is easily prevented through the use of fire-retardant cable jackets, or fireproofing coatings applied to installed cables. Heavy coatings or long fire-stops may require adjustment of the cable current ratings, since such fireproofing measures may reduce the heat dissipation of installed cables.  Regular housecleaning is important for safety, as cable trays are often installed in hard to reach places. Combustible dust and clutter may accumulate if the trays are not routinely checked and kept clean.  Plastic and fibreglass reinforced plastic cable trays are combustible; the effect is mitigated through the use of fire retardants or fireproofing.  Ferrous cable trays expand with the increasing heat from accidental fire. This has been proven by the German Otto-Graf-Institut Test Report III.1-80999/Tei/tei "Supplementary Test On The Topic Of Mechanical Force Acting On Cable Penetration Firestop Systems During The Fire Test", dated 23 October 1984, to dislodge "soft" firestops, such as those made of fibrous insulations with rubber coatings. This also applies to any silicone foam seals, but is easily remedied through the use of firestop mortars of sufficient compression strength and thickness, as shown above. Also, some building codes mandate that penetrants such as cable trays are installed in such ways so as to avoid their contribution to the collapse of a firewall.

In the electrical wiring of buildings, a cable tray system is used to support insulated electrical cables used for power distribution, control, and communication. Cable trays are used as an alternative to open wiring or electrical conduit systems, and are commonly used for cable management in commercial and industrial construction. They are especially useful in situations where changes to a wiring system are anticipated, since new cables can be installed by laying them in the tray, instead of pulling them through a pipe.


Career.

Romeo graduated with a degree in engineering from the Politecnico di Napoli (nowadays Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) in 1899. After that, he worked for a couple of years abroad and completed a second bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in Liège, Belgium. In 1911 he returned to Italy and created "Ing. Nicola Romeo e Co.". The company manufactured machines and equipment for the mining industry. As the company became successful he wished to expand and acquired a majority of Milan-based car manufacturing company A.L.F.A. (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili) in 1915. Only three years later, in 1918, Romeo owned the whole company. A.L.F.A. was renamed to "Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili Romeo". The first car carrying the Alfa Romeo badge was the 1921 Torpedo 20/30 HP. The company gained a good reputation for building elegant and safe cars as well as aircraft parts, but in 1927 it came very close to liquidation due to a series of bad investments. During a tense board meeting Romeo was asked to leave the company, although the new CEO Pasquale Gallo persuaded him to stay as president. Romeo officially departed from Alfa Romeo in 1928.

Engineering companies.

Nicola Romeo owned a number of engineering companies, not all at the same time. These included:

Family.

In 1905 he married Angelina Valadin, a Portuguese opera singer and pianist. Together they had seven children; Maurizio, Edoardo, Nicholas, Elena, Giulietta, Piera and Irene.

Death.

Nicola Romeo died on 15 August 1938 in his home at Lake Como at the age of 62. Almost seventy years after his death and on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of his birth, Naples dedicated a street to the memory of Nicola Romeo, called Via Nicola Romeo.

Nicola Romeo (; Sant'Antimo, 28 April 1876 – Magreglio, 15 August 1938) was an Italian engineer and entrepreneur. He served as a senator in the 18th Legislature of the Kingdom of Italy (XXVIII legislatura del Regno d'Italia).


History.

Neolithic.

Atlit Yam is an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel. Atlit-Yam provides the earliest known evidence for an agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system on the Levantine coast.

Bronze Age.

Atlit shows evidence of human habitation since the early Bronze Age.

Roman period.

In the "Bordeaux Itinerary", the town is known in Latin as Certa.

Crusader period.

The Crusaders built Château Pèlerin, one of the largest citadels in the Holy Land, and one of the last remaining Crusader outposts to withstand the assaults of Baibars (see also: Fall of Ruad). Atlit remained in Crusader's hands until 1291. The ruins of the citadel are still visible in modern times.

Mamluk period.

In 1296, during Mamluk rule, Atlit and its surrounding area was settled by members of the Tatar 'Uwayrat tribe.

Ottoman era.

In 1596, during Ottoman rule which began in 1517, Atlit was recorded as a farm that paid taxes to the government.  During the rule of Acre governor Sulayman Pasha al-Adil, Atlit was the headquarters of local strongman Mas'ud al-Madi, who was appointed the "mutasallim" (tax collector/enforcer) of the Atlit coast, which consisted of the territory that stretched from Umm Khalid to Haifa.  In 1799, it appeared as the village "Atlit" on the map that Pierre Jacotin compiled that year.  In 1859, the population was stated to be "180 souls", and their tillage 13 feddans, according to the English consul Rogers.  An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that Atlit had 9 houses and a population of 33, though the population count included men only. In 1881, the PEF's "Survey of Western Palestine" noted the existence of a small Arab village. A population list from about 1887 showed that "Athlit" had about 180 inhabitants; all Muslims.  In 1903, Jewish settlers built a nearby village which they also called Atlit; The village was established by Edmond James de Rothschild, with most of the land bought from Arab fishermen. A hundred families settled there but much of it was swampland, and many residents succumbed to malaria. Aaron Aaronsohn established an agricultural station in Atlit in 1911, and during World War I the village was used as a base by the Nili organisation.

British Mandate era.

In the 1922 census of Palestine, during the British Mandate of Palestine period, "Athlit" had a population of 81; all Muslims, while "Athlit Colony" had a population of 78 Jews and 3 Muslims. "Athlit Salt works" had a population of 196 Jews, 1 Muslim and 1 Christian. This had increased in the 1931 census to 413 Muslim, 496 Jews and 39 Christians; in a total of 193 houses.  In 1938 there were 508 Arabs and 224 Jews. The Arab presence underwent a sharp decline in the 1940s due to land sales, so that by the 1945 statistics there were only 150 Arabs still living there (90 Muslims and 60 Christians) alongside 510 Jews.

State of Israel.

The circumstances under which the remaining Arabs left in 1948 are unknown. Atlit detainee camp was used by the British authorities to detain Jewish immigrants to Palestine. It is now a museum of the Ha'apala (illegal Jewish immigration 1934-48). The headquarters of Shayetet 13 marine commandos is located at Atlit naval base on the Atlit promontory, placing the Crusader ruins there off-limits for regular visitors.  Atlit was declared a local council in 1950, but in 2004 was incorporated in the Hof HaCarmel Regional Council as one of a handful of Regional Committees. The late Knesset member Pesah Grupper lived in Atlit. He was head of its local council in the years 1959–1962 and 1969–1971.

Neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods in Atlit are Neve Moshe, Yamit, Giv'at HaPrahim, Giv'at HaBrekhot, Giv'at Sharon, Shoshanat HaYam, HaGoren, Yafe Nof, Argaman, Hofit, Savyonei Atlit and Allon. Atlit is in immediate vicinity of the villages Neve Yam and Ein Carmel.

Atlit () is a coastal town located south of Haifa, Israel. The community is in the Hof HaCarmel Regional Council in the Haifa District of Israel. An adjacent Jewish village was founded in 1903 under the auspices of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, which merged into the medieval Palestinian town. In the past, from 1950 until the unification of the municipalities in 2003, Atlit was a local council whose jurisdiction was 14,000 dunams. In the population was.


Biography.

Born in 1906, Harmel volunteered for the "SS-Verfügungstruppe" (later known as the Waffen-SS) in 1935 and served as a company commander in the SS-Regiment "Der Führer", with which he took part in the Battle of France in 1940. In 1941, Harmel took part in the Balkans Campaign and Operation Barbarossa. In December 1941, Harmel took command of SS-Infanterie-Regiment "Deutschland". Harmel participated in the capture of Kharkov on 15 March 1943. Harmel received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 31 March 1943. On 7 September 1943, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. In early 1944 after completing a divisional commanders' training course, Harmel took command of the SS Division Frundsberg.  During the summer 1944, the division moved to the Western Front, in Normandy. Harmel had been ordered to break the enemy's lines, to free the German units encircled in Falaise pocket numbering approximately 125,000 troops of the 7th Army. The operation ended with heavy losses and serious damage. Harmel was then sent to the Netherlands. He fought against the Allied offensive (Operation Market Garden). After the battles around Nijmegen, Harmel received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords on 15 December 1944. His division was then transferred to Alsace, where Harmel was ordered to establish a bridgehead to join the Colmar Pocket. After the failure of the December 1944/January 1945 offensive in Alsace, Harmel's division was transferred to the Eastern Front, initially fighting in Pomerania and Brandenburg to hold the Oder Front. The division was subsequently transferred to Heeresgruppe Mitte where in late April it was ordered to counterattack the forces of Marshal Ivan Konev. Harmel refused and was dismissed from command by Field Marshal Schoerner. Harmel subsequently commanded an ad hoc battle group formed around the 24th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS, the SS Officer's School at Graz and other smaller units. Harmel surrendered to the Allied forces in Austria and ended up in British captivity. Harmel died in 2000.

Heinz Harmel (29 June 1906 – 2 September 2000) was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. He commanded the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg during World War II. Harmel was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords of Nazi Germany.


History.

Django was created in the fall of 2003, when the web programmers at the "Lawrence Journal-World" newspaper, Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison, began using Python to build applications. Jacob Kaplan-Moss was hired early in Django's development shortly before Simon Willison's internship ended. It was released publicly under a BSD license in July 2005. The framework was named after guitarist Django Reinhardt.  In June 2008, it was announced that a newly formed Django Software Foundation (DSF) would maintain Django in the future.

Features.

Components.

Despite having its own nomenclature, such as naming the callable objects generating the HTTP responses "views", the core Django framework can be seen as an MVC architecture. It consists of an object-relational mapper (ORM) that mediates between data models (defined as Python classes) and a relational database ("Model"), a system for processing HTTP requests with a web templating system ("View"), and a regular-expression-based URL dispatcher ("Controller").  Also included in the core framework are:

Bundled applications.

The main Django distribution also bundles a number of applications in its "contrib" package, including:

Extensibility.

Django's configuration system allows third party code to be plugged into a regular project, provided that it follows the reusable app conventions. More than 2500 packages are available to extend the framework's original behavior, providing solutions to issues the original tool didn't tackle: registration, search, API provision and consumption, CMS, etc.  This extensibility is, however, mitigated by internal components' dependencies. While the Django philosophy implies loose coupling, the template filters and tags assume one engine implementation, and both the auth and admin bundled applications require the use of the internal ORM. None of these filters or bundled apps are mandatory to run a Django project, but reusable apps tend to depend on them, encouraging developers to keep using the official stack in order to benefit fully from the apps ecosystem.

Server arrangements.

Django can be run in conjunction with Apache, Nginx using WSGI, Gunicorn, or Cherokee using flup (a Python module). Django also includes the ability to launch a FastCGI server, enabling use behind any web server which supports FastCGI, such as Lighttpd or Hiawatha. It is also possible to use other WSGI-compliant web servers. Django officially supports four database backends: PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and Oracle. Microsoft SQL Server can be used with django-mssql on Microsoft operating systems, while similarly external backends exist for IBM Db2, SQL Anywhere and Firebird. There is a fork named django-nonrel, which supports NoSQL databases, such as MongoDB and Google App Engine's Datastore.  Django may also be run in conjunction with Jython on any Java EE application server such as GlassFish or JBoss. In this case django-jython must be installed in order to provide JDBC drivers for database connectivity, which also can provide functionality to compile Django in to a.war suitable for deployment.  Google App Engine includes support for Django version 1.x.x as one of the bundled frameworks.

Version history.

The Django team will occasionally designate certain releases to be “long-term support” (LTS) releases. LTS releases will get security and data loss fixes applied for a guaranteed period of time, typically 3+ years, regardless of the pace of releases afterwards.

Development tools with Django support.

For developing a Django project, no special tools are necessary, since the source code can be edited with any conventional text editor. Nevertheless, editors specialized on computer programming can help increase the productivity of development, e.g., with features such as syntax highlighting. Since Django is written in Python, text editors which are aware of Python syntax are beneficial in this regard.  Integrated development environments (IDE) add further functionality, such as debugging, refactoring, and unit testing. As with plain editors, IDEs with support for Python can be beneficial. Some IDEs that are specialized on Python additionally have integrated support for Django projects, so that using such an IDE when developing a Django project can help further increase productivity. For comparison of such Python IDEs, see the main article:

Community.

There is a semiannual conference for Django developers and users, named "DjangoCon", that has been held since September 2008. DjangoCon is held annually in Europe, in May or June; while another is held in the United States in August or September, in various cities. The 2012 DjangoCon took place in Washington, D.C., from 3 to 8 September. 2013 DjangoCon was held in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and the post-conference Sprints were hosted at Digital Bootcamp, computer training center. The 2014 DjangoCon US returned to Portland, OR from 30 August to 6 September. The 2015 DjangoCon US was held in Austin, TX from 6 to 11 September at the AT&T Executive Center. The 2016 DjangoCon US was held in Philadelphia, PA at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 17 to 22 July.The 2017 DjangoCon US was held in Spokane, WA; in 2018 DjangoCon US was held in San Diego, CA. DjangoCon US 2019 was held again in San Diego, CA from Sept 22–27.  Django mini-conferences are usually held every year as part of the Australian Python Conference 'PyCon AU'. Previously, these mini-conferences have been held in:  Django has spawned user groups and meetups around the world, the most notable group is the Django Girls organization, which began in Poland but now has had events in 91 countries.

Ports to other languages.

Programmers have ported Django's template design from Python to other languages, providing decent cross-platform support. Some of these options are more direct ports; others, though inspired by Django and retaining its concepts, take the liberty to deviate from Django's design:  This list is an extraction from Current Django Books

Django ( ; stylised as django) is a Python-based free and open-source web framework that follows the model-template-view (MVC) architectural pattern. It is maintained by the Django Software Foundation (DSF), an American independent organization established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.


Background.

On 20 April 1792, Revolutionary France declared war on Austria.  On 28 April, France invaded the Austrian Netherlands (present-day Belgium). Prussia joined the war against France  On 30 July, Austria and Prussia began an invasion of France, hoping to occupy Paris.

Brunswick Manifesto.

On 25 July, the Duke of Brunswick issued the Brunswick Manifesto. The manifesto promised that if the French Royal family was not harmed, then the Allies would not harm French civilians or loot. However, if acts of violence or acts to humiliate the French Royal family were committed, the Allies threatened to burn Paris to the ground. The manifesto was written primarily by Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, the leader of a large corps of French émigrés in Brunswick's army, and intended to intimidate Paris into submission. Brunswick maintained a secret correspondence with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and two days before making the Manifesto public, he sent a copy to the Tuileries Palace, and both the king and the queen approved it.  On August 1, news of the manifesto began sweeping through Paris. Many believed the Brunswick Manifesto was final proof that Louis XVI was collaborating with the Allies.  Also on 1 August, Prussian forces crossed the Rhine near Coblenz; consequently, the French National Assembly ordered that citizens prepare for war.

Impact.

The prevailing historiographical tradition suggests that the Brunswick Manifesto, rather than intimidate the populace into submission, sent it into furious action and created fear and anger towards the Allies. It also spurred revolutionaries to take further action, organizing an uprising – on 10 August, the Tuileries Palace was stormed in a bloody battle with Swiss Guards protecting it, the survivors of which were massacred by the mob. In late August and early September, the French were defeated in skirmishes with the Allied army, but on 20 September, the French triumphed in the Battle of Valmy. Following its defeat, the Prussian army withdrew from France.  Recent research, however, argues that the Brunswick Manifesto did not have nearly the impact upon the revolutionaries suggested in earlier source material. Firstly, the opinion of what amounted to an external foe among the French radical left was altogether trivial, both before and after the issuance of the manifesto; their attention remained firmly focused on the internal threat: the French monarchy. Secondly, the literary and artistic record from the summer of 1792 suggests that Brunswick created not fear or anger, but rather humor; French cartoonists in particular took to satirizing Brunswick and his manifesto with great vigor. Lastly, the French refused to take the Brunswick Manifesto seriously in any respect, believing it to be unauthentic. This determination stemmed from what they believed to be its illegality, disrespect for the law of war, and denial of national sovereignty.

The Brunswick Manifesto was a proclamation issued by Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, commander of the Allied Army (principally Austrian and Prussian), on 25 July 1792 to the population of Paris, France during the War of the First Coalition. The Brunswick Manifesto threatened that if the French royal family were harmed, then French civilians would be harmed. It was said to have been a measure intended to intimidate Paris, but rather helped further spur the increasingly radical French Revolution and finally led to the war between revolutionary France and counter-revolutionary monarchies.


Development.

Development began in July 1961 with the government assigning the project to two design teams: Tula and Kolomna. The requirements were:  The designs were based on the Western ATGMs of the 1950s, such as the French ENTAC and the Swiss Cobra. In the end, the prototype developed by the Kolomna Machine Design Bureau, who were also responsible for the AT-1 Snapper, was chosen. Initial tests were completed by 20 December 1962, and the missile was accepted for service on 16 September 1963.

Description.

The missile can be fired from a portable suitcase launcher (9P111), ground vehicles (BMP-1, BRDM-2) and helicopters (Mi-2, Mi-8, Mi-24, Soko Gazelle). The missile takes about five minutes to deploy from its 9P111 fibreglass suitcase, which also serves as the launching platform.  The missile is guided to the target by means of a small joystick (9S415), which requires intensive training of the operator. The operator's adjustments are transmitted to the missile via a thin three-strand wire that trails behind the missile. The missile climbs into the air immediately after launch, which prevents it from hitting obstacles or the ground. In flight, the missile spins at 8.5 revolutions per second—it is initially spun by its booster, and the spin is maintained by the slight angle of the wings. The missile uses a small gyroscope to orient itself relative to the ground; as a result, the missile can take some time to bring back in line with the target, which gives it a minimum range of between 500 and 800 m. For targets under 1,000 m, the operator can guide the missile by eye; for targets beyond this range the operator uses the 8x power, 22.5-degree field of view 9Sh16 periscope sight.  The engagement envelope is a 3 km, 45-degree arc centered on the missile's launch axis. At ranges under 1.5 km, this arc reduces until, at the 500 m range, the missile can only hit targets 50 m either side of the center line. Accuracy falls off away from the launch axis—falling to approximately half its optimal accuracy at the extremes.  While early estimates of the missile hitting the target ranged from 60 to 90%, experience has shown that it can drop to an efficiency between 2 and 25% in case of less than optimal conditions and lack of skill from the operator. In fact, MCLOS requires considerable skill on the part of the operator, nevertheless, the weapon has always been quite popular with its operators and has enjoyed a constant updating effort both in the Soviet Union/Russia and in other countries.  The two most serious defects of the original weapon system are its minimum range of between 500 and 800 m (targets that are closer cannot be effectively engaged) and the amount of time it takes the slow moving missile to reach maximum range—around 30 seconds—giving the intended target time to take appropriate action, either by retreating behind an obstacle, laying down a smoke-screen, or by returning fire on the operator.  Later versions of the missile addressed these problems by implementing the much easier to use guidance system (though only available for ground vehicle and helicopter mounts), as well as upgrading the propulsion system to increase the average flight speed. The latest updates sport tandem warheads or probes in order to counteract explosive reactive armor, as well as thermal imaging systems. Even in these latest version, the Malyutka is probably the most inexpensive ATGM in service, with unitary price caps in the order of hundreds of dollars instead of the tens of thousands of the latest third generation models.

History.

In Soviet service, the man-portable version was deployed as part of the anti-tank platoon of motor rifle battalions. Each platoon had two "Malyutka" sections, each with two teams. Each team had two launcher stations. One assistant gunner in each team served as an RPG-7 gunner. The RPG-7 was needed to cover the 500 meter deadzone created by the minimum range of the missile.  It is also an integrated part of the BMP-1, BMD-1, and BRDM-2 vehicles.

Vietnam War.

On 23 April 1972, the recently organized Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 20th Tank Regiment was attacked by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) employing the 9M14M Malyutka anti-tank guided missile for the first time. The 20th was the only South Vietnamese armor unit equipped with the M48 Patton tank. This first employment of the Malyutka destroyed one M48A3 and one M113 armored cavalry assault vehicle (ACAV), and a second ACAV was damaged.  During this engagement with the weapon, the ARVN tankers appeared fascinated by the missile's slow and erratic flight, but through experience, they soon deployed counter measures against the weapon system. Upon launching by the enemy, ARVN crewmen would fire all their weapons towards the Sagger's firing position, which would make the gunner flinch and lose control of his missile. Although the gunner could take cover away from the launch site, the joystick control wire only allowed 15 meters of clearance. During the engagement, the ARVN eventually lost eight tanks to the 9M14M missile, but had developed tactics to defend themselves against it.  During the Battle of Cửa Việt, the PAVN put up fierce resistance to the attack, destroying 26 M-48s and M-113s with AT-3 missiles.

Yom Kippur War.

The missile was employed by Arab armies during the initial phases of the Yom Kippur War. Later in the war, the Israelis adopted new tactics and learned to neutralize the Sagger threat by employing large concentrations of artillery fire to either distract or kill the Sagger operators. Other improvised methods used by the Israelis to defeat the Saggers involved firing in front of the tank to create dust, moving back and forth and firing at the source of Sagger fire. These Israeli tactics were later adopted by NATO forces to counter the threat posed by Warsaw Pact ATGMs. In total, Saggers knocked out more than 800 Israeli tanks and other combat vehicles during the war.  Some experts and Israeli eyewitnesses have debated the effect of the Sagger during the Yom Kippur War. Several photos of Israeli tanks draped with guidance wires from Saggers while still operating successfully exist. In addition numerous veterans of the war describe being shot at by up to eight Sagger gunners at once without a single hit on their tanks. Veteran Israeli tankers reported that the RPG 7 was a much more destructive and feared weapon in the conflict than the Sagger, largely due to its single man portability and its greater accuracy within in its effective envelope compared to that of the Sagger.

Libyan Civil War.

Rebels of the Free Libyan Army have been filmed using Saggers during the Libyan Civil War.

Syrian Civil War.

Syrian rebels have also uploaded videos of their Sagger firings against government forces since late 2012.

Models.

Production.

The Malyutka and modern derivatives are still produced in several versions in following countries:

The 9M14 Malyutka (; "Little one", NATO reporting name: AT-3 Sagger) is a manual command to line of sight (MCLOS) wire-guided anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system developed in the Soviet Union. It was the first man-portable anti-tank guided missile of the Soviet Union and is probably the most widely produced ATGM of all time—with Soviet production peaking at 25,000 missiles a year during the 1960s and 1970s. In addition, copies of the missile have been manufactured under various names by at least five countries.


Vignette obligation by country.

European Union.

The Eurovignette Directive introduced in the European Union in 1993 governs road tolls for trucks of minimum 12 metric tonnes. An international agreement, based on Article 8 of the Eurovignette Directive, signed in 1994 by Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands established a common system of vignettes within the Eurovignette framework. Sweden signed a protocol to acceded to the agreement in 1997, while Germany denounced the agreement in 2017.

Austria.

Since 1997, vignettes are required for all vehicles of up to 3.5 tonnes, driving on motorways and expressways (prefixed with letters A and S) under federal administration. Vignettes are overseen by the police and toll-sheriff employees of the federal motorway administration. A €240 fine with an additional obligatory payment of a substitute toll are charged to travelers without a valid vignette, and unpaid fines lead to penalties between €300 and €3,000. Furthermore, the vehicle may be confiscated from foreigners to guarantee payment of the penalty.  Additional tolls are charged for certain motorway sections where tollgates and video tolling systems are installed. Several sections require drivers to buy electronic toll cards. Vignettes for vehicles of over 3.5 tonnes were replaced with electronic distance-based highway-toll GO-Boxes on 1 January 2004.

Bulgaria.

Vignettes are required for all (except motorcycles) vehicles driving on all public roads, with the exception of streets in cities, towns and villages. Vignettes are usually valid from the time they are purchased, while some types can be marked to start from a future date. They can be obtained in Bulgaria at most gas stations, at border crossings, or online using a credit card. Cash fines from €150 to €1,500 are charged to drivers without a valid vignette. The vignette sticker was replaced by e-vignette on 1 January 2019, and an e-toll system is to be introduced in August 2019 for vehicles heavier than 3.5 tonnes.

Czech Republic.

Vignettes are required for the use of motorways and expressways by all vehicles of up to 3.5 tonnes. Cash fines for not displaying a valid vignette affixed on a car's windshield range from €80 to €200. Vignettes for heavier vehicles were replaced with electronic toll collection in 2007.

Germany.

Motorways and expressways are a toll-free road network for all lighter vehicles. The Eurovignette system for trucks was abolished in August 2003. A distance-based toll charge was introduced from 1 January 2005 for vehicles of over 12 tonnes, operated by the Toll Collect company.  As of 1 March 2007, all drivers are required to purchase an emission sticker when passing through "environment zones" in several cities and municipalities. Certain "green zones" have completely disallowed entrance to vehicles with higher particle emissions ("yellow" and "red" groups). Travellers passing through these areas without the sticker are charged with a €80 fine.

Hungary.

Vignettes are required for all travelers using motorways and expressways. Physical toll stickers were replaced with electronic vignettes and video tolling on 1 January 2008, the only physical item the purchaser receives is a control coupon. Motorway usage entitlement is verified by roadside cameras based on license plate numbers, and drivers of vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes without a valid vignette are charged with cash fines between €50 and €200.

Moldova.

Vignettes are obligatory for personal motor vehicles registered abroad, driving on public roads, and are available for purchase at border customs posts and offices. Foreign drivers without a valid vignette are charged with cash fines between €125 and €375. Heavier vehicles use existing tax rates, with commercial vehicle drivers paying a single-entry tax and a distance-based charge.

Montenegro.

Ecological-tax vignettes were abolished on 31 December 2011. Driving on public roads is generally toll-free, with the exception of passing through certain tunnels and bridges.

Romania.

With the exception of motorcycles, vignettes are required for all vehicles driving on all national roads and motorways. Physical vignettes have been replaced with electronic ones since 1 October 2010. They can be obtained at most gas stations, border crossings, or online using a credit card. Drivers without a valid vignette are fined with €100 or more. The fines are dispensed by automatic systems that scan the numberplate of the car when it exits a city.

Slovakia.

Vignettes are obligatory for all vehicles of up to 3.5 tonnes, driving on Slovak motorways. Drivers without a valid vignette are charged with cash fines between €100 and €500. Vignettes for heavier vehicles were replaced with distance-based electronic toll collection using the remote-operated toll-box in force since 2010. Special arrangements are to be sought by the motorbike riders.  From 1 January 2016 Slovak vignettes are purchased and checked electronically via eZnamka.sk without a sticker.

Slovenia.

Vignettes are required for all vehicles of up to 3.5 tonnes, driving on Slovenian motorways as of 1 July 2008. Drivers without a valid vignette are charged with cash fines between €300 and €800. On 1.4.2018, the Republic of Slovenia has implemented an electronic tolling of vehicles whose maximum permissible weight exceeds 3.5 tonnes.

Switzerland.

All travelers using motorways and expressways are required to purchase an annual vignette. Vignettes can be obtained in and outside of Switzerland in bordering countries at gas stations and labeled points. Use of motorway networks without a valid vignette is an offense against the Public Highways Act, and is punishable with cash fines of CHF 200, in addition to the obligatory purchase of an annual vignette. Heavier vehicles use a distance-based tax rate on all types of roads, called the.  Switzerland only offers a vignette valid for a year at CHF 40 (€35.75). Because of this, its vignette is the most expensive in Europe for transiting and visiting passenger cars. Other countries offer short-term vignettes that make a transit or visit less expensive than in Switzerland.

Vignette is a form of road pricing imposed on vehicles, usually in addition to the compulsory road tax, based on a period of time the vehicle may use the road, instead of road tolls that are based on distance travelled. Vignettes are currently used in several European countries. The term originated in France in the 1950s, although vignettes there were not linked to motorway use and no longer exist; it is now used throughout Central Europe, as well as in Italy ("vignetta").


History.

The monastery was founded in the early 990s by Adalbert of Prague. Adalbert of Prague left Bohemia in 994 for having disputes with ruler. The new impuls came with the Czech Duke Bretislav I who started construction on stone church and who managed for the monastery remains of Gunther of Bohemia, the monk from Niederaltaich Abbey in Bavaria. Filial monasteries were established at Broumov and Police in northern Bohemia.  During the Hussite Wars in the 1420s, abbot and convent fled to Broumov and the entire monastery including brewery were nearly destroyed. After the Thirty Years' War, the construction of a Baroque monastery complex has been realized under Abbot Othmar Daniel Zinke in 1708–1740 according to plans designed by Christoph Dientzenhofer. The interior of the buildings, including St Margaret's church, the conventual buildings and prelate's house was designed by his son Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer, with altarpieces by Petr Brandl, a ceiling fresco by Cosmas Damian Asam and stucco works by his brother Egid Quirin Asam. At the same time the annual production of beer reached up to 5,000 hl.  After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, the monastery was seized by Wehrmacht forces during World War II and finally expropriated by the Communist Czechoslovak government in 1950. Abbot Anastáz Opasek (1913–1999) was condemned for high treason and espionage in a show trial, the monastery was dissolved and the remaining monks were deported, if they had not fled to Bavarian Braunau in Rohr Abbey re-established by their Broumov brothers in 1946.  The complex was used until 1990 by the StB, after the Velvet Revolution, was thoroughly repaired from 1991 until its 1000-years-jubilee in 1993. In 1997 it was visited by Pope John Paul II and was elevated to the rank of an Archabbey.  The monastery served as the basis for the Red Rose Mansion (2005) in Naoki Urasawa's noted anime/manga series "Monster".  The brewery at Břenov Monastery re-opened after brewing hiatus of about 120 years in 2011. Břevnov Monastery Brewery (Břevnovský klášterní pivovar) brews its beer under the name "Břevnovský Benedict".

Břevnov Monastery (, ) is a Benedictine archabbey in the Břevnov district of Prague, Czech Republic. It was founded by Saint Adalbert, the second Bishop of Prague, in 993 AD with the support of Duke Boleslav II of Bohemia. The first Benedictine male monastery in Bohemia, it also has the oldest tradition of beer brewing in the Czech Republic. Brewing was interrupted several times in the history, but up to today, the Břevnov Monastery Brewery brew its beer here.