History of the term.

The term'metafiction' was coined in 1970 by William H. Gass in his book "Fiction and the Figures of Life". Gass describes the increasing use of metafiction at the time as a result of authors developing a better understanding of the medium. This new understanding of the medium led to a major change in the approach toward fiction. Theoretical issues became more prominent aspects, resulting in an increased self-reflexivity and formal uncertainty. Robert Scholes expands upon Gass' theory and identifies four forms of criticism on fiction, which he refers to as formal, behavioural, structural, and philosophical criticism. Metafiction assimilates these perspectives into the fictional process, putting emphasis on one or more of these aspects.  These developments were part of a larger movement (arguably a'metareferential turn') which, approximately from the 1960s onwards, was the consequence of an increasing social and cultural self-consciousness, stemming from, as Patricia Waugh puts it, "a more general cultural interest in the problem of how human beings reflect, construct and mediate their experience in the world."  Due to this development, an increasing number of novelists rejected the notion of rendering the world through fiction. The new principle became to create through the medium of language a world that does not reflect the real world. Language was considered an "independent, self-contained system which generates its own'meanings.'" and a means of mediating knowledge of the world. Thus, literary fiction, which constructs worlds through language, became a model for the construction of'reality' rather than a reflection of it. Reality itself became regarded as a construct instead of an objective truth. Through its formal self-exploration, metafiction thus became the device that explores the question of how human beings construct their experience of the world.  Robert Scholes identifies the time around 1970 as the peak of experimental fiction (which metafiction is an instrumental part of) and names a lack of commercial and critical success as reasons for its subsequent decline. The development toward metafictional writing in postmodernism generated mixed responses. Some critics argued that it signified the decadence of the novel and an exhaustion of the artistic capabilities of the medium, with some going as far as to call it the 'death of the novel'. Others see the self-consciousness of fictional writing as a way to gain deeper understanding of the medium and a path that leads to innovation that resulted in the emergence of new forms of literature, such as the historiographic novel by Linda Hutcheon.

Forms.

According to Werner Wolf, metafiction can be differentiated into four pairs of forms that can be combined with each other.

Explicit/implicit metafiction.

Explicit metafiction is identifiable through its use of clear metafictional elements on the surface of a text. It comments on its own artificiality and is quotable. Explicit metafiction is described as a mode of telling. An example would be a narrator explaining the process of creating the story they are telling.  Rather than commenting on the text, implicit metafiction foregrounds the medium or its status as an artefact through various, for example disruptive, techniques such as metalepsis. It relies more than other forms of metafiction on the reader's ability to recognize these devices in order to evoke a metafictional reading. Implicit metafiction is described as a mode of showing.

Direct/indirect metafiction.

Direct metafiction establishes a reference within the text one is just reading. In contrast to this, indirect metafiction consists in metareferences external to this text, such as reflections on specific other literary works or genres (as in parodies) and general discussions of aesthetic issues; since there is always a relationship between the text in which indirect metafiction occurs and the referenced external texts or issues, indirect metafiction always also impacts the text one is reading, albeit in an indirect way.

Critical/non-critical metafiction.

Critical metafiction aims to find the artificiality or fictionality of a text in some critical way, which is frequently done in postmodernist fiction. Non-critical metafiction does not criticize or undermine the artificiality or fictionality of a text and can, for example, be used to "suggest that the story one is reading is authentic".

Generally media-centred/truth- or fiction-centred metafiction.

While all metafiction somehow deals with the medial quality of fiction or narrative and is thus generally media-centred, in some cases there is an additional focus on the truthfulness or inventedness (fictionality) of a text, which merits mention as a specific form. The suggestion of a story being authentic (a device frequently used in realistic fiction) would be an example of (non-critical) truth-centred metafiction.

Examples.

Laurence Sterne, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman".

In this scene Tristram Shandy, the eponymous character and narrator of the novel, foregrounds the process of creating literature as he interrupts his previous thought and begins to talk about the beginnings of books. The scene evokes an explicitly metafictional response to the problem (and by addressing a problem of the novel one is just reading but also a general problem the excerpt is thus an example of both direct and indirect metafiction, which may additionally be classified as generally media-centred, non-critical metafiction). Through the lack of context to this sudden change of topic (writing a book is not a plot point, nor does this scene take place at the beginning of the novel, where such a scene might be more willingly accepted by the reader) the metafictional reflection is foregrounded. Additionally, the narrator addresses the reader directly, thereby confronting the reader with the fact that they are reading a constructed text.

David Lodge, "The British Museum is Falling Down".

This scene from "The British Museum is Falling Down" (1965) features several instances of metafiction. First, the speaker, Adam Appleby (the protagonist of the novel) discusses the change the rise of the novel brought upon the literary landscape, specifically with regards to thematic changes that occurred. Second, he talks about the mimetic aspect of realist novels. Third, he alludes to the notion that the capabilities of literature have been exhausted, and thus to the idea of the death of the novel (all of this is explicit, critical indirect metafiction). Fourth, he covertly foregrounds that fact that the characters in the novel are fictional characters, rather than masking this aspect, as would be the case in non-metafictional writing. Therefore, this scene features metafictional elements with reference to the medium (the novel), the form of art (literature), a genre (realism), and arguably also lays bare the fictionality of the characters and thus of the novel itself (which could be classified as critical, direct, fiction-centred metafiction).

Jasper Fforde, "The Eyre Affair".

"The Eyre Affair" (2001) is set in an alternate history in which it is possible to enter the world of a work of literature through the use of a machine. In the novel, literary detective Thursday Next chases a criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre". This paradoxical transgression of narrative boundaries is called metalepsis, an implicitly metafictional device when used in literature. Metalepsis has a high inherent potential to disrupt aesthetic illusion and confronts the reader with the fictionality of the text. However, as metalepsis is used as a plot device that has been introduced as part of the world of "The Eyre Affair" it can, in this instance, have the opposite effect and is compatible with immersion. It can thus be seen as an example of metafiction that does not (necessarily) break aesthetic illusion.

Metafiction is a form of fiction that emphasizes its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the reader to be aware that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and storytelling, and works of metafiction directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts. Metafiction is frequently used as a form of parody or a tool to undermine literary conventions and explore the relationship between literature and reality, life, and art.


Location.

The castle is located just north of Vienna and the Danube on a rising above Rohrwald, directly above Leobendorf and between the towns of Korneuburg and Stockerau. The elevation is, the height above the Danube about.  Close to Burg Kreuzenstein is a water gap in the Danube called Wiener Pforte ("Viennese Portal"), so that it allows a wide view of the current course of the river and the Korneuburger Becken ("Korneuburger sedimentary basin") upstream. Approximately opposite to Burg Kreuzenstein, on the south bank of the Danube, lies Burg Greifenstein castle.

History.

Medieval castle of the Habsburgs.

The origins of Burg Kreuzenstein, like most castles in Lower Austria, date back to the 12th century. Originally built by the Counts of Formbach (now Vornbach, Bavaria), the castle passed into the possession of the Counts of Wasserburg through marriage. Through Ottokar II of Bohemia, the castle came into the possession of the Habsburgs, in 1278.  In July 1527, the Anabaptist preacher Balthasar Hubmaier was arrested under the pretext of causing riots in Mikulov, Moravia and transferred to Burg Kreuzenstein. He was interrogated there but refused to renounce his beliefs and was burned at the stake in Vienna.  Until the Thirty Years War, the castle had never been conquered but then it fell into the hands of the Swedish Field Marshall Lennart Torstensson, who, on his departure in 1645, blew up three parts of the building (some sources say four).

Reconstruction under the Counts of Wilczek.

In the 18th century, the castle came into the possession of the Counts of Wilczek who had amassed a large fortune through their coal mines in Silesia. In 1874, Count Johann Nepomuk Wilczek, best known as a polar explorer, began reconstruction of the castle but in a style entirely different from the original Romanesque-Gothic architecture. The existing ruins were incorporated into the new castle, in particular, parts of the outer wall, the east tower and parts of the chapel. The practised eye can easily distinguish between the surviving medieval masonry and the 19th century additions.  The reconstruction was overseen by architect Carl Gangolf Kayser until his death in 1895, at which time it was taken over by Ritter Humbert Walcher of Molthein and the artist Egon Rheinberger.  A family vault was built under the castle and Johann Wilczek is interred there. As well as building the castle from the original masonry and on the original site, Wilczek gathered building components from all over Europe. Additionally, the castle was equipped with a large collection of medieval furnishings and historical artefacts, including one of the oldest surviving medieval catapults, purchased from Hohensalzburg Castle.  The reconstruction work lasted for 30 years and Kaiser Wilhelm II was present at the reopening on 6 June 1906. A fire caused by a lightning strike in 1915, burned part of the archives and library wing.

Burg Kreuzenstein today.

Though now in the collection of the Austrian National Library, the conflict between the German "Wehrmacht" and the Red Army in 1945 resulted in the theft of several manuscripts, and some rooms of the castle were extensively damaged during the war (World War II).  Today the castle is a much-loved tourist destination and museum in the surrounding countryside of Vienna. At one time, a classical concert known as the Burgserenade was held in the great hall of the castle, at the end of June each year. This has been discontinued. Through the year from April to October, a falconry show, known as "Adlerwarte Kreuzenstein" is held on the estate. The recently renovated Burgtaverne Kreuzenstein is a restaurant, furnished to provide the atmosphere of a medieval tavern.  In 2013, Kreuzenstein Castle became the titular home of the Lazarus Union Knighthood of Honour.  Currently, the owner of the castle (and holder of the title) is Johan-Christian Count Wilczek.

Burg Kreuzenstein is a castle near Leobendorf in Lower Austria, Austria. Burg Kreuzenstein is above sea level. It was constructed on the remains of an early medieval castle that had fallen into disrepair and was then demolished during the Thirty Years' War. Intended to be a family vault for the Wilczek family, it was rebuilt in the 19th century by Count Nepomuk Wilczek with money from the family's large Silesian coal mines. Kreuzenstein is interesting in that it was constructed out of sections of medieval structures purchased by the family from all over Europe to form an authentic-looking castle. Thus, the castle can be considered both a 'neo-' and 'original' medieval structure. The castle is sometimes used as a location for films.


General Description.

A forward rate agreement's (FRA's) effective description is a cash for difference derivative contract, between two parties, benchmarked against an interest rate index. That index is commonly an interbank offered rate (-IBOR) of specific tenor in different currencies, for example LIBOR in USD, GBP, EURIBOR in EUR or STIBOR in SEK. An FRA between two counterparties requires a fixed rate, notional amount, chosen interest rate index tenor and date to be completely specified.

Extended Description.

Forward rate agreements (FRAs) are interconnected with short term interest rate futures (STIR futures). Because STIR futures settle against the same index as a subset of FRAs, IMM FRAs, their pricing is related. The nature of each product has a distinctive gamma (convexity) profile resulting in rational, no arbitrage, pricing adjustments. This adjustment is called futures convexity adjustment (FCA) and is usually expressed in basis points.  Interest rate swaps (IRSs) are often considered a series of FRAs but this view is technically incorrect due to differences in calculation methodologies in cash payments and this results in very small pricing differences.  FRAs are not loans, and do not constitute agreements to loan any amount of money on an unsecured basis to another party at any pre-agreed rate. Their nature as an IRD product creates only the effect of leverage and the ability to speculate, or hedge, interest rate risk exposure.

Valuation and Pricing.

The cash for difference value on an FRA, exchanged between the two parties, calculated from the perspective of having sold an FRA (which imitates receiving the fixed rate) is calculated as:  where formula_2 is the notional of the contract, formula_3 is the fixed rate, formula_4 is the published -IBOR fixing rate and formula_5 is the decimalised day count fraction over which the value start and end dates of the -IBOR rate extend. For USD and EUR this follows an ACT/360 convention and GBP follows an ACT/365 convention. The cash amount is paid on the value start date applicable to the interest rate index (depending in which currency the FRA is traded, this is either immediately after or within two business days of the published -IBOR fixing rate).  For mark-to-market (MTM) purposes the net present value (PV) of an FRA can be determined by discounting the expected cash difference, for a forecast value formula_4:  where formula_8 is the discount factor of the payment date upon which the cash for difference is physically settled, which, in modern pricing theory, will be dependent upon which discount curve to apply based on the credit support annex (CSA) of the derivative contract.

Uses and Risks.

Many banks and large corporations will use FRAs to hedge future interest or exchange rate exposure. The buyer hedges against the risk of rising interest rates, while the seller hedges against the risk of falling interest rates. Other parties that use Forward Rate Agreements are speculators purely looking to make bets on future directional changes in interest rates. The development swaps in the 1980s provided organisations with an alternative to FRAs for hedging and speculating.  In other words, a forward rate agreement (FRA) is a tailor-made, over-the-counter financial futures contract on short-term deposits. A FRA transaction is a contract between two parties to exchange payments on a deposit, called the "Notional amount", to be determined on the basis of a short-term interest rate, referred to as the "Reference rate", over a predetermined time period at a future date. FRA transactions are entered as a hedge against interest rate changes. The buyer of the contract locks in the interest rate in an effort to protect against an interest rate increase, while the seller protects against a possible interest rate decline. At maturity, no funds exchange hands; rather, the difference between the contracted interest rate and the market rate is exchanged. The buyer of the contract is paid if the published reference rate is above the fixed, contracted rate, and the buyer pays to the seller if the published reference rate is below the fixed, contracted rate. A company that seeks to hedge against a possible increase in interest rates would purchase FRAs, whereas a company that seeks an interest hedge against a possible decline of the rates would sell FRAs.

Quotation and Market-Making.

FRA Descriptive Notation and Interpretation How to interpret a quote for FRA?  [US$ 3x9 - 3.25/3.50%p.a ] - means deposit interest starting 3 months from now for 6 month is 3.25% and borrowing interest rate starting 3 months from now for 6 month is 3.50% (see also bid–ask spread). Entering a "payer FRA" means paying the fixed rate (3.50% p.a.) and receiving a floating 6-month rate, while entering a "receiver FRA" means paying the same floating rate and receiving a fixed rate (3.25% p.a.).  This information on the notation on FRAs is consistent with the material presented in this citation. This text goes on to specify the additional property of a FRA's 'roll-day' which describes which day of the month (from 1 to 31) that the FRA's value start date is effective from.

In finance, a forward rate agreement (FRA) is an interest rate derivative (IRD). In particular it is a linear IRD with strong associations with interest rate swaps (IRSs).


Life.

Jan Potocki was born into the Potocki aristocratic family, that owned vast estates across Poland. He was educated in Geneva and Lausanne, served twice in the Polish Army as a captain of engineers, and spent some time on a galley as novice to the Knights of Malta. His colorful life took him across Europe, Asia and North Africa, where he embroiled himself in political intrigues, flirted with secret societies and contributed to the birth of ethnology – he was one of the first to study the precursors of the Slavic peoples from a linguistic and historical standpoint.  In 1790 he became the first person in Poland to fly in a hot air balloon when he made an ascent over Warsaw with the aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard, an exploit that earned him great public acclaim. He spent some time in France, and upon his return to Poland, he became a known publicist, publishing newspapers and pamphlets, in which he argued for various reforms. He also established in 1788 in Warsaw a publishing house named "Drukarnia Wolna" (Free Press) as well as the city's first free reading room. His relation with the King Stanisław II August was thorny, as Potocki, while often supportive of the King, on occasion did not shy from his critique. He was highly critical of the Russian ambassador, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg.  Potocki's wealth enabled him to travel extensively about Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia, visiting Italy, Sicily, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Russia, Turkey, Dalmatia, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Spain, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and even Mongolia. He was also one of the first travel writers of the modern era, penning lively accounts of many of his journeys, during which he also undertook extensive historical, linguistic, and ethnographic studies.  Potocki married twice and had five children. His first marriage ended in divorce, and both marriages were the subject of scandalous rumors. In 1812, disillusioned and in poor health, he retired to his estate at Uładówka in Podolia, suffering from "melancholia" (which today would probably be diagnosed as depression), and during the last few years of his life he completed his novel.  Believing he was becoming a werewolf, Potocki committed suicide by fatally shooting himself with a silver bullet that he had had blessed by his village priest in December 1815, at the age of 54.

"The Manuscript Found in Saragossa".

Potocki's most famous work, originally written in French, is "The Manuscript Found in Saragossa" ("Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse"). It is a frame tale. On account of its rich, interlocking structure, and telescoping story sequences, the novel has drawn comparisons to such celebrated works as the "Decameron" and the "Arabian Nights".  The book's title is explained in the foreword, which is narrated by an unnamed French officer who describes his fortuitous discovery of an intriguing Spanish manuscript during the sack of Zaragoza in 1809, in the course of the Napoleonic Wars. Soon after, the French officer is captured by the Spanish and stripped of his possessions; but a Spanish officer recognizes the manuscript's importance, and during the French officer's captivity the Spaniard translates it for him into French.  The manuscript has been written by a young officer of the Walloon Guard, Alphonse van Worden. In 1739, while "en route" to Madrid to serve with the Spanish Army, he is diverted into Spain's rugged Sierra Morena region. There, over a period of sixty-six days, he encounters a varied group of characters, including Muslim princesses, Gypsies, outlaws, and cabbalists, who tell him an intertwining series of bizarre, amusing, and fantastic tales which he records in his diary.  The sixty-six stories cover a wide range of themes, subjects, and styles, including gothic horror, picaresque adventures, and comic, erotic, and moral tales. The stories reflect Potocki's interest in secret societies, the supernatural, and oriental cultures, and they are illustrated with his detailed observations of 18th-century European manners and customs, particularly those of upper-class Spanish society.  Many of the locations described in the tales are real places and regions which Potocki would have visited during his travels, while others are fictionalized accounts of actual places.  While there is still some dispute about the novel's authorship, it is now generally accepted to have indeed been written by Potocki. He began writing it in the 1790s and completed it in 1814, a year before his death, though the novel's structure is thought to have been fully mapped out by 1805.  The novel was never published in its entirety during Potocki's lifetime. A proof edition of the first ten "days" was circulated in Saint Petersburg in 1805, and a second extract was published in Paris in 1813, almost certainly with Potocki's permission. A third publication, combining both earlier extracts, was issued in 1814, but it appears that at the time of his death Potocki had not yet decided on the novel's final form.  Potocki composed the book entirely in the French language. Sections of the original manuscripts were later lost, but have survived in a Polish translation that was made in 1847 by Edmund Chojecki from a complete French copy, now lost.  The most recent and complete French-language version, edited by François Rosset and Dominique Triaire, was published in 2006 in Leuven, Belgium, as part of a critical scholarly edition of the complete works of Potocki. Unlike Radrizzani's 1989 edition of the "Manuscript Found in Saragossa", Rosset and Triaire's edition has been based solely on Potocki's French-language manuscripts found in several libraries in France, Poland (in particular, previously unknown autograph pieces that they discovered in Poznań), Spain, and Russia, as well as in the private collection of Potocki's heirs. They identified two versions of the novel: one unfinished, of 1804, published in 1805, and the full version of 1810, which appears to have been completely reconceived in comparison to the 1804 version. Whereas the first version has a lighter, more sceptical tone, the second one tends towards a darker, more religious mood. In view of the differences between the two versions, the 1804 and 1810 versions have been published as two separate books; paperback editions were issued in early 2008 by Flammarion.  The first English-language edition, published in 1995, was a translation of Radrizzani's edition by Oxford scholar Ian Maclean. Potocki's novel became more widely known in the West via the stylish black-and-white film adaptation made in Poland in 1965 as "The Saragossa Manuscript" ("Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie"), directed by renowned filmmaker Wojciech Has and starring Zbigniew Cybulski as Alphonse van Worden.

Travel memoirs.

Modern editions have appeared as follows:

Count Jan Potocki (; 8 March 1761 – 23 December 1815) was a Polish nobleman, Polish Army Captain of Engineers, ethnologist, Egyptologist, linguist, traveler, adventurer, and popular author of the Enlightenment period, whose life and exploits made him a legendary figure in his homeland. Outside Poland he is known chiefly for his novel, "The Manuscript Found in Saragossa".


Distribution.

The range of this beetle stretches from Portugal and Ireland in the west, right across Europe and Asia to China in the east. It also survives further north than any other firefly, almost reaching the Arctic Circle. It is not found in North America, South America, South Asia, Africa, Australia and Antarctica.

Light production.

Light production is vital for "Lampyris noctiluca". With it they have greater chances of mating, so there is a complex process involved.  They emit yellowish-green light from the translucent underside of their last three abdominal segments to attract the smaller males, which are winged. They will glow for two hours and then retreat back into their hiding place until the next night, or stop glowing as soon as they find a mate. The females can survive for at least 10 consecutive nights doing this.  The light can be seen by males up to 50 yards away. The light is emitted continuously, although they will wave their abdomens from side to side, which gives the impression of it brightening and dimming. Larvae are sometimes seen to glow, although they seem able to turn off their light more easily than the female, especially when disturbed.  The insect can regulate its light production by controlling the oxygen supply to the light emitting membranes containing luciferin. The chemical reaction producing the light from luciferin is catalysed by luciferase, the exact chemical structure of which is determined by the glow worms' individual genetic structure, which in turn determines subtle differences in the light produced from individual to individual. Virtually all of the energy produced is light; only 2% is heat.  The brightness of the glow is used by the males as an indicator of female fecundity. Males are more likely to fly to a brighter female, because it is larger and has more eggs. Due to this, females compete against each other for matings.  The males are sometimes attracted to man-made light fixtures.  The peak glowing period is evenings in June and July.

Habitat.

They are found in old-growth grassland, especially on chalk and limestone soils. They are also found in verges, hedgebanks, and on heaths. The larvae live in sheltered places – under rocks and wood, but do crawl over different terrains.

Lifecycle.

Once the females have attracted the males with their glow, they mate, lay eggs, and die.  Typically, 50–100 are laid over three days, with the adult not surviving to see them hatch. They are laid in fairly moist places, e.g. stem of grass or under moss.  The eggs are pale yellow, 1 mm across. They may glow faintly yellow and take between 27 and 45 days to hatch depending on the weather (colder=longer).  The eggs hatch after two or three weeks. Larvae and adult females look similar, but larvae have bright spots on each of 12 segments, whereas adult females have a completely black back. The predatory larvae feed for two or three years on slugs and snails which they inject with a brown, toxic, digestive fluid, delivered by a series of nips and bites. The poison takes a while to work, and the larva has to be careful not to become stuck to any protective mucus that its prey may secrete. The prey is gradually paralysed and the digestive fluid turns part of it into a brown broth that the larva can lap up. The prey remains alive, and some partially eaten victims have been known to crawl away after the meal.  The slugs and snails are often 200 times the weight of the beetle larva. The larvae are nocturnal, and are most active during moist conditions, when their prey are most active.  The larvae may moult four to five times in their lifetimes. They spend their winters under logs, stones, wood holes, or leaf litter, their bodies drawn in like concertinas, hibernating as their food source becomes increasingly hard to find. They wake up in spring, and the cycle is repeated for one more year, or possibly two.  They become adults from May to July or sometimes later, surviving on food reserves built up during time as a larva, and dying after reproducing.

Threats to species numbers.

Threats include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, pollution, distraction from artificial lights, insufficient grazing and climate change.

Lampyris noctiluca, the common glow-worm of Europe (see also "glowworm"), is a firefly species of the genus "Lampyris". These are beetles, as evidenced by the hard cases which close over the wings when they are not in use.


Life.

Apel grew up during the political crises of the Weimar Republic. In 1940, he was a war volunteer with his entire graduating class. After the Second World War, Apel studied from 1945 to 1950 at the University of Bonn, first history and intellectual history, before he committed himself as a student of Erich Rothacker on philosophy. In 1950, he received his doctorate from Bonn with a thesis on Martin Heidegger.

Academic positions.

Apel was appointed lecturer at the University of Mainz in 1961. He was a full professor of philosophy at the University of Kiel from 1962 to 1969, at the University of Saarbrücken from 1969 to 1972, and at the University of Frankfurt am Main from 1972 to 1990. In 1990, he transferred to emeritus status. He has held a number of visiting and guest professorships at universities around the world.  He was made a Member of the Academia Europaea in 1989 and a Full Member of the Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea in 1993. In 2001, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Philosophy.

Apel worked in ethics, the philosophy of language and human sciences. He wrote extensively in these fields, publishing mostly in German. Apel's work brings together the Analytical and Continental philosophical traditions, especially pragmatism and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School.  In "Understanding and Explanation: A Transcendental-Pragmatic Perspective", Apel reformulated the difference between understanding ("Verstehen") and explanation ("Erklärung"), which originated in the hermeneutics of Wilhelm Dilthey and interpretive sociology of Max Weber, on the basis of a Peircean-inspired transcendental-pragmatic account of language. This account of the "lifeworld" would become an element of the theory of communicative action and discourse ethics, which Apel co-developed with Jürgen Habermas. Strategic rationality both claim to stand in need of communicative rationality that is seen as, in several regards, more fundamental. While sympathetic to Habermas's "Theory of Communicative Action", Apel has been critical of aspects of Habermas's approach. Apel has proposed that a theory of communication should be grounded in the transcendental-pragmatic conditions of communication. After taking his point of departure from Apel, Habermas has moved towards a "weak transcendentalism" that is more closely tied to empirical social inquiry.  Apel also wrote works on Charles Sanders Peirce and is a past president of the C. S. Peirce Society.  An early German-speaking adversary of so-called critical rationalism, Apel published a critique of the philosophy of Karl Popper: In "Transformation der Philosophie" (1973), Apel charged Popper with being guilty of, amongst other things, a pragmatic contradiction.  From the 1970s to the 1990s, Apel influenced other philosophers writing in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Apel died on 15 May 2017 at the age of 95.

Karl-Otto Apel (; 15 March 1922 – 15 May 2017) was a German philosopher and Professor Emeritus at the University of Frankfurt am Main. He specialized on the philosophy of language and is thus considered a communication theorist. He developed a distinctive philosophical approach which he called transcendental pragmatics ("Transzendentalpragmatik").


Description.

The short-eared owl is a medium-sized owl measuring in length and weighing. It has large eyes, a big head, a short neck, and broad wings. Its bill is short, strong, hooked and black. Its plumage is mottled tawny to brown with a barred tail and wings. The upper breast is significantly streaked. Its flight is characteristically floppy due to its irregular wingbeats. The short-eared owl may also be described as "moth or bat-like" in flight. Wingspans range from. Females are slightly larger than males. The yellow-orange eyes of "A. flammeus" are exaggerated by black rings encircling each eye, giving the appearance of them wearing mascara, and large, whitish disks of plumage surrounding the eyes like a mask.

Separation from the long-eared owl.

Through much of its range, short-eared owls occurs with the similar-looking long-eared owl. At rest, the ear-tufts of the long-eared owl serve to easily distinguish the two (although long-eared owls can sometimes hold their ear-tufts flat). The iris-colour differs: yellow in the short-eared, and orange in the long-eared, and the black surrounding the eyes is vertical on the long-eared, and horizontal on the short-eared. Overall the short-eared tends to be a paler, sandier bird than the long-eared. There are a number of other ways in which the two species the differ which are best seen when they are flying: a) the short-eared often has a broad white band along the rear edge of the wing, which is not shown by the long-eared; b) on the upperwing, short-eared owls' primary-patches are usually paler and more obvious; c) the band on the upper side of the short-eared owl's tail are usually bolder than those of the long-eared; d) the short-eared's innermost secondaries are often dark-marked, contrasting with the rest of the underwing; e) the long-eared owl has streaking throughout its underparts, whereas on the short-eared the streaking ends at the breast; f) the dark markings on the underside of the tips of the longest primaries are bolder on the short-eared owl; g) the upper parts are coarsely blotched, whereas on the long-eared they are more finely marked. The short-eared owl also differs structurally from the long-eared, having longer, slimmer wings: the long-eared owl has wings shaped more like those of a tawny owl. The long-eared owl generally has different habitat preferences from the short-eared, most often being found concealed in areas with dense wooded thickets. The short-eared owl is often most regularly seen flying about in early morning or late day as it hunts over open habitats.

Subspecies.

, there are 10 recognized subspecies of the short-eared owl:  Some authorities recognize an 11th subspecies:

Range.

The short-eared owl occurs on all continents except Antarctica and Australia; thus it has one of the most widespread distributions of any bird. "A. flammeus" breeds in Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Caribbean, Hawaii and the Galápagos Islands. It is partially migratory, moving south in winter from the northern parts of its range. The short-eared owl is known to relocate to areas of higher rodent populations. It will also wander nomadically in search of better food supplies during years when vole populations are low. (See a map of the short-eared owl's distribution across the New World.)

Behaviour.

Nesting and reproduction.

Sexual maturity is attained at one year. Breeding season in the northern hemisphere lasts from March to June, peaking in April. During this time these owls may gather in flocks. During breeding season, the males make great spectacles of themselves in flight to attract females. The male swoops down over the nest flapping its wings in a courtship display. These owls are generally monogamous.  The short-eared owl nests on the ground in prairie, tundra, savanna, or meadow habitats. Nests are concealed by low vegetation, and may be lightly lined by weeds, grass, or feathers. Approximately 4 to 7 white eggs are found in a typical clutch, but clutch size can reach up to a dozen eggs in years when voles are abundant. There is one brood per year. The eggs are incubated mostly by the female for 21–37 days. Offspring fledge at a little over four weeks. This owl is known to lure predators away from its nest by appearing to have a crippled wing.

Diet and foraging habits.

Hunting occurs mostly at night, but this owl is known to be diurnal and crepuscular as well. Its daylight hunting seems to coincide with the high-activity periods of voles, its preferred prey. It tends to fly only feet above the ground in open fields and grasslands until swooping down upon its prey feet-first. Several owls may hunt over the same open area. Its food consists mainly of rodents, especially voles, but it will eat other small mammals such as mice, ground squirrels, shrews, rats, bats, muskrats and moles. It will also occasionally predate smaller birds, especially when near sea-coasts and adjacent wetlands at which time they attack shorebirds, terns and small gulls and seabirds with semi-regularity. Avian prey is more infrequently preyed on inland and centers on passerines such as larks, icterids, starlings, tyrant flycatchers and pipits. Insects supplement the diet and short-eared owls may prey on roaches, grasshoppers, beetles, katydids and caterpillars. Competition can be fierce in North America with the northern harrier, with which the owl shares similar habitat and prey preferences. Both species will readily harass the other when prey is caught.

Pellets.

Because of the high pH in the stomach of owls they have a reduced ability to digest bone and other hard parts, they eject pellets containing the remains of their prey.

Calls.

Short-eared owls have a scratchy bark-like call. Raspy "waowk, waowk, waowk" or "toot-toot-toot-toot-toot" sounds are common. A loud "eeee-yerp" is also heard on breeding grounds. However, short-eared owls are silent on the wintering grounds.

Conservation status.

It is listed as declining in the southern portion of its US range. It is common in the northern portion of its breeding range.  It is listed as endangered in New Mexico. Its appearance at the Calverton Executive Airpark on Long Island has prompted the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to take the lead on ruling whether a massive redevelopment of the airport will receive the necessary environmental permits.

The short-eared owl ("Asio flammeus") is a species of typical owl (family Strigidae). Owls belonging to genus "Asio" are known as the eared owls, as they have tufts of feathers resembling mammalian ears. These "ear" tufts may or may not be visible. "Asio flammeus" will display its tufts when in a defensive pose, although its very short tufts are usually not visible. The short-eared owl is found in open country and grasslands. The genus name "Asio" is a type of eared owl, and "flammeus" means "flame-coloured".


Classification.

Upon their initial discovery, Jenkins and coauthors (2005) considered the Laotian rock rat to represent a completely new family. The discovery of a new species of an extant mammal genus, or a new genus, happens periodically, such as with the leaf muntjac or the saola. The discovery of a completely new family is, by comparison, much more unusual. The most recent incident before the discovery of the family Laonastidae by Western science was the discovery of the bumblebee bat ("Craseonycteris thonglongyai"; family Craseonycteridae) in 1974. The only other examples from the 20th century are species that are only considered distinct families by a few authorities. These discoveries are: the Chinese river dolphin ("Lipotes vexillifer"; family Lipotidae) in 1918, the Zagros mouse-like hamster ("Calomyscus bailwardi"; family Calomyscidae) in 1905, and Goeldi's marmoset ("Callimico goeldii"; family Callimiconidae) in 1904. Representatives from all the remaining rodent families with living representatives (approximately 30) were discovered before 1900.  Jenkins "et al." did not compare the specimens to known rodent fossils. After such a comparison, Dawson "et al." believed the Laotian rock rat belongs to a previously described family, which had only been known from fossils, the Diatomyidae. The Diatomyidae are known from a series of fossils from the early Oligocene (~32.5 mya) until the Miocene (~11 mya). The discovery of the Laotian rock rat means an 11 million-year gap exists in the fossil record where no diatomyids have been found. Dawson "et al." described the Diatomyidae as a Lazarus taxon due to this gap. The only other mammal Lazarus taxon with a comparable time gap between it and its most recently known fossil relative is the monito del monte, which is part of a marsupial family (Microbiotheriidae) also most recently known from Miocene deposits. Mary Dawson described "Laonastes" as the "coelacanth of rodents".  The analysis of mtDNA 12S rRNA and cytochrome "b" sequence by Jenkins "et al." allied "Laonastes" with African hystricognath rodents, namely the blesmols and the dassie rat. Support for such a placement was fair, but the exact position could not be resolved. Huchon "et al." conducted a large-scale molecular phylogeny of rodents, including representatives of all major rodent taxonomic groups, based on 5.5 kb of sequence data from four nuclear and two mitochondrial genes, and a short, interspersed element, insertion analysis including 11 informative loci. Their molecular data place "Laonastes" robustly as a sister clade of Ctenodactylidae, and support an ancient divergence during the Lutetian (Early/Middle Eocene, ~44 mya). The earlier molecular study was in error due to long branch attraction and inadequate sampling.

Etymology.

The genus name for this animal, "Laonastes", means "inhabitant of stone" (from Greek λαας = "laas" = stone, gen: λαος = "laos" = of stone and Greek ναστης = "nastes" = inhabitant). This is in reference to its presence around limestone rocks and also to the country where it was recently discovered. The specific epithet "aenigmamus" means "enigma mouse" (from Greek αινιγμα = "ænigma" and μυς = "mus", "mouse") referring to its unknown position among the rodents (Jenkins "et al.", 2004).

Discovery.

The first specimens were found for sale as meat at a market in Thakhek, Khammouan, in 1996. Remains of three additional animals were obtained in 1998 from villagers and in an owl pellet. Return trips to Laos by the Wildlife Conservation Society researchers uncovered several other specimens. These new discoveries have prompted the suggestion that the animals may not be as rare as once thought. On June 13, 2006, David Redfield, a professor emeritus of Florida State University, and Thai wildlife biologist Uthai Treesucon announced they had captured, photographed and videotaped a live specimen of the species in the village of Doy in Laos.

Description.

The animals look generally like rats, with thick, furred tails similar to a squirrel's, but limp. The head is large, with round ears and a somewhat bulbous bridge of the nose, and very long whiskers. Their fur is dark slate grey, with a blackish tail. The belly is lighter, with a small, whitish area in the center. Their eyes are beady and black. They are about long with a tail and weigh about. Jenkins "et al." (2004) described the jaw as hystricognathous, but Dawson "et al." argued it is sciurognathous. The infraorbital foramen is enlarged, consistent with a hystricomorphous zygomasseteric system. The pterygoid fossae do not connect to the orbit, setting them apart from the hystricognathous rodents.

Distribution.

The Laotian Rock rat is found in limestone karsts of Khammouan Province and southern Bolikhamxai Province, Laos, and also in a small area of Minh Hóa District, western Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam. In Vietnam, it is found in the 5 communes ("xã") of Thượng Hoá, Hóa Sơn, Trung Hoá, Hóa Hợp, and Dân Hoá, and in, near the villages of the Vietic-speaking Ruc, Sach, and Chut ethnic groups. It is also found directly across the border in Hin Namno National Biodiversity Conservation Area, Laos. In Laos, it is most common in the Phou Hin Poun National Biodiversity Conservation Area. Nguyen et al. suggested that the Quảng Bình and Phou Hin Poun populations may be distinct and genetically isolated from each other.  Nicolas et al. found 8 major geographical clades and 8 to 16 evolutionary significant units among Laotian rock rat populations in Laos, and suggested that "Laonastes" may in fact consist of various undescribed cryptic species.

Natural history.

Laotian rock rats are found in regions of karst limestone. They appear to be found only among limestone boulders on hillsides. Villagers in the area are familiar with the animal, calling it "kha-nyou", and trapping it for food. The animals are presumed to be nocturnal.  These rock rats appear to be predominantly herbivores, eating leaves, grass and seeds. They may eat insects, as well, but probably not in high abundance. Females may give birth to a single young.  Laotian rock rats appear to be quite docile and slow-moving over open ground. They walk with feet splayed outward in a gait described as duck-like. Although not ideal for mobility on open surfaces, this appears to be efficient when scrambling up and across large rocks. The sideways angle allows for greater surface area for their feet to find purchase on tilted or parallel surfaces.

The Laotian rock rat or kha-nyou ("Laonastes aenigmamus", Lao: ຂະຍຸ), sometimes called the "rat-squirrel", is a species of rodent found in the Khammouan region of Laos. The species was first described in a 2005 article by Paulina Jenkins and coauthors, who considered the animal to be so distinct from all living rodents, they placed it in a new family, Laonastidae. It is in the monotypic genus "Laonastes". In 2006, the classification of the Laotian rock rat was disputed by Mary Dawson and coauthors. They suggested the rat belongs to the ancient fossil family Diatomyidae, which was thought to have been extinct for 11 million years, since the late Miocene. It would thereby represent a Lazarus species. The animals resemble large, dark rats with hairy, thick tails like those of a squirrel. Their skulls are very distinctive and have features that separate them from all other living mammals.


Biography.

Alain-Fournier was born in La Chapelle-d'Angillon, in the Cher "département", in central France, the son of a school teacher. He studied at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris, where he prepared for the entrance examination to the École Normale Supérieure, but without success. He then studied at the merchant marine school in Brest. At the Lycée Lakanal, he met Jacques Rivière, and the two became close friends. In 1909, Rivière married Alain-Fournier's younger sister Isabelle.  He interrupted his studies in 1907 and from 1908 to 1909 he performed his military service. At this time he published some essays, poems and stories which were later collected and re-published under the name "Miracles".  Throughout this period he was mulling over what would become his celebrated novel, "Le Grand Meaulnes". On the first of June 1905, Ascension day, while he was taking a stroll along banks of the Seine he had met Yvonne Marie Elise Toussaint de Quiévrecourt, with whom he became deeply enamoured. The two spoke, but he did not manage to win her favour. The following year on the same day he waited for her at the same place, but she did not appear. That night he told Rivière, "She did not come. And even if she had, she would not have been the same". They did not meet again until eight years later, when she was married with two children. Yvonne de Quiévrecourt would become Yvonne de Galais in his novel.  He returned to Paris in 1910 and became a literary critic, writing for the "Paris-Journal". There he met André Gide and Paul Claudel. In 1912, he quit his job to become the personal assistant of the politician Casimir Perrier. "Le Grand Meaulnes" was finished in early 1913, and was first published in the Nouvelle Revue Française (from July to October 1913), and then as a book. "Le Grand Meaulnes" was nominated for, but did not win, the Prix Goncourt. It is available in English in a widely admired 1959 translation by Frank Davison for Oxford University Press under the title "The Lost Domain".  In 1914, Alain-Fournier started work on a second novel, "Colombe Blanchet", but this remained unfinished when he joined the Army as a lieutenant in August. He died fighting near Vaux-lès-Palameix (Meuse) one month later, on 22 September 1914. His body remained unidentified until 1991, at which time he was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Remy-la-Calonne.  Most of the writing of Alain-Fournier was published posthumously: "Miracles" (a volume of poems and essays) in 1924, his correspondence with Jacques Rivière in 1926 and his letters to his family in 1930. His notes and sketches for "Colombe Blanchet" have also been published.

Albin Schram manuscripts.

A correspondence between Alain-Fournier and an unidentified woman was found in the Albin Schram Collection. It is a grateful letter for her introduction to Monsieur Hébrard and refers to his next work:  "Il m'a proposé pour" Le Temps "ce qu'il était le plus logique de me proposer: lui apporter mon prochain roman – ce que j'ai promis bien volontiers. Ce second roman est, pour l'instant un peu retardé par une nouvelle oeuvre qui s'est mise au travers de ma route et qui ne me laisse pas beaucoup de répit. Mais j'espère bien avant la fin de l'année avoir terminé" Colombe Blanchet.  He has proposed to me for "Le Temps" that which was the most logical thing to propose to me: to bring him my next novel – which I have promised quite willingly. This second novel is, for the moment, somewhat delayed by a new work which has placed itself across my path and which doesn't leave me much respite. But I hope well before the end of the year to have finished "Colombe Blanchet".

AJRAF.

In 1975, AJRAF – "Association des amis de Jacques Rivière et d'Alain-Fournier" (Association of the Friends of Jacques Rivière and of Alain-Fournier) was founded by Alain Rivière, the son of Jacques Rivière and nephew of Alain-Fournier to "promote knowledge of these two authors and to gather their friends together".

Inspiration for artists.

Alain-Fournier has inspired the artist Jean-Louis Berthod, from Albens, who carved in 2014 a lime wood board (130 cm × 140 cm) according to "Le Grand Meaulnes".

Alain-Fournier () was the pseudonym of Henri-Alban Fournier (3 October 1886 – 22 September 1914), a French author and soldier. He was the author of a single novel, "Le Grand Meaulnes" (1913), which has been twice filmed and is considered a classic of French literature. The book is partly based on his childhood unfolding in an atmosphere of mystical unreality beyond which the world of adulthood is perceived.


Plot.

In 3067 BC, the Scorpion King leads his army to conquer the world. However, his army is defeated and exiled to the desert of Ahm Shere, where his men die of heat exhaustion. After vowing to give Anubis his soul for the power to defeat his enemies, an oasis and pyramid magically form, and the Scorpion King is given a legion of jackal-like warriors. The Army of Anubis sweeps across Egypt, but once their task is finished, Anubis claims the Scorpion King's soul and the army returns to the Underworld.  In 1933, Rick O'Connell and his wife Evelyn explore ancient ruins with their son, Alex, where they find the Bracelet of Anubis. In London, the bracelet locks onto Alex, showing him a vision directing him to Ahm Shere.  Evelyn is captured by an Egyptian cult who resurrect Imhotep with the "Book of the Dead"; they wish to use his power to defeat the Scorpion King, giving him command of Anubis' army to conquer the world. The cult, led by Baltus Hafez, includes enforcer Lock-Nah and Meela Nais, the reincarnation of Imhotep's love Anck-su-namun. The O'Connells set out to rescue Evelyn, accompanied by her brother Jonathan and the Medjai Ardeth Bay. Jonathan gets his hands on a mysterious golden Scepter of Osiris.  Rick frees Evelyn and flees, but Alex is subsequently kidnapped by Lock-Nah, and forced to travel to Egypt along with the cult. The O'Connells pursue them, along with help from Rick's associate Izzy, a pilot who provides the group with transportation.  The bracelet gives Alex directions to Ahm Shere that Imhotep and the cult follow. At each location, Alex leaves clues for his parents, who follow in Izzy's dirigible. Imhotep uses the "Book of the Dead" to give Meela the soul of Anck-su-namun, but by doing so he allows Evelyn to unlock the memories of her previous life as Princess Nefertiri, the bracelet's keeper and Pharaoh Seti I's daughter.  At the edge of the Oasis, Imhotep uses his magic to crash the dirigible; Izzy stays behind in hopes of repairing it. By nightfall, the O'Connells infiltrate the cult, but both groups are attacked by pygmy mummies. Rick retrieves Alex while Ardeth Bay kills Lock-Nah. They escape the pygmies, who kill all the cult members except for Baltus, Imhotep and Anck-su-namun.  Rick and Alex eventually make it to the pyramid at dawn, and the bracelet detaches from Alex. Anck-su-namun arrives and kills Evelyn, escaping into the pyramid with Imhotep and Baltus. Rick pursues them. Inside the pyramid, Baltus puts on the bracelet and revives the army. Anubis takes Imhotep's powers, wanting Imhotep to fight as a mortal.  Rick finds Imhotep summoning the Scorpion King and fights him. The Scorpion King, now an enormous monster, interrupts the fight and attacks Rick. At the same time, Ardeth and the Medjai battle Anubis's resurrected army outside. While Rick and the Scorpion King fight, Baltus is killed. Jonathan and Alex steal the "Book of the Dead" from Anck-su-namun and use it to resurrect Evelyn, who confronts Anck-su-namun while Alex and Jonathan go to help Rick.  Rick discovers Jonathan’s scepter is actually a weapon, a spear that can kill the Scorpion King. The Medjai seem to defeat Anubis' army, but realize it was only the vanguard; the full army appears and charges toward them. Rick gets the scepter/spear from Jonathan and kills the Scorpion King, sending him and his army back into the Underworld, which causes the Oasis to begin to destroy itself.  Rick and Imhotep are thrown back and hang above a pit that leads to the underworld. Evelyn risks her life to save Rick, but Anck-su-namun abandons Imhotep, who chooses to let go and fall into the pit, heartbroken. While trying to escape, Anck-su-namun falls into a pit of scorpions and dies. The O'Connells reach the top of the pyramid. Izzy arrives with a modified dirigible and rescues the O'Connells just before the oasis and the pyramid are totally destroyed. They depart into the sunset, with Ardeth Bay saluting them before riding off.

Reception.

Box office.

"The Mummy Returns" has earned the gross profit (the worldwide box office minus the budget) of $335,013,000, which, taking inflation into account, is a few percent lower than "The Mummy" gross profit ($335,933,000). On its opening day, the film earned $24,134,667. The film grossed $202,019,785 in the United States and Canada box offices and $230,993,489 elsewhere, totaling in $433,013,274 worldwide.

Critical.

"The Mummy Returns" received mixed reviews from critics. It currently holds a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 140 reviews. Metacritic reported, based on 31 reviews, an average rating of 48 out of 100. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A-“ on an A+ to F scale.  Roger Ebert, who awarded the first film three stars, gave the second film only two, saying that "The mistake of "The Mummy Returns" is to abandon the characters, and to use the plot only as a clothesline for special effects and action sequences." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film two and a half stars (out of four), calling it "hollow, lightweight entertainment—not unpleasant, but far from the summer's definitive action/adventure flick.  Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" gave the film a positive review, praising its "constant plot turns, cheeky sensibility and omnipresent action sequences." Todd McCarthy of Variety praised "the nonstop action of the final hour", saying that it "bursts with visual goodies."  Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" gave the film a negative review, saying that it "has all of the clank but none of the swank of the previous version." Charles Taylor of Salon.com was also not impressed, calling "The Mummy Returns" "everything the first "Mummy" was fun for not being."

Home media.

The film debuted on VHS and DVD on October 2, 2001. It was subsequently released on the high-definition Blu-ray format in July 2008, and on 4K in 2017.

Soundtrack.

The Mummy Returns: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on May 1, 2001 by Decca Records.  It contains the score composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri as well as a version of the song "Forever May Not Be Long Enough" by the rock band Live, which slightly differs from the song's album version.

The Mummy Returns is a 2001 American action-adventure fantasy horror film, written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Patricia Velásquez, and Dwayne Johnson. The film is a sequel to the 1999 film "The Mummy". It was distributed by Universal Pictures.


French Revolution.

Louis Baraguay d'Hilliers was born in Paris. He was a minor noble and entered the French Army as a lieutenant in 1784. At the start of the French Revolutionary Wars, he decided to remain in France. By 1793, he had been promoted during the siege of Mainz to général de brigade and served as chief of staff to Adam Custine. When Custine was arrested, Baraguey d'Hilliers was arrested as well. Luckier than his chief who died under the guillotine, he was released after the overthrow and execution of Maximilien Robespierre.  In 1796, Baraguey d'Hilliers commanded part of Paris against insurgents. After another spell in prison on suspicion of royalist tendencies, he was posted to Louis Hoche's army. Transferred to Italy, he served under Napoléon Bonaparte as governor of Lombardy. He was involved in the capture of Bergamo. He led a brigade in Gabriel Rey's division at the Battle of Rivoli. Promoted to général de division in 1797 he was appointed governor of Venice.  In 1798, he accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt but after the French captured Malta he was sent back to France with the trophies. However, on his way back his ship was intercepted by the Royal Navy and he became a prisoner. After his release he faced a court martial but was acquitted. Then he joined Jacques MacDonald as his chief of staff. In 1800, he fought under Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr at the Battle of Stockach on 3 May and six days later at Biberach. Later he was assigned to guard the Valtellina.

Napoleonic Wars.

In 1801, Baraguey d'Hilliers was appointed Inspector General of infantry and in 1804 he became colonel general of the dragoons. He commanded a dragoon division of the cavalry reserve during the campaign of 1805. He fought under Marshal Michel Ney at the Battle of Elchingen. In 1808 he again became governor of Venice.  During the campaign of 1809 Baraguey d'Hilliers served under Viceroy Eugène de Beauharnais. At the Battle of Piave River he commanded a two-division corps. He also distinguished himself at the Battle of Raab where he led one division of his corps. He then served for some time as governor of the County of Tyrol with orders to pacify the region. In 1810 he was sent to Spain where he served in Catalonia. Recalled from Spain, he served in the Russian campaign of 1812 where his troops were assigned to guard Smolensk after that city was captured by the French. During the retreat from Moscow, Emperor Napoleon ordered Baraguey d'Hilliers to march east to meet him. However, instead of joining Napoleon, his division marched into the jaws of the advancing Russian army. The Russians surrounded one of his brigades and forced it to surrender on November 9. For this incident, Baraguey d'Hilliers fell into disgrace with the emperor. He died in January 1813 in Berlin.

Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers (13 August 1764 – 6 January 1813) was a French Army general who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was the father of Achille Baraguey d'Hilliers, a Marshal of France, and the father-in-law of General Damrémont, governor-general of Algeria.


Biography.

Bennigsen was born on 10 February 1745 into a Hanoverian noble family in Braunschweig (English toponym: Brunswick). His family owned several estates at Banteln in Hanover. Bennigsen served successively as a page at the Hanoverian court and as an officer of foot-guards, and four years later, in 1763, as captain, he participated in the final campaign of the Seven Years' War. In 1764, after the death of his father and his marriage to Baroness Steimberg, he retired from the Hanoverian army, and settled at the estates he owned in Banteln. In 1773, shortly after reentering Hanoverian service for a brief period, he entered the Russian service as a field officer, and was subsequently accepted into the Vyatka musketeer regiment in the same year. He fought against the Turks in 1774 and in 1778, becoming lieutenant-colonel in the latter year. In 1787 his conduct at the storming of Ochakov won him promotion to the rank of brigadier, and he distinguished himself repeatedly in smashing the Kościuszko Uprising and in the Persian War of 1796 where he fought at Derbent. On 9 July 1794, he was promoted to Major General for his accomplishments in the former campaign, and on 26 September 1794 he was awarded the Order of St. George of the Third Degree and an estate in Minsk guberniya.  In 1798 Bennigsen was fired from military service by the Tsar Paul I allegedly because of his connections with Platon Zubov. It is known that he took an active part in the planning phase of the conspiracy to assassinate Paul I, but his role in the actual killing remains a matter of conjecture. Tsar Alexander I made him governor-general of Lithuania in 1801, and in 1802 a general of cavalry.  In 1806 Bennigsen was in command of one of the Russian armies operating against Napoleon, when he fought the Battle of Pultusk and met the emperor in person in the bloody battle of Eylau (8 February 1807). In the Battle of Pultusk he resisted French troops under Jean Lannes before retreating. This brought him the Order of St. George of the Second Degree while after the battle of Eylau he was awarded Order of St. Andrew - the highest order in the Russian empire. Here he could claim to have inflicted the first reverse suffered by Napoleon, but six months later Bennigsen met with the crushing defeat of Friedland (14 June 1807) the direct consequence of which was the treaty of Tilsit.  Bennigsen was heavily criticised for the Battle of Friedland and for the decline of discipline in the army and now retired for some years, but in the campaign of 1812 he reappeared in the army in various responsible positions. He was present at Borodino, and defeated Murat in the engagement of Tarutino where he himself was wounded in the leg, but on account of a quarrel with Marshal Kutuzov, the Russian commander-in-chief, he was compelled to retire from active military employment. After the death of Kutuzov, Bennigsen was recalled and placed at the head of an army. Bennigsen participated in the battles of Bautzen and Lützen, leading one of the columns that made the decisive attack on the last day of the Battle of Leipzig (16–19 October 1813). On the same evening he was made a count by the emperor Alexander I, and he afterwards commanded the forces which operated against Marshal Davout in North Germany, most notably in the year-long Siege of Hamburg (1813–14). After the Treaty of Fontainebleau he was awarded the St. George order of the First Degree - the highest Russian military order - for his actions in the Napoleonic wars in general.  After the general peace Bennigsen held a command from 1815 to 1818, when he retired from active service and settled on his Hanoverian estate of Banteln near Hildesheim. By the end of his life he completely lost his sight. He died on 31 December 1826, in Banteln, eight years after he had retired. His son, Count "Alexander Levin von Bennigsen" (1809-1893) was a distinguished Hanoverian statesman.  Bennigsen wrote the three-volume ""Mémoires du général Bennigsen"", which was published in Paris in 1907-1908. Though they contain "fascinating" details regarding the Russian wars and battles between 1806-1813, the work often beautifies historical facts.

Levin August Gottlieb Theophil Graf von Bennigsen (, also Лео́нтий Лео́нтьевич Бе́ннигсен ("Leóntii Leónt'yevich"); 10 February 1745 – 3 December 1826) was a German general in the service of the Russian Empire.


Biography.

Kálnoky was born in Letovice (Lettowitz), Moravia to an old Transylvanian family which had held comital rank in Hungary from the 17th century. After spending some years in a hussar regiment, in 1854 he entered the diplomatic service without giving up his connection with the army, in which he reached the rank of general in 1879. He was for the ten years (1860–1870) secretary of embassy at London, and then, after serving at Rome and Copenhagen, was in 1880 appointed ambassador at St. Petersburg. His success in Russia procured for him, on the death of Baron Heinrich Karl von Haymerle in 1881, the appointment of minister of foreign affairs for Austria-Hungary, a post which he held for fourteen years.  Essentially a diplomatist, he took little or no part in the vexed internal affairs of the Dual Monarchy, and he came little before the public except at the annual statement on foreign affairs before the Delegations. His management of the affairs of his department was, however, very successful; he confirmed and maintained the alliance with Germany, which had been formed by his predecessors, and co-operated with Bismarck in the arrangements by which Italy joined the alliance. Kálnoky's special influence was seen in the improvement of Austrian relations with Russia, following on the meeting of the three emperors in September 1884 at Skierniewice, at which he was present. His Russophile policy caused some adverse criticism in Hungary. His friendliness for Russia did not, however, prevent him from strengthening the position of Austria as against Russia in the Balkan Peninsula by the establishment later of a closer political and commercial understanding with Serbia and Romania. In 1885 he interfered after the battle of Slivnitsa to arrest the advance of the Bulgarians on Belgrade, but he lost influence in Serbia after the abdication of King Milan.  Though he kept aloof from the Clerical party, Kálnoky was a strong Catholic; and his sympathy for the difficulties of the Church caused adverse comment in Italy, when, in 1891, he stated in a speech before the Delegations that the question of the position of the Pope was still unsettled. He subsequently explained that by this he did not refer to the Roman question, which was permanently settled, but to the possibility of the Pope leaving Rome. The jealousy felt in Hungary against the Ultramontanes led to his fall. In 1895 a case of clerical interference in the internal affairs of Hungary by the nuncio Antonio Agliardi aroused a strong protest in the Hungarian parliament, and consequent differences between Dezső Bánffy, the Hungarian minister, and the minister for foreign affairs led to Kálnoky's resignation. He died in Brodek u Prostějova (Prödlitz).  He was awarded the Serbian order of Order of the Cross of Takovo.

Count Gustav Siegmund Kálnoky (Hungarian: "gróf Kálnoky Gusztáv Zsigmond") (December 29, 1832February 13, 1898), was an Austro-Hungarian diplomat and statesman.


Life.

Richard von Mises was born in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine) into a Jewish family, eighteen months after his brother Ludwig von Mises, who later became a prominent economist of the Austrian School. His parents were Arthur Edler von Mises, a doctor of technical sciences who worked as an expert for the Austrian State Railways, and Adele Landau. Richard and Ludwig also had a younger brother, who died as an infant. Richard attended the Akademisches Gymnasium in Vienna, from which he graduated with honors in Latin and mathematics in autumn 1901. After graduating in mathematics, physics and engineering from the Vienna University of Technology, he was appointed as Georg Hamel's assistant in Brünn (now Brno). In 1905, still a student, he published an article on the geometry of curves called "Zur konstruktiven Infinitesimalgeometrie der ebenen Kurven," in the prestigious "Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik". In 1908 Mises was awarded a doctorate from Vienna (his dissertation was on "the determination of flywheel masses in crank drives") and he received his habilitation from Brünn (now Brno) (on "Theory of the Waterwheels") to lecture on engineering. In 1909, at 26, he was appointed professor of applied mathematics in Straßburg, then part of the German Empire (now Strasbourg, Alsace, France) and received Prussian citizenship. His application for a teaching position at the Brno University of Technology was interrupted by the First World War.  Before the war he had already become a pilot and lectured on the design of aircraft, and in 1913 at Strasbourg he gave the first university course on powered flight. On the outbreak of war it was natural for him to join the Austro-Hungarian army as a test pilot and a flying instructor. In 1915, he supervised the construction of a 600-horsepower (450 kW) aircraft – the "Mises-Flugzeug" (Mises aircraft) for the Austrian army. It was completed in 1916 but never saw active war service.  After the war, Mises held the new chair of hydrodynamics and aerodynamics at the Dresden "Technische Hochschule". In 1919 he was appointed director (and full professor) at the new Institute of Applied Mathematics created at the behest of Erhard Schmidt at the University of Berlin. In 1921 he founded the journal "Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik" and became its editor.  With the rise of the National Socialist Party to power in 1933, Mises felt his position threatened, despite his First World War military service. He moved to Turkey, where he held the newly created chair of Pure and Applied Mathematics at the University of Istanbul. In 1939 he accepted a position in the United States, where in 1944 he was appointed as Gordon McKay Professor of Aerodynamics and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. He married Hilda Geiringer in 1943; she had been his assistant at the Institute and followed him to Turkey and then to the U.S. after losing her position in December 1933.  In 1950 Mises declined an offer of honorary membership from the Communist-dominated East German Academy of Science.

Contributions.

In aerodynamics, von Mises made notable advances in boundary-layer-flow theory and airfoil design. He developed the "distortion energy theory" of stress, which is one of the most important concepts used by engineers in material strength calculations.  His ideas were not unanimously well received, although Alexander Ostrowski had said of him: "Only with the appointment of Richard von Mises to the University of Berlin did the first serious German school of applied mathematics with a broad sphere of influence come into existence. Von Mises was an incredibly dynamic person and at the same time amazingly versatile like Runge. He was especially well versed in the realm of technology." and also wrote "Because of his dynamic personality his occasional major blunders were somehow tolerated. One has even forgiven him his theory of probability." Yet Andrey Kolmogorov, whose rival axiomatisation was better received, was less severe: "The basis for the applicability of the results of the mathematical theory of probability to real 'random phenomena' must depend on some form of the frequency concept of probability, the unavoidable nature of which has been established by von Mises in a spirited manner."  In solid mechanics, von Mises made an important contribution to the theory of plasticity by formulating what has become known as the von Mises yield criterion, independently of Tytus Maksymilian Huber.  He is also often credited for the Principle of Maximum Plastic Dissipation.  The Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (International Association of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics) has awarded a Richard von Mises-Preis (Prize) since 1989.  In probability theory, he was the person who originally proposed the now famous "birthday problem". He also defined the impossibility of a gambling system.

Richard Edler von Mises (; 19 April 1883 – 14 July 1953) was an Austrian scientist and mathematician who worked on solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, aeronautics, statistics and probability theory. He held the position of Gordon McKay Professor of Aerodynamics and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. He described his work in his own words shortly before his death as being on


Biography.

On the Hainfeld Party Convention of 1888/1889, Jakob Reumann was designated first secretary of the newly founded Social Democratic Party, which then united social democrats of the whole multinational Austrian part of Austria-Hungary. From 1900, he has been elected member of Vienna's "Gemeinderat" (city parliament), from 1907 member of the Austrian "Reichsrat" (parliament). In 1917 city councillor, in 1918 vice-mayor, he was elected mayor on 21 May 1919, the first social democratic mayor in the history of Vienna. 1918/1919 he was also a member of the Provisional National Council of German Austria ("Provisorische Nationalversammlung für Deutschösterreich").  In 1922, as mayor he became "Landeshauptmann" (governor) of the new State of Vienna. The same year saw the opening of Feuerhalle Simmering, the first crematorium in Austria. Reumann had to defend this decision at the Constitutional Court as he had granted building permission for the crematorium against the order of a federal minister from the Christian Social Party.  In 1923, the "Gemeinderat" concluded on the first large housing programme to build 25,000 flats within five years. On 13 November 1923 Jakob Reumann stepped down as mayor and was made honorary citizen of Vienna. His ashes are buried at Feuerhalle Simmering in Vienna. A few weeks after his death in 1925, in the tenth district, Favoriten, a workers' district where Reumann had his personal roots, a square was named "Reumannplatz". This is today the southern terminal of underground line no. 1 and the site of attractive "Amalienbad" (Amalia Spa).

Jakob Reumann (31 December 1853 in Vienna – 29 July 1925 in Klagenfurt) was an Austrian Social Democratic politician and the first social democratic mayor of Vienna from 1919 to 1923.


Life.

Childhood.

Agnes was the daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia, making her a descendant of Saint Ludmila and Saint Wenceslaus, patron saints of Bohemia. Agnes' mother was Constance of Hungary, who was the sister of King Andrew II of Hungary, so Agnes was a first cousin to St. Elizabeth of Hungary.  When she was three years old, Agnes was entrusted to the care of St. Hedwig of Andechs, the wife of Duke Henry I the Bearded of Silesia. Hedwig placed her to be educated by a community of Cistercian nuns in a monastery which she herself had founded in Trzebnica. Upon her return to Prague, Agnes was entrusted to a priory of Premonstratensian Canonesses to continue her education.

Arranged marriages.

At the age of eight, Agnes was betrothed to Henry, son of the Emperor Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. Henry was ten years old and had just been crowned King of Germany. According to custom, Agnes should have spent her childhood at her future husband's court. Emperor Frederick, King of Sicily, had his court in Palermo, but his son Henry, King of Germany, lived in Germany at the palace of Archbishop Engelbert in Cologne.  Agnes was sent to the court of Duke Leopold VI of Babenberg. Leopold, however, wanted the young Henry to marry his own daughter, Margaret. After being betrothed for six years, Henry and Agnes's betrothal contract was cancelled. Like other noble women of her time, Agnes was a valuable political pawn. In 1226, Agnes's father Ottokar went to war against the Babenbergs as a result of the cancelled betrothal. Ottokar then planned for Agnes to marry Henry III of England, but this was vetoed by the Emperor, who wanted to marry Agnes himself.

Foundress.

Agnes refused to play any more part in a politically arranged marriage. She decided to devote her life to prayer and spiritual works, for which she sought the help of Pope Gregory IX. Emperor Frederick is said to have remarked: "If she had left me for a mortal man, I would have taken vengeance with the sword, but I cannot take offence because in preference to me she has chosen the King of Heaven."  On land donated by her brother, Wenceslaus I, King of Bohemia, she founded the Hospital of St. Francis ("circa" 1232-33) and two friaries for the Franciscan friars, who had just come to Bohemia at her brother's invitation. Through them, Agnes learned of Clare of Assisi and her Order of Poor Ladies, the monastic counterpart of the friars. She began a correspondence with Clare (which lasted for over two decades), which led to Clare's sending five nuns from the monastery in Assisi to Prague to begin a new house of the order. This was the first Poor Clare community north of the Alps.  Agnes built a monastery and friary complex attached to the hospital. It housed the Franciscan friars and the Poor Clare nuns who worked at the hospital. This religious complex was one of the first Gothic buildings in Prague. In 1235, Agnes gave the property of the Teutonic Knights in Bohemia to the hospital. She herself became a member of the Franciscan Poor Clares in 1236. As a nun, she cooked for and mended the clothes of lepers and paupers, even after becoming abbess of the Prague Clares the following year. As can be seen in their correspondence, Clare wrote with deep maternal feelings toward Agnes, though they never met.  A lay group working at the hospital was organized by Agnes in 1238 as a new military order, dedicated primarily to nursing, known as the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, following the Rule of St. Augustine. That next year, Agnes handed over all authority over the hospital she had founded to these monastic knights. They were recognized as an order by Pope Gregory IX in 1236-37.  Agnes lived out her life in the cloister, leading the monastery as abbess, until her death on 2 March 1282.

Legacy.

The Monastery of the Holy Savior, renamed the Convent of Saint Agnes, () began to fall into decline after the Hussite Wars of the 15th century. The community was abolished in 1782. Restored in the 1960s, the building is now a branch of the National Gallery in Prague, featuring the medieval Central European and Bohemian collection.

Veneration.

In 1874, Pope Pius IX beatified Agnes. Pope John Paul II canonized Blessed Agnes on 12 November 1989. While she was known by her contemporaries because of her supposed visions and healing, such as her prophecy that King Wenceslaus would be victorious in his battle against the Austrians, her canonization was based on her practice of the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity to an extraordinary degree, and the Church's view is confirmed either through a miracle granted by God in answer to the saint's prayers, or as in this case, by the continuing devotion of the Christian faithful to a saint's example across centuries.  Though Agnes died in 1282, she is still venerated by Christians around the world more than 700 years later. She was honored in 2011, the 800th anniversary of her birth, as the Saint of the Overthrow of Communism, with a year dedicated to her by Catholics in the Czech Republic.

Cultural reference.

On the occasion of the eight-hundredth anniversary of St. Agnes’ birth, the Prague Archbishopric in cooperation with the National Gallery in Prague organized an exhibition called "Saint Agnes of Bohemia – Princess and Nun" at the national cultural heritage site, the Convent of Saint Agnes in Prague (Old Town). The exhibition was held from November 25, 2011 to March 25, 2012. A similar exhibition, also honoring St. Agnes of Bohemia, took place some 80 years ago. The exposition held about 300 exhibits. Contributing partners included are the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, the National Archives and Charles University.

Agnes of Bohemia, O.S.C. (, 20 June 1211 – 2 March 1282), also known as Agnes of Prague, was a medieval Bohemian princess who opted for a life of charity, mortification of the flesh and piety over a life of luxury and comfort. Although she was venerated soon after her death, Agnes was not beatified or canonized for over 700 years.


Family and early life.

Born in Kismarton (Eisenstadt), Kingdom of Hungary, Paul was the third son of Nicholas, Count Esterházy of Galántha and his second wife Baroness Krisztina Nyáry of Bedegh. His father, Nicholas, bore the office of the Palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary.  Paul was raised in a deeply religious atmosphere and studied at Jesuit institutions in Graz and Nagyszombat. He displayed literary talents at an early age.  On 16 August 1652, Paul's elder brother Ladislaus was killed in the Battle of Vezekény (Vezekey) against the Turks. Paul succeeded Ladislaus as Count Esterházy of Galántha and inherited the family's vast wealth and landholdings at the age of 17.

Military career.

Paul began his military career as early as 1663, and opposed the Turks in the battles of Austro-Turkish War (1663–1664) (e.g. siege of Novi Zrin in June 1664 and Battle of Saint Gotthard on 1 August 1664) under the leadership of Raimondo Montecuccoli. Paul served with distinction under Montecuccoli alongside Miklós Zrínyi. Paul served in the army with such distinction that he was appointed to the position of Field Marshal and Commander-in-chief of the Military Frontier of southern Kingdom of Hungary beginning in 1667 at the age of 30. While serving as a commander-in-chief, Paul defeated malcontents at Leutschau and Győr. Paul's troops were among the coalition that was raised for the Battle of Vienna in 1683. After the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks, Paul entered Buda in 1686 at the head of 20,000 men. Throughout his military career, Paul led the Hungarian side of the Habsburg army into battle against the Ottoman Turks a total of 16 times.  Paul throughout his life remained loyal to the Habsburgs, and therefore was not involved in the conspiracy of the Hungarian nobility in the 1670s. This loyalty was rewarded by the Habsburgs in 1681, when Paul was appointed to the position of Palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary. The wars with the Turks did not go unnoticed by the Esterházy family, because the advance of the Turks to Vienna devastated many of the family's lands and brought slaughter to many of the lands' residents.  In 1681, Paul was made a Knight of the Austrian Order of the Golden Fleece. On 8 December 1687, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor issued a princely diploma elevating Paul to a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire for his military successes against the Turks during the reconquest of Hungary and his loyalty to the House of Habsburg. The title of Prince was extended to his male descendants in 1712. On 9 December 1687, in his role as Palatine, Paul placed the Crown of Saint Stephen on the head of Archduke Joseph of Austria (later Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor) as the first Habsburg hereditary king of Hungary. As an ally of the Habsburgs, Paul had as one of his principal concerns the recatholicization of those areas of Central Europe "infected" by Protestantism. Paul's loyalty was also demonstrated in his cooperation with the Habsburg court in the subversion of civil and religious liberties.  In 1703, Paul again fought with the Habsburgs in the wars with the Kuruc, armed anti-Habsburg Hungarian rebels in Royal Hungary.  From 1711 until his death, Paul served as Lord Lieutenant of Moson County.

Building efforts.

Paul converted Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt from a medieval castle into a Baroque palace. Paul began his renovations of Schloss Esterházy in 1663. The additions made by Paul took nearly ten years to complete and gave the palace the façade it has retained to the present.  Paul further extended, ornamented, and fortified Forchtenstein Castle with architect Domenico Carlone. At Forchtenstein Castle, Paul founded the Esterházy family's treasure house and created an extensive portrait gallery of Esterházy family ancestors.

Musical career.

Paul was an accomplished musical amateur, composer, and patron of the arts. He composed numerous cantatas, the most notable of which are "Harmonia Caelestis". "Harmonia Caelestis" is a cycle of 55 sacred cantatas composed in the Baroque style published in Vienna in 1711. Paul was one of the chief compilers of the "Trophaeum Domus Inclytae Estorationae".  Paul used his great wealth in the liberal patronage of art and literature. He founded the Esterházy private chapel, famous for its solo singers, chorus, and orchestra.

Marriage and issue.

Paul was married twice. He married first to his niece Countess Orsolya Esterházy of Galántha, daughter of his brother Count István Esterházy of Galántha and his wife Countess Erzsébet Thurzó of Bethlenfalva, on 7 February 1652 in Eisenstadt. Paul's marriage to his eldest brother's daughter was done in part to prevent the division of the Esterházy family's property Paul and Orsolya had nineteen children:  After the death of his first wife, Paul married Countess Éva Thököly of Késmárk, daughter of István, Count Thököly of Késmárk and his wife Mária Gyulaffy of Rátót. Paul and Éva had the following children:

Charitable acts.

In 1671, he rescued some 3,000 Jews who had been expelled by Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor from Vienna. This led to their resettlement as tenant farmers and the founding of the Seven Municipalities () on Esterházy lands throughout Burgenland.

Death and legacy.

Paul died in Eisenstadt on 26 March 1713. To secure his fortune, Paul founded the Austrian model of the fee tail and settled his successor in his will through the establishment of two primogeniture lines for his sons Michael and Joseph. In his will, Paul left his sons Michael and Joseph two estates which were meant to remain separate, but were rejoined under Joseph's ownership in 1721.  Paul was interred in the Esterházy family crypt at the Franziskanerkirche in the Franciscan Monastery in Eisenstadt.  Most of the Princely House of Esterházy's landholdings were acquired during Paul's reign as head of the family, but his lands incurred debts totaling 1,311,733 florins by 1711.

External links.

Audio.

! colspan="3" style="background: #ACE777; color: #000000" | Hungarian nobility

Paul I, Prince Esterházy of Galántha (full German name: "Paul Fürst Esterházy von Galantha"; full Hungarian name: "galánthai herceg Esterházy Pál") (8 September 1635 – 26 March 1713) was the first Prince Esterházy of Galántha from 1687 to 1713, Palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1681 to 1713, and an Imperial Field Marshal. Paul was also an accomplished poet, harpsichordist, and composer. He actively participated in various battles against the Ottoman Turks during the Fourth Austro-Turkish War (1663–1664) and the Great Turkish War (1662–1669). Paul is credited with establishing the wealth, power, and influence of the Princely House of Esterházy.


Early life and education.

Vasella was born in Fribourg, Switzerland, in 1953. His father was a history professor at the local university, and his mother was a housewife. His desire to become a doctor began during his childhood, which was marked by several tragedies. At eight years old, he contracted TB and meningitis and spent nearly a year in hospitals. When Vasella was 13 years old, his father died from complications of surgery.  Vasella obtained his M.D. in 1980 from the University of Bern in Switzerland. He completed his residency at the University Hospital in Bern and the city hospital in Zurich, before returning to Bern as chief resident. In 1988, he changed career paths, working in the United States as a pharmaceutical sales representative and in market research. In 1989, he completed the Program for Management Development at Harvard Business School. Vasella was awarded an honorary doctorate for medicine by the University of Basel in 2002.

Career.

Vasella held a number of medical positions in Switzerland before being hired in 1988 by Sandoz Pharmaceutical Corporation, the former U.S. subsidiary of Swiss pharmaceutical company, Sandoz. He remained there until 1992, when he was promoted to CEO of parent company, Sandoz Pharma Ltd., and named a member of the Group Executive Committee.  Vasella helped to orchestrate the 1996 merger between Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy, another Swiss pharmaceutical company. The two companies combined to form Novartis AG. Vasella was appointed CEO of the combined entity and a member of the Board of Directors. In 1999, he was named Chairman of the Board of Directors.  In January 2010, Vasella decided to step down as CEO. He was replaced by his hand-picked successor, Joseph Jimenez, the Division Head of Novartis Pharmaceuticals at the time.  In January 2013, Novartis announced that Vasella would be retiring as Chairman of the Board of Directors in February 2013. Vasella was named an honorary chairman, to be succeeded by Jörg Reinhard in August 2013. According to the Ethos foundation Vasella earned from 2002 until 2012 312 Mio CHF from Novartis, and for the years before they estimated it to 60 Mio CHF, a total of 421 Mio CHF in 2013. That he should get 72 Mio CHF for a noncompetition clause at the end made him a public figure during the campaign for the Swiss referendum "against rip-off salaries".

Writing.

Vasella authored "Magic Cancer Bullet: How a Tiny Orange Pill May Rewrite Medical History " (2003), a book about the discovery and development of the breakthrough cancer drug Gleevec. The book was co-written with Robert Slater.

Personal life.

Vasella met Anne-Laurence Moret, the niece of former Sandoz CFO, CEO, and chairman Marc Moret, in 1973, and they were married in 1978. Vasella and his wife have two sons and a daughter. His older brother, Andrea Vasella, was a professor at the ETH Zurich. Vasella is a patron of the arts and enjoys skiing and spending time outdoors.

Awards and recognition.

Vasella has received numerous awards including:

Daniel Lucius Vasella (born 15 August 1953) is a Swiss medical doctor, author, and executive who served as CEO and chairman of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG, the world's fifth largest drug company. During his tenure Novartis shares fell 10%, compared to the industry average. In February 2013 Vasella was awarded close to $78 million in a "golden handshake"


Operations and history.

1996–1999.

Alexa Internet was founded in April 1996 by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat. The company's name was chosen in homage to the Library of Alexandria of Ptolemaic Egypt, drawing a parallel between the largest repository of knowledge in the ancient world and the potential of the Internet to become a similar store of knowledge. Alexa initially offered a toolbar that gave Internet users suggestions on where to go next, based on the traffic patterns of its user community. The company also offered context for each site visited: to whom it was registered, how many pages it had, how many other sites pointed to it, and how frequently it was updated.  Alexa's operations grew to include archiving of web pages as they are "crawled" and examined by an automated computer program (nicknamed a "bot" or "web crawler"). This database served as the basis for the creation of the Internet Archive accessible through the Wayback Machine. In 1998, the company donated a copy of the archive, two terabytes in size, to the Library of Congress. Alexa continues to supply the Internet Archive with Web crawls. In 1999, as the company moved away from its original vision of providing an "intelligent" search engine, Alexa was acquired by Amazon.com for approximately US$250 million in Amazon stock.

2000–2009.

Alexa began a partnership with Google in early 2002, and with the web directory DMOZ in January 2003. In December 2005, Alexa opened its extensive search index and Web-crawling facilities to third-party programs through a comprehensive set of Web services and APIs. These could be used, for instance, to construct vertical search engines that could run on Alexa's servers or elsewhere. In May 2006, Google was replaced with Windows Live Search as a provider of search results. In December 2006, Amazon released Alexa Image Search. Built in-house, it was the first major application built on the company's Web platform. In May 2007, Alexa changed their API to limit comparisons to three websites, reduce the size of embedded graphs in Flash, and add mandatory embedded BritePic advertisements.  In April 2007, the company filed a lawsuit, "Alexa v. Hornbaker," to stop trademark infringement by the Statsaholic service. In the lawsuit, Alexa alleged that Ron Hornbaker was stealing traffic graphs for profit, and that the primary purpose of his site was to display graphs that were generated by Alexa's servers. Hornbaker removed the term "Alexa" from his service name on March 19, 2007. On November 27, 2008, Amazon announced that Alexa Web Search was no longer accepting new customers, and that the service would be deprecated or discontinued for existing customers on January 26, 2009. Thereafter, Alexa became a purely analytics-focused company.  On March 31, 2009, Alexa revealed a major website redesign. The redesigned site provided new web traffic metrics—including average page views per individual user, bounce rate (the rate of users who come to, and then leave a webpage), and user time on website. In the following weeks, Alexa added more features, including visitor demographics, clickstream and web search traffic statistics. Alexa introduced these new features to compete with other web analytics services.

Alexa Traffic Rank.

A key metric published from Alexa Internet analytics is the "Alexa Traffic Rank" also simply known as "Alexa Rank". It is also referred to as "Global Rank" by Alexa Internet and is designed to be an estimate of a website's popularity., Alexa Internet's tooltip for Global Rank says the rank is calculated from a combination of daily visitors and page views on a website over a 3-month period.  The Alexa Traffic Rank can be used to monitor the popularity trend of a website and to compare the popularity of different websites.

Tracking.

Toolbar.

Alexa used to rank sites based primarily on tracking a sample set of Internet traffic—users of its toolbar for the Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. The Alexa Toolbar includes a popup blocker (which stops unwanted ads), a search box, links to Amazon.com and the Alexa homepage, and the Alexa ranking of the website that the user is visiting. It also allows the user to rate the website and view links to external, relevant websites. In early 2005, Alexa stated that there had been 10 million downloads of the toolbar, though the company did not provide statistics about active usage. Originally, web pages were only ranked amongst users who had the Alexa Toolbar installed, and could be biased if a specific audience subgroup was reluctant to take part in the rankings. This caused some controversies over how representative Alexa's user base was of typical Internet behavior, especially for less-visited sites. In 2007, Michael Arrington provided examples of Alexa rankings known to contradict data from the comScore web analytics service, including ranking YouTube ahead of Google.  Until 2007, a third-party-supplied plugin for the Firefox browser served as the only option for Firefox users after Amazon abandoned its A9 toolbar. On July 16, 2007, Alexa released an official toolbar for Firefox called Sparky. On 16 April 2008, many users reported drastic shifts in their Alexa rankings. Alexa confirmed this later in the day with an announcement that they had released an updated ranking system, claiming that they would now take into account more sources of data "beyond Alexa Toolbar users".

Certified statistics.

Using the Alexa Pro service, website owners can sign up for "certified statistics", which allows Alexa more access to a website's traffic data. Site owners input JavaScript code on each page of their website that, if permitted by the user's security and privacy settings, runs and sends traffic data to Alexa, allowing Alexa to display—or not display, depending on the owner's preference—more accurate statistics such as total page views and unique page views.

Privacy and malware assessments.

A number of antivirus companies have assessed Alexa's toolbar. The toolbar for Internet Explorer 7 was at one point flagged as malware by Microsoft Defender. Symantec classified the toolbar as "trackware" in 2007. McAfee classified it as adware, deeming it a "potentially unwanted program" in 2005 but McAfee Site Advisor rated the Alexa site "green" in 2007, finding "no significant problems", but warned of a "small fraction of downloads... that some people consider adware or other potentially unwanted programs." As of 2014, though it is possible to delete a paid subscription within an Alexa account, it is not possible to delete an account that is created at Alexa through any web interface.

Alexa Internet, Inc. is an American web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.