Literary context.

Historians have traditionally described the work as the first example of a biography of a European king. The author tried to imitate the style of that of the ancient Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, who is most famous for his "Lives of the Caesars". Einhard's biography used especially the model of the biography of Emperor Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire.

Date.

The date of the work is uncertain, and a number of theories have been put forward. The inclusion of Charlemagne's will at the end of the work makes it fairly clear that it was written after his death in 814. The first reference to the work, however, comes in a letter to Einhard from Lupus of Ferrieres, which is dated to the mid-9th century. Dates have been suggested ranging from about 817 to 833, usually based on interpretations of the text in the political context of the first years of the reign of Louis the Pious and Louis's attitude to his father. No theory has yet emerged as an obvious frontrunner, and it is likely that debate will continue.

Author.

Einhard's book is about intimate glimpses of Charlemagne's personal habits and tastes. He occupied a favoured position at Charlemagne's court so he had inside information. Einhard received advanced schooling at the monastery of Fulda sometime after 779. He was an exceptional student and was quite knowledgeable. The word was sent to Charlemagne of Einhard's expertise. He was then sent to Charlemagne’s Palace School at Aachen in 791. Einhard then received employment at Charlemagne's Frankish court about 796. He remained at this position for twenty some years. Einhard's book was expressly intended to convey his appreciation for advanced education. He wrote his biography after he had left Aachen and was living in Seligenstadt.

Einhard and Charlemagne.

Einhard's position while with Charlemagne was that of a modern minister of public works so he had intimate knowledge of his court. Einhard was also given the responsibility of many of Charlemagne's abbeys. It used to be suggested that Einhard's wife, Emma, was a daughter of Charlemagne; that can generally be disregarded as a twelfth-century fabrication, however, since there is no proof.

Reliability.

Most biographies of the Middle Ages related only good deeds of their subject, with many embellishments to improve their subject. Einhard's biography, however, is considered, for the most part, to be a trustworthy account of Charlemagne's life. It is considered an excellent account of earlier Medieval life. Despite Einhard's limitations, since it was his first attempt at a major writing, the British historian Thomas Hodgkin said, "almost all our real, vivifying knowledge of Charles the Great is derived from Einhard, and that the "Vita Karoli Magni" is one of the most precious literary bequests of the early Middle Ages."

Vita Karoli Magni ("Life of Charles the Great") is a biography of Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, written by Einhard.


Dams and reservoirs.

Four dams of major hydroelectric plants - constructed since the 1950s - exploit the waters of the Angara:  The reservoirs of these dams flooded a number of villages along the Angara and its tributaries (including the historic fort of Ilimsk on the Ilim), as well as numerous agricultural areas in the river valley. Due to its effects on the way of life of the rural residents of the Angara valley, dam construction was criticized by a number of Soviet intellectuals, in particular by the Irkutsk writer Valentin Rasputin - both in his novel "Farewell to Matyora" (1976) and in his non-fiction book "Siberia, Siberia" (1991).

Navigation.

The Angara is navigable by modern watercraft on several isolated sections:  The section between the Ust-Ilimsk Dam and the Boguchany Dam has not been navigable due to rapids. However, with the completion of the Boguchany Dam, and filling of its reservoir, at least part of this section of the river will become navigable as well. Nonetheless, this will not enable through navigation from Lake Baikal to the Yenisey, as none of the existing three dams has been provided with a ship lock or a boat lift, nor will the Boguchany Dam have one.  Despite the absence of a continuous navigable waterway, the Angara and its tributary the Ilim were of considerable importance for Russian colonization of Siberia since ca. 1630, when they (and the necessary portages) formed important water routes connecting the Yenisey with Lake Baikal and the Lena. The river lost its transportation significance after the construction of an overland route between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk and, later, the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Tributaries.

The largest tributaries of the Angara are, from source to mouth:

The Angara (Buryat and, "Angar", "Cleft";, "Angará") is a major river in Siberia, which traces a course through Russia's Irkutsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai. It drains out of Lake Baikal and is the headwater tributary of the Yenisey. It is long, and has a drainage basin of. It was formerly known as the Lower or Nizhnyaya Angara (distinguishing it from the Upper Angara). Below its junction with the Ilim, it was formerly known as the Upper Tunguska (, "Verkhnyaya Tunguska", distinguishing it from the Lower Tunguska) and, with the names reversed, as the Lower Tunguska.


Biography.

François Charles Mauriac was born in Bordeaux, France. He studied literature at the University of Bordeaux, graduating in 1905, after which he moved to Paris to prepare for postgraduate study at the École des Chartes.  On 1 June 1933 he was elected a member of the "Académie française", succeeding Eugène Brieux.  A former Action française supporter, he turned to the left during the Spanish Civil War, criticizing the Catholic Church for its support of Franco. After the fall of France to the Axis during the Second World War, he briefly supported the collaborationist régime of Marshal Pétain, but joined the Resistance as early as December 1941. He was the only member of the Académie française to publish a Resistance text with the Editions de Minuit.  Mauriac had a bitter dispute with Albert Camus immediately following the Liberation of France. At that time, Camus edited the Resistance paper "Combat" (thereafter an overt daily, until 1947), while Mauriac wrote a column for "Le Figaro". Camus said newly liberated France should purge all Nazi collaborator elements, but Mauriac warned that such disputes should be set aside in the interests of national reconciliation. Mauriac also doubted that justice would be impartial or dispassionate given the emotional turmoil of the Liberation. Despite having been viciously criticised by Robert Brasillach he campaigned against his execution.  Mauriac also had a bitter public dispute with Roger Peyrefitte, who criticised the Vatican in books such as "Les Clés de saint Pierre" (1953). Mauriac threatened to resign from the paper he was working with at the time ("L'Express") if they did not stop carrying advertisements for Peyrefitte's books. The quarrel was exacerbated by the release of the film adaptation of Peyrefitte's "Les Amitiés Particulières" and culminated in a virulent open letter by Peyrefitte in which he accused Mauriac of homosexual tendencies and called him a Tartuffe, hypocrite.  Mauriac was opposed to French rule in Vietnam, and strongly condemned the use of torture by the French army in Algeria.  In 1952 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has in his novels penetrated the drama of human life". He was awarded the Grand Cross of the "Légion d'honneur" in 1958. He published a series of personal memoirs and a biography of Charles de Gaulle. Mauriac's complete works were published in twelve volumes between 1950 and 1956. He encouraged Elie Wiesel to write about his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust, and wrote the foreword to Elie Wiesel's book "Night".  He was the father of writer Claude Mauriac and grandfather of Anne Wiazemsky, a French actress and author who worked with and married French director Jean-Luc Godard.  François Mauriac died in Paris on 1 September 1970 and was interred in the Cimetière de Vemars, Val d'Oise, France.

François Charles Mauriac (, ; 11 October 1885 – 1 September 1970) was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the" Académie française" (from 1933), and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1952). He was awarded the Grand Cross of the "Légion d'honneur" in 1958. He was a lifelong Catholic.


Palm Jumeirah.

Palm Jumeirah is the site of private residences and hotels. From the air, the archipelago resembles a stylized palm tree within a circle. Palm Jumeirah was built in the early 21st century and was largely financed from Dubai's income from petroleum.

Environmental concerns.

The construction of the Dubai Palm Islands has had a significant impact on the surrounding environment, resulting in changes to area wildlife, coastal erosion, alongshore sediment transport and wave patterns. Sediment stirred up by construction has suffocated and injured local marine fauna and reduced the amount of sunlight which filters down to seashore vegetation. Variations in alongshore sediment transport have resulted in changes in erosion patterns along the UAE coast, which has also been exacerbated by altered wave patterns as the waters of the Persian Gulf attempt to move around the new obstruction of the islands. Dubai's megaprojects have become a favorite cause of environmentalists. Greenpeace has criticized the Palm Islands for lack of sustainability, and Mongabay.com, a site dedicated to rain forest conservation, has attacked Dubai's artificial islands aggressively, stating that:  Significant changes in the maritime environment [of Dubai] are leaving a visual scar [... ] As a result of the dredging and redepositing of sand for the construction of the islands, the typically crystalline waters of the Persian Gulf at Dubai have become severely clouded with silt. Construction activity is damaging the marine habitat, burying coral reefs, oyster beds and subterranean fields of sea grass, threatening local marine species as well as other species dependent on them for food. Oyster beds have been covered in as much as two inches of sediment, while above the water, beaches are eroding with the disruption of natural currents.

Structural importance.

Palm Jumeirah was built entirely from sand and rocks (no concrete or steel was used to build the island). This was done in accordance with the order of the Ruler of Dubai, who came up with the idea for the Palm Islands, as well as their design.

Obstacles after the island construction.

Installation of utilities and pipelines were very difficult and laborious.

Risk mitigation.

To counteract with the waves and the constant motion of the sea, breakwaters were built all around the island. They were 3 meters high and 160 kilometers in total length. Expanded over a length of about 11.5 kilometers, the base of these breakwaters and the island itself were constantly monitored during construction process with the help of deep sea divers. The divers checked the alignment and placement of the rocks beneath the surface to ensure its stability. Shape of the island was monitored using the global positioning system.  The sand on top of the island was sprayed by a technique called rainbowing. Here the sand from the dredging ships was sprayed on to the land. The whole island was planned such that there was no stagnant water between the island and the breakwaters. In order to achieve this, small structural modifications were made to the breakwaters that surrounded the island, allowing the sea water to move through the breakers without causing any damage to the island.  To prevent erosion of the sand from the island, maintenance systems spray material along the coast of the island and also along the Dubai coast. Coastal ecology was recovered with the help of nature itself. These changes began attracting newer species of fishes and also reef formations. Every 6 weeks sea divers go down under water to check the marine life as part of their monitoring process. Precautions were also taken to prevent the process of liquifaction of the sand on the island (below the upper surface). This process of liquifaction was caused by the movement of the rocks and sand and also underwater erosion before and after construction. A Vibro-compaction technique was used to prevent the process of liquifaction. This was carried out in order to hold the island's base together and also to make a strong foundation for further construction.

Construction effects and repercussions.

The construction of the Palm islands along the coast of Dubai has caused several large environmental changes: a reduction in the area's aquatic life, erosion of the coastal soil, and irregular sediment transport along the shore. There is also a dramatic change in wave patterns along the coast of Dubai due to the rock walls constructed around the palm islands: instead of hitting the shores directly, the waves move in an unusual manner around the new obstruction. This has led to the weakening of the shores of Dubai.  The origin of most of the environmental damage stems from disturbed sediment from construction of the Palm islands. The sediment decreased the amount of sunlight filtering down to the sea vegetation and injured the surrounding marine fauna. Environmental disturbances caused by changes in sediment and coastal erosion have attracted the attention of environmental groups such as Greenpeace.  The World Wildlife Fund announced in 2006, "[The] UAE's human pressure on global ecosystems (its ecological footprint) [is] the highest in the world. The country is supposedly at present five times more unsustainable than any other country" (Samarai 2007). It also mentioned that the construction from the start up to date had caused many visible ecological and environmental changes that were a threat to the future.

Remedial measure to protect the coast.

To properly manage their shorelines and effects, Dubai relies on its coastal monitoring program. Established in 1997, the Dubai coastal monitoring program began studying the baseline bathymetric (measurement of depth of water in oceans or seas) and topographic survey of the Jumeirah (Dubai) coastline.  Additional data were collected with technological improvements including remote video monitoring of Dubai beaches, sediment sampling and analysis, near shore directional wave and current recordings and intensive measurement exercises at selected locations using Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) equipment. This way they were able to do a constant monitor and check on the continuously changing environmental conditions along the coast of Dubai.

Palm Islands are three artificial islands, Palm Jumeirah, Deira Island and Palm Jebel Ali, on the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Creation of the islands started in 2001.


Biography.

He was the eldest son of Frederick III, Landgrave of Thuringia, and Catherine of Henneberg. After the death of his uncle William I, Margrave of Meissen in 1407, he was made governor of the Margraviate of Meissen together with his brother William II as well as with his cousin Frederick IV (son of Balthasar), until their possessions were divided in 1410 and 1415.  In the German town war of 1388 he assisted Frederick V of Hohenzollern, burgrave of Nuremberg, and in 1391 did the same for the Teutonic Order against Wladislaus II of Poland. He supported Rupert III, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, in his struggle with King Wenceslaus for the German throne, probably because Wenceslaus refused to fulfill a promise to give him his sister Anna in marriage.  The danger to Germany from the Hussites induced Frederick to ally himself with Emperor Sigismund; and he took a leading part in the war against them, during the earlier years of which he met with considerable success. For his victory at the Battle of Brüx in 1421, Frederick was granted the ranks of Duke and Elector. In the prosecution of this enterprise Frederick spent large sums of money, for which he received various places in Bohemia and elsewhere in pledge from Sigismund, who further rewarded him on 6 January 1423 with the vacant electoral Duchy of Saxony-Wittenberg; and Fredericks formal investiture followed at Ofen on the 1 August 1425. Thus ascended Frederick IV, who called himself Frederick I now as duke and elector. Thus spurred to renewed efforts against the Hussites, the elector was endeavouring to rouse the German princes to aid him in prosecuting this war when the Saxon army was almost annihilated at Aussig on the 16 August 1426.  After the death of his brother William, Frederick became the ruler over the entire possession of The House of Wettin except Thuringia.  In 1409, Frederick and his brother William founded the University of Leipzig, for the benefit of German students who had left the University of Prague after the events relating to the Western Schism.  Frederick died in 1428 at Altenburg. He was buried as the first Wettin in the centre of what is now known as the Princes Chapel in Meissen Cathedral. The cathedral is now accessible to the public for a small fee and the tomb is readily seen.

Family.

Frederick I married Catherine of Brunswick-Lüneburg (d. 1442), daughter of Henry the Mild, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg on 7 February 1402 and had 7 children:

Frederick I, the Belligerent or the Warlike (; 11 April 1370 – 4 January 1428), a member of the House of Wettin, ruled as Margrave of Meissen from 1407 and Elector of Saxony (as Frederick I) from 1423 until his death.


Early life.

Lincke was born on 7 November 1866 in the Jungfern Bridge district of Berlin. He was the son of magistrate August Lincke and his wife Emilie. His father played the violin in several small orchestras. When Paul was only five years old his father died. Emilie moved with her three children to Adalbertstaße, and later to Eisenbahnstraße, near Lausitzer Platz.  Lincke's early musical inclinations were towards military music. His mother sent him after the completion of secondary school education to Wittenberge. Here he was trained in the Wittenberg City Band under Rudolf Kleinow as a bassoonist. He also learned to play the tenor horn, the drums, the piano and the violin.

Career.

Performance and early compositions.

Instead of pursuing a career as a military musician, Lincke secured employment as a bassoonist at Berlin's Central Theatre, under Adolf Ernst. After one year, he joined the orchestra of the Ostend Theatre.  In entertainment and dance music Lincke gained valuable experience at the Königsstädtischen Theater, the Belle-Alliance-Theater and the Parodie-Theater. He accompanied the musical vaudeville programs and provided his own compositions for popular singers. His "" ("Venus on Earth"), a revue-like one-act play was created in 1897 at the Apollo Theater in Friedrichstraße.

Success with "".

For two years, Paul Lincke worked at the most famous European vaudeville house, the Folies Bergère in Paris. He then returned with new compositions to the Apollo-Theater where, with huge success in 1899'(Mrs Moon) was premiered. That same year, followed'(In the Realm of Indra), and in 1902 the operetta "Lysistrata". The librettos of these were by Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers.  In 1908 Paul Lincke became principal conductor and composer for the Metropol Theater, whose spectacular revues were the capital's biggest attraction.

During the Nazi regime and World War II.

With the Nazi rise to power in 1933, Lincke maintained his position and was feted by the Nazi regime. In 1937 he was awarded the Silver Medal of Honour of his native city, on his 75th birthday he was made an honorary citizen of Berlin.  His operetta ""Frau Luna"" (Mrs. Moon) was turned into starring Lizzi Waldmüller, Irene von Meyendorff and Georg Alexander and directed by Theo Lingen in 1941.  In 1943 Lincke toured Marienbad, Bohemia, to conduct ", whose first performance in 1899 is now regarded as the birth of the Berlin operetta. During his absence, his house and his music publisher in Berlin were bombed.  After the war ended, Lincke wanted to return to Berlin. He strove in vain to obtain the approval of the Allies, which, as a native Berliner, he was required to have at that time. With the help of one American General Pierce, he moved first to Arzberg, Bavaria, with his housekeeper Johanna Hildebrandt, who had worked for him for 35 years.  Lincke's ailing health was worsened by the climate there, and he moved again to Hahnenklee. He died there shortly before his 80th birthday. His funeral was held in Hahnenklee, where his grave is still maintained today.

Personal life.

In 1885, while in the orchestra of the Grand Theatre, Lincke fell in love with the 16-year-old soubrette Anna Mueller, whom he married a year later. His wife later celebrated triumphs with the Berlin audience under the name Anna Müller-Lincke.  In 1901 Lincke divorced his first wife, Anna. That same year he met a young actress who was known under the stage name Ellen Sousa. She played in the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtischen Theater, and enchanted Lincke from the first moment. Sousa at first rejected his advances but Lincke was persistent. Within a few weeks she had visited his home, and they developed a deeply affectionate relationship, leading to her request to be cast to sing at the Apollo Theater. Sousa had hoped the connection would boost her career, but it did not. She became pregnant and left the stage before giving birth to a son. Lincke now demanded that Sousa fulfil her maternal duties and leave stage work. However, three months later Sousa was again singing at the Apollo.  Lincke offered Ellen Sousa marriage in return for her leaving the stage. She in return demanded a cooling-off period to consider her new role as wife and mother. Lincke experienced another wave of success from Paris, leading to him spending many nights out on the social scene, leaving Sousa at home to attend to her maternal commitments. Lincke now pressured Sousa to choose between him or returning to the stage, giving her ten days to think it over while he left town to make a guest appearance. When he returned after six days, Sousa and the child had moved out.  Years later Ellen Sousa married a wholesale merchant, whom she followed to Dresden and who adopted her son without Lincke's objection. This was the end of his relationship with Ellen Sousa and his son. From those events came his well-known instrumental waltz "" (Spurned Love).

Legacy.

Lincke's march "" ("Berlin Air") is the unofficial anthem of Berlin. It is one of the traditional encores of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra. The aria comes from the 1922 revision of Lincke's 1899 operetta ', about a trip to the moon in a hot air balloon, where an adventurous party of prominent Berliners meet Frau Luna and her court. The march was originally from Lincke's 1904 two-act burlesque '.  Other Lincke operettas include " ("In the Kingdom of Indra") and "Lysistrata". The latter includes the song "Das Glühwürmchen," known in English as "The Glow-Worm". It was originally translated into English by Lilla Cayley Robinson in the early 20th century, but American lyricist Johnny Mercer later expanded and greatly revised her lyrics. His version was a hit for the Mills Brothers in 1952, and has been performed by many others.  Lincke also composed the wedding dance played in the 1997 movie "Titanic"; it is played while the ship is going down and in the dining room in earlier scenes.

Carl Emil Paul Lincke (7 November 1866 – 3 September 1946) was a German composer and theater conductor. He is considered the "father" of the Berlin operetta. His well-known compositions include "" ("Berlin Air"), the unofficial anthem of Berlin, from his operetta "Frau Luna"; and "The Glow-Worm", from his operetta "Lysistrata".


Club career.

An attacking midfielder known for the quality of his passing and his free kicks, Panenka played for Bohemians Praha for most of his career, joining the club in 1967. In 1981, Panenka left Bohemians for Austrian club Rapid Wien, where he won two Bundesliga titles and an Austrian Cup. In 1985 Rapid reached the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final; Panenka played as a substitute, but his side lost 3–1 to Everton. Later that year, Panenka moved to VSE St. Pölten and played two more seasons before moving into the lower leagues in Austria, playing from 1987–89 for Slovan Vienna, from 1989–91 for ASV Hohenau and from 1991–93 for Kleinwiesendorf.

Panenka penalty.

Panenka came to international prominence playing for Czechoslovakia at UEFA Euro 1976, where Czechoslovakia reached the final, facing West Germany. After extra time, the match finished 2–2, and so the first penalty shootout in a European Championships final ensued. The first seven kicks were converted until West Germany's fourth penalty taker, Uli Hoeneß, ballooned his shot over the bar. With the score 4–3, Panenka stepped up to take the fifth Czechoslovakian penalty, to win the match under immense pressure. He feigned shooting to the side of the goal, causing German goalkeeper Sepp Maier dive to his left, and then gently chipped the ball into the middle of the net. The sheer cheek of the goal led a watching French journalist to dub Panenka "a poet", and to this day his winning kick is one of the most famous ever, making Panenka's name synonymous with that particular style of penalty kick.  Since 1976 there have been numerous attempts to emulate Panenka, both successfully and others unsuccessfully, at every level of the sporting pyramid across the world, including in critical match winning moments such as international cup finals.

Post-playing career.

Today, Panenka works as a president of Bohemians 1905.

Antonín Panenka (born 2 December 1948) is a Czech former footballer who played as an attacking midfielder. He played most of his career for Czech club Bohemians Prague. Panenka won UEFA Euro 1976 with Czechoslovakia. In the final against West Germany, he scored the winning penalty in the shootout with a softly-chipped ball up the middle of the goal as the goalkeeper dived away; this style of penalty is now called the Panenka penalty. In 1980, he won Czechoslovak Footballer of the Year and his team finished third at Euro 1980.


Overview.

An information retrieval process begins when a user enters a query into the system. Queries are formal statements of information needs, for example search strings in web search engines. In information retrieval a query does not uniquely identify a single object in the collection. Instead, several objects may match the query, perhaps with different degrees of relevancy.  An object is an entity that is represented by information in a content collection or database. User queries are matched against the database information. However, as opposed to classical SQL queries of a database, in information retrieval the results returned may or may not match the query, so results are typically ranked. This ranking of results is a key difference of information retrieval searching compared to database searching.  Depending on the application the data objects may be, for example, text documents, images, audio, mind maps or videos. Often the documents themselves are not kept or stored directly in the IR system, but are instead represented in the system by document surrogates or metadata.  Most IR systems compute a numeric score on how well each object in the database matches the query, and rank the objects according to this value. The top ranking objects are then shown to the user. The process may then be iterated if the user wishes to refine the query.

History.

The idea of using computers to search for relevant pieces of information was popularized in the article "As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush in 1945. It would appear that Bush was inspired by patents for a'statistical machine' - filed by Emanuel Goldberg in the 1920s and '30s - that searched for documents stored on film. The first description of a computer searching for information was described by Holmstrom in 1948, detailing an early mention of the Univac computer. Automated information retrieval systems were introduced in the 1950s: one even featured in the 1957 romantic comedy, Desk Set. In the 1960s, the first large information retrieval research group was formed by Gerard Salton at Cornell. By the 1970s several different retrieval techniques had been shown to perform well on small text corpora such as the Cranfield collection (several thousand documents). Large-scale retrieval systems, such as the Lockheed Dialog system, came into use early in the 1970s.  In 1992, the US Department of Defense along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cosponsored the Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) as part of the TIPSTER text program. The aim of this was to look into the information retrieval community by supplying the infrastructure that was needed for evaluation of text retrieval methodologies on a very large text collection. This catalyzed research on methods that scale to huge corpora. The introduction of web search engines has boosted the need for very large scale retrieval systems even further.

Model types.

For effectively retrieving relevant documents by IR strategies, the documents are typically transformed into a suitable representation. Each retrieval strategy incorporates a specific model for its document representation purposes. The picture on the right illustrates the relationship of some common models. In the picture, the models are categorized according to two dimensions: the mathematical basis and the properties of the model.

Performance and correctness measures.

The evaluation of an information retrieval system' is the process of assessing how well a system meets the information needs of its users. In general, measurement considers a collection of documents to be searched and a search query. Traditional evaluation metrics, designed for Boolean retrieval or top-k retrieval, include precision and recall. All measures assume a ground truth notion of relevancy: every document is known to be either relevant or non-relevant to a particular query. In practice, queries may be ill-posed and there may be different shades of relevancy.

Information retrieval (IR) is the activity of obtaining information system resources that are relevant to an information need from a collection of those resources. Searches can be based on full-text or other content-based indexing. Information retrieval is the science of searching for information in a document, searching for documents themselves, and also searching for the metadata that describes data, and for databases of texts, images or sounds.


Point defects.

Point defects are defects that occur only at or around a single lattice point. They are not extended in space in any dimension. Strict limits for how small a point defect is are generally not defined explicitly. However, these defects typically involve at most a few extra or missing atoms. Larger defects in an ordered structure are usually considered dislocation loops. For historical reasons, many point defects, especially in ionic crystals, are called "centers": for example a vacancy in many ionic solids is called a luminescence center, a color center, or F-center. These dislocations permit ionic transport through crystals leading to electrochemical reactions. These are frequently specified using Kröger–Vink notation.

Line defects.

Line defects can be described by gauge theories.  Dislocations are linear defects, around which the atoms of the crystal lattice are misaligned. There are two basic types of dislocations, the "edge" dislocation and the "screw" dislocation. "Mixed" dislocations, combining aspects of both types, are also common.  Edge dislocations are caused by the termination of a plane of atoms in the middle of a crystal. In such a case, the adjacent planes are not straight, but instead bend around the edge of the terminating plane so that the crystal structure is perfectly ordered on either side. The analogy with a stack of paper is apt: if a half a piece of paper is inserted in a stack of paper, the defect in the stack is only noticeable at the edge of the half sheet.  The screw dislocation is more difficult to visualise, but basically comprises a structure in which a helical path is traced around the linear defect (dislocation line) by the atomic planes of atoms in the crystal lattice.  The presence of dislocation results in lattice strain (distortion). The direction and magnitude of such distortion is expressed in terms of a Burgers vector (b). For an edge type, b is perpendicular to the dislocation line, whereas in the cases of the screw type it is parallel. In metallic materials, b is aligned with close-packed crystallographic directions and its magnitude is equivalent to one interatomic spacing.  Dislocations can move if the atoms from one of the surrounding planes break their bonds and rebond with the atoms at the terminating edge.  It is the presence of dislocations and their ability to readily move (and interact) under the influence of stresses induced by external loads that leads to the characteristic malleability of metallic materials.  Dislocations can be observed using transmission electron microscopy, field ion microscopy and atom probe techniques. Deep-level transient spectroscopy has been used for studying the electrical activity of dislocations in semiconductors, mainly silicon.  Disclinations are line defects corresponding to "adding" or "subtracting" an angle around a line. Basically, this means that if you track the crystal orientation around the line defect, you get a rotation. Usually, they were thought to play a role only in liquid crystals, but recent developments suggest that they might have a role also in solid materials, e.g. leading to the self-healing of cracks.

Mathematical classification methods.

A successful mathematical classification method for physical lattice defects, which works not only with the theory of dislocations and other defects in crystals but also, e.g., for disclinations in liquid crystals and for excitations in superfluid He, is the topological homotopy theory.

Computer simulation methods.

Density functional theory, classical molecular dynamics and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations are widely used to study the properties of defects in solids with computer simulations. Simulating jamming of hard spheres of different sizes and/or in containers with non-commeasurable sizes using the Lubachevsky–Stillinger algorithm can be an effective technique for demonstrating some types of crystallographic defects.

Crystallographic defects are interruptions of regular patterns in crystalline solids. They are common because positions of atoms or molecules at repeating fixed distances determined by the unit cell parameters in crystals, which exhibit a periodic crystal structure, are usually imperfect.


Life.

Youth.

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was born in Markowitz (Markowice), a small village near Hohensalza (Inowrocław), in the then Province of Posen (now part of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship), to a Germanized family of distant Polish ancestry. His father, a Prussian Junker, was Arnold Wilamowitz, of Szlachta origin and using the Ogończyk coat of arms, while his mother was Ulrika, née Calbo. The couple settled in a small manor confiscated from a local noble in 1836. The Prussian part of their name, von Moellendorf, was acquired in 1813, when Prussian field marshal Wichard Joachim Heinrich von Möllendorf adopted Ulrich's ancestors. Wilamowitz, a third child, grew up in East Prussia.  In 1867 Wilamowitz passed his "Abitur" at the renowned boarding school at Schulpforta.

Studies.

Until 1869 Wilamowitz studied Classical Philology at the University of Bonn. His teachers, Otto Jahn and Hermann Usener, had a formative influence on him. Willamowitz's relationship with Usener was strained. He developed a lifelong rivalry with his fellow student Friedrich Nietzsche and a close friendship with his contemporary Hermann Diels. Together with Diels, he moved to Berlin in 1869, where he graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy cum laude in 1870. After voluntary service in the Franco-Prussian War, he embarked on a study tour to Italy and Greece.

Conflict with Nietzsche and Wagner.

Even before he gained a professorial title, Wilamowitz was a member of a scholarly dispute about Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" that attracted much attention. In 1872–73, he published two unusually aggressive polemics (German: ""Zukunftsphilologie"", i.e. ""Philology of the future""), which strongly attacked Nietzsche (then Professor at the University of Basel) and Professor Erwin Rohde (University of Kiel). Richard Wagner, whose views on art had influenced Nietzsche and Rohde, reacted by publishing an open letter and Rohde wrote a damning response. The issue at stake was the deprecation of Euripides, on whom Nietzsche blamed the destruction of Greek tragedy. Wilamowitz saw the methods of his adversaries as an attack on the basic tenets of scientific thought, unmasking them as enemies of the scientific method. His polemic was considered as Classical philology's reply to Nietzsche's challenge.  At the age of 80 when Wilamowitz wrote his memoirs, he saw the conflict with Nietzsche less passionately, but did not retract the essential points of his critique. He stated that he had not fully realised at the time that Nietzsche was not interested in scientific understanding but rather in Wagner's musical drama, but also that he was nevertheless right to take his position against Nietzsche's "rape of historical facts and all historical method".

Greifswald.

In 1875, he gained a professorial title for his study "Analecta Euripidea". In the same year he gave his first public academic lecture in Berlin. In 1876, he was employed as "Ordinarius" (full professor) for Classical Philology at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität at Greifswald. During this period, he also married Marie Mommsen, the eldest daughter of Theodor Mommsen, and published "Homeric Studies" ("Homerische Studien").

Göttingen.

In 1883, he took a further professorial position at Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen. Here, he continued to teach Classical Philology but also gave replacement lectures in Ancient History. His influence ensured the employment of his Greifswald colleague, Julius Wellhausen, in Göttingen. In 1891, he became vice-chancellor of the university, and he was appointed a member of Göttingen's Royal Academy of Sciences one year later. When Wilamowitz left Göttingen, he was succeeded by Georg Kaibel, a close associate from his student days and his successor at Greifswald.

Berlin.

In 1897, with the support of his friend Diels, Wilamowitz was offered a position at the Royal Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität at Berlin, as successor to Ernst Curtius. He stayed until his retirement in 1921. In 1915, he was appointed chancellor of the university for one year. Together with Diels, he founded the Berlin Institute for Ancient Studies ("Institut für Altertumskunde") in 1897. His public lectures on subjects of Classical antiquity, which took place twice a week, attracted large audiences.

Teaching activities and memberships.

In 1891, Wilamowitz was elected a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and he was a full member from 1899. In 1902 he took the academy's presidency. As a member of the Göttingen academy, he strongly encouraged the publication of the "Thesaurus Linguae Latinae". From 1897 he also worked as a member to the academy's Commission for Patristics. In 1894 he was elected full member of the German Archaeological Institute. He also was editor of the series "Philologische Untersuchungen" from 1880 to 1925.  Further, Wilamowitz taught as a guest lecturer in Oxford (1908) and Uppsala (1912), was a corresponding member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (1909) and the Scientific Society of Lund (1921).

"Inscriptiones Graecae".

During his presidency of the Prussian Academy, Wilamowitz oversaw the continuation of August Böckh's and Adolf Kirchhoff's publication series, the "Inscriptiones Graecae". Wilamowitz had a formative influence on the further development of that project, which he directed until his death.

World War I.

Wilamowitz was an initiator of the memorandum "Erklärung der Hochschullehrer des Deutschen Reiches" ("Declaration by the University Teachers of the German Reich"), in which 3,016 signatories supported German participation in the First World War. Shortly after, he also signed the "Manifesto of the Ninety-Three", from which he distanced himself later. In 1914, his son, Tycho von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, who was also active as a classical philologist, fell in the battle of Ivangorod. The memorandum appeared a few days later.

Family.

In 1878 he married Maria Mommsen, the eldest daughter of the famous ancient historian, Theodor Mommsen, whom he actively assisted in the completion of his "Roman History".  Wilamowitz spent his last years in seclusion, suffering from severe kidney problems. He died in Berlin on 25 September 1931, having been in a coma for a short time. He is buried in his native village, along with his wife, Maria (1855–1936), and their only son, Tycho. He also had a daughter, Dorothea Freifrau Hiller von Gaertringen, wife of archaeologist Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen, who died on 24 March 1972.

Achievements.

Wilamowitz is one of the central figures of 19th and 20th century Classical philology. As a great authority of the literature and history of Ancient Greece, Wilamowitz took a stance against traditional methodology and textual criticism. As a representative of Postclassicism, he concentrated less on literary history but rather aimed to extract biographical information on the respective authors from the preserved texts. Thus, he employed historical perspectives to serve philology. Apart from his seminal general works ("Greek Literature from Antiquity", "Hellenistic Poetry"), he published numerous detailed studies of Euripides, Homer, Aeschylus, Pindar and Aristotle. As a scientific organiser, he was also responsible for the publication of important standard-setting source material publications, such as "Inscriptiones Graecae".  He also passionately supported the preservation of Classical education in the German school system.  Notable pupils of his include Felix Jacoby, Karl Mittelhaus, Wolfgang Schadewaldt, Eduard Fraenkel, Werner Jaeger, Johannes Geffcken, Paul Maas, Eduard Schwartz, Gilbert Murray, Paul Friedländer, Friedrich Solmsen and Johannes Sykutris.  In recent decades, the American scholar William M. Calder III has been publishing a series of important documents about and by Wilamowitz, including much of his correspondence with Diels, Eduard Norden, Mommsen, Paul Wendland, and others.

Enno Friedrich Wichard Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (22 December 1848 – 25 September 1931) was a German classical philologist. Wilamowitz, as he is known in scholarly circles, was a renowned authority on Ancient Greece and its literature.


Early life and career.

Moran was born Adelard Cunin to French immigrant Jules Adelard Cunin and Marie Diana Gobeil, Canadian descendent, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He attended Cretin High School, a private Catholic school in Saint Paul, but he also joined a local juvenile gang and left school at age 18. He was later caught robbing a store and was sent to the state juvenile correctional facility, and was put in jail three times before he turned 21. He then fled to Chicago where he was caught trying to rob a warehouse, taking part in a horse-stealing ring, taking part in robbery involving the death of a police officer, and robbing a freight car, for which he received a variety of prison and jail sentences.

Prohibition.

Prohibition was established in 1920 with the enactment of the 18th Amendment, which banned the distribution of alcoholic beverages, resulting in bootlegging.  Among the involved gangs were Dean O'Banion and his mostly Irish group, including Bugs Moran, who became known as the North Side Gang and Al Capone as the leader of the Italian mob on the South Side. These two rivals fought violently, resulting in what is known as "The Bootleg Battle of the Marne".

Battling Al Capone.

The bootlegging operation of Hymie Weiss and Bugs Moran continued to pose a significant challenge to Capone's South Side Gang. Moran and Capone then led a turf war with each other that cost them both. Moran's hatred of Capone was apparent even to the public. Moran was disgusted that Capone engaged in prostitution. He would not increase profits himself by engaging in prostitution rings because of his Catholic religion. Johnny Torrio's gang killed Dean O'Banion, and in an attempt to avenge him Bugs Moran and Earl "Hymie" Weiss made an attempt on Torrio's life. Later they went on to make a failed attempt on Al Capone's life at his headquarters, the Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, Illinois. More than one thousand shots were fired at the inn and at a nearby restaurant in their attempts to kill Capone. In retaliation, Weiss's life was taken by Al Capone's gang, and Bugs Moran became head man of the North Side Gang. Responding to Weiss's death, Moran tried to kill a member of Capone's gang, resulting in an attack, allegedly from Capone, known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

On February 14, 1929, Capone probably tried to strike a decisive blow against Moran with the notorious Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. The day before, a tempting phone call to Moran told him that a truckload of whiskey had just arrived from Detroit, Michigan, and that he could have it at a bargain price. He ordered the whiskey to be delivered at 10:30 a.m. the next morning at the garage of the S.M.C. Cartage Company on North Clark Street, where he kept his bootlegging trucks. Two gunmen dressed as Chicago police officers and two others in plain clothes lined up seven of Moran's people against the wall in the warehouse and gunned them down. However, Bugs Moran, the main target of the "hit", narrowly eluded death, as he had decided to sleep in that day. Had they known he was not there, they might have put off the attack until a different day. Another North Sider, Al Weinshank, was misidentified as Moran by one of Capone's lookouts who signaled for the attack to begin.  Responders were late to the scene due to the lack of reporting by neighbors, who thought that whatever had occurred had been taken care of when they saw the two "police officers" exit the area from which the gunshots were heard. Six of the men were killed and another was near death when police arrived on the scene. The seventh man, Frank Gusenberg, was taken to a hospital, where he refused to identify his killers following the gangster's code of silence, and later died. When Moran saw the carnage, he broke the gangster code, accusing Capone of the murders. No one was convicted of the crime, and Capone denied all involvement in the massacre. Capone was called to court, however, but claimed to be sick both times. The tactic worked, and Capone never was convicted.

After Prohibition.

Moran managed to keep control of his territory and what remained of his gang through the early 1930s, but the North Side gang never fully recovered its power or former place in Chicago's underworld as the chief rival to Capone's Italian mob. Moran eventually left the area, quitting the gang entirely—though not the criminal lifestyle, as he reverted to his earlier gangster ways of petty crime such as mail fraud and robbery.  On April 30, 1939, Moran was convicted of conspiracy to cash $62,000 worth of American Express checks. He was freed on appeal when he posted a bond; he fled but was captured and not released until December 21, 1944. He was almost penniless by the 1940s, only 17 years after being one of the richest gangsters in Chicago. On July 6, 1946, he was arrested for his involvement in the robbery of a Dayton, Ohio tavern on June 28, 1945, and he received a sentence of 20 years after being found guilty. He was paroled in 1956 but was immediately arrested for his role in the 1945 robbery of a bank in Ansonia, Ohio. He was found guilty in 1957 and sentenced to 10 more years in prison.

Death in prison.

Moran died of lung cancer a few months into his 10-year sentence at Leavenworth Prison in Kansas on February 25, 1957, at the age of 63.

Personal life.

He married Evelyn Herrell, who left him for his criminal life. In 1922 he married Lucille Logan Bilezikdijan, and he had a son, John George Moran (1920 – 1959).  Salem Press. American Villains. Pasadena, Calif: Salem Press, 2008. 386-389. Accessed March 22, 2015. EBSCOhost.

George Clarence "Bugs" Moran (; born Adelard Leo Cunin; August 21, 1893 – February 25, 1957) was an American Chicago Prohibition-era gangster. He was incarcerated three times before his 21st birthday. Seven members of his gang were gunned down in a warehouse in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of February 14, 1929, supposedly on the orders of his rival Al Capone.


Biography.

He was born in Paris, officially the son of Marshal Alexandre-Sébastien, comte de Flahaut (2nd son of ) who was guillotined at Arras in February 1793, by his wife, Adélaïde Filleul, However, Charles de Flahaut was generally recognized to be the offspring of his mother's liaison with Talleyrand, with whom he was closely connected throughout his life. His mother took him with her into exile in 1792, and they remained abroad until 1798, moving from England to Switzerland (where she is rumoured to have "become involved" with Louis-Philippe, then Duke of Orleans), before Hamburg where she met her second husband, Ambassador Dom José Maria do Carmo de Sousa Botelho Mourão e Vasconcelos,.  Charles de Flahaut volunteered for military service joining the cavalry in 1800, and received his army commission after the Battle of Marengo. He was appointed "aide-de-camp" to Joachim, 1st Prince Murat, and was wounded at the Battle of Landbach in 1805.  At Warsaw he met Anne Poniatowska, Countess Potocka with whom he quickly became intimate. After the Battle of Friedland he was awarded the Legion of Honour and returned to Paris in 1807. He served in Spain in 1808, and then in (Germany).  Meanwhile, the Countess Potocka had established herself in Paris, but Flahaut had by this time entered into a relationship with Queen Hortense of Holland; the birth of their son was registered in Paris on 21 October 1811 as Charles-Auguste-Louis-Joseph Demorny, later created Duc de Morny.  Flahaut fought with distinction in the Russian Campaign of 1812 and, in 1813, was appointed Brigadier-General and aide-de-camp to Emperor Napoleon being promoted, after the Battle of Leipzig, as a Général de division. After Napoleon's abdication in 1814 he submitted to the new French government, but was placed on the retired list in September. Flahaut was assiduous in his attendance on Queen Hortense until the Hundred Days brought him back into active service.  A mission to Vienna to secure the return of Empress Marie-Louise resulted in failure. He was present at Waterloo (as an aide-de-camp to Napoleon), and afterwards sought to place Napoleon II on the throne. He was spared exile due to an intervention by Talleyrand, but was placed under police surveillance. Flahaut then chose to leave for Germany, and thence to Britain.  The Flahauts returned to France in 1827 and, in 1830, King Louis-Philippe promoted the Count to the rank of Lieutenant-General as well as creating him a Peer of France. He remained a staunch supporter of Talleyrand's policies, and in 1831 served briefly as French Ambassador to Berlin. Subsequently, he was attached to the household of the Duke of Orléans and, in 1841, was posted as Ambassador to Vienna, where he remained until 1848, when he was dismissed and retired from army service. After the "Coup d'état" of 1851, his services were re-engaged, and from 1860 to 1862 he served in Britain as French Ambassador to the Court of St James's. In 1864, the Flahauts returned to Paris and took up residence at the Hôtel de Salm, when Charles was appointed Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour. He died in Paris on 1 September 1870.  In the opinion of the unnamed author of a biography on Flahaut in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" Eleventh Edition: "The comte de Flahaut is perhaps better remembered for his exploits in gallantry, and the elegant manners in which he had been carefully trained by his mother, than for his public services, which were not, however, so inconsiderable as they have sometimes been represented to be".

Family.

Flahaut was the lover of Napoleon I's stepdaughter, Hortense de Beauharnais (Queen of Holland), with whom he had an illegitimate son, Charles Demorny (1811–1865) who later became Duke of Morny.  While in Britain Flahaut married in Edinburgh on 20 June 1817 The Hon. Margaret Mercer Elphinstone (1788–1867), daughter of Admiral George, Viscount Keith ; she succeeded, in her own right, as 2nd Baroness Keith in 1823 and "de jure" 7th Lady Nairne in 1837. They had five daughters:

Further reading.

Attribution:

Auguste-Charles-Joseph de Flahaut de La Billarderie, comte de Flahaut (21 April 17851 September 1870) was a French general during the Napoleonic Wars, a statesman, and late in life French ambassador to the Court of St James's.


History.

Early carousels.

The modern carousel emerged from early jousting traditions in Europe and the Middle East. Knights would gallop in a circle while tossing balls from one to another; an activity that required great skill and horsemanship. This game was introduced to Europe at the time of the Crusades from earlier Byzantine and Arab traditions. The word carousel originated from the Italian "garosello" and Spanish "carosella" ("little battle", used by crusaders to describe a combat preparation exercise and game played by Turkish and Arabian horsemen in the 12th century). This early device was essentially a cavalry training mechanism; it prepared and strengthened the riders for actual combat as they wielded their swords at the mock enemies.  By the 17th century, the balls had been dispensed with, and instead the riders had to spear small rings that were hanging from poles overhead and rip them off. Cavalry spectacles that replaced medieval jousting, such as the ring-tilt, were popular in Italy and France. The game began to be played by commoners, and carousels soon sprung up at fairgrounds across Europe. At the Place du Carrousel in Paris, an early make believe carousel was set up with wooden horses for the children.  By the early 18th century carousels were being built and operated at various fairs and gatherings in central Europe and England. Animals and mechanisms would be crafted during the winter months and the family and workers would go touring in their wagon train through the region, operating their large menagerie carousel at various venues. Makers included Heyn in Germany and Bayol in France. These early carousels had no platforms; the animals would hang from chains and fly out from the centrifugal force of the spinning mechanism. They were often powered by animals walking in a circle or people pulling a rope or cranking.  By 1803 John Joseph Merlin had a carousel in his Mechanical Museum in London, where gentry and nobility liked to gather on winter evenings. The horses "floated free over a pole". It was connected to a "big musical instrument that played a fully orchestrated concerto" and from the first note the carousel would start turning while each individual horse would make a galloping movement with a visitor riding on its back. Merlin did not patent his inventions and engineers were allowed to come to create their own models of his creations.

Direction of rotation.

Viewed from above, in the United Kingdom, merry-go-rounds, called ‘gallopers’ by the showmen community when populated by model horses, usually turn clockwise (from the outside, animals face to the left), while in North America and Mainland Europe, carousels typically go counterclockwise (animals face to the right).

Modern carousels.

By the mid-19th century the platform carousel was developed; the animals and chariots were fixed to a circular floor that would suspend from a centre pole and rotate around. These carousels were called dobbies and were operated manually by the operator or by ponies.  In mid-19th century England, the carousel became a popular fixture at fairs. The first steam-powered mechanical roundabout, invented by Thomas Bradshaw, appeared at the Aylsham Fair in about 1861. It was described by a "Halifax Courier" journalist as "a roundabout of huge proportions, driven by a steam engine which whirled around with such impetuousity, that the wonder is the daring riders are not shot off like cannon- ball, and driven half into the middle of next month." Soon afterwards, English engineer Frederick Savage began to branch out of agricultural machinery production into the construction of fairground machines, swiftly becoming the chief innovator in the field. Savage's fairground machinery was exported all over the world. By 1870, he was manufacturing carousels with Velocipedes (an early type of bicycle) and he soon began experimenting with other possibilities, including a roundabout with boats that would pitch and roll on cranks with a circular motion, a ride he called 'Sea-on-Land'.  Savage applied a similar innovation to the more traditional mount of the horse; he installed gears and offset cranks on the platform carousels, thus giving the animals their well-known up-and-down motion as they travelled around the center pole – the galloping horse. The platform served as a position guide for the bottom of the pole and as a place for people to walk or other stationary animals or chariots to be placed. He called this ride the 'Platform Gallopers'. He also developed the 'platform-slide' which allowed the mounts to swing out concentrically as the carousel built up speed. Fairground organs (band organs) were often present (if not built in) when these machines operated. Eventually electric motors were installed and electric lights added, giving the carousel its classic look. These mechanical innovations came at a crucial time, when increased prosperity meant that more people had time for leisure and spare money to spend on entertainment. It was in this historical context that the modern fairground ride was born, with Savage supplying this new market demand. In his 1902 Catalogue for Roundabouts he claimed to have "... patented and placed upon the market all the principal novelties that have delighted the many thousands of pleasure seekers at home and abroad."  In the United States, the carousel industry was developed by immigrants, notably Gustav Dentzel of Germany and Charles W.F. Dare from England, from the late 19th century. Several centers and styles for the construction of carousels emerged in the United States: Coney Island style – characterized by elaborate, and sometimes faux-jeweled, saddles – with Charles I. D. Looff; Philadelphia style – known for more realistically painted saddles – with Dentzel and the Philadelphia Toboggan Company; and Country Fair style – often with no saddles at all – with Allan Herschell and Edward Spillman of western New York, and Charles W. Parker of Kansas. The golden age of the carousel in America was the early 20th century, with large machines and elaborate animals, chariots, and decorations being built.

Similar uses of the term "carousel".

On some playgrounds, small manually powered carousels exist.  At airports, rotating conveyors in the baggage claim area are often called luggage carousels.  Various photographic slide projectors, notably those made by Kodak until 2004, used rotating trays or magazines called carousels to hold the slides and were often known as "carousel projectors."

Antique and notable carousels.

The National Carousel Association maintains a list of Historic Carousel Award winners, primarily focused on carousels in Canada and America.

A carousel (American English: from French "carrousel" and Italian "carosello"), roundabout (British English), or merry-go-round, is a type of amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders. The "seats" are traditionally in the form of rows of wooden horses or other animals mounted on posts, many of which are moved up and down by gears to simulate galloping, to the accompaniment of looped circus music. This leads to one of the alternative American names, the galloper (however see ‘direction of rotation’ below). Other popular names are jumper, horseabout, and flying horses.


Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Family.

She was born in Wolfenbüttel, the ninth child of Karl I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Princess Philippine Charlotte of Prussia. Her maternal grandparents were Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover.

Marriage.

In Brunswick on 16 March 1756 she married Ernst August II Konstantin, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Ernst August died in 1758 leaving her regent for their infant son, Karl August.

Regency.

During Karl August's minority she administered the affairs of the duchy with notable prudence, strengthening its resources and improving its position in spite of the troubles of the Seven Years' War. In 1775, with her son having attained his majority, she retired.

Cultural role.

As a patron of art and literature she drew many of the most eminent men in Germany to Weimar, including Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Abel Seyler's theatrical company. When Anna Amalia succeeded in engaging the Seyler Company, this was "an extremely fortunate coup. The Seyler Company was the best theatre company in Germany at that time." Amalia von Helvig was also later to be a part of her court. She hired Christoph Martin Wieland, a poet and translator of William Shakespeare, to educate her son. She also established the Duchess Anna Amalia Library, which is now home to some 1,000,000 volumes. The duchess was honoured in Goethe's work under the title "Zum Andenken der Fürstin Anna-Amalia".  Anna Amalia was a notable composer. Among her significant works is a symphony for two oboes, two flutes, two violins, and double bass (1765), a tripartite oratorio (1768), an "opera" called "Erwin und Elmire" (1776), based on a text by Goethe, and a divertimento for piano, clarinet, viola, and violoncello (around 1780).

Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (24 October 173910 April 1807), was a German princess and composer. She became the duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, by marriage, and was also regent of the states of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach from 1758 to 1775. She transformed her court and its surrounding into the most influential cultural center of Germany.


Life.

Aldrovandi was born in Bologna to Teseo Aldrovandi and his wife, a noble but poor family. His father was a lawyer, and Secretary to the Senate of Bologna, but died when Ulisse was seven years old. However, when Pope Gregory XIII, a member of Ulisse's mother's family was elected in 1570, the family's fortune improved. His widowed mother wanted him to become a jurist. Initially he was sent to apprentice with merchants as a scribe for a short time when he was 14 years old, but he found his vocation, after studying mathematics, Latin, law, and philosophy, initially at the university of Bologna, and then in Padua in 1545 and becoming a notary. His interests successively extended to philosophy and logic, which he combined with the study of medicine.  In June 1549, Aldrovandi was accused and arrested for heresy on account of his espousing of the anti-trinitarian beliefs of the Anabaptist Camillo Renato. By September, he had published an abjuration, but was transferred to Rome, and remained in custody or house arrest until absolved in April, 1550. During this time, he befriended many local scholars. While in light captivity there, he became more and more interested in botany, zoology, and geology (he is credited for the invention/first written record of this word). From 1551 onward, he organized a variety of expeditions to the Italian mountains, countryside, islands, and coasts to collect and catalogue plants.  He obtained a degree in medicine and philosophy in 1553 and started teaching logic and philosophy in 1554 at the University of Bologna. In 1559, he became professor of philosophy and in 1561 he became the first professor of natural sciences at Bologna ("lectura philosophiae naturalis ordinaria de fossilibus, plantis et animalibus"). Aldrovandi was a friend of Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1574 – 1587), visiting his garden at Pratolino and travelling with him, compiling a list of the most valuable plants at Pratolino. He also formed fruitful associations with botanical artists such as Jacopo Ligozzi, to further develop illustrated texts. He died in Bologna on 4 May 1605, at the age of 82.

Work.

Over the course of his life, he would assemble one of the most spectacular cabinets of curiosities: his "theatre" illuminating natural history comprising some 7000 specimens of the "diversità di cose naturali", of which he wrote a description in 1595. Between 1551 and 1554, he organized several expeditions to collect plants for a herbarium, among the first botanizing expeditions. Eventually, his herbarium contained about 4760 dried specimens on 4117 sheets in sixteen volumes, preserved at the University of Bologna. He also had various artists including Jacopo Ligozzi, Giovanni Neri, and Cornelio Schwindt, compose illustrations of specimens.

Botanic garden.

At his demand and under his direction, a public botanic garden was created in Bologna in 1568, now the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Bologna. Due to a dispute on the composition of a popular medicine with the pharmacists and doctors of Bologna in 1575, he was suspended from all public positions for five years. In 1577, he sought the aid of pope Gregory XIII (a cousin of his mother), who wrote to the authorities of Bologna to reinstate Aldrovandi in his public offices and request financial aid to help him publish his books.

Collections.

His vast collections in botany and zoology he willed to the Senate of Bologna; until 1742 the collections were conserved in the Palazzo Pubblico, then in the Palazzo Poggi, but were distributed among various libraries and institutions in the course of the nineteenth century. In 1907 a representative part were reunited at Palazzo Poggi, Bologna, where the 400th anniversary of his death was memorialized in a celebrative exhibition in 2005.

Neurofibromatosis.

He was the first to have extensively documented the neurofibromatosis disease, a type of skin tumour. Recently, however, it has been observed that in a work by Andrea Mantegna's, this type of disease had been pictured 80 years earlier than in Androvandi's work.

List of selected publications.

Of the several hundred books and essays he wrote, only a handful were published during his lifetime:

Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carl Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history studies. He is usually referred to, especially in older literature, as Aldrovandus; his name in Italian is equally given as Aldroandi.


Explanation.

The expression for adding the numbers 1 and 2 is written in Polish notation as (pre-fix), rather than as (in-fix). In more complex expressions, the operators still precede their operands, but the operands may themselves be expressions including again operators and their operands. For instance, the expression that would be written in conventional infix notation as can be written in Polish notation as Assuming a given arity of all involved operators (here the "−" denotes the binary operation of subtraction, not the unary function of sign-change), any well formed prefix representation thereof is unambiguous, and brackets within the prefix expression are unnecessary. As such, the above expression can be further simplified to  The processing of the product is deferred until its two operands are available (i.e., 5 minus 6, and 7). As with "any" notation, the innermost expressions are evaluated first, but in Polish notation this "innermost-ness" can be conveyed by the sequence of operators and operands rather than by bracketing.  In the conventional infix notation, parentheses are required to override the standard precedence rules, since, referring to the above example, moving them or removing them changes the meaning and the result of the expression. This version is written in Polish notation as  When dealing with non-commutative operations, like division or subtraction, it is necessary to coordinate the sequential arrangement of the operands with the definition of how the operator takes its arguments, i.e., from left to right. For example,, with 10 left to 5, has the meaning of 10 ÷ 5 (read as "divide 10 by 5"), or, with 7 left to 6, has the meaning of 7 - 6 (read as "subtract from 7 the operand 6").

Evaluation algorithm.

Prefix/postfix notation is especially popular for its innate ability to express the intended order of operations without the need for parentheses and other precedence rules, as are usually employed with infix notation. Instead, the notation uniquely indicates which operator to evaluate first. The operators are assumed to have a fixed arity each, and all necessary operands are assumed to be explicitly given. A valid prefix expression always starts with an operator and ends with an operand. Evaluation can either proceed from left to right, or in the opposite direction. Starting at the left, the input string, consisting of tokens denoting operators or operands, is pushed token for token on a stack, until the top entries of the stack contain the number of operands that fits to the top most operator (immediately beneath). This group of tokens at the stacktop (the last stacked operator and the according number of operands) is replaced by the result of executing the operator on these/this operand(s). Then the processing of the input continues in this manner. The rightmost operand in a valid prefix expression thus empties the stack, except for the result of evaluating the whole expression. When starting at the right, the pushing of tokens is performed similarly, just the evaluation is triggered by an operator, finding the appropriate number of operands that fits its arity already at the stacktop. Now the leftmost token of a valid prefix expression must be an operator, fitting to the number of operands in the stack, which again yields the result. As can be seen from the description, a push-down store with no capability of arbitrary stack inspection suffices to implement this parsing.  The above sketched stack manipulation works –with mirrored input– also for expressions in reverse Polish notation.

Polish notation for logic.

The table below shows the core of Jan Łukasiewicz's notation for sentential logic. Some letters in the Polish notation table stand for particular words in Polish, as shown:  Note that the quantifiers ranged over propositional values in Łukasiewicz's work on many-valued logics.  Bocheński introduced a system of Polish notation that names all 16 binary connectives of classical propositional logic. For classical propositional logic, it is a compatible extension of the notation of Łukasiewicz. But the notations are incompatible in the sense that Bocheński uses L and M (for nonimplication and converse nonimplication) in propositional logic and Łukasiewicz uses L and M in modal logic.

Implementations.

Prefix notation has seen wide application in Lisp s-expressions, where the brackets are required since the operators in the language are themselves data (first-class functions). Lisp functions may also be variadic. The Tcl programming language, much like Lisp also uses Polish notation through the mathop library. The Ambi programming language uses Polish notation for arithmetic operations and program construction. LDAP filter syntax uses Polish prefix notation.  Postfix notation is used in many stack-oriented programming languages like PostScript and Forth. CoffeeScript syntax also allows functions to be called using prefix notation, while still supporting the unary postfix syntax common in other languages.  The number of return values of an expression equals the difference between the number of operands in an expression and the total arity of the operators minus the total number of return values of the operators.  Polish notation, usually in postfix form, is the chosen notation of certain calculators, notably from Hewlett-Packard. At a lower level, postfix operators are used by some stack machines such as the Burroughs large systems.

Polish notation (PN), also known as normal Polish notation (NPN), Łukasiewicz notation, Warsaw notation, Polish prefix notation or simply prefix notation, is a mathematical notation in which operators "precede" their operands, in contrast to the more common infix notation, in which operators are placed "between" operands, as well as reverse Polish notation (RPN), in which operators "follow" their operands. It does not need any parentheses as long as each operator has a fixed number of operands. The description "Polish" refers to the nationality of logician Jan Łukasiewicz, who invented Polish notation in 1924.


Overview.

Linnaeus (later known as "Carl von Linné", after his ennoblement in 1761) published the first edition of'in the year 1735, during his stay in the Netherlands. As was customary for the scientific literature of its day, the book was published in Latin. In it, he outlined his ideas for the hierarchical classification of the natural world, dividing it into the animal kingdom ('), the plant kingdom ('), and the "mineral kingdom" (').  Linnaeus's "Systema Naturae" lists only about 10,000 species of organisms, of which about 6,000 are plants and 4,236 are animals. According to the historian of botany William T. Stearn, "Even in 1753 he believed that the number of species of plants in the whole world would hardly reach 10,000; in his whole career he named about 7,700 species of flowering plants."  Linnaeus developed his classification of the plant kingdom in an attempt to describe and understand the natural world as a reflection of the logic of God's creation. His sexual system, where species with the same number of stamens were treated in the same group, was convenient but in his view artificial. Linnaeus believed in God's creation, and that there were no deeper relationships to be expressed. He is frequently quoted to have said: "God created, Linnaeus organized" (Latin: "Deus creavit, Linnaeus disposuit"). The classification of animals was more natural. For instance, humans were for the first time placed together with other primates, as Anthropomorpha.  As a result of the popularity of the work, and the number of new specimens sent to him from around the world, Linnaeus kept publishing new and ever-expanding editions of his work. It grew from eleven very large pages in the first edition (1735) to 2,400 pages in the 12th edition (1766–1768). Also, as the work progressed, he made changes: in the first edition, whales were classified as fishes, following the work of Linnaeus' friend and "father of ichthyology" Peter Artedi; in the 10th edition, published in 1758, whales were moved into the mammal class. In this same edition, he introduced two-part names (see binomen) for animal species, something that he had done for plant species (see binary name) in the 1753 publication of "". The system eventually developed into modern Linnaean taxonomy, a hierarchically organized biological classification.  After Linnaeus' health declined in the early 1770s, publication of editions of "Systema Naturae" went in two directions. Another Swedish scientist, Johan Andreas Murray issued the "Regnum Vegetabile" section separately in 1774 as the "Systema Vegetabilium", rather confusingly labelled the 13th edition. Meanwhile, a 13th edition of the entire "Systema" appeared in parts between 1788 and 1793. It was as the "Systema Vegetabilium" that Linnaeus' work became widely known in England following translation from the Latin by the Lichfield Botanical Society, as "A System of Vegetables" (1783–1785).

Taxonomy.

In his ', Linnaeus established three kingdoms, namely ','and '. This approach, the Animal, Vegetable and Mineral Kingdoms, survives until today in the popular mind, notably in the form of parlour games: "Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?". The classification was based on five levels: kingdom, class, order, genus, and species. While species and genus was seen as God-given (or "natural"), the three higher levels were seen by Linnaeus as constructs. The concept behind the set ranks being applied to all groups was to make a system that was easy to remember and navigate, a task which most say he succeeded in. Linnaeus's work had a huge impact on science; it was indispensable as a foundation for biological nomenclature, now regulated by the Nomenclature Codes. Two of his works, the first edition of the'(1753) for plants and the 10th edition of the "Systema Naturæ" (1758), are accepted among the starting points of nomenclature. Most of his names for species and genera were published at very early dates, and thus take priority over those of other, later authors. In zoology there is one exception, which is a monograph on Swedish spiders, ', published by Carl Clerck in 1757, so the names established there take priority over the Linnean names. However, his impact on science was not because of the value of his taxonomy. His talent for attracting skillful young students and sending them abroad to collect specimens made his work far more influential than that of his contemporaries. At the close of the 18th century, his system had effectively become the standard system for biological classification.

Animal Kingdom.

Only in the Animal Kingdom is the higher taxonomy of Linnaeus still more or less recognizable and some of these names are still in use, but usually not quite for the same groups as used by Linnaeus. He divided the Animal Kingdom into six classes; in the tenth edition (1758), these were:

Plant Kingdom.

The orders and classes of plants, according to his ', were never intended to represent natural groups (as opposed to his'in his ") but only for use in identification. They were used in that sense well into the 19th century.  The Linnaean classes for plants, in the Sexual System, were:

Mineral Kingdoms.

Linnaeus's taxonomy of minerals has long since fallen out of use. In the 10th edition, 1758, of the "", the Linnaean classes were:

Editions.

Gmelin's thirteenth ("decima tertia") edition of "Systema Naturae" (1788–1793) should be carefully distinguished from the more limited "Systema Vegetabilium" first prepared and published by Johan Andreas Murray in 1774 (but labelled as "thirteenth edition").  The dates of publication for Gmelin's edition were the following:

The tenth edition of this book (1758) is considered the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In 1766–1768 Linnaeus published the much enhanced 12th edition, the last under his authorship. Another again enhanced work in the same style and titled """ was published by Johann Friedrich Gmelin between 1788 and 1793. Since at least the early 1900s zoologists commonly recognized this as the last edition belonging to this series. It was also officially regarded by the ICZN in Opinion 296 (26 Oct 1954) as the 13th edition of "Systema Naturae".


Personal life.

King Gontrand had something of that fraternal love which his brothers lacked; the preeminent chronicler of the period, St. Gregory of Tours, often called him "good king Gontrand", as noted in the quotation below from the former's "Decem Libri Historiarum", in which St. Gregory discussed the fate of Gontrand's three marriages:  The good king Gontrand first took a concubine Veneranda, a slave belonging to one of his people, by whom he had a son Gundobad. Later he married Marcatrude, daughter of Magnar, and sent his son Gundobad to Orléans. But after she had a son Marcatrude was jealous, and proceeded to bring about Gundobad's death. She sent poison, they say, and poisoned his drink. And upon his death, by God's judgment she lost the son she had and incurred the hate of the king, was dismissed by him, and died not long after. After her he took Austerchild, also named Bobilla. He had by her two sons, of whom the older was called Clothar and the younger Chlodomer.  Gontrand had a period of intemperance. He was eventually overcome with remorse for the sins of his past life, and spent his remaining years repenting of them, both for himself and for his nation. In atonement, he fasted, prayed, wept, and offered himself to God. Throughout the balance of his prosperous reign he attempted to govern by Christian principles. According to St. Gregory of Tours, he was the protector of the oppressed, caregiver to the sick, and the tender parent to his subjects. He was generous with his wealth, especially in times of plague and famine. He strictly and justly enforced the law without respect to person, yet was ever ready to forgive offences against himself, including two attempted assassinations. Gontrand munificently built and endowed many churches and monasteries. St. Gregory related that the king performed many miracles both before and after his death, some of which St. Gregory claimed to have witnessed himself.

Politics.

In 567, his elder brother Charibert I died and his lands of the Kingdom of Paris were divided between the surviving brothers: Gontrand, Sigebert I, and Chilperic I. They shared his realm, agreeing at first to hold Paris in common. Charibert's widow, Theudechild, proposed a marriage with Gontrand, the eldest remaining brother, though a council convened at Paris as late as 557 had forbidden such tradition as incestuous. Gontrand decided to house her more safely, though unwillingly, in a monastery in Arles.  In 573, Gontrand was caught in a civil war with his brother Sigebert I of Austrasia, and in 575 summoned the aid of their brother Chilperic I of Soissons. He reversed his allegiance later, due to the character of Chilperic, if we may give him the benefit of the doubt in light of St. Gregory's commendation, and Chilperic retreated. He thereafter remained an ally of Sigebert, his wife, and his sons until his death. When Sigebert was assassinated later in 575, Chilperic invaded the kingdom, but Gontrand sent his general Mummolus, who was always Gontrand's greatest weapon, for he was the greatest general in Gaul at the time, to remove him. Mummolus defeated Chilperic's general Desiderius and the Neustrian's forces retreated from Austrasia.  In 577, Chlothar and Clodomir, his two surviving children, died of dysentery and he adopted as his son and heir Childebert II, his nephew, Sigebert's son, whose kingdom he had saved two years prior. However, Childebert did not always prove faithful to his uncle. In 581, Chilperic took many of Gontrand's cities and in 583, he allied with Childebert and attacked Gontrand. This time Gontrand made peace with Chilperic and Childebert retreated. In 584, he returned Childebert's infidelity by invading his land and capturing Tours and Poitiers, but he had to leave to attend the Baptism of Chlothar II, his other nephew, who now ruled in Neustria. Supposed to take place on 4 July, the feast of St. Martin of Tours, in Orléans, it did not and Gontrand turned to invade Septimania. Peace was soon made. In 584 or 585, one Gundowald claimed to be an illegitimate son of Chlothar I and proclaimed himself king, taking some major cities in southern Gaul, including Poitiers and Toulouse, which belonged to Gontrand. Gontrand marched against him, calling him nothing more than a miller's son named Ballomer. Gundowald fled to Comminges and Gontrand's army proceeded to besiege the citadel. He could not capture it, but did not need to: Gundowald's followers gave him over and he was executed.  In 587, Fredegund attempted to assassinate him, but failed. He went, on 28 November, to Trier to conclude a treaty with Childebert; Brunhilda, his sister-in-law, Sigebert's wife, whose ally he had always been; Chlodosind, Childebert's sister; Faileuba, Childebert's queen; Magneric, Bishop of Trier; and Ageric, Bishop of Verdun. This was called the Treaty of Andelot and it endured until Gontrand died.  Also in 587, Gontrand compelled obedience from Waroch II, the Breton ruler of the Vannetais. He forced the renewal of the oath of 578 in writing and demanded 1,000 "solidi" in compensation for raiding the Nantais. In 588, the compensation was not yet paid, as Waroch promised it to both Gontrand and Chlothar II, who probably had suzerainty over Vannes.  In 589 or 590, Gontrand sent an expedition against Waroch under Beppolem and Ebrachain, mutual enemies. Ebrachain was also enemy of Fredegund, who sent the Saxons of Bayeux to aid Waroch. Beppolem fought alone for three days before dying, at which point Waroch tried to flee to the Channel Islands, but Ebrachain destroyed his ships and forced him to accept a peace, the renewal of the oath, and the surrender of a nephew as a hostage. This was all to no effect. The Bretons maintained their independent mindedness.  In 589, Gontrand made a final advance on Septimania, to no avail. He fought against the barbarians who menaced the kingdom and quelled a rebellion of his niece Basina at a Poitevin monastery with the aid of many of his bishops in 590.

Death and veneration.

He died at Chalon-sur-Saône in 592, and his nephew Childebert II succeeded him. He was buried in the Church of Saint Marcellus, which he had founded in Chalon. Almost immediately, his subjects proclaimed Gontrand a saint and the Catholic Church celebrates his feast day on 28 March. The Huguenots, who scattered his ashes in the 16th century, left only his skull untouched in their fury. It is now kept there in a silver case.

Saint Gontrand (c. AD 532 in Soissons – 28 March AD 592 in Chalon-sur-Saône), also called Gontran, Gontram, Guntram, Gunthram, Gunthchramn, and Guntramnus, was the king of the Kingdom of Orléans from AD 561 to AD 592. He was the third eldest and second eldest surviving son of Chlothar I and Ingunda. On his father's death in 561, he became king of a fourth of the Kingdom of the Franks, and made his capital at Orléans. The name "Gontrand" denotes "War Raven".


Early life.

Réti was born to a Jewish family in Bazin, Austria-Hungary (now Pezinok, Slovakia), where his father worked as a physician in the service of the Austrian military.  His older brother Rudolph Reti (who did not use the acute accent) was a noted pianist, musical theorist, and composer. He is the great-grandfather of the German painter Elias Maria Reti. Réti came to Vienna to study mathematics at Vienna University.

Chess career.

One of the top players in the world during the 1910s and 1920s, he began his career as a combinative classical player, favoring openings such as the King's Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4). After the end of the First World War, however, his playing style changed, and he became one of the principal proponents of hypermodernism, along with Aron Nimzowitsch and others. With the exception of Nimzowitsch's book "My System", he is considered to be the movement's foremost literary contributor. He had his greatest early successes in the period 1918 through 1921, in tournaments in Kaschau (Košice; 1918), Rotterdam (1919), Amsterdam (1920), Vienna (1920), and Gothenburg (1921).  In 1925 Réti set a world record for blindfold chess with 29 games played simultaneously. He won 21, drew 6, and lost 2.  Réti was also a notable composer of endgame studies.

Death.

Réti died on 6 June 1929 in Prague of scarlet fever. His ashes are buried in the grave of Réti's father, Dr. Samuel Réti, in the Jewish section of Zentralfriedhof cemetery in Vienna, in Section T1, Group 51, Row 5, Grave 34.

Legacy.

The Réti Opening (1.Nf3 d5 2.c4) is named after him. Réti defeated World Champion José Raúl Capablanca in the New York 1924 chess tournament using this opening – Capablanca's first defeat in eight years, his only loss to Réti, and his first since becoming world champion. This tournament was also the only occasion in which Réti beat future world champion Alexander Alekhine, accomplishing this feat in the same number of moves, and with the same final move (31.Rd1–d5).  Réti's writings have become classics of chess literature. "Modern Ideas in Chess" (1923) and "Masters of the Chess Board" (1933) are studied today.

Famous endgame study.

Réti composed one of the most famous chess studies, shown in this diagram. It was published in "Ostrauer Morgenzeitung" 4 December 1921. It seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn, while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king. The idea of the solution is to move the king to advance on both pawns at the same time using specific properties of the chess geometry.

Notable games.

A collection of his games was published as "Reti's Games of Chess", annotated by H. Golombek, republished by Dover (1974).

Richard Selig Réti (28 May 1889 – 6 June 1929) was an Austro-Hungarian, later Czechoslovakian chess player, chess author, and composer of endgame studies.


History.

The Sémillon grape is native to the Bordeaux region. It was known as Sémillon de Saint-Émilion in 1736, while Sémillon also resembles the local pronunciation of the town’s name ([semi'ʎuŋ]). It first arrived in Australia in the early 19th century and by the 1820s the grape covered over 90% of South Africa's vineyards, where it was known as "Wyndruif", meaning "wine grape". It was once considered to be the most planted grape in the world, although this is no longer the case. In the 1950s, Chile's vineyards were made up of over 75% Sémillon. Today, it accounts for just 1% of South African Cape vines.

Viticulture.

Sémillon, which is relatively easy to cultivate, consistently produces six to eight tons of grapes per acre from its vigorous vines. It is fairly resistant to disease, except for rot. The grape ripens early, when, in warmer climates, it acquires a pinkish hue. Since the grape has a thin skin, there is also a risk of sunburn in hotter climates; it is best suited to areas with sunny days and cool nights.  The Sémillon grape is rather heavy, with low acidity and an almost oily texture. It has a high yield and wines based on it can age a long time. Along with Sauvignon blanc and Muscadelle, Sémillon is one of only three approved white wine varieties in the Bordeaux region.  The grape is also key to the production of sweet wines such as Sauternes. For the grapes to be used for sweet wine production, they need to have been affected by Botrytis (also known as "noble rot"). This fungus dries out the grapes, thus concentrating the sugar and flavours in the grape berry.

Regional production.

Sémillon is an important cultivar in two significant wine producing countries. In France, Sémillon is the preeminent white grape in the Bordeaux wine regions. The grape has also found a home in Australia; whereas today the country's major white varieties are Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc, early in the country's viticultural development it was Sémillon, at that time mislabeled as Riesling, that was the most significant white variety.

France.

In France, the Sémillon grape is grown mostly in Bordeaux where it is blended with Sauvignon blanc and Muscadelle. When dry, it is referred to as "Bordeaux blanc" and is permitted to be made in the appellations of Pessac-Léognan, Graves, Entre-Deux-Mers and other less-renowned regions. In this form, Sémillon is generally a minor constituent in the blend. However, when used to make the sweet white wines of Bordeaux (such as those from Sauternes, Barsac and Cérons) it is often the dominant variety. In such wines the vine is exposed to the "noble rot" of "Botrytis cinerea" which consumes the water content of the fruit, concentrating the sugar present in its pulp. When attacked by Botrytis cinerea, the grapes shrivel and the acid and sugar levels are intensified.  Due to the declining popularity of the grape variety, fewer clones are cultivated in nurseries causing producers to project a future shortage of quality wine. In 2008, 17 Bordeaux wine producers, including Château d'Yquem, Château Olivier, Château Suduiraut and Château La Tour Blanche, formed an association to grow their own clones.

Australia.

Sémillon is widely grown in Australia, particularly in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney, where for a long time it was known as "Hunter River Riesling". Four styles of Sémillon-based wines are made there: The latter two styles were pioneered by Lindemans, Tulloch, McWilliam's Elizabeth, Drayton's and Tyrrell's, and are considered unique to Australia.  Most examples of these bottle-aged Hunter Semillons exhibit a buttercup-yellow colour, burnt toast or honey characteristics on the nose and excellent complex flavours on the palate, with a long finish and soft acid. Young Hunter Valley semillon is almost always a dry wine, usually exhibiting citrus flavours of lemon, lime or green apple. Cooler-year Hunter Semillons seem to be the most highly sought after, with some of the 1974 and 1977 vintages still drinking well. The newer, fruit-accentuated styles are championed by the likes of Iain Riggs at Brokenwood Wines and The Rothbury Estate.  Sémillon is also finding favour with Australian producers outside the Hunter Valley in the Barossa Valley and Margaret River regions. The Adelaide Hills is becoming a flourishing region for Semillon, with the cooler climate producing some wines of great complexity. Vineyards such as Amadio and Paracombe produce some premium blends of the classical style.

South Africa.

Semillon is one of the Cape’s true heritage white varietals, with origins as early as the 17th century (when it became known as Groendruif which translates as Green grape), the grape variety accounted for more than 90% of plantings in the first half of the 19th century. While South African Semillon has not quite taken off as a serious commercial category in single varietal form in the modern era, there are stunning wines being made from especially older vineyards (some of them centurions). More often, the variety plays a role in beefing up the volume of Sauvignon blancs.  The best South African Semillons have juicy fruit with often an ethereal-like citrus perfume, fine texture, herbal interest and manage to marry the intensity of flavour with finesse.  A red mutation of Semillon is today rarely found, although it was once quite common in South Africa. Semillon Rouge is also a synonym for Merlot.

Other regions.

Outside of these regions, however, Sémillon is unpopular and often criticised for lack of complexity and intensity. As such, plantings have decreased over the last century. As referenced above, the grape can still be found in South Africa and Chile. The latter is reputed to have the largest plantings of this grape, although the number of acres planted with Sémillon fluctuates often. California growers plant Sémillon primarily to blend it with Sauvignon blanc. There are some wineries in the Washington State that have produced Sémillon as a varietal wine since the early 1980s; others actively produce Sémillon for Ice Wine and Late Harvest wines. At least one winery in Idaho grows and produces a varietal offering and at least four vineyards in Texas are growing Sémillon. The grape is also planted in Argentina, Canada (Niagara and British Columbia) and recently in New Zealand.

Sémillon is a golden-skinned grape used to make dry and sweet white wines, mostly in France and Australia. Its thin skin and susceptibility to botrytis make it dominate the sweet wine region Sauternes AOC and Barsac AOC.