Definition.

Inflection points in differential geometry are the points of the curve where the curvature changes its sign.  For example, the graph of the differentiable function has an inflection point at ("x", "f"("x")) if and only if its first derivative, "f′", has an isolated extremum at "x". (This is not the same as saying that "f" has an extremum). That is, in some neighborhood, "x" is the one and only point at which "f′" has a (local) minimum or maximum. If all extrema of "f′" are isolated, then an inflection point is a point on the graph of "f" at which the tangent crosses the curve.  A "falling point of inflection" is an inflection point where the derivative is negative on both sides of the point; in other words, it is an inflection point near which the function is decreasing. A "rising point of inflection" is a point where the derivative is positive on both sides of the point; in other words, it is an inflection point near which the function is increasing.  For an algebraic curve, a non singular point is an inflection point if and only if the intersection number of the tangent line and the curve (at the point of tangency) is greater than 2. The principal result is that the set of the inflection points of an algebraic curve coincides with the intersection set of the curve with the Hessian curve.  For a smooth curve given by parametric equations, a point is an inflection point if its signed curvature changes from plus to minus or from minus to plus, i.e., changes sign.  For a smooth curve which is a graph of a twice differentiable function, an inflection point is a point on the graph at which the second derivative has an isolated zero and changes sign.

A necessary but not sufficient condition.

If the second derivative, "f"("x") exists at "x", and "x" is an inflection point for "f", then "f"("x") = 0, but this condition is not sufficient for having a point of inflection, even if derivatives of any order exist. In this case, one also needs the lowest-order (above the second) non-zero derivative to be of odd order (third, fifth, etc.). If the lowest-order non-zero derivative is of even order, the point is not a point of inflection, but an "undulation point". However, in algebraic geometry, both inflection points and undulation points are usually called "inflection points". An example of an undulation point is "x" = 0 for the function "f" given by "f"("x") = "x".  In the preceding assertions, it is assumed that "f" has some higher-order non-zero derivative at "x", which is not necessarily the case. If it is the case, the condition that the first nonzero derivative has an odd order implies that the sign of "f"("x") is the same on either side of "x" in a neighborhood of "x". If this sign is positive, the point is a "rising point of inflection"; if it is negative, the point is a "falling point of inflection".  Inflection points sufficient conditions:  1) A sufficient existence condition for a point of inflection is:  2) Another sufficient existence condition requires "f′′"("x" + ε) and "f′′"("x" − "ε") to have opposite signs in the neighborhood of "x" (Bronshtein and Semendyayev 2004, p. 231).

Categorization of points of inflection.

Points of inflection can also be categorized according to whether "f′"("x") is zero or not zero.  A stationary point of inflection is not a local extremum. More generally, in the context of functions of several real variables, a stationary point that is not a local extremum is called a saddle point.  An example of a stationary point of inflection is the point (0,0) on the graph of "y" = "x". The tangent is the "x"-axis, which cuts the graph at this point.  An example of a non-stationary point of inflection is the point (0,0) on the graph of "y" = "x" + "ax", for any nonzero "a". The tangent at the origin is the line "y" = "ax", which cuts the graph at this point.

Functions with discontinuities.

Some functions change concavity without having points of inflection. Instead, they can change concavity around vertical asymptotes or discontinuities. For example, the function formula_1 is concave for negative and convex for positive, but it has no points of inflection because 0 is not in the domain of the function.

In differential calculus and differential geometry, an inflection point, point of inflection, flex, or inflection (British English: inflexion) is a point on a smooth plane curve at which the curvature changes of sign. In particular, in the case of the graph of a function, it is a point where the function changes from being concave (concave downward) to convex (concave upward), or vice versa.


History.

The mezzotint printmaking method was invented by the German amateur artist Ludwig von Siegen (1609–). His earliest mezzotint print dates to 1642 and is a portrait of Countess Amalie Elisabeth of Hanau-Münzenberg. This was made by working from light to dark. The rocker seems to have been invented by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a famous cavalry commander in the English Civil War, who was the next to use the process, and took it to England. Sir Peter Lely saw the potential for using it to publicise his portraits, and encouraged a number of Dutch printmakers to come to England. Godfrey Kneller worked closely with John Smith, who is said to have lived in his house for a period; he created about 500 mezzotints, some 300 copies of portrait paintings.  British mezzotint collecting was a great craze from about 1760 to the Great Crash of 1929, also spreading to America. The main area of collecting was British portraits; hit oil paintings from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition were routinely, and profitably, reproduced in mezzotint throughout this period, and other mezzotinters reproduced older portraits of historical figures, or if necessary, made them up. The favourite period to collect was roughly from 1750 to 1820, the great period of the British portrait. There were two basic styles of collection: some concentrated on making a complete collection of material within a certain scope, while others aimed at perfect condition and quality (which declines in mezzotints after a relatively small number of impressions are taken from a plate), and in collecting the many "proof states" which artists and printers had obligingly provided for them from early on. Leading collectors included William Eaton, 2nd Baron Cheylesmore and the Irishman John Chaloner Smith.

Dark to light method.

This became the most common method. The whole surface (usually) of a metal, usually copper, plate is roughened evenly, manually with a rocker, or mechanically. If the plate were printed at this point it would show as solid black. The image is then created by selectively burnishing areas of the surface of the metal plate with metal tools; the smoothed parts will print lighter than those areas not smoothed by the burnishing tool. A burnisher has a smooth, round end, which flattens the minutely protruding points comprising the roughened surface of the metal printing plate. Areas smoothed completely flat will not hold ink at all; such areas will print "white," that is, without ink. By varying the degree of smoothing, mid-tones between black and white can be created, hence the name "mezzo-tinto" which is Italian for "half-tone" or "half-painted". This is called working from "dark to light", or the "subtractive" method.

Light to dark method.

Alternatively, it is possible to create the image directly by only roughening a blank plate selectively, where the darker parts of the image are to be. This is called working from "light to dark", or the "additive" method. The first mezzotints by Ludwig von Siegen were made in this way. Especially in this method, the mezzotint can be combined with other intaglio techniques, such as engraving, on areas of the plate not roughened, or even with the dark to light method.

Printing.

Printing the finished plate is the same for either method, and follows the normal way for an intaglio plate; the whole surface is inked, the ink is then wiped off the surface to leave ink only in the pits of the still rough areas below the original surface of the plate. The plate is put through a high-pressure printing press next to a sheet of paper, and the process repeated.  Because the pits in the plate are not deep, only a small number of top-quality impressions (copies) can be printed before the quality of the tone starts to degrade as the pressure of the press begins to smooth them out. Perhaps only one or two hundred really good impressions can be taken.

Detailed technique.

Plates can be mechanically roughened; one way is to rub fine metal filings over the surface with a piece of glass; the finer the filings, the smaller the grain of the surface. Special roughening tools called 'rockers' have been in use since at least the eighteenth century. The method commonly in use today is to use a steel rocker approximately five inches wide, which has between 45 and 120 teeth per inch on the face of a blade in the shape of a shallow arc, with a wooden handle projecting upwards in a T-shape. Rocked steadily from side to side at the correct angle, the rocker will proceed forward creating burrs in the surface of the copper. The plate is then moved – either rotated by a set number of degrees or through 90 degrees according to preference – and then rocked in another pass. This is repeated until the plate is roughened evenly and will print a completely solid tone of black.

Tone.

Mezzotint is known for the luxurious quality of its tones: first, because an evenly, finely roughened surface holds a lot of ink, allowing deep solid colors to be printed; secondly because the process of smoothing the plate with burin, "burnisher" and "scraper" allows fine gradations in tone to be developed. The scraper is a triangular ended tool, and the burnisher has a smooth round end – not unlike many spoon handles.

Mezzotint is a printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypoint method. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonality by roughening a metal plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth, called a "rocker". In printing, the tiny pits in the plate retain the ink when the face of the plate is wiped clean. This technique can achieve a high level of quality and richness in the print.


Mode of action.

The ratio of auxin to cytokinin plays an important role in the effect of cytokinin on plant growth. Cytokinin alone has no effect on parenchyma cells. When cultured with auxin but no cytokinin, they grow large but do not divide. When cytokinin is added, the cells expand and differentiate. When cytokinin and auxin are present in equal levels, the parenchyma cells form an undifferentiated callus. More cytokinin induces growth of shoot buds, while more auxin induces root formation.  Cytokinins are involved in many plant processes, including cell division and shoot and root morphogenesis. They are known to regulate axillary bud growth and apical dominance. The "direct inhibition hypothesis" posits that these effects result from the cytokinin to auxin ratio. This theory states that auxin from apical buds travels down shoots to inhibit axillary bud growth. This promotes shoot growth, and restricts lateral branching. Cytokinin moves from the roots into the shoots, eventually signaling lateral bud growth. Simple experiments support this theory. When the apical bud is removed, the axillary buds are uninhibited, lateral growth increases, and plants become bushier. Applying auxin to the cut stem again inhibits lateral dominance.  While cytokinin action in vascular plants is described as pleiotropic, this class of plant hormones specifically induces the transition from apical growth to growth via a three-faced apical cell in moss protonema. This bud induction can be pinpointed to differentiation of a specific single cell, and thus is a very specific effect of cytokinin.  Cytokinins have been shown to slow aging of plant organs by preventing protein breakdown, activating protein synthesis, and assembling nutrients from nearby tissues. A study that regulated leaf senescence in tobacco leaves found that wild-type leaves yellowed while transgenic leaves remained mostly green. It was hypothesized that cytokinin may affect enzymes that regulate protein synthesis and degradation.  Cytokinin signaling in plants is mediated by a two-component phosphorelay. This pathway is initiated by cytokinin binding to a histidine kinase receptor in the endoplasmic reticulum membrane. This results in the autophosphorylation of the receptor, with the phosphate then being transferred to a phosphotransfer protein. The phosphotransfer proteins can then phosphorylate the type-B response regulators (RR) which are a family of transcriptions factors. The phosphorylated, and thus activated, type-B RRs regulate the transcription of numerous genes, including the type-A "RR"s. The type-A RRs negatively regulate the pathway.

Biosynthesis.

Adenosine phosphate-isopentenyltransferase (IPT) catalyses the first reaction in the biosynthesis of isoprene cytokinins. It may use ATP, ADP, or AMP as substrates and may use dimethylallyl pyrophosphate (DMAPP) or hydroxymethylbutenyl pyrophosphate (HMBPP) as prenyl donors. This reaction is the rate-limiting step in cytokinin biosynthesis. DMADP and HMBDP used in cytokinin biosynthesis are produced by the methylerythritol phosphate pathway (MEP).  Cytokinins can also be produced by recycled tRNAs in plants and bacteria. tRNAs with anticodons that start with a uridine and carrying an already-prenylated adenosine adjacent to the anticodon release on degradation the adenosine as a cytokinin. The prenylation of these adenines is carried out by tRNA-isopentenyltransferase.  Auxin is known to regulate the biosynthesis of cytokinin.

Uses.

Because cytokinin promotes plant cell division and growth, produce farmers use it to increase crops. One study found that applying cytokinin to cotton seedlings led to a 5–10% yield increase under drought conditions.  Cytokinins have recently been found to play a role in plant pathogenesis. For example, cytokinins have been described to induce resistance against "Pseudomonas syringae" in "Arabidopsis thaliana" and "Nicotiana tabacum". Also in context of biological control of plant diseases cytokinins seem to have potential functions. Production of cytokinins by "Pseudomonas fluorescens" G20-18 has been identified as a key determinant to efficiently control the infection of "A. thaliana" with "P. syringae.".

Cytokinins (CK) are a class of plant growth substances (phytohormones) that promote cell division, or cytokinesis, in plant roots and shoots. They are involved primarily in cell growth and differentiation, but also affect apical dominance, axillary bud growth, and leaf senescence. Folke Skoog discovered their effects using coconut milk in the 1940s at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.


Biography.

Montgomery was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. According to NPR, the nickname "Wes" was a child's abbreviation of his middle name, Leslie. The family was large, and the parents split up early in the lives of the children. Montgomery and his brothers moved to Columbus, Ohio, with their father and attended Champion High School. His older brother Monk dropped out of school to sell coal and ice, gradually saving enough money to buy his brother Wes a four-string tenor guitar from a pawn shop in 1935. Although Montgomery spent many hours with the guitar, he discounted this time later in life, saying he had to start over when he got his first six-string several years later.

Career.

He and his brothers returned to Indianapolis. In 1943 Montgomery found work as a welder and got married. At a dance with his wife, he heard a Charlie Christian record for the first time. This motivated him to buy a six-string guitar the next day. For nearly a year, night and day, he tried to imitate Christian and teach himself the guitar. Although he hadn't intended to become a musician, he felt obligated to learn after buying the guitar. He received no formal instruction and couldn't read music. By the age of twenty he was performing in clubs in Indianapolis at night, copying Christian's solos, while working during the day, first at a milk company. In 1948, when Lionel Hampton was on tour in Indianapolis, he was looking for a guitarist, and after hearing Montgomery play like Christian he hired him.  Montgomery spent two years with the Hampton band. Fear kept him from flying with the rest of the band, so he drove from city to city, town to town, while musicians marveled at his stamina. When arriving at a club, the first thing he did was call home to his wife and family. He was given the opportunity to play with Charles Mingus, Milt Buckner, and Fats Navarro, but not the opportunity he hoped for, and he returned to Indianapolis a better player, though tired and discouraged. He resumed performing at local clubs, this time with the Eddie Higgins Trio and the Roger Jones Quintet, playing with Eddie Higgins, Walter Perkins, and Leroy Vinnegar. He joined his brothers Buddy and Monk and vibraphonist Alonzo "Pookie" Johnson in the Johnson/Montgomery Quintet, somewhat in the style of George Shearing. The band auditioned for Arthur Godfrey and recorded sessions with Quincy Jones. After a residency at a club from 1955 to 1957, Montgomery and his brothers went west.  Buddy and Monk Montgomery formed The Mastersounds and signed a contract with Dick Bock at Pacific Jazz. Montgomery joined them for a recording session in 1957 that included Freddie Hubbard. Some of the songs were released by Pacific Jazz on the album "The Montgomery Brothers and Five Others", while others showed up on "Fingerpickin'" (Pacific Jazz, 1958). The Mastersounds remained in California when Montgomery returned to Indianapolis to work in his trio with organist Melvin Rhyne.  He worked as a welder during the day to support his wife and six children, then performed at two clubs at night until well into the morning. He was a smoker who had blackouts while trying to maintain this busy schedule. During one performance, the audience included Cannonball Adderley, George Shearing, and Lennie Tristano. Adderley was so impressed by Montgomery's guitar playing that he persuaded Orrin Keepnews to sign him to Riverside. Keepnews was also persuaded by a gushing review written by Gunther Schuller. In New York City Montgomery recorded "A Dynamic New Sound, the Wes Montgomery Trio", his first album as a leader after twenty years as a musician. In 1960 he recorded "The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery" with Al Heath, Percy Heath, and Tommy Flanagan.  He joined his brothers in California to perform as the Montgomery Brothers for the Monterey Jazz Festival. The Mastersounds had broken up, and Buddy and Monk had signed with Fantasy and recorded (with Wes) "The Montgomery Brothers", followed by "Groove Yard". Montgomery recorded another album as a leader, "So Much Guitar", then while visiting his brothers had a chance to perform with the John Coltrane band in San Francisco. In 1961, work was getting harder to find. A tour in Canada led to the album "The Montgomery Brothers in Canada", then the band broke up. Montgomery returned to Indianapolis to work in his trio with Rhyne. Keepnews sent him back to California to record a live album with Johnny Griffin, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb. Their performance became the album "Full House". This was followed by "Fusion!", his first album with a string section.

Death and legacy.

Montgomery died of a heart attack on June 15, 1968, while at home in Indianapolis.  His grandson is actor Anthony Montgomery, who played Travis Mayweather on "".  On June 25, 2019, "The New York Times Magazine" listed Wes Montgomery among hundreds of artists whose recorded master tapes were reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire. Montgomery's recordings for the Verve Records label are owned by Universal Music Group.

Technique.

According to jazz guitar educator Wolf Marshall, Montgomery often approached solos in a three-tiered manner: he would begin the progression with single note lines, derived from scales or modes; after a fitting number of sequences, he would play octaves for a few more sequences, finally culminating with block chords. He used mostly superimposed triads and arpeggios as the main source for his soloing ideas and sounds.  Instead of using a guitar pick, Montgomery plucked the strings with the fleshy part of his thumb, using down strokes for single notes and a combination of up strokes and down strokes for chords and octaves. He developed this technique not for technical reasons but for the benefit of his neighbors. He worked long hours as a machinist before his music career began and practiced late at night. To keep neighbors from complaining, he played quietly by using his thumb.

Praise for Wes Montgomery.

In 1982, Bob James and Earl Klugh collaborated on a duet album and recorded the song "Wes" as a tribute to Montgomery on "Two of a Kind" album. Pat Martino released "Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery" in 2006.  Jazz guitarist Bobby Broom said that on "A Dynamic New Sound" in 1959, Montgomery "introduced a brand new approach to playing the guitar... The octave technique... and his chord melody and chord soloing playing still is today unmatched". Broom modeled his guitar-organ trio after Montgomery's.

Discography.

As leader.

Posthumous  With Buddy Montgomery and Monk Montgomery

John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery (March 6, 1923 – June 15, 1968) was an American jazz guitarist. One of the most influential guitarists of the twentieth century, Montgomery was known for an unusual technique of plucking the strings with the side of his thumb and his extensive use of octaves, which gave him a distinctive sound.


Examples.

Pre-First World War naval arms race.

From 1897 to 1914, a naval arms race between the United Kingdom and Germany took place. British concern about rapid increase in German naval power resulted in a costly building competition of "Dreadnought"-class ships. This tense arms race lasted until 1914, when the war broke out. After the war, a new arms race developed among the victorious Allies, which was temporarily ended by the Washington Naval Treaty.  In addition to the British and Germans, contemporaneous but smaller naval arms races also broke out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire; the Ottomans and Greece; France and Italy; the United States and Japan; and Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.

Nuclear arms race.

During the Cold War, an intense period between the Soviet Union and the United States and some other countries. This was one of the main causes that began the cold war, and perceived advantages of the adversary by both sides (such as the "missile gap" and “bomber gap”) led to large spending on armaments and the stockpiling of vast nuclear arsenals. Proxy wars were fought all over the world (e.g. in the Middle East, Korea, Vietnam) in which the superpowers' conventional weapons were pitted against each other. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, tensions decreased and the nuclear arsenal of both countries were reduced.

Other uses.

An evolutionary arms race is a system where two populations are evolving in order to continuously one-up members of the other population. This concept is related to the Red Queen's Hypothesis, where two organisms co-evolve to overcome each other but each fails to progress relative to the other interactant.  In technology, there are close analogues to the arms races between parasites and hosts, such as the arms race between computer virus writers and antivirus software writers, or spammers against Internet service providers and E-mail software writers.  More generically, the term is used to describe any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors in rank or knowledge. An arms race may also imply futility as the competitors spend a great deal of time and money, yet with neither side gaining an advantage over the other.

An arms race occurs when two or more nations participate in interactive or competitive increases in "persons under arms" as well as "war material". Simply defined as a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and the aim of superior military technology.


Actor, playwright.

Born Aloys Johann Nepomuk Franz Senefelder in Prague, then Imperial city ("Reichsstadt") of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, where his actor father was appearing on stage. He was educated in Munich and won a scholarship to study law at Ingolstadt. The death of his father in 1791 forced him to leave his studies to support his mother and eight siblings, and he became an actor and wrote a successful play "Connoisseur of Girls".

Discovery, development of lithography.

Problems with the printing of his play "Mathilde von Altenstein" caused him to fall into debt, and unable to afford to publish a new play he had written, Senefelder experimented with a novel etching technique using a greasy, acid resistant ink as a resist on a smooth fine-grained stone of Solnhofen limestone. He then discovered that this could be extended to allow printing from the flat surface of the stone alone, the first planographic process in printing.  He joined with the André family of music publishers and gradually brought his technique into a workable form, perfecting both the chemical processes and the special form of printing press required for using the stones. He called it "stone printing" or "chemical printing", but the French name "lithography" became more widely adopted. And with the composer Franz Gleißner he started a publishing firm in 1796 using lithography.  The value of the new cheap and exact reproduction process was recognized early by land surveying offices across Europe. Senefelder was appointed 1809 to be the Inspector of a new Institution set up for this purpose in Bavaria called the "Lithographic Institute" (Lithographische Anstalt) in Munich. Similar Institutions were subsequently set up under his supervision in Berlin, Paris, London and Vienna.  He secured patent rights across Europe and publicized his findings in 1818 in "Vollstandiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerei" which was translated in 1819 into French and English. "A Complete Course of Lithography" combined Senefelder's history of his own invention with a practical guide to lithography, and remained in print as recently as 1977 (Da Capo Press).  Senefelder was also able to exploit the potential of lithography as a medium for art. Unlike previous printmaking techniques, such as engraving, that required advanced craft skills, lithography facilitated greater accuracy and textural variety, because the artist could now draw directly onto the plate with familiar pens. As early as 1803 André published in London a portfolio of artists lithographs, entitled "Specimens of Polyautography".  In 1837, lithography had been further developed to allow full colour printing from multiple plates, and chromolithography was the most important technique in colour printing until the introduction of process colour.

Awards, legacy.

Senefelder was decorated by King Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria and a statue of him stands in the town of Solnhofen, where lithographic stone is still quarried. A statue of Alois Senefelder by sculptor Rudolf Pohle was erected in 1892 in what was then known as Thusneldaplatz in Berlin. The name of the square was changed to Senefelderplatz in 1894. An U-Bahn station named Senefelderplatz was opened in 1913.  Alois Senefelder's contribution ranks alongside William Ged's invention of stereotyping, Friedrich Koenig's steam press and Ottmar Mergenthaler's linotype machine in its innovative effect. It made printing more affordable and available to more people, and was important in art and newspaper printing. Senefelder lived to see his process become widely adopted both for art printmaking and as the dominant method of pictorial reproduction in the printing industry. He died in Munich, where he is buried in the Alter Südfriedhof.

Johann Alois Senefelder (6 November 177126 February 1834) was a German actor and playwright who invented the printing technique of lithography in the 1790s.


History.

Historically, even though the word "sock" is at least as ancient in origin, what men normally wore were often referred to as stockings, probably especially when referring to longer hose. The word "stock" used to refer to the bottom "stump" part of the body, and by analogy the word was used to refer to the one-piece covering of the lower trunk and limbs of the 15th century—essentially tights consisting of the "upper-stocks" (later to be worn separately as knee breeches) and "nether-stocks" (later to be worn separately as "stockings"). (See Hose.)  Before the 1590s, stockings were made of woven cloth. The first knitting machines were for making stockings. The stockings themselves were made of cotton, linen, wool or silk. A polished cotton called lisle was common, as were those made in the town of Balbriggan.  Before the 1920s, stockings, if worn, were worn for warmth. In the 1920s, as hemlines of dresses rose and central heating was not widespread, women began to wear flesh-colored stockings to cover their exposed legs. Those stockings were sheer, first made of silk or rayon (then known as "artificial silk") and after 1940 of nylon.  The introduction of nylon in 1939 by chemical company DuPont began a high demand for stockings in the United States with up to 4 million pairs being purchased in one day. Nylon stockings were cheap, durable, and sheer compared to their cotton and silk counterparts. When America entered World War II, DuPont ceased production of nylon stockings and retooled their factories to produce parachutes, airplane cords, and rope. This led to a shortage and the creation of a black market for stockings. At the end of the war DuPont announced that the company would return to producing stockings, but could not meet demand. This led to a series of disturbances in American stores known as the nylon riots until DuPont was able to ramp up production.  A precursor of pantyhose made an appearance in the 1940s and 1950s, when film and theater productions had stockings sewn to the briefs of actresses and dancers, according to actress-singer-dancer Ann Miller and seen in popular films such as "Daddy Long Legs". Today, stockings are commonly made using knitted wool, silk, cotton or nylon (see hosiery). The introduction of commercial pantyhose in 1959 gave an alternative to stockings, and the use of stockings declined dramatically. A main reason for this was the trend towards higher hemlines on dresses (see minidress). In 1970, U.S. sales of pantyhose exceeded stockings for the first time, and has remained this way ever since. Beginning in 1987, sales of pantyhose started a slight decline due to the newly invented hold-ups, but still remain the most sold kind of hosiery.

Benefits and drawbacks.

Stockings are still sometimes preferred to pantyhose in North American English, for a number of reasons. These may include the perception that stockings, and the associated use of garters, lace, high fashion, appliqué and the exposure of the thigh, are more aesthetically pleasing, or sexually attractive and alluring than pantyhose.  Both nylon stockings and pantyhose in being sheer share the advantage of being quick-drying compared to pants. Spare pairs are also easy to carry if they are ruined. If laddered they can be replaced 'one at a time' which provides a cost advantage over tights.  However, stockings have a drawback in colder weather, because more skin is exposed to the cold compared to pantyhose. Also, pantyhose do not require garters or garter belts, and do not need to be adjusted as much, whilst also leaving a smoother line under form-fitting clothing.

Support.

Stockings can be held up in one of three ways:

Terminology.

In modern usage, "stocking" specifically refers to the form of hosiery configured as two pieces, one for each leg (except for American and Australian English, where the term can also be a synonym for pantyhose). The terms "hold-ups" and "thigh highs" refer to stockings that stay up through the use of built-in elastic, while the word "stockings" is the general term or refers to the kind of stockings that need a suspender belt (garter belt, in American English), and are quite distinct from tights or pantyhose (American English).  Other terms used with stockings include:

Stockings (also known as hose, especially in a historical context) are close-fitting, variously elastic garments covering the leg from the foot up to the knee or possibly part or all of the thigh. Stockings vary in color, design, and transparency. Today, stockings are primarily worn for fashion and aesthetics, usually in association with mid-length or short skirts.


Early life.

He was born in Grunbach, today a part of Remshalden. As a young man he became an apprentice machinist at a foundry. Heinkel studied at the Technical Academy of Stuttgart, where he initially became interested in aviation through a fascination with Zeppelins, and in 1909 attended an international airshow in Frankfurt am Main. He determined flight was the future of transportation, and the following year, he built his first aircraft, working from a set of plans by Henri Farman. Heinkel crashed the plane in 1911 and suffered severe injuries.

Albatros Flugzeugwerke.

Soon afterwards, he gained employment at Luft-Verkehrs Gesellschaft (LVG), who were building Farman aircraft. From there, he went to Albatros. Heinkel claimed post-war to have designed the Albatros B.II, a successful reconnaissance and trainer aircraft used during the early stages of the First World War, but its main designer was in fact Robert Thelen. His planes were used by the Austro-Hungarian army and Germany's "Kaiserliche Marine" during the war. After leaving the Albatros, Heinkel designed several land- and seaplanes for the Hansa-Brandenburg company starting in 1914.

Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke.

In 1921, Heinkel was appointed head designer of the recently re-established Caspar-Werke, but soon left after a dispute over ownership of a design. In 1922 he established the Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke company at Warnemünde. Due to the restrictions placed on German aircraft manufacturing by the Treaty of Versailles, Heinkel looked overseas for contracts, with some seaplane designs being licence-built in Sweden and working on catapult-launched seaplanes for the Imperial Japanese Navy. He installed a similar catapult on the ocean liner Bremen for launching mail planes.

Versailles Treaty violations.

Between 1921-1924, the Japanese government placed several orders with Heinkel's company, and helped him skirt the Versailles Treaty, which banned the construction of military aircraft in Germany, by informing the company of facility inspections by allied commissions in advance. Japan was part of the inspection commission. Heinkel hid his aircraft in dunes behind his plant and were never discovered during inspections. Heinkel noted in his memoirs that his company's relationship with Japan in the 1920s led to decades of cooperation.

1933-1945.

After Adolf Hitler came to power, designs by Heinkel's firm formed a vital part of the Luftwaffe's growing strength in the years leading up to the Second World War. This included the Heinkel He 59, the Heinkel He 115 and the Heinkel He 111. He was designated a Wehrwirtschaftführer (~ defence industry leader) by the German government for his commitment to rearmament.  Heinkel was passionate about high-speed flight, and was keen on exploring alternative forms of aircraft propulsion. He donated aircraft to Wernher von Braun who was investigating rocket propulsion for aircraft, as well as sponsoring the research of Hans von Ohain into turbojet engines, leading to the flight of the Heinkel He 178, the first aircraft to fly solely under turbojet power by Erich Warsitz on August 27, 1939.  Heinkel had been a critic of Hitler's regime concerning being forced to fire Jewish designers and staff in 1933, however, he was a member of the Nazi party, awarded the German National Prize for Art and Science in 1938, one of the rarest honors of the German government, and he used forced Jewish labor starting in 1941, in which his company was considered a "model for slave labor."  In 1942 the government "nationalised" the Heinkel works. In practice, this meant that Heinkel was detained until he sold his controlling interest in his factories to Hermann Göring. Heinkel moved to Vienna and started a new design bureau and corporate offices in Vienna's Schwechat suburb, establishing manufacturing facilities in Zwölfaxing and Floridsdorf as the "Heinkel-Sud" complex for his firm, the original Rostock-"Marienhe" plant (today's Rostock-Schmarl neighborhood) becoming the "Heinkel-Nord" facility. It was at the "Heinkel-Sud" offices that Dr. Heinkel worked on the Heinkel He 274 four-engined high-altitude heavy bomber design - as one of the trio of proposals for aircraft designs to succeed his firm's failed Heinkel He 177A heavy bomber — until the war ended.

Post-war.

With Germany forbidden from manufacturing aircraft by the Allies, Heinkel used his company's facilities to build private transportation. In 1953 Heinkel began production of the Tourist scooter, followed by the Perle moped in 1954. In 1956 he introduced the Heinkel Kabine bubble car. Bubble car and moped production ceased shortly after the restriction on aircraft manufacture was lifted, but scooter production continued until 1965. In 1959, Heinkel's company was sued by Edmund Bartl for being enriched by slave labor during World War II, however, the German Supreme Court dismissed his claims for filing too late and ordered Bartl to pay court costs and attorney's fees.

Death and Legacy.

Ernst Heinkel died in 1958 in Stuttgart. His autobiography, "Stürmisches Leben", was published in 1956 and translated into English as "He1000" in its British edition and "Stormy Life: Memoirs of a Pioneer of the Air Age" in its US edition.  In 1981, Heinkel was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Dr. Ernst Heinkel (24 January 1888 – 30 January 1958) was a German aircraft designer, manufacturer, Wehrwirtschaftsführer in the Third Reich, and member of the Nazi party. His company Heinkel Flugzeugwerke produced the Heinkel He 178, the world's first turbojet aircraft and jet plane, and the Heinkel He 176, the first rocket aircraft.


Early years.

Aidid was born in 1934 in Mudug, Italian Somaliland. He was educated in Rome and Moscow and served in the Italian colonial police force in the 1950s. He later joined the Somali National Army.  Aideed was a highly qualified officer and quirky person who was selected to study advanced post graduate military science at the M. V. Frunze Military Academy (Военная академия им. М. В. Фрунзе) in the Soviet Union, an elite institution reserved for the most qualified officers of the Warsaw Pact armies and their allies.  In 1969, a few days after the assassination of Somalia's second president Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a military junta led by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre staged a bloodless coup d'état. Aidid was one of many officers serving at the central command of the Army at the time of the putsch. He quickly fell out of favour with the new regime's leaders and was subsequently detained along with Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. Aidid was eventually released from prison six years afterwards to take part in the 1977–78 war against Ethiopia over the disputed Ogaden region.  He later served as an advisor to President Barre and as Somalia's ambassador to India, before finally being appointed intelligence chief.

United Somali Congress.

After fallout from the unsuccessful Ogaden campaign of the late 1970s, the Barre administration began arresting government and military officials under suspicion of participation in the abortive 1978 coup d'état. Most of the people who had allegedly helped plot the putsch were summarily executed. However, several officials managed to escape abroad and started to form the first of various dissident groups dedicated to ousting Barre's regime by force.  By the late 1980s, Barre's regime had become increasingly unpopular. The State took an increasingly hard line, and insurgencies, encouraged by Ethiopia's communist Derg administration, sprang up across the country. This eventually led to the outbreak of the civil war, the gradual breakup of the Somali Armed Forces, and the toppling of Barre's government on 26 January 1991. Many of the opposition groups subsequently began competing for influence in the power vacuum that followed the ouster of Barre's regime. Armed factions led by United Somali Congress (USC) commanders General Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohamed, in particular, clashed as each sought to exert power over the capital. However, Aidid failed to attract many Somali leaders and intellectuals to the USC's cause, including fellow Frunze graduate General Abdullahi Ahmed Irro, who opted instead to remain politically neutral.  United Nations Security Council Resolution 733 and UN Security Council Resolution 746 led to the creation of the UNOSOM I after the dissolution of the central government. United Nations Security Council Resolution 794 was unanimously passed on December 3, 1992, which approved a coalition led by the United States. Forming the Unified Task Force (UNITAF), the alliance was tasked with assuring security until humanitarian efforts were transferred to the UN. Landing in 1993, the UN peacekeeping coalition started the two-year United Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II) primarily in the south.

Crimes of USC.

Upon capturing Mogadishu from the Somali National Army, USC militia men set on a rampage in what was described as a clan cleansing, according to eye witnesses and survivor reports, USC militia men would systematically target Somalis based on their clans. Individuals were hunted down, tortured, mutilated, and expressing joy at being able to gang-rape their female relatives in front of them. From what was supposed to be a take over of the capital city, now became to what was motivated as a deep personal, clan based hatred and resentment. Extreme brutality such as torture, rape, looting of properties were all part of the clan cleansing campaign.  Gang rape was a terrorizing factor and a systematic approach in driving out populations, this was heavily carried out by the USC, there are accounts of eight girls who were abducted from their homes the night before, had been cut with knives and raped all night. They were left and found the following morning at 5.30am where the girls could barely move.  The harrowing rape cases that were reported led the militia leader Aidid to issue a public apology, in a video that was posted shows Aidid apologizing for some of the mass rapes carried out by his militia men. This apology can be seen as acceptance and acknowledgement of the crimes his militiamen committed on the Somali People.

Presidency declaration.

Aidid subsequently declared himself President of Somalia in June 1995. However, his declaration received no international recognition, as his rival Ali Mahdi Muhammad had already been elected interim president at a conference in Djibouti and recognized as such by the international community.  Consequently, Aidid's faction continued its quest for hegemony in the south. In September 1995, militia forces loyal to him attacked the city of Baidoa, killing 10 local residents and capturing at least 20 foreign aid workers.

Death.

On July 24, 1996, Aidid and his men clashed with the forces of former allies Ali Mahdi Muhammad and Osman Ali Atto. Atto was a former supporter and financier of Aidid, and of the same subclan. Atto is alleged to have masterminded the defeat of Aidid. Aidid suffered a gunshot wound in the ensuing battle. He later died from a heart attack on August 2, either during or after surgery to treat his injuries.  Other officers allegedly targeted by Atto include General Talan. In its 2000 Country Report for Somalia, the U.S. Department of State asserted that the killing of Yusuf Tallan, a former general under the Barre regime, was connected to Osman Ali Atto "because of Atto's business deals in the north and the possibility of a deal between Somaliland President Egal and Atto in order to destabilize the south."

Family.

During the events leading up to the civil war, Aidid's wife Khadiga Gurhan sought asylum in Canada in 1989, moving the couple's four children with her. Local media shortly afterwards alleged that she had returned to Somalia for a five-month stay while still receiving welfare payments. Gurhan admitted in an interview to collecting welfare and having briefly traveled to Somalia in late 1991. However, it was later brought to light that she had been granted landed immigrant status in June 1991, thereby making her a legal resident of Canada. Additionally, Aidid's rival President Barre had been overthrown in January of that year. This altogether ensured that Gurhan's five-month trip would not have undermined her initial 1989 claim of refugee status. An official probe by Canadian immigration officials into the allegations also concluded that she had obtained her landing papers through normal legal processes.  Hussein Mohamed Farrah, son of General Aidid, emigrated to the United States when he was 17 years old. Staying 16 years in the country, he eventually became a naturalized citizen and later a United States Marine who served in Somalia. Two days after his father's death, the Somali National Alliance declared Farrah as the new President, although he too was not internationally recognized as such.

Mohamed Farrah Hassan Aidid (; December 15, 1934 – August 2, 1996) was a Somali warlord and militia leader. A former general and diplomat, he was the chairman of the United Somali Congress (USC) and later led the Somali National Alliance (SNA). Along with other armed opposition groups, they drove out President Mohamed Siad Barre's socialist regime from Somalia's capital Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War that broke out in the early 1990s.


History.

It was founded in 1974, after its forerunner the Communist League (Ligue Communiste) was banned in 1973. The Communist League was itself founded in 1969 after the Revolutionary Communist Youth (Jeunesses Communistes Révolutionnaires), which was banned in 1968, had merged with Pierre Frank's Internationalist Communist Party. The group included members of other Trotskyist tendencies who were able to organise openly within its ranks to gain support for their views.  Its official spokespersons were Alain Krivine, Roseline Vachetta, who are former members of the European Parliament, and Olivier Besancenot who was the party's candidate for the presidential elections in 2002 and 2007.  A major issue in the party's latter years was the possibility and conditions of electoral alliances with other left wing forces, such as the fellow Trotskyist party Lutte Ouvrière. In the past the two had at times run joint candidates (for example in the last regional and European elections), and at times ran separately (for example in the 2002 and 2007 presidential elections).  In a situation where massive campaigns against government policy have brought millions into the streets, but established political parties have lost a lot of credibility, the idea of unifying the radical Left in an electoral alliance was much discussed. There were for example talks for an alliance with the French Communist Party, after both parties worked together on the victorious campaign of the 'No' in the 2005 French referendum on the Constitution of the European Union. Relations between the two parties had been improving since Marie-George Buffet took over the leadership of the PCF.  LCR militants openly worked within left-wing groups such as ATTAC and the Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques trade unions, although both are independent from political parties (and have members from other political backgrounds).

Dissolution.

The Revolutionary Communist League was the leading force in the creation of the New Anticapitalist Party, launched in June 2008, which was intended to unify the parties and movements of the far left.  On 5 February 2009, 87,1% of party members voted to dissolve the Revolutionary Communist League, with 11.5% voting against. The dissolution was intended solely to enable the LCR to become the New Anticapitalist Party. Alain Krivine, who had been one of the party's founders, said: "We're not dissolving, as such. We'll continue the revolutionary struggle, with a tool that's much better suited for it than the LCR."

Presidential elections (2002 and 2007).

In France's 2002 presidential election, the LCR's candidate Olivier Besancenot won 4.25% of the vote. Thus the far left (LCR, Lutte Ouvrière and Parti des travailleurs) gained a total of more than 10%. The run-off election provided voters with only a choice between the right-wing Chirac and the far-right Le Pen. The left in its vast majority voted for Chirac. The LCR did not call for abstention: the LCR campaigned to "minimize the vote to Le Pen". The LCR campaign was run under the slogan "Beat Le Pen on the streets and in the ballot box". A minority within the LCR were opposed to this slogan, believing that it amounted to a call to vote for Chirac.  For the 2007 French presidential election, the LCR's candidate was again Olivier Besancenot, gaining around 4.1% at the first round. As he fell under the 5% barrier, the state did not cover the campaign's expenses above 800,000 euros. However, as the party spent approximatively this sum, according to Pierre-François Grond, a member of the direction, it will not be financially affected by Besancenot's lower score.

The Revolutionary Communist League (, "LCR") was a Trotskyist political party in France. It was the French section of the Fourth International (Post-Reunification). It published the weekly newspaper "Rouge" and the journal "Critique communiste". Established in 1974, it became the leading party of the far-left in the 2000s. It officially abolished itself on 5 February 2009 to merge with smaller factions of the far-left and form a New Anticapitalist Party.


History.

Saws were at first serrated materials such as flint, obsidian, sea shells and shark teeth. In ancient Egypt, open (unframed) saws made of copper are documented as early as the Early Dynastic Period, circa 3,100–2,686 BC. Many copper saws were found in tomb No. 3471 dating to the reign of Djer in the 31st century BC. Saws have been used for cutting a variety of materials, including humans ("see" Death by sawing). Models of saws have been found in many contexts throughout Egyptian history. Particularly useful are tomb wall illustrations of carpenters at work that show sizes and the use of different types. Egyptian saws were at first serrated, hardened copper which cut on both pull and push strokes. As the saw developed, teeth were raked to cut only on the pull stroke and set with the teeth projecting only on one side, rather than in the modern fashion with an alternating set. Saws were also made of bronze and later iron. In the Iron Age, frame saws were developed holding the thin blades in tension. The earliest known sawmill is the Roman Hierapolis sawmill from the third century AD and was for sawing stone.  According to Chinese legend, the saw was invented by Lu Ban. In Greek mythology, as recounted by Ovid, Talos, the nephew of Daedalus, invented the saw. In archeological reality, saws date back to prehistory and most probably evolved from Neolithic stone or bone tools. "[T]he identities of the axe, adz, chisel, and saw were clearly established more than 4,000 years ago."

Manufacture of saws by hand.

Once mankind had learned how to use iron, it became the preferred material for saw blades of all kinds; some cultures learned how to harden the surface ("case hardening" or "steeling"), prolonging the blade's life and sharpness. Steel, made of iron with moderate carbon content and hardened by quenching hot steel in water, was used as early as 1200 BC. By the end of the 17th century European manufacture centred on Germany, (the Bergisches Land) in London, and the Midlands of England. Most blades were made of steel (iron carbonised and re-forged by different methods). In the mid 18th century a superior form of completely melted steel ("crucible cast") began to be made in Sheffield, England, and this rapidly became the preferred material, due to its hardness, ductility, springiness and ability to take a fine polish. A small saw industry survived in London and Birmingham, but by the 1820s the industry was growing rapidly and increasingly concentrated in Sheffield, which remained the largest centre of production, with over 50% of the nation's saw makers. The US industry began to overtake it in the last decades of the century, due to superior mechanisation, better marketing, a large domestic market, and the imposition of high tariffs on imports. Highly productive industries continued in Germany and France. Early European saws were made from a heated sheet of iron or steel, produced by flattening by several men simultaneously hammering on an anvil (Barley ibid p11) After cooling, the teeth were punched out one at a time with a die, the size varying with the size of the saw. The teeth were sharpened with a triangular file of appropriate size, and set with a hammer or a wrest (Moxon, ibid). By the mid 18th century rolling the metal was usual, the power for the rolls being supplied first by water, and increasingly by the early 19th century by steam engines. The industry gradually mechanized all the processes, including the important grinding the saw plate "thin to the back" by a fraction of an inch, which helped the saw to pass through the kerf without binding (Moxon, ibid, p95). The use of steel added the need to harden and temper the saw plate, to grind it flat, to smith it by hand hammering and ensure the springiness and resistance to bending deformity, and finally to polish it (Barley ibid pp5–22). Most hand saws are today entirely made without human intervention, with the steel plate supplied ready rolled to thickness and tensioned before being cut to shape by laser. The teeth are shaped and sharpened by grinding and are flame hardened to obviate (and actually prevent) sharpening once they have become blunt. A large measure of hand finishing remains to this day for quality saws by the very few specialist makers reproducing the 19th century designs.

Pit saws.

A pit saw was a two-man rip saw. In parts of early colonial North America, it was one of the principal tools used in shipyards and other industries where water-powered sawmills were not available. It was so-named because it was typically operated over a saw pit, either at ground level or on trestles across which logs that were to be cut into boards. The pit saw was "a strong steel cutting-plate, of great breadth, with large teeth, highly polished and thoroughly wrought, some eight or ten feet in length" with either a handle on each end or a frame saw. A pit-saw was also sometimes known as a whipsaw. It took 2-4 people to operate. A "pit-man" stood in the pit, a "top-man" stood outside the pit, and they worked together to make cuts, guide the saw, and raise it. Pit-saw workers were among the most highly paid laborers in early colonial North America.

Types of saws.

Hand saws.

Hand saws typically have a relatively thick blade to make them stiff enough to cut through material. (The pull stroke also reduces the amount of stiffness required.) Thin-bladed handsaws are made stiff enough either by holding them in tension in a frame, or by backing them with a folded strip of steel (formerly iron) or brass (on account of which the latter are called "back saws.") Some examples of hand saws are:

Back saws.

"Back saws," so called because they have a thinner blade backed with steel or brass to maintain rigidity, are a subset of hand saws. Back saws have different names depending on the length of the blade; tenon saw is often used as a generic name for all the sizes of woodworking backsaw. Some examples are:

Frame saws.

A class of saws for cutting all types of material; they may be small or large and the frame may be wood or metal.

Types of blades and blade cuts.

Most blade teeth are made either of tool steel or carbide. Carbide is harder and holds a sharp edge much longer.

Materials used for saws.

There are several materials used in saws, with each of its own specifications.  Plainsawing: Lumber that will be used in structures is typically plainsawn (also called flatsawn), a method of dividing the log that produces the maximum yield of useful pieces and therefore the greatest economy.

Uses.

Quarter sawing: This sawing method produces edge-grain or vertical grain lumber, in which annual growth rings run more consistently perpendicular to the pieces' wider faces.

References.

Salaman, R A, Dictionary of Woodworking Tools, revised edition 1989

A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, wire, or chain with a hard toothed edge. It is used to cut through material, very often wood though sometimes metal or stone. The cut is made by placing the toothed edge against the material and moving it forcefully forth and less forcefully back or continuously forward. This force may be applied by hand, or powered by steam, water, electricity or other power source. An abrasive saw has a powered circular blade designed to cut through metal or ceramic.


Name.

The name "Maroboduus" can be broken down into two Celtic elements, "māro-" meaning "great" (cf. Welsh "mawr", Irish "mór"), and "bodwos" meaning "raven" (cf. Irish "badhbh").

Biography.

Maroboduus was born into a noble family of the Marcomanni. As a young man, he lived in Italy and enjoyed the favour of the Emperor Augustus. The Marcomanni had been beaten utterly by the Romans in 10 BC. About 9 BC, Maroboduus returned to Germania and became ruler of his people. To deal with the threat of Roman expansion into the Rhine-Danube basin, he led the Marcomanni to the area later known as Bohemia to be outside the range of the Roman influence. There, he took the title of king and organized a confederation of several neighboring Germanic tribes. He was the first documented ruler of Bohemia.  Augustus planned in 6 AD to destroy the kingdom of Maroboduus, which he considered to be too dangerous for the Romans. The future emperor Tiberius commanded 12 legions to attack the Marcomanni, but the outbreak of a revolt in Illyria, and the need for troops there, forced Tiberius to conclude a treaty with Maroboduus and to recognize him as king.

War with Arminius and death.

His rivalry with Arminius, the Cheruscan leader who inflicted the devastating defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest on the Romans under Publius Quinctilius Varus in 9 AD, prevented a concerted attack on Roman territory across the Rhine in the north (by Arminius) and in the Danube basin in the south (by Maroboduus).  However, according to the first-century AD historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Arminius sent Varus's head to Maroboduus, but the king of the Marcomanni sent it to Augustus. In the revenge war of Tiberius and Germanicus against the Cherusci, Maroboduus stayed neutral.  In 17 AD, war broke out between Arminius and Maroboduus, and after an indecisive battle, Maroboduus withdrew into the hilly forests of Bohemia, in 18 AD. In the next year, Catualda, a young Marcomannic nobleman living in exile among the Gutones, returned, perhaps by a subversive Roman intervention, and defeated Maroboduus. The deposed king had to flee to Italy, and Tiberius detained him 18 years in Ravenna. There, Maroboduus died in 37 AD. Catualda was, in turn, defeated by the Hermunduri Vibilius, after which the realm was ruled by the Quadian Vannius. Vannius was himself also deposed by Vibilius, in coordination with his nephews Vangio and Sido, who then ruled as Roman client kings.

Maroboduus (died AD 37), was a king of the Marcomanni, who were Germanic Suebian people. He spent part of his youth in Rome, and returning, found his people under pressure from invasions by the Roman empire between the Rhine and Elbe. He led them into the forests of Bohemia, near to the Quadi who already lived nearby, and established a large alliance.


History.

The medieval University of Bologna, which served as a model for most of the later medieval universities in Europe, had four faculties: students began at the Faculty of Arts, graduates from which could then continue at the higher Faculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine. The privilege to establish these four faculties was usually part of medieval universities’ charters, but not every university could do so in practice.  The "Faculty of Arts" took its name from the seven liberal arts: the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy). In German, Scandinavian, Slavic and related universities, it would more often be called the "Faculty of Philosophy". The degree of Magister Artium (Master of Arts) derives its name from the Faculty of Arts, while the degree of Doctor Philosophiae (Doctor of Philosophy) derives its name from the Faculty of Philosophy, German name of the same faculty. Whether called "Faculty of Arts" or "Faculty of Philosophy", it taught a range of subjects with general and fundamental applicability.  The higher "Faculty of Law" and "Faculty of Medicine" were intended, much like today, for specialized education required for professions. The "Faculty of Theology" was the most prestigious, as well as least common in the first 500 years—and generally one that popes sought most to control. Although also "professional" education for clergy, theology (until the Enlightenment) was also seen as the ultimate subject at universities, named "The Queen of the Sciences", and often set the example for the other faculties.  The number of faculties has usually multiplied in modern universities, both through subdivisions of the traditional four faculties and through the absorption of academic disciplines that developed within originally vocational schools, in areas such as engineering or agriculture.

Faculty of Arts.

A Faculty of Arts is a university division teaching in areas traditionally classified as "liberal arts" for academic purposes (from Latin, "worthy of a free person", and, "art or principled practice"), generally including creative arts, writing, philosophy, and humanities.  A traditional division of the teaching bodies of medieval universities (the others being Law, Medicine and Theology), the Faculty of Arts was the lowest in rank but also the largest (the higher faculties admitted only Arts graduates). Instead of "Arts", this faculty often had the name "Philosophy". Nowadays this is still a common name for faculties teaching humanities (e.g.,), ).

Faculty of Classics.

A Faculty of Classics may be focused on ancient history and ancient literature. The title may refer to the following faculties:

Faculty of Commerce.

Faculty of Commerce examples include:

Faculty of Economics.

Faculty of Economics ("Ekonomski fakultet" in most South Slavic languages) may refer to, amongst others:

Faculty of Education.

Faculty of Education examples include:

Faculty of Engineering.

Faculty of Engineering examples include:

Faculty of Graduate Studies.

The title, Faculty of Graduate Studies, refers not to a specific area of study, but to a Graduate school. Examples include:

Faculty of Humanities.

A Faculty of Humanities is a university faculty teaching humanities.  Examples include:

Faculty of Information Technology.

A Faculty of Information Technology is a university faculty teaching information technology.  Examples include:

Faculty of Law.

A Faculty of Law is a university faculty teaching law, or a law school faculty.  Examples include:

Faculty of Management Studies.

A Faculty of Management Studies is a university division teaching management studies.  Examples include:

Faculty of Music.

In English-speaking academia, Faculty of Music normally refers to a university department, especially at Oxford and Cambridge (UK). In the US, the use of 'faculty' often relates to academic and teaching staff.  Examples include:

Faculty of Natural Sciences.

Faculty of Natural Sciences examples include:

Faculty of Philosophy.

A Faculty of Philosophy is a university faculty teaching philosophy.  In the universities of continental Europe, the Faculty of Arts has more often been named the equivalent of "Faculty of Philosophy" (e.g.,, ). Nowadays this is a common name for the faculties teaching humanities.  Examples include:

Faculty of Political Science.

Faculty of Political Science examples include:

A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges (e.g., "college of arts and sciences") or schools (e.g., "school of business"), but may also mix terminology (e.g., Harvard University has a "faculty of arts and sciences" but a "law school").


Early years.

Bofill was raised in a Catalan bourgeois family. His father, named Emilio Bofill, was a builder and developer, a Republican, and liberal and a progressive who was vehemently against Francisco Franco’s regime. Ricardo's mother, Maria Levi, was an Italian Jew who functioned as the matriarchal pillar of the family.

Education.

During his adolescence, Ricardo Bofill studied at the Lycée français de Barcelone. He spent much of his youth traveling throughout Spain, spending a significant amount of time in Andalusia, where he discovered Spanish vernacular architecture. In 1957, he attended the. While there, like many students of the time, he began developing strong Marxist ideals. During a demonstration, he was arrested and expelled from the university and Spain. Ricardo Bofill fled Barcelona in 1958 for Geneva, where he attended the to complete his education.

Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura.

Early career.

In 1963, Ricardo Bofill joined his family business, forming a multidisciplinary, multitalented team consisting of architects, engineers, planners, sociologists, writers, movie makers, and philosophers. Bofill revived the characteristic craftsmanship of traditional Catalan architecture. Later on, he began to deal with local urban-planning problems within the Spanish political and social level. The necessity to approach large-scale projects led Bofill's team to conceive a ridged yet organic methodology based on the geometric formation of elements in space. Such was developed in a theoretical manner with the project The City in Space, and realized with the construction of Walden 7.  Projects like Muralla Roja in 1973 and Xanadu in 1971 are renowned for their adherence to Critical Regionalism and can be seen as Ricardo Bofill's reaction against the modernist architectural tendencies and the politics of the time in Spain.

La Fabrica.

The conversion of the abandoned cement factory from the late 19th century into RBTA's studios and Ricardo Bofill's personal residence began with a process of destruction, demolishing pieces of the structures to reveal hidden forms. The factory lies directly next to Walden 7, in Sant Just Desvern, Spain.  The remaining eight silos were transformed into offices, a model-making laboratory, archives, a library, a gigantic space known as "The Cathedral", used for meetings, exhibitions, concerts, and professional activities of the architect. Above the Cathedral lie Ricardo's residence, green roofs and terraces. The entire complex was planted with lush gardens to create the effect of an oasis within the industrial area.  The renovation project, which began in 1973, incorporates various architectural languages; Catalan Civic Gothic style and Surrealist elements and is an early example of European Postmodernism.

French period.

As a result of the economic crisis and the tense political situation in Spain, Ricardo began focusing elsewhere. In 1971, Ricardo formed a complementary team in Paris, in response to the demands of various projects for the French “New Towns”. During this phase, Bofill introduced in his proposals symbolic elements directly related to the French monumental architecture. La Petite Cathédrale and are examples of these inhabited monuments.  In France, Ricardo Bofill's name is largely associated with the project of. In 1974, Ricardo Bofill won the French Ministry of Culture’s competition for “le trou des Halles” along with ten other teams. The concept of Bofill's scheme was “a monument within the city”, a green area with architectural character as per French tradition, a place in the heart of Paris where people could meet. Despite being considered the winner of the competition, and beginning construction of the project, enormous controversy ensued when the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, decided to raze Bofill's project, and imposed the construction of the scheme by architect Jean Willerval.  From 1979 on, the activities of Bofill's Taller de Arquitectura took place mainly in France, focusing primarily on social housing, with the simultaneous construction of four projects: Les Arcades du Lac and Le Viaduc in Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines Building; Le Palais d’Abraxas, Le Théâtre and L’Arc in Marne-la-Vallée; Les Echelles du Baroque in the XIVième district in Paris; as well as Antigone in Montpellier.  Bofill's design studies for precast concrete units contributed in the 1980s, to the Taller's affirmation of the validity of classical forms and geometry in contemporary architecture. Today, Ricardo is seen as one of the founding European Postmodernists. In the 1990s, the inclusion of glass and steel amongst the materials used in his projects is simply the outcome of a process marked by the study of and research into forms and materials, as seen in the BNP Paribas Headquarters and Parfums Christian Dior Headquarters in Paris, and United Airlines Headquarters in Chicago.

Current company.

In 2000, Bofill centralized El Taller's activities to its headquarters, La Fabrica, in the outskirts of Barcelona. As always, Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura is a family business. His two sons, Ricardo E. Bofill, acting as President, and Pablo Bofill, serving as CEO, help lead a diverse team. Together with his two partner architects, Peter Hodgkinson and Jean- Pierre Carniaux, Bofill's Taller continues the spirit and philosophy that motivated his team in the early 1960s to approach international projects from the large scale of urban design contributing to a new "integrated urbanism”, which include the schemes for Luxembourg's Place de l’Europe, New Castellana in Madrid, Boston Central Artery, Moscow Agglomeration's City Expansion and large infrastructures for public transport, such as the Barcelona Airport's Terminal 1 and 2.  El Taller has continued to create sports, cultural, and retail facilities in Europe and Asia; both social and Class A residential buildings, from Senegal to Stockholm, from Beijing to Paris; office buildings and headquarters of leading companies in the United States, France, and Spain. One of the formative postmodern architects, Bofill still utilizes classical composition to resolve the monotony of pre-fabrication, as seen in the Hague's in Russia. But Ricardo Bofill cannot be typecast, as the W Hotel in Barcelona and Polytechnic University Mohammed VI are proof of his diverse architectural abilities.  While Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura works on all types of projects, from master plans to luxury residences, the core of its business and interest remains in social housing, which it continues to design across the world.  terrace.

Films.

"Circles", 1968.

Technical Information Presented at Festival de Tours, France, 1968

"Schizo", 1970.

Technical Information  Presented at 48 Mostra Cinematografica Internazionale di Venezia, Sala Volpi, 1991.  Presented in a museum space for the first time as part of the exhibition Subversive Practices, this work has remained virtually unknown, with few public screenings, for almost forty years. Its original subtitle – A Fictitious Report on the Architecture of the Brain – does not just refer to the process-based methodology characteristics of conceptual practices and “information art” but also indicates the type of activities carried out by the Taller de Arquitectura. This multidisciplinary platform was created in 1960 by Ricardo Bofill. Its collaborators included poets such as José Agustin Goytisolo, politicians like Salvador Clotas, artists like Daniel Argimon and Joan Ponç, actresses like Serena Vergano, and, lastly, architects such as Anna Bofill, Peter H. Hodgkinson, Ramón Collado, Xavier Bagué, and Manuel Nuñez Yanovsky. The film is a study of the relationship between art and madness and describes the horror of the human condition – a mere instant between nothingness and nothingness. The piece is an experimental documentary on the structure of a brain, reflecting the disquiet of an artist and his distorted vision of the world.

Ricardo Bofill Leví () (born 5 December 1939) is a Spanish architect, who, since 1963, continues to lead the international architectural and urban design practice Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura. Ricardo Bofill was born into a family of builders in 1939 in Barcelona. He studied at the Barcelona University School of Architecture and graduated from the School of Geneva. At the age of 17, Ricardo Bofill designed his first project, a summer home in Ibiza, and by 23, became lead architect of el Taller. Over fifty years later, Bofill still leads Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura, with over 1000 projects to date in over 50 countries.


Synopsis.

Arnie, a nerdy high school student, and his friend Dennis notice a dilapidated 1958 Plymouth Fury being sold by an elderly man with a back brace, Roland D. LeBay, who named the car "Christine". Despite Dennis' reservations, Arnie buys Christine for $250. While Arnie finishes the paperwork, Dennis sits inside Christine and has a vision of the car and the surroundings as they existed when the car was new, 20 years earlier. Frightened, Dennis decides he dislikes Christine. Arnie brings Christine to a do-it-yourself garage run by Will Darnell, suspected of using the garage as a front for illicit operations. As Arnie restores the car, he stops wearing his glasses and his acne clears up, but he also becomes withdrawn, humorless and cynical. When LeBay dies, Dennis meets his younger brother, George, who reveals LeBay's history of anger and violent behavior. George reveals that LeBay's young daughter choked to death on a hamburger in the back seat of the car and that LeBay's wife subsequently committed suicide in its front seat by carbon monoxide poisoning.  Dennis observes that Arnie is taking on many of LeBay's personality traits and has begun dressing like a 1950s greaser. Dennis also sees that Arnie has become close to Darnell, even acting as a courier in Darnell's smuggling operations. When Arnie is almost finished restoring Christine, he begins dating an attractive student named Leigh. Arnie's parents force him to keep Christine in an airport parking lot. Soon afterward, Clarence "Buddy" Repperton, a bully who blames Arnie for his expulsion from school, learns where Christine is being kept and vandalizes the car with help from his gang. Arnie, aware of Christine's ability to repair herself, pushes her through Darnell's garage until enough of the damage is undone for her to run, and then drives her through the junkyard until she is fully restored. Arnie strains his back in the process and begins wearing a back brace, as LeBay did. During a date with Arnie, Leigh nearly chokes to death on a hamburger and is saved only by the intervention of a hitchhiker. Leigh notices that Christine's dashboard lights seemed to become glaring green eyes, watching her during the incident, and that Arnie only half-heartedly tried to save her. Believing she and Christine are competing for Arnie's affection, Leigh vows to never get into the car again. Several inexplicable car-related deaths occur around town. The victims include Darnell, Buddy and all but one of his accomplices in the vandalism. The police link Christine to each of the murders, but no evidence is found on the car. A detective named Rudy Junkins becomes suspicious of Arnie despite his airtight alibis. Christine, possessed by LeBay's vengeful spirit, is committing these murders independently and then repairing herself.  Leigh and Dennis begin a relationship while unearthing details of Christine and LeBay's past. Dennis speculates that LeBay sacrificed his daughter and wife to make Christine a receptacle for his spirit. They compare Arnie's signatures from before and after his purchase of Christine with LeBay's. Arnie stumbles upon Leigh and Dennis being intimately close in Dennis' car, sending him into a rage. Soon after, Junkins is killed in a car crash. Suspecting they are next, Dennis and Leigh devise a plan to destroy the car and save Arnie. While Arnie is visiting a college, Dennis and Leigh lure Christine to the garage and batter her to pieces using a septic tanker truck. Dennis witnesses LeBay's spirit attempting to make him stop before the wreckage is crushed. Dennis learns that Arnie and his mother were both killed in a highway accident, while Christine earlier killed Arnie's father. Witness accounts lead Dennis to believe that LeBay's spirit, tied to Arnie through Christine, fled the Plymouth and attempted to repossess Arnie, but Arnie fought him to a draw, resulting in the wreck. Four years later, Dennis and Leigh have ended their relationship. He reads about a car accident in Los Angeles, in which a drive-in theater employee — the last surviving member of Buddy's gang — was killed by a car that smashed through a cinderblock wall. Dennis speculates that Christine may have rebuilt herself and is setting out to kill everyone who stood against her, saving him for last.

Christine is a horror novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1983. It tells the story of a car (a 1958 Plymouth Fury) apparently possessed by supernatural forces. A film adaptation, directed by John Carpenter, was released in December of the same year; this adaptation starred Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul and Harry Dean Stanton. In April 2013, PS Publishing released "Christine" in a limited 30th Anniversary Edition.


Uses.

Medical.

Arsenic trioxide is used to treat a type of cancer known as acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). It may be used both in cases that are unresponsive other agents, such as all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) or as part of the initial treatment of newly diagnosed cases. This initial treatment may include combination therapy of arsenic trioxide with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA).  Effectiveness appears similar to Realgar/Indigo naturalis, which can be taken by mouth and is less expensive but is less available.  In the 1970s, Chinese researcher Zhang Tingdong and colleagues discovered this use. It was approved for leukemia treatment in the United States in 2000. University of Hong Kong developed a liquid form of arsenic trioxide that can be given by mouth. Organoarsenic compounds, such as feed additives (roxarsone) and medication (neosalvarsan), are derived from arsenic trioxide.

Manufacturing.

Industrial uses include usage as a precursor to forestry products, in colorless glass production, and in electronics. Being the main compound of arsenic, the trioxide is the precursor to elemental arsenic, arsenic alloys, and arsenide semiconductors. Bulk arsenic-based compounds sodium arsenite and sodium cacodylate are derived from the trioxide.  A variety of applications exploit arsenic's toxicity, including the use of the oxide as a wood preservative. Copper arsenates, which are derived from arsenic trioxide, are used on a large scale as a wood preservative in the U.S. and Malaysia, but such materials are banned in many parts of the world. This practice remains controversial. In combination with copper(II) acetate, arsenic trioxide gives the vibrant pigment known as Paris green used in paints and as a rodenticide. This application has been discontinued.

Alternative medicine.

Despite the well known toxicity of arsenic, arsenic trioxide was used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it is known as "pi-shuang" (. In homeopathy, it is called arsenicum album. Some discredited patent medicines, e.g., Fowler's solution, contained derivatives of arsenic oxide.

Toxicology.

Arsenic trioxide is readily absorbed by the digestive system: toxic effects are also well known upon inhalation or upon skin contact. Elimination is rapid at first (half-life of 1–2 days), by methylation to monomethylarsonic acid and dimethylarsonic acid, and excretion in the urine, but a certain amount (30–40% in the case of repeated exposure) is incorporated into the bones, muscles, skin, hair and nails (all tissues rich in keratin) and eliminated over a period of weeks or months.  The first symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning by ingestion are digestive problems: vomiting, abdominal pains, diarrhea often accompanied by bleeding. Sub-lethal doses can lead to convulsions, cardiovascular problems, inflammation of the liver and kidneys and abnormalities in the coagulation of the blood. These are followed by the appearance of characteristic white lines (Mees' lines) on the nails and by hair loss. Lower doses lead to liver and kidney problems and to changes in the pigmentation of the skin. Even dilute solutions of arsenic trioxide are dangerous on contact with the eyes.  The poisonous properties are well known and the subject of an extensive literature.  Chronic arsenic poisoning is known as arsenicosis. This disorder affects workers in smelters, in populations whose drinking water contains high levels of arsenic (0.3–0.4 ppm), and in patients treated for long periods with arsenic-based pharmaceuticals. Similarly, studies on workers exposed in copper foundries in the U.S., Japan and Sweden indicate a risk of lung cancer 6–10 times higher for the most exposed workers compared with the general population. Long-term ingestion of arsenic trioxide either in drinking water or as a medical treatment can lead to skin cancer. Reproductive problems (high incidences of miscarriage, low birth weight, congenital deformations) have also been indicated in one study of women exposed to arsenic trioxide dust as employees or neighbours of a copper foundry.  In Austria, there lived the so-called "arsenic eaters of Styria", who ingested doses far beyond the lethal dose of arsenic trioxide without any apparent harm. Arsenic is thought to enable strenuous work at high altitudes, e.g. in the Alps.  In the U.S., the OSHA 1910.1018 occupational permissible exposure limit for inorganic arsenic compounds in breathing zone air is 0.010 mg/m.

Production and occurrence.

Arsenic trioxide can be generated via routine processing of arsenic compounds including the oxidation (combustion) of arsenic and arsenic-containing minerals in air. Illustrative is the roasting of orpiment, a typical arsenic sulfide ore. Most arsenic oxide is, however, obtained as a volatile by-product of the processing of other ores. For example, arsenopyrite, a common impurity in gold- and copper-containing ores, liberates arsenic trioxide upon heating in air. The processing of such minerals has led to numerous cases of poisonings. Only in China are arsenic ores intentionally mined.  In the laboratory, it is prepared by hydrolysis of arsenic trichloride:

Properties and reactions.

Arsenic trioxide is an amphoteric oxide, and its aqueous solutions are weakly acidic. Thus, it dissolves readily in alkaline solutions to give arsenites. It is less soluble in acids, although it will dissolve in hydrochloric acid.  With anhydrous HF and HCl, it gives AsF and the trichloride:  Only with strong oxidizing agents such as ozone, hydrogen peroxide, and nitric acid does it yield arsenic pentoxide, or its corresponding acid: In terms of its resistance to oxidation, arsenic trioxide differs from phosphorus trioxide, which readily combusts to phosphorus pentoxide.  Reduction gives elemental arsenic or arsine () depending on conditions: This reaction is used in the Marsh test.

Structure.

In the liquid and gas phase below 800 °C, arsenic trioxide has the formula and is isostructural with. Above 800 °C significantly dissociates into molecular, which adopts the same structure as. Three forms (polymorphs) are known in the solid state: a high temperature ( > 110 °C) cubic, containing molecular, and two related polymeric forms. The polymers, which both crystallize as monoclinic crystals, feature sheets of pyramidal units that share O atoms.

Society and culture.

Cost.

In the United Kingdom it costs the NHS £292 a dose as of 2018. In the United States this amount costs about US$508 as of 2019. With initial treatment being 60 days the cost for a course of treatment is £17,520 and US$30,000 respectively.

Environmental effects.

Smelting and related ore processing often generate arsenic trioxide, which poses a risk to the environment. For example, the Giant Mine in Canada processed substantial amounts of arsenopyrite-contaminated gold ores.

Arsenic trioxide, sold under the brand name Trisenox among others, is an inorganic compound and medication. As an industrial chemical, major uses include in the manufacture of wood preservatives, pesticides, and glass. As a medication it is used to treat a type of cancer known as acute promyelocytic leukemia. For this use it is given by injection into a vein. Common side effects include vomiting, diarrhea, swelling, shortness of breath, and headaches. Severe side effects may include APL differentiation syndrome and heart problems. Use during pregnancy or breastfeeding may harm the baby. Arsenic trioxide has the formula. How it works in cancer is not entirely clear. Arsenic trioxide was approved for medical use in the United States in 2000. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. Approximately 50,000 tonnes are produced a year. In the United Kingdom it costs the NHS £292 a dose as of 2018. In the United States this amount costs about US$508 as of 2019. Due to its toxicity a number of countries have regulations around its manufacture and sale.


Description.

"Buxus sempervirens" is an evergreen shrub or small tree growing up to 1 to (3 to ) tall, with a trunk up to in diameter (exceptionally to 10 m tall and 45 cm diameter). Arranged in opposite pairs along the stems, the leaves are green to yellow-green, oval, 1.5–3 cm long, and 0.5–1.3 cm broad. The hermaphrodite flowers are inconspicuous but highly scented, greenish-yellow, with no petals, and are insect pollinated; the fruit is a three-lobed capsule containing 3-6 seeds.

Distribution and habitat.

The species typically grows on soils derived from chalk, limestone, usually as an understorey in forests of larger trees, most commonly associated with European beech ("Fagus sylvatica") forests, but also sometimes in open dry montane scrub, particularly in the Mediterranean region. Box Hill, Surrey is named after its notable box population, which comprises the largest area of native box woodland in England.  The species is locally naturalised in parts of North America.

Cultivation.

In Britain, four Roman burials featured coffins containing sprays of the evergreen box, a practice unattested elsewhere in Europe. Box leaves have also been found from several towns, villas and farmsteads in Roman Britain, indicating ornamental planting.  Box remains a very popular ornamental plant in gardens, being particularly valued for topiary and hedges because of its small leaves, evergreen nature, tolerance of close shearing, and scented foliage. The scent is not to everyone's liking: the herbalist John Gerard found it "evill and lothsome" and Daniel Defoe recounts that at Hampton Court Palace Queen Anne had the box hedging removed because she found its odour offensive.  In the American South, it has sometimes been called "rich man's hedge," and was often used to anchor the landscape plantings on either side of the front door of a house. The scent, most pungent on warm summer days, is not found disagreeable by all, despite its having been likened to cat urine. Several cultivars have been selected, including 'Argenteo-variegata' and 'Marginata' with variegated foliage; such "gilded box" received a first notice in John Parkinson's "Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris" (1629). 'Vardar Valley', a slow-growing particularly hardy semi-dwarf cultivar, was selected in 1935 by the American botanist Edward Anderson in the upper Vardar valley and sent to the Arnold Arboretum for evaluation.  The following varieties and cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:-

Pests and diseases.

A pest which spreads through "Buxus sempervirens" is "Cydalima perspectalis", the box tree moth.

Uses.

Timber.

Slow growth of box renders the wood ("boxwood") very hard (possibly the hardest in Europe) and heavy, and free of grain produced by growth rings, making it ideal for cabinet-making, the crafting of flutes and oboes, engraving, marquetry, woodturning, tool handles, mallet heads and as a substitute for ivory. The British wood-engraver Thomas Bewick pioneered the use of boxwood blocks for wood-engraving.

Medicinal plant.

The leaves were formerly used in place of quinine, and as a fever reducer. "Buxus sempervirens" is a medicinal plant used to treat many diseases. It contains steroidal alkaloids such as cyclobuxine. It also contains flavonoids.  "B. sempervirens" wasn’t known for its medical use until the beginning of the 1600s. After this it was found that the leaves (containing alkaloids, oils and tannin), the bark (containing chlorophyll, wax, resin, lignin and minerals) and the oil from the wood had a medical effect. It then was used to treat gout, urinary tract infections, intestinal worms, chronic skin problems, syphilis, hemorrhoids, epilepsy, headache and piles, but also had the reputation of curing leprosy, rheumatism, HIV, fever and malaria. For treating malaria it was used as a substitute for quinine, but because of the side effects and the fact that there are better medicinal alternatives than "B. sempervirens" it is normally not used any more to treat these diseases.  Homoeopathy still made use of the leaves against rheumatism, HIV and fever by brewing tea from them. In Turkey, where the plant is called "Adi şimşir", this tea (one glass a day) is still consumed for antihelminthic, diaphoretic, and cholagogue purposes. Also, the leaves from "B. sempervirens" were used as an auburn hair dye. The plant Buxus sempervirens has been well investigated chemically. During late 1980s, Dildar Ahmed while working on his PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof Atta-ur-Rahman, isolated a number of steroidal alkaloids from the leaves of the plant. A new system of nomenclature for buxus alkaloids was also proposed based on buxane nucleus. He also isolated a flavonoid glycoside, and named it galactobuxin based on the fact that it contains a galactose ring.

Buxus sempervirens, the common box, European box, or boxwood, is a species of flowering plant in the genus "Buxus", native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia, from southern England south to northern Morocco, and east through the northern Mediterranean region to Turkey. "Buxus colchica" of western Caucasus and "B. hyrcana" of northern Iran and eastern Caucasus are commonly treated as synonyms of "B. sempervirens".