Life.

Marie-Dominique Philippe was born on September 8, 1912 at Cysoing, France, the eighth of twelve children. From the age of six, Philippe read for his uncle, Dominican Father Peter Thomas Dehau, who was going blind. After having completed his secondary education with the Jesuits at Lille, he entered the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans) in November, 1930, at Amiens. He pronounced his religious vows in November, 1931, and pursued his studies in philosophy and theology at the Saulchoir in Kain (Belgium) from 1931 to 1938. He was ordained priest in July, 1936. Having first graduated in philosophy ("Wisdom in Aristotle" being the subject of his lectorat dissertation) he went on to complete a doctorate in theology.  After obtaining an additional diploma of Higher Studies, he taught philosophy and theology at the Saulchoir at Etiolles (the Dominican House of Studies of the Paris Province) from 1939 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1962, and philosophy at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) from 1945 to 1982. From 1982 until two months before his death on August 26, 2006, he continued teaching philosophy and theology at the houses of studies of the Congregation of Saint John in France.

Congregation of St John.

During the summer of 1975, five students began to live a communal life. Father Philippe would visit once a week to provide "spiritual direction". The students asked Philippe for assistance in forming a religious community. The brothers initially lived at the monastery of Lerins, where they drew inspiration from Pope Paul VI's "Evangelii Nuntiandi". In 1978 they took the name "Community of Saint John". Fr. Philippe drafted a rule of life based in part on the prayer of Christ in Chapter 17 of Saint John's Gospel.  Two branches of nuns were also established, the contemplative in 1982, and the apostolic in 1984.  Father Philippe, o.p., died peacefully on Saturday morning August 26, 2006, at the priory of Saint Jodard (France). He was being taken care of there since his stroke on July 20. He would have been 94 years old on September 8.

Sexual abuse allegations.

The Community of St. Jean admitted in 2013 that Philippe had behaved "in ways that went against chastity" with several adult women.  In June 2016, Father Philippe was accused of ongoing sexual abuse by a former Carmelite nun who received spiritual direction from him. These accusations came out as part of an investigation into similar allegations against Father Philippe's brother, Father. In February 2019, Pope Francis spoke about a women's religious community which Pope Benedict dissolved, saying that "a certain slavery of women had crept in, slavery to the point of sexual slavery on the part of clergy or the founder." It was further clarified by the Holy See Press Office, that the Pope did not mean "sexual slavery" but rather "manipulation." Following the numerous reactions, the Community has published an official statement on its website, accompanied by a chronology of the events from 2009 to 2014, in relationship with the contemplative sisters of Saint John.

Marie-Dominique Philippe (September 8, 1912 in Nord (French department) – August 26, 2006 in Loire) was a Dominican philosopher and theologian. He was ordained in 1936. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Fribourg from 1945 to 1982. While remaining a Dominican friar he founded the "Community of St. John" in 1975.

Marie-Dominique Philippe (* 8. September 1912 in Cysoing bei Lille, Département Nord; † 26. August 2006 in St. Jodard, Département Loire) war ein französischer Dominikaner, Philosoph, Theologe und Gründer der Gemeinschaft vom heiligen Johannes (franz. „Communauté Saint Jean“).


Local subdivisions.

Neustadt bei Coburg is subdivided into 22 local unites (Ortsteile):

History.

The Middle Ages.

In the second half of the 12th century, Count Hermann von Wolweswac founded the town of Neustadt with the building of a castle. Governance of the city was left to the Counts of Andechs, the later Dukes of Meranien. Neustadt is first mentioned in a document from the 16th of June, 1248, describing the "market forum" ("Marktflecken") of Neustadt. In 1316, Neustadt was designated a City, and in 1353, Neustadt came under the care of Coburg, making it a possession of the House of Wettin, which is remained until the First World War. Under Wettin rule, the city acquired the two-tailed, red and black lions which grace its coat of arms.  Neustadt lay on a major trade route between Nürnberg and Leipzig, and in the 14th century, the city received a parish church. By the end of the Middle Ages, the city had a population of roughly 570.

Thirty Years' War.

By the time the Thirty Years' War began, Neustadt's population had grown to roughly 1000. When the war began, the leaders of Coburg declared their neutrality. However, because the trade route on which Neustadt lay came to be used as a route of transportation by the various combatants, the city suffered greatly. Still greater damage came in 1636, when a large fire, unrelated to the war, which burnt down over half of the city.  In 1839, a second, larger fire destroyed 179 of the city's 226 houses, as well as the city hall and archives, and heavily damaged the church.

End of World War I, decision to join Bavaria.

When the First World War ended in 1918 and the Weimar Republic was founded, the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha ceased to be a duchy. At first, it formed the Free State of Coburg. This state proved so small as an administrative unit that the decision was made to have the Free State become a part of either Thuringia or Bavaria. A referendum, held in 1919, saw Neustadt (and the rest of the Free State of Coburg) decide, by overwhelming majority, against Thuringia and thus for Bavaria. Neustadt politician and industrialist Max Oscar Arnold had actively campaigned for union with Bavaria.

Religion.

Most residents of Neustadt bei Coburg are members of the Evangelical Church (Lutheranism). But there are also communities of Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists and Muslims.

Mayor.

The mayor of the town is Frank Rebhan (SPD). Frank Rebhan started in office in 1995. The predecessor was Irene Schneider-Böttcher (independent). Rebhan was reelected in 2001, 2007 and 2013.

Neustadt bei Coburg (also written "Neustadt b. Coburg") is a town in the district of Coburg in northern Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 15 km northeast of Coburg, as its name indicates.

Neustadt bei Coburg (amtlich: "Neustadt b.Coburg"), früher "Neustadt an der Heyde", ist eine Große Kreisstadt im oberfränkischen Landkreis Coburg und bildet mit der unmittelbar angrenzenden thüringischen Partnerstadt Sonneberg eine geografisch und ökonomisch zusammenhängende urbane Einheit.


Origin of the word.

Like "government", the word "governance" derives, ultimately, from the Greek verb kubernaein ["kubernáo"] (meaning "to steer", the metaphorical sense first being attested in Plato). Its occasional use in English to refer to the specific activity of ruling a country can be traced to early modern England, when the phrase "governance of the realm" appears in works by William Tyndale and in royal correspondence between James V of Scotland and Henry VIII of England. The first usage in connection with institutional structures (as distinct from individual rule) is in Charles Plummer's "The Governance of England" (an 1885 translation from a 15th-century Latin work by John Fortescue, also known as "The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy"). This usage of governance to refer to the arrangements of governing became orthodox including in Sidney Low’s seminal text of the same title in 1904 and among some later British constitutional historians.  However, the use of the term "governance" in its current broader sense, encompassing the activities of a wide range of public and private institutions, acquired general currency only as recently as the 1990s, when it was re-minted by economists and political scientists and disseminated by institutions such as the UN, IMF and World Bank. Since then, the term has steadily gained increasing usage.

Types.

Governance often refers to a particular level of governance associated with a type of organization (including public governance, global governance, non-profit governance, corporate governance, and project governance), a particular 'field' of governance associated with a type of activity or outcome (including environmental governance, internet governance, and information technology governance), or a particular'model' of governance, often derived as an empirical or normative theory (including regulatory governance, participatory governance, multilevel governance, metagovernance, and collaborative governance).  Governance can also define normative or practical agendas. Normative concepts of fair governance or good governance are common among political, public sector, voluntary, and private sector organizations.

Governance as process.

In its most abstract sense, governance is a theoretical concept referring to the actions and processes by which stable practices and organizations arise and persist. These actions and processes may operate in formal and informal organizations of any size; and they may function for any purpose, good or evil, for profit or not. Conceiving of governance in this way, one can apply the concept to states, to corporations, to non-profits, to NGOs, to partnerships and other associations, to business relationships (especially complex outsourcing relationships), to project teams, and to any number of humans engaged in some purposeful activity.  Most theories of governance as process arose out of neoclassical economics. These theories build deductive models, based on the assumptions of modern economics, to show how rational actors may come to establish and sustain formal organizations, including firms and states, and informal organizations, such as networks and practices for governing the commons. Many of these theories draw on transaction cost economics.

Public governance.

There is a distinction between the concepts of governance and politics. Politics involves processes by which a group of people (perhaps with divergent opinions or interests) reach collective decisions generally regarded as binding on the group, and enforced as common policy. Governance, on the other hand, conveys the administrative and process-oriented elements of governing rather than its antagonistic ones. Such an argument continues to assume the possibility of the traditional separation between "politics" and "administration". Contemporary governance practice and theory sometimes questions this distinction, premising that both "governance" and "politics" involve aspects of power and accountability.  In general terms, public governance occurs in three broad ways:

Private governance.

Private governance occurs when non-governmental entities, including private organizations, dispute resolution organizations, or other third party groups, make rules and/or standards which have a binding effect on the "quality of life and opportunities of the larger public." Simply put, private—not public—entities are making public policy. For example, insurance companies exert a great societal impact, largely invisible and freely accepted, that is a private form of governance in society; in turn, reinsurers, as private companies, may exert similar private governance over their underlying carriers. The term "public policy" should not be exclusively associated with policy that is made by government. Public policy may be created by either the private sector or the public sector. If one wishes to refer only to public policy that is made by government, the best term to use is "governmental policy," which eliminates the ambiguity regarding the agent of the policy making.

Global governance.

Global governance is defined as "the complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, right and obligations are established, and differences are mediated". In contrast to the traditional meaning of "governance", some authors like James Rosenau have used the term "global governance" to denote the regulation of interdependent relations in the absence of an overarching political authority. The best example of this is the international system or relationships between independent states. The term, however, can apply wherever a group of free equals needs to form a regular relationship.

Governance Analytical Framework.

The Governance Analytical Framework (GAF) is a practical methodology for investigating governance processes, where various stakeholders interact and make decisions regarding collective issues, thus creating or reinforcing social norms and institutions. It is postulated that governance processes can be found in any society, and unlike other approaches, that these can be observed and analysed from a non-normative perspective. It proposes a methodology based on five main analytical units: problems, actors, norms, processes and "nodal points". These logically articulated analytical units make up a coherent methodology aimed at being used as a tool for empirical social policy research.

Nonprofit governance.

Nonprofit governance has a dual focus: achieving the organization's social mission and ensuring the organization is viable. Both responsibilities relate to fiduciary responsibility that a board of trustees (sometimes called directors, or Board, or Management Committee—the terms are interchangeable) has with respect to the exercise of authority over the explicit actions the organization takes. Public trust and accountability is an essential aspect of organizational viability so it achieves the social mission in a way that is respected by those whom the organization serves and the society in which it is located.

Corporate governance.

Corporate organizations often use the word "governance" to describe both:  Corporate governance consists of the set of processes, customs, policies, laws and institutions affecting the way people direct, administer or control a corporation. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many players involved (the stakeholders) and the corporate goals. The principal players include the shareholders, management, and the board of directors. Other stakeholders include employees, suppliers, customers, banks and other lenders, regulators, the environment and the community at large.  The first documented use of the word "corporate governance" is by Richard Eells (1960, p. 108) to denote "the structure and functioning of the corporate polity". The "corporate government" concept itself is older and was already used in finance textbooks at the beginning of the 20th century (Becht, Bolton, Röell 2004).

Project governance.

Project governance is the management framework within which project decisions are made. Its role is to provide a repeatable and robust system through which an organization can manage its capital investments—project governance handles tasks such as outlining the relationships between all groups involved and describing the flow of information to all stakeholders.

Environmental governance.

Governance in an environmental context may refer to:

Land governance.

Land governance is concerned with issues of land ownership and tenure. It consists of the policies, processes and institutions by which decisions about the access to, use of and control over land are made, implemented and enforced; it is also about managing and reconciling competing claims on land. In developing countries, it is relevant as a tool to contribute to equitable and sustainable development, addressing the phenomenon that is known as ‘land grabbing’. The operational dimension of land governance is land administration.  Security of land tenure is considered to contribute to poverty reduction and food security, since it can enable farmers to fully participate in the economy. Without recognized property rights, it is hard for small entrepreneurs, farmers included, to obtain credit or sell their business – hence the relevance of comprehensive land governance.  There is constant feedback between land tenure problems and land governance. For instance, it has been argued that what is frequently called 'land grabbing', was partly made possible by the Washington Consensus-inspired liberalization of land markets in developing countries. Many land acquisition deals were perceived to have negative consequences, and this in turn led to initiatives to improve land governance in developing countries.  The quality of land governance depends on its practical implementation, which is known as land administration: ‘the way in which rules of land tenure are made operational’. And another factor is accountability: the degree to which citizens and stakeholder groups are consulted and can hold to account their authorities.  The main international policy initiative to improve land governance is known as the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT), endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).

Health governance.

According to the WHO, "governance in the health sector refers to a wide range of steering and rule-making related functions carried out by governments/decisions makers as they seek to achieve national health policy objectives that are conducive to universal health coverage." A national health policy is a complex and dynamic process, which changes from State to State according to the political, historical and socio-economic situation prevailing in the country. Mainly it seeks to strengthen the health system, making sure that they are capable of meeting the health needs of targeted populations.  More broadly, health governance requires a synergistic set of policies, many of which reside in sectors other than health as well as governors beyond the national governments, which must be supported by structures and mechanisms that enable collaboration. For instance, in the European context, it was developed a health policy framework called Health 2020 as a result of the collaboration between State members in the region. It gives policy-makers a vision, a strategic path and a set of priorities to improve health, guaranteeing that it is more equitable and sustainable.  In the 21st Century, global trends (e.g., changing population demographics and epidemiology, widening social inequalities, and a context of financial uncertainty) have influenced health system priorities and subsequently the setting of the health governance function. These trends have resulted in the emergence of joint actions of all stakeholders to achieve seminal changes in 21st-century societies. It is also important to consider that people have witnessed a global shift from traditional and reactive healthcare to proactive care, mainly enabled by investment in advanced technologies. Recent artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine learning have made possible the automation as well as the standardisation of many processes in healthcare, which have also brought to light challenges to the existing governance structures. One of these challenges concerns the ownership of health data.

Internet governance.

Internet governance was defined by the World Summit on the Information Society as "the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet." Internet governance deals with how much influence each sector of society should have on the development of the Internet, such as to what extent the state should be able to censor it, and how issues on the Internet, such as cyber-bullying, should be approached.

Information technology governance.

IT governance primarily deals with connections between business focus and IT management. The goal of clear governance is to assure that investment in IT generates business value and mitigates the risks that are associated with IT projects.

Blockchain governance.

Blockchains offer a novel way to enforce agreements and achieve cooperation and coordination. The main technical features of blockchains support transparency and traceability of records, information immutability and reliability, and autonomous enforcement of agreements. As such, blockchains will affect traditional forms of governance—most notably, contractual and relational governance—and may change the way to organize collaborations between individuals and between organizations. Blockchain governance relies on a set of protocols and code-based rules. As an original governance mode, it departs from an enforcement through the law (as in contractual governance) or through the value of future relationships (as in relational governance).

Regulatory governance.

Regulatory governance reflects the emergence of decentered and mutually adaptive policy regimes which rests on regulation rather than service provision or taxing and spending. The term captures the tendency of policy regimes to deal with complexity with delegated system of rules. It is likely to appear in arenas and nations which are more complex, more global, more contested and more liberally democratic. The term builds upon and extends the terms of the regulatory state on the one hand and governance on the other. While the term regulatory state marginalize non-state actors (NGOs and Business) in the domestic and global level, the term governance marginalizes regulation as a constitutive instrument of governance. The term regulatory governance therefore allows us to understand governance beyond the state and governance via regulation.

Participatory governance.

Participatory governance focuses on deepening democratic engagement through the participation of citizens in the processes of governance with the state. The idea is that citizens should play a more direct roles in public decision-making or at least engage more deeply with political issues. Government officials should also be responsive to this kind of engagement. In practice, participatory governance can supplement the roles of citizens as voters or as watchdogs through more direct forms of involvement.

Contract governance.

(See also contract management.) Emerging thinking about contract governance is focusing on creating a governance structure in which the parties have a vested interest in managing what are often highly complex contractual arrangements in a more collaborative, aligned, flexible, and credible way. In 1979, Nobel laureate Oliver Williamson wrote that the governance structure for a contract is the "framework within which the integrity of a transaction is decided", adding further that "because contracts are varied and complex, governance structures vary with the nature of the transaction."

Multi-level governance.

Multi-level governance is the concept and study of the fact that many intertangled authority structures are present in a global political economy. The theory of multi-level governance, developed mainly by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, arose from increasing European integration, particularly through the European Union. José Manuel Barroso, former President of the European Commission, has stated that "the multilevel system of governance on which our European regional policy is based provides a key boost to the Union's competitive edge" and that, in times of economic crisis, "multilevel governance must be a priority."

Metagovernance.

"Metagovernance" is the "governing of governing". It represents the established ethical principles, or 'norms', that shape and steer the entire governing process. It is important to note that there are no clearly defined settings within which metagoverning takes place, or particular persons who are responsible for it. While some believe metagovernance to be the role of the state which is assumed to want to steer actors in a particular direction, it can "potentially be exercised by any resourceful actor" who wishes to influence the governing process. Examples of this include the publishing of codes of conduct at the highest level of international government, and media focus on specific issues at the sociocultural level. Despite their different sources, both seek to establish values in such a way that they become accepted 'norms'. The fact that 'norms' can be established at any level and can then be used to shape the governance process as whole, means metagovernance is part of both the input and the output of the governing system.

Collaborative governance.

A collaborative governance framework uses a relationship management structure, joint performance and transformation management processes and an exit management plan as controlling mechanisms to encourage the organizations to make ethical, proactive changes for the mutual benefit of all the parties.

Security sector governance.

Security sector governance (SSG) is a subpart concept or framework of security governance that focuses specifically on decisions about security and their implementation within the security sector of a single state. SSG applies the principles of good governance to the security sector in question.

As a normative concept.

Fair governance.

When discussing governance in particular organizations, the quality of governance within the organization is often compared to a standard of good governance. In the case of a business or of a non-profit organization, for example, good governance relates to consistent management, cohesive policies, guidance, processes and decision-rights for a given area of responsibility, and proper oversight and accountability. "Good governance" implies that mechanisms function in a way that allows the executives (the "agents") to respect the rights and interests of the stakeholders (the "principals"), in a spirit of democracy.

Good governance.

Good governance is an indeterminate term used in international development literature to describe various normative accounts of how public institutions ought to conduct public affairs and manage public resources. These normative accounts are often justified on the grounds that they are thought to be conducive to economic ends, such as the eradication of poverty and successful economic development. Unsurprisingly different organizations have defined governance and good governance differently to promote different normative ends.  The World Bank defines governance as: The Worldwide Governance Indicators project of the World Bank defines governance as: This considers the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies and the respect of citizens and the state of the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.  An alternate definition sees governance as: According to the United Nations Development Programme's Regional Project on Local Governance for Latin America:

Effective governance.

The effectiveness of governments is not a straightforward and consentient type of governance. Measurement and conceptualization of effectiveness is controversial and often used interchangeably with good governance. However, during the period of 1996-2018, an effort was made by the World Bank to create a comparable measure of the performance of governments; the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). The WGI is constituted by over 30 databases which are rescaled and categorized into six categories, among one of these is government effectiveness. According to this category, effective governance is composed by five aspects: the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service, the degree of the government’s independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies. In short, effective governance is about quality of service, the independence of government and the quality of policies and implementation.  Adding to these components, one might argue that responsiveness to citizen’s needs is high in an effective government. Acting according to these needs, effectiveness is achieved by transparent, decentralized and neutral structures, that are consistent and disciplined. Therefore, efficient financial management, high-quality and committed personnel and formalized and standardized ways of processes is needed. For the latter, governments became much more efficient with the arise of bureaucracies. Nevertheless, governments in a rapidly changing environment need to be able to adapt quickly, so being bounded by rigid structures of functioning could work as a detriment.  Since the conceptualization of effective governance is not onefold, some more components that might constitute it are suggested: “It should be small in extent with limited intervention in the economy; a clear vision and processes; committed quality personnel that can formulate and implement policies and projects; comprehensive participation with the public; efficient financial management; responsive, transparent and decentralized structures and political stability”.  Internal and external effective governance  The components of effective governance described above all have a domestic domestic character, within the boundaries of the national territory, national policies and about the inhabitants of a country. This is the internal aspect of effective governance, which mainly focuses on national services and policies. The external aspect of effective governance on the other hand, exclusively focuses on the international domain of politics. It entails the state’s capacity to exercise its rights and fulfil its duties in alignment with international law, the representation of its people in the international political landscape and its participation in international relations.  The purpose of effective governance in the internal aspect is to be the sovereign within its national territory; in the external aspect to wield sovereignty over international relations. For this reason, it is a necessary characteristic of the state to have unrestricted capacity to act, without any form of dependence in both state and international law. This independency is the core of statehood.  Effects of effective governance  In an attempt to identify predictors of effective government, a study was done to investigate what characteristics of the state are more deeply established by effective governance. The most striking conclusion was that effective governance has a big share in the economic growth and developing, although on the long term. However, this is a bi-directional relationship: economic growth does lead to more effective governance as well. Moreover, effective governance does have a positive influence on reducing corruption, strengthening political stability, contribution to improved rule of law and improved government spending and accountability. As is the case with economic development, it is plausible the argue that effective governance and the named predictors are a positive feedback cycle: they reinforce each other, and so indirectly themselves.  Absence of effective governance  When a state fails to govern effectively, this does not simply imply the absence of the characteristics of effective governance. First of all, the absence of effective governance is lack of capacity of the state to supply its inhabitants with political goods, such as rights and freedoms. Zartman describes how absence of effective governance comes about: “as the disintegration ofstate structure, authority (legitimate power), law, and political order”. Five main characteristics are to be differentiated in the absence of effective governance: disorganizing of the structure of the processes in the state, violent conflicts, violations of human rights and social fragmentation, all of which have an endogenous character.

Measurement and assessment.

Since the early years of the 2000s (decade), efforts have been conducted in the research and international development community to assess and measure the quality of governance of countries all around the world. Measuring governance is inherently a controversial and somewhat political exercise. A distinction is therefore made between external assessments, peer assessments and self-assessments. Examples of external assessments are donor assessments or comparative indices produced by international non-governmental organizations. An example of a peer assessment is the African Peer Review Mechanism. Examples of self-assessments are country-led assessments that can be led by government, civil society, researchers and/or other stakeholders at the national level.  One of these efforts to create an internationally comparable measure of governance and an example of an external assessment is the Worldwide Governance Indicators project, developed by members of the World Bank and the World Bank Institute. The project reports aggregate and individual indicators for more than 200 countries for six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and lack of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption. To complement the macro-level cross-country Worldwide Governance Indicators, the World Bank Institute developed the World Bank Governance Surveys, which are country-level governance assessment tools that operate at the micro or sub-national level and use information gathered from a country's own citizens, business people and public sector workers to diagnose governance vulnerabilities and suggest concrete approaches for fighting corruption.  A Worldwide Governance Index (WGI) was developed in 2009 and is open for improvement through public participation. The following domains, in the form of indicators and composite indexes, were selected to achieve the development of the WGI: Peace and Security, Rule of Law, Human Rights and Participation, Sustainable Development, and Human Development. Additionally, in 2009 the Bertelsmann Foundation published the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI), which systematically measure the need for reform and the capacity for reform within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The project examines to what extent governments can identify, formulate and implement effective reforms that render a society well-equipped to meet future challenges, and ensure their future viability. Section 10 of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act requires U.S. federal agencies to publish their strategic and performance plans and reports in machine-readable format.  The International Budget Partnership (IBP) launched the Open Budget Initiative in 2006 with the release of the first Open Budget Survey (OBS). The OBS is a comprehensive analysis and survey that evaluates whether central governments give the public access to budget documents and provide opportunities for public participation in the budget process. To measure the overall commitment to transparency, the IBP created Open Budget Index (OBI), which assigns a score to each country based on the results of the survey. While the OBS is released biannually, the IBP recently released a new OBS Tracker, which serves as an online tool for civil society, the media, and other actors to monitor in real time whether governments are releasing eight key budget documents. The Open Budget Index data are used by the Open Government Partnership, development aid agencies, and increasingly investors in the private sector as key indicators of governance, particularly fiscal transparency and management of public funds. Examples of country-led assessments include the Indonesian Democracy Index, monitoring of the Millennium Development Goal 9 on Human Rights and Democratic Governance in Mongolia and the Gross National Happiness Index in Bhutan.  Section 10 of the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act (GPRAMA) requires U.S. federal agencies to publish their performance plans and reports in machine-readable format, thereby providing the basis for evaluating the quality of their performance of the governance functions entrusted to them, as specified in their strategic objectives and performance indicators. Publishing performance reports openly on the Web in a standard, machine-readable format is good practice for all organizations whose plans and reports should be matters of public record.

Governance comprises all of the processes of governing – whether undertaken by the government of a state, by a market or by a network – over a social system (family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories) and whether through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society. It relates to "the processes of interaction and decision-making among the actors involved in a collective problem that lead to the creation, reinforcement, or reproduction of social norms and institutions". In lay terms, it could be described as the political processes that exist in and between formal institutions.

Governance (von französisch "gouverner", „verwalten, leiten, erziehen“, aus lateinisch "gubernare;" gleichbedeutend griechisch κυβερνάω bzw. κυβερνῶ (kontr.) / "kybernáo" bzw. "kybernō:" das Steuerruder führen) – oft übersetzt als Regierungs-, Amts- bzw. Unternehmensführung –, auch Lenkungsform, bezeichnet allgemein das Steuerungs- und Regelungssystem im Sinn von Strukturen (Aufbau- und Ablauforganisation) einer politisch-gesellschaftlichen Einheit wie Staat, Verwaltung, Gemeinde, privater oder öffentlicher Organisation. Häufig wird es auch im Sinne von Steuerung oder Regelung einer jeglichen Organisation (etwa einer Gesellschaft oder eines Betriebes) verwendet. Der Begriff "governance" wird häufig unscharf verwendet.


History.

Around 1100 AD, the first Hilo inhabitants arrived, bringing with them Polynesian knowledge and traditions. Although archaeological evidence is scant, oral history has many references to people living in Hilo, along the Wailuku and Wailoa rivers during the time of ancient Hawaii. Oral history gives the meaning of "Hilo" as "to twist".  Originally, the name "Hilo" applied to a district encompassing much of the east coast of the island of Hawaii, now divided into the District of South Hilo and the District of North Hilo. When William Ellis visited in 1823, the main settlement there was Waiākea on the south shore of Hilo Bay. Missionaries came to the district in the early-to-middle 19th century, founding Haili Church.  Hilo expanded as sugar plantations in the surrounding area created jobs and drew in many workers from Asia. For example, by 1887, 26,000 Chinese workers worked in Hawai'i's sugar cane plantations, one of which was the Hilo Sugar Mill. At that time, the Hilo Sugar Mill produced 3,500 tons of sugar annually.  A breakwater across Hilo Bay was begun in the first decade of the 20th century and completed in 1929. On April 1, 1946, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands created a tsunami that hit Hilo 4.9 hours later, killing 160 people. In response, an early warning system, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, was established in 1949 to track these killer waves and provide warning. This tsunami also caused the end of the Hawaii Consolidated Railway, and instead the Hawaii Belt Road was built north of Hilo using some of the old railbed.  On May 22, 1960, another tsunami, caused by a 9.5-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile that day, claimed 61 lives, allegedly due to the failure of people to heed warning sirens. Low-lying bayfront areas of the city on Waiākea peninsula and along Hilo Bay, previously populated, were rededicated as parks and memorials.  Hilo expanded inland beginning in the 1960s. The downtown found a new role in the 1980s as the city's cultural center with several galleries and museums opening; the Palace Theater reopened in 1998 as an arthouse cinema.  Closure of the sugar plantations (including those in Hāmākua) during the 1990s hurt the local economy, coinciding with a general statewide slump. Hilo in recent years has seen commercial and population growth.

Geography.

Hilo is on the eastern and windward side of the island. It is classified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place (CDP), and has a total area of, of which is land and of which (8.4%) is water.

Climate.

Hilo has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen "Af"), with substantial rainfall throughout the year. Its location on the windward coast (relative to the trade winds), makes it the fourth-wettest city in the United States, behind the southeast Alaskan cities of Whittier, Ketchikan and Yakutat, and one of the wettest in the world. An average of around of rain fell at Hilo International Airport annually between 1981 and 2010, with 272 days of the year receiving some rain. Rainfall in Hilo varies with altitude, with more at higher elevations. At some weather stations in upper Hilo the annual rainfall is above.  Monthly mean temperatures range from in February to in August. The highest recorded temperature was on May 20, 1996, and the lowest on February 21, 1962. The wettest year was 1994 with, and the driest was 1983, with. The most rainfall in one month was in December 1954. The most rainfall in 24 hours was on November 2, 2000.  Hilo's location on the shore of the funnel-shaped Hilo Bay also makes it vulnerable to tsunamis.

Demographics.

As of the census of 2010, 43,263 people lived in 15,483 households in the census-designated place. The population density was 796.7 people per square mile (307.7/km2). The 16,905 housing units reflected an average density of 311.3 per square mile (120.2/km2).  The racial makeup was 17.6% White, 0.5% African American, 0.3% American Indian & Alaska Native, 34.3% Asian, 14.2% Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander, 0.6% from other races, and 32.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 10.4% of the population.  24.3% of the households had children under the age of 18 living with them. The average household size was 2.79.  The age distribution was 21.3% under age 18, 11.3% from 18 to 24, 11.5% from 25 to 34, 16.9% from 35 to 49, 20.9% from 50 to 64, and 18.0% 65 or older. The ratio of females to males was 100:95.5.  The median household income at the 2000 census was $39,139, while the median family income was $48,150. Males had a median income in 2000 of $36,049 compared to $27,626 for females. The per capita income was $18,220. About 11.1% of families and 17.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 23.5% of those under age 18 and 6.7% of those age 65 or over.

Transport.

Air.

Hilo is served by Hilo International Airport, where Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines operate.

Bus.

Hilo is served by the county Hele-On Bus.

Maritime.

Hilo is served by the Big Island's largest harbor, Hilo Harbor, on Hilo Bay.

Education.

Hilo is home to a number of educational institutions, including two post-secondary institutions, the University of Hawaii at Hilo and Hawaii Community College, and the Hilo and Waiakea primary and secondary school districts. Charter schools in the area serve primary and secondary students.

Government.

Although sometimes called a city, Hilo is not an incorporated city, and does not have a municipal government. The entire island, which is between the slightly larger state of Connecticut and smaller Rhode Island in size, is under the jurisdiction of the County of Hawaii, of which Hilo is the county seat.  Hilo is home to county, state, and federal offices.

Economy.

The oldest city in the Hawaiian archipelago, Hilo has a significant tourism sector. It is home to Hawaii's only tsunami museum, mostly dedicated to the 1946 Pacific tsunami, and is notable for the banyan trees planted by Babe Ruth, Amelia Earhart and other celebrities. It is home to the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo, shopping centers, cafés and other eateries, movie theaters, hotels, restaurants, and a developed downtown area with a Farmers Market.  The Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation makes its home there as well, south of the main town off Hawaii Route 11, north of Keaau.  Hilo is known for the Mokupāpapa Discovery Center in the Koehnen Building downtown. The museum features interactive and educational exhibits and is dedicated to creating public awareness of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and marine conservation issues.  Hilo is home to most of the astronomical observatories on Mauna Kea as well as the Imiloa Planetarium and Museum. Astronomy has an economic impact of $100 million annually on the island. Astronomy on Mauna Kea was developed at the invitation of the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce following the collapse of the sugar cane industry.

Media.

Hilo is served by KWXX (94.7FM Hilo/101.5FM Kona), KWXX, B93/B97 (93.1FM Kona/97.1FM Hilo), Hawaii's Classic Hits, B93/B97, and KPUA (970AM Hilo), Hilo's Sports Talk Radio KPUA 670AM radio stations.  The "Hawaii Tribune-Herald", of Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press, is Hilo's primary newspaper distribution company along with other newspapers like the "Honolulu Star-Advertiser".

Legacy.

Asteroid (342431) Hilo is named after Hilo.

Hilo District.

Hilo also referred to the District of Hilo when the Big Island was divided into six districts by the traditional "moku" land division. Hilo is now divided in two: North and South Hilo Districts.

North Hilo District.

The District of North Hilo, along Hawaii State Highway 19 from north to south, encompasses the following unincorporated towns and localities: and others. Inland, along State Highway 200, are Mauna Kea mountain road and Puu Huluhulu and others.

South Hilo District.

In the District of South Hilo, along State Highway 19, are the following unincorporated towns and localities: Along State Highway 11, are: and others. Along State Highway 200 and its extension, are: and others.

Hilo (; ) is the largest town and census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States, which encompasses the Island of Hawaii. The population was 43,263 according to the 2010 census.

Hilo () ist mit 43.263 Einwohnern (Stand 2010) die größte Stadt auf Big Island im US-Bundesstaat Hawaii. Sie ist auch Hauptstadt des Hawaii County und damit der gesamten Insel. Hilo liegt an der Hilo Bay genannten Bucht im Nordosten der Insel.


Geography.

Tskaltubo is located in the central part of west Georgia, in the lowland, at the foot of the Southern Caucasus, 98 meters above the sea-level, in the valley of the river Tskaltubo. It is in 9 km distance from Kutaisi and 240 km from Tbilisi. The climate in Tskaltubo is warm and moderately mild. Average annual temperature +15C; average annual precipitation 76%. Winters here are warm and mild.  Tskaltubo is rich with karst caves. Such as “Satsurblia", "Prometheus" and "Sataplia" which provide visitors with breathtaking examples of stalactites, stalagmites, curtains, petrified waterfalls, cave pearls, underground rivers, and lakes. The temperature in the cave is always 13-15C.  Satsurblia cave is the first and only Speleotherapic - object in the Caucasus Region. The cave has unique climatic environment that gives it the ability be transformed to a recreational tourism destination for individuals with respiratory diseases ( e.g. Bronchial asthma, etc.). As for Speleotherapy, or underground climate-therapy it is a set of recreational therapy methods based on the use of underground microclimate to improve health.  Prometheus cave is one of the most beautiful and longest caves in Georgia. Visitors can see amazing halls of Argonauts, Colchis, Medea, Love, and Prometheus and of Iberia, the excursion can be finished by foot or by a 15-minute boat ride an underground river.  Sataplia reserve is famous its footprints of herbivore and carnivore dinosaurs. The reserve also has a karst caves. There is a transparent platform that gives an outstanding view of Imereti's landscape beauty.

Architecture.

Another significant factor in Tskaltubo is its architecture which is basically a synthesis of Stalinist period classical style and of Georgian ethnic decor with Gothic and Roman features.

History.

The "Waters of Immortality" in Tskaltubo were probably known already in the 7th-9th centuries, when the oldest historical records are dated. Since the 18th century several foreign researchers gave word of the healing properties of these springs:Berlin Society of Friends of Natural Science (1782); J.Klaproth (1815); A. Jolenberg (1897). By 1920, after chemical analysis had revealed the uniqueness of the water, Tskaltubo was officially declared a medical spa resort and achieve the status of city in 1953.  In 1920 the territory of Tskaltubo became state property and it acquired the function of balneology resort. The building of the resort started in 1926. In 1931, a decree by the government of Georgian Soviet Republic designed Tskaltubo as a spa resort and balneology center.  In 1950-1951, architects I.Zaalishvili and V.Kedia prepared a project plan for the town where sanatoriums form a circle around a park, recreation and balneology facilities. Tskaltubo was divided into the following zones: balneological, sanitarian and living.  In 1953, Tskaltubo became the important spa-resort during the Soviet times. At different times, there were built 19 sanatoriums and pensions, nine baths, resort park, Branch of Scientific Institute of balneology and physiotherapy. As one of Georgia's flagship historic spa towns, the town is still popular for the qualities of its waters. Tskaltubo mineral waters are famous for their stable physical and chemical composition and they are categorized as slight radon chloride –magnesium waters. The high-performance spa preventive effect of mineral waters is conditioned by their complex content and particular fusion of salt components. In Tskaltubo the bath taking has a peculiar technique, the treatment take place under the constant running water ( mineral water constantly flows in and out of the spa) and the water permanently preserves physical-chemical and mineral compositions. The water consists of six components and it penetrates into the human body via pores. Constituent ingredients in number are far below the permissible minimum, temperature of water is 33-35 C, it is very soft, pure and odorless.

Mineral water baths.

The unique radon-carbonated waters are Tskaltubo's major mineral resource. They emerge at a comfortable temperature for bathing (35°C), allowing them to be directly transferred from springs to the baths without cooling or heating.  The Spring No. 6, is the largest thermal bath working today. It was built in 1950 exclusively for Joseph Vissarionovich Jughashvili (Stalin), the soviet union leader of the period. Private baths and dachas of Stalin and Lavrenti Beria are still kept in the city. The mineral water flows directly into Buildings #1 and #6. There are five pools of mineral water, 37 individual cabins for bathing mineral water and 17 hydro-massage cabinets.  In 2015 "Tskaltubo-BE Healthy" was established.

Tskaltubo () is a spa resort in west-central Georgia. It is located at around. It is the main town of the Tsqaltubo Municipality of the Imereti province. It is famous for its radon-carbonate mineral springs, whose natural temperature of enables the water to be used without preliminary heating.

Zqaltubo (; auch "Tskaltubo", "Tschaltubo" und "Tsqaltubo") ist ein Kurort und Thermalbad in Georgien, der einer der bedeutendsten Kurorte in der Sowjetunion war. Nach dem Zusammenbruch der Union verfiel Zqaltubo zunehmend und erlebt erst seit wenigen Jahren wieder einen langsam zunehmenden Tourismus. Das touristische Potential Zqaltubos wird aufgrund seiner Lage und seiner naturräumlichen Bedingungen als hoch eingestuft.


History during the Second World War.

Eisenhower transferred from command of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations to command SHAEF, which was formed in Camp Griffiss, Bushy Park, Teddington, London, from December 1943; an adjacent street named Shaef Way, and a gate into the called Shaef Gate, remain to this day. Southwick House was used as an alternative headquarters near Portsmouth. Its staff took the outline plan for Operation Overlord created by Lieutenant General Sir Frederick E. Morgan, Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (Designate) (COSSAC), and Major General Ray Barker. Morgan, who had been appointed chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (designate) in mid-March 1943 began planning for the invasion of Europe before Eisenhower's appointment and moulded the plan into the final version, which was executed on 6 June 1944. That process was shaped by Eisenhower and the land forces commander for the initial part of the invasion, General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery.  SHAEF remained in the United Kingdom until sufficient forces were ashore to justify its transfer to France. At that point, Montgomery ceased to command all land forces but continued as Commander in Chief of the British 21st Army Group (21 AG) on the eastern wing of the Normandy bridgehead. The American 12th Army Group (12 AG) commanded by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley was created as the western wing of the bridgehead. As the breakout from Normandy took place, the Allies launched the invasion of southern France on 15 August 1944 with the American 6th Army Group (6 AG) under the command of Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers. During the invasion of southern France, the 6 AG was under the command of the Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) of the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, but after one month command passed to SHAEF. By this time, the three Army Groups had taken up the positions on the Western Front in which they would remain until the end of the war—the British 21 AG to the North, the American 12 AG in the middle and the 6 AG to the South. By December 1944, SHAEF had established itself in the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles, France. In February 1945, it moved to Reims and, on 26 May 1945, SHAEF moved to Frankfurt.

Order of battle.

SHAEF commanded the largest number of formations ever committed to one operation on the Western Front, with American, French army of liberation, British and Canadian Army forces. It commanded all Allied airborne forces as an Airborne Army, as well as three Army Groups that controlled a total of eight field armies;  SHAEF also controlled substantial naval forces during Operation Neptune, the assault phase of Overlord, and two tactical air forces: the US Ninth Air Force and the RAF Second Tactical Air Force. Allied strategic bomber forces in the UK also came under its command during Operation Neptune.

Post-World War II successors.

After the surrender of Germany, SHAEF was dissolved on 14 July 1945.

American.

With respect to the U.S. forces, it was replaced by U.S. Forces, European Theater (USFET). USFET was reorganized as EUCOM (European Command, not to be confused with the present-day United States European Command) on 15 March 1947.

1948–1951: Western Union.

The 1948–1951 Western Union Defence Organization's (WUDO) command structure was largely patterned on SHAEF's structure.

1951–present: Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe/Allied Command Operations.

Starting in April 1951 when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) cannibalised WUDO, it was put under the command of Supreme Allied Commander Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower in Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE; Allied Command Europe [ACE]), comprising many of the same allies that were part of SHAEF. WUDO, followed by SHAPE, were in many respects the successors to SHAEF.  SHAPE is currently the headquarters of NATO's Allied Command Operations (ACO). Since 1967 it has been located at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons, but it had previously been located, from 1953, at Rocquencourt, next to Versailles, France.  From 1951 to 2003, SHAPE was the headquarters of Allied Command Europe (ACE). Since 2003 it has been the headquarters of ACO, controlling all NATO operations worldwide.

2017–present: Military Planning and Conduct Capability.

The European Union has established a Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC), which is due to gain more tasks and may rival SHAPE's dominance as the primary forum for multinational European missions.

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF; ) was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in north west Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the commander in SHAEF throughout its existence. The position itself shares a common lineage with Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Atlantic, but they are different titles.

Das Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (kurz SHAEF, dt. „Oberstes Hauptquartier der Alliierten Expeditionsstreitkräfte“) war während des Zweiten Weltkrieges ab Ende 1943 das Hauptquartier der alliierten Streitkräfte in Nordwest- und Mitteleuropa und erhielt Weisungen von den Combined Chiefs of Staff. Es wurde im Dezember 1943 in London durch die Umbenennung des Stabes COSSAC gebildet und rund zwei Monate nach der bedingungslosen Kapitulation der deutschen Wehrmacht (Tag der Befreiung) aufgelöst.


Command structure.

The operational command of the MTO USA was a combined U.S.–British operational command called Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ), which planned and directed ground, air, and naval operations and military government activities in the North African and Mediterranean theatres of operations. It was created on September 12, 1942 to launch a combined U.S.–British operation against the northern and northwestern coast of North Africa. In February 1943 the authority of AFHQ was extended to include the British Eighth Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Bernard L. Montgomery, which, having advanced westwards after the Second Battle of El Alamein, was approaching the border of Tunisia where the American, British and French forces serving in the British First Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Kenneth A. N. Anderson, had been fighting the campaign in Tunisia.  Initially AFHQ was located in London, England from September until November 1942. It relocated to Algiers in Algeria in November 1942 and remained there until July 1944. From Algiers it moved to Caserta in Italy until April 1945. Its last relocation was to Leghorn (Livorno), Italy between April 1945 until April 1947.  The initial Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Allied (Expeditionary) Force, was General Dwight D. Eisenhower. General Eisenhower, as Supreme Allied Commander, had the ultimate responsibility. The British General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander was Deputy C-in-C, and was responsible for the detailed planning and preparation, and the actual conduct, of combat operations. In effect, Alexander was the ground commander.  Shortly after the establishment of the headquarters, expeditionary was deleted from its title for reasons of operational security. Having overseen the campaign in Tunisia, the invasion of Sicily and the invasion of Italy and the early stages of the Italian Campaign, Eisenhower left AFHQ and returned to England in late 1943 to assume command of the forces assembling for Operation Overlord, codename for the Allied landings in Northern France. He was succeeded at AFHQ by Field Marshal Sir Henry M. Wilson. Wilson's title became Supreme Commander, Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, and the American Forces then came under Lt. Gen Jacob L. Devers, who had been Commanding General, ETO since May 1943. As such Wilson exercised strategic control over the campaign in Italy. He strongly advocated the invasion of Germany via the Danube plain (instead of Operation Dragoon, codename for the Allied invasion of Southern France), but this did not take place as the Allied Armies in Italy (AAI) were constantly weakened to support other theaters of war. Wilson was in command for just under a year, until he was sent to Washington in December 1944 as head of the British Joint Staff Mission. Wilson was succeeded by Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander who was Supreme Commander and commander of AFHQ until the end of the war.  For administrative purposes, U.S. components were responsible to Headquarters North African Theater of Operations, United States Army (NATOUSA), from February 14, 1943 (NATOUSA redesignated Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army, MTOUSA, October 26, 1944). The British components were responsible to General Headquarters Central Mediterranean Forces (CMF), from October 1, 1945.

Termination.

Headquarters MTOUSA and General Headquarters CMF formally separated from AFHQ on October 1, 1945, leaving AFHQ to consist of a small interallied staff responsible for combined command liquidation activities and commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir William D. Morgan as Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean. AFHQ was abolished, effective September 17, 1947, by General Order 24, AFHQ, September 16, 1947. The Deputy Theater Commander in 1946 and '47, and Commanding General, US Army, MTO, was Lieutenant General John C. H. Lee.

The Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army (MTOUSA), originally called the North African Theater of Operations (NATOUSA), was the American term for the theater of operations covering North Africa and Italy during World War II. American operations in the theater began with the Allied Expeditionary Force, which landed on the beaches of northwest Africa on November 8, 1942, in Operation Torch. They ended in the Italian Alps some 31 months later with the German surrender in May 1945.

Kriegsschauplatz Mittelmeerraum bzw. "Mediterranean Theatre of Operations (MTO)" bezeichnet verschiedene Operationen von taktischer und z. T. strategischer Bedeutung für den Zweiten Weltkrieg im Mittelmeerraum.


Life.

Born in New York City, Floyd finished high school at age 14. At the University of Chicago, he received a Bachelor's degree in liberal arts in 1953 (when still only 17) and a second bachelor's degree in physics in 1958. Floyd was a college roommate of Carl Sagan.  Floyd became a staff member of the Armour Research Foundation (now IIT Research Institute) at Illinois Institute of Technology in the 1950s. Becoming a computer operator in the early 1960s, he began publishing many papers, including on compilers (particularly parsing). He was a pioneer of operator-precedence grammars, and is credited with initiating the field of programming language semantics in. He was appointed an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University by the time he was 27 and became a full professor at Stanford University six years later. He obtained this position without a Ph.D.  He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974.  He received the Turing Award in 1978 "for having a clear influence on methodologies for the creation of efficient and reliable software, and for helping to found the following important subfields of computer science: the theory of parsing, the semantics of programming languages, automatic program verification, automatic program synthesis, and analysis of algorithms".  Floyd worked closely with Donald Knuth, in particular as the major reviewer for Knuth's seminal book "The Art of Computer Programming", and is the person most cited in that work. He was the co-author, with Richard Beigel, of the textbook "The Language of Machines: an Introduction to Computability and Formal Languages". Floyd supervised seven PhD graduates.</ref>  Floyd married and divorced twice, first with Jana M. Mason and then computer scientist Christiane Floyd, and he had four children. In his last years he suffered from Pick's disease, a neurodegenerative disease, and thus retired early in 1994 (age 58).  His hobbies included hiking, and he was an avid backgammon player:

Robert W "Bob" Floyd (June 8, 1936 – September 25, 2001) was a computer scientist. His contributions include the design of the Floyd–Warshall algorithm (independently of Stephen Warshall), which efficiently finds all shortest paths in a graph, Floyd's cycle-finding algorithm for detecting cycles in a sequence, and his work on parsing. In one isolated paper he introduced the important concept of error diffusion for rendering images, also called Floyd–Steinberg dithering (though he distinguished dithering from diffusion). One achievement was pioneering the field of program verification using logical assertions with the 1967 paper "Assigning Meanings to Programs". This was a contribution to what later became Hoare logic.

Robert „Bob“ W Floyd (* 8. Juni 1936 in New York City; † 25. September 2001 in Stanford, Kalifornien) war ein US-amerikanischer Informatiker und Turing-Preisträger. Er ließ seinen ursprünglichen zweiten Vornamen auf „W“ ändern, jedoch betonte er oft, dass „W.“ eine gültige Abkürzung dafür sei.


Plot.

Natalie Cook (Cameron Diaz), Dylan Sanders (Drew Barrymore), and Alex Munday (Lucy Liu) are the "Angels", three talented, tough, attractive women who work as private investigators together for an unseen millionaire named Charlie (voiced by John Forsythe). Charlie uses speakers in his offices to communicate with the Angels, and his assistant Bosley (Bill Murray) works with them directly when needed.  Charlie assigns the Angels to find Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), a software genius who created a revolutionary voice-recognition system and heads his own company, Knox Enterprises. Knox is believed to have been kidnapped by Roger Corwin (Tim Curry), who runs a communications-satellite company called Redstar. The Angels infiltrate a party held by Corwin and spot a suspicious-looking man that they had previously seen from surveillance videos of Knox's kidnapping. Dubbing him the "Thin Man" (Crispin Glover), the Angels chase him down and fight him; he gets away, but the Angels find Knox, safely held nearby.  After the Angels reunite Knox with his business partner Vivian Wood (Kelly Lynch), Charlie explains that they must determine whether the Thin Man has stolen Knox's voice-recognition software. The Angels infiltrate Redstar headquarters, fool the security system, and plant a device in the central computer that will enable them to explore it remotely. They retire for the night after giving Bosley the laptop computer that communicates with the Redstar computer. Dylan takes up Knox's offer to spend the night with him, and they end up having sex. Afterwards, Knox betrays her; simultaneously, attacks are made on Natalie and Alex, Bosley is captured by Vivian, and Corwin is murdered by the Thin Man. Knox tells Dylan his kidnapping was all faked to get the Angels to help him access the Redstar satellite network. He plans to use it along with his voice recognition software to find and kill Charlie, who Knox asserts killed his father in the Vietnam War.  Dylan escapes and reunites with Natalie and Alex, who survived their attacks. They approach Charlie's office just as the building explodes. They find a radio transmitter that Bosley is able to communicate through via a tooth implanted radio transmitter. Bosley provides enough information of where he's captured to allow Natalie to deduce its location, an abandoned lighthouse. With help from Dylan's boyfriend Chad (Tom Green), the Angels stealthily approach it. Upon finding Knox, Dylan is captured by his henchmen, tied up and gagged. The Angels are too late to stop Knox from determining Charlie's location, though they rescue Bosley while Dylan fights off her captors. They come together to defeat Vivian, the Thin Man, and other assorted henchmen, but Knox blows up the lighthouse and flies off in an attack helicopter towards Charlie's house. Bosley helps the Angels board it, where Alex reprograms the missile to have it shoot backwards; blowing up the helicopter and killing Knox while the Angels land safely.  Seeing the opportunity to finally meet Charlie in person, they enter the nearby beach house that Knox had targeted, but Charlie has already left. He remotely congratulates the Angels on a job well done through another speaker, and treats them and Bosley to a vacation. Charlie also tells them that Knox's father was undercover; he was discovered and killed, but not by Charlie. When he speaks to the Angels by telephone on the beach, they ask if they could ever meet him in person. Dylan suspects she sees him nearby talking into a cell phone, but doesn't tell the group; opting to raise a toast to Charlie instead. Bosley playfully douses the Angels with his drink, and they chase him towards the ocean. From afar, a silhouetted Charlie watches them and walks off.

Reception.

Box office.

The film opened on November 3, 2000, earning $13.7 million in its opening day, debuting at the top of the box office. For its first weekend, the film grossed $40.1 million dethroning "Meet the Parents", which had stayed at number-one for four weeks. Eventually, "Charlie's Angels" grossed a total of $125,305,545 domestically.  Against a budget of $93 million "Charlie's Angels" grossed $125.3 million in North America and $148.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $264.1 million, making it the 12th highest-grossing film of 2000.

Critical response.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 68% approval rating based on 145 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Mixing tongue-in-cheek cheesecake with glossy action set pieces, "Charlie's Angels" is slick and reasonably fun despite its lack of originality." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score, it has a score of 52 out of 100 based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".  David Edelstein for "Slate", wrote, despite expecting to hate the film, he found he loved it, calling it "A charming, hyper-energetic, and wittily self-aware action comedy about gorgeous girls". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B grade, with particular praise for Cameron Diaz's performance, saying "not just an Angel – that's a star." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" called the film a "guilty pleasure" and praised the wire work and fight choreography of Cheung-Yan Yuen. Travers was critical of the thin plot but said it is "the film's quirky sense of mischief, which sets it apart" from lesser television to film adaptations. Desson Howe of "The Washington Post" said "The gals are fab. And so's the movie." He expressed mild disappointment at the men, commenting that Murray is funnier than the role written for him, and that even though Tom Green "does his weirdest best" he is only mildly amusing.  Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" called it "a movie without a brain. "Charlie's Angels" is like the trailer for a video game movie, lacking only the video game, and the movie" and gave it half a star out of a possible 4 stars. Manohla Dargis wrote "Of course, it's terrible – but did it have to be this bad?" Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called it "An utter debacle" and said the film "makes the show look like the height of creativity, imagination and restraint". LaSalle blames director McG comparing the film to a trailer or music video. He was also critical of the deliberate decision to make the three women very similar, and says "The Angels' goofiness is a big disappointment, second only to the shocking ineptitude of McG."  During the making of "Blade II", Guillermo del Toro commented that while films like "Charlie's Angels" had helped to popularize the wire fu style of fighting choreography in Western films, they also served as a "nail in the coffin" and prompted many filmmakers to want to get back to more "hard-hitting" action. "The moment you see Cameron Diaz flying in the air, and you "know" that she is incapable of flying in the air and kicking five guys... you realize that it is done using wires. [...] I mean, "Charlie's Angels" was great, but it[s fighting style] was almost satirical," he said.

Home media.

"Charlie's Angels" was released on both VHS and DVD on March 27, 2001, in widescreen-only on both formats. It became the first film to be released on Blu-ray Disc in 2006. It was then released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 22, 2019.

Soundtrack.

Charlie's Angels is the soundtrack album from the film of the same name. The album was released on October 24, 2000 by Columbia Records.

Sequels.

A sequel called "" released in 2003. Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu reprised their roles, as did John Forsythe as the voice of Charlie in his last film role. Following Bill Murray departure from the franchise, Bernie Mac joined the cast as Jimmy Bosley, John's adoptive brother, while Demi Moore had a major role, and Jaclyn Smith reprised her role as Kelly Garrett from the original television series. The franchise was confirmed for a third and fourth film, but in 2004, the ideas were cancelled.  On September 15, 2015, "The Hollywood Reporter" has reported that Sony are rebooting the film with Elizabeth Banks both producing with her producing partner and husband Max Handelman and the studio are in negotiations with her to direct the film. On April 13, 2016, Sony has confirmed that Banks will direct the reboot. It was later revealed that the new movie won't be a reboot or a remake of the franchise, but rather a continuation that will incorporate the events of the original TV series and the McG-directed 2000s films.  The third installment stars Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska as the new generation of Angels. Banks and Djimon Hounsou also star as Charlie's assistants, known as Bosleys, while Patrick Stewart replaced Bill Murray in the role of John Bosley and Jaclyn Smith reprised her role as Kelly Garrett for the second time for a cameo appearances. It is also the first installment to feature Robert Clotworthy as the voice of Charlie; replacing John Forsythe, following his death in 2010.

Charlie's Angels is a 2000 American action comedy film directed by McG, and written by Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon, and John August. It is the first installment in the "Charlie's Angels" film series, a continuation of the television series of the same name created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, which is also a continuation of the series story. Unlike the original series, which had dramatic elements, the film features more comical elements.

3 Engel für Charlie (Originaltitel: "Charlie’s Angels") ist ein im Jahr 2000 veröffentlichter Actionfilm, der auf der Fernsehserie "Drei Engel für Charlie" aus den 1970er Jahren basiert. In diesem Film werden die „drei Engel“ nicht mehr von den ursprünglichen Schauspielerinnen gespielt, sondern von Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore und Lucy Liu dargestellt. Der Namensgeber des Titels, Charlie, wird im Film wieder von derselben Person gesprochen wie in der Fernsehserie.


History of hip hop in Japan.

Although rather informal and small scale, the early days of Japanese hip hop provide the history for the emergence of the cultural movement. Early hip hop was not led by corporate interests, but rather was largely ignored by large record companies and performance venues. In this respect, Japanese hip-hop offers a representation of cultural globalization, as it expanded despite criticism on the part of record companies and major media outlets. The history shows that certain kinds of cultural exchange are not initiated through cultural understanding, but instead from some interaction that can incite a desire to learn, to participate, and to contribute individuality. In Japan, this motivation to represent individuality was breakdancing, which was one of the leading edges of hip-hop at the time.  The first known Japanese group to experiment with hip hop was Yellow Magic Orchestra, which created an early electro hip hop track, "Rap Phenomena", for their 1981 album "BGM". In turn, the synthpop and electro music of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and their use of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, had a significant influence on early key American hip hop figures such as Afrika Bambaataa and Mantronix.  An important spark for Japanese hip-hop occurred in 1983 when breakdancing appeared in Tokyo through film and live performances even though American hip hop records could previously be heard in Tokyo discos. According to Takagi Kan, a first generation Japanese MC, "I couldn't tell what was with the rap and the DJing...but with the breakdancing and graffiti art, you could understand it visually. Or rather, it wasn't understanding so much as, 'Whoa, that's cool' "[kakkoii]". With rap and DJing, I couldn't imagine what could be cool about it." Dancing has a visual impact that everyone can understand, when it comes to dance there is not a language barrier. Break dancing represented the foundation for the spread of Japanese hip-hop and served as a medium for globalization.  As in Germany, much of Japan was introduced to hip hop in the fall of 1983 with the movie "Wild Style". The film is "the classic hip-hop flick, full of great subway shots, breakdancing, freestyle MCing and rare footage of one of the godfathers of hip-hop, Grandmaster Flash, pulling off an awesome scratch-mix set on a pair of ancient turntables." The popularity of the film led to many of the artists involved in it to make a trip to Japan to promote the film and they even performed in some of the department stores while they were there.  Shortly after, Japanese took up breakdancing in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park, where street musicians gather every Sunday to perform. Crazy-A, now the leader of Rock Steady Crew Japan," was one of the pioneers of break dancing in Yoyogi back in the early 1984". Crazy-A organizes the annual "B-Boy Park," which happens every August, and draws a large number of fans and dozens of break dancing groups. This was all considered the Old School Era of rap in Tokyo. There was much of what they called Soul Dancing, which helped the Japanese culture accept the street dance culture.  The rise of DJs was really the next step for the Japanese hip hop scene. Before 1985, there weren't very many DJs on the radio, but with the increase in the number that year, it led to the opening of the first all hip hop club in 1986. But despite the fact that DJing caught on rather quickly, it was initially thought that rapping wasn't going to have the same cache as it would be hard to rap in Japanese.  Street musicians began to breakdance in Yoyogi Park, including DJ Krush who has become a world-renowned DJ after arising from the Yoyogi Park scene. In 1986 an all hip hop club opened in Shibuya. While interest in hip-hop in Japan grew some during the 1980s and early 1990s, the rap scene remained fairly small and rather marginalized. One reason for the rap scene to remain so small and a little bit less popular compared to hip hop is because of the fact that the Japanese language does "not contain stress accents and sentences must end with one of a few simple verb endings." Ito Seiko, Chikado Haruo, Tinnie Punx and Takagi Kan were rappers that emerged from Japan at this time, and they proved to be rather successful.

Political aspects.

King Giddra's "911" reflects on Ground Zero and its aftermath in two eras: August 1945 and September 11, 2001. It also called

Influence of African Culture on Japanese hip hop.

Previous to the inception of hip hop, soul dancing became popularized in Japan in the 1970s. Shows like 'Soul Train' spread the African style of on-going dance that would soon be picked up by varying cultures all over the world. It is this style of dance that laid the foundation for the globalization of African culture due to its universal criteria. Anyone can dance to soul music, which is not the case in terms of rapping, b-boying, etc. As movies like 'Flashdance' (1983) reached the islands, more and more young people began dancing on the street and other public arenas, which added to its cultural integration. Soon, Japanese culture was ready to alter the very structure of their language in order to partake in hip hop. Hip hop was thought to have originally become popular in Japan because the Japanese people wanted to imitate Africans. The Japanese would hear these rapper's music spinning in clubs, exposing to them a small, narrow view of West Coast hip hop. It was not only the music they latched onto, however. They came to love the entire hip hop culture, including the loose-fitting clothes, graffiti writing, and break dancing. Some Japanese hip-hop fans would even go to tanning salons to darken their skin, and style their hair in afros or dreadlocks to imitate the "cool" looks of Africans, although they are ridiculed by others, including other hip-hoppers.

Racial themes.

This style is called "burapan" - "the name given to the fashion sensibilities of all black wannabes." and is similar to the English term wigger. The term "burapan", though, has a derogatory history stemming from the WW2 occupation of Japan. Japanese law at the beginning of the American occupation legalised prostitution and created specific brothels to service allied occupation forces such as the Recreation and Amusement Association.  These prostitutes became known as "panpan", a euphemism used by the American soldiers when hunting for a prostitute. Pan derives from the American company Pan American World Airways and combines with the Japanese

Blackface.

People who tan in order to get a darker skin complexion (especially the females, mainly those who are part of the ganguro subculture) are considered blackfacers. These Japanese men and women tend to embrace their assumed skin color and party with black people, especially African soldiers and Africans who have moved to Japan. The use of blackface is seen by some as a way to rebel against the culture of surface images in Japan. Blackface is used as a way to connect with African-Americans and the hegemonic racial

Japanese hip hop dance scene.

Dancing is an important aspect of the hip-hop culture. Before hip-hop was popular in Japan, there was soul dancing, which provided a foundation for Japanese acceptance of street dance culture. A big break through time for the dance scene in Japan was after the movies "Flashdance," "Wild Style", and "Beat Street". This was only the beginning of the dance explosion in Japan. The New York hip hop scene also had a large impact on the dance influence in Japan. Lalah Hathaway's "Baby Don't Cry" music video had a large impact

Language.

Initially language was a barrier for hip-hop in Japan. Rappers only rapped in English because it was believed that the differences between English and Japanese would make it impossible to rap in Japanese. Unlike English, the Japanese language ends phrases in auxiliary verbs. Whereas English ends in verbs or nouns, which are extremely common, Japanese rappers were limited by the small number of grammatically correct possibilities for ending a phrase. Japanese also lacks the stresses on certain syllables that provide flow to English rapping. Even traditional Japanese poetry was based on the numbers of syllables present, unlike English poetry, which was based on the stresses in a line. Most Japanese lyrical music was also formulated using textual repetition, not relying on the flow of the words.  The Japanese also have many ways of indicating class distinctions. English is seen as more direct, one far more suited to the tough quality presented in hip-hop. Eventually, artists began translating music from English to Japanese and performing those direct translations, often leaving the bridge of the song in English to keep the catchiness of the rhymes and flow. Slowly, with the increase in popularity of rap in Japan, more rappers began using Japanese. Rappers added stressed syllables to their music, altering the natural flow of the language to fit into traditional hip-hop.

Venues and events.

Genba, also known as the actual site, is the place and space for established and future underground hip-hop artists to gain and maintain recognition. It is here in these venues and night clubs that the artist performs and networks with people from the music industry, the audience, and the media. If the artist is a crowd favorite, the audience cheers or dances and this in a way decides the fate.  Without such "genba" acknowledgments, artists would disappear from the scene. Conversely, the business success of some rappers is not rejected but seen with a touch of envy, especially if they manage to go frequently to nightclubs like Zeebra to sustain their networks and keep up to date on the latest trends.  Before the turn of the new millennium, "genba" served as a places where Japanese hip hop culture was created and born. In the city of Tokyo, between the youth shopping districts of Shibuya and Harajuku, there was created a "genb"a – a fathering point for youthful fans and performers. Traffic was stopped, and people and artists were able to perform and express themselves outside in this very public arena. This area became known as "Hokouten," short for "hokousha tengoku", which means "pedestrian paradise."  Thumpin' Camp was one of the most memorable and largest hip hop events that occurred in Japan. July 7, 1996 is an unforgettable day for many rappers, as well as the fans; about four thousand people attended the show. Males were more attracted to this hip hop scene than females; thus, about 80% of the

Notable Japanese artists.

One major Japanese hip hop group, Rhymester, has expressed opinions on various global and philosophical issues through their lyrics. Rhymester has put out motivating messages through hip hop, with songs like "B-Boyism" that emphasizes improving oneself, with lyrics such as "I'm not surrendering this aesthetic flattering no one, I improve myself only the wonderful, useless people get it, and roar, at the edge of the bass." The group has also written socially critical lyrics, in songs attacking the Japanese government, as well as the United States for invading Iraq. Rhymester is also known for its collaborative work with the Funky Grammar Unit in the 1980s, as well as its participation in hip hop battles.  Another major group of Japanese hip-hop is King Giddra. They are one of the few pioneers of Japanese hip-hop. They began their hip hop careers in 1993 and felt hip-hop was needed in Japan. Group members, Zeebra and K Dub Shine, both of whom had lived in the U.S., were convinced of the necessity for hip-hop to be about issues of social opposition. They used hip-hop to address social issues of the time, such as: the inability of college graduates to find employment and the media overload of advertising sex and violence. They also "challenged youth not only to recognize the difficulties faced by Japanese society but also to speak up about them." Their first album has been cited as being influential in the development of rapping style in Japanese.  Dabo is one of the first hip hop artists in Japan. He sprung to the scene in the 1990s and has fame all over Japan. He is the first Japanese artist to be signed to Def Jam Japan. He is also disliked for his style of hip hop, which is said to be imitation of African American Hip Hop. Many Japanese musicians feel that artists similar to Dabo are just mimicking what they see in American hip hop and is not unique in any sense.  Another influential rap artist in Japan is female

Japanese influence on current hip-hop.

Japanese Denim is very popular amongst modern hip-hop culture. From Evisu to Red Monkey which are notable by many American hip-hop artists, show the spread of Japanese culture in to hip-hop.  Japanese art has been an influence on hip hop culture as well. Takashi Murakami paints Japanese cultural objects and icons repetitiously and markets them on all sorts of products including keychains, mouse pads, T-shirts and Louis Vuitton handbags. He is responsible for Kanye West's Graduation and Kids See Ghosts album covers.

Japanese hip hop (also known as J-rap, J-hip hop, Nip-hop or J-hop) is said to have begun when Hiroshi Fujiwara returned to Japan and started playing hip hop records in the early 1980s. Japanese hip hop tends to be most directly influenced by old school hip hop, taking from the era's catchy beats, dance culture and overall fun and carefree nature and incorporating it into their music. As a result, hip hop stands as one of the most commercially viable mainstream music genres in Japan and the line between it and pop music is frequently blurred.

Der Japanische Hip-Hop, auch bekannt als Nip Hop oder J-Hip-Hop, wurde populär mit dem Film "Wild Style" von Charlie Ahearn, der 1983 in den japanischen Kinos gezeigt wurde. Der Film stellte die amerikanische Hip-Hop- und Graffiti-Szene vor. Musiker wie Busy Bee, Grandmaster Flash, die Rock Steady Crew und Double Trouble spielten mit.


Biography.

Early life.

Willem Schermerhorn was born on 17 December 1894 in Akersloot in the Dutch Province of North Holland. He grew up in a Protestant family of farmers. He became professor at the Delft University of Technology on 7 September 1926. Schermerhorn remained professor until 1944, when he was removed by the German occupational forces because of his activities in the Dutch resistance. He was interned by the German occupational forces as a hostage in Sint-Michielsgestel from May 1942 until December 1943. After he was removed as professor in 1944 Schermerhorn went into hiding to avoid being taken prisoner by the German occupational forces.

Politics.

On 24 June 1945 he became Prime Minister of the cabinet Schermerhorn/Drees, the first cabinet after World War II. Schermerhorn was the first Dutch Prime Minister who appointed civil servants with a political background, people like Koos Vorrink and Hendrik Brugmans (nicknamed "The Schermerboys"). After the elections of 1946 he became a member of parliament, as a member of the social-democratic Labour Party. He remained a member of parliament until 1951. After his parliamentarian career ended he became director of the International Training Center for Aerial Survey in 1951 (until 1969). In 1956 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Personal life.

On 9 April 1919, Schermerhorn married Barbara Rook (13 June 1897 – 7 January 1986). Wim Schermerhorn died on 10 March 1977 in Haarlem. He was 82.  His brother,, was an engineer in the Soviet Union (he was involved in the construction of the Moscow Subway). He was killed during the Stalinist purges in 1937. His sister, Neeltje, was married to theologian Johannes Marie de Jonge, principal of the Theological Seminary of the Dutch Reformed Church in Driebergen (1960–1968).

Willem "Wim" Schermerhorn (17 December 1894 – 10 March 1977) was a Dutch politician of the defunct Free-thinking Democratic League (VDB) and later co-founder of the Labour Party (PvdA). He served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 25 June 1945 until 3 July 1946. According to Harry W. Laidler, the government under Schermerhorn's premiership "achieved important results in the fields of labor, finance, housing, old age pensions, and the social services."

Willem (Wim) Schermerhorn (* 17. Dezember 1894 in Akersloot; † 11. März 1977 in Haarlem) war ein niederländischer Geodät und Kartograf, Techniker und Politiker.


History.

As part of the Army XXI reforms, a report on October 24, 2001 to the Federal Assembly of Switzerland called for the formation of a special forces–trained unit that would be able to conduct counter-terrorist-type actions in the Swiss Army to protect Swiss nationals and soldiers living abroad.  In 2003, the unit was created with Major Daniel Stoll as the unit's first commanding officer. 30 soldiers with special forces training formed the nucleus of the unit, with its internal structure based on the Special Air Service. In 2007, ARD 10 commandos joined in Exercise Cold Response 2007. The unit had been unveiled to the public during Army Day 2007 in Lugano from November 20 to November 25, 2007.  By 2011, the unit has 91 soldiers in active duty. Forty operators currently serve in the ranks of ARD 10.  It is suggested that the first batch of ARD 10 operators had been given training by foreign special forces instructors. They include instructors from the United States Navy SEALs, US Special Forces, and the Special Air Service.  There has been calls on the Swiss government to deploy ARD 10 operators to combat Somali pirates with no consensus in Parliament, due to an evenly divided vote against it. The planned mission called for 30 ARD 10 operators to be deployed with a spokesperson for the Swiss Army saying that the ARD 10 is ready to be deployed if given the order.  ARD 10 operators were supposed to be covertly deployed into Libya to rescue two hostages held by Gaddafi due to the arrest of his son in Switzerland under "Operation SAKR". Instead, the hostages were released after negotiations between Libya and Switzerland, with the details of the rescue operations leaked to the press.

Criticisms.

Critics had blasted the creation of the ARD 10, saying that that unit might conduct anti-terrorist missions that may put civilians in harm's way contrary to their mission. The "Zeit-Fragen", a weekly newspaper, also claimed that the ARD 10 would be a blow to Swiss neutrality, saying that crisis situations involving Swiss nationals are always solved through negotiations. There are concerns that the ARD 10, like all special forces, can be used covertly against politically active people instead of conducting their missions to their mandate.  An article criticized the planned mission to Somalia, questioning whyARD 10 operators should shoot as pirates when they are on anti-piracy operations, since most pirates are ex-fishermen and criminals. Furthermore, an article from the "Berner Zeitung" insists that the ARD 10 deployment is not the solution, but calls for political solutions.  The ARD10 was criticized for being "dangerous" when Swiss media leaked out plans to rescue Swiss nationals in Libya on June 28, 2010. In addition, it is reported that only 40 operators are currently active instead of the initially planned 90. According to Albert Stahel of Zurich University’s Institute for Strategic Studies, an umbrella of the Swiss military's various special forces units should be created, as Switzerland does not have enough resources to strategically transport ARD 10 operators to various places around the globe.

Unit tasks.

The ARD 10 has certain tasks to fulfill as part of their mandate:

Requirements.

Among the minimal qualification requirements for potential candidates in 18 weeks, these include:  Other potential requirements include the following:  Candidates who must wear eyeglasses must have a visual acuity of at least 0.80 in order to be accepted.  The Swiss Army does not institute an age limit for soldiers who wish to join the ARD 10.

Equipment.

ARD 10 operators are equipped with the SIG SG 553 (replacing the SIG SG 552) assault carbine with various tactical and night vision scopes, depending on the operator. Their main sniper rifle is the Sako TRG-42 (in-service designation "Scharfschützengewehr 04 (SSGw 04)"). The MP5SD3 submachine gun is the standard SMG used by the ARD 10.  Their standard sidearms consist of Glock 17 and the Glock 26 alongside the P220. In addition, there are reports that the SIG Pro series are also issued. For training purposes, the G17T and G26T are used.  Their equipment consists of knee protectors, kevlar helmets and anti-shrapnel vests. The ARD's main light infantry vehicle is the AGF.

Training.

Potential candidates must attend the full 18 months, of special forces training after completing their compulsory service with the Swiss Army, with 6 months dedicated to basic training and followed by 40 weeks of infiltration technique training. Candidates will be assessed prior to training their physical and mental state, as well as their health if they are fit to be qualified as ARD 10 soldiers. Candidates must also have clean records from their time after attending compulsory service.  Upon completion of training, all ARD 10 soldiers are required to be on standby in case of deployment.  Over 300 soldiers apply for a position in the ARD 10, but only 10 prospective soldiers are chosen for training as ARD 10 operators.  Among the specialist courses taught to all prospective ARD 10 operators include the following:

Work conditions.

All ARD 10 soldiers are allowed a maximum of 20 days off from active service with the unit, as well as additional 5 days if required. Accommodations in terms of living quarters and food are taken care of by the unit itself without having the individual soldier pay. ARD 10 soldiers stay in the unit for 5 years. Efforts are underway to raise it up to 10 years of service.  The soldiers are paid according to their marital status and economic standing. Extra pay ranges from 397 to 5,156 Swiss francs. Others are paid 4,111 Swiss francs if they have children with extra pay that includes 2,654 Swiss francs. ARD 10 soldiers are also paid if they are deployed abroad, depending on the nature of their mission. Soldiers are paid additionally 6.17 Swiss francs per hour for participating in night duties.  All ARD 10 soldiers have insurance as provided by the Swiss military.  In addition, ARD 10 soldiers are to reimbursed according to federal law with an accommodation maximum of 130 Swiss francs.

The Army Reconnaissance Detachment 10 (,, ) is a special forces unit of the Swiss Army responsible for conducting counter-terrorist activities in Switzerland and abroad. The full cost of maintaining the ARD-DDR-DEE in 2011 was approximately 16 million francs.

Das Armee-Aufklärungsdetachement 10, kurz AAD 10 (Französisch: "Détachement de reconnaissance de l'armée 10", kurz "DRA 10"; Italienisch: "Distaccamento d'esplorazione dell'esercito 10", kurz "DEE 10") ist eine 2004 gegründete Spezialeinheit der Schweizer Armee mit einer Stärke von rund 90 Soldaten. Die Elite-Einheit ist als Berufsformation eine Kern-Komponente des Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK).