title: Aleitenspitze

text: The path climbs steeply up the wooded slopes above a mountain stream, the Kurzer Grund Ache, to the New Bamberg Hut (1,756 m) that perches on a hillside just above an Alpine meadow nestling amongst the surrounding peaks. Behind the hut, the path branches off to the Schafsiedel, climbing the steep, grassy slopes in a westerly direction to the picturesque Lower Wildalm Lake (Unterer Wildalmsee, 1,937 m), which is often frequented by anglers. The trail then climbs up to the Middle Wildalm Lake (Mittlerer Wildalmsee, 2,028 m), the largest of the 3 lakes by area, passing around it to the north on a low ridge before climbing steeply once more to the Upper Wildalm Lake (Oberer Wildalmsee, 2,324 m), one of the highest in the Kitzbühel Alps. The path follows the lakeshore for a short distance, before striking for the summit on a horseshoe-shaped ridge above the lake. The climb to the Schafsiedel is particularly steep. From there the ridgeline curves away to the Aleitenspitze. The crossing is rocky but not difficult. The descent to the New Bamberg Hut may be made by continuing down the ridgeline or by returning to the Schafsiedel.


title: All American Bully

text: The film has been criticized for its violent content with some critics saying that the graphic nature of the film overshadows the message the film was trying to convey. Grace Montgomery stated that "Although it seems like it's trying to make a statement about social media and bullying, most of what the film has to say is lost under the horrifying violence that has no resolution." Justin Hamelin praised the film saying that "All American Bully does not simplify the terrible epidemic of bullying in our society these days, nor does it glorify the damage done either by the antagonist or to the victims. It is a reserved and respectful approach to a problem that desperately needs to stop. Perhaps the best compliment I can give this film is that it should be considered for discussion amongst high school classes across the country and while there is a very upsetting scene that I had trouble getting through towards the end of the film, this is the harsh reality we live in and by spreading awareness of the issues at hand, we can hopefully work towards a society where bullying becomes the exception, as opposed to the expected."


title: Amr Moussa

text: Moussa has been heavily involved with Egypt's foreign policy since 1958. He was Egypt's ambassador to the United Nations, India, and Switzerland for a total of 21 years. Moussa was among the many Arab and international diplomats who tried to resolve the Lebanese Civil War . After serving as Egypt's Foreign Minister from 1991 to 2001, he served as the Secretary General of the Arab League. Moussa has been an extremely popular political figure in Egypt due to his criticism of Israeli policies towards Gaza and the West Bank. At the Forum for new diplomacy in February 2010, Moussa gave a speech in which he criticized the U.S. government's double standard supporting Israel's nuclear weapons policy but not allowing Iran to pursue nuclear energy. He also criticized Western countries, including the U.S., for not recognizing the results of the 2006 Palestinian election that brought Hamas into power. Like Mohamed El-Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood, he supports opening the Gaza Strip/Egypt border. His criticisms have made Moussa extremely popular.


title: Amr Moussa

text: On 1 February 2011, following the announcement by President Hosni Mubarak that he would not stand in the upcoming presidential elections, Moussa told CNN that he would seriously think about standing himself as a candidate in the next few weeks. On the 8 February broadcast of Al Jazeera English's Empire, well-connected American journalist Seymour Hersh stated that Moussa was considered the U.S.'s favored "Plan B" should Mubarak resign, "whether he knows it or not." On 11 February 2011, Al Jazeera English Online read from a Reuters report that stated Moussa was resigning from his position with the Arab League; on the day that President Mubarak resigned the presidency this furthered rumours he might make a strong bid for president when elections are announced in Egypt. On 12 February 2011, the Egyptian daily newspaper Alwafd reported that a group of Egyptian youth met with Moussa to discuss a possible nomination for the presidential election. Moussa reportedly agreed to the nomination, but stated that he would await the currently proposed constitutional reforms.


title: Hoodoo Gurus

text: Gurus' peak of popularity was in the mid-to-late 1980s with the albums Mars Needs Guitars!, Blow Your Cool! and Magnum Cum Louder. The albums reached no. 140 , no. 120 and no. 101 on the American Billboard 200 album charts respectively. The band's 1987 'Blow Your Cool' concert tour took them to 19 countries playing 204 venues. A concert from the Ritz in New York City was broadcast by MTV America. The 'Magnum Cum Louder' tour in 1990, with dates in Europe, America and Australasia; included Japan for the first time. Based on their extensive touring of America, the band gained a solid following in the U.S. with regular exposure on US college radio (and later MTV's 120 Minutes) and even developed a big fan base in Brazil. The third album Blow Your Cool! let go of some of the peripheral quirkiness and just concentrated on the band's pop power. Members of their international peer group The Bangles and Dream Syndicate contributed backing vocals to some songs. Then, Hoodoo Gurus decided to opt out of its record contract, tying up the group in legal wranglings for more than a year. In 1988 Richard Grossman (ex Matt Finish, Divinyls) replaced Clyde Bramley on bass. The most stable line-up of Faulkner, Grossman, Kingsmill, and Shepherd saw Hoodoo Gurus from 1988 to the break-up in January 1998.


title: Hoodoo Gurus

text: In 1996 they moved to Mushroom Records for the release of their next album, Blue Cave. The band then undertook a national tour of Australian tour with US outfit The Posies and local band Drop City. Touring commitments were curtailed when Kingsmill severed tendons and nerves in his arm as a result of an onstage accident. Once Kingsmill recovered, the Gurus completed their 'Circus Maximus' Australian tour by end of 1996. In January 1997, Faulkner announced that the band would be breaking up in December. March saw the Gurus undertake another tour of Brazil, where they played a concert in front of 40,000 people. The Gurus commenced their final Australian tour, the three-month 'Spit the Dummy' tour, in October 1997. The tour coincided with the release of the double compilation album Armchair Gurus/Electric Chair, which made no. 29 on the national chart. The band played its final show in Melbourne on 11 January 1998. The show made up for dates missed during December 1997, when Faulkner was ill.


title: Hoodoo Gurus

text: In 1999, following Gurus break-up, Shepherd recorded "Alex Chilton" for The Replacements tribute album, I'm in Love... With That Song (Antfarm Records). He also produced Shutterspeed's debut 1999 EP, Up Go The Shutters and co-produced their second EP, Well Ain't That Something A Good Thing's Comin' on Laughing Outlaw Records. Shepherd went on to form a new band, The Monarchs (initially known as The Honkies), together with Andy Kelly on bass (Glide), Greg Hitchcock on guitar (The Neptunes, The Kryptonics, New Christs, The Verys, Challenger 7, You Am I, The Dearhunters) and his brother Murray Shepherd (Harpoon, The Fun Things, Screaming Tribesmen) on drums. The Monarchs played with The Meanies, Even, You Am I, Joe Strummer and The Hellacopters. In August 1999 The Monarchs recorded a self-financed album with Wayne Connolly and in 2000 they released their first single, "2001" b/w "This Is All I Can Do" (Ivy League Records); this was followed by their debut album, Make Yer Own Fun, in October 2001, on Shock Records.


title: Hoodoo Gurus

text: Hoodoo Gurus toured during 2007 including several US dates, kicking off at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival in Austin, Texas (see SXSW photo above), performances in Europe, including the Azkena Festival (Spain). This was followed by a national tour of Australia called 'Clash of the Titans' with The Stems and Radio Birdman. Their tour poster depicts the three bands as 'Heavyweights' of the Australian music scene. Another solo tour started late in 2007 (including performances at the Apollo Bay Music Festival, Splendour in the Grass, Meredith Music Festival, and the St Kilda Festival) and continued into 2008. There are tentative plans to release a new album in 2009, although little material has been written so far. In June 2008 The Age newspaper commemorated 50 years of Australian rock 'n' roll (the anniversary of the release of Johnny O'Keefe's "Wild One") by selecting the Top 50 Australian Albums, with Stoneage Romeo coming in at no. 5 on the list. The Hoodoo Gurus performed at the Glastonbury Festival in the United Kingdom on 29 June 2008.


title: AGIL paradigm

text: AGIL is an acronym from the initials of each of the four systemic necessities. The AGIL system is considered a cybernetic hierarchy and has generally the following order L-I-G-A, when the order is viewed from an "informational" point of view; this implies that the L function could "control" or define the I function (and the I the G and so on) approximately in the way in which a computer-game-program "defines" the game. The program does not "determine" the game (which actual outcome would depend on the input of the player, that was what Parsons in a sense called the voluntaristic aspect of action) but it "determined" the logical parameter of the game, which lies implicit in the game's concrete design and rules. In this way, Parsons would say that culture would not determine the social system but it would "define it." The AGIL system had also an energy side (or a "conditional" side), which would go A-G-I-L. So that the Adaptive level would be on the highest level of the cybernetic hierarchy from the energy or "conditional" point of view. However, within these two reverse sequences of the hierarchy Parsons maintained that in the long historical perspective, a system which was high in information (that is, a system that followed the L-I-G-A sequence) would tend to prevail over system which was high in energy. For example in the human body, the DNA is the informational code which will tend to control "the body" which is high in energy. Within the action system, Parsons would maintain that it was culture which was highest in information and which in his way was in cybernetic control over other components of the action system, as well as the social system. However, it is important to maintain that all action systems (including social systems) are always depending on the (historically specific) equilibrium of the overall forces of information and condition, which both shape the outcome of the system. Also it is important to highlight that the AGIL system does not "guarantee" any historical system survival; they rather specify the minimum conditions for whether societies or action systems in principle can survive. Whether a concrete action system survive or not is a sheer historical question.


title: AGIL paradigm

text: Each of the four individual functional necessities are further divided into four sub-categories. The four sub-categories are the same four functions as the major four AGIL categories and so on. Hence one subsystem of the societal community is the category of "citizenship," which is a category we today would associate with the concept of civil society. In this way, citizenship (or civil society) represents, according to Parsons, the goal-attainment function within the subsystem of the Societal Community. For example, a community's adaption to the economic environment might consist of the basic "industrial" process of production (adaption), political-strategic goals for production (goal-attainment), the interaction between the economical system and the societal community, which integrates production mechanisms both in regard to economic as well as societal factors (integration), and common cultural values in their "selective" relevance for the societal-economic interchange process (latency (or Pattern Maintenance)). Each of these systemic processes will (within the scope of the cybernetic hierarchy) be regulated by what Talcott Parsons calls generalized symbolic media. Each system level of the general action-paradigm has each their set of generalized symbolic media (so that the set of generalized symbolic media for the social system is not identical with those of the action system or those of the human condition paradigm). In regard to the social system, there are the following four generalized symbolic media:


title: AGIL paradigm

text: Parsons' theory has been criticised as being too abstract to be used constructively in any significant empirical research. While the four functions of the AGIL scheme are intuitive and many social systems can be described according to the paradigm of Parsons' structural functionalism, one can question the utility that such an inspection brings to a scientific sociological study. Defenders of the AGIL scheme respond that there have indeed been situations where social systems, such as some industries, have failed to operate because they have neglected one or more of the four functions. Hence, the AGIL scheme can be tested against political or economical systems in operation to see if they meet the criteria. Defenders also highlight that all theoretical systems are abstract (indeed modern physics uses extremely high levels of theoretical abstractions (without anyone "protesting")). Any good theoretical system has to be abstract, since this is the meaning and function of theoretical systems. Another notable criticism attacks the AGIL schemes' failure to take historical change into account. Critics argue that Parsons' theory is inexcusably static and lacks the flexibility to meet instances of social change. While Parsons purports that the AGIL scheme is a general theory of social functions that can be applied to any social system at any time or place in the history of humankind, critics contend that it is basically just a model of the post-war United States, or, moreover, merely an ideal social structure of the middle-class of United States. Parsons' defenders argue that such criticisms are misplaced inasmuch as Parsons tried to identify the most important systemic features of any society whatsoever: any society would need to meet the functions indicated by AGIL, even if it used different institutions or arrangements for doing so. Moreover, Parsons himself tried to develop a theory of world history, and to explain social change through his system, although his critics have suggested that this amounts to little more than window-dressing. Nevertheless, despite recent sympathetic reappraisals, Parsons no longer dominates Anglophone social theory in the way he once did.


title: Caroline Congdon

text: Congdon was a native of Onondaga County, New York, and lived for most of her life in the town of Amber. One of five siblings, early in her childhood her father died, and the family was left with little money. Caroline was educated at home and in the local district school, and early displayed a taste for intellectual pursuits, but she suffered from chronic poor health, including a fever and paralysis which left her bedridden at the age of fourteen. Left only with the use of her hand, she began to write poetry, using a pencil and a specially-made upside-down table which held the paper in place over her head and chest. In this manner she produced enough poems to fill a volume, The Guardian Angel, which was published in 1856 and which featured as a frontispiece a portrait of Congdon in her bed. The poems range from shorter works on a variety of topics to long, narrative pieces on romantic subjects; the book also contains a poem on an abolitionist subject. In the preface she asked "the Critic to spare my little book, and the tender-hearted Reader to drop a tear of sympathy for its afflicted Authoress"; she died four years after the book's publication. She is buried in the village cemetery in Amber.


title: Grainger Generating Station

text: Grainger was constructed at a cost of $52 million and unit 1 began generating electricity in 1965 and unit 2 began operation in 1966. The plant is named after Dolphus M. Grainger, a Horry County native who pushed for rural electrification. The power plant had 2 units and had an operating capacity of 170 megawatts (MW). Its cooling source came from the nearby Waccamaw River and outlet to Lake Busbee which was created for the power plant. In 2004, Grainger along with several other coal plants owned by Santee Cooper were found to be in violation of the Clean Air Act. As a part of the settlement, Santee Cooper had to install LO-NOx burners to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions at Grainger. Grainger was retired in October 2012 by Santee Cooper as it was too costly to comply with the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS). After three years of decommissioning, demolition of Grainger's structure began in 2015. Its two smokestacks were imploded using controlled demolition in February 2016. Lake Busbee was drained and returned to its natural state as wetlands in 2018.


title: Matiko (Bilbao metro)

text: During the early 20th century, three different railway lines called or passed through Matico station; the passenger Bilbao-Plencia and Matico-Azbarren railways and freight trains headed to Bilbao-San Agustín station. Matico station became a relevant hub for the city's narrow gauge railways, due to being the location of where the single railtrack coming from Getxo and Plentzia branched into three different tunnels. In 1947 the city's narrow gauge railways merged to form the Ferrocarriles y Transportes Suburbanos de Bilbao S.A. (Railways and Suburban Transport of Bilbao), shortened FTS and the first precedent of today's Metro Bilbao. The branch towards Bilbao-San Agustín was closed down in 1973 In 1977 the FTS network was transferred to the public company FEVE and in 1982 to the recently created Euskotren. The station, then renamed Matiko following the modern Basque orthography, was then part of a series of renovation projects commissioned by the Basque Government which included the creation of the Metro Bilbao's line 1 using sections of the Bilbao-Plencia and Matico-Azbarren railways, which caused Matiko to become disconnected from both lines, as the station was not part of the new metro network. The tunnel and railtrack connecting the station with Azbarren were closed down.


title: Class-D amplifier

text: The first class-D amplifier was invented by British scientist Alec Reeves in the 1950s and was first called by that name in 1955. The first commercial product was a kit module called the X-10 released by Sinclair Radionics in 1964. However, it had an output power of only 2.5 watts. The Sinclair X-20 in 1966 produced 20 watts but suffered from the inconsistencies and limitations of the germanium-based bipolar junction transistors available at the time. As a result, these early class-D amplifiers were impractical and unsuccessful. Practical class-D amplifiers were enabled by the development of silicon-based MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) technology. In 1978, Sony introduced the TA-N88, the first class-D unit to employ power MOSFETs and a switched-mode power supply. There were subsequently rapid developments in MOSFET technology between 1979 and 1985. The availability of low-cost, fast-switching MOSFETs led to class-D amplifiers becoming successful in the mid-1980s. The first class-D amplifier based integrated circuit was released by Tripath in 1996, and it saw widespread use.


title: Class-D amplifier

text: The theoretical power efficiency of class-D amplifiers is 100%. That is to say, all of the power supplied to it is delivered to the load and none is turned to heat. This is because an ideal switch in its on state would encounter no resistance and conduct all the current with no voltage drop across it, hence no power would be dissipated as heat. And when it is off, it would have the full supply voltage across it but no leakage current flowing through it, and again no power would be dissipated. Real-world power MOSFETs are not ideal switches, but practical efficiencies well over 90% are common for class-D amplifiers. By contrast, linear AB-class amplifiers are always operated with both current flowing through and voltage standing across the power devices. An ideal class-B amplifier has a theoretical maximum efficiency of 78%. Class-A amplifiers (purely linear, with the devices always at least partially on) have a theoretical maximum efficiency of 50% and some designs have efficiencies below 20%.


title: Strasbourg Institute of Material Physics and Chemistry

text: The IPCMS was born from a reflection initiated in the early eighties on the need to refocus and coordinate research in the physics and chemistry of condensed matter and materials. In the context of the then emerging Materials Center in Strasbourg, a first reorganization project for condensed matter physics was formalized in 1983. Then, in the same years, the strategic importance of materials for innovation is recognized, justifying the extension of the initial project to chemists, to constitute the backbone of the future institute by bringing together physicists and chemists on the objective of designing and studying new materials (metals, ceramics, ...) for their electronic properties (magnetic, optical, dielectric, etc.). CNRS-ULP-EHICS joint unit, the IPCMS is officially created in 1987 with François Gautier as Director and Jean-Claude Bernier as deputy director. Originally located on five different sites of the University of Strasbourg, it was in 1994 that members of the IPCMS were grouped together in the current building on the Campus of Cronenbourg. The IPCMS is then organized into five research groups around three types of materials - polymers and organic materials, metallic materials, ceramics and inorganic materials - and two topics of study: nonlinear optics and optoelectronics on one hand, surfaces and interfaces on the other hand.


text: The multi-disciplinary nature of the IPCMS is expressed by leading activities in spin electronics, magnetism, ultra-fast optics, electron microscopy and local probes, biomaterials as well as in the synthesis and characterization of functional organic, inorganic or hybrid materials. All scales are considered from the isolated molecule to organized nanostructures on surfaces and single or two-dimensional objects, up to nano-devices. To carry out these studies, the institute has an important instrumental park for the fabrication and characterization of materials at all scales. The developments are also based on recognized theoretical skills. The projects LabEX NIE and EquipEX UNION and UTEM that the IPCMS directs reflect the recognized position of the laboratory. Located on the Campus of Cronenbourg, IPCMS is affiliated with the institutes of physics and chemistry of the CNRS as well as the Faculty of Physics and Engineering, it is also affiliated with the European School of Chemistry, Polymers and Materials (ECPM), Télécom Physique Strasbourg, and the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Strasbourg. The IPCMS is very attached to maintain strong links with the industrial laboratories carrying out research in its fields of competence.


title: Strabo

text: He notices, amongst others, the explanation of Xanthus the Lydian, who said that the seas had once been more extensive, and that they had afterwards been partially dried up, as in his own time many lakes, rivers, and wells in Asia had failed during a season of drought. Treating this conjecture with merited disregard, Strabo passes on to the hypothesis of Strato, the natural philosopher, who had observed that the quantity of mud brought down by rivers into the Euxine was so great, that its bed must be gradually raised, while the rivers still continued to pour in an undiminished quantity of water. He therefore conceived that, originally, when the Euxine was an inland sea, its level had by this means become so much elevated that it burst its barrier near Byzantium, and formed a communication with the Propontis , and this partial drainage had already, he supposed, converted the left side into marshy ground, and that, at last, the whole would be choked up with soil. So, it was argued, the Mediterranean had once opened a passage for itself by the Columns of Hercules into the Atlantic, and perhaps the abundance of sea-shells in Africa, near the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, might also be the deposit of some former inland sea, which had at length forced a passage and escaped.


title: Strabo

text: But Strabo rejects this theory as insufficient to account for all the phenomena, and he proposes one of his own, the profoundness of which modern geologists are only beginning to appreciate. 'It is not,' he says, 'because the lands covered by seas were originally at different altitudes, that the waters have risen, or subsided, or receded from some parts and inundated others. But the reason is, that the same land is sometimes raised up and sometimes depressed, and the sea also is simultaneously raised and depressed so that it either overflows or returns into its own place again. We must, therefore, ascribe the cause to the ground, either to that ground which is under the sea, or to that which becomes flooded by it, but rather to that which lies beneath the sea, for this is more moveable, and, on account of its humidity, can be altered with great celerity. It is proper,' he observes in continuation, 'to derive our explanations from things which are obvious, and in some measure of daily occurrences, such as deluges, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and sudden swellings of the land beneath the sea; for the last raise up the sea also, and when the same lands subside again, they occasion the sea to be let down. And it is not merely the small, but the large islands also, and not merely the islands, but the continents, which can be lifted up together with the sea; and both large and small tracts may subside, for habitations and cities, like Bure, Bizona, and many others, have been engulfed by earthquakes.'


title: Strabo

text: One extraordinary thing which I saw at the pyramids must not be omitted. Heaps of stones from the quarries lie in front of the pyramids. Among these are found pieces which in shape and size resemble lentils. Some contain substances like grains half peeled. These, it is said, are the remnants of the workmen's food converted into stone; which is not probable. For at home in our country (Amaseia), there is a long hill in a plain, which abounds with pebbles of a porous stone, resembling lentils. The pebbles of the sea-shore and of rivers suggest somewhat of the same difficulty ; some explanation may indeed be found in the motion in flowing waters, but the investigation of the above fact presents more difficulty. I have said elsewhere, that in sight of the pyramids, on the other side in Arabia, and near the stone quarries from which they are built, is a very rocky mountain, called the Trojan mountain; beneath it there are caves, and near the caves and the river a village called Troy, an ancient settlement of the captive Trojans who had accompanied Menelaus and settled there.


title: Strabo

text: …There are no trees here, but only the vineyards where they produce the Katakekaumene wines which are by no means inferior from any of the wines famous for their quality. The soil is covered with ashes, and black in colour as if the mountainous and rocky country was made up of fires. Some assume that these ashes were the result of thunderbolts and subterranean explosions, and do not doubt that the legendary story of Typhon takes place in this region. Ksanthos adds that the king of this region was a man called Arimus. However, it is not reasonable to accept that the whole country was burned down at a time as a result of such an event rather than as a result of a fire bursting from underground whose source has now died out. Three pits are called "Physas" and separated by forty stadia from each other. Above these pits, there are hills formed by the hot masses burst out from the ground as estimated by a logical reasoning. Such type of soil is very convenient for viniculture, just like the Katanasoil which is covered with ashes and where the best wines are still produced abundantly. Some writers concluded by looking at these places that there is a good reason for calling Dionysus by the name ("Phrygenes").


title: Management of thalassemia

text: Deferoxamine is administered via intravenous, intramuscular, or subcutaneous injections. Oral administration is not possible as deferoxamine is rapidly metabolized by enzymes and is poorly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. The required parenteral administration represents one of deferoxamine's downfalls as it is harder for patients to follow up with their therapy due to the financial and emotional burdens experienced. Deferoxamine was proven to cure many clinical complications and diseases that result from iron overload. It beneficially affects cardiac disease, such as myocardial disease which occurs as a result of iron accumulation in the heart. Deferoxamine was also shown to improve liver function by arresting the development of hepatic fibrosis which occurs as a result of iron accumulation in the liver. Deferoxamine also has positive effects on endocrine function and growth. Endocrine abnormalities in thalassemic patients involve the overloaded iron interfering with the production of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), as well as stimulating hypogonadism, both of which cause poor pubertal growth. A study showed that 90% of patients who were regularly treated with deferoxamine since childhood had normal pubertal growth, which fell to 38% for patients treated only with low doses of deferoxamine since their teens. Another endocrine abnormality that thalassemic patients face is diabetes mellitus, which results from iron overload in the pancreas impairing insulin secretion. Studies have shown that patients who were regularly treated with deferoxamine have a reduced risk of developing diabetes mellitus.


title: Management of thalassemia

text: Deferoxamine could lead to toxic side effects if doses greater than 50 mg/kg body weight are administered. These side effects may include auditory and ocular abnormalities, pulmonary toxicity, sensorimotor neurotoxicity, as well as changes in renal function. Another toxic effect of deferoxamine mostly observed in children is the failure of linear growth. This reduction in height may occur as a result of deferoxamine chelating metals other than iron which are required for normal growth. Deferoxamine has an affinity constant (Ka) of 1031 for Fe3+, 1014 for Cu2+ and 1010 for Zn2+, and so may coordinate to zinc and copper when little iron is available for chelation. Zinc is needed for the proper functioning of various metalloenzymes involved in bone formation. Zinc chelation may cause zinc deficiency in the body, which can thus lead to a reduced growth rate, reduced collagen formation and defective bone mineralization. Similarly, copper functions as an enzyme cofactor in bone formation. Copper chelation may result in copper deficiency as well, leading to metaphyseal cupping and osteoporosis. For example, abnormal collagen is formed when copper is deficient as the enzyme lysyl oxidase, which uses copper as a cofactor and catalyzes the oxidative deamination step that is important for cross-linking of collagen, cannot function properly. Studies have shown that even though the blood serum of patients receiving deferoxamine was not deficient in copper and zinc, deficiencies of the metals in the metaphyseal matrix were observed.


title: Management of thalassemia

text: Deferasirox is most commonly marketed under the brand name Exjade. It has one key advantage over desferoxamine in that it can be taken orally in pill form, and so does not require intravenous or subcutaneous administration. With a terminal elimination half life of 8–16 hours, the deferasirox pill can be taken just once each day. A once-daily dose of 20 mg/kg of body weight has been found to be sufficient for most patients for the maintenance of liver iron concentration (LIC) levels, which are usually measured as mg of iron per g of liver tissue. Larger doses may be required for some patients in order to reduce LIC levels. The ability of deferasirox to effectively reduce LIC levels has been well documented. One study demonstrated that after 4–5 years of deferasirox treatment the mean LIC levels of patients decreased from 17.4 ± 10.5 to 9.6 ± 8.0 mg Fe/g. This study showed that long-term treatment did result in a sustainable reduction in the iron burden faced by patients receiving blood transfusions for thalassemia. An additional benefit of the use of deferasirox instead of desferoxamine is that, unlike desferoxamine, early studies have indicated that deferasirox does not have a significant impact on the growth and development of pediatric thalassemia patients. In a study by Cappellini et al. it was shown that children receiving the treatment displayed continual near-normal growth and development over a 5-year study period.


title: Trinidad euphonia

text: The Trinidad euphonia is monogamous, with pairs remaining together year-round. The breeding season runs from January to April in Trinidad, but is generally restricted to April in Colombia and Venezuela. The pair court by flicking their wings and twitching from side to side, bowing low, with the male displaying his bright crown. Both sexes build the nest, which is a round ball of dried grass and stems. It has a circular entrance in the side and is lined with finer material. This can be located from 1.4 to 12 m (4 ft 7 in to 39 ft 4 in) off the ground, and may be built in a variety of locations. Sometimes they are tucked into large bromeliads and occasionally they are hung from the end of a branch. One has been found in a hollow stump. The female lays 3–4 eggs, which are white or cream with irregular dark brown splotches and measure 17.7 mm × 12.9 mm (0.70 in × 0.51 in). Only she incubates them, but both parents feed the hatched youngsters. The generation length is estimated to be 3.5 years.


title: 92nd Illinois Infantry Regiment

text: By the middle of August, the 92nd was ready for operations. Rosecrans sent the brigade to General Crittenden's XXI Corps to conduct deception operations along the bank north of the Tennessee River at Chattanooga. In company with William B. Hazen's infantry, George D. Wagner's, and Robert H. G. Minty's cavalry brigade, their mission was to sprint ahead of Crittenden's Corps to the Tennessee River, and visibly show its presence to the Confederate cavalry screening the south bank. The remainder of the corps would spread out across the Cumberland Plateau heading north of Chattanooga, while the Rosecrans' other two corps crossed the river below Chattanooga and Bragg. Once the other corps were safely across the river, the XXI Corps would fall in behind them leaving the four brigades to keep Bragg focused across the river to the north bank. The four brigades would patrol the river, make as much noise as possible, and feign river crossing operations north of the city. That was what Bragg feared most feared, a crossing north of Chattanooga. This was all part of Rosecrans plan to take Chattanooga by maneuver versus pitched battle.


title: 92nd Illinois Infantry Regiment

text: The 92nd went with the 98th and a section of Lilly's battery ten miles up the Tennessee River toward Minty to the ferry at Harrison's Landing. After securing the ferry and destroying the lone rebel gun on the south side, they began trying to keep the Confederates on the opposite bank distracted. When Wagner and Hazen's brigades arrived on August 29, some of Hazen's dismounted infantry joined the 92nd and 98th at Harrison's landing to aid in the misdirection. The deception operation included the 92nd and its compatriots faking boat construction by hammering, sawing, and tossing bits of lumber into the river at Harrison's Landing so that it would float downstream to Chattanooga. The 92nd also joined the rest of the force in the nightly ritual of building numerous campfires to imitate the look of numerous regimental camps. The whole operation also benefited from the fact that the local population north of the river in Eastern Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau was strongly Unionist which meant that any Rebels operating there would be quickly reported back to the Army of the Cumberland; in light of this Bragg and no cavalry screen patrolling that could see through the deception.


title: 92nd Illinois Infantry Regiment

text: While the rest of the brigade had been busy in West Viniard Field stopping McNair's Brigade and Robertson's's Texas Brigade, the 92nd had been brought forward from Pond Springs by Gen. Reynolds to make an attack to assist Colonel Edward King's brigade, which was being overwhelmed in the woods just east of the Brotherton Field. There, the regiment had its hands full slowing down an onslaught of four Confederate regiments of Tennessee and Texas troops up Brotherton Road to Lafayette. King's rattled brigade was already being overwhelmed in the woods just east of the Brotherton Field. The 92nd, with their superior firepower, successfully stopped the Confederates King's brigade had already fallen back, and had taken many of the 92nd's horses in their flight up Dyer Road. Atkins could not find General Reynolds, so he withdrew his men and their remaining horses from the field and moved to link up with Wilder and the rest of the brigade. In their action at the Brotherton Field, Atkins and his men stopped the Rebels but lost twenty-five killed and wounded in addition to losing one of the howitzers.


title: 92nd Illinois Infantry Regiment

text: The brigade spent the night where it fought at the Viniard Field without fires because of the proximity of the Confederate line. During the night a cold front passed over the area, creating a fog in the morning that mixed with the heavy smoke from the battle. During the night, Major General Alexander McCook, commanding XX Corp, ordered Wilder to line a hill a half mile northwest. The hill, running north to south was only a few hundred yards from Rosecrans's headquarters at the Widow Glenn's house, and about a half mile from the Viniard Farm where the brigade fought the day before. At dawn on 20 September the brigade moved to its new position, leaving Colonel Atkins and the 92nd Illinois as a rear guard. The regiment was to fall back to the brigade if pressed by the anticipated attack in the morning. At the notorious moment on the second day of the battle when Wood's division was pulled from the line shortly after 11:00 just as Longstreet's attack hit the Union line, it caught several units moving in column formation and shattered them. Atkins saw the extreme left brigade of the Rebel attack cross the Brock Field towards the Glenn cabin. From his position at the Viniard Field, he mounted his regiment and withdrew towards the rest of the brigade later writing,


title: David Franklin (scientist)

text: David Franklin is an American microbiologist and former fellow of Harvard Medical School who while employed by Parke-Davis filed the 1996 whistleblower lawsuit exposing their illegal promotion of Neurontin (gabapentin) for off-label uses. Franklin's suit, filed on behalf of the citizens of the United States under the qui tam provisions of US federal and state law, uncovered illegal pharmaceutical industry practices and created new legal precedent that resulted in a cascade of criminal convictions and civil and criminal penalties against Pfizer and several other pharmaceutical companies totalling more than $7 billion. Civil cases also followed Franklin v. Parke-Davis. Insurance companies, led by Kaiser Permanente, sued Pfizer for fraud and violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act; the Kaiser case settled in April 2014 after Pfizer's appeal at the US Supreme Court was rejected. Franklin v. Pfizer also spawned more than a thousand wrongful death (suicide) suits associated with use of Neurontin. Numerous books have addressed the social, economic and healthcare implications of Dr. Franklin's stance and actions. The settlement was the first off-label promotion settlement under the False Claims Act.: 194


title: Tax competition

text: The European Union (EU) also illustrates the role of tax competition. The barriers to free movement of capital and people were reduced close to nonexistence. Some countries (e.g. Republic of Ireland) utilized their low levels of corporate tax to attract large amounts of foreign investment while paying for the necessary infrastructure (roads, telecommunication) from EU funds. The net contributors (like Germany) strongly oppose the idea of infrastructure transfers to low tax countries. Net contributors have not complained, however, about recipient nations such as Greece and Portugal, which have kept taxes high and not prospered. EU integration brings continuing pressure for consumption tax harmonization as well. EU member nations must have a value-added tax (VAT) of at least 15 percent (the main VAT band) and limits the set of products and services that can be included in the preferential tax band. Still this policy does not stop people utilizing the difference in VAT levels when purchasing certain goods (e.g. cars). The contributing factor are the single currency (Euro), growth of e-commerce and geographical proximity.


title: George Voinovich

text: Voinovich took an aggressive approach. He reversed a defensive attitude projected by the Cleveland media, going to "war ... to save one of this country's greatest cities". Others soon jumped on board. For instance, The Smythe-Cramer Co., a local realty firm, tried to restore the city's former glory by running a series of ads with photographs of downtown Cleveland captioned "Take Another Look. It's Cleveland!" In May 1981, The Plain Dealer sent its Sunday subscribers bumper stickers reading, "New York's the Big Apple, but Cleveland's a Plum." The paper also passed out thousands of "Cleveland's a Plum" buttons and ran a huge picture of publisher Thomas Vail, with a smiling Voinovich beside him, throwing out the first plum at a Yankees-Indians game. Sportscaster Howard Cosell hailed the city during a baseball game, and Voinovich subsequently presented him with a key to the city. A survey showed 65 percent of the residents of Greater Cleveland were very satisfied with their life in the city and that 57 percent claimed to be very satisfied even in 1978, the year of default. A national poll found Detroit to be the city with the worst image, with New York City second and Cleveland fifth.


title: George Voinovich

text: One of the major controversies of the previous Kucinich administration was its cancellation of the sale of Cleveland Municipal Light (now Cleveland Public Power). Kucinich's insistence on saving it from being absorbed into the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI) led the business community to force Cleveland into default. Voinovich's successful negotiations reversed this action when he first took office, but Voinovich's pro-business attitude did not change CEI's position on the issue, as they persisted in making efforts to buy out Muni Light and pressuring Voinovich into giving them the right to do so. Voinovich resisted. Early in his tenure, he arranged for capital improvements to strengthen Muni Light's operation, and by 1982, it was able to compete with CEI. He asserted that the company was making attempts to cripple Muni Light by lobbying council against much-needed legislation. "We still have a battle going on," Voinovich said. "They are as dedicated as ever to laying away the Municipal Light system."


title: The God of Small Things

text: The death of Margaret's second husband in a car accident prompts Chacko to invite her and their daughter, Sophie, to spend Christmas in Ayemenem. On the road to the airport, the family encounters a group of Communist protesters who surround the car and humiliate Baby Kochamma. Rahel thinks she sees amongst the protesters Velutha, an Untouchable servant who works for the family's pickle factory. Later at the theater, Estha is sexually molested by the "Orangedrink Lemondrink Man", a vendor working at the snack counter. Rahel's claim of seeing Velutha in the Communist mob leads Baby Kochamma to associate him with her humiliation. Rahel and Estha develop a bond with Velutha, while Ammu is drawn to him, sparking a forbidden romance. Velutha is depicted as sympathetic but faces tragedy due to his caste and relationship with Ammu. When Velutha's father exposes their affair, Ammu is locked up, and Velutha is banished. Ammu blames the twins for her plight, leading them to flee with their cousin Sophie. Their boat capsizes and Sophie drowns, Margaret and Chacko return to find Sophie dead on the sofa.


title: The God of Small Things

text: Roy uses various techniques to represent the children's viewpoints and their innocence. One technique she employs is the capitalization of certain words and phrases to give them significance (for example, "Because Anything Can Happen To Anyone"). The children also restate things that adults say in a phonetic way, separating and recombining words. This echoes the children's way of looking at the world, distinct from the perspective of the grown-ups who surround them. Roy often uses metaphors that feature elements that are more prominent in the lives of children, such as toothpaste, secrets, or portable pianos. They place significance on words and ideas differently from the adults, thereby creating a new way of viewing the world around them. They pick up on certain feelings and ideas that the adults around them either fail or refuse to recognize, and give new significance to things that the adults ignore for their own purposes. The children use and repeat these phrases throughout the story so that the phrases themselves gain independence and representational meanings. Another way she plays with language is to join words together without punctuation, which we see in the description of the 'Orangedrink Lemondrink man' or 'bluegreyblue eyes'. This subversion of the usual rules of syntax and grammar not only places us in a child's view of the world, but it also draws attention to the role of language in colonialism. By corrupting standard use of English (the colonial language of India) Roy is rebelling against colonial influence still present in India, represented by characters such as Margaret Kochamma and Chacko who always speak correctly.


title: The God of Small Things

text: The God of Small Things received stellar reviews in major American newspapers such as The New York Times (a "dazzling first novel", "extraordinary", "at once so morally strenuous and so imaginatively supple") and the Los Angeles Times ("a novel of poignancy and considerable sweep"), and in Canadian publications such as the Toronto Star ("a lush, magical novel"). Time named it one of the best books of the year. Critical response in the United Kingdom was less positive, and the awarding of the Booker Prize caused controversy; Carmen Callil, a 1996 Booker Prize judge, called the novel "execrable", and The Guardian described the contest as "profoundly depressing". In India, the book was criticised especially for its unrestrained description of sexuality by E. K. Nayanar, then Chief Minister of Roy's home state Kerala, where she had to answer charges of obscenity. The book has since been translated into Malayalam by Priya A. S., under the title Kunju Karyangalude Odeythampuran. Some critics have pointed out that the reader reviews of this book on bookseller websites are so extremely opposed at times that it is difficult to imagine readers are saying this about the same book.


title: Samuel Hammond (minister)

text: While at Newcastle Hammond was concerned in the examination and exposure of an impostor named Thomas Ramsay. This man's frauds were exposed in a tract entitled A False Jew: or a Wonderful Discovery of a Scot, baptized at London for a Christian, circumcised at Rome to act a Jew, rebaptized at Hexham for a Believer, but found out at Newcastle to be a Cheat. The dedicatory epistles are signed by Tho. Weld, Sam. Hammond, Cuth. Sidenham, and Wil. Durant. The tract contains a second title-page and pagination, which is the Declaration and Confession published by the impostor under the name of Joseph ben Israel. The Baptist minister of Hexham, Thomas Tillam, supposed himself unfairly treated in this pamphlet, and replied to it by'Banners of Love displayed …; or an Answer to a Narrative stuffed with Untruths, by four Newcastle Gentlemen. Hammond also helped to write a tract attacking the Quakers, entitled The Perfect Pharise, under Monkish Holines, opposing the Fundamental Principles of the Doctrine of the Gospel, … manifesting himself in the Generation of men called Quakers. Hammond's name comes third among five Newcastle ministers who sign this tract. An introductory epistle 'to the Reader' by Hammond appears in a book called God's Judgements upon Drunkards, Swearers, and Sabbath-Breakers.


title: Mervyn Hill

text: Apart from the single Gentlemen v Players appearance, Hill's only taste of representative cricket came on an arduous tour of India made by the Marylebone Cricket Club from October 1926 to February 1927. The tour was billed as a visit to India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), but matches were also played in the territories now inside the borders of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma). The team was led by the former England captain Arthur Gilligan and contained a mixture of Test and county standard players, both amateur and professional. Hill was one of two wicketkeepers: the other was George Brown of Hampshire. Both wicketkeepers fell ill on the tour, and Hill played no matches for six weeks in the middle of the tour. Arthur Dolphin of Yorkshire who was coaching in India for the Maharaja of Patiala, was co-opted for some matches when neither Hill nor Brown was fit (as was Maurice Leyland, also working for the Maharaja, to cover other illnesses). Hill played in little more than a third of the 26 first-class matches on the tour – some of them were of only two-days duration but only the single-innings games were not considered first-class – but stayed for the whole tour, which was rated a success by the MCC and was a factor that led to the entry of India into Test cricket.


title: S-Tone Inc.

text: In 2004, he produced the album Instalaçao do Samba for the Brazilian songwriter Tomaz Di Cunto who has chosen the name Toco for his project. During 2003 and 2004 he wrote and produced the tracks of his fourth album "Luz y Sombra", that has a more acoustic vein and features many musicians from the Milan jazz scene, plus five Brazilians. In particular the vocal guests are Laura Fedele, Toco, Manuela Ravaglioli, Adi Souza, Angie Brown and Luciana Cury from São Paulo. It also features a string quartet in two tracks. In November 2005, he has produced in Rio de Janeiro the second album of Toco titled Outro Lugar, with the participation of Roberto Menescal (bossa nova pioneer with Jobim and Gilberto) on guitar and some of the best Brazilian sidemen. The recordings were completed in Milan during spring/summer 2006 and was released on Schema records in February 2007. In April 2009, Schema Records released his fifth album Moon in Libra, which included new and old collaborations and a more intense approach to songwriting and producing. The album includes two cover versions, one of the popular "Stormy" revisited in a bossa nova mood and "My Only Man" by Italian composer Piero Umiliani and formerly sung by Helen Merrill.


title: Let's You and Him Fight

text: That evening, crowds fill in to Yank'em Stadium for the fight. In Popeye's dressing room, Olive pleads with Popeye not to fight Bluto. When Popeye does not respond, Olive leaves and tells Popeye that she will never see him again. Both Popeye and Bluto enter the ring, and the boxing match begins when the time clock punches Wimpy the timekeeper and Wimpy's head hits the bell. Popeye gets pounded mercilessly as Olive listens to the fight on a radio at her home. After crying into a pot on her stove, Olive grabs a can of spinach and runs to the stadium. Olive reaches Popeye and tells him, "Fight, ya palooka, fight!" Popeye eats the spinach and begins to beat up Bluto. Popeye pounds Bluto in the head, as Popeye's hands turn into hammers and Bluto's head turns into an anvil set to the tune of the "Anvil Chorus". Popeye continues his assault until he hits Bluto so hard that he flies out of the ring and breaks through numerous wood pillars before hitting a wall and flying back into the ring. Bluto lands on Popeye and the referee declares Bluto the winner. Popeye responds "Oh, yeah?" and punches Bluto in the stomach and hits the referee, knocking both men out.


title: The Bombay Boomerang

text: The Hardy Boys head to sea to solve the theft of mercury shipments and a government missile and to foil a terrorist plan to create havoc in the United States. They discover that the gang is hiding in a hotel in Baltimore, where their father, Fenton Hardy, is staying under the name L. Marks. An attempt is made on their father's life when his cover is blown, but the Hardy Boys save him in time. Using devices such as ear bugs, they spy on the gang. With the help of an Admiral at the Pentagon, the boys uncover the gang's nefarious plot. The gang wants to blast a cave containing nerve gas with a Super S missile that can't be redirected. This will cause the nerve gas to spread in the US, which in turn will help overthrow the US government. The Hardys learn that an Indian freighter, Nanda Kailash, is going to dock at Baltimore. They explore the ship as all the clues point towards India. There, an attempt is made on Joe's life. The Hardys also capture the Mercury gang. They find a new friend, Akshay, who takes them to a ship called the Bombay Batarang, where they uncover some clues to the mystery. In the end, with trickery the Hardys capture the rest of the gang. Later they are abducted, but they fight off the criminals and capture the mastermind in the end by way of Chet throwing a boomerang and disabling a jet which the gang is in.


title: Thor: Ragnarok (soundtrack)

text: By August 2016, Mark Mothersbaugh was hired to score the film. Mothersbaugh was influenced by a video essay from the YouTube channel Every Frame a Painting, which criticized the scores from previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films for their lack of memorability, to make the score for Thor: Ragnarok as distinctive as possible. The score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios. The synthesized score is influenced by the work of Jean-Michel Jarre. Mothersbaugh combined synthesizer keyboards he used from his days with the band Devo with a 100 piece orchestra. Patrick Doyle's themes from Thor and Brian Tyler's themes from Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Age of Ultron, as well as Joe Harnell's "The Lonely Man" theme from The Incredible Hulk series, are also used in the film. Director Taika Waititi would have asked the band Queen to work on the soundtrack for the film (if their lead singer Freddie Mercury was still alive) because the film is "a cool bold, colorful cosmic adventure" which would have suited the "feel" of the band. Hollywood Records released the film's soundtrack digitally on October 20, 2017, and was released physically on November 10, 2017.


title: Sir Edward Crofton, 2nd Baronet (died 1729)

text: When James II landed in Ireland, in order to recover the three kingdoms, Edward's stepfather Garrett Dillon remained loyal to his cause and sat in the so-called Patriot Parliament of 1689. Edward, who was described as a young man of "sturdy and resolute character", was, by contrast, a convinced supporter of the Revolution of 1688. He greatly admired King William III of England, even composing verses in his honour. In consequence, the Patriot Parliament attainted him, and he fled to London with his wife and two young sons; his wife died while they were in England. After the Battle of the Boyne, which effectively destroyed the Jacobite cause, Edward's lands were quickly restored to him. By contrast, his stepfather was subject to increasing harassment during the 1690s: he eventually fled the country and died in exile in France. There is no evidence that Edward interceded on his behalf: on the contrary, it is likely that he wanted revenge on Garrett for voting in the Patriot Parliament, of which he was an influential member, to attaint him.


title: Wildlife of Mauritius

text: Another indigenous dweller of Mauritian rivers and lakes is the eel. It is not very often seen and prefers to stay in crevices or hide under rocks. Eels spend most of their time in fresh water but go back to the sea, where they come from, to reproduce. Mauritian eels, like those from Madagascar, Réunion, Seychelles and East Africa, have their breeding grounds in the Nazareth Trough, an ocean trench situated between longitudes 60-65 °E and latitudes 10-20 °S. Eels can wriggle across land, and this perhaps explains why eels are found in some isolated ponds of Mauritius. There are three varieties of eels on the island. Two of them are found in Madagascar, Reunion and Africa, while the third one is present in the Seychelles. Most probably, the commonest eel is the marbled eel. Eels can grow quite big, if they cannot find a way to go back to the sea. This perhaps explains why some very big eels have been caught in Mauritius, notably at La Ferme reservoir. In Rodrigues an eel more than 2 metres long was caught in a spring, in the heart of a forest, at Cascade-Pigeon. It is believed that the eel was 100 years old. There is a theory that eels play an important role in ecosystems; they prevent springs from drying up. All three Mauritian species take a silvery colour when they go back to the sea.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In the 1990 federal elections, taking place post-reunified Germany, the Greens in the West did not pass the 5% limit required to win seats in the Bundestag. It was only due to a temporary modification of German election law, applying the five-percent "hurdle" separately in East and West Germany, that the Greens acquired any parliamentary seats at all. This happened because in the new states of Germany, the Greens, in a joint effort with Alliance 90, a heterogeneous grouping of civil rights activists, were able to gain more than 5% of the vote. Some critics attribute this poor performance to the reluctance of the campaign to cater to the prevalent mood of nationalism, instead focusing on subjects such as global warming. A campaign poster at the time proudly stated, "Everyone is talking about Germany; we're talking about the weather!", paraphrasing a popular slogan of Deutsche Bundesbahn, the German national railway. The party also opposed imminent reunification that was in process, instead wanting to initiate debates on ecology and nuclear issues before reunification causing a drop in support in Western Germany. After the 1994 federal election; however, the merged party returned to the Bundestag, and the Greens received 7.3% of the vote nationwide and 49 seats.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: One internal issue in 2002 was the failed attempt to settle a long-standing discussion about the question of whether members of parliament should be allowed to become members of the party executive. Two party conventions declined to change the party statute. The necessary majority of two-thirds was missed by a small margin. As a result, former party chairpersons Fritz Kuhn and Claudia Roth (who had been elected to parliament that year) were no longer able to continue in their executive function and were replaced by former party secretary general Reinhard Bütikofer and former Bundestag member Angelika Beer. The party then held a member referendum on this question in the spring of 2003 which changed the party statute. Now members of parliament may be elected for two of the six seats of the party executive, as long as they are not ministers or caucus leaders. 57% of all party members voted in the member referendum, with 67% voting in favor of the change. The referendum was only the second in the history of Alliance 90/The Greens, the first having been held about the merger of the Greens and Alliance 90. In 2004, after Angelika Beer was elected to the European parliament, Claudia Roth was elected to replace her as party chair.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: During the 2021 federal election, the WZB Berlin Social Science Center classified the party as the most centrist of Germany's left-wing parties. However, Baerbock campaigned from the left of the SPD, stating that the party's economic program is geared towards the "common good" while the SPD's no longer is. The party has a more pragmatic approach to workers' rights than the SPD. On the other hand, the party clearly holds positions to the left of the SPD on issues such as fiscal discipline, particularly on the debt brake, the climate transition, and property expropriation in Berlin. They are focusing on environmentalist and socially progressive policies. Emphasis is placed on mitigating climate change, reducing carbon emissions, and fostering sustainability and environmentally-friendly practices. They support equality, social justice, and humanitarian responses to events such as the European migrant crisis. Their fiscal platform is flexible and seeks to balance social, economic, and environmental interests. The party is strongly pro-European, advocating European federalism, and promotes wider international cooperation, including strengthening existing alliances.


title: Larry Sitsky

text: Larry Sitsky was born in Tianjin (formerly Tientsin), China, of Russian-Jewish émigré parents. He demonstrated perfect pitch at an early age, by identifying notes or chords played in a different room. He studied piano from an early age, gave his first public concert at the age of nine, and started writing music soon thereafter. His family was forced to leave China during Mao's rule. They came to Australia in 1951 and settled in Sydney. He had sat for Cambridge University Overseas Matriculation before leaving China. His first studies at university were in engineering, at his parents' insistence. This was not successful and "he convinced his parents to allow him to pursue his passion, music". He obtained a scholarship to the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, where he studied piano, briefly with Alexander Sverjensky but mainly with Winifred Burston (a student of Ferruccio Busoni and Egon Petri), and composition, graduating in 1955. In 1959, he won a scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied with Egon Petri for two years. Returning to Australia, he joined the staff of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, after being accepted sight unseen based on a recommendation from Petri. His Australian studies and his subsequent studies in the United States, "combined with the Russian heritage from his early studies in China, him a unique repository of piano techniques and tradition which is acknowledged internationally".


title: Neolithic

text: The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture built enormous settlements in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine from 5300 to 2300 BC. The megalithic temple complexes of Ġgantija on the Mediterranean island of Gozo (in the Maltese archipelago) and of Mnajdra (Malta) are notable for their gigantic Neolithic structures, the oldest of which date back to around 3600 BC. The Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, Paola, Malta, is a subterranean structure excavated around 2500 BC; originally a sanctuary, it became a necropolis, the only prehistoric underground temple in the world, and shows a degree of artistry in stone sculpture unique in prehistory to the Maltese islands. After 2500 BC, these islands were depopulated for several decades until the arrival of a new influx of Bronze Age immigrants, a culture that cremated its dead and introduced smaller megalithic structures called dolmens to Malta. In most cases there are small chambers here, with the cover made of a large slab placed on upright stones. They are claimed to belong to a population different from that which built the previous megalithic temples. It is presumed the population arrived from Sicily because of the similarity of Maltese dolmens to some small constructions found there.


title: Thomas Broughton (governor)

text: Broughton rose from captain through to major general in a 10-year stretch between 1696 and 1706. In addition, he held numerous other offices in the colony, including serving as a member of the Commons House of Assembly from 1696 to 1703), 1716 to 1717, and 1725 to 1727; controller and collector of customs ; commissioner of Free School at Charles Towne ; assistant to Judge of Admiralty to try men accused of piracy ; and collector of the Port of Charleston . In 1702 Broughton was appointed as deputy to John Carteret, 2nd Baron Carteret (later 2nd Earl of Granville); and served on the eight-member Executive Council under acting governor James Moore and Governor Sir Nathaniel Johnson. Broughton served as speaker of the Assembly from 1725 to 1727, and was named Lt. Governor of the province by a commission of King George II in 1729, the same commission which appointed his brother-in-law Robert Johnson as governor. When Johnson died on May 5, 1735, Broughton, took over as the province's chief executive. Broughton died in office on Nov. 22, 1737. His burial site is unknown, but believed to be in South Carolina, quite possibly near his residence, called Mulberry Plantation. Broughton's administration was noted for the beginning of constitutional struggles between the Commons House of Assembly and the advisors to the Crown over who had the right to originate grants of money in the province. Broughton's residence, Mulberry Plantation, is located on the western branch of the Cooper River, near Moncks Corner in Berkeley County. The residence, built in 1714, is the third-oldest home in South Carolina. During the 1715 Yemassee War, many individuals took refuge at Mulberry as the structure had been constructed over a fortified cellar fort with firing slits in the foundation walls.


title: KaiB

text: Takao Kondo, Masahiro Ishiura, Susan Golden, Carl Johnson, and their colleagues used bacterial luciferase, a reporter for gene expression, on the gene psbAI to monitor the activity of this clock gene found in Synechococcus cyanobacteria. The transformation of a 44 hour long-period clock mutant, C44a, with wild-type (WT) genomic DNA library in a plasmid vector allowed testing for "rescue clones" with a normal period of 25 hours. When the DNA library from this rescued clone was placed into a plasmid at the original site, C44a was found to be completely rescued. One single gene cluster, kaiABC, was found to be rhythmic in nature when the fragment of the plasmid responsible for rescue was sequenced. kaiABC is composed of three individual genes: kaiA, kaiB, and kaiC. Examination of rescue patterns in over 50 clock mutants showing either short periods, long periods or arrhythmia revealed restoration to WT phenotype in all mutants. Further sequencing revealed 19 total kaiABC specific mutants, 14 of which had mutations in kaiC, 3 in kaiA, and 2 in kaiB. The mutant phenotypes being all caused by a single amino acid substitution on one of the aforementioned genes determined that Kai proteins play a significant role in the Synechococcus circadian clock.


title: The Stone Angel

text: In a series of vignettes, The Stone Angel tells the story of Hagar Shipley, a 90-year-old woman struggling to come to grips with a life of intransigence and loss. The themes of pride and the prejudice that comes from social class recur in the novel. As a young girl she refuses to rock her dying brother in the garments of their mother. As a young woman she marries Bram Shipley against her father's wishes, severing the family ties. She shows favouritism towards her younger son, John. After Hagar separates from her husband, Hagar takes John with her. However, he ultimately returns to his father. When John dies, Hagar does not cry, and at that point, she turns into a "Stone Angel". Later in life, her elder son Marvin is shown to have been the good and loyal son all along, despite the lack of his mother's favour. It is he at the age of 64 along with his wife Doris who takes care of her. As a 90-year-old woman, Hagar goes on an unexpected adventure into the woods alone. Given her age, there is an overtone that this event will be the last chapter of her life. In the woods, she meets another wanderer. The two have a bonding conversation, where Hagar finally opens up. A lifetime of buried emotion comes out, and she finally cries. The next day the police and Marvin come to rescue Hagar from the woods. In an act of love and repentance, she confesses to Marvin that he was the better son. She dies of cancer at the end of the novel.


title: List of Wild Kratts episodes

text: At the Nile River, zoologists Chris and Martin Kratt (voiced by their real-world selves) are on a mission to show one of their fellow Wild Kratts team members—brilliant young inventor Aviva Corcovado (Athena Karkanis)—that there's more to crocodiles than just violence and snapping jaws. After shrinking themselves down to a few inches tall by using Aviva's Miniaturizer invention, the Kratt Brothers disguise themselves as crocodile eggs and sneak into a mother crocodile's new nest. In the Wild Kratts team's turtle-shaped aircraft and headquarters—the Tortuga, one of Aviva's greatest inventions—the Wild Kratts tech team, consisting of Aviva, communications expert and mechanic Koki (Heather Bambrick), and skilled pilot Jimmy Z (Jonathan Malen) monitor Chris and Martin and watch as the mother crocodile faithfully guards her nest against predators for months without even eating anything. Eventually, as the crocodile eggs hatch and the crocodile mom uses her mouth to carry several of her newly hatched babies to the river, Aviva changes her mind about crocodiles and decides that these reptiles are in fact caring and dedicated mothers. But when the mother crocodile leaves the river to go get more hatchlings from her nest, predators threaten the first batch of baby crocodiles. The Kratt Brothers must use the incredible Creature Power Suits—two of Aviva's inventions—to gain the abilities of crocodiles and protect the vulnerable crocodile hatchlings.


title: List of Wild Kratts episodes

text: The Kratt Brothers use Aviva's amphipod-inspired submersible, the Amphisub, to dive into the deep waters of the Southern Ocean. There, they witness a never-before-seen wildlife moment: a battle between a sperm whale and a giant squid. However, the water pressure at the extreme depths where the battle is taking place badly damages and partially crushes the Amphisub, forcing Aviva to use her new ExtendoArm invention to pull the submersible back to the Tortuga. To allow Chris and Martin to return to the site of the whale-versus-squid battle, Aviva programs two new Creature Power Suits—Sperm Whale Power for Chris, and Squid Power for Martin. The Kratt Brothers use their new Creature Powers to dive back into the deep sea, where the sperm whale and the giant squid are still locked in combat. Suddenly, the sperm whale becomes entangled in a discarded fishing net and begins sinking toward an area full of underwater volcanoes. To make matters worse, a colossal squid attacks the sperm whale's calf. Chris and Martin must put their Creature Powers of both sperm whale and squid to good use to rescue the mother sperm whale and her calf.


title: List of Wild Kratts episodes

text: The Kratt Brothers devise a new creature challenge, to try to survive 24 hours in the wild Australian Outback, without any kind of technology whatsoever—including their creature power suits. Both are wanting to learn more about Australia's rare desert creatures, the old-fashioned way. Ignoring Aviva's concerns about their safety, they pack their bags with survival gear, and skydive into the desert, hoping to find excitement and adventure. Meanwhile, Zach Varmitech and his Zachbots also fly to Australia to find eucalyptus leaves for Zach's eucalyptus tea, hoping to use it as a cure to his common cold. But after finding a stow-away koala in the eucalyptus leaves, Zach ejects him from his jet, attached to dozens of balloons. The Kratt Brothers watch as he falls from the sky, rescue him, and name him "Koala Balloon". They volunteer to watch him and keep him safe until they arrive at the designated eucalyptus forest where the other Wild Kratts are waiting for them. Meanwhile, Aviva worries that the brothers might not survive the night, but Koki and Jimmy reassure her that Chris and Martin know what they are doing. But the koala makes Martin and Chris's survival in the desert even more difficult when he accidentally destroys their precious food and water, endangering all their lives. The two then spend their night protecting the koala from a pack of hungry dingoes, instead of getting their much-needed sleep. Eventually, Martin reveals that he packed the creature power suits anyway, just in case they needed them and use thorny devil powers with a thorny devil friend. The brothers are then forced to lose their bet with Aviva, activating their creature power suits so they could survive long enough to make it the eucalyptus forest. After finally meeting with the rest of the team, they set the koala free, and admit defeat, learning that even some of the greatest explorers and zoologists in their history sometimes needed help from modern-day technology.


title: List of Wild Kratts episodes

text: Martin and Chris Kratt and the crew are sitting around in the Createrra watching lions basking in the morning sun. A lion cub then wakes up, jumps around then wakes up his dad, the leader of the pride. Koki thinks he will be enraged that he has been woken up but Martin assures her that lion dads are one of the best dads in the world. He proves her wrong when he starts playing with him, he shakes his mane, and starts a chat about what animal has the biggest hairdo. They are interrupted when the dad roars and some fog comes out of his mouth, leading to Martin's decision to name him 'He Who Breathes Fire'. He then goes on a territory patrol. The Wild Kratts follow him while the crew stay with the pride. They experience social organization and how it helps lions. But when two twin lions try to take over the pride, the crew take the lion cubs to the Tortuga until He Who Breathes Fire gets back. The Kratt Brothers are repeatedly delayed by various creatures and soon learn that being one of the top predators on the African savanna is not as easy as it looks.


title: List of Wild Kratts episodes

text: While on a mission to find Chris' lost backpack in the Cypress Swamp, the brothers discover an opossum looking for one of its babies. Gourmand is also on the hunt with the backpack and a lost baby opossum, with the idea of making an opossum pizza pocket. They witness an opossum playing dead instinctively when a coyote attempts to make a meal out of it. Chris and Martin use opossum powers to help them navigate the swamp; however, the suit has all the opossum's powers including playing possum, which is shown when Gourmand scares Martin and causes him to go in tonic immobility mode, which gives Gourmand time to get to his kitchen. Eventually the Kratt bros and Aviva confront Gourmand, then find another bag. Gourmand evilly warns them not to open it but Aviva pulls the string and realizes Gourmand set this bag up as a trap for them and the contents of this bag are highly venomous eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, so now the team is trapped in a field of deadly rattlesnakes. The opossum ends up receiving 2 venomous bites from the snakes and the team ponders why nothing is happening to the opossum, then they realize that opossums have immunity to snake venom, and since Martin and Chris are in opossum suits they also have rattlesnake venom immunity, so they are able to save the baby opossum and get themselves and Aviva out of the snake field, and while Gourmand is angry about his defeat the snakes start to turn on him and he angrily leaves. Meanwhile, the opossum family is reunited.


title: List of Wild Kratts episodes

text: While the Kratt Brothers are in India, searching for Martin's lost Creaturepod, they encounter a spectacled cobra. Martin names the cobra Hoodie and the bros learn about the cobra's creature powers. They learn about how this snake can flatten its ribs into a hood, and learn about venom when it hunts a frog. Meanwhile an Indian gray mongoose shows up. Then Hoodie the cobra fights the mongoose and they learn about the mongoose's immunity to snake venom. Due to the mongoose's immunity despite being bitten by Hoodie, he is unharmed by the snake's venom (however, it is only partially immune; too much venom can be dangerous), and manages to kill Hoodie (and presumably eat him). They then get spectacled cobra powers and find the lost Miniaturizer; however, there is a Bengal tiger sleeping next to it. They try to scare it away using venomous snake powers but the tiger goes on the Miniaturizer. Meanwhile Aviva and Koki stumble upon a large female king cobra, the largest venomous snake in the world, and it has a nest, which is unusual among snakes. Aviva names the snake Queenie. This inspires Aviva to modify the Indian cobra powers to king cobra power. However, there is also a hungry male king cobra around which is bad for the bros as they have spectacled cobra powers and king cobras love eating other snakes. Eventually Chris gets caught by the king cobra and Martin has to activate king cobra powers to rescue Chris before his immunity meter gets high, and Martin ends up engaging in a fight with the male king cobra, which is clearly bigger than Martin. Chris rescues Martin by activating king cobra powers and trying to look bigger than the king cobra. They then get their Miniaturizer back from the tiger. The Kratts and the rest of the team go back to Queenie's nest and watch as the baby king cobras hatch. Jimmy gets scared and flies away without them.


title: Küchük Muhammad

text: Küchük Muḥammad started out as would-be khan at (old) Astrakhan from c. 1428, supported by his possible uncles, Ghāzī and Nawrūz, the sons of Edigu. A quarrel with the emir Nawrūz cost Küchük Muḥammad his desertion to Ulugh Muḥammad, and for a long time neither khan could eliminate his rival. However, Ulugh Muḥammad alienated more of his leading emirs, like Tekne and Ḥaydar, who deserted him to set up their own khan, Sayyid Aḥmad, son of Beg Ṣūfī, in 1432. Weakened by this, Ulugh Muḥammad came to terms with Küchük Muḥammad in 1432 or 1433, dividing the Golden Horde along the Volga, Ulugh Muḥammad taking the area to the west, Küchük Muḥammad the area to the east. Sayyid Aḥmad held his own, and thus the Golden Horde was effectively divided among three khans in an impasse. The Russian Grand Prince Vasilij II Vasil'evič of Moscow sent tribute to all three khans in 1434, not wishing to risk displeasing any of them, faced as he was with rival claims on his throne. The impasse was broken by the desertion of the beglerbeg Nawrūz from Ulugh Muḥammad back to Küchük Muḥammad in 1437. The weakened Ulugh Muḥammad was now attacked first by Sayyid Aḥmad, then by Küchük Muḥammad. With his army scattered and partly seeking refuge in Lithuania, Ulugh Muḥammad escaped destruction only because Küchük Muḥammad was distracted by having to expel Shādī Beg's son Ghiyāth ad-Dīn from Sarai. Ulugh Muḥammad now sought refuge and support from Vasilij II of Moscow, who attacked the fugitive khan but was defeated. This victory allowed Ulugh Muḥammad to ensconce himself at Kazan.


title: Cattle wagon

text: After World War 2, whilst the need to transport live cattle decreased in the UK, with no motorway network yet developed, the need to transport high-value racehorses increased. As a result, based on the design of the British Railways Mark 1 railway carriage (which could travel at high speed within passenger trains), in 1952 BR released into traffic a new specifically designed racehorse transport wagon. It could carry up to three horses, plus accommodation including washing and sleeping facilities for a groom and a sidesman. During their short life, the wagons carried the horses of: the Household Cavalry from Kensington to Bangor for the Investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon; the Royal Horse Artillery to Ludgershall; the King's Troop to Holyhead; and a touring company of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. With decreasing railway access to many horse racing tracks, and a change in BR policy on animals and their transportation, the wagons were withdrawn in 1972, the last live animals carried on British railways.


title: Medical abortion

text: Globally, individuals who can get pregnant face substantial dangers to their health due to the significant challenges in obtaining safe abortion services. These negative outcomes arise from stringent abortion regulations, ineffective healthcare systems, a shortage of adequately trained healthcare professionals, societally imposed stigma, and limited services in remote regions. Additionally, within low and middle-income countries where abortion is legally allowed, a considerable number of unsafe abortions occur. Approximately 7 million women are hospitalized annually in these areas as a result of complications arising from unsafe abortion. Unsafe abortion is attributed to 4.7% to 13.2% of maternal deaths each year, with the estimated expense for managing its complications reaching $553 million. Many factors contribute to these health risks including lack of education about available choices, the varying stances of healthcare providers on abortion, a shortage of qualified personnel for safe abortion services, insufficient privacy and confidentiality, and services that fall short of meeting the demand.


title: Government-Household analogy

text: This fallacy seems to stem from a false analogy to borrowing by individuals. Current reality is almost the exact opposite. Deficits add to the net disposable income of individuals, to the extent that government disbursements that constitute income to recipients exceed that abstracted from disposable income in taxes, fees, and other charges. This added purchasing power, when spent, provides markets for private production, inducing producers to invest in additional plant capacity, which will form part of the real heritage left to the future. This is in addition to whatever public investment takes place in infrastructure, education, research, and the like. Larger deficits, sufficient to recycle savings out of a growing gross domestic product (GDP) in excess of what can be recycled by profit-seeking private investment, are not an economic sin but an economic necessity. Deficits in excess of a gap growing as a result of the maximum feasible growth in real output might indeed cause problems, but we are nowhere near that level. Even the analogy itself is faulty. If General Motors, AT&T, and individual households had been required to balance their budgets in the manner being applied to the Federal government, there would be no corporate bonds, no mortgages, no bank loans, and many fewer automobiles, telephones, and houses.


title: Ringette in Canada

text: Two other related myths assert that ringette was either a patriarchal ploy by men to "force" girls and women to cease playing ice hockey, or that ringette was created as a safer alternative to hockey for girls. No evidence for these myths exist and are misandrist conspiracy theories. Female ice hockey engages in intense inter-sport politics when recruiting on-ice talent for female ice hockey from the ringette talent pool as a result of ringette's existence and success in Canada, a success rate which has generated discontent in some female ice hockey and feminist sports circles. The female Canadian ice hockey establishment, feminist academics, and the entire country of Canada's feminist sports culture have all periodically expressed open antagonism for ringette as a result of its unusual success with the premise being that ringette is inferior to female hockey because it does not involve a narrative which involves a struggle against men or a desire to be more like them. These groups typically support gender theory ideologies that push narratives of male oppression, which do not apply well to ringette because it is an autonomous female sport which has a different history, different goals, and different ambitions which typically do not conflict with male interests and vice versa.


title: Ringette in Canada

text: In Canada in 1979 there was an estimated 4,500 girls playing ringette across the country, but by 1983 (20 years after ringette was created) there were over 14,500, marking an increase in participation of roughly 10,000 Canadian girls. That same year the number of players registered in the female category of ice hockey in Canada, which was almost a century old, was a mere 5,379, less than 40% of ringette's numbers. A small decrease in the number of ringette athletes after 1998 has been attributed at least partially to women's ice hockey being recognized officially as an Olympic sport that same season, but is largely considered due to the decision by major governing body's for the women's hockey game to exclude body checking. Body checking was removed from the women's ice hockey program by the International Ice Hockey Federation after the 1990 IIHF Women's World Championship. Despite the inclusion of women's ice hockey in the Olympics, there remains a striking absence of recognition towards the fact that female players had historically employed body checking as an element of their game. After women's hockey's introduction to the Olympic Games, it quickly gained popularity; however, within a decade of its inaugural year in the Olympics, ringette saw a resurgence of registrations in Canada.


title: Borneo campaign

text: The Borneo campaign or Second Battle of Borneo was the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific Area during World War II to liberate Japanese-held British Borneo and Dutch Borneo. Designated collectively as Operation Oboe, a series of amphibious assaults between 1 May and 21 July 1945 were conducted by the Australian I Corps, under Lieutenant-General Leslie Morshead, against Imperial Japanese forces who had been occupying the island since late 1941 – early 1942. The main Japanese formation on the island was the Thirty-Seventh Army under Lieutenant-General Masao Baba, while the naval garrison was commanded by Vice-Admiral Michiaki Kamada. The Australian ground forces were supported by US and other Allied air and naval forces, with the US providing the bulk of the shipping and logistic support necessary to conduct the operation. The campaign was initially planned to involve six stages, but eventually landings were undertaken at four locations: Tarakan, Labuan, North Borneo and Balikpapan. Guerilla operations were also carried out by Dayak tribesmen and small numbers of Allied personnel in the interior of the island. While major combat operations were concluded by mid-July, localised fighting continued throughout Borneo until the end of the war in August. Initially intended to secure vital airfields and port facilities to support future operations, preparatory bombardment resulted in heavy damage to the island's infrastructure, including its oil production facilities. As a result, the strategic benefits the Allies gained from the campaign were negligible.


title: Borneo campaign

text: The plans for the Allied attacks were known collectively as Operation Oboe. The invasion of Borneo was the second stage of Operation Montclair, which was aimed at destroying Imperial Japanese forces in, and re-occupying the NEI, Raj of Sarawak, Brunei, the colonies of Labuan and British North Borneo, and the southern Philippines. Borneo in particular was considered at the time a strategic location for its natural resource; oil and rubber. Tarakan was also seen to offer a forward airbase to support future operations in the region, while Brunei Bay was intended to be used as naval base. Planning for the operation began in late 1944 and early 1945 through the General Headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur's South West Pacific Area. As a result of the commitment of US forces to the recapture of the Philippines, the task of recapturing Borneo was allocated primarily to Australian ground forces. By this time the Australian I Corps, the Australian Army's main striking force, had not engaged in combat for over a year. The corps had been assigned to MacArthur, but he had chosen to not use it in the Philippines despite the Australian Government pressing for this.


title: Borneo campaign

text: The initial Allied plan comprised six stages: Operation Oboe 1 was to be an attack on Tarakan; Oboe 2 against Balikpapan; Oboe 3 against Banjarmasin; Oboe 4 against Surabaya or the capital of the NEI, Batavia (modern-day Jakarta); Oboe 5 against the eastern NEI; and Oboe 6 against British North Borneo (Sabah). In the end only the operations against Tarakan, Balikpapan and British North Borneo – at Labuan and Brunei Bay – took place. These operations ultimately constituted the last campaigns of Australian forces in the war against Japan. In the planning phase the commander of the Australian Military Forces, General Thomas Blamey recommended against the landing at Balikpapan, believing that it would serve no strategic purpose. After much consideration, the Australian Government agreed to provide forces for this operation at MacArthur's urging. Blamey was able to frustrate MacArthur's plans for Australian troops to make follow-on landings in Java by convincing Prime Minister John Curtin to withhold the 6th Division. Prior to the main landings in British North Borneo the Allies undertook a series of reconnaissance operations, codenamed Agas (northern Borneo) and Semut (Sarawak); these operations also worked to arm, train and organise the local population to undertake guerilla warfare against the Japanese to support conventional operations.


title: Borneo campaign

text: The Japanese military began to prepare for the defence of Borneo from mid-1944, as Allied forces rapidly advanced towards the island. IJA reinforcements were allocated to Borneo, but did not arrive until between September and November that year. In late 1944 the Japanese command judged that Australian forces were likely to attack the Brunei area and then capture the west coast of Borneo as part of a campaign aimed at liberating Singapore. Accordingly, most of the IJA units in north-eastern Borneo were ordered to move overland to the west coast; this required them to undertake gruelling marches over rugged terrain. Two other battalions were transferred from north-eastern Borneo by sea to south Borneo between February and March 1945. After United States forces liberated key areas of the Philippines, which cut the rest of South-East Asia off from Japan, on 27 January 1945 the IJA's General Staff ordered the forces in this area to defend the territory they held and not expect reinforcements.


title: Borneo campaign

text: Allied forces were resisted by IJN and IJA forces in southern and eastern Borneo, under Vice-Admiral Michiaki Kamada, and in the north-west by the Thirty-Seventh Army, led by Lieutenant-General Masao Baba, which was headquartered in Jesselton. The main elements of the Thirty-Seventh Army were the 56th Independent Mixed Brigade (northern Borneo), 71st Independent Mixed Brigade (southern Borneo) and 25th Independent Mixed Regiment; these units had been raised in Japan during the second half of 1944 and arrived in Borneo late that year. The IJN's 2nd Naval Guard Force was also stationed in Borneo. Allied intelligence assessed that there were about 32,000 Japanese troops in Borneo, with 15,000 of these being combat troops. Most of the units which had been ordered from north-eastern Borneo to the west coast were still in transit when the Australian landings began and had been greatly weakened by the difficult conditions experienced during their cross-island march. The transfers left only single battalions and Balikpapan. Japanese air power in the region, except in Java and Sumatra, was ineffective.


title: Borneo campaign

text: The landing on Tarakan was assigned to the heavily reinforced 26th Brigade, under the command of Brigadier David Whitehead. This brigade's three infantry battalions were augmented with two battalions of pioneers as well as commandos and engineers. American amphibious engineers, an American amphibian tractor battalion (727th Amphibian Tractor Battalion), and a Dutch infantry company (made up of soldiers from Ambon Island) and civil affairs unit were also placed under Whitehead's command. Overall, the 26th Brigade had a strength of just under 12,000 troops. The Australian assault was preceded by a heavy aerial bombardment commencing 12 April, and undertaken by RAAF and US aircraft operating from Morotai Island and the Philippines; these aircraft interdicted Japanese shipping, attacked airfields, reduced obstacles around the landing beaches and suppressed artillery and defensive positions; in addition, a preliminary landing was undertaken on Sadau Island by a group of commandos and an artillery battery. Naval assets assigned to provide fire support during the operation include three cruisers, seven destroyers and several landing craft fitted with rockets and mortars. Three days prior to the assault, a force of minesweepers worked to clear the area of naval mines.


title: Borneo campaign

text: During the main landing, the battery on Sadau Island provided fire support to the Australian engineers who were landed at Lingkas to clear obstacles on the landing beaches. Assault troops from the 2/23rd and 2/48th Infantry Battalions came ashore under the cover of a strong naval barrage. Initially, they encountered no opposition before they began to advance north towards Tarakan town. Opposition around Lingkas Hill was overcome and by the end of the first day a strong beachhead had been established. The brigade reserve, the 2/24th Infantry Battalion, was landed the next day as the advance towards the airfield continued. Japanese resistance grew, and the advance was hindered by large numbers of mines and booby traps, which had to be cleared by engineers and pioneers; however, finally, on 5 May the airfield was captured by the Australians. Meanwhile, operations continued into June as isolated pockets of Japanese resisted the Australians in tunnels and on high features across the island. The final major objective, Hill 90, was secured on 20 June, but small scale clashes continued after this. Ultimately, the airfield was so heavily damaged that it took eight weeks to repair, by which time the war was essentially over. As a result, most historians, including the Australian official historian Gavin Long, believe that the invasion of Tarakan did not justify the casualties suffered by the Allied forces; these included 225 Australians killed and 669 wounded. Japanese casualties were even heavier, with 1,540 being killed and 252 captured.


title: Borneo campaign

text: A week after the initial landing on Labuan, the Australians followed up with attacks on Japanese positions around Weston on the north-eastern part of Brunei Bay. The Australians then pushed inland along the single track railway that ran from Weston towards the junction at Beaufort, 23 kilometres (14 mi) north-east of Brunei Bay, and then on to Jesselton. The heaviest fighting of the operations on the mainland took place on 27/28 June during the Battle of Beaufort, during which more than 100 Japanese defenders were killed. After this engagement the 24th Brigade undertook limited further advances in order to push the Japanese forces into the hills; the brigade's limit of exploitation was the Beaufort–Tenom railway and during this period the Australian commanders adopted a cautious approach to limit casualties. Nevertheless, clashes continued into August; on 3 August, the Japanese attempted to counterattack a position held by the 2/28th Battalion. At least 11 Japanese were killed in the fighting, for the loss of one Australian.


title: Borneo campaign

text: The invasion fleet sailed from Morotai Island on 26 June, arriving off Balikpapan on 29 June. The landing area was then subjected to over 45,000 rounds of preparatory fire from the Australian, US and Dutch warships supporting the landing. A deception plan was enacted to draw Japanese attention towards Manggar, with the Australians undertaking pre-landing operations and spreading disinformation. US underwater demolition teams cleared obstacles along the landing beach, as well as off Manggar, as part of the deception plan. For the landing operation, a total of 33,000 personnel were assigned, 21,000 of which were from the Australian 7th Division, under the command of Major General Edward Milford. This formation consisted of three brigades – the 18th, 21st and 25th – fighting together as a formation for the first time during the war. Three beaches were chosen for the landing on the southern coast between Klandasan in the east and Stalkoedo in the west; the initial assault was undertaken by three infantry battalions: the 2/10th on the extreme left, the 2/12th in the centre and the 2/27th Battalion on the right. The troops were landed at the wrong location as smoke from the pre-landing bombardment made navigation difficult, but the landing was unopposed and a beachhead was quickly established as follow on forces arrived.


title: Borneo campaign

text: Operating on the left, the 18th Brigade fought to capture several high features around Klandasan and to gain control of the town and secure the harbour and port facilities in Balikpapan north-west of the landing beaches, while the 21st Brigade landed on the right, tasked with advancing east towards several Japanese airfields at Sepinggang and Manggar, along the main coastal road. The 25th Brigade was held in reserve, but after landing on 2 July, pushed inland towards Batuchampar, 10 miles (16 km) from the initial landing site. Balikpapan town and the port were captured on 3 July, but mopping up continued into 4 July. Along the coast, the 21st Brigade crossed the Batakan Ketjil River, where it was held up on 3 July by strong Japanese resistance, which was overcome with naval gunfire support. The following day, after crossing the Manggar Besar, the brigade came up against even stronger Japanese opposition, supported by coastal artillery and mortars defending the airfield; despite landing tanks around the river, the Australians were held up for several more days until some of the guns were captured, and heavy air strikes overwhelmed the defenders.