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Agnosia

Agnosia is a neurological disorder characterized by an inability to process sensory information. Often there is a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss. It is usually associated with brain injury or neurological illness, particularly after damage to the occipitotemporal border, which is part of the ventral stream. Agnosia only affects a single modality, such as vision or hearing. More recently, a top-down interruption is considered to cause the disturbance of handling perceptual information.

Visual agnosia
Visual agnosia is a broad category that refers to a deficiency in the ability to recognize visual objects. Visual agnosia can be further subdivided into two different subtypes: apperceptive visual agnosia and associative visual agnosia.

Individuals with apperceptive visual agnosia display the ability to see contours and outlines when shown an object, but they experience difficulty if asked to categorize objects. Apperceptive visual agnosia is associated with damage to one hemisphere, specifically damage to the posterior sections of the right hemisphere.

In contrast, individuals with associative visual agnosia experience difficulty when asked to name objects. Associative agnosia is associated with damage to both the right and left hemispheres at the occipitotemporal border. A specific form of associative visual agnosia is known as prosopagnosia. Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize faces. For example, these individuals have difficulty recognizing friends, family and coworkers. However, individuals with prosopagnosia can recognize all other types of visual stimuli.

Speech agnosia
Speech agnosia, or auditory verbal agnosia, refers to "an inability to comprehend spoken words despite intact hearing, speech production and reading ability". Patients report that they hear sounds being produced, but that the sounds are fundamentally unrecognizable or untranslatable.

 * 1) EXAMINER: What did you eat for breakfast?
 * 2) PATIENT: Breakfast, breakfast, it sounds familiar but it doesn't speak to me. (Obler & Gjerlow 1999:45)

Despite an inability to process what the speaker is saying, some patients have been reported to recognize certain characteristic information about the speaker's voice (such as being a man or woman).

Causes
Agnosia can result from strokes, dementia, or other neurological disorders. It may also be trauma-induced by a head injury, brain infection, or hereditary. Additionally, some forms of agnosia may be the result of developmental disorders. Damage causing agnosia usually occurs in either the occipital or parietal lobes of the brain. Although one modality may be affected, cognitive abilities in other areas are preserved.

Patients who experience dramatic recovery from blindness experience significant to total agnosia.

The effect of damage to the superior temporal sulcus is consistent with several types of neurolinguistic deficiencies, and some contend that agnosia is one of them. The superior temporal sulcus is vital for speech comprehension because the region is highly involved with the lexical interface. According to the 1985 TRACE II Model, the lexical interface associates sound waves (phonemes) with morphological features to produce meaningful words. This association process is accomplished by lateral inhibition/excitement of certain words within an individual's lexicon (vocabulary). For instance, if an experimenter were to say DOG aloud, the utterance would activate and inhibit various words within the subjects lexical interface: The consistency of this model to agnosia is shown by evidence that bilateral lesions to the superior temporal sulcus produces 'pure word deafness' (Kussmaul, 1877), or as it is understood today, speech agnosia. Patients with pure word deafness demonstrate the inability to recognize and process speech sounds with normal auditory processing for non-speech sounds below the level of the cortex.
 * DOG activates 3, and inhibits 0 letters in DOG. – +3
 * DOG activates 2, and inhibits 1 letters in FOG. – +2
 * DOG activates 1, and inhibits 2 letters in DAN. – +1

Diagnosis
In order to assess an individual for agnosia, it must be verified that the individual does not have a loss of sensation, and that both their language abilities and intelligence are intact. In order for an individual to be diagnosed with agnosia, they must only be experiencing a sensory deficit in a single modality. To make a diagnosis, the distinction between apperceptive and associative agnosia must be made. This distinction can be made by having the individual complete copying and matching tasks. If the individual has a form of apperceptive agnosia they will not be able to match two stimuli that are identical in appearance. In contrast, if an individual has a form of associative agnosia, they will not be able to match different examples of a stimulus. For example, an individual who has been diagnosed with associative agnosia in the visual modality would not be able to match pictures of a laptop that is open with a laptop that is closed.

Pure alexia
Individuals with pure alexia usually have difficulty reading words as well as difficulty with identifying letters. In order to assess whether an individual has pure alexia, tests of copying and recognition must be performed. An individual with pure alexia should be able to copy a set of words, and should be able to recognize letters.

Prosopagnosia
Individuals are usually shown pictures of human faces that may be familiar to them such as famous actors, singers, politicians or family members. The pictures shown to the patient are selected to be age and culture appropriate. The task involves the examiner asking the individual to name each face. If the individual cannot name whose face appears in the picture, the examiner may ask a question that would help to recognize the face in the picture.

Treatment
For all practical purposes, there is no direct cure. Patients may improve if information is presented in other modalities than the damaged one. Different types of therapies can help to reverse the effects of agnosia. In some cases, occupational therapy or speech therapy can improve agnosia, depending on its cause.

Initially many individuals with a form of agnosia are unaware of the extent to which they have either a perceptual or recognition deficit. This may be caused by anosognosia which is the lack of awareness of a deficit. This lack of awareness usually leads to a form of denial and resistance to any form of help or treatment. There are various methods that can be used which can help the individual recognize the impairment in perception or recognition that they may have. A patient can be presented with a stimulus to the impaired modality only to help increase their awareness of their deficit. Alternatively, a task can be broken down into its component parts so that the individual can see each part of the problem caused by the deficit. Once the individual acknowledges their perceptual or recognition deficit, a form of treatment may be recommended. There are various forms of treatment such as compensatory strategies with alternate modalities, verbal strategies, alternate cues and organizational strategies.

Verbal strategies
Using verbal descriptions may be helpful for individuals with certain types of agnosia. Individuals such as prosopagnosics may find it useful to listen to a description of their friend or family member and recognize them based on this description more easily than through visual cues.

Alternate cues
Alternate cues may be particularly useful to an individual with environmental agnosia or prosopagnosia. Alternate cues for an individual with environmental agnosia may include color cues or tactile markers to symbolize a new room or to remember an area by. Prosopagnosics may use alternate visual cues such as a scar on an individual's face or crooked teeth, or cues from other senses, like the sound of an individual's voice, in order to recognize the individual. Hair color and length can be helpful cues as well.

Organizational strategies
Organizational strategies may be extremely helpful for an individual with visual agnosia. For example, organizing clothes according to different hangers provides tactile cues for the individual, making it easier to identify certain forms of clothing as opposed to relying solely on visual cues.

Current research
There are clinical trials being done to further research for treatments. At the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) they support research for rare diseases like agnosia. Some organizations that are recruiting for trials are using clincaltrials.gov and give status updates on the trials.

History
The term "agnosia" comes from the Ancient Greek ἀγνωσία (agnosia), "ignorance", "absence of knowledge". It was introduced by Sigmund Freud in 1891: "For disturbances in the recognition of objects, which Finkelnburg classes as asymbolia, I should like to propose the term 'agnosia'." Prior to Freud's introduction of the term, some of the first ideas about agnosia came from Carl Wernicke, who created theories about receptive aphasia in 1874. He noted that individuals with receptive aphasia did not possess the ability to understand speech or repeat words. He believed that receptive aphasia was due to lesions of the posterior third of the left superior temporal gyrus. Due to these lesions, Wernicke believed that individuals with receptive aphasia had a limited deafness for certain sounds and frequencies in speech.

After Wernicke, came Kussmaul in 1877 who attempted to explain why auditory verbal agnosia, also known as word deafness, occurs. Contrary to Wernicke's explanations, Kussmaul believed auditory verbal agnosia was the result of major destruction to the first left temporal gyrus. Kussmaul also posited about the origins of alexia (acquired dyslexia) also known as word blindness. He believed that word blindness was the result of lesions to the left angular and supramarginal gyri.

Heinrich Lissauer shared his ideas about agnosia after Wernicke and Kussmaul. In 1890, he theorized that there were two ways in which object recognition impairment could occur. One way in which impairment could occur was if there was damage to early perceptual processing or if there was damage to the actual object representation. If the actual object representation was damaged, this would not allow the object to be stored in visual memory, and therefore the individual would not be able to recognize the object. During the time of Wernicke, Kussmaul and Lissauer there was little known about the cerebral cortex. Today, with new neuroimaging techniques, we have been able to expand our knowledge on agnosia greatly.

title: Agnosia


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Borduria

Borduria is a fictional country in The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. It is located in the Balkans and has a rivalry with the fictional neighbouring country of Syldavia. Borduria is depicted in King Ottokar's Sceptre (1938–1939) and The Calculus Affair (1954–1956), and is referred to in Tintin and the Picaros (1975–1976). Another international rival is Khemed.

Appearances in Tintin books
In King Ottokar's Sceptre, Tintin reads a Syldavian tourist pamphlet that reveals the early history of Syldavia and its relationship with Borduria. In 1195, Syldavia was annexed by neighbouring Borduria due to the weakness of King Muskar II, and was under its rule until 1275, when Baron Almaszout drove the Bordurians away and established himself as King Ottokar I. In the later Tintin stories, this ancient rivalry continues with the Bordurians continually trying to invade or undermine Syldavia.

King Ottokar's Sceptre (written in 1939 by Hergé) depicts an unsuccessful Bordurian attempt at staging a coup d'état against Syldavia, trying to remove the king and invade the country with the support from Syldavian sympathizers. The sceptre is stolen, which would force the King to abdicate, however Tintin returns it in time. The Bordurians then withdraw their troops 15 miles from the borders to prove their peaceful intentions.

In The Calculus Affair (1956), Borduria is depicted as a stereotypical Eastern Bloc country with its own secret police (ZEP) (led by Colonel Sponsz) and a military dictator, Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch. A statue of Kûrvi-Tasch appears in front of a government building, in which he wears a moustache similar to Joseph Stalin's and gives a Nazi-like salute. The Bordurian military of this period is depicted as technologically inept—unable to stop a stolen tank commandeered by Tintin and his companions as a result of defective mines and anti-tank guns. Professor Calculus is kidnapped by the Bordurians after developing an ultrasonic weapon but is rescued in the end.

In Tintin and the Picaros (1976), the South American banana republic of San Theodoros, ruled by General Tapioca, has formed an alliance with the Bordurian government, which has sent him military advisors, including Colonel Sponsz. In an unpublished page drawn by Hergé for this book, a bust of Kûrvi-Tasch can even be seen in the office of a San Theodorean colonel. Eventually, Tapioca is deposed by Tintin's friend General Alcazar, and Sponsz is repatriated to Borduria.

Geography
The Bordurian countryside is set in dramatic mountainous terrain. The craggy landscape and towering peaks are most similar to the Balkan Mountains in Moesia. Therefore, it is possible that Borduria is set roughly in the present-day locations of Bulgaria and Serbia. The capital of Borduria is Szohôd, which is also the seat of government.

Government and military
Borduria is a fascist country with a totalitarian government. Several Central European countries such as Hungary, Croatia, Albania and Romania were ruled by fascist governments before or during World War II. All became client states of the Soviet Union after the war; Borduria may be presumed to be in a similar situation. In Tintin post-war stories it is not depicted as a typical Eastern Bloc country, however, but as a fascist state. The fact that the president of state bears the military rank of Marshal is a reference to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Romania's wartime leader Ion Antonescu and Yugoslavia's post-war president Josip Broz Tito. However, the leader's cult of personality most resembles Joseph Stalin.

The army in pre-war King Ottokar's Sceptre is depicted as German-supplied, the main aircraft depicted being the Bf 109. In post-war stories it has all the characteristics of the Soviet military. In Tintin and the Picaros the San Theodoros army is supplied by Borduria with Beretta AR70/90 assault-rifles and Mil Mi-1 helicopters. Also the government state limousine with Kurvi-Tasch's mustaches is inspired by the Soviet ZIL-114.

In King Ottokar's Sceptre, the Bordurian flag is black with a red circle and two black triangles, reminiscent of the stark, eye-catching symbols used by several Fascist movements. In The Calculus Affair, it is red, with the emblem of Kurvi-Tasch's mustache inside a white circle, resembling it closer to the Nazi flag, and this was also worn as military armbands by the Bordurian military personnel. In King Ottokar's Sceptre, the Bordurian army uses the Gewehr 98, vz. 24 and Karabiner 98k bolt-action rifles. In The Calculus Affair, Bordurian soldiers and agents were armed with Italian Beretta Model 38 Submachine Guns. Due to the nature of its government and its military's weaponry, Borduria was most likely an affiliate of the Axis during World War II, although there is no explicit mention of that in the books.

The post-war emblem of Borduria is similar to the circumflex symbol, and is modelled in the likeness of the mustache of Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch. In The Calculus Affair, evidence of the cult of personality surrounding the Marshal can be found in countless objects in Borduria, from the lettering on signs and buildings to the logos of Bordurian companies and even certain characteristics and details on cars, including the car bumpers, include the shape in their designs.

Language
The Tintin books depict the country's language, Bordurian, only in fragments. Like Syldavian, the language seems to be based on the Dutch Brussels dialect Marols, such as mänhir for "mister" or "sir" (cf. Dutch mijnheer). Unlike Syldavian, it uses the Latin alphabet exclusively, and makes heavy use of the digraph sz (possibly borrowed from Hungarian), as well as ô.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Borduria


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Talk:Blue whale

"Caught"/"killed"
, you do need to realize that "catch" is the standard terminology used in all wildlife harvesting (which is what whaling is, Japanese pretensions notwithstanding). We don't speak about "killing" fish either. I appreciate that whales elicit a more emotional response, but when our articles on whaling overwhelmingly use "catch", this looks incongruous at the least. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs)

Female weight gain of 4% per day mathematically impossible
In the article it states "Pregnant females gain roughly four percent of their body weight daily,[86] amounting to 60% of their overall body weight throughout summer foraging periods."

However, that is clearly not right, as this would mean that female whales approximately triple/quadruple their weight every month. You can see how that would lead to bizarre situations.

I am not aware of what this figure should be or what the author was thinking when writing this. Perhaps they meant eat 4% of body weight.

Text/Infographic Discrepancy
The infographic says that the blue whale is threatened but the text says that it's endangered. As this is a gold star, level 4 vital article, I believe this discrepancy should be resolved on priority. 021120x (talk) 02:13, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Blue Whale max weight
According to this new study a blue whale could potential reach 270 tons or more.

https://peerj.com/articles/16978/ Wilt Carter (talk) 18:16, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Blue whale


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1940 Summer Olympics

The 1940 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XII Olympiad, was a planned international multi-sport event scheduled to have been held from 21 September to 6 October 1940, in Tokyo City, Japan, and later rescheduled for 20 July to 4 August 1940, in Helsinki, Finland following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. They were ultimately canceled because of World War II alongside the 1940 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, and were the third games to be cancelled due to war.

Helsinki would eventually host the 1952 Summer Olympics. Tokyo would also later host the 1964 and 2020 Summer Olympics, the latter being postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

1940 Tokyo Olympics (cancelled)
The campaign to choose a city for 1940 began in 1932, with Barcelona, Rome, Helsinki, and Tokyo participating. Tokyo city officials suggested a campaign as a means of international diplomacy following Japan's alienation from the League of Nations due to the Mukden Incident, in which Japan occupied Manchuria and created the puppet state of Manchukuo.

While both Tokyo officials and International Olympic Committee (IOC) representatives were behind the campaign, the national government, which was ever more interested in military matters, did not have any strong supporters for such a diplomatic gesture. In 1936, Tokyo was chosen in a surprise move, making it the first non-Western city to win an Olympic bid.

1930s Japan and international sports
During the 1930 Far Eastern Games in Tokyo, Indian participants were spotted flying the flag of their independence movement rather than the flag of British India. This caused a complaint from the British Olympic Association. In 1934, Japan attempted to invite European colonies to the Far Eastern Games.

Planning
The main stadium was initially to be the Meiji Jingu Gaien Stadium — later used at the 1964 Summer Olympics — reconstructed to accommodate 100,000 spectators; however, the Shrines Bureau of Home Ministry, which had jurisdiction over the Meiji Jingu precinct, strongly opposed the reconstruction. Subsequently, a new stadium was planned at the Komazawa Olympic Park, away from the city center. The Olympic Village was to be built on the present sites of Kinuta Park or Todoroki Gorge. A schedule was drawn up, and guidelines were printed in four languages. Monthly magazines and posters were printed and distributed internationally. Construction began on some buildings, and arrangements were made with hotels, travel agents, and airlines for easy access.

Forfeiture of Games
When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out on 7 July 1937, Ichirō Kōno, a member of the Imperial Diet (legislature), immediately requested that the Olympics be forfeited. The 1938 Far Eastern Games were also canceled, but Japan's IOC delegates persisted under a belief that the war would soon be over. Amid the intensification of the war, the feasibility of both the Summer Olympics and the 1940 Winter Olympics grew increasingly questionable to other countries, who suggested a different site be chosen and spoke of the possibility of boycotting the Games were they to proceed in Japan.

In March 1938, the Japanese provided reassurances to the IOC at the organization's Cairo conference that Tokyo would still be able to serve as the host city. However, many Diet members in Japan had already openly questioned hosting the Olympics in wartime, and the military was demanding that the organizers build the venues from wood because they needed metals for the war front. In July, a legislative session was held to decide the matters of the Summer and Winter Olympics and the planned 1940 World's Fair all at once. The World's Fair was only "postponed", under a belief that Japan would be able to wrap up the war, but the Olympics could not be moved and was canceled.

Kōichi Kido, who would later be instrumental in the surrender of Japan in 1945, announced the forfeiture on 16 July 1938. He closed his speech saying, "When peace reigns again in the Far East, we can then invite the Games to Tokyo and take that opportunity to prove to the people of the world the true Japanese spirit." This would come to pass in 1964.

Despite the cancellation of the 1940 Olympics, the Tokyo organizing committee released its budget for the Games. In a departure from standard practice, the budget included all capital outlays as well as direct organizing costs. The total budget was ¥20.1 million, one-third of which would have been paid by the Tokyo metropolitan government.

Helsinki and other competitions
The IOC then awarded the Games to Helsinki, Finland, the city that had been the runner-up in the original bidding process. The Games were then scheduled to be staged from 20 July to 4 August 1940. The Olympic Games were suspended indefinitely following the outbreak of World War II (the Winter War in particular) and did not resume until the London Games of 1948.

With the Olympics canceled, the major international athletics event of the year turned out to be the annual Finland-Sweden athletics international, held at the new Helsinki Olympic Stadium, exceptionally held as a triple international among Finland, Sweden and Germany.

Gliding was due to be an Olympic sport in the 1940 Games after a demonstration at the Berlin Games in 1936. The sport has not been featured in any Games since, though the glider designed for it, the DFS Olympia Meise, was produced in large numbers after the war.

Meanwhile, Japan hosted the 1940 East Asian Games in Tokyo, with six participating nations. Helsinki eventually held the 1952 Summer Olympics, while Tokyo held the 1964 Summer Olympics and the 2020 Summer Olympics, although the later event was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During August 1940, prisoners of war celebrated a "special Olympics" called the International Prisoner-of-War Olympic Games at Stalag XIII-A in Langwasser, near Nuremberg, Germany. An Olympic flag, 29 by 46 cm in size, was made of a Polish prisoner's shirt and, drawn in crayon, it featured the Olympic rings and banners for Belgium, France, Great Britain, Norway, Poland, and the Netherlands. A feature film, Olimpiada '40, produced by the director Andrzej Kotkowski in 1980 tells the story of these games and of one of the prisoners of war, Teodor Niewiadomski.

Torch relay
After the successful invention of the torch relay in Nazi Germany four years earlier, the proposed method of bringing the Olympic Flame from Greece to Japan was proposed by air delivery, in the purpose-built Messerschmitt Me 261 Adolfine long-range aircraft, which was designed to have a maximum range of some 11,024 km (6,850 mi) unrefueled.

title: 1940 Summer Olympics


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1944 Summer Olympics

The 1944 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIII Olympiad, was a planned international multi-sport event scheduled to have been held from 22 July to 5 August 1944 in London, England, United Kingdom. The games were cancelled because of World War II alongside the 1944 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and were the fifth games to be cancelled due to war. However, unofficial celebrations went ahead anyway in Switzerland as well as by Polish prisoners of war held in German-occupied Poland.

The games eventually took place in London in 1948, which later hosted the 2012 Summer Olympics.

History
London won the bid on the first ballot in a June 1939 International Olympic Committee election over Rome, Detroit, Lausanne, Athens, Budapest, Helsinki and Montreal. The selection was made at the 38th IOC Session in 1939 (London).

Due to World War II, which by then had been ongoing for four years and had devastated London, the games were cancelled. In spite of the war, the IOC organised many events to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Held from 17 to 19 June 1944, this celebration was referred to as "The Jubilee Celebrations of IOC" by Carl Diem, the originator of the modern tradition of the Olympic torch relay.

Polish prisoners of war in the Woldenberg (Dobiegniew) Oflag II-C POW camp were granted permission by their German captors to stage an unofficial POW Olympics during 23 July to 13 August 1944, and an Olympic Flag made with a bed sheet and pieces of coloured scarves was raised. The event has been considered to be a demonstration of the Olympic spirit transcending war.

title: 1944 Summer Olympics


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1916 Summer Olympics

The 1916 Summer Olympics (Olympische Sommerspiele 1916), officially known as the Games of the VI Olympiad, were scheduled to be held in Berlin, Germany, but were eventually cancelled for the first time in their twenty-year history due to the outbreak of World War I. Berlin was selected as the host city during the 14th IOC Session in Stockholm on 4 July 1912, defeating bids from Alexandria, Amsterdam, Brussels, Budapest and Cleveland. After the 1916 Games were cancelled, Berlin would eventually host the 1936 Summer Olympics, twenty years later.

History
Work on the stadium, the Deutsches Stadion ("German Stadium"), began in 1912 at what was the Grunewald Race Course. It was planned to seat more than 18,000 spectators. On 8 June 1913, the stadium was dedicated with the release of 10,000 pigeons. 60,000 people were in attendance.

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, organization continued as it was not expected that the war would continue for several years. Eventually, though, the Games were cancelled.

A winter sports week with speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey and Nordic skiing was planned; the concept of this week eventually gave rise to the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924. The central venue was to have been the Deutsches Stadion.

If the games had been played, Finland (as the Grand Duchy of Finland) would not have been allowed to take part as an independent delegation (as it had done previously) due to Russia revoking its autonomy of participating in international sport in 1914.

Berlin returned to Olympic bidding in 1931, when it beat Barcelona, Spain, for the right to host the 1936 Summer Olympics, the last Olympics before the outbreak of World War II.

Pre-war preparations
At the beginning of 1914, there were fast preparations for the upcoming Olympic Games. First, they had to build the stadium, which took a very long time. After that, Carl Diem, General Secretary of the Organising Committee for the 1916 Games, had to focus on financing the games, which was difficult because the cost would come to about 1,321 million marks ($738,902,671 USD). Later on, the board of the Olympic Games got together to discuss the programs that were to be sent out to athletes and their families to prepare for the amount of attendees who were to arrive.

Decision
Most of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) members did not know what year to schedule the Olympics. Some believed that the war would not last long and that the Olympics would be able to take place like everyone had planned. Diem, a German man, believed that the war would not last a long time. Even though he thought that, the IOC sent out invitations saying that the Olympics would be postponed until "a more peaceful time" (Kluge 13). In 1914, Pierre de Coubertin signed a contract between Herriot and Count Édouard d’Assche. In this contract, he "promised to postpone its plan still 1924, in the event that Antwerp maintained its candidature for 1920" (Kluge 15). His biggest concern was with the IOC which had made him president in 1907 for the span of ten years. He knew that he had a big responsibility and would not let go of his lead in this role. Coubertin, who played an important role in the decision of where these Olympics should take place, was proposed with many confrontations about moving the Olympics to years ahead, even in different countries. With much consideration, he had decided that the Olympics would stay in Berlin, but the year would change. He looked ahead all the way to 1924. Although this was a tough decision, knowing that there would not be a shortage of competitors was comforting.

Outcome
On 8 August 1915, the stadium was reopened to hold "war competitions" in swimming and cycling, but on 10 February 1916, the Competition Committee of the DRAfOS finally got together again, not since the beginning of the war. They had decided that there would be small games that would take place to get different athletes a chance to compete. Despite the efforts of Coubertin, Diem and many others, the official games had to be canceled and only resumed in 1920, after the end of the war. The Summer Olympics ultimately took place in Berlin in 1936, twenty years after they were supposed to happen, and eighteen years after the war had ended.

title: 1916 Summer Olympics


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The Republic of Ireland Act 1948

The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 (No. 22 of 1948) is an Act of the Oireachtas which declared that the description of Ireland was to be the Republic of Ireland, and vested in the president of Ireland the power to exercise the executive authority of the state in its external relations, on the advice of the Government of Ireland. The Act was signed into law on 21 December 1948 and came into force on 18 April 1949, Easter Monday, the 33rd anniversary of the beginning of the Easter Rising.

The Act ended the remaining statutory role of the British monarchy in relation to Ireland, by repealing the 1936 External Relations Act, which had vested in George VI, in his capacity as a symbol of the cooperation of the nations that were members of the Commonwealth with which Ireland associated itself, and his successors those functions which the Act now transferred to the President.

Text of Act
The Republic of Ireland Act consists of five brief sections, set out in full as follows:

British monarch
Section 1 of the Act repealed the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936. By doing so the Act abolished the last remaining functions of the British monarch (then George VI) in relation to the Irish state. These functions had related to the issuance and acceptance of letters of credence of diplomatic and consular representatives and the conclusion of international agreements. Section 3 provides that the President of Ireland may instead exercise these functions and any other functions in relation to the state's external (or foreign) relations.

The Commonwealth
At the time the Act came into force, John A. Costello, the Taoiseach whose government introduced the Act, believed that Ireland did not have a King and had not been a member of the Commonwealth since 1936. His government's view was that Ireland was already a republic and that the Act would not create a republic but rather achieve a "clarification of [Ireland's] constitutional status." These views were shared by the Irish opposition leader of the time, Éamon de Valera. Indeed, Irish leaders had on several previous occasions declared that Ireland was a republic and not a Commonwealth member, but that it was associated with the Commonwealth.

The Irish view of things was not shared by the other members of the Commonwealth. Until Ireland brought the Act into force, it was still regarded by the members as forming part of "His Majesty’s dominions". When Ireland adopted its 1937 Constitution, which made no reference to the King, the United Kingdom Government announced that it and the other Commonwealth Governments were "[still] prepared to treat … Ireland, as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations". After all, in their view, the King was still empowered by Ireland to fulfill certain functions as Ireland's statutory agent under the External Relations Act 1936. With that Irish Act now being repealed, there was no longer any basis, however tenuous, to consider Ireland as continuing to have a King or to be part of His Majesty’s dominions and therefore within the Commonwealth. In their view, Ireland had now declared itself a republic for the first time bringing its membership of the Commonwealth to an end. Ironically, the Taoiseach chose to announce the repeal of the External Relations Act while on an official visit to Canada, the same country whose constitutional status had been the basis for the establishment of the Irish Free State.

The London Declaration, which permitted republics to remain within the Commonwealth, was made shortly afterwards in response to India's desire to continue as a member once its new republican constitution was finalised. However, the Irish government did not reapply for membership of the Commonwealth. De Valera was opposed to this and considered applying for membership after his return to office in the 1950s.

Republic of Ireland description
Section 2 of the Act provides:

"It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland."

The Act did not declare that Ireland a republic, nor did it change the official name of the state which continued to be Éire (in Irish) and Ireland  (in English) as prescribed in the Constitution. The Act provided for a description for the State. The distinction between a description and a name has sometimes caused confusion. Costello explained the difference in the following way:

Background
In 1945, when asked if he planned to declare a republic, the Taoiseach Éamon de Valera had replied, "we are a republic", which he had not said in the previous eight years. He also insisted that Ireland had no king, but simply used an external king as an "organ" in international affairs.

In October 1947, de Valera asked the attorney-general, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, to draft a bill to repeal the External Relations Act, and by 1948 a draft of the bill included a reference to the state as being a republic. In the end, the draft bill was never submitted to the Oireachtas for approval.

By the eve of the 1948 Irish general election the United Kingdom Representative to Ireland, Lord Rugby, reported that the annulment of the External Relations Act was inevitable. He remarked 'No party has left the door open to any other course'. The result of the election saw a new Irish government formed under the leadership of John A. Costello.

Costello made the announcement that a bill to repeal the External Relations Act was to be introduced when he was in Ottawa, during an official visit to Canada. David McCullagh has suggested that it was a spur of the moment reaction to offence caused by the Governor-General of Canada, Lord Alexander, who was of Northern Ireland descent, who allegedly placed loyalist symbols, notably a replica of the famous Roaring Meg cannon used in the Siege of Derry, before an affronted Costello at a state dinner. What is certain is that an agreement that there would be separate toasts for the King and for the President of Ireland was broken. The Irish position was that a toast to the King, instead of representing both countries, would not include Ireland. Only a toast to the King was proposed, to the fury of the Irish delegation. Shortly afterwards Costello announced the plan to repeal the External Relations Act.

However, according to all but one of the ministers in Costello's cabinet, the decision to repeal the External Relations Act had already been made before Costello's Canadian visit. Costello's revelation of the decision was because the Sunday Independent (an Irish newspaper) had discovered the fact and was about to "break" the story as an exclusive. Nevertheless, one minister, Noel Browne, gave a different account in his autobiography, Against the Tide. He claimed Costello's announcement was done in a fit of anger of his treatment by the Governor-General and that when he returned, Costello, at an assembly of ministers in his home, offered to resign because of his manufacture of a major government policy initiative on the spot in Canada. Yet according to Browne, all the ministers agreed that they would refuse to accept the resignation and also agreed to manufacture the story of a prior cabinet decision.

The evidence of what really happened remains ambiguous. There is no record of a prior decision to repeal the External Relations Act before Costello's Canadian trip, among cabinet papers for 1948, which supports Browne's claim. However, the Costello government refused to allow the Secretary to the Government, Maurice Moynihan, to attend cabinet meetings and take minutes, because they believed he was too close to the opposition leader, Éamon de Valera. Rather than entrust the minute-taking to Moynihan, the cabinet entrusted it to a Parliamentary Secretary (junior minister), Liam Cosgrave. Given that Cosgrave had never kept minutes before, his minutes, at least early on in the government, proved to be only a limited record of government decisions. So whether the issue was never raised, was raised but undecided on, was subjected to a decision taken informally, or was subjected to a decision taken formally, remains obscure on the basis of the 1948 cabinet documentation.

Introduction of the bill
The Republic of Ireland Bill was introduced in 1948 by the new Taoiseach, John A. Costello of Fine Gael.

The Act was enacted with all parties voting for it. De Valera did suggest that it would have been better to reserve the declaration of the republic until Irish unity had been achieved, a comment hard to reconcile with his 1945 claim that the Irish state was already a republic.

United Kingdom
The United Kingdom responded to the Republic of Ireland Act by enacting the Ireland Act 1949. This Act formally asserted that the Irish state had, when the Republic of Ireland Act came into force, ceased "to be part of His Majesty's dominions" and accordingly was no longer within the Commonwealth. Nonetheless, the United Kingdom statute provided that Irish citizens would not be treated as aliens under British nationality law. This, in effect, granted them a status similar to the citizens of Commonwealth countries.

Between the enactment of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937 and the enactment of the Ireland Act 1949, the United Kingdom had formally decided upon the (anglicised) "Eire" as its name for the Irish state. The 1949 Act now provided that "the part of Ireland heretofore known as Eire" could be referred to in future UK legislation as the "Republic of Ireland". The UK's continued aversion to using "Ireland" as the formal name for the state due to the fact it did not (and does not) comprise the entirety of the island of the same name remained a source of diplomatic friction for several decades afterwards.

The UK's Ireland Act also gave a legislative guarantee that Northern Ireland would continue to remain a part of the United Kingdom unless the Parliament of Northern Ireland formally expressed a wish to join a United Ireland; this "unionist veto" proved to be controversial during the Act's passage through Westminster, as well as in the Irish state and amongst Northern Ireland's nationalist community. The guarantee was replaced in 1973, when the Parliament of Northern Ireland was abolished, by a new guarantee based on "the consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland".

On the day the Act came into force, 18 April 1949, King George VI sent the following message to the President of Ireland, Seán T. O'Kelly:

Irish peers
From the Acts of Union 1800, when the UK House of Lords noted someone's succession to an Irish peerage, the Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland in Dublin to update the electoral register for Irish representative peer. Such elections ceased in 1922 and the office of Clerk of the Crown was formally abolished in 1926, when the last holder, Gerald Horan, became first Master of the High Court. Nevertheless, the Clerk of the Parliaments continued to inform Horan in the old manner until the Irish government, reviewing administration for the commencement of the Republic of Ireland Act, informed the Lords in late 1948 that the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland no longer existed.

Church of Ireland
The Book of Common Prayer of the all-island Church of Ireland was modelled on that of the Church of England and included three "state prayers": for "our most gracious Sovereign Lord, King George", the royal family, and the Commonwealth. The church was historically associated with the Protestant Ascendancy and had been the established church until 1871; its "southern" membership (one-third of the total) was mostly unionist before 1922 and pro-British thereafter. In late 1948, archbishops John Gregg and Arthur Barton devised replacement prayers to be used in the republic, at first temporarily until the 1949 general synod would update the Book of Common Prayer. A grassroots campaign led by Hugh Maude of Clondalkin opposed any change, and the 1950 synod authorised a compromise, whereby the old prayers remained in Northern Ireland, and the republic used a "Prayer for the President and all in authority" and "A Prayer for King George the Sixth … in whose dominions we are not accounted strangers" (an allusion to the Ireland Act 1949). Likewise, the liturgy for morning and evening prayers includes "O Lord, save the Queen" in Northern Ireland and "O Lord, guide and defend our rulers" in the republic. Miriam Moffitt notes that Maude's supporters were mostly older church members.

Reassessment
In 1996, the Constitution Review Group reviewed the full text of the Constitution. It considered whether the name of the state should be amended to declare that Ireland should be named "Republic of Ireland". It decided against recommending such an amendment. This was the second time that such an amendment was considered by committee, which considered every provision of the constitution.

title: The Republic of Ireland Act 1948


text:
Bids for the 2012 Summer Olympics

Nine cities submitting bids to host the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics were recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Committee shortlisted five of them—London, Madrid, Moscow, New York City, and Paris—from which London eventually prevailed; thus becoming the first city to host the Olympic Games for a third time. The bidding process for the 2012 Olympics was considered one of the most hotly contested in the history of the IOC. Paris was seen by some as the front-runner for much of the campaign, but skillful lobbying by London's supporters and an inspirational final presentation by Sebastian Coe led to the success of its bid.

After a technical evaluation of the nine original bids, the top five were shortlisted on 18 May 2004, becoming official candidates. The remaining applicant cities—Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig and Rio de Janeiro—were eliminated. Four of the five candidate cities were prominent national capitals, which lent an increased competitive interest to the final bidding phase. Paris and Madrid earned the top scores during the application phase, but in early 2005, a more thorough evaluation of the candidates put Paris and London in a close race that became tighter as the final vote approached. On 6 July 2005, in a four-round exhaustive ballot of the IOC (gathered at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore), Moscow, New York City and Madrid were eliminated in the first three rounds. London won the final round by a margin of four votes over Paris and secured the right to host the 2012 Olympics.

In the month after the election, members of the Paris 2012 delegation argued that the London delegation had violated IOC rules. The key points in the accusations were London 2012's abortive athlete incentive initiative and lobbying by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair. A public statement by IOC President Jacques Rogge dismissed these accusations, stating that the competition had been fair. Another controversy occurred during the bidding process when an undercover investigation by British television series Panorama revealed a corruption scandal associated with IOC member Ivan Slavkov and Olympic agents, who offered to deliver votes from IOC members to any 2012 Olympic bid in return for financial favours. Still recovering from the effects of the Salt Lake City scandal, the IOC reacted swiftly and punitively toward the rule-breaking individuals.

Bidding process
The Olympic bidding process begins with the submission of a city's application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by its National Olympic Committee (NOC) and ends with the election of the host city by the members of the IOC during an ordinary session. The process is governed by the Olympic Charter, as stated in Chapter 5, Rule 34.

Since 1999, the process has consisted of two phases. During the first phase, which begins immediately after the bid submission deadline, the "applicant cities" are required to answer a questionnaire covering themes of importance to a successful Games organisation. This information allows the IOC to analyse the cities' hosting capacities and the strengths and weaknesses of their plans. Following a detailed study of the submitted questionnaires and ensuing reports, the IOC Executive Board selects the cities that are qualified to proceed to the next phase. The second phase is the true candidature stage: the accepted applicant cities (from now on referred to as "candidate cities") are required to submit a second questionnaire in the form of an extended, more detailed, candidature file. These files are carefully studied by the IOC Evaluation Commission, a group composed of IOC members, representatives of international sport federations, NOCs, athletes, the International Paralympic Committee, and international experts in various fields. The members of the Evaluation Commission then make four-day inspection visits to each of the candidate cities, where they check the proposed venues and are briefed about details of the themes covered in the candidature file. The Evaluation Commission communicates the results of its inspections in a report sent to the IOC members up to one month before the electing IOC Session.

The IOC Session in which a host city is elected takes place in a country that did not submit an application to stage the Olympics. The election is made by the assembled active IOC members (excluding honorary and honour members), each possessing one vote. Members from countries that have a city taking part in the election cannot vote while the city is in the running. The voting is conducted in a succession of rounds until one bid achieves an absolute majority of votes; if this does not happen in the first round, the bid with the fewest votes is eliminated and another voting round begins. In the case of a tie for the lowest number of votes, a special runoff vote is carried out, with the winner proceeding to the next round. After each round, the eliminated bid is announced. Following the announcement of the host city, the successful bid delegation signs the "Host City Contract" with the IOC, which delegates the responsibilities of the Games organisation to the city and respective NOC.

Evaluation of applicant cities
The deadline to submit applications for the 2012 Summer Olympics was 15 July 2003. The nine cities that submitted bids before that date also met the 15 January 2004 deadline for submission of the first phase questionnaire. Through analysis of the questionnaires, the IOC gave a weighted-average score to each city based on the scores obtained in each of the questionnaire's eleven themes: political and social support, general infrastructure, sports venues, Olympic Village, environment, accommodation, transport, security, past experience, finance, and legacy. If a bid's score was higher than six (IOC's predefined benchmark score), the city was considered highly capable of hosting the Games; otherwise, its chances were very slim. On 18 May 2004, the IOC announced the cities accepted as candidates:

 * 🇫🇷 Paris — scored 8.5 (bid details)
 * 🇪🇸 Madrid — scored 8.3 (bid details)
 * 🇬🇧 London — scored 7.6 (bid details)
 * 🇺🇸 New York City — scored 7.5 (bid details)
 * 🇷🇺 Moscow — scored 6.5 (bid details)
 * 🇩🇪 Leipzig — scored 6.0
 * 🇧🇷 Rio de Janeiro — scored 5.1
 * 🇹🇷 Istanbul — scored 4.8
 * 🇨🇺 Havana — scored 3.7

The five highest-rated applicants progressed to the next phase as official candidate cities. As stipulated, the IOC granted them the right to use the Olympic rings on their candidature emblem, together with a label identifying each as a Candidate City.

Evaluation of candidate cities
By 15 November 2004, all candidates had submitted their candidature files to the IOC. After a period of analysis by the IOC, the cities were visited by the IOC Evaluation Commission, consisting of twelve members and chaired by Moroccan IOC member Nawal El Moutawakel. The four-day visits occurred between 3 February and 17 March 2005:

 * 🇪🇸 Madrid — 3–6 February
 * 🇬🇧 London — 16–19 February
 * 🇺🇸 New York City — 21–24 February
 * 🇫🇷 Paris — 9–12 March
 * 🇷🇺 Moscow — 14–17 March

The Parisian bid suffered two setbacks during the inspection: a number of strikes and demonstrations coincided with the visit, and a report was released stating that Guy Drut, IOC member and one of the key members of Paris's bid team, faced charges over alleged political party financial corruption.

On 6 June 2005, the IOC released the inspection team's evaluation reports of the five candidate cities. Although these documents did not contain scores or rankings, the report for Paris was considered the most positive, followed closely by London, which had narrowed most of the gap observed at the time of the first-phase evaluation in 2004. New York City and Madrid also obtained very positive evaluations, while Moscow was considered the weakest bid. On the same day, New York City's bid suffered a major setback following the report that the State of New York refused to fund West Side Stadium, a New York 2012 centrepiece. The New York City campaign devised an alternative plan within a week, but such a major change with only one month remaining before the final vote damaged the city's chances.

Throughout the bidding process and leading up to the vote at the 117th IOC Session, Paris was widely seen as the favourite, particularly as its bid was the city's third in recent history (previous bids being for 1992 and 2008). London was originally seen as lagging behind Paris by a considerable margin, but this situation began to reverse with the appointment of Sebastian Coe as the head of London 2012, on 19 May 2004. In late August 2004, reports emerged that predicted a tie between London and Paris. In the final run-up to the 117th IOC Session, London and Paris appeared to be in an increasingly close contest. On 1 July 2005, IOC president Jacques Rogge, when asked who the winner would be, told the assembled press, "I cannot predict it since I don't know how the IOC members will vote. But my gut feeling tells me that it will be very close. Perhaps it will come down to a difference of say ten votes, or maybe less."

Final selection process
The opening ceremony of the 117th IOC Session was held at the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay in Singapore on 5 July 2005. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was the guest of honour and officially opened the session. Song, dance and martial arts exhibitions with the theme "One Voice, One Rhythm, One World" began the ceremony.

On 6 July 2005, the election day, the IOC Session was held at the Raffles City Convention Centre. It began at 1:00 UTC with the one-hour final presentations of the candidate cities, followed by a half-hour press briefing, in the following order: Paris, New York City, Moscow, London and Madrid. The bid presentations ended at 9:00 UTC and a presentation of the Evaluation Commission's final report preceded the election. Of the 116 active IOC members, 17 could not vote in the first round, leaving 99 members able to exert their voting rights.

The electronic ballot began at 10:26 UTC, and the first three rounds eliminated Moscow, New York City and Madrid, respectively. After a city was eliminated, members from that city's country were allowed to vote in the following rounds. London and Paris made it to the fourth and final round of voting, which concluded at 10:45 UTC. An hour later, at 11:49 UTC, London was formally announced as the winner by Jacques Rogge. Approximately one billion viewers watched the announcement on live television.

After the announcement, the ballot results were published: London gathered more votes in the first, third and final rounds, while Madrid won the second round despite falling short on votes in the third round and being eliminated. The competitiveness of the bids from Paris and London was ultimately demonstrated by a four-vote difference in the final round.

Tony Blair's Olympic pitch
In December 2003, the British prime minister Tony Blair spoke about the London bid during a "sports breakfast" he hosted during a summit in Nigeria. Blair mentioned the bid in context of the positive legacy of the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester: "It was partly the success of the Commonwealth Games that inspired our bid for the Olympics." Since the IOC expressly forbids any international promotion of bids before the final candidature phase, it wrote to leading British officials asking for an explanation concerning the alleged violation. The chairmen of the Commonwealth Games Federation and the British Olympic Association, and spokesmen from Downing Street and London 2012 denied any violation of the IOC's ethical code, insisting that Blair's comments were taken out of context as there was no intention to promote the bid. Nevertheless, to prevent future ethical clashes, barrister Michael Beloff was appointed the ethics commissioner for the London bid two months later.

Ivan Slavkov corruption scandal
On 4 August 2004, BBC's Panorama broadcast the results of a year-long investigation in which the reporters posed as consultants from a fictitious firm "New London Ventures", which was supposed to represent businesses interested in bringing the 2012 Olympics to London. The report unveiled how some Olympic agents could guarantee votes from certain IOC members to the London bid, in exchange for favours or money. The undercover team secretly filmed its encounter with one of these agents, Goran Takac, who presented them to Ivan Slavkov, an IOC member and the Bulgarian Olympic Committee's president. Slavkov stated he was open to negotiation since he had not made up his mind about which 2012 candidate city would get his vote. Takac mentioned that Slavkov's position on the IOC was an advantage to bypass the rigid rules concerning meetings with other members, and that Slavkov's services fee was included on the initial figures given to the reporters.

In the days leading to the programme's broadcast, the IOC Ethics Commission launched an enquiry to investigate the accusations made in the documentary. Even though the Panorama reporters clearly stated that the London bid was nowhere associated with the investigation, the bid officials made further statements claiming the team had no knowledge and involvement, hoping to distance themselves from the scandal: "What I have to make clear is that London 2012 knew nothing about this—we have nothing to hide," said Alan Pascoe, a London 2012 vice chairman, committing to "do everything we can to co-operate [with the IOC enquiry] and take this story off the running order". Sebastian Coe, also a vice chairman at the time, reaffirmed Pascoe's words and assured "London 2012 has acted properly and ethically throughout the bidding process." After watching the documentary, IOC members and officials cleared London 2012 of any wrongdoing.

Following the broadcast, the IOC provisionally suspended Ivan Slavkov and forbade him from attending the 2004 Summer Olympics. Jacques Rogge claimed he was "an angry man because some people are not playing by the rules," underlining that "Under my leadership, I can stress there is zero tolerance for unethical behaviour". An IOC Ethics Commission report released on 25 October 2004 condemned Slavkov and backed the veracity of the BBC's investigation: "the complete recording of the meeting between Mr Slavkov and the two journalists reveals that: ...at no time and in no way did Mr Slavkov object to this discussion of the terms of a contract to secure a candidate city the votes of IOC members whom he and Mr Takac were likely to be able to influence". Knowing about the accusation, Slavkov argued that he attended the meeting with the purpose of trying to frame the supposed corrupters, however the Ethics Commission report further stated that "at no point does it emerge from the meeting that Mr Slavkov's sole intention was to catch in the act these corrupters of IOC members." It goes on to say that Slavkov received "no mandate to 'find the real roots of corruption'" and that he was to profit monetarily from Takac's services. The report concluded: "Mr Slavkov tarnished the honour and reputation of the Olympic Movement and the IOC... Indeed, an IOC member's involvement in this 'negotiation' lent credibility to the hypothesis advanced by the journalists that there were within the IOC members and agents who could corrupt other IOC members."

On 7 July 2005, during the 117th IOC Session, Ivan Slavkov was expelled from the organisation following an 84–12 voting by the IOC members.

French recriminations following vote
The Paris delegation, led by Bertrand Delanoë, argued that Tony Blair and the London delegation had broken the IOC rules. On 11 July 2005, Delanoë stated: "They have not respected the rules established by the International Olympic Committee. I do not say that they were flirting with the yellow line, I say that they crossed the yellow line". A controversial move by the London bid team was its initiative to offer incentive packages for participating athletes, which included free flights, food, vouchers for long-distance calling and other financial accommodations. Immediately after announcing the initiative, London withdrew it, most likely as a result of Jacques Rogge raising concerns over its potential to start a "bidding war". Paris also claimed that the lobbying by Tony Blair was illegal, an accusation that was strongly denied by Downing Street. It was not until 4 August 2005 that Jacques Rogge suppressed any further controversies by saying in a statement: "I made it very clear that, in my opinion, the competition was fair. It was conducted according to the rules that we have set out". Delanoë's comments were criticised by Parisian political leaders; Claude Goasguen, president of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party of the Council of Paris, stated: "One cannot make such type of accusations without delivering any proof".

Even before the election, tensions grew between the French and British delegations, already in Singapore. The Paris bid team considered submitting a complaint against London bid consultants Jim Sloman and Rod Sheard after they stated that the Stade de France was not adequate for athletics, an action that goes against the IOC rules which forbid any bid to make statements about a rival bid. The London team promptly denied that the two men were under contract with the bid at that time, and underlined that their opinions did not reflect the views of the London bid.

Mistaken voting controversy
On 23 December 2005, Alex Gilady, an Israeli IOC member and a member of the IOC's London 2012 Co-ordination Commission, suggested that Madrid should have tied for second spot with Paris in the third round of voting, but did not do so because Greek member Lambis Nikolaou pressed the wrong button. He further postulated that if this had happened, Madrid would have beaten Paris in the resulting runoff ballot for second place, and gone on to beat London in the final round. However, Craig Reedie, a British IOC member, dismissed these words, commenting that a claim "that an unnamed member 'might' have done something which 'might' have brought about something else which 'might' have brought about a different result is 'the kind of tittle-tattle that happens after many an IOC vote'."

By the end of 2005, Lambis Nikolaou denied Gilady's claims: "All this speculation surrounding my role in the third round of voting for the 2012 candidates is totally unfounded. I state that I did not vote in the third round as I had announced at the time of the vote." This statement was confirmed by the IOC voting numbers, which demonstrate that, even if Nikolaou had voted for Madrid, the city would have failed to beat Paris in the third voting round.

Chirac's culinary comments
Then-French President Jacques Chirac became the subject of controversy the day before the International Olympic Committee was due to pick a host city. Chirac made comments stating that "the only worse food than British food is Finnish" and "the only thing the British have done for Europe's agriculture is mad cow disease". Not only were Chirac's comments considered unsportsmanlike where the normal etiquette is not to criticize rival cities, there were two IOC members from Finland who would vote in the final ballot. While Paris was widely acknowledged as the front runner, the narrow loss to London led many to believe that Chirac's comments were at fault.

Potential applicant cities
Besides the initial nine applicant cities, other cities also wished to bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but the bids were not internally selected by the NOC (in case of more than one bidding city from the same country), were not put forward to the IOC, or were withdrawn before filing the necessary paperwork.

The Nigerian capital, Abuja, planned to present a bid to become the first African city to stage the Olympic Games, but ended up not filling its application. In Asia, four cities were interested in holding the Games, but did not officially submit a bid: Hyderabad, New Delhi, Osaka and Tel Aviv. In South America, the Brazilian Olympic Committee chose Rio de Janeiro over São Paulo, and if Rio de Janeiro had been selected by the IOC, it would have been the first Olympiad staged in South America (four years on, Rio de Janeiro did land the 2016 Summer Olympics). In Canada, Toronto initially planned to gain hosting rights for 2012 after losing the 2008 Olympics bidding process, but because Vancouver landed the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Canadian city cancelled these plans. In the United States, the city of New York was picked by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) over San Francisco, although several other cities submitted candidatures to become the American candidate for the 2012 Olympics; these included Houston, Washington D.C. (in cooperation with nearby Baltimore), Cincinnati, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Seattle and Tampa (in cooperation with nearby Orlando). Several European cities wanted to follow the likes of London, Madrid, Moscow and Paris, and were thus hopeful to gain their NOC's support. Germany chose Leipzig over Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Stuttgart, while in Spain, Seville lost out to Madrid. Other referenced cities were Budapest, Milan, Rome, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Oslo and Copenhagen.

IOC reports

 * IOC Candidature Acceptance Working Group Report (12 May 2004)

Candidature files

 * London
 * Madrid
 * Moscow
 * New York
 * Paris

Applicant files

 * Istanbul
 * Havana
 * Leipzig
 * London
 * Madrid
 * Moscow
 * New York
 * Paris
 * Rio de Janeiro

Other links

 * 117th IOC Session ( 6–9 July 2005—Singapore)
 * 2012 Host City Election—announcement Nuvola apps kaboodle.png (WMV file)

title: Bids for the 2012 Summer Olympics


text:
Sedlec Ossuary

The Sedlec Ossuary (Kostnice v Sedlci; Sedletz-Beinhaus) is a Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints (Czech: Hřbitovní kostel Všech Svatých), part of the former Sedlec Abbey in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, whose bones have, in many cases, been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. The ossuary is among the most visited tourist attractions of the Czech Republic, drawing over 200,000 visitors annually.

Four bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. A chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault. Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a coat of arms of the House of Schwarzenberg, and the signature of František Rint, also executed in bone, on the wall near the entrance.

History
In 1278, Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to the Holy Land by King Ottokar II of Bohemia. He returned with a small amount of earth he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery. The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe.

In the mid 14th century, during the Black Death and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century, many thousands were buried in the abbey cemetery, so it had to be greatly enlarged.

Around 1400, a Gothic church was built in the center of the cemetery with a vaulted upper level and a lower chapel to be used as an ossuary for the mass graves unearthed during construction, or simply slated for demolition to make room for new burials.

After 1511, the task of exhuming skeletons and stacking their bones in the chapel was given to a half-blind monk of the order according the legend.

Between 1703 and 1710, a new entrance was constructed to support the front wall, which was leaning outward, and the upper chapel was rebuilt. This work, in the Czech Baroque style, was designed by Jan Santini Aichel.

In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to put the bone heaps into order, yielding a macabre result. The signature of Rint, also executed in bone, appears on the wall near the entrance to the chapel.

In media
In 1970, the 100th anniversary of Rint's contributions, Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer was commissioned to document the ossuary. The result was a 10-minute-long frantic-cut film of skeletal images overdubbed with an actual tour-guide's neutral voice narration. This version was initially banned by the Czech Communist authorities for alleged subversion, and the soundtrack was replaced by a brief spoken introduction and a jazz arrangement by Zdeněk Liška of the poem "Comment dessiner le portrait d'un oiseau" ("How to Draw the Portrait of a Bird") by Jacques Prévert. Since the Velvet Revolution, the original tour guide soundtrack has been made available.

In the documentary Long Way Round, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman stop to see this church. Dan Cruickshank also views the church in his Adventures in Architecture.

The ossuary is a major plot device in the John Connolly novel The Black Angel.

The ossuary is used as a location for the Dungeons & Dragons movie and the movie Blood & Chocolate.

In April 2002, German author Jason Dark featured the ossuary in issue 1240 Das Knochenkreuz of his long-running dime novel series Geisterjäger John Sinclair. Spanish artist Vicente Ballestar depicted the chapel's monstrance of bones on the novel's cover.

The ossuary was featured in Ripley's Believe it or Not and is described by Cara Seymour in the final scene of the film Adaptation.

The ossuary influenced Dr. Satan's lair in the Rob Zombie film House of 1000 Corpses.

The ossuary appeared on two versions of The Amazing Race: The Amazing Race Australia 1 and HaMerotz LaMillion 2.

A photograph of the chapel's interior was also used as the cover art for the 1998 album Nightwork, by Swedish progressive black metal band Diabolical Masquerade.

title: Sedlec Ossuary


text:
Flexography

Flexography (often abbreviated to flexo) is a form of printing process which utilizes a flexible relief plate. It is essentially a modern version of letterpress, evolved with high speed rotary functionality, which can be used for printing on almost any type of substrate, including plastic, metallic films, cellophane, and paper. It is widely used for printing on the non-porous substrates required for various types of food packaging (it is also well suited for printing large areas of solid colour).

History
In 1890 the first such patented press was built in Liverpool, England by Bibby, Baron and Sons. The water-based ink smeared easily, leading the device to be known as "Bibby's Folly". In the early 1900s, other European presses using rubber printing plates and aniline oil-based ink were developed. This led to the process being called "aniline printing". By the 1920s, most presses were made in Germany, where the process was called "gummidruck", or rubber printing. In modern-day Germany, the process continues to be called "gummidruck".

During the early part of the 20th century, the technique was used extensively in food packaging in the United States. However, in the 1940s, the Food and Drug Administration classified aniline dyes as unsuitable for food packaging and as a result, printing sales plummeted. Individual firms tried using new names for the process, such as "Lustro Printing" and "Transglo Printing", but met with limited success. Even after the Food and Drug Administration approved the aniline process in 1949 using new, safe inks, sales continued to decline as some food manufacturers still refused to consider aniline printing. Worried about the image of the industry, packaging representatives decided the process needed to be renamed.

In 1951 Franklin Moss, then the president of the Mosstype Corporation, conducted a poll among the readers of his journal The Mosstyper to submit new names for the printing process. Over 200 names were submitted, and a subcommittee of the Packaging Institute's Printed Packaging Committee narrowed the selection to three possibilities: "permatone process", "rotopake process", and "flexographic process". Postal ballots from readers of The Mosstyper overwhelmingly chose the last of these, and "flexographic process" was chosen.

Evolution
Originally, flexographic printing was rudimentary in quality. Labels requiring high quality have generally been printed using the offset process until recently. Since 1990, great advances have been made to the quality of flexographic printing presses, printing plates, ink systems and printing inks.

The greatest advances in flexographic printing have been in the area of photopolymer printing plates, including improvements to the plate material and the method of plate creation.

Digital direct to plate systems have seen a good improvement in the industry recently. Companies like DuPont, Kodak, XSYS, and Esko have pioneered the latest technologies, with advances in fast washout and the latest screening technology.

Laser-etched ceramic anilox rolls along with chambered ink systems, have also played a part in the improvement of print quality. Full-color picture printing is now possible, and some of the finer presses available today, in combination with a skilled operator, allow quality that rivals the lithographic process. One ongoing improvement has been the increasing ability to reproduce highlight tonal values, thereby providing a workaround for the very high dot gain associated with flexographic printing.

Process overview
1. Platemaking

The first method of plate development uses light-sensitive polymer. A film negative is placed over the plate, which is exposed to ultra-violet light. The polymer hardens where light passes through the film. The remaining polymer has the consistency of chewed gum. It is washed away in a tank of either water or solvent. Brushes scrub the plate to facilitate the "washout" process. The process can differ depending on whether solid sheets of photopolymer or liquid photopolymer are used, but the principle is still the same. The plate to be washed out is fixed in the orbital washout unit on a sticky base plate. The plate is washed out in a mixture of water and 1% dishwasher soap, at a temperature of approximately 40 °C. The unit is equipped with a dual membrane filter. With this the environmental burdening is kept to an absolute minimum. The membrane unit separates photopolymer from the washout water. After addition of absorb gelatine for example, the photopolymer residue can be disposed of as standard solid waste together with household refuse. The recycled water is re-used without adding any detergent. The second method uses a computer-guided laser to etch the image onto the printing plate. Such a direct laser engraving process is called digital platemaking. Companies such as AV Flexologic, Glunz & Jensen, XSYS, Esko, Kodak, Polymount, Screen and SPGPrints from The Netherlands are market leaders in manufacturing this type of equipment.

The third method is to go through a molding process. The first step is to create a metal plate out of the negative of our initial image through an exposition process (followed by an acid bath). In the early days the metal used was zinc, leading to the name 'zincos'. Later, magnesium was used. This metal plate in relief is then used in the second step to create the mold that could be in bakelite board or even glass or plastic, through a first molding process. Once cooled, this master mold will press the rubber or plastic compound (under both controlled temperature and pressure) through a second molding process to create the printing plate or cliche.

2. Mounting

For every colour to be printed, a plate is made and eventually put on a cylinder which is placed in the printing press. To make a complete picture, regardless of printing on flexible film or corrugated paper, the image transferred from each plate has to register exactly with the images transferred from the other colors. To ensure an accurate picture is made, mounting marks are made on the flexographic plates. These mounting marks can be microdots (down to 0.3 mm) and/or crosses. Special machinery is made for mounting these plates on the printing cylinders to maintain registration. Earle L. Harley invented and patent the Opti-Chek Mounting and Proofing machine enabling the operator to check the registration before going to the press. Precision mounting is critical for producing good quality print which is in the register and has a direct impact on minimizing waste. The mounting process needs to deliver the same accurate result each time a job is mounted, consistent accuracy is the target. For simplicity we'll refer to print sleeves throughout this module but you can substitute cylinders if these are used in your operation.

Generally plates are mounted directly onto the print sleeve but for corrugated operations, plates are mounted onto a carrier sheet that is fixed to the print sleeve in the press when required, it is removed and kept in storage between print runs. You'll find out about carriers in the corrugated section of this module.

There are two key areas to achieve effective plate mounting, positioning the plate correctly and achieving a good bond.

Positioning is achieved by correctly lining up register marks that are common to each plate in the set. The skill is to plan carefully exactly where these marks should be. A variety of marks can be used, register crosses and micro dots. A good bond is achieved by means of special mounting tape. Accurate positioning is essential or the images of each colour will not be superimposed correctly, they will be out of register.

Types of registration marks

These are various types of mark used for aligning the plates correctly:

Registration crosses are commonly used but need to be positioned in waste areas as they are easily seen on the print, they can also be used as a guide for aligning the print to a bag or box structure if this is required.

Micro dots as the name suggests are tiny dots on the plate, usually about a quarter of a millimeter across in labels and flexible packaging but 1mm diameter in corrugated. Since they are so small they don't have to be in waste areas as they are not easily seen.

On most mounting machines the dots or crosses on the plates are lined up using magnifying cameras, the higher the magnification the greater the accuracy.

Register crosses are more common in label and corrugated printing where waste and hidden folds are normal, the microdot is common in flexible packaging where waste is kept to a minimum and no un-required marks are to be seen on the packaging (example meat, dairy and hygiene).

The location of registration marks, whether crosses or microdots, is essential to the success of plate mounting. If they are incorrect, mounting can be difficult, time-consuming and inaccurate, so they need to be planned carefully. The marks should be positioned symmetrically

Always have a pair positioned in the middle of the plate in line with the sleeve axis. It is also recommended to have two more pairs, one at either end so a simple rotation and check under the cameras confirms the plate has not twisted when it was laid/stuck down.

Register Mark Mounting

The most common form of mounting is register mark - also known as video mounting. When the print is run the register marks should print on top of each other indicating that the plates are correctly aligned. The register marks on the plate are lined up using magnifying cameras.

To align the plates accurately a mounting system using video cameras is required. Each print sleeve is transferred to the mounting system in turn.

Each sleeve is fixed in the mounter by a clamping system and mounting tape is then applied to the sleeve.

The high magnification video cameras (positioned on a precision machined camera beam) are moved into the required position for the plate to be mounted, accurate measurement of this setting is critical. The plate is then adhered to the sleeve using a mounting tape (see item 5) and the complete unit removed from the mounting machine.

The next sleeve is loaded and the plate mounted in position by positioning the register marks on the plate based on the previously fixed camera positions. This ensures that every plate is mounted in the same position and thus the print is in register.

The same principle is applied for multiple plates across the sleeve and so either two cameras per plate are used or two cameras are used which move into the correct position driven by servo motors and camera setting software. To step plates around the sleeve to minimise risk of bounce is done either mechanically using an index disc or by use of stepper motors to drive and lock it in position.

Each plate is mounted on a double sided adhesive tape - there are many types of mounting tape and it is important to use the correct thickness and hardness. Adhesive type also needs to be correct for your mounting process (see Tape Features)

The tape is applied to the sleeve being careful to lay it on without trapping air underneath it (must be flat to sleeve). A small strip of the tape liner is removed to leave the adhesive exposed initially.

The plate is carefully positioned over tape, usually by hand so that the register marks are seen directly below the cameras.

The cameras provide an enlarged visual display indicating whether or not the register marks are correctly positioned in line with crosshair targets. If necessary the plate position is adjusted. Once the plate is accurately aligned, it's pressed onto the strip of exposed mounting tape. The rest of the tape liner is then removed or a plate support table is moved so that the remainder of the plate can be laid onto the sleeve. This is done with each sleeve in turn so that all the plates register correctly.

Flexo plate mounting equipment includes many options to increase efficiency. These include tables to lay the plate on to make maneuvering the plate into position simpler, lay down (pressure) rollers to eliminate air bubble inclusions, tape application options, plate and tape cutting options and moving cameras, replacing multiple camera mounting systems.

In recent years higher quality demands from customers, shorter and more frequent job runs result in an increasing relative cost of the prepress department.

To counter this, automatic mounting provides up to 10x faster plate mounting than traditional plate mounting, no operator dependency and the highest possible accuracy and consistency down to 5 micron (0.0002 inch) per plate.

3. Printing

A flexographic print is made by creating a positive mirrored master of the required image as a 3D relief in a rubber or polymer material. Flexographic plates can be created with analog and digital platemaking processes. The image areas are raised above the non image areas on the rubber or polymer plate. The ink is transferred from the ink roll which is partially immersed in the ink tank. Then it transfers to the anilox or ceramic roll (or meter roll) whose texture holds a specific amount of ink since it is covered with thousands of small wells or cups that enable it to meter ink to the printing plate in a uniform thickness evenly and quickly (the number of cells per linear inch can vary according to the type of print job and the quality required). To avoid getting a final product with a smudgy or lumpy look, it must be ensured that the amount of ink on the printing plate is not excessive. This is achieved by using a scraper, called a doctor blade. The doctor blade removes excess ink from the anilox roller before inking the printing plate. The substrate is finally sandwiched between the plate and the impression cylinder to transfer the image. The sheet is then fed through a dryer, which allows the inks to dry before the surface is touched again. If a UV-curing ink is used, the sheet does not have to be dried, but the ink is cured by UV rays instead.

Basic parts of the press

 * Unwind and infeed section – The roll of stock must be held under control so the web can unwind as needed.
 * Printing section – Single color station including the fountain or ink chamber, anilox, plate and impression rolls.
 * Drying station – High velocity heated air, specially formulated inks and an after-dryer can be used.
 * Outfeed and rewind section – Similar to the unwind segment, keeps web tension controlled.

Operational overview
1. Fountain roller

The fountain roller transfers ink located in an ink pan to a second roller, an anilox roller. In modern flexographic printing, the anilox roll is referred to as a type of meter or metering roller.

2. Anilox roller

The anilox roll is a unique characteristic of flexography. The anilox roller transfers a uniform thickness of ink to a flexible printing plate. The anilox roll has finely engraved cells with a particular ink capacity, viewable with a microscope. These rollers are responsible for transferring inks to the flexible printing plates mounted on the plate cylinders.

3. Doctor blade (optional) An optional doctor blade scrapes the anilox roll to ensure that the ink to be delivered to the flexible printing plate is only what is contained within the engraved cells. Doctor blades had predominantly been made of steel, but advanced doctor blades are now made of polymer materials with several different types of beveled edges.

4. Plate cylinder

The plate cylinder holds the printing plate, which is made from a soft flexible rubber-like material. Tape, magnets, tension straps and/or ratchets hold the printing plate against the plate cylinder.

5. Impression cylinder

The impression cylinder applies pressure to the plate cylinder where the image is transferred to the image-receiving substrate. This impression cylinder or "print anvil" is required to apply pressure to the plate cylinder.

Flexographic printing inks
The nature and demands of the printing process and the application of the printed product determine the fundamental properties required of flexographic inks. Measuring the physical properties of inks and understanding how these are affected by the choice of ingredients is a large part of ink technology. Formulation of inks requires a detailed knowledge of the physical and chemical properties of the raw materials composing the inks, and how these ingredients affect or react with each other as well as with the environment. Flexographic printing inks are primarily formulated to remain compatible with the wide variety of substrates used in the process. Each formulation component individually fulfills a special function and the proportion and composition will vary according to the substrate.

There are five types of inks that can be used in flexography:
 * solvent-based inks
 * water-based inks
 * electron beam (EB) curing inks
 * ultraviolet (UV) curing inks
 * two-part chemically-curing inks (usually based on polyurethane isocyanate reactions) - although these are uncommon at the moment

Water based flexo inks with particle sizes below 5 μm may cause problems when deinking recycled paper.

Ink controls
The ink is controlled in the flexographic printing process by the ink system. The ink system contains an ink pump, anilox roll and either a fountain roll system or doctor blade system. The fountain roll or two-roll system has one roll spinning in an ink pan pressed against the anilox roll to transfer a layer of ink to then be applied to the printing plate. This system is best used for low quality print such as flood coats and block lettering due to its inability to produce a clean wipe of the anilox roll. The doctor blade system can either be an open single blade system or an enclosed dual blade system. The single blade system uses an open ink pan with a roller that is then sheared with one doctor blade to create a uniform layer of ink to be distributed. The remaining ink sheared from the anilox roll will collect in the ink pan to then be pumped back into the system. The cylinder plate, anilox, and doctor blade are independently controlled by hydraulic, pressure and/or pneumatic systems. This system is best used for low to mid quality print work - usually found in corrugated box printing. The dual blade system is an enclosed system that has one doctor blade for doctoring the ink and one containment blade that contains the ink in the chamber and allows ink from the anilox roll back in. Dual blade systems require 2 end seals and adequate chamber pressure in order to maintain the tight seal between the ink chamber and the anilox roll. This system is best used for high quality, intricate print designs, like those found in the label industry.

Applications
Flexo has an advantage over lithography in that it can use a wider range of inks, water based rather than oil based inks, and is good at printing on a variety of different materials like plastic, foil, acetate film, brown paper, and other materials used in packaging. Typical products printed using flexography include brown corrugated boxes, flexible packaging including retail and shopping bags, food and hygiene bags and sacks, milk and beverage cartons, flexible plastics, self-adhesive labels, disposable cups and containers, envelopes and wallpaper. In recent years there has also been a move towards laminates, where two or more materials are bonded together to produce new material with different properties than either of the originals. A number of newspapers now eschew the more common offset lithography process in favour of flexo. Flexographic inks, like those used in gravure and unlike those used in lithography, generally have a low viscosity. This enables faster drying and, as a result, faster production, which results in lower costs.

Printing press speeds of up to 750 meters per minute (2000 feet per minute) are achievable now with modern technology high-end printers. Flexo printing is widely used in the converting industry for printing plastic materials for packaging and other end uses. For maximum efficiency, the flexo presses produce large rolls of material that are then slit down to their finished size on slitting machines.

title: Flexography