text:
Talk:International Baccalaureate

Organization
"The IB is a nonprofit organization,[22] selling its products and services to schools in a system analogous to a franchise network. Schools buy products and services from the IB – assessments, publications, the right to use branding – and in turn schools act as distributors, reselling the products and services to families.[23]"

The comparison to a franchise seems very odd. I don't see this as different than what College Board does with AP, or pretty much how it works when contracting with any educational organization or company. I don't see the same sort of wording on the College Board / AP articles. I don't believe the comparison is appropriate without the same sort of wording being used on other pages related to educational programs. It sounds as if it is significantly different from how agreements with other organizations/companies; of my knowledge, it isn't significantly different. As such, this passage seems misleading.

--2600:1700:2E4F:2C00:607F:26BD:94B4:11FF (talk) 03:07, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

IB admits marking guides plagiarized from Wikipedia, pledges inquiry
From the TES:

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6060245

--TS 20:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems as if this is not getting as much attention as it deserves; does anyone else feel that something needs to be done about this? I don't know enough about the legal consequences of plagiarism so I am unable to suggest any action to be taken; perhaps someone who knows enough about this can fill in the gap. I would truly be saddened to see that an organization which so strongly emphasizes the importance of academic integrity has gotten away with so blatantly committing a violation of this caliber. I have seen the plagiarized documents and it is quite shocking to see how much of what was sold by the IB to numerous educational institutes around the world is actually the work of Wikipedia editors -- almost completely word for word. If I get the chance, I will upload these documents and put up a link for others to see. Also if anyone thinks that this should be brought to the attention of Wikimedia then I would appreciate any suggestions for contacting their personnel as I have yet to find an appropriate person to contact. User:MONODA (talk) 15:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that if anyone is interested, I can provide more information on the topic as I am in contact with a few of the members involved in uncovering this "scandal." It's ironic how the IB does not accept Wikipedia as a legitimate source for papers that students write yet would find it fitting to use it for its own economic growth. User:MONODA (talk) 15:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

 * I noticed this from Tony's utalk page. You can bring it to the attention of the Wikimedia Foundation but it's unlikely (IMO) they'll get involved, since they don't actually own the copied material. It is we, the individual editors, who own copyright in the creative material we ourselves have published here. Now an individual editor could certainly pursue legal action if their material has been copied without attribution for monetary gain. If they have the 100,000 dollars or pounds or euros to even get within smelling distance of an actual court trial. And of course copyvio is not a criminal offence (as commented elsewhere) it is a civil offence. And a statutory offence no less, since there really are no tort damages to speak of when you feely contribute material - so the judge is just going to say "you win, you get $1000 as mandated by the statute, have a nice day". Unattributed copying from Wikipedia (and from everywhere else too) happens all the time, it is unfortunate ranging to despicable, but I seriously doubt WMF will get involved to any serious degree.
 * We have enough problems of our own too with plagiarism and copyvio, with only a few volunteers willing to tackle the endless tide (see WP:CCI and hooray for User:Moonriddengirl!!!). Externally though, on its face this looks pretty blatant, so do feel free to pursue it off-site. You could also open a discussion thread, probably at WP:Village pump (miscellaneous) to see if there is wider interest in pursuing the matter. Other than that, and just my own opinion - shrugs... Franamax (talk) 19:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

 * It's not really anything for Wikipedia to fuss about, but it may belong in this article. --TS 21:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

From the Brisbane Times: --TS 11:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/education/marking-aids-copied-from-net-20101021-16w5f.html

 * It wouldn't, I think, fit neatly into the "Reception" section, but might with a bit of re-work. The TES article also mentions that "The news follows last month’s public naming and shaming of Jeffrey Beard, IBO director general, for plagiarising the work of another educationalist in a speech without acknowledging his source." I appreciate that there's a difference between the two events, but it might a way to segue something in to the article. TFOWR 11:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Tony Sideaway. It may belong in the article. It needs some careful positioning and wording to avoid the two spectrum ends (IB bad, plagiarism rife <---> IB pick up on plagiarism quickly - hurrah!). Hi, TFOWR - The Jeffrey Beard one was a major clanger! What's not reported though is that Beard plagiarised work by Ken Robinson who himself had not acknowledged one of his own quotes as being adapted from Yeats! Candy (talk) 07:05, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the creation of a "Criticism" section would be appropriate here. In addition to discussing this it could also mention other criticisms of the IB in general. User:MONODA (talk) 12:17, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

 * Wow! Great work getting the IB plagiarism incidents into this article. I'm impressed! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.108.38.139 (talk) 17:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

 * I don't see how it's plagiarism if an educational institution copies information from Wikipedia for course purposes. That is what Wikipedia is all about, information sharing. If a student copies information verbatim into a paper he/she is writing for marks, without attribution to Wikipedia, that would be plagiarism, but educational institutions and teachers should be able to copy specific information freely without the lawyers and media getting into a tizzy about where it comes from. Under Canadian copyright law, for instance, educators and students are allowed to copy entire encyclopedia articles verbatim for educational purposes (although not entire encyclopedias), and Wikipedia explicitly licenses and encourages readers to copy shareable information. When I put something in a Wikipedia article, I assume that people are going to copy anything I write, and that's why I put it there. I've edited hundreds of articles and I neither expect nor want attribution. I just want to share information that I know with other people that need it.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:25, 26 June 2016 (UTC) ... I accidentally posted this to the Article rather than Talk. Sorry about that.... The hazards of having too many windows open at once.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 16:40, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Centers
Is there any difference between the Global Center in Bethesda and the Regional IBA Center in the same city? --Мурад 97 (talk) 13:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Schools Offering International Baccalaureate
I suggest that this section is removed.

The reason is that there are currently over 4500 schools offering one or more IB programmes and the list provided barely scratches that surface. Instead a link can be added to the IB's Find a World School which would benefit the reader more as it would provide far more current and relevant data than can be found on Wikipedia. This link can be added through prose in the text together with relevant, cited information about the IB's claim for the number of schools. I further suggest that this is trivial criteria for a list in this wiki entry. It will also prevent the section being used as a promotional page for schools, organisations or individuals. The revision history shows that multiple people edit this by adding one school.

If I don't hear a good argument for retention, I will be bold :D

Candy (talk) 00:31, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

 * I have removed the external links, reduced the list to those schools that already have an en-wikipedia article, divided into columns, and added the link to the full list - I think this is manageable - Arjayay (talk) 17:41, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Candy. Leave the external link. The lists look ridiculous. -Observer — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.129.195.176 (talk) 13:54, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

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Split of "Schools Offering International Baccalaureate"
I believe that this section should be split into a list article, something like List of International Baccalaureate Schools. It is currently very long, and doesn't seem to serve a purpose for people reading the article; therefore it would be more useful as a separate article, where readers looking for such a list will find it. Yeenosaurus  (talk) 🍁 09:13, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree - I didn't agree with this in January 2017, but the list has since grown from about 200 schools to about 700, so I think it is now time for it to be split off. - Arjayay (talk) 09:37, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This is not a WP:RFC matter, please use Template:Split and follow the directions at WP:SPLIT. -- Red rose64 🌹 (talk) 21:18, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't the list be titled "List of International Baccalaureate World Schools"? They are called IB World Schools. — bieχχ (talk) 08:42, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

2020 Grading Scheme Allegations
I believe that adding this so called "scandal" is mandatory for the future IB students and their parents that are planning to enrol their students into the program. I also believe that it should not be censored at all, as the IB have mostly kept quiet and have not been transparent about the situation. The addition of these allegations should get the IB to speak up on their grading system and give an explanation as to how they have done it. Again, this is not some angry student that is mad and took to wikipedia to talk about it, I have been perfectly neutral on this situation. However, what I am against is the organization being very quiet about the grading system and I thought that it should be reflected. I would like to get the permission from others to post at least some of the content to the IB's page.

Obviously, there have been others who hit the page to put down that the "IB is a scam organization" etc... This is unacceptable and I do not agree with such actions.

article addition block quoted by user:Meters for clarity Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the IBO have cancelled all May 2020 exams (known as M20). Instead, they will be using the students predicted grades, along with the already finished coursework. In a statement, the IBO have said that they will "be using vast historical assessment data to ensure that we follow a rigorous process of due diligence in what is a truly unprecedent situation." and that they "will require schools to submit the coursework for all candidates. We will externally mark work that is usually marked by teachers, instead of taking samples and applying moderation."

Prior to grades becoming public, a data analyst voiced concern about the grading model, arguing that using pure statistics was bound to introduce bias in the given grades and disfavor schools with few students or with less historical data available.

However, on results day thousands of students have voiced their opinions and upsets on the grading system through social media and petitions. They have "condemned this year's results as a scandal after receiving lower-than-expected grades in a system accused of lacking transparency." This left many students with a grade "shockingly" lower than expected, accusing the IBO of "lacking transparency." The IB have since then denied any wrongdoing, explaining that the grade calculation is "justifiable." — Preceding unsigned comment added by  Hellofriendshello (talk • contribs) 22:06, July 8, 2020 (UTC)

 * I've undone the addition again pending this discussion. I don't know if the IP who originally undid this edit will see this or wish to comment, but I share the IP's concerns about htis material, at least in part. Yes we should should cover this, but some of the sources are not anything we can use, and I feel some of the material should probably not be included at all. This should have been discussed before the first restore, let alone the second. Meters (talk) 23:44, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

 * First point: The section header "2020 Grading Scheme Allegations" does not follow WP:MOS wrt capital letters, and is not appropriate. There are no allegations here.. The IB people have had to make accommodations to grading to  handle COVID-19. They have said what they are doing. Some people are not happy with the results. The original header "2020 Grading Controversy" (actually "2020 grading controversy" per WP:HEADERS) was more accurate, but i would prefer something completely neutral,. along hte lines of "2020 COVID-19 grading accommodation" Meters (talk) 23:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * First para: Not bad. The entire paragraph is sourced to one ref so we don't need the first, duplicated ref call. I suggest paraphrasing the extensive quotes. We don't need the exact words from the press release, just  a description of how they were going to handle  the situation. The paragraph could use some copy editing wrt tenses. Meters (talk) 00:07, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

 * Second para: Interesting analysis, but we cannot use it. This is simply someone's personal website blog, and there is no indication that this person can be considered an expert in the field. tt is not a WP:RS . We don't present website blogs as expert opinions. The comment at the end of the post thanking his mom and dad "for reviewing drafts of my first article ever!" is telling. We would need reliable sources before adding this material.  Meters (talk) 00:27, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

 * Third para: A train wreck. Students (and parents) are complaining online that they didn't like the changes and that their marks were too low. I'm sure they are. Students everywhere lost out this year. These are unprecedented times, and we're seeing unprecedented solutions in an attempt to handle the situation.  One of my local universities, one of the top  schools in my country, only gave pass/fail grades this term.
 * I'm not going to bother analyzing this paragraph in detail as it stands. I got fed up after repeatedly failing to find the supposed quotes in the sources. Rewrite it neutrally, without fake quotes and without scare quotes and I'll look at it again. Meters (talk) 01:06, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

 * I do understand where youre coming from. Is there a way that I can send you my newer version? If not, Ill just send it here in a bit, once I think of another approach to the whole source.

 * Please note that I have not written the second paragraph, I have written a few articles (minor to bigger edits) and I have some (not a lot) of experience when it comes to this on my accounts from years ago. As for the title, the one that you suggested will be included as I do agree that it does sound more justifiable. The first paragraph does require a few more sources, youre right on that. Since yesterday, quite a few more news articles came out about the "scandal" and I will make sure to include them if theyre relevant.

 * While I do agree that everyone is in very unprecidented times right now, I thoroughly believe that this is one of a kind. If we go by personal experiences, about 60% of my friends that have just finished IB have lost their university offers due to this non-transparent grading system. For instance, their predicted grade was a 38, however they ended up with a 29. Personally, I have not gone through this but I wish to document their worries. Once again, I do understand where youre coming from but the fact that the IB have been absolutely non transparent with this whole process and have not said a thing is not acceptable and that is why I think that a section on this "scandal" should be documented.

 * On a side note, I appreciate the fact that youre agreeing to work something out for this matter. I will post an alternate version in a bit that involved accurate and correct information. Cheers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hellofriendshello (talk • contribs) 01:26, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I've linked to this discussion with a neutral notice at the high schools project    for more input. Meters (talk) 02:48, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

 * Right, here is the first paragraph that I redid. It does contain some quotes from the source but theyre not huge chunks. (Undid the previous one due to a wrong source!)

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the IBO have cancelled all May 2020 exams (known as M20). Instead, they promised to use predicted grades, along with the already finished coursework and specific schools' correlation between the final result and the students predicted grades in the past years. In a statement, the IBO have said that they will "be using vast historical assessment data” to ensure that they create “fair” grade judgement, requiring the schools to send in all student work from 2018 onwards. Additionally, the IB has assured their students that their “calculation” will make sure that there is no advantage to the students that do better in their coursework compared to their exams.

(edit: Same user as savaajankovic, I was on two different browsers by mistake, my bad :p... sticking to this one so that I dont get another claim for sock puppetry)

Hellofriendshello (talk) 17:47, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

 * I am still not sure whether there should be another paragraph after the second one, which would perhaps focus more on the reaction and the so called "calculation".

Hellofriendshello (talk) 22:52, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

 * It's completely reasonable to include this matter in the article, but NB neutrality is still expected. Labelling an issue as a 'scandal' immediately depletes any impression of neutrality. Let's keep improving this section as the story unfolds. ByzantiumLives (talk) 13:23, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

 * The WP:SPA Hellofriendshello went silent after a block from this article for socking. Now another SPA has appeared and rewritten the section, again with significant POV and sourcing issues, at least in some sections. We should cover this, but neutrally and accurately. We're not going to attempt to entice readers to sign petitions by making up ref titles such "Sign the Petition", and we're not going to pretend that sources say certain things when they don't. I'll go through it once more. Meters (talk) 00:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks Meters, that sounds sensible and helpful. I'm happy to collaborate with you on that.ByzantiumLives (talk) 12:38, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
 * And now ByzantiumLives is CU blocked. Meters (talk) 20:11, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

May 2021 exams
I would like to remind all users to reference all new information, following Wikipedia's policy on verifiability. Change.org is not a reliable source (accusations of fake signatures, for example) and has been blacklisted (so no content on Wikipedia can link to this site), so please do not add petition information from Change.org in the article. Threedotshk (talk) 07:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, let's not see the the 2020 mess again. This article isn't the place for POV edits by students who are unhappy about the effect of the pandemic. Everyone is in the same boat. Keep the changes sourced and neutral. For example, a newspaper interview with four students is not evidence that "hundreds of thousands" of students are concerned for  their "mental and physical health, safety, the comparative inefficacy of online learning, and having been bereaved of family members", and wed don't need to use language such as the "unrelenting exacerbation of the Coronavirus Pandemic". Meters (talk) 20:18, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And what the UK chooses to do with their (non-IB) exams has nothing to do with this article. Meters (talk) 00:53, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
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title: Talk:International Baccalaureate


text:
Field guide

A field guide is a book designed to help the reader identify wildlife (flora or fauna or funga) or other objects of natural occurrence (e.g. rocks and minerals). It is generally designed to be brought into the "field" or local area where such objects exist to help distinguish between similar objects. Field guides are often designed to help users distinguish animals and plants that may be similar in appearance but are not necessarily closely related.

It will typically include a description of the objects covered, together with paintings or photographs and an index. More serious and scientific field identification books, including those intended for students, will probably include identification keys to assist with identification, but the publicly accessible field guide is more often a browsable picture guide organized by family, colour, shape, location or other descriptors.

History
Popular interests in identifying things in nature probably were strongest in bird and plant guides. Perhaps the first popular field guide to plants in the United States was the 1893 How to Know the Wildflowers by "Mrs. William Starr Dana" (Frances Theodora Parsons). In 1890, Florence Merriam published Birds Through an Opera-Glass, describing 70 common species. Focused on living birds observed in the field, the book is considered the first in the tradition of modern, illustrated bird guides. In 1902, now writing as Florence Merriam Bailey (having married the zoologist Vernon Bailey), she published Handbook of Birds of the Western United States. By contrast, the Handbook is designed as a comprehensive reference for the lab rather a portable book for the field. It was arranged by taxonomic order and had clear descriptions of species size, distribution, feeding, and nesting habits.

From this point into the 1930s, features of field guides were introduced by Chester A. Reed and others such as changing the size of the book to fit the pocket, including colour plates, and producing guides in uniform editions that covered subjects such as garden and woodland flowers, mushrooms, insects, and dogs.

In 1934, Roger Tory Peterson, using his fine skill as an artist, changed the way modern field guides approached identification. Using color plates with paintings of similar species together – and marked with arrows showing the differences – people could use his bird guide in the field to compare species quickly to make identification easier. This technique, the "Peterson Identification System", was used in most of Peterson's Field Guides from animal tracks to seashells and has been widely adopted by other publishers and authors as well.

Today, each field guide has its own range, focus and organization. Specialist publishers such as Croom Helm, along with organisations like the Audubon Society, the RSPB, the Field Studies Council, National Geographic, HarperCollins, and many others all produce quality field guides.

Principles
It is somewhat difficult to generalise about how field guides are intended to be used, because this varies from one guide to another, partly depending on how expert the targeted reader is expected to be.

For general public use, the main function of a field guide is to help the reader identify a bird, plant, rock, butterfly or other natural object down to at least the popular naming level. To this end some field guides employ simple keys and other techniques: the reader is usually encouraged to scan illustrations looking for a match, and to compare similar-looking choices using information on their differences. Guides are often designed to first lead readers to the appropriate section of the book, where the choices are not so overwhelming in number.

Guides for students often introduce the concept of identification keys. Plant field guides such as Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (which is limited in scope to the wildflowers of northeastern North America) frequently have an abbreviated key that helps limit the search. Insect guides tend to limit identification to Order or Family levels rather than individual species, due to their diversity.

Many taxa show variability and it is often difficult to capture the constant features using a small number of photographs. Illustrations by artists or post processing of photographs help in emphasising specific features needed to for reliable identification. Peterson introduced the idea of lines to point to these key features. This passage was written by his wife, Virginia Marie Peterson, in the preface to one of his field guides:

"A drawing can do much more than a photograph to emphasize the field marks. A photograph is a record of a fleeting instant; a drawing is a composite of the artist's experience. The artist can edit out, show field marks to best advantage, and delete unnecessary clutter. He can choose position and stress basic color and pattern unmodified by transitory light and shade. ... The artist has more options and far more control ... Whereas a photograph can have a living immediacy a good drawing is really more instructive."

Field guides aid in improving the state of knowledge of various taxa. By making the knowledge of experienced museum specialists available to amateurs, they increase the gathering of information by amateurs from a wider geographic area and increasing the communication of these findings to the specialists.

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

title: Field guide


text:
BIOSCI

BIOSCI, also known as Bionet, is a set of electronic communication forum used by life scientists around the world. It includes the Bionet Usenet newsgroups and parallel e-mail lists, with public archives since 1992 at www.bio.net. BIOSCI/Bionet provides public, open access biology news and discussion for areas such as molecular biology methods and reagents, bioinformatics software and computational biology, toxicology, and several organism communities including yeast, C.elegans and annelida (worms), the plant arabidopsis, fruitfly, maize (corn), and others.

BIOSCI/Bionet was started as part of the GenBank public biosequence database project by Intelligenetics at Stanford University in the mid-1980s, in collaboration with Martin Bishop and Michael Ashburner in the University of Cambridge. It latter moved to the United Kingdom's MRC Rosalind Franklin Centre for Genomics Research (RFCGR). In 2005, with the closing of RFCGR, BIOSCI/Bionet moved to Indiana University Biology Department's IUBio Archive. As one of the earliest bioinformatics community projects on the Internet, GenBank acquired the bio.net domain and the Usenet hierarchy of Bionet for promoting open access communications among bioscientists, in conjunction with public biology data distribution.

Michael Ashburner, co-founder of BIOSCI with Dave Kristofferson of GenBank (Intelligenetics), writes of its origins "... in the early 1980s, Martin Bishop and I ran an email news service for a sequence analysis service that we ran on the Cambridge IBM3084Q mainframe. I was also a user of MOLGEN at Stanford, and there Dave Kristofferson ran an internal bulletin board using ANU News. We combined forces to start the Bulletin boards."

Bionet has provided open access, Internet news groups and discussion for many thousands of life scientists for 30 years. As of 2019 April, discussion lists are suspended, but are archived for reading. A new supporting organization is sought to continue Bionet into its fourth decade, as Indiana University will no longer support this public service to biologists.

The Usenet hierarchy of Bionet.* includes bionet.announce (general biology announcements), and research communities of bionet.microbiology, bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts, bionet.neuroscience, bionet.genome.arabidopsis, bionet.plants.education, bionet.drosophila, bionet.biology.computational plus 50 other active areas of discussion.

title: BIOSCI


text:
Saber Marionette

Saber Marionette (セイバーマリオネット) is a Japanese series created by Satoru Akahori featuring android girls. It has been produced in the form of anime, manga, and light novels.

In January 1995, a twelve-episode audio drama series called SM Girls Saber Marionette R aired on the radio show Nowanchatte Say You. The audio drama concluded in April 1995, and the story was continued one month later with the release of the first episode of the Saber Marionette R OVA. Episode two was released in late July 1995, and in September 1995, the final episode was released.

From April, 1995 to December 1995, an incomplete seven-chapter manga titled SM Girls Gaiden Saber Marionette Z was published in the Gakken's magazine AnimeV, in its Vcomi section. It was illustrated by Megumu Okada and never published in a tankōbon format. The eighth chapter was released in a novel format. Later, Akahori and Katsumi Hasegawa attempted to re-compose the story as a Saber Marionette R 2 novel, but it was never realized and was released as another novel.

In October 1995 the SM Girls Saber Marionette J audio drama series premiered on Nowanchatte Say You and ran until January 1996. In October 1996 the Saber Marionette J anime series aired. The series ran through March 1997 with 25 episodes. Beginning with a short story published in the October 1994 issue of Gekkan Dragon Magazine, twelve volumes of serialized light novels were produced. A manga series illustrated by Yumisuke Kotoyoshi was adapted from an anime series serialized in the Gekkan Dragon Jr. and then in Gekkan Comic Dragon.

In October 1997, a sequel arrived on video, the Saber Marionette J Again OVA. In June 1998, the sixth and final episodes of the OVA were released. In October 1998, the Saber Marionette J to X TV series was first broadcast. The series ran for 26 episodes, concluding in March 1999.

A manga titled Saber Marionette 2: Shiritsu Oedo Gakuen Koubouki started serializing in Fujimi Shobo's Gekkan Dragon Magazine in October 2000, but it was soon canceled.

A manga titled Saber Marionette i − Neo Gene illustrated by Megane Ōtomo started its serialization in July 2008 in Fujimi Shobo's Gekkan Dragon Age and was finally compiled in one tankōbon.

In July 2015, the group then known as Animation Innovation Content (AIC) Project (currently: Saber Project) announced that it had licensed the rights to the franchise, and simultaneously announced the launch of the Saber "re:anime project".

Timeline

 * Arrival of the colony ship Mesopotamia at the planet Terra 2
 * 300 years after arrival
 * Saber Marionette J
 * Saber Marionette J Again
 * Saber Marionette J to X
 * 500 years after arrival
 * SM Girls Saber Marionette R audio drama
 * Saber Marionette R (OVA)
 * Saber Marionette i − Neo Gene (manga)
 * 800 years after arrival
 * Saber Marionette Z (manga)

Saber Marionette J
Saber Marionette J (セイバーマリオネットJ) is about Mamiya Otaru and his three marionettes, humanoid female robots; the young and free-spirited Lime; the small and reserved Cherry; and the outgoing and busty Bloodberry.

In a world with no women, the surviving men have reintroduced the female in the form of an android. Called Marionettes, they are built to serve men and are limited in their interactions with humans. That is until a poor boy named Otaru Mamiya encounters a Marionette named Lime. Lime is a Saber model with a special circuit that gives her emotions. When Otaru awakens two more Saber Marionettes, his life as an 'average' boy quickly becomes as extraordinary as the lives of his eager, busty new friends.

Saber Marionette J Again
Saber Marionette J Again is a 6-episode OVA that has events which take place after Saber Marionette J. In the story, Faust asks Otaru to receive the three Saber Dolls in his apartment, so that he can educate them as he did with Lime, Cherry, and Bloodberry. At the same time, Lorelei is asked to repair Tiger's maiden circuit, which is broken.

Meanwhile, planet Terra II is beginning to experience a plasmatic crisis. The key to save the planet lies within a new marionette, which will bear the name Marine. The mystery behind Marine lies in her triple maiden circuit, and is not unveiled until episode four. She matures faster than the other marionettes, and is stronger than Bloodberry and Panther combined.

Saber Marionette J to X
Saber Marionette J to X continues approximately a year after the conclusion of Saber Marionette J. In the early episodes Otaru, Lime, Bloodberry and Cherry are shown leading comparatively ordinary lifestyles, cherishing the peaceful days that dawn on Japoness.

As the story progresses, due to uncanny circumstances, Faust appears once again, much more zealous, brutal and merciless than before, restarting his world-conquering agenda. He is accompanied by his subordinates, the Saber dolls. He is revealed to be a clone of the now introspective, atonement-seeking Faust, the embodiment of a measure taken by Gartland to secure the aspirations of Faust the First.

Later on, as Japoness stirs, more, and even much more sinister and ulterior motives are revealed, and the joint efforts, and investigations lead to the conclusion that Yan of Xian and Dr. Hesse, the former scientist and servant of Faust both have a hand in the matter.

They successfully kidnap the Marionettes and make them lose their memories for a prolonged period, which they use for their own gains later on. The series concerns itself with the return of the Marionettes' memories extensively.

Yan and particularly Hesse are shown in-depth only at the end, showing their personal goals and past traumas in the last arc which resolves the man-machine conflict, with themes of technology and human responsibility.

Saber Marionette R
Saber Marionette R takes place many years after the events in J. This series features three new marionettes that have the same names and basic personalities as those from the "J" and "J to X" series, but with different appearances (this series' Lime looks more like a child and has shorter hair, for example).

Saber Marionette R takes place in the city-state of Romana, which resembles medieval Italy. The three marionettes, Cherry, Lime and Bloodberry, now accompany Junior, the heir to the throne of Romana. However, a criminal known as Face is freed from prison by three marionettes of his own called the Sexadolls, named Edge, Brid and Canny. Face threatens the future of Romana by killing the king and forcing everyone to search for Junior and arrest him. Cherry, Lime and Bloodberry must destroy Face's Sexadolls, protect Junior and help Romana become peaceful once more.

title: Saber Marionette


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Missouri Plan

The Missouri Plan (originally the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan, also known as the merit plan, or some variation) is a method for the selection of judges. It originated in Missouri in 1940 and has been adopted by many states of the United States. Similar methods are used in some other countries.

Under the Plan, a non-partisan commission reviews candidates for a judicial vacancy. The commission then sends to the governor a list of candidates considered best qualified. The governor then has sixty days to select a candidate from the list. If the governor does not make a selection within sixty days, the commission makes the selection.

At the next general election after the completion of one year's service, the judge must stand in a retention election. If a majority votes against retention, the judge is removed from office, and the process starts anew. Otherwise, the judge serves out a full term.

As of 2016, 38 states have a form of merit-based selection and retention method for some or all judges. Twenty-five states have a nominating commission to screen all candidates of the state courts of last resort. Eight states have commissions which fill interim vacancies on the highest courts. Twenty states utilize retention elections for judges who wish to serve on highest state courts beyond their initial term.

Nonpartisan judicial commissions under the Plan
Under the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan, a nonpartisan judicial commission reviews applications, interviews candidates and selects a judicial panel. For the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the Appellate Judicial Commission makes the selection. It is composed of three lawyers elected by members of the Missouri Bar (the organization of all lawyers licensed in this state), three citizens selected by the governor, and the chief justice, who serves as chair. Each of the three geographic districts of the Court of Appeals must be represented by one lawyer and one citizen member on the Appellate Judicial Commission.

Each of the circuit courts in Clay, Greene, Jackson, Platte, and St. Louis Counties, and the city of St. Louis has its own circuit judicial commission. These commissions are composed of the chief judge of the court of appeals district in which the circuit is located, plus two lawyers elected by the bar and two citizens selected by the governor. All of the lawyers and citizens must live within the circuit for which they serve the judicial commission.

History and spread of the plan
In line with other reforms urged during the Progressive Era, legal scholars put forth ideas in the first decades of the 1900s to reduce or remove the role of politics in the selection of judges, particularly circuit judges with responsibilities over the day-to-day work of the courts. An example of this advocacy is the merit selection program urged by Albert M. Kales in his work Unpopular Government in the United States (1914).

Support for merit selection increased due to the perceived corruption of urban political bosses. Missouri voters adopted the system by initiative petition in November 1940 after several very contentious judicial elections, which were heavily influenced by the political machine of Tom Pendergast. Most associate and circuit judges are elected. However, the state constitution requires such judges in Jackson County (Kansas City) and the city of St. Louis to be selected under the nonpartisan system. Similarly, the voters in Clay and Platte counties (parts of Kansas City), St. Louis county, and Greene County (Springfield) have elected to appoint such judges under the nonpartisan system. After Missouri adopted this method for selecting judges, several other states adopted it, either in full or in part. The plan was put forth by a committee chaired by Luther Ely Smith, "founder" of the Gateway Arch National Park.

The Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan has served as a model for thirty-four other states that use merit selection to fill some or all judicial vacancies. 23 states use the method or a variant for the state supreme court.

California uses a heavily modified version in which the Governor can theoretically nominate any California attorney who has practiced for ten years. But then the nominee must undergo an evaluation by the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) of the State Bar of California, which then forwards a nonbinding evaluation to the Governor. For superior court positions, the Governor can make an appointment after receiving a report from JNE. For appellate court positions, the Governor submits the nomination to the Commission on Judicial Appointments, consisting of the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, and the presiding justice of the affected Court of Appeal district (or the most senior presiding justice for Supreme Court nominations). The CJA holds a public meeting, and receives the report from the JNE Commission, then decides whether to confirm the nominee. Once confirmed, the judge can take office but then must go through retention elections (at different intervals for each level of the judiciary).

Criticism
The Missouri Plan is not without critics. There are several alternative ways of filling judicial posts that are used in other states. These include direct elections (either partisan or non-partisan), election by the state legislature, or appointment by the governor with advice and consent of the state senate. Missouri had previously used all of these methods before adopting the Nonpartisan Court Plan in 1940.

Excessive influence of attorneys
Better Courts for Missouri has argued that flaws in the current plan give elite trial lawyers too much control over judicial selection. According to the organization's executive director, "they are a small, insular group who have their interests. They have a lot to add to the process, but we don't think they should dominate the process - (and they) are in no way accountable to Missourians."

Professor Stephen Ware of the University of Kansas wrote about the Missouri Plan, "As the bar is an elite segment of society, states that give lawyers more power than their fellow citizens are rightly described as elitist." Ware continued:

"...even commission systems have democratic legitimacy insofar as members of the nominating commission are appointed by popularly elected officials. Democratic principles are violated, however, when members of the commission are selected by 'a minority of the persons, i.e. lawyers in their area'. This, of course, is the core of the Missouri Plan – allowing the bar to select some of the commission and then declining to offset that bar power with confirmation by the senate or other popularly elected body.  And it is this core that deprives the Missouri Plan of democratic legitimacy."

Low diversity of the Commission
Former Missouri State legislator and lawyer, Elbert Walton, has focused on the plan's effect on African Americans. "It is unfair that lawyers elect judges ... It disenfranchises people and it especially disenfranchises black people." At a press conference in February, 2008, Walton accused Missouri Bar President Charlie Harris, an African-American, of ignoring the Missouri Plan's effect on black people. Walton noted that no African American had ever been elected to one of the Missouri Bar's three slots on the Appellate Judicial Commission, though many have been appointed judges, and suggested that Mr. Harris "ought to be ashamed of himself" for supporting such a plan.

Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee has criticized that state's version of the Missouri Plan for similar reasons.

Political interference
The Wall Street Journal wrote "If the recent slugfests have proven anything, it's that Missouri's courts are every bit as hung up in politics as they are in other states. The difference is that in Missouri the process happens behind closed doors."

Similarly, Professor Brian T. Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt University has argued that politics are undoubtedly a part of judicial selection in Missouri Plan states, writing, "In short, I am skeptical that merit selection removes politics from judicial selection. Rather, merit selection may simply move the politics of judicial selection into closer alignment with the ideological preferences of the bar." Fitzpatrick notes that "…if we are willing to accept the notions that lawyers care about the outcomes of judicial decisions and that these outcomes are correlated with judges' ideological preferences, then we might expect merit commissions to select judges who share the ideological preferences of the bar rather than those of the public."

Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen has made similar complaints. He remarked, "I think [the nominating commissioners] have been vastly too political in their selection process. And what they are supposed to do is give you the best candidates in the ideal world."

title: Missouri Plan


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King (playing card)

The king is a playing card with a picture of a king displayed on it. The king is usually the highest-ranking face card. In the French version of playing cards and tarot decks, the king immediately outranks the queen. In Italian and Spanish playing cards, the king immediately outranks the knight. In German and Swiss playing cards, the king immediately outranks the Ober. In some games, the king is the highest-ranked card; in others, the Ace is higher. Aces began outranking kings around 1500 with Trappola being the earliest known game in which the aces were highest in all four suits. In the ace–ten family of games such as pinochle and Schnapsen, both the ace and the 10 rank higher than the king.

History

The king card is the oldest and most universal court card. It most likely originated in Persian Ganjifeh where kings are depicted as seated on thrones and outranking the viceroy cards which are mounted on horses. Playing cards were transmitted to Italy and Spain via the Mamluks and Moors. The best preserved and most complete deck of Mamluk cards, the Topkapı pack, did not display human figures but just listed their rank most likely due to religious prohibition. It is not entirely sure if the Topkapı pack was representative of all Mamluk decks as it was a custom-made luxury item used for display. A fragment of what may be a seated king card was recovered in Egypt which may explain why the poses of court cards in Europe resemble those in Persia and India.

Seated kings were generally common throughout Europe. During the 15th century, the Spanish started producing standing kings. The French originally used Spanish cards before developing their regional deck patterns. Many Spanish court designs were simply reused when the French invented their own suit-system around 1480. The English imported their cards from Rouen until the early 17th century when foreign card imports were banned. The king of hearts is sometimes called the "suicide king" because he appears to be sticking his sword into his head. This is a result of centuries of bad copying by English card makers where the king's axe head has disappeared.

Starting in the 15th century, French manufacturers assigned to each of the court cards names taken from history or mythology. This practice survives only in the Paris pattern which ousted all its rivals, including the Rouen pattern around 1780. The names for the kings in the Paris pattern (portrait officiel) are:

Most French-suited continental European patterns are descended from the Paris pattern but they have dropped the names associated with each card.

Example cards
Kings from Russian playing cards:

In Unicode
The kings are included in the Playing Cards:

title: King (playing card)


text:
Lars Hörmander

Lars Valter Hörmander (24 January 1931 – 25 November 2012) was a Swedish mathematician who has been called "the foremost contributor to the modern theory of linear partial differential equations". Hörmander was awarded the Fields Medal in 1962 and the Wolf Prize in 1988. In 2006 he was awarded the Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition for his four-volume textbook Analysis of Linear Partial Differential Operators, which is considered a foundational work on the subject.

Hörmander completed his Ph.D. in 1955 at Lund University. Hörmander then worked at Stockholm University, at Stanford University, and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He returned to Lund University as a professor from 1968 until 1996, when he retired with the title of professor emeritus.

Education
Hörmander was born in Mjällby, a village in Blekinge in southern Sweden where his father was a teacher. Like his older brothers and sisters before him, he attended the realskola (secondary school), in a nearby town to which he commuted by train, and the gymnasium (high school) in Lund from which he graduated in 1948.

At the time when he entered the gymnasium, the principal had instituted an experiment of reducing the period of the education from three to two years, and the daily activities to three hours. This freedom to work on his own, "[greater] than the universities offer in Sweden today", suited Hörmander "very well". He was also positively influenced by his enthusiastic mathematics teacher, a docent at Lund University who encouraged him to study university-level mathematics.

After proceeding to receive a Master's degree from Lund University in 1950, Hörmander began his graduate studies under Marcel Riesz (who had also been the advisor for Hörmander's gymnasium teacher). He made his first research attempts in classical function theory and harmonic analysis, which "did not amount to much" but were "an excellent preparation for working in the theory of partial differential equations." He turned to partial differential equations when Riesz retired and Lars Gårding who worked actively in that area was appointed professor.

Hörmander took a one-year break for military service from 1953 to 1954, but due to his position in defense research was able to proceed with his studies even during that time. His Ph.D. thesis On the theory of general partial differential operators was finished in 1955, inspired by the nearly concurrent Ph.D. work of Bernard Malgrange and techniques for hyperbolic differential operators developed by Lars Gårding and Jean Leray.

Fields Medal and years in the U.S.
Hörmander applied for a professorship at Stockholm University, but temporarily left for the United States while the request was examined. He spent quarters from winter to fall in respective order at the University of Chicago, the University of Kansas, the University of Minnesota, and finally at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York City. These locations offered "much to learn" in partial differential equations, with the exception of Chicago of which he however notes the Antoni Zygmund seminar held by Elias Stein and Guido Weiss to have strengthened his familiarity with harmonic analysis.

In the theory of linear differential operators, "many people have contributed but the deepest and most significant results are due to Hörmander", according to Hörmander's doctoral advisor, Lars Gårding. Hörmander won the Fields medal in 1962.

Hörmander was given a position as a part-time professor at Stanford in 1963 but was soon thereafter offered a professorship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He first wished not to leave Sweden but attempts to find a research professorship in Sweden failed and "the opportunity to do research full time in a mathematically very active environment was hard to resist", so he accepted the offer and resigned from both Stanford and Stockholm and began at the Institute in the fall of 1964. Within two years of "hard work", he felt that the environment at the institute was too demanding, and in 1967 decided to return to Lund after one year. He later noted that his best work at the institute was done during the remaining year.

Later years
Hörmander mostly remained at Lund University as a professor after 1968 but made several visits to the United States during the two next decades. He visited the Courant Institute in 1970, and also the Institute for Advanced Study in 1971 and during the academic year, 1977–1978 when a special year in microlocal analysis was held. He also visited Stanford in 1971, 1977, and 1982, and the University of California, San Diego in winter 1990. Hörmander was briefly director of the Mittag-Leffler Institute in Stockholm between 1984 and 1986 but only accepted a two-year appointment as he "suspected that the administrative duties would not agree well" with him, and found that "the hunch was right". He also served as vice president of the International Mathematical Union between 1987 and 1990. Hörmander retired emeritus in Lund in January 1996. In 2006 he was honored with the Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition from the American Mathematical Society.

He was made a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1968. In 1970 he gave a plenary address (Linear Differential Operators) at the ICM in Nice.

He received the 1988 Wolf Prize "for fundamental work in modern analysis, in particular, the application of pseudo differential and Fourier integral operators to linear partial differential equations".

In 2012 he was selected as a fellow of the American Mathematical Society, but died on 25 November 2012, before the list of fellows was released.

Important publications
His book Linear Partial Differential Operators, which largely was the cause for his Fields Medal, has been described as "the first major account of this theory". It was published by Springer-Verlag in 1963 as part of the Grundlehren series.

Hörmander devoted five years to compiling the four-volume monograph, The Analysis of Linear Partial Differential Operators, first published between 1983 and 1985. A follow-up of his Linear Partial Differential Operators, "illustrate[d] the vast expansion of the subject" over the past 20 years, and is considered the "standard of the field". In addition to these works, he has written a recognised introduction to several complex variables based on his 1964 Stanford lectures, and wrote the entries on differential equations in Nationalencyklopedin.

title: Lars Hörmander


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Henderson–Hasselbalch equation

In chemistry and biochemistry, the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation

relates the pH of a chemical solution of a weak acid to the numerical value of the acid dissociation constant, Ka, of acid and the ratio of the concentrations, of the acid and its conjugate base in an equilibrium.
 * $$ \mathrm{\underset {(acid)} {HA} \leftrightharpoons \underset {(base)} {A^-} + H^+}$$

For example, the acid may be acetic acid
 * $$\mathrm{CH_3CO_2H \leftrightharpoons CH_3CO_2^- + H^+}$$

The Henderson–Hasselbalch equation can be used to estimate the pH of a buffer solution by approximating the actual concentration ratio as the ratio of the analytical concentrations of the acid and of a salt, MA.

The equation can also be applied to bases by specifying the protonated form of the base as the acid. For example, with an amine, $$\mathrm{RNH_2}$$
 * $$\mathrm{RNH_3^+ \leftrightharpoons RNH_2 + H^+}$$

Derivation, assumptions and limitations
A simple buffer solution consists of a solution of an acid and a salt of the conjugate base of the acid. For example, the acid may be acetic acid and the salt may be sodium acetate. The Henderson–Hasselbalch equation relates the pH of a solution containing a mixture of the two components to the acid dissociation constant, Ka of the acid, and the concentrations of the species in solution.

To derive the equation a number of simplifying assumptions have to be made.

Assumption 1: The acid, HA, is monobasic and dissociates according to the equations

CA is the analytical concentration of the acid and CH is the concentration the hydrogen ion that has been added to the solution. The self-dissociation of water is ignored. A quantity in square brackets, [X], represents the concentration of the chemical substance X. It is understood that the symbol H+ stands for the hydrated hydronium ion. Ka is an acid dissociation constant.

The Henderson–Hasselbalch equation can be applied to a polybasic acid only if its consecutive pK values differ by at least 3. Phosphoric acid is such an acid.

Assumption 2. The self-ionization of water can be ignored. This assumption is not, strictly speaking, valid with pH values close to 7, half the value of pKw, the constant for self-ionization of water. In this case the mass-balance equation for hydrogen should be extended to take account of the self-ionization of water.

However, the term can be omitted to a good approximation.

Assumption 3: The salt MA is completely dissociated in solution. For example, with sodium acetate

the concentration of the sodium ion, [Na+] can be ignored. This is a good approximation for 1:1 electrolytes, but not for salts of ions that have a higher charge such as magnesium sulphate, MgSO4, that form ion pairs.

Assumption 4: The quotient of activity coefficients, \Gamma, is a constant under the experimental conditions covered by the calculations.

The thermodynamic equilibrium constant, $$K^*$$,

is a product of a quotient of concentrations and a quotient, $$ \Gamma $$, of activity coefficients. In these expressions, the quantities in square brackets signify the concentration of the undissociated acid, HA, of the hydrogen ion H+, and of the anion A−; the quantities \gamma are the corresponding activity coefficients. If the quotient of activity coefficients can be assumed to be a constant which is independent of concentrations and pH, the dissociation constant, Ka can be expressed as a quotient of concentrations.

Rearrangement of this expression and taking logarithms provides the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation

Application to bases
The equilibrium constant for the protonation of a base, B,
 * $B (base)$ + H+ $BH^{+} (acid)$

is an association constant, Kb, which is simply related to the dissociation constant of the conjugate acid, BH+.

The value of is ca. 14 at 25°C. This approximation can be used when the correct value is not known. Thus, the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation can be used, without modification, for bases.

Biological applications
With homeostasis the pH of a biological solution is maintained at a constant value by adjusting the position of the equilibria

where is the bicarbonate ion and  is carbonic acid. However, the solubility of carbonic acid in water may be exceeded. When this happens carbon dioxide gas is liberated and the following equation may be used instead.

represents the carbon dioxide liberated as gas. In this equation, which is widely used in biochemistry, K^m is a mixed equilibrium constant relating to both chemical and solubility equilibria. It can be expressed as

where $pK_{a} = 4.7$ is the molar concentration of bicarbonate in the blood plasma and $[HCO− 3]$ is the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the supernatant gas.

History
In 1908, Lawrence Joseph Henderson derived an equation to calculate the hydrogen ion concentration of a bicarbonate buffer solution, which rearranged looks like this:

In 1909 Søren Peter Lauritz Sørensen introduced the pH terminology, which allowed Karl Albert Hasselbalch to re-express Henderson's equation in logarithmic terms, resulting in the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation.

title: Henderson–Hasselbalch equation


text:
Queen (playing card)

The queen is a playing card with a picture of a queen on it. In many European languages, the king and queen begin with the same letter so the latter is often called dame (lady) or variations thereof. In French playing cards, the usual rank of a queen is between the king and the jack. In tarot decks, it outranks the knight which in turn outranks the jack. In the Spanish deck and some Italian decks, the Queen does not exist and the Knight appears in them instead, with the same role and value.

In several card games, including the middle eastern Trex and French Barbu, the queen is a major card to avoid taking, with each queen taken inflicting a penalty on the player. Similarly, in Hearts, the queen of spades is to be avoided, and is called a variety of unsavoury names.

In the Paris pattern, each court card is identified as a particular historical or mythological personage as follows:

Cultural references
Regarding the anonymous nursery rhyme, "The Queen of Hearts" (published 1782), Katherine Elwes Thomas claims, in The Real Personage of Mother Goose, that the Queen of Hearts was based on Elizabeth of Bohemia. Benham, in his book Playing Cards: History of the Pack and Explanations of its Many Secrets, notes that French playing cards from the mid-17th century have Judith from the Hebrew Bible as the Queen of Hearts. See also: Queen of Hearts (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).

title: Queen (playing card)


text:
Jack (playing card)

A Jack or Knave, in some games referred to as a Bower, in Tarot card games as a Valet, is a playing card which, in traditional French and English decks, pictures a man in the traditional or historic aristocratic or courtier dress, generally associated with Europe of the 16th or 17th century. The usual rank of a jack is between the ten and the queen.

History
The earliest predecessor of the knave was the (second or under-deputy) in the Mamluk card deck. This was the lowest of the three court cards and like all court cards was depicted through abstract art or calligraphy. When brought over to Italy and Spain, the was made into an infantry soldier or page ranking below the knight card. In France, where the card was called the valet, the queen was inserted between the king and knight. The knight was subsequently dropped out of non-Tarot decks leaving the valet directly under the queen. The king-queen-valet format then made its way into England.

As early as the mid-16th century the card was known in England as the knave which originally meant 'boy or young man', as its German equivalent, Knabe, still does. In the context of a royal household it meant a male servant without a specific role or skill; not a cook, gardener, coachman, etc. The French word valet means the same thing.

The word 'Jack' was in common usage in the 16th and 17th centuries to mean any generic man or fellow, as in Jack-of-all-trades (one who is good at many things), Jack-in-the-box (a child's toy), or Jack-in-the-Pulpit (a plant).

The term became more entrenched in card play when, in 1864, American cardmaker Samuel Hart published a deck using "J" instead of "Kn" to designate the lowest-ranking court card. The knave card had been called a jack as part of the terminology of the game All Fours since the 17th century, but this usage was considered common or low class. However, because the card abbreviation for knave was so close to that of the king ("Kn" versus "K"), the two were easily confused. This confusion was even more pronounced after the markings indicating suits and rankings were moved to the corners of the card, a move which enabled players to "fan" a hand of cards without obscuring the individual suits and ranks. The earliest deck known of this type is from 1693, but such positioning did not become widespread until reintroduced by Hart in 1864, together with the knave-to-jack change. Books of card games published in the third quarter of the 19th century still referred to the "knave". Note the exclamation by Estella in Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations: "He calls the knaves, jacks, this boy!" Knave was the proper term and it was considered uncouth to call them 'Jacks'. Nevertheless, in a few European countries, the equivalent of the name 'knave' for this card continues to the present. For example, in Denmark, it is the Knægt, symbol B (for Bonde); in Sweden, the knekt, symbol Kn.

The German nickname of Bauer ("farmer" or "peasant") often used for the Jacks, appears in English as the loanword, Bower, used for the top trumps (usually Jacks) in games of the euchre family as well as some games of German origin where the Jacks play a significant role, e.g. Reunion.

Representations
In the English pattern, the jack and the other face cards represent no one in particular, in contrast to the historical French practice, in which each court card is said to represent a particular historical or mythological personage. The valets in the Paris pattern have traditionally been associated with such figures as Ogier the Dane (a knight of Charlemagne and legendary hero of the chansons de geste) for the jack of spades; La Hire (French warrior) for the Jack of Hearts; Hector (mythological hero of the Iliad) for the jack of diamonds; and Lancelot or Judas Maccabeus for the jack of clubs.

In some southern Italian decks, there are androgynous knaves that are sometimes referred to as maids. In the Sicilian Tarot deck, the knaves are unambiguously female and are also known as maids. As this deck also includes queens, it is the only traditional set to survive into modern times with two ranks of female face cards. This pack may have been influenced by the obsolete Portuguese deck which also had female knaves. The modern Mexican pattern also has female knaves.

Poetry
The figure of the jack has been used in many literary works throughout history. Among these is one by 17th-century English writer Samuel Rowlands. The Four Knaves is a series of Satirical Tracts, with Introduction and Notes by E. F. Rimbault, upon the subject of playing cards. His "The Knave of Clubbs: Tis Merry When Knaves Meet" was first published in 1600, then again in 1609 and 1611. In accordance with a promise at the end of this book, Rowlands went on with his series of Knaves, and in 1612 wrote "The Knave of Harts: Haile Fellowe, Well Meet", where his "Supplication to Card-Makers" appears, thought to have been written to the English manufacturers who copied to the English decks the court figures created by the French. The Knave of Hearts appears as a thieving antagonist in the traditional children's poem The Queen of Hearts

Example cards
The cards shown here are from a Paris pattern deck (where the rank is known as the "valet"), and include the historical and mythological names associated with them. The English pattern of jacks can be seen in the photo at the top of the article.

Trickster figure
The jack, traditionally the lowest face card, has often been promoted to a higher or the highest position in the traditional ranking of cards, where the ace or king generally occupied the first rank. This is seen in the earliest known European card games, such as Karnöffel, as well as in more recent ones such as Euchre. Games with such promotion include: • All Fours

• Bête

• Belote

• Bezique

• Cribbage

• Doppelkopf

• Egyptian Ratscrew

• Euchre

• Five-hundred

• Forty-fives

• Hearts

• Jass

• Karnöffel

• Klaberjass

• Lanterloo

• Marjolet

• Noddy

• Pinochle

• Polignac

• Primero

• Reversis

• Schafkopf

• Sheepshead

• Skat

• Spoil Five

• Sueca

• Twenty Eight

• Switch

title: Jack (playing card)


text:
John Rabe

John Heinrich Detlef Rabe (23 November 1882 – 5 January 1950) was a German businessman and Nazi Party member best known for his efforts to stop war crimes during the Japanese Nanjing Massacre (also romanized as Nanking) and his work to protect and help Chinese civilians during the massacre that ensued. The Nanking Safety Zone, which he helped to establish, sheltered approximately 250,000 Chinese people from being killed. He officially represented Germany and acted as senior chief of the European-U.S. establishment that remained in Nanjing, the Chinese capital at the time, when the city fell to the Japanese troops.

Early life and career
Rabe was born in Hamburg on 23 November 1882. He pursued a career in business and worked in Africa for several years.

In 1908, he left for China, and between 1910 and 1938 worked for the Siemens AG China Corporation in Shenyang, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and later Nanjing. Rabe suffered from diabetes by the time he worked in Nanjing, requiring him to take regular doses of insulin. At the time of the Japanese attack on Nanjing, Rabe was a staunch Nazi and the party's local head, serving as a Deputy Group Leader in the Nazi Party.

Establishment of the Nanking Safety Zone

Many Westerners were living in Nanjing, the Chinese capital city, until December 1937, with some conducting trade and others on missionary trips. As the Imperial Japanese Army approached Nanjing and initiated bombing raids on the city, all but 22 foreigners fled, with 15 American and European missionaries and businessmen forming part of the remaining group. As the Japanese Army advanced on Nanjing on 22 November 1937, Rabe, along with other foreign nationals, organized the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and created the Nanking Safety Zone to provide Chinese refugees with food and shelter from the impending Japanese massacre. He explained his reasons as: "there is a question of morality here… I cannot bring myself for now to betray the trust these people have put in me, and it is touching to see how they believe in me". The zones were located in all of the foreign embassies and at Nanjing University.

The committee was inspired by the establishment in November of a similar neutral zone in Shanghai, which had protected approximately 450,000 civilians. Rabe was elected leader of the committee, in part because of his Nazi Party status and the German-Japanese bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact. The committee established the Nanking Safety Zone in the western quarter of the city. The Japanese government had agreed not to attack parts of the city that did not contain Chinese military forces and the members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone attempted to persuade the Chinese government to move all their troops out of the area. In this they were partly successful. On 1 December 1937, before fleeing the city, Nanjing Mayor Ma Chao-chun ordered all Chinese citizens remaining in Nanjing to move into the Safety Zone. When Nanjing fell on 13 December 1937, 500,000 non-combatants remained in the city. Rabe also opened up his properties to help 650 more refugees.

Nanjing Massacre
According to Rabe, the Nanjing Massacre resulted in the deaths of 50,000 to 300,000 civilians. Rabe and his zone administrators tried frantically to stop the atrocities. Modern estimates of the death toll of the Nanjing Massacre vary, but some put the number of murdered civilians as high as 300,000. Rabe's appeals to the Japanese using his Nazi Party credentials often only delayed them, but the delay allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees to escape. The documentary Nanking credited Rabe with saving the lives of 250,000 Chinese civilians; other sources suggest he saved 250,000 to 300,000. In his diary, Rabe documented Japanese atrocities committed during the assault on and occupation of the city.

In a series of lectures that he gave in Germany after his return, Rabe would say that "We Europeans put the number [of civilian casualties] at about 50,000 to 60,000". Rabe was not the only person to record Japanese atrocities. By December 1937, after the defeat of the Chinese force, Japanese soldiers often went house-to-house in Nanjing, shooting any civilians that they encountered. Additional evidence of these violent acts came from the diaries kept by Japanese soldiers and journalists appalled at what occurred.

Rabe summarized the conduct of Japanese soldiers in Nanjing in the following manner: I've written several times in this diary about the body of the Chinese soldier who was shot while tied to his bamboo bed and who is still lying unburied near my house. My protests and pleas to the Japanese embassy finally to get this corpse buried, or give me permission to bury it, have thus far been fruitless. The body is still lying in the same spot as before, except that the ropes have been cut and the bamboo bed is now lying about two yards away. I am totally puzzled by the conduct of the Japanese in this matter. On the one hand, they want to be recognized and treated as a great power on a par with European powers, on the other, they are currently displaying a crudity, brutality, and bestiality that bears no comparison except with the hordes of Genghis Khan. I have stopped trying to get the poor devil buried, but I hereby record that he, though very dead, still lies above the earth!

Return to Germany
On 28 February 1938, Rabe left Nanjing. He traveled first to Shanghai, returning to Berlin on 15 April 1938. He took with him a large number of source materials documenting Japanese atrocities in Nanjing. Rabe showed films and photographs of Japanese atrocities in lecture presentations in Berlin, and he wrote to Hitler, asking him to use his influence to persuade the Japanese to stop further violence. Rabe was detained and interrogated by the Gestapo; his letter was never delivered to Hitler. Due to the intervention of Siemens AG, Rabe was released. He was allowed to keep evidence of the massacre (excluding films) but not to lecture or write on the subject again. Rabe continued working for Siemens, which briefly posted him to the safety of Siemens AG in Afghanistan. Rabe subsequently worked in the company's Berlin headquarters until the end of the war.

Postwar
After the war, Rabe was arrested first by the Soviet NKVD, then by the British Army. Both let him go after intense interrogation. He worked sporadically for Siemens, earning little. He was later denounced by an acquaintance for his Nazi Party membership, losing the work permit he had been given by the British Zone of Occupation. Rabe then had to undergo lengthy de-Nazification (his first attempt was rejected and he had to appeal) in the hope of regaining permission to work. He depleted his savings to pay for his legal defence.

Unable to work and with his savings spent, Rabe and his family survived in a one-room apartment by selling his Chinese art collection but it was insufficient to prevent their malnutrition. He was formally declared "de-Nazified" by the British on 3 June 1946 but continued to live in poverty. His family subsisted on wild seeds, his children eating soup and dry bread until running out of that as well. In 1948, Nanjing citizens learned of the Rabe family's dire circumstances and quickly raised a sum of money equivalent to $2,000 USD ($0 in 2024). The city's mayor traveled to Germany via Switzerland, where he bought a large amount of food for the Rabe family. From mid-1948 until the Chinese Revolution, the people of Nanjing also sent the family a food package each month, for which Rabe wrote many letters expressing deep gratitude.

Death and legacy

On 5 January 1950, Rabe died of a stroke. In 1997, his tombstone was moved from Berlin to Nanjing, where it received a place of honour at the massacre memorial site and still stands today. In 2005, Rabe's former residence in Nanjing, the John Rabe House, was restored to its former state; it houses the John Rabe and International Safety Zone Memorial Hall, opened in 2006. The Austrian Service Abroad was later invited to send a Peace Servant there. Rabe's grave in Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Cemetery in Berlin-Charlottenburg was re-erected in 2013. His bravery would earn him the monikers: "The Living Buddha of Nanjing" and "The Good Nazi".

War diaries
A selection of Rabe's wartime diaries was published in English as The Good German of Nanking (UK title) or The Good Man of Nanking (US title) (original German title: Der gute Deutsche von Nanking).

Portrayals in film
John Rabe has been portrayed in numerous films:
 * In Mou Tun Fei's 1995 film Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre. Minnie Vautrin and George Ashmore Fitch are also depicted.
 * In Wu Ziniu's 1995 film Don't Cry, Nanking, actor Ulrich Ottenburger played Rabe, although his name was changed to "John Robbins".
 * In Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's 2007 documentary film Nanking, actor Jürgen Prochnow played Rabe.
 * In Lu Chuan's 2009 film City of Life and Death, actor John Paisley played Rabe.
 * In Florian Gallenberger's film John Rabe, also released in 2009, Ulrich Tukur played John Rabe.

title: John Rabe


text:
User:LockeShocke

LockeShocke

Personal Info
That's me, LockeShocke, a play on the philosopher John Locke. My hometown is St. Petersburg, Florida.

I have online a report entitled, Why did Socialism fail in early 20th century America?. It has now become Socialism in the United States.

I have another report online entitled, "Calming the Waters of a Troubled World: President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry on National Security in the 2004 Presidential Campaign". It's a 5000 word, well-documented report that needs serious wikification. Perhaps, like my above report, it can be made into an article someday.

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 * I created the Web Development Wikibook. Feel free to contribute.
 * I'd like to contribute text and images to the Graphic Design Wikibook as well.
 * I highly recommend the Literary Criticism Wikicity. Sort of a WikiSparkNotes. I can't wait until it's got some substance.
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 * Hovering around Special:Newpages - monitoring pages made by IP addresses and wikifying, VFDing, etc.
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My interests

 * Graphic design
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I hope to make contributions to Wikipedia in these fields, anything else I know a little about, as well as other minor grammar, etc. Here are the contributions I have made so far:

My Contributions

title: User:LockeShocke