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Talk:Differential operator

Missing ?
Why things like $$\partial_x$$, $$\partial_{xy}$$ and perhaps also things like $$\partial_x\partial_x =\partial_x^2$$, $$\partial_x\partial_y =\partial_{xy} $$ or $$\nabla\nabla=\nabla^2=\Delta$$ are not mentioned. I'm physicist and the german Wikipedia is waiting for me ;-). Wolfgangbeyer 08:23, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I would believe that $$\partial_x$$ is written D_x with the "big-D" notation as well. They're just symbolisms. But, even though you probably didn't mean the discrete difference operator thing too, with the nablas, that reminded me to say something about it too :) Dysprosia 08:31, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There's material about f(D) (operator notation), and some much more advanced theories. They could all be here; but there are some distinctions worth maintaining. I don't think the Laplacian should ideally come ahead of one-variable theory.

Charles Matthews 09:05, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree. I'd like to shove it down below, but don't know what to say to introduce it. Dysprosia 10:17, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Self-adjoint DOs
There's a technical wrinkle about formally self-adjoint DOs not being quite the same thing as Hilbert space self-adjoint operators (because unbounded, basically). Charles Matthews 18:03, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * I've unlinked to Self-adjoint operator and made mention of them being formal (oops). Should that be enough? Dysprosia 22:22, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It might be useful to point out explicitly that the meaning here is

 * ∫fLg = ∫gLf

as can be proved by integration by parts; since this draws attention to what is the essential problem, namely that the bit in the integration, evaluated at the end points, that you want to go to zero at infinity, does so only under some hypotheses. That might be enough for this page.

Charles Matthews 22:50, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * Ok. I've tried to make mention of this, please check that what I've said is what you mean. Dysprosia 23:56, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Vote for new external link
Here's my website of example problems with differential operators. Someone please put it in the external links section if you think it's helpful!

http://www.exampleproblems.com/wiki/index.php/Differential_Operators

Asterisks *
I was briefly confused by the use of the asterisk in the definition of the adjoint operator and its use to define an inner product in a function space.

Could the overbar notation be used instead? The article links to the page on inner product spaces, which uses this notation. (Or perhaps some words to indicate what the notation means.)

I was looking for some connection between the two asterisks.

 * Fair enough. Now changed use an overbar. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Wording : linear, mapping, geometry
I don't agree with the first sentence of the article "differential operator is a linear operator". There are nonlinear operatos as well. I'm also not very happy with the formulation "function of the differentiation operator". I would suggest somethink like "Differential operator is a mapping that depends only on the function and its derivatives." Furthwer, I would add to the article, at least as a remark, that in differential geometry, differential operators act not always on function, but sometimes on vector fields or sections of some vector bundle, see invariant differential operators. Maybe someone could merge this two articles into one. Franp9am 07:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Adjoint
The discussion of the adjoint of an operator comes completely out of the blue. Why is it included? —Ben FrantzDale 01:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I have the exact same question. Why can't we just link to the page Adjoint_of_an_operator? Sunbeam44 (talk) 20:08, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

squaring = composition?
I'm not particularly familiar with this operator, and am trying to understand the following expression in a textbook: $$(xD)^2 f(x)$$.

I'm guessing that I should interpret the first term not as $$x^{2}D^2$$ but as $$(xD)(xD)$$, so that the whole becomes: $$xD(xD(f(x)) = xD(x f'(x))$$.

Is that correct? Should I have been able to determine that from the article? The section on "Properties of differential operators" looks like it is starting to go in that direction, but I wonder if it needs expanding into a more general "Algebra of ...". Hv (talk) 13:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

 * In all cases I can think of, $$(x D)^2 f(x)$$ means $$x D(x D f(x))$$. I.e., squaring does mean composition.  Silly rabbit (talk) 14:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Correct. Some details:
 * $$ (xD)^2 f(x) = (xD)(xD)f(x) = (xD) (xf'(x)) = x( xf(x) + f'(x) ) = x^2f(x) + xf'(x).\, $$
 * $$ (xD)^2 f(x) = (xD)(xD)f(x) = (xD) (xf'(x)) = x( xf(x) + f'(x) ) = x^2f(x) + xf'(x).\, $$

 * $$ x^2 D^2 f(x) = x^2 f''(x).\, $$

Michael Hardy (talk) 00:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Linear vs nonlinear
This article should either be renamed "Linear differential operator", or it should be expanded to treat both linear and non-linear cases. A similar comment applies to other articles on Wikipedia, such as the "Schwarzian derivative", linked from the lead, which (out of deference to this one?) fail to call differential operators differential operators. Arcfrk (talk) 03:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Yes! - Lead still says "This article considers mainly linear operators, which are the most common type. However, non-linear differential operators, such as the Schwarzian derivative also exist."
 * but the rest of the article does not explain what makes a DO linear or non-linear, or how their properties differ.
 * ( Schwarzian derivative still doesn't say it is a non-linear DO.) - Rod57 (talk) 11:13, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Order of operator
The article doesn't define the order of a differential operator. Could a second-order operator involve first-order derivatives, or does it use only second-order derivatives? Probably the first, but it should be explicit. If it used only second-order derivatives, would it be "homogeneous"? Laura Puffysphere (talk) 16:36, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Symbol of a differential operator
I propose Symbol of a differential operator be merged with this article. A differential operator is almost always considered with its symbol; especially principal symbol. Thus, I don't see the need for a separate article. Generally speaking, it's better if the readers can read just one article instead of two. -- Taku (talk) 10:13, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

 * As there was no objection, I have gone ahead and did the merger. -- Taku (talk) 08:46, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Definition of "m"
In the equations presented we have $$\vert \alpha \vert \leq m$$ listed several times, but $$m$$ is never defined. The notation in the article is presented very similarly to that proposed in the encyclopedia of math, which similarly does not define $$m$$. I'm guessing it just means that the summation is looped over m times, but I think it could be made clear that it's just denoting the extent of the summation. Jrwrigh (talk) 13:47, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

 * m is just some given nonnegative integer. I have added the qualification. —- Taku (talk) 14:33, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Differential operator


text: Template:Gotland County

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

title: Template:Gotland County


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Rime dictionary

A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book is a genre of dictionary that records pronunciations for Chinese characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by graphical means like their radicals. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the Qieyun (601), which codified correct pronunciations for reading the classics and writing poetry by combining the reading traditions of north and south China. This work became very popular during the Tang dynasty, and went through a series of revisions and expansions, of which the most famous is the Guangyun (1007–1008).

These dictionaries specify the pronunciations of characters using the fanqie method, giving a pair of characters indicating the onset and remainder of the syllable respectively. The later rime tables gave a significantly more precise and systematic account of the sounds of these dictionaries by tabulating syllables by their onsets, rhyme groups, tones and other properties. The phonological system inferred from these books, often interpreted using the rime tables, is known as Middle Chinese, and has been the key datum for efforts to recover the sounds of early forms of Chinese. It incorporates most of the distinctions found in modern varieties of Chinese, as well as some that are no longer distinguished. It has also been used together with other evidence in the reconstructions of Old Chinese.

Some scholars use the French spelling rime, as used by the Swedish linguist Bernard Karlgren, for the categories described in these works, to distinguish them from the concept of poetic rhyme.

Pronunciation guides

Chinese scholars produced dictionaries to codify reading pronunciations for the correct recitation of the classics and the associated rhyme conventions of regulated verse. The earliest rime dictionary was the Shenglei (lit. 'sound types') by Li Deng of the Three Kingdoms period, containing more than 11,000 characters grouped under the five notes of the ancient Chinese musical scale. The book did not survive, and is known only from descriptions in later works.

Various schools of the Jin dynasty and Northern and Southern dynasties produced their own dictionaries, which differed on many points. The most prestigious standards were those of the northern capital Luoyang and the southern capital Jinling (modern Nanjing). In 601, Lù Fǎyán published his Qieyun, an attempt to merge the distinctions in five earlier dictionaries. According to Lu Fayan's preface, the initial plan of the work was drawn up 20 years earlier in consultation with a group of scholars, three from southern China and five from the north. However the final compilation was by Lu alone, after he had retired from government service.

The Qieyun quickly became popular as the standard of cultivated pronunciation during the Tang dynasty. The dictionaries on which it was based fell out of use, and are no longer extant. Several revisions appeared, of which the most important were: In 1008, during the Song dynasty, a group of scholars commissioned by the emperor produced an expanded revision called the Guangyun. The Jiyun (1037) was a greatly expanded revision of the Guangyun. Lu's initial work was primarily a guide to pronunciation, with very brief glosses, but later editions included expanded definitions, making them useful as dictionaries.

Until the mid-20th century, the oldest complete rime dictionaries known were the Guangyun and Jiyun, though extant copies of the latter were marred by numerous transcription errors. Thus all studies of the Qieyun tradition were actually based on the Guangyun. Fragments of earlier revisions of the Qieyun were found early in the century among the Dunhuang manuscripts, in Turfan and in Beijing.

When the Qieyun became the national standard in the Tang dynasty, several copyists were engaged in producing manuscripts to meet the great demand for revisions of the work. Particularly prized were copies of Wáng Rénxū's edition, made in the early 9th century, by Wú Cǎiluán, a woman famed for her calligraphy. One of these copies was acquired by Emperor Huizong (1100–1126), himself a keen calligrapher. It remained in the palace library until 1926, when part of the library followed the deposed emperor Puyi to Tianjin and then to Changchun, capital of the puppet state of Manchukuo. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, it passed to a book dealer in Changchun, and in 1947 two scholars discovered it in a book market in Liulichang, Beijing. Studies of this almost complete copy have been published by the Chinese linguists Dong Tonghe (1948 and 1952) and Li Rong (1956).

Structure
The Qieyun and its successors all had the same structure. The characters were first divided between the four tones. Because there were more characters of the 'level tone', they occupied two juǎn (卷 'fascicle', 'scroll' or 'volume'), while the other three tones filled one volume each. The last category or 'entering tone' consisted of words ending in stops -p, -t or -k, corresponding to words ending in nasals -m, -n and -ng in the other three tones. Today, these final stops are generally preserved in southern varieties of Chinese, but have disappeared in most northern ones, including the standard language.

Each tone was divided into rhyme groups (韻 yùn), traditionally named after the first character of the group, called the yùnmù (韻目 'rhyme eye'). Lu Fayan's edition had 193 rhyme groups, which were expanded to 195 by Zhangsun Nayan and then to 206 by Li Zhou. The following shows the beginning of the first rhyme group of the Guangyun, with first character 東 ('east'):

Each rhyme group was subdivided into homophone groups preceded by a small circle called a niǔ (紐 'button'). The entry for each character gave a brief explanation of its meaning. At the end of the entry for the first character of a homophone group was a description of its pronunciation, given by a fǎnqiè formula, a pair of characters indicating the initial (聲母 shēngmǔ) and final (韻母 yùnmǔ) respectively. For example, the pronunciation of 東 was described using the characters 德 tok and 紅 huwng indicating t + uwng = tuwng. The formula was followed by the character 反 fǎn (in the Qieyun) or the character 切 qiè (in the Guangyun), followed by the number of homophonous characters. In the above sample, this formula is followed by the number 十七, indicating that there are 17 entries, including 東, with the same pronunciation.

The order of the rhyme groups within each volume does not seem to follow any rule, except that similar groups were placed together, and corresponding groups in different tones were usually placed in the same order. Where two rhyme groups were similar, there was a tendency to choose exemplary words with the same initial. The table of contents of the Guangyun marks adjacent rhyme groups as tóngyòng (同用), meaning they could rhyme in regulated verse. In the above sample, under the entry for the rhyme group 刪 in the last part the table of contents (on the right page) is the notation "山同用", indicating that this group could rhyme with the following group 山.

The following are the rhyme groups of the Guangyun with their modern names, the finals they include (see next section), and the broad rhyme groups (shè 攝) they were assigned to in the rime tables. A few entries are re-ordered to place corresponding rhyme groups of different tones in the same row, and darker lines separate the tóngyòng groups:

Phonological system
The rime dictionaries have been intensively studied as important sources on the phonology of medieval Chinese, and the system they reveal has been dubbed Middle Chinese. Since the Qieyun itself was believed lost until the mid-20th century, most of this work was based on the Guangyun.

The books exhaustively list the syllables and give pronunciations, but do not describe the phonology of the language. This was first attempted in the rime tables, the oldest of which date from the Song dynasty, but which may represent a tradition going back to the late Tang dynasty. Though not quite a phonemic analysis, these tables analysed the syllables of the rime books using lists of initials, finals and other features of the syllable. The initials are further analysed in terms of place and manner of articulation, suggesting inspiration from Indian linguistics, at that time the most advanced in the world. However the rime tables were compiled some centuries after the Qieyun, and many of its distinctions would have been obscure. Edwin Pulleyblank treats the rime tables as describing a Late Middle Chinese stage, in contrast to the Early Middle Chinese of the rime dictionaries.

Structural analysis
In his Qièyùn kǎo (1842), the Cantonese scholar Chen Li set out to identify the initial and final categories underlying the fanqie spellings in the Guangyun. The system was clearly not minimal, employing 452 characters as initial spellers and around 1200 as final spellers. However no character could be used as a speller for itself. Thus, for example, From this we may conclude that 東, 德 and 多 must all have had the same initial. By following such chains of equivalences Chen was able to identify categories of equivalent initial spellers, and similarly for the finals. More common segments tended to have the most variants. Words with the same final would rhyme, but a rhyme group might include between one and four finals with different medial glides, as seen in the above table of rhyme groups. The inventory of initials Chen obtained resembled the 36 initials of the rime tables, but with significant differences. In particular the "light lip sounds" and "heavy lip sounds" of the rime tables were not distinguished in the fanqie, while each of the "proper tooth sounds" corresponded to two distinct fanqie initial categories.
 * 東 was spelled 德 + 紅.
 * 德 was spelled 多 + 特.
 * 多 was spelled 德 + 河.

Unaware of Chen's work, the Swedish linguist Bernard Karlgren repeated the analysis identifying the initials and finals in the 1910s. The initials could be divided into two broad types: grave initials (labials, velars and laryngeals), which combine with all finals, and acute initials (the others), with more restricted distribution. Like Chen, Karlgren noted that in syllables with grave initials, the finals fell into two broad types, now usually referred to (following Edwin Pulleyblank) as types A and B. He also noted that these types could be further subdivided into four classes of finals distinguished by the initials with which they could combine. These classes partially correspond to the four rows or "divisions", traditionally numbered I–IV, of the later rime tables. The observed combinations of initials and finals are as follows:

Some of the "mixed" finals are actually pairs of type B finals after grave initials, with two distinct homophone groups for each initial, but a single final after acute initials. These pairs, known as chongniu, are also marked in the rime tables by splitting them between rows 3 and 4, but their interpretation remains uncertain. There is also no consensus regarding which final of the pair should be identified with the single final occurring after acute initials.

Reconstructed sound values
Karlgren also sought to determine the phonetic values of the abstract categories yielded by the formal analysis, by comparing the categories of the Guangyun with other types of evidence, each of which presented their own problems. The Song dynasty rime tables applied a sophisticated featural analysis to the rime books, but were separated from them by centuries of sound change, and some of their categories are difficult to interpret. The so-called Sino-Xenic pronunciations, readings of Chinese loanwords in Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese, were ancient, but affected by the different phonological structures of those languages. Finally modern varieties of Chinese provided a wealth of evidence, but often influenced each other as a result of a millennium of migration and political upheavals. After applying a variant of the comparative method in a subsidiary role to flesh out the rime dictionary evidence, Karlgren believed that he had reconstructed the speech of the Sui-Tang capital Chang'an.

Later workers have refined Karlgren's reconstruction. The initials of the Qieyun system are given below with their traditional names and approximate values:

In most cases, the simpler inventories of initials of modern varieties of Chinese can be treated as varying developments of the Qieyun initials. The voicing distinction is retained in Wu Chinese dialects, but has disappeared from other varieties. Except in the Min Chinese dialects, a labiodental series has split from the labial series, a development already reflected in the Song dynasty rime tables. The retroflex and palatal sibilants had also merged by that time. In Min dialects the retroflex stops have merged with the dental stops, while elsewhere they have merged with the retroflex sibilants. In the south these have also merged with the dental sibilants, but the distinction is maintained in most Mandarin Chinese dialects. The palatal series of modern Mandarin dialects, resulting from a merger of palatal allophones of dental sibilants and velars, is a much more recent development.

Assigning phonetic values to the finals has proved more difficult, as many of the distinctions reflected in the Qieyun have been lost over time. Karlgren proposed that type B finals contained a palatal medial, a position that is still accepted by most scholars. However Pulleyblank, noting the use of these syllables in the transcription of foreign words without such a medial, claims the medial developed later. A labiovelar medial is also widely accepted, with some syllables having both medials. The codas are believed to reflect those of many modern varieties, namely the glides and, nasals ,  and  and corresponding stops ,  and. Some authors argue that the placement of the first four rhyme groups in the Qieyun suggests that they had distinct codas, reconstructed as labiovelars and. Most reconstructions posit a large number of vowels to distinguish the many Qieyun rhyme classes that occur with some codas, but the number and the values assigned vary widely.

The Chinese linguist Li Rong published a study of the early edition of the Qieyun found in 1947, showing that the expanded dictionaries had preserved the phonological structure of the Qieyun intact, except for a merger of initials /dʐ/ and /ʐ/. For example, although the number of rhyme groups increased from 193 in the earlier dictionary to 206 in the Guangyun, the differences are limited to splitting rhyme groups based on the presence or absence of a medial glide Labio-velar approximant.

However the preface of the recovered Qieyun suggests that it represented a compromise between northern and southern reading pronunciations. Most linguists now believe that no single dialect contained all the distinctions recorded, but that each distinction did occur somewhere. For example, the Qieyun distinguished three rhyme groups 支, 脂 and 之 (all pronounced zhī in modern Chinese), although 支 and 脂 were not distinguished in parts of the north, while 脂 and 之 rhymed in the south. The three groups are treated as tongyong in the Guangyun and have merged in all modern varieties. Although Karlgren's identification of the Qieyun system with a Sui-Tang standard is no longer accepted, the fact that it contains more distinctions than any single contemporary form of speech means that it retains more information about earlier stages of the language, and is a major component in the reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology.

Pingshui rhyme categories
From early in the Tang dynasty, candidates in the imperial examination were required to compose poetry and rhymed prose in conformance with the rhyme categories of the Qieyun. However, the fine distinctions made by the Qieyun were found overly restrictive by poets, and Xu Jingzong and others suggested more relaxed rhyming rules. The Píngshuǐ (平水) system of 106 rhyme groups, first codified during the Jin dynasty, eventually became the prescribed system for the imperial examination. It became the standard for official rhyme books, and was also used as the classification system for such reference works as the Peiwen Yunfu.

The Píngshuǐ rhyme groups are the same as the tóngyòng groups of the Guangyun, with a few exceptions:
 * The 廢 fèi group is merged with 隊 duì.
 * The rising and departing tone groups corresponding to 蒸 zhēng were merged into the 迥 jiǒng and 徑 jìng groups.
 * The groups 嚴 yán and 凡 fán, which were tóngyòng in the Guangyun, and in complementary distribution, were split between the two preceding tóngyòng groups.

Yan Zhengqing's Yunhai jingyuan (c. 780) was the first rime dictionary of multisyllabic words rather than single characters. Though no longer extant, it served as the model for a series of encyclopedic dictionaries of literary words and phrases organized by Píngshuǐ rhyme groups, culminating in the Peiwen Yunfu (1711).

Vernacular dictionaries
A side-effect of foreign rule of northern China between the 10th and 14th centuries was a weakening of many of the old traditions. New genres of vernacular literature such as the qu and sanqu poetry appeared, as well as the Zhongyuan Yinyun, created by Zhōu Déqīng (周德清) in 1324 as a guide to the rhyming conventions of qu. The Zhongyuan Yinyun was a radical departure from the rhyme table tradition, with the entries grouped into 19 rhyme classes each identified by a pair of exemplary characters. These rhyme classes combined rhymes from different tones, whose parallelism was implicit in the ordered of the Guangyun rhymes. The rhyme classes are subdivided by tone and then into groups of homophones, with no other indication of pronunciation. The dictionary reflects contemporaneous northern speech, with the even tone divided in upper and lower tones, and the loss of the Middle Chinese final stops. Such syllables, formerly grouped in the entering tone, are distributed between the other tones, but placed after the other syllables with labels such as 入聲作去聲 (rùshēng zuò qùshēng 'entering tone makes departing tone').

The early Ming dictionary Yùnluè yìtōng (韻略易通) by Lan Mao was based on the Zhongyuan Yinyun, but arranged the homophone groups according to a fixed order of initials, which were listed in a mnemonic poem in the ci form. However, there could still be multiple homophone groups under a given rhyme group, tone and initial, as medial glides were not considered part of the rhyme. Further innovations are found in a rime dictionary from the late 16th century describing the Fuzhou dialect, which is preserved, together with a later redaction, in the Qi Lin Bayin. This work enumerates the finals of the dialect, differentiated by both medial and rhyme, and classifies each homophone group uniquely by final, initial and tone. Both finals and initials are listed in cí poems.

Tangut
Tangut was the language of the Western Xia state (1038–1227), centred on the area of modern Gansu. The language had been extinct for four centuries when an extensive corpus of documents in the logographic Tangut script were discovered in the early 20th century. One of the sources used to reconstruct the Tangut language is the Sea of Characters, a rhyme dictionary written entirely in Tangut, but with the same structure as the Chinese dictionaries. The dictionary consists of one volume each for the Tangut level and rising tones, with a third volume of "mixed category" characters, whose significance is unclear. As with the Chinese dictionaries, each volume is divided into rhymes, and then into homophone groups separated by a small circle. The pronunciation of the first Tangut character in each homophone group is given by a fanqie formula using a pair of Tangut characters. Mikhail Sofronov applied Chen Li's method to these fanqie to construct the system of Tangut initials and finals.

Scanned books

 * At the Internet Archive:
 * Chóngxiū Guǎngyùn
 * Yuánběn Guǎngyùn
 * Jiyun
 * Qièyùn kǎo, by Chen Li (1842).
 * Huìjí yǎ tōng shíwǔ yīn ("Compilation of the fifteen elegant and vulgar sounds"), the oldest known rhyme dictionary of a Zhangzhou dialect.
 * At the Chinese Text Project:
 * Songben Guangyun, with dictionary lookup
 * Jiyun
 * Qièyùn kǎo
 * Sì shēng yùnpǔ, by Liáng Sēngbǎo 梁僧寳 (1859) – tabulation of Guangyun entries by tone, initial and final.
 * Jiyun at Hathi Trust Digital Library
 * Songben Guangyun in electronic form
 * Yonh Tenx Myangx 韻典網 (Rhyme Dictionary Website) includes scans of the Songben Guangyun, Zhongyuan Yinyun and other dictionaries, as well as data detived from them.

Other languages

 * Sea of Characters, a Tangut rhyme dictionary:
 * electronic version (under construction), by Andrew West.
 * "Untangling the Web of Characters", by Andrew West, April 2010.
 * Notes on Tangut fanqie, by Marc Miyake, June 2011.
 * fragments held by the British Library:, ,

title: Rime dictionary


text:
Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 4

After too fast, we have too slow
Quite a few users have been here too long. They need to be made sysops. Most have unanimous support and have been here for at least a week, (i think) Green  Mountain 23:00, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * A week is not long enough. --mav 23:17, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * I have seen users become sysops after being listed for less than 2 days. Green  Mountain 19:11, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Tim explains

 * Please check the discussion above. I was chastised for doing it after 2 days, now I do it after a week. Also, I don't have time to do it every day, so some people may have to wait more than a week. -- Tim Starling 01:57, Jan 8, 2004 (UTC)

Should I apply?
I have been here for more than a month. I have a couple thousand contributions. I don't know if I should apply for adminship. Can someone tell me if I should? Green  Mountain 01:20, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * You shouldn't. --Wik 01:44, Jan 8, 2004 (UTC)

 * Asking "should I ask" is unnecessary. People won't hate you for asking too early, they'll just be really nice about it and tell you to come back later. Lots of people have been made sysops on the second attempt. I say go for it. -- Tim Starling 01:57, Jan 8, 2004 (UTC)

 * Although you have to consider Alex... -- Tim Starling 02:00, Jan 8, 2004 (UTC)

There's no harm in asking. Give it a go and see what happens. --Camembert 02:32, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Criteria
Being a sysop is more about being a trusted member of the community rather than about how many edits you've made, and you can't expect to have gained this in less than a week. People need to see how you handle various situations, etc. --Angela, quoted (and seconded) by Uncle Ed 22:26, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * One of those situations clearly being "how do you act when you don't get your own way". Which this would appear to be. -- Finlay McWalter 23:13, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, thats a very good idea.  Green  Mountain 23:21, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I just wanted to say that I got sysop status after only a bit more than a month and maybe 300/400 edits, but most of the edits were useful instead of "added a period" or "spelling correction".

I'm not Attacking anyone who does that, but 300 minor edits is a whole different thing than 300 full-paragraph (or at least fact) additions...

--Ilyanep 16:38, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

New rule
It seems the new rule at this so-called open source project is that anyone with a sysop key can ban any user, or attempt to block any IP at any time. So much for the e-mail, discussion and what not. All it requires is a rope and a few willing allies. In this case, the vigilante action seems to have been to protect other sysops from criticism. --172.192.87.172 00:26, 25 Jan 2004

 * I will be happy to discuss these matters further with you, but not on the wiki itself. You can email me at cyanonym at hotmail dot com. -- Cyan 02:26, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)


text:
United States National Cemetery System

The United States National Cemetery System is a system of 164 cemeteries in the United States and its territories. The authority to create military burial places came during the American Civil War, in an act passed by the U.S. Congress on July 17, 1862. By the end of 1862, 12 national cemeteries had been established. Two of the nation's most iconic military cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery which is under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Army, and Gettysburg National Cemetery, under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, were established in 1864 and 1863, respectively.

National Cemetery Administration
The National Cemetery Administration of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) maintains 148 national cemeteries as well as the Nationwide Grave-site Locator, which can be used to find burial locations of American military Veterans through their searchable website. The Department of the Army maintains two national cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery and United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery. The National Park Service (NPS) maintains 14 national cemeteries associated with historic sites and battlefields.

The American Battle Monuments Commission, an independent agency of the executive branch, established by Congress in 1923, maintains 26 American military cemeteries and other memorials outside the United States.

History
Twelve national cemeteries were established in 1862. A total of 34 were established during the Civil War from 1861-1865. Additional cemeteries were set up after the United States Civil War by Edmund Burke Whitman. Congress passed additional laws to establish and protect national cemeteries in 1867. The National Cemetery Administration lists a total of 73 Civil War-Era National Cemeteries from 1861-1868.

Final military honors are provided for qualified Veterans by volunteer veteran or National Guard details known as Memorial Honor Details (MHD), upon application by family members through their choice of mortuary handling the deceased.

List of United States national cemeteries
* Please note that the year listed is the official date of establishment listed by the VA. This may differ from the year of the first burial, the oldest remains, the year the land was acquired, etc. Many post cemeteries have been given national cemetery status as late as 2020, which is considerably later than the original cemetery. For example Vancouver Barracks post cemetery was established in 1849 and became a national cemetery in 2020--one of 11 cemeteries transferred from the Army to NCA in 2019–2020 per Exec. Order No. 13781, 2017.

title: United States National Cemetery System


text:
Asclepias

Asclepias is a genus of herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants known as milkweeds, named for their latex, a milky substance containing cardiac glycosides termed cardenolides, exuded where cells are damaged. Most species are toxic to humans and many other species, primarily due to the presence of cardenolides. However, as with many such plants, some species feed upon them (e.g. their leaves) or from them (e.g. their nectar). The most notable of them is the monarch butterfly, which uses and requires certain milkweeds as host plants for their larvae.

The genus contains over 200 species distributed broadly across Africa, North America, and South America. It previously belonged to the family Asclepiadaceae, which is now classified as the subfamily Asclepiadoideae of the dogbane family, Apocynaceae.

The genus was formally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, who named it after Asclepius, the Greek god of healing.

Flowers
Members of the genus produce some of the most complex flowers in the plant kingdom, comparable to orchids in complexity. Five petals reflex backwards revealing a gynostegium surrounded by a five-membrane corona. The corona is composed of a five-paired hood-and-horn structure with the hood acting as a sheath for the inner horn. Glands holding pollinia are found between the hoods. The size, shape and color of the horns and hoods are often important identifying characteristics for species in the genus Asclepias.

Pollination in this genus is accomplished in an unusual manner. Pollen is grouped into complex structures called pollinia (or "pollen sacs"), rather than being individual grains or tetrads, as is typical for most plants. The feet or mouthparts of flower-visiting insects, such as bees, wasps, and butterflies, slip into one of the five slits in each flower formed by adjacent anthers. The bases of the pollinia then mechanically attach to the insect, so that a pair of pollen sacs can be pulled free when the pollinator flies off, assuming the insect is large enough to produce the necessary pulling force (if not, the insect may become trapped and die). Pollination is effected by the reverse procedure, in which one of the pollinia becomes trapped within the anther slit. Large-bodied hymenopterans (bees, wasps) are the most common and best pollinators, accounting for over 50% of all Asclepias pollination, whereas monarch butterflies are poor pollinators of milkweed.

Asclepias species produce their seeds in pods termed follicles. The seeds, which are arranged in overlapping rows, bear a cluster of white, silky, filament-like hairs known as the coma (often referred to by other names such as pappus, "floss", "plume", or "silk"). The follicles ripen and split open, and the seeds, each carried by its coma, are blown by the wind. Some, but not all, milkweeds also reproduce by clonal (or vegetative) reproduction.

Selected species
There are also 12 species of Asclepias in South America, among them: A. barjoniifolia, A. boliviensis, A. curassavica, A. mellodora, A. candida, A. flava, and A. pilgeriana.

Ecology
Milkweeds are an important nectar source for native bees, wasps, and other nectar-seeking insects, though non-native honey bees commonly get trapped in the stigmatic slits and die. Milkweeds are also the larval food source for monarch butterflies and their relatives, as well as a variety of other herbivorous insects (including numerous beetles, moths, and true bugs) specialized to feed on the plants despite their chemical defenses.

Milkweeds use three primary defenses to limit damage caused by caterpillars: hairs on the leaves (trichomes), cardenolide toxins, and latex fluids. Data from a DNA study indicate that, generally, more recently evolved milkweed species ("derived" in botany parlance) use these preventive strategies less but grow faster than older species, potentially regrowing faster than caterpillars can consume them.

Research indicates that the very high cardenolide content of Asclepias linaria reduces the impact of the Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) parasite on the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus. The OE parasite causes holes to form in the wings of fully developed monarch butterflies. This causes weakened endurance and an inability to migrate. The parasite only infects monarchs when they are larvae and caterpillars, but the detriment is when they are in their butterfly form. By contrast, some species of Asclepias are extremely poor sources of cardenolides, such as Asclepias fascicularis, Asclepias tuberosa, and Asclepias angustifolia.

Monarch butterfly conservation and milkweeds
The leaves of Asclepias species are a food source for monarch butterfly larvae and some other milkweed butterflies. These plants are often used in butterfly gardening and monarch waystations in an effort to help increase the dwindling monarch population.

However, some milkweed species are not suitable for butterfly gardens and monarch waystations. For example, A. curassavica, or tropical milkweed, is often planted as an ornamental in butterfly gardens outside of its native range of Mexico and Central America. Year-round plantings of this species in the United States are controversial and criticised, as they may lead to new overwintering sites along the U.S. Gulf Coast and the consequent year-round breeding of monarchs. This is thought to adversely affect migration patterns, and to cause a dramatic build-up of the dangerous parasite, Ophryocystis elektroscirrha. New research also has shown that monarch larvae reared on tropical milkweed show reduced migratory development (reproductive diapause), and when migratory adults are exposed to tropical milkweed, it stimulates reproductive tissue growth.

Because of this, it is most often suggested to grow milkweeds that are native to the geographical area they are planted in to prevent negative impacts on monarch butterflies.

Monarch caterpillars do not favor butterfly weed (A. tuberosa), perhaps because the leaves of that milkweed species contain very little cardenolide. (1) (2) . (3) . Some other milkweeds may have similar characteristics.

Uses
Milkweeds are not grown commercially in large scale, but the plants have had many uses throughout human history. Milkweeds have a long history of medicinal, every day, and military use. The Omaha people from Nebraska, the Menomin from Wisconsin and upper Michigan, the Dakota from Minnesota, and the Ponca people from Nebraska, traditionally used common milkweed (A. syriaca) for medicinal purposes. The bast fibers of some species can be used for rope. The Miwok people of northern California used heart-leaf milkweed (A. cordifolia) for its stems, which they dried and used for cords, strings and ropes.

The fine, silky fluff attached to milkweed seeds, which allows them to be distributed long distances on the wind, is known as floss. Milkweed floss is incredibly difficult to spin due to how short and smooth the filaments are, but blending it with as little as 25% wool or other fiber can produce workable yarn.

A study of the insulative properties of various materials found that milkweed floss was outperformed by other materials in terms of insulation, loft, and lumpiness, but it scored well when mixed with down feathers. The milkweed filaments from the coma (the "floss") are hollow and coated with wax, and have good insulation qualities. During World War II, more than 5000 t of milkweed floss was collected in the US as a substitute for kapok. Milkweed is grown commercially as a hypoallergenic filling for pillows and as insulation for winter coats. Using milkweed floss for these purposes could provide a plant-based alternative to down and promote the growth of milkweed in areas where it has declined, though there is some concern that the environmental impacts could be negative if monoculture is used. Asclepias is also known as "Silk of America" which is a strand of common milkweed (A. syriaca) gathered mainly in the valley of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. Milkweed floss can be used in thermal insulation and acoustic insulation. The floss is also highly buoyant and water-repellent, but absorbs oil readily. Due to its oil-absorbing properties, it can be used for oil spill cleanup.

Milkweed latex contains about two percent latex, and during World War II both Nazi Germany and the US attempted to use it as a source of natural rubber, although no record of large-scale success has been found.

Many milkweed species also contain cardiac glycoside poisons that inhibit animal cells from maintaining a proper K+, Ca2+ concentration gradient. As a result, many peoples of South America and Africa used arrows poisoned with these glycosides to fight and hunt more effectively. Some milkweeds are toxic enough to cause death when animals consume large quantities of the plant. Some milkweeds also cause mild dermatitis in some who come in contact with them. Nonetheless, some species can be made edible if properly processed.

title: Asclepias


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Alcoa

Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for "Aluminum Company of America") is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum, and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry: technology, mining, refining, smelting, fabricating, and recycling.

Alcoa emerged in 1888 as the brainchild of Charles Martin Hall, with the funding of Alfred E. Hunt and Arthur Vining Davis. Alcoa was the first mass producer of aluminum. Before Alcoa's formation, aluminum was difficult to refine and, as a result, was more expensive than silver or gold. In 1886, Hall discovered the Hall–Héroult process, the first inexpensive technique for refining aluminum, drastically reducing the price of aluminum while increasing its availability. Hall approached Hunt and Davis to form a company to bring his process to market; the three founded Alcoa as the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which expanded quickly. Hunt died in 1898 after fighting in the Spanish–American War. The company changed its name to the Aluminum Company of America in 1907. Alcoa increased production by 40% during World War I and was an essential supplier of aluminum in World War II.

In the 2000s, Alcoa purchased numerous competitors, including Reynolds Group Holdings (makers of Reynolds Wrap). On November 1, 2016, Alcoa Inc. split into two entities: a new one called Alcoa Corporation, which is engaged in the mining and manufacture of raw aluminum, and the renaming of Alcoa Inc. to Arconic Inc., which processes aluminum and other metals. Alcoa has been criticized for its lax environmental record, but it no longer ranks highly as one of the worst polluters in the United States.

Hall's patent
In 1886, Charles Martin Hall, a graduate of Oberlin College, discovered the process of smelting aluminum, almost simultaneously with Paul Héroult in France. He realized that by passing an electric current through a bath of cryolite and aluminum oxide, the then semi-rare metal aluminum remained as a byproduct. This discovery, now called the Hall–Héroult process, along with the Bayer process, are the dominant processes for production of aluminum from bauxite ore.

Fewer than ten sites in the United States and Europe produced aluminum at the time. In 1887, Hall agreed to try his process at the Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company plant in Lockport, New York. Still, it was not used, and Hall left after one year, teaming up with Alfred E. Hunt to form a new company.

After graduating from Amherst College in 1888, Arthur Vining Davis joined the new venture because Arthur's father knew Alfred Hunt. At the time, aluminum sold at almost $5 per pound, making it too expensive to be used commercially. They were determined to lower the cost of production using Charles Hall's ideas; Hall, Davis, and others worked 12-hour days together for months on the experiments. Their first commercial aluminum pour was on Thanksgiving Day in 1888.

Pittsburgh Reduction Company
The Pittsburgh Reduction Company began with an experimental smelting plant on Smallman Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Hunt as president and Hall as vice president. In 1891, the company began production in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Davis was named general manager and appointed to the board of directors in 1892. In 1895, a third site opened at Niagara Falls.

Hunt's departure
Hunt left the company in 1898 to fight in the Spanish–American War. While in Puerto Rico, he contracted Malaria. Less than a year after his return to the states, he died from complications of the disease at age 44.

By about 1903, after a settlement with Hall's former employer, and while its patents were in force, the company was the only legal supplier of aluminum in the United States.

By 1902, New Kensington consisted of 173,000 sq. feet on 15 acres with 276 employees. The company operated hydropower and reduction plants in Niagara Falls, NY (1895), Shawinigan Falls, Quebec (Northern Aluminum Company), mining operations in Bauxite, AR (1901), and reduction facilities in East St. Louis, IL (1902). "The Aluminum Company of America" became the firm's new name on January 1, 1907. Davis was named company president in 1910 when the acronym "Alcoa" was coined. Hall remained a vice president until he died in 1914. It was given as a name to two of the locales where major corporate facilities were located (although one of these has since been changed), and in 1999, was adopted as the official corporate name.

From 1902 until 1915, additional plants in Massena, New York (1903), Alcoa, Tennessee (1911), Edgewater, New Jersey (1915), Badin, North Carolina (1915) came online while New Kensington had 31 buildings in the complex housing six departments (tubes, sheets, rods, bar and wire, extrusion, jobbing, foil) and two subsidiaries (Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company and Aluminum Seal Company). In 1907, it created the "company town" of Pine Grove, New York, for workers outside Massena. In Badin, Alcoa, Maryville and other locations, the company funded the construction of schools, parks, playgrounds, and medical facilities.

The World Wars
Historian George David Smith notes that "war was good to Alcoa." By the end of World War I Alcoa's New Kensington facility accounted for 3,292 workers—a fifth of the local population—and covered over 1 million square feet of manufacturing space on 75 acres. The war enabled Alcoa to increase production by 40% and to export some ninety million pounds to the Western Allies.

After WWI, Alcoa obtained the rights to Alfred Wilm's duralumin patent, which led to additional research into other aluminum alloys. By 1923, Alcoa's New Kensington, Pennsylvania plant was using horizontal extrusion presses, with preheated billets, for aerospace and construction applications. One of the first industrial uses was for the Navy's Shenandoah, followed ten years later with airplane applications. The Northern Aluminum Company in Quebec was renamed the Aluminum Company of Canada (ALCAN) in 1925. They were responsible for the rapid development of Arvida, Quebec, a remote area 250 km north of Quebec City. Infrastructure was necessary to support the workforce required by the aluminum plant, so the company funded the construction of schools, parks, playgrounds, and medical facilities.

Davis was named chairman of Alcoa's board of directors in 1928 and remained in that role for thirty years until his retirement.

In 1938, the Justice Department charged Alcoa with illegal monopolization and demanded that the company be dissolved. The case of United States v. Alcoa was settled six years later.

Aluminum products were of crucial use during World War II. A German U-Boat sank the SS Alcoa Puritan in 1942, as it carried a load of bauxite ore.

Alumax
In 1998, Alcoa acquired Alumax in a cash and share deal for $2.8 billion. Alcoa paid $50 a share in cash for half of the shares and 0.6975 Alcoa share for each of the remaining Alumax shares. Alcoa also assumed $1 billion in debt. Alumax's assets included the Eastalco aluminum smelter in Adamstown, Maryland, the Intalco aluminum smelter in Ferndale, Washington, and the Kawneer brand of building construction products.

Reynolds
In 2000, Alcoa acquired Reynolds Metals Co. in an all-share deal for $4.5 billion. To clear anti-competition regulatory hurdles, Alcoa was required to sell Reynolds's 25% interest in a Washington smelter and all of Reynolds's alumina refineries. Reynolds owned a 56% interest in the Worsley alumina refinery in Australia, a 50% interest in a refinery in Germany, and a 100% interest in a Texas refinery. Alcoa also planned to sell Reynolds's construction and distribution business and the company's $400 million transportation business. Alcoa sold its packaging and consumer business, formerly called Reynolds Metals, to the Rank Group for $2.7 billion in 2008.

Cordant
In 2000, Alcoa also purchased Cordant Technologies Inc. for $57 a share in cash, or $2.3 billion, and assumed $685 million of Cordant's debt for a total transaction value of $2.9 billion. Cordant's divisions included Huck Fasteners, Jacobson Mfg. Co., Continental/Midland Group, its 85% interest in Howmet International Inc., and Thiokol Corporation. In 2001, Alcoa sold Thiokol for $2.9 billion to Alliant Techsystems (ATK).

Chalco
Alcoa purchased an 8% stake of Aluminum Corporation of China (Chalco) in 2001. It tried to form a strategic alliance with China's largest aluminum producer, at its Pingguo facility; however, it was unsuccessful. Alcoa sold their stake in Chalco on September 12, 2007, for around $2 billion.

Chemicals
In 2004, Alcoa's specialty chemicals business was sold to two private equity firms led by Rhône Group for an enterprise value of $342 million, which included the assumption of debt and other unfunded obligations. Rhône Group then changed the name to Almatis, Inc.

Corporate relocation
In 2006, Alcoa relocated its top executives from Pittsburgh to New York City while its operational headquarters was still at its Corporate Center in Pittsburgh. Alcoa employed approximately 2,000 people at its Corporate Center in Pittsburgh and 60 at its New York office. Alcoa moved its headquarters back to Pittsburgh effective September 1, 2017, as part of a general consolidation of administrative facilities around the world. In October 2018, Alcoa announced plans to move from Pittsburgh's North Shore to a downtown Pittsburgh location.

Alcan bid
In May 2007, Alcoa Inc. made a US$27 billion hostile takeover bid for Alcan in an attempt to form the world's largest aluminum producer. The bid was withdrawn when Alcan announced a friendly takeover by Rio Tinto in July 2007.

On May 8, 2008, Klaus Kleinfeld was appointed CEO of Alcoa, succeeding Alain Belda. On April 23, 2010, Alcoa's board of directors selected Kleinfeld to the office of chairman, following Belda's planned retirement.

Recycling
On July 16, 2012, Alcoa announced that it would take over full ownership and operation of Evermore Recycling and make it part of Alcoa's Global Packaging group. Evermore Recycling is a leader in used beverage can recycling, purchasing more recycled cans than any other group worldwide.

In June 2013, Alcoa announced it would permanently close its Fusina primary aluminum smelter in Venice, Italy, where production had been curtailed since June 2010.

On January 9, 2014, Alcoa settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice over charges of bribing Bahraini officials. Under the settlement terms, they will pay the SEC $175 million to settle the charges. To resolve the criminal claims with the DoJ, Alcoa World Alumina (AWA, a company within Alcoa World Alumina and Chemicals) is pleading guilty to one count of violating the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). AWA will pay the DoJ $223 million in five equal installments over the next four years, bringing the company's total bill for the scandal to $384 million.

Company split
In June 2016, Alcoa Inc. announced plans to split itself into two companies: Alcoa Inc would be renamed as Arconic and would take over the business of designing and building processed metal parts, primarily for the automotive and aerospace industries; a new company, Alcoa Corporation, would be set up and spun out of the remainder of Alcoa Inc. and retain the Alcoa name. Alcoa Corp. would continue the mining, smelting, and refining of raw aluminum. The split was completed on November 1, 2016.

Environmental record
In 2008, the Political Economy Research Institute ranked Alcoa 15th among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States. The ranking is based on the quantity (13 million pounds in 2005) and toxicity of the emissions. More recently Alcoa ranked first in the United States even though they had reduced their emissions to less than 5 million pounds in 2014. Alcoa's most recently published ranking has dropped to 72nd based on 2020 data.

In 2005, Alcoa was again included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices and was named as one of the top three most sustainable corporations in the world by Corporate Knights and Innovest Strategic Value Advisors at the World Economic Forum meeting.

In April 2003, Alcoa Inc. agreed to spend an estimated $330 million to install a new coal-fired power plant with state-of-the-art pollution controls to eliminate the vast majority of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions from the power plant at Alcoa's aluminum production facility in Rockdale, Texas. The settlement was the ninth case the Bush administration pursued to bring the coal-fired power plant industry into full compliance with the Clean Air Act. Alcoa was unlawfully operating at the Rockdale facility since it overhauled the Rockdale power plant without installing necessary pollution controls and without first obtaining proper permits required by "New Source Review" program of the Clean Air Act.

In February 1999, Alcoa cleaned soils and sediment contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and lead at the York Oil federal Superfund site in Moira, New York, in accordance with the Environmental Protection Agency. The site, a former waste oil recycling storage facility, accepted waste oil from several companies, including Alcoa. The facility was improperly managed and operated, and as a result, soils on the York Oil Property and nearby wetlands sediments and groundwater were contaminated. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Superfund Unilateral Order on December 31, 1998, requiring Alcoa to excavate, treat and dispose of the contaminated wetlands sediments.

Jamaica
Alcoa formed the Alcoa Minerals of Jamaica subsidiary on the island in 1959, shipping their first load of bauxite in 1963 from Rocky Point. Later in 1972, Alcoa established a 500,000 tonne per year refinery that processes bauxite into alumina. They have continued to upgrade the plant through the years, and it is now capable of 1,425,000 tonnes per year. In 1988, the Jamaican government gained a 50% share in the subsidiary and renamed the operation to Jamalco, Alcoa being the managing partner. Expansion of the operation in 2007 resulted in Alcoa owning 55% of the operation. Alcoa continues to mine bauxite in the Jamaican parishes of Clarendon and Manchester, while competitors' operations occur in nearby parishes.

Dominican Republic
In the 1970s, Alcoa negotiated with the Dominican Republic government concerning its bauxite mining operations. The U.S. Department of State expressed concerns that the Dominican Republic might follow Jamaica's lead in imposing higher taxes on Alcoa's operations. This period was marked by intense discussions and negotiations regarding the taxation and revenue from bauxite mining, highlighting the complexities of international business operations and the impact of global commodity markets on local economies.

Alcoa Road, also known as El Aceitillar, is a significant part of Alcoa's legacy in the Dominican Republic. Originally constructed for a bauxite mine, it now leads to Sierra de Bahoruco National Park. This area offers an opportunity to observe endemic species and serves as a reminder of the environmental dimensions of industrial operations. Alcoa Road's transition from an access route for mining to a gateway for environmental observation underscores the evolving relationship between industry and conservation.

Ghana
Alcoa's affiliate in Ghana, the Volta Aluminum Company, was completely closed between May 2003 and early 2006 due to problems with its electricity supply.

Guinea
Alcoa is a major owner of the Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée through Halco Mining, together with Rio Tinto Alcan and the Guinean government. Guinea is the second global producer of bauxite and it is said to have half of the world's reserves.

Iceland
In 2005, Alcoa began construction in Iceland on Alcoa Fjarðaál, a state-of-the-art aluminum smelter and the company's first greenfield smelter in more than 20 years, albeit under heavy criticism by local and international NGOs related to a controversial dam project exclusively dedicated to supplying electricity to this smelter. The Fjarðaál smelter in eastern Iceland was completed in June 2007 and brought into full operation the following April. The plant processes 940 tons of aluminum a day, with a capacity of 346,000 metric tons a year, making it Alcoa's second largest capacity smelter. For power, the plant relies on the Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant, constructed and operated by the state-owned Landsvirkjun specifically for the smelting operation. That project was subject to controversy due to its impact on the environment.

In 2006, Alcoa and the government of Iceland signed an agreement on instigating a thorough feasibility study for a new 250,000 tpy (Tons Per Year) smelter in Bakki by Húsavík in Northern Iceland. In October 2011, the proposed project was dropped because "the power availability and proposed pricing would not support an aluminum smelter".

Alcoa announced plans to close the office in Reykjavik.

Russia
In 2005 Alcoa acquired two major production facilities in Russia, at Samara and Belaya Kalitva.

Wales
On November 21, 2006, Alcoa announced that it planned to close the Waunarlwydd works in Swansea, with the loss of 298 jobs. Production ceased at the Swansea plant on January 27, 2007. A small site closure team worked until December 31, 2008. Alcoa still owns the site, but it is now managed locally and renamed Westfield Industrial Park. Several of the large buildings are leased out to local businesses.

Australia
Alcoa operates bauxite mines, alumina refineries, and aluminum smelters through Alcoa World Alumina and Chemicals, a joint venture between Alumina Limited and Alcoa. Alcoa operates two bauxite mines in Western Australia—the Huntly and Willowdale mines. Alcoa World Alumina and Chemicals owns and operates three alumina refineries in Western Australia: Kwinana, Pinjarra, and Wagerup. The Wagerup expansion plans were put on hold due to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. In January 2024, Alcoa announced it would cease alumina production at its Kwinana refinery that year. Two aluminum smelters are also operated in the state of Victoria at Portland and Point Henry; the Point Henry smelter was scheduled to be closed in August 2014. Alcoa Australia Rolled Products, a 100% Alcoa Inc. venture, operates two rolling mills. The Point Henry Rolling Mill in Victoria and the Yennora Rolling Mill in N.S.W. have a combined rolling capacity of approx. 200,000 tonnes. Alcoa uses 12,600 GWh, or 15% of Victoria's electricity annually.

Alcoa's Western Australian Wagerup plant has a troubled history in the context of claims that pollution from the plant has harmed the health of members of the adjacent local community.

United States
On January 3, 2003, Alcoa opened its new operations headquarters on the North Shore of Pittsburgh. This move came about after it donated its 50-year-old skyscraper headquarters in Downtown Pittsburgh to the Regional Development Authority.

Alcoa created a plant just outside Maryville in Blount County, Tennessee. To support the factory, Alcoa built a small city and named it as such. The Alcoa Tenn Federal Credit Union was the first employee-created credit union in the state. The plant is no longer an Alcoa business.

Alcoa's Massena West plant is the longest-operating smelter in the United States, continuously operating since 1902. The Reynolds Aluminum Plant became Massena East when the companies merged in 2000.

Alcoa had a smelting plant in Badin, North Carolina from 1917 to 2007 and continued a hydroelectric power operation there until February 1, 2017, when the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project was sold to Cube Hydro.

Alcoa also operates an aluminum smelting plant of similar size to the one in Tennessee in Warrick County, Indiana, just east of Newburgh. Vectren Energy operates a coal power plant on the site to provide electricity. In 2021, Alcoa retained the aluminum smelter and generating station while selling the rest of the facility to Kaiser Aluminum. This sale included the cast house, ingot facilities, hot mill, cold mills, and finishing mills.

Alcoa maintains several Research and Development Centers in the United States. The largest one, Alcoa Technical Center, is located East of its Pittsburgh Headquarters at Alcoa Center, Pennsylvania. The "Tech Center" is as large as some college campuses, has its own zip code, and maintains an extensive intellectual and physical resource for innovation. Alcoa's extensive safety program continuously improves safety at the Tech Center. After Paul O'Neill became Alcoa's CEO in 1987, Alcoa became one of the safest companies in the world, despite the aluminum industry's inherent risks.

Alcoa plans to close offices in Richmond, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee; and Chicago.

Alcoa Steamship Company

The Alcoa Steamship Company was a subsidiary of ALCOA since the company was formed in 1917.
 * List of ships:
 * SS Alcoa Banner (SS Sundance)
 * SS Alcoa Cavalier
 * SS Alcoa Clipper
 * SS Alcoa Corsair
 * SS Alcoa Guide
 * SS Alcoa Partner
 * SS Alcoa Patriot
 * SS Alcoa Pegasus
 * SS Alcoa Pennant
 * SS Alcoa Pilgrim
 * SS Alcoa Pioneer
 * SS Alcoa Planter
 * SS Alcoa Pointer
 * SS Alcoa Polaris
 * SS SS Alcoa Puritan (1941)
 * SS Alcoa Ranger
 * SS Alcoa Roamer
 * SS Alcoa Runner
 * SS Bushranger

In popular culture
From 1955 to 1957, Alcoa sponsored The Alcoa Hour, an anthology television series on NBC. The series ran for 48 episodes across two seasons and would feature an advertisement for Alcoa products before the credits of each program. The series featured some of the early work of director Sidney Lumet, the five-time Oscar nominee known for the 1957 version of 12 Angry Men.

Between 1957 and 1960, the Alcoa-sponsored Alcoa Theatre, an NBC anthology television series that went on to win three Emmys. From 1961 to 1963, Alcoa sponsored a third anthology television series on ABC. Alcoa Premiere was hosted by Fred Astaire and received 14 Emmy nominations during its two-year run.

Alcoa is portrayed as the main sponsor of the 1953 CBS program See It Now in George Clooney's Academy Award–nominated 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck.

title: Alcoa


text:
2004 California Proposition 58

Proposition 58 was a California ballot proposition on the March 2, 2004 ballot. It passed with 4,535,084 (71.2%) votes in favor and 1,841,138 (28.8%) against. It was officially called the California Balanced Budget Act. It requires the state legislature to pass a balanced budget every year, which means that budgeted recurrent expenditure, including repayment of past debt, does not exceed estimated revenue. The act does not require that capital works programs be funded out of current revenues. The California Constitution has always allowed bond issues (state debt) for specified capital works, above a certain value. Bond measures must be approved by a statewide ballot.

The Act created a reserve fund called the Budget Stabilization Account in case of future financial trouble. It also prevented the creation of any future bonds to pay off deficits like that in Proposition 57 (the California Economic Recovery Bond Act). Proposition 58 took effect only because Proposition 57 also passed.

Propositions 57 and 58 were the centerpiece of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to resolve California's budget problems. Schwarzenegger campaigned heavily for both propositions' passage.

While Prop 58 was to provide balanced California budgets, the deficits continued in subsequent years, growing larger over time.

Official summary

 * Requires enactment of a balanced budget where General Fund expenditures do not exceed estimated General Fund revenues.
 * Allows the Governor to proclaim a fiscal emergency in specified circumstances, and submit proposed legislation to address the fiscal emergency.
 * Requires the Legislature to stop other action and act on legislation proposed to address the emergency.
 * Establishes a budget reserve.
 * Provides that the California Economic Recovery Bond Act is for a single object or work.
 * Prohibits any future deficit bonds.

Summary of Legislative Analyst's Estimate of Net State and Local Government Fiscal Impact:
 * Unknown net state fiscal effects, which will vary year by year and depend in part on actions of future Legislatures.
 * Reserve provisions may smooth state spending, with reductions during economic expansions and increases during downturns.
 * Balanced budget and debt limitation provisions can result in more immediate actions to correct budgetary shortfalls.

title: 2004 California Proposition 58


text:
User talk:Landcuo

Hi there. Welcome to Wikipedia! Drop us a note at New user log to introduce yourself.

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Happy editing, Isomorphic 08:35, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Landcuo


text:
Agree to disagree

To "agree to disagree" is to resolve a conflict (usually a debate or quarrel) by having all parties tolerating but not accepting the opposing positions. It generally occurs when all sides recognize that further conflict would be unnecessary, ineffective or otherwise undesirable.

Origin
In 1770, the phrase "agree to disagree" appeared in print in its modern meaning when, at the death of George Whitefield, John Wesley wrote a memorial sermon which acknowledged but downplayed the two men's doctrinal differences:

"There are many doctrines of a less essential nature ... In these we may think and let think; we may 'agree to disagree.' But, meantime, let us hold fast the essentials..."

In a subsequent letter to his brother Charles, Wesley attributed it to Whitefield (presumably George Whitefield): "If you agree with me, well: if not, we can, as Mr. Whitefield used to say, agree to disagree." Whitefield had used it in a letter as early as June 29, 1750.

"After all, those who will live in peace must agree to disagree in many things with their fellow-labourers, and not let little things part or disunite them.""

Though Whitefield and Wesley appear to have popularized the expression in its usual meaning, it had appeared in print much earlier (1608) in a work by James Anderton, writing under the name of John Brereley, Priest, although his usage lacks the implication of tolerance of differing beliefs.

"And as our learned adversaries do thus agree to disagree in their owne translations, mutually condemning (as before) each other... (The Protestants Apologie for the Roman Church Deuided into three seuerall Tractes)"

The phrase "agree to differ" appeared in the early part of the 18th century in a sermon by John Piggott: "And now why should we not agree to differ, without either enmity or scorn?" (Sermon on Union and Peace, preach'd to several Congregations, April 17, 1704).

title: Agree to disagree


text:
The Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses is the fourth novel of the British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie. First published in September 1988, the book was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters. The title refers to the Satanic Verses, a group of Quranic verses about three pagan Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Al-Uzza, and Manāt. The part of the story that deals with the satanic verses was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari.

The book was a 1988 Booker Prize finalist (losing to Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda), and won the 1988 Whitbread Award for novel of the year. Timothy Brennan called the work "the most ambitious novel yet published to deal with the immigrant experience in Britain".

The book and its perceived blasphemy motivated Islamic extremist bombings, killings, and riots and sparked a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. Fearing unrest, the Rajiv Gandhi government banned the importation of the book into India. In 1989, Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against Rushdie, resulting in several failed assassination attempts on the author, who was granted police protection by the UK government, and attacks on connected individuals, including the Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi who was stabbed to death in 1991. Assassination attempts against Rushdie continued, including an attempt on his life in August 2022.

Plot
The Satanic Verses consists of a frame narrative, using elements of magical realism, interlaced with a series of sub-plots that are narrated as dream visions experienced by one of the protagonists. The frame narrative involves Indian expatriates in contemporary England. The two protagonists, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, are both actors of Indian Muslim background. Farishta is a Bollywood superstar who specialises in playing Hindu deities (the character is partly based on Indian film stars Amitabh Bachchan and N. T. Rama Rao). Chamcha is an emigrant who has cut himself off from his Indian heritage and works as a voiceover artist in England.

At the beginning of the novel, both are trapped in a plane hijacked by Sikh separatists, flying from India to Britain. The plane explodes over the English Channel, but the two are magically saved. In a miraculous transformation, Farishta takes on the personality of the archangel Gabriel and Chamcha that of a devil. Chamcha is arrested and is subjected to police abuse as a suspected illegal immigrant.

Both characters struggle to piece their lives back together. Farishta seeks and finds his lost love, the English mountaineer Allie Cone, but their relationship is overshadowed by his mental illness. Chamcha, having miraculously regained his human shape, wants to take revenge on Farishta for having forsaken him after their joint fall from the hijacked plane. He does so by fostering Farishta's pathological jealousy and paranoid schizophrenia, thus destroying his relationship with Allie. In another moment of crisis, Farishta realises what Chamcha has done, initially going on a campaign of arson through London, before deciding to forgive Chamcha and rescuing him from a building he's set ablaze.

Both return to India. Farishta throws Allie off a high rise building in another outbreak of jealousy and then kills himself. Chamcha, who has found not only forgiveness from Farishta but also reconciliation with his estranged father and his own Indian identity, decides to remain in India.

Dream sequences
Embedded in this story is a series of half-magic dream vision narratives, ascribed to the mind of Farishta.

One of the sequences is a fictionalised narration of the life of Muhammad (called "Mahound" or "the Messenger" in the novel) in Mecca (called Jahilia in the novel). At its centre is the episode of the so-called satanic verses, in which the prophet first proclaims a revelation requiring the adoption of three of the old polytheistic deities, but later renounces this as an error induced by the Devil. There are also two opponents of the "Messenger": a priestess, Hind, and a skeptic and satirical poet, Baal. When the prophet returns to Mecca in triumph, Baal goes into hiding in an underground brothel, where the prostitutes assume the identities of the prophet's wives. Also, one of the prophet's companions claims that he, doubting the authenticity of the "Messenger", has subtly altered portions of the Quran as they were dictated to him.

The second sequence tells the story of Ayesha, an Indian peasant girl who claims to be receiving revelations from the Archangel Gabriel. She entices all her village community to embark on a foot pilgrimage to Mecca, claiming that they will be able to walk across the Arabian Sea. The pilgrimage ends in a catastrophic climax as the believers all walk into the water and disappear, amid disturbingly conflicting testimonies from observers about whether they simply drowned or were in fact miraculously able to cross the sea.

A third dream sequence presents the figure of a fanatic expatriate religious leader, the "Imam", in a late-20th-century setting, an allusion to Ruhollah Khomeini in his exile in Paris.

Literary criticism and analysis
Overall, the book received favourable reviews from literary critics. In a 2003 volume of criticism of Rushdie's career, the influential critic Harold Bloom named The Satanic Verses "Rushdie's largest aesthetic achievement".

Timothy Brennan called the work "the most ambitious novel yet published to deal with the immigrant experience in Britain" that captures the immigrants' dream-like disorientation and their process of "union-by-hybridization". The book is seen as "fundamentally a study in alienation."

Muhammad Mashuq ibn Ally wrote that "The Satanic Verses is about identity, alienation, rootlessness, brutality, compromise, and conformity. These concepts confront all migrants, disillusioned with both cultures: the one they are in and the one they join. Yet knowing they cannot live a life of anonymity, they mediate between them both. The Satanic Verses is a reflection of the author’s dilemmas." The work is an "albeit surreal, record of its own author's continuing identity crisis." Ally said that the book reveals the author ultimately as "the victim of nineteenth-century British colonialism." Rushdie himself spoke confirming this interpretation of his book, saying that it was not about Islam, "but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay." He has also said "It's a novel which happened to contain a castigation of Western materialism. The tone is comic."

After the Satanic Verses controversy developed, some scholars familiar with the book and the whole of Rushdie's work, like M. D. Fletcher, saw the reaction as ironic. Fletcher wrote "It is perhaps a relevant irony that some of the major expressions of hostility toward Rushdie came from those about whom and (in some sense) for whom he wrote." He said the manifestations of the controversy in Britain: "embodied an anger arising in part from the frustrations of the migrant experience and generally reflected failures of multicultural integration, both significant Rushdie themes. Clearly, Rushdie's interests centrally include explorations of how migration heightens one's awareness that perceptions of reality are relative and fragile, and of the nature of religious faith and revelation, not to mention the political manipulation of religion. Rushdie's own assumptions about the importance of literature parallel the literal value accorded the written word in Islamic tradition to some degree. But Rushdie seems to have assumed that diverse communities and cultures share some degree of common moral ground on the basis of which dialogue can be pieced together, and it is perhaps for this reason that he underestimated the implacable nature of the hostility evoked by The Satanic Verses, even though a major theme of that novel is the dangerous nature of closed, absolutist belief systems."

Rushdie's influences have long been a point of interest to scholars examining his work. According to W. J. Weatherby, influences on The Satanic Verses were listed as James Joyce, Italo Calvino, Franz Kafka, Frank Herbert, Thomas Pynchon, Mervyn Peake, Gabriel García Márquez, Jean-Luc Godard, J. G. Ballard, and William S. Burroughs. According to the author himself, he was inspired to write the novel by the work of Mikhail Bulgakov The Master and Margarita. Angela Carter writes that the novel contains "inventions such as the city of Jahilia, 'built entirely of sand,' that gives a nod to Calvino and a wink to Frank Herbert".

Srinivas Aravamudan's analysis of The Satanic Verses stressed the satiric nature of the work and held that while it and Midnight's Children may appear to be more "comic epic", "clearly those works are highly satirical" in a similar vein of postmodern satire pioneered by Joseph Heller in Catch-22.

The Satanic Verses continued to exhibit Rushdie's penchant for organising his work in terms of parallel stories. Within the book "there are major parallel stories, alternating dream and reality sequences, tied together by the recurring names of the characters in each; this provides intertexts within each novel which comment on the other stories." The Satanic Verses also exhibits Rushdie's common practice of using allusions to invoke connotative links. Within the book he referenced everything from mythology to "one-liners invoking recent popular culture".

Controversy
The novel has been accused of blasphemy for its reference to the “Satanic Verses”. Pakistan banned the book in November 1988. On 12 February 1989, 10,000 protesters gathered against Rushdie and the book in Islamabad, Pakistan. Six protesters were killed in an attack on the American Cultural Center, and an American Express office was ransacked. As the violence spread, the importing of the book was banned in India and it was burned in demonstrations in the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, the Commission for Racial Equality and a liberal think tank, the Policy Studies Institute, held seminars on the Rushdie affair. They did not invite the author Fay Weldon, who spoke out against burning books, but did invite Shabbir Akhtar, a Cambridge philosophy graduate who called for "a negotiated compromise" that "would protect Muslim sensibilities against gratuitous provocation". The journalist and author Andy McSmith wrote at the time "We are witnessing, I fear, the birth of a new and dangerously illiberal 'liberal' orthodoxy designed to accommodate Dr. Akhtar and his fundamentalist friends."

In September 2012, Rushdie expressed doubt that The Satanic Verses would be published today because of a climate of "fear and nervousness".

Fatwa
In mid-February 1989, following the violent riot against the book in Pakistan, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran and a Shiite scholar, issued a fatwa calling for the death of Rushdie and his publishers, and called for Muslims to point him out to those who can kill him if they cannot themselves. Although the British Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher gave Rushdie round-the-clock police protection, many politicians on both sides were hostile to the author. British Labour MP Keith Vaz led a march through Leicester shortly after he was elected in 1989 calling for the book to be banned, while the Conservative politician Norman Tebbit, the party's former chairman, called Rushdie an "outstanding villain" whose "public life has been a record of despicable acts of betrayal of his upbringing, religion, adopted home and nationality".

Journalist Christopher Hitchens defended Rushdie and urged critics to condemn the violence of the fatwa instead of blaming the novel or the author. Hitchens considered the fatwa to be the opening shot in a cultural war on freedom.

In 2021, the BBC broadcast a two-hour documentary by Mobeen Azhar and Chloe Hadjimatheou, interviewing many of the principal denouncers and defenders of the book from 1988–1989, concluding that campaigns against the book were amplified by minority (racial and religious) politics in England and other countries.

Despite a conciliatory statement by Iran in 1998, and Rushdie's declaration that he would stop living in hiding, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported in 2006 that the fatwa would remain in place permanently since fatawa can only be rescinded by the person who first issued them, and Khomeini had since died.

Violence, assassinations, and attempted murders
Hitoshi Igarashi, Rushdie's Japanese translator, was found by a cleaning lady, stabbed to death in his office at the University of Tsukuba on 13 July 1991. Ten days prior to Igarashi's killing, Rushdie's Italian translator Ettore Capriolo was seriously injured by an attacker at his home in Milan by being stabbed multiple times on 3 July 1991. William Nygaard, the Norwegian publisher of The Satanic Verses, was critically injured by being shot three times in the back by an assailant on 11 October 1993 in Oslo. Nygaard survived, but spent months in the hospital recovering. The book's Turkish translator Aziz Nesin was the intended target of a mob of arsonists who set fire to the Madimak Hotel after Friday prayers on 2 July 1993 in Sivas, Turkey, killing 37 people, mostly Alevi scholars, poets and musicians. Nesin escaped death when the fundamentalist mob failed to recognize him early in the attack. Known as the Sivas massacre, it is remembered by Alevi Turks who gather in Sivas annually and hold silent marches, commemorations and vigils for the slain.

In March 2016, the bounty for the Rushdie fatwa was raised by $600,000 (£430,000). Top Iranian media contributed this sum, adding to the existing $2.8 million already offered. In response, the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, denounced the death sentence and called it "a serious violation of free speech". This was the first time it had commented on the issue since the book's publication.

On 12 August 2022, Rushdie was attacked onstage while speaking at an event of the Chautauqua Institution. Rushdie suffered four stab wounds to the stomach area of his abdomen, three wounds to the right side of the front part of his neck, one wound to his right eye, one wound to his chest and one wound to his right thigh. He was flown by helicopter to UPMC Hamot, a tertiary-level hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania. The attacker, Hadi Matar, was immediately taken into custody. He was charged with attempted murder and assault, pleading not guilty, and was remanded in custody. By 14 August, Rushdie was off the ventilator and able to talk. Rushdie's agent Andrew Wylie reported on 23 October that Rushdie had lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand.

title: The Satanic Verses


text:
Talk:2004 California Proposition 58

(null header)
Is the "Summary of Legislative Analyst's Estimate of Net State and Local Government Fiscal Impact:" part of the "Official Summary?" I'm presuming so but it's not completely clear. And who prepares this official summary? What I'm really getting at is, whose financial analysts made those claims? I'm not disputing them or even suggesting they might be biased, I just think it would be nice to have more attribution/explanation. (I'd do it myself but I have no knowledge whatsoever about it.) Isomorphic 08:42, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:2004 California Proposition 58


text:
User talk:Richardchilton

Hi there. Welcome to Wikipedia! Drop us a note at New user log to introduce yourself.

If you need editing help, visit How does one edit a page. For format questions, visit our manual of style

Some time when you're bored, you can read through our policies and guidelines. If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. You can also drop me a question on my talk page.

Happy editing, Isomorphic 08:44, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hello. When you moved Londonderry and County Londonderry you did so in a matter that managed to lose their page history. Please use 'move this page'. In the meantime, I've sorted out the mess, although I didn't reapply your consistent changing of Londonderry -> Derry too. You will find that revision in the history. I agree it was using Londonderry too much, but I think it ought to use alternate or random rather than taking sides. Morwen 07:12, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

Use common names
You may want to look at Naming conventions (common names). Don't move pages without discussing. --Jiang 06:36, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Welcome to Wikipedia. Thanks for helping to take on the "fox news crowd". Secretlondon 09:44, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Image Tagging for Image:Bloodysunday.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:Bloodysunday.jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided source information for them as well.

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title: User talk:Richardchilton


text:
User talk:Arun

Hi there. Welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks for your contributions. Why don't you drop us a note at New user log to introduce yourself?

If you need editing help, visit How does one edit a page. For format questions, visit our manual of style

Some time when you're bored, you can read through our policies and guidelines. If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. You can also drop me a question on my talk page.

Happy editing, Isomorphic 08:46, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Siva or Savi
Siva or Savi what d u mean by editing the devanagiri scrips in sivas page?? Tux the penguin 12:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Siva was misspelled on the page in the Devanagari script. I reverted your change because it caused Siva to be displayed incorrectly on web browsers which _correctly_ support the display of Devanagari script Sanskrit with Unicode. For more information, see Enabling_complex_text_support_for_Indic_scripts

To be specific, after your change Siva was displayed on a web browser which correctly supports Devanagari as: ि श व (without spaces between the characters.)

For proper display of Devanagari script on Linux, you might want to try finding a copy of the Mozilla webbrowser which supports complex text layout (CTL). Or install libxindic, a library I wrote to transparently add support for the Devanagari, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati script, Oriya, Gurumukhi, and Malayalam scripts, for applications running in X Windows, including Mozilla.

India quick links
pamri 17:12, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Hi
Hi Arun. Your profile seems interesting. I noticed your edit to Abdul Kalam article in Tamil. If you can contribute to Tamil wikipedia, which is growing fast, it would be greatly helpful. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 10:05, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Sundar. In this case, I confirmed the spelling of his name against the Tamil wikipedia spelling of his name ta:%E0%AE%8F._%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%BF._%E0%AE%9C%E0%AF%87._%E0%AE%85%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%B2%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%B2%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D

My written Tamil is not good enough to contribute to the Tamil wikipedia, unfortunately.

Arun 21:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Oh ok. See you around. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 04:12, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Re: Feroze Gandhi
The whole actual article was "conspiracy theory"-based before I edited 90% of it. I don't have any sources for his birth, but in this case its best to delete that until fresh sources are available. - Nirav

Re: Feroze Gandhi
The whole actual article was "conspiracy theory"-based before I edited 90% of it. I don't have any sources for his birth which is why I didn't change that info, but in this case its best to delete that until fresh sources are available. - Nirav

Demografics of Immigrant ethnic groups
Hi Arun.

Thank you for your message. Yes in Kuwait as I've heard there are many Kurds (immigrants) but since Kurds have not their own independent state they are mostly labelled Iranians, Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi etc... while they are a specific and independent ethnic group. I can cite this reference about kurds in Kuwait Thank you again. Take care. Mesopotamia 12:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting link. However, the demographic data there is suspect, or more likely extremely out of date. For example, the "Indo-Pakistani" population listed there is 8%, whereas the Indian citizen population alone is 400,000 out of 2.4 million (as of early 2004). The combined Palestinian/Jordanian population of 37% is simply not believable -- there were 400,000 Palestinians out of less than 2 million residents before the Iraqi invasion, but almost all of them were deported (or not allowed to return back). Also, the Egyptian (400 thousand), Bangladeshi (170 thousand), Filipino (65 thousand), and a few others which would add up to ~ 20% of the population, but get squeezed in 4% other. Those percentages don't reconcile with the actual numbers, and are almost certainly pre-1990 figures.

Arun 13:17, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Bombay Stock Exchange
{| align=center style="width: 100%; border: #bbbbff solid 1px; background-color: #eeeeff;" Thank you for your contribution at Bombay Stock Exchange. Please keep it up!!! - P R A D E E P Somani  ( talk ) Feel free to send me e-mail. have a look at Indian subcontinent earthquakes list

Panini
Thank you for moving him to plain Panini, since the rason I moved him was to something that would be readable on my system, and I presume on others. Septentrionalis 03:44, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Iraq
Hi. I didn't add it, User:BalooUrsidae did. I just re-added it after the article was vandalized because I reverted back farther. I didn't realize that what User:BalooUrsidae added was vandalism so I kept it. Sorry --Khoikhoi 16:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

A.S.K.?
No harm intended. Its just that seeing the information change from one of 2005 to one of 2004 seemed innacurate to me. I actually went to A.S.K. myself, graduated in 2004. I see from your webpage that you appear to have graduated from ASK around 1997? My cousin actually graduated from ASK in 1998. Usama Alarfaj? You might have known him. Well anyway, sorry about reverting your edit. I just wanted to keep the Kuwait page up-to-date. Its a pleasure meeting a fellow alumni of ASK (Although the school has drastically declined in standards since your day). -Zer0fighta 07:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh cool, I remember Usama Alarfaj -- he was in at least one of my classes. Nice to meet another ASK alum here.

Arun 07:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Greetings
Greetings on India’s 57th Republic Day. --Bhadani 08:11, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Virama
This is true, however, I prefer to include the virama because that is how devanagari was originally made. I do not use the "modernized" version because I do not consider it to be true devanagari. --Shell <e> 02:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

P.S. We could just have two different ones, one with and one without (modernized and traditional) --Shell <e> 03:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

 * How about listing the traditional version as Sanskrit, and the modern one under Hindi,Nepali,Marathi? (the rest of his names appear to be on a per-language rather than per script approach, so this should be reasonable. Though the traditional version should probably end with a ज् instead of ज़् -- isn't the Nukta a relatively recent addition?

Arun 03:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I used a s(a) because it offers a z sound. the ja might be a little alkward.

Sanskrit: जिमी वेल्स् Hindi: जिमी वेल्ज़

Sound good?

--Shell <e> 06:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

rm gratuitous ...
Could you please keep an eye out for the gratuitous addition of categories too? I've noticed that the addition of "(Persian)" and "Category:Persian people" are often going hand in hand (usually by anonymous users).

The user contributions for User:Rikyoosan and User:Simindokht are only additions of +cat:Persian people. These two are most certainly sockpuppets - its highly unlikely that the first and only thing a user will do is add cats.

Users who have made the mistake due to genuine misunderstanding include Mitso Bel and Deville (see also: this talk).

ps: please answer here, not on my talk page. -- Fullstop 12:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Indian American classification
Could you take a look at User:Dark_Tichondrias webpage? He wants to include it as a source for reference and citations. I'm not sure what to make of it. I've been wary of his edits in the pasts and his talk page makes me a bit more cautious. --Dangerous-Boy 01:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Arun 05:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Are you talking about Asian Race? Personally, I don't know whether wikipedia should be depending on second and third order sources, especially, when more basic sources, are accessible (e.g, actual census department reports listing changes of race definitions over time, and pages talking about the various race-based classification schemes. That site appears to be a soapbox, with misused facts (references to pre-genetic racial classification schemes to discredit racial classification in general), to bolster his point.

 * Yeah. That's the one.  i don't know how about the books he used for references.  It's coming to a point that he's trying to turn the classification part into a political statement of some kind. --Dangerous-Boy 04:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Indian American going to the crappier
Is there anything we can do about the article. User:Dark_Tichondrias is trying to make some it some kind of political statement on it. The whole article is centering around some race identity crisis. Even the ABCD section more confused than it should be. Don't know what else to do.--Dangerous-Boy 03:29, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I just got back from India. I'll go through the past month's edits sometime this week and try doing some more cleanup. *sigh* Arun 15:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Notice_board_for_India-related_topics/INCOTW
Indian American article is up for INCOTW. Please vote.--Dangerous-Boy 17:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Manmohan Singh
I did not realize that Manmohan Singh was not the 14th prime minister. I must check that out. If you are 195.92.40.49, then sorry for reverting with the popup toolbar - I thought it was just another vandal :) - Aksi_great (talk) 06:56, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm not 195.92.40.49, but the fact that Manmohan Singh is the 13th prime minister, not the 14th isn't clear. No worries :-) Arun 16:55, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

INCOTW
You voted for Indian American, this week's Indian Colloboration of the Week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. - Ganeshk  ( talk ) 05:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

SIPB
Why are you hiding the SIBP page on your User subpage? Let's get it out to WP sooner rather than later (I wanted to link to it...). For now, I will put up a stub and leave it to you to decide what to do with your content. --Macrakis 20:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Kazakhstan
You do know I did not blank the article? All I did was to clean up the vandalism and was unable to fix it up.

Norum

It looked like an accident to me. I left a small note on your talk page, on how to avoid problems when reverting vandalism.

Arun 05:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

1 rupee last printing
'''I want to know when 1 rupee note was last printed. if it is year 1998, then why after 1994, it eas again printed.''' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.96.210.251 (talk) 08:04, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:14, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Arun


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