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Spot (franchise)

Spot is a fictional puppy created by Eric Hill, an English author and illustrator of children's picture books. The success of Hill's books about Spot led to other media productions, including television and home video titles, music albums, and CD-ROM titles.

History
First published in 1980, Where's Spot? was inspired while Hill was working in creative marketing; he noticed his three-year-old son was fascinated by the process of lifting up a paper, on a design he was creating. Captivated by this thought, Hill created a story about a puppy which incorporated the flap design. During the late 1970s, this was an extraordinarily innovative concept, and it took some time for any publisher to take any notice of the idea before Puffin books decided to publish his book. Within weeks of the first book being released it topped the Bestseller list.

Hill said "When I first drew Spot I realised that when I came to draw the spot on his body and the tip of his tail I was copying the markings on an aircraft. I grew up drawing aircraft – that is how I learned to draw. "I am quite convinced now, as I look back, that the actual training of drawing cartoons – which is, of course, my style – led to my producing Spot. Cartoons must be very simple and have as few words as possible and so must the Spot books. I designed Spot out of my previous background as a designer and illustrator. It was quite unconscious but I can see now that I have created a ready-made trademark of its kind, with the essential spot on the body and a bit on the tail."

Over time, the book was translated into more than sixty languages. In Afrikaans versions of the book Spot is translated to "Otto", widely believed to be the surname of a South African friend of Hill's. This name has been attributed to Spot as many of the books were believed to be inspired by the life of aforementioned friend, J. Otto. In the Netherlands, Spot is known as Dribbel.

Main characters

 * Spot: The protagonist of the series. A yellow puppy with a brown spot on each side of his body and a brown tip on his tail, Spot appears to be a mixed breed; since his mother is a beagle, a pointer, a Dalmatian, or a St. Bernard and his father is a Labrador or a golden retriever. Spot is full of curiosity, helpfulness, and a huge desire to learn.
 * Sally: Spot's mother. She is also yellow and has a brown spot on her back that goes around the back of her body, as well as two brown spots on each side of her body and a brown tip on her tail. For this description, Sally appears to be a beagle, a pointer, a Dalmatian, or a St. Bernard. Much of the first story, Where's Spot?, involves her going around the house looking for Spot.
 * Sam: Spot's father. He is also yellow, but without any spots on his body. For this description, Sam appears to be a Labrador or a golden retriever.
 * Susie: Spot's little sister, she is yellow but has a brown spot on her back. Like her big brother Spot, Susie also appears to be a mixed breed; since her mother is a beagle, a pointer, a Dalmatian, or a St. Bernard and her father is a Labrador or a golden retriever.
 * Helen: A blue hippo who is Spot's best friend. Her colour is dark blue and she has sags under her eyes in the first series of The Adventures of Spot. Starting with later episodes of series one, she is redesigned with a more youthful and less intimidating appearance, turning light blue and losing the sags under her eyes. Starting with series two, she becomes an ever lighter shade of blue.
 * Steve: A brown monkey (possibly a chimpanzee or spider monkey) with a tan face, he is playful and full of surprises.
 * Tom: A green crocodile who is Spot's third best friend. He started out dark green in colour and has white eye sacs in the first series. He also sports rather sharp-looking incisors and a red colouring inside his mouth on the first series of The Adventures of Spot. Starting with later episodes of the first series, similar to Helen, he is also redesigned with a more youthful and less intimidating appearance, losing the sharp incisors and white eye sacs. Starting with the second series, he also turns to a lighter shade of green. He loves going fishing. Tom loves the drum, considered to be his favourite instrument. His dad is the mayor of the town.
 * Ginger: A ginger cat who appears in the books as the family pet.

Supporting characters

 * Grandma: Spot's maternal grandmother and Sally's mother. She appears in the book Spot Visits His Grandparents and the video Spot and his Grandparents Go to the Carnival.
 * Grandpa: Spot's maternal grandfather and Sally's father. He appears in the book Spot Visits His Grandparents and the video Spot and his Grandparents Go to the Carnival.
 * Miss Bear: A brown bear, she is Spot's preschool teacher. She first appeared in Spot Goes to School.

Minor characters

 * Billy: A brown bear who loves to eat. He appears in the first series of The Adventures of Spot. In the books, he appears in Spot's Birthday Party.
 * Betsy: A brown bear. She only appears in Spot Goes to the Circus. She is one of the characters who takes Spot's ball, and insists its hers when Spot asks for it.
 * Clare: A green turtle. She is one of Spot's classmates and appears in Spot Goes to School. She is the only other girl in Spot's nursery/preschool class besides Helen.
 * Sybil: An orange cat who is the series' antagonist. She has a very rude personality, as seen in episodes Spot's Lost Bone and Spot's First Walk as well as the Spot's First Walk book based with the TV episode where she scares Spot. She appears only in the first series of The Adventures of Spot. In the U.S., her rude personality was toned down.
 * Mr. Kangaroo: Spot's neighbour, a brown kangaroo that speaks in an Australian accent since kangaroos are a native animal of Australia. He appears only in the first series of The Adventures of Spot.
 * Leo: An orange lion.
 * Sidney: A yellowish-green snake.
 * Steve's Mom: Steve's mom. Appears only in Spot Sleeps Over. She is voiced by Linda Gary.
 * The Mayor: Tom's dad. He only appeared in Spot Goes to the Carnival and the book from the book series Spot Goes to School. And he does not speak.

Books
Since 1980 with the success of Where's Spot?, the late Eric Hill went on to create numerous other books, with most being translated to Welsh (as well as the TV series, commissioned by S4C), some have also been translated into Scottish Gaelic, and Where's Spot? has been translated into Cornish.

 * Where's Spot? (1980)
 * Spot's First Walk (1981)
 * Spot's Birthday Party (1982)
 * Spot Goes to School (1984)
 * Spot Goes on Holiday (1985)
 * Spot Goes to the Farm (1987)
 * Spot's First Easter (1988)
 * Spot's Goes to a Party (1992)
 * Spot Visits his Grandparents (1996)

List of Spot sound books
In the 1990s a number of books were released with sound effects, produced by Publications International and published by Frederick Warne. The U.S. edition of the sound books were somewhat different from the U.K. editions of the book. The text in these editions is slightly altered, and in some cases, the title is changed as well. They are produced and published by Publications International.

Book design
The books are set in the typeface Century Schoolbook Infant, a very rare, single-story version of Century Schoolbook.

Television
With the success of the books the BBC commissioned an animated series, which first appeared on 9 April 1987; with Paul Nicholas providing the narration, and renarrated in 2000 by Jane Horrocks. The series aired on television channel across the world, including RTÉ in Ireland, with the series dubbed into an Irish language with the title Echtrai Bhrain. A DVD version was released in Japan in 2005 with Japanese, English and Instrumental sound tracks. The DVDs used the same name for Spot as the books in Japan, that being コロちゃん (Korochan)

In February 2024, it was announced a new animated series is currently in production from Guru Studio.

The Adventures of Spot: series 1 (1987)
The first series of The Adventures of Spot, which was animated and produced by King Rollo Films, aired on the BBC between 9 April and 17 July 1987. It consisted of 13 episodes, each 5 minutes long. The episodes were narrated by Paul Nicholas (original version) and the music was composed by Duncan Lamont (original version). Episodes in this series:

 * 1) "Spot's Surprise Parcel" (9 April 1987)
 * 2) "Spot's Lost Bone" (16 April 1987)
 * 3) "Spot's First Walk" (23 April 1987)
 * 4) "Spot in the Woods" (30 April 1987)
 * 5) "Spot's Birthday Party" (7 May 1987)
 * 6) "Where's Spot?" (14 May 1987)
 * 7) "Sweet Dreams, Spot" (20 May 1987)

 * 1) "Spot Goes to School" (28 May 1987)
 * 2) "Spot Goes to the Circus" (4 June 1987)
 * 3) "Spot Follows His Nose" (11 June 1987)
 * 4) "Spot Goes Splash" (18 June 1987)
 * 5) "Spot's Windy Day" (16 July 1987)
 * 6) "Spot Goes to the Beach" (17 July 1987)

The Adventures of Spot: series 2 (1993)
The second series of The Adventures of Spot aired between 6 September and 20 December 1993, and, like the first series, consisted of 13 5-minute episodes. Once again, the episodes were produced by King Rollo Films. Paul Nicholas (original version) returned as the voices and Duncan Lamont (original version) returned as composer of the music.

Episodes in this series:

 * 1) "Spot Goes to the Farm" (6 September 1993)
 * 2) "Spot Sleeps Over" (9 September 1993)
 * 3) "Spot Makes a Cake" (13 September 1993)
 * 4) "Spot Goes to the Park" (16 September 1993)
 * 5) "Spot Finds a Key" (20 September 1993)
 * 6) "Spot in the Garden" (23 September 1993)
 * 7) "Spot Goes to a Party" (27 September 1993)

 * 1) "Spot's Winter Sports" (15 November 1993)
 * 2) "Spot Goes to the Fair" (22 November 1993)
 * 3) "Spot's Favorite Toy" (29 November 1993)
 * 4) "Spot's First Picnic" (6 December 1993)
 * 5) "Spot at the Playground" (13 December 1993)
 * 6) "Storytime with Spot" (20 December 1993)

Spot's Musical Adventures (2000)
Spot's Musical Adventures, very similar to The Adventures of Spot, aired between 25 October and 10 November 2000. Like The Adventures of Spot, this series consisted of thirteen episodes, but this time, with a short song in them. The format of the series reverted to the narration format used prior to the specials. For these episodes, however, comedian Jane Horrocks was given the role of the narration and voices, instead of Paul Nicholas. The episodes and the songs were all written by Andrew Brenner, and the songs were performed by American London-based actor Dan Russell. The music was also composed by Kick Production.

Episodes:

 * 1) "Spot's Show" (25 October 2000)
 * 2) "Spot's Treehouse" (26 October 2000)
 * 3) "Spot's Breakfast" (27 October 2000)
 * 4) "Spot's Horse" (released in the U.S. as "Spot's Hobby Horse") (30 October 2000)
 * 5) "Spot's Grandpa" (31 October 2000)
 * 6) "Spot's Umbrella" (1 November 2000)
 * 7) "Spot's Band" (2 November 2000)

 * 1) "Spot's Bath" (3 November 2000)
 * 2) "Spot's Tent" (6 November 2000)
 * 3) "Spot Tidies Up" (released in the U.S. as "Spot Cleans Up") (7 November 2000)
 * 4) "Spot Helps Grandma" (8 November 2000)
 * 5) "Spot's School Trip" (9 November 2000)
 * 6) "Hide and Seek" (released in the U.S. as "Spot Plays Hide and Seek") (10 November 2000)

Direct-to-video specials
A number of specials produced for release on VHS were created:

It's Fun to Learn with Spot – Phase 1 (1990)
The first phase of It's Fun to Learn With Spot, produced by Spitfire Television and Living Doll Productions and was released on VHS. It consisted of four episodes, each approximately fifteen minutes in length, and narrated by Peter Hawkins. The theme song used in The Adventures of Spot was licensed from King Rollo Films, so the familiar tune by Duncan Lamont was heard at the beginning and end of each episode. However, music on the show was kept to a minimum.
 * 1) "Spot's Alphabet"
 * 2) "Spot's Busy Year"
 * 3) "Spot Learns to Count"
 * 4) "Spot Tells the Time"

It's Fun to Learn with Spot – Phase 2 (1994)
The second phase of It's Fun to Learn With Spot and, like the first VHS, consisted of four fifteen-minute episodes. However the episodes were produced by King Rollo Films and retained the talents of Paul Nicholas and Duncan Lamont, in UK.

Episodes in this series:
 * 1) "Spot Looks at Opposites"
 * 2) "Spot's First Word Game"
 * 3) "Spot Looks at Colours"
 * 4) "Spot Looks at Shapes"

Note: The two phases of It's Fun to Learn with Spot are often listed as one series, even on Penguin Television's website. However, as noted, the two phases were produced four years apart by two different companies and are very different in design.

Spot's Magical Christmas was released in 1995 and Spot and his Grandparents Go to the Carnival in 1997. These two specials, which are both thirty minutes long, have some notable differences from the normal series. First off, they have no narration, and each character is voiced distinctly. The characters' mouths also move to speech, in comparison to the other episodes, in which the characters' mouths remain static and the entire episode is narrated as a story. There are also several songs in the specials, as there were in It's Fun to Learn With Spot.

Voices
 * Calum Neilsen – Spot (Spot's Magical Christmas)
 * Tom Fletcher – Spot (Spot and his Grandparents Go to the Carnival)
 * Josie Lawrence – Sally/Helen
 * Paul Nicholas – Sam (Spot's Magical Christmas)
 * Philip Pope – Tom
 * Steve Steen – Sam (Spot and his Grandparents Go to the Carnival)/Steve
 * Steve Frost – Reindeer #1
 * Lee Cornes – Reindeer #2
 * Andy Paresi – Santa Claus
 * Carol MacReady – Grandma
 * Rob Inglis – Grandpa

American cast
From 1989 to 2002, Disney Channel aired the two The Adventures of Spot series as part of its half-hour Lunch Box series, and later as post-show interstitials. For the program's home video releases in the United States, Walt Disney Home Video redubbed the series with unique character voices rather than a singular narrator. Disney Channel aired the two redubbed specials but continued to air The Adventures of Spot in its original British version.

 * Corey Burton – Narrator, Sam, Tom, Steve, Spot's Grandpa, additional voices
 * Linda Gary – Sally, Miss Bear, Betsy, Helen, Clare, Tina, Sybil, additional voices
 * Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Ryan O'Donohue and Haley Joel Osment – Spot
 * Shaun Fleming – Spot (singing voice)
 * Tress MacNeille – Helen, Sally, Female Reindeer, Spot's Grandma, additional voices
 * Jim Cummings – Male Reindeer, Santa Claus

Music albums
A number of companies have released a number of CDs featuring mainly nursery rhymes, under the name of "The Spot".

 * Spot in the Park with the Flowerpot Gang Released in Australia by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in the early 2000s, Spot in the Park with the Flowerpot Gang consists of 26 nursery rhymes. Apparently, it is no longer published.
 * Spot's First Play Songs Published by Genius Entertainment and is also available in a box set titled Spot's Favorite Toddler Tunes (although in this edition, The Alphabet Song is excluded).
 * Spot's Farmyard Friends It is also published by Genius Entertainment and is also available in the Spot's Favorite Toddler Tunes box set.
 * Spot's Classics for Growing Minds Bidding on the success of the controversial Mozart Effect, Spot's Classics for Growing Minds contains twelve classical numbers from various classical composers. Also published by Genius Entertainment, this album has also made its appearance in the Spot's Favorite Toddler Tunes box set.

CD-ROMs
Two Spot CD-ROM titles were published by Europress and Hasbro Interactive. Both titles runs on both Microsoft Windows (Windows 95 or NT4 or newer) and Apple Macintosh (OS 8 up to Mac OS X Leopard) computers.

title: Spot (franchise)


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Autodesk Alias

Autodesk Alias (formerly known as Alias StudioTools) is a family of computer-aided industrial design (CAID) software predominantly used in automotive design and industrial design for generating class A surfaces using  Bézier surface and non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) modeling method.

The product is sold specifically as CAID rather than CAD, and its tools and abilities are oriented more towards the "styling" aspect of design - that is to say, the product's housing and outer appearance. It does not go into mechanical detail like other CAD programs such as Siemens NX, Inventor, CATIA, Creo and SolidWorks.

Alias Research
Alias software was developed by four computer scientists: Stephen Bingham, Nigel McGrath, Susan McKenna and David Springer to create an easy-to-use software package to produce realistic 3D models.

In 1983, Alias Research was founded at Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Alias unveiled its first product Alias/1 in 1985 at SIGGRAPH '85 in San Francisco.

Initial versions ran only on Silicon Graphics computers and the Irix operating system, until late in the 1990s when the software was ported to Microsoft Windows. In 2011 Mac versions were launched, which were discontinued in 2019. The company was a leader in high-end 3D graphics software.

Under Silicon Graphics
In 1995, Alias Research was purchased by Silicon Graphics and merged Wavefront Technologies, another 3D software graphics company founded in 1984 at Santa Barbara, California, to form Alias/Wavefront which was later renamed as Alias Systems Corporation.

Under Autodesk
On October 4, 2005 Alias was acquired by Autodesk, StudioTools changed its name to Autodesk AliasStudio. It became part of Autodesk in 2006.

Products
The product suite starts with Alias Design as the entry-level conceptual design system, progressing to Alias Surface, and then to Alias Automotive as the top-of-the-line product with all of the options.

Tools for sketching, modeling and visualization are combined in one software package. It meets the specialized needs of designers: sketching, freedom to experiment with shape and form, creating organic shapes, visualization for design review, and data exchange with CAD packages.

As of version 2021, Autodesk Alias was split into separate standalone products:
 * Autodesk Alias AutoStudio (formerly Autodesk Alias Automotive)
 * Autodesk Alias Surface (formerly Autodesk Surface Studio)
 * Autodesk Alias Concept ( formerly Autodesk Design Studio)

Usage and application

Autodesk Alias is often used for design and styling in the automotive, marine, aircraft, sporting equipment, packaging electronic enclosure, children's toy, and fashion accessory markets.

Alias .wire data reads directly into Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Showcase, Autodesk ImageStudio, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk VRED and It exports into several other 3D engineering packages via IGES or STEP such as Siemens NX, SolidWorks, Creo and CATIA for further downstream detailing and operations.

The program has two types of modelers within it: NURBS and Subdivision.

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

title: Autodesk Alias


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Machair

A machair (sometimes machar in English) is a fertile low-lying grassy plain found on part of the northwest coastlines of Ireland and Scotland, in particular the Outer Hebrides. The best examples are found on North and South Uist, Harris and Lewis.

Etymology
Machair is a Gaelic word meaning "fertile plain", but the word is now also used in scientific literature to describe the dune grassland unique to Western Scotland and north-west Ireland. It had been used by naturalists since 1926, but the term was not adopted by scientists until the 1940s. The word is used in a number of Irish, Scottish and Manx placenames to refer to low-lying fertile ground or fields, even in areas where no machair has ever been supported. In Scotland, some Gaelic speakers use machair as a general term for the whole dune system, including the dune ridge, while others restrict its use to the extensive flat grasslands inland of the dune ridge. In Ireland, the word has been used only in place-names, and the habitat's existence there was only recently confirmed. In Manx Gaelic, 'magher' is a common term for a field.

In 1976, an effort was made to strictly define machair, although a number of systems still evade classification. This proved difficult when the habitat was listed on Annex I of the Habitats Directive in 1992, leading to the distinction between "machair grassland" and the "machair system".

Geography
Machair is distinguished from the links on the east coast of Scotland by a lower mineral content, whereas the links are high in silica. Machair plains are highly calcareous, with calcium carbonate concentrations of between 20% and 80% on the beaches, and decreasing further away from the shore. The pH of a machair is typically greater than 7, i.e. it is alkaline.

The inner side of a machair is often wet or marshy, and may contain lochs.

Formation
The modern theory of machair formation was first set out by William MacGillivray in 1830. He worked out that shell fragments are rolled by waves towards the shore, where they are broken up further. The small shell fragments are blown up the beach to form hillocks, which are then blown inland.

Humans
Human activity has an important role in the creation of the machair. Archaeological evidence indicates that some trees had been cleared for agriculture by around 6000 BC, but there was still some woodland on the coast of South Uist as late as 1549. Seaweed deposited by early farmers provided a protective cover and added nutrients to the soil. The grass is kept short by cattle and sheep, which also add trample and add texture to the sward, forming tussocks that favour a number of bird species.

The soil is low in a number of key nutrients, including trace elements such as copper, cobalt and manganese, which makes it necessary to feed cattle supplements or take them to summer pastures elsewhere. The sandy soil does not hold nutrients well, making artificial fertilisers ineffective and limiting the crops that can be grown to certain strains of oats and rye, and bere barley.

Ecology
Machairs have received considerable ecological and conservational attention, chiefly because of their unique ecosystems.

Sea
Kelp in the sea next to the machair softens the impact of waves, reducing erosion, and when it is washed ashore by storms, forms a protective barrier on the beach. As the kelp decays it provides home to local sand flies which in turn provide rich feeding for flocks of starlings and other passerines, wintering waders, gulls and others. If covered with sand, kelp will compost to form a fertile bed where annual coastal flowers and marram grass will thrive.

Flora
They can house rare carpet flowers, including orchids such as Irish lady's tresses and the Hebridean spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchii ssp hebridensis) and other plants such as the yellow rattle.

Fauna
Bird species including the corn crake, twite, dunlin, common redshank and ringed plover, as well as rare insects such as the northern colletes bee, the great yellow bumblebee (Bombus distinguendus) and the moss carder bee (Bombus muscorum), are found there.

Threats
Arable and fallow machair is threatened by changes to the way the land is managed, where the original system of crofts is under threat from a reduction in the number of crofters and the use of "modern" techniques. Changes to the Common Agricultural Policy, where production was decoupled from subsidies, reduced the amount of grazing taking place in many crofting areas, and led some areas to be undergrazed or abandoned. A lack of native seed increases the need for fertilizers and herbicides.

Rising sea levels caused by global warming also pose a threat to low-lying coastal areas, leading to increased erosion. In January 1993, the storm which ran MV Braer aground off Shetland eroded 3 m of machair along the entire length of Uist and Barra. On 11/12 January 2005, a storm blowing consistently in excess of hurricane force 12 destroyed hectares of machair.

title: Machair


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User:Suncatcher~enwiki

articles i started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_MacMurtrie

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmprojektor

title: User:Suncatcher~enwiki


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File:Arms-romford.jpg

Arms of Romford Borough Council. From civicheraldry.co.uk, with permission.

About the civic heraldry images...

title: File:Arms-romford.jpg


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State University of Campinas

The State University of Campinas (Universidade Estadual de Campinas), commonly called Unicamp, is a public research university in the state of São Paulo, Brazil.

Established in 1962, Unicamp was designed from scratch as an integrated research center unlike other top Brazilian universities, usually created by the consolidation of previously existing schools and institutes. Its research focus reflects on almost half of its students being graduate students, the largest proportion across all large universities in Brazil, and also in the large number of graduate programs it offers: 153 compared to 70 undergraduate programs. It also offers several non-degree granting open-enrollment courses to around 8,000 students through its extension school.

Its main campus occupies 3.5 km2 located in the district of Barão Geraldo, a suburban area 12 km from the downtown center of Campinas, built shortly after the creation of the university. It also has satellite campuses in Limeira, Piracicaba and Paulínia, and manages two technical high schools located in Campinas and Limeira. Funding is provided almost entirely by the state government and, like other Brazilian public universities, no tuition fees or administrative fees are charged for undergraduate and graduate programs.

Unicamp is responsible for around 15% of Brazilian research, a disproportionately high number when compared to much larger and older institutions in the country such as the University of São Paulo. It also produces more patents than any other research organization in Brazil, being second only to the state-owned oil company, Petrobras.

1960s: Foundation
In the early 1960s the Government of the State of São Paulo planned to open a new research center in the interior of the state to promote development and industrialization in the region, and commissioned Zeferino Vaz, founder of the University of São Paulo's School of Medicine in Ribeirão Preto, to organize it. In parallel, a medical school was being planned in Campinas, a demand from the local population that dated from the early 1940s. The School of Medicine of Campinas was created by law in 1959, but actual implementation never took place.

The new university was created by law on December 28, 1962, but effective functioning begun in 1966. Before that, only the School of Medicine functioned. In April 1963 the first vestibular, the general admissions exam, was conducted, with 1,592 candidates competing for 50 spots in the medicine program. The first lecture in the newly created University of Campinas took place on May 20 of the same year. By 1965, the organizing commission for the new university started looking for a location for a new campus. A large area comprising 110 ha was donated by the Almeida Prado family, located in a valley in the district of Barão Geraldo in the city of Campinas, near the intersections of multiple highways. Until then, Barão Geraldo was a small village surrounded by farmland, in particular sugar cane plantations. The new development brought dramatic change to the district, resulting in entire new neighborhoods being zoned, planned and built, usually by the same Almeida Prado family.

Work on the new campus began on October 5, 1966, and the first building completed was the Institute of Biology, followed by administrative buildings. In the same year, Zeferino Vaz was nominated the rector. In parallel to the new campus, new units were opened in other cities, absorbing local schools. The Dental School of Piracicaba was absorbed in 1967, and in 1969 the Engineering School of Limeira.

1970–1990: Growth and crisis
Over the following two decades, the new university expanded rapidly. The campus quickly grew to 19 institutes and schools, and after Zeferino Vaz died in 1981 was named after him. With the campus construction completed, the School of Medical Sciences (formerly the School of Medicine of Campinas) was moved into the new campus, and its teaching hospital, Hospital de Clínicas, became the largest public hospital in the region.

Expansion on the campus continued rapidly, with new buildings, institutes and expansions being added nearly every year. However, by the late 1970s, the university faced a crisis. During its rapid expansion, it relied on draft bylaws, mostly borrowed from the University of São Paulo, and lacked formal internal regulations with the aging Zeferino Vaz, while no longer the rector, acting as a moderating force between parties with conflicting interests, in particular the leftist academic community and the State's government, appointed by the conservative military regime ruling the country.

After Zeferino's death in 1981, a conflict took place between the university's General Coordinator, appointed and backed by the government, and the Directive Council, composed of directors of different institutes. The rector introduced new rules reducing the power of the General Coordinator. As retaliation, the State's government removed 6 members of the Directive Council, replacing them with people from the state's Education Council, loyal to the governor, Paulo Maluf. Tensions between the academic community and the government-appointed counselors increased, with the future Minister of Education, Paulo Renato Costa Souza, then president of the Faculty Association, classifying the episode as a "white intervention". Following the dismissal of several institute heads and members of the administration, the administrative workers went on strike, with the support of students and faculty. With activities in the university frozen by the strike, the governor declared a formal intervention in the university in October 1981.

Despite the police-backed intervention, the university continued on strike. The appointed institute heads failed to break the stalemate between internal and external forces, and by early 1982, discussions began on a new list of candidates to the rectorship. Eventually, José Aristodemo Pinotti, a former dean of the School of Medical Sciences generally considered a moderate, was selected by the academic community and accepted by the governor. In the following week, on April 19, 1982, the intervention was lifted, and academic activities resumed normally.

After the crisis, Unicamp saw a period of renewal and restructuring. In 1983 the bylaws were rewritten, ensuring the autonomy of the academic community, and the new management structure for the campus was implemented. In 1986 the newly created University Council replaces the previous Directive Council as the supreme body of the university. The last years of the 1980s saw a reformulation of the admissions exam, expansion of the laboratories and the completion of the first units of the student housing.

1990 onwards
With a new administrative structure capable of supporting continuous growth and with its autonomy secured, Unicamp went through a period of consolidation in the 1990s. There was an increase in night programs, created to provide an alternative for low-income students who had to work during the day, and to increase utilization of classrooms and the existing infrastructure, reaching one third of total available places.

The period also saw an expansion of the technology industry in the region, centered around Unicamp, with Motorola, IBM, Solectron, Lucent Technologies and many others set up research labs and production centers in the region driven by the large number of highly qualified students graduating every year, culminating in the opening of the Institute of Computing in 1996.

In the 2000s Unicamp consolidated itself as one of the leading research and education centers in Latin America but also brought new challenges: just as with other public universities in Brazil, the high payroll costs (over 90% of the total budget) constrain investment and expansion. This is further aggravated by the economic depression that Brazil has been facing since 2014, the largest in the country's history.

Main campus
The flagship campus of the University of Campinas is located in the district of Barão Geraldo, 12 km from the center of Campinas. It currently occupies an area of 350 ha situated in a valley surrounded by gentle rolling hills and is bounded on the west by the urban area of Barão Geraldo, on the south and east by farmland and to the north by a lake and a new industrial park built in the 2000s.

Design
The campus has a unique design, with the main library, student service buildings and restaurant in a central circular plaza, and most of the academic buildings located in blocks emanating from the center in a radial fashion. The different areas of study are grouped in larger sections, but neighboring other areas with which they share similarities: the philosophy buildings mark the frontier between human sciences, mathematics and economics, while the School of Food Engineering is bordered by the chemical engineering and biology buildings. The architect responsible for the overall design of the campus was João Carlos Bross.

Streets are named after significant contributors to each field, including Elis Regina and Carlos Gomes Streets, a Brazilian singer and a composer, respectively, Alan Turing Avenue and others.

History
The area occupied by the campus was part of the much larger Rio das Pedras farm, owned by the prominent Almeida Prado family. In order to establish a new campus, Zeferino Vaz was looking for a large, flat area in the outskirts of the city, where he would have the freedom to design the campus and its surroundings from scratch. Interested in developing the area of the farm around Barão Geraldo, the family donated an initial area of 110 ha to the university. The remainder of the farmland was eventually zoned and developed into multiple neighborhoods, but the main historical farmhouse and its surroundings remain, now a protected heritage site and a natural reserve. With the land secured, the campus was designed in a way to ensure the maximum collaboration between the different sciences, with buildings laid along radial streets emanating from a central circular plaza, which also hosted administrative buildings. The layout of the campus would eventually be used on the design of the university's logo, created by Max Schiefer, which is essentially a simplified map of the core circle of the campus. This design is similar to the University of California, Irvine campus, build around the same time.

Construction started in 1966, with General Castello Branco, the first president of Brazil's military regime, laying the cornerstone of the Institute of Biology, which was inaugurated in 1968, and classes started in the new campus on the following year. In 1971 the area of the campus was expanded by 130 ha, more than doubling its size, to accommodate the move of the School of Medical Sciences, until then located across several buildings in Campinas, to the new campus. This expansion saw the construction of a massive public hospital, the Hospital das Clínicas (HC), which began serving the public in 1979.

While initial construction was considered complete by 1978, the campus has grown through continuous addition of new buildings and institutes. In 2014, after years of negotiation, the university decided to buy the Argentina Farm, located on the east side of the campus, increasing the total area by 60% to 350 ha. This purchase will allow for expansion of the medical sciences and athletics areas, as well as new laboratories.

Medical center
Unicamp's main campus houses the School of Medical Sciences' teaching hospital, the Hospital das Clinicas. Construction started in 1975 and the hospital opened its first clinics and patient facilities in 1979, but was only fully operational in 1985, when the School of Medical Sciences was transferred from Campinas' maternity to the new campus.

The hospital has almost 1,000 beds, and serves half a million people every year through Brazil's unified public health system, SUS, performing on average 40 surgeries and 13 births every day. In the 2000s, the hospital was changed from a primary and secondary care to a specialized tertiary care center, receiving complex cases from other hospitals and clinics in the region, but around 60% of patients in the hospital are still cases that could be handled by local health centers.

The hospital directly employs 3,100 people, and also serves as a practice center for the university's faculty and a training and residency center for the students of medicine, nursery and speech therapy.

Synchrotron lab
While not part of Unicamp, the National Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) is a research institution focused on physics, structural biology and nanotechnology that maintains close ties with the university and is operated as part of the National Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM). The laboratory was designed in 1983 and began operating in 1997, located next to the main campus. The LNLS has Latin America's only particle accelerator, a synchrotron, used as a synchrotron light source designed and built in Brazil for various physical, chemical, geological, and biological studies.

Limeira
Unicamp's presence in Limeira, a city about 50 km from Campinas, dates from the late 1960s, when the young university absorbed the Engineering School of Limeira, which became the School of Civil Engineering. The UNICAMP began offering technology courses in 1974 with the creation of a Sanitary Technology course. The course was designed to be taught during the day with the finish at least two years, in old installations of Faculty of Civil Engineering (FEC) in the city of Limeira. Later, in 1976 was created the course of Construction Technology, with specification in Building or Construction Methods of Soil. While this school was eventually transferred to the Campinas campus in 1989, new programs were launched by the university in Limeira, creating CESET, the School of Technology of Limeira, which still exists and is located near the center of the city, focused on technical higher education.

In 2008 Unicamp decided to establish a new campus in Limeira, and in 2008 the School of Applied Sciences was created, offering programs such as public administration, business management, nutrition and industrial engineering. The total undergraduate class size for the new campus is 480 students per year.

Piracicaba
In 1967 Unicamp absorbed the School of Odontology of Piracicaba, founded in 1955 and located 50 km northwest of the main campus in Campinas. With over 1,000 students, the school was initially located in a historic building near the center of the city, and in the 1970s a new campus was built, occupying an area of 60 ha in what was then the outskirts of the city, and a short distance from USP's ESALQ.

Paulínia
In the neighboring city of Paulínia, the university operates a multidisciplinary research center focused on biosciences, acquired in 1986 from Monsanto and integrated into the university as CPQBA. As part of the acquisition, Unicamp gained access and continued research into subjects previously explored at the center, specially agricultural sciences. Research is usually funded by external parties, such as companies and other universities.

COTUCA and COTIL
In addition to the higher education programs, Unicamp is also responsible for running and funding two technical high schools, the Technical High School of Campinas (COTUCA) and the Technical High School of Limeira (COTIL). Cotuca was located for 50 years in a historical building near the center of the city built in 1918 which also housed Unicamp for a brief period before the current campus was built. In 2014 it was transferred to the main campus as the old building went through renovations. Both schools are amongst the best public high schools in the country, and are highly competitive, with admissions done through a selection exam open to middle-school students.

Organization and administration
Similarly to other Brazilian institutions, Unicamp is composed of several semi-autonomous teaching units, designated as schools and institutes. Each unit is headed by a director from the faculty, equivalent to a dean, elected by the faculty and student representatives.

The university's administration is structured in a way similar to other public universities in Brazil. The supreme decision body is the University Council (CONSU), composed of all deans, plus several representatives from the academic community, students, administrative staff and the external community. The council meets roughly 4 to 5 times per year, ruling on high level administrative decisions such as approving the budget and has the final word in internal administrative processes. Routine administration is left to the rector, similar to a university chancellor in English-speaking countries, and the rectorate.

Rectors
The rector is chosen by the governor of the State of São Paulo from a list of 3 candidates elected by the university's community, including students and administrative staff. Traditionally, the governor always selects the candidate with the largest number of votes, but it retains the power to choose a different one should it decide to do so. The rector serves for a term of 4 years before a new election is held, and can not be reelected in the following term. Zeferino Vaz was the first rector and held the position for 12 years until his mandatory retirement.
 * 1) Zeferino Vaz (1966–1978)
 * 2) Plínio Alves de Moraes (1978–1982)
 * 3) José Aristodemo Pinotti (1982–1986)
 * 4) Paulo Renato Costa Souza (1986–1990)
 * 5) Carlos Vogt (1990–1994)
 * 6) José Martins Filho (1994–1998)
 * 7) Hermano Tavares (1998–2002)
 * 8) Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz (2002–2005)
 * 9) José Tadeu Jorge (2005–2009)
 * 10) Fernando Ferreira Costa (2009–2013)
 * 11) José Tadeu Jorge (2013–2017)
 * 12) Marcelo Knobel (2017–2021)
 * 13) Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, Tom Zé, (2021–present)

Schools and institutes
Unicamp is composed of a total of 24 units, 10 of which are institutes and 14 are schools. The university is also home to 22 interdisciplinary centers which conduct research and outreach on topics ranging from dance (such as LUME) to computing and education (such as NIED).

Unicamp is also responsible for two technical high schools, the Technical High School of Campinas (COTUCA) and the Technical High School of Limeira (COTIL).
 * School of Medical Sciences
 * School of Applied Sciences
 * School of Odontology of Piracicaba
 * School of Education
 * School of Physical Education
 * School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
 * School of Chemical Engineering
 * School of Food Engineering
 * School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
 * School of Nursing
 * School of Mechanical Engineering
 * School of Agricultural Engineering
 * School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urbanism
 * School of Technology of Limeira
 * Institute of Chemistry
 * Institute of Physics Gleb Wataghin
 * Institute of Biology
 * Institute of Computing
 * Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computing
 * Institute of Economics
 * Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences
 * Institute of Language Studies
 * Institute of Arts
 * Institute of Geosciences

Funding & financial information
Like other public universities in Brazil, Unicamp is almost entirely funded by the government, in this particular case of the State of São Paulo. Funding is provided mainly from sales taxes, but a small percentage of total budget is obtained from donations, paid extension programs and corporate sponsors.

The total budget proposed for 2016 is of R$2.3 billion, a decrease by almost 7% in real terms when compare to 2015. Fixed costs (payroll, interest and debt service) will account for 92.2% of the government funding. And additional 4% is spent on student assistance and 2% on utilities.

A problem faced by Unicamp, and other public universities in Brazil, is the high dependency on economic conditions, that directly impact tax earnings, while most of the expenses, payroll specially, are indexed to inflation. While not as critical as in similar universities (at the University of São Paulo payroll accounted for over 106% of the total funding available in 2014 ), Unicamp currently faces a funding crisis, with total funding expected to decrease in real terms while payroll, which takes around 85% of total university funding, is expected to increase in line with inflation. This situation is aggravated by the long-running trend of raising staff salaries above inflation as a response to the annual strikes led by the workers' union, STU.

Academics
At Unicamp, academic studies are usually divided into four main areas: exact sciences (which includes formal and physical sciences), human sciences (roughly equivalent to social science, including Arts), biological sciences (roughly equivalent to life sciences) and technologies (including engineering and technical studies). This division reflects on how the university are structured how the campuses was designed.

Undergraduate programs
Unicamp offers 70 different degree-granting undergraduate programs, covering nearly all different areas of science. Completing an undergraduate program grants either a bachelor's degree or a licentiate degree, although some programs offer both degrees. In line with the Brazilian educational system, no graduate education is required to practice any profession, including law and medicine, so undergraduate programs vary in length to provide all the necessary training. Most programs at Unicamp last a total of 4 years, with engineering programs typically lasting 5 years and medicine lasting 6 years.

The academic year is aligned with the calendar year, with classes usually starting in late February, and ending in early December, the beginning of summer in Brazil. The year is divided into two semester terms, and all courses are a semester long. While there is a suggested curriculum for each program, students are free to choose any classes to attend during a specific semester, and class attribution is done in the basis of grade average, with higher-graded students having priority when choosing classes. Students are admitted to a single program and are expected to take all the classes required to complete that program in the number of semesters prescribed, although they can take 50% longer before facing administrative measures. While each program is usually managed by a single school or institute (exceptions apply, such as Computer Engineering, co-managed by the Institute of Computing and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering), classes are usually ministered across different institutes or schools.

Program class sizes usually range between 30 and 60 students per year for each program, but some programs can have over 100 students per year, and are named by the year of admission: the class of 2015 is composed of all students entering in the year of 2015, regardless of the program length or expected graduation. There is no campus-wide graduation ceremony, with each school or institute conducting its own.

Graduate programs
Unicamp offers 153 postgraduate programs, with about half of those being masters, serving almost 16 thousand students, one third of which come from outside the State of São Paulo, and around 5% are international students. Just as with undergraduate studies, students pay no tuition fees. While the programs are coordinated by the rectorship, the individual institutions have a lot of freedom on defining the focus, length and admission process of each program.

Extension programs and community outreach
Unicamp offers over one thousand extension programs to the community, with different levels of minimum requirements (high school degree, undergraduate degree, etc.) and across all areas of study, focusing mainly on specialization courses and community outreach. The programs are mainly coordinated by the Pro-Rectorate for Extension and Outreach (Pró-Reitoria de Extensão e Assuntos Comunitários, PREAC). PREAC aims to promote actions of extension and culture through integration with society, disseminating and acquiring knowledge through the academic community.

Specialization programs are either offered by Unicamp's extension school, Extecamp, or directly by the schools and institutes. In the past 25 years, over 100,000 students have been reached and in 2014, Unicamp joined Coursera and currently eight online courses are being offered, two of them are between the most popular Coursera courses in Brazil. Outreach actions take a variety of forms, including events, publications, technological, educational, cultural and social products and services. The Department for Cultural Development hosts several events, usually open for the surrounding community. Events are also held at the Casa do Lago Cultural Space and at the Cultural Center for Social Inclusion and Integration.

Every year, Unicamp also hosts an open doors event (Unicamp de Portas Abertas, UPA), in which the main campus is visited by over 50 thousand high school students from across the country. The event provides presentations and discussions on the role of the university in the society, as well as career presentations and tours, with the students visiting several areas of the university and gaining a better understanding of the different areas of study.

Faculty
Unicamp employs close to 1,800 professors, nearly all with at least a doctoral degree. The faculty career is structured in three major tiers: Hiring is done through a civil service examination, including a written test, a teaching examination, academic history analysis and other additional criteria. The same process is required for professors changing tiers: an associate professor pursuing a tenure position must go through the same examination process compete with other external candidates for the position. The two initial tiers also include sub levels, and professors are promoted between them for merit. Monthly starting salary for a full-time assistant professorship is around R$ 10 thousand, and for a tenured position around R$15 thousand. Uniquely among public universities in Brazil, Unicamp has a career focused on full-time research. Currently there are approximately 100 full-time researchers at the university.
 * Doctor Professor (Professor Doutor, equivalent to assistant professor): candidates must have a doctoral or equivalent degree
 * Associate Professor (Professor Associado): candidates must have a Livre Docente title, similar to the German Habilitation
 * Tenured Professor (Professor Titular) – MS-6 (top rank, only MS-6 professors are allowed to hold positions such as Dean of a Faculty/School or Rector of the university)

Library system
The university's library system (Sistema de Bibliotecas da Unicamp; SBU) comprises a large central library named in honor of César Lattes, and 27 other satellite libraries, located in the individual institutions, housing over 1 million volumes, in addition to hundreds of thousands of ebooks and academic journals. The system was officially created in 1983, aggregating the several independent libraries that operated across the university. The large central library was inaugurated six years later, in 1989.

The library system is automated and its collections may be accessed and searched on the Internet. Its Digital Library section supports a database with more than 25,000 dissertations presented in the university, as well access to the largest electronic libraries of academic journals in the world. It also includes several historical libraries and media archives focused on specific authors and topics, such as the Edgard Leuenroth Archive and collections honoring César Lattes, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Monteiro Lobato and others.

Undergraduate programs
Similarly to other Brazilian public universities, admissions to undergraduate programs are through a comprehensive general examination, called vestibular. While other Brazilian public universities, specially federally managed ones, which use the National High School Exam (ENEM, in Portuguese Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio ) as an entrance exam, Unicamp has its own national entrance exam applied yearly by its Vestibular Commission (COMVEST, in Portuguese Comissão Permanente para os Vestibulares) in two rounds. Generally, the first round happens in November and is a test composed of 90 multiple-choice general knowledge questions. Students applying to programs that require specific skills (such as music, architecture, dance, and others) must take a specific knowledge test even before the first phase.

Selection in the admissions process is program-specific. Applicants that score a minimum standardized grade in the first round are selected to participate in the second round, which takes place over three days in January, where they must answer 48 short-answer written questions, plus write two long-form essays, on themes selected by the evaluation board.

The Unicamp national exam is very competitive and is considered one of the most difficult in Brazil. In 2015 there were 77,145 applications for only 3,320 possible places, with 23 candidates competing for each position in an undergraduate program, an average acceptance rate of 4.3%. The exam covers all topics taught in the Brazilian high school system, including Portuguese, mathematics, Brazilian and world history, geography, biology, physics, chemistry, sociology, philosophy, arts and English. Despite that, questions in the exams are generally interdisciplinary.

The most competitive undergraduate programs are Medicine with a 0.5% acceptance rate, Architecture and Urbanism with 0.6%, and Communication with 2%. Such high competitivity leads many students to take preparatory courses during or after the last regular high school year called cursinhos in Portuguese, generally privately offered or managed by some association or organization. Many private cursinhos have special classes focused on highly competitive programs like medicine, making them very expensive. It is common to find students admitted in Medicine, Engineering and other programs after several years of preparatory courses.

While the selection process is need-blind and race-blind, most of the best high schools and preparatory schools in Brazil are private and very expensive, and represent a majority of admissions in Brazilian public universities, leading to increased inequality in the country. To remedy this, Unicamp introduced in 2004 the Social Inclusion and Affirmative Action Program (PAAIS, in Portuguese Programa de Ação Afirmativa e Inclusão Social) that allows high schoolers coming from public schools to receive a bonus score in their overall vestibular score. While not focused on racial and ethnical factors, over the years, the PAAIS initiative has increased the number of admission of minorities from public high school, especially black and native-Brazilians, historically the most economical and social fragile groups in Brazil. With this program, around 30% of admissions come from public schools, and the participation of minorities increased from 10% to around 30%.

Graduate programs
Unlike undergrad admissions, there is no single admission process for graduate students. Each institution inside Unicamp has its own set of procedures, which usually include an admissions exam which can be specific for Unicamp or a standard exam applied across the country (such as ANPEC (in Portuguese) for economics, and PosComp (in Portuguese) for computer science. Besides the exam, the process usually includes an academic history analysis, interviews and in many cases requires a submission of a research project to be undertaken during the graduate studies.

Housing
Similarly to other Brazilian universities, Unicamp offers no large-scale in-campus housing, and most students live either near the campus or in Campinas. A student tradition in Brazil, inherited from the Portuguese universities, is the república, a fraternity-style private housing where multiple students rent large houses or apartments and live together. Dues to the suburban campus and the large number of students coming from other cities, repúblicas play a key role in the student life, serving as centers for social life, parties and also study and work areas. While some repúlicas have existed for decades, sometimes moving from one house to another, most are formed by students in the same or similar classes, and last for a few years.

Besides repúblicas, studio apartments are very common around the university. While more expensive than the shared houses, they afford more privacy and have more flexible contracts, are well as being furnished.

University housing
Unicamp provides a limited amount of free housing to low income students in the Student Residence compound. Built in 1992, it is located near the center of Barão Geraldo, about four kilometers from Unicamp, and is served by a university shuttle that takes student to the campus and back free of charge. The compound has 226 houses of 60 m2, with a capacity of four students per house, and 27 studios of 46 m2, for couples with children, a total of 904 vacancies in houses and 54 adults in the studios. Assignment criterion is means-based, with lower income students receiving priority.

The Student Residence supports several cultural projects developed by voluntary and worker students and open to the participation of internal and external community. It encourages interdisciplinary training and integration between the resident students and the external community. The diversity of races and cultures, brought by colleagues from other states and countries is an advantage for the residents who live in the house, facilitating full citizenship, through the exercise of their rights and duties within the community.

University restaurants
There are multiple restaurants operated and subsidized by the university serving only the academic community. Commonly called bandejão ("large tray" in Portuguese) due to the metal trays used to serve the students, the restaurants provide up to three meals per day, the breakfast costing R$2 for students and lunch and dinner costing R$3, a price that has only been updated once in over a decade, despite the strong inflation. The main bandejão is located near the center of the circular campus, receiving students from all different areas of the university and acting as the informal social heart of the university where events, parties and political campaigns are announced to the students.

The restaurants at the university are staffed with nutritionists and food engineers, often students at the university, offering balanced menu that meets the nutritional needs of the university population, serving over 10 thousand meals per day at the main campus. The menu usually consists of rice and beans, a traditional staple food in Brazil, a type of meat (chicken, beef, sausage, pork, etc.), textured soy protein for vegetarians, salad, juice, and dessert.

There are three such restaurants in the main campus, with two additional restaurants located in the Limeira and Piracicaba campuses. In all of them access is restricted to those who have a university-issued smart card ID, which is also used to pay for the food. In addition to the subsidized restaurants, there are several smaller, privately ran restaurants across the campus and many more located in Barão Geraldo, often just a short walk away from the campus.

Athletics
There are no university-sponsored athletic programs at Unicamp, and sporting competitions, either internal or played with other schools, are entirely organized by the students. The Liga das Atléticas da Unicamp, a university-wide league of the different athletic associations, is responsible for organizing internal sporting events, such as the Unicamp Olympics.

In addition to internal competitions, there are multiple external competitions between several universities focused on different areas of study: in the Intermed medical students from different universities compete against each other, and in the Engenharíadas, engineering students gather to play sports. The games are usually held in the city of one of the participating universities over a long weekend, with students being housed in public schools, farms and hotels.

The university has a sports center with courts for basketball, volleyball, a full size regulation football field, an athletics field with running tracks, a competition swimming pool, a covered gymnasium for indoor spectator sports, attached to a convention center.

Varginha incident
Unicamp is generally regarded by the Brazilian population as Brazil's Area 51, with the government running a secret underground area purportedly called Pavilion 18, located under the Institute of Chemistry. In 1996 there were reports of an extraterrestrial sighting in the city of Varginha, commonly called the Varginha Incident, followed by additional reports of military intervention in the region and that the extraterrestrial would have been taken to the secret Pavilion 18 area at Unicamp.

title: State University of Campinas


text:
Okavango River

The Okavango River (formerly spelt Okovango or Okovanggo), is a river in southwest Africa. It is known by this name in Botswana, and as Cubango in Angola, and Kavango in Namibia. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, running southeastward for 1,600 km. It begins at an elevation of 1300 m in the sandy highlands of Angola. Farther south, it forms part of the border between Angola and Namibia, and then flows into Botswana. The Okavango does not have an outlet to the sea. Instead, it discharges into the Okavango Delta or Okavango Alluvial Fan, in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert. The Cuito River is a major tributary.

Flow
The Cubango and Cuito Rivers are the principal tributaries of the Okavango Delta, and affect its health. In Angola, the upper reaches of the Cuito suffers clogging due to controlled burns of the vegetation, reducing water flow downstream as the accumulated water instead flows into the sand.

Before it enters Botswana, the river drops 4 m in a series of rapids known as Popa Falls, visible when the river is low, as during the dry season.

In the rainy season, an outflow to the Boteti River in turn seasonally discharges to the Makgadikgadi Pans, which features an expansive area of rainy-season wetland where tens of thousands of flamingos congregate each summer. Part of the river's flow fills Lake Ngami. Noted for its wildlife, the Okavango area contains Botswana's Moremi Game Reserve.

Flood
Every wet season, Angola receives three times more rainfall than Botswana, discharging a higher than usual flow into the Okavango, turning swathes of outlying desert into a huge wetland.

Although the summer rains fall in Angola in January, they take a whole month to travel the first 1,000 km of the Okavango River, and then they take a further four months to filter through the plants and numerous channels of the final 250 km of the delta. As a result, the flood is at its biggest sometime between June and August, during Botswana's dry winter months. The delta then swells to three times its permanent size, attracting animals from kilometres around and creating one of Africa's greatest concentrations of wildlife.

At its widest point in a big flood year, the seasonal swamp stretches to 150 km across from east to west; one of the factors that leads to the ever-changing nature of the delta is the flatness of the area. If one were to take a cross section of the delta at its widest point, one would find that the height variation from the mean over that 150 km is less than 2 m, which means that a minor sand deposition can cause major changes.

In very wet years, a part of the river's flow may extend along the Magweggana River (actually a northeastern distributary of the Okavango Delta) and enter the Zambezi River, bypassing the Kalahari.

Sediment transport
The river carries annually 28,000 tonnes of suspended sediment and a similar amount of bedload to the terminal swamps. Most of the particulate sediment carried by the river is fine sand, with some silt and mud, thanks to the geological makeup of the Okavango River catchment which is largely underlain by Kalahari sand. There is low concentration of dissolved solids in the river water - around 40 mg/L, made up mostly of silica, calcium and magnesium bicarbonates - but these dissolved solids form the largest component of sediment carried into the delta because the annual water volume is so large.

History
During colder periods in Earth's history, a part of the Kalahari was a massive lake, known as Lake Makgadikgadi. In this time, the Okavango would have been one of its largest tributaries.

Water conflict
Both Namibia and Botswana experience drought, and as a result, concerns have been expressed about possible conflict over use of the river's water. Namibia has built a water canal, measuring about 300 km long, and has proposed a project to build a 250 km pipeline to divert water from the river into Namibia to help relieve the drought.

Botswana, however, uses the Okavango Delta for both tourism income and a water source. The Department of Water Affairs in Botswana has submitted that 97% of the water in the river is lost through evaporation, so the country cannot afford to lose any extra water.

Namibia, in turn, has argued that it will only divert half of one percent of the river's flow, and that it is entitled to any water that flows through its territory. To deal with such issues, in September 1994, Angola, Namibia, and Botswana signed an agreement to form the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission, to provide advice to the three countries about the best ways to share the Okavango River's resources.

Oil exploration
ReconAfrica, a petroleum exploration company headquartered in Canada, has obtained exploration licenses for more than 13,600 square miles of land in the Kavango Region of Namibia and in Botswana. In January 2021 ReconAfrica announced the start of drilling operations on the first exploration well. Environmental activists have expressed concern that ReconAfrica’s plans for its test wells have not been properly vetted through Namibia’s environmental review process, however ReconAfrica and both the governments of Namibia and Botswana have stated that the company's activities have followed due process and that no fracking will occur. ReconAfrica’s drilling area is in the Kavango West region which contains a multicountry conservation park, six locally managed wildlife reserves, and one UNESCO World Heritage site, however the drilling license does not include any of these protected areas.

title: Okavango River


text:
Collie

Collies form a distinctive type of herding dogs, including many related landraces and standardized breeds. The type originated in Scotland and Northern England. Collies are medium-sized, fairly lightly-built dogs, with pointed snouts. Many types have a distinctive white color over the shoulders. Collies are very active and agile, and most types of collies have a very strong herding instinct. Collie breeds have spread through many parts of the world (especially North America and Australia), and have diversified into many varieties, sometimes mixed with other dog types.

Some collie breeds have remained as working dogs for herding cattle, sheep, and other livestock, while others are kept as pets, show dogs or for dog sports, in which they display great agility, stamina and trainability. While the American Kennel Club has a breed they call "collie", in fact collie dogs are a distinctive type of herding dog inclusive of many related landraces and formal breeds. There are usually major distinctions between show dogs and those bred for herding trials or dog sports: The latter typically display great agility, stamina, and trainability, and most importantly intelligence. Common use of the unmodified name "collie" in some areas is limited largely to certain breeds – the name means Rough Collie by default in parts of the United States, and Border Collie by default in many rural parts of Great Britain. Many collie dog types do not actually include "collie" in their name – for example the Welsh Sheepdog.

Name
The exact origin of the name collie is uncertain; it may derive from the Scots word for 'coal'. Alternatively it may come from the related word coolly, referring to the black-faced mountain sheep of Scotland. The collie name usually refers to dogs of Scottish origin which have spread into many other parts of the world, often being called sheepdog or shepherd dog elsewhere. Iris Combe, in her book, “Border Collies,” says that in old Gaelic “collie” was the rural term for anything useful — a “collie dog” was a useful dog.

Appearance
Collies are generally medium-sized dogs of about 48 to 70 lb and light to medium-boned. Cattle-herding types are stockier than sheep-herding types. The fur may be short, or long, and the tail may be smooth, feathered, or bushy. In the 1800s, the occasional naturally bob-tailed dog would occur. The tail can be carried low with an upward swirl, or may be carried higher but never over the back. Each breed can vary in coloration, with the usual base colors being black, black-and-tan, red, red-and-tan, white with a colored head with it without other body coloration of sable, black and tan, blue merle, sable merle sable. They often have white along with the main color, usually under the belly and chest, over the shoulders, and on parts of the face and legs, but sometimes leaving only the head colored – or white may be absent (unusual) or limited to the chest and toes (as in the Australian Kelpie). Merle coloration may also be present over any of the other color combinations, even in landrace types. The most widespread patterns include sable, black and white, black and tan and tricolour (black-and-tan and white).

Temperament
Collies range in trainability from the "average" to very biddable. The Border Collie is the breed most in need of a "job" to stimulate its brain, lest it become anxious and hyper, while many other collie breeds fit well into an active family lifestyle (though all collie types still require some mental stimulation). Collie-type breeds are also known for their sensitivity and awareness of emotions in people; they may require gentler handling than other types of dogs.

Working type temperaments
A working member of a collie breed, such as the Border Collie, is an energetic and agile dog with great stamina. When in fit, working condition they are able to run all day without tiring, even over very rough or steep ground. Working collies display a keen intelligence for the job at hand and are instinctively highly motivated. They are often intensely loyal. Dogs of collie type or derivation occupy four of the first sixteen ranks in Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs, with the Border Collie being first. These characteristics generally make working strains suitable for agility; in addition to herding work they are well suited to active sports such as sheepdog trials, flyball, disc dog and dog agility. Working strains have strong herding instincts, and some individuals can be single-minded to the point of obsessiveness. Collies can compete in herding events. Border Collies are used as search dogs in mountain rescue in Britain. They are particularly useful for searching large areas of hillside and avalanche debris. H. MacInnes believed that dark coated dogs are less prone to snow blindness.

Show and pet type temperaments
Certain types of collie (for example Rough Collies, Smooth Collies, Shetland Sheepdogs and some strains of Border Collie and other breeds) have been bred for many generations as pets and for the sport of conformation showing, not as herding dogs. All collie dog breeds have proved to be highly trainable, gentle, loyal, intelligent, and well suited as pets. Their gentleness and devotion also make them quite compatible with children. They are often more suitable as watchdogs than as guard dogs, though the individual personalities of these dogs vary.

The temperament of these breeds has been featured in literature, film, and popular television programs. The novels of Albert Payson Terhune, which were very popular in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, celebrated the temperament and companionship of his early AKC collies. More famously, the temperament and intelligence of the Rough Collie were exaggerated to mythic proportions in the character Lassie, which has been the subject of many films, books, and television shows from 1938 to the present.

The Lassie character was featured in a book titled Lassie Come Home by Eric P. Knight. Knight's collie "Tootsie" was the inspiration for the book, which was a collection of stories based on her and other collie legends he collected from talking to friends and neighbors. One such story was most likely the documented tale of "Silverton Bobbie", the Oregon collie who crossed the US to get to his owners. While the dogs who played Lassie on-screen were from AKC lines, the actual Tootsie looked nothing like them, although she did come from a collie breeder.

Health
Some collie breeds (especially the Rough Collie, Smooth Collie, and the Australian Shepherd) are affected by a genetic defect, a mutation within the MDR1 gene, formerly known as "ivermectin sensitivity", but now known to cause lowered tolerance to a wide variety of different veterinary drugs. Approximately 70% of collies are affected, making them very sensitive to some drugs, such as Ivermectin, as well as to some antibiotics, opioids including loperamide, and steroids – over 100 drugs in total. The MDR1 status of individual dogs can be easily tested for. In addition, the intestinal functional system of this breed is also very fragile, and compared with similar medium and large dogs, they are easy to receive food stimulation, which leads to vomiting and excretion abnormalities or gastrointestinal diseases. Therefore, breeders need to ensure strict hygiene for dogs to eat fresh ingredients, and rich nutrition. The Verband für das Deutsche Hundewesen (The German Kennel Club) encourages breed clubs to test all breeding stock and avoid breeding from affected dogs.

Collies may have a genetic disease, named canine cyclic neutropenia, or grey collie syndrome. This is a stem cell disorder. Puppies with this disorder are quite often mistaken for healthy Blue Merles, even though their colour is a silver grey. Affected puppies rarely live more than 6 months. For a puppy to be affected, both the sire and the dam have to be carriers of the disorder.

Canine familial dermatomyositis is an inherited idiopathic condition affecting the skin and muscle and in rare cases the blood vessels. The condition causes dermatitis throughout the body and proceeds to myositis which in severe cases leads to megaesophagus. Collies alongside the Beauceron and Shetland Sheepdog are known to have a predilection to the condition although it has been described in other breeds.

Collie eye anomaly is an autosomal recessive condition caused by a mutation in the NHEJ1 gene that affects Collies and related breeds.

Collie types and breeds
Herding dogs of collie type have long been widespread in Britain, and these can be regarded as a landrace from which a number of other landraces, types, and formal breeds have been derived, both in Britain and elsewhere. Many of them are working herding dogs, but some have been bred for conformation showing and as pets, sometimes losing their working instincts in the course of selection for appearance or for a more subdued temperament.

Herding types tend to vary in appearance more than conformation and pet types, as they are bred primarily for their working ability, and appearance is thus of lower importance.

Dogs of collie type or ancestry include:

 * Australian Kelpie: Developed in Australia from collies originally brought from Scotland and northern England. Erect ears, short-haired, usually black, black-and-tan or red-and-tan, with white limited to chest and toes.
 * Australian Shepherd: Derives its name from the sheep imported from Australia in the 19th century, but native to the Western United States. Used as both a drover and guardian of sheep and cattle. Ancestry almost certainly includes British collie types and Basque and Spanish sheepdogs. Shaggy mid length coat in every colour including merle, half prick ears, bobbed tail, and (very important) eyes of different colour, heterochromia very common.
 * Bearded Collie: Now largely a pet and show breed, but still of the collie type, and some are used as working dogs. The Beardie has a flat, harsh, strong and shaggy outer coat and a soft, furry undercoat. The coat falls naturally to either side without need of a part. Long hair on the cheeks, lower lips, and under the chin forms the beard for which it is known.
 * All Bearded Collies are born black, blue, brown, or fawn, with or without white markings. Some carry a fading gene, and as they mature, the coat lightens, darkening again slightly after one year of age. A puppy born black may become any shade of gray from black to slate to silver. The dogs that are born brown will lighten from chocolate to sandy, and the blues and fawns show shades from dark to light. Dogs without the fading gene stay the color they were when they were born. The white only occurs as a blaze on the face, on the head, on the tip of the tail, on the chest, legs, feet, and around the neck. Tan markings occasionally appear on the eyebrows, inside the ears, on the cheeks, under the root of the tail and on the legs where the white joins the main color.

 * Blue Lacy: Grey or red all over, short hair, floppy ears. Derived partly from the English Shepherd, with other non-collie breeds.
 * Border Collie: The most well known breed for herding sheep throughout the world. Originally developed in Scotland and Northern England.  Not always suitable for herding cattle. Ears semi-erect or floppy, fur silky or fairly long, but short on face and legs; red, black, black-and-tan or merle, all usually with white over shoulders, alternatively mostly white with coloured patches on head. Coat can be either long or short.
 * Cumberland Sheepdog: An extinct breed similar to the Border Collie and possibly absorbed into that breed. An ancestor of the Australian Shepherd. Erect or semi-erect ears, dense fur, black with white only on face and chest.
 * English Shepherd: Developed in the U.S. from stock of Farm Collie type originally from Britain. Floppy ears, thick fur, red, black or black-and-tan, with white over shoulders. Not to be confused with the very different Old English Sheepdog.
 * German Coolie: Also called Koolie, or German Collie. Developed in Australia, probably from British collies, but may have included dogs from Germany and Spain. Erect ears, short fur, black, red, black-and-tan or merle, often with some white on neck or over shoulders. (Note: the name "German Collie" is also applied to a cross between a German Shepherd and a Border Collie.)
 * Huntaway: Developed in New Zealand from a mixture of breeds, probably including some collie – but it is not of the collie type. Larger and more heavily built than most collies, floppy ears, most commonly black-and-tan with little white.
 * Lurcher: Not an established breed, but a cross of collie (or other herding dog or terrier) with Greyhound or other sight hound. Traditionally bred for poaching, with the speed of a sight hound but more obedient and less conspicuous. Variable in appearance, but with greyhound build: Floppy ears, tall, slender, with small head, deep chest and "herring gut"; smooth, silky or rough coat, often brindled.
 * McNab Shepherd: Developed in the U.S. from Scotch Collies and dogs imported by Basque sheepherders. Variable in size, erect or semi-erect ears, short to medium fur, black or red with some white on face, chest and/or feet.
 * New Zealand Heading Dog: Also called New Zealand Eye Dog. Developed in New Zealand from Border Collie heritage and used to bring sheep towards the shepherd, especially with strong eye contact and no barking.
 * Old English Sheepdog: Derived from "Shags", hairy herding dogs, themselves derived from "Beards", the ancestors of the Bearded Collie. Modern dogs larger than most collies, no tail, floppy ears, long silky hair (including on face), usually grey and white. Not to be confused with the English Shepherd.
 * Scotch Collie: Scotch collies are separated into two varieties or breeds: Rough Collie and Smooth Collie. They are rather a different type to other collies with a long narrow face, tall, profuse coat and semi-erect ears. They are still used for herding as well as for showing. They were developed in the highlands of Scotland which is why they needed a profuse coat. There are four recognised colors: Sable, tri-color, blue merle, and color headed white. Non-recognized colors are: Bi-black, sable merle, harlequin, red merle, red tricolor, and black and tan. Both the Rough and Smooth Collies are double-coated with Smooths having a shorter or "smooth" outer coat. There are three different coat types of Rough Collies: Brandwyn (fluffy coats), Parader (flat long coats) and the working type (medium-length coats).
 * Shetland Sheepdog: A small show and pet breed developed in England partly from herding dogs originating in Shetland. The original Shetland dogs were not collies, but instead working herding dogs of Spitz type, similar to the Icelandic Sheepdog. However, in the development of the modern Shetland breed these Spitz-type dogs were heavily mixed with the Rough Collie and toy breeds, and now are similar in appearance to a miniature Rough Collie. Very small, nearly erect ears, long silky fur on body, most commonly sable or merle, with white over shoulders.
 * Smithfield: Originally a British type, now extinct used for droving cattle in the south-east of England, especially the Smithfield Market in London. They were large, strong collies, with white or black-and-white fur, and floppy-ears. Occasionally the name is used for modern dogs of a somewhat similar type in Australia. The name "Smithfield" is used to describe the shaggy Tasmanian farm dog of Bearded Collie type; and is also applied to the Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog and may have contributed to the Australian Koolie.
 * Welsh Sheepdog: Landrace herding dog from Wales. Erect or semi-erect ears, short or silky fur, red, black, black-and-tan, or merle, all usually with white over shoulders.

Famous collies

 * Blanco, pet of Lyndon Johnson.
 * Kep, pet of Beatrix Potter. He is depicted in the book The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.
 * Lad, pet of Albert Payson Terhune. He is chronicled through several short stories, most famously in the collection Lad, A Dog.
 * Pickles, known for his role in finding the stolen Jules Rimet Trophy in March 1966, four months before the 1966 FIFA World Cup kicked off in England.
 * Pal, who played Lassie (see below).
 * Peter, awarded the Dickin Medal for conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving in military conflict.
 * Reveille, a Rough Collie, official mascot of Texas A&M University.
 * Rob, awarded the Dickin Medal for conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving in military conflict.
 * Seamus, pet of Humble Pie front-man, Steve Marriott. Seamus' howling was recorded by Pink Floyd and the resulting song, "Seamus" was released on their album, Meddle (1971).
 * Sheila, awarded the Dickin Medal for conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving in military conflict.
 * Shep, Blue Peter dog.
 * Silverton Bobbie, the Wonder Dog who in 1923, traveled 2,800 miles from Indiana back home to Silverton, Oregon.
 * Two famous white Collies owned by United States President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge. A large oil painting hangs in The White House of First Lady Mrs. Coolidge and one of their white Collies.

Collies in fiction

 * Lassie was a fictional Rough Collie dog character created by Eric Knight who originally was featured in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. The character then went on to star in numerous MGM movies, a long running classic TV series, and various remakes/spinoffs/revivals.
 * Bessy, a long-running Belgian comics series which also was very successful in French, German and Swedish translations. It also featured a collie, obviously based on Lassie, but in a Wild West setting.
 * Fly and Rex, herding dogs of the movie, Babe.
 * The Dog, the Border Collie of the comic strip Footrot Flats.
 * Colleen, a female collie in Road Rovers.
 * Nana, a female Border Collie in Snow Dogs
 * Shadow, collie from Enid Blyton's book Shadow the Sheepdog. The collie type is not identified in the text, but the illustrations in an early edition look vaguely like a border collie.
 * Fly, the sheep dog featured in Arthur Waterhouse's "Fells" trilogy for children, Raiders of the Fells (1948), Rogues of the Fells (1951) and Fly of the Fells (1957). The collie type is not specified, but the illustrations look rather like a Rough Collie.
 * The eponymous dog from the film Bingo.
 * Flo, a collie in All Dogs Go to Heaven
 * Murray, the male collie from the TV series Mad About You.
 * A collie in White Fang by Jack London is the mate of the wolfdog White Fang
 * Courageous Collie Carlo, a Rough Collie from Martha Speaks
 * Scouty, a blue Border Collie in Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures
 * Winona, a collie from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
 * Mackenzie, a Border Collie in Bluey
 * Roger, a Border Collie in Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite!

title: Collie


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Arms of Walthamstow Borough Council. From civicheraldry.co.uk, with permission.

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