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Laser cutting

Laser cutting is a technology that uses a laser to vaporize materials, resulting in a cut edge. While typically used for industrial manufacturing applications, it is now used by schools, small businesses, architecture, and hobbyists. Laser cutting works by directing the output of a high-power laser most commonly through optics. The laser optics and CNC (computer numerical control) are used to direct the laser beam to the material. A commercial laser for cutting materials uses a motion control system to follow a CNC or G-code of the pattern to be cut onto the material. The focused laser beam is directed at the material, which then either melts, burns, vaporizes away, or is blown away by a jet of gas, leaving an edge with a high-quality surface finish.

History
In 1965, the first production laser cutting machine was used to drill holes in diamond dies. This machine was made by the Western Electric Engineering Research Center. In 1967, the British pioneered laser-assisted oxygen jet cutting for metals. In the early 1970s, this technology was put into production to cut titanium for aerospace applications. At the same time, CO2 lasers were adapted to cut non-metals, such as textiles, because, at the time, CO2 lasers were not powerful enough to overcome the thermal conductivity of metals.

Process

The laser beam is generally focused using a high-quality lens on the work zone. The quality of the beam has a direct impact on the focused spot size. The narrowest part of the focused beam is generally less than 0.0125 in in diameter. Depending upon the material thickness, kerf widths as small as 0.004 in are possible. In order to be able to start cutting from somewhere other than the edge, a pierce is done before every cut. Piercing usually involves a high-power pulsed laser beam which slowly makes a hole in the material, taking around 5–15 seconds for 0.5 in stainless steel, for example.

The parallel rays of coherent light from the laser source often fall in the range between 0.06 - 0.08 in in diameter. This beam is normally focused and intensified by a lens or a mirror to a very small spot of about 0.001 in to create a very intense laser beam. In order to achieve the smoothest possible finish during contour cutting, the direction of the beam polarization must be rotated as it goes around the periphery of a contoured workpiece. For sheet metal cutting, the focal length is usually 1.5 - 3 in.

Advantages of laser cutting over mechanical cutting include easier work holding and reduced contamination of workpiece (since there is no cutting edge which can become contaminated by the material or contaminate the material). Precision may be better since the laser beam does not wear during the process. There is also a reduced chance of warping the material that is being cut, as laser systems have a small heat-affected zone. Some materials are also very difficult or impossible to cut by more traditional means.

Laser cutting for metals has the advantage over plasma cutting of being more precise and using less energy when cutting sheet metal; however, most industrial lasers cannot cut through the greater metal thickness that plasma can. Newer laser machines operating at higher power (6000 watts, as contrasted with early laser cutting machines' 1500-watt ratings) are approaching plasma machines in their ability to cut through thick materials, but the capital cost of such machines is much higher than that of plasma cutting machines capable of cutting thick materials like steel plate.

Types

There are three main types of lasers used in laser cutting. The laser is suited for cutting, boring, and engraving. The neodymium (Nd) and neodymium yttrium-aluminium-garnet (Nd:YAG) lasers are identical in style and differ only in the application. Nd is used for boring and where high energy but low repetition are required. The Nd:YAG laser is used where very high power is needed and for boring and engraving. Both and Nd/Nd:YAG lasers can be used for welding.

lasers are commonly "pumped" by passing a current through the gas mix (DC-excited) or using radio frequency energy (RF-excited). The RF method is newer and has become more popular. Since DC designs require electrodes inside the cavity, they can encounter electrode erosion and plating of electrode material on glassware and optics. Since RF resonators have external electrodes they are not prone to those problems. lasers are used for the industrial cutting of many materials including titanium, stainless steel, mild steel, aluminium, plastic, wood, engineered wood, wax, fabrics, and paper. YAG lasers are primarily used for cutting and scribing metals and ceramics.

In addition to the power source, the type of gas flow can affect performance as well. Common variants of lasers include fast axial flow, slow axial flow, transverse flow, and slab. In a fast axial flow resonator, the mixture of carbon dioxide, helium, and nitrogen is circulated at high velocity by a turbine or blower. Transverse flow lasers circulate the gas mix at a lower velocity, requiring a simpler blower. Slab or diffusion-cooled resonators have a static gas field that requires no pressurization or glassware, leading to savings on replacement turbines and glassware.

The laser generator and external optics (including the focus lens) require cooling. Depending on system size and configuration, waste heat may be transferred by a coolant or directly to air. Water is a commonly used coolant, usually circulated through a chiller or heat transfer system.

A laser microjet is a water-jet-guided laser in which a pulsed laser beam is coupled into a low-pressure water jet. This is used to perform laser cutting functions while using the water jet to guide the laser beam, much like an optical fiber, through total internal reflection. The advantages of this are that the water also removes debris and cools the material. Additional advantages over traditional "dry" laser cutting are high dicing speeds, parallel kerf, and omnidirectional cutting.

Fiber lasers are a type of solid-state laser that is rapidly growing within the metal cutting industry. Unlike CO2, Fiber technology utilizes a solid gain medium, as opposed to a gas or liquid. The “seed laser” produces the laser beam and is then amplified within a glass fiber. With a wavelength of only 1064 nanometers fiber lasers produce an extremely small spot size (up to 100 times smaller compared to the CO2) making it ideal for cutting reflective metal material. This is one of the main advantages of Fiber compared to CO2.

Fibre laser cutter benefits include:

 * Rapid processing times.
 * Reduced energy consumption & bills – due to greater efficiency.
 * Greater reliability and performance - no optics to adjust or align and no lamps to replace.
 * Minimal maintenance.
 * The ability to process highly reflective materials such as copper and brass.
 * Higher productivity - lower operational costs offer a greater return on your investment.

Methods
There are many different methods of cutting using lasers, with different types used to cut different materials. Some of the methods are vaporization, melt and blow, melt blow and burn, thermal stress cracking, scribing, cold cutting, and burning stabilized laser cutting.

Vaporization cutting
In vaporization cutting, the focused beam heats the surface of the material to a flashpoint and generates a keyhole. The keyhole leads to a sudden increase in absorptivity quickly deepening the hole. As the hole deepens and the material boils, vapor generated erodes the molten walls blowing ejection out and further enlarging the hole. Nonmelting materials such as wood, carbon, and thermoset plastics are usually cut by this method.

Melt and blow
Melt and blow or fusion cutting uses high-pressure gas to blow molten material from the cutting area, greatly decreasing the power requirement. First, the material is heated to melting point then a gas jet blows the molten material out of the kerf avoiding the need to raise the temperature of the material any further. Materials cut with this process are usually metals.

Thermal stress cracking
Brittle materials are particularly sensitive to thermal fracture, a feature exploited in thermal stress cracking. A beam is focused on the surface causing localized heating and thermal expansion. This results in a crack that can then be guided by moving the beam. The crack can be moved in order of m/s. It is usually used in the cutting of glass.

Stealth dicing of silicon wafers
The separation of microelectronic chips as prepared in semiconductor device fabrication from silicon wafers may be performed by the so-called stealth dicing process, which operates with a pulsed YAG laser, the wavelength of which (1064 nm) is well adapted to the electronic band gap of silicon (1.11 eV or 1117 nm).

Reactive cutting
Reactive cutting is also called "burning stabilized laser gas cutting" and "flame cutting". Reactive cutting is like oxygen torch cutting but with a laser beam as the ignition source. Mostly used for cutting carbon steel in thicknesses over 1 mm. This process can be used to cut very thick steel plates with relatively little laser power.

Tolerances and surface finish
Laser cutters have a positioning accuracy of 10 micrometers and repeatability of 5 micrometers.

Standard roughness Rz increases with the sheet thickness, but decreases with laser power and cutting speed. When cutting low carbon steel with laser power of 800 W, standard roughness Rz is 10 μm for sheet thickness of 1 mm, 20 μm for 3 mm, and 25 μm for 6 mm.

$$Rz = \frac{ 12.528 \cdot S^{0.542} }{ P^{0.528} \cdot V^{0.322} }$$

Where: $$S =$$ steel sheet thickness in mm; $$P =$$ laser power in kW (some new laser cutters have laser power of 4 kW); $$V =$$ cutting speed in meters per minute.

This process is capable of holding quite close tolerances, often to within 0.001 inch (0.025 mm). Part geometry and the mechanical soundness of the machine have much to do with tolerance capabilities. The typical surface finish resulting from laser beam cutting may range from 125 to 250 micro-inches (0.003 mm to 0.006 mm).

Machine configurations

There are generally three different configurations of industrial laser cutting machines: moving material, hybrid, and flying optics systems. These refer to the way that the laser beam is moved over the material to be cut or processed. For all of these, the axes of motion are typically designated X and Y axis. If the cutting head may be controlled, it is designated as the Z-axis.

Moving material lasers have a stationary cutting head and move the material under it. This method provides a constant distance from the laser generator to the workpiece and a single point from which to remove cutting effluent. It requires fewer optics but requires moving the workpiece. This style of machine tends to have the fewest beam delivery optics but also tends to be the slowest.

Hybrid lasers provide a table that moves in one axis (usually the X-axis) and moves the head along the shorter (Y) axis. This results in a more constant beam delivery path length than a flying optic machine and may permit a simpler beam delivery system. This can result in reduced power loss in the delivery system and more capacity per watt than flying optics machines.

Flying optics lasers feature a stationary table and a cutting head (with a laser beam) that moves over the workpiece in both of the horizontal dimensions. Flying optics cutters keep the workpiece stationary during processing and often do not require material clamping. The moving mass is constant, so dynamics are not affected by varying the size of the workpiece. Flying optics machines are the fastest type, which is advantageous when cutting thinner workpieces.

Flying optic machines must use some method to take into account the changing beam length from the near field (close to the resonator) cutting to the far field (far away from the resonator) cutting. Common methods for controlling this include collimation, adaptive optics, or the use of a constant beam length axis.

Five and six-axis machines also permit cutting formed workpieces. In addition, there are various methods of orienting the laser beam to a shaped workpiece, maintaining a proper focus distance and nozzle standoff.

Pulsing
Pulsed lasers which provide a high-power burst of energy for a short period are very effective in some laser cutting processes, particularly for piercing, or when very small holes or very low cutting speeds are required, since if a constant laser beam were used, the heat could reach the point of melting the whole piece being cut.

Most industrial lasers have the ability to pulse or cut CW (continuous wave) under NC (numerical control) program control.

Double pulse lasers use a series of pulse pairs to improve material removal rate and hole quality. Essentially, the first pulse removes material from the surface and the second prevents the ejecta from adhering to the side of the hole or cut.

Power consumption
The main disadvantage of laser cutting is the high power consumption. Industrial laser efficiency may range from 5% to 45%. The power consumption and efficiency of any particular laser will vary depending on output power and operating parameters. This will depend on the type of laser and how well the laser is matched to the work at hand. The amount of laser cutting power required, known as heat input, for a particular job depends on the material type, thickness, process (reactive/inert) used, and desired cutting rate.

Production and cutting rates
The maximum cutting rate (production rate) is limited by a number of factors including laser power, material thickness, process type (reactive or inert), and material properties. Common industrial systems (≥1 kW) will cut carbon steel metal from 0.51 – 13 mm in thickness. For many purposes, a laser can be up to thirty times faster than standard sawing.

title: Laser cutting


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Jerry Ross (composer)

Jerry Ross (born Jerold Rosenberg; March 9, 1926 – November 11, 1955) was an American lyricist and composer whose works with Richard Adler for the musical theater include The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, winners of Tony Awards in 1955 and 1956, respectively, in both the "Best Musical" and "Best Composer and Lyricist" categories.

Biography
Jerold Rosenberg was born in the Bronx, New York City, to a Russian-Jewish household, to immigrant parents, Lena and Jacob Rosenberg. Growing up, he was a professional singer and actor in the Yiddish theater.

Following high school, he studied at New York University under Rudolph Schramm. Introductions to singer Eddie Fisher and others brought him into contact with music publishers at the Brill Building, the center of songwriting activity in New York. (Fisher later had a hit with Ross’ The Newspaper Song.)

Ross met Richard Adler in 1950, and as a duo they became protégés of the great composer, lyricist, and publisher Frank Loesser. Their song Rags to Riches was recorded by Tony Bennett and reached number 1 on the charts in 1953. They also had a jazz novelty hit with Anita O'Day's recording of "No Soap, No Hope Blues".

Adler and Ross began their career in the Broadway theater with John Murray Anderson's Almanac, a revue for which they provided most of the songs (resulting in recordings of Acorn in the Meadow by Harry Belafonte and Fini by Polly Bergen). The revue opened in 1953 and ran for 229 performances.

Adler and Ross's second effort, The Pajama Game, opened on Broadway in May 1954. It was a popular as well as critical success, running for 1063 performances. The show won the 1955 Tony Award for Best Musical as well as the Donaldson Award and the Variety Drama Critics Award. Two songs from the show, "Hernando's Hideaway" (for Archie Bleyer) and "Hey There" (for Rosemary Clooney), topped the Hit Parade. Other notable songs were "Steam Heat" (choreographed on stage by Bob Fosse), "Small Talk", and "Seven and a Half Cents".

Their next musical, Damn Yankees, opened on Broadway in 1955, starring Gwen Verdon. The musical ran for 1,019 performances. Adler and Ross, as composer and lyricist, shared in the 1956 Tony Award for Best Musical. Pop hits from the show were "Heart", recorded by Eddie Fisher, and "Whatever Lola Wants" for Sarah Vaughan.''

Death
Jerry Ross died on November 11, 1955, at the age of 29, from complications related to the lung disease bronchiectasis. In his short life, Ross was extremely productive; he wrote, alone or in collaboration, more than 250 songs in addition to his theatre work.

Ross was entered posthumously into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1982, his widow, Judy, and daughter, Janie, accepting on his behalf.

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

title: Jerry Ross (composer)


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Ghirardelli Chocolate Company

The Ghirardelli Chocolate Company is an American confectioner, wholly owned by Swiss confectioner Lindt & Sprüngli. The company was founded by and is named after Italian chocolatier Domenico Ghirardelli, who, after working in South America, moved to California. The Ghirardelli Chocolate Company was incorporated in 1852, and is the third-oldest chocolate company in the US, after Baker's Chocolate and Whitman's.

Origins
In 1817, Domenico Ghirardelli was born in Rapallo, Italy, to an "exotic foods importer" and his wife. Domenico received his first education in the chocolate trade when he was apprenticed to a local candymaker as a child. By the time he was 20, Ghirardelli had sailed to Uruguay with his wife to work in a chocolate and coffee business. A year later, Ghirardelli moved to Lima, Peru, and opened a confectionery store. In 1847, nine years later, James Lick (Ghirardelli's neighbor) moved to San Francisco, California, with 600 lb of Ghirardelli's chocolate. Ghirardelli remained and continued to operate his store in Peru.

The move to California
In 1849, Ghirardelli received news of the gold strike at Sutter's Mill and sailed to California. After doing some prospecting, Ghirardelli opened a general store in Stockton, California, offering supplies and confections to fellow miners. Ghirardelli's tent-based store was one of the first shops set up in the area.

Several months later, Ghirardelli opened a second store on the corner of Broadway and Battery in San Francisco, which became, in 1850, his first establishment in that city.

Ghirardelli had a general store in Hornitos, California, between 1856 and 1859, during a gold rush, where he perfected his chocolate recipes. The remains of the store can still be seen in town.

Early history in San Francisco
A fire on May 3, 1851, destroyed Ghirardelli's San Francisco business, and a few days later, his Stockton store also burned down. However, in September of the same year, Ghirardelli used his remaining assets to open the Cairo Coffee House in San Francisco. This business venture proved unsuccessful, and Ghirardelli opened a new store, named Ghirardely & Girard, on the corner of Washington and Kearny Streets in San Francisco. Soon afterward, Ghirardelli was making enough money to send for his family, who were still living in Peru. He changed the company's name to D. Ghirardelli & Co. and, in 1852, imported 200 lb of cocoa beans. The company was incorporated in 1852 and has been in continuous operation since.

The next year, in 1853, the business relocated to the corner of Jackson and Mason Streets. By 1855, a larger manufacturing facility was needed, and so the factory was moved to the corner of Greenwich and Powell Streets, while the office remained at the previous location. During this time, the company sold liquor, but dropped their line of alcoholic products sometime after 1871. By 1866, the company was importing 1,000 lb of cocoa seeds a year. By that time, the company not only sold chocolate, but also coffee and spices to the United States, China, Japan, and Mexico. In 1885, the company imported 450,000 lb of cocoa seeds.

In 1892, Ghirardelli retired as head of the company and was replaced by his three sons. Two years later, on January 17, 1894, Ghirardelli died at age 77 in Rapallo, Italy.

1900-present
By 1900, Ghirardelli's company was selling only chocolate and mustard, having sold its coffee and spices businesses. Further expansion over the years into different buildings allowed the company to expand into new markets and grow financially. In 1965, San Francisco declared Ghirardelli Square (where many of the Ghirardelli buildings were constructed) an official city landmark. Two years later, production facilities moved to San Leandro, California (37.711°N, -122.145°W).

Since the 1960s Ghirardelli has also moved to focus on a restaurant division by selling ice cream sundaes, complete with their famous hot fudge chocolate sauce. In one of their earliest menus from the 1960s they featured five "Nob Hill Sundaes" all named after different landmarks, historical aspects, or local figures from San Francisco (Twin Peaks, Golden Gate Banana Split, Strike it Rich, The Rock, and the Emperor Norton). As of 2024, they feature 11 different sundaes (World Famous Hot Fudge, Ocean Beach, Chocolate Lovers, Gold Rush, Mint Bliss, Strawberry Passion, Non-Dairy Hot Fudge, Cookie Crumble, Lands End, Golden Gate Banana Split, and Treasure Island).

In 1963, Ghirardelli Chocolate Company was bought by the Golden Grain Macaroni Company, maker of Rice-A-Roni. Later, in 1986, Quaker Oats bought Golden Grain, and thus Ghirardelli. In 1992, Quaker Oats sold the Ghirardelli Chocolate division to a private investment group. John J. Anton, from that group, became the president and CEO of the newly independent Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. In 1998, Lindt and Sprüngli, from Switzerland, acquired Ghirardelli Chocolate Company as a wholly owned subsidiary of its holding company.

Production
According to their own website, Ghirardelli is one of the few chocolate companies in the United States to control every aspect of its chocolate manufacturing process, rejecting up to 40% of the cocoa seeds shipped in order to select what the company calls the "highest quality" seeds. The company then roasts the cocoa seeds in-house by removing the outer shell on the seed and roasting the inside of the seed, or the nibs. The chocolate is then ground and refined until the particles are 19 μm in size.

Products
Ghirardelli produces several flavors of chocolate. The chocolate is sold in bar form or in miniature squares.

Ghirardelli also sells food service items, like chocolate beverages and flavored sauces, to other retailers.

Issues found
In 2015, an independent laboratory tested 127 chocolate products for lead and cadmium, and found that 96 of them contained lead and/or cadmium above the safety threshold defined by California's Proposition 65.

Based on these results, As You Sow filed notices with over 20 companies, including Ghirardelli and Trader Joe's, for failing to provide the legally required warning to consumers that their chocolate products contain cadmium, lead, or both. The suit was settled in 2018.

title: Ghirardelli Chocolate Company


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Foz do Arelho

Foz do Arelho is one of twelve civil parishes (freguesias) in the municipality of Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 1,339, in an area of 9.62 km2.

Geographic situation
Foz do Arelho is located 8 km west of Caldas da Rainha, in the northwest end of the council, and is limited north by the Atlantic Ocean and by the parish of Serra do Bouro. By South is delimited by the ocean basin of Lagoa de Óbidos (Óbidos Lagoon) and the parish of Nadadouro. East by the limits between the parishes of Serra do Bouro and Nadadouro and West by the ocean basin of Lagoa de Óbidos and the Atlantic Ocean.

History
Foz do Arelho started as being a small village belonging to the parish of Serra do Bouro, and was promoted to the category of parish in July the 5th, 1919. As far as it can be remembered, Foz do Arelho was always a seasonal vacation resort, chosen by the elite families. Worthy of notice, is the wealthy businessman Francisco Almeida Grandela, which promoted several local activities, such as schools, etc. which helped to develop the region, and increased the life-quality of the local inhabitants.

Area and demography
The parish of Foz do Arelho as a total area of 9.62 km² in which live 1,339 inhabitants. Most of the local inhabitants work in industry and services in Caldas da Rainha, but there is also a considerable number dedicated to touristy activities, seafood fishing (bivalve molluscs), and agriculture.

Landmarks
Quinta de Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe is an ancient manor house and farm, dated back to the 16th century. It includes a chapel, built in 1580 which can be seen, engraved in stone over the main entrance door, the chapel also has a stone bearing the "Medeiros" arms. Inside there is a polychromatic wood sculpture, dated back to the 16th century, representing N. Sra. do Carmo.

Foz do Arelho has several magnificent beach spots between the confluence of lagoa de Óbidos and the Atlantic Ocean. One can choose between swimming and sailing in the calm warm waters of the salt water lagoon, or surf and swim in the colder waters of the Atlantic.

Watersport
With miles of coastline and the stunning waters of Óbidos lagoon, the Silver Coast is heaven for watersport enthusiasts. Surfing is the major activity but it is not the only one. With its mild climate and good winds, there is something here for almost every type of watersport.

The inland waters of Óbidos lagoon provide a sheltered location for sailors of all abilities. There is a sailing centre, Escola de Vela da Lagoa, on the Foz do Arelho side which caters for experienced sailors by providing a range of equipment for rental, and beginners through its sailing schools. Here it is possible to learn a watersport such as windsurfing, kitesurfing, sailing (including catamarans), canoeing, wakeboarding and water skiing, all in a beautiful landscape where forests roll down to the water's edge and the Atlantic pounds on beaches at the entrance to the lagoon. For those who are expert and daring enough to venture out into the waves, the lagoon offers an ideal launching place and a safe harbour to return to.

title: Foz do Arelho


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1996 Washington gubernatorial election

The 1996 Washington gubernatorial election was held on November 5, 1996. Though eligible for a second term, incumbent governor Mike Lowry chose not to run for reelection due to allegations of sexual harassment. This gubernatorial race was especially significant in that it resulted in the first Asian American governor in the mainland United States (after George Ariyoshi of island state Hawaii), Democrat Gary Locke. Former U.S. Representative Jay Inslee would be elected in the gubernatorial election in 2012.

Democratic

 * Gary Locke, King County Executive and former state representative
 * Norm Rice, current Mayor of Seattle
 * Jay Inslee, former U.S. Representative from the 4th district

Republican

 * Ellen Craswell, president pro tempore of the Washington Senate
 * Dale Foreman, majority leader of the Washington House of Representatives
 * Norm Maleng, King County Prosecuting Attorney
 * Pam Roach, state senator

Candidates

 * Gary Locke (D), King County Executive and former state representative
 * Ellen Craswell (R), president pro tempore of the Washington Senate

Debates

 * Complete video of debate, September 26, 1996 - C-SPAN
 * Complete video of debate, October 9, 1996 - C-SPAN

title: 1996 Washington gubernatorial election


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Fender Stratocaster

The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster since 1954. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top "horn" shape for balance. "Stratocaster" and "Strat" are trademark terms belonging to Fender. Guitars that duplicate the Stratocaster by other manufacturers are sometimes called S-Type or ST-type guitars. Many prominent rock musicians have been associated with the Stratocaster for use in studio recording and live performances, most notably Eric Clapton, Buddy Holly, David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Frusciante, Jeff Beck and George Harrison.

Along with the Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, and Fender Telecaster, it is one of the most-often emulated electric guitar shapes.

The guitar introduced into the popular market several features that were innovative for electric guitars in the mid-1950s. The distinctive body shape, which has become commonplace among electric guitars, was revolutionary for the time period, and for the first time a mass-market electric guitar did not significantly resemble earlier acoustic models. The double cutaway, elongated horns, and heavily contoured back were all designed for better balance and comfort to play while standing up and slung off the shoulder with a strap. The three-pickup design offered players increased versatility and choice in tone quality over earlier one- and two-pickup electric guitars, and a responsive and simplified vibrato arm integrated into the bridge plate, which marked a significant design improvement over other vibrato systems, such as those manufactured by Bigsby. All of these design elements were popularized and later became an industry standard due to the success of the Stratocaster. The Fender Stratocaster is one of the most iconic electric guitar models of all time.

Over the years, countless variations of the Stratocaster have been made. The modular nature of the guitar, with its easily removable components, left players and luthiers to perform numerous modifications to their own guitars, changing out pickups or necks to fit the needs of the player. Fender has released numerous models with different pickup configurations and has made other small modifications to the electronics and components of the base model, such as changing the initial 3-position selector switch to a standard 5-position selector switch, offering more tonal variety, as well as other small cosmetic changes to things like tuning pegs and types of woods used in various parts of the guitar. Various other companies have produced their own Strat-style bodies known as Superstrats.

Overall design
The archetypal Stratocaster is a solid-body electric guitar with a contoured asymmetric double-cutaway body with an extended upper horn; the body is usually made from alder or ash. The neck is usually made from maple and attached to the body with screws (often referred to as "bolts") and has a distinctive headstock with six tuning pegs mounted inline along a single side; the fingerboard may be maple or another wood, e.g., rosewood, and has at least twenty-one frets. The Stratocaster's body is front-routed for electronics, which are mounted in a plastic pickguard. Most Stratocasters have three single-coil pickups, a pickup selector switch, one volume control and two tone controls. Bridges generally come in two designs: the more common pivoting "tremolo" bridges, and the less common "hardtail" fixed bridge. Both types of bridge have six individually adjustable saddles whose height and intonation can be set independently. Early models of the stratocaster came with a removable metal cover plate that fit over the bridge. The plate was purely cosmetic, and tended to get in the way of important playing techniques such as palm muting, so many players removed it. By the late 1970s, Fender stopped shipping guitars with the bridge cover plate, though some more modern reissue and custom shop models still have them. The innovative tremolo system is balanced by springs mounted in a rear cavity. The output jack is mounted in a recess in the front of the guitar body. Many different colors have been available. The Stratocaster's scale length is 25.5 in.

There have been some minor changes to the design over the years and models with features that differ from the archetypical design. However, the essential character of the design has remained constant.

1954–1984
The Stratocaster was the first Fender guitar to feature three pickups and a spring tension vibrato system, as well as being the first Fender with a contoured body. The Stratocaster's sleek, contoured body shape (officially referred to by Fender as the "Original Contour Body" ) differed from the flat, squared edge design of the Telecaster. The Stratocaster's double cutaways allowed players easier access to higher positions on the neck.

The first model offered for sale was the 1954 Fender Stratocaster. The design featured a solid, deeply contoured ash body, a 21-fret one-piece maple neck with black dot inlays, and Kluson SafeTi String post tuning machines. The color was originally a two-color, dark brown-to-golden yellow sunburst pattern, although custom color guitars were produced (An example is Eldon Shamblin's gold Stratocaster, dated June 1954).

In 1956, Fender began using alder for sunburst and most custom-color Stratocaster bodies. Ash needed grain filler and sanding blocks for contour sanding, though it was still used on translucent blonde instruments.

In 1957, the neck shape took a more "V-shaped" feel with deeper body carves on the guitar a noted feature.

In 1959, Fender introduced a thick Brazilian rosewood fretboard to the Stratocaster, now colloquially referred to as a "slab-board". This thicker board lasted until 1962, when the fretboard was made with a thinner 'veneer' of Brazilian Rosewood. Nearly all of the 1960s models of the Stratocaster had a rosewood fretboard, and maple fretboards would not be re-introduced in large numbers until 1970.

In 1960, the available custom colors were standardized with a paint chip chart, many of which were Duco automobile lacquer colors from DuPont available at an additional 5% cost. Inter-departmental DuPont support research provided a flexible basecoat for their wood applications.

A single-ply, eight-screw hole white pickguard (changed to an 11-hole three-ply in late 1959) held all electronic components except the recessed jack plate, facilitating assembly.

The 1963 Fender Stratocaster shows an advancement in design from the 1950s models including a 'veneer' Brazilian rosewood board with Clay Dot inlays, a 3 tone sunburst finish on an Alder body and Kluson tuners.

To summarize, the specific features in the evolution of the Fender Stratocaster between 1954 and 1979 included:
 * 1954–1959, one piece maple necks (including fretboard);
 * 1954–1964, Spaghetti logo on the headstock;
 * 1954–1967, Kluson tuners;
 * 1954–1971, 4 bolt back plate at neck joint;
 * 1954–1977, three way pickup selector switch;
 * 1954–1982, 7.25 inch radius board with small frets by modern standards;
 * 1959–1962, thick Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) fretboard known as a "slab-board";
 * 1962–1966, thin Brazilian rosewood fretboard known as a "veneer-board";
 * 1964–1967, gold "transition" logo on the headstock with small writing of the word "Stratocaster";
 * 1966–1969, Indian rosewood or optional separate laminated "maple cap" fretboards;
 * 1968–1982, black CBS logo with larger printed "STRATOCASTER" on the headstock;
 * 1967–1982, Fender "F" Tuners;
 * 1965–1981, headstock enlarged on the right hand side
 * 1971–1981, 3 bolt back plate with MicroTilt neck relief adjuster and "Bullet" truss rod nut;
 * 1977–present, five way pickup selector switch.

Despite being credited with inventing the most popular electric guitar in history, Leo Fender made very few alterations to the basic design of the Fender Stratocaster (and the Telecaster for that matter) up until 1965 when the company was sold to CBS Instruments. For example, the bridge cover on the Fender Stratocaster was often taken off by players and either disposed or kept in the case. Despite full knowledge of this, Leo Fender always provided the new Fender guitars with a bridge cover to prevent corrosion on the bridge parts.

After 1965, the Fender company, under the control of CBS Instruments, saw a drop in sales of the Fender Stratocaster to customers. The Fender Jazzmaster had been promoted as the flagship guitar in the Fender line. As such, the resurgence of the Fender Stratocaster is credited to the arrival of Jimi Hendrix in the late 1960s. His remarkable playing style and musical prowess led to a dramatic increase in sales and thrust the Stratocaster into musical history as the premier electric guitar. As they followed Jimi Hendrix's popularity on TV, CBS asked for the word Stratocaster on the headstock be made larger so that people could read the model name easily.

Between the years 1954 and 1979, nearly a quarter of the Fender Stratocasters manufactured were made in a single year, in 1979. The increased 1970s production levels saw a gradual departure from the high quality instruments of the 1960s and the introduction of Japanese manufacturers into the market.

Original Stratocasters were manufactured with five vibrato springs (three in late 1953 prototypes) attached to a milled inertia block and anchored to the back of the body. The novel mechanism pivots on a fulcrum design with a six screw bridge plate, allowing the whole set-up to "float" while transferring the strings' energy directly into the body. Though advertised as "Tremolo" (a change in volume amplitude), vibrato is the correct term for pitch variation. In the floating position, players can move the bridge-mounted vibrato tremolo arm up or down to modulate the pitch of the notes being played. Hank Marvin, Jeff Beck and Ike Turner have used the Stratocaster's floating vibrato extensively in their playing.

As string gauges have changed, players have experimented with the number of springs (often four though Hendrix used five). As the average gauge has decreased over the years, modern Stratocasters are equipped with three springs as a stock option in order to counteract the reduced string tension. While the floating bridge has unique advantages for wavering pitch upwards (like Jeff Beck), the functionality of the "floating" has been widely accepted, yet disputed by some musicians. Leo Fender insisted it leave the factory floating (raised up in the back) while designer Freddie Tavares preferred it tightened flush for full bridge plate/body contact resonance. As the bridge floats, the instrument has a tendency to go out of tune during double-stop string bends. Many Stratocaster players opt to tighten the springs (or even increase the number of springs used) so that the bridge is firmly anchored against the guitar body: in this configuration, the vibrato arm can still be used to slacken the strings and therefore lower the pitch, but it cannot be used to raise the pitch (a configuration sometimes referred to as "dive-only").

Some players, such as Ronnie Wood, feel that the floating bridge has an excessive propensity to detune guitars. These guitarists inhibit the bridge's movement with a chunk of wood wedged between the bridge block and the inside cutout of the tremolo cavity, and by increasing the tension on the tremolo springs; these procedures lock the bridge in a fixed position. Some Stratocasters have a fixed bridge in place of the vibrato assembly; these are colloquially called "hard-tails". There is considerable debate about the effects on tone and sustain of the material used in the vibrato system's 'inertia bar' and many aftermarket versions are available.

The Stratocaster features three single coil pickups, with the output originally selected by a 3-way switch. Guitarists soon discovered that by positioning the switch in between the first and second position, both the bridge and middle pickups could be selected, and similarly, the middle and neck pickups could be selected between the 2nd and 3rd position. When two pickups are selected simultaneously, they are wired in parallel which leads to a slight drop in output as slightly more current is allowed to pass to the ground. However in newer guitars, since the middle pickup is almost always wired in reverse (and with its magnets having opposite polarity), this configuration creates a spaced humbucking pair, which significantly reduces 50/60 cycle hum. Fender introduced a five-way selector in 1977, making such pickup combinations more stable.

The "quacky" or "doinky" tone of the bridge and middle pickups in parallel, popularized by players such as Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour, Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler, Bob Dylan, Eric Johnson, Nile Rodgers, George Harrison, Scott Thurston, Ronnie Wood, John Mayer, Ed King, Robert Cray, can be obtained by using the pickup selector in position 2; similarly the middle and neck pickups in parallel can be obtained in position 4.

This setting's characteristic tone is not caused by any electronic phenomenon—early Stratocasters used identical pickups for all positions. This "in between" tone is caused by phase cancellation due to the physical position of the pickups along the vibrating string. The neck and middle pickups are each wired to a tone control that incorporates a single, shared tone capacitor, whereas the bridge pickup, which is slanted towards the high strings for a more trebly sound, has no tone control for maximum brightness.

On many modern Stratocasters, the first tone control affects the neck pickup; the second tone control affects the middle and bridge pickups; on some Artist Series models Buddy Guy signature guitar), the first tone control is a presence circuit that cuts or boosts treble and bass frequencies, affecting all the pickups; the second tone control is an active midrange booster that boosts the midrange frequencies up to 25 dB (12 dB on certain models) to produce a fatter humbucker-like sound.

Dick Dale was a prominent Stratocaster player who also collaborated with Leo Fender in developing the Fender Showman amplifier. In the early 1960s, the instrument was also championed by Hank Marvin, guitarist for the Shadows, a band that originally backed Cliff Richard and then produced instrumentals of its own. In December 1964, George Harrison and John Lennon acquired Stratocasters and used them for "Help!", and onwards through to "Let It Be". Harrison used it as his main guitar in the Beatles from 1965 to 1970, and throughout his solo career. The double unison guitar solo on "Nowhere Man", was played by Harrison and Lennon on their new Stratocasters.

After the introduction of the Fender Stratocaster Ultra series in 1989, ebony was officially selected as a fretboard material on some models (although several Elite Series Stratocasters manufactured in 1983/84 such as the Gold and Walnut were available with a stained ebony fretboard). In December 1965 the Stratocaster was given a broader headstock with altered decals to match the size of the Jazzmaster and the Jaguar.

1985–present
During the CBS era, particularly the 1970s, the perceived quality of Fender instruments fell. During this time, vintage instruments from the pre-CBS era became popular.

When the Fender company was bought from CBS by a group of investors and employees headed by Bill Schultz in 1985, manufacturing resumed its former high quality, and Fender was able to regain market share and brand reputation. Dan Smith, with the help of John Page, proceeded to work on a reissue of the most popular guitars of Leo Fender's era. They decided to manufacture two Vintage reissue Stratocaster models, the one-piece maple neck 1957 and a rosewood-fretboard 1962 along with the maple-neck 1952 Telecaster, the maple-neck 1957 and rosewood-fretboard 1962 Precision Basses, as well as the rosewood-fretboard "stacked knob" 1962 Jazz Bass. These first few years (1982–1984) of reissues, known as American Vintage Reissues, are now high-priced collector's items and considered as some of the finest to ever leave Fender's Fullerton plant, which closed its doors in late 1984.

In 1985, Fender's US production of the Vintage reissues resumed into a new 14,000 sqft factory at Corona, California, located about 20 mi away from Fullerton. Some early reissues from 1986 were crafted with leftover parts from the Fullerton factory. Fender released their first Stratocaster signature guitar for Eric Clapton in 1988. A popular Fender Reissue Stratocaster was the '57 American Vintage Reissue. The company regarded 1957 as a benchmark year for the Strat. The original specifications were used, with three 57/62 pickups, aged pickup covers and knobs, a tinted 7.25" radius, 21 fret maple neck, an ashtray bridge cover, and three position switch (with five-position switch kit included). The colors included white blonde, two-color sunburst, black, ocean turquoise, surf green, and ice blue metallic. The '57 Vintage Reissue Stratocaster was discontinued in 2012.

As well as the vintage reissues, Fender launched an updated model in 1987: the American Standard Stratocaster. This was tailored to the demands of modern players, notably having a flatter fingerboard, a thinner neck profile and an improved tremolo system. This model line has been continuously improved and remained in production until late 2016. The model line received upgrades in 2000, when it was renamed as the American Series Stratocaster, and again in 2008, when the American Standard name was restored. In 2017, the American Standard Stratocaster was replaced by the American Professional Stratocaster, with narrow frets, a fatter 'deep C' neck profile and V-Mod pickups. Various other modern American-made Stratocasters have been produced. As of 2019, these include the more affordable American Performer Stratocaster (successor to the Highway One and American Special Stratocasters) and the more expensive American Ultra Stratocaster (successor to the American Elite Stratocaster).

Fender has also manufactured guitars in East Asia, notably Japan, and in Mexico, where the affordable Player (successor to Standard) series guitars are built. In addition to the Player series, Fender has also released the Player Plus series that features noiseless pickups, locking tuners, and a 12" radius.

Fender Strat Plus Series
Fender has produced various 'deluxe' modern American Stratocasters with special features.

The Strat Plus was produced from 1987 to 1999 and was equipped with Lace Sensor pickups, a roller nut, locking tuners, a TBX tone control and a Hipshot tremsetter. The Strat Plus Deluxe was introduced in 1989 with pickup and tremolo variations. The Strat Ultra was introduced in 1990, again with pickup variations, and also with an ebony fingerboard.

Fender Custom Classic Series
The Fender Custom Shop produced an entry level, team built Stratocaster that was discontinued in 2008. The Custom Classic Strat was intended to be a combination of the best aspects of vintage and modern Strats. The guitar boasted 3 Modern Classic pickups along with a Custom Classic 2-point tremolo with pop-in tremolo bar. The "C" Shaped neck was maple with either maple or rosewood finger board and 22 jumbo frets. The colors available were three-color sunburst, daphne blue, black, bing cherry transparent, cobalt blue transparent, and honey blonde.

Signature models
Fender has released several models of Stratocaster in collaboration with famous guitarists. They include:

 * Eric Clapton
 * Jeff Beck
 * Dick Dale
 * Rory Gallagher
 * Jimi Hendrix
 * Eric Johnson
 * Ritchie Blackmore
 * Yngwie Malmsteen
 * Richie Sambora
 * Bonnie Raitt
 * Stevie Ray Vaughan
 * The Edge
 * John Mayer
 * Mark Knopfler
 * Lincoln Brewster
 * H.E.R.
 * Tom Morello
 * Buddy Guy
 * Jim Root
 * Tom DeLonge
 * Wayne Kramer
 * Steve Lacy
 * Albert Hammond Jr.
 * Cory Wong

title: Fender Stratocaster


text:
LensCrafters

LensCrafters is an international retailer of prescription eyewear and prescription sunglasses. Its stores usually host independent optometrists on-site or in an adjacent store. The company has its corporate headquarters in Mason, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati in the US.

LensCrafters has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Luxottica (which has since merged with Essilor to form EssilorLuxottica), the largest eyewear company in the world, since 1995. At the end of 2018, Luxottica operated 1,158 LensCrafters stores, of which 1,050 are located in North America and 108 are located in China, Hong Kong and India.

History
LensCrafters was founded in March 1983 by E. Dean Butler, who had been a manager with Procter & Gamble. Butler first developed the idea for a "while you wait" eyeglass retailer after helping a Procter & Gamble colleague produce television commercials for a family optical business in the late 1970s.

LensCrafters achieved sales of $2 million in its first year of operation before Butler sold the company to the United States Shoe Corporation in 1984. Butler remained as LensCrafters' CEO until 1988.

LensCrafters had just three locations when U.S. Shoe purchased it; by 1989, there were 350 locations, and LensCrafters was generating 40% of U.S. Shoe's operating income.

In 1992, LensCrafters surpassed Pearle Vision to become the largest chain of eyeglass retailers in the United States, with roughly $660 million in annual revenue.

In 1995, Luxottica launched a hostile takeover attempt of United States Shoe CorporationU.S. Shoe, with the goal of acquiring LensCrafters. Luxottica announced in April 1995, that it had reached an agreement to purchase U.S. Shoe for $1.4 billion.

Luxottica acquired Pearle Vision in 2004, combining the country's two largest eyewear retailers. Though most locations can still provide glasses and frames same-day, that line of business has become de-emphasized over time for the luxury market.

title: LensCrafters


text:
Landal

Landal is one of twelve civil parishes (freguesias) in the municipality of Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. The civil parish has an area of 10.21 km² and had a population of 1,051 at the 2011 census.

title: Landal


text:
Nadadouro

Nadadouro is one of twelve civil parishes (freguesias) in the municipality of Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. The population in 2021 was 1,962, in an area of 10.60 km2.

The parish of Nadadouro borders the popular tourist destination of the Lagoa de Óbidos which is a lagoon located in the municipalities Óbidos and Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Foz do Arelho.

Villages

 * Alto
 * Alto Nobre
 * Barrosa
 * Casal Avé Maria
 * Casais de Baixo
 * Casal das Salgueiras
 * Casal dos Chãos
 * Cumeira
 * Casal Novo
 * Casais da Fonte
 * Corujeira
 * Casais do Vale de Égua
 * Casais do Regato
 * Casinhas
 * Cercas
 * Covões
 * Poça dos Ninhos
 * Panascosas
 * Pedreirinha
 * Touguio

title: Nadadouro


text:
Talk:Chatham, Kent

Chatham, Kent or Chatham, Medway
I have changed the name of the article to Chatham, Medway as Chatham has not been part of Kent for 10 years - it is now in the unitary authority of Medway. I feel it is still appropriate to reflect Chatham's historic place in Kent, and its associations with Kent, and we should do that within the text of the article, however it seems appropriate to get the location right in the name, and Chatham is these days in Medway. However, the matter is up for debate.  SilkTork  *YES! 01:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

 * I concur. It's clear enough from the infobox that Chatham is in the unitary authority of Medway and the ceremonial county of Kent. MarkyMarkD (talk) 09:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

 * I have again moved the title from Chatham, Kent to Chatham, Medway per WP:UKPLACE: "For localities unambiguously located within a town/city settlement (according to reliable, external sources) placename, town/city is used."  SilkTork   ✔Tea time  09:44, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
 * With regards to the quoting of UKPLACE - that section is for locations unambiguously located within a town/city. Medway is a district, it is not a city or a town in its own right - its Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester that are the towns. It does make sense for locations such as Luton to be described as Luton, Chatham. That suggests Chatham, Kent is the appropriate disambiguation.
 * Incidentally, the 2nd sentence is poorly phrased as it reflects a POV not shown in the source. "Chatham was in Kent, but is ceremonially associated with it" has the apparent POV that county only means "administrative county", not any other type. "Chatham was administratively part of Kent, and is still ceremonially" is more neutral. Its also a closer match to the appropriate guidance.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:30, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Why is there no seperate article for Luton - which is a distinct seperate part of the medway towns/villages DavidAnstiss (talk) 17:06, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

After the Norman invasion the manor of Chatham, originally Saxon, was given by William the Conqueror to Earl Godwinson.
I added Citation needed because simply that internal link to King Harold II Godwinson clearly isn't accurate insofar William the Conqueror could, would never give a mere manor to the man he'd just killed in that battle near Hastings! What I do find intriguing, especially as my mother's mother's descended from the Norwood family which has arguably claimed descent from King Harold II Godwinson when apparently his wife went into Benedictine Prior Sanctuary in Minster, Sheppey with their then child son who's later been called Jordanus de Sheppey, I'm wondering, is there any possibility Jordanus de Sheppey in actual fact also became known as Earl Godwinson otherwise, what are the tantalising time mists, myths involved here, oft created by mixing oral histories like so called Chinese whispers? Matthew (talk) 21:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC) I then did a google search, noting, http://www.information-britain.co.uk/history/town/Chatham20/ "The Saxon manor at Chatham was handed to Earl Godwinson after the Norman Conquest ." Whereas, "Earl Leofwine was the younger brother of King Harold II and the fifth son of Earl Godwin. He was Earl of Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Hertford, Surrey and probably Buckinghamshire. He died on the 14th October, 1066 during the battle of Santlache Ridge together with his brothers Harold and Gyrth." http://www.cliffehistory.co.uk/domesday.html and "Bishop Odo of Bayeux Half brother to William I

Before the Conquest Lord in 1066:

Dunclent, Cresslow, Worcestershire Broch, Desborough, Buckinghamshire Clopton, Pathlow, Warwickshire Earlscourt, Ramsbury, Wiltshire After the Conquest Lord in 1086:

Salisbury, Alderbury, Wiltshire / Somerset [North] Tidworth, Amesbury, Wiltshire Crowle, Ash, Worcestershire Helpringham, Aswardhurn, Lincolnshire Bourne, Aveland, Lincolnshire Combpyne, Axmouth, Devon Swinstead, Beltisloe, Lincolnshire Carswall, Botloe, Gloucestershire Irby [-upon-Humber], Bradley, Lincolnshire Gillingham, Chatham, Kent Westwick", etc

Removal and subsequent revert of this info 30 Jan 2016
On 30th Jan 2016 I removed a sentence saying that Chatham was given to Earl Godwinson (page links to Harold Godwinson) after the Norman conquest, as obviously, as it says above, this is impossible due to Harold being killed at the battle of Hastings. ClemRutter reverted this change saying 'Can you supply a reference to your certainty that the manor of Chatham was not one of the 200 given to Godwinson'. ClemRutter can you clarify what you mean? As it seems to me this is obviously false. Even if 'Earl Godwinson' refers to another member of Harold's family, it seems unlikely that William would have given a manor to the family of the man he has just killed. In fact I believe Bishop Odo of Bayeux, half brother to William I, received Kent. Thermocycler (talk) 15:03, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Proposed name change to 'Chatham'
I suggest this article's name is changed to just "Chatham". This is in line with many other towns where there is no disambiguation needed. Even if there were another Chatham somewhere, this Chatham would be the default one, same as Gravesend or Dartford. I notice an earlier suggestion above about a name change, but that was for another reason and serves merely as a good example of the sort of confusion that has arisen about counties. I thought it best to post here first. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 04:09, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. 17 months hasn't attracted any negative comment. --ClemRutter (talk) 11:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Notable people
Should Milo Yiannopoulos be added to the list of notable people? Cause the article about him, it says that he was born here. NintendoTTTEfan2005 (talk) 19:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Chatham, Kent


text:
Concertación

The Concertación, officially the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Coalition of Parties for Democracy), was a coalition of center-left political parties in Chile, founded in 1988. Presidential candidates under its banner won every election from when military rule ended in 1990 until the conservative candidate Sebastián Piñera won the Chilean presidential election in 2010. In 2013 it was replaced by New Majority coalition.

History
In 1987 General Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, legalized political parties and called a plebiscite to determine whether or not he would remain in power after 1990. Several parties, including the Christian Democracy, the Socialist Party and the Radical Party, gathered in the Democratic Alliance (Alianza Democrática). In 1988, several more parties, including the Humanist Party, the Ecologist Party, the Social Democrats, and several Socialist Party splinter groups added their support, despite fears of election fraud by Pinochet, and the Concertación de Partidos por el NO ("Coalition of Parties for NO") was formed to campaign against the continuation of Pinochet's regime.

The parties and leaders that made the first Party Presidents' Council were:

During the election campaign, the Coalition organized a colorful and cheerful campaign under the slogan La alegría ya viene ("Joy is coming"). Some Socialist factions were the last to join, because they were reluctant to work in the plebiscite, fearing election fraud by Pinochet. On 5 October 1988, the "NO" vote won with a 54% majority, and a general election was called for 1989.

In that year, the coalition changed their name to Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia ("Concert of Parties for Democracy") and put forward Patricio Aylwin, the Christian Democrat leader, as a presidential candidate, as well as launching a common list for the parliamentary elections. In elections the following year, Aylwin won and the coalition gained the majority of votes in the Chamber of Deputies. However, in Chile's bicameral parliament, they had no majority in the Senate, a situation they found themselves in constantly for over 15 years. This forced them to negotiate all law projects with the right-wing parties, the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) and Renovación Nacional (RN) (later coalesced into the Alliance for Chile).

In 1993, the coalition put forward the Christian Democrat senator Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle as a presidential candidate. Frei was the son of Eduardo Frei Montalva, the founder of the Christian Democrat Party and himself a former President of Chile (1964–1970). Gaining 57% of the votes, he defeated to the right-wing candidate, Arturo Alessandri Besa, becoming the third Christian Democrat president, and the second Coalition president.

In the same year, the Humanist Party, the Christian Left, and the Greens left the Coalition, accusing it of betraying the purpose for which it was born. The Social Democrat Party and the Radical Party joined together to form the Social Democrat Radical Party, while the various former Socialist factions became part of the Socialist Party.

Frei's government faced two main problems: an economic crisis was raising the unemployment rate, and General Pinochet had been arrested in London. Both situations led the Coalition to fear defeat in the 1999 presidential elections.

In that year, the coalition had two possible candidates: the Christian Democrats' Andrés Zaldívar and the Socialists' Ricardo Lagos. Primary elections were held to decide between the two. Lagos won the vote, and went on to defeat the UDI's Joaquín Lavín in the presidential election. However, since he got a plurality as opposed to a majority of the votes, a runoff vote was held, the first in Chilean history, in which Lagos won with 51% of the votes.

In 2005, two candidates were again proposed: the Christian Democrats' Soledad Alvear, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Socialists' Michelle Bachelet, a former Minister of Defense. As before, the situation was to be resolved through a primary election. However, in May 2005, after months of internal disputes regarding her party's directives, Alvear withdrew from the presidential race, deciding instead to run for senator in Santiago. Bachelet therefore became the Coalition's candidate, and the second woman to run for Chilean President (the first being Communist leader Gladys Marín), competing with the UDI's Joaquín Lavín and RN's Sebastián Piñera.

On 11 December 2005, Bachelet won with 45% of the votes, but was forced to compete with Piñera in a runoff election. In the same month, the coalition won 51.25% of the votes in the parliamentary elections, gaining 20 seats in the Senate and 65 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. This gave them a majority in both Houses for the first time.

On 15 January 2006, the runoff was held. Bachelet won with nearly the 54% of the votes, becoming the first female president of Chile. She was also the fourth Coalition candidate and third Socialist to win.

Coalition presidents

 * Patricio Aylwin (1990–1994)
 * Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1994–2000)
 * Ricardo Lagos (2000–2006)
 * Michelle Bachelet (2006–2010)

title: Concertación


text:
Statutory college

In the United States, a statutory college or contract college is a higher education college or school that is a component of an independent, private university that has been designated by the state legislature to receive significant, ongoing public funding from that respective state. The statutory college is operated by the university with state funding used to serve specific educational needs of the state.

Delaware
The University of Delaware in Newark and Delaware State University in Dover are both chartered as a "privately governed, state-assisted" university. They receive about 10 percent of their operating budgets from the state.

Florida
Beginning in 2004, the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine in Miami began offering instruction on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. MD candidates are admitted to either the Miami or Boca Raton programs and spend all four years studying on the selected campus.

The Miami and Boca Raton campuses charge identical tuition, with a lower tuition for in-state Florida students.

New York
In New York state, statutory colleges are administratively affiliated with the State University of New York (SUNY) system, and receive funding from SUNY's operating budget. There are five statutory colleges: four located at Cornell University in Ithaca and one located at Alfred University in Alfred.

New York state education law uses both "contract college" and "statutory college" to describe these state-supported colleges.

Alfred University
The statutory college located at Alfred University in Alfred, New York is:
 * New York State College of Ceramics (established 1900)

The New York State College of Ceramics (NYSCC) consists of the School of Art and Design, with its own dean, and four state-supported materials programs cross-organized within Alfred University's School of Engineering. The College of Ceramics is functioning technically as a "holding entity" (overseen by a unit head/Vice President of Statutory Affairs) for the fiscal support of the state programs and the NYSCC mission. The unit head assists with budget preparation for the two aforementioned AU schools and the NYSCC-affiliated Scholes Library of Ceramics (part of the campuswide, unified AU library system), and acts in a liaison role to SUNY.

The School of Art and Design, technically a subunit of the College of Ceramics but autonomously run with its own dean, is further subdivided into divisions. Alfred's School of Engineering (also autonomously run with its own dean) currently has four state-supported programs and two privately endowed programs.

Cornell University
The four statutory colleges at Cornell University in Ithaca are:
 * New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (established 1888; contract since 1904)
 * New York State College of Human Ecology (established 1919; separate college since 1925)
 * New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations (established 1944)
 * New York State College of Veterinary Medicine (established 1894)

Another statutory college, the New York State College of Forestry, was founded at Cornell University in 1898, but was closed in 1903 when a pending lawsuit led Gov. Odell to veto the appropriations bill that provided funding. However, forestry education was continued at Cornell as part of the College of Agriculture. The College of Forestry was later reestablished at Syracuse University in 1911.

Two of Cornell's current statutory colleges, the NYS College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the NYS College of Human Ecology, existed as non-state-supported colleges, as the College of Agriculture and the School of Home Economics, respectively, before state legislation was enacted to make each a state-supported entity. The NYS College of Human Ecology and the NYS College of Veterinary Medicine trace their origins to Cornell's agriculture college. However, the College of Veterinary Medicine was actually the first statutory college in New York. The Hotel School started in 1922 as a department within Home Economics, but became a separate, endowed college in 1954.

The statutory colleges at Cornell grew out of Cornell's designation in 1865 as New York state's land grant college under the Morrill Act. Under the Morrill Act, Cornell received land scrip based on the population of the state, and the proceeds formed the basis of Cornell's initial endowment. Under the terms of the Cornell's 1865 charter from the Legislature, Cornell was obligated to teach agriculture, mechanical arts and military tactic. (Cornell was also obligated to provide free tuition to students from each assembly district.) By the 1890s, Cornell sought state funding to continue its mission in these areas, and the statutory colleges were formed as a vehicle for direct state funding. In addition, around the start of the 20th century, new federal laws provided land-grant colleges and their agricultural experiment stations and cooperative extension services with annual funding conditioned upon matching state funds. As a result, almost all of Cornell's land grant duties were transferred to its four statutory colleges, which receive such state funds through the present.

Academic programs can be transferred between the statutory college side and the host institution. For example, when private funding was sufficient to assure operation of the hotel administration program of the College of Home Economics, it was spun off as a separate School of Hotel Administration in 1950. The Department of Agricultural Economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) has evolved into an undergraduate business school. In 2016, it became a school shared between CALS and a new college of business. Students still have the benefit of in-state tuition despite this reorganization.

Syracuse University
The New York State College of Forestry was reestablished at Syracuse University (SU) in 1911, but was never technically a statutory college. Founded first as a unit within Syracuse University, in 1913 the College was chartered as an independent state institution called "The New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University", with its own Board of Trustees.

In 1948, with the establishment of the State University of New York, the College became a specialized, doctoral-degree granting institution within the multi-campus SUNY system. In 1972, the College's name was changed to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF); it remains administratively separate from Syracuse University. ESF students have full access to SU libraries and recreational facilities. The two institutions share a common schedule of courses, students at either institution may take courses at the other institution, and can apply for admission to concurrent degree and joint certificate programs. ESF students take part in joint commencement exercises in May (and receive diplomas with the seals of both Syracuse University and ESF), and ESF students may participate in all SU student activities except NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports.

The statutory colleges are not state-run; they are operated by a contracted university. Only two universities, Cornell University and Alfred University, currently are part of this system. However, the five existing statutory colleges have been affiliated with SUNY since its inception in 1948, but had no affiliation with any umbrella organization before 194). Statutory college employees legally are employees of Cornell and Alfred universities, not employees of SUNY.

The State Education Law does give the SUNY Board of Trustees the following authority. The Trustees must approve Cornell's and Alfred's appointment of the deans and unit heads of the statutory colleges, and control of the level of state funding for the statutory colleges resides with SUNY. In addition to money allocated by SUNY, the colleges may be funded by tuition and fees; grants and contracts from state agencies; special state legislative funding; federal funding; and private donations.

The Education Law mandates a consolatory role for SUNY. The statutory college should consult with SUNY when it sets tuition rates. SUNY also exercises a "general supervision" over the statutory colleges. However, Cornell and Alfred have interpreted this to mean that SUNY does not have the right to create novel policies for the statutory colleges that are not explicitly stated in the Education Law. If there is a conflict between Cornell or Alfred and SUNY in regard to a policy or action that SUNY is requiring from Cornell or Alfred, it must be resolved by negotiation between the two parties, although there is the legal right of court appeal by either party if agreement cannot be reached. However, this legal option has never been used.

The state finances the construction of buildings for the statutory college programs, and New York State owns those buildings as well as the land beneath those buildings. Such construction is managed by the NYS University Construction Fund rather than by Cornell or Alfred.

Since statutory colleges at Cornell and Alfred receive significant state funding, tuition rates for statutory colleges and for endowed colleges are determined separately. 'In-state' residents attending a statutory college pay a separate reduced rate, in contrast to their 'out-of-state' counterparts' rates. When a student enrolled in a statutory college takes a class offered by an endowed college, the endowed college is reimbursed in a budget item called an "accessory instruction fee." At times, statutory college students who take more than their allotted credit hours from endowed colleges were required to pay such fees themselves. Similarly, at various times, a student who matriculates into a statutory college and later transfers to an endowed college has been required to pay the difference in tuition upon the transfer.

Statutory college employees are covered by a separate pension plan and have separate pay scales and fringe benefits than their endowed college counterparts. Most of the statutory college buildings and facilities are owned by New York state.

State University of New York and City University of New York
SUNY performs a fiduciary role for dispersal of state funds to the statutory units. This may require periodic audits of the use of state funds within the private universities.

There is some debate about whether the statutory colleges are "public" or "private, nonprofit" entities. Legally, they are private and nonprofit; Cornell and Alfred Universities are private, nonprofit institutions, a status which extends to all of these universities' components, which are not separate corporations. Also, the employees of the statutory colleges, as currently affirmed by court rulings, are private, nonprofit employees. An analogy to this relationship is a private, nonprofit health agency which, under contract with a government, regularly receives government money to operate a research institute; the whole private, nonprofit agency (including the research institute) still remains a private, nonprofit entity. New York State's Education Law also states that the statutory colleges do not operate as "state agencies." The fact that each of the statutory colleges contains "New York State" in their official names does not alter the private nature of the statutory colleges; however, the importance of state funding is an important factor in the private vs. statutory unit relationship.

There are two state-supported university systems in New York state: the State University of New York, which has degree-granting units throughout the state, and the City University of New York, which only has degree-granting units in New York City. New York state's statutory colleges are partners of SUNY and have no affiliation with CUNY.

National Technical Institute for the Deaf
The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) is a constituent school of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), located in Rochester, New York. NTID offers programs — frequently in conjunction with RIT's other colleges/schools — tailored to deaf and hard-of-hearing students, and also offers programs to students who are not necessarily hearing-impaired but who wish to assist hearing-impaired individuals.

United States resident students enrolled in NTID receive a reduced tuition rate which is both lower than RIT's regular tuition rate, lower than the comparable tuition charged to NTID's International, non-U.S.-resident enrolled students.

NTID was created through U.S. federal legislation in 1965, and receives Federal funding to subsidize the lower, domestic tuition rate.

Pennsylvania
In Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth System of Higher Education recognizes a state-related status, in which an institution is provided with state funds in exchange for offering tuition discounts to students who are residents of Pennsylvania. The state allocations account for less than 10 percent of the budgets of the four institutions, Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania State University, Temple University in Philadelphia, and the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, which remain academically and administratively independent of the state.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine receives support from the state and offers in-state tuition to students who are residents of Pennsylvania.

Texas
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston subsidizes the tuition of Texas residents, so they have a lower tuition rate than that charged to non-Texans who attend its M.D. program. This subsidy, intended to increase the number of physicians in Texas, was enacted in 1969, at which time the medical school became an autonomous entity in order to avoid legal conflicts arising from Baylor's affiliation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. State support only allays the cost of tuition for in-state students, and the state does not assist BCM with significant ongoing funding for research or outreach/extension purposes.

International universities
The University of St Andrews, in St Andrews, Scotland, has three units that are designated as colleges. Two of these colleges are designated as statutory colleges, which have ecclesiastical beginnings. One of these statutory colleges, United College, founded by a college merger in 1747, today exists as essentially a non-administrative entity kept for the sake of history and tradition. It houses the University's Faculties of Arts, Medicine, and Science.

The other statutory college, St Mary's College, St Andrews, founded in 1538, and also in St Andrews, is coexistent with the University's Faculty and School of Divinity. The remaining college, St Leonard's College, is designated as "non-statutory," has similar early beginnings, but was re-instituted in 1972 as a central point of administration for postgraduate students. (St Andrews students who are postgraduates, as well as the University's postdoctoral fellows and research staff, are automatically enrolled as members of St Leonard's College.)

title: Statutory college


text:
User:Nhpfister

German, live in England. Interests: meditation, (Zen)Buddhism. Web site: http://www.contemporaryzen.org.uk

title: User:Nhpfister


text:
Yuma County

Yuma County is the name of two counties in the United States:

 * Yuma County, Arizona
 * Yuma County, Colorado

title: Yuma County


text:
334 (novel)

334 is a 1972 dystopian science fiction novel by American writer Thomas M. Disch. It is set in New York City in the year 2025, depicting a future marked by limited technological advancements, overpopulation, and stark class divisions. The title alludes to the address of the housing project where most of the characters reside, 334 East 11th Street, as well to the year 334 AD in the historical context of the decline of the Roman Empire; numerous comparisons are made between the decline of Rome and the future of the United States.

The dust cover design for the first edition was by Michael Hasted.

Plot summary
The future in 334 has brought few technological advances except for new medical techniques and recreational drugs. There have been no dramatic disasters, but overpopulation has made housing and other resources scarce; the response is a program of compulsory birth control and eugenics. A welfare state provides for basic needs through an all-encompassing agency called MODICUM, but there is an extreme class division between welfare recipients and professionals.

The novel consists of five independent novellas (previously published separately) with a common setting but different characters, and a longer sub-novel called "334" whose many short sections trace the members of a single family forward and backward in time. The sections are as follows:

 * "The Death of Socrates": A high-school student finds that, due to poor scores on his Regents Examinations and his father's health history, he has been permanently forbidden to have children; he searches for ways to get extra credit.
 * "Bodies": Porters at Bellevue Hospital moonlight as body-snatchers catering to a necrophiliac brothel. Their task is complicated by the desire of some patients to be cryonically preserved for a better future.
 * "Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire": A privileged government worker, trying to decide where to send her son to school, pursues a parallel existence in a hallucinogen-assisted role-playing game set in the year 334.
 * "Emancipation: A Romance of the Times to Come": A young professional man and woman face marital conflicts and parenthood, with several twists unique to the 2020s.
 * "Angouleme": A group of highly educated prepubescent children decides to commit a gratuitous murder in Battery Park.
 * "334": Vignettes of the Hanson family from 2021 to 2025.

Characters

 * Mrs. Hanson: An elderly widow living at 334. Mother to Lottie, Shrimp, and Boz.
 * Lottie Hanson: An unemployed single mother living at 334.
 * Shrimp Hanson: Considered genetically desirable for her unusual intelligence, therefore has a free pass from the government to have children, although she is actually motivated by a fetish for artificial insemination.
 * Boz Hanson: Unemployed, former resident of 334, managed to leave by marrying Milly.
 * Milly Holt: A professional sex demonstrator for the high schools. Was Birdie's girlfriend, now married to Boz.
 * Ab Holt: Manages the morgue at Bellevue Hospital. Milly's father.
 * Birdie Ludd: A high-school student living as a "temp" in a stairwell of 334.
 * Frances Schaap: A prostitute living at 334. Like many people in the 2020s, she has lupus.
 * Alexa Miller: A MODICUM administrator, responsible for the Hansons.
 * Tancred Miller: Alexa's son.
 * Amparo Martinez: Lottie's daughter.
 * Bill Harper, aka Little Mister Kissy Lips: Son of a television executive, classmate of Tancred and Amparo.

Critical reception
334 was selected by David Pringle as one of the 100 best science-fiction novels written since World War II.

Samuel R. Delany's The American Shore (1978) is a book-length critical essay on the novella "Angouleme"; Delany argues that despite the lack of any scientific themes in "Angouleme", its speculative setting makes it inherently science fiction.

The novel was nominated for a 1974 Nebula Award. Previously, the novella "334" won a Locus Poll Award in 1973.

Release details

 * Original publication of novellas:
 * "The Death of Socrates": as "Problems of Creativeness", in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1967
 * "Bodies": in Quark/ #4, 1971
 * "Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire": in Bad Moon Rising, 1973.
 * "Emancipation": in New Dimensions #1, 1971
 * "Angouleme": in New Worlds, 1971
 * "334": in New Worlds, 1972
 * 1972, UK, MacGibbon & Kee, ISBN 0-261-63283-3, hardcover
 * 1974, US, Avon Books, paperback
 * 1974, UK, Sphere, paperback
 * 1976, US, Gregg Press, hardcover
 * 1981, Australia, Magnum, paperback
 * 1987, US, Carroll & Graf, paperback
 * 1999, US, Vintage Books/Random House, ISBN 0-375-70544-9, trade paperback

title: 334 (novel)


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Salir de Matos

Salir de Matos is one of twelve civil parishes (freguesias) in the municipality of Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. The civil parish has an area of 24.59 km² and had a population of 2,583 at the 2011 census.

title: Salir de Matos


text:
Solomon Islands rain forests

The Solomon Islands rain forests are a terrestrial ecoregion covering the Solomon Islands archipelago.

Geography
The ecoregion covers the Solomon Islands archipelago, which is divided between the countries of Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. The archipelago's northern islands, Bougainville and Buka, are part of Papua New Guinea. The rest of the archipelago is within the nation of Solomon Islands. The ecoregion excludes the eastern islands of the nation of Solomon Islands, the Santa Cruz Islands, which lie in the Vanuatu rain forests ecoregion together with the neighbouring archipelago of Vanuatu. The archipelago extends approximately 1450 km from northwest to southeast, between 5° and 12° South latitude.

Bougainville is the largest island, about 200 km long and from 50 to 60 km wide with an area of almost 9000 km2. The island has a central mountain range, the northern part of which is known as the Emperor Range, and the southern part, separated by a lower saddle, as the Crown Prince Range. Mount Balbi in the Emperor Range, at 2,715 metres elevation, is the highest peak in the archipelago. Volcanic rocks are common, with dating back approximately 30 million years. The Panguna mine in the Crown Prince Range, currently closed, is one of the largest copper mines on earth. The Keriaka Plateau in northwest Bougainville, south of Mount Balbi, is a karst plateau formed of weathered foraminiferous limestone dating to the lower Miocene.

Buka Island lies northwest of Bougainville, separated by a narrow strait. Much of the island is made up of uplifted Pleistocene coralline limestone.

The rest of the archipelago extends southeast of Bougainville as a double chain. The outer or northeastern chain comprises the islands of Choiseul, Santa Isabel, and Malaita, which are each about 200 km long and 30 km wide. The islands have mountainous interiors extending above 1000 m on Choiseul, 1200 m on Santa Isabel, and 1300 m on Malaita.

The inner chain extends from Shortland Island, 20 km southeast of Bougainville, and includes Vella Lavella, Ganongga, Kolombangara, the New Georgia Islands (New Georgia, Rendova, Vangunu, and Nggatokae), the low coralline Russell Islands, Guadalcanal, and San Cristobal. Guadalcanal has the highest mountains of the inner and outer chains, and Mount Popomanaseu on Guadalcanal is the highest peak outside Bougainville at 2331 metres elevation. Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, is on the north shore of Guadalcanal. The inner chain islands are mostly below 1000 meters elevation, with the exception of the conical stratovolcano Kolombangara which reaches 1,770 metres.

Most of the inner and outer chain islands are made up of volcanic rocks, including andesite and basalt. Guadalcanal has the most complex geology, with areas of andesite volcanics, intrusive plutonic rocks, Pliocene sedimentary rocks, and uplifted Pleistocene coralline limestone in the northern lowlands near Honiara. There are outcrops of ultramafic rock, rich in chromium and nickel, on five islands – at Santa Isabel's southern tip, on the nearby island of San Jorge, in the Florida Islands, in southwestern Guadalcanal, and in north-central San Cristobal. These rocks are toxic to many plants, and are often home to distinctive plant communities.

The archipelago includes two groups of low coralline outlying islands – Ontong Java, northeast of the outer chain and 450 km north of Honiara, and Rennell and Bellona, south of San Cristobal and 250 km south of Honiara.

The ecoregion is part of the Australasian realm, which also includes the neighbouring Bismarck Archipelago and New Guinea, as well as New Caledonia, Australia and New Zealand. Floristically it is the easternmost part of the Papuasia region, which includes New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago.

Climate
The islands have a humid tropical climate. Rainfall averages between 3000 and 5000 mm annually at most sea-level stations. There is little seasonal variation in temperature, with seasonal variation in rainfall depending on the prevailing winds. The southeast trade winds are active from about March to October when the sun is north of the equator. February-March and November-December are unsettled weather periods when the islands can get drenched with convectional rains. Winds come from the northwest from December to February. The southern islands can experience tropical cyclones, which usually develop between November and April. Guadalcanal's relatively high east-west running mountains create a rain shadow effect in the island's northeastern lowlands, with lower rainfall during the southwest trade wind season than elsewhere in the archipelago.

Temperatures above 700 meters elevation are generally 4 to 5 °C cooler than the lowlands, with mean annual temperatures of 22 to 23 °C. The highlands experience cloud cover during the southeast trade wind season, and windward slopes have higher rainfall than the lowlands.

Flora
The natural vegetation of the Solomon archipelago consists mostly of lowland and montane tropical rain forests. The major plant communities include coastal strand, mangrove forests, freshwater swamp forests, lowland rain forests, and montane rain forests. Seasonally-dry forests and grasslands are found on the northern (leeward) slopes of Guadalcanal.

Lowland forests are made up of trees up to 35 meters high forming a closed canopy, with Vitex cofassus and Pometia pinnata as common canopy trees along with species of Ficus, Alstonia, Celtis, Elaeocarpus, Canarium, Syzygium, Calophyllum, Didymocheton, Dysoxylum, Terminalia, and Sterculia. Understorey plants include the palms Licuala, Caryota, and Areca, bamboos, tree ferns (Cyathea sp.), Pandanus, and giant herbs. Bananas, gingers, lianas, and rattans grow forest gaps where sunlight reaches through the canopy. Epiphytes, particularly ferns and orchids, grow abundantly on the forest trees.

Montane forests in the Solomons share many species with the lowland forests, and differ primarily having a lower canopy height – 20 to 25 meters. The Solomons' montane forests are absent many of the tree species characteristic of montane forests in the Bismarcks and New Guinea, including Nothofagus (southern beech) and Fagaceae (species of Castanopsis and Lithocarpus).

On Bougainville, lowland forest transitions to submontane forest above 750 to 800 metres elevation extending up to 1500 metres or higher. Submontane forests have a lower canopy, 25 to 30 metres high, dominated by species of Garcinia and Elaeocarpus, together with species of Dillenia, Schizomeria, Syzygium, Casuarina, Alphitonia, Cryptocarya, and Bischofia javanica. Characteristic submontane plants include Neonauclea, Sloanea, Cryptocarya, Palaquium, Canarium, and Ficus.

Above 1500 metres elevation on Bougainville the forests transition to montane scrub of Pandanus and the palm Hydriastele macrospadix, or tree fern (Cyathea sp.) and bamboo scrub on more recent volcanic deposits, with pockets of submontane forest in sheltered areas with deeper soils.

In northern Guadalcanal, where the rain shadow of the mountains creates drier conditions from June to October, there are areas of mixed-deciduous forest and grassland. The mixed-deciduous forest has an open, fragmented canopy with Pometia pinnata, Vitex cofassus, and Kleinhovia hospita common. Deciduous trees include Pterocarpus indicus, Antiaris toxicaria, and species of Ficus and Sterculia. Small and understorey trees include the poisonous Semecarpus spp., Colona scabra, and Cananga odorata. Mixed-deciduous forest extends into grasssland areas as gallery forest along streams and rivers.

Tall grasslands extend about 30 km east from Honiara. They are dominated by Themeda triandra growing 1 meter or taller, along with Phragmites karka and various introduced grasses including Imperata cylindrica and Setaria parviflora.

Hydriastele hombronii is a palm endemic to outcrops of ultrabasic soil on Choiseul, Santa Isabel, and several other islands.

Fauna
The islands are home to 47 native mammal species, limited to bats and murid rodents. 26 species are endemic or near-endemic – 17 species of bats, and nine species of murid rodent. Endemic murid rodents are the Bougainville mosaic-tailed rat (Melomys bougainville), Buka Island mosaic-tailed rat (Melomys spechti), Poncelet's giant rat Solomys ponceleti), Ugi naked-tailed rat (Solomys salamonis), Bougainville naked-tailed rat (Solomys salebrosus), Isabel naked-tailed rat (Solomys sapientis), Emperor rat (Uromys imperator), Guadalcanal rat (Uromys porculus), and king rat (Uromys rex).

199 bird species are native to the Solomon archipelago, of which 69 species are endemic. The ecoregion corresponds to the Solomon group endemic bird area.

People
The first evidence of human inhabitation of the archipelago is at Kilu Cave on Buka, dating back 29,000 years ago to the Pleistocene. The settlers likely crossed the sea from the Bismarck Archipelago. At the time sea levels were lower, and New Ireland was separated from the Solomons by 180 km. The lower sea levels also joined several of the islands, including Buka, Bougainville, Choiseul, Santa Isabel, and the Florida Islands, into a single island known as Greater Bougainville or Greater Bukida.

Early settlers were likely highly mobile hunter-gatherers. Evidence from Kilu Cave show that early residents hunted bats, reptiles, rats, and birds from at least six families including several species of pigeon, a megapode, and a rail, along with marine shells and fish bones indicating inshore fishing. Residents also ate starches from taro (Colocasia esculenta) and Alocasia sp. The nut-producing trees Canarium indicum and Canarium salomonense were introduced to the Solomons from the New Guinea mainland about 10,000 years ago. Sea levels rose to close to current levels between 5500 and 6000 years before present (B.P.). Lapita settlers, the ancestors of today's Oceanic Austronesian peoples, arrived by 3400 B.P., and introduced the marsupial gray cuscus (Phalanger orientalis) to the islands.

The people of the Solomons today are diverse in culture and language. Between 70 and 80 languages are spoken in the archipelago. There is a cultural distinction between “salt-water” and “bush” people, with bush people dwelling inland with lifestyles and traditions centred on the forest and gardens, and “salt water” people dwelling near the coast with a lifestyle and culture oriented to the sea. In parts of the archipelago, like the Western Solomons, the island interiors are now little inhabited.

Many islanders engage in subsistence gardening. Bush fallowing is common practice, rotating gardens in a confined area of forest over relatively short period, then leaving sections fallow so that shrub-forest and soil fertility can recover. Primary forest trees which produce edible nuts and fruits, including Canarium species, Barringtonia species, Artocarpus altilis, and Pangium edule, are usually retained when shrub-forest is cleared for gardens.

Conservation and threats
Most of the mountain forests are relatively intact, while areas of the lowlands have been cleared for farms and gardens and plantations of coconut (Cocos nucifera) and other food, fiber, timber-producing trees. Much of the grassland east of Honiara has been replaced by plantations of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis).

Commercial logging began in the 1920s, and has removed large areas of forest across the archipelago, mostly in the lowlands. Kolombangara is one of the most intensively logged islands in the archipelago. Clear-cut logging began in the 1960s, and by 2012 less than 10% of the island's primary forest remained, restricted to inaccessible ridgetops, ravines, and within the central crater.

1.2% of the ecoregion is in protected areas. They include Queen Elizabeth National Park on Guadalcanal (10.9 km2), East Rennell World Heritage Site (370 km2) on Rennell Island, Kolombangara Forest Reserve (200 km2) on Kolombangara, and Padezaka Tribal Forest Conservation Area (48.23 km2), Sirebe Forest Conservation Area (8.0 km2), Siporae Tribal Forest Conservation Area (6.66 km2), and Vuri Forest Conservation Area (5.74 km2) on Choiseul.

title: Solomon Islands rain forests


text:
Salir do Porto

Salir do Porto is a former civil parish in the municipality of Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. In 2013, the parish merged into the new parish Tornada e Salir do Porto. The civil parish has an area of 9.86 km2 and had a population of 797 at the 2011 census.

Salir do Porto was the northernmost parish of the municipality of Caldas da Rainha. It has a beach with a famous sand dune almost 49 metres high. The beach is located by the river Tornada that flows into the São Martinho bay. There are other beaches on the ocean side. Those are rock beaches that the locals call quebradas.

Salir has three different communities: Salir do Porto, Casais de Salir do Porto and Bouro.

Salir is served by the Oeste railroad.

title: Salir do Porto