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European mantis

The European mantis (Mantis religiosa) is a large hemimetabolic insect in the family of the Mantidae ('mantids'), which is the largest family of the order Mantodea (mantises). Their common name praying mantis is derived from the distinctive posture of the first pair of legs that can be observed in animals in repose. It resembles a praying attitude. Both males and females have elongated bodies with two pairs of wings. The most striking features that all Mantodea share are a very mobile, triangular head with large compound eyes and their first pair of legs (the 'raptorial legs'), which is highly modified for the efficient capture and restraint of fast-moving or flying prey.

In Germany, M. religiosa is listed as Gefährdet [endangered] on the German Red List on the basis of an assessment from 1998. It is not supposed to be caught or held as a pet. At a global level, it is assessed by the IUCN as least concern.

Anatomy
Though females of M. religiosa are usually larger and heavier than males (7–9 cm versus 6–7 cm), the antennae and the eyes of male animals outsize those of the females. Along with the forward-directed, compound eyes, simple eyes also are found on the head. These three dorsal ocelli are also more pronounced in males than in females.

Males are often found to be more active and agile, whereas females are physically more powerful. Adult females are generally too large and heavy for their wings to enable a take-off.

Mantids show strong deimatic display from very early life stages on. This behavior can be observed throughout different groups of animals and is used to scare or startle potential predators to give the attacked animals a chance to escape. The deimatic display in M. religiosa involves wing spreading and bending of the raptorial legs to reveal two matched black eyespots with a yellow or white center at the base of the coxae (legs). It makes the animal appear much larger and more of a threat to the attacker. The black eyespots are also a distinct feature for species discrimination of the European mantis. Another unique feature of M. religiosa is its midline metathoracic ear (see Ultrasound avoidance). This “tympanal auditory organ” is an unpaired structure found on the ventral side of the animal on the metathorax between the third pair of legs. Unlike other sound-processing organs found among different groups of insects, the metathoracic ear has a high sensitivity across high and low frequencies and even ultrasound. Therefore, the authors call it a ‘true ear’.

Coloration
The great variation in the coloration of M. religiosa from different shades of yellow, brown, green, and sometimes black has been the cause of numerous hypotheses and studies for over 100 years. However, no generally accepted answer about reason, benefit, or mechanism of the coloration or the change of coloration has been found.

Di Cesnola observed in 1904 that green mantids were found on fresh green grass, whereas brown individuals seemed to prefer brown grass burned by the sun. When forced to change the location as to no longer match their coloration, almost all the ‘not matching’ animals were killed by predators such as birds. This indicates a camouflaging purpose of the coloration.

Przibram also observed in 1907 that a change in temperature can trigger a change in coloration: animals that hatched in a cold environment turned green after moulting when heat and sunlight were provided. Without the change in temperature and only a change in the color of the background, no change in coloration occurred. This finding contradicts with Di Cesnola, who claims to have observed the animals within the same time and location (and therefore the same temperature).

Distribution
M. religiosa can be found throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as North America, where it is considered introduced. Two confirmed stable populations are in Germany: one in Rhineland-Palatinate and one in Baden-Württemberg. In the last years, more reports have been made of the distribution of the animals in Northern Europe (Latvia, Estonia), as well.

While it is absent from the British Isles, M. religiosa has been recorded breeding on the Channel Islands - with a particularly abundant population on the island of Jersey - suggesting that its range may be capable of expanding north to Great Britain.

Despite being an introduced species, it is the official state insect of Connecticut.

Reproduction
The sexual behavior of praying mantids in general is curious, so has received interest from scientists over the last century. The differences between the various species are well known.

In M. religiosa, courtship and mating are separated into two steps: Preliminary courtship begins with the first visual contact between the animals and ends with the first physical contact. Copulation begins with physical contact and ends when the spermatophore is deposited:

Only a few days after the final moult into adults, the animals begin to show interest in the opposite sex; this point is marked as the achievement of sexual maturity. Males have been observed to be most attracted to females during the middle of the day when the temperature is hottest. Theories are that the female pheromones are most volatile in the heat and that also the male, as a thermophilic insect, is most active.

Instead of just observing them, sexually mature males approach sexually mature females when they see them, but due to the physical superiority of the females, males of M. religiosa face certain challenges in doing so. When a female spots a male, she is very likely to attack and kill him (see also: Sexual cannibalism). Therefore, males can be observed to be very slow and cautious in their approach; after spotting a female, the male usually freezes and turns his head to look directly at her. Since the foveae in his eyes face directly forwards, he has the most accurate and detailed view of her and can watch every one of her moves. He then proceeds to approach her from behind. Males can be observed to stop as soon as the female turns her head or even moves. Mantids are very good at detecting moving structures, but are almost unable to see immobile objects. Using this ‘stop-and-go’ tactic, the male stalks closer to the female. This can often take several hours. Depending on the environment, males sometimes show a light ‘rocking’-behavior which is believed to imitate the leaves of surrounding plants to blend in with the background. Males doing this had no higher probability of being detected and attacked, which supports this hypothesis of concealment.

No mention of male or female courtship has been made in either the field or captivity. The male, in fact, does not win by display; he wins by the absence of display. Once the male is close enough to the female, he opens his wings a little to facilitate his jump on the female's back. As soon as he lands, he proceeds to hold on to her with his raptorial legs. His tibiae fit into a pair of grooves on either side of the female's mesothorax in front of her wing bases. When the male is in a secure position, copulation is initiated. The genitals, which are found on the end of the abdomen in both sexes, look quite different; the males possess a pair of asymmetrical claspers, while the females have an ovipositor. The ovipositor is rather short in comparison to other insects. It is covered in part by the edges of the last sternum. The abdomen of the male curves and twists in a 90° angle around the female's to insert the claspers between the ovipositor and the sternum. The abdomen of the male then contracts in a peristaltic manner. The animals can stay in this position for four to five hours before a spermatophore is deposited inside the female and the claspers are withdrawn. The male then lets go of the female to drop to the ground to get out of her reach for his own safety. After getting away about 50 cm, he stops and freezes for about four minutes before he leaves eventually. This behavior could be interpreted as necessary rest after the efforts of copulating in a safe distance from the female.

Larval development
The intervals of oviposition after copulating depend on the food intake and the overall physical fitness of the female. On average, 11 days are needed for the female to form and deposit an ootheca, which contains around 100 to 200 eggs. Copulation usually takes place in September or October, but the eggs overwinter and the larva do not hatch until the following spring. Hatching is strongly influenced by environmental conditions such as temperature (at least 17 °C ) and humidity. Females prefer to deposit their eggs on solid substrates at warm and sunny sites. Most eggs from one ootheca hatch at the same time along the entire convex site, as worm-like prelarvae (L1). The hatchings always occur in the morning.

The L1 just exists for a very short time; the first moult happens on or very close to the ootheca. The now-emerging nymphs already look a lot like the adults, but are maybe a tenth of their size. Very few animals (about 10%) survive this first instar stage due to lack of appropriately sized food, low temperatures, or insufficient humidity.

The L2–L6 stages generally last about 14 days each. During this time, a growth around 6 mm per stadium can be observed. Each stadium is completed with a moult. The L7 develops a more compact shape. Wing pads become visible. L7 and L8 show the same growth rate and duration as the previous stadia. After the next moult, the adult animal emerges. It now has wings and is fully developed. While more than eight moults have never been observed in M. religiosa, females usually need one more moult than males under similar circumstances.

Closely related mantids have been reported to be larger than M. religiosa and require more moults (9–11). The fact that females need a longer time to develop and more moults might be due to the difference in size.

Sexual cannibalism
The phenomenon that conspecifics are attacked and eaten after, during, and even before copulation is called sexual cannibalism. Many examples are known in various groups of invertebrates, including the mantids. Some speculations exist about the benefits of this behaviour, but its causes are not fully understood yet. For quite some time, the belief that sexual cannibalism in M. religiosa only occurred in captivity was widespread. It was believed to be an artefact of improper animal keeping (too little food or space). In 1992, however, the cannibalising behaviour of female M. religiosa was observed in a field study. Lawrence compared the percentage of cannibalism in natural and manipulated (males and females were put close together in the field) pairings and found rates of 31% and 24%. This proves that sexual cannibalism in this praying mantid is not caused by laboratory conditions. They can, however, intensify the phenomenon; females that were starved for more than three days were more likely to attack males, even before copulation. While the cannibalisation before the copulation is still puzzling to scientists, some theories about the benefits of sexual cannibalism in general include:
 * Eating her mate provides the female with nutrients so she does not have to hunt. She has a prey item available that is bigger than the prey she would be able to catch in the manner she usually hunts.
 * The meal also usually takes place during or shortly after she was fertilised, giving her more resources for the faster production of a large ootheca with large eggs, thus increasing the chance of her offspring to survive. Males have also been known to be more attracted to heavier, well-nourished females for this reason.

At first glance, however, this behaviour does not seem to be very beneficial for the male, since he dies and cannot create more offspring with his genetic material, yet males usually do not mate more than once, anyway. They have a shorter life expectancy than females (7–8 months versus 11–12 months) and since food can begin to become scarce in September and October, the male might starve before he has the chance to mate again. Copulation is also known to take longer when cannibalisation occurs. It seems advantageous to transfer more sperm in this elongated time and additionally provide the female with nutrients. Doing this, the male might just pass on his genes once, but he can ‘make sure’ that his offspring are successful, since they come from a well-nourished female.

Some controversy exists, though, concerning this theory. The absence of elaborate display behaviour does not support this ‘selfless’ behaviour of the males. It could have also been observed that males are more likely to approach a female that is distracted by feeding or cleaning herself. The approach is also happening faster in these cases. The male seems to try to avoid his cannibalisation very actively.

The fact that sexual cannibalisation happens so often is surely also supported because a male without a head can continue and even initiate copulation. The cerebral ganglion might have an inhibitory effect on copulatory reflexes. Once it is removed by removing the head, copulation might even be longer, since the male can never ‘decide’ to let go. A few mantids can also start copulating when the heads of both animals get removed artificially beforehand. The beheaded animals can live up to five hours and usually just die when they bleed out or starve to death.

Hunting
M. religiosa is a carnivorous ambush predator that actively scans its environment and feeds on most insects that are not too large to be captured by rapid extension of its raptorial legs. Only living and moving prey is captured and consumed immediately using their powerful mandibles. Grasshoppers seem to be rather popular, probably because of their type of movement (flying or leaping), but crickets and cockroaches are also frequently preyed upon. The attack or consumption of Mollusca, Aranea, Myriapoda, or Oligochaeta is also not unknown. Caught prey gets trapped between the spikes on the femora and tibiae and is now immobilized. The mantis then starts eating the still-living and preferably moving prey. Some years ago, the general opinion was that they killed their prey with a bite in the neck before consuming it, but current observations do not support this; the animals just start eating the body parts closest to their mouths.

M. religiosa is also known to eat conspecifics outside a sexual context. Because of this, they usually need to be kept isolated from each other in captivity.

Visual system
The large compound eyes that account for a great portion of the head make clear that vision seems to be important for M. religiosa. Their hunting behaviour and their sexual interactions rely almost exclusively on sight and the detection of movement. The capture of fast-flying prey out of the air would not be possible without a high level of temporal resolution. The localisation of the direction and distance of the prey are crucial here.

The eyes of M. religiosa are apposition eyes with eight types of photoreceptor cells, so are best adapted for daylight vision. One compound eye of an adult mantid consists of 8,000 to 10,000 optically isolated ommatidia with an interommatidial angle of 2° in the periphery and 0.7° in the fovea. Interommatidial angles in insects vary from tens of degrees to 0.24° in dragonflies, which puts the mantids on the upper end of spatial resolution. The overlap of the visual field of the two eyes is 40° in nymphs and up to 70° in adults.

The pseudopupil, a small, dark region in the eye, is rather conspicuous. It moves when the animal's head is moving and represents the area of parallel ommatidia, which absorb the incident light, so appear darker than the rest of the eye.

The peering behaviour observed in M. religiosa is believed to be essential for the measurement of distances and depth perception; a side-to-side pendulum-like movement of the head or the whole body in a horizontal plane is used to scan the environment. Motion parallax is a depth cue that describes the fact that the closer the object is, the faster it seems to move when turning one's head while looking at it compared to slower-moving objects that are more distant. Animals that were blinded on one eye did not strike for prey, showing that binocular vision is essential, since the disparity between the information of each eye is used to estimate distances, as well.

The development of the visual system was reviewed by Karl Kral in 2014: while high-contrast cues could be perceived by adults and nymphs (two hours to three days) alike, the differentiation between lower-contrast cues was much less successful in the two-hour-old animals, but a great improvement occurred after only three days of life. The eyes of newly hatched animals are less than half the size of the eyes of adult animals and have fewer ommatidia. Also, the facets of the frontal ommatidia, which are usually used for the detection of partners and prey, are not enlarged yet. While they already have all the necessary structures, very young animals have a restricted visual field and lower resolution and sensitivity to light. The great improvement of vision after only three days happens due to the sclerotisation of the cuticle that includes the corneal lenses of the ommatidia. The improved lenses are not able to focus the light on the retina. Few remarkable new findings have happened concerning the visual system of different mantid species, such as Sphodromantis lineola; using three-dimensional glasses and a 3D-cinema on the insects, stereopsis could be demonstrated. Comparable experiments with M. religiosa would be worthwhile, since the two species are rather closely related.

Subspecies

 * M. r. beybienkoi is found in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, West Siberia, and Primorsky Krai (Russian Far East)
 * M. r. caucasica is found in Stavropol.
 * M. r. eichleri is found in Ethiopia, Mauritania, Niokolo-Koba, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, the Congo, Niger, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Zambia, and Anatolia.
 * M. r. inornata is found in India, Iran, Nepal, and Pakistan,
 * syn. M. r. akbari (Soomro et al., 2001)
 * syn. M. inornata (Werner, 1930)
 * M. r. langoalata is found in Uzbekistan.
 * M. r. latinota if found in Kazakhstan.
 * M. r. macedonica is found in North Macedonia.
 * M. r. major is found in Mombasa (Kenya).
 * M. r. polonica is found in Poland and Russia.
 * M. r. religiosa is found in Africa, North America (Canada, United States), Europe, and Asia (Nepal), but not in South America or Australia.
 * syn. M. r. maroccana (Thunberg, 1815)
 * syn. M. r. radiata (Fischer-Waldheim, 1846)
 * syn. M. r. sancta (Fabricius, 1787)
 * M. r. siedleckii is found in Southeast Asia: Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Java, and Sulawesi.
 * M. r. sinica is found in China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

title: European mantis


text:
User:Zeeshanhasan

Website: http://www.liberalislam.net

I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

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

title: User:Zeeshanhasan


text:
User talk:Jezford

Hello there! It's great to see you jump right into things, but you might want to take a look at Manual_of_Style to get an idea of our format, which we try to keep consistent and somewhat uniform. Keep up the good work, though!

Callidus 07:55, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

Please give sources if you are quoting text.

User seems to have submitted some copyviol text, many deleted; other articles (some apprently orphan) by this user probably should be viewed with suspicion. -- Infrogmation 01:48, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just to clarify on Infrogmation's note above, all text was my own copyright, written for a publication here in Sydney. Pity it was deleted, as I was hoping the articles could be stored for posterity. Thanks to Callidus for the style points, which are entirely fair! JEZ

Proposed deletion of Imperial Service Club

The article Imperial Service Club has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern: "Does not meet WP:GNG"

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Rusf10 (talk) 03:45, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jezford


text: User talk:80.201.241.19

title: User talk:80.201.241.19


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User:Adam Carr/Talk Archive7

''Adam with Yos Zeusovich Teper, 88, veteran of the Battle of Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin. (Melbourne 2003)''

please place comments at the foot of the page:

My understanding was that the ultimate decision was that people who are much better known by their non-peerage title should be at that, while any questionable case should be at the peerage title. Eden is certainly of the former - check out the links list, for instance - every single link goes to Anthony Eden. john 04:12, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Adam, if there'd been general agreement that we should do that, I'd be all with it. But there was not, and I feel bound to respect the consensus that was arrived at. The consensus, as far as I'm aware, was "people who are really not best known by their peerage titles should not be listed under them". Anthony Eden (and Arthur Balfour, HH Asquith, David Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin, Clement Attlee, and Harold Macmillan) are certainly better known without their peerage titles. So if the consensus arrived at is to mean anything, we should leave them, at least, at their common names. Beyond those seven, Robert Walpole, and Bertrand Russell, I'm pretty game for moving just about anybody else to a page with their peerage title in it. At any rate, given that the title is bolded at the beginning of the article, I don't see that information is being supressed. john 04:40, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

So tell me what is the correct procedure for reversing redirects between two articles, for people who don't have the power to delete articles? Adam 01:16, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * In this particular case, where the page with the peerage title was a redirect to the page without and there was no edit history apart from its creation for the former page, then there was no need to delete, the system will allow you to swap the pages moving the latter to the former. In the general case there are two options, either apply to become an admin because you want to have this ability on a permanent basis, or ask an admin to help you out. Mintguy (T)

On Talk:Malaysian general election, 2004 we're currently awaiting your response on the copyright of the now deleted image that used to be on Malaysian general election, 2004. --Johnleemk 13:15, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you yourself would be less patronizing if you had a clue as to why I thought the article might be in need of help. Or perhaps not. - Nunh-huh

Thanks for quoting what I pointed out to you. - Nunh-huh 13:46, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Robert McClelland

Adam, seems there is an American politician by the name of Robert McClelland as well. Fairly notable actually, no article written as yet, but will probably be fairly long. I've started to gather info for it, but thought I'd ask your preferences for disambiguation. My proposal is to use Robert McClelland as a disambiguation page with links to Robert McClelland (Australian) and Robert McClelland (American). What do you think? Bkonrad | Talk 15:56, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

He was Governor and U.S. Representive from Michigan and Secretary of the Interior under Franklin Pierce. Also several other state and local positions. Bkonrad | Talk 16:12, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Andrew Bartlett I thought it helpful to clarify the gender of the Senator that Bartlett assaulted. I don't mean to sound sexist, but I do think that the idea of a man assaulting a woman, even if there is nothing sexual about the assault, is particularly repugnant to the public. I know that in absolute terms it makes no difference whether the victim is male or female, but according to public perception, I doubt that the event would have generated quite the same degree of public outrage had the accosted Senator been male. Davidcannon 01:07, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for replying on my talk page. Yes, I agree, naming her would be a simple and effective solution. Davidcannon 08:46, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Viscount Dunrossil All Peerage titles, when they are created, have to derive from one or more parts of the Queen's realm, given after the title. Have a look at the London Gazette website (search for 'Barony') to see some contemporary examples. Lord Gowrie, ex Gov-Gen, was created 'Baron Gowrie, of Canberrra, Australia, and of Dirleton, county East Lothian' on 20th December 1935. However the placename is not part of the title and he was known as 'Lord Gowrie'. William Shepherd Morrison was created, on 12th November 1959, 'Viscount Dunrossil, of Vallaquie in the Isle of North Uist and County of Inverness'.

Some peers want to take the same title as other peers, which is not allowed. So in this case they add an additional placename within their title to tell them apart. This may or may not be the same as the placename after the peerage title. Hence, when Janet Young was given a peerage by Edward Heath, she was created (on 24th May 1971) 'Baroness Young, of Farnworth in the county of Lancashire'. This meant that Michael Young, who took his peerage on 20th March 1978, had to be 'Baron Young of Dartington, of Dartington in the County of Devon'. Former Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home became 'Baron Home of the Hirsel, of Coldstream in Berwickshire'. Roy Jenkins became 'Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, of Pontypool in the County of Gwent'.

It seems the Viscount himself did not understand this custom as his entry in 'Dod's Parliamentary Companion' for 1960 has him as using it. One can hardly expect the Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook to know better, but anything after the comma is not used in a peerage title. If you check other lists of the peerage you will not find it used.

I suggest a compromise: start the article "William Shepherd Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil of Vallaquie" etc., and then in the text say "he was made a Viscount, taking the title Viscount Dunrossil, of Vallaquie. Although not part of his formal peerage title, he customarily included the reference to Vallaquie, a small Hebridean island where his parents were born."

Incidentally he was a complete idiot. In one of his more memorable rulings as Speaker, he said that the House of Commons could not debate the exercise of the Home Secretary's right to ask the Queen to commute death sentences, as it was sub judice, but could debate it after someone had been hanged. Dbiv 10:10, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Queen Mother Dr Carr, as long as the policy exists, we will have to be content with "Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon." I would note that that same unfortunate policy would require titles like "Lord" and "Lady" to be included, as in Lord Alfred Douglas. Therefore, we should "logically" move the page to "Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon." Perhaps doing so would demonstrate the folly of the policy. "Elizabeth, Queen Mother" would be the most common name, but it is incorrect, so I am not sure as to how to advise you regarding what the appropriate title would be. -- Emsworth 15:38, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

Greek-Turkish relations

Thanks for fixing all that up. I couldn't be bothered participating in edit wars with the likes of Jor, so I just threw a POV flag at the header. I suppose it's as neutral as it's going to get now. Pavlvsrex

User:Zw

I know it's a bit too late to request for your help now, but I can never be sure; Zw is CRAZY! Zw's been trying to get me to climb the walls and hang onto the ceiling fan while Zw throws monkey shit at me. If only Zw left me alone the first time, things probably would have loosened up. See Zw's list of contribs first, to see what I mean about the way he is towards me, please. Thank you, Adam. Kenneth Alansson 15:40, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * To which I replied at Kenneth's Talk page: Kenneth, re your comment on my Talk page, I haven't been involved in of the disputes you have been having with Zw, and I'm not sure I want to get drawn into them. From what I have seen of your attacks on various people as reported at Requests for comment/Kenneth Alan, however, I am not surprised you are having trouble. The only one of your disputes I am aware of is the one at Yiddish, where you were factually wrong (Yiddish is a Germanic language) and behaved very badly when this was pointed out. Adam 21:44, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

May I please delete this section and remove myself from your affairs? Kenneth Alansson 22:43, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely. Count me in. A pox on both their houses. Tannin

Eighteenth century is hardly medieval, but thanks for reconsideration. Space Cadet 15:26, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"please stop editing text that you clearly don't understand"

Your offensive remarks are unsuitable for any meaningful exchange of thoughts, but the last thing we lose is hope:

Compare with ANY compilation of historical maps of Poland and Prussia, and you'll see that West Prussia wasn't renamed to the Polish Corridor. Nor were there any area corresponding to the Polish Corridor in pre-1772 Poland, nor was it the effect of any other of the many wars in the area. Large parts of West Prussia were, but no identificable sub-territory of West Prussia. Although the created Corridor corresponds slightly better with a combination of earlier borders and the borders of "ethnicities" as drawn up by German authorities, it is still no close match. The borders of 1919 were, in the area of the Polish Corridor, drawn up ad hoc by the Peace Conference, and your idea that the Peace Conference somehow first should have created a new Poland and then transferred the Corridor to this creation might be correct in some strange technical understanding of the Conference's inner workings, but it does not correspond with the realities on the ground. Such a notion could have been valid for the plebecite areas, but hardly for the Corridor.

What's your goal? Will you tell all people who have other sources than you that they understand nothing? When will you realize that your conduct is a dishonor for yourself?

/M.L.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Adam 02:59, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi Adam. I noticed you uploaded the image Image:Ac.deannekelly.jpg. This seems to be the mirror image of De-Anne Kelly's homepage. Since you didnt add copyright information to your upload, I was wondering if the image is copyrighted. Could you clarify the copyright info or source on the image page? Thanks a lot. -- chris_73 14:15, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You may be interested in newly created South Korean parliamentary election, 2004 article. --Jiang 23:51, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi Adam. As you are going through a Greek phase, could you have a look at Greek? It looks to my uneducated eyes as if the classification of various stages in Greek history used there is different from that used in your history of Greece series. The links don't really go to useful places, which makes disambiguating difficult. I think perhaps Paideia should be removed (it doesn't seem relevant to me) and the list under ancient Greece should be changed to reflect the history of Greece series. Hellenic civilization is now a redirect, so that should go too I think - but I'm not really sure how best to fix this, and you seem like the best person to ask for advice. What do you think? -- sannse (talk) 09:36, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * I have updated Greek, confining myself to articles which have "Greece" or "Greek" in their titles. Adam 11:20, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * Thanks Adam, that's better -- sannse (talk) 19:18, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Adam, I just wanted to let you know that I'm a huge fan. I have been doing research, just for pleasure, into the status of the reserved powers of the British monarchy, and many times I have found myself very pleased by a Wikipedia article. In more than one case (though the one I have in mind is Sir John Kerr), it turned out that the bulk of the article was written by you. Jimbo Wales 22:28, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I moved Roman Colosseum to Colosseum, which just leaves a few double-redirects to be fixed. I'll also see if I can add some more to Roman Greece...I need to study that anyway, since I have an exam about it on Wednesday :) Adam Bishop 14:42, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I have put some opinions to Talk:Greco-Turkish relations, your comments would be appreciated. Ato

South African interested in politics
I saw your question over on the village pump. You might want to get in touch with User:Wikiwizzy. He and I wrote the Battle of Isandlwana article together. →Raul654 05:10, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

I am british, but have lived in South Africa for 6 years or so - and can give you all the poop on the Elections :-) A synopsis is that the ANC polled the most in all provinces, only two they did not get a majority, KZN and Western Cape. In the Western Cape they will be in coalition with the NNP, a fading star of the Apartheid era, and KZN is a problem. The ANC could govern with almost anyone as a partner, but it is asking for trouble to not have the IFP involved. The IFP are fed up with the ANC, did (in their mind) disastrously at the polls, and if they scraped all other parties together could just hang in and govern there. The only sensible course is for the IFP and ANC to govern in coalition again, but it was a rocky road last time, and will be rockier again this time. Wizzy 06:48, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I will see if I can find the results. the IEC page is hopeless, but at the bottom of http://www.elections.org.za/elections2004_static.asp there are votes and percentages, but not seat counts. Wizzy 07:49, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

http://www.anc.org.za/elections/2004/results-f.html has a better breakdown of percentages and seats. The Provincial results, linked from that page, are a bit spotty, but seem better than elections.org.za. Wizzy 10:09, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dr. Carr, I have placed a plea for more courtesy on a talk page you recently visited. --Uncle Ed 13:09, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This 'graph replaces approximately 1300 words edited in by Jerzy(t). The matter previously discussed partly here and partly on User talk:Jerzy now appears, refactored into chronological order and reformatted for clarity, at User talk:Jerzy. It should eventually be moved into an archive, with the move documented at User talk:Jerzy

Adam, it sounded like you'd be happier to have yr talk page decluttered of the material i have replaced with these three 'graphs. If i'm wrong, read User talk:Jerzy for suggestions.

If you are interested in my 186-word response (118 if you ignore the parenthentic portion) to your last msg, link to User talk:Jerzy --Jerzy(t) 21:36, 2004 Apr 22 (UTC)

Don't know if you have read it at the village pump, just in case, I found this link about the russian transliteration (more of a discussion than policy).

If you made Image:Ac.russiamap.jpg, do you suppose you could upload a PNG version? For a non-photographic picture like that, a PNG would almost certainly have a smaller file size, and it wouldn't suffer from any compression artifacts. —Bkell 09:09, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * If you made it in Paint, you didn't happen to save it as a bitmap (.bmp) in addition to saving it as a JPEG, did you? JPEG compression works by actually introducing "fuzz" into the image to make it more easily compressible; the higher the JPEG compression, the more "fuzz" in the image. Bitmaps, GIFs, and PNGs don't do this. They save the image exactly as it was created. (Bitmaps don't usually perform any compression, though, so the files are pretty big, and GIFs have a maximum of only 256 colors and are surrounded by cloudy patent issues.) For this reason, PNGs are preferable for things like maps and flags and diagrams, where fuzz is especially noticeable, especially around the edges of text. JPEGs work fine for photographs, which are what JPEG was designed for, because they're full of nuances like shadows and blurriness that tend to hide the fuzz.

 * Converting a JPEG to a PNG doesn't help things, because the fuzz will still be there. If you saved a copy of your original map as a bitmap, then that can be easily converted to a PNG. Newer versions of Paint have the capability to save as PNG. You could also download a free image program called IrfanView to save it as a PNG, or e-mail it to me at abodeman@yahoo.com and I'll convert it.

 * On a side note, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, lists procrastinate as being both transitive and intransitive. :) —Bkell 09:36, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * Ah, never mind. I just went back to the image and marveled at how little fuzz I could see. Even after magnifying the image several times, the pixels looked crisp and clear. I was very much amazed at this. Then I realized that the image is actually a GIF that was just renamed to .jpg. So good job—you chose a nice lossless image format. :) I'll go ahead and convert it to a PNG and re-upload it. (Nice artwork, by the way. You must be far more adept in Paint than I am.) —Bkell 09:44, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This is interesting: Everything I can find on the Internet lists transitive senses for procrastinate as well as intransitive ones. Is there a nice free British dictionary online? And how would you reword that sentence? —Bkell 17:39, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

(joke) See page 3 of. Adam is running for the European Parliament as an independent! I am not surprised. --Kaihsu 10:53, 2004 Apr 22 (UTC)

It's all part of my plan to rule the world. And when I do, a few people here had better watch out. Adam 13:05, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

South African 2004 general election national assembly votes, by province and party - Jeandré, 2004-04-22t21:53z

Photos of Australian MPs

Hi. Regarding Photos of Australian MPs - Any photo taken from a website must either be explicitely released on the website or you must contact the website for permission. The site for the photos listed on Copyright problems had no such release or permission. And no evidence of permission was included with the image. You can email Jim.Lloyd.MP@aph.gov.au or secretariat@nsw.liberal.org.au to gain permission and then reupload the image. - Tεx τ urε 03:47, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Barnstar

Once again, the main page is featuring an article that you played a large part in writing. For your consistent, high quality contributions to Wikipedia, I award you this barnstar. →Raul654 06:06, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

Margrethe II of Denmark (Thorhildur/orhildur)

Hi, I noticed you changed Queen Margrethe's middlename to the transliterated spelling. Is this the Wikipedia standard? Her name is orhildur. I made the original change after verifying that we used the native spelling in the Icelandic prime ministers (eg. Daví Oddsson). Rasmus (talk) 13:18, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Beria and Katyn The numbers are easily to recognize on the order document: http://katyn.codis.ru/fpolburo.htm even if you don't speak Russian. The order is about 14 700 POW and 11 000 other people. 14 700 were murdered in 3 sites and those 11 000 nobody knows where. By the way, you should already be more cautious touching Polish issues. Cautious 14:50, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Don't be silly. Historian that using perfect English makes factual errors is not to be appraised. As I told you many times, take a look at source documents, before writing any article. Cautious 15:07, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC) I like the thing that you hate me. You must feel the pain as Poles did in 1944. This pain is a good lesson for you. Exactly this is the feeling that remind you that your nation made something terrible to other nation and you are trying to cover the truth with the accusation towards victim. Feel pain, more pain... Cautious 15:25, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Adam, newly appreciative of your Election Archive, I wonder if you can find stats on Zimbabwe, 1980 ? Wizzy 15:26, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

You were looking for someone who reads Korean... Let me know what you're looking for, and I'll see if I can help. --Iceager 02:30, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Adam, I see you have the figures up to the provincial level. I'll try to translate for the constituencies in Seoul first, and see how much I can get done. --Iceager 22:42, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

And I shall be the first to congratulate you on finishing the Australian House of Representatives. Thank you. Isomorphic 07:43, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Kim Il-sung

It's all too absurd to get into an argument about. I just saw a documentary tonight in which they said "Kim-il sung has been embalmed in the constitution as eternal president". :)AndyL 08:02, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Anyway, I don't know how well informed you are on North Korea but I've been looking for someone to take a look at what I've written in the Korean Workers Party article. Any feedback would be appreciated. Incidentally, the author of "From Stalin to Kim Il-sung: The Formation of North Korea 1945-1960" (the excellent source book I used) is an academic who now lives in Australia. His name is Andrei Lankov. AndyL 08:05, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Marshal of the Soviet Union

In this article you write "It was succeeded by the rank of Marshal of the Russian Federation, which has been held by only one person. " Any idea who that one person is? AndyL 08:11, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

I'll leave the Marshalling to you since I know nothing about him. I was quite surprised by the Beria information myself since it contradicted things I'd read earlier (particularly Medvedev) but it's from Amy Knight's 1993 biography "Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant" which is based on declassified documents. Its quite a fascinating read, I highly recomend it and as far as I can tell the book has been widely accepted as authoritative and no one seems to be disputing her findings. AndyL 08:42, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, Knight also felt that Beria's "liberalism" was tactical (it would be difficult to conclude otherwise). I thought her comments on the role of the 1953 German rising on sealing Beria's fate was quite insightful (she argued that it shook the confidence that Malenkov and Molotov had in Beria and caused hem to back Khrushchev's putsch against him). AndyL 08:56, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Howdy - just a note to let you know how impressed I've been with your work. Taking a recent example, Homomonument is concise, complete, and has excellent accompanying images - everything an encyclopedia should be. TB 09:43, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Fascism

Could you please weigh in at Talk:Fascism? WHEELER seems to think I'm the only one against his suggestions. AndyL 07:29, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Could you look at Kemal Atatürk - someone with a not quite fluent grasp of English has tried to edit it and i have no idea how to fix it. PMA 17:35, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

Polish camps in India
Could you please clarify what you mean by the phrase wrt Polish camp in India "referring to it here makes no sense in the context of the article. encyclopaedia articles are not just collections of facts" ?

Instead of omitting it completely I think you shoud have created a new page for it. I wouldn't say its out of context due to the fact that an important office of the government was set up in Bombay, which was one of the only few places where the Poles could operate in relative freedom from the Axis. Regards Nichalp 18:43, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * Not really, at that time Poland had some thirty embassies and almost a hundred of consulates worldwide. In the Soviet Union itself there were at least 15 consulates operating... It's not one out of three, it's one out of hundred... Halibutt 19:26, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

A paragraph about the diplomatic representation maintained by the goverment in exile would certainly be relevant. A reference to one consulate and one refugee camp is not appropriate in the context of the article. Adam 08:37, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I think that Indians and Poles should not forget the close ties between the two countries. Valdivade was one such camp where the Poles resided. Unfortunately today, nobody in both nations know that such a camp existed along with another one in Gujarat. I will, of course go ahead with editing Valdivade & the consulate, (so that its not relegated to forgotten history anymore) but I'll link it to the govt in exile page. I hope this satisfies everybody? [I'll do this in June - exams now]. Regards Nichalp 20:17, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

Indian elections/boring/duration too long/same o'le candidates/no clear winner expected/result=stock markets crashing.

PS I think India deserved to win the 3rd cricket test against Australia ;) Will atone for it in September. :)

Lazar Kaganovich - someone's added an anti-Robert Conquest spin. PMA 21:32, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Adam, I did enjoy watching the Ashley Sampi mark-of-the-year, although he did have a bit of help by a push-in-the-backside by a Demons player. *sigh* It seems all the decent, popular teams are struggling and the others are shining (e.g. the Dockers). - Mark 03:21, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Would I imply that? ;) I was really referring to the Saints (not decent), the Dockers (not popular), and the Eagles (decent) and Collingwood (popular). - Mark 03:46, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

I read somewhere that Collingwood had by far the largest number of members out of all the AFL teams. But every time I think of Collingwood, I think of Eddie Maguire. Ugh. Collingwood is definitely not popular with me. And they've got that deserter Mick Malthouse. *grumbles* - Mark 03:59, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm sick of Eddie. They got him back to do the Logies this year because he's a "brilliant presenter", but that's a load of bull. He's boring. They should bring back Shaun Micallef and leave Eddie off our screens for 12 months so the overexposure can wear off. I mean, Eddie is trying to style himself as "Mr Television" - but to tell the truth I'd even rather have Bert Newton or Jamie Durie. We've all tested our IQs (twice - though some of us know our IQs aren't supposed to change, and if they do then the two IQ tests were not weighted the same), and even tested our driving skills (which was unfair - one of those questions in there was for a yellow sign with a traffic light- we do not have those signs in Western Australia). Now it's time for Eddie to go back to just hosting the Footy Show, shunted off into the late hours of the night so we can safely watch Channel Nine again. - Mark 04:44, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

I've only lived in the US for three of the past forty years. The country is still a mystery to me. However, I will try to get back to those Congress people over the weekend. Danny 23:51, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Born in the US (South Carolina). Moved to Canada in 1964, aged 8 months. Moved to Israel at 17. Moved back to New York at 38. At 40, I am contemplating my next move. Danny 23:59, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Sadly, it doesn't surprise me. I squirm when I think of some of the things I did in the army. Frightened people in a sudden position of power over a perceived enemy is a very dangerous combination. Danny 00:38, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Hey Adam, need any help on Byzantine art? My Byzantine history professor studied Byzantine art (and gardens, interestingly), although I never took his specific Byzantine art class...still, I'm sure I have some info I could add somewhere. There is also a Byzantine architecture article you might want to steal from. Adam Bishop 01:33, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Re: Queen of Australia.

Read HM's speech on the Canadian government website which specifically mentions the point. The first time this happened in 1959, it was decided that the return dinner for the President of the United States would be held at the Canadian, not the British, embassy. It has become traditional for the Queen to incorporate visits to the United States into some of her longer Canadian tours. I seem to recall the last time the Queen was accompanied to the land border accompanied by a mounted guard of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, with full dress and cavalry lances etc., and flew her Canadian royal standard throughout the visit. It is in my opinion a opportunity for Canada to show off in the United States, and probably the only time when a Canadian official visit gets media coverage in their larger neighbour. Andrew Yong 13:21, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Re: Sino-Soviet split:

I disagree with your appraisal of the aftermath section here. It is a tidy and appropriate close to the delineation of the split. As you agree by its inclusion, you think it appropriate to indicate that Russia and China ultimately resolve the dispute. Yet, this statement should be as historically supported as the previous information in the article. The aftermath may need reducing, but certainly not this elimination. If you consider the information incorrect, please indicate that. Centrx 01:54, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

I put in a new conclusion that I think is more appropriate. At the very least, it is a succinct version of what is pragmatically necessary to conclude. From the article, one might even expect that relations would remain the same, or that China would become more hostile to the new capitalism on its doorstep. Centrx 02:43, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks - Kemal Atatürk really does need work. also i noted that someone added an anti-Robert Conquest spin to Lazar Kaganovich. PMA 03:39, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Adam Carr/Talk Archive7


text:
Talk:Deluge (history)

Result
@ Gvssy  Hi I saw that what your edits are I want to talk about them I give you a source that talks about Polish military victory [1 ] Poles ousted the Swedes but failed to achieve the same in diplomacy with defeat, source [2 ][3 ] They fully mention the defeat of Polish diplomacy at Oliva, because there is no point in debating who won, everyone won in a certain sphere, Poland and lithuania kept their existence, but sweden politically won the conflict. AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam (talk) 20:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

 * Hello!
 * Even if you have sources that describe either a Polish military victory and/or a Swedish political victory, these types of results are explicitly against WP:MILMOS.
 * Results are meant to be as straightforward as possible, this is why results like, for example: "Soviet strategic victory" are against guidelines.
 * The best thing to do in this case is to add these sources (if they are not already there) to the outcome section in the article. Gvssy (talk) 20:16, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Not quite true, because the rules don't mention it, but I have a better idea to remove these results and do the
 * Result : Treaty of Oliva
 * this will be the ideal result, not some argument about who won the conflict, there should be no such thing, situation similar to Polish–Ukrainian conflict (1939–1947) AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam (talk) 20:21, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello again!
 * The guidelines in fact do prohibit it, here's a quote from the template:
 * "this parameter may use one of two standard terms: "X victory" or "Inconclusive". The term used is for the "immediate" outcome of the "subject" conflict and should reflect what the sources say. In cases where the standard terms do not accurately describe the outcome, a link or note should be made to the section of the article where the result is discussed in detail (such as "See the Aftermath section"). Such a note can also be used in conjunction with the standard terms but should not be used to conceal an ambiguity in the "immediate" result. Do not introduce non-standard terms like "decisive", "marginal" or "tactical", or contradictory statements like "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat". Omit this parameter altogether rather than engage in speculation about which side won or by how much."
 * Anyhow, I'm not sure exactly what your suggestion would change, since it already links to the Treaty of Oliva in the result parameter. Gvssy (talk) 20:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In cases where the standard terms do not accurately describe the outcome, a link or note should be made to the section of the article where the result is discussed in detail (such as "See the Aftermath section")
 * I have highlighted for you the passage that talks about my action carried out:) AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam (talk) 06:49, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello!
 * You began the discussion about Poland supposedly winning a military victory in while Sweden won politically. I, in what appeared too be in a simple manner, told you that guidelines go against displaying any form of result other than X victory, Inconclusive, or See aftermath in the infobox.
 * Then, you claim that this isn't true, not explaining your reasoning.
 * I am not arguing against changing the result to Treaty of Oliva, I am making sure you realized your mistake. Gvssy (talk) 09:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The guidelines don't say anything about something like that they say that it may be appropriate, but if you read further it says that if the sources write it like that it should be written like that, in addition not after my mistake, and that it would create a big mess, which I then realised.
 * in addition Territorial changes should not find the Truce of Andrusovo and the Fall of the Commonwealth, because it occurred in the next century. AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam (talk) 11:22, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Again, yes they do. Quote: "Do not introduce non-standard terms like "decisive", "marginal" or "tactical", or contradictory statements like "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat." If the sources do infact claim either a Political or Military victory for either side, this should either still not be included in the infobox (as it goes against guidelines) or just be displayed as "X victory", which is the norm and how this guideline is understood. To go along with this, it is better to either put the "Political" or "Military" victory rather than the infobox, which is also the standard from what I can tell.
 * Territorial changes coming from the Truce of Andrusovo should absolutely be included, as it ended the war between the Commonwealth and Russia.
 * Also, the territorial changes do not claim that the Commonwealth "fell" it says that it "declined" which are two very different subjects. Gvssy (talk) 12:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * you should take into account such important things you only give examples that show more favourable things for sweden, the treaty of andrušov has nothing to do with the Swedish flood and the fall has the same, but you yourself changed the outcome of this war for example Polish–Ottoman War (1620–1621) and it's worth outlining that here you had no problem giving a result like for example "treaty at X", if you give such results then the Polish-Swedish war 1626-1629 should be the same result no? And the passage talks about outlining the scale of victory and not, for example, military or political victory AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam (talk) 18:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I added "Swedish victory" to the Polish–Swedish War (1626–1629) article because it isn't disputed by anyone. The result of the Deluge certainly is. In addition, the Truce of Andrusovo certainly has something to do with the Deluge. You realize the war did not end under 1667 with the truce?
 * I'm not sure why you're just blatantly lying, that's not what it's doing at all, ping a more experienced editor, and lets see what they have to say if you're so adamant that neither Military or Political victory go against the guidelines. Gvssy (talk) 19:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The armistice of Andrusov is the truce of Poland and Lithuania with Russia, it has nothing to do with the Deluge and one more thing you ask for an experienced editor let's see what an experienced editor wrote about these rules here "that they are not obligatory". Here [4] AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam (talk) 19:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * All guidelines are obligatory, so the so-called "experienced" editor you showed here is blatantly incorrect. And I'll say this again: The Deluge did not end with Oliva, it ended with Andrusovo. Maybe you're accidentally mixing the Deluge up with the Second Northern War.
 * I'll ping someone who has a good grasp over the guidelines, to see what they have to say: @Tinkaer1991 Gvssy (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The flood ended at Oliva, what nonsense are you talking,this editor is experienced, and one more thing infobox is a template created by someone, these are not wikipedia rules AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam (talk) 19:43, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Doesn't mean it isn't followed? Since we're using the template, editors are expected to abide by the rules set. Also, it doesn't actually matter if this editor is supposedly experienced, because it doesn't appear that they are, considering they're calling it acceptable to ignore the rules set by the template. Also, I do recommend that you look at the date for the infobox in the article, maybe you would see that it did infact not end in 1660. Gvssy (talk) 19:45, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Why is 1666 there? you haven't given any justification, I can also create a template and say that someone has to follow it, even though everyone knows that this solution will be more problematic. AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam (talk) 20:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can create a template, and if people use it, obviously they will have to follow the rules you set for it. This is not something I was arguing against.
 * 1666 is there (should be 1667) because the Truce of Andrusovo ended the fighting between Russia and Poland, thus ending the deluge, simple as that. Gvssy (talk) 20:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello Gvssy and AleszJaTuTylkoSprzątam! Given both of your information about the outcome and result of this war, i find it easy to decide what should be written in the "result" parameter: (see aftermath/outcome). This is per WP:MILMOS, and underlines the guideline to keep the infobox simple.
 * This should be pretty argeeable? Tinkaer1991 (talk) 21:11, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree Gvssy (talk) 21:12, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

My "Territorial changes"infobox fixes
- Altenmann >talk 18:38, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * (1) It said "Swedish-ruled Livonia", which is phrased ambiguously. I fixed in to ""Swedish-ruled part of Livonia"
 * (2) "Decline of" is not "territorial changes", so I removed it.

title: Talk:Deluge (history)


text:
Talk:Regatta

Needs expanding
At the moment, this is just a dicdef, but I guess it could be an encyclopedia topic... -- Jmabel 08:06, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Cowes - oldest regatta?
DenverG 12:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC) I see on this page that Cowes week is claimed to be the oldest running regatta in the world. The Gravesend regatta has been running since tudor times and the first definitive recorded date is 1698 which pre-dates cowes by 152 years. I cannot guarantee the authenticity of this, but the page at http://town.regatta.users.btopenworld.com/History.html mentions the history if the event which could possibly be confirmed by someone else.

Kapsejladsen
Any in favor for adding Kapsejladsen [www.kapsejladsen.com]

It's a very big deal at Aarhus Universitet, with 12.000 spectators attending the race.

It is of course not a formal Regatta, as the race involved rowing from one shore to the other, drinking a beer, spinning around the bottle 10 times and rowing back. The teams consist of 5 sailors each.

Regatta in early Canada
I've just added this
 * Emily Carr, who grew up in the early days of Victoria, British Columbia, descibes a regatta in which the Indian races were the highlight. The canoes, of ten paddlers and a steersman acting as cox, "flash[ed] through their races like running fire." The Kloochman ("wife" in Chinook Jargon) was "an even grander race" than the men's, with the women giving "every scrap of themselves to the canoe", working in complete unity

to Pacific Northwest canoes. There is a whole (short) chapter entitled "Regatta" in Carr's memoir. Might be useful if anyone wants to expand this article. BrainyBabe (talk) 12:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Contested deletion Category talk:Yachting races
You should know about this and comment. One of our editors has systematically depopulated it (from this article among many others), and thinks that is a good reason to delete it. 12:11, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:Regatta


text:
1976–77 snooker world rankings

The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second, for each tournament.

For the 1976–77 snooker season, players' performances in the previous three World Snooker Championships (1974, 1975, and 1976) contributed to their ranking points total. For each of the three years, the World Champion was awarded five points, the runner-up received four, losing semi-finalists got three, players eliminated in the quarter-finals gained two, and losers in the last-16 round received a single point. If players were level on points, then those gained in the most recent event determined positioning. If this was still equal, then the losing margin on was taken into account.

Ray Reardon, having won the championship in each of the three years considered, was ranked first, with the maximum possible 15 points, followed by Alex Higgins, the 1976 runner-up, on nine points. The eight-highest ranked players were placed directly into the last-16 round of the 1977 World Snooker Championship, whilst all other entrants were placed in a qualifying competition to produce the eight players to play the exempted seeds.

The same points system, based on results from 1973, 1974 and 1975, had been used to calculate the eight top seeds for the 1976 World Championship. Reardon had topped that list with 15 points, followed by Eddie Charlton on nine, and Higgins with eight.

Rankings
The professional world rankings for the snooker players on the main tour in the 1976–77 season are listed below. Points gained in each of the three World Snooker Championships are shown, with the total number of points given in the last column. A "–" symbol indicates that the player did not participate in that year's championship.

title: 1976–77 snooker world rankings


text:
Bhoot Bungla

Bhoot Bungla is a 1965 Indian Hindi-language horror comedy film directed by Mehmood, who stars in the film alongside Tanuja and Nazir Hussain. Music for this film was composed by R.D. Burman.

The film focuses on a supposedly haunted house and its resident family. The house's original owner was murdered and his immediate family disappeared without a trace. Half a century later, two of his heirs are murdered and a third one receives death threats.

Plot
Fifty years ago, Kundanlal was murdered and his wife and child vanished on a dark night, at the haunted bungalow surrounded by a jungle in the outskirts of Bombay.

In the present, three brothers are living in the bungalow, who are Kundanlal's nephews. They are Shyamlal, Ramlal and Ramu. On the eve of the return of Rekha (Ramlal's daughter) from London, Ramlal is killed in a car accident which is suspected to be murder. The suspicion is reinforced when Ramu is found hanging in his bedroom on the same night. Postmortem reports claim he was murdered before being hanged.

Shyamlal and Rekha move out of the bungalow to their home in the city and live there. However Rekha receives threatening phone calls about her death. She meets Mohan Kumar, the president of a local youth club, when he defeats her in a music competition. She soon confides to Mohan about the phone calls and Mohan begins to investigate into the calls. Rekha and Mohan soon fall in love with each other.

Music
The music of this film composed by R. D. Burman with Kishore Kumar. Hasrat Jaipuri penned the lyrics for the songs. Kishore Kumar made along with R.D. Burman the Jago Sone Walo song and also sung this. The film has following tracks:

title: Bhoot Bungla


text:
Holger Börner

Holger Börner (7 February 1931, in Kassel – 2 August 2006, in Kassel) was a German politician of the SPD.

He was the 4th Minister President of Hesse from 1976 until 1987. In this position, he served as the 38th President of the Bundesrat in 1986/87, but only served until the Landtag elections of 24 April 1987.

Early life
Börner was born in Kassel, oldest of three children of Hermann (1906–1941) and Martha Börner (née Bengsohn) (1909–1997). His family had a social democratic history, reportedly his grandfather had moved from Berlin to Kassel due to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Laws. His father was a construction worker and a foreman at the construction company Gerdum & Breuer in Kassel and from 1931 to 1933, the chairman of the Wolfsanger SPD local association, before being sentenced to prison in a rigged trial and imprisoned in Emslandlager until 1935. He was later killed in Eastern Front near Smolensk on 14 October 1941 by Soviet partisans during bridge construction work. Börner's mother later served on the Kassel city council from 1946 to 1956 and again from 1962 to 1964.

After attending elementary and middle school, Börner became a construction worker after the Second World War, specializing in concrete. He became involved in the union early on and was most recently chairman of the works council of a Kassel construction company, for which he also worked as an auxiliary foreman.

Political career
Son of a city councilwoman, Börner joined SPD in 1948, and was elected chairman of Kassel area Socialist Youth of Germany – Falcons. In 1950, he joined the executive committee of the city's party section.

In 1956, at the age of 25, Börner was elected to his hometown's city council, and resigned from his post as president of the Falcons.

In the 1957 federal election, he was the SPD candidate for Bundestag constituency nr. 127 - Kassel, which consisted of his hometown and the surrounding district of the same name. Despite CDU/CSU winning an absolute majority in the election, Börner won the election with 49.2 percent of the constituency vote and 48.9 percent of the party list vote. At the age of 26, he was the youngest member of Bundestag. He was elected to the seat again in 1961, 1965, 1969, 1972 and 1976, each time winning at least 51 percent of the vote. From 1962 to 1963, he was the head of SPD's youth wing JuSos.

His best result was in 1972, when he received 60.1 percent of constituency and 55.5 percent of party list vote. While in Bundestag, he was appointed as Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Transport Georg Leber in Kiesinger cabinet on 12 April 1967, he retained the post in the first Brandt cabinet until resigning on 4 February 1972, after being chosen by chancellor Willy Brandt to replace Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski as the party's federal executive director.

On 3 October 1976, Börner was re-elected to his Bundestag seat with 53.7 percent of constituency and 52.9 percent of party list vote. However, two weeks later, Minister President of Hesse Albert Osswald resigned on 16 October following a financial scandal involving public bank Helaba, and 45-year old Börner was chosen by SPD to succeed him as Minister President, so he resigned his Bundestag mandate and took over the state level social-liberal coalition, which was also in power at the federal level. In 1978, with the SPD and FDP winning a total of 57 out of 110 seats in Hesse Landtag, the coalition was returned, Börner was elected to the Landtag constituency nr. 5, which consisted of parts of Kassel. On 11 May 1981, his Deputy Minister President, Heinz-Herbert Karry (FDP) was assassinated by far-left Revolutionary Cells terror organization.

As Minister President, Börner was critical of the city of Lahn in central Hesse, calling it "rubble" (Scheißdreck). Lahn had been created under a 1976/77 state administrative reform by the merger of the cities of Giessen and Wetzlar, which his predecessor Osswald had been a supporter of. However, the city was unpopular with the public, and had led to CDU winning a majority at the local elections. Despite the city of Lahn being supported by his party, Börner adopted CDU's position in opposition to the city, "Wetzlar should become Wetzlar, and Giessen Giessen again." ("Wetzlar soll wieder Wetzlar, Gießen wieder Gießen werden") and had the merger overturned by 1979. In addition, under him the new Giessen region was created in central Hesse in 1981, carved out of the Darmstadt region.

In 1982, at federal level, the coalition between SPD and FDP at federal level collapsed. In the upcoming Hesse state elections on 26 September 1982, Börner campaigned against FDP's "betrayal in Bonn" and succeeded in FDP losing its representation in the Landtag entirely, falling under the 5-percent hurdle, while the Green Party entered the government, winning 9 seats. However, his SPD party won only 49 seats, 6 short of the 55-seat majority. Since the Green Party rejected a formal coalition, the only majority government possible was a CDU-SPD Grand coalition. However, since CDU had won 52 seats (3 more), Börner rejected it as it would have meant leaving the Minister President position to CDU, so his now all-SPD cabinet remained in office as a caretaker cabinet, being tolerated by the Greens until new elections were held on 25 September 1983. During the elections, he had rejected the idea of working with the Greens.

However, the election of 1983 resolved to only confirm the stalemate, with his SPD coming first at 51 seats, but still being 4 seats short of a majority, and FDP re-entering the Landtag. CDU and FDP wanted to form a black-yellow coalition implemented at federal level, but they only had 52 seats between them. So in 1984, Börner was re-elected to the Minister President as part of a minority government tolerated by the Greens. Finally, in October 1985, he managed to implement the first coalition between the SPD and the Greens in Germany, despite having promised earlier never to work with the Green Party. In this administration, Joschka Fischer was the first green party minister in Germany (minister of Environment and Energy). However, both the toleration phase and coalition period were determined by the Greens' internal conflicts between the "Fundis" (fundamentalists) and "Realos" (realists), and various conflicts between SPD and Greens. The coalition would ultimately prove to be short-lived, when in February 1987, it broke down due to disputes over operating license of Alkem fuel element factory in Hanau, so Börner dismissed Fischer from his post, and a new election was held on 5 April 1987, where Börner did not run again and was replaced by his Deputy Minister President Hans Krollmann as SPD candidate.

Börner supported nuclear energy, namely the building of Biblis Nuclear Power Plant in Southern Hesse. He was also critical of influx of Gastarbeiter from Turkey, saying it had to be stopped as they were not well-integrating.

During the Runway 18 West protests at Frankfurt Airport in 1980s, Börner said that during his construction worker days, the troublemakers would have been hit with roof battens. ("Wissen Sie, heute muss ich an öffentlichen Frieden denken. Vor 40 Jahren auf dem Bau hätte ich einen Angriff auf meine Person mit der Dachlatte beantwortet.")

Afterwards, until 2003, he was chairman of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Börner died of cancer at the age of 75 on 2 August 2006 and was survived by his wife Carola (married since 27 December 1950) and three children, sons Olaf and Fritjof and daughter Heike. He professed to have always carried a gun and took regular target practice.

title: Holger Börner


text:
Tritos

The tritos is an eclipse cycle of 3,986.628 days (about 10 years, 11 months). It corresponds to:
 * 135 synodic months
 * 146.50144 draconic months
 * 11.50144 eclipse years (23 eclipse seasons)
 * 144.68135 anomalistic months.

The length of the tritos is equal to the length of the inex minus the length of the saros eclipse cycles. Therefore, eclipses that occur 1 tritos apart (i.e. both eclipses belong to the same tritos series), belong to two different saros series with series numbers that differ by one.

The pre-Columbian Maya used a calculation in their own observations of eclipse cycles in which a period of three tritoses (or tritoi) was approximated by 11960 days, based on 46 periods of their tzolk'in calendar (i.e. 46 × 260 days). The number of anomalistic months in a tritos (144.68), having a fraction near $2/3$, means every third eclipse is in nearly the same position in the elliptical orbit, so eclipses will have similar timing and total versus annular quality.

Solar and lunar eclipse event dates will repeat on this cycle for about 700 years.

title: Tritos


text:
Duke of Masovia

Duke of Masovia (Książę Mazowsza) was a title borne by the sons and descendants of the Polish Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth. In accordance with the last will and testament of Bolesław, upon his death his lands were divided into four to five hereditary provinces distributed among his sons, and a royal province of Kraków reserved for the eldest, who was to be High Duke of all Poland. This was known as the fragmentation of Poland. Subsequent developments lead to further splintering of the duchies.

The following is a list of all rulers of the Duchy of Masovia and its parts. Although not all incumbents listed here had titular rights to the title of Duke of Masovia, they are all listed as such for simplicity's sake.

Also take note that some of the dates are merely approximate and the ownership of certain lands might be disputed. Finally, this table does not include lands ruled by dukes of other parts of partitioned Poland or Wenceslaus II and Wenceslaus III.

Partitions of Masovia and Kuyavia under Piast dynasty
The Duchy went through various border changes in the coming years, sometimes losing and sometimes gaining territory.

title: Duke of Masovia


text:
Homarus

Homarus is a genus of lobsters, which include the common and commercially significant species Homarus americanus (the American lobster) and Homarus gammarus (the European lobster). The Cape lobster, which was formerly in this genus as H. capensis, was moved in 1995 to the new genus Homarinus.

Description
Homarus is one of three extant genera of clawed lobsters to show dimorphism between claws – a specialisation into a crushing claw and a cutting claw. The other similar genera are Nephrops, which is much more slender, and has grooves along the claws and the abdomen, and Homarinus, the Cape lobster from South Africa, which is even smaller, and has hairy claws.

While analyses of morphology suggest a close relationship between Homarinus and Homarus, molecular analyses using mitochondrial DNA reveal that they are not sister taxa. Both genera lack ornamentation such as spines and carinae, but are thought to have reached that state independently, through convergent evolution. The closest living relative of Homarus is Nephrops norvegicus, while the closest relatives of Homarinus are Thymops and Thymopides.

Species
Eight extinct species are known from the fossil record, which stretches back to the Cretaceous, but only two species survive. These two species, the American lobster and the European lobster, are very similar and may have speciated as recently as the Pleistocene, during climatic fluctuations. The best characters for distinguishing them are the geographic distribution, with the American lobster in the western Atlantic and the European lobster in the eastern Atlantic, and by the presence of one or more teeth on the underside of the rostrum in H. americanus but not in H. gammarus.

Fossil species
The boundaries between Homarus and the extinct genus Hoploparia are unclear, and some species, such as Hoploparia benedeni have been transferred between the two genera. Eight species have been assigned to Homarus from the fossil record. They are:
 * Homarus brittonestris Stenzel, 1945 – lower Turonian
 * Homarus davisi Stenzel, 1945 – lower Turonian
 * Homarus fami Garassino, Pasini, Nyborg, Haggart, 2021 – Albian
 * Homarus lehmanni Haas, 1889 – Rupelian
 * Homarus mickelsoni (Bishop, 1985) – lower Campanian
 * Homarus morrisi Quayle, 1987 – Eocene
 * Homarus neptunianus Polkowsky, 2004 – Oligocene
 * Homarus travisensis Stenzel, 1945 – middle Albian

Distribution
The two extant species of Homarus are both found in the North Atlantic Ocean. H. americanus is found from Labrador to North Carolina in the western North Atlantic, while H. gammarus is found from Arctic Norway to Morocco, including the British Isles and the Mediterranean Sea.

Life cycle
Mating in Homarus is complex and is accompanied by a number of courtship behaviours. Males build mating shelters or burrows, and larger males can attract more females, producing a polygynous mating system. A few days before moulting, a female will choose a mate, and will remain in his shelter until the moult. The male will then insert a spermatophore into the female's seminal vesicle, where it may be stored for several years. The eggs of Homarus species are laid in the autumn, being fertilised externally as they exit, and are carried by the female on her pleopods.

The eggs generally hatch in the spring as a pre-larva, which rapidly develops into the first larval phase. This is followed by three zoeal phases, the total duration of which can vary from two weeks to two months, depending on the temperature. At the following moult, the young animal becomes a post-larva, with a gross form resembling the adult lobster. Although it can swim, using its pleopods, the post-larva soon settles to the bottom and lives as a juvenile for 3–5 years.

As adults, Homarus species moult increasingly infrequently. The size at sexual maturity varies with temperature; it is around 70 mm for female H. americanus in southern New England, but 100 mm around the Bay of Fundy. In H. gammarus, the size at sexual maturity is less well defined, but is in the range 80 - 140 mm.

title: Homarus


text:
User talk:Gc

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them:

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If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Tip: you can sign your name with ~

snoyes 08:30, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Image:7bit-each.png
Nifty job on Image:7bit-each.png. It's a little dark, though---is there any way you can brighten that up? Originally I thought that my monitor simply wasn't working.

Also, if the source code is small, could you post it up on the image page? I'm curious as to how it was done. grendel|khan 18:32, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)

title: User talk:Gc


text:
Talk:Vihuela

Some house cleaning -- lots of little edits are needed
So who's active here, who are the top-dogs, who's baby-sitting this page, who want's to know who I am before I start making some edits and additions? I've recently been editing the Viol page (viola da gamba or vihuela de arco) and I decided to come have a look at the vihuela page. I think some work is needed. Anonymity might be nice, but, here's my web site section (6 huge pages) on early vihuela, both plucked and bowed (you really can't know one without knowing the other, btw). I'll wait a day or two to see if anyone responds here before I start editing. I have tons of iconography to select from as well (as you'll see at my web site). Thanks Cyclocifra 05:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

This page needs an edit badly. VegSXEBassist 22:52, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge Mexican Vihuela?
"While the Mexican vihuela shares the same name as an ancient Spanish plucked string instrument, the two have little to do with each other, and they are not closely related." Thus begins the article on the Mexican vihuela. How anyone could read this lead sentence and think the two should be merged is beyond me.71.218.34.228 (talk) 18:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Wrong link
"Kahlil Gibran" should link to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Gibran_(sculptor) Please correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.53.112.185 (talk) 14:50, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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title: Talk:Vihuela


text:
Jingjiang Princes' Palace

Jingjiang Princes' Palace is a historical site in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. It now functions as both Guangxi Normal University and as a tourist attraction.

History
The Jingjiang Princes' Palace (also known as the Jingjiang Princes' City), commonly known as Wangcheng (Princes' City), is located in the inner city of Guilin and was built between 1372 and 1392 AD during the Ming dynasty close to the Solitary Beauty Peak (Duxiu Feng). It was originally the official residence of Zhu Shouqian – the great-nephew of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming dynasty emperor). After Zhu Shouqian was declared Prince of Jingjiang by Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, his palace was set at Jingjiang. It took more than 20 years to build the capital, which now has a history of over 630 years and is older than the Forbidden City in Beijing.

During the 257 years from the building of the mansion to the end of Ming dynasty, 14 kings from 12 generations lived here.

Sun Yat-sen stayed there while on the Northern Expedition in 1921. In the winter of 1925, it was established as Yat-sen Park and now is one of the schoolyards of Guangxi Normal University. The carved balustrades and marble steps of the mansion still remain to today.

Over its history of more than 600 years the city was burned down several times, however it remains as the best-preserved Princes' City in China. Notably, the carved balustrades and marble steps still remain. The Chinese Government gave the site national protection status in 1993.

Today the site is occupied by Guangxi Normal University, but remains open to the public as a tourist attraction combining aspects of Guilin's natural environment, history, traditional architecture and local culture.

Size and layout
The Jingjiang Princes' City is magnificent and grandly walled, and once functioned as an 'inner city' occupied by the princes and their families. There are 4 halls, 4 pavilions and 40 other buildings surrounding the main buildings. It occupies a total area of 19.78 hectares (0.08 square miles). The layout of the mansion is, from the south to the north, Imperial Burial Place, Chengyun Palace and Chengyun Gate; from east to west, Imperial Divine Temple and Ancestral Temple. Other buildings are built around the main buildings. All the buildings in Jingjiang Princes'City are decorated with red walls and yellow tiles, which a typical color scheme for Chinese palaces.

There is a 1500 m long city wall which is built with square bluestones. It is 557.5 m long from south to north and 336 m long from east to west. The city wall is 7.92 m high and has a thickness of 5.5 m. There are four gates in four directions, which are called "Tiren" (Donghua Gate), "Duanli" (Zhengyang Gate), "Zunyi" (Xihua Gate) and "Guangzhi" (Hougong Gate).

The layout of the city strictly conforms to the rules of the Ming dynasty. All buildings are arranged on the axis anchored by the Solitary Beauty Peak in the order of, from the south, Duanli Gate (Entrance Gate), Chengyun Gate (Palace Gate), Chengyun Palace (Administration Building), Royal Quarters, Imperial Garden and Guangzhi Gate (Rear Gate). The subsidiary buildings on both sides of the axis are symmetrical.

The local government has worked to combine aspects of Guilin's natural environment, history, traditional architecture and local culture. Now it is a tourist destination.

Solitary Beauty Peak
Jingjiang Princes' City is located beside the Li River. It is a tourist attraction highlighted by the Solitary Beauty Peak and covers the whole Jingjiang Princes' City. Perfectly combining the natural landscape and historical sites, it is praised as a "city in a city" since the ancient time.

The Jingjiang Princes' City scenic area is a highest-grade tourist resource in the Guilin. It is mainly composed of Chengyun (Be Ordained by Heaven) Gate, Chengyun Hall, Bedchamber, Ancestral Temple, The Altar of the Earth and Harvests, pavilions, terraces and towers. The whole city is a building complex decorated with red walls and yellow tiles. Around the Prince City, there is a city wall piled up by strong square green stones. Four city gates are opened in the eastern, western, northern and southern sides, named Tiren (Donghua Gate), Duanli (Zhengyang Gate), Zunyi (Xihua Gate) and Guangzhi (Hougong Gate) respectively. The straight Solitary Beauty Peak stands erect in the city. Yueya (Crescent) Pool is lying at the top of the peak. Move up, visitors can find Xuanwu Pavilion, Kwanyin Hall, Sanke Temple and Sanshen (Three Deities) Ancestral Temple elegantly dotted on the peak.

The Solitary Beauty Peak is often compared to be a king as it erects from the ground like a unique column propping up the blue sky. Its summit offers a panoramic view of Guilin. The well-known description that characterizes Guilin landscape "the scenery in Guilin excels all under the heaven" is among the numerous stone inscription on the cliffs of the Peak. Inside the Peace Cave at the foot of the Peak, there are 60 Chinese zodiacal signs carved on the wall that are considered to be one of the world culture wonder. In the Qing dynasty, JingJiang Princes' City was converted to be the Examination House. JingJiang Princes' City is listed as "the key cultural relics of national level" in 1996.

"Zhuangyuan Jidi" Arch
The "Zhuangyuan Jidi" Arch (Zhuangyuan; 状元/狀元) was the title conferred on the scholar who came first in the highest imperial examination) is located on the Donghua Gate. The arch was built during the reign of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) Daoguang Emperor (r. 1820–1850) and ruined during the reign of the Guangxu Emperor (r. 1875–1908). It was built for Long Qirui (龙启瑞). Before Long Qirui was entitled to the title Zhuangyuan, there was someone who also enjoyed the title. In the next four years, there were two Zhuangyuans came from Guilin which shocked everyone in China. Since then, there was a popular saying that "eight Jinshi (An advanced scholar) from one county and two Zhuangyuan from one city". In order to memorize this legend, local authorities rebuilt the "Zhuangyuan Jidi" Arch and carved all the four peoples’ names on the arch. The "Bangyan Jidi" Arch (Bangyan means the second place at palace examinations) is on the Xihua Gate. It was built in memory of Yu Jianzhang(于建章) in the fourth year of the Tongzhi Emperor (r. 1861–1875) during the Qing dynasty.

There had been 14 Jingjiang Princes of 12 generations who lived in the city during the 257 years before it was ruined during the Qing dynasty. The last owner Li Youde buried himself to death in the Qing dynasty. At present, the main buildings of the city are well preserved. The left Chengyun Gate, the platform of Chengyun Palace and other buildings are open for visitors.

Study Cave
The first poem in praise of Guilin scenery by Yan Yanzhi in the southern Song dynasty (420–479) was engraved here and from where the Peak obtained its name. The most famous line "Guilin scenery excels all" was cliff-engraved here more than 800 years ago.

Stone inscription
The stone inscriptions on the Solitary Beauty Peak add up to 136 pieces, which were attributed to the VIPs at that time. These inscriptions include calligraphy, painting and documentary records. These works reflect the history of Guilin and represent the essence of culture.

Peace Grotto
It is a natural grotto at the west foot of the Duxiu Peak and a place for the Jingjiang Princes to worship. The statue of emperor Xuan Wu and 60 God Jiazhi statues are enshrined and worshiped inside the grotto. Among them the carved reproduction of the 60 God Jiazhi statues in the grotto are probably the only ones within the country.

Examination House
A place blessed with good Feng shui (in Chinese astrology it means good location, good fortune) and numerous top scholars made its fame beat all in the Qing dynasty. The site has been restored as an imperial testing house where tourists can take part in the exam.

Confucius Temple
The ancient scholars must offer their sacrifices to Confucius before taking the provincial test in the examination house. They pray for passing the test. It is said that the Confucian Temple next to the Examination House is highly efficacious.

Couple Tree
With branches in the shape of a dragon and a horse, a locust tree and a banyan tree grow tightly together like one sweet couple.

Chengyun Palace
Originally built in 1372 in the Ming dynasty as the administration office of the city. The palace was burned down twice in the Qing dynasty and during the Japanese invasion. The only originals are the stairs and railings since the current structure was rebuilt in 1947.

Fortune Well
A well that the examinees in the Examination House in the Qing dynasty regarded as the source of fortune, and from which they would drink the blessed water before they took the exam.

title: Jingjiang Princes' Palace


text:
Turbellaria

The Turbellaria are one of the traditional sub-divisions of the phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms), and include all the sub-groups that are not exclusively parasitic. There are about 4,500 species, which range from 1 mm to large freshwater forms more than 500 mm long or terrestrial species like Bipalium kewense which can reach 600 mm in length. All the larger forms are flat with ribbon-like or leaf-like shapes, since their lack of respiratory and circulatory systems means that they have to rely on diffusion for internal transport of metabolites. However, many of the smaller forms are round in cross section. Most are predators, and all live in water or in moist terrestrial environments. Most forms reproduce sexually and with few exceptions all are simultaneous hermaphrodites.

The Acoelomorpha and the genus Xenoturbella were formerly included in the Turbellaria, but are no longer regarded as Platyhelminthes. All the exclusively parasitic Platyhelminthes form a monophyletic group Neodermata, and it is agreed that these are descended from one small sub-group within the free-living Platyhelminthes. Hence the "Turbellaria" as traditionally defined are paraphyletic.

Description
Traditional classifications divide the Platyhelminthes into four groups: Turbellaria and the wholly parasitic Trematoda, Monogenea and Cestoda. In this classification the Turbellaria include the Acoelomorpha (Acoela and Nemertodermatida). The name "Turbellaria" refers to the "whirlpools" of microscopic particles created close to the skins of aquatic species by the movement of their cilia.

Features common to all Platyhelminthes
As bilaterians, platyhelminthes are triploblastic, but have no internal body cavity (are acoelomate), and lack specialized circulatory and respiratory organs, so gas exchange is by simple diffusion. This limits the thickness of the body, so they are either microscopic or are flat and ribbon- or leaf-shaped, and vulnerable to fluid loss. The body is filled with mesenchyme, a connective tissue that can regenerate injured tissues and permits asexual reproduction. The nervous system is concentrated at the head end.

Features specific to Turbellaria
These have about 4,500 species, are mostly free-living, and range from 1 mm to 600 mm in length. Most are predators or scavengers, and terrestrial species are mostly nocturnal and live in shaded humid locations such as leaf litter or rotting wood. However some are symbiotes of other animals such as crustaceans, and some are parasites. Free-living turbellarians are mostly black, brown or gray, but some larger ones are brightly colored.

Turbellarians have no cuticle (external layer of organic but non-cellular material). In a few species the skin is a syncitium, a collection of cells with multiple nuclei and a single shared external membrane. However the skins of most species consist of a single layer of cells, each of which generally has multiple cilia (small mobile "hairs"), although in some large species the upper surface has no cilia. These skins are also covered with microvilli between the cilia. They have many glands, usually submerged in the muscle layers below the skin and connect to the surface by pores through which they secrete mucus, adhesives and other substances.

Small aquatic species use the cilia for locomotion, while larger ones use muscular movements of the whole body or of a specialized sole to creep or swim. Some are capable of burrowing, anchoring their rear ends at the bottom of the burrow, then stretching the head up to feed and then pulling it back down for safety. Some terrestrial species throw a thread of mucus which they use as a rope to climb from one leaf to another.

Some Turbelleria have spicular skeletons, giving the appearance of annulations.

Diet and digestion
Most other turbellarians are carnivorous, either preying on small invertebrates or protozoans, or scavenging on dead animals. A few feed on larger animals, including oysters and barnacles, while some, such as Bdelloura, are commensal on the gills of horseshoe crabs. These turbellarians usually have an eversible pharynx, in other words, one that can be extended by being turned inside-out, and the mouths of different species can be anywhere along the underside. The freshwater species Microstomum caudatum can open its mouth almost as wide as its body is long, to swallow prey as large as itself.

The intestine is lined by phagocytic cells which capture food particles that have already been partially digested by enzymes in the gut. Digestion is then completed within the phagocytic cells and the nutrients diffuse through the body.

Nervous system
Concentration of nervous tissue in the head region is least marked in the acoels, which have nerve nets rather like those of cnidarians and ctenophores, but densest around the head. In turbellarians, a distinct brain is present, albeit relatively simple in structure. From the brain one to four pairs of nerve cords run along the length the body, with numerous smaller nerves branching off. The ventral pair of nerve cords are typically the largest, and, in many species, are the only ones present. Unlike more complex animals, such as annelids, there are no ganglia on the nerve cords, other than those forming the brain.

Most turbellarians have pigment-cup ocelli ("little eyes"), one pair in most species, but two or even three pairs in some. A few large species have many eyes in clusters over the brain, mounted on tentacles, or spaced uniformly round the edge of the body. The ocelli can only distinguish the direction from which light is coming and enable the animals to avoid it.

A few groups – mainly catenulids and seriates – have statocysts, fluid-filled chambers containing a small solid particle or, in a few groups, two. These statocysts are thought to be balance and acceleration sensors, as that is the function they perform in cnidarian medusae and in ctenophores. However turbellarian statocysts have no sensory cilia, and it is unknown how they sense the movements and positions of the solid particles.

Most species have ciliated touch-sensor cells scattered over their bodies, especially on tentacles and around the edges. Specialized cells in pits or grooves on the head are probably smell-sensors.

Reproduction
Many turbellarians clone themselves by transverse or longitudinal division, and others, especially acoels, reproduce by budding. The planarian Dugesia is a well-known representative of class Turbellaria.

All turbellarians are simultaneous hermaphrodites, having both female and male reproductive cells, and fertilize eggs internally by copulation. Some of the larger aquatic species mate by penis fencing, a duel in which each tries to impregnate the other, and the loser adopts the female role of developing the eggs.

In turbellarians there are one or more pairs of both testes and ovaries. Sperm ducts run from the testes, through bulb-like seminal vesicles, to the muscular penis. In many species, this basic plan is considerably complicated by the addition of accessory glands or other structures. The penis lies inside a cavity, and can be everted through an opening on the posterior underside of the animal. It often, although not always, possesses a sharp stylet. Unusually among animals, in most species, the sperm cells have two tails, rather than one.

In most species "miniature adults" emerge when the eggs hatch, but a few large species produce plankton-like larvae.

Taxonomy and evolution
Internal relationships

Detailed morphological analyses of anatomical features in the mid-1980s and molecular phylogenetics analyses since 2000 using different sections of DNA agree that Acoelomorpha, consisting of Acoela (traditionally regarded as very simple turbellarians ) and Nemertodermatida (another small group previously classified as "turbellarians" ) are the sister group to all other bilaterians, including the rest of the Platyhelminthes.

The Platyhelminthes is a clade consisting of two monophyletic groups, Catenulida and Rhabditophora.

It has been agreed since 1985 that each of the wholly parasitic platyhelminth groups (Cestoda, Monogenea and Trematoda) is monophyletic, and that together these form a larger monophyletic grouping, the Neodermata, in which the adults of all members have syncitial skins. It is also generally agreed that the Neodermata are a relatively small sub-group a few levels down in the "family tree" of the Rhabditophora. Hence the traditional sub-phylum "Turbellaria" is paraphyletic, since it does not include the Neodermata although these are descendants of a sub-group of "turbellarians".

title: Turbellaria