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John Walker (natural historian)

John Walker FRSE (1731–1803) was a Scottish minister and natural historian. He was Regius Professor of Natural history at the University of Edinburgh from 1779 to 1803. He was joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783 and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1790.

Overview
Walker was a protégé of the chemist William Cullen and a colleague of Dugald Stewart, Joseph Black and several other Edinburgh professors who shaped the intellectual milieu of the Scottish Enlightenment. During his long career, he became a distinguished botanist, chemist, geologist, hydrologist, meteorologist, mineralogist, zoologist and economic historian, as well as being a minister in the Church of Scotland.

Walker was one of the main scientific consultants of his day, serving as an agricultural, industrial or mining advisor to many influential Scottish landowners, including the judge advocate Lord Kames, George III's prime minister Lord Bute, and Lord Hopetoun. Many of his students went on to become leading scientists in nineteenth century Scotland, England, Ireland, and America. He was a pioneer in introducing agricultural topics into a university curriculum.

As a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh when it received its royal charter, Walker automatically became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783, going on to serve as Secretary of the Society's Physical section (1789–96). He was elected as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1790.

Early life
He was born in Canongate, Edinburgh the eldest son of Eupham Morison and John Walker the rector of the Canongate Grammar School. He was educated at his father's school.

He matriculated at the University of Edinburgh in 1746. Like many aspiring men in Scotland at this time, he took a divinity degree in 1749. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright in 1754 but was not ordained into the Church of Scotland until 1758, initially being minister of Glencorse just south of Edinburgh, moving to Moffat in 1762 and to Lochmaben. He accepted the post of Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh in the same year and quickly found the two roles incompatible. In 1783 he returned to the church as minister of Colinton, a parish in south-west Edinburgh. Held in high esteem he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly in 1790. He lived in Colinton manse from 1783 to 1803. He became blind around 1800 but continued to preach until death.

However, his religious duties did not stop him from pursuing scientific subjects in his spare time. While at university took natural philosophy courses and collected natural history specimens in and around the Lothians. During the 1750s he continued to pursue scientific subjects by studying chemistry under Professor William Cullen and by joining Edinburgh's Philosophical Society. He distinguished himself not only by winning awards from the Society but also by publishing an article in the 1757 edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Under Cullen's patronage, Walker further distinguished himself as a chemist and a mineralogist and this led him to function as a scientific advisor for Lord Bute, Lord Hopetoun, Lord Cathcart, and Judge Advocate Lord Kames.

Becoming a naturalist
During the 1760s he used his aristocratic connections to tour mines throughout the Lowlands and to assemble his own sizeable mineralogical collection. By the mid-1760s, Walker was known as one of Scotland's leading lay naturalists. This motivated the Church of Scotland and the Board of Annexed Estates to send him on exploratory tours of the Highland and Hebrides in 1764 and 1771. These tours allowed him to make religious and ethnographic observations for the church and to take scientifically oriented notes on northern Scotland's minerals, plants, animals, and climate. In his 1764 tour, while on visit to the island of Jura (Deer Island), Walker may have made the first detailed description of the Lyme disease. He gives a good description both of the symptoms (with "exquisite pain [in] the interior parts of the limbs") and of the tick vector itself, which he describes as a "worm" with a body which is "of a reddish colour and of a compressed shape with a row of feet on each side" that "penetrates the skin". It was also during this period that he collected samples of the mineral which came to be known as strontianite from its type locality, thus setting in process the identification and analysis of the new alkaline earth Strontium.

During the 1770s Walker published articles in The Scots Magazine and the Philosophical Transactions. By the mid part of the decade, it became clear that Robert Ramsay, the University of Edinburgh's ailing Professor of Natural History, would soon need to be replaced. After securing the support of William Cullen, Lord Kames and several other politically savvy intellectuals, Walker competed against William Smellie, a well-respected natural historian and influential publisher, for the post. After much wrangling, Walker won the contest and was appointed in 1779. He held the position until his death in 1803.

Later life
Walker's natural history lectures spanned the academic year and were divided into two sections. The first half of the year he gave his 'Hippocratean' lectures, that is, meteorology, hydrology and geology. The second half of the year was devoted to the three kingdoms of nature: minerals, plants, and animals. During the 1760s, he had accepted Linnaeus' binomial classification system and during his university tenure he readily applied it to botany. However, he did not agree with Linnaeus' classification of minerals and animals and therefore he developed his own unique system for both of these subjects. As shown by Matthew Daniel Eddy, Walker developed a sophisticated theory of the earth based on evidence gathered from geochemistry and human history. Throughout his entire career he kept his ties with the Church of Scotland and in 1790 he was elected to be Moderator, its highest position. Sometime in the late 1790s he began to lose his sight and several of his lectures were taken over by Dr Robert Jameson, a physician and former student who had also studied in mainland Europe. By the time that he died in 1803, Walker had taught well over 800 students, some of whom would go on to have a significant impact on 19th-century natural history. Some of these names include Rev. Prof. John Playfair, Sir James Edward Smith, Sir James Hall, Mungo Park, Robert Waring Darwin, Robert Brown, Thomas Beddoes, Thomas Charles Hope, and Samuel Latham Mitchell.

He died at his Edinburgh home at 1 St John Street on the Canongate on 31 December 1803, and is buried in Canongate Kirkyard on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, just east of the church building.

Family
In 1789 he married Jane Wallace Wauchope.

title: John Walker (natural historian)


text:
Talk:Denomination (currency)

Japanese currency comment
True or false: Japanese currency is well-known enough in the United States for the denominations to have articles in Wikipedia, (If false, why do we need articles for them here?? This is the English Wikipedia, and the most populous English-speaking country is the United States. Why can't you put denominations for Japanese currency on the Japanese version of Wikipedia??) 66.245.69.176 23:00, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Because wikipedia is an international encyclopedia, meaning contents are written in English and the scope of contents is not limited to English-related stuff. -- Taku 23:05, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Naming Japanese Currency
Is Japanese currency referred to commonly as bills or banknotes?? 66.32.66.181 14:35, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Since Japanese speak Japanese, we cannot be sure which one is more common. Bills are commonly known as shihei in Japanese. -- Taku 19:42, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

False friend
So what do they mean in Polish and Slovenian?
 * Denominacja
 * Denominacija

--Chochopk 19:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

"Denominacja" means "redenomination" only. Barry Kent 22:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite
Hey, so far I can tell, not to shabby. If you're using sources, please add those now as inline refs, so much easier. And there are a few places I saw with only one sentance of explaination and three or four of examples. If you can expand the explanation alittle, so many examples may not be needed. But thats not a big deal. Jo e  I  08:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
 * All data can be found on wiki articles where I included a link. Well... I'm not good with words. I'm better at data organization, table, graph, and chart. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 09:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Redenomination
There's big difference between denomination and re-denomination...

Redenomination / Remonetisation
There is a new article (since 2/1/08) Remonetisation, which covers the same ground as the Redenomination section of this article. I suggest the two be merged somehow, with suitable re-directs so both terms direct to the same place. TiffaF (talk) 08:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree and suggest putting in a merger template into Remonetisation and Redenomination straight away. Karl (talk) 09:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

 * An alternative would be to rename the Remonetisation page to something like List of Redenominations. The table in this page would then merely to show a few examples, while there would be a link to the list for a comprehensive table. Karl (talk) 10:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

On our use talk pages, the author User:Tabletop of Remonetisation said that he/she is happy with merging and also suggested redirecting Remonetisation, but this redirection would be incorrect, because remonetisation means something else. All links to the remonetisation article need correcting. Karl (talk) 10:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Decimal / Non-Decimal
It's surely a matter of opinion whether decimal or non-decimal currencies are best. I've tagged this section with a citation needed marker. Rojomoke (talk) 16:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Redenomination of Mexican peso.
The list of countries with redenomination currency may include the Mexican New Peso of 1993. $1000 "pesos" became N$1 "nuevos pesos" during a transitional period after which the currency was to be called "pesos" again. Sources needed. 201.132.202.7 (talk) 09:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Unusual denominations - 15 kopek...
I've previously posted the following at talk:Coin, but perhaps this is where it belongs:--Nø (talk) 16:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Typical denominations for coins (and banknotes) are 1, 2, 5 and 25 units (cents, rubles or whatever), and any of these multiplied by a power of 10. But the article Coin mentions a Bahamian 15 cents coin, and I recall from a visit to the Soviet Union in 1989 that 3 and 15 were common denominations then and there. I wonder, could anyone find sources and add info on such unusual denominations - be it multiples of 3 or otherwise?--Nø (talk) 9:59 pm, 3 October 2011, Monday (UTC+2)
 * I still think this would be worth a mention; I also stumbled across this: Threepence (New Zealand coin). But unfortunately I have no source discussing not merely indiviual examples but the phenomenon as such. ??15:02, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Multiple subunits
The article currently claims that the Hong Kong dollar has multiple subunits which I'm pretty sure is wrong, it's just dollars and cents. Am I wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Practisevoodoo (talk • contribs) 16:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Denomination (currency)


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Anthem without a title

An anthem without a title was the untitled anthem of the Netherlands Antilles. It was written in English by Zahira Hiliman from Sint Maarten and translated into the Papiamento language by Lucille Berry-Haseth from Curaçao. The anthem was written in two of the three official languages of the Netherlands Antilles, English and Papiamento. It was adopted in 2000. In addition to this one, many of the islands in the Netherlands Antilles had their own regional anthems.

On 10 October 2010, the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved into Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the three public bodies of the Caribbean Netherlands.

Papiamentu lyrics
1. Sinku prenda den laman, e islanan di nos,

dòrnando e korona di un aliansa ideal.

Ounke hende i kultura tur koló nan tin, nos mes a

forma ùn famia den tur libertad.

Bridge

Pesei nos tur ta alsa bos ku amor i den union

Chorus

Antia Neerlandes, bunitesa sin igual.

Ku orguyo mi ta defendé mi patria tan stimá.

Antia Neerlandes, p’abo tur mi lealtat.

Pa semper lo mi keda fiel, pais bendishoná

2. Un shelu semper kla, laman ta invitá, e islanan ta

wowo dje kadena di unidat Idiomanan distinto, papiá

Ku komprenshon, mes ternura: "Sweet antilles"

"Dushi Antia ta ",

3. Ser parti di nos tera, ta orguyo sin midí,

Antia Neerlandes stimá, ku tur sinseridat,

Pues nos ta rearfimá ku amor i dignidat,

ku, dios dilanti, nos ta sirbi huntu nos pais.

English lyrics
1. Our island in the sea, like gems they seem to be,

outstanding from a golden crown of blissful royalty.

Though their people and their culture colorful may seem,

they yet uniquely blend to be just one family.

Bridge

So we, your people raise our voice in love and unity

Chorus

Dear Netherlands Antilles, so beautiful to me.

I’m proud to be a part of you, a patriot I shall be.

Yes Netherlands Antilles, I pledge my loyalty,

To you always will be true; I say may God bless you.

2. So blessed with sunny skies and clear welcoming seas,

each island like a link that forms this chain of unity.

May differ in our language, yet meet on common ground,

When some say "Sweet Antilles", some say "Dushi Antia ta".

3. Yes, proud are we to be identified with you,

dear Netherlands Antilles, to you we will be true.

So we declare and vow, with dignity and love,

Our nation we will always serve, may God keep us as one.

title: Anthem without a title


text:
Simvastatin

Simvastatin, sold under the brand name Zocor among others, is a statin, a type of lipid-lowering medication. It is used along with exercise, diet, and weight loss to decrease elevated lipid levels. It is also used to decrease the risk of heart problems in those at high risk. It is taken by mouth.

Common side effects include constipation, headaches, and nausea. Serious side effects may include muscle breakdown, liver problems, and increased blood sugar levels. A lower dose may be needed in people with kidney problems. There is evidence of harm to the developing baby when taken during pregnancy and it should not be used by those who are breastfeeding. It is in the statin class of medications and works by decreasing the manufacture of cholesterol by the liver.

Simvastatin is made from the fungus Aspergillus terreus. It was patented by Merck in 1980, and came into medical use in 1992. Simvastatin is available as a generic medication, and is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. In 2021, it was the sixteenth most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 30million prescriptions.

Medical uses
The primary uses of simvastatin are to treat dyslipidemia and to prevent atherosclerosis-related complications such as stroke and heart attacks in those who are at high risk. It is recommended to be used as an addition to a low-cholesterol diet.

In heart protection studies, simvastatin showed the ability to lower LDL cholesterol by about 1·5 mmol/L, which resulted in substantial reductions in mortality rates. Simvastatin also reduced the numbers of other events like heart attacks, strokes, and revascularizations and MI significantly.

The Heart Protection Study evaluated the effects of simvastatin in people with risk factors including existing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or stroke, but having relatively low LDL cholesterol. In this trial, which lasted 5.4 years, overall mortality was reduced by 13% and cardiovascular mortality was reduced by 18%. People receiving simvastatin experienced 38% fewer nonfatal heart attacks and 25% fewer strokes.

Statins in general have been proposed as beneficial in reducing the progression of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). Multiple observational studies have been conducted to analyse the benefits of statin use in delaying the progression of AMD but have resulted in conflicting outcomes. Given the current available information, simvastatin should not be recommended solely for the treatment of AMD.

Contraindications
Simvastatin is contraindicated with pregnancy, breastfeeding, and liver disease. Pregnancy must be avoided while on simvastatin due to potentially severe birth defects. Patients cannot breastfeed while on simvastatin due to potentially disrupting the infant's lipid metabolism. High doses of simvastatin are also contraindicated with the widely used antihypertensive amlodipine. A lower dose is also recommended in people taking the calcium channel blockers, verapamil and diltiazem, as well as those taking amiodarone.

Adverse effects
Common side effects (>1% incidence) may include indigestion and eczema. There is evidence to suggest that rare side effects such as joint pain, memory loss, and muscle cramps are more likely to occur in patients who take higher doses of simvastatin. Cholestatic hepatitis, hepatic cirrhosis, rhabdomyolysis (destruction of muscles and blockade of renal system), and myositis have been reported in patients receiving the drug chronically. Serious allergic reactions to simvastatin are rare.

A type of DNA variant known as a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) may help predict individuals prone to developing myopathy when taking simvastatin; a study ultimately including 32,000 patients concluded the carriers of one or two risk alleles of a particular SNP, rs4149056, were at a five-fold or 16-fold increased risk, respectively. In 2012, the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium has released guidelines regarding the use of rs4149056 genotype in guiding dosing of simvastatin and updated the guideline in 2014.

In March 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated its guidance for statin users to address reports of memory loss, liver damage, increased blood sugar, development of type 2 diabetes, and muscle injury. The new guidance indicates:
 * FDA has found that liver injury associated with statin use is rare but can occur.
 * The reports about memory loss, forgetfulness, and confusion span all statin products and all age groups. The FDA says these experiences are rare, but that those affected often report feeling "fuzzy" or unfocused in their thinking.
 * A small increased risk of raised blood sugar levels and the development of type 2 diabetes have been reported with the use of statins. A 2010 published meta-analysis found for every 255 patients taking a statin for 4 years, one additional case of diabetes would occur whilst preventing 5.4 major coronary events.
 * Some drugs interact with statins in a way that increases the risk of muscle injury called myopathy, characterized by unexplained muscle weakness or pain.

On 19 March 2010, the FDA issued another statement regarding simvastatin, saying it increases the risk of muscle injury (myopathy) when taken at high doses or at lower doses in combination with other drugs. The highest dose rate causes muscle damage in 610 of every 10,000 people in contrast to a lower dose, which causes muscle damage in eight of 10,000 people. The FDA warning, released again on 8 June 2011, suggested that high-dose "simvastatin should be used only in patients who have been taking this dose for 12 months or more without evidence of muscle injury" and that it "should not be started in new patients, including patients already taking lower doses of the drug."

Interactions
Simvastatin has important interactions with grapefruit juice and other drugs, including some that are commonly used for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. These interactions are clinically important because increasing simvastatin serum levels above those normally provided by the maximum recommended dose increases the risk of muscle damage, including the otherwise rare and potentially fatal side effect of rhabdomyolysis.

Consuming large amounts of grapefruit juice increases serum levels of simvastatin by up to three-fold, increasing the risk of side effects. The FDA recommends that people taking statins should avoid consuming more than a quart (946 ml) of grapefruit juice per day.

Simvastatin also interacts with other drugs, including some used to treat cardiovascular problems. It should not be taken by people who are also taking the antifungal drugs fluconazole, itraconazole, or posaconazole; the antibiotics erythromycin, clarithromycin, or telithromycin; HIV protease inhibitors; the antidepressant nefazodone; the cardiovascular drug gemfibrozil; the immunosuppressant ciclosporin, or the endometriosis drug danazol. Reduced maximum doses of simvastatin apply for patients taking certain other drugs, including the cardiovascular drugs verapamil, diltiazem, amiodarone, amlodipine, and ranolazine.

Pharmacodynamics
All statins act by inhibiting 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl (HMG) coenzyme A reductase. HMG-CoA reductase, the rate-limiting enzyme of the HMG-CoA reductase pathway, the metabolic pathway responsible for the endogenous production of cholesterol. Statins are more effective than other lipid-regulating drugs at lowering LDL-cholesterol concentration, but they are less effective than the fibrates in reducing triglyceride concentration. However, statins reduce cardiovascular disease events and total mortality irrespective of the initial cholesterol concentration. This is a major piece of evidence that statins work in another way than the lowering of cholesterol (called pleiotropic effects).

Simvastatin is an effective serum lipid-lowering drug that can decrease low density lipoprotein (LDL) levels by up to 50%. Simvastatin had been shown to interact with lipid-lowering transcription factor PPAR-alpha and that interaction might control the neurotrophic action of the drug.

Pharmacokinetics
The drug is in the form of an inactive lactone that is hydrolyzed after ingestion to produce the active β-hydroxyacid form. Simvastatin is primarily metabolized by CYP3A4 yielding products which are also active HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors.

History
The development of simvastatin was closely linked with lovastatin. Biochemist Jesse Huff and his colleagues at Merck began researching the biosynthesis of cholesterol in the early 1950s. In 1956, mevalonic acid was isolated from a yeast extract by Karl Folkers, Carl Hoffman, and others at Merck, while Huff and his associates confirmed that mevalonic acid was an intermediate in cholesterol biosynthesis. In 1959, the HMG-CoA reductase enzyme (a major contributor of internal cholesterol production) was discovered by researchers at the Max Planck Institute. This discovery encouraged scientists worldwide to find an effective inhibitor of this enzyme.

By 1976, Akira Endo had isolated the first inhibitor, mevastatin, from the fungus Penicillium citrinium while working at Daiichi Sankyo in Japan. In 1979, Hoffman and colleagues isolated lovastatin from a strain of the fungus Aspergillus terreus. While developing and researching lovastatin, Merck scientists synthetically derived a more potent HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor from a fermentation product of A. terreus, which was designated MK-733 (later to be named simvastatin).

In 1994, publication of the results of the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4S) provided the first unequivocal evidence that lowering LDL cholesterol via statin treatment reduces cardiovascular events and overall mortality. A total of 4,444 people with coronary heart disease and blood cholesterol levels from 5.5 to 8.0 mmol/L were randomized to simvastatin treatment or placebo and followed for an average of 5 years. Compared to the placebo group, those treated with simvastatin experienced a 30% decrease in overall mortality, a 42% reduction in coronary death, a 34% reduction in major coronary events, and a 37% reduction in revascularization procedures.

Economics
Prior to losing US patent protection, simvastatin was Merck & Co.'s largest-selling drug.

Under provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in the United States, health plans may cover the costs of simvastatin 10 mg, 20 mg, and 40 mg for adults aged 40–75 years based on United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations.

Zocor had an original patent expiry date in December 2005, but was extended by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to expire in June 2006.

Brand names
Simvastatin was initially marketed by Merck & Co under the brand name Zocor but is available generically in most countries following the patent expiry. A combination of simvastatin along with ezetimibe is sold under the brand name Vytorin and is jointly marketed by Merck and Schering-Plough.

Brand names include Zocor, Zocor Heart Pro, marketed by the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co., Simlup, Simvotin, Simcard (India), Denan (Germany), Liponorm, Sinvacor, Sivastin (Italy), Lipovas (Japan), Lodales (France), Zocord (Austria and Sweden), Zimstat, Simvahexal (Australia), Lipex (Australia and New Zealand), Simvastatin-Teva, Simvacor, Simvaxon, Simovil (Israel), available in Thailand under the brand Bestatin manufactured by Berlin Pharmaceutical Industry Co Ltd and others.

The US patent for Zocor expired in June 2006.

authors: حسن علي البط

title: Simvastatin


text:
Farallon de Pajaros

Farallón de Pájaros (from Spanish Farallón de Pájaros, meaning "Birds' Sea Stack", see Stack (geology)), also known as Uracus or Urracas (from Spanish Urracas, meaning "Magpies"), is a small (2.3 km2) uninhabited volcanic island, the northernmost island and also farthest west in the Northern Mariana Islands chain.

History
Farallón de Pájaros was ceded by Spain to Germany through the German–Spanish Treaty (1899), together with the rest of the Mariana Islands (except Guam). The formalities of the cession were carried out on November 17, 1899, in Saipan, for all the Northern Mariana Islands.

From 1899 to 1914, Farallón de Pájaros was controlled by the German Empire and was administered as part of the colony of German New Guinea. In 1903 the island was leased to a Japanese company, which hunted birds whose feathers were exported to Japan and then to Paris.

After World War I, the island was awarded to the Empire of Japan, by the League of Nations as part of the South Seas Mandate. After World War II, Farallón de Pájaros was awarded to the United States as part of the UN Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and is currently administered as part of the Northern Islands Municipality of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

In 1985, per the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the island was designated as a wilderness area for the protection and conservation of natural resources. Since 2009, the island has been part of Marianas Trench Marine National Monument of the United States.

Geography
Farallón de Pájaros is the northernmost island of the Marianas chain. It is located 65 km northwest of the Maug Islands and 591 km north of Saipan, the main island of the Northern Mariana Islands. Its northern neighbor is South Iwo Jima of the Ogasawara Islands of Japan, located 541 km away.

Farallón de Pájaros is nearly circular, with a length of 1.8 km, a width of 1.6 km and has an area of 2.3 sqkm. Farallón de Pájaros is the top of an active stratovolcano with a height of 360 m above sea level. The base of this stratovolcano is about 2000 ft below sea level, it has a diameter of 15 to 20 kilometers.

Volcanic activity
Between 1864 and 1953, 15 volcanic eruptions of Farallón de Pájaros have been recorded.

In the area of Farallón de Pájaros are two submarine volcanoes: The Makhahnas Seamount located about 10 km southwest, reaching a height of 640 m below sea level, and last erupted in 1967. The Ahyi Seamount located about 18 km south-east and reaches a height of 79 m below sea level. It is associated with a possible eruption in 1979, an eruption in 2001, and a series of underwater eruptions from 24 April to 17 May 2014, with hydrothermal activity continuing at least to December 2014.

Important Bird Area
The island has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports populations of Micronesian megapodes and sooty terns.

title: Farallon de Pajaros


text:
Briggs v. Elliott

Briggs v. Elliott, 342 U.S. 350 (1952), on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, challenged school segregation in Summerton, South Carolina. It was the first of the five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional by violating the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Following the Brown decision, the district court issued a decree that struck down the school segregation law in South Carolina as unconstitutional and required the state's schools to integrate. Harry and Eliza Briggs, Reverend Joseph A. DeLaine, and Levi Pearson were awarded Congressional Gold Medals posthumously in 2003.

Background
The case began in 1947 when Levi Pearson wrote a letter to the Clarendon County School District requesting that black children be provided with the same bus transportation that white children in the district received:

"'A Petition on behalf of my children and all other school children in School District #26, Clarendon County, South Carolina, was mailed to you, since that date I have had no communication from you with regard to this petition nor has any efforts been made to furnish bus transportation to Negroes in this School District. Please advise me if efforts are being made to furnish school bus transportation.'"

In Clarendon County, white children attended schools with a teacher for every grade, class sizes no higher than 30 students, brick schools with heat, indoor toilets, water fountains, modern textbooks, gyms, auditoriums and libraries. However, black children attended school in abandoned hunting or Masonic lodges and often drafty cabins adjacent to churches. Black children brought coal or wood to burn in oil drums for heat, and purchased textbooks that were discarded from white students. For restrooms, they dug and used privies and toted water from the local wells. One first grade teacher in Summerton handled 67 students; one second grade teacher was recorded as having a class of 79.

Prior to Levi Pearson's letter, the school board reserved all of its 30 buses for white children. Because of this, Pearson's children had a 9-mile journey, one-way, to attend the nearest black school. The black children of Clarendon County often had harsh commutes to attend school, including rowing paddle boats to cross bodies of water. In the neighboring Jordan community, some children walked up to 16 miles to and from school each day, and children had to frequently gather wood for heaters within schools. Levi, his brother, Hammett Pearson, and neighbor Joseph Lemon raised $700 to buy the local children a used school bus to use ($8,336 in today dollars), but frequent maintenance led them to ask the local school superintendent, Roderick M. Elliott, for their own bus. Elliott refused, saying that black citizens did not pay enough taxes to warrant a bus and that asking white taxpayers to fund that burden would be unfair.

To advance his efforts for safe transportation for black children, Pearson retained South Carolina attorney Harold Boulware and rising NAACP star Thurgood Marshall. Marshall argued that, since the local school board already provided bus transportation for white students, the county was in violation of the United States Supreme Court's “separate but equal” decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. The case, which was brought against Clarendon County District 26 on behalf of Pearson's son James, met with immediate resistance. As a result of his lawsuit, Pearson v. Clarendon County, Levi Pearson suffered from acts of domestic terror, such as gun shots fired into his home, as well as economic consequences: local banks refused to provide him with credit to purchase farming materials and area farmers refused to lend him equipment.

In 1948, Pearson v. Clarendon County was dismissed on a technicality when the superintendent noted that Pearson's large property covered multiple district lines. When Levi Pearson's brother, Hammett Pearson, learned of the issue, he offered to replace his brother in the lawsuit.

The rejection of Pearson v. Clarendon County caused the NAACP attorneys to pivot and raise their target to complete desegregation. In 1949, the NAACP agreed to provide funding and sponsor a case that would go beyond transportation and ask for equal educational opportunities in Clarendon County. The first step was to craft a local petition for educational equality. This was done by Rev. Joseph Armstrong DeLaine and Modjeska Monteith Simkins, the noted South Carolina civil rights worker. Simkins organized a national charitable effort for the relief of the oppressed African Americans of Clarendon County. Eventually, more than 100 Clarendon residents signed the petition.

Additional plaintiffs
Others agreed to join the suit of Levi Pearson. Named first in the suit, Harry Briggs, a service station attendant, and Eliza Briggs, a maid, became the main named plaintiffs. Elliott was named the defendant.

When Brown reached the U.S. Supreme Court, South Carolina was one of seventeen states that required school segregation. State law required complete segregation; Article 11, Section 7 of the 1896 Constitution of South Carolina read as follows: "Separate schools shall be provided for children of the white and colored races, and no child of either race shall ever be permitted to attend a school provided for children of the other race." Section 5377 of the Code of Laws of South Carolina of 1942 read: "It shall be unlawful for pupils of one race to attend the schools provided by boards of trustees for persons of another race."

There was little debate about if the Clarendon County schools were unequal. At the beginning of the hearings in U.S. District Court, the defendants shared on the record that "the educational facilities, equipment, curricula and opportunities afforded in School District No. 22 for colored pupils are not substantially equal to those afforded for white pupils."

Proceedings
The case would ordinarily have come up before Judge Julius Waring of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina. However, Judge Waring recommended to Thurgood Marshall for the case to be expanded from an equalization case into a desegregation case. Instead of asking for enforcement of the separate but equal doctrine by bringing the African American schools up to equality with the white schools, the plaintiffs asked for school segregation to be declared unconstitutional.

Three-judge panel
By expanding the case, both Waring and Marshall expected the plaintiffs to lose the case 2—1 and for the case to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. As predicted, a three-judge panel found segregation lawful by a vote of 2–1, with Judge Waring writing a dissent in which he stated that "segregation is per se inequality." The other two judges were John J. Parker and George Timmerman. The panel also granted an injunction to equalize the uncontested inferiority of the schools used by African American students.

Originally litigated by NAACP lawyer Robert L. Carter, the Briggs case was notable for introducing into evidence the experiments of Kenneth and Mamie Clark, who used dolls to study children's attitudes about race. Under tests performed by Clark, African American students in segregated schools were shown a white doll and an African American doll and asked which one they preferred. When most African American students indicated their preference for the white doll, Clark concluded that segregated schooling decreased African American self-esteem.

Decision
In 1952, the Supreme Court heard the case and returned it to the district court for rehearing after Clarendon County school officials had sent a report on progress in making facilities equal. In March, the district court again heard the case. The Court found that progress had been made towards equality. Thurgood Marshall argued that it may be true, but the real issue was that as long as separation existed, the schools would be unequal. The case was appealed back to the Supreme Court in May. The case was then consolidated with several other school desegregation cases into Brown v. Board of Education.

Briggs was the first of the five Brown cases to be argued before the Supreme Court. Spottswood Robinson and Thurgood Marshall argued the case for the plaintiffs, and former Solicitor General and presidential candidate John W. Davis led the argument for the defense.

Following the Brown decision, the lower court complied with the mandate issued by the Supreme Court and declared the South Carolina school segregation law to be unconstitutional.

Aftermath
Although Brown resulted in a legal victory against segregation, it was a costly victory for those associated with Briggs. Reverend Joseph DeLaine, the generally acknowledged leader of Summerton's African-Americans, was fired from his post at a local school in Silver. His wife, Mattie, was also fired from her position at Scott's Branch, as were all of the other signatories. De Laine's church was burned, and he moved to Buffalo, New York in 1955 after he had survived an attempted drive-by shooting. Both Harry and Eliza Briggs, on behalf of whose children the suit was filed, lost their jobs. Harry spent more than a decade working in Florida to support the family. Eliza eventually joined her children in New York.

Judge Waring had already been shunned by the white community in Charleston and subjected to attacks for previous decisions favorable to equal rights. After his dissent in the three-judge panel, he retired in 1952 and moved to New York.

Eventually, the state of South Carolina awarded Eliza Briggs its highest civilian honor, the Order of the Palmetto. Reverend Joseph A. De Laine, Harry and Eliza Briggs, and Levi Pearson were awarded Congressional Gold Medals posthumously in 2003. The Briggs v. Elliot case is remembered as a pivotal moment in the struggle for racial equality and educational justice. It exposed the systemic inequalities in the American education system and paved the way for desegregation efforts in schools nationwide.

title: Briggs v. Elliott


text:
Norfolk State University

Norfolk State University (NSU) is a public historically black university in Norfolk, Virginia. It is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and Virginia High-Tech Partnership.

History
The institution was founded on September 18, 1935, as the Norfolk Unit of Virginia Union University. Eighty-five students attended the first classes held in 1935. Mr. Samuel Fischer Scott, an alumnus of Virginia Union and Portsmouth native, served as the first director with the primary focus of maintaining the solvency of the school. Dr. Lyman Beecher Brooks, a Virginia Union alumnus, succeeded Mr. Scott as director in 1938, and served as provost, 1963–1969, and the first president 1969–1975.

In 1942, the school became independent of VUU and was named Norfolk Polytechnic College. Within two years, by an act of the Virginia Legislature, it became a part of Virginia State College (now Virginia State University). By 1950, the 15th anniversary of the college founding, the faculty had grown to fifty and the student enrollment to 1,018. In 1952, the college's athletic teams adopted the "Spartan" name and identity.

The City of Norfolk provided a permanent site for the college on Corprew Avenue, and in 1955 Brown Hall, formerly Tidewater Hall, opened as the first permanent building on the new campus. In 1956 the future Norfolk State College granted its first bachelor's degrees.

In 1969, the college divided from Virginia State College and was named Norfolk State College. The college was issued accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools the same year with an enrollment of 5,400 students. In 1975 and the year following, the first master's degrees were awarded in Communications and Social Work, respectively. Dr. Harrison Benjamin Wilson Jr., in 1975, succeeded Dr. Lyman Beecher Brooks as president after 37 years.

When the college was granted university status in 1979 by the General Assembly of Virginia, it changed its name to Norfolk State University.

Norfolk State University celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1985 with a year of observances and with an enrollment of 7,200. In 1995 Norfolk State University's enrollment reached 9,112.

Upon the retirement of Dr. Harrison Benjamin Wilson in 1997, Marie Valentine McDemmond, became NSU's third President in 1997 and served until her retirement. Alvin J. Schexnider became interim president in July 2005. Carolyn Meyers was selected as the fourth President and began service on July 1, 2006. Tony Atwater was announced as the new president in 2011 becoming the fifth president and served until he was removed by the board of visitors of Norfolk State University on August 23, 2013. Sandra DeLoatch the Provost and President of Academic Affairs was named acting president effective. On September 13, 2013, Eddie N. Moore Jr. was appointed interim president of Norfolk State University and started serving in that capacity on September 23, 2013.

In December 2013, the university was placed on probation by its regional accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, for "financial and governance issues." The probation was lifted two years later.

Eddie Moore Jr. became the 6th president of Norfolk State University on January 10, 2016.

Upon President Moore announcing his retirement in late September 2017 the NSU board of visitors named Dr. Melvin Stith as interim president. He assumed office on January 1, 2018. On June 24, 2019, Dr. Javaune Adams-Gaston became the 7th president of Norfolk State University after moving from her job as Senior Vice President for Student Life at Ohio State University.

In 2020, Norfolk State received $40 million from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Her gift is the largest single gift in Norfolk State's history.

Academics
The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools has accredited Norfolk State to award associate, baccalaureate, master and doctoral degrees. Currently, Norfolk State offers three doctorate and 15 master's degrees, including master's degree programs in electronic engineering, computer science, and criminal justice. The school also offers 36 undergraduate degrees, including the only undergraduate degree in optical engineering in Virginia.

Schools
Norfolk State's undergraduate and graduate programs are divided into eight schools/colleges.
 * School of Business
 * School of Education
 * By 2004, NSU had a fast-track program for special education licensing.
 * College of Liberal Arts
 * College of Engineering, Science & Technology
 * School of Social Work
 * School of Extended Learning
 * Honors College
 * Graduate School

Campus
Located on the former site of the 50 acre Memorial Park Golf Course, which the city of Norfolk sold to the school for one dollar, the campus now encompasses 134 acre of land and 31 buildings.

The Joseph G. Echols Memorial Hall is a large health, physical education, and ROTC complex with a seating capacity of 7,500. Other facilities include a 30,000-seat football stadium; a television studio and radio station, an African art museum, and a multi-purpose performing arts center. Research facilities include a life sciences building with a planetarium and a materials research wing with crystal growth, organic synthesis, laser spectroscopy, and magnetic resonance equipment.

In September 2009, the New Student Center facility opened. The three-story building, which includes a game room, a dining area, a new bookstore, a wellness center (work-out facility), student lounges, and administrative offices, marks the first of two major projects for NSU.

In January 2015, the construction of the New Nursing and General Classroom Building was completed, and in the fall 2017 NSU opened a new G.W.C. Brown Memorial Hall, a three-story, 154,000-square-foot academic building, which houses the School of Business, College of Liberal Arts, and Mass Communication and Math Department. The building also houses the box office, costume shop, scene shop, mainstage theater, studio theater, amphitheater, as well as drama faculty offices, classrooms, meeting rooms, study areas, and student lounges. Construction of a new four-story residential facility began in 2019. Once completed, the 193,424-square-foot residential facility will include a central two-story amenity space and 740 beds for first-year students.

Construction plans for a new science building and physical plant are underway. Other recent construction on the campus include the new police station (2007), the Marie V. McDemmond Center for Applied Research (2006), and the Spartan Suites Apartments (2001), and state-of-the-art library (2012).

Student activities
The university offers organized and informal co-curricular activities including 63 student organizations, leadership workshops, intramural activities, student publications and student internships.

Athletics
Norfolk State sports teams participate in NCAA Division I (Football Championship Subdivision for all sports including football) in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC). Norfolk State was formerly a member of the Eastern Intercollegiate Conference (1953–1960) and the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (1962–1996).

The 2011–12 Norfolk State Spartans men's basketball team won the 2012 MEAC men's basketball tournament championship which gave them the conference's automatic bid in the 2012 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, the school's first ever appearance in the tournament. The Spartans, a 15 seed, defeated the #2 seeded Missouri Tigers in the second round, 86–84. This victory was only the fifth time in NCAA Tournament history that a 15 seed defeated a 2 seed, with the last coming in 2001 by MEAC in-state rival Hampton.

Marching band
The Spartan "Legion" Marching Band was founded in 1974. There are 230 members. The band performs at campus events and during some Norfolk State football and basketball games. They were featured performers in the Honda Battle of the Bands in 2007 and 2008. In 2018 they were featured in the official music video for the song Heavy Metal by French house act Justice.

National fraternities and sororities
All nine of the National Pan-Hellenic Council organizations currently have chapters at Norfolk State University. Additional other academic, honor, band, religious, and service fraternities and sororities are present on campus as well.

Newspaper
The Spartan Echo is the official student-produced newspaper of Norfolk State University. The paper is available in print (available twice a month) and on the web (updated daily).

WNSB radio
Norfolk State operates WNSB (FM) radio, which broadcasts in stereo 24 hours a day from the campus and covers all of the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area, reaching the Eastern Shore of Virginia, northeast North Carolina and the Richmond, Virginia, suburbs. Established on February 22, 1980 and known as "Hot 91.1", WNSB's programming is also broadcast via the internet.

Notable faculty and staff
This list of notable faculty and staff contains current and former faculty, staff and presidents of the Norfolk State University.

Notable alumni
This is a partial list of notable alumni which includes graduates, non-graduate former students, and current students of Norfolk State University or predecessors such as Norfolk State College.

title: Norfolk State University


text:
Djerid

el-Djerid, also al-Jarīd, (الجريد; Derja: Jrīd; lit. 'Palm leaf') or more precisely the South Western Tunisia Region is a semi-desert natural region comprising three southern Tunisian Governorates, Gafsa, Kebili and Tozeur with adjacent parts of Algeria and Libya.

Geography
The region is characterised by bare pink hills with oases and several chotts (salt pans) such as Chott el Djerid in Tunisia. Economically the area is important for phosphate mining. Major towns include Gafsa and Tozeur.

It remains the principal center of Ibāḍism in North Africa, with remaining Ibāḍī communities on Djerba in Tunisia, in the M'zab in Algeria, and in Jabal Nafusa in Libya. In medieval times, it often formed a politically separate entity under the control of Ibāḍī imams.

Location
Jerid, Djerid or Bled el Djerid (Arabic : الجريد, literally "palm leaf"), is a semi-desert region situated in southwestern Tunisia, which extends to the contiguous areas of Algeria.

In administrative terms, it is associated in Tunisia with the province (governorate) of Tozeur and, at least in part and according to some sources, also the province of Gafsa and Kebili. The latter is part of the Nefzaoua region, which is sometimes considered part of Jerid.

The region is dotted with oases scattered between two chotts (largely dry salt lakes most of the time). Among the chotts stands out Chott el Jerid. In economic terms, the region stands out for its production of dates, namely the superior deglet nour variety, and since the 1990s tourism has gained importance. There is also the mining of phosphate deposits, mainly in the north of the region (Gafsa).

History
The Jerid was already inhabited by the Numidians before the arrival of the Romans in the 3rd century BC. Then came the Romans, who erected fortifications, integrated in the limes of the southern border of the province of Proconsular Africa, whose purpose was to prevent the incursions of the nomadic populations of the Sahara. With the arrival of Christianity, the region hosted two episcopal sees, one in Thusurus (Tozeur) and one in Nepte (Nefta). After a fleeting passage of the Vandals in the 5th century AD, the rule of the Byzantines continued until the invasion of the Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Empire in the 7th century, who occupied all of Tunisia and Arabized and Islamized. During the Middle Ages, Jerid had remarkable economic progress, mainly due to the strategic position in the caravan routes that connected the Mediterranean Basin to sub-Saharan Africa. Until the 11th century, the trade routes and movement of gold were managed by Ibadi Arabs of the Djarid. Among the "goods" transported were numerous slaves, who were bought to work in the oases. During the Ottoman period, the region was the scene of revolts against high taxes and nomadic incursions. The relative decline of the region since that time is due in large part to the loss of the strategic and economic importance of the trans-Saharan trade.

Population
The population of the province of Tozeur, the central nucleus of the region, was estimated at 104,800 inhabitants in 2011, 4.5% more than in 2007 and 7.5% more than in 2004, concentrating mainly on the cities of Tozeur and Nefta. In the same year it was estimated that Gafsa province to the north would have 341,600 inhabitants, 3.5% more than in 2007 and 5.5% more than in 2004. The estimate for the province of Kebili in the south, Which many authors do not include in the region, was then of 152 200 inhabitants, 3.9% more than in 2007 and 6.3% more than in 2004.

In ethnic terms, the population results from the intermarriage of native Berbers, Arabs, and slaves from sub-Saharan Africa.

Economy

Jerid has about 1.6 million date palms and is one of Tunisia's most important date-producing regions, especially the most valuable variety, deglet nour. Considering the wider version of Jerid, about 85% of Tunisia's total production of dates comes from the region, which in 2010-2011 produced almost 150,000 tonnes. In the same year, only 0.2% of the deglet nour variety was produced outside the region. Whereas the province of Kebili is not part of Jerid, the percentages fall to about 30% of the total and also 30% of deglet nour, which corresponds respectively to 52,125 and 36,050 tonnes. Despite extreme weather conditions - maximum temperatures are close to 50 °C and annual precipitations are very limited (between 80 and 120 mm) - the Jerid oases are very productive due to their resources in waters currently extracted from very deep underground aquifers through modern bore holes.

title: Djerid


text:
Shpola

Shpola (Шпола, ) is a city located in Zvenyhorodka Raion of Cherkasy Oblast (province) in central Ukraine. In May 2011, a 14-meter monument was installed on the outskirts of the city, claiming that Shpola is the geographical center of Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Shpola urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. It had a population of

Administrative status
In 1797, Shpola became part of the Zvenigorod district in the Kiev Governorate. It has been a city since 1938. Until 18 July, 2020, Shpola served as an administrative center of Shpola Raion. The raion was abolished in July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Cherkasy Oblast to four. The area of Shpola Raion was merged into Zvenyhorodka Raion.

History
After the revolution of 1917, Shpola became first a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and then of the USSR.

During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded USSR, and the Jewish population of Shpola was massacred in 1942. Today Jews make up around 0.5% of Shpola's population.

Demographics
In 1847, Shpola's Jewish population numbered 1,156. By 1897, that number had grown to 5,388 of a total population of 11,933, or about 45%. This level held steady until the Second World War. In 1989, the population of the city was 22, 378 people.

International relations
Shpola is a sister city with Oskaloosa, Iowa.

Notable people

 * Ivan Kulyk (1897-1937) - Ukrainian poet, short stories writer, and diplomat;
 * Lev Shvartzman (1907-1955) -- a senior Soviet secret police officer, known for his brutality;
 * Sergiy Rozhitskiy - Colonel of Ukrainian People's Army;
 * Sergiy Dobrovolskiy - Lieutenant of Ukrainian People's Army;
 * Oleksandr Tkachenko - chairman of Ukrainian parliament;
 * Itzik Feffer (1900-1952) - Yiddish poet;
 * Reb Aryeh Leib, "der Shpoler zeyde" (Yiddish: "the grandfather of Shpola") (1725-1812) - Hasidic tzaddik.

title: Shpola


text:
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County

Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (Docket number: Civ. A. No. 1333; Case citation: 103 F. Supp. 337 (1952)) was one of the five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1954, officially overturned racial segregation in U.S. public schools. The Davis case was the only such case to be initiated by a student protest. The case challenged segregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

Background
R.R. Moton High School, an all-black high school in Farmville, Virginia, founded in 1923, suffered from terrible conditions due to underfunding. The school did not have a gymnasium, cafeteria or teachers' restrooms. Teachers and students did not have desks or blackboards, and due to overcrowding, some students had to take classes in an immobilized, decrepit school bus parked outside the main school building. The school's requests for additional funds were denied by the all-white school board.

In response, on April 23, 1951, a 16-year-old student named Barbara Rose Johns, who was the niece of Vernon Johns, the famous black Baptist preacher and civil rights leader, covertly organized a student general strike. She forged notes to teachers telling them to bring their students to the auditorium for a special announcement. When the school's students showed up, Johns took the stage and persuaded the school to strike to protest poor school conditions. Over 450 walked out and marched to the homes of members of the school board, who refused to see them and instead threatened them with expulsions. This led to a two-week protest from students.

Further details about this story can be found in Taylor Branch's Parting The Waters, America In The King Years 1954-63, published by Simon and Schuster in 1988. This book mentions that the headmaster was told over the phone that the police were about to arrest two of his students at the bus station. He failed to recognize this call as a ruse, so he went to town. Only thereafter were notes calling to a special assembly delivered to the classroom. When the headmaster returned, he tried to talk the students out of striking, but they refused.

This book also gives a different account of the teaching conditions. It states that some classes were held in "three temporary tar-paper shacks" built to house the overflow at the school. It was so cold during the winter that teachers and students had to keep their coats on. No classes held in a school bus are mentioned, although the school's bus is said to be hand-me-down from the white school, and was driven by the history teacher.

The Trials
On May 23, 1951, two lawyers from the NAACP, Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, filed suit on behalf of 117 students against the school district to integrate the schools. The district was represented by T. Justin Moore, Archibald G. ("Archie") Robertson and John W. Riely of Hunton, Williams, Gay, Powell & Gibson (now known as Hunton Andrews Kurth), a large Richmond law firm. J. Lindsay Almond, as Attorney General, represented the Commonwealth of Virginia. The first plaintiff listed was Dorothy E. Davis, a 14-year old ninth grader. The case was titled Dorothy E. Davis, et al. versus County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia.

The students' request was unanimously rejected by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court. "We have found no hurt or harm to either race," the court ruled. The case was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and consolidated with four other cases from other districts around the country into the famous Brown v. Board of Education case. In it, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public education was, effectively, unconstitutional and illegal.

The Aftermath
The ruling was extremely unpopular among white Virginians and a considerable number of them attempted to resist integration through every means possible, during a period known as Massive Resistance. Schools remained segregated for several years. By 1959, J. Lindsay Almond had become Governor of Virginia, and faced with continuing losses in the courts, he dismantled the system of segregated schools in that state. Nevertheless, the Board of Supervisors for Prince Edward County refused to appropriate any funds for the County School Board at all, effectively closing all public schools rather than integrate them. White students often attended "segregation academies", which were all-white private schools that were formed. Black students had to go to school elsewhere or forgo their education altogether. Prince Edward County schools remained closed for five years, from 1959 to 1964.

In 2008, the case and the protest which led to it were memorialized on the grounds of the Virginia State Capitol in the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial.


text:
Wikipedia:Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation

Only the election officials may edit this page
Hello Everyone,

The 2005 elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation will start soon. It is You, Wikimedians, who will choose two representatives of Wikimedia contributors from around the world. Members of the m:Board of Trustees are entrusted with the ultimate decision making for the Wikimedia Foundation. The board's role is not website governance.

We are voting for two positions. They will be elected for two years and there will be no distinction between them. In order to vote you must have at least 400 edits prior to 00:00 May　30, 2005 (UTC) on the Wikimedia project from which you cast your vote. The first edit must have been 90 days or more before the time of voting. Please note that the Election Officials have the power to disqualify votes from permanently banned users or sockpuppets. Voting from more than one project will also be regarded as sockpuppeting.

The election is run using Approval voting. Each voter will be allowed to vote for as many of the candidates as they see fit for each position. The two candidates with the most votes for will be declared the winners. In the event of a tie, a run off election will be announced.

Interested candidates may fill in an entry form on Election candidates 2005 or its subpage(s) starting on 00:00, 2005 June 7 (UTC). Next, they will have up to three weeks to present themselves to the rest of the Wikimedia community. The translation coordinators will translate the entries to every possible language, and after that, the voting will start.

Here's the timeline on this year's election:

 * Candidate entries:
 * from Tuesday, 0:00 June 7, 2005 (UTC)
 * to  Monday, 24:00 June 27, 2005 (UTC)

 * Vote:
 * from Tuesday, 0:00 June 28, 2005 (UTC)
 * to  Monday, 24:00 July 11, 2005 (UTC)

 * If you speak another language, please translate this note and post it to the respective Wikimedia projects in those languages. Once you have done so, please notify us at m:Election notice translations 2005.

If you would like to oversee the translation of further notes, please list yourself on m:Election notice translations 2005.

Finally, we would like to wish all of the candidates the best of luck in this election,

 * Danny
 * Aphaia
 * Datrio
 * Bjarte

Election Officials, Wikimedia Election Committee

Revision on June 15
Hello Everyone,

The qualifications required in order to vote have been changed. Formerly, it was "400 in total prior to 00:00 May 30, 2005 (UTC)", but it is now "at least 400 edits prior to 00:00 May 30, 2005 (UTC) on the Wikimedia project from which you cast your vote."

This change had been suggested by the Board (see Meetings/June_7%2C_2005) to help us to avoid errors and the possibility of fraudulent votes.

Thank you for your understanding.

 * 09:57, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Election Officials, Wikimedia Election Committee

(original on Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, 2005/En)

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text:
Talk:Closed system

Some title

 * The meme complexity of a closed system decreases over time hence intelligence without learning, economics without trade, decisions without input or ecosystems which are cut constricted by industrial development all tend toward lower complexity.

Please source this comment that complexity necessarily decreases over time in all closed systems. It appears to be easily contradicted. For example, you can consider the human population of the earth to be a closed system. There are no other inhabited planets (or if there are, they aren't talking to us). Yet human knowledge not only increases, but the very pace of knowledge continues to increase. An isolationist state may have fewer trade opportunities than a state with active connections to other states, yet it can still have a robust and growing economy based on the domestic market. Rossami 23:21, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

closed systems do not exist in nature
In the strict sense of "closed" systems, they exist only when they are formal systems because all "real systems" or "systems in nature" are open.

 * Thermodynamics was invented to deal with a body of steam enclosed in a cylinder with a piston.Chjoaygame (talk) 00:53, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Definition
There doesn't seem to be much of a consistent defintion for a closed system. Some scientists define it as a system whose boundaries are impermeable to energy and mass cannot flow. Others (such as in the thermodynamics article) differentiate between closed systems and 'isolated systems' where the former applies only to mass flow and the latter applies to both matter and energy. And then there are definitions in systems theory and cybernetics, etc. which apply mainly to information flow. See also the definition closed ecological system. Methinks we should divide this article into subsections with different definitions. -Wiccan Quagga 07:35, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Excellent point above from Wiccan Quagga regarding definitions. User Rossami's fallacy (from the viewpoint of thermodynamics) is similar to a fallacy that creationists were using on engineering campuses in the early 80s.  A law of thermodynamics was held to be invalid because a tree creates a seed which grows into a tree.   Either the tree or seed must obviously and self evidently be more or less complex that the other and thus the entire concept of a closed system increasing in entropy or decreasing in complexity (organization) is obviously invalid.   Notice how conveniently the argument disregards sunshine adding energy to this alleged "closed system" and the waste heat radiating at the rest of the universe (background temp. of 4 degrees kelvin compared to Earth Average of ... 50 degree C?? guarantees a net heat flux).
 * Likewise how can one consider a population of humans a "closed system"? A human enjoys sunshine and gets a tan while surfing.   A telescope can be used to observe quasars and pulsars at the other end of the perceived universe.  A president has a brain hemorhage, decides he is chosen by God, and launches both the VSE and an Iraqi War.  One exports metal, energy, mass and information to the moon, mars and beyond while the other blots out designated anti american terrorists (along with professional patriots) on the other side of the planet.   Meteorites rain down nutrients and chemicals from the sky while salmon carry phosperous uphill to North America's Northwestern forests.
 * If a definition of a "closed system" exists for ecology or sociology or information theory then it should be provided rather than alleged in general terms and labeled so the readers (and wikipedians) can avoid the Garbage In Garbage Out fallacies that various groups would like to propagate to confuse the rest of us.

practicabilities... ?
I think the following sentence is slightly... vague / non-understandable. I would edit it myself but I can't decide how it was meant - replacing "practicabilities" with "feasibilities" doesn't sound right, although it is a synonym:

"Sometimes the practicabilities of thermal isolation are discussed but never whether thermal isolation is completely achievable in principle."

Seems like it needs rewording. Fresheneesz 03:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

toll roads?
In my opinion, toll roads and closed systems just don't belong to one another. I think that the notion of a closed system in the context of thermodynamics is so important that it should be contained in its own page and closed system toll roads should occupy another. S.riccardelli 22:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)s.riccardelli
 * That section should just be moved to the Toll roads page. --George100 10:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Moved to Toll_road --George100 07:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

WHEN?
When the hell did closed system start NOT meaning the same as an isolated system? Fresheneesz 21:20, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

 * In thermodynamics "Closed system" has always been different from an "isolated system". Ϙ 18:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Clarifications
In physics, there is actually four, possibly five, different conceptual developments of closed systems concepts. The first began with reference to Newtonian mechanics, the second with nineteenth century thermodynamics, the third throughout the twentieth century with Lorentz, Einstein, and Minkowski, and finally with conceptual developments in quantum theory and wave mechanics. See Heisenberg (1999) Physics and Philosophy, New York: Prometheus Books, pp. 93-109. The third and fourth stages eventually led to more open systems concepts, but closed/open system concepts really need be considered in relation to work since that time if one were to define further conceptual developments. --Kenneth M Burke 01:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

(... See Talk:Open system (system theory) --Kenneth M Burke 16:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC))

 * This is a nice story about "the conceptual developments of closed systems concepts" in physics. I copied this text into the Physical system article. - Mdd 18:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Little blog

 * I moved the following comments from the article here. - Mdd 20:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Mrs. Rykse,Kenowa Hills Middle Science teacher is currently teaching us about this stuff. She said that closed systems have to do with something about science and energy. Also about friction and stuff liek this. We are also learning about energy which includes, potential, gravitational potential, kinetic energy, and other types of energy. Hope you enjoyed my little blog!!

 * Thanks, next time put your comments on a discussion page. - Mdd 20:23, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Equation
The equation is a pretty straight forward sumation, but b^0=1; no matter what b is. Is this right? Is there a reference for this equation to check out. Thanks, Wolfworks (talk) 02:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Misleading first sentence
<< A closed system is a system in the "state of being isolated from its surrounding environment." >>

Right at the beginning of the article, this suggests the concept of an isolated system, rather than a closed one. I think it doesn't do much good. 77.209.170.195 (talk) 04:16, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Epistemological Problems With Conceptualization
The concept of a "closed system" has a fundamental problem of self-referentiality and logical circularity. If one defines it as closed to movement, exchange, or any kind of interaction beyond its boundary, then one is faced with having to show an example. There are no actual examples of systems closed in any absolute sense, as this would be impossible to detect. The postulate of an "isolated system" requires conditional definitions of the terms of isolation. Again, there is no actual example of an absolutely isolated system. Therefore, at best, these are conditions that can only occur in relative terms. All "systems" are in fact connected. There is an autopoietic theory of self-productive or self-creating systems, but these are not thermodynamically or even materially isolated. Rather, they are "isolated" only in regard to awareness, perception, or communication - as in the work of Maturana & Varela, or in the systems theory of Luhmann. But, there is a deeper problem. As Maturana & Varela readily admit, their theory is intentionally self-referential and circular, in order to exploit the notion of closure for theoretical applicability in constructing a theory of living things or systems as entirely self-organizing, and thus not subject to "higher order" control. I leave it to the reader to investigate the reasons for these, but they become necessary if one is to adhere to the strict logic of conventional science pushed to its self-contradictory extreme. This arises because of the fundamental premise of conventional science as arising from meaningless random accident - i.e., the "absurdity" premise. But, ignored in this is the problem of explaining then how either order or organization arise in the universe (or, more generally, in cosmos). Order is simply the patterning of whatever exists. Organization, however, is a process of organizing complexity. Complexity, by definition, is not meaningless random accident, but purposeful. Otherwise, there is no difference between complexity and chaos. Chaos science observes the emergence of patterns without any inherent ability to predict precisely, even though forms or structures may be discerned in the evidence or behavior. Strictly speaking, there must either be: (1) meaningless random accident; (2) chaotic order; (3) arbitrary perception; (4) imposed control; or (5) autonomous intention. If all that exists are dynamics of inertia, which is the strict claim of the first postulate, then nothing which results can actually be called "order," which is a reference to something that makes sense. If dynamics of inertia do "make sense," then something exists independently of that chaos to perceive its order. This raises the Cartesian problem of "thinking;" and therefore, the problem of explaining whence "consciousness?" That persistent Cartesian problem is indeed the one on which modern science persistently stumbles. Arbitrary perception is what happens when someone's "mind" perceives a pattern to which it attributes "meaning" when there is none. This, of course, is the skeptic premise on which much of modern scientific inquiry proceeds: the attempt to construct hypotheses which have null hypotheses which are operationally testable so as to then attempt to disprove the null hypotheses in order to be able to claim that "the hypotheses have not been disproved." This poses the conundrum that modern science can never actually prove anything - a point which Popper emphasized. All it can do at best is disprove null hypotheses in a finite set of experiments, which therefore never eliminate the possibility that the hypotheses are untrue. The imposed control is simply an extension of arbitrary perception to a presumably more powerful level of theory in which a particular outcome is predicted under conditions which are then controlled. It is assumed that empirical success validates theory, when all it really does is validate practice. For instance, the theory of "evil spirits" escaping when one fails to cover one's mouth when sneezing has plenty of empirical evidence and practical utility, if one's goal is to reduce the spread of airborne consequences of "evil spirits," but it hardly explains the reality. Conversely, with the degree of complexity of modern computational and information theory applied to biology, we could in fact reintroduce "evil spirits" at the micro level as the equivalent of malevolent "code." So, as Fayerabend observed, contrary to the usual interpretation of Kuhnian paradigms superseding older paradigms, replacing them for current utility does not actually mean supplanting them because they are either ultimately better or truer. Their viability may reemerge as practical advances make their reintroduction more feasible. Thus, the arbitrary nature of perception.... Now, autonomous intention introduces a quite different dynamic. Conventional religions tend to postulate some sort of God or master plan pulling the strings or teleologically deciding "the future." Conventional science rejects this by invoking its absurdity premise - although, Tertullian used the absurdity premise to justify a belief in miracles (paraphrasing, "It must be believed becasue it is absurd"). This problematic of absurdity is precisely the stumbling point of Descartes, who proffered dualism because of it. And, it was to evade this dualism that Maturana & Varela developed their autopoiesis theory, adopted and adapted in turn by Luhmann. But, there is no reason to endorse the absurdity premise, because it adds nothing to science. In fact, it introduces and imposes a persistent problem at every level: absurdity exists "All the way down and all the way up." The meaningless random accidental emergence of "self-organization" is no less meaningless random and accidental for having "emerged;" and thus we are left with no tenable explanation for its appearance. That we perceive it leaves us still with the persistent problem of our "perception." Where does it come from? And so, conventional science is always trying to explain whence "consciousness?" In our present problem, it appears first in the question of "what is a system?" We have to define that first, before we can define a "closed system." Let us take a very simple system and imagine how this can be done (ignoring, for the moment, how we can "imagine"). Virtual particles are said to randomly emerge from zero-point energy into the matter-antimatter of particle-anti-particles that immediately self-annihilate, leaving behind the energy "footprints" or shadows (on the wall of Plato's Cave?) of their postulated existence. The theory of the Big Bang as the way in which the universe is created (just one particularly popular version of many possible explanatory theories) exploits the idea that a "mass" conspiracy of particles and anti-particles mutually interfere with one another's self-annihilation, and thus set in motion the meaningless random accident of evolution, as the spontaneous formation of the universe thermodynamically unwinds over eons of time. Time itself is even defined by some as the thermodynamic unwinding itself, in attempting to explain how "far-from-equilibrium systems" can persist (Prigogine & Stengers). I shan't attempt to demonstrate all the problematic confusion that generates - too many people are so distracted by the empirical evidence that they don't bother to note the obvious absurdity of the theory, which literally says that as entropy increases the universe exhibits evolving self-organizing complexity. I think that is true, but therefore refutes the assumptions on which the claim is predicated, which is what paradoxical premises produce. If instead we start with a premise of intention in every emergent bit of mass (down to quarks or whatever planck-sized "bits" may be discerned), then intention is present at every level of reality "All the way down and all the way up." But, it is not operating with a master plan or God pulling the strings. Instead, every "particle" and "antiparticle" or whatever else matter consists of is exerting its own "will" or "intent" in its action. Of note, energy in the form of photons has no mass, but has one dimension of existence, its capacity to "work" or "produce change." That capacity is then manifest when it does what Bohm called changing from "implicate" to "explicate" order. If these particles/antiparticles are viewed in anthropomorphized terms, we can call them "prisoners" caught in a "dilemma" in which they can "work" or "not" both in relation to their own "emergence" and in relation to their interaction with "others." That "working" or "not" is arbitrary in one sense, because they have no awareness, even if they are said to have will or intention. They "select" paths, which then "works" or "not" with those "others" they encounter. That can produce self-annihilation or persistence, and then order and organization, or chaos and mere entropy. In the former instance, we have what we conventionally call evolution, except now, we have an explanation of what that otherwise undefined term called "selection" actually means. The simplest definition of "intention" is "will to be" - or, as Shakespeare put it: "To be, or not to be. That is the question." By means of embodying "learning" in the actual material structures of reality, evolution can proceed along a path of emergent complex organization that eventuates in the living ecology of a planet in a conducive location of a solar system within a galaxy in a universe that has every bit of matter having its own autonomous agent capacity that potentially can exploit the emergence of higher order systems when accidental conditions arise that can be exploited. The difference in premises is that "absurdity" affords no mechanism for anything but absurdity; whereas, intention is always seeking "to be." This is not because it is aware, because awareness is well known to result from forms and levels of emergent complexity in biologically supported neural systems that have the chemical and quantum (holonomic, in Pribram's terms) capacity for such awareness. We do not then seek to explain "consciousness" but only exploit its primitive form, which is simple intent without any necessary awareness, yet possessing capacity to "learn" in precisely the "forms" which matter itself assumes by embedding information (pattern) within the emergent structures and processes of reality as we "know" it. This, incidentally, is entirely consistent with the theory of "direct perception" in ecology systems. By shifting our premise in this way, we can also say that there are no "closed systems," only "closed minds" in the sense of lacking communication, cognition, perception, or awareness. This can then be explored in very different terms, and the theories of Luhmann and Maturana & Varela correspondingly reinterpreted to appreciate how a quantum theory of consciousness, like Stapp's (which has so far been shown to be thermodynamically robust), might actually operate in reality. So, to conclude, the problem with this definition reveals the deeper epistemological problem with the premise(s) of science, that need explication before either definitions can be written or properly investigated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Omnist (talk • contribs) 16:42, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

 * You had me at your second sentence, "If one defines it as closed to movement, exchange, or any kind of interaction beyond its boundary, then one is faced with having to show an example." How about a warm can of soda placed in the fridge overnight?  Overnight energy flows out of it, yet no matter is exchanged with its environment.
 * But although the matter-energy distinction on which this alleged distinction between "closed" and "isolated" is based is perfectly clear, I worry that it is far from standard in thermodynamics. I have to echo Fresheneesz's question above, "When the hell did closed system start NOT meaning the same as an isolated system?"  References [3]-[9] supposedly support the distinction, but has it caught on in the teaching of thermodynamics?  Vaughan Pratt (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Closed system