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Bilinear interpolation

In mathematics, bilinear interpolation is a method for interpolating functions of two variables (e.g., x and y) using repeated linear interpolation. It is usually applied to functions sampled on a 2D rectilinear grid, though it can be generalized to functions defined on the vertices of (a mesh of) arbitrary convex quadrilaterals.

Bilinear interpolation is performed using linear interpolation first in one direction, and then again in another direction. Although each step is linear in the sampled values and in the position, the interpolation as a whole is not linear but rather quadratic in the sample location.

Bilinear interpolation is one of the basic resampling techniques in computer vision and image processing, where it is also called bilinear filtering or bilinear texture mapping.

Computation

Suppose that we want to find the value of the unknown function f at the point (x, y). It is assumed that we know the value of f at the four points Q11 = (x1, y1), Q12 = (x1, y2), Q21 = (x2, y1), and Q22 = (x2, y2).

Repeated linear interpolation
We first do linear interpolation in the x-direction. This yields
 * $$\begin{align}

f(x, y_1) = \frac{x_2-x}{x_2-x_1} f(Q_{11}) + \frac{x-x_1}{x_2-x_1} f(Q_{21}), \\ f(x, y_2) = \frac{x_2-x}{x_2-x_1} f(Q_{12}) + \frac{x-x_1}{x_2-x_1} f(Q_{22}). \end{align}$$

We proceed by interpolating in the y-direction to obtain the desired estimate:
 * $$\begin{align}

f(x,y) &= \frac{y_2-y}{y_2-y_1} f(x, y_1) + \frac{y-y_1}{y_2-y_1} f(x, y_2) \\ &= \frac{y_2-y}{y_2-y_1} \left( \frac{x_2-x}{x_2-x_1} f(Q_{11}) + \frac{x-x_1}{x_2-x_1} f(Q_{21}) \right) + \frac{y-y_1}{y_2-y_1} \left( \frac{x_2-x}{x_2-x_1} f(Q_{12}) + \frac{x-x_1}{x_2-x_1} f(Q_{22}) \right) \\ &= \frac{1}{(x_2-x_1)(y_2-y_1)} \left( f(Q_{11})(x_2-x)(y_2-y) + f(Q_{21})(x-x_1)(y_2-y)+ f(Q_{12})(x_2-x)(y-y_1) + f(Q_{22})(x-x_1)(y-y_1) \right) \\ &= \frac{1}{(x_2-x_1)(y_2-y_1)} \begin{bmatrix} x_2-x & x-x_1 \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} f(Q_{11}) & f(Q_{12}) \\ f(Q_{21}) & f(Q_{22}) \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} y_2-y \\ y-y_1 \end{bmatrix}. \end{align}$$

Note that we will arrive at the same result if the interpolation is done first along the y direction and then along the x direction.

Polynomial fit
An alternative way is to write the solution to the interpolation problem as a multilinear polynomial

 * $$f(x, y) \approx a_{00} + a_{10}x + a_{01}y + a_{11}xy,$$

where the coefficients are found by solving the linear system

 * $$\begin{align}

\begin{bmatrix} 1 & x_1 & y_1 & x_1 y_1 \\ 1 & x_1 & y_2 & x_1 y_2 \\ 1 & x_2 & y_1 & x_2 y_1 \\ 1 & x_2 & y_2 & x_2 y_2 \end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix} a_{00}\\a_{10}\\a_{01}\\a_{11} \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} f(Q_{11})\\f(Q_{12})\\f(Q_{21})\\f(Q_{22}) \end{bmatrix}, \end{align}$$

yielding the result
 * $$\begin{align}

\begin{bmatrix} a_{00}\\a_{10}\\a_{01}\\a_{11} \end{bmatrix} = \frac{1}{(x_2-x_1)(y_2-y_1)}\begin{bmatrix} x_2y_2 & -x_2y_1 & -x_1y_2 & x_1y_1 \\ -y_2 & y_1 & y_2 & -y_1 \\ -x_2 & x_2 & x_1 & -x_1 \\ 1 & -1 & -1 & 1 \end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix} f(Q_{11})\\f(Q_{12})\\f(Q_{21})\\f(Q_{22}) \end{bmatrix}. \end{align}$$

Weighted mean
The solution can also be written as a weighted mean of the f(Q):
 * $$f(x, y) \approx w_{11} f(Q_{11}) + w_{12} f(Q_{12}) + w_{21} f(Q_{21}) + w_{22} f(Q_{22}),$$

where the weights sum to 1 and satisfy the transposed linear system

\begin{bmatrix} 1      & 1         & 1         & 1         \\    x_1     & x_1       & x_2       & x_2       \\ y_1    & y_2       & y_1       & y_2       \\ x_1y_1 & x_1y_2    & x_2y_1    & x_2y_2 \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} w_{11} \\ w_{12} \\ w_{21} \\ w_{22} \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ x \\ y \\ xy \end{bmatrix}, $$

yielding the result
 * $$\begin{align}

\begin{bmatrix} w_{11}\\w_{21}\\w_{12}\\w_{22} \end{bmatrix} = \frac{1}{(x_2-x_1)(y_2-y_1)}\begin{bmatrix} x_2y_2 & -y_2 & -x_2 & 1 \\ -x_2y_1 & y_1 & x_2 & -1 \\ -x_1y_2 & y_2 & x_1 & -1 \\ x_1y_1 & -y_1 & -x_1 & 1 \end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix} 1\\x\\y\\xy \end{bmatrix}, \end{align}$$ which simplifies to
 * $$\begin{align}

w_{11} &= (x_2 - x )(y_2 - y  ) / ((x_2 - x_1)(y_2 - y_1)), \\ w_{12} &= (x_2 - x )(y   - y_1) / ((x_2 - x_1)(y_2 - y_1)), \\ w_{21} &= (x  - x_1)(y_2 - y  ) / ((x_2 - x_1)(y_2 - y_1)), \\ w_{22} &= (x  - x_1)(y   - y_1) / ((x_2 - x_1)(y_2 - y_1)), \end{align}$$ in agreement with the result obtained by repeated linear interpolation. The set of weights can also be interpreted as a set of generalized barycentric coordinates for a rectangle.

Alternative matrix form
Combining the above, we have
 * $$\begin{align}

f(x,y) \approx \frac{1}{(x_2-x_1)(y_2-y_1)} \begin{bmatrix}f(Q_{11}) & f(Q_{12}) & f(Q_{21}) & f(Q_{22})\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix} x_2y_2 & -y_2 & -x_2 & 1 \\ -x_2y_1 & y_1 & x_2 & -1 \\ -x_1y_2 & y_2 & x_1 & -1 \\ x_1y_1 & -y_1 & -x_1 & 1 \end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix} 1\\x\\y\\xy \end{bmatrix}. \end{align}$$

On the unit square
If we choose a coordinate system in which the four points where f is known are (0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 0), and (1, 1), then the interpolation formula simplifies to
 * $$f(x, y) \approx f(0, 0) (1 - x)(1 - y) + f(0, 1) (1 - x)y + f(1, 0) x(1 - y) + f(1, 1) xy, $$

or equivalently, in matrix operations:
 * $$f(x, y) \approx \begin{bmatrix} 1 - x & x \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} f(0, 0) & f(0, 1) \\ f(1, 0) & f(1, 1) \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} 1 - y \\ y \end{bmatrix}.$$

Here we also recognize the weights:
 * $$\begin{align}

w_{11} &= (1 - x)(1 - y), \\ w_{12} &= (1 - x)y, \\ w_{21} &= x(1 - y), \\ w_{22} &= xy. \end{align}$$ Alternatively, the interpolant on the unit square can be written as
 * $$f(x, y) = a_{00} + a_{10}x + a_{01}y + a_{11}xy,$$

where
 * $$\begin{align}

a_{00} &= f(0, 0), \\ a_{10} &= f(1, 0) - f(0, 0), \\ a_{01} &= f(0, 1) - f(0, 0), \\ a_{11} &= f(1, 1) - f(1, 0) - f(0, 1) + f(0, 0). \end{align}$$

In both cases, the number of constants (four) correspond to the number of data points where f is given.

Properties
As the name suggests, the bilinear interpolant is not linear; but it is linear (i.e. affine) along lines parallel to either the x or the y direction, equivalently if x or y is held constant. Along any other straight line, the interpolant is quadratic. Even though the interpolation is not linear in the position (x and y), at a fixed point it is linear in the interpolation values, as can be seen in the (matrix) equations above.

The result of bilinear interpolation is independent of which axis is interpolated first and which second. If we had first performed the linear interpolation in the y direction and then in the x direction, the resulting approximation would be the same.

The interpolant is a bilinear polynomial, which is also a harmonic function satisfying Laplace's equation. Its graph is a bilinear Bézier surface patch.

Inverse and generalization
In general, the interpolant will assume any value (in the convex hull of the vertex values) at an infinite number of points (forming branches of hyperbolas ), so the interpolation is not invertible.

However, when bilinear interpolation is applied to two functions simultaneously, such as when interpolating a vector field, then the interpolation is invertible (under certain conditions). In particular, this inverse can be used to find the "unit square coordinates" of a point inside any convex quadrilateral (by considering the coordinates of the quadrilateral as a vector field which is bilinearly interpolated on the unit square). Using this procedure bilinear interpolation can be extended to any convex quadrilateral, though the computation is significantly more complicated if it is not a parallelogram. The resulting map between quadrilaterals is known as a bilinear transformation, bilinear warp or bilinear distortion.

Alternatively, a projective mapping between a quadrilateral and the unit square may be used, but the resulting interpolant will not be bilinear.

In the special case when the quadrilateral is a parallelogram, a linear mapping to the unit square exists and the generalization follows easily.

The obvious extension of bilinear interpolation to three dimensions is called trilinear interpolation.

Let $F$ be a vector field that is bilinearly interpolated on the unit square parameterized by $\mu, \lambda \in [0,1]$. Inverting the interpolation requires solving a system of two bilinear polynomial equations:$$A + B\lambda + C\mu + D\lambda\mu = 0$$where $$\begin{align} A &= F_{00} - F \\ B &= F_{10} - F_{00} \\ C &= F_{01} - F_{00} \\ D &= F_{11} - F_{01} - F_{10} + F_{00} \end{align}$$Taking a 2-d cross product (see Grassman product) of the system with a carefully chosen vectors allows us to eliminate terms:$$\begin{align} (A + B\lambda + C\mu) &\times D &= 0 \\ (A + B\lambda) &\times (C + D\lambda) &= 0 \\ (A + C\mu) &\times (B + D\mu) &= 0 \\ \end{align}$$which expands to$$\begin{align} c + e\lambda + f\mu &= 0 \\ b + (c + d)\lambda + e\lambda^2&= 0 \\ a + (c - d)\mu + f\mu^2&= 0 \\ \end{align}$$where$$\begin{align} a &= A \times B \\ b &= A \times C \qquad d = B \times C \\ c &= A \times D \qquad e = B \times D \qquad f = C \times D \end{align}$$The quadratic equations can be solved using the quadratic formula. We have the equivalent determinants $$\mathbb{D} = (c + d)^2 -4eb = (c - d)^2 - 4fa$$and the solutions$$\lambda = \frac{-c -d \pm\sqrt{\mathbb{D}}}{2e} \qquad \mu = \frac{-c +d \mp\sqrt{\mathbb{D}}}{2f}$$(opposite signs are enforced by the linear relation). The cases when $$e=0$$ or $$f=0$$ must be handled separately. Given the right conditions, one of the two solutions should be in the unit square.

Application in image processing
In computer vision and image processing, bilinear interpolation is used to resample images and textures. An algorithm is used to map a screen pixel location to a corresponding point on the texture map. A weighted average of the attributes (color, transparency, etc.) of the four surrounding texels is computed and applied to the screen pixel. This process is repeated for each pixel forming the object being textured.

When an image needs to be scaled up, each pixel of the original image needs to be moved in a certain direction based on the scale constant. However, when scaling up an image by a non-integral scale factor, there are pixels (i.e., holes) that are not assigned appropriate pixel values. In this case, those holes should be assigned appropriate RGB or grayscale values so that the output image does not have non-valued pixels.

Bilinear interpolation can be used where perfect image transformation with pixel matching is impossible, so that one can calculate and assign appropriate intensity values to pixels. Unlike other interpolation techniques such as nearest-neighbor interpolation and bicubic interpolation, bilinear interpolation uses values of only the 4 nearest pixels, located in diagonal directions from a given pixel, in order to find the appropriate color intensity values of that pixel.

Bilinear interpolation considers the closest 2 × 2 neighborhood of known pixel values surrounding the unknown pixel's computed location. It then takes a weighted average of these 4 pixels to arrive at its final, interpolated value.

Example
As seen in the example on the right, the intensity value at the pixel computed to be at row 20.2, column 14.5 can be calculated by first linearly interpolating between the values at column 14 and 15 on each rows 20 and 21, giving
 * $$\begin{align}

I_{20, 14.5} &= \frac{15 - 14.5}{15 - 14} \cdot 91 + \frac{14.5 - 14}{15 - 14} \cdot 210 = 150.5, \\ I_{21, 14.5} &= \frac{15 - 14.5}{15 - 14} \cdot 162 + \frac{14.5 - 14}{15 - 14} \cdot 95 = 128.5, \end{align}$$

and then interpolating linearly between these values, giving
 * $$I_{20.2, 14.5} = \frac{21 - 20.2}{21 - 20} \cdot 150.5 + \frac{20.2 - 20}{21 - 20} \cdot 128.5 = 146.1.$$

This algorithm reduces some of the visual distortion caused by resizing an image to a non-integral zoom factor, as opposed to nearest-neighbor interpolation, which will make some pixels appear larger than others in the resized image.

A Simplification of Terms
This example is of tabularised Pressure (columns) vs Temperature (rows) data as a lookup against some Variable

The following standard calculation by parts has 18 required operations.
 * $$\begin{align}

I_{T_{1}, P_{1}-P_{2}} &= \frac{P_{2} - P_{x}}{P_{2} - P_{1}} \cdot V_{11} + \frac{P_{x} - P_{1}}{P_{2} - P_{1}} \cdot V_{12} = V_{1x},\\ I_{T_{2}, P_{1}-P_{2}} &= \frac{P_{2} - P_{x}}{P_{2} - P_{1}} \cdot V_{21} + \frac{P_{x} - P_{1}}{P_{2} - P_{1}} \cdot V_{22} = V_{2x},\\ I_{P_{x}, T_{1}-T_{2}} &= \frac{T_{2} - T_{x}}{T_{2} - T_{1}} \cdot V_{1x} + \frac{T_{x} - T_{1}}{T_{2} - T_{1}} \cdot V_{2x} = V_{xx} \end{align}$$

This can all be simplified from the initial 18 individual operations to 16 individual operations as such;
 * $$V_{xx} = \frac{((P_{2} - P_{x}) \cdot V_{11} + (P_{x} - P_{1}) \cdot V_{12}) \cdot (T_{2} - T_{x}) + ((P_{2} - P_{x}) \cdot V_{21} + (P_{x} - P_{1}) \cdot V_{22}) \cdot (T_{x} - T_{1})}{(P_{2} - P_{1}) \cdot (T_{2} - T_{1})}.$$

The above has two repeated operations.
 * $$(P_{2} - P_{x}), (P_{x} - P_{1}).$$

These two repetitions can be assigned temporary variables whilst computing a single interpolation which will reduce the number of calculations down to 14 operations which is the minimum number of steps required for producing the desired interpolation. Doing this interpolation in 14 rather than 18 operations makes it 22% more efficient.

Simplification of terms is good practice for application of mathematical methodology to engineering applications and can reduce computational and energy requirements for a process.

title: Bilinear interpolation


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Eureka, Nunavut

Eureka is a small research base on Fosheim Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Qikiqtaaluk Region, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It is located on the north side of Slidre Fiord, which enters Eureka Sound farther west. It is the third-northernmost permanent research community in the world. The only two farther north are Alert, which is also on Ellesmere Island, and Nord, in Greenland. Eureka has the lowest average annual temperature and the lowest amount of precipitation of any weather station in Canada.

Eureka's postal code is X0A 0G0 and the area code is 867.

Divisions
The base consists of three areas:
 * the Eureka Aerodrome which includes "Fort Eureka" (the quarters for military personnel maintaining the island's communications equipment)
 * the Environment and Climate Change Canada Weather Station
 * the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL), formerly the Arctic Stratospheric Ozone Observatory (AStrO)

PEARL is operated by a consortium of Canadian university researchers and government agencies known as the Canadian Network for Detection of Atmospheric Change. PEARL announced it would cease full-time year-round operation as of April 30, 2012, due to lack of funding, but this decision was reversed in May 2013 with the announcement of new funds.

History
Eureka was founded on April 7, 1947, as part of an initiative to set up a network of Arctic weather stations. On this date, 100 t of supplies were airlifted to a promising spot on Ellesmere Island, and five prefabricated Jamesway huts were constructed. Regular weather observations began on January 1, 1948. The station has expanded over the years. At its peak, in the 1970s, at least fifteen staff were on site; in 2005, it reported a permanent population of zero with at least 8 staff on a continuous rotational basis.

Several generations of buildings have been developed. The latest operations centre, with work areas and staff quarters in one large structure, was completed in 2005.

Location and accessibility
The complex is powered by diesel generators. The station is supplied once every six weeks with fresh food and mail by air, and annually in the late summer, a supply ship from Montreal brings heavy supplies. On July 3, 2009, a Danish Challenger 604 MMA jet landed at Eureka's aerodrome. The jet is a military observation aircraft based on the Challenger executive jet. This jet visited Eureka on a familiarization trip, in order to prepare for the possibility of Danish aircraft assisting in search and rescue missions over Canadian territory. The Canadian American Strategic Review noted critically that the first jet to fly a mission to Eureka was not Canadian.

At Eureka's latitude, a geosynchronous communications satellite, if due south, would require an antenna to be pointed nearly horizontally; satellites farther east or west along that orbit would be below the horizon. Telephone access and television broadcasts arrived in 1982 when Operation Hurricane resulted in the establishment of a satellite receiving station at nearby Skull Point, which has an open view to the south. The low-power Channel 9 TV transmitter at Skull Point was the world's most northern TV station at the time. In the 1980s, TV audio was often connected to the telephone to feed CBC-TV news to CHAR-FM in isolated CFS Alert. More recently, CANDAC has installed what is likely the world's most northerly geosynchronous satellite ground-station to provide Internet-based communications to PEARL.

Other inhabited places on Ellesmere Island include Alert and Grise Fiord.

Flora and fauna
Eureka has been described as "The Garden Spot of the Arctic" due to the flora and fauna abundant around the Eureka area, more so than anywhere else in the High Arctic. Fauna include polar bears, muskox, Arctic wolves, Arctic foxes, Arctic hares, and lemmings. In addition, summer nesting geese, ducks, owls, loons, ravens, gulls and many other smaller birds nest, raise their young, and return south in August.

Climate
Eureka experiences a polar climate (ET). The settlement sees the midnight sun between April 10 and August 29, with no sunlight at all between mid-October and late February. Eureka has the lowest average annual temperature and least precipitation of any weather station in Canada with an annual mean temperature of -18.1 C. Average winter temperatures are almost comparable to those found in northeastern Siberia. However, summers are slightly warmer than other places in the Canadian Arctic because Eureka is somewhat landlocked, being near the centre of Ellesmere Island. Even so, since record keeping began, the temperature has never exceeded 20.9 C, first reached on July 14, 2009. Although a polar desert, evaporation is also very low, which allows the limited moisture to be made available for plants and wildlife. Its frost-free season averages 56 days, much longer than many other places nearby.

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

title: Eureka, Nunavut


text: User talk:203.193.141.48

title: User talk:203.193.141.48


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No-till farming

No-till farming (also known as zero tillage or direct drilling) is an agricultural technique for growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till farming decreases the amount of soil erosion tillage causes in certain soils, especially in sandy and dry soils on sloping terrain. Other possible benefits include an increase in the amount of water that infiltrates into the soil, soil retention of organic matter, and nutrient cycling. These methods may increase the amount and variety of life in and on the soil. While conventional no-tillage systems use herbicides to control weeds, organic systems use a combination of strategies, such as planting cover crops as mulch to suppress weeds.

There are three basic methods of no-till farming. "Sod seeding" is when crops are sown with seeding machinery into a sod produced by applying herbicides on a cover crop (killing that vegetation). "Direct seeding" is when crops are sown through the residue of previous crop. "Surface seeding" or "direct seeding" is when seeds are left on the surface of the soil; on flatlands, this requires no machinery and minimal labor.

While no-till is agronomically advantageous and results in higher yields, farmers wishing to adapt the system face a number of challenges. Established farms may have to face a learning curve, buy new equipment, and deal with new field conditions. Perhaps the biggest impediment, especially for grains, is that farmers can longer rely on the mechanical pest and weed control that occurs when crop residue is buried to significant depths. No-till farmers must rely on chemicals, biological pest control, cover cropping, and more intensive management of fields.

Tillage is dominant in agriculture today, but no-till methods may have success in some contexts. In some cases minimum tillage or "low-till" methods combine till and no-till methods. For example, some approaches may use shallow cultivation (i.e. using a disc harrow) but no plowing or use strip tillage.

Background
Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation, typically removing weeds established in the previous season. Tilling can create a flat seed bed or one that has formed areas, such as rows or raised beds, to enhance the growth of desired plants. It is an ancient technique with clear evidence of its use since at least 3000 B.C.

No-till farming is not equivalent to conservation tillage or strip tillage. Conservation tillage is a group of practices that reduce the amount of tillage needed. No-till and strip tillage are both forms of conservation tillage. No-till is the practice of never tilling a field. Tilling every other year is called rotational tillage.

The effects of tillage can include soil compaction; loss of organic matter; degradation of soil aggregates; death or disruption of soil microbes and other organisms including mycorrhizae, arthropods, and earthworms; and soil erosion where topsoil is washed or blown away.

Origin
The practice of no-till farming is a combination of different ideas developed over time, many techniques and principles used in no-till farming are a continuation of traditional market gardening found in various regions like France. A formalized opposition to plowing started in the 1940s with Edward H. Faulkner, author of Plowman's Folly. In that book, however, Faulkner only criticizes the deeper moldboard plow and its action, not surface tillage. It was not until the development after WWII of powerful herbicides such as paraquat that various researchers and farmers started to try out the idea. The first adopters of no-till include Klingman (North Carolina), Edward Faulkner, L. A. Porter (New Zealand), Harry and Lawrence Young (Herndon, Kentucky), and the Instituto de Pesquisas Agropecuarias Meridional (1971 in Brazil) with Herbert Bartz.

Adoption across the world
Land under no-till farming has increased across the world. In 1999, about 45 e6ha was under no-till farming worldwide, which increased to 72 e6ha in 2003 and to 111 e6ha in 2009.

Australia
Per figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Agricultural Resource Management Survey, in Australia the percentage of agricultural land under No-till farming methods was 26% in 2000–01, which more than doubled to 57% in 2007–08. As at 30 June 2017, of the 20 e6ha of crop land cultivated 79% (or 16 million hectares) received no cultivation. Similarly, 70% (or 2 million hectares) of the 3 million hectares of pasture land cultivated received no cultivation, apart from sowing.

South America
South America had the highest adoption of No-till farming in the world, which in 2014 constituted 47% of the total global area under no-till farming. The countries with highest adoption are Argentina (80%), Brazil (50%), Paraguay (90%), and Uruguay (82%).

In Argentina the usage of no-till resulted in reduction of soil erosion losses by 80%, cost reductions by more than 50% and increased farm incomes.

In Brazil the usage of no-till resulted in reduction of soil erosion losses by 97%, higher farm productivity and income increase by 57% five years after the starting of no-till farming.

In Paraguay, net farm incomes increased by 77% after adoption of no-till farming.

United States
No-till farming is used in the United States and the area managed in this way continues to grow. This growth is supported by a decrease in costs. No-till management results in fewer passes with equipment, and the crop residue prevents evaporation of rainfall and increases water infiltration into the soil.

In 2017, no-till farming was being used in about 21% of the cultivated cropland in the US. By 2023, farmland with strict no-tillage principles comprise roughly 30% of the cropland in the U.S.

Profit, economics, yield
Some studies have found that no-till farming can be more profitable in some cases.

In some cases it may reduce labour, fuel, irrigation and machinery costs. No-till can increase yield because of higher water infiltration and storage capacity, and less erosion. Another possible benefit is that because of the higher water content, instead of leaving a field fallow it can make economic sense to plant another crop instead.

A problem of no-till farming is that in spring, the soil both warms and dries more slowly, which may delay planting. Harvest can thus occur later than in a conventionally tilled field. The slower warming is due to crop residue being a lighter color than the soil which would be exposed in conventional tillage, which then absorbs less solar energy. But in the meantime, this can be managed by using row cleaners on a planter.

A problem with no-till farming is that if production is impacted negatively by the implemented process then the profitability of the practice also may decrease in relation to increasing gas prices and high labor costs. As the prices for fuel and labor continue to rise, it may be more practical for farms and farming productions to turn toward a no-till operation. In spring, poor draining clay soil may have lower production due to a cold and wet year.

The economic and ecological benefits of implementing no-till practices can require sixteen to nineteen years. The first decade of no-till implementation often will show trends of revenue decrease. Implementation periods greater than ten years in length usually show a gain in profit, rather than a decrease in profitability.

Costs and management
No-till farming requires some different skills from those of conventional farming. A combination of technique, equipment, pesticides, crop rotation, fertilization, and irrigation have to be used for local conditions.

Equipment
On some crops, like continuous no-till corn, the thickness of the residue on the surface of the field can become a problem without proper preparation and/or equipment. No-till farming requires specialized seeding equipment, such as heavier seed drills to penetrate through the residue. Ploughing requires more powerful tractors, so tractors can be smaller with no-tillage. Costs can be offset by selling ploughs and tractors, but farmers often keep their old equipment while trying out no-till farming. This results in a higher investment into equipment.

Increased herbicide use
One of the purposes of tilling is to remove weeds. With no-till farming, residue from the previous year's crops lie on the surface of the field, which can cause different, greater, or more frequent disease or weed problems compared to tillage farming. Faster growing weeds can be reduced by increased competition with eventual growth of perennials, shrubs and trees. Herbicides such as glyphosate are commonly used in lieu of tillage for seedbed preparation, which leads to more herbicide use in comparison to conventional tillage. Alternatives include winter cover crops, soil solarization or burning.

The use of herbicides is not strictly necessary, as demonstrated in natural farming, permaculture, and other practices related to sustainable agriculture.

The use of cover crops to help control weeds also increases organic residue in the soil (and nutrients, when using legumes). Cover crops then need to be killed so that the newly planted crops can get enough light, water, nutrients, etc. This can be done by rollers, crimpers, choppers and other ways. The residue is then planted through, and left as a mulch. Cover crops typically must be crimped when they enter the flowering stage.

Fertilizer
One of the most common yield reducers is nitrogen being immobilized in the crop residue, which can take a few months to several years to decompose, depending on the crop's C to N ratio and the local environment. Fertilizer needs to be applied at a higher rate. An innovative solution to this problem is to integrate animal husbandry in various ways to aid in decomposition. After a transition period (4–5 years for Kansas, USA) the soil may build up in organic matter. Nutrients in the organic matter are eventually released into the soil.

Environmental Policy
A legislative bill, H.R.2508 of the 117th Congress, also known as the NO EMITS act, has been proposed to amend the Food Security Act of 1985, that was introduced by Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois in 2021. Davis is a member of the House Committee on Agriculture. This bill proposes suggestions for offsetting emissions that are focused in agricultural means, doing so by implementing new strategies such as minimal tillage or no tillage. H.R.2508 is currently under reference by the House Committee of Agriculture. H.R.2508 is also backed by two other representatives from high agricultural states, Rep. Eric A. Crawford of Arkansas and Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska. H.R.2508 is proposing to set up incentive programs to provide financial and mechanical assistance to farmers and agriculture plots that transition their production processes, as well as providing contacts to lower risk for producers. Funding has also been proposed for Conservation Innovation Trails.

Farmers within the U.S. are encouraged through subsidies and other programs provided by the government to meet a defined level of tillage conservation. Such subsidies and programs provided by the U.S. government include: Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). The EQIP is a voluntary program that attempts to assists farmers and other participants help through conservation and not financially suffer from doing so. Efforts are put out to help reduce the amount of contamination from the agricultural industry as well as increasing the health of the soil. The CSP attempts to assist those who are looking to implement conservation effort into their practices by giving suggestions on what might be done for their given circumstance and needs.

Greenhouse gases
No-till farming has been claimed to increase soil organic matter, and thus increase carbon sequestration. While many studies report soil organic carbon increases in no-till systems, others conclude that these effects may not be observed in all systems, depending on factors, such as climate and topsoil carbon content. A 2020 study demonstrated that the combination of no-till and cover cropping could be an effective approach to climate change mitigation by sequestering more carbon than either practice alone, suggesting that the two practices have a synergistic effect in carbon capture.

There is debate over whether the increased sequestration sometimes detected is actually occurring, or is due to flawed testing methods or other factors. A 2014 study claimed that certain no-till systems may sequester less carbon than conventional tillage systems, saying that the “no-till subsurface layer is often losing more soil organic carbon stock over time than is gained in the surface layer.” The study also pointed out the need for a uniform definition of soil organic carbon sequestration among researchers. The study concludes, "Additional investments in soil organic carbon (SOC) research is needed to better understand the agricultural management practices that are most likely to sequester SOC or at least retain more net SOC stocks."

No-till farming reduces nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions by 40-70%, depending on rotation. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas, 300 times stronger than, and stays in the atmosphere for 120 years.

Soil and desertification
No-till farming improves aggregates and reduces erosion. Soil erosion might be reduced almost to soil production rates.

Research from over 19 years of tillage studies at the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service found that no-till farming makes soil less erodible than ploughed soil in areas of the Great Plains. The first inch of no-till soil contains more aggregates and is two to seven times less vulnerable than that of ploughed soil. More organic matter in this layer is thought to help hold soil particles together.

As per the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, no-till farming can stop desertification by maintaining soil organic matter and reducing wind and water erosion.

No ploughing also means less airborne dust.

Water
No-till farming improves water retention: crop residues help water from natural precipitation and irrigation to infiltrate the soil. Residue limits evaporation, conserving water. Evaporation from tilling increases the amount of water by around 1/3 to 3/4 inches (0.85 to 1.9 cm) per pass.

Gully formation can cause soil erosion in some crops such as soybeans with no-tillage, although models of other crops under no-tillage show less erosion than conventional tillage. Grass waterways can be a solution. Any gullies that form in fields not being tilled get deeper each year instead of being smoothed out by regular plowing.

A problem in some fields is water saturation in soils. Switching to no-till farming may increase drainage because soil under continuous no-till include a higher water infiltration rate.

Biota and wildlife
No-tilled fields often have more annelids, invertebrates and wildlife such as deer mice.

Albedo
Tillage lowers the albedo of croplands. The potential for global cooling as a result of increased albedo in no-till croplands is similar in magnitude to other biogeochemical carbon sequestration processes.

title: No-till farming


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Earl Hebner

Earl William Hebner (born May 17, 1949) is an American retired professional wrestling referee. He is best known for his time as senior referee for the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) from 1988 to 2005. Hebner (along with his identical twin brother, Dave) played a prominent role in the inaugural The Main Event card in 1988, in which André the Giant controversially defeated Hulk Hogan for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, as well as the infamous "Montreal Screwjob" during the main event of the 1997 Survivor Series. He also participated in a number of storylines, including feuds involving The McMahon–Helmsley Faction and The Alliance. Hebner was also the senior referee for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) from 2005 to 2017, and was inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame in 2015.

In 2019, Earl Hebner joined All Elite Wrestling, where he was used primarily for main event and title matches.

Early career (1977–1988)
Hebner officiated matches for Jim Crockett Promotions during much of the 1980s. He was the referee during the famous "I Quit" match at Starrcade 1985 between Tully Blanchard and Magnum T. A. He can be seen at ringside during the first ever WarGames match at the 1987 Great American Bash as well as the final match of the Bunkhouse Stampede tournament in January 1988.

Debut and championship controversy (1988–1997)
Just days after that match, Hebner debuted in the World Wrestling Federation as a referee during a WWF World Heavyweight Championship match pitting champion Hulk Hogan against challenger André the Giant, which aired live on February 5, 1988, on NBC's The Main Event. In the storyline, Hebner's identical twin brother Dave Hebner was the assigned official, but unbeknownst to Hogan, André's manager Ted DiBiase had bribed the then-unknown Earl Hebner to steal the victory and the championship (Earl and Dave are identical twins, so this was easy to pull off). Earl then counted André's pin against Hogan, even though Hogan's shoulders were clearly off the mat. As André and DiBiase were celebrating (with André quickly "selling" his title to an overjoyed DiBiase), Dave (whom DiBiase had locked in a closet prior to the match) ran to the ring and confronted Earl. The two brothers argued, and then they fought each other in the middle of the ring. Hulk Hogan, figuring out that Dave's "evil twin" had jobbed him out, picked Earl up and gorilla press slammed him over the ropes and onto the aisleway (missing DiBiase). It was part of the storyline for Hogan to lose the title in order for him to start filming on No Holds Barred.

This match helped set up a 14-man elimination tournament at WrestleMania IV, since WWF President Jack Tunney declared the title "vacant" a week after The Main Event match as the WWF World Heavyweight Championship "cannot be bought or sold," where the winner would win the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. Vince McMahon paid both Hebners a bonus of $2,500 for participating in the angle.

Meanwhile, the WWF continued to build heat for Earl Hebner through a kayfabe "investigative report" published in the promotion's flagship publication, WWF Magazine. The article claimed, through a fictional backstory, that Dave had "been plagued by the misdeeds of his brother Earl" throughout their childhoods, citing such examples as Earl's cheating in school and, while posing as Dave, doing such things as bullying fellow students and abandoning Dave's pretty girlfriend on a sidewalk in a slum district at night. The report continued by noting that, despite Dave's appeal of the controversial ending to the Hogan-Andre match at The Main Event, Tunney had to uphold the decision since Earl was a licensed referee in Indiana (the match took place in Indianapolis); and that, as a result of Earl's cooperation, he became a "very rich" man thanks to a payoff by DiBiase.

However, the "evil twin" referee storyline was quickly dropped when Dave was apparently injured in the aftermath of the Hogan-Andre Main Event match; in a 2001 interview with the WWF RAW Magazine, Dave claimed to have suffered broken ribs as a result of Earl kicking him as part of the angle, forcing Dave out of action until after WrestleMania IV. The storyline was then shifted to have Earl come clean, and he was the referee when "Macho Man" Randy Savage won the Tournament final at WrestleMania IV against "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship.

The Montreal Screwjob (1997)
The most infamous event in Hebner's career—and possibly in the history of professional wrestling in North America—came during the main event of the 1997 Survivor Series in what has since been dubbed the "Montreal Screwjob". During a match for the WWF Championship between then champion Bret Hart and challenger Shawn Michaels, Hebner signaled for the timekeeper to ring the bell (signifying the end of the match) while Michaels had Hart in a Sharpshooter hold—Hart's long-established signature move—even though Hart visibly had not submitted. Michaels had thus "won" the WWF Championship. This was not the match ending that Hart had asked for. Hebner had, at the behest of Vince McMahon, "screwed" Hart out of the title. The reason for the "screwjob" was that Hart, who would be leaving the company one month later to join a rival promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW), was unwilling to lose the title to Michaels in Canada. Though Hart said that he was willing to vacate the title the next night on WWF Raw, McMahon feared that Hart would leave the company with the title, take the belt to WCW, and disrespect it as Madusa had done in 1995 with the WWF Women's Championship, throwing the belt into a garbage can during a live Nitro show. He therefore decided to remove the title from Hart forcibly, by instructing Hebner (who had previously promised Hart "on his children's lives" that he would not betray him) to signal an end to the bout when Michaels had Hart in a submission hold. The fallout of the screwjob led to a large degree of antagonism towards Hebner, McMahon, and Michaels, especially in Canada, where fans often chant "You screwed Bret!" at the offending parties. In the same vein, Earl's son Brian Hebner, a former WWE referee on the SmackDown! brand and current Impact Wrestling referee, received chants of "Your dad screwed Bret!" at shows in Canada. However, on Right After Wrestling, hosted by Arda Ocal and Jimmy Korderas, Earl stated that he has since spoken with Bret and they have buried the hatchet, with regards to the Montreal Screwjob.

Later WWF/E career and departure (1999–2005)
Hebner was involved in several storylines. He spearheaded the (kayfabe) referee's strike in 1999, resulting in referees being given the authority to defend themselves if physically provoked by wrestlers. In early 2000, he cost Triple H his WWF Championship by quick-counting during a match between Triple H and Chris Jericho following weeks of abuse by Triple H. Triple H eventually forced Hebner to reverse the decision, promising never to lay his hands on Hebner as long as Hebner was a WWF employee. After Hebner took the title from Jericho and gave it back to Triple H, Triple H "fired" Hebner and promptly Pedigreed him and beat him unconscious. Hebner was reinstated by Linda McMahon thirteen days later, replacing corrupt guest referee Shane McMahon during a title match between Triple H and The Rock at Backlash and counting the fall when The Rock covered Triple H for the pin. Hebner was also the first referee to be a playable character in a wrestling video game as he was included in the roster of WWF No Mercy. During the Invasion angle in late 2001, Hebner became involved in a feud involving WCW referee Nick Patrick. Patrick was a biased referee who often helped The Alliance achieve victories over their WWF opponents. Hebner defeated Patrick in a match at WWF Invasion.

On July 18, 2005, WWE announced that Hebner was fired from WWE for selling WWE merchandise without permission. Hebner's identical twin brother Dave was released from WWE as well on July 19 in connection with these events. These activities would have been conducted from a store that Earl Hebner had partial ownership in, the St. Louis based Pro Shirt Shop. To avoid negative publicity, the controlling owner of the Pro Shirt Shop, Nick Ridenour, bought out Hebner's share in the company and released a press statement which claimed that the company only received merchandise from licensed distributors.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling/Impact Wrestling (2006–2017)
Seven months after his departure from WWE, Hebner debuted for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) at the Against All Odds pay-per-view on February 12, 2006. He officiated the main event, which saw Canadian born Christian Cage defeat Jeff Jarrett for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. During the match, commentators Mike Tenay and Don West alluded to the Montréal Screwjob on several occasions, urging Hebner not to call for the bell when Jarrett placed Cage in a sharpshooter. Despite the concerns of the commentators, Hebner was an impartial referee. However, he once again caused controversy based on his actions at the TNA Slammiversary 2006 pay-per-view. During the King of the Mountain match, he assisted Jeff Jarrett in winning the match by pushing a ladder over with Sting and then-champion Christian Cage on it. This led to the new head of management Jim Cornette taking the belt from Jarrett as the show ended, leaving the status of the belt in question as to who would be the champion. On the June 22 episode of TNA Impact!, Cornette vacated the title. On the June 30 episode, he awarded the title to Jarrett, but fired (kayfabe) Hebner. Hebner was then reinstated by Cornette due to Jarrett's polygraph test saying that Hebner was not involved. Hebner was punched in the face by Jeff Jarrett and was (kayfabe) injured. At No Surrender he replaced original referee Slick Johnson for the TNA Knockout Tag Team Championship match because of what happened at Victory Road.

TNA Wrestling had their own version of the Montreal Screwjob, in this case, it was a TNA World Heavyweight Championship match on the January 21, 2010 episode of TNA Impact! between Kurt Angle and defending champion A.J. Styles. Previously to this match, Angle and Styles had fought at the TNA pay-per-view Genesis, which was also for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship except the stipulation was that if Angle were to lose, he would never get another shot at the title in 2010. In this match, Ric Flair interfered causing Styles to retain his title. Hulk Hogan, now running TNA with Eric Bischoff somewhat controversially to some fans, said that due to Flair's interference in the match at Genesis, Angle would get another match at the title on Impact! and if Flair were to interfere, Styles would be stripped of the title and the title would be awarded to Angle. During the match, Angle put his signature move, the Ankle Lock on Styles, but Styles reversed it and used the Ankle Lock on Angle which resulted in the "Screwjob" when referee Earl Hebner called for the bell although Angle did not submit, similar to The Montreal Screwjob. On the January 28 episode of Impact! Earl confessed to screwing Bret Hart and Kurt Angle for the money. Hulk Hogan then suspended him indefinitely. On the March 8 Monday night edition of Impact! Hogan decided to give Hebner a second chance and had him referee the main event of the evening, a tag team match, where Hogan and Abyss faced A.J. Styles and Ric Flair.

In May 2012, Hebner signed a contract extension with TNA, which would keep him with the promotion through 2013. In July 2012, Hebner started a romance storyline with Madison Rayne, as part of which, he started helping her win matches, including one for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship on August 12 at Hardcore Justice. In response to this situation, Knockouts Executive Brooke Hogan announced that Hebner would no longer referee the Knockouts matches. On April 17, 2014, Hebner was reinstated as Knockouts referee, when Madison Rayne defeated Velvet Sky in a Street Fight. On June 19, 2014, Hebner was involved in the TNA World Heavyweight Championship bout between Kenny King and Eric Young, but after King's loss, MVP fired Hebner and made him get rid of his uniform, to the disgust of his son, Brian, but was reinstated by the new Executive Chief of Wrestling Operations, Kurt Angle after MVP was relieved of his duties by Board of Directors.

On September 14, 2015, it was announced that Hebner would be inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame class of 2015. On November 3, 2017, it was reported both Hebner and his son, Brian, had parted ways with Impact Wrestling.

Independent circuit (2018–2019)
On July 7, 2018, Hebner refereed what was advertised as his final event at Ring Wars Carolina, which also saw the refereeing debut of his daughter, Katie.

On September 1, 2018, Hebner refereed All In, and was part of the match between Nick Aldis and Cody Rhodes for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.

Hebner refereed NWA 70th Anniversary Show in Nashville, Tennessee, and was part of the main event match between Nick Aldis and Cody Rhodes for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.

On February 16, 2019, Hebner refereed at All Star Wrestling's Justice in the main event between Sharp Dressed Man Lawrence and the debuting Brian Snyder in Lewisburg, Tennessee. Near the end of the match, Snyder put Lawrence in the crossface, Lawrence's finishing hold, as Hebner called for the bell, even though Lawrence never gave up. The finish was very similar to the Montreal Screwjob.

All Elite Wrestling (2019–2021)
In 2019, Hebner, along with a number of other referees, joined All Elite Wrestling. He officiated a limited number of AEW events, primarily AEW pay-per-views and selected episodes of AEW Dynamite. Hebner then went on a one-year officiating hiatus that ended in 2022 when he returned to Impact Wrestling.

Return to IMPACT Wrestling (2022–present)
Hebner made his return to IMPACT Wrestling after 5 years away from the company at Slammiversary to count the 1–2–3 to give the Impact Originals the win against Honor No More.

Personal life
Hebner was married twice, he was first married to Carol Ann Kettner from 1969 to 1977. He later married Susan Ann Green, the marriage lasted from 1978 to 2000.

Hebner's son Brian Hebner is also a professional wrestling referee (retired in June 2022) before becoming a professional wrestling podcaster with Jim Korderas, while his daughter Katie made a cameo appearance with TNA in 2008 as "Katie Kim", the sister of Gail Kim. Hebner's identical twin brother, Dave, was also a wrestling referee as well as a promoter. Dave died on June 17, 2022, from Parkinson's Disease.

Hebner played himself in the episode "Sixteen Candles and Four-Hundred Pound Men" of Boy Meets World. Stock footage of one of his WWF matches was also featured in the motion picture Encino Man.

In July 2016, Hebner was named part of a class action lawsuit filed against WWE which alleged that performers incurred "long term neurological injuries" and that the company "routinely failed to care" for them and "fraudulently misrepresented and concealed" the nature and extent of those injuries. The suit was litigated by attorney Konstantine Kyros, who has been involved in a number of other lawsuits against WWE, primarily over chronic traumatic encephalopathy, an issue that has risen to the forefront of sports-related injuries, especially after the Chris Benoit double-murder and suicide. In September 2018, US District Judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant dismissed the lawsuit.

Awards and accomplishments

 * Ground Xero Wrestling
 * GXW Hall of Fame (Class of 2016)
 * Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
 * TNA Hall of Fame (2015)

title: Earl Hebner


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New Trier

New Trier may refer to:
 * New Trier Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States
 * New Trier High School
 * New Trier, Minnesota, United States

title: New Trier


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Juan Belmonte

Juan Belmonte García (14 April 1892 – 8 April 1962) was a Spanish bullfighter. He fought in a record number of bull fights and was responsible for changing the art of bullfighting. He had minor deformities in his legs which forced him to design new techniques and styles of bullfighting.

Life
Born in Seville, his family moved to the Triana neighbourhood when he was three, according to the biographer A. Diaz Canabate. Belmonte began his bullfighting career in 1908, touring around Spain in a children's bullfighting group called Los Niños Sevillanos. He killed his first bull on 24 July 1910. As an adult, his technique was unlike that of previous matadors; he stood erect and nearly motionless, and always stayed within inches of the bull, unlike previous matadors, who stayed far from the animal to avoid the horns. As a result of this daring technique, Belmonte was frequently gored, sustaining many serious wounds.

One such incident occurred during a November 1927 bullfight in Barcelona, Spain. Belmonte was gored through his chest and pinned against a wall. Several other toreros rescued him. Among the spectators that day were the King and Queen of Spain and the Infanta Beatriz.

Belmonte's rivalry with José Gómez Ortega (a.k.a. Joselito or Gallito), another contender for the appellation "greatest matador of all time", from 1914 to 1920 is known as the Golden Age of Bullfighting. The era was cut short when Joselito was fatally gored on 16 May 1920, at the age of 25, at a bullfight in Talavera de la Reina, a small town not far from Madrid. Belmonte then had to carry alone the weight of the whole bullfighting establishment, which proved to be unbearable, and which in 1922 led to the first of his three temporary retirements.

In 1919, Belmonte fought 109 bullfights (corridas), a number unmatched by any matador before, until the 1965 bullfight season when Manuel Benítez Pérez ("El Cordobés") performed in 111 corridas, surpassing Belmonte's record. The Mexican matador Carlos Arruza fought 108 corridas in one season but it is said that he refused to pass Belmonte's record out of respect for the maestro.

After his third and final retirement in 1935, Belmonte moved to a 3,500-acre (1400 ha) ranch in Andalusia, where he "lived the life of a gentleman bull-breeder". He also published a (ghostwritten) autobiography. Written by Manuel Chaves Nogales and published in 1937, it was called Juan Belmonte, matador de toros: su vida y sus hazañas (Juan Belmonte, killer of bulls: his life and deeds) and consisted of his story as told to Nogales. The book was translated into English by Leslie Charteris as Juan Belmonte, Killer of Bulls. Belmonte was also a close friend of authors Henry de Montherlant and Ernest Hemingway, and he appears in two of Hemingway's books: Death in the Afternoon and The Sun Also Rises. Like Hemingway, Belmonte committed suicide by gunshot.

Juan Belmonte was the single matador that changed the style of bullfighting. Born with slightly deformed legs, he could not run or jump like other boys and so when he finally began his career as a matador, he firmly planted his feet on the ground, never giving way. He forced the bull to go around him, whereas others until then had jumped almost constantly like circus performers.

During his bullfighting career he received 24 serious wounds and 'countless minor ones'. He later developed a grave heart condition, identified by a Madrid specialist who advised him to 'go easy' and to stop riding, an instruction that he initially took to heart but, in the last spring of his life, disobeyed in order to ride his favourite horse, Maravilla, on the ranch with his son. Shortly before his death he learned that he had lung cancer. After a final morning ride, he returned home to his ranch house, took his 6.35mm pistol from a drawer in his study and shot himself. He died within a week of his 70th birthday. Berman and Wallace suggest that this may have been a 'copycat suicide'; on hearing of his friend Hemingway's suicide in 1961, Belmonte is said to have answered 'Well done.'

The circumstances surrounding his death are the source of some controversy. A popular version, seen for example in Life, describes events substantially as follows: when Belmonte's doctor told him that, because of his lifelong injuries and trauma, he could no longer smoke cigars, ride his horses, drink wine or perform sexual acts with women, he decided he was ready to die. He ordered that his favourite horse be brought to him, took a handful of cigars, two bottles of his favourite wine and rode out to his finca. A film about his life, Belmonte, was released in 1995.

He is interred at the cemetery of Seville, 20 yards from the grave of his rival of seven seasons, Joselito. His wish was to be buried in the robe of his Holy Week fraternity. At the time of Belmonte's death, Catholic rules prescribed against suicide victims' being buried in consecrated ground. According to today's more pastoral norms, a suicide victim is considered to be temporarily insane, and thus might be accorded Catholic burial. Nevertheless, Belmonte's death provoked a strong sadness in the city of Seville.

In popular culture
Belmonte appears as a character in Woody Allen's 2011 film Midnight in Paris as a friend of Ernest Hemingway, who considers him to be "truly brave". He is portrayed by Swedish actor Daniel Lundh.

Ernest Hemingway features Belmonte in Death in the Afternoon and as a minor character in The Sun Also Rises.

title: Juan Belmonte


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New Vernon

New Vernon may refer to:

 * New Vernon, New Jersey
 * New Vernon, New York
 * New Vernon Township, Pennsylvania

title: New Vernon


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Herbert Read

Sir Herbert Edward Read, (4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. As well as being a prominent English anarchist, he was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism. He was co-editor with Michael Fordham and Gerhard Adler of the British edition in English of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung.

Early life
The eldest of four children of tenant farmer Herbert Edward Read (1868–1903), and his wife Eliza Strickland, Read was born at Muscoates Grange, near Nunnington, about four miles south of Kirkbymoorside in the North Riding of Yorkshire. In Herbert Read- The Stream and the Source (1972), George Woodcock wrote: "rural memories are long... nearly sixty years after Read's father... had died and the family had left Muscoates, I heard it said that 'the Reads were snobs'. They employed a governess (and) rode to hounds..." After his father's death, the family, being tenants rather than owners, had to leave the farm; Read was sent to a school for orphans at Halifax, West Yorkshire, and his mother took a job managing laundry in Leeds, where Read later joined her. Read's studies at the University of Leeds were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War, during which he served with the Green Howards in France. He was commissioned in January 1915, and received both the Military Cross (MC) and the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) "for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty" in 1918. He reached the rank of captain.

During the war, Read founded the journal Arts & Letters with Frank Rutter, one of the first literary periodicals to publish work by T. S. Eliot.

Early work
Read's first volume of poetry was Songs of Chaos, self-published in 1915. His second collection, published in 1919, was called Naked Warriors, and drew on his experiences fighting in the trenches of the First World War. His work, which shows the influence of Imagism and the Metaphysical poets, was mainly in free verse. His Collected Poems appeared in 1946. As a critic of literature, Read mainly concerned himself with the English Romantic poets (for example, The True Voice of Feeling: Studies in English Romantic Poetry, 1953) but was also a close observer of imagism. He published a novel, The Green Child. He contributed to the Criterion (1922–39) and he was for many years a regular art critic for The Listener.

While W. B. Yeats chose many poets of the Great War generation for The Oxford Book of Modern Verse (1936), Read arguably stood out among his peers by virtue of the 17-page excerpt (nearly half of the entire work) of his The End of a War (Faber & Faber, 1933).

Read was also interested in the art of writing. He cared deeply about style and structure and summarized his views in English Prose Style (1928), a primer on, and a philosophy of, good writing. The book is considered one of the best on the foundations of the English language, and how those foundations can be and have been used to write English with elegance and distinction.

Art criticism
Read was a champion of modern British artists such as Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. He became associated with Nash's contemporary arts group Unit One. Read was professor of fine arts at the University of Edinburgh (1931–33) and editor of The Burlington Magazine (1933–38). He was one of the organisers of the London International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936 and editor of the book Surrealism, published in 1936, which included contributions from André Breton, Hugh Sykes Davies, Paul Éluard, and Georges Hugnet. He also served as a trustee of the Tate Gallery and as a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum (1922–31), as well as co-founding the Institute of Contemporary Arts with Roland Penrose in 1947. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner.

From 1953 to 1954 Read served as the Norton Professor at Harvard University. In that final year, he gave the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art. For the academic year 1964–65 and again in 1965, he was a Fellow on the faculty at the Center for Advanced Studies of Wesleyan University.

Poetry
Read's conception of poetry was influenced by his mentors T. E. Hulme, F. S. Flint, Marianne Moore and W. C. Williams, believing "true poetry was never speech but always a song", quoted with the rest of his definition 'What is a Poem' in his 1926 essay of that name (in his endword to his Collected Poems of 1966).

Read's Phases of English Poetry was an evolutionary study seeking to answer metaphysical rather than pragmatic questions.

Read's definitive guide to poetry however, was his Form in Modern Poetry, which he published in 1932. In 1951, literary critic A. S. Collins said of Read: "In his poetry he burnt the white ecstasy of intellect, terse poetry of austere beauty retaining much of his earliest Imagist style." This style was evident in Read's earliest collection, Eclogues 1914-18.

Anarchism and philosophical outlook
Politically, Read considered himself an anarchist, albeit in the English quietist tradition of Edward Carpenter and William Morris. Nevertheless, in the 1953 New Year Honours he accepted a knighthood for "services to literature"; this caused Read to be ostracized by most of the anarchist movement. Read was actively opposed to the Franco regime in Spain, and often campaigned on behalf of political prisoners in Spain.

Dividing Read's writings on politics from those on art and culture is difficult, because he saw art, culture and politics as a single congruent expression of human consciousness. His total work amounts to over 1,000 published titles.

Read's book To Hell With Culture deals specifically with his disdain for the term culture and expands on his anarchist view of the artist as artisan, as well as presenting a major analysis of the work of Eric Gill. It was republished by Routledge in 2002.

In his philosophical outlook, Read was close to the European idealist traditions represented by Friedrich Schelling, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, believing that reality as it is experienced by the human mind was as much a product of the human mind as any external or objective actuality. In other words, the mind is not a camera recording the reality it perceives through the eyes; it is also a projector throwing out its own reality. This meant that art was not, as many Marxists believed, simply a product of a bourgeois society, but a psychological process that had evolved simultaneously with the evolution of consciousness. Art was, therefore, a biological phenomenon, a view that frequently pitted Read against Marxist critics such as Anthony Blunt in the 1930s. Read, in this respect, was influenced by developments in German art psychology. His Idealist background also led Read towards an interest in psychoanalysis. Read became a pioneer in the English-speaking world in the use of psychoanalysis as a tool for art and literary criticism. Originally a Freudian, Read came to transfer his allegiance to the analytical psychology of Carl Jung, eventually becoming both publisher and editor-in-chief of Jung's collected works in English.

As early as 1949, Read took an interest in the writings of the French Existentialists, particularly those of Jean-Paul Sartre. Although Read never described himself as an existentialist, he did acknowledge that his theories often found support among those who did. Read perhaps was the closest England came to an existentialist theorist of the European tradition.

Views on education
Read developed a strong interest in the subject of education and particularly in art education. Read's anarchism was influenced by William Godwin, Peter Kropotkin and Max Stirner. Read "became deeply interested in children's drawings and paintings after having been invited to collect works for an exhibition of British art that would tour allied and neutral countries during the Second World War. As it was considered too risky to transport across the Atlantic works of established importance to the national heritage, it was proposed that children’s drawings and paintings should be sent instead. Read, in making his collection, was unexpectedly moved by the expressive power and emotional content of some of the younger artists' works. The experience prompted his special attention to their cultural value, and his engagement of the theory of children's creativity with seriousness matching his devotion to the avant-garde. This work both changed fundamentally his own life’s work throughout his remaining 25 years and provided art education with a rationale of unprecedented lucidity and persuasiveness. Key books and pamphlets resulted: Education through Art (Read, 1943); The Education of Free Men (Read, 1944); Culture and Education in a World Order (Read, 1948); The Grass Read, (1955); and Redemption of the Robot (1966)".

Read ''"elaborated a socio-cultural dimension of creative education, offering the notion of greater international understanding and cohesiveness rooted in principles of developing the fully balanced personality through art education. Read argued in Education through Art that "every child, is said to be a potential neurotic capable of being saved from this prospect, if early, largely inborn, creative abilities were not repressed by conventional Education. Everyone is an artist of some kind whose special abilities, even if almost insignificant, must be encouraged as contributing to an infinite richness of collective life. Read's newly expressed view of an essential 'continuity' of child and adult creativity in everyone represented a synthesis' the two opposed models of twentieth-century art education that had predominated until this point...Read did not offer a curriculum but a theoretical defence of the genuine and true. His claims for genuineness and truth were based on the overwhelming evidence of characteristics revealed in his study of child art....From 1946 until his death in 1968 he was president of the Society for Education in Art (SEA), the renamed ATG, in which capacity he had a platform for addressing UNESCO....On the basis of such representation Read, with others, succeeded in establishing the International Society for Education through Art (INSEA) as an executive arm of UNESCO in 1954."''

Death and legacy
Following his death in 1968, Read was probably neglected due to the increasing predominance in academia of theories of art, including Marxism, which discounted his ideas. Yet his work continued to have influence. It was through Read's writings on anarchism that Murray Bookchin was inspired in the mid-1960s to explore the connections between anarchism and ecology. In 1971, a collection of his writings on anarchism and politics was republished, Anarchy and Order, with an introduction by Howard Zinn. In the 1990s, there was a revival of interest in him following a major exhibition in 1993 at Leeds City Art Gallery and the publication of a collection of his anarchist writings, A One-Man Manifesto and other writings for Freedom Press, edited by David Goodway. Since then, more of his work has been republished and there was a Herbert Read Conference, at Tate Britain in June 2004. The library at the Cyprus College of Art is named after him, as is the art gallery at the University for the Creative Arts at Canterbury. Until the 1990s the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London staged an annual Herbert Read Lecture, which included well-known speakers such as Salman Rushdie.

On 11 November 1985, Read was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. The inscription on the stone was taken from Wilfred Owen's "Preface" to his poems and reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."

A 1937 reading by Read lasting seven minutes and titled The Surrealist Object can be heard on the audiobook CD Surrealism Reviewed, published in 2002.

He was the father of the well-known writer Piers Paul Read, the BBC documentary maker John Read, the BBC producer and executive Tom Read, and the art historian Ben Read.

Selected works

 * Ecologue: A Book of Poems (1919)
 * Naked Warriors (1919)
 * What is a Poem (1926)
 * English Prose Style (1928)
 * Phases of English Poetry (1928)
 * Wordsworth; The Clark Lectures 1929-30 (1930)
 * In Retreat (1930)
 * Ambush (1931)
 * Arp (1931) 'the World of Art Library' series
 * The Meaning of Art (1931) revised 1968
 * Art and Alienation (1932)
 * Form in Modern Poetry (1932)
 * Innocent Eye (1933) childhood autobiography
 * The Redemption of the Robot: My Encounter with Education through Art (1933)
 * Art Now (1933)
 * Art and Industry (1934)
 * My Anarchism (1934)
 * The Green Child (1935)
 * Unit One (1935) editor
 * Paul Nash. A Portfolio of Colour Plates (1937) introduction
 * Eric Gill (1938)
 * Introduction to Hubris: A Study of Pride by Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (1940)
 * The Tenth Muse (1941)
 * To Hell With Culture (1941)
 * A World Within A War (1943)
 * Education Through Art (1943) later revised
 * Icon and Idea (1943)
 * Revolution & Reason (1945)
 * The Art of Sculpture (1949)
 * Education for Peace (1950)
 * Existentialism, Marxism and Anarchism, Chains of Freedom (1951)
 * English Prose Style (Reprinted 1952)
 * Art and Society (1953)
 * The True Voice of Feeling (1953)
 * The Paradox of Anarchism (1955)
 * Philosophy of Anarchism (1957)
 * A Concise History of Modern Painting (1959) 'the World of Art Library' series
 * Anarchy & Order; Poetry & Anarchism (1959)
 * Collected Essays in Literary Criticism (1960)
 * The Grass Roots of Art (1963)
 * Art Now (1963)
 * The Contrary Experience: Autobiographies (1963) autobiography
 * Collected Poems (1966)
 * Wordsworth (1966)
 * Naked Warriors (Reprinted 1967)
 * Art and Alienation (1967)
 * Essays in Literary Criticism (1969)

title: Herbert Read


text:
New Washington

New Washington is the name of several places:

United States:
 * New Washington, Indiana
 * New Washington, Ohio
 * New Washington, Pennsylvania
 * A former name of Morgan's Point, Texas during the early 19th century

Philippines:
 * New Washington, Aklan

In fiction:
 * See Planets and habitats of the Night's Dawn trilogy as to a planet in Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy

title: New Washington


text:
Creative services

Creative services are a subsector of the creative industries, a part of the economy that creates wealth by offering creativity for hire to other businesses. Creative Services also means a department within a company that does creative work such as writing, designing, and production. It is often a sub-department of the Marketing organization. Examples include:

 * Design and production agencies
 * Studios
 * Ideation consultancies
 * Software development firms
 * Marketing firms
 * Public relations agencies
 * Advertising agencies
 * Promotional agencies
 * Branding agencies
 * Entertainment Industries
 * Talent agency
 * Guilds

Like lawyers and accountants in the professional services sector, creative services firms sell a specialised technical service to satisfy the needs of companies that do not have this expertise themselves.

Creative services firms provide creative services to other companies or to the public: they 'do creativity' to order.

Typical business models revolve around selling the time of skilled professionals, either on a project-by-project basis or through a service level agreement, and providing services on an ongoing basis for a fixed monthly fee. In this sense they share much in common with professional services firms but there are also key differences:
 * Creative services firms tend not to be bound by requirements for professional accreditation
 * There are low barriers to entry for new startup businesses

title: Creative services


text:
Johnsburg

Johnsburg may refer to some places in the United States:

 * Johnsburg, Illinois
 * Johnsburg, Indiana
 * Johnsburg, Minnesota
 * Johnsburg, New York
 * Johnsburg, Wisconsin

title: Johnsburg


text:
Francesca Annis

Francesca Annis (born 14 May 1945) is an English actress. She is known for television roles in Reckless (1998), Wives and Daughters (1999), Deceit (2000), and Cranford (2007). A six-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won the 1979 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the ITV serial Lillie. Her film appearances include Krull (1983), Dune (1984), The Debt Collector (1999), and The Libertine (2004).

Early life and education
Annis was born in Kensington, London in 1945, to an English father, Lester William Anthony Annis (1914–2001) and a Brazilian-French mother, Mariquita (Mara) Purcell (1913–2009). Both were sometime actors and Mara a sometime singer. Mara was from a wealthy Brazilian family. The Annises moved to Brazil when Francesca was one year old, and spent six years there, returning to England when she was seven. In recollecting the years in Brazil, she described her parents as running "a nightclub on Copacabana beach", and her mother Mara "performing as a blues singer".

Annis was educated at a convent school, and trained in her early years as a ballet dancer, with training in the Russian style at the Corona Stage Academy.

Career
Annis began acting professionally in her teens, and made her film debut in The Cat Gang (1959). Her first major film role was as Elizabeth Taylor's handmaiden in Cleopatra (1963), in which she was cast at the age of 16 while still studying Russian ballet. Her big break was as one of the leads in the 1965 West End stage musical Passion Flower Hotel. She played Estella in a television adaptation of Great Expectations (1967) and presented children's television programmes. She garnered attention for her performance as Lady Macbeth in Roman Polanski's film version of Macbeth (1971) in which she performs the sleepwalking soliloquy nude. The critic Kenneth Tynan was present when the scene was shot:"'Francesca does it very sportingly and with no fuss ... though of course the set is closed, great curtains are drawn around the acting area ... and the wardrobe mistress rushes to cover Francesca with a dressing gown the instant Roman says, 'Cut''."

Annis played the "Widow of the Web" in the 1983 science fantasy film Krull, and starred as Lady Jessica in the 1984 David Lynch science fiction film Dune.

She appeared as Tuppence with James Warwick as Tommy Beresford in The Secret Adversary (1983) and the subsequent series, Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime (1983–84). Annis played Jacqueline Kennedy in Onassis: The Richest Man in the World in 1988. She portrayed Mrs Wellington in the second film and directorial debut by Prince, Under The Cherry Moon (1986).

Annis pursued a stage career, playing leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, such as Luciana in Trevor Nunn's musical version of The Comedy of Errors (1976) and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet alongside Ian McKellen (1976).

At the National Theatre in 1981, she played Natalya Petrovna in Peter Gill's production of Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. At the Comedy Theatre between September 2005 and January 2006, Annis starred as Ruth in Epitaph for George Dillon with Joseph Fiennes. She returned to the stage in April 2009, to star as Mrs Conway in Rupert Goold's National Theatre revival of J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways.

She appeared in television productions in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in series such as Edward the Seventh (1975) as Lillie Langtry, a role she reprised in Lillie (1978); Madame Bovary (1975); and Parnell and the Englishwoman (1991), in which she played Kitty O'Shea. She played a major role in J. C. Wilsher's police drama Between the Lines from 1993 to 1994, as well as the miniseries Reckless (1998) and its 2000 sequel. Annis co-starred with Sir Michael Gambon and Dame Judi Dench as Lady Ludlow (an aristocrat opposed to the education of the lower classes) in the BBC1 costume-drama series Cranford (2007). More recently, Annis played a leading role in the ITV drama Home Fires.

Personal life
Annis was in a relationship with photographer Patrick Wiseman that began in 1974, raising three children, Charlotte, Taran, and Andreas. Annis began a relationship with Hamlet co-star Ralph Fiennes in 1995, ending her 23-year relationship with Wiseman in 1997; Fiennes in turn divorced his wife of four years, Alex Kingston. Annis is said to have "apologised to Wiseman" over their parting. Annis and Fiennes announced their separation on 7 February 2006, after 11 years together, in a parting described as "acrimonious", following rumours that he had had an affair with the Romanian singer Cornelia Crisan.

At age 64, in an interview with Tim Auld of The Telegraph in 2009, Annis described herself as being one that tends "to forget the bad things – I don't dwell on them. I think, 'Oh, f– it, life's too short'" and that though single, she "believes it is better to be with someone than alone", stating "I think you live a fuller life... to have someone else's input on anything – a book, a meal, your children, life, a walk – is fantastic" and expressing optimism as she looked to her future, stating "'I like to have a big open canvas. I am a glass-half-full person. Something will turn up, you know, and whatever it is it'll be fine'".

Selected stage appearances

 * 1976 Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors as Luciana, with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
 * 1977 Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as Juliet, with the RSC
 * 1995 Shakespeare's Hamlet as Gertrude, with the Almeida Theatre at the Hackney EmpireHamlet (1995): Almeida Theatre Company, Hackney Empire | BBA Shakespeare
 * 2001 Ibsen's Ghosts as Helen Alving (28 March-14 July 2001) at the Comedy Theatre, London.
 * 1981 Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country as Natalya Petrovna, with the National Theatre
 * 2005 John Osborne and Anthony Creighton's Epitaph for George Dillon as Ruth, at the Comedy Theatre
 * 2009 J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways as Mrs. Conway, with the National Theatre

title: Francesca Annis


text:
Nick Patrick (referee)

Joseph Nicholas Patrick Hamilton Jr. (born November 9, 1959), better known by his ring name Nick Patrick, is a retired American professional wrestling referee. He is a former referee for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). He has also served as head referee for former WWE developmental territory Deep South Wrestling (DSW) until that company's closing, and is former head referee for Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW).

Early life
Hamilton is the son of wrestling legend Jody Hamilton, who wrestled as The Assassin.

Georgia Championship Wrestling (1980–1984)
He was a referee in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)'s Georgia Championship Wrestling starting in 1980 under the name Nick Patrick, as he wanted to make a name for himself without his father's help.

Brief wrestling career (1984–1985)
In June 1984, Patrick transitioned into a wrestler, teaming with his father. In CWG, Patrick was in a feud with Bob Roop, which resulted in a series of Lights Out matches, where they traded victories. In 1985, he moved to the Gulf Coast for Continental Championship Wrestling, frequently teaming with Steve Armstrong, feuding with The Nightmares. By October 1985, he moved on to Mid-South Wrestling, where he was used as an enhancement talent. By the end of 1985, Patrick suffered a knee injury that ended his wrestling career.

Deep South Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling (1986–2001)
After his wrestling career was cut short due to a knee injury, Patrick would help his father out in his promotion, Deep South Wrestling, as an announcer/color commentator. In 1988, when Turner Broadcasting bought JCP and renamed it World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Patrick was brought in as a referee. After Tommy Young retired in November 1989, Patrick became WCW's senior referee.

When the New World Order (nWo) formed in 1996, he joined and became their official referee. He would allow the nWo wrestlers to cheat and he would show a clear bias towards the nWo. Because of this, he was forced into a match against Chris Jericho at the World War 3 pay-per-view on November 24, 1996, in Norfolk, Virginia. Jericho had one arm tied behind his back and still defeated Patrick.

Patrick's biggest night with the nWo was refereeing every single match on the nWo Souled Out pay-per-view on January 25, 1997, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

His nWo tenure came to an end at Spring Stampede 1997. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were scheduled to defend the WCW World Tag Team Championship against The Steiner Brothers. Due to out-of-ring attacks and such, combined with Hall failing to show for the event, the title match eventually became a singles match between Nash and Rick Steiner. Nash was allowed to appoint a referee and he chose Patrick. During the match, Nash removed the padding over the turnbuckle and dropped Steiner's face on it. However, in a turn of events, Patrick was starting to become visibly uncomfortable with how Nash was treating Steiner and would soon have a change of heart. Fellow nWo associate Ted DiBiase also had a change of heart and attempted, with Patrick, to get Nash to stop. When Nash refused, DiBiase left to get help for Steiner. Nash covered an unconscious Steiner and Patrick didn't want to make the 3-count until Nash forced him to, awarding the contest to Nash. Patrick then told Nash to stop as he would also leave to get help for Steiner. After the match, Nash kept performing the maneuver on Steiner. Later that evening, Patrick served as referee for the main event match between nWo member Randy Savage and Diamond Dallas Page, counting a proper pin for Page. After the match, Nash came out and attacked Patrick, for all intents and purposes, kicking him out of the nWo.

On the April 21, 1997 edition of Nitro, he unexpectedly appeared in the announce booth with Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko. Wearing a green WCW polo shirt, he cut a promo explaining that he was sick of Eric Bischoff and the way the nWo did business. He explained that he never wanted to fight fellow referee Randy Anderson and asked for his job back. Both Schiavone and Zbyszko were skeptical, especially Zbyszko, who was intensely critical. They went to a commercial break with Patrick and Zbyszko arguing. The next week on Nitro, WCW executive J. J. Dillon announced that Patrick was being re-hired on a probationary basis. Patrick was a neutral referee from that point on and never sided with the nWo again.

Patrick created massive controversy over the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Starrcade 1997 when he made a "fast count" in the Sting-Hollywood Hogan match; although that was the planned finish to the match, Patrick botched it by counting three at normal speed. Bret Hart stopped Patrick from giving Hogan the title, claiming the fast-count, and restarted the match claiming that he didn't want to see Sting get screwed like he was by Vince McMahon. After a rematch, the title was declared vacant. Patrick would referee another rematch for the vacant belt, taking over for Charles Robinson (who had been knocked out during the bout). Sting would win that match and WCW management upheld Patrick's ruling.

World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (2001–2008)
When WCW was bought by the WWF, he was one of three WCW referees who had their contracts purchased, along with Charles Robinson and Billy Silverman. He became a referee for The Alliance of WCW and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) wrestlers trying to take over the WWF. He even had a match against Earl Hebner at the WWF Invasion pay-per-view on July 22, 2001, in Cleveland, Ohio. Patrick lost to Hebner and Mick Foley, the special guest referee, gave him "Mr. Socko" after the match.

During the time of the Alliance, Patrick would continue to play a heel referee, siding with the Alliance wrestlers over the WWF wrestlers. For example, during a WCW Championship handicap match between The Rock and Booker T and Shane McMahon at Unforgiven, Patrick would refuse to count when the Rock had Booker or Shane pinned down. At Survivor Series, Patrick knocked out Hebner to take over as referee during the "Winner Take All" elimination tag match. After he gave a normal "slow count" for The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin became enraged, knocked Patrick out, and brought Hebner back in as referee. After the Alliance angle ended, Patrick became an official WWF referee. At first he was a heel referee, refusing to count to three for face wrestlers as Austin and Rock, and favoring heel wrestlers like Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle. After WrestleMania X8, Patrick started portraying a down-the-middle, neutral referee once again.

After the brand extension, Patrick was used as the head referee on the SmackDown! brand. Patrick officiated the World Heavyweight Championship match at ECW One Night Stand 2006 between champion Rey Mysterio and Sabu.

Patrick left the SmackDown! brand on February 9, 2007, and Mickie Henson took over as senior referee. Patrick remained with WWE, officiating matches in their new developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW).

Patrick returned to the SmackDown brand on February 8, 2008, and refereed a tag team match between Jesse and Festus and Deuce 'n Domino. However, he quickly disappeared again due to his injuries.

Patrick was released from the WWE on August 8, 2008, after seven months of inactivity due to a chronic back injury.

Retirement (2009–2010)
On February 15, 2009, Patrick officially returned to wrestling when he was introduced as the on-camera commissioner of Rampage Pro Wrestling, an independent promotion based out of Warner Robins, Georgia. Patrick portrayed a neutral commissioner. Patrick refereed his first match since his WWE release at RPW's "Showdown" supercard at the Macon City Auditorium on April 10, 2009, officiating a no-holds-barred, hair vs. hair contest between Cru Jones and Doc Gayton.

In April 2009, Patrick became RPW's television show director, replacing his father, Jody Hamilton, after the promotion released Hamilton due to financial cutbacks. The promotion re-hired Hamilton later in the year in October. In September 2009, Patrick became the promotion's legitimate general manager. When Patrick took over, he and Hamilton became the primary forces behind the booking. In June 2010, the promotion was temporarily closed down due to internal disputes he and his father were having with others in RPW. The company decided to move forward, but not before firing everyone involved in the disputes, including Patrick and Hamilton. A few days later, Patrick signed on to become the general manager of Great Championship Wrestling, an independent promotion based out of Phenix City, Alabama. However, Patrick resigned from GCW after only two weeks.

Promoting (2021–present)
In February 2021, Patrick announced that he was reviving his father's old promotion, Deep South Wrestling. He announced the death of his father on August 3, 2021.

Video games
Patrick is featured in the WWE video game series with appearances in WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008, and WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009.

Job titles

 * Senior Developmental Referee and Referee Trainer
 * National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) Referee
 * Former World Championship Wrestling (WCW) Referee
 * Former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Referee
 * Former Deep South Wrestling (DSW) Referee
 * Former Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) Referee
 * Rampage Pro Wrestling TV Director/General Manager/On-Camera Commissioner/Occasional Special Referee
 * Great Championship Wrestling General Manager
 * Deep South Wrestling Owner/Promoter

Awards

 * Wrestling Observer Newsletter
 * Best Gimmick (1996) – nWo
 * Feud of the Year (1996) New World Order vs. World Championship Wrestling

title: Nick Patrick (referee)