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Carlos Silva (baseball)

Carlos Silva (born April 23, 1979) is a Venezuelan former professional baseball pitcher, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies (2002–2003), Minnesota Twins (2004–2007), Seattle Mariners (2008–2009), and Chicago Cubs (2010).

Philadelphia Phillies
Silva signed with the Philadelphia Phillies as an amateur free agent in 1996. He made his Major League debut in 2002, pitching the entire season out of the bullpen. Silva appeared in 68 games for the Phillies, going 5-0 with a 3.21 ERA and 41 strikeouts. In 2003, he went 3-1 despite an ERA of 4.43 in 62 games and 1 start.

Minnesota Twins
In December 2003, the Twins acquired Silva from Philadelphia along with Nick Punto and Bobby Korecky in exchange for Eric Milton, who had been a staple of the Minnesota rotation since 1998.

With the Twins, Silva made a successful conversion from reliever to starter, in one of the biggest surprises in the 2004 season. He posted a 14–8 mark in 203 innings pitched and finished second in the rotation behind Cy Young winner Johan Santana. In 2005, he induced more double plays (34) than any other pitcher in the majors. In 2005, he set the record for fewest walks allowed per 9 innings in the modern era with an average of .43 BB/9 innings. On May 20, 2005, Silva set a record since 1957 for the fewest pitches thrown (74) in a nine-inning complete game.

In May 2006, Silva was demoted to the bullpen after struggling through the beginning of the season. In June, he re-entered the rotation when the struggling #5 starter, Scott Baker, was demoted to the Twins' Triple-A team in Rochester. He gave up a major-league-worst 1.90 home runs per 9 innings, giving up 38—more than any other major league pitcher, and had a major-league-worst batting average against of .326. In 2006, Silva gave up 38 home runs and allowed only 32 walks. In the previous season, he gave up 25 homers and just 9 walks. These two seasons make up only 15 full all-time seasons in which a pitcher qualifies for the ERA title while giving up more home runs than walks.

Through 2006, Silva posted a 42–32 record with 306 strikeouts and a 4.35 ERA in 743 innings. In 2007, Silva started as the fifth starter behind Johan Santana, Boof Bonser, Ramón Ortiz, and Sidney Ponson. In his final season with the Twins, Silva finished 13-14 in 33 starts with a career high 89 strikeouts.

Silva allowed Frank Thomas's 500th career home run on June 28, 2007, at the Metrodome.

Seattle Mariners
On December 20, 2007, Silva signed a four-year contract with the Seattle Mariners believed to be somewhere between $44 million and $48 million.

In his first full season as a Mariner, Silva posted the worst ERA for a full-time starter in 2008 with a 6.46 ERA in 28 starts. He also spent time on the DL with a sore elbow. He finished 4-15 as he managed to win just one game after the month of April.

Fresh off the WBC, Silva started the 2009 season slower than expected, with very little control over his pitches, and a high ERA. He sat out most of the season with a shoulder injury. Silva returned at near the end of the season for 2 appearances in relief, giving up one run in 0.2 innings to the Yankees on September 19 and one run on September 25 in Toronto in one inning.

Chicago Cubs
On December 18, 2009, Silva was traded along with $9 million to the Chicago Cubs for outfielder Milton Bradley. Silva appeared to have turned his career around early in 2010, becoming the first Cubs starter since 1967 to begin a season with an 8–0 record. Despite fighting a stomach virus on June 7, he held the Pittsburgh Pirates to one run over seven innings, picking up his eighth win of the year in a 6–1 triumph. It was the best start by any Cub pitcher since Ken Holtzman began the 1967 season with nine straight wins. However, his success was very limited for the remainder of the season, and he was cut from the Cubs towards the end of spring training in 2011.

New York Yankees
On April 9, 2011, the New York Yankees signed Silva to a minor league deal. He was released on July 2.

Boston Red Sox
On January 3, 2012, Silva signed a minor league deal with the Boston Red Sox. He was released on March 17.

Pitching style
Silva threw a low 90s sinking fastball, a slider, a changeup, and a splitter. He was known for his relatively quick pace, taking very short breaks between pitches.

Personal life
Silva resides in Medina, Minnesota, with his wife Maria Hermann, son Justin, born June 12, 2007, and daughter Gabriella, born September 8, 2008. A Bowman rookie card of him from 2001 listed his weight at 225 lb. His Topps card from 10 years later listed him at 250 lb.

title: Carlos Silva (baseball)


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Eric Milton

Eric Robert Milton (born August 4, 1975) is an American former Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher who played for several teams between 1998 and 2009, and is currently the head coach at Severna Park High School.

Amateur career
A native of State College, Pennsylvania, Milton graduated from Bellefonte Area High School in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania and attended the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1996 while at Maryland, Milton played collegiate summer baseball for the Falmouth Commodores of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL). A league all-star, he held opponents to a .105 batting average and set a league record with his microscopic 0.21 ERA. In 2004, Milton was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame.

Minnesota Twins
Milton was selected by the New York Yankees in the 1st round (20th pick) of the 1996 Major League Baseball draft; he was drafted as a compensation pick from the California Angels for the signing of Randy Velarde. He played one season in the Yankees minor league system. The New York Yankees traded Milton, Cristian Guzmán, Brian Buchanan, and Danny Mota to the Minnesota Twins for Chuck Knoblauch on February 6, 1998.

He made his Major League debut on April 5, 1998, for the Twins against the Kansas City Royals, working six scoreless innings to pick up the victory. He was 8–14 in his debut season with a 5.64 ERA in 32 starts.

On September 11, 1999, he struck out 13 batters in pitching a 7–0 no-hitter against the Anaheim Angels, the fifth no-hitter in Twins history. He finished the season with an ERA a full run lower than in his previous season, lowering it to 4.49 in 34 starts. He also completed 5 games with 2 shutouts.

In 2000, Milton went 13–10 in 33 starts. He led the team in wins.

In 2001, Milton enjoyed the best season of his career, going 15–7 with a career low 4.32 ERA and pitching in a career high 220 innings.

In 2002, Milton made just 29 starts due to injury. He walked a career low 30 batters, he finished the season 13–9 with a 4.84 ERA in a career low 171 innings. He was limited to 3 starts in 2003 due to a knee injury.

With Minnesota, Milton had a record of 57–51, with 715 strikeouts and a 4.76 ERA, and was selected to the 2001 AL All-Star team. He went 1–0 with a 1.65 ERA with the Twins in the 2002 and 2003 playoffs, and was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for pitcher Carlos Silva and infielder Nick Punto following the 2003 season.

Philadelphia Phillies
Milton led the Phillies in wins, starts and strikeouts in 2004, going 14–6 with a 4.75 ERA and 171 strikeouts in 34 starts. He took a no-hitter into the 9th inning on July 25 against the Cubs but lost it before recording an out.

Cincinnati Reds
At the end of the 2004 season, he signed a three-year, $25 million contract as a free agent with Cincinnati. His record in 2005 with Cincinnati was 8–15 with a 6.47 ERA, one of the worst ERA's for a full-time starter in NL history. The following season, Milton lowered his ERA to 5.19 despite giving up 29 home runs in 26 starts. He finished 8–8 in just 26 starts after missing 3 weeks to repair a torn cartilage in his left knee.

After lingering elbow problems in 2007, Milton underwent Tommy John surgery after just 4 starts, ending his season.

Due to his poor performance and high contract, NPR of Minnesota called him a bust, ESPN named him to their all-overpaid team, and Sports Illustrated named him as the only pitcher on their all bust team, noting he gave up one home run per 11.9 batters.

New York Yankees
He left the Reds as a free agent after the 2007 season and went unsigned due to his injury history until signing a minor league deal with the New York Yankees on July 11, 2008. He never pitched for any of the Yankees minor league teams during 2008 however and was shortly released.

Los Angeles Dodgers
Milton signed a minor league contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers on February 10, 2009 with an invitation to spring training. He did not make the Major League team and was assigned to the AAA Albuquerque Isotopes to open the season. In 7 starts with the Isotopes, Milton was 3–2 with a 2.83 ERA. His contract was purchased by the Dodgers on May 14 and on May 16, Milton made his first appearance in the Major leagues since 2007 when he started for the Dodgers against the Florida Marlins.

On May 26, Milton made his second start of the season for the Dodgers against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. He worked five innings in the Dodgers 7–1 victory, recording his first Major League win since September 12, 2006. He made a total of five starts for the Dodgers, with a 2–1 record and a 3.80 ERA.

His season ended when he underwent surgery to remove a herniated disk on July 14.

Coaching
Milton joined the Maryland Terrapins baseball program in September 2011 as an assistant coach. On June 28, 2012, Milton was named the interim head coach of the Terrapins after head coach Erik Bakich left to take the head coaching position at the University of Michigan.

Eric was named Head Coach of the Severna Park High School Baseball team in 2013. He coached his oldest son, Kody during the 2015 - 2018 seasons, coming close to winning the State Championship during his son's senior season

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

title: Eric Milton


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Ajen Yohl Mat

Ajen Yohl Mat also known as Aj Neʼ Ohl Mat, Ac Kan and Ahl Lawal Mat, (died August 8, 612) was an ajaw of the Maya city-state of Palenque. He acceded to the throne on January 1, 605 and ruled until his death. He was probably the son of Yohl Ikʼnal or Sak Kʼukʼ and the brother of Janahb Pakal or Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I. During his reign, his kingdom was invaded on April 4, 611 by Scroll Serpent, ruler of the Kaan kingdom (Calakmul).

title: Ajen Yohl Mat


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Lawrence Dallaglio

Lorenzo Bruno Nero Dallaglio (born 10 August 1972), known as Lawrence Dallaglio, is an English retired rugby union player, former captain of England, and 2016 inductee of the World Rugby Hall of Fame.

Dallaglio played as a flanker or number eight for London Wasps and never played for another club, having arrived at Sudbury as a teenager. Playing in all three positions in the back row, he won 85 caps for England, and was part of the team that won the 2003 World Cup. He is one of a very small number of players to have won both the Rugby World Cup and Sevens World Cup. He went on three tours with the British & Irish Lions, winning three caps.

Dallaglio now regularly works as a pundit on television rugby coverage and on radio.

Early life
Dallaglio was born in Shepherd's Bush, London. He was educated at King's House School in Richmond and boarded at Ampleforth College where he was affectionately known as "Del Boy", (though he actually attained his A-levels at The Oxford School of Learning), and at Kingston University to study Property Development. His sister Francesca, a 19-year-old student ballerina, died in the Marchioness disaster in 1989.

In 1985, as a 12-year-old chorister in the King's House School choir, Dallaglio and 20 other choristers sang backing vocals on the song "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Tina Turner. This only became known in 2005, when the Musicians' Union, having realised that the choristers had not been paid royalties on the record, attempted to track them down. As part of the same choir, Dallaglio sang at the wedding of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Because Dallaglio's father, Vincenzo, is Italian, and his English-born mother, Eileen, was of Irish descent he was eligible to play for both Italy and Ireland, as well as England, and in the early 1990s he turned down an invitation to play for Ireland.

Club career
In 1998 Dallaglio became club captain when Dean Ryan and Rob Andrew left for Newcastle in October 1995, taking four experienced players with them. Dallaglio held the team together and 12 months later led Wasps to the first English league title of the professional era.

Dallaglio had a good season in 1999–2000, when he regained the club captaincy. Although Wasps' league form was disappointing, he led them to the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup and to a second successive Tetley's Bitter Cup victory.

Dallaglio returned from an ankle injury early in the 2006–07 domestic season to reclaim the club captaincy at Wasps, but an indifferent Guinness Premiership season ended with them failing to qualify for the play-offs for the first time since the introduction of the knockout system. However, Dallaglio and his teammates saved their best performances for the Heineken Cup; he led the club to its second European championship win on 20 May 2007. The final, played at Twickenham, set a world record for the highest attendance figure for a club rugby match (at around 82,000). Wasps' opponents, Leicester Tigers had already won the EDF Energy Cup and the Guinness Premiership trophies and were favourites to achieve an unprecedented Treble, especially as they had beaten Wasps 40–26 at Welford Road less than a month earlier, but it was Wasps who emerged as victors, winning the game 25–9.

"Everyone was telling us this was the best Leicester team ever, so that must make us the best Wasps team ever. To win this competition once is fantastic, so I'm delighted to win it again, and it puts us in a very elite group of clubs who have done that. It shows what we are about. Leicester Tigers have had a fantastic season and the strength and depth to compete on three fronts. They have done that fantastically well, but we targeted this competition at the start of the season and we've won. The way you win these games is with belief. We had the media saying we were second best in the scrum, line out, defence and the back three, but we had belief in our team and I think that's half the battle against Leicester. I think we showed maturity in the way we played in the second half to make sure Leicester didn't score a single point let alone a try, and that says everything about our defence. If you defend well at the highest level you win trophies."

In the following season he joined London Wasps late because of the Rugby World Cup. He returned to find London Wasps struggling near the bottom of the Guinness Premiership. Wasps fortunes quickly changed. They made it through the group in the EDF Cup, and started climbing up the table. Despite this good form in domestic competitions, they narrowly failed to make it out of their Heineken Cup group. They lost out to Munster, the eventual winners, but could have made it out if they had beaten them in Ireland in the final matchday of pool play.

They soon hit top form in the Premiership, winning game after game. They reached the play-offs and drew a home match against Bath. They won the game 21-6, but lost rising star Danny Cipriani to an injury. Leicester Tigers beat Gloucester to qualify for the Premiership final. This match was to be Lawrence Dallaglio's last match, and it was to be played in front of a capacity crowd of 81,600 at Twickenham. They were made to fight, but eventually won 26-16. Dallaglio later claimed it was Wasps' greatest Premiership title, noting the damaging effect the Rugby World Cup had on their squad.

In the 67th minute of the Premiership final, Dallaglio was substituted, and received a standing ovation by the sell out crowd.

Dallaglio made a sly appearance, at blindside flanker, for London Wasps "A" Team in the Guinness A League on 8 September 2008. He was getting game time before he captained an England XV for the Help For Heroes game at Twickenham on 20 September later that month.

International
Dallaglio was a member of the inaugural World Cup Sevens-winning squad with England in 1993.

He was then a surprise choice for the 1994 England tour to South Africa. Yet the following winter he was not guaranteed a place in Wasps' back-row. He made his debut for England in November 1995 as a substitute against the Springboks and toured South Africa as a member of the 1997 British & Irish Lions squad. He was given the England captaincy in the autumn of 1997 by new coach Clive Woodward, taking over from Phil de Glanville. The other candidate for the job, Martin Johnson, had led the Lions tour, but Dallaglio was preferred.

2003 Rugby World Cup
After another strong season in 2000–01, he was selected for his second Lions tour, but an injury in the last game of the domestic season, against Bath, meant he was doubtful for the trip to Australia. The Lions passed him fit but the knee gave way in a mid-week match, cutting short his tour and forcing him to undergo reconstructive surgery.

Dallaglio was a key member of England's 2003 Grand Slam and World Cup-winning side, being the only player to play in every minute of England's World Cup campaign. With the World Cup win, he became one of the two players – the other being England scrum half Matt Dawson – to have won the World Cup in both the 15- and 7-a-side competitions.

Dallaglio was re-appointed as captain after Martin Johnson retired. In August 2004, Dallaglio announced his retirement from the national team due to "the brutal demands of international rugby" but after being selected for the 2005 British & Irish Lions tour to New Zealand he changed his mind and made himself available for international selection again.

He regained the captaincy in 2004 after Johnson's retirement from international rugby, but without Johnson the team played poorly, and Dallaglio announced his retirement from international rugby on 31 August 2004.

Despite his international retirement, Dallaglio was called up for his third Lions tour in 2005 but he fractured his ankle during the first tour match, against Bay of Plenty on 4 June, and did not play again during the tour.

2007 Rugby World Cup
At the end of 2005, Dallaglio announced that he was making himself available again for England selection and he was included in the squad for the 2006 Six Nations Championship. He was named on the bench for England's opening match of the tournament against Wales on 4 February at Twickenham. He was a blood replacement for clubmate Joe Worsley after 13 minutes and on 64 minutes was a replacement for Martin Corry, touching down with a clinically executed charge from the back of the scrum on 70 minutes. He gained three more caps off the bench during the tournament, but did not play in the last game of the championship, when England lost 28–24 to Ireland.

Dallaglio continued to play for England, especially in the number eight position, forming – with Neil Back and Richard Hill – the Hill, Back, Dallaglio back-row trio affectionately nicknamed the Holy Trinity.

On 15 June 2007, Dallaglio was one of 47 players chosen by England coach Brian Ashton to attend a pre-World Cup training camp and he was later named in the 30-man World Cup squad, alongside Joe Worsley and Jason Robinson, who were also veterans of England's 2003 Rugby World Cup success. Dallaglio said "The fans can expect this England team to give absolutely everything and play with an enormous amount of passion and pride."

England started poorly in the tournament, with an unconvincing 28–10 victory over the United States and a 36–0 loss to eventual champions South Africa. Dallaglio started the first game at number eight, but was dropped for the South Africa match in favour of Nick Easter, who became first choice for the rest of the tournament. Following the loss to South Africa, England began to improve steadily and, against most expectations, reached the final, where they lost a closely fought game. The improvement in performance was credited to the influence of a number of senior players, including Dallaglio (who made a number of appearances off the bench) and Mike Catt.

Soon after the World Cup tournament, Dallaglio and Catt each published an autobiography that was serialised in a major newspaper. Both players were highly critical of coach Brian Ashton's performance. Many commentators questioned the wisdom of making public criticisms so soon after the tournament and Dallaglio later issued a clarification and partial apology.

Captaincy
Warren Gatland has said that Dallaglio was "The best captain that I’ve ever been involved with."

Retirement
On 3 January 2008, Dallaglio announced that he was retiring from international rugby with immediate effect and from domestic rugby at the end of the current season; he also stated that he would like to take up coaching in the future. At the end to his career, Wasps won the 2008 Premiership Final on 31 May 2008 in front of a capacity crowd of 81,600 at Twickenham, then a world rugby union record attendance for a club match.

Drugs scandal
On 24 May 1999 Dallaglio resigned as England's rugby union captain following allegations in the News of the World that he had used and been a dealer in hard drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy. The newspaper also reported that Dallaglio had boasted about taking drugs at a party during the Lions tour to South Africa, in 1997.

Dallaglio "categorically denied" the newspaper's claim that he had dealt in drugs and said he had been the victim of "an elaborate set-up". In response, News of the World editor Phil Hall said: "We stand by our story. Lawrence Dallaglio is damned in his own words and, frankly, we are amazed at his denial."

England coach Clive Woodward, who was one of a panel of senior Rugby Football Union (RFU) officials who met Dallaglio to investigate the matter, said he was "bitterly disappointed" for the player and his family but was confident he would be "proved innocent". The RFU undertook their own investigation to assess the veracity of the claims and Leicester lock and British & Irish Lions skipper Martin Johnson was appointed to replace Dallaglio as England captain. Dallaglio was later fined £15,000 plus costs by the RFU for the incident.

Post-retirement
Dallaglio was an analyst for ITV's coverage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup. He co-commentated with Nick Mullins in the semi-final between Australia and New Zealand. He followed this up with a similar role in 2015.

Charitable work
Dallaglio captained the Help for Heroes XV at a charity match in Twickenham. The side, which included former England Internationals Will Greenwood, Jason Robinson and former England Team Manager Martin Johnson, defeated the International XV led by former Wales captain Scott Gibbs. Dallaglio ended the match by kicking the final conversion, bringing the score to 29–10. In front of a 52,254-strong crowd at Twickenham the game raised approximately £1.3 million for Help for Heroes.

Following the success of his testimonial year, Dallaglio set himself the challenge of raising half a million pounds for charity, and with help and support from colleagues, friends and family the total ended up being over a million pounds, which was contributed to various charitable causes.

In summer 2008, he cycled 933 km across the Pyrenees as part of a team of 30 cyclists, raising £435,000 for Bliss, the special care baby charity. Starting out in Biarritz and finishing in Banyuls, he was joined by former rugby union footballer Damian Hopley and ski expert Warren Smith.

After his mother Eileen died of cancer in 2008, Lawrence set up Dallaglio RugbyWorks in 2009.

Rugbyworks' inaugural event 8 Rocks 2009 raised over £600,000. The charity expanded significantly and made close to £10 million in total by 2013. In 2011 Dallaglio wanted to redefine the focus of the charity, and created a social inclusion programme. Dallaglio RugbyWorks is an intensive, long-term skills development programme based on rugby, through which the aim is to get teenagers who have been excluded from mainstream education into sustained education, employment or training.

In February 2010, Dallaglio embarked on a cycle ride from Rome to Edinburgh during the RBS 6 Nations Championship to raise money for Sport Relief and Dallaglio RugbyWorks. The Dallaglio Cycle Slam took place over the course of a month, seeing a team, including former Arsenal FC and England football international Lee Dixon cycling through all of the RBS 6 Nations countries, taking in each of the international rugby stadia along the way. The aim was to raise £1 million, net proceeds of which were split equally between Sport Relief and the newly formed Dallaglio RugbyWorks, whose beneficiaries include Cancer Research UK, DebRA, Leukaemia Research, Help for Heroes and the RPA Benevolent Fund.

In 2012, Dallaglio joined forces with former England cricketer Andrew Flintoff for the Dallaglio Flintoff Cycle Slam 2012. They were joined by former footballers Lee Dixon and Graeme Le Saux, and a number of other celebrities and members of the public in a bid to cycle from Olympia in Greece, covering 521 km to the Olympic stadium in Stratford, London. The Dallaglio Flintoff Cycle Slam 2012 raised over two million pounds for Cancer Research UK and Great Ormond Street Hospital via Dallaglio RugbyWorks and the AF Foundation with a portion of the money raised going to Virgin Unite, Virgin’s non-profit arm.

In 2014, Dallaglio led the third Dallaglio Cycle Slam from Treviso in Italy cycling over 2,300 km to Twickenham Stadium. The challenge raised over £650,000 for Dallaglio RugbyWorks and Teenage Cancer Trust.

In 2016, Dallaglio was joined by 160 riders from San Sebastien to Andorra, Barcelona, Majorca and Ibiza, over 2,000 km. The event raised over £1 million for Dallaglio RugbyWorks.

In 2018, 300 cyclists including rugby player Austin Healey, Andrew Ridgeley from Wham! and actor John Hannah also participated in the Dallaglio Cycle Slam.

Personal life
Dallaglio married his long-time girlfriend, Alice, in 2005. They have two daughters, Ella and Josie, and a son, Enzo.

Already a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

He has also received an Honorary Doctorate from Buckinghamshire New University for services to sport. The Doctorate was conferred on 12 September 2008.

Honours

 * Wasps
 * Premiership 1996–97, 2002–03, 2003–04, 2004–05, 2007–08
 * Powergen Cup 1998–99, 1999–00, 2005–06
 * Heineken Cup 2003–04, 2006–07
 * Parker Pen Challenge Cup 2002–03

 * England
 * Six Nations Championship:
 * Winner (4): 1996, 2000, 2001, 2003
 * Grand Slam:
 * Winner (1): 2003
 * Triple Crown:
 * Winner (5): 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003
 * World Cup:
 * Winner (1): 2003
 * World Cup Sevens:
 * Winner (1): 1993

 * Lions
 * South Africa 1997
 * Australia 2001
 * New Zealand 2005

 * World Rugby Hall of Fame
 * Inducted in 2016

title: Lawrence Dallaglio


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Delvaux (company)

Delvaux is a Belgian manufacturer of fine leather luxury goods founded in 1829 by Charles Delvaux. The company is the oldest fine leather luxury goods house in the world.

History
In 1829, a year before Belgium declared its independence, Charles Delvaux opened a travel goods workshop and store in Brussels, Belgium.

In 1883, Delvaux was granted the title of "Official purveyor to the Royal Court of Belgium” as it started supplying leather goods to Belgium’s royalty.

In 1908, Delvaux filed its first patents for handbags.

Delvaux is a warrant holder to the Court of Belgium.

The house went into a gradual decline at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1933 an agricultural engineer with no experience in leather goods, Franz Schwennicke, took over the company from Edmond Delvaux, the last of the Delvaux family line. While keeping the manufacturing of travel goods, he progressively introduced a new concept for the time, the creation of seasonal collections, as is still done to this day.

For the 1958 Brussels World Fair, Delvaux introduced the "Le Brillant" handbag, designed by Paule Goethals. The range-topping "Le Brillant", still produced today, marked the first time the brand would create a product displaying the brand logo, in this case a buckle in the shape of a "D" letter.

When Franz Schwennicke died in 1970, his wife Solange succeeded him, focusing on strengthening the creativity and expanding internationally. A light holdall model, the "Le Pin" was introduced to meet the needs of the new generation of career women who were looking for larger handbags to carry their accessories and personal effects.

In 1988, a second workshop opened to meet rising demand, this time in Bourg-Argental, France.

At the end of the 80s, François Schwennicke, the eldest son of Franz and Solange, became Executive Chairman.

In 1994, the headquarters were moved back to Brussels, this time to the former arsenal of the Belgian Army on Boulevard Louis Schmidt. L'Arsenal was designed by Henri van Dievoet, a Belgian architect strongly inspired by Art Nouveau.

The 180th anniversary of Delvaux was celebrated in 2009 and that milestone became the title of a book by Judah Hettie and Véronique Pouillard and the title of an exhibition at the Fashion Museum of Antwerp.

In 2011, the investment arm of the Fung Group, First Heritage Brands, took a majority stake in the company with the ambition to further grow it internationally.

In 2021, the company was acquired by the Swiss Conglomerate, Compagnie Financiere Richemont S.A.

Products
Delvaux creates two collections per year, Spring-Summer and Autumn-Winter. Each collection sees the introduction of new materials and new colors.

The current major lines of women's bags: "Le Brillant" (designed in 1958), "Le Tempête" (1967), "Le Madame" (1977) and "Le Pin" (1972). Other designs include "Le Simplissime" (1969), "Le Givry" (1977), and "Le Louise" (1973).

In 2014, a line of men's bags was added.

In 2016, Delvaux launched "Le Mutin" (2016), inspired by "Le Chasseresse", a Delvaux design of 1962.

In 2017, the Maison created the "Miniatures Belgitude " (2017), a collection of 7 miniature versions of "Le Brillant", each representing a symbol of Belgium, celebrating the origins of the house.

In 2018, Delvaux introduced "Le Cool Box" (2018) and "Le D to D" (2018).

Delvaux also creates small leather goods, custom jewellery and scarves.

Since 1938, each new model is entered into a Gold Book alongside its detailed description and the name of its designer.

Boutiques
Delvaux operates about 10 stores in Belgium with its flagship boutique being "Le 27" at 27, Boulevard de Waterloo in Brussels, Belgium.

In 2014, Delvaux opened its first international flagship boutiques in Paris, Tokyo and London. In 2018 Delvaux opened a second boutique in London on Sloane Street, as well as its first boutique in Italy, in Milan.

In January 2019 Delvaux also opened its first American flagship in New York City, on the fabled Fifth Avenue at the corner of 59th Street, on Manhattan's elegant Upper East Side, overlooking Central Park. The boutique is situated in the Sherry-Netherland building, at the former site of A La Vieille Russie.

Delvaux operates 42 stores in the world, including doors in Belgium, England, Italy, the United States, China and Japan.

It is otherwise distributed through specialty and department stores in Australia, Austria, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom and the United States.

title: Delvaux (company)


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Media Matters for America

Media Matters for America (MMfA) is a non-profit left-leaning watchdog journalism organization. It was founded in 2004 by journalist and political activist David Brock as a counterweight to the conservative Media Research Center. It seeks to spotlight "conservative misinformation" in the U.S. media; its methods include issuing reports and quick responses. Two example initiatives include the "Drop Fox" campaign (2011-2013) that sought to discredit Fox News' "fair and balanced" claims; and a 2023 report about X (formerly Twitter) that highlighted antisemitism on the platform.

Founding
Media Matters for America was founded in May 2004 by David Brock, a former conservative journalist. Brock said that a central goal would be to monitor journalists and outlets for misleading conservative claims and then to point them out. Brock argued that existing conservative monitoring groups had been doing this and pushing mainstream journalists, the media, and American politics, to the right as a result. Brock founded the group with help from the Center for American Progress.

Funding
In 2004, MMfA began with the help of $2 million in donations. That year MMfA received the endorsement of the Democracy Alliance, a partnership of wealthy and politically active progressive donors. The Alliance itself does not fund endorsees, but many wealthy Alliance members acted on the endorsement and donated directly to MMfA. In 2010, George Soros donated $1 million to MMfA citing concerns that the "incendiary rhetoric of Fox News hosts may incite violence." During a 2014 CNN interview, David Brock stated that Soros' contributions were "less than 10 percent" of Media Matters' budget.

Personnel
John Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, provided office space for Media Matters early in its formation at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank which Podesta established in 2002. Hillary Clinton advised Media Matters in its early stages out of a belief that progressives should follow conservatives in forming think tanks and advocacy groups to support their political goals. According to The New York Times, Media Matters "helped lay the groundwork" for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

Media Matters has hired several of the best known political professionals who have worked for Democratic politicians and for other progressive groups. In 2004, National Review referred to MMfA staffers who had recently worked on the presidential campaigns of John Edwards and Wesley Clark, for Congressman Barney Frank, and for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Eric E. Burns served as MMfA's president until 2011. Burns was succeeded by Matt Butler, and then, in 2013, by Bradley Beychok. In late 2016, Angelo Carusone replaced Bradley Beychok as MMfA's president. Under Carusone, the organization's focus has shifted toward focusing on the alt-right, conspiracy theories, and fake news.

In 2014, the staff of Media Matters voted to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Initially, Media Matters management had declined to recognize the union through a card check process, instead exercising its right to force a union election which delayed the process until July when the vote went in favor of unionization.

In May 2024, a dozen staffers at Media Matters were laid off amid a series of lawsuits and legal investigations by Elon Musk and Republican state attorneys general.

Early research
Media Matters analyzes American news sources from networks and channels to websites, including NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, OAN, Breitbart and Fox News, as well as conservative talk radios. Its techniques include content analysis, fact checking, monitoring, and comparison of quotes or presentations from media figures to primary documents such as Pentagon or Government Accountability Office reports.

Beginning in 2006, Media Matters for America has released a number of studies which documented that Democrats and progressives were outnumbered by Republicans and conservatives in terms of guest appearances on television news programs.

On September 12, 2007, Media Matters released a comprehensive study of 1,377 U.S. newspapers and the 201 syndicated political columnists the papers carry on a regular basis. Media Matters said "in paper after paper, state after state, and region after region, conservative syndicated columnists get more space than their progressive counterparts." John Diaz, an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, cautioned that the small town columnists leaned significantly to the right, which he felt could explain the rightward slant in columnists even if the trend doesn't hold for papers with the largest readership.

"Misinformer of the Year"
An annual feature on the Media Matters website is the title of "Misinformer of the Year", which is given to the journalist, commentator, or network that Media Matters contends was responsible for the most factual errors or claims. Past recipients include Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Bannon.

Progressive Talent Initiative
The initiative seeks to train mid-career liberal pundits in media skills like TV interviews using four-day bootcamps.

Media Matters Action Network
In 2010 David Brock established Media Matters Action Network, a 501(c)(4), to track conservative politicians and organizations.

In 2009, Media Matters Action Network launched the Conservative Transparency website, aimed at tracking the funding of conservative activist organizations. Media Matters Action Network established the Political Correction project with the goal of holding conservative politicians and advocacy groups accountable.

In December 2010, Media Matters Action Network started EqualityMatters.org, a site "in support of gay equality". At launch the site fully incorporated Media Matters's content on LGBT issues. Designed to provide talking points for liberal activists and politicians, Brock set up the Message Matters project. Media Matters runs the website DropFox.com and works to get advertisers to boycott Fox News. One target, Orbitz, initially referred to Media Matters' efforts as a "smear campaign", but agreed, on June 9, 2011, following a three-week effort by prominent LGBT organizations, to "review the policies and process used to evaluate where advertising is placed". In 2015, the formal Equality Matters program was deactivated and merged with the LGBT Program within Media Matters.

American Bridge 21st Century
Brock established American Bridge 21st Century as a super PAC focused on opposition research in 2010.

Don Imus
On April 4, 2007, Media Matters posted a video clip of Don Imus calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team members "nappy-headed hoes" and made their discovery known in Media Matters' daily e-mailing to hundreds of journalists. According to The Wall Street Journal, top news outlets didn't mention the incident until objections made to CBS Radio by the National Association of Black Journalists led to an on-the-air apology from Imus. MSNBC, calling Imus's comments "racist" and "abhorrent", suspended Imus' show, and within minutes, CBS suspended Imus's radio show. The Wall Street Journal said Imus's apology "seemed to make matters worse, with critics latching on to Mr. Imus's use of the phrase 'you people.'" Included among those dissatisfied with Imus's apology and suspension were the coach of the Rutgers team and a group of MSNBC African-American employees. After Procter & Gamble pulled advertising from all of MSNBC's daytime schedule, and other advertisers, including General Motors and American Express requested CBS to cancel any upcoming advertising they had bought for Imus in the Morning, MSNBC and CBS dropped Imus's show.

Rush Limbaugh "phony soldiers"
In September 2007, Media Matters reported on radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh saying Iraq War veterans opposed to the war were "the phony soldiers". Limbaugh later said he was speaking of only one soldier, Jesse Macbeth, who had falsely claimed to have been decorated for valor but had never seen combat. Limbaugh said he was the victim of a "smear" by Media Matters, which had taken out of context and selectively edited his comments. After Limbaugh published what he said was the entire transcript of phony soldiers discussion, Media Matters reported that over a minute and 30 seconds was omitted without "notation or ellipsis to indicate that there is, in fact, a break in the transcript." Limbaugh told National Review that the gap between referring to "phony soldiers" and MacBeth was a delay because his staff printed out an ABC news story that reported on what it called "phony soldiers" and that his transcript and audio edits were "for space and relevance reasons, not to hide anything."

The Associated Press, CNN, and ABC reported on the controversy, as political satirist and fictional pundit Stephen Colbert lampooned Limbaugh and his defenders saying: "Hey, Media Matters, you want to end offensive speech? Then stop recording it for people who would be offended."

Bill O'Reilly Harlem restaurant
In October 2007 television and radio host and commentator Bill O'Reilly said a Media Matters headline declaring "O'Reilly surprised 'there was no difference' between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants" took out of context comments he made regarding a pleasant dinner he shared with Al Sharpton at a Harlem restaurant. O'Reilly said Media Matters misleadingly took comments spoken five minutes apart and presented them as one. On NBC's Today, Media Matters senior fellow Paul Waldman said Media Matters had included "the full audio, the full transcript, nothing was taken out of context".

Laura Schlessinger racial slur
On August 12, 2010, Media Matters reported that radio host Laura Schlessinger said the word "nigger" eleven times during a discussion with an African-American woman, although Schlessinger did not use the word as a slur. Schlessinger continued to say the word after the caller took offense, saying she thought the woman was being too sensitive and that a double standard was being used to determine who could say the word. Schlessinger also said that those "hypersensitive" about color should not "marry outside of their race". The caller had earlier in the discussion said her husband was white. Schlessinger apologized for the epithet the day after the broadcast. A joint statement of Media Matters and other organizations noted that although Schlessinger "attempted to apologize for using the epithet, the racist diatribe on Tuesday's show extends far beyond the use of a single word" and urged advertisers to boycott her show. After General Motors, OnStar, and Motel 6 pulled their advertising, Schlessinger said she would not renew her syndication contract set to expire December 2010. In January 2011, her show resumed on satellite radio.

Schlessinger held Media Matters responsible for the boycott, which she called a typical tactic of the group to fulfill its "sole purpose of silencing people". She said the boycotts' "threat of attack on my advertisers and stations" had violated her First Amendment free speech rights. Media Matters said that, as the boycott was not "government-sanctioned censorship", her First Amendment rights had not been violated.

"Drop Fox" campaign
During an interview in March 2011, Brock said MMfA would focus its efforts on Fox News and select conservative websites in a new strategy that Brock described as a campaign of "guerrilla warfare and sabotage" and a "war on Fox." MMfA said the greater attention given to Fox News was part of an initiative to educate the public about what it regarded as the distortions of conservative media, and the greater attention given to Fox News was in line with its prominence. MMfA said its Drop Fox initiative, for advertisers to boycott Fox, was also part of the organization's educational mission. MMfA said that changing Fox, not shutting it down, was its intention.

In December 2013, MMfA's then-Executive Vice President Angelo Carusone said "The war on Fox is over. And it's not just that it's over, but it was very successful. To a large extent, we won," claiming to have "effectively discredited the network's desire to be seen as 'fair and balanced.'" Around that time, Glenn Beck had departed the network and Sean Hannity's time slot was moved from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Other boycotts of cable news programs continued after the campaign, with PolitiFact suggesting that the boycotts are more successful in raising awareness than having an impact on the companies' bottom-line.

Tucker Carlson audio recordings
In March 2019, MMfA released audio recordings of Fox News host Tucker Carlson, in which he made remarks demeaning to women between 2006 and 2011 on the call-in show hosted by shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge. Among other comments, Carlson called rape shield laws "unfair", defended Mormon fundamentalist church leader Warren Jeffs, who had been charged of child sexual assault, and called women "extremely primitive". After Carlson's remarks had been widely reported, Carlson tweeted: "Media Matters caught me saying something naughty on a radio show more than a decade ago" and declined to apologize. The following day, MMfA released a second set of audio recordings in which Carlson referred to Iraqis as "semiliterate primitive monkeys" and said they "don't use toilet paper or forks." Carlson also suggested that immigrants to the U.S. should be "hot" or "really smart" and that white men "created civilization".

The Daily Caller, which Carlson co-founded, responded by resurfacing blog posts made by MMfA's president Angelo Carusone. These blog posts included derogatory comments about transvestites, Jews, and people from Japan and Bangladesh. Carusone responded by saying that the posts were supposed to be a "caricature of what a right wing blowhard would sound like if he was living my life" and apologized for the "gross" remarks.

Misinformation on social media
Media Matters analyzed Donald Trump's Facebook posts from 2020 and early 2021 and flagged 1/4 of them as containing misinformation or extremist rhetoric.

Antisemitism on X (formerly Twitter)
In November 2023, Media Matters published analysis indicating that advertisements of major firms such as IBM were being displayed on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) next to user posts containing antisemitic content, including praise for Adolf Hitler and Nazis. Several prominent companies suspended their advertising on the platform in reaction to the study and to some of Musk's recent posts.

X Corp. owner Elon Musk filed a suit in a Texas court alleging Media Matters defamed the platform with the intention of hurting its advertising revenues. According to the lawsuit, the group designed account interactions in order to obtain specific advertising placements. Media Matters called the complaint frivolous and an attempt to silence their reporting. On the same day as the lawsuit was filed, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into Media Matters for "potentially fraudulent activity", stating that his goal was "to ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations". Media Matters filed suit against Paxton in federal court days later, alleging he had violated the First Amendment to chill the group's work and engaged in unlawful retaliation to punish the group. In December 2023, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey opened a similar investigation into Media Matters. Legal experts have criticized Musk's lawsuit, deeming it "frivolous" or "bogus", and saying that it contradicts the First Amendment.

RealClearPolitics reported in December 2023 that Musk said to Alex Jones during a Twitter Spaces discussion:

"Media Matters is an evil propaganda machine, so I am opposed to evil propaganda machines, so we are suing them in every country where they operate. And we will pursue, not just that organization, but anyone funding that organization. I want to be clear about that, anyone funding that organization. Media Matters is an evil propaganda machine. Media Matters can go to hell, and I hope they do."

Reception
Columnists and writers such as Paul Krugman and the late Molly Ivins cited Media Matters or identified it as a helpful source.

In 2008, columnist Jacques Steinberg of The New York Times quoted David Folkenflik of National Public Radio as telling him that although Media Matters has a partisan slant they were still a useful source for leads, partly due to their broad research. Steinberg said the right already had similar outlets looking for stories and feeding them to reporters, and that Media Matters has effectively filled a void on the left. He notes that some journalists like Stuart Rothenberg prefer non-partisan sources. A 2010 opinion piece by "M. S." on the blog of The Economist magazine argued that it carries no weight with conservatives due to its mostly critiquing conservative outlets.

Some object to the organization focusing its efforts to fact-check conservatives more than liberal commentators. Media Matters also received some criticism as being too supportive of Hillary Clinton before and during her 2016 presidential bid.

title: Media Matters for America


text:
Reading Town F.C.

Reading Town Football Club were a semi-professional English football club in the Hellenic League Division One East, based in Reading, Berkshire. It was affiliated to the Berks & Bucks Football Association.

The club previously played in the Combined Counties Football League, but with the agreement of the leagues involved, swapped places with Badshot Lea in time for the start of the 2008–09 season.

History
The club was formed in 1966 as Lower Burghfield and started life in the Reading Combination League. In the early 1980s they were the Premier Division Champions on four occasions, with the 1983–84 season seeing them not just win the league, but three league cup competitions too. The next season saw them move to the Reading & District League where they finished as runners-up in the Premier Division and went on to win the Reading Senior Cup. The 1985–86 season saw them once again finish as runners-up in the Premier Division, but this time around they had to settle for runners-up in the Reading Senior Cup. During their time in the Reading leagues the club changed its name several times, being known as XL United, Vincents United and finally Reading Garage.

In 1989–90 they joined the Premier Division of the Chiltonian League, and changed their name from Reading Garage to I T S Reading. In 1993–94 they changed their name to Reading Town and relocated to their final home of Scours Lane. The 1994–95 season saw the team win the Premier Division Championship, and gain promotion to the Combined Counties Football League. Their first season in the Combined counties league the club finished midtable but went on to win the Berks & Bucks FA Senior Trophy, beating Lambourn Sports in the final. Floodlights were installed the following season and the team reached the final of the Berks & Bucks FA Senior Trophy again, but were beaten in final by Abingdon United. That season also saw the club enter the FA Vase for the first time, where they reached the 4th Round, before succumbing to beaten semi-finalists Banstead Athletic.

The 1997–98 campaign saw the club finish as runners-up in the league, losing out to Ashford Town. That season also saw them enter the FA Cup for the first time in their history, entering at the preliminary qualification round, where they were knocked out by Waterlooville. At the start of 2001–02 season Town appointed former Manchester United and England star Neil Webb as Manager. However Webb was unable to transfer his success as a player to the management role and after a poor start to the season he resigned in November.

Twenty-three-year-old Colin Millard was made the manager for the 2002–03 campaign Town, and stayed with the club until the end of the 2006–07 to become Assistant manager at Bracknell Town. The club then appointed Neil Goff and Glenn Goudie as joint managers of the club for the 2007–08 season. Goff was the former assistant manager of Reading Town when Millard was in charge; Goudie's previous role at the club was the goalkeeping and defensive coach, he was also the former manager of Royal Mail FC in the Reading Football League. In September 2007 Millard resigned as Assistant Manager at Bracknell Town and was re-appointed as Manager, with Goudie and Goff reverting to the position of Joint Assistant Managers.

In June 2008 Reading Town moved across leagues to join the Premier Division of the Hellenic Football League. The first season in the new league saw the club finish eighth, and win the Berks & Bucks Senior Trophy again, when they beat Newport Pagnell Town in the final 2–0. The next season saw the club become runners-up of the Hellenic League Floodlit Cup and the Berks & Bucks Senior Trophy, but gained some consolation by winning the Southern Combination Cup for the first time.

At the end of season Colin Millard resigned and was replaced by former Henley Town boss Roddy Slater. Roddy's stint in charge lasted only one season and he resigned at the end of 2010–11 to be succeeded by Mark Bartley. Under Mark Bartley the club went on to win the Hellenic League Supplementary cup, beating Highmoor Ibis 4–3 in the final. At the end of the season Bartley resigned due to not wanting to work on a smaller budget for the following season. Michael Butcher was appointed as Bartleys replacement but only lasted till January 2013 when he quit as manager and former manager Colin Millard took over. In June 2013 Millard's appointment was made permanent.

In February 2016, Reading Town were closed down by owners Battersea and Wandsworth TUC.

Stadium
Reading Town played their home games at Scours Lane Stadium, in the Tilehurst area of the town.

The stadium has a capacity of 2,000, of which 162 is covered seating. The record attendance for a Reading Town game is 1,067 against AFC Wimbledon at Scours Lane on 3 May 2003.

Scours Lane is the second-highest capacity football stadium in Reading, next to Madejski Stadium, home of Sky Bet Championship side Reading. The ground is now used by Reading City F.C.

League honours

 * Combined Counties Football League Premier Division :
 * Runners up (1): 1997–98
 * Chiltonian League Premier Division :
 * Champions (1): 1994–95
 * Reading & District League Premier Division :
 * Runners up (2): 1984–85, 1985–86
 * Reading Combination League Premier Division :
 * Champions (4): 1980–81, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1983–84

Cup honours

 * Berks & Bucks FA Senior Trophy:
 * Winners (2): 1995–96, 2008–09
 * Runners up (3): 1996–97, 2009–10, 2013–14
 * Reading Senior Cup:
 * Winners (1): 1984–85
 * Runners up (1): 1985–86
 * Hellenic Football League Floodlit Cup:
 * Runners-up (1): 2009–10
 * Hellenic Football League Supplementary Cup:
 * Winners (1): 2011–12
 * Southern Combination Cup:
 * Winners (1): 2009–10

Records

 * Highest League Position: 2nd in Combined Counties Football League Premier Division 1997–98
 * FA Cup best performance: First qualifying round 1999–00, 2000–01
 * FA Vase best performance: Fourth round 1996–97, 2011–12
 * Highest Attendance: 1,067 Vs AFC Wimbledon 3 May 2003.

Former players

 * 1) Players that have played/managed in the football league or any foreign equivalent to this level (i.e. fully professional league).
 * 2) Players with full international caps.
 * Pat McCoy
 * 🏴Stuart Beavon
 * 🇧🇬Asen Valchev
 * 🏴George Friel
 * 🏴Graham Lewis
 * 🏴Marcus Richardson
 * 🇸🇱Sam Bangura
 * 🏴Ben Gladwin
 * 🏴Jamie Fairchild

Former coaches

 * 1) Managers/Coaches that have played/managed in the football league or any foreign equivalent to this level (i.e. fully professional league).
 * 2) Managers/Coaches with full international caps.
 * 🏴 Neil Webb

title: Reading Town F.C.


text:
Yohl Ikʼnal

Yohl Ikʼnal, also known as Lady Kan Ik and Lady Kʼanal Ikʼnal, (died 7 November 604) was queen regnant of the Maya city-state of Palenque. She acceded to the throne on 23 December 583, and ruled until her death.

Family
Yohl Ikʼnal was a grandmother or great-grandmother of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I, Palenque's greatest king. She was a descendant of Kʼukʼ Bahlam I, the founder of the Palenque dynasty and she came to power within a year of the death of her predecessor, Kan Bahlam I.

She was the first female ruler in recorded Maya history and was one of a very few female rulers known from Maya history to have borne a full royal title. She must have come to the throne due to extremely unusual circumstances, the details of which have not survived. She was the one of two women to have ruled Palenque, second was her daughter or granddaughter Sak Kʼukʼ and was likely to have been either the sister or, more likely, the daughter of Kan Bahlam, who left no male heir. Her husband or her son was Janahb Pakal.

Reign
During the reign of Yohl Ikʼnal, Palenque suffered an important defeat by Calakmul, one of the two great Maya powers of the Classic Period. The battle took place on 23 April 599 but Yohl Ikʼnal reigned for several years more and died in 604. After the defeat, Palenque apparently maintained its political identity but Yohl Ikʼnal probably had to pay tribute to the ajaw of Calakmul. There are indications that either Yohl Ikʼnal or her successor successfully rebelled against Calakmul's dominance before 611.

Archaeologist Merle Greene Robertson has suggested that a vaulted tomb under Temple 20 at Palenque is that of Queen Yohl Ikʼnal. She was considered important enough to be depicted twice on the sarcophagus of her grandson or great-grandson Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I and to be sculpted in stucco on the wall of his tomb.

title: Yohl Ikʼnal


text:
Liu Sola

Liu Sola (born 1955 in Beijing, China) is a Chinese composer, vocalist, music producer, and author.

Biography
After graduating from the Central Conservatory of Music with a degree in composition, she published her award-winning novella You Have No Choice. Since the 1980s, Liu Sola has scored many Chinese and international film sound tracks, as well as TV and drama productions. She has composed music for orchestra, ensemble, opera, modern theater, modern dance, and art exhibitions. Her range of musical styles includes classical music, jazz, early music, rock, traditional and contemporary music. She is frequently invited to perform at international music festivals and has recorded and collaborated with many international artists. During the 1990s, she recorded with Pól Brennan, Bill Laswell, James Blood Ulmer, Jerome Brailey, Henry Threadgill, Umar Bin Hassan, Amina Claudine Myers, Fernando Saunders and, Pheeroan akLaff. In 2003, she founded the Liu Sola & Friends Ensemble, teaming up with Chinese instrumental virtuosos such as Li Zhengui, Zhang Yangsheng, and Yang Jing, together with other young award-winning soloists. In 2012, Chinese guitar virtuoso Liu Yijun (lao wu) joined the ensemble.

She is the founder of Liu Sola (Beijing) Music Studio, located in Songzhuang art colony, an artist district. Liu Sola designed and built a music space for her ensemble to rehearse and record. Over the years, she has composed and produced film soundtracks for directors such as Zhang Nuanxin, Michael Apted, Li Shaohong, Lv Yue, Ning Ying and others. In 2013, she established the Liu Sola & Friends Ensemble Independent Film Music Work Shop.

Her music works include the chamber opera Fantasy of the Red Queen (2006), performed by Ensemble Modern and the Liu Sola & Friends Ensemble. Liu Sola is the librettist and music composer, artistic director, costume designer and leading vocalist. The chamber opera The Afterlife of Li Jiantong (2009) is a work dedicated to her mother, a Chinese political-historical writer. Liu Sola wrote both the libretto and the music. It was performed by Theatre of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier.

Her novels include Chaos & All That (1989), the English translation of which by Richard King, was awarded First Prize for translation by the British Comparative Literature Association, Nü Zhen Tang (2000), which has been translated into French and Italian, La Grande Île des Tortues – Cochons (2006) and Lost in Fascination (2011).

Liu is married to Hong Kong-born scholar and cultural critic Ackbar Abbas.

Novellas

 * Ni Bie Wu Xuanze 你别无选择 You Have No Choice (1985)
 * Lan tian lühai 蓝天绿海 Blue Sky Green Sea (1985)
 * In Search of the King Of Singers (1986)

Novels

 * Chaos And All (1989)
 * Da Ji Jia de Xiao Gu Shi 大继家的小故事 or Small Tales of the Great Ji Family (2000)
 * Nü Zhen Tang 女贞汤 Female Purity Soup (2003)
 * La Grande île des tortues-cochons (2006)
 * La Piccola Storia Della Grande Famiglia Ji

Play

 * Fantasy of the Red Queen (2006)

Discography

 * Blues in the East (1994
 * China Collage (1996, with Wu Man)
 * Haunts (1997)
 * June Snow (1998)
 * Spring Snowfall (2000)
 * Sola and Friends (1999)
 * Apparitions (2000)

title: Liu Sola


text:
Kʼukʼ Bahlam I

Kʼukʼ Bahlam I, also known as Kuk and Bahlum Kʼukʼ, (March 30, 397 – 435?), was a founder and ajaw of the ruling dynasty at the Maya city of Palenque. He founded the dynasty on March 10, 431.

Depiction
One stone censer stand portrays one of the Palenque kings named Kʼukʼ Bahlam, as the subject can be identified by a quetzal (kʼuk') headdress and jaguar (bahlam) ears.

title: Kʼukʼ Bahlam I


text:
Georges Sorel

Georges Eugène Sorel (2 November 1847 – 29 August 1922) was a French social thinker, political theorist, historian, and later journalist. He has inspired theories and movements grouped under the name of Sorelianism. His social and political philosophy owed much to his reading of Proudhon, Karl Marx, Giambattista Vico, Henri Bergson (whose lectures at the Collège de France he attended), and later William James. His notion of the power of myth in collective agency inspired socialists, anarchists, Marxists, and fascists. Together with his defense of violence, the power of myth is the contribution for which he is most often remembered.

Politically he evolved from his early liberal-conservative positions towards Marxism, social-democracy, and eventually syndicalism. Between 1909 and 1910 he was marginally involved with Charles Maurras' Action Française, and between 1911 and 1913 he wrote for the politically transversal L'Indépendance, established together with Édouard Berth – one of Sorel's main disciples – and Georges Valois, closer to Maurrassian circles. After a long silence during the war, Sorel came out in favour of Lenin and moved towards Bolshevist positions until his death in 1922.

His legacy in the interwar period embraced both ends of the political spectrum, as many former syndicalists welcomed the emerging fascism. According to historian Zeev Sternhell, Sorel's revision of Marxism broke the necessity of the link between revolution and working class, opening up the possibility of replacing the proletariat with the national community.

Biography
Born in Cherbourg as the son of a businessman, he moved to Paris in 1864 to attend the Collège Rollin, before entering the École Polytechnique a year later. In 1869 he became chief engineer with the Department of Public Works. Stationed in Corsica until June 1871, he was subsequently posted to various places in southern France - Albi, Gap, and Draguignan. Between 1876 and 1879 he was in Mostaganem, in colonial Algeria, before moving to Perpignan, where he spent the last years of his career until his retirement in 1892. In 1891, he was awarded the Légion d'honneur. Immediately after retiring, he moved with his partner Marie David to Boulogne-sur-Seine, near Paris, where he stayed until his death in 1922.

Beginning in the second half of the 1880s, he published articles in various fields (hydrology, architecture, philosophy of science, psychophysics, political history, and philosophy) displaying the influence of Aristotle, as well as those of Hippolyte Taine and Ernest Renan. In 1893, he publicly announced his position as a Marxist and a socialist. He moved to working on some of France's first Marxist journals ( L’Ère nouvelle and Le Devenir Social) and to participating, on the revisionist side, in the debate launched by Eduard Bernstein. A supporter of Alfred Dreyfus during the affaire, Sorel later was disappointed, much like his friend Charles Péguy, by the political consequences of the trial.

In the beginning of the 20th century he began arguing for the incompatibility between socialism and parliamentary democracy, moving towards syndicalist positions. Through his writings in Enrico Leone's Il Divenire sociale and Hubert Lagardelle's Mouvement socialiste, he contributed around 1905 to the theoretical elaboration of revolutionary syndicalism. In 1905, his most famous text, Reflections on Violence, began appearing in the Divenire Sociale. It was published in book form in 1908 by Pages Libres, and was followed the same year by Illusions du Progrès.

In the wake of the 1909 defeat of the syndicalist wing of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), Sorel became close for a period in 1909–1910 with Charles Maurras’ Action française, while sharing neither its nationalism nor its political program. This collaboration inspired the founders of the Cercle Proudhon, which brought together revolutionary syndicalists and monarchists. Sorel himself, with Jean Variot, founded a journal in 1911 called L'Indépendance, although disagreements, in part over nationalism, soon ended the project.

Ferociously opposed to the 1914 Union sacrée political truce, Sorel denounced the war and in 1917 praised the Russian Revolution. He wrote for an official Soviet Union publication, Russian Soviet Government Bureau, calling Lenin "the greatest theoretician of socialism since Marx and a statesman whose genius recalls that of Peter the Great." He wrote numerous small pieces for Italian newspapers defending the Bolsheviks. Whereas Sorel's support for Bolshevism is a matter of abundant public record, his much-talked-about interest in the newborn fascist movement is only confirmed by nationalist sources from the interwar period. According to the Maurrassian intellectual Jean Variot, in March 1921 Sorel confided to him that "Mussolini is a man no less extraordinary than Lenin. He, too, is a political genius, of a greater reach than all the statesmen of the day, with the only exception of Lenin…" Some judgments expressed in Sorel's correspondences actually seem to contradict the belief that he was politically sympathetic with fascism. Most notably he wrote to the liberal journalist Mario Missiroli in June 1921, “Things in Italy seem to me to be going very badly [...] The disorder of the fascists, who suppress the state of which [Giolitti] claims to be the intransigent defender, could well bring Italy back to the times of the Middle Ages. It does not seem that the Fascists are more balanced than the Futurists."

Sorel's Marxism
Though Sorel engaged with Marxism for virtually every one of his years as an active intellectual, his belonging to the Marxist tradition is contested. Often associated with an heroic, apocalyptic, and ultimately aesthetic Marxism, Sorel is by some (for example, Hannah Arendt, 'On Violence') thought more as a thinker of decadence. Nonetheless, analysis of his engagement with Marx show him to be preoccupied more with the epistemological subtleties of historical materialism than with an impending moral collapse. Absorbing the twin influences of Henri Bergson and Italian idealists, Sorel elaborated a Marxism rejecting economic and historical determinism, and seeing itself not as social science but as an historically-situated ideology.

Anti-determinism
Though Sorel had been a moderate conservative before turning to Marxism in the 1890s, his interest in the doctrine was dictated by scientific more than by political motivations. In a context in which Marx's work remained relatively unknown and obscure, Sorel sought to develop the theory in order to prove that, as he wrote to Benedetto Croce in 1895, "socialism is worthy of belonging to the modern scientific movement". This involved rejecting the standard French objections to Marxism: historical and economic determinism.

Through readings of Giambattista Vico and exchanges with Antonio Labriola and Benedetto Croce, Sorel came to an understanding of Marxism as a theory of class agency embedded in institutions. Given the essential creativity of the collective agency at the heart of historical development, it followed that Marxism was unable to formulate predictions based on supposed laws of historical development: "History," wrote Sorel in 1897, "is entirely in the past; there is no way of transforming it into a logical combination allowing us to predict the future." Moreover, the unfolding of this collective creative agency could not be entirely deduced by the material conditions in which it took place, but had to take into account legal, ideological, and cultural factors. As he wrote in 1898:"Nor do I believe that it is in conformity with a Marxist spirit to decompose facts into various elements: economic ones first, subsequently juridical and political ones. ... It is in the form that the distinction can be established, but only for our intellectual necessities; in history, as well as in reason, we have unity; but in order to carry on a scientific study, it is necessary to establish classifications."

Reformism and syndicalism
These theoretical preferences yielded a mildly voluntaristic Marxism. While rejecting, first on scientific and later on political grounds, the inevitability of capitalist collapse, and arguing against the possibility of laws of history in virtue of his agency-based view of social development, he nonetheless tendentially rejected insurrectionary politics. He insisted, instead, on the institutional development of the proletariat, on the capacity of unions to become not only sites of resistance to capital, but more importantly spaces in which new, post-capitalist social relations could emerge. "To reduce unions to being mere associations of resistance means opposing a formidable barrier to the development of the proletariat; it means putting it at the mercy of the influence of bourgeois demagogues; it means preventing it from elaborating the principles of a new right in line with its way of life; it is, in one word, to deny to the proletariat the possibility of becoming a class for itself."While until 1900 he had believed that this path of institutional development was best served through political engagement in parliamentary democracy, his ideas changed in the beginning of the century. Partly in reaction to the republican triumph in the 1902 French elections, and partly in virtue of new analyses on the emergence of welfare capitalism, he now believed that prolonged involvement in bourgeois parliamentarism would spell the death of the revolutionary working class. He thus elaborated a change of strategy, linked to the new circumstances. Since class is not produced by the evolution of capitalist economy, then a sustained practice of highly ideologically-charged social conflict—the grève prolétarienne—can maybe restore the conditions ideal for a revolutionary working class to thrive. As he explained in the Reflections on Violence:"Marx supposed that the bourgeoisie had no need to be incited to employ force; but we are faced with a new and very unforeseen fact: a bourgeoisie which seeks to weaken its own strength. Must we believe that the Marxist conception is dead? By no means, because proletarian violence comes upon the scene at the very moment when the conception of social peace claims to moderate disputes; proletarian violence confines employers to their role as producers and tends to restore the class structure just when they seemed on the point of intermingling in the democratic morass."

Sorel's epistemology
Generally seen as a representative of fin de siècle irrationalism, Sorel's epistemological thinking is more accurately characterized as anti-positivist and increasingly moving towards a proto-pragmatist position.

Early epistemology
Though always extremely critical of mechanistic explanations and conflicted over the implications of deterministic approaches, Sorel, until the mid-1890s, was a scientific realist. As such, he argued against a conventionalist reading of the implications of non-Euclidean geometries, suggesting that geometry is an empirical and cumulative science. His early epistemological thought can be seen as an attempt to balance this scientific realism with the doubts over determinism and the desire to vindicate human agency. This act of balancing was achieved in his 1894 "Ancienne et Nouvelle Métaphysique". In this text, Sorel established a dualism between a deterministic natural milieu and an essentially free artificial milieu. Science belongs to the latter, and its history testifies it: all the numerous conceptual and material tools developed by scientists to enquire upon nature, all the changes that occurred in the history of science demonstrate the human creativity and historical situatedness which lie at the heart of science. Drawing upon Henri Bergson's Time and Free Will, he elaborated a theory of human freedom not as exemption from natural determinism but as creative capacity: "We are free in the sense that we can construct tools that have no model in the cosmic environment; we do not alter the laws of nature, but we are capable of creating sequences whose ordering is our decision"

At the same time, however, experimental practice provided to science an anchoring into the deterministic cosmic milieu, and hence could safeguard scientific realism. Experiments for Sorel do not correspond to natural conditions of observation: they are highly constructed observational settings which, nonetheless, allow a contact with nature and thus are suitable for the construction of predictive laws. Industrial practice is the initial setting of this experimental activity, which then moves on to greater refinement and abstraction in scientific laboratories. Through this conceptualisation of the experimental nature of science, Sorel can thus avoid the conventionalist implications to which his theory of the "artificial milieu" push him: "I did not only say that science is social; for one could conclude that I  give the name of science to a  number of widespread prejudices held by everyone; I have no intention of going back to the old mistake of universal consensus."

Vico and social science
This dualistic framework resisted until Sorel attempted to tackle the epistemological issues of the human and social sciences. As long as laws could be extracted from the deterministic natural milieu, Sorel's scientific realism was safe. But as soon as the problem of a science of society confronted him, the tensions in his epistemology reached breaking point: given that such a science must, by definition, be the science of the artificial, creatively constructed, realm, how will it be possible to extract laws from such an unpredictable environment? Sorel's initial answer is to look for pockets of deterministic behaviour inside of the social world. Thus, in his 1892 essay on Proudhon and the science of economics, Sorel argues that while individual labour is scientifically imponderable, it assumes regular, law-like, behaviour when taken collectively, and commends Proudhon for making this point: "...in the notion of value, Proudhon gets rid of all these anti-scientific elements: products are classified not according to fancies and individual claims, but according to their position in social production." He however began to express increasing uneasiness about these deterministic solutions. In his review of Émile Durkheim's Rules of Sociological Method, he expressed serious reservations about idealtypic and statistical reasonings in the social sciences, arguing that "what is striking in the human milieu is that which is human, that is to say action considered from the perspective of the agent".

To capture this collective agency in a social scientific way, Sorel had to abandon his notion of scientific explanation in terms of deterministic laws. That, he could do thanks to the reading of the work of Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico, whose epistemology of verum ipsum factum allowed Sorel to develop an alternative account of what a scientific explanation consists in. Instead of highlighting a deterministic causal nexus, explanations in the social sciences would now be concerned with accounting for how a creative agent produces. As Sorel noted, this furnishes the epistemological grounding on which a social scientific enterprise can stand, provided that it renounces notions of atemporal laws of historical development and it focuses instead on the situated, contextual, explanation of human collective agency.

Marxism and pragmatism
In the decade following the 1896 publication of his "Study on Vico", Sorel was more absorbed by political and strategic considerations than by epistemological questions. Much of the anti-deterministic force of his epistemology found a fruitful channel of expression in Sorel's efforts to revise Marxism in a more agency-oriented fashion. Nonetheless, as early as the "Study on Vico", he had become aware of the relativistic implications of his epistemology:"Thus ideal history has perished, overcome by the development of historical research. It is now nothing but a memory... In natural science as well there is a similar sort of problem that contemporary philosophy has shown itself equally powerless to resolve. Critique of the idea of divinity has shaken the foundations of all knowledge that drew its certitude from the ancient idea of “God in nature.” Science no longer seems, today, safe from contingency, the fixed point has disappeared. It is enough to read the titles of contemporary theses on understanding and contingency to understand how it preoccupies reflective minds. Neither does it seem easy to respond to those who want to know where law [droit] finds its place in materialist conceptions of history. The difficulty is the same as above: law that is immutable and rests in the divine Idea has disappeared as has science possessed totally by God. Nothing is served by denying the difficulties that result from these new principles, but this is not a reason to revive famously incorrect doctrines."By the end of the first decade of the century, Sorel encounters American pragmatism, which he initially looked to with suspicion. In the first edition of his Illusions of Progress, he calls pragmatism the "last term of bourgeois philosophy", adding that its popularity was due to its "flexibility, its garrulousness, and the cynicism of its success". Soon enough, however, a more in-depth acquaintance with the work of William James changed Sorel's opinion. He started calling himself a pragmatist and tried to remedy some of the relativistic consequences of James' theory of truth. His last major work in the philosophy of science was called the "Utility of Pragmatism". In it, Sorel sketched a theory of knowledge as always and irredemably situated, going close to denying the possibility of knowledge of the natural milieu. "'For some time now, a number of distinguished men of learning have observed that their studies examined not so much a world which is given to man, but that which man creates in the world. Many of those who have reflected on this situation have concluded that since it is not possible to apprehend natural nature, one must be happy with insights capable of charming the imagination, with conventions useful to give a clear exposition of facts, or with empirical rules convenient for improving the practice of the usual arts. We would thus be condemned to abandon the idea of certainty which dominated ancient science. But the pragmatist declares that artificial nature interests our life at least as much as natural nature. He admires its fecondity, which appears to him as infinitely growing. He asks himself how man can have such nonsensical ambitions to believe that artificial nature would not suffice to fully occupy his genius.'"

Works

 * Contribution à l'Étude Profane de la Bible (Paris, 1889).
 * Le Procès de Socrate, Examen Critique des Thèses Socratiques (Paris: Alcan, 1889).
 * Questions de Morale (Paris, 1900).
 * L'avenir socialiste des syndicats (Paris, 1901).
 * La Ruine du Monde Antique: Conception Matérialiste de l'Histoire (Paris, 1902).
 * Introduction à l'Économie Moderne (Paris, 1903).
 * La Crise de la Pensée Catholique (Paris, 1903).
 * Le Système Historique de Renan (Paris, 1905–1906).
 * Les Préoccupations Métaphysiques des Physiciens Modernes (Paris, 1907).
 * La Décomposition du Marxisme (Paris, 1908); translation as The Decomposition of Marxism by Irving Louis Horowitz in his Radicalism and the Revolt against Reason; The Social Theories of Georges Sorel (Humanities Press, 1961; Southern Illinois University Press, 1968).
 * Les Illusions du Progrès (1908); Translated as The Illusions of Progress by John and Charlotte Stanley with a foreword by Robert A. Nisbet and an introduction by John Stanley (University of California Press, 1969, ISBN 0-520-02256-4).
 * Réflexions sur la Violence (1908); translated as Reflections on Violence first authorised translation by T. E. Hulme (B. W. Huebsch, 1914; P. Smith, 1941; AMS Press, 1975, ISBN 0-404-56165-9); in an unabridged republication with an introduction by Edward A. Shils, translated by T. E. Hulme and J. Roth (The Free Press, 1950; Dover Publications, 2004, ISBN 0-486-43707-8, pbk.); edited by Jeremy Jennings (Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-55117-X, hb).
 * La Révolution Dreyfusienne (Paris, 1909).
 * Matériaux d'une Théorie du Prolétariat (Paris, 1919).
 * De l'Utilité du Pragmatisme (Paris, 1921).
 * Lettres à Paul Delesalle 1914-1921 (Paris, 1947).
 * D'Aristote à Marx (L'Ancienne et la Nouvelle Métaphysique) (Paris: Marcel Rivière, 1935).
 * From Georges Sorel: Essays in Socialism and Philosophy edited with an introduction by John L. Stanley, translated by John and Charlotte Stanley (Oxford University Press, 1976, ISBN 0-19-501715-3; Transaction Books, 1987, ISBN 0-88738-654-7, pbk.).
 * From Georges Sorel: Volume 2, Hermeneutics and the Sciences edited by John L. Stanley, translated by John and Charlotte Stanley (Transaction Publishers, 1990, ISBN 0-88738-304-1).
 * Commitment and Change: Georges Sorel and the idea of revolution essay and translations by Richard Vernon (University of Toronto Press, 1978, ISBN 0-8020-5400-5).
 * Social Foundations of Contemporary Economics translated with an introduction by John L. Stanley from Insegnamenti Sociali dell'Economia Contemporanea (Transaction Books, 1984, ISBN 0-87855-482-3, cloth).

title: Georges Sorel


text:
Olfactory epithelium

The olfactory epithelium is a specialized epithelial tissue inside the nasal cavity that is involved in smell. In humans, it measures 5 cm2 and lies on the roof of the nasal cavity about 7 cm above and behind the nostrils. The olfactory epithelium is the part of the olfactory system directly responsible for detecting odors.

Structure
Olfactory epithelium consists of four distinct cell types:
 * Olfactory sensory neurons
 * Supporting cells
 * Basal cells
 * Brush cells

Olfactory sensory neurons
The olfactory receptor neurons are sensory neurons of the olfactory epithelium. They are bipolar neurons and their apical poles express odorant receptors on non-motile cilia at the ends of the dendritic knob, which extend out into the airspace to interact with odorants. Odorant receptors bind odorants in the airspace, which are made soluble by the serous secretions from olfactory glands located in the lamina propria of the mucosa. The axons of the olfactory sensory neurons congregate to form the olfactory nerve (CN I). Once the axons pass through the cribriform plate, they terminate and synapse with the dendrites of mitral cells in the glomeruli of the olfactory bulb.

Supporting cells
Analogous to neural glial cells, the supporting cells are non-neural cells in the olfactory epithelium that are located in the apical layer of the pseudostratified ciliated columnar epithelium. There are two types of supporting cells in the olfactory epithelium: sustentacular cells and microvillar cells. The sustentacular cells function as metabolic and physical support for the olfactory epithelium. Microvillar cells are another class of supporting cells that are morphologically and biochemically distinct from the sustentacular cells, and arise from a basal cell population that expresses the c-KIT cell surface protein.

Basal cells
Resting on or near the basal lamina of the olfactory epithelium, basal cells are stem cells capable of division and differentiation into either supporting or olfactory cells. While some of these basal cells divide rapidly, a significant proportion remain relatively quiescent and replenish olfactory epithelial cells as needed. This leads to the olfactory epithelium being replaced every 6–8 weeks.

Basal cells can be divided on the basis of their cellular and histological features into two populations: the horizontal basal cells, which are slowly dividing reserve cells that express p63; and globose basal cells, which are a heterogeneous population of cells consisting of reserve cells, amplifying progenitor cells, and immediate precursor cells.

Brush cells
A brush cell is a microvilli-bearing columnar cell with its basal surface in contact with afferent nerve endings of the trigeminal nerve (CN V) and is specialized for transduction of general sensation.

Olfactory (Bowman's) glands
Tubuloalveolar serous secreting glands lying in the lamina propria of the olfactory mucosa. These glands deliver a proteinaceous secretion via ducts onto the surface of the mucosa. The role of the secretions are to trap and dissolve odiferous substances for the bipolar neurons. Constant flow from the olfactory glands allows old odors to be constantly washed away.

Development

The olfactory epithelium derives from two structures during embryonic development: the olfactory placode, which was long believed to be its sole origin; and neural crest cells, whose contributions have been identified more recently through fate mapping studies.

The embryonic olfactory epithelium consists of fewer cell types than in the adult, including apical and basal progenitor cells, as well as immature olfactory sensory neurons. Early embryonic neurogenesis relies mostly on the apical cells, while later stage embryonic neurogenesis and secondary neurogenesis in adults relies on basal stem cells. The axons of the immature olfactory sensory neurons, along with a mixed population of migratory cells, including immature olfactory ensheathing cells and gonadotropin-releasing hormone neurons form a "migratory mass" that travels towards the olfactory bulb. At the end of the embryonic stage, the epithelium develops into a pseudostratified columnar epithelium and begins secondary neurogenesis.

Olfactory placode
Placodes are transient, focal aggregations of ectoderm located in the developmental region of the future vertebrate head, and give rise to sensory organs. Early cranial sensory placodes are marked by expression of Six1, part of the Six family of transcription factors that regulate preplacodal ectoderm specification. The olfactory placode forms as two thickenings of non-neural region of embryonic ectoderm. In mice, the olfactory placode derives from an anterior portion of the neural tube, ~9-9.5 days into development and not long after the closure of the neural plate. Development of the olfactory placode requires the presence underlying neural crest-derived mesenchymal tissue. The specification of the olfactory placode tissue involves signaling of multiple gene networks, beginning with signals from bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP), retinoic acid (RA), and fibroblast growth factor (FGF), specifically FGF8. The resulting regulated downstream expression of transcription factors, such as Pax6, Dlx3, Sox2, and others, within the presumptive olfactory placode are crucial for sub-regionalization within the future olfactory epithelium and is responsible for the diversity of cells that compose the future epithelium.

Similar to the other embryonic placodes, the olfactory placode gives rise to both neural and non-neural structures, ultimately resulting in the formation of the nasal epithelium. The specification of neural versus non-neural tissue involves signals both within the olfactory placode, and between the olfactory placode and the underlying mesenchymal compartment. Continued signaling by BMP, FGF, and RA, the morphogens that initially induced placode formation, collectively coordinate the patterning of olfactory placode tissue into the future distinct cell types that make up the olfactory epithelium. The cell types derived from the olfactory placode include: However, there is significant evidence for an additional neural crest-origin for many of these cell types as well.
 * Neural: olfactory sensory neurons, LHRH-secreting neurons, and ganglion cells
 * Non-neuronal: basal cells, olfactory supporting cells, ciliated cells, Bowman’s glands, Schwann cells, submucosal glands, and brush cells

Olfactory sensory neuron development
Olfaction results from the proper development and interaction of the two components of the primary olfactory pathway: the olfactory epithelium and the olfactory bulb. The olfactory epithelium contains olfactory sensory neurons, whose axons innervate the olfactory bulb. In order for olfactory sensory neurons to function properly, they must express odorant receptors and the proper transduction proteins on non-motile cilia that extend from the dendritic knob in addition to projecting their axons to the olfactory bulb.

The cells of the olfactory epithelium, including olfactory sensory neurons, begin to differentiate soon after the induction of the olfactory placode. Once the olfactory sensory neurons differentiate, they express odorant receptors, which transduce odorant information from the environment to the central nervous system and aids in the development of the odorant map. The differentiated olfactory sensory neurons extend pioneering axons, which follow guidance cues released by the underlying mesenchyme, as well as other chemotrophic cues released from the telencephalon. As development of the olfactory pathway progresses, more axons innervate the olfactory bulb, which develops from the rostral-most region of telencephalon. The organization and subsequent processing of odorant information is possible due to the convergence of olfactory sensory neuron axons expressing the same odorant receptors onto the same glomerulus at the olfactory bulb.

Clinical significance
The olfactory epithelium can be damaged by inhalation of toxic fumes, physical injury to the interior of the nose, and possibly by the use of some nasal sprays. Because of its regenerative capacity, damage to the olfactory epithelium can be temporary but in extreme cases, injury can be permanent, leading to anosmia.

title: Olfactory epithelium


text:
Morphological analysis (problem-solving)

Morphological analysis or general morphological analysis is a method for exploring possible solutions to a multi-dimensional, non-quantified complex problem. It was developed by Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky. General morphology has found use in fields including engineering design, technological forecasting, organizational development and policy analysis.

Overview
General morphology was developed by Fritz Zwicky, the Bulgarian-born, Swiss-national astrophysicist based at the California Institute of Technology. Among others, Zwicky applied morphological analysis to astronomical studies and jet and rocket propulsion systems. As a problem-structuring and problem-solving technique, morphological analysis was designed for multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable problems where causal modelling and simulation do not function well, or at all.

Zwicky developed this approach to address seemingly non-reducible complexity: using the technique of cross-consistency assessment (CCA), the system allows for reduction by identifying the possible solutions that actually exist, eliminating the illogical solution combinations in a grid box rather than reducing the number of variables involved.

Decomposition versus morphological analysis
Problems that involve many governing factors, where most of them cannot be expressed numerically can be well suited for morphological analysis.

The conventional approach is to break a complex system into parts, isolate the parts (dropping the 'trivial' elements) whose contributions are critical to the output and solve the simplified system for desired scenarios. The disadvantage of this method is that many real-world phenomena do not have obviously trivial elements and cannot be simplified.

Morphological analysis works backwards from the output towards the system internals without a simplification step. The system's interactions are fully accounted for in the analysis.


text:
Symphony No. 3 (Prokofiev)

Sergei Prokofiev wrote his Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 44, in 1928.

Background
The music derives from Prokofiev's opera The Fiery Angel, a touching love story set against the backdrop of demonic possession. This opera had been accepted for performance in the 1927–28 season at the Berlin State Opera by Bruno Walter, but this production never materialised; in fact, the opera was never staged in Prokofiev's lifetime. Prokofiev, who had been working on the opera for years, was reluctant to let the music languish unperformed, and after hearing a concert performance of its second act given by Serge Koussevitzky in June 1928, he adapted parts of the opera to make his third symphony (shortly afterwards, he drew on his ballet The Prodigal Son for his Symphony No. 4 in similar fashion). The symphony, which was dedicated to Nikolai Myaskovsky was premiered on 17 May 1929 by Pierre Monteux conducting the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris.

Movements
The symphony is in four movements, lasting around 30–35 minutes.
 * 1) Moderato
 * 2) Andante
 * 3) Allegro agitato — Allegretto
 * 4) Andante mosso — Allegro moderato

Though the music of the symphony is based on that of the opera, the material is developed symphonically; the symphony is therefore absolute rather than programmatic.

The first movement, in traditional sonata form, opens with clashing chords played by the whole orchestra, along with tolling bells, setting a mood of threat and unrest. An impassioned first theme enters on strings, while a melancholy second theme on bassoons and lower strings provides contrast. The climactic development section follows, finding space for a third theme, which eventually combines with the first two themes. After a grave climax with gigantic orchestral chords and a last "struggle" in marching rhythms, the ethereal recapitulation ensues, in which the first and second themes are integrated, although much reduced and played softer, as if only the shadow of what was before remains.

The second movement, a meditative andante with a ternary structure, displays Prokofiev's talent in creating fragile, gossamer textures. The central section is more brooding in nature, with the theme consisting of semitones.

In the third movement, we hear hybrid elements from both of the movements that preceded it: though the textures are lighter than in the first movement, the sense of foreboding is back, as dithering strings create a chilling effect. They are intensified by insistent announcements from the brass choir and bass drum.

Finally, in the fourth movement, Prokofiev reprises musical materials from earlier in the symphony, beginning at a comfortable andante pace and gradually accelerating. The themes of the opening movement are threaded into the narrative before the Third comes to rest on a fearsome juggernaut of violent chords.

Instrumentation
The work is scored for the following:

Woodwind Brass
 * Piccolo
 * 2 Flutes
 * 2 Oboes
 * Cor Anglais
 * 2 Clarinets
 * Bass Clarinet
 * 2 Bassoons
 * Contrabassoon
 * 4 horns
 * 3 Trumpets
 * 3 Trombones
 * Tuba

Percussion Strings
 * Timpani
 * Bass Drum
 * Snare Drum
 * Cymbals
 * Tambourine
 * Tam-tam
 * Castanets
 * Bell
 * 2 Harps
 * Violins (1st and 2nd)
 * Violas
 * Cellos
 * Double basses

title: Symphony No. 3 (Prokofiev)