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User:Aarchiba/Radioactivity

Radioactivity is the process by which unstable atomic nuclei decay. This process normally produces ionizing radiation with a relatively large amount of energy. This energy can be harnessed in the form of nuclear power, or it can be very dangerous if released by radioactive contamination in the environment.

Overview
Atomic nuclei are bound together by the weak nuclear force, which is much stronger than the forces encountered in everyday life, electromagnetism and gravity. It is, however, a very short-range force. As a result, atomic nuclei are held together very strongly in spite of the very strong electromagnetic repulsion of the protons for one another. If an atomic nucleus changes state in some way, a large amount of energy will be released. That is, the energy released will be much greater than that released in a chemical reaction involving a single molecule; chemical reactions rely on the electromagnetic force.

Unstable atomic nuclei can undergo a number of different reactions:

Beta decay: In simple beta decay, a neutron becomes a proton, emitting a beta particle (a high-speed electron). This converts the nucleus to another element, raising its atomic number by one. Alternatively, a proton can become a neutron, emitting a beta-plus particle (a high-speed positron). This reaction decreases the atomic number by one. This second reaction is very rare among naturally ocurring isotopes, but happens for many artificial isotopes. Both reactions normally leave the nucleus in an excited state.

Alpha emission: In alpha emission, a nucleus emits an alpha particle (a Helium-4 nucleus). This changes both the atomic number and the number of neutrons in the nucleus, and it normally leaves the nucleus in an excited state.

Gamma emission: a nucleus transitions from an excited state to a lower-energy state, emitting a gamma ray (a high-energy photon).

Fission: a nucleus breaks into two smaller nuclei, and possibly some fast neutrons, beta particles, alpha particles, and gamma rays. Fission is normally quite rare unless the nucleus has absorbed a neutron. Since fisson releases neutrons itself, this allows (under suitable conditions) a nuclear chain reaction which leads to a very large number of fission events in a short period. This is the process used in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors.

Many of the atomic nuclei that arise from these processes are themselves unstable, so in large samples of radioactive material, many decay chains are going on simultaneously.

An unstable nucleus waits a random amount of time before it decays; this is a quantum mechanical process. This time is not, however, completely unpredictable. The decay time follows an exponential distribution, and the most useful way to characterize the process is to give the half-life of a nucleus: the time after which there is a 50% chance that it will have decayed. When dealing with a macroscopic amount of radioactive material, the half-life is the time after which half of the material remains in its original form. Half-lives vary from effectively infinite, for stable elements, to hundreds of thousands of years for Uranium, to microseconds and less for artificial isotopes.

In the natural world, radioactivity comes from naturally-occurring radioactive isotopes. Like all heavy elements, these come originally from the interiors of stars. Some, such as Uranium, were formed directly in stars, and are still present only because their half-lives are so long that they have not yet completely decayed. Others, such as Carbon-14, are present because they are formed by the decay of longer-lived elements (this is how all the Helium currently available was formed: although it is not radioactive, it escapes from the Earth easily, so Helium is obtained from underground reservoirs).

Human technology has found uses for many radioactive isotopes. These uses have ranged from nuclear weapons to nuclear power to glowing watch dials to smoke detectors. Most of these isotopes are manufactured in nuclear reactors, which allow the creation of unstable or unusual isotopes through the exposure of stable isotopes to neutrons.

History
Radioactivity was first discovered in 1896 by the French scientist Henri Becquerel while working on phosphorescent materials. These materials glow in the dark after exposure to light, and he thought that the glow produced in cathode ray tubes by x-rays might somehow be connected with phosphorescence. So he tried wrapping a photographic plate in black paper and placing various phosphorescent minerals on them. All results were negative until he tried using uranium salts. The result with these compounds was a deep blackening of the plate.

However, it soon became clear that the blackening of the plate had nothing to do with phosphorescence because the plate blackened when the mineral was kept in the dark. Also non-phosphorescent salts of uranium and even metallic uranium blackened the plate. Clearly there was some new form of radiation that could pass through paper that was causing the plate to blacken. (Many books state that Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity.)

At first it seemed that the new radiation was similar to then recently discovered x-rays. However further research by Becquerel, Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, Ernest Rutherford and others discovered three of the several different types of radioactivity, namely alpha decay, beta decay, and gamma decay. These researchers also discovered that many other chemical elements have radioactive isotopes.

The dangers of radioactivity and of radiation were not immediately recognized. Acute radiation poisoning was observed early on, but it was initially assumed that, like fire, if no immediate effect was observed there was no danger. Moreover, it was not realized that if radioactive material was taken into the body, it would continue to radiate while inside, often causing cancer or other severe problems. Many physicians and corporations began marketing radioactive substances as patent medicine; one particularly alarming example was radium enema treatments. Marie Curie, before her death, spoke out against this sort of treatment, warning that the effects of radiation on the human body were not well understood.

During the Second World War, it was realized that the energy released by radioactivity could possibly be used to wreak massive destruction. Both the Axis and the Allied forces began projects to develop such weapons; the Manhattan Project in the United States ultimately succeeded. The weapons it produced were dropped on Japan.

During the Second World War and the early Cold War, development of nuclear technology proceeded with only minimal awareness of the long-term dangers of radiation and radioactive contamination. Many nuclear weapons were tested in the air, releasing enough radioactive material to raise the world's level of background radiation very significantly. Eventually the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty put an end to these tests.

Nuclear power was also used in submarines, ships and for commercial power generation. Only in the 1960s did it begin to be realized that longterm exposure to low levels of radiation could lead to serious health problems, and that radioactive contamination of the environment could be taken up by humans, leading to just such longterm exposure. Since this realization, public concern rose drastically, and safety measures were tightened. Use of radioactive isotopes was curtailed.

Public concern was greatly increased by nuclear accidents, particularly those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. This concern is not very discriminating, in many cases consisting of a blanket fear of anything labelled "nuclear". For example, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which has nothing whatsoever to do with radioactivity, was renamed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to quell public fear.

Nevertheless, radioactive isotopes have many important applications, including tracing biological processes in the human body for diagnosis, preserving foods in jars by killing bacteria, and dating of geological deposits based on assumptions of decay rates and isotope ratios at the time of deposit. Between these applications and the need for nuclear power, nuclear technology is still in wide use.

Measurement
The SI unit for measuring radioactivity is the Becquerel. One Becquerel is the amount of radioactive material that produces a single decay per second. Thus Becquerel of an element with a short half-life is much less material than a Becquerel of an element with a long half-life, but one can expect the amount of energy emitted to be comparable.

As one might expect, a Becquerel is actually a tiny amount of radioactive material, so in practice one usually sees numbers of gigaBecquerels.

The amount of radioactivity is normally obtained by measuring the radiation produced or by measuring the amount of radioactive material (in grams, say) and using its known properties.

title: User:Aarchiba/Radioactivity


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Charles Foster Kane

Charles Foster Kane is a fictional character who is the subject of Orson Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane. Welles played Kane (receiving an Academy Award nomination), with Buddy Swan playing Kane as a child. Welles also produced, co-wrote and directed the film, winning an Oscar for writing the film.

Inspiration
The general consensus is that publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst is the primary inspiration behind Charles Foster Kane.

In the film, Kane is given the line "You provide the prose poems; I'll provide the war," undeniably similar to "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war," a quote widely attributed to Hearst. Also, an overhead shot of Hearst's ranch is shown in the film as Xanadu, the lavish estate where Kane resides.

In addition, Kane's unsuccessful attempt to make his second wife an opera star parallels Hearst's effort to make his mistress Marion Davies a serious dramatic movie actress despite critics' complaints that she was miscast and better in light comedy roles. The connection with Hearst is strengthened by the fact that Welles's co-writer, Herman J. Mankiewicz, was a frequent guest of Davies at Hearst Castle.

Some biographies of Welles posit that Welles himself was a source of inspiration for the character. Some of the character's dialogue on how to run a newspaper are direct quotes from Welles's comments on how to make a motion picture (though this was his first). Mankiewicz included dialogue about Kane's voracious appetite, also a reference to Welles.

Later news media figures including Sumner Murray Redstone, Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, and Elon Musk have been compared to Kane.

Fictional character biography
Citizen Kane explores the life of the titular character. We are given an overview of his public career in the pastiche News on the March newsreel, with some parts then shown in more detail through the flashback recollections of those who knew him.

Early years
Kane is born of humble origins in the fictional settlement of Little Salem, Colorado, in 1862 or 1863. A supposedly worthless mine given to his mother in 1868—to settle a bill for room and board by Fred Graves — is discovered to be rich in gold, making the family suddenly fabulously wealthy. In 1871, in return for an annual income of $50,000, Kane's mother puts her son and the money under the guardianship of New York City banker Walter Parks Thatcher, who raises Kane in luxury. Kane resents Thatcher for ripping him away from his family, and spends most of his early adult life rebelling against him. He attends prestigious colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell and a college in Switzerland—and gets himself expelled from all of them.

At the age of 25 Kane acquires control of the money, the world's sixth-largest private fortune. He returns from a trip abroad to take control of the New York Daily Inquirer, a struggling newspaper acquired on his behalf by Thatcher as a result of a foreclosure on a debt, thinking that "it would be fun to run a newspaper". He takes up full-time residence in the newspaper office (the sitting editor resigning in protest) and in the first edition publishes a "declaration of principles" stating his duty to be truthful to his readers and to campaign on behalf of the poor and underprivileged. His best friend Jedediah Leland - the Inquirer's drama critic - asks to keep the text of the declaration, feeling it might one day be an important document.

To Thatcher's fury, Kane campaigns against slum landlords, "copper robbers" and "traction trusts" (monopoly control of railways) - including companies in which he himself is a major shareholder. To finance the fledgling Inquirer, Kane uses his personal resources, reasoning that this would allow him to operate it, even at a million-dollar annual loss, for 60 years. Over a period of six years, Kane also hires staff members away from the rival Chronicle newspaper, regarding them as collectibles. However, he uses yellow journalism tactics to blow stories out of proportion and encourage a war with Spain in 1898.

Political career
Kane, whose party affiliation is never explicitly specified, is shown to be a supporter of Theodore Roosevelt, joining him on a whistle stop train tour. "One President at least" owes his election to the support of Kane's newspapers.

Kane eventually marries Emily Monroe Norton, the niece of a President of the United States. Their marriage takes place at the White House. The marriage sours because of Kane's egomania, obsession with his newspapers and attacks on her uncle's administration. Their marital problems reach the point that they are barely on speaking terms, with Kane ignoring Emily as she reads the rival Chronicle newspaper at breakfast.

Kane opposes US entry into World War I.

As his popularity increases, Kane, who regards himself and is widely seen as a future President, runs as a "fighting liberal" for Governor of New York in 1916, against corrupt boss James "Jim" W. Gettys. He addresses a packed rally at Madison Square Gardens, promising to have Gettys arrested and sent to prison. An election victory is almost certain until Gettys reveals evidence of Kane's affair with a young singer named Susan Alexander. Gettys blackmails Kane, meeting with him and his wife at Susan's apartment, but Kane refuses to drop out of the race despite Gettys' leverage. The scandal goes public and Kane loses the election decisively.

The night of Kane's loss, a drunk and disillusioned Leland asks him for a transfer to the Chicago paper. He accuses Kane of treating "the working man" he claims to fight for as a possession, and says that, for all his talk of helping the less fortunate, the only person Kane really cares about is himself. Kane allows him to transfer to Chicago, effectively ending their friendship.

Emily divorces Kane shortly afterward, and dies two years later, along with their son, in a car accident.

Later life
Two weeks after his first divorce, Kane marries Susan in a small ceremony at the City Hall in Trenton, New Jersey. He forces her into a doomed and humiliating career as an opera singer, building an opera house in Chicago specially for her. Leland, now a drama critic for the Chicago Inquirer, refuses to toe the company line by praising Alexander's performances. Leland becomes too drunk at the difficult task of writing a truthful review against Kane's wishes, and falls into a stupor. Kane visits the paper's newsroom and finishes the review with Leland's negative tone intact, intending to prove that he still has integrity; he then fires Leland. In retaliation, Leland refuses his severance package and mails back the torn-up check with the original copy of Kane's "declaration of principles", which Kane angrily destroys.

After Susan attempts suicide, Kane releases her from her disastrous operatic career and spends most of his time at Xanadu, his gigantic Gothic chateau, full of objets d'art which he has acquired over the decades, and built on an artificial mountain on his vast estate in Florida. By 1925 Kane is being denounced as a "communist" by the aged Thatcher to a congressional committee, and in the same month as an enemy of the working man and a "fascist" by a speaker at a public rally in Union Square, Manhattan. He insists that he is simply "an American". The business downturns of the Great Depression—as well as Kane's excessive spending habits on the crumbling and unfinished Xanadu—forces him to downsize his media empire. He is also forced to hand over financial management of his businesses, although not operational control of his newspapers, to the aged Thatcher. Susan is unable to stand the monotonous routine inside the cavernous mansion and Kane's increasingly domineering nature, and eventually leaves him.

Kane continues to travel and meet with world leaders. He returns from an aeroplane trip to Europe in 1935, declaring that he has met with the leaders of "England, France, Germany and Italy" and that "there will be no war". He initially supports Adolf Hitler, with whom he appears on a balcony, but later denounces him. He also meets with but denounces Francisco Franco.

Death
Kane eventually becomes a recluse at Xanadu, living alone and estranged from all his friends and no longer wielding much influence over politics. Most of his giant estate is now overgrown, with most of the animals gone from its zoos. He dies alone in his bedroom one night in 1941, after uttering his last word, "Rosebud."

The death of the "Great Yellow Journalist" is a national news event and is the lead story in many newspapers. His own Inquirer chain devotes the entire front page to him, praising him for his "lifetime of service" and stating that the "entire nation mourns". The rival Chronicle is less complimentary, recalling his "stormy career" and stating that "few … will mourn" him. The Chicago Globe also mentions his "stormy career" and denounces him as "US Fascist No 1"; the last two papers run unflattering photographs of him. The Minneapolis Record Herald praises him as the "Sponsor of Democracy", the Detroit Star as "Leader of [the] News World" and a "Man of Destiny", but the El Paso Journal accuses him of having "Instigated War for Profit". His death is also covered in the French, Japanese and Russian press.

Reporter Jerry Thompson is assigned to find out what "Rosebud" means. Despite interviewing all of Kane's living acquaintances, he never finds out what it is. After the reporters depart, his staff start burning in an incinerator those of his possessions which they see as trash. The viewer sees that the word "Rosebud" was written on the sled Kane's parents gave him as a young boy, and left behind at his mother's boarding house when he was sent away to live with Thatcher. It is implied earlier in the film that Kane found the sled in a warehouse, where he had been looking over his late mother's possessions, around the time he first met Susan.

Susan Alexander
Susan Alexander Kane (Dorothy Comingore) was Kane's second wife. She was twenty-one when they first met in the mid-1910s (Kane would have been at least fifty); she is evidently low class and is in charge of the sheet music at a shop. Kane was attracted to her because she liked him for himself, despite not knowing he was a public figure. Kane sets her up in a larger and more comfortable apartment with an African American maid, which Gettys describes as a "Love nest" to implicate her as Kane's mistress; the film does not make it clear whether she really was. However, a mere two weeks after his first wife divorced him in 1916, Kane married Susan.

Susan was an aspiring opera singer when she and Kane first met, but is not particularly talented. Despite this, Kane tried to force her into a career as an opera singer, even building an opera house specifically for her, in which she performs the leading role in a fictional opera Salammbo. Her weak voice and poor acting attract the derision of the audience and of the stage hands. Kane's Xanadu estate was built at least in part to please her. Susan is the last of Kane's friends to leave him as well as the original owner of the snow globe he drops after saying "rosebud". As of 1941, she is still living, but is an alcoholic. Despite having "lost all her money" she is running a run-down nightclub ("El Rancho") in Atlantic City, which is where she is interviewed by Jerry Thompson.

Jedediah Leland
Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) was a close friend of Kane, having met him in college. According to Mr. Bernstein, he came from a wealthy family that lost all their money. He is generally acknowledged to represent the morality and idealism Kane himself loses as the film progresses. During Kane's campaign for Governor, he is seen addressing a small audience in the street shortly before Kane's speech. In disgust at Kane's throwing away of the election, he moves to Chicago to work as drama critic for the Inquirer in that city; by the time he writes his bad review of Susan Alexander's operatic debut, he and Kane have not spoken in a number of years. In 1941 Jedediah lives in a nursing home in Manhattan, where Jerry Thompson interviews him.

Walter Thatcher
Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris) is a New York banker. He becomes Kane's legal guardian in 1871. Kane resents him and, when he comes into control of his fortune in the late 1880s, uses the Inquirer to harass him. Thatcher, clearly getting on in years by the 1890s, initially regards Kane as mentally "still the college boy" and urges him to greater financial prudence. In a scene in the newsreel in 1925, Thatcher, described as the "grand old man of Wall Street", tells a congressional investigation that Kane is a Communist. Thatcher is still alive, presumably at least in his nineties, after the Crash of 1929, and takes control of Kane's failing business empire, although allowing Kane to retain "a considerable measure of control" over his newspapers and reassuring Kane that the Depression is merely temporary and that he might yet die richer than him. When Thatcher asks Kane what he would have liked to have been, Kane replies "Everything you hate". He is dead by 1941, his unpublished memoirs kept in a vault.

Mr. Bernstein
Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane) is a business executive and by 1941 is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kane's business interests. Having served as Kane's personal assistant since at least when he took over the Inquirer, Bernstein proved the most loyal to the man. He is on good enough terms to visit and leave a present for Kane's infant son, to Mrs Kane's irritation. Bernstein willingly participated in indulging Kane's obsession in his wife's operatic career even though it was ill-considered by everyone else. However, he has scruples such as advising his employer not to make promises he cannot keep in his Declaration of Principles.

Wealth and empire
Apart from the New York Inquirer, Kane publishes similar Inquirer newspapers in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and other major American cities. The News on the March newsreel at the beginning of the film also states that Kane controls two newspaper syndicates and a radio network; it also mentions that Kane has other business interests in real estate, logging, shipping, and food retailing. However, Kane's empire largely collapses at the onset of the Great Depression, and he is forced to hand financial control of his remaining holdings (although not operational control of his newspapers) to Thatcher. Kane has enough wealth to build Chicago's opera house, as well as his unfinished mansion, Xanadu.

The mansion contains Kane's vast collection of classical sculptures and art, and the newsreel states that portions of Xanadu were taken from other famous palaces overseas.

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

title: Charles Foster Kane


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User:Trithemius~enwiki

Not much to say really. I should probably be working on something, but I have yet to decide what precisely it should be.

title: User:Trithemius~enwiki


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State Emergency Service

The State Emergency Service (SES) is the name used by a number of civil defence organisations in Australia that provide assistance during and after major incidents. Specifically, the service deals with floods, storms and tsunamis, but can also assist in other emergencies, such as vertical rescue and road crash rescues, missing persons searches, and medical evacuations. In other scenarios the SES may provide a support role to other agencies, particularly police and fire. The SES is operational 24 hours a day. The SES is constituted as separate organisations operating in the various Australian states and territories. Eight of the SES organisations co-ordinate through the Australian Council of State and Territory Emergency Services (ACSES).

History
During World War II the National Emergency Service was created on 1 February 1939 to provide air raid wardens. The organisation was disbanded six months after the end of the war.

The Civil Defence Service began in Australia in 1955. It was formed as a precaution to any potential attacks on Australian soil. The name was changed to the "State Emergency Service" (abbreviated to "SES") during the 1970s, to reflect a change of emphasis into providing emergency help related to floods, storms and other natural emergencies. Every state and territory in Australia has its own State (or Territory) Emergency Service, and there are 43,000 volunteers spread across the country. Each state or territory is broken into regions, then units, and finally groups or teams.

The SES is one of many public safety organisations using AIIMS (Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System). Typically, small incidents (AIIMS type 1) are assigned to a 'unit' and dealt with by a 'team'. AIIMS type 2 or 3 incidents are coordinated at the regional level.

Agency Executives
Each State Emergency Service has an Executive appointed by the Minister responsible for each state.

Functions
The SES provides assistance to local communities in times of need. Because every community is different, every SES Unit has a slightly different set of roles and activities. Depending on the needs of the local community, a Unit may perform only some or all of these roles:

Funding
In addition to funds provided through legislation to the SES by state and local governments, SES groups also supplement their financial resources with donations made by individuals and businesses, and through other government grants. These donations typically contribute to purchasing or maintaining group equipment, such as vehicles and tools, or to improvement of SES property and facilities.

title: State Emergency Service


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User:Somniloquy

Like a soliloquy, only with somnolence.

title: User:Somniloquy


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Smacker video

Smacker video is a video file format (with the .SMK file extension) developed by Epic Games Tools, and primarily used for full-motion video in video games. Smacker uses an adaptive 8-bit RGB palette. RAD's format for video at higher color depths is Bink Video. The Smacker format specifies a container format, a video compression format, and an audio compression format. Since its release in 1994, Smacker has been used in over 2300 games. Blizzard used this format for the cinematic videos seen in its games Warcraft II, StarCraft and Diablo I.

The format has been reverse engineered and implemented in libavcodec. A non-commercial SourceForge project libsmacker released an open source decoder in 2013.

File format (container)
Smacker defines its own container format. A Smacker file can contain a Smacker video track and up to seven audio tracks. Each audio track can have either one channel (mono) or two channels (stereo) with a bit depth of either 8-bit or 16-bit. The audio can either be uncompressed PCM, compressed in the Smacker Audio format, or, in newer versions of Smacker, compressed in the Bink Audio format.

Video
Smacker video supports 256 colors, but no transparency support. While being a palette-based format, which is inherently limited to having not more than 256 colors in each frame, Smacker videos may still contain more colors in total due to "palette rotation", whereby the palette is updated on a per-frame basis. This usually results in SMK files that look better if the source video has more than 256 colors. The compression rate depends on the content. The encoding of a video consisting of still or barely moving frames is after the first frame practically free. Frames with random colors might more than double the raw size.

In Smacker video, a frame is split into 4×4 blocks in raster-scan order. Each block can be coded in one of six coding modes: skip, fill, mono, and three full modes. Each mode can be signaled for multiple blocks in a run-length encoding scheme. In skip mode, the current block is copied from the previous frame in a conditional replenishment fashion. In fill mode, the current block is filled with a single color. In mono mode, the palette is locally reduced from 256 colors to two colors. Both colors are written to the bitstream and one bit per pixel is used to indicate which of the two colors a pixel should be. The mono mode can be interpreted as vector quantization, where a three-dimensional vector with the components red, green, and blue is quantized using an adaptive codebook with two entries. There are three full modes, one was specified in version 2 of the Smacker format, while the other two were added in version 4. In the original full mode, 16 colors are transmitted, one for each pixel, equivalent to raw uncompressed PCM. The two full modes added in version 4 use 4 and 8 colors in a block, respectively. In the 4-color mode, the 4×4 block is split into four 2×2 blocks, each of which is filled with a solid color. In the 8-color mode, the 4×4 block is split into eight 1×2 blocks, each of which is filled with a solid color.

Further compression is achieved by entropy coding using Huffman coding of the various bitstream elements that result from the process above. There are four separate Huffman tables, each with 16-bit entries: one for mode decision, run-length, and fill color in fill color mode, one for the color indices in mono mode, one for the bitmap in mono mode, and one for all data in the full mode. Each table is adaptive and transmitted once per file in the header. The Huffman tables in the header are themselves compressed: the 16 bit values in the leaves of the code tree are split into a high byte and a low byte. Each byte is compressed using a Huffman table that is also contained in the header.

Audio
Smacker audio is one of the audio formats that can be used in the Smacker container. For compression, Differential pulse code modulation (DPCM) is used. The difference between two successive samples is compressed using Huffman coding. The Huffman tables are adapted once per audio frame.

title: Smacker video


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Fenelon Place Elevator

The Fenelon Place Elevator (also known as the Fourth Street Elevator) is a narrow gauge funicular railway located in Dubuque, Iowa, United States. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It was included as a contributing property in the Cathedral Historic District in 1985, and in the Fenelon Place Residential Historic District in 2015.

History
A predecessor to the Fourth Street Elevator was built in 1882 for the private use of local banker and former state senator J.K. Graves. The funicular was opened to the public in 1884, charging 5 cents per ride. After several fires, the existing funicular was rebuilt in 1893 on the footprint of the 1882 incline; the 1893 funicular inaugurated the use of the cable car technology that continues in use.

Location
The upper station of the elevator is located at 512 Fenelon Place, while the lower station is located at the western end of Fourth Street. At the top, there are two observation decks, which offer a commanding view of the downtown Dubuque area. The states of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin can all be seen from the observation decks.

Function
The funicular is 296 ft long, and angles up at 41 degrees with a vertical elevation of 189 ft. The two cars start at opposite ends, passing each other at the midpoint of the elevator. The two cars counterbalance each other, drawing motive power from an engine in the station house at the top of the hill. The engine only needs to overcome inertia and friction and compensate for the varying weight of the passengers in the cars.

The Fourth Street Elevator is run from April 1 to November 30. The hours are from 8 am to 10 pm.

title: Fenelon Place Elevator


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Western Illinois University

Western Illinois University (WIU) is a public university in Macomb, Illinois. It was founded in 1899 as Western Illinois State Normal School. As the normal school grew, it became Western Illinois State Teachers College. Once Western Illinois started offering graduate degrees, it again changed its name to Western Illinois State College. Western Illinois has an additional campus in Moline.

History
Western Illinois University was founded on April 24, 1899. The land for the university was donated by Macomb's Freemasons (Illinois Lodge #17). Macomb was in direct competition with Quincy, Aledo, Monmouth, La Harpe, and Rushville, as candidates for the site of a "western" university. The Illinois legislature selected Macomb as the location. University administrators uncovered evidence of the Freemasons' efforts on Macomb's behalf when they opened Sherman Hall's (the administration building) cornerstone during centennial celebrations.

Classes first began on campus on September 23, 1902 with 229 students enrolled. Founders’ Day is celebrated on campus every September 23 to mark this event.

The university's name has changed three times since its foundation as the Western Illinois State Normal School in 1899: the school was first renamed Western Illinois State Teachers College in 1921 and then to Western Illinois State College in 1947 and finally Western Illinois University in 1957.

Sherman Hall was the university's primary facility for many years, but as the university and its programs expanded, a need surfaced for further expansion. Today, the Macomb campus consists of 53 buildings over 1050 acre. Sherman Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Western's presence in the Quad Cities spans more than 40 years. In Fall 1960, the university offered its first undergraduate course in the Quad Cities.

In 2016 and 2017, WIU saw a major downsizing and exodus of faculty and staff as a consequence of state budget cuts and declining undergraduate enrollment.

Academics
Western Illinois University is composed of four academic colleges: In addition Western Illinois also offers an Honors College and the School of Extended Studies, which includes nontraditional programs. In 2023, U.S. News & World Report ranked the university #39 (tie) out of 167 Regional Universities Midwest and, as a Midwest Regional University, #17 in Best Colleges for Veterans (tie), #51 in Best Value Schools, #38 in Top Performers on Social Mobility (tie), and #9 in Top Public Schools (tie).
 * Arts & Sciences
 * Business & Technology
 * Education & Human Services
 * Fine Arts & Communication

The university offers 69 undergraduate majors, over 51 bachelor's degree programs and 13 pre-professional degrees at the undergraduate level. At the graduate level, 42 degree and certificate programs are offered. 95% of all courses are taught by full-time faculty. The university offers a Doctorate of Education in Educational Leadership (Ed. D.), which was established in 2005.

Western's Cost Guarantee Plan is a four-year fixed rate for tuition, fees, room and board that remains in place as long as students are continuously enrolled. Western was one of the first institutions in America, and the first state university in Illinois, to offer the guarantee. Western Illinois also offers the Cost Guarantee for graduate students enrolled in a degree program, as well as to transfer students earning an associate degree. Those students who transfer to WIU the following semester upon completing their associate degree will receive the previous year's cost guarantee rates.

Library system
Four libraries make up the WIU Libraries system. Completed in November 1975, Leslie F. Malpass Library (formerly Memorial Library) is the main branch of the library system. Designed by Gyo Obata, Malpass Library stands at six levels high and 222,000 square feet. Other WIU libraries include the Music Library, Physical Sciences Library, Curriculum Library, and the WIU-Quad Cities Library (Moline, Illinois) that was opened in the late 1990s to support WIU's growing presence in the Quad Cities.

Western Illinois University Libraries house several archives and special collections that aid in documenting the history of the west-central Illinois region. The libraries are the home for the Center for Hancock County History, the Center for Icarian Studies, the Civil War Collection (documenting the western Illinois experience in the war), the Decker Press Collection and the Mormon Collection.

Centennial Honors College
Centennial Honors College was founded in 1983 in order to attract more adept students and to provide an avenue for excellence. Accordingly, the GPA admissions standard for the Centennial Honors College is nearly a full grade point higher (0.9) than the minimum GPA of any other college at the university. Honors students complete a series of honors courses and projects and are also eligible for exclusive scholarships.

Western Illinois University Quad Cities
Western Illinois University Quad Cities (WIU-QC) is located in the Quad Cities metropolitan area, a region of cities in northwest Illinois and southeast Iowa, and is located along the Mississippi River in Moline, Illinois. Western Illinois has been in the Quad Cities dating back to 1912 when they first began offering extension classes in Moline and Rock Island. WIU-QC was previously an upper-division commuter site located on John Deere Road in Moline, Illinois. The branch began a move to the Moline riverfront in 2012, and has expanded to serve all levels of the college experience, from the freshman year to professional development. WIU-QC offers classes at the undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and post-baccalaureate levels.

Riverfront Hall, built in 2012 on the site of the former John Deere Tech Center, houses the College of Business and Technology, including the School of Engineering formerly located in the Caxton Building in downtown Moline. In 2014, the Quad Cities Complex was added, three connected buildings which house the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education and Human Services, and Fine Arts and Communications, as well as the library, student services, and administration.

Organizations
Western Illinois University offers over 250 registered student organizations. Offering various organizations including, but not limited to, multicultural, athletic, philanthropic, academic/professional, Greek, social, and religious-based organizations.

Newspaper
The Western Courier is the school newspaper at Western Illinois University. It is published each Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the academic year, excluding holidays and breaks. Summer publication is on Wednesdays only. The Western Courier is the only officially recognized student newspaper on campus and is distributed free.

Radio
Western Illinois also has a student-run radio station, 88.3 The Dog, WIUS-FM. The radio station can be heard across McDonough County on 88.3 FM, as well as online through their website (883thedog.com) and their mobile apps.

106.3 FM, WIUM, Tri States Public Radio, is the NPR affiliate on the campus of Western Illinois University.

Television
NEWS3 is Western Illinois University's student-produced television newscast, broadcasting and streaming live 30-minute newscasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4 p.m. The newsroom, studio, and control room are housed on the third floor of Sallee Hall.

Athletics
Inspired by the surrounding "vast golden prairie strewn with purple coneflowers," Western Illinois University adopted purple and gold as its official colors in 1902. WIU is the only non-military institution in the nation with permission from the Department of the Navy to use the United States Marine Corps Official seal and mascot, the Bulldog. Colonel Rock and Rocky, are the university mascots representing "The Fighting Leathernecks". Colonel Rock and Rocky were named after Ray "Rock" Hanson, a former WIU athletic director and former Marine. As of the Fall of 2009 the men's and women's teams were unified under the Leathernecks name. Previously, the women's teams and athletes at the school were known as Westerwinds.

Western Illinois sports teams participate in the NCAA Division I Ohio Valley Conference as of July 1, 2023. Western Illinois football will compete in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision in the Missouri Valley Football Conference for the 2023 season. Western Illinois University was a member of the Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference from 1914 to 1970.

title: Western Illinois University


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City of Greater New York

The City of Greater New York was the consolidation of the City of New York with Brooklyn, western Queens County, and Staten Island, which took effect on January 1, 1898. New York had already annexed the Bronx (west of the Bronx River in 1874, east of the Bronx River in 1895), so the consolidated city sprawled across five counties, which became the five Boroughs of modern New York. Eastern Queens County was excluded and later became Nassau County.

Background
New York City had been founded in the 1620s by the Dutch as New Amsterdam at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan. The English conquered the territory and established the original twelve counties of the Province of New York in 1683; one of these was the City and County of New York. A 1691 law defined New York City to be the entirety of Manhattan, while Manning's Island (now Roosevelt Island), the Barn Islands (now Randalls and Wards Islands), and the Oyster Islands (now Liberty Island, Ellis Island and Black Tom) were New York County. Towns had been established in the rest of the province by 1691, and were reincorporated after the American Revolution in 1788.

Brooklyn had been chartered by the Dutch in 1646; the Town of Brooklyn was one of the towns incorporated by 1691 and reestablished in 1788. It was located within Kings County, another county established by the English in 1683. It was incorporated as a village in 1814 and as a city in 1834. Originally comprising what is now Downtown Brooklyn, it annexed its surroundings through the 19th century and grew to encompass all of Kings County in 1895. By the 1890 United States Census it had become the fourth-largest city in the United States.

Since the late 1820s, there had been some discussion of a unified city. In 1857, the New York State Legislature resolved that the region surrounding New York City should become one body, to improve harbor facilities and link the systems of trade. They attempted to do so by government vote, but distrust of large projects killed the plans.

Consolidation
The consolidation movement was the work of local, city, and state politicians, most prominently Andrew Haswell Green, the president of the "Greater New-York Commission" and "The Father of Greater New York". Green was a member of the Board of Commissioners of Central Park, which provided him a platform to push his views.

The next challenge to the independence of the boroughs was a self-promoted and government-appointed commission. The commission led the "Vote for Greater New York" movement. Some opponents derided the effort as "Andy Green's hobby," but eventually they were proven wrong. The center of the plan was the consolidation of the twin cities of New York and Brooklyn, whose fire departments had been merged into a Metropolitan Fire District in 1865. The addition of Long Island City and various rural areas anticipated future development of those areas. With Republicans historically more powerful in Brooklyn and Democrats elsewhere, partisan politics played a role: each major political party hoped to dominate the consolidated city.

The plan required a referendum in all affected areas, though the organizers of the referendum clearly had a bias towards the consolidation. They even released a full page advertisement in The New York Times before the vote took place, urging them to vote "For Consolidation". An argument for consolidation was that the unconsolidated city would soon be surpassed by Chicago as the most populous city in the United States.

Opposition, concentrated in Brooklyn and other outlying districts, focused on loss of local control and fears of ethnic and racial minorities. Independence-minded Brooklynites did not want their regional identity to be overtaken by New York. Some newspapers such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle argued that consolidation would destroy the mostly homogeneous, Protestant character of the city. Opposing newspapers were accused of seeking to retain the revenues of official advertising, while opposing politicians were accused of graft. Concerns over how Brooklyn's water supply would be maintained and how future financial backing would be possible were legitimate. Considerations of finance and water supply prevailed, and the people of Brooklyn voted by a narrow margin to consolidate.

The term City of Greater New York was never a legal or official designation; both the original charter of 1898 and the newer one of 1938 use the name of City of New York. It is used today only to refer to the time period when the consolidation took place.

Each consolidated county remained a county in relation to the state, but also became a borough within the city. The Bronx reunited to form a fifth borough that shared New York County with Manhattan. A separate Bronx County was established in 1914, making the present New York County co-extensive with the Borough (but not the island) of Manhattan.

Consolidation referendum results
On December 14, 1894, the State Board of Canvassers released the official tally of the referendums, along with other races. The options listed on the ballot were "For Consolidation" and "Against Consolidation". The New York Times reported the results:

Subsequent history
Since the enlarged city contained the majority of the state of New York's population, and the enlargement increased the city's already enormous power within the state, the state legislature established certain oversight powers within the city. For example, some issues of taxation and changes in governmental procedures require state approval or granting of specific home rule powers.

Conversely, the State Constitution was amended to provide that no city could elect the majority of the State Assembly, a provision later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1964 as violating the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The New York City Board of Estimate, created in the consolidation charter with equal votes for each borough, was struck down on similar grounds in 1989.

Attempted Staten Island secession
Staten Island is geographically the most distant of the five boroughs, linked to the other four only by a single bridge, the Staten Island Ferry, and one NYC Ferry route. It is also not connected to the New York City Subway. In 1993, it held a non-binding referendum on the issue of seceding from New York City to become an independent city and county. Many Staten Island politicians, including Senator John J. Marchi and Assemblyman Eric N. Vitaliano supported the movement. Vote Yes, Inc. was formed as a nonpartisan, grass-roots organization in January 1990. Its initial purpose was to secure a "yes" vote for the November 1990 referendum on Staten Island secession. Ultimately, 65% of Staten Island residents voted to secede, through the approval of a new city charter making Staten Island an independent city, but implementation was blocked in the State Assembly. The Staten Island secession movement was defused by the election of Rudy Giuliani as New York City mayor, who fulfilled two of the borough's biggest demands: making the Staten Island Ferry free in 1997 and closing the Fresh Kills Landfill in 2001.

title: City of Greater New York


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Niva

Niva or NIVA can refer to:

Places

 * Niva (river) in the Murmansk Oblast, Russia
 * Nivå, a town in Denmark
 * Nivå station, railway station in Denmark
 * Niva (Prostějov District), a village in the Czech Republic
 * Niva, Iran, a village in Kurdistan Province, Iran

Other

 * Lada Niva (VAZ 2121) and Chevrolet Niva (VAZ 2123), a Russian off-road vehicle
 * Niva (newspaper), a Polish weekly newspaper in the Belarusian language
 * Niva (magazine), a popular 19th-century Russian magazine
 * National Independent Venue Association, an organization of independent music venues
 * Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA)
 * NIVA XM1970 assault rifle prototype
 * Niva International School

title: Niva


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Nonsuch

Nonsuch may refer to:

Ships

 * Nonsuch (1650 ship), the English ship that sailed into Hudson Bay in 1668–69
 * Nonsuch (1781 ship), built in Calcutta to serve as a merchantman or warship
 * Nonsuch (1794 ship), later renamed Vigilant, an American schooner
 * USS Nonsuch (1813), a US warship from 1813
 * Nonsuch (sailboat), a cat-rigged sailboat manufactured in Canada
 * HMCS Nonsuch, a Canadian Naval Reserve division in Edmonton, Alberta
 * HMS Nonsuch, name of several English and British warships

Buildings in England

 * Nonsuch House, a 1579 building on London Bridge
 * Nonsuch Palace, an English royal palace built by Henry VIII in Surrey
 * Nonsuch Mansion, a mansion in Nonsuch Park, London

Places

 * Nonsuch Bay, Antigua and Barbuda
 * Nonsuch, County Westmeath, a townland in Mayne civil parish, barony of Fore, County Westmeath, Ireland
 * Nonsuch Island, Bermuda, an island in, being restored to pre-colonial ecology
 * Nonsuch Park, a public park in the London Borough of Sutton, part of the larger park associated with the palace
 * Nonsuch, a village in Portland Parish, Jamaica

Other

 * Nonsuch (album), an alternative rock album by British band XTC
 * Nonsuch High School, a girls' Grammar school in Cheam, Surrey UK, near the park
 * Nonsuch, a publishing imprint of The History Press
 * HMS Nonsuch, a fictional ship in C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels; see
 * Treaty of Nonsuch, a treaty made at the palace between England and the Dutch Republic in 1585

title: Nonsuch


text:
User:David Newton/Aircraft Tables

Military Combat Jet Aircraft Without Afterburner Standard Table

Military Combat Jet Aircraft With Afterburner Standard Table

Military Combat Prop Aircraft Standard Table

Military Transport Jet Aircraft Standard Table

Military Transport Prop Aircraft Standard Table

Military Combat Helicopter Standard Table

Military Transport Helicopter Standard Table

Civilian Jet Aircraft Standard Table

Civilian Prop Aircraft Standard Table

title: User:David Newton/Aircraft Tables


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Washington, D.C., Special Flight Rules Area

An air defense identification zone (ADIZ) has existed since February 10, 2003, around the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area to restrict air traffic near Washington, D.C.

The ADIZ was established as a precursor to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. It has been erroneously connected to the September 11 attacks as a temporary measure to prevent further attacks. It was made permanent in 2008.

Despite efforts by the Federal Aviation Administration to inform pilots of the ADIZ, there are still many unauthorized incursions by unsuspecting pilots. A pilot who violates the boundaries may be intercepted by military aircraft and escorted to the nearest airport.

Creation
The ADIZ (now known by its components, the Flight Restricted Zone and Special Flight Rules Area) was created by the FAA in response to demands by a working group that became formalized as the National Capital Region Coordination Center. The U.S. Congress has never legitimized these restrictions, and any consideration of opposing the Executive Branch's actions became politically unpalatable in the wake of two mishaps that led to the evacuation of the Capitol. One involved a plane carrying Ernie Fletcher, the Governor of Kentucky, which led to an evacuation in 2004. The other, almost a year later, involved a Cessna 150 flown by a student pilot accompanied by a pilot who was not familiar with the ADIZ rules, using an outdated chart.

Location
The original Washington ADIZ was roughly co-extensive with the Class B airspace around Washington. On August 30, 2007, the dimensions of the ADIZ were changed to a 30 nmi circle centered on the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) VOR/DME (located at 38.85944°N, -77.03639°W), with a small triangular cutout for Leesburg Executive Airport (JYO). This change reduced the size of the ADIZ by 1800 sqmi and removed 33 airports from its coverage.

Flight Restricted Zone
Within the ADIZ is an even more sensitive zone designated the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area Flight Restricted Zone (DC FRZ). The DC FRZ extends approximately 13 - 15 nmi around the DCA VOR/DME. Flight within the FRZ is restricted to governmental, certain scheduled commercial and a limited set of waivered flights. Two general aviation airports (known as the "Maryland 3" or the "DC 3") are located inside the DC FRZ: College Park Airport (CGS) and Potomac Airport (VKX). Washington Executive/Hyde Field (W32) closed permanently in 2022.

Public opposition
Pilots' groups, led by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), have argued that the ADIZ is unnecessary and has a harmful effect on the economy of small airports and aviation-related businesses in and near the ADIZ. Pilots involved in law enforcement have described the ADIZ as a "major, unnecessary burden on pilots and air traffic controllers with almost no increased security benefit." AOPA and other groups are hoping to persuade Congress to lift or ease the ADIZ restrictions from Washington airspace – or at the very least to dramatically improve its operational aspects.

In 2006, the FAA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) docket number 17005 concerning making the temporary rules permanent. Over 20,000 responses were received, the vast majority of them in opposition to making the temporary rules permanent. There were two public hearings held by the FAA in the Washington D.C. area on the NPRM. All speakers were opposed to making the NPRM permanent. The FAA published transcripts of the public hearings. The transcripts were later withdrawn from the public as they were alleged to contain Sensitive Security Information, but were returned following review.

Subsequent changes
On August 30, 2007, the FAA implemented new rules for air traffic controllers and issued revised NOTAMs for pilots flying in the ADIZ. Although the NOTAMs and FAA procedures state that no radar services will be provided to pilots unless requested, air traffic controllers at Potomac TRACON are providing such services. This is due to a memorandum from the Potomac TRACON Air Traffic Manager to air traffic controllers stating that a certain paragraph (2-1-2) of the Air Traffic Control handbook (7110.65) is still applicable when providing ATC Security Services.

Effective February 9, 2009, any pilots flying VFR within a 60 nmi radius centered on the ADIZ are required to complete training about the ADIZ. This training can be completed online through a course called "Navigating the New DC ADIZ" (now "DC Special Flight Rules Area"). Pilots may also complete the required training by attending a seminar offered at a Flight Standards District Office. Pilots must obtain a certificate which proves that the training has been completed. This certificate is not required to be carried with the pilot, but must be produced when requested from law enforcement or other agencies. Pilots flying IFR are not subject to this requirement.

On February 17, 2009, the status of the ADIZ was scheduled to change from a temporary flight restriction to a permanent special flight rules area. On February 6, 2009, White House officials declined a request to postpone the implementation.

In February 2012, the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 required a joint plan to be submitted in 180 days by the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, in consultation with the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense.

"The plan shall outline specific changes to the D.C. Metropolitan Area Special Flight Rules Area that will decrease operational impacts and improve general aviation access to airports in the National Capital Region that are currently impacted by the zone."

In June 2014, Leesburg airport traffic was granted authority to perform local traffic pattern practice without a SFRA plan filed while operating under tower control without departing the pattern.

Laser warning system
In May 2005, NORAD started using a laser warning system to warn pilots that cross into restricted airspace. The bright laser beams, which flash red-red-green, are easily seen, even during daylight. The laser beams can be seen 15 to 20 mi away. Other pilots are unlikely to see the lasers because, when activated, the directional beams are pointed at the aircraft that has crossed into restricted airspace. Multiple lasers could be activated. These lasers do not harm the eyes of aircrew or passengers.


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Logical reasoning

Logical reasoning is a mental activity that aims to arrive at a conclusion in a rigorous way. It happens in the form of inferences or arguments by starting from a set of premises and reasoning to a conclusion supported by these premises. The premises and the conclusion are propositions, i.e. true or false claims about what is the case. Together, they form an argument. Logical reasoning is norm-governed in the sense that it aims to formulate correct arguments that any rational person would find convincing. The main discipline studying logical reasoning is logic.

Distinct types of logical reasoning differ from each other concerning the norms they employ and the certainty of the conclusion they arrive at. Deductive reasoning offers the strongest support: the premises ensure the conclusion, meaning that it is impossible for the conclusion to be false if all the premises are true. Such an argument is called a valid argument, for example: all men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. For valid arguments, it is not important whether the premises are actually true but only that, if they were true, the conclusion could not be false. Valid arguments follow a rule of inference, such as modus ponens or modus tollens. Deductive reasoning plays a central role in formal logic and mathematics.

For non-deductive logical reasoning, the premises make their conclusion rationally convincing without ensuring its truth. This is often understood in terms of probability: the premises make it more likely that the conclusion is true and strong inferences make it very likely. Some uncertainty remains because the conclusion introduces new information not already found in the premises. Non-deductive reasoning plays a central role in everyday life and in most sciences. Often-discussed types are inductive, abductive, and analogical reasoning. Inductive reasoning is a form of generalization that infers a universal law from a pattern found in many individual cases. It can be used to conclude that "all ravens are black" based on many individual observations of black ravens. Abductive reasoning, also known as "inference to the best explanation", starts from an observation and reasons to the fact explaining this observation. An example is a doctor who examines the symptoms of their patient to make a diagnosis of the underlying cause. Analogical reasoning compares two similar systems. It observes that one of them has a feature and concludes that the other one also has this feature.

Arguments that fall short of the standards of logical reasoning are called fallacies. For formal fallacies, like affirming the consequent, the error lies in the logical form of the argument. For informal fallacies, like false dilemmas, the source of the faulty reasoning is usually found in the content or the context of the argument. Some theorists understand logical reasoning in a wide sense that is roughly equivalent to critical thinking. In this regard, it encompasses cognitive skills besides the ability to draw conclusions from premises. Examples are skills to generate and evaluate reasons and to assess the reliability of information. Further factors are to seek new information, to avoid inconsistencies, and to consider the advantages and disadvantages of different courses of action before making a decision.

Definition
Logical reasoning is a form of thinking that is concerned with arriving at a conclusion in a rigorous way. This happens in the form of inferences by transforming the information present in a set of premises to reach a conclusion. It can be defined as "selecting and interpreting information from a given context, making connections, and verifying and drawing conclusions based on provided and interpreted information and the associated rules and processes." Logical reasoning is rigorous in the sense that it does not generate any conclusion but ensures that the premises support the conclusion and act as reasons for believing it. One central aspect is that this support is not restricted to a specific reasoner but that any rational person would find the conclusion convincing based on the premises. This way, logical reasoning plays a role in expanding knowledge.

The main discipline studying logical reasoning is called logic. It is divided into formal and informal logic, which study formal and informal logical reasoning. Traditionally, logical reasoning was primarily associated with deductive reasoning studied by formal logic. But in a wider sense, it also includes forms of non-deductive reasoning, such as inductive, abductive, and analogical reasoning.

The forms of logical reasoning have in common that they use premises to make inferences in a norm-governed way. As norm-governed practices, they aim at inter-subjective agreement about the application of the norms, i.e. agreement about whether and to what degree the premises support their conclusion. The types of logical reasoning differ concerning the exact norms they use as well as the certainty of the conclusion they arrive at. Deductive reasoning offers the strongest support and implies its conclusion with certainty, like mathematical proofs. For non-deductive reasoning, the premises make the conclusion more likely but do not ensure it. This support comes in degrees: strong arguments make the conclusion very likely, as is the case for well-researched issues in the empirical sciences. Some theorists give a very wide definition of logical reasoning that includes its role as a cognitive skill responsible for high-quality thinking. In this regard, it has roughly the same meaning as critical thinking.

Basic concepts
A variety of basic concepts is used in the study and analysis of logical reasoning. Logical reasoning happens by inferring a conclusion from a set of premises. Premises and conclusions are normally seen as propositions. A proposition is a statement that makes a claim about what is the case. In this regard, propositions act as truth-bearers: they are either true or false. For example, the sentence "The water is boiling." expresses a proposition since it can be true or false. The sentences "Is the water boiling?" or "Boil the water!", on the other hand, express no propositions since they are neither true nor false. The propositions used as the starting point of logical reasoning are called the premises. The proposition inferred from them is called the conclusion. For example, in the argument "all puppies are dogs; all dogs are animals; therefore all puppies are animals", the propositions "all puppies are dogs" and "all dogs are animals" act as premises while the proposition "all puppies are animals" is the conclusion.

A set of premises together with a conclusion is called an argument. An inference is the mental process of reasoning that starts from the premises and arrives at the conclusion. But the terms "argument" and "inference" are often used interchangeably in logic. The purpose of arguments is to convince a person that something is the case by providing reasons for this belief. Many arguments in natural language do not explicitly state all the premises. Instead, the premises are often implicitly assumed, especially if they seem obvious and belong to common sense. Some theorists distinguish between simple and complex arguments. A complex argument is made up of many sub-arguments. This way, a chain is formed in which the conclusions of earlier arguments act as premises for later arguments. Each link in this chain has to be successful for a complex argument to succeed.

An argument is correct or incorrect depending on whether the premises offer support for the conclusion. This is often understood in terms of probability: if the premises of a correct argument are true, it raises the probability that its conclusion is also true. Forms of logical reasoning can be distinguished based on how the premises support the conclusion. Deductive arguments offer the strongest possible support. Non-deductive arguments are weaker but are nonetheless correct forms of reasoning. The term "proof" is often used for deductive arguments or very strong non-deductive arguments. Incorrect arguments offer no or not sufficient support and are called fallacies, although the use of incorrect arguments does not mean their conclusions are incorrect.

Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. Deductively valid inferences are the most reliable form of inference: it is impossible for their conclusion to be false if all the premises are true. This means that the truth of the premises ensures the truth of the conclusion. A deductive argument is sound if it is valid and all its premises are true. For example, inferring the conclusion "no cats are frogs" from the premises "all frogs are amphibians" and "no cats are amphibians" is a sound argument. But even arguments with false premises can be deductively valid, like inferring that "no cats are frogs" from the premises "all frogs are mammals" and "no cats are mammals". In this regard, it only matters that the conclusion could not be false if the premises are true and not whether they actually are true.

Deductively valid arguments follow a rule of inference. A rule of inference is a scheme of drawing conclusions that depends only on the logical form of the premises and the conclusion but not on their specific content. The most-discussed rule of inference is the modus ponens. It has the following form: p; if p then q; therefore q. This scheme is deductively valid no matter what p and q stand for. For example, the argument "today is Sunday; if today is Sunday then I don't have to go to work today; therefore I don't have to go to work today" is deductively valid because it has the form of modus ponens. Other popular rules of inference include modus tollens (not q; if p then q; therefore not p) and the disjunctive syllogism (p or q; not p; therefore q).

The rules governing deductive reasoning are often expressed formally as logical systems for assessing the correctness of deductive arguments. Aristotelian logic is one of the earliest systems and was treated as the canon of logic in the Western world for over two thousand years. It is based on syllogisms, like concluding that "Socrates is a mortal" from the premises "Socrates is a man" and "all men are mortal". The currently dominant system is known as classical logic and covers many additional forms of inferences besides syllogisms. So-called extended logics are based on classical logic and introduce additional rules of inference for specific domains. For example, modal logic can be used to reason about what is possible and what is necessary. Temporal logic can be used to draw inferences about what happened before, during, and after an event. Classical logic and its extensions rest on a set of basic logical intuitions accepted by most logicians. They include the law of excluded middle, the double negation elimination, the principle of explosion, and the bivalence of truth. So-called deviant logics reject some of these basic intuitions and propose alternative rules governing the validity of arguments. For example, intuitionistic logics reject the law of excluded middle and the double negation elimination while paraconsistent logics reject the principle of explosion.

Deductive reasoning plays a central role in formal logic and mathematics. In mathematics, it is used to prove mathematical theorems based on a set of premises, usually called axioms. For example, Peano arithmetic is based on a small set of axioms from which all essential properties of natural numbers can be inferred using deductive reasoning.

Non-deductive reasoning
Non-deductive reasoning is an important form of logical reasoning besides deductive reasoning. It happens in the form of inferences drawn from premises to reach and support a conclusion, just like its deductive counterpart. The hallmark of non-deductive reasoning is that this support is fallible. This means that if the premises are true, it makes it more likely but not certain that the conclusion is also true. So for a non-deductive argument, it is possible for all its premises to be true while its conclusion is still false. There are various types of non-deductive reasoning, like inductive, abductive, and analogical reasoning. Non-deductive reasoning is more common in everyday life than deductive reasoning.

Non-deductive reasoning is ampliative and defeasible. Sometimes, the terms non-deductive reasoning, ampliative reasoning, and defeasible reasoning are used synonymously even though there are slight differences in their meaning. Non-deductive reasoning is ampliative in the sense that it arrives at information not already present in the premises. Deductive reasoning, by contrast, is non-ampliative since it only extracts information already present in the premises without adding any additional information. So with non-deductive reasoning, one can learn something new that one did not know before. But the fact that new information is added means that this additional information may be false. This is why non-deductive reasoning is not as secure as deductive reasoning.

A closely related aspect is that non-deductive reasoning is defeasible or non-monotonic. This means that one may have to withdraw a conclusion upon learning new information. For example, if all birds a person has seen so far can fly, this person is justified in reaching the inductive conclusion that all birds fly. This conclusion is defeasible because the reasoner may have to revise it upon learning that penguins are birds that do not fly.

Inductive

Inductive reasoning starts from a set of individual instances and uses generalization to arrive at a universal law governing all cases. Some theorists use the term in a very wide sense to include any form of non-deductive reasoning, even if no generalization is involved. In the more narrow sense, it can be defined as "the process of inferring a general law or principle from the observations of particular instances." For example, starting from the empirical observation that "all ravens I have seen so far are black", inductive reasoning can be used to infer that "all ravens are black". In a slightly weaker form, induction can also be used to infer an individual conclusion about a single case, for example, that "the next raven I will see is black". Inductive reasoning is closely related to statistical reasoning and probabilistic reasoning. Like other forms of non-deductive reasoning, induction is not certain. This means that the premises support the conclusion by making it more probable but do not ensure its truth. In this regard, the conclusion of an inductive inference contains new information not already found in the premises.

Various aspects of the premises are important to ensure that they offer significant support to the conclusion. In this regard, the sample size should be large to guarantee that many individual cases were considered before drawing the conclusion. An intimately connected factor is that the sample is random and representative. This means that it includes a fair and balanced selection of individuals with different key characteristics. For example, when making a generalization about human beings, the sample should include members of different races, genders, and age groups. A lot of reasoning in everyday life is inductive. For example, when predicting how a person will react to a situation, inductive reasoning can be employed based on how the person reacted previously in similar circumstances. It plays an equally central role in the sciences, which often start with many particular observations and then apply the process of generalization to arrive at a universal law.

A well-known issue in the field of inductive reasoning is the so-called problem of induction. It concerns the question of whether or why anyone is justified in believing the conclusions of inductive inferences. This problem was initially raised by David Hume, who holds that future events need not resemble past observations. In this regard, inductive reasoning about future events seems to rest on the assumption that nature remains uniform.

Abductive
Abductive reasoning is usually understood as an inference from an observation to a fact explaining this observation. Inferring that it has rained after seeing that the streets are wet is one example. Often, the expression "inference to the best explanation" is used as a synonym. This expression underlines that there are usually many possible explanations of the same fact and that the reasoner should only infer the best explanation. For example, a tsunami could also explain why the streets are wet but this is usually not the best explanation. As a form of non-deductive reasoning, abduction does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion even if the premises are true.

The more plausible the explanation is, the stronger it is supported by the premises. In this regard, it matters that the explanation is simple, i.e. does not include any unnecessary claims, and that it is consistent with established knowledge. Other central criteria for a good explanation are that it fits observed and commonly known facts and that it is relevant, precise, and not circular. Ideally, the explanation should be verifiable by empirical evidence. If the explanation involves extraordinary claims then it requires very strong evidence.

Abductive reasoning plays a central role in science when researchers discover unexplained phenomena. In this case, they often resort to a form of guessing to come up with general principles that could explain the observations. The hypotheses are then tested and compared to discover which one provides the best explanation. This pertains particularly to cases of causal reasoning that try to discover the relation between causes and effects. Abduction is also very common in everyday life. It is used there in a similar but less systematic form. This relates, for example, to the trust people put in what other people say. The best explanation of why a person asserts a claim is usually that they believe it and have evidence for it. This form of abductive reasoning is relevant to why one normally trusts what other people say even though this inference is usually not drawn in an explicit way. Something similar happens when the speaker's statement is ambiguous and the audience tries to discover and explain what the speaker could have meant. Abductive reasoning is also common in medicine when a doctor examines the symptoms of their patient in order to arrive at a diagnosis of their underlying cause.

Analogical

Analogical reasoning involves the comparison of two systems in relation to their similarity. It starts from information about one system and infers information about another system based on the resemblance between the two systems. Expressed schematically, arguments from analogy have the following form: (1) a is similar to b; (2) a has feature F; (3) therefore b probably also has feature F. Analogical reasoning can be used, for example, to infer information about humans from medical experiments on animals: (1) rats are similar to humans; (2) birth control pills affect the brain development of rats; (3) therefore they may also affect the brain development of humans.

Through analogical reasoning, knowledge can be transferred from one situation or domain to another. Arguments from analogy provide support for their conclusion but do not guarantee its truth. Their strength depends on various factors. The more similar the systems are, the more likely it is that a given feature of one object also characterizes the other object. Another factor concerns not just the degree of similarity but also its relevance. For example, an artificial strawberry made of plastic may be similar to a real strawberry in many respects, including its shape, color, and surface structure. But these similarities are irrelevant to whether the artificial strawberry tastes as sweet as the real one.

Analogical reasoning plays a central role in problem-solving, decision-making, and learning. It can be used both for simple physical characteristics and complex abstract ideas. In science, analogies are often used in models to understand complex phenomena in a simple way. For example, the Bohr model explains the interactions of sub-atomic particles in analogy to how planets revolve around the sun.

Fallacies
A fallacy is an incorrect argument or a faulty form of reasoning. This means that the premises provide no or not sufficient support for the conclusion. Fallacies often appear to be correct on the first impression and thereby seduce people into accepting and using them. In logic, the term "fallacy" does not mean that the conclusion is false. Instead, it only means that some kind of error was committed on the way to reaching the conclusion. An argument can be a fallacy even if, by a fortuitous accident, the conclusion is true. Outside the field of logic, the term "fallacy" is sometimes used in a slightly different sense for a false belief or theory and not for an argument.

Fallacies are usually divided into formal and informal fallacies. Formal fallacies are expressed in a formal language and usually belong to deductive reasoning. Their fault lies in the logical form of the argument, i.e. that it does not follow a valid rule of inference. A well-known formal fallacy is affirming the consequent. It has the following form: (1) q; (2) if p then q; (3) therefore p. This fallacy is committed, for example, when a person argues that "the burglars entered by the front door" based on the premises "the burglars forced the lock" and "if the burglars entered by the front door, then they forced the lock". This fallacy is similar to the valid rule of inference known as modus ponens. It is faulty because the first premise and the conclusion are switched around. Other well-known formal fallacies are denying the antecedent, affirming a disjunct, denying a conjunct, and the fallacy of the undistributed middle.

Informal fallacies are expressed in natural language. Their main fault usually lies not in the form of the argument but has other sources, like its content or context. Some informal fallacies, like some instances of false dilemmas and strawman fallacies, even involve correct deductive reasoning on the formal level. The content of an argument is the idea that is expressed in it. For example, a false dilemma is an informal fallacy that is based on an error in one of the premises. The faulty premise oversimplifies reality: it states that things are either one way or another way but ignore many other viable alternatives. False dilemmas are often used by politicians when they claim that either their proposal is accepted or there will be dire consequences. Such claims usually ignore that various alternatives exist to avoid those consequences, i.e. that their proposal is not the only viable solution.

The strawman fallacy is another informal fallacy. Its error happens on the level of the context. It consists in misrepresenting the view of an opponent and then refuting this view. The refutation itself is often correct but the error lies in the false assumption that the opponent actually defends this view. For example, an alcohol lobbyist may respond to the suggestion to ban alcohol advertisements on television by claiming that it is impossible to make people give up drinking alcohol. This is a strawman fallacy since the suggestion was merely to ban advertisements and not to stop all alcohol consumption.

Ambiguous and vague expressions in natural language are often responsible for the faulty reasoning in informal fallacies. For example, this is the case for fallacies of ambiguity, like the argument "(1) feathers are light; (2) light is opposed to darkness; (3) therefore feathers are opposed to darkness". The error is found in the ambiguous term "light", which has one meaning in the first premise ("not heavy") and a different meaning in the second premise ("visible electromagnetic radiation").

As a skill
Some theorists discuss logical reasoning in a very wide sense that includes its role as a broad skill responsible for high-quality thinking. In this sense, it is roughly equivalent to critical thinking and includes the capacity to select and apply the appropriate rules of logic to specific situations. It encompasses a great variety of abilities besides drawing conclusions from premises. Examples are to understand a position, to generate and evaluate reasons for and against it as well as to critically assess whether to accept or reject certain information. It is about making judgments and drawing conclusions after careful evaluation and contrasts in this regard with uncritical snap judgments and gut feelings. Other core skills linked to logical reasoning are to assess reasons before accepting a claim and to search for new information if more is needed to reach a reliable conclusion. It also includes the ability to consider different courses of action and compare the advantages and disadvantages of their consequences, to use common sense, and to avoid inconsistencies. The skills responsible for logical reasoning can be learned, trained, and improved.

Logical reasoning is relevant both on the theoretical and practical level. On the theoretical level, it helps decrease the number of false beliefs. A central aspect concerns the abilities used to distinguish facts from mere opinions, like the process of finding and evaluating reasons for and against a position to come to one's own conclusion. This includes being able to differentiate between reliable and unreliable sources of information. This matters for effective reasoning since it is often necessary to rely on information provided by other people instead of checking every single fact for oneself. This way, logical reasoning can help the person avoid the effects of propaganda or being manipulated by others. When important information is missing, it is often better to suspend judgment than to jump to conclusions. In this regard, logical reasoning should be skeptical and open-minded at the same time.

On the practical level, logical reasoning concerns the issue of making rational and effective decisions. For many real-life decisions, various courses of action are available to the agent. For each possible action, there can be conflicting reasons, some in favor of it and others opposed to it. In such cases, logical reasoning includes weighing the potential benefits and drawbacks as well as considering their likelihood in order to arrive at a balanced all-things-considered decision. For example, when a person runs out of drinking water in the middle of a hiking trip, they could employ the skills associated with logical reasoning to decide whether to boil and drink water from a stream that might contain dangerous microorganisms rather than break off the trip and hike back to the parking lot. This could include considering factors like assessing how dangerous the microorganisms are and the likelihood that they survive the boiling procedure. It may also involve gathering relevant information to make these assessments, for example, by asking other hikers.

Time also plays a central role in logical reasoning. If one lacks important information, it is often better to delay a decision and look for new information before coming to a conclusion. If the decision is time-sensitive, on the other hand, logical reasoning may imply making a fast decision based on the currently available evidence even if it is very limited. For example, if a friend yells "Duck!" during a baseball game the most logical response may be to blindly trust them and duck instead of demanding an explanation or investigating what might have prompted their exclamation. Generally speaking, the less time there is, the more significant it is to trust intuitions and gut feelings. If there is more time, on the other hand, it becomes important to examine ambiguities and assess contradictory information.

title: Logical reasoning


text: User talk:203.166.96.237

title: User talk:203.166.96.237


text:
Arawak language

Arawak (Arowak, Aruák), also known as Lokono (Lokono Dian, literally "people's talk" by its speakers), is an Arawakan language spoken by the Lokono (Arawak) people of South America in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. It is the eponymous language of the Arawakan language family.

Lokono is an active–stative language.

History
Lokono is a critically endangered language. The Lokono language is most commonly spoken in South America. Some specific countries where this language is spoken include Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and Venezuela. The percentage of living fluent speakers with active knowledge of the language is estimated to be 5% of the ethnic population. There are small communities of semi-speakers who have varying degrees of comprehension and fluency in Lokono that keep the language alive. It is estimated that there are around 2,500 remaining speakers (including fluent and semi-fluent speakers). The decline in the use of Lokono as a language of communication is due to its lack of transmission from older speakers to the next generation. The language is not being passed to young children, as they are taught to speak the official languages of their countries.

Classification
The Lokono language is part of the larger Arawakan language family spoken by indigenous people in South and Central America along with the Caribbean. The family spans four countries of Central America — Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua — and eight of South America — Bolivia, Guyana, French Guiana, Surinam, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Brazil (and also formerly Argentina and Paraguay). With about 40 extant languages, it is the largest language family in Latin America.

Etymology
Arawak is a tribal name in reference to the main crop food, the cassava root, commonly known as manioc. The cassava root is a popular staple for millions of people in South America, Asia and Africa. It is a woody shrub grown in tropical or subtropical regions. Speakers of Arawak also identify themselves as Lokono, which translates as "the people". They call their language Lokono Dian, "the people's speech".

Alternative names of the same language include Arawák, Arahuaco, Aruak, Arowak, Arawac, Araguaco, Aruaqui, Arwuak, Arrowukas, Arahuacos, Locono, and Luccumi.

Geographic distribution
Lokono is an Arawakan language most commonly found to be spoken in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. It was also formerly spoken on Caribbean islands such as Barbados and other neighboring countries. There are approximately 2,500 native speakers today. The following are regions where Arawak has been found spoken by native speakers.

Consonants
William Pet observes an additional in loanwords.

Vowels
Pet notes that phonetic realization of varies between [] and [].

Grammar
The personal pronouns are shown below. The forms on the left are free forms, which can stand alone. The forms on the right are bound forms (prefixes), which must be attached to the front of a verb, a noun, or a postposition.

Cross-referencing affixes
All verbs are sectioned into transitive, active transitive, and stative intransitive.

A= Sa=cross referencing prefix

O=So= cross referencing suffix

Gender
In the Arawak language, there are two distinct genders of masculine and feminine. They are used in cross-referencing affixes, in demonstratives, in nominalization and in personal pronouns. Typical pronominal genders, for example, are feminine and non-feminine. The markers go back to Arawak third-person singular cross-referencing: feminine -(r)u, masculine -(r)i

Number
Arawak Languages do distinguish singular and plural, however plural is optional unless the referent is a person. Markers used are *-na/-ni (animate/human plural) and *-pe (inanimate/animate non-human plural).

Possession
Arawak nouns are fragmented into inalienably and alienably possessed. Inalienably crossed nouns include things such as body parts, terms for kinship and common nouns like food selections. Deverbal nominalization belong to that grouping. Both forms of possession are marked with prefixes (A/Sa). Inalienably possessed nouns have what is known as an "unpossessed" form (also known as "absolute") marked with the suffix *-tfi or *-hV. Alienably possessed nouns take one of the suffixes *-ne/ni, *-te, *-re, *i/e, or *-na. All suffixes used as nominalizers.

Negation
Arawak languages have a negative prefix ma- and attributive-relative prefix ka-. An example of the use is ka-witi-w ("a woman with good eyes") and ma-witti-w ("a woman with bad eyes", i.e., a blind woman).

Writing system
The Arawak language system has an alphabetical system similar to the Roman Alphabet with some minor changes and new additions to letters.

The letters in brackets under each alphabetical letter is the IPA symbol for each letter.

title: Arawak language


text: User talk:210.11.188.12

title: User talk:210.11.188.12


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Talk:2003–04 FA Premier League

I would like to see this page merged with this page: 2003-04 in English football -- Erzengel 04:14, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

First job done, I've got it Wikified, mainly to domestic clubs and coaches, though also to non-English clubs for ease of disambiguation. Bobo192 07:11, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why are Arsenal the only team to sport the clumsy F.C extension as part of their name? Not being picky or owt but EVERY SINGLE LEAGUE CLUB has F.C after their name. Is there something special about Arsenal I'm missing that we should refer to them not as Arsenal but Arsenal F.C?

Did not Chelsea finish as Runners-Up this season?

Vandalism
This page has been vandalised (atleast the table) please fix it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.30.35.134 (talk) 04:42, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

✅ I understood what you meant but next time, do mention what is wrong and what is correct. Zahir 04:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

League table vandalised again. Latest correct revision 10th April 2014. Couldn't work out how to just revert to that version, so have left it for a moderator to deal with. 109.145.184.5 (talk) 13:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

 * http://www.givemefootball.com/pfa-awards/thierry-is-the-tops-again---and-its-a-big-hats-off
 * In 2003–04 FA Premier League on 2011-05-25 07:39:42, 404 Not Found
 * In 2003–04 FA Premier League on 2011-06-11 07:15:22, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 07:15, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:1992–93 FA Premier League which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:2003–04 FA Premier League