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Coxiella burnetii

Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen, and is the causative agent of Q fever. The genus Coxiella is morphologically similar to Rickettsia, but with a variety of genetic and physiological differences. C. burnetii is a small Gram-negative, coccobacillary bacterium that is highly resistant to environmental stresses such as high temperature, osmotic pressure, and ultraviolet light. These characteristics are attributed to a small cell variant form of the organism that is part of a biphasic developmental cycle, including a more metabolically and replicatively active large cell variant form. It can survive standard disinfectants, and is resistant to many other environmental changes like those presented in the phagolysosome.

History and naming
Research in the 1920s and 1930s identified what appeared to be a new type of Rickettsia, isolated from ticks, that was able to pass through filters. The first description of what may have been Coxiella burnetii was published in 1930 by Hideyo Noguchi, but since his samples did not survive, it remains unclear as to whether it was the same organism. The definitive descriptions were published in the late 1930s as part of research into the cause of Q fever, by Edward Holbrook Derrick and Macfarlane Burnet in Australia, and Herald Rea Cox and Gordon Davis at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory (RML) in the United States.

The RML team proposed the name Rickettsia diaporica, derived from the Greek word for having the ability to pass through filter pores, to avoid naming it after either Cox or Davis if indeed Noguchi's description had priority. Around the same time, Derrick proposed the name Rickettsia burnetii, in recognition of Burnet's contribution in identifying the organism as a Rickettsia. As it became clear that the species differed significantly from other Rickettsia, it was first elevated to a subgenus named after Cox, Coxiella, and then in 1948 to its own genus of that name, proposed by Cornelius B. Philip, another RML researcher. Research in the 1960s–1970s by French Canadian-American microbiologist and virologist Paul Fiset was instrumental in the development of the first successful Q fever vaccine.

Coxiella was difficult to study because it could not be reproduced outside a host. However, in 2009, scientists reported a technique allowing the bacteria to grow in an axenic culture and suggested the technique may be useful for study of other pathogens.

Pathogenesis
Of the many C. burnetii strains, two of the most studied are the Nine Mile phase I and Priscilla phase I strain. In recent years, more strains have been studied. Nonetheless, it has been demonstrated that the Nine Mile strain is one of the most virulent strains of C. burnetti with as few as four organisms needed to cause infection. This is particularly relevant as murine rodents are poorly susceptible to C. burnetii, necessitating a higher dose and a more virulent dose to inoculate murine rodents for disease study.

The ID50 (the dose needed to infect 50% of experimental subjects) is one via inhalation; i.e., inhalation of one organism will yield disease in 50% of the population. This is an extremely low infectious dose (only 1-10 organisms required), making C. burnetii one of the most infectious known organisms. Disease occurs in two stages: an acute stage that presents with headaches, chills, and respiratory symptoms, and an insidious chronic stage.

C. burnettii infections begins within the alveoli. Upon inhalation, it targets alveolar macrophages and passively enters them via actin-dependent phagocytosis. After initial binding, it is suggested that C. burnetii enters phagocytotic cells via passive actin-dependent phagocytosis and enters non-professional phagocytes via an active zipper mechanism. C. burnetii exploits the αVβ3 integrin to enter using RAC1-dependent phagocytosis, which is believed to have evolved as a mechanism to avoid the induction of an inflammatory response.

Following infection, C. burnetii has a biphasic developmental cycle, which consists of small cell variant (SCV) and large cell variant (LCV) morphological forms, which are both infectious. As the SCV is metabolically repressed and resistant to many environmental stressors, it is likely the form that initiates natural infections. Having entered a host cell, C. burnetii SCVs transit through the phagolysosomal maturation pathway. In the first six hours post-infection, endosomes, autophagosomes, and lysosomes containing acid phosphatase fuse with the nascent phagosome to form early PV, which fosters the transition from SCV to LCV. Resultantly, C. burnetii is metabolically activated and produces the T4SS to translocate effector proteins into the host cytoplasm. After 6 days, C. burnetii transitions back to SCV.

While most infections clear up spontaneously, treatment with tetracycline or doxycycline appears to reduce the symptomatic duration and reduce the likelihood of chronic infection. A combination of erythromycin and rifampin is highly effective in curing the disease, and vaccination with Q-VAX vaccine (CSL) is effective for prevention of it.

The bacteria use a type IVB secretion system known as Icm/Dot (intracellular multiplication / defect in organelle trafficking genes) to inject over 100 effector proteins into the host. These effectors increase the bacteria's ability to survive and grow inside the host cell by modulating many host cell pathways, including blocking cell death, inhibiting immune reactions, and altering vesicle trafficking. In Legionella pneumophila, which uses the same secretion system and also injects effectors, survival is enhanced because these proteins interfere with fusion of the bacteria-containing vacuole with the host's degradation endosomes.

Use as a biological weapon
The United States ended its biological warfare program in 1969. When it did, C. burnetii was one of seven agents it had standardized as biological weapons.

Genomics
At least 75 completely sequenced genomes of Coxiella burnetii strains exist, which contain about 2.1 Mbp of DNA each and encode around 2,100 open reading frames; 746 (or about 35%) of these genes have no known function.

In bacteria small regulatory RNAs are activated during stress and virulence conditions. Coxiella burnetii small RNAs (CbSRs 1, 11, 12, and 14) are encoded within intergenic region (IGR). CbSRs 2, 3, 4 and 9 are located antisense to identified ORFs. The CbSRs are up-regulated during intracellular growth in host cells.

All C. burnetii isolates either carry one of four conserved independently-replicating large plasmids (QpH1, QpDG, QpRS, or QpDV) or a chromosomal element derived from QpRS. QpH1 carries virluence factors important for the bacterium's survival inside mouse macrophages and Vero cells; growth on axenic media is unaffected. QpH1 also contains a toxin-antitoxin system. Among all plasmids, 8 conserved genes code for proteins that are inserted into the host cell via the secretion system.

title: Coxiella burnetii


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Sergey Akhromeyev

Sergey Fyodorovich Akhromeyev (Серге́й Фёдорович Ахроме́ев; May 5, 1923 – August 24, 1991 ) was a Soviet military figure, Hero of the Soviet Union (1982) and Marshal of the Soviet Union (1983).

When he was the first deputy chief of staff of the Soviet Army, he formulated a military plan to invade Afghanistan. He later served as Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1984 to 1988 and as chief military adviser to General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. A member of the State Committee on the State of Emergency during the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, Akhromeyev died by suicide after the failure of the coup.

Early life
Sergey Akhromeyev was born on 5 May in 1923 in Vindrey, a village in the Tambov Governorate of the Russian SFSR (now Mordovia), in a family of Russian ethnicity. His father fell under dispossession and died in the late 1940s in Central Asia. His mother, after divorcing her husband in 1928, left with her children to Moscow, where she worked at the plant in Krasny Bogatyr.

World War II
In 1940, he graduated from the 1st Special Naval School in Moscow and in the same year began military service, enrolling in the M.V. Frunze Higher Naval School. He took additional training at the naval base of the Baltic Fleet in Liepāja, in recently Soviet-occupied Latvia. Akhromeyev was a Naval Infantry junior officer on the Eastern Front, serving with distinction during the Siege of Leningrad, and was wounded and suffered frostbite. He continued his studies at the M.V. Frunze Higher Naval School.

Enrolled in August 1942 as a cadet in the courses of lieutenants at the 2nd Astrakhan Infantry School, which he graduated in the same year. From May to August 1942 he was a cadet with the Black Sea Fleet, serving as part of the gunnery unit on the ship. He then served as commander of a rifle platoon of the 197th Army Reserve Regiment of the 28th Army, and since 1943 as an adjutant senior rifle battalion of the same regiment on the 4th Ukrainian Front.

At one point he was ordered to guard and hold a road on which the German Army would be trying to advance. Despite a bloody battle, he was able to accomplish the task. Relating the story during a meal with Secretary of State George Shultz and Ambassador Ken Adelman in Reykjavík during the Reagan Administration, Akhromeyev told Shultz that his accomplishment was not only a great sign of his patriotism, as Shultz suggested, but also was because had he abandoned the road, Stalin would have had him shot. He was decorated for his participation in the defense of Leningrad.

From July 1944, he was commander of a motorized battalion of machine gunners of the 14th Self-Propelled Artillery Brigade of the Reserve of the High Command in the Kharkov and Moscow Military Districts. On 1945, he graduated from the Higher Officers' School of Self-Propelled Artillery of the Armored and Mechanized Forces of the Red Army.

Akhromeyev recalled his war experiences: "'A total of 18 months, I have never been in a house, even when the temperature is as low as minus 50 degrees celsius. I have been sleeping outside in two winters, and I have never had a warm day. Always fighting, always starving. Moreover, there are so many dead. 8 out of 10 boys of my age are dead. Of my 32 middle school classmates, only one of my classmates and I survived.'"

When the war ended in 1945, he was the commander of a tank battalion.

Post-war service
After the war, from June 1945 to September 1945, he was deputy commander of the SU-76 Self-Propelled Artillery Battalion. From September 1945 to February 1947, he commanded a tank battalion of the 14th Separate Tank Regiment of the training center. From February 1947, commander of the ISU-122 battalion of the 14th Heavy Tank-Self-Propelled Regiment of the 31st Guards Mechanized Division in the Baku Military District in Azerbaijan SSR.

In 1952 he graduated from the IV Stalin Military Academy of Armored and Mechanized Forces of the Soviet Army. From July 1952, he was the chief of staff of the 190th Tank-Self-Propelled Regiment in the 39th Army of the Primorsky Military District. In August 1955, he commanded tank regiments in the Far Eastern Military District. From December 1957 to December 1960, he served as deputy commander, chief of staff, and commander of the 36th Tank Division in the Belarusian Military District. From April 1964, he served as commander of a training tank division.

From October 1968 to May 1972, he served as commander of the 7th Tank Army in the Belarusian Military District. From May 1972 to March 1974, Akhromeyev served as Chief of Staff and First Deputy Commander of the Far Eastern Military District. In 1973,he graduated from the Higher Academic Courses at the Voroshilov Military Academy of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces.

From March 1974 to February 1979, he was the Chief of the Main Operations Directorate (GOU) of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces and Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces.

Soviet-Afghan War
In 1979, while serving as the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Akhromeyev formulated a comprehensive plan to invade Afghanistan. This plan was successful, and the Hafizullah Amin regime in Afghanistan immediately fell. Akhromeyev believed that after the occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviet Army should advance on victory and occupy the western part of Pakistan in one go, so that the Soviet Union could obtain the outlet of the Indian Ocean, in order to eradicate the logistics base of the Afghan Mujahaddin.

The young Soviet generals advocated for the invasion of Afghanistan.. Marshals Vasily Chuikov, Kirill Moskalenko and others held this view. During his time as deputy chief of staff, he almost gave up all rest time and devoted himself to work.

Chief of the General Staff and retirement
In 1980, he was awarded the Lenin Prize for his research into the use of automated systems in the Armed Forces. Akhromeyev was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1983, the only person to have obtained this position without having previously served as chief of the General Staff. Between 1984 and 1989, he served as Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces. In that capacity, Akhromeyev was heavily involved in the talks which brought an end to the Cold War. He grew increasingly dissatisfied with Mikhail Gorbachev's approach to reforming the military, in particular, his insistence on dismantling the newest and most accurate ballistic missile in the Soviet Army — the SS-23 Spider - under the tenets of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and resigned from that position.

Following his retirement from the armed forces, he served as the Deputy of the Council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from the Moldavian SSR on 1984. From December 1988, he served as an advisor to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. During the Chernobyl Disaster of 1986, Akhromeyev was involved in the organization and deployment of troops to the location of the catastrophe. The Armed Forces personnel carried out radiation monitoring, decontamination of the terrain, sheltering contaminated wastes and participated in the burial of the emergency block. He later presented a report on the conduct of the troops during the disaster.

From May 1989, he served as an advisor to the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. In March 1989, he was elected People's Deputy of the USSR from the Bălți Territorial District No. 697 of Moldavian SSR. Akhromeyev served as the member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Committee of the USSR Armed Forces on Defense and Security. During the meetings at the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he repeatedly spoke as well as in the press with articles about the "danger of a quick conquest of the USSR by NATO".

From December 1988, he served as the Inspector General of the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union. In March 1990, he was made advisor to the President of the USSR on military affairs. He resigned from all positions in 1991. On November 14, in an interview with the conservative Soviet magazine, he stated that in case of internal division within the USSR, there is a possibility that the military will be dispatched to prevent the country's disintegration. He stated:

"'I openly state my position. I support the socialist way of life. If someone attempts to split the country or change its social system by force or other unconstitutional acts, the president and the Soviets can decide to use force to ensure the protection of our motherland. Unify and maintain its constitutional social system.'"

His comments attracted attention. On June 19, 1991, at a press conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War, Akhromeyev observed that the situation of the Soviet Union in 1991 was similar to that of 1941. He believed that the country was heading for its destruction, going so far as to say that "which was defended by Soviet soldiers and civilians at the expense of millions of people, is about to collapse".

According to Russian political writer Roy Medvedev: "'Marshal Akhromeyev was a worthy military leader and was highly respected in the army and in the party. The Marshal was discouraged by the behavior of the President of the USSR, who stopped giving his adviser and assistant any assignments and constantly postponed the decision a number of important military problems that Akhromeyev considered urgent. In the end, Akhromeyev submitted his resignation letter back in June 1991, but Gorbachev was also slow to resolve this issue.'"

Involvement in the August Coup and death
During the August Coup of 1991, Akhromeyev returned from Sochi, where he was on vacation with his wife Tamara Vasilievna and grandchildren, and met with the Vice President of the Soviet Union Gennady Yanaev, to offer his assistance to the coup leaders. On August 20, he worked in the Kremlin and in the building of the Ministry of Defense. Akhromeyev prepared a plan of measures to be taken in connection with the introduction of the state of emergency. On the night of August 20–21, he spent the night in his office in the Kremlin. From his office, he called his daughters and wife in Sochi.

On August 20, Akhromeyev and Grigory Baklanov gathered a working group and organized the collection of information and analysis of the situation. On August 21, according to Akhromeyev, two reports prepared by this group were considered at a meeting of the Emergency Committee. In addition, Akhromeev prepared a draft text for Yanayev for his planned report at the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. However, Yanayev did not like the text prepared by Akhromeev. On August 22, he sent a personal letter to Gorbachev, where he declared his support of the coup and urged Gorbachev to take action to prevent the dissolution of USSR. On August 23, he attended a meeting of the USSR Supreme Soviet Committee for Defense and State Security. He was, among others author of the planned assault on the White House. The defeat of the coup heralded the imminent end of his political career.

After its failure, Akhromeyev committed suicide. Shortly after his death, there was speculation that the suicide and suicide note were fake and that he was in fact murdered. Among other things, there was speculation as to why he did not shoot himself with his service weapon. There have also been rumors that he has been murdered to prevent him from revealing the partnership of others in a coup attempt. Army general Valentin Varennikov expressed doubts about the suicides of Akhromeyev and Boris Pugo. In addition to personal messages to his family, he left a note explaining that he could not continue living when the institutions to which he had devoted his life were disintegrating.

Akhromeyev was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Shortly after his burial, his grave was vandalized and his corpse stripped of the decorations in the uniform, in which it had been buried. The culprits were never found, and it is uncertain whether it was an act of pure desecration or if the grave-robbers hoped to sell the stolen uniform or its adornments for profit. The decorations were never recovered. As a result, a few days later a second funeral and reburial was conducted for him in the same cemetery. His tombstone is engraved with the coat of arms of the USSR and the words; 'communist', 'patriot' and 'soldier'. Admiral William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom knew Marshal Akhromeyev and once called him a communist, a patriot, and a friend in that order.

According to Marshal Dmitry Yazov: "'But as for Akhromeyev, everything is literally in the case. And all the notes, and this ribbon on which he hanged himself. And a note about the first time the ribbon broke.. I'm sure that Akhromeyev laid hands on himself. I knew Sergey Fyodorovich well. He could not come to terms with what happened to his country'."

Legacy
Akhromeyev's memoirs were released posthumously in 1992. In 2015, Russian authorities unveiled a memorial plaque honoring him on the wall of House number#11, Building#4 on Mosfilmovskaya Street in Moscow, where Akhromeyev lived from 1978 to 1991.

Personal life
Akhromeyev was married to Tamara Vasilievna Akhromeyeva. They had two daughters, Tatiana and Natalia.

Honours and awards

 * Soviet awards
 * Hero of the Soviet Union (7 May 1982)
 * Four Orders of Lenin (23 February 1971, 21 February 1978, 28 April 1980, 7 May 1982)
 * Order of the October Revolution (1 July 1988)
 * Order of the Red Star, twice (15 September 1943, 30 December 1956)
 * Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (6 April 1985)
 * Order for Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR, 3rd class (30 April 1975)
 * Lenin Prize (1980)
 * Medal "For Battle Merit" (15 November 1945)
 * Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR"
 * Medal "For the Defence of Stalingrad" (1942)
 * Medal "For the Defence of Leningrad" (1942)
 * Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945)
 * Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (1965)
 * Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1975)
 * Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1985)
 * Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (1969)
 * Jubilee Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy" (1948)
 * Jubilee Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1958)
 * Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1968)
 * Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1978)
 * Jubilee Medal "70 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1988)
 * Medal "For Strengthening Military Cooperation"
 * Medal "For Impeccable Service" 1st class
 * Medal "Veteran of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
 * Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow" (1947)

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan:
 * Foreign Awards
 * Order of the Red Banner (1982)
 * Order Saur Revolution (1984)
 * Medal "From a grateful Afghan people" (1988)

People's Republic of Bulgaria:
 * Order of Georgi Dimitrov (1988)
 * Order "The People's Republic of Bulgaria", 1st class (1985)
 * Order "September 9, 1944", 1st class with Swords (1974)
 * Medal "For Strengthening brotherhood in arms" (1977)
 * Medal "30 Years of Victory over Nazi Germany" (1975)
 * Medal "40 Years of Victory over Fascism" (1985)
 * Medal "90th anniversary of the birth of Georgi Dimitrov" (1974)
 * Medal "100th Anniversary of Birth of Georgi Dimitrov" (1984)
 * Medal "100 years of the liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman yoke" (1978)

🇨🇳 China:
 * Medal of Sino-Soviet Friendship (1955)

Czechoslovakia:
 * Order of the Red Banner (1982)
 * Order of 25 February 1948 (1985)
 * Medal "30 Years of the Slovak National Uprising" (1974)
 * Medal "40 Years of the Slovak National Uprising" (1984)

🇨🇺 Cuba:
 * Medal "20 years of the Revolutionary Armed Forces" (1976)
 * Medal "30 years of the Revolutionary Armed Forces" (1986)

German Democratic Republic:
 * Scharnhorst Order (1983)
 * Medal "Brotherhood in Arms", 1st class (1980)
 * Medal "30 Years of the People's Army of the GDR" (1986)

Mongolian People's Republic:
 * Order of Sukhbaatar (1981)
 * Medal "30 Years of Victory over Japan" (1975)
 * Medal "40 Years of Victory in Khalkhin-Gol" (1979)
 * Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the MPR" (1981)

🇰🇵 North Korea:
 * Medal "40 Years of Liberation of Korea" (1985)

Polish People's Republic:
 * Medal "Brotherhood in Arms" (1988)

Socialist Republic of Romania:
 * Medal "For Military Merit" (1985)

Vietnam:
 * Military Exploit Order, grade 1 (1985)

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

title: Sergey Akhromeyev


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Formica rufa species group

The Formica rufa group is a subgeneric group within the genus Formica, first proposed by William Morton Wheeler. This group contains the mound-building species of Formica commonly termed "wood ants" or "thatch-mound ants", which build prominent nests consisting of a mound of grass, litter, or conifer needles. The species Formica rufa or the red wood ant is the type species of this subgroup.

This particular group can inhabit open deciduous woodlands, dense pine forests, and even moorland. Workers vary in size, the largest reaching about 10 mm long. They can produce formic acid in their abdomens and eject it 12 cm in the air when threatened. The only function of males is to mate in flight with queens. Species previously attributed to the Microgyna group were transferred to the  F. rufa group by the Wheelers in 1986.

Colonies
The genetic relationships in F. rufa group colonies can be complex. Colonies can be polygynous (having multiple queens) and these are often polydomous (having multiple nests per colony). Queens may be singly or multiply mated, and in polygynous colonies, may or may not be related. Colonies are rarely, if ever, independently formed. They either bud off from existing colonies, or are formed by temporary social parasitism of colonies of F. fusca or other closely related species. A wood ant queen ousts the existing queen, lays eggs, and the F. fusca workers raise her offspring until the nest is taken over. Some species in the F. rufa group sometimes form enormous "supercolonies" consisting of hundreds or thousands of nests. The largest documented example is an F. yessensis colony in Japan covering 2.7 km2 containing an estimated 306 million workers and 1 million queens.

Member species
European species include:
 * Formica aquilonia Yarrow, 1955
 * Formica lugubris Zetterstedt, 1838
 * Formica paralugubris Seifert, 1996
 * Formica polyctena Förster, 1850
 * Formica pratensis Retzius, 1783
 * Formica rufa Linnaeus, 1761

North American species include:
 * Formica ciliata Mayr, 1886
 * Formica coloradensis Creighton, 1940
 * Formica comata Wheeler, 1909
 * Formica criniventris Wheeler, 1912
 * Formica dakotensis Emery, 1893
 * Formica fossaceps Buren, 1942
 * Formica integra Nylander, 1856
 * Formica integroides Emery, 1913
 * Formica laeviceps Creighton, 1940
 * Formica microgyna Wheeler, 1903
 * Formica mucescens Wheeler, 1913
 * Formica obscuripes Forel, 1886
 * Formica obscuriventris Mayr, 1970
 * Formica oreas Wheeler, 1903
 * Formica planipilis Creighton, 1940
 * Formica propinqua Creighton, 1940
 * Formica ravida Creighton, 1940
 * Formica reflexa Buren, 1942
 * Formica subnitens Creighton, 1940

Asian species
 * Formica yessensis

title: Formica rufa species group


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Countryside Commission

The Countryside Commission (formally the Countryside Commission for England and Wales, then the Countryside Commission for England) was a statutory body in England and Wales, and later in England only. Its forerunner, the National Parks Commission, was established in 1949 by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 to co-ordinate government activity in relation to National Parks.

This body became the Countryside Commission for England and Wales in 1968, when its duties were expanded to cover the countryside as a whole in England and Wales (a separate Countryside Commission for Scotland covered Scotland).

In 1991 the Welsh part of the organisation was split off and amalgamated with the equivalent part of the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) to become the Countryside Council for Wales. The rest of the organisation became the Countryside Commission for England – for the moment it remained separate from English Nature, as the English part of the NCC became.

The Countryside Commission ceased to exist in 1999 when it was merged with the Rural Development Commission to form the Countryside Agency. This has in turn evolved into Natural England, partly by eventual merger with English Nature.

List of chairmen of the Countryside Commission

 * The Baroness Wootton of Abinger
 * Sir John Cripps (1970–1977)
 * The Lord Winstanley (1978–1980)
 * Sir Derek Barber (1981–1991)
 * Sir John Johnson (1991–?)
 * Richard Simmonds (1996?–?)

title: Countryside Commission


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Mega Man Network Transmission

Mega Man Network Transmission (ロックマン エグゼ トランスミッション) is a 2003 action-platform video game developed by Arika and published by Capcom for the GameCube video game console. The game was first released in Japan on March 6, 2003, and in North America and PAL regions the following June as Arika's only GameCube game. Network Transmission is part of the Mega Man Battle Network series, which originated on the Game Boy Advance (GBA) handheld and takes place in an alternate timeline to the main Mega Man series.

Taking place one month after the events of the first Mega Man Battle Network game, the plot follows the protagonist Lan Hikari and his online avatar MegaMan.EXE in their fight against the "WWW (World Three)" organization and its attempt to unleash and spread the infectious "Zero Virus" into cyberspace. The player controls MegaMan through a set of levels that require actions such as jumping, sliding, and shooting, as well as the use of special "Battle Chips" that grant the player various combat and movement abilities. Network Transmission combines action and platforming gameplay elements from older Mega Man games with the strategy and role-playing elements as defined by the Battle Network series.

The development team's intent was to meld these attributes into a home console title that would appeal to the young gamer audience that they found with the GBA series. Critical reception for Network Transmission has been mostly average reviews. Although it received some positive remarks for its Battle Chip gameplay, many critics have complained that the game features a high or unbalanced difficulty level. The game's sound and its combination of 2D and 3D cel-shaded graphics have been met with varied opinions.

Plot
The storyline of Mega Man Network Transmission takes place during the first decade of the 21st century ("200X"), one month after the original Mega Man Battle Network. Following the defeat of the "Life Virus", the ultimate weapon of Dr. Wily and the "WWW (World Three)" organization, Lan Hikari and his network navigator (NetNavi) MegaMan.EXE return to a life of ease. However, no sooner does Lan begin to relax when he hears of a mysterious and destructive computer virus called the "Zero Virus" that infects Navis and causes mayhem via his personal information terminal (PET) e-mail. Lan has other qualms to deal with however, receiving an e-mail detailing fellow NetNavi Roll.EXE being trapped in the internet. MegaMan goes to save her, finding an infected FireMan.EXE as the cause of trouble. Defeating him, the duo talk to FireMan's operator, Mr. Match, and learn of the vaccine being distributed to amend the Zero Virus is actually doing just the opposite, having caused FireMan to go berserk.

Confirming this with Lan's father, Dr. Yuichiro Hikari, the two set out to search for the cure of the problem, finding many situations of pragmatic Navis infected and causing mayhem. Stopping all of them and returning them to their respective operators, the two eventually discover more clues leading to the remnants of the WWW. It is revealed that a powerful Navi called StarMan.EXE has been distributing the virus. After defeating StarMan, MegaMan and Lan engage in a climactic battle against the powerful super virus Zero himself. However, at the conclusion of the battle, just as the finishing blow is about to be delivered to Zero, the heroes discover he is not evil. Lan's father then transforms him into a full-fledged Navi. However, their happiness is short-lived as a former member of the WWW simply named "Professor" reveals this was all part of his scheme to revive the dreaded Life Virus. Analyzing clues, MegaMan and Lan engage and defeat the second Life Virus and use Zero's observation powers to eventually bring the Professor to justice. There is dialogue at the end of the game between ShadowMan.EXE and his operator Mr. Dark, leading the plot into the next chronological installment, Mega Man Battle Network 2.

Gameplay
Mega Man Network Transmission incorporates aspects of action and platforming games similar to other Mega Man series, while retaining the strategy and role-playing elements of the Battle Network series. The player takes control of the protagonist Lan within the game's real world and his NetNavi MegaMan.EXE within its internet. Unlike previous games in this series, Lan is restricted from moving location to location. Instead, the player uses a map screen with points of interest to travel to different levels. Levels are opened up as the player progresses through the game, with a slight emphasis on linear progression, although MegaMan can move off-path at times. Levels typically end in a boss battle with another NetNavi. Combat takes place in real-time, with MegaMan given the ability to jump, slide, fire his default arm cannon, and dodge enemy attacks on a two-dimensional plane.

Special abilities called "Battle Chips" are provided through a "Custom Bar" that slowly fills at the top of the screen. When the bar is full, the player can select up to five Battle Chips, which are provided from a folder of player-selected chips. Ten random chips are available when the bar is full; a total of twenty can be used for each level excursion. Battle Chips are used for dealing large amounts of damage to enemies, protecting and restoring the player's health, summoning other Navi's to MegaMan's aid, and for some platforming abilities. Certain chips can even be combined to be more effective. Although Battle Chips are limited in quantity, they can be picked up from deleted enemies or can be purchased at shops when not exploring the internet. As in previous Battle Network games, items that upgrade MegaMan's maximum health, firing power, and other attributes can also be accessed.

Development
Mega Man Network Transmission was developed by Arika, who had previously worked on the Street Fighter EX series, a 3D polygon rendition of publisher Capcom's traditionally 2D fighting series. Producer Keiji Inafune revealed in an interview with Dengeki that after a string of PlayStation releases, the team chose to focus their development efforts of the Mega Man franchise for Nintendo consoles with the Battle Network series. They felt that children who played the GBA handheld were beginning to show interest in the GameCube, and that the character was more suitable to a console related to the Nintendo Family Computer, where the franchise originated. Inafune stated that the developer wanted to "preserve the core of Rockman" by transcending the traditional action elements (i.e. running and jumping) for the current gaming hardware from the perspective of the role-playing series.

Network Transmission uses a cel-shaded animation style to match the MegaMan NT Warrior anime series that was airing in Japan during the game's development. Inafune explained that the team opted for an anime style with "eye-catching effects" in place of a more realistic look because he felt it the former would be more enjoyable. Yuji Ishihara, the primary character artist for the Battle Network series, used many of his previous character designs for Network Transmission. One new contribution was updating his illustration for the revived Life Virus by giving it two fists per arm, among other details. "I thought it would be both an effective look," Ishihara elaborated, "as well as make for a reasonably mobile character for a polygon-based action game." The musical score for Network Transmission was co-composed by Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso, and Yousuke Yasui. Hosoe's company Super Sweep Records has recently been given the rights to produce the soundtrack, and it was released as a part of Megaman's 25th Anniversary on November 2, 2012.

Network Transmission was announced and on display for the first time at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2002. The game was showcased at the Mega Man series 15th anniversary celebration event at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba Prefecture that December. A playable version made appearances in January 2003 at the World Hobby Fair in Osaka and at the Capcom Gamer's Day event in Las Vegas. Finally, the game was on display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles during the summer between its Japanese and North American releases.

Mega Man Network Transmission is the only Arika game released for the GameCube as the company did not develop further games for that console.

Reception
Media Create sales data for Japan shows that Mega Man Network Transmission sold 23,147 copies during its first week on sale, 9,041 copies during its second week, 7,859 copies during its third week, and 4,679 copies during its fifth week. A total of 79,360 copies were sold in the country by the end of 2003. A bargain-priced version of the game was released in Japan on March 18, 2004. According to NPD Group, Network Transmission sold 30,224 copies in North America, making it the eighth best-selling GameCube game in the region for the month of June 2003.

Mega Man Network Transmission has been met with mixed critical reception. The game currently holds scores of 67% on GameRankings and 65 out of 100 on Metacritic. A point of contention for many critics was the game's difficulty level. Skyler Miller of G4 summarized, "Network Transmission is painfully difficult not because of any genuine challenge, but because of its cheap enemies, frustrating weapons setup, and unnecessary complications. For example, you can only save after beating a boss, which is common in the Mega Man series. It's tedious to have to wade your way through the relatively straightforward levels time and time again only to meet instant death against a boss." GameSpy's Benjamin Turner felt that the difficulty level was unbalanced rather than too steep, and that once a player gains a foothold on the gameplay and collects enough Battle Chips and power-ups, the challenge subsides. Reviewers for Eurogamer, IGN, and GameSpot all similarly agreed that the greatest difficulty is presented toward the game's start, particularly with its first few boss battles.

Opinions on the visuals and audio in Network Transmission have been decidedly split. Turner found the music perfectly fitting, but stated, "You may also be disappointed that the graphics don't quite push the GameCube. They're generally okay, and even pretty a few times, but overall the visuals are a bit spartan." Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot described the backgrounds and animation as appropriate, that the Japanese voice acting matched the characters, and that the music was upbeat. However, he found the art style lacking in personality, the weapon effects and summons "understated", and the sound effects "underdeveloped". IGN's Matt Casamassina was conversely impressed by the art style, backgrounds, and frame rate, but disliked the graphics as a whole, proclaiming, "It's a brand new product, but it looks like it could have been released on PlayStation 1, or perhaps even on Super Nintendo." Miller found the game's use of cel-shading useless and the titular protagonist "the weakest link of all, looking undefined, vague, and more than a little awkward".

The game's integration of Battle Chips into the side-scroller genre was admired by some reviewers. Casamassina was entertained by discovering and capitalizing on which chips are useful against which enemies. Turner was impressed by the random shuffling of chips in one's inventory and the instances of forced improvisation on the player's part. Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer expressed satisfaction with having the needed chips at the right times, but admitted frustration with having to disarm oneself to organize them. He asserted, "Even glancing at what you might move to the top of the list involves sending the blue bomber's current chips back to the 'Folder', leaving you with a choice between edging forward with the paltry chargeable beam weapon and standing around waiting for your Custom bar to fill up again."

title: Mega Man Network Transmission


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Four Color

Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and Dell Four Color, is an American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962. The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic books (cyan, magenta, yellow and black at the time). The first 25 issues (1939–1942) are known as "series 1". In mid-1942, the numbering started over again, and "series 2" began. After the first hundred issues of the second series, Dell stopped putting the "Four Color Comics" designation on the books, but they continued the numbering system for twenty years.

More than 1,000 issues were published, usually with multiple titles released every month. An exact accounting of the actual number of unique issues produced is difficult because occasional issue numbers were skipped and a number of reprint issues were also included. Nonetheless, the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide lists well over 1,000 individual issues, ending with #1354. Comics historian Alberto Becattini cites 1332 issues. It currently holds the record for most issues produced of an American comic book title; its nearest rival, DC's Action Comics, reached the 1,000-issue milestone in 2018.

Four Color published many of the first licensed Disney comics; about 20 percent of the Four Color issues were devoted to Disney characters.

History
Unlike most comic book series of the day, which were either devoted to one character, or were anthologies with collections of stories starring the cartoon characters of a particular studio, Four Color instead devoted each individual issue to different characters. One issue might feature a popular cartoon character, while the next might be an adaptation of a popular movie or TV series. Thus the phrase "one shot" which was used in the publisher's code in the first interior page of the first story. For example, issue 223 (1949) was denoted DDOS 223 which translates as Donald Duck One-Shot #223. Most Four Color titles featured licensed properties; relatively few original characters were created for the line. The first Four Color comic featured comic strip and movie serial hero Dick Tracy; the last (issue number 1,354, series 2, dated April–June 1962) was based upon the TV series Calvin and the Colonel.

Comics historian Gary Brown wrote, "In the Four Color Series, you get a good sense of what America was like in the 1950s. Admittedly, it might be a white, middle-class version of the country, but the series hit on every fad, every icon, and every popular piece of culture that America embraced during this time span. Dell comics released anywhere from one to a half dozen Four Color titles a month, touching on topics such as the Old West, animation characters, newspaper comic strips, radio programs, TV programs, movies, and even pop music. For the most part, the series reflected what entertained America in the 1950s — and not just kids, but adults, as well."

Many of the early Four Color issues were reprints of newspaper comic strips; the first series included Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Terry and the Pirates, among others. The only two issues from the first series that published comic book stories were based on new Walt Disney films. Issue #13 featured an adaptation of The Reluctant Dragon, and a Dumbo adaptation was the focus of issue #17.

The comic strip reprints continued well into the 1942 second series. Of the first ten issues, eight are strip reprints, including Little Joe, Harold Teen, Alley Oop and Flash Gordon. The first two original stories in the second series are issue #5, Raggedy Ann and Andy, and issue #9, Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. The series continued strip reprints of Dick Tracy until issue #163 (Sept 1947), Little Orphan Annie until issue #206 (Dec 1948) and Harold Teen until issue #209 (Jan 1949).

But the focus of the series moved to original comic book stories, and soon the primary purpose behind Four Color was as a try-out showcase for potential new Dell Comics series. For example, Tarzan and Little Lulu in early 1948 launched their own titles (starting with no. 1) after proving themselves via a number of Four Color try-out issues. However, during the 1940s, the transition was not always so prompt, as a number of prominent funny animal characters starred in 20–30 issues of Four Color (these include Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Porky Pig). Comic book historian Michael Barrier notes that by the early 1950s, Dell seemed to be giving more emphasis to subscription sales (promoted via premium giveaways as part of the Dell Comics Club), which necessitated stable series instead of one-shots.

At one point in 1951, some issues of Four Color were double-numbered, reflecting the issuances for particular characters; thus issues 318 and 328, featuring Donald Duck, carried the notation "nos. 1–2" on the cover underneath the Four Color series number. Indeed, beginning in the early 1950s, it became more prevalent than previously for Four Color titles, if they proved popular enough, to become ongoing, independent series. In some cases, the issue numbering of these spin-offs took into account any previous Four Color issues (albeit sometimes miscounting the one-shots; Donald Duck started with #26 despite the publication of twenty-nine Four Color issues with the character preceding it).

Only issues published between c.1940 and 1946 actually carried the title Four Color Comics on the cover.

Four Color ended its run around the same time Dell's partnership with Western Publishing came to an end. Western subsequently formed a competing company, Gold Key Comics, and took over a number of licenses previously held by Dell. This included numerous titles featured under the Four Color banner that were then continued as ongoing series under Gold Key; this included most of the Disney and Hanna-Barbera properties.

title: Four Color


text:
User:Fshaffi

Faisal's Home Page

title: User:Fshaffi


text: User:Wytukaze

title: User:Wytukaze


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Telefon Tel Aviv

Telefon Tel Aviv is an American electronic music act formed in 1999 by musicians Charles Cooper and Joshua Eustis. Since Cooper's accidental death in 2009, Telefon Tel Aviv has continued with Eustis as the sole official member.

History
Telefon Tel Aviv was formed in 1999 by Charles Cooper and Joshua Eustis, with their first album Fahrenheit Fair Enough, released in the fall of 2001 to positive reviews. In 2002, the group released an EP on the Hefty Records Immediate Action label. In 2004, the duo released their second full-length album, Map of What Is Effortless, and a compilation album of remixes titled Remixes Compiled in 2007. The group released its third full-length album in January 2009 on the BPitch Control label. Influenced by English electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), Immolate Yourself peaked at #17 on the Billboard Top Electronic Albums chart. In 2016, their debut was re-released with eight bonus tracks.

Since 2011, Eustis has been working on new music. In March 2012, Eustis mentioned on his Twitter account that he was "trying" to work on new Telefon Tel Aviv material. In February 2013, Eustis was announced as a member of the touring lineup of Nine Inch Nails. He was originally slated to tour with band throughout 2013 and 2014. However, on December 5, 2013, it was revealed by Trent Reznor that Eustis was no longer part of the Nine Inch Nails touring line-up, citing only Alessandro Cortini, Ilan Rubin, Robin Finck, and himself as band members during an IAmA on Reddit. Eustis also confirmed this on the official Telefon Tel Aviv website.

Death of Charles Cooper
On January 22, 2009, Eustis announced on the group's MySpace blog that Charles Cooper had died. The information also appeared on the band's website: "Charles Wesley Cooper III / April 12, 1977 - January 22, 2009". Two CBS2 Chicago articles about Cooper's death specify that he went missing on January 21 before being found dead.

On January 30, 2009, Eustis posted on the group's MySpace blog that all tour plans have been cancelled and the future of the band is uncertain.

On March 22, 2009, Eustis posted on the group's MySpace blog that he will perform on stage with a close friend of the group, Fredo Nogueira.

On July 22, 2009, Eustis posted on the group's MySpace in order to clarify some rumours about Cooper's death, stating that three autopsy reports ruled it was not a suicide but possibly an accidental mix of sleeping pills and alcohol.

Sons Of Magdalene and Future
On December 9, 2013, Josh Eustis posted on the official Telefon Tel Aviv website that he was going back into the studio full-time, as he was no longer a touring member of Nine Inch Nails and presumably Puscifer as well. In the same post, Eustis stated that he has been sitting on a 95% finished full-length album under the moniker of Sons Of Magdalene, a name previously used for an EP released in 2008. Additionally, the post confirmed that after the record was finished, he would be working on Telefon Tel Aviv full-time. The debut album from the Sons of Magdelene moniker, Move to Pain, was released June 24 2014.

Production
In interviews, Cooper and Eustis have stated that they use the following software: Digidesign Pro Tools, Native Instruments Reaktor/Electronic Instruments 2 XT, Ableton Live and Max/MSP

Additionally, the band has contributed samples to the Native Instruments Synthetic Drums 2 sample library.

For the album Immolate Yourself the band drastically changed their production style, reverting to analog tape and analog synthesizers, claiming this method to "sound more real".

Studio albums

 * 2001: Fahrenheit Fair Enough
 * 2004: Map of What Is Effortless
 * 2009: Immolate Yourself (#17 Billboard Top Electronic Albums)
 * 2019: Dreams Are Not Enough (#2 Billboard Top Electronic Albums)

Extended plays

 * 2002: Immediate Action

Compilations

 * 2007: Remixes Compiled

Remixes and Collaborations

 * 2000: John Hughes - "Got Me Lost / Driving In LA" (Immediate Action)
 * 2000: Nine Inch Nails - "Where Is Everybody?" (Things Falling Apart)
 * 2001: Phil Ranelin - "Time Is Running Out" (Remixes)
 * 2003: Midwest Product - "A Genuine Display" (Idol Tryouts : Ghostly International Vol. 1)
 * 2004: Slicker - "Knock Me Down Girl" (Knock Me Down Girl)
 * 2005: Marc Hellner - "Asleep On The Wing" (Asleep On The Wing)
 * 2005: Apparat - "Komponent" (Silizium EP)
 * 2005: Oliver Nelson - "Stolen Moments" (Impulsive! Revolutionary Jazz Reworked)
 * 2005: Bebel Gilberto - "All Around" (Bebel Gilberto Remixed)
 * 2005: AmmonContact - "BBQ Plate" (Microsolutions To Megaproblems)
 * 2005: Nitrada - "Fading Away" (Four Remixes)
 * 2007: 刀郎 - "艾里甫與賽乃姆" (Dancing With Dao Lang (與刀郎共舞))
 * 2008: Apparat - "Arcadia" (Arcadia Rmxs)
 * 2008: Genghis Tron – "Relief" (Board Up The House Remixes Volume 4)
 * 2008: Barbara Morgenstern - "Come To Berlin" (Come To Berlin Mixes)
 * 2009: Art Of Trance - "Swarm" (Swarm)
 * 2011: SONOIO - "Can You Hear Me?" (NON SONOIO - Red Remixes)
 * 2012: Cubenx – "Grass" (Grass Remixes)
 * 2013: Dillon and Telefon Tel Aviv - "Feel the Fall" (Where the Wind Blows)
 * 2015: Lusine - "Arterial" (Arterial Reworks)
 * 2016: Vatican Shadow & Telefon Tel Aviv - "Rejoice" (Compilation by #savefabric)
 * 2017: These Hidden Hands - "Glasir" (Vicarious Memories Remixed)
 * 2018: Belief Defect - "Deliverance" (Remixed 01)
 * 2019: Shlømo - "Hadal Skin" (Mercurial Skin Remixes: Tome 2)
 * 2020: Bochum Welt - "Color Me" (Seafire Remixes)
 * 2021: Modeselektor - "Mean Friend" (Telefon Tel Aviv Remix)
 * 2021: Deftones - "Digital Bath" (RSD 12")
 * 2022: Stimming - "Judith Maria" (Telefon Tel Aviv Remix)
 * 2023: Sheena Ringo - "Gate of Hades"

Appearances (Eustis)

 * 2004: A Perfect Circle - eMOTIVe
 * 2011: Puscifer - Conditions of My Parole
 * 2012: Puscifer - Donkey Punch the Night
 * 2013: Puscifer - All Re-Mixed Up
 * 2013: Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks
 * 2016: The Black Queen - Fever Daydream
 * 2016: Second Woman - Second Woman
 * 2018: The Black Queen - Infinite Games

Under "Sons of Magdalene" moniker
 * 2008: Ephemera
 * 2014: Move to Pain
 * 2015: Ecumenicals

title: Telefon Tel Aviv


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Plum Island (Massachusetts)

Plum Island is a barrier island located off the northeastern coast of Massachusetts, north of Cape Ann, United States. It is approximately 11 mi in length. The island is named for the wild beach plum shrubs that grow on its dunes, but is also famous for the purple sands at high tide, which derive their color from tiny crystals of pink pyrope garnet. It is located in parts of four municipalities in Essex County. From north to south they are the city of Newburyport, and the towns of Newbury, Rowley, and Ipswich.

Captain John Smith
Plum Island appears as an unnamed island as early as Captain John Smith's map of New England. Various scholars have speculated on the nature of the earlier accounts of European explorers in the New World, with particular focus on the latter's surveys of the coastlines of Massachusetts, but Smith's account identifies Plum Island. He describes a harbor at "Angoam" (elsewhere "Aggawom", the Anglicised Native American name for the native village that preceded Ipswich, Massachusetts, and was destroyed by smallpox) as having "many sands" at its entrance. Before it was an island:

"On the east is an Ile two or three leagues in length; the one halfe, plain morish grass fit for pasture, with many faire high groves of mulberry trees gardens; and there is also Oaks, Pines and other woods to make this place an excellent habitation, being a good and safe harbor."

"Morish" is now "marsh", and the high gardens of "mulberry" trees may be beach plum, which prefers the crowns of the dunes, although today can be seen on only a few. The map shows an imaginary English town (the insertion of Charles I of England) of the then-future "South Hampton", about where Newbury is. The Hampton suggestions were later put to use, but farther north.

The Mason grant
A grant in 1621 by the Plymouth Council for New England, acting under a charter from James I of England (not then reigning) to colonize New England, deeded the land between the "Naumkeag" and Merrimack rivers to Captain John Mason. The island was to be named the Isle of Mason. Mason, then governor of Newfoundland, never acted on the grant. It was later included in a similar grant to the Massachusetts Bay Colony; nevertheless, in 1681 the heirs of John Mason petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts for possession of the grant, now colonized by several communities. After a trial before justices appointed for the purpose, the General Court decided it could not honor the claim, as no one then knew the location of the Naumkeag River, and in any case Mason's grant had been included in another. It did assess a nominal quit-rent fee of a few shillings on land-holders undeniably within the tract; that is, as far south as Ipswich.

Division of the island
Ipswich, Massachusetts, was incorporated as Ipswich in 1634 by settlers of the previous year from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1635 another group from England passed through Ipswich to settle and incorporate Newbury, Massachusetts. In 1639 a third group from England was granted the remaining land between Newbury and Ipswich and incorporated Rowley, Massachusetts. There is no official record of the use of Plum Island until then, although Smith's glowing report had included the marsh grass, an enticing feature for herdsmen. A document of January 2, 1639, survives, however, by which Robert Wallis and Thomas Manning of Ipswich agree to maintain a common herd of 48 hogs on Plum Island starting on April 10 and running to the end of the harvest. One of them was always to be present. Reaction of the other communities was immediate. Newbury filed a petition with the General Court of Massachusetts for ownership of the entire island. The petition was denied on March 13 with the proviso that Ipswich, Rowley and Newbury were allowed use of the island, which became a pasture for hogs, cattle and horses.

In March 1649 Newbury again pressed for title to the island. It argued that "for three of four miles together there is no channel betwixt us and it." At low tide they drove wagons across. These arguments did not prevail; on October 17, 1649, the court finalized its temporary decision, apportioning 2/5 of the island to Newbury, 2/5 to Ipswich and 1/5 to Rowley. There is no hint in the court documents that they ever used a name other than Plum Island. The name is apparently of local origin; the journal of Margaret Smith (1678-9) relates:

"Leaving on our right hand Plum Island (so-called on account of the rare Plums which do grow upon it), we struck into the open Sea...."

In 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, Fort Philip was built on the northern point of the island to defend the Merrimack River. The fort was rebuilt by the federal government in 1808 and served in the War of 1812. The fort's site eroded away in the 1830s, destroying it.

An historian of the region, Joshua Coffin, said of it in 1845:

"Plum Island, a wild and fantastical sand beach, is thrown up by the joint power of winds and waves into the thousand wanton figures of a snow drift."

Current geography and village
The northern portion of the island is bordered by the mouth of the Merrimack River (in which stands Badgers Rock), the western portion by the Plum Island River in the north (which joins the mouth of the Merrimack to Plum Island Sound), Plum Island Sound in the south (into which empty the Parker, Rowley and Eagle Hill rivers) and the southern portion by the mouth of the Ipswich River (into which the sound empties). The Atlantic Ocean lies to the east. The sound is a tidal estuary.

Now situated in Essex County, Plum Island is divided among four cities and towns: Newburyport, Newbury, Rowley and Ipswich. Developed areas of the island constitute the village of Plum Island, Massachusetts with public beaches, businesses and private residences. The village surrounds a body of water known as "the Basin," and lies wholly within Newburyport and Newbury, the Newbury portion forming one of three legal precincts of the town. The island's pristine largest section is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. On the mainland opposite, the Massachusetts Audubon Society operates the Joppa Flats Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary.

In 1985, The Trust for Public Land added an additional 12 acres to the refuge. Besides providing habitat for birds and wildlife, this pristine coastal habitat is also enjoyed by visitors who come to swim, hike, surf, fish, and birdwatch.

Plum Island is accessed by one road running from Newburyport to the north of the island on a causeway and drawbridge over the Plum Island River. A charter to build the road between Rolfe's Lane (Ocean Avenue) and the island was granted in 1806 to the Plum Island Turnpike and Bridge Corporation. The road remained a private one until 1905, when the General Court required Essex County to lay it out as a county road, compensating its then owners with a cash settlement.

Plum Island Drive runs along the inland side of the island. In the north it is lined with homes. In the refuge it is paved for about half its distance and is a dusty dirt road for the remainder. Along it are numbered parking lots with boardwalks leading to the beach, overlooks and trails, and facilities for the maintenance of the refuge.

Toward the south is the former site of Camp Sea Haven, a therapeutic camp for those stricken with polio. Visitors are restricted from the levelled site. At the southern end of the road, the tip of the island, is Sandy Point State Reservation, a state park. It is for day use only. At the northern end of the road, the northern tip of the island, is the Plum Island Lighthouse, the only lighthouse remaining on the island. It marks the narrow entrance to the mouth of the Merrimack River. The swift tidal currents through the outlet and through the channel between Ipswich Bay and Ipswich Harbor on the southern end make boating and swimming hazardous.

Touring facilities

Like most coastal communities, Plum Island has historically been a popular vacation destination. Several large hotels operated during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Today, there are numerous lodging options for tourists, including bed and breakfasts, inns, and rental cottages. In addition, there is a population of year-round residents.

From Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, the city of Newburyport offers a Friday-Sunday shuttle bus from Plum Island Point to downtown Newburyport and the Newburyport commuter rail station with a connection to Boston. The service is operated by the MVRTA, costs $1.25 for adults paying cash.

Great Marsh
Plum Island is a barrier beach sheltering the Plum Island River, Plum Island Sound, and the mouths of the Parker, Rowley, Eagle Hill and Ipswich rivers. The entire area between the islands and the mainland is grassland laced with tidal creeks. At high tide the grassland is entirely submerged, in some places by only a few inches of water. At all other times the extensive stretches of grass appear. The creeks either dry up completely or are small channels within mud flats where shellfish proliferate. The lower stretches of the rivers and Plum Island Sound are thus tidal estuaries receiving the fresh-water flows of the rivers.

The grassland is historically termed "Great Marsh". However, the name also comprises the similar grasslands behind the barrier beaches at Castle Neck (Crane Beach) and Coffins Beach, which shelter the estuaries of the Essex and Annisquam rivers. Not included are the grasslands south of Cape Ann nor the grasslands north of the mouth of the Merrimack River. The entire coast of Massachusetts comprises this type of estuarial terrain, except for the rocky outcrops. Great Marsh has been the focus of a coalition of environmental groups and agencies to protect the marshes between Cape Ann and the Merrimack River from degradation. Historically this coalition continues the work of the founding fathers of Ipswich and other towns in the area, who found it necessary to protect the marsh from overgrazing by means of legislation.

Beach
Plum Island Beach is a gently sloping shelf extending some distance out to sea. As a result of the slope, tidal flow does not reach very far horizontally, while breakers are small and close to shore. Boats can easily be launched from or landed on the beach. The shelf causes strong undertow currents. During severe storms the beach is inundated and the breakers strike the dune line. A number of ships have been wrecked in the shallow waters off Plum Island Beach.

The Labrador Current flows from north to south along the shore, migrating sand in that direction and chilling the coastal waters. Several breakwaters have been constructed along the north coast of the island to protect the beach and impede the process. The migrating sand moves the outlet of the Merrimack River, which has been artificially fixed at its current location.

Vascular plants

On the dunes a fragile cover of beach grass, beach pea and beach heather stabilize the sand. Visitors to the refuge are restricted from the dunes except on boardwalks to protect this cover. Destabilization has been a problem. In 1953 the U.S. Soil Conservation Service planted several thousand black pines, a hardy alpine tree, to help hold the sand.

Stands of black pine, pitch pine and occasional eastern red cedar trees can be found in the depressions between the dunes. There also are thickets of beach plum, from which the island takes its name, as well as bayberry and honeysuckle (the latter being intrusive).

Maximum dune elevation is about 50 ft. In the deeper depressions and more sheltered regions between or next to the higher dunes are vernal pools in which black oak, red maple and black cherry can be found. In the underbrush are cranberry. The ferns, moss and leaf cover there shelter salamanders and spadefoot toads.

The native salt-water marshes between Plum Island and the mainland (Great Marsh) are visible from the western edge of the island. Salt marsh hay which grows there has been harvested for feeding farm animals.

Less visible in "the low marsh" at the margin of the water is smooth cordgrass. Also in the marsh are the sedges, Cyperus and Carex.

In the 1940s and '50s the wildlife service created two freshwater marshes, North and South Pools, from island runoff by diking a section of the marsh contiguous to the island. It serves as a nesting area and stopover for migrating birds. Originally the common cattail dominated the freshwater marshes, but two intrusive plants, the common reed and purple loosestrife, have replaced much of it.

Mammals
The mammals are typical of Massachusetts woodland: the striped skunk, the raccoon, the red fox, the meadow jumping mouse, the white-tailed deer, meadow vole, white-footed mouse and others.

Avians

Plum Island and its surrounding estuaries are a popular destination for birders. Plum Island Sound is on a migratory route for many varieties of birds, as well as being a nesting area for piping plovers. Much of the beach in the National Wildlife Refuge is closed to visitors during the nesting season, which can last most of the warm months.

Several prepared observation posts of birds are usually populated by birders with equipment ranging from simple binoculars to expensive telephoto cameras. Some posts are blinds; others are simply a paved shoulder with a sign. Birds are usually observed in the native salt-water marshes, the artificial fresh-water marshes and the thickets and isolated trees of the refuge.

The birds most commonly observed are listed in the visitor center in the refuge. They are the greater yellowlegs, mallard duck, least sandpiper, great egret, snowy egret, herring gull, great black-backed gull, osprey, Canada goose, tree swallow, gray catbird, killdeer, glossy ibis, red-winged blackbird, northern mockingbird, least tern, piping plover and peregrine falcon.

Greenhead flies
The greatest visible pest to humans is the greenhead fly. Before insect control they swarmed the beach and dunes so thickly as to make human presence there difficult if not impossible from June through September. In recent years the near elimination of the population with traps has reduced their impact to an occasional bite.

Ticks
The dog tick and the deer tick enter the clothing of their victim from the vegetation and later crawl into the soft tissue, where they attach themselves. Dog ticks are less harmful, except to dogs, from whom they can in sufficient numbers remove a dangerous amount of blood. Deer ticks often carry Lyme disease, which is endemic to the region.

Mosquitoes
The mosquito is a pest everywhere in Massachusetts. Mosquito control has reduced the presence of the pest in the Newbury region. A few cases of eastern equine encephalitis virus, carried by mosquitoes, occur each year.

Poison ivy

Poison ivy is indigenous to all the woodlands of Massachusetts. It especially loves the margins of paths. On Plum Island it grows in every thicket and in mats along the sand. The visitor is cautioned at the visitor center to learn to identify its shiny leaves with three leaflets.

title: Plum Island (Massachusetts)


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Britain Yearly Meeting

The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as Britain Yearly Meeting (and, until 1995, London Yearly Meeting), is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It is the national organisation of Quakers living in Britain. Britain Yearly Meeting refers to both the religious gathering and the organisation. "Yearly Meeting", or "Yearly Meeting Gathering" are usually the names given to the annual gathering of British Quakers. Quakers in Britain is the name the organisation is commonly known by.

First Quaker meetings in Britain (1654–1672)
Britain Yearly Meeting, which until 1995 was known as London Yearly Meeting, grew out of various national and regional meetings of Friends in the 1650s and 1660s and has met annually in some form since 1668. The first meeting of Friends from different parts of Britain to be organised was at Balby in Yorkshire in 1656. This consisted of representatives from meetings in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire "to consider of such things as might (in the Truth's behalf) be propounded unto them; and to enquire into the cause and matter of disorder, if any be." The Quaker book of discipline, Quaker Faith and Practice:

"We may think of that at Swannington in 1654 or Balby in 1656 (the postscript to whose lengthy letter of counsel is so much better known than the letter itself) or Skipton the same year, or the general meeting for the whole nation held at Beckerings Park, the Bedfordshire home of John Crook, for three days in May 1658, and attended by several thousand Friends. This in some ways might be considered the first Yearly Meeting were it not for the fact that the 1660s, through persecution and pestilence, saw breaks in annual continuity. The meeting in May 1668 was followed by one at Christmastime, which lasted into 1669, since when the series has been unbroken. It is 1668, therefore, that we have traditionally chosen as the date of establishment of London Yearly Meeting. But many (though not all) of the meetings up to 1677 were select, that is, confined to 'publick' (or ministering) Friends: from 1678 they were representative rather than select in character."

Establishment of Yearly Meetings (1672)
In 1660 was a meeting which was attended by representatives from Friends from the whole of Britain. At this meeting it was decided that an annual "General Assembly of the Brethren" be held in London annually, the first being held in Fifth Month (May) 1661. For various reasons, this meeting was not held every year, although there has been a national annual meeting of some sort in Britain every year since 1668.

At the "General Meeting of Friends for the Nation" in 1672, it was decided that there would be a: "Generall Meeting of friends held in London once a yeare in the week called Whisun week to consist of six friends for the Citty of London, three for the Citty of Bristoll, two for the Towne of Cochester and one or two from each and every of the Counties of England and Wales respectively (sic)"

Minutes are preserved from 1672 which record that this meeting was held in 1673, and from 1674 to 1677 consisted only of recorded ministers. The Yearly Meeting with representatives from each area as described above was restored in 1678, and has met on an annual basis every year since then.

The end of official persecution in England (1689)
Under James II of England persecution practically ceased. James issued a Declaration of Indulgence in 1687 and 1688, and it was widely held that William Penn had been its author.

In 1689 the Toleration Act was passed. It allowed for freedom of conscience and prevented persecution by making it illegal to disturb anybody else from worship. Thus British Quakerism became tolerated though still not widely understood or accepted and were instead identified in English and Welsh law as a dissenting group.

"From almost the very beginning of the movement in the middle seventeenth century, Quakers became notable in the popular imagination not merely for their radical religious ideas and seemingly peculiar social habits but also for their legendary willingness to be jailed or punished for their beliefs."

Eighteenth century
During the first full century of Quakerism, Quakers underwent a transformation from enemies of the Church of England to quiet pursuit of inward faith. Responding to the struggles and persecution of the seventeenth century, Friends insisted on pursuing a practice of "peculiarity" to protect Quaker communities. This often meant that the business of monthly meetings was taken up with incidents of "outside marriage" and Friends who had chosen a path upon which to "walk disorderly". Women were entitled to remain single or choose to defer marriage and according to James Jenkins' records of the time, Quakers recognised the presence of a "call" or "service in all" that existed "beyond their function in family". This parity of roles may have led to a higher rate of literacy for Quaker women than for women in Britain at large during the eighteenth century. Employment and civil rights were a major Quaker concern during this period. John Bellers, a Fellow of the Royal Society and educational theorist called for "the rich to take care of the poor and their education" and in his 1714 text, About the Improvement of Physick advocated for a national system of hospitals to treat the poor and train doctors, a precursor to the National Health Service.

Throughout the century there were a significant number of Quakers who travelled as missionaries to Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Quaker missionaries from England were supported spiritually, financially, and logistically by London Yearly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting "routinely funded" transatlantic crossings for Quaker ministers to Pennsylvania. However, within British society this period is marked as an "inward" era – more commonly known as the Quietist period (a reference to early Christian Quietists). Influenced by Quietists such as Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon, Francois Fenelon, and Miguel de Molinos, the spiritual practices of nonviolence and inward nourishment resonated with Quaker testimony and significant numbers of Friends adopted plain dress and a "concern against ostentation".

Yearly Meeting for Women (1784–1907)
Participation in Yearly Meeting was originally limited to men but in 1784, the Yearly Meeting for Women was established, which corresponded with equivalent Yearly Meetings for Women abroad, and corresponded with the Monthly Meetings for Women and Quarterly Meetings for Women in Britain. In 1898, London Yearly Meeting produced a minute stating that: "in future, women Friends are to be recognized as forming a constituent part of all our Meetings for Church Affairs equally with their brethren" and since then women have had an equal right to attend London Yearly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting for Women was laid down in 1907.

Nineteenth century
The actions of British Quakers in the nineteenth century can be characterised by political activism (political and philanthropic), social reform, and industry. The society underwent a number of changes and series of revisions to the Quietist method which ultimately led to the breakaway denominations of Hicksite, Gurneys, White Quakers, Waterites, and Fritchley General Meeting. London Yearly Meeting in the nineteenth century was a central base for political activity, allowing individual Quakers to "distribute doctrine and ideas" supported by the centrally managed Yearly Meeting based at Devonshire House. A significant number of Quakers began to take seats in Parliament during the nineteenth century. Amongst them, Joseph Pease, John Bright, Fowell Buxton, John Ellis, Edmund Backhouse, and Charles Gilpin. Bright was a vocal opponent to the Crimean War, the Quaker peace testimony a central part of his pacifism and campaign, beginning a thirty-year tenure as the MP for Birmingham from 1857–1885. Fowell Buxton was a prolific campaigner for the abolition of slavery, founding the Anti-Slavery Society with Joseph Pease (younger) in 1823 and becoming leader of the abolition movement following William Wilberforce in 1825. Joseph Pease served as the president of the Peace Society for twelve years alongside the Quaker scientist and philanthropist William Allen. "In 1818 on capital punishment Yearly Meeting was not merely preoccupied with introspective consideration of the state of the Society: it sought to awaken the public conscience. A statement in 1856 on liberty of conscience was translated into half a dozen languages and taken by deputations of concerned Friends to ecclesiastics and statesmen from Madrid to St Petersburg."

Fritchley General Meeting (1868)
Fritchley Meeting in Derbyshire split off from London Yearly Meeting in 1868 because they felt that London Yearly Meeting was becoming too evangelical in its outlook. They also objected to Friends in London Yearly Meeting stopping the practices of plain speech and plain dress. They therefore established Fritchley General Meeting as a self-proclaimed Yearly Meeting for Conservative Friends in Britain, which existed as a separate Yearly Meeting entirely independent of London Yearly Meeting, until 1968. Friends from Bournbrook in Birmingham also joined with Fritchley Friends for a few years, before emigrating to Saskatchewan in Canada. The separation was healed in 1968 with Fritchley Meeting rejoining London Yearly Meeting. Fritchley Quaker Meeting is now a full member of Britain Yearly Meeting, with a variety of theological outlooks amongst its membership.

Meetings outside London
In the twentieth century, Yearly Meetings started to be held outside London, namely in Leeds in 1905; in Birmingham in 1908; in Manchester in 1912; in Llandrindrod Wells in 1924; in Scarborough in 1925; in Manchester in 1926; in Bristol in 1937; In York in 1941 and in 1942. in Edinburgh in 1948. In 1945, London Yearly Meeting produced a minute stating that the Yearly Meeting should be held in Eighth Month (August) outside London every four years. These four-yearly meetings, which have become known as "Residential Yearly Meetings" have been held in Exeter in 1986; in Aberdeen in 1989; in Coventry in 1993; in Aberystwyth in 1997; in Exeter in 2001; in York in 2005; in York again in 2009; and in Canterbury in 2011.

London Yearly Meeting in 1994 decided on a change of name to "The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain" in 1994, with the short form being "Britain Yearly Meeting". This name change came into effect at the start of 1995.

Organisational structure
Britain Yearly Meeting is the name used to refer to both the Yearly Meeting of Quakers and the central organisation of Quakers in Britain, based in Friends House, London. Britain Yearly Meeting is the national organisation of Quakers in Britain. Its membership consists of the members of all Area Meetings in England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands. Any member of Britain Yearly Meeting is entitled to attend the Yearly Meeting gathering.

The national work of Quakers in Britain is undertaken by Meeting for Sufferings and four central standing committees. The committees are composed of representatives from Meetings throughout Britain. This correspondence and representation means that Quakers in Britain can have unified response on major issues. The central work of Meeting for Sufferings and the standing committees is supported by the staff of Britain Yearly Meeting who work from Friends House (Euston), Edinburgh, Swarthmoor Hall and Vibrancy teams whose work covers large areas of Britain.

Central committees
There are committees set up to deal with particular issues, including long running committees consisting of representatives from all over Britain: Meeting for Sufferings, Quaker Life and Quaker Peace and Social Witness.

Meeting for Sufferings
Meeting for Sufferings is a national representative committee which deals with decisions which need to be made on a national basis for the Yearly Meeting during the year whilst Yearly Meeting is not in session. It has two representatives from each Area Meeting in England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The General Meeting for Scotland is a member of the ecumenical organisation Action of Churches Together in Scotland.

Standing Committees
Britain Yearly Meeting currently has four standing committees who carry out work at a national level on behalf of Friends in Britain. Each have representative committees of Friends appointed by Meeting for Sufferings, and accountable to British Yearly Meeting trustees, to oversee the work, as well as a paid secretariat who carry out the day-to-day work of each department:
 * Quaker Life Central Committee deals with the running of Quaker meetings within Britain, including outreach work within Britain, education and development for Quakers in Britain, activities for children and young people.
 * Quaker Peace and Social Witness deals with Quakers' peace and development work, both in Britain and overseas.
 * Quaker World Relations Committee maintains contact with other yearly meetings and with Friends World Committee for Consultation and its Europe & Middle East Section to which Britain Yearly Meeting is affiliated.
 * Quaker Committee on Christian and Interfaith Relations deals with relationships between Quakers and other Christian and faith groups.

Britain Yearly Meeting assembles and publishes a book of discipline, which since 1995 has been known as Quaker faith & practice. In 2018, Britain Yearly Meeting decided to revise Quaker faith & practice.

Yearly meeting
Before 2009, three out of four yearly meetings of BYM were held at Friends House over one of the May bank holiday weekends, and once every four years a week-long Residential Meeting was held in the summer. In a change to this practice, the first Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG) was held in York in 2009, with the 2010 Yearly Meeting being held at Friends House in London on May. The second YMG was held in Canterbury in 2011. A new three-year rotation has been established with Yearly Meetings being held two years running at Friends House, and the third year as a residential YMG.

All types of issues are discussed in the standard fashion of Quaker decision making. Among several lectures over the gathering, one of the highlights is known as the Swarthmore Lecture, relating to issues concerning Quakers. There is also an under 19's programme, with activities tailored to each age group.

Under 19s Programme
The Under 19s Programme is held during the annual Britain Yearly Meeting and is attended by young Quakers aged 0 to 19, with appropriate age grouping (i.e. 0–3,...,15–18). The programme aims to provide young Friends with an insight to Quaker beliefs and values, as well as providing a safe environment for relationship building within the society.

Junior Yearly Meeting
Junior Yearly Meeting, commonly known as "JYM", is an event for young Quakers aged 14 to 18. The annual event is normally held around the Easter holidays at the Pioneer Centre in Kidderminster, and coincides biennially with Yearly Meeting Gathering in late July. It acts as a stepping stone for the transition from the Under 19s Programme into the Society of Friends.

Relationship with international Friends
Britain Yearly Meeting participates in the international Religious Society of Friends through the Friends World Committee for Consultation. Britain Yearly Meeting also contributes a large portion of the Quaker United Nations Office budget, through Quaker Peace and Social Witness.

Communications between Yearly Meetings take the form of epistles. Formerly these would be individually addressed to other Yearly Meetings, but now epistles are posted online by the Friends World Committee for Consultation. Quakers are a highly decentralized denomination with a great degree of diversity in beliefs and practices. Britain Yearly Meeting worships in a way that is most similar to Ireland, Canada, Australia and US meetings affiliated with the Friends General Conference characterized by unprogrammed worship and liberal to universalist theology.

title: Britain Yearly Meeting


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Findability

Findability is the ease with which information contained on a website can be found, both from outside the website (using search engines and the like) and by users already on the website. Although findability has relevance outside the World Wide Web, the term is usually used in that context. Most relevant websites do not come up in the top results because designers and engineers do not cater to the way ranking algorithms work currently. Its importance can be determined from the first law of e-commerce, which states "If the user can’t find the product, the user can’t buy the product." As of December 2014, out of 10.3 billion monthly Google searches by Internet users in the United States, an estimated 78% are made to research products and services online.

Findability encompasses aspects of information architecture, user interface design, accessibility and search engine optimization (SEO), among others.

Introduction
Findability is similar to discoverability, which is defined as the ability of something, especially a piece of content or information, to be found. It is different from web search in that the word find refers to locating something in a known space while 'search' is in an unknown space or not in an expected location.

Mark Baker, the author of Every Page is Page One, mentions that findability "is a content problem, not a search problem". Even when the right content is present, users often find themselves deep within the content of a website but not in the right place. He further adds that findability is intractable, perfect findability is unattainable, but we need to focus on reducing the effort for finding that a user would have to do for themselves.

Findability can be divided into external findability and on-site findability, based on where the customers need to find the information.

History
Heather Lutze is thought to have created the term in the early 2000s. The popularization of the term findability for the Web is usually credited to Peter Morville. In 2005 he defined it as: "the ability of users to identify an appropriate Web site and navigate the pages of the site to discover and retrieve relevant information resources", though it appears to have been first coined in a public context referring to the web and information retrieval by Alkis Papadopoullos in a 2005 article entitled "Findability".

External findability
External findability is the domain of Internet marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. External findability can be very influential for businesses. Smaller companies may have trouble influencing external findability, due to being less aware to consumers. Other means are taken to make sure that they are found in search results.

Several factors affect external findability:
 * 1) Search engine indexing: As the very first step, webpages need to be found by indexing crawler in order to be shown in the search results. It would be helpful to avoid factors that may lead to webpages being ignored by indexing crawlers. Those factors may include elements that require user interaction, such as entering log-in credentials. Algorithms for indexing vary by the search engine which means the number of webpages of a website successfully being indexed may be very different between Google and Yahoo!'s search engines. Also, in countries like China, government policies could significantly influence the indexing algorithms. In this case, local knowledge about laws and policies could be valuable.
 * 2) Page descriptions in search results: Once the webpages are successfully indexed by web crawlers and show in the search results with decent ranking, the next step is to attract customers to click the link to the web pages. However, the customers can't see the whole web pages at this point; they can only see an excerpt of the webpage's content and metadata. Therefore, displaying meaningful information in a limited space, usually a couple of sentences, in search results is important for increasing click traffic of the webpages, and thus the findability of the web content on your webpages.
 * 3) Keyword matching: At a semantic level, terminology used by the searcher and the content producer be different. Bridging the gap between the terms used by customers and developers is helpful for making web content more findable to more potential content consumers.

On-site findability
On-site findability is concerned with the ability of a potential customer to find what they are looking for within a specific site. More than 90 percent of customers use internal searches in a website compared to browsing. Of those, only 50 percent find what they are looking for. Improving the quality of on-site searches highly improves the business of the website. Several factors affect findability on a website:
 * 1) Site search: If searchers within a site do not find what they are looking for, they tend to leave rather than browse through the website. Users who had successful site searches are twice as likely to ultimately convert.
 * 2) Related links and products: User experience can be enhanced by trying to understand the needs of the customer and provide suggestions for other, related information.
 * 3) Site match to customer needs and preferences: Site design, content creation, and recommendations are major factors for affecting the customer experience.

Evaluation and measures
Baseline findability is the existing findability before changes are made in order to improve it. This is measured by participants who represent the customer base of the website, who try to locate a sample set of items using the existing navigation of the website.

In order to evaluate how easily information can be found by searching a site using a search engine or information retrieval system, retrievability measures were developed, and similarly, navigability measures now measure ease of information access through browsing a site (e.g. PageRank, MNav, InfoScent (see Information foraging), etc.).

Findability also can be evaluated via the following techniques:
 * Usability testing: Conducted to find out how and why users navigate through a website to accomplish tasks.
 * Tree testing: An information architecture based technique, to determine if critical information can be found on the website.
 * Closed card sorting: A usability technique based on information architecture, for evaluating the strength of categories.
 * Click testing: Accounts for the implicit data collected through clicks on the user interface.

Beyond findability
Findability Sciences defines a findability index in terms of each user's influence, context, and sentiments. For seamless search, current websites focus on a combination of structured hypertext-based information architectures and rich Internet application-enabled visualization techniques.

title: Findability


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chop Suey!

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was - merged

Chop Suey!
Utter nonsense. RickK 20:08, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)
 * Quite agree. This isn't an encyclopaedia article, it is a fan-worship essay. Delete. Fire Star 20:33, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Oh wow, I totally forgot about that song. I'm adding it to my list of music to pick up. Merge to Toxicity (album), redirect, and place on cleanup to make the prose a bit easier to parse. Actually fairly good analysis of the lyrics, and I've heard about the theory of "Suey!" being short for suicide before, and the bit about Father Armeni is supported by the System of a Down article, although I haven't checked to see if the same person wrote in both - RedWordSmith 20:43, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Dunno, what DO you do with (original?) research about a strange (if nice to listen to) song. Hmm, ok, what RedWordSmith says, Merge. Kim Bruning 20:48, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Gonna go with the previous two. It's worth keeping, but putting it on the Toxicity album and making this page a redirect just makes things easier for everyone. -Litefantastic 20:50, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Redirect/Merge with Toxicity (album). — El Chico!  Talk 21:27, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Mark Richards 22:25, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Toxicity (album). Nothing to merge—it's all fannish speculation on the meaning of the lyrics.   — Gwalla | Talk 22:26, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Redirect. Good song though, does the actual song title have an ! mark in it? Darksun 08:08, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Original research. --Improv 12:25, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Merge/redirect to album article. Having individual articles about songs by popular artists is too granular, but the topic itself is acceptable for inclusion. • Benc • 15:56, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Merge, if it's a genuine album, canning the nonsense of course. Wetman 08:45, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Merge/redirect to the main article. My son has the album and the song title does in fact have an exclamation point. - Lucky 6.9 00:50, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Comments:
 * utter nonsense? It seems to make sense to me.  The band/album references are correct.  System of a Down are in fact from Armenia.  The lyrics posted are actual lyrics from the song.
 * fan-worship essay? No more than articles about individual Beatles songs are.
 * It may or may not be original research, I haven't checked into it.
 * Generally I agree with most people here - merge with Toxicity (album). But why not merge all the Beatles singles with an article into their respective albums as well?  Notability?  If all those Beatles tracks are notable, I think any song that reaches top five (Chop Suey was #3 in 2001) in a Triple J Hottest 100 is notable.  -- Chuq 05:10, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * There is an important distinction between temporary popularity and long-term cultural impact. Some (but not all!) of the Beatles' songs fall into the latter category; most top-5 songs do not. It's sometimes a fine line, of course. In this case, though, I'm pretty comfortable with the judgement that "Chop Suey!" is on the "temporary popularity" side. • Benc • 01:00, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I think that, like with most topics, info should be collected together until a section becomes overly long, and it should then be split off. Merge until that time Tuf-Kat 06:13, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mogenic

Mogenic
Article about a failed weblog/website. Reads as if they're trying to revive interest in it via this site, IMO. Tried to have it speedied but since it's here...delete. - Lucky 6.9 20:09, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, non-notable site and vanity article. Alexa traffic rank is 173,972. --Goobergunch 20:44, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Wikipedia is not a web guide.   — Gwalla | Talk 22:24, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, Yet Another Internet Forum, site is not notable. Ianb 23:27, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Should Not Delete This, I assume all the votes for delete were from straight people who don't really understand the depth of Mogenic within gay teenage society. It should'nt be deleted just retouched, its like the myspace for gay teens and since myspace gets a wikipage, this one should too. Mogenic is also not failed, it's just being revamped currently. I really can't believe this mogenic wikipage got deleted, I call foul play, its blatant homophobic to allow this to happen. Seriously, other pages are just redone, this page was just deleted. Homophobes suck.

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mogenic