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

title: User:Sade/monobook2.css


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10th Dalai Lama

Ngawang Lobzang Jampel Tsultrim Gyatso (ngag dbang blo bzang 'jam dpal tshul khrims rgya mtsho) or Tsultrim Gyatso (29 March 1816 – 30 September 1837) was the 10th Dalai Lama of Tibet, and born in Chamdo. He was fully ordained in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, studied the sutras and tantras, had several students, and rebuilt the Potala Palace.

Tsultrim Gyatso was born to a modest family known as Drongto Norbutsang (grong stod nor bu tshang) in Chamdo, eastern Tibet. His father was Lobzang Nyendrak (blo bzang snyan grags) and his mother was Namgyel Butri (rnam rgyal bu khrid). The ninth Dalai Lama Lungtok Gyatso had died in 1815, and five years would pass before his incarnation was found.

Tsultrim Gyatso was chosen from a field of six potential incarnates of the ninth Dalai Lama Lungtok Gyatso (ta la'i bla ma 09 lung rtogs rgya mtsho). Preferred as the best by the oracle and government officials in 1820, he travelled to Lhasa in 1821 after which the regent Demo Ngawang Lobzang Tubten Jigme Gyatso died. The Qing emperor's representatives then insisted a golden urn be used to confirm the incarnation, delaying the enthronement for a year.

During that year of delay, Tibetan historians state "Tibetan officials allowed the amban announced that the Urn had been used to satisfy the Emperor, despite the reality that the Urn had not been employed."

The enthronement of the 10th Dalai Lama Tsultrim Gyatso at the Potala Palace occurred in 1822, on the eighth day of the eighth month of the water-horse year.

Soon after his enthronement in 1822, the Dalai Lama received his pre-novice ordination from the Seventh Panchen Lama Lobzang Palden Tenpai Nyima (paN chen bla ma 04 blo bzang dpal ldan bstan pa'i nyi ma) and gave him the name Ngawang Lobzang Jampel Tsultrim Gyatso (ngag dbang blo bzang 'jam dpal tshul khrims rgya mtsho). The following month he became a novice monk. His father received a title and the Yutok estate, which initiated a noble Tibetan family line.

In 1825 in his 10th year, the Dalai Lama had many tutors and was enrolled at Drepung Monastery and studied both sutra and tantra. He likely studied at Ganden Monastery and Sera Monastery as well. He studied Tibetan Buddhist texts extensively during the rest of his life.

In 1830, the Dalai Lama was put in charge of the Tibetan state, and a report called the "Iron-Tiger Report" on agriculture and tax policies was prepared. In 1831 the Dalai Lama reconstructed the Potala Palace. In 1834 the Dalai Lama gave teachings to the Fifth Kalkha and to the Mongolian King of Torgo, and sent senior monks to Mongolia to establish a Kalacakra center there.

The Dalai Lama set about to overhaul the economic structure of Tibet but did not live long enough to see his plans come to fruition. After becoming ill in 1834 during an epidemic breakout in Lhasa, the Dalai Lama received his full Gelong ordination from the Panchen Lama in his nineteenth year. He remained in poor health for three years and died in 1837.

Despite his death in his 22nd year, he was said to have had several students from Tibet and Bhutan. The 10th Dalai Lama's body was installed in a golden reliquary in the Potala Palace called The Supreme Ornament of the Three Realms” (gser gdung khams gsum rgyan mchog).

title: 10th Dalai Lama


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Nobuyuki Idei

Nobuyuki Idei (出井 伸之, Idei Nobuyuki; 22 November 1937 – 2 June 2022) was a Japanese businessman. He was chairman and group chief executive officer of Sony Corporation until 7 March 2005. He was a director of General Motors, Baidu, Yoshimoto Kogyo and Nestlé.

Early life
Idei was born in Tokyo on 22 November 1937. His father was a professor of economics at Waseda University, a private university in Tokyo.

Career
Idei joined Sony Corporation when he graduated from Waseda University. He started as a trainee working with the co-founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka and rose through the ranks as a marketing specialist. He left Sony and enrolled in a PhD program at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, but he did not obtain the degree. Sony re-hired him and he was moved to Europe to manage Sony's businesses in the continent.

After a stroke sidelined former chairman Akio Morita, Sony CEO and new chairman Norio Ohga selected Idei to be the next president, a choice that raised eyebrows at Sony. His sweeping reorganizations of the company included trimming the board of directors from 38 members dominated by company management to 10 with a substantial presence of outsiders. Already perceived as the company's driving force, Idei was formally named co-CEO in 1998 and sole CEO in 1999. In 2000, while Ohga remained chairman of the board, Idei became executive chairman and Kunitake Andō became president.

In 2003, on Ohga's retirement, Idei became the sole chairman, and the title of chief executive officer was altered to group chief executive officer. On 7 March 2005, it was announced that Idei would be succeeded on 22 June by Sir Howard Stringer.

In 2006, Idei joined the board leading Accenture. On 28 September 2011, Idei joined the board of directors of Lenovo.

Idei founded his own consulting firm Quantum Leaps Corporation on his retirement from Sony. He was also on the board of companies including General Motors and Baidu.

On 5 February 2015, Idei retired from Accenture's board of directors.

Personal life
Idei was married and had a daughter. He died on 2 June 2022 from liver failure. He was aged 84.

title: Nobuyuki Idei


text:
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title: User talk:Aphasia2005~enwiki


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Madagascar pochard

The Madagascar pochard or Madagascan pochard (Aythya innotata; Fotsy maso, Onjo ) is an extremely rare diving duck of the genus Aythya. Thought to be extinct in the late 1990s, specimens of the species were rediscovered at Lake Matsaborimena near Bemanevika in Madagascar in 2006. By 2017, a captive breeding program had produced a population of around 90 individuals. The birds were reintroduced to the wild in December 2018.

The Madagascar pochard feeds mainly on aquatic insects, unlike other diving ducks in the same genus, Aythya. Ducklings begin making short dives at around 14 days old, before which they feed on the surface.

Taxonomy
The Madagascar pochard was largely overlooked by scientists in the 19th century, as those that saw it assumed they were seeing ferruginous ducks instead. Even after its description in 1894 little notice was taken of the species, and even numbers are hard to gauge from early accounts of the species. Based on the accounts written by Webb and Delacour's in the 1920s and 1930s it seemed that the bird was still relatively common at Lake Alaotra.

The Madagascar pochard is generally thought to be closely related to the Hardhead, Baer's pochard and ferruginous duck. It is monotypic, having no described or known subspecies.

Description
The pochard is a medium-sized duck between 42 and 56 centimeters in size. Juvenile ducks have brown irises and are a pale, dull brown or chestnut color with a darker stomach. The adults are darker in color, though during a male duck's first winter, its iris will turn white. Breeding males have dark chestnut heads, chins, throats, breasts, and necks, with blackish brown on the top side of the body. Their wings are dark brown with a white bar. The area under the bodies from the stomach to the tail fades to white, as do the undersides of the wings. The beaks and legs are dark grey with black nails.

Vocalizations may include "[when] in display [...] the male utters a cat-like wee-oow and a rolling rrr, while the female gives a harsh squak."

Distribution and ecology
The species exclusively lives in inland wetlands in Madagascar, where it is endemic. Currently, the only wild populations are at Lake Sofia and Lake Matsaborimena.

Historically, the birds preferred shallow lakes and marshes with dense vegetation; however, the rediscovered population was found in a cold, deep crater lake that had few aquatic plants and was surrounded by heavy forest, and other remote crater lakes may have been inhabitable due to the birds' requirements for shallower water. Its previous habitat in the Lake Alaotra basin was disturbed by rice cultivation and invasive introduced fishes.

Behaviour
Madagascar pochards do not migrate, do not usually form flocks, and are usually found in pairs or as single ducks.

Diet and feeding
The Madagascar pochard spends 38% of its day feeding. The diet is dominated by aquatic insects; a study examining their faeces found that caddisflies were the most commonly found insect, followed by dragonfly larvae, bugs (Hemiptera) and flies from the family Chironomidae. Stable isotope analysis and the faecal studies have shown that their diet includes very little plant material, which is unusual when compared to their relatives in the genus Aythya.

The bird dives for much of its food, with a mean diving time of around 24 seconds. Ducklings feed on the surface until they are old enough to dive, at around 14 days, and make shorter dives once they do dive (around 10 seconds).

Breeding
Observers have noted nesting behavior from July to February, sometimes with multiple attempts at nesting. Nests are found 20–40 cm above water, in the plants along the lake or marsh edges (noted in Cyperaceae), with 6 to 10 eggs per clutch.

Decline
The duck probably started to decline dramatically sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The cause of decline was the introduction of numerous fish species in the lake that killed most of the pochard chicks and damaged nesting sites. Adult birds are also likely to have become victims of introduced fishes. Rice cultivation, cattle grazing on the shores, burning of shore vegetation, introduced mammals (rats), gill-net fishing and hunting are all factors that led to the duck's disappearance from the lake. The last record of multiple birds at Lake Alaotra is from 9 June 1960 when a small flock of about 20 birds was spotted on the lake. Despite the rarity of the species in 1960, a male was shot, and the specimen was held by the Zoological Museum Amsterdam, and later the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. There is a very dubious report of a sighting made outside Antananarivo in 1970.

Rediscovery and reintroduction
Before it was rediscovered in 2006, the last confirmed sighting of the species was at Lake Alaotra on the Central Plateau of Madagascar in 1991. The single male then encountered was captured and kept in the Antananarivo Botanical Gardens until it died one year later. Intensive searches and publicity campaigns in 1989–1990, 1993–1994 and 2000–2001 failed to produce any more records of this bird.

However, a flock of nine adults and four recently hatched ducklings were discovered at Lake Matsaborimena, in a remote area of northern Madagascar, in November 2006. Though their habitat was "too deep and too cold for the pochards to thrive", it was one of the few wetlands on the island still capable of supporting the remaining few birds due to damage from pollution, invasive species, and agricultural practices in other wetlands. The species was placed in the new "Possibly Extinct" category in the 2006 IUCN Red List; following the rediscovery, its old status of Critically Endangered was restored in the 2007 issue. As of 2008, only 25 adult birds had been counted in the wild.

Conservation
In 2009, a rescue plan involving the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust removed a batch of ready-to-hatch eggs from a lake-side nest and incubated them in a lab that was set up in a tent beside the lake. After hatching, the day-old chicks were taken to a holding facility in a local hotel. By the end of 2009, the organizations, including The Peregrine Fund, collected three clutches for 24 eggs to hatch 23 ducklings in total. Reared in captivity, they hatched eighteen ducklings in April 2012 at the captive breeding centre in Antsohihy, bringing the total population to 60.

2011 marked the first chick to hatch from captive breeding efforts. In April 2013, the population reached 80. In Autumn 2017 the population reached 90, causing the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust to begin preparations for the reintroduction process at a suitable lake in Madagascar, Lake Sofia, including working with the communities surrounding the lake. In December 2018, 21 of the birds were released at Lake Sofia, where floating aviaries were installed to protect the birds.

title: Madagascar pochard


text: Template:Politics of the Cook Islands

title: Template:Politics of the Cook Islands


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Doctors' Commons

Doctors' Commons, also called the College of Civilians, was a society of lawyers practising civil (as opposed to common) law in London, namely ecclesiastical and admiralty law. Like the Inns of Court of the common lawyers, the society had buildings with rooms where its members lived and worked, and a large library.

It was also a lower venue for determinations and hearings, short of the society's convening in the Court of the Arches or Admiralty Court, which frequently consisted of judges with other responsibilities and from which further appeal lay. The society used St Benet's, Paul's Wharf as its church.

The civil law in England
While the English common law, unlike the legal systems on the European continent, developed mostly independently from Roman law, some specialised English courts applied the Roman-based civil law. This is true of the ecclesiastical courts, whose practice even after the English Reformation continued to be based on the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, and also of the admiralty courts. Until reforms in the 19th century, the ecclesiastical courts performed functions equivalent to today's probate courts, subject then to appeals to separate courts (of equity), and family courts (however divorce was much harder to achieve).

The advocates practising in these courts had been trained in canon law (before the Reformation) and in Roman law (after) at the university colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. This profession was split, like its common law counterpart. The advocates (the doctors) were akin to barristers in the common-law courts, while the proctors were akin to attorneys in the common-law courts or to solicitors in the courts of equity.

According to some accounts, the society of Doctors' Commons was formed in 1511 by Richard Blodwell, Dean of the Arches. He served nine years. According to others, it existed in the previous century. The society's buildings, acquired in 1567, were near St. Paul's Cathedral at Paternoster Row, and remained in use for many years; however, in the society's final decades nearby buildings in Knightrider Street were used instead.

In 1768 the society was incorporated. It took official name of the "College of Doctors of Law exercent in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts". The college still consisted of its president (the Dean of Arches) and of those doctors of law who, having regularly taken that degree in the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and having been admitted advocates in pursuance of the rescript of the archbishop of Canterbury, were elected "fellows" in the manner prescribed by the charter. There were also attached to the college thirty-four "proctors", whose duties were analogous to those of solicitors.

Disestablishment
In the nineteenth century, the institution of Doctors' Commons and its members were looked upon as old-fashioned and slightly ridiculous. As anticipation of an impending abolition grew, there was a reluctance among the society to admit new fellows as this would dilute the proceeds of any winding up of the property. Dr Thomas Hutchinson Tristram was the last to be admitted.

The Court of Probate Act 1857 abolished the testamentary jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts and gave common lawyers the right to practise in fields which before had been the exclusive domain of civilians (doctors and proctors), while offering in practice scant compensation of the reverse also being permitted. Critically, the Act also made it lawful for the Doctors' Commons, by a vote of the majority of its fellows, to dissolve itself and surrender its Royal Charter, the proceeds of dissolution to be shared among the members.

The Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 created a new divorce court in which regular barristers or doctors of Doctors' Commons could appear.

The High Court of Admiralty Act 1859 liberalised rights of audience in the Admiralty Court. This left to Doctors' Commons only the established church's Court of Arches.

A motion to dissolve the society was entered on 13 January 1858 setting the path towards the last meeting which was the end of Trinity Term, 10 July 1865. The fellows, rather than surrender their offices and charter, resolved that its property was to be sold and no appointments to any vacant post could be made. The buildings of Doctors' Commons were sold in 1865 and demolished soon after. The site is now largely occupied by the Faraday Building.

The Court of Arches gave right of audience to barristers in 1867.

The society perished with the death of its last fellow Tristram in 1912.

In Victorian literature
Satirical descriptions of Doctors' Commons can be found in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz and in David Copperfield in which Dickens called it a "cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family party."

In the same-era novel The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, the solicitor of Gray's Inn Square Mathew Bruff notes, "I shall perhaps do well if I explain in this place, for the benefit of the few people who don't know it already, that the law allows all wills to be examined at Doctor's Commons by anybody who applies, on payment of a shilling fee."

Doctors' Commons is mentioned anachronistically in the much later short story The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in which Sherlock Holmes apparently obtains some information there about the will of the wife of Dr Grimesby Roylott of Stoke Moran.

title: Doctors' Commons


text:
Abkhazia conflict

The Abkhazia conflict is a territorial dispute over Abkhazia, a region on the eastern coast of the Black Sea in the South Caucasus, at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The conflict involves Georgia, Russian Federation and Russian-backed self-proclaimed Republic of Abkhazia, internationally recognised only by Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria; Georgia and all other United Nations members consider Abkhazia a sovereign territory of Georgia. However, as of 2023, Georgia lacks de facto control over the territory.

The beginning of the conflict dates back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991; however, the dispute can be traced to 1918—1919 Sochi conflict, which involved a territorial conflict over Sukhumi okrug (which corresponds to Abkhazian region) between Georgian Democratic Republic, White Russia and Russian SFSR. Since 1989, the conflict involved several wars: 1992—1993 War in Abkhazia, 1998 War in Abkhazia and 2008 Russo-Georgian War.

The conflict, one of the bloodiest in the post-Soviet era, remains unresolved. The Georgian government has offered substantial autonomy to Abkhazia several times. However, both the Abkhaz government and the opposition in Abkhazia refuse any form of union with Georgia. Abkhaz regard their independence as the result of a war of liberation from Georgia, while Georgians believe that historically Abkhazia has always formed part of Georgia. Georgians formed the single largest ethnic group in pre-1993 Abkhazia, with a 45.7% plurality as of 1989. During the war the Abkhaz separatist side carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign which resulted in the expulsion of up to 250,000 and in the killing of more than 5,000 ethnic Georgians. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) conventions of Lisbon, Budapest and Istanbul have officially recognized the ethnic cleansing of Georgians, which UN General Assembly Resolution GA/10708 also mentions. The UN Security Council has passed a series of resolutions in which it appeals for a cease-fire.

Background
The written history of Abkhazia largely begins with the colonization by Ancient Greeks of its coast in the 6th-5th centuries BC. During this time, the territory was part of the western Georgian kingdom of Colchis (Egrisi). During the Antiquity, various tribes were recorded on the territory today known as Abkhazia: Moschi, Sanigs, Misimians, Apsilae and Abasgois. Moschi, Sanigs and Misimians were known to have Georgian (Kartvelian) origin, while origin of Apsilae and Abasgois is disputed, with some scholars considering them to be Kartvelian tribes, while others regard them as being ancestors of people today called as Abkhazians. Throughout Antiquity, the territory was controlled by Pontus, the Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire. Local tribes played a huge role into consolidation of local population into single unit. They managed to break free from the Byzantine Empire in the 8th century and establish their independent kingdom. During this time, the term "Apkhazeti" first appeared in the Georgian annals, which is of Mingrelian (Western Georgian) origin, "Apkha" meaning back or shoulder. The term gave rise to the name "Abkhazia", which is used today in most foreign languages. It was used to denote whole Abasgia (Byzantine name for the territory). The medieval Kingdom of Abkhazia managed to unite whole Western Georgia into a single political entity and transferred its capital to the Georgian city of Kutaisi. Although the origin of this kingdom's ruling family is still disputed, most scholars agree that the Abkhazian kings were Georgian in culture and language. The kingdom is frequently referred in modern history writing as the Egrisi-Abkhazian kingdom due to the fact that medieval authors viewed the new monarchy as a successor state of Egrisi and sometimes used the terms interchangeably. In order to eliminate the Byzantine religious influence, the dynasty subordinated the local dioceses to the Georgian Orthodox patriarchate of Mtskheta.

In the 10th century, Kingdom of Abkhazia played an important role in Unification of the Georgian realm. Through dynastic succession, Bagrat Bagrationi united Kingdom of Abkhazia, Southern Georgian Kingdom of the Iberians and Eastern Georgian territories of Kartli under single political entity, Kingdom of Georgia. Duchy of Tskhumi was established on the territory of Abkhazia, which later was transformed into Duchy of Abkhazia. The Kingdom became the largest entity in the Caucasus by the 12th century. However, in the late 15th century, the civil strife within the Kingdom of Georgia led to its dissolution. Various new Georgian kingdoms arose in its place, such as Kingdom of Kakheti and Kingdom of Kartli in the Eastern Georgia, Samtskhe-Saatabago in the Southern Georgia and Kingdom of Imereti in the Western Georgia. The latter consisted of three principalities: Principality of Mingrelia, Principality of Guria and Principality of Abkhazia. Eventually Kingdom of Imereti declined due to power struggle within its ruling elites and constant Ottoman invasions, leading to these principalities gaining semi-independent status as they frequently acted independently and at times titled themselves as kings. In the 1570s, the Ottoman navy occupied the fort of Tskhumi on the Abkhazian coastline, turning it into the Turkish fortress of Suhum-Kale (hence, the modern name of the city of Sukhumi). In 1555, Georgia and the whole South Caucasus became divided between the Ottoman and Safavid Persian empires per the Peace of Amasya, with Abkhazia, along with all of western Georgia, remaining in the hands of the Ottomans. As a result, Abkhazia came under the increasing influence of Turkey and Islam, gradually losing its cultural and religious ties with the rest of Georgia. According to the Soviet historical science, Turkey, after the conquest has aimed at obliterating the material and spiritual culture of Abkhazia and forcibly convert the population to Islam.

Conflict in 1918–1920
Following the Russian Revolutions, Georgia initially joined the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic and subsequently became independent as the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) governed by Georgian Mensheviks, while Abkhazia fell under control of a group of local Bolsheviks and the Red Army of Russia following a Bolshevik-led rebellion against the local Abkhazian self-government, Abkhaz People's Council (APC). This forced the APC to request aid from the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which ousted the Bolshevik rebels in Sokhumi with the National Guard of Georgia. Abkhazia joined Democratic Republic of Georgia as an autonomous entity. This later led to the Sochi conflict between Georgia and Soviet Russia over ownership of Abkhazia and the territories of the former Black Sea Governorate. Georgia managed to repulse the Red Army from Abkhazia but conceded to Russian claims over Sochi and Tuapse. In 1920, Psou river was agreed as a new state border between Soviet Russia and Georgia. This corresponds to the modern internationally recognized Georgia–Russia border. In 1921, Abkhazia was granted the status of the autonomous republic within the Georgian Democratic Republic.

In 1921, the Red Army invaded Georgia and toppled the Menshvik government of the DRG. Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (GSSR) was established under Bolshevik government, which was later incorporated into the USSR. In exchange for support for Bolsheviks in Abkhazia, the Soviet government agreed to increase the autonomy of Abkhazia. In 1921, Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia was created. However, it was not separate from Georgia and its status was defined as a treaty republic of GSSR. In 1931, status of Abkhazia was again downgraded to the autonomous republic, with Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic being established.

The late Soviet era conflict
Tensions between Abkhazians and Georgians began to escalate in 1980s as Georgians increasingly pushed for independence from the Soviet Union, while Abkhazians wanted to remain in the Soviet Union. On 18 March 1989, a group of Abkhazian intellectuals wrote letter to the Kremlin, expressing their desire to upgrade the status of Abkhazia to independent SSR within the Soviet Union or join Russia as an autonomous republic. This is known as Lykhny appeal. According to the 1979 Soviet Census, Georgians made up 45.7% of the population of Abkhazia, while Abkhazians were 17.8%. In response to the appeal, the Georgian anti-Soviet groups organized a series of unsanctioned meetings across Georgia, claiming that the Soviet government was using Abkhaz separatism in order to oppose the Georgia's pro-independence movement. The peaceful demonstration in Tbilisi was suppressed by the Soviet Army on 9 April 1989, which is known today as April 9 tragedy. In July 1989, the riots started in Abkhazia with the Abkhaz protest against an opening of a branch of Tbilisi State University in Sukhumi, and concluded with the looting of the Georgian school which was expected to house the new university on 16 July 1989. The ensuing violence quickly degenerated into a large-scale inter-ethnic confrontation. The first case of inter-ethnic violence in Georgia, it effectively marked the start of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict.

The July events in Abkhazia left at least 18 dead and 448 injured, of whom, according to official accounts, 302 were Georgians. Although the government managed to end the violence and maintain peace at that time, the conflict developed further and resulted in the next years in what is often referred as "war of laws". In 1991, Georgia refused to take part in referendum to preserve the Soviet Union as a renewed federation, opting to hold an independence referendum, which led to a declaration of independence. However, Abkhazia defied Tbilisi and took part in the Soviet referendum, which was boycotted by the Georgian population of Abkhazia.

In order to defuse tensions, newly elected Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia agreed on an arrangement to grant a wide over-representation to the Abkhazians in the local Supreme Council, with Abkhazians, while being only 18% of the population, getting the largest portion of seats. According to this settlement, the 65 seats in the Supreme Soviet were allocated to different ethnic groups; 28 were reserved for Abkhazians, 26 for Georgians (46% of the total population) and 11 for the other ethnic groups. The elections were held in September 1991 and resulted in Vladislav Ardzinba being appointed as Chairman of the Abkhazian Supreme Council. Ardzinba, who was a charismatic but excitable figure popular among the Abkhaz, was believed by Georgians to have helped to instigate the anti-Georgian violence of July 1989. Ardzinba exploited the Georgian Civil War which began in December 1991 to consolidate his power and launched a practice of replacing ethnic Georgians in leading positions with the Abkhaz. Ardzinba created the Abkhazian National Guard that was mono-ethnically Abkhaz, and on 24 June 1992, attacked the building of the Abkhazian Interior Ministry, a last stronghold of Georgian authority in Abkhazia, severely beating the ethnic Georgian minister Givi Lominadze and installing Abkhaz Alexander Ankvab. These events led to a split in the Supreme Council between Georgian and Abkhazian factions and forced the Georgian faction to boycott the sessions. In turn, On 23 July 1992, the Abkhazian faction of the Supreme Council, without a quorum, passed a resolution on restoring the 1925 Abkhazian constitution, declaring a "sovereign state" from Georgia. On 25 July 1992, State Council of the Republic of Georgia, a governing body of Georgia at that time, responded with a special resolution, which nullified this declaration, with Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze pointing out that the separatist decision contradicted the opinion of the majority of Abkhazian population. Meanwhile, the Abkhaz leader Vladislav Ardzinba intensified his ties with hard-line Russian politicians and military elite and declared he was ready for a war with Georgia. Russia used Abkhaz and also South Ossetian separatists as its ethnically-based proxies to inflame ethnic conflicts in Georgia, undermine Georgian independence and assert Russia's control over the strategically important South Caucasus.

War in Abkhazia
The conflict eventually devolved into a war, which lasted for 13 months, beginning in August, 1992, with Georgian government forces and a militia composed of ethnic Georgians who lived in Abkhazia and separatist forces consisting of ethnic Abkhazians and Armenians who also lived in Abkhazia. The separatists were supported by the North Caucasian and Cossack militants and (unofficially) by Russian forces stationed in Gudauta. The conflict resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia. The agreement in Moscow ended hostilities in 1994, however, this would not last.

Resumption of hostilities
In April–May 1998, the conflict escalated once again in the Gali District when several hundred Abkhaz forces entered the villages still populated by Georgians to support the separatist-held parliamentary elections. Despite criticism from the opposition, Eduard Shevardnadze, President of Georgia, refused to deploy troops against Abkhazia. A ceasefire was negotiated on May 20. The hostilities resulted in hundreds of casualties from both sides and an additional 20,000 Georgian refugees.

In September 2001, around 400 Chechen fighters and 80 Georgian guerrillas appeared in the Kodori Valley. The Chechen-Georgian paramilitaries advanced as far as Sukhumi, but finally were repelled by the Abkhazian forces.

Saakashvili era
The new Georgian government of President Mikheil Saakashvili promised not to use force and to resolve the problem only by diplomacy and political talks.

While at a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit it was decided not to carry out contacts with separatists, the trans-border economic cooperation and transport between Abkhazia and Russia grew in scale, with Russia claiming that all this is a matter of private business, rather than state. Georgia also decried the unlimited issuing of Russian passports in Abkhazia with subsequent payment of retirement pensions and other monetary benefits by Russia, which Georgia considers to be economic support of separatists by the Russian government.

In May 2006 the Coordinating Council of Georgia's Government and Abkhaz separatists was convened for the first time since 2001. In late July the 2006 Kodori crisis erupted, resulting in the establishment of the de jure Government of Abkhazia in Kodori. For the first time after the war, this government was located in Abkhazia, and it was headed by Malkhaz Akishbaia, Temur Mzhavia and Ada Marshania.

On May 15, 2008 United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising the right of all refugees to return to Abkhazia and reclaim their property rights. It regretted the attempts to alter pre-war demographic composition and called for the "rapid development of a timetable to ensure the prompt voluntary return of all refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes."

August 2008
On August 10, 2008, the Russo-Georgian War spread to Abkhazia, where separatist rebels and the Russian air force launched an all-out attack on Georgian forces. Abkhazia's pro-Moscow separatist President Sergei Bagapsh said that his troops had launched a major "military operation" to force Georgian troops out of the Kodori Gorge, which they still controlled. As a result of this attack, Georgian troops were driven out of Abkhazia entirely.

On August 26, 2008, the Russian Federation officially recognized both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

In response to Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Georgian government announced that the country cut all diplomatic relations with Russia and that it left the Commonwealth of Independent States.

After the 2008 war
Relations between Georgia and Abkhazia have remained tense after the war. Georgia has moved to increase Abkhazia's isolation by imposing a sea blockade of Abkhazia. During the opening ceremony of a new building of the Georgian Embassy in Kyiv (Ukraine) in November 2009, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili stated that residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia could also use its facilities. "I would like to assure you, my dear friends, that this is your home, as well, and here you will always be able to find support and understanding", he said.

On July 9, 2012, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly passed a resolution at its annual session in Monaco, underlining Georgia's territorial integrity and referring to breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia as occupied territories. The resolution "urges the Government and the Parliament of the Russian Federation, as well as the de facto authorities of Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia, Georgia, to allow the European Union Monitoring Mission unimpeded access to the occupied territories." It also said that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly was "concerned about the humanitarian situation of the displaced persons both in Georgia and in the occupied territories of Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia, Georgia, as well as the denial of the right of return to their places of living."

In 2016, murder of ethnic Georgian Giga Otkhozoria by Abkhaz border guards caused international resonance and raised question about human rights situation of ethnic Georgians remaining in Abkhazia, particularly Gali district, where 98% is ethnic Georgian and is often subject to ethnic discrimination, denial of political and civil rights and police misconduct.

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Carolyn R. Payton

Carolyn Robertson Payton (May 13, 1925 – April 11, 2001) was appointed Director of the United States Peace Corps in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. She was the first female and the first African American to be Peace Corps Director. Payton was a pioneer in black women's leadership within the American Psychological Association and psychology.

Early life and education
She was born Carolyn Robertson in Norfolk, Virginia in 1925. Her father, Leroy Solomon Robertson, was a chef and her mother, Bertha Flanagan Robertson, a seamstress and homemaker. Payton came from a close knit family that emphasized the value of education. Her grandfather, although born into slavery, saw to it that all of his children attended college. Payton's father enrolled her at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1941 majoring in home economics and graduated in 1945. Payton said that Bennett, a small historically Black women's college, shaped her aspirations, attitudes, and expectations and gave her a sense of her capabilities as a woman. She remained close to Bennett College during her entire life and established a scholarship fund there in the late 1990s.

Payton transferred to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for her M.S. degree in clinical psychology in 1948. Under the "separate-but-equal" doctrine, the state of Virginia covered her expenses at the out-of-state school because she pursued a graduate degree in a discipline available to White students at a White state schools, but unavailable to Blacks at a Black state school. Payton conducted her masters thesis on the then newly developed Wechsler-Bellevue Test of Intelligence and concluded that the test provided an inaccurate measure of the true ability of Blacks.

While at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Payton married Raymond Rudolph Payton, a police detective, but the marriage lasted less than four years and the two divorced in 1951. Payton began taking summer courses at Columbia University's teachers college in 1952 and received her Ed.D. in counseling and student administration in 1962.

Academic career
Payton began her first job as an instructor in psychology at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina in 1948 and worked there for five years. In 1953 she became Dean of Women and a psychology instructor at Elizabeth City State Teachers College (now Elizabeth City State University) in North Carolina. In 1956, Payton became an associate professor of psychology at Virginia State College in Petersburg, Virginia. Payton was appointed an assistant professor in psychology at Howard University in 1959.

After leaving the Peace Corps in 1978, Payton returned to Howard University where she was appointed Dean of Counseling and Career Development and later Director of University Counseling Services. As Dean she helped develop an internship-training center. Payton retired from Howard in 1995.

Staff member
Payton started at the Peace Corps as a field assignment officer in 1964 helping prepare trainees to serve in West Africa. Payton traveled extensively for the Peace Corps performing psychological tests, interviews, clinical observations and peer reviews to help determine the conditions that would lead to the most satisfying experience for Peace Corps volunteers. In 1966 she was appointed Deputy Country Director for the Caribbean and in 1967 was appointed as Country Director for the Caribbean region supervising 130 volunteers involved in education projects on eight islands in the eastern Caribbean. At the time she was one of two women who were country directors.

Director
Payton was appointed Director of the Peace Corps by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. As Peace Corps Director Payton clashed with Sam Brown, Director of ACTION, which had been created in 1971 by President Richard Nixon to administer the Peace Corps, Volunteers in Service to America and other service programs. Brown wanted to "send volunteers for short periods to developing countries and then bring back the skills they had learned to fight poverty in the United States". According to Payton, Brown's policy went against the original goals of the Peace Corps and said that Brown was "trying to turn the corps into an arrogant, elitist political organization intended to meddle in the affairs of foreign governments." According to Senate testimony Payton's differences with Brown ended in an argument during a trip to Morocco, when Brown openly berated Payton before Action Corps officials and later went to her hotel room and pounded on her door for fifteen minutes, demanding to be let in to continue his harassment.

Payton resigned in 1978 after thirteen months as Director citing, in part, policy differences between ACTION and the Peace Corps saying "as Director, I could not, because of the peculiar administrative structure under which the Peace Corps operates, do anything about this situation. As an ex-director, I am free to sound the alarm." After Payton's resignation, President Carter issued an executive order taking the Peace Corps out from under ACTION and making it a fully autonomous agency.

Continued connection
Payton retained her connection to the Peace Corps. In 1981, she spoke about the contribution that volunteers had made around the world, "I think the whole idea of Peace Corps was brought home to me most recently last summer, when there was a terribly damaging hurricane in the Caribbean. Some of the Volunteers who had served with me there were collecting food, clothes and money to send back to the Islanders. Those Volunteers had left the Islands in 1967, but they still had a concern and care about those Islanders. That's what I think is at the heart of the Peace Corps, and that's why the Peace Corps is relevant today." Payton was awarded the Peace Corps Leader for Peace Award in 1988. In 2000, Payton attended the swearing in ceremony for Peace Corps Director Mark L. Schneider.

Professional activities and awards
Payton was very active in the American Psychological Association (APA) and served on many committees and task forces including the Committee on Scientific and Professional Ethics and Conduct, the Task Force on Sex Bias and Sex Role Stereotyping in Psychotherapeutic Practice, the Committee on Women in Psychology, the Committee on Lesbian and Gay Concerns, and the Policy and Planning Board. Payton was made a fellow of APA in 1987. She also won the Distinguished Professional Contributions to Public Service Award from APA in 1982. In 1985, the APA Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Citation Award honored her for her role as "an outstanding teacher, role model, and mentor for women and ethnic minorities. She has provided leadership on ethical and consumer issues in psychology and in eliminating sex bias in psychotherapeutic practice...her commitment to equality and justice for all oppressed peoples has made a precious difference in all our lives." In 1997, Payton received the APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology for her "dedication to using psychology to promote better cross-cultural understanding and to end social injustice by influencing political process...[Her] success in overcoming gender and racial barriers to achieve positions of leadership and prestige make [her] a role model to women and ethnic minorities everywhere."

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Mouse-like hamster

Mouse-like hamsters, also called brush-tailed mice, are a group of small rodents found in Syria, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. They are found in rocky outcrops and semi-mountainous areas in desert regions.

The mouse-like hamsters are not true hamsters, but represent an early split from the rest of the mouse-like rodents. They were once thought to be hamsters based on the shape of their molars, but they lack the cheek pouches, flank glands and short tails of the true hamsters. The closest relatives of the mouse-like hamsters may be the extinct Cricetodontidae. Because of their seemingly early break from the rest of the mouse-like rodents, mouse-like hamsters have been placed in a family of their own, Calomyscidae, and have been referred to as living fossils.

All members of the genus were once considered part of the same species, Calomyscus bailwardi, but they are now considered separate species due to major differences in chromosome number, skull measurements, and other features.

In Europe, a species of Calomyscus is available as a pet. They are labelled Calomyscus bailwardi mystax or Calomyscus bailwardi. They are generally only available from dedicated breeders, not pet shops.

Species
Family Calomyscidae
 * Genus Calomyscus
 * Zagros Mountains mouse-like hamster, C. bailwardi
 * Baluchi mouse-like hamster, C. baluchi
 * Behzad's mouse-like hamster, C. behzadi
 * Goodwin's mouse-like hamster, C. elburzensis
 * Zykov's mouse-like hamster, C. e. zykovi
 * Noble mouse-like hamster, C. grandis
 * Hotson's mouse-like hamster, C. hotsoni
 * Kerman mouse-like hamster, C. kermanensis
 * Great Balkhan mouse-like hamster, C. mystax
 * Tsolov's mouse-like hamster, C. tsolovi
 * Urar mouse-like hamster, C. urartensis

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Talk:Penis/Archive 1

Is this specific to human penises?
Is this true of all penises, or just human penises? If human only, should this be a subcategory under human anatomy?

This architecture is common to the penises of a great many animals, and almost universal among mammals, with the exception of the prepuce (or foreskin). In addition, however, some animals have additional features such as the os penis in dogs (penile bone) and such. The precise description above is only human.

The plural of "penis"
the correct plural is "penes". (maybe this should be noted on the page itself).

 * The correct plural is also "penises", which (being regular) is more memorable. Marnanel 17:16, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The readership of this article
Might I remind you all that, very likely, all of our ravings will be readable by our mothers, wives, husbands, children, and future employers? Food for thought. --LMS
 * I don't care :) -- SJK
 * One day, you will regret not having cared. :-) --LMS

The effect of penile piercings on intercourse
I have a question about penile piercings -- wouldn't they make intercourse more difficult, or painful for the other partner? We should mention something about this. -- SJK

I cannot believe that 'Penis' is one of the most frequently edited articles in Wikipedia! Can't you all find another article you can put your creative genius into? Anyway, I don't think the 'penis' article should go into too much detail about piercings, slang terms, contraception etc. Do we really need to give descriptions of whether piercings are comfortable during sex??!!! - Mark Ryan

 * I was only asking because the article already discusses piercings, and if its going to discuss them, it better answer my question about them also. Besides, if its true, and since a lot of people will be interested (slightly under 50% of the world's population possess one, and most of the remainder, well, they, you know :), why not include it? I think the slang terms thing is going a bit overboard (though maybe it could belong in an article like profanity). But, in general, we shouldn't exclude useful knowledge simply on the grounds of the prudish of some. -- SJK

 * I agree 100% with the latter statement. But I would also say that we shouldn't go out of our way to include knowledge just because some people get a kick out of demonstrating that they are not prudes.  That's a sign of immaturity, I think, more than it is of a lack of prudishness. --LMS

 * I find it preposterous that 50% of the world's population posesses a pierced penis. Where did you get that information, SJK? Ed Poor
 * What I meant was that a bit under 50% of the world's population possesses a penis. -- SJK

Penis length and race
Could somebody provide a citation for the claim re penis length and race? --Robert Merkel

removed from article pending citation:
 * Some early studies have also suggested that African-American males have statistically larger penises than their Caucasian counterparts.

I've heard that this is just an urban legond and is not supported by anything other than anecdote. Please provide a reference or simply rephrase with what I just said. -mav

 * Fanon covers this subject in some detail in "Black Skin, White Masks", and tends to agree with Mav (which he backs up with statistics). Interesting historical origin for the belief, though... worth reading! Graft

The only reliable penis-size studies commonly quoted in the literature are the Kinsey study, the UCSF study, and an Italian study, none of which even attempted to correlate with race. There is an ongoing government study in India as well (commissioned with the goal of helping reduce the high condom failure rate there), but it too is unlikely to answer the question. There have been many other studies and claims of varying rigor--for example, the LifeStyles condoms study, but they are generally flawed by selection bias. --LDC
 * It's probably an urban legend, but I remember reading that the only race with a statistically unusually-sized penis is Native Americans, who tend to be large -- though I think there is (supposedly) one tribe in Africa that is off the scale on the large side. Just wanted to throw that out there Tokerboy
 * More trivia that is probably untrue but I definitely read somewhere in printed form -- the largest minority in any society is always rumored to have large penises Tokerboy

 * While totally unscientific, that would certainly explain why Norvegians recirculate all the Richard Pryor jokes about penis size, except with Finns as the "possessors" of the endowment. There are plenty of Finns working norwegian oil platforms and in northern fish factories. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick

 * According to the 1998 Definitive Penis size survey on the internet (which isn't really scientific, but seems to yield quite believable results nonetheless), penis size differences between Caucasians and Blacks are not statistically significant. Penis sizes of East Asians tend to be smaller, however this correlates with the smaller body sizes of the East Asians in the survey... Marcika 07:19, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC).

Whether subincision splits the glans
It's my understanding that subincision, as a practice, does NOT bifurcate the glans penis. In its milder form, I believe it just slits the foreskin on the underside so that it hangs partially open; the Australian Aborigine practice, if I recall correctly, is to slit open not only the foreskin but the entire urethra to the base of the penis, but without bifurcating the head. --John Knouse

Whether erection is necessary for intercourse
I'd like to change this sentence:
 * Erection is required for sexual intercourse and other sexual activities.

-- because erection is not essential to intercourse. However it's certainly helpful -- Tarquin 23:28 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
 * Is it really intercourse without an erection? -- 202.124.102.131 20:17 Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

 * If it's sexually pleasurable and it involves insertion of the penis in the vagina, then I'd say it's probably intercourse. The wording as it stands "for some activities" is ugly, I'll try to find something better. --Minority Report 01:51, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Showers" and "growers"
The following could be greatly improved by slang:
 * For example a man with a relatively small flaccid penis may have an above average length penis when fully aroused. The opposite is also true.

if we added something about showers and growers. Ortolan88

Whether the foreskin is part of the penis
Over in talk:circumcision there was a thrilling debate over whether the foreskin is in fact part of the penis. I move this talk here in order that experts in the field may examine the issue and provide relevant information. Martin

What the hell is the foreskin if not part of the penis?

 * The problem (and this isn't your fault) is that most people have accepted a social bias which misunderstands basic human biology. Non-biologists are usually confused about the human body, and imagine that parts that are near each other are really the same. This is very common, and I can't blame anyone for thinking this way.  But its wrong.  Biologically, one can trace the development of both the penis and the foreskin surrounding the penis from separate embryological tissues.  Even at birth the penis and foreskin are separate; you can even grab the foreskin and pull it far back, totally exposing the penis.  You can remove some, or all, of the foreskin, without touching any of the penis itself. RK

 * I'm no doctor or biologist, but I have a foreskin and it's definitely part of my penis. Theanthrope 02:41 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)

 * RK, your statement doesn't really prove anything; one could just as easily say, "Biologically, one can trace the development of the foreskin and the rest of the penis from separate embryological tissus. Even at birth the foreskin is separate from the rest of the penis; you can even grab the foreskin and pull it far back, totally exposing the rest of the penis. You can remove some, or all, of the foreskin, without touching any of the rest of the penis." It's a question of definition. Ruakh 16:08, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm sorry to be rude about this, but it's ridiculous to assert that the foreskin is not part of the penis. It is attached to the penis, distal from the body itself, and not attached to any part of the body but the penis.  Its function specifically accrues to the penis itself; it has no function for any other body part.  When a penis is fully erect and the foreskin is retracted, it is not even apparent as a separate part of the penis!  And many body parts or organs have more than one embryological derivation -- the adrenal glands, for instance.  Or the penis itself.  The nervous tissues and the skin tissues differentiate from the ectoderm so early on that they are effectively different embryonic paths.  Do we then say that the nerves in the penis are not part of the penis?  Or do we say that the hair on your head is not part of the head?  Or this: the spinal cord originates separately from the vertebrae:  do we say that because of this, the spinal column only includes one, and not the other? jaknouse 20:48, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Whether we should include a picture
We need a picture....

Your prayers have been answered! :-P All the images come from http://www.luckymojo.com/faqs/altsex/penis.html and I searched around the site trying to find a copyright notice but to no avail and due to the nature of the page (a faq for alt.sex) I think they should be OK. --BL

 * You should probably email Elf Sternberg  to ask for permission. See boilerplate request for permission. Martin 13:05 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * The address is dead --BL

 * I found Elf's current address and emailed him. Here's the reply:
 * The original asfaq was placed under a Creative Commons license, but it has been a long time since I did any work on any of the FAQ materials. ... I think at this point I would be comfortable putting the work under the GFDL, yes.
 * So the copyright issue is now solved. Hooray! --Card 19 Nov 2003

It's strange that photos of Penis are allowed but photos of Vulva have been removed, though both originate from the same site (alt.sex FAQ, http://www.luckymojo.com/faqs/altsex/) -- 210.214.131.161 18:41, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Personally I don't find that half as insulting as the "image" of "an erect penis." Even without extensive medical expetise, the image is clearly one of a penis at best going through the early stages of detumescence. (I don't have a digital camera, so there...) -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 08:34, Sep 9, 2003 (EDT)

Kudos
Thanks everybody for this excellent article. I've learned a lot!

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Baer's pochard

Baer's pochard (Aythya baeri) is a diving duck found in eastern Asia. It is a bird in North and Central China, and formerly bred in southeast Russia and Northeast China, migrating in winter to southern China, Vietnam, Japan, and India. Baer's pochard is a monotypic species. The holotype was collected in middle Amur.

It has a distinctive black head and neck with green gloss. While in poor light, it is likely to look completely black. It is similar and closely related to the ferruginous duck, and they were previously considered to be a single species; Baer's pochard is differentiated by its white flanks when floating on the water, as well as its longer, more rounded head and larger size.

Its breeding season varies by latitude and environment. The nest, built from sedges, reeds and other plants, is placed among emergent vegetation, usually in shallow water or on small islands or ridges. Its clutch size ranges from 5 to 14. Males usually take on sentry duty, and females take on the responsibility of incubating.

Baer's pochard was once a common species in its range, but is now very rare. The number of mature individuals may be less than 1,000, and its population is still declining. Hunting and habitat loss are considered to be the main reasons. This species has been classified as critically endangered by the IUCN, and listed as a first-class protected animal in China.

Taxonomy
Baer's pochard was first scientifically described in 1863 as Anas baeri by Gustav Radde in his book Reisen im Süden von Ost-Sibirien. The epithet and English common name commemorate the Baltic German naturalist Karl Ernst von Baer. It is also called eastern white-eye, Siberian white-eye, Baer's white-eye and green-headed pochard. The holotype was collected from a small flock in middle Amur during the breeding season. In 1929, when British ornithologist E. C. Stuart Baker studied the birds of British India, he treated Baer's pochard and ferruginous duck as conspecific. However, Chinese ornithologist Tso-hsin Cheng treated them as two distinct species, as they had breeding grounds which did not overlap, and he had seen no evidence of hybridisation. While the species was long thought to have arisen from eastern populations of the ferruginous duck, American ornithologist Paul Johnsgard says its behaviors suggest it may instead be more closely related to the hardhead.

American ornithologist Bradley Curtis Livezey published a phylogenetic study based on morphological data in 1996, in which he proposed his view on the relationship among Tribe Aythyini. Baer's pochard, ferruginous duck, hardhead and Madagascar pochard are classified in subgenus Nyroca (the "white-eyes"), intrasubgenus relationship is unclear, but the ferruginous duck was suggested to be the sister group of Baer's pochard. The subgenus Aythya (the "scapu", including New Zealand Scaup, ring-necked duck, tufted duck, greater scaup and lesser scaup) is the sister group of subgenus Nyroca. The subgenus Aristonetta (the "redheads", including the common pochard, canvasback and redhead) is the sister group of all other pochards.

Two molecular phylogenetic studies on Anseriformes or Anatidae were published in 2000s, some mitochondrial genes were sequenced, but Baer's pochard was absent in both of them. The mitochondrial genome of Baer's pochard was sequenced and published in 2021. Molecular phylogenetic studies determined the relationships among Baer's pochard and other closely related species:

Description
The Baer's pochard is 41 – long with a 70 – wingspan. The male is slightly larger, weighing on average 500 –, wings lengthed 18.6 –, tail at 53 –, and culmen at 38 –. Relatively, the female weighing on average 590 –, wings lengthed 19.1 –, tail at 51 –, and culmen at 40 –. Both male and female's tarsometatarsus lengthed 33 –.

Breeding male has a black head and neck with green gloss, white or paler yellow eyes, blackish-brown back, dark chestnut breast, white or light chestnut flanks and a short and low tail. While it is likely to look completely black in poor light. Female has brown eyes and a dark brown head and neck that blend into the chestnut-brown breast and flanks. Eclipse and first-winter male resembles female, but retain the white eyes. Both male and female have wide white speculum feathers, white vent-side, dark-grey bill, black nail and dark-grey tarsometatarsus.

It is similar to its close relative, the ferruginous duck (A. nyroca), both have white vent-side and iris in males, black nail, and wide white speculum feathers. Although Baer's pochard is bigger, has a longer head, body and bill. Unlike the ferruginous duck's tall and triangular head, Baer's pochard has a more rounded head and a flatter forehead. The white part on the belly extends to its flanks in Baer's pochard, which is visible when floating on the water, while the ferruginous duck has a smaller white part on its belly. The female Baer's pochard has a distinctly bright chestnut spot at the lore, which is absent in ferruginous duck.

Baer's pochard is usually a quieter duck, but during its courtship display, both sexes give harsh graaaak. Females may give kura kura kura and males may give kuro kuro at other times.

Distribution
Baer's pochard traditionally bred in the Amur and Ussuri basins in Northeast China and the southeastern Russian Far East. In recent years, it has also colonised North China and Central China. It winters in most areas south of the Yellow River in China, Taiwan, Japan, Bangladesh, India, North Korea, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam, and occasionally appears in Bhutan, South Korea, Philippines or Pakistan as a rare vagrant. It leaves its wintering grounds by mid-March and returns to them by mid-October or early November.

The species has become extremely rare in its traditional breeding areas, and since 2010, there have been no confirmed breeding reports in all sites north of Beijing. However, the numbers recorded during the breeding season are smaller than those recorded in winter, so there may still be unknown breeding sites. For example, there are some doubtful breeding reports in the Chinese part of Lake Khanka, the Russian part of Lake Khasan, and the Muraviovka Park. Since 2012, new breeding sites have been discovered in several provinces of China, including Hebei, Hubei and Jiangxi; the latter two cities are far from traditional breeding sites in the Amur and Ussuri basins. In these new breeding areas, warmer climate conditions provide a longer breeding season (about twice as long as in the Amur and Ussuri basins) which allows birds to lay a replacement clutch if their first clutch fails. Baer's pochard is no longer migratory in central and eastern China.

The wintering grounds have also contracted significantly in recent years. Since at least the winter of 2010-2011, Baer's pochard no longer winters in any site outside mainland China, except as a. In its wintering grounds in mainland China, the population has also declined severely, by more than 99%.

Behaviour and ecology
Baer's pochard is a shy species, that inhabit open, slow-flowing lakes, swamps and ponds. It breeds around lakes with rich aquatic vegetation, nesting in dense grass, flooded tussock meadows, or flooded shrubby meadows. In winter, it forms large flocks on large and open freshwater lakes and reservoirs with other pochards. It has strong wings, and can flyor walk at high speeds. It is also good at diving and swimming, and can quickly take off from the water when threatened or disturbed. In migrating season, they form small groups of more than 10 or dozens of birds, flying at low altitudes in wedge-shaped formations. During winter, Baer's pochard sleeps during the day, leaves for unknown feeding sites with other ducks in the dusk, and returns before dawn. Little is known about their diet beyond aquatic plants, grass seeds and molluscs.

Breeding
Baer's pochard appears to have a monogamous mating system, at least within a breeding season. In traditional breeding grounds in northeastern China, Baer's pochard gathers in gaps in the ice before it completely thawed. After the ice season, it gathers on the large, open lakes. They breed from mid-to-late May. While in Fuhe Wetland in Wuhan, Hubei, Baer's pochard gathers in large groups on the open lakes before breeding season. It is divided into small groups in mid-April, in which they will courting and mating. During courtship, the male swims around the female, repeatedly nods his head up and down. When other males approach, it swims toward them quickly to drive them away, but there is no violent fight between them. The female also nods her head in response. When the male approaches, the female straightens her neck and lowers her head to the water. He then climbs onto her body and bites her nape feathers to mate. After the mating, the male and female leave the flock for nesting.

Baer's pochard's nest is circular cylindrical, located among emergent vegetation, usually in shallow water or on small islands or ridges. The nest is made of sedges, reeds and other plants collected from the immediate vicinity, lined with a layer of down. Its clutch ranged from 5 to 14, with an average of 9.7. Males usually take on sentry duty at about 10 meters from the nest during hatching. Females leave the nest to forage 2–3 times a day, usually during 6:00-20:00, and lasted for 27–240 min. They cover the eggs with nest materials during forging, and place them onto their back when coming back. If water levels are elevated by heavy rainfall or human activity, females increase the height of the nest to avoid flooding. During the hottest days, females often stand on the nest and shelter eggs from the strong sunlight, whilst allowing circulation of air around them. Females also take water into their plumage and use it to cool the eggs. The incubation lasted for 23-26 days.

Studies have shown that the nest survival rate of Baer's pochards is about 14–45%, and each clutch may lose one to nine eggs. About 20-30% of eggs hatched successfully, and 3–16 young fledged per nest. There are three major reasons contributing to the failure, including nest desertion (abandoned by parents), nest predation (mainly by Siberian Weasels) and flooding. The proportion of these causes varies among years. In addition, most of the breeding sites in Wuhan are Crayfish farms, the farming work and eggs collection may also be hindrances.

Biological interaction
Incomplete inter- and intra-specific brood parasitism were found in Baer's pochard. In Xianghai National Nature Reserve, Baer's pochards could parasitize gadwall and common pochard, and may be parasitized by common pochard. In Wuhan, Baer's pochard shares breeding sites with cotton teal, eastern spot-billed duck and mallard. Interspecific brood parasitism was not observed. Intraspecific parasitic was found in Wuhan. If caught, the parasite will get attacked by the host.

Baer's pochard has hybridized with lesser scaup, common pochard, ferruginous duck, New Zealand scaup, chestnut teal and wood duck in captivity. Ferruginous duck was observed displaying to Baer's pochards several times in China and South Korea. Some individuals showed mixed characteristics of common, ferruginous and Baer's pochards, so they may be currently hybridising in the wild. The Baer's pochard has declined sharply in recent years, but the ferruginous and common pochard has expanded their breeding grounds, and even to the core areas of Baer's pochard's, which makes the hypothesis possible.

The research on its gut microbiota showed that the richest microorganism phyla of Baer's pochard are Bacillota, Pseudomonadota and Bacteroidota, which were consistent with those of the domestic goose, duck and chicken. The gut microbiota in diarrheic Baer's pochard is low in diversity, and the species were also significantly different from healthy individuals. Most species in reduced numbers are thought to be intestinal beneficial bacteria.

Threats and protection
Baer's pochard was once a common species in its range, but is now very rare. Mature individuals may be less than 1,000. According to records in China, there were 16,792 wintering individuals from 1986/87 to 1992/93, but only 3,472 from 1993/94 to 1998/99, and only 2,131 from 2002/03 to 2010/11. Bangladesh had more than 3,000 in 1996, India had more than 1,400 in 1995 and 1997, Myanmar had about 500-1,000 in the 1990s, and 596 were counted in 1998 in Thailand. While by 1999/00-2004/05, only 719 were counted in all wintering grounds except China, and only 48 individuals in 2005/06-2010/11. In China, hunting and habitat loss were considered to be the main threats. From 336 to 4,803 pochards were hunted annually in Honghu, Hubei from 1981 to 1997; in areas near Rudong County, maybe 3,000 are hunted every year. The wintering grounds have been significantly changed due to water pollution, fishing management, changes in aquatic plants, and the changing ecology of many wetlands in the Yangtze River floodplain. Factors in breeding and migrating grounds may also have contributed to its decline. The global decline shows no sign of slowing or stopping.

Baer's pochard was formerly classified as a vulnerable species by the IUCN. Recent research has shown that its numbers are decreasing more and more rapidly, and it was consequently uplisted to endangered status in 2008. In 2012, it was further uplisted to critically endangered. In 2014, the East Asian–Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) drafted the Baer's Pochard Task Force and it was endorsed in Jan 2015. Baer's pochard was listed as a first-class protected animal in China by 2021. In 2022, media reports state that the first captive population in China was established in the Beijing Zoo, with totally 54 individuals. It is planned to be further expanded and used for reintroduction.

A study published in 2022 showed that most breeding sites (81.8%) and suitable habitats (94%) are not located in protected areas, and overlap with large cities. Current protected areas may be less effective for the conservation under predicted global climate change, closely coordinated cross-border cooperation would be critical for Baer's pochard.

title: Baer's pochard


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Karen Hines

Karen Hines is a Canadian actor, writer and director. She is the artistic director and producer of "Keep Frozen: Pochsy Productions." Born in Chicago, raised in Toronto, she now lives in Calgary where she was playwright in Residence at Alberta Theatre Projects from 2009 to 2012, has been a performer and collaborator with One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre, a National Magazine Award-winning contributor to Swerve magazine, and has created short films featuring the character Pochsy, which have screened internationally.

Hines has written seven full-length plays, and many short plays. Her longer published works include Drama: Pilot Episode, Hello...Hello (A Romantic Satire), Crawlspace and The Pochsy Plays, a trilogy of dark comedies, which have been Hines's plays have toured internationally and have won numerous awards and nominations. The Pochsy Plays were short-listed for the 2004 Governor General's Awards for Drama, and Drama: Pilot Episode was also short-listed for the GG in 2012.

Hines has appeared extensively in film and television, including many of Ken Finkleman's satires such as The Newsroom, Foreign Objects, and Married Life for which she was nominated for Gemini and CableACE awards. She has also appeared on stage in Canadian productions of Angels in America and with Douglas Coupland in his September 10th (Royal Shakespeare Company), as well as in her own plays. She also had roles in the film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Barry Levinson's Man of the Year. A full history is available at Hines' production website (Keep Frozen is her independent development company, whose name she describes as a wish: a daughter of scientists, Hines combines such elements in her work as satire, magical realism, pink brand feminism and climate change.)

Hines has worked extensively with Canadian horror clown duo Mump and Smoot, directing all their productions from their early Fringe days to productions Off-Broadway, at the Yale Repertory Theatre and at the La Jolla Playhouse. She has directed and collaborated on the work of other Canadian artists such as Darren O'Donnell (Over) and Linda Griffiths (Age of Arousal). She is an associate of One Yellow Rabbit where she performed Citizen Pochsy and directed Mump and Smoot in the High Performance Rodeo as early as 1989.

Hines is a Second City alumna (Toronto), but her comedy has a darker component, which she honed through her work with Philippe Gaulier. She is considered a Canadian authority on Bouffon. Hines was also a student of Richard Pochinko.

title: Karen Hines


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Politehnica University of Bucharest

Politehnica University of Bucharest (Universitatea Națională de Știință și Tehnologie POLITEHNICA București) is a technical university in Bucharest, Romania. 200 years of activity have been celebrated lately, as the university was founded in 1818. Politehnica University is classified by the Ministry of Education as an advanced research and education university.

The university is a member of the European Association for International Education (EAIE), the European University Association (EUA), the EUA Council for Doctoral Education, the CESAER (Council of Universities of Science and Technology in Europe), and the Romanian Alliance of Technical Universities (ARUT).

History
Politehnica University of Bucharest is the largest technical university in Romania. Its traditions are connected to the founding of the first higher technical school in Wallachia, in 1818, by Gheorghe Lazăr. Born in Avrig, Transylvania, Gheorghe Lazăr studied in Sibiu, Cluj, and Vienna. In 1817–1818 he endeavored to convince the local noblemen of the need to support a modern technical school in Romania. Thus, on 24 March 1818, by a princely edict of Ioan Caragea, it was organised the Technical Superior School for Surveying Engineers (Școala Tehnică Superioară pentru Ingineri Hotarnici) within the Academic School for Philosophy and Mathematical Sciences of the Saint Sava Princely Academy.

In 1832 the school was reorganized, including four cycles, in accordance with the provisions of Organic Regulation. Among other faculties, the one dealing with exact sciences included courses such as applied trigonometry, geodesy, mineralogy, engineering graphics, descriptive geometry, mechanical elements applied to ordinary machines, principles of building roads and bridges, elements of architecture, etc. The graduates were obliged either to work for three years for the state or to return the grant received.

In 1862, the ruler of the United Principalities, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, had established by another Princely Decree a set of rules for the organisation of civil engineers, the hierarchy of engineers or conductors, their salaries, the conditions for admission and promotion, were clearly defined. On 1 October 1864, the School of Bridges and Roads, Mines and Architecture was established.

An important figure in the "School of Bridges, Roads and Mines" was Gheorghe Duca (engineer). As early as 1887, he analysed the content of courses, finding the weaknesses of the school, as well as the best solutions to improve its academic level. In those times, a substantial condition was the severity imposed on the conduct of students, in addition to evaluation. Students obtaining insufficient results, or having an erratic course attendance, were quickly removed from the school. Indeed, at the beginning, the preparatory year had no admission tests.

Starting with 1881, an admission test was introduced; the top priority was the quality of candidates, the number of the selected ones being less important. Gheorghe Duca tried and succeeded to bring the best professors to the “National School of Bridges and Roads”; among these were David Emmanuel (Elementary Mathematics), Spiru Haret (Higher Algebra and Analytical Geometry), C. M. Mironescu (Statistics and Engineering Graphics), Constantin Istrati (Physics), or Anghel Saligny (Bridges and Roads). Moreover, Gheorghe Duca himself was considered the greatest authority in railways at the end of the 19th century. This was perhaps a turning moment, when it was clearly demonstrated that Romania was capable of achieving on its own what had been deemed likely to be obtained only abroad, namely the training of highly qualified science and engineering specialists.

The year 1890 also represented a momentous point, when at the National School of Bridges and Roads a new commission was set up. Its main role was to issue equivalency certificates for the engineering diplomas obtained abroad, thus transforming this national school into a model for evaluating higher technical studies.

Nicolae Vasilescu-Karpen was appointed director of the School in February 1920. As a direct result of his endeavors, the government approved the establishment of Polytechnic Schools in Romania, conceived as higher education institutions, similar to universities, having as their final aim engineering training under the Ministry of Public Works. The Polytechnic School was set up by transforming the "National School of Bridges and Roads" to the "Polytechnic School of Bucharest". In its initial stage it consisted of four sections:
 * Civil Engineering;
 * Mechanics and Electricity;
 * Mines and Metallurgy;
 * The Industrial Section.

During this period, in addition to the Polytechnic School, there were Institutes for Engineers within Universities. For instance, the University of Bucharest hosted an institute for electrical engineering, an institute for industrial chemistry and another one for agricultural and food chemistry. Another important cornerstone was Decree 3799 of 1938 stating that higher education could be provided only by universities, Polytechnic Schools, or Academies for Commercial Studies. As a direct result, the Academy of Higher Agricultural Studies, the Academy of Architecture, the Institute of Industrial Chemistry and Agricultural and Food Chemistry, respectively, were introduced in the framework of "Bucharest Politehnica". The change of name from "Polytechnic School of Bucharest" into "Politehnica Carol II of Bucharest" was accompanied by other changes as well. Thus, Politehnica depended on the Ministry of National Education (instead of the Ministry for Public Works), the former director became Rector of Politehnica, the different sections became Faculties, their presidents in turn, became Deans etc. Between 1938 and 1948 Politehnica of Bucharest had seven faculties: Civil Engineering, Electro-mechanics, Metallurgy, Industrial Chemistry, Silviculture, Agronomy, and Architecture. Another important transformation took place in 1948, when several Politehnica or even specialities became independent, or even moved to other cities. Some of the new universities, institutes or faculties had their roots in the old "Politehnica of Bucharest". Thus, the following establishments, were initially faculties or departments at "Politehnica" of Bucharest: Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest; Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism; University of Agronomic Sciences; Faculty of Forestry - Transilvania University of Brașov; School of Mines - Petroșani; Oil & Gas University of Ploieşti; Faculty for Food Chemistry - University of Galați; Faculty for Textile Industry - Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași. In 1948–1992, the name of the school was "The Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest". For some years it was called "Institutul Politehnic 'Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej' București". Based on a resolution of the Senate (November 1992), the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest turned into University Politehnica of Bucharest.

Ranking
According to the Scimago Lab, based on data collected between 2007 and 2011, Politehnica University of Bucharest ranked 546 in the World, 15 regionally and number one in the country by number of publications.

At the 29th annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, on April 6, 2005, Politehnica student team ranked 10th.

Faculties
The university is structured into faculties. The faculties are distinct academic entities, each having its own admission criteria, largely distinct staff and limited interaction. However, there are a number of commonalities: all the faculties provide only engineering degrees, there is a largely common curricula that is observed in the first year of studies, there are shared teaching facilities and shared student facilities. Teaching is conducted in Romanian and at the Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Languages teaching is conducted in one of the languages: English, French, and German. Currently there are fifteen faculties. :

 * Faculty of Electrical Engineering;
 * Faculty of Power Engineering;
 * Faculty of Automation and Computer Science;
 * Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology;
 * Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics;
 * Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Robotics;
 * Faculty of Biotechnical Systems Engineering;
 * Faculty of Transports;
 * Faculty of Aerospace Engineering;
 * Faculty of Material Science and Engineering;
 * Faculty of Applied Chemistry and Materials Science;
 * Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Languages;
 * Faculty of Applied Sciences;
 * Faculty of Medical Engineering;
 * Faculty of Entrepreneurship, Engineering and Business Management.

Notable faculty and alumni

 * Elie Carafoli aeronautics engineer
 * Henri Coandă
 * Octavia Dobre
 * Mihai Drăgănescu president of the Romanian Academy between 1990 and 1994
 * Traian Lalescu
 * Mihail Manoilescu
 * Nadia Comăneci
 * Costin Nenițescu
 * Aurel Persu
 * Peter Stoica
 * Simion Stoilow
 * Gabriel Sudan
 * Nicolae Vasilescu-Karpen
 * Radu Voinea president of the Romanian Academy between 1984 and 1990
 * Andrei Alexandrescu widely regarded as one of the foremost experts on C++ programming, head research scientist at Facebook, developer on D 2.0
 * Rodica Baranescu past president of SAE international, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering of USA.
 * Radu Georgescu software engineer, entrepreneur and founder of GeCAD Software (technology bought by Microsoft that became Windows Security Essentials)
 * Mircea Gradu automotive engineer and inventor, 2008 SAE International Ed Cole Innovation Award recipient, president of SAE International
 * Mihail Roco chair of the US National Science and Technology Council subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET), Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation, founder of National Nanotechnology Initiative
 * Dinu Brătianu politician, led the National Liberal Party (PNL) starting with 1934
 * Silvia Ciornei politician, member in the European Parliament
 * Sergiu Cunescu politician
 * Ion Iliescu former president of Romania
 * Liviu Librescu aeronautics engineer and scientist, hero of the Virginia Tech massacre
 * Radu Manicatide engineer and aircraft constructor, inventor of the M.R. microcar
 * Mihai Nadin computer scientist, Human Computer Interaction pioneer, director of the Institute for Research in Anticipatory Systems
 * Sergiu Nicolaescu film director
 * Ion Mihai Pacepa chemist, general and the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the former Eastern Bloc
 * Dan Petrescu, Romanian businessman and billionaire, one of the richest persons in Romania at his time
 * Cristian Tudor Popescu journalist and SF author
 * Vasile Mihai Popov controls engineer
 * Dumitru Prunariu cosmonaut and first Romanian in space
 * Lawrence Rauchwerger computer scientist
 * Dan Roman entrepreneur, investor and IT professional
 * Petre Roman politician
 * George Necula computer scientist
 * Ion Stoica computer scientist
 * Florin-Teodor Tănăsescu, electrical engineer
 * Mihaela Cardei, computer scientist

Notes and references
The university organizes important conferences such as International Conference on Control Systems and Computer Science and symposiums like Interdisciplinary Approaches in Fractal Analysis.

title: Politehnica University of Bucharest


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New Zealand scaup

The New Zealand scaup (Aythya novaeseelandiae), also known as the black teal or pāpango in Māori, is a diving duck species of the genus Aythya endemic to New Zealand. They weigh around 650 g and measure around 40 cm, and have dark-coloured plumage. They are found throughout New Zealand in deep natural and man-made lakes and ponds.

New Zealand scaups lay around 7 eggs and the ducklings are immediately capable of diving to feed. Adult scaups can dive to at least 3 metres and for as long as a minute for aquatic plants and invertebrates. Scaups started declining in the late 1800s until they were fully protected in 1934, and their population is now increasing thanks to predator control and new habitat.

Taxonomy
The New Zealand scaup was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the ducks, geese and swans in the genus Anas and coined the binomial name Anas novaeseelandiae. Gmelin based his description of the "New-Zealand duck" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds. The naturalist Joseph Banks had provided Latham with a water-colour drawing of the duck by Georg Forster who had accompanied James Cook on his second voyage to the Pacific Ocean. His picture of a male bird was drawn in April 1773 at Dusky Sound, a fjord on the southwest corner of New Zealand. This picture is the holotype for the species and is now held by the Natural History Museum in London. The New Zealand scaup is now placed with 11 other species in the genus Aythya that was introduced in 1822 by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie. The genus name Aythya comes from the Ancient Greek word αυθυια, which may have referred to a sea-dwelling duck or an auklet. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.

Description
The New Zealand scaup is a small, round-bodied diving duck that have dark plumage, but both sexes are easily distinguished. They have black legs and webbed feet for swimming, and they spend a lot of time underwater, where they can also travel considerable distances. They measure around 40 cm in length and weigh around 695 g for males, and around 610 g for females.

The male has dark black-brown plumage with a striking yellow eye and a dark coloured (greenish) head. The female has duller chocolate brown plumage, brown eyes and has a white face patch during breeding season. A white wing bar can be seen in both sexes when in flight, and both sexes have a grey bill.

The young are initially covered in pale brown and white down, and juveniles look like the female, except with no white at the base of the bill.

The males have a high pitched whistle call and the females 'quack'.

Distribution and habitat
It is found throughout both the North and South Island of New Zealand in deep freshwater lakes and ponds, and recently, hydroelectric lakes and oxidation ponds. Despite being widespread, they have a patchy distribution, and most scaups are on suitable habitat areas in Northland, the upper Waikato, Rotorua, Taupō, Hawke's Bay, West Coast, North Canterbury, and the Southern Alps. Unlike other members of this genus, the scaup is not migratory, although it does move to open water from high country lakes if they become frozen in winter. A recent population expansion has happened in Christchurch thanks to predator control and suitable habitat.

Behaviour and ecology
New Zealand scaups are usually seen in flocks during autumn in winter, with flocks of over 200 birds seen at traditional moulting and wintering sites such as Lake Rotorua, Lake Taupō, Lake Tūtira, the Bromley sewage ponds, and the Ashburton Lakes.

Breeding
New Zealand scaups typically leave their wintering flocks by September, and the males become territorial. The nest is a bowl of grass, sedges and other similar plants, lined with down, and in dense cover close to water. Sometimes scaups breed in loose colonies if suitable breeding habitat is scarce.

Egg laying is mostly from late October to December, but some late or replacement clutches are laid until February. The clutch of can contain 2–15 creamy-white coloured eggs, although the typical range is 6–8 eggs, and clutches of 12 eggs or more are probably laid by multiple female scaups. The eggs are around 65mm x 45mm (2.56in x 1.77in) in size, and weigh around 71 g. The eggs are laid in an interval of 1.2–1.4 days, and are incubated by the female for around 30 days.

The female broods the ducklings on the nest for up to 24 hours before leading the ducklings to water. The ducklings are immediately capable of diving to feed. The female guards the brood during the fledging period of around 75 days. Occasionally, rafts are formed by several females and their ducklings; these can have up to 50 birds.

Average and maximum lifespan, age at first breeding, and survival rate of fledglings is not known because few New Zealand scaups have been banded.

Feeding
The New Zealand scaup is a diving duck which dives to look for aquatic plants, small fish, water snails, mussels and insects. It is sometimes seen with the Australian coot (Fulica atra); it is thought that the scaup takes advantage of the food stirred up by the coots as they fossick for shrimps. Scaups dive to at least 3 metres, but probably dive much deeper. Most dives last 15–20 seconds, but some dives last for over a minute.

Threats and conservation
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, New Zealand scaup populations declined due to habitat destruction, introduction of predators and duck hunting. Adults and ducklings are vulnerable to predation during nesting and chick-rearing which may result in low breeding success.

New Zealand scaups started recovering after they were partially protected in 1921 and fully protected in 1934. Predator control and new breeding and feeding habitat has allowed the scaup population to increase, especially in Christchurch, where scaups have recolonised the area.

The last time the population of the New Zealand scaup was assessed in the 1990s, the population was estimated to be around 20,000; the population has most likely increased since then.

title: New Zealand scaup


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Hatton

Hatton may refer to:

England

 * Hatton, Cheshire West and Chester, a former civil parish
 * Hatton, Derbyshire, a village and civil parish
 * Hatton, Lincolnshire, a village and civil parish
 * Hatton, London, in the London Borough of Hounslow
 * Hatton, Shropshire, a hamlet in the civil parish of Eaton-under-Heywood
 * Hatton, Warrington, Cheshire, a civil parish and hamlet
 * Hatton, Warwickshire, a village and civil parish

Scotland

 * Hatton, Aberdeenshire, a village
 * Hatton Castle, Aberdeenshire
 * Hatton Castle, Angus
 * Hatton Hill, a mountain landform in Angus

United States

 * Hatton, Colbert County, Alabama, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton, Lawrence County, Alabama, a census-designated place and unincorporated community
 * Hatton, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton, Kentucky, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton Township, Michigan
 * Hatton, Michigan, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton, Missouri, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton, North Dakota, a city
 * Hatton, Ohio, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton, Utah, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton, Virginia, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton, Washington, a town
 * Hatton, Wisconsin, a ghost town
 * Hatton, Wyoming, an unincorporated community

Elsewhere

 * Hatton, Saskatchewan, Canada, an unincorporated community
 * Hatton, Sri Lanka, a town

People

 * Hatton (surname)
 * Hatton Compton (died 1741), English army officer, Lieutenant of the Tower of London and Lord Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets
 * Hatton W. Sumners (1875–1962), American politician

Other uses

 * Hatton baronets, an extinct title in the Baronetage of England
 * Hatton National Bank, a private bank in Sri Lanka
 * Hatton railway station (disambiguation)
 * Hatton Road, Hong Kong

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