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Bili light

A bili light is a light therapy tool to treat newborn jaundice (hyperbilirubinemia). High levels of bilirubin can cause brain damage (kernicterus), leading to cerebral palsy, auditory neuropathy, gaze abnormalities and dental enamel hypoplasia. The therapy uses a blue light (420–470 nm) that converts bilirubin into an (E,Z)-isomer that can be excreted in the urine and feces. Soft goggles are put on the child to reduce eye damage from the high intensity light. The baby is kept naked or only wearing a diaper, and is turned over frequently to expose more of the skin.

Conventional bili lights shine from above the baby. A biliblanket consists of a fiber-optic blanket designed to transfer the light from a lamp unit all around the baby's body, and is more commonly used at home.

Neonatal jaundice
Jaundice (Hyperbilirubinemia) is common in newborn babies and presents itself as yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes (sclera). About 50 percent of term and 80 percent of preterm infants develop jaundice in the first week of life. This condition also causes babies to appear sick, experience difficulty waking up, make high-pitch cries, or not be able to be fed or gain weight. Bilirubin is an orange yellow bile pigment that is produced as a byproduct of hemoglobin as red blood cells break down (hemolysis). Bilirubin is then metabolized in the liver, recycled, and excreted in the bowel movements. When a baby has jaundice or hyperbilirubinemia, this can indicate that the baby's body is producing excess bilirubin or that the liver is too immature to be able to eliminate bilirubin fast enough. Feeding, in particular breastfeeding, the baby often in the first few days of birth can help lower the chances of developing jaundice, since the baby will pass more stool and the milk provides energy to the liver to allow metabolism of bilirubin. Uncontrolled levels of bilirubin can be harmful to the baby. Most neonatal jaundice shows during the first week after birth. Nevertheless, when bilirubin levels become exceedingly high, the substance may move out of the blood, cross the blood brain barrier, and collect in brain tissue, damaging the baby's brain cells, a condition known as acute bilirubin encephalopathy. If acute bilirubin encephalopathy is not addressed promptly, Kernicterus syndrome can develop and cause permanent brain damage. In rare situations, a baby may experience seizures, deafness, cerebral palsy or mental retardation. Jaundice can be prevented and treated in the majority of cases. Jaundice is more dangerous in certain cases such as babies who are born prematurely (before 37 weeks of gestation), babies who are underweight (less than 2500 grams at birth), babies who are going through an infection, babies who experienced a difficult delivery or have bruises (since they are replacing and breaking down more red blood cells at a higher rate) and babies who have a blood group that is not compatible with their mothers.

Phototherapy mechanism
Jaundice in some babies can disappear within one to two weeks without treatment; however for babies with more severe jaundice, treatment is required. Traditional phototherapy devices include blue LEDs, halogen white light, and fluorescent tubes. A biliblanket is a phototherapy home treatment that consists of a portable illuminator and fiber-optic pad. It uses a pad of woven fibers to transfer light to a baby in order to treat neonatal jaundice (hyperbilirubimia). It uses visible light to transform bilirubin into a more water-soluble form that allows it to dissolve easily in water and be eliminated. This therapy lowers the serum bilirubin level. The baby is placed on the fiber-optic pad, which has a disposable cover in direct contact with the baby's skin. This fiber-optic pad exposes the skin to light, and bilirubin is eliminated when light is absorbed. The biliblanket releases waves of blue or white light, when these are absorbed in the skin, bilirubin breaks down and is eliminated from the baby's blood stream.

This lowers the yellowing effect in the baby's eyes and skin. Afterwards, blood needs to be tested to observe bilirubin levels and decide whether the biliblanket is still needed. Majority of babies that need a biliblanket use it for several days, but it depends on each baby's condition. Even though a biliblanket may cause loose stools and skin rashes, it is considered safe for the most part. This device is mostly used for 2 to 3 days only. In severe situations, intravenous fluids may be needed to be given to the patient.

Phototherapy uses photons of energy that are infused and absorbed by bilirubin located in superficial capillaries and subcutaneous tissues and interstitial spaces of the skin. Photochemical reactions then transform bilirubin into nontoxic isomers that are more polar, water-soluble and therefore, can be excreted without being further metabolized by the liver. Urinary and gastrointestinal elimination remain important to the process of reducing the bilirubin load.

Side effects
One common side effect that is experienced by babies who are receiving phototherapy treatment is more frequent and loose stools. The color of these stools are usually a greenish color; however, this is normal because that is the way bilirubin is removed from the body. As bilirubin levels return to normal and phototherapy is no longer needed, the frequency of bowel movements and the color of the stools will return to normal. More severe long term side effects are very rare or non existent but there could be a correlation with conditions such as allergy/asthma, patent ductus arteriosus and retinopathy of prematurity. There is no statistical evidence that phototherapy causes melanoma.

Biliblanket
A biliblanket is a portable phototherapy device used to treat neonatal jaundice (hyperbilirubinemia). BiliBlanket is a trademark of General Electric's Datex-Ohmeda subsidiary, but its name has become the generic, colloquial term for a range of similar products and the term used in the medical professions. The name "biliblanket" combines the words bilirubin and blanket. The baby is placed in direct contact with the pad. This device is also known as home phototherapy system, bilirubin blanket, or bidirectional fiber-optic phototherapy blanket.

Different types of phototherapy for jaundice involve a blue light of varying types of light, wavelengths, and degrees of irradiance. The light waves promote breakdown of bilirubin and allow it to be eliminated. Compared to standard forms of phototherapy, a biliblanket utilizes a fiberoptic system, allowing them to be used at home. The biliblanket system consists of three components: an illuminator, fiberoptic pad, and disposable pad cover. The fiberoptic pad is used to transport blue or white light from the light source, the illuminator, directly onto the baby's skin.

Proper use
The biliblanket setup consists of the light generator, termed the light box, the fibre-optic cable through which the light is carried, and the fiberoptic pad, which is a 25cmx13cm (10"x5") pad that is attached to the baby. The light generator stores the source of light, which is a halogen bulb. The fiber-optic cable connects the light generator to the fiberoptic pad, which contains fiberoptic fibers and usually has a disposable cover.

It is important to make sure that the light-source machine is placed on a flat, level, hard surface such as a table or nightstand to ensure proper ventilation. A disposable cover is placed onto the light pad and should be changed if the cover becomes soiled. For effective therapy, the baby's skin should be directly exposed to the light pad as much as possible. The light pad should be on at all times except during baths. The light pad is usually placed on the undressed baby's back with a diaper on. Clothing may be worn, but the clothing should be placed over the light pad, and the light pad should still be in direct contact with the baby's skin. The light pad should never be placed on the baby's head. The baby can sleep, eat, or be held while the light pad is on.

Recent studies from several countries show that the biliblanket setup can safely and effectively be used in the families home and since 2022 home phototherapy is recommended as an option to readmission to hospital in the american national guidelines.

The biliblanket is safe and can be used for 24 hours a day as long as therapy is required. However, the duration of phototherapy will vary from individual to individual based on the baby's current condition and disease state. It will also depend on the physician's clinical judgement.

Blood tests may be required daily during phototherapy to assess the bilirubin levels and determine if normal levels have been reached and whether or not phototherapy can be stopped. Once the bilirubin levels are normal, the baby's skin will return to its normal color.

Advantages
One advantage of the biliblanket is that it can be used at home. In some cases, if the baby's condition is not too severe, the parents will be given a biliblanket to set up and use at home. This provides a more comfortable and convenient setting since the parents and baby do not have to stay in the hospital. Home treatment has proven to improve bonding and reduce stress among parents and reduce costs at the same time. Other advantages of the biliblanket are that it can be easily transported, can be used when the baby is sleeping, eating, and or being held, and promotes a relationship between parents and infants since they do not need to be separated during treatment.

Disadvantages
From a review, fibreoptic phototherapy was more effective at lowering serum bilirubin than no treatment but less effective than conventional phototherapy. However, a combination of fibreoptic and conventional phototherapy was more effective than conventional phototherapy alone.

History
In 1956, Sister Ward, a nurse at Rochford General Hospital in Essex, England, discovered that a jaundiced infant's body had regained its normal skin color after exposure to the sun. One small region, which had not been exposed to the sun, remained yellow in color. This discovery, along with findings that blood tubes exposed to the sun showed a decrease in bilirubin concentrations, drove research and development of the first phototherapy device for treatment of neonatal jaundice.

Phototherapy has been used to treat neonatal jaundice since the early 1970s. The conventional form of phototherapy has been performed in the hospital for more than thirty years and requires the presence of multiple overhead light sources, such as halogen or fluorescent lamps, shining directly on the baby. With advances in technology, novel forms of phototherapy emerged using optical fibers and a light source. Clinical testing for fiberoptic phototherapy devices began in 1988.

title: Bili light


text:
Talk:Piedmontese language

What's the procedure?
This disputed template appears to be here from long time already. There is clear data to use for a decision (whatever it will be), so what is the procedure? I won't remove the template myself since it looks like a rough way to solve the dispute, but I'd really like to know who, when and how (i.e., according to which policy) is going to take a final action. Thanks. --Bèrto 'd Sèra 10:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps someone should contact an administrator? The confusion related to the number of speakers is, IMHO, due to a difficult definition of whether someone "speaks" the language. I would say that any person originally from Piedmont and over 40 of age is either a native speaker or can understand it well. With younger people, that might be true only outside of the main cities. However, most people will refrain from using it spontaneously if not with close relatives or in small villages, because of 80 years of propaganda that it is just a language for cattle herders. In any case, it does have a great number of linguistic features that are peculiar or unique, and make most linguists consider it a language. Anyway, the current wording of the page seems acceptable to me, so perhaps we should just remove the tag and close the case. Vbertola 01:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Blanking
Why was this blanked? Ardric47 04:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
 * For Italian pride, perhaps? It seems they don't want this language to exist.
 * Last time I checked there was a difference between "language" and "dialect". Check out sardinian or friulian for instance ...
 * The policy in it.wiki is to deem as a language whatever has an official international recognition at ISO 639-3 level. Check any of the it articles about local languages. That is, it wisely decided to use an external scientific authority instead of the flamable local political moods --Bèrto 'd Sèra 09:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Numbers
As so often in this area claims conflict wildly and Wikipedia's article ends up looking pretty ridiculous. Are there 3 million speakers or 80,000? It needs to be sorted out and sourced. Osomec 00:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Ethnologue supports the three million figure . — Gareth Hughes 00:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I do not trust Ethnologue too much, they seem to take figures out of thin air. This one is particularly outrageous, Piedmont has a population of 4.3 millions. According to Ethnologue, almost two thirds would be able to speak Piedmontese: well I am from Piedmont, not from a minority background, and I think I never heard anyone speaking it unless for instances of particularly bad swearing. According a source in the article (see Google translation), says that, for the province of Turin, 16% thinks they can read Piedmontese. Of this 16%, a 13% thinks they can write it. As the article explicitly says, it means "less than 2%" of the population. Even assuming that the whole of Piedmont has the same conditions of Turin (provinces of Novara and Verbania have large influences from Lombard, and they can hardly be counted in), that would make 4,300,000×0.16×0.13 = 89.440 people who think they can handle Piedmontese. Take out something for those two provinces where Piedmontese is not spoken (what would be spoken cannot be classified such), and it's about 80.000. We can put in 90.000 if you want, but three millions is plain laughable. I mean, I hardly ever heard Piedmontese, and I grew up there. The only time I met someone who could speak better dialect (I am not really sure which variety...) than Italian was an outside-of-civilization cattle herder at 2,000 meters of altitude in the Gran Paradiso national park. --Orzetto 22:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
 * FYI this is an official publication from ISTAT. I suppose they also are cattle-herders and/or full blown idiots, right? :) For english speakers, at page 5 you have a table whose major colums mean 'within the family', 'with friends', 'with unknown people'. Each such column is broken in four figures, left to right you have 'only or mostly italian', 'only or mostly in dialet', both and 'another language'. It is in itself interesting to notice that the italian government is not yet even capable to use simple international standards like ISO and still prefers fascist labels like "dialects", but since this is a pervasive feature of all the italian culture (and it's by no means limited to linguistics) this is hardly a surprise. Now, do we go and label as "not factual" this report at the ISTAT site? I'm curious :) Italian fascism is sooooooooo creative :)))))))))) Write us from the Roman Empire, Orzetto and pleeease... kiss your Duce for me :))))))))))) BTW, since ISTAT is an official govt datasource it can hopefully be used to clear us all from italian fascist trolls once and for all. This is DATA, time we get rid of people putting in their own bloody ideological "feelings" as if they could be used to write an encyclopedia. If they have officially endorsed DATA to present they are welcome at any time, if they don't... sorry, this happens to be wikipedia, not a forum about somebody's feelings. --Bèrto 'd Sèra 07:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Orzetto, I hardly can believe that you never heard anyone speak in Piedmontese. I come from Turin and i hear people speaking it in town. Of course is not very diffused in Turin, but you must consider that it is much more diffused in the region than in Turin.--Bertulot 20:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Numbers
The 2% figure Orzetto mentions from the survey refers to the people that can write the language, whereas Ethnologue's 3 million quote refers to people who can speak it. This is hardly surprising, since Piedmontese is taught in schools (haphazardly) only since a few years. However, among the survey results that Orzetto has forgotten to mention (but that are clearly mentioned in the online survey report) one finds that 40% of the respondents speak Piedmontese, and 16% can read it. Considering that the survey was taken in the province of Turin, which has the highest percentage of the population of non-Piedmontese origin, Ethnologue's figure of 3m speakers (not writers) does not seem particularly off the mark - not by two orders of magnitude anyway. Of course everybody in Piedmont is fluent in Italian, too, but people can be fluent in more than one language.

Ethnologue is widely regarded as an authoritative organisation, and a source of hard facts. The survey about the knowledge of the Piedmontese language in the Turin province referenced in the article (the link is in Italian), has been paid for by a political party that has no Piedmontese nationalist agenda whatsoever, and carried out by a commercial market research organisation. I would dare say there is sufficient evidence to support the content of the article, since it is confirmed by two scientific and independent sources.

I am also from Piedmont. I was born in the capital, Turin (1m inhabitants), and I live in its outskirts, hardly a outside-of-civilization place. I am in my 30s, I am not a cattle herder (as a matter of fact I am a space engineer) and I do not swear. I have lived in France, Germany, S America and California. And I speak, read and write Piedmontese. My children speak Piedmontese (as well as Italian, French and German). My parents and relatives speak Piedmontese and so do at least half of my friends. So I find it slightly offensive that somebody feels s/he can disparage a language or a culture just because s/he can hide behind the anonimity of the Internet. Piedmont is a multi-ethnic, multicultural community, but obviously some have a problem with that. Racism, though thinly veiled as Orzetto's, should have no place in Wikipedia. Savantspassial 19:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Update
Following the discussion about the number of Piedmontese speakers, I was able to find another independent, authoritative source: the Piedmontese conversation guide (now referenced in the article) published by Assimil, a household name in language courses in Europe. The status is as follows: Ethnologue: 3 million speakers Assimil: over 2 million speakers Recent survey (referenced in the article): over 50% of the Turin province population. Extrapolated to Piedmont (a pessimistic assumption, as Turin is the area with the largest Italian-only speaking population), this means over 2 million speakers Orzetto: 80,000 speakers, based on unverified data.

Therefore I have updated the article putting the figure for Piedmontese speakers to 2 million, down from 3 million, for conservatism. I have added all the authoritative sources listed above, and I also corrected a small inaccuracy: it is the regional parliament (i.e. the legislative) and not the administration (i.e. the executive) that has declared Piedmontese the regional language of Piedmont.

Since the data seems sufficiently backed up by independent and credible sources, I took the liberty of removing the "verify" tag.

Silvio sandron 20:39, 29 April 2006 (UTC)Silvio sandron

Err…numbers
We say that “over the last 150 years the number of people with a written knowledge of the language has shrunk to about 2% of native speakers”. The survey does indeed make that estimate for the percentage of the current population able to write the language. But it doesn’t seem to give any estimate for the [Piedmontese]-language literacy rate in the region for the 1850s. Are we certain that ‘shrink’ (for ability to write) is correct? It would also be interesting to know about the teaching practices of the period—what kinds of schools used Piedmontese as a language of instruction, and whether kids were encouraged in those days to concentrate on their native tongue, or whether French (or Italian) had a higher status. —Ian Spackman 11:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You don't have any official data but the amount of published periodic literature. In the beginning of the century the Birichin (a satirical paper) sold in the capital up to 12.000 copies. if you compare it to the 200k copies as a record sale for a nation-wide newspaper in 1911 (il Corriere) it makes for a pretty good availability of education in the language. All papers in local languages were to be killed by fascism as antinational later on. --Bèrto 'd Sèra 12:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Western Romance, Gallo romance, gallo italic
Why do the article says Piemontese, "Lombardo", "Emiliano-Romagnolo", Veneto are closer to French than to Italian? It's ridicolous (and wrong). Ah, I was forgotting Ethnologue, the modern bible. Just a question; who started give so mach importance to what Ethnologue said? Well, since we just have to agree to what the divine ethnologue says, why to write articles like this upon a language? Is better to put just a link to the ethnologue website.

 * What source can you provide for stating it is wrong? --Fertuno 01:07, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

 * For anyone who thinks that this is a matter under debate forget it, Romance languages are loosely based on a continuum, the person that originally posted this is under the misled understanding that if a language is spoken in Italy it must be related more closely to Italian than French (say). I doubt the poster would also claim that Griko (a greek language spoken in Italy was more closely related to Florentine than greek, anyway, enough on this silly topic, the classification is based on grammatical and morphological features, don't believe it, look at the languages yourself and consult the literature... Ulfsbjorninn

Double R
No double consonants besides /ss/, eh? Does Piedmontese too lack a double R (like the one Spanish has)?
 * yes, we have no doubles at all, apart from any intervocalic consonant following an Ë sound (but not if the Ë is prosthetic). The -SS- group actually is but a graphich trick to express the difference between a Z and an S where the usual rules fail, so it cannot be said to be a double, since it's pronounced as a single. Anyway, hearing is better than reading :) Here you can hear what it sounds like, just follow the graphic link to any of the articles that have a Podcast version for the much too many users who cannot read. Most of them come with an audio version to bridge the alphabetic divide --Bèrto 'd Sèra 12:05, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

This article is totally misleading
The main problem with this article (especially the introduction) is that it may lead a casual reader to believe that this is language actively spoken by most people in the area, which is simply not true - as any honest person living there will testify. One could even argue that defining this a language is wrong, or we can discuss the number of people who understand it (see discussions below). But certainly, besides these discussions, the factual truth is that there are very few people who use it in their everyday life - mostly elderly people in rural areas, and even then likely as a second language for conversations with close relatives. Having lived in various areas of Piedmont for twenty years, I can tell you the great majority of people won't even understand if you talk them in Piedmontese, let alone feel confident in speaking or writing (?) it. By reading this article, especially the introduction, I would expect a completely different scenario. It has nothing to do with pride, as someone states below- I am a reasonably proud Piemontese, nevertheless I don't think it's a good idea to let readers believe something wrong.--#fhmit# 13:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * See ISTAT data. --Bèrto 'd Sèra 18:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a little piece of wood for the fire
I was briefly living in the Turin (Torino) area during the 1980s and I am now in my 30s, so you can appreciate that I was young and politics would have sailed over my head. I picked up the local language and thought nothing of it, later losing fluency. Much later in my life I decided to re-learn Italian and found it to be quite different from I had spoken as a child; consulting my father about this, he told flat out that I had learnt Piedmontese, not Italian, as that was the primary spoken dialect (his words) in Turin and the surrounding area and that I would find standard Italian quite different. Now, it seems to me that if this language were in fact rarely spoken or else the province of rural cattle herders, I was unlikely, as the child of a resonably prominent foreigner, in polite, often very monied, society, to have heard it, much less learnt it as the primary means of communicating outside my family. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.145.37 (talk) 19:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Sources, sources
I think it is unfair to consider the figures in this article to be "debatable". One one hand you have several, independent sources: - either quoted in the article that are either accessible on the web or from major publishers; - or quoted in this talk session (e.g. data published by the Italian national statistics office, ISTAT) that agree that the number of Piedmontese speakers is at least two millions (Piedmont's population is 4.2m).

On the other hand we have one or two aggressive people who claim otherwise. They do not provide any sources for their claims, other than themselves. Evidence seems to be a bit thin to continue flagging this article as "disputed". If we allow anybody with a pet peeve to dispute anything out of the blue, without a shred of evidence, Wikipedia is not going to go very far.

Last but not least, by the disparaging nature of their comments, the two people who dispute the figures seem to be simply motivated by racial hatred.

Figures, figures
There is an additional source online new confirming the 2-million figures for people having an "active" knowledge of the Piedmontese language (i.e. who are able to communicate in Piedmontese). It is a thorough study on the languages spoken in Piedmont published in October 2007 by IRES Piemonte (the Institute for economic and social research), and carried out by researchers of the Turin University. The entire study can be downloaded from http://www.ires.piemonte.it/quaderni.html (sorry, in Italian only). On page 71, figures about knowledge of the Piedmontese language are provided:

1. people who can communicate in Piedmontese: 2 000 000

2. additional people who understand Piedmontese but not speak it: 1 140 000

3. people who can't understand Piedmontese: 550 000

I guess that settles it. We have at least five independent, quotable sources (of which three are based on scientific research by universities and professional opinion research institutes) that confirm the number of at least 2m speakers for Piedmontese. Therefore I removed the "The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed" tag, as this is clearly now simply not true.

Savantspassial (talk)

 * Lies Damned Lies and statistics. Simply I cannot believe that more people can communicate in Piedmontese than can understand it. Sheer nonsense. —Ian Spackman (talk) 14:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Figures, figures
Sorry, I meant that 2 million people can communicate in Piedmontese, and that an additional 1.14m can understand it. I will updated my posting accordingly. Savantspassial (talk)

Languages, Dialects and "old" languages
The debate about "how many Piedmontese speakers" seems to be arising from the misconception that "modern regional varieties of Italian" and "languages spoken in Italy before the Unification" are the same thing.

Most Italian people actually deal with three languages: -Standard Italian: the official language, almost free of regional accents, as spoken by actors, news announcers, the equivalent of Received Pronunciation in England -regional Italian: that is, the dialect of Italian as currently spoken in his city/region/whatever -the "old" language (in this case, Piedmontese) spoken by the inhabitants of his city/region/whatever before television and internal immigration spread Italian (in his regional varieties).

Standard Italian and his dialects (modern, regional varieties) are very similar and mutually intelligible, the main difference being accent (although many words can be different or differently used). "Old" languages and Italian typically aren't mutually intelligible; neither are "old" languages and regional dialects (although the modern regional dialect may have borrowed accents and words from the "old" language).

A typical Italian from Piedmont will:

1) 99% of the times, speak regional Italian, that is, "the dialect of Italian as is currently spoken in Piedmont"

2) with some relatives and friends, he MAY speak Piedmontese, IF he knows it (most old people, especially in the countryside, do; many young people, especially in big cities, don't)

3) in formal, official speech, he will try to use an "as Standard as possible" Italian (many educated people can do so, although retaining the accent; only actors in movies and TV will actually use the "Received pronunciation")

The distinction between "dialects" and "old languages" may not be clear to she speaker; that is, a young Italian may speak "actual" Piedmontese only with his grand-grandfather, and simply "Italian with Piedmontese accent" with parents and friends.

An Italian born in Turin, whose parents were not Piedmontese but, let's say, Sicilian, may speak with a "Piedmontese accent", but not "actual" Piedmontese (nor "actual" Sicilian unless he spends a lot of time with his grand-grandmother). His parents may or may not know "actual" Sicilian, but will probably speak with a Sicilian accent.

It's worth noting that "old" languages are fading in ordinary usage, and they may one day become "extinct"; on the other hand, there will always be "regional dialects" in different parts of Italy (although they may be different from the ones we use today). Francesco.--213.140.6.126 (talk) 01:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

 * Thank you. Nice insight.  --174.95.91.234 (talk) 05:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Regional recognition

 * http://www.storia900.altervista.org/1_il_piemontese_in_pericolo.pdf
 * http://www.gioventurapiemonteisa.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/clivio.pdf
 * http://web.uniud.it/cip/min_legge_piemonte.htm
 * http://213.254.4.222/sito%20Atlas%20(html)_agosto2004/file%20atlas/Rapporti/Minoranze.pdf
 * http://213.254.4.222/cataloghi/pdfires/697.pdf

- Francis Tyers · 19:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

"Lexical comparison with other Romance languages"
Hows about a Latin column, bitches!?! This may give a better idea of how geographic/cultural influences have had an impact on the examples listed.

Acute accent
What's the function of the acute accent? The Alphabet section doesn't seem to explain it. Is it to indicate the height of the vowel, as in French, or to indicate stress, as in Spanish, or to disambiguate between words? An explanation should be included in the article. — Eru·tuon 16:39, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

 * The acute accent isn't part of the alphabet per se, but it is used to indicate an unexpectedly (according to the usual stress patterns of the language) stressed syllable as in Spanish.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 17:37, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

9.The existence of the third Piedmontese vowel Ë, which is very short (close to the vowel in English sir).
In my opinion this vowel is actually a Shwa and Piedmontese would be one of the few languages using a stressed Shwa (e.g. cesëtta, a small church). I think I did read something in this direction but I don't know where any more. Has anyone a source for or against this please? Thanks 194.174.73.33 (talk) 15:26, 2 June 2016 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin

Lexical comparison section
How were these words chosen? Without some principle (e.g., the most common, or some standard list), it is not clear how to interpret this list. Are the similarities between language A and language B systematic? ... or do they just happen to be more prominent in this particular list? etc. --Macrakis (talk) 18:32, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Map colours
The map in the "Piedmontese language distribution in Europe" infobox is poorly coloured. The two shades of red are so close that I can barely make out the divide, and I have pretty good colour vision. Might I suggest changing one of them to something that contrasts a bit more? 86.150.144.227 (talk) 10:57, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Piedmontese language


text:
Talk:Swallow

Myths and Stories about Swallows
Are there any myths or stories about swallows?

 * Well, they're mentioned often in Monty Python and the Holy Grail... dunno if that's the sort of thing you're looking for, though.--Deridolus 06:31, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

 * If there are, they are likely to be specific to individual species, esp Barn Swallow jimfbleak 12:04, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I think we should include somthing about Monty Python and the Holy Grail
 * No, we shouldn't. --24.64.174.183 (talk) 21:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Greek mythology (see Edith Hamilton) includes the story of sisters Procne and Philomela. Philomela's tongue is cut out by Procne's abusive husband, Tereus. Procne kills she and Tereus's child. As Tereus chases them, the gods turn the sisters into birds. Procne becomes the nightingale, which sings the sad song. Philomela, who has no tongue, is turned into the swallow, which cannot sing, but only twitter.

 * The myth that swallows hibernate, and could be found in a state of torpor, even under water, was a commonplace of natural history and even confused an obervant naturalist like Rev. Gilbert White of Selborne, Hampshire. This mistaken myth should be traced in a section of the article.--Wetman (talk) 22:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * These kinds of myth were common for other migratory birds too - the Maori thought that the Long-tailed Cuckoo hibernated in the winter. It would be good to add this to the article, it's all about having the time, there is a lot that could be added to this article. Maybe I'll add this article to my lift of future family extensions. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  22:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested move
Swallow (bird) → Swallow – to put the main meaning of "Swallow" at Swallow. --Yath 11:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
I'm actually pretty curious about this, and I would presume that others would come to wikipedia for more information on the matter. McKay 19:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Okay, I found a good resource at style.org. Perhaps the information should be included here? McKay 19:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Not here, should be on the species' page. There is no reason to suppose that other swallows of different sizes and structure have the same aerodynmics. jimfbleak 05:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

 * A. half the species articles don't exist (red links).
 * B. the swallow list is incomplete (I know there happens to be a "west african swallow", but don't know which genus they're in or I'd add them.
 * C, are you claiming that "African Swallow" and "European Swallow" are species of birds? My guess is no, but then would a seperate article be written about African swallows and European swallows (that don't reference Monty Python and the Holy Grail). If so, is there enough information to create an encyclopedic article about the African swallows? My guess for this would also be "no", in which case the information belongs best here. McKay 05:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Or add this information to the article on the Holy Grail given that the two swallow articles redirect there. --Swift 08:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

 * B The list is complete, "West African Swallow" must be a synomym or subspecies
 * C If they are not real species, I agree that the grail suggestion is most appropriate. If the data doesn't refer to real birds, what's the point? However, the source above identifies a plausible candidate for African Swallow, and European Swallow must surely be Barn Swallow jimfbleak 14:53, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't claim to really know anything on swallows, so I defer to your wisdom in this regard. The information might belong on the movie's page, but I think it should belong with swallows.

 * B The source above references "Hirundo domicella" as the west african swallow, and that one isn't in the list. He does reference a couple sources that I'm not sure of their accuracy, but here they are anyway:
 * Chris & Tilde Stuart, Birds of Africa: From Seabirds to Seed-Eaters, MIT Press (1999)
 * G. L. Maclean, Roberts’ Birds of Southern Africa, John Voelcker Bird Book Fund, Cape Town, South Africa (1985)
 * C With your suggestion that Barn Swallow is possibly the swallow referred to in Monty Python, You're probably right, but I am curious as to why you think that that is the one? Is it the most common kind of swallow in Europe? I did look at that article, and that article does have an estimate for the swallows speed. That's good.
 * So, that's my two bits. Just thought I'd make the query. McKay 23:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Maybe I'm really going out on a limb here, but is it a possiblity (even a remote one) that the members of Monty Python, instead of looking up in their reference books, just used "European" and "African" as makeshift official terms? I'm not saying that the jokes were seldome elaborate, but might it be possible that Monty Python just went cheap on the research? (Not that I'm eager to end this discussion — a great source of joy ). --Swift 03:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, I will totally admit that this is a possibility, but the fact remains that people really do want to know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. Also, it seems in line with the text of the movie. "the swallow may fly south with the sun..." "What, a swallow carrying a coconut?" "it could be carried by an african swallow" "Oh, yeah, an african swallow maybe, but not a European swallow, that's my point." See, because Arthur said swallow, the guard just assumed the Barn Swallow, the swallow known by "swallow" in Europe, or the European swallow. The other guard was thinking outside the box, and thought of the (biggest) swallow he could think of, the African Swallow. Or maybe he just meant Swallows that inhabit Africa (they might generally be bigger). Really, I don't know anything about swallows, but I do think that people will come looking for the answer to that question. It doesn't have to mention the movie at all, but I predict that readers will come. Take Assyria. Another of the questions asked by the bridgekeeper, is "What is the capital of Assyria" the article on this nation-state lists the capitals that it has had. If we knew the time period during which the movie took place, we could determine what the capital should be based on that article. McKay 05:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

 * (Re: Mckaysalisbury: If we knew the time period during which the movie took place, we could determine what the capital should be based on that article. Umm, if I recall correctly, the movie is set in 932 A.D., per that blackletter (typeface term, actually white on black background) introductory screen, but the various political entities known as Assyria were long since gone by then, so the bridge guard might as well have asked "What is the sum of three and eggplant?".
 * 165.176.7.3 (talk) 22:57, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

 * the guard just assumed. Erm. You do realize that these are fictional characters. And their dialogue is composed with humor, not logical or robust structure in mind!
 * As for the list of capitals which the Assyrian Empire has had; are you implying that they were put up to answer the bridgekeeper's question?! If you are simply pointing out the usefulness of such information, then I'd argue that it would be most useful to list the airspeed info on the Monty Python and the Holy Grail article as the origin of this question is of (equal? more?) importance and interest. --Swift 19:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Yes, I realize that they are fictional characters, but their conversation is valid according to English. When someone mentions "swallows" when referring to birds, particularly in Europe, it is an ambiguous reference. They could mean the Hirundinidae family, or they could mean the barn swallow, the movie plays on this ambiguity.
 * No, Assyria should have the information on the capitals regardless of the movie, capitals are an integral part of an article on a nation-state. If someone really wanted to know the capital of Assyria, they should check the article on Assyria. If someone wants to know the airspeed velocity of an (unladen) swallow, he should probably find that at Swallow or Airspeed velocities of various birds or Effects of loads on the velocity of air flight or something like that. The articles on swallows seems the most natural place for this kind of information.
 * But that doesn't mean it should belong here. My question here is what "african swallow" means. This page mentions only one "african swallow" the South African Swallow, the style article mentions two, the South African Swallow and the West African Swallow. Does such a species exist? Swift mentions that African and European may be made up, but "European Swallow" is not an incorrect term? What does "African Swallow" typically mean? One species? a group? McKay 20:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Article rated per request
I gave this article a start rating. There is some information here, but a lot is still missing. The habitat section is currently just the nesting site - rather than anything else. I'm dubious that swallows hold territories (I'll check later), no information on taxonomy, relatives, worldwide distribution, migration, relationship with humans. Breeding information is currently in two separate places, and incomplete. Can I suggest a layout for family pages similar to that used by albatross? (Vain, I know, since I wrote it, but its based on the layout used in HBW). Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Habitat (other than aerial) is difficult for the family as a whole, some are open country, some woodland, some always near water. Same migration, some do, some don't. Some of this is covered in the species accounts. I have Turner and Rose, Swallows and Martins ISBN 0-7470-3205-5. if that helps. jimfbleak 06:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but it could be covered in broad strokes. Most familes are fairly diverse, and there are always exceptions. Writing family pages is really hard but something that needs to be tackled. Sabine's Sunbird talk 07:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

What's incubation?
In Swallow the sentence "Even in species where the male does not incubate the eggs the male may sit on them when the female is away to reduce heat loss." confuses me. Isn't sitting on the eggs to prevent heat loss incubation? Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 20:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Heh. Yeah, that could be clearer. Incubation is imparting warmth to the eggs from the body, not just stopping heat loss. I'll think about how to fix that. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  23:38, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Old World and New World?
In Swallow there's talk of a "New world" and "Old World", as in the sentence "The mud-nesters are most common in the Old World, particularly Africa, whereas cavity-nesters are the rule in the New World.". Perhaps this is some lingo used when talking about birds' geography, because it's not a geographical description that I'm familiar with. Does any one know? Peter sjoberg (talk) 6:41, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a fairly common old school way to differentiate between the Americas (New World) and the Eurasia/Africa landmass (Old World). Biologists use it when taking biogeography (example Old World warbler versus New World warbler) but the terms are by no means restricted to biology. Sabine's Sunbird   talk  06:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Words-as-words
According to the MOS, using a word as word (such as mentioning how swallow and martin are defined in the lead) is supposed to be in italics rather than quotes...only this can be a headache in biology articles as italics get used for binomial names, genera etc. I'll leave it to as to what he wants to do about it.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:22, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * White-naped xenopsaris snuck through FAC this way. If anyone seriously objects we can change it. We'll need to move that content out of the lead anyway, or at least cover it in the main as well as lead. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  00:56, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Study linking swallows with tits and/or whiteeyes
Which are these? Be good to add....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:22, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That came from the HBW, which is fairly old now. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  01:02, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * But surely they were basing it on some evidence or study...? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * NB:I recommend putting species list into a separate list article. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:29, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

 * Agreed, worth thinking about. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  01:02, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Papers on phylogeny to consider including

More to come Sabine's Sunbird  talk  01:02, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Image from this article to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Pied-winged swallow (Hirundo leucosoma).jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on 2018-12-10. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2018-12-10. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 13:14, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

So are saw-wings not hirundines?
Birds in this family are known as ....swallows, ....martins or ....saw-wings. Saw-wings are a distinct genus, therefore are not swallows or martins, except in so far as they are hirundines. Psalidoprocne is a small genus, with members that are not well known and live far away from the main centres of the English language, and so are overlooked in many English language sources. But they are hirundines, and any description of the family that omits them is therefore incomplete and therefore flawed. And yet Amakuru seems determined to prevent my attempts to include them in the descriptions of the family. Kevin McE (talk) 09:09, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
 * They are a type of swallow. I get your point but many animals can have different names from their common name - roadrunners are types of cuckoos and scaup, eider, pochard, teal, gadwall and widgeon are all types of duck. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  00:47, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Papers to include
Some papers to include. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  01:00, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Clarification please?

 * The "Taxonomy and systematics" sectiion, the second paragraph, 3rd, 4th, and 5th sentence: The words "core groups" are used, then "core martins", and basal, including "The saw-wings are the most basal of the three...", and "the more basal saw-wings...". Without any linking the average reader would likely have to go off-wiki to get any understanding. Of course, if by any chance one discovers Basal (phylogenetics), the article riddled with "citation needed" tags, I am not sure that is the greatest of ideas. If one reads far enough one may see (1st sentence, 3rd paragraph in the "Usage" section), "Despite the ubiquity of the usage of basal, systematists try to avoid its usage because its application to extant groups is unnecessary and misleading."
 * At any rate, could someone look at this to see if it can be written using a more "basal" approach? "...many students lacked even a basal familiarity with the topic". Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/basal "Basal"; accessed 11 Apr. 2023. Thanks, -- Otr500 (talk) 15:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Swallow


text: User talk:141.195.146.30

title: User talk:141.195.146.30


text:
Merry Hill Shopping Centre

Merry Hill (formerly Intu Merry Hill, Westfield Merry Hill and The Merry Hill Shopping Centre) is a large shopping complex in Brierley Hill near Dudley, England. It was developed between 1985 and 1990, with several subsequent expansion and renovation projects. The centre is anchored by Marks & Spencer, Primark, Asda, Next, Hollywood Bowl and formerly Debenhams.

The centre has over 200 shops, a retail park, cinema, food court, arcade and over 10,000 parking spaces. Adjacent to the main shopping mall is a marina called The Waterfront accommodating a number of bars, restaurants, the studios of Black Country Radio, and the Headquarters and Control Room of West Midlands Ambulance Service. The Dudley No.1 Canal passes through The Waterfront and along the edge of the shopping centre before descending to Delph Locks.

The centre's original developers and owners were Richardson Developments. Savills carry out the day-to-day management of Merry Hill and strategic planning and asset management is by Sovereign Centros on behalf of the current owners.

Background
At the beginning of the 1980s, the recently elected Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher created a number of enterprise zones to attract businesses to areas of high unemployment that had resulted from the down-sizing or closure of major industrial concerns. On 29 October 1980, Chancellor Geoffrey Howe announced that Dudley Council's application for an enterprise zone near to Brierley Hill had been successful. The enterprise zone included Merry Hill Farm, a large open green space cherished locally as a haven for wildlife. It was anticipated that the enterprise zone would help replace some of the lost jobs in manufacturing. Incentives for business included a relaxation of planning rules, enhanced capital allowances on industrial and commercial buildings, exemption from Development Land Tax and a ten-year exemption from business rates. In December 1982, the neighbouring Round Oak Steelworks closed with the loss of around 1,300 jobs; later, the enterprise zone was extended to include the Round Oak site. Jobs were created in the small and medium-sized units built by developers on trading estates, but no large-scale manufacturing business had been attracted to the enterprise zone. Oldbury-based, Richardson Developments who had bought both the Merry Hill Farm and Round Oak sites decided to focus on retail and leisure, rather than manufacturing for Merry Hill Farm.

Shopping centre and retail park
Despite protests from some local residents over construction taking place on the green space, rather than on the former steelworks site, the first phase of the project went ahead and by Christmas 1985 a Queensway furniture store, MFI home furnishings retail warehouse (the very first tenant) and Atlantis Electrical superstore were all trading. Shortly before this, the developers announced plans to triple the amount of retail floorspace at Merry Hill within 18 months, subject to Dudley Council's approval. Early 1986 saw the opening of Halfords and B&Q.

The building contract for the shopping malls was awarded to Tarmac Construction.

A Carrefour hypermarket opened on 1 July 1986 as part of the first phase of the indoor shopping centre, but closed within 18 months, its place taken by a Gateway supermarket. Asda had replaced Gateway by 1990 and have held the tenancy ever since. The ground floor of the shopping mall was extended during 1987 and an upper shopping level added in early 1988. A separate 10-screen cinema opened in November 1988. The 350-seat Jules Verne food court, which offered a round-the-world eating experience and had a large globe-shaped balloon as its centrepiece, opened in June 1989 on the upper level; however, it closed within five years due to disappointing trade and was subdivided into additional retail units.

Construction of the final phase of the centre was completed in 1989. A Sainsbury's supermarket and Burger King fast-food outlet opened in September and department stores, Debenhams and British Home Stores in November. Marks and Spencer opened on 23 October 1990, two months after the closure of its West Bromwich and Dudley stores on 25 August. This part of the shopping centre was partly remodelled in 1996.

Access to the complex was improved in 1998 by alterations to the two junctions with the A4036 Dudley – Pedmore road. More than 40 houses were demolished to make way for the widened road and re-designed Quarry Bank junction.

Merry Hill had brought about the first free-standing Pizza Hut in the UK, the first drive-thru McDonald's restaurant and the largest Texas Homecare store — all opened during 1986.

While the centre was still being developed in the late 1980s, plans were unveiled to build the world's tallest tower at Merry Hill. The tower would have been 2,000 feet tall, with a hotel at its base, a restaurant halfway up and a nightclub plus observatory at the top. However, plans to build it were scrapped in 1992.

The Waterfront
Redevelopment of the Round Oaks steelworks site did not commence until 1989, when construction began on The Waterfront development, which consisted of Phases 6–8. Phase 6 saw the construction of 69700 m2 of offices (the first of which were occupied in December 1990), Phase 7 saw the construction of 6500 m2 of restaurants and bars and Phase 8 saw the addition of a 15800 m2 business park, which was completed in 1995. Waterfront Way was opened in December 1990 to serve the new complex and provide a road link to the shopping centre and also to the main A461 road between Dudley and Stourbridge.

The Waterfront development created some 4,000 jobs, but the onset of another recession in 2008 saw many businesses vacate the development, leaving a high percentage of office units and other buildings becoming empty. In June 2011, in a bid to bring jobs back to the Waterfront, the area was among the candidates for enterprise zone status once again — 17 years after the original enterprise zone expired.

Ownership
Ownership of the shopping centre has changed hands several times. The initial developer and owner was a business set up by entrepreneurial twin brothers Don and Roy Richardson, who grew up near the site. The 1989 expansion of the centre was a joint venture between the Richardsons and Tony Clegg's publicly listed Mountleigh and by late 1990 the Richardsons had sold their interest in the shopping centre to Mountleigh.

Mountleigh's ownership was short-lived. The Merry Hill Centre was soon put up for sale by Mountleigh's new American owners to pay down the company's debts. In January 1992, a sale was agreed, but fell through possibly due to what were later, unfounded land contamination issues. In May 1992, it was announced that receivers were to be appointed by Mountleigh's bankers and in February 1993 Merry Hill was sold to Elliott Bernerd's London property company, Chelsfield and an undisclosed international partner. Chelsfield had assumed full ownership of the shopping centre by June 1996. Westfield, the Australian-owned shopping centre group took over the Merry Hill Centre as a member of the consortium that acquired Chelsfield in December 2004, but two years later sold 50 per cent to fund manager, Queensland Investment Corporation.

Intu Properties purchased Westfield's 50 per cent in March 2014 and became full owners in June 2016 after buying out Queensland Investment Corporation. In June 2020, Intu became Merry Hill's second owner to enter administration, 28 years after Mountleigh.

Retail centres
Prior to the first retail unit opening, planning officials working for Dudley Council warned of the adverse effect the proposed shopping centre would likely have on shops in nearby Brierley Hill, Quarry Bank and Stourbridge. Neighbouring local authorities and West Midlands County Council agreed and sought to curb retail development within the enterprise zone, fearing the effect retail provision at Merry Hill would have on the wider area. The Evening Mail newspaper advised careful consideration but viewed job creation within the enterprise zone as the priority, whether from manufacturing or retail. In February 1986, the chairman of the West Midlands strategic planning committee took the "unprecedented" step of writing to leading retailers, spelling out the "strong opposition" to further expansion of retail at Merry Hill. Environment Secretary Kenneth Baker had given Dudley Council the power to amend the enterprise zone conditions, but despite his urging, Dudley councillors decided by a single vote to back developer Don and Roy Richardson's plans.

When the Merry Hill Centre first opened, a number of large retail chains decided to move their stores from surrounding towns into the new shopping centre. These included Marks & Spencer, C&A and Littlewoods.

An Impact Study on the effect Merry Hill had on retailing in nearby towns was commissioned by West Midland local authorities, public transport coordinator CENTRO and the Department of the Environment. The report published in 1993 found Dudley town centre to have been most adversely affected, followed by Stourbridge, Halesowen, Kidderminster and West Bromwich; while Brierley Hill and Cradley Heath had suffered "a qualitative decline in retailing". Merry Hill was found to have had only a limited impact on the larger centres of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Walsall. The exodus of retailers from Dudley, and to a lesser degree Stourbridge and Halesowen, left a number of large empty premises, leading many shoppers to abandon the town centres for the Merry Hill Centre, affecting the viability of those shops remaining. Marks & Spencer had agreed to become tenants of a store at Merry Hill during the summer of 1989, but had hoped to keep their Dudley and West Bromwich stores open alongside it; however the declining trade in these towns led to both stores being closed on 25 August 1990, some two months before the Merry Hill store opened. British Home Stores opened a store in the complex in November 1989, but its Dudley store experienced a sharp decline in trade and was closed in June of that year.

The completion of Merry Hill resulted in the loss of many big name retailers from nearby town centres, with Dudley being the hardest hit, suffering an estimated 70% decline in retailing market share between 1985 and 1990. However, some retailers kept their stores in nearby towns open, despite opening new stores at Merry Hill. C&A, who had a store at Merry Hill from November 1989 until withdrawing from the UK in 2001, kept their Dudley store open until January 1992. Littlewoods kept their Dudley store open for two months after its Merry Hill replacement opened in November 1989, cashing in on the 1989 Christmas market before closing in January 1990. British Home Stores had intended to continue trading from their Dudley store, but a sharp fall in trade following the Merry Hill store's opening led to the decision to close the Dudley store, which ceased trading in June 1990.

A further blow came when the local council, Dudley Metropolitan Borough, announced that it was bringing in parking charges throughout the area; this turned more shoppers away from local town centres, and towards the Merry Hill Centre, where parking remains free. Though there have since been plans for introducing parking charges at the centre, this has been criticised due to fears of impacting trade.

Employment
The 1993 Impact Study found that Merry Hill employed some 3,370 people of which 80 per cent were women. 69 per cent of the jobs were on a part-time basis.

Tenants
The first retailer to move to Merry Hill was furniture retailer MFI, who opened a retail warehousing unit during the autumn of 1985. MFI would trade from this unit for 23 years until they went into liquidation in December 2008. By Christmas 1985, MFI had been joined by Queensway furniture store and electrical retailer Atlantis. Further retail warehousing units and a shopping mall were already nearing completion by this stage. By the spring of 1986, two retail parks were operating from the site, incorporating retailers including B&Q, Halfords and Texas Homecare, as well as the centre's first indoor shopping mall.

The first phase of the indoor shopping centre opened in April 1986, with French hypermarket giant Carrefour opening a store at the centre on 1 July that year. They sold the store to Gateway Foodmarkets around 18 months later when withdrawing from the UK, and by 1990 it had been taken over by Asda, who already had a store in Brierley Hill town centre as well as several others in the wider Black Country area, but surprisingly, the Brierley Hill store remained open.

A second shopping centre opened on the ground level in 1987 and the centre was expanded further in early 1988 to include an upper level, although the bulk of the centre was opened on 14 November 1989 - by which time it was the largest shopping centre in Europe. By the time of its completion, Merry Hill included several multiple stores including clothing retailers: C&A and Littlewoods, general department store British Home Stores and supermarket chain Sainsburys, as well as numerous smaller retailers. C&A left the UK during 2001 and the store was reoccupied by H&M.

On 23 October 1990, Marks & Spencer opened a new department store at Merry Hill replacing the recently closed stores in nearby Dudley and West Bromwich. In the autumn of 1991, the Marks & Spencer store expanded on the ground level into a vacant neighbouring unit. The Littlewoods store had expanded some years earlier, taking in a former Woolworths store on the upper level; there had been fears that Woolworths would close at least some of their branches in nearby towns when the Merry Hill store opened, but trade from the Woolworths at Merry Hill was relatively disappointing and ironically most of the local Woolworths stores all outlasted the Merry Hill store by some 15 years, only closing when the retailer went into liquidation at the end of 2008. The Littlewoods store was taken over by Marks & Spencer in the late 1990s and converted into a furniture and menswear store, and cafe.

In 2008, Merry Hill Centre, along with nearby Brierley Hill, was redesignated as the 'strategic town centre' of the Dudley Borough, and thus the focus of future local government investment.

The Merry Hill Centre continues to draw most of its trade from the local area. The developers did plan that the centre would attract visitors from across the country, by building coach parks; however, the centre failed to attract nationwide visitors as anticipated and the coach parks were redeveloped with private housing and flats in 2003.

In 15 January 2024, Australian retailer Harvey Norman announced they would be opening their first store in Great Britain in the centre, in the former Debenhams unit.

Monorail
An elevated monorail was opened at Merry Hill in June 1991, but closed in 1996 as a result of a combination of technical problems and safety concerns (especially the difficulty of evacuation), exacerbated by a dispute between the owners of Merry Hill and The Waterfront, which at the time were owned separately. The infrastructure was later removed, leaving only one disused monorail station and part of the old railings visible—on top of the Marks and Spencer store roof.

The monorail cost £22 million to build, the construction work taking place along with the final phase of the shopping complex in 1988–89, but due to health and safety concerns, it did not open until 19 months after the centre was complete.

There were to be five stations, with the system extending over the canal and terminating close to the site of the former Round Oak railway station where an interchange with a West Midlands Metro extension was proposed. However, only the first four stations were completed; Waterfront East, Central Station, Times Square and Boulevard; with Waterfront West planned as a future development.

The system was officially opened on 1 June 1991. The actual public opening was delayed while Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate investigated evacuation procedures. After operating for a short while, the monorail was temporarily closed again in 1992, but ran sporadically until 1996.

After the system was put up for sale in 1996, the trains and track were transferred in 2001 to the Oasis Shopping Centre, in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia, to enable expansion of its own monorail system. The remaining monorail station, Central Station, was perfectly preserved, but due to renewed interest in 2016 surrounding the 25th anniversary of its opening artefacts were removed from the station and placed in a memorial exhibition near the lift shaft which once gave access to it. One hundred and fifty commemorative coins were minted and sold at the exhibition.

By the end of the monorail's life at the centre, tickets for adults cost 40p while children under the age of 5 enjoyed free travel on the network. A 'monorail replacement bus' service operated between the UCI Cinema (now Odeon) and The Waterfront car parks once the monorail ceased operating, utilising two Travel Merry Hill owned MCW Metrobuses.

Main centre
The centre has around 217 stores and over 10,000 free parking spaces, with a total retail floorspace of 1671000 sqft making the centre the eighth largest in the United Kingdom, behind Westfield London, the MetroCentre, Bluewater, Trafford Centre and Westfield Stratford City.

Eat Central
Located on the Upper Mall, Eat Central was opened on October 22, 2009, by TV chef James Martin at the cost of £24 Million to the centres then owners Westfield Group. The food court features a unique lighting system developed by into lighting to lessen the use of more traditional downlights and reused the Eat Central branding from Westfield Derby (Derbion) which opened two years earlier, despite that centre losing the Eat Central branding in 2017.

On opening, Eat Central consisted of 16 eatery units in the main food court and 3 two-story restaurant units to the rear. However, this has since been reduced to one unit is being occupied by retailer Max Spielmann and another unit at the entrance to the food court, now being used as extra seating, was previously occupied by the now-defunct retailer Phones 4u. Additionally, one of the 3 restaurant units to the rear has remained empty since opening. Opening day eateries consisted of; Nando's, Pizza Express, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Napoli Italian, Oporto (Chicken & Burgers), Tiffinbites (Asian), Nineteen Ten Mexican, Yangtze Express, Zetao Noodles and Sushi, Crepescape, Muffin Break Expresso and Harpers English classics. The Pizza Express closed in late 2020 as part of a wider restructuring of the company.

Stores
The centre has space for 5 anchors. These currently consist of; Marks & Spencer, Primark, Asda and Next. The centre also had a Debenhams, which was used as a liquidation store in early 2021 as a part of the wider administration process for the company and closed on 15 May 2021. It also contains a range of other major brands and privately operated stores. Notable names are; H&M, TK Maxx, Sports Direct and Boots.

Chronological updates:

 * November 2020 - Boots saw a Mothercare concession open inside of it.
 * July 25, 2021 - Hamleys opens its first store in the Black Country located on the Lower Mall in the place previously occupied by Carphone Warehouse.
 * September 15, 2021 - A conceptual Primark Home location opens, expanding the store further.
 * September 25, 2021 - The Disney Store closed after 25 years at the centre, this was part of a wider wind down of the global Disney Store operations.
 * November 5, 2021 - Smyths Toy Superstores opened on the retail park.

Retail park
Beyond the main shopping centre is a separate retail park which has a number of shops and restaurants and also a cinema. Stores in this area include Wren Kitchens, Oak Furniture Land, Bensons for Beds, The Range, Currys, B&M Home & Garden, Carpetright, Halfords, Pets at Home and Matalan among others. In April 2021, Lidl announced plans to open a store in the former Ultimate Outdoors unit. This opened later the same year.

Cinema
There is a ten-screen Odeon Cinema situated on the retail park. It was the first multiplex cinema in the Dudley borough and the first new one to have been built for some fifty years. It was originally owned by AMC Cinemas and later sold to UCI Cinemas. It was refurbished following the 2005 merger with the Odeon Cinemas chain.

Recent developments
The owners and local council leaders have stated their aim to better connect and integrate Merry Hill with the traditional town centre of Brierley Hill. The Dudley Canal was re-routed in the late-1990s, and between 2002 and 2005, housing has been developed around the complex (several apartment blocks opposite the cinema as well as apartments and houses overlooking Pedmore Road). A new line of the West Midlands Metro tram system was scheduled to reach the site in 2011, but was delayed with a new opening date of late 2023. Due to lack of finance, the link has been delayed further and completion depends upon additional funding being given.

In July 2017, plans were revealed to expand the centre to include more restaurants and to open a new Odeon cinema inside the centre to replace the old multiplex at the retail park. These plans were put forward after Intu acquired the existing Odeon Cinemas building and would have been built at the rear of the centre, connecting to phase 1 of the centre and would have doubled the amount of leisure and entertainment located at the centre from 5% to 10%. However, as of early 2021 the aging multiplex continues to operate on the retail park and no further plans or information has been released following the 2017 announcement.

In 2018, a new 75,000 sq ft flagship Next store opened replacing the Sainsbury's store that closed on 31 December 2016.

The 2021 expansion and improvement
It was announced on September 26, 2021, that the centre would undergo a 5-year improvement and expansion plan with the plan to be the "Ultimate family shopping and leisure destination in the West Midlands". While the expansions are still in the early planning there are plans to divide the centre into new districts focusing on entertainment, fashion & health and wellbeing along with others. Early concept art shows the new area containing a new Odeon cinema and the expansion linking into the existing Eat Central area. Along with this, there are plans to improve connections to The Waterfront and wider surrounding areas.

Bus station
A bus station has served Merry Hill since its opening, but the current, more substantial bus station was developed in the early 1990s and gives direct connections to towns including Dudley, Halesowen, Stourbridge, Walsall, West Bromwich and Cradley Heath as well as the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

Similarly, the bus services connect the centre to Cradley Heath railway station, for West Midlands Trains services to Birmingham Snow Hill, Kidderminster and Worcester via Stourbridge Junction.

Various distance bus services from Merry Hill are operated by Diamond West Midlands and National Express West Midlands.

West Midlands Metro Line Two
Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) will open a new line of the West Midlands Metro from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill, with a new stop at Merry Hill, planned to open in 2023. The line was first planned in 1986 and was expected to be built during the 1990s, but funding and planning difficulties resulted in a 30-year delay to this project becoming a reality. As of February 2024, construction of the Wednesbury to Dudley section was well underway.

In culture
The areas around Next, TK Maxx, H&M, Eat Central, the amphitheatre and outside Debenhams at Merry Hill made an appearance on the popular Cartoon Network show, The Amazing World of Gumball as "Elmore Mall" in the episode called "The Mothers", Eat Central also made an appearance in the episode called "The Burden". Interior and exterior shots of Merry Hill have also featured in subsequent episodes.

Working at Merry Hill gave Catherine O'Flynn the inspiration for the fictional Green Oaks centre, the main location in her successful novel What Was Lost.

The former Sainsbury's at Merry Hill was featured in the third episode of the first series of the popular children's television programme Rosie and Jim, called "Supermarket" which was originally broadcast on ITV on 17 September 1990, and featured the boat's owner John Cunliffe going shopping at Sainsbury's, with the ragdolls Rosie and Jim in tow.

title: Merry Hill Shopping Centre


text: User talk:71.113.39.254

title: User talk:71.113.39.254


text:
Talk:Cayuga Lake

Untitled
This article was previously a bit waffly about the impact of Cornell's lake source cooling. I've looked at the external links as well as from my own research, and there doesn't seem to be any significant opposition to the system any more, so I changed the wording to be more "in favor" of the Cornell viewpoint, as the opposing views don't seem to have any rational basis nor significant proponents. Nohat 02:47, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

pronounciation
a phonetic transcription would be useful

Error in the maximum depth
In the beginning of the article it says "It is approximately 435 feet deep at its deepest point."

Then, on the side where it lists a number of convenient facts, it lists 512 feet and 132 meters.

Something is clearly wrong. I suspect the 132 meters is correct since it converts to 433 feet which is close to the 435 listed previously.

132 meters x (100 cm/1 m) x (1 inch/2.54 cm) x (1 foot/12 inches) =

433.070866 or 433 feet (to 3 significant figures)

I don't know the true depth - I'm just commenting on the inconsistency.

cheers,

SSDoc 22:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)SSDoc

 * According to fingerlakes.com, it's 435 feet deep. -- -- BeezHive (talk|contribs) 23:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I've made that change, as well as making the infobox use undefined undefined to convert the units. The numbers don't exactly match the numbers given in the article now, as they're being converted to relatively high precision.  I'll try to make them all mesh when I get a chance.   -- BeezHive (talk|contribs) 05:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Cayuga Lake. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080125222921/http://www.wells.edu/slife/sttrads.htm to http://www.wells.edu/slife/sttrads.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080119234526/http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr%3Bsid%3Dbff700d0bbb2a632948b70fe7e91d7d4%3Brgn%3Ddiv5%3Bview%3Dtext%3Bnode%3D27%3A1.0.1.1.7%3Bidno%3D27%3Bcc%3Decfr to http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr%3Bsid%3Dbff700d0bbb2a632948b70fe7e91d7d4%3Brgn%3Ddiv5%3Bview%3Dtext%3Bnode%3D27%3A1.0.1.1.7%3Bidno%3D27%3Bcc%3Decfr
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20040628073926/http://www.ilec.or.jp/database/nam/nam-17.html to http://www.ilec.or.jp/database/nam/nam-17.html
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:14, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Any map to show tributaries and their location?
Reading Cayuga_Lake, any map would be handy to see how diverse the tributaries are; with map similar to one on external link but not sure of handling for instance their copyrights. Anybody with better idea could import or maybe create a simpler indicator map. I see cayugalake.org/the-watershed/more-watershed-maps/ have two illustrated maps with labels, under "Downloads" section: Map of Cayuga Lake and nearby Finger Lakes (PDF, 2.3 MB); Map of the Cayuga Lake watershed (JPG, 1.5 MB). For the time being, I added a short sentence referring to the infobox for notable inflows/outflows. --Omotecho (talk) 12:11, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Cayuga Lake


text: User talk:69.230.160.111

title: User talk:69.230.160.111


text:
User talk:Scott Loves Tracy

Please stop this love affair nonsense, or you will be listed as a vandal. -- Stevey7788 02:49, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Scott Loves Tracy


text:
Kifli

Kifli, kiflice, kifle, or kipferl is a traditional yeast bread roll that is rolled and formed into a crescent before baking.

It is a common type of bread roll throughout much of central Europe and nearby countries, where it is called by different names. It is thought to be the inspiration for the French croissant, which has a very similar shape but is made with a different type of dough.

Names
The roll or pastry is called:
 * kifli in Hungarian
 * kipfl in German speaking South Tyrol Italy
 * Kipferl in Austrian German
 * küpfel or a Meidlinger roll in Vienna
 * kifla or кифла (pl. kifle or kiflice) in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian
 * кифла in Bulgarian
 * кифла in Macedonian
 * kifle in Albanian
 * giffel in Danish and Swedish
 * rogal or rogalik (little horn) in Polish
 * rohlík in Czech
 * rožok in Slovak
 * рогалик/rogalik in Russian
 * рогалик/rohalyk in Ukrainian
 * rogljiček or kifelc in Slovene
 * cornuleț in Romanian
 * horn (horn) in Norwegian
 * Hörnchen (little horn) in German

In Old High German, Kipfa mean "carriage stanchion" and referred to the stanchions or "horns" of a cart. In the 13th century, that usage referred to a bread shape of pagan origin.

The Czech, Slovak, Polish, Slovenian, Ukrainian and Russian names derive as diminuitives from the Slavic word rogal or rohel ("horned") which in turn derives from "rog/roh" ("horn/protrusion"). Some other languages use a simple translation ("horn", "cornulet").

The similarity of the words "rohalyk" or "rohlík" with the English word „roll“ is coincidental, the words are not related by origin. The Slavic root "rog" can be hypothetically related with the German verb "ragen" ("to protrude").

Background
Kifli are a traditional yeasted bread rolled into a crescent shape. The Austrian is a small wheat roll with pointed ends. The 17th-century Austrian monk Abraham a Sancta Clara described the roll as crescent shaped, writing "the moon in the first quarter shines like a kipfl", and noted there were kifli in various forms: "vil lange, kurze, krumpe und gerade kipfel" ("many long, short, crooked and straight kipfel").

Breads or pastries in the shape of a crescent moon are believed to have been served in ancient times as offerings to the goddess of the moon, Selene. The shape is also reminiscent of horns; both are associated with ancient symbolism and considered the oldest surviving pastry shape. A moon shaped pastry creates itself naturally by hand-rolling a ball of dough into a cylinder form.

A list of foods eaten in a 10th-century convent include panis lunatis, described as a small crescent-shaped roll often eaten during fasts.

The kifli has been documented in Austria to at least 1227 when they were recorded in Babenberg-ruled Vienna as chipfen:

"dô brâchten im die pecken chipfen und weiʒe flecken,

weiʒer dann ein hermelein."

In Austria, the Kipferl is formally recognized by the government as a traditional food. According to the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism, Kipferl were probably a traditional monastery pastry baked for Easter. They are described as crescent-shaped rolls made of yeast wheat dough in a variety of shapes and as being popular for coffee breaks and breakfasts, particularly in Vienna.

The kifli likely inspired the similarly shaped French croissant, which is made from a laminated pastry dough.

Origin myths
A common culinary myth claims that when Christian forces freed Buda from Ottoman occupation in 1686, the bakers of the town celebrated the victory the next day by selling freshly baked bread rolls made into a crescent shape. Another story claims the Kipferl was invented in Vienna after or during the siege of the city by Ottoman Turks.

Preparation
Traditionally, kifli are made by cutting sheets of soft yeast dough into triangular wedges, rolling them into crescent shapes and baking them. Unlike the French croissant (crescent), Kifli is made from a plain, bread-like dough and is more akin to a roll than to pastry. Kifli is also thinner and longer than the croissant. Kifli are made in various sizes; some of them weigh as much as small bread loaf.

In commercial preparation, the dough is mixed, cut into small pieces, and fed into a machine that flattens and rolls it. The following manual process is similar to the traditional process.

Regular

When they come out of the oven, the rolls can be left plain or brushed with water to make them shiny. They can be given an egg wash and sprinkled with either poppy seeds or caraway seeds mixed with coarse salt. The latter variety is often made into a straight shape rather than a crescent. Kifli is eaten like bread or rolls; it is usually made into a sandwich, sometimes plain or with butter like a fresh baguette. Often, especially for breakfast, the topping is jam or honey. They may also be used for dunking.

Fine
This is the same as the regular style but the dough may contain butter or other shortening and milk. It is sweeter than the regular variety and is well-suited to be eaten with jam or honey, and is commonly eaten for breakfast with coffee, hot chocolate or milk. It might also be an accompaniment for drinks like Doogh and Kumis.

Sweets
There are a couple of sweet rolls named "kifli" to describe their shape; they are eaten at the end of a meal or with an afternoon drink; these are not kifli, which when used on its own, always means the regular or fine varieties. In German, these are differentiated with a different spelling: Kipferl compared to Kipfel for the yeast bread.

 * Vanillekipferl is a small, very short soft cookie made from a dough of ground nuts instead of flour. It is originally made with walnuts but almonds are more often used outside of Hungary. Once baked they are rolled in vanilla-flavored confectioners' sugar then allowed to cool.
 * Bratislavský rožok/bratislavské rožky, diós kifli, mákos kifli, also known as Pozsonyi kifli and in German as Preßburger Kipfel, are crescent-shaped, sweet, leavened pastries filled with a sweet walnut or poppy paste. Under the name Bratislavský rožok / Pozsonyi kiflia, they are registered as Traditional Speciality Guaranteed products in the EU and the UK. They are a variety of beigli, very similar in flavor but different in shape and size.
 * Lupáčik or makovka, incorrectly presented as lúpačka,  is a sweet pastry made of fatty dough, often decorated with poppy seeds.

Other uses
Stale kipfel are used to make a sweet bread pudding called Kipfelkoch.

title: Kifli


text:
User talk:Tracy Loves Scott

Please stop this love affair nonsense, or you will be listed as a vandal. -- Stevey7788 02:49, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Tracy Loves Scott