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Gallo-Italic languages

The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy: Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. In central Italy they are spoken in the northern Marches (Gallo-Italic of the Marches); in southern Italy in some language islands in Basilicata (Gallo-Italic of Basilicata) and Sicily (Gallo-Italic of Sicily).

Although most publications define Venetian as part of the Italo-Dalmatian branch, both Ethnologue and Glottolog group it into the Gallo-Italic languages.

The languages are spoken also in the departement of Alpes-Maritimes in France and in Ticino and southern Grisons, both in Switzerland, and the microstates of Monaco and San Marino. They are still spoken to some extent by the Italian diaspora in countries with Italian immigrant communities.

Having a Celtic substratum and a Germanic, mostly Lombardic, superstrate, Gallo-Italian descends from the Latin spoken in northern part of Italia (former Cisalpine Gaul). The group had for part of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages a close linguistic link with Gaul and Raetia, west and north to the Alps. From the late Middle Ages, the group adopted various characteristics of the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the south.

As a result, the Gallo-Italic languages have characteristics of the Gallo-Romance languages to the northwest (including French and Arpitan), the Occitano-Romance languages to the west (including Catalan and Occitan) and the Italo-Dalmatian languages to the north-east, central and south Italy (Venetian, Dalmatian, Tuscan, Central Italian, Neapolitan, Sicilian). For this there is some debate over the proper grouping of the Gallo-Italic languages. They are sometimes grouped with Gallo-Romance,  but other linguists group them in Italo-Dalmatian.

Most Gallo-Italic languages have to varying degrees given way in everyday use to regional varieties of Italian. The vast majority of current speakers are diglossic with Italian.

Among the regional languages of Italy, they are the most endangered, since in the main cities of their area (Milan, Turin, Genoa, Bologna) they are mainly used by the elderly.

Geographical distribution
Within this sub-family, the language with the largest geographic spread is Lombard, spoken in the Italian region of Lombardy, in eastern Piedmont and western Trentino. Outside Italy it is widespread in Switzerland in the canton of Ticino, and some southern valleys of the canton of the Grisons.

Piedmontese refers to the languages spoken in the region of Piedmont and the north west corner of Liguria. Historically, the Piedmontese-speaking area is the plain at the foot of the Western Alps, and ends at the entrance to the valleys where Occitan and Arpitan are spoken. In recent centuries, the language has also spread into these valleys, where it is also more widely spoken than these two languages, thus the borders of Piedmontese have reached the western alps watershed that is the border with France.

The speaking area of Ligurian or Genoese cover the territory of the former Republic of Genoa, which included much of nowadays Liguria, and some mountain areas of bordering regions near the Ligurian border, the upper valley of Roya river near Nice, in Carloforte and Calasetta in Southern Sardinia, and Bonifacio in Corsica.

Emilian is spoken in the historical-cultural region of Emilia, which forms part of Emilia-Romagna, but also in many areas of the bordering regions, including southern Lombardy, south-eastern Piedmont, around the town of Tortona, province of Massa and Carrara in Tuscany and Polesine in Veneto, near the Po delta. With Romagnol, spoken in the historical region of Romagna, forms the Emilian-Romagnol linguistic continuum.

Gallo-Piceno (gallo-italic of the Marches or gallico-marchigiano) is spoken in the province of Pesaro and Urbino and in the northern part of the province of Ancona (the Marches). Once classified as a dialect of Romagnol, now there is a debate about considering it a separated Gallo-Italic language.

Isolated varieties in Sicily and in Basilicata (Southern Gallo-Italic variants)
Varieties of Gallo-Italic languages are also found in Sicily, corresponding with the central-eastern parts of the island that received large numbers of immigrants from Northern Italy, called Lombards, during the decades following the Norman conquest of Sicily (around 1080 to 1120). Given the time that has lapsed and the influence from the Sicilian language itself, these dialects are best generically described as Southern Gallo-Italic. The major centres where these dialects can still be heard today include Piazza Armerina, Aidone, Sperlinga, San Fratello, Nicosia, and Novara di Sicilia. Northern Italian dialects did not survive in some towns in the province of Catania that developed large Lombard communities during this period, namely Randazzo, Paternò and Bronte. However, the Northern Italian influence in the local varieties of Sicilian are marked. In the case of San Fratello, some linguists suggested that the nowadays dialect has Provençal as its basis, having been a fort manned by Provençal mercenaries in the early decades of the Norman conquest (bearing in mind that it took the Normans 30 years to conquer the whole of the island).

Other dialects, attested from 13th and 14th century, are also found in Basilicata, more precisely in the province of Potenza (Tito, Picerno, Pignola and Vaglio Basilicata), Trecchina, Rivello, Nemoli and San Costantino.

General classification

 * Gallo-Italic
 * Piedmontese
 * Ligurian
 * Lombard
 * Western Lombard dialects
 * Eastern Lombard dialects
 * Emilian
 * Romagnol
 * Gallo-Piceno
 * Gallo-Italic of Basilicata
 * Gallo-Italic of Sicily
 * Judeo-Italian
 * (Venetian)

Phonology
Gallo-Italic languages are often said to resemble Western Romance languages like French, Spanish, or Portuguese, and in large part it is due to their phonology. The Gallo-Italic languages differ somewhat in their phonology from one language to another, but the following are the most important characteristics, as contrasted with Italian:

Vowels

 * Most Gallo-Italic languages have lost all unstressed final vowels except, e.g. Lombard òm "man", füm "smoke", nef "snow", fil "wire", röda "wheel" (Italian uomo, fumo, neve, filo, ruota). They remain, however, in Ligurian, with passage of -o to -u, except after n; e.g. ramu, rami, lüme, lümi "branch, branches, light, lights" (Italian ramo, rami, lume, lumi), but can, chen  "dog, dogs" (Italian cane, cani).
 * u tends to evolve as ü, as in French and Occitan, as in Lombard füm (Italian fumo "smoke") and Ligurian lüme, Piedmont lüm (Italian lume "light").  In some parts, e.g. southern Piedmont, this has further developed into , e.g. fis (Italian fuso), lim (Italian lume "light").  In some mountainous parts of Piedmont, however (e.g. Biellese, Ossolano), this development was blocked before final , leading to masculine crü (Italian crudo "raw") but feminine cru(v)a (Italian cruda).
 * Metaphony is very common, affecting original open stressed è and ò  when followed by  or sometimes  (operating before final vowels were dropped).  This leads at first to diphthongs ie and uo, but in many dialects these progress further, typically to monophthongs i and ö .  Unlike standard Italian diphthongization, this typically operates both in open and closed syllables, hence in Lombardy (where typically  but not  triggers metaphony) quest (Italian questo "this") vs. quist (Italian questi "these").
 * Stressed closed é and sometimes ó, when occurring in an open syllable (followed by at most one consonant) often diphthongized to  and , as in Old French; e.g. Piedmont beive (Italian bere < *bévere "to drink"), teila (Italian tela "cloth"), meis (Italian mese "month").  In some dialects,  developed further into either  or , e.g. tèla  < *teila  (Italian tela "cloth"), sira (Italian sera "evening"), mis  (Italian mese "month").
 * Stressed in an open syllable often fronts to ä  or è.

Consonants

 * Lenition affects single consonants between vowels.  and  drop;  becomes  or drops;  and  become  and, or drop;  becomes , , or drops.   between vowels voices to .   between vowels sometimes becomes , and this  sometimes drops.  Double consonants are reduced to single consonants, but not otherwise lenited.   becomes velarized to . These changes occur before a final vowel drops.  After loss of final vowels, however, further changes sometimes affect the newly final consonants, with voiced obstruents often becoming voiceless, and final  sometimes dropping.  Liguria, especially in former times, showed particularly severe lenition, with total loss of intervocalic , , , , , ,  (probably also , but not ) in Old Genoese, hence müa (Latin matura "early"), a éia e âe? (Italian aveva le ali? "did it have wings?"; modern a l'aveiva e ae? with restoration of various consonants due to Italian influence).  In Liguria and often elsewhere, collapse of adjacent vowels due to loss of an intervocalic consonant produced new long vowels, notated with a circumflex.
 * and preceding,  or  often assibilitated historically to  and , respectively. This typically does not occur in Lombardy, however, and parts of Liguria have intermediate  and , while Piemontese varieties typically have differential developments, with  assibilating (sent  '100'), but  retaining palatalization (gent  'people').
 * Latin palatalized to  (Piemontese ciav, Romagnol ceva 'key'); similarly  from Latin  develops as .  In Liguria,  and  from Latin  and  are affected in the same way, e.g. Ligurian cian (Italian piano "soft") and giancu (Italian bianco "white").
 * Latin develops into,  or , varying by locale (contrast Italian ).

title: Gallo-Italic languages


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Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Zivinbudas/Proposed decision

I have suggested a solution at Requests_for_arbitration/Zivinbudas. I believe anything less will not solve the problem - i.e. articles will still be vandalised and we will still have to waste time reverting them. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:18, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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


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Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Zivinbudas/Evidence

Can it simply be copied from Requests_for_comment/Zivinbudas ? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:19, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So, only evidence of disputed behaviour should be put here, or also evidence of positive contributions? DeirYassin 10:54, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * I believe that positive contributions are considered to be normal behaviour on wikipedia and as such it is not being disputed here. Nobody would file an RfA because of normal behaviour but because of the rules violations and abuse. So this is irrelevant as far as this case goes imho. Lysy 09:05, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

racist remarks:

--Witkacy 19:21, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 *
 *


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Christen Dalsgaard

Christen Dalsgaard  (30 October 1824 – 11 February 1907) was a Danish painter, a late student of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.

Early life and education
Christen Dalsgaard was born on 30 October 1824. He was the son of the owner of the estate, Krabbesholm Manor, located near Skive in Jutland. He showed early signs of artistic talent, and received training as a craft painter. In the spring of 1841 Niels Rademacher, a visiting landscape painter, encouraged the young artist and convinced his parents of their son's talent.

Later that year he traveled to Copenhagen and began his art studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) in October 1841. In December 1841 he began private studies with painter Martinus Rørbye. These lessons continued until 1847.

In 1843 he began his studies at the academy freehand drawing school, and the following year at the academy plaster school. Home during the summer and holidays, he busied himself by filling sketchbooks with studies of the local landscape, costumes, and way of life. These formed a lifelong basis for his art. He also began collecting local folk costumes, another lifelong interest.

In 1844 Dalsgaard came under the influence of the art historian Niels Lauritz Høyen, who gave a famous lecture titled "On the conditions for the development of a Scandinavian national art" ("Om betingelserne for en skandinavisk nationalkunsts udvikling"). Høyen called for artists to search for subject matter in the folk life of their country instead of searching for themes in other lands, such as Italy (which was at that time considered a requirement for an artist's training). Dalsgaard was a loyal follower of Høyen's artistic ideals, and forwent the customary journey to Italy, choosing rather to concentrate on themes closer to home.

In March 1846 he began studying at the Academy's model school under professors Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, J. L. Lund and Martinus Rørbye. He had his exhibition debut at Charlottenborg in 1847 and continued showing there every year with few exceptions.

An artistic career flourishes
In 1855 he painted his first altarpiece at the church in his hometown of Skive. He went on to paint a number of other altarpieces in the years to come.

He had his big breakthrough in 1856 with the painting Mormoner på besøg hos en tømrer på landet ("Mormons visit a country carpenter"). The painting, created only six years after the missionaries' arrival in Denmark, is set in the shadowed interior of a provincial cottage. A group of people are gathered around a table, listening to a missionary's message. Light filters in through a small window and an open door. It is a study of contemporary daily life, carefully depicting the interior and costumes of the people in detail. The painting was donated to the Danish National Gallery (Statens Museum for Kunst) in 1871.

He married Hansine Marie Hansen on 21 August 1857. The newlyweds purchased a house in Frederiksberg. Their circle of social acquaintances included Constantin Hansen, Niels Lauritz Høyen, Wilhelm Marstrand, P.C. Skovgaard, Vilhelm Kyhn, Godtfred Rump, Frederik Vermehren and Julius Exner.

Dalsgaard received the Academy's Neuhausen's prize (Neuhausens præmie) in both 1859 and 1861. He began teaching drawing at Sorø Academy in 1862. Upon being selected, he became a member of the Academy of Art in 1872. He exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris for the first time in 1878.

He painted his famous painting "I wonder when he will come home" (Mon han dog ikke skulle komme?) in 1879. This painting is typical of his style. The picture features a young woman standing in an open doorway looking off to one side. One foot is on the door frame, and one foot is on the ground outside. The interior is dark and shadowed. The outside is a sunlit agrarian landscape. The title of the painting refers to her inner dialogue.

In 1890 he finished the first of twenty-one small Bible pictures, a project which he continued to work on for the next ten years. He was named a professor at the Academy of Art in 1892, and quit his position at Sorø Academy.

He died on 11 February 1907 in Sorø.

In 1914 the artist's widow contributed a portion of his collection of folk costumes to the National Museum. She died in Sorø on 3 November of that same year. The National Museum acquired the remainder of the collection in 1921.

Works
Christen Dalsgaard, like his contemporaries Julius Exner and Frederik Vermehren, painted primarily genre paintings, national romantic folk scenes rooted in the grasslands of Jutland. He paid great attention to details – folk costumes, the manners and habits of the people, and architecture and landscape. He was a storyteller. His artistic works, as well as those of his contemporaries, opened the way for more realistic paintings in the late 1800s.

A collection of his work can be found at the Skive Art Museum. Other paintings can be found at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, among other museums.

title: Christen Dalsgaard


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Habitat (retailer)

Habitat (a trading name of Argos Limited) is a brand of household furnishings in the United Kingdom and the main homewares brand within the Sainsbury's group.

Founded in 1964 by Sir Terence Conran, it merged with a number of other retailers in the 1980s to create Storehouse plc, before the latter sold Habitat to the Ikano Group, owned by the Kamprad family, in 1992. In December 2009, Habitat was bought by Hilco, a restructuring specialist. On 24 June 2011, Habitat was put into liquidation and all but three UK Habitat stores were closed in a deal to sell the indebted furniture chain, with the brand and the three London stores sold to Home Retail Group. In September 2016, UK retailer Sainsbury's bought Home Retail Group, including Argos and Habitat, for £1.4 billion (about $1.85 billion).

Beginning
Sir Terence Conran founded Habitat in London in 1964, opening his own store to market his Summa range of furniture. The first store was opened in Fulham Road in Chelsea by Conran, his then wife Caroline, Philip Pollock and the model Pagan Taylor. This store became the Habitat template, with its quarry tiled floor, whitewashed brick walls, white-painted wooden-slatted ceilings and spotlights creating a feeling of space and focusing attention on the product. Conran has said the main reason for the shop's initial success was that Habitat was one of the few places that sold cheap pasta storage jars just as the market for dried pasta took off in the UK.

Expansion
The business expanded quickly in the UK throughout the 1960s, with the first store outside London opening in Manchester and internationally with the first overseas store opening in 1973 in Paris. Habitat also published a catalogue that showed a range of products grouped together in pleasant surroundings.

Mergers
In 1968 Habitat merged with the stationery retailer Ryman to form Ryman Conran. The following year it purchased the business of Lupton Morton, which mostly supplied furniture to offices and corporations but also made pieces by other designers, and in 1970 acquired the retail chain Straker-Bedser.

By 1970 the turnover of the group had doubled since the merger with Habitat. Terence Conran however was disappointed that Habitat itself had not been expanded and offered to purchase Habitat from Ryman Conran along with Conran Associates and the remains of Lupton Morton. Ryman Conran did not highly value the Habitat chain and apparently thought it was making a loss, so agreed to the sale. Ryman Conran retained Habitat's original factory in Thetford along with Conran Design Group.

In 1981, the company's shares were floated on the London Stock Exchange and in 1982 it merged with Mothercare Group to form Habitat Mothercare Group plc. The now-listed company bought the furniture retailer Heal's and the Richard Shops fashion chain in 1983. In 1986, the company merged with British Home Stores to form Storehouse plc. The merger with British Home Stores also came with a 50% share of the SavaCentre hypermarket chain, a 50:50 Joint Enterprise with the supermarket chain Sainsbury's.

Subsequent buyouts
In 1992 Habitat was purchased from Storehouse by Ikano. In October 2009, following several years of trading losses, the Kamprad family, which owns Ikano, put the company up for sale, and it was sold to Hilco, a restructuring specialist, in December 2009 with the Kamprad family writing off the debts of the company and providing €50 million (£45 million) of working capital while Hilco paid about €15m.

Administration and sales
On 24 June 2011 Hilco, which had owned Habitat UK Ltd since December 2009, announced that it was putting the company into administration.

Home Retail Group (owner of Argos and Homebase) purchased the Habitat brand, three central London stores in Tottenham Court Road, King's Road and Finchley Road and the UK website for £24.5 million. The UK business was registered under the name Habitat Retail Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Home Retail Group. Home Retail Group retained about 100 staff at the London stores and around 50 in head office, including many of Habitat's in-house designers, buyers and merchandisers. It then introduced 84 Mini Habitat stores within Homebase branches and also begun to offer a selection of Habitat products in 200 Homebase and Argos stores nationwide and on the Argos and Homebase websites.

By June 2011, all other Habitat stores in the UK had been closed by Hilco with around 750 employees being made redundant.

Cafom, a company registered in France, purchased Habitat's European businesses.

Purchase by Sainsbury's
In April 2016, Home Retail Group agreed to a £1.4bn takeover by UK retailer Sainsbury's. The deal included the sale of brands Argos and Habitat. The acquisition completed on 2 September 2016. Before the acquisition Home Retail Group sold the Homebase business to the Australian company Wesfarmers and all Habitat branches within Homebase stores were subsequently closed.

Current operations
Habitat is the main homewares and furnishings brand within the Sainsbury's group. It is part of the Sainsbury's Argos business which runs general merchandise and clothing operations including Habitat, Argos, Sainsbury's Home products and Tu clothing. Larger Sainsbury's supermarkets also have Habitat homewares available. In November 2020 Sainsbury's announced that it wanted to have 80% of homewares and furniture sold within the Sainsbury's group under the Habitat brand by the end of 2021.

Habitat stores
In April 2016 Habitat unveiled a £1.5million refurbishment of its flagship 25,000 Tottenham Court Road store. Designed by the Habitat in-house Design Studio, the new store featured a completely new look and layout for the brand with a stripped back design and monochrome colour palette to highlight Habitat's bright product collections.

The Habitat store on King's Road in London closed in 2018. This was because the building it had occupied since 1973 is being redeveloped under plans submitted by the landowner Cadogan Estates and approved by the Kensington & Chelsea Council.

In 2018, the business opened two new standalone stores - one in Westfield White City as part of the extension of the shopping centre which was planned to attract more homeware and lifestyle brands and the other in Brighton; this was the location of one of Habitat's most successful Homebase concessions.

Sainsbury's announced in November 2020 that both the Habitat standalone stores in Tottenham Court Road (25,000 sq ft) and Finchley Road (18,000 sq ft) would close at the beginning of 2021, saying that it wanted to concentrate on selling Habitat products in its supermarkets and online. As of July 2021 the Tottenham Court Road store is now closed with the Habitat sign removed from the building and the store empty.

As of June 2023 Habitat has now closed all of its showrooms and moved to a solely online retail business.

E-commerce website
Habitat also has a transactional UK website, as well as offering a selection of Habitat products on the Argos website.

In January 2009, Habitat began planning a fully transactional web site to enter the online shopping market. The site was launched in November 2009, based on an E-commerce application from BT Expedite, with a back-end by LShift, after a period when only a small number of products were available online. Following feedback, the company announced a new website in January 2011, offering online delivery to UK, Germany and Republic of Ireland.

Sainsbury's concessions
There were 11 smaller Mini Habitat format branches located in Sainsbury's stores measuring between 1,400 sq ft and 2,000 sq ft between 2016 and 2020. The first three were opened at the end of 2016 and were located in Nine Elms in London, London Colney (a former SavaCentre) and Solihull.

The in-store concession opened in 2017 in the Sainsbury's hypermarket in Calcot, Berkshire was actually a re-instalment, as that store sold Habitat products in the late 1980s and early 1990s when it was a SavaCentre (a 50:50 BHS-Sainsbury Joint Enterprise) hypermarket when both BHS and Habitat were part of Storehouse plc.

Sainsbury's announced in 2020 that it would be permanently closing all 11 Habitat in-store concessions in its supermarkets with immediate effect, as its products would now be sold in the main self-service non-food areas of Sainsbury's supermarkets instead.

International operations
The company used to have stores in Galway and Dublin in the Republic of Ireland but these were closed down in 2008. Habitat previously employed 1,574 staff and operated in 71 stores: 35 in the UK, 26 in France, five in Spain and five in Germany (as of October 2009). The international operations are now run by Groupe Habitat, part of Cafom between 2011 and 2020, and since 2020 owned by the industrialist Thierry Le Guénic.

title: Habitat (retailer)


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Rapoport's rule

Rapoport's rule is an ecogeographical rule that states that latitudinal ranges of plants and animals are generally smaller at lower latitudes than at higher latitudes.

Background
Stevens (1989) named the rule after Eduardo H. Rapoport, who had earlier provided evidence for the phenomenon for subspecies of mammals (Rapoport 1975, 1982 ). Stevens used the rule to "explain" greater species diversity in the tropics in the sense that latitudinal gradients in species diversity and the rule have identical exceptional data and so must have the same underlying cause. Narrower ranges in the tropics would facilitate more species to coexist. He later extended the rule to altitudinal gradients, claiming that altitudinal ranges are greatest at greater altitudes (Stevens 1992 ), and to depth gradients in the oceans (Stevens 1996 ). The rule has been the focus of intense discussion and given much impetus to exploring distributional patterns of plants and animals. Stevens' original paper has been cited about 330 times in the scientific literature.

Generality
Support for the generality of the rule is at best equivocal. For example, marine teleost fishes have the greatest latitudinal ranges at low latitudes. In contrast, freshwater fishes do show the trend, although only above a latitude of about 40 degrees North. Some subsequent papers have found support for the rule; others, probably even more numerous, have found exceptions to it. For most groups that have been shown to follow the rule, it is restricted to or at least most distinct above latitudes of about 40–50 degrees. Rohde therefore concluded that the rule describes a local phenomenon. Computer simulations using the Chowdhury Ecosystem Model did not find support for the rule.

Explanations
Rohde (1996) explained the fact that the rule is restricted to very high latitudes by effects of glaciations which have wiped out species with narrow ranges, a view also expressed by Brown (1995). Another explanation of Rapoport's rule is the "climatic variability" or "seasonal variability hypothesis". According to this hypothesis, seasonal variability selects for greater climatic tolerances and therefore wider latitudinal ranges (see also Fernandez and Vrba 2005 ).

Methods used to demonstrate the rule
The methods used to demonstrate the rule have been subject to some controversy. Most commonly, authors plot means of latitudinal ranges in a particular 5° latitudinal band against latitude, although modal or median ranges have been used by some. In the original paper by Stevens, all species occurring in each band were counted, i.e., a species with a range of 50 degrees occurs in 10 or 11 bands. However, this may lead to an artificial inflation of latitudinal ranges of species occurring at high latitudes, because even a few tropical species with wide ranges will affect the means of ranges at high latitudes, whereas the opposite effect due to high latitude species extending into the tropics is negligible: species diversity is much smaller at high than low latitudes. As an alternative method the "midpoint method" has been proposed, which avoids this problem. It counts only those species with the midpoint of their ranges in a particular latitudinal band. An additional complication in assessing Rapoport's rule for data based on field sampling is the possibility of a spurious pattern driven by a sample-size artifact. Equal sampling effort at species-rich and species-poor localities tends to underestimate range size at the richer localities relative to the poorer, when in fact range sizes might not differ among localities.

Biotic and abiotic factors which act against the rule
Marine benthic invertebrates and some parasites have been shown to have smaller dispersal abilities in cold seas (Thorson's rule), which would counteract Rapoport's rule. The tropics have far more uniform temperatures over a far wider latitudinal range (about 45 degrees) than high latitude species. As temperature is one of the most important (if not the most important) factor determining geographical distribution, wider latitudinal ranges in the tropics might therefore be expected.

Evolutionary age
The inconsistent results concerning Rapoport's rule suggest that certain characteristics of species may be responsible for their different latitudinal ranges. These characteristics may include, for example, their evolutionary age: species that have evolved recently in the tropics may have small latitudinal ranges because they have not had the time to spread far from their origin, whereas older species have extended their ranges.

title: Rapoport's rule


text:
MSRA

MSRA may stand for:
 * Macrophage scavenger receptor class A, a receptor found in macrophages
 * Mid-States Rodeo Association,
 * Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates
 * Peptide-methionine (S)-S-oxide reductase, an enzyme
 * MSRA (gene), a family of enzymes
 * Microsoft Research Asia, Microsoft Research's major lab in China
 * Microsoft Remote Assistance, a software application in Microsoft Windows

title: MSRA


text:
List of parliamentary constituencies in Gloucestershire

The county of Gloucestershire is divided into 7 parliamentary constituencies: 2 borough constituencies and 5 county constituencies.

2024
See 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies for further details.

Following the abandonment of the Sixth Periodic Review (the 2018 review), the Boundary Commission for England formally launched the 2023 Review on 5 January 2021. Initial proposals were published on 8 June 2021 and, following two periods of public consultation, revised proposals were published on 8 November 2022. The final proposals were published on 28 June 2023.

The commission proposed that Gloucestershire be combined with Wiltshire as a sub-region of the South West Region, with the creation of the cross-county boundary constituency of South Cotswolds, resulting in a major reconfiguration of the former The Cotswolds constituency, which would be renamed North Cotswolds. These changes came into effect for the 2024 general election.

The following seats were proposed:

Containing electoral wards from Cheltenham

 * Cheltenham
 * Tewkesbury (part)

Containing electoral wards in Cotswold

 * North Cotswolds (part)
 * South Cotswolds (part also in Witshire)

Containing electoral wards in Forest of Dean

 * Forest of Dean (part)

Containing wards in Gloucester

 * Gloucester
 * Tewkesbury (part)

Containing wards in Stroud

 * North Cotswolds (part)
 * South Cotswolds (part)
 * Stroud

Containing wards in Tewkesbury

 * Forest of Dean (part)
 * North Cotswolds (part)
 * Tewkesbury (part)

2010
Under the Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the Boundary Commission for England decided to retain Gloucestershire's constituencies for the 2010 election, making minor changes to realign constituency boundaries with the boundaries of current local government wards, and to reduce the electoral disparity between constituencies. Although the changes were minor, the Cotswold constituency was renamed The Cotswolds.

Results history
Primary data source: House of Commons research briefing - General election results from 1918 to 2019

2024
The number of votes cast for each political party who fielded candidates in constituencies comprising Gloucestershire in the 2024 general election were as follows:

2019
The number of votes cast for each political party who fielded candidates in constituencies comprising Gloucestershire in the 2019 general election were as follows:

Percentage votes
Note that before 1983 Gloucestershire covered a wider and much more populous area than it does today, including the north of what became Avon and the city of Bristol. 1including National Liberal

21950-1979: Liberal Party; 1983 & 1987 - SDP-Liberal Alliance

3 As the Brexit Party in 2019

* Included in Other

Accurate vote percentages cannot be obtained for the elections of 1918, 1923 and 1935 because at least one candidate stood unopposed.

Seats
1including National Liberal

21950-1979: Liberal Party; 1983 & 1987 - SDP-Liberal Alliance

Historical representation by party
A cell marked → (with a different colour background to the preceding cell) indicates that the previous MP continued to sit under a new party name.

2010 to present (6, then 6.5 seats)
1Just under half this seat's electorate lies in Wiltshire.


text:
Bissendorf

Bissendorf (formerly Bissendorpe) is a municipality in the district of Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 9 km southeast of Osnabrück. Population 14,700 (2020).

It is divided into Bissendorf proper, Schledehausen and Wissingen.

title: Bissendorf


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Exeter St Thomas railway station

Exeter St Thomas railway station is a suburban railway station in Exeter, England, serving the suburb of St Thomas and the riverside area. The station is elevated on a low viaduct with entrances on Cowick Street and is the only station in Exeter which is listed (Grade II). It is 74 chain south of Exeter St Davids railway station and 194 mi from the zero point at London Paddington, via Box Tunnel.

The station is unstaffed, the former station building now being used as a bar and nightclub. It is served mostly by local trains operated by Great Western Railway.

History
The station was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and opened on 30 May 1846 by the South Devon Railway. The company had joint use of the Bristol and Exeter Railway station at St Davids but St Thomas was its own station. Although built on a 501 yd stone viaduct, the railway was nearer to the city centre and the quays on the Exeter Canal. Until 1862 tickets were only sold between St Thomas and stations west of Exeter, not to St Davids and the north.

The railway was worked by atmospheric trains from 13 September 1847 until 9 September 1848. Unique in all the South Devon Railway stations, there was no engine house, so the driver had to hold the train on its brakes against the pressure in the pipes while it was stopped here.

The original station featured just a single track with a 175 ft platform on the city side of the line. A small booking office was built at road level at the north end of the station and steps led up to the platform. The viaduct was widened at this point by five feet to accommodate the platform.

In 1847 some improvements were completed including a larger office, a train shed over the platform, and an extension to bring the platform to a length of 260 feet.

In 1851 George Hennet was given permission to build a coal depot at St Thomas from where he could distribute coal, brought by train from his quay at Teignmouth. This was built on the city side of the line, north of the station. Hennet died in 1857 and the depot was eventually taken over by Robert Ward. It was closed in 1884 but Ward continued to use the land as premises until c. 1930. The site is now occupied by the Great Western Railway Staff Association staff club.

In 1861 the viaduct was widened on the west side (away from the city), and a second track brought into use which necessitated a second platform be built. Elegant new two-storey buildings were built on the city side of the viaduct, and a new train shed built across both platforms.

The train shed was demolished in the 1960s and the station is now unstaffed. The 1861 building was previously used as a Chinese restaurant and a nightclub. Since 2015 the building stands derelict and has fallen into disrepair with the doors and windows boarded up.

The station was proposed for closure in Dr. Beeching's The Reshaping of Britain's Railways report but has remained open.

Services

Most trains are operated by Great Western Railway on the Riviera Line to and from Paignton which then generally continue east of Exeter St Davids to and from Exmouth along the Avocet Line. A few other services operate to destinations further afield such as Bristol Temple Meads.

title: Exeter St Thomas railway station


text:
User:Fennfan

"Fenn" is a not so famous singer situated on the North-Shore of Sydney. For years he has played in local pubs and finaly this year he has released his first hit CD.

title: User:Fennfan


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Atyrau Region

Atyrau Region (Атырау облысы; Атырауская область) formerly known as Guryev Region, (Russian: Гурьев область) until 1991, is one of the regions of Kazakhstan, in the west of the country around the northeast of the Caspian Sea. Its capital is the city of Atyrau, with a population of 355,117; the region itself has a population of 681,241, of which Kazakhs make up more than 90%.

History
The Turan lowlands of Atyrau Region were the central homeland for the Malkar "Hun" dynasties of late antiquity.

Geography
With an area of 118,600 square kilometers, it is the second-smallest region in Kazakhstan (Turkistan Region is the smallest). It borders Russia (Astrakhan Oblast) to the west, as well as the fellow Kazakh regions Aktobe to the east, Mangystau to the south, and the West Kazakhstan Region to the north. The Ural River is the border between Asia and Europe and flows from Russia to the Caspian Sea through the region, meaning western Atyrau Region lies in Europe.

A large part of the region is situated in the oil-rich Caspian Depression. Many oil wells have been drilled in the Tengiz Field and Kashagan Field areas. An oil pipeline runs from Atyrau to Samara, Russia, where it joins the Russian pipeline system. A separate oil pipeline runs from the Tengiz field to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk.

Atyrau is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude.

Demographics
As of 2021, the Atyrau Region has a population of 659,074.

Ethnic groups (2021):
 * Kazakh: 92.86%
 * Russian: 5.01%
 * Koreans: 0.48%
 * Tatars: 0.35%
 * Others: 1.30%

Administrative divisions
The region is divided into seven districts and the city of Atyrau. The districts are:
 * 1) Inder District, with the administrative center in the urban-type settlement of Inderbor;
 * 2) Isatay District, the selo (village)  of Akkystau;
 * 3) Kurmangazy District, the selo of Ganyushkino;
 * 4) Kyzylkoga District, the selo of Miyaly;
 * 5) Makat District, the urban-type settlement of Makat;
 * 6) Makhambet District, the selo of Makhambet;
 * 7) Zhylyoi District, the town of Kulsary.

 * Two localities in Atyrau Region have town status. These are Atyrau and Kulsary. Isatay and Kurmangazy districts are in Europe, Makat, Kyzylkoga and Zhylyoi in Asia, while Inder and Makhambet straddle the Ural River which marks the boundary.

title: Atyrau Region


text: User talk:82.43.154.205

title: User talk:82.43.154.205


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Joyce Steele

Joyce Steele (29 May 1909 – 24 September 1991) was an Australian politician and one of the first two women elected to the Parliament of South Australia, the other being Jessie Cooper. Steele was elected to the House of Assembly and Cooper was elected to the Legislative Council at the 1959 election. Ironically, while South Australian women had been given the right to vote and stand for election—a right they had gained at the 1896 election—South Australia had been the last state to elect a female representative.

Prior to her election, Joyce Steele was a homemaker, an ABC broadcaster and active in community organisations, including the Queen Adelaide Club (the women's equivalent of the exclusive Adelaide Club). She was pre-selected for the Liberal and Country League's (LCL) safest metropolitan seat, Burnside, in 1959 and was comfortably elected. She was not a feminist, and was affiliated with the conservative wing of the LCL.

Molly Byrne was Labor's first female elected to the Parliament of South Australia at the 1965 election, and the third ahead of Steele and Cooper.

Steele was also the first South Australian woman to achieve Cabinet rank in the South Australian Parliament as Minister of Education in the Hall Government from 1968 to 1969. As South Australian schools were increasingly overcrowded due to the children of the baby boomers passing through, it was a tough portfolio, although moderate increases in education spending were allocated. She took the Social Welfare ministry for the remainder of the Hall government's term.

After the government passed electoral reform legislation in 1968, Burnside was mostly replaced by the equally safe seat of Bragg. However, Steele did not contest this seat, instead transferring to the LCL's safest new seat, Davenport, which covered the south-east of the City of Burnside. She received 68% of the primary vote in the 1970 election. On 9 June 1973, Young Liberals State President and Liberal Movement member Dean Brown announced his intention to stand for Davenport pre-selection. Steele, in response, announced her retirement, but not without declaring that "[Dean] certainly will not have my support. I think my attitude to the Liberal Movement is well known".

In the 1981 New Years Honours Steele was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

title: Joyce Steele


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New York Film Academy

New York Film Academy – School of Film and Acting (NYFA) is a private for-profit film school and acting school based in New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami. The New York Film Academy was founded in 1992 by Jerry Sherlock, a former film, television and theater producer. It was originally located at the Tribeca Film Center. In 1994, NYFA moved to 100 East 17th Street, the former Tammany Hall building in the Union Square. After 23 years of occupancy, the academy relocated from Tammany Hall to 17 Battery Place.

As of 2012, the school has 400+ employees and over 5,000 students per year (many of them from outside the United States). NYFA offers master, bachelor, and associate degrees, as well as one- and two-year conservatory programs, short-term workshops, and youth programs and summer camps.

History
The college was founded in 1992 by Jerry Sherlock, a former film, television, and theatre producer. Originally located at the Tribeca Film Center, NYFA moved to 100 East 17th Street, the former Tammany Hall building in Union Square in 1994. After 23 years of occupancy, the college relocated from Tammany Hall to 17 Battery Place in 2015, where the school currently resides.

Academics
NYFA offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs, certificates, and workshops. It is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission.

NYFA's disciplines of study include filmmaking, Producing, Screenwriting, Cinematography, Digital editing, Documentary Filmmaking, Acting for Film, 3D Animation and Visual Effects, Entertainment Media, Photography, Game Design, Musical Theater and Virtual Reality, as well as an English as a second language program that aims to combine traditional language learning with activities related to the arts. In 2007, NYFA partnered with NBC News to start a program in Broadcast Journalism. In 2010 the contract between NYFA and NBC expired, but the broadcast journalism programs at NYFA continue to be offered by many of the original faculty. NYFA degree programs, workshops, and short-term courses are held around the world. Summer workshops are offered at Harvard University. International locations include Australia, Florence, Paris, Beijing, and Shanghai. Other international locations are offered at various times of the year.

Partnerships
Since 2007, NYFA has collaborated with museums and major art institutions to organize cultural and filmmaking education initiatives for teens and young adults. Since 2010, the New York Film Academy has partnered with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Working closely with each individual institution, the Film Academy contributes resources in curriculum development, teaching staff, and equipment to deliver programs that teach students the creative art of the moving image, as well as the importance and value of all forms of art and the institutions that preserve, protect and display them. The partnering institutions include:

 * Brooklyn Museum, 2007
 * Whitney Museum, 2009
 * Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010–current
 * In 2014, NASA and the New York Film Academy announced a new initiative that would enlist students to create original audiovisual materials to raise awareness about the development of the James Webb Space Telescope as part of the academy's STEAM initiative.
 * The New York Film Academy offered a series of ongoing REDucation Workshops in partnership with RED Digital Cinema Camera Company.
 * 10 ARTS Foundation

NYFA founded 10 ARTS Foundation, a nonprofit organization that offers scholarship and funding opportunities for storytellers. The public can volunteer with the organization, donate to a program or educational project.

10 ARTS has NYFA Alliances with National Geographic, TheMET, BAFTA, NASA, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Writers Guild Foundation, Warner Brothers, USAID, National Coalition Against Censorshop, The Hilaria & Alec Baldwin Foundation, USO, TEDx, MultiChoice, Alexandra Skiba Memorial Scholarship, Tribeca Film Festival, AT&T, New York Public Library, Inter-American Development Bank, Fulbright, and more.

The Board of Trustees includes journalist and filmmaker Tony Harris, and film/TV producer Shkh. Al-Zain S. Al-Sabah, Jack McColgan, and Heidi Wissmiller.

Notable faculty
NYFA draws faculty who are active, working professionals in their fields, many of whom are award winners or have formerly taught at such prestigious institutions as Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia University, AFI Conservatory, University of Southern California, Stanford University, Harvard University, Yale University and University of California, Los Angeles. Notable faculty members have included SAG Award-winning actor Matthew Modine, BAFTA Award-winning cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond BSC, ASC, film critic Peter Rainer, actor Bill Duke, writer Heather Hach, director Nag Ashwin, filmmaker Mark Lester, actress Brenda Vaccaro, actor Louis Gossett Jr., actor Mark Olsen, actress and musical theater performer Kristy Cates, director Adam Nimoy, game designer Chris Swain, director Claude Kerven, screenwriter Jim Jennewein, actress Lynda Goodfriend, and actor/director Michael Zelniker.

Notable alumni

 * Adinia Wirasti, actress
 * Adrian Voo, actor
 * Akkineni Naga Chaitanya, actor and producer
 * Alanna Masterson, actress
 * Alaya Furniturewala, actress
 * Alberto Frezza, actor
 * Alex Asogwa, actress, model, film director, producer and anti-bullying activist
 * Alfonso Perugini, actor and film director
 * Alfonso Ribeiro, actor
 * Amanda Du-Pont, actress
 * Andrew Bachelor, actor and internet personality
 * Angela Ismailos, director
 * Anouar H. Smaine - film director, producer, writer, and actor
 * Antonio Chavez Trejo, filmmaker, writer, producer and entrepreneur
 * Athiya Shetty, actress
 * Aubrey Plaza, actress
 * Avinash Tiwary, actor
 * Banky Wellington, rapper and actor
 * Bevin Prince, actor
 * Bill Hader, actor and screenwriter
 * Bita Elahian, actress and filmmaker
 * Brittany Andrews, actress, model, and filmmaker
 * Camilla Luddington, actress
 * Carter Smith, director and photographer
 * Chad Duell, actor
 * Chika Anadu, director and screenwriter
 * Chord Overstreet, actor
 * Damon Wayans, actor and comedian
 * Damon Wayans, Jr., actor and comedian
 * D. B. Woodside, actor
 * Drama Del Rosario, documentarian
 * Eamonn Walker, actor
 * Elyfer Torres, actor
 * Eve Hewson, actress
 * Francesco Panzieri, visual effects artist
 * Gauri Shinde, Director
 * Gerald McMorrow, writer and director
 * Gino M. Santos, director and producer
 * Giorgio Pasotti, actor
 * Greg DeLiso, director
 * Hannah Lux Davis, director
 * Hannah Quinlivan, actress and model
 * Hayden Szeto, actor
 * Imran Khan, actor
 * Issa Rae, creator
 * James Friend, cinematographer
 * Jason Shah, actor
 * Lal Jr., director and screenwriter
 * Jessica Lee Rose, actress
 * Jonathan Morgan Heit, actor
 * Joshua Leonard, actor
 * Julie Tan, actress
 * Justine Wachsberger, actor
 * Kangana Ranaut, actress
 * Kemi Adesoye, screenwriter
 * Kendall Ciesemier, reporter and producer
 * Kira Hagi, actress
 * Kushal Tandon, model and actor
 * Lana Condor, actress
 * Lea Gabrielle, journalist
 * Lio Tipton, model and actress
 * Luv Ranjan, producer, screenwriter, and director
 * Mahsa Saeidi-Azcuy, participant on The Apprentice
 * Maisa Silva, actor and TV presenter
 * Mariana Gómez, actress and singer.
 * Mariano Di Vaio, actor
 * Mariyah Moten, model and pageant queen
 * Masali Baduza, actress
 * Matty Cardarople, actor
 * Mike Pohjola, screenwriter, playwright, novelist
 * Mohamed Diab, director and screenwriter
 * Nag Ashwin, director
 * Nara Rohit, actor
 * Natasha Thahane, actress
 * Naya Rivera, actress
 * Neil Forsyth, screenwriter
 * Niharica Raizada, actress
 * OC Ukeje, actor
 * Omoni Oboli, actress, director, producer, and writer
 * Oshri Cohen, actor
 * Oskar Kuchera, actor, TV presenter, and radio host
 * Paul Dano actor
 * Pevita Pearce, actress
 * Philip Dorling, screenwriter
 * Rafael de la Fuente, actor
 * Ragga Ragnars, actress
 * Rah Digga, actress and rapper
 * Raphaela Neihausen, producer
 * Rekha Rana, actress
 * Rob Margolies, writer and director
 * Rohit Gupta, director
 * Ronen Rubinstein, actor
 * Sasha Cohen, actress and figure skater
 * Sean Robinson, film director and editor
 * Shaquille O'Neal, basketball player and actor
 * Sharad Malhotra, actor
 * Shehzad Sheikh, actor
 * Shirley Setia, singer and actress
 * Somy Ali, actress
 * Stephanie Cayo, actress
 * Stephanie Okereke Linus, actress
 * Tharun Bhascker Dhaassyam, director
 * Tracy Oliver, writer, producer, and actor
 * Trevor Matthews, producer and actor
 * Tushar Tyagi, director
 * Vittoria Chierici, artist

title: New York Film Academy


text:
Almarestäket

Almarestäket, or Stäket, is a strait at the inlet of Lake Mälaren in central-eastern Sweden. A fortress existed there between about 1370 and 1517.

A place mentioned as Stocksund by Old Norse author Snorre Sturlasson was once believed to be located here, but is now believed to have been located in Norrström, 2 km to the west.

The strait was of importance before Stockholm was founded in the 14th century, as it guarded the waterway to the significant Swedish medieval cities Uppsala and Sigtuna. For instance, an attack on Sigtuna by Baltic Vikings in 1187 led to a battle at Almarestäket, resulting in the death of Archbishop Johannes.

Fortress
There was a fortress built here in the mid-late 14th century, under the reign of Albert of Sweden. It was located on the small island Stäkesön in the middle of the strait. It became the residence of the Swedish Archbishop until 1517, when the Archbishop Gustav Trolle locked himself in there to avoid trial, and the Swedish government demanded and carried out the demolition of the fortress. The procedure was formally unauthorized because at the time State property was to be separate from Church property. As a revenge for this and other perceived injustices, Trolle, assisted by the Danish King Christian II, took revenge in the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520.

Trench
There was a trench dug near Almarestäket in the 17th or early 18th century, as a defence structure. Most of it was filled up in 1875 when the main line railroad (Västra Stambanan) was built in Sweden. The area was again built upon in the 1970s, when a highway was constructed.

title: Almarestäket


text:
Clustal

Clustal is a computer program used for multiple sequence alignment in bioinformatics. The software and its algorithms have gone through several iterations, with ClustalΩ (Omega) being the latest version. It is available as standalone software, via a web interface, and through a server hosted by the European Bioinformatics Institute.

Clustal has been an important bioinformatic software, with two of its academic publications amongst the top 100 papers cited of all time, according to Nature in 2014.

Version history

 * Clustal: The original software for multiple sequence alignments, created by Des Higgins in 1988, was based on deriving phylogenetic trees from pairwise sequences of amino acids or nucleotides.
 * ClustalV: The second generation of Clustal, released in 1992. It introduced the ability to create new alignments from existing alignments in a process known as phylogenetic tree reconstruction. ClustalV also added the option to create trees using the neighbor joining method.
 * ClustalW: The third generation, released in 1994. It improved upon the progressive alignment algorithm, including sequence weighting options based on similarity and divergence. Additionally, it added the option to run Clustal in batch mode from the command line.
 * ClustalX: Released in 1997, this was the first version to have a graphical user interface.
 * Clustal2: This updated both ClustalW and ClustalX with higher accuracy and efficiency in 2007.
 * ClustalΩ (Omega): The current version, released in 2011.

Name origin
The guide tree in the initial versions of Clustal was constructed via a UPGMA cluster analysis of the pairwise alignments, hence the name CLUSTAL. cf. The first four versions of Clustal were numbered using Arabic numerals (1 to 4), whereas the fifth version uses the Roman numeral V. cf. The next two versions proceed alphabetically using the Latin alphabet, with W standing for weighted and X for X Window to represent the changes introduced. cf. The name Omega was chosen to mark a change from the previous iterations.

Function
Clustal aligns sequences using a heuristic that progressively builds a multiple sequence alignment from a set of pairwise alignments. This method works by analyzing the sequences as a whole and using the UPGMA/neighbor-joining method to generate a distance matrix. A guide tree is calculated from the scores of the sequences in the matrix, then subsequently used to build the multiple sequence alignment by progressively aligning the sequences in order of similarity.

Clustal creates multiple sequence alignments through three main steps:
 * 1) Complete a pairwise alignment using the progressive alignment method.
 * 2) Create a guide tree (or use a user-defined tree).
 * 3) Use the guide tree to carry out a multiple alignment.

These steps are carried out automatically by the function "Do Complete Alignment". Other options are "Do Alignment from guide tree and phylogeny" and "Produce guide tree only".

Input/Output
This program accepts a wide range of input formats, including NBRF/PIR, FASTA, EMBL/Swiss-Prot, Clustal, GCC/MSF, GCG9 RSF, and GDE.

The output format can be one or many of the following: Clustal, NBRF/PIR, GCG/MSF, PHYLIP, GDE, or NEXUS. The same symbols are shown for both DNA/RNA alignments and protein alignments, so while * (asterisk) symbols are useful for both, the other consensus symbols should be ignored for DNA/RNA alignments.

Settings
The gap opening penalty and gap extension penalty parameters can be adjusted by the user.

Brief summary
The original Clustal software was developed in 1988 as a computational method for generating multiple sequence alignments on personal computers. ClustalV was released 4 years later and greatly improved upon the original software, adding and altering few key features. It was a full re-write, written in C instead of Fortran.

Algorithm
Both versions use the same fast approximate algorithm to calculate the similarity scores between sequences, which in turn produces the pairwise alignments. The algorithm works by calculating the similarity scores as the number of k-tuple matches between two sequences, accounting for a set penalty for gaps. The more similar the sequences, the higher the score. Once the sequences are scored, a dendrogram is generated through the UPGMA to generate an ordering of the multiple sequence alignment. Sequences are aligned in descending order by set order. This algorithm allows for very large data sets and is fast. However, the speed is dependent on the range of k-tuple matches selected for the particular sequence type.

Notable ClustalV improvements
Some of the most notable additions in ClustalV are profile alignments, and full command line interface options. The ability to use profile alignments allows the user to align two or more previous alignments or sequences to a new alignment and move misaligned sequences (low scored) further down the alignment order. This gives the user the option to gradually and methodically create multiple sequence alignments with more control than the basic option. The option to run from the command line expedites the multiple sequence alignment process. Sequences can be run with a simple command,

or

and the program will determine what type of sequence it is analyzing. When the program is completed, the output of the multiple sequence alignment as well as the dendrogram go to files with .aln and .dnd extensions respectively. The command line interface uses the default parameters, and doesn't allow for other options.

Brief summary
ClustalW, like other Clustal versions, is used for aligning multiple nucleotide or protein sequences efficiently. It uses progressive alignment methods, which prioritize sequences for alignment based on similarity until a global alignment is returned. ClustalW is a matrix-based algorithm, whereas tools like T-Coffee and Dialign are consistency-based. ClustalW is efficient, with competitive in comparison with similar software. This program requires three or more sequences in order to calculate a global alignment. For binary sequence alignment, other tools such as EMBOSS or LALIGN should be used.

Algorithm
ClustalW uses progressive alignment algorithms. In these, sequences are aligned in most-to-least alignment score order. This heuristic is necessary to restrict the time- and memory-complexity required to find the globally optimal solution.

First, the algorithm computes a pairwise distance matrix between all pairs of sequences (pairwise sequence alignment). Next, a neighbor-joining method uses midpoint rooting to create an overall guide tree. A diagram of this method is illustrated to the right. Finally, the guide tree is used as an approximate template to generate a global alignment.

Time complexity
ClustalW has a time complexity of $$O(N^2)$$ because of its use of the neighbor-joining method.

ClustalW2 added an option to use UPGMA instead which is faster for large input sizes. The command line flag in order to use it instead of neighbor-joining is: As an approximate example, while a 10,000 sequences input would take over an hour for neighbor-joining, UPGMA would complete in less than a minute.

ClustalW2 also added an iterative alignment accuracy. This option does not increase efficiency, but it does offer the ability to increase alignment accuracy. This can be especially useful for small datasets.

The following flags activate iterative alignment: The first option refines the final alignment. The second option incorporates the scheme in the progressive alignment step. The third specifies the number of iteration cycles, where the default value is set to 3.

Accuracy and Results
The algorithm ClustalW uses is nearly optimal. It is most effective for datasets with a large degree of variance. On such datasets, the process of generating a guide tree is less sensitive to noise. ClustalW was one of the first multiple sequence alignment algorithms to combine pairwise alignment and global alignment to increase speed, but this decision reduces result accuracy.

When multiple sequence alignment algorithms were compared in 2014, ClustalW was one of the fastest that was able to produce results at the desired level of accuracy. However, it was not as accurate as consistency-based competitors such as T-Coffee. Out of MAFFT, T-Coffee, and Clustal Omega, ClustalW has the lowest accuracy for full-length sequences, but its accuracy is still considered acceptable. Additionally, ClustalW was the most memory-efficient algorithm of those studied. Continued updates to the software have made ClustalW2 more accurate while maintaining this speed.

Brief summary
ClustalΩ (alternatively written as Clustal O and Clustal Omega) is a fast and scalable program written in C and C++ used for multiple sequence alignment. It uses seeded guide trees and a new HMM engine that focuses on two profiles to generate these alignments. The program requires three or more sequences in order to calculate the multiple sequence alignment. Clustal Omega is consistency-based and is widely viewed as one of the fastest online implementations of all multiple sequence alignment tools and still ranks high in accuracy, among both consistency-based and matrix-based algorithms.

Algorithm
Clustal Omega has five main steps in order to generate the multiple sequence alignment.

 * 1) A pairwise alignment is produced using the k-tuple method.This is a heuristic method that isn't guaranteed to find an optimal solution, but is more efficient than using dynamic programming.
 * 2) Sequences are clustered using the modified mBed method. The mBed method calculates pairwise distance using sequence embedding.
 * 3) The k-means clustering method is applied.
 * 4) A guide tree is constructed using the UPGMA method. In the figure to the right, this is shown as multiple guide tree steps leading into one final guide tree construction because of the agglomerative nature of UPGMA. At each step (diamonds in the flowchart), the nearest two clusters are combined. This is repeated until a final, global tree can be assessed.
 * 5) The final multiple sequence alignment is produced with the HHAlign package from the HH-Suite using two profile HMM's. A profile HMM is a linear state machine consisting of a series of nodes, each of which corresponds roughly to a position (column) in the alignment from which it was built.

Time complexity
The time complexity of exactly computing an optimal alignment of $$N$$sequences of length $$L$$ is $$O(L^N)$$ which is prohibitive for even a small number of sequences. To manage this, Clustal Omega uses a modified version of mBed which has a complexity of $$O(N \log N) $$, and produces guide trees that are as accurate as those from conventional methods. The speed and accuracy of the guide trees in Clustal Omega is attributed to the implementation of a modified mBed algorithm. It also reduces the computational time and memory requirements to complete alignments on large datasets.

Accuracy and results
The accuracy of Clustal Omega on a small number of sequences is, on average, very similar to what are considered high quality sequence aligners. On extremely large datasets with hundreds of thousands of input sequences, Clustal Omega outperforms all other algorithms in time, memory, and accuracy of results. It is capable of running 100,000+ sequences on one processor in a few hours.

Clustal Omega uses the HHAlign package of the HH-Suite, which aligns two profile Hidden Markov Models instead of a profile-profile comparison. This improves the quality of the sensitivity and alignment significantly. This, combined with the mBed method, gives Clustal Omega its advantage over other sequence aligners.

On data sets with non-conserved terminal bases, Clustal Omega can be more accurate than Probcons or T-Coffee, despite the fact that both are consistency-based algorithms. On an efficiency test with programs that produce high accuracy scores, MAFFT was the fastest, closely followed by Clustal Omega. Both were faster than T-Coffee, however MAFFT and Clustal Omega required more memory to run.

Clustal2 (ClustalW/ClustalX)
Clustal2 is the packaged release of both the command-line ClustalW and graphical Clustal X. Neither are new tools, but are updated and improved versions of the previous implementations seen above. Both downloads come pre-compiled for many operating systems like Linux, Mac OS X and Windows (both XP and Vista). This release was designed to make the website more organized and user friendly, as well as updating the source codes to their most recent versions. Clustal2 is version 2 of both ClustalW and ClustalX, which is where it gets its name. Past versions can still be found on the website, however, every pre-compilation is now up to date.

title: Clustal