AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a "private" humanitarian organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The ICRC has a special job, based on the Geneva Conventions as well as other international law, to protect the victims of international and internal armed conflicts. This includes people hurt in war, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants. But the ICRC is a private organisation. It is not controlled by any government, group of governments or international organisation
It is the oldest organisation within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and one of the most widely recognized organisations in the world. It is also the most honoured. The ICRC has won three Nobel Peace Prizes; in 1917, 1944, and 1963.
Up until the middle of the 19th century, there was no organized army nursing for casualties and no safe place to house and treat the injured soldiers.
Swiss businessman Henry Dunant saw the Battle of Solferino, in the Austro-Sardinian War. The battle only lasted one day, but about 40,000 soldiers on both sides were killed or were left severely hurt on the battlefield.
Dunant was shocked by the suffering of the wounded soldiers, and the lack of medical help. He cancelled his trip to see Emperor Napoleon III and spent several days helping to treat and care for the wounded.
He wrote a book about what he saw, called "A Memory of Solferino". he published it with his own money in 1862, and sent copies of the book to leading political and military figures throughout Europe. The book did not only describe what Dunant saw, but called for the setting up of national voluntary relief organisations to help nurse wounded soldiers in the case of war. Dunant also called for international treaties to guarantee the neutrality and protection for the wounded and for medics and field hospitals.
The Geneva Society for Public Welfare set up a committee to try to organise an international conference about Dunant's idea. The "Committee of the Five" met on 9 February 1863, the members were:
The committee soon changed its name to the "International Committee for Relief to the Wounded".
In October 1863, the international conference it organised took place in Geneva to talk about improving medical services on the battle field.
31 people joined the committee at the conference: eighteen official delegates from national governments, six delegates from other non-governmental organisations, and seven non-official foreign delegates. The official delegates came from:
The conference wanted:
Only one year later, the Swiss government invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the United States, Brazil, and Mexico, to attend an official diplomatic conference. Sixteen countries sent a total of twenty-six delegates to Geneva. On 22 August 1864, the conference adopted the first Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field". Representatives of 12 states and kingdoms signed the convention: Baden, Belgium, Denmark, France, Hesse, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Switzerland, Spain, and Württemberg. The convention contained ten articles, establishing for the first time legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict.
Also, the convention had two requirements before a national relief society would be recognised by the International Committee:
The first national societies were founded in Belgium, Denmark, France, Oldenburg, Prussia, Spain, and Württemberg. Also in 1864, Louis Appia and Charles van de Velde, a captain of the Dutch Army, became the first independent and neutral delegates to work under the symbol of the Red Cross in an armed conflict. Three years later in 1867, the first International Conference of National Aid Societies for the Nursing of the War Wounded was convened.
Dunant left the committee in 1867 after arguing with other members. In 1876, the committee changed its name to the"International Committee of the Red Cross" (ICRC), which is still its official name today. Five years later, the American Red Cross was founded through the efforts of Clara Barton. More and more countries signed the Geneva Convention and began to respect it in practice during armed conflicts. The Red Cross quickly became an internationally respected movement, and the national societies became increasingly popular as a venue for volunteer work.
When the first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901, the Norwegian Nobel Committee opted to give it to Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy, a leading campaigner against war. The International Committee of the Red Cross officially congratulated Dunant and was a tribute to his key role in the formation of the Red Cross. Dunant died nine years later in the small Swiss health resort of Heiden. Only two months earlier his former friend and committee member Gustave Moynier had also died.
By the start of the First World War in 1914, there were 45 national relief societies throughout the world. The movement had grown beyond Europe and North America to Central and South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Uruguay, Venezuela), Asia (the Republic of China, Japan, Korea, Siam), and Africa (Republic of South Africa). The Geneva Convention had been changed to include fighting at sea as well as on land.
In World War I Red Cross nurses came from around the world, including the United States and Japan, came to help the medical services of the armed forces of the countries involved in the war in Europe.
On 15 October 1914, immediately after the start of the war, the ICRC set up its International Prisoners-of-War (POW) Agency. By the end of the war, the Agency had sent about 20 million letters and messages, 1.9 million parcels, and about 18 million Swiss francs to POWs of all affected countries. The Agency also arranged for about 200,000 prisoners to be released and returned to their home country. The Agency collected about 7 million records from 1914 to 1923 about prisoners or missing people. The card index helped to identify about 2 million POWs and to contact their families. The complete index of 7 million cards is on loan from the ICRC to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva. But only ICRC can search the index.
The ICRC got the only Nobel Peace Prize of the war years, in 1917, for its outstanding wartime work.
In 1923, the Committee changed its membership rules. Until then, only citizens of the city of Geneva could serve in the Committee. This was changed to include all citizens of Switzerland by birth. This is still the rule today, and is designed to show that the ICRC is neutral, and that committee members and workers have never been citizens of a country that might be involved in a war. Only in 1993 were non-Swiss-born people allowed to work for the committee.
In 1934 the ICRC tried to get extra protection for civilians during war. Unfortunately most governments were not interested in adopting the extra rules before the start of World War II.
The Geneva Conventions, as amended in 1929, governed what the ICRC did. revision . The activities of the Committee were similar to those during World War I:
By the end of the war, 179 delegates had conducted 12,750 visits to POW camps in 41 countries. The Central Information Agency on Prisoners-of-War ("Zentralauskunftsstelle für Kriegsgefangene") had a staff of 3,000, the card index tracking prisoners contained 45 million cards (more than 6 times as many as world war 1), and 120 million messages were exchanged by the Agency.
The German Red Cross was controlled by the Nazis, and would not uphold the Geneva conventions which may have helped stop the deportation of Jews from Germany and the mass murders conducted in the concentration camps run by the German government.
Two other main countries in the war, the Soviet Union and Japan, were not party to the 1929 Geneva Conventions and were not legally required to follow the rules of the conventions. Thus, other countries were not bound to follow the Conventions regarding their prisoners in return.
The ICRC had to stop complaining about the treatment of detainees in concentration camps in case the ICRC was stopped from working for POWs.
After November 1943, the ICRC could send parcels to concentration camp detainees with known names and locations. Because the notices of receipt for these parcels were often signed by other inmates, the ICRC managed to register the identities of about 105,000 detainees in the concentration camps and delivered about 1.1 million parcels, mostly to the camps Dachau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen.
On 12 March 1945, ICRC president Jacob Burckhardt was told by SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner that the ICRC's delegates could visit the concentration camps, but the delegates would have to stay in the camps until the end of the war. Ten delegates, among them Louis Haefliger (Camp Mauthausen), Paul Dunant (Camp Theresienstadt) and Victor Maurer (Camp Dachau), visited the camps.
Louis Haefliger told American troops about the forceful eviction or blasting of Mauthausen-Gusen and saved the lives of about 60,000 inmates. His actions were condemned by the ICRC because they were deemed as acting unduly on his own authority and risking the ICRC's neutrality. Only in 1990, his reputation was finally rehabilitated by ICRC president Cornelio Sommaruga.
Another example of great humanitarian spirit was Friedrich Born (1903-1963), an ICRC delegate in Budapest who saved the lives of about 11,000 to 15,000 Jewish people in Hungary. Marcel Junod (1904-1961), a doctor from Geneva, was another famous delegate during the Second World War. He was one of the first foreigners to visit Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped, and wrote his thoughts in his book "Warrior without Weapons".
In 1944, the ICRC got its third Nobel Peace Prize.
On 12 August 1949, the existing two Geneva Conventions were changed, and the Hague Convention about casualties at sea was brought into the Geneva Convention "family". It was renamed the Second Geneva Covention, and so the second convention of 1929 is now called the third convention. The Fourth Geneva Convention, about the "Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War," was established. On 8 June 1977 extra article "protocols" were added to make the conventions apply to internal conflicts such as civil wars.
In 1963, the ICRC shared its third Nobel Peace Prize with the League of Red Cross Societies.
Since 1993, non-Swiss citizens have been allowed to serve as Committee delegates abroad, a task which was previously restricted to Swiss citizens. Now about one third of staff are not Swiss citizens.
On 16 October 1990, the UN General Assembly gave the ICRC observer status for its assembly sessions and sub-committee meetings, the first observer status given to a private organization. The resolution was jointly proposed by 138 member states and introduced by the Italian ambassador, Vieri Traxler, in memory of the organization's origins in the Battle of Solferino.
An agreement with the Swiss government signed on 19 March 1993, affirmed the already long-standing policy of full independence of the Committee from any interference by Switzerland. The agreement protects the full sanctity of all ICRC property in Switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the ICRC from all taxes and fees, guarantees the protected and duty-free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the ICRC with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies Committee travel in and out of Switzerland.
The ICRC continued its activities throughout the 1990s. It broke its usual silence when it denounced the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, and again in 1995 about the crimes that happened in and around Srebrenica when it said, "We must acknowledge that despite our efforts to help thousands of civilians forcibly expelled from the town and despite the dedication of our colleagues on the spot, the ICRC's impact on the unfolding of the tragedy was extremely limited." It went public once again in 2007 to decry "major human rights abuses" by Burma's military government including forced labor, starvation, and murder of men, women, and children.
At the end of the Cold War, the ICRC's work actually became more dangerous. In the 1990s, more delegates lost their lives than at any point in its history, especially when working in local and internal armed conflicts. These incidents often demonstrated a lack of respect for the rules of the Geneva Conventions and their protection symbols. Among the slain delegates were:
The original motto of the International Committee of the Red Cross was "Inter Arma Caritas" ("Amidst War, Charity"). It has preserved this motto while other Red Cross organizations have adopted others. Because Geneva is in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the ICRC is also known under its French name "Comité international de la Croix-Rouge" (CICR). However, the ICRC has six official languages, including Arabic. The official symbol of the ICRC is the Red Cross on white background (the inverse of the Swiss flag)with the words "COMITE INTERNATIONAL GENEVE" circling the cross.
The ICRC drew up seven fundamental principles in 1965 that were adopted by the entire Red Cross Movement. They are
The 2005 budget of the ICRC was about 970 million Swiss francs. All payments to the ICRC are voluntary and are received as donations based on two types of appeals issued by the Committee: an annual "Headquarters Appeal" to cover its internal costs and "Emergency Appeals" for its individual missions.
Most of the ICRC's funding comes from Switzerland and the United States, with the other European states and the E.U. close behind. Together with Australia, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand, they contribute about 80-85% of the ICRC's budget. About 3% comes from private gifts, and the rest comes from national Red Cross societies.
The ICRC is responsible for legally recognizing a relief society as an official national Red Cross or Red Crescent society and thus accepting it into the Movement. The exact rules are in the statutes of the Movement. After recognition by the ICRC, a national society is admitted as a member to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. The ICRC and the Federation cooperate with the individual national societies in their international missions, especially with human, material, and financial resources and organizing on-site logistics. According to the 1997 Seville Agreement, the ICRC is the lead Red Cross agency in conflicts while other organizations within the Movement take the lead in non-war situations. National societies will be given the lead especially when a conflict is happening within their own country.
The ICRC headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. It has other offices, called "Delegations", in about 80 countries. Each delegation is under the responsibility of a Head of delegation who is the official representative of the ICRC in the country. Of its 2,000 professional employees, roughly 800 work in its Geneva headquarters and 1,200 expatriates work in the field. About half of the field workers serve as delegates managing ICRC operations in the different countries while the other half are specialists like doctors, agronomists, engineers or interpreters. The international staff are assisted by some 13,000 national employees, so about 15,000 people work for the ICRC.
The Directorate is the executive body of the Committee.It carries out the policies set by the assembly.
The Directorate consists of a Director-General and five directors in the areas of "Operations", "Human Resources", "Resources and Operational Support", "Communication", and "International Law and Cooperation within the Movement". The members of the Directorate are appointed by the Assembly to serve for four years. The Director-General has assumed more personal responsibility in recent years, much like a CEO, where he was formerly more of a first among equals at the Directorate.
The Assembly (also called the Committee) convenes on a regular basis and is responsible for defining aims, guidelines, and strategies and for supervising the financial matters of the Committee. The Assembly has a membership of a maximum of 25 Swiss citizens. Members must speak the house language of French, but many also speak English and German as well. These Assembly members are co-opted for a period of four years, and there is no limit to the number of terms an individual member can serve. A three-quarters majority vote from all members is required for re-election after the third term, which acts as a motivation for members to remain active and productive.
In the early years, every Committee member was Genevan, Protestant, white, and male. The first woman, Renée-Marguerite Cramer, was co-opted in 1918. Since then, several women have attained the Vice Presidency, and the female proportion after the Cold War has been about 15%. The first non-Genevans were admitted in 1923, and one Jew has served in the Assembly.
While the rest of the Red Cross Movement many be multi-national, the Committee believes that its mono-national nature is an asset because the nationality in question is Swiss. Thanks to permanent Swiss neutrality, conflicting parties can be sure that no one from "the enemy" will be setting policy in Geneva. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 showed that even National Red Cross Societies can be biased and not maintain neutral humanitarianism.
Furthermore, the Assembly elects a five-member Assembly Council that constitutes an especially active core of the Assembly. The Council meets at least ten times per year and has the authority to decide on behalf of the full Assembly in some matters. The Council is also responsible for organizing the Assembly meetings and for helping communication between the Assembly and the Directorate. The Assembly Council normally includes the president, two vice presidents and two elected members. While one of the vice presidents is elected for a four-year term, the other is appointed permanently with his tenure ending by retirement from the vice presidency or from the Committee. Currently Jacques Forster and Olivier Vodoz are vice presidents. In April 2007, Christine Beerli was appointed to succeed Jacques Forster from the beginning of 2008.
The Assembly also selects, for a term of four years, one individual to act as President of the ICRC. The president is both a member of the Assembly and leader of the ICRC, and he has always been included on the Council since its formation. The President automatically becomes a member of the assembly and the ICRC once he is appointed, but he does not necessarily come from within the ICRC organization. There is a strong faction within the Assembly that wants to reach outside the organization to select a president from the Swiss government or professional circles like the banking or medical fields. In fact, the last three presidents were previously officials in the Swiss government. The president's influence and role is not well-defined, and changes depending upon the times and each president's personal style. Since 2000, the president of the ICRC has been Jakob Kellenberger. Kellenberger does not make many public appearances or statements but is good at personal negotiation promoting the ICRC privately. In February 2007, he was appointed by the Assembly to another four-year term which will run until the end of 2011.
The presidents of the ICRC have been:
The ICRC tends to work quietly and not attract publicity, unlike some other aid agencies. This way it was been able to get access to, for example, Nelson Mandela, when he was still a prisoner of the apartheid government of South Africa.
Meridian, Mississippi
Meridian is the county seat of Lauderdale County in Mississippi, a state of the United States of America. Meridian is the sixth-largest city in the state of Mississippi and the principal city of the Meridian, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 39,968 at the 2000 census. The current population is larger than in the 2000 census. A recent annexation, in addition to seeing many displaced coastal residents after Hurricane Katrina (many of them have made Meridian their permanent residence), have put the population over 40,000.
Hydrometeorological Prediction Center
The Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (a.k.a. HPC) is one of nine Service Centers that are part of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), which is part of the National Weather Service, which in turn is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the U.S. government.
The HPC serves as a center of excellence in Quantitative Precipitation Forecasting, Medium Range Forecasting (three to seven days) and the interpretation of numerical weather prediction models.
The HPC issues storm summaries on storm systems bringing significant rainfall and snowfall to portions of the United States. Advisories are also issued for tropical cyclones which have moved inland and are no longer the responsibility of the National Hurricane Center. The HPC also acts as the backup office to the National Hurricane Center in the event of a complete communications failure.
The HPC was created in October 1995, when the former National Meteorological Center was reorganised into the NCEP. It is based at the World Weather Building in Camp Springs, Maryland, along with a few of the other National Centers such as the Climate Prediction Center (CPC), the Ocean Prediction Center (OPC), and the Environmental Modeling Center (EMC).
Côte-Nord
Côte-Nord (French for "Northern Coast", area 247,627.06 km², or 95,609.34 sq mi) is the second largest administrative region by land area in Quebec, Canada. It covers much of the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River's estuary and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence past Tadoussac. At the 2006 census it had a resident population of 95,911 inhabitants.
Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean
Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean is a region in Quebec, Canada.
Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana
Plaquemines Parish (Cajun French: "Paroisse Plaquemine") is the parish with the biggest combined land and water area in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Pointe à la Hache. As of 2000, the parish's population was 26,757.
The name is pronounced (transcription in IPA).
Naiad (moon)
Naiad or Neptune III is the closest moon to Neptune named after the Naiads of Greek legend. It was found sometime before mid-September, 1989 from the images taken by the "Voyager 2" probe. The last moon to be discovered during the flyby, it was designated S/1989 N 6. Naiad is not a sphere and probably has not been changed by any internal geological processes after its formation. It orbits about 23,500 km above Neptune's cloud tops.
Since the "Voyager 2" flyby, the Neptune system has been studied a lot from ground-based observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope as well. In 2002-03, Keck telescope looked at the system using adaptive optics and detected easily the biggest four closer satellites. Thalassa was found with some image processing, but Naiad was not located.
Tamsui (Chinese: 淡水鎮, Taiwanese: Tām-súi/Tām-chúi, Tongyong Pinyin: Danshuei, Hanyu Pinyin: Danshui) is a sea-side town in Taipei County, Taiwan. The town has a population of 130,105 people. It is named after a river whose name means "Freshwater". The town is also popular as a site for viewing the sun setting into the Taiwan Strait. There are three universities in this small town.
Lovisa Aarberg
Lovisa Aarberg "(from 1803 -1866)" was a Swedish surgeon and doctor.
She and Kisamor were the first female doctors in Sweden. She was a doctor and a surgeon long before it was permitted for women. In Sweden, her name is spelled as Lovisa Årberg, and she was often called "Jungfru Årberg", which means "Maiden Årberg" in English.
Lovisa Årberg was born in Uppsala. Her mother often nursed sick people, and when Lovisa was a child, she followed her mother to the hospitals. She learned a lot about sickness and medicine and how to cure and nurse sick people, and often helped people she knew when they were sick.
When she was an adult, she moved to Stockholm and became a maid. People had heard that she was good at helping sick people, and often came and asked her for help. Soon, even rich people started to ask her for help. The paid her money when she cured them, so she could stop being a maid and could start to work as a doctor instead. Lovisa then opened her own clinic and started to work as a doctor and a surgeon.
She opened her clinic and started to work as a doctor in the 1820s. In the 1820s, it was forbidden for a woman to work as a doctor. The male doctors did not like that a woman worked as a doctor, and the government was worried that she might hurt her patients as she had never learned medicine at a university. But when they examined her, they found out that she was a very good doctor, and that she had all the knowledge that the male doctors had.
So instead, they gave her a medal and special permission to work as a surgeon and a doctor. She continued to work as a doctor for forty years, until the 1860s. She gave treatment to poor people, even when they did not have the money to pay her. She was a popular doctor, and many people asked her for help. She worked very hard until she became unhealthy, so she often had to take time to rest.
Kisamor
Kisamor, (1788-1842), was a famous female doctor in Sweden. Her real name was Maria Jansson, but she was always called Kisamor. Kisamor means "The Mother in Kisa" in English, and Kisa was the place were she worked. She was a doctor before it was allowed for a woman to be a doctor, and she is the most famous woman doctor in Sweden in the 19th century.
She was born in Örebro. Her father was a doctor in natural medicine, and she wanted to become one too. But her father wouldn't let her. Instead, her forced her to marry a farmer. The marriage became unhappy, and she divorced her husband.
She often visited sick people and worked as a doctor in natural medicine. One day, she was given a house in Östergötland as a gift by some rich women after she had made them well after sickness. She visited the sick in their cottages, and sometimes they came to her in the inn called Kisa, and therefore, she was called "The Mother in Kisa".
She became famous, and people came to her from all over the country to ask her for help. In 1825, she was given special permission to work as a doctor, even though it was forbidden for a woman to work as a doctor.
Amalia Lindegren
Amalia Lindegren, (1814-1891), was a famous Swedish painter.
She became an orphan when her mother died in 1817. Then, she was adopted by the widow of Benjamin Sandel. Benjamin Sandel is thought to have been her real father.
Amalia liked to draw and wanted to become an artist. When the artist Qvarnström saw her drawings, he got her a permission to study art at the Swedish Academy of Arts in 1849. They thought she was very promising and had great talent. In 1850, she became the first woman who got a scholarship by the Academy to study art in Paris.
In 1856, she was elected to become a member in to the Swedish Academy of Arts. She showed people her paintings in the exhibitions in Paris in 1867, Philadelphia in 1876, and in Chicago in 1893.
Thalassa (moon)
Thalassa or Neptune IV, is the second closest moon to Neptune. It was named after a daughter of Aether and Hemera from Greek mythology.
"Thalassa" is also the Greek word for "sea".
Thalassa was discovered sometime before mid-September, 1989 from the images taken by the "Voyager 2" probe. It was given the designation S/1989 N 5. The discovery was said (IAUC 4867) on September 29, 1989, but the text only talks of "25 frames taken over 11 days", giving a discovery date of sometime before September 18. The name was given on 16 September 1991.
Thalassa is not a sphere and shows no sign of any geological changes. Unusually for a non-spherical moon, it appears to be oddly shaped not able to be explained.
Bayerischer Rundfunk
Bayerischer Rundfunk is the main German radio and television broadcasting company for Bavaria. It is a member of the ARD public broadcasting group.
It includes the following broadcasting services:
the radio stations
and the TV channels
Circadian rhythm sleep disorder
Circadian rhythm sleep disorders happen when the circadian rhythm is not working correctly. They make people sleep and wake at times that are not normal, but these people usually have 8 hours of good sleep. These disorders affect other systems in the body, too, and not just sleep. Circadian rhythms also control appetite, body temperature rhythm and hormone cycles.
"Extrinsic" means something which comes from outside rather than from within a system or an organism. There are two circadian rhythm sleep disorders of the extrinsic type:
Jet Lag often affects people who have travelled several hours east or west, through several time zones. It may take many days for the body to adjust. The name "jet lag" comes from travelling by jet aircraft.
Many people have health problems when they work a shift during the times when their circadian rhythms say that they should be asleep. Most people who work later than midnight find it difficult to stay awake.
"Intrinsic" means something which happens or comes from within a system or an organism. There are four circadian rhythm sleep disorders of the intrinsic type. Unless they are caused by a head injury, they are usually genetic, that is, people are born with them. They are generally chronic; they do not go away, but they may sometimes be treated.
Advanced sleep-phase syndrome (ASPS) is very rare. People with this syndrome are sleepy very early in the evening and they sleep from about 19:00-20:00 in the evening to about 03:00-04:00 in the early morning. Often several people in the same family have ASPS.
Delayed sleep-phase syndrome (DSPS) is more common than ASPS and it affects about 0.15% of adults. It usually starts in early childhood or at puberty. Some cases that start at puberty go away when the person is about 20 or 21 years old. DSPS is much more common in teenagers than in adults. DSPS in people older than about 20 usually will have it all their lives, that is, it is chronic.
People with DSPS cannot go to sleep before 03:00-06:00 in the morning, or even later. They cannot wake up in time for school or a job which starts in the morning. They can go to sleep at the same time every night and get up at the same time each day. This means that they are "entrained" (adjusted, synchronized) to the daily light/dark cycle. Even when they try to sleep at "normal" times, they feel most awake late at night.
Non-24-hour sleep-wake syndrome (Non-24) is quite rare. People with Non-24 have very unusual sleep timing. Their sleep and wake times are not regulated by daylight; they are not "entrained" (adjusted, synchronized) to the daily light/dark cycle. This is called freerunning sleep.
The worst circadian rhythm sleep disorder in people who can see is Non-24; their "daily" rhythm lasts 25 hours or more so they sleep and wake up one or more hours later each day. Appetite, body temperature rhythm and hormone cycles all keep moving around the clock, coming back to the same time after a few weeks.
About half of totally blind people, who can see no light at all, have Non-24. Their daily rhythm is not exactly 24 hours and it does not adjust to the light/dark cycle in nature because they can not see light. This can often be treated.
Irregular sleep-wake disorder is rare, and it is often possible to find out what causes it, for example, a head injury, a mental handicap, dementia or some other sicknesses. People with this disorder sleep and wake several times a day, but not at the same times every day. They sleep about 8 hours a day but never 8 hours together.
Treatment for these disorders often does not work well. In addition, it can be difficult to find a doctor who knows much about circadian rhythms, as the field of study is quite new.
Treatment with bright light is also called phototherapy or light therapy. People with ASPS need a lot of light in the evening and they should avoid bright light in the morning. People with DSPS need bright light as soon as they wake up and should try to avoid bright light before bedtime.
Melatonin is a hormone produced in the pineal gland in the brain. It is normally only produced in the evening and at night. People with ASPS can take melatonin by mouth in the morning. People with DSPS can take melatonin in the afternoon or evening, and this treatment works also for some people with Non-24.
One can buy melatonin in the shops in the USA and Canada. In most other countries one must get it from a doctor or it might not be legal at all.
Asian elephant
The Asian elephant ("Elephas maximus") is the elephant species living in Asia. They are more easily tamed than larger African elephants. People have used them as working animals for hundreds of years. It is mostly found in parts of India and nearby countries.
Asian elephants are different from African elephants. They are smaller, have smaller ears, a more rounded back, and a fourth toenail on each of their back feet. They have thick, dry skin with a small amount of stiff hair, and are grey to brown in colour. Female Asian elephants have small tusks and occasionally none at all. Sometimes pink spots appear on the ears as a result of loss of pigment.
Asian elephants eat grass, hay, twigs, bark and fruits. It can live up to 60 to 80 years. It can weigh up to 5000kg and be up to 300cm tall. It takes up to 660 days or 22 months until the babies are born.
Asian elephants live across many parts of India and Sri Lanka. They also live as far east as Sumatra, Indonesia. These three areas have subspecies that are slightly different.
Asian elephants are spread over areas with very different amounts of rain. They can survive in dry places where less than 40cm of rain falls per year and in wet areas where over 8 meters of rain falls in a year.
Karolina Bock
Karolina Sofia Bock, (1792-1872), was a Swedish dancer, actor and singer. She also became principal for the famous theatre-school, Dramatens elevskola.
Karolina Bock was born as Karolina Richter. She was a student at the theatrical school Dramatens elevskola in Stockholm between 1806 and 1809, were she was instructed by the principal Sofia Lovisa Gråå. Many of the girls graduating from the school between 1804 and 1812, when Gråå was principal, became famous in Sweden, and were called "the girls of Gråå".
Karolina worked at the theatres Djurgårdsteatern and Nya Komiska Teatern before she was hired at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1814. She worked there for fifty years, and became one of the most popular actors there. But she never became a star because of the parts she played; she always played old women in comedys, never heroines and main parts. She was very well used and never lacked parts to play, but she was not given main parts. It was said, that she had a rare quality; she knew her limitations.
Her most popular parts were in the plays "Min tante Aurore", "Bildhuggaren", "Brodertvisten", "Syrsan", "Preciosa", "Jane Eyre" and "Mäster Smith".
She was principal for Dramatens elevskola two times; the first time from 1831 to 1834, and the second time from 1841 to 1856. She was also teatcher in declamation there. She was the third woman to be principal for the famous school. Anne Marie Milan Desguillons had ben the first in 1793-1800, but she was principal together with her husband. Sofia Lovisa Gråå had ben the first woman who was principal of this school alone, and she was principal in 1804-1812. Karolina Bock was a good teacher, but unlike her own teacher, Sofia Lovisa Gråå, she was very strict and firm with her students, so strict that her students rebelled and had her deposed from her position as principal. But she continued to work as an actor until 1863.
Karolina Bock was married two times. In 1813, she married J.G. Svanberg, who played violin in the royal chapel, and in 1826 she married K.F. Bock, who played the flute in the royal chapel. She had a daughter, Bertha Tammelin, who became an actor, singer, composer, musician and a teacher at Dramatens elevskola.
Karolina Bock was rewarded with the medal Litteris et Artibus in 1857.
Lea Ahlborn
Lea Ahlborn, (1826-1897) was a famous Swedish artist. She was a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Arts, and the first woman to be appointed royal printmaker. The position of royal printmaker also made her the first female official in Sweden.
She was daughter to Ludvig Lundgren, who was a printmaker, and she early decided, that she wanted to become a printmaker too. In 1849, she, as well as Amalia Lindegren and Agnes Börjesson, became one of the four women who were given permission to study art at the Swedish Royal Academy of Arts.
In 1851, she made a study-trip to Paris with her teacher Carl Gustaf Qvarnström and her brother Pehr Henrik.
In 1855, she was appointed royal printmaker, and was also elected as a member in the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. She kept herself updated in everything regarding her work, and was given assignments from the Swedish Academy, the science academy and the royal academy Pro Patria. She made the medal-portraits to the celebration of the anniversary of the king and queen, and she was hired by the US government to make the medal of George Washington at the centenary (hundred years anniversary) of the end of the American War for Independence in 1883. In 1892, she was given the medal "Illis Quorum" by the king.
Her sister, Carolina Weidenhayn, (1822-1902), became the first professional female xylographer, who after she studied in Paris 1858-1867, became an instructor at the great technical school Tekniska Skolan in 1859-1881.
Hedda Hjortsberg
Hedda (Hedvig Katarina) Hjortsberg, (1777-1867), was a Swedish ballerina. She was the sister of Swedish actor Lars Hjortsberg. She became a student of the French ballet-master Louis Gallodier in 1786, at the age of nine. Between 1791 and 1806 she was a premier-dancer at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. She danced the parts of Lucile in the pantomime ballet "Det dubbla giftermålet" by Jean Marcadet in the 1790-1719 season, Leonore in "Enleveringen" by Louis Deland, and Diana in "Diana och Kärleken" by Deland in 1800-1801. She also performed the part of Venus in "Venus och Adonis" by Deland in 1801-1802, and Frosine in "Dansvurmen" by Gardel in 1803-1804. When the Opera was opened again in 1809 after it had been closed since 1806, she performed with her five year old daughter in "Dansvurmen". Hjortsberg married the businessman Erik Samuel Koersner in 1804, and Abraham Hülphers in 1811, and after that, she danced only as a guest-artist.
Despina (moon)
Despina or Neptune V is the third closest moon to Neptune. It is named after Despina, a nymph who was a daughter of Poseidon.
Despina was found in late July 1989 from the images taken by the "Voyager 2" probe. It was given the designation S/1989 N 3.
Despina is not a sphere and shows no sign of any geological changes.
A chef is a person who cooks food as their job. They usually work in restaurants or hotels.
The chef is responsible for everything about the food in a restaurant. He is responsible for buying the food, hiring and supervising the kitchen workers, creating the menus for the customers, and deciding the recipes (the details of how the cooking is done). Some chefs are trained and some are not trained.
The sous-chef (sometimes called an assistant chef) is the chef's main helper. A chef de partie is a 'line chef', in charge of a station in the kitchen. The commis chef works under a chef de partie. It is usually a training position.
The lines or stations in a big kitchen are:
St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana
St. Bernard Parish (; ) is a parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 35,897. The parish seat and largest community is Chalmette. The parish was formed in 1807. In 2006, because of the effects of Hurricane Katrina, about 25,489 people lived there.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the parish has a total area of , of which is land and (83%) is water. It is the second largest parish in Louisiana by total area and has the largest percentage of area in water of any parish.
Slidell, Louisiana
Slidell is the largest city in St. Tammany Parish in Louisiana. It is on the northeast shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 25,695.
St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana
St. Tammany Parish (French: "Paroisse de Saint-Tammany") is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana, in the New Orleans metropolitan area. The parish seat is Covington, and as of 2000, the population was 191,268. In 2004, the population was estimated to have grown to 212,000, and after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina the following year, the population was estimated by St. Tammany Planners to be about 264,000. Most new residents are thought to have come from St. Bernard Parish. If correct, these figures make St. Tammany Parish the fastest-growing parish in the state, overtaking Livingston and Ascension parishes.
Chewing gum
Chewing gum is a type of candy flavored with natural sugar or artificial sweeteners and also flavors such as mint. People chew gum for personal enjoyment and also to help clean teeth. Before it is chewed, the gum comes either soft and chewy or hard and then softens in your mouth.
Chewing gum has already been invented many years ago from spruce sap and beeswax. The first real gum has been sold two years before flavored ones became popular. 30 years after, in 1880 chewing gums tasted for a longer time. After this many famous brands started inventing ways to improve or adding flavor to the chewing gum to make it like it is today.
The effects of chewing gum on the health are different. Sugar free chewing gum is sometimes recommended by dentists, because it can clean the teeth. Chewing gum which contains sugar can, depending on the kind of sugar, harm the teeth. Gum can help to avoid snacks.
The new version of chewing gum has environmental effects, because it cannot rot easily. Also, it is hard to clean up if it sticks somewhere.
According to studies, chewing gum can have a good effect on concentration. There are many other effects on people coming from different new invented chewing gums, like dry mouth gum, or energy gum.
Herat (, Herāt) is the third largest city of Afghanistan with about 436,300 people living in it as of 2012.436,300 as of 2012. It is the capital of a Herat province. It is in the west of the country, close to the border of Iran. The spoken language in the city is called Herati Persian or just Herati.
Herat dates back to very old times. Avesta, the old book of Zoroastrianism mentions Herat as "Haroyu" and lists it as the sixth land of the sixteen perfect lands created by Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god. In Achaemenid times (ca. 550-330 BC), the surrounding district was known as "Haraiva" (in Old Persian). Ancient Greeks called it "Aria" and "Artacoana" was the capital of Aria. Alexander the Great took Artacoana in 330 BC and destroyed it. He later built another city near Artacoana and named it "Alexandria in Ariana", today's city of Herat. After him Parthians and Sassanians took over. Sassanians called the city “Harēv”.
Arabs took Herat in 660 AD, and it became a center of the Muslim world. Herat has a long history as a centre for sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. It became part of the area then known as Khurasan, which reached its peak of civilization in the twelfth century. In 1221 AD, it was taken by the Mongols and later destroyed by Genghis Khan and Timur, the Turkic conqueror, took it in about 1393 AD. Herat’s greatest era was during the Timurid rule, when it was a centre of science and culture. As the capital of the Timurid empire, it boasted many fine religious buildings and was famous for its sumptuous court life and musical performance and its tradition of miniature paintings. Later Persians and Afghans fought over the control of the city and Herat changed hands several times before it (under British interference) permanently became part of Afghanistan in 1857 under the Treaty of Paris.
In March 1979, an anti-Communist uprising in Herat, left 25,000 civilian deaths. Between 1978 and 1992, communist forces in Herat city fought resistance forces holding the countryside. In 1995 the area came under the control of Pashtuns of the Taliban movement. After the United States' invasion of Afghanistan, on November 12, 2001, it was liberated from the Taliban by the Northern Alliance. These days, unlike other places in Afghanistan, Herat is safer.
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile () (pronunciation) is the third most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. The population within the city limits was 198,915 as of the 2000 census. It is at the head of Mobile Bay. Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 399,843 residents which is composed solely of Mobile County and is the second largest MSA in the state. Mobile is included in the Mobile-Daphne-Fairhope Combined Statistical Area with a total population of 540,258, the second largest CSA in the state.
Relay race
A relay race is a track and field event in which athletes run a pre-set distance carrying a baton before passing it onto the next runner. Often, a relay team is a team of four sprinters.
In athletics, the two standard relays are the 4x100 meter relay and the 4x400 meter relay. Traditionally, the 4x400 meter relay finals are the last event of a track meet.
Nowadays, long distance relays have become increasingly popular with runners of all skill-levels. These runners typically have 5 to 36 legs, each between 5 and 10 kilometers (3-6 miles) long.
Bayou La Batre, Alabama
Bayou La Batre ( is a city in Mobile County, Alabama, United States. It is included in the Mobile metropolitan statistical area. At the 2000 census, the population was 2,313. According to the 2005 U.S. Census estimates, the city had a population of 2,725.
Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Bay Saint Louis is a city in Hancock County, Mississippi. It is part of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, 8,209 people lived there. It is the county seat of Hancock County. Like several other upper Gulf Coast cities, Bay Saint Louis was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.
Waveland, Mississippi
Waveland is a city in Hancock County, Mississippi, on the Gulf of Mexico. It is part of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, 6,674 people lived there. On August 29, 2005, Waveland was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
The current mayor of Waveland is Democrat Tommy Longo.
Pass Christian, Mississippi
Pass Christian is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States, along the Gulf of Mexico. It is part of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 4,613 at the 2010 census.
Long Beach, Mississippi
Long Beach is a city (incorporated August 10, 1905) in Harrison County, Mississippi, USA. It is part of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, 17,320 people lived there. It also the home of Alphonso Campbell.
Gulfport, Mississippi
Gulfport is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, after the state capital Jackson. It is the larger (population wise) of two, aom cities of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, the city of Gulport had a population of 71,127. Gulfport is co-county seat with Biloxi of Harrison County, Mississippi. Gulfport is the east coast home to the US Navy Seabees, and also the birthplace of American football player Brett Favre.
On August 29, 2005, Gulfport was hit by the strong east side of Hurricane Katrina, and much of Gulfport was flooded or destroyed. Much of Gulfport was also severely damaged by Hurricane Camille on August 17, 1969.
Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area