prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: How does the receptive field size affect the completion of shapes?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 1: Paper Info

Title: CONTOUR COMPLETION USING DEEP STRUCTURAL PRIORS
Publish Date: 9 Feb 2023
Author List: Ali Shiraee, Morteza Rezanejad, Mohammad Khodadad, Dirk Walther, Hamidreza Mahyar

Figure

Figure 1: Just by looking at subfigure (a), we, as humans, can easily perceive a shape like the one in subfigure (b) This is an extraordinary capability of our human brain and in this paper, we tried to see whether convolutional neural networks can show such capabilities 
Figure 2: The trajectory from random noise X N to the incomplete image X I in image space The network will pass a completed version of the image, X C , throughout this trajectory 
Figure 4: This figure shows our iterative process to complete the fragmented contours of an image given as input to our pipeline 
Figure 5: This example shows how different scores change throughout a single run All three scores change in the range of [0, 100] Our goal is to maximize reconstruction_score and minimize the overfit_score, but we should consider that the minimization lower bound is data dependent and is not zero 
Figure 6: Evolutionary process of the deep structure prior The right column shows the incomplete shapes given to the model and the rest of the columns show how the model is overfitting gradually to produce the incomplete shapes In each column, we are showing an intermediate iteration of this process The loss-term setup enables our pipeline to let the completed image appears during this iterative process 
Average MSE and IoU values between the incomplete (Raw) images, the output of DIP and DSP methods, and ground truth for each image are provided in this table 
For this experiment, we ran the model over a subset of complex dataset with 500 incomplete images at various levels of alpha for 250 iterations After the image completion is done, we compared the evaluation metrics between the completed image and the ground truth to examine the performance of the model for different values of alpha 
In this table, we show the effect of the receptive filter size on our algorithm's capability to fill in bigger gap sizes The numbers in this table are showing the percentage of the time that DIP was successful to complete shapes with each gap size and corresponding receptive field size As predicted, the bigger the filter size, the more successful the algorithm is in filling in the gaps 

abstract

Humans can easily perceive illusory contours and complete missing forms in fragmented shapes  This work investigates whether such capability can arise in convolutional neural networks (CNNs) using deep structural priors computed directly from images  In this work, we present a framework that completes disconnected contours and connects fragmented lines and curves 
In our framework, we propose a model that does not even need to know which regions of the contour are eliminated  We introduce an iterative process that completes an incomplete image and we propose novel measures that guide this to find regions it needs to complete  Our model trains on a single image and fills in the contours with no additional training data 
Our work builds a robust framework to achieve contour completion using deep structural priors and extensively investigate how such a model could be implemented 

Introduction

The human visual system is used to seeing incomplete outlines  Our brains can effortlessly group visual elements and fragmented contours that seem to be connected to each other  This power enables us to make shapes, organize disconnected visual features, and even properties of 3D surfaces when projected on 2D planes 
demonstrated how early vision may quickly complete partially-occluded objects using monocular signals  This capability of perceptual grouping has been studied in vision science for decades   Although there has been some work on perceptual grouping in the past couple of years, it has been less studied in the past decade due to the enormous progress of deep neural networks and their success in dealing with the pixel-by-pixel inference of images 
Different types of lines and curves have been studied to maximize the connectivity of two broken ends in the planer contour completion problem   Different types of lines and curves have been studied to maximize the connectivity of two broken ends in the planer contour completion problem  Geometry-based constraints can be utilized to address some challenges of contour completion problems, such as smoothness and curvature consistency  
However, such approaches only work for simple, smooth contours and usually fail in more complex settings  On the other hand, we currently have deep models that could easily take an incomplete image and complete the missing regions using enough training data   The amazing capability of such models especially those that are trained on different modalities with millions or billions of training data raises the question of whether we need such a large amount of training to perceive all the visual cues that are present in an image, which underlies visual perception by humans 
In human vision, Gestalt psychology suggests that our brain is designed to perceive structures and patterns that are grouped by some known rules  In this work, we show that some perceptual structures can also be learned from the image itself directly using architectures that enable such learning  Earlier work has shown  This is an extraordinary capability of our human brain and in this paper, we tried to see whether convolutional neural networks can show such capabilities 
that some forms of perceptual grouping can be achieved using computational models, such as stochastic completion fields   This type of learning resonates with some of the Gestalt perceptual grouping principles including "proximity", "good continuation" and "similarity"  In scenarios where color and/or texture are present, the cue of "similarity" helps us group regions with consistent patterns  
When color and texture are present, they provide a collection of rich information for such cues  In the present article, we probe convolutional neural networks in a scenario where both are absent, and the neural network is dealing with just forms and shapes  Specifically, we explore whether the convolutional neural network architecture itself can give rise to some of these grouping cues when they are fed just contours and shapes alone 
For years, neural networks have been treated as black boxes that can generalize images very well to multiple classes when there are enough training exemplars  One of the reasons that neural networks are trained on many exemplars is to avoid the problem of overfitting  On the other hand, we know that CNNs that generalize well to large classes of exemplars can easily overfit when those class labels are randomly permuted  
Inspired by this observation, suggest that image priors can be learned to a large extent through a generator network architecture that is solely trained on a single image  This encouraged us to take a deeper look at what structural information can be learned from a single-shape image and whether we can reconstruct some of those perceptual grouping capabilities using a generator network 
Inspired by , in this work, we adopt a novel training regime to complete shapes and contours where we use a UNet architecture with random initial weights and try to complete the contours within a single image without any training data  In our model, we imagine that the input image (i e , the only image used to update the model's weights) is an image of fragmented contours 
In this work, instead of training the model on multiple images fetched from a big image dataset, we imagine a random fixed tensor noise image as input to this model  At each iteration, the random noise tensor is inferred through our generative network and the network produces an outcome image  We introduce a novel loss function that enables this network to complete contours 
This process repeats, and the weights of our network are updated gradually based on this loss function, which is an energy term defined based on the input image and the output of the network  The model will reconstruct the missing structures i e , group fragmented contours that perceptually seem to be connected, before it fully overfits to the incomplete input image 
Contributions of our work are summarized as follows: 1  In our pipeline, we propose a novel algorithm that enables us to complete contours that appear to be connected to each other in an illusory form  2  Our model is trained on just one single query image and does not need any training data  3  Our model does not need to know which regions of the image are masked or occluded, i e , we remove the dependency of the algorithm on the guiding mask (a guiding mask is a mask that informs the model on where the missing regions are located at) 
We also introduce two metrics to produce a stopping criterion to know when to stop training before the model fully overfits to the incomplete image, i e , we guide the model to stop when the completed image is produced 

Methods

Our eyes are trained to predict a missing region of an occluded object within a scene  We can easily perceive or make guesses about parts of objects or shapes that we do not necessarily see  Even when we are looking at an image, we might guess about the shape, property, or other attributes of an unknown object within a scene 
Such capability extends beyond just known objects or shapes  We can look at a disconnected set of contours and guess what the connected form may look like  This capability is rooted in our prior knowledge about the world  (see Figure )  In this work, we aim to achieve a similar capability using deep generative networks 
Most neural networks that we work with these days are trained with a massive amount of data and one might think that this is the only way that a neural network can obtain prior information  Authors of Deep Image Prior (DIP) suggest that the convolutional architecture can capture a fair amount of information about image distribution 
They show that the hourglass architectures like UNet can show some good performances in some inverse problems such as image denoising, super-resolution, and inpainting  In this work, we focus on completing fragmented contours end-to-end just by using a single image  To be able to address this problem, we first look at a similar problem in image editing, known as image inpainting 
Image inpainting is the task of completing an image where some regions of that image are covered or filtered by a mask  In image inpainting, the generative model receives a masked image with the mask that guides the algorithm to fill in those missing regions  Although in the problem of contour completion, we have a very similar goal, the additional challenge that we suffer from is that we do not necessarily have a mask that covers the regions of interest for us 
For example, when we look at Figure (left), we are not provided that which regions of the image are incomplete by a guiding mask  Our brain figures this out just by looking at the form and predicting those missing regions  Inspired by the image inpainting work of DIP , we propose a novel algorithm for the contour completion problem (see Figure ), where, unlike DIP, we do not have a guiding mask to know where to fill in the missing regions of our disconnected contours 
Let us assume that we are given a degraded image x I containing a fragmented contour  We propose an iterative process (see Figure ) that can connect those discontinuities and glue those fragmented pieces together as follows  We propose an hour-glass model structure (f ) that is initially set up with completely random parameters (θ 0 ) at first 
Through an iterative process, we start feeding our network with a fixed random tensor noise z signal and obtain the inferred output (f (z)) from that network  We then back-propagate the difference between the inferred output and the incomplete image to the network  We then repeat this process until the difference between the generated outcome of the network (f θ (z)) and the incomplete image (x I ) gets smaller and smaller and finally overfits the incomplete image (x I ) 
In this work, we propose a novel error metric to backpropagate in the model and update its weights  we set the metric in a way that enables us to complete the incomplete image before it overfits the incomplete image  This is where the magic of our algorithm happens  We also propose a stopping criterion, so that when the image is complete, we no longer overfit the outcome of the model and instead produce a plausible connected set of fragmented contour pieces 
As illustrated in Figure , this trajectory will pass through a complete version of the image in image space, which is close to the actual connected ground truth x gt , which we do not have access to directly 

Energy Function

We can model this iterative process mathematically by maximizing a posterior distribution  Let us assume that the optimal image x * that we want to achieve is on a path that connects a random tensor noise z to the incomplete image x I   With this assumption, we can eventually overfit any random tensor noise to the incomplete image x I , and we can formulate the posterior distribution of our wanted optimal image x * as follows:
No Prior To better recapitulate what we want to achieve using our generative model, we solve an energy minimization problem on the parameter space of the model, rather than explicitly working with probability distributions and optimizing on x (image space)  Thus, we solve an energy minimization problem that incorporates the incomplete image (x I ) and model parameters (f θ (z)):
As shown in Figure , the pipeline starts from a random initialized set of parameters θ and updates those weights until it reaches a local minimum θ *   The only information provided for the network is the incomplete image x I   When we reach the optimal θ * , the completed image is obtained as x * = f θ * (z) where z is random tensor noise 
In this work, we use a U-Net architecture with skip connections as the generator model  " As we mentioned previously, in this work we were inspired by an earlier work known as Deep Image Prior (DIP)   In this work, the authors suggested a mean-squared-error loss term that enables the network to compare the output of the generator to the incomplete input image:
where x I is the incomplete image with missing pixels in correspondence of a binary mask m ∈ {0, 1} H×W and operator is for point-wise multiplication of two image matrices  In the inpainting tasks, the existence of a mask is essential as the algorithm needs to know where to fill in the missing area, whereas, in our work, we wanted to know whether the network can perform completion on its own without the need for the mask 
In other words, is it possible for the network to predict where to fill in at the same time that it is trying to reconstruct the incomplete image through the iterative process? To answer this question, we tried to solve a much harder problem in which the mask is not provided to the model and the model is agnostic to it 
To better understand how a solution could be hypothesized for this problem, we first imagine that we want to consider all the available regions in our image that could be potential places to fill in, i e , we set the mask in the previous formula 1 to be equal to the incomplete image x I   This is problematic as the model quickly tries to fill in all white space and quickly reconstructs the incomplete image by doing so 
On the other hand, we can take the inverse problem of the current problem, where the model tries to just fill in the regions that fragmented contour lives in  Taking these two at the same time, we came up with a novel loss term for energy minimization term that helps us remove the need for the mask in the case of the contour completion problem:
In this term, we introduce a linear combination of the two loss terms, where one focuses on reconstructing the missing regions in the foreground, and one focuses on avoiding inpainting regions in the background  The logic behind this is that, if we assume the original image to be representative of the mask, then the model tries to reconstruct in all white regions (the foreground), and in the inverse problem we just want to reconstruct the regions that are already part of the ground truth 

Stopping Criteria

As shown in Figure , knowing when to stop iterating to the over-fitted model is a key to obtaining a completed shape  Therefore, we equipped our model with a criterion that uses two individual novel terms to know when to stop and output the result of the network  These two metrics expand the capability of the generator network beyond what it does currently and achieve a full end-to-end contour completion model that trains and infers on a single image of divided contour fragments 
These new terms are: reconstruction_score (ρ) and overfit_score (ω) 

Reconstruction Score

The first score that this paper suggests is the reconstruction score, i  e , we have to make sure that the model is trained enough that it can reconstruct at least the entire set of fragmented contours within the image  This is a trivial score and to compute the reconstruction_score (ρ), we apply a k-dimensional tree (KDTree) nearest-neighbor lookup to find the ratio of points in the original incomplete image (x 0 ) 
This score ranges from [0 − 100] 

Overfit Score

It is evident that the model overfits the fragmented contours  This is due to the fact that the error in our loss term is minimized as the x overfits to x I , i  e , replacing x with x I in the loss term would give us zero  As we hypothesize iterative process also produces the complete image before it overfits to the incomplete image, we can imagine that at some point the image is complete (x C ) and does not need to be fine-tuned any more to overfit to x I  
We suggest a new score called overfit_score  overfit_score determines how much of the reconstructed outcome is over the number of pixels that are already in the incomplete image (x I )  To compute the overfit_score (ω), we apply a k-dimensional tree (KDTree) nearest-neighbor lookup of points in the outcome of the input image and see what portions of those points are novel and not already in the incomplete image (x I ) 
Similar to reconstruction_score, the overfit_score also ranges from [0 − 100]  Our goal is to maximize reconstruction_score and minimize the overfit_score, but we should consider that the minimization lower bound is data dependent and is not zero 

Combined Score

To be able to find the best possible set of completed contours, we combine the two and have a loop that tries to achieve close to full reconstruction and avoids over-fitting at the same time  This is what we call an "ideal" stopping point in the contour completion problem  In each run throughout all iterations, we pick an output of the network that minimizes a dissimilarity term:
where δ represents our dissimilarity score  The reconstruction_score and overfit_score are obtainable given network output and the incomplete image  Ideally, we want to achieve an output image that has a reconstruction_score equal to 100 and an overfit_score of γ which is a hyperparameter that is dependent on the image and complexity of the shape 
Empirically, we observed that this value is highly correlated with the distance between gaps that are observed in fragmented contours, i  e , the larger the gap results in a larger γ value  We will discuss this in more detail in the next section (see Section 3)  For one sample image, we computed the two metrics reconstruction_score and overfit_score and the combined value of dissimilarity (δ) and showed how these values change (see Figure ) 
Our initial observations show that the reconstruction_score will increase to 100 quickly for the incomplete image indicating that the already existing fragments of the contours have been reconstructed in the output  However, as mentioned previously, we cannot solely rely on this score since we also want to minimize the overfitting 
Remember that our goal is to produce an output that: a) preserves the original contours in the incomplete image and b) fills in the gaps between the fragmented contours  It is evident that overfit_score decreases throughout an iterative run of our process until it reaches zero  The dissimilarity will also decrease along with the overfit to a point, then it will increase, as the model tries to reproduce the incomplete image 
This is where an ideal γ value can be picked, i e , where to stop when the reconstruction is good but we have not done a full overfit to the incomplete image  Thus, one should pick the value of γ empirically in the scenario that the ground truth is not available, whereas, assuming that the ground truth is available, we can easily compute the best γ value 
In our experiments, we tried two datasets of images with different gap sizes  We observed that the best the γ for one set of samples is ∼ 5 (the set with shorter gaps) while it is ∼ 23 for samples from the other set, i  e, the set with longer gaps (see Figure for some completed examples) 

Experiments and Results

Performing unsupervised contour completion is a difficult task to benchmark as one can never know what fragments exactly are connected to each other in a real-world scenario  This makes the problem of contour completion a hard problem to solve  In this paper, we tried to create artificial shapes that are occluded by some masks and then tried to see if our model can regenerate the missing pieces and glue those divided contours together 
To demonstrate our model's behavior, we will conduct experiments on datasets created for this task and will report on them in this section  To compare network results in different settings, we will use pixel-wise Mean Squared Error (MSE) and Intersection over Union (IoU) between the produced result of the network and unmasked ground truth data and the reconstructed image on black pixels (where contours live) 

Data

We prepared two datasets, one labeled "Simple" and one "Complex", in accordance with the number of gaps in each shape  Both datasets contain nine different categories of shapes  In order to generate the Complex dataset, we used FlatShapeNet which is a dataset for the educational game Ariga  The dataset includes the following categories: Circle, Kite, Parallelogram, Rectangle, Rhombus, Square, Trapezoid, Triangle and Overlap 
The "overlap" category contains images that are made as a mixture of two shapes that are overlapping from the previous categories  These are some standard shapes with a few gaps in simple dataset, while the complex dataset has some hand-drawn shapes with fragmented lines and more gaps that produce more variety in general 
For each instance, a ground truth image is available for comparison  Most of our experiments have been conducted using the complex dataset in order to evaluate the generalization of our approach  For the analysis of how γ values should be set for each shape, we used the simple dataset as a reference 

Evaluation

In this section, we compare our model to the original Deep Image Prior (DIP) inpainting model  DIP's inpainting module accepts a degraded image and a binary mask corresponding to that image  In order to make a fair comparison, instead of providing a binary mask, we used the incomplete images both as input and as a mask in order to see whether it can produce a result similar to ours 
For DIP, we run the iterative process for a maximum number of 2500 iterations with the U-net backbone  We used the exact same architecture and setting in our model for a fair comparison  Using our ground truth dataset images, we calculate the MSE loss between the network output and ground truth during each iteration instead of relying on our stopping mechanism described in the previous section 
We then store the output with minimal loss throughout all the iterations  Finally, we select the best output among all iterations, report the MSE and IoU with the ground truth, and save the iteration number which resulted in the lowest MSE  Table compares the results that are obtained using the DIP method, the DSP method (ours), and the difference between raw images and the ground truth 
We have presented the average MSE-loss, average IoU, and the average number of iterations for the best output for different methods  As can be seen from the table, our model improves both MSE and IoU between the incomplete image and ground truth in fewer iterations  The DIP method can neither generate a better result than the raw image nor provide stopping criteria to prevent overfitting 
We provide a more detailed analysis of this result in Figure   As results show, our algorithm not only provides a much faster convergence but also consistently provides a better-completed image (consistently less MSE loss and better IoU), whereas it is challenging for the DIP method to accomplish better results without a guiding mask 
We compare MSE loss between the degraded raw images that these algorithms started with (shown in blue) (a) Mean Squared Error Loss: we clearly see that for almost all images, DSP (green) achieves a lower MSE than the incomplete images (blue) whereas, the DIP completed images either do not improve the MSE or even worsen that for the incomplete images 
Note that, the MSE is computed to an available ground truth image hidden from our methods (the lower is better)  (b) Intersection Over Union: here, we are looking at the IoU metric that specifies the amount of intersection over the union between the obtained images and the ground truth data  Again, we see that DSP produces images that are much closer to the ground truth (in most cases) whereas the DIP can not achieve a similar result 
While we see few DIP completed images produce a better IoU than the degraded images (in terms of IoU), most of them are worse than the starting image (the higher is better)  (c) The number of iterations that are needed for each algorithm to obtain its best results  Here, we see that DSP can quickly produce the best outcome with the least MSE loss whereas the DIP algorithm's best results are when we run the iterative process for more iterations (the lower is better) 

Correlation of γ with the Gap Size

To better understand the γ parameter of our combined score, we conducted the following experiment  A total of 12000 samples were obtained by merging all of our images from the two datasets, simple and complex  As we have access to the ground truth for each degraded image in the combined dataset, we can easily calculate reconstruction_score and overfit_score for each degraded-ground truth pair 
As expected, we obtain a reconstruction_score of 100 for all samples, but the overfit_score varies among them  Intuitively, we hypothesized that an optimal value of overfit score should be intertwined with the total area of gaps  To test this hypothesis, we did the following experiment  We first define a function φ(x) which takes a binary, black and white image x and returns the number of black pixels in it 
Then we define a gap term as follows: where x I is the incomplete image and x gt is the ground truth  In this case, gap indicates the total area of the gap with respect to the whole shape  We found out that this term and the best result have a correlation of 97 43%  This indicates that the value of γ is highly correlated with the gap size, that is something expected in a way 

Effect of α

We conducted additional experiments concerning how α affects the quality of reconstruction  In the previous section, we defined Equation 2 as the loss term that guides our iterative process  The term α specifies the amount of emphasis the model should place on reconstructing missing regions, rather than filling in fragmented contours 
A lower α indicates a better grouping quality, as shown in Equation   However, we will not achieve completion if we remove the first term completely from the loss by setting α = 0  Therefore, the first term should be kept, but its weight should be very low in order to achieve a good completion  On the other hand, if we set α = 1 and omit the second term, we lose the contour completion regularization term and obtain the same output as a vanilla deep image prior, which does not complete shapes 

Effect of Receptive Field Size

To better understand the effect of receptive field size on our algorithm, we test the following hypothesis: can models with bigger receptive field size complete shapes with bigger gaps? In Table , we report showing the results of this experiment  As we can see, the bigger the receptive field size, the more complete shapes we can reconstruct using DSP 

Implementation Details

As shown in Figure , we use a model with 5 layers and 128 channels for downsampling and upsampling convolutions, and 64 channels for skip convolutions  The upsampling and downsampling modules use 3 × 3 filters, while the skip module uses 1 × 1 filters  In the upsample part of the network, the nearest neighbor algorithm is used 
We used 256 × 256 images with three channels in all of our experiments  In training, we use the MSE loss between the degraded image and the output of the network, and we optimize the loss using the ADAM optimizer and a learning rate equal to 0 01   In our experiments, we also used α = 0 15 as an optimal proportion coefficient for reconstruction loss 

Conclusion

In this work, we introduced a novel framework for contour completion using deep structure priors (DSP)  This work offers a novel notion of a maskless grouping of fragmented contours  In our proposed framework, we introduced a novel loss metric that does not require a strict definition of the mask  Instead, it lets the model learn the perceivable illusory contours and connects those fragmented pieces using a generator network that is solely trained on just the single incomplete input image 
Our model does not require any pre-training which demonstrates that the convolutional architecture of the hour-glass model is able to connect disconnected contours  We present an extended set of experiments that show the capability of our algorithm  We investigate the effect of each parameter introduced in our algorithm separately and show how one could possibly achieve the best result for their problem using this model 
In future work, we plan to extend this model and try to see how it performs with real images  In particular, we want to determine whether we can inpaint real-world photographs while retaining perceptually aware scene structures  The importance of shape in perception by deep neural networks has been highlighted in many adversarial examples to appearance-based networks  
The outcome of this work has strong potential to impact the designing and implementation of models that are robust to such perturbations 
Context 2: McPherson County (standard abbreviation: MP) is a county located in the U S  state of Kansas   As of the 2020 census, the county population was 30,223  The largest city and county seat is McPherson  The county is named for Civil War General James B  McPherson 

History

Early history

For many millennia, the Great Plains of North America was inhabited by nomadic Native Americans  From the 16th century to 18th century, the Kingdom of France claimed ownership of large parts of North America  In 1762, after the French and Indian War, France secretly ceded New France to Spain, per the Treaty of Fontainebleau  In 1802, Spain returned most of the land to France, but keeping title to about 7,500 square miles 

In 1803, most of the land for modern day Kansas was acquired by the United States from France as part of the 828,000 square mile Louisiana Purchase for 2 83 cents per acre  In 1848, after the Mexican–American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with Spain brought into the United States all or part of land for ten future states, including southwest Kansas  In 1854, the Kansas Territory was organized, then in 1861 Kansas became the 34th U S  state 

19th century

From the 1820s to 1870s, the Santa Fe Trail passed through, what is now McPherson County  The trail entered the county, east of Canton, then south of Galva, then north of Inman, and west towards Lyons  In 1855, Charles O  Fuller established a ranch adjacent to the Running Turkey Creek Crossing about two miles south and one mile east of Galva  Fuller's Ranch provided accommodations for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail and was probably the first white settlement in McPherson County 

Peketon County was established in 1860, by the passage of a bill by S  N  Wood:  An act to establish Peketon County  Section 1  - That all that territory west of the sixth principal meridian and south of Township 16, in Kansas Territory, be and the same is hereby erected into a county, to be known by the name of Peketon County  On February 17, 1865, Peketon County was abolished, and McPherson County was made a part of Marion County, which extended from the west line of Chase County to the present western boundary of Kansas 

In 1868, Solomon Stephens and L  N  Holmberg were appointed Justices of the Peace—the first officers in what is now McPherson County  The next year (1869) occurred the first election for the township, now the county of McPherson  McPherson was regularly organized as a county in the spring of 1870, a mass meeting being held at Sweadal  Sweadal, the county seat thus selected, was located about one mile and a half southwest of the present site of Lindsborg  In September, however, the County Commissioners resolved to meet at the latter place, McPherson which had already been located some two years 

In April, 1873, a petition was filed for the county seat re-location  It was signed by 483 voters, and a special election was accordingly ordered for June 10  Upon that day, McPherson received 605 votes, New Gottland 325, King City 3 and Lindsborg 1; McPherson's majority over all, 276  In May the McPherson Town Company had offered, as an inducement for the location of the county seat at this point, the free use of rooms for ten years, and the donation of two squares of land on the town site  The offer was accepted the next month, the County Commissioners selecting blocks 56 and 65  Thus the county seat was established at McPherson and has remained since 

As early as 1875, city leaders of Marion held a meeting to consider a branch railroad from Florence  In 1878, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and parties from Marion County and McPherson County chartered the Marion and McPherson Railway Company   In 1879, a branch line was built from Florence to McPherson, in 1880 it was extended to Lyons, in 1881 it was extended to Ellinwood  The line was leased and operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway  The line from Florence to Marion, was abandoned in 1968  In 1992, the line from Marion to McPherson was sold to Central Kansas Railway  In 1993, after heavy flood damage, the line from Marion to McPherson was abandoned  The original branch line connected Florence, Marion, Canada, Hillsboro, Lehigh, Canton, Galva, McPherson, Conway, Windom, Little River, Mitchell, Lyons, Chase, then connected with the original AT&SF main line at Ellinwood 

In 1887, the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway extended its main line from Herington to Pratt   This main line connected Herington, Ramona, Tampa, Durham, Waldeck, Canton, Galva, McPherson, Groveland, Inman, Medora, Hutchinson, Whiteside, Partridge, Arlington,  Langdon, Turon, Preston, Natrona, Pratt   In 1888, this main line was extended to Liberal   Later, this line was extended to Tucumcari, New Mexico and Santa Rosa, New Mexico, where it made a connection with the Southern Pacific from El Paso, Texas   The Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway was absorbed by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway  This line is also called the "Golden State Route" 

20th century
The National Old Trails Road, also known as the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, was established in 1912, and was routed through Windom, Conway, McPherson 

Geography

According to the U S  Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which  is land and  (0 3%) is water 

Adjacent counties
 Saline County (north)
 Dickinson County (northeast)
 Marion County (east)
 Harvey County (southeast)
 Reno County (southwest)
 Rice County (west)
 Ellsworth County (northwest)

Major highways
  Interstate 135
  U S  Route 56
  U S  Route 81
  K-4
  K-61
  K-153

Demographics

The McPherson Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of McPherson County 

2000 census
As of the census of 2000, there were 29,554 people, 11,205 households, and 7,966 families residing in the county   The population density was 33 people per square mile (13/km2)   There were 11,830 housing units at an average density of 13 per square mile (5/km2)   The racial makeup of the county was 96 53% White, 0 81% Black or African American, 0 34% Native American, 0 32% Asian, 0 06% Pacific Islander, 0 79% from other races, and 1 16% from two or more races   1 94% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race  37 1% were of German, 12 9% Swedish, 12 1% American, 6 7% English and 6 3% Irish ancestry according to Census 2000 

There were 11,205 households, out of which 33 00% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 62 50% were married couples living together, 6 00% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28 90% were non-families  25 50% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11 80% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older   The average household size was 2 49 and the average family size was 2 99 

In the county, the population was spread out, with 25 40% under the age of 18, 10 30% from 18 to 24, 25 20% from 25 to 44, 21 80% from 45 to 64, and 17 30% who were 65 years of age or older   The median age was 38 years  For every 100 females there were 95 90 males   For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92 90 males 

The median income for a household in the county was $41,138, and the median income for a family was $48,243  Males had a median income of $33,530 versus $21,175 for females  The per capita income for the county was $18,921   About 4 20% of families and 6 60% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5 20% of those under age 18 and 8 10% of those age 65 or over 

Government

Presidential elections
McPherson county is often carried by Republican candidates  The last time a Democratic candidate has carried this county was in 1964 by Lyndon B  Johnson 

Laws
Following amendment to the Kansas Constitution in 1986, the county remained a prohibition, or "dry", county until 1996, when voters approved the sale of alcoholic liquor by the individual drink with a 30 percent food sales requirement 

Education

Colleges
 McPherson College in McPherson
 Bethany College in Lindsborg
 Central Christian College in McPherson

Unified school districts
 Smoky Valley USD 400
 McPherson USD 418
 Canton-Galva USD 419
 Moundridge USD 423
 Inman USD 448

School district office in neighboring county
 Goessel USD 411
 Little River-Windom USD 444

Museums
 Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg
 McCormick-Deering Days Museum in Inman
 McPherson Museum in McPherson
 Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum in Lindsborg
 Kansas Motorcycle Museum in Marquette

Communities

Cities

 Canton
 Galva
 Inman
 Lindsborg
 Marquette
 McPherson (county seat) 
 Moundridge
 Windom

Unincorporated communities
† means a Census-Designated Place (CDP) by the United States Census Bureau 
 Conway
 Elyria†
 Groveland
 Johnstown
 New Gottland
 Roxbury†

Ghost towns
 Alta Mills
 Battle Hill
 Christian
 Doles Park
 Elivon
 King City
 Sweadal

Townships
McPherson County is divided into twenty-five townships   The cities of Lindsborg and McPherson are considered governmentally independent and are excluded from the census figures for the townships   In the following table, the population center is the largest city (or cities) included in that township's population total, if it is of a significant size 

See also
 List of people from McPherson County, Kansas
 National Register of Historic Places listings in McPherson County, Kansas
 McPherson Valley Wetlands
 Maxwell Wildlife Refuge

References

Notes

Further reading

 Wheeler, Wayne Leland  "An Analysis of Social Change in a Swedish-Immigrant Community: The Case of Lindsborg, Kansas " (PhD dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1959  5905657) 

County
 Through the Years: A Pictorial History of McPherson County; McPherson Sentinel' Heritage House Publishing Co; 1992 
 McPherson County First Courthouse Built About 1869 or 1870; Lindsborg News-Record; March 30, 1959 
 Pioneer Life and Lore of McPherson County, Kansas; Edna Nyquist; Democratic-Opinion Press; 1932 
 A History of the Church of the Brethren in Kansas (includes McPherson College history); Elmer LeRoy Craik; McPherson Daily; Republican Press; 397 pages; 1922 
 Portrait and Biographical Record of Dickinson, Saline, McPherson, and Marion Counties, Kansas; Chapman Bros; 614 pages; 1893 
 Standard Atlas of McPherson County, Kansas; Geo  A  Ogle & Co; 82 pages; 1921 
 Plat Book of McPherson County, Kansas; North West Publishing Co; 50 pages; 1903 
 Edwards' Atlas of McPherson County, Kansas; John P  Edwards; 51 pages; 1884 

Trails
 The Story of the Marking of the Santa Fe Trail by the Daughters of the American Revolution in Kansas and the State of Kansas; Almira Cordry; Crane Co; 164 pages; 1915  (Download 4MB PDF eBook)
 The National Old Trails Road To Southern California, Part 1 (LA to KC); Automobile Club Of Southern California; 64 pages; 1916  (Download 6 8MB PDF eBook)

Mennonite Settlements
 Impact of Mennonite settlement on the cultural landscape of Kansas; Brenda Martin; Kansas State University; 1985/1988  
 Mennonite settlement : the relationship between the physical and cultural environment; Susan Movle; University of Utah; 1975/1886 
 Status of Mennonite women in Kansas in their church and home relationships; Eva Harshbarger; Bluffton College; 1925/1945 

External links

County
 
 McPherson County - Directory of Public Officials
Historical
 , from Hatteberg's People'' on KAKE TV news
Maps
 McPherson County Maps: Current, Historic, KDOT
 Kansas Highway Maps: Current, Historic, KDOT
 Kansas Railroad Maps: Current, 1996, 1915, KDOT and Kansas Historical Society

 
Kansas counties
1867 establishments in Kansas
Populated places established in 1867
Context 3: Ann's Mega Dub: 12/19/10 - 12/26/10
Got o have a penis to be an expert
Thursday on NPR's Fresh Air, Terry Gross wanted to talk film and music  Since women don't know a thing about either and aren't interested in either, Terry had to find men who were 'experts 'This is C I 's " Iraq snapshot Friday, December 24, 2010  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri's incomplete Cabinet continues to receive criticism, a father offers an 'excuse' for killing his own daughter, and more Marci Stone (US Headlines Examiner) reports, "Friday afternoon, Santa is currently in Baghdad, Iraq and on his next stop is Moscow, Russia, according to the 2010 NORAD Santa Tracker  The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Santa as he makes his annual journey throughout the world " Gerald Skoning (Palm Beach Post) quotes Santa saying, "We send our special wishes for peace and goodwill to all  That includes the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea " Please note that this is Santa's seventh trip to Iraq since the start of the Iraq War and, as usual, his journey was known in advance  No waiting until he hit the ground to announce he was going to Iraq -- the way George The Bully Boy Bush had to and the way US President Barack Obama still has to  In the lead up to Santa's yearly visit, many 'authorities' in Iraq began insisting that Christmas couldn't be celebrated publicly, that even Santa was banned  Gabriel Gatehouse (BBC News) quotes Shemmi Hanna stating, "I wasn't hurt but I wish that I had been killed  I wish I had become a martyr for this church, but God kept me alive for my daughters " Shemmi Hanna was in Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad when it was assaulted October 31st and she lost her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law and her infant grandson in the attack  The October 31st attack marks the latest wave of violence targeting Iraqi Christians  The violence has led many to flee to northern Iraq (KRG) or to other countries  Zvi Bar'el (Haaretz) notes, "This week the Iraqi legislature discussed the Christians' situation and passed a resolution in principle to help families who fled  However, the parliament does not know where the Christians are, how many are still in Iraq, in their homes, and how many have found asylum in Iraqi Kurdistan " John Leland (New York Times) reports:The congregants on Friday night were fewer than 100, in a sanctuary built for four or five times as many  But they were determined  This year, even more than in the past, Iraqi's dwindling Christian minority had reasons to stay home for Christmas  "Yes, we are threatened, but we will not stop praying," the Rev  Meyassr al-Qaspotros told the Christmas Eve crowd at the Sacred Church of Jesus, a Chaldean Catholic church  "We do not want to leave the country because we will leave an empty space " Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) reports, "Rimon Metti's family will go to Christian services on Christmas Day, but his relatives will be praying for their own survival and wondering whether this is their last holiday season in Baghdad  If they had any grounds for optimism about the future of their faith in Iraq, it vanished this year amid repeated attacks on fellow believers " Shahsank Bengali (McClatchy Newspapers) adds, "Nearly two months after a shocking assault by Islamist militants, Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church will commemorate Christmas quietly, with daytime mass and prayers for the dead, under security fit more for a prison than a house of worship  It is the same at Christian churches across Baghdad and northern Iraq, where what's left of one of the world's oldest Christian communities prepares to mark perhaps the most somber Christmas since the start of the Iraq war "Meanwhile Taylor Luck (Jordan Times) reports on Iraqi refugees in Jordan:Although the calendar will say December 25, for Theresa, Saturday will not be Christmas  There will be no cinnamon klecha cooling on the dining room table, no outdoor ceramic nativity scene, no readings of hymns with relatives  The 63-year-old Iraqi woman has even refused to put up Christmas lights in the crowded two-room Amman hotel apartment she has called home since fleeing Baghdad last month "There is no holiday spirit  All we have is fear," she said This holiday will instead mark another year without news from her 46-year-old son, who was kidnapped outside Baghdad in late 2006 From Turkey, Sebnem Arsu (New York Times -- link has text and video) notes the increase in Iraq refugees to the country since October 31st and quotes Father Emlek stating, "I've never seen as many people coming here as I have in the last few weeks  They also go to Lebanon, Jordan and Syria but it seems that Turkey is the most popular despite the fact that they do not speak the language " Jeff Karoub (AP) reports on the small number of Iraqi refugees who have made it to the US and how some of them "struggle with insomnia, depression and anxiety "One group in Iraq who can openly celebrate Christmas are US service members who elect to  Barbara Surk (AP) reports that tomorrow Chief Warrant Officer Archie Morgan will celebrate his fourth Christmas in Iraq and Captain Diana Crane is celebrating her second Christmas in Iraq: "Crane was among several dozen troops attending a Christmas Eve mass in a chapel in Camp Victory, an American military base just outside Baghdad " Marc Hansen (Des Moines Reigster) speaks with six service members from Iowa who are stationed in Iraq  Sgt 1st Class Dennis Crosser tells Hansen, "I certainly understand from reading the paper what's going on in Afghanistan and the attention definitely needs to be on the troops there  But everyone serving here in Operation New Dawn appreciates a little bit of attention as we finish this up "Today Jiang Yu, China's Foreign Minister, issued the following statement, "We welcome and congratulate Iraq on forming a new government  We hope that the Iraqi Government unite all its people, stabilize the security situation, accelerate economic reconstruction and make new progress in building its country " James Cogan (WSWS) reports:US State Department official Philip Crowley declared on Wednesday that Washington had not "dictated the terms of the government"  In reality, constant American pressure was applied to Maliki, Allawi, Kurdish leaders and other prominent Iraqi politicians throughout the entire nine-month process to form a cabinet  The US intervention included numerous personal phone calls and visits to Baghdad by both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden The key objective of the Obama administration has been to ensure that the next Iraqi government will "request" a long-term military partnership with the US when the current Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) expires at the end of 2011  The SOFA is the legal basis upon which some 50,000 American troops remain in Iraq, operating from large strategic air bases such as Balad and Tallil and Al Asad  US imperialism spent billions of dollars establishing these advanced bases as part of its wider strategic plans and has no intention of abandoning them Cogan's only the second person to include the SOFA in his report  Some are impressed with the 'feat' of taking nearly ten months to form a government, stringing the country along for ten months while no decisions could go through  The editorial board of the Washington Post, for example, was full of praise yesterday  Today they're joined by Iran's Ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Danaiifar  The Tehran Times reports that Danaiifar was full of praise today hailing the "positive and final step which ended the 10-month political limbo in Iraq " However, Danaiifar was less pie-in-the-sky than the Post editorial board because he can foresee future problems as evidenced by his statement, "We may witness the emergence of some problems after one and half of a year -- for example, some ministers may be impeached " Of course, there are already many clouds on the horizon, even if Iranian diplomats and Post editorial boards can't suss them out  For example, Ben Bendig (Epoch Times) noted the objection of Iraq's female politicians to Nouri al-Maliki's decision to nominate only one woman (so far) to his Cabinet: "Some 50 female lawmakers went to the country's top leadership, the United Nations and the Arab League to voice their concern and desire for increased representation " BNO notes that protest and also that a group of Iraqi MPs are alleging that Iraqiya bought seats in the Cabinet via money exchanged in Jordan  UPI adds, "Maliki, a Shiite who has a long history of working with Tehran, has named himself acting minister of defense, interior and national security, three most powerful and sensitive posts in the government he is stitching together  Although Maliki appears to be bending over backward to accommodate rivals among Iraq's Shiite majority as well as minority Sunnis and Kurds in his administration in a spirit of reconciliation, he is unlikely to relinquish those ministries that dominate the security sector " DPA reports, "Sheikh Abdel-Mahdi al-Karbalaei, a confident of influential Shiite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said that the new cabinet is 'below the standards' Iraqi citizens had hoped for and suggested it could prove to be weaker than the previous government " Ranj Alaaldin (Guardian) also spots clouds on the horizon:Lasting peace and stability depends on resolving outstanding disputes with the Kurds on oil, revenue-sharing, security and the disputed territories (Kirkuk in particular)  The Kurds, rather than exploiting their kingmaker position to take a stronger proportion of ministries in Baghdad (they are taking just one major portfolio – the foreign ministry), are instead banking on guarantees from Maliki to implement their list of 19 demands that includes resolving the above disputes in their favour They may have been naive, though  With their historical and federalist partners, the Islamic supreme council of Iraq in decline, the Kurds may be isolated in the new government – a government dominated by the nationalistic and centrist characteristics of the INM, the Sadrists and indeed State of Law Maliki may, therefore, turn out to be unable to grant concessions even if he wanted to and could use Osama Nujayfi, the new ultra-nationalist speaker of parliament and Kurdish foe, to absorb the Kurdish criticism and insulate himself from any attacks AP reports that Iraqi police sought out a 19-year-old woman because of rumors that she was working with al Qaida in Mesopotamia only to be greeted with the news that her father allegedly killed her and the father showed the police where he buried the woman       last month  The story begs for more than it offers  The most obvious observation is: what does it say that a woman's allegedly killed by her father and no one says a word for over a month? After that, it should probably be noted that there are many men in Iraq killing women who, no doubt, would love to also be able to pin the blame on al Qaida  In other violence, Reuters notes a house bombing in Haswa which claimed the life of Mohammed al-Karrafi, "his wife, two sons and a nephew" -- as well as injuring four more people, and a Samarra roadside bombing which claimed the lives of 2 police officers  DPA notes it was two homes bombed in Haswa and that the Samarra roadside bombing also injured four Iraqi soldiers  Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) reports, "Another policeman was wounded in Baghdad Friday night when a roadside bomb detonated by a police patrol, an Interior Ministry official told CNN "And we'll close with this from Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan's latest Al Jazeera column:The recent repeal of the US military policy of "Don't ask, don't tell" is far from being the human rights advancement some are touting it to be  I find it intellectually dishonest, in fact, illogical on any level to associate human rights with any military, let alone one that is currently dehumanising two populations as well as numerous other victims of it's clandestine "security" policies Placing this major contention aside, the enactment of the bill might be an institutional step forward in the fight for "equality"; however institutions rarely reflect reality Do we really think that the US congress vote to repeal the act and Obama signing the bill is going to stop the current systemic harassment of gays in the military?While I am a staunch advocate for equality of marriage and same-sex partnership, I cannot - as a peace activist - rejoice in the fact that now homosexuals can openly serve next to heterosexuals in one of the least socially responsible organisations that currently exists on earth: The US military It is an organisation tainted with a history of intolerance towards anyone who isn't a Caucasian male from the Mid-West  Even then I'm sure plenty fitting that description have faced the terror and torment enshrined into an institution that transforms the pride and enthusiasm of youth into a narrow zeal for dominating power relations And we'll close with this from Francis A  Boyle's "2011: Prospects for Humanity?" (Global Research):Historically, this latest eruption of American militarism at the start of the 21st Century is akin to that of America opening the 20th Century by means of the U S -instigated Spanish-American War in 1898  Then the Republican administration of President William McKinley stole their colonial empire from Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; inflicted a near genocidal war against the Filipino people; while at the same time illegally annexing the Kingdom of Hawaii and subjecting the Native Hawaiian people (who call themselves the Kanaka Maoli) to near genocidal conditions  Additionally, McKinley's military and colonial expansion into the Pacific was also designed to secure America's economic exploitation of China pursuant to the euphemistic rubric of the "open door" policy  But over the next four decades America's aggressive presence, policies, and practices in the "Pacific" would ineluctably pave the way for Japan's attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec  7, 194l, and thus America's precipitation into the ongoing Second World War  Today a century later the serial imperial aggressions launched and menaced by the Republican Bush Jr  administration and now the Democratic Obama administration are threatening to set off World War III  By shamelessly exploiting the terrible tragedy of 11 September 2001, the Bush Jr  administration set forth to steal a hydrocarbon empire from the Muslim states and peoples living in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf under the bogus pretexts of (1) fighting a war against international terrorism; and/or (2) eliminating weapons of mass destruction; and/or (3) the promotion of democracy; and/or (4) self-styled "humanitarian intervention " Only this time the geopolitical stakes are infinitely greater than they were a century ago: control and domination of two-thirds of the world's hydrocarbon resources and thus the very fundament and energizer of the global economic system – oil and gas  The Bush Jr / Obama administrations have already targeted the remaining hydrocarbon reserves of Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia for further conquest or domination, together with the strategic choke-points at sea and on land required for their transportation  In this regard, the Bush Jr



ground_truth: Bigger receptive field size leads to more successful shape completion.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: When was McPherson County established as a county?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 3:  administration announced the establishment of the U S  Pentagon's Africa Command (AFRICOM) in order to better control, dominate, and exploit both the natural resources and the variegated peoples of the continent of Africa, the very cradle of our human species  This current bout of U S  imperialism is what Hans Morgenthau denominated "unlimited imperialism" in his seminal work Politics Among Nations (4th ed  1968, at 52-53): The outstanding historic examples of unlimited imperialism are the expansionist policies of Alexander the Great, Rome, the Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries, Napoleon I, and Hitler  They all have in common an urge toward expansion which knows no rational limits, feeds on its own successes and, if not stopped by a superior force, will go on to the confines of the political world  This urge will not be satisfied so long as there remains anywhere a possible object of domination--a politically organized group of men which by its very independence challenges the conqueror's lust for power  It is, as we shall see, exactly the lack of moderation, the aspiration to conquer all that lends itself to conquest, characteristic of unlimited imperialism, which in the past has been the undoing of the imperialistic policies of this kind…  On 10 November 1979 I visited with Hans Morgenthau at his home in Manhattan  It proved to be our last conversation before he died on 19 July 1980  Given his weakened physical but not mental condition and his serious heart problem, at the end of our necessarily abbreviated one-hour meeting I purposefully asked him what he thought about the future of international relations  iraqbbc newsgabriel gatehousethe new york timesjohn lelandhaaretzzvi bar'elthe jordan timestaylor luckthe associated pressjeff karoubthe los angeles timesraheem salmancnnjomana karadsheh
Terry thinks she's a man
Yesterday on NPR's Fresh Air the hour went to a male TV critic  It's always a man with Terry  Always  And somebody tell her that a snotty, snooty TV critic really doesn't make for good programming This is C I 's "Iraq snapshot:" Thursday, December 23, 2010  Chaos and violence continue, Iraqi women make clear their displeasure over the Cabinet make up, Daniel Ellsberg and Veterans for Peace get some recognition, and more  Last Thursday a protest held outside the White House  One of the organizers was Veterans for Peace and Pentagon Papers whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg participated and spoke  Juana Bordas (Washington Post) advocates for both of them to be named persons of the year: Veterans for Peace and Daniel Ellsberg should be this year's person of the year because of their courage and bravery to stand up for all of us who believe that "war is not the answer " Moreover in a time of economic recession, the war machine is bankrupting our country  As John Amidon, a Marine Corps veteran from Albany asked at the White House protest, "How is the war economy working for you?"While unemployment rates hover near 10 percent, there is no doubt that the U S  economy and quality of life is faltering  Worldwide we are 14th in education, 37th in the World Health Organization's ranking on medical systems, and 23rd in the U N  Environmental Sustainability Index on being most livable and greenest benefits  There is one place we take the undeniable world lead  The US military spending accounts for a whopping 46 5 percent of world military spending--the next ten countries combined come in at only 20 7 percent  Linda Pershing (Truthout) reports, "Responding to a call from the leaders of Stop These Wars(1) - a new coalition of Veterans for Peace and other activists - participants came together in a large-scale performance of civil resistance  A group of veterans under the leadership of Veterans for Peace members Tarak Kauff, Will Covert and Elaine Brower, mother of a Marine who has served three tours of duty in Iraq, sponsored the event with the explicit purpose of putting their bodies on the line  Many participants were Vietnam War veterans; others ranged from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans in their 20s and 30s to World War II vets in their 80s and older  They were predominately white; men outnumbered women by at least three to one  After a short rally in Lafayette Park, they formed a single-file procession, walking across Pennsylvania Avenue to the solemn beat of a drum  As they reached the police barricade (erected to prevent them from chaining themselves to the gate, a plan they announced on their web site), the activists stood shoulder to shoulder, their bodies forming a human link across the 'picture postcard' tableau in front of the White House " Maria Chutchian (Arlington Advocate) quotes, participant Nate Goldshlag (Vietnam veteran) stating, ""There was a silent, single file march around Lafayette Park to a drum beat  Then we went in front of the White House,  There were barricades set up in front of white house fence  So when we got there, we jumped over barricades and were able to get right next to the White House fence " Participant Linda LeTendre (Daily Gazette) reports: At the end of the rally, before the silent, solemn procession to the White House fence, in honor of those killed in Iraq and Afghan wars of lies and deceptions, the VFP played taps and folded an American flag that had been left behind at a recent funeral for the veteran of one of those wars  Two attendees in full dress uniform held and folded the flag  I had the image of all of the people who stood along the roads and bridges when the bodies of the two local men, Benjamin Osborn and David Miller, were returned to the Capital District  I thought if all of those people were here now or spoke out against war these two fine young men might still be with us I was blessed enough to be held in custody with one of those in uniform; a wonderful young man who had to move from his hometown in Georgia because no one understood why as a veteran he was against these wars  Even his family did not understand  (He remains in my prayers )Our plan was to attach ourselves to the White House fence until President Obama came out and talked to us or until we were arrested and dragged away  I don't have to tell you how it ended Mr  Ellsberg was one of 139 people arrested at that action  We've noted the protest in pretty much every snapshot since last Thursday  If something else comes out that's worth noting on the protest, we'll include it  We will not include people who don't have their facts and it's really sad when they link to, for example, Guardian articles and the links don't even back them up  It's real sad, for example, when they're trashing Hillary (big strong men that they are) and ripping her apart and yet Barack? "Obama's inaccurate statements"??? What the hell is that? You're inferring he lied, say so  Don't be such a little chicken s**t  It's especially embarrasing when you're grandstanding on 'truth ' Especially when you're the little s**t that clogged up the public e-mail account here in the summer of 2008 whining that you were holding Barack to a standard, then admitting that you weren't, then whining that if you did people would be mean to you  Oh, that's sooooooo sad  Someone might say something bad about you  The horror  You must suffer more than all the people in Iraq and Afghanistan combined  While the action took place in DC, actions also took place in other cities  We've already noted NYC's action this week, Doug Kaufmann (Party for Socialism & Liberation) reports on the Los Angeles action: Despite heavy rain, over 100 people gathered in Los Angeles on the corner of Hollywood and Highland to demand an end to the U S  wars on Afghanistan and Iraq  People came from as far as Riverside to protest, braving what Southern California media outlets have dubbed the "storm of the decade " The demonstration, initiated and led by the ANSWER Coalition, broke the routine of holiday shopping and garnered support from activists and even passers by, who joined in chanting "Money for jobs and education -- not for war and occupation!" and "Occupation is a crime -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine!" Protesters held banners reading, "U S /NATO Out of Afghanistan!" and "Yes to jobs, housing and education -- no to war, racism and occupation!"Speakers at the demonstration included representatives of Korean Americans for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, KmB Pro-People Youth, Veterans for Peace, Party for Socialism and Liberation and National Lawyers Guild  Tuesday, Nouri al-Maliki managed to put away the political stalemate thanks to a lot of Scotch -- tape to hold the deal together and booze to keep your eyes so crossed you don't question how someone can claim to have formed a Cabinet when they've left over ten positions to be filled at a later date  One group speaking out is women  Bushra Juhi and Qassmi Abdul-Zahra (AP) report, "Iraq's female lawmakers are furious that only one member of the country's new Cabinet is a woman and are demanding better representation in a government that otherwise has been praised by the international community for bringing together the country's religious sects and political parties " As noted Tuesday, though represenation in Parliament is addressed in Iraq's Constitution, there is nothing to address women serving in the Cabinet  Aseel Kami (Reuters) notes one of the most damning aspects of Nouri's chosen men -- a man is heaing the Ministry of Women's Affairs  Iraqiya's spokesperson Maysoon Damluji states, "There are really good women who could do wel       they cannot be neglected and marginalized " Al-Amal's Hanaa Edwar states, "They call it a national (power) sharing government  So where is the sharing? Do they want to take us back to the era of the harem? Do they want to take us back to the dark ages, when women were used only for pleasure " Deborah Amos (NPR's All Things Considered) reports that a struggle is going on between secular impulses and fundamentalist ones  Gallery owner Qasim Sabti states, "We know it's fighting between the religious foolish man and the civilization man  We know we are fighting like Gandhi, and this is a new language in Iraqi life  We have no guns  We do not believe in this kind of fighting " Deborah Amos is the author of Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East  Meanwhile Nizar Latif (The National) reports that distrust is a common reaction to the new government in Baghdad and quotes high school teacher Hussein Abed Mohammad stating, "Promises were made that trustworthy, competent people would be ministers this time around, but it looks as if everything has just been divided out according to sectarian itnerests  No attention has been paid to forming a functioning government, it is just a political settlement of vested interests  I'm sure al Maliki will have the same problems in his next four years as he had in the last four years " Days away from the ten months mark, Nouri managed to finally end the stalemate  Some try to make sense of it and that must have been some office party that the editorial board of the Washington Post is still coming down from judging by "A good year in Iraq " First up, meet the new Iraqi Body Count -- an organization that provides cover for the war and allows supporters of the illegal war to point to it and insist/slur "Things aren't so bad!" Sure enough, the editorial board of the Post does just that noting the laughable "civilian deaths" count at iCasualities  As we noted -- long, long before we walked away from that crap ass website, they're not doing a civilian count  They're noting how many deaths Reuters reports 



ground_truth: McPherson County was established as a county in 1867.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What is the main topic of the text?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 4:  Sallada's Carrier Support Group 2, staging in the Marshalls for the invasion of the Marianas 

The air unit, VC-10 Squadron, under Goodwin's command gave close air support to the initial landings of Marines on Saipan on June 15, 1944, destroying enemy gun emplacements, troops, tanks, and trucks  On the 17th, her combat air patrol (CAP) shot down or turned back all but a handful of 47 enemy planes headed for her task group and her gunners shot down two of the three planes that did break through to attack her 

Goodwin's carrier continued in providing of close ground support operations at Tinian during the end of July 1944, then turned her attention to Guam, where she gave identical aid to invading troops until mid-August that year  For his service during the Mariana Islands campaign, Goodwin was decorated with Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V" 

He was succeeded by Captain Walter V  R  Vieweg on August 18, 1944, and appointed Chief of Staff, Carrier Division Six under Rear admiral Arthur W  Radford  The Gambier Bay was sunk in the Battle off Samar on October 25, 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf after helping turn back a much larger attacking Japanese surface force 

Goodwin served with Carrier Division Six during the Bonin Islands raids, the naval operations at Palau and took part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf and operations supporting Leyte landings in late 1944  He was later appointed Air Officer of the Philippine Sea Frontier under Rear admiral James L  Kauffman and remained with that command until the end of hostilities  For his service in the later part of World War II, Goodwin was decorated with Legion of Merit with Combat "V"  He was also entitled to wear two Navy Presidential Unit Citations and Navy Unit Commendation 

Postwar service

Following the surrender of Japan, Goodwin assumed command of Light aircraft carrier  on August 24, 1945  The ship was tasked with air missions over Japan became mercy flights over Allied prisoner-of-war camps, dropping food and medicine until the men could be rescued  She was also present at Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945 

Goodwin returned with San Jacinto to the United States in mid-September 1945 and he was detached in January 1946  He subsequently served in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations until May that year, when he entered the instruction at National War College  Goodwin graduated in June 1947 and served on Secretary's committee for Research on Reorganization  Upon promotion to Rear admiral on April 1, 1949, Goodwin was appointed Chief of Staff and Aide to Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet under Admiral William H  P  Blandy 

Revolt of the Admirals

In April 1949, the budget's cuts and proposed reorganization of the United States Armed Forces by the Secretary of Defense Louis A  Johnson launched the wave of discontent between senior commanders in the United States Navy  Johnson proposed the merging of the Marine Corps into the Army, and reduce the Navy to a convoy-escort force 

Goodwin's superior officer, Admiral Blandy was call to testify before the House Committee on Armed Services and his harsh statements for the defense of the Navy, costed him his career  Goodwin shared his views and openly criticized Secretary Johnson for having power concentrated in a single civilian executive, who is an appointee of the Government and not an elected representative of the people  He also criticized aspects of defense unification which permitted the Joint Chiefs of Staff to vote on arms policies of individual services, and thus "rob" the branches of autonomy 

The outbreak of the Korean War in summer 1950 proved the proposal of Secretary Johnson as incorrect and he resigned in September that year  Also Secretary of the Navy, Francis P  Matthews resigned one month earlier 

Later service

Due to the Revolts of the admirals, Blandy was forced to retire in February 1950 and Goodwin was ordered to Newport, Rhode Island for temporary duty as Chief of Staff and Aide to the President of the Naval War College under Vice admiral Donald B  Beary in April 1950  Goodwin was detached from that assignment two months and appointed member of the General Board of the Navy  He was shortly thereafter appointed acting Navy Chief of Public Information, as the substitute for Rear Admiral Russell S  Berkey, who was relieved of illness, but returned to the General Board of the Navy in July that year  Goodwin served in that capacity until February 1951, when he relieved his Academy class, Rear admiral John P  Whitney as Vice Commander, Military Air Transport Service (MATS) 

While in this capacity, Goodwin served under Lieutenant general Laurence S  Kuter and was co-responsible for the logistical support of United Nations troops fighting in Korea  The MATS operated from the United States to Japan and Goodwin served in this capacity until August 1953, when he was appointed Commander Carrier Division Two  While in this assignment, he took part in the Operation Mariner, Joint Anglo-American exercise which encountered very heavy seas over a two-week period in fall 1953 

Goodwin was ordered to the Philippines in May 1954 and assumed duty as Commander, U S  Naval Forces in the Philippines with headquarters at Naval Station Sangley Point near Cavite  He held that command in the period of tensions between Taiwan and China and publicly declared shortly after his arrival, that any attack on Taiwan by the Chinese Communists on the mainland would result in US participation in the conflict  The naval fighter planes under his command also provided escort for passing commercial planes  Goodwin worked together with retired Admiral Raymond A  Spruance, then-Ambassador to the Philippines, and accompanied him during the visits to Singapore, Bangkok and Saigon in January 1955 

On December 18, 1955, Goodwin's classmate Rear admiral Albert K  Morehouse, then serving as Commander, Naval Air Forces, Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), died of heart attack and Goodwin was ordered to CONAD headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado to assume Morehouse's position  While in this capacity, he was subordinated to Army General Earle E  Partridge and was responsible for the Naval and Marine Forces allocated to the command designated for the defense of the Continental United States 

Retirement

Goodwin retired on June 1, 1957, after 40 years of active service and was advanced to the rank of Vice admiral on the retired list for having been specially commended in combat  A week later, he was invited back to his Monroe High School (now Neville High School) and handed a diploma showing that he had been graduated with the class of 1918  He then settled in Monterey, California where he taught American history at Stevenson school and was a member of the Naval Order of the United States 

Vice admiral Hugh H  Goodwin died at his home on February 25, 1980, aged 79  He was survived by his wife, Eleanor with whom he had two children, a daughter Sidney and a son Hugh Jr , who graduated from the Naval Academy in June 1948, but died one year later, when the Hellcat fighter he was piloting collided with another over the Gulf of Mexico during training 

Decorations

Here is the ribbon bar of Vice admiral Hugh H  Goodwin:

References

1900 births
1980 deaths
People from Monroe, Louisiana
Military personnel from Louisiana
United States Naval Academy alumni
Naval War College alumni
United States Naval Aviators
United States Navy personnel of World War I
United States Navy World War II admirals
United States Navy vice admirals
United States submarine commanders
Recipients of the Legion of Merit



ground_truth: The main topic of the text is Iraq's politics and current situation.