Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (German: "Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche") is a very well-known piece of music for orchestra by Richard Strauss. It is a tone poem (a piece of music which tells some kind of story). In this work, Richard Strauss describes the adventures of Till Eulenspiegel who was the character in a series of stories written in Germany many years ago. Till Eulenspiegel was a kind of folk hero. He was a naughty boy who got up to all kinds of tricks. The music is very humorous and describes his adventures.
The music is played by a large orchestra. There is a small clarinet (normally an E flat clarinet, although in Strauss's day he used a D clarinet) that describes the character of Till. Till is also represented by a French horn.
The music starts with the main theme, which is like saying: 'Once upon a time'. The horn plays one of Till's themes and this is taken up by the orchestra. The small clarinet is then heard, sounding like Till laughing. He rides his horse through the market and knocks lots of things off the stalls, then flirts with the girls (the first violin plays a theme which suggests love).
Till gets on his horse again. Then suddenly there is a funeral march. Till has been caught and he is sentenced to death. Till pleads to be let free and tries to joke his way out of his troubles, but the executioner takes no notice. Till is taken to the gallows (small clarinet), the flutes rattle as he reaches the top. The small clarinet describes his death scream, and then he is executed (strings playing pizzicato. There is a short silence, then the music returns to the opening 'Once upon a Time' theme, but the music finishes with a little joke, as if saying that someone like Till can never be destroyed.
Beatová síň slávy
Beatová síň slávy (Beat Hall of Fame or shortly BSS) is something like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Czech Radio Beat honors the greatest legends of Czech rock music.
Extranet
The extranet is a part of intranet that selected people outside the company can use.
Thomson's gazelle
The Thomson's gazelle ("Gazella thomsonii") is the most common gazelle in East Africa. It is a kind of small antelope. It is named after explorer Joseph Thomson and, as a result, is sometimes referred to as a "tommie". They can be found on ranches and farmland throughout East Africa, and survive long after other species have been killed off or migrated away.
Thomson's gazelles are commonly referred to as "tommies". Tommies stand at about half a meter (22-26 inches) tall and weigh in between 15 and 25 kilograms (35-55 pounds). Although very similar in appearance to the Grant's gazelle, they have some distinguishing features.
The tommy has adapted to drier life on the open grass plains of East Africa, mainly southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. Although tommies have many predators, including cheetahs, lions, leopards, crocodiles and hyenas, they are frequently the last animals left on an abandoned ranch or farmland.
Their major predators are cheetahs, which can run faster, but gazelles can outlast them in long chases and are able to make turns more speedily. This small antelope-gazelle can run extremely fast, from , to 96 km/h (60 mph) and zigzag, a peculiarity which often saves it from predators.
Sometimes they are also chased by leopards, lions and hyenas, but the gazelles are faster and more agile; these predators attack especially the young or infirm individuals. They can also be devoured by crocodiles and pythons, and their fawns are sometimes the prey of eagles, jackals, and baboons. A noticeable behaviour of Thomson's gazelles is their bounding leap, known as stotting or pronking, used to startle predators and display strength.
Mack Robinson (athlete)
Matthew MacKenzie Robinson (July 18, 1914 – March 12, 2000) was an American track athlete. He was the older brother of professional baseball player Jackie Robinson. Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia. He moved to Pasadena, California when he was young and lived there most of his life. He ran track in high school and college. While at Pasadena City College, he set junior college records in several events. He won a silver medal at the 1936 Summer Olympics. He came in second to Jesse Owens in the 200m. Robinson later ran for the University of Oregon. While there, he won National Collegiate Athletic Association and Amateur Athletic Union titles. He is a member of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. Robinson spent his later years working for the city of Pasadena as a garbage collector and mailman. He tried to stop crime in the black neighborhoods of Pasadena. Robinson died in Pasadena in 2000. Several landmarks in Pasadena honor both Jackie and Mack Robinson, including the stadium at PCC.
Diene
In organic chemistry, a diene ( ) or diolefin ( ) is a hydrocarbon that contains two carbon pi bonds.
Conjugated dienes are functional groups, with a general formula of CH. Dienes and alkynes are functional isomers. Dienes occur occasionally in nature but are widely used in the polymer industry.
Dienes can be divided into three classes, depending on the relative location of the double bonds:
Compounds that contain more than two double bonds are called polyenes. Polyenes and dienes, share many of their properties.
An important reaction for conjugated dienes is the Diels–Alder reaction. Many specialized dienes have been developed to exploit this reactivity for the synthesis of natural products, e.g. Danishefsky’s diene.
Conjugated system
In chemistry, a conjugated system is a system of connected p-orbitals with delocalized electrons. Conjugated systems are created by several multiple bonds, each separated by single bonds. In general, conjugated systems may lower the overall energy of the molecule and increase how steady it is. They can contain lone pairs, radicals or carbonium ions. The compound may be cyclic, acyclic, linear or mixed. In most cases, the atoms in a molecule are held together by single bonds (where orbitals from adjacent atoms overlap). Molecules which have a conjugated system have unique properties different from normal compounds created by the sharing of the delocalized electrons among many atoms.
Conjugation is the overlap of one p-orbital with another across a sigma bond (or single bond) that is in between. (The d-orbitals of larger atoms can also contribute to a conjugated system).
A conjugated system has a region of overlapping p-orbitals, bridging the single bonds that are between. They allow a delocalization of pi electrons across all the adjacent aligned p-orbitals.
The pi electrons do not belong to a single bond or atom, but rather to a group of atoms.
The largest conjugated systems (with the greatest number of shared electrons) are in graphite, conductive polymers, and carbon nanotubes.
Different types of molecular structures can result in conjugation. For conjugation, all the neighboring atoms in a chain must have an available p-orbital. In many cases, conjugated systems are a series of a single bonds each followed by a double bond. Other systems exist. For example, furan (see picture) is a five-membered ring with two alternating double bonds and an oxygen in position 1. The Oxygen in furan has two lone pairs, one of which fills a p-orbital on that position. The lone pair electron makes conjugation possible on a five-membered ring. The presence of a nitrogen in the ring can be a source of pi orbitals needed for conjugation. Also, pi orbitals needed for conjugation can come from substituent groups α to the ring like: a carbonyl group (C=O), an imine group (C=N), a vinyl group (C=C), or an anion.