the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
The part of Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni needs a buffo bass.
The lowest kind of bass is called a basso-profondo.
An example is the priest Sarastro in Mozart's Magic Flute.
A baritone is a voice between tenor and bass in range, but some low baritones describe themselves as bass-baritones.
Wotan in Der Ring des Nibelungen is a bass-baritone part.
Bryn Terfel is a famous Welsh bass-baritone.
Plankton are drifting organisms that live in the surface layers of the ocean.
They live in the top layer of the ocean, called the epipelagic zone.
They are not strong enough to swim against ocean currents.
The term is in contrast to nekton, who can control their movements.
Phytoplankton: which live at the surface of the ocean and photosynthesise (use light to make sugars and other molecules).
Eukaryote algae: diatoms, coccolithophores, some dinoflagellates.
Bacteria: cyanobacteria.
Zooplankton: small protozoans or metazoans: Ctenophores; jellyfish; rotifers; foraminifera; tiny crustacea and other animals.
Some eggs and larvae of larger animals such as fish, crustaceans, and annelids.
Apart from the eggs, they all feed on other plankton.
Some groups fall into both categories.
Dinoflagellates can be either photosynthetic producers or heterotroph consumers; many species are mixotrophic depending upon their circumstances.
It is also hard to fit viruses into this scheme; yet they are present in great numbers.
Plankton are important in the ocean's food chain.
They are the main source of food for almost all fish larvae as they switch from their yolk sacs to catching prey.
Basking sharks and blue whales feed on them directly; other large fish feed on them indirectly, by eating fish of smaller size, such as herrings.
The distribution of plankton is governed more by nutrients than by temperature.
Large tracts of ocean are blue and sterile.
The reason is that these areas lack one or more crucial nutrients for the photosynthetic plankton, upon whom all the others depend.
Broadly speaking, areas near land masses get nutrients by rivers and wind.
The key nutrient lacking in the Pacific ocean is iron, essential in molecules such as ferredoxins, iron-sulfur proteins which do electron transfer in a range of metabolic reactions.
Wake Forest University is a university found in Winston-Salem, North Carolina .
It was started in 1834 in the eastern North Carolina town of Wake Forest.
The university was moved to Winston-Salem in 1956.
A private school for both men and women, it has been a university since 1967.
Wake Forest's athletics teams are called the Deamon Deacons and they have sixteen varsity teams.
1834 establishments in the United States
1830s establishments in North Carolina
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (February 13, 1835 – May 26, 1908), was a 19th century religious leader.
He founded the Ahmadiyya movement within Islam.
According to Ahmadi doctrine, he was the last prophet, as well as the Mahdi and the Messiah.
He is believed by Ahmadis to be the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century.
Ghulam was born in Qadian, Punjab in India in 1835 the surviving child of twins born to a rich family.
He is reported to have spent a lot of time in the mosque and with the study of the Qur'an and his religion, Islam.
This did not lead him to fulfill his father's wishes of his son becoming a lawyer or civil servant.
He did attempt to become a lawyer but failed the test.
In his course of studying religious topics, he would often interact with many Muslims, non-Muslims, and with Christian missionaries whom he would engage in debates.
Prior to his claim
When Ghulam was thirty-five years old his father died.
At this time Ghulam claimed that God had begun communicating with him, often through direct revelation.
Initially, Ghulam's writings from this time were intended to counter what he perceived to be anti-Islamic writings originating from various Christian missionary groups.
He also focused on countering the effects of various groups such as the Brahmo Samaj.
During this period of his life he was well received by the Islamic clerics of the time.
Post claim
As time progressed, his writings began to exhibit his claims of being the mujaddid or reformer of his era.
These writings were compiled in one of his most well-known works: Barahin Ahmadiyya, a work consisting of 5 volumes while originally planned 50 volumes.
He explained that since there is only a dot difference between 50 & 5, therefore his promise was fulfilled.
In later volumes, he would essentially claim to be the messiah of Islam.
This proved and continues to be very controversial, as traditional Islamic thought holds that Jesus is the Messiah, who himself will return in the flesh at the end of times.
Ghulam countered this by claiming that Jesus was dead, and had in fact escaped crucifixion and died in India.
According to Ghulam, the promised Mahdi was a spiritual, not military leader as is believed by most Muslims.
With this proclamation, he also began to step away from the traditional idea of militant Jihad, and redefined it as a “spiritual” battle rather than a physical one.
In addition to these controversial claims, he would later claim that Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, was in fact a Muslim.
These writings began to turn the general Muslims ulema (religious clerics) against him, and he was often branded as a heretic.
Some accused Ghulam of working for the British who were trying to use him to remove the concept of Jihad from Indian Muslims.
Ghulam founded the Ahmadiyya movement in 1889.
He claimed that the Ahmadiyya Movement stood in the same relation to Islam, as Christianity stood to Judaism at the time of Jesus.
The mission of the movement according to Ghulam was the prorogation of what he considered to be Islam in its pristine form.
Mirza Ghulam's teachings which differed from other Muslims of the time can be summarized as follows:
That Muhammad is the last prophet to bring a new law/religion but not the last prophet altogether... and Prophethood within the Islamic dispensation is continued after him, and that he himself was a Prophet besides claimant of Imam mehdi and massiah.
The Qur'an has no contradictions (or abrogations), and has precedence over the Hadith or traditions; i.e., that one verse of the Qur'an does not cancel another and that no Hadith can contradict a verse of the Qur'an.
Hadith that appear to contradict the Qu'ran are not accepted by Ahmadi Muslims.
Jesus (called Yuz Asaf) was crucified and survived the 4 hours on the cross, then was revived from a swoon in the tomb.
He died in Kashmir of old age whilst seeking the "Lost Tribes of Israel".
That Jihad can only be used to protect against extreme religious persecution, not as a political weapon or an excuse for rulers to invade neighbouring territories.
That the "Messiah" and "Imam Mahdi" are the same person, and that Islam will defeat the Anti-Christ or Dajjal in a period similar to the period of time it took for nascent Christianity to rise (300 years).
Mainstream Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified, but made to look as though he had been, and that he ascended to heaven from where he will return personally in the flesh to revive Islam.
The Ahmadiyya movement in Islam was founded in 1889, but the name Ahmadiyya was not adopted until about a decade later.
In a manifesto dated November 4, 1900, the founder explained that the name referred to Ahmad, the alternative name of the prophet Mohammed.
According to him, ‘Mohammed’, which means ‘the praised one’, refers to the glorious destiny of the prophet who adopted the name from about the time of the Hegira; but ‘Ahmad’ stands for the beauty of his sermons, and for the peace that he was destined to establish in the world through his teachings.
According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, these names thus refer to two aspects of Islam, and in later times it was the latter aspect that commanded greater attention.
In keeping with this, he believed, his object was to establish peace in the world through the spiritual teachings of Islam.
He believed that his message had special relevance for the Western world which according to him had descended into materialism.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's legacy
One of the main sources of dispute during his lifetime and continuing since then is Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's use of the terms “Nabi” (prophet) and “Rasool” (messenger) when referring to himself.
Muslims consider the prophet Muhammad to be the last of the prophets and believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's use of these terms is a violation of the concept of “finality of prophet hood”.
His followers fall into two camps in this regard: the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who believe in a literal interpretation of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's prophethood (with some qualifications), and the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement, who believe in a symbolic interpretation of these two terms.
This among other reasons caused a split in the movement soon after Ahmad's death.
Followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad have faced relentless persecution of various types over the years.
In 1974, the Pakistani parliament amended the Pakistani constitution to declare Ahmadi Muslims as non-Muslims for purposes of the constitution of the Islamic Republic.
In 1984, a series of changes in the Pakistan Penal Code sections relating to blasphemy that, in essence, made it illegal for Ahmadis to preach their religion openly as Islam, leading to 1000s of arrests and prosecutions.
Ahmadi
Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
Official Website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
Official Website of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement
Complete List of the Works of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Pharmacology is the study of how medicine and other things have an effect on living organisms and change how they function.
Pharmacology could also be defined as the study of how medicine actually works.
Pharmacology is not exactly the same as pharmacy, and a pharmacologist is not exactly the same as a pharmacist.
A pharmacologist is a scientist who studies how medicine actually works, and usually works in a science lab.
A pharmacist is a health care provider who usually works at a pharmacy.
However, there is quite a bit of overlap between these two fields.
A pharmacist could be considered a type of pharmacologist.
While in school, pharmacists do take many classes in pharmacology.
If something can be used as a medicine, it is called a pharmaceutical.
Pharmacology includes how drugs are made, how they interact with living organisms, what harmful effects they could have, how they can be used as medicines, and if they can be used to prevent illness.
A person who works in the study of pharmacology is called a pharmacologist.
Pharmacologists work in a team with biochemists, geneticists, microbiologists, toxicologists and pharmacists to run clinical tests on how drugs work.
Uses of pharmacology
The development of drugs is very important to medicine, but it also has strong economical and political uses.
To protect people and prevent abuse, some countries try to control the way in which drugs are made, sold, and administered.
Scientific background
To study chemicals, a person needs to know a lot about what will be affected if it is ingested (taken into the body).
As more people know about cell biology and biochemistry, the field of pharmacology has changed as well.
It is now possible to design chemicals that do specific things.
A chemical can have different properties.
Pharmacokinetics describes the what effect the body will have on the chemical, and pharmacodynamics describes the chemical's effect on the body (desired or toxic).
Absorption - How is the medication absorbed (through the skin, the intestine, the mouth)?
Distribution - How does it spread through the organism?
Metabolism - Is the medication converted chemically inside the body, and into what.
Are these new substances active?
Could they be toxic?
Excretion - How does the organism get rid of the chemical (through the bile, urine, breath, skin)?
Medication is said to have a narrow or wide therapeutic index.
This describes the ratio of desired effect to toxic effect.
A medicine with a narrow therapeutic index (close to one) only does what people want it to do when the amount given is enough to put the organism in danger.
A medicine with a wide therapeutic index (greater than five) does what people want it to do and does not necessarily put the organism in danger.
Medication with a narrow margin are more difficult to dose and give to a person, and may require therapeutic drug monitoring (examples are warfarin, some antiepileptics, aminoglycoside antibiotics).
Most anti-cancer drugs have a narrow therapeutic margin; toxic side-effects are almost always encountered at doses needed to kill tumours.
Drugs as medicine
Drugs that are given to people to help cure them of a medical condition or help reduce the symptoms are often licensed.
They can be divided into three groups: over-the-counter, where anybody can buy the drug from a shop; prescription-only medicine, where a doctor has to say that a person is allowed to take a drug; and in some countries, pharmacy medicines, where only a registered pharmacy can sell a drug.
Most over-the-counter medication will not hurt a person if they take a bit more than they are meant to.
Medications are often produced by pharmaceutical companies and are often patented.
Drugs that are not patented are called generic drugs.
Linguists believe they all come from a single language, Proto-Indo-European, which was originally spoken somewhere in Eurasia.
They are now spoken all over the world.
The earliest Indo-European writing is from the Bronze Age in Anatolian and Mycenaean Greek.
The origin of Proto-Indo-European is after the invention of farming since some of its words have to do with farming.
Main language groups
Anatolian: Luwian; Hittite
Balto-Slavic
Baltic (Latvian and Lithuanian)
Slavic (such as Polish, Russian, and Serbian)
Celtic (such as Irish and Welsh)
Germanic (such as English, German, and Swedish)
Greek (and modern Greek)
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan languages (Indic)
Latin and the Romance languages (such as French, Italian, and Romanian)
History of Indo-European linguistics
Suggestions of similarities between Indian and European languages began to be made by European visitors to India in the 16th century.
In 1583, Thomas Stephens, an English Jesuit missionary in Goa, India, noticed similarities between the Indian languages and Greek and Latin and included them included in a letter to his brother, but it was not published until the 20th century.
The first account to mention Sanskrit is from Filippo Sassetti.
Born in Florence, Italy, in 1540, he was a merchant who was among the first Europeans to study Sanskrit.
Writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian such as devaḥ/dio "God", sarpaḥ/serpe "serpent", sapta/sette "seven", aṣṭa/otto "eight", nava/nove "nine").
However, neither observation led to further scholarly inquiry.
In 1647, the Dutch linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn noted the similarity among Indo-European languages and supposed that they had derived from a primitive common language.
He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, and he later added Slavic, Celtic, and Baltic languages.
However, his suggestions did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.
Gaston Coeurdoux and others had made similar observations.
Coeurdoux made a thorough comparison of Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek conjugations in the late 1760s to suggest a relationship between the languages.
Similarly, Mikhail Lomonosov compared different languages groups of the world, including Slavic, Baltic, Iranian, Finnish, Chinese, Hottentot and others.
The hypothesis reappeared in 1786, 20 years after Coeurdoux, when Sir William Jones lectured on the striking similarities between three of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit.
He later tentatively added Gothic, Celtic, and Old Persian but made some errors and omissions in his classification.
In 1813, Thomas Young was first to use the term Indo-European.<ref>In London Quarterly Review X/2 1813.;
Szemerényi 1999:12, footnote 6</ref> It became the standard scientific term except in Germany through Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar''.
Appearing between 1833 and 1852, it was the starting point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline.
Indo-European languages -Citizendium
The Gulf of Mexico is a round sea, called a gulf.
Land in North America is around much of it.
The United States of America, Mexico, and Cuba are the countries around it.
The Straits of Florida connect to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Yucatán Channel connects to the Caribbean Sea.
Petroleum is found near the north and west coast of this gulf.
Many hurricanes hit this area, for example, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita hurt many of the oil wells in 2005 in the United States.
There is also a big fishing industry in the gulf.
Geography of Cuba
Geography of Mexico
Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire () was the name of a country that is now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It used this name from 27 November 1971 to 17 May 1997.
The name "Zaire" comes from a Portuguese corruption of the Kongo word nzare, meaning "river".
1971 establishments in Africa
1997 disestablishments
1990s disestablishments in Africa
ja:コンゴ民主共和国#ザイール共和国（モブツ政権）時代
Pneumonia is a disease of the lungs and the respiratory system.
The lung contains many small bulbs, or sacs, called alveoli.
These help to take out oxygen from the air.
In the case of pneumonia, these bulbs become inflamed.
They fill up with a fluid which is called pus, and can no longer absorb as much oxygen as before.
This makes it hard for the person with pneumonia to breathe.
They may feel out of breath, or like they are drowning.
They may also feel pain when they breathe.
Sometimes people die of pneumonia, even when they go to a hospital and take medicine.
Pneumonia can be caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites.
It can also be caused by chemical or physical damage done to the lungs.
Other illnesses, like alcohol abuse or lung cancer, can also result in pneumonia.
People with pneumonia usually have difficulty breathing.
They may also cough, or have pains in the chest area.
The treatment of pneumonia depends on how the illness was caused.
If it was caused by bacteria, antibiotics can be used to treat it.
People of all ages can have pneumonia.
The disease is dangerous.
Many people die from pneumonia, especially old people, or people with a weak immune system.
According to some research in 2010, in some parts of the world where people are very poor like India, Nigeria, and Pakistan, pneumonia was the cause of death for more children under the age of five than any other disease.
Statistically, however, for every 2,000 children in the developing world who die of pneumonia, only one child in the developed world dies from the disease.
This is because of differences in health care and because of differences in rates of breastfeeding, not because of differences in children.
Breastfeeding newborn babies greatly increases their ability to survive pneumonia, but some cultures think of breastfeeding as taboo.
Other types of pneumonia
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
SARS is a highly contagious and deadly type of pneumonia which first occurred in 2002 after initial outbreaks in China.
SARS is caused by the SARS coronavirus, a pathogen (disease-causing organism) that was not known until then.
New cases of SARS have not been seen since June 2003.
Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP)
BOOP is caused by inflammation (swelling or irritation) of the small airways of the lungs.
It is also known as cryptogenic organizing pneumonitis (COP).
Eosinophilic pneumonia
Eosinophilic pneumonia is invasion of the lung by eosinophils.
Eosinophils are a particular kind of white blood cells.
Eosinophilic pneumonia often occurs in response to infection with a parasite or after exposure to certain types of environmental factors.
Chemical pneumonia
Chemical pneumonia (usually called chemical pneumonitis) is caused by chemical toxins such as pesticides, which may enter the body by inhalation (breathing in) or by skin contact.
When the toxic (poisonous or harmful) substance is an oil, the pneumonia may be called lipoid pneumonia.
Aspiration pneumonia
Aspiration pneumonia (or aspiration pneumonitis) is caused by accidentally inhaling oral (mouth) or gastric (stomach) contents into the lungs, either while eating, or after reflux or vomiting, and causing damage to the lungs.
The lung inflammation from these materials is not an infection but it can eventually cause one, since the material taken into the lungs may contain bacteria.
Aspiration is a common cause of death among hospital and nursing home patients, since they sometimes cannot cough hard enough to protect their airways.
Merck Manual: Pneumonia
Merck Manual of Geriatrics: Pneumonia in the elderly
British Lung Foundation
Maps and aerial photos of Encino
Winter Olympic Games were originally considered to be linked with the nation hosting the Summer Olympic Games.
The country holding the summer games was preferred as the host for the winter games.
Since 1948, the locations of summer and winter games have developed independent of each other.
1924 - I Olympic Winter Games - Chamonix, France
1928 - II Olympic Winter Games - St. Moritz, Switzerland
1932 - III Olympic Winter Games - Lake Placid, New York, United States
1948 - V Olympic Winter Games - St. Moritz, Switzerland
1952 - VI Olympic Winter Games - Oslo, Norway
1956 - VII Olympic Winter Games - Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
1960 - VIII Olympic Winter Games - Squaw Valley, California, United States
1964 - IX Olympic Winter Games - Innsbruck, Austria
1968 - X Olympic Winter Games - Grenoble, France
1972 - XI Olympic Winter Games - Sapporo, Japan
1976 - XII Olympic Winter Games - Innsbruck, Austria
1980 - XIII Olympic Winter Games - Lake Placid, New York, United States
1984 - XIV Olympic Winter Games - Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
1988 - XV Olympic Winter Games - Calgary, Alberta, Canada
1992 - XVI Olympic Winter Games - Albertville, France
1994 - XVII Olympic Winter Games - Lillehammer, Norway
1998 - XVIII Olympic Winter Games - Nagano, Japan
2002 - XIX Olympic Winter Games - Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
2006 - XX Olympic Winter Games - Torino, Italy
2010 - XXI Olympic Winter Games - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2014 - XXII Olympic Winter Games - Sochi, Russia
2018 - XXIII Olympic Winter Games - Pyeongchang, South Korea
2022 - XXIV Olympic Winter Games - Beijing, China
2026 - XXV Olympics Winter Games - Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
Woodside is a town in California with a population of about 5,000 people and over 5,000 horses.
It is in the northern region of Silicon Valley and has the highest percapita population of billionaires, as well as being the home of celebrities including Shirley Temple, Neil Diamond, Joan Baez, Michelle Pfeiffer and a gorilla named Koko that knows more than a thousand words of American Sign Language.
Town of Woodside home page
Woodside Public Library - a branch of the San Mateo County Library
Woodside Fire District
Cities in the San Francisco Bay Area
Settlements in San Mateo County, California
A pathogen is an infectious thing, such as a virus, bacteria, fungi or parasite, which causes a disease.
This ability is called pathogenicity.
The body has many ways to defend against some of the common pathogens (such as Pneumocystis) in the form of the human immune system and by some "helpful" bacteria present in the human body's normal human flora.
However, if the immune system or "good" bacteria is damaged in any way (for example, chemotherapy, HIV, or antibiotics being taken to kill other pathogens), pathogenic bacteria that were being held back can grow and cause harm to the host.
Such cases are opportunistic infections.
Some pathogens cause epidemics.
These include the bacterium Yersinia pestis which may have caused the Black Death, the Variola virus, and the malarial protozoa.
They hurt or even kill large numbers of people.
The most famous and lethal outbreak was the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic (type A influenza, H1N1 subtype), which lasted from 1918 to 1919.
It is not known exactly how many it killed, but estimates range from 20 to 100 million people.
This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history" and may have killed as many people as the Black Death.
The huge death toll was caused by an extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms.
One observer wrote, "One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine.
Bleeding from the ears and skin also occurred".
The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive bleeding and oedema in the lungs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Plant_disease_epidemiology&action=edit&section=2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_pathology
A pesticide is a chemical that is used to kill or prevent small animals (or organisms) which are considered to be unwanted.
These organisms are called pests.
Some of these pests that people do not want are insects, microbes that destroy plants, and other things that affect humans in a bad way and it may kill humans too.
Many pesticides are poisonous, and are bad for not only the organisms they kill, but for humans too.
A pesticide also affects the environment
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants lists chemicals that are very hard to destroy, or very toxic.
In total, twelve chemicals are listed.
Nine of them can be used as pesticides.
Types of Pesticides
Herbicides kill weeds
Insecticides kill insects that eat plants and crops
Fungicides kill any bad fungi
Effects of Pesticides
Pesticides are used to kill pests, but many are bad for human health.
They may pollute water, and go into rivers, lakes, and ponds.
This will cause acid rain, and organisms living in the water can get sick and die, because the water where they live has more acid.
Pesticide  is very bad for animals, especially amphibians.
In many cases, there are alternatives to the use of (chemical) pesticides.
Use of genetic engineering
Release of other organisms to control the pests, such as predators or parasites.
That way, ducks can be used in rice fields to act against snails, for example
Some foods can be processed and used to control certain pest
Use of polycultures, that is growing many different crops together, rather than just one crop.
Inhalation is half of what occurs when people or animals breathe.
Air is moved from the outside through the respiratory system into the lungs.
The lungs take out some oxygen and put it into the blood.
Drugs can also be inhaled with an inhaler to put them into the blood.
The air is then moved out of the lungs again.
This is the other half of breathing, called exhalation.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)  was an atypical pneumonia.
It started in November 2002 in Guangdong Province, in the city of Foshan, of the People's Republic of China.
The disease was caused by the SARS coronavirus (SARS CoV), a new coronavirus.
It was also a part-time STD, it can be spread through both sexual and casual contact.
SARS is a zoonosis: it is a disease which comes from animals: it came from  Asian palm civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats.
Exactly how the virus got to humans is not known.
SARS was first reported in Asia in February 2003.
Over the next few months, the illness spread to more than 24 countries in Asia, North America, South America, and Europe before the SARS global outbreak of 2003 was contained.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 8098 people worldwide became sick with SARS during the 2003 outbreak; 774 of these died.
After the Chinese government suppressed news of the SARS outbreak, the disease spread rapidly, reaching Hong Kong and Vietnam in late February 2003, and then to other countries via international travellers.
The last case in this outbreak occurred in June 2003.
There were a total of 8437 known cases of the disease, with 813 deaths (a mortality rate of 9.636%).
In May 2005 the disease itself was declared 'eradicated' by the WHO and it became the second disease in mankind to receive this label (the other was smallpox).
The New York Times reported that "not a single case of severe acute respiratory syndrome has been reported this year or in late 2004.
It is the first winter without a case since the initial outbreak in late 2002.
Also, the epidemic strain of SARS that caused at least 813 deaths worldwide by June of 2003 has not been seen outside a laboratory since then."
Coronaviruses
Ballet is a type of dance.
It is only done by dancers who have had special training.
The dancers are employed by a dance company, and they perform in theatres.
The first reference to ballet is found in a work of Domenico da Piacenza, who lived in the early 14th century.
Ballet involves the creation of the dance itself, often a type of imaginary story.
The story is told with the help of dance and mime.
Ballet is a form of expression.
It presents a story in a new form to the audience.
The creation of a dance is called choreography.
The choreography is learnt by the dancers under the supervision of a trainer, called a ballet master or mistress.
Ballet is always performed to music, and in many cases the music was specially composed for a particular ballet.
Ballet is a major part of theatre, and a popular example is The Nutcracker.
Ballet grew out of Renaissance spectacles which, rather like big pop music events today, used every type of performance art.
These Italian ballets were further developed in France.
Le Ballet Comique de la Reine (The Queen's Ballet Comedy) was performed in Paris in 1581.
It was staged by Balthazar de Beaujoyeux, a violinist and dancing master at the court of Catherine de Medici.
It was danced by amateurs in a hall.
The royal family were watching at one end and the others in galleries on three sides.
Poetry and songs came with the dances.
The basis of classical ballet was formed in the Court of Louis XIV in France, in the 17th century.p40 Even his title (the 'Sun King') came from a role he danced in a ballet.
Louis founded the first ballet company, the Ballet de l'Opera de Paris.
Many of the ballets presented at his court were created by the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and the choreographer Pierre Beauchamp.
Also during this time, the playwright Molière invented the comedie-ballet.
Modern technique begins
In the early 19th century ballet technique was codified (sorted out and written down) by Carlo Blasis (1797–1878) of Naples.
His dance classes, four hours long, were famous for being the toughest training there was at that time. '
Romantic ballet' flourished in France in the first half of the 19th century.
Ballet with a more athletic style was developed in Imperial Russia of the late 19th century.
This company performed in the Mariinsky Theatre at St. Petersburg.
The three famous Tchaikovsky ballets, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, date from that time.
The next stage was the Diaghilev ballet.
Diagelev was a great impresario (showman).
In 1909 he founded Les Ballets Russes de Sergei Diaghilev, considered by many to be the greatest ballet company of all time.
"Its success was so extraordinary, its ballets so revolutionary, and its artists so electrifying that its appearance in Paris before the First World War sparked an international ballet boom".p47
His dancers included the legendary Nijinsky and the Imperial primaballerina Karsavina; also Pavlova, Danilova and Spessivtseva.
His choreographers included Fokine, Massine and Balanchine; his composers included Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Ravel and Debussy; his set designers included Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse, Utrillo, Bakst  and Braque; and the ballets created changed the course of ballet history.
Later in the 20th century, permanent ballet companies were set up in English-speaking countries.
The Royal Ballet in London was started, and in New York a company called the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was founded (1938–1962).
Technique is the physical ability to perform whatever steps a dance may need.
Specific methods for refining technique are named after the ballet master or mistress who started them, such as the Vaganova method after Agrippina Vaganova, the Balanchine method after George Balanchine, and the Cecchetti method after Enrico Cecchetti.
Beginner's Guide to Ballet
Ballet Videos
Andros on Ballet
Lazio (Latin: Latium) is one of the twenty regions of Italy, in central Italy.
The capital is Rome.
The region is in Central Italy with an area of .
It is bordered to the northwest by the Tuscany region, to the north by the Umbria region, to the northeast with the Marche region, to the east with the Abruzzo and Molise regions, to the southeast is the Campania region and to the west is the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The Vatican City is within the region.
The main river in the region is the Tiber.
The highest mountain in the region is Monte Gorzano, on the border with the Abruzzo region, with an altitude of .
The Pontine Islands () are an archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the west coast of Italy.
They are part of Lazio.
Lazio Region Official site
Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel (March 18, 1858 – September 30, 1913) was a German engineer and inventor.
His best known invention is Diesel engine.
He was born in Paris and died on the English Channel.
He had the idea to develop an engine which relied on a high compression of the fuel to ignite it.
With this he could do without a spark.
The technique with a spark was developed by Niklaus Otto.
The engine based on this is called internal combustion engine.
Nikolaus August Otto (June 14, 1832 - January 28, 1891) was a German engineer.
He is the inventor of the internal-combustion engine.
This engine was the first to burn fuel directly in a piston chamber.
Up until his invention, all engines were external-combustion engines steam engines and burnt their fuel in a separate compartment.
German engineers
Quito is the capital city of Ecuador.
As of 2019, about 1,978,376 people lived there.
Quito is the second largest city in Ecuador after Guayaquil.
The Historic Center of Quito, Ecuador is one of the largest, least-changed and best-preserved historic centers in the Americas.
Quito was designated a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978.
It is the first city to be honored in such a way.
The Historic Centre of Quito is located in the center south of the capital on an area of 320 hectares (790 acres), and is thought of as one of the most important historic areas in Latin America.
There are about 130 monumental buildings (which have a variety of pictorial art and sculpture, mostly of religious inspired in a range of schools and styles) and 5,000 properties registered in the municipal inventory of heritage properties.
Carondelet Palace (Spanish: Palacio de Carondelet) is the seat of government of the Republic of Ecuador, located in the historical center of Quito.
The history of this symbolic building dates back to colonial times, around 1570, with the acquisition of the former royal houses located in the city of Quito.
During the Republican era, almost all of the presidents (constitutional, internees and dictators) have dispatched from this building, which is the seat of Government of the Republic of Ecuador.
Rafael Correa, president since 2007, thinking that Carondelet Palace and its offices are Ecuadoran heritages, converted the presidential compound into a museum accessible to all who wish to visit it.
To this end, areas were organized to place objects within their cultural contexts, to make them accessible to the world, which used several rooms and spaces within the palace.
La Compañía is among the best-known churches in Quito because of its large central nave, which is decorated with gold leaf, gilded plaster and wood carvings.
Inspired by two Roman Jesuit churches — the Chiesa del Gesù and the Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola — La Compañía is one of the most significant works of Spanish Baroque architecture in South America.
Historic public square of Quito (Ecuador), located in the heart of the old city.
Church and Monastery of St. Francis, colloquially known as El San Francisco, is a colonial-styled church and monastery located in Quito, Ecuador.
It is located on Calle García Moreno, near the Cathedral.
In the museum located on the north side of the lower cloister are wonderful pieces of great Quito sculptors such as the Saint Dominic de Guzmán by Father Carlos, the Saint John of God by Caspicara, and the Saint Thomas Aquinas by Legarda.
El Panecillo is a hill located in the middle west of the city at an altitude of about 3,016 metres (9,895 ft) above sea level.
A monument to the Virgin Mary is located on top of El Panecillo and is visible from most of the city of Quito.
In 1976, the Spanish artist Agustín de la Herrán Matorras was commissioned by the religious order of the Oblates to build a 41 metres (135 ft)–tall aluminum monument of a madonna, which was assembled on a high pedestal on the top of Panecillo.
The Basilica of the National Vow is a Roman Catholic church in the historic center of Quito.
Guápulo, Quito
Guápulo is a district of Quito, Ecuador, also called an electoral parish (parroquia electoral urbana).
The parish was established as a result of the October 2004 political elections when the city was divided into 19 urban electoral parishes.
Set behind Hotel Quito, the neighborhood of Guápulo runs down the winding Camino de Orellana, from González Suárez to Calle de los Conquistadores, the main road out of Quito and to the neighboring suburbs.
Often considered an artsy, bohemian neighborhood of Quito, Guápulo is home to many local artists and a couple of hippy cafés/bars.
Every year on September 7 the guapuleños honor their neighborhood with the Fiestas de Guápulo, a fantastic celebration complete with costumes, parade, food, drink, song, dance, and fireworks.
Guápulo Park is a 19.5 hectares, 48 acre public park.
The park is administered by the Public Sector under the Parks and Public Spaces Urban Spaces that is under the National Plan for Good Living as to the creation of green spaces for cultural practices, recreational and sports activities.
1534 establishments
The Uralic languages are a language family.
They were originally spoken in Eastern Europe and Asia but originated somewhere in eastern Siberia near Lake Baikal.
The proto-Uralic languages and the early Uralic people originated somewhere in eastern Siberia or possibly Northeast Asia.
They were closely related to other Siberian and East Asian but also Inuit people.
They migrated into central Siberia and then about 3,000 years ago started to migrate to the Baltic region in northeastern Europe.
They assimilated many Paleo-European tribes.
Genetic and anthropologic studies show that the early Uralic people were similar to various Siberian and East Asian people (Mongoloids).
External relations
Several linguists and geneticists suggest that the Uralic languages are related to various Siberian languages and possibly also some languages of northern Native Americans.
A proposed family is named Uralo-Siberian.
It includes Uralic, Yukaghir, Eskimo–Aleut (Inuit), possibly Nivkh and Chukotko-Kamchatkan.
List of Uralic languages
Livonian
Votic
Saami
Erzya
Komi
Samoyedic languages
Iranian language may refer to:
Iranic languages
The Indo-Aryan languages are a branch of Indo-Iranian languages.
They are mostly spoken in Southern Asia, including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bangladesh.
However, some are also spoken in other places, such as Europe.
The Indo-Aryan languages come from a common ancient ancestor, Proto-Indo-Aryan, and today include many modern languages like Marathi, Odia, Hindustani (including modern Hindi and Urdu), Romani, and Sanskrit, which is the sacred language of Hindus.
Morgenstierne, Georg. "
Early Iranic Influence upon Indo-Aryan."
Acta Iranica, I. série, Commemoration Cyrus.
I. Hommage universel (1974): 271-279.
The Indo Aryan languages
The Indic languages
The Indo-Iranian languages or Indo-Iranic languages are the largest group of the Indo-European language family.
They include the Indo-Aryan (Indic) and Iranic (Iranian) languages.
They are mostly spoken in the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plateau.
Originally, they were spoken in Central Asia, to the east and the north of the Caspian Sea.
Punjabi (regional official language in India; regional de-facto co-official provincial language in Pakistan)
Bengali (official language in Bangladesh; regional official language in India)
Marathi (regional official language in India)
Hindustani (in the form of Urdu; official language in Pakistan; regional official language in India alongside Hindi, another form of Hindustani)
Sanskrit, the sacred language of the Hindus, is also an Indo-Aryan language.
Today it is spoken by around 14,000 people, is an official language in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and is one of the 22 official languages of India.
There are about 86 Iranian languages, or Iranic languages as argued by some scholars, with between 150 and 200 million speakers.
Persian (official language in Iran; also official as Dari in Afghanistan and as Tajik in Tajikistan)
Pashto (official language in Afghanistan)
Kurdish (official language in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq)
The Iranian languages also contain the extinct language Avestan, which is used in the Zoroastrian scriptures of Zoroastrianism.
It is similar to Sanskrit but is not widely spoken today.
Nuristani, Bangani, and Badeshi
Some scholars consider the Nuristani and Bangani languages as part of the Indo-Aryan subgroup, but some other scholars consider them as two separate subgroups of Indo-Iranian.
The Badeshi language is also an unclassified Indo-Iranian language.
The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) are the largest language family of the Indo-European group.
Slavic languages and dialects are spoken in Central, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and northern Asia.
List of Slavic languages
Rusyn
Czech-Slovak languages
Pannonian Rusyn
Lechitic languages
Slovincian
Sorbian
These languages may be written with the Cyrillic or Latin script, depending on the language.
Molise Croatian
Bunjevac Croatian
Pan-Slavic languages
Interslavic
Slavic Grammar Matrix
Sienna is a city in the Italian region of Tuscany.
Its name is spelt Siena in Italian.
The city has a population of about 54,000.
The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site.
It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008.
Siena is famous for its cuisine, art, museums, medieval cityscape and the Palio, a horse race held twice yearly.
Siena began as Etruscan, before it was conquered by Ancient Rome.
Sienna prospered under the Lombards, who became the first Kings of Italy.
Lombard nobles governed it until the 8th century, when they were conquered by Charlemagne and his Franks.
Feudal rule eded with the death of the Countess Matilda in 1115, and Sienna became an independent city with its own government.
There were struggles between Siena and Florence during the Middle Ages and the renaissance.
The city did well in wool and money lending or usury, the charging of interest on loans.
- At the time of the Emperor Augustus, a Roman town called Saena Julia  in the territories previously occupied by Etruscans.
- Siena did not prosper under Roman rule.
It was not sited near any major roads and therefore missed out on the resulting opportunities for trade.
- Sienna became a major center of money lending and an important for trade.
It was governed at first directly by its Bishop.
- Early 12th century a self-governing commune replaced the earlier aristocratic government.
The consuls who governed the republic slowly became more inclusive of the poblani, or common people, and the Commune increased its territory as the surrounding feudal nobles in their fortified castles submitted to the urban power.
Sienna's republic, struggling internally between nobles and the popular party, usually worked in political opposition to its great rival, Florence.
- 1355: with Charles IV of Luxembourg in the city, the population rose and suppressed the government of the Nove (Nine), establishing that Dodici (Twelve) nobles assisted by a group with a popular majority.
- 1404: the Visconti were expelled and a government of Ten Priors established, in alliance with Florence against King Ladislas of Naples.
With the election of the Sienese Pius II as Pope, the Piccolomini and other noble families were helped to return to the government, but after his death the control returned into popular hands.
- Emperor Charles V took advantage of the chaotic situation to put a Spanish garrison in Sienna.
The citizens expelled the garrison in 1552, and made allies with France.
This was unacceptable for Charles, who sent his general Gian Giacomo Medici to lay siege to it with a Florentine-Imperial army.
- August 1554: Sienna lost against Florence at the Battle of Marciano.
After 18 months of resistance, it surrendered to Florence on 17 April 1555, marking the end of the Republic of Siena.
The new Spanish King Philip, owing huge sums to the Medici, gave it (apart from some coastal fortresses) to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany,
Important places in Siena
Siena's cathedral
baptistery
Torre del Mangia
Basilica dell'Osservanza
Santa Maria dei Servi
San Domenico
Palazzo Chigi
Castle of Belcaro
Villa Celsa
Villa Cetinale
Palazzo Salimbeni, (On the "Piazza Salimbeni") a notable building and also the medieval headquarter of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, one of the oldest banks of the World.
Sanctuary of Santa Caterina, incorporating the old house of St. Catherine of Siena.
It houses the miraculous Crucifix (late 12th century) from which the saint received her stigmata, and a 15th-century statue of St. Catherine.
The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (Museum of Opera in the Duomo) where we can see the Duccio's famous Maestà (1308–1311) and various other works by Senese masters.
Siena has enjoyed a long tradition in sports.
Basketball and football are popular in Siena.
However, other sports such as rugby union and track-and-field are also practiced.
The Palio
July 2 and August 16 are the dates when the Palio di Siena is held.
The Palio is a traditional medieval horse race is run around the Piazza del Campo each year.
This event is attended by large crowds, and is shown on TV.
televised.
Seventeen Contrade run for the prize,a painted flag, or Palio bearing an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Weimar, Germany, since April 15 1994
Siena information for the independent traveler
360° Photo Tour & Information on Siena
Images from Siena
Siena tourist guide
Siena historical picture gallery
Siena photos
Padua () is an Italian city near Venice.
It has about 210,000 people.
An old myth says that Padua was founded by the Trojan Antenore.
There was a settlement since the 4th century before Christ.
It got under Roman power in 215 B.C. In 426 A.D. Padua became destroyed by Attila.
Narses reconstructed the city, but the Langobardes destroyed it a second time.
Charles, the Great got Padua in 774 under power of the Francs, later the city joined the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation.
After struggles with Frederic Barbarossa it declared peace in 1177.
In 1222 the second university of Italy was founded in Padua.
The Gulfs got Padua in 1256, later the Republic of Venice got control about the city until Napoleon Bonaparte got it.
The official site in Italian language
Mary Patricia McAleese (born 27 June 1951) was the eighth President of the Republic of Ireland from 1997 to 2011.
She was first elected president in 1997 and was re-elected to another seven years in 2004 through 2011.
She was ranked the 55th most powerful woman in the world on a list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes, despite the ceremonial nature of the presidency.
She is the first President of Ireland to be born in Northern Ireland.
She is also Ireland's second woman president, and the first in the world to succeed another woman.
Fianna Fáil politicians
Northern Ireland politicians
Politicians from Belfast
Divorce is a process in which marriage is ended in the eyes of the law; after a couple divorces, they are no longer married.
Systems of law may have two sorts of divorce
The laws are different in every country, but usually there are two ways reasons for a divorce in law, because of a bad act by one person and divorce with no bad act.
In some countries it is important who did the bad act.