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Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- robin, 22:59:48 02/14/16 Sun [1]

The ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was based on Marxism–Leninism. It was presented as an absolute truth for understanding social life.

Marxism–Leninism
Main article: Marxism–Leninism

Marxism–Leninism was the cornerstone of Soviet ideology.[1] It explained and legitimised the CPSU's right to rule, while explaining its role as a vanguard party.[1] For instance, the ideology explained that the CPSU's policies, even if they were unpopular, were correct because the party was enlightened.[1] It was represented to be the only truth in Soviet society, and with it rejecting the notion of multiple truths.[1] In short, it was used to justify CPSU rule and Soviet policy, however, this doesn't mean that Marxism–Leninism was used as a means to an end.[1] The relationship between ideology and decision-making was at best ambivalent, with most policy decisions taken in the light of the continued, permanent development of Marxism–Leninism.[2] Marxism–Leninism, as the only truth, could not by its very nature become outdated.[3]

Despite having evolved over the years, Marxism–Leninism had several central tenets.[4] The main tenet was the party's status as sole ruling party.[4] The 1977 Constitution referred to the party as the "leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union."[4] State socialism was essential, and from Stalin until Gorbachev official discourse considered private social and economic activity as retarding the development of collective consciousness and of the economy.[5] Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree, but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's view on the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy.[5] Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism stressed not the importance of the individual, but rather the role of the individual as a member of a collective.[5] Thus defined, individuals had only the right to freedom of expression if it safeguarded the interests of the collective.[5] For instance, in the 1977 Constitution Marxism–Leninism it was stated that every person had the right to express their opinion, but that opinion could only be expressed if it was in accordance with the "general interests of Soviet society."[5] In short, the amount of rights granted to an individual was decided by the state, and could be taken away by the state as it saw fit.[5] Soviet Marxism–Leninism justified nationalism, and the media portrayed every victory of the Soviet Union as a victory for the communist movement as a whole.[5] In large parts, Soviet nationalism was based upon ethnic Russian nationalism.[5] Marxism–Leninism stressed the importance of the worldwide conflict between capitalism and socialism, and the Soviet press talked about progressive and reactionary forces, while claiming that socialism was on the verge of victory; that the "correlations of forces" were in the Soviet Union's favour.[5] The ideology professed state atheism, and party members were not allowed to be religious.[6] The state professed a belief in the feasibility of communist mode of production, and all policies were justifiable if it contributed to the Soviet Union's reaching that stage.[7]
Leninism
Main article: Leninism

In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of the socialist mode of production, developed by Lenin.[8] Since Karl Marx barely, if ever wrote about how the socialist mode of production would look like or function, these tasks were left for Lenin to solve.[8] His main contribution to Marxist thought is the concept of the vanguard party of the working class.[8] The vanguard party was conceived to be a highly-knit centralized organization which was led by intellectuals, rather than by the working class itself.[8] The party was open only to a small amount of the workers, the reason being that the workers in Russia still had not developed class consciousness and therefore needed to be educated to reach such a state.[8] Lenin believed that the vanguard party could initiate policies in the name of the working class even if the working class did not support them, since the vanguard party would know what was best for the workers, since the party functionaries had attained consciousness.[8]

Leninism was by definition authoritarian.[8] Lenin, in light of the Marx's theory of the state (which views the state as an oppressive organ of the ruling class), had no qualms of forcing change upon the country.[8] He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat, in contrast to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, as the dictatorship of the majority.[8] The repressive powers of the state were to be used to transform the country, and to strip of the former ruling class of their wealth.[8] Lenin believed that the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production would last for a long period.[9] In contrast to Karl Marx, who believed that the socialist revolution would be composed of and led by the working class alone, Lenin argued that a socialist revolution did not necessarily need to be led by or composed of the working class alone, instead contending that a revolution needed to be led by the oppressed classes of society, which in the case of Russia was the peasant class.[10]

Stalinism, while not an ideology per se, refers to Stalin's thoughts and policies.[11] Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was a major turning point in Soviet ideological discourse.[11] The Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society, Stalin claimed.[11] Four years later, Stalin initiated his "Second Revolution" with the introduction of state socialism and central planning.[11] In the early-1930s, he initiated collectivization of Soviet agriculture, by de-privatizing agriculture, but not turning it under the responsibility of the state, per se, instead creating peasant cooperatives.[11] With the initiation of his "Second Revolution", Stalin launched the "Cult of Lenin" and a cult of personality centered upon himself.[11] For instance, the name of the city of Petrograd was changed to Leningrad, the town of Lenin's birth was renamed Ulyanov (Lenin's birth-name), the Order of Lenin became the highest state award and portraits of Lenin were hanged up everywhere; in public squares, factories and offices etc.[12] The increasing bureaucracy which followed after the introduction of a state socialist economy was at complete odds with the Marxist notion of "the withering away of the state".[13] Stalin tried to explain the reasoning behind it at the 16th Congress (held in 1930);[13]

We stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the mightiest and most powerful authority of all forms of State that have ever existed. The highest development of the State power for the withering away of State power —this is the Marxian formula. Is this "contradictory"? Yes, it is "contradictory." But this contradiction springs from life itself and reflects completely Marxist dialectic."[13]

The idea that the state would wither away was later abandoned by Stalin at the 18th Congress (held in 1939), in which he expressed confidence that the state would exist, even if the Soviet Union reached communism, as long as it was encircled by capitalism.[14] Two key concepts were created in the later half of his rule; the "two camp" theory and that of "capitalist encirclement".[13] The threat of capitalism was used to strengthen Stalin's personal powers, and Soviet propaganda began making a direct link with Stalin and stability in society, claiming that the country would crumble without the leader.[13] Stalin deviated greatly from classical Marxism when it came to "subjective factors", claiming that party members, whatever rank, had to profess fanatic adherence to the party's line and ideology, if not those policies would fail.[13]
Concepts
Dictatorship of the proletariat
Main article: Dictatorship of the proletariat

"Either the dictatorship of the landowners and capitalists, or the dictatorship of the proletariat ... There is no middle course ... There is no middle course anywhere in the world, nor can there be."
—Lenin, claiming that people had only two choices; a choice between two different, but distinct class dictatorships.[15]

Lenin, supporting Marx's view of the state, believed democracy to be unattainable anywhere in the world before the proletariat seized power.[15] According to Marxist theory, the state is a vehicle for oppression and is headed by a ruling class.[15] He believed that by his time, the only viable solution was dictatorship since the war was heading into a final conflict between the "progressive forces of socialism and the degenerate forces of capitalism."[16] The Russian Revolution was by 1917, already a failure according to its original aim which was to act as an inspiration for a world revolution.[16] The initial anti-statist posture and the active campaigning for direct democracy was replaced, because of Russia's level of development, with, according to their own assessments, dictatorship.[16] The reasoning being Russia's lack of development, its status as the sole socialist state in the world, its encirclement by imperialist powers and its internal encirclement by the peasantry.[17]

Marx, similar to Lenin, did not care if a bourgeoise state was ruled accordance with a republican, parliamentary or a constitutional monarchial system since in essence this did not change the overall situation.[18] These systems, even if they were ruled by a small clique or ruled through mass participation, were in the last analysis all, by definition, dictatorships of the bourgeoise who by their very nature implemented policies in defense of capitalism.[19] However, there was a difference; Lenin, after the failures of the world revolutions, argued that this did not necessarily have to change under the dictatorship of the proletariat.[20] The reasoning came from wholly practical considerations; the majority of the country's inhabitants were not communists, neither could the party reintroduce parliamentary democracy since that was neither in sync with their ideology and would lead to the party losing power.[20] He therefore concluded that "The form of government has absolutely nothing do to with" the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.[20] Bukharin and Trotsky agreed with Lenin, both claiming that the revolution had only destroyed the old, but failing completely in creating anything sort of new.[21] Lenin had now concluded that the dictatorship of the proletariat would not alter the relationship of power between men, but rather "transform their productive relations so that, in the long run, the realm of necessity could be overcome and, with that, genuine social freedom realised."[22] It was in the period 1920–1921, that Soviet leaders and ideologists began differentiating between socialism and communism, hitherto the two terms had been used interchangeably and used to explain the same things.[22] From then, the two terms meant two different things; Russia was in the transition from capitalism to socialism (referred to interchangeably under Lenin as the dictatorship of the proletariat), socialism being the intermediate stage to communism and communism, the last stage.[22] By now, the party leaders believed that universal mass participation and true democracy could only take form in the last stage, because of Russia's backward state.[22]

"[Because] the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, so corrupted in parts ... that an organization takin gin the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class."
—Lenin, explaining the increasingly dictatorial nature of the regime.[23]

In early Bolshevik discourse, the term dictatorship of the proletariat, was of little significance, and the few times it was mentioned, it was likened to the form of government which had existed in the Paris Commune.[22] However, with the ensuing Russian Civil War and the social and material devastation that followed, its meaning was transformed; from commune-type democracy to rule by iron-discipline.[24] By now, Lenin had concluded that only a proletarian regime as oppressive as its opponents could survive in this world.[25] The powers previously bestowed upon the Soviets were now given to the Council of People's Commissars, the central government, which was in turn to be governed by "an army of steeled revolutionary Communists [by Communists he referred to the Party]".[23] In a letter to Gavril Myasnikov, Lenin in late 1920 explained his new reinterpretation of the term dictatorship of the proletariat;[26]

"Dictatorship means nothing more nor less than authority untrammelled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force. The term 'dictatorship' has no other meaning but this."[26]

Lenin justified these policies by claiming that all states were class states by nature, and that these states were maintained through class struggle.[26] This meant that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union could only be "won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoise".[26] The main problem with this analysis is that the Party came to view anyone opposing or holding alternate views of the party as bourgeoise.[26] However, the worst enemy remained the moderates, which were 'objectively' considered to be "the real agents of the bourgeoise in the working class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class".[27] In short, bourgeoise became synonymous with opponent and with people who disagreed with the party in general.[28] These oppressive measures led to another reinterpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and socialism in general; it was now defined as a purely economic system.[29] Slogans and theoretical works about democratic mass participation and collective decision-making were now replaced with texts which supported authoritarian management.[29] Considering the situation, the party believed it has to use the same powers as the bourgeoise to transform Russia, there was no other alternative.[30] Lenin began arguing that the proletariat, similar to the bourgeoise, did not have a single preference for a form of government, and because of that dictatorship was acceptable to both the party and the proletariat.[31] In a meeting with party officials, Lenin stated that (in line with his economist view of socialism) that "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", further arguing that "we do not promise any democracy or any freedom."[31]
Imperialism
Main article: Imperialism

"Imperialism is capitalism at stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts as begun; in which divisions of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed."
—Lenin, citing the main features of capitalism in the age of imperialism in Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism.[32]

The Marxist theory on imperialism was conceived by Lenin in his book, Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism (published in 1917).[33] It was written in response to the theoretical crisis within Marxist thought, which occurred due to capitalism' recovery in the 19th century.[33] According to Lenin, imperialism was a specific stage of development of capitalism; a stage he referred to as state monopoly capitalism.[33] The Marxist movement was split on how to solve capitalism' resurgence and revitalisation after the great depression of the late-19th century.[34] Eduard Bernstein, from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP), considered capitalism' revitalisation as proof that capitalism was evolving into a more humane system, further adding that the basic aims of socialists were not to overthrow the state, but rather to take power through elections.[34] On the other hand, Karl Kautsky, from the SDP, held a highly dogmatic view, claiming that there was no crisis within Marxist theory.[34] Both of them, however, denied or belittled the role of class contradictions in society after the crisis.[34] In contrast, Lenin believed that capitalism' resurgence was the beginning of a new phase of capitalism; this stage being created because of a strengthening of class contradiction, not because of its reduction.[34]

Lenin did not know when imperialist stage of capitalism began, and claimed it would be foolish to look for a specific year, however he does assert it began at the beginning of the 20th century (at least in Europe).[32] Lenin believed that the economic crisis of 1900 accelerated and intensified the concentration of industry and banking, which led to the transformation the finance capital connection to industry into the monopoly of large banks."[35] In Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin wrote; "the twentieth century marks the turning-point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital."[35] Lenin's defines imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism.[36]
Peaceful coexistence
Main article: Peaceful coexistence

"The loss by imperialism of its dominating role in world affairs and the utmost expansion of the sphere in which the laws of socialist foreign policy operate are a distinctive feature of the present stage of social development. The main direction of this development is toward even greater changes in the correlation of forces in the world arena in favour of socialism."
—Nikolay Inozemtsev, a Soviet foreign policy analyst, referring to series of events (which he believed) would lead to the ultimate victory of socialism.[37]

"Peaceful coexistence" was an ideological concept introduced under Khrushchev's rule.[38] While the concept has been interpreted by fellow communists as proposing an end to the conflict between the systems of capitalism and socialism, Khrushchev saw it instead as a continuation of the conflict in every area with the exception in the military field.[39] The concept claimed that the two systems were developed "by way of diametrically opposed laws", which led to "opposite principles in foreign policy."[40]

The concept was steeped in Leninist and Stalinist thought.[40] Lenin believed that international politics were dominated by class struggle, and Stalin stressed in the 1940s the growing polarization which was occurring in the capitalist and socialist systems.[40] Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence was based on practical changes which had occurred; he accused the old "two camp" theory of neglecting the non-aligned movement and the national liberation movements.[40] Khrushchev considered these "grey areas", in which the conflict between capitalism and socialism would be fought.[40] He still stressed that the main contradiction in international relations were those of capitalism and socialism.[40] The Soviet Government under Khrushchev stressed the importance of peaceful coexistence, claiming it had to form the basis of Soviet foreign policy.[40] Failure to do, they believed, would lead to nuclear conflict.[40] Despite this, Soviet theorists still considered peaceful coexistence as a continuation of the class struggle between the capitalist and socialist worlds, just not one based on armed conflict.[40] Khrushchev believed that the conflict, in its current phase, was mainly economical.[40]

The emphasise on peaceful coexistence did not mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world, with clear lines.[40] They continued to upheld the creed that socialism was inevitable, and they sincerely believed that the world had reached a stage in which the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism.[40] Also, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia, Soviet foreign policy-planners believed that capitalism had lost its dominance as an economic system

The concept of "Socialism in One Country" was conceived by Stalin in his struggle against Leon Trotsky and his concept of permanent revolution.[41] In 1924, Trotsky published his pamphlet Lessons of October in which he stated that socialism in the Soviet Union would fail because of the backward state of economic development unless a world revolution began.[41] Stalin responded to Trotsky's pamphlet with his article, "October and Comrade Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution" .[42] In it, Stalin stated, that he did not believe an inevitable conflict between the working class and the peasants would take place, further adding that "socialism in one country is completely possible and probable".[42] Stalin held the view common amongst most Bolsheviks at the time; there was possibility of real success for socialism in the Soviet Union despite the country's backwardness and international isolation.[42] While Grigoriy Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharin, together with Stalin, opposed Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, they diverged on how socialism could be built.[42] According to Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported the resolution of the 14th Conference (held in 1925) which stated that "we cannot complete the building of socialism due to our technological backwardness."[42] Despite the rather cynical attitude, Zinoviev and Kamenev did believe that a defective form of socialism could be constructed.[42] At the 14th Conference, Stalin reiterated his position, claiming that socialism in one country was feasible despite the capitalist blockade of the country.[43] After the conference, Stalin wrote "Concerning the Results of the XIV Conference of the RCP(b)", in which he stated that the peasantry would not turn against the socialist system because he believed they had a self-interest in preserving.[43] The contradictions which would arise with the peasantry during the socialist transition, Stalin surmised, could "be overcome by our own efforts".[43] He concluded that the only viable threat to socialism in the Soviet Union was a military intervention.[44]

In late 1925, Stalin received a letter from a party official which stated that his position of "Socialism in One Country" was in contradiction with Friedrich Engels own writings on the subject.[44] Stalin countered, stating that Engels' writings 'reflected' "the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were not yet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist countries."[44] From 1925 onwards, Bukharin began writing extensively on the subject, and in 1926, Stalin wrote On Questions of Leninism, which contained his best-known writings on the subject.[44] Trotsky, with the publishing of Leninism, began countering Bukharin's and Stalin's arguments, claiming that socialism in one country was possible, but only in the short-run, and claimed that without a world revolution it would be impossible to safeguard the Soviet Union from the "restoration of bourgeoise relations".[44] Zinoviev on the other hand, disagreed with both Trotsky and Bukharin and Stalin, holding instead steadfast to Lenin's own position from 1917 to 1922, and continued to claim that only a defecting form of socialism could be constructed in the Soviet Union without a world revolution.[45] Bukharin, by now, began arguing for the creation of an autarkic economic model, while Trotsky, in contrast, claimed that the Soviet Union had to participate in the international division of labour to develop.[46] In contrast to Trotsky and Bukharin, Stalin did not believe a world revolution was possible, claiming in 1938 that a world revolution was in fact impossible, and claiming that Engels was wrong on the matter.[14] At the 18th Congress, Stalin took the theory to its inevitable conclusion, claiming that the communist mode of production could be conceived in one country.[14] He rationalized this by claiming that the state could exist in a communist society, as long as the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalism.[14] However, surprisingly, with the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, Stalin claimed that socialism in one country was only possible in a large country like the Soviet Union, and that the other states, in order to survive, had to follow the Soviet line.


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Ideology -- robin, 22:57:10 02/14/16 Sun [1]

Ideology, in the Althusserian sense, is "the imaginary relation to the real conditions of existence". It can be described as a set of conscious and unconscious ideas which make up one's beliefs, goals, expectations, and motivations. An ideology is a comprehensive normative vision that are followed by people, governments, or other groups that is considered the correct way by the majority of the population, as argued in several philosophical tendencies (see political ideologies). It can also be a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of society such as the elite to all members of society as suggested in some Marxist and critical-theory accounts. While the concept of "ideology" describes a set of ideas broad in its normative reach, an ideology is less encompassing than the ideas expressed in concepts such as worldview, imaginary and ontology.[citation needed]

Ideology refers to the system of abstracted meaning applied to public matters, thus making this concept central to politics. Implicitly, in societies that distinguish between public and private life, every political or economic tendency entails ideology, whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought.

Etymology and history

The term "ideology" was born in the highly controversial philosophical and political debates and fights of the French Revolution, and acquired several other meanings from the early days of the First French Empire to the present. The word was coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy in 1796,[1][2] assembling the words idea, from Greek ἰδέα (near to the Lockean sense) and -logy, from -λογία. He used it to refer to one aspect of his "science of ideas" (to the study itself, not the subject of the study). He separated three aspects, namely: ideology, general grammar, and logic, considering respectively the subject, the means, and the reason of this science.[3] He argues that among these aspects ideology is the most generic term, because the science of ideas also contains the study of their expression and deduction.

According to Karl Mannheim's historical reconstruction of the shifts in the meaning of ideology, the modern meaning of the word was born when Napoleon Bonaparte (as a politician) used it in an abusive way against "the ideologues" (a group which included[citation needed] Cabanis, Condorcet, Constant, Daunou, Say, Madame de Staël, and Destutt de Tracy), to express the pettiness of his (liberal republican) political opponents.

Perhaps the most accessible source for the near-original meaning of ideology is Hippolyte Taine's work on the Ancien Régime (the first volume of "Origins of Contemporary France"). He describes ideology as rather like teaching philosophy by the Socratic method, but without extending the vocabulary beyond what the general reader already possessed, and without the examples from observation that practical science would require. Taine identifies it not just with Destutt De Tracy, but also with his milieu, and includes Condillac as one of its precursors. (Destutt de Tracy read the works of Locke and Condillac while he was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror.)

Napoleon Bonaparte took the word "ideologues" to ridicule his intellectual opponents. Gradually, however, the term "ideology" has dropped some of its pejorative sting, and has become a neutral term in the analysis of differing political opinions and views of social groups.[4] While Karl Marx situated the term within class struggle and domination,[5][6] others believed it was a necessary part of institutional functioning and social integration.[7]
Analysis

There has been considerable analysis of different ideological patterns. This kind of analysis has been described by some as meta-ideology – the study of the structure, form, and manifestation of ideologies. Recent analysis tends to posit that ideology is a coherent system of ideas, relying upon a few basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis. Ideas become ideologies (that is, become coherent, repeated patterns) through the subjective ongoing choices that people make, serving as the seed around which further thought grows. According to most recent analysis, ideologies are neither necessarily right nor wrong. Believers in ideology range from passive acceptance through fervent advocacy to true belief. An excessive need for certitude lurks at fundamentalist levels in politics and religions.

This accords with definitions such as given by Manfred Steger and Paul James which emphasize both the issue of patterning and contingent claims to truth:
“ Ideologies are patterned clusters of normatively imbued ideas and concepts, including particular representations of power relations. These conceptual maps help people navigate the complexity of their political universe and carry claims to social truth.[8] ”

The works of George Walford and Harold Walsby, done under the heading of systematic ideology, are attempts to explore the relationships between ideology and social systems. Charles Blattberg has offered an account which distinguishes political ideologies from political philosophies.[9]

David W. Minar describes six different ways in which the word "ideology" has been used:

As a collection of certain ideas with certain kinds of content, usually normative;
As the form or internal logical structure that ideas have within a set;
By the role in which ideas play in human-social interaction;
By the role that ideas play in the structure of an organization;
As meaning, whose purpose is persuasion; and
As the locus of social interaction.

For Willard A. Mullins an ideology should be contrasted with the related (but different) issues of utopia and historical myth. An ideology is composed of four basic characteristics:

it must have power over cognition
it must be capable of guiding one's evaluations;
it must provide guidance towards action; and
it must be logically coherent.

Terry Eagleton outlines (more or less in no particular order) some definitions of ideology:[10]

the process of production of meanings, signs and values in social life;
a body of ideas characteristic of a particular social group or class;
ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power;
false ideas which help to legitimate a dominant political power;
systematically distorted communication;
that which offers a position for a subject;
forms of thought motivated by social interests;
identity thinking;
socially necessary illusion;
the conjuncture of discourse and power;
the medium in which conscious social actors make sense of their world;
action-oriented sets of beliefs;
the confusion of linguistic and phenomenal reality;
semiotic closure;
the indispensable medium in which individuals live out their relations to a social structure;
the process whereby social life is converted to a natural reality.

The German philosopher Christian Duncker called for a "critical reflection of the ideology concept" (2006). In his work, he strove to bring the concept of ideology into the foreground, as well as the closely connected concerns of epistemology and history. In this work, the term ideology is defined in terms of a system of presentations that explicitly or implicitly claim to absolute truth.

Though the word "ideology" is most often found in political discourse, there are many different kinds of ideology: political, social, epistemological, ethical, etc.

In the Marxist economic base and superstructure model of society, base denotes the relations of production and modes of production, and superstructure denotes the dominant ideology (religious, legal, political systems). The economic base of production determines the political superstructure of a society. Ruling class-interests determine the superstructure and the nature of the justifying ideology—actions feasible because the ruling class control the means of production. For example, in a feudal mode of production, religious ideology is the most prominent aspect of the superstructure, while in capitalist formations, ideologies such as liberalism and social democracy dominate. Hence the great importance of the ideology justifying a society; it politically confuses the alienated groups of society via false consciousness.

Some explanations have been presented. György Lukács proposes ideology as a projection of the class consciousness of the ruling class. Antonio Gramsci uses cultural hegemony to explain why the working-class have a false ideological conception of what are their best interests. Marx argued that "The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production."[11]

The Marxist formulation of "ideology as an instrument of social reproduction" is conceptually important to the sociology of knowledge, viz. Karl Mannheim, Daniel Bell, and Jürgen Habermas et al. Moreover, Mannheim has developed, and progressed, from the "total" but "special" Marxist conception of ideology to a "general" and "total" ideological conception acknowledging that all ideology (including Marxism) resulted from social life, an idea developed by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Slavoj Žižek and the earlier Frankfurt School added to the "general theory" of ideology a psychoanalytic insight that ideologies do not include only conscious, but also unconscious ideas.
Louis Althusser's Ideological State Apparatuses

Louis Althusser proposed both spiritual and materialistic conception of ideology, which made use of a special type of discourse: the lacunar discourse. A number of propositions, which are never untrue, suggest a number of other propositions, which are. In this way, the essence of the lacunar discourse is what is not told (but is suggested).

For example, the statement "All are equal before the law", which is a theoretical groundwork of current legal systems, suggests that all people may be of equal worth or have equal "opportunities". This is not true, for the concept of private property and power over the means of production results in some people being able to own more (much more) than others. This power disparity contradicts the claim that all share both practical worth and future opportunity equally; for example, the rich can afford better legal representation, which practically privileges them before the law.

Althusser also proffered the concept of the Ideological State Apparatus to explain his theory of ideology. His first thesis was "ideology has no history": while individual ideologies have histories, interleaved with the general class struggle of society, the general form of ideology is external to history.

For Althusser, beliefs and ideas are the products of social practices, not the reverse. His thesis that "ideas are material" is illustrated by the "scandalous advice" of Pascal toward unbelievers: "kneel and pray, and then you will believe". What is ultimately ideological for Althusser are not the subjective beliefs held in the conscious "minds" of human individuals, but rather discourses that produce these beliefs, the material institutions and rituals that individuals take part in without submitting it to conscious examination and critical thinking.
Ideology and the Commodity in the works of Guy Debord

The French Marxist theorist Guy Debord, founding member of the Situationist International, argued that when the commodity becomes the "essential category" of society, i.e. when the process of commodification has been consummated to its fullest extent, the image of society propagated by the commodity (as it describes all of life as constituted by notions and objects deriving their value only as commodities tradeable in terms of exchange value), colonizes all of life and reduces society to a mere representation, The Society of the Spectacle.[12]
Silvio Vietta: ideology and rationality
Gnome-searchtool.svg This section's factual accuracy is disputed. (July 2015)

The German cultural historian Silvio Vietta described the development and expansion of Western rationality from ancient times onwards as often accompanied by and shaped by ideologies like that of the "just war", the "true religion", racism, nationalism, or the eschatological vision of future history as a kind of heaven on earth in communism. He said that ideas like these became ideologies by giving hegemonic political actions an idealistic veneer and equipping their leaders with a higher and, in the "political religions" (Eric Voegelin), nearly God-like power, so that they became masters over the lives (and the deaths) of millions of people. He considered that ideologies therefore contributed to power politics irrational shields of ideas beneath which they could operate as manifestations of idealism.[13][14]
Political ideologies
Main article: List of political ideologies

Note: discussion of political ideologies is not compatible with the more theoretically informed use found in Marx and post-Marxist thinkers. Arguably, this more narrowly political version of the concept does not even belong in the same wiki entry as the other, more expansive concept discussed above. Here, "ideology" simply means a political doctrine; the previous discussion covers approaches to the concept that are deeper and more far-ranging than that. In any event, following this much narrow usage, it can be said that many political parties base their political action and program on an ideology. In social studies, a political ideology is a certain ethical set of ideals, principles, doctrines, myths, or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group that explains how society should work, and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order. (In the more theoretically expansive version, for example, one would never say that "many" political parties have an ideology; in terms of the theory already discussed, all of human thought and action is encompassed by ideology. It can't be "many" political parties, it is virtually all human thought. In that view, it is not merely "many" political parties, it is all human institutions.) In any event, according to this much narrower (and more mundane) usage, a political ideology largely concerns itself with how to allocate power and to what ends power should be used. Some parties follow a certain ideology very closely, while others may take broad inspiration from a group of related ideologies without specifically embracing any one of them.

Political ideologies have two dimensions:

Goals: how society should work
Methods: the most appropriate ways to achieve the ideal arrangement

An ideology is a collection of ideas. Typically, each ideology contains certain ideas on what it considers to be the best form of government (e.g. democracy, theocracy, caliphate etc.), and the best economic system (e.g. capitalism, socialism, etc.). Sometimes the same word is used to identify both an ideology and one of its main ideas. For instance, "socialism" may refer to an economic system, or it may refer to an ideology which supports that economic system.

Ideologies also identify themselves by their position on the political spectrum (such as the left, the center or the right), though precision in this respect can very often become controversial. Finally, ideologies can be distinguished from political strategies (e.g. populism) and from single issues that a party may be built around (e.g. legalization of marijuana). Philosopher Michael Oakeshott provides a good definition of ideology as "the formalized abridgment of the supposed sub-stratum of the rational truth contained in the tradition".

Studies of the concept of ideology itself (rather than specific ideologies) have been carried out under the name of systematic ideology.

Political ideologies are concerned with many different aspects of a society, including (for example): the economy, education, health care, labor law, criminal law, the justice system, the provision of social security and social welfare, trade, the environment, minors, immigration, race, use of the military, patriotism, and established religion.

There are many proposed methods for the classification of political ideologies, each of these different methods generate a specific political spectrum.[citation needed]

Post 1991, many commentators claim that we are living in a post-ideological age,[15] in which redemptive, all-encompassing ideologies have failed, and this view is often associated[by whom?] with Francis Fukuyama's writings on "the end of history".[16] On the other hand, Nienhueser sees research (in the field of human resource management) as ongoingly "generating ideology".[17]
Government ideology

When a political ideology becomes a dominantly pervasive component within a government, one can speak of an ideocracy.[18] Different forms of government utilize ideology in various ways, not always restricted to politics and society. Certain ideas and schools of thought become favored, or rejected, over others, depending on their compatibility with or use for the reigning social order.
Epistemological ideologies

Even when the challenging of existing beliefs is encouraged, as in scientific theories, the dominant paradigm or mindset can prevent certain challenges, theories, or experiments from being advanced.

A special case of science adopted as ideology is that of ecology, which studies the relationships among living things on Earth. Perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson believed that human perception of ecological relationships was the basis of self-awareness and cognition itself. Linguist George Lakoff has proposed a cognitive science of mathematics wherein even the most fundamental ideas of arithmetic would be seen as consequences or products of human perception—which is itself necessarily evolved within an ecology.

Deep ecology and the modern ecology movement (and, to a lesser degree, Green parties) appear to have adopted ecological sciences as a positive ideology.

Some accuse ecological economics of likewise turning scientific theory into political economy, although theses in that science can often be tested. The modern practice of green economics fuses both approaches and seems to be part science, part ideology.

This is far from the only theory of economics to be raised to ideology status—some notable economically based ideologies include neoliberalism, monetarism, mercantilism, mixed economy, social Darwinism, communism, laissez-faire economics, and free trade. There are also current theories of safe trade and fair trade which can be seen as ideologies.
Psychological research

Psychological research[19] increasingly suggests that ideologies reflect (unconscious) motivational processes, as opposed to the view that political convictions always reflect independent and unbiased thinking. Jost, Ledgerwood and Hardin proposed in 2008 that ideologies may function as prepackaged units of interpretation that spread because of basic human motives to understand the world, avoid existential threat, and maintain valued interpersonal relationships.[19] These authors conclude that such motives may lead disproportionately to the adoption of system-justifying worldviews. Psychologists have generally found that personality traits, individual difference variables, needs, and ideological beliefs seem to have a common thread.[citation needed]
Ideology and semiotic theory

According to the semiotician Bob Hodge, ideology "identifies a unitary object that incorporates complex sets of meanings with the social agents and processes that produced them. No other term captures this object as well as 'ideology'. Foucault's 'episteme' is too narrow and abstract, not social enough. His 'discourse', popular because it covers some of ideology's terrain with less baggage, is too confined to verbal systems. 'Worldview' is too metaphysical, 'propaganda' too loaded. Despite or because of its contradictions, 'ideology' still plays a key role in semiotics oriented to social, political life."[20] Authors such as Michael Freeden have also recently incorporated a semantic analysis to the study of ideologies.


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Icy Breasts -- robin, 22:54:38 02/14/16 Sun [1]

Icy Breasts (French: Les seins de glace, Italian: Esecutore oltre la legge, also known as Someone Is Bleeding) is a 1974 French-Italian crime-thriller film written and directed by Georges Lautner and starring Alain Delon. It is based on Richard Matheson's novel Someone is Bleeding.

Plot

Francois (Claude Brasseur) is a television writer who is both down on his luck and new ideas. he travels to Nice, France in the hopes of finding inspiration. He walks along the cold, winter beach where he encounters an attractive young woman named Peggy (Mireille Darc). Her icy attitude leaves Francois little hope of starting a relationship; however, Peggy is soon disarmed by his warmth and personality.

Their encounters continue, but Francois is troubled by the fact that he knows nothing of the girl and Peggy volunteers no information about her past or present. She lives in an isolated villa and the mystery surrounding her only grows deeper as other members of the household are identified.

Two murders are committed - but who is responsible?
Cast

Alain Delon as Marc Rilson
Mireille Darc as Peggy
Claude Brasseur as François Rollin
André Falcon as Commissioner Garnier
Nicoletta Machiavelli as Mrs. Rilson
Emilio Messina as Steig
Fiore Altoviti as Denis Wilson
Michel Peyrelon as Albert
Philippe Castelli as The Man in the Underground Parking


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ICU scoring systems -- robin, 22:52:52 02/14/16 Sun [1]

Adult scoring systems

APACHE II was designed to provide a morbidity score for a patient. It is useful to decide what kind of treatment or medicine is given. Methods exist to derive a predicted mortality from this score, but these methods are not too well defined and rather imprecise.
APACHE III is an updated version.
SAPS II was designed to provide a predicted mortality, that does not reflect the expected mortality for a particular patient, but is good for benchmarking. In a rather simple way, it makes it possible to provide a single number that describes the morbidity of a number of patients.
SAPS III was designed to provide a realistic predicted mortality for a particular patient or a particular group of patients. It does this by calibrating against known mortalities on an existing set of patients, for a specific definition of mortality (like 30-days mortality). This way, it can answer questions like "Did we improve our quality of care from 2004 to 2005?" or "If hospital A's patients had been treated at hospital B, would they have a better or a worse mortality?".

Children scoring systems

PIM2 delivers a predicted mortality value, intended to be used for benchmarking.,

Other scoring systems

SOFA was designed to provide a simple daily score, that indicates how the status of the patient evolves over time.
Glasgow Coma Scale (also named GCS) is designed to provide the status for the central nervous system. It is often used as part of other scoring systems.
CMM - Cancer Mortality Model[1]
specific score to predict outcome of critical cancer patients
MPM - Mortality Probability Model[1][2]
model to assess risk of death at ICU admission
has prediction models for assessment at admittance, 24h, 48h and 72h after
RIFLE - Risk, injury, failure, loss and end-stage kidney classification [2]
has 3 severity levels (risk, injury and failure) and 2 possible outcomes (loss and end-stage)
CP - Child–Pugh[2]
for patient with liver failure.
used also outside of the ICU.
Ranson score [2]
simple score used specifically for patients with pancreatitis
MODS Multiple Organ Dysfunction Score [2]
with similar objectives as SOFA Score
LODS Logistic Organ Dysfunction System [2]
developed for evaluation at admittance and not as a monitoring tool


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International Air Transport Association airport code -- robin, 22:50:56 02/14/16 Sun [1]

An IATA airport code, also known an IATA location identifier, IATA station code or simply a location identifier,[1] is a three-letter code designating many airports around the world, defined by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The characters prominently displayed on baggage tags attached at airport check-in desks are an example of a way these codes are used.

The assignment of these codes is governed by IATA Resolution 763, and it is administered by IATA headquarters in Montreal. The codes are published biannually in the IATA Airline Coding Directory.[2]

IATA also provides codes for railway stations and for airport handling entities. A list of airports sorted by IATA code is available. A list of railway stations codeshared in agreements between airlines and rail lines such as Amtrak, SNCF French Rail, and Deutsche Bahn is available. There is also a separate List of Amtrak station codes, three-character codes used by Amtrak for its railway stations in the United States and Canada.
List

List of airports by IATA code: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

See also: List of airports by ICAO code

History and conventions

Airport codes arose out of the convenience that it brought pilots for location identification in the 1930s. Initially, pilots in the United States used the two-letter code from the National Weather Service (NWS) for identifying cities. This system became unmanageable for cities and towns without an NWS identifier, thus a three-letter system of airport codes was implemented. This system allowed for 17,576 permutations, assuming all letters can be used in conjunction with each other.[3]

Generally speaking, airport codes are named after the first three letters of the city in which it is located - ATL for Atlanta, SIN for Singapore, MEX for Mexico City, IST for Istanbul; or a combination of the letters in its name, EWR for Newark, GDL for Guadalajara, JNB for Johannesburg, HKG for Hong Kong, SLC for Salt Lake City and WAW for Warsaw. Some airports in the United States retained their NWS codes and simply appended an X at the end, such as LAX for Los Angeles, PDX for Portland, and PHX for Phoenix.[3]

For many reasons, some airport codes do not fit the normal scheme described above. Some airports, for example, cross several municipalities or regions, and mix the letters around, giving rise to DFW for Dallas–Fort Worth, DTW for Detroit–Wayne County, HNL for Honolulu, LBA for Leeds Bradford (Airport), MSP for Minneapolis–Saint Paul, and RDU for Raleigh–Durham.

Although the naming of Canadian airports and weather stations can seem confusing, here is a brief explanation. Originally, in the 1930s, Canada used two letters for identification of a weather reporting station. Additionally, preceding the 2-letter code, was placed a Y (meaning "yes") where the reporting station was co-located with an airport, a W (meaning "without") where the reporting station was not co-located with an airport, and a U where the reporting station was co-located with an NDB. An X was used if the last two letters of the code had already been taken by another Canadian ident, and a Z was used if the locator could be confused with a U.S. three letter ident. The ICAO names are in a 4 letter format starting with a C for Canadian airports.[4]

Large metropolitan areas with more than one airport often resort to codes named after the airport itself instead of the city it serves. Often, another code is reserved which refers to the city itself. For instance:

Beijing (BJS) — Capital (PEK) and Nanyuan (NAY)
Buenos Aires (BUE) — Ezeiza (EZE) is named after the suburb in Ezeiza Partido which the airport is located, while the city also has another airport in city proper, Aeroparque Jorge Newbery (AEP).
Chicago (CHI) — O'Hare (ORD), named after Orchard Field, the airport's former name which took it, and Midway (MDW)
Jakarta (JKT) — Soekarno-Hatta (CGK) is named after Cengkareng, the district in which the airport is located, while the city also has another airport, Halim Perdanakusuma (HLP). JKT had referred to the city's former airport, Kemayoran Airport which is now closed.
Kyiv (IEV) — Zhuliany (IEV), Boryspil (KBP),
London (LON) — Heathrow (LHR), Gatwick (LGW), London City (LCY),[3] Stansted (STN), Luton (LTN) and Southend (SEN)
Milan (MIL) – Malpensa (MXP), Linate (LIN) and Bergamo-Orio al Serio (BGY)
Montreal (YMQ) – Trudeau (YUL), Mirabel (YMX), and Saint-Hubert (YHU)
Moscow (MOW) — Sheremetyevo (SVO), Domodedovo (DME), Vnukovo (VKO)
New York City (NYC) — John F. Kennedy (JFK, formerly Idlewild (IDL)), La Guardia (LGA), and Newark Liberty (EWR)
Osaka (OSA) – Kansai (KIX) and Itami (ITM, formerly OSA)
Paris (PAR) — Orly (ORY), Charles de Gaulle (CDG), Paris–Le Bourget Airport (LBG) and Beauvais–Tillé Airport (BVA)
Rio de Janeiro (RIO) — Galeão (GIG) and Santos Dumont (SDU)
Rome (ROM) — Fiumicino (FCO) and Ciampino (CIA)
São Paulo (SAO) — Congonhas (CGH), Guarulhos (GRU) and Campinas (VCP)
Seoul (SEL) — Incheon (ICN) and Gimpo (GMP, formerly SEL)
Stockholm (STO) — Arlanda (ARN), Bromma (BMA) and Västerås (VST)
Tokyo (TYO) — Haneda (HND) and Narita (NRT)
Toronto (YTO) — Pearson (YYZ), Bishop (YTZ) and Buttonville (YKZ)
Washington, D.C. (WAS) — Dulles (IAD), Reagan-National (DCA), and Baltimore-Washington (BWI)

When different cities with the same name each have an airport, the airports need to be assigned different codes. For example, Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), is in San Jose, California, United States and Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) is in San José, Costa Rica.

Sometimes, a new airport is built, replacing the old one, leaving the city's new "major" airport code to no longer correspond with the city's name. This is in conjunction to rules aimed to avoid confusion, which state that "the first and second letters or second and third letters of an identifier may not be duplicated with less than 200 nautical miles separation."[3] Thus, Washington D.C.-area's three airports all have radically different codes: IAD for Washington-Dulles, DCA for Reagan National (District of Columbia Airport), and BWI for Baltimore (Baltimore–Washington International, formerly BAL).[3] Since HOU is used for William P. Hobby Airport, the new Houston-Intercontinental became IAH.[3] The code BKK was originally assigned to Bangkok-Don Mueang and was later transferred to Suvarnabhumi Airport, while the former adopted DMK. Shanghai-Hongqiao retained the code SHA, while the newer Pudong Airport adopted PVG. The opposite is true for Berlin, the international airport Berlin-Tegel uses the code TXL, while its smaller counterpart Berlin-Schönefeld uses SXF; the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport is going to have the code BER.

Since the US Navy reserved "N" codes and the Federal Communications Commission has reserved rights for "W" and "K", certain U.S. cities which begin with these letters had to adopt "irregular" airport codes: EWR for Newark, ORF for Norfolk, Virginia, EYW for Key West, Florida, and APC for Napa, California.[3] This "rule" does not apply outside of the United States: Karachi is KHI, Warsaw is WAW, Nagoya is NGO. In addition, since "Q" was used for international communications, cities with "Q" beginning their name also had to find alternate codes, as in the case of Qiqihar (NDG), Quetta (UET) and Quito (UIO).

IATA codes should not be confused with the FAA identifiers of US airports. Most FAA identifiers agree with the corresponding IATA codes, but some do not, such as Saipan whose FAA identifier is GSN and its IATA code SPN, and some coincide with IATA codes of non-US airports.

Many cities retain historical names in their airport codes despite the fact that their official name is now different. This is especially prominent in India: BOM for Mumbai (formerly Bombay), CCU for Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), and MAA for Chennai (formerly Madras); in China: CAN for Guangzhou (formerly Canton), PEK for Beijing (formerly Peking), and TAO for Qingdao (formerly Tsingtao). Similarly, this is the case with FRU for Bishkek (formerly Frunze), LED for St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), GOJ for Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky), SGN for Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), and TGD for Podgorica (formerly Titograd).

Some airport codes are based on previous names associated with a present airport, such as Chicago's O'Hare, which is assigned ORD, based on its old name of Orchard Field, before it was expanded and renamed O'Hare in the mid-1950s. Similarly, Orlando International Airport uses MCO, based on the old McCoy Air Force Base, which was converted to joint civilian/military use and renamed Orlando Jetport at McCoy in the early 1960s and finally Orlando International in the early 1980s. Other airport codes are similarly not immediately obvious in origin, and each have their own peculiarities. Nashville uses BNA, Knoxville uses TYS, and Kahului (the main gateway into Maui) uses OGG, while Spokane International Airport goes by GEG. Most of these are named after individuals.[3] In Asia, codes that do not correspond with their city's names include Niigata's KIJ, Nanchang's KHN, Zhengzhou's CGO, Pyongyang's FNJ, and Kobe's UKB.

Some airports are identified even in colloquial speech by their airport code. The most notable example is LAX.

Majority of airports in Canada use airport codes that begin with the letter "Y", although not all "Y" codes are Canadian and not all Canadian airports start with the letter "Y" (for example ZBF for Bathurst, New Brunswick). Some Canadian airports simply append a combination of letters in the city's name to the "Y": YOW for Ottawa, YYC for Calgary, and YVR for Vancouver, whereas other Canadian airports append the two letter code of the radio beacons that were the closest to the actual airport, such as YQX in Gander and YXS in Prince George. While certain codes themselves make it more difficult to identify an airport, some codes have become popular in usage due to the airports, particularly two of Canada's largest airports, YYZ for Toronto-Pearson (YZ is the original radio transmitter code for a village called Malton, which is where Toronto Pearson International Airport is now located) and YUL for Montreal-Trudeau (UL was the ID code for beacon in the city of Kirkland, now the location of Montreal-Trudeau). Canada's third busiest airport, Calgary International Airport,[5] has begun using its airport code YYC as a marketing brand and name for the airport authority web site (yyc.com).[6] YVR is also used in marketing in Vancouver, and is sometimes used by city residents to refer to the airport.

Numerous New Zealand airports use codes which contain a letter Z, to distinguish them from similar airport names in other countries. Examples include HLZ for Hamilton, ZQN for Queenstown, and WSZ for Westport.

It is also noteworthy that there are several airports with scheduled service that have not been assigned ICAO codes that do have IATA codes. For example, several airports in Alaska that have scheduled commercial service, such as Stebbins Airport or Nanwalek Airport. There are also airports with scheduled service for which there are ICAO codes but not IATA codes, such as Nkhotakota/Tangole/Dwanga Airport in Malawi. Thus, neither system completely includes all airports with scheduled service.


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Airline codes -- robin, 22:49:12 02/14/16 Sun [1]

IATA airline designator

IATA airline designators, sometimes called IATA reservation codes, are two-character codes assigned by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to the world's airlines. The standard is described in IATA's Standard Schedules Information Manual and the codes themselves are described in IATA's Airline Coding Directory.[1] (Both are published twice-annually.) Airline designator codes follow the format xx(a), i.e., two alphanumeric characters (letters or digits) followed by an optional letter. Although the IATA standard provides for three-character airline designators, IATA has not used the optional third character in any assigned code. This is because some legacy computer systems, especially the "central reservations systems", have failed to comply with the standard, notwithstanding the fact that it has been in place for 20 years. The codes issued to date comply with IATA Resolution 762, which provides for only two characters. These codes thus comply with the current airline designator standard, but use only a limited subset of its possible range.

There are three types of designator: unique, numeric/alpha and controlled duplicate.[clarification needed]

IATA airline designators are used to identify an airline for commercial purposes in reservations, timetables, tickets, tariffs, air waybills and in telecommunications.

A flight designator is the concatenation of the airline designator, xx(a), and the numeric flight number, n(n)(n)(n), plus an optional one-letter "operational suffix" (a). Therefore, the full format of a flight designator is xx(a)n(n)(n)(n)(a).

After an airline is delisted, IATA can make the code available for reuse after six months and can issue "controlled duplicates". Controlled duplicates are issued to regional airlines whose destinations are not likely to overlap, so that the same code is shared by two airlines. The controlled duplicate is denoted here, and in IATA literature, with an asterisk (*).

IATA also issues an accounting or prefix code. This number is used on tickets as the first three characters of the ticket number.

The IATA codes originally based on the ICAO designators which were issued in 1947 as two-letter airline identification codes (see the section below).
ICAO airline designator
IATA Flight coupon stock control number

The ICAO airline designator is a code assigned by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to aircraft operating agencies, aeronautical authorities, and services related to international aviation, each of whom is allocated both a three-letter designator and a telephony designator. These codes are unique by airline, unlike the IATA airline designator codes (see section above). The designators are listed in ICAO Document 8585: Designators for Aircraft Operating Agencies, Aeronautical Authorities and Services.

ICAO codes have been issued since 1947. The ICAO codes originally based on a two-letter-system and were identical to the airline codes used by IATA. After an airline joined IATA its existing ICAO-two-letter-code was taken over as IATA code. So in the 1970s the abbreviation BA was the ICAO code and the IATA code of British Airways while non-IATA-airlines like Court Line used their 2-letter-abbreviation as ICAO code only. In the early 1980s ICAO introduced the current three-letter-system due to the increasing number of airlines. It became the official new standard system in November 1987.[2]

An example is:

Operator: American Airlines
Three-letter designator: AAL (the original ICAO-two-letter-designator AA was used until 1987 and is also the IATA code of the airline)
Telephony designator: AMERICAN

Certain combinations of letters, for example SOS, are not allocated to avoid confusion with other systems. Other designators, particularly those starting with Y and Z, are reserved for government organizations.

The designator YYY is used for operators that do not have a code allocated.
Call signs (flight identification or flight ID)

Most airlines employ a call sign that is normally spoken during airband radio transmissions. As by ICAO Annex 10 chapter 5.2.1.7.2.1 a call sign shall be one of the following types:

Type A: the characters corresponding to the registration marking of the aircraft.
Type B: the telephony designator of the aircraft operating agency, followed by the last four characters of the registration marking of the aircraft.
Type C: the telephony designator of the aircraft operating agency, followed by the flight identification.

The one most widely used within commercial aviation is type C. The flight identification is very often the same as the flight number, though this is not always the case. In case of call sign confusion a different flight identification can be chosen, but the flight number will remain the same. Call sign confusion happens when two or more flights with similar flight numbers fly close to each other, e.g., KLM 645 and KLM 649 or Speedbird 446 and Speedbird 664.

The flight number is published in an airline's public timetable and appears on the arrivals and departure screens in the airport terminals. In cases of emergency, the airline name and flight number, rather than the call sign, are normally mentioned by the main news media.

Some call signs are less obviously associated with a particular airline than others. This might be for historic reasons (South African Airways uses the callsign "Springbok", hearkening back to the airline's old livery which featured a springbok), or possibly to avoid confusion with a call sign used by an established airline.[citation needed]

Companies' assigned names may change as a result of mergers, acquisitions, or change in company name or status; British Airways uses BOAC's old callsign ("Speedbird"), as British Airways was formed by a merger of BOAC and British European Airways. Country names can also change over time and new call signs may be agreed in substitution for traditional ones. The country shown alongside an airline's call sign is that wherein most of its aircraft are believed to be registered, which may not always be the same as the country in which the firm is officially incorporated or registered. There are many other airlines in business whose radio call signs are more obviously derived from the trading name.

The callsign should ideally resemble the operator's name or function and not be confused with callsigns used by other operators. The callsign should be easily and phonetically pronounceable in at least English, the international language of aviation. For example, Air France's callsign is "Airfrans"; 'frans' is the phonetic spelling of 'France'.


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Peninsular Spain -- robin, 22:46:16 02/14/16 Sun [1]

Peninsular Spain refers to that part of Spanish territory located within the Iberian peninsula,[1] thus excluding other parts of Spain: the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, Ceuta, Melilla, and a number of islets and crags off the coast of Morocco known collectively as plazas de soberanía (places of sovereignty). In Spain it is mostly known simply as "the Peninsula". It has land frontiers with France and Andorra to the north; Portugal to the west; and the British territory of Gibraltar to the south.

Many inhabitants of peninsular Spain tend to conflate that region with Spain as a whole, disregarding the other territories mentioned above.[2]
Characteristics

Peninsular Spain is the largest part of the country in area - 492,175 km² [3] - and in population - 43,731,572. [4] It contains 15 of the autonomous communities of Spain.

Occupying the central part of Spain, it possesses much greater resources and better interior and exterior communications than other parts of the country. To redress this imbalance, Spanish residents outside the peninsula receive a State subsidy for transport to and from the peninsula.[5]
Municipalities with the highest population

Madrid 3,207,247
Barcelona 1,611,822
Valencia 792,303
Sevilla 700,169
Zaragoza 682,004
Málaga 568,479
Murcia 438,246
Bilbao 349,356
Alicante 335,052
Córdoba 328,704


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Iberian Peninsula -- robin, 22:40:08 02/14/16 Sun [1]


The Iberian Peninsula /aɪˈbɪəriən pəˈnᵻnsjᵿlə/,[a] also known as Iberia /aɪˈbɪəriə/,[b] is located in the southwest corner of Europe and is divided among three states: Spain, Portugal, and Andorra; as well as Gibraltar, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. With an area of approximately 582,000 km2 (225,000 sq mi), it is the third largest European peninsula, after the Scandinavian and Balkan peninsulas.

Greek name

The English word Iberia was adapted from the use of the Ancient Greek word Ιβηρία (Ibēría) by Greek geographers under the rule of the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula.[1] At that time, the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people.[2] Strabo's Iberia was delineated from Keltikē (Gaul) by the Pyrenees[3] and included the entire land mass southwest (he says "west") of there.[4]

The ancient Greeks discovered the Iberian Peninsula by voyaging westward.[5] Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term around 500 BC.[6] Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with ... Iberia."[7] According to Strabo,[8] prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος (Ibēros)" as far north as the river Rhône in France, but currently they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit,[9] but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere[10] he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia."

Strabo[11] refers to the Carretanians as people "of the Iberian stock" living in the Pyrenees, who are to be distinguished from either Celts or Celtiberians.
Roman names
Main article: Hispania

According to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia (Greek: Iberia) as synonyms. The confusion of the words was because of an overlapping in political and geographic perspectives. The Latin word Hiberia, similar to the Greek Iberia, literally translates to "land of the Hiberians". This word was derived from the river Ebro, which the Romans called Hiberus. Hiber (Iberian) was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro.[3][12] The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Quintus Ennius in 200 BC.[13][14][15] Virgil refers to the Ipacatos Hiberos ("restless Iberi") in his Georgics.[16] The Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania.

As they became politically interested in the former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for 'near' and 'far' Hispania. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces: Hispania Baetica (known today as southern Spain), Hispania Tarraconensis (known today as northern Spain), and Hispania Lusitania (today, known mostly as modern Portugal). Strabo says[8] that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. Whatever language may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones, which was preserved as a language isolate by the barrier of the Pyrenees.

he Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro River, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called "the whole of Spain" Hiberia because of the Hiberus River.[17] The river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian,[18] uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius[19] states that the "native name" is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination.

The early range of these natives, stated by the geographers and historians to be from today's, southern Spain to today's, southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed "Iberian." Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence on the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown, the meanings of the words, including Iber, must also remain unknown. In modern Basque, the word ibar[20] means "valley" or "watered meadow", while ibai[20] means "river", but there is no proof relating the etymology of the Ebro River with these Basque names.

Palaeolithic

The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited for at least 1.2 million years as remains found in the sites at Atapuerca demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina, where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to the species Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, or a new species called Homo antecessor.

Around 200,000 BP, during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BP, during the Middle Paleolithic period, the last glacial event began and the Neanderthal Mousterian culture was established. Around 37,000 BP, during the Upper Paleolithic, the Neanderthal Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from Southern France, this culture extended into the north of the peninsula. It continued to exist until around 30,000 BP, when Neanderthal man faced extinction.

About 40,000 years ago, modern humans entered the Iberian Peninsula from Southern France.[21] Here, this genetically homogeneous population (characterized by the M173 mutation in the Y-chromosome), developed the M343 mutation, giving rise to the R1b Haplogroup, still the most common in modern Portuguese and Spanish males.[22] On the Iberian Peninsula, modern humans developed a series of different cultures, such as the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, some of them characterized by complex forms of Paleolithic art.
Neolithic

During the Neolithic expansion, various megalithic cultures developed in the Iberian Peninsula. An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, called the Cardium culture, also extended its influence to the eastern coasts of the peninsula, possibly as early as the 5th millennium BC. These people may have had some relation to the subsequent development of the Iberian civilization.
Chalcolithic

In the Chalcolithic or Copper Age (c. 3000 BC), a series of complex cultures developed that would give rise to the peninsula's first civilizations and to extensive exchange networks reaching to the Baltic, Middle East and North Africa. Around 2800 – 2700 BC, the Bell Beaker culture, which produced the Maritime Bell Beaker, probably originated in the vibrant copper-using communities of the Tagus estuary in Portugal and spread from there to many parts of western Europe.[23]
Bronze Age

Bronze Age cultures developed beginning c.1800 BC, when the civilization of Los Millares was followed by that of El Argar. From this centre, bronze technology spread to other areas, such as those of the Bronze of Levante, South-Western Iberian Bronze and Cogotas I.

In the Late Bronze Age, the urban civilisation of Tartessos developed in the area of modern western Andalusia, characterized by Phoenician influence and using the Tartessian script for its Tartessian language, not related to the Iberian language.

Early in the first millennium BC, several waves of Pre-Celts and Celts migrated from Central Europe, thus partially changing the peninsula's ethnic landscape to Indo-European in its northern and western regions. In Northwestern Iberia (modern Northern Portugal, Asturias and Galicia), a Celtic culture developed, the Castro culture, with a large number of hill forts and some fortified cities.
Proto-history
Main article: Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

By the Iron Age, starting in the 7th century BC, the Iberian Peninsula consisted of complex agrarian and urban civilizations, either Pre-Celtic or Celtic (such as the Lusitanians, Celtiberians, Gallaeci, Astur, Celtici and others), the cultures of the Iberians in the eastern and southern zones and the cultures of the Aquitanian in the western portion of the Pyrenees.

The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. Around 1100 BC, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 8th century BC, the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the east, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks coined the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro). In the 6th century BC, the Carthaginians arrived in the peninsula while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern-day Cartagena).


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Ibaraki Prefecture -- robin, 22:35:41 02/14/16 Sun [1]

Ibaraki Prefecture (茨城県 Ibaraki-ken?) is a prefecture of Japan, located in the Kantō region on the main island of Honshu.[1] The capital is Mito

Geography
Ibaraki Prefecture is the northeastern part of the Kantō region, stretching between Tochigi Prefecture and the Pacific Ocean and bounded on the north and south by Fukushima Prefecture and Chiba Prefecture. It also has a border on the southwest with Saitama Prefecture. The northernmost part of the prefecture is mountainous, but most of the prefecture is a flat plain with many lakes.

As of April 1, 2012, 15% of the total land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks, namely Suigo-Tsukuba Quasi-National Park and nine Prefectural Natural Parks.[

Cities

Thirty-two cities are located in Ibaraki Prefecture:

Bandō
Chikusei
Hitachi
Hitachinaka
Hitachiōmiya
Hitachiōta
Hokota
Inashiki
Ishioka
Itako
Jōsō
Kamisu
Kasama
Kashima
Kasumigaura
Kitaibaraki
Koga
Mito (capital)
Moriya
Naka
Namegata
Omitama
Ryūgasaki
Sakuragawa
Shimotsuma
Takahagi
Toride
Tsuchiura
Tsukuba
Tsukubamirai
Ushiku
Yūki

Towns and villages

These are the towns and villages in each district:

Higashiibaraki District
Ibaraki[4]
Ōarai
Shirosato
Inashiki District
Ami
Kawachi
Miho
Kitasōma District
Tone
Kuji District
Daigo
Naka District
Tōkai
Sashima District
Goka
Sakai
Yūki District
Yachiyo

Mergers
Main article: List of mergers in Ibaraki Prefecture
Economy

Ibaraki's industries include energy, particularly nuclear energy, production, as well as chemical and precision machining industries. The Hitachi company was founded in the Ibaraki city of the same name.

As of March 2011, the prefecture produced 25% of Japan's bell peppers and Chinese cabbage.[5]
Demographics

Ibaraki's population is increasing modestly as the Greater Tōkyō region spreads out.
Culture

Ibaraki is known for nattō, or fermented soybeans, in Mito, watermelons in Kyōwa (recently merged into Chikusei), and chestnuts in the Nishiibaraki region.

Ibaraki is famous for the martial art of Aikidō founded by Ueshiba Morihei, also known as Osensei. Ueshiba spent the latter part of his life in the town of Iwama, now part of Kasama, and the Aiki Shrine and dojo he created still remain.

There are castle ruins in many cities, including Mito, Kasama, and Yūki.

Kasama is famous for Shinto, art culture and pottery.

The capital Mito is home to Kairakuen, one of Japan's three most celebrated gardens, and famous for its over 3,000 Japanese plum trees of over 100 varieties.
Education
University

Ami
Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences
Hitachi
Ibaraki Christian University
Mito
Ibaraki University
Tokiwa University
Tsuchiura
Tsukuba International University
Tsukuba
Tsukuba University
Tsukuba Gakuin University
National University Corporation Tsukuba University of Technology
Ryugasaki
Ryutsu Keizai University

Sports

The sports teams listed below are based in Ibaraki.
Football (soccer)

Kashima Antlers (Kashima)
Mito HollyHock (Mito)

Volleyball

Hitachi Sawa Rivale (Hitachinaka)

Rugby

Kashima Rugby Football Club RFC

Baseball

Ibaraki Golden Golds (Regional club)

Puroresu

Hitachi Pro Wrestling (Regional group)

Tourism

Kairakuen Park
Mount Tsukuba
Kashima Shrine
Ibaraki Prefectural Museum of History

Transportation and access
Railways

East Japan Railway Company
Jōban Line
Utsunomiya Line (Tōhoku Main Line)
Mito Line
Suigun Line
Kashima Line
Tsukuba Express
Kanto Railway
Joso Line
Ryūgasaki Line
Kashima Rinkai Railway Ōarai Kashima Line
Hitachinaka Seaside Railway Minato Line (Katsuta-Ajigaura)
Mooka Railway Mooka Line

Cable cars

Mount Tsukuba Cable Car
Mount Tsukuba Ropeway

Roads
Expressways

Joban Expressway
Ken-O Expressway
North Kanto Expressway
East Kanto Expressway

National Highways

Route 4 (around Koga area)
Route 6 (Nihonbashi of Tokyo-Toride-Tsuchiura-Mito-Hitachi-Iwaki-Sendai)
Route 50
Route 51 (Mito-Kashima-Itako-Narita-Chiba)
Route 118
Route 123
Route 124
Route 125 (Katori-Tsuchiura-Tsukuba-Koga-Gyoda-Kumagaya)
Route 245
Route 253
Route 294
Route 349
Route 354
Route 355
Route 400 (Mito-Nakagawa-Nikko-South Aizu-West Aizu
Route 408
Route 461

Ports

Hitachi Port
Hitachinaka Port
Oarai Port - Ferry route to Tomakomai, Muroran of Hokkaido
Kashima Port

Airports

Ibaraki Airport


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Google Play Books -- robin, 22:31:10 02/14/16 Sun [1]

Google Play Books (formerly Google eBooks) is a cross-platform ebook application offered by Google. Users can purchase and download ebooks from Google Play, which offers over 5 million ebooks and as such is the world's largest ebookstore. The user may also upload up to 1000 ebooks that are in PDF or EPUB formats to their Google Play Books account cloud storage, and synchronize them between multiple devices. Uploading of digital rights management (DRM) protected ebooks purchased outside of Google Play Books is not supported.[1] The use of Google Play Books requires a Google account.

Unlike Amazon.com's Kindle Store and Apple's iBooks, the DRM system used for protected items purchased from Google Play Books is based on Adobe's open platform DRM system. This allows users to download DRM-protected books from Google Play Books in the EPUB and PDF formats, that can be transferred to and read on e-readers and apps that support Adobe Content Server 4 DRM.[2][3] The supported e-readers include the Nook and Sony Reader. DRM-protected ebooks cannot be transferred to Amazon Kindles or Apple iBooks, since they do not support Adobe's DRM. Transferring DRM-protected books to an e-reader requires the Adobe Digital Editions software to be installed on the computer.[4] Authors offering books through Google Play may choose not to enable DRM protection, in which case the downloaded ebooks can be freely transferred to other platforms including Kindle and iBooks.[5]

Books can also be read online on any web browser with JavaScript enabled.[6] Books can be read offline through official mobile apps for Android and iOS devices that were announced at the same time as the original Google eBookstore,[7] and on the Google Chrome browser on desktops through an HTML 5-based web app available from the Chrome Web Store.[8] Holding purchased books on the cloud theoretically allows Google to serve books to users in a variety of formats, including new formats that might not have been available at the time of purchase.

On 23 May 2011, Google announced on its official blog that Google eBooks was partnered with over 7,000 publishers at the time, and that the mobile apps for iOS, Android and Chrome had been downloaded more than 2.5 million times. Over 3 million free ebooks were available in the US.[9]

Publishers and authors can submit their books to Google through the Play Books Partner Centre. Apart from being able to buy the ebook from Google Play, customers can preview these books through Google Books, with the publisher being able to set the percentage of the book available for preview.[10][11] Purchase of books from Google Play is currently supported in 65 countries.

The history of Google Play Books can be traced to the Google eBooks service offered by Google before the Google Play brand came into existence. The Google eBookstore was launched on December 6, 2010, in the United States as the world's largest ebookstore with over 3 million titles. At the time of launch, the service was partnered with over 5,000 publishers and offered over 2 million free ebooks in the US.[9] The international editions of Google eBooks were to roll out beginning in early 2011. Google eBooks was launched after many months of speculation. The service was codenamed Google Editions, the name under which it was widely assumed that the service would be launched.[12][13] Google Books director Dan Clancy had talked about Google's vision to open an ebookstore for in-print books in an interview back in July 2009.[14] Then, TechHive had reported that the service would be launched in the first half of 2010,[15] and later cited a Google employee as saying that the launch would be in June or July of the year.[16]

The store was headed by Dan Clancy, who also directed Google Books. Clancy stated that Google Editions will let publishers set the prices for their books and will accept the 'agency' model – that of the publisher being considered the seller and the online vendor acting as an 'agent'. Clancy also stressed that Google's ebooks would be readable on any device, indicating the open nature of the platform. It will also make ebooks available for bookstores to sell, giving “the vast majority” of revenues to the store.[17] Having already digitized twelve million physical books at the time, including out-of-print titles, Google offered a far greater selection than Amazon and Apple did.[17] Salon noted that the public domain titles on Google eBookstore are of a lower quality than in competing ebookstores. One interesting aspect of public domain titles is that users can view the scanned pages of books – with the original typeset, page numbering and even library stamps and marginalia.[18]

Introductory reading features included selecting font, font size, line spacing, and day/night reading modes, and the ability to pick up reading positions while using multiple devices.[7] The reception of Google's ebookstore was mixed. While it was praised for its promise of "seamless" cloud-based consumer access to purchased ebooks, it was noted by Salon.com that the ebookstore was not easy to search, and its integration with Google Books was somewhat awkward. Search results even included every publication that simply mentioned the search terms. Salon also noted that Google eBookstore's poor user interface was about as dismal as that of iBooks Store, and was seemingly designed by people knowing nothing about the book trade.[18]

On June 16, 2011, Google introduced an affiliate program for ebooks, allowing websites to earn commissions by referring sales to the Google eBookstore. Google eBooks became listed on the Google Affiliate Network.

In February 2012, Google removed Google eBooks from the Google Affiliate Network and removed most of the smaller affiliates, and switched to accepting new affiliates on an invitation only basis.

On March 6, 2012, Google launched its new digital distribution platform Google Play, with the Google eBookstore becoming a part of it.

In April 2012, Google announced that its retailer partner program would be discontinued on 31 January 2013.

Around July 2013, Google dropped support for the wide variety of ebook file formats it used to accept for the selling on Google Play, including DOC, XML, HTML, MOBI and PDB, to focus primarily on the EPUB format. The Digital Reader noted that this policy change represented a "paradigm shift" for Google.[19]

On May 18, 2015, Google announced that a new custom-made typeface called Literata will be used for Google Play Books.[20]

From May, 2015, Google are not accepting new sign-ups to its Books Partner Centre to allow them to improve their content management capabilities and their user experience. As of January 2016 it was still closed to new partners. Current partners still have full access to the service.[21]

In June 2015, Google Play showed that the Play Books app had been downloaded over one billion times.[22]
Reseller program

Google had formed partnerships with independent bookstores, enabling them to sell Google ebooks on their websites for a cut of sales. Bookstore partners included Powell's, Alibris and participating members of the American Booksellers Association.[7] The service sought to bring independent retailers into the digital retailing, offering a turn-key service that let customers register with their local bookstores and buy Google eBooks through them, with the bookstore receiving a fee on each title. However, local stores were required to provide their own marketing and promotional support, even though many stores simply did not have the resources to do so. Booksellers were plagued by the lack of promotional support from Google and almost universal consumer ignorance of the program, and thus the partnership model did not emerge to be very successful, at least to Google.[23]

In a blog post on 23 May 2011, Google announced that it had over 250 independent bookseller partners, compared to just over 100 at the time of launch.[24]

In April 2012, Google decided to withdraw the reseller program, reasoning that "it’s clear that the reseller program has not met the needs of many readers or booksellers." Google also said that the program “has not gained the traction that we hoped it would,” even as the company's share of the ebook market in the US remained small. Retailers could sell Google's ebooks until 31 January 2013. The move came as a big blow for small bookstores seeking to compete against Amazon and Barnes & Noble in the fast growing ebook market, and attracted severe criticism from the industry. In a letter to its members, the American Booksellers Association said that it was "very disappointed" with Google’s decision, while noting that the change could be "disconcerting and disruptive" for booksellers. "As an enormous, multinational corporation, Google has interests far beyond independent bookstores, and the book world at large, and, at times, it has lacked understanding of many basic principles of our industry", the letter said.[25]
Affiliate program

In June 2011, Google launched an affiliate program for Google eBooks allowing website owners to earn a commission by referring sales to the Google eBookstore. Google had previously tested the program as a limited beta in December 2010 with Goodreads. The program was open to bloggers, authors, publishers, retailors and other website owners in the US starting on June 16, 2011.[26] Becoming an affiliate was a three-step process: users had to first sign up for a Google AdSense account and be approved, then join the Google Affiliate Network and be approved, and sign up as an affiliate for ebooks. Website owners could earn 6% to 10% of commissions depending upon the amount of sales being generated per month.[27][28]

On February 24, 2012, Google announced its decision to scale down the affiliate program, turning it into a private initiative and removing most of the affiliates. Google eBooks would no longer be listed as an advertiser on Google Affiliate Network.[29] The company had stopped accepting applications for becoming an affiliate more than two weeks prior to the announcement.[30] Those who were delinked from the program received commissions for sales up to March 15, 2012. Google said that it will continue to add affiliates, but only on an invitation basis.[31]

In a possible goof-up, Google also notified independent booksellers that their affiliate status would expire, but later clarified that it did not intend to remove independent booksellers from the affiliate program, and said that it was "working to reinstate those who were mistakenly notified."[32][31]
Features

On May 15, 2013, Google Play Books started allowing users to upload PDF and EPUB files through the Play Books web client. Users can store up to 1,000 files free of charge on the cloud, as long as they are under 100 MB. Searching within uploaded documents is not supported. Bookmarks and reading positions are synchronised across all Google Play Books apps linked to the user's account.[33][34] On December 11, 2013, the ability to upload files was extended to the Android and iOS platforms. Files cannot be uploaded from within the app; users have to open the file from a file manager application or other apps such as Mail or Downloads, and choose "Upload to Play Books" as the open-with app.[35] On December 19, 2013, the ability to upload PDFs on Android was temporarily discontinued with Google stating that it had been an experimental feature and would be back soon.[36] The functionally was reinstated through an update on January 29, 2014. However, users first need to enable the PDF upload in the settings.[37]

Google Play Books on Android and iOS features three reading themes:

Day: Black text on a white background
Night: White text on a black background
Sepia: Sepia (reddish-brown) text on a pale yellow background. Sepia mode was introduced for Android in September 2012[38] and for iOS in August 2013.[39]


Other reading options include choosing between multiple typefaces (including Sans, Serif, Merriweather, Sorts Mill Goudy, and Vollkorn) and adjusting the text size, line spacing and alignment. The screen brightness can be adjusted from within the app, or set to an "Auto" mode, which makes use of the system brightness. Users can add notes, highlight text and create bookmarks. These features, except for bookmarking and adjusting brightness, are not available for user uploaded PDF books. Notes and highlights in ebooks can only be accessed through the web reader or mobile apps, and not on e-readers. They can also be accessed in the Chrome app, but not while offline.

On Android and iOS, Play Books features a 3D page turn effect, though users have the option to switch to a 2D sliding page turn animation. It also allows users to turn pages using the volume keys.[40] The Play Books web client only supports the 2D page turn animation.[41]

Play Books can read aloud the text of books using the device's text-to-speech engine or Google Text-to-Speech, when the publisher allows. Reading aloud using Google Text-to-Speech requires internet connectivity.[41] Translation of book text is supported through integration with Google Translate.[38]

When a word is selected, Play Books displays an info card containing the dictionary definitions of the word. For words with no dictionary definition, web definitions may be displayed. If the selected word is the name of a geographical location, a Google Maps snapshot may also be displayed.[38]

All items in the users' Google Play Books library also belong to the Google Books library where they are displayed in a bookshelf titled My Books on Google Play (formerly called My Google ebooks, before the Google Play branding came into effect). Google Play Books library, therefore, is a subset of the Google Books library.

On Android, the home screen (Read now) shows the recently opened books at the top, along with book recommendations and books +1'd by friends. The My Library section shows all the books grouped into three categories: Purchases, Samples and Uploads. Books can be "kept on device" for offline reading.[41]

On October 30, 2014, Google released an update for Google Play Books on Android adding a number of features specifically aimed at improving the user experience for long non-fiction books. These included a 'Skim' mode, which allows users to easily navigate through pages without having to endlessly flip through each page

The Google Play store serves as the primary source of ebooks for reading on Google Play Books. Over 5 million titles are available for purchase or free download. Select books, mainly textbooks, are also available for rental. The rental period starts as soon as the payment is completed.[43] Google Play also allows users to pre-order books in cases where they are available on Google Play before they are released. The customer is not charged until the book is available for reading. Not all books, however, are available for pre-order.[44]
File formats

Originally, Google used to allow publishers and authors to upload books in a number of formats including DOC, PDF, PDB, MOBI, EPUB, and HTML. But in July 2013, support for all these formats except for PDF and EPUB was dropped. As of now, Google accepts EPUB versions 2.0.1 and 3.0. Both text and image-based PDFs are accepted when the EPUB format is not available, with the preference being for PDFs with a text layer.[45]

For reading on e-readers or third-party apps, ebooks can be downloaded in the EPUB ("flowing text") or PDF ("scanned pages") formats. The advantage of EPUB has over PDF is that it allows the book's text to adjust or 'reflow' automatically to different screen sizes. Books of which only a PDF version is available can be difficult to read on smaller screens.


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iBooks -- robin, 22:28:31 02/14/16 Sun [1]

iBooks is an e-book application by Apple Inc. for its iOS and OS X operating systems and devices. It was announced in conjunction with the iPad on January 27, 2010,[1] and was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch in mid-2010, as part of the iOS 4 update.[2] Initially, iBooks was not pre-loaded onto iOS devices; users can install iBooks free of charge from the iTunes App Store. With the release of iOS 8, it became an integrated app. On June 10, 2013, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Craig Federighi announced that iBooks would also be provided with OS X Mavericks in fall 2013.[3][4]

It primarily receives EPUB content from the iBooks Store, but users can also add their own EPUB and PDF files via data synchronization with iTunes. Additionally, the files can be downloaded to iBooks through Safari or Apple Mail. It is also capable of displaying e-books that incorporate multimedia.[1][5] According to product information as of March 2010, iBooks will be able to "read the contents of any page [to the user]" using VoiceOver.[6][7]

On January 19, 2012 at an education-focused special event in New York City, Apple announced the free release of iBooks 2, which can operate in landscape mode and allows for interactive reading. In addition, a new application, iBooks Author, was announced for the Mac App Store, allowing anyone to create interactive textbooks for reading in iBooks; and the iBooks Store was expanded with a textbook category.[8][9] The first iBooks Author Conference took place in Nashville, Tennessee[10] in October 2015 for iBooks Author users[11][12][13][14] with the follow-up announced for 2016

iBooks was announced alongside the iPad at a press conference in January 2010. The store itself, however, was released in America three days before the iPad with the introduction of iTunes 9.1. This was supposedly to prevent too much traffic on Apple's servers, as they have been overloaded with previous releases of the iPhone. On the day of its launch, on March 31, 2010, the iBooks Store collection comprised some 60,000 titles.[16]

On April 8, 2010, Apple announced that iBooks would be updated to support the iPhone and iPod Touch with iOS 4. As a result, iBooks will not be supported on first-generation iPhones and iPod Touches.[2]

On June 8, 2010 at the WWDC Keynote it was announced that iBooks would be updated that month to read PDF files as well as have the ability to annotate both PDFs and eBooks.

As of July 1, Apple expanded iBooks availability to Canada.

Upon its release for older devices running iOS 4, such as the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch, iBooks received criticism for its slow performance.[17][18] However, a July 19 update from Apple offered several improvements.[19]

On September 27, 2011, Apple expanded the premium store to the Republic of Ireland.

On January 19, 2012, Apple announced the release of the iBooks 2 app, allowing users to purchase and download textbooks to the iPad.[20] The new app will support digital textbooks that can display interactive diagrams, audio and video on the iPad.[21] Apple also released a free tool called iBooks Author. The software allows users to create these interactive textbooks themselves.

On October 23, 2012, Apple announced iBooks 3.

On June 10, 2013, Apple announced iBooks for OS X Mavericks. Books are now available for purchase in the following countries; Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela.

On November 15, 2013, Apple pushed version 3.2 of iBooks for iOS with a redesigned interface to match the "flat" style of iOS 7, which dropped support for iOS 6 and earlier versions.

On the annual WWDC in 2014, Apple unveiled that iBooks will be a pre-installed app in the next version of the operating system, iOS 8, along with the Podcasts app.

On September 17, 2014, Apple bundled version 4.0 of iBooks for iOS with iOS 8.0. This includes slight changes with the bookstore button (into a persistent navigation bar at the bottom), grouping of books by series in the bookshelf, Auto-night mode theme, as well as small changes to the underlying rendering engine.

On October 20, 2014, Apple bundled version 4.1 of iBooks for iOS with iOS 8.1.

Features
As of version 3, iBooks renders text written in 18 different languages. Users of the application are able to change the font and text size displayed. Available English fonts are Baskerville, Cochin, Georgia, Palatino, Times New Roman, Verdana, Athelas, Charter, Iowan and Seravek.[22]

Users can adjust screen brightness from within the application.

Words can be selected and searched throughout the book. Definitions of words can also be found upon clicking on the word and selecting 'define' which will give the reader a brief description of what the word means and if there isn't a definition available, the reader can opt to either search on Wikipedia or the web for a definition, an option available even if there is a definition for the word. Readers can also highlight passages and when this is done, the part of the Ebook which deals with the chapters and notes will automatically save the words or sentences which were highlighted, as well as revealing any notes made after highlighting a certain passage, another feature.

There are three viewing themes to choose from, available for all books except PDFs. The themes are:[23][24]

Normal: black text on a white background
Sepia: sepia text on an off-white background
Night: light grey text on a black background

In version 4, there is an additional "Auto-Night Theme" that dynamically changes the theme from 'Normal' to 'Night' and vice versa based on the ambient light conditions.

iBooks also stacks books that belong to a series when the user is on the "All Books" screen. When selected, the books included in the series are shown in the order in which they were released, including books in the series that the user has not purchased. The prices of the unpurchased books are displayed on the upper right corner of the book "ear-marked" in green. Tapping the unpurchased book takes the user directly to the iBook store allowing for quick purchase.

There are three page layouts: Book, Full Screen, and Scroll. In Book or Full Screen layout, pages are turned by tapping or dragging the page, animated to imitate the appearance of a paper book. In Scroll, there is no page turning, and the book appears as continuous text, read vertically like a web browser.

Until May 2011[25] each copy of iBooks used to provide a free copy of Winnie-the-Pooh, the 1926 book by A. A. Milne, in order to get the user's library started.
Formats

The supported e-book formats by iBooks are EPUB and PDF.[26] As of version 2.0, iBooks also supports a proprietary iBook format (IBA), generated with the iBooks Author tool. This format is based upon the EPUB format but depends upon custom widget code in the iBooks app to function.

iBooks Store
The iBooks Store is an EPUB content sales and delivery system that delivers ebooks to any iOS device (namely the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch) running iOS 4.2 and later. It does not currently support either the downloading or reading of iBooks directly on Windows or Gnu/Linux systems, but it does support the downloading and reading of iBooks on OS X V10.9 and later.

The iBooks shelf turns around to reveal the iBooks Store. From here users can purchase various books from Apple. iBooks can sync between devices, so one could start reading a book on one device and continue from where one left-off on another.[28]

Prior to the unveiling of the iPad, publishers Penguin Books, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan Publishers, and Hachette Book Group USA committed to producing content for the iBooks Store. Additional publishers were invited to participate on the day of the product announcement, January 27, 2010.[29] The iBooks Store also provides access to the 30,000+ free books available from Project Gutenberg,[30] and it provides content channeled through Smashwords, allowing independent authors and publishers to self-publish.[31]

The day before the iPad event, Terry McGraw, the CEO of McGraw-Hill, appeared to divulge information to Erin Burnett on CNBC about the upcoming iPad release.[32] This was quickly picked up and disseminated by rumor sites and eventually mainstream media outlets as revelation of features of the iPad. McGraw Hill was not included in the iPad presentation at the Apple media event and there was speculation that the exclusion was in response to this release of information.[33] However, McGraw-Hill has stated that the information disclosed by McGraw was not privileged, and that the company had not intended to participate in the event.[34]

In 2011, an Apple spokesperson announced that "We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase."[35] Due to the 30% revenue share that Apple receives from the in-app purchase mechanism, the financial viability of competing bookstore apps run by other book retailers is uncertain, even though in many countries, the iBooks Store still does not provide consumers access to any books at all except for free out-of-copyright works.
Controversy

Some critics have stated that the iBooks interface is a near-exact replica of Classics by Andrew Kaz and Phill Ryu, released over a year prior and even featured in Apple's own TV commercials. Apple has made no acknowledgment of this.[36][37][38]

Documents created by iBooks Author in the .ibooks format may be sold for a fee only if they are accepted by and exclusively distributed by Apple.[39][40][41][42] These restrictions do not apply to documents created in other formats like exported as PDF or text files. As Apple officially mentions the EPUB format,[39] documents renamed to *.epub may not be affected. But this is left unclear and such documents are not fully compatible with the EPUB standard.
Trademark dispute

In June 2011, Apple was sued by New York publisher John T. Colby over the use of the term "iBook".[43] Colby claims to be the owner of a trademark on the term 'ibooks' as applied to published books, after acquiring the assets of publisher Byron Preiss, who had published a series of sci-fi and fantasy books under the term. Apple had previously used the term 'iBook' to refer to a line of laptops that it sold until 2006, but Colby claims exclusive right to the term as applied to published books, including e-books. Apple began using the term 'iBooks' in 2010 to refer to e-books sold for the iPad. Byron Preiss published more than 1,000 books under the "ibooks" brand starting in 1999.[44] Apple emerged the victor in the suit. The judge stated: "They have offered no evidence that consumers who use Apple's iBooks software to download ebooks have come to believe that Apple has also entered the publishing business and is the publisher of all of the downloaded books, despite the fact that each book bears the imprint of its actual publisher."


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Jassy–Kishinev Offensive -- robin, 22:12:12 02/14/16 Sun [1]

The Jassy–Kishinev Operation,[1][10][11][12][Notes 1] named after the two major cities, Iași and Chișinău, in the staging area, was a Soviet offensive against Axis forces, which took place in Eastern Romania from 20 to 29 August 1944. The 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts of the Red Army engaged Army Group South Ukraine, which consisted of combined German and Romanian formations, in an operation to reclaim the Moldavian SSR and destroy the Axis forces in the region, opening a way into Romania and the Balkans.

The offensive resulted in the encirclement and destruction of defending German forces, allowing the Soviet Army to resume its strategic advance further into Eastern Europe. It also forced Romania to switch allegiance from the Axis powers to the Allies.

Background
Further information: First Jassy–Kishinev Offensive

The Red Army had made an unsuccessful attack in the same sector, known as the First Jassy–Kishinev Offensive from 8 April to 6 June 1944. In 1944, the Wehrmacht was pressed back along its entire front line in the East. By May 1944, the South Ukraine Army Group (Heeresgruppe Südukraine) was pushed back towards the prewar Romanian frontier, and managed to establish a line on the Dniester river, which was however breached in two places by Red Army bridgeheads. After June, calm returned to the sector, allowing the rebuilding of the German formations.

While up to June 1944, Heeresgruppe Südukraine was one of the most powerful German formations in terms of armor, it had been denuded during the summer, with most of its armored formations moved to the Northern and Central front, in order to stem Red Army advances in the Baltic states, Belarus, Northern Ukraine, and Poland. On the eve of the offensive, the only armored formations left were the 1st Romanian Armored Division (with the Tiger R1),[13] and German 13th Panzer and 10th Panzergrenadier Divisions.
Failure of German intelligence

Soviet deception operations prior to the attack worked well. The German command staff believed that the movement of Soviet forces along the front line was a result of a troop transfer to the north. Exact positions of Soviet formations were also not known until the final hours before the operation.[14] By contrast, the Romanians were aware of the imminent Soviet offensive, and anticipated a rerun of Stalingrad, with major attacks against the 3rd and 4th Armies and an encirclement of the German 6th Army. Such concerns were dismissed by the German command as "alarmist".[15] Antonescu suggested a withdrawal of Axis forces to the fortified Carpathian–FNB–Danube line, but Friessner, the commander of Army Group South Ukraine, was unwilling to consider such a move, having already been dismissed by Hitler from Army Group North for requesting permission to retreat.
Order of battle
Soviet

2nd Ukrainian Front – Army General Rodion Malinovsky
6th Guards Tank Army – Major General A. G. Kravchenko
18th Tank Corps – Major General V. I. Polozkov
Cavalry-Mechanized Group Gorshkov – Major General S. I. Gorshkov
5th Guards Cavalry Corps
23rd Tank Corps – Lieutenant General A. O. Akhmanov
4th Guards Army – Galanin
27th Army – Lieutenant General S. G. Trofimenko
52nd Army – Koroteev
7th Guards Army – Shumilov
40th Army – Lieutenant General F. F. Zhmachenko
53rd Army – Lieutenant General I. M. Managarov
3rd Ukrainian Front – Army General Fyodor Tolbukhin
5th Shock Army – Lieuteant General Nikolai Berzarin
4th Guards Mechanized Corps – Major General V. I. Zhdanov
7th Mechanized Corps – Major General F. G. Katkov
57th Army – Lieutenant General N. A. Gagen
46th Army – Lieutenant General I. T. Shlemin
37th Army – Major General M. N. Sharokhin
6th Guards Rifle Corps
66th Rifle Corps
Black Sea Fleet

Axis forces

Army Group South Ukraine[16] - Generaloberst Johannes Friessner

Army Group Dumitrescu
Romanian 3rd Army – Colonel General Petre Dumitrescu
6th Army - General der Artillerie Maximilian Fretter-Pico
13th Panzer Division - Generalleutnant Hans Tröger
306th Infantry Division
76th Infantry Division - General der Infanterie Erich Abraham
Army Group Wohler
8th Army – General der Infanterie Otto Wöhler
10th Panzergrenadier Division - Generalleutnant August Schmidt
Romanian 4th Army - Lieutenant General Ioan Mihail Racoviță
Romanian 1st Armoured Division – Brigadier General Radu Korne
Romanian 4th Mountain Division - Brigadier General Alexandru Nasta

Soviet strategy

Stavka's plan for the operation was based on a double envelopment of German and Romanian armies by 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts.[1][17]

2nd Ukrainian Front was to break through north of Iași, and then commit mobile formations to seize the Prut River crossings before the withdrawing German formations of 6th Army could make it there. It was then to introduce 6th Tank Army into the battlefield to seize the Siret River crossings and the Focșani Gap, a fortified line between the Siret River and the Danube.

3rd Ukrainian Front was to attack out of its bridgehead across the Dniester near Tiraspol, and then insert mobile formations with a mission to head north and meet the mobile formations of 2nd Ukrainian Front. This would lead to the encirclement of the German forces near Chișinău.

Following the successful encirclement, 6th Tank Army and 4th Guards Mechanized Corps were to be launched towards Bucharest and the Ploiești oil fields.

The 333rd Rifle Division did not establish a reserve and put three regiments in the first echelon. The 61st Guards Rifle Division attacked in a standard formation of two regiment in the first echelon and one in reserve. This proved to be fortunate, because the right wing of the 188th Guards Rifle Regiment was unable to advance past the Plopschtubej strongpoint.[clarification needed] The 189th Guards Rifle Regiment on the left wing made good progress though, as did 333rd Rifle Division on its left. The commander of 61st Guards Rifle Division therefore inserted his reserve (the 187th Guards Rifle Regiment) behind the 189th Guards Rifle Regiment to exploit the break-in. When darkness came, the 244th Rifle Division was inserted to break through the second line of defense. It lost its way though, and only arrived at 23:00, by which time elements of 13th Panzer Division were counterattacking.

The German–Romanian opposition was XXX. and XXIX. AK, with the 15th and 306th German Infantry Divisions, the 4th Romanian Mountain Division, and the 21st Romanian Infantry Division. The 13th Panzer Division was in reserve. At the end of day one, the 4th Romanian Mountain (General de divizie, (Major General) Gheorghe Manoiliu), and 21st Romanian Divisions were almost completely destroyed, while German 15th and 306th Infantry Divisions were heavily damaged (according to a German source: the 306th Infantry lost 50% in the barrage, and was destroyed apart from local strongpoints by evening). Almost no artillery survived the fire preparation.

The 13th Panzer Division counter-attacked the 66th Rifle Corps on the first day, and tried to stop its progress the next day, but to no avail. A study on the division's history says 'The Russians (sic - Soviets) dictated the course of events.' The 13th Panzer Division at the time was a materially understrength, but high manpower unit, with a high proportion of recent reinforcements. It only had Panzer IVs, StuG IIIs and self-propelled anti-tank guns. By the end of the second day the division was incapable of attack or meaningful resistance.

At the end of the second day, the 3rd Ukrainian Front stood deep in the rear of the German 6th Army. No more organised re-supply of forces would be forthcoming, and the 6th Army was doomed to be encircled and destroyed again. Franz-Josef Strauss, who was to become an important German politician after the war, served with the Panzer Regiment of the 13th Panzer Division. He comments that the division had ceased to exist as a tactical unit on the third day of the Soviet Offensive: 'The enemy was everywhere.'

The comment on the result of 66th Rifle Corps operations in Mazulenko is that "Because of the reinforcement of the Corps and the deep battle arrangements of troops and units the enemy defenses were broken through at high speed."

Comments by German survivors on the initial attack were that "By the end of the barrage, Russian (sic - Soviet) tanks were deep into our position." (Hoffmann). A German battalion commander (Hauptmann Hans Diebisch, Commander II./IR579, 306.ID) commented that "The fire assets of the German defense were literally destroyed by the Soviet fighter bombers attacking the main line of resistance and the rear positions. When the Russian (sic - Soviet) infantry suddenly appeared inside the positions of the battalion and it tried to retreat, the Russian (sic) air force made this impossible. The battalion was dispersed and partly destroyed by air attacks and mortar and machine gun fire."
Alleged Romanian collapse

It is often alleged that the speed and totality of the German collapse were caused by Romanian betrayal. For example, Heinz Guderian wrote of Romanian betrayal in his book "Panzer Leader". The study of the combat operations by Mazulenko indicates that this is probably not correct. Romanian formations did resist the Soviet attack in many cases, but were ill-equipped to defend themselves effectively against a modern army, due to a lack of modern anti-tank, artillery, and anti-air weapons. In contrast to German claims, for instance, in the symposium notes published by David Glantz, or in the history of the Offensive published by Kissel, it appears that Romanian 1st Armoured Division did offer resistance against the Soviet breakthrough.[18] However, Mark Axworthy states in his book that the battered 1st Armoured Division maintained cohesion, experiencing some local, costly successes before being forced to cross the River Moldova.[19] Axworthy claims that the postwar Communist government would have obviously used this act of betrayal for propaganda purposes. Also, there are no Soviet reports of a collaboration before 24 August 1944.[20] The Soviet rates of progress imply a rather ineffective defense of the Romanian troops than active collaboration and en-masse surrender.[21]

I. S. Dumitru was a Romanian tank commander in the battle of Romanian 1st Armoured Division against Soviet tanks and he described the battle in his book.[22] According to Dumitru, battle took place near Scobalteni village in vicinity of a town called Podu Iloaie on 20 August. Romanian division destroyed 60 Soviet tanks and lost 30 tanks. At the end of the day, Romanians decided to retreat to south after an analysis of the military results of the day.

The complete collapse of the German 6th Army and the Romanian 4th Army was more likely caused by the inability of the numerous horse-drawn infantry divisions to maintain cohesion while on retreat and under attack of the Soviet mechanized troops.[23] This claim is reinforced by the fact that the only Romanian division which retained its cohesion under the Soviet attack was the 1st Armoured Division, which had the mobility and the anti-tank weapons needed to do so.

The surrender of Romania took place at a time when the Soviet Army already stood deep inside Romania, and the German 6th Army had been cut off from the rest of the Wehrmacht troops in Romania. The opening of hostilities between the Wehrmacht and the Romanian Army commenced after a failed coup d'état by the German ambassador.

German–Romanian combat
Concurrently, a coup d'état led by King Michael of Romania on 23 August deposed the Romanian leader Ion Antonescu and withdrew Romania from the Axis. By this time, the bulk of the German and Romanian armies were either destroyed or cut off by the Soviet offensive, with only residual and rear-echelon forces present in the Romanian interior.[24] Hitler immediately ordered special forces under the command of Otto Skorzeny and Arthur Phleps, stationed in nearby Yugoslavia, to intervene in support of the existing German troops, which were mostly concentrated around Bucharest, Ploiești, Brașov and Giurgiu. General Gerstenberg, commander of the Luftwaffe defenses around the oilfields at Ploiești, had already ordered a column of motorized troops to attack Bucharest on the evening of 23 August. Open hostilities between German and Romanian forces began the following morning on the city's northern outskirts. After capturing the airfield at Otopeni, the attack stalled, and by 28 August Gerstenberg and the remaining German forces in the vicinity of Bucharest surrendered. The fighting here featured the only instance of cooperation between Romanian and Western Allied forces during the campaign, when Romanian ground troops requested a USAAF bombing raid on the Băneasa forest. Poor coordination however led to friendly fire when American bombers accidentally hit a company of Romanian paratroopers.[25]

Meanwhile, Brandenburger special forces landed at Boteni and Țăndărei airfields on 24 August in an attempt to immobilize the Romanian aircraft there, but they were overpowered by Romanian paratroopers and security companies before they could achieve their objectives.[26] A proposed operation to rescue Antonescu, led by Skorzeny and inspired by the Gran Sasso raid which liberated Mussolini in 1943, could not materialize as Antonescu's whereabouts were unknown even to the Romanian government until 30 August, when he was handed over to the Soviets and shipped to Moscow.[27] Another group of Brandenburgers joined Gerstenberg's unsuccessful drive on Bucharest on 25 August and were captured three days later. Altogether, these events constituted one of the worst defeats suffered by the German special forces in the war.[26]

The German situation was further complicated by the loss of Brașov and the Predeal pass, both of which were secured by the Romanian 1st Mountain Division by 25 August, thus cutting off the most direct route of reinforcement or retreat for the remaining Wehrmacht formations to the south. The following day, the Romanian 2nd Territorial Corps captured Giurgiu and neutralized the German AA units there, taking 9,000 prisoners in the process.[28] The 25,000-strong German presence around Ploiești, consisting mostly of flak troops and their security companies, was at first locked in a stalemate with the Romanian 5th Territorial Corps, which had a similar numerical strength. Over the following days however, the Germans were gradually confined to the city's immediate surroundings and became heavily outnumbered as Romanian reinforcements began arriving from Bucharest and also from the east, together with lead elements of a Soviet motorized brigade. On 30 August, an attack by the 5th Territorial Corps, now numbering over 40,000 men, reduced the Germans to a pocket around the village of Păulești, roughly 10 km (6.2 mi) north of Ploiești. They surrendered the following day after a failed breakout attempt. About 2,000 Germans were able to escape to the Hungarian lines across the Carpathians.[29] Other major cities and industrial centers, such as Constanța, Reșița and Sibiu were secured by the Romanians with relative ease. By 31 August, all German resistance in Romania had been cleared.[30]

During the fighting between 23–31 August, the Romanian Army captured 56,000 German prisoners, who were later surrendered to the Soviet Army.[31] A further 5,000 Germans were killed in action, while Romanian casualties amounted to 8,600 killed and wounded.[30]

Romanian sources claim that internal factors played a decisive role in Romania's switch of allegiance, while external factors only gave support; this version is markedly different from the Soviet position on the events, which holds that the Offensive resulted in the Romanian coup and "liberated Romania with the help of local insurgents."

Aftermath
The German formations suffered significant irrecoverable losses with over 115,000 POWs taken, while Soviet casualties were unusually low for an operation of this size. The Red Army advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of the German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia to prevent them from being cut off. Together with Yugoslav partisans and Bulgaria they liberated the capital city of Belgrade on 20 October.

On the political level, the Soviet offensive triggered King Michael's coup d'état in Romania, and the switch of Romania from the Axis to the Allies. Almost immediately, border hostilities between Romania and Germany's forced ally Hungary erupted over territory that Romania was forced to cede to Hungary in 1940, as a result of the Second Vienna Award.[33] Romania's defection to the Allies meant the loss of a vital source of oil for Germany, leading to serious fuel shortages in the Wehrmacht by the end of 1944 and prompting Hitler's first admission that the war was lost.[34]

Following the success of the operation, Soviet control over Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, which had been occupied by the USSR in 1940, was re-established. Soviet forces proceeded to collect and expel the remaining Romanian troops. According to Anatol Petrencu, President of the Historians' Association of Moldova, over 170,000 Romanian soldiers were deported, 40,000 of which were incarcerated in a prisoner-of-war camp at Bălți, where they died of hunger, cold, disease, or were executed.


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Gideon v. Wainwright -- robin hasan, 07:43:14 02/13/16 Sat [1]

Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In it, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states are required under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases to represent defendants who are unable to afford to pay their own attorneys. The case extended the right to counsel, which had been found under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to impose requirements on the federal government, by ruling that this right imposed those requirements upon the states as well.

Facts and prior history

Between midnight and 8:00 a.m. on June 3, 1961, a burglary occurred at the Bay Harbor Pool Room in Panama City, Florida. An unknown person broke a door, smashed a cigarette machine and a record player, and stole money from a cash register. Later that day, a witness reported that he had seen Clarence Earl Gideon in the poolroom at around 5:30 that morning, leaving with a wine bottle and money in his pockets. Based on this accusation alone, the police arrested Gideon and charged him with breaking and entering with intent to commit petty larceny.

Gideon appeared in court alone as he was too poor to afford counsel, whereupon the following conversation took place:

The COURT: Mr. Gideon, I am sorry, but I cannot appoint counsel to represent you in this case. Under the laws of the State of Florida, the only time the court can appoint counsel to represent a defendant is when that person is charged with a capital offense. I am sorry, but I will have to deny your request to appoint counsel to defend you in this case.
GIDEON: The United States Supreme Court says I am entitled to be represented by counsel.

The Florida court declined to appoint counsel for Gideon. As a result, he was forced to act as his own counsel and conduct his own defense in court, emphasizing his innocence in the case. At the conclusion of the trial the jury returned a guilty verdict. The court sentenced Gideon to serve five years in the state prison.

From the prison cell at Florida State Prison, making use of the prison library and writing in pencil on prison stationery,[1] Gideon appealed to the United States Supreme Court in a suit against the Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, H.G. Cochran. Cochran later retired and was replaced with Louie L. Wainwright before the case was heard by the Supreme Court. Gideon argued in his appeal that he had been denied counsel and, therefore, his Sixth Amendment rights, as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, had been violated.

The Supreme Court assigned Gideon a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney, future Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas of the law firm Arnold Fortas & Porter. Opposing, Bruce Jacob, who later became Dean of the Mercer University School of Law and Dean of Stetson University College of Law, argued the case for the State of Florida.[2] Fortas was assisted by longtime Arnold Fortas & Porter partner Abe Krash and famed legal scholar John Hart Ely, then a third-year student at Yale Law School.[3]

Court decision
The Supreme Court's decision was announced on March 18, 1963, and delivered by Justice Hugo Black. Three concurring opinions were written by Justices Clark, Douglas and Harlan. The Supreme Court decision specifically cited its previous ruling in Powell v. Alabama. Whether or not the decision in Powell v. Alabama applied to non-capital cases had sparked heated debate. Betts v. Brady had earlier held that, unless certain circumstances, such as illiteracy or stupidity of the defendant, or an especially complicated case, were present, there was no need for a court-appointed attorney in state court criminal proceedings. Betts had thus provided selective application of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to the states, depending on the circumstances, as the Sixth Amendment had only been held binding in federal cases. Gideon v. Wainwright overruled Betts v. Brady, instead holding that the assistance of counsel, if desired by a defendant who could not afford to hire counsel, was a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, binding on the states, and essential for a fair trial and due process of law.

Justice Clark's concurring opinion stated that the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution does not distinguish between capital and non-capital cases, so legal counsel must be provided for an indigent defendant in all cases.[2] Justice Harlan's concurring opinion stated that the mere existence of a serious criminal charge in itself constituted special circumstances requiring the services of counsel at trial.

The Supreme Court remanded the case to the Supreme Court of Florida for "further action not inconsistent with this decision."

Gideon v. Wainwright was one of a series of Supreme Court decisions that confirmed the right of defendants in criminal proceedings, upon request, to have counsel appointed both during trial and on appeal. In the subsequent cases of Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964) and Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966), the Supreme Court further extended the rule to apply even during police interrogation.
Implications

About 2000 individuals that had been convicted were freed in Florida alone as a result of the Gideon decision. The decision did not directly result in Gideon being freed; instead, he received a new trial with the appointment of defense counsel at the government's expense.

Gideon chose W. Fred Turner to be his lawyer in his second trial. The retrial took place on August 5, 1963, five months after the Supreme Court ruling. Turner, during the trial, picked apart the testimony of eyewitness Henry Cook, and in his opening and closing statements suggested that Cook likely had been a lookout for a group of young men who broke into the poolroom to steal beer, then grabbed the coins while they were at it. Turner also obtained a statement from the cab driver who had taken Gideon from Bay Harbor, Florida to a bar in Panama City, Florida, stating that Gideon was carrying neither wine, beer nor Coke when he picked him up, even though Cook testified that he had watched Gideon walk from the pool hall to the phone, and then wait for a cab. This testimony completely discredited Cook.

The jury acquitted Gideon after one hour of deliberation. After his acquittal, Gideon resumed his previous life and married again some time later. He died of cancer in Fort Lauderdale on January 18, 1972, at age 61. Gideon's family in Missouri accepted his body and laid him to rest in an unmarked grave. A granite headstone was added later.[4] inscribed with a quote from a letter Gideon wrote to his attorney, Abe Fortas:[5]

"Each era finds an improvement in law for the benefit of mankind."

Impact on courts

The former "unfair trial" rule, where the government was given a fair amount of latitude in criminal proceedings as long as there were no "shocking departures from fair procedure" was discarded in favor of a firm set of "procedural guarantees" based on the Constitution. The court reversed Betts and adopted rules that did not require a case-by-case analysis, but instead established the requirement of appointed counsel as a matter of right, without a defendant's having to show "special circumstances" that justified the appointment of counsel.[4] In this way, the case helped to refine stare decisis: when a prior appellate court decision should be upheld and what standard should be applied to test a new case against case precedent to achieve acceptable practice and due process of law.[6] This confusion resulted in the implementation of several new practices by the Supreme Court when overturning a previous ruling to maintain the "impersonal qualities of the judicial process" and keep the sense that the legal system is without feeling or prejudice and simply applies justice to those who come before it.[7]
Public defender system

Many changes have been made in the prosecution and legal representation of indigent defendants since the Gideon decision. The decision created and then expanded the need for public defenders which had previously been rare. For example, immediately following the decision, Florida required public defenders in all of the state's circuit courts.[8] The need for more public defenders also led to a need to ensure that they were properly trained in criminal defense in order to allow defendants to receive as fair a trial as possible. Several states and counties followed suit. Washington D.C., for instance, has created a training program for their public defenders, who must receive rigorous training before they are allowed to represent defendants, and must continue their training in order to remain current in criminal law, procedure, and practices.[9] In 2010, a public defender's office in the South Bronx, The Bronx Defenders, created the Center for Holistic Defense, which has helped other public defender offices, from Montana to Massachusetts, developed a model of public defense called holistic defense or holistic advocacy. In it, criminal defense attorneys work on interdisciplinary teams, alongside civil attorneys, social workers, and legal advocates to help clients with not only direct but also collateral aspects of their criminal cases. More recently the American Bar Association and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association have set minimum training requirements, caseload levels, and experience requirements for defenders.[9] There is often controversy whether case loads set upon public defenders give them enough time to sufficiently defend their clients. Some criticize the mindset in which public defense lawyers encourage their clients to simply plead guilty. Some defenders say this is intended to lessen their own work load, while others would say it is intended to obtain a lighter sentence by negotiating a plea bargain as compared with going to trial and perhaps having a harsher sentence imposed. Tanya Greene, an ACLU lawyer, has said that is why 90 to 95 percent of defendants do plead guilty: "You've got so many cases, limited resources, and there's no relief. You go to work, you get more cases. You have to triage."[10]
Right to counsel

The Doughty v. Maxwell decision demonstrates the differences between how states and the federal government address standards for waiver of the right to counsel. In this case the Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed the decision of the state court in Doughty, which held that regardless of Gideon, the defendant waived his or her right to appointed counsel by entering a plea of guilty. The underlying alleged crime and trial in Doughty took place in Ohio, which had its own way of interpreting the right to counsel as do many states. Pennsylvania and West Virginia also deemed that the right to counsel was waived when a plea of guilty was entered. Depending upon one's viewpoint, rules such as these could be seen as an attempt by a state to establish reasonable rules in criminal cases or as an attempt to save money even at the expense of denying a defendant due process. This varies a great deal from federal law, which generally has stricter guidelines for waiving the right to counsel. An analogous area of criminal law is the circumstances under which a criminal defendant can waive the right to trial. Under federal law, the defendant can only waive his or her right to trial if it is clear that the defendant understands the "charges, the consequences of the various pleas, and the availability of counsel".[11] State laws on the subject are often not as strict, making it easier for prosecutors to obtain a defendant's waiver of the right to trial.


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Gibson Guitar Corporation -- robin hasan, 07:40:58 02/13/16 Sat [1]

Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corp.) is an American manufacturer of guitars and other instruments, now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was formerly known as Gibson Guitar Corp. and renamed Gibson Brands, Inc. on June 11, 2013.[3][4]

Orville Gibson founded the company in 1902 as The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co., Ltd. in Kalamazoo, Michigan to make mandolin-family instruments.[1] Gibson invented archtop guitars by constructing the same type of carved, arched tops used on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, used and popularized by Charlie Christian. It was bought by Chicago Musical Instruments in 1944, which was then acquired by the E.C.L. conglomerate that changed its name to Norlin Inc. Many observers see this as the beginning of an era of mismanagement.[citation needed]

Gibson sells guitars under a variety of brand names[5] and builds one of the world's most iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. Many Gibson instruments are highly collectible. Gibson was at the forefront of innovation in acoustic guitars, especially in the big band era of the 1930s; the Gibson Super 400 was widely imitated. In 1952, Gibson introduced its first solid-body electric guitar, the Les Paul which became its most popular guitar to date— designed by Ted McCarty and Les Paul.

Gibson was owned by the Norlin corporation from 1969 to 1986. In 1986, the company was acquired by its present owners. Gibson is a privately held corporation owned by its chief executive officer Henry Juszkiewicz and its president David H. Berryman. In addition to guitars, Gibson offers consumer audio equipment devices through its subsidiaries Onkyo Corporation, Cerwin Vega and Stanton,[6] as well as professional audio equipment from KRK Systems also pianos from their wholly owned subsidiary Baldwin Piano and music software from Cakewalk.

Orville Gibson (born 1856) patented a single-piece mandolin design in 1898 that was more durable than other mandolins and could be manufactured in volume.[7] Orville Gibson began to sell his instruments in 1894 out of a one-room workshop in Kalamazoo Michigan. In 1902 Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co, Ltd. was incorporated to market the instruments. Initially, the company produced only Orville Gibson's original designs.[8] Orville died in 1918 of endocarditis (inflammation of the inside lining of the heart chambers and valves).

The following year the company hired designer Lloyd Loar to create newer instruments.[8] Loar designed the flagship L-5 archtop guitar and the Gibson F5 mandolin that was introduced in 1922, before leaving the company in 1924.[9] In 1936 Gibson introduced their first "Electric Spanish" model, the ES-150 followed by other electric instruments like steel guitars, banjos and mandolins.

During World War II, instrument manufacturing at Gibson slowed due to shortages of wood and metal, and Gibson began manufacturing wood and metal parts for the military. Between 1942-1945, Gibson employed women to manufacture guitars. "Women produced nearly 25,000 guitars during World War II yet Gibson denied ever building instruments over this period," according to a 2013 history of the company. Gibson folklore has also claimed its guitars were made by "seasoned craftsmen" who were "too old for war."

In 1944 Gibson was purchased by Chicago Musical Instruments. The ES-175 was introduced in 1949. Gibson hired Ted McCarty in 1948, who became President in 1950. He led an expansion of the guitar line with new guitars such as the "Les Paul" guitar introduced in 1952 and designed by Les Paul, a popular musician in the 1950s and also a pioneer in music technology. The Les Paul was offered in Custom, Standard, Special, and Junior models.[12] In the mid-50s, the Thinline series was produced, which included a line of thinner guitars like the Byrdland. The first Byrdlands were slim, custom built, L-5 models for guitarists Billy Byrd and Hank Garland. Later, a shorter neck was added. Other models such as the ES-350T and the ES-225T were introduced as less costly alternatives.[13] In 1958, Gibson introduced the ES-335T model. Similar in size to the hollow-body Thinlines, the ES-335 family had a solid center, giving the string tone a longer sustain.

In the 1950s, Gibson also produced the Tune-o-matic bridge system and its version of the humbucking pickup, the PAF ("Patent Applied For"), first released in 1957 and still sought after for its sound.[citation needed] In 1958, Gibson produced two new designs: the eccentrically shaped Explorer and Flying V. These "modernistic" guitars did not sell initially. It was only in the late 1960s and early 70s when the two guitars were reintroduced to the market that they sold well. The Firebird, in the early 60s, was a reprise of the modernistic idea, though less extreme.
Modernization

In the late 50s, McCarty knew that Gibson was seen as a traditional company and began an effort to create more modern guitars. In 1961 the body design of the Les Paul was changed due to the demand for a double-cutaway body design.[14] The new body design then became known as the SG (for "solid guitar"), due to disapproval from Les Paul himself. The Les Paul returned to the Gibson catalog in 1968.

On December 22, 1969, the Gibson parent company Chicago Musical Instruments was taken over by the South American brewing conglomerate ECL. Gibson remained under the control of CMI until 1974 when it became a subsidiary of Norlin Musical Instruments. Norlin Musical Instruments was a member of Norlin Industries which was named for ECL president Norton Stevens and CMI president Arnold Berlin. This began an era characterized by corporate mismanagement and decreasing product quality.

Between 1974 and 1984 production of Gibson guitars was shifted from Kalamazoo to Nashville, Tennessee. The Kalamazoo plant kept going for a few years as a custom-instrument shop, but was closed in 1984; several Gibson employees led by plant manager Jim Duerloo established Heritage Guitars in the old factory, building versions of classic Gibson designs.

The company (Gibson) was within three months of going out of business before it was bought by Henry E. Juszkiewicz, David H. Berryman, and Gary A. Zebrowski in January 1986.[15] New production plants were opened in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as Bozeman, Montana. The Memphis facility is used for semi-hollow and custom shop instruments, while the Bozeman facility is dedicated to acoustic instruments.[16]

In 1977 Gibson sued Hoshino/Elger for copying the Gibson Les Paul.[17] In 2000, Gibson sued Fernandes Guitars in a Tokyo court for allegedly copying Gibson designs. Gibson did not prevail.[18] Gibson also sued PRS Guitars in 2005, to stop them from making their Singlecut model. The lawsuit against PRS was initially successful.[19] However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the lower court decision and ordered the dismissal of Gibson's suit against PRS.[20]
Recent history

Gibson purchased Garrison Guitars in 2007.[21] In mid 2009 Gibson reduced its work force to adjust for a decline in guitar industry sales in the United States.[22]

In 2011, Gibson acquired the Stanton Group, including Cerwin Vega, KRK Systems and Stanton DJ. Gibson then formed a new division, Gibson Pro Audio, which will deliver professional grade audio items, including headphones, loudspeakers and DJ equipment.[23]

Gibson announced a partnership with the Japanese-based Onkyo Corporation in 2012. Onkyo, known for audio equipment and home theater systems, became part of the Gibson Pro Audio division.[24]
FWS raids & Lacey Act violation

Gibson's factories were raided in 2009 and 2011 by agents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). In November 2009 authorities found illegally imported ebony wood from Madagascar.[25][26] A second raid was conducted in August 2011,[25] during which the FWS seized wood imports from India that had been mislabeled on the US Customs declaration.[27][28] Gibson Guitar Corp. filed a motion in January 2011 to recover seized materials and overturn the charges, which was denied by the court.[29][30]

The United States Department of Justice found emails from 2008 and 2009 in which Gibson employees discussing the "gray market" nature of the ebony wood available from a German wood dealer—who obtained it from a supplier in Madagascar—as well as plans to obtain the wood. It filed a civil proceeding in June 2011,[28][31][32] the first such case under the amended Lacey Act, which requires importing companies to purchase legally harvested wood and follow the environmental laws of the producing countries regardless of corruption or lack of enforcement.[32] Gibson argued in a statement the following day that authorities were "bullying Gibson without filing charges" and denied any wrongdoing.[27][33] Arguing against the federal regulations and claiming that the move threatened jobs, Republicans and tea party members spoke out against the raids and supported Juszkiewicz.[34]

The case was settled on August 6, 2012, with Gibson admitting to violating the Lacey Act and agreeing to pay a fine of $300,000 in addition to a $50,000 community payment. Gibson also forfeited the wood seized in the raids, which was valued at roughly the same amount as the settlement.[35][36] However, in a subsequent statement Gibson maintained its innocence with Juszkiewicz claiming that "Gibson was inappropriately targeted" and that the government raids were "so outrageous and overreaching as to deserve further Congressional investigation." Juszkiewicz continued to state, "We felt compelled to settle as the costs of proving our case at trial would have cost millions of dollars and taken a very long time to resolve."[37]

The case raised concerns for musicians who lack documentation of vintage instruments made of traditional, non-sustainable materials.[38][39] However, officials from the Justice Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have stated that musicians who unknowingly possess instruments made from illegal wood would not be treated as criminals.[40]

Gibson was able to reclaim some wood stock which was confiscated during the raids,[41] and produced a new guitar marketed to draw attention to the raids and seizures.[42] This is discussed below in the Instruments section.
Instruments
Further information: Gibson Guitar Corporation product list

Gibson also owns and makes instruments under brands such as Epiphone,[43]Kramer,[44] Maestro,[45]Steinberger,[46] and Tobias,[47] —along with the ownership of historical brands such as Kalamazoo,[48][49] Dobro,[5] Slingerland,[50] Valley Arts,[50] and Baldwin[5] (including: Chickering,[50] Hamilton,[50] Wurlitzer[5][50]).

In addition to guitars, Gibson offers consumer audio equipment devices through its subsidiaries Onkyo Corporation, Cerwin Vega and Stanton,[6] as well as professional audio equipment from KRK Systems and TEAC Corporation/TASCAM and music software from Cakewalk.[50]

Gibson makes authorized copies of its most successful guitar designs. They are less expensive than those bearing the Gibson name. A former competitor, Epiphone was purchased by Gibson and now makes competitively priced Gibson models, such as the Les Paul and SG, sold under the Epiphone brand,[51] while continuing to make Epiphone-specific models like the Sheraton and Casino. In Japan, Orville by Gibson once made Gibson designs sold in that country.[52] Gibson has sought legal action against those that make and sell guitars Gibson believes are too similar to their own.

In 1977, Gibson introduced the serial numbering system in use until 2006.[53] An eight-digit number on the back shows the date when the instrument was produced, where it was produced, and its order of production that day (e.g., first instrument stamped that day, second, etc.).[54] As of 2006, the company used seven serial number systems,[53] making it difficult to identify guitars by their serial number alone.[53][54] and as of 1999 the company has used six distinct serial numbering systems.[54] An exception is the year 1994, Gibson's centennial year; many 1994 serial numbers start with "94", followed by a six-digit production number[citation needed]. The Gibson website provides a book to help with serial number deciphering.[54]

In 2006, Gibson introduced a nine-digit serial number system replacing the eight-digit system used since 1977, but the sixth digit now represents a batch number.[53]

In 2003,[55] Gibson debuted its Ethernet-based[56] audio protocol, MaGIC, which it developed in partnership with 3COM, Advanced Micro Devices, and Xilinx.[55] Replacing traditional analog hook-ups with a digital connection that would, "...satisfy the unique requirements of live audio performances," may have been the goal of this project.[56]

This system may require a special pickup,[55] but cabling is provided by standard Cat-5 ethernet cord.[55][56]

The Gibson "self-tuning guitar", also known as a "robot model", an option on some newer Les Paul, SG, Flying V and Explorer instruments, will tune itself in little more than two seconds using robotics technology developed by Tronical GmbH.[57] Under the tradename Min-ETune, this device became standard on several models in 2014.[58]

In 2014 Gibson introduced the "Government Series II Les Paul", which was constructed using wood the US government returned to Gibson after resolution of the case.[59] The guitar is finished in "government tan" and contains tonewood originally seized but returned to Gibson. It features decorations which are designed to draw attention to the issue of government.


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Graz School -- robin hasan, 07:36:13 02/13/16 Sat [1]


The Graz School of experimental psychology and object theory was headed by Alexius Meinong, who was professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Graz where he founded the Graz psychological institute (in 1894).

Among his pupils were Stephan Witasek, Vittorio Benussi, R. Ameseder, Konrad Zindler, Wilhelm Maria Frankl, Eduard Martinak, Ernst Mally and F. Weber.

Also his earlier students, Christian von Ehrenfels (founder of Gestalt psychology), Alois Höfler and Anton Oelzelt-Newin, can be considered part of this school.


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