Bamako is the capital and largest city of Mali, with a population of 1,810,366. In 2006, it was estimated to sixth-fastest in the world, it is located on the Niger River, near the rapids that divide the upper and middle Niger valleys in the southwestern part of the country. Bamako is the nation's administrative centre; the city proper is a cercle in its own right. Bamako's river port is located in nearby Koulikoro, along with a major regional trade and conference center. Bamako is the seventh-largest West African urban center after Lagos, Kano, Ibadan and Accra. Locally manufactured goods include textiles, processed meat, metal goods. Commercial fishing occurs on the Niger River; the name Bamako comes from the Bambara word meaning "crocodile tail". The area of the city has evidence of settlements since the Palaeolithic era; the fertile lands of the Niger River Valley provided the people with an abundant food supply and early kingdoms in the area grew wealthy as they established trade routes linking across west Africa, the Sahara, leading to northern Africa and Europe.

The early inhabitants traded gold, kola nuts, salt. By the 11th century, the Empire of Ghana became the first kingdom to dominate the area. Bamako had become a major market town, a centre for Islamic scholars, with the establishment of two universities and numerous mosques in medieval times; the Mali Empire grew during the early Middle Ages and replaced Ghana as the dominant kingdom in west Africa, dominating Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania. In the 14th century, the Mali Empire became wealthy because of the trade of cotton and salt; this was succeeded by the Songhai Empire and in the 16th century Berber invaders from Morocco destroyed what remained of the kingdoms in Mali and trans-Saharan trade was taken over by sailors. By the late 19th century, the French dominated much of western Africa, in 1883, present-day Mali became part of the colony of French Sudan, was its capital in 1908. Cotton and rice farming was encouraged through large irrigation projects and a new railroad connected Mali to Dakar on the Atlantic coast.

Mali was annexed into French West Africa, a federation which lasted from 1895 to 1959. Mali gained independence from France in April 1960, the Republic of Mali was established. At this time, Bamako had a population of around 160,000. During the 1960s, the country became socialist and Bamako was subject to Soviet investment and influence. However, the economy declined as state enterprises collapsed and unrest was widespread. Moussa Traoré led a successful coup and ruled Mali for 23 years; however his rule was characterised by severe droughts and poor government management and problems of food shortages. In the late 1980s the people of Bamako and Mali campaigned for a free-market economy and multiparty democracy. In 1990, the National Congress for Democratic Initiative was set up by the lawyer Mountaga Tall, the Alliance for Democracy in Mali by Abdramane Baba and historian Alpha Oumar Konaré; these with the Association des élèves et étudiants du Mali and the Association Malienne des Droits de l'Homme aimed to oust Moussa Traoré.

Under the old constitution, all labor unions had to belong to one confederation, the National Union of Malian Workers. When the leadership of the UNTM broke from the government in 1990, the opposition grew. Groups were driven by paycuts and layoffs in the government sector, the Malian government acceding to pressure from international donors to privatise large swathes of the economy that had remained in public hands after the overthrow of the socialist government in 1968. Students children, played an increasing role in the protest marches in Bamako, homes and businesses of those associated with the regime were ransacked by crowds. On 22 March 1991, a large-scale protest march in central Bamako was violently suppressed, with estimates of those killed reaching 300. Four days a military coup deposed Traoré; the Comité de Transition pour le Salut du Peuple was set up, headed by General Amadou Toumani Touré. Alpha Oumar Konari became president on 26 April 1992. On 20 November 2015, two gunmen took 170 people hostage in the Radisson Blu hotel.

Twenty-one people‚ including three Chinese businessmen were killed in the "Bamako hotel attack" along with the two gunmen during the seven-hour siege. Bamako is situated on the Niger River floodplain, which hampers development along the riverfront and the Niger's tributaries. Bamako is flat, except to the immediate north where an escarpment is found, being what remains of an extinct volcano; the Presidential Palace and main hospital are located here. The city developed on the northern side of the river, but as it grew, bridges were developed to connect the north with the south; the first of these was the King Fahd Bridge. Additionally, a seasonal causeway between the eastern neighborhoods of Sotuba and Misabugu was inherited from colonial times; the Sotuba Causeway is under water from July to January. A third bridge is being built at the same location to reduce downtown congestion, notably by trucks. Under the Köppen climate classification, Bamako features a tropical savanna climate. Located in the Sudano-Sahelian zo

Rosé des Riceys is a French wine Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée in the three villages of Les Riceys, a commune in the Aube département in the Champagne province of France. The wines are all rosé, produced from the pinot noir grape, they are either fermented in stainless steel tanks for early drinking or in wood allowing longer ageing. They have a distinctive taste known to the French as goût des Riceys. Les Riceys is the only wine-growing area to have three AOCs: AOC Champagne, AOC Côteaux Champenois red wine and AOC Rosé de Riceys. Champagne Riots of 1911

In computer science, a ternary search tree is a type of trie where nodes are arranged in a manner similar to a binary search tree, but with up to three children rather than the binary tree's limit of two. Like other prefix trees, a ternary search tree can be used as an associative map structure with the ability for incremental string search. However, ternary search trees are more space efficient compared to standard prefix trees, at the cost of speed. Common applications for ternary search trees include auto-completion; each node of a ternary search tree stores a single character, an object, pointers to its three children conventionally named equal kid, lo kid and hi kid, which can be referred as middle and higher. A node may have a pointer to its parent node as well as an indicator as to whether or not the node marks the end of a word; the lo kid pointer must point to a node. The hi kid pointer must point to a node; the equal kid points to the next character in the word. The figure below shows a ternary search tree with the strings "cute","cup","at","as","he","us" and "i": c / | \ a u h | | | \ t t e u / / | / | s p e i s As with other trie data structures, each node in a ternary search tree represents a prefix of the stored strings.

All strings in the middle subtree of a node start with that prefix. As a final case, if the first character of the string is equal to the character of the current node the function returns the node if there are no more characters in the key. If there are more characters in the key the first character of the key must be removed and a recursive call is made given the equal kid node and the modified key; this can be written in a non-recursive way by using a pointer to the current node and a pointer to the current character of the key. Function search is if is_empty return false node p:= root int idx:= 0 while p is not null do if query < p.splitchar p:= p.left else if query > p.splitchar p:= p.right. Ternary search trees run best when given several similar strings when those strings share a common prefix. Alternatively, ternary search trees are effective when storing a large number of short strings. Running times for ternary search trees are similar to binary search trees, in that they run in logarithmic time, but can run in linear time in the degenerate case.

Time complexities for ternary search tree operations: While being slower than other prefix trees, ternary search trees can be better suited for larger data sets due to their space-efficiency. Hashtables can be used in place of ternary search trees for mapping strings to values. However, hash maps frequently use more memory than ternary search trees. Additionally, hash maps are slower at reporting a string, not in the same data structure, because it must compare the entire string rather than just the first few characters. There is some evidence. Additionally, hash maps do not allow for many of the uses of ternary search trees, such as near-neighbor lookups. If storing dictionary words is all, required, a minimal deterministic acyclic finite state automaton would use less space than a trie or a ternary search tree; this is because a DAFSA can compress identical branches from the trie which correspond to the same suffixes of different words being stored. Ternary search trees can be used to solve many problems in which a large number of strings must be stored and retrieved in an arbitrary order.

Some of the most common or most useful of these are below: Anytime a trie could be used but a less memory-consuming structure is preferred. A quick and space-saving data structure for mapping strings to other data. To implement auto-completion; as a spell check. Near-neighbor searching; as a database when indexing by several non-key fields is desirable. In place of a hash table. Three-way radix quicksort Trie Binary search tree Hashtable Ternary Search Trees page with papers about ternary search trees and algorithms for "sorting and searching strings" Ternary Search Tries – a video by Robert Sedgewick TST.java.html Implementation in Java of a TST by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne

Louisiana State University is the flagship university of the state of Louisiana, United States. This article describes the traditions of the university. LSU's men's and women's sports teams are called the Fighting Tigers, Tigers or Lady Tigers. During its first three sports seasons, LSU played without a nickname. For the inaugural LSU–Tulane football game in 1893, the New Orleans newspapers referred to the LSU football team as the Baton Rouge "boys", but, not an official nickname. At the start of the 1896 football season, the football team had its first nickname and was referred to as the "Pelicans". A former football player on the 1896 team said in a 1929 interview in the New Orleans Item-Tribune that the team was known as the "Pelicans" and had a Pelican insignia sewn on their jackets. During the same fall 1896 football season, LSU first adopted its "Tigers" nickname during an undefeated football season. David F. Boyd, president of LSU, tagged the football team as the "Tigers"; the school's nickname seemed like a logical choice since most collegiate teams in that year bore the names of ferocious animals and "Tigers" referred to the Tiger Rifles.

Additionally, the "Tigers" nickname has a long history in Louisiana military history. In the Mexican–American War, four different volunteer units used the nickname. One of these volunteer units was the Washington Artillery, it is a militia unit that traces its history to 1838 and has a logo that features a snarling tiger's head. The tiger symbol used by LSU came from the Washington Artillery logo. In 1955, it was head football coach Paul Dietzel and the LSU'fourth-quarter ball club' that helped the moniker "Tigers" grow into the nickname, "Fighting Tigers". In 1896, LSU had its first mascot, it was a greyhound named Drum. The greyhound was the pet of the LSU Commandant of Cadets, Lieutenant Charles C. Gallup. Mike the Tiger is the official mascot of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and serves as the graphic image of LSU athletics. Mike is the name of both the costumed mascots, he is named after Mike Chambers who served as LSU's athletic trainer when the first mascot was purchased in 1936.

According to folklore, LSU will score a touchdown for every one of Mike's roars on game day. Many students seek to take a picture with Mike on graduation day wearing gown. After a new search for a mascot is announced, the public eagerly anticipates white smoke blowing from the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, announcing that the new tiger has been located, mimicking the white smoke which billows from the Sistine Chapel when a new Pope is elected. In 2005, a new $3 million habitat was created for Mike; the Tiger Athletic Foundation raised funds from private sources, to subsidize the construction project. The habitat features state-of-the-art technologies and includes among its amenities lush plantings, a waterfall, a flowing stream that empties into a wading pond, rocky plateaus; the new habitat ranks among the largest and finest Tiger preserves in the country and expanded Mike's home from 2,000 to 15,000 square feet. It features research and husbandry programs, as well as educational and recreational activities.

LSU's official colors are Old Gold. This is LSU's second choice of colors with the first official school colors being white; the first association of LSU with the Royal Purple and Old Gold colors was in 1883 when the LSU Corps of Cadets was presented a flag by a ladies' organization in Baton Rouge. The flag bore the image of a pelican and the state coat of arms and it was reported that the flag was made of purple silk fringed with gold. There is some discrepancy in the origin of LSU's current colors becoming Royal Purple and Old Gold, it is believed that purple and gold were first worn to represent the university by an LSU team on May 13, 1893 when the LSU baseball squad beat Tulane in the first intercollegiate contest played in any sport by Louisiana State University. Team captain E. B. Young hand-picked those colors for the LSU squad. In another story, Ruffin G. Pleasant, LSU quarterback, future band director and future Louisiana governor, along with football coach Dr. Charles E. Coates changed LSU's official school colors.

In 1893 after the first baseball game was played, the first football game in LSU history was played. On November 25, 1893, football coach/chemistry professor Dr. Charles E. Coates and some of his players went and purchased ribbon to adorn their gray jerseys as they prepared to play the first LSU football game. Stores were stocking ribbons in the colors of Mardi Gras—purple and green—for the upcoming Carnival season. However, none of the green had yet arrived at Reymond's Store at the corner of Third and Main streets in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Coates and quarterback Ruffin Pleasant bought all of the purple and gold stock and made it into rosettes and badges. Additionally, it was reported by the New Orleans Times-Democrat that "all the young ladies are preparing purple and old gold streamers for the occasion."LSU's original school colors were white and blue chosen by Superintendent/President David F. Boyd; the Louisiana State University Tiger Marching Band is known by LSU Tiger fans and foes alike for the first four notes of its pregame salute sounded on Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium.

This 325-member marching band performs at all LSU football home games, all bowl games, select away games and represents the University at other functions as one of its most recognizable student and spirit organizations. The LSU Tiger Band began as a military band in 1893, organized by two students: Wylie M. Bar

The Florida Azalea Festival is a two-day event held annually in Palatka, Florida, USA, on the first weekend of March. The festival celebrates the seasonal arrival of the azalea blossom to the northeast Florida region; the first official Florida Azalea Festival was held in 1938. Originating as Jaycees Day, the local chapter of the Jaycees organization transformed the event into the festival celebrated today. In the early years the festival was centered at the Ravine Gardens; as its popularity grew, most of the activities were moved to the riverfront in downtown Palatka. The modern event is conducted by the Palatka Main Street program; the Ravine Gardens still joins in the celebration with. Its diverse collection and high concentration of the flower makes it a staple for those who want to get a good look at the celebrated annual blooms. Azalea Festival events open to the public include: The Azalea Parade, featuring floats, bands and a number of community groups The Azalea Festival Arts and Crafts Show at Historic Lemon Street Azalea Days at Ravine Gardens State Park Open Car Show Florida Azalea Amateur at the Palatka Golf Club Bowling Tournament REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS To Conduct the 2011 Azalea Festival archived at City of Palatka St. Petersburg Times archived at Google News retrieved June 4, 2011 Official website

4 Runner is the debut album of the American country music group 4 Runner, released in 1995 on the Nashville division of Polydor Records. It produced the singles "Cain's Blood", "A Heart with 4 Wheel Drive", "Home Alone", "Ripples", all of which charted on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs charts. Of these four single, "Cain's Blood" was the only one to chart within the Top 40, peaking at #26. Brian Wahlert of Country Standard Time criticized some of the songs on 4 Runner for "cop the worst pop elements" of The Oak Ridge Boys, but said that the presence of bass singer Jim Chapman gave the material a "fresh sound." His review praised "A Heart with 4 Wheel Drive" as the strongest tracks. Entertainment Weekly critic Alanna Nash gave the album a B-minus rating. In her review, she said that "they can be as hokey as the Oaks, but unlike the Statlers, they're sentimental without being mawkish." 4 Runner Jim Chapman – bass vocals Billy Crittenden – baritone vocals Lee Hilliard – tenor vocals Craig Morris – lead vocalsAdditional musicians Glen Duncan – fiddle Larry Franklin – fiddle Sonny Garrish – Dobro, steel guitar Tony Haselden – acoustic guitar John Hobbs – piano Mike Lawler – synthesizer Paul Leim – drums Brent Mason – electric guitar Terry McMillan – harmonica Steve Nathan – organ, synthesizer Danny Parks – acoustic guitar Larry Paxton – bass guitar Don Potter – acoustic guitar Matt Rollings – piano Reggie Young – electric guitarAll strings performed by the Nashville String Machine under the conduction of Carl Gorodetzky