Ussé is a castle in the Indre-et-Loire département, in France. The stronghold at the edge of the Chinon forest overlooking the Indre Valley was first fortified in the eleventh century by the Norman seigneur of Ussé, Gueldin de Saumur, who surrounded the fort with a palisade on a high terrace; the site passed to the Comte de Blois. In the fifteenth century, the ruined castle of Ussé was purchased by Jean V de Bueil, a captain-general of Charles VII who became seigneur of Ussé in 1431 and began rebuilding it in the 1440s. Antoine was in debt and in 1455, sold the château to Jacques d’Espinay, son of a chamberlain to the Duke of Brittany and himself chamberlain to the king. In the seventeenth century Louis I de Valentinay, comptroller of the royal household, demolished the north range of buildings in order to open the interior court to the spectacular view over the parterre terrace, to a design ascribed to André Le Nôtre. Valentinay's son-in-law was the military engineer Vauban; the tradition maintained at Ussé is that this was the castle Charles Perrault had in mind when writing "The Sleeping Beauty".
Ussé passed to the Rohan. In 1802 Ussé was purchased by the duc de Duras. Here François-René de Chateaubriand worked on his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe as the guest of duchesse Claire de Duras. In 1885 the comtesse de la Rochejaquelein bequeathed Ussé to her great-nephew, the comte de Blacas. Today the château belongs to his descendant Casimir de Blacas d' Aulps the 7th Duke of Blacas. Famed for its picturesque aspect, Ussé was the subject of a French railroad poster issued by the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans in the 1920s and was one of several that inspired Walt Disney in the creation of many of the Disney Castles. Ussé was classified as a monument historique in 1931 by the French Ministry of Culture. List of castles in France Château d'Ussé website Château d'Ussé
Transtar was the first radio network to provide 24-hour music programming to local affiliates. The slate of 24-hour networks is now operated by Dial Global; the studios are located in California. Transtar was founded in 1981 by C. Terry Robinson; the network debuted at around the same time as the Satellite Music Network, based in Mokena, Illinois. Both companies marketed themselves to prospective affiliates by offering selected music presented by major market talent of high quality that a local station could never afford, as well as the capability of using existing studio equipment like reel-to-reel tape decks and cartridge playback machines to help make an affordable transition. A station signing up for the service would need a satellite antenna and receiver, a 25 Hz tone generator to place at the end of commercial clusters at the end of a break recorded on the reel, 25/35 Hz tone sensors to trigger local liners and station identification; the network communicated with affiliates by using a computer printer that would keep local programming staff informed of announcer changes, closed circuit feeds, other vital information.
While Satellite Music Network had more affiliates, Transtar offered one major advantage over SMN...a digital cue system. This was important among potential affiliates that were FM stations; the digital cue system allowed the network to cue tape machines at the local affiliate station with external data channels sent on a separate digital subcarrier. SMN, on the other hand, cued stations using a subaudible tone on the program feed as it was aired live, but eliminated them from being heard by listeners through filtering out the lower end of the audio signal. While the difference in audio would be negligible at worst on an AM affiliate, it was obvious on an FM station subscribing to the service when a bass line heard on a particular favorite song was now found to be missing. An engineer at the receiving station could tweak the lower end of the signal by making adjustments on the station's audio processing, allowing the missing bass line to be heard, but the subaudible cues would, as a result, be audible over the air.
Transtar used this as a sales tool when marketing their service to prospective affiliates, while charging inventory on top of a monthly subscription fee, feeling that prospective affiliates would be willing to pay more for a higher quality service. On the downside, announcer shifts, because they originated on the West Coast, all began and ended in the Pacific Time Zone, which made it difficult for East Coast-based affiliates to market individual announcer dayparts during the morning; this would change years when announcer start times were adjusted to favor Eastern and Central Time zones. In 1989, the company merged with the United Stations Radio Network; the new company was named Unistar. That entity, in turn, was bought by Westwood One in 1993; the music networks were run as a self-branded division of Westwood One until 2006, when the agreement with Dial Global began. = Active on Dial Global affiliates = Due to the purchase of Dial Global and Jones Radio Networks by Triton Media Group.
Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar is a convict in 1993 Delhi bomb blast case, whose death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court of India on 31 March 2014. A chemical engineering professor by profession, he taught in Ludhiana before his conviction for a bomb blast in Delhi, he was declared guilty—under India's Terrorism and Disruptive Activities Act, of killing nine bystanders in a 1993 car bombing intended to kill politician Maninderjeet Singh Bitta, sentenced to death by hanging by a split decision. His trial and sentencing remain controversial; the Supreme Court of India commuted his death sentence to life Imprisonment on 31 March 2014, both on the ground of an unexplained and inordinate delay of eight years in deciding his mercy petition and on the ground of mental illness. On 11 September 1993, a car bomb exploded outside the offices of the Indian Youth Congress on Raisina Road in New Delhi, killing nine people; the remote-controlled bomb used RDX as explosive. The primary target for the mid-day bombing was identified as Maninder Singh Bitta, a vocal critic of Khalistani separatists, leaving the Youth Congress offices in his car.
Bitta survived the attack with shrapnel wounds to his chest. However, two of Bitta's body guards were killed. After investigation, authorities named Bhullar as the bomber responsible for the 1993 Raisina Road car bomb. Bhullar's sympathizers argue that he was targeted for supporting the Khalistani separatist cause and for speaking out against injustices in Punjab during the 1980s, in particular students missing after police encounters, Operation Woodrose and the 1984 riots; the prosecution claimed that he was part of the proscribed separatist organization, Khalistan Liberation Force. However, his family and friends deny this claim. In the appellate stage of the trial he was found guilty by a majority of 2-1; the two judges who upheld the death sentence have found his confession admissible. The dissenting Judge, presiding judge of the three-judge bench, acquitted the accused, finding that he was not guilty of participating in the 1993 car bomb attack and too much doubt remained on the authenticity of the alleged confession to the Punjab police.
However, the other two judges convicted him, arguing that proof "beyond reasonable doubt" should be a "guideline, not a fetish". Bhullar was named responsible based on his confession. Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar has gone in appeal over the judgement of the trial court and his conviction was upheld at all the stages. A Presidential pardon was sought by him and granted on ground of inordinate delay in deciding his mercy petition and his suffering from schizophrenia. After the bombing, Bhullar sought political asylum, his plea was rejected by the German government in 1995 and he was extradited back to India to face charges of terrorism although on the basis of Bhullar receiving a fair trial and not being subjected to capital punishment. Upon his return to India in 1995, Bhullar was arrested and prosecuted for alleged bombings in Delhi, he was prosecuted under the Terrorism & Disruptive Activities Act. Bhullar has been in prison on death row for the last two decades since being arrested upon arrival after being deported to India.
On being handed over to the Indian police in Delhi by airline staff, Bhullar was taken into detention. The police alleged that he volunteered a confession, typed on a computer while Bhullar spoke but according to the authorities the secretary forgot to save the confession on the computer. Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act requires the confession to be handwritten or an audio/video record of it to be kept; the authenticity of typed confessions is doubted in the courts. In India, Bhullar was prosecuted for the 1993 New Delhi car bombing, he was found guilty by the trial court and sentenced to death by hanging on 25 August 2001. The rest of the accused have been acquitted. Bhullar was taken before an ‘executive’ magistrate. Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act requires the confession document be sent to the magistrate before appearance of the person so that the magistrate is in a position to examine it; the confession document was not sent to the magistrate the magistrate went on to ask him if he had made the confession.
Bhullar wrote to the court that the ‘confession’ was involuntary and obtained under torture and fear of death. In a 2002 review of the trial, an appeals court upheld Bhullar's death sentence by a split verdict of 2–1; the presiding judge voted to overturn the death penalty on Bhullar, because the testimony of the prosecution witnesses had been at odds with the account of events in Bhullar's self-confession. However, the other judges upheld the death penalty because Bhullar's confession had not been sent to the trial magistrate, it was not the basis for the conviction and Bhullar had withdrawn his confession. While he was waiting for the death sentence, Bhullar was convicted of other charges by the Punjab Police. However, on 1 December 2006 in the Chandigarh and Haryana High Court the judge acquitted Bhullar on the basis of lack of evidence. R. S. Baswana Additional Sessions Judge held that there was no evidence on file to link the accused with the other alleged crimes and despite the fact that the prosecution had 15 years to gather evidence against Bhullar, they were unable to produce evidence linking Mr Bhullar to the case against him.
He had filed a review petition, dismissed on 17 December 2002. Bhullar had moved a curative petition, which too had been rejected by the Supreme Court on 12 March 2003. Bhullar's appeal against the conviction was dismissed by
The Mørkefjord expedition of 1938–1939 was sent out by Alf Trolle, Ebbe Munck, Eigil Knuth in order to continue the work of the Denmark Expedition. It was an exploratory expedition to Northeast Greenland led by Eigil Knuth and had been planned to last from 1938 to 1939, it was affected by the outbreak of World War II. There had been a previous expedition to Northeast Greenland led by Johan Peter Koch in 1913. -- which Alfred. Eigil Knuth arrived in Greenland with his co-leader and friend, Ebbe Munck, on 19 June 1938; the other expedition members were botanist Paul Gelting, Alf Trolle, five more men. The expedition made use of an aircraft – a Tiger Moth; the expedition members began by building a scientific station north of the mouth of the Mørkefjord, west of Hvalrosodden. It was used as a base; the expedition used a hunting hut in nearby Godfred Hansen Island built by the Nanok East Greenland Fishing Company. Mørkefjord Station was manned for a further two years after the end of the expedition, from 1938 to 1941.
The additional two years were for two reasons, first because of the Danish Meteorological Institute having requested a continuation of weather reports and second, because Eigil Knuth, faced with the outbreak of World War II, could not return to Greenland as planned and decided to continue the activities of the expedition. The Mørkefjord Expedition would map and name a number of geographic features in East Greenland during the years it operated in the area; the Mørkefjord station is now a ruin. Cartographic expeditions to Greenland List of Arctic expeditions
An air flow bench is a device used for testing the internal aerodynamic qualities of an engine component and is related to the more familiar wind tunnel. It is used for testing the intake and exhaust ports of cylinder heads of internal combustion engines, it is used to test the flow capabilities of any component such as air filters, manifolds or any other part, required to flow gas. A flow bench is one of the primary tools of high performance engine builders, porting cylinder heads would be hit or miss without it. A flow bench consists of an air pump of some sort, a metering element and temperature measuring instruments such as manometers, various controls; the test piece is attached in series with the pump and measuring element and air is pumped through the whole system. Therefore, all the air passing through the metering element passes through the test piece; because the volume flow rate through the metering element is known and the flow through the test piece is the same, it is known. The mass flow rate can be calculated using the known pressure and temperature data to calculate air densities, multiplying by the volume flow rate.
The air pump used must be able to deliver the volume required at the pressure required. Most flow testing is done at 28 inches of water pressure. Although other test pressures will work, the results would have to be converted for comparison to the work of others; the pressure developed must account for the test pressure plus the loss across the metering element plus all other system losses. The greater the accuracy of the metering element the greater is the loss. Flow volume of between 100 and 600 cubic feet per minute would serve all applications depending on the size of the engine under test. Any type of pump that can deliver the required pressure difference and flow volume can be used. Most used is the dynamic-compression centrifugal type compressor, familiar to most as being used in vacuum cleaners and turbochargers, but multistaged axial-flow compressor types, similar to those used in most jet engines, could work as well, although there would be little need for the added cost and complexities involved, as they don't require such a high flow rate as a jet engine, nor are they limited by the aerodynamic drag considerations which makes a narrow-diameter axial compressor more effective in jet engines than a centrifugal compressor of equal air flow.
Positive displacement types such as piston compressors, or rotary types such as a Roots blower could be used with suitable provisions for damping the pulsations in the air flow. The pressure ratio of a single fan blade can not be used. There are several possible types of metering element in use. Flow benches ordinarily use one of three types: orifice plate, venturi meter and pitot/static tube, all of which deliver similar accuracy. Most commercial machines use orifice plates due to their simple construction and the ease of providing multiple flow ranges. Although the venturi offers substantial improvements in efficiency, its cost is higher. Air flow conditions must be measured at two locations, across the test piece and across the metering element; the pressure difference across the test piece allows the standardization of tests from one to another. The pressure across the metering element allows calculation of the actual flow through the whole system; the pressure across the test piece is measured with a U tube manometer while, for increased sensitivity and accuracy, the pressure difference across the metering element is measured with an inclined manometer.
One end of each manometer is connected to its respective plenum chamber while the other is open to the atmosphere. Ordinarily all flow bench manometers measure in inches of water although the inclined manometer's scale is replaced with a logarithmic scale reading in percentage of total flow of the selected metering element which makes flow calculation simpler. Temperature must be accounted for because the air pump will heat the air passing through it making the air down stream of it less dense and more viscous; this difference must be corrected for. Temperature is measured at the metering element plenum. Correction factors are applied during flow calculations; some flow bench designs place the air pump after the metering element so that heating by the air pump is not as large a concern. Additional manometers can be installed for use with hand held probes, which are used to explore local flow conditions in the port; the air flow bench can give a wealth of data about the characteristics of a cylinder head or whatever part is tested.
The result of main interest is bulk flow. It is the volume of air. Expressed in cubic feet per minute or cubic meters per second/minute. Valve lift can be expressed as an actual dimension in decimal inches or mm, it can be specified as a ratio between a characteristic diameter and the lift L/D. Most used is the valve head diameter. Engines have an L/D ratio from 0 up to a maximum of 0.35. For example, a 1-inch-diameter valve would be lifted a maximum of 0.350 inch. During flow testing the valve would be set at L/D 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 and readings taken successively. This allows the comparison of efficiencies of ports with other valve sizes, as the valve lift is proportional rather than absolute. For comparison with tests by others the characteristic diameter used to determine lift must be the same. Flow coefficients are determined by comparing the actual flow of a test piece to the theoretical flow of a per
Thomas Falkner was an English Jesuit missionary, active in the Patagonia region. He was the son of Thomas Falkner, a Manchester apothecary, had Calvinist, maybe Scottish heritage, but obtained his education at the Manchester grammar school. On, having studied medicine under Dr. Richard Mead, he became a surgeon and practised at his native place, his own health being delicate, he was advised to take a sea-voyage, being acquainted with a ship chaplain on board the Assiento, a vessel trading with Guinea and carrying slaves to Buenos Aires, he accepted an invitation to accompany the vessel as surgeon. This was in or about 1731. On reaching Buenos Aires he was so ill that the captain was compelled to leave him there in the care of Father Mahoney, the superior of the Jesuit College. Here he recovered his health, was received into the Roman Catholic Church. On 15 May 1732, he entered the Society of Jesus. Having spent some time at the Jesuit College of Cordoba del Tucumán in the city of Córdoba, he went as a missionary to the Puelches, near Rio Segundo.
His knowledge of medicine and mechanics procured for him considerable influence among the native peoples. In 1740 or soon after he was sent to assist Father Matthias Strobel in his mission to the Tehuelche people at Laguna de los Padres, 12 miles west of the present day city of Mar del Plata, the first human settlement in the region. For more than 30 years he worked among the Tehuelches. In 1768 the Jesuits were expelled from South America by Royal Decree of Charles III of Spain. Falkner returned to England where, in 1772, he joined the English province of the Society, he was appointed chaplain to Robert Berkeley of Spetchley. He became chaplain to Mr. Berington of Winsley in Herefordshire, afterwards to the Plowdens of Plowden Hall in Shropshire, he is credited with discovering the first fossil in present-day Argentina, an early landmark in Argentinian science. In 1760 Falkner discovered the skeleton of a big armadillo on the banks of Carcarañá River, near the village of Santa Fe; this event occurred 27 years before the Dominican friar Manuel Torres discovered the fossil of a megatherium on the banks of Luján River in 1787 studied and described by Georges Cuvier in 1796.
He was employed by the Spanish government in 1750 to draw a map of the coast of South America from the south of Brazil to Tierra del Fuego, which on its completion was printed in 1761 at Quito, was noted for its accuracy. He designed a chart of Paraguay in 1757, a chart of Tucuman in 1759, several others of less importance, he wrote an account of his Patagonian experiences, published at Hereford in 1774 under the title A Description of Patagonia and the adjoining parts of South America, with a grammar and a short vocabulary, some particulars relating to Falkland's Islands. The book as published was not his original work, but a compilation by William Combe, who used Falkner's papers; the book was translated into German and Spanish. Another account of the Patagonians due to Father Falkner is found in the works of Thomas Pennant, who described his essay as "formed from the relation of Fr. Falkner, a Jesuit, who had resided among them thirty-eight years". After his death, the Spanish Jesuits who had known him in South America were anxious to obtain his unpublished works.
They included treatises on the botanical and mineral products of America, American distempers as cured by American drugs. It is stated by Fr. Caballero, S. J. that he had edited Volumina duo de anatomia corporis humani. Lake Falkner in Argentina is named after him, as well as a street in the city of Mar del Plata. Stephen, Leslie, ed.. "Falkner, Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography. 18. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Herbermann, Charles, ed.. "Thomas Falkner". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Wilson, J. G.. "Falkner, Thomas". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. Works by Thomas Falkner at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Thomas Falkner at Internet Archive