Characiformes is an order of ray-finned fish, comprising the characins and their allies. Grouped in 18 recognized families, more than 2000 different species are described, including the well-known piranha and tetras; the Characiformes form part of a series called the Otophysi within the superorder Ostariophysi. The Otophysi contain three other orders, Cypriniformes and Gymnotiformes; the Characiformes form a group known as the Characiphysi with the Gymnotiformes. The order Characiformes is the sister group to the orders Siluriformes and Gymnotiformes, though this has been debated in light of recent molecular evidence; the characins were all grouped within a single family, the Characidae. Since 18 different families have been separated out. However, classification varies somewhat, the most recent study confirms the circumscribed Characidae as monophyletic. 18 families, about 270 genera, at least 1674 species are known. The suborder Citharinoidei, which contains the families Distichodontidae and Citharinidae, is considered the sister group to the rest of the characins, suborder Characoidei.

The oldest characiform is Santanichthys of the early Cretaceous of Brazil. While all extant species are of fresh water, this species was either brackish or marine. Many other fossils are known; the Characiformes first diversified during the Cretaceous period, though fossils are poorly known. During the Cretaceous period, the rift between South America and Africa would be forming, their low diversity in Africa may explain why some primitive fish families and the Cypriniformes coexist with them while they are absent in South America, where these fish may have been driven extinct. The characiforms had not spread into Africa soon enough to reach the land bridge between Africa and Asia; the earliest they could have spread into Central America was the late Miocene. Phylogeny of living Characiformes based on Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2017: and Nelson, Grande & Wilson 2016. Characins possess a Weberian apparatus, a series of bony parts connecting the swim bladder and inner ear. Superficially, the Characiformes somewhat resemble their relatives of the order Cypriniformes, but have a small, fleshy adipose fin between the dorsal fin and tail.

Most species have teeth within the mouth, since they are carnivorous. The body is always covered in well-defined scales; the mouth is usually not protractile. The largest characins are Hydrocynus goliath and Salminus franciscanus, both of which are up to 1.3 m. The smallest in size is about 1.7 cm in the Bolivian pygmy blue characin, Xenurobrycon polyancistrus. Many members are under 3 cm. Characins are most diverse in the Neotropics, where they are found in lakes and rivers throughout most of South and Central America; the red-bellied piranha, a member of the family Serrasalmidae within the Characiformes, is endemic to the Neotropic ecozone. At least 209 species of characins are found in Africa, including the distichodontids, citharinids and hepsetids; the rest of the characins originate from the Americas. A few characins become quite large, are important as food or game. Most, are small shoaling fish. Many species known as tetras are popular in aquaria due to their bright colors, general hardiness, tolerance towards other fish in community tanks

Philip Candelas, is a British physicist and mathematician. He has served as Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. Candelas was educated at Christ's College and Wadham College, where he was a student of Dennis Sciama, from 1972, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1973. From 1975 he was a research fellow at Balliol College, in 1976-77 was at the University of Texas at Austin with John Archibald Wheeler. In 1977 he received his PhD from Oxford for research on quantum gravity supervised by Dennis Sciama, Derek J. Raine and M. R. Brown. After his DPhil, Candelas continued at the University of Texas, where he became an assistant professor in 1977, associate professor in 1983, full professor in 1989, he was at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1993 to 1994, a visiting scientist at CERN from 1991 to 1993 and a visiting professor at Princeton University in 1995. He has been the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford since 1999 and is the Head of the Mathematical Physics Group at Oxford.

Candelas is most known for his 1985 work with Edward Witten, Andrew Strominger, Gary Horowitz in which they introduced compactification to string theory using Calabi–Yau manifolds. He works on the geometry of Calabi-Yau manifolds and relationships with number theory and has made fundamental contributions to mirror symmetry. Candelas is notable for his contributions in the field of quantum field theory the renormalisation of QFT near black holes, he contributed to the understanding of the behaviour of quantum fields near boundaries, with applications to the Casimir effect and quark confinement. Candelas was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2010. Candelas has both United States citizenship, he has two daughters. This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license

Foundations of Leninism is a 1924 collection by Joseph Stalin of nine lectures he delivered at Sverdlov University that year. It was published by Pravda. After the January 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin, a power struggle began among factions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Stalin was quick to ally himself with Lev Kamenev. Lenin had explicitly criticized Stalin before his death in a document, known as "The Lenin Testament", suppressed by the party's Central Committee; the book contains the written text of nine lectures Stalin delivered to trainee party activists at Sverdlov Communist University, was the first work produced by Stalin since the 1917 October Revolution. Historian and Stalin biographer Robert Service considered Stalin's writing style formulaic. Stalin's nine lectures covered the historical roots of Leninism, theory, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the peasant question, the national question and tactics, style of work, he focused his first lecture on the issue of the historical roots of Leninism as a form of Marxism.

According to Stalin, Leninism is a guiding ideology of the Bolsheviks. He lists three contradictions which imperialism brings to capitalism: The contradiction between labor and capital The contradiction between financial groups and imperialist nations The contradiction between ruling nations and colonial nations and peoplesThese factors, associated with imperialism, increase the contradictions present in capitalist countries; the lecture builds on Lenin's writings about the nature of imperialism 1917's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Stalin opens his second lecture, on methods, with a reference to the period of the Second International in which Karl Kautsky and other orthodox Marxists adopted "opportunistic", principles to preserve unity in the social-democratic parties, it was due to this opportunism that Kautsky and the parties did not endorse revolutionary socialist tactics and programs, instead favoring Eduard Bernstein's reformism. According to Stalin, the Second International became "antiquated," "chauvinistic," and "narrow-minded" at the onset of World War I by supporting the war and opposing violent proletarian revolution.

He defines the methods of Leninism as: Testing the theoretical dogmas of the Second International and the restoration of theory and practice Testing the policy of the parties of the Second International Reorganization of all party work along new, revolutionary lines, preparing the masses for revolutionary struggle Self-criticism, with the party a means of regulating opinion and assessing strategyThe concept of self-criticism was developed and expanded as an essential component of party politics, with Stalin justifying the doctrine by citing Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder. Self-criticism, according to Stalin, should be considered an essential component of Leninist political ideology. Bolshevik Leon Trotsky referred to the lectures in The Permanent Revolution as "ideological garbage", "an official manual of narrow-mindedness" and "an anthology of enumerated banalities", characterizing them as part of a propaganda campaign by Zinoviev and Kamenev. Zinoviev published a similar criticism in Leninism: Introduction to the Study of Leninism.

According to Trotskyist historian Isaac Deutscher, The Foundations of Leninism was withdrawn from circulation due to conflicts between the text and Stalin's recently-developed concept of socialism in one country. Stalin produced a follow-up text, The Problems of Leninism, which presents a corrected conception of Marxism-Leninism in which socialism can be produced by focusing on the industrial economy of a single state. Erik van Ree, a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam's Institute of Eastern European Studies, notes that The Foundations of Stalinism contributed to Stalin's developing synthesis of Marxism with Russian nationalism in the form of social patriotism. In contrast to the Trotskyist movement, African American civil rights activist and Soviet politburo member Harry Haywood received the text positively praising Stalin's theories on the nature of imperialism in relation to Jim Crow and slavery. Historian Stephen Kotkin accuses Stalin of plagiarizing Foundations of Leninism from Soviet journalist Filipp Ksenofontov.

Stalinism Marxism–Leninism History of the Soviet Union Service, Robert. Stalin: A Biography Trotsky, Leon. Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and his Influence; the Universal Library. Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin: A political biography. Oxford University Press

Talavera pottery is a Mexican and Spanish pottery tradition named after the Spanish Talavera de la Reina pottery, from Talavera de la Reina, in Spain. The Mexican pottery is a type of majolica or tin-glazed earthenware, with a white base glaze typical of the type, it comes from the town of San Pablo del Monte and the cities of Puebla, Atlixco and Tecali, because of the quality of the natural clay found there and the tradition of production which goes back to the 16th century. Much of this pottery was decorated only in blue, but colors such as yellow, green and mauve have been used. Majolica pottery was brought to Mexico by the Spanish in the first century of the colonial period. Production of this ceramic became developed in Puebla because of the availability of fine clays and the demand for tiles from the newly established churches and monasteries in the area; the industry had grown sufficiently that by the mid-17th century and guilds had been established which further improved the quality, leading Puebla into what is called the "golden age" of Talavera pottery.

Formally, the tradition that developed there is called Talavera Poblana to distinguish it from the named Talavera pottery of Spain. It is a mixture of Italian and indigenous ceramic techniques; the tradition has struggled since the Mexican War of Independence in the early 19th century, when the number of workshops were reduced to less than eight in the state of Puebla. Efforts by artists and collectors revived the craft somewhat in the early 20th century and there are now significant collections of Talavera pottery in Puebla, Mexico City and New York City. Further efforts to preserve and promote the craft have occurred in the late 20th century, with the introduction of new, decorative designs and the passage of the Denominación de Origen de la Talavera law to protect authentic, Talavera pieces made with the original, 16th-century methods. Authentic Talavera pottery only comes from Talavera de la Reina in Spain, the town of San Pablo del Monte and the cities of Puebla, Atlixco and Tecali, as the clays needed and the history of this craft are both centered there.

All pieces are hand-thrown on a potter's wheel and the glazes contain tin and lead, as they have since colonial times. This glaze must craze, be porous and milky-white, but not pure white. There are only six permitted colors: blue, black, green and mauve, these colors must be made from natural pigments; the painted designs have a blurred appearance as they fuse into the glaze. The base, the part that touches the table, exposes the terra cotta underneath. An inscription is required on the bottom that contains the following information: the logo of the manufacturer, the initials of the artist and the location of the manufacturer in Puebla; the design of the pieces is regulated by tradition. The paint ends up raised over the base. In the early days, only a cobalt blue was used, as this was the most expensive pigment, making it sought after not only for prestige but because it ensured the quality of the entire piece. Only natural clays are used, rather than chemically treated and dyed clays and the handcrafting process takes three to four months.

The process is risky. This makes Talavera three times more costly than other types of pottery; because of this, Talavera manufacturers have been under pressure from imitations from China, similar ceramics from other parts of Mexico Guanajuato. Guanajuato state petitioned the federal government for the right to share the Talavera designation with Puebla, since 1997, this has been denied and glazed ceramics from other parts of Mexico are called Maiolica or Majolica. Today, only pieces made by designated areas and from workshops that have been certified are permitted to call their work "Talavera." Certification is issued by a special regulatory body. Only nine workshops have so far been certified: Uriarte Talavera, Talavera La Reyna, Talavera Armando, Talavera Celia, Talavera Santa Catarina, Talavera de la Nueva España, Talavera de la Luz, Talavera de las Americas, Talavera Virglio Perez; each of these needs to pass a twice-yearly inspection of the manufacturing processes. Pieces are subject to sixteen laboratory tests with internationally certified labs.

In addition, there is a test done by the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Puebla to ensure that the glaze does not have lead content of more than 2.5 parts per million or cadmium content of more than 0.25 parts per million, as many of the pieces are used to serve food. Only pieces from workshops that meet the standards are authorized to have the signature of the potter, the logo of the workshop and the special hologram that certifies the piece's authenticity; the process to create Talavera pottery is elaborate and it has not changed since the early colonial period when the craft was first introduced. The first step is to mix black sand from white sand from Tecali, it is washed and filtered to keep only the finest particles. This can reduce the volume by fifty percent. Next the piece is shaped by hand on a potter's wheel left to dry for a number of days. Comes the first firing, done at 850 °C; the piece is tested to see. The initial glazing, which creates the milky-white background, is applied.

After this, the design is hand painted. A second firing is applied to harden the glaze; this process takes about three months for most pieces. This process

The Third Force Reconnaissance Company, or 3rd FORECON, are responsible in deep reconnaissance and direct action support, tasked in remote sensor emplacement for ground combat elements of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force. 3rd FORECON are operationally committed in supporting the subordinate elements Marine Forces Command or the II Marine Expeditionary Force for direct support of operations and personnel tempo relief. The company augmented active-duty forces or were mobilized to conduct pre-assault and deep post-assault reconnaissance and surveillance in support of II Marine Expeditionary Force and its subordinate elements. 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company: To conduct pre-assault and distant post-assault reconnaissance in support of a landing force. In addition, the company possesses the capability to perform the following tasks: Engage the enemy by supporting arms, Implant sensors, Capture selected prisoners, Conduct initial terminal guidance operations, Conduct specialized terrain reconnaissance, Conduct special missions requiring the use of entry capabilities.

4th SCAMP: Plan and manage the employment of unattended ground sensor equipment in support of a MAGTF or other commands as directed. The mission of the 4th Sensor Control and Management Platoon is to plan and manage the employment of unattended ground sensor equipment in support of a MAGTF or other commands as directed; the 4th SCAMP was activated on 1 October 1986 as the 4th Sensor Control and Management Platoon and co-located in Mobile with 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. On 13 November 1990, Det 1, 4th SCAMP was mobilized in support of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. On 3 December 1990, Det 2, 4th SCAMP was mobilized in support of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. On 25 April 1991 4th SCAMP, Detachments 1 & 2, were demobilized and returned to the home training center in Mobile. 1 July 1960 -Redesignated 1st Reconnaissance Company, USMCR 1 July 1962 -Redesignated 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. 1 April 1965 - Activated as 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company, FMF for further transfer to the Republic of Viet Nam5 March 1966 - Detachment of 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company, FMF deployed to Viet Nam 9 June 1966 - 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company moved from Camp Lejeune, N. C. to Camp Pendleton, California 15 June 1966 - One Platoon of 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company, FMF deployed to Viet Nam in support of the 26 Marines 21 March 1967 - 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company, deployed to Viet NamApril 1967 – Redesignated 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company 22 Oct 1969 – Dropped from Operational and Administrative control by 3rd Recon Battalion, 3rd Marine Division and came under the control of III Marine Amphibious Force.

Following Vietnam War, the unit was redesignated to Detachment 4th Force Reconnaissance Company, 1 January 1983 Redesignated 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. 27 November 1990 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company was mobilized in support of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. 11 April 1991 3rd Force Reconnaissance was demobilized and returned to the home training center in Mobile. 10 November 1996 deployed to handle several covert operations, handled all extractions till 1999 in Iraq, Somolia, Afghanistan and where else the unit was needed. 1999 Unit was broke down to sub-units to make it easier to deal with many areas with better success as smaller better equipped specialized units. Many operations will never be declassified due to nature of the operations, current status of Marines lives and family safety, some operations are above Top Secret. - Many and all awards given to Marines were to have been classified under order of the Commander and Chief. 3rd Force Recon mission did not change till 2004.2004 3rd Force Recon deployed several platoons to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

2007 Last Force Recon detachment returns from OIF. 3rd Force Recon suffered Sgt. Foster Harrington KIA during combat operations in Al Anbar Province. 2009 Det Echo mobilized for Operation Enduring Freedom. 2010 Detachment Echo returns from OEF deployment. 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company was activated, trained and deactivated during the Vietnam War. Activated in September 1965 as one of the first group of add on units to meet demands of operations in the Republic of South Vietnam, 3rd FORECON formed at Camp Lejeune, N. C. and satellite on 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company, under strength due to the demands for trained Force Recon Marines assigned to 1st Force Reconnaissance Company in country. Facilities and equipment for training were provided by 2nd FORECON. Volunteers were solicited from throughout the Marine Corps and the first four months were devoted to bringing 3rd FORECON up to strength in personnel. Beginning in January 1966 all operational personnel departed Camp Lejeune to train in the Caribbean and Panama.

Returning to North Carolina in March, final preparations were carried out to meet the projected deployment date in May 1966. The expected deployment of the entire 3rd FORECON did not occur, but a two-platoon detachment embarked on the USS Boxer, transited through the Suez Canal, arrived in country in time to be introduced to combat in Operation Hastings as part of the Special Landing Force Alpha in early July 1966. 3rd FORECON dropped to a not-combat-ready readiness status. Headquarters Marine Corps transferred several commissioned officers and numerous enlisted after the Detachment departed. In mid-June, 3rd FORECON was alerted to deploy immediately. Due to the reduced personnel readiness status, HQMC changed the deployment plan and ordered that a Platoon be assigned to deploy with 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, activa

Seturam Shrestha was a Nepalese musician and composer. He was an important figure in the development of modern music in Nepal at the beginning of the 20th century, has been hailed as an Ustad. In addition to songs of love, Seturam sang songs with messages of social reform. In 1908, he became the first Nepalese artiste to record a song on gramophone disc. Among the songs he recorded in a studio in Kolkata, India was the iconic Rajamati. Janak Lal Shrestha, proprietor of Bhadrakali House, the main record store in Kathmandu sponsored the recording session. Seturam has been credited with pioneering ghazal music in Nepal. Ghazal is a poetic form with origins in ancient Arabic verse. Seturam was born in Asan Kamalachhi, Kathmandu to father Krishna Dhar and mother Hari Devi Shrestha