The Christian Peoples Alliance, CPA is a Christian democratic political party in the United Kingdom. The party was founded in its present form in 1999, having grown out of a cross-party advocacy group called the Movement for Christian Democracy; the first leader of the party was Ram Gidoomal. Alan Craig took over from him in 2004 and resigned in 2012, he was replaced by Sidney Cordle, the current leader. The roots of the party can be traced back to a movement founded in 1990 by Christians — both Protestants and Catholics — known as the Movement for Christian Democracy, it was founded in Westminster at a rally which drew an attendance of 2,000 people, with the motivation of providing an answer to increasing secularism. The three founding members were David Alton, Derek Enright and Ken Hargreaves, who were Members of Parliament representing the Liberal and Conservative parties respectively. While the tradition of Christian democracy parties was well established in many other parts of Europe, it was not introduced into Britain until the MCD movement of the 1990s.

The movement existed as a cross-party advocacy group of sorts and although there were rumours in the media of it becoming a fledged political party it never materialised. However, out of the movement its chairman, Dr Alan Storkey, vice-chairman, David Campanale, led an internal consultation of MCD members that led to the formation of the Christian Peoples Alliance by leading MCD activists in 1999. Elements of proportional representation at local government level, brought about after the devolution of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, saw the party gain confidence. By 2000, Ram Gidoomal had become leader of the party, a businessman and banker, appointed a CBE, he is a Briton of Asian background. Gidoomal stood for election for the 2000 London mayoral election. Gaining 98,549 votes at the first attempt, the party surprised some, finishing fifth, ahead of the Greens in first preference votes; the campaign was committed to winning more jobs for Londoners, leading to The Times claiming, based on multiple choice results from a website run by New Statesman: "if Londoners elected a mayor purely on how his or her policies match the electors' views the winner would be Ram Gidoomal".

In November 2000, a candidate supported by the Christian Peoples Alliance stood at the Preston by-election, finishing seventh. Following on from this, the party continued its activities in London in deprived working class areas like Canning Town in the London Borough of Newham; the Mayflower Declaration laid out the party's policies. It was at Canning Town in 2002 that Alan Craig became the first Christian Democrat elected in Britain, as a member of the local Newham council; the party voiced its opposition to the prospect of the Iraq War, deeming it "illegal and immoral" — a position by which it has stood. After the 2004 London mayoral election, Gidoomal stepped down as party leader to be succeeded by Craig; the party stood members for the 2005 general election with little success, yet a "blind candidating" contest run by BBC's Newsnight programme placed the party manifesto policies second. The party had more success in 2006. In the following year, the party had two members elected at parish council level for Aston cum Aughton in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham.

In the same year, it gained encouragement from Scottish Catholic bishops Keith O'Brien and Philip Tartaglia for its social stances, including marriage, rights for unborn children and supporting the Church in the adoption debate. The party defended the Anglican bishop Michael Nazir-Ali after comments made in the media regarding Islam; the CPA campaigned against the building of Abbey Mills Mosque in West Ham, planned by an alleged radical sect, the party stated it was an "unwanted landmark" and would undermine community cohesion. More than 255,000 British people supported the stance in a petition on the Downing Street website; as part of a party pact with the Christian Party, Craig stood for the London mayoral election in 2008 as "The Christian Choice", gaining 3% of the vote. This was followed with 249,493 votes at 1.6 % of the total. Craig resigned as leader in October 2012 and joined the UK Independence Party. Annual accounts submitted to the Electoral Commission show an income of £11,000 for 2013.

Since 2007, the party has been affiliated to the European Christian Political Movement, an association of Christian Democrat parties, think tanks and politicians across Europe. The party has campaigned on a range of issues, winning success in 2000 when it organised a petition against government plans to require Asian visitors to the UK to place a £10,000'bond'. In 2000 and 2004 in London, it put inner-city regeneration and fighting discrimination as its top policy priorities, its policies to cut energy-use and road congestion through a motorway coach-network won acceptance at government level. Its policies in support of marriage and church schools have become popular currency among secular parties; the CPA has opposed the reclassification of cannabis, When Craig became leader he introduced policies in favour of linking Christianity to the European Union Constitution, building more church schools and supporting traditional Christian morality. He has led campaigns backing the UNISON steward at Newham Council who faced disciplinary action.

Craig has campaigned against proposals to demolish parts of Queen Street Market in favour of "non-invasive refurbis

Màiri nighean Alasdair Ruaidh known as Mary Macleod, was a Scottish Gaelic poet. Born at Rowdil, she was a daughter of Red Alastair, through him connected with the chiefs of the Macleods. In one of her poems, she claims to have nursed five lairds of the Macleods and two lairds of Applecross. Most of her life was spent at Skye, in the Macleod of Macleod household. At one time, she was exiled by her chief to Mull for being too profuse in her praise of his relative, Sir Norman Macleod of Bernera, she was afterwards recalled to Dunvegan and died there in 1674. Only a few of her poems laudations of the Macleods, have been preserved. Macleod is regarded as one of the stalwarts of the new school of poetry, emerging in the 17th century, which replaced the classical Gaelic bards; the 1893 Encyclopædia Britannica states: "Macleod’s poetry is celebrated for its simple, natural rhythms. Her poems were full of the imagery, customary in the verse of the bardic poets. Macleod's poems were exalted tales of the heroic deeds of the Macleod family, woven with her strong love for her family...

A handful of her poems remains today. Of those that survive, the elegies are the best, poignant yet fresh in their style." MacLeod is referenced in Scottish folklore as composing her poetry neither indoors nor outdoors and that she would croon from the threshold. Attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: MacDonald, James Ramsay. "Macleod, Mary". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 35. London: Smith, Elder & Co

In mathematics, the annihilator method is a procedure used to find a particular solution to certain types of non-homogeneous ordinary differential equations. It is similar to the method of undetermined coefficients, but instead of guessing the particular solution in the method of undetermined coefficients, the particular solution is determined systematically in this technique; the phrase undetermined coefficients can be used to refer to the step in the annihilator method in which the coefficients are calculated. The annihilator method is used. Given the ODE P y = f, find another differential operator A such that A f = 0; this operator is called the annihilator. Applying A to both sides of the ODE gives a homogeneous ODE y = 0 for which we find a solution basis as before; the original inhomogeneous ODE is used to construct a system of equations restricting the coefficients of the linear combination to satisfy the ODE. This method is not as general as variation of parameters in the sense that an annihilator does not always exist.

If f consists of the sum of the expressions given in the table, the annihilator is the product of the corresponding annihilators. Given y ″ − 4 y ′ + 5 y = sin ⁡, P = D 2 − 4 D + 5; the simplest annihilator of sin ⁡ is A = D 2 + k 2. The zeros of A P are, so the solution basis of A P is =. Setting y = c 1 y 1 + c 2 y 2 + c 3 y 3 + c 4 y 4 we find sin ⁡ = P y = P = c 1 P y 1 + c 2 P y 2 + c 3 P y 3 + c 4 P y 4 = 0 + 0 + c 3 y 3 + c

Buddhism was first disseminated in Tibet from the 6th to the 9th century CE, predominantly from India. During the Era of Fragmentation, Buddhism waned in Tibet, only to rise again in the 11th century. With the Mongol invasion of Tibet in the 13th century and the establishment of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, Tibetan Buddhism spread beyond Tibet to Mongolia and China. From the 14th to the 20th Tibetan Buddhism was patronized by the Chinese Ming dynasty and the Manchurian Qing dynasty; the Gelugpa school, founded by Je Tsongkhapa, rose to prominence under Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, the 5th Dalai Lama, who invited the Mongols to intervene in the Tibetan civil war. The Mongols invested him with the political power of Tibet, leading to the dominance of the Gelugpa until the 20th century. In the 19th century the Rimé movement provided a counter-weight against this dominance, trying to preserve the teachings of the Nyingma and Sakya schools. In the early 20th century Tibet acquired de facto independence from the Manchurian Qing Empire, which ended again with the Chinese invasion of 1950 and the ensuing exodus of Tibetans.

Today, Tibetan Buddhism is still adhered to in the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions, while it has attracted a considerable interest in the Western world. According to tradition, in the reign of King Thothori Nyantsen, a basket of Buddhist scriptures arrived in Tibet from India. Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures from Nepal & India were first translated into Tibetan under the reign of the Tibetan king Songtsän Gampo, who established the Tibetan Empire. While there is doubt about the level of Songtsän Gampo's interest in Buddhism, it is known that he married a Chinese Tang Dynasty Buddhist princess, who came to Tibet with a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha, it is clear from Tibetan sources. The records show that Chinese Buddhists were involved in missionary activity in Tibet, but they did not have the same level of imperial support as Indian Buddhists, with tantric lineages from Bihar and Bengal. According to a Tibetan legendary tradition, Songtsän Gampo married a Nepalese Buddhist princess, Bhrikuti.

By the second half of the 8th century he was regarded as an embodiment of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. In the 8th century Buddhism took hold in Tibet; the successors of Songtsän Gampo were less enthusiastic about the propagation of Buddhism, but in the 8th century King Trisong Detsen established it as the official religion of the state. Trisong Detsen invited Indian Buddhist scholars to his court, Tibetan Buddhists today trace their oldest spiritual roots to the Indian masters Padmasambhāva and Śāntarakṣita, who founded the Nyingma, The Ancient Ones, the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism. According to Tibetan tradition, Padmasambhāva wrote a number of important scriptures, some of which he hid for future tertons to find. At this early time from the south came the influence of scholars under the Pāla dynasty in the Indian state of Magadha, they had achieved a blend of Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna that has come to characterize all forms of Tibetan Buddhism. Their teaching in sutra centered on the Abhisamayālankāra, a 4th-century Yogācārin text, but prominent among them were the Mādhyamika scholars Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla.

A third influence was that of the Sarvāstivādins from Kashmir to the southwest and Khotan to the northwest. Although they did not succeed in maintaining a presence in Tibet, their texts found their way into the Tibetan Buddhist canon, providing the Tibetans with all of their primary sources about what they regarded to be the Hinayana. A subsect of this school, Mūlasarvāstivāda was the source of the Tibetan vinaya; the Chinese princess Jincheng Gongzhu, known in Tibet as Kim-sheng, a devout Buddhist, was sent to Tibet in 710 where she married Mes-ag-tshoms. Buddhist monks from Khotan, fleeing the persecutions of an anti-Buddhist king, were given refuge by Kim-sheng about 737. Kim-sheng died during an outbreak of smallpox sometime between 739 and 741, anti-Buddhist factions in Tibet began to blame the epidemic on the support of Buddhism by the king and queen; this forced the monks to flee once again. Tibetan king Trisong Detsen invited the Chan master Moheyan to transmit the Dharma at Samye Monastery.

According to Tibetan sources, Moheyan lost the so-called council of Lhasa, a debate sponsored by Trisong Detsen on the nature of emptiness with the Indian master Kamalaśīla, the king declared Kamalaśīlas philosophy should form the basis for Tibetan Buddhism. However, a Chinese source found in Dunhuang written by Mo-ho-yen says their side won, some scholars conclude that the entire episode is fictitious. Pioneering Buddhologist Giuseppe Tucci speculated that Mohayen's ideas were preserved by the Nyingmapas in the form of dzogchen teachings. John Myrdhin Reynolds and Sam van Schaik reject this possibility. According to Reynolds, "Except for a brief flirtation with Ch'an in the early days of Buddhism in Tibet in the eighth century, the Tibetans exhibited no interest at all in Chinese Buddhism, except for translating a few Sutras from Chinese for which they did not possess Indian originals." From the outset Buddhism was opposed by the native shamanistic Bön religion, which had the support of the aristocracy, but it thrived under royal patronage, reaching a peak under King Rälpachän.

Terminology in translation was standardised ar

Parbuckle salvage, or parbuckling, is the righting of a sunken vessel using rotational leverage. A common operation with smaller watercraft, parbuckling is employed to right large vessels. In 1943, the USS Oklahoma was rotated nearly 180 degrees to upright after being sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia was parbuckled off the west coast of Italy in September 2013, the largest salvage operation of that kind to date. While the mechanical advantage used by a laborer to parbuckle a cask up an incline is 2:1, parbuckling salvage is not so limited; each of the 21 winches used to roll the Oklahoma used cables that passed through two 17-part tackle assemblies. Eight 28-inch diameter sheaves, eight 24-inch diameter sheaves, one 20-inch diameter sheave comprised just half the mechanical effort. A major concern during salvage is preventing rotational torque from becoming a transverse force moving the ship sideways. USS Utah, lost like the Oklahoma in the Pearl Harbor attack, was meant to be recovered by a similar rotation after the Oklahoma.

As the Utah was rotated, its hull did not catch on the harbor bottom, the vessel slid towards Ford Island. The Utah recovery effort was abandoned. Oklahoma weighed about 35,000 short tons. Twenty-one electric winches were installed on Ford Island, anchored in concrete foundations, they operated in unison. Each winch pulled about 20 short tons by a wire operated through a block system which gave an advantage of seventeen, for a total pull of 21×20×17, or 7,140 short tons. In order to increase the leverage, the wire passed over a wooden strut arrangement which stood on the bottom of the ship about 40 feet high. Oil had been removed from the ship through the bottom; the ship was lightened by air inside the hull. There was a large amount of weight in the ship which may have been removed prior to righting, but not all could be accessed. About one-third of the ammunition was taken off together with some of the machinery; the blades of the two propellers were taken off, but more to avoid damage to them than to reduce weight.

Tests were made to check whether restraining forces should be used to prevent sliding toward Ford Island. It was indicated that the soil under the aft part of the ship prevented sliding, whereas the bow section rested in soupy mud which permitted it. To prevent sliding about 2200 tons of coral soil were deposited near the bow section. During righting, excess soil under the starboard side was washed away by high-pressure jets operated by divers; the ship rolled as it should have and was right-side up by 16 June 1943, the work having started 8 March 1943. The mean draft of the ship after righting was c. 50 feet. Following its capsizing and sinking in January 2012, the hull of Costa Concordia lay starboard side to the seaward face of a small outcropping near the mouth of the harbor of Giglio, resting precariously on the incline to deeper water. To right the vessel, four key pieces of apparatus were required: a "holdback" system of chains attached to the island on one end and the hull on the other to ensure Costa Concordia rolled in place.

Tensioning the cables started the roll of the ship. At about the halfway-to-vertical position the sponsons were filled with seawater, Costa Concordia completed its roll to upright upon the ledge; the hull was rotated 65 degrees to become vertical. Parbuckling was accomplished in three phases: Freeing the hull Phase of rotation using cables Rotation by ballasting with sponsonsAt the completion of parbuckling, Costa Concordia rested on the ledge at a depth of 30 meters; the holdback system consisted of 56 chains in total, of which 22 chains were attached to the port side to go under the hull to the island. Each chain weighed about 26 metric tons; each link weighed 205 kilograms. The ledge was part grout. There were six steel platforms; the three larger platforms measured 35 by 40 meters each. The 6 platforms were supported by 21 pillars of 1.6 meters diameter each and plunged for an average of 9 meters in the granite sea face of Giglio. The grout filled the space between the land side of the sea bed.

It totaled 1,180 individual bags with a volume of over 12,000 cubic meters and over 16,000 metric tons in weight. The grout bags contained an "ecofriendly cement," and were built with eyelets to aid post-recovery cleanup. Eleven steel sponsons were installed on the port side of the hull: two long horizontal sponsons; each long horizontal sponson measured 33 by 11.5 by 10.5 meters, weighed about 540 metric tons, provided 3,600 cubic meters of buoyancy. Each long vertical sponson measured 33 by 11.5 by 10.5 meters, weighed of about 523 metric tons, provided about 3,600 cubic meters of buoyancy. Each short vertical sponson measured 21.8 by 11.5 by 10.5 meters, weighed about 400 metric tons, provided about 2,400 cubic meters of buoyancy. Two steel "blister" tanks were

There are 67 state parks, nine state recreation areas, nine state waysides, 23 state trails in the Minnesota state park system, totaling 267,000 acres. A Minnesota state park is an area of land in the U. S. state of Minnesota preserved by the state for its natural, other resources. Each was created by an act of the Minnesota Legislature and is maintained by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; the Minnesota Historical Society operates sites within some of them. The park system began in 1891 with Itasca State Park when a state law was adopted to "maintain intact, forever, a limited quantity of the domain of this commonwealth...in a state of nature." Minnesota's state park system is the second oldest in the United States, after New York's. Minnesota's state parks are spread across the state in such a way that there is a state park within 50 miles of every Minnesotan; the most recent park created is Lake Vermilion State Park, created in 2010. The parks range in size from Franz Jevne State Park with 118 acres to Saint Croix State Park with 34,037 acres.

Two parks include resources listed as National Natural Landmarks and six parks encompass National Historic Landmarks. 52 sites or districts across 34 Minnesota state parks are on the National Register of Historic Places, including 22 parks with developments constructed by New Deal-era job creation programs in the 1930s. Minnesota's first attempt to create a state park came in 1885, when a 173-acre park was authorized to preserve Minnehaha Falls; the effort was delayed by legal appeals from the various landowners of the desired parkland, by the time those were settled in favor of the state in 1889, Minnesota no longer had the money to purchase the land. Instead the city of Minneapolis fronted the cash. Owned and operated by Minneapolis, Minnehaha State Park was absorbed as a city park. Minnesota tried again in 1891, authorizing a state park around Lake Itasca both for its recreational opportunities and to protect the source of the Mississippi River. Interstate Park on the St. Croix River was created in 1895.

Other sites were with an inconsistent vision. Modest tracts of scenic land were acquired in Minneopa and Jay Cooke State Parks, but much effort was expended on creating historical monuments relating to the Dakota War of 1862 and the Great Hinckley Fire. Moreover, most of the sites were being administered by the state auditor. Itasca State Park, was being administered as a state forest. In 1923, state auditor Ray P. Chase excoriated this situation, calling for wiser selection of park lands and a dedicated commissioner. Chase's comments had an impact, two years the Department of Conservation was created to manage the state's natural resources, including the state parks. Part of the forestry division, the state parks received their own division in 1935 to take advantage of federal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1971, the department became the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; the state parks were closed for three weeks in July 2011 due to a shutdown of the state government.

The state park system includes nine waysides, most of them along Minnesota State Highway 61 on the North Shore. These are parcels of land too small to be full-fledged parks, but with cultural or natural resources greater than would be overseen by the Minnesota Department of Transportation as highway waysides. Development is limited to a parking area and a short trail. Since Minnesota state parks and trails are authorized by the state legislature, some trails have been established in state statute, yet no usable mileage has been constructed. Several units added to the Minnesota state park system over the years have since been redesignated or transferred to other agencies, including the system's first unit, Camp Release State Memorial Wayside, created in 1889. In most cases these decisions were due to the unit being too small for a state park with little chance of expansion, or local use rather than attracting visitors from all over the state and beyond. Four of these units are listed above; the other former units were: List of Minnesota state forests List of U.

S. national parks Arthur, Anne. Minnesota's State Parks. Adventure Publications, 1998. ISBN 1-885061-51-X Meyer, Roy Willard. Everyone's Country Estate: A History of Minnesota's State Parks. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1991. ISBN 0-87351-266-9 Minnesota State Parks on the Department of Natural Resources website 2006 Minnesota Statute sec. 85.012 State parks—statutory list Minnesota State Park System—Legislative Auditor Report