The Corinthian order is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order, the earliest, followed by the Ionic order; when classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon: the Tuscan order and the Composite order. The Corinthian, with its offshoot the Composite, is the most ornate of the orders; this architectural style is characterized by slender fluted columns and elaborate capitals decorated with acanthus leaves and scrolls. There are many variations; the name Corinthian is derived from the ancient Greek city of Corinth, although the style had its own model in Roman practice, following precedents set by the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus. It was employed in southern Gaul at the Maison Carrée, Nîmes and at the comparable Temple of Augustus and Livia at Vienne. Other prime examples noted by Mark Wilson Jones are the lower order of the Basilica Ulpia and the Arch of Trajan at Ancona, the Column of Phocas, the Temple of Bacchus at Baalbek.

The Corinthian order is named for the Greek city-state of Corinth, to which it was connected in the period. However, according to the architectural historian Vitruvius, the column was created by the sculptor Callimachus an Athenian, who drew acanthus leaves growing around a votive basket, its earliest use can be traced back to the Late Classical Period. The earliest Corinthian capital was found in Bassae, dated at 427 BC. Proportion is a defining characteristic of the Corinthian order: the "coherent integration of dimensions and ratios in accordance with the principles of symmetria" are noted by Mark Wilson Jones, who finds that the ratio of total column height to column-shaft height is in a 6:5 ratio, so that, the full height of column with capital is a multiple of 6 Roman feet while the column height itself is a multiple of 5. In its proportions, the Corinthian column is similar to the Ionic column, though it is more slender, stands apart by its distinctive carved capital; the abacus upon the capital has concave sides to conform to the outscrolling corners of the capital, it may have a rosette at the center of each side.

Corinthian columns were erected on the top level of the Roman Colosseum, holding up the least weight, having the slenderest ratio of thickness to height. Their height to width ratio is about 10:1. One variant is the Tivoli order, found at the Temple of Tivoli; the Tivoli order's Corintinan capital has two rows of acanthus leaves and its abacus is decorated with oversize fleurons in the form of hibiscus flowers with pronounced spiral pistils. The column flutes have flat tops; the frieze exhibits fruit swags suspended between bucrania. Above each swag is a rosette; the cornice does not have modillions. Indo-Corinthian capitals are capitals crowning columns or pilasters, which can be found in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, combine Hellenistic and Indian elements; these capitals are dated to the 1st centuries of our era, constitute important elements of Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara. The classical design was adapted taking a more elongated form, sometimes being combined with scrolls within the context of Buddhist stupas and temples.

Indo-Corinthian capitals incorporated figures of the Buddha or Bodhisattvas as central figures surrounded, in the shade, of the luxurious foliage of Corinthian designs. During the first flush of the Italian Renaissance, the Florentine architectural theorist Francesco di Giorgio expressed the human analogies that writers who followed Vitruvius associated with the human form, in squared drawings he made of the Corinthian capital overlaid with human heads, to show the proportions common to both; the Corinthian architrave is divided in two or three sections, which may be equal, or may bear interesting proportional relationships, to one with another. Above the plain, unadorned architrave lies the frieze, which may be richly carved with a continuous design or left plain, as at the U. S. Capitol extension. At the Capitol the proportions of architrave to frieze are 1:1. Above that, the profiles of the cornice mouldings are like those of the Ionic order. If the cornice is deep, it may be supported by brackets or modillions, which are ornamental brackets used in a series under a cornice.

The Corinthian column is always fluted, the flutes of a Corinthian column may be enriched. They may be filleted, with rods nestled within the hollow flutes, or stop-fluted, with the rods rising a third of the way, to where the entasis begins. In French, these are called chandelles and sometimes terminate in carved wisps of flame, or with bellflowers. Alternatively, beading or chains of husks may take the place of the fillets in the fluting, Corinthian being the most flexible of the orders, with more opportunities for variation. Elaborating upon an offhand remark when Vitruvius accounted for the origin of its acanthus capital, it became a commonplace to identify the Corinthian column with the slender figure of a young girl. Sir William Chambers expressed the conventional comparison with the Doric order: The proportions of the orders were by the ancients formed on those of the human body, it could not be their intention to make a Corithian column, which, a

Smart order routing is an automated process of handling orders, aimed at taking the best available opportunity throughout a range of different trading venues. The increasing number of various trading venues and MTFs leads to a surge in liquidity fragmentation, when the same stock is traded on several different venues, so the price and the amount of stock can vary between them. SOR serves to tackle liquidity fragmentation, or benefit from it. Smart Order Routing is performed by Smart Order Routers - systems designed to analyze the state of venues and to place orders the best available way, relying on the defined rules and algorithms; the forebears of today's smart order routers appeared in the late 1980s: "In an attempt to lock in the client order flow and free traders up from smaller trades, in order to handle the larger trades, many of the larger broker dealers began to offer a new service called Direct Order Turnaround or DOT. DOT boxes were the first electronic machines to provide the institutional buy-side with what we now call “direct sponsored access”, however, were not smart yet".

It was in the USA, in the late 1990s, that the first instances of Smart Order Routers appeared: "Once alternative trading systems started to pop up in U. S. cash equities markets … with the introduction of the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation ATS and changes to its order handling rules, smart order routing has been a fact of life for global agency broker Investment Technology Group."As a reaction to the introduction of MiFID and Reg NMS, Smart Order Routers proliferated in Europe in 2007-2008, their sole purpose consisting in capturing liquidity on lit venues, or doing an aggressive or a passive split, depending on the market data. The SOR systems were enhanced to cope with High Frequency Trading, to decrease latency and implement smarter algorithms, as well as work with dark pools liquidity. Here are some US statistics from 2006-2007: "Smart order routing capabilities for options are anonymous and easy to use, optimizes execution quality with each transaction". "In a study conducted earlier this year in conjunction with Financial Insights, BAS found that about 5% of all equity orders were executed using trading algorithms, with this number expected to increase to 20% by 2007”.

Smart order routing may be formulated in terms of an optimization problem which achieves a tradeoff between speed and cost of execution. SOR provides the following benefits: Simultaneous access to several venues. Thus, SOR can involve a few stages: 1. Receiving incoming orders through different channels: An incoming FIX gateway. Processing the orders inside the SOR system, taking into account: Characteristics of available venues. Custom algorithms, like synthetic orders, can be used to manage orders automatically, for instance, if a specific client has certain routing preferences among several brokers, or certain rules for handling of incoming, or creation of outgoing orders, it is crucial to track the actual venue situation, like the trading phase, as well as the available opportunities. Thus, any Smart Order Router requires real-time market data from different venues; the market data can be obtained either by connecting directly to the venue’s feed handlers, or by using market data providers.

3. Routing the orders to one or several venues according to the decision made at step 2 using: A FIX gateway. At a closer look, the structure of the SOR system contains: Client Gateways. “Forwarding orders to the “best” out of a set of alternative venues while taking into account the different attributes of each venue. What is “best” can be evaluated considering different dimensions – either specified by the customer or by the regulatory regime – e.g. price, costs and likelihood of execution or any combination of these dimensions". In some cases, algorithmic trading is rather dedicated to automatic usage of synthetic behavior. "Algorithmic trading manages the “parent” order while a smart order router directs the “child” orders to the desired destinations." "... slicing a big order into a multiplicity of smaller orders and of timing these orders to minimise market impact via electronic means. Based on mathematical models and considering historical and real-time market data, algorithms determine e

André Philippus Brink, OIS was a South African novelist. He taught English at the University of Cape Town. In the 1960s Brink, Ingrid Jonker, Etienne Leroux and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the significant Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers; these writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends. While Brink's early novels were concerned with apartheid, his work engaged the new range of issues posed by life in a democratic South Africa. Brink was born in the Free State. Brink moved to Lydenburg, where he matriculated at Hoërskool Lydenburg in 1952 with seven distinctions, the second student from the Transvaal to achieve this feat and studied Afrikaans literature in the Potchefstroom University of South Africa, his immense attachment with literature carried him to France from 1959 to 1961, where he got his degree from Sorbonne University at Paris in comparative literature.

During his stay, he came across an undeniable fact that changed his mind forever: black students were treated on an equal social basis with other students. Back in South Africa, he became one of the most prominent of young Afrikaans writers, along with the novelist Etienne Leroux and the poet Breyten Breytenbach, to challenge the apartheid policy of the National party through his writings. During a second sojourn in France between 1967 and 1968, he hardened his political position against Apartheid, began writing both in Afrikaans and English to enlarge his audience and outplay the censure he was facing in his native country at the time. Indeed, his novel Kennis van die aand was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government. André Brink translated Kennis van die aand into English and published it abroad as Looking on Darkness; this was his first self-translation. After that, André Brink wrote his works in English and Afrikaans. In 1975, he obtained his PhD in Literature at Rhodes University.

In 2008, in an echo of a scene from his novel A Chain of Voices, his family was beset by tragedy, when his nephew Adri Brink was murdered in front of his wife and children in their Gauteng home. He died on a flight from Amsterdam to South Africa from Belgium, where he had received an honorary doctorate from the Belgian Francophone Université Catholique de Louvain, he was married five times. Brink's son, Anton Brink, is an artist. For a more comprehensive publication list, see the Afrikaans article on André P. Brink; the Ambassador Looking on Darkness An Instant in the Wind shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Rumours of Rain – shortlisted for the Booker Prize A Dry White Season – Martin Luther King Memorial Prize A Chain of Voices The Wall of the Plague States of Emergency An Act of Terror The First Life of Adamastor On the Contrary Imaginings of Sand Devil's Valley The Rights of Desire The Other Side of Silence Before I Forget The Other Side of Silence Praying Mantis The Blue Door Other Lives Philida A Fork in the Road Languages of the Novel: A Lover's Reflections Evarcha brinki: a South African jumping spider, named after Brink in 2011 André Brink at British Council: Literature André Brink at the Internet Book List André Brink on Books LIVE Hope, Christopher.

"Traitor to the Tribe". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2009