Edward Hicks was an American folk painter and distinguished religious minister of the Society of Friends. He became a Quaker icon because of his paintings. Edward Hicks was born in his grandfather's mansion in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, his parents were Anglican. Isaac Hicks, his father, was a Loyalist, left without any money after the British defeat in the Revolutionary War. After young Edward's mother died when he was eighteen months old, Matron Elizabeth Twining – a close friend of his mother's – raised him as one of her own at their farm, known as the Twining Farm, he also resided at the David Leedom Farm. She taught him the Quaker beliefs, which had a great effect on the rest of his life. At the age of thirteen Hicks began an apprenticeship to coach makers Henry Tomlinson, he stayed with them for seven years. In 1800 he left the Tomlinson firm to earn his living independently as a house and coach painter, in 1801 he moved to Milford to work for Joshua C. Canby, a coach maker. At this stage of his life Hicks was, as he wrote in his memoirs, "in my own estimation a weak, wayward young man... exceedingly fond of singing, vain amusements, the company of young people, too profanely swearing".

Dissatisfied with his life, he started to attend Quaker meetings and in 1803 he was accepted for membership in the Society of Friends. That same year he married a Quaker woman named Sarah Worstall. In 1812 his congregation recorded him as a minister, by 1813 he began traveling throughout Philadelphia as a Quaker preacher. To meet the expenses of traveling, for the support of his growing family, Hicks decided to expand his trade to painting household objects and farm equipment as well as tavern signs, his painting trade was lucrative, but it upset some in the Quaker community, because it contradicted the plain customs they respected. In 1815 Hicks gave up ornamental painting and attempted to support his family by farming, while continuing with the plain, utilitarian type of painting that his Quaker neighbors thought acceptable, his financial difficulties only increased, as utilitarian painting was less remunerative, Hicks did not have the experience he needed to cultivate the land, or run a farm on his own.

By 1816, his wife was expecting a fifth child. After a relative of Hicks, at the urging of Hicks' close friend John Comly, talked to him about painting again, Hicks resumed decorative painting; this friendly suggestion saved Hicks from financial disaster, preserved his livelihood not as a Quaker Minister but as a Quaker artist. Around 1820, Hicks made the first of his many paintings of The Peaceable Kingdom. Hicks' easel paintings were made for family and friends, not for sale, decorative painting remained his main source of income. In 1827 a schism formed within the Religious Society of Friends, between Hicksites and Orthodox Friends; as new settlers swelled Pennsylvania's Quaker community, many branched off into sects whose differences sometimes conflicted with one another, which discouraged Edward Hicks from continuing to preach. Nonetheless, in his lifetime Hicks was better known as a minister than as a painter, he is buried at Newtown Friends Meetinghouse Cemetery in Newtown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Quaker beliefs having excessive quantities of objects or materials. Unable to maintain his work as a preacher and painter at the same time, Hicks transitioned into a life of painting, he used his canvases to convey his beliefs, he was unconfined by rules of his congregation, able to express what religion could not: the human conception of faith. Although it is not considered a religious image, Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom exemplifies Quaker ideals. Hicks painted 62 versions of this composition; the animals and children are taken from Isaiah 11:6–8, including the lion eating straw with the ox. Hicks used his paintings as a way to define his central interest, the quest for a redeemed soul; this theme was from one of his theological beliefs. Hicks' work was influenced by a specific Quaker belief referred to as the Inner Light. George Fox and other founding Quakers had preached the Inner Light doctrine. Fox explained that along with scriptural knowledge, many individuals achieve salvation by yielding one's self-will to the divine power of Christ and the "Christ within".

This "Christ in You" concept was derived from the Bible's Colossians 1:27. Hicks depicted humans and animals to represent the Inner Light's idea of breaking physical barriers to working and living together in peace. Many of his paintings further exemplify this concept with depictions of Native Americans meeting the settlers of Pennsylvania, with William Penn prominent among them. Hicks admired Penn as an opponent of British power in America, he hoped that Penn could help ensure reform. Like Penn, Hicks opposed Britain's hierarchy. Hicks most esteemed Penn for establishing the treaty of Pennsylvania with the Native Americans, because it was a state that fostered the Quaker community. Edward Hicks' first major exhibition took place in 1860 at Virginia, it got mixed reviews due to Hicks' habit of repeating various arrangements over again. Hicks' earliest presentation of work was in 1826. Kingdoms of the Branch was at that time in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Hicks used the Native Americans to paraphrase Isaiah's prophecy, in full.

His work focused on religious subject matter while using current

Margarita Eustaquia Maza Parada known as Margarita Maza de Juárez, was the wife of Benito Juárez and First Lady of Mexico from 1858 to 1864, from 1867 until her death from cancer in 1871. She was born in Oaxaca, Oaxaca to the Genovese agriculturist Antonio Maza and his wife Petra Parada Sigüenza. Benito's sister Josefa Juárez García worked as a maid in the Maza-Parada household. After Benito left San Pablo Guelatao, he went to Oaxaca seeking his sister's help. Benito had a close relationship with the Maza family, witnessed the birth and raising of Margarita as he was 20 years older than her. Benito and Margarita married on July 1843 in San Felipe Neri, Oaxaca. Benito was 37, Margarita was 17, they had 12 children. During the French Intervention in Mexico while her husband was leading the resistance against the French and the Second Mexican Empire under Maximilian and her family were in exile in New York and met several times with U. S. President Abraham Lincoln, who received her as the First Lady of Mexico.

Mendieta Alatorre, Angeles. Margarita Maza de Juárez: Antología, iconografía y efemérides. Mexico City 1972. Velasco Pérez, Carlos. Margarita Maza de Juárez: Primera dama de la nación. Oaxaca 1986

The SEFA is a make of backpack industrial breathing set made by Sabre Safety. It is an oxygen rebreather. "SEFA" is an acronym for "Selected Elevated Flow Apparatus". It is in a shiny backpack stainless steel sheet casing with rounded corners and edges, 16 inches wide, 21½ inches high, 6½ inches front to back, it has two wide corrugated breathing tubes leading to a fullface mask which has an inner orinasal mask and a front panel for talking through. Its breathing tubes are 22 inches long, face forward as they come off the backpack casing, its full duration on a filling is 2 hours. It does not have a demand valve or electronic parts, in theory this would be fewer parts to suffer from failures, it is not designed for scuba diving, but can be used for short shallow submersion such as going through short flooded sections of underground passages. Its casing, to keep grit and stones out of its working, is sealed, except for a large vent panel covered with metal mesh, holes for the oxygen cylinder's on/off valve and the cylinder pressure gauge.

Its oxygen flow can be set to 10 liters/minute. Its intended absorbent is a special make called SefaSorb, calcium hydroxide; as usual, the absorbent makes the breathing gas in circuit hot. This would be welcome while scuba diving in cold water, but in warm air in a deep mine would be unwelcome. To try to get rid of that heat, the breathing gas is passed through a damp chamber, so the damp will absorb some heat as it evaporates, as in some air conditioning units, it is not effective, in normal use the breathing air temperature of the SEFA will exceed 45 °C, more under heavy work. Being made entirely from metal, the SEFA does dissipate its thermal load easily; the SEFA was not a spectacular success, being exported to few countries. It was a case of "too little too late", a 2-hour duration set entering a market mainly dominated by the German Draeger BG174; the SEFA was difficult to service, most parts could only be removed with special tools, reassembly could be problematic. Testing a SEFA caused extra work for the operator, as several small leaks in the breathing loop would arise after servicing and need troubleshooting before the set could be put back in use.

Compared to the modern day Draeger PSS BG4 sets, the American BioPak, which can all be stripped and reassembled by hand without using tools, the SEFA is less convenient to maintain. The SEFA is still in use in the mining industry in India, up until 2006 was still being used at the Porgera Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea, it was being designed from 1985 onwards in response to demands from the British coal mining industry for a new make of mines rescue breathing set with longer duration for bulk than an open-circuit set. They were made from 1989 to 2004. Production ceased because of declining demand due to the decline of the British coal mining industry, they are no longer official issue because of lack of availability of spare parts. The British coal industry, when needing rebreathers, now uses a German rebreather made by Draeger, it is not intended for scuba diving, because:- It is not designed to resist seawater corrosion. When a diver with a SEFA comes out of the water, a large pool of water would be held in the bottom of its casing, due to lack of a bottom drain hole.

The usual hazards of oxygen rebreather diving would apply. When photographed these sets were being used without their internal parts during a demonstration of rescue techniques in open air without any gas hazard in the area