In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the spectral shaping that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract. However, in acoustics, the definition of a formant sometimes differs as it can be defined as a peak, or local maximum, in the spectrum. For harmonic sounds, with this definition, the formant frequency is therefore that of the harmonic partial, augmented by a resonance; the difference between these two definitions resides in whether "formants" characterise the production mechanisms of a sound or the produced sound itself. In practice, the frequency of a spectral peak differs from the associated resonance frequency, except when, by luck, harmonics are aligned with the resonance frequency. A room can be said to have formants characteristic of that particular room, due to the way sound reflects from its walls and objects. Room formants of this nature reinforce themselves by emphasizing specific frequencies and absorbing others, as exploited, for example, by Alvin Lucier in his piece I Am Sitting in a Room.

From an acoustic point of view, phonetics had a serious problem with the idea that length of vocal tract changed vowels. It was unclear how they could depend on frequencies when everyone from bass to soprano can make the same vowels. There had to be some way to normalize the frequencies. Hermann suggested a solution to this problem in 1894, coining the term “formant”. A vowel, according to him, is a special acoustic phenomenon, depending on the intermittent production of a special partial, or “formant”, or “characteristique”; the frequency of the “formant” may vary a little without altering the character of the vowel. For a, for example, the “formant” may vary from 350 to 440 Hz in the same person. Formants are distinctive frequency components of the acoustic signal produced by singing; the information that humans require to distinguish between speech sounds can be represented purely quantitatively by specifying peaks in the amplitude or frequency spectrum. Most of these formants are produced by tube and chamber resonance, but a few whistle tones derive from periodic collapse of Venturi effect low-pressure zones.

The formant with the lowest frequency is called F1, the second F2, the third F3. Most the two first formants, F1 and F2, are enough to disambiguate the vowel; the relationship between the perceived vowel quality and the first two formant frequencies can be appreciated by listening to "artificial vowels" that are generated by passing a click train through a pair of bandpass filters. Nasal consonants have an additional formant around 2500 Hz; the liquid has an extra formant at 1500 Hz, whereas the English "r" sound is distinguished by a low third formant. Plosives modify the placement of formants in the surrounding vowels. Bilabial sounds cause a lowering of the formants; the time course of these changes in vowel formant frequencies are referred to as'formant transitions'. If the fundamental frequency of the underlying vibration is higher than a resonance frequency of the system the formant imparted by that resonance will be lost; this is most apparent in the example of soprano opera singers, who sing high enough that their vowels become hard to distinguish.

Control of resonances is an essential component of the vocal technique known as overtone singing, in which the performer sings a low fundamental tone, creates sharp resonances to select upper harmonics, giving the impression of several tones being sung at once. Spectrograms may be used to visualise formants. In spectrograms, it can be hard to distinguish formants from occurring harmonics when one sings. However, one can hear the natural formants in a vowel shape through atonal techniques such as vocal fry. Formants, whether they are seen as acoustic resonances of the vocal tract, or as local maxima in the speech spectrum, like band-pass filters, are defined by their frequency and by their spectral width. Different methods exist to obtain these informations. Formant frequencies, in their acoustic definition, can be estimated from the frequency spectrum of the sound, using a spectrogram or a spectrum analyzer. However, to estimate the acoustic resonances of the vocal tract from a speech recording, one can use linear predictive coding.

An intermediate approach consists in extracting the spectral envelope by neutralizing the fundamental frequency, only looking for local maxima in the spectral envelope. The first two formants are important in determining the quality of vowels, are said to correspond to the open/close and front/back dimensions, thus the first formant F1 has a higher frequency for an open vowel and a lower frequency for a close vowel. Vowels will always have four or more distinguishable formants. However, the first two formants are most important in determining vowel quality, this is displayed in terms of a plot of the first formant against the sec

Fishboy: Denizen of the Deep was a black and white comic strip appearing in the British comic book Buster between 1968 and 1975, written by Scott Goodall and drawn by John Stokes and others. As with most UK comic strips, neither the writer nor artists were credited; the title character is a British boy, abandoned on a desert island as a baby and survived as a feral child by learning to breathe underwater and talk to shark and other sea creatures. He developed webbed fingers and toes which gave him the ability to swim as fast as a car; the strip follows his adventures as a teenager as he travels the world's seas searching for his long-lost parents and helping people in trouble. Goodall wrote Kid Chameleon for Cor!!, another comic strip featuring a feral boy on a similar quest. Fishboy appears in the 2005 comic Albion, as one of many comic book characters who have been imprisoned by the British government, he was captured off the coast of Japan. He has grown more fish like since his last appearance.

Aquaman Namor Amphibian Man Some of the above is derived from this page 2-page Fishboy instalment drawn by John Stokes

Greg Bloedorn was an American football offensive lineman for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League. He was signed by the Seahawks in 1996. Bloedorn played college football at Cornell University, his professional career spanned three active roster seasons with the Seattle Seahawks: 1997 to 1999 until he was released in 2000. Bloedorn was born in Illinois, he attended high school at Glenbard South in Illinois. Bloedorn played basketball in high school, he graduated in 1991. Bloedorn played college football at Cornell University from 1991 to 1995, his first year he was named the team's Most Improved Player. He only played two games. Bloedorn's Cornell biography states that in his senior year he "received Football News All-Ivy first-team honors, was All-Ivy first team as voted by the coaches, he was a two-time recipient of the Sid Roth Most Valuable Down Lineman Award. A tri-captain as a senior, he earned National Football Gazette All-America second-team honors" Bloedorn was signed as a free agent by the Seattle Seahawks in 1996.

His first season was spent on the practice squad. In the 1997 season he played in three games as long snapper; the following year, he participated in NFL Europe with the England Monarchs. Bloedorn's final season was with the Seahawks

Jeziorak Iława is a Polish football club based in Iława, Poland. It was founded in 1945; the team's official colors are blue. Jeziorak played in the second division for five years and spent multiple seasons at the third level of Polish association football. 5 seasons at the second tier of Polish association football - including a 4th place in 1995/96, Reaching the quarter-finals of the Polish Cup - 1995. The club was established in the exact date being arbitrary, it was called Warmia. In May 1946, the football team played their first match against Drwęca Nowe Miasto Lubawskie. In 1947, the club's name was changed to Kolejarz. Ten years the current name, Jeziorak was adopted. In 2014, a new association called ITR and renamed to ITS Jeziorak, which continues the traditions of the club established in 1945, was founded. In 1956, the football team was promoted to the third division for the first time and played at this level for three consecutive seasons. From the 1960s until the 1980s, the club oscillated between the fifth league level.

In 1988, the team was promoted to the third division. It marked the start of the most successful period in the club's history. From 1989 onwards, Jeziorak's results in the third division improved with each passing season. In 1995, the team finished second at the third level. However, FC Piaseczno a second division club, gave up its place at that level for financial reasons; the Warsaw Regional Football Association suggested that a playoff match between the fifteenth team of the second division, Radomiak Radom, the runner-up at the third level, Jeziorak Iława, was held to decide which team gets the second-tier spot. Having been approved by the central authorities, the match was held on 30 July 1995 in Warsaw. Jeziorak gained promotion to the second division. During the 1995/96 season, right after having being promoted, Jeziorak was the leader of II liga at the halfway stage; the club finished fourth out of 18 teams in the eastern group of the second division. This has been the best result in the club's entire history so far.

The following season, Jeziorak was ranked eight, one year - seventh. In 1998/99, the season when the number of teams participating in both second division groups was reduced from 18 to 16, Jeziorak finished ninth, avoiding relegation by just one point. In 1999/00, the two groups of the second division were merged to create a single II liga that numbered 24 teams. Jeziorak only managed to finish 20th, as a result of which, the club was relegated to the third division. In 2000/01, the club finished 17th out of 20 teams in the third division and was relegated once again. Mounting debt is given as one of the reasons for this failure. Jeziorak spent the following four seasons at the fourth level. While the club managed to win promotion back to the third level in 2005, the team finished 12th out of 15 teams and returned to the fourth division the following year where it stayed for the next two seasons. After the 2007/08 season, the league system in Poland was reformed. Jeziorak, having won its group of the fourth division, participated in playoffs against Unia Tarnów winning in a penalty shootout and gaining promotion to the new II liga.

Jeziorak played at the third level for the following four seasons. However, continuous financial problems resulted in the team being relegated and withdrawing from participating at the fourth level in 2012. Jeziorak spent the following two seasons in the klasa okręgowa, the sixth level of association football in Poland. In 2014, the team started anew by joining the klasa B, the eight division - the lowest level of association football in the region. While the team only managed to finish fourth in 2014/15, from the following season onwards, Jeziorak has been climbing the league ladder, winning the klasa B in 2016, the klasa A in 2017, the klasa okręgowa in 2018; the club's most notable result at the central level of the Polish Cup was achieved during the 1994/95 season. In the fall of 1994, before being promoted to the second division, Jeziorak won against Polonia Chodzież in a penalty shootout in the first round, proceeding to win against Stomil Olsztyn in a penalty shootout in the second round.

Both matches ended in 0–0 draws. In the third round, Jeziorak won against Elana Toruń 4–1 after extra time. In the fourth round, Jeziorak decisively won against the top-tier team, Górnik Zabrze, 3–1. Jeziorak proceeded to eliminate Amica Wronki 1–0 in the fifth round; the club reached the quarterfinals of the cup being eliminated by Lech Poznań, another top-tier club, the following spring. Jeziorak managed to reach the 16th-finals or round of 32 on other occasions by eliminating lower-tier teams; this took place in 1997, 2000, 2006 and 2007. As of 31 May 2018Note: Flags indicate national team. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality. Official website

Ernst Hermann Ludimar Meyer was a German composer and musicologist. His works include numerous songs, as well as chamber music, two symphonies and other works for orchestra, an opera, an oratorio, he wrote numerous musicological articles as well as a book on English chamber music. His pupils included Serge Hovey; as a musicologist, he edited numerous manuscripts by English composers of the Tudor and Renaissance periods. Meyer was born in Berlin, he received his first piano lessons at the age of six, started composing at eleven. After finishing school, he worked as an apprentice at a bank, in 1926 he started the advanced study for music at Heidelberg University, where in 1930 he completed his Ph. D. on the 17th century chamber music of North German composers. He became a pupil of Hanns Eisler. Being a Jew, he emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1933 to avoid detention by the Nazi Party. In the UK, he researched English chamber music of the 17th century and lectured for the Workers Educational Association.

In 1939 he began lecturing at London. Meyer returned to East Germany in 1948 and became one of the most influential figures of music culture there, he was active politically as a communist, his works include choral and chamber music written to display commitment to Marxist–Leninist ideals. In 1982 the second edition of his book Early English Chamber Music was published. Meyer was head of the German Society of Composers and Musicologists, professor of musicology at Berlin's Humboldt University, chairman of the German Handel Society, founder of the annual Handel Festival, still celebrated in Halle, Germany. Among more than 300 songs, orchestral works, other works: Symphony for Strings Mansfeld Oratorio String Quartet in G, Nr. 1 String Quartet Nr. 2 Poem, for Viola and Orchestra Concerto for Violin and Orchestra Symphony in B♭ String Quartet Nr. 3 Concerto for Harp and Chamber Orchestra Leinefelder Divertimento Toccata for Orchestra Reiter der Nacht, opera Concerto for Viola and Orchestra Sonata for Viola and Piano Essay for Viola Solo Among many papers and essays: Die mehrstimmigie Spielmusik des 17.

Jahrhunderts in Nord- und Mitteleuropa, Heidelberg 1930 English Chamber Music: The History of a Great Art from the Middle Ages to Purcell, London 1946 Gur, Golan. 2015. "Classicism as Anti-Fascist Heritage: Realism and Myth in Ernst Hermann Meyer’s Mansfelder Oratorium." In: Kyle Frackman and Larson Powell, Classical Music in the German Democratic Republic: Production and Reception. Rochester: Camden House, pp. 34–57 Ernst Hermann Meyer on IMDb

Zsuzsanna Jakab is Deputy-Director of the World Health Organization. A native of Hungary, she has held a number of high-profile national and international public health policy positions in the last three decades. Before being appointed Deputy-Director, she was Director of the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe in Copenhagen, Denmark, she succeeded Marc Danzon on 1 February 2010. Before her election as Regional Director, Jakab served as the founding Director of the European Union's European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm, Sweden. Between 2005 and 2010, she built ECDC into an internationally respected centre of excellence in the fight against infectious diseases. Jakab holds a master's degree from the Faculty of Budapest. Jakab began her career in Hungary's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in 1975, being responsible for external affairs, including relations with WHO. Between 1991 and 2002, Jakab worked at the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe in a range of senior management roles, including an appointment as Director of Administration and Management Support.

Before this, as Director of Country Health Development, she was in charge of external relations and strategic partnerships: coordinating collaboration with the 51 Member States in the WHO European Region and international partners. During her long tenure with the organization, she served as Director of the Division of Information and Communication and Coordinator of the EUROHEALTH programme. Between 2002 and 2005, Jakab was State Secretary at the Hungarian Ministry of Health and Family Affairs, where she managed the country's preparations for European Union accession in the area of public health, she played a key role in the negotiations leading up to the Fourth WHO Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, held in Budapest in June 2004. Jakab was the founding Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control from 2005 to 2010. From 2010, Jakab was Director of the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe. Jakab finished her term as Regional Director in 2019.

In March 2019, she was appointed Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization. World Health Organization European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control ECDC Executive Committee Zsuzsanna Jakab CV WHO Regional Office for Europe website