1.
French language
–
French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
2.
Braille
–
Braille /ˈbreɪl/ is a tactile writing system used by people who are blind or visually impaired. It is traditionally written with embossed paper, braille-users can read computer screens and other electronic supports thanks to refreshable braille displays. They can write braille with the slate and stylus or type it on a braille writer, such as a portable braille note-taker. Braille is named after its creator, Frenchman Louis Braille, who lost his eyesight due to a childhood accident, in 1824, at the age of 15, Braille developed his code for the French alphabet as an improvement on night writing. He published his system, which included musical notation, in 1829. The second revision, published in 1837, was the first binary form of writing developed in the modern era, Braille characters are small rectangular blocks called cells that contain tiny palpable bumps called raised dots. The number and arrangement of these dots distinguish one character from another, since the various braille alphabets originated as transcription codes of printed writing systems, the mappings vary from language to language. Braille cells are not the thing to appear in braille text. There may be embossed illustrations and graphs, with the lines either solid or made of series of dots, arrows, bullets that are larger than braille dots, a full Braille cell includes six raised dots arranged in two lateral rows each having three dots. The dot positions are identified by numbers from one through six,64 solutions are possible from using one or more dots. A single cell can be used to represent a letter, number, punctuation mark. In the face of screen-reader software, braille usage has declined, in Barbiers system, sets of 12 embossed dots encoded 36 different sounds. It proved to be too difficult for soldiers to recognize by touch, in 1821 Barbier visited the Royal Institute for the Blind in Paris, where he met Louis Braille. Brailles solution was to use 6-dot cells and to assign a specific pattern to each letter of the alphabet. At first, braille was a transliteration of French orthography, but soon various abbreviations, contractions. The expanded English system, called Grade-2 Braille, was complete by 1905, for blind readers, Braille is an independent writing system, rather than a code of printed orthography. Braille is derived from the Latin alphabet, albeit indirectly, in Brailles original system, the dot patterns were assigned to letters according to their position within the alphabetic order of the French alphabet, with accented letters and w sorted at the end. The first ten letters of the alphabet, a–j, use the upper four dot positions and these stand for the ten digits 1–9 and 0 in a system parallel to Hebrew gematria and Greek isopsephy
3.
Leather
–
Leather is a durable and flexible material created by tanning animal rawhide and skin, often cattle hide. It can be produced at manufacturing scales ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry, people use leather to make various goods—including clothing, bookbinding, leather wallpaper, and as a furniture covering. It is produced in a variety of types and styles. Several tanning processes transform hides and skins into leather, Chrome-tanned leather, invented in 1858, is tanned using chromium sulfate and it is more supple and pliable than vegetable-tanned leather and does not discolor or lose shape as drastically in water as vegetable-tanned. It is also known as wet-blue for its color derived from the chromium, more exotic colors are possible when using chrome tanning. The chrome tanning method usually only takes a day to finish, and it is reported that chrome-tanned leather adds up to 80% of the global leather supply. Vegetable-tanned leather is tanned using tannins and other found in different vegetable matter, such as tree bark prepared in bark mills, wood, leaves, fruits. It is supple and brown in color, with the exact shade depending on the mix of chemicals and it is the only form of leather suitable for use in leather carving or stamping. Vegetable-tanned leather is not stable in water, it tends to discolor, so if left to soak and then dried it shrinks, in hot water, it shrinks drastically and partly congeals—becoming rigid, and eventually brittle. Boiled leather is an example of this, where the leather has been hardened by being immersed in hot water, historically, it was occasionally used as armour after hardening, and it has also been used for book binding. Aldehyde-tanned leather is tanned using glutaraldehyde or oxazolidine compounds and this is the leather that most tanners refer to as wet-white leather due to its pale cream or white color. It is the type of chrome-free leather, often seen in shoes for infants. Formaldehyde tanning is another aldehyde tanning method, brain-tanned leathers fall into this category, and are exceptionally water absorbent. Brain tanned leathers are made by a process that uses emulsified oils, often those of animal brains such as deer, cattle. They are known for their softness and washability. Chamois leather also falls into the category of aldehyde tanning, and like brain tanning, produces a porous, chamois leather is made using marine oils that oxidize easily to produce the aldehydes that tan the leather to color it. Rose-tanned leather is a variation of oil tanning and brain tanning. Rose-tanned leather tanned leaves a powerful rose fragrance even years from when it is manufactured and it has been called the most valuable leather on earth, but this is mostly due to the high cost of rose otto and its labor-intensive tanning process
4.
Horse tack
–
Tack is a piece of equipment or accessory equipped on horses in the course of their use as domesticated animals. Saddles, stirrups, bridles, halters, reins, bits, harnesses, martingales, equipping a horse is often referred to as tacking up. A room to store equipment, usually near or in a stable, is a tack room. Some western saddles will also have a second strap known as a flank or back cinch that fastens at the rear of the saddle, there are many types of saddle, each specially designed for its given task. Saddles are usually divided into two categories, English saddles and Western saddles according to the riding discipline they are used in. Other types of saddles, such as racing saddles, Australian saddles, sidesaddles and they provide greater stability for the rider but can have safety concerns due to the potential for a riders feet to get stuck in them. If a rider is thrown from a horse but has a foot caught in the stirrup, to minimize this risk, a number of safety precautions are taken. First, most riders wear riding boots with a heel and a smooth sole, next, some saddles, particularly English saddles, have safety bars that allow a stirrup leather to fall off the saddle if pulled backwards by a falling rider. Other precautions are done with stirrup design itself, Western saddles have wide stirrup treads that make it more difficult for the foot to become trapped. A number of saddle styles incorporate a tapedero, which is covering over the front of the stirrup that keeps the foot from sliding all the way through the stirrup. The English stirrup has several variations which are either shaped to allow the riders foot to slip out easily or are closed with a very heavy rubber band. The invention of stirrups was of historic significance in mounted combat. Bridles, hackamores, halters or headcollars, and similar equipment consist of arrangements of straps around the horses head. A halter or headcollar consists of a noseband and headstall that buckles around the horses head and allows the horse to be led or tied. The lead rope is separate, and it may be short for everyday leading and tying, or much longer for tasks such as for leading packhorses or for picketing a horse out to graze. Some horses, particularly stallions, may have an attached to the lead rope. Most of the time, horses are not ridden with a halter, as it offers insufficient precision and control. In Australian and British English, a halter is a rope with a running loop around the nose and another over the poll
5.
Stitching awl
–
A stitching awl is a tool with which holes can be punctured in a variety of materials, or existing holes can be enlarged. It is also used for sewing heavy materials, such as leather or canvas and it is a thin, tapered metal shaft, coming to a sharp point, either straight or slightly bent. These shafts are often in the form of interchangeable needles and they usually have an eye piercing at the pointed end to aid in drawing thread through holes for the purpose of manual lockstitch sewing, in which case it is also called a sewing awl. Stitching awls are used by shoe repairers and other leatherworkers. Sewing awls are used to make lock stitches, the needle, with the thread in the eye is pushed through the material. The thread is pulled through the eye to extend it. As the needle is pushed through the material, the thread from the first stitch is then threaded through the loops of successive stitches creating a lock stitch. The action is likened to that of a sewing machine. Styles may vary, as they are adapted to specific trades and they are also used in the printing trades to aid in setting movable type and in bookbinding. The English disparaging term cobblers, usually meaning nonsense, is Cockney rhyming slang for balls from the phrase cobblers’ awls, when he was a child, Louis Braille gouged his eye with an awl by accident. One eye was destroyed instantly, and a subsequent infection later claimed the other eye, the accident spurred Braille to the invention of the Braille alphabet. Awls were used by the Eastern and Middle Dakota and by the peoples of the Red River region, including the Red River Métis, Anishinabe, Plains Cree, and Salteaux. A small copper awl from a Tel Tsaf grave in Israel is currently the oldest metal object discovered in the Middle East
6.
Paper embossing
–
Embossing and debossing are the processes of creating either raised or recessed relief images and designs in paper and other materials. An embossed pattern is raised against the background, while a pattern is sunken into the surface of the material. Often used in combination with foil stamping, embossing alters the surface of paper stock or other substrates by providing a three-dimensional or raised effect on selected areas, the procedure requires the use of two dies, one that is raised and one that is recessed. The dies fit into each other so that when the paper is pressed between them, the raised die forces the stock into the die and creates the embossed impression. A thorough understanding the process will enable a successful result. Generally, embossing is the process most often employed to attract attention or convey a high quality textural contrast in relation to the area of the paper stock. Debossing is similar to embossing, but recesses the design rather than raising it, rather than the paper being raised in specific areas, it is indented. The process involves applying pressure to the front side of a substrate, although it is not as common as embossing, it is occasionally used to provide a different effect or appearance that fits a particular theme. Embossing and debossing on digitally printed applications is an off-line process, embossing is basically used to create a distinctive effect. The greatest concern and emphasis on the clients behalf should be placed on the outcome of the embossed effect, pressure, the intensity of the impact on the weight of the stock being embossed. Heat, the ability to maintain a consistent heat level for the best impression, most types of paper can be embossed, and size is not normally a consideration. Embossing without ink, so that the image is raised but not colored, is called blind embossing, embossing used in conjunction with ink, so that the raised area is colored, is called color register embossing. Embossing used in conjunction with foil stamping is called combination stamping or combo stamping, embossing involves a separate stage in the production process, after any varnishing and laminating. It requires a press run, and is priced accordingly. In addition to being used as an element, embossing can be used to improve the performance of paper products like napkins, diapers. The metals most often used for die construction are zinc, magnesium, copper, the material used for a specific application depends upon a number of factors. Blind embossing does not include the use of ink or foil to highlight the embossed area, the change in the dimensional appearance of the material is the only noticeable difference resulting from the embossing. The blind embossing process provides a clean and distinctive or subtle image on paper stock and it is best used to create a subtle impression or low level of attention to the piece, yet provide some slight form of differentiation for the finished work
7.
Latin alphabet
–
The Latin alphabet is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. It is the script of the English language and is often referred to simply as the alphabet in English. It is an alphabet which originated in the 7th century BC in Italy and has changed continually over the last 2500 years. It has roots in the Semitic alphabet and its offshoot alphabets, the Phoenician, Greek, the phonetic values of some letters changed, some letters were lost and gained, and several writing styles developed. Two such styles, the minuscule and majuscule hands, were combined into one script with alternate forms for the lower and upper case letters, due to classicism, modern uppercase letters differ only slightly from their classical counterparts. The Latin alphabet started out as uppercase serifed letters known as roman square capitals, the lowercase letters evolved through cursive styles that developed to adapt the formerly inscribed alphabet to being written with a pen. Throughout the ages, many stylistic variations of each letter have evolved that are still identified as being the same letter. From the Cumae alphabet, the Etruscan alphabet was derived, the Latins ultimately adopted 21 of the original 26 Etruscan letters. Gaius Julius Hyginus, who recorded much Roman mythology, mentions in Fab, the Parcae, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos invented seven Greek letters — A B H T I Y. Others say that Mercury invented them from the flight of cranes, which, palamedes, too, son of Nauplius, invented eleven letters, Simonides, too, invented four letters — Ó E Z PH, Epicharmus of Sicily, two — P and PS. The Greek letters Mercury is said to have brought to Egypt, Cadmus in exile from Arcadia, took them to Italy, and his mother Carmenta changed them to Latin to the number of 15. Apollo on the added the rest. The original Latin alphabet was, The oldest Latin inscriptions do not distinguish between /ɡ/ and /k/, representing both by C, K and Q according to position, K was used before A, Q was used before O or V, C was used elsewhere. This is explained by the fact that the Etruscan language did not make this distinction, C originated as a turned form of Greek Gamma and Q from Greek Koppa. In later Latin, K survived only in a few such as Kalendae, Q survived only before V. G was later invented to distinguish between /ɡ/ and /k/, it was simply a C with an additional diacritic. C stood for /ɡ/ I stood for both /i/ and /j/, V stood for both /u/ and /w/. K was marginalized in favour of C, which stood for both /ɡ/ and /k/
8.
Sense of touch
–
The somatosensory system is a part of the sensory nervous system. The somatosensory system is a system of sensory neurons and pathways that responds to changes at the surface or inside the body. The axons, of sensory neurons connect with, or respond to, sensory receptors are found all over the body including the skin, epithelial tissues, muscles, bones and joints, internal organs, and the cardiovascular system. Somatic senses are sometimes referred to as somesthetic senses, with the understanding that somesthesis includes the sense of touch, proprioception, the mapping of the body surfaces in the brain is called a cortical homunculus and plays a fundamental role in the creation of body image. This brain-surface map is not immutable, however, dramatic shifts can occur in response to stroke or injury. The four mechanoreceptors in the skin respond to different stimuli for short or long periods. Merkel cell nerve endings are found in the epidermis and hair follicles, they react to low vibrations. Due to a receptive field they are used in areas like fingertips the most, they are not covered. Tactile corpuscles react to moderate vibration and light touch and they are located in the dermal papillae, due to their reactivity they are primarily located in fingertips and lips. They respond in quick action potentials, unlike Merkel and they are responsible for the ability to read Braille and feel gentle stimuli. Lamellar corpuscles determine gross touch and distinguish rough and soft substances and they react in quick action potentials, especially to vibrations around 250 Hz. They are the most sensitive to vibrations, and have large receptor fields, pacinian reacts only to sudden stimuli so pressures like clothes that are always compressing their shape are quickly ignored. Bulbous corpuscles react slowly and respond to sustained skin stretch and they are responsible for the feeling of object slippage and play a major role in the kinesthetic sense and control of finger position and movement. Merkel and bulbous cells are myelinated, the rest are not, all of these receptors are activated upon pressures that squish their shape causing an action potential. All afferent touch/vibration info ascends the spinal cord via the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway via gracilis or cuneatus, cuneatus sends signals to the cochlear nucleus indirectly via spinal grey matter, this info is used in determining if a perceived sound is just villi noise/irritation. All fibers cross in the medulla, the postcentral gyrus includes the primary somatosensory cortex collectively referred to as S1. BA3 receives the densest projections from the thalamus, bA3a is involved with the sense of relative position of neighboring body parts and amount of effort being used during movement. BA3b is responsible for distributing somato info, it projects texture info to BA1, region S2 divides into Area S2 and parietal ventral area
9.
Organ (music)
–
In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions, each played with its own keyboard, played either with the hands on a keyboard or with the feet using pedals. The organ is an old musical instrument, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria. It was played throughout the Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman world, subsequently it re-emerged as a secular and recital instrument in the Classical music tradition. Pipe organs use air moving through pipes to produce sounds, since the 16th century, pipe organs have used various materials for pipes, which can vary widely in timbre and volume. The pipes are divided into ranks and controlled by the use of hand stops, although the keyboard is not expressive as on a piano and does not affect dynamics, some divisions may be enclosed in a swell box, allowing the dynamics to be controlled by shutters. Some organs are enclosed, meaning that all the divisions can be controlled by one set of shutters. Some special registers with free reed pipes are expressive and these instruments vary greatly in size, ranging from a cubic yard to a height reaching five floors, and are built in churches, synagogues, concert halls, and homes. Small organs are called positive or portative, increasingly hybrid organs are appearing in which pipes are augmented with electronic additions. Great economies of space and cost are possible especially when the lowest of the pipes can be replaced, non-piped organs include the reed organ or harmonium, which like the accordion and harmonica use air to excite free reeds. Electronic organs or digital organs, notably the Hammond organ, generate electronically produced sound through one or more loudspeakers, mechanical organs include the barrel organ, water organ, and Orchestrion. These are controlled by means such as pinned barrels or book music. Little barrel organs dispense with the hands of an organist and bigger organs are powered in most cases by a grinder or today by other means such as an electric motor. The pipe organ is the grandest musical instrument in size and scope, along with the clock, it was considered one of the most complex human-made mechanical creations before the Industrial Revolution. Pipe organs range in size from a short keyboard to huge instruments with over 10,000 pipes. A large modern organ typically has three or four keyboards with five each, and a two-and-a-half octave pedal board. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart called the organ the King of instruments, some of the biggest instruments have 64-foot pipes, and it sounds to an 8 Hz frequency fundamental tone. For instance, the Wanamaker organ, located in Philadelphia, USA, has sonic resources comparable with three simultaneous symphony orchestras, most organs in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia can be found in Christian churches. The introduction of organs is traditionally attributed to Pope Vitalian in the 7th century
10.
Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, Paris
–
The Church of Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs is a Catholic church in Paris Third arrondissement. The building in Flamboyant Gothic style dates from the 12th, 15th and 17th centuries, the parish is associated with the charismatic Emmanuel Community. The present organ is a 17th-century instrument rebuilt in 1777 by François-Henri Clicquot and further modified in 1930, among the organists who worked at the church were Nicolas Gigault, Etienne Richard, Louis Braille and Michel Chapuis. Media related to Church of Saint-Nicholas-des-Champs at Wikimedia Commons Official website Emmanuel Community Description of the organs
11.
Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Paris
–
The Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul is a church in the 10th arrondissement of Paris dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul. It gives its name to the Quartier Saint-Vincent-de-Paul around it, the church was built during 1824–44, on the site of the ancient Saint-Lazare prison enclosure. In that enclosure had been sited the Maison Saint-Lazare, occupied by Vincent de Paul— it was here that he lived and worked— and afterwards by the Congrégation de la Mission, from 1632 to 1793. The churchs design and the phases of its construction were entrusted to Jean-Baptiste Lepère. The first stone was laid in August 1824 in the presence of the de la Seine Gaspard de Chabrol. Work proceeded slowly, and was abandoned, being especially delayed thanks to a lack of credit as a result of the 1830 Revolution. Thus it was Lepères son-in-law, Jacques Hittorff, who followed the project through from 1831 to 1844. The building opened for worship on 25 October 1844, Hittorff massively modified the initial plans, with his church opening onto the Place Franz-Liszt, giving the building a church square. He also added a system of ramps, laid out today in gardens, the churchs basilical plan evokes several grand schemes of religious architecture without specifically copying one in particular. Inside, the frieze of 1848–53 around the nave is by Hippolyte Flandrin. The decoration of the Lady Chapel, in the added later at the back, is by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The Calvary shown on the altar is by François Rude. The building suffered during the Paris Commune, the towers were hit by seven shells. The Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul is close to the Eurostar and mainline station Gare du Nord and this twinning was inaugurated on 11 December 2007 with a bilingual service at St Pancras Old Church. The church has two organs, an organ and an orgue du choeur. The churchs titular organists have included Louis Braille, better known for the Braille tactile writing system for the blind, Léon Boëllmann, Henri OKelly, the current organist is Pierre Cambourian. Originally it was made up of 47 stops over 3 keyboards and 2,669 pipes. This page is a translation of Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul de Paris on French Wikipedia, the Cambridge History of Christianity, p105 LInternaute Magazine, Diaporama Structurae, see in particular a view of the churchs interior
12.
Night writing
–
It was designed in 1808 by Charles Barbier in response to Napoleons demand for a code that soldiers could use to communicate silently and without light at night. Called sonography, each grid of dots stands for a character or phoneme, barbiers system was related to the Polybius square, in which a two-digit code represents a character. g. 4–2 for t represented by As many as twelve dots would be needed to represent one symbol, barbiers system was found to be too difficult for soldiers to learn and was rejected by the military. In 1821, Barbier visited the National Institute for the Blind in Paris, France, Braille identified the major failing of the code, which was that the human finger could not encompass the whole symbol without moving and so could not move rapidly from one symbol to another. His modification was to use a 6-dot cell, the Braille system that revolutionized written communication for the visually impaired
13.
1829 braille
–
Louis Brailles original publication, Procedure for Writing Words, Music, and Plainsong in Dots, credits Barbiers night writing as being the basis for the braille script. It differed in a way from modern braille, It contained nine decades of characters rather than the modern five. Braille recognized, however, that the dashes were problematic, being difficult to distinguish from the dots in practice, and those characters were abandoned in the second edition of the book. The first four decades indicated the 40 letters of the alphabet, the fifth the digits, the sixth punctuation, the seventh decade was also used for musical notes. Most of the characters were unassigned. As in modern braille, most of the decades were derived from the first. Decade 5 was not derived from the first, like the first decade, only the top half of the cell was used. The digit 1 was a dash in the top row,2 was dashes in the top and mid rows. 3–5 were a top dash with a left, double, and right dot in the middle, 6–8 were a mid dash with a left, double, and right dot at top. 9 and 0 were a and b shifted to the right and that is, it resembled the 3rd decade with the two bottom dots connected into a line. Decade 7 was formed with a dash in the top row of the cell and that is, it was much like the modern fifth decade with an overstruck dash at the top. Decade 8 was formed by splitting the first decade with a dash and that is, a dash appeared in the middle row, displacing the dots of that row to the bottom of the cell. In the case of first and 3rd characters, which did not have dots in the middle row and that is, this decade was equivalent to adding an overstrike to ⠄⠅⠤⠩⠡⠍⠭⠥⠌⠬. Decade 9 was derived from the fifth by adding a dash in the bottom row and these were left unassigned apart from the first three, which were used when needed as markers of words, music, and plainsong, respectively. Thus the 1st and 5th decades occupied only the top half of the cell, the supplemental signs were ⠄⠤⠜⠼ and a top dash with ⠠⠰. Of the 125 possible patterns,97 were used, the modern 5th decade and other supplemental signs do not appear in the 1829 version of braille, apart from ⠐ and ⠒ in plainsong notation. Punctuation differed slightly from today, even accounting for the shift downward when the dash was dropped from the row of the cell. Anticipating that the dashes might prove problematic, Braille provided that the supplemental sign ⠼ would shift the decade by four and that is, adding it to the first four decades would produce substitutes for the fifth through eighth
14.
Slate and stylus
–
The slate and stylus are tools used by blind persons to write text that they can read without assistance. Prior methods of making raised printing for the blind required a movable type printing press, the basic design of the slate consists of two pieces of metal, plastic or wood fastened together with a hinge at one side. The back part of the slate is solid with slight depressions spaced in braille cells of six dots each, the depressions are approximately.75 mm deep and about 1.5 mm in diameter. The horizontal and vertical spacing between dots within a cell is approximately 2.5 mm, while the distance between adjacent cells is about 4 mm, the front of the slate consists of rectangular windows that fit over the braille cells in the back. The inner rim of each window is provided with six indentations, there are pins or posts in the back of the slate positioned in non-cell areas to hold the paper in place and keep the top properly positioned over the back. The pins align with matching depressions on the side of the slate. A slate as designed for a normal 8.5 inch piece of paper has 28 cells in each row, the rows can be any number, usually at least four. The stylus is a short blunted awl with a handle to fit comfortably the hand of the user, Writing is accomplished by placing a piece of heavy paper in the slate, aligning it correctly and closing the slate. The pins in the back of the puncture or pinch the paper securely between the two halves of the slate. The person writing begins in the right, each combination of dots in the cell has to be completed backward. The awl is positioned and pressed to form a depression in the paper, the writer moves to one of the other dots in the cell or to the next cell as appropriate. The slate is repositioned as needed to continue writing on the paper, when completed the writer removes the slate and turns the paper over to read the braille by feeling the dots that were pushed up from the back. Prior to the system devised by Louis Braille, a number of methods for blind people to read and/or write on paper were used. One of the most popular was the English system of Dr. William Moon invented in 1845. Braille with its slate and stylus was unique in that it was the first and, until computers with screen readers, in June 1784, Haüy sought his first pupil at the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. On 5 December 1786, Haüys pupils had embossed from movable letterpress type his Essai sur léducation des aveugles the first book published for the blind. Prior to 1786 tools for the blind to read or write were the results of personal approaches to solutions. One of the more notable approach was that of Nicholas Saunderson blind nearly from birth, Braille evolved from the night writing of Charles Barbier
15.
Braille music
–
Braille music is a Braille code that allows music to be notated using Braille cells so that music can be read by visually impaired musicians. The Braille music system was developed by Louis Braille. Braille music uses the same six-position Braille cell as literary braille, however braille music assigns an entirely separate meaning to each braille symbol or group of symbols, different from literary braille, and has its own syntax and abbreviations. Almost anything that can be written in standard print music notation can be written in music notation as well. However, braille music notation is a independent and well-developed notation system with its own conventions. The worlds largest collection of music is located at the National Library for the Blind, in Stockport. Braille music, although different from print music, is in general neither easier nor more difficult to learn, visually impaired musicians gain the same benefits upon learning to read braille music as do sighted musicians who learn to read print music. Visually impaired musicians can begin learning to read braille music about the time they have reasonable competence reading Braille, Braille music for beginners, like print music for beginners, is quite simple. Some common print method books are available in braille, so that the sighted teacher can use a print version. Much commonly used music has been transcribed into braille, in the U. S. this is available from the National Library Service of the Library of Congress and through other sources. Most countries have a library similar to the NLS. However, many visually impaired musicians require a good deal of music that has never before been transcribed to braille music, in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and many other countries, there is a network of braille music transcribers who can transcribe such music. Another option is to use a computer-music system, such systems typically allow a sighted or visually impaired user to enter music into a computerized music notation program. The software then converts the print notation that has been entered into braille music notation. One such software program is called Goodfeel, the visually impaired individual can enter music notation within the Lime program which has been scripted so that the process of music entry is entirely accessible. Then, this file can be imported into Goodfeel which converts the music into a Braille file that can be exported to a Braille embosser or read on a portable Braille display, for instance, dots 1,4,5 indicate an eighth note C. In practice beginners first learn the most common rhythmic value and ignore the other possibility, for advanced students there is never rhythmic ambiguity between the two values because the musical context, including meter signature and bar lines, makes the intended rhythmic value clear. For instance, in a measure of 4/4 time that only the symbol with dots 1,3,4
16.
Decapoint
–
Decapoint, or raphigraphy, was a tactile form of the Latin script invented by Louis Braille as a system that could be used by both the blind and sighted. Letters retained their linear form, and so were legible without training to the sighted, each letter contained ten dots in the height and different dots in the width to produce the graphic form of print. The reason for the development of writing was that relatives of the students could not read Braille. These letters were not easy for the blind to write because of their height of ten dots despite grid and this font was now named Raphigraphy. When the first typewriters were invented, they repressed quickly the complicated Raphigraphy or decapoint, and so the Decapoint or Raphigraphy fell into oblivion, but it was the first digital font of Latin letters ever. A lusage des aveugles The Raphigraphie by Louis Braille in 1839, character set worked up optically
17.
Exposition Universelle (1855)
–
The Exposition Universelle of 1855 was an International Exhibition held on the Champs-Élysées in Paris from 15 May to 15 November 1855. Its full official title was the Exposition Universelle des produits de lAgriculture, today the expositions sole physical remnant is the Théâtre du Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées designed by architect Gabriel Davioud, which originally housed the Panorama National. The exposition was an event in France, then newly under the reign of Emperor Napoleon III. It followed Londons Great Exhibition of 1851 and attempted to surpass that fairs Crystal Palace with its own Palais de lIndustrie, the arts displayed were shown in a separate pavilion on Avenue Montaigne. There were works from artists from 29 countries, including French artists Francois Rude, Ingres, Delacroix and Henri Lehmann, and British artists William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. According to its report,5,162,330 visitors attended the exposition. Expenses amounted to upward of $5,000,000, while receipts were scarcely one-tenth of that amount, the exposition covered 16 hectares with 34 countries participating. For the exposition, Napoleon III requested a system for Frances best Bordeaux wines which were to be on display for visitors from around the world. Brokers from the wine industry ranked the wines according to a reputation and trading price. The result was the important Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds. article name needed
18.
Thomas Armitage
–
Thomas Rhodes Armitage was a British physician, and founder of the Royal National Institute of Blind People. He was born at Tilgate in Sussex into a family of wealthy Yorkshire industrialists and his great-grandfather James bought Farnley Hall from Sir Thomas Danby in 1799, and in 1844 four Armitage brothers founded the Farnley Ironworks, utilising the coal, iron and fireclay on their estate. His brother Edward Armitage was a member of the Royal Academy, Armitage was the uncle of Robert Armitage, the great-uncle of Robert Selby Armitage, and first cousin twice removed of Edward Leathley Armitage. He was raised at Avranches in France, and at Frankfurt and he attended the Sorbonne and Kings College London. He became a physician, practising at the Marylebone Dispensary, in the Crimean War and he was forced to abandon his medical career because of deteriorating vision, eventually becoming blind. Armitage decided to make literature available to blind people through embossed type. This group decided to adopt the system of Louis Braille, in 1871 he helped to establish the Royal Normal College for the Blind in London. He was married to Harriett Black, and died on 23 October 1890 at Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, Royal National Institute of Blind People Thomas Rhodes Armitage
19.
Refreshable braille display
–
A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Blind computer users who use a computer monitor can use it to read text output. Speech synthesizers are also used for the same task. Deafblind computer users may also use refreshable braille displays, the base of a refreshable braille display often integrates a pure braille keyboard. Other variants exist that use a conventional QWERTY keyboard for input and braille pins for output, on some models the position of the cursor is represented by vibrating the dots, and some models have a switch associated with each cell to move the cursor to that cell directly. The mechanism which raises the dots uses the effect of some crystals. Such a crystal is connected to a lever, which in turn raises the dot, there has to be a crystal for each dot of the display, i. e. eight per character. Because of the complexity of producing a reliable display that will cope with daily wear and tear, usually, only 40 or 80 braille cells are displayed. Models with between 18 and 40 cells exist in some notetaker devices, the software that controls the display is called a screen reader. It gathers the content of the screen from the system, converts it into braille characters. Screen readers for graphical operating systems are complex, because graphical elements like windows or slidebars have to be interpreted and described in text form. A rotating-wheel Braille display was developed in 2000 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, both wheels are still in the process of commercialization. In these units, braille dots are put on the edge of a spinning wheel, the braille dots are set in a simple scanning-style fashion as the dots on the wheel spin past a stationary actuator that sets the braille characters. As a result, manufacturing complexity is reduced and rotating-wheel braille displays. Designs for a full braille computer monitor have been patented but not yet produced, a full page braille display with 1,000 cells was developed in 2015 by the Tactisplay Corp. With total 12,000 pixels configured in 120*100, it can show any BANA compatible braille graphic page in 8 seconds and this video shows operation of the device. Tactile is a real-time text-to-braille translation device currently under development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, GNOME accessibility NIST, Converting Digital Information to Braille at the Wayback Machine Information on Bi-directional Refreshable Tactile Display US Patent 6,692,255
20.
RoboBraille
–
RoboBraille is a web and email service capable of converting documents into a range of accessible formats including Braille, mp3, e-books and Daisy. The service can furthermore be used to convert otherwise inaccessible documents such as scanned images, RoboBraille has been in operation since 2004 and currently serves thousands of user requests each month from users across the world. The service is available for free for individual, non-commercial use. Institutional use by academic institutions is available through SensusAccess, the RoboBraille service is developed jointly by the National Danish Center for Visual Impairment for Children and Youth and Sensus ApS. RoboBraille is available free of charge for individual, non-commercial users and users need not register to use the service, commercial use in any form is prohibited. The development and operation of RoboBraille has been funded by the Danish Government, in November 2012, the RoboBraille service received the WISE2012 award from Qatar Foundation in recognition of its contribution to inclusive and barrier-free education. In January 2010, the RoboBraille services received the prestiguous BETT Award. Supported document types include text files, Microsoft Word documents, html documents, rtf files, tiff, gif, jpg, bmp, pcx, dcx, j2k, jp2, jpx, djv and all types of pdf documents. Before the Braille document is returned to the user, it may be converted to a particular Braille character set based on user settings, documents can also be returned in Unicode Braille or formatted in either text format or PEF. Audio services, All document types listed in the section may be converted into mp3 files. Furthermore, RoboBraille is capable of converting well-structured Word documents into Daisy Talking Books complete with audio, similarly, RoboBraille can convert docx documents containing math into Daisy books with spoken math. E-Book services, Most document types listed above may be converted into the popular EPUB, the service also supports conversion of documents into the EPUB3 format, including EPUB3 books with media overlay. Furthermore, EPUB may be converted to Mobi Pocket and vice versa, to accommodate users with low vision, the base line of the body text in an e-book may be raised to allow for more appropriate text scaling in mainstream e-book readers. Word and rtf files are converted into text or tagged pdf files subject to the format specified by the user in the subject line, powerPoint files are converted into tagged pdf, web projects or rtf files. The system was developed in Denmark with the assistance of the Royal National College for the Blind based in Hereford, the system was launched in June 2006 and was the winner of a British Computer Society Social Contribution Project Award in 2007
21.
Nemeth Braille
–
The Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics is a Braille code for encoding mathematical and scientific notation linearly using standard six-dot Braille cells for tactile reading by the visually impaired. The code was developed by Abraham Nemeth, the Nemeth Code was first written up in 1952. It was revised in 1956,1965, and 1972, and it is an example of a compact human-readable markup language. Nemeth Braille is just one code used to write mathematics in braille, there are many systems in use around the world. The Code is intended to convey as accurate an impression as is possible to the reader of the corresponding printed text. A test of the accuracy with which the Code conveys information from the print to the text is to effect a transcription in the reverse direction. The amount of agreement between the printed text and one transcribed from the braille is a measure of the Codes accuracy. One consequence is that the braille transcriber does not need to know the underlying mathematics, the braille transcriber needs to identify the inkprint symbols, and to know how to render them in Nemeth Code braille. For example, if the same symbol might have two different meanings, this would not matter. Both instances would be brailled the same and this is in contrast to the International Braille Music Code, where the braille depends on the meaning of the inkprint music. Thus a knowledge of music is required to produce braille music, Greek letters and Latin letters are based on the assignments of International Greek Braille. Gardner Salinas braille WIMATS, application software to transcript mathematical and scientific text input into braille script
22.
T. S. Eliot
–
Thomas Stearns Eliot OM was a British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and one of the twentieth centurys major poets. He moved from his native United States to England in 1914 at the age of 25, settling, working and he eventually became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39, renouncing his American citizenship. Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and it was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets. He was also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry. The Eliots were a Boston family with roots in Old and New England, Thomas Eliots paternal grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, had moved to St. Louis, Missouri to establish a Unitarian Christian church there. Eliot was the last of six surviving children, his parents were both 44 years old when he was born, Eliot was born at 2635 Locust St. property owned by his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot. His four sisters were between 11 and 19 years older, his brother was eight years older, known to family and friends as Tom, he was the namesake of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Stearns. Eliots childhood infatuation with literature can be ascribed to several factors, firstly, he had to overcome physical limitations as a child. Struggling from a congenital double inguinal hernia, he could not participate in physical activities. As he was isolated, his love for literature developed. Once he learned to read, the boy immediately became obsessed with books and was absorbed in tales depicting savages. In his memoir of Eliot, his friend Robert Sencourt comments that the young Eliot would often curl up in the window-seat behind an enormous book, setting the drug of dreams against the pain of living. Secondly, Eliot credited his hometown with fuelling his literary vision, I feel that there is something in having passed ones childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been here, rather than in Boston, or New York. From 1898 to 1905, Eliot attended Smith Academy, where his studies included Latin, Ancient Greek, French and he began to write poetry when he was fourteen under the influence of Edward Fitzgeralds Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a translation of the poetry of Omar Khayyam. He said the results were gloomy and despairing and he destroyed them and his first published poem, A Fable For Feasters, was written as a school exercise and was published in the Smith Academy Record in February 1905. Also published there in April 1905 was his oldest surviving poem in manuscript and he also published three short stories in 1905, Birds of Prey, A Tale of a Whale and The Man Who Was King. The last mentioned story significantly reflects his exploration of Igorot Village while visiting the 1904 Worlds Fair of St. Louis, such a link with primitive people importantly antedates his anthropological studies at Harvard
23.
Monument historique
–
The term monument historique is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. Both public and privately owned structures may be listed in this way, as of 2012 there were 44,236 monuments listed. Buildings may be given the classification for both their exteriors or interiors, including a buildings décor, its furniture, a single room, or even a staircase. An example is the Monument Historique classification of the décor in the café Deux Garçons in Aix-en-Provence whose patrons once included Alphonse de Lamartine, Émile Zola, since the 1990s, a significant number of places have been given the designation because of their historical importance to science. The MH designation traces its roots to the French Revolution when the government appointed Alexandre Lenoir to specify, though the first classifications were given in the 19th century by the writer Prosper Mérimée, inspector-general of historical monuments, by a first list established in 1840. In 1851, Mérimée organized the Missions Héliographiques to document Frances medieval architecture, a monument historique may be marked by the official logo of the Union REMPART, a French historical restoration association. It consists of a representing the labyrinth that used to be in Reims Cathedral. Use of the logo is optional and these two levels of protection are determined after a thorough historical study by the préfet for the région, or by the Minister of Culture for the national level. They are aided by the advice of a commission named Commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites, many of the Châteaux of the Loire Valley carry the MH designation as do the renowned gardens at Château de Villandry. Prosper Mérimée 1803-1870 The monuments historiques inspector Prosper Mérimée established the first list of monuments classés in 1840, rules and regulations on monuments historiques Monumental parks and monuments historiques in need of work Les Monuments Historiques de la France, bulletin trimestriel. Paris, Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques
24.
Asteroid
–
Asteroids are minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The larger ones have also been called planetoids and these terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disc of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered and found to have volatile-based surfaces that resemble those of comets, in this article, the term asteroid refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System including those co-orbital with Jupiter. There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the remnants of planetesimals. The large majority of known asteroids orbit in the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter. However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth objects, individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups, C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are identified with carbon-rich, metallic. The size of asteroids varies greatly, some reaching as much as 1000 km across, asteroids are differentiated from comets and meteoroids. In the case of comets, the difference is one of composition, while asteroids are composed of mineral and rock, comets are composed of dust. In addition, asteroids formed closer to the sun, preventing the development of the aforementioned cometary ice, the difference between asteroids and meteoroids is mainly one of size, meteoroids have a diameter of less than one meter, whereas asteroids have a diameter of greater than one meter. Finally, meteoroids can be composed of either cometary or asteroidal materials, only one asteroid,4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye, and this only in very dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the eye for a short time. As of March 2016, the Minor Planet Center had data on more than 1.3 million objects in the inner and outer Solar System, the United Nations declared June 30 as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, the first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres, was found in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, and was originally considered to be a new planet. In the early half of the nineteenth century, the terms asteroid. Asteroid discovery methods have improved over the past two centuries. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, the expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers
25.
9969 Braille
–
It was discovered in 1992, by astronomers at Palomar observatory and later named after Louis Braille, the inventor of the writing system for the blind. It was photographed in closeup by the spacecraft Deep Space 1 in 1999, but a malfunction resulted in indistinct images. Discovered on May 27,1992, by E. F. Helin and K. J. Lawrence working at the Palomar observatory as part of NASAs Planet-Crossing Asteroid Survey, it was given the provisional designation 1992 KD. Later, it was renamed Braille in honour of Louis Braille as suggested by Kennedy Space Center software engineer Kerry Babcock in The Planetary Societys contest titled Name That Asteroid, naming citation was published on 28 July 1999. Braille has an inclined orbit, and belongs to the somewhat rare class of asteroids known as Mars-crossing asteroids. Simulations of its orbit by scientists of the Deep Space 1 project predict that it will evolve into an Earth-crossing orbit in about 4000 years, Braille is a Q-type asteroid, composed mostly of olivine and pyroxene. Early ground-based observations had suggested that it could have been a V-type asteroid with similarities of composition between it and the much larger 4 Vesta, the asteroid is irregularly shaped, measuring approximately 2.1 km ×1 km ×1 km. By the time Deep Space 1 reached Braille, its ultraviolet spectrometer had failed, however, although the probe came within 26 km of Braille, the images and spectra were taken from an approximate distance of 14000 km, due to problems with the tracking system. The main purpose of the Deep Space 1 mission was technology testing, no lone asteroid as small as Braille had previously been observed from such a short distance
26.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
27.
Kenneth Jernigan
–
Norman Kenneth Jernigan was the longtime leader of the National Federation of the Blind, the principal blind peoples organization in the United States. Kenneth Jernigan was born blind in Detroit, Michigan. Beginning at the age of six, he was educated at the Tennessee School for the Blind in Nashville and he attended Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tennessee for his undergraduate work, and he went on to earn his Masters Degree in English from Peabody College in Nashville. He excelled at that institution both academically and in leadership development, as leader of the National Federation of the Blind, Jernigan would participate in major conflicts with the American Foundation for the Blind. He moved to Oakland, California in 1953 and joined the faculty of the newly established California Orientation Center for Blind Adults. In that same year, he became fully active in the organized blind movement. In a 1954 Jernigan document, when he was challenging the California school system to hire qualified, blind teachers, in every area of human endeavor, advancement has come only with the crumbling of the barriers of ignorance. It has been so with science, with religion, with technology and with human relations. The struggle for enlightenment and justice has been and is the issue of the age. According to anciently honorable custom, the blind have been considered a group apart and they have been thought of not as unemployed but as unemployable. These are the notions, the traditional concepts, but even the most respectable of fallacies cannot withstand the truth forever. The barriers have at last begun to crumble, and the blind to emerge from their long subjugation, by 1956, Kenneth Jernigan had become president of a Bay Area local chapter, the Alameda Club, of the National Federation of the Blind of California. That the blind are competent to perform jury service is evidenced by the fact that blind persons have in many instances actually served as jurors, could it be that a blind person is competent to be a judge and not a juror. If so, wherein lies the distinction, surely a judge is called upon to weigh evidence as often as a juror, and his duties are as complex. In 1958, Kenneth Jernigan left California and moved to Iowa to become director of Iowas failed rehabilitation program for the blind. This state program, the Iowa Commission for the Blind, had determined by a 1957 Federal Rehabilitation study to be the least effective rehabilitation agency for the blind in America. Kenneth Jernigan took the Iowa Commission for the Blind directorship specifically to offer a new and revolutionary training model as to how properly to assist and he intended to use the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind as the foundation for all state services for the blind. After Jernigan had been in Iowa for only two weeks, he wrote a letter to Governor Herschel Loveless outlining the deplorable conditions he had found in the agency upon his arrival
28.
National Federation of the Blind
–
The National Federation of the Blind is an organization of blind people in the United States. It is the oldest and largest organization led by people in the United States. Its national headquarters are in Baltimore, Maryland and this structure is intended to ensure that the organization is run by blind people and reflects the collective views of its blind members, the NFB refers to itself as the voice of the nations blind. The philosophy of the organization is, The organizations former President, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, said and we have our share of both geniuses and jerks, but most of us somewhere between, ordinary people living ordinary lives. The policy positions of the NFB take the form of resolutions, like a union, the convention is subsidized by the organization making it affordable to those attending. The agenda of the National Convention is published on-line prior to its convention and its logo is called the whosit and consists of an outline of a walking person with a white cane. The NFB-style white cane is longer than most in order to allow the person to use a more natural walking position with their arms at their sides. The added length also allows the person to walk more quickly by giving more advanced information. In addition, the weight of the fiberglass and carbon fiber canes, coupled with the metal tip. Federation members view the white cane as a tool of independence and self-determination, rather than one of helplessness and dependency. The National Association of Guide Dog Users is one of the largest and fastest growing divisions of the Federation, the founder and president of the NFB for its first twenty years was Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, a professor, lawyer and constitutional scholar. The NFBs first logo was a circle with the words Security, Equality and this expressed the pressing needs and demands of the fledgling organization. Those who left the NFB united to form the American Council of the Blind, the NFB gradually replaced the handful of affiliates that had left, and by the 1970s it had regained its momentum. In 1978 Jernigan led the organization in establishing its headquarters at 1800 Johnson Street in Baltimore. Gradually the group remodeled and occupied the four floors of a block-long building, the NFB broke ground in October 2001 for a twenty-million-dollar research and training institute now located adjacent to the National Center. The National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute opened for business in January 2004, in 1990 the NFB published a history of its first fifty years, Walking Alone and Marching Together, A History of the Organized Blind Movement in the United States. In the 1990s the group published thirty small compilations of articles written by blind people intended to demonstrate what it is like to be blind known as the Kernel Books. The NFB uses these Kernel Books in its education efforts
29.
OCLC
–
The Online Computer Library Center is a US-based nonprofit cooperative organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the worlds information and reducing information costs. It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services, the group first met on July 5,1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization. The group hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The goal of network and database was to bring libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the worlds information in order to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26,1971 and this was the first occurrence of online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data, between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States. As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside of Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with networks, organizations that provided training, support, by 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on OCLC Members Council, in early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic, abstract and full-text information to anyone, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from public and private libraries worldwide. org, in October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. The Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988, a browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013, it was replaced by the Classify Service. S. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users and this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. OCLC has produced cards for members since 1971 with its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, e. g. CONTENTdm for managing digital collections, OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications and these publications, including journal articles, reports, newsletters, and presentations, are available through the organizations website. The most recent publications are displayed first, and all archived resources, membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding
30.
Perkins School for the Blind
–
Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind. Founded in 1829, Perkins was the first school for the established in the United States. The school was named the New England Asylum for the Blind and was incorporated on March 2,1829. The name was changed to Perkins School For the Blind. John Dix Fisher first considered the idea of a school for children based upon his visits to Paris at the National Institute for the Blind and was inspired to create such a school in Boston. The school is named in honor of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, one of the organizations incorporators, in 1833, the school outgrew the Pleasant Street house of the father of its founder Samuel Gridley Howe, and Perkins donated his Pearl Street mansion as the schools second home. In 1839, Perkins sold the mansion and donated the proceeds and this gift allowed the purchase of a more spacious building in South Boston. In 1885,6 acres were purchased in the Hyde Square section of Jamaica Plain and this property was home to both Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller. The school moved to its present campus, in Watertown, Massachusetts and he wrote about his visit in his book, American Notes. In 1887, Perkins director Michael Anagnos sent graduate Anne Sullivan to teach Helen Keller in Alabama, after working with her pupil at the Keller home, Sullivan returned to Perkins with Keller in 1888 and resided there intermittently until 1893. In 1931, Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library was created, in 1951, David Abraham successfully produced the first Perkins Brailler. By 1977, about 100,000 Perkins Braillers had been produced and distributed worldwide, in the 21st century, Perkins has expanded its mission online to include resources for families with blind and visually impaired children, and teachers of the visually impaired. In 2011, Perkins completed construction of the Grousbeck Center for Students and Technology on its 38-acre campus in Watertown and this facility houses accessible technology for people who are blind or visually impaired. The organization does this through disseminating resources, such as Perkins Braillers, funding, screen-enlargement software, video phones and electronic refreshable braille displays—available to them free of charge. Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library works in conjunction with the National Library Service for the Blind, the international nonprofit has also worked in conjunction with the American Foundation for the Blind to ensure that Expanded Core Curriculum be taught in mainstream schools. Perkins is a member Council of Schools for the Blind, Perkins School for the Blind, The Campus History Series. Perkins School for the Blind,2004, the Education of Laura Bridgman, First Deaf and Blind Person to Learn Language The Imprisoned Guest, Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, The Original Deaf-Blind Girl Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
listen); French: [lwi bʁaj]; 4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852) was a French educator and inventor of a system of reading and writing for use by the blind or visually impaired. His system remains virtually unchanged to this day, and is known worldwide simply as braille.
Definitions from Wiktionary
Media from Wikimedia Commons
News from Wikinews
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Learning resources from Wikiversity
