Manchester Metropolitan University is a public university located in Manchester, England. The university traces its origins to the Manchester Mechanics Institute - the Manchester College of Commerce - and the Manchester School of Design, which formed Manchester Polytechnic in 1970. Manchester Polytechnic gained university status under the government's Further and Higher Education Act, becoming the Manchester Metropolitan University in 1992. Today, it is headquartered with additional facilities in Cheshire. Manchester Metropolitan University is an accredited member of the Association of MBAs, member of the University Alliance, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the North West Universities Association, Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and the European University Association. Today, it is home to the Manchester School of Art, the Manchester School of Theatre, as well as the Manchester School of Architecture administered in collaboration with the University of Manchester.

The University's logo is derived from the upper part of the shield of the university crest, with six spade-irons positioned together, suggesting hard toil and entrenchment. Manchester Met was developed from mergers of various colleges with various specialisms, including technology and design, its founding can be traced back to the Manchester Mechanics Institute, the Manchester School of Design latterly known as the Manchester School of Art. The painter L. S. Lowry attended in the years after the First World War, where he was taught by the noted impressionist Adolphe Valette. Schools of Commerce and Domestic Science were added alongside colleges at Didsbury, Crewe and the former Domestic and Trades College; the school renamed itself as Manchester Polytechnic in 1970, followed by series of mergers with the Didsbury College of Education and Hollings College in 1977, as well as City of Manchester College of Higher Education in 1983. In 1987, the institution became a founding member of the Northern Consortium, became a corporate body on 1 April 1989 as allowed by the terms of the Education Reform Act.

On 15 September 1992, Manchester Polytechnic gained university status under the wide-sweeping Further and Higher Education Act 1992, has since rebranded as Manchester Metropolitan University. After earning university status, Manchester Met absorbed Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education, the Manchester School of Physiotherapy in 2004: an institution formed in 1991 through the amalgamation of the Manchester Royal Infirmary and Withington Hospital Schools of Physiotherapy. MSOP was affiliated with the Victoria University of Manchester, which conferred degree-level courses by extension until the final Class of 2005. MSOP joined Manchester Metropolitan University as the Department of Physiotherapy in 2004, was renamed as the Department of Health Professions. Today, it offers undergraduate and postgraduate studies, a three-year undergraduate honours programme, National Vocational Qualification programmes for unqualified support workers in the field of physiotherapy; the university was located on seven sites: five in Manchester and two in Cheshire.

However, the university closed two of the seven sites to rationalise its estate. The university moved the work of the Alsager campus to Crewe, while the Aytoun campus was closed in 2012 following the opening of an All Saints Campus business school. In 2011, the university announced a £350 million investment programme for the largest physical change to its estate since its foundation; the Elizabeth Gaskell and Didsbury campuses were closed in 2014, with faculties being relocated to campuses at All Saints and Birley. The Crewe campus closed in summer 2019, a decision taken following a review conducted by financial advisory firm Deloitte; the university cited a poor intake in students as a main reason for closure. All Saints Campus is one of the university's 2 campuses; the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science was split between the Geoffrey Manton and Mabel Tylecote buildings. The Geoffrey Manton Building accommodates the English and Economic History and Communications, Politics and Philosophy, Sociology departments.

The Languages department was housed in the Mabel Tylecote Building until the building was demolished in 2017 to make way for a new Arts and Humanities building on the site. The John Dalton Building, on Chester Street is the home of the Faculty of Engineering, it comprises four schools: the School of Healthcare Sciences, the School of Computing, Mathematics & Digital Technology, the School of Engineering, the School of Science and The Environment. To the rear of the John Dalton Building is JD tower, housing the university's main science laboratories including IRM, the Institute for Biomedical Research into Human Movement and Health; the Manchester School of Art on the All Saints Campus is composed of four departments: The Manchester School of Architecture. The School of Art houses the Holden Gallery which has a continuous programme of exhibitions and is open free to the public; the university has invested in improving the Manchester School of Art building granting £35 million to facilitate three changes including: a new building for the school, refurbishment of the workshops and renovation of the studios.

In 2014 the Benzie Building was nominated for the Stirling Prize. New premises costing £75 million for the F

Najib Razak formed the second Najib cabinet after being invited by Tuanku Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah to begin a new government following the 5 May 2013 general election in Malaysia. In order to be the Prime Minister, Najib sworn in before the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on 6 May 2013. Prior to the election, Najib led the first Najib cabinet, a coalition government that consisted of members of the component parties of Barisan Nasional. A new Cabinet was announced by Prime Minister Mohd. Najib Abdul Razak on 15 May 2013; the ministers and deputy ministers were sworn in before King Abdul Halim on the following day. Notably, the two main ethnic Chinese-majority parties in Barisan Nasional, the Malaysian Chinese Association and Gerakan declined to join the cabinet due to their dismal performance in the election. On 25 June 2014, Prime Minister Najib Razak announced a cabinet reshuffle, which saw the return of the MCA and Gerakan to the cabinet; this is a list of the members of the second cabinet of the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak.

Official sources: Ministers of the Federal Government Order 2013, Ministers of the Federal Government Order 2003,Ministers of the Federal Government Order 2015, Ministers of the Federal Government Order 2014, Ministers of the Federal Government Order 2015, Ministers of the Federal Government Order 2015 The federal cabinet consisted of the following ministers: Members of the Dewan Rakyat, 13th Malaysian Parliament Shadow Cabinet of Malaysia

Exis LLC is an American game developer that operates in Towson, Maryland and is sometimes referred to as Exis Interactive. Exis LLC was founded in 2003 but has roots going back as far as 1997, it is an indie game outsource studio located in Towson, Maryland. Exis started when its founder, Peter Kojesta, took on various small art contracts while working part-time on an open world FPS named Poacher with a small group of colleagues and friends. Poacher was shown at GDC in 2004 before being reworked and canned in 2007 for various reasons. In the meantime however, Exis was forming multiple positive business relationships through successful contracts involving companies such as Large Animal Games and Blue Street Studios. In addition to conventional game development contracts, Exis performed contracts for simulation companies such as General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. With the end of 2007 Exis began work on its first AAA contract for Day One Studios and LucasArts for their upcoming title, Fracture.

Though Fracture was released with limited critical acclaim Exis established itself as a legitimate solution for AAA art outsource with its successful and prompt completion of all assigned tasks. Following this period Exis, much of the art outsource industry, experienced a large dry spell during the beginning of the 2008 global recession; this dry spell would end in 2009 with Exis taking up a large extended contract for the Day One Studios Shooter, F. E. A. R. 3. It was during this time that Exis took on a Hollywood model, with multiple artists on hand to grow and shrink the company to match the sometimes considerable workload. Towards the end of this time Exis began work on another small independent title of its own, Majestic 12. Intended for the Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play. Development on Majestic 12 continued and in 2011 Exis brought Majestic 12 to GDC. At the conference Majestic 12 was received well enough for Exis to negotiate a publishing deal for Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360, though released the game on the PC in late 2012.

General Dynamics: MDARS, TAC-C Northrop Grumman: STARLite, VIC-5 Fracture F. E. A. R. 3 XCOM: Enemy Unknown Majestic 12 BioShock Infinite Civilization V: Brave New World Civilization: Beyond Earth World of Tanks Civilization Beyond Earth: Rising Tide Sid Meier's Starships XCOM 2 Ashes of the Singularity Company Website

The Epoch Times is a multi-language newspaper founded in 2000 by John Tang and a group of Chinese Americans associated with the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Though the newspaper is known for general interest topics with a focus on news about China and its human rights issues, it has become known for its support of U. S. President Donald Trump and favorable coverage of far-right politicians in Europe; the newspaper is part of the Epoch Media Group, which operates New Tang Dynasty Television. The group's news sites and YouTube channels have spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccination propaganda. For its articles, the publication draws from a network within China, as well as staff living in the West; the Epoch Times has print editions in English and six other languages. Fifteen additional languages are published online only; the English edition of The Epoch Times is sold in broadsheet format Monday to Friday in New York City and Washington, D. C. and weekly across the United States and Canada.

A typical issue includes news sections, including Nation, Business and Commentary, lifestyle sections, including Travel, Life & Tradition, Mind & Body and Puzzles. The Epoch Times has been publishing in Chinese since May 2000, it is either sold or distributed free-of-charge in 35 countries, including various international regional editions. The Epoch Times websites are blocked in mainland China; the Epoch Times was founded in 2000 by John Tang and other Chinese Americans associated with the spiritual practice Falun Gong. The founders said they were responding to censorship inside China and a lack of international understanding about the Chinese government's repression of Falun Gong. In May 2000, the paper was first published in the Chinese language in New York, with the web launch in August 2000. By 2003, The Epoch Times website and group of newspapers had grown into one of the largest Chinese-language news sites and newspaper groups outside China, with local editions in the U. S. Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, major Western European countries.

The first English edition launched online in 2003, followed by the New York print edition in 2004. In 2000, ten of The Epoch Times correspondents were imprisoned in China, but current staff of the Chinese-language edition work in Hong Kong. According to NBC News, "little is publicly known about the precise ownership, origins or influences of The Epoch Times," and it is loosely organized into several regional tax free non-profits, under the umbrella of the Epoch Media Group, together with New Tang Dynasty Television, its revenue in 2017 was US$8.1 million, reported a spending of US$7.2 million. As of February 2012, 67 The Epoch Times newspaper editions are published, in print in 11 languages, online in 21 languages. In April 2019, videos and ads from the Epoch Media Group including The Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty totaled 3 billion views on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, according to the analytics company Tubular; that ranked it 11th among all video creators, ahead of any other traditional news publisher, according to NBC News.

Associated Press reporter Nahal Toosi wrote that it is "technically inaccurate" to say that the Falun Gong organization owns The Epoch Times, but many of the newspaper's staffers are Falun Gong practitioners. Toosi noted that "many observers" have said that Falun Gong uses the newspaper as part of a public relations campaign and that it is connected with the group and carries sympathetic coverage of it. Canadian scholar Clement Tong echoed others in writing that The Epoch Times "operates as a mouthpiece for" Falun Gong, despite the absence of an official statement of affiliation with the movement. In 2008, David Ownby, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Université de Montréal and the author of Falun Gong and the Future of China, said the newspaper is set up by Falun Gong practitioners with their own money, he describes The Epoch Times as wishing to be taken as a global newspaper rather than being judged on the basis of its strong association with Falun Gong. He wrote: "Epoch Times is a newspaper with a mission, that of reporting on issues bearing on human rights throughout the world, which allows for considerable focus on China and Falun Gong."In 2009, Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, appeared at the newspaper's office in New York City and called for the expansion of The Epoch Times to "become regular media."

Former employees noted the involvement of Falun Gong practitioners in the management and editorial process. While many individuals involved in the production of the newspaper practice Falun Gong, according to sociologist Zhao Yuezhi, it seeks to present itself as "public interest-oriented" and "independent of any political and business groups... objectively and reporting facts and truth." Its reporting on Chinese affairs highlights negative news about the Chinese government and coverage of Falun Gong in a sympathetic light. In this view, the paper articulates Falun Gong's views on a range of issues, may be part of a de facto media alliance with democracy activists in exile. English The Epoch Times chair Stephen Gregory said in 2007: "It's not a Falun Gong newspaper. Falun Gong is a question of an individual's belief; the paper's not owned by Falun Gong, it doesn't speak for Falun Gong, it doesn't represent Falun Gong. It does cover the persecution of Falun Gong in China."Three anonymous former employees said Epoch Times workers were encouraged to attend weekly "Fa study" sessions outside work hours to study the teachings of Li Hongzhi.

The Epoch Times runs frequent promotional stories about the Shen Yun dance troupe, affiliated with Falun

Ralph Asher Alpher was an American cosmologist, who carried out pioneering work in the early 1950s on the Big Bang model, including Big Bang nucleosynthesis and predictions of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Alpher was the son of a Belarusian Jewish immigrant, Samuel Alpher, from Belarus, his mother, Rose Maleson, died of stomach cancer in 1938, his father remarried. Alpher graduated at age 15 from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Washington, D. C. and held the ranks of Commander of his school's Cadet program. He worked in the high school theater as stage manager for two years, supplementing his family's Depression-era income, he learned Gregg shorthand, in 1937 began working for the Director of the American Geophysical Union as a stenographer. In 1940 he was hired by the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Foundation, where he worked with Dr. Scott Forbush under contract for the U. S. Navy to develop ship degaussing techniques during World War II, he contributed to the development of the Mark 32 and Mark 45 detonators, Naval gun control, Magnetic Airborne Detection, other top-secret ordnance work, he was recognized at the end of the War with the Naval Ordnance Development Award, another Naval Ordnance Development award in 1946.

Alpher's war time work been somewhat obscured by security classification. From 1944 through 1955, he was employed at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. During the daytime he was involved in the development of ballistic missiles, guidance systems and related subjects. In 1948 he earned his Ph. D. in Physics with a theory of nucleosynthesis called neutron-capture, from 1948 onward collaborated with Dr. Robert C. Herman at APL, on predictions of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. Alpher was somewhat ambivalent about the nature of his ordnance work. Having dedicated much of his early career to this in order to obtain his doctorate. At age 16, he was offered a full scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but it may have been withdrawn after Alpher had required meeting with an alumnus in Washington, D. C. with little explanation or clarification. Instead, he earned his bachelor's degree and advanced graduate degrees in physics from George Washington University, all the while working as a physicist on contract to the Navy, for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

He met Russian-Ukrainian physicist George Gamow at the University, who subsequently took him on as his doctoral student. This was somewhat of a coup, as Gamow was a prominent Soviet defector and one of the luminaries on the GWU faculty, his first physics course was taught by Edward Teller, brought onto the GWU faculty in 1935 to give Gamow a peer on the faculty. Alpher provided much needed mathematical ability to support Gamow's theorizing. Gamow gave talks across the world on "The Origin of the Elements", Alpher's original dissertation. Gamow continues to be credited with Alpher's work on nucleosynthesis. Alpher followed his dissertation with the first prediction of the existence of "fossil" radiation from a hypothetical singularity—the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation; this was observationally confirmed by Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Labs using a horn radiotelescope. Further research has shown, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the observation in 1978. A group at Princeton was given credit for making a cosmological interpretation in an inflationary universe in a companion publication in 1965 to Penzias and Wilson, incorrect.

While attending GWU, Alpher met Louise Ellen Simons, majoring in psychology at night school and working as a day secretary with the State Department. Nearly two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Louise were married. At this time he had done classified work for the U. S. Navy through the Carnegie Institution for nearly one and a half years. During a hiatus in his scientific work in early 1944, he did apply to the Navy for a commission, for which he was eligible. By this time he had done so much classified and secret work he was no longer subject to the draft, prohibited from enlistment; that summer, he signed on to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to work on another classified project—a new magnetic-influence torpedo exploder. This was badly needed since the Mark 14 torpedo, which had a poorly tested exploder that had its magnetic component turned off by order of the Chief of Naval Operations in late 1943, was badly in need of replacement. Alpher's dissertation in 1948 dealt with a subject that came to be known as Big Bang nucleosynthesis.

The Big Bang is a term coined in derision by Fred Hoyle on BBC Radio in 1950 to describe the cosmological model of the universe as expanding into its current state from a primordial condition of enormous density and temperature. Nucleosynthesis is the explanation of how more complex elements are created out of simple elements in the moments following the Big Bang. Right after the Big Bang, when the temperature was high, if any nuclear particles, such as neutrons and protons, became bound together they would be broken apart by the high energy photons present in high density. In other words, at this high tempe

The American Practical Navigator written by Nathaniel Bowditch, is an encyclopedia of navigation. It serves as a valuable handbook on oceanography and meteorology, contains useful tables and a maritime glossary. In 1867 the copyright and plates were bought by the Hydrographic Office of the United States Navy; as of 2019 it is still published by the U. S. Government and is available free online from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the modern successor agency to the 19th Century Hydrographic Office; the publication is considered one of America's nautical institutions. The most popular navigational text of the late 18th century was The New Practical Navigator by John Hamilton Moore of the Royal Navy, first published in 1772. To have exact tables to work from, Bowditch recomputed all of Moore's tables, rearranged and expanded the work, he contacted the US publisher of the work, Edmund March Blunt, who asked him to correct and revise the third edition on his fifth voyage. The task was so extensive that Bowditch decided to write his own book, to "put down in the book nothing I can't teach the crew."

On that trip, it is said that every man of the crew of 12, including the ship's cook, became competent to take and calculate lunar observations and to plot the correct position of the ship. The New Practical Navigator was published in 1799, followed by a second edition in 1800. By 1802, when Blunt was ready to publish a third edition, Nathaniel Bowditch and others had corrected so many errors in Moore's work that Blunt decided to publish it as the first edition of a new work, The New American Practical Navigator; the current edition of the American Practical Navigator traces its pedigree to that 1802 edition. Edmund M. Blunt continued to publish the book until 1833; the elder Blunt died in 1862. The next year, 1867, George Blunt sold the copyright to the government for $25,000; the government has published Bowditch since. George Blunt died in 1878. Nathaniel Bowditch continued to correct and revise the book until his death in 1838. Upon his death, the editorial responsibility for The New American Practical Navigator passed to his son, J. Ingersoll Bowditch.

Few significant changes were made under him. Editions from 1837 through 1880 are nearly identical in content. Ingersoll Bowditch continued editing the Navigator until George Blunt sold the copyright to the government, he outlived all of the principals involved in publishing and editing the Navigator, dying in 1889. The U. S. government has published some 52 editions since acquiring the copyright to the book that has come to be known by its original author’s name, "Bowditch". Since the government began production, the book has been known by its year of publishing, instead of by the edition number. After the first major revision, a total overhaul of the book's content completed in 1880 under the direction of Commander Philip H. Cooper, USN, the name was changed to American Practical Navigator. Much of Bowditch’s original content, including his methods for clearing lunar distance observations, were dropped in 1880. After numerous incremental revisions and printings in the period from 1914 to 1944, Bowditch was extensively revised between 1946 and 1958.

The present volume, while retaining the basic format of the 1958 version, reorganizes the subjects, deletes obsolete text, adds new material to keep pace with the extensive changes in navigation that have taken place in the electronic age. The 1995 edition of the American Practical Navigator incorporates extensive changes in organization and format. Recent advances in navigational electronics, communications and other technologies have transformed the way navigation is practiced at sea, it is clear that more changes are forthcoming; the changes to this edition of Bowditch are intended to ensure that this publication remains the premier reference work for practical marine navigation. Concerted efforts were made to return to Nathaniel Bowditch’s original intention "to put down in the book nothing I can’t teach the crew." To this end, many complex formulas and equations have been eliminated, emphasis placed on the capabilities and limitations of various navigation systems and how to use them, instead of explaining complex technical and theoretical details.

This edition replaces but does not cancel former editions, which may be retained and consulted as to navigation methods not discussed herein. Current edition is Edition 53, a two-volume, all-digital version released by NGA in 2017; the Bicentennial Edition incorporated Volume 1 and Volume 2 into a single printed volume, with the goal of putting as much useful information before the navigator as possible in the most understandable and readable format, a single, hard-bound volume. While that edition saw widespread use in civilian and commercial fleets, it sacrificed some data on classical celestial navigation and on advances in satellite and electronic navigation to meet the compressed requirements of the physical form factor. Twenty years with a resurgence in interest on celestial navigation and the large-scale adoption of electronic navigation, NGA returned Pub No. 9 to a two-volume format to encompass the expanded material. To eliminate printing costs, NGA has not produced a physical version since the 2017 edition.

Part I Fundamentals, includes an overview of the types and phases of marine navigation and the organizations which support and regulate it. It includes chapters relating to the structure and limitations of nautical charts.