The Monsanto Company was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901. In 2018, it was acquired by Bayer as part of its crop science division, it was headquartered in Missouri. Monsanto developed Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, in the 1970s, became a major producer of genetically engineered crops. Monsanto was one of four groups to introduce genes into plants in 1983, was among the first to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops in 1987, it was one of the top 10 US chemical companies until it divested most of its chemical businesses between 1997 and 2002, through a process of mergers and spin-offs that focused the company on biotechnology. Monsanto was one of the first companies to apply the biotechnology industry business model to agriculture, using techniques developed by biotech drug companies. In this business model, companies recoup R&D expenses by exploiting biological patents. Monsanto's roles in agricultural changes, biotechnology products, lobbying of government agencies, roots as a chemical company, resulted in controversies.
The company once manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, recombinant bovine growth hormone. Its seed patenting model was criticized as biopiracy and a threat to biodiversity as invasive species. In September 2016, Bayer announced its intent to acquire Monsanto for US$66 billion. After gaining US and EU regulatory approval, the sale was completed on June 7, 2018 where the name Monsanto was no longer used, but Monsanto's previous product brand names were maintained; the company ranked 199th on the 2018 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue. In 1901 Monsanto was founded in Missouri, as a chemical company; the founder was a 30‑year veteran of the nascent pharmaceutical industry. He funded the firm with his own capital from a soft drink distributor, he used his wife, Olga Méndez Monsanto's, maiden name for the company. The company's first products were commodity food additives, such as the artificial sweetener saccharin and vanillin.
Monsanto expanded to Europe in 1919 in a partnership with Graesser's Chemical Works at Cefn Mawr, Wales. The venture produced vanillin and its raw ingredient salicylic acid, rubber processing chemicals. In the 1920s, Monsanto expanded into basic industrial chemicals such as PCBs. Queeny's son Edgar Monsanto Queeny took over the company in 1928. In 1926 the company incorporated a town called Monsanto in Illinois, it was formed to provide minimal regulation and low taxes for Monsanto plants at a time when local jurisdictions had most of the responsibility for environmental rules. It was renamed in honor of its first village president. In 1935, Monsanto bought the Swann Chemical Company in Anniston and thereby entered the business of producing PCBs. In 1936, Monsanto acquired Thomas & Hochwalt Laboratories in Dayton, Ohio, to acquire the expertise of Charles Allen Thomas and Carroll A. Hochwalt; the acquisition became Monsanto's Central Research Department. Thomas spent the rest of his career at Monsanto, serving as Board Chair.
He retired in 1970. In 1943, Thomas was called to a meeting in Washington, D. C. with Leslie Groves, commander of the Manhattan Project, James Conant, president of Harvard University and chairman of the National Defense Research Committee. They urged Thomas to become co-director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos with Robert Oppenheimer, but Thomas was reluctant to leave Dayton and Monsanto, he joined the NDRC, Monsanto's Central Research Department began to conduct related research. To that end, Monsanto operated the Dayton Project, Mound Laboratories, assisted in the development of the first nuclear weapons. In 1946, Monsanto developed and marketed "All" laundry detergent, which they sold to Lever Brothers in 1957. In 1947, its styrene factory was destroyed in the Texas City Disaster. In 1949, Monsanto acquired American Viscose Corporation from Courtaulds. In 1954, Monsanto partnered with German chemical giant Bayer to form Mobay and market polyurethanes in the United States. Monsanto began manufacturing DDT in 1944, along with some 15 other companies.
This insecticide was critical to the fight against malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. Due to DDT's toxicity, it was banned in the United States in 1972. In 1977, Monsanto stopped producing PCBs. In the mid‑1960s, William Standish Knowles and his team invented a way to selectively synthesize enantiomers via asymmetric hydrogenation; this was the first method for the catalytic production of pure chiral compounds. Knowles' team designed the "first industrial process to chirally synthesize an important compound"—L‑dopa, used to treat Parkinson's disease. In 2001, Knowles and Ryōji Noyori won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In the mid-1960s, chemists at Monsanto developed the Monsanto process for making acetic acid, which until 2000 was the most used production method. In 1964, Monsanto chemists invented AstroTurf. In the 1960s and 1970s, Monsanto was a producer of Agent Orange for United States Armed Forces operations in Vietnam, settled out of court in a lawsuit brought by veterans in 1984. In 1968, it became the first company to start mass production of light-emitting diodes, using gallium arsenide phosphide.
From 1968 to 1970, sales doubled every few months. Their products became industry standards; the primary markets were electronic calculators, digital watches and digital clocks. Monsanto became a pioneer of optoelectronics in the 1970s
Tai Kwun, or the Former Central Police Station Compound includes three declared monuments in Central, Hong Kong: the former Central Police Station, the Former Central Magistracy and the Victoria Prison. Surrounded by Hollywood Road, Arbuthnot Road, Chancery Lane and Old Bailey Street, the compound underwent a heritage revitalisation and reopened to the public on 29 May 2018 as "Tai Kwun", a centre for heritage and arts; the Former Central Police Station Compound, built between 1841 and 1925, comprises 16 historic building grouped under the former Central Police Station, the Former Central Magistracy and the Victoria Prison. Most of the city's historic colonial architecture had been bulldozed for development before the British government handed it back to China in 1997; the first building in the Former Central Police Station Compound is a Magistrate's House with jail blocks, which were built in 09Aug 1841. In the year of 1899, the Former Central Prison renamed into Victora Prison; the site underwent numerous expansions and reconstruction over the next century.
In the year of 1862, the number of prisoners increased to 650, therefore the government decided to develop the land nearby. The series of compound hence formed'Tai Kwun'; when Victoria Prison was decommissioned in 2006, the compound accomplished its mission as a law enforcement organization for Hong Kong. In 1867, the Chinese diplomat and statesman during the Qing dynasty, Guo Songtao with his team passed by Hong Kong in December while their trip to the Great British. In the meanwhile, they made a visit to the Central Police Station, Guo had written down the situation inside the prison in his journal. Guo, Songtao. "使西紀程". Archieve. Retrieved 8 June 2010.</ref> In his journal, he mentioned that Victoria Prison is a 3-storey building, the prisoner who committed the most serious crime would be locked at the top level of the building. In 2008, the Hong Kong SAR Government partnered with the Hong Kong Jockey Club to conserve the and revitalise the complex; the revitalisation project is one of the most significant and most expensive revitalisation projects in Hong Kong.
It has been led by the Hong Kong Jockey Club in partnership with the Government of the Hong Kong SAR. The HK$1.8 billion project was conceptualised in 2007 and conservation work started in 2011. The Hong Kong Jockey Club's charities trust has spent over HK$3.7 billion so far since 2011 as of May 2018. The conversion was completed in phases. Work faced a setback when a wall and roof collapsed in 2016; the Buildings Department prosecuted a sub-contractor it deemed responsible for the accident, triggered by the failure of a brick pier, structurally undermined. Tai Kwun reopened to the public in May 2018. A Former Central Police Station Revitalisation Project was established to conserve and revitalise the heritage site for reuse; the project took eight-year and HK$3.8 billion. Tai Kwun, named after the historical colloquial name of the compound, is a mix of heritage and contemporary architecture. 16 heritage buildings have been restored for reuse. An additional two new buildings have been constructed, featuring designs inspired by the site's historic brickwork.
The remodelled compound was opened to the public in three phases, beginning with the inaugural exhibition "100 Faces of Tai Kwun" on 29 May 2018. As early as the 1880s, the name Tai Kwun has been recorded in news articles in reference to the Former Central Police Station. In 2018, Time listed Tai Kwun in its "World's Greatest Places 2018" list. In 2019, Tai Kwun was awarded "Award of Excellence" from the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation. Official website
In cryptography, Curve25519 is an elliptic curve offering 128 bits of security and designed for use with the elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman key agreement scheme. It is not covered by any known patents; the reference implementation is public domain software. The original Curve25519 paper defined it as a Diffie–Hellman function. Daniel J. Bernstein has since proposed that the name Curve25519 be used for the underlying curve, the name X25519 for the DH function; the curve used is y 2 = x 3 + 486662 x 2 + x, a Montgomery curve, over the prime field defined by the prime number 2 255 − 19, it uses the base point x = 9. This point generates a cyclic subgroup whose order is the prime 2 252 + 27742317777372353535851937790883648493 and is of index 8. Using a prime order subgroup prevents mounting a Pohlig–Hellman algorithm attack; the protocol uses compressed elliptic point, so it allows efficient use of the Montgomery ladder for ECDH, using only XZ coordinates. Curve25519 is constructed such. By design, it is immune to timing attacks and it accepts any 32-byte string as a valid public key and does not require validating that a given point belongs to the curve, or is generated by the base point.
The curve is birationally equivalent to a twisted Edwards curve used in Ed25519 signature scheme. Curve25519 was first released by Daniel J. Bernstein in 2005, but interest increased after 2013 when it was discovered that the NSA had implemented a backdoor into Dual_EC_DRBG. While not directly related, suspicious aspects of the NIST's P curve constants led to concerns that the NSA had chosen values that gave them an advantage in breaking the encryption. I no longer trust the constants. I believe. Since Curve25519 has become the de facto alternative to P-256, is used in a wide variety of applications. Starting in 2014, OpenSSH defaults to Curve25519-based ECDH. Behavior for general SSH protocol is still being standardized as of 2018. In 2017, NIST announced that Curve25519 and Curve448 would be added to Special Publication 800-186, which specifies approved elliptic curves for use by the US Federal Government. Both are described in RFC 7748. In 2018, DKIM specification was amended. In 2018, RFC 8446 was published as the new Transport Layer Security v1.3 standard and it requires mandatory support for X25519, Ed25519 and X448, Ed448 algorithms.
OMEMO, a proposed extension for XMPP Secure Shell Signal Protocol Tox Zcash Transport Layer Security Official website
French Settlement is a village in Livingston Parish, United States. The population was 1,116 at the 2010 census, it is part of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area. French Settlement was settled in 1800 via the Amite River by French and Italian immigrants; the area was a thriving center of commerce, including cypress sawmills, animal trappers, shingle-making, a steamboat port. French Settlement has four properties on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. French Settlement is located at 30°18′16″N 90°47′56″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 2.7 square miles, of which 2.7 square miles is land and 0.37% is water. As of the census of 2000, there were 945 people, 359 households, 276 families residing in the village; the population density was 349.0 inhabitants per square mile. There were 436 housing units at an average density of 161.0 per square mile. The racial makeup of the village was 99.26% White, 0.21% Asian, 0.11% from other races, 0.42% from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.90% of the population. There were 359 households out of which 31.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 65.2% were married couples living together, 7.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 23.1% were non-families. 18.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.8% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.63 and the average family size was 2.99. In the village, the population was spread out with 25.8% under the age of 18, 8.5% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 24.0% from 45 to 64, 12.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.0 males. The median income for a household in the village was $38,563, the median income for a family was $41,518. Males had a median income of $36,875 versus $18,500 for females; the per capita income for the village was $17,660. About 5.6% of families and 7.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.9% of those under age 18 and 6.0% of those age 65 or over.
French Settlement is within the Livingston Parish Public Schools system. French Settlement is served by French Settlement Elementary School and French Settlement High School
Yoshiaki Hoshi, born in Wakayanagi, Japan, was a Japanese musician best known for his band Himekami. Hoshi won the 1971 Victor Electronic Music Contest, founded Himekami Sensation in 1980, his debut album was Oku no Hosomichi, released in 1981. In 1984, the group name was changed to Himekami. Hoshi was known for being friendly with his fans, thanking them for purchasing his works; the music was electronic, new-age with sounds of nature and elements of traditional Japanese music. Hoshi died of a heart attack on October 2004 at 1:21 am, his funeral service was held on October 2004 at a Shinto shrine in Hiraizumi, Iwate Prefecture. Oku No Hosomichi Tohno Himekami Tohno Monogatari Himekami Densetsu Mahoroba Kaido Hokuten Genso Himekami Special Setsufu Toki Wo Mitsumete Himekami Fudoki Moonwater Ihatovo Hidakami Snow Goddess Zipangu Himekami Homura Tsugaru Mayoiga Himekami Johdo Mandara Kaze No Jomon Kaze No Jomon II: Toki No Sora Kaze No Jomon III: Jomon Kairyuu Shinra Bansho Seed Sennen Kairo Aoi-Hana News report of Hoshi's death and funeral Interview
The Citra Award for Best Film is one of the Citra Awards presented annually since the awards debuted in 1955 by the Indonesian Film Festival Committee to artists working in the motion picture industry. The actors and actresses in the film will not accept this awards times unless he or she produced the film; the Best Film Award is considered the most important of the Citra Awards as well as the standard for a good quality film in Indonesian film industry, including all the directing, music composing and efforts put forth into a film production and receives much media attention. During the annual Indonesian Film Festival ceremony, Citra Award for Best Film is reserved as the final award presented and collected at the podium by the film's directors & producers. In the list below, the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the other nominees; the Best Film category in 2006 Citra Awards has been removed due to controversial issues from its supposed winner. For the first ceremony, the films were announced for winner only without nominations.
For the following years during too long vacuum, the films were held back again in 1960. In 1967, 1977 and 1984, the films were not announced as winner. For the tenth ceremony, five films were nominated for the award to present, sometimes three and four films were competed. Cinema of Indonesia List of Indonesian films KKFFI official website