The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is a state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances research and engineering based in the United States of America. NCSA operates as a unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, provides high-performance computing resources to researchers across the country. Support for NCSA comes from the National Science Foundation, the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois and industry partners, other federal agencies. NCSA provides leading-edge computing, data storage, visualization resources. NCSA computational and data environment implements a multi-architecture hardware strategy, deploying both clusters and shared memory systems to support high-end users and communities on the architectures best-suited to their requirements. Nearly 1,360 scientists and students used the computing and data systems at NCSA to support research in more than 830 projects. NCSA is led by Bill Gropp. NCSA is one of the five original centers in the National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program.

The idea for NCSA and the four other supercomputer centers arose from the frustration of its founder, Larry Smarr, who wrote an influential paper, "The Supercomputer Famine in American Universities", in 1982, after having to travel to Europe in summertime to access supercomputers and conduct his research. Smarr wrote a proposal to address the future needs of scientific research. Seven other University of Illinois professors joined as co-principal investigators, many others provided descriptions of what could be accomplished if the proposal were accepted. Known as the Black Proposal, it was submitted to the NSF in 1983, it met the NSF's mandate and its contents generated excitement. However, the NSF had no organization in place to support it, the proposal itself did not contain a defined home for its implementation; the NSF established an Office of Scientific Computing in 1984 and, with strong congressional support, it announced a national competition that would fund a set of supercomputer centers like the one described in the Black Proposal.

The result was. The Black Proposal was approved in 1985 and marked the foundation of NCSA, with $42,751,000 in funding from 1 January 1985 through 31 December 1989; this was noteworthy in that the NSF's action of approving an unsolicited proposal was unprecedented. NCSA opened its doors in January 1986. In 2007, NCSA was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to build "Blue Waters", a supercomputer capable of performing quadrillions of calculations per second, a level of performance known as petascale. The'Black Proposal' was a short, ten-page proposal for the creation of a supercomputing center that led to funding from the National Science Foundation to create supercomputing centers, including the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. In this sense, the significant role played by the U. S. Government in funding the center, the first popular web browser, cannot be denied; the Black Proposal described the limitations on any scientific research that required computer capabilities, it described a future world of productive scientific collaboration, centered on universal computer access, in which technical limitations on scientific research would not exist.

It expressed a clear vision of how to get from the present to the future. The proposal was titled "A Center for Scientific and Engineering Supercomputing", was ten pages long; the proposal's vision of the computing future were unusual or non-existent, but elements of it are now commonplace, such as visualization, high-speed I/O, data storage, software engineering, close collaboration with the multi-disciplinary user community. Modern readers of the Black Proposal may gain insight into a world. Today's computers are easy to use, the web is omnipresent. Employees in high-tech endeavors are given supercomputer accounts because they are employees. Computers are universally available and can be used by anyone of any age, applicable to anything. At the time the proposal was written, computers were available to no one. For scientists who needed computers in their research, access was difficult; the effect on research was crippling. Reading publications from that time gives no hint that scientists were required to learn the arcane technical details of whatever computer facilities were available to them, a time-consuming limitation on their research, an exceedingly tedious distraction from their professional interests.

The implementation of the Black Proposal had a primary role in shaping the computer technology of today, its impact on research has been profound. The proposal's description of the leading edge of scientific research may be sobering, the limitations on computer usage at major universities may be surprising. A comprehensive list of the world's supercomputers shows the best resources that were available; the thrust of the proposal may seem obvious now, but was novel. The National Science Foundation announced funding for the supercomputer centers in 1985. NCSA came to the attention of the worldwide scientific community with the release of NCSA Telnet in 1986. A number of other tools followed, like NCSA Telnet, all were made available to everyone at no cost. In 1993, NCSA released the Mosaic web browser, the first p

Ding Yuan, courtesy name Jianyang, was an official and minor warlord who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. In 189, both he and Dong Zhuo were summoned into the capital Luoyang with their individual troops to assist in the struggle against the powerful eunuch faction. Ding Yuan, was killed by his trusted aide Lü Bu, bought over by Dong Zhuo. According to the Records of Heroes by Wang Can, Ding Yuan was born in a poor family. Uncouth but brave, he was adept in horse archery. During his early career as a county magistrate, he never turned away from his responsibility no matter the adversity or risk, he always pitched himself in front during confrontations with fugitive bandits. He was promoted to Inspector of Bing Province when he met Lü Bu; the martial prowess of the young warrior impressed Ding Yuan, who made him Chief Secretary and kept him close at side. In 189, Emperor Ling died; the General-in-Chief He Jin summoned Ding Yuan into the capital Luoyang with his regional troops to assist in the power struggle against the eunuch faction.

Before Ding Yuan arrived, the eunuchs assassinated He Jin. Dong Zhuo, a warlord from Liang Province, summoned by He Jin, arrived in Luoyang ahead of Ding Yuan and defeated the eunuchs, grasping military control of the capital. After Ding Yuan arrived, Dong Zhuo managed to buy over Lü Bu, who killed Ding Yuan and presented the latter's head to Dong Zhuo; the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a romanticisation of the events that occurred before and during the Three Kingdoms period of China. In Chapter 3, Ding Yuan becomes a rival of Dong Zhuo after he opposes the latter's plan to depose Emperor Shao in favour of Emperor Xian. However, Dong Zhuo refrains from killing Ding Yuan on the spot because Ding Yuan's foster son, the formidable warrior Lü Bu, is protecting him. Li Su, an official under Dong Zhuo, from the same commandery as Lü Bu volunteers to persuade Lü Bu to defect to Dong Zhuo's side. Bringing along a famous steed named Red Hare and other luscious gifts, he meets Lü Bu at his camp outside the city.

Attracted by the gifts and feeling convinced by Li Su, Lü Bu agrees to betray his foster father and defect to Dong Zhuo's side. That night, Lü Bu barges into Ding Yuan's tent, decapitates him and brings his head as a present to Dong Zhuo the following day. Lists of people of the Three Kingdoms Chen, Shou. Records of the Three Kingdoms. de Crespigny, Rafe. A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms 23-220 AD. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004156050. Fan, Ye. Book of the Later Han. Luo, Guanzhong. Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Pei, Songzhi. Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms

John Chellis "Jack" Conner was an American marimbist. Conner was born in Kahoka, Missouri in 1913. At the age of six he began his studies of percussion instruments. By the age of twelve, he was playing on the radio with the KMOX Junior Orchestra; as a young artist he was a member of the International Marimba Symphony Orchestra during their European tour in 1935. Before pursuing a solo career, he was a member of both the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the St. Louis Municipal Opera Orchestra and was heard on major St. Louis radio stations, he served overseas with the USO in the European theater and he toured South America with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra. As one of the first percussionists to take the marimba and vibraphone into the classical world as solo instruments, he made his New York debut at Town Hall in 1950. After hearing Conner’s artistry on the instruments, Darius Milhaud, the French composer, was inspired to compose a concerto for Conner to perform; this Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone was given its world premier with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in 1948 with Vladimir Golschmann conducting.

In addition to his classical career, Conner was a jazz musician in the New York City area. He was associated with the pianist, with whom he had a 25-year association, he performed with the Don Ho show in Hawaii and Las Vegas and served as music director and conductor for Anita Bryant. He appeared on numerous radio and television programs such as Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and the Lawrence Welk Show. Conner’s greatest love was inspirational and sacred music and he had a longtime association with Youth for Christ and World Vision, his ministry in Christian music took him into concert halls and churches throughout the world, he was a producer of Christian films such as “In God We Trust”, which he wrote and in which he played a major role. He made numerous recordings featuring both vibraphone. In 1990 he was presented Doctor of Sacred Music, by Trinity College of Florida, he spent his years performing with his son and daughter-in-law as “The Conners in Concert.”

Star Awards 2017 is a television award ceremony, held in Singapore. It is part of the annual Star Awards organised by Mediacorp for free-to-air channels Channels 8 and U; the Road to Star Awards 2017 was broadcast live on 26 March, 2 and 9 April 2017. The theme for this year's Star Award is "影响"; the nominations for the awards were first revealed 23 January 2017, followed by the Top 10 Most Favourite Artistes on a press conference on 3 March 2017 at Marina Square. During the ceremony held live on 16 April 2019, 12 programs won at least one award, among which Best Drama Serial Hero, along with The Dream Job and The Gentlemen, as well as variety series As I Hold Your Hand, were tied with the most wins for a ceremony with two; as part of the "3+1" format introduced this year, The Road to Star Awards 2017 is a series of three one-hour live-broadcast prelude shows leading up to the main presentation itself, premiering on 26 March. Each one of the three episodes focuses on one of the award categories with invited artistes nominees come to discuss the award ceremony and predicted their favorites for the acting categories.

The end of each episode reveal the current standing for the Top 10 Most Favorite Artistes award, the bottom four artistes at the close of the third episode were eliminated from running of the award, a first in Star Awards history. Winners are listed first; the theme for Show 1 focuses on drama, artistes – the performance category nominees, were invited to the preludes and asked to select their favourites for the acting categories. Andie Chen was the artistes' choice for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, while Zoe Tay and Paige Chua were the picks for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. ^1 The nominee was absent from the show. The theme for Show 2 is variety, focusing on the variety and info-ed awards, as well as awards sponsored by the show's brands and London Choco Roll. During the show, Quan Yi Fong was the artistes' choice for the Best Programme Host. In one segment, the variety hosts compared awards they have won so far. ^2 The nominee was absent from the show. In the third and final week of preludes, Kate Pang replaced Pornsak as co-host, since the latter took leave.

The All-Time Favourite Artistes, Quan Yi Fong, Elvin Ng and Joanne Peh were interviewed by Dennis Chew with a series of quick-fire question and answer segment. South Korean actor So Ji-sub made an appearance at the end of the episode, tasked to unlock the briefcase containing the envelopes for the shortlists for the 40 artistes still running for the Top 10 Most Popular Artiste award; the awards ceremony was held on 16 April 2017 at the MES Theatre @ Mediacorp. The ceremony was hosted by Lee Teng and featured a total of 16 international presenters and performers. Winners are listed first. ^3 This award is a special achievement award given out to artiste who have achieved a maximum of 10 popularity awards over 10 years. Top 10 winning years all three of recipients were awarded are highlighted in boldface, while years with only one recipient winning are highlighted in italics; the award will not be presented in 2018, as there are no recipients with ten Top 10 Most Popular Male or Female Artistes award wins to allow the award to be presented that year.

This year's Top 10 Most Popular Artistes awards sees the number of nominees expanded by eight – four per gender – to 48, the second time to expand such number since 2011. As usual, viewers voted for their favourite artiste through online voting. At the end of the preludes, the top 20 artistes for each gender advanced to the main presentation to vie for the Top 10 awards. Voting for the awards ended at 8:30 pm on 16 April; the nominees are listed in telepoll line order. The results of the Top 10 awards are not in any rank order. Key The following individuals performed musical numbers; the ceremony featured a "3+1" format, with broadcast of three prelude episodes (which focused on technical awards and discussions prior to the actual ceremony. As such, this was the first ceremony since 2009 to have only one ceremony; this marked. Hero marked only the second time the series received more than four nominations for a particular category, Best Supporting Actress. Terence Cao and Cheng Xiao Ying has by far the longest absence by any returning artiste at a gap of 19 and 16 ceremonies, having last nominated in 1998 and 2001, respectively.

Eight artistes were nominated for the Top 10 for the first time, which were Bonnie Loo, He Yingying, Hong Ling, Seraph Sun, Sora Ma, Andie Chen, Cavin Soh and Desmond Ng. Chen Hanwei was tied with Xie Shaoguang with five. Star Awards was tied with NKF Charity Show on winning the most number of Best Variety Special wins, with seven; the Top 10 Most Popular Artiste saw many changes on this year's ceremony: The categories were now emphasized with the use of online voting, first seen for voting for Toggle such as Favourite Male and Female Character, Favourite Onscreen Couple awards. Said awards were suspended due

Marks is a city in Quitman County, Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,735, it is the county seat of Quitman County. The town of Marks was named after Leopold Marks who left Germany to avoid conscription by the German army, he arrived in New York in 1868. Marks, a Jew, became Quitman County's first representative to the state legislature and served for eight years, he encouraged the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad to come to the area by giving the railroad company, without cost, the right-of-way through his plantation plus 10 acres of land. Leopold Marks' son Henry donated land to the town to be used as a cemetery; the official "founding" of the town is considered to be May 12, 1907. On September 26, 1913 a black man named Walter Brownloe, accused of attacking a white farmer's wife, was taken from the town prison by a mob and hanged. Marks was the starting point of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's Poor People's Campaign in 1968. Amtrak's City of New Orleans began stopping at Marks on April 4, 2018.

A new station was built for passengers to get off. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.0 square mile, all land. As of the census of 2000, there were 1,551 people, 579 households, 387 families residing in the city; the population density was 1,509.9 people per square mile. There were 643 housing units at an average density of 625.9 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 34.62% White, 64.67% African American, 0.06% Native American, 0.19% Asian, 0.45% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.39% of the population. There were 579 households out of which 33.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 32.0% were married couples living together, 29.2% had a female householder with no husband present, 33.0% were non-families. 29.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.0% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55 and the average family size was 3.16. In the city, the population was spread out with 28.7% under the age of 18, 8.4% from 18 to 24, 26.8% from 25 to 44, 16.7% from 45 to 64, 19.3% who were 65 years of age or older.

The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 81.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 73.1 males. The median income for a household in the city was $20,521, the median income for a family was $27,153. Males had a median income of $25,100 versus $16,985 for females; the per capita income for the city was $11,104. About 26.1% of families and 30.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 39.9% of those under age 18 and 27.7% of those age 65 or over. The City of Marks is served by the Quitman County School District. Delta Academy, a private school, is in Marks. Larry Garron, Professional football player Frederick W. Smith, Founder and CEO of FedEx Corporation Carolyn Stanford Taylor, Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Insruction Re-enactment of anti-poverty march to begin in Marks -- Clarksdale Press Register, Aug 1'03

Erik Axel Karlfeldt was a Swedish poet whose symbolist poetry masquerading as regionalism was popular and won him the Nobel Prize in Literature posthumously in 1931 after he had been nominated by Nathan Söderblom, member of the Swedish Academy. It has been rumored that he had been offered, but declined, the award in 1919. Karlfeldt was born into a farmer's family in the province of Dalarna, his name was Erik Axel Eriksson, but he assumed his new name in 1889, wanting to distance himself from his father, who had suffered the disgrace of a criminal conviction. He studied at Uppsala University supporting himself by teaching school in several places, including Djursholms samskola in the Stockholm suburb of Djursholm and at a school for adults. After completing his studies, he held a position at the Royal Library of Sweden, in Stockholm, for five years. In 1904 Karlfeldt was elected a member of the Swedish Academy and held chair number 11. In 1905 he was elected a member of the Nobel Institute of the Academy, and, in 1907, of the Nobel Committee.

In 1912 he was elected permanent secretary of a position he held until his death. Uppsala University, Karlfeldt's alma mater, awarded him the title of Doctor honoris causae in 1917. Modern Swedish Poetry Part 1 – Arcadia Borealis – The North! To the North! – Biography at the Nobel e-Museum Short biography at nobel-winners.com Karlfeldt's collected works and a facsimile of a 1956 edition, both at Project Runeberg Petri Liukkonen. "Erik Axel Karlfeldt". Books and Writers