Neodymium is a chemical element with the symbol Nd and atomic number 60. Neodymium is a rare-earth element, it is a hard malleable silvery metal that tarnishes in air and moisture. When oxidized, neodymium reacts to produce pink, purple/blue and yellow compounds in the +2, +3 and +4 oxidation states. Neodymium was discovered in 1885 by the Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach, it is present in significant quantities in the ore minerals bastnäsite. Neodymium is not found in metallic form or unmixed with other lanthanides, it is refined for general use. Although neodymium is classed as a rare-earth element, it is common, no rarer than cobalt, nickel, or copper, is distributed in the Earth's crust. Most of the world's commercial neodymium is mined in China. Neodymium compounds were first commercially used as glass dyes in 1927, they remain a popular additive in glasses; the color of neodymium compounds is due to the Nd3+ ion and is a reddish-purple, but it changes with the type of lighting, because of the interaction of the sharp light absorption bands of neodymium with ambient light enriched with the sharp visible emission bands of mercury, trivalent europium or terbium.

Some neodymium-doped glasses are used in lasers that emit infrared with wavelengths between 1047 and 1062 nanometers. These have been used in extremely-high-power applications, such as experiments in inertial confinement fusion. Neodymium is used with various other substrate crystals, such as yttrium aluminium garnet in the Nd:YAG laser. Another important use of neodymium is as a component in the alloys used to make high-strength neodymium magnets—powerful permanent magnets; these magnets are used in such products as microphones, professional loudspeakers, in-ear headphones, high performance hobby DC electric motors, computer hard disks, where low magnet mass or strong magnetic fields are required. Larger neodymium magnets are used in generators. Neodymium, a rare-earth metal, was present in the classical mischmetal at a concentration of about 18%. Metallic neodymium has a silvery metallic luster. Neodymium exists in two allotropic forms, with a transformation from a double hexagonal to a body-centered cubic structure taking place at about 863 °C.

Neodymium is paramagnetic at room temperature and becomes an antiferromagnet upon cooling to 20 K. In order to make the neodymium magnets it is alloyed with iron, a ferromagnet. Neodymium metal oxidizes at ambient conditions and burns at about 150 °C to form neodymium oxide; these exist as a 3+ complexes: 2 Nd + 3 H2SO4 → 2 Nd3+ + 3 SO2−4 + 3 H2 Neodymium compounds include halides: neodymium fluoride. Occurring neodymium is a mixture of five stable isotopes, 142Nd, 143Nd, 145Nd, 146Nd and 148Nd, with 142Nd being the most abundant, two radioisotopes, 144Nd and 150Nd. In all, 31 radioisotopes of neodymium have been detected as of 2010, with the most stable radioisotopes being the occurring ones: 144Nd and 150Nd. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are shorter than eleven days, the majority of these have half-lives that are shorter than 70 seconds. Neodymium has 13 known meta states, with the most stable one being 139mNd, 135mNd and 133m1Nd; the primary decay modes before the most abundant stable isotope, 142Nd, are electron capture and positron decay, the primary mode after is beta minus decay.

The primary decay products before 142Nd are element Pr isotopes and the primary products after are element Pm isotopes. Neodymium was discovered by Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach in Vienna in 1885, he separated neodymium, as well as the element praseodymium, from their mixture, called didymium, by means of fractional crystallization of the double ammonium nitrate tetrahydrates from nitric acid. Von Welsbach confirmed the separation by spectroscopic analysis, but the products were of low purity. Didymium was discovered by Carl Gustaf Mosander in 1841, pure neodymium was isolated from it in 1925; the name neodymium is derived from the Greek words neos and didymos, twin. Double nitrate crystallizatio

Barbara Anita Meek was an American actress best known to television viewers for playing the character of Ellen Canby for two seasons on Archie Bunker's Place. Since 1968, Meek was an active member of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, appeared in more than 100 Trinity Rep stage productions, she was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Juanita and Harold Talmadge Meek, is the maternal granddaughter of the Reverend Horatius "H. H." Coleman, pastor of the Greater Macedonia Baptist Church. She was a graduate of Northwestern High School, as an undergraduate was asked to join Wayne State University's graduate theater program. Meek was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority while attending college. In 1965, Meek toured with the United Services Organization, performing for wounded soldiers on Okinawa and other U. S. Army bases. In 1968, she joined the Trinity Repertory Company with her husband, Martin Molson, where they debuted together in Brother to Dragons. Highlights of Meek's stage career at Trinity included leading roles in the August Wilson plays Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, James Purdy's Eustace Chisholm and the Works, Athol Fugard's Boesman and Lena, Peer Gynt, The Threepenny Opera, The Visit, Fires in the Mirror, Adrian Hall and Robert Cumming's adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Terrence McNally's Master Class, Henry IV, Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer and, more Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Meek appeared in the Broadway production of Wilson in the Promised Land. In 2008, Meek appeared in Blithe Spirit at Trinity Rep, Curt Columbus' adaptation of Antigone, she was in Camelot, The Crucible and Steel Magnolias during the 2010–2011 season, Sparrow Grass in the 2011–2012 season. Meek played the role of Sadie in Having Our Say at Trinity Rep, a role she reprised for the play's European premiere at Vienna's English Theatre. In 1996, Meek appeared in the world premiere of A Lesson Before Dying by Romulus Linney at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Meek performed at Hilberry Repertory Theatre, the Dallas Theater Center, the Cleveland Play House, The Repertory Theater of St. Louis, the Hampton Playhouse, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Brandeis University Theatre. Meek's other television roles included Adrian Hall's adaptations of Robert Penn Warren's Brother to Dragons, Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Life Among the Lowly, all broadcast on PBS. Meek was featured in the Emmy Award-winning television movie See How She Runs with Joanne Woodward, the television movie Jimmy B. and Andre, starring Susan Clark and Alex Karras.

Meek made guest appearances as Veronica Everestt on As the World Turns in both 1992 and 1997, Samantha Monroe on General Hospital in 1994 and 1999, Verne Garrison on Guiding Light in both 1993 and 1999. Ms. Meek received an Honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from the University of Rhode Island, the 2004 Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts, she received the Foundation for Repertory Theatre Award, the Wayne State University Arts Achievement Award in Theatre, the Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence. In 2006, she was awarded the Edward Bannister and Christiana Bannister History Makers Award from the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society. Meek died on October 2015, of a heart attack. Barbara Meek on IMDb Trinity Rep findagrave.com

Ocean Kinetics is a private limited engineering company with its head offices based in Lerwick, Scotland. The company was established by John Henderson in 1992 to specialise in marine engineering solutions. Established in 1992, the company has expanded to an engineering company in fabrication and gas, fishing and aquaculture; the first purpose-built buildings of the company were opened in 1998, as the company grew an extension was added 2000 and additional stores in 2002. Ocean Kinetics expanded its premises in 2012 after announcing its expansion plans of £2M of which £240,000 of funding was provided by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and £500,000 funded by the Regional Selective Assistance scheme. In 2015 the firm was called upon to carry out repairs at the Antarctic Rothera Research Station. A supply partnership with John Bell Pipeline was strengthened in August 2015, to help increase the volume of sales in the United Kingdom and overseas. Official website

Prabartak Sangha is a Hindu religious institution known for its social work. It was founded in 1920 by Motilal Roy, a revolutionary, inspired and initiated in the spiritual path by Sri Aurobindo. Based in Chandernagore, the Prabartak Sangha in its heyday had branches in the districts of Howrah, undivided 24 Parganas and Chittagong, it has a monastery, a boys school, a girls school and a destitute home. In 1915, a Bengali literary magazine named Prabartak was launched under the editorship of Manindra Nath Nayak with the blessings of Motilal Roy and Sri Aurobindo. In 1920, Roy founded the Prabartak Sangha in Chandannagar a French possession. In 1925, he assumed the chief spiritual leader of the organization. In May 1927, Rabindranath Tagore laid the foundation of the prayer hall of the Prabartak Sangha; the Sangha was founded with the aim of nation building which it sought to achieve through the social and economic upliftment of the masses. It ventured into business, ran educational institutions and established cultural centres to spread the message of its founder.

This was a popular shelter of Indian freedom fighters at that time. The Prabartak Sangha undertook several projects in the economic field, so that the nation can become economically self-sufficient; the Sangha launched a partnership firm Rakshit and Ghosh Co. that started a carpentry workshop. It grew into a joint stock company named Prabartak Furnishers Limited with a showroom at Bipin Bihari Ganguly Street in Kolkata. In 1920, the Sangha ventured into agriculture by setting up a farm at Frazerganj in the 24 Parganas. In the same year, it started a textile manufacturing unit named Mrinalini Bastravayana Karyalaya with eight handlooms and paid workers, it use. By 1925, the Khādī department of the Sangha established branches in Burdwan, Mymensingh and Rangoon. In 1935, it started the Prabartak Jute Mills in Kamarhati, though the production started only in February 1941, it launched the Prabartak Commercial Corporation for the import and export of a wide range of commodities. Apart of these the Sangha had a banking and insurance company named the Prabartak Bank and Insurance Company.

It had a press named the Prabartak Printing and Halftone. The Prabartak Sangha established 21 educational institutions in the districts of Hooghly, Howrah, 24 Parganas, Darjeeling and Faridpur; the profit generated from its businesses were used to run the educational institutes. After the Partition, a branch of the Sangha in Pakistan continued to operate in Chittagong. In India, the activities of the Sangha diminished and were centred on the headquarters in Chandannagar. Motilal Roy died in 1959. In the early 1960s the businesses ran into crisis. In 1963, the Prabartak Bank along with the Bank of Bankura merged with the United Industrial Bank. In 1965, the Prabartak Jute Mills were taken over by Sohanlal Mall and by the JM Group

Lewis Abbot Lapham was an American shipping and banking executive. Lapham was born in New York City, the son of Helen and shipping executive and future Mayor of San Francisco Roger D. Lapham, the grandson of entrepreneur Lewis Henry Lapham. Lapham attended the Hotchkiss School and went on to Yale University, graduating in 1931. At Yale, he was a member of Bones. Roger Lapham was a founder of the Cypress Point Club golf course. In 1929, father and son played a foursome there with Francis Ouimet; this frayed the nerves of the 20-year-old Lewis Lapham. After one successful shot by Lapham, Jones loudly asked which club Lapham had used and continued to solicit his advice in front of the crowd until Lapham's confidence was restored. Lapham worked as a journalist and editor for the San Francisco Examiner for six years. In World War II, he was civilian executive assistant to the general in command of the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. From 1945 to 1946 he was president of the Pacific American Steamship Association.

Lewis Henry Lapham was a founding investor of the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company in 1899 and Roger Lapham served as its president until he stepped down in 1944 to run for Mayor. Lewis Lapham became its last president in 1947. Miscalculating future shipping rates, the company bought six new ships, but soon losses forced them to suspend shipping in 1953. Billionaire Daniel Ludwig was brought in as an investor and Lapham resigned and his family sold their holdings to Ludwig, who gained control of the company and liquidated it. Lapham in 1955 became its president, he realized that J. Peter Grace was determined to get W. R. Grace and Company out of the shipping industry, so he left the company and the shipping business in 1959, he joined Bankers Trust Company and served in a variety of executive and board positions until 1981. Lapham was married to Jane Foster for 63 years, they had two sons, Lewis H. Lapham, long-time editor of Harper's Magazine, Anthony A. Lapham, a lawyer for the Central Intelligence Agency

The MV Hyak is a Super-class ferry, operated by Washington State Ferries. Built in 1966 at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company shipyard in San Diego, the ferry began service on July 20, 1967 and ran on the Seattle–Bremerton route or the Anacortes–San Juan Islands run. Hyak is chinook jargon for "speedy"; the Hyak was built by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company of San Diego, California in 1966, at a cost of $6.5 million. It was launched and christened by Nancy Evans, wife of Governor Daniel J. Evans, on December 17, 1966; the vessel traveled north along the Pacific Coast in June 1967, but was delayed by a severe storm near San Francisco, California broke a temporary breakwater. She arrived in Seattle on July 4, several days than scheduled, was moved to the Todd Shipyards for repairs; the word Hyak is chinook jargon for "speedy". The ferry was not able to enter service after arrival because of an ongoing labor dispute with the local chapter of the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots.

The union argued that the wage agreement it signed with Washington State Ferries did not cover new, larger vessels like the Hyak. The dispute reached the King County Superior Court, where a judge signed an injunction ordering the ferry to be manned on its first run on July 19; the Hyak entered service that afternoon, was assigned to the Seattle–Bremerton route, cutting the crossing time from 65 minutes to 45. The next day, the ferry made its first scheduled run and nearly rammed Pier 52 in Seattle after an engine failure. Unlike her sisters, the Hyak has not had her cabin refurbished. In June 2015, the Hyak was replaced by the MV Samish in the third sailing spot in the San Juans, it was moved to the Seattle–Bremerton route for the remainder of its life, but returned to the San Juan route several times to replace vessels undergoing maintenance. The Hyak served as a standby vessel for the rest of the fleet and was considered for experimental conversion to use hybrid diesel-electric generators until the plan was scrapped in 2015.

The retirement of the Hyak anticipated for the arrival of MV Samish, was delayed into 2019 after MV Suquamish replaced it as a relief vessel. The Hyak had a $37 million maintenance backlog, left unaddressed by the state legislature, which allocated $2 million in supplemental funds to operate the ferry until June 2019; the supplemental funds were not extended in the 2019–21 transportation budget, signaling the vessel's retirement. On June 30, 2019, the Hyak made its final run on the Seattle–Bremerton route; the Hyak will be prepared for sale as surplus property. On April 14, 1986, the Hyak ran aground in Anacortes, Washington after a navigational error made by the crew, placing the ferry in shallow water above a reef. Only one injury was reported of the 250 people on board, but the ferry sustained damage that cost $250,000 to repair. On September 13, 2013, the Hyak collided with a private 27-foot-long sailboat between Orcas and Shaw islands. No one was injured; the sailboat, was damaged and sank about 20 minutes after the accident.

MV Hyak vessel info from WSDOT