Sealant is a substance used to block the passage of fluids through the surface or joints or openings in materials, a type of mechanical seal. In building construction sealant is sometimes synonymous with caulking and serve the purposes of blocking dust and heat transmission. Sealants may be flexible or rigid, permanent or temporary. Sealants are not adhesives but some have adhesive qualities and are called adhesive-sealants or structural sealants. Sealants were first used in prehistory in the broadest sense as mud and reeds to seal dwellings from the weather such as the daub in wattle and daub and thatching. Natural sealants and adhesive-sealants included plant resins such as pine pitch and birch pitch, wax, natural gum, clay mortar, lime mortar, lead and egg. In the 17th century glazing putty was first used to seal window glass made with linseed oil and chalk other drying oils were used to make oil-based putties which were referred to as caulks. In the 1920s polymers such as acrylic polymers, butyl polymers and silicone polymers were first developed and used in sealants.

By the 1960s synthetic-polymer-based sealants were available. Sealants, despite not having great strength, convey a number of properties, they seal top structures to the substrate, are effective in waterproofing processes by keeping moisture out the components in which they are used. They can provide thermal and acoustical insulation, may serve as fire barriers, they may have electrical properties, as well. Sealants can be used for simple smoothing or filling, they are called upon to perform several of these functions at once. A caulking sealant has three basic functions: It fills a gap between two or more substrates; the sealant performs these functions by way of correct formulation to achieve specific application and performance properties. Other than adhesives, there are few functional alternatives to the sealing process. Soldering or welding can be used as alternatives in certain instances, depending on the substrates and the relative movement that the substrates will see in service. However, the simplicity and reliability offered by organic elastomers make them the clear choice for performing these functions.

A sealant may be viscous material that has little or no flow characteristics and which stay where they are applied. Anaerobic acrylic sealants are the most desirable, as they are required to cure in the absence of air, unlike surface sealants that require air as part of the cure mechanism that changes state to become solid, once applied, is used to prevent the penetration of air, noise, fire, smoke, or liquid from one location through a barrier into another. Sealants are used to close small openings that are difficult to shut with other materials, such as concrete, etc. Desirable properties of sealants include insolubility, corrosion resistance, adhesion. Uses of sealants vary and sealants are used in many industries, for example, construction and aerospace industries. Sealants can be categorized in accordance with varying criteria, e. g. in accordance with the reactivity of the product in the ready-to-use condition or on the basis of its mechanical behavior after installation. The intended use or the chemical basis is used to classify sealants, too.

A typical classification system for most used sealants is shown below. Types of sealants fall between the higher-strength, adhesive-derived sealers and coatings at one end, low-strength putties and caulks at the other. Putties and caulks serve only one function -- i.e. to fill voids. Silicone is an example of a sealant - and has a proven long life and is unaffected by UV or extremes of weather or temperature. See below for other common types of sealants - The main difference between adhesives and sealants is that sealants have lower strength and higher elongation than adhesives do; when sealants are used between substrates having different thermal coefficients of expansion or differing elongation under stress, they need to have adequate flexibility and elongation. Sealants contain inert filler material and are formulated with an elastomer to give the required flexibility and elongation, they have a paste consistency to allow filling of gaps between substrates. Low shrinkage after application is required.

Many adhesive technologies can be formulated into sealants

John Blocki was one of America's pioneer perfumers. His perfumes and cosmetics were sold and his unique presentation earned him a U. S. patent for perfumery packaging. He was well-known in the trade for his leadership and commitment to the advancement of the American perfume industry. John Blocki was born on a feudal estate near Königsberg, Prussia in 1845, his parents were Friedrich Wilhelm Blocki, a Prussian and Polish noble, Emma of Pomerania. In 1850, the Friedrich Blockis with their six sons, two daughters, tutor and several servants left the turbulence in Prussia for America; the voyage took six weeks and ended in a shipwreck off the shore of Sheboygan, Wisconsin where the family decided to settle. The only item salvaged from the shipwreck was a piano, it was the first piano in the state and people would come from miles around to hear Emma Blocki play on Sundays. Blocki was educated in the public and private schools in Wisconsin and afterwards moved to Chicago where he lived the rest of his life.

He married an English woman, Emma Leadbeater, in 1867. They had Frederick William and Jeanette. In 1859 when he was fourteen years old, Blocki apprenticed as a chemist with pharmacist F. A. Wheeler in Sheboygan. Blocki's older brother, had moved to Chicago to begin his pharmacy career as a clerk for Edwin Oscar Gale. William Blocki became a full partner in the business which changed its name to Gale & Blocki and grew to several stores including a prime location in the historic Palmer House Hotel. Blocki moved to Chicago in 1862 and joined the drug firm of Fuller and Fuller. On August 12, 1865, at the age of twenty, Blocki established his own retail and wholesale drug firm known as Blocki, Dietzsche & Co; the firm specialized in high quality chemicals, perfumes and essential oils. The business was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 but reopened at a new location in one of the few surviving business buildings in the city. Having accomplished himself as a chemist, Blocki sharpened his business skills by calling on large retailers in a wholesale capacity.

From 1885 to 1895 he was appointed to represent the old New York house of Lehn & Fink in Chicago and vicinity. This endeavor was a success and Blocki became known as one of the best wholesale druggists in the country for his unusually strong ability to memorize market quotations. Early in his career, Blocki began to specialize in perfumes and toilet waters, he gained a local reputation in Chicago for the excellence of his fragrance creations and opened a shop on Michigan Avenue for the exclusive sale of perfumery. The perfume shop was connected to his laboratory; this was the first and only retail perfume store in Chicago at the time and it had to be relocated to a larger space owing to its success. In 1895, Blocki and his son, dropped the drug and chemical aspects of the business and focused on creating and manufacturing perfumes and toiletries; the firm was named John Blocki & Son and it produced hundreds of fine perfumes and toiletries that were used by millions. They formulated and manufactured products under the Blocki name and for several other beauty brands, including the Franco American Hygienic Co.

The father-son partnership met an untimely and unexpected end in 1919 when Frederick Blocki died of pneumonia due to the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. In addition to being a trained chemist and perfumer like his father, Frederick was a politician having served as Commissioner of Public Works and City Treasurer during Chicago's formative years, he was well respected for his management of city finances and for actions such as lending the city money from his own account to pay police and firemen before Christmas. Fred Blocki supervised some of the city's great public improvements, including construction of the first fixed trunnion bascule bridge in the United States, the Cortland Street Drawbridge. After Frederick Blocki's death, the firm was renamed John Blocki, Inc. and it continued to produce perfumes and toiletries for many years. Blocki died on May 7, 1934, at the age of eighty eight having been active in his business up to the end, he is buried in a family memorial room in the mausoleum at Rosehill Cemetery.

Blocki's daughter, Jeannette Peterson, operated the perfume company after his death but soon sold it to the Winter Group who closed the business. Blocki was an active advocate for the pharmaceutical industry and the burgeoning American perfume industry, he was a charter member and from 1909-1910 served as first vice president of the Manufacturing Perfumers' Association in New York. He was a founding member and permanent corresponding secretary of the Chicago Veteran Druggists Association and the first president of the Perfumery and Extract Makers' Association of Chicago. In the early 1900s, American perfumes began to increase in value and Blocki attributed this increase to progress made in the art by American perfumers. Well trained chemists were essential to this progress and Blocki was an early supporter of the UIC College of Pharmacy being an active member since 1867, he donated several perfumery trade items to the school's pharmaceutical museum: a musk pod, two containers of East Indian buffalo horn packed with civet as well as an essay on the use of musk and civet in perfume, a small model of a copper still like the type used to distill rose oil in the Kazanlak district of Bulgaria.

The copper still had been part of a perfumer exhibit at the

Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, 531 U. S. 533, is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the constitutionality of funding restrictions imposed by the United States Congress. At issue were restrictions on the Legal Services Corporation, a private, non-profit corporation established by Congress; the restrictions prohibited LSC attorneys from representing clients attempting to amend existing welfare law. The case was brought by Carmen Velazquez, whose LSC-funded attorneys sought to challenge existing welfare provisions, believing it was the only way to get Velazquez financial relief; the Court ruled that this specific restriction violated the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because LSC facilitated "private" speech—that of its grantees—the restrictions did not regulate government speech; because the restrictions blocked attempts to change only a specific area of law, the Court held, they could not be considered viewpoint-neutral.

Reactions to the decision were mixed within Congress, with Republicans and Democrats disagreeing on the propriety of the decision. Several law review articles argued that the use of a "distortion principle" to decide violations of free speech was an unreasonable and unconstitutional rule whose conditions on funding might "distort" speech advocacy; the first major test of the federal government's power over funding restrictions based on speech was the 1991 case Rust v. Sullivan. In Rust, the Supreme Court upheld a restriction on the use of Department of Health and Human Services funds for counseling, referring patients to, or advocating the use of abortion services; the Court reasoned that the restriction at issue "merely to fund one activity to the exclusion of the other." Here, the government was using private speakers to transmit information pertaining to the government's own program. Six years the Court reviewed another restriction, this time concerning funding restrictions imposed by a public university.

In the 1997 case Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, a government supported university sought to withhold funds from religious student publications despite funding similar secular publications. While the Court said the government could seek to shape funding to support a government message, such restrictive steps could not be imposed to the exclusion of a particular viewpoint. In 1974 the United States Congress passed the Legal Services Corporation Act, which established the LSC; the purpose of the act was to provide government-funded legal aid to indigent clients, funded through grants to regional entities throughout the country. In 1996 Congress amended the act with that year's appropriations bill, imposing restrictions on the LSC; these restrictions included prohibitions against filing class action lawsuits, providing legal assistance to immigrants in particular types of cases, collecting attorney's fees, soliciting clients, providing advocacy training programs and attempting to reform welfare laws.

The restrictions affected only a small portion of the caseload. The restrictions prohibited funding cases:... initiating legal representation or participating in any other way, in litigation, lobbying, or rulemaking, involving an effort to reform a Federal or State welfare system, except that this paragraph shall not be construed to preclude a recipient from representing an individual eligible client, seeking specific relief from a welfare agency if such relief does not involve an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing welfare law in effect on the date of the initiation of the representation. In 1997, Carmen Velazquez lost welfare benefits from the government under the provisions of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act. An attorney from an LSC grantee, Bronx Legal Services, litigated her claim. Bronx Legal Services, on behalf of Velazquez, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York seeking a declaration that the provision of the act prohibiting challenges to existing welfare law was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

It argued that there was no way to help Velazquez without challenging the welfare system itself, sought to challenge the provisions of TANF under which Velazquez lost her benefits. The district court denied an injunction; the court's decision was affirmed in part and reversed in part by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit unanimously held that the welfare-advocacy restriction was unconstitutional, but upheld other restrictions that Bronx Legal Services had challenged by a 2–1 vote; the Second Circuit rejected the claim that any funding conditions would be illegitimate, instead preferring a restriction-by-restriction analysis. The national LSC asked the Supreme Court for review by petitioning for a writ of certiorari, arguing that the Second Circuit was wrong in striking down the welfare-advocacy restriction; the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on October 4, 2000, issuing its decision four months later. The Court affirmed the decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, holding that the restriction on pursuing welfare advocacy was unconstitutional under the First Amendment by a vote of 5–4.

Justice Kennedy delivered the majority opinion. It distinguished a 1991 Supreme Court case, Rust v. Sullivan, which upheld a prohibition on federally funded family planning services from discussing abortion with their patients; the majority reasoned that in Rust the government was attempting to use its funds to express

Sir George Alexander Drummond, was a Scottish-Canadian businessman and senator. Born in 1829 at Edinburgh, he was a younger son of the entrepreneurial stonemason, building contractor and city councillor, George Drummond, by his wife Margaret Pringle. Drummond studied chemistry at Edinburgh University before coming to Montreal in 1854 to work for his brother-in-law, John Redpath, at Redpath Sugar, he married John Redpath's daughter, becoming a co-director of the family business with Peter Redpath, John's son. After the death of his first wife in 1884, he re-married Grace Parker, widow of the Rev. George Hamilton. Lady Drummond served as the first president of the Montreal National Council of Women of Canada, as well as President and co-founding member of the Women's Canadian Club, she is most famously known for her work with the Red Cross. In 1888, he was summoned to the Senate of Canada, representing the senatorial division of Kennebec, Quebec, he served until his death in 1910. From 1887 to 1896, he was a vice-president at the Bank of Montreal and served as its president, first as the de facto president from 1897 and starting in 1905.

He helped found the St. Margaret's Home for Incurables in 1894, purchasing the house, built for Sir William Collis Meredith; as a member of the Citizen's League, he sought to improve life in Montreal, he served as president of the Royal Edward Institute, a dispensary for the prevention of tuberculosis, founded in 1909 by Jeffrey Hale Burland. His recreations were mirrored in other positions he held, including as the first president of the Royal Canadian Golf Association and president of the Art Association of Montreal, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1904 and a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1908. He and his wife built a house on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal's Golden Square Mile, they kept a summer home at Cacouna and an estate, now known as Beaconsfield, where they raised pure-breds and kept a private golf course for their friends. He is buried in Mount Royal Cemetery. Drummond's crypt in Mount Royal Cemetery "George Alexander Drummond".

Dictionary of Canadian Biography. University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016. George Alexander Drummond – Parliament of Canada biography Photograph:George A. Drummond, 1874 - McCord Museum Photograph:George A. Drummond, 1891 - McCord Museum Photograph:Senator Sir George Drummond, 1900 - McCord Museum Photograph:George Drummond's House on Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, 1891 - McCord Museum Photograph:George Drummond's House on Sherbrooke Street, circa 1890 - McCord Museum

The Nishi-Nippon Railroad Co. Ltd. called Nishitetsu or NNR, TYO: 9031 is one of Japan's "Big 16" private railroad companies. With headquarters in Fukuoka, it operates local and highway buses, real estate and travel agencies, as well as railways in Fukuoka Prefecture. NNR Operates in Logistics, supplychain solutions and distribution globally with presence over many countries. In addition, in 1943 the company owned the Nishitetsu Baseball Club, a team in the Japanese Baseball League. From 1950 to 1972, the company owned a Pacific League baseball team; the company introduced nimoca, a smart card ticketing system, in May 2008. Nishi-Nippon Railroad operates four railway lines: Tenjin Ōmuta Line - linking Nishitetsu Fukuoka Station in Chūō-ku, Fukuoka and Ōmuta Station in Ōmuta Dazaifu Line - linking Nishitetsu Futsukaichi Station in Chikushino and Dazaifu Station in Dazaifu Amagi Line - linking Miyanojin Station in Kurume and Amagi Station in Amagi, passing through Tachiarai Kaizuka Line - linking Kaizuka Station in Higashi-ku, Fukuoka and Nishitetsu Shingū Station in Shingū Major local bus routes extend to Kitakyushu and serve other municipalities in the prefecture.

Long-haul routes carry traffic to other prefectures in Kyushu, across the Kanmon Straits to Shimonoseki, serve Osaka and Shinjuku in Tokyo. In 2015 Nishitetsu along with Hankyu Hanshin Holdings and a Vietnamese real estate company set up a joint venture to develop condominiums in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City. Rail transport in Japan Official website Train & bus schedules

State Highway 17A is a 3.10-mile long long state highway in south-central Oklahoma. It connects Interstate 35 to U. S. Route 77 near Wynnewood, it does not connect to its implied parent, State Highway 17. SH-17A was established around 1982, has always had the same route. SH-17A begins at I-35 exit 64, a diamond interchange, in unincorporated Garvin County west-southwest of Wynnewood; the highway continues due east from this interchange. SH-17A crosses the Washita River midway through its route. East of the Washita River bridge, the road runs along the Garvin–Murray county line—land north of the highway belongs to Garvin County, while land south of the highway falls into Murray County; the route ends at an intersection with US-77 south of Wynnewood. SH-17A first appeared on the 1983 official state map; the highway's route was identical to the present-day route. SH-17A at OKHighways SH-17A at Roadklahoma