Ur was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in south Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate. Although Ur was once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, the coastline has shifted and the city is now well inland, on the south bank of the Euphrates, 16 kilometres from Nasiriyah in modern-day Iraq; the city dates from the Ubaid period circa 3800 BC, is recorded in written history as a city-state from the 26th century BC, its first recorded king being Mesannepada. The city's patron deity was Nanna, the Sumerian and Akkadian moon god, the name of the city is in origin derived from the god's name. UNUGKI "the abode of Nanna"; the site is marked by the restored ruins of the Ziggurat of Ur, which contained the shrine of Nanna, excavated in the 1930s. The temple was built in the 21st century BC, during the reign of Ur-Nammu and was reconstructed in the 6th century BC by Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon; the ruins cover an area of 1,200 metres northwest to southeast by 800 metres northeast to southwest and rise up to about 20 metres above the present plain level.

The city, said to have been planned by Ur-Nammu, was divided into neighborhoods, with merchants living in one quarter, artisans in another. There were streets both wide and narrow, open spaces for gatherings. Many structures for water resource management and flood control are in evidence. Houses were constructed from mudbricks and mud plaster. In major buildings, the masonry was strengthened with bitumen and reeds. For the most part, foundations are all. People were buried in chambers or shafts beneath the house floors. Ur was surrounded by sloping ramparts 8 metres high and about 25 metres wide, bordered in some places by a brick wall. Elsewhere, buildings were integrated into the ramparts; the Euphrates river complemented these fortifications on the city's western side. Archaeological discoveries have shown unequivocally that Ur was a major Sumero-Akkadian urban center on the Mesopotamian plain; the discovery of the Royal Tombs has confirmed its splendour. These tombs, which date to the Early Dynastic IIIa period, contained immense amounts of luxury items made out of precious metals, semi-precious stones, all of which would have required importation from long distances.

This wealth, unparalleled up to is a testimony of Ur's economic importance during the Early Bronze Age. Archaeological research of the region has contributed to our understanding of the landscape and long-distance interactions that took place during these ancient times. Ur was a major port on the Persian Gulf, which extended much further inland than it does today, controlled much of the trade into Mesopotamia. Imports to Ur came from many parts of the world; the imported objects include precious metals such as gold and silver, semi-precious stones, namely lapis lazuli and carnelian. It is thought that Ur had a stratified social system including slaves, artisans, doctors and priests. High-ranking priests enjoyed great luxury and lived in mansions. Tens of thousands of cuneiform texts, including contracts, business records, court documents, record the city's complex economic and legal systems; these texts have been recovered from temples, the palace, individual houses. Ur derives from a word meaning "to give light, shine."

Excavation in the old city of Ur in 1929 revealed lyres, instruments similar to the modern harp but in the shape of a bull and with eleven strings. When Ur was founded, the Persian Gulf's water level was two-and-a-half metres higher than it is today. Ur is therefore thought to have had marshy surroundings. Fish, birds and reeds might have supported Ur economically without the need for an agricultural revolution sometimes hypothesized as a prerequisite to urbanization. Archaeologists have discovered the evidence of an early occupation at Ur during the Ubaid period; these early levels were sealed off with a sterile deposit of soil, interpreted by excavators of the 1920s as evidence for the Great Flood of the Book of Genesis and Epic of Gilgamesh. It is now understood that the South Mesopotamian plain was exposed to regular floods from the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, with heavy erosion from water and wind, which may have given rise to the Mesopotamian and derivative Biblical Great Flood stories.

The further occupation of Ur only becomes clear during its emergence in the third millennium BC. As other Sumerians, the new settlers of Ur were a non-Semitic people who may have come from the east circa 3300 BCE, spoke a language isolate, but during the 3rd millennium BC, a close cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the East-Semitic Akkadians, which gave rise to widespread bilingualism. The reciprocal influence of the Sumerian language and the Akkadian language is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic and phonological convergence; this has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund. The third millennium BC is described as the Early Bronze Age of Mesopotamia, which ends after the demise of the Third Dynasty of U

National Federation of Advanced Information Services is a United States non-profit institutional membership organization of content and technology providers those that support the authoritative information needs and activities of professionals across a spectrum of scholarly disciplines and fields of research. The organization provides analysis, news alerts and educational services to its more than sixty members. On July 1, 2019, NFAIS merged with the National Information Standards Organization and ceased independent operations. In 1957, the former Soviet Union launched the world’s first spacecraft, Sputnik; this event generated a wave of intense competition in science and technology in the industrialized nations, but one of the rationales offered publicly to Western politicians at the time was that the Soviets had leapt ahead in the space race because they had a more unified and orderly approach to the organization and dissemination of scientific knowledge. More it was believed that science and technology had won World War II and that science and technology would maintain the peace.

Therefore, one specific area of attention was enhanced dissemination of the scientific literature to maximize awareness of research and investigation undertaken. At this time, such activities were documented through the scientific journal and through abstracting and indexing services. In 1958, U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower directed the National Science Foundation to ensure the provision of indexing, abstracting and other information retrieval services as a way of ensuring a constant flow of high-quality information to those working in scientific research facilities; as the United States mobilized to create a new information infrastructure for the promotion of scientific innovation, G. Miles Conrad, Director of Biological Abstracts, called an urgent meeting of fourteen leading not-for-profit and government scientific abstracting and indexing services; such services play a major role in managing the flow of scientific and scholarly communication and have done so since 1665 with the launch of Journal des Scavans.

The attending representatives agreed to a model for information dissemination that drew upon the strengths of both scholarly associations of scientists and researchers and government agencies. By working collaboratively, their efforts would support national scientific initiatives as well as promote the international advancement of science. In 1958, convinced of the value of mutual interaction and the interchange of ideas and expertise, a new organization–the National Federation of Science Abstracting and Indexing Services –was formed; the organization in its earliest years provided reliable statistical information on journal publication activities, on overlap of information services, cost data, the status of scientific information dissemination in other countries. The Federation expanded its scope in 1972 to encompass information producers outside of the scientific and technology sector and dropped science from its name, becoming the National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services.

Eligibility for membership was widened in 1981 to include the private for-profit sector. The Federation expanded its scope further into the information community in 1982 and changed its name to National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services. Reflecting the advancement of technology and the emergence of the Internet, as well as the changing nature of how research information is collected and archived, the name of the organization became the National Federation of Advanced Information Services in 2007; the most current listing of the membership may be found at: http://www.nfais.org/members/list_of_members.cfm NFAIS, as an organization, continues its contribution to the information community by: Facilitating the exchange of information among NFAIS members Promoting NFAIS members and their essential role within the Information Community Encouraging discussion and cooperation across all Information Community sectors Sponsoring topical conferences and educational courses Publishing newsletters, current awareness alerts and reports Developing Codes of Practice, Guiding Principles and White Papers on Information Policy and New TechnologiesIts most prestigious award is the Miles Conrad Lecture given annually to “…an outstanding person on a suitable topic in the field of abstracting and indexing, but above the level of any individual service.”

The first lecture was given in 1968 by Robert W. Cairns, Chairman of the Committee on Scientific and Technical Communication of the National Academy of Sciences-National Academy of Engineering; the series has continued unbroken since that time to honor those who have made significant contributions to information science and who have been supporters of NFAIS. A full list of the Miles Conrad Lecture recipients is available. In 1983, NFAIS created the title of Honorary Fellow to recognize those who have made significant contributions to NFAIS and no longer work for a member organization; this honorary designation has been awarded every year since then. A full list of those so honored by NFAIS may be found on the NFAIS website:. A list of membership as of 2010 Access Innovations, Inc. Accessible Archives, Inc. American Economic Association American Geophysical Union American Institute of Physics American Mathematical Society American Psychological Association American Theological Library Association Annual Reviews Association Of Computing Machinery Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.

Informatics Division British Library British Standards Institution Cabi Publishing CAS Cengage Learning Content Data Solutions, Inc. Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. Data Conv

Linux Tour is an ongoing tour of Linux and FOSS related conferences and events held in major Nicaraguan Universities and schools. The first Linux Tour event was held in Managua, Nicaragua, in the Instituto de Estudios Superiores, on June 4, 2007; the first edition of the Linux Tour 2007 had a total of eight events in the cities of Managua and León. The Linux Tour was an initiative of the Nicaraguan Ubuntu LoCo Team. Today, all the major Nicaraguan LUGs are part of the LinuxTour.org organization, responsible for organizing other major events in Nicaragua, such as FLISOL, Document Freedom Day and the Software Freedom Day. This initiative was recognized by Linux Journal making reference to it in an article. In February 2009, the Linux Tour went international, with two events scheduled in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, Honduras; the Nicaraguan Linux Tour events inspired similar initiatives in the region, such as the Ubuntu Tour in Honduras, Café Libre in Guatemala and Pizza Bash, a more informal event, in Nicaragua.

Official website Photo album

Philmont Scout Ranch is a ranch located in Colfax County, New Mexico, near the village of Cimarron. Donated by oil baron Waite Phillips, the ranch is operated by the Boy Scouts of America, it is a National High Adventure Base where crews of Scouts and Venturers take part in backpacking treks and other outdoor activities. By land area, it is one of the largest youth camps in the world. During the season, between June 8 and August 22, an estimated 22,000 Scouts and adult leaders backpack through the Ranch's extensive backcountry. More than 1,130 seasonal staff are responsible for the Ranch's summer operations. Philmont is home to the Philmont Training Center, the National Scouting Museum and the Seton Memorial Library; the Training Center is the primary location for BSA's national volunteer training programs. Philmont is a working ranch, maintaining small herds of cattle, horses and bison; the only documented Tyrannosaurus rex track in the world was discovered within the camp's boundaries in 1993 in North Ponil Canyon by the Anasazi Trail Camp.

It was formally identified in 1994. There are three other high adventure camps that the BSA owns and maintains: the Northern Tier National High Adventure Bases in Minnesota, as well as Manitoba and Ontario in Canada. Philmont is located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico; the closest village is New Mexico. The address of the ranch is given as 17 Deer Run Rd. Cimarron, New Mexico, 87714, it is about 20 miles west-northwest of Springer, New Mexico, 35 miles southwest of Raton, New Mexico. Philmont is about 12 miles across at its widest point, about 30 miles long. There are no mountains to the south or east of Philmont; the interior of the ranch is mountainous but a small part of the eastern area is prairie. Philmont's lowest point is the southeast corner at 6,500 feet and the highest point is the peak of Baldy Mountain, located on the ranch's northwest boundary, at 12,441 feet. Aside from Baldy, the ranch contains a number of prominent peaks; the South Country is home to a series of six difficult peaks, namely Mount Phillips, Comanche Peak, Big Red, Bear Mountain, Black Mountain, Schaefers Peak, as well as Trail Peak, popular for its nearness to Beaubien, the wreckage of the crash of a B-24 bomber in 1942 near its summit.

Of the ranch's various peaks with trail access, Black Mountain is considered the most difficult, followed by Baldy and Big Red. The most recognizable landmark is the Tooth of Time at 9,003 feet, a granite monolith protruding 500 feet vertically from an east-west ridge. Tooth of Time Ridge, the latitude line on which it sits, marks the boundary between the central and southern sections of Philmont; the boundary between the central and northern sections is around U. S. Route 64, which runs just south of the narrowest part of the'I'-shape, only a few miles across. Other prominent landmarks on the ranch include Grizzly Tooth, Window Rock, Deer Lake Mesa, Wilson's Mesa and Urraca Mesa. Native Americans of the Jicarilla Apache tribe and Ute tribe once inhabited Philmont. A few Native American archaeological sites exist in the northern section nearby the'Indian Writings' camp, various camps seek to preserve Philmont's Native American heritage. On April 22, 1942, a B-24 Liberator crashed into the side of Trail Peak.

Waite Philips led a rescue crew up. Among the casualties was Eagle Scout Roland L. Jeffries and Star Scout Charles O. Reynard, Jr; some of the wreckage still remains, including a wing and propeller, because of its location, it is the world's most visited airplane crash site. The Santa Fe Trail crossed the plains just southwest of Philmont in the mid-1800s; the Tooth of Time owes its name to this trail. Philmont's strategic location along the trail spurred some interest in it. In 1841, Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda obtained a large land grant from the Mexican government, including the present ranch. Soon the grant fell into the hands of Beaubien's son-in-law Lucien Maxwell, who played an important role in developing and settling it. Maxwell sold the ranch to the Maxwell Land Grant and Railroad Company, which gave up and handed it on to a Dutch development company, which decided to parcel it out to ranchers. One of the most prominent ranchers was Jesus Gil Abreu, who ran the Abreu Rayado Ranch from the 1870s to his death in 1901.

Operating from the Rayado Settlement, he raised cattle and sheep and grew crops. The family owned this property until 1911. One of the sons remained on the ranch near the site of Abreu, a present staffed camp, his homestead was preserved for years; the building was made of adobe, was abandoned and collapsed. The foundation of this building now serves as the foundation for the Abreu cantina; the house was reconstructed in 1998 about 100 feet uphill. The history of mining at Philmont dates back to the years after the Civil War. U. S. soldiers were stationed in the West after the war, as the U. S. Army was driving out the American Indians; the story is. The shiny material in the rock was found to be copper. According to the story, the soldier and two of his friends went up to investigate, found gold

Glenariff or Glenariffe is a valley in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is one of the Glens of Antrim. Like other glens in that area, it was shaped during the Ice Age by giant glaciers, it is sometimes called the'Queen of the Glens', is the biggest and most touristed of the Glens of Antrim. The village of Waterfoot lies on the coast at the foot of the glen. A popular tourist destination is the Glenariff Forest Park with its trails through the trees and alongside waterfalls. Culture Northern Ireland "A Glimpse at Glenariffe" - Book ISBN 0-948154-61-6 by Robert Sharpe and Charles McAllister traces the history of the glen using maps, 17th century hearth rolls and school records

Cairns School of Arts is a heritage-listed former school of arts and now the Cairns Museum at 93-105 Lake Street, Cairns City, Cairns Region, Australia. It was built from 1907 to 1941 by Hanson & Sons, it was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. The Cairns Museum is a local history museum operated by the Cairns Historical Society; this two-storeyed concrete building was erected in 1907 as new premises for the Cairns School of Arts, replacing an earlier adjacent building in Shields Street. Schools of Arts were synonymous with Mechanics' Institutes, established in Britain early in the 19th century, transplanted throughout the British Empire during the colonial era; the movement was instituted by George Birkbeck, who in 1800 established a class for journeymen mechanics in Glasgow, formed the first Mechanics' Institute in London in 1824. The purpose of forming such an institute was to improve the education of working men, to instruct them in various trades. By the late 19th century, Mechanics' Institutes had become popular agencies of adult education in general.

Mechanics' Institutes were part of a wider 19th century movement promoting popular education in Britain, at which time co-operative societies, working men's colleges and the university extension movement were established. The call for popular education in turn can be contextualised within the broader liberal, laissez-faire, non-interventionist philosophy which dominated British social and political ideologies in the 19th century. In this environment, Mechanics' Institutes flourished as a means by which working men might improve their lot, either through self-education, or by participating in instructional classes organised and funded by Institute members. In the Australian colonies, Mechanics' Institutes were more to be called Schools of Arts, they were more to be run by the middle-classes; the provision of reading rooms, museums and classes were still important, but the Australian schools were more to include a social programme in their calendar of events. A School of Arts was established in Cairns in October 1885, by which time funds were being raised for the erection of suitable meeting premises.

The School's first building, a single-storeyed timber structure, was erected in 1886 in Shields Street to the west of the present building. Prior to its opening in May that year, the School of Arts Committee had established a reading room in rented premises. During the second half of the 1880s the Cairns School of Arts flourished and a museum was established; the economic depression of the early 1890s, forced the School to close temporarily at the end of 1895, re-opening in 1897. In the early 1900s, Cairns Technical College classes were commenced at the School of Arts. By the early 1900s the School was in need of larger premises. On 8 December 1906, the Cairns School of Arts Bill was passed through the Queensland Parliament, empowering the Trustees to mortgage the School of Arts Reserve at Cairns to the value of £2500, for the purpose of erected a new building. A design competition was conducted for a new building, two-storeyed with upstairs accommodation for the School of Arts and the ground floor to be revenue-producing, the cost of, not to exceed £2000.

A design submitted by Arthur Beckford Polin was accepted, but rejected when tenders far exceeded the amount specified. The School of Arts Committee commissioned Melbourne and North Queensland architects Tunbridge and Lynch, who were Townsville-based but had a branch office in Cairns by 1907, to design a building to cost no more than the approved figure, their work in Cairns around this time included the Harbour Board Offices, the Central Hotel, the rebuilding of the Court House Hotel. Hanson & Sons won the subsequent School of Arts contract with a price of £2170, the new building was opened on 5 December 1907; the building incorporated an early used of reinforced concrete in Queensland, although not employed through the whole of the structure. The concrete walls of the ground floor were reinforced with 0.5-inch round steel rods, fused where they intersected at 12-inch intervals. The floors at ground level were poured without reinforcement, for the upper level walls, concrete was poured between timber formwork, without reinforcement.

The building has been subject to a number of alterations and extensions since 1907. A verandah and bathroom had been constructed upstairs at the rear by 1925, in 1929 the Shields Street verandah was enclosed with windows; the enclosing of part of the Lake Street verandah dates to this period as well. The first major extension was carried out in 1932; as early as 1925, the Committee was considering an extension of the building to accommodate more revenue-producing shops and offices. Plans were drawn by Committee member and architect SS Oxenham, but Cairns had a glut of vacant shops for rent, the concept was postponed until 1932, when the Committee commissioned Cairns architects Richard Hill & Arthur John Henry Taylor to prepare fresh plans, the verandahed facade was extended along Lake Street at a cost of £2500; the extension provided more shop space at increased library accommodation upstairs. At this time, a decorative parapet was superimposed on the 1907 building to match that of the 1932 building.

The ground floor shop fronts were modernised in R Hill preparing the plans. A second major extension to the building was carried out in 1939-40. Architects Hill & Taylor were again commissioned to extend the building