Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, the Earthsea fantasy series. She was first published in 1959, her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, yielding more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has been called a "major voice in American Letters", herself said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, to author Theodora Kroeber and anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber. Having earned a master's degree in French, Le Guin began doctoral studies but abandoned these after her marriage in 1953 to historian Charles Le Guin, she began writing full-time in the late 1950s and achieved major critical and commercial success with A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness, which have been described by Harold Bloom as her masterpieces.

For the latter volume, Le Guin won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, becoming the first woman to do so. Several more works set in Earthsea or the Hainish universe followed. Cultural anthropology, Taoism and the writings of Carl Jung all had a strong influence on Le Guin's work. Many of her stories used anthropologists or cultural observers as protagonists, Taoist ideas about balance and equilibrium have been identified in several writings. Le Guin subverted typical speculative fiction tropes, such as through her use of dark-skinned protagonists in Earthsea, used unusual stylistic or structural devices in books such as the experimental work Always Coming Home. Social and political themes, including gender and coming of age were prominent in her writing, she explored alternative political structures in many stories, such as in the parable "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and the utopian novel The Dispossessed. Le Guin's writing was enormously influential in the field of speculative fiction, has been the subject of intense critical attention.

She received numerous accolades, including eight Hugos, six Nebulas, twenty-two Locus Awards, in 2003 became the second woman honored as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The U. S. Library of Congress named her a Living Legend in 2000, in 2014, she won the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin influenced many other authors, including Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell, Neil Gaiman, Iain Banks. After her death in 2018, critic John Clute wrote that Le Guin had "presided over American science fiction for nearly half a century", while author Michael Chabon referred to her as the "greatest American writer of her generation". Ursula K. Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California, on October 21, 1929, her father, Alfred Louis Kroeber, was an anthropologist at the University of Berkeley. Le Guin's mother, Theodora Kroeber, had a graduate degree in psychology, but turned to writing in her sixties, developing a successful career as an author who wrote Ishi in Two Worlds, a biographical volume about Ishi, an indigenous American who became the last known member of the Yahi tribe after the rest of its members were killed by white settlers.

Ursula had three older brothers: Karl, who became a literary scholar and Clifton. The family had a large book collection, the siblings all became interested in reading while they were young; the Kroeber family had a number of visitors, including well-known academics such as Robert Oppenheimer. The family divided its time between a summer home in the Napa valley, a house in Berkeley during the academic year. Le Guin's reading included science fiction and fantasy: she and her siblings read issues of Thrilling Wonder Stories and Astounding Science Fiction, she was fond of myths and legends Norse mythology, of Native American legends that her father would narrate. Other authors she enjoyed were Lewis Padgett. Le Guin developed an early interest in writing; the piece was rejected, she did not submit anything else for another ten years. Le Guin attended Berkeley High School, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Renaissance French and Italian literature from Radcliffe College in 1951, graduated as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

As a child she had been interested in biology and poetry, but had been limited in her choice of career by her difficulties with mathematics. Le Guin undertook graduate studies at Columbia University, earned a Master of Arts degree in French in 1952. Soon after, she began working towards a PhD, won a Fulbright grant to continue her studies in France from 1953 to 1954. In 1953, while traveling to France aboard the Queen Mary, Ursula met historian Charles Le Guin, they married in Paris in December 1953. According to Le Guin, the marriage signaled the "end of the doctorate" for her. While her husband finished his doctorate at Emory University in Georgia, at the University of Idaho, Le Guin taught French and worked as a secretary until the birth of her daughter Elisabeth in 1957. A second daughter, was born in 1959. In that year, Charles became an instructor in

Johann Jakob Dorner the Elder, born at Ehrenstetten, near Freiburg in Breisgau, was a painter of historical and genre subjects. He was at first a pupil of Rösch of Ignaz Bauer at Augsburg, he afterwards visited Italy, the Netherlands, Paris. He was a professor and director of the Gallery at Munich in 1770, died in that city in 1813. In the Darmstadt Gallery is a Maiden by him; the amateur Amalia von Schattenhofer was a pupil of Dorner. His son became a painter. List of German painters This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael. "Dorner, Johann Jakob, the elder". In Graves, Robert Edmund. Bryan's Dictionary of Engravers. I. London: George Bell & Sons

The Stefan–Boltzmann constant, a physical constant denoted by the Greek letter σ, is the constant of proportionality in the Stefan–Boltzmann law: "the total intensity radiated over all wavelengths increases as the temperature increases", of a black body, proportional to the fourth power of the thermodynamic temperature. The theory of thermal radiation lays down the theory of quantum mechanics, by using physics to relate to molecular and sub-atomic levels. Slovenian physicist Josef Stefan formulated the constant in 1879, it was derived in 1884 by Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann; the equation can be derived from Planck's law, by integrating over all wavelengths at a given temperature, which will represent a small flat black body box. "The amount of thermal radiation emitted increases and the principal frequency of the radiation becomes higher with increasing temperatures". The Stefan–Boltzmann constant can be used to measure the amount of heat, emitted by a blackbody, which absorbs all of the radiant energy that hits it, will emit all the radiant energy.

Furthermore, the Stefan–Boltzmann constant allows for temperature to be converted to units for intensity, power per unit area. The value of the Stefan–Boltzmann constant is given in SI units by σ = 5.670374419...×10−8 W⋅m−2⋅K−4. In cgs units the Stefan–Boltzmann constant is: σ ≈ 5.6704×10−5 erg⋅cm−2⋅s−1⋅K−4. In thermochemistry the Stefan–Boltzmann constant is expressed in cal⋅cm−2⋅day−1⋅K−4: σ ≈ 11.7×10−8 cal cm−2⋅day−1⋅K−4. In US customary units the Stefan–Boltzmann constant is: σ ≈ 1.714×10−9 BTU⋅hr−1⋅ft−2⋅°R−4. The value of the Stefan–Boltzmann constant is derivable as well as experimentally determinable, it can be defined in terms of the Boltzmann constant as σ = 2 π 5 k B 4 15 h 3 c 2 = π 2 k B 4 60 ℏ 3 c 2 = 5.670 374 419... × 10 − 8 J ⋅ m − 2 ⋅ s − 1 ⋅ K − 4, where: kB is the Boltzmann constant h is the Planck constant ħ is the reduced Planck constant c is the speed of light in vacuum. The CODATA recommended value prior to 20 May 2019 was calculated from the measured value of the gas constant: σ = 2 π 5 R 4 15 h 3 c 2 N A 4 = 32 π 5 h R 4 R ∞ 4 15 A r 4 M u 4 c 6 α 8, where: R is the universal gas constant NA is the Avogadro constant R∞ is the Rydberg constant Ar is the "relative atomic mass" of the electron Mu is the molar mass constant α is the fine-structure constant.

Dimensional formula: M1T−3Θ−4A related constant is the radiation constant a, given by: a = 4 σ c = 7.5657 × 10 − 15 erg ⋅ cm − 3 ⋅ K − 4 = 7.5657 × 10 − 16 J ⋅ m − 3 ⋅ K − 4. Media related to Stefan–Boltzmann constant at Wikimedia Commons

The 2012 Summit League Men's Basketball Tournament was the 2012 post-season tournament for The Summit League, an NCAA Division I athletic conference. The tournament took place March 3 -- 2012 at the Sioux Falls Arena in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. South Dakota State received an automatic bid to the 2012 NCAA Tournament; this was the final Summit League tournament for Southern Utah, which joined the Big Sky Conference for the 2012–13 basketball season. Meanwhile, Oral Roberts joined the Southland Conference in 2012-13 but returned to the Summit in 2014-15. Out of the league's 10 teams, the top eight in the standings qualified for the conference tournament. Teams were seeded by conference record, with the following tiebreakers used if necessary: Head-to-head competition Comparison of each tied team's record against the team occupying the highest position in the standings continuing down through the standings until a team gains an advantage; when arriving at another group of tied teams while comparing records, use each team's record against the collective tied teams as a group rather than the performance against individual tied teams.

If a tie still cannot be broken after applying criteria, and, it will be broken by comparing each tied team's RPI. The following criteria was applied to break ties between more than two teams: Head-to-head Each tied team's record shall be compared to the team or group occupying the highest position in the standings continuing down through the standings until a team gains an advantage

The 2014 Big West Conference Women's Basketball Tournament will take place March 11–15, 2014. The first two rounds will take place at Walter Pyramid while the semifinals and championship will be at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California; the winner of the tournament will receive the conference's automatic bid to the 2014 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament. The top eight teams will qualify for the 2014 Big West Tournament. Seeds 1 & 2 receive a double-bye while seeds 4 receive a single bye; the first round features 5 vs. 8 and 6 vs. 7. The lowest remaining seed moves on to play seed 3 in the quarterfinals while the other winner moves on to play seed 4 in the quarterfinals; the lowest remaining seed from the quarterfinals moves on to play seed 1 in the semifinals while the other remaining seed plays seed 2 in the semifinals. Big West Conference Women's Basketball Tournament Big West Women's Basketball Tournament website

Matt Bondurant, born in 1971, is an American novelist. Among his works are the books The Third Translation, The Wettest County in the World and The Night Swimmer. Bondurant was born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia near Washington, DC, his family's ancestral home was in Virginia. He graduated with a B. A. and M. A. in English from James Madison University, where he was a member of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. Matt Bondurant’s latest novel The Night Swimmer was published by Scribner in 2012, was featured in the New York Times Book Review, Outside Magazine, The Daily Beast, among others, his second novel The Wettest County in the World is an international bestseller, a New York Times Editor’s Pick, a San Francisco Chronicle Best 50 Books of the Year, was made into a feature film by Director John Hillcoat, starring Shia Labeouf, Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce. His first novel The Third Translation is an international bestseller, translated into 14 languages worldwide.

He has published short stories in such journals as Glimmer Train, The New England Review, Prairie Schooner, others. Bondurant is the Creative Director of the Longleaf Writers Conference, held each May in the town of Seaside, Florida. Matt founded the conference in 2013 with the poet and fiction writer Seth Brady Tucker and Florida educator Jonathan D'Avingnon. In 2018 they founded Longleaf Educational Services, a 501-3c non-profit organization which provides creative educational experiences for underserved schools in the Florida panhandle. Bondurant has written feature articles and reviews for Outside Magazine and the Huffington Post, among other magazines and newspapers. Specializing in adventure and endurance events, he’s published articles in Texas Monthly magazine about competing in the Texas Water Safari - "The World's Toughest Canoe Race” and in participating in Ned Denison’s English Channel Swim Training Camp in Ireland, the “most brutal, the most unforgiving, the most downright dastardly difficult open water swimming camp in the world” for Outside Magazine.

He has published poems in The Notre Dame Review and Ninth Letter, among others, his poetry is featured in Imaginative Writing, the most adopted creative writing text in the world. His most recent non-fiction piece, “The Real Thing” was selected for the 2017 Best Food Writing anthology. Bondurant has sold three original screenplays and in 2013 he secured a development deal with HBO/Cinemax to write and executive produce an original one-hour dramatic series, he is developing a drama series for Warner Brothers Television based on his latest novel-in-progress. A former John Gardner Fellow in Fiction at Bread Loaf, Kingsbury Fellow at Florida State, Walter E. Dakin Fellow at Sewanee, Matt has held residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, he has appeared on various media outlets in support of his work including NPR, Radio France, The Discovery Channel, MSNBC. In the past Matt worked for the Associated Press National Broadcast Office in Washington DC, as an on-air announcer and producer at a local NPR station in Virginia, as a Steward at the British Museum in London, England.

He taught literature and creative writing at George Mason University in Virginia, SUNY Plattsburgh, University of Texas at Dallas. Bondurant teaches at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS; the Third Translation The Wettest County in the World The Night Swimmer In 2009, director John Hillcoat was developing a film of the same name based on Bondurant's novel, with a script by Nick Cave, starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Jessica Chastain. The project was shut down in January 2010 due to financing problems. An independent studio called Annapurna Pictures revived the project that year and began filming in late February 2011. Starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain. In March 2012, the title was changed to Lawless; the film was released in the U. S. in late August 2012. Bondurant was inspired by family stories to make Franklin County the setting of his Prohibition-era historical novel, The Wettest County in the World, his grandfather, Jack Bondurant, two granduncles ran a massive moonshining operation in the mountains of southwest Virginia.

Reviewing the novel for Entertainment Weekly, Jennifer Reese said it was "somber, engrossing", that Bondurant was "wonderful at evoking historical atmosphere," including "drunken gatherings that explode into shattering violence." She thought the pace slow in parts. Official website