Valinor is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the realm of the Valar in Aman, it is located far to the west of Middle-earth. It was known as the Undying Lands, along with Tol Eressëa and the outliers of Aman; this latter name is somewhat misleading. However, only immortal beings were allowed to reside there. Exceptionally, the surviving bearers of the One Ring were allowed to dwell there for a time—Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee—and Gimli son of Glóin who, it is said, accompanied his friend Legolas to Valinor. In Tolkien's works Valinor is the home of the Valar, spirits that take humanoid form, sometimes called "gods" by the Men of Middle-earth. Other residents of Valinor include the related but less powerful spirits, the Maiar, most of the Eldar. Valinor lies in a continent on the west of Belegaer, the ocean to the west of Middle-earth. Ekkaia, the encircling sea, surrounds both Middle-earth. Valinor is located in the tropical and subtropical latitudes; the land has a warm climate though snow falls on the peaks of the Pelóri, the massive mountains that stand on Valinor's northern and southern borders.
Every animal and plant found elsewhere in Middle-earth exists in Valinor along with species endemic to Valinor. The size of Valinor is not specified in the text, Tolkien created no detailed maps of Aman; the maps of Karen Wynn Fonstad, based on Tolkien's rough sketch of Arda's landmasses and seas, show Valinor about 800 miles wide, west to east, about 3000 miles long north to south – similar in size to the United States. The entire continent of Aman runs from the Arctic latitudes of the Helcaraxë to the subarctic southern region of Middle-earth – about 7000 miles; each Vala has its own region of the land where it alters things as it pleases. The Mansions of Manwë and Varda, two of the most powerful spirits, stood upon Taniquetil, the highest mountain of the Pelóri. Yavanna, the Vala of Earth and Harvest, resided in the Pastures of Yavanna in the south of the land, west of the Pelóri. Near-by were the mansions of Yavanna's spouse, Aulë the Smith, who made the Dwarves. Oromë, the Vala of the Hunt, lived in the Woods of Oromë to the north-east of the pastures.
Nienna, the lonely Vala of Sorrow and Endurance, lived in the far west of the island where she spent her days crying about all the evil of the world, looking out to sea. Just south of Nienna's home, to the north of the pastures, were the Halls of Mandos. Mandos was the Vala of the After-life. Living in the Halls of Mandos was his spouse Vairë the weaver, who weaves the threads of time. To the east of the Halls of Mandos is the Isle of Estë, situated in the middle of the lake of Lórellin, which in turn lies to the north of the Gardens of Lórien. Estë and Lórien were married. In east-central Valinor at the Girdle of Arda is Valmar, the capital of Valinor, the residence of the Valar and the Maiar in the realm of Valinor; the first house of the Elves, the Vanyar, settled there as well. The mound of Ezellohar, on which stood the Two Trees, Máhanaxar, the Ring of Doom, are outside Valmar. Farther east is the Calacirya, the only easy pass through the Pelóri, a huge mountain range fencing Valinor on three sides, created to keep Morgoth's forces out.
In the pass is the city Tirion, built on a hill, the city of the Noldor Elves. In the northern inner foothills of the Pelóri, hundreds of miles north of Valmar was Fëanor's city of Formenos, built upon his banishment from Tirion. While Valinor proper is the part of Aman inside the Pelóri, some Elves resided in a part of Aman outside the Pelóri and sometimes called the "shore of Valinor". On the mainland north-east of Tirion is the Telerin Elves' harbour-city of Alqualondë. Directly east of the shore of Valinor is the isle of Tol Eressëa, where the Elves built the city of Avallónë and where the Teleri lived for centuries before moving to Valinor itself. In the extreme north-east, beyond the Pelóri, was the Helcaraxë, a vast ice sheet that joined the two continents of Aman and Middle-earth before the War of Wrath. To prevent anyone from reaching the main part of Valinor's east coast by sea, the Valar created the Shadowy Seas, within these seas they set a long chain of islands called the Enchanted Isles.
After the destruction of Númenor, the Undying Lands were removed from Arda so that Men could not reach them. The Elves could go there only by the Straight Road and in ships capable of passing out of the spheres of the earth. Valinor was established on the western continent Aman when Melkor destroyed the Valar's original home on the island Almaren in primeval Middle-earth. To defend their new home from attack, they raised the Pelóri Mountains, they established Valimar, the radiant Two Trees, their abiding places. Valinor was said to have surpassed Almaren in beauty; the Valar heard of the awakening of the Elves in Middle-earth, where Melkor was unopposed. They proposed to bring the Elves to the safety of Valinor. However, to get Elves to Valinor, they needed to get Melkor out of the way. A war was fought, Melkor's stronghold Utumno was destroyed. Many Elves came to Valinor, established their cities Tirion and Alqualondë, beginning Valinor's age of glory. There was a problem, however. Melkor had come back to Valinor as a prisoner, after three Ages was brought before the Valar and he sued for pardon, with a vow to assist the Valar and make amends for
A rifled musket, rifle musket, or rifle-musket is a type of firearm made in the mid-19th century. The term referred only to muskets, produced as a smoothbore weapon and had their barrels replaced with rifled barrels; the term included rifles that directly replaced, were of the same design overall as, a particular model of smoothbore musket. In the early 19th century, there were rifles, there were muskets. Muskets were smoothbore muzzle-loading weapons, firing round lead balls or buck and ball ammunition, that were designed to accept a bayonet. Rifles were similar in that they used the same kind of flintlock or caplock firing mechanism, but the main difference was that their barrels were rifled – that is, their barrels had grooves cut into the interior surface which would cause the bullet to spin as it left the barrel. Rifles have the advantage of long range accuracy, because spinning bullets have far flatter and more stable trajectories than balls fired from smoothbore muskets. Muskets had the advantage of a faster rate of fire.
A muzzle-loaded weapon required the bullet to fit snugly into the barrel. For a smoothbore weapon this can be a somewhat loose fit, but in the case of a rifle, the helical rifling lands in the barrel have to cut into the bullet to make it spin; the fit needs to be sufficiently tight for the bullet to engage the lands. Furthermore, if the barrel-to-bullet seal is not tight, gases will blow through the rifling grooves and around the bullet, compromising muzzle velocity and the bullet's terminal energy at the target, their greater accuracy and range made rifles ideal for hunting, but the slower rate of fire was a significant impediment for widespread military use, along with the fouling caused by normal firing which made them more difficult to load. The smooth-bore musket was the main weapon of the line infantry and light infantry, rifles were used only by snipers and other specialist troops. All muskets were supplied with bayonets. At the time, the Russian and French armies used light infantry, sometimes scattered whole infantry battalions as skirmishers to fight long-term on rough terrain.
Although rifles had better shooting accuracy than smoothbore muskets, their effective fire range was the same. For example, in the British Army, light infantrymen armed with ordinary muskets were trained for 300-400 yards. Since they were used as pikes, muskets tended to be long and heavy weapons, they tended to be about four to six feet in length, with a weight of around 10 to 12 pounds, as longer and heavier weapons were found to be too unwieldy. The length of a musket allowed them to be fired by ranks, minimizing the risk that the men in the rear ranks would accidentally shoot the men in the front ranks in the back of the head, or, more scorch their faces and burst their eardrums with the muzzle blast. Muskets six feet in length could be fired in three ranks without fear of accidents; the relative inaccuracy and short range of the musket was not considered to be significant on the battlefield, because smoke from the black powder used at the time obscured the battlefield and rendered the longer range of the rifle useless as a battle progressed.
Rifles were more expensive to make than muskets, were used by small units of specialized riflemen trained not to fight in closed ranks, but in open order, spread out as skirmishers or sharpshooters. Since they were not fired over other men’s shoulders or designed for close-combat bayonet fighting, military rifles could be much shorter than muskets, which made loading from the muzzle easier and reduced the difficulties associated with fitting the bullet into the barrel, although the rate of fire was still slower than that of a musket; the problem of slow loading of rifles caused by barrel fouling was solved by the Minié ball, invented in the 1840s by French inventor Claude-Étienne Minié. Despite its name, the Minié ball was not a round ball at all - it was long and conical, with an expanding skirt at the rear of the bullet; the skirt allowed the minié ball to be smaller than the barrel's bore, so it would slip in as as the ball of a smoothbore. When the weapon was fired, the skirt expanded to fit against the inside of the rifle barrel, with less energy wasted in blow-by around the projectile and insuring that the rifling lands and grooves would impart a stabilizing spin to the minié ball.
In the 1840s and 1850s, many smoothbore muskets had their barrels replaced with similar barrels that were rifled so that they could fire the new bullet. These "rifled muskets" or "rifle muskets" were long enough to serve the function of muskets in close formations of line and square, were as quick to load as the old muskets and as easy to use with minimal training, yet the Minié-type rifled muskets were much more accurate than smoothbore muskets. Tests of a rifled musket firing Minié ball, a smoothbore musket firing round ball, at various ranges against a 10 by 10 inches target, showed much higher accuracy for the rifled musket. From a smooth-bore musket, from 42% to 48% of bullets hit the target at a distance of 200 yards. At a distance of 300 yards, 18% of the bullets hit the target. For a rifle, the results were much better. From a rifle, 46% to 58% of bullets hit the target at a distance of 300 yards; this potential accuracy, required skills only acquired through advanced training and practice.
51823 Rickhusband, provisional designation 2001 OY28, is a dark Lixiaohua asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt 9 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 18 July 2001, by astronomers of the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking at Palomar Observatory in California, United States; the asteroid was named after American astronaut Rick Husband, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Rickhusband is a member of the Lixiaohua family, an outer-belt asteroid family of more than 700 known members, which consists of C- and X-type asteroids, it orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.5–3.8 AU once every 5 years and 7 months. Its orbit has an inclination of 12 ° with respect to the ecliptic; the body's observation arc begins with its first identification as 1994 JM7 by Spacewatch at Kitt Peak Observatory in May 1994, more than 7 years prior to its official discovery observation by NEAT. As of 2017, no rotational lightcurve of Rickhusband has been obtained from photometric observations.
The asteroid's rotation period and shape remains unknown. According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Rickhusband measures 8.731 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.048. This minor planet was named in memory of American astronaut Rick Husband, the commander of STS-107 and was killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on 1 February 2003; the official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 6 August 2003. NASA JPL - Space Shuttle Columbia Tribute page Orbital simulation and data for 51823 Rickhusband Asteroid Lightcurve Database, query form Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books Asteroids and comets rotation curves, CdR – Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets - – Minor Planet Center 51823 Rickhusband at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site Ephemeris · Observation prediction · Orbital info · Proper elements · Observational info 51823 Rickhusband at the JPL Small-Body Database Close approach · Discovery · Ephemeris · Orbit diagram · Orbital elements · Physical parameters
Risk parity is an approach to investment portfolio management which focuses on allocation of risk defined as volatility, rather than allocation of capital. The risk parity approach asserts that when asset allocations are adjusted to the same risk level, the risk parity portfolio can achieve a higher Sharpe ratio and can be more resistant to market downturns than the traditional portfolio. Speaking, the approach of building a risk parity portfolio is similar to creating a minimum-variance portfolio subject to the constraint that each asset contributes to the portfolio overall volatility; some of its theoretical components were developed in the 1950s and 1960s but the first risk parity fund, called the All Weather fund, was pioneered in 1996. In recent years many investment companies have begun offering risk parity funds to their clients; the term, risk parity, came into use in 2005 and was adopted by the asset management industry. Risk parity can be seen as either a active management strategy.
Interest in the risk parity approach has increased since the late 2000s financial crisis as the risk parity approach fared better than traditionally constructed portfolios, as well as many hedge funds. Some portfolio managers have expressed skepticism about the practical application of the concept and its effectiveness in all types of market conditions but others point to its performance during the financial crisis of 2007-2008 as an indication of its potential success. Risk parity is a conceptual approach to investing which attempts to provide a lower risk and lower fee alternative to the traditional portfolio allocation of 60% stocks and 40% bonds which carries 90% of its risk in the stock portion of the portfolio; the risk parity approach attempts to equalize risk by allocating funds to a wider range of categories such as stocks, government bonds, credit-related securities and inflation hedges, while maximizing gains through financial leveraging. According to Bob Prince, CIO at Bridgewater Associates, the defining parameters of a traditional risk parity portfolio are uncorrelated assets, low equity risk, passive management.
Some scholars contend that a risk parity portfolio requires strong management and continuous oversight to reduce the potential for negative consequences as a result of leverage and allocation building in the form of buying and selling of assets to keep dollar holdings at predetermined and equalized risk levels. For example, if the price of a security goes up or down and risk levels remain the same, the risk parity portfolio will be adjusted to keep its dollar exposure constant. On the other hand, some consider risk parity to be a passive approach, because it does not require the portfolio manager to buy or sell securities on the basis of judgments about future market behavior; the principles of risk parity may be applied differently by different financial managers, as they have different methods for categorizing assets into classes, different definitions of risk, different ways of allocating risk within asset classes, different methods for forecasting future risk and different ways of implementing exposure to risk.
However, many risk parity funds evolve away from their original intentions, including passive management. The extent to which a risk parity portfolio is managed, is the distinguishing characteristic between the various kinds of risk parity funds available today; the best known version of risk parity is the equally-weighted risk contributions portfolio method. Equally-weighted risk contributions is not about "having the same volatility", it is about having each asset contributing in the same way to the portfolio overall volatility. For this we will have to define the contribution of each asset to the portfolio risk. Consider a portfolio of N assets where the weight of asset i is w i; the w i form the allocation vector w. Let us further denote the covariance matrix of the assets by Σ; the volatility of the portfolio is defined as: σ = w ′ Σ w The total risk contribution of asset i is computed as follows: σ i = w i × ∂ w i σ = w i i w ′ Σ w Since σ is homogeneous of degree 1 in w it follows that: σ = ∑ i = 1 N σ i so that σ i can be interpreted as the contribution of asset i in the portfolio to the overall risk of the portfolio.
Equal risk contribution means
Moinabad mandal is one of the 27 mandals in Ranga Reddy district of the Indian state of Telangana. It has its headquarters at Moinabad; as of 2011 census, the mandal had a population of 56,205. The total population constitute, 118,616 males and 121,415 females —a sex ratio of 1024 females per 1000 males. 21,333 children are in the age group of 0–6 years, of which 10,939 are boys and 10,394 are girls. The average literacy rate stands at 79.89% with 174,711 literates. Chilkur, Ranga Reddy has the largest area of 2,709 km2 and Bangaliguda has the least area of 43 km2 all the villages in the mandal. In terms of population, Chilkur is the most populated and Bangaliguda is the least populated settlement in the mandal. Template:Rp348 Peddamangalaram the famous village belongs to this mandal. Dumki Shankar a famous short film came from this village only. Director of this Film Kanna alias karnakar, Actors Yerravalli Manikyam Reddy, Mandadi Manikyam Reddy, Madhu sudhan Reddy and Cameramen Praveen, Assistant director Shashi Kanth Reddy worked well on this film.
The mandal is headed by a tahsildar. As of 2011 census, the mandal has thirty two villages; the settlements in the mandal are listed below: List of mandals in Telangana
Patricianship, the quality of belonging to a patriciate, began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a class of patrician families whose members were the only people allowed to exercise many political functions. In the rise of European towns in the 12th and 13th century, the patriciate, a limited group of families with a special constitutional position, in Henri Pirenne's view, was the motive force. In 19th century central Europe, the term had become synonymous with the upper Bourgeoisie and cannot be compared with the medieval patriciate in Central Europe. In the German-speaking parts of Europe as well as in the maritime republics of Italy, the patricians were as a matter of fact the ruling body of the medieval town and in Italy part of the nobility. With the establishment of the medieval towns, Italian city-states and maritime republics, the patriciate was a formally defined class of governing wealthy families, they were found in the Italian city states and maritime republics such as Venice, Pisa and Amalfi and but in many of the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire such as Nuremberg, Augsburg, Lindau, Basel and many more.
As in Ancient Rome, patrician status could only be inherited. However, membership in the patriciate could be passed on through the female line. For example, if the union was approved by her parents, the husband of patrician daughter was granted membership in the patrician society Zum Sünfzen of the Imperial Free City of Lindau as a matter of right, on the same terms as the younger son of a patrician male if the husband was otherwise deemed ineligible. Accession to a patriciate through this mechanism was referred to as "erweibern."In any case, only male patricians could hold, or participate in elections for, most political offices. As in Venice, non-patricians had no political rights. Lists were maintained of who had the status, of which the most famous is the Libro d'Oro of the Venetian Republic. From the fall of the Hohenstaufen city-republics became principalities, like Milan and Verona, the smaller ones were swallowed up by monarchical states or sometimes other republics, like Pisa and Siena by Florence, any special role for the local patricians was restricted to municipal affairs.
The few remaining patrician constitutions, notably those of Venice and Genoa, were swept away by the conquering French armies of the period after the French Revolution, although many patrician families remained and politically important, as some do to this day. In the modern era the term "patrician" is used broadly for the higher bourgeoisie in many countries. There was an intermediate period under the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire when the title was given to governors in the Western parts of the Empire, such as Sicily— Stilicho and other 5th-century magistri militari usefully exemplify the role and scope of the patricius at this point; the role, like that of the Giudicati of Sardinia, acquired a judicial overtone, was used by rulers who were de facto independent of Imperial control, like Alberic II of Spoleto, "Patrician of Rome" from 932 to 954. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Byzantine emperors strategically used the title of patrikios to gain the support of the native princes of southern Italy in the contest with the Carolingian Empire for control of the region.
The allegiance of the Principality of Salerno was bought in 887 by investing Prince Guaimar I, again in 955 from Gisulf I. In 909 the Prince of Benevento, Landulf I sought and received the title in Constantinople for both himself and his brother, Atenulf II. In forging the alliance that won the Battle of the Garigliano in 915, the Byzantine strategos Nicholas Picingli granted the title to John I and Docibilis II of Gaeta and Gregory IV and John II of Naples. At this time there was only one "Patrician" for a particular city or territory at a time. Amalfi was ruled by a series of Patricians. Though mistakenly so described, patrician families of Italian cities were not in their origins members of the territorial nobility, but members of the minor landowners, the bailiffs and stewards of the lords and bishops, against whose residual powers they led the struggles in establishing the urban communes. At Genoa the earliest records of trading partnerships are in documents of the early 11th century. In the 12th and 13th centuries, to this first patrician class were added the families who had risen through trade, the Doria and Lercari In Milan, the earliest consuls were chosen from among the valvasores and cives.
H. Sapori found the first patriaciates of Italian towns to usurp the public and financial functions of the overlord to have been drawn from such petty vassals, holders of heritable tenancies and rentiers who farmed out the agricultural labours of their holdings. At a certain point it was necessary to obtain recognition of the independence of the city, its constitution, from either the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor - "free" cities in the Empire continued to owe allegiance to the Emperor, but without any intermed