title: K-d tree

text: The "k"-d tree is a binary tree in which "every" node is a "k"-dimensional point. Every non-leaf node can be thought of as implicitly generating a splitting hyperplane that divides the space into two parts, known as half-spaces. Points to the left of this hyperplane are represented by the left subtree of that node and points to the right of the hyperplane are represented by the right subtree. The hyperplane direction is chosen in the following way: every node in the tree is associated with one of the "k" dimensions, with the hyperplane perpendicular to that dimension's axis. So, for example, if for a particular split the "x" axis is chosen, all points in the subtree with a smaller "x" value than the node will appear in the left subtree and all points with a larger "x" value will be in the right subtree. In such a case, the hyperplane would be set by the x value of the point, and its normal would be the unit x-axis.


title: K-d tree

text: Since there are many possible ways to choose axis-aligned splitting planes, there are many different ways to construct "k"-d trees. The canonical method of "k"-d tree construction has the following constraints:


title: K-d tree

text: This method leads to a balanced "k"-d tree, in which each leaf node is approximately the same distance from the root. However, balanced trees are not necessarily optimal for all applications.


title: K-d tree

text: Note that it is not "required" to select the median point. In the case where median points are not selected, there is no guarantee that the tree will be balanced. To avoid coding a complex formula_1 median-finding algorithm or using an formula_2 sort such as heapsort or mergesort to sort all "n" points, a popular practice is to sort a "fixed" number of "randomly" "selected" points, and use the median of those points to serve as the splitting plane. In practice, this technique often results in nicely balanced trees.


title: K-d tree

text: Given a list of "n" points, the following algorithm uses a median-finding sort to construct a balanced "k"-d tree containing those points.


title: K-d tree

text: It is common that points "after" the median include only the ones that are strictly greater than the median in the current dimension. For points that lie on the median in the current dimension, it is possible to define a function that compares them in all dimensions. In some cases, it is acceptable to let points equal to the median lie on one side of the median, for example, by splitting the points into a "lesser than" subset and a "greater than or equal to" subset.


title: K-d tree

text: This algorithm creates the invariant that for any node, all the nodes in the left subtree are on one side of a splitting plane, and all the nodes in the right subtree are on the other side. Points that lie on the splitting plane may appear on either side. The splitting plane of a node goes through the point associated with that node (referred to in the code as "node.location").


title: K-d tree

text: Alternative algorithms for building a balanced presort the data prior to building the tree. Then, they maintain the order of the presort during tree construction and hence eliminate the costly step of finding the median at each level of subdivision. Two such algorithms build a balanced to sort triangles in order to improve the execution time of ray tracing for three-dimensional computer graphics. These algorithms presort "n" triangles prior to building the , then build the tree in formula_3 time in the best case. An algorithm that builds a balanced to sort points has a worst-case complexity of formula_4. This algorithm presorts "n" points in each of "k" dimensions using an formula_2 sort such as Heapsort or Mergesort prior to building the tree. It then maintains the order of these "k" presorts during tree construction and thereby avoids finding the median at each level of subdivision.


title: K-d tree

text: One adds a new point to a "k"-d tree in the same way as one adds an element to any other search tree. First, traverse the tree, starting from the root and moving to either the left or the right child depending on whether the point to be inserted is on the "left" or "right" side of the splitting plane. Once you get to the node under which the child should be located, add the new point as either the left or right child of the leaf node, again depending on which side of the node's splitting plane contains the new node.


title: K-d tree

text: Adding points in this manner can cause the tree to become unbalanced, leading to decreased tree performance. The rate of tree performance degradation is dependent upon the spatial distribution of tree points being added, and the number of points added in relation to the tree size. If a tree becomes too unbalanced, it may need to be re-balanced to restore the performance of queries that rely on the tree balancing, such as nearest neighbour searching.


title: K-d tree

text: To remove a point from an existing "k"-d tree, without breaking the invariant, the easiest way is to form the set of all nodes and leaves from the children of the target node, and recreate that part of the tree.


title: K-d tree

text: Another approach is to find a replacement for the point removed. First, find the node formula_6 that contains the point to be removed. For the base case where R is a leaf node, no replacement is required. For the general case, find a replacement point, say formula_7, from the subtree rooted at formula_6. Replace the point stored at formula_6 with formula_7. Then, recursively remove formula_7.


title: K-d tree

text: For finding a replacement point, if formula_6 discriminates on formula_13 (say) and formula_13 has a right child, find the point with the minimum formula_7 value from the subtree rooted at the right child. Otherwise, find the point with the maximum formula_13 value from the subtree rooted at the left child.


title: K-d tree

text: Balancing a "k"-d tree requires care because "k"-d trees are sorted in multiple dimensions so the tree-rotation technique cannot be used to balance them as this may break the invariant.


title: K-d tree

text: Several variants of balanced "k"-d trees exist. They include divided "k"-d tree, pseudo "k"-d tree, K-D-B-tree, hB-tree and Bkd-tree. Many of these variants are adaptive k-d trees.


title: K-d tree

text: The nearest neighbour search (NN) algorithm aims to find the point in the tree that is nearest to a given input point. This search can be done efficiently by using the tree properties to quickly eliminate large portions of the search space.


title: K-d tree

text: Generally the algorithm uses squared distances for comparison to avoid computing square roots. Additionally, it can save computation by holding the squared current best distance in a variable for comparison.


title: K-d tree

text: The algorithm can be extended in several ways by simple modifications. It can provide the "k" nearest neighbours to a point by maintaining "k" current bests instead of just one. A branch is only eliminated when "k" points have been found and the branch cannot have points closer than any of the "k" current bests.


title: K-d tree

text: It can also be converted to an approximation algorithm to run faster. For example, approximate nearest neighbour searching can be achieved by simply setting an upper bound on the number points to examine in the tree, or by interrupting the search process based upon a real time clock (which may be more appropriate in hardware implementations). Nearest neighbour for points that are in the tree already can be achieved by not updating the refinement for nodes that give zero distance as the result, this has the downside of discarding points that are not unique, but are co-located with the original search point.


title: K-d tree

text: Approximate nearest neighbour is useful in real-time applications such as robotics due to the significant speed increase gained by not searching for the best point exhaustively. One of its implementations is best-bin-first search.


title: K-d tree

text: A range search searches for ranges of parameters. For example, if a tree is storing values corresponding to income and age, then a range search might be something like looking for all members of the tree which have an age between 20 and 50 years and an income between 50,000 and 80,000. Since k-d trees divide the range of a domain in half at each level of the tree, they are useful for performing range searches.


title: K-d tree

text: Analyses of binary search trees has found that the worst case time for range search in a "k"-dimensional "k"-d tree containing "n" nodes is given by the following equation.


title: K-d tree

text: Finding the nearest point is an formula_18 operation on average, in the case of randomly distributed points, although analysis in general is tricky.


title: K-d tree

text: In high-dimensional spaces, the curse of dimensionality causes the algorithm to need to visit many more branches than in lower-dimensional spaces. In particular, when the number of points is only slightly higher than the number of dimensions, the algorithm is only slightly better than a linear search of all of the points. As a general rule, if the dimensionality is "k", the number of points in the data, "n", should be formula_19. Otherwise, when "k"-d trees are used with high-dimensional data, most of the points in the tree will be evaluated and the efficiency is no better than exhaustive search, and, if a good-enough fast answer is required, approximate nearest-neighbour methods should be used instead.


title: K-d tree

text: Additionally, even in low-dimensional space, if the average pairwise distance between the "k" nearest neighbors of the query point is significantly less than the average distance between the query point and each of the "k" nearest neighbors, the performance of nearest neighbor search degrades towards linear, since the distances from the query point to each nearest neighbor are of similar magnitude. (In the worst case, consider a cloud of points distributed on the surface of a sphere centered at the origin. Every point is equidistant from the origin, so a search for the nearest neighbor from the origin would have to iterate through all points on the surface of the sphere to identify the nearest neighbor – which in this case is not even unique.)


title: K-d tree

text: To mitigate the potentially significant performance degradation of a "k"-d tree search in the worst case, a maximum distance parameter can be provided to the tree search algorithm, and the recursive search can be pruned whenever the closest point in a given branch of the tree cannot be closer than this maximum distance. This may result in a nearest neighbor search failing to return a nearest neighbor, which means no points are within this maximum distance from the query point.


title: K-d tree

text: Instead of points, a "k"-d tree can also contain rectangles or hyperrectangles. Thus range search becomes the problem of returning all rectangles intersecting the search rectangle. The tree is constructed the usual way with all the rectangles at the leaves. In an orthogonal range search, the "opposite" coordinate is used when comparing against the median. For example, if the current level is split along x, we check the x coordinate of the search rectangle. If the median is less than the x coordinate of the search rectangle, then no rectangle in the left branch can ever intersect with the search rectangle and so can be pruned. Otherwise both branches should be traversed. See also interval tree, which is a 1-dimensional special case.


title: K-d tree

text: It is also possible to define a "k"-d tree with points stored solely in leaves. This form of "k"-d tree allows a variety of split mechanics other than the standard median split. The midpoint splitting rule selects on the middle of the longest axis of the space being searched, regardless of the distribution of points. This guarantees that the aspect ratio will be at most 2:1, but the depth is dependent on the distribution of points. A variation, called sliding-midpoint, only splits on the middle if there are points on both sides of the split. Otherwise, it splits on point nearest to the middle. Maneewongvatana and Mount show that this offers "good enough" performance on common data sets.


title: Imaginary unit

text: The imaginary unit or unit imaginary number () is a solution to the quadratic equation formula_1. Although there is no real number with this property, can be used to extend the real numbers to what are called complex numbers, using addition and multiplication. A simple example of the use of in a complex number is formula_2.


title: Imaginary unit

text: Imaginary numbers are an important mathematical concept; they extend the real number system formula_3 to the complex number system formula_4, in which at least one root for every nonconstant polynomial exists (see Algebraic closure and Fundamental theorem of algebra). Here, the term "imaginary" is used because there is no real number having a negative square.


title: Imaginary unit

text: There are two complex square roots of −1: and formula_5, just as there are two complex square roots of every real number other than zero (which has one double square root).


title: Imaginary unit

text: In contexts in which use of the letter is ambiguous or problematic, the letter or the Greek formula_6 is sometimes used instead. For example, in electrical engineering and control systems engineering, the imaginary unit is normally denoted by instead of , because is commonly used to denote electric current.


title: Imaginary unit

text: With defined this way, it follows directly from algebra that and formula_5 are both square roots of −1.


title: Imaginary unit

text: Although the construction is called "imaginary", and although the concept of an imaginary number may be intuitively more difficult to grasp than that of a real number, the construction is perfectly valid from a mathematical standpoint. Real number operations can be extended to imaginary and complex numbers, by treating as an unknown quantity while manipulating an expression (and using the definition to replace any occurrence of formula_9 with −1). Higher integral powers of can also be replaced with formula_5, 1, , or −1:


title: Imaginary unit

text: As a complex number, is represented in rectangular form as , with a zero real component and a unit imaginary component. In polar form, is represented as formula_16 (or just formula_17), with an absolute value (or magnitude) of 1 and an argument (or angle) of formula_18. In the complex plane (also known as the Argand plane), which is a special interpretation of a Cartesian plane, is the point located one unit from the origin along the imaginary axis (which is orthogonal to the real axis).


title: Imaginary unit

text: Being a quadratic polynomial with no multiple root, the defining equation formula_19 has "two" distinct solutions, which are equally valid and which happen to be additive and multiplicative inverses of each other. Once a solution of the equation has been fixed, the value formula_5, which is distinct from , is also a solution. Since the equation is the only definition of , it appears that the definition is ambiguous (more precisely, not well-defined). However, no ambiguity will result as long as one or other of the solutions is chosen and labelled as "", with the other one then being labelled as formula_5. After all, although formula_5 and formula_23 are not "quantitatively" equivalent (they "are" negatives of each other), there is no "algebraic" difference between formula_23 and formula_5, as both imaginary numbers have equal claim to being the number whose square is −1.


title: Imaginary unit

text: In fact, if all mathematical textbooks and published literature referring to imaginary or complex numbers were to be rewritten with formula_5 replacing every occurrence of formula_23 (and, therefore, every occurrence of formula_5 replaced by formula_29), all facts and theorems would remain valid. The distinction between the two roots of formula_1, with one of them labelled with a minus sign, is purely a notational relic; neither root can be said to be more primary or fundamental than the other, and neither of them is "positive" or "negative".


title: Imaginary unit

text: The issue can be a subtle one. One way of articulating the situation is that although the complex field is unique (as an extension of the real numbers) up to isomorphism, it is "not" unique up to a "unique" isomorphism. Indeed, there are two field automorphisms of that keep each real number fixed, namely the identity and complex conjugation. For more on this general phenomenon, see Galois group.


title: Imaginary unit

text: A similar issue arises if the complex numbers are interpreted as formula_31 real matrices (see matrix representation of complex numbers), because then both


title: Imaginary unit

text: In this case, the ambiguity results from the geometric choice of which "direction" around the unit circle is "positive" rotation. A more precise explanation is to say that the automorphism group of the special orthogonal group has exactly two elements: The identity and the automorphism which exchanges "CW" (clockwise) and "CCW" (counter-clockwise) rotations. For more, see orthogonal group.


title: Imaginary unit

text: All these ambiguities can be solved by adopting a more rigorous definition of complex number, and by explicitly "choosing" one of the solutions to the equation to be the imaginary unit. For example, the ordered pair (0, 1), in the usual construction of the complex numbers with two-dimensional vectors.


title: Imaginary unit

text: Consider the matrix equation formula_35 Here, formula_36, so the product is negative because formula_37; thus, the point formula_38 lies in quadrant II or IV. Furthermore,


title: Imaginary unit

text: The imaginary unit is sometimes written formula_42 in advanced mathematics contexts (as well as in less advanced popular texts). However, great care needs to be taken when manipulating formulas involving radicals. The radical sign notation is reserved either for the principal square root function, which is "only" defined for real formula_43, or for the principal branch of the complex square root function. Attempting to apply the calculation rules of the principal (real) square root function to manipulate the principal branch of the complex square root function can produce false results:


title: Imaginary unit

text: These problems can be avoided by writing and manipulating expressions like formula_48, rather than formula_49. For a more thorough discussion, see square root and branch point.


title: Imaginary unit

text: Similar to all the roots of 1, all the roots of are the vertices of regular polygons, which are inscribed within the unit circle in the complex plane.


title: Imaginary unit

text: The factorial of the imaginary unit is most often given in terms of the gamma function evaluated at formula_73:


title: Imaginary unit

text: Many mathematical operations that can be carried out with real numbers can also be carried out with , such as exponentiation, roots, logarithms, and trigonometric functions. All of the following functions are complex multi-valued functions, and it should be clearly stated which branch of the Riemann surface the function is defined on in practice. Listed below are results for the most commonly chosen branch.


title: Wu Jing (actor)

text: Wu Jing, also known as Jacky Wu, (; born 3 April 1974) is a Chinese actor, director and martial artist best known for his roles in various martial arts films such as "Tai Chi Boxer", "Fatal Contact", the "" films, and as Leng Feng in "Wolf Warrior", its sequel "Wolf Warrior 2", and most recently "The Battle at Lake Changjin". Wu Jing is one of the most profitable actors in China and his movies are often the highest grossed films in China and around the world. Wu ranked first on the "Forbes" China Celebrity 100 list in 2019 and 23rd in 2020.


title: Wu Jing (actor)

text: In April 1995, Wu was spotted by martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-ping, Wu played Hawkman / Jackie in 1996 film "Tai Chi Boxer", his first Hong Kong film debut. Since then Wu has appeared in numerous mainland Chinese "wuxia" television series. He has also worked with choreographer and director Lau Kar-leung in 2003 film "Drunken Monkey". Wu achieved success in Hong Kong action cinema for his role as a vicious assassin in 2005 film "".


title: Wu Jing (actor)

text: In 2006, Wu was continuing his move into Hong Kong cinema by starring in the film "Fatal Contact". Wu is the male lead in 2007 film "Twins Mission", starring the Twins duo. He also worked on the police action film "Invisible Target" which was released in July 2007.


title: Wu Jing (actor)

text: In March 2008, Wu made his directorial debut, alongside action choreographer Nicky Li, on his film "Legendary Assassin".


title: Wu Jing (actor)

text: Wu played Jing Neng in 2011 martial arts film "Shaolin" alongside Nicholas Tse, Andy Lau and Jackie Chan. Wu reprised a different role as Chan Chi-kit in the 2015 Hong Kong action film "".


title: Wu Jing (actor)

text: Wu directed and starred in the action war film "Wolf Warrior" and its 2017 sequel "Wolf Warrior 2". The latter film has become a hit at the Chinese summer box office and became the highest grossing film in China.


title: Wu Jing (actor)

text: In 2019, Wu starred in hit film "The Wandering Earth", based on a novella of the same name by Liu Cixin. When he discovered that the production team lacked funds to complete the film, he invested his own money to make up for the shortfall. The film ended up grossing worldwide, including in China. It became China's third highest-grossing film of all time, 2019's third highest-grossing film worldwide, the second highest-grossing non-English film to date, and one of the top 20 highest-grossing science fiction films to date.


title: Wu Jing (actor)

text: Wu Jing and Xie Nan's relationship began in 2012 and they got married in 2014. On 25 August 2014, Wu Jing's wife gave birth to a son Wu Suowei (吴所谓) (also named as Wu You (吴滺)). On 24 September 2018, they had a second son Wu Lü (吴律).


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Sergei Mironovich Kirov (né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Kirov became an Old Bolshevik and personal friend to Joseph Stalin, rising through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ranks to become head of the party in Leningrad and a member of the Politburo.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: On 1 December 1934, Kirov was shot and killed by Leonid Nikolaev at his offices in the Smolny Institute for unknown reasons; Nikolaev and several suspected accomplices were convicted in a show trial and executed less than 30 days later. Kirov's death was later used as a pretext for Stalin's escalation of political repression in the Soviet Union and the events of the Great Purge, with complicity as a common charge for the condemned in the Moscow Trials. Kirov's assassination remains controversial and unsolved, with varying theories regarding the circumstances of his death.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov was born on in Urzhum in Vyatka Governorate, Russian Empire, as one of seven children born to Miron Ivanovich Kostrikov and Yekaterina Kuzminichna Kostrikova ("née" Kazantseva). Their first four children had died young, while Anna (born 1883), Sergei (1886), and Yelizaveta (1889) survived.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Miron, an alcoholic, abandoned the family around 1890, and Yekaterina died of tuberculosis in 1893. Sergei and his sisters were raised for a brief time by their paternal grandmother, Melania Avdeyevna Kostrikova, but she could not afford to take care of them all on her small pension of 3 rubles per month. Through her connections, Melania succeeded in having Sergey placed in an orphanage at the age of seven, but he saw his sisters and grandmother regularly.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: In 1901, a group of wealthy benefactors provided a scholarship for Kirov to attend an industrial school at Kazan. After gaining his degree in engineering, Kirov moved to Tomsk, a city in Siberia, where he became a Marxist and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1904.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Kirov was a participant in the 1905 Russian Revolution and was arrested, joining with the Bolsheviks soon after being released from prison. In 1906, he was arrested once again, but this time jailed for over three years, charged with printing illegal literature. Soon after his release, Kirov again took part in revolutionary activity, once again being arrested for printing illegal literature. After a year in custody, Kirov moved to the Caucasus, where he stayed until the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II after the February Revolution in March 1917.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: By this time, Kirov had shortened his last name from Kostrikov to Kirov, a practice common among Russian revolutionaries of the time. Kirov began using the pen name "Kir," first publishing under the pseudonym "Kirov" on 26 April 1912. One account states that he chose the name "Kir," the Russian version of Cyrus (from the Greek Kūros), after a Christian martyr in third-century Egypt from an Orthodox calendar of saints' days, and Russifying it by adding an "-ov" suffix. A second story is that Kirov based it on the name of the Persian king Cyrus the Great.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Kirov became commander of the Bolshevik military administration in Astrakhan, and fought for the Red Army in the Russian Civil War until 1920. Simon Sebag Montefiore writes: "During the Civil War, he was one of the swashbuckling commissars in the North Caucasus beside Ordzhonikidze and Mikoyan. In Astrakhan he enforced Bolshevik power in March 1919 with liberal bloodletting; more than 4,000 were killed. When a bourgeois was caught hiding his own furniture, Kirov ordered him shot."


title: Sergei Kirov

text: In 1921, Kirov became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, the Bolshevik party organization in Azerbaijan. Kirov was a loyal supporter of Joseph Stalin, the successor of Vladimir Lenin, and in 1926 he was rewarded with command of the Leningrad party organization. Kirov was a close personal friend of Stalin, and a strong supporter of industrialisation and forced collectivisation. At the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1930, Kirov stated: "The General Party line is to conduct the course of our country industrialization. Based on the industrialisation, we conduct transformation of our agriculture. Namely, we centralise and collectivise."


title: Sergei Kirov

text: In 1934, at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Kirov delivered the speech called "The Speech of Comrade Stalin Is the Program of Our Party," which refers to Stalin's speech delivered at the Congress earlier. Kirov praised Stalin for everything he had done since the death of Lenin. Moreover, Kirov personally named and ridiculed Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov and Mikhail Tomsky—former party allies of Stalin. Bukharin and Rykov were later tried in the show trial called The Trial of the Twenty-One accused of Kirov's death, while Tomsky committed suicide expecting his arrest by the NKVD.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: After Kirov's assassination, he acquired a reputation for having repeatedly stood up to Stalin in private and for becoming so popular that he was a threat to Stalin's supremacy. He did display some independence from Stalin. Allegedly, in 1932, Stalin wanted to have Martemyan Ryutin executed for writing an attack on his leadership, but Kirov and Sergo Ordzhonikidze talked him out of it. Alexander Orlov, who defected to the west, listed a series of incidents in which Kirov allegedly clashed with Stalin, based on rumors he must have heard from fellow NKVD officers. Kirov's reputed rivalry is a major theme of the historical novel "Children of the Arbat", by Anatoli Rybakov, who wrote:


title: Sergei Kirov

text: At the end of the Communist Party's Seventeenth Congress, in February 1934, there is reputed to have been a scandal, when Kirov topped the poll in elections to the Central Committee, and Stalin's acolyte, Lazar Kaganovich ordered a number of ballots be destroyed so that Stalin and Kirov could share top billing. Amy Knight, a historian of the Soviet Union, suggests that whereas Kirov "might have toed the line as others did, on the other hand he might have acted as a rallying point for those who wanted to oppose his [Stalin’s] dictatorship." Further, Knight suggests that Kirov would not have been a willing accomplice when the full force of Stalin's terror was unleashed in Leningrad.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Knight's contention is supported by the fact that whereas most of the elite tried to anticipate what Stalin desired and to act accordingly, Kirov did not always do what Stalin wanted. In 1934, Stalin wanted Kirov to come to Moscow permanently. Whereas all the other members of the Politburo would have complied, Stalin accepted that, as Kirov had no desire to leave Leningrad, he would not come to Moscow until 1938. Again, when Stalin wanted Medved moved from the Leningrad NKVD to Minsk, Kirov refused to agree and, rarely for Stalin, he had to accept defeat.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: However, it would be wrong to claim Kirov had moral superiority over his colleagues. In modern St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), there is a museum to show all the gifts that Kirov accepted and used from inhabitants and businesses over which he ruled. The guides of the museum imply that these were bribes paid by people who needed Kirov's favor. The Croatian communist Ante Ciliga, who was in Russia in the 1920s, and backed Leon Trotsky against Stalin, did not share the admiration for Kirov:


title: Sergei Kirov

text: On the afternoon of Saturday, 1 December 1934, Kirov's assassin, Leonid Nikolayev, arrived at the Smolny Institute offices and made his way to the third floor unopposed, waiting in a hallway until Kirov and Borisov stepped into the corridor. Borisov appeared to have stayed some 20 to 40 paces behind Kirov, with some sources alleging Borisov parted company with Kirov in order to prepare his lunch. Kirov turned a corner and passed Nikolayev, who then drew his revolver and shot Kirov in the back of the neck.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Nikolayev was well known to the NKVD, which had arrested him for various petty offences in recent years. Various accounts of his life agree that he was an expelled Party member and a failed junior functionary, with a murderous grudge and an indifference to his own survival. Nikolayev was unemployed, with a wife and child, and in financial difficulties. According to Orlov, Nikolayev had allegedly told a friend he wanted to kill the head of the party control commission that had expelled him. Nikolayev's friend reported this to the NKVD. Zaporozhets then allegedly enlisted Nikolayev's "friend" to contact him, giving him money and a loaded 7.62 mm Nagant M1895 revolver.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: However, Nikolayev's first attempt at killing Kirov failed. On 15 October 1934, Nikolayev packed his Nagant revolver in a briefcase and entered the Smolny Institute where Kirov now worked. Although Nikolayev was initially passed by the main security desk at Smolny, he was arrested after an alert guard asked to examine his briefcase, which was found to contain the revolver. According to dissident Alexander Gregory Barmine, a few hours later, Nikolayev's briefcase and loaded revolver were returned to him, and he was told to leave the building. The author thus claims that, though Nikolayev had clearly broken Soviet laws, the security police had inexplicably released him from custody and permitted him to retain his loaded pistol.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: According to Barmine's account, with Stalin's approval, the NKVD had previously withdrawn all but four police bodyguards assigned to Kirov. These four guards accompanied Kirov each day to his offices at the Smolny Institute, and then left. On 1 December 1934, the usual guard post at the entrance to Kirov's offices was supposedly left unmanned, even though the building housed the chief offices of the Leningrad party apparatus and was the seat of the local government. According to some reports, only a single friend, Commissar Borisov, an unarmed bodyguard of Kirov's, remained. Given the circumstances of Kirov's death, Barmine stated that "the negligence of the NKVD in protecting such a high party official was without precedent in the Soviet Union."


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Kirov was cremated and his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall necropolis in a state funeral, with Stalin and other prominent members of the CPSU personally carrying his coffin.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: After Kirov's death, Stalin called for swift punishment of the traitors and those found negligent in Kirov's death. Nikolayev was tried alone and secretly by Vasili Ulrikh, Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. He was sentenced to death by shooting on 29 December 1934, and the sentence was carried out that very night. The Soviet government, led by Stalin, stated that their investigation proved that the assassin was acting on behalf of a secret Zinovievist group. The hapless Commissar Borisov died the day after Kirov's assassination, allegedly falling from a moving truck while riding with a group of NKVD agents. According to Orlov, Borisov's wife was committed to an insane asylum, while Nikolayev's mysterious "friend" and alleged provocateur, who had supplied him with the revolver and money, was later shot on Stalin's personal orders.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Several NKVD officers from the Leningrad branch were convicted of negligence for not adequately protecting Kirov, and sentenced to prison terms of up to ten years. According to Barmine, none of the NKVD officers were executed in the aftermath, and none actually served time in prison. Instead, they were transferred to executive posts in Stalin's Gulag labour camps for a period of time—in effect, a demotion. According to Nikita Khrushchev, the same NKVD officers were later shot in 1937. Lajos Magyar, a Hungarian communist and refugee from the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, was falsely accused of complicity in Kirov's assassination. Magyar was convicted as a "Zinovievite-Terrorist" and sent to a Gulag, where he died in 1940.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: According to Soviet dissident Alexander Gregory Barmine, a Communist Party communiqué initially reported that Nikolayev had confessed his guilt, not only as an assassin, but as an assassin in the pay of a "fascist power," having received money from an unidentified "foreign consul" in Leningrad. The same author claims 104 defendants who were already in prison at the time of Kirov's assassination, and who had no demonstrable connection to Nikolayev, were found guilty of complicity in the "fascist plot" against Kirov, and summarily executed. However, a few days later, during a subsequent Communist Party meeting of the Moscow District, the Party secretary announced in a speech that Nikolayev had been personally interrogated by Stalin the day after the assassination, something unheard-of for a party leader such as Stalin to have done:


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Comrade Stalin personally directed the investigation of Kirov's assassination. He questioned Nikolayev at length. The leaders of the Opposition placed the gun in Nikolayev's hand!


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Other speakers duly rose to condemn the Opposition: "The Central Committee must be pitiless—the Party must be purged... the record of every member must be scrutinized..." No one at the meeting mentioned the initial theory that fascist agents had been responsible for the assassination. Barmine asserts Stalin even used the Kirov assassination to eliminate the remainder of the Opposition leadership, accusing Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Abram Prigozhin, and others who had stood with Kirov in opposing Stalin (or who had simply failed to acquiesce to Stalin's views), of being "morally responsible" for Kirov's murder, and therefore guilty of complicity. Barmine also claimed that Stalin arranged the murder with the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, who armed Nikolayev and sent him to assassinate Kirov.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Kirov's assassination became a major event in the history of the Soviet Union because it was used by Stalin as an excuse to justify his reign of terror known as the Great Purge. At the time of Kirov's murder, Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, was out of the country; his daughter Tanya implied that Litvinov realised this event might be an excuse for Stalin to unleash a reign of terror. This view was confirmed by Anastas Mikoyan's son, who stated that the murder of Kirov had certain similarities to the burning of the Reichstag in Nazi Germany in 1933. The fire at the Reichstag was organized by the Nazis as a pretext for the mass persecution of the Communists and Social Democrats in Germany. The physical removal of Kirov meant elimination of a future potential rival for Stalin, but the principal objective, as with the fire at the Reichstag, was to manufacture an excuse for repression and control.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: According to Alexander Orlov, an anti-Soviet defector to the United States, Stalin then ordered Yagoda to arrange the assassination of Kirov. Orlov said that Yagoda ordered Medved's deputy, Vania Zaporozhets, to undertake the job. Zaporozhets returned to Leningrad in search of an assassin; in reviewing the files he found the name of Leonid Nikolayev. According to another Soviet defector, Grigori Tokaev, a real oppositionist underground group assassinated Kirov. Author and Menshevik scholar Boris Nikolaevsky argued: "One thing is certain: the only man who profited by the Kirov assassination was Stalin."


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Nikita Khrushchev, in his controversial Secret Speech in 1956, said that the murder of Kirov was organized by NKVD agents. Khrushchev claimed that the NKVD agents tasked with protecting Kirov were eventually shot in 1937, and assumed that this was to "cover the traces of the organisers of Kirov's killing." Khrushchev's and Gorbachev's governments claimed that Nikolayev was acting alone. Stalin's complicity has been rejected by historians of the ""revisionist school"" of Soviet studies, as well as by Soviet and some Russian historians.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Historians Alla Kirilina and Oleg Khlevniuk, based on extensive research of the Soviet archives, assert that the conventional narratives of Stalin's complicity in Kirov's assassination is almost entirely a myth. Historian Matt Lenoe finds their case convincing, arguing that ordering a hit on Kirov did not make political sense for Stalin, nor did it fit with the "modus operandi" of Soviet politics in the mid-1930s.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Furthermore, according to Lenoe, "if we follow accepted rules of historical evidence–privileging, for example, archival documentation over third-hand transmitted by word of mouth– then almost all of the conventional narrative disappears". He notes that most of the evidence for Stalin's complicity derives from his own show trials, rumors reported by Soviet defectors and Khrushchev-era investigations which aimed to absolve the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of responsibility for the Great Purge by blaming Stalin alone.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: In December 1955, after Khrushchev assumed control of the Party, the Presidium of the Central Committee entrusted Pyotr Pospelov, Secretary of the Central Committee, to form a commission to investigate the repression of the 1930s; this was the same Pospelov who had drafted the famous "Secret Speech" for Khrushchev at the 20th Congress. Khrushchev stated:


title: Sergei Kirov

text: It must be asserted that to this day the circumstances surrounding Kirov's murder hide many things which are inexplicable and mysterious and demand a most careful examination. There are reasons for the suspicion that the killer of Kirov, Nikolayev, was assisted by someone from among the people whose duty it was protect the person of Kirov. A month and a half before the killing, Nikolayev was arrested on the grounds of suspicious behavior, but he was released and not even searched. It is an unusually suspicious circumstance that when the Chekist [Borisov] assigned to protect Kirov was being brought for an interrogation, on 2 December 1934, he was killed in a car "accident" in which no other occupants of the car were harmed. After the murder of Kirov, top functionaries of the Leningrad NKVD were relieved of their duties and were given very light sentences, but in 1937 they were shot. We can assume that they were shot in order to cover the traces of the organizers of Kirov's killing.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Pospelov subsequently spoke to Dr. Kirchakov and former nurse Trunina, former members of the party, who had been mentioned in a letter by another member of the commission, Olga Shatunovskaya, as having knowledge of the Kirov murder. Kirchakov confirmed that he did talk to Shatunovskaya and Trunina about some of the unexplained aspects of the Kirov murder case and agreed to provide the commission with a written deposition. He stressed that his statement was based on the testimony of one Comrade Yan Olsky, a former NKVD officer who was demoted after Kirov's murder and transferred to the People's Supply System .


title: Sergei Kirov

text: In his deposition, Kirchakov wrote that he had discussed the Kirov's murder and the role of Fyodor Medved with Olsky. Olsky was of the firm opinion that Medved, Kirov's friend and NKVD security chief of the Leningrad branch, was innocent of the murder. Olsky also told Kirchakov that Medved had been barred from the NKVD Kirov assassination investigation. Instead, the investigation was carried out by a senior NKVD chief, Yakov Agranov, and later by another NKVD bureau officer whose name he did not remember.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: The other NKVD official may have been Yefim Georgievich Yevdokimov (1891–1939), a Stalin crony, mass-killing specialist, and architect of the Shakhty purge trials, who continued to lead a secret police team within the NKVD even after technically retiring from the OGPU in 1931. During one of the committee sessions, Olsky said he was present when Stalin asked Leonid Nikolayev why Comrade Kirov had been killed. To this Nikolayev replied that he carried out the instruction of the "Chekists" (meaning the NKVD) and pointed towards the group of "Chekists" (NKVD officers) standing in the room; Medved was not among them.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Khrushchev's report, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", was later read at closed-door Party meetings. Afterwards, new material was received by the Pospelov Committee, including the assertion by Kirov's chauffeur, Kuzin, that Commissar Borisov, Kirov's friend and bodyguard, who was responsible for Kirov's round-the-clock security at the Smolny Institute, was intentionally killed, and that his death in a road accident was not an accident at all.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: The last attempt in the Soviet Union to review the Kirov murder case was the Politburo Commission headed by Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev which was established in the Gorbachev period in 1989, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The investigating team included personnel from the USSR Procurator's Office, the Military Procuracy, the KGB, and various archival administrations. After two years of investigations, the working team of the Yakovlev Commission concluded that: in this affair no materials objectively support Stalin's participation or NKVD participation in the organization and carrying out of Kirov's murder.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Many cities, streets and factories were named or renamed after Kirov in his honour, including the cities of Kirov (formerly Vyatka) and Kirov Oblast, Kirovsk (Murmansk Oblast), Kirov (Kaluga Oblast), Kirovohrad (formerly Zinovyevsk, now Kropyvnytskyi) and Kirovohrad Oblast (Ukrainian SSR; now Ukraine), Kirovabad (Azerbaijani SSR; now Ganja, Azerbaijan), Kirovakan (Armenian SSR; now Vanadzor, Armenia), the Kirovskaya station of the Moscow Metro (now Chistye Prudy station), the Kirov Ballet (now the Mariinsky Ballet), the massive Kirov Plant in Saint Petersburg, Kirov Square in Yekaterinburg, the Kirov Islands in the Kara Sea, and various small settlements.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the locations and buildings named after Kirov have been renamed, especially outside of Russia. In order to comply with Ukrainian decommunization laws, Kirovohrad was renamed Kropyvnytskyi by the Ukrainian parliament on 14 July 2016. Ukraine's Kirovohrad Oblast was not retitled because it is mentioned by name in the Constitution of Ukraine, and any alteration would require a constitutional amendment.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: The S. M. Kirov Forestry Academy in Leningrad was named after him, but renamed the Saint Petersburg State Forest Technical University. For many years, a huge granite and bronze statue of Kirov dominated the city of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, erected on a hill in 1939. The statue was dismantled in January 1992, shortly after Azerbaijan gained its independence.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: The Kirov Prize, a speedskating match in the city of Kirov, was named for him. The Kirov Prize is the oldest annual organised race in speedskating, apart from the World Speed Skating Championships and the European Speed Skating Championships.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: The Soviet Navy cruiser "Kirov" was named after him, and by extension the "Kirov"-class cruiser. The "Kirov" name was again used for the battlecruiser "Kirov" and the "Kirov"-class battlecruiser.


title: Sergei Kirov

text: Kirov was married to Maria Lvovna Markus (1885–1945) from 1911, although they never formally registered their relations. Their daughter, (1921–1975) was a famous tank company commander and World War II veteran.


title: Acura TSX

text: The Acura TSX is a compact executive car manufactured by Honda and sold through its Acura division from 2003 to 2014. The TSX spanned two generations, both derived from the corresponding Japanese/European versions of the Honda Accord, which were more compact and sporting-oriented than its larger North American counterpart, the latter platform which also used for the Acura TL which slotted above the TSX in Acura's lineup. All TSXs were built in Sayama, Saitama, Japan.


title: Acura TSX

text: The first-generation TSX was introduced as a 2004 model in April 2003 as a rebadged version of the Japanese domestic market (JDM) Honda Accord 2.4 Type-S, with the exception of its interior, borrowed from the JDM fourth-generation Honda Inspire. It was succeeded by the second-generation TSX, introduced in March 2008 as a 2009 model and based on the eighth-generation JDM Accord. Notably, the final generation of the TSX would introduce a V6 option for 2010, and a wagon for 2011.


title: Acura TSX

text: It was sold in North America under the Acura luxury marque as the replacement for the Integra sedan which was discontinued in 2001 (1996 in Canada since the EL was the Integra sedan's replacement there), and would become Acura's entry-level vehicle after the Acura RSX got discontinued in 2006. From the 2007 model year until 2012, the TSX was the smallest vehicle in the Acura model line, other than the Civic-based CSX and the preceding Acura 1.6 and 1.7 EL sold only in Canada. In 2013, the smaller ILX was introduced in both the United States and Canada, based upon the Civic platform (replacing the CSX in Canada).


title: Acura TSX

text: Honda discontinued the TSX and the larger TL during 2014 with the introduction of the TLX, which replaced both vehicles, although the TLX is close in size to the TL while the recently-introduced ILX succeeded the TSX as Acura's entry-level offering.


title: Acura TSX

text: The Acura TSX was introduced at the 2003 North American International Auto Show as a production model. The 2004 model year TSX's powertrain consisted of a 2.4-liter inline four-cylinder K24A2 engine which produced 200 horsepower, a six-speed manual transmission (which featured a special casing, to reduce weight), and a front wheel drive layout. A five-speed automatic transmission was a no-cost option in the U.S. based on MSRP; however, such was not the case in Canada.


title: Acura TSX

text: In 2006, the TSX was updated with slight tweaks to the engine (adding 5 hp with an increase from 200 hp to 205 hp); a sportier exterior styling featuring a slightly new front and rear treatment, standard side skirts, and standard, integral fog lights; and restyled wheels.


title: Acura TSX

text: In 2007, Tire Pressure Monitoring System and an improved electronic rear view mirror were added, and the 2008 model year brought a new color option.


title: Acura TSX

text: 2005 was the second year of the TSX and Acura updated it with XM Satellite Radio, a four-way power passenger seat and illuminated the steering wheel-mounted audio and cruise controls. Along with the slight tweaks to the engine in 2006, interior tech features were also added, including a Multi-information Display (MID) in the instrument panel, and luxury features such as a two-position memory for the driver's seat adjustments which adjusted according to which of two keys were being used, auxiliary MP3 player input and Bluetooth-compatible "HandsFreeLink" (for cellular phones). The Bluetooth "HandsFreeLink" system operates through voice control, where the user speaks when the HandsFreeLink button is pressed. Six different phones can be paired up to the HandsFreeLink system.


title: Acura TSX

text: In testing conducted by the United States-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the Acura TSX received an overall rating of "Good" for frontal offset testing, an overall rating of "Poor" rear crash protection, and an overall rating of "Acceptable" for side impact testing.


title: Acura TSX

text: The K24A2 engine used in the TSX was related to the engine in the Honda Accord (7th generation), the Honda CR-V, and the Honda Element. The K24A2 featured intelligent variable valve timing (i-VTEC) and produced in this iteration. Another feature of the i-VTEC system on the TSX and RSX-s was that, unlike other Honda K-series motors, variable timing was used on both the intake and exhaust cams in its three rocker design.


title: Acura TSX

text: For the 2006 model year, the K24A2 was updated to produce 205 hp (153 kW). The diameter of the throttle body and intake valves were slightly increased, along with the cam duration and valve lift.


title: Acura TSX

text: The redesigned 2009 Acura TSX made its debut at the New York International Auto Show on March 20, 2008 before going on sale on April 24. In terms of size, the TSX is larger than its predecessor with greater width, a wider track and a longer wheelbase, and the length grew by . Curb weight increased by approximately .


title: Acura TSX

text: Making its debut on the new TSX is Honda's Advanced Compatibility Engineering body structure, which is designed to reduce accident impact on occupants. In the United States, the TSX comes standard with luxury features like leather seat upholstery, dual-zone climate control, power driver's seat with memory, sunroof, Xenon headlights, and adds a USB port music interface; in Canada this configuration is known as the "Premium Package" as there is a base trim available with the four-cylinder TSX that has cloth seats and halogen headlights, and without the USB connector, memory seat function, and fog lamps. The TSX has an optional technology package, which includes a navigation system real-time traffic and weather, and a 10-speaker premium sound system with DVD-audio capabilities.


title: Acura TSX

text: For the United States, Acura also added a "Sport Wagon" body style of the TSX in fall 2010 as a 2011 model. The wagon is available with the I4 engine and 5-speed automatic.


title: Acura TSX

text: The 2010 model year TSX added an optional 3.5L 280 hp V6 engine, shared with the Acura TL. It comes standard with the five-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters and 18-inch alloy wheels, and is available in either Premium or Technology trims.


title: Acura TSX

text: For the 2012 model year, Acura introduced an all new Special Edition model. The exterior features a more aggressive front spoiler giving it a sporty look, reminiscent of their old sports coupe, the RSX. Other cosmetic upgrades include a rear bumper fascia, side sills, and a "Special Edition" badge on the trunklid. In the cabin, Acura made sport-minded appointments including suede seat inserts with red backing. There is red stitching on the shift knob, seats, and steering wheel, along with red ambient lighting featured on the gauge cluster, overhead lighting, and footwell lighting. The pedals have also been upgraded to aluminum.


title: Acura TSX

text: In late 2013 Honda announced that the TSX would be replaced with the Acura TLX sedan and that they will discontinue sales of the TSX model in 2014.


title: Acura TSX

text: The new TSX uses a base engine similar to that of the previous TSX. The engine is a 2.4-liter in-line 4-cylinder engine reaching 201 hp (150 kW) and torque. While the rated power of the new TSX engine is lower than that of the 2008 model, Acura says the new engine distributes power across a much wider rpm range, which along with the increased torque, provides an increased feeling of power for the driver. The transmission choices remain 5-speed automatic and 6-speed manual, though the automatic version now comes with steering-wheel paddle shifters for optional manual shifting.


title: Acura TSX

text: The TSX was slated to receive a high-performance 2.2-liter i-DTEC clean turbodiesel engine in the 2010 model year after having already offered it for the CL-series Accord; however, it was later announced that Honda had abandoned its plans to bring diesel engines to the U.S. and Japan in favor of hybrid gasoline-electric powertrains. Instead, a 280 hp 3.5-liter V6 became available in the 2010 Acura TSX. The TSX V6 is only available with the 5-speed automatic transmission.


title: Acura TSX

text: The Acura TSX Sport Wagon is a badge-engineered version of CL-series Honda Accord Tourer station wagon. The Sport Wagon was unveiled in the 2010 New York Auto Show. The TSX Sportwagon is mechanically identical to the TSX Sedan, sharing the 201-horsepower Honda K engine 2.4L DOHC inline four-cylinder engine, Sequential SportShift 5-speed automatic transmission, and four-wheel independent sports suspension, however unlike the sedan the Sport Wagon is not offered with the 6-speed manual transmission nor the V6 engine.


title: Acura TSX

text: For the United States market, the 2011 Acura TSX Sport Wagon went on sale starting on December 21, 2010 with a base price of US$30,960 (US$34,610 with Technology Package). Acura Canada said that they would eventually sell the TSX Sport Wagon, citing market conditions as the reason for the delay, but ultimately never marketed it there. While the CL-series Honda Accord Tourer was quite successful in its market of Europe, station wagons were less popular in the United States. The competing Volkswagen Passat wagon and Mercedes C-Class wagons were withdrawn around the same time the TSX Sport Wagon was unveiled, leaving the BMW 3 Series Touring as the only wagon available in the entry-level luxury car category.


title: Acura TSX

text: Changes to 2012 TSX Sport Wagon include a compact tire repair kit that allows for a significantly larger underfloor storage area.


title: Acura TSX

text: The 2012 TSX Special Edition is a version of the TSX commemorating the 25th anniversary of Acura, with a 6-speed manual or Sequential SportShift 5-speed automatic transmission, a more aggressive front spoiler, rear bumper fascia and side sills, 17x7.5-inch 5-spoke aluminum wheels with a dark grey finish, a "Special Edition" badge on the trunklid, perforated black Lux Suede inserts and red backing upholstery, unique red stitching and red-lighting throughout the interior, aluminum pedal covers and a black headliner material replaces the standard grey headliner used on other TSX models.


title: Acura TSX

text: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found the 2009-11 TSX to have an overall driver death of 7 deaths per million registered years, the 2nd lowest of midsize four-door cars, and both single-vehicle crash death rate and rollover death rate of 0.


title: Acura TSX

text: Realtime Racing prepares a factory TSX to compete in the SCCA Pro Racing World Challenge GTS class. The factory TSX is refashioned to be stiffer and lighter, and includes motor work with raised compression, and a custom built sequential transmission.


title: Acura TSX

text: Acura won the Manufacturer's Championship for the Touring class in 2005 with the RTR TSX, as well as the Driver's Championship for Peter Cunningham. Acura returned in 2006 and won the Manufacturers' Championship of the Speed World Challenge Touring Car class for the second year in a row, running both RSXs and TSXs. TSX drivers finished in 3rd and 4th in the Drivers' Championship.


title: Acura TSX

text: More success followed as Pierre Kleinubing won the Championship in 2007, and Peter Cunningham took it in 2008.


title: Acura TSX

text: Driving for RTR in 2009 is Peter Cunningham, Pierre Kleinubing, Toby Grahovic, Kuno Wittmer, and Jeff Courtney.


title: Laurence Auzière-Jourdan

text: Laurence Auzière-Jourdan (born 26 April 1977) is a French cardiologist and stepdaughter of French President Emmanuel Macron, for whom she campaigned in the 2017 French presidential election.


title: Laurence Auzière-Jourdan

text: Auzière-Jourdan was born in 1977 to André-Louis Auzière, a banker, and Brigitte Trogneux. Her family lived in Truchtersheim, a French city near the German border, until 1991. She was a classmate of Emmanuel Macron at the Lycée la Providence in Amiens, France. She has an older brother, Sébastien, an engineer, and a younger sister, Tiphaine, a lawyer.


title: Laurence Auzière-Jourdan

text: Auzière-Jourdan practices high-risk cardiology and vascular diseases in Vincennes and Nogent-sur-Marne. She practices with cardiologists Didier Catuli and Pierre Sablon. She has published research in cardiology, including "Facteurs échographiques associés à un niveau de BNP élevé chez les insuffisants cardiaques: interaction systole diastole. (2004)"


title: Laurence Auzière-Jourdan

text: During the 2017 campaign of En Marche! presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, she campaigned for him. Macron married Auzière-Jourdan's mother, Trogneux in 2007, after the two met each other when Macron was a 15-year-old student. At first, Macron's parents thought he was interested in Auzière-Jourdan, after she remarked that there was a boy in her class who "knows everything about everything" but later found out that Macron was interested in Auzière-Jourdan's mother.


title: Laurence Auzière-Jourdan

text: Auzière-Jourdan married Guillaume Jourdan, a radiologist practicing in Meaux. They have three children.


title: The Smiths (album)

text: The Smiths is the debut studio album by English rock band the Smiths, released on 20 February 1984 by Rough Trade Records. After the original production by Troy Tate was felt to be inadequate, John Porter re-recorded the album in London, Manchester and Stockport during breaks in the band's UK tour during September 1983.


title: The Smiths (album)

text: The album was well received by critics and listeners, and reached number two on the UK Albums Chart, staying on the chart for 33 weeks. It established the Smiths as a prominent band in the 1980s music scene in the United Kingdom. The album also became an international success, peaking at number 45 in the European Albums Chart, remaining in the chart for 21 weeks. After its exit of the European chart, it then re-entered in the Hot 100 Albums from September for another run of three weeks.


title: The Smiths (album)

text: After signing with independent record label Rough Trade, the Smiths began preparations to record their first album in mid 1983. Due to the suggestion of Rough Trade head Geoff Travis, the band selected Troy Tate (former guitarist of the Teardrop Explodes) as producer for sessions at Elephant studios in Wapping, London. During the following month the group recorded fourteen songs.


title: The Smiths (album)

text: Guitarist Johnny Marr would later write in his autobiography that he "liked Troy...Troy's vision was to capture the way the band sounded live. He thought it was important that the record represented the way we were in the clubs and was an authentic document. He worked pretty tirelessly to get passion from a performance and was very nurturing with me..." However, the sessions would also prove to be arduous due to an ongoing heatwave in London. The Smiths were recording in a hot basement studio at Elephant, and according to Marr, not only was the heat uncomfortable but it made it difficult to keep their instruments in tune.


title: The Smiths (album)

text: While recording a BBC session for Dave Jensen in August 1983, The Smiths met producer John Porter, who was working in one of the studios. Travis, harbouring reservations about the group's session with Troy Tate, gave Porter a cassette of the sessions beforehand in the hopes that he could remix them. Porter told Travis that the sessions were "out of tune and out of time". Feeling the Tate sessions were unsalvageable, Porter offered to re-record the album himself. Despite praising the work with Tate, only a week prior, to the press by stating "we've done everything exactly right and it'll show", Smiths singer Morrissey accepted (as did Travis), while Marr hesitantly agreed. Marr would later claim in his autobiography that when the band heard the finished work done under Tate, Morrissey didn't like the album and the others weren't entirely happy with the results either. "I could hear myself that the mixes sounded underproduced and were not the finished article that we needed as our introduction to the world," Marr wrote. "Why it was deemed necessary to scrap the album entirely rather than just mix it again I didn't know, but I wasn't going to make too much of it...it was a document of how the band really were at that point though...".


title: The Smiths (album)

text: The Smiths began work with Porter in September 1983. Due to tour commitments, the group had to make the record in a piecemeal fashion. Marr later recalled that "working with John immediately got us results...he and I formed a musical and personal relationship that was inspiring...he nurtured not just me but all the band". Recording started at London's Matrix Studios, with the majority of the work undertaken during a week's stay at Pluto, just outside Manchester. A final overdub session was performed at Eden Studios in London that November. After listening to a finished mix of the album the following month, Morrissey told Porter and Travis that the album "wasn't good enough". However, the singer said that due to the album's cost of £6,000, "[they said] it has to be released, there's no going back".


title: The Smiths (album)

text: The sleeve for "The Smiths" was designed by Morrissey. It features American actor Joe Dallesandro in a cropped still from Andy Warhol's 1968 film "Flesh". The photograph of Morrissey on the original card inner sleeve was taken at an early London concert by Romi Mori, who subsequently played bass guitar for the Gun Club.


title: The Smiths (album)

text: The single "What Difference Does It Make?" was released in January 1984, reaching number 12 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: The Smiths (album)

text: "This Charming Man" was included as the sixth track on all original US releases of the album on Sire Records (LP, CD and cassette) and on the UK cassette on Rough Trade. Since 1992, when WEA acquired the Smiths' catalogue, nearly all reissues worldwide also include this song, with the exceptions being a 2009 vinyl reissue on Rhino Records in both the US and the UK and the 2011 vinyl version box set collecting the Smiths albums titled "Complete".


title: The Smiths (album)

text: The music critic Garry Mulholland included it in his list of the 261 greatest albums since 1976 in "Fear of Music": "The Smiths made safe their early legend with a debut album about child abuse. The production was flat and dour, yet it succeeded in conjuring yet another Manchester-in-song, distinctly different from that of Ian Curtis and Mark E. Smith. But everything about The Smiths ran contrary to mid-80s pop, from Joe Dallesandro on the cover to the restrained jangling of the songs, but mainly through Moz's [Morrissey's nickname] dramatised disgust at sex, which here exists to ruin true love at best, and to ruin an entire young life at worst."


title: The Smiths (album)

text: "Slant Magazine" listed the album at 51 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s" saying "There's no reason why a mordant, sexually frustrated disciple of Oscar Wilde who loved punk but crooned like a malfunctioning Sinatra should've teamed up with a fabulously inventive guitarist whose influences were so diffuse that it could be hard to hear them at all and formed one of the greatest songwriting duos of the '80s." "PopMatters" included the album on their list of "12 Essential Alternative Rock Albums from the 1980s" saying: "Morrissey's career are fully accounted for on "The Smiths", where they are rendered all the more piercing by Johnny Marr's delicate guitar-picking and John Porter's stark production".


title: The Smiths (album)

text: In 1989, the album was ranked number 22 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was #481 on that magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The magazine ranked it at #473 on an updated list in 2012, calling it "a showcase for Morrissey's morose wit and Johnny Marr's guitar chime". The album was ranked number 51 on "Rolling Stone"s list of the 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time. It placed at number 73 in "The Guardian"s list of the 100 Best Albums Ever in 1997.


title: Provost (education)

text: A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada and the equivalent of a deputy vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia. Additionally, the heads of certain colleges of universities in the UK and Ireland are called provosts; the term is, used in this sense, the equivalent of a Master or Principal (and various like terms) at other colleges.


title: Provost (education)

text: The specific duties and areas of responsibility for a provost vary from one institution to another, but usually include supervision and oversight of curricular, instructional, and research affairs.


title: Provost (education)

text: The various deans of a university's schools, colleges, or faculties typically report to the provost, or jointly to them and the institution's chief executive officer—which office may be called president, chancellor, or rector. Likewise do the heads of the various interdisciplinary units and academic support functions (such as libraries, student services, the registrar, admissions, and information technology) usually report there. The provost, in turn, is responsible to the institution's chief executive officer and governing board or boards (variously called its trustees, the regents, the governors, or the corporation) for oversight of all educational affairs and activities, including research and academic personnel.


title: Provost (education)

text: In many but not all North American institutions, the provost or equivalent is the second-ranking officer in the administrative hierarchy. Often the provost may serve as acting chief executive officer during a vacancy in that office or when the incumbent is absent from campus for prolonged periods. In these institutions, the title of provost is sometimes combined with those of "senior vice president", "executive vice president", "executive vice chancellor", or the like, to denote that officer's high standing.


title: Provost (education)

text: Provosts often receive staff support or delegate line responsibility for certain administrative functions to one or more subordinates variously called "assistant provost", "associate provost", "vice provost", or "deputy provost". The deputy provost is often the right-hand person of the provost who assumes the provost's responsibilities in the provost's absence.


title: Provost (education)

text: Provosts are often chosen by a search committee made up of faculty members, and are almost always drawn from the 'tenured faculty' or 'professional administrators' with academic credentials, either at the institution or from other institutions.


title: Provost (education)

text: At some North American research universities and liberal arts colleges, other titles may be used in place of or in combination with provost, such as chief academic officer (CAO) or vice president for academic affairs (or, rarely, academic vice-president, academic vice rector, or vice president for education). At smaller independent liberal arts colleges, the chief academic officer may carry the title "dean of the college" or "dean of the faculty" in addition to or instead of "provost". For example, at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, the dean of the faculty is also the vice president for academic affairs and is the second-highest administrator, directly beneath the president.


title: Provost (education)

text: State university systems in the United States are the state universities operated and funded primarily by the state government. (They may include multiple administratively independent campuses, or an integrated multi-campus state university.) In some state university systems, "provost" may be the title held by the head of a branch campus. For example, until recently the chancellors of the Newark and Camden campuses of Rutgers University in New Jersey were known as provosts.


title: Provost (education)

text: Sometimes the chief academic officer or chief medical officer of a university medical center (also academic medical center) holds the title of provost.


title: Provost (education)

text: In some universities, the chief administrative officer of a large academic division may be a provost. Finally, in some colleges and universities, the title of provost (and the function of deputy to the president or chancellor) may be separate from the function of chief academic officer.


title: Provost (education)

text: "Provost" is the style of the heads of University College London; the Royal College of Art; Oriel, Queen's and Worcester Colleges at Oxford; King's College at Cambridge; Trinity College at Dublin; and St Leonard's College (University of St Andrews), as well as the deputy head of Imperial College London. The chairman of the governors of Eton College is also called a provost. There are also Provosts for the University of Reading Malaysia Campus.


title: Provost (education)

text: The title "provost" (Latin: "praepositus") was used in England in medieval times for the head of colleges such as Oriel College, Oxford and Eton College. In the context of local government, the title is even older; see civil provost.


title: Provost (education)

text: The first use of the title in American and Canadian higher education is unclear. At the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, the title dates from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, respectively. At Penn, the administrative head of the university was titled provost until the 1930s, when the board of trustees created a separate office of president and re-designated the provost as chief academic officer and subordinate to the new position. At Columbia, the board of trustees established the office of provost in 1811, only to abolish it five years later. The Trustees and the president of the university re-established the office of provost in 1912. Although the precise title of the office has changed over time, its responsibility as Columbia's chief academic officer has remained constant.


title: Provost (education)

text: Other North American universities and colleges created provosts as heads of academic affairs during and after World War II, when dramatic increases in undergraduate enrollments (due to the G.I. Bill) and the increased complexity of higher education administration led many chief executive officers to adopt a more corporate governing structure. By the 1960s, most of the other Ivy League institutions (Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and Brown) had provosts (or equivalents), as did other private research universities such as the University of Chicago, Stanford University, Rice University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, Emory University, Wake Forest University and Duke University.


title: Provost (education)

text: At Harvard University, the office of provost has had two distinct incarnations. The first was during World War II and the immediate postwar era. James Bryant Conant, the president of the university from 1933 to 1953, asked the Harvard Corporation (the more senior of the two governing boards) to create the office of provost in October 1945, at time when he (Conant) spent a great deal of time in Washington, D.C. as chairman of the National Defense Research Committee. A provision was created where the dean of the Faculty of Arts of Sciences (FAS) would concurrently serve as provost. Conant appointed historian Paul Herman Buck, in which capacity he had oversight of FAS (which includes Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Extension School, the Summer School, and what is now called the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) and its affiliated laboratories, research centers, and museums. However, he had no authority over Harvard's professional schools (at that time, the Divinity School, the Law School, the Faculty of Medicine, the School of Public Health, and the Graduate Schools of Business Administration, Design, Education, and Public Administration).


title: Provost (education)

text: That provost's office was eliminated when Conant retired from Harvard's presidency in 1953. During the presidencies of Nathan Marsh Pusey (1953–1971) and Derek C. Bok (1971–1993), the deans of Harvard's nine faculties reported directly to the president, with the dean of FAS being "primus inter pares". The second incarnation began in 1993, when then Harvard President Neil Rudenstine asked the corporation to create the provostship as a second university-wide academic officer, reporting to its president.


title: Provost (education)

text: A section of Harvard's 1997 Re-accreditation Report for the New England Commission of Colleges and Schools reads:


title: Provost (education)

text: The Provost at Harvard acts as an extension of the President. He is the second academic officer, after the President, having purview of the entire University. The Provost has special responsibility for fostering intellectual interactions across the University, including the five Interfaculty Initiatives (environment, ethics and the professions, schooling and children, mind/brain/behavior, and health policy). The Provost also acts to help improve the quality and efficiency of central services organized at Harvard under the aegis of the Vice Presidents.


title: O Fortuna

text: "O Fortuna" is a medieval Latin Goliardic poem which is part of the collection known as the "Carmina Burana", written early in the 13th century. It is a complaint about Fortuna, the inexorable fate that rules both gods and mortals in Roman and Greek mythology.


title: O Fortuna

text: In 1935–36, "O Fortuna" was set to music by German composer Carl Orff as a part of "", the opening and closing movement of his cantata "Carmina Burana". It was first staged by the Frankfurt Opera on 8 June 1937. It opens at a slow pace with thumping drums and choir that drops quickly into a whisper, building slowly in a steady crescendo of drums and short string and horn notes peaking on one last long powerful note and ending abruptly. The tone is modal, until the last nine bars. A performance takes a little over two and a half minutes.


title: O Fortuna

text: Orff's setting of the poem has influenced and been used in many other works and has been performed by numerous classical music ensembles and popular artists. It can be heard in numerous films and television commercials, and has become a staple in popular culture, setting the mood for dramatic or cataclysmic situations. "O Fortuna" topped The People's Classical Chart in 2009 as the most-played classical music of the previous 75 years in the United Kingdom.


title: O Fortuna

text: "O Fortuna" is a medieval Latin Goliardic poem written in the 13th century of uncertain authorship. It is a complaint against the goddess of fortune, contained in the collection known as the "Carmina Burana".


title: O Fortuna

text: Carl Orff encountered the collection in 1934 and worked with a Latin and Greek enthusiast, Michel Hofmann, to select and organize 24 of the poems into a libretto. Orff composed his "Carmina Burana," using the libretto, in 1935-36. It was first performed by the Frankfurt Opera on 8 June 1937. The cantata is composed of 25 movements in five sections, with "O Fortuna" providing a compositional frame, appearing as the first movement and reprised for the twenty-fifth, both in sections titled "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" (Fortune, Empress of the World).


title: O Fortuna

text: There are different interpretations and translations of the text available. For example, by inspecting the manuscript we see: ‘O fortuna usluo luna flaw ualtabilic ceme crefac aut o ecrecac ulta oe’. This roughly translates to: ‘O fortune, when the moon is flawed, the sky will grow, or it will rise again o’. Another interpretation and translation of the text is available below.


title: O Fortuna

text: Scott Horton wrote in "Harper's" that the text of the poem highlights how few people, at the time it was written, "felt any control over their own destiny" while at the same time it "rings with a passion for life, a demand to seize and treasure the sweet moments that pitiful human existence affords."


title: O Fortuna

text: Orff was inspired both by the poem and the medieval symbol of the "Rota Fortunae", or Wheel of Fortune, which the goddess Fortuna spins at random, causing some people to suffer while others find wealth. The "Rota Fortunae" appears in a version of the poetry collection known as the "Codex Buranas". The repetition of the musical accompaniment draws a comparison to the spinning of the wheel.


title: O Fortuna

text: "O Fortuna" opens at a slow pace with thumping drums and energetic choir that drops quickly into a whisper, building slowly in a steady crescendo of drums and short string and horn notes peaking on one last long powerful note and ending abruptly. Conductor Marin Alsop wrote that it "begins with all forces at full throttle, then immediately scale[s] back in an ominous warning repetition that builds to a climactic close". The tone is modal, with melody built around a tonal center, until the last nine bars. The last syllable of the song shifts in both key and emotional valence, from D minor to D major.


title: O Fortuna

text: Alsop describes the piece as "a spectacle" which appeals to all of the senses, intentionally defying neat categorization. According to David Clem, "the music signifies the upturn of Fortune's wheel, while the text represents the downturn."


title: O Fortuna

text: "Carmina Burana" was successful from its first staging by the Frankfurt Opera in 1937, propelling Orff's career and becoming his best known work. "O Fortuna" in particular has become one of the most recognizable compositions in popular culture. In 2009, it topped a BBC list of most widely heard classical tracks, with BBC Radio 2 head of programming calling it "a timeless piece of music that continues to be played, performed and loved over 70 years after its composition." A Radio Netherlands documentary attributes its popular appeal to the combination of choruses, large orchestra, interesting instrument combinations, tight rhythm, and the extent to which it is singable and memorable. Horton calls it "a work of brilliance" that "may have been spoiled by its popularization", used "often as a jingle, detached in any meaningful way from its powerful message".


title: O Fortuna

text: In "The Oxford Handbook of Music and Advertising", Clem highlights how the poem's themes like human struggle and fate are commonly divorced from popular usage. He takes as an example the use of the music in an Applebee's advertisement which changes the words to be about a new promotion, drawing on the arrangement simply for its signification of the vernacular concept of "epic" (an "epic deal"). Widespread use of "O Fortuna" in advertising and other forms of popular culture may have begun with the trailer for the 1981 movie "Excalibur," which uses the song in its entirety.


title: O Fortuna

text: "O Fortuna" has been called "the most overused piece of music in film history", and "Harper's Magazine" columnist Scott Horton has commented that "Orff’s setting may have been spoiled by its popularization" and its use "in movies and commercials often as a jingle, detached in any meaningful way from its powerful message." Its contemporary usage is often joking or satirical in nature (e.g. its use in the 2009 episode "Gone Maggie Gone" of "The Simpsons"), owing to its oversaturation in popular culture.


title: O Fortuna

text: The composition appears in numerous films and television commercials and has become a staple in popular culture, setting the mood for dramatic or cataclysmic situations. For instance, it is used to portray the torment of Jim Morrison's drug addiction in the film "The Doors." In 1983, Doors' keyboardist Ray Manzarek released his third solo album, "Carmina Burana", which is an interpretation of the piece in a contemporary framework.


title: O Fortuna

text: In the 1970s, the "O Fortuna" music was used for an Old Spice commercial which aired in the United Kingdom. The trailer of John Boorman's "Excalibur" (1981) featured "O Fortuna" in its entirety. It has been covered, remixed, and sampled in a wide variety of popular musical acts like Therion and Nas.


title: Teaching method

text: A teaching method comprises the principles and methods used by teachers to enable student learning. These strategies are determined partly on subject matter to be taught and partly by the nature of the learner. For a particular teaching method to be appropriate and efficient it has take into account the learner, the nature of the subject matter, and the type of learning it is supposed to bring about.


title: Teaching method

text: The approaches for teaching can be broadly classified into teacher-centered and student-centered. In a teacher-centered (authoritarian) approach to learning, teachers are the main authority figure in this model. Students are viewed as "empty vessels" whose primary role is to passively receive information (via lectures and direct instruction) with an end goal of testing and assessment. It is the primary role of teachers to pass knowledge and information onto their students. In this model, teaching and assessment are viewed as two separate entities. Student learning is measured through objectively scored tests and assessments. In Student-Centered Approach to Learning, while teachers are the authority figure in this model, teachers and students play an equally active role in the learning process. This approach is also called authoritative. The teacher's primary role is to coach and facilitate student learning and overall comprehension of material. Student learning is measured through both formal and informal forms of assessment, including group projects, student portfolios, and class participation. Teaching and assessments are connected; student learning is continuously measured during teacher instruction.


title: Teaching method

text: The most basic teaching method is explanation. Explanation is characterized by its function as "a tool that is used by a speaker for understanding or 'giving a sense' to the object of communication, of a debate, or a discussion ... The role of an explanation is to make clearer the meaning of an object (method, term, assignment) maintaining formally the necessary distance between the object of the action or study and the tools. In the learning/teaching process, explanation is a tool used by both, teacher and students. Its goal is to manifest comprehension.


title: Teaching method

text: Traditionally, explanation belongs to monological teaching methods where the information is transmitted from the teacher to the students (together with e.g. narrative, description or lecture). Skalková, 1999, says that in practice, individual forms of explanation often percolate. In this perspective, explanation is seen as the task fulfilled by the teacher with students passively receiving what is presented. Collecting feedback on students' perceptions of whether explanations are clearly identified whether students feel particular teaching assisted them in understanding the subject matter. Without student understanding, no explanation can be said to be clear.


title: Teaching method

text: Communication in school is a mutual interchange of information among teachers and students, studens and students during the educational process, i.e. students have an active role in the whole process (Mareš & Křivohlavý, 1995). Using explanation in a mathematics classroom is a normal procedure, but its roles and forms vary. Predominantly explanation is seen as a tool for describing relevant phenomena, developing students' logical thinking, and guiding students by inductive judgement to generalising. It leads to clarifying interrelations, demonstrating and justifying (Skalková, 1999, p. 172).


title: Teaching method

text: Although explanation is not often explicitly studied in literature, it is present in the background of most papers dealing with communication and reasoning. "Good teaching is good explanation" (Calfee 1986: 1-2). This quotation reflects the belief that the capacity to explain is critically important in teaching (Havita 2000). According to Behr (1988: 189), the art of explaining - the ability to provide understanding to others - is the central activity of teaching. Therefore, to achieve the goal of teaching, the teacher must adopt effective teaching methods that can lead to learners understanding the subject being taught. Being the most commonly used teaching method, explanation integrates well in all methods of instruction, such as discussions, seminars, practical lessons and tutorials (Havita 2000). Therefore, if used properly, this teaching method can develop logical operations: induction, deduction, comparison, analysis, synthesis and analogy. The main objective of explanation in teaching is to enable the learners to take intelligent interest in the lesson, to grasp the purpose of what is being done, and to develop their own insight and understanding of how to do it (Rahaman 2004). In addition, and with specific reference to technology education, explanation is used in classroom teaching to provide students with an understanding of the complex and interrelated nature of technology, which is technical, procedural, conceptual and social (Hansen and Froelick 1994). This involves the ability by the teacher to use explanation effectively in order to communicate information to students. From the standpoint of technology education, explanation in teaching is an intentional activity, which represents the discovery of truth, which is based on concrete deductive arguments (Gwyneth 2007). Explanation as it pertains to teaching can be considered as an attempt to provide understanding of a problem to others (Brown and Atkins 1986: 63).


title: Teaching method

text: Most formal definitions characterize explanation as a statement that makes something comprehensible by describing the relevant structure or operation or circumstances. Predominantly, explanation is seen as a tool for describing relevant phenomena, developing students' logical thinking, and guiding students by inductive judgement to generalising. It leads to clarifying interrelations, demonstrating and justifying (Skalková 1999:172). Mayes (2006) argues that explanation goes beyond mere description. Accordingly, a key aspect of explanation is the emphasis on why things happen. In other words, one can think of explanation as an attempt to identify the cause of something. Fairhurst (1981) contextualized explanation in term of requiring something to be explained (the phenomenon that needs to be explained), an explainer (the provider of the explanation) and the explainee (the recipient of the explanation). In this context, Metcalf and Cruickshank (1991) argued that the role of an explanation is to make some concept, procedure or rule plain and comprehensible. Brown and Armstrong (1984) operationally defined explanation as an attempt to provide understanding of a problem to others. This definition strengthens the view of Perrott (1982) who argued that a clear explanation depends on (a) identification of the elements to be related to, for example objects, events, processes and generalisation, and (b), identifying the relationship between them, for example casual, justifying and interpreting. Horwood (2006) on the other hand provides a distinction between explanation and description. According to Horwood (2006), description is purely informational, and the bits of information are isolated from any network of relatedness. In this context, an explanation is given when connections are drawn between and among pieces of information. Furthering this view, Hargie and Dickson (2003) argue that the act of explaining is essentially the same act of describing, instructing or giving of information.


title: Teaching method

text: According to Martin (1970: 59), the job of someone who explains something to someone "is to fill in the gap between his audience's knowledge or beliefs about some phenomena and what he takes to be the actual state of affairs". From Martin's point of view one can argue that what counts is causing the audience to know or believe something of which they were previously ignorant. At the extreme end, explanation has been thought of in a restricted sense as a special type of telling which goes beyond description. Pavitt (2000) is of the view that answering the question "why" is an explanation. In another debate, Trevor (2002) argues that for an explanation to be good the explanation must be valid in the context in which it is used and must also be understood by the listener. This implies that for an explanation to be understood, it should be clearly presented by the explainer.


title: Teaching method

text: In this regard, it is part of the responsibility of the explainer to ensure that his or her explanation appears sufficiently worthwhile and interesting to the listener for them to attend to the information being provided (Wragg 2003). From Wragg's point of view, good explanations can be described as clearly structured and interesting to the explainer. While good explanation can unlock understanding, poor or inadequate explanations may lead to confusion and boredom. From another standpoint, Gordon et al. (2006) are of the opinion that explanation is deemed successful if it fulfills the purpose of explanation. This implies that for an explanation to be understood, the explanation has to appear to be well structured by the explainee.


title: Teaching method

text: In the context of education, good explanation in teaching is essential for unlocking the students' understanding of the subject. It develops students' logical thinking and provides guidance by inductive judgment to generalizing. Leinhardt (1990: 3-4) distinguished between two types of teaching related to explanations: instructional and disciplinary. According to Leinhardt (1990), instructional explanations aim to explain concepts, procedures, events, ideas and classes of problems in order to help students understand, learn and use information in a flexible way. Disciplinary explanations are built around a core of conventions within each particular discipline and try to explain what constitutes evidence, what is assumed, and what the agenda for the discipline is. They provide the legitimacy of new knowledge, reinterpret old knowledge, and challenge and address existing knowledge (Leinhardt 1990). From a learning perspective, explanation holds a special place as one of the core critical thinking skills (Facione 1990). Good critical thinkers, according to Facione (1998: 5), are those who can explain what they think and how they arrived at that judgment. The Delphi Study expert panel, cited by Facione (1998: 6), defined explanation as being able "to state the results of one's reasoning; to justify that reasoning in terms of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, and contextual considerations upon which one's results were based; and to present one's reasoning in the form of cogent arguments". Explanation that works (Lipton 2004) is one that is "sticky" (people remember it, think about it, and can repeat it, often even days or weeks later), is easily communicated (people can explain it to each other), and guides thinking in new and better directions (it leads to new kinds of reasoning, which are not only more constructive and accurate but more engaging).


title: Teaching method

text: Howard Gardner identified a wide range of modalities in his Multiple Intelligences theories. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey Temperament Sorter, based on the works of Jung, focus on understanding how people's personality affects the way they interact personally, and how this affects the way individuals respond to each other within the learning environment.


title: Teaching method

text: The lecture method is just one of several teaching methods, though in schools it's usually considered the primary one. The lecture method is convenient for the institution and cost-efficient, especially with larger classroom sizes. This is why lecturing is the standard for most college courses, when there can be several hundred students in the classroom at once; lecturing lets professors address the most people at once, in the most general manner, while still conveying the information that they feel is most important, according to the lesson plan. While the lecture method gives the instructor or teacher chances to expose students to unpublished or not readily available material, the students plays a passive role which may hinder learning. While this method facilitates large-class communication, the lecturer must make constant and conscious effort to become aware of student problems and engage the students to give verbal feedback. It can be used to arouse interest in a subject provided the instructor has effective writing and speaking skills.


title: Teaching method

text: Demonstrating, which is also called the coaching style or the Lecture-cum-Demonstration method, is the process of teaching through examples or experiments. The framework mixes the instructional strategies of "information imparting" and "showing how". For example, a science teacher may teach an idea by performing an experiment for students. A demonstration may be used to prove a fact through a combination of visual evidence and associated reasoning.


title: Teaching method

text: Demonstrations are similar to written storytelling and examples in that they allow students to personally relate to the presented information. Memorization of a list of facts is a detached and impersonal experience, whereas the same information, conveyed through demonstration, becomes personally relatable. Demonstrations help to raise student interest and reinforce memory retention because they provide connections between facts and real-world applications of those facts. Lectures, on the other hand, are often geared more towards factual presentation than connective learning.


title: Teaching method

text: One of the advantages of the demonstration method involves the capability to include different formats and instruction materials to make the learning process engaging. This leads to the activation of several of the learners' senses, creating more opportunities for learning. The approach is also beneficial on the part of the teacher because it is adaptable to both group and individual teaching. While demonstration teaching, however, can be effective in teaching Math, Science, and Art, it can prove ineffective in a classroom setting that calls for the accommodation of the learners' individual needs.


title: Teaching method

text: Collaboration allows student to actively participate in the learning process by talking with each other and listening to others opinions. Collaboration establishes a personal connection between students and the topic of study and it helps students think in a less personally biased way. Group projects and discussions are examples of this teaching method. Teachers may employ collaboration to assess student's abilities to work as a team, leadership skills, or presentation abilities.


title: Teaching method

text: Collaborative discussions can take a variety of forms, such as fishbowl discussions. It is important for teachers to provide students with instruction on how to collaborate. This includes teaching them rules to conversation, such as listening, and how to use argumentation versus arguing. After some preparation and with clearly defined roles, a discussion may constitute most of a lesson, with the teacher only giving short feedback at the end or in the following lesson.


title: Teaching method

text: Some examples of collaborative learning tips and strategies for teachers are; to build trust, establish group interactions, keeps in mind the critics, include different types of learning, use real-world problems, consider assessment, create a pre-test and post-test, use different strategies, help students use inquiry and use technology for easier learning.