title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: On February 15, 2014, authorities ordered workers to shelter in place at the facility after air monitors had detected unusually high radiation levels at 11:30 p.m. the previous day. None of the facility's 139 workers were underground at the time of the incident. Later, trace amounts of airborne radiation consisting of americium and plutonium particles were discovered above ground, from the facility. In total, 22 workers were exposed to radioactive contaminants equaling that of a standard chest x-ray. The "Carlsbad Current-Argus" wrote: "the radiation leak occurred on the evening of February 14, according to new information made public at a news conference [on February 20]. Joe Franco, manager of the DOE Carlsbad Field Office, said an underground air monitor detected high levels of alpha and beta radiation activity consistent ["sic"] the waste buried at WIPP." Regarding the elevated levels of plutonium and americium detected outside the nuclear waste repository, Ryan Flynn, New Mexico Environment Secretary stated during a news conference: "Events like this simply should never occur. From the state's perspective, one event is far too many."


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: On February 26, 2014, the DOE announced that 13 WIPP above-ground workers had tested positive for exposure to radioactive material. Other employees were in the process of being tested. On Thursday, February 27, DOE announced that it sent out "a letter to tell people in two counties what they do know so far. Officials said it is too early to know what that means for the workers' health." Additional testing would be done on employees who were working at the site the day after the leak. Above ground, 182 employees continued to work. A February 27 update included comments on plans to discover what occurred below ground first by using unmanned probes and then people.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The Southwest Research and Information Center released a report on April 15, 2014 that one or more of 258 contact-handled radioactive waste containers located in room 7, panel 7 of the underground repository released radioactive and toxic chemicals. The location of the leak was estimated to be approximately from the air monitor that triggered the contaminants in the filtration system. The contaminants were spread through more than of tunnels, leading to the exhaust shaft into the surrounding above-ground environment. Air-monitoring station #107, located away, detected the radiotoxins. The filter from station #107 was analyzed by the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center (CEMRC) and found to contain 0.64 becquerels (Bq) per cubic meter of air of americium-241 and 0.014 Bq of plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 per cubic meter of air (equivalent to 0.64 and 0.014 radioactive decay events per second per cubic meter of air). The DOE agreed that there was a release of radioactivity from the repository and confirmed that "The event took place starting at 14 February 2014 at 23:14 and continued to 15 February 2014 14:45." The DOE also confirmed that "A large shift in wind direction can be seen to occur around 8:30 AM on 2/15/14." The EPA reported on the radiological release on their WIPP News page.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: After analysis by CEMRC, the station A filter was found on February 15, 2014 to be contaminated with 4,335.71 Bq of Am-241 per every , and 671.61 Bq of plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 per every . Bob Alvarez, former DOE official, stated that the long-term ramifications of the WIPP issue are grounded in the fact that the DOE has of transuranic waste that has not been disposed of due to the fact that there are no long-term disposition plans for transuranic waste, including 5 tons of plutonium that are in-situ at the Savannah River Site, as well as water from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State. In an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Alvarez wrote that "Wastes containing plutonium blew through the WIPP ventilation system, traveling 2,150 feet to the surface, contaminating at least 17 workers, and spreading small amounts of radioactive material into the environment." The URS Corporation, who oversees WIPP, removed and demoted the contracted manager of the repository. Alvarez ponders the notion of "contract handling" of radioactive waste because it deploys conventional processing practices that do not take into consideration the tens of thousands of containers buried before 1970 at several Department of Energy sites. Alvarez states that the quantity of this pre-1970 plutonium waste is 1,300 times more than the amount permitted to "leak" into the environment at WIPP; however, much of this waste is simply buried a few feet underground at DOE sites.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The source of contamination was later found to be a barrel that exploded on February 14 because contractors at Los Alamos National Laboratory packed it with "organic" cat litter instead of "clay" cat litter. Other barrels with the same problem were then sealed in larger containers. Anthropologist Vincent Ialenti has examined the political, social, and financial triggers to this organic kitty litter error in detail, linking it to the accelerated pace of the Department of Energy's and State of New Mexico's 3706 nuclear waste cleanup campaign, which ran from 2011 to 2014. Ialenti's study was published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in July 2018.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The 2014 incidents raised the question of whether or not WIPP would be a safe replacement for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, as a destination for all waste generated at U.S. commercial nuclear power plants. The cost of the 2014 accident was expected to exceed $2 billion and disrupted other programs in various nuclear-industry sites. On January 9, 2017, the plant was formally reopened after three years of cleanup costing $500 million, which is significantly less than forecasted. On April 10, the plant received its first shipment of waste since reopening.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: In 2020, a subcontractor at the WIPP opened a $32 million lawsuit claiming that "the company that runs the facility breached its contract to rebuild the nuclear waste repository's air system." Due to the 2014 incident, a Texas-based company named Critical Application Alliance LLC was hired to build a new ventilation system. The project was going to fix the flawed design in roof panels, the foundation of the WIPP, and a highly defective control system design.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is where the highest temperature ever recorded in New Mexico at occurred during the summer of 1994.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: Following the interment of waste in the facility, estimated to be sometime between 2025 and 2035 the storage caverns will be collapsed and sealed with 13 layers of concrete and soil. Salt will then seep into and fill the various fissures and cracks surrounding the casks of waste. After approximately 75 years, the waste will be completely isolated from the environment.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository is an unfinished, currently defunct deep geological repository in Nye County, Nevada. In 1987, Congress selected Yucca Mountain to be researched as the potential first permanent repository of nuclear waste, and directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to disregard other proposed sites and study the Yucca Mountain exclusively. However, federal funding for the site was terminated in 2011 by amendment to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, passed on April 14, 2011.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: Waste that is to be disposed of at WIPP must meet certain "waste acceptance criteria". It accepts transuranic waste generated from DOE activities. The waste must have radioactivity exceeding per gram from TRUs that produce alpha radiation with a half life greater than 20 years. This criterion includes plutonium, uranium, americium, and neptunium among others. The WIPP must not act as disposal site for any high-level radioactive waste or any nuclear fuel that has already been used. Mixed waste contains both radioactive and hazardous constituents, and WIPP first received mixed waste on September 9, 2000. Mixed waste is joint-regulated by the EPA and the New Mexico Environment Department.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The containers may also contain a limited amount of liquids. The energy released from radioactive materials will dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen (radiolysis). This could then create a potentially explosive environment inside the container. The containers must be vented, as well, to prevent this from happening. All containers must pass a visual inspection that is documented to insure that all containers are in good condition. "Good condition" is described "[not having significant rusting, is of sound and structural integrity, and does not show signs of leakage."


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: Waste is placed in rooms underground that have been excavated within a thick salt formation (Salado and Castile Formations) where salt tectonics have been stable for more than 250 million years. Because of plasticity effects, salt and water will flow to any cracks that develop, a major reason why the area was chosen as a host medium for the WIPP project. Because drilling or excavation in the area will be hazardous long after the area is actively used, there are plans to construct markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion for the next ten thousand years.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The Salado Formation is a massive bedded salt deposit (>99% NaCl) that has a simple hydrogeology. Because massive NaCl is somewhat plastic, so holes close under pressure, the rock becomes non-porous by effectively closing pores and fractures. This has a significant effect on the overall hydraulic conductivities (water permeabilities) and molecular diffusion coefficients. These are on the order of ≤10 m/s and ≤10 m/s respectively.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: Since 1983, the DOE has been working with linguists, archaeologists, anthropologists, materials scientists, science fiction writers, and futurists to come up with a warning system. For the case of the WIPP, the markers, called "passive institutional controls", will include an outer perimeter of thirty-two granite pillars built in a four-mile (6 km) square. These pillars will surround an earthen wall, tall and wide. Enclosed within this wall will be another 16 granite pillars. At the center, directly above the waste site, will sit a roofless, granite room providing more information. The team intends to etch warnings and informational messages into the granite slabs and pillars.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: This information will be recorded in the six official languages of the United Nations (English, Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, Arabic) as well as the Native American Navajo language native to the region, with additional space for translation into future languages. Pictograms are also being considered, such as stick figure images and the iconic "The Scream" from Edvard Munch's painting. Complete details about the plant will not be stored on site; instead, they would be distributed to archives and libraries around the world. The team plans to submit their final plan to the U.S. Government by around 2028 and they will finalize the warning messages by 2033.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: A portion of the site is used to house underground physics experiments which require shielding from cosmic rays. Although only moderately deep as such laboratories go (1585 meter water equivalent shielding), the site has several advantages. The salt is easy to excavate, dry (no water to pump out), and salt is much lower in naturally occurring radionuclides than rock.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The WIPP plant suffered an accident in February 2014 that forced all scientific activities to cease; for most experiments, it took one to two years to recover, and not all experiments recovered to continue their activities in WIPP. Especially it is unknown whether the Dark Matter Time Projection Chamber collaboration recovered their operations in WIPP after the February 2014 events.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: Currently (2018) the WIPP houses the Enriched Xenon Observatory (EXO) searching for neutrinoless double beta decay. The dark matter experiment collaboration that operated in WIPP before 2014, Dark Matter Time Projection Chamber (DMTPC), is continuing their work and aims to deploy their next detector at SNOLAB. After the 2014 events at the WIPP the DMTPC experiments were put on hold, but are expected to resume after the building is finished and waste is done being placed in the facility. The detector that the DMTPC collaboration had at WIPP was the 10-L DMTPC prototype detector (with active volume of 10 litres, hence the name 10-L or 10L) which started operations at WIPP October 2010.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: Also the EXO collaboration is continuing their activities. The planned end of the EXO operations in WIPP is December 2018, and the collaboration is planning to have the next-stage detector built in SNOLAB. This means that the two biggest experimental infrastructures (EXO and DMTPC) of WIPP intend to relocate to SNOLAB and cease their operations in WIPP before the end of 2019. This would leave WIPP underground laboratory without any major scientific experiment.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: Previous experiments at WIPP include the neutrinoless double beta decay searching MAJORANA Project detectors called Segmented Enriched Germanium Assembly (SEGA) and Multiple Element Germanium Array (MEGA); these were prototype detectors used to develop the measurement apparatus of the collaboration that were deployed 2004 in WIPP. Since then (2014 onwards), the MAJORANA collaboration has constructed a detector, the MAJORANA Demonstrator, at Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) at Lead, South Dakota. The MAJORANA collaboration remains active (as of 2019) and aims to construct a large neutrinoless double beta decay experiment LEGEND after the MAJORANA Demonstrator phase.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: Some smaller neutrino and dark matter experiments that have been mostly technology development oriented have also taken place at WIPP. There have also been a number of biology experiments in WIPP; for example, these experiments have studied the biological conditions of the deep under ground salt deposit. In one experiment, researchers were able to cultivate bacteria from 250 million year old spores found in WIPP. The Low Background Radiation Experiment studies the effects of reduced radiation environment to biological systems. The Low Background Radiation Experiment was stopped along with all other experiments in February 2014, but continued after summer 2016 at WIPP and has been ongoing since.


title: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

text: The 2000 testing of actinide transport within the Culebra Dolomite from the surrounding area of Carlsbad, New Mexico, was one of many experiments at this location to address concerns for lab safety. Other geology/geophysics experiments have taken place at WIPP, as have some special experiments relating to the operations of the Plant as a repository of radioactive waste.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Norilsk Nickel (), or Nornickel, is a Russian nickel and palladium mining and smelting company. Its largest operations are located in the Norilsk–Talnakh area near the Yenisei River in the north of Siberia. It also has holdings in Nikel, Zapolyarny, and Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula, in Harjavalta in western Finland, and in South Africa.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Headquartered in Moscow, Norilsk Nickel is the world's largest producer of refined nickel and the 11th largest copper producer.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The company is listed on MICEX-RTS. As of March 2021, its key shareholders were Vladimir Potanin's Olderfrey Holdings Ltd (34.59%) and Oleg Deripaska's Rusal (27.82%).


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In December 2010, Norilsk Nickel made a share buyback offer for Rusal's 25% share in the company for $12 billion, but the offer was declined. In 2012, Potanin's Interros holding, Rusal, and Roman Abramovich signed a shareholder agreement on the size of dividend payouts to end a conflict over the matter, as well as issues around the company's broader strategy and management. The agreement expires on June 1, 2023, and the prospects of its extension or suspension are unclear. In March 2019, Abramovich sold a 1.7% stake in the company for $551 million, predominantly to British-based and Russian investors. Potanin and Deripaska's Rusal were blocked from purchasing any shares.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Mining began in the Norilsk area in the 1920s. The Soviet government established the Norilsk Combine in 1935 and passed control to the NKVD. In 1943, Norilsk produced 4,000 tonnes of refined nickel and in 1945 hit the target figure of 10,000 tonnes. The mining and metal production originally used forced labour from the Gulag system.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 1993, after the fall of the Soviet Union, a joint-stock company called RAO Norilsk Nickel was created. Two years later, control over the deeply indebted company, which was bleeding cash at a rate of about $2 million a day against the background of falling nickel prices, was sold to a private company, Interros. By the end of privatization in 1997, the company had moved into the black, and workers were being paid. The current average pay exceeds $1,000 per month with an annual paid leave of two to three months. Nevertheless, the working and living conditions in Norilsk remain harsh, although they are improving as the company shuts down old factories that are the source of excessive pollution.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In July 2000, Norilsk Nickel joined forces with the St. Petersburg Research Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic (), to investigate the potential use of decommissioned nuclear powered submarines, both from the United States and Russia, to transport materials along the Northern Sea Route (). Overhaul and refit costs came to $72–80 million per submarine, which included modifying its ice-breaking bow to cut through ice up to 215 cm (85 in) thick in seawater and up to 150 cm (59 in) in the freshwater mouth of the Yenisei. Decommissioned Typhoon submarines were expected to transport up to 12,000 tonnes of supplies and nickel between Dudinka and either Murmansk or Arkhangelsk. In 2000, the Murmansk Shipping Company (MMP or MSCO) () provided icebreaker services at a charge of $11.35 per tonne of cargo. Three submarines - the project feasibility threshold - were scheduled for refit and overhaul between 2000 and 2003.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: However, the stakeholders failed to reach an agreement as to who would conduct and cover the refit and overhaul of the submarines. Furthermore, money was not the only issue. Under the existing international agreements, decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines from the two countries’ navies had to be dismantled. Should this obstacle be addressed, subsequent ownership of the refitted submarines also remained unclear: whether they would remain the assets of the Ministry of Defense or would be transferred to another governmental agency. One of the options suggested by Nornickel was to establish a joint transportation company that would lease the vessels.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2002, Nornickel accounted for the most of MMP's shipping along the Northern Sea Route. In 2008, Aker Yards signed a contract with Norilsk Nickel for the delivery of four container/cargo ships for Arctic operations, with an option for a fifth.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2002, MMC Norilsk Nickel began purchasing gold mining assets, which were spun off in 2005 as Polyus Gold.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2003, the company took control of Stillwater Mining Company, the only palladium producer in the U.S. Stillwater operates a platinum group metals (PGM) facility in Stillwater, Montana. In November 2010, Norilsk Nickel announced the sale of Stillwater.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Throughout 2007, Norilsk acquired a host of mining and metallurgical assets abroad, transforming into a multinational company with operations in Australia, Botswana, Finland, Russia, South Africa, and the United States. Norilsk Nickel signed its key deal on June 28, 2007, acquiring about 90 percent of Canada's LionOre Mining International Ltd, the world's tenth-largest nickel producer at the time. This takeover, valued at $6.4 billion, was the biggest foreign acquisition by a Russian company at the time, making Norilsk Nickel the world's largest nickel producer.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: On February 27, 2008, Norilsk Nickel diversified into the coal mining industry through North Star LLC by obtaining mining rights to the amount of 33.6 million rubles for the estimated 5.7 billion tonnes of coal at the Syradasai Field near the () in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District (). In the coal mining industry, it competed with Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. By the estimates of North Star LLC (), a firm affiliated with Nornickel, developing the field would require an investment of $1.5 billion, which including the necessary expansion of the port of Dikson, another Nornickel asset. The only competitor for the rights to the Syradasai Field was Golevskaya Mining Company LLC (). The Syradasai Field is 105 to 120 km southeast of Dikson in the Taimyr-Turukhansk support zone (). A 120-kilometer road and railway was expected to connect the deep-sea port on Cape Chaika to the massive coal deposit by 2019. CC VostokUgol () or "Vostok Coal" planned to export up to 10 million tonnes of coal annually from the open-pit mine to Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2018, North Star LLC changed owners to become part of businessman Roman Trotsenko's AEON Group. Neither Nornickel nor AEON disclosed the transfer of ownership terms.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2016 Nornickel ranked below 65 other oil, gas and mining companies in a list of 92 involved in onshore resource extraction above the Arctic Circle, in terms of handling indigenous rights.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In the Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index (AERI), Norilsk Nickel is ranked No. 38 out of 120 oil, gas, and mining companies involved in resource extraction north of the Arctic Circle.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Nornickel is Russia's largest non-ferrous metallurgy company and one of the 10 largest private enterprises in the country.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2019, the company produced 229,000 tonnes of nickel, 499,000 tonnes of copper, 2.9 million ounces of palladium, and 0.7 million ounces of platinum.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Nornickel also produces rhodium, cobalt, copper, silver, gold, iridium, ruthenium, selenium, tellurium, and sulfur.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Formed 250 million years ago during the eruption of the Siberian Traps igneous province (STIP), the Norilsk-Talnakh nickel deposits are the largest nickel-copper-palladium deposits in the world. The STIP disgorged over 1 million cubic kilometers of lava, a large portion of it through a series of flat-lying lava conduits below Norilsk and the Talnakh Mountains. The Siberian Traps are considered to be responsible for the late-Permian mass extinction event.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The district's first mineral resources were discovered in the 1840s when Alexander von Middendorff's expedition found the local coal deposits. In the 1860s, Friedrich Schmidt described the coal and surface copper ore found in the field that would later be called Norilsk 1. In the early days of the Soviet Union, Nikolay Urvantsev's expeditions revealed several industrially significant deposits. The 1930s saw the construction of the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgy Combine, which remains the pillar of local industry to date. The fields are located along the deep Norilsk-Khatanga Fault, and most mining operations employ underground methods. The area is believed to hold around 35% of the world's known nickel reserves, as well as 10% of its copper, 15% of its cobalt, and 40% of its platinum-group metals. The district's fields are divided into two clusters: the Norilsk Cluster in the southwest and the Talnakh Cluster in the northeast.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2022 Norilsk Nickel reiterated its output guidance for the year and said that operations remain uninterrupted. In the first update since the invasion of Ukraine, the miner said first-quarter nickel production increased 10% year-on-year to 52,000 tons. Palladium output declined 8% to 706,000 ounces and platinum fell by 12% to 163,000 ounces, but only from a higher-than-normal level a year ago.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The cluster is located below Norilsk's city center and to the south of it, in the north-eastern part of the Norilsk Geological Basin. In 2021, Norilsk Nickel estimated the mineral reserves of the cluster at 156.6 million tonnes of ore, 400,000 tonnes of nickel, 600,000 tonnes of copper, and 25.6 million troy ounces of platinum-group metals. The rights to some of the cluster's deposits belong to Russian Platinum, but the corporation is unable to start mining because Nornickel, which controls the remote area's infrastructure, is blocking access. The two conflicting parties have a protracted history of negotiating a joint mining enterprise.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The district's first actively developed field is located in the south of Norilsk's city center and to the south of the city. It is 30 to 350 meters thick. The northern part of the deposit consists of two branches: the “Coal Stream” and the “Bear Stream”. Extraction has been ongoing since the 1940s at the Zapolyarny Mine through both underground and open-pit mining of the Coal Stream and Bear Stream quarries. The reserves of its northern section have mostly been depleted, and mining in the Coal Stream quarry has ceased.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Russian Platinum obtained the mining rights to the southern section in 2012 but has not yet used them because of its conflict with Nornickel.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The field is located near Mount Gudchikha to the east of Norilsk 1. In 1926, Nikolay Urvantsev discovered copper-nickel ore in the area, and mining began in the 1930s. However, the deposit turned out to be minor, and the decision was made to focus on Norilsk 1. Prospecting continued throughout the 1950s, but after the Talnakh Cluster was discovered, Norilsk 2 was abandoned.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Located to the south of Norilsk 1, this field is believed to be an offshoot of the latter. Prospecting began here in the 1970s. The field stretches for over six kilometers from north to south and includes the northern and southern sections. Two by four kilometers in size, the northern section is up to 300 meters thick, while the southern estate, which is up to 400 meters thick, has an area of three by 1.5 kilometers[8]. The mining rights to the deposit belong to Nornickel, which in 2019 announced plans to launch an underground mining operation by 2029.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The field is located to the east of the Maslov Field near Mount Chernaya. An intrusion with a mineral composition similar to that of Norilsk 1 is up to 200 meters thick. In 2021, Russian Platinum signed a memorandum with VEB.RF and VTB to develop the field. The plans include open-pit mining in the eastern field section with an option for the subsequent underground development of its western part.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The cluster is located below the Talnakh District and to its northeast, in the southwest of the Kharayelakh Geological Basin. Following the discovery of its rich reserves of copper-and-nickel ore, the cluster became Norilsk's primary source of mineral resources. Its proven resources include over 100 kinds of ore minerals, many of which were previously unknown to science: talnakhite, godlevskite, shadlunite, taimyrite, sobolevskite, mayakite, and more. In 2021, Nornickel assessed the cluster's mineral reserves at 1,5 billion tonnes of ore, 11.2 million tonnes of nickel, 11.2 million tonnes of copper, and 231.7 million troy ounces of platinum-group metals.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The field stretches from north to south along the Norilsk-Khatanga Fault and includes its graben and the adjacent intrusions from the east. The primary development facilities are the Mayak, the Komsomolsky, and the Skalisty mines.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The field is located to the west of the Norilsk-Khatanga Fault. The primary development facilities are the Oktyabrsky and the Taimyrsky mines. The Oktyabrsky deposit accounts for about half of Norilsk Nickel's ore production.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Norilsk Nickel is known to be one of Russia's largest industrial polluters, releasing approximately 1.9 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide into the air annually as of 2020, accounting for 1.9% of global emissions. Ore is smelted on site in Norilsk. The smelting is directly responsible for severe pollution, including acid rain and smog.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The pollution originating from the Kola division of the company was also affecting Norway, which has been offering financial support to clean up the operation since 1990. In December 2020, Norilsk Nickel shut down its old smelter in the town of Nikel on the Russia-Norway border.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2008, Rosprirodnadzor (the Federal Environmental, Industrial, and Nuclear Supervision Service of Russia) demanded that a 4.35-billion ruble ($60-million) fine be imposed on Nornickel for polluting minor rivers with wastewater.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The environmental problems at Norilsk stretch back for decades. Back in 2004, oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov claimed that Nornickel would resolve most of the area's environmental issues within 5–6 years. By 2008, this timeline had been moved to 2015. However, Nornickel claims to be a socially responsible business and invests in modernization.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Norilsk Nickel has been working consistently to reduce emissions of major air pollutants. In 2006, the company reported an investment of more than $5 million in the maintenance and overhaul of its dust-and-gas recovery and removal systems. The company asserts a commitment of nearly $1.4 million for its air pollution prevention plan. However, according to the official statistics, emissions remain extremely high. In 2006, Blacksmith Institute, an international non-profit organization, included Norilsk in its list of the world's 10 most polluted places. Nornickel wrote a protest letter but to no avail. According to local environmental experts, in spite of minor reductions in overall pollution levels, the levels of SO2, HS, phenol, formaldehyde, and dust have increased, with the levels of nickel and copper showing 50% growth. The morbidity rate remains stable, though the mortality rate is decreasing.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2010, Vladimir Putin visited Norilsk and complained about the pollution, threatening a “significant increase in environmental fines” if the company did not modernize its plant. By 2013, owner Vladimir Potanin had begun to invest in environmental measures. In June 2016, Norilsk shut down one of its factories, which was emitting 380,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide every year, 25% of the total of sulfur emissions in the city, in an effort to clean up its environmental record. It also said it would invest 300 billion rubles to modernize manufacturing by 2020.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2016, Norilsk Nickel admitted that a spillage at one of its facilities had been responsible for a river in the Russian Arctic turning blood-red. The heavy rains on 5 September 2016 caused a filtration dam at the Nadezhda Plant to overflow into the Daldykan River. Indigenous groups have accused the company of lax safety standards.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: At the end of 2016, Nornickel signed a contract with Canadian company SNC-Lavalin to introduce sulfur dioxide filtration and storage technologies on its plant in Norilsk in what was lauded as one of the largest environmental projects of its kind. Once the project reached completion in 2020, sulfur emissions dropped by up to 75%.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In April 2018, amid rising pressure from the Russian government and Western investment funds, the company announced its plans to invest in a processing plant worth $1 billion, which would convert sulfur dioxide produced during the metal smelting process into gypsum. The plant will be finished in 2022, in time for the company to meet its target of reducing harmful emissions by 75% and avoid financial fines 100 times higher than the current ones.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2019, the group's total environmental protection expenditures were reported to have rocketed by 117.9%. The cornerstone of Nornickel's environmental program is the $3.5-billion SO2 Project. Aimed at recycling toxic SO2 emissions, the goal of the project is to achieve a 75% cut in SO2 emissions in Nornickel's hometown of Norilsk by 2023, growing to 90% by 2025.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2020, Nornickel presented a new environmental strategy with ambitious targets to be reached by 2030 in six environmental protection areas. To honor its commitments, the company shut down Kola MMC's smelting shop in Nikel in 2020, eliminating 100% of sulfur dioxide emissions near the Russia-Norway border, followed by its copper smelter in Monchegorsk in March 2021. Combined with Nornickel's other green initiatives, these steps are expected to ensure an 85% decrease in sulfur dioxide pollution in the Murmansk Region by late 2021.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In December 2020, Norilsk Nickel reiterated plans to cut group sulfur dioxide emissions in the Norilsk area by 90% by 2025 from 2015 levels and earmarked $5.5 billion for environmental projects, including $3.6 billion for sulfur dioxide capture and processing.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: On May 29, 2020, a Soviet-era fuel storage tank owned by Nornickel subsidiary Norilsk-Taimyr Energy (NTEK) collapsed, flooding the nearby Daldykan River with some 20,000 tonnes of diesel. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency. The diesel oil was intended for the NTEK coal-fired combined heat and power plant as backup fuel. The fuel storage tank failed when the underlying permafrost began to soften. An area of up to 350 square kilometers (135 square miles) was contaminated. The cleanup efforts were complicated by a lack of roads and the river being too shallow for boats or barges to pass. Former deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor Oleg Mitvol estimated the clean-up cost at about 100 billion rubles ($1.5 billion) and set a timeline of five to 10 years. In September 2020, the company reported having collected more than 90% of the leaked fuel.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Environmental Resources Management, the international company which provides Norilsk Nickel with consulting services on environmental issues, identified the cause of the accident as subsidence resulting from the gradual melting of the permafrost on which the piles supporting the fuel storage tank stood. According to the results of the official investigation, some of the piles were shorter than the designed length and rested on the permafrost rather than being sunk into the bedrock. According to specialists, the average annual temperature in Russia is growing more than 2.5–2.8 times faster than the global average. Russia's Far North, including the Taymyr Peninsula, is heating up faster than anywhere else in the country, melting the permafrost on which many structures stand.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: However, Zhanna Petukhova, director of the Arctic Permafrost Research Center, says that the tanks do in fact stand on piles driven into the bedrock, rather than the permafrost. She believes the accident is more likely to have been due to the poor condition of equipment dating back to the Soviet era.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In February 2021, the Krasnoyarsk Arbitration Court ordered Nornickel to pay 146 billion rubles ($2 billion) in compensation for the spill damage to support environmental projects in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Nornickel had claimed the damages should be calculated at 21 billion rubles ($280 million).


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Norilsk Nickel's nickel-cobalt refinery at Harjavalta, western Finland, released 66 tonnes of nickel as nickel sulphate into the local Kokemäenjoki (Kokemäki River) on 5–6 July 2014. Refinery coolant water recirculated from the river was accidentally contaminated by process water over a 30-hour period through an equipment failure. Nickel concentrations were 400 times normal levels, with the accident becoming the largest known leak in Finnish history. Elevated nickel values in river waters were recorded for ~20 days before declining to normal levels.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In December 2020, the company reported, citing a research paper, that the population of mussels in Kokemäenjoki had been recovering, purporting that the water protection measures had been successful and the burden on the river had been reduced.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Norilsk Nickel reported Total CO2e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for 31 December 2020 at 9,699 Kt (-253 /-2.5% y-o-y). There is little evidence of a consistent declining trend as yet.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The in St Petersburg is in charge of the design and construction of Nornickel's facilities. Gipronickel does research in every field of metallurgy, including extraction, patenting, design and more.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Norilsk Nickel uses the Yenisei River port of Dudinka to load its finished product on ships for export.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Nornickel also attempted to operate Nakety/Bogota, a nickel mine on the island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific, in partnership with Argosy Minerals of Australia but has withdrawn from this project.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: In 2016, Nornickel established the Global Palladium Fund to promote industrial demand for palladium and to reduce volatility in the palladium market. The fund's objective is to act as a platform to facilitate cooperation between major palladium holders.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: Nornickel's chief competitors in the production of nickel and of palladium are Vale, BHP and Anglo American Platinum.


title: Norilsk Nickel

text: The company's fleet provides sea transportation of cargo and concentrates from Norilsk to ports with rail connections. In 2008, Norilsk Nickel commissioned the construction of five ice-breaking cargo freighters.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: Said bin Taimur (; 13 August 1910 – 19 October 1972) was the 13th Sultan of Muscat and Oman from 10 February 1932 until he was deposed on 23 July 1970 by his son Qaboos bin Said.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: He was a member of the House of Al Said who in 1932 became the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, succeeding his father Taimur bin Feisal who had abdicated for financial reasons. The 21-year-old Said inherited an administration that was in debt. He consolidated power, with the help of the British SAS, and regained control of the tribal interior, bringing together Muscat and Oman. Once the country was united, Said left the capital of Muscat and resided in a coastal town in Dhofar. Muscat and Oman became fully sovereign and independent states in 1951 with him as ruler.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: Said was born in 1910. He attended Mayo College at Ajmer in Rajputana, India, from 1922–1927 where he mastered English and Urdu. Upon his return to Muscat in May 1927, it was suggested he attend Beirut to further his education. His father, Sultan Taimur bin Feisal, feared that by sending him to Beirut, he would be influenced by Christianity.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: Said’s father was strongly against him learning the ways of the Western world and speaking English. When Said was younger, his father found Sa’id and his brother Nadir possessing an English primer, and he ordered all their books be burned. Instead of sending Said to Beirut, his father sent him to Baghdad to study Arabic literature and history for a year.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: After completing his year-long study in Baghdad, Said participated in the Omani government upon his return home. He became the president of the Council of Ministers in August 1929. Sultan Taimur’s inability to govern the state affairs of Oman created an opportunity for a new leader. The British were very fond of Said and during February 1932, at the age of 21, Said became the new crowned Sultan. Sultan Said inherited a country that was heavily in debt to Britain and British India. In order to break away from Britain and maintain autonomy, his country needed to regain economic independence. Therefore, beginning in 1933, he controlled the budget of the state until being overthrown in 1970.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: In 1936, Said married his second wife, Mezoon al-Mashani (cousin of his first wife, Fatima) who in 1940 gave birth to Said's only son and heir Qaboos.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: On his accession, he inherited the remains of the Omani Empire, which included the neighbouring provinces of Oman and Dhofar, as well as the last remnants of an overseas empire, including Gwadar in the Arabian Sea. Nevertheless, his petroleum-rich country also had long established ties with the United Kingdom, based on a 1798 Treaty of Friendship, and had been a British protectorate since 1891. He also inherited an administration that was in debt.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: Once he became Sultan, Said maintained a friendly relationship with the United States. In 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt invited Said and his father to visit the United States. Said landed in San Francisco and began a tour from California to Washington, D.C. During his visit to the White House, Roosevelt presented him with two books he had written. Said toured the FBI Headquarters, and laid a wreath upon George Washington’s tomb, at Mount Vernon.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: During World War II, the Sultan cooperated readily with the British; several Royal Air Force landing fields were constructed between Salalah in Dhofar and Mascat. This allowed the channels of supply to remain open between Britain and the Allies.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: As Sultan, oil wealth would have allowed Said to modernize his country. He secured British recognition of its independence in 1951. Nevertheless, he also faced serious internal opposition, from Imam Ghalib bin Ali, a religious leader of Oman, who claimed power in the sultanate for himself. The Imam's revolt in Jebel Akhdar was suppressed in 1955, with British help, but this in turn earned Said the animosity of Saudi Arabia, which supported the Imam, and of Egypt, which regarded British involvement in suppressing the revolt as not conducive to the cause of Arab nationalism. In 1957, these two countries supported a renewed revolt by the Imam, which was similarly suppressed by 1959.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: In 1958 Said sold Gwadar to Pakistan for $1 million, while in 1967 Britain returned the Khuriya Muriya Islands.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: Said became more reclusive from his people and country. In 1965, after making concessions to export oil with Iraq, Iran and Britain, he did little to improve the life of his people. The benefits of this deal would not come to fruition until his was deposed in 1970 in a palace coup.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: In 1965, the province of Dhofar revolted, this time with the support of the People's Republic of China and some of the nationalist Arab states, followed by an assassination attempt in 1966. It had a marked effect on Said, causing him to become even more erratic in governing the country. It was forbidden to smoke in public, to play football, to wear sunglasses or to speak to anyone for more than 15 minutes. No one was safe from the sultan's paranoia, not even his own son, Qaboos, who was kept under virtual house arrest at the Sultan's palace in Salalah.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: Before he was overthrown in 1970, because of his backwards policies, Oman had an under 5 mortality rate of around 25%. Trachoma, venereal disease and malnutrition were widespread. There were only three schools, the literacy rate was 5%, and there were only of paved roads.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: Qaboos returned from his educational studies in the United Kingdom at the Royal Military Academy, and a year of service in the British Army infantry in 1964, and was placed under house arrest. Said did not speak to his son during the last 14 months before the coup, even though they lived in the same palace.


title: Said bin Taimur

text: On 23 July 1970 at the Sultan’s palace in Salalah, Qaboos executed a successful coup against his father with the help of the British and his uncle, and exiled his father to the United Kingdom. Said lived his last two years at the Dorchester Hotel in London. He was originally buried in Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, Surrey, England. His remains were then disinterred and transported back to Oman, and he was buried in the royal cemetery in Muscat.


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: The Kazakh Air Defense Forces (, , ) is the aviation warfare branch of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Their responsibilities include protecting Kazakh airspace, as well as combat missions in support of other branches of the armed forces. The official holiday of the air forces is Aviation Day on August 18.


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: The Talgat Bigeldinov Military Institute of the Air Defence Forces serves as the only educational service of the air force, having trained cadets from foreign countries including Hungary, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan.


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: In the first formation of the Central Asian Military District, it operated a Soviet Air Force district branch led by Major General M.P. Kharitonov. It operated in the early to mid-40s during the Second World War, and consisted of air brigades based on the territory of the Kazakh SSR. The Central Asian Military District was reinstated in 1969 in relation with the increased hostility between the USSR and the People's Republic of China, by splitting the territories of the Kazakh SSR, Kyrgyzstan SSR and the Tajik SSR from the Turkestan Military District. The 73rd Air Army provided all air support for the district, being known as the Air Forces of the Central Asian Military District from 1980 to 1988. Air defence was also provided by the 12th and 14th Air Defence Armies. In 1989 the military district was disbanded, being merged back into the Turkestan MD. This led to the amalgamation of the 73rd Air Army into the 49th Air Army of the TurkMD. The new air army inherited the headquarters of the 49th, but has taken the designation of the 73rd, so while air force units were nominally still subordinated to the 73rd AA, this was not the one of the CAMD with its HQ in Almaty, but another formation with its HQ in Tashkent.


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: At the time of the declaration of the independence of Kazakhstan and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the 24th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Division, as well as three other separate air regiments, were stationed in the country. On May 7, 1992, a meeting was held in Almaty between Russian and Kazakh government representatives and an agreement was reached for the transfer of all units and formations of the Turkestan Military District, to the authority of Kazakhstan. On the same day President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a decree for the transformation of the State Committee of Defence of the Republic of Kazakhstan into the Ministry of Defence, and for the creation of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan. For the Air Force this included the following units:


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: The territory of the Kazakh SSR was provided air defence by two separate armies of the Air Defence Forces and the Kazakh military took control over their Kazakhstan-based assets:


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: The air defence and the army aviation units were kept separate from the air force, but by the time the Kazakhstan Air Defence Forces were established on 1 June 1998 they were merged into it.


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: By late 1993 the small Kazakh Air Force consisted of a six regiments as well as an air defence fighter regiment.


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: On 17 November 1997, President Nursultan Nazarbayev issued a decree titled "On Further Measures for Reforming the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan". As instructed by this, on 1 April 1998, Minister of Defense Sagadat Nurmagambetov, announced the creation of the Air Defense Forces of the Armed Forces, with the first day of operation being 1 June 1998. On 17 April 2008, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces announced August 18 would be celebrated as 'Aviation Day.'


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: In November 2007, Kazakhstan signed an agreement with Belarus, under which 10 Soviet-made Su-27 fighters were modernised at an aircraft repair plant in Baranavichy, designated for the Kazakh Air Defence Forces. In 2008, EADS agreed titanium sourcing agreements with Kazakh suppliers. On 28 October 2010, Eurocopter created a 50/50 joint venture with Kazakhstan Engineering, under which 45 Eurocopter EC145s would be assembled locally for government use. The first of six EC145s ordered by the Kazakh Ministries of Defence and Emergencies was delivered in November 2011.


title: Kazakh Air Defense Forces

text: In early January 2012, Airbus Military and the state-owned Kazspecexport defence company, signed a contract to deliver two EADS CASA C-295 military transport aircraft, and a Memorandum of Understanding for another six aircraft, which were to be delivered over the course of the following year. In May 2012, Kazakhstan announced its intent to acquire 20 Eurocopter EC725 helicopters that were to be assembled in Astana by officials from Kazakhstan Engineering and fitted by the Turkish firm Aselsan.


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: The Ilyushin Il-80 (NATO reporting name: Maxdome) is a Russian airborne command and control aircraft modified from the Ilyushin Il-86 airliner.


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: The Ilyushin Il-80 has the NATO reporting name Maxdome (though some sources claim it uses the reporting name Camber, like the Il-86 passenger jet). The Russian reporting name for the aircraft is "Aimak", or "Eimak" (Mongolian for "clan"). The aircraft is believed to have first flown in the summer of 1985, with the first post-modification flight taking place on March 5, 1987, and deliveries starting later that year. In all, four aircraft are known to have been converted from Il-86s. They were registered CCCP-86146 through 86149, and were first observed by western photographers in 1992.


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: Heavily modified from the Ilyushin Il-86, the Il-80 (also referred to as the Il-86VKP) is meant to be used as an airborne command center for Russian officials, including the President, in the event of nuclear war. The role of the Ilyushin Il-80 is similar to that of the Boeing E-4B. The Il-80 has no external windows (save those in the cockpit), to shield it from a nuclear blast and nuclear electromagnetic pulse. Only the upper deck forward door on the left and the aft door on the right remain from the standard design. There is only one airstair door, instead of three. An unusual baffle blocks the aft cockpit windows. This may serve to block EMP or RF pulses.


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: Unlike the standard Il-86 airliner, the Il-80 has two electrical generator pods mounted inboard of the engine nacelles. Each pod is approximately 9.5 metres (32 feet) long and 1.3 metres (4 feet) in diameter. Both pods include landing lights.


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: Like the E-4B, the aircraft has a dorsal SATCOM canoe, believed to house advanced satellite communications equipment, and a trailing wire antenna mounted in the lower aft fuselage for very low frequency (VLF) radio transmission and reception (likely for communication with ballistic missile submarines).


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: When the present upgrades have reached the end of their life, it is expected that a new airborne command post, based on the Ilyushin Il-96-400M commercial aircraft and delivered as the so-called Doomsday plane, will replace them.


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: Upon completion, all four Il-80s were delivered to the 8th Special Purposes Aviation Division at the Chkalovsky Airbase near Moscow.


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: As of 2011 three Il-80s remain in service. They are painted in the current livery of Aeroflot, the Russian state airline; and carry international civilian registrations RA-86147, RA-86148, and RA-86149. The first Il-80, registration RA-86146, has been photographed without engines and is apparently out of service. As of 2011 the Il-80s remain based at Chkalovsky Airbase, located northeast of Moscow. The aircraft are rarely observed in operation, though at least one was seen at an air show.


title: Ilyushin Il-80

text: In December 2020, Russian media reported that radio communication equipment had been stolen from one of the Il-80s while it was undergoing maintenance.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Prairie Chapel Ranch, nicknamed Bush Ranch, is a 1,583-acre (6.4 km) ranch in unincorporated McLennan County, Texas, located northwest of Crawford (about from Waco). The property was acquired by George W. Bush in 1999 and was known as the Western White House during his presidency. Bush spent vacation time at the house, where he also entertained visiting dignitaries from around the world. The ranch received its name from the Prairie Chapel School which was built nearby on land donated by mid-19th century German immigrant Heinrich Engelbrecht from Oppenwehe, Germany, who owned the land that now comprises the Bush ranch. Engelbrecht also donated land for the nearby Canaan Baptist Church (the "Prairie Chapel").


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Engelbrecht and his heirs raised turkeys and hogs. The original Engelbrecht ranch house is about from the main house on Rainey Road and is now called the "Governor's House" and is used to accommodate overflow guests. The Bushes stayed in the house during construction of the new house.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: In 1999, a year before he became president, shortly after earning a $14.3 million profit from the sale of the Texas Rangers, then-Texas Governor Bush bought the land for an estimated $1.3 million from the Engelbrecht family. Assisting Bush in arrangements for the purchase was the then Texas Secretary of State Elton Bomer.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Bush removed five large hog barns on Mill Road leading into the compound in order to construct a new house, guest house, and garage.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: On May 10, 2008, the ranch played host to the wedding of Jenna Bush to Henry Hager, a son of former Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, John H. Hager. The ceremony was relatively simple and was attended by some two hundred friends and family members.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: David Heymann, then an associate professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, designed the four-bedroom, honey-colored native limestone single-level home with painted white galvanized tin roof manufactured and installed on the site. Heymann said the house was built from the less sought after portion of the local "Lueders limestone". The middle portion of each block of stone has a cream color, while the edges are multicolored. "We bought all this throwaway stone. It's fabulous. It's got great color and it is relatively inexpensive," Heymann said.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: In addition there is an open limestone porch that encircles the house. The house was built by Byron Bottoms Builder from nearby Elm Mott, Texas, and wasn't completed until after Bush's inauguration because of needed accommodations for security, meeting space, etc.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Laura Bush said they decided to keep a single level ranch design because "We wanted our older parents to feel comfortable here... We also want to grow old here ourselves."


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: The passive-solar house is positioned to absorb winter sunlight, warming the interior walkways and walls of the residence. Geothermal heat pumps circulate water through pipes buried ) deep in the ground. A underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof urns; wastewater from sinks, toilets, and showers cascades into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is then used to irrigate the landscaping around the home.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: The one-story, eight-room, ground-level house runs east and west. There are no stairs, even at entrances. There are no thresholds. For the most part, the house is one room wide, making for easy ventilation. The porch is the usual route from one room to another. A few rooms have interior doors.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: "Every room has a relationship with something in the landscape that's different from the room next door," Heymann says. "Each of the rooms feels like a slightly different place." In the guest bathroom, for example, when you look up from the sink, you look out on an oak tree rather than into a mirror, which is on a side wall.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: "There’s a great grove of oak trees to the west that protects it from the late afternoon sun," Heymann says. "Then there is a view out to the north looking at hills, and to the east out over a lake, and the view to the south running out to beautiful hills."


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Heymann says most of the rooms are relatively small and have high ceilings. The living-family room and the kitchen-dining room in the east end of the house are large, laid out for frequent entertaining and family gatherings. The living room has a series of glass picture doors. The tin roof of the house extends beyond the porch. When it rains, it's possible to sit on the patio and watch the water pour down without getting wet. Under a gravel border around the house, a concrete gutter channels the water into the cistern for irrigation. In hot weather, a terrace directly above the cistern is a little cooler than the surrounding area.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: The Bushes installed a geothermal heating and cooling system, which uses about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and air-conditioning systems consume. Several holes were drilled deep, where the temperature is a constant . Pipes connected to a heat pump inside the house circulate water into the ground, then back up and through the house, heating it in winter and cooling it in summer. The water for the outdoor pool is heated with the same system, which proved so efficient that initial plans to install solar energy panels were cancelled.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: In addition to the house there is a guest house and a garage in separate buildings to the southwest of the main house.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: The facility includes a helicopter hangar which was used as an auditorium on the rare occasions when the former president held a press conference at the ranch.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: In 2002, the ranch was wired for what Bush described in a 2003 tour of the ranch as "real time, secure videoconferencing" to be used for his briefings from the CIA and other secured communications.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Overnight visitors stay in the main house, its associated guest house, the original Englebrecht farmhouse, or in a five-bedroom three-bath mobile home.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: News reporters stayed in hotels in Waco. Press conferences that didn't involve the President were conducted in the gymnasium of Crawford Middle School, away from the ranch. The barn often seen behind TV correspondents during their live reports was actually on private property behind the school.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: The land includes seven canyons and of frontage along Rainey Creek and the Middle Bosque River. In August 2001 while touring the canyons with reporters Bush noted that the cedars in the canyons would be a good nesting ground for the endangered golden-cheeked warbler although the warblers have not actually been seen on the compound.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Bush added an man-made pond that he stocked with 600 largemouth bass and 30,000 bait fish. There are also bluegill and red ear sunfish. The pond has a maximum depth of . In May 2006, when asked to name the best moment in his administration, Bush jokingly said: "I would say the best moment was when I caught a largemouth bass on my lake."


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: At the urging of his daughters, Bush also built a swimming pool over the objections of Heymann who thought it would interrupt the stark views. Bush referred to it as "the whining pool"—whine long enough and you get it. It offers a respite from the hot Texas summers, and is heated by the same geothermal system as the house is during the winter.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: A prized souvenir from the ranch is a gray Under Armour athletic shirt emblazoned with a Texas star encircled by the words "The President's 100-Degree Club." In order to qualify a visitor must run , or bike for 10, when the thermometer hits triple digits.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: When he was president, Bush used the ranch for vacations, meetings, and entertaining foreign dignitaries. In the less formal setting, dress code for meetings called for an open collar and no tie. Guests were typically treated to meals of Southwestern cuisine. When not holding meetings or briefings, Bush spent his time mountain biking, jogging, fishing, bird hunting, and clearing brush.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: In 2001–2002, Bush held meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abudallah in his 2001 Ford F-250 pickup truck at the ranch. The meetings were covered by the media as "pickup diplomacy" as part as a personal approach to foreign policy. For security concerns, Presidents cannot drive on public roads, but Bush could drive himself, dignitaries, legislators, press and others around the ranch in his truck. In 2013, President Bush donated his personal 2013 Ford F-150 King Ranch edition to be auctioned for charity.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Bush made clear his preference for spending some time away from his official residence at the White House in Washington, DC. In 2001, he said, "I think it is so important for a president to spend some time away from Washington, in the heartland of America."


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: On November 16, 2001, Vladimir Putin visited President Bush on his Prairie ranch where discussions were held as well as relationships amended. With the two holding a press conference at Crawford High School they spoke about how Russia is now an ally and that they should quit holding on to the dead weight of the Cold War and further their friendship with each other. They then spoke about Afghanistan and the arms control that they would like to see in the coming years. They agreed to deep cuts in long-range nuclear warheads. But they did not reach a deal on how to pave the way for testing and deployment of a U.S. missile defense shield. President Bush quickly turned serious. He returned to a theme that had echoed throughout the summit: That U.S.-Russian ties had entered a new phase and arms control was no longer the driving force. "We've found many areas in which we can cooperate and we've found some areas where we disagree. But nevertheless, our disagreements will not divide us, as nations that need to combine to make the world more peaceful and prosperous," he said.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: The Federal Aviation Administration had a full-time no fly zone, designated "Prohibited Area 49" (P-49), around the ranch during the Bush Presidency. When President Bush was in residence at the ranch, a Temporary Flight Restriction was issued, expanding the radius to , with lesser restrictions extending to , containing some exceptions for Waco Regional Airport nearby. The size of the restricted area P-49 was reduced in June 2010 to a radius up to an altitude of 2,000 feet, which is still in effect.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: Bush normally flew in and out of TSTC Waco Airport (the former Connally Air Force Base that is now owned by Texas State Technical College) on Air Force One, and was shuttled on Marine One to the ranch.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: At the close of the Bush presidency, the Bushes purchased a home in Dallas. Laura Bush confirmed that they would make that their permanent residence, while spending weekends and holidays at the ranch.


title: Prairie Chapel Ranch

text: "The Wall Street Journal" quoted an unnamed White House official: "They'll have their place in Crawford. He just loves it."


title: Top Chef: Charleston

text: Top Chef: Charleston is the fourteenth season of the American reality television series "Top Chef". The season was announced by Bravo on October 13, 2016, which premiered on December 1, 2016, and concluded on March 2, 2017. Filming initially took place in Charleston, South Carolina, beginning in May 2016, while the season's final episodes were filmed in areas across Mexico, including Guadalajara and the Yucatán Peninsula. "Top Chef: Charleston" featured eight new contestants competing against eight returning contestants from previous seasons. "MasterChef" and "Top Chef Masters" alumnus Graham Elliot debuted as a recurring judge, alongside returning judges Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio, and Gail Simmons. In the season finale, "" runner-up Brooke Williamson was declared the winner over "" finalist Shirley Chung. "Top Chef: Seattle" finalist Sheldon Simeon was voted Fan Favorite, his second Fan Favorite win.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: Cassidy Jacqueline Hutchinson (born 1996) is an American former White House aide and assistant to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the Trump administration.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: Hutchinson testified on June 28, 2022, at the public hearings of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. She provided testimony on President Donald Trump's conduct and that of his senior aides and political allies before and during the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Hutchinson's testimony received significant national attention, with several media outlets labeling it as "compelling" and "explosive"; however, she was also subject to severe criticism from conservative allies to Trump.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: Raised in Pennington, New Jersey, Hutchinson graduated from Hopewell Valley Central High School in 2015. She studied at Christopher Newport University between 2015 and 2018, graduating in 2019 with Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and American Studies. Hutchinson describes herself as a "first-generation college student."


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: While attending Christopher Newport University, Hutchinson interned for Republican Senator Ted Cruz during the summer of 2016 and for Republican US House of Representatives whip Steve Scalise during the summer of 2017. In the summer of 2018, she served as an intern in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. Later, she became an employee of the office.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: In March 2020, when Mark Meadows became Trump's fourth chief of staff, he selected her to serve as one of his aides. She soon became Meadows' principal assistant, continuing through to the end of the Trump presidency, where her title was Special Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Legislative Affairs. She worked in an office next to Meadows' office, just down the hall from the Oval Office. She took notes at meetings and traveled with Meadows, monitoring his phone and relaying his orders. She was described as a close confidante of Meadows. Identified as a "White House legislative aide," Hutchinson was the subject of a nationally-syndicated AP photograph in which she was shown dancing to the Village People song "Y.M.C.A." alongside White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany at the end of Trump's September 21, 2020, campaign rally in Swanton, Ohio.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: As Trump's term ended, Trump claims that Hutchinson was supposed to work for his post-presidency operation in Florida, but the plan was "abruptly dropped" before she was supposed to begin.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: Under subpoena, Hutchinson had given four depositions totaling more than two dozen hours to the committee prior to testifying on live television on June 28, 2022. Prior to her March 7 deposition, she received multiple messages from Trump allies suggesting she demonstrate loyalty to Trump in her testimony. Days before her testimony, she dismissed her attorney, Stefan Passantino, who had deep connections with Trump associates, replacing him with Jody Hunt, a former longtime Justice Department official and chief of staff for Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: During the June 28 sworn testimony, Hutchinson testified that she had overheard mention of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys during planning of the Save America March, when Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was present. Several leaders of both groups were later indicted on seditious conspiracy charges for their alleged roles in the January 6 United States Capitol attack.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: Hutchinson testified that both Meadows and Giuliani sought presidential pardons. She previously told the committee in depositions that congressmen Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry and Louie Gohmert had also requested pardons.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: She testified that on January 3, 2021, White House counsel Pat Cipollone pulled her aside to express his concern upon hearing Trump planned to march to the Capitol with his supporters on January 6; Hutchinson recalled him saying, "We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen."


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: Hutchinson also revealed in her testimony that Trump threw his lunch plate against a wall in a White House dining room on December 1, 2020, when he learned that Attorney General William Barr had made a public statement that he had not discovered any evidence of election fraud. The wall was splashed with ketchup. On other occasions, he had "flip[ped] the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor and likely break or go everywhere".


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: Hutchinson testified that Trump and Meadows were told some individuals were carrying weapons, including firearms, and therefore could not clear magnetometers to enter the rally. Trump insisted that he didn't care if his supporters had weapons and tried to order the magnetometers removed, saying "They're not here to hurt me." The committee played radio transmissions of police warning of people with guns, including AR-15s.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: Hutchinson testified she had been told by then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato that after Trump got into the presidential SUV following his rally, hoping to drive to the Capitol as his supporters marched there, his lead Secret Service agent Robert Engel told him it was too dangerous and informed him they were returning to the White House. Hutchinson said Ornato told her Trump became irate and attempted to grab the steering wheel of the vehicle, and lunged at Engel's clavicles. She testified Engel was present with Ornato as he related the incident but never contradicted the account. CNN reported three days after Hutchinson's testimony that it had spoken with two Secret Service agents who had heard accounts of the incident from multiple other agents since February 2021, including Trump's driver. Although details differed, agents confirmed there was an angry confrontation, with one agent relating that Trump "tried to lunge over the seat — for what reason, nobody had any idea," but no one asserted Trump attacked Engel. A separate Secret Service official told CNN that Engel denied that Trump grabbed at the steering wheel or lunged toward an agent on his detail, and that Ornato denied telling Hutchinson such. "Politico" reported the same day that Engel told the committee during an early 2022 deposition that he had kept his full account of the incident from his Secret Service colleagues for at least fourteen months. On July 14, 2022, CNN published an account about the corroboration by a Metropolitan Police officer in the motorcade of the "heated exchange" Trump had with his Secret Service detail when they refused to take him to the capitol following his rally on January 6.


title: Cassidy Hutchinson

text: As the events of the day unfolded, Hutchinson recalled Cipollone telling Meadows words to the effect of, "Mark, we need to do something more. "They're literally calling for the vice president to be f'ing hung. And Mark had responded something to the effect of, you heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong, to which Pat said something, this is f'ing crazy, we need to be doing something more."


title: Computational complexity

text: In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to computation time (generally measured by the number of needed elementary operations) and memory storage requirements. The complexity of a problem is the complexity of the best algorithms that allow solving the problem.


title: Computational complexity

text: The study of the complexity of explicitly given algorithms is called analysis of algorithms, while the study of the complexity of problems is called computational complexity theory. Both areas are highly related, as the complexity of an algorithm is always an upper bound on the complexity of the problem solved by this algorithm. Moreover, for designing efficient algorithms, it is often fundamental to compare the complexity of a specific algorithm to the complexity of the problem to be solved. Also, in most cases, the only thing that is known about the complexity of a problem is that it is lower than the complexity of the most efficient known algorithms. Therefore, there is a large overlap between analysis of algorithms and complexity theory.


title: Computational complexity

text: As the amount of resources required to run an algorithm generally varies with the size of the input, the complexity is typically expressed as a function , where is the size of the input and is either the worst-case complexity (the maximum of the amount of resources that are needed over all inputs of size ) or the average-case complexity (the average of the amount of resources over all inputs of size ). Time complexity is generally expressed as the number of required elementary operations on an input of size , where elementary operations are assumed to take a constant amount of time on a given computer and change only by a constant factor when run on a different computer. Space complexity is generally expressed as the amount of memory required by an algorithm on an input of size .


title: Computational complexity

text: The resource that is most commonly considered is time. When "complexity" is used without qualification, this generally means time complexity.


title: Computational complexity

text: The usual units of time (seconds, minutes etc.) are not used in complexity theory because they are too dependent on the choice of a specific computer and on the evolution of technology. For instance, a computer today can execute an algorithm significantly faster than a computer from the 1960s; however, this is not an intrinsic feature of the algorithm but rather a consequence of technological advances in computer hardware. Complexity theory seeks to quantify the intrinsic time requirements of algorithms, that is, the basic time constraints an algorithm would place on "any" computer. This is achieved by counting the number of "elementary operations" that are executed during the computation. These operations are assumed to take constant time (that is, not affected by the size of the input) on a given machine, and are often called "steps".


title: Computational complexity

text: Formally, the "bit complexity" refers to the number of operations on bits that are needed for running an algorithm. With most models of computation, it equals the time complexity up to a constant factor. On computers, the number of operations on machine words that are needed is also proportional to the bit complexity. So, the "time complexity" and the "bit complexity" are equivalent for realistic models of computation.


title: Computational complexity

text: For the class of distributed algorithms that are commonly executed by multiple, interacting parties, the resource that is of most interest is the communication complexity. It is the necessary amount of communication between the executing parties.


title: Computational complexity

text: The number of arithmetic operations is another resource that is commonly used. In this case, one talks of arithmetic complexity. If one knows an upper bound on the size of the binary representation of the numbers that occur during a computation, the time complexity is generally the product of the arithmetic complexity by a constant factor.


title: Computational complexity

text: For many algorithms the size of the integers that are used during a computation is not bounded, and it is not realistic to consider that arithmetic operations take a constant time. Therefore, the time complexity, generally called bit complexity in this context, may be much larger than the arithmetic complexity. For example, the arithmetic complexity of the computation of the determinant of a integer matrix is formula_1 for the usual algorithms (Gaussian elimination). The bit complexity of the same algorithms is exponential in , because the size of the coefficients may grow exponentially during the computation. On the other hand, if these algorithms are coupled with multi-modular arithmetic, the bit complexity may be reduced to .


title: Computational complexity

text: In sorting and searching, the resource that is generally considered is the number of entry comparisons. This is generally a good measure of the time complexity if data are suitably organized.


title: Computational complexity

text: It is impossible to count the number of steps of an algorithm on all possible inputs. As the complexity generally increases with the size of the input, the complexity is typically expressed as a function of the size (in bits) of the input, and therefore, the complexity is a function of . However, the complexity of an algorithm may vary dramatically for different inputs of the same size. Therefore, several complexity functions are commonly used.


title: Computational complexity

text: The worst-case complexity is the maximum of the complexity over all inputs of size , and the average-case complexity is the average of the complexity over all inputs of size (this makes sense, as the number of possible inputs of a given size is finite). Generally, when "complexity" is used without being further specified, this is the worst-case time complexity that is considered.


title: Computational complexity

text: It is generally difficult to compute precisely the worst-case and the average-case complexity. In addition, these exact values provide little practical application, as any change of computer or of model of computation would change the complexity somewhat. Moreover, the resource use is not critical for small values of , and this makes that, for small , the ease of implementation is generally more interesting than a low complexity.


title: Computational complexity

text: For these reasons, one generally focuses on the behavior of the complexity for large , that is on its asymptotic behavior when tends to the infinity. Therefore, the complexity is generally expressed by using big O notation.


title: Computational complexity

text: For example, the usual algorithm for integer multiplication has a complexity of formula_2 this means that there is a constant formula_3 such that the multiplication of two integers of at most digits may be done in a time less than formula_4 This bound is "sharp" in the sense that the worst-case complexity and the average-case complexity are formula_5 which means that there is a constant formula_6 such that these complexities are larger than formula_7 The radix does not appear in these complexity, as changing of radix changes only the constants formula_3 and formula_9


title: Computational complexity

text: The evaluation of the complexity relies on the choice of a model of computation, which consists in defining the basic operations that are done in a unit of time. When the model of computation is not explicitly specified, this is generally meant as being multitape Turing machine.


title: Computational complexity

text: A deterministic model of computation is a model of computation such that the successive states of the machine and the operations to be performed are completely determined by the preceding state. Historically, the first deterministic models were recursive functions, lambda calculus, and Turing machines. The model of random-access machines (also called RAM-machines) is also widely used, as a closer counterpart to real computers.


title: Computational complexity

text: When the model of computation is not specified, it is generally assumed to be a multitape Turing machine. For most algorithms, the time complexity is the same on multitape Turing machines as on RAM-machines, although some care may be needed in how data is stored in memory to get this equivalence.


title: Computational complexity

text: In a non-deterministic model of computation, such as non-deterministic Turing machines, some choices may be done at some steps of the computation. In complexity theory, one considers all possible choices simultaneously, and the non-deterministic time complexity is the time needed, when the best choices are always done. In other words, one considers that the computation is done simultaneously on as many (identical) processors as needed, and the non-deterministic computation time is the time spent by the first processor that finishes the computation. This parallelism is partly amenable to quantum computing via superposed entangled states in running specific quantum algorithms, like e.g. Shor's factorization of yet only small integers (: 21 = 3 × 7).


title: Computational complexity

text: Even when such a computation model is not realistic yet, it has theoretical importance, mostly related to the P = NP problem, which questions the identity of the complexity classes formed by taking "polynomial time" and "non-deterministic polynomial time" as least upper bounds. Simulating an NP-algorithm on a deterministic computer usually takes "exponential time". A problem is in the complexity class NP, if it may be solved in polynomial time on a non-deterministic machine. A problem is NP-complete if, roughly speaking, it is in NP and is not easier than any other NP problem. Many combinatorial problems, such as the Knapsack problem, the travelling salesman problem, and the Boolean satisfiability problem are NP-complete. For all these problems, the best known algorithm has exponential complexity. If any one of these problems could be solved in polynomial time on a deterministic machine, then all NP problems could also be solved in polynomial time, and one would have P = NP. it is generally conjectured that with the practical implication that the worst cases of NP problems are intrinsically difficult to solve, i.e., take longer than any reasonable time span (decades!) for interesting lengths of input.


title: Computational complexity

text: Parallel and distributed computing consist of splitting computation on several processors, which work simultaneously. The difference between the different model lies mainly in the way of transmitting information between processors. Typically, in parallel computing the data transmission between processors is very fast, while, in distributed computing, the data transmission is done through a network and is therefore much slower.


title: Computational complexity

text: The time needed for a computation on processors is at least the quotient by of the time needed by a single processor. In fact this theoretically optimal bound can never be reached, because some subtasks cannot be parallelized, and some processors may have to wait a result from another processor.


title: Computational complexity

text: The main complexity problem is thus to design algorithms such that the product of the computation time by the number of processors is as close as possible to the time needed for the same computation on a single processor.


title: Computational complexity

text: A quantum computer is a computer whose model of computation is based on quantum mechanics. The Church–Turing thesis applies to quantum computers; that is, every problem that can be solved by a quantum computer can also be solved by a Turing machine. However, some problems may theoretically be solved with a much lower time complexity using a quantum computer rather than a classical computer. This is, for the moment, purely theoretical, as no one knows how to build an efficient quantum computer.


title: Computational complexity

text: Quantum complexity theory has been developed to study the complexity classes of problems solved using quantum computers. It is used in post-quantum cryptography, which consists of designing cryptographic protocols that are resistant to attacks by quantum computers.


title: Computational complexity

text: The complexity of a problem is the infimum of the complexities of the algorithms that may solve the problem, including unknown algorithms. Thus the complexity of a problem is not greater than the complexity of any algorithm that solves the problems.


title: Computational complexity

text: It follows that every complexity that is expressed with big O notation is a complexity of the algorithm as well as of the corresponding problem.


title: Computational complexity

text: On the other hand, it is generally hard to obtain nontrivial lower bounds for problem complexity, and there are few methods for obtaining such lower bounds.


title: Computational complexity

text: For solving most problems, it is required to read all input data, which, normally, needs a time proportional to the size of the data. Thus, such problems have a complexity that is at least linear, that is, using big omega notation, a complexity formula_10


title: Computational complexity

text: The solution of some problems, typically in computer algebra and computational algebraic geometry, may be very large. In such a case, the complexity is lower bounded by the maximal size of the output, since the output must be written. For example, a system of polynomial equations of degree in indeterminates may have up to formula_11 complex solutions, if the number of solutions is finite (this is Bézout's theorem). As these solutions must be written down, the complexity of this problem is formula_12 For this problem, an algorithm of complexity formula_13 is known, which may thus be considered as asymptotically quasi-optimal.


title: Computational complexity

text: A nonlinear lower bound of formula_14 is known for the number of comparisons needed for a sorting algorithm. Thus the best sorting algorithms are optimal, as their complexity is formula_15 This lower bound results from the fact that there are ways of ordering objects. As each comparison splits in two parts this set of orders, the number of of comparisons that are needed for distinguishing all orders must verify formula_16 which implies formula_17 by Stirling's formula.


title: Computational complexity

text: A standard method for getting lower bounds of complexity consists of "reducing" a problem to another problem. More precisely, suppose that one may encode a problem of size into a subproblem of size of a problem , and that the complexity of is formula_18 Without loss of generality, one may suppose that the function increases with and has an inverse function . Then the complexity of the problem is formula_19 This is the method that is used to prove that, if P ≠ NP (an unsolved conjecture), the complexity of every NP-complete problem is formula_20 for every positive integer .


title: Computational complexity

text: Evaluating the complexity of an algorithm is an important part of algorithm design, as this gives useful information on the performance that may be expected.


title: Computational complexity

text: It is a common misconception that the evaluation of the complexity of algorithms will become less important as a result of Moore's law, which posits the exponential growth of the power of modern computers. This is wrong because this power increase allows working with large input data (big data). For example, when one wants to sort alphabetically a list of a few hundreds of entries, such as the bibliography of a book, any algorithm should work well in less than a second. On the other hand, for a list of a million of entries (the phone numbers of a large town, for example), the elementary algorithms that require formula_21 comparisons would have to do a trillion of comparisons, which would need around three hours at the speed of 10 million of comparisons per second. On the other hand, the quicksort and merge sort require only formula_22 comparisons (as average-case complexity for the former, as worst-case complexity for the latter). For , this gives approximately 30,000,000 comparisons, which would only take 3 seconds at 10 million comparisons per second.


title: Computational complexity

text: Thus the evaluation of the complexity may allow eliminating many inefficient algorithms before any implementation. This may also be used for tuning complex algorithms without testing all variants. By determining the most costly steps of a complex algorithm, the study of complexity allows also focusing on these steps the effort for improving the efficiency of an implementation.


title: Boston discography

text: Boston is an American rock band from namesake Boston, Massachusetts, that had its most notable successes during the 1970s and '80s. Boston has released six studio albums, one compilation album, sixteen singles and four music videos. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1976 on Epic Records. Helped by the singles "More Than a Feeling", "Foreplay/Long Time", and "Peace of Mind", the album peaked at number three on the Billboard chart and remained on the chart for 132 weeks. It went platinum 17 times in the United States and was the best-selling debut album in history. "More Than a Feeling" peaked at number five on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Boston discography

text: The band's second album, "Don't Look Back", was released in 1978. It peaked at number one on the charts in both the US and Canada, and it went seven times platinum in the US and four times platinum in Canada. Its title track peaked at number four on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Boston discography

text: After an eight-year hiatus due in part to legal problems, Boston's next album, "Third Stage", was released by MCA Records in 1986. The album peaked at number one in both the US and in Canada. It went four times platinum in the US and three times platinum in Canada. The single "Amanda" also peaked at number one in both countries.


title: Boston discography

text: "Walk On", their fourth studio album, was released in 1994. It peaked at number seven in the US and at number 10 in Canada and went platinum in both countries. A compilation album titled "Greatest Hits" was released in 1997 and went platinum twice.


title: Boston discography

text: Boston's fifth studio album, "Corporate America", was released in 2002 by Artemis Records. Overall, the band have sold over 31 million albums in the US.


title: Boston discography

text: Boston's sixth studio album, "Life, Love & Hope" was released in December 2013. A world tour followed in 2014.


title: Yevgeny Dzhugashvili

text: Yevgeny Yakovlevich Dzhugashvili (; 10 January 1936 – 22 December 2016) was a Soviet Air Force colonel. He was the son of Yakov Dzhugashvili, the eldest son of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and gained notice as a defender of his grandfather's reputation. In the 1999 elections of the Russian State Duma, he was one of the faces of the Stalin Bloc – For the USSR, a league of communist parties. He resided in Georgia, his grandfather's homeland. He was found dead close to his home in Moscow in December 2016.


title: Yevgeny Dzhugashvili

text: In September 2009, Dzhugashvili made international headlines when he sued the Russian newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" after the magazine published an article claiming his grandfather personally signed execution orders against civilians. On 13 October 2009, the Russian court rejected Dzhugashvili's case, stating that its reasons would be made public at a later date. Dzhugasvili was given five days to appeal.


title: Yevgeny Dzhugashvili

text: In January 2015, responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s macho acts in a video, where he appears shirtless and is seen taming and riding a horse, Dzhugashvili said it is "all a publicity stunt and only showed how the president was leading the country without brains". "The Independent" additionally stated he had said "the mess in Russia would have been avoided if Stalin had lived for five more years".


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: The Agamas (Devanagari: , IAST: ) are a collection of several Tantric literature and scriptures of Hindu schools. The term literally means tradition or "that which has come down", and the Agama texts describe cosmology, epistemology, philosophical doctrines, precepts on meditation and practices, four kinds of yoga, mantras, temple construction, deity worship and ways to attain sixfold desires. These canonical texts are in Tamil and Sanskrit. Agamas were predominant in South India but Sanskritized later.


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: The three main branches of Agama texts are Shaiva, Vaishnava, and Shakta. The Agamic traditions are sometimes called Tantrism, although the term "Tantra" is usually used specifically to refer to Shakta Agamas. The Agama literature is voluminous, and includes 28 Shaiva Agamas, 64 Shakta Agamas (also called Tantras), and 108 Vaishnava Agamas (also called Pancharatra Samhitas), and numerous Upa-Agamas.


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: The origin and chronology of Agamas is unclear. Some are Vedic and others non-Vedic. Agama traditions include Yoga and Self Realization concepts, some include Kundalini Yoga, asceticism, and philosophies ranging from "Dvaita" (dualism) to "Advaita" (monism). Some suggest that these are post-Vedic texts, others as pre-Vedic compositions dating back to over 1100 BCE. Epigraphical and archaeological evidence suggests that Agama texts were in existence by about middle of the 1st millennium CE, in the Pallava dynasty era.


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: Scholars note that some passages in the Hindu Agama texts appear to repudiate the authority of the Vedas, while other passages assert that their precepts reveal the true spirit of the Vedas. The Agamas literary genre may also be found in Śramaṇic traditions (i.e. Buddhist, Jaina, etc.). Bali Hindu tradition is officially called "Agama Hindu Dharma" in Indonesia.


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: "Āgama" (Sanskrit आगम) is derived from the verb root गम् (gam) meaning ""to go"" and the preposition आ (ā) meaning ""toward"" and refers to scriptures as "that which has come down".


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: Agama literally means "tradition", and refers to precepts and doctrines that have come down as tradition. Agama, states Dhavamony, is also a "generic name of religious texts which are at the basis of Hinduism and which are divided into Vaishnava Agamas (also called Pancaratra Samhitas), Shaiva Agamas, and Shakta Agamas (more often called Tantras).


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: Agamas, states Rajeshwari Ghose, teach a system of spirituality involving ritual worship and ethical personal conduct through precepts of a god. The means of worship in the Agamic religions differs from the Vedic form. While the Vedic form of yajna requires no idols and shrines, the Agamic religions are based on idols with puja as a means of worship. Symbols, icons and temples are a necessary part of the Agamic practice, while non-theistic paths are alternative means of Vedic practice. Action and will drive Agama precepts, while knowledge is salvation in Vedic precepts. This, however, does not necessarily mean that Agamas and Vedas are opposed, according to medieval-era Hindu theologians. Tirumular, for example, explained their link as follows: "the Vedas are the path, and the Agamas are the horse".


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: The Agamas state three requirements for a place of pilgrimage: Sthala, Tirtha, and Murti. Sthala refers to the place of the temple, Tīrtha is the temple tank, and Murti refers to the image of god (usually an idol of a deity).


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: Elaborate rules are laid out in the Agamas for Silpa (the art of sculpture) describing the quality requirements of the places where temples are to be built, the kind of images to be installed, the materials from which they are to be made, their dimensions, proportions, air circulation, lighting in the temple complex, etc. The Manasara and Silpasara are some of the works dealing with these rules. The rituals followed in worship services each day at the temple also follow rules laid out in the Agamas.


title: Agama (Hinduism)

text: The Agama texts of Hinduism present a diverse range of philosophies, ranging from theistic dualism to absolute monism. This diversity of views was acknowledged in Chapter36 of Tantraloka by the 10th-century scholar Abhinavagupta. In Shaivism alone, there are ten dualistic (dvaita) Agama texts, eighteen qualified monism-cum-dualism (bhedabheda) Agama texts, and sixty-four monism (advaita) Agama texts. The Bhairava Shastras are monistic, while Shiva Shastras are dualistic.