title: Rufus Hound

text: On 23 April 2016, Hound appeared in "Shakespeare Live! From The RSC" at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon (which was also broadcast live on BBC Two) celebrating the birthday and 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare. He appeared as the Second Gangster opposite Henry Goodman performing 'Brush Up Your Shakespeare' from the musical "Kiss Me, Kate".


title: Rufus Hound

text: In late 2016, he played Toad in the world premiere of the new musical, "The Wind in the Willows" in Plymouth, Salford and Southampton. In June 2017 he reprised the role for a West End transfer at the London Palladium, after playing Dr Prentice in a revival of "What The Butler Saw" by Joe Orton at the Curve Theatre, Leicester and Theatre Royal Bath in March 2017.


title: Rufus Hound

text: In April 2018, he returned to Chichester Festival Theatre to play Garry Essendine in a revival of "Present Laughter" by Noël Coward. From June 2018 he played Billings / Ray in "Dusty - The Dusty Springfield Musical" on a UK tour.


title: Rufus Hound

text: He has played the role of Constant in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of "The Provoked Wife" by John Vanbrugh and returned to the RSC for winter 2019 to play Dennis' Dad in the new musical "The Boy in the Dress", based on the book by David Walliams.


title: Rufus Hound

text: In March 2020, he was due to play the role of Hugo/Loco Chanelle in the West End production of "Everybody's Talking About Jamie", prior to the suspension of performances due to COVID-19. During November and December 2020 he portrayed Buttons in the adult pantomime "Cinderella: A Socially Distanced Ball" at the Turbine Theatre (at the Battersea Power Station), written by Jodie Prenger and Neil Hurst.


title: Rufus Hound

text: In 2021, he will play Tom Good in the UK tour of "The Good Life" based on the BBC sitcom. He will also make his second pantomime appearance as Abanazar in "Aladdin" at the New Theatre Peterborough for Christmas 2021.


title: Rufus Hound

text: Hound campaigned for the Liberal Democrats at the 2010 general election. He has subsequently declared his support for the Labour Party. In an episode of "The Jonathan Ross Show", which aired on 25 January 2014, Hound announced plans to run as a Member of the European Parliament for the party in the London constituency. Hound was the fifth candidate on the National Health Action Party list, which came ninth, receiving 23,253 votes (1.06 per cent of the vote).


title: Rufus Hound

text: In August 2015, Hound endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. He tweeted: "Understand your thinking, but Corbyn=alternative. The others =Tory policies inflicted with mea culpa eyes". In July 2016, he also supported Corbyn after mass resignations from his cabinet and a leadership challenge. He performed stand-up at "Keep Corbyn event" in Kentish Town


title: Rufus Hound

text: In May 2017, Hound wrote a series of tweets concerning the Manchester Arena bombing, in which he implied the attack was a false flag operation designed to help the Conservative Party in the upcoming general election, likening it to the German Reichstag fire of 1933. The comments were widely condemned: he was compared to 9/11 truther conspiracy theorists and accused of insensitivity to the victims of the attack; he later issued a comprehensive apology via social media.


title: Rufus Hound

text: In April 2007, Hound was married at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas Strip, Nevada, to Beth Johnson, whom he had met at the Reading Festival the year before. They have two children together Alby & Hilda Hound. They have since separated as of April 2020.


title: MIRC

text: mIRC is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client for Windows, created in 1995. It is a fully functional chat utility and its integrated scripting language makes it extensible and versatile.


title: MIRC

text: mIRC has been described as "one of the most popular IRC clients available for Windows." It has been downloaded over 40 million times from CNET's Download.com service. In 2003, Nielsen/NetRatings ranked mIRC among the top ten most popular Internet applications.


title: MIRC

text: mIRC was created by Khaled Mardam-Bey (), a British programmer. He began developing the software in late 1994, and released its first version on 28 February 1995.


title: MIRC

text: Mardam-Bey states that he decided to create mIRC because he felt the first IRC clients for Windows lacked some basic IRC features. He then continued developing it due to the challenge and the fact that people appreciated his work. The author states that its subsequent popularity allowed him to make a living out of mIRC. mIRC is shareware and requires payment for registration after the 30-day evaluation period.


title: MIRC

text: The developer states that version 5.91 is the final one to support 16-bit Windows; 6.35 is the last to support Windows 95, NT 4.0, 98, and ME. The current version supports Windows XP and later.


title: MIRC

text: mIRC has a number of distinguishing features. One is its scripting language which is further developed with each version. The scripting language can be used to make minor changes to the program like custom commands (aliases), but can also used to completely alter the behavior and appearance of mIRC. Another claimed feature is mIRC's file sharing abilities, via the DCC protocol, featuring a built-in file server.


title: MIRC

text: mIRC's abilities and behaviors can be altered and extended using the embedded mIRC scripting language. mIRC includes its own GUI scripting editor, with help that has been described as "extremely detailed".


title: MIRC

text: Due to the level of access the language has to a user's computer — for example, being able to rename and delete files — a number of abusive scripts have been made. One example of abuse was that executed with the $decode identifier which decodes a given encoded string. The issue was reported in August 2001; even five months later, users were still being reported as having fallen prey, tricked into executing commands on their systems which result in "handing control of [their] mIRC over to somebody else". This led to changes being made in mIRC version 6.17: according to the author, $decode is now disabled by default, and various other features which can be considered dangerous are now lockable.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The cosmic distance ladder (also known as the extragalactic distance scale) is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects. A "direct" distance measurement of an astronomical object is possible only for those objects that are "close enough" (within about a thousand parsecs) to Earth. The techniques for determining distances to more distant objects are all based on various measured correlations between methods that work at close distances and methods that work at larger distances. Several methods rely on a standard candle, which is an astronomical object that has a known luminosity.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The ladder analogy arises because no single technique can measure distances at all ranges encountered in astronomy. Instead, one method can be used to measure nearby distances, a second can be used to measure nearby to intermediate distances, and so on. Each rung of the ladder provides information that can be used to determine the distances at the next higher rung.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: At the base of the ladder are "fundamental" distance measurements, in which distances are determined directly, with no physical assumptions about the nature of the object in question. The precise measurement of stellar positions is part of the discipline of astrometry.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Direct distance measurements are based upon the astronomical unit (AU), which is defined as the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Kepler's laws provide precise ratios of the sizes of the orbits of objects orbiting the Sun, but provide no measurement of the overall scale of the orbit system. Radar is used to measure the distance between the orbits of the Earth and of a second body. From that measurement and the ratio of the two orbit sizes, the size of Earth's orbit is calculated. The Earth's orbit is known with an absolute precision of a few meters and a relative precision of a few parts in 100 billion ().


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Historically, observations of transits of Venus were crucial in determining the AU; in the first half of the 20th century, observations of asteroids were also important. Presently the orbit of Earth is determined with high precision using radar measurements of distances to Venus and other nearby planets and asteroids, and by tracking interplanetary spacecraft in their orbits around the Sun through the Solar System.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The most important fundamental distance measurements come from trigonometric parallax. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the position of nearby stars will appear to shift slightly against the more distant background. These shifts are angles in an isosceles triangle, with 2 AU (the distance between the extreme positions of Earth's orbit around the Sun) making the base leg of the triangle and the distance to the star being the long equal length legs. The amount of shift is quite small, even for the nearest stars, measuring 1 arcsecond for an object at 1 parsec's distance (3.26 light-years), and thereafter decreasing in angular amount as the distance increases. Astronomers usually express distances in units of parsecs (parallax arcseconds); light-years are used in popular media.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Because parallax becomes smaller for a greater stellar distance, useful distances can be measured only for stars which are near enough to have a parallax larger than a few times the precision of the measurement. In the 1990s, for example, the Hipparcos mission obtained parallaxes for over a hundred thousand stars with a precision of about a milliarcsecond, providing useful distances for stars out to a few hundred parsecs. The Hubble telescope WFC3 now has the potential to provide a precision of 20 to 40 "micro"arcseconds, enabling reliable distance measurements up to for small numbers of stars. In 2018, Data Release 2 from the Gaia space mission provides similarly accurate distances to most stars brighter than 15th magnitude.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Stars have a velocity relative to the Sun that causes proper motion (transverse across the sky) and radial velocity (motion toward or away from the Sun). The former is determined by plotting the changing position of the stars over many years, while the latter comes from measuring the Doppler shift of the star's spectrum caused by motion along the line of sight. For a group of stars with the same spectral class and a similar magnitude range, a mean parallax can be derived from statistical analysis of the proper motions relative to their radial velocities. This statistical parallax method is useful for measuring the distances of bright stars beyond 50 parsecs and giant variable stars, including Cepheids and the RR Lyrae variables.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The motion of the Sun through space provides a longer baseline that will increase the accuracy of parallax measurements, known as secular parallax. For stars in the Milky Way disk, this corresponds to a mean baseline of 4 AU per year, while for halo stars the baseline is 40 AU per year. After several decades, the baseline can be orders of magnitude greater than the Earth–Sun baseline used for traditional parallax. However, secular parallax introduces a higher level of uncertainty because the relative velocity of observed stars is an additional unknown. When applied to samples of multiple stars, the uncertainty can be reduced; the uncertainty is inversely proportional to the square root of the sample size.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Moving cluster parallax is a technique where the motions of individual stars in a nearby star cluster can be used to find the distance to the cluster. Only open clusters are near enough for this technique to be useful. In particular the distance obtained for the Hyades has historically been an important step in the distance ladder.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Other individual objects can have fundamental distance estimates made for them under special circumstances. If the expansion of a gas cloud, like a supernova remnant or planetary nebula, can be observed over time, then an "expansion parallax" distance to that cloud can be estimated. Those measurements however suffer from uncertainties in the deviation of the object from sphericity. Binary stars which are both visual and spectroscopic binaries also can have their distance estimated by similar means, and don't suffer from the above geometric uncertainty. The common characteristic to these methods is that a measurement of angular motion is combined with a measurement of the absolute velocity (usually obtained via the Doppler effect). The distance estimate comes from computing how far the object must be to make its observed absolute velocity appear with the observed angular motion.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Expansion parallaxes in particular can give fundamental distance estimates for objects that are very far, because supernova ejecta have large expansion velocities and large sizes (compared to stars). Further, they can be observed with radio interferometers which can measure very small angular motions. These combine to provide fundamental distance estimates to supernovae in other galaxies. Though valuable, such cases are quite rare, so they serve as important consistency checks on the distance ladder rather than workhorse steps by themselves.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Almost all astronomical objects used as physical distance indicators belong to a class that has a known brightness. By comparing this known luminosity to an object's observed brightness, the distance to the object can be computed using the inverse-square law. These objects of known brightness are termed standard candles, coined by Henrietta Swan Leavitt.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The brightness of an object can be expressed in terms of its absolute magnitude. This quantity is derived from the logarithm of its luminosity as seen from a distance of 10 parsecs. The apparent magnitude, the magnitude as seen by the observer (an instrument called a bolometer is used), can be measured and used with the absolute magnitude to calculate the distance "d" to the object in parsecs as follows:


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: where "m" is the apparent magnitude, and "M" the absolute magnitude. For this to be accurate, both magnitudes must be in the same frequency band and there can be no relative motion in the radial direction.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Some means of correcting for interstellar extinction, which also makes objects appear fainter and more red, is needed, especially if the object lies within a dusty or gaseous region. The difference between an object's absolute and apparent magnitudes is called its distance modulus, and astronomical distances, especially intergalactic ones, are sometimes tabulated in this way.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Two problems exist for any class of standard candle. The principal one is calibration, that is the determination of exactly what the absolute magnitude of the candle is. This includes defining the class well enough that members can be recognized, and finding enough members of that class with well-known distances to allow their true absolute magnitude to be determined with enough accuracy. The second problem lies in recognizing members of the class, and not mistakenly using a standard candle calibration on an object which does not belong to the class. At extreme distances, which is where one most wishes to use a distance indicator, this recognition problem can be quite serious.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: A significant issue with standard candles is the recurring question of how standard they are. For example, all observations seem to indicate that Type Ia supernovae that are of known distance have the same brightness (corrected by the shape of the light curve). The basis for this closeness in brightness is discussed below; however, the possibility exists that the distant Type Ia supernovae have different properties than nearby Type Ia supernovae. The use of Type Ia supernovae is crucial in determining the correct cosmological model. If indeed the properties of Type Ia supernovae are different at large distances, i.e. if the extrapolation of their calibration to arbitrary distances is not valid, ignoring this variation can dangerously bias the reconstruction of the cosmological parameters, in particular the reconstruction of the matter density parameter.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: That this is not merely a philosophical issue can be seen from the history of distance measurements using Cepheid variables. In the 1950s, Walter Baade discovered that the nearby Cepheid variables used to calibrate the standard candle were of a different type than the ones used to measure distances to nearby galaxies. The nearby Cepheid variables were population I stars with much higher metal content than the distant population II stars. As a result, the population II stars were actually much brighter than believed, and when corrected, this had the effect of doubling the distances to the globular clusters, the nearby galaxies, and the diameter of the Milky Way.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Gravitational waves originating from the inspiral phase of compact binary systems, such as neutron stars or black holes, have the useful property that energy emitted as gravitational radiation comes exclusively from the orbital energy of the pair, and the resultant shrinking of their orbits is directly observable as an increase in the frequency of the emitted gravitational waves. To leading order, the rate of change of frequency formula_3 is given by


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: where formula_5 is the gravitational constant, formula_6 is the speed of light, and formula_7 is a single (therefore computable) number called the chirp mass of the system, a combination of the masses formula_8 of the two objects


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: By observing the waveform, the chirp mass can be computed and thence the power (rate of energy emission) of the gravitational waves. Thus, such a gravitational wave source is a standard siren of known loudness.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Just as with standard candles, given the emitted and received amplitudes, the inverse-square law determines the distance to the source. There are some differences with standard candles, however. Gravitational waves are not emitted isotropically, but measuring the polarisation of the wave provides enough information to determine the angle of emission. Gravitational wave detectors also have anisotropic antenna patterns, so the position of the source on the sky relative to the detectors is needed to determine the angle of reception. Generally, if a wave is detected by a network of three detectors at different locations, the network will measure enough information to make these corrections and obtain the distance. Also unlike standard candles, gravitational waves need no calibration against other distance measures. The measurement of distance does of course require the calibration of the gravitational wave detectors, but then the distance is fundamentally given as a multiple of the wavelength of the laser light being used in the gravitational wave interferometer.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: There are other considerations that limit the accuracy of this distance, besides detector calibration. Fortunately, gravitational waves are not subject to extinction due to an intervening absorbing medium. But they "are" subject to gravitational lensing, in the same way as light. If a signal is strongly lensed, then it might be received as multiple events, separated in time (the analogue of multiple images of a quasar, for example). Less easy to discern and control for is the effect of weak lensing, where the signal's path through space is affected by many small magnification and demagnification events. This will be important for signals originating at cosmological redshifts greater than 1. Finally, it is difficult for detector networks to measure the polarization of a signal accurately if the binary system is observed nearly face-on; such signals suffer significantly larger errors in the distance measurement. Unfortunately, binaries radiate most strongly perpendicular to the orbital plane, so face-on signals are intrinsically stronger and the most commonly observed.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: If the binary consists of a pair of neutron stars, their merger will be accompanied by a kilonova/hypernova explosion that may allow the position to be accurately identified by electromagnetic telescopes. In such cases, the redshift of the host galaxy allows a determination of the Hubble constant formula_10. This was the case for GW170817, which was used to make the first such measurement. Even if no electromagnetic counterpart can be identified for an ensemble of signals, it is possible to use a statistical method to infer the value of formula_10.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Another class of physical distance indicator is the standard ruler. In 2008, galaxy diameters have been proposed as a possible standard ruler for cosmological parameter determination. More recently the physical scale imprinted by baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the early universe has been used.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: In the early universe (before recombination) the baryons and photons scatter off each other, and form a tightly-coupled fluid that can support sound waves. The waves are sourced by primordial density perturbations, and travel at speed that can be predicted from the baryon density and other cosmological parameters. The total distance that these sound waves can travel before recombination determines a fixed scale, which simply expands with the universe after recombination. BAO therefore provide a standard ruler that can be measured in galaxy surveys from the effect of baryons on the clustering of galaxies. The method requires an extensive galaxy survey in order to make this scale visible, but has been measured with percent-level precision (see baryon acoustic oscillations). The scale does depend on cosmological parameters like the baryon and matter densities, and the number of neutrinos, so distances based on BAO are more dependent on cosmological model than those based on local measurements.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Light echos can be also used as standard rulers, although it is challenging to correctly measure the source geometry.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: With few exceptions, distances based on direct measurements are available only out to about a thousand parsecs, which is a modest portion of our own Galaxy. For distances beyond that, measures depend upon physical assumptions, that is, the assertion that one recognizes the object in question, and the class of objects is homogeneous enough that its members can be used for meaningful estimation of distance.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: When the absolute magnitude for a group of stars is plotted against the spectral classification of the star, in a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, evolutionary patterns are found that relate to the mass, age and composition of the star. In particular, during their hydrogen burning period, stars lie along a curve in the diagram called the main sequence. By measuring these properties from a star's spectrum, the position of a main sequence star on the H–R diagram can be determined, and thereby the star's absolute magnitude estimated. A comparison of this value with the apparent magnitude allows the approximate distance to be determined, after correcting for interstellar extinction of the luminosity because of gas and dust.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: In a gravitationally-bound star cluster such as the Hyades, the stars formed at approximately the same age and lie at the same distance. This allows relatively accurate main sequence fitting, providing both age and distance determination.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The extragalactic distance scale is a series of techniques used today by astronomers to determine the distance of cosmological bodies beyond our own galaxy, which are not easily obtained with traditional methods. Some procedures utilize properties of these objects, such as stars, globular clusters, nebulae, and galaxies as a whole. Other methods are based more on the statistics and probabilities of things such as entire galaxy clusters.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Discovered in 1956 by Olin Wilson and M.K. Vainu Bappu, the Wilson–Bappu effect utilizes the effect known as spectroscopic parallax. Many stars have features in their spectra, such as the calcium K-line, that indicate their absolute magnitude. The distance to the star can then be calculated from its apparent magnitude using the distance modulus.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: There are major limitations to this method for finding stellar distances. The calibration of the spectral line strengths has limited accuracy and it requires a correction for interstellar extinction. Though in theory this method has the ability to provide reliable distance calculations to stars up to 7 megaparsecs (Mpc), it is generally only used for stars at hundreds of kiloparsecs (kpc).


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Beyond the reach of the Wilson–Bappu effect, the next method relies on the period-luminosity relation of classical Cepheid variable stars. The following relation can be used to calculate the distance to Galactic and extragalactic classical Cepheids:


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Several problems complicate the use of Cepheids as standard candles and are actively debated, chief among them are: the nature and linearity of the period-luminosity relation in various passbands and the impact of metallicity on both the zero-point and slope of those relations, and the effects of photometric contamination (blending) and a changing (typically unknown) extinction law on Cepheid distances.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: These unresolved matters have resulted in cited values for the Hubble constant ranging between 60 km/s/Mpc and 80 km/s/Mpc. Resolving this discrepancy is one of the foremost problems in astronomy since some cosmological parameters of the Universe may be constrained significantly better by supplying a precise value of the Hubble constant.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Cepheid variable stars were the key instrument in Edwin Hubble's 1923 conclusion that M31 (Andromeda) was an external galaxy, as opposed to a smaller nebula within the Milky Way. He was able to calculate the distance of M31 to 285 Kpc, today's value being 770 Kpc.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: As detected thus far, NGC 3370, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo, contains the farthest Cepheids yet found at a distance of 29 Mpc. Cepheid variable stars are in no way perfect distance markers: at nearby galaxies they have an error of about 7% and up to a 15% error for the most distant.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: There are several different methods for which supernovae can be used to measure extragalactic distances.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: We can assume that a supernova expands in a spherically symmetric manner. If the supernova is close enough such that we can measure the angular extent, "θ"("t"), of its photosphere, we can use the equation


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: where "ω" is angular velocity, "θ" is angular extent. In order to get an accurate measurement, it is necessary to make two observations separated by time Δ"t". Subsequently, we can use


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: where d is the distance to the supernova, "V" is the supernova's ejecta's radial velocity (it can be assumed that "V" equals "V" if spherically symmetric).


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: This method works only if the supernova is close enough to be able to measure accurately the photosphere. Similarly, the expanding shell of gas is in fact not perfectly spherical nor a perfect blackbody. Also interstellar extinction can hinder the accurate measurements of the photosphere. This problem is further exacerbated by core-collapse supernova. All of these factors contribute to the distance error of up to 25%.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Type Ia supernovae are some of the best ways to determine extragalactic distances. Ia's occur when a binary white dwarf star begins to accrete matter from its companion star. As the white dwarf gains matter, eventually it reaches its Chandrasekhar limit of formula_16.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Once reached, the star becomes unstable and undergoes a runaway nuclear fusion reaction. Because all Type Ia supernovae explode at about the same mass, their absolute magnitudes are all the same. This makes them very useful as standard candles. All Type Ia supernovae have a standard blue and visual magnitude of


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Therefore, when observing a Type Ia supernova, if it is possible to determine what its peak magnitude was, then its distance can be calculated. It is not intrinsically necessary to capture the supernova directly at its peak magnitude; using the multicolor light curve shape method (MLCS), the shape of the light curve (taken at any reasonable time after the initial explosion) is compared to a family of parameterized curves that will determine the absolute magnitude at the maximum brightness. This method also takes into effect interstellar extinction/dimming from dust and gas.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Similarly, the stretch method fits the particular supernovae magnitude light curves to a template light curve. This template, as opposed to being several light curves at different wavelengths (MLCS) is just a single light curve that has been stretched (or compressed) in time. By using this "Stretch Factor", the peak magnitude can be determined.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Using Type Ia supernovae is one of the most accurate methods, particularly since supernova explosions can be visible at great distances (their luminosities rival that of the galaxy in which they are situated), much farther than Cepheid Variables (500 times farther). Much time has been devoted to the refining of this method. The current uncertainty approaches a mere 5%, corresponding to an uncertainty of just 0.1 magnitudes.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Novae can be used in much the same way as supernovae to derive extragalactic distances. There is a direct relation between a nova's max magnitude and the time for its visible light to decline by two magnitudes. This relation is shown to be:


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Where formula_19 is the time derivative of the nova's mag, describing the average rate of decline over the first 2 magnitudes.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: After novae fade, they are about as bright as the most luminous Cepheid variable stars, therefore both these techniques have about the same max distance: ~ 20 Mpc. The error in this method produces an uncertainty in magnitude of about ±0.4


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Based on the method of comparing the luminosities of globular clusters (located in galactic halos) from distant galaxies to that of the Virgo Cluster, the globular cluster luminosity function carries an uncertainty of distance of about 20% (or 0.4 magnitudes).


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: US astronomer William Alvin Baum first attempted to use globular clusters to measure distant elliptical galaxies. He compared the brightest globular clusters in Virgo A galaxy with those in Andromeda, assuming the luminosities of the clusters were the same in both. Knowing the distance to Andromeda, Baum has assumed a direct correlation and estimated Virgo A's distance.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Baum used just a single globular cluster, but individual formations are often poor standard candles. Canadian astronomer René Racine assumed the use of the globular cluster luminosity function (GCLF) would lead to a better approximation. The number of globular clusters as a function of magnitude is given by:


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: where "m" is the turnover magnitude, "M" is the magnitude of the Virgo cluster, and sigma is the dispersion ~ 1.4 mag.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: It is assumed that globular clusters all have roughly the same luminosities within the universe. There is no universal globular cluster luminosity function that applies to all galaxies.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Like the GCLF method, a similar numerical analysis can be used for planetary nebulae within far off galaxies. The planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF) was first proposed in the late 1970s by Holland Cole and David Jenner. They suggested that all planetary nebulae might all have similar maximum intrinsic brightness, now calculated to be M = −4.53. This would therefore make them potential standard candles for determining extragalactic distances.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Where N(M) is number of planetary nebula, having absolute magnitude M. M* is equal to the nebula with the brightest magnitude.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The following method deals with the overall inherent properties of galaxies. These methods, though with varying error percentages, have the ability to make distance estimates beyond 100 Mpc, though it is usually applied more locally.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) method takes advantage of the use of CCD cameras on telescopes. Because of spatial fluctuations in a galaxy's surface brightness, some pixels on these cameras will pick up more stars than others. However, as distance increases the picture will become increasingly smoother. Analysis of this describes a magnitude of the pixel-to-pixel variation, which is directly related to a galaxy's distance.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The Sigma-D relation (or Σ-D relation), used in elliptical galaxies, relates the angular diameter (D) of the galaxy to its velocity dispersion. It is important to describe exactly what D represents, in order to understand this method. It is, more precisely, the galaxy's angular diameter out to the surface brightness level of 20.75 B-mag arcsec. This surface brightness is independent of the galaxy's actual distance from us. Instead, D is inversely proportional to the galaxy's distance, represented as d. Thus, this relation does not employ standard candles. Rather, D provides a standard ruler. This relation between D and Σ is


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: This method has the potential to become one of the strongest methods of galactic distance calculators, perhaps exceeding the range of even the Tully–Fisher method. As of today, however, elliptical galaxies are not bright enough to provide a calibration for this method through the use of techniques such as Cepheids. Instead, calibration is done using more crude methods.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: A succession of distance indicators, which is the distance ladder, is needed for determining distances to other galaxies. The reason is that objects bright enough to be recognized and measured at such distances are so rare that few or none are present nearby, so there are too few examples close enough with reliable trigonometric parallax to calibrate the indicator. For example, Cepheid variables, one of the best indicators for nearby spiral galaxies, cannot yet be satisfactorily calibrated by parallax alone, though the Gaia space mission can now weigh in on that specific problem. The situation is further complicated by the fact that different stellar populations generally do not have all types of stars in them. Cepheids in particular are massive stars, with short lifetimes, so they will only be found in places where stars have very recently been formed. Consequently, because elliptical galaxies usually have long ceased to have large-scale star formation, they will not have Cepheids. Instead, distance indicators whose origins are in an older stellar population (like novae and RR Lyrae variables) must be used. However, RR Lyrae variables are less luminous than Cepheids, and novae are unpredictable and an intensive monitoring program—and luck during that program—is needed to gather enough novae in the target galaxy for a good distance estimate.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Because the more distant steps of the cosmic distance ladder depend upon the nearer ones, the more distant steps include the effects of errors in the nearer steps, both systematic and statistical ones. The result of these propagating errors means that distances in astronomy are rarely known to the same level of precision as measurements in the other sciences, and that the precision necessarily is poorer for more distant types of object.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: Another concern, especially for the very brightest standard candles, is their "standardness": how homogeneous the objects are in their true absolute magnitude. For some of these different standard candles, the homogeneity is based on theories about the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies, and is thus also subject to uncertainties in those aspects. For the most luminous of distance indicators, the Type Ia supernovae, this homogeneity is known to be poor; however, no other class of object is bright enough to be detected at such large distances, so the class is useful simply because there is no real alternative.


title: Cosmic distance ladder

text: The observational result of Hubble's Law, the proportional relationship between distance and the speed with which a galaxy is moving away from us (usually referred to as redshift) is a product of the cosmic distance ladder. Edwin Hubble observed that fainter galaxies are more redshifted. Finding the value of the Hubble constant was the result of decades of work by many astronomers, both in amassing the measurements of galaxy redshifts and in calibrating the steps of the distance ladder. Hubble's Law is the primary means we have for estimating the distances of quasars and distant galaxies in which individual distance indicators cannot be seen.


title: Anastasia Soare

text: Anastasia Soare (née Bălămaci, born 28 December 1956) is a Romanian-American businesswoman, and the CEO and founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills, known as the "Eyebrow Queen".


title: Anastasia Soare

text: As of April 2022, Forbes ranked her as the 6th-richest person in Romania with a net worth of $730 million.


title: Anastasia Soare

text: Soare was born in Constanța, Romania. She is the child of Dumitru Bălămaci (who died when she was 12) and Victoria Babu, who owned a tailoring shop. She studied art history and architecture in Romania.


title: Anastasia Soare

text: In Los Angeles, as she spoke very little English, Soare worked as an aesthetician at a beauty salon and soon realized that eyebrows were an under-explored area. "I developed a technique for how to shape eyebrows according to people's bone structure and natural eyebrow shape". As her manager did not think there was enough of a market, she rented a room in a Beverly Hills salon, providing facials, body waxing, and eyebrow sculpting. By 1997, she was running her own salon on Beverly Hills' Bedford Drive. As a beautician, she has stated that her first two clients for an eyebrow treatment were Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. Other clients have included Faye Dunaway and Jennifer Lopez.


title: Anastasia Soare

text: Soare is the CEO and founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills beauty brand, available in almost 2,000 stores internationally. In 2016, Soare stated that she owned 100% of the company.


title: Anastasia Soare

text: As of January 2019, Anastasia Beverly Hills had the most popular Instagram page in the beauty industry, with 20.6 million followers.


title: Anastasia Soare

text: In 1978, she married Victor Soare, a ship's captain. The couple has a daughter, Claudia, who is also active in the makeup business.


title: Anastasia Soare

text: In 1986, while his ship was docked in Italy, Victor Soare visited the American embassy and asked for asylum. He reached the United States six months later. However, Soare and her daughter were not allowed to leave Romania to join him in the United States until 1989. Victor and Anastasia divorced in 1994.


title: C-pop

text: C-pop is an abbreviation for Chinese popular music (), a loosely defined musical genre by artists originating from mainland China,Hong Kong and Taiwan (the Greater China region). This also includes countries where Chinese languages are used by parts of the population, such as Singapore and Malaysia. C-pop is used as an umbrella term covering not only Chinese pop but also R&B, ballads, Chinese rock, Chinese hip hop and Chinese ambient music, although Chinese rock diverged during the early 1990s.


title: C-pop

text: There are currently three main subgenres within C-pop: Cantopop, Mandopop and Hokkien pop. The gap between Cantopop and Mandopop has been narrowing in the new millennium. Hokkien pop, initially strongly influenced by Japanese enka, has been re-integrating into C-pop and narrowing its trend of development towards Mandopop.


title: C-pop

text: Chinese popular music in China was initially a vehicle for the Cultural Revolution and Maoist ideologies; however, during the country's extensive political and cultural changes of the past 50 years, it has lost much political significance; and now closely resembles the styles of Taiwanese Mandopop, Cantopop, K-pop and J-pop, from Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan, respectively.


title: C-pop

text: The term "shidaiqu" (meaning "music of the era" or ""popular music"") is used to describe all different types of music sung in Mandarin and other Chinese dialects recorded in China from 1920 to 1952, then in Hong Kong until the 1960s. Shanghai was the main hub of the Chinese popular music recording industry, and an important name of the period is composer Li Jinhui. Buck Clayton is credited with bringing American jazz influence to China and the music gained popularity in hangout quarters of nightclubs and dancehalls of major cities in the 1920s. A number of privately run radio stations from the late 1920s to the 1950s played C-pop. Around 1927, Li Jinhui composed "The Drizzle" ("") sung by his daughter Li Minghui (), and this song is generally regarded as the first Chinese pop song. It fuses jazz and Chinese folk music – the tune is in the style of a traditional pentatonic folk melody, but the instrumentation is similar to that of an American jazz orchestra.


title: C-pop

text: Around the time of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and the Chinese Civil War, pop music was seen as a leftist undisturbed distraction. After the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II C-pop has been marketed, produced and branded regionally. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established the People's Republic of China in 1949. One of its first actions was to label the genre "Yellow Music" (the color is associated with pornography). The Shanghai pop music industry then took pop music to Hong Kong and in the 1970s developed Cantopop. The Kuomintang, relocated to Taiwan, discouraged the use of native Taiwanese Hokkien dialect from the 1950s to the late 1980s. As a result, mandopop became the dominant musical genre in Taiwan.


title: C-pop

text: In 2000 EolAsia.com was founded as the first online C-pop music portal in Hong Kong. The company survived the dot-com bubble and offered online legal music downloads in February 2005, backed by EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG. It primarily targets consumers in Hong Kong and Macau: some songs require Hong Kong Identity Cards to purchase.


title: C-pop

text: In August 2008 Norman Cheung, father of HK singer Ronald Cheng, acquired the remaining portion of EMI Music Asia when EMI, which had entered China in the early 20th century, withdrew from the Chinese market. Typhoon music made the purchase for an estimated HK$100 million.


title: C-pop

text: In February 2008 mainland China's top search engine Baidu.com was sued by local industry groups for providing music listening, broadcasting and downloading without approval. Piracy continues to exist in China but Google have since announced a cooperation deal offering free listening and genuine music copies. Top100.cn was founded by basketball star Yao Ming, agent Zhang Mingji and music insider Chen Ge via a 20 million yuan investment. Google mp3 became available in March 2009. The future of C-pop in mainland China is slowly emerging. However, the Chinese government's banning of the highly popular show "Super Girl" for one year in 2008 and 2012 still a very controversial for the mainland China market.


title: C-pop

text: In the early years of modern mainland China, emphasis on collectivist and party values, would predominantly set the theme for the music that was produced. Chinese officially sanctioned music schools, teaching popular music usually involves praising China's national culture through song lyrics that echo the official orientation of the PRC. The way in which popular music is taught in the school system relates to Chinese patriotic verses and traditional Chinese culture. The educational policy is heavily influenced by the government, and the "... Chinese government still uses traditional Chinese culture and values to enhance its legitimacy and consolidate its authority" (Ho, 2012, p1).


title: C-pop

text: After the Cultural Revolution that isolated China from the rest of the world for more than a decade, the country opened up, especially under the leadership of premier Deng. Global economic development offered all sorts of opportunities for Chinese businessmen and the opening up of east coast regions to outside economic interests served to boost significantly cross-cultural exchange between China and other nations, including the United States. Globalization and China's joining the World Trade Organization, with the implication of a move to make institutions within the country more compatible with those of the rest of the world, and the surge in international trade all contributed to bringing not only increased economic activity but also social exposure to foreign cultural standards. Although the new openness affected relations with a broad range of foreign countries, the United States was especially important as it was a major trading partner, and globalization has helped both nations to develop a healthy relationship for future growth.


title: C-pop

text: The openness to trade and other exchanges with the United States, including the growing number of Chinese students seeking admission to educational establishments in the US, facilitated familiarity with American popular music. Although this was not the first exposure to foreign music for China, as there had been a growing awareness of the unique brand of western influenced popular music in Hong Kong, known as Cantopop, the influences of American rock, and African American rebellious hip hop and rap music were undoubtedly a lot more accepted by Chinese youth compared to their parent's generation. Nowadays mainland singers like Hua Chenyu, one of the most influential young pop-rock singers in China today, sold out an Olympic sized stadium concert in two minutes and 58 seconds, demonstrating the homegrown pop music of China are at the stage of strong mass appeal. (Rupke & Blank, 2009). The globalization of popular music impacted other East Asian countries, especially Korea and Japan, and this in turn has influenced developments in China, as "pop-culture excursions between (the) three countries" are deemed significant (Tricks, 2014, p. 4).


title: C-pop

text: In 1999, Malaysia's "Nanyang Siang Pau" compiled a list of the top 100 most influential C-pop artists in the 20th century. The top 30 are in this order: Teresa Teng, Zhou Xuan, Yoshiko Ōtaka, Samuel Hui, Bai Guang, Paula Tsui, Alan Tam, Jacky Cheung, Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung, Faye Wong, Liu Wen-cheng, Chyi Yu, Lee Yee (李逸), Danny Chan, Dave Wong, Julie Su, Roman Tam, Beyond, Eric Moo, Chyi Chin, , Wu Yingyin, Tsin Ting, Yao Lee, Tsui Ping, Tsai Chin, Lo Ta-yu and Jonathan Lee.


title: C-pop

text: At the end of 2007 RTHK began promoting a tribute called "Immortal Legends" (不死傳奇) in honor of the singers who died a legend in the industry. The honor was given to Roman Tam, Anita Mui, Teresa Teng, Leslie Cheung, Wong Ka Kui (founder of Beyond), and Danny Chan. All six pop stars played a major role in developing the Hong Kong or Taiwan music industry.


title: C-pop

text: In 2010, the Chinese Music Awards recognized the top 30 C-pop artists since 1980. They are, approximately in the order of their birth years: Liu Jia-chang, Li Guyi (李谷一), George Lam, Sam Hui, Paula Tsui, Roman Tam, Alan Tam, Liu Wen-cheng, Julie Su, Teresa Teng, Fong Fei Fei, Jenny Tseng, Lo Ta-yu, Fei Yu-ching, Leslie Cheung, Danny Chan, Chyi Yu, Tsai Chin, Chyi Chin, Anita Mui, Jonathan Lee, Jacky Cheung, Cui Jian, Liu Huan, Tat Ming Pair, Beyond, Sandy Lam, Faye Wong, Eason Chan, and Jay Chou.


title: C-pop

text: At the end of 2010, Vietnam's "" proclaimed a list of the top 5 C-pop boybands of the 2000s decade, all are from Taiwan. They are: F4, 183 Club, 5566, Fahrenheit (Fei Lun Hai), and Lollipop (Bang Bang Tang).


title: Capone (rapper)

text: Kiam Akasi Holley (born February 8, 1976), better known by his stage name Capone, is an American rapper known as one half of the East Coast hip hop duo Capone-N-Noreaga (C-N-N), alongside friend and fellow rapper Noreaga.


title: Capone (rapper)

text: Holley spent some time in jail after the release of C-N-N's debut album "The War Report." When he was released, he and N.O.R.E. recorded their second album "The Reunion", but shortly after releasing the album, Capone was sent back to jail. In 2004, he recorded the single "I Need Speed", for exclusive use in the video game "", which was featured on the game's soundtrack. In early 2005, Def Jam Recordings released Capone from his contract while retaining Noreaga, leaving the group's status in disarray. Capone released his debut album titled "Pain, Time & Glory" in 2005, but it received poor sales. He also appeared on the Ron Artest album "My World".


title: Capone (rapper)

text: In 2020 Capone released collaborative album entitled "Guidelines" with one half of the Dogg Pound Daz Dillinger under Empire Distribution


title: University of Sunderland

text: The University of Sunderland is a public research university located in Sunderland in the North East of England. Its predecessor, Sunderland Technical College, was established as a municipal training college in 1901. It gained university status in 1992. It now has campuses in Sunderland, London and Hong Kong, and has about 20,000 students.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Sunderland has been an important centre for education since 674 AD, when Benedict Biscop built St Peter's Church and monastery. St Peter's Church was the site of the greatest scriptorium north of the Alps. The oldest existing Latin version of the Bible – the "Codex Amiatinus" – was written at St Peter's Church. This area has been developed as the Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St Peter's of the University of Sunderland. The university's £9m state-of-the-art Media Centre, launched in 2004, is near St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The university's modern roots can be traced back to 1901, when Sunderland Technical College was established as a municipal training college. It was the first to offer sandwich courses. It began with four departments: Chemistry, Mechanical & Civil Engineering, Physics & Electrical Engineering and Commerce & Languages. Part-time lecturers taught other subjects, ranging from Latin to navigation. 671 students enrolled in the first year; it was more than three times the number expected.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The college's longest-serving principal, the physicist VA Mundella was appointed in 1908 and served until his retirement in 1932.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Pharmacy and naval architecture departments were established in 1921 and 1922 respectively. The Pharmacy Department began as a single bench in the Chemistry Department under the leadership of Hope Winch, but soon grew to become the largest in the country. From 1930, some students in the Faculty of Applied Science read for degrees of the University of Durham. In 1930, a Mining Department was established and pharmacy students could read for the Bachelor of Pharmacy degree of the University of London. Sunderland was also recognised by London University as a centre for its BEng (Bachelor of Engineering) degree in 1934.


title: University of Sunderland

text: During the Second World War, Sunderland ran special courses for the armed forces and the Ministry of Labour.


title: University of Sunderland

text: In the 1960s, a PDP-8 hybrid computer was installed at the Chester Road site. There was also an Elliot Brothers 803B digital computer.


title: University of Sunderland

text: A new complex of buildings, including a new Students' union and Hall of Residence facilities, on nearby Chester Road was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1964.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Sunderland Polytechnic was established on 26 January 1969, incorporating the Technical College, the School of Art (which was also established in 1901) and the Sunderland Teacher Training College (established in 1908). Sunderland was among the first of 30 Polytechnics, like polytechnics or technological universities in other countries their aim was to teach both purely academic and professional vocational subjects. Their focus was applied education for work and their roots concentrated on engineering and applied science, they also created departments concerned with the humanities.


title: University of Sunderland

text: As a polytechnic, Sunderland created the first part-time, in-service BEd (Bachelor of Education) programme in the country.


title: University of Sunderland

text: After the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, the polytechnic gained university status.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Lord Puttnam became the university's first Chancellor in 1998. The Sunderland Empire Theatre was the regular venue for the graduation ceremonies, although they have been hosted at the Stadium of Light since 2004. In July 2007, he stepped down to become the Chancellor of the Open University.


title: University of Sunderland

text: On 23 May 2008 the university announced that former Olympic athlete Steve Cram had been appointed as Chancellor and would be officially installed at a ceremony on 27 June 2008. Singer and songwriter, Emeli Sandé was officially installed as the University of Sunderland's new Chancellor on 10 July 2019 during the university's summer Academic Awards.


title: University of Sunderland

text: In 2018, it was announced that Sunderland was to host one of five new medical schools established under a UK government initiative to increase the number of training places for doctors. The medical school opened in September 2019.


title: University of Sunderland

text: On 24 September 2018, Sir David Bell became Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Sunderland.


title: University of Sunderland

text: There are two campuses in Sunderland, one in Hong Kong and one in London. The Sunderland campuses are City Campus and the Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St Peter's.


title: University of Sunderland

text: St Peter's opened during the 1990s on the north bank of the River Wear, the site of St Peter's Church and monastery built by Benedict Biscop in 674 AD.


title: University of Sunderland

text: In September 2002, the campus was renamed ‘The Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St. Peter's’, after the local businessman who was one of the university's primary supporters. The Sunderland Business School is similarly named ’The Reg Vardy Centre’, and another building, primarily used by the School of Computing and Technology, is ’The David Goldman Informatics Centre’.


title: University of Sunderland

text: St Peter's Campus includes the following: North Shore (formerly Campus and Manor Quay), Wearbank House, Reg Vardy Centre, St Peter's Library, David Goldman Informatics Centre, Prospect Building (including Sir Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre), David Puttnam Media Centre, North Sands Business Centre and National Glass Centre (which houses the Glass and Ceramics department and the Institute for International Research in Glass). The David Puttnam Media Centre houses television and radio production facilities for the School of Arts, Design and Media, student led community radio station (Spark Sunderland), and Made in Tyne & Wear, and opened in 2003. The campus was officially opened in March 2004 by Estelle Morris, former Education Secretary and Pro Vice-Chancellor from 2005 to 2009.


title: University of Sunderland

text: In 2006, the Chester Road Campus was renamed City Campus, and work started on refurbishment of the Edinburgh Building administrative centre, the creation of the Gateway one-stop-shop for student support, and the redevelopment of Murray Library, and the Design Centre. The £12M CitySpace gym and leisure development opened in 2009, and in February 2011 the £8.5M Sciences Complex opened.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The University of Sunderland has four halls of residence: Scotia Quay, Panns Bank, Clanny House, and The Forge U-Student Village.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Clanny House is the largest halls of residence and is located on Hylton Road across the road from the Sunderland Royal Hospital.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Scotia Quay and Panns Bank are based across the River Wear from St Peter's Campus, across the road from The Bonded Warehouse. The location of these halls used to be one of the many locations on the river that were used by the former ship building industry.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Previous halls of residence include Ashbrooke, All Saints, Clifton, Westfield, Park and Williamson Halls.


title: University of Sunderland

text: On 26 April 2012, the University of Sunderland announced the opening of a new campus at Canary Wharf in London. In 2012/13 the student population of the University of Sunderland London Campus was 2,277.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Courses are offered in nursing, business, tourism and hospitality, as well as accounting and financial management.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The university has five academic departments, responsible for teaching and learning, academic development and research, and working with partners in business and industry.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The faculties are supported by a number of service departments responsible for a wide range of activity such as student welfare and accommodation and includes teams with responsibility for managing the university estate, financial matters, and human resources.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The North East England Mining Archive and Resource Centre (NEEMARC) is a major archive for mining related data and includes health and safety information, legal records, technical reports and trade union records. NEEMARC is situated within the Special Collections Room of the Murray Library.


title: University of Sunderland

text: According to The Complete University Guide League Tables 2019, the University of Sunderland was ranked 99th out of 131, an improvement on the previous year in which the university was ranked 102nd out of 129.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The university was recognised by "The Guardian" as England's best new university in 2001. In 2005 it was named by "The Times Higher Education Supplement" as the top university in England for providing the best student experience. It was one of six universities to be short-listed for 'University of the Year' in the Times Higher Education Supplement Awards 2012.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The University of Sunderland entered 13 "units of assessment" (subject areas) into the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014). In 10 of these, some of the research was classified as "world leading" (4*). All 13 areas had research graded "internationally excellent" (3*). The subjects, and the fraction of research graded 4* and 3* were: Pharmacy (7%, 44%); Computer Science (0%, 14%); Engineering (2%, 22%); Business (2%, 2%); Law (0%, 5%); Social Work (3%, 27%); Education (5%, 11%); Sports and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism (3%, 16%); English (7%, 25%); History (6%, 28%); Art and Design (5%, 36%); Music, Dance, and Performing Arts (0%, 32%); and Media (25%, 38%).


title: University of Sunderland

text: Overall, 6% of research was classified as "world leading" and 26% as "internationally excellent", with the university having an overall GPA of 2.12. Sunderland ranked 115th in the "Times Higher Education" REF 2014 table (down from 104th in 2008), ranked by GPA. The university ranked 103rd in "The Guardian"/"Research Fortnight" REF 2014 power table (down from 84th in 2008).


title: University of Sunderland

text: The University of Sunderland Students' Union is an independent education charity, led by three sabbatical officers who run the Union and are elected into the roles by their peers for a period of one year. The sabbatical officer positions are made up of: President:Education, President: Wellbeing and President: Activities. They are joined by five lay Trustees to make up the Trustee Board.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The Students' Union is responsible for offering support and advice to students, leading campaigns and being the voice of the student body. The Students' Union's mission is to make all its members' University experience valuable for life. All students enrolled on a course at Sunderland University are automatically members of the Students' Union.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The university's Institute of Sport organises training events, courses and other sporting activities for students, staff and the local community.


title: University of Sunderland

text: There are over 50 clubs and societies in 2018/19. Users have access to the £12m CitySpace building on the City Campus, which features a climbing wall, fitness suite, physiotherapy and injury centre, sports hall, multi-purpose suite and spectator seating.


title: University of Sunderland

text: The University of Sunderland Boat Club is affiliated to British Rowing (boat code USN) and won the women's double sculls title at the 2004 British Rowing Championships.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Launched in September 2011, SportsByte is a journalism, news, and multimedia publication dedicated to covering a wide range of sports at all levels of competition across the City of Sunderland, the North East, and Globally. With a press team of over 150 student and community reporters, SportsByte is the largest sports-dedicated news and media publication in the North East of England, and is among the biggest in the UK. Within six months the website had spread its coverage to over thirty different sports and activities, and published three digital magazines. In spring 2012 SportsByte was shortlisted for the National Union of Students National Student Journalism Awards Best Student Media award.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Spark Sunderland is a student-led community radio station. The station was awarded a full Community Radio licence in 2008 from Ofcom. The station launched in October 2009 and broadcasts 24/7 from its base, The David Puttnam Media Centre, located at the St. Peter's University campus. It has a long heritage, through student programming on Wear FM and then temporary licences under the Utopia FM name between 1997 and 2008. The station is operated by a team of student and community volunteers.


title: University of Sunderland

text: Spark has been successful in regional, national and international radio awards. The station itself has now won 3 awards as Best Student Radio Station in the New York Radio Awards where students have also gained awards for Radio Drama, Radio Documentary and Entertainment. Former volunteers are now working for BBC Radio 1, Capital FM and other BBC and Commercial Broadcasters.


title: Robert Simonds

text: Robert Bruce Simonds Jr. (born 1964) is an American film producer, entrepreneur, and the founder & chairman of STX Entertainment, which creates, produces, distributes, finances, and markets film (as STXfilms), television (as STXtelevision), digital media (as STXdigital), and live events as well as virtual reality (as STXsurreal). The company bridges the gap between China and the US, with additional partnerships around the globe (as STXinternational). According to "The Wall Street Journal" in its first four years, Simonds more than tripled the company's valuation to an estimated US$3.5 billion. In September 2017, it was reported that STX was close to an initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK), and in April 2018, the company announced it had filed for an IPO. In October 2018, it was announced that STX would not go through with the IPO, as market conditions had changed. Prior to working at STX, Simonds was an independent film producer whose over 30 films have generated more than $6 billion in worldwide box office revenue.


title: Robert Simonds

text: Simonds was born in Phoenix the son of Robert Bruce Simonds Sr., a businessman. He graduated from Yale University.


title: Robert Simonds

text: From 1990 to 2012, Simonds produced over 30 Hollywood studio films, including the Adam Sandler films "Billy Madison", "Happy Gilmore", "The Wedding Singer", "Big Daddy" and "The Waterboy"; "Cheaper by the Dozen", and "The Pink Panther" which stars Steve Martin. He also produced "This Means War" with Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hardy. Simonds has produced a number of highly-profitable cult films including "Joe Dirt" and "Half Baked".


title: Robert Simonds

text: In 2012, Simonds and Bill McGlashan, founder and managing partner of private equity firm TPG Growth, began conceptualizing and building a film, television and multimedia company that would make, market and distribute star-driven, commercial content to be distributed worldwide. In 2014, STX Entertainment was formally launched with financing led by TPG Growth, and the company later secured investments from Chinese private equity firm Hony Capital and other individuals including Gigi Pritzker and William "Beau" Wrigley, Jr. II.


title: Robert Simonds

text: Serving as chairman and CEO of STX, Simonds hired entertainment industry veterans to build his executive team including former Viacom Entertainment Group COO Thomas B. McGrath and former CEO of Crest Animation Noah Fogelson. Former Universal Pictures chairman Adam Fogelson and former Disney and Fox production and marketing chief Oren Aviv were also added to the team. Discovery Communications' former CFO Andrew Warren and former Paramount Pictures and Condé Nast communications head Patricia Röckenwagner later also joined.


title: Robert Simonds

text: The company has multiple divisions: film (STXfilms), which includes animation and family content; television (STXtelevision), which includes scripted and unscripted content; and digital media (STXdigital); along with an international partnership and distribution arm headquartered in London (STXinternational).


title: Robert Simonds

text: In 2016, the company received additional investment from Chinese Internet company Tencent and Hong Kong-based telecommunications company PCCW, and East West Bank's chairman and CEO Dominic Ng. In 2017, the world's largest international television and broadband company Liberty Global invested an undisclosed amount in the company. Funds from that round of financing will be used to continue to build STX Entertainment's TV division, further expand internationally and potentially make acquisitions. In March 2019, STX raised $700 million in new capital, in a round led by TPG Growth and Hony Capital, to help STX release more films, expand its TV business, and pursue acquisitions.


title: Robert Simonds

text: STX Entertainment's Board of Directors is composed of investors and industry veterans including: Simonds, David Bonderman (founding partner of TPG Capital), John Zhao (CEO of Hony Capital), Gigi Pritzker (founder of MWM Studios), Janice Lee (managing director of PCCW Media Group), Tracy Cui (managing director of Hony Capital), Frank Biondi (former president and CEO of Viacom and former chairman and CEO of Universal Studios; senior managing director of WaterView Advisors), Dominic Ng (chairman and CEO of East West Bank), Carmen Chang (chairman of New Enterprise Associates), and Bruce Mann (chief programming officer of Liberty Global).


title: Robert Simonds

text: When STX was launched the film division of the company focused its efforts on creating a new model. Rather than pursuing the traditional distribution process the company secured direct distribution agreements with North American theater chains AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Goodrich, Marcus Theatres, and Carmike Cinemas. In early 2015, the company signed a multi-year television output agreement to release films exclusively to Showtime Networks and its multiplex channels Showtime, TMC and Flix, covering STX theatrical releases through 2019. In April 2015, the company entered a multi-year partnership with Universal Studios Home Entertainment for Universal to handle marketing, sales and distribution services for Blu-ray, DVD and VOD platforms for STX theatrical titles in North America. That same month, STXfilms closed a three-year slate deal with Huayi Brothers, one of China's largest film studios, enabling the companies to co-produce and co-distribute 12 to 15 films annually. In 2015, STXfilms acquired its first film at the Toronto International Film Festival, purchasing the worldwide rights to "Hardcore Henry" for $10 million USD. In January 2017, STXfilms signed a three-year marketing and distribution agreement with Luc Besson's EuropaCorp Films USA to release their upcoming slate of films.


title: Robert Simonds

text: STXfilms projects have included "Bad Moms"; "Molly's Game"; "I Feel Pretty"; and "Gringo" with Amazon Studios; "The Gift", written, co-produced and directed by Joel Edgerton; "The Edge of Seventeen"; "The Foreigner" starring Jackie Chan; and "Secret in Their Eyes" starring Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts; "The Boy"; and "Free State of Jones" starring Matthew McConaughey. STXfilms announced "The Happytime Murders" starring Melissa McCarthy and the film was released on August 24, 2018; an untitled romantic comedy developed by and starring Anne Hathaway; and "Second Act", a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez and directed by Peter Segal and was released on December 21, 2018.


title: Robert Simonds

text: In 2014, the television division’s first project was the 13-episode series "State of Affairs", starring Katherine Heigl and Alfre Woodard, which was sold to NBC. In 2015, STXtelevision produced the NBC pilot "Problem Child", based on the 1990 film of the same name. In April 2016, the STXtelevision Chinese variety show "Number One Surprise" premiered on Hunan TV, and became the #1 show in China with over 1 billion total views. In May 2017, STXtelevision announced it had acquired the first TV project from Kevin Kwan, author of "Crazy Rich Asians". In November 2017, STXtelevision announced "Valley of the Boom", a docudrama about the 1990s tech boom from showrunner and director Matthew Carnahan and executive producer Arianna Huffington, set to air on NatGeo. STXtelevision produced season 23 of "True Life", which aired on MTV in 2017. In February 2018, Fox and STXtelevision announced it is developing an unscripted series based on STXfilms' "Bad Moms". In October 2018, STXtv received a pilot order from YouTube for "The Edge of Seventeen", based on the film of the same name released by STXfilms in 2016.


title: Robert Simonds

text: In August 2016, STXdigital acquired virtual reality (VR) studio Surreal, renaming it STXsurreal. Founded in 2015, in its first year Surreal produced over 70 immersive VR experiences. In June 2017, STXsurreal announced a partnership with media services agency Horizon Media to develop and produce VR and immersive content for the brand's new UNCVR unit. In 2018, STXsurreal announced a slate of original projects including "The Limit", a live-action, short-form series from Robert Rodriguez and starring Michelle Rodriguez; "New Tricks", directed and produced by Ed Helms; and "The Kiev Exchange", a spinoff of STXfilms' "Mile 22". In December 2017, it was announced that STXdigital acquired the exclusive Chinese distribution rights to Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve from Dick Clark Productions (dcp), along with the Chinese distribution rights to the 2018 Golden Globes broadcast from dcp and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. STXdigital and Tencent partnered to broadcast both shows on Tencent Video. In January 2018, the companies announced they would also co-produce a live Chinese-language Golden Globes red carpet pre-show, to air live with the telecast.


title: Robert Simonds

text: In April 2016, a dedicated international division (STXinternational) opened. Headquartered in London, the division is led by former Film4 head David Kosse. The division launched with a slate of six films that included Andy Serkis's directorial debut "Breathe" (which opened the 2017 London Film Festival), "Home Again" starring Reese Witherspoon, and "Wind River" starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen. Additional titles on the STXinternational slate include Ridley Scott's "All the Money in the World", Morten Tyldum's "The Marsh King's Daughter", and Bart Layton's "American Animals"; and titles from the main STXfilms slate. In March 2019, John Friedberg was named president of STXinternational.


title: Robert Simonds

text: In 2014, Simonds was featured as one of Hollywood's top dealmakers in "Variety" magazine's Dealmakers Impact Report for his work at STX. "The Hollywood Reporter" has named Simonds one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Entertainment in each of their annual rankings through 2018, since first publishing them in 2016. In 2017, "Variety" featured Simonds on their first annual Variety500: Entertainment Leaders and Icons list. He made the list again in 2018.


title: Robert Simonds

text: While attending Yale Simonds dated actress Jennifer Beals. Simonds married Anne Biondi in 1999, and the couple live in Los Angeles with their son and four daughters. About 2010 Simonds bought a house at Mulholland Estates for $4.7 million.


title: Wings of Hope (film)

text: Wings of Hope (, literally "Juliane's Fall in the Jungle") is a 1998 made-for-TV documentary directed by Werner Herzog. The film explores the story of Juliane Koepcke, a German Peruvian woman who was the sole survivor of Peruvian flight LANSA Flight 508 following its mid-air disintegration after a lightning strike in 1971. Herzog was inspired to make this film since he had narrowly avoided taking the same flight while he was location scouting for "Aguirre, Wrath of God"; his reservation had been canceled due to a last minute change in itinerary.


title: Wings of Hope (film)

text: In the film, Herzog and Koepcke visit the scenes of her flight, crash, and escape from the jungle. They take a flight from Lima to Pucallpa (though with a different airline), and sit in the same row of seats where Koepcke sat during the crash. They unearth many large fragments of the plane in the jungle, and then visit the river routes where she traveled for 10 days on foot, and the small village where she was eventually found by three men, one of whom appears in the film.


title: Wings of Hope (film)

text: "Wings of Hope" is often seen as a companion piece or sequel to Herzog's 1997 film "Little Dieter Needs to Fly", in which he retraces the steps of a U.S. Navy pilot's successful escape from a POW camp during the Vietnam War.


title: Wings of Hope (film)

text: Herzog had planned to make the film ever since narrowly missing the flight, but was unable to contact Koepcke for many years since she shied away from any media coverage. Herzog finally located her in Munich after contacting the priest who performed the funeral for Koepcke's mother. Koepcke's dreams, as described in the film and shot in documentary style, were invented and scripted by Herzog.


title: Losail International Circuit

text: The Losail International Circuit or Lusail International Circuit (Arabic: حلبة لوسيل الدولية) is a motor racing circuit located just outside the city of Lusail, north of Doha, Qatar.


title: Losail International Circuit

text: Built in just under a year by 1,000 workers at the cost of million, the track opened in 2004, named Losail International Circuit, to the inaugural 2004 Qatar motorcycle Grand Prix, won by Sete Gibernau.


title: Losail International Circuit

text: The track is in length, with a main straight of . It is surrounded by artificial grass to stop the sand encroaching on the track.


title: Losail International Circuit

text: In 2007, Lusail added permanent outdoor lighting for night races. At the time, the lighting of the Lusail Circuit by Musco Lighting was the largest permanent venue sports lighting project in the world, a distinction that now belongs to another Persian Gulf motorsport venue, Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. The first night race in MotoGP history was the 2008 Qatar motorcycle Grand Prix in March 2008.


title: Losail International Circuit

text: In February 2009, a GP2 Asia Series nighttime race took place. The World SBK visited Losail in 2005–2009 and 2014–2019; and the WTCC visited there in 2015–2017.


title: Losail International Circuit

text: The circuit hosted the 20th race of the 2021 Formula One season, the inaugural edition of the Qatar Grand Prix.


title: Losail International Circuit

text: The official lap record for the current circuit layout is 1:23.196, set by Max Verstappen driving for Red Bull Racing in the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix. The official race lap records at the Lusail International Circuit are listed as:


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Levittown is a census-designated place (CDP) and planned community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The population was 52,983 at the 2010 census. It is above sea level. Though not a municipality, it is sometimes recognized as the largest suburb of Philadelphia (while Upper Darby Township, Lower Merion Township, Bensalem Township, Abington Township and Bristol Township are municipalities larger in size in the three surrounding Pennsylvania counties). Starting with land purchased in 1951, it was planned and built by Levitt & Sons. The brothers William Levitt and architect Alfred Levitt designed its six typical houses.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Most of the land on which Levittown is built was purchased in 1951. Levitt and Sons only built six models of houses in Levittown, all single-family dwellings with lawns: the Levittowner, the Rancher, the Jubilee, the Pennsylvanian, the Colonial and the Country Clubber, with only modest exterior variations within each model. The homes were moderately priced and required only a low down payment. Construction of Levittown began in February 1952, soon after completion of Levittown, New York, located on Long Island. Levittown, Pennsylvania was the second "Levittown" built by William J. Levitt, who is often credited as the creator of the modern American suburb. To speed up construction, Levitt & Sons perfected a 26-step rationalized building method that was essentially an assembly line type of home building. The house remained stationary, while the construction workers moved from house to house. Each worker had one task such as pouring slabs, framing, installing electric sockets or installing washing machines. This highly regimented process enabled Levitt's workers to produce a finished house every 16 minutes. Construction of the homes commenced in 1952 and when completed in 1958, 17,311 homes were built.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: What set Levittown apart from other developments at the time was that it was built as a complete community. Levitt & Sons designed neighborhoods with traffic-calming curvilinear roads, in which there were no four-way intersections. Each neighborhood had within its boundaries a site donated by Levitt & Sons for a public elementary school. Locations for churches and other public facilities were set aside on main thoroughfares such as the Levittown Parkway, likewise donated by the builder to religious groups and other organizations. Other amenities included Olympic-sized public pools, parks, "greenbelts", baseball fields and playgrounds, and a shopping center located in neighboring Tullytown borough that was considered large and modern at the time of its construction (and in fact was the largest east of the Mississippi). The first set of four sample homes were put on display in a swatch of land near the future Levittown Shop-a-Rama, and an estimated 30,000 people viewed them in that first weekend.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Residents (who are sometimes called Levittowners) were first expected to comply with a lengthy list of rules and regulations regarding the upkeep of their homes and use of their property. Two of these "rules" included a prohibition on hanging laundry out to dry on Sunday and not allowing homeowners to fence off their yards. These proved unenforceable over time, particularly when backyard pools became financially accessible to the working class and privacy concerns drove many to fence off their yards. In the years since Levitt & Sons ended construction, three- and four-story "garden apartments" and a number of non-Levitt owner-occupied houses have been built in Levittown.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Levitt & Sons would not sell homes to African Americans. Levitt did not consider himself to be a racist, considering housing and racial relations entirely separate matters. However, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) conditioned essential financing for this and similar projects on the restriction of home sales to those of "the Caucasian race", as stipulated in housing rent and sales agreements and deed covenants. This did not prevent Bea and Lew Wechsler, a Jewish couple from the Bronx, from connecting an African-American family to a neighbor who desired to sell his home. Levittown's first Black couple, William and Daisy Myers, bought a home in the Dogwood Hollow section in 1957. Their move to Levittown was marked with racist harassment and mob violence, which required intervention by state authorities. This led to an injunction and criminal charges against the harassers while the Myerses and their supporters refused to surrender and received national acclaim for their efforts. For instance, Daisy Myers has been hailed as "The Rosa Parks of the North", who helped expose the northern states' problems with racial inequality of that time. Daisy Myers later wrote a book about her family's experiences. She died Dec. 5, 2011, in York, Pa. The NAACP and the ACLU opposed Levitt’s racist policies, and the Federal Housing Administration threatened to refuse mortgages on his next Levittown. Levitt still refused to sell to blacks, and developed plans for yet another whites-only Levittown—this one to be in Willingboro Township, N.J.—while fighting legal challenges in New Jersey courts. Ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: The community's otherwise placid exterior was again disturbed during the so-called suburban gas riots of June 1979 in the wake of the Camp David Peace Accords, which resulted in a second embargo by Arab oil-producing nations. The unrest occurred June 24–25, 1979, as lines swelled and tempers flared in the heart of Levittown at an intersection known as Five Points, a location surrounded by six service stations, two of which were severely damaged by vandalism in the riots. The two days of riots made national headlines and were mentioned (although not directly by name) in the draft of an address to the nation that was to have been delivered by President Jimmy Carter on July 5, 1979.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: A baseball team from Levittown won the Little League World Series in 1960. Levittown American beat an opponent from Fort Worth, Texas, to win the honor.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Of the five public pools built by Levitt & Sons and operated by the Levittown Public Recreation Association (LPRA), four were closed in 2002, with the exception being one located in the Pinewood section. LPRA Headquarters (and other landmarks) of this prototypical post-war suburb of sometimes mythic importance have been the focus of historic preservation efforts. Since 2002, studies have been underway to establish the Levittown Historic District.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Since its inception in 1988, the Bucks County St. Patrick's Day Parade has been held in Levittown. Every year, the parade steps off from St Joseph the Worker Church, and proceeds two miles (3 km) on New Falls Road to Conwell-Egan Catholic High School. St Joseph the Worker Church has since been torn down.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Levittown is not an incorporated place, though efforts in the early 1950s were made to incorporate. Some Levittown residents feared that incorporation would lead to higher taxes, by robbing the prospective municipality of a commercial tax base.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: "Levittown Shop-a-Rama", the 1955 Levittown Shopping Center, in Tullytown, was a 60-acre L-shaped pedestrian mall at the edge rather than the center of Levittown, with two strips of stores faced the 6,000-car parking lot with a courtyard that had green spaces, benches, and entrances to the stores. The center's largest, anchor department store (Pomeroys, which was acquired by Boscov's) and other chain retailers such as Food Fair, Woolworth's, JC Penney, Kresges, Yards, Lobel's, W.T. Grant, Pep Boys, and Sears were Levitt-favored tenants.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: The shopping center began a slow decline in the mid-1970s from which it never recovered with the building of the Oxford Valley Mall. The mall, located just north of Levittown, in Langhorne in Middletown Township, drew shoppers away from the older Levittown facility, given Oxford Valley's much larger size and enclosed shopping environment. In 2002, the redeveloped site of the Shop-a-rama was reopened as the Levittown Town Center. The completed facility contains of retail space.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Levittown's 41 neighborhoods (locally called "sections") are found in parts of four separate municipalities:


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: The names of the streets within each section uniformly begin with the same letter that begins the name of the section in question except for the section of Green Lynne, which was not constructed by Bill Levitt. This plan offers a good clue as to where any particular street might be located. "X" and "Z" are not used for section or street names. As there are more than 24 section names, "road" is used for street names in sections to the west of Edgely Road, "lane" is used in those section to the east. Sections are surrounded by a "drive" with the same name as the section. For example, the Pinewood section is circled by Pinewood Drive, while Snowball Gate is surrounded by Snowball Drive. Some sections have their drive broken into multiple parts, with similar names. Forsythia Gate has Forsythia Drive North and Forsythia Drive South.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Almost all other roads or lanes in the sections connect on one or both ends to the drive of that section. In some sections, such as Goldenridge, the shape of the section prevents the drive from surrounding the section, or allowing all roads in the section from connecting to the drive. The drives of adjacent sections, are frequently connected with small connector streets. In addition, small connector streets are used to connect the section drive with a nearby main thoroughfare. The names of these small connectors typically start with one of the letters from the adjacent sections, and tend to have a name reminiscent of their purpose or their location. Some examples: Learning Lane connects Lakeside and Pinewood, and borders Walt Disney Elementary School. Short Lane connects Stoneybrook and Farmbrook. Not all small connector streets are named.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Red Rose Gate, Forsythia Gate, and Snowball Gate are collectively known as "The Gates." (These were the only sections without sidewalks so as to lend a more "executive" appearance to the neighborhoods.) Lakeside sits next to Levittown Lake. Thornridge has its upper half that sits on a ridge, that was found to have Thorn Bushes. Vermilion Hill is named after the color that the trees on its prominent hill turned in the Fall. Magnolia Hill is on a prominent hill. Mill Creek Falls is found next to a creek by the same name.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Middletown residents are served by public schools run by the Neshaminy School District. Bristol Township public schools are managed by the Bristol Township School District. Falls Township and Tullytown Borough residents are served by the Pennsbury School District.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Some students attend schools run by Roman Catholic, Lutheran, evangelical Protestant and Quaker organizations, in and around Levittown.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Levittown is located at . Levittown lies in the southern end of Bucks County ("Lower Bucks"), between Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey; Downtown Philadelphia ("Center City") is approximately away. It is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area (an area also known generally as the Delaware Valley). It is adjacent to and nearly surrounds Fairless Hills, a suburban community more modest in scale, but that shares many of Levittown's characteristics.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , of which 0.5 km (0.59%) is water. It has a humid subtropical climate ("Cfa") bordering a hot-summer humid continental climate ("Dfa") and average monthly temperatures in the central CDP range from 32.2 °F in January to 76.1 °F in July. The local hardiness zone is 7a.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: SEPTA Regional Rail serves Levittown to the south at its Levittown station on the Trenton Line, and to the north at its Langhorne and Woodbourne stations on the West Trenton Line. Interstate 295 (I-295) runs to the north and west of Levittown, connecting it with the suburbs north of Trenton. The Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-95) runs southwest of Levittown, connecting it with Philadelphia, the western suburbs, and the New Jersey Turnpike. U.S. Route 1 (US 1) runs to the north, carrying traffic directly into downtown Trenton. The nearest international airport is Philadelphia International Airport (Airport Code PHL), approximately southwest of Levittown. The nearest Amtrak station is just across the Delaware River in Trenton at the Trenton Transit Center, just over to the east.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: Though a steel mill once operated by U.S. Steel provided employment in Falls Township, many Levittowners have historically commuted by automobile or train to Philadelphia, some to Trenton, still others to more distant locales in as many as four states. Just over ten percent of employed Levittowners both live and work in the community.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: As of the 2010 census, Levittown was 87.7% White, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino ancestry of any race, 3.6% Black or African American, 1.7% Asian, 1.6% were two or more races, 0.3% were some other race and 0.2% Native American.[16]


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 53,966 people, 18,603 households, and 14,510 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 5,309.5 people per square mile (2,050.8/km). There were 19,044 housing units at an average density of 1,873.7/mi (723.7/km). The racial makeup of the CDP was 94.4% White, 2.4% African American, 2.2% Hispanic or Latino of any race, 1.2% from two or more races, 0.95% Asian, 0.9% from other races, 0.2% Native American and 0.04% Pacific Islander.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: There were 18,603 households, out of which 35.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.7% were married couples living together, 12.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.0% were non-families. 17.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.89 and the average family size was 3.28.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 26.4% under the age of 18, 7.8% from 18 to 24, 30.4% from 25 to 44, 20.9% from 45 to 64, and 14.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.6 males.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: The median income for a household in the CDP was $52,514, and the median income for a family was $57,220. Males had a median income of $40,411 versus $29,685 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $20,047. About 3.1% of families and 4.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.6% of those under the age of 18 and 3.5% of those 65 and older.


title: Levittown, Pennsylvania

text: 85.4% of Levittown residents ages 25 or older had at least a high school diploma, while 13.4% had at least a bachelor's degree.


title: National Defense Authorization Act

text: The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is the name for each of a series of United States federal laws specifying the annual budget and expenditures of the U.S. Department of Defense. The first NDAA was passed in 1961. The U.S. Congress oversees the defense budget primarily through two yearly bills: the National Defense Authorization Act and defense appropriations bills. The authorization bill is the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee and House Armed Services Committee and determines the agencies responsible for defense, establishes recommended funding levels, and sets the policies under which money will be spent. The appropriations bill provides funds.


title: Facsimile

text: A facsimile (from Latin "fac simile", "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of reproduction by attempting to replicate the source as accurately as possible in scale, color, condition, and other material qualities. For books and manuscripts, this also entails a complete copy of all pages; hence, an incomplete copy is a "partial facsimile". Facsimiles are sometimes used by scholars to research a source that they do not have access to otherwise, and by museums and archives for media preservation and conservation. Many are sold commercially, often accompanied by a volume of commentary. They may be produced in limited editions, typically of 500–2,000 copies, and cost the equivalent of a few thousand United States dollars. The term "fax" is a shortened form of "facsimile" though most faxes are not reproductions of the quality expected in a true facsimile.


title: Facsimile

text: Advances in the art of facsimile are closely related to advances in printmaking. Maps, for instance, were the focus of early explorations in making facsimiles, although these examples often lack the rigidity to the original source that is now expected. An early example is the Abraham Ortelius map (1598). Innovations during the 18th century, especially in the realms of lithography and aquatint, facilitated an explosion in the number of facsimiles of old master drawings that could be studied from afar.


title: Facsimile

text: In the past, techniques and devices such as the philograph (tracing an original through a transparent plane), photostat, hectograph, or lithograph were used to create facsimiles. More recently, facsimiles have been made by the use of some form of photographic technique. For documents, a facsimile most often refers to document reproduction by a photocopy machine. In the digital age, an image scanner, a personal computer, and a desktop printer can be used to make a facsimile.


title: Facsimile

text: Important illuminated manuscripts like Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry are not only on display to the public as facsimiles, but available in high quality to scholars. However, unlike normal book reproductions, facsimiles remain truer to the original colors—which is especially important for illuminated manuscripts—and preserve defects.


title: Facsimile

text: Facsimiles are best suited to printed or hand-written documents, and not to items such as three-dimensional objects or oil paintings with unique surface texture. Reproductions of those latter objects are often referred to as replicas.


title: Moving Picture Experts Group

text: The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and file formats for various applications. Together with JPEG, MPEG is organized under ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 – "Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information" (ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1, Subcommittee 29).


title: Moving Picture Experts Group

text: MPEG formats are used in various multimedia systems. The most well known older MPEG media formats typically use MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 AVC media coding and MPEG-2 systems transport streams and program streams. Newer systems typically use the MPEG base media file format and dynamic streaming (a.k.a. MPEG-DASH).


title: Moving Picture Experts Group

text: MPEG was established in 1988 by the initiative of Dr. Hiroshi Yasuda (NTT) and Dr. Leonardo Chiariglione (CSELT). Chiariglione was the group's chair (called Convenor in ISO/IEC terminology) from its inception until June 6, 2020. The first MPEG meeting was in May 1988 in Ottawa, Canada.