TO POSTERITY- POEM- LOUIS MACNEICE- ANALYSIS

Louis MacNeice was born on September 12, 1907, in Belfast, Ireland to parents originally from Connemara in the West of Ireland. In 1909 they moved to Carrickfergus due to the appointment of MacNeice’s father as rector for the Anglican Church in the town. His father later became a Bishop. At the age of ten he was sent to school in Dorset. MacNeice went on to study classics at Oxford, becoming a close friend and poetic contemporary of W.H. Auden. He majored in classics and philosophy. In 1930, he married Giovanna Ezra and accepted a post as classics lecturer at the University of Birmingham, a position he held until 1936, when he went on to teach Greek at Bedford College for Women, University of London. He earned his living as a university lecturer in Classics. The second world war found him in the United States - not an escaper or refugee, but an invited guest-lecturer in English at Cornell, because by 1939 he was indeed a famous poet, prolific, sought after for poems and opinions. He came back to England in 1941 and joined the BBC, where he spent more than 20 years in the legendary radio features department as writer/producer. Some of his best-known plays, including 'Christopher Columbus' (1944), and 'The Dark Tower' (1946), were originally written for radio and later published. 

Despite his association with young British poets Stephen Spender, W. H. Auden, writer Christopher Isherwood, and other left-wing poets, MacNeice was as mistrustful of political programs as he was of philosophical systems. He was never a member of the Communist Party or any other political groups, and he was quite candid about the ambiguities of his political attitudes. "My sympathies are Left," he wrote. "But not in my heart or my guts." Although he chose to live most of his adult life in London, MacNeice frequently returned to the landscapes of his childhood. His poetry is characterised by its familiar, sometimes humorous tone and its integration of contemporary ideas and images. In August of 1963, on location with a unit of the BBC, he went down in a mineshaft. The 'cold' he caught was not diagnosed as pneumonia until too late. He died a month after at 55 years old. He died on September 3, 1963, just before the publication of his last book of poems, The Burning Perch. Ironically, Louis MacNeice was born in the month of September (1907) and died in September.

About the Poem

 Traditionally, a book carved into a gravestone signified the Book of Life, awaiting review by the Heavenly Critic. MacNeice pays poetry and the written word a splendid compliment. When the world is no longer “framed in words,” when the best eyes and ears of the past are no longer consulted, when we presume to confront the world in all our arrogant solitude, what remains? A weirdly mutated world of “wingless birds.” Without words, grass is no longer “green” but something less. “If you read books of lasting value, you ought to study what you read, and if you study, you ought to take notes. And if you take notes, you owe it to yourself to assemble them into some sort of coherent commentary. What is the point of studious reading if not to evaluate critically what you read, assimilating the good while rejecting the bad? The forming of the mind is the name of the game. This won't occur from passive reading, but only by an active engagement with the material. The best way to do this is by writing up your own take on it.

The poem “To Posterity” by LouisMacNeice was first published in the volume “Visitations” in 1957. The meaning of the title of the poem “To Posterity” means, next generation. The poem is addressed not only to the generation of the speaker but also to ours. Now books are in their death bed situations, and some books have already gone to their graveyards. The speaker conveys to us the importance of reading good books and he also conveys his anxiety to a generation without reading and without books. MacNeice,

focuses on those matters which trouble us a lot, like the advent of the new medias and technology. Books the age-old friend of mankind has already bid goodbye to us. The coming of television and the internet has immersed us in a new world, forgetting our age-old friend the books. Now it’s the era of e books. So, studying literary works, we are the ones to analyse the importance of books in each one of our lives. In the present era library have vanished and if it does exist it is like an old monument. The new generation have already forgotten the importance of books and they have also forgotten the habit of reading which makes them intelligent brave and also provides us the courage to face life rather than running away from the harsh realities of life.

In 1957 MacNeice wrote the short poem To Posterity. A poem strangely professes our diminished world. This poem was written in the middle of 20th century, where the new medias were lightening the world or human minds like a star. During this time people were very much aware of the death bed situation of books, our age-old companion. As soon as the new medias and culture of globalisation took control of humanity, books and the reading habits went straight away to their graveyards. Here the poet foresees an era where e books and e library will dominate the world, we now live in. The poet ponders upon the questions like, the greenness of the grass and the blueness of the sky. So, he refers a world without books to that of a wingless bird. He concludes the poem with a lot many questions which the mere future will be able to answer. 

LOVE AND ITS BIOLOGYCAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REASON

 

Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure.An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of a spouse, which differs from the love for food. Most commonly, love refers to a feeling of a strong attraction and emotional attachment.

Love is considered to be both positive and negative, with its virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection, as "the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another" and its vice representing human moral flaw, akin to vanity, selfishness, amour-propre, and egotism, as potentially leading people into a type of mania, obsessiveness or codependency. It may also describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self, or animals. In its various forms, love acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts. Love has been postulated to be a function that keeps human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species.

Ancient Greek philosophers identified six forms of love: essentially, familial love (in Greek, Storge), friendly love or platonic love (Philia), romantic love (Eros), self-love (Philautia), guest love (Xenia), and divine or unconditional love (Agape). Modern authors have distinguished further varieties of love: unrequited love, empty love, companionate love, consummate love, infatuated love, self-love, and courtly love. Numerous cultures have also distinguished Ren, Yuanfen, Mamihlapinatapai, Cafuné, Kama, Bhakti, Mettā, Ishq, Chesed, Amore, Charity, Saudade (and other variants or symbioses of these states), as culturally unique words, definitions, or expressions of love in regards to a specified "moments" currently lacking in the English language.

Scientific research on emotion has increased significantly over the past two decades. The color wheel theory of love defines three primary, three secondary and nine tertiary love styles, describing them in terms of the traditional color wheel. The triangular theory of love suggests "intimacy, passion and commitment" are core components of love. Love has additional religious or spiritual meaning. This diversity of uses and meanings combined with the complexity of the feelings involved makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states

Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and human behavior researcher, divides the experience of love into three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust is the feeling of sexual desire; romantic attraction determines what partners mates find attractive and pursue, conserving time and energy by choosing; and attachment involves sharing a home, parental duties, mutual defense, and in humans involves feelings of safety and security. Three distinct neural circuitries, including neurotransmitters, and three behavioral patterns, are associated with these three romantic styles.

Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including the neurotransmitter hormones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, the same compounds released by amphetamine, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.

Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding that promotes relationships lasting for many years and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin to a greater degree than short-term relationships have. Enzo Emanuele and coworkers reported the protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these return to previous levels after one year.

Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is a form in which two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives, and is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is permanent. The last form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components. Non-love does not include any of these components. Liking only includes intimacy. Infatuated love only includes passion. Empty love only includes commitment. Romantic love includes both intimacy and passion. Companionate love includes intimacy and commitment. Fatuous love includes passion and commitment. Lastly, consummate love includes all three components. American psychologist Zick Rubin sought to define love by psychometrics in the 1970s. His work states that three factors constitute love: attachment, caring, and intimacy.

Following developments in electrical theories such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract". Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating has generally found this not to be true when it comes to character and personality—people tend to like people similar to themselves. However, in a few unusual and specific domains, such as immune systems, it seems that humans prefer others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with an orthogonal immune system), since this will lead to a baby that has the best of both worlds. In recent years, various human bonding theories have been developed, described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and affinities. Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose work in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the "concern for the spiritual growth of another," and simple narcissism. In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.

Psychologist Erich Fromm maintained in his book The Art of Loving that love is not merely a feeling but is also actions, and that in fact, the "feeling" of love is superficial in comparison to one's commitment to love via a series of loving actions over time. In this sense, Fromm held that love is ultimately not a feeling at all, but rather is a commitment to, and adherence to, loving actions towards another, oneself, or many others, over a sustained duration. Fromm also described love as a conscious choice that in its early stages might originate as an involuntary feeling, but which then later no longer depends on those feelings, but rather depends only on conscious commitment

BREASTFEEDING AND ITS NUTRITIONAL CONTENT

 Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that breastfeeding begin within the first hour of a baby's life and continue as often and as much as the baby wants. Health organizations, including the WHO, recommend breastfeeding exclusively for six months. This means that no other foods or drinks, other than vitamin D, are typically given. WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 years and beyond. Of the 135 million babies born every year, only 42% are breastfed within the first hour of life, only 38% of mothers practice exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months, and 58% of mothers continue breastfeeding up to the age of two years and beyond.

Breastfeeding has a number of benefits to both mother and baby that infant formula lacks. Increased breastfeeding to near-universal levels in low and medium income countries could prevent approximately 820,000 deaths of children under the age of five annually. Breastfeeding decreases the risk of respiratory tract infections, ear infections, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and diarrhea for the baby, both in developing and developed countries.  Other benefits have been proposed to include lower risks of asthma, food allergies, and diabetes. Breastfeeding may also improve cognitive development and decrease the risk of obesity in adulthood.

Benefits for the mother include less blood loss following delivery, better contraction of the uterus, and a decreased risk of postpartum depression. Breastfeeding delays the return of menstruation, and in very specific circumstances, fertility, a phenomenon known as lactational amenorrhea.[  Long-term benefits for the mother include decreased risk of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis.  Breastfeeding is less expensive than infant formula, but its impact on mothers' ability to earn an income is not usually factored into calculations comparing the two feeding methods.

Feedings may last as long as 30–45 minutes each as milk supply develops and the infant learns the Suck-Swallow-Breathe pattern.  However, as milk supply increases and the infant becomes more efficient at feeding, the duration of feeds may shorten.  Older children may feed less often. When direct breastfeeding is not possible, expressing or pumping to empty the breasts can help mothers avoid plugged milk ducts and breast infection, maintain their milk supply, resolve engorgement, and provide milk to be fed to their infant at a later time. Medical conditions that do not allow breastfeeding are rare. Mothers who take certain recreational drugs should not breastfeed, however, most medications are compatible with breastfeeding. Current evidence indicates that it is unlikely that COVID-19 can be transmitted through breast milk. Smoking tobacco and consuming limited amounts of alcohol and/or coffee are not reasons to avoid breastfeeding.

The pattern of intended nutrient content in breast milk is relatively consistent. Breastmilk is made from nutrients in the mother's bloodstream and bodily stores. It has an optimal balance of fat, sugar, water, and protein that is needed for a baby's age appropriate growth and development. That being said, a variety of factors can influence the nutritional makeup of breastmilk, including gestational age, age of infant, maternal age, maternal smoking, and nutritional needs of the infant.: 10–14 

The first type of milk produced is called colostrum. The volume of colostrum produced during each feeding is appropriate for the size of the newborn stomach and is sufficient, calorically, for feeding a newborn during the first few days of life.: 27–34  Produced during pregnancy and the first days after childbirth, colostrum is rich in protein and Vitamins A, B12 and K, which supports infants' growth, brain development, vision, immune systems, red blood cells, and clotting cascade. The breast milk also has long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids which help with normal retinal and neural development.The caloric content of colostrum is about 54 Calories/100mL. The second type of milk is transitional milk, which is produced during the transition from colostrum to mature breast milk. As the breast milk matures over the course to several weeks, the protein content of the milk decreases on average.: 10–14  The caloric content of breastmilk is reflective of the caloric requirements of the infant, increasing steadily after 12 months.: 10–14  The caloric content of breastmilk in the first 12 months of breastfeeding is approximated to be 58-72 Calories/100mL. Comparatively, the caloric content after 48 months is approximately 83-129 Calories/100mL.

When a mother has her full milk supply and is feeding her infant, the first milk to be expressed is called the foremilk. Foremilk is typically thinner and less rich in calories. The hindmilk that follows is rich in calories and fat.

If the mother is not herself deficient in vitamins, breast milk normally supplies her baby's needs, with the exception of Vitamin D. The CDC, National Health Service (UK), Canadian Paediatric Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians all agree that breast milk alone does not provide infants with an adequate amount of Vitamin D, thus they advise parents to supplement their infants with 400 IU Vitamin D daily. Providing this quantity of Vitamin D to breastfeeding infants has been shown to reduce rates of Vitamin D insufficiency (defined as 25‐OH vitamin D < 50 nmol/L). However, there was insufficient evidence in the most recent Cochrane Review, to determine if this quantity reduced rates of Vitamin D deficiency (defined as 25‐OH vitamin D < 30 nmol/L) or rickets. Term infants typically do not need iron supplementation. Delaying clamping of the cord at birth for at least one minute improves the infants' iron status for the first year.: 50–51 When complementary (solid) foods are introduced at about 6 months of age, parents should make sure to choose iron-rich foods to help maintain their children's iron stores.

SHOE SIZE OF BOY AND GIRL IN US

A shoe size is an indication of the fitting size of a shoe for a person.

There are a number of different shoe-size systems used worldwide. While all shoe sizes use a number to indicate the length of the shoe, they differ in exactly what they measure, what unit of measurement they use, and where the size 0 (or 1) is positioned. Some systems also indicate the shoe width, sometimes also as a number, but in many cases by one or more letters. Some regions use different shoe-size systems for different types of shoes (e.g. men's, women's, children's, sport, and safety shoes). This article sets out several complexities in the definition of shoe sizes. In practice, shoes are often tried on for both size and fit before they are purchased.

Foot versus shoe and last 

The length of a person's foot is commonly defined as the distance between two parallel lines that are perpendicular to the foot and in contact with the most prominent toe and the most prominent part of the heel. Foot length is measured with the subject standing barefoot and the weight of the body equally distributed between both feet.

The sizes of the left and right feet are often slightly different. In this case, both feet are measured, and purchasers of mass-produced shoes are advised to purchase a shoe size based on the larger foot, as most retailers do not sell pairs of shoes in non-matching sizes.

Each size of shoe is considered suitable for a small interval of foot lengths, typically limited by half-point of the shoe size system.

A shoe-size system can refer to three characteristic lengths:

The median length of feet for which a shoe is suitable. For customers, this measure has the advantage of being directly related to their body measures. It applies equally to any type, form, or material of shoe. However, this measure is less popular with manufacturers, because it requires them to test carefully for each new shoe model, for which range of foot sizes it is recommendable. It puts on the manufacturer the burden of ensuring that the shoe will fit a foot of a given length.

The length of the inner cavity of the shoe. This measure has the advantage that it can be measured easily on the finished product. However, it will vary with manufacturing tolerances and only gives the customer very crude information about the range of foot sizes for which the shoe is suitable.

The length of the "last", the foot-shaped template over which the shoe is manufactured. This measure is the easiest one for the manufacturer to use, because it identifies only the tool used to produce the shoe. It makes no promise about manufacturing tolerances or for what size of foot the shoe is actually suitable. It leaves all responsibility and risk of choosing the correct size with the customer. Further, the last can be measured in several different ways, resulting in different measurements.

All these measures differ substantially from one another for the same shoe. For example, the inner cavity of a shoe must typically be 15 mm longer than the foot, and the shoe last would be 2 size points larger than the foot, but this varies between different types of shoes and the shoe size system used. The typical range lies between 1⁄2 to 2⁄3 inch (12.7 to 16.9 mm) for the UK/US size system and 4⁄3 to 5⁄3 cm (13.3 to 16.7 mm) for the European size system, but may extend to 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 inch (6.4 to 19.1 mm) and 2⁄3 to 6⁄3 cm (6.7 to 20.0 mm).

Length

Sizing systems also differ in the units of measurement they use. This also results in different increments between shoe sizes, because usually only "full" or "half" sizes are made.

The following length units are commonly used today to define shoe-size systems:

The Paris point equates to 2⁄3 centimetre (6.67 mm; 0.26 in). Whole sizes are incremented by 1 Paris point; this corresponds to 3.33 millimetres (0.131 in) between half sizes. This unit is commonly used in Continental Europe, and Russia and former USSR countries.

The barleycorn is an old English unit that equates to 1⁄3 inch (8.47 mm). This is the basis for current UK and North American shoe sizes, with the largest shoe size taken as twelve inches (a size 12) i.e. 30.5 cm, and then counting backwards in barleycorn units, so a size 11 is 11.67 inches or 29.6 cm.

Metric measurements in millimetres (mm) or centimetres (cm), with intervals of 5 mm and 7.5 mm are used in the international Mondopoint system (USSR/Russia and East Asia).

Since the early 2000s, labels on sports shoes typically include sizes measured in all four systems: EU, UK, US and cm (Mondopoint).

Zero point

The sizing systems also place size 0 (or 1) at different locations:

Size 0 as a foot's length of 0. The shoe size is directly proportional to the length of the foot in the chosen unit of measurement. Sizes of children's, men's, and women's shoes, as well as sizes of different types of shoes, can be compared directly. This is used with the Mondopoint system (USSR/Russia and East Asia).

Size 0 as the length of the shoe's inner cavity of 0. The shoe size is then directly proportional to the inner length of the shoe. This is used with systems that also take the measurement from the shoe. While sizes of children's, men's and women's shoes can be compared directly, this is not necessarily true for different types of shoes that require a different amount of "wiggle room" in the toe box. This is used with the Continental European system.

Size 0 (or 1) can just be simply a shoe of a given length. Typically, this will be the shortest length deemed practical; but this can be different for children's, teenagers', men's, and women's shoes - making it impossible to compare sizes. For example, a women's shoe at size 8 is a different length from a men's shoe at size 8 in the US system, but not the British.

Width

Some systems also include the width of a foot (or the girth of a shoe last), but do so in a variety of ways:

Measured foot width in millimetres (mm) - this is done with the Mondopoint system.

Measured width as a letter (or combination of letters), which is taken from a table (indexed to length and width/girth) or just assigned on an ad-hoc basis. Examples are (each starting with the narrowest width):

AAA, AA, A, B, C, D, E, EE, EEE is the typical North American system and follows the brannock device standards, per the system B is narrow, C is regular, D is medium, E is wide, EE is extra wide and so on. The unlettered D size is the norm for men and B for women.

4A, 3A, 2A, A, B, C, D, E, 2E, 3E, 4E, 5E, 6E (variant North American).

C, D, E, F, G, H (common UK; "medium" is usually F but varies by manufacturer—makers Edward Green and Crockett & Jones, among others, use E instead, but one maker's E is not necessarily the same size as another's).

N (narrow), M (medium) or R (regular), W (wide).

For children's sizes in North America, typical letters used are M or B (medium), W or D (wide), EW or 2E (extra wide).

The width for which these sizes are suitable can vary significantly between manufacturers. The A–E width indicators used by most American, Canadian, and some British shoe manufacturers are typically based on the width of the foot, and common step sizes are 3⁄16 inch (4.8 mm).

Difficulties

There could be differences between various shoe size tables from shoemakers and shoe stores. They are usually due to the following factors:

Different methods of measuring the shoes, different manufacturing processes, or different allowances even when the same system is used.

An indication in centimetres or inches can mean the length of the foot or the length of the shoe's inner cavity.

Differing amounts of wiggle room required for different sizes of shoes.

For wide feet, a shoe several sizes larger (and actually too long) may be required and may also result in inconsistent size indications when different typical widths are attributed to specific shoe sizing systems.

Some tables for children take future growth into account. The shoe size is then larger than what would correspond to the actual length of the foot.

Conversion tables available on the Web often contain obvious errors, not taking into account different zero points or wiggle room.

Although shoe size systems are not fully standardised, the ISO/TC 137 had released a technical specification ISO/TS 19407:2015 for converting shoe sizes across various local sizing systems. Even though the problem of converting shoe sizes accurately has yet to be fully resolved, this standard serves as "a good compromise solution" for shoe-buyers.

Shoe size in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India, Pakistan and South Africa is based on the length of the last used to make the shoes, measured in barleycorns (1⁄3 inch) starting from the smallest size deemed practical, which is called size zero. It is not formally standardised. Note that the last is typically longer than the foot heel to toe length by 1⁄2 to 2⁄3 in or 1+1⁄2 to 2 barleycorns, so to determine the shoe size based on actual foot length one must add 2 barleycorns.

A child's size zero is equivalent to 4 inches (a hand = 12 barleycorns = 10.16 cm), and the sizes go up to size 13+1⁄2 (measuring 25+1⁄2 barleycorns, or 8+1⁄2 inches (21.59 cm)). Thus, the calculation for a children's shoe size in the UK is:

child shoe size (barleycorns) = 3 × last length (in) − 12

equivalent to:

child shoe size (barleycorns) ≈ 3 × foot length (in) − 10.

An adult size one is then the next size up (26 barleycorns, or 8+2⁄3 in (22.01 cm)) and each size up continues the progression in barleycorns.The calculation for an adult shoe size in the UK is thus:

adult shoe size (barleycorns) = 3 × last length (in) − 25

equivalent to:

adult shoe size (barleycorns) ≈ 3 × foot length (in) − 23.

Although this sizing standard is nominally for both men and women, some manufacturers use different numbering for women's UK sizing.

In Australia and New Zealand, the UK system is followed for men and children's footwear. Women's footwear follows the US sizings.

In Mexico, shoes are sized either according to the foot length they are intended to fit, in cm, or alternatively to another variation of the barleycorn system, with sizes calculated approximately as:

adult shoe size (barleycorns) = 3 × last length (in) − 25+1⁄2

equivalent to:

adult shoe size (barleycorns) ≈ 3 × foot length (in) − 23+1⁄2.

EID MUBARAK

 

Asteroid headed towards Earth -Impacting the Earth

 

A huge asteroid is coming to earth.so we must understand about  An asteroid. Asteroid headed towards Earth may arrive on Valentine's Day 2046 - Nasa. Image caption, Asteroid 2023 DW has a better chance of hitting a date of 14 February than our planet, NASA says. A newly detected asteroid has a very small chance of impacting the Earth in 2046, Nasa tweeted.

An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. 

Of the roughly one million known asteroids the greatest number are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, approximately 2 to 4 AU from the Sun, in the main asteroid belt. Asteroids are generally classified to be of three types: C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbonaceous, metallic, and silicaceous compositions, respectively. The size of asteroids varies greatly; the largest, Ceres, is almost 1,000 km (600 mi) across and qualifies as a dwarf planet. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is only 3% that of Earth's Moon. The majority of main belt asteroids follow slightly elliptical, stable orbits, revolving in the same direction as the Earth and taking from three to six years to complete a full circuit of the Sun.

Asteroids have been historically observed from Earth; the Galileo spacecraft provided the first close observation of an asteroid. Several dedicated missions to asteroids were subsequently launched by NASA and JAXA, with plans for other missions in progress. NASA's NEAR Shoemaker studied Eros, and Dawn observed Vesta and Ceres. JAXA's missions Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 studied and returned samples of Itokawa and Ryugu, respectively. OSIRIS-REx studied Bennu, collecting a sample in 2020 to be delivered back to Earth in 2023. NASA's Lucy, launched in 2021, will study ten different asteroids, two from the main belt and eight Jupiter trojans. Psyche, scheduled for launch in 2023, will study a metallic asteroid of the same name.

Near-Earth asteroids can threaten all life on the planet; an asteroid impact event resulted in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction. Different asteroid deflection strategies have been proposed; the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, was launched in 2021 and intentionally impacted Dimorphos in September 2022, successfully altering its orbit by crashing into it.

The first discovered asteroid, Ceres, was originally considered a new planet. It was followed by the discovery of other similar bodies, which with the equipment of the time appeared to be points of light like stars, showing little or no planetary disc, though readily distinguishable from stars due to their apparent motions. This prompted the astronomer Sir William Herschel to propose the term asteroid, coined in Greek as ἀστεροειδής, or asteroeidēs, meaning 'star-like, star-shaped', and derived from the Ancient Greek ἀστήρ astēr 'star, planet'. In the early second half of the 19th century, the terms asteroid and planet (not always qualified as "minor") were still used interchangeably.

Traditionally, small bodies orbiting the Sun were classified as comets, asteroids, or meteoroids, with anything smaller than one meter across being called a meteoroid. The term asteroid never had a formal definition,[28] with the broader term small Solar System bodies being preferred by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). As no IAU definition exists, asteroid can be defined as "an irregularly shaped rocky body orbiting the Sun that does not qualify as a planet or a dwarf planet under the IAU definitions of those terms".

When found, asteroids were seen as a class of objects distinct from comets, and there was no unified term for the two until small Solar System body was coined in 2006. The main difference between an asteroid and a comet is that a comet shows a coma due to sublimation of near-surface ices by solar radiation. A few objects have ended up being dual-listed because they were first classified as minor planets but later showed evidence of cometary activity. Conversely, some (perhaps all) comets are eventually depleted of their surface volatile ices and become asteroid-like. A further distinction is that comets typically have more eccentric orbits than most asteroids; "asteroids" with notably eccentric orbits are probably dormant or extinct comets.

For almost two centuries, from the discovery of Ceres in 1801 until the discovery of the first centaur, 2060 Chiron in 1977, all known asteroids spent most of their time at or within the orbit of Jupiter, though a few such as 944 Hidalgo ventured far beyond Jupiter for part of their orbit. When astronomers started finding more small bodies that permanently resided further out than Jupiter, now called centaurs, they numbered them among the traditional asteroids. There was debate over whether these objects should be considered asteroids or given a new classification. Then, when the first trans-Neptunian object (other than Pluto), 15760 Albion, was discovered in 1992, and especially when large numbers of similar objects started turning up, new terms were invented to sidestep the issue: Kuiper-belt object, trans-Neptunian object, scattered-disc object, and so on. They inhabit the cold outer reaches of the Solar System where ices remain solid and comet-like bodies are not expected to exhibit much cometary activity; if centaurs or trans-Neptunian objects were to venture close to the Sun, their volatile ices would sublimate, and traditional approaches would classify them as comets and not asteroids.

The innermost of these are the Kuiper-belt objects, called "objects" partly to avoid the need to classify them as asteroids or comets. They are thought to be predominantly comet-like in composition, though some may be more akin to asteroids. Furthermore, most do not have the highly eccentric orbits associated with comets, and the ones so far discovered are larger than traditional comet nuclei. (The much more distant Oort cloud is hypothesized to be the main reservoir of dormant comets.) Other recent observations, such as the analysis of the cometary dust collected by the Stardust probe, are increasingly blurring the distinction between comets and asteroids, suggesting "a continuum between asteroids and comets" rather than a sharp dividing line.

The minor planets beyond Jupiter's orbit are sometimes also called "asteroids", especially in popular presentations. However, it is becoming increasingly common for the term asteroid to be restricted to minor planets of the inner Solar System. Therefore, this article will restrict itself for the most part to the classical asteroids: objects of the asteroid belt, Jupiter trojans, and near-Earth objects.

When the IAU introduced the class small Solar System bodies in 2006 to include most objects previously classified as minor planets and comets, they created the class of dwarf planets for the largest minor planets – those that have enough mass to have become ellipsoidal under their own gravity. According to the IAU, "the term 'minor planet' may still be used, but generally, the term 'Small Solar System Body' will be preferred." Currently only the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres, at about 975 km (606 mi) across, has been placed in the dwarf planet category.

Shakespeare's Othello - character

 

Othello  is a character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's origin is traced to the tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. There, he is simply referred to as the Moor.

Othello is a brave and competent soldier of advanced years and Moorish background in the service of the Venetian Republic. He elopes with Desdemona, the beautiful daughter of a respected Venetian senator. After being deployed to Cyprus, Othello is manipulated by his Ancient (pronounced Ensign) Iago into believing Desdemona is an adulteress. Othello murders her and, upon discovering Iago's deceit, kills himself.

Othello was first mentioned in a Revels account of 1604 when the play was performed on 1 November at Whitehall Palace with Richard Burbage almost certainly Othello's first interpreter. Modern notable performers of the role include Paul Robeson, Orson Welles, Richard Burton, James Earl Jones, Laurence Fishburne, Laurence Olivier, and Avery Brooks.Othello is a Moorish prince living in Venice as an ambassador of the Moors. After time in Venice, Othello is appointed general in the Venetian Army. His officer Iago tricks him into believing that his wife Desdemona is having an affair with his Lieutenant, Michael Cassio. Othello kills his wife out of jealousy by strangling her, only to realize that his wife was faithful after Emilia reveals the truth, at which point he commits suicide.

Othello has its source in the 1565 tale "Un Capitano Moro" from Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. While no English translation of Cinthio was available in Shakespeare's lifetime, it is probable that Shakespeare knew both the Italian original and Gabriel Chappuy's 1584 French translation. Cinthio's tale may have been based on an actual incident occurring in Venice about 1508. It also resembles an incident described in the earlier tale of "The Three Apples", one of the stories narrated in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights). Desdemona is the only named character in Cinthio's tale, his other characters being identified as the Moor, the squadron leader, the ensign, and the ensign's wife.

While Shakespeare closely followed Cinthio's tale in composing Othello, he departed from it in some details, particularly in the tale's depiction of Desdemona's death. In Cinthio, the Moor commissions his ensign to bludgeon Desdemona to death with a sand-filled stocking. In gruesome detail, Cinthio follows each blow, and, when the lady is dead, the Moor and his ensign place her lifeless body upon her bed, smash her skull, and then cause the cracked ceiling above the bed to collapse upon her, giving the impression the falling rafters caused her death. The two murderers escape detection. The Moor then misses his wife greatly, and comes to loathe the sight of his ensign. He demotes him, and refuses to have him in his company. The ensign then seeks revenge by disclosing to "the squadron leader" (the tale's Cassio counterpart), the Moor's involvement in Desdemona's death. The two men denounce the Moor to the Venetian Seignory. The Moor is arrested, transported from Cyprus to Venice, and tortured, but refuses to admit his guilt. He is condemned to exile; Desdemona's relatives eventually put him to death. The ensign escapes any prosecution in Desdemona's death but engages in other crimes and dies after being tortured. There is no final consensus over Othello's ethnicity; whether of Maghrebi origin as in the generally accepted definition of "Moor", or of Sub-Saharan African.

E. A. J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare edition concluded that Othello's ethnic background is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with similarly ambiguous terms as 'African', 'Ethiopian' and even 'Indian' to designate a figure from Africa (or beyond)." Various uses of the word "black" (for example, "Haply for I am black") are insufficient evidence for any accurate racial classification, Honigmann argues, since "black" could simply mean "swarthy" to Elizabethans. In 1911, James Welton argued more evidence points to him being Sub-Saharan, though Shakespeare's intention is unknown. He cites Brabantio's description of Othello's "sooty bosom", a racial stereotype during this time, and Othello's contrast between his "begrimed" features and the purity of the goddess Diana. He argues that interpretations attempting to change Othello from "black to brown" were due to racial prejudice during Reconstruction in the US and notes that Othello is described using similar language to Aaron in Titus Andronicus. Virginia Mason Vaughan suggests that the racial identity of the character of Othello fits more clearly as a man from Sub-Saharan Africa than from North Africa (Barbary), as north Africans were more easily accepted into society. She states that by 1604, accounts of Othello as deriving from farther south were not uncommon. She notes Roderigo's description of Othello having "thick lips" was a racial stereotype used by 16th century explorers for Sub-Saharan Africans. Modern-day readers and theatre directors lean away from a North African Moorish interpretation but Shakespeare's textual references are unclear. Iago twice uses the word "Barbary" or "Barbarian" to refer to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the "tawny" Moors. Roderigo calls Othello "the thicklips", which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, as these comments are all intended as insults by the characters, they need not be taken literally.

Michael Neill, editor of the Oxford Shakespeare edition, notes that the earliest known critical references to Othello's colour, (Thomas Rymer's 1693 critique of the play, and the 1709 engraving in Nicholas Rowe's edition of Shakespeare), assume him to be a black man, while the earliest known North African interpretation was not until Edmund Kean's production of 1814. It has been suggested that Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Moorish ambassador of the Arab King of Barbary to Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, may have been an inspiration for Othello. He stayed with his retinue in London for several months and occasioned much discussion, and thus might have inspired Shakespeare's play, written only a few years afterwards. The exact date that Othello was written is unknown, though sources indicate that it was written between 1601 and 1610, sometime after the Moorish delegation. However, Honigmann questions the view that ben Messaoud inspired Othello.

Othello is referred to as a "Barbary horse" (1.1.113), a "lascivious Moor" (1.1.127), and "the devil" (1.1.91). In III.III, he denounces Desdemona's supposed sin as being "black as mine own face". Desdemona's physical whiteness is otherwise presented in opposition to Othello's dark skin; V.II "that whiter skin of hers than snow". Iago tells Brabantio that "an old black ram / is tupping your white ewe" (1.1.88). In Elizabethan discourse, the word "black" could suggest various concepts that extended beyond the physical colour of skin, including a wide range of negative connotations.

Ira Aldridge pioneered the prominence of black actors in the role, beginning in 1825 in London. Othello was also frequently performed as an Arab Moor during the 19th century. In the past, Othello would often have been portrayed by a white actor in theatrical makeup. Black American actor Paul Robeson played the role from 1930 to 1959. Recent actors who chose to "blacken up" include Laurence Olivier (1965) and Orson Welles. Black English actor Wil Johnson, known for his roles in Waking the Dead and Emmerdale, played Othello on stage in 2004. Since the 1960s it has become commonplace to cast a black actor in the character of Othello, although the casting of the role now can come with a political subtext. Patrick Stewart took the role in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's 1997 staging of the play and Thomas Thieme, also white, played Othello in a 2007 Munich Kammerspiele staging at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre; both played without blackface, their performances critically acclaimed.

The most notable American production may be Margaret Webster's 1943 staging starring Paul Robeson as Othello and José Ferrer as Iago. This production was the first ever in America to feature a black actor playing Othello with an otherwise all-white cast (there had been all-black productions of the play before). It ran for 296 performances, almost twice as long as any other Shakespearean play ever produced on Broadway.Although it was never filmed, it was the first nearly complete performance of a Shakespeare play released on records. Robeson played Othello in three separate productions between 1930 and 1959. He first played it opposite a cast that included Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona and Ralph Richardson as Roderigo, and would return to it in 1959 at Stratford on Avon.

The American actor William Marshall performed the title role in at least six productions. His Othello was called by Harold Hobson of the London Sunday Times "the best Othello of our time", continuing: "nobler than Tearle, more martial than Gielgud, more poetic than Valk. From his first entry, slender and magnificently tall, framed in a high Byzantine arch, clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful, a figure of Arabian romance and grace, to his last plunging of the knife into his stomach, Mr Marshall rode without faltering the play's enormous rhetoric, and at the end the house rose to him." Marshall also played Othello in a jazz musical version, Catch My Soul, with Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago, in Los Angeles in 1968.His Othello was captured on record in 1964 with Jay Robinson as Iago and on video in 1981 with Ron Moody as Iago. The 1982 Broadway staging starred James Earl Jones as Othello and Christopher Plummer as Iago.

When Laurence Olivier gave his acclaimed performance of Othello at the Royal National Theatre (UK) in 1964, he had developed a case of stage fright that was so profound that when he was alone onstage, Frank Finlay (who was playing Iago) would have to stand offstage where Olivier could see him to settle his nerves.[28] This performance was recorded complete on LP, and filmed by popular demand in 1965 (according to a biography of Olivier, tickets for the stage production were notoriously hard to get). The film version still holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for acting ever given to a Shakespeare film – Olivier, Finlay, Maggie Smith (as Desdemona) and Joyce Redman (as Emilia, Iago's wife) were all nominated for Academy Awards.

Actors have alternated the roles of Iago and Othello in productions to stir audience interest since the nineteenth century. Two of the most notable examples of this role swap were William Charles Macready and Samuel Phelps at Drury Lane (1837) and Richard Burton and John Neville at the Old Vic Theatre (1955). When Edwin Booth's tour of England in 1880 was not well attended, Henry Irving invited Booth to alternate the roles of Othello and Iago with him in London. The stunt renewed interest in Booth's tour. James O'Neill also alternated the roles of Othello and Iago with Booth.

White actors have continued to take the role. These include British performers Paul Scofield at the Royal National Theatre in 1980, Anthony Hopkins in the BBC Shakespeare television production (1981), and Michael Gambon in a stage production at Scarborough directed by Alan Ayckbourn in 1990. In 1997, Patrick Stewart took the role with the Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, D.C.) in a race-bending performance, in a "photo negative" production of a white Othello with an otherwise all-black cast. Stewart had wanted to play the title role since the age of 14, so he and director Jude Kelly inverted the play so Othello became a comment on a white man entering a black society. Two Indian adaptations of Othello has been released. In 1997, Kaliyattam the Malayalam film adaptation starred Suresh Gopi playing the Othello part in the role of Kannan Perumalayan. In 2006, Omkara, the Bollywood version of Othello, Othello née Omkara 'Omi' Shukla was played by Ajay Devgan. In 2016, baritone and actor David Serero took the role in a Moroccan adaptation in New York

PREGNANCY AND BIRTH CONTROL

 

Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops (gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.

Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but can also occur through assisted reproductive technology procedures. A pregnancy may end in a live birth, a miscarriage, an induced abortion, or a stillbirth. Childbirth typically occurs around 40 weeks from the start of the last menstrual period (LMP), a span known as the gestational age. This is just over nine months. Counting by fertilization age, the length is about 38 weeks.[Paverage 8–9 days after fertilization. An embryo is the term for the developing offspring during th first seven weeks following implantation (i.e. ten weeks' gestational age), after which the term fetus is used until birth.

Signs and symptoms of early pregnancy may include missed periods, tender breasts, morning sickness (nausea and vomiting), hunger, implantation bleeding, and frequent urination.Pregnancy may be confirmed with a pregnancy test. Methods of birth control—or, more accurately, contraception—are used to avoid pregnancy.

Pregnancy is divided into three trimesters of approximately three months each. The first trimester includes conception, which is when the sperm fertilizes the egg. The fertilized egg then travels down the Fallopian tube and attaches to the inside of the uterus, where it begins to form the embryo and placenta. During the first trimester, the possibility of miscarriage (natural death of embryo or fetus) is at its highest. Around the middle of the second trimester, movement of the fetus may be felt. At 28 weeks, more than 90% of babies can survive outside of the uterus if provided with high-quality medical care, though babies born at this time will likely experience serious health complications such as heart and respiratory problems and long-term intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Prenatal care improves pregnancy outcomes. Nutrition during pregnancy is important to ensure healthy growth of the fetus. Prenatal care may also include avoiding recreational drugs (including tobacco and alcohol), taking regular exercise, having blood tests, and regular physical examinations. Complications of pregnancy may include disorders of high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, iron-deficiency anemia, and severe nausea and vomiting. In the ideal childbirth, labor begins on its own "at term". Babies born before 37 weeks are "preterm" and at higher risk of health problems such as cerebral palsy. Babies born between weeks 37 and 39 are considered "early term" while those born between weeks 39 and 41 are considered "full term". Babies born between weeks 41 and 42 weeks are considered "late term" while after 42 weeks they are considered "post term". Delivery before 39 weeks by labor induction or caesarean section is not recommended unless required for other medical reasons.

About 213 million pregnancies occurred in 2012, of which, 190 million (89%) were in the developing world and 23 million (11%) were in the developed world. The number of pregnancies in women aged between 15 and 44 is 133 per 1,000 women .About 10% to 15% of recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. In 2016, complications of pregnancy resulted in 230,600 maternal deaths, down from 377,000 deaths in 1990. Common causes include bleeding, infections, hypertensive diseases of pregnancy, obstructed labor, miscarriage, abortion, or ectopic pregnancy. Globally, 44% of pregnancies are unplanned. Over half (56%) of unplanned pregnancies are aborted. Among unintended pregnancies in the United States, 60% of the women used birth control to some extent during the month pregnancy began.

Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unintended pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only became available in the 20th century. Planning, making available, and using human birth control is called family planning. Some cultures limit or discourage access to birth control because they consider it to be morally, religiously, or politically undesirable.

The World Health Organization and United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provide guidance on the safety of birth control methods among women with specific medical conditions. The most effective methods of birth control are sterilization by means of vasectomy in males and tubal ligation in females, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and implantable birth control. This is followed by a number of hormone-based methods including oral pills, patches, vaginal rings, and injections.Less effective methods include physical barriers such as condoms, diaphragms and birth control sponges and fertility awareness methods. The least effective methods are spermicides and withdrawal by the male before ejaculation. Sterilization, while highly effective, is not usually reversible; all other methods are reversible, most immediately upon stopping them. Safe sex practices, such as with the use of male or female condoms, can also help prevent sexually transmitted infections. Other methods of birth control do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases. Emergency birth control can prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 to 120 hours after unprotected sex. Some argue not having sex is also a form of birth control, but abstinence-only sex education may increase teenage pregnancies if offered without birth control education, due to non-compliance.

In teenagers, pregnancies are at greater risk of poor outcomes.Comprehensive sex education and access to birth control decreases the rate of unintended pregnancies in this age group. While all forms of birth control can generally be used by young people, long-acting reversible birth control such as implants, IUDs, or vaginal rings are more successful in reducing rates of teenage pregnancy.After the delivery of a child, a woman who is not exclusively breastfeeding may become pregnant again after as few as four to six weeks. Some methods of birth control can be started immediately following the birth, while others require a delay of up to six months. In women who are breastfeeding, progestin-only methods are preferred over combined oral birth control pills. In women who have reached menopause, it is recommended that birth control be continued for one year after the last menstrual period.

About 222 million women who want to avoid pregnancy in developing countries are not using a modern birth control method. Birth control use in developing countries has decreased the number of deaths during or around the time of pregnancy by 40% (about 270,000 deaths prevented in 2008) and could prevent 70% if the full demand for birth control were met. By lengthening the time between pregnancies, birth control can improve adult women's delivery outcomes and the survival of their children. In the developing world, women's earnings, assets, and weight, as well as their children's schooling and health, all improve with greater access to birth control. Birth control increases economic growth because of fewer dependent children, more women participating in the workforce, and less use of scarce resources.

Neoclassicism - sculpture

 

Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was born in Rome largely thanks to the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, at the time of the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum, but its popularity spread all over Europe as a generation of European art students finished their Grand Tour and returned from Italy to their home countries with newly rediscovered Greco-Roman ideals.The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, laterally competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style continued throughout the 19th, 20th and up to the 21st century.

European Neoclassicism in the visual arts began c. 1760 in opposition to the then-dominant Rococo style. Rococo architecture emphasizes grace, ornamentation and asymmetry; Neoclassical architecture is based on the principles of simplicity and symmetry, which were seen as virtues of the arts of Rome and Ancient Greece, and were more immediately drawn from 16th-century Renaissance Classicism. Each "neo"-classicism selects some models among the range of possible classics that are available to it, and ignores others. The Neoclassical writers and talkers, patrons and collectors, artists and sculptors of 1765–1830 paid homage to an idea of the generation of Phidias, but the sculpture examples they actually embraced were more likely to be Roman copies of Hellenistic sculptures. They ignored both Archaic Greek art and the works of Late Antiquity. The "Rococo" art of ancient Palmyra came as a revelation, through engravings in Wood's The Ruins of Palmyra. Even Greece was all-but-unvisited, a rough backwater of the Ottoman Empire, dangerous to explore, so Neoclassicists' appreciation of Greek architecture was mediated through drawings and engravings, which subtly smoothed and regularized, "corrected" and "restored" the monuments of Greece, not always consciously.

The Empire style, a second phase of Neoclassicism in architecture and the decorative arts, had its cultural centre in Paris in the Napoleonic era. Especially in architecture, but also in other fields, Neoclassicism remained a force long after the early 19th century, with periodic waves of revivalism into the 20th and even the 21st centuries, especially in the United States and Russia. If Neoclassical painting suffered from a lack of ancient models, Neoclassical sculpture tended to suffer from an excess of them. Although examples of actual Greek sculpture of the "Classical Period" beginning in about 500 BC were then very few; the most highly regarded works were mostly Roman copies. The leading Neoclassical sculptors enjoyed huge reputations in their own day, but are now less regarded, with the exception of Jean-Antoine Houdon, whose work was mainly portraits, very often as busts, which do not sacrifice a strong impression of the sitter's personality to idealism. His style became more classical as his long career continued, and represents a rather smooth progression from Rococo charm to classical dignity. Unlike some Neoclassical sculptors he did not insist on his sitters wearing Roman dress, or being unclothed. He portrayed most of the notable figures of the Enlightenment, and travelled to America to produce a statue of George Washington, as well as busts of Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and other founders of the new republic.

Antonio Canova and the Dane Bertel Thorvaldsen were both based in Rome, and as well as portraits produced many ambitious life-size figures and groups; both represented the strongly idealizing tendency in Neoclassical sculpture. Canova has a lightness and grace, where Thorvaldsen is more severe; the difference is exemplified in their respective groups of the Three Graces. All these, and Flaxman, were still active in the 1820s, and Romanticism was slow to impact sculpture, where versions of Neoclassicism remained the dominant style for most of the 19th century.

An early Neoclassicist in sculpture was the Swede Johan Tobias Sergel. John Flaxman was also, or mainly, a sculptor, mostly producing severely classical reliefs that are comparable in style to his prints; he also designed and modelled Neoclassical ceramics for Josiah Wedgwood for several years. Johann Gottfried Schadow and his son Rudolph, one of the few Neoclassical sculptors to die young, were the leading German artists,[36] with Franz Anton von Zauner in Austria. The late Baroque Austrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt turned to Neoclassicism in mid-career, shortly before he appears to have suffered some kind of mental crisis, after which he retired to the country and devoted himself to the highly distinctive "character heads" of bald figures pulling extreme facial expressions. Like Piranesi's Carceri, these enjoyed a great revival of interest during the age of psychoanalysis in the early 20th century. The Dutch Neoclassical sculptor Mathieu Kessels studied with Thorvaldsen and worked almost exclusively in Rome.

Since prior to the 1830s the United States did not have a sculpture tradition of its own, save in the areas of tombstones, weathervanes and ship figureheads, the European Neoclassical manner was adopted there, and it was to hold sway for decades and is exemplified in the sculptures of Horatio Greenough, Harriet Hosmer, Hiram Powers, Randolph Rogers and William Henry Rinehart.

P.S. I Love You - American romantic drama film

 

P.S. I Love You is a 2007 American romantic drama film directed by Richard LaGravenese from a screenplay by LaGravenese and Steven Rogers based on the 2004 novel of the same name by Cecelia Ahern. The film stars Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon, James Marsters, Harry Connick Jr. and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

The film was released in the United States on December 21, 2007, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was critically panned, with criticism being directed at Swank's performance and the writing. However, it was a box office success, and grossed $156.8 million worldwide against a $30 million budget. In 2019 Swank expressed interest in adapting the follow-up book into a second film. Holly and Gerry are a married couple living in Manhattan; they fight occasionally but are deeply in love. One winter, Gerry dies of a brain tumour, causing Holly to withdraw from her family and friends out of grief.

On Holly's 30th birthday, a cake is delivered along with a cassette that holds a recording from Gerry— the first of several meaningful messages all ending "P.S. I Love You", which he had arranged to have delivered to her after his death. Holly's mom, Patricia, who never warmed to the idea of her marrying Gerry when she was nineteen, is not pleased, worried that it will keep Holly tied to the past.

As each season passes, Gerry's messages fill Holly with encouragement to continue living. Having organised for Holly and her two best friends, Denise and Sharon, to travel to his homeland of Ireland, they arrive at a beautiful house in the Irish countryside and find a letter addressed to each of them; one asks Denise to take Holly to his favourite pub. While there, Holly meets William, a singer who strongly reminds her of Gerry. He dedicates a song to her, ("Galway Girl"); upon hearing it, she is overcome with emotion and walks out, realising it was the song Gerry sang to her when they first met.

While out fishing on the lake, the women lose their boat's oars, leaving them stranded. As they wait for help, Sharon announces that she is pregnant and Denise reveals she is getting married. Their news causes Holly to relapse emotionally and begin to withdraw into herself again. They are eventually rescued by William, whom Sharon and Denise invite to stay the night because of the rain. Unable to deny their feelings for each other, William and Holly have sex. They later have a conversation about Gerry and, when Holly mentions his parents who she wants to go and visit, William realises she is the widow of his childhood friend. Holly panics, but William calms her down by telling her stories about his and Gerry's friendship. The next day, Holly visits Gerry's parents and while there, receives another letter, reminding her of how they met.

Arriving home, Holly continues to withdraw from her life, but is later inspired to start designing women's shoes after finding one of Gerry's suspender clips on one of her heels. She enrols in a design class and, over time, her new found confidence allows her to emerge from her solitude and genuinely embrace her friends' happiness. Holly also goes out to dinner with an old friend, Daniel, who reveals he has always had feelings for her. Knowing Holly doesn't return the same feelings, and after she calls him Gerry by mistake, Daniel leaves the restaurant.

While on a walk with her mother, Patricia hands Holly a final letter from Gerry, revealing she was the one whom he had asked to deliver all of the messages; she said she didn't think it was appropriate but also couldn't say no to him. Holly returns home to a voicemail from Daniel. They meet at Yankee Stadium and she asks him to read the letter; in it, Gerry tells her not to turn away from new love. Holly and Daniel share a kiss but then decide they are better staying as friends.

Later, Holly takes her mother on a trip to Ireland. By chance they meet William, and he expresses his wish to see her again.

ROMANTIC- Indian -Romantic Film

 

Romantic is a 2021 Indian Telugu-language romantic film directed by Anil Paduri. It is written by Puri Jagannadh who co-produced the film with Charmme Kaur under Puri Connects. The film stars Akash Puri, debutante Ketika Sharma and Ramya Krishna.

 The film was released theatVasco da Gama son of a cop is a street smart ruffian who chooses crime to earn a fortune and fulfill his grandma Mary’s dream after watching his parents death. He and his childhood friend Annie join Goa’s most notorious drug mafia lord Rodrigues’ gang. Within no time, Vasco becomes a kingpin in the Goa underworld. Vasco falls for the charms and ‘back’ beauty of a young musician named Monica later it soon turns out into a passionate affair. After a failed drug deal, Vasco kills Rodrigues and proclaims himself as the new mafia king of Goa. 

In the process, he kills an SI and that’s when a dutiful and ruthless ACP Ramya Gowarikar is transferred from Mumbai to Goa to nab Vasco. At the same time Samsun a rival of Rodrigues wants his drugs containers worths crores steels by Vasco and his gang tries to nab him off. After a Cat and Mouse game ensues between the 3 groups finally Vasco achieves his grand mother dream for building a new homes for his community, later he kills Samsun but in the final battle with Ramya he was finally shot dead by her and confess that he Respects her a lot because she was like his father who is very sincere and dies in the arms of Mary. After watching his death Monica shot her self to death just like that. 

Before dying they hug each other and do a spinning move and shoot at police but they are finally shot by Ramya. Finally film ends that Ramya realises that the Vasco and Monica did not realised they were in love and thinks they are having an affair and dies for it and sadly declares the drug mafia ends in Goa.rically on 29 October 2021 

ANSWER SHEET OF ART TALLENTED MEDICAL STUDENT

ROBINSON CRUSOE: DANIEL DEFOE -NOVEL

Daniel Defoe , the author of Robinson Crusoe, is the first conspicuous example of a writer graduating from journalism to literature. His first popular work was The True – Born Englishman (1701),a verse satire in which he attacked those who opposed King William III on the ground that he was Dutch and not English. His second important work was The Shortest Way with Dissenters (1702). In this Defoe, himself a Dissenter, very gravely argued that the shortest way with the Dissenters would be to liquidate them. He started The Review (1704 -13), a periodical which was at first weekly, then bi- weekly, and finally tri – weekly, written practically all by himself. He turned to fiction when he was nearly sixty, and his world famous Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719. This was followed in the next five years by about a dozen other works of fiction, the most important being Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders, A journal of the Plague Year, Colonel Jack, Roxana and the Memoirs of a Cavalier. During the last years of his life his restless pen produced a number of miscellaneous works on travel, trade, commerce, and other subjects.

Robinson Crusoeis a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719.An interesting fact is that the original title was 374 characters long: ―The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates‖. The first edition credited the work‘s protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called ―Más a Tierra‖, now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. 

Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel. Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in literature but also in film, television and radio, that its  name is used to define a genre, the Robinsonade  Robinson Crusoe was a youth of about eighteen years old who resided in Hull, England. Although his father wished him to become a lawyer, Crusoe dreamt of going on sea voyages. He disregarded the fact that his two older brothers were gone because of their need for adventure. His father cautioned that a middle-class existence is the most stable. Robinson defied his parents and went to sea.

 He was involved in a series of violent storms at sea and was warned by the captain that he should not be a seafaring man. Ashamed to go home, Crusoe boarded another ship and returned from a successful trip to Africa. Taking off again, Crusoe met with bad luck and was taken prisoner in Sallee. His captors sent Crusoe out to fish, and he used this to his advantage and escaped, along with a slave and sailed down the African coast. A kindly Portuguese captain picked them up, bought the slave boy from Crusoe, and took Crusoe to Brazil. In Brazil, Crusoe established himself as a plantation owner and soon became successful. Eager for slave labour and its economic advantages, he embarked on a slave-gathering expedition to West Africa but ends up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad. 

Crusoe made immediate plans for food, and then shelter, to protect himself from wild animals. He brought as many things as possible from the wrecked ship, things that would be useful later to him. In addition, he began to develop talents that he had never used in order to provide himself with necessities. Cut off from the company of men, he began to communicate with God, thus beginning the first part of his religious conversion. To keep his sanity and to entertain himself, he began a journal. In the journal, he recorded every task that he performed each day since he had been marooned. He came to appreciate his sovereignty over the entire island. One time he tried to use a boat to explore the rest of the island, but he was almost swept away, and did not make the attempt again. He had pets whom he treated as subjects. 

There was no appearance of man until about 15 years into his stay. He saw a footprint, and later observed cannibalistic savages eating prisoners. They didn't live on the island; they came in canoes from a mainland not too far away. Robinson was filled with outrage, and resolved to save the prisoners the next time these savages appear. Some years later they returned. Using his guns, Crusoe scared them away and saved a young savage whom he named Friday. Friday soon became Crusoe's humble and devoted slave. Crusoe and Friday made plans to leave the island and, accordingly, they built another boat. Crusoe also undertook Friday's religious education, converting the savage into a Protestant. Their voyage was postponed due to the return of the savages. This time it was necessary to attack the cannibals in order to save two prisoners since one was a white man. The white man was a Spaniard and the other was Friday's father. 

Later the four of them planned a voyage to the mainland to rescue sixteen compatriots of the Spaniard. First, however, they built up their food supply to assure enough food for the extra people. Crusoe and Friday agreed to wait on the island while the Spaniard and Friday's father brought back the other men. Before the Spaniard and Friday's father returned, a boat of European men came ashore. There were three prisoners. While most of the men were exploring the island, Crusoe learned from one that he was the captain of a ship whose crew mutinied. With the help of Robinson and Friday the captain managed to capture the rest of the crew and retook his ship. The grateful captain gave Crusoe many gifts and took him and Friday back to England. Some of the rebel crewmen were left marooned on the island. Even though Crusoe had been gone thirty-five years, he found that his plantations had done well and he was very wealthy. 

He gave money to the Portuguese captain and the widow who were so kind to him. He returned to the English countryside and settled there, married and had three children. When his wife died, he was persuaded to go on yet another voyage, and he visited his old island. Major Characters Robinson Crusoe The main character of the story, he is a rebellious youth with abizarre need to travel. Because of this need, he brings misfortune on himself and is left to fend for himself in a primitive land. The novel essentially chronicles his mental and spiritual development as a result of his isolation. He is a contradictory character; at the same time he has practical ingenuity and immature decisiveness. Xury A friend/servant of Crusoe's, he also escapes from the Moors. A simple youth who is dedicated to Crusoe, he is admirable for his willingness to stand by the narrator.

 However, he does not think for himself. Friday Another friend/servant of Crusoe's, he spends a number of years on the island with him, who saves him from cannibalistic death. Friday is basically Crusoe's protégé, a living example of religious justification of the slavery relationship between the two men. His eagerness to be redone in the European image is supposed to convey that this image is indeed the right one. Crusoe's father Although he appears only briefly in the beginning, he embodies the theme of the merits of Protestant, middle-class living. It is his teachings from which Crusoe is running, with poor success. Crusoe's mother One of the few female figures, she fully supports her husband and will not let Crusoe go on a voyage. Moorish patron Crusoe's slave master, he allows for a role reversal of white men as slaves. He apparently is not too swift, however, in that he basically hands Crusoe an escape opportunity. Portuguese sea captain One of the kindest figures in the book, he is an honest man who embodies all the Christian ideals. Everyone is supposed to admire him for his extreme generosity to the narrator. He almost takes the place of Crusoe's father. 

Major Themes of the Novel Spiritual journey towards Christianity is one of the major themes of Robinson Crusoe. In the beginning of the novel, Robinson disdains Christianity and leads a life that he later looks back on as wicked. He discounts his father's warning that God will not bless him if he goes to sea, and does not thank God when he is rescued from the storm on the way to London, or by the Portuguese captain off the coast of Africa. However, after he dreams one night of a strange figure scolding him for not repenting, Robinson turns to Christianity on the island and eagerly studies the Bible. With his newfound Christianity, Robinson is never entirely alone on his island, because he can converse with God through prayer. Moreover, Christianity offers Robinson a way to make sense of his life and its various twists and turns. He sees his rebelling against his father as his original sin, for which he was then punished by being taken as a slave and then by being shipwrecked. However, he believed that he was blessed and saved by God by being saved from drowning and ending up on the island with enough provisions to survive. 

Tension between society and individuality is one of the central themes of Robinson Crusoe. As the novel begins, Robinson breaks free of his family and the middle-class society in which they live in order to pursue his own life. Robinson prioritizes his sense of individuality over his family and society at large. Robinson gets exactly what he asks for when he finds himself stranded alone on his island. There, he lives entirely as an individual apart from society and is forced to struggle against nature to survive. He becomes self-sufficient and learns how to make and do things himself, discovering ingenuity he didn't know he had.

 His lonely life helps him to understand the relationship between man and nature and also makes him a better person.Robinson himself seems to come to this conclusion, as he realizes that his experience brings him closer to God and that living alone on the island allows for a life largely without sin: he makes, harvests, and hunts only what he needs, so there is nothing for him to be greedy for. And while he is alone, he does not suffer from lust or pride. And when he finally does return to England, he notes how much worry and stress issues of money and property caused him. However, there are some problems with Robinson's valuing of individuality over society. Even though he values his personal liberty,he doesn't respect that of others. 

He hates being a slave, but is quick to sell Xury into the service of the Portuguese captain. Similarly, he treats Friday as his inferior servant. This maltreatment of others can be related as well to Robinson's narcissistic style of narration. His narrative is always centered around him. He hardly even gives the names of other characters. We never learn the name of his wife, for example, whose death Robinson describes quickly and unemotionally at the end of the novel before hastening to tell us more of his own adventures. And finally, Robinson's intense individualism is inseparable from his painful isolation. He feels lonely in Brazil, and then is literally isolated when he is stranded on his island all alone. His only companions are his animals and, while he learns to enjoy life on the island, he still feels a deep desire for the human companionship that he lacks. Thus, the novel values individuality, but also shows the dangers of narcissism and isolation that may come with it 

PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS - WAIST TO CHEST RATIO

 Physical attractiveness is the degree to which a person's physical features are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. The term often implies sexual attractiveness or desirability, but can also be distinct from either. There are many factors which influence one person's attraction to another, with physical aspects being one of them. Physical attraction itself includes universal perceptions common to all human cultures such as facial symmetry, sociocultural dependent attributes and personal preferences unique to a particular individual. 

In many cases, humans subconsciously attribute positive characteristics, such as intelligence and honesty, to physically attractive people, a psychological phenomenon called the Halo effect. From research done in the United States and United Kingdom, it was found that objective measures of physical attractiveness and intelligence are positively correlated and that the association between the two attributes is stronger among men than among women. Evolutionary psychologists have tried to answer why individuals who are more physically attractive should also, on average, be more intelligent, and have put forward the notion that both general intelligence and physical attractiveness may be indicators of underlying genetic fitness. A person's physical characteristics can signal cues to fertility and health, with statistical modeling studies showing that the facial shape variables that reflect aspects of physiological health, including body fat and blood pressure, also influence observers' perceptions of health. Attending to these factors increases reproductive success, furthering the representation of one's genes in the population.

Heterosexual men tend to be attracted to women who have a youthful appearance and exhibit features such as a symmetrical face, full breasts, full lips, and a low waist–hip ratio. Heterosexual women tend to be attracted to men who are taller than they themselves are and who display a high degree of facial symmetry, masculine facial dimorphism, upper body strength, broad shoulders, a relatively narrow waist, and a V-shaped torso,Generally, physical attractiveness can be viewed from a number of perspectives; with universal perceptions being common to all human cultures, cultural and social aspects, and individual subjective preferences. The perception of attractiveness can have a significant effect on how people are judged in terms of employment or social opportunities, friendship, sexual behavior, and marriage.Some physical features are attractive in both men and women, particularly bodily and facial symmetry, although one contrary report suggests that "absolute flawlessness" with perfect symmetry can be "disturbing". Symmetry may be evolutionarily beneficial as a sign of health because asymmetry "signals past illness or injury". One study suggested people were able to "gauge beauty at a subliminal level" by seeing only a glimpse of a picture for one-hundredth of a second. Other important factors include youthfulness, skin clarity and smoothness of skin; and "vivid color" in the eyes and hair. However, there are numerous differences based on gender.A 1921 study of the reports of college students regarding those traits in individuals which make for attractiveness and repulsiveness argued that static traits, such as beauty or ugliness of features, hold a position subordinate to groups of physical elements like expressive behavior, affectionate disposition, grace of manner, aristocratic bearing, social accomplishments and personal habits.Grammer and colleagues have identified eight "pillars" of beauty: youthfulness, symmetry, averageness, sex-hormone markers, body odor, motion, skin complexion and hair texture. Traditionally in Samoa, body fat was acceptable or attractive.

The physique of a slim waist, broad shoulders and muscular chest are often found to be attractive to both females and males.Further research has shown that, when choosing a mate, the traits females look for indicate higher social status, such as dominance, resources, and protection. An indicator of health in males (a contributing factor to physical attractiveness) is the android fat distribution pattern which is categorized as more fat distributed on the upper body and abdomen, commonly referred to as the "V shape." When asked to rate other men, both heterosexual and homosexual men found low waist-to-chest ratios (WCR) to be more attractive on other men, with the gay men showing a preference for lower WCR (more V-shaped) than the straight men.Other researchers found waist-to-chest ratio the largest determinant of male attractiveness, with body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio not as significant.Women focus primarily on the ratio waist to chest or more specifically waist to shoulder. This is analogous to the waist to hip ratio (WHR) that men prefer. Some studies have shown that attractive bodily traits in the eyes of a heterosexual woman would include a tall, athletic physique, with wide shoulders, and a slim waist area. Research has additionally shown that college males had a better satisfaction with their body than college females. 

The research also found that when a college female's waist to hip ratio went up, their body image satisfaction decreased.Some research has shown that body weight may have a stronger effect than WHR when it comes to perceiving attractiveness of the opposite sex. It was found that waist to hip ratio played a smaller role in body preference than body weight in regards to both sexes.Psychologists Viren Swami and Martin J. Tovee compared female preference for male attractiveness cross culturally, between Britain and Malaysia. They found that females placed more importance on WCR (and therefore body shape) in urban areas of Britain and Malaysia, while females in rural areas placed more importance on BMI (therefore weight and body size). Both WCR and BMI are indicative of male status and ability to provide for offspring, as noted by evolutionary theory.Females have been found to desire males that are normal weight and have the average WHR for a male. Females view these males as attractive and healthy. Males who had the average WHR but were overweight or underweight are not perceived as attractive to females. This suggests that WHR is not a major factor in male attractiveness, but a combination of body weight and a typical male WHR seem to be the most attractive. Research has shown that men who have a higher waist to hip ratio and a higher salary are perceived as more attractive to women

According to the World Health Organization's data gathering protocol, the waist circumference should be measured at the midpoint between the lower margin of the last palpable ribs and the top of the iliac crest, using a stretch-resistant tape that provides constant 100 g (3.53 oz) tension. Hip circumference should be measured around the widest portion of the buttocks, with the tape parallel to the floor. Other organizations use slightly different standards. The United States National Institutes of Health and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey used results obtained by measuring at the top of the iliac crest. Waist measurements are usually obtained by laypersons by measurings around the waist at the navel, but research has shown that these measurements may underestimate the true waist circumference.For both measurements, the individual should stand with feet close together, arms at the side and body weight evenly distributed, and should wear little clothing. The subject should be relaxed, and the measurements should be taken at the end of a normal respiration. Each measurement should be repeated twice; if the measurements are within 1 cm of one another, the average should be calculated. If the difference between the two measurements exceeds 1 cm, the two measurements should be repeated.The WHR has been used as an indicator or measure of health, and as a risk factor for developing serious health conditions.WHR is used as a measurement of obesity, which in turn is a possible indicator of other more serious health conditions. 

The WHO states that abdominal obesity is defined as a waist–hip ratio above 0.90 for males and above 0.85 for females, or a body mass index (BMI) above 30.0.The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) states that "total cholesterol levels are usually higher in persons with predominant abdominal obesity, defined as a waist-to-hip circumference ratio of ≥ 0.8 for women and ≥ 1.0 for menWHR has been found to be a more efficient predictor of mortality in older people (>75 years of age) than waist circumference or BMI. If obesity is redefined using WHR instead of BMI, the proportion of people categorized as at risk of heart attack worldwide increases threefold. WHR may be less accurate in individuals with a BMI of 35 or higher, and more complex to interpret since an increased WHR may result from increased abdominal fat or decreased lean muscle mass around the hips. 

The body fat percentage is considered to be an even more accurate measure of relative weight. Of these three measurements, only the waist–hip ratio takes account of the differences in body structure. Hence, it is possible for two people of the same sex to have different body mass indices but the same waist–hip ratio, or to have the same body mass index but different waist–hip ratios.

WHR has been shown to be a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than simple waist circumference and body-mass index.The study by American Heart Association has shown that measuring waistline and comparing it to hip size might be a better way to predict heart disease risk than a widely used body mass index. However, other studies have found waist circumference (particularly Waist-to-height ratio to be a better indicator of cardiovascular risk factors than the waist–hip ratio, body fat distribution, and hypertension in type 2 diabetes