Will the Apprentice become the Master and betray his allies? Will he give in to Hatred and begin the cycle anew?
75 backers pledged $1,787 to help bring this project to life.
The Apprentice did as he should, seeking to strike down his Master and replace him. He failed and was sacrificed to the Cold Gods. Shackled to an iceberg, he was cast adrift to freeze as a proper sacrifice. He refused.
In the dark, frigid north he found an icebound ship with 4 starving Noderin warriors on a quest to destroy a great evil… His Master.
How will the Apprentice and the warriors survive the hardships of the ice and reach land?
Will they be able to even find the lair of the Master? If they do, will the Apprentice claim what is his? By the time he kills the Master, will he be prepared to sacrifice his comrades?
Conspiracy of Shadows: Apprentice is a short form, self-contained role-playing game centered around one man's quest to take the place of his master. In the game, you and your friends will take on the role of a small band of northern warriors and the mysterious Apprentice as they travel the wild frozen north to find and destroy the Master. The goal of this kickstarter is to raise funds to publish this short form game, both as a traditional printed document and as a handcrafted artifact.
The rules of Conspiracy of Shadows: Apprentice utilize a simple system centered around the Elder Futhark runes. The rules and rune stones combine to create an entertaining game while maintaing pulling you into the world and culture of the northmen. Ultimately they guide play while staying out of the way of the fun.
Conspiracy of Shadows: Apprentice did not rise up whole cloth from my head, but is rather the culmination of a series of influences and experiences coming together in my head. At the center of these influences and experiences is my drive to create games that are art in their construction while also facilitating interesting narrative experiences.
I'm a web developer by trade with a background in fine arts and graphic design. I have self-published a few games (Conspiracy of Shadows and untitled) and worked as an illustrator for other games (Burning Wheel, Blood Red Sands, It Was a Mutual Decision).
A copy of the PDF of the game as soon as layout is complete.
Print+PDF of the game, poster map, and ship token.
Print+PDF of the game as soon as it's available plus a signed art print.
Print+PDF of the game, and one set of hand crafted wooden rune stones and destiny stones for play.
Print+PDF of the game, map, ship token, and one set of destiny tokens/rune stones.
Print+PDF of the game as soon as it's available, a wood burned art print (signed and numbered), hand crafted wooden rune stones, and destiny stones.
A hand made version of the game, bound with unique wood covers. The content itself will be tailored to the Patron in particular. You will also get the standard print version, the PDF, a signed and numbered wood burned art print. Finally, you will also receive a unique wooden box to hold your wooden rune stones and destiny stones.


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Wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy is the transmission of electric telegraphy signals without wires (wirelessly). It is now used as a historical term for early radio telegraphy systems which communicated with radio waves, although when the term originated in the late 19th century it was also used for a variety of other experimental techniques for communicating telegraphically without wires, such as photoelectric and induction telegraphy.
Ground and water conduction
Electrostatic and electromagnetic
Electromagnetic wave radio
Calzecchi Onesti
Heinrich Hertz
Branly
Landell de Moura
Period 18981902
Period after 1902
Wireless telegraphy came to mean Morse code transmitted by radio waves (electromagnetic waves), initially called "Hertzian waves", discovered by Heinrich Hertz in 1886. The primitive spark radio transmitters used until World War 1 could not transmit audio (sound). Instead they transmitted information by telegraphy: the operator would tap on a switch called a telegraph key turning the transmitter on and off, producing different length pulses of radio waves spelling out text messages in Morse code. The code sounded like musical "beeps" in the earphone of the receiver. The receiving radio operator would translate the beeps back into text.
The first practical wireless telegraphy transmitters and receivers were developed by Guglielmo Marconi beginning in 1895. By 1910 communication by Hertzian waves was universally referred to as "radio", and the term wireless telegraphy has been largely replaced by the more modern term "radiotelegraphy". The transmission of sound (radiotelephony) began to displace wireless telegraphy by the 1920s for many applications, making possible radio broadcasting. Wireless telegraphy continued to be used for private person-to-person business, governmental, and military communication, such as telegrams and diplomatic communications, and evolved into radioteletype networks. Continuous wave (CW) radiotelegraphy is regulated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as emission type A1A.
Today, due to more modern text transmission methods, Morse code radiotelegraphy for commercial use has become obsolete. On shipboard the computer and satellite linked GMDSS system has largely replaced Morse as a means of communication. Telegraphy is taught on a very limited basis by the military. A CW coastal station, KSM, still exists in California, run primarily as a museum by volunteers, and occasional contacts with ships are made. Radio beacons, particularly in the aviation service, but also as "placeholders" for commercial ship-to-shore systems, also transmit Morse but at very slow speeds.
The US Federal Communications Commission does still issue a lifetime commercial Radiotelegraph Operator License. This requires passing a simple written test on regulations, a more complex written exam on technology, and demonstrating Morse reception at 20 words per minute plain language and 16 wpm code groups. (Credit is given for amateur extra class licenses earned under the old 20 wpm requirement.) Wireless telegraphy is still used widely today by amateur radio hobbyists where it is commonly referred to as radio telegraphy, continuous wave, or just CW. However its knowledge is not required to obtain any class of amateur license.
A number of wireless electrical signaling schemes including electric currents through water and the ground were investigated for telegraphy before practical radio systems became available.
The original telegraph used two wires between two stations to form a complete electrical circuit or "loop." In 1837, however, Carl August von Steinheil of Munich, Germany, found that by connecting one leg of the apparatus at each station to metal plates buried in the ground, he could eliminate one wire and use a single wire for telegraphic communication. This led to speculation that it might be possible to eliminate both wires and therefore transmit telegraph signals through the ground without any wires connecting the stations. Other attempts were made to send the electric current through bodies of water, in order to span rivers, for example. Prominent experimenters along these lines included Samuel F. B. Morse in the United States and James Bowman Lindsay in Great Britain, who in August 1854, was able to demonstrate transmission across a mill dam at a distance of 500 yards (457 metres).
Telegraphic communication using earth conductivity was eventually found to be limited to impractically short distances, as was communication conducted through water, or between trenches during World War I.
The first wireless voice telecommunication device, invented in 1880, was the photophone, which carried voice communications optically on a lightbeam transmitted to a distant receiver.
Both electrostatic and electromagnetic induction were used to develop wireless telegraph systems that saw limited commercial application. In the United States, Thomas Edison, in the mid-1880s, patented an electromagnetic induction system he called "grasshopper telegraphy", which allowed telegraphic signals to jump the short distance between a running train and telegraph wires running parallel to the tracks. This system was successful technically but not economically, as there turned out to be little interest by train travelers in an on-board telegraph service. During the Great Blizzard of 1888, this system was used to send and receive wireless messages from trains buried in snowdrifts. The disabled trains were able to maintain communications via their Edison induction wireless telegraph systems, perhaps the first successful use of wireless telegraphy to send distress calls.
The most successful creator of an electromagnetic induction telegraph system was William Preece in the United Kingdom. Beginning with tests across the Bristol Channel in 1892, Preece was able to telegraph across gaps of about 5 kilometres (3.1 miles). However, his induction system required extensive lengths of antenna wires, many kilometers long, at both the sending and receiving ends. The length of those sending and receiving wires needed to be about the same length as the width of the water or land to be spanned. For example, for Preece's station to span the English Channel from Dover, England, to the coast of France would require sending and receiving wires of about 30 miles (48 kilometres) along the two coasts. These facts made the system impractical on ships, boats, and ordinary islands, which are much smaller than Great Britain or Greenland. In addition, the relatively short distances that a practical Preece system could span meant that it had few advantages over underwater telegraph cables.
Electromagnetic wave (radio)
Wireless telegraphy dates as far back as Faraday in the early 19th century, when it was discovered that radio waves could be used to send telegraph messages.
In the mid-1860s, James Clerk Maxwell predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves and showed that their propagation speed is identical to that of light. After that, in reality, it required very little to demonstrate by experiment the existence of such waves.
Calzecchi-Onesti
By 1884, Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti in Fermo, Italy, developed a primitive device that responded to radio waves. It consisted of a tube filled with iron filings, called a "coherer". This kind of device would later be developed to become the first practical radio detector. Writing in the Rendiconti of the Lombardy Institution regarding the discovery of the coherer, directs attention to his experiments made in 1884, before Branly had worked on the subject. He further points out the part played by Augusto Righi in wireless telegraphy.
Calzecchi found that the conductivity of metal powder varied depending on the incidence of radio waves. However, Calzecchi's experiments were not widely reported. He would later write Le mie esperienze e quelle di Edoardo Branly: Sulla conduttività elettrica delle limature metalliche (tr., "My experiences and those of Edward Branly: The electrical conductivity of metal filings").
Between 1886 and 1888, Heinrich Rudolf Hertz studied Maxwell's theory and validated it through experiment. He demonstrated the transmission and reception of the electromagnetic waves predicted by Maxwell, and he intentionally transmitted and received radio. Hertz changed the frequency of his radiated waves by altering the inductance or capacity of his radiating conductor or antenna, and reflected and focused the electromagnetic waves, thus demonstrating the correctness of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light. Famously, he saw no practical use for his discovery.
In his Ultra high frequency (UHF) experiments, Hertz transmitted and received radio waves over short distances and showed that the properties of radio waves were consistent with Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. He demonstrated that radio radiation had all the properties of waves (now called electromagnetic radiation), and discovered that the electromagnetic equations could be reformulated into a partial differential equation called the wave equation.
He demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic radiation (radio waves) in a series of experiments in Germany during the 1880s. Hertz showed methods of producing, detecting, and measuring these waves. It had been known for many years – from the predictions of Kelvin and Von Helmholtz, and confirmed by the experiments of Fedderssen – that in many cases an electric discharge is of an oscillatory character. In the years 1887-8, Lodge, Fitzgerald, and others were investigating the nature of these oscillations, and the manner in which they are guided by conducting wires, when Hertz conceived the idea of investigating the disturbances caused by such oscillatory discharges in the surrounding space.
Hertz used the damped oscillating currents in a dipole antenna, triggered by a high-voltage electrical capacitive spark discharge, as his source of radio waves. His detector in some experiments was another dipole antenna connected to a narrow spark gap, thereby creating a spark-gap transmitter. A small spark in this gap signified detection of the radio waves. When he added cylindrical reflectors behind his dipole antennas, Hertz could detect radio waves about 20 metres (22 yards) from the transmitter in his laboratory at the Karlsruhe Technical High School. He did not try to transmit further because his aim was proving electromagnetic theory, not developing wireless communication.
In the collection of physical instruments in Karlsruhe, Hertz had found and used for lecture purposes a pair of so-called Eiess spirals or Knochenhauer spirals. Hertz had been surprised to find that it was not necessary to discharge large batteries through one of these spirals in order to obtain sparks in the other; small Leyden jars amply sufficed for this purpose, and even the discharge of a small induction coil would do, provided it had to spring across a spark gap. In altering the conditions, Hertz came upon the phenomenon of side-sparks, which formed the starting point of his research. At first Hertz thought the electrical disturbances would be too turbulent and irregular to be of any further use, but when he had discovered the existence of a neutral point in the middle of a side-conductor – and therefore discovered a clear and orderly phenomenon – he felt convinced that the problem of the Berlin Academy was now capable of solution. His ambition at the time did not go further than this. Hertz's conviction was naturally strengthened by finding that the oscillations were regular.
Hertz's setup for a source and detector of radio waves (then called Hertzian waves in his honor) was the first intentional and unequivocal transmission and reception of radio waves through free space. The first of the papers published ("On Very Rapid Electric Oscillations") gives, generally in the actual order of time, the course of the investigation as far as it was carried out up to the end of the year 1886 and the beginning of 1887.
Hertz, however, did not devise a system for actual general use nor describe the application of the technology, and he seemed uninterested in the practical importance of his experiments. He stated that "It's of no use whatsoever ... this is just an experiment that proves Maestro Maxwell was right — we just have these mysterious electromagnetic waves that we cannot see with the naked eye. But they are there." Asked about the ramifications of his discoveries, Hertz replied, "Nothing, I guess." Hertz also stated, "I do not think that the wireless waves I have discovered will have any practical application". Hertz died in 1894, so the art of radio was left to others to implement into a practical form.
In 1890, Édouard Branly demonstrated what he later called the "radio-conductor," which Lodge in 1893 named the coherer, the first sensitive device for detecting radio waves. Shortly after the experiments of Hertz, Dr. Branly discovered that loose metal filings, which in a normal state have a high electrical resistance, lose this resistance in the presence of electric oscillations and become conductors of electricity. This Branly showed by placing metal filings in a glass box or tube and making them part of an ordinary electric circuit. According to the common explanation, when electric waves are set up in the neighborhood of this circuit, electromotive forces are generated in it which appear to make the filings move closer together, that is, to cohere, and thus their electrical resistance decreases accordingly, Sir Oliver Lodge termed this piece of apparatus a coherer. Hence the receiving instrument, which may be a telegraph relay, that normally would not indicate any sign of current from the small battery, can be operated when electric oscillations are set up. Prof. Branly further found that when the filings had once cohered, they retained their low resistance until shaken apart, for instance, by tapping on the tube.
In "On the Changes in Resistance of Bodies under Different Electrical Conditions", he described how the electrical circuit was made by means of two narrow strips of copper parallel to the short sides of the rectangular plate, and forming good contact with it by means of screws. When the two copper strips were raised, the plate was cut out of the circuit. He also used as conductors fine metallic filings, which he sometimes mixed with insulating liquids. The filings were placed in a tube of glass or ebonite and were held between two metal plates. When the electrical circuit, consisting of a Daniell cell, a galvanometer of high resistance, and the metallic conductor, consisting of the ebonite plate, and the sheet of copper, or of the tube containing the filings, was completed, only a very small current flowed; but there was a sudden diminution of the resistance, which was proved by a large deviation of the galvanometer needle when one or more electric discharges were produced in the neighbourhood of the circuit. In order to produce these discharges, a small Wimshurst influence machine was used, with or without a condenser, or a Ruhmkorff coil. The action of the electrical discharge diminished as the distance increases; but Branley observed it easily, and without taking any special precautions, at a distance of several yards. By using a Wheatstone bridge, he observed this action at a distance of 20 yards, although the machine producing the sparks was working in a room separated from the galvanometer and the bridge by three large apartments, and the noise of the sparks was not audible. The changes of resistance were considerable with the conductors described. They varied, for instance, from several millions of ohms to 2000, or even to 100, from 150,000 to 500 ohms, from 50 to 35, and so on. The diminution of resistance was not momentary, and sometimes it was found to remain for 24 hours. Another method of making the test was by connecting the electrodes of a capillary electrometer to the two poles of a Daniell cell with a sulphate of cadmium solution. The displacement of mercury which took place when the cell was short-circuited, only took place very slowly when an ebonite plate, covered with a sheet of copper of high resistance, was inserted between one of the poles of the cell, and the corresponding electrode of the electrometer; but when sparks were produced by a machine, the mercury was rapidly thrown into the capillary tube owing to the sudden diminution in the resistance of the plate.
Upon examination of the conditions necessary to produce the phenomena, Branly found that:
The circuit need not be closed to produce the result.
The passage of an induced current in the body produces a similar effect to that of a spark at a distance.
An induction coil with two equal lengths of wire was used, a current is sent through the primary while the secondary forms part of a circuit containing the tube with filings and a galvanometer. The two induced currents caused the resistance of the filings to vary.
When working with continuous currents, the passage of a strong current lowers the resistance of the body for feeble currents.
Summing up, he stated that in all these tests, the use of ebonite plates covered with copper or mixtures of copper and tin was less satisfactory than the use of filings; with the plates, he was unable to obtain the initial resistance of the body after the action of the spark or of the current, while with the tubes and filings, the resistance could be brought back to its normal value by striking a few sharp blows on the support of the tube.
The disadvantages of the coherer are its erratic sensitivity, which may be much decreased by local discharges, such as the spark discharges of the transmitter, and its response to atmospheric disturbances or lightning discharges. Consequently, the coherer cannot be relied upon as a calling-up apparatus. With strong impulses of energy in the receiver, it enables one to print the received message, but for long-distance work, it is not as sensitive as some other detectors that were developed in the inter-war period before the roaring Twenties.
Roberto Landell de Moura, a Brazilian priest and scientist, went to Rome in 1878 and studied at the South American College and Pontifical Gregorian University, where he studied physics and chemistry. He completed his clerical training in Rome, graduating in theology, and was ordained priest in 1886. In Rome, he started studying physics and electricity. When he returned to Brazil, he conducted experiments in wireless in Campinas and São Paulo (1892–1893). In the "Porto Jornal da Manha", he is said to have conducted between 1890 and 1894 wireless transmissions in telegraphy and telephony over distances of up to 8 kilometres (5.0 mi).
During his visit to the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889 the Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla learned of Hertz's experiments with electromagnetic waves using coils and spark gaps and proceeded to duplicate those experiments. Tesla came to the conclusion that Maxwell and Hertz were wrong in their findings that airborne electromagnetic waves (radio waves) were being transmitted and instead attributed it to what he called "electrostatic thrusts", with the real signals being conducted by Earth currents.
By 1891 he had developed various alternator apparatus that produced 15,000 cycles per second and developed his own very large air gapped coil, known now as a Tesla coil. Tesla's primary interest in wireless phenomenon was as a power distribution system. By 1892 he was delivering lectures on high potential/high frequency alternate currents" and went on to demonstrate "wireless lighting" in 1893 including lighting Geissler tubes wirelessly. Tesla proposed this wireless technology could not only deliver power but could also be used for the telecommunication of information. In 1894, Thomas Commerford Martin published "The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla", detailing the work of Tesla in the previous years.
Like many scientists of that time), Tesla thought that even if radio waves existed, they would probably only travel in straight lines making them useless for long range transmission. His laboratory work and later large scale experiments at Colorado Springs led him to the conclusion that to overcome this limitation, a worldwide wireless system would have to use the Earth itself by injecting very large electric currents into the ground. He proceeded to develop an earth-conductive wireless system similar to the ground conduction systems proposed earlier which he thought could achieve his goal of wireless power transmission as well as communication. By 1900 Tesla had received financial backing from banker J. P. Morgan and other investors to try to implement his ideas in the form of his very large Wardenclyffe Tower wireless transmission project. The project ran into many problems, not least of which was the commencement in 1903 of regular transatlantic transmissions by Guglielmo Marconi using far less expensive equipment. Financial backing dried up and Tesla had abandoned the project by 1906.
By 1897, Guglielmo Marconi conducted a series of demonstrations with a radio system for signalling for communications over long distances. Marconi is said to have read, while on vacation in 1894, about the experiments that Hertz did in the 1880s. Marconi also read parts of Thomas Commerford Martin's book about the inventions of Nikola Tesla and Scientific American. It was at this time that Marconi began to understand that radio waves could be used for wireless communications. Marconi's early apparatus was a development of Hertz's laboratory apparatus into a system designed for communications purposes. At first, Marconi used a transmitter to ring a bell in a receiver in his attic laboratory. He then moved his experiments out-of-doors on the family estate near Bologna, Italy, to communicate farther. He replaced Hertz's vertical dipole with a vertical wire topped by a metal sheet, with an opposing terminal connected to the ground. On the receiver side, Marconi replaced the spark gap with a metal powder coherer, a detector developed by Edouard Branly and other experimenters. Marconi transmitted radio signals for about a mile at the end of 1895.
By 1896, Marconi introduced to the public a device in London and he filed a patent on his earliest system with the British Patent Office on June 2, 1896. In 1897, Marconi was awarded a patent for radio with British patent No. 12,039, Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals and in Apparatus There-for. The complete specification was filed March 2, 1897. This was Marconi's initial patent for the radio, though it used various earlier techniques of various other experimenters (primarily Tesla) and resembled the instrument demonstrated by others (including Popov). During this time, spark-gap wireless telegraphy was widely researched. In July 1896, Marconi got his invention and new method of telegraphy to the attention of Preece, then engineer-in-chief to the British Government Telegraph Service, who had for the previous twelve years interested himself in the development of wireless telegraphy by the inductive-conductive method. On June 4, 1897, Preece delivered his lecture, "Signalling through Space without Wires". Preece devoted considerable time to exhibiting and explaining the Marconi apparatus at the Royal Institution in London, stating that Marconi had invented a new relay which had high sensitivity and delicacy.
In 1896, Jagdish Chandra Bose went to London on a lecture tour and met Marconi, who was conducting wireless experiments for the British post office. In 1897, Marconi founded the Marconi Company Ltd.. Also in 1897, Marconi established the radio station at Niton, Isle of Wight, England. Marconi's wireless telegraphy was inspected by the Post Office telegraph authorities; they made a series of experiments with Marconi's system in the Bristol Channel. In October 1897, wireless signals were sent from Salisbury Plain to Bath, a distance of 34 miles. Marconi's reputation is largely based on the formulation of Marconi's law (1897), and other accomplishments in radio communications and commercializing a practical system.
Other experimental stations were established at Lavernock Point, near Penarth; on Flat Holm, off Cardiff in the Bristol Channel, and at Brean Down, a promontory on the Somerset side. Signals were obtained between the first and last-named points, a distance of approximately eight miles. The receiving instrument used was a Morse inkwriter of the Post Office pattern.
In a famous 1910 murder case, the culprit (Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen) was apprehended with the assistance of a transatlantic message sent by wireless telegraphy.
The term wireless telegraphy came into widespread use around the turn of the 19th century, when spark-gap transmitters and primitive receivers made it practical to send telegraph messages over great distances, enabling transcontinental and ship-to-shore signalling. Before that time, wireless telegraphy was an obscure experimental term that applied collectively to an assortment of sometimes unrelated signalling schemes. In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat in Madison Square Garden that allowed secure communication between transmitter and receiver.
In 1899, Landell de Moura transmitted the human voice from the College of the Sisters of St. Joseph, high in the district of Santana, Brazil, north of the capital city. He also publicly demonstrated his invention on June 3, 1900. As the Jornal do Commercio reported (June 10, 1900), "Last Sunday, on top of Santana in São Paulo, Padre Landell de Moura has particular experience with various devices of his invention. In order to demonstrate some laws which he discovered in studying the propagation of sound, the light and electricity through space, which were crowned with brilliant success." The experiments were performed in the presence of the English Vice Consul S. Paul, Percy Parmenter, Charles Lupton, and other persons of high social position. Upon observing the experiments, Rodriguez Botet, giving news of the trials, said he was not far from the moment of consecrating Landell de Moura as an author of radio discoveries. Landell de Moura later received several patents on wireless technology. He would later obtain U.S. Patent 775,337 for a wireless telephone.
In 1898, Marconi opened a radio factory in Hall Street, Chelmsford, England, employing around 50 people. In 1899, Marconi announced his invention of the "iron-mercury-iron coherer with telephone detector" in a paper presented at the Royal Society, London. In May, 1898, communication was established for Lloyd's of London between Ballycastle and the lighthouse on Rathlin Island in the North of Ireland. In July, 1898, the Marconi telegraph was employed to report the results of yacht races at the Kingston Regatta for the Dublin Express newspaper. One set of instruments was set up in a room at Kingstown, and another on board a steamer, the Flying Huntress. The aerial conductor on shore was a strip of wire netting attached to a mast 40 feet high. Several hundred messages were sent and correctly received during the progress of the races.
At this time King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, had the misfortune to injure his knee and was confined on board the royal yacht Osborne in Cowes Bay. Marconi fitted up his apparatus on board the royal yacht by request, and also at Osborne House, Isle of Wight, and kept up wireless communication for three weeks between these stations. The distances covered were small; but as the yacht moved about, on some occasions high hills were interposed, so that the aerial wires were overtopped by hundreds of feet, yet this was no obstacle to communication. These demonstrations led the Corporation of Trinity House to afford an opportunity for testing the system in practice between the South Foreland Lighthouse, near Dover, and the East Goodwin Lightship, on the Goodwin Sands. This installation was set in operation on December 24, 1898, and proved to be of value. It was shown that when once the apparatus was set up, it could be worked by ordinary seamen with very little training.
At the end of 1898 electric wave telegraphy established by Marconi had demonstrated its utility, especially for communication between ship and ship and ship and shore. The Haven Hotel station and Wireless Telegraph Mast was where much of Marconi's research work on wireless telegraphy was carried out after 1898. In 1899, W. H. Preece delivered a lecture on "Aetheric Telegraphy", stating that the experimental stage in wireless telegraphy had been passed in 1894 and inventors were then entering the commercial stage. Preece, continuing in the lecture, detailed the work of Marconi and other British inventors. The Marconi Company was renamed the Wireless Telegraph Trading Signal Company in 1900. In 1899 he transmitted messages across the English Channel. The British Navy experiments with Marconi's system in the Anglo-Boer War from 1899-1902 were the first use of operational wireless telegraphy in the field.
In 1901, Marconi claimed to have received daytime transatlantic radio frequency signals at a wavelength of 366 metres (820 kHz). Marconi established a wireless transmitting station at Marconi House, Rosslare Strand, Co. Wexford in 1901 to act as a link between Poldhu in Cornwall and Clifden in Co. Galway. His announcement on 12 December 1901 stated that signals transmitted by the company's new high-power station at Poldhu, Cornwall were received at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland (now part of Canada), using a 152.4-metre (500 ft) kite-supported antenna for reception. The message received was the Morse letter 'S' - three dots. This has recently been contested, however, based on theoretical work as well as a reenactment of the experiment; it is possible that Marconi heard only random atmospheric noise, which was mistaken for a signal, or that he heard a shortwave harmonic of the signal. The distance between the two points was about 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi).
Marconi transmitted from England to Canada and the United States. In 1902, a Marconi station was established in the village of Crookhaven, County Cork, Ireland to provide marine radio communications to ships arriving from the Americas. A ship's master could contact shipping line agents ashore to enquire which port was to receive their cargo without the need to come ashore at what was the first port of landfall. Ireland was also, due to its western location, to play a key role in early efforts to send trans-Atlantic messages. Marconi transmitted from his station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada across the Atlantic, and on 18 January 1903 a Marconi station sent a message of greetings from Theodore Roosevelt, the President of the United States, to the King of the United Kingdom, marking the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.
In the early 20th century Jozef Murgas, the "Radio Priest", conducted a great deal of revolutionary work in wireless telegraphy. He established a laboratory in Wilkes-Barre, in which he primarily investigated radiotelegraphy. His article in the Tovaryšstvo magazine of 1900 shows that his radiotelegraphy studies had achieved a high level. In 1904, he received his first two US patents: the Apparatus for wireless telegraphy and The way of transmitted messages by wireless telegraphy. Another 11 patents followed between 1907 and 1911. Based on the first two patents, he created the Universal Ether Telegraph Co., which organized a public test of Murgaš's transmitting and receiving facilities in September 1905. The test was successful, but a storm destroyed the antenna masts three months later, which led to the dissolution of the company.
In 1906, Lee De Forest brought out a vacuum tube device which he called the "audion". This was a very sensitive detector of electric oscillations. It consisted of three electrodes in a vacuum tube; one of the electrodes could be heated to incandescence with the result that it emitted electrons (the Edison effect).
American physicist Theodore Case, while studying at Yale University, became interested in using modulated light as a means to transmit and record speech. In 1914, he opened the Case Research Lab to experiment with the photo-electric properties of various materials, leading to the development of the Thallofide (short for thallium oxysulfide), a light-sensitive vacuum tube. The Thallofide tube was originally used by the United States Navy in a top secret ship-to-ship infrared signaling system developed at Case's lab with his assistant Earl Sponable. Case and Sponable's system was first tested off the shores of New Jersey in 1917, and attending the test was Thomas Edison, contracted by the Navy to evaluate new technologies. The test was a success, and the U.S. Navy used the system during and after World War I. This technology, in conjunction with de Forest's Audion, was adapted after the war, as a means to record and play back optical sound in motion pictures. Another inventor, Charles A. Hoxie, invented a similar device, the Pallophotophone, that also became a speech recorder, used by General Electric to record President Calvin Coolidge in 1921 for radio broadcasts.
When the United States entered World War I, private radiotelegraphy stations were prohibited, which put an end to several pioneers' work in this field. By the 1920s, there was a worldwide network of commercial and government radiotelegraphic stations, plus extensive use of radiotelegraphy by ships for both commercial purposes and passenger messages. The ultimate implementation of wireless telegraphy was telex, using radio signals, which was developed in the 1930s and was for many years the only reliable form of communication between many distant countries. The most advanced standard, CCITT R.44, automated both routing and encoding of messages by short wave transmissions. (See telegraphy for more information).
Wireless telegraphy Wikipedia
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Grosse Pointe board votes to close 2 elementary schools
Jennifer Chambers
Grosse Pointe Farms —The Grosse Pointe board of education is closing two elementary schools and approved a K-4 and 5-8 reconfiguration for the district Monday night in a controversial downsizing plan.
The vote to close Poupard and Trombly elementary schools was 5-2, while the vote to reconfigure grades was 6-1.
"It feels like open heart surgery. Who wants to do this?" board vice president Margaret Weertz said of having to close schools. "We have to do this to get healthier to get to a better place."
The reconfiguration will result in the move of all fifth grade students to three middle schools starting in the 2020-21 school year.
"Reconfiguration is needed to prevent further cuts to this district," board member Christopher Profeta said.
The vote came after state civil rights department director Agustin Arbulu urged the board Monday night to first adopt a "racially conscious" approach to reconfiguring schools before making any closure decision for the district.
"What we need to pay attention to are the internalized cultural beliefs, shaped by history, dominant culture ... racial isolation, structural segregation — that produces 'us versus them' mindsets," Arbulu said.
"This community is at a crossroad. The world is changing. It is becoming more diverse ... And with it comes changes and conversations which will make people uncomfortable. It is the process that needs to change. It needs to be inclusive, fair and transparent," Arbulu told the board.
The board proposed closing Poupard in the north end in Harper Woods and Trombly in the south end. Voting against the plan were Cynthia Pangborn and Profeta.
Poupard, which is a predominantly African American school, is 500 feet from Interstate 94, board president Brian Summerfield said. It is the district's only Title 1 school.
"It's frightening. It made my decision easy as far as Poupard goes," Summerfield said. "There is no question in my mind. It's probably unsafe for our students."
Some parents were in tears after the vote. Helen Hannigan was upset with the decision by the board because it will close the school her two children attend, Trombly.
"I wish they all stated what their reasoning was to close the school," Hannigan said. "We are owed that as a community and as parents whose school will be closed soon."
More than 200 people attended the board's meeting at which several speakers urged the board to make a decision, saying the time had come to close schools that are half filled and move forward. Others encouraged the board to hold off on the decision and consider other options.
Last week, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights asked the Wayne County school district to hold off on its decisions amid allegations of racial bias, but Grosse Pointe Public School System Superintendent Gary Niehaus was unmoved by the request.
Pangborn had asked the board to delay the vote on reconfiguration to a K-4 elementary school and a 5-8 elementary school, saying the board should consider Arbulu's comments and review his report.
"And come up with a better plan that does not tear apart our community," Pangborn said. Her motion failed.
Citing findings from four public listening sessions and written comments from parents and community members, Arbulu told the district last week that the community perceives that the process for deciding the fate of the schools "lacked transparency" and the "effective involvement" of the people most impacted by the reconfiguration.
Arbulu recommended the school board take action to improve the process and ensure the concerns of all stakeholders were considered. Among the recommendations were to consider closing a middle school instead of closing one or more elementary schools and retaining the current grade configuration, and adopting a racial equity lens to guide the decision-making on reconfiguration.
Several board members have been targeted for recall as the result of the school reconfiguration that stems from declining enrollment K-12. They are Judy Gafa, Kathleen Abke and Christopher Profeta. A hearing to approve recall petition language is scheduled for Wednesday in Detroit.
Summerfield said he has no idea who or what group is behind the recall. He does not think the board members should be recalled.
"It's a terrible distraction for the community," Summerfield said "I think all three of those members have worked hard and have had the best interest of students at heart."
Gafa, the board's treasurer, said she is not surprised by the recall attempt and understands that closing schools typically triggers such efforts.
"Part of me thinks it's an intimidation tactic so we don't close whomever's school is behind this," she said. "We don't know who is behind it. But it's the democratic process."
The board's action Monday night comes after 15 years of declining enrollment and a move to restructure the district without opening its doors to Schools of Choice students.
Declining K-12 enrollment has meant financial losses for the affluent Metro Detroit district, school officials said. With each student equal to around $10,000 in school revenue, the district's average 100-student drop per year is $1 million lost.
The Grosse Pointes' schools are not alone. Statewide K-12 student enrollment has been on the decline for years. Enrollment is forecast to drop another 10% through 2025 in southeastern Michigan.
jchambers@detroitnews.com


No School – Monday, January 15 In Observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, there will be no school on Monday, January 15th. Enjoy your day off!
Congratulations to our WCMS Spelling Bee winners: Spencer Bove was our champion and Ravi Dissanayake was our runner-up – congrats!
Volunteers Needed – PAWS Store We are in need of volunteers to help with the PAWS Store! Help is needed on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and/or Thursdays from 10:20 – 12:15 to log student purchases in the store. Email Holly Brock at brock_h@westcler.org if you are interested in helping. Please make sure you are fingerprinted with the district's main office.
9th grade Band Placements High school band placement videos will be recorded in class beginning on 1/16. Students in 8th grade and entering high school next year were giving their placement music before break and will be requested to play 2 etudes, a major scale, and a short sight reading excerpt. If students want to audition for symphonic band, there is an additional etude to play (was also handed out before break).
Dental Visits at WCMS Great News! The dentist is coming to our school on Monday, January 29th. Our school has partnered with Smile Programs to offer in-school dental care. Best of all, in most cases there is no cost to you if your child is insured with Medicaid or CHIP! Private insurance and affordable self-pay options are also available. Having your child seen by the in-school dentist saves you valuable time. Dental care includes a complete exam, x-rays, cleaning, fluoride and sealants when needed. Restorative care, such as fillings, may also be provided. Permission slips were sent home with students this week, and need to be returned to school by Tuesday, January 16th in order for your child to participate. If you have any questions, please contact our school nurse, Ms. Amann at 947-7403.
6th Grade Chorus Concert Due to the snow day we had to cancel our 6th grade New Year concert. Here is a link to a nice video from the concert in December https://youtu.be/OAsSw-1MC6Q. Our next performance for 6th grade will be on February 27, 2018. Only 6th grade will be performing on this date!
Washington DC Trip For students who are going on the trip, please note that the 2nd payment of $200.00 is due to Croswell by January 16th.


From George Clooney's unforgettably long proposal to Amal Alamuddin (he was on his knee for 28 minutes!) to Taylor Kinney's Valentine's Day proposal to Lady Gaga, these stories will likely melt even the hardest of hearts. Keep scrolling for our favourites.
One of our favourite proposals comes from one of the world's most stylish couples, Amal and George Clooney. He put on some of his aunt Rosemary Clooney's songs, went down on one knee, and just popped the question out of nowhere—and Amal left him on his knee for a solid 28 minutes while she decided how to answer.
James Cook is a man who really knows his now wife. To propose to style star Poppy Delevingne, he enlisted bag designer Anya Hindmarch to custom-create a red leather jewellery box that had the words "Will you marry me?" inscribed inside.
"You only get one chance to do it, and if you're gonna do it, you gotta do it right, so there's a lot of planning that goes into it," Manganiello told Live! With Kelly and Michael. ?I proposed in Spanish. I had a big speech in Spanish [Vergara's native language], and that's what I was nervous about. The last thing you want to do is mess up the Spanish on a proposal to a Colombian woman."


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United States Operations Ceva Sante Animale
Going underground: Kansas City's caves provide high-quality home to Ceva and Virbac
Joseph Harvey @JHJournalist joseph.harvey@informa.com
With two leading animal health companies taking their warehousing and distribution facilities underground, Animal Pharm editor Joseph Harvey visited SubTropolis in Kansas City to see how caves offer the quality and safety the firms need.
The word 'cave' is slightly misleading when describing the 'world's largest underground business complex' – a trademarked slogan.
Built into a limestone mine, SubTropolis is far from being a cave.
"It's a skyscraper on its side," explains Michael Bell, vice president of Hunt Midwest's industrial and commercial teams. "Sometimes it feels like being in a big office building."
SubTropolis by numbers
A total workforce of approximately 1,700 are employed in SubTropolis. They belong to a roster of 55 companies.
It features 6.5 miles of lighted and paved roads, as well as over 400 truck dock locations.
SubTropolis is built in limestone that is 270 million years old.
The strength of the limestone is 18,000-24,000 pounds per square inch, which makes it six times sturdier than concrete.
Despite being a cave, flooding is not a risk at SubTropolis – it is 12 feet above the 500-year flood plain.
Hunt Midwest is a real estate firm based in Kansas City. It is also the owner of SubTropolis – a 55 million square-foot space developed by the previous American football team owner Lamar Hunt, who not only headed the Kansas City Chiefs but also founded the American Football League and Major League Soccer.
"In the 1940s the area was mined for construction materials and no-one ever thought about what it would be used for after," Mr Bell told Animal Pharm. The 'a-ha moment' – ultimately the spark that created SubTropolis – came when construction equipment was kept in the caves over the winter, to great effect.
Companies like Ford and Pilsbury then began using the mines as a storage space in the 1960s. "With a drill and dynamite" the owners expanded the space by two miles, creating a potential home for new clients. Ford is still a SubTropolis tenant, along with other high-profile clients such as the US National Archives and Records Administration, and the country's Postal Service.
The key characteristics of SubTropolis are its quality in terms of consistent product storage temperature, high standards of security and access to distribution infrastructure, such as interstates.
"The complex naturally breathes through its several entrances, and with 200 feet of limestone above this facility, it is naturally insulated and maintains a constant temperature of 70 degrees, so it's sustainable," added Mr Bell.
Around 90% of the US can be reached from SubTropolis in two days, said Mr Bell – hard evidence that not only is the Kansas City area a hub for animal health but also for logistics and distribution.
Ryan Tompkins, manager of sales and leasing at Hunt Midwest, said not only is the firm able to expand the available space at SubTropolis very quickly, it is also on the lookout for more animal health companies to become tenants.
While the complex offers some spaces on a month-to-month basis – more suited for smaller firms – Mr Bell said SubTropolis' clients tend to be more long term "50,000 square-foot tenants and above".
"KC is a unique city underground," added Mr Bell. "Around 10% of the city's industrial market is underground."
Of the 20 million square feet of storage space available in Kansas City, 6.1 million square feet belongs to SubTropolis.
Ceva intent on consolidating in caves
Ceva Animal Health has been a SubTropolis tenant for almost four years. When it first became a client in 2013, the company consolidated its US warehousing capabilities at SubTropolis. This saw it bring together operations from Kansas City, St Louis and New Jersey in the caves.
During 2015, Ceva extended its available space in the complex and now has 14 people working across 90,000 square feet of SubTropolis. The company has the option to yet further grow its warehousing at the facility. Ceva aims to further consolidate its warehousing in SubTropolis by bringing its vaccines to the complex. The company's vaccines are currently housed at another location in Kansas City.
Craig Wallace, chief executive of Ceva's North American and Pacific businesses, highlighted other key selling points of SubTropolis. He noted the access to the four nearby interstates as a significant boost to the delivery of products to Ceva's distributors in all directions across the US.
Mr Wallace also pointed out the underground nature of the complex is perfect for security against theft, vandalism and severe weather.
"You don't have to worry about the quality of storage here," Mr Wallace told Animal Pharm. "There's no weather problems down here. I've seen warehouse issues where products have been damaged by the weather before. That just can't happen here."
He also said the facility is recognized by leading regulatory authorities: "When we're talking to the FDA, USDA or EPA, they're all familiar with the facility. That's a huge help."
Virbac set to become tenants
Soon to join Ceva as a SubTropolis neighbor, is another North American business of a French animal health company – Virbac.
The firm is currently in the process of moving its warehousing and distribution from St Louis to the underground complex. Like Ceva, Virbac is also going through a consolidation process for its warehousing. This move will bring together operations from St Louis, St Joseph and Fort Worth. In time, Virbac intends to house all of its product lines in SubTropolis.
The company will take up 150,000 square feet of the complex, where it initially expects to employ around 10 people. Virbac is currently staffing these roles and conducting training – the move will come when Virbac gains approval from the Missouri Pharmacy Board later this year.
Paul Hays, the company's president and chief executive of North American operations, told Animal Pharm: "Kansas City was the right fit. This facility is at the epicentre of the animal health corridor and from a GMP point-of-view, we are able to store products at a constant temperature, which is perfect. It's cost efficient and disaster recovery is good here too."
Mr Hays has in fact worked in SubTropolis before, when he was previously with Coopers Animal Health in the late 1980s.
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Alabama Treasurer's Office to Give $529 CollegeCounts Savings Starter Funds to 31 Newborns in Honor of 5/29 Day
Home/News/Alabama Treasurer's Office to Give $529 CollegeCounts Savings Starter Funds to 31 Newborns in Honor of 5/29 Day
Montgomery, Ala. (April 13, 2015) – Alabama parents: do you have a May baby on the way? If so, you could be one of 31 winners selected at random to receive $529 in a new account with CollegeCounts, Alabama's 529 Plan. In total, over $16,000 is being awarded by the Alabama State Treasurer's office in honor of May 29 (5/29 Day).
"When a newborn arrives, it is difficult to start planning for the long-term. This promotion, however, will help bring college planning to the forefront of thought for new parents … at least for the moment," said Young Boozer, Alabama State Treasurer.
Parents of children born from May 1-31, 2015 have until July 1, 2015 to visit AL529Day.com and enter their contact information and the date of their child's birth. Winners will be selected statewide at random and notified by July 17, 2015. Birth certificates or commemorative birth announcements for each winner's child must be submitted to receive funds.
According to The College Board – Trends in College Pricing report, annual tuition, fees and room & board at a public two-year, in-state institution have increased to an average of $11,050. For those same expenses at a public four-year, in-state institution, that increase was to an average of $18,940 for a year. These are averages from across the country and illustrate the significant costs involved with a two- or four-year degree – and the importance of starting to save early.
"The first step to college planning is to establish and make an initial investment in a college savings account. Step two is to make regular investments to increase your college savings," said Boozer. "These funds will help jump start savings for new families across Alabama."
CollegeCounts has no minimum contribution requirements, allowing families to open accounts and save a little each month by using quality investment funds, including Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, PIMCO, Dodge and Cox, MainStay, and DFA.
Under the 529 Section of the tax code, special tax benefits are provided to families saving for future college expenses. Alabama taxpayers may receive a generous state income tax deduction of up to $5,000 ($10,000 for married couples filing jointly) on contributions to CollegeCounts each year.
"CollegeCounts, Alabama's 529 plan, was designed to help families save for college while at the same time benefit from the program's various tax advantages and benefits," said Boozer. "The earlier and more often that contributions can be made, the better the potential return."
Funds may be withdrawn and used at colleges, universities, trade schools and graduate schools at one-, two- and four-year schools in Alabama and across the U.S. – including vocational, technical, community, public and private colleges and universities – for qualified expenses like tuition, fees, room and board, books, and supplies required for enrollment.
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So what is happening with Polyology and Spy Game at the moment? Well unfortunately I don't have time for the next few months as I'm currently busy working for Dambuster Studios and The Chinese Room on upcoming projects. I'll still bring Polyology to Steam, I'm still going to continue the Spy Management Game but in the short term I need to be practical and make sure I have enough money.


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WHAT A CARVE UP!
Penguin Books Uk 4 Août 2016
The hilarious 1980s political satire by Jonathan Coe, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn't; Henry's turning hospitals into car parks; Roddy's selling art in return for sex; down on the farm Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators. But once their hapless biographer Michael Owen starts investigating the family's trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance. . . This wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government was the winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 'A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times 'A riveting social satire on the chattering and all-powerful upper classes' Time Out 'Big, hilarious, intricate, furious, moving' Guardian
Penguin Books Uk
Wikipedia : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Coe
Naissance : 19-8-1961
Pays : Royaume Uni
Né en 1961, à Birmingham, en Angleterre, Jonathan Coe a fait ses études à Trinity Collège à Cambridge. Il a écrit des articles pour le Guardian, la London Review of Books, le Times Literary Supplement... Il a reçu 1e prix Femina Étranger en 1995 pour son quatrième roman, Testament à l'anglaise (Folio n° 2992) et le prix Médicis Étranger en 1998 pour La Maison du sommeil (Folio n° 3389). La femme de hasard est son premier roman.


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Lynne Cantwell: Success at 2019 World Cup must be target in IRFU's review
Our World Cup columnist looks at a process that needs to be unforgiving and honest.
By Lynne Cantwell Friday 23 Oct 2015, 10:30 PM
Oct 23rd 2015, 10:30 PM 15,218 Views 32 Comments
https://the42.ie/2404507
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BILL WALSH, THE legendary former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers once said, 'Almost always, your road to victory goes through a place called failure.'
Joe Schmidt's Ireland haven't passed through this place too often since the New Zealander took over in 2013, but their intention of being World Cup trailblazers for this country went up in smoke.
Ireland failed to hit their target in this World Cup. Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO
Now the players, management and the IRFU must leave their egos at the door to get honest answers about what needs to change in order for us to win a World Cup in the future.
If Ireland can react positively to this early exit, it could mark the beginning of the rebuild towards Ireland's success in 2019.
British cycling famously documented how a structured review done well – with results accurately interpreted by skilled people – can direct very positive change.
In 1996, British cycling was ranked 17th in the world and faced insolvency.
Performance director Dave Brailford believed that if it was possible to make 1% improvements in identified areas (e.g. technological developments, athlete psychology), as well as continuing to drive key statistics like athlete power output, the cumulative gains would be hugely significant.
By 2012, British cycling was ranked number one in the world, with 12 Olympic medals and consecutive Tour de France victories in 2012 and 2013.
Rugby cannot be directly compared to cycling, or to any individual sport for that matter, and it's worth stressing that Ireland remain in a good place.
This is not about changing everything, it's not about a complete alteration of their operating philosophy, rather identifying those 1% changes they can make, all of them adding up to a better chance of success in 2019.
Regardless of the base from which the team or organisation begins, the review principles remain the same.
David Nucifora is heading up the IRFU's review. Source: Colm O'Neill/INPHO
What have you learned about your players and the staff? What have you learned about your technical preparation? What have you learned about the organisation you work within?
It's only then that the clearest picture can be painted of which positive elements you should continue to improve upon and what challenges you must focus on to supplement the strengths. Ultimately, the goal is to create an even stronger, more capable version of Ireland.
World Cup reviews are commonplace, but there is an onus on the reviewers – led by IRFU performance director David Nucifora this time – to be extremely thorough.
Reviews are tough environments for everyone involved but teasing out the honest answers is important. Afterwards, interpreting the information accurately is vital, to understand fully what changes need to be made to build a stronger future.
The players and coaches face a couple of long, miserable weeks. They will torture themselves with thoughts involving 'what if', 'if only' and 'could I have done better?'
The media is never kind at a time like this, but there will be no worse critics than the players themselves. They will need to find ways to cope with what's happened and come to terms with losing to Argentina. Silver linings will be far from sight.
The game itself has already been analysed in depth and the review team will now attempt to get the full answers as to what factors played the biggest part in Ireland's underperformance.
I really feel for the players who won't get another chance at the World Cup. I know how Paul O'Connell, Mike Ross and a handful of others feel. Walking away from the 2014 World Cup after we had been well beaten by England in the semi-finals was agony.
There is no way for these players to pump their energies into regrouping for next international season, righting the wrongs, and starting the next World Cup cycle positively.
Schmidt will be working hard to make improvements in the short term. Source: Dan Sheridan/INPHO
Younger players can find it harder to cope with the emotions of what's happened, not having gone through something so intense before.
Ian Madigan's overwhelming emotions were obvious after beating France to top the pool. Being able to manage highs and lows is part of a skillset players have to possess, something they have to learn about. You'd hope that the players will get support to help with this process.
When we lost that semi-final to England in the 2104 World Cup, we went through similar disappointment. These are dark times. There were similarities in the build-up of hope and expectation, followed by a comprehensive defeat. We lost 40-7 that day in Paris.
What helped a lot of us pull through were the simplest of messages from supporters who had been behind us all the way. It might sound a bit corny, but when you are going through this mental anguish, those messages can help.
Irish people reached out to us from all over the world, people who had been following our progress. Friends from childhood, some of whom had taken drastically different paths in life, contacted me out of the blue to share their pride at what we'd done.
Below is one of the messages we received, one that was really important for us.
"With the help of others, you have launched women's rugby into a new stratosphere within Ireland. For that, Irish people will be eternally grateful. Thank you for your commitment and tenacity throughout the years, especially when things got tough.
"Thank you for bringing so much joy to the people of Ireland and for changing their lives and perceptions of women's sport. You all are true ambassadors and role models."
The support Ireland Women received in 2014 was important. Source: Dan Sheridan/INPHO
That kind of message hammers home to you exactly the importance of sport to Irish people. It brings back into focus the need to react positively to the disappointment, to make sure you get better for the next challenge.
Ireland Women responded by regrouping, bringing in new players and a new coach, and winning the 2015 Six Nations. I wasn't involved after retirement and that was hard at times, but I took joy from the reaction. Joe Schmidt's side now face the same task.
The support around this World Cup has been record-breaking. Thousands of young athletes and players have been following Ireland's campaign for the past year, and the hope is they they have been inspired to take up rugby or keep playing.
If the appropriate reviews are done, in a supportive and honest environment, that alone may be the most significant step in preparing these players for success of a different level in the future.
Clifden man O'Halloran captains youthful Connacht while Ospreys welcome RWC stars back
McCafferty insists there were no salary cap breaches in the Premiership
Lynne Cantwell / Ireland's most-capped women's international, played in five World Cups.
@cantwelll
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April 25, 2019Review
Brain structure of perinatally HIV-infected patients on long-term treatment
A systematic review
Malon Van den Hof, Anne Marleen ter Haar, Matthan W.A. Caan, Rene Spijker, Johanna H. van der Lee, Dasja Pajkrt
Malon Van den Hof
Emma Children's Hospital (MVH, AMtH, DP), Amsterdam University Medical Center, location Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Biomedical Engineering and Physics (MWAC), Amsterdam University Medical Center, location Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Medical Library (RS), Amsterdam University Medical Center, location Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Cochrane Netherlands (RS), Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands; and Emma Children's Hospital (JHL), Amsterdam University Medical Centers, location Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Pediatric Clinical Research Office, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Anne Marleen ter Haar
Matthan W.A. Caan
Rene Spijker
Johanna H. van der Lee
Dasja Pajkrt
Objective We aim to give an overview of the available evidence on brain structure and function in PHIV-infected patients (PHIV+) using long-term combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) and how differences change over time.
Methods We conducted an electronic search using MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO. We used the following selection criteria: cohort and cross-sectional studies that reported on brain imaging differences between PHIV+ of all ages who used cART for at least six months before neuroimaging and HIV-negative controls. Two reviewers independently selected studies, performed data extraction, and assessed quality of studies.
Results After screening 1500 abstracts and 343 full-text articles, we identified 19 eligible articles. All included studies had a cross-sectional design and used MRI with different modalities: structural MRI (n = 7), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) (n = 6), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (n = 5), arterial spin labeling (n = 1), and resting-state functional neuroimaging (n = 1). Studies showed considerable methodological limitations and heterogeneity, preventing us to perform meta-analyses. DTI data on white matter microstructure suggested poorer directional diffusion in cART-treated PHIV+ compared with controls. Other modalities were inconclusive.
Conclusion Evidence may suggest brain structure and function differences in the population of PHIV+ on long-term cART compared with the HIV-negative population. Because of a small study population, and considerable heterogeneity and methodological limitations, the extent of brain structure and function differences on neuroimaging between groups remains unknown.
Accepted March 8, 2019.
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Volumetric MRI


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Commercial genome sequencing as 'health screening' launched
Human Longevity, the company founded by Human Genome sequencing pioneer Craig Venter, has announced plans to launch a new commercial genome sequencing service in the UK and South Africa.
Working in partnership with South African insurance company Discovery Ltd, Human Longevity will provide whole genome, whole exome and cancer genome sequencing for Discovery's UK and SA clients via their Vitality Program, 'behavioral wellness solution that helps people get healthier by giving them the tools, knowledge, access and incentives to improve their health'. Insurance providers are increasingly interested in promoting good health behaviours (for example, by providing personal fitness trackers such as the FitBit) – and incentivising them via reduced premiums.
The genome sequencing price tag for clients is set at just US $250, well below cost (even using the ground-breaking high-throughput Illumina HiSeq X-Ten). The two companies will also create new HLI Longevity Nucleus centres in both countries, modelling the one set to open in the US next month, where clients will receive a 'complete biological and health assessment of themselves through genome, microbiome, metabolome sequencing, along with comprehensive MRI body scans and other more traditional clinical testing'.
To screen or not to screen?
Cancer genome sequencing is not really a form of health screening, since it is undertaken in the context of diagnosed cancer and compares tumour with non-tumour sequences; expert analysis of the genes that are overexpressed in the tumour can inform the choice of treatment. Similarly, whole exome or genome analysis in the context of searching for the cause of an existing disease is very different from a prospective approach.
Opinions are divided as to whether any form of 'opportunistic screening' is generally advisable, in part because of the risks of over-diagnosis, or of the psychological harms that might arise from unexpected discoveries. In terms of clinical genome analysis, an open-ended 'fishing trip' approach is even more complex because the current limitations of knowledge about whether individual genetic variants are harmful, benign or neutral in their health impact are very limited. However, the company may intend to apply only a gene panel approach, analysing a complete genome or exome sequence for a set of specific, clinically validated genetic variants linked with specific medical conditions and perhaps storing the full sequence for comparison with any future cancer genome sequences that may be produced.
Similarly, whilst there is considerable interest in the potential clinical applications of metabolomic and microbiomic analyses, the fields are in their infancy, especially microbiomics, and so the capacity for reliable clinical interpretation is limited.
A vision of the future?
Discovery Health CEO Dr Jonathan Broomberg said of the announcement: "We believe that this is a pioneering approach in global health insurance, and will enable us to provide our clients with the world's most advanced, current knowledge on their genetically determined disease risks, as well as on personalized health, wellness and medical treatment strategies".
The increasing (and understandable) interest of insurance companies and employers in both promoting good health and preventing disease has already been noted. Whilst prevention is certainly better than cure – and whilst genomics offers increasing (but still limited) opportunities to improve risk prediction, disease prevention and in some cases treatment too – some concerns over this trend are justifiable. The Genetic Insurance Non-Discrimination Act (GINA) precludes health insurers from barring clients on the basis of genetic test information in the US; in the UK, there is a voluntary moratorium on using most genetic test results from the Association of British Insurers. But setting aside concerns about discrimination, could employers or insurers be profiting from persuading customers into genomic screening?
Personal genomics company 23andMe has similarly priced offerings, although they do not (yet) provide whole genome sequencing; one academic ethicist has said that effectively 'people are paying to be volunteers' in the large-scale research that the company is undertaking; this could represent more of the same. The de-identified genomic data generated by Longevity's new programme will also be used by Human Longevity for ongoing research with global collaborators. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since the outcomes of such research are likely to be new medical insights and innovations – but there are undoubtedly profits to be made too, so appropriate consent processes are more important than ever.
Unsurprisingly, Longevity has no plans to share their data with the US government's publicly-funded Precision Medicine Initiative. Venter has reportedly said: "I think this notion that you can have genome sequences from public databases is extremely naïve…We're worried there will be future lawsuits from people who were guaranteed anonymity who will clearly not have it".


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What Did the Driftless Look Like?
I can't be the only person that has this impossible wish that I could go back to see what the world looked like before our human population boomed and moved into nearly every nook and cranny of the Earth? In graduate school in West Virginia, I borrowed a book by P. Pendelton Kennedy, "The Blackwater Chronicle", about his travels over Backbone Mountain and into "the land of Canaan". Kennedy's words and David Hunter Strother's (Porte Crayon) illustrations brought this presettlement landscape to life. It was amazing to read and see what this landscape that I knew pretty well looked like about 150 years before I had gotten to know it. I have always wanted something similar for Wisconsin and the Driftless but have not really found it (suggestions in the comments, please!).
Source: https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM22786
So what did the Driftless look like before Europeans made there way here? Well, the Driftless is a pretty big place and it depends where you are talking about. And I think that point is generally lost in the conversation. I hear a lot of people say the Driftless used to prairie or savanna and that is true for for part of the Driftless but not all of it. As you will see, yes, much of the area was savanna but there are places within the Driftless that were dominated by closed mesic forests rather than the more open savannas we typically associate with the area. Even those savannas are human influenced - fire kept the oak trees dominant and sparse.
From Shea et al. 2014.
This figure starts to tell part of the story - there are significant elevation changes over small distances. We think of elevation altering the weather and precipitation only in the Western US where the mountains are significant but that is hardly true. The Ocooch Mountains are certainly "vertically challenged" compared to the Rockies and other Western mountains but they still affect the weather. I know I have been camping and watched storms either fail to deliver as they were diverted or get "stuck" in a valley and deliver significant rainfall. The Kickapoo River and some of the watersheds to the East / Southeast are quite different from the surrounding watersheds. In the figure below, remember where LdWI (Kickapoo-Wisconsin River Ravines) is as you will start to see that portion of the Driftless stand out as rather unique. And it seems that some of the watershed divides or larger rivers - particularly for the Kickapoo River watershed - served as a fire break, preserving a maple-basswood-elm forest in much of the Kickapoo watershed and some of the smaller watersheds to the South and East (see LdWI in the map below).
From Knoot et al. 2015.
Ecoregions are based on similarities in vegetation which are mostly due to similarities in climate, geology, and soils. These abiotic similarities lead to similarities in plant communities which is the way most environments are described scientifically. At the coarsest of scales, we are in a temperate forest biome or some similar descriptor that captures that the dominant vegetation are deciduous trees and that our climate is has four seasons. Biomes are largely the result of combination of temperature and precipitation along with their seasonality. Biomes are coarse descriptors, finer resolution tells us that local factors - slope, aspect, soil type and drainage, and other factors - may be responsible for local plant communities. For example, "goat prairies" along the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers occur on steep South-facing slopes with thin soils and wet / sedge prairies existed in a number of places where the groundwater is close to the land surface. The subsection ecoregions in the figure above are at a scale between biomes and the finer resolution plant communities described above.
Finley's pre-settlement vegetation map.
Finley's pre-settlement vegetation is based on original land survey data where early surveyors placed a stake every half mile in a grid and described the trees and other vegetation within view. These early surveyors experienced a much different Wisconsin and Driftless Area. But at the same time, it was not a landscape free of human influence as the native peoples had been in this area for about 10,000 years.
Fire has been important in determining almost all of the plant communities and their location. Before the coming of white man, the prairies and the open woodlands burned almost every year. Thus most of the southern part of the state was covered with prairie or oak savanna, an orchard-like community with a few large bur or white oaks growing in fields of grass. Only in the more protected places did forests survive. Some of these were oak but many were sugar maple-basswood-slippery elm forests. The lowlands were occupied by river bottom forest, and sedge meadow. With settlement, the fires were stopped, and the oak savannas grew up to the dense white oak-black oak forests found today. Most of the prairies have been cultivated, and at present, with the oak savannas, are among the rarest of our plant communities.
G. Cottam and O.L. Loucks, Department of Botany, The University of Wisconsin
As we start looking at a finer resolution, some new patterns begin to emerge. First, the Driftless Area had a diversity of plant communities but for most of it (nearly 70%), savanna was the dominant vegetative structure. Savannas have moderate to low density tree canopies with well developed understory dominated by prairie grasses. True prairies - those areas without trees - were much less common. Closed forest, which most of today's Driftless Area forest would be described as, were generally quite localized. Savannas were maintained by fire and in the absence of fire (damn, you Smokey the Bear!), these savannas evolved into the closed forests we see today.
Similar to Finley, Shea et al. 2014 used 19th Century Public Land Survey System (PLSS) data to reconstruct vegetation and a finer resolution. Most evident from the figure above is the heterogeneity across the Driftless Area. Prairies made up about 5.9% of the land area. White oak (22.6%), bur oak (16.3%), and the combination of the two oak species (14.3%) were dominant over half of the Driftless Area.
Combining panel b with panel a above tells a more full story. Savannas, which Shea et al. (2014) defined as tree densities from 0.5 to 47 trees per hectare (less than 20 trees per acre), dominate the landscape. Within this savanna-dominated land, two large patches of closed forest are evident along with a smattering of smaller prairie patches. Open woodlands (47 to 99 trees per hectare) were present mostly along the edges of the closed forests and in the larger river drainages, the Mississippi River, in particular. The Kickapoo River is the largest river fully contained within the Driftless Area and the watershed sticks out as quite unique. Closed forest of sugar maple (Acer saccharum), American basswood (Tilia americana), American (Ulmus americana) and slippery (U. rubra) elm, and a few other species along with the oaks dominated the slopes of the Kickapoo and a few other Driftless watersheds.
At this scale, a number of relationships are evident. First, where you find bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), you do not find sugar maple, elm, and basswood. Bur oak are one of the most drought and fire tolerant of trees in the Midwest and maples, elm, and basswood require significantly more soil moisture. Second, the Mississippi River valley is evident by the lack of oaks and the presence of sugar maple, elm, birch, black willow, and black and white ash species. This diversity of dominant species is likely because of tree species responses to small changes in elevation that occur over relatively short distances. A foot or even less of elevation change within floodplains can have pretty drastic effects on the suitability of that location for different riparian tree species. These riparian species are much less evident outside of the Mississippi River valley. While it is not to say that they did not commonly occur along smaller Driftless streams, I would have expected them to be common as witness trees. Witness trees were used as the first surveyors' benchmarks. These trees were often the largest trees or trees in sparsely forested areas where individual trees would be more visible over longer distances, a key character for a witness tree. A post about Driftless riparian areas will be forthcoming.
Changes to the Driftless Landscape
The Driftless is now dominated by agriculture instead of savannas - which were fairly easily converted to today's farm fields. Thankfully a few of the magnificent bur oaks - like That Tree - have been saved and provide us with a more interesting landscape. By far the most drastic change to the Driftless flora are the decline of white oak (Quercus alba) and the expansion of softwoods (boxelder, butternut, elms, and black cherry) that were once rare and "other" which is often represented by non-native species. We have more closed forests today, particularly on the hillslopes of the Driftless. Fewer steep slopes, compared to valley bottoms and plateaus, have generally been cleared of their open forests and savannas and converted to agricultural lands. Though many slopes were grazed which also contributed to the sediments that altered Driftless valleys.
Quickly, a few trends here in addition to the decline of the white oak, the expansion of "other" and "other Eastern soft hardwoods" are an increase in cottonwoods (Populus deltoides), hickory, ash, and maple and basswood. The next two figures illustrate these changes and even show some pretty significant changes from the 1990's to the 2000's. There are likely a number of explanations around land use, historic forest clearing and regeneration, and other factors but the increase in precipitation, even over just the last few decades, is likely a significant contributor to the decline in oaks and the increases in other trees.
Two regions - the Menominee Eroded Pre-Wisconsin Till (LaWI) and the Kickapoo-Wisconsin River Ravines (LdWI) that once stood out as unique are much less different than they once were. Menominee Eroded Pre-Wisconsin Till in the northern Driftless refers to the fact that it is "less drift-less" than much of the rest of the Driftless and was covered, in part, by glaciations that occurred prior to the Wisconsin Glaciation, our most recent glacial episode. Scientists have often written about the homogenization of fauna and flora as humans change our world and move species outside of their native ranges. We are certainly seeing this homogenization of vegetation in the Driftless Area, most likely due to a number of human impacts (forest clearing, timber harvesting, climate change, and introduced species).
It is getting to be time to wrap it up even though I feel there is so much more to write. The Driftless is more than just the vegetation but that is certainly the most logical place to begin the story of what the Driftless once looked like. How to sum up what the Driftless once looked like? Well, it does not look like it does now. Closed forests are more prevalent today and prairies and particularly savannas are much less common. Historically, it was largely a landscape dominated by savanna but mostly due the native people's use of fire and likely a drier climate. However, pockets and ribbons of mesic and floodplain forests existed as did a number of unique plant communities (i.e. aspen, pin oak, jack pine, tamarack), particularly along the margins of the Driftless. The oak and maple-basswood trees that were once most common have given way to other species. I began this by stating that the Driftless was not a homogeneous landscape but it is becoming more so today - much like the rest of our world.
Links to Other Sources of Information
Agate Magazine - Going Driftless
Agate Magazine - The Drifless: The Land and Humans
TU-DARE - Driftless Science Review
Minnesota Natural Resource Atlas - Vegetation - Pre-Settlement
Belby, C.S., L.J. Spigel, and F.A. Fitzpatrick. 2019. Historic changes to floodplain systems in the Driftless Area, Pages 119-146 in Carson, E.C., J.E. Rawling III, J.M. Daniels, and J.W. Attig, editors, The Physical Geography and Geology of the Driftless Area: the career and contributions of James C. Knox. Geological Society of America Special Paper 543. The Geological Society of America. https://doi.org/10.1130/2019.2543(07).
Knoot, T.G., M.E. Shea, L.A. Schulte, J.C. Tyndall, M.D. Nelson, C.H. Perry, and B.J. Palik. 2015. Forest change in the Driftless Area of the Midwest: from a preferred to underdesirable future. Forest Ecology and Management 341: 110-120.
Shea, M.E., L.A. Schulte, and B.J. Palik. 2014. Reconstructing vegetation past: pre-Euro-American vegetation for the Midwest Driftless Area, USA. Ecological Restoration 32: 417-433.
Pre-settlement Vegetation
Pre-European Wisconsin
driftless area
The Re-Birth of the Driftless
A post on the history and flies of the Wolf River got me to thinking about the Driftless. As you see, the area and the trout fishing we...
World Class Fisheries - The Driftless Area
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