Cathedral (album)

Cathedral is an album by Castanets, released on October 19, 2004 through Asthmatic Kitty. Part of the album was recorded live and includes a dozen local musicians. Led by Raymond Raposa, this is the band's first foray into studio recording, which he described as 'a really protracted, uncomfortable process'. The release features guest-vocals by Brigit DeCook and Liz Janes. The material was partly recorded in a remote cabin in Northern California. Raposa had planned to publish a novel to accompany the album, which failed to surface.

Critical acclaim

Amanda Petrusich of Pitchfork.com compared Raposa's writing on Cathedral to that of the poet Seamus Heaney. She described the album as a collection of 'deep gothic ballads' of 'country music [that] should sound like death, and more specifically, death-by-murky-submersion'. Heather Phares of allmusic.com referred to the religious overtones of the album, describing it as 'spiritual searching' and as having 'a certain dark theatricality'. Justin Cober-Lake at popmatters.com described Cathedral as having 'lo-fi production [which] helps develop the darkness of Castanets’ music. [It] sounds as if it was recorded in the desert at night, which suits the pre-technology fears of the album'. Jon Pit from Dusted Magazine called it 'another welcome installment in the folk renaissance' although he described Raposa's vocals as 'lacklustre'.

Cathedral (board game)

Cathedral is a two-player abstract strategy board game in which two factions ("dark" and "light") vie for territorial supremacy within the bounds of a medieval city. The game is produced by Chrisbo I.P. Holdings Limited in New Zealand.

History

Cathedral was invented between 1962 and 1979 by Robert Moore (16 August 1942 – 19 June 1998), a pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Inspiration for the game was provided by Christchurch Cathedral and its environs in Christchurch, New Zealand. From the air, Moore was fascinated by the way the cathedral and neighbouring buildings intricately fitted together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He conceived of a game involving players trying to build interlocking buildings around a cathedral.

In 1979 Moore presented a prototype version of his game to Brightway Products, a New Zealand wooden toy and game company. Two versions of the game were originally created: a "formal piece" using three-dimensional wooden models of mediaeval buildings and towers; and an "abstract piece" consisting of two-dimensional squares. The formal piece proved more popular and is the only version produced today; in Standard, Tournalux (larger), and Grandelux (larger and higher quality) versions. The game was also recreated from as early as 1985 (from Mattel) in a more consumer accepted version in plastic moulded version with very highly detailed parts as well as a grided locking system added to the board.

Naples Cathedral

Naples Cathedral (Italian: Duomo di Napoli, Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta or Cattedrale di San Gennaro) is a Roman Catholic cathedral, the main church of Naples, southern Italy, and the seat of the Archbishop of Naples. It is widely known as the Cattedrale di San Gennaro, in honour of Saint Januarius, the city's patron saint.

History

The present cathedral was commissioned by King Charles I of Anjou. Construction continued during the reign of his successor, Charles II (1285-1309) and was completed in the early 14th century under Robert of Anjou. It was built on the foundations of two palaeo-Christian basilicas, whose traces can still be clearly seen. Underneath the building excavations have revealed Greek and Roman artifacts.

The Archbishop's Palace adjoins the cathedral.

Interior and artworks

The main attraction of the interior is the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, with frescoes by Domenichino and Giovanni Lanfranco, altarpieces by Domenichino, Massimo Stanzione and Jusepe Ribera, the rich high altar by Francesco Solimena, the bronze railing by Cosimo Fanzago and other artworks, including a reliquary by 14th-century French masters.

Operation Sigma Sigma

The Sigma is an experimental glider developed in Britain from 1966 by a team led by Nicholas Goodhart. After disappointing performance during flight testing the Sigma was passed on to a Canadian group which carried out modifications, making the Sigma more competitive.

Design and development

Designed to compete in the 1970 World Championships, the team aimed to develop a wing that would climb well through a high lift coefficient and a large wing area, but equally had the "maximum possible reduction of area for cruise at low lift coefficients". At the same time for the minimum possible drag they aimed for "extensive" laminar flow. To achieve this they employed flaps that would alter both wing area and wing camber. Based on analysis of the nature of thermals encountered in cross-country flying, they reasoned that by having a slow turning circle, their sailplane could stay close to the central (and strongest) part of the thermal and gain maximum benefit.

Its unusual feature is its ability to vary its wing area using Fowler flaps. It had been tried before by the Hannover Akaflieg in 1938 with their AFH-4, the South African Beatty-Johl BJ-2 Assegai and the SZD Zefir gliders.

Sigma (cosmology)

Sigma in cosmology was a property of galaxies used when trying to work out the mystery of galaxies and their supermassive black holes.

History

In the late 1990s the NUKER experts had made observations with a spectroscope of two galaxies, one of an active galaxy with an active galactic nucleus called NGC10-68 and a dormant galaxy next door to us named Andromeda.

The observations are shown. The light from the centre in Andromeda galaxy was distorted proving the existence of super-massive black holes.

Other observations proved most galaxies had a similar centre whether it be active or dormant.

They then realised that the black holes must have something to do with a galaxy's formation, so they turned to something they thought was useless: the speed of the stars around the edge of the galaxy. This was Sigma, the speed of the stars at the edge of the galaxy supposedly unaffected by the mass of the black hole at the centre.

Usage In Cosmology

The NUKER team calculated the sigma of several stars in different galaxies and the mass of the black hole at the (nucleus) centre. They expected no correlation what so ever. But when plotting their results on a Scatter diagram and drawing a line of best fit they ended up with a positive correlation. It appeared that the heavier the black hole at the centre was the faster the stars within the galaxy travelled.

Bone remodeling period

In bone physiology, the bone remodeling period describes the temporal duration (i.e. lifespan) of the basic multicellular unit (BMU) that is responsible for bone turnover. Historically, this was referred to as the sigma (σ) or sigma period, but the terminology is now outdated.

Bone remodeling

Although bone may appear superficially as a static tissue, it is actually very dynamic, undergoing constant remodeling throughout the life of the vertebrate organism. This occurs with the synchronized action of osteoclasts and osteoblasts, cells that resorb and deposit bone, respectively.

The remodeling period

The remodeling period consists of the combined duration of the resorption, the osteoclastic reversal (the phase marked by shifting of resorption processes into formative processes) and the formation periods of bone growth and development. This period refers to the average total duration of a single cycle of bone remodeling at any point on a bone surface.

For the remodeling to occur, appropriate cell signaling occurs to trigger osteoclasts to resorb the surface of the bone, followed by deposition of bone by osteoblasts. Together, the cells in any given particular region of the bone surface that are responsible for bone remodeling are known as the basic multicellular unit (BMU), and it is the average lifespan of the BMU that is referred to as the remodeling period. The size of a BMU is roughly 200μm in diameter, defined by the 100μm diffusion capability in bone.