MV Erika

Erika was the name of a tanker built in 1975 and last chartered by Total-Fina-Elf. It sank off the coast of France in 1999, causing a major environmental disaster.

Background

Erika was one of eight sister ships built in Japan. Despite having 10% less steel than many other tankers of similar size, Erika was very popular amongst shipping companies because of its relative inexpensiveness.

Sinking

On December 8, 1999, she sailed out of Dunkerque, bound for Livorno and with a heavy cargo of around 31,000 tons of fuel oil.

As she entered the Bay of Biscay, the Erika ran into a heavy storm. On December 12, 1999, she broke in two and sank, releasing thousands of tons of oil into the sea, killing marine life and polluting shores around Brittany, France.

According to the official inquiry by the Dunkerque Tribunal, the Principal Shareholder of Tevere Shipping is Giuseppe Savarese, owner of the Erika since 1996. Savarese lives in London and was personally responsible for finance, administration, legal, commercial, hull and machinery insurance and P&I insurance matters.

Erika (given name)

The given name Erika, or Erica, is a feminine form of Eric, deriving from the Old Norse name Eiríkr (or Eríkr in Eastern Scandinavia due to monophthongization). The first element, ei- is derived either from the older Proto-NorseZ*aina(z) meaning "one" or "some", or from Proto-Norse *aiwa(z) meaning "fair" or "tradition". The second element -ríkr derives either from *rík(a)z meaning "ruler" or "prince" (cf. Gothic reiks), or from an even older Proto-Germanic *ríkiaz which meant "powerful" and "rich". The name is thus usually taken to mean something along the lines of "one ruler", "autocrat", "eternal ruler" or "ever powerful".

It is a common name in many Western societies. It is also a popular given name in Japan. Erica is also the name of a genus of approximately 860 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, commonly known as "heaths" or "heathers" in English.

People

Underworld (film series)

Underworld is a series of action horror films directed by Len Wiseman, Patrick Tatopoulos, Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein. The first film, Underworld, was released in 2003. It tells the story of Selene (Kate Beckinsale), a vampire who works as a Death Dealer, killing the Lycans (Werewolves) who allegedly slaughtered her family. The second film, Underworld: Evolution, was released in 2006. In this film, Selene takes Michael Corvin, a human bitten first by Lucian, the leader of the Lycan horde and later by Selene, thus becoming a Lycan/Vampire hybrid, to a vampire safehouse and plans to return to Viktor's estate to awaken Markus, the last Vampire Elder. The third film, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, is the prequel to the series, chronicling the origins of the vampire-lycan war (it was released on January 23, 2009). The fourth film, Underworld: Awakening, the sequel to Underworld: Evolution, was released on January 20, 2012. In this film, humans have discovered the existence of the Vampire and Lycan clans, and are trying to eradicate both species. A fifth film titled Underworld: Next Generation is in production and is set to be released 2016.

Reflection

Reflection or reflexion may refer to:

Mathematics

Computers

Science

Philosophy

Art

Music

Reflection (Demis Roussos album)

Reflection is an album released in 1984 by Demis Roussos.

After having collaborated several times since the days of Aphrodite's Child, Reflection was the last album on which Roussos and Vangelis collaborated. Another member from that band, guitarist Argyris 'Silver' Koulouris, also appears on this album. Vangelis’ habitual collaborators, jazz saxophonist Dick Morrissey, and vocalists Carol Kenyon and Tessa Niles also appear.

Track listing

Personnel

Reflection (computer programming)

In computer science, reflection is the ability of a computer program to examine (see type introspection) and modify its own structure and behavior (specifically the values, meta-data, properties and functions) at runtime.

Historical background

The earliest computers were programmed in their native assembly language, which were inherently reflective as these original architectures could be programmed by defining instructions as data and using self-modifying code. As programming moved to higher-level languages such as C, this reflective ability disappeared (outside of malware) until programming languages with reflection built into their type systems appeared.

Brian Cantwell Smith's 1982 doctoral dissertation introduced the notion of computational reflection in programming languages, and the notion of the meta-circular interpreter as a component of 3-Lisp.

Uses

Reflection can be used for observing and modifying program execution at runtime. A reflection-oriented program component can monitor the execution of an enclosure of code and can modify itself according to a desired goal related to that enclosure. This is typically accomplished by dynamically assigning program code at runtime.