André-Louis Debierne (July 14, 1874, Paris - August 31, 1949, Paris) was a French chemist and the discoverer of the element actinium (1899).
Debierne, a student of Charles Friedel, was a close friend of Pierre and Marie Curie and was associated with their work. In 1899, he discovered the radioactive element actinium, as a result of continuing the work with pitchblende that the Curies had initiated.
After the death of Pierre Curie in 1906, Debierne helped Marie Curie carry on and worked with her in teaching and research.
In 1910, he and Marie Curie prepared radium in metallic form in visible amounts. They did not keep it metallic, however. Having demonstrated the metal's existence as a matter of scientific curiosity, they reconverted it into compounds with which they might continue their researches. Debierne and Marie curie isolated radium into a pure metal.

An explanation is a statement which points to causes, context, and consequences of some object, process, state of affairs, etc., together with rules or laws that link these to the object. Some of these elements of the explanation may be implicit.
Explanations can only be given by those with understanding of the object which is explained.
In scientific research, explanation is one of three purposes of research (the other two being exploration and description). Explanation is the discovery and reporting of relationships among different aspects of studied phenomena.
Some different types of explanations:

Deductive-nomological
Functional
Historical
Psychological
Reductive
Teleological
Methodological

The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806), headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, was the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back.

Earlier European exploration to the Pacific coast
In 1804, the Louisiana Purchase sparked interest in expansion to the west coast. A few weeks after the purchase, President Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of western expansion, had the Congress appropriate $2,500 for an expedition. In a message to Congress, Jefferson wrote

Louisiana Purchase and a western expedition
See also: Timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
"Left Pittsburgh this day at 11 o'clock with a party of 11 hands 7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial they having proposed to go with me throughout the voyage." they bought from the Native Americans, plus one that they stole in "retaliation" for a previous theft. Less than a month after leaving Fort Clatsop, they abandoned their canoes because portaging around all the falls proved terribly difficult.
On July 3, after crossing the Continental Divide, the Corps split into two teams so Lewis could explore the Marias River. Lewis' group of four met some Blackfeet Indians. Their meeting was cordial, but during the night, the Blackfeet tried to steal their weapons. In the struggle, two Indians were killed, the only native deaths attributable to the expedition. The group of four: Lewis, Drouillard, and the Field brothers, fled over 100 miles (160 km) in a day before they camped again. Clark, meanwhile, had entered Crow territory. The Crow tribe were known as horse thieves. At night, half of Clark's horses were gone, but not a single Crow was seen. Lewis and Clark stayed separated until they reached the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers on August 11. Clark's team had floated down the rivers in bull boats. While reuniting, one of Clark's hunters, Pierre Cruzatte, blind in one eye and nearsighted in the other, mistook Lewis for an elk and fired, injuring Lewis in the thigh. From there, the groups were reunited and able to quickly return home by the Missouri River. They reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806.
The Corps of Discovery returned with important information about the new United States territory and the people who lived in it, as well as its rivers and mountains, plants and animals. The expedition made a major contribution to mapping the North American continent.

Journey
On December 9,

Reaction of the Spanish

The U.S. gained an extensive knowledge of the geography of the American West in the form of maps of major rivers and mountain ranges
Observed and described 178 plants and 122 species and subspecies of animals (see List of species described by the Lewis and Clark Expedition)
Encouraged Euro-American fur trade in the West
Opened Euro-American diplomatic relations with the Indians
Established a precedent for Army exploration of the West
Strengthened the U.S. claim to Oregon Territory
Focused U.S. and media attention on the West
Produced a large body of literature about the West (the Lewis and Clark diaries) Achievements

• "Seaman", Lewis' black Newfoundland dog.

Captain Meriwether Lewis — private secretary to President Thomas Jefferson and leader of the Expedition.
Lieutenant William Clark — shared command of the Expedition, although technically second in command.
York — Clark's enslaved black manservant.
Sergeant Charles Floyd — the Expedition's quartermaster; died early in the trip. He was the one person who died during the Expedition.
Sergeant Patrick Gass — chief carpenter, promoted to Sergeant after Floyd's death.
Sergeant John Ordway — responsible for issuing provisions, appointing guard duties, and keeping records for the Expedition.
Sergeant Nathaniel Hale Pryor — leader of the 1st Squad; he presided over the court martial of privates John Collins and Hugh Hall.
Corporal Richard Warfington — conducted the return party to St. Louis in 1805.
Private John Boley — disciplined at Camp Dubois and was assigned to the return party.
Private William E. Bratton — served as hunter and blacksmith.
Private John Collins — had frequent disciplinary problems; he was court-martialed for stealing whiskey which he had been assigned to guard.
Private John Colter — charged with mutiny early in the trip, he later proved useful as a hunter; he earned his fame after the journey.
Private Pierre Cruzatte — a one-eyed French fiddle-player and a skilled boatman.
Private John Dame
Private Joseph Field — a woodsman and skilled hunter, brother of Reubin.
Private Reubin Field — a woodsman and skilled hunter, brother of Joseph.
Private Robert Frazer — kept a journal that was never published.
Private George Gibson — a fiddle-player and a good hunter; he served as an interpreter (probably via sign language).
Private Silas Goodrich — the main fisherman of the expedition.
Private Hugh Hall — court-martialed with John Collins for stealing whiskey.
Private Thomas Proctor Howard — court-martialed for setting a "pernicious example" to the Indians by showing them that the wall at Fort Mandan was easily scaled.
Private François Labiche — French fur trader who served as an interpreter and boatman.
Private Hugh McNeal — the first white explorer to stand astride the headwaters of the Missouri River on the Continental Divide.
Private John Newman — court-martialed and confined for "having uttered repeated expressions of a highly criminal and mutinous nature."
Private John Potts — German immigrant and a miller.
Private Moses B. Reed — attempted to desert in August 1804; convicted of desertion and expelled from the party.
Private John Robertson — member of the Corps for a very short time.
Private George Shannon — was lost twice during the expedition, once for sixteen days. Youngest member of expedition at 19.
Private John Shields — blacksmith, gunsmith, and a skilled carpenter; with John Colter, he was court-martialed for mutiny.
Private John B. Thompson — may have had some experience as a surveyor.
Private Howard Tunn — hunter and navigator.
Private Ebenezer Tuttle — may have been the man sent back on June 12, 1804; otherwise, he was with the return party from Fort Mandan in 1805.
Private Peter M. Weiser — had some minor disciplinary problems at River Dubois; he was made a permanent member of the party.
Private William Werner — convicted of being absent without leave at St. Charles, Missouri, at the start of the expedition.
Private Isaac White — may have been the man sent back on June 12, 1804; otherwise, he was with the return party from Fort Mandan in 1805.
Private Joseph Whitehouse — often acted as a tailor for the other men; he kept a journal which extended the Expedition narrative by almost five months.
Private Alexander Hamilton Willard — blacksmith; assisted John Shields. He was convicted on July 12, 1804, of sleeping while on sentry duty and given one hundred lashes.
Private Richard Windsor — often assigned duty as a hunter.
Interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau — Sacagawea's husband; served as a translator and often as a cook.
Interpreter Sacagawea — Charbonneau's wife; translated Shoshone to Hidatsa for Charbonneau and was a valued member of the expedition.
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau — Charbonneau and Sacagawea's son, born February 11, 1805; his presence helped dispel any notion that the expedition was a war party, smoothing the way in Indian lands.
Interpreter George Drouillard — skilled with Indian sign language; the best hunter on the expedition.
"Seaman", Lewis' black Newfoundland dog. In popular culture

Timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
History of the United States
USS Lewis and Clark and USNS Lewis and Clark
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Further reading

Lewis and Clark Among the Indians, James P. Ronda, 1984 - ISBN 0-8032-3870-3
Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose, 1997 - ISBN 0-684-82697-6
National Geographic Guide to the Lewis & Clark Trail, Thomas Schmidt, 2002 - ISBN 0-7922-6471-1
The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged), edited by Gary E. Moulton, 2003 - ISBN 0-8032-2950-X
The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 13-Volume Set, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 2002 - ISBN 0-8032-2948-8
The complete text of the Lewis and Clark Journals online, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (in progress)
In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific With Lewis and Clark, Robert B. Betts, 2002 - ISBN 0-87081-714-0
Online text of the Expedition's Journal at Project Gutenberg
Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, Ken Burns, 1997 - ISBN 0-679-45450-0
Lewis and Clark: across the divide, Carolyn Gilman, 2003. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. ISBN 1588340996

United Synagogue is an organisation of London Jews that was founded with the sanction of an act of parliament, in 1870. As of 2007, it remains the largest religious grouping within the British Jewish community, covering 62 Orthodox Jewish communities, and takes its religious authority from the Chief Rabbi of Britain.
The United Synagogue's values stem from the principles of both Torah and Halacha.

History
From 1866, Nathan Marcus Adler was instrumental in bringing together the United Synagogue, a union of the three City of London synagogues — the Great Synagogue, the New Synagogue, and the Hambro Synagogue — and their branch synagogues at Great Portland Street and Bayswater.
Its direct work has always been confined to the metropolis, but it has exercised, indirectly, considerable influence over the Jews of the British Empire and British Commonwealth. It is governed by an elected council representing the constituent congregations. In religious and ritual matters it is under the jurisdiction of the Chief Rabbi. The president of the United Synagogue in 1910 was Lord Rothschild.
The United Synagogue directs and supports educational and charitable work. The title chief rabbi is not found in the pre-expulsion records, though, before the Jews were banished in 1290, there was an official named presbyter omnium Judaeorum Angliae. The functions of this official cannot be proved to have been ecclesiastical. The title Chief Rabbi became well known through the eminence of occupants of the position such as Adler's immediate predecessor Solomon Hirschell (1762-1842).

Finance Financial markets Financial market participants Corporate finance Personal finance Public finance Banks and Banking Financial regulation Types of Bank Central bank Advising bank Commercial bank Community development bank Custodian bank Depository bank Investment bank Islamic banking Merchant bank Mutual bank Mutual savings bank National bank Offshore bank Private bank Savings bank Swiss bank Banking terms Anonymous banking Automatic teller machine Deposit Deposit creation multiplier Loan List of banks List of banks in Canada List of banks in Hong Kong List of banks in Singapore The term national bank has several meanings:
In the past, the term "national bank" has been used synonymously with "central bank", but it is no longer used in this sense today. Some central banks may have the words "National Bank" in their name; retrospectively if a bank is named in this way, it is not automatically considered a central bank. Example: National-Bank AG in Essen, Germany is a privately owned commercial bank, just like National Bank of Canada of Montreal, Canada. On the other side, National Bank of Ethiopia is the central bank of Ethiopia and National Bank of Cambodia is the central bank of Cambodia

especially in developing countries, a bank owned by the state
an ordinary private bank which operates nationally (as opposed to regionally or locally or even internationally) Colombia
National Bank for Rural and Agricultural Development (NABARD) - http://www.nabard.org
NABARD was established on 12th July 1982 to implement the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Act 1981. It replaced the Agricultural Credit Department (ACD) and Rural Planning and Credit Cell (RPCC) of Reserve Bank of India, and Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation (ARDC).
NABARD: (i) serves as an apex financing agency for the institutions providing investment and production credit for promoting the various developmental activities in rural areas; (ii) takes measures towards institution building for improving absorptive capacity of the credit delivery system, including monitoring, formulation of rehabilitation schemes, restructuring of credit institutions, training of personnel, etc. ; (iii) co-ordinates the rural financing activities of all institutions engaged in developmental work at the field level and maintains liaison with Government of India, State Governments, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and other national level institutions concerned with policy formulation; and (iv) undertakes monitoring and evaluation of projects refinanced by it.
NABARD's refinance is available to State Co-operative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks (SCARDBs), State Co-operative Banks (SCBs), Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), Commercial Banks (CBs) and other financial institutions approved by RBI. While the ultimate beneficiaries of investment credit can be individuals, partnership concerns, companies, State-owned corporations or co-operative societies, production credit is generally given to individuals.
NABARD operates throughout the country through its 28 Regional Offices and one Sub-office, located in the capitals of all the states/union territories.It has 336 District Offices across the country, one Sub-office at Port Blair and one special Cell at Srinagar. It also has 6 training establishments.

India

New Zealand
New Zealand currently has one state-owned bank, Kiwibank created by Labour-Alliance coalition government.
The New Zealand government formerly owned two other banks in New Zealand: The Bank of New Zealand, from 1945 to 1992 when it was privatized by Bolger's National government, and the Post Office Savings Bank from when it was created by separating New Zealand Post's functions to when it was privatized and sold to ANZ New Zealand in 1989. ANZ became known as ANZ-PostBank before later becoming completely assimilated.

State-owned banks
The National Bank of New Zealand is a private bank corporation which has been purchased by ANZ 2003 from its former owner, Lloyds TSB.

National Bank of New Zealand
National Bank of Pakistan is a major bank in Pakistan.

Serbia
In the United States, the term "national bank" originally referred to the revolutionary era Bank of North America, its successor First Bank of the United States, or its successor the Second Bank of the United States. All are now defunct.
In the modern U.S. the term "national bank" has a precise meaning: a banking institution chartered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC"), an agency in the U.S. Treasury Department, pursuant to the National Bank Act. The inclusion of the word "National" in the bank's name or the designation "National Association" or its abbreviation "N.A." is a required part of the distinguishing legal title of a national bank, as in "Bank of America, N.A." Many "state banks," by contrast, are chartered by the applicable State Government (usually the State's Department of Banking), although the banks are still typically regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), who insures their deposits.
Notwithstanding the name, not all "national banks" have nationwide operations. Some "national banks" have operations in only one state. Further, some state-chartered banks have nationwide operations, but are not properly called "national banks." "National banks" should also be distinguished from federal savings associations (which include federal savings & loans and federal savings banks), which are financial institutions chartered by the Office of Thrift Supervision, another agency in the U.S. Treasury Department.