title: Continental drift

text: Hans Stille and Leopold Kober opposed the idea of continental drift and worked on a "fixist" geosyncline model with Earth contraction playing a key role in the formation of orogens. Other geologists who opposed continental drift were Bailey Willis, Charles Schuchert, Rollin Chamberlin, Walther Bucher and Walther Penck. In 1939 an international geological conference was held in Frankfurt. This conference came to be dominated by the fixists, especially as those geologists specializing in tectonics were all fixists except Willem van der Gracht. Criticism of continental drift and mobilism was abundant at the conference not only from tectonicists but also from sedimentological (Nölke), paleontological (Nölke), mechanical (Lehmann) and oceanographic (Troll, Wüst) perspectives. Hans Cloos, the organizer of the conference, was also a fixist who together with Troll held the view that excepting the Pacific Ocean continents were not radically different from oceans in their behaviour. The mobilist theory of Émile Argand for the Alpine orogeny was criticized by Kurt Leuchs. The few drifters and mobilists at the conference appealed to biogeography (Kirsch, Wittmann), paleoclimatology (Wegener, K), paleontology (Gerth) and geodetic measurements (Wegener, K). F. Bernauer correctly equated Reykjanes in south-west Iceland with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, arguing with this that the floor of the Atlantic Ocean was undergoing extension just like Reykjanes. Bernauer thought this extension had drifted the continents only 100–200 km apart, the approximate width of the volcanic zone in Iceland.


title: Continental drift

text: David Attenborough, who attended university in the second half of the 1940s, recounted an incident illustrating its lack of acceptance then: "I once asked one of my lecturers why he was not talking to us about continental drift and I was told, sneeringly, that if I could prove there was a force that could move continents, then he might think about it. The idea was moonshine, I was informed."


title: Continental drift

text: As late as 1953—just five years before Carey introduced the theory of plate tectonics—the theory of continental drift was rejected by the physicist Scheidegger on the following grounds.


title: Continental drift

text: From the 1930s to the late 1950s, works by Vening-Meinesz, Holmes, Umbgrove, and numerous others outlined concepts that were close or nearly identical to modern plate tectonics theory. In particular, the English geologist Arthur Holmes proposed in 1920 that plate junctions might lie beneath the sea, and in 1928 that convection currents within the mantle might be the driving force. Holmes' views were particularly influential: in his bestselling textbook, "Principles of Physical Geology," he included a chapter on continental drift, proposing that Earth's mantle contained convection cells which dissipated radioactive heat and moved the crust at the surface.  Holmes' proposal resolved the phase disequilibrium objection (the underlying fluid was kept from solidifying by radioactive heating from the core). However, scientific communication in the '30 and '40s was inhibited by World War II, and the theory still required work to avoid foundering on the orogeny and isostasy objections. Worse, the most viable forms of the theory predicted the existence of convection cell boundaries reaching deep into the earth, that had yet to be observed.


title: Continental drift

text: In 1947, a team of scientists led by Maurice Ewing confirmed the existence of a rise in the central Atlantic Ocean, and found that the floor of the seabed beneath the sediments was chemically and physically different from continental crust.  As oceanographers continued to bathymeter the ocean basins, a system of mid-oceanic ridges was detected.  An important conclusion was that along this system, new ocean floor was being created, which led to the concept of the "Great Global Rift".


title: Continental drift

text: Meanwhile, scientists began recognizing odd magnetic variations across the ocean floor using devices developed during World War II to detect submarines.  Over the next decade, it became increasingly clear that the magnetization patterns were not anomalies, as had been originally supposed. In a series of papers in 1959–1963, Heezen, Dietz, Hess, Mason, Vine, Matthews, and Morley collectively realized that the magnetization of the ocean floor formed extensive, zebra-like patterns: one stripe would exhibit normal polarity and the adjoining stripes reversed polarity.  The best explanation was the "conveyor belt" or Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis.  New magma from deep within the Earth rises easily through these weak zones and eventually erupts along the crest of the ridges to create new oceanic crust.  The new crust is magnetized by the earth's magnetic field, which undergoes occasional reversals.  Formation of new crust then displaces the magnetized crust apart, akin to a conveyor belt – hence the name.


title: Continental drift

text: Without workable alternatives to explain the stripes, geophysicists were forced to conclude that Holmes had been right: ocean rifts were sites of perpetual orogeny at the boundaries of convection cells. By 1967, barely two decades after discovery of the mid-oceanic rifts, and a decade after discovery of the striping, plate tectonics had become axiomatic to modern geophysics.


title: Continental drift

text: In addition, Marie Tharp, in collaboration with Bruce Heezen, who was initially sceptical of Tharp's observations that her maps confirmed continental drift theory, provided essential corroboration, using her skills in cartography and seismographic data, to confirm the theory.


title: Continental drift

text: Geophysicist Jack Oliver is credited with providing seismologic evidence supporting plate tectonics which encompassed and superseded continental drift with the article "Seismology and the New Global Tectonics", published in 1968, using data collected from seismologic stations, including those he set up in the South Pacific. The modern theory of plate tectonics, refining Wegener, explains that there are two kinds of crust of different composition: continental crust and oceanic crust, both floating above a much deeper "plastic" mantle. Continental crust is inherently lighter. Oceanic crust is created at spreading centers, and this, along with subduction, drives the system of plates in a chaotic manner, resulting in continuous orogeny and areas of isostatic imbalance.


title: Continental drift

text: Evidence for the movement of continents on tectonic plates is now extensive. Similar plant and animal fossils are found around the shores of different continents, suggesting that they were once joined. The fossils of "Mesosaurus", a freshwater reptile rather like a small crocodile, found both in Brazil and South Africa, are one example; another is the discovery of fossils of the land reptile "Lystrosaurus" in rocks of the same age at locations in Africa, India, and Antarctica. There is also living evidence, with the same animals being found on two continents. Some earthworm families (such as Ocnerodrilidae, Acanthodrilidae, Octochaetidae) are found in South America and Africa.


title: Continental drift

text: The complementary arrangement of the facing sides of South America and Africa is obvious but a temporary coincidence. In millions of years, slab pull, ridge-push, and other forces of tectonophysics will further separate and rotate those two continents. It was that temporary feature that inspired Wegener to study what he defined as continental drift although he did not live to see his hypothesis generally accepted.


title: Continental drift

text: The widespread distribution of Permo-Carboniferous glacial sediments in South America, Africa, Madagascar, Arabia, India, Antarctica and Australia was one of the major pieces of evidence for the theory of continental drift. The continuity of glaciers, inferred from oriented glacial striations and deposits called tillites, suggested the existence of the supercontinent of Gondwana, which became a central element of the concept of continental drift. Striations indicated glacial flow away from the equator and toward the poles, based on continents' current positions and orientations, and supported the idea that the southern continents had previously been in dramatically different locations that were contiguous with one another.


title: Third Way

text: The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born from a re-evaluation of political policies within various centre to centre-left progressive movements in the 1980s in response to doubt regarding the economic viability of the state and the perceived overuse of economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularised by Keynesianism, but which at that time contrasted with the rise of popularity for neoliberalism and the New Right starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.


title: Third Way

text: The Third Way has been promoted by social liberal and social-democratic parties. In the United States, a leading proponent of the Third Way was Bill Clinton, who served as the country's president from 1993 to 2001. In the United Kingdom, Third Way social-democratic proponent Tony Blair claimed that the socialism he advocated was different from traditional conceptions of socialism and said: "My kind of socialism is a set of values based around notions of social justice. ... Socialism as a rigid form of economic determinism has ended, and rightly." Blair referred to it as a "social-ism" involving politics that recognised individuals as socially interdependent and advocated social justice, social cohesion, equal worth of each citizen and equal opportunity.


title: Third Way

text: Third Way social-democratic theorist Anthony Giddens has said that the Third Way rejects the state socialist conception of socialism and instead accepts the conception of socialism as conceived of by Anthony Crosland as an ethical doctrine that views social democratic governments as having achieved a viable ethical socialism by removing the unjust elements of capitalism by providing social welfare and other policies and that contemporary socialism has outgrown the Marxist claim for the need of the abolition of capitalism as a mode of production. In 2009, Blair publicly declared support for a "new capitalism".


title: Third Way

text: The Third Way supports the pursuit of greater egalitarianism in society through action to increase the distribution of skills, capacities and productive endowments while rejecting income redistribution as the means to achieve this. It emphasises commitment to balanced budgets, providing equal opportunity which is combined with an emphasis on personal responsibility, the decentralisation of government power to the lowest level possible, encouragement and promotion of public–private partnerships, improving labour supply, investment in human development, preservation of social capital and protection of the environment.


title: Third Way

text: Specific definitions of Third Way policies may differ between Europe and the United States. The Third Way has been criticised by other social democrats, as well as anarchists, communists and in particular democratic socialists as a betrayal of left-wing values, with some analysts characterising the Third Way as an effectively neoliberal movement. It has also been criticised by certain conservatives, classical liberals and libertarians who advocate for "laissez-faire" capitalism.


title: Third Way

text: As a term, the "third way" has been used to explain a variety of political courses and ideologies in the last few centuries. These ideas were implemented by progressives in the early 20th century. The term was picked up again in the 1950s by German ordoliberal economists such as Wilhelm Röpke, resulting in the development of the concept of the social market economy. Röpke later distanced himself from the term and located the social market economy as first way in the sense of an advancement of the free-market economy.


title: Third Way

text: During the Prague Spring of 1968, reform economist Ota Šik proposed third way economic reform as part of political liberalisation and democratisation within the country. In historical context, such proposals were better described as liberalised centrally-planned economy rather than the socially-sensitive capitalism that Third Way policies tend to have been identified with in the West. In the 1970s and 1980s, Enrico Berlinguer, leader of the Italian Communist Party, came to advocate a vision of a socialist society that was more pluralist than the real socialism which was typically advocated by official communist parties whilst being more economically egalitarian than social democracy. This was part of the wider trend of Eurocommunism in the communist movement and provided a theoretical basis for Berlinguer's pursuit of the Historic Compromise with the Christian Democrats.


title: Third Way

text: Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963, based his philosophy of government on what he summarised in the 1938 book "The Middle Way".


title: Third Way

text: Third Way politics is visible in Anthony Giddens' works such as "Consequences of Modernity" (1990), "Modernity and Self-Identity" (1991), "The Transformation of Intimacy" (1992), "Beyond Left and Right" (1994) and "The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy" (1998). In "Beyond Left and Right", Giddens criticises market socialism and constructs a six-point framework for a reconstituted radical politics that includes the following values:


title: Third Way

text: In "The Third Way", Giddens provides the framework within which the Third Way, also termed by Giddens as the "radical centre", is justified. In addition, it supplies a broad range of policy proposals aimed at what Giddens calls the "progressive centre-left" in British politics.


title: Third Way

text: The Third Way has been defined as such: [S]omething different and distinct from liberal capitalism with its unswerving belief in the merits of the free market and democratic socialism with its demand management and obsession with the state. The Third Way is in favour of growth, entrepreneurship, enterprise and wealth creation but it is also in favour of greater social justice and it sees the state playing a major role in bringing this about. So in the words of ... Anthony Giddens of the LSE the Third Way rejects top down socialism as it rejects traditional neo liberalism.


title: Third Way

text: The Third Way has been advocated by its proponents as a "radical-centrist" alternative to both capitalism and what it regards as the traditional forms of socialism, including Marxian and state socialism. It advocates ethical socialism, reformism and gradualism that includes advocating the humanisation of capitalism, a mixed economy, political pluralism and liberal democracy.


title: Third Way

text: The Third Way has been advocated by proponents as competition socialism, an ideology in between traditional socialism and capitalism. Anthony Giddens, a prominent proponent of the Third Way, has publicly supported a modernised form of socialism within the social democracy movement, but he claims that traditional socialist ideology (referring to state socialism) that involves economic management and planning are flawed and states that as a theory of the managed economy it barely exists any longer.


title: Third Way

text: In defining the Third Way, Tony Blair once wrote: "The Third Way stands for a modernised social democracy, passionate in its commitment to social justice".


title: Third Way

text: Under the nominally centre-left Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1983 to 1996, the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating governments pursued many economic policies associated with economic rationalism such as floating the Australian Dollar in 1983, reductions in trade tariffs, taxation reforms, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining, heavy restrictions on trade union activities including on strike action and pattern bargaining, the privatisation of government-run services and enterprises such as Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank and wholesale deregulation of the banking system. Keating also proposed a Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 1985, but this was scrapped due to its unpopularity amongst both ALP and electorate. The party also desisted from other reforms such as wholesale labour market deregulation, the eventual GST, the privatisation of Telstra and welfare reform. The Hawke-Keating governments have been considered by some as laying the groundwork for the later development of both the New Democrats in the United States and New Labour in the United Kingdom. One political commentator agreed that it led centre-left parties towards the path to neoliberalism. Meanwhile, others acknowledge several neoliberal reforms, but at the same time disagreed and focused on the prosperity and social equality that they provided in the "26 years of uninterrupted economic growth since 1991", seeing it as fitting well within "Australian Labourism".


title: Third Way

text: Both Hawke and Keating made some criticism too. In the lead-up to the 2019 federal election, Hawke made a joint statement with Keating endorsing Labor's economic plan and condemned the Liberal Party for "completely [giving] up the economic reform agenda". They stated that "[Bill] Shorten's Labor is the only party of government focused on the need to modernise the economy to deal with the major challenge of our time: human induced climate change".


title: Third Way

text: Various ideological beliefs were factionalised under reforms to the ALP under Gough Whitlam, resulting in what is now known as the Labor Left, who tend to favour a more interventionist economic policy, more authoritative top-down controls and some socially progressive ideals; and Labor Right, the now dominant faction that is pro-business, more economically liberal and focuses to a lesser extent on social issues. The Whitlam government was first to use the term economic rationalism. The Whitlam government from 1972-75 changed from a democratic socialism platform to social democracy, their precursor to the party's Third Way policies. Under the Whitlam government, tariffs across the board were cut by 25% after twenty-three years of Labor being in opposition.


title: Third Way

text: Former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's first speech to parliament in 1998 stated: Competitive markets are massive and generally efficient generators of economic wealth. They must therefore have a central place in the management of the economy. But markets sometimes fail, requiring direct government intervention through instruments such as industry policy. There are also areas where the public good dictates that there should be no market at all. We are not afraid of a vision in the Labor Party, but nor are we afraid of doing the hard policy yards necessary to turn that vision into reality. Parties of the Centre Left around the world are wrestling with a similar challenge—the creation of a competitive economy while advancing the overriding imperative of a just society. Some call this the "third way". The nomenclature is unimportant. What is important is that it is a repudiation of Thatcherism and its Australian derivatives represented opposite. It is in fact a new formulation of the nation's economic and social imperatives.


title: Third Way

text: While critical of economists such as Friedrich Hayek, Rudd described himself as "basically a conservative when it comes to questions of public financial management", pointing to his slashing of public service jobs as a Queensland governmental advisor. Rudd's government has been praised and credited "by most economists, both local and international, for helping Australia avoiding a post-global-financial-crisis recession" during the Global Recession.


title: Third Way

text: Examples of French Third Way politicians include current President Emmanuel Macron, and to a lesser extent François Hollande, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Manuel Valls.


title: Third Way

text: The Italian Democratic Party is a plural social democratic party including several distinct ideologic trends. Politicians such as former Prime Ministers Romano Prodi and Matteo Renzi are proponents of the Third Way. Renzi has occasionally been compared to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for his political views. Renzi himself has previously claimed to be a supporter of Blair's ideology of the Third Way, regarding an objective to synthesise liberal economics and left-wing social policies.


title: Third Way

text: Under Renzi's secretariat, the Democratic Party took a strong stance in favour of constitutional reform and of a new electoral law on the road toward a two-party system. It is not an easy task to find the exact political trend represented by Renzi and his supporters, who have been known as "Renziani". The nature of Renzi's progressivism is a matter of debate and has been linked both to liberalism and populism. According to Maria Teresa Meli of "Corriere della Sera", Renzi "pursues a precise model, borrowed from the Labour Party and Bill Clinton's Democratic Party", comprising "a strange mix (for Italy) of liberal policy in the economic sphere and populism. This means that on one side he will attack the privileges of trade unions, especially of the CGIL, which defends only the already protected, while on the other he will sharply attack the vested powers, bankers, Confindustria and a certain type of capitalism".


title: Third Way

text: After the Democratic Party's defeat in the 2018 general election in which the party gained 18.8% and 19.1% of the vote (down from 25.5% and 27.4% in 2013) and lost 185 deputies and 58 senators, respectively, Renzi resigned as the party's secretary. In March 2019, Nicola Zingaretti, a social democrat and prominent member of the party's left-wing with solid roots in the Italian Communist Party, won the leadership election by a landslide, defeating Maurizio Martina (Renzi's former deputy secretary) and Roberto Giachetti (supported by most "Renziani"). Zingaretti focused his campaign on a clear contrast with Renzi's policies and his victory opened the way for a new party.


title: Third Way

text: In September 2019, Renzi announced his intention to leave the Democratic Party and create a new parliamentary group. He officially launched Italia Viva to continue the liberal and Third Way tradition within a pro-Europeanism framework, especially as represented by the French President Emmanuel Macron's La République En Marche!.


title: Third Way

text: In 1938, Harold Macmillan wrote a book entitled "The Middle Way", advocating a compromise between capitalism and socialism which was a precursor to the contemporary notion of the Third Way.


title: Third Way

text: In 1979, the Labour Party professed a complete adherence to social democratic ideals and rejected the choice between a "prosperous and efficient Britain" and a "caring and compassionate Britain". Coherent with this position, the main commitment of the party was the reduction of economic inequality via the introduction of a wealth tax. This was rejected in the 1997 manifesto, along with many changes in the 1990s like the progressive dismissal of traditional social democratic ideology and the transformation into New Labour, de-emphasising the need to tackle economic inequality and focusing instead on the expansion of opportunities for all whilst fostering social capital.


title: Third Way

text: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is cited as a Third Way politician. According to a former member of Blair's staff, Blair and the Labour Party learnt from and owes a debt to Bob Hawke's government in Australia in the 1980s on how to govern as a Third Way party. Blair wrote in a Fabian pamphlet in 1994 of the existence of two prominent variants of socialism, namely one based on a Marxist–Leninist economic determinist and collectivist tradition and the other being an ethical socialism based on values of "social justice, the equal worth of each citizen, equality of opportunity, community". Blair is a particular follower of the ideas and writings of Giddens.


title: Third Way

text: In 1998, Blair, then Labour Party Leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, described the Third Way, how it relates to social democracy and its relation with both the Old Left and the New Right, as follows:


title: Third Way

text: In 2002, Anthony Giddens listed problems facing the New Labour government, naming spin as the biggest failure because its damage to the party's image was difficult to rebound from. He also challenged the failure of the Millennium Dome project and Labour's inability to deal with irresponsible businesses. Giddens saw Labour's ability to marginalise the Conservative Party as a success as well its economic policy, welfare reform and certain aspects of education. Giddens criticised what he called Labour's "half-way houses", including the National Health Service and environmental and constitutional reform.


title: Third Way

text: In 2008, Charles Clarke, a former United Kingdom Home Secretary and the first senior Blairite to attack Prime Minister Gordon Brown openly and in print, stated: "We should discard the techniques of 'triangulation' and 'dividing lines' with the Conservatives, which lead to the not entirely unjustified charge that we simply follow proposals from the Conservatives or the right-wing media, to minimise differences and remove lines of attack against us".


title: Third Way

text: Brown was succeeded by Ed Miliband's One Nation Labour in 2010 and self-described democratic socialist Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 as the Leader of the Labour Party. This led some to comment that New Labour is "dead and buried".


title: Third Way

text: The Third Way as practised under New Labour has been criticised as being effectively a new, centre-right and neoliberal party. Some such as Glen O'Hara have argued that while containing "elements that we could term neoliberal", New Labour was more left-leaning than it is given credit for.


title: Third Way

text: In the United States, Third Way adherents embrace fiscal conservatism to a greater extent than traditional economic liberals, advocate some replacement of welfare with workfare and sometimes have a stronger preference for market solutions to traditional problems (as in pollution markets) while rejecting pure "laissez-faire" economics and other libertarian positions. The Third Way style of governing was firmly adopted and partly redefined during the administration of President Bill Clinton, as well as during the administration of President Joe Biden .


title: Third Way

text: As a term, it was introduced by political scientist Stephen Skowronek. Third Way Presidents "undermine the opposition by borrowing policies from it in an effort to seize the middle and with it to achieve political dominance". Examples of this are Richard Nixon's economic policies which were a continuation of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society as well as Clinton's welfare reform later.


title: Third Way

text: Along with Blair, Prodi, Gerhard Schröder and other leading Third Way adherents, Clinton organised conferences to promote the Third Way philosophy in 1997 at Chequers in England. The Third Way think tank and the Democratic Leadership Council are adherents of Third Way politics.


title: Third Way

text: In 2013, American lawyer and former bank regulator William K. Black wrote that "Third Way is this group that pretends sometimes to be centre-left but is actually completely a creation of Wall Street—it's run by Wall Street for Wall Street with this false flag operation as if it were a center-left group. It's nothing of the sort".


title: Third Way

text: Other leaders who have adopted elements of the Third Way style of governance include Joe Biden, Viktor Klima and Alfred Gusenbauer in Austria, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Justin Trudeau in Canada, Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet (only her first period) in Chile, Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia, Helle Thorning-Schmidt in Denmark, Lenín Moreno in Ecuador, Paavo Lipponen and Sanna Marin in Finland, Gerhard Schröder and Olaf Scholz of Germany, Costas Simitis in Greece, Ferenc Gyurcsány in Hungary, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni in Israel, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya Ernesto Zedillo in Mexico, Wim Kok of the Netherlands, Helen Clark in New Zealand, Alan García and Alejandro Toledo in Peru, Benigno Aquino in the Philippines, Leszek Miller and Marek Belka in Poland, António Guterres and José Sócrates of Portugal, Thabo Mbeki in South Africa, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun in South Korea, Ingvar Carlsson and Göran Persson in Sweden and Óscar Arias in Costa Rica.


title: Third Way

text: By the 2010s, social democratic parties that accepted Third Way politics such as triangulation and the neoliberal shift in policies such as austerity, deregulation, free trade, privatisation and welfare reforms such as workfare experienced a drastic decline as the Third Way had largely fallen out of favour in a phenomenon known as Pasokification. Scholars have linked the decline of social democratic parties to the declining number of industrial workers, greater economic prosperity of voters and a tendency for these parties to shift closer to the centre-right on economic issues, alienating their former base of supporters and voters. This decline has been matched by increased support for more left-wing and populist parties as well as Left and Green social-democratic parties that rejected neoliberal and Third Way policies.


title: Third Way

text: Democratic socialism has emerged in opposition to Third Way social democracy on the basis that democratic socialists are committed to systemic transformation of the economy from capitalism to socialism whereas social-democratic supporters of the Third Way were more concerned about challenging the New Right and win social democracy back to power. This has resulted in analysts and critics alike arguing that in effect it endorsed capitalism, even if it was due to recognising that outspoken opposition to capitalism in these circumstances was politically nonviable; and that it was anti-social democratic in practice. Others saw it as theoretically fitting with modern socialism, especially liberal socialism, distinguishing it from both classical socialism and traditional democratic socialism or social democracy.


title: Third Way

text: Third Way economic policies began to be challenged following the Great Recession, and the rise of right-wing populism has put the ideology into question. Many on the left have become more vocal in opposition to the Third Way, with the most prominent example in the United Kingdom being the rise of self-identified democratic socialist former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn as well as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders in the United States.


title: Third Way

text: The Third Way is no more than a crude attempt to construct a bogus coalition between the haves and the haves not: Bogus because it entices the haves by assuring them that the economy will be sound and their interests would not be threatened, while promising the have-nots a world free from poverty and injustice. Based on opportunism, it has no ideological commitment at all.


title: Third Way

text: After the dismantling of his country's Marxist–Leninist government, Czechoslovakia's conservative finance minister Václav Klaus declared in 1990: "We want a market economy without any adjectives. Any compromises with that will only fuzzy up the problems we have. To pursue a so-called 'third way' [between central planning and the market economy] is foolish. We had our experience with this in the 1960s when we looked for a socialism with a human face. It did not work, and we must be explicit that we are not aiming for a more efficient version of a system that has failed. The market is indivisible; it cannot be an instrument in the hands of central planners".


title: Third Way

text: Left-wing opponents of the Third Way argue that it represents social democrats who responded to the New Right by accepting capitalism. The Third Way most commonly uses market mechanics and private ownership of the means of production and in that sense it is fundamentally capitalist. In addition to opponents who have noticed this, other reviews have claimed that Third Way social democrats adjusted to the political climate since the 1980s that favoured capitalism by recognising that outspoken opposition to capitalism in these circumstances was politically nonviable and that accepting capitalism as the current status quo and seeking to administer it to challenge "laissez-faire" liberals was a more pressing immediate concern. With the rise of neoliberalism in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the Third Way between the 1990s and 2000s, social democracy became synonymous with it. As a result, the section of social democracy that remained committed to the gradual abolition of capitalism and opposed the Third Way merged into democratic socialism. Many social democrats opposed to the Third Way overlap with democratic socialists in their committiment to an alternative to capitalism and a post-capitalist economy and have not only criticised the Third Way as anti-socialist and neoliberal, but also as anti-social-democratic in practice.


title: Third Way

text: Democratic and market socialists argue that the major reason for the economic shortcomings of command economies was their authoritarian nature rather than socialism itself, that it was a failure of a specific model and that therefore socialists should support democratic models rather than abandon it. Economists Pranab Bardhan and John Roemer argue that Soviet-type economies and Marxist–Leninist states failed because they did not create rules and operational criteria for the efficient operation of state enterprises in their administrative, command allocation of resources and commodities and the lack of democracy in the political systems that the Soviet-type economies were combined with. According to them, a form of competitive socialism that rejects dictatorship and authoritarian allocation in favor of democracy could work and prove superior to the market economy.


title: Third Way

text: Although close to New Labour and a key figure in the development of the Third Way, sociologist Anthony Giddens dissociated himself from many of the interpretations of the Third Way made in the sphere of day-to-day politics. For him, it was not a succumbing to neoliberalism or the dominance of capitalist markets. The point was to get beyond both market fundamentalism and top-down socialism—to make the values of the centre-left count in a globalising world. He argued that "the regulation of financial markets is the single most pressing issue in the world economy" and that "global commitment to free trade depends upon effective regulation rather than dispenses with the need for it".


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: The Dark Enlightenment, also called the neo-reactionary movement (sometimes abbreviated to NRx), is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, reactionary philosophical and political movement. In 2007 and 2008, software engineer Curtis Yarvin, writing under the pen name Mencius Moldbug, articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were elaborated and expanded by philosopher Nick Land, who first coined the term Dark Enlightenment in his essay of the same name. The term "Dark Enlightenment" is a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: The ideology generally rejects Whig historiography—the concept that history shows an inevitable progression towards greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy—in favor of a return to traditional societal constructs and forms of government, including absolute monarchism and other older forms of leadership such as cameralism.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: In July 2010, Arnold Kling, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, coined the term "neo-reactionaries" to describe Yarvin and his followers.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Neo-reactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists who have been active since the 2000s. Steve Sailer and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are contemporary forerunners of the ideology, which also draws influence from philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Central to Land's ideas is a belief in freedom's incompatibility with democracy. Land drew inspiration from libertarians such as Peter Thiel, as indicated in his essay "The Dark Enlightenment". The Dark Enlightenment has been described by journalists and commentators as alt-right and neo-fascist. A 2016 article in "New York" magazine notes that "Neoreaction has a number of different strains, but perhaps the most important is a form of post-libertarian futurism that, realizing that libertarians aren't likely to win any elections, argues against democracy in favor of authoritarian forms of government."


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: According to criminal justice professor George Michael, neoreaction seeks to save its ideal of Western civilization through adoption of a monarchical, or CEO model of government to replace democracy. It also embraces the notion of "acceleration", first articulated by Vladimir Lenin as "worse is better", but in the neoreaction version, the creation and promotion of ever more societal crises hastens the adoption of the neoreactive state instead of a communist one.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Other focuses of neoreaction often include an idealization of physical fitness; a rationalist or utilitarian justification for social stratification based on intelligence, based on either heredity or meritocracy; an embrace of Classical philosophy, and traditional gender roles.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Neo-reactionaries sometimes decline to speak to reporters. When approached by "The Atlantic" political affairs reporter Rosie Gray, Yarvin attempted to troll her on Twitter, and blogger Nick B. Steves said that her IQ was inadequate to the task of interviewing him and that, as a journalist, she was "the enemy".


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: By mid-2017, NRx had moved to forums such as the Social Matter online forum, the Hestia Society, and Thermidor Magazine.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: In 2021, Yarvin appeared on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Today", where he discussed the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and his concept of the "Cathedral", which he claims to be the current aggregation of political power and influential institutions that is controlling the country.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Journalist Andrew Sullivan argues that neoreaction's pessimistic appraisal of democracy dismisses many advances that have been made and that global manufacturing patterns also limit the economic independence that sovereign states can have from one another.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: In an article for "The Sociological Review", after an examination of neoreaction's core tenets, Roger Burrows deplores the ideology as "hyper-neoliberal, technologically deterministic, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, pro-eugenicist, racist and, likely, fascist", and ridicules the entire accelerationist framework as a faulty attempt at "mainstreaming... misogynist, racist and fascist discourses." He criticizes neoreaction's racial principles and for their brazen "disavowal of any discourses" advocating for socio-economic equality and, accordingly, considers it a "eugenic philosophy" in favor of what Land deems 'hyper-racism'.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Some consider the Dark Enlightenment part of the alt-right, representing its theoretical branch. The Dark Enlightenment has been labelled by some as neo-fascist, and by University of Chichester professor Benjamin Noys as "an acceleration of capitalism to a fascist point." Land disputes the similarity between his ideas and fascism, claiming that "Fascism is a mass anti-capitalist movement," whereas he prefers that "[capitalist] corporate power should become the organizing force in society."


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Journalist and pundit James Kirchick states that "although neo-reactionary thinkers disdain the masses and claim to despise populism and people more generally, what ties them to the rest of the alt-right is their unapologetically racist element, their shared misanthropy and their resentment of mismanagement by the ruling elites."


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Scholar Andrew Jones, in a 2019 article, postulated that the Dark Enlightenment (i.e. the NeoReactionary Movement) is "key to understanding the Alt-Right" political ideology. "The use of affect theory, postmodern critiques of modernity, and a fixation on critiquing regimes of truth," Jones remarks, "are fundamental to NeoReaction (NRx) and what separates it from other Far-Right theory". Moreover, Jones argues that Dark Enlightenment's fixation on aesthetics, history, and philosophy, as opposed to the traditional empirical approach, distinguishes it from related far-right ideologies.


title: Dark Enlightenment

text: Historian Joe Mulhall, writing for "The Guardian", described Nick Land as "propagating very far-right ideas." Despite neoreaction's limited online audience, Mulhall considers the ideology to have "acted as both a tributary into the alt-right and as a key constituent part [of the alt-right]."


title: Coercion

text: Coercion () is compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against a party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault. For example, a bully may demand lunch money from a student where refusal results in the student getting beaten.


title: Coercion

text: In common law systems, the act of violating a law while under coercion is codified as a duress crime.


title: Coercion

text: Coercion can be used as leverage to force the victim to act in a way contrary to their own interests. Coercion can involve not only the infliction of bodily harm, but also psychological abuse (the latter intended to enhance the perceived credibility of the threat). The threat of further harm may also lead to the acquiescence of the person being coerced.


title: Coercion

text: The concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, but various factors distinguish the two. These include the intent, the willingness to cause harm, the result of the interaction, and the options available to the coerced party.


title: Coercion

text: John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Ronald Dworkin, and other political authors argue that the state is coercive. Max Weber defined a state as "a community which has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force." Morris argues that the state can operate through incentives rather than coercion. In healthcare, informal coercion may be used to make a patient adhere to a doctor's treatment plan. Under certain circumstances, physical coercion is used to treat a patient involuntarily.


title: Coercion

text: The purpose of coercion is to substitute one's aims to those of the victim. For this reason, many social philosophers have considered coercion as the polar opposite to freedom.


title: Coercion

text: Various forms of coercion are distinguished: first on the basis of the "kind of injury" threatened, second according to its "aims" and "scope", and finally according to its "effects", from which its legal, social, and ethical implications mostly depend.


title: Coercion

text: Physical coercion is the most commonly considered form of coercion, where the content of the conditional threat is the use of force against a victim, their relatives or property. An often used example is "putting a gun to someone's head" ("at gunpoint") or putting a "knife under the throat" ("at knifepoint" or cut-throat) to compel action under the threat that non-compliance may result in the attacker harming or even killing the victim. These are so common that they are also used as metaphors for other forms of coercion.


title: Coercion

text: Armed forces in many countries use firing squads to maintain discipline and intimidate the masses, or opposition, into submission or silent compliance. However, there also are nonphysical forms of coercion, where the threatened injury does not immediately imply the use of force. Byman and Waxman (2000) define coercion as "the use of threatened force, including the limited use of actual force to back up the threat, to induce an adversary to behave differently than it otherwise would." Coercion does not in many cases amount to destruction of property or life since compliance is the goal.


title: Coercion

text: In psychological coercion, the threatened injury regards the victim's relationships with other people. The most obvious example is "blackmail", where the threat consists of the dissemination of damaging information. However, many other types are possible e.g. "emotional blackmail", which typically involves threats of rejection from or disapproval by a peer-group, or creating feelings of guilt/obligation via a display of anger or hurt by someone whom the victim loves or respects.


title: HEPA

text: HEPA (, high-efficiency particulate air) filter, also known as high-efficiency particulate absorbing filter and high-efficiency particulate arrestance filter, is an efficiency standard of air filters.


title: HEPA

text: Filters meeting the HEPA standard must satisfy certain levels of efficiency. Common standards require that a HEPA air filter must remove—from the air that passes through—at least 99.95% (ISO, European Standard) or 99.97% (ASME, U.S. DOE) of particles whose diameter is equal to 0.3 μm, with the filtration efficiency increasing for particle diameters both less than and greater than 0.3 μm. HEPA filters capture pollen, dirt, dust, moisture, bacteria (0.2-2.0 μm), virus (0.02-0.3 μm), and submicron liquid aerosol (0.02-0.5 μm). Some microorganisms, for example, "Aspergillus niger", "Penicillium citrinum", "Staphylococcus epidermidis", and "Bacillus subtilis" are captured by HEPA filters with photocatalytic oxidation (PCO). A HEPA filter is also able to capture some viruses and bacteria which are ≤0.3 μm. A HEPA filter is also able to capture floor dust which contains bacteroidia, clostridia, and bacilli. HEPA was commercialized in the 1950s, and the original term became a registered trademark and later a generic trademark for highly efficient filters. HEPA filters are used in applications that require contamination control, such as the manufacturing of hard disk drives, medical devices, semiconductors, nuclear, food and pharmaceutical products, as well as in hospitals, homes, and vehicles.


title: HEPA

text: HEPA filters are composed of a mat of randomly arranged fibers. The fibers are typically composed of polypropylene or fiberglass with diameters between 0.5 and 2.0 micrometers. Most of the time, these filters are composed of tangled bundles of fine fibers. These fibers create a narrow convoluted pathway through which air passes. When the largest particles are passing through this pathway, the bundles of fibers behave like a kitchen sieve which physically blocks the particles from passing through. However, when smaller particles pass with the air, as the air twists and turns, the smaller particles cannot keep up with the motion of the air and thus they collide with the fibers. The smallest particles have very little inertia and they always move around the air molecules like they are bombarded by these molecules (Brownian motion). Because of their movement, they end up crashing into the fibers. Key factors affecting its functions are fiber diameter, filter thickness, and face velocity. The air space between HEPA filter fibers is typically much greater than 0.3 μm. HEPA filters in very high level for smallest particulate matter. Unlike sieves or membrane filters, where particles smaller than openings or pores can pass through, HEPA filters are designed to target a range of particle sizes. These particles are trapped (they stick to a fiber) through a combination of the following three mechanisms:


title: HEPA

text: Diffusion predominates below the 0.1 μm diameter particle size, whilst impaction and interception predominate above 0.4 μm. In between, near the most penetrating particle size (MPPS) 0.21 μm, both diffusion and interception are comparatively inefficient. Because this is the weakest point in the filter's performance, the HEPA specifications use the retention of particles near this size (0.3 μm) to classify the filter. However it is possible for particles smaller than the MPPS to not have filtering efficiency greater than that of the MPPS. This is due to the fact that these particles can act as nucleation sites for mostly condensation and form particles near the MPPS.


title: HEPA

text: HEPA filters are designed to arrest very fine particles effectively, but they do not filter out gasses and odor molecules. Circumstances requiring filtration of volatile organic compounds, chemical vapors, or cigarette, pet or flatulence odors call for the use of an activated carbon (charcoal) or other type of filter instead of or in addition to a HEPA filter. Carbon cloth filters, claimed to be many times more efficient than the granular activated carbon form at adsorption of gaseous pollutants, are known as high efficiency gas adsorption filters (HEGA) and were originally developed by the British Armed Forces as a defense against chemical warfare.


title: HEPA

text: A HEPA bag filter can be used in conjunction with a pre-filter (usually carbon-activated) to extend the usage life of the more expensive HEPA filter. In such setup, the first stage in the filtration process is made up of a pre-filter which removes most of the larger dust, hair, PM10 and pollen particles from the air. The second stage high-quality HEPA filter removes the finer particles that escape from the pre-filter. This is common in air handling units.


title: HEPA

text: HEPA filters, as defined by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) standard adopted by most American industries, remove at least 99.97% of aerosols 0.3 micrometers (μm) in diameter. The filter's minimal resistance to airflow, or pressure drop, is usually specified around at its nominal volumetric flow rate.


title: HEPA

text: The specification used in the European Union: European Standard EN 1822-1:2009, from which ISO 29463 is derived, defines several classes of filters by their retention at the given most penetrating particle size (MPPS): "Efficient Particulate Air filters" (EPA), HEPA and "Ultra Low Particulate Air filters" (ULPA). The averaged efficiency of the filter is called "overall", and the efficiency at a specific point is called "local":


title: HEPA

text: Today, a HEPA filter rating is applicable to any highly efficient air filter that can attain the same filter efficiency performance standards as a minimum and is equivalent to the more recent National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health P100 rating for respirator filters. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has specific requirements for HEPA filters in DOE-regulated applications.


title: HEPA

text: Some companies use a marketing term known as "True HEPA" to give consumers assurance that their air filters meet the HEPA standard, although this term has no legal or scientific meaning. Products that are marketed to be "HEPA-type," "HEPA-like," "HEPA-style" or "99% HEPA" do not satisfy the HEPA standard and may not have been tested in independent laboratories. Although such filters may come reasonably close to HEPA standards, others fall significantly short.


title: HEPA

text: In general terms (and allowing for some variation depending on factors such as the air-flow rate, the physical properties of the particles being filtered, as well as engineering details of the entire filtration-system design and not just the filter-media properties), HEPA filters experience the most difficulty in capturing particles in the size range of 0.15 to 0.2 µm. HEPA filtration works by mechanical means, unlike ionic and ozone treatment technologies, which use negative ions and ozone gas respectively. So, the likelihood of potential triggering of pulmonary side-effects such as asthma and allergies is much lower with HEPA purifiers.


title: HEPA

text: To ensure that a HEPA filter is working efficiently, the filters should be inspected and changed at least every six months in commercial settings. In residential settings, and depending on the general ambient air quality, these filters can be changed every two to three years. Failing to change a HEPA filter in a timely fashion will result in it putting stress on the machine or system and not removing particles from the air properly. Additionally, depending on the gasketing materials chosen in the design of the system, a clogged HEPA filter can result in extensive bypassing of airflow around the filter.


title: HEPA

text: HEPA filters are critical in the prevention of the spread of airborne bacterial and viral organisms and, therefore, infection. Typically, medical use HEPA filtration systems also incorporate high-energy ultraviolet light units or panels with anti-microbial coating to kill off the live bacteria and viruses trapped by the filter media. Some of the best-rated HEPA units have an efficiency rating of 99.995%, which assures a very high level of protection against airborne disease transmission.


title: HEPA

text: SARS‑CoV‑2 is approximately 0.125 µm. Airborne droplets of SARS-CoV-2 could be captured by HEPA filters, even if they are on the floor.


title: HEPA

text: Many vacuum cleaners also use HEPA filters as part of their filtration systems. This is beneficial for asthma and allergy sufferers, because the HEPA filter traps the fine particles (such as pollen and house dust mite feces) which trigger allergy and asthma symptoms. For a HEPA filter in a vacuum cleaner to be effective, the vacuum cleaner must be designed so that "all" the air drawn into the machine is expelled through the filter, with none of the air leaking past it. This is often referred to as "Sealed HEPA" or sometimes the more vague "True HEPA". Vacuum cleaners simply labeled "HEPA" may have a HEPA filter, but not all air necessarily passes through it. Finally, vacuum cleaner filters marketed as "HEPA-like" will typically use a filter of a "similar construction" to HEPA, but without the filtering efficiency. Because of the extra density of a true HEPA filter, HEPA vacuum cleaners require more powerful motors to provide adequate cleaning power.


title: HEPA

text: Some newer models claim to be better than the earlier ones with the inclusion of "washable" filters. Generally, washable true HEPA filters are expensive. A high-quality HEPA filter can trap 99.97% of dust particles that are 0.3 microns in diameter. For comparison's sake, a human hair is about 50 to 150 microns in diameter. So, a true HEPA filter is effectively trapping particles several hundred time smaller than the width of a human hair. Some manufacturers claim filter standards such as "HEPA 4," without explaining the meaning behind them. This refers to their Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) rating. These ratings are used to rate the ability of an air cleaner filter to remove dust from the air as it passes through the filter. MERV is a standard used to measure the overall efficiency of a filter. The MERV scale ranges from 1 to 16, and measures a filter's ability to remove particles from 10 to 0.3 micrometer in size. Filters with higher ratings not only remove more particles from the air, but they also remove smaller particles.


title: HEPA

text: Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is technology that uses air filters, such as HEPA filters, to remove pollutants from the air either indoors or in vehicles. Pollutants include smoke, viruses, powders, etc., and can originate either outside or inside. HVAC is used to provide environmental comfort and in polluted cities to maintain health.


title: HEPA

text: Modern airliners use HEPA filters to reduce the spread of airborne pathogens in recirculated air. Critics have expressed concern about the effectiveness and state of repair of air filtering systems, since they think that much of the air in an airplane cabin is recirculated. Almost all of the air in a pressurized aircraft is, in fact, brought in from the outside, circulated through the cabin and then exhausted through outflow valves in the rear of the aircraft. About 40 percent of the cabin's air goes through a HEPA filter and the other 60 percent comes from outside the plane. Certified air filters block and capture 99.97 percent of airborne particles.


title: HEPA

text: In 2016, it was announced that the Tesla Model X would have the world's first HEPA-grade filter in a Tesla car. Following the release of the Model X, Tesla has updated the Model S to also have an optional HEPA air filter.


title: HEPA

text: The idea behind the development of the HEPA filter was born from gas masks worn by soldiers fighting in World War II. A piece of paper found inserted into a German gas mask had a remarkably high capture efficiency for chemical smoke. The British Army Chemical Corps duplicated this and began to manufacture it in large quantities for their own service gas masks. They needed another solution for operational headquarters, where individual gas masks were impractical. The Army Chemical Corps developed a combination mechanical blower and air purifier unit, which incorporated cellulose-asbestos paper in a deeply-pleated form with spacers between the pleats. It was referred to as an "absolute" air filter and laid the groundwork for further research to come in developing the HEPA filter.


title: HEPA

text: The next phase of the HEPA filter was designed in the 1940s and was used in the Manhattan Project to prevent the spread of airborne radioactive contaminants. The US Army Chemical Corps and National Defense Research Committee needed to develop a filter suitable for removing radioactive materials from the air. The Army Chemical Corps asked Nobel Laureate Irving Langmuir to recommend filter test methods and other general recommendations for creating the material to filter out these radioactive particles. He identified 0.3 micron size particles to be the "most penetrating size"—the most difficult and concerning.


title: HEPA

text: It was commercialized in the 1950s, and the original term became a registered trademark and later a generic trademark for highly efficient filters.


title: HEPA

text: Over the decades filters have evolved to satisfy the higher and higher demands for air quality in various high technology industries, such as aerospace, pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, health care, nuclear fuels, nuclear power, and integrated circuit fabrication.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah (; "", Gulf Arabic: "aš-Šārja") is the third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi, forming part of the Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah is the capital of the eponymous emirate. The emirate shares legal, political, military and economic functions with the other emirates of the UAE within a federal framework, although each emirate has jurisdiction over some functions such as civil law enforcement and provision and upkeep of local facilities. Sharjah has been ruled by the Al Qasimi dynasty since the 18th century.


title: Sharjah

text: The city is a centre for culture and industry, and alone contributes 7.4% of the GDP of the United Arab Emirates. The city covers an approximate area of 235 km and has a population of over 800,000 (2008). The sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages is prohibited in the emirate of Sharjah without possession of an alcohol licence and alcohol is not served in hotels, restaurants or other outlets in Sharjah, due to the Muslim majority in the area. This has helped Sharjah increase the number of Islamic tourists who visit the country.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah has been officially named as a WHO healthy city. The 2016 edition of QS Best Student Cities ranked Sharjah as the 68th best city in the world to be a university student. Sharjah is regarded as the cultural capital of the UAE, and was the Islamic culture capital in 2014. Sharjah was named World Book Capital for 2019 by UNESCO.


title: Sharjah

text: Sultan Al Omaimi, a UAE poet and researcher in folk literature, says that some historians speculate that Sharjah was the name of an idol worshipped in the ancient era which was known as Abed Al Shareq.


title: Sharjah

text: Other researchers link the word Sharjah to the fact that the city is located to the east ('sharq' means 'east' in Arabic), of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah was historically one of the wealthiest towns in this region with a settlement in existence for over 5000 years. In the early 18th century, the Qawasim clan (Huwayla tribe) established itself in Sharjah, 1727 declaring Sharjah independent. On 8 January 1820, Sheikh Sultan I signed the General Maritime Treaty with Britain, accepting a protectorate to keep the Ottoman Turks out. Like four of its neighbours, Ajman, Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah, and Umm Al Quwain, its position on the route to India made it important enough to be recognised as a salute state (be it of the lowest class: 3 guns).


title: Sharjah

text: By the turn of the 20th century, Sharjah extended inland to the area now known as Wasit Suburb, the area between the city and Dhaid being under the control of the tribes of the interior. With some 15,000 inhabitants, Sharjah had some 4 or 5 shops in Layyah and a bazaar of some 200 shops in Sharjah proper.


title: Sharjah

text: At the height of World War II, Nazi propaganda infiltrated the town. Loud transmissions of pro-Hitler speeches could be heard emanating from the Sheikh of Sharjah's palace during a period in 1940, and messages sharing a similar sentiment had been graffitied on walls in the town centre according to British intelligence reports at the time. Because the message being propagated by the Germans was one of anti-imperialism, it found a sympathetic audience among the emirate's populace, particularly Abdullah bin Faris, a secretary of the Sheikh who was responsible for the broadcasts. After the Sheikh was confronted by the British, he wrote a letter reiterating his support for the British war efforts and disputed the charges laid out against bin Faris. Attached to the letter was a petition signed by 48 prominent individuals testifying to bin Faris' character, which, according to the British, had been misrepresented to the signees. The incident resolved after the Sheikh and bin Faris ceased from transmitting propaganda and doubled down on their support of the British.


title: Sharjah

text: On 2 December 1971, Sharjah, together with Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman, Umm Al Qawain and Fujairah joined in the Act of Union to form the United Arab Emirates. The seventh emirate, Ras Al Khaimah, joined the UAE on 10 February 1972, following giant non-Arab neighbour Iran's annexation of the RAK-owned Tunbs islands.


title: Sharjah

text: Like the other former Trucial States, Sharjah's name is known by many stamp collectors because of the large numbers of stamps that were issued by the Sharjah Post Office shortly before the formation of the United Arab Emirates, which became part of the class of virtually worthless stamps known to collectors as Dunes. Many of these items feature subjects unrelated to the emirates whose names they bear, and therefore many catalogues do not list them.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah is the third largest city in the United Arab Emirates after Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The palace of the ruler of the Emirate of Sharjah, His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, is located about southeast of the city.


title: Sharjah

text: The city of Sharjah overlooks the Persian Gulf and has a population of over 800,000 (2008). It contains the main administrative and commercial centres together with an array of cultural and traditional projects, including several museums covering areas such as archaeology, natural history, science, arts, heritage, Islamic art and culture. Distinctive landmarks include two major covered "souks", reflecting Islamic design, and a number of recreational areas and public parks such as Al Montazah Fun Park and Al Buheirah Corniche. The city is also notable for its numerous elegant mosques.


title: Sharjah

text: Named after the large rolla (banyan tree) that once stood in the square and that inspired the sculpture currently at the centre of the park, Rolla Square is a common location for workers to stroll during the weekends.


title: Sharjah

text: Bank street is located near the main area of Rolla. Many bank branches and offices are located on the street.


title: Sharjah

text: Located between the Blue Souq and Fish Market, near the Union Bank Tower, the floral call to cheer up etched on the roundabout has lent its name to the roundabout itself.


title: Sharjah

text: The Souq Al Markazi, or Gold Souq, is a tourist destination and comprises a gold souq, clothing souq and, on its first floors, antiques and jewellery shops.


title: Sharjah

text: The fort was built to house travellers on the Imperial Airways Eastern Empire route and was the site of Sharjah Airport until 1977. It is now an aviation museum.


title: Sharjah

text: The Heart of Sharjah houses several galleries, and museums including the heritage museum which gives a great insight into the cultural traditions of the past. The area is also home to the traditional Souk Al Arsa, a covered souk with an array of items to sell including antiques and the office of the Sharjah Centre for Cultural Communication where you can get info on Sharjah attractions.


title: Sharjah

text: Al-Qasba Canal is a 1 km-long canal that runs through the center of Sharjah. Located along its waterfront are several apartments, shops and tourist attractions of the Al Qasba community.


title: Sharjah

text: The Sharjah Heritage Museum is situated near to the Bait Al Naboodah is just opposite Soouq Al Arsah. This is an architecturally designed two-storey family house. It is built around a shaded courtyard and is dedicated to a family life reconstruction many years ago. There are many rooms which has displays of traditional furniture along with household items too. Moreover, there are also provision of children's costumes, games and jewellery.


title: Sharjah

text: Located in Al Layyeh, Sharjah aquarium has over 250 species to see right from the delicate seahorses to smallest clown fish, reef sharks, rays and moray eels. Visitors can submerge themselves to the colorful, diverse and rich undersea world which is home to a variety of marine life which is native to the sea.


title: Sharjah

text: Al Noor Island is located in the Khalid Lagoon and covers an area of 45,470 square metres. The destination project features art and light installations, including the 'OVO' and 'Torus' displays.


title: Sharjah

text: Maryam Island is a beachfront destination located in Sharjah and oversees the Arabian sea.It's one of the largest projects in the emirate with an investment of 2.4 billion Dirhams (US$650M). The breakthrough masterplanned waterside development will spread across 460,000 square metres, with a built-up area of 310,000 sqm.


title: Sharjah

text: The Arabian Wildlife Center opened in 1999 and was home to more than 100 species of animals. Situated at a convenient location, this center was quite close to the Sharjah International Airport. Despite the hot and dry conditions in most of Arabia, there were a number of mammal species who had adapted to these conditions. The Breeding Centre for Endangered Wildlife, a sister facility, was a member of the EAZA, like Al Ain Zoo in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, but is now closed to the public. The fauna, including the Arabian leopard, which had been recorded in the mountains in the eastern part of the country, there were shifted to Al Hefaiyah Conservation Centre in the eastern area of Kalba. The center's activities had included assisting the Yemeni zoos of Sana'a and Ta'izz with taking care of their fauna in 2001.


title: Sharjah

text: Al Majaz Waterfront is an expansion and beautification of the existing park in order to enhance it into a family-friendly leisure area, a waterfront landmark of Sharjah Featuring an audio-video dancing fountain, miniature golf and a number of restaurants.


title: Sharjah

text: In 2018, the experiential art installation "Rain Room" was given a permanent home in Sharjah. Sharjah Art Foundation constructed a purpose-built visitor centre located in the city's residential area of Al Majarrah to house the permanent installation of Rain Room, with up to six visitors at a time taking fifteen minutes to explore the experience. People can experience rain all around them without getting wet. There are sensors which help detect your movement and prevent rain from falling on you directly but fall all around you.


title: Sharjah

text: Reconstructed in 2015 and launched as a redeveloped arts and community center in 2020, The Flying Saucer, Sharjah is a well-known landmark, a brutalist building dating back to the 1970s. It was re-opened after a two-year renovation project by the Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF).


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah Light Festival is held every year since 2010 on various landmarks around Sharjah. It is a display of lights using projectors and lasers on buildings. Usually the shows have a small story line or a theme.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah's largest mosque, named the "Sharjah Mosque" was inaugurated in May 2019. Located in the area of Tay, at the junction of the Emirates Road and the road to Mleiha, it can accommodate up to 25,000 worshipers, with an inside capacity of over 5,000 people. Two coins, one gold and one silver, each inscribed with a verse from the Quran, were issued by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, and designed by the Sharjah Islamic Bank, to commemorate the occasion. Previously, the King Faisal Mosque, named after King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, had been the largest in the Emirate and country, with an area of .


title: Sharjah

text: In 1997, a Syriac Orthodox church (St. Mary's Jacobite Syrian Soonoro Patriarchal Cathedral) was consecrated to accommodate a growing population of Syriac Christians, many of whom are migrant workers from Kerala and southern India.


title: Sharjah

text: Mleiha Archaeological Centre is a visitor center and exhibition based around the history and archaeology of the areas surrounding the village of Mleiha in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates.


title: Sharjah

text: In March 2021, the Sharjah Investment and Development authorities opened two parks in the Al Rahmaniyah, Kshisha and Shaghrafa, built in a total area of 147,700 sqm. It included a female-only park, along with entertainment, social, sports and educational facilities.


title: Sharjah

text: In December 2020, Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi opened a library inspired by the original House of Wisdom in Baghdad. The building was designed by Foster and Partners, extending over 12,000 square meters. On the grounds of the library is a large art piece entitled "The Scroll", a contemporary interpretation of the ancient Arabic scrolls, made by Gerry Judah. It was made to celebrate the Emirate of Sharjah being named the UNESCO World Book Capital for 2019.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification "BWh"), with warm winters and extremely hot summers. The average daytime temperature during the summer ranges between to , and occasionally on some days where temperatures exceed mainly occurring during the hottest months of July and August. During winter, the average daytime temperature rarely exceeds . Rainfall is generally light and erratic, and occurs almost entirely from November to July. About two-thirds of the year's rain falls in the months of February and March.


title: Sharjah

text: Development of transportation services in Sharjah is critical and long term task. Planning by SPTC since 2008 Sharjah Metro will be third in UAE (after Dubai and Abu Dhabi metros) and planning since 2015 Sharjah Tram will be second (after Dubai Tram).


title: Sharjah

text: The Sharjah International Airport is the aviation hub of the city. Sharjah Airport is the third largest Middle East airfreight hub in cargo tonnage, according to official 2015 statistics from Airports Council International. Sharjah International Airport is home base of the low-cost carrier Air Arabia. It has daily flights connecting Lebanon, Jordan, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Ukraine, India, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.


title: Sharjah

text: The first international flight to land in Sharjah was in October 5th, 1932, as part of a refuelling stop on Imperial Airways's India to Britain route. The former airport hosted a cinema, hotel, and a restaurant and would eventually become a Royal Air Force military base until 1971, when the United Kingdom left the UAE and remained as the main international airport for the city until 1976 when traffic moved to Sharjah International Airport.


title: Sharjah

text: There are two major series of highways in Sharjah, which are "E" and "S". E represents roads connecting other emirates and S for roads within the emirates.


title: Sharjah

text: Taxis in Sharjah are clean, well maintained and reasonable. Sharjah Public Transportation Corporation is organizing and supervising the operations of taxis in Sharjah Emirate. Sharjah taxi service is provided through franchise companies. They cover all parts of the Emirate and cities, including shopping centres, residential areas and airport. Following are the major taxi operators in the emirates.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah Transport Corporation also provides Sharing Transportation with the purpose of serving certain routes in Sharjah City on a fixed rate for each route without using the meter.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah Sharing Taxi routes are carefully selected to support people with low income and are covering areas with frequent needs for quick transfer within same location, to ease the traffic situation in Sharjah.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah Public Transport Corporation operates passenger bus services nationwide, between Sharjah City, Ras Al Khaimah, Khor Fakkan, Kalba, Fujairah, Masafi, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Hamriyah Free Zone, Dhaid, Al Madam, Dibba Al Hisn, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Dubai.


title: Sharjah

text: Utility services in the emirate are provided by SEWA (Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority). They provide electricity, water and LPG connections to about 2 million consumers in the emirates. They have over 4000 employees serving till Dhaid, Kalba and Khorfakkan. Telephone services in the emirate, both fixed lines and mobile services, are provided by Govt. owned Etisalat and Du communication Ltd.


title: Sharjah

text: The UAE culture mainly revolves around the religion of Islam and traditional Arab culture. The influence of Islamic and Arab culture on its architecture, music, attire, cuisine and lifestyle are very prominent as well. Five times every day, Muslims are called to prayer from the minarets of mosques which are scattered around the country. Since 2006, the weekend has been Friday-Saturday, as a compromise between Friday's holiness to Muslims and the Western weekend of Saturday-Sunday.


title: Sharjah

text: The Ruler of Sharjah ordered the establishment of several cultural institutions. The projects covered conservation of cultural heritage, active interaction with other cultures, construction of museums and the other cultural, scientific and artistic centres in the Emirate and the setting up of a television satellite channel that reflects and projects the value of culture.


title: Sharjah

text: In 1998, Sharjah was awarded the "Cultural Capital of the Arab World" title by UNESCO representing the United Arab Emirates. Sharjah has kept the spirit of its history alive by indicatively incorporating tradition into every aspect of contemporary development.


title: Sharjah

text: A cultural heritage project, Heart of Sharjah, has been undertaken to preserve and restore the old town of Sharjah and return it to its 1950s state. A five-phase project intended for completion in 2025, the project is being undertaken by the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority, Shurooq, together with Sharjah Institute for Heritage, the Sharjah Museums Department, and the Sharjah Art Foundation.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah International Book Fair is a cultural event held every year in Sharjah. It started in the year 1982 and now it attracts publishers, readers and speakers from all over the world.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah is the headquarters of Air Arabia, the first low-cost airline in the Middle East, which operates to the Middle East, Asia and Europe. Its headquarters are located in the Sharjah Freight Center, on the property of Sharjah International Airport.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah Airport International Free Zone, popularly known as SAIF Zone, is one of the prominent free-trade zones in UAE. More than 6000 companies operates from SAIF Zone. The cost of setting up business in Sharjah is less than in any other emirates of UAE, and the focus of industrialization has in recent years turned Sharjah into a commercial center. Thanks to the facility of 100% foreign ownership, repatriation of capital and profits and exemption from income and corporate taxes, SAIF Zone has attracted investors from more than 90 countries.


title: Sharjah

text: Hamriyah Free Zone: Established in 1995, it offers competitive and unique opportunities to establish business in a tax-free environment, full company ownership, exemption from all commercial levies and repatriation of capital and profits. The Free Zone provides access to a 14 meter deep water port and a 7 meter deep inner harbor.


title: Sharjah

text: Shams Media City Free Zone (Shams) was launched in 2017 with a vision to be a world-class hub for media and creativity in the region. Shams is strategically located in Sharjah—the UAE’s centre for culture and heritage. The addition of Sharjah Media City Free Zone in the emirate signifies the growing number of entrepreneurs from the media and creative industries. By setting up your company in Shams through Creative Zone, you will be part of a dynamic community with a holistic, forward-thinking approach.


title: Sharjah

text: Sharjah Publishing City (SPC) is the world's first Free Zone concept dedicated exclusively to serving the global publishing and the media industry. Their easy and flexible business setup packages have made it the one of the fasted growing free zones in the UAE


title: Sharjah

text: According to 2015 census conducted by department of statistics and community development in Sharjah, the total population of the emirate is 1.40 Million. Expatriates constitute 87% of the total population. As per the census the total number of Emirati population is only 175,432. The population density of the Emirates is 341 person per km.


title: Sharjah

text: Like the rest of UAE, Arabic is the official and national language of the emirate. English is used as a second language; Tagalog and South Asian languages such as Hindi, Odia, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali etc. are spoken widely by the residents of emirates. Russian language is also used a lot for the majority European and Central Asian community. Islam is the predominant religion in the Emirate of Sharjah.


title: Sharjah

text: There are several public and private schools in addition to universities in Sharjah, including the University of Sharjah, American University of Sharjah, Skyline College Sharjah, Al Qasimia University, Westford School of Management, Exeed School of Business and Finance Sharjah Men's College, and Sharjah Women's College. Some of these universities are located in one area called the University City. Private schools in the city include Wesgreen International School, Westminster School, Victoria English School, the Sharjah Indian School, Sharjah English School, Delta English School, Emirates National School, American Community School Sharjah, Indian School Sharjah, the International School of Choueifat, Sharjah, Sharjah High School, DPS Delhi Private School, Gulf Asian English School, Our Own English High School and the American School of Creative Science.


title: Sharjah

text: In addition to the UAE federal laws which criminalise homosexuality the penal code in Sharjah actively discriminates against LGBTQ individuals. For example Article 176 of the Sharjah Penal Code (1970) punishes “unnatural crimes (Sodomy)”—defined as “sexual intercourse with another person in contravention of the laws of nature” or “allowing a male to have intercourse with them in contravention of the laws of nature”— with imprisonment of up to 10 years. Article 181 establishes that “sexual intercourse” is deemed to have occurred once the sexual organ has entered in the slightest degree, whether or not that entry is accompanied by secretion of semen.


title: Sharjah

text: Health care in Sharjah can be divided in to two different sectors, Public and Private. Public hospitals in the emirates are administered by Government of Sharjah through the Ministry of Health. The emirate also has 9 public medical centres to provide primary health care services.


title: Sharjah

text: The Sharjah Cricket Stadium has hosted almost 218 cricket One Day Internationals, more than any other ground, and 4 Test matches. There's also Sharjah in the UAE Pro League. Sharjah also has a chess club.


title: Sharjah

text: Also, since IPL 2020 was held in UAE, Sharjah Cricket Stadium was one of the three stadiums to hold the matches.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Lieutenant Colonel Richard Francis Strawbridge, MBE (born 3 September 1959) is a British television personality, engineer and former army officer. He is often referred to as "Colonel Dick".


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: The third of seven children of Jennifer and George Strawbridge, a worker in the oil industry in the Middle East and Far East, "Dick" Strawbridge was born in Burma, then raised and educated in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. He attended Ballyclare High School from 1971 to 1976. To achieve his ambition of becoming an army officer after taking his O levels, Strawbridge enrolled at Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College before going on to Sandhurst.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Strawbridge received a commission in the British Army in 1979, after attending Welbeck DSFC (becoming head of college) and Sandhurst. He joined the Royal Corps of Signals in January 1980. Promoted to lieutenant in April 1981, and captain in October 1985, he became a major in September 1991. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1993 for his distinguished service in Northern Ireland. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in June 1999, and left the army in November 2001.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Strawbridge has appeared as an engineering and environmental expert on various television programmes, including "Scrapheap Challenge". He first appeared as a contestant on the team Brothers in Arms who became series champions and later, he became the main presenter replacing Robert Llewellyn. He has also appeared on three series of "It's Not Easy Being Green" for BBC Two, the six-part BBC Two series "Crafty Tricks of War" of which he was the main presenter, "Planet Mechanics", and as a regular guest presenter on "Coast". Following his switch of career to television, Strawbridge often refers to himself as a "telly tart".


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Strawbridge began his career in television as the 'Yellow Team Leader' for six episodes in the first series of 'Scrapheap'. He has to date appeared in over 30 programmes of "Scrapheap Challenge" and "Junkyard Wars", winning the "Scrapheap Challenge" trophy in series 3 with his two younger brothers David and Bobby as 'Brothers in Arms', and the "Junkyard Megawars" trophy in 2003. On 5 June 2008, it was announced that he would be returning to "Scrapheap Challenge" for its 11th series. Strawbridge took over from Robert Llewellyn as the main presenter. The series was shown on Channel 4 in 2009.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Strawbridge, along with his family, filmed three series of "It's Not Easy Being Green" for BBC Two. In series one, which was shown on 28 March 2006, the family moved to a new home in Tywardreath near St Austell, Cornwall and attempted to live as green a life as possible, using renewable energy and environmentally friendly resources. The second series started in Spring 2007 with a different format: Strawbridge and his son James aided several members of the public in larger and smaller ecology projects around the country.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Also in 2006, Strawbridge appeared as a one-off presenter on the BBC2 series "Coast", examining the workings of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge, a role he revived in the 2007 version of "Coast", presenting a short part of the programme on the failure of Exercise Tiger. In Series 4 of "Coast", July 2009, Strawbridge examined the terrain of the Normandy landing beaches.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: In 2011, Strawbridge and his son James filmed a 20-part series, "The Hungry Sailors", that was broadcast by ITV, in which they sailed around Britain's coastline buying local food and then cooking it.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: In 2012, filming began on a second series of "The Hungry Sailors" around the Cornish coast, taking in the Channel Islands and the Isles of Scilly. The series was broadcast from 1 July 2013.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Filmed in America from March to July 2015, this TV series for "National Geographic" involved a hike through the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, with Dave Canterbury and Johnny Littlefield.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: This programme followed Strawbridge and his partner (now wife), Angel Adoree, through their purchase in 2015 and subsequent renovation of Château de la Motte-Husson in Martigné-sur-Mayenne, France.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: This programme followed Strawbridge and his wife Angel as they helped expat château owners restore and redecorate their properties.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Strawbridge also had a major role in the BBC's commemoration of the 60th anniversary of D-Day, and he was the co-host and resident "boffin" on the 2005 game show, "Geronimo!". He also appeared as a regular team captain in the US series, "Junkyard Mega-Wars".


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Strawbridge also starred in "The Big Idea", in which he tested out amateur inventions, and he featured in the short series "The Re-Inventors", a series of five, hour-long programmes commissioned by the UK digital channel UKTV History and first broadcast through the week of 11 December 2006. Each episode featured Strawbridge and his son James reconstructing an invention of historic significance, with a budget of £500 and their mobile workshop. They then try it out against the real thing. UKTV History also shows "Crafty Tricks of War" from time to time.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: In 2012, Strawbridge was announced as presenter of new Channel 5 series "Beat the Ancestors", which commenced broadcast in February 2013.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: In 2016, he was announced as a co-host of the three-part BBC Four series "Trainspotting Live", which was broadcast in July 2016.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: In 2017, Strawbridge presented "Cabins in the Wild" with Will Hardie, a show following a competition set up by the Welsh Tourist Board. Eight competitors were selected based on their designs to build cabins, intended to be combined as a hotel in the countryside, before one ultimate winner was selected. The two presenters also constructed their own cabin.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: In 2018, Channel 4 broadcast a programme called "The Biggest Little Railway in the World", which documented an attempt to get a model train to traverse the Great Glen Way between Fort William and Inverness. Strawbridge was the main presenter and lead engineer on the project.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Strawbridge married Brigit A. Weiner in 1982, with whom he has two children. The couple separated in 2010. He has two additional children with Angela Newman (born 7 April 1978; known as Angel Adoree), founder of The Vintage Patisserie, whom he married in November 2015.


title: Dick Strawbridge

text: Dick with James Strawbridge (celebrity chef son) are the authors of "Preserves", a book in the "Made at Home" series published by Mitchell Beazley in 2012.


title: Blood transfusion

text: Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but modern medical practice commonly uses only components of the blood, such as red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, clotting factors and platelets.


title: Blood transfusion

text: Red blood cells (RBC) contain hemoglobin, and supply the cells of the body with oxygen. White blood cells are not commonly used during transfusion, but they are part of the immune system, and also fight infections. Plasma is the "yellowish" liquid part of blood, which acts as a buffer, and contains proteins and important substances needed for the body's overall health. Platelets are involved in blood clotting, preventing the body from bleeding. Before these components were known, doctors believed that blood was homogeneous. Because of this scientific misunderstanding, many patients died because of incompatible blood transferred to them.


title: Blood transfusion

text: Historically, red blood cell transfusion was considered when the hemoglobin level fell below 100g/L or hematocrit fell below 30%. Because each unit of blood given carries risks, a trigger level lower than that, at 70 to 80g/L, is now usually used, as it has been shown to have better patient outcomes. The administration of a single unit of blood is the standard for hospitalized people who are not bleeding, with this treatment followed with re-assessment and consideration of symptoms and hemoglobin concentration. Patients with poor oxygen saturation may need more blood. The advisory caution to use blood transfusion only with more severe anemia is in part due to evidence that outcomes are worsened if larger amounts are given. One may consider transfusion for people with symptoms of cardiovascular disease such as chest pain or shortness of breath. In cases where patients have low levels of hemoglobin due to iron deficiency, but are cardiovascularly stable, parenteral iron is a preferred option based on both efficacy and safety. Other blood products are given where appropriate, e.g., to treat clotting deficiencies.


title: Blood transfusion

text: Before a blood transfusion is given, there are many steps taken to ensure quality of the blood products, compatibility, and safety to the recipient. In 2012, a national blood policy was in place in 70% of countries and 69% of countries had specific legislation that covers the safety and quality of blood transfusion.


title: Blood transfusion

text: Blood transfusions use as sources of blood either one's own (autologous transfusion), or someone else's (allogeneic or homologous transfusion). The latter is much more common than the former. Using another's blood must first start with donation of blood. Blood is most commonly donated as whole blood obtained intravenously and mixed with an anticoagulant. In developed countries, donations are usually anonymous to the recipient, but products in a blood bank are always individually traceable through the whole cycle of donation, testing, separation into components, storage, and administration to the recipient. This enables management and investigation of any suspected transfusion related disease transmission or transfusion reaction. In developing countries, the donor is sometimes specifically recruited by or for the recipient, typically a family member, and the donation occurs immediately before the transfusion.


title: Blood transfusion

text: It is unclear whether applying alcohol swab alone or alcohol swab followed by antiseptic is able to reduce contamination of donor's blood.


title: Blood transfusion

text: Donated blood is usually subjected to processing after it is collected, to make it suitable for use in specific patient populations. Collected blood is then separated into blood components by centrifugation: red blood cells, plasma, platelets, albumin protein, clotting factor concentrates, cryoprecipitate, fibrinogen concentrate, and immunoglobulins (antibodies). Red cells, plasma and platelets can also be donated individually via a more complex process called apheresis.


title: Blood transfusion

text: Before a recipient receives a transfusion, compatibility testing between donor and recipient blood must be done. The first step before a transfusion is given is to type and screen the recipient's blood. Typing of recipient's blood determines the ABO and Rh status. The sample is then screened for any alloantibodies that may react with donor blood. It takes about 45 minutes to complete (depending on the method used). The blood bank scientist also checks for special requirements of the patient (e.g. need for washed, irradiated or CMV negative blood) and the history of the patient to see if they have previously identified antibodies and any other serological anomalies.


title: Blood transfusion

text: A positive screen warrants an antibody panel/investigation to determine if it is clinically significant. An antibody panel consists of commercially prepared group O red cell suspensions from donors that have been phenotyped for antigens that correspond to commonly encountered and clinically significant alloantibodies. Donor cells may have homozygous (e.g. K+k+), heterozygous (K+k-) expression or no expression of various antigens (K−k−). The phenotypes of all the donor cells being tested are shown in a chart. The patient's serum is tested against the various donor cells. Based on the reactions of the patient's serum against the donor cells, a pattern will emerge to confirm the presence of one or more antibodies. Not all antibodies are clinically significant (i.e. cause transfusion reactions, HDN, etc.). Once the patient has developed a clinically significant antibody it is vital that the patient receive antigen-negative red blood cells to prevent future transfusion reactions. A direct antiglobulin test (Coombs test) is also performed as part of the antibody investigation.


title: Blood transfusion

text: If there is no antibody present, an immediate spin crossmatch or computer-assisted crossmatch is performed where the recipient serum and donor rbc are incubated. In the immediate spin method, two drops of patient serum are tested against a drop of 3–5% suspension of donor cells in a test tube and spun in a serofuge. Agglutination or hemolysis (i.e., positive Coombs test) in the test tube is a positive reaction and the unit should not be transfused.


title: Blood transfusion

text: If an antibody is suspected, potential donor units must first be screened for the corresponding antigen by phenotyping them. Antigen negative units are then tested against the patient plasma using an antiglobulin/indirect crossmatch technique at 37 degrees Celsius to enhance reactivity and make the test easier to read.


title: Blood transfusion

text: In urgent cases where crossmatching cannot be completed, and the risk of dropping hemoglobin outweighs the risk of transfusing uncrossmatched blood, O-negative blood is used, followed by crossmatch as soon as possible. O-negative is also used for children and women of childbearing age. It is preferable for the laboratory to obtain a pre-transfusion sample in these cases so a type and screen can be performed to determine the actual blood group of the patient and to check for alloantibodies.


title: Blood transfusion

text: This chart shows possible matches in blood transfusion between donor and receiver using ABO and Rh system.


title: Blood transfusion

text: In the same way that the safety of pharmaceutical products is overseen by pharmacovigilance, the safety of blood and blood products is overseen by haemovigilance. This is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a system "...to identify and prevent occurrence or recurrence of transfusion related unwanted events, to increase the safety, efficacy and efficiency of blood transfusion, covering all activities of the transfusion chain from donor to recipient." The system should include monitoring, identification, reporting, investigation and analysis of adverse events near-misses and reactions related to transfusion and manufacturing. In the UK this data is collected by an independent organisation called SHOT (Serious Hazards Of Transfusion).


title: Blood transfusion

text: Transfusions of blood products are associated with several complications, many of which can be grouped as immunological or infectious. There is controversy on potential quality degradation during storage.


title: Blood transfusion

text: The use of greater amount of red blood cells is associated with a high risk of infections. In those who were given red blood only with significant anemia infection rates were 12% while in those who were given red blood at milder levels of anemia infection rates were 17%.