title: Schlumberger

text: Over the years, Schlumberger continued to expand its operations and acquisitions. In 1960, Dowell Schlumberger (50% Schlumberger, 50% Dow Chemical), which specialized in pumping services for the oil industry, was formed. On February 2, 1962, Schlumberger Limited became listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That same year, Schlumberger purchased Daystrom, an electronic instruments manufacturer in South Boston, Virginia which was making furniture by the time the division was sold to Sperry & Hutchinson in 1971. Schlumberger purchased 50% of Forex in 1964 and merged it with 50% of Languedocienne to create the Neptune Drilling Company. The first computerized reservoir analysis, SARABAND, was introduced in 1970. The remaining 50% of Forex was acquired the following year; Neptune was renamed Forex Neptune Drilling Company. In 1979, Fairchild Camera and Instrument (including Fairchild Semiconductor) became a subsidiary of Schlumberger Limited.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 1981, Schlumberger established the first international data links with e-mail. In 1983, Schlumberger opened its Cambridge Research Center in Cambridge, England.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 1984, the SEDCO drilling rig company and half of Dowell of North America were acquired, resulting in the creation of the Anadrill drilling segment, a combination of Dowell and The Analysts' drilling segments. Forex Neptune was merged with SEDCO to create the Sedco Forex Drilling Company the following year, when Schlumberger purchased Merlin and 50% of GECO.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 1987, Schlumberger completed its purchases of Neptune (North America), Bosco and Cori (Italy), and Allmess (Germany). That same year, National Semiconductor acquired Fairchild Semiconductor from Schlumberger for $122 million.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 1991, Schlumberger acquired PRAKLA-SEISMOS, and pioneered the use of geosteering to plan the drill path in horizontal wells.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 1992, Schlumberger acquired software company GeoQuest Systems. With the purchase came the conversion of SINet to TCP/IP and thus internet capable. In the 1990s Schlumberger bought out the petroleum division, AEG meter, and ECLIPSE reservoir study team Intera Technologies Corp. A joint venture between Schlumberger and Cable & Wireless resulted with the creation of Omnes, which then handled all of the company's internal IT business. Oilphase and Camco International were also purchased.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 1999, Schlumberger and Smith International created a joint venture, M-I L.L.C., the world's largest drilling fluids (mud) company. The company consists of 60% Smith International, and 40% by Schlumberger. Since the joint venture was prohibited by a 1994 antitrust consent decree barring Smith from selling or combining their fluids business with certain other companies, including Schlumberger, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. found Smith International Inc. and Schlumberger Ltd. guilty of criminal contempt and fined each company $750,000 and placed each company on five years probation. Both companies also agreed to pay a total of $13.1 million, representing a full disgorgement of all of the joint venture's profits during the time the companies were in contempt.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2000, the Geco-Prakla division was merged with Western Geophysical to create the seismic data acquisition and processing contracting company WesternGeco, of which Schlumberger held a 70% stake, the remaining 30% belonging to competitor Baker Hughes. Sedco Forex was spun off, and merged with Transocean Drilling company in 2000.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2001, Schlumberger acquired the IT consultancy company Sema plc for $5.2 billion. The company was an Athens 2004 Summer Olympics partner, but the venture into IT consultancy did not pay off, and divestiture of Sema to Atos Origin was completed that year for $1.5 billion. The cards division was divested through an IPO to form Axalto, which later merged with Gemplus to form Gemalto, and the Messaging Solutions unit was spun off and merged with Taral Networks to form Airwide Solutions. In 2003, the Automated Test Equipment group, part of the 1979 Fairchild Semiconductor acquisition, was spun off to NPTest Holding, which later sold it to Credence.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2005, Schlumberger purchased Waterloo Hydrogeologic, which was followed by several other groundwater industry related companies, such as Westbay Instruments, and Van Essen Instruments. Also that year, Schlumberger relocated its U.S. corporate offices from New York to Houston.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2006, Schlumberger purchased the remaining 30% of WesternGeco from Baker Hughes for US$2.4 billion. Also that year, the Schlumberger-Doll Research Center was relocated to a newly built research facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts to replace the Ridgefield, Connecticut research center. The facility joins the other research centers operated by the company in Cambridge, England; Moscow, Russia; Stavanger, Norway; and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In March 2022, Schlumberger stopped investing in its projects in Russia because of International sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2009, Schlumberger acquired the shares of Techsia SA, a supplier of petrophysical software based in Montpellier, France. Techsia is well-known in the industry for its flagship Techlog© product. The Montpellier based Techsia center becomes then the Schlumberger Petrophysics Software Center of Excellence for the development of state-of-the-art solutions for the oil and gas exploration and production industry


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2010, the acquisition of Smith International in an all-stock deal valued at $11.3 billion was announced. The sale price is 45.84-a-share price was 37.5 percent higher than Smith closing price on 18 February 2010. The deal is the biggest acquisition in Schlumberger history. The merger was completed on August 27, 2010. Also announced in 2010 were Schlumberger plans to acquire Geoservices, a French-based company specializing in energy services, in a deal valued at $1.1 billion, including debt.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2014, Schlumberger announced the purchase of the remaining shares of SES Holdings Limited ("Saxon"), a Calgary-based provider of international land drilling services, from First Reserve and certain members of Saxon management. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals. Schlumberger had a minority share in Saxon previously.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2015, Schlumberger was indicted by the US Department of Justice for sanction violations of conducting business in Iran and Sudan; the company was fined $233 million, amounting to the largest fine for sanctions to date.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2015, due to a downturn in the global oil and gas industry, Schlumberger announced 21,000 layoffs accounting for 15% of the company's total workforce.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2015, Schlumberger agreed to acquire oilfield equipment manufacturer Cameron International for $14.8 billion.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2018, Schlumberger announced that WesternGeco would be exiting the seismic data acquisition business, both onshore and offshore, while retaining its multiclient data processing and interpretation segments. This decision followed the bankruptcy filings of several competitors in the seismic services sector.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2021, Schlumberger New Energy announced the signature of pilot project agreements between the French state, Genvia and critical-industry leaders on the pathway to net zero in the cement and steel industries. Through these agreements, the goal is to scale up the next generation of electrolyzer technology, developed over the last two decades, to produce clean hydrogen without CO2 emissions, accelerating the decarbonization of multiple industrial sectors.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2022, Schlumberger completed a corporate rebranding to be known as SLB. According to media statements, the company's CEO said the corporate rebranding is not a shift away from fossil fuels.


title: Schlumberger

text: The company has offices in multiple cities and regions in France: Abbeville, Beziers , Clamart, Montpellier, Pau and Paris..


title: Schlumberger

text: Such sites and entities are as well at the forefront of the SLB New Energy strategy and development. (example: Geothermal with Celsius Energy and Hydrogen with Genvia)


title: Schlumberger

text: Schlumberger maintains a campus at the northeast corner of U.S. Highway 90A and Gillingham Lane in Sugar Land, Texas; as of 2017 Schlumberger is the third largest employer in the city. In 2015, Schlumberger announced that it was moving its U.S. corporate headquarters to the Sugar Land facility from its Houston office building. The company plans to build new buildings with a scheduled completion time of late 2017. They include a total of of Class A office space and an "amenities" building with of space.


title: Schlumberger

text: In the 1930s, the North American headquarters were established in Houston. In the 1970s, the company's top executives in North America were relocated to New York City. By 2006, the head office had 50 executives and support staff. By that year the company was moving that office to a building near the Houston Galleria.


title: Schlumberger

text: The company moved its Houston-area offices from 5000 Gulf Freeway in Houston to the Sugar Land campus in 1995.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2009, "Newsweek" released their "Green Rankings", a ranking of the 500 largest corporations on track records on a number of environmental issues. Schlumberger was ranked 118th out of 500 overall, and 3rd out of 31 in their industry. "Newsweek" remarked that to mitigate global warming Schlumberger has invested in carbon sequestration which involves long-term storage of and that the company's seismic survey ships are 20% to 25% more fuel-efficient than those of other seismic contractors from using fuels that emit less pollution and towing equipment that creates less drag on the vessels.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2006, a radioactive canister imported by Schlumberger was recovered in the Western Australian outback desert. The canister had been lost


title: Schlumberger

text: by the company's transport partner, when the improperly secured container fell off the trailer on which it was being transported.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2010, the Aberdeen Sheriff court fined Schlumberger Oilfield UK £300,000 for losing a radioactive source on the rig floor on the Ensco 101 mobile drilling rig in the North Sea for 4 hours.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2009, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined Chesapeake Appalachia LLC and Schlumberger Technology Corp. more than $15,500 each for a hydrochloric acid spill in February 2009 at Chesapeake's Chancellor natural gas well site in Asylum Township, Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Officials said the leak did not contaminate groundwater.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2006, as the current owner of a facility in Pickens, South Carolina, Schlumberger agreed to pay $11.8 million to federal and state agencies for a problem caused by the previous owner, Sangamo-Weston, a capacitor manufacturing plant. The cause of the problem was from polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) released into the environment by Sangamo-Weston from 1955 to 1987. According to the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, an additional agreement by Schlumberger to purchase and remove dams will directly improve the Twelvemile Creek, South Carolina ecosystem and provide significant environmental benefits for the affected communities.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2010, Schlumberger was contracted to perform wireline logging on the "Deepwater Horizon" oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. On the day of the explosion, the Schlumberger crew was supposed to perform a cement evaluation test, but the test was cancelled and the crew was released by BP to leave the rig on the same day. The cost-cutting decision to cancel the test is dramatized in the subsequent film by Peter Berg.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2015, Schlumberger pled guilty to violating U.S. sanctions related to Iran and Sudan and agreed to pay a $237 million penalty.


title: Schlumberger

text: In 2020, a class action lawsuit was filed against Schlumberger, alleging a culture of sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. According to the company's pay-gap report for 2018, women composed a mere 5.4% of field roles and 16.2% of roles in the full company. The lawsuit alleges that males regularly documented female co-workers and flaunted them on public forums. Male colleagues would also encourage other men to break into the plaintiff's room at night and stonewall her if she did not consent to sexual activity. The lawsuit also outlines instances of "sexist and hostile comments," and one instance in which the plaintiff was groped. Women who complain to HR are told it's all just "oil field talk" and are subsequently ignored. When the plaintiff kept complaining, Schlumberger allegedly terminated the plaintiff. Women who spoke with the Texas Observer describe a culture of silence, where women stay silent for fear of being fired in the high turnover company.


title: Schlumberger

text: In October 2022, it was reported that some of Schlumberger's more than 9,000 Russian employees based in Russia received military draft notices through the company. Human rights groups such as Business & Human Rights Resource Centre are watching how the company responds to the concerns. About a week later, the company said it was evaluating unspecified options for its thousands of Russian employees. According to a list maintained by the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale University which tracks company responses about operating in Russia, Schlumberger is noted as "buying time" while it continues to carry out the bulk of its business in the country.


title: Flea

text: Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, are usually brown, and have bodies that are "flattened" sideways or narrow, enabling them to move through their hosts' fur or feathers. They lack wings; their hind legs are extremely well adapted for jumping. Their claws keep them from being dislodged, and their mouthparts are adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood. They can leap 50 times their body length, a feat second only to jumps made by another group of insects, the superfamily of froghoppers. Flea larvae are worm-like, with no limbs; they have chewing mouthparts and feed on organic debris left on their hosts' skin.


title: Flea

text: Genetic evidence indicates that fleas are a specialised lineage of parasitic scorpionflies (Mecoptera) "sensu lato", most closely related to the family Nannochoristidae. The earliest known fleas are lived in the Middle Jurassic; modern-looking forms appeared in the Cenozoic. Fleas probably originated on mammals first and expanded their reach to birds. Each species of flea specializes, more or less, on one species of host: many species of flea never breed on any other host; some are less selective. Some families of fleas are exclusive to a single host group; for example, the Malacopsyllidae are found only on armadillos, the Ischnopsyllidae only on bats, and the Chimaeropsyllidae only on elephant shrews.


title: Flea

text: The oriental rat flea, "Xenopsylla cheopis", is a vector of "Yersinia pestis", the bacterium that causes bubonic plague. The disease was spread to humans by rodents, such as the black rat, which were bitten by infected fleas. Major outbreaks included the Plague of Justinian, about 540, and the Black Death, about 1350, each of which killed a sizeable fraction of the world's people.


title: Flea

text: Fleas appear in human culture in such diverse forms as flea circuses; poems, such as John Donne's erotic "The Flea"; works of music, such as those by Modest Mussorgsky; and a film by Charlie Chaplin.


title: Flea

text: Fleas are wingless insects, long, that are agile, usually dark colored (for example, the reddish-brown of the cat flea), with a proboscis, or stylet, adapted to feeding by piercing the skin and sucking their host's blood through their epipharynx. Flea legs end in strong claws that are adapted to grasp a host.


title: Flea

text: Unlike other insects, fleas do not possess compound eyes but instead only have simple eyespots with a single biconvex lens; some species lack eyes altogether. Their bodies are laterally compressed, permitting easy movement through the hairs or feathers on the host's body. The flea body is covered with hard plates called sclerites. These sclerites are covered with many hairs and short spines directed backward, which also assist its movements on the host. The tough body is able to withstand great pressure, likely an adaptation to survive attempts to eliminate them by scratching.


title: Flea

text: Fleas lay tiny, white, oval eggs. The larvae are small and pale, have bristles covering their worm-like bodies, lack eyes, and have mouth parts adapted to chewing. The larvae feed on organic matter, especially the feces of mature fleas, which contain dried blood. Adults feed only on fresh blood.


title: Flea

text: Their legs are long, the hind pair well adapted for jumping; a flea can jump vertically up to and horizontally up to , making the flea one of the best jumpers of all known animals (relative to body size), second only to the froghopper. A flea can jump more than 100 times its length (vertically up to 7 inches and horizontally 13 inches). That's equivalent to an adult human jumping 250 feet vertically and 450 feet horizontally. Rarely do fleas jump from dog to dog. Most flea infestations come from newly developed fleas from the pet's environment. The flea jump is so rapid and forceful that it exceeds the capabilities of muscle, and instead of relying on direct muscle power, fleas store muscle energy in a pad of the elastic protein named resilin before releasing it rapidly (like a human using a bow and arrow). Immediately before the jump, muscles contract and deform the resilin pad, slowly storing energy which can then be released extremely rapidly to power leg extension for propulsion. To prevent premature release of energy or motions of the leg, the flea employs a "catch mechanism". Early in the jump, the tendon of the primary jumping muscle passes slightly behind the coxa-trochanter joint, generating a torque which holds the joint closed with the leg close to the body. To trigger jumping, another muscle pulls the tendon forward until it passes the joint axis, generating the opposite torque to extend the leg and power the jump by release of stored energy. The actual take off has been shown by high-speed video to be from the tibiae and tarsi rather than from the trochantera (knees).


title: Flea

text: Fleas are holometabolous insects, going through the four lifecycle stages of egg, larva, pupa, and imago (adult). In most species, neither female nor male fleas are fully mature when they first emerge but must feed on blood before they become capable of reproduction. The first blood meal triggers the maturation of the ovaries in females and the dissolution of the testicular plug in males, and copulation soon follows. Some species breed all year round while others synchronise their activities with their hosts' life cycles or with local environmental factors and climatic conditions. Flea populations consist of roughly 50% eggs, 35% larvae, 10% pupae, and 5% adults.


title: Flea

text: The number of eggs laid depends on species, with batch sizes ranging from two to several dozen. The total number of eggs produced in a female's lifetime (fecundity) varies from around one hundred to several thousand. In some species, the flea lives in the host's nest or burrow and the eggs are deposited on the substrate, but in others, the eggs are laid on the host itself and can easily fall off onto the ground. Because of this, areas where the host rests and sleeps become one of the primary habitats of eggs and developing larvae. The eggs take around two days to two weeks to hatch.


title: Flea

text: Flea larvae emerge from the eggs to feed on any available organic material such as dead insects, faeces, conspecific eggs, and vegetable matter. In laboratory studies, some dietary diversity seems necessary for proper larval development. Blood-only diets allow only 12% of larvae to mature, whereas blood and yeast or dog chow diets allow almost all larvae to mature. Another study also showed that 90% of larvae matured into adults when the diet included nonviable eggs. They are blind and avoid sunlight, keeping to dark, humid places such as sand or soil, cracks and crevices, under carpets and in bedding. The entire larval stage lasts between four and 18 days.


title: Flea

text: Given an adequate supply of food, larvae pupate and weave silken cocoons after three larval stages. Within the cocoon, the larva molts for a final time and undergoes metamorphosis into the adult form. This can take just four days, but may take much longer under adverse conditions, and there follows a variable-length stage during which the pre-emergent adult awaits a suitable opportunity to emerge. Trigger factors for emergence include vibrations (including sound), heat (in warm-blooded hosts), and increased levels of carbon dioxide, all of which may indicate the presence of a suitable host. Large numbers of pre-emergent fleas may be present in otherwise flea-free environments, and the introduction of a suitable host may trigger a mass emergence.


title: Flea

text: Once the flea reaches adulthood, its primary goal is to find blood and then to reproduce. Female fleas can lay 5000 or more eggs over their life, permitting rapid increase in numbers. Generally speaking, an adult flea only lives for 2 or 3 months. Without a host to provide a blood meal, a flea's life can be as short as a few days. Under ideal conditions of temperature, food supply, and humidity, adult fleas can live for up to a year and a half. Completely developed adult fleas can live for several months without eating, so long as they do not emerge from their puparia. Optimum temperatures for the flea's life cycle are 21 °C to 30 °C (70 °F to 85 °F) and optimum humidity is 70%.


title: Flea

text: Adult female rabbit fleas, "Spilopsyllus cuniculi", can detect the changing levels of cortisol and corticosterone hormones in the rabbit's blood that indicate it is getting close to giving birth. This triggers sexual maturity in the fleas and they start producing eggs. As soon as the baby rabbits are born, the fleas make their way down to them and once on board they start feeding, mating, and laying eggs. After 12 days, the adult fleas make their way back to the mother. They complete this mini-migration every time she gives birth.


title: Flea

text: Between 1735 and 1758, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus first classified insects, doing so on the basis of their wing structure. One of the seven orders into which he divided them was "Aptera", meaning wingless, a group in which as well as fleas, he included spiders, woodlice and myriapods. It wasn't until 1810 that the French zoologist Pierre André Latreille reclassified the insects on the basis of their mouthparts as well as their wings, splitting Aptera into Thysanura (silverfish), Anoplura (sucking lice) and Siphonaptera (fleas), at the same time separating off the arachnids and crustaceans into their own subphyla. The group's name, Siphonaptera, is zoological Latin from the Greek "siphon" (a tube) and "aptera" (wingless).


title: Flea

text: It was historically unclear whether the Siphonaptera are sister to the Mecoptera (scorpionflies and allies), or are inside that clade, making "Mecoptera" paraphyletic. The earlier suggestion that the Siphonaptera are sister to the Boreidae (snow scorpionflies) is not supported. A 2020 genetic study recovered Siphonaptera within Mecoptera, with strong support, as the sister group to Nannochoristidae, a small, relictual group of mecopterans native to the Southern Hemisphere. Fleas and nannochoristids share several similarities with each other that are not shared with other mecopterans, including similar mouthparts as well as a similar sperm pump organisation.


title: Flea

text: Fleas likely descended from fluid feeding insects that probably fed on plants. Fossils of large, wingless stem-group fleas with siphonate (sucking) mouthparts from the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous have been found in northeastern China and Russia, belonging to the families Saurophthiridae and Pseudopulicidae, as well as "Tarwinia" from the Early Cretaceous of Australia. Most flea families formed after the end of the Cretaceous (in the Paleogene and onwards). Modern fleas probably arose in the southern continental area of Gondwana, and migrated rapidly northwards from there. They most likely evolved with mammal hosts, only later moving to birds.


title: Flea

text: Siphonaptera is a relatively small order of insects: members of the order undergo complete metamorphosis and are secondarily wingless (their ancestors had wings which modern forms have lost). In 2005, Medvedev listed 2005 species in 242 genera, and despite subsequent descriptions of new species, bringing the total up to around 2500 species, this is the most complete database available. The order is divided into four infraorders and eighteen families. Some families are exclusive to a single host group; these include the Malacopsyllidae (armadillos), Ischnopsyllidae (bats) and Chimaeropsyllidae (elephant shrews).


title: Flea

text: Many of the known species are little studied. Some 600 species (a quarter of the total) are known from single records. Over 94% of species are associated with mammalian hosts, and only about 3% of species can be considered to be specific parasites of birds. The fleas on birds are thought to have originated from mammalian fleas; at least sixteen separate groups of fleas switched to avian hosts during the evolutionary history of the Siphonaptera. Occurrences of fleas on reptiles is accidental, and fleas have been known to feed on the hemolymph (bloodlike body fluid) of ticks.


title: Flea

text: Flea phylogeny was long neglected, the discovery of homologies with the parts of other insects being made difficult by their extreme specialization. Whiting and colleagues prepared a detailed molecular phylogeny in 2008, with the basic structure shown in the cladogram. The Hectopsyllidae, including the harmful chigoe flea or jigger, is sister to the rest of the Siphonaptera.


title: Flea

text: Fleas feed on a wide variety of warm-blooded vertebrates including dogs, cats, rabbits, squirrels, ferrets, rats, mice birds and sometimes humans. Fleas normally specialise in one host species or group of species, but can often feed but not reproduce on other species. "Ceratophyllus gallinae" affects poultry as well as wild birds. As well as the degree of relatedness of a potential host to the flea's original host, it has been shown that avian fleas that exploit a range of hosts, only parasitise species with low immune responses. In general, host specificity decreases as the size of the host species decreases. Another factor is the opportunities available to the flea to change host species; this is smaller in colonially nesting birds, where the flea may never encounter another species, than it is in solitary nesting birds. A large, long-lived host provides a stable environment that favours host-specific parasites.


title: Flea

text: Although there are species named dog fleas ("Ctenocephalides canis" Curtis, 1826) and cat fleas ("Ctenocephalides felis"), fleas are not always strictly species-specific. A study in Virginia examined 244 fleas from 29 dogs: all were cat fleas. Dog fleas had not been found in Virginia in more than 70 years, and may not even occur in the US, so a flea found on a dog is likely a cat flea ("Ctenocephalides felis").


title: Flea

text: One theory of human hairlessness is that the loss of hair helped humans to reduce their burden of fleas and other ectoparasites.


title: Flea

text: In many species, fleas are principally a nuisance to their hosts, causing an itching sensation which in turn causes the host to try to remove the pest by biting, pecking or scratching. Fleas are not simply a source of annoyance, however. Flea bites cause a slightly raised, swollen, irritating nodule to form on the epidermis at the site of each bite, with a single puncture point at the centre, like a mosquito bite. This can lead to an eczematous itchy skin disease called flea allergy dermatitis, which is common in many host species, including dogs and cats. The bites often appear in clusters or lines of two bites, and can remain itchy and inflamed for up to several weeks afterwards. Fleas can lead to secondary hair loss as a result of frequent scratching and biting by the animal. They can also cause anemia in extreme cases.


title: Flea

text: Fleas are vectors for viral, bacterial and rickettsial diseases of humans and other animals, as well as of protozoan and helminth parasites. Bacterial diseases carried by fleas include murine or endemic typhus and bubonic plague. Fleas can transmit "Rickettsia typhi", "Rickettsia felis", "Bartonella henselae", and the myxomatosis virus. They can carry "Hymenolepiasis" tapeworms and Trypanosome protozoans. The chigoe flea or jigger ("Tunga penetrans") causes the disease tungiasis, a major public health problem around the world. Fleas that specialize as parasites on specific mammals may use other mammals as hosts; thus, humans may be bitten by cat and dog fleas.


title: Flea

text: Fleas have appeared in poetry, literature, music and art; these include Robert Hooke's drawing of a flea under the microscope in his pioneering book "Micrographia" published in 1665, poems by Donne and Jonathan Swift, works of music by Giorgio Federico Ghedini and Modest Mussorgsky, a play by Georges Feydeau, a film by Charlie Chaplin, and paintings by artists such as Giuseppe Crespi, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, and Georges de La Tour.


title: Flea

text: John Donne's erotic metaphysical poem "The Flea", published in 1633 after his death, uses the conceit of a flea, which has sucked blood from the male speaker and his female lover, as an extended metaphor for their sexual relationship. The speaker tries to convince a lady to sleep with him, arguing that if the mingling of their blood in the flea is innocent, then sex would be also.


title: Flea

text: The comic poem "Siphonaptera" was written in 1915 by the mathematician Augustus De Morgan, It describes an infinite chain of parasitism made of ever larger and ever smaller fleas.


title: Flea

text: Flea circuses provided entertainment to nineteenth century audiences. These circuses, extremely popular in Europe from 1830 onwards, featured fleas dressed as humans or towing miniature carts, chariots, rollers or cannon. These devices were originally made by watchmakers or jewellers to show off their skill at miniaturization. A ringmaster called a "professor" accompanied their performance with a rapid circus patter.


title: Flea

text: Oriental rat fleas, "Xenopsylla cheopis", can carry the coccobacillus "Yersinia pestis." The infected fleas feed on rodent vectors of this bacterium, such as the black rat, "Rattus rattus", and then infect human populations with the plague, as has happened repeatedly from ancient times, as in the Plague of Justinian in 541–542. Outbreaks killed up to 200 million people across Europe between 1346 and 1671. The Black Death pandemic between 1346 and 1353 likely killed over a third of the population of Europe.


title: Flea

text: Because fleas carry plague, they have seen service as a biological weapon. During World War II, the Japanese army dropped fleas infested with "Y. pestis" in China. The bubonic and septicaemic plagues are the most probable form of the plague that would spread as a result of a bioterrorism attack that used fleas as a vector.


title: Flea

text: The banker Charles Rothschild devoted much of his time to entomology, creating a large collection of fleas now in the Rothschild Collection at the Natural History Museum, London. He discovered and named the plague vector flea, "Xenopsylla cheopis", also known as the oriental rat flea, in 1903. Using what was probably the world's most complete collection of fleas of about 260,000 specimens (representing some 73% of the 2,587 species and subspecies so far described), he described around 500 species and subspecies of Siphonaptera. He was followed in this interest by his daughter Miriam Rothschild, who helped to catalogue his enormous collection of the insects in seven volumes.


title: Flea

text: Fleas have a significant economic impact. In America alone, approximately $2.8 billion is spent annually on flea-related veterinary bills and another $1.6 billion annually for flea treatment with pet groomers. Four billion dollars is spent annually for prescription flea treatment and $348 million for flea pest control.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: Streptococcus pyogenes is a species of Gram-positive, aerotolerant bacteria in the genus "Streptococcus". These bacteria are extracellular, and made up of non-motile and non-sporing cocci (round cells) that tend to link in chains. They are clinically important for humans, as they are an infrequent, but usually pathogenic, part of the skin microbiota that can cause Group A streptococcal infection. "S. pyogenes" is the predominant species harboring the Lancefield group A antigen, and is often called group A "Streptococcus (GAS). However, both "Streptococcus dysgalactiae" and the "Streptococcus anginosus" group can possess group A antigen as well. Group A streptococci, when grown on blood agar, typically produce small (2–3 mm) zones of beta-hemolysis, a complete destruction of red blood cells. The name group A (beta-hemolytic) "Streptococcus (GABHS) is thus also used.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: The species name is derived from Greek words meaning 'a chain' () of berries ( [Latinized from ]) and pus ()-forming ("genes"), since a number of infections caused by the bacterium produce pus. The main criterion for differentiation between "Staphylococcus" spp. and "Streptococcus" spp. is the catalase test. Staphylococci are catalase positive whereas streptococci are catalase-negative. "S. pyogenes" can be cultured on fresh blood agar plates. Under ideal conditions, it has an incubation period of 1 to 3 days.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: An estimated 700 million GAS infections occur worldwide each year. While the overall mortality rate for these infections is less than 0.1%, over 650,000 of the cases are severe and invasive, with these cases having a mortality rate of 25%. Early recognition and treatment are critical; diagnostic failure can result in sepsis and death.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: "S. pyogenes" typically colonizes the throat, genital mucosa, rectum, and skin. Of healthy individuals, 1% to 5% have throat, vaginal, or rectal carriage. In healthy children, such carriage rate varies from 2 to 17%. There are four methods for the transmission of this bacterium: inhalation of respiratory droplets, skin contact, contact with objects, surface, or dust that is contaminated with bacteria or, less commonly, transmission through food. Such bacteria can cause a variety of diseases such as streptococcal pharyngitis, rheumatic fever, rheumatic heart disease, and scarlet fever. Although pharyngitis is mostly viral in origin, about 15 to 30% of all pharyngitis cases in children are caused by GAS; meanwhile, 5 to 20% of pharyngitis in adults are streptococcal. The number of pharyngitis cases is higher in children than in adults due to exposures in schools, nurseries, and as a consequence of lower host immunity. Cases of Streptococcal pharyngitis occur more frequently in later winter to early spring in seasonal countries due to many people rebreathing the same indoor air. Disease cases are the lowest during autumn.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: MT1 (metabolic type 1) clone is frequently associated with invasive "Streptococcus pyogenes" infections among developed countries. The incidence and mortality of "S. pyogenes" was high during the pre-penicillin era, but had already started to fall prior to the widespread availability of penicillin. Therefore, environmental factors do play a role in the "S. pyogenes" infection. Incidence of "S. pyogenes" is 2 to 4 per 100,000 population in developed countries and 12 to 83 per 100,000 population in developing countries. "S. pyogenes" infection is more frequently found in men than women, with highest rates in the elderly, followed by infants. In people with risk factors such as heart disease, diabetes, malignancy, blunt trauma, surgical incision, virus respiratory infection, including influenza, "S. pyogenes" infection happens in 17 to 25% of all cases. GAS secondary infection usually happens within one week of the diagnosis of influenza infection. In 14 to 16% of childhood "S. pyogenes" infections, there is a prior chickenpox infection. Such "S. pyogenes" infection in children usually manifests as severe soft tissue infection with onset 4 to 12 days from the chickenpox diagnosis. There is also 40 to 60 times increase in risk of "S. pyogenes" infection within the first two weeks of chickenpox infection in children. However, 20 to 30% of "S. pyogenes" infection does occur in adults with no identifiable risk factors. The incidence is higher in children (50 to 80% of "S. pyogenes" infection) with no known risk factors. The rates of scarlet fever in UK was usually 4 in 100,000 population, however, in 2014, the rates had risen to 49 per 100,000 population. Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) usually occurs at 2 to 3 weeks after the throat infection, which is more common among the impoverished people in developing countries. From 1967 to 1996, the global mean incidence of rheumatic fever and RHD was 19 per 100,000 with the highest incidence at 51 per 100,000.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: Maternal "S. pyogenes" infection usually happens in late pregnancy; at more than 30 weeks of gestation to four weeks postpartum, which accounts for 2 to 4% of all the "S. pyogenes" infections. This represents 20 to 100 times increase in risk for "S. pyogenes" infections. Clinical manifestations are: pneumonia, septic arthritis, necrotizing fasciitis, and genital tract sepsis. According to a study done by Queen Charlotte's hospital in London during the 1930s, the vagina was not the common source of such infection. On the contrary, maternal throat infection and close contacts with carriers were the more common sites for maternal "S. pyogenes" infection.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: In 1928, Rebecca Lancefield published a method for serotyping "S. pyogenes" based on its cell-wall polysaccharide, a virulence factor displayed on its surface. Later, in 1946, Lancefield described the serologic classification of "S. pyogenes" isolates based on their surface T-antigen. Four of the 20 T-antigens have been revealed to be pili, which are used by bacteria to attach to host cells. As of 2016, a total of 120 M proteins are identified. These M proteins are encoded by 234 types "emm" gene with greater than 1,200 alleles.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: All strains of "S. pyogenes" are polylysogenized, in that they carry one or more bacteriophage on their genomes. Some of the 'phages may be defective, but in some cases active 'phage may compensate for defects in others. In general, the genome of "S. pyogenes" strains isolated during disease are >90% identical, they differ by the 'phage they carry.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: "S. pyogenes" has several virulence factors that enable it to attach to host tissues, evade the immune response, and spread by penetrating host tissue layers. A carbohydrate-based bacterial capsule composed of hyaluronic acid surrounds the bacterium, protecting it from phagocytosis by neutrophils. In addition, the capsule and several factors embedded in the cell wall, including M protein, lipoteichoic acid, and protein F (SfbI) facilitate attachment to various host cells. M protein also inhibits opsonization by the alternative complement pathway by binding to host complement regulators. The M protein found on some serotypes is also able to prevent opsonization by binding to fibrinogen. However, the M protein is also the weakest point in this pathogen's defense, as antibodies produced by the immune system against M protein target the bacteria for engulfment by phagocytes. M proteins are unique to each strain, and identification can be used clinically to confirm the strain causing an infection.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: The genomes of different strains were sequenced (genome size is 1.8–1.9 Mbp) encoding about 1700-1900 proteins (1700 in strain NZ131, 1865 in strain MGAS5005). Complete genome sequences of the type strain of "S. pyogenes" (NCTC 8198 = CCUG 4207) are available in DNA Data Bank of Japan, European Nucleotide Archive, and GenBank under the accession numbers LN831034 and CP028841.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: Biofilms are a way for "S. pyogenes," as well as other bacterial cells, to communicate with each other. In the biofilm gene expression for multiple purposes (such as defending against the host immune system) is controlled via quorum sensing.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: One of the biofilm forming pathways in GAS is the Rgg2/3 pathway. It regulates SHP's (short hydrophobic peptides) that are quorum sensing pheromones a.k.a. autoinducers. The SHP's are translated to an immature form of the pheromone and must undergo processing, first by a metalloprotease enzyme inside the cell and then in the extracellular space, to reach their mature active form. The mode of transportation out of the cell and the extracellular processing factor(s) are still unknown. The mature SHP pheromone can then be taken into nearby cells and the cell it originated from via a transmembrane protein, oligopeptide permease.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: In the cytosol the pheromones have two functions in the Rgg2/3 pathway. Firstly, they inhibit the activity of Rgg3 which is a transcriptional regulator repressing SHP production. Secondly, they bind another transcriptional regulator, Rgg2, that increases the production of SHP's, having an antagonistic effect to Rgg3. SHP's activating their own transcriptional activator creates a positive feedback loop, which is common for the production for quorum sensing peptides. It enables the rapid production of the pheromones in large quantities. The production of SHP's increases biofilm biogenesis.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: It has been suggested that GAS switches between biofilm formation and degradation by utilizing pathways with opposing effects. Whilst Rgg2/3 pathway increases biofilm, the RopB pathway disrupts it. RopB is another Rgg-like protein (Rgg1) that directly activates SpeB (Streptococcal pyrogenic exotoxin B), a cysteine protease that acts as a virulence factor. In the absence of this pathway, biofilm formation is enhanced, possibly due to the lack of the protease degrading pheromones or other Rgg2/3 pathway counteracting effects.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: "S. pyogenes" is the cause of many human diseases, ranging from mild superficial skin infections to life-threatening systemic diseases. Infections typically begin in the throat or skin. The most striking sign is a strawberry-like rash. Examples of mild "S. pyogenes" infections include pharyngitis (strep throat) and localized skin infection (impetigo). Erysipelas and cellulitis are characterized by multiplication and lateral spread of "S. pyogenes" in deep layers of the skin. "S. pyogenes" invasion and multiplication in the fascia can lead to necrotizing fasciitis, a life-threatening condition which requires prompt surgical intervention to reduce morbidity and mortality. The bacterium is found in neonatal infections.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: Infections due to certain strains of "S. pyogenes" can be associated with the release of bacterial toxins. Throat infections associated with release of certain toxins lead to scarlet fever. Other toxigenic "S. pyogenes" infections may lead to streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, which can be life-threatening.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: "S. pyogenes" can also cause disease in the form of post-infectious "non-pyogenic" (not associated with local bacterial multiplication and pus formation) syndromes. These autoimmune-mediated complications follow a small percentage of infections and include rheumatic fever and acute post-infectious glomerulonephritis. Both conditions appear several weeks following the initial streptococcal infection. Rheumatic fever is characterized by inflammation of the joints and/or heart following an episode of streptococcal pharyngitis. Acute glomerulonephritis, inflammation of the renal glomerulus, can follow streptococcal pharyngitis or skin infection.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: This bacterium remains acutely sensitive to penicillin. Failure of treatment with penicillin is generally attributed to other local commensal organisms producing β-lactamase, or failure to achieve adequate tissue levels in the pharynx. Certain strains have developed resistance to macrolides, tetracyclines, and clindamycin.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: There is a polyvalent inactivated vaccine against several types of Streptococcus including S. pyogenes called " vacuna antipiogena polivalente BIOL" it is recommended an administration in a series of 5 weeks. Two weekly applications are made at intervals of 2 to 4 days. The vaccine is produced by the Instituto Biológico Argentino.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: There is another potential vaccine being developed; the vaccine candidate peptide is called StreptInCor.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: Many "S. pyogenes" proteins have unique properties, which have been harnessed in recent years to produce a highly specific "superglue" and a route to enhance the effectiveness of antibody therapy.


title: Streptococcus pyogenes

text: The CRISPR system from this organism that is used to recognize and destroy DNA from invading viruses, thus stopping the infection, was appropriated in 2012 for use as a genome-editing tool that could potentially alter any piece of DNA and later RNA.


title: Functional group

text: In organic chemistry, a functional group is a substituent or moiety in a molecule that causes the molecule's characteristic chemical reactions. The same functional group will undergo the same or similar chemical reactions regardless of the rest of the molecule's composition. This enables systematic prediction of chemical reactions and behavior of chemical compounds and the design of chemical synthesis. The reactivity of a functional group can be modified by other functional groups nearby. Functional group interconversion can be used in retrosynthetic analysis to plan organic synthesis.


title: Functional group

text: A functional group is a group of atoms in a molecule with distinctive chemical properties, regardless of the other atoms in the molecule. The atoms in a functional group are linked to each other and to the rest of the molecule by covalent bonds. For repeating units of polymers, functional groups attach to their nonpolar core of carbon atoms and thus add chemical character to carbon chains. Functional groups can also be charged, e.g. in carboxylate salts (–COO), which turns the molecule into a polyatomic ion or a complex ion. Functional groups binding to a central atom in a coordination complex are called "ligands". Complexation and solvation are also caused by specific interactions of functional groups. In the common rule of thumb "like dissolves like", it is the shared or mutually well-interacting functional groups which give rise to solubility. For example, sugar dissolves in water because both share the hydroxyl functional group (–OH) and hydroxyls interact strongly with each other. Plus, when functional groups are more electronegative than atoms they attach to, the functional groups will become polar, and the otherwise nonpolar molecules containing these functional groups become polar and so become soluble in some aqueous environment.


title: Functional group

text: Combining the names of functional groups with the names of the parent alkanes generates what is termed a systematic nomenclature for naming organic compounds. In traditional nomenclature, the first carbon atom after the carbon that attaches to the functional group is called the alpha carbon; the second, beta carbon, the third, gamma carbon, etc. If there is another functional group at a carbon, it may be named with the Greek letter, e.g., the gamma-amine in gamma-aminobutyric acid is on the third carbon of the carbon chain attached to the carboxylic acid group. IUPAC conventions call for numeric labeling of the position, e.g. 4-aminobutanoic acid. In traditional names various qualifiers are used to label isomers, for example, isopropanol (IUPAC name: propan-2-ol) is an isomer of n-propanol (propan-1-ol). The term moiety has some overlap with the term "functional group". However, a moiety is an entire "half" of a molecule, which can be not only a single functional group, but also a larger unit consisting of multiple functional groups. For example, an "aryl moiety" may be any group containing an aromatic ring, regardless of how many functional groups the said aryl has.


title: Functional group

text: The following is a list of common functional groups. In the formulas, the symbols R and R' usually denote an attached hydrogen, or a hydrocarbon side chain of any length, but may sometimes refer to any group of atoms.


title: Functional group

text: Hydrocarbons are a class of molecule that is defined by functional groups called hydrocarbyls that contain only carbon and hydrogen, but vary in the number and order of double bonds. Each one differs in type (and scope) of reactivity.


title: Functional group

text: There are also a large number of branched or ring alkanes that have specific names, e.g., tert-butyl, bornyl, cyclohexyl, etc. Hydrocarbons may form charged structures: positively charged carbocations or negative carbanions. Carbocations are often named "-um". Examples are tropylium and triphenylmethyl cations and the cyclopentadienyl anion.


title: Functional group

text: Haloalkanes are a class of molecule that is defined by a carbon–halogen bond. This bond can be relatively weak (in the case of an iodoalkane) or quite stable (as in the case of a fluoroalkane). In general, with the exception of fluorinated compounds, haloalkanes readily undergo nucleophilic substitution reactions or elimination reactions. The substitution on the carbon, the acidity of an adjacent proton, the solvent conditions, etc. all can influence the outcome of the reactivity.


title: Functional group

text: Compounds that contain C-O bonds each possess differing reactivity based upon the location and hybridization of the C-O bond, owing to the electron-withdrawing effect of sp-hybridized oxygen (carbonyl groups) and the donating effects of sp-hybridized oxygen (alcohol groups).


title: Functional group

text: Compounds that contain nitrogen in this category may contain C-O bonds, such as in the case of amides.


title: Functional group

text: Compounds that contain sulfur exhibit unique chemistry due to sulfur's ability to form more bonds than oxygen, its lighter analogue on the periodic table. Substitutive nomenclature (marked as prefix in table) is preferred over functional class nomenclature (marked as suffix in table) for sulfides, disulfides, sulfoxides and sulfones.


title: Functional group

text: Compounds that contain phosphorus exhibit unique chemistry due to the ability of phosphorus to form more bonds than nitrogen, its lighter analogue on the periodic table.


title: Functional group

text: Compounds containing boron exhibit unique chemistry due to their having partially filled octets and therefore acting as Lewis acids.


title: Functional group

text: These names are used to refer to the moieties themselves or to radical species, and also to form the names of halides and substituents in larger molecules.


title: Functional group

text: When the parent hydrocarbon is unsaturated, the suffix ("-yl", "-ylidene", or "-ylidyne") replaces "-ane" (e.g. "ethane" becomes "ethyl"); otherwise, the suffix replaces only the final "-e" (e.g. "ethyne" becomes "ethynyl").


title: Functional group

text: When used to refer to moieties, multiple single bonds differ from a single multiple bond. For example, a methylene bridge (methanediyl) has two single bonds, whereas a methylene group (methylidene) has one double bond. Suffixes can be combined, as in methylidyne (triple bond) vs. methylylidene (single bond and double bond) vs. methanetriyl (three double bonds).


title: Functional group

text: There are some retained names, such as methylene for methanediyl, 1,x-phenylene for phenyl-1,x-diyl (where x is 2, 3, or 4), carbyne for methylidyne, and trityl for triphenylmethyl.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: The Khwarazmian or Khwarezmian Empire () was a Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim empire that ruled large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran in the approximate period of 1077 to 1231, first as vassals of the Seljuk Empire and the Qara Khitai (Western Liao dynasty), and later as independent rulers, up until the Mongol conquest in the 13th century. It is estimated that the empire spanned an area of 2.3 million square kilometers to 3.6 million square kilometers effectively making it one of the largest land empires in history. In the beginning of the 13th century, the empire was the greatest power in the Muslim world. The empire, which was modelled on the preceding Seljuk Empire, was defended by a huge cavalry army composed largely of Kipchak Turks.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: However, in 1219, the Mongols under their ruler Genghis Khan invaded the Khwarazmian Empire, successfully conquering the whole of it in just two years. The Mongols exploited existing weaknesses and conflicts in the empire, besieging and plundering the richest cities, while putting its citizens to the sword in one of the bloodiest wars in human history.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: The date of the founding of the state of the Khwarazmshahs remains debatable. The dynasty that ruled the empire was founded by Anush Tigin (also known as Gharachai), initially a Turkic slave of the rulers of Gharchistan, later a Mamluk in the service of the Seljuks. However, it was Ala ad-Din Atsiz, descendant of Anush Tigin, who achieved Khwarazm's independence from its neighbors.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: The title of Khwarazmshah was introduced in 305 AD by the founder of the Afrigid dynasty and existed until 995. After a short interval, the title was reinstated. During the uprising in Khwarazm in 1017, rebels killed the then Khwarazmian ruler Abu'l-Abbas Ma'mun and his wife Khurra-ji, the sister of Ghaznavid sultan Mahmud. In response, Mahmud invaded the region to quell the rebellion. He later installed a new ruler and annexed a portion of Khwarazm. As a result, Khwarazm became a province of the Ghaznavid empire and remained so until 1034.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: In 1077, the control of the region, which previously belonged to the Seljuqs from 1042 to 1043, passed into the hands of Anushtegin Gharchai, a Turkic mamluk commander of the Seljuqs. In 1097, the Khwarazm governor of the Turkic origin Ekinchi ibn Qochqar declared independence from the Seljuqs and proclaimed himself the shah of Khwarazm. After a short period of time, however, he was killed by several Seljuq amirs that had risen in revolt. He was subsequently replaced with Anush Tigin Gharachai's son, Qutb al-Din Muhammad by the Seljuqs, who had reconquered the region. Thus, Qutb al-Din became the first hereditary Khwarazmshah.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Anushtegin Gharachai was a Turkic mamluk commander of the Seljuqs and the governor of Khwarazm from approximately 1077 until 1097. He was the first member of his family to rule Khwarazm, and the namesake for the dynasty that would rule the province in the 12th and early 13th centuries.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Anushtegin was put in command together with his master Gumushtegin Bilge-Beg in 1073 by the Seljuq sultan Malik-Shah I to retake territory in northern Greater Khorasan that the Ghaznavids had seized. He was subsequently made the sultan's "tasht-dar" (Persian: ""keeper of the royal vessels""), and, as the revenues from Khwarazm were used to pay for the expenses incurred by this position, he was made governor of the province. The details of his tenure as governor are unclear, but he died by 1097 and the post was briefly given to Ekinchi bin Qochqar before being transferred to his son, Qutb al-Din Muhammad.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Atsiz gained his position following his father Qutb al-Din's death in 1127. During the early part of his reign, he focused on securing Khwarazm against nomad attacks. In 1138, he rebelled against his suzerain, the Seljuq sultan Ahmad Sanjar, but was defeated in Hazarasp and forced to flee. Sanjar installed his nephew Suleiman Shah as ruler of Khwarazm and returned to Merv. Atsiz returned, however, and Suleiman Shah was unable to hold on to the province. Atsiz then attacked Bukhara, but by 1141 he again submitted to Sanjar, who pardoned him and formally returned control of Khwarazm over to him. The same year that Sanjar pardoned Atsiz, the Kara Khitai under Yelü Dashi defeated the Seljuqs at Qatwan, near Samarqand. Atsiz took advantage of the defeat to invade Khorasan, occupying Merv and Nishapur. Yelü Dashi, however, sent a force to plunder Khwarazm, forcing Atsiz to pay an annual tribute. In 1142, Atsiz was expelled from Khorasan by Sanjar, who invaded Khwarazm in the following year and forced Atsiz back into vassalage, although he continued to pay tribute to the Kara Khitai until his death. Sanjar undertook another expedition against Atsïz in 1147 when the latter became rebellious again.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Atsiz was a flexible politician and ruler, and was able to maneuver between the powerful Sultan Sanjar and equally powerful Yelü Dashi. He continued the land-gathering policy initiated by his predecessors, annexing Jand and Mangyshlak to Khwarazm. Many nomadic tribes were dependent on the Khwarazmshah. Towards the end of his life, Atsiz subordinated the entire northwestern part of Central Asia, and in fact, achieved its independence from its neighbors.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Il-Arslan was the Shah of Khwarazm from 1156 until 1172. He was the son of Atsïz. Initially, Il-Arslan was made governor of Jand, an outpost on the Syr Darya which had recently been reconquered, by his father. In 1156, Atsiz died and Il-Arslan succeeded him as Khwarazmshah. Like his father, he decided to pay tribute to both the Seljuk sultan Sanjar and the Qara Khitai gurkhan.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Sanjar died only a few months after Il-Arslan's ascension, causing Seljuq Khurasan to descend into chaos. This allowed Il-Arslan to effectively break off Seljuk suzerainty, although he remained on friendly terms with Sanjar's successor, Mas'ud. Like his father, Il-Arslan sought to expand his influence in Khurasan.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: In 1158, Il-Arslan became involved in the affairs of another Qara Khitai vassal state, the Karakhanids of Samarqand. The Karakhanid Chaghri Khan had been persecuting the Qarluks in his realm, and several Qarluk leaders fled to Khwarazm and sought Il-Arslan's help. He responded by invading the Karakhanid dominions, taking Bukhara and besieging Samarqand, where Chaghri Khan had taken refuge. The latter appealed to both the Turks of the Syr Darya and the Qara Khitai, and the gurkhan sent an army, but its commander hesitated to enter into conflict with the Khwarazmians.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: In 1172, the Qara Khitai launched a punitive expedition against Il-Arslan, who had not paid the required annual tribute. The Khwarazmian army was defeated, and Il-Arslan died shortly after. Following his death the state briefly became embroiled in turmoil, as the succession was disputed between his sons Tekish and Sultan Shah. Tekish emerged victorious and subsequently ruled the empire from 1172 to 1200.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Tekish stayed with the expansionist policies of his father Il-Arslan. Despite gaining his throne with the help of the Qara Khitai, he later shook off their suzerainty and repulsed the subsequent Qara Khitai invasion of Khwarazm. Tekish maintained close relations with the Oghuz Turkmens and Turkic Qipchak tribes from the vicinity of the Aral Sea, and recruited them at times for his conquest of Iran. A great number of these Turkmens were still pagan, and they were known in Iran for their barbarism and intense ferocity.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: In 1194, Tekish defeated the Seljuq sultan of Hamadan, Toghrul III, in an alliance with Caliph Al-Nasir, and conquered his territories. After the war, he broke with the Caliphate and was on the brink of a war with it until the Caliph accepted him as the sultan of Iran, Khorasan, and Turkestan in 1198. Tekish died of a peritonsillar abscess in 1200. and was succeeded by his son, Ala ad-Din Muhammad. His death triggered spontaneous revolts and widespread massacre of the hated Khwarazmian Turkic soldiers stationed in Iran.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: After his father Tekish died, Muhammad succeeded him. In 1218, a small contingent of Mongols crossed borders in pursuit of an escaped enemy general. Upon successfully retrieving him, Genghis Khan made contact with the Shah. Genghis was looking to open trade relations, but having heard exaggerated reports of the Mongols, the Shah believed this gesture was only a ploy to invade Khwarazm.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Genghis sent emissaries to Khwarazm to emphasize his hope for a trade road. Muhammad II, in turn, had one of his governors (Inalchuq, his uncle) openly accuse the party of spying, seizing their rich goods and arresting the party.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Trying to maintain diplomacy, Genghis sent an envoy of three men to the shah, to give him a chance to disclaim all knowledge of the governor's actions and hand him over to the Mongols for punishment. The shah executed the envoy (again, some sources claim one man was executed, some claim all three were), and then immediately had the Mongol merchant party (Muslim and Mongol alike) put to death and their goods seized. These events led Genghis to retaliate with a force of 100,000 to 150,000 men that crossed the Jaxartes in 1219 and sacked the cities of Samarqand, Bukhara, Otrar and others. Muhammad's capital city, Gurganj, followed soon after.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: On the eve of the Mongol invasion, a diarchy developed in the Khwarazmian Empire. Khwarazmshah Muhammad II was considered the absolute ruler, but the influence of his mother Turkan Khatun (Terken Khatun) was also great. Turkan Khatun even had the laqab: "the Ruler of the World" (Khudavand-e Jahaan), and another one for her decrees: "Protector of peace and faith, Turkan the Great, the ruler of women of both worlds." Turkan Khatun had a separate Diwan, separate palace and the orders of the Sultan were not considered to be effective without her signature. This fact, coupled with her conflicts with Muhammad II might have contributed to the impotence of the Khwarazmian Empire in the face of the Mongol onslaught.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: In 1218, Genghis Khan sent a trade mission to the state, but at the town of Otrar the governor, suspecting the Khan's ambassadors to be spies, confiscated their goods and executed them. Genghis Khan demanded reparations, which the shah refused to pay. Genghis retaliated with a force of 100,000–200,000 men, launching a multi-pronged invasion. In February 1220, the Mongolian army crossed the Syr Darya. The Mongols stormed Bukhara, Gurganj and the Khwarazmian capital Samarqand. The Shah Muhammad II of Khwarazm fled and died some weeks later on an island in the Caspian Sea.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Jalal al-Din was the last of Khwarazmshahs, who ruled the remnants of the Khwarazmian Empire and northwestern India from 1220 to 1231. He was reportedly the eldest son of Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, while his mother was a Turkmen concubine named Ay Chichek. Due to the low status of Jalal al-Din's mother, his powerful grandmother and Qipchaq princess Terken Khatun refused to support him as heir to the throne, and instead favored his half-brother Uzlagh-Shah, whose mother was also a Qipchaq. Jalal al-Din first appears in historical records in 1215, when Muhammad II divided his empire amongst his sons, giving the southwestern part (part of the former Ghurid Empire) to Jalal al-Din.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: He became the new Sultan (he rejected the title Shah). He attempted to flee to India, but the Mongols caught up with him before he got there, and he was defeated at the Battle of Indus. He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi. Iltumish however denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abbasid caliphs. Returning to Persia, he gathered an army and re-established a kingdom. He never consolidated his power, however, spending the rest of his days struggling against the Mongols, the Seljuks of Rum, and pretenders to his own throne. He lost his power over Persia in a battle against the Mongols in the Alborz Mountains. Escaping to the Caucasus, he captured Azerbaijan in 1225, setting up his capital at Tabriz. In 1226 he attacked Georgia and sacked Tbilisi. Following on through the Armenian highlands he clashed with the Ayyubids, capturing the town Ahlat along the western shores of Lake Van, which sought the aid of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rûm. Sultan Kayqubad I defeated him at Arzinjan on the Upper Euphrates at the Battle of Yassıçemen in 1230. He escaped to Diyarbakir, while the Mongols conquered Azerbaijan in the ensuing confusion. He was murdered in 1231 by Kurdish highwaymen.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: The head of the central state apparatus (al-Majlis al-Ali al-Fahri at-Taji) of Kharazmshahs was a vizier, the first adviser to the head of state. He was the head of the diwan officials (askhab ad-dawawin), who appointed them and established salaries, pensions (arzak), controlling tax administration and the treasury. The most prominent vizier of the Khwarazmian Empire was Al-Harawi, who built a mosque for the Shafi'is in Merv, a huge madrassah, a mosque and a repository of manuscripts in Gurganj. He died at the hands of the Shia Ismailis.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: An important position in the state apparatus of the Khwarazmshahs was also held by the senior or great "hajib", who most of the time, was a representative of the Turkic nobility. The hajib reported to the Khwarazmshah on issues related to the shah and his family. The Khwarazmshah could have several hajibs, who carried out the "personal" instructions of the sultan.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Initially, the main city of the Khwarazmian Empire was Urganch or Gurganj. A prominent Middle Eastern biographer and geographer, Yaqut al-Hamawi, who visited Gurganj in 1219, wrote, "I have not seen a city greater, richer and more beautiful than Gurganj." Al-Qazvini, a Persian physician, astronomer, geographer and writer of Arab ancestry, states:


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: "Gurganj is a very beautiful city, surrounded by the attention of angels who represent the city in paradise just like a bride in a groom's house. The inhabitants of the capital were skillful artisans, especially the blacksmiths, carpenters and others. Carvers were famous for their products made of ivory and ebony. Workshops for the production of natural silk operated in the city."


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: The cities of Samarqand, Ghazna and Tabriz also served as the capital of the later Khwarazmian Empire.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: The population of the Kwarazmian Empire consisted mainly of sedentary Iranian and half-nomadic Turkic peoples.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: The urban population of the empire was concentrated in a relatively small number of (by medieval standards) very large cities as opposed to a huge number of smaller towns. The population of the empire is estimated at 5 million people on the eve of the Mongol invasion in 1220, making it sparse for the large area it covered. Historical demographers Tertius Chandler and Gerald Fox give the following estimations for the populations of the empire's major cities at the beginning of the 13th century, which adds up to at least 520,000 and at most 850,000 people:


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: Although the Khwarazmshahs had a Turkic origin, just as their Seljuq predecessors, they adopted Persian culture, adhered to the Sunni branch of Islam and had their richest and most populous cities in Khorasan. Thus, the Khwarazmshah era had a dual character, reflecting both its Turkic origin and Persian high culture.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: During the Khwarazmshah era, Central Asian society was fragmented, unified under one banner only recently. The Khwarazmian military mostly consisted of Turks, while the civilian and administrative element was almost exclusively Persian. The spoken language of the Turkic population of Khwarazm was Kipchak Turkic and Oghuz, the latter being the legacy of the previous masters of the area, Seljuq Turkomans.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: However, the dominant language of the era and the one spoken by the majority in the important Khwarazmian cities was Persian. The language of the sedentary diwan was also Persian, and its members had to be well versed in Persian culture, regardless of their ethnic origin. Persian became the official state language of the Khwarazmshahs and served as the language of administration, history, fiction and poetry. The Turkic language was the mother tongue and "home language" of the Anushteginid family, while Arabic served primarily as the language of science, philosophy, and theology.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: It is estimated that the Khwarazmian army, prior to the Mongol invasion, consisted of about 40,000 cavalry, mostly of Turkic origin. Militias existed in Khwarazm's major cities but were of poor quality. With collective populations of around 700,000, the major cities probably had 105,000 to 140,000 healthy males of fighting age in total (15–20% of the population), but only a fraction of these would be part of a formal militia with any notable measure of training and equipment.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: After the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire, many Khwarazmians survived by employing themselves as mercenaries in northern Iraq. Sultan Jalal ad-Din's followers remained loyal to him even after his death in 1231, and raided the Seljuq lands of Jazira and Syria for the next several years, calling themselves the "Khwarazmiyya". Ayyubid Sultan as-Salih Ayyub, in Egypt, later hired them against his uncle as-Salih Ismail. The "Khwarazmiyya", heading south from Iraq towards Egypt, invaded Crusader-held Jerusalem along the way, on 11 July 1244 (Siege of Jerusalem (1244)). The city's citadel, the Tower of David, surrendered on 23 August, and the Christian population of the city was expelled. This triggered a call from Europe for the Seventh Crusade, but the Crusaders would never again be successful in retaking Jerusalem. After being conquered by the Khwarazmian forces, the city stayed under Muslim control until 1917, when it was taken from the Ottomans by the British.


title: Khwarazmian Empire

text: After taking Jerusalem, the Khwarazmian forces continued south, and on 17 October fought on the side of the Ayyubids at the Battle of La Forbie, as the Crusaders used to call Harbiyah, a village northeast of Gaza, destroying the remains of the Crusader army there, with some 1,200 knights killed. It was the largest battle involving the Crusaders since the Battle of the Horns of Hattin in 1187.


title: Sling Blade

text: Sling Blade is a 1996 American drama film written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, who also stars in the lead role. Set in Arkansas, it is the story of intellectually disabled Karl Childer, and the friendship he develops with a boy and his mother. Karl was released from a psychiatric hospital, where he had grown up due to having killed his mother and her lover when he was 12 years old. It also stars Dwight Yoakam, J. T. Walsh, John Ritter, Lucas Black, Natalie Canerday, James Hampton, and Robert Duvall.


title: Sling Blade

text: The film was adapted by Thornton from his previous one-man show "Swine Before Pearls", from which he also developed a screenplay for the 1994 short film "Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade", directed by George Hickenlooper. "Sling Blade" became a sleeper hit, launching Thornton into stardom. It won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, and Thornton was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The music for the soundtrack was provided by French Canadian artist/producer Daniel Lanois.


title: Sling Blade

text: "Sling Blade" was filmed in 24 days, on location in Benton, Arkansas, produced by David L. Bushell and Brandon Rosser.


title: Sling Blade

text: Karl Childers is an autistic Arkansas man whose parents physically abused him when he was young. He has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 after having murdered his mother and her lover with a sling blade. As a passive person, Karl is often forced by serial rapist Charles to listen to stories of his criminal history as a convicted sexual predator. In the mid-1990s, the state determines Karl is no longer dangerous and releases him to his small home town, where he finds work at a small engine repair shop.


title: Sling Blade

text: Karl befriends 12-year-old Frank Wheatley and shares details of his past, including the killings. Frank introduces Karl to his mother, Linda, and her friend and boss, Vaughan. Vaughan is concerned about Karl's history, but Linda asks him to move into her garage, angering her abusive and alcoholic boyfriend, Doyle. Vaughan tells Karl that he fears Doyle could hurt or kill Linda and Frank one day.


title: Sling Blade

text: Karl becomes a role model to Frank, who misses his real father who died, and despises Doyle. As they grow closer, Karl tells Frank that he is haunted by an incident that happened when he was six or eight years old. His parents performed an abortion of his unwanted baby brother and gave him the body to dispose of. Karl found the infant still moving and buried him alive. Karl later visits his father, who has become a sickly and spiteful hermit. Karl scolds him for his cruelty, and tells him that he had thought about killing him. But now that he sees him, Karl thinks it is better to let him live in his squalor, and that he will be dead soon enough.


title: Sling Blade

text: During Doyle's latest drunken outburst, refusing to leave Linda's house, Frank fights back. Linda later reconciles with Doyle, who announces that he will move in. He tells Karl that he is no longer welcome. When Frank protests, Doyle grabs him, but Karl intervenes and warns him never to touch Frank again.


title: Sling Blade

text: Realizing that an unhappy childhood or worse awaits Frank, Karl persuades him and Linda to spend the night at Vaughan's house. Later that evening, he returns to the Wheatley home carrying a lawn mower blade, and finds Doyle drunk and alone in the living room. Doyle asks Karl what he is doing with the lawn mower blade, and Karl says he intends to kill Doyle with it. Karl then asks Doyle how to telephone the police, and Doyle tells him to dial 9-1-1 and ask for an ambulance, or a hearse. Karl then kills Doyle with the lawn mower blade. He dials 911, and then sits down at the kitchen table, eating biscuits and mustard as he waits for the authorities.


title: Sling Blade

text: Returned to the state hospital, Karl is more assertive. Charles tells him more stories about his sex crimes, and then questions Karl about his relationship with Frank. This angers Karl, and he tells Charles to never speak to him again. As Charles walks away, Karl turns and looks out of a window toward an open field.


title: Sling Blade

text: Thornton conceived the character of Karl while working on the film "The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains". He developed the idea into a monologue, which became a one man show to fund the film. He expanded the monologue into a short film, "Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade", directed by George Hickenlooper and starring Thornton, Molly Ringwald, and J.T. Walsh.


title: Sling Blade

text: The film was made with a production budget of $1 million financed by The Shooting Gallery, and was sold to Miramax for $10 million, which at the time was a record price for an independent film.


title: Sling Blade

text: The film grossed $24,444,121 in the United States against a $1 million production budget. It grossed a further $9.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $34 million.


title: Sling Blade

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a "Certified Fresh" rating of 97% based on reviews from 58 critics with an average rating of 8.40/10. The site's consensus states "You will see what's coming, but the masterful performances, especially Thornton's, will leave you riveted." On Metacritic it has a score of 84% based on reviews from 26 critics.


title: Sling Blade

text: "The Washington Post" called it a "masterpiece of Southern storytelling". Kevin Thomas wrote in the "Los Angeles Times" that the film is "a mesmerizing parable of good and evil and a splendid example of Southern storytelling at its most poetic and imaginative". "The New York Times" critic Janet Maslin praised the performances but said that "it drifts gradually toward climactic events that seem convenient and contrived".


title: Brahim Díaz

text: Brahim Abdelkader Diaz (; born 3 August 1999), known as Brahim Díaz or simply Brahim, is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for club AC Milan, on loan from La Liga club Real Madrid, and the Spain national team.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: Brahim began his career at his hometown club Málaga, before moving to Manchester City in 2015 as a 16-year-old for an initial £200,000 fee. On 21 September 2016, Díaz made his first-team debut for City, coming on as an 80th-minute substitute to replace Kelechi Iheanacho in an EFL Cup tie against Swansea City. Five days later, he signed his first professional contract with City, for three years.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: On 21 November 2017, Brahim made his Champions League debut against Feyenoord, coming on in injury time for Raheem Sterling. On 19 December 2017, Brahim made his first club start, playing for 88 minutes against Leicester City in the League Cup. He made his Premier League debut on 20 January 2018, in a 3–1 victory over Newcastle United. and on 13 May, he received a winner's medal after appearing sporadically in four more league games over the season.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: On 5 August 2018, Brahim played the final 15 minutes in place of Phil Foden a 2–0 win over Chelsea in the 2018 FA Community Shield. Later that season, Brahim would score his first career goal for City, netting both times in a 2–0 win over Fulham on 1 November.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: Following intense transfer speculation, coupled with his contract with Manchester City due to expire in June 2019, Brahim joined Real Madrid on 6 January, for a transfer fee of £15.5 million (€17 million). His contract, which runs until 2025, also includes potential add-ons, which could see the value of the transfer to rise to £22 million (€24 million). The transfer also includes clauses which stipulates a 15 per cent sell-on fee to be received by City, which would rise to 40 per cent should Brahim depart Madrid and transfer to "another Manchester club".


title: Brahim Díaz

text: He made his debut on 9 January 2019, coming on as a substitute in a 3–0 victory over Leganés in the Copa del Rey. His league debut came four days later, when he again came in as a substitute in a 2–1 win over Real Betis. He scored his first goal on 12 May 2019, in a 1–3 defeat at Real Sociedad.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: On 4 September 2020, Real Madrid announced that Brahim would be loaned out to AC Milan for the duration of the 2020–21 season. On 27 September, he scored his first goal in a 2–0 away win over Crotone. On 9 May 2021, he scored a goal in a 3–0 away win over Juventus. After the 2020–21 season, he was loaned for another two years to Milan with a buyout option. On 15 September 2021, he scored against Liverpool in a 3–2 defeat in the UEFA Champions League.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: Brahim is a youth international for Spain, and made his first appearances at age 16, where he received praise for his performances for Spain's U17s in the 2016 UEFA European Under-17 Championship.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: Due to the isolation of some national team players following the positive COVID-19 test of Sergio Busquets, Spain's under-21 squad were called up for the international friendly against Lithuania on 8 June 2021. Brahim made his senior debut in the match and scored the second goal in a 4–0 victory against Lithuania.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: Brahim, born in Spain to Spanish parents from Melilla, was eligible to play for Morocco due to the origin of his father.


title: Brahim Díaz

text: On 15 October 2021, it was announced that Diaz had contracted COVID-19. By October 26 he had recovered.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: Tisca Zareen Chopra (née Arora; born 1 November 1973) is an Indian actress, author and film producer who has appeared in over 45 feature films, predominantly in Hindi language.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: "Taare Zameen Par", her best known feature film, was India's official entry to the Academy Awards. It also won her Filmfare and other top nominations. Another feature film, "Qissa", premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2013, and won the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film. The film has travelled to over 24 festivals, winning over almost all top awards and much appreciation from audiences and critics. Tisca did her bachelor's degree in English literature from University of Delhi and worked extensively in theatre. She has honed her craft with Naseeruddin Shah and theatre director Feroz Khan. Her performance in the Pulitzer Award-winning play, "Dinner With Friends", that deals with the state of the modern marriage, was a hit in India, South East Asia and the Middle East, garnering praise from both critics and audiences. She has worked with Sam Pitroda on the National Knowledge Commission, to help with revamping the education system.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: Her book "Acting Smart" (HarperCollins), is a best seller and is being translated into Hindi. Her second book "What's Up With Me?" was released in March 2021. This book is about demystifying menstruation and puberty for young girls. Tisca has been nominated at the New York Indian Film Festival for Best Actress for her work in "10Ml Love", a film based on "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The series won Best Ensemble Cast. She's been on the Jury of the MAMI (Mumbai Academy Of Moving Images) film festival. "Chutney", a short film she wrote and produced under her company, The Eastern Way won two Filmfare Awards (Best Actress & Best Short Film). She is now developing two feature film scripts. Her upcoming projects are "Bioscopewala", "3Dev" and "The Hungry" (based on the Shakespeare play "Titus Andronicus"). One of the most beautiful and stylish actresses, Tisca is often on the best-dressed list and is a favourite with advertisers, endorsing brands like Tanishq, Titan eyewear, Olay, Horlicks, Marks & Spencer, Godrej, Bajaj Motors and Kellogg's.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: Tisca Chopra was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh into a family of educationists. She grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan, as her father was posted as the principal of India International School and later moved back to Delhi. She graduated from Apeejay School, Noida, where her father was the principal. Later she studied English literature at Hindu College, University of Delhi. She also started working actively with amateur theatre. While at college, she started writing for several publications and acting in plays for an amateur theatre group and college festivals. After finishing her education, she moved to Mumbai and trained in acting with notable theatre greats Feroz Abbas Khan and Naseeruddin Shah She is the grand-niece of the prominent Indian writer Khushwant Singh.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: She has won two Filmfare Awards ("Chutney" (2016)- Best Actress and Best Short Film) Filmfare Short Film Awards#Winners' announcement. For her role in "Taare Zameen Par" (2007), her best known film, she won Filmfare nominations. In 2011, she appeared in the "Love Breakups Zindagi with "Dia Mirza" and Zayed Khan". "Rahasya" (2015), won her The People's Choice and Best Actress at Big Star Entertainment Awards. She made her film debut with "Platform" (1993), opposite Ajay Devgan. She also starred in the hit play "Dinner With Friends", where her character of Dia is a complex role of a failed artist. In 2004 she played the role of Prabhavati Devi in Prakash Jha's "Loknayak". In 2007, she appeared in "Taare Zameen Par" with Aamir Khan, where her performance was much lauded. She acted in Nandita Das's directorial debut, "Firaaq" (2008). In 2011, she appeared in Madhur Bhandarkar's "Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji".


title: Tisca Chopra

text: For "10ml Love", which is based on the Shakespearean play "Midsummer Night's Dream", Tisca was nominated for Best Actress at the 11th Annual New York Indian Film Festival. Her film "Ankur Arora Murder Case", written and produced by Vikram Bhatt released in May 2013. Her other notable films are Anup Singh's "Qissa", with Irrfan Khan released in 2013, has travelled to over 20 festivals, winning over almost all top awards and much appreciation from audiences and critics, and "Rahasya", by UVI Film Production Pvt. Ltd. She has worked in the Marathi film "Highway" with Umesh Kulkarni and Hindi and Tamil remakes of the Marathi film "Kaksparsh", directed by Mahesh Manjrekar.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: She acted in various plays in Mumbai and soon her work was seen Feroz Abbas Khan's "Mahatma vs Gandhi", "All The Best" and Satyadev Dubey's "Inshah Allah". She also starred in "Dinner With Friends", a Pulitzer Award-winning play. The play and Tisca garnered a lot of praise from both critics and audiences and has travelled to many cities across the world.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: Starting her Television stint with the immensely popular short film format called Star Bestsellers, Tisca starred in two popular films, "Ek Shaam Ki Mulaqat" and "Hum Saath Saath Hain Kya?". This paved the way for leading parts in shows like "Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii" (Star Plus), "Astitva...Ek Prem Kahani" (Zee TV), "" (Zee TV) and Mariyam Khan - Reporting Live (Star Plus). She hosted a consumer grievances show on (Star News) called "Main Hoon Na". Tisca hosted "Prayschit - Gunahon Ke Zakhm" on Sony Entertainment Television, where she got a chance to reveal the transformation that criminals go through after or during their prison sentence. She starred in "24", in the year 2013. The series was a remake of the American series of the same name, produced by Anil Kapoor, directed by Abhinay Deo, which was premiered on Colors.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: Tisca has appeared in advertisements for big brands like Tanishq, Titan Eyewear, Dish TV, Kelloggs-All Bran, Horlicks-Gold, and Olay.


title: Tisca Chopra

text: Chopra is married to Capt. Sanjay Chopra who is a pilot with Air India. They have one daughter, Tara and live in Mumbai. She works with several NGOs, supporting education and women's rights.


title: Novella

text: A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word "novella" derives from the Italian "novella" meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts.


title: Novella

text: The Italian term is a feminine of "novello", which means "new", similarly to the English word "news". Merriam-Webster defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel".


title: Novella

text: No official definition exists regarding the number of pages or words necessary for a story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines a novella's word count to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words.


title: Novella

text: The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early Renaissance, principally Giovanni Boccaccio, author of "The Decameron" (1353). "The Decameron" featured 100 tales (named novellas) told by ten people (seven women and three men) fleeing the Black Death, by escaping from Florence to the Fiesole hills in 1348. This structure was then imitated by subsequent authors, notably the French queen Marguerite de Navarre, whose "Heptaméron" (1559) included 72 original French tales and was modeled after the structure of "The Decameron".


title: Novella

text: The Italian genre novella grew out of a rich tradition of medieval short narrative forms. It took its first major form in the anonymous late 13th century "Libro di novelle et di bel parlar gentile", known as "Il Novellino", and reached its culmination with "The Decameron". Followers of Boccaccio such as Giovanni Fiorentino, Franco Sacchetti, Giovanni Sercambi and Simone de' Prodenzani continued the tradition into the early 15th century. The Italian novella influenced many later writers, including Shakespeare.


title: Novella

text: Novellas were also written in Spain. Miguel de Cervantes book "Novelas ejemplares" (1613) added innovation to the genre with more attention to the depiction of human character and social background.


title: Novella

text: Not until the late 18th and early 19th centuries did writers fashion the novella into a literary genre structured by precepts and rules, generally in a realistic mode. At that time, the Germans were the most active writers of the "novelle" (German: "Novelle"; plural: "Novellen"). For the German writer, a novella is a fictional narrative of indeterminate length—a few pages to hundreds—restricted to a single, suspenseful event, situation, or conflict leading to an unexpected turning point ("Wendepunkt"), provoking a logical but surprising end. "Novellen" tend to contain a concrete symbol, which is the narrative's focal point.


title: Novella

text: The novella influenced the development of the short story and the novel throughout Europe. In the late 19th century Henry James was one of the first English language critics to use the term novella for a story that was longer and more complex than a short story, but shorter than a novel.


title: Novella

text: In English speaking countries the modern "novella" is rarely defined as a distinct literary genre, but is often used as a term for a short novel.


title: Novella

text: A novella generally features fewer conflicts than a novel, yet more complicated ones than a short story. The conflicts also have more time to develop than in short stories. Novellas may or may not be divided into chapters (good examples of those with chapters are "Animal Farm" by George Orwell and "The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells), and white space is often used to divide the sections, something less common in short stories. Novellas may be intended to be read at a single sitting, like short stories, and thus produce a unitary effect on the reader. According to Warren Cariou, "The novella is generally not as formally experimental as the long story and the novel can be, and it usually lacks the subplots, the multiple points of view, and the generic adaptability that are common in the novel. It is most often concerned with personal and emotional development rather than with the larger social sphere. The novella generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterization and more luxuriant description.


title: Novella

text: The term "novel", borrowed from the Italian "novella", originally meant "any of a number of tales or stories making up a larger work; a short narrative of this type, a fable", and was then many times used in the plural, reflecting the usage as in "The Decameron" and its followers. Usage of the more italianate "novella" in English seems to be a bit younger. The differenciation of the two terms seems to have occurred only in the 19th century, following the new fashion of the novella in German literature. In 1834, John Lothrop Motley could still speak of "Tieck's novels (which last are a set of exquisite little tales, novels in the original meaning of the word)". But when the term "novella" was used it was already clear that a rather short and witty form was intended: "The brief Novella has ever been a prodigious favorite with the nation…since the days of Boccaccio." In 1902, William Dean Howells wrote: "Few modern fictions of the novel's dimensions…have the beauty of form many a novella embodies."


title: Novella

text: Sometimes, as with other genres, the genre name is mentioned in the title of a single work (compare the "Divine Comedy" or Goethe's "Das Märchen"). Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's "Die Schachnovelle" (1942) (literally, "The Chess Novella", but translated in 1944 as "The Royal Game") is an example of a title naming its genre. This might be suggestive of the genre's historicization.


title: Novella

text: Commonly, longer novellas are referred to as novels; Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886) and Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (1899) are sometimes called novels, as are many science fiction works such as H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" (1897) and Philip Francis Nowlan's "Armageddon 2419 A.D." (1928). Less often, longer works are referred to as novellas. The subjectivity of the parameters of the novella genre is indicative of its shifting and diverse nature as an art form. In her 2010 "Open Letters Monthly" series, "A Year With Short Novels", Ingrid Norton criticizes the tendency to make clear demarcations based purely on a book's length, saying that "any distinctions that begin with an objective and external quality like size are bound to be misleading."


title: Novella

text: Stephen King, in his introduction to "Different Seasons", a 1982 collection of four novellas, notes the difficulties of selling a novella in the commercial publishing world, since it does not fit the typical length requirements of either magazine or book publishers. Despite these problems, however, the novella's length provides unique advantages; in the introduction to a novella anthology titled "Sailing to Byzantium", Robert Silverberg writes:


title: Novella

text: In his essay, "Briefly, the case for the novella", Canadian author George Fetherling (who wrote the novella "Tales of Two Cities") said that to reduce the novella to nothing more than a short novel is like "insisting that a pony is a baby horse".


title: Novella

text: The sometimes blurry definition between a novel and a novella can create controversy, as was the case with British writer Ian McEwan's "On Chesil Beach" (2007). The author described it as a novella, but the panel for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 qualified the book as a "short novel". Thus, this "novella" was shortlisted for an award for best original novel. A similar case is found with a much older work of fiction: "The Call of the Wild" (1903) by Jack London. This book, by modern standards, is short enough and straightforward enough to qualify as a novella. However, historically, it has been regarded as a novel.


title: Novella

text: Dictionaries define "novelette" similarly to "novella"; sometimes identically, sometimes with a disparaging sense of being trivial or sentimental. Some literary awards have a longer "novella" and a shorter "novelette" category, with a distinction based on word count. Among awards, a range between 17,500 and 40,000 words is commonly used for the novella category, whereas 7,500–17,500 is commonly used for novelettes. According to "The Writer", a novelette is approximately between 7,000 and 20,000 words in length, anything shorter being considered a short story.


title: Novella

text: This list contains those novellas that are widely considered to be the best examples of the genre, through their appearance on multiple best-of lists.


title: Novella

text: Some literary awards include a "best novella" award and sometimes a separate "best novelette" award, separately from "best short story" or "best novel". The distinction between these categories may be entirely by word count.


title: Cathy Moriarty

text: Cathy Moriarty (born November 29, 1960) is an American actress and singer whose career spans over 40 years. For her work in Martin Scorsese's 1980 film "Raging Bull", she received nominations for both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.


title: Cathy Moriarty

text: Throughout her career, she has worked with a number of prolific directors including Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, James Mangold, and Richard Ayoade. Her other film appearances include "Neighbors", "White of the Eye", "Soapdish", "Casper", "Cop Land", "Analyze That", "The Bounty Hunter", "The Double", and "Patti Cake$".


title: Cathy Moriarty

text: Moriarty has also starred in numerous television roles including "Tales from the Crypt", "Law & Order", "", "", "", and "City on a Hill".


title: Cathy Moriarty

text: Moriarty was born November 29, 1960 in The Bronx borough of New York City, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants Catherine, a homemaker, and John Moriarty, a warehouse worker. She was raised in Yonkers, New York, where she attended Lincoln High School. When she was 18 years old, her friends urged her to enter a bathing-beauty contest at a bar: