title: Hidden Markov model

text: The diagram below shows the general architecture of an instantiated HMM. Each oval shape represents a random variable that can adopt any of a number of values. The random variable "x"("t") is the hidden state at time (with the model from the above diagram, "x"("t") ∈ { "x", "x", "x" }). The random variable "y"("t") is the observation at time (with "y"("t") ∈ { "y", "y", "y", "y" }). The arrows in the diagram (often called a trellis diagram) denote conditional dependencies.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: From the diagram, it is clear that the conditional probability distribution of the hidden variable "x"("t") at time , given the values of the hidden variable at all times, depends "only" on the value of the hidden variable "x"("t" − 1); the values at time "t" − 2 and before have no influence. This is called the Markov property. Similarly, the value of the observed variable "y"("t") only depends on the value of the hidden variable "x"("t") (both at time ).


title: Hidden Markov model

text: In the standard type of hidden Markov model considered here, the state space of the hidden variables is discrete, while the observations themselves can either be discrete (typically generated from a categorical distribution) or continuous (typically from a Gaussian distribution). The parameters of a hidden Markov model are of two types, "transition probabilities" and "emission probabilities" (also known as "output probabilities"). The transition probabilities control the way the hidden state at time is chosen given the hidden state at time formula_37.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The hidden state space is assumed to consist of one of possible values, modelled as a categorical distribution. (See the section below on extensions for other possibilities.) This means that for each of the possible states that a hidden variable at time can be in, there is a transition probability from this state to each of the possible states of the hidden variable at time formula_38, for a total of formula_39 transition probabilities. Note that the set of transition probabilities for transitions from any given state must sum to 1. Thus, the formula_40 matrix of transition probabilities is a Markov matrix. Because any transition probability can be determined once the others are known, there are a total of formula_41 transition parameters.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: In addition, for each of the possible states, there is a set of emission probabilities governing the distribution of the observed variable at a particular time given the state of the hidden variable at that time. The size of this set depends on the nature of the observed variable. For example, if the observed variable is discrete with possible values, governed by a categorical distribution, there will be formula_42 separate parameters, for a total of formula_43 emission parameters over all hidden states. On the other hand, if the observed variable is an -dimensional vector distributed according to an arbitrary multivariate Gaussian distribution, there will be parameters controlling the means and formula_44 parameters controlling the covariance matrix, for a total of formula_45 emission parameters. (In such a case, unless the value of is small, it may be more practical to restrict the nature of the covariances between individual elements of the observation vector, e.g. by assuming that the elements are independent of each other, or less restrictively, are independent of all but a fixed number of adjacent elements.)


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The task is to compute in a best way, given the parameters of the model, the probability of a particular output sequence. This requires summation over all possible state sequences:


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Applying the principle of dynamic programming, this problem, too, can be handled efficiently using the forward algorithm.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: A number of related tasks ask about the probability of one or more of the latent variables, given the model's parameters and a sequence of observations formula_49


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The task is to compute, given the model's parameters and a sequence of observations, the distribution over hidden states of the last latent variable at the end of the sequence, i.e. to compute formula_50. This task is normally used when the sequence of latent variables is thought of as the underlying states that a process moves through at a sequence of points of time, with corresponding observations at each point in time. Then, it is natural to ask about the state of the process at the end.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: This is similar to filtering but asks about the distribution of a latent variable somewhere in the middle of a sequence, i.e. to compute formula_51 for some formula_52. From the perspective described above, this can be thought of as the probability distribution over hidden states for a point in time "k" in the past, relative to time "t".


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The forward-backward algorithm is a good method for computing the smoothed values for all hidden state variables.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The task, unlike the previous two, asks about the joint probability of the "entire" sequence of hidden states that generated a particular sequence of observations (see illustration on the right). This task is generally applicable when HMM's are applied to different sorts of problems from those for which the tasks of filtering and smoothing are applicable. An example is part-of-speech tagging, where the hidden states represent the underlying parts of speech corresponding to an observed sequence of words. In this case, what is of interest is the entire sequence of parts of speech, rather than simply the part of speech for a single word, as filtering or smoothing would compute.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: This task requires finding a maximum over all possible state sequences, and can be solved efficiently by the Viterbi algorithm.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: For some of the above problems, it may also be interesting to ask about statistical significance. What is the probability that a sequence drawn from some null distribution will have an HMM probability (in the case of the forward algorithm) or a maximum state sequence probability (in the case of the Viterbi algorithm) at least as large as that of a particular output sequence? When an HMM is used to evaluate the relevance of a hypothesis for a particular output sequence, the statistical significance indicates the false positive rate associated with failing to reject the hypothesis for the output sequence.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The parameter learning task in HMMs is to find, given an output sequence or a set of such sequences, the best set of state transition and emission probabilities. The task is usually to derive the maximum likelihood estimate of the parameters of the HMM given the set of output sequences. No tractable algorithm is known for solving this problem exactly, but a local maximum likelihood can be derived efficiently using the Baum–Welch algorithm or the Baldi–Chauvin algorithm. The Baum–Welch algorithm is a special case of the expectation-maximization algorithm.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: If the HMMs are used for time series prediction, more sophisticated Bayesian inference methods, like Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling are proven to be favorable over finding a single maximum likelihood model both in terms of accuracy and stability. Since MCMC imposes significant computational burden, in cases where computational scalability is also of interest, one may alternatively resort to variational approximations to Bayesian inference, e.g. Indeed, approximate variational inference offers computational efficiency comparable to expectation-maximization, while yielding an accuracy profile only slightly inferior to exact MCMC-type Bayesian inference.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: HMMs can be applied in many fields where the goal is to recover a data sequence that is not immediately observable (but other data that depend on the sequence are). Applications include:


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Hidden Markov models were described in a series of statistical papers by Leonard E. Baum and other authors in the second half of the 1960s. One of the first applications of HMMs was speech recognition, starting in the mid-1970s.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: In the second half of the 1980s, HMMs began to be applied to the analysis of biological sequences, in particular DNA. Since then, they have become ubiquitous in the field of bioinformatics.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: In the hidden Markov models considered above, the state space of the hidden variables is discrete, while the observations themselves can either be discrete (typically generated from a categorical distribution) or continuous (typically from a Gaussian distribution). Hidden Markov models can also be generalized to allow continuous state spaces. Examples of such models are those where the Markov process over hidden variables is a linear dynamical system, with a linear relationship among related variables and where all hidden and observed variables follow a Gaussian distribution. In simple cases, such as the linear dynamical system just mentioned, exact inference is tractable (in this case, using the Kalman filter); however, in general, exact inference in HMMs with continuous latent variables is infeasible, and approximate methods must be used, such as the extended Kalman filter or the particle filter.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Hidden Markov models are generative models, in which the joint distribution of observations and hidden states, or equivalently both the prior distribution of hidden states (the "transition probabilities") and conditional distribution of observations given states (the "emission probabilities"), is modeled. The above algorithms implicitly assume a uniform prior distribution over the transition probabilities. However, it is also possible to create hidden Markov models with other types of prior distributions. An obvious candidate, given the categorical distribution of the transition probabilities, is the Dirichlet distribution, which is the conjugate prior distribution of the categorical distribution. Typically, a symmetric Dirichlet distribution is chosen, reflecting ignorance about which states are inherently more likely than others. The single parameter of this distribution (termed the "concentration parameter") controls the relative density or sparseness of the resulting transition matrix. A choice of 1 yields a uniform distribution. Values greater than 1 produce a dense matrix, in which the transition probabilities between pairs of states are likely to be nearly equal. Values less than 1 result in a sparse matrix in which, for each given source state, only a small number of destination states have non-negligible transition probabilities. It is also possible to use a two-level prior Dirichlet distribution, in which one Dirichlet distribution (the upper distribution) governs the parameters of another Dirichlet distribution (the lower distribution), which in turn governs the transition probabilities. The upper distribution governs the overall distribution of states, determining how likely each state is to occur; its concentration parameter determines the density or sparseness of states. Such a two-level prior distribution, where both concentration parameters are set to produce sparse distributions, might be useful for example in unsupervised part-of-speech tagging, where some parts of speech occur much more commonly than others; learning algorithms that assume a uniform prior distribution generally perform poorly on this task. The parameters of models of this sort, with non-uniform prior distributions, can be learned using Gibbs sampling or extended versions of the expectation-maximization algorithm.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: An extension of the previously described hidden Markov models with Dirichlet priors uses a Dirichlet process in place of a Dirichlet distribution. This type of model allows for an unknown and potentially infinite number of states. It is common to use a two-level Dirichlet process, similar to the previously described model with two levels of Dirichlet distributions. Such a model is called a "hierarchical Dirichlet process hidden Markov model", or "HDP-HMM" for short. It was originally described under the name "Infinite Hidden Markov Model" and was further formalized in.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: A different type of extension uses a discriminative model in place of the generative model of standard HMMs. This type of model directly models the conditional distribution of the hidden states given the observations, rather than modeling the joint distribution. An example of this model is the so-called "maximum entropy Markov model" (MEMM), which models the conditional distribution of the states using logistic regression (also known as a "maximum entropy model"). The advantage of this type of model is that arbitrary features (i.e. functions) of the observations can be modeled, allowing domain-specific knowledge of the problem at hand to be injected into the model. Models of this sort are not limited to modeling direct dependencies between a hidden state and its associated observation; rather, features of nearby observations, of combinations of the associated observation and nearby observations, or in fact of arbitrary observations at any distance from a given hidden state can be included in the process used to determine the value of a hidden state. Furthermore, there is no need for these features to be statistically independent of each other, as would be the case if such features were used in a generative model. Finally, arbitrary features over pairs of adjacent hidden states can be used rather than simple transition probabilities. The disadvantages of such models are: (1) The types of prior distributions that can be placed on hidden states are severely limited; (2) It is not possible to predict the probability of seeing an arbitrary observation. This second limitation is often not an issue in practice, since many common usages of HMM's do not require such predictive probabilities.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: A variant of the previously described discriminative model is the linear-chain conditional random field. This uses an undirected graphical model (aka Markov random field) rather than the directed graphical models of MEMM's and similar models. The advantage of this type of model is that it does not suffer from the so-called "label bias" problem of MEMM's, and thus may make more accurate predictions. The disadvantage is that training can be slower than for MEMM's.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Yet another variant is the "factorial hidden Markov model", which allows for a single observation to be conditioned on the corresponding hidden variables of a set of formula_53 independent Markov chains, rather than a single Markov chain. It is equivalent to a single HMM, with formula_54 states (assuming there are formula_55 states for each chain), and therefore, learning in such a model is difficult: for a sequence of length formula_56, a straightforward Viterbi algorithm has complexity formula_57. To find an exact solution, a junction tree algorithm could be used, but it results in an formula_58 complexity. In practice, approximate techniques, such as variational approaches, could be used.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: All of the above models can be extended to allow for more distant dependencies among hidden states, e.g. allowing for a given state to be dependent on the previous two or three states rather than a single previous state; i.e. the transition probabilities are extended to encompass sets of three or four adjacent states (or in general formula_53 adjacent states). The disadvantage of such models is that dynamic-programming algorithms for training them have an formula_60 running time, for formula_53 adjacent states and formula_56 total observations (i.e. a length-formula_56 Markov chain).


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Another recent extension is the "triplet Markov model", in which an auxiliary underlying process is added to model some data specificities. Many variants of this model have been proposed. One should also mention the interesting link that has been established between the "theory of evidence" and the "triplet Markov models" and which allows to fuse data in Markovian context and to model nonstationary data. Note that alternative multi-stream data fusion strategies have also been proposed in the recent literature, e.g.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Finally, a different rationale towards addressing the problem of modeling nonstationary data by means of hidden Markov models was suggested in 2012. It consists in employing a small recurrent neural network (RNN), specifically a reservoir network, to capture the evolution of the temporal dynamics in the observed data. This information, encoded in the form of a high-dimensional vector, is used as a conditioning variable of the HMM state transition probabilities. Under such a setup, we eventually obtain a nonstationary HMM the transition probabilities of which evolve over time in a manner that is inferred from the data itself, as opposed to some unrealistic ad-hoc model of temporal evolution.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The model suitable in the context of longitudinal data is named latent Markov model. The basic version of this model has been extended to include individual covariates, random effects and to model more complex data structures such as multilevel data. A complete overview of the latent Markov models, with special attention to the model assumptions and to their practical use is provided in


title: Danish royal family

text: The Danish royal family is the dynastic family of the monarch. All members of the Danish royal family except Queen Margrethe II hold the title of "Prince/Princess of Denmark". Dynastic children of the monarch and of the heir apparent are accorded the style of "His/Her Royal Highness", while other members of the dynasty are addressed as "His/Her Highness". The Queen is styled "Her Majesty".


title: Danish royal family

text: The Queen, her siblings and her descendants belong to the House of Glücksburg, which is a branch of the Royal House of Oldenburg. The Queen's children and male-line descendants also belong agnatically to the family de Laborde de Monpezat, and were given the concurrent title "Count/Countess of Monpezat" by royal decree on 30 April 2008.


title: Danish royal family

text: The Danish royal family receives remarkably high approval ratings in Denmark, ranging between 82% and 92%.


title: Danish royal family

text: Most of the members of the deposed royal family of Greece hold the title of "Prince" or "Princess of Greece and Denmark" with the qualification of "His" or "Her Highness", pursuant to the Royal Cabinet Order of 1774 and as agnatic descendants of George I of Greece, who, as the son of the future King Christian IX of Denmark, was (and remained) a "Prince of Denmark" prior to his accession to the throne of Greece in 1863. Until 1953 his dynastic male-line descendants remained in Denmark's order succession. However, no Danish act has revoked usage of the princely title for these descendants, neither for those living in 1953, nor for those born subsequently or who have since married into the dynasty.


title: Danish royal family

text: There are three members of the Greek royal family who are not known to bear the title of "Prince/ss of Denmark" with the qualification of "His/Her Highness.


title: Danish royal family

text: The following, consorts of royal monarchs today, were born with the titles of Prince/Princess of Greece and Denmark although they are not descended from King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie:


title: Danish royal family

text: The royal family of Norway descends in the legitimate male line from Frederick VIII of Denmark, Queen Margrethe II's great-grandfather. Haakon VII of Norway, who was born Prince Carl of Denmark as Frederick VIII's younger son, was, like his uncle, George I of Greece, invited to reign over another nation. As with the Greek branch's descendants, members of the Norwegian line no longer have succession rights to the Danish crown, but unlike the Greek dynasts they discontinued use of Danish royal titles upon ascending to the Norwegian throne in 1905.


title: Danish royal family

text: On 30 April 2008, the Queen of Denmark granted to her two sons, Crown Prince Frederik and Prince Joachim, and their legitimate patrilineal descendants of both sexes the hereditary title "Count of Monpezat". The title is based on the French title "Comte de Laborde de Monpezat" which was used by their father Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark.


title: Danish royal family

text: On 29 September 2022, it was announced that from 1 January 2023 on, the titles of Prince and Princess of Denmark, and style of "Highness" of the 4 children of Queen Margrethe II's younger son, Prince Joachim, will be discontinued. They will be instead titled as "His/Her Excellency Count/Countess Nikolai/Felix/Henrik/Athena of Monpezat".All four grandchildren maintain their places in the order of succession to the throne.


title: Danish royal family

text: Danish princes who marry without consent of the Danish monarch lose their succession rights, as do their descendants. They are then usually accorded the hereditary title "Count of Rosenborg". They, their wives, and their legitimate male-line descendants are:


title: Danish royal family

text: The Danneskiold-Samsøe family have been descendants of the eldest son of Christian V and his mistress Sofie Amalie Moth, whom the king elevated to be the first Lensgrevinde til Samsø ("Countess of Samsø"). A descendant, Countess Frederikke Louise af Danneskiold-Samsøe (1699-1744) married her kinsman Christian August, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. By royal statutory regulation, the Counts of Danneskiold-Samsøe and their male-line descendants are ranked as the second-highest nobles in Denmark, second only to the Counts of Rosenborg, whom also descent from the Danish Kings. With a place in the 1st Class No. 13, they are entitled to the style "His/Her Excellency".


title: Danish royal family

text: The first law governing the succession to the Danish throne as a hereditary monarchy was the "Kongeloven" ("Lex Regia"), enacted 14 November 1665, and published in 1709. It declared that the crown of Denmark shall descend by heredity to the legitimate descendants of King Frederick III, and that the order of succession shall follow semi-Salic primogeniture, according to which the crown is inherited by an heir, with preference among the Monarch's children to males over females; among siblings to the elder over the younger; and among Frederick III's remoter descendants by substitution, senior branches over junior branches. Female descendants were eligible to inherit the throne in the event there were no eligible surviving male dynasts born in the male line. As for the duchies, Holstein and Lauenburg where the King ruled as duke, these lands adhered to Salic law (meaning that only males could inherit the ducal throne), and by mutual agreement were permanently conjoined. The duchies of Schleswig (a Danish fief), Holstein and Lauenburg (German fiefs) were joined in personal union with the Crown of Denmark.


title: Danish royal family

text: This difference caused problems when Frederick VII of Denmark proved childless, making a change in dynasty imminent, and causing the lines of succession for the duchies on one hand and for Denmark on the other to diverge. That meant that the new King of Denmark would not also be the new Duke of Schleswig or Duke of Holstein. To ensure the continued adhesion of the Elbe duchies to the Danish Crown, the line of succession to the duchies was modified in the London Protocol of 1852, which designated Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, as the new heir apparent, although he was, strictly, the heir neither to the Crown of Denmark nor to the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein or Lauenburg by primogeniture. Originally, the Danish prime minister Christian Albrecht Bluhme wanted to keep the separate hereditary principles, but in the end the government decided on a uniform agnatic primogeniture, which was accepted by the Parliament.


title: Danish royal family

text: This order of succession remained in effect for a hundred years, then the Salic law was changed to male-preference primogeniture in 1953, meaning that females with no brothers could inherit. In 2009, the mode of inheritance of the throne was once more changed, this time into an absolute primogeniture. This imposed no immediate change on the line of succession as it was then, as Prince Vincent had not yet been born. the line of succession was:


title: Danish royal family

text: Following the transformation of Denmark's monarchy from elective (at least theoretically, although it had generally descended to the eldest son of the House of Oldenburg since 1448) to hereditary in 1660, the so-called "Kongelov" ("Lex Regia" in Latin) of 1665 established the reign "by the grace of God" of King Frederick III and his posterity. Of the articles of this law, all except Article 21 and Article 25 have been repealed by amendments to the Constitution in 1849, 1853, 1953, and 2009.


title: Danish royal family

text: Article 21 states "No Prince of the Blood, who resides here in the Realm and in Our territory, shall marry, or leave the Country, or take service under foreign Masters, unless he receives Permission from the King". Under this provision, princes of Denmark who permanently reside in other realms by express permission of the Danish Crown (i.e. members of the dynasties of Greece, Norway and the United Kingdom) do not thereby forfeit their royalty in Denmark, nor are they bound to obtain prior permission to travel abroad or to marry from its sovereign, although since 1950 those not descended in male-line from King Christian IX are no longer in the line of succession to the Danish throne. However, those who do reside in Denmark or its territories require the monarch's prior permission to travel abroad and to marry.


title: Danish royal family

text: Article 25 stipulates, with respect to blood members of the Royal dynasty: "They should answer to no Magistrate Judges, but their first and last Judge shall be the King, or to whomsoever He decrees.". The wording excludes those whose blood cannot be traced to a Danish monarch (e.g., the present Crown Princess).


title: Danish royal family

text: Princess Benedikte's children have no succession rights. This is because the marriage consent given to her had very specific provisions; if Benedikte ever became the heir presumptive, she and her husband would have to take permanent residence in Denmark and her children would only have succession rights if they had applied for naturalization upon reaching adulthood, and taken up residence in Denmark: (a) at the time of becoming the immediate heir to the throne, and (b) no later than when they reached the age of mandatory schooling under Danish law. Since the children continued to be educated in Germany well past the mandatory schooling age, they are deemed to no longer have succession rights.


title: Danish royal family

text: Queen Anne-Marie has no succession rights, and her descendants have none through her, because the permission granted for her marriage stipulated that she renounced her claim to the Danish throne upon becoming Queen consort of the Hellenes.


title: Capillary action

text: Capillary action (sometimes called capillarity, capillary motion, capillary rise, capillary effect, or wicking) is the process of a liquid flowing in a narrow space without the assistance of, or even in opposition to, any external forces like gravity. The effect can be seen in the drawing up of liquids between the hairs of a paint-brush, in a thin tube, in porous materials such as paper and plaster, in some non-porous materials such as sand and liquefied carbon fiber, or in a biological cell. It occurs because of intermolecular forces between the liquid and surrounding solid surfaces. If the diameter of the tube is sufficiently small, then the combination of surface tension (which is caused by cohesion within the liquid) and adhesive forces between the liquid and container wall act to propel the liquid.


title: Capillary action

text: Capillary comes from the Latin word capillaris, meaning "of or resembling hair." The meaning stems from the tiny, hairlike diameter of a capillary. While capillary is usually used as a noun, the word also is used as an adjective, as in "capillary action," in which a liquid is moved along — even upward, against gravity — as the liquid is attracted to the internal surface of the capillaries.


title: Capillary action

text: The first recorded observation of capillary action was by Leonardo da Vinci. A former student of Galileo, Niccolò Aggiunti, was said to have investigated capillary action. In 1660, capillary action was still a novelty to the Irish chemist Robert Boyle, when he reported that "some inquisitive French Men" had observed that when a capillary tube was dipped into water, the water would ascend to "some height in the Pipe". Boyle then reported an experiment in which he dipped a capillary tube into red wine and then subjected the tube to a partial vacuum. He found that the vacuum had no observable influence on the height of the liquid in the capillary, so the behavior of liquids in capillary tubes was due to some phenomenon different from that which governed mercury barometers.


title: Capillary action

text: Others soon followed Boyle's lead. Some (e.g., Honoré Fabri, Jacob Bernoulli) thought that liquids rose in capillaries because air could not enter capillaries as easily as liquids, so the air pressure was lower inside capillaries. Others (e.g., Isaac Vossius, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Louis Carré, Francis Hauksbee, Josia Weitbrecht) thought that the particles of liquid were attracted to each other and to the walls of the capillary.


title: Capillary action

text: Although experimental studies continued during the 18th century, a successful quantitative treatment of capillary action was not attained until 1805 by two investigators: Thomas Young of the United Kingdom and Pierre-Simon Laplace of France. They derived the Young–Laplace equation of capillary action. By 1830, the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss had determined the boundary conditions governing capillary action (i.e., the conditions at the liquid-solid interface). In 1871, the British physicist Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) determined the effect of the meniscus on a liquid's vapor pressure—a relation known as the Kelvin equation. German physicist Franz Ernst Neumann (1798–1895) subsequently determined the interaction between two immiscible liquids.


title: Capillary action

text: Albert Einstein's first paper, which was submitted to "Annalen der Physik" in 1900, was on capillarity.


title: Capillary action

text: Capillary penetration in porous media shares its dynamic mechanism with flow in hollow tubes, as both processes are resisted by viscous forces. Consequently, a common apparatus used to demonstrate the phenomenon is the "capillary tube". When the lower end of a glass tube is placed in a liquid, such as water, a concave meniscus forms. Adhesion occurs between the fluid and the solid inner wall pulling the liquid column along until there is a sufficient mass of liquid for gravitational forces to overcome these intermolecular forces. The contact length (around the edge) between the top of the liquid column and the tube is proportional to the radius of the tube, while the weight of the liquid column is proportional to the square of the tube's radius. So, a narrow tube will draw a liquid column along further than a wider tube will, given that the inner water molecules cohere sufficiently to the outer ones.


title: Capillary action

text: In the built environment, evaporation limited capillary penetration is responsible for the phenomenon of rising damp in concrete and masonry, while in industry and diagnostic medicine this phenomenon is increasingly being harnessed in the field of paper-based microfluidics.


title: Capillary action

text: In physiology, capillary action is essential for the drainage of continuously produced tear fluid from the eye. Two canaliculi of tiny diameter are present in the inner corner of the eyelid, also called the lacrimal ducts; their openings can be seen with the naked eye within the lacrymal sacs when the eyelids are everted.


title: Capillary action

text: Paper towels absorb liquid through capillary action, allowing a fluid to be transferred from a surface to the towel. The small pores of a sponge act as small capillaries, causing it to absorb a large amount of fluid. Some textile fabrics are said to use capillary action to "wick" sweat away from the skin. These are often referred to as wicking fabrics, after the capillary properties of candle and lamp wicks.


title: Capillary action

text: Capillary action is observed in thin layer chromatography, in which a solvent moves vertically up a plate via capillary action. In this case the pores are gaps between very small particles.


title: Capillary action

text: Capillary action draws ink to the tips of fountain pen nibs from a reservoir or cartridge inside the pen.


title: Capillary action

text: With some pairs of materials, such as mercury and glass, the intermolecular forces within the liquid exceed those between the solid and the liquid, so a convex meniscus forms and capillary action works in reverse.


title: Capillary action

text: In hydrology, capillary action describes the attraction of water molecules to soil particles. Capillary action is responsible for moving groundwater from wet areas of the soil to dry areas. Differences in soil potential (formula_1) drive capillary action in soil.


title: Capillary action

text: A practical application of capillary action is the capillary action siphon. Instead of utilizing a hollow tube (as in most siphons), this device consists of a length of cord made of a fibrous material (cotton cord or string works well). After saturating the cord with water, one (weighted) end is placed in a reservoir full of water, and the other end placed in a receiving vessel. The reservoir must be higher than the receiving vessel. A related but simplified capillary siphon only consists of two hook-shaped stainless-steel rods, whose surface is hydrophilic, allowing water to wet the narrow grooves between them. Due to capillary action and gravity, water will slowly transfer from the reservoir to the receiving vessel. This simple device can be used to water houseplants when nobody is home. This property is also made use of in the lubrication of steam locomotives: wicks of worsted wool are used to draw oil from reservoirs into delivery pipes leading to the bearings.


title: Capillary action

text: Capillary action is seen in many plants, and plays a part in transpiration. Water is brought high up in trees by branching; evaporation at the leaves creating depressurization; probably by osmotic pressure added at the roots; and possibly at other locations inside the plant, especially when gathering humidity with air roots.


title: Capillary action

text: Capillary action for uptake of water has been described in some small animals, such as "Ligia exotica" and "Moloch horridus".


title: Capillary action

text: where formula_3 is the liquid-air surface tension (force/unit length), "θ" is the contact angle, "ρ" is the density of liquid (mass/volume), "g" is the local acceleration due to gravity (length/square of time), and "r" is the radius of tube.


title: Capillary action

text: As "r" is in the denominator, the thinner the space in which the liquid can travel, the further up it goes. Likewise, lighter liquid and lower gravity increase the height of the column.


title: Capillary action

text: For a water-filled glass tube in air at standard laboratory conditions, at 20°C, , and . Because water spreads on clean glass, the effective equilibrium contact angle is approximately zero. For these values, the height of the water column is


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica and are found in most ecoregions of the Earth. Furthermore, grasslands are one of the largest biomes on earth and dominate the landscape worldwide. There are different types of grasslands: natural grasslands, semi-natural grasslands, and agricultural grasslands. They cover 31–69% of the Earth's land area.


title: Grassland

text: Semi-natural grasslands are a very common subcategory of the grasslands biome. These can be defined as:


title: Grassland

text: The graminoids are among the most versatile life forms. They became widespread toward the end of the Cretaceous period, and coprolites of fossilized dinosaur feces have been found containing phytoliths of a variety of grasses that include grasses that are related to modern rice and bamboo.


title: Grassland

text: The appearance of mountains in the western United States during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, a period of some 25 million years, created a continental climate favourable to the evolution of grasslands.


title: Grassland

text: Around 5 million years ago during the Late Miocene in the New World and the Pliocene in the Old World, the first true grasslands occurred. Existing forest biomes declined, and grasslands became much more widespread. It is known that grasslands have existed in Europe throughout the Pleistocene (the last 1.8 million years). Following the Pleistocene ice ages (with their glacials and interglacials), grasslands expanded in the hotter, drier climates, and began to become the dominant land feature worldwide. Since the grasslands have existed for over 1.8 million years, there is high variability. For example steppe-tundra dominated in Northern and Central Europe whereas a higher amount of xerothermic grasslands occurred in the Mediterranean area. Within temperate Europe, the range of types is quite wide and also became unique due to the exchange of species and genetic material between different biomes.


title: Grassland

text: The semi-natural grasslands first appeared when humans started farming. So for the use of agriculture, forests got cleared in Europe. Ancient meadows and pastures were the parts that were suitable for cultivation. The semi-natural grasslands were formed from these areas. However, there's also evidence for the local persistence of natural grasslands in Europe, originally maintained by wild herbivores, throughout the pre-neolithic Holocene. The removal of the plants by the grazing animals and later the mowing farmers led to co-existence of other plant species around. In the following, the biodiversity of the plants evolve. Also, the species that already lived there adapted to the new conditions.


title: Grassland

text: Nowadays, semi-natural grasslands are rather located in areas that are unsuitable for agricultural farming.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands dominated by unsown wild-plant communities ("unimproved grasslands") can be called either natural or "semi-natural" habitat. Although their plant communities are natural, their maintenance depends upon anthropogenic activities such as grazing and cutting regimes. The semi-natural grasslands contain many species of wild plants, including grasses, sedges, rushes, and herbs; 25 plant-species per 100 square centimeters can be found. A European record that was found on a meadow in Estonia described 76 species of plants in one square meter. Chalk downlands in England can support over 40 species per square meter.


title: Grassland

text: In many parts of the world, few examples have escaped agricultural improvement (fertilizing, weed killing, plowing, or re-seeding). For example, original North American prairie grasslands or lowland wildflower meadows in the UK are now rare and their associated wild flora equally threatened. Associated with the wild-plant diversity of the "unimproved" grasslands is usually a rich invertebrate fauna; there are also many species of birds that are grassland "specialists", such as the snipe and the little bustard. Owing to semi-natural grasslands being referred to as one of the most-species rich ecosystems in the world and essential habitat for many specialists, also including pollinators, there are many approaches to conservation activities lately.


title: Grassland

text: Agriculturally improved grasslands, which dominate modern intensive agricultural landscapes, are usually poor in wild plant species due to the original diversity of plants having been destroyed by cultivation and by the use of fertilizers.


title: Grassland

text: Almost 90% of the European semi-natural grasslands do not exist anymore due to political and economic reasons. This loss only took place during the 20th century. The ones in Western and Central Europe have almost disappeared completely. There are a few left in Northern Europe.


title: Grassland

text: Unfortunately, a large amount of red-listed species are specialists of semi-natural grasslands and are affected by the landscape change due to agriculture of the last century.


title: Grassland

text: The original wild-plant communities having been replaced by sown monocultures of cultivated varieties of grasses and clovers, such as perennial ryegrass and white clover. In many parts of the world, "unimproved" grasslands are one of the most threatened types of habitat, and a target for acquisition by wildlife conservation groups or for special grants to landowners who are encouraged to manage them appropriately.


title: Grassland

text: Grassland vegetation can vary considerably depending on the grassland type and on how strong it is affected by human impact. Dominant trees for the semi-natural grassland are "Quercus robur", "Betula pendula", "Corylus avellana", "Crataegus" and many kinds of herbs.


title: Grassland

text: In chalk grassland, the plants can vary from height to very short. Quite tall grasses can be found in North American tallgrass prairie, South American grasslands, and African savanna. Woody plants, shrubs or trees may occur on some grasslands—forming savannas, scrubby grassland or semi-wooded grassland, such as the African savannas or the Iberian deheza.


title: Grassland

text: As flowering plants and trees, grasses grow in great concentrations in climates where annual rainfall ranges between . The root systems of perennial grasses and forbs form complex mats that hold the soil in place.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands support the greatest aggregations of large animals on earth, including jaguars, African wild dogs, pronghorn, black-footed ferret, plains bison, mountain plover, African elephant, Sunda tiger, black rhino, white rhino, savanna elephant, greater one-horned rhino, Indian elephant and swift fox. Grazing animals, herd animals, and predators in grasslands, like lions and cheetahs live in the grasslands of the African savanna. Mites, insect larvaenematodes, and earthworms inhabit deep soil, which can reach underground in undisturbed grasslands on the richest soils of the world. These invertebrates, along with symbiotic fungi, extend the root systems, break apart hard soil, enrich it with urea and other natural fertilizers, trap minerals and water and promote growth. Some types of fungi make the plants more resistant to insect and microbial attacks.


title: Grassland

text: Grassland in all its form supports a vast variety of mammals, reptiles, birds, and insects. Typical large mammals include the blue wildebeest, American bison, giant anteater, and Przewalski's horse.


title: Grassland

text: The plants and animals that live in grasslands are connected through an unlimited web of interactions. But the removal of key species—such as buffalo and prairie dogs within the American West—and introduction of invasive species, like cane toads in northern Australia, have disrupted the balance in these ecosystems and damaged a number of other species. Grasslands are home to a number of the foremost magnificent animals on the planet—elephants, bison, lions—and hunters have found them to be enticing prey. But when hunting is not controlled or is conducted illegally, species can become extinct.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands provide a range of marketed and non-marketed ecosystem services that are fundamental to the livelihoods of an estimated one billion people globally.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands hold about 20 percent of global soil carbon stocks. Herbaceous (non-wooded) vegetation dominates grasslands and, unlike forests, carbon is stored in the roots and soil underground. Furthermore, this above-ground biomass carbon is relatively short-lived due to grazing, fire, and senescence. In contrast, grassland species have an extensive fibrous root system, with grasses often accounting for 60-80% of the biomass carbon in this ecosystem. This underground biomass can extend several meters below the surface and store abundant carbon into the soil, resulting in deep, fertile soils with high organic matter content. For this reason, soil carbon accounts for about 81% of the total ecosystem carbon in grasslands. The close link between soil carbon and underground biomass leads to similar responses of these carbon pools to fluctuations in annual precipitation and temperature on a broad spatial scale. Because plant productivity is limited by grassland precipitation, carbon stocks are highest in regions where precipitation is heaviest, such as the high grass prairie in the humid temperate region of the United States. Similarly, as annual temperatures rise, grassland carbon stocks decrease due to increased evapotranspiration.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands have suffered large losses of organic carbon due to soil disturbances, vegetation degradation, fires, erosion, nutrient deficiencies, and water shortages. The type, frequency and intensity of the disturbance can play a key role in the soil organic carbon (SOC) balance of grasslands. Bedrock, irrigation practices, soil acidification, liming, and pasture management can all have potential impacts on grassland organic carbon stocks.


title: Grassland

text: Good grassland management can reverse historical soil carbon losses. The relationship of improved biodiversity with carbon storage is subject of research.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the most significant threat to grasslands is human land use, especially agriculture and mining. The vulnerability of grasslands stems from a range of factors, such as misclassification, poor protection and cultivation.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands have an extensive history of human activity and disturbance. To feed a growing human population, most of the world's grasslands are converted from natural landscapes to fields of corn, wheat or other crops. Grasslands that have remained largely intact thus far, like East African savannas, are in danger of being lost to agriculture. Grasslands are very sensitive to disturbances, such as people hunting and killing key species, or plowing the land to make more space for farms.


title: Grassland

text: Grassland vegetation is often a plagioclimax; it remains dominant in a particular area usually due to grazing, cutting, or natural or man-made fires, all discouraging colonization by and survival of tree and shrub seedlings. Some of the world's largest expanses of grassland are found in the African savanna, and these are maintained by wild herbivores as well as by nomadic pastoralists and their cattle, sheep or goats. Grasslands have an impact on climate change by slower decomposition rates of litter compared to forest environments.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands may occur naturally or as a result of human activity. Hunting cultures around the world often set regular fires to maintain and extend grasslands and prevent fire-intolerant trees and shrubs from taking hold. The tallgrass prairies in the U.S. Midwest may have been extended eastward into Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio by human agency. Much grassland in northwest Europe developed after the Neolithic Period when people gradually cleared the forest to create areas for raising their livestock.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands often occur in areas with annual precipitation is between and and average mean annual temperatures ranges from −5 and 20 °C. However, some grasslands occur in colder (−20 °C) and hotter (30 °C) climatic conditions. Grassland can exist in habitats that are frequently disturbed by grazing or fire, as such disturbance prevents the encroachment of woody species. Species richness is particularly high in grasslands of low soil fertility such as serpentine barrens and calcareous grasslands, where woody encroachment is prevented as low nutrient levels in the soil may inhibit the growth of forest and shrub species. Another common predicament often experienced by the ill-fated grassland creatures is the constant burning of plants, fueled by oxygen and many expired photosynthesizing organisms, with the lack of rain pushing this problem to further heights. When not limited by other factors, increasing CO concentration in the air increases plant growth, similarly as water use efficiency, which is very important in drier regions. However, the advantages of elevated CO are limited by factors including water availability and available nutrients, particularly nitrogen. Thus effects of elevated CO on plant growth will vary with local climate patterns, species adaptations to water limitations, and nitrogen availability. Studies indicate that nutrient depletion may happen faster in drier regions, and with factors like plant community composition and grazing. Nitrogen deposition from air pollutants and increased mineralization from higher temperatures can increase plant productivity, but increases are often among a discount in biodiversity as faster-growing plants outcompete others. A study of a California grassland found that global change may speed reductions in diversity and forb species are most prone to this process.


title: Grassland

text: Misguided afforestation efforts, for example as part of the global effort to increase carbon sequestration, can harm grasslands and their core ecosystem services. Forest centric restoration efforts can create the risk of misreading and misclassifying of landscapes. A map created by the World Resources Institute in collaboration with the IUCN identifies 2 billion hectares for potential forest restoration. It is criticised for including 900 million hectares of grasslands. It is expected that non-native grasses will continue to outperform native species under warmer and drier conditions that occur in many grasslands due to climate change.


title: Grassland

text: The type of land management used in grasslands can also lead to grassland loss/degradation. Many grasslands and other open ecosystems depend on disturbances such as wildfires, controlled burns and/or grazing to persist, although this subject is still controversial. A study in Brazilian Subtropical Highland Grasslands found that grasslands without traditional land management—which uses fire every two years and extensive cattle grazing—can disappear within 30 years. This study showed that grasslands inside protected areas, in which fire is not allowed and cattle grazing is banned, grasslands were quickly replaced by shrubs (shrub encroachment).


title: Grassland

text: Land cover has always changed during the years. The following relates to the changes between 1960 and 2015. There has been a decrease in semi-natural grasslands and an increase in areas with arable land, forest and land used for infrastructure and buildings. The line style and relative thickness of the lines indicates the percentage of the total area that changed. Changes less than 1% and land-cover classes with all changes less than 1% (i.e. semi-natural wetlands and water) are not included.


title: Grassland

text: In 1960 most of the land, 49.7%, was covered with forest and there was also more semi-natural grassland (18.8%) than arable land (15.8%). In 2015 this has changed drastically. The forest cover has increased (50.8%) and arable land has also increased (20.4%), but the semi-natural grassland cover has decreased. Although it still covers a large area of the earth (10.6%).


title: Grassland

text: A quarter of semi-natural grassland was lost through intensification, i.e. it was converted into arable or pasture land and forests. It is more likely that intensification will occur in flat semi-natural grasslands, especially if the soil is fertile. On the other hand, grasslands, where the land is drought-prone or less productive, are more likely to persist as semi-natural grasslands than grasslands with fertile soil and low gradient of the terrain. Furthermore, the accessibility of the land is also important, as it is then easier to fertilize, for example. For instance, if it is located near a road. With the development of technology, it is becoming increasingly easy to cultivate land with a steeper gradient, to the detriment of grasslands. The management of grasslands is also changing permanently. There is increased use of mineral fertilizers, furthermore borders and field edges are removed to enlarge fields and leveling the terrain to facilitate the use of agricultural machinery.


title: Grassland

text: The professional study of dry grasslands falls under the category of rangeland management, which focuses on ecosystem services associated with the grass-dominated arid and semi-arid rangelands of the world. Rangelands account for an estimated 70% of the earth's landmass; thus, many cultures including those of the United States are indebted to the economics that the world's grasslands have to offer, from producing grazing animals, tourism, ecosystems services such as clean water and air, and energy extraction.


title: Grassland

text: Vast areas of grassland are affected by woody encroachment, which is the expansion of woody plants at the expense of the herbaceous layer. Woody encroachment is caused by a combination of human impact (e.g. fire exclusion, overstocking and resulting overgrazing) and environmental factors (i.e. increased CO levels in the atmosphere). It can have severe negative consequences on key ecosystem services, like land productivity and groundwater recharge.


title: Grassland

text: Despite growing recognition of the importance of grasslands, understanding of restoration options remains limited. Cost of grassland retoration is highly variable and respective data is scarce. Successful grassland restoration has several dimensions, including recognition in policy, standardisation of indicators of degradation, scientific innovation, knowledge transfer and data sharing.


title: Grassland

text: For the period 2021–2030 the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the UN Decade on Restoration, involving a joint resolution by over 70 countries. It is led by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization.


title: Grassland

text: These grasslands can be classified as the tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. The rainfall level for that grassland type is between 90 and 150 centimeters per year. Grasses and scattered trees are common for that ecoregion, as well as large mammals, such as wildebeest ("Connochaetes taurinus") and zebra ("Equus zebra"). Notable tropical and subtropical grasslands include the Llanos grasslands of South America.


title: Grassland

text: Mid-latitude grasslands, including the prairie and Pacific grasslands of North America, the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, calcareous downland, and the steppes of Europe. They are classified with temperate savannas and shrublands as the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. Temperate grasslands are the home to many large herbivores, such as bison, gazelles, zebras, rhinoceroses, and wild horses. Carnivores like lions, wolves, cheetahs and leopards are also found in temperate grasslands. Other animals of this region include deer, prairie dogs, mice, jack rabbits, skunks, coyotes, snakes, foxes, owls, badgers, blackbirds, grasshoppers, meadowlarks, sparrows, quails, hawks and hyenas.


title: Grassland

text: Grasslands that are flooded seasonally or year-round, like the Everglades of Florida, the Pantanal of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay or the Esteros del Ibera in Argentina, are classified with flooded savannas as the flooded grasslands and savannas biome and occur mostly in the tropics and subtropics. The species that live in these grasslands are well adapted to the hydrologic regimes and soil conditions. The Everglades—the world's largest rain-fed flooded grassland—is rich in 11,000 species of seed-bearing plants, 25 species of orchids, 300 bird species, and 150 fish species.


title: Grassland

text: High-altitude grasslands located on high mountain ranges around the world, like the Páramo of the Andes Mountains. They are part of the montane grasslands and shrublands biome and can be tropical, subtropical, and temperate. The plants and animals, that can be found in the tropical montane, are able to adapt to cool, wet conditions as well as intense sunlight.


title: Grassland

text: Similar to montane grasslands, polar Arctic tundra can have grasses, but high soil moisture means that few tundras are grass-dominated today. However, during the Pleistocene glacial periods (commonly referred to as ice ages), a grassland known as steppe-tundra or mammoth steppe occupied large areas of the Northern Hemisphere. These areas were very cold and arid and featured sub-surface permafrost (hence tundra) but were nevertheless productive grassland ecosystems supporting a wide variety of fauna. As the temperature increased and the climate became wetter at the beginning of the Holocene much of the mammoth steppe transitioned to forest, while the drier parts in central Eurasia remained as a grassland, becoming the modern Eurasian steppe.


title: Grassland

text: Also called desert grasslands, they are composed of sparse grassland ecoregions located in the deserts and xeric shrublands biome. Temperature extremes and low amount of rainfall characterise these kinds of grasslands. Therefore, plants and animals are well adapted to minimize water loss.


title: Stone (unit)

text: The stone or stone weight (abbreviation: st.) is an English and imperial unit of mass equal to 14 pounds (6.35 kg). The stone continues in customary use in the United Kingdom for body weight.


title: Stone (unit)

text: England and other Germanic-speaking countries of northern Europe formerly used various standardised "stones" for trade, with their values ranging from about 5 to 40 local pounds (roughly 3 to 15 kg) depending on the location and objects weighed. With the advent of metrication, Europe's various "stones" were superseded by or adapted to the kilogram from the mid-19th century on.


title: Stone (unit)

text: The name "stone" derives from the use of stones for weights, a practice that dates back into antiquity. The Biblical law against the carrying of "diverse weights, a large and a small" is more literally translated as "you shall not carry a stone and a stone (), a large and a small". There was no standardised "stone" in the ancient Jewish world, but in Roman times stone weights were crafted to multiples of the Roman pound. Such weights varied in quality: the Yale Medical Library holds 10 and 50-pound examples of polished serpentine, while a 40-pound example at the Eschborn Museum is made of sandstone.


title: Stone (unit)

text: The 1772 edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" defined the stone:STONE also denotes a certain quantity or weight of some commodities. A stone of beef, in London, is the quantity of eight pounds; in Hertfordshire, twelve pounds; in Scotland sixteen pounds.


title: Stone (unit)

text: The Weights and Measures Act of 1824, which applied to all of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, consolidated the weights and measures legislation of several centuries into a single document. It revoked the provision that bales of wool should be made up of 20 stones, each of 14 pounds, but made no provision for the continued use of the stone. Ten years later, a stone still varied from 5 pounds (glass) to 8 pounds (meat and fish) to 14 pounds (wool and "horseman's weight").


title: Stone (unit)

text: The Act of 1835 permitted using a stone of 14 pounds for trade but other values remained in use. James Britten, in 1880 for example, catalogued a number of different values of the stone in various British towns and cities, ranging from 4 lb to 26 lb. The value of the stone and associated units of measure that were legalised for purposes of trade were clarified by the Weights and Measures Act 1835 as follows:


title: Stone (unit)

text: The English stone under law varied by commodity and in practice varied according to local standards. The Assize of Weights and Measures, a statute of uncertain date from , describes stones of 5 merchants' pounds used for glass; stones of 8 lb. used for beeswax, sugar, pepper, alum, cumin, almonds, cinnamon, and nutmegs; stones of 12 lb. used for lead; and the of  lb. used for wool. In 1350 Edward III issued a new statute defining the stone weight, to be used for wool and "other Merchandizes", at 14 pounds, reaffirmed by Henry VII in 1495.


title: Stone (unit)

text: In England, merchants traditionally sold potatoes in half-stone increments of 7 pounds. Live animals were weighed in stones of 14 lb; but, once slaughtered, their carcasses were weighed in stones of 8 lb. Thus, if the animal's carcass accounted for of the animal's weight, the butcher could return the dressed carcasses to the animal's owner stone for stone, keeping the offal, blood and hide as his due for slaughtering and dressing the animal. Smithfield market continued to use the 8 lb stone for meat until shortly before the Second World War. The "Oxford English Dictionary" also lists:


title: Stone (unit)

text: The Scottish stone was equal to 16 Scottish pounds (17 lb 8 oz avoirdupois or 7.936 kg). In 1661, the Royal Commission of Scotland recommended that the Troy stone be used as a standard of weight and that it be kept in the custody of the burgh of Lanark. The tron (or local) stone of Edinburgh, also standardised in 1661, was 16 tron pounds (22 lb 1 oz avoirdupois or 9.996 kg). In 1789 an encyclopedic enumeration of measurements was printed for the use of "his Majesty's Sheriffs and Stewards Depute, and Justices of Peace, ... and to the Magistrates of the Royal Boroughs of Scotland" and provided a county-by-county and commodity-by-commodity breakdown of values and conversions for the stone and other measures. The Scots stone ceased to be used for trade when the Act of 1824 established a uniform system of measure across the whole of the United Kingdom, which at that time included all of Ireland.


title: Stone (unit)

text: Before the early 19th century, as in England, the stone varied both with locality and with commodity. For example, the "Belfast stone" for measuring flax equaled 16.75 avoirdupois pounds. The most usual value was 14 pounds. Among the oddities related to the use of the stone was the practice in County Clare of a stone of potatoes being 16 lb in the summer and 18 lb in the winter.


title: Stone (unit)

text: In 1965 the Federation of British Industry informed the British government that its members favoured adopting the metric system. The Board of Trade, on behalf of the government, agreed to support a ten-year metrication programme. There would be minimal legislation, as the programme was to be voluntary and costs were to be borne where they fell. Under the guidance of the Metrication Board, the agricultural product markets achieved a voluntary switchover by 1976. The stone was not included in the Directive 80/181/EEC as a unit of measure that could be used within the EEC for "economic, public health, public safety or administrative purposes", though its use as a "supplementary unit" was permitted. The scope of the directive was extended to include all aspects of the EU internal market from 1 January 2010.


title: Stone (unit)

text: With the adoption of metric units by the agricultural sector, the stone was, in practice, no longer used for trade; and, in the Weights and Measures Act 1985, passed in compliance with EU directive 80/181/EEC, the stone was removed from the list of units permitted for trade in the United Kingdom. In 1983, in response to the same directive, similar legislation was passed in Ireland. The Act repealed earlier acts that defined the stone as a unit of measure for trade. (British law had previously been silent regarding other uses of the stone.)


title: Stone (unit)

text: The stone remains widely used in the UK and Ireland for human body weight: in those countries people may commonly be said to weigh, e.g., "11 stone 4" (11 stones and 4 pounds), rather than "72 kilograms" as in most of the other countries, or "158 pounds", the conventional way of expressing the same weight in the US. The correct plural form of "stone" in this context is "stone" (as in, "11 stone" or "12 stone 6 pounds"); in other contexts, the correct plural is "stones" (as in, "Please enter your weight in stones and pounds"). In Australia and New Zealand, metrication has almost entirely displaced stones and pounds since the 1970s.


title: Stone (unit)

text: In many sports in both Britain and Ireland, such as professional boxing, wrestling, and horse racing, the stone is used to express body weights.


title: Stone (unit)

text: The use of the stone in the British Empire was varied. In Canada for example, it never had a legal status.


title: Stone (unit)

text: Shortly after the United States declared independence, Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, presented a report on weights and measures to the U.S. House of Representatives. Even though all the weights and measures in use in the United States at the time were derived from English weights and measures, his report made no mention of the stone being used. He did, however, propose a decimal system of weights in which his "[decimal] pound" would have been and the "[decimal] stone" would have been .


title: Stone (unit)

text: Before the advent of metrication, units called "stone" (; ; ) were used in many northwestern European countries. Its value, usually between 3 and 10 kg, varied from city to city and sometimes from commodity to commodity. The number of local "pounds" in a stone also varied from city to city. During the early 19th century, states such as the Netherlands (including Belgium) and the South Western German states, which had redefined their system of measures using the as a reference for weight (mass), also redefined their stone to align it with the kilogram.


title: Stone (unit)

text: In the Netherlands, where the metric system was adopted in 1817, the "pond" (pound) was set equal to a kilogram, and the "steen" (stone), which had previously been 8 Amsterdam pond (3.953 kg), was redefined as being 3 kg. In modern colloquial Dutch, a "pond" is used as an alternative for 500 grams or half a kilogram, while the "ons" is used for a weight of 100 grams, being  "pond".


title: Shyamala Gopalan

text: Gopalan Shyamala (December 7, 1938 – February 11, 2009) was a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene stimulated advances in breast biology and oncology. She was the mother of Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris and Maya Harris, a lawyer and political commentator.


title: Shyamala Gopalan

text: Shyamala was born on December 7, 1938, in Madras, Madras Province, British India (present-day Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) to Rajam Gopalan and P. V. Gopalan, a civil servant. Her parents were from two villages near the town of Mannargudi in Madras Province. According to "The Los Angeles Times", "Gopalan was a Tamil Brahmin, part of a privileged elite in Hinduism’s ancient caste hierarchy". According to Shyamala's brother, Balachandran, their parents were broad-minded in raising the children, all of whom led somewhat unconventional lives. Gopalan began his professional life as a stenographer, rising through the ranks in the civil service, moving the family every few years between Madras, New Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta.


title: Shyamala Gopalan

text: A gifted singer of Carnatic music, Shyamala won a national competition in it as a teenager. She studied for a BSc in Home Science at Lady Irwin College in Delhi. Her father thought the subject—which taught skills considered helpful in homemaking—was a mismatch for her abilities; her mother expected the children to seek careers in medicine, engineering, or the law. In 1958, aged 19, Shyamala unexpectedly applied to a master's program in nutrition and endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley, and was accepted. Her parents used some of their retirement savings to pay her tuition and board during the first year. Not having a phone line at home, they communicated with her after her arrival in the US by aerogram. She earned a PhD in nutrition and endocrinology at UC Berkeley in 1964. Shyamala's dissertation, which was supervised by Richard L. Lyman, was titled "The isolation and purification of a trypsin inhibitor from whole wheat flour".


title: Shyamala Gopalan

text: Shyamala conducted research in UC Berkeley's Department of Zoology and Cancer Research Lab. She worked as a breast cancer researcher at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Wisconsin. She worked for 16 years at Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University Faculty of Medicine. She served as a peer reviewer for the National Institutes of Health and as a site visit team member for the Federal Advisory Committee. She also served on the President's Special Commission on Breast Cancer. She mentored dozens of students in her lab. For her last decade of research, Shyamala worked in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.


title: Shyamala Gopalan

text: Shyamala's research led to advancements in the knowledge of hormones pertaining to breast cancer. Her work in the isolation and characterization of the progesterone receptor gene in mice changed research on the hormone-responsiveness of breast tissue.


title: Shyamala Gopalan

text: In the fall of 1962, at a meeting of the Afro-American Association—a students' group at Berkeley whose members would go on to give structure to the discipline of Black studies, propose the holiday of Kwanzaa, and help establish the Black Panther Party—Shyamala met a graduate student in economics from Jamaica, Donald J. Harris, who was that day's speaker. According to Donald Harris, who is now an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University, “We talked then, continued to talk at a subsequent meeting, and at another, and another." In 1963 they were married without following the convention of introducing Harris to Shyamala's parents beforehand or having the ceremony in her hometown. In the later 1960s, Donald and Shyamala took their daughters, Kamala, then four or five years old, and Maya, two years younger, to newly independent Zambia, where Shyamala's father, Gopalan, was on an advisory assignment. After Shyamala divorced Donald in the early 1970s, she took her daughters to India several times to visit her parents in Chennai, where they had retired.


title: Shyamala Gopalan

text: Wanda Kagan, one of Kamala's high school friends in Montreal, described how after she told Kamala her stepfather was molesting her, Shyamala insisted she move in with them for her final year of high school. Kagan said that Shyamala helped her navigate the system to get the support she needed to live independently of her family.


title: Shyamala Gopalan

text: Shyamala died of colon cancer in Oakland on February 11, 2009 at aged 70. She requested that donations be made to the organization Breast Cancer Action. Later in 2009, Kamala Harris carried her ashes to Chennai on the southeastern coast of peninsular India and scattered them in the Indian Ocean waters.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Lauri Allan Törni (28 May 1919 – 18 October 1965), later known as Larry Alan Thorne, was a Finnish-born soldier who fought under three flags: as a Finnish Army officer in the Winter War and the Continuation War ultimately gaining a rank of captain; as a Waffen-SS captain (under the alias Larry Laine) of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS when he fought the Red Army on the Eastern Front in World War II; and as a United States Army Major (under the alias "Larry Thorne") when he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Törni died in a helicopter crash during the Vietnam War and he was promoted to the rank of major posthumously. His remains were located three decades later and then buried in Arlington National Cemetery; he is the only former member of the Waffen-SS known to be interred there.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Christened Lauri Allan Törni, he was born in Viipuri, Viipuri Province, Finland, to ship captain Jalmari (Ilmari) Törni, and his wife, Rosa (née Kosonen). He had two sisters: Salme Kyllikki (b. 1920) and Kaija Iris (b. 1922). An athletic youth, Törni was an early friend of future Olympic Boxing Gold Medalist Sten Suvio. After attending business school and serving with the Civil Guard, Törni entered military service in 1938, joining Jaeger Battalion 4 stationed at Kiviniemi; when the Winter War began in November 1939, his enlistment was extended and his unit confronted invading Soviet troops at Rautu.


title: Lauri Törni

text: During the battles at Lake Ladoga, Törni took part in the destruction of the encircled Soviet divisions in Lemetti.


title: Lauri Törni

text: His performance during these engagements was noticed by his commanders, and toward the end of the war, he was assigned to officer training where he was commissioned a Vänrikki (2nd lieutenant) in the reserves. After the Winter War, in June 1941, Törni went to Vienna, Austria for seven weeks of training with the Waffen-SS, and returned to Finland in July; as a Finnish officer, the Germans recognized him as an Untersturmführer.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Most of Törni's reputation was based on his successful actions in the Continuation War (1941–44) between the Soviet Union and Finland. In 1943, a unit informally named "Detachment Törni" was created under his command. This was an infantry unit that penetrated deep behind enemy lines and soon enjoyed a reputation on both sides of the front for its combat effectiveness. One of Törni's subordinates was future President of Finland Mauno Koivisto. Koivisto served in a reconnaissance company under Törni's command during the Battle of Ilomantsi, the final Finnish-Soviet engagement of the Continuation War, during July and August 1944. Törni's unit inflicted such heavy casualties on Soviet units that the Soviet Army placed a bounty of 3,000,000 Finnish marks on his head. He was decorated with the Mannerheim Cross 2nd Class on 9 July 1944.


title: Lauri Törni

text: The September 1944 Moscow Armistice required the Finnish government to remove German troops from its territory, resulting in the Lapland War; during this period, much of the Finnish Army was demobilized, including Törni, leaving him unemployed in November 1944. In January 1945, he was recruited by the Pro-German resistance movement in Finland and left for saboteur training in Germany, with the intention of organizing resistance in case Finland was occupied by the Soviet Union. The training was prematurely ended in March, but as Törni could not secure transportation to Finland, he joined a German unit to fight Soviet troops near Schwerin, Germany. He surrendered to British troops in the last stages of World War II and eventually returned to Finland in June 1945 after escaping a British POW camp in Lübeck, Germany.


title: Lauri Törni

text: As his family had been evacuated from Karelia, Törni sought to rejoin them in Helsinki but was arrested by Valpo, the Finnish state police. After escaping, he was arrested a second time in April 1946, and tried for treason for having joined the German military. After a trial from October to November, he received a six-year sentence in January 1947. Imprisoned at the Turku provincial prison, Törni escaped in June, but was recaptured and sent to the Riihimäki State Prison. President Juho Paasikivi granted him a pardon in December 1948.


title: Lauri Törni

text: In 1949, Törni, accompanied by his wartime executive officer Holger Pitkänen, traveled to Sweden, crossing the border from Tornio to Haparanda (Haaparanta), where many inhabitants are ethnic Finns. From Haparanda, Törni traveled by railroad to Stockholm where he stayed with Baroness von Essen, who harbored many fugitive Finnish officers following the war. Pitkänen was arrested and repatriated to Finland. Remaining in Sweden, Törni fell in love with a Swedish Finn, Marja Kops, and was soon engaged to be married. Hoping to establish a career before the marriage, Törni traveled under an alias as a Swedish seaman aboard the SS "Bolivia", destined for Caracas, Venezuela, where he met one of his Winter War commanders, Finnish colonel Matti Aarnio, who was in exile having settled in Venezuela after the war. From Caracas, Törni hired on to a Swedish cargo ship, the MS "Skagen", destined for the United States in 1950.


title: Lauri Törni

text: While in the Gulf of Mexico, near Mobile, Alabama, Törni jumped overboard and swam to shore. Now a political refugee, Törni traveled to New York City where he was helped by the Finnish-American community living in Brooklyn's Sunset Park "Finntown". There he worked as a carpenter and cleaner. In 1953, Törni was granted a residence permit through an Act of Congress that was shepherded by the law firm of "Wild Bill" Donovan, former head of the Office of Strategic Services.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Törni enlisted in the US Army in 1954 under the provisions of the Lodge-Philbin Act and adopted the name Larry Thorne. In the US Army, he was befriended by a group of Finnish-American officers who came to be known as "Marttinen's Men" ("Marttisen miehet").


title: Lauri Törni

text: With their support, Thorne joined the US Army Special Forces. While in the Special Forces, he taught skiing, survival, mountaineering, and guerrilla tactics. In turn he attended airborne school, and advanced in rank to sergeant. Receiving his US citizenship in 1957, Thorne attended Officer Candidate School, and was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Signal Corps. He later received a Regular Army commission and a promotion to captain in 1960. From 1958–1962, he served in the 10th Special Forces Group in West Germany at Bad Tölz, from where he was second-in-command of a search and recovery mission high in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, which gained him a notable reputation. When he was in Germany, he briefly visited his relatives in Finland. In an episode of "The Big Picture" released in 1962 and composed of footage filmed in 1959, Thorne is shown as a lieutenant with the 10th Special Forces Group in the United States Army.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Deploying to South Vietnam in November 1963 to support Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces in the Vietnam War, Thorne and Special Forces Detachment A-734 were stationed in the Tịnh Biên District and assigned to operate Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) encampments at Châu Lăng and later Tịnh Biên.


title: Lauri Törni

text: During a fierce attack on the CIDG camp in Tịnh Biên, he received two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star Medal for valor during the battle.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Thorne's second tour in Vietnam began in February 1965 with 5th Special Forces Group; he then transferred to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV–SOG), a classified US special operations unit focusing on unconventional warfare in Vietnam, as a military advisor.


title: Lauri Törni

text: On 18 October 1965, as part of the operation Shining Brass, Thorne was supervising the first clandestine mission to locate Viet Cong turnaround points along the Ho Chi Minh trail and destroy them with airstrikes. Two Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) CH-34 helicopters launched from Kham Duc Special Forces Camp and rendezvoused with a United States Air Force Cessna O-1 Bird Dog Forward Air Controller in inclement weather in a mountainous area of Phước Sơn District, Quảng Nam Province, Vietnam, from Da Nang. While one CH-34 descended through a gap in the weather to drop off the six-man team, the command CH-34 carrying Thorne and the O-1 loitered nearby. When the drop helicopter returned above the cloud cover, both the CH-34 and the O-1 had disappeared. Rescue teams were unable to locate the crash site. Shortly after his disappearance, Thorne was promoted to the rank of major and posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit and Distinguished Flying Cross.


title: Lauri Törni

text: In 1999, Thorne's remains were found by a Finnish and Joint Task Force-Full Accounting team and repatriated to the United States following a Hanoi Noi Bai International Airport ceremony that included Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Ambassador Pete Peterson.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Formally identified in 2003, his remains were buried on 26 June 2003 at Arlington National Cemetery, along with the RVNAF casualties of the mission recovered at the crash site. He was memorialized on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Panel 02E, Line 126. He was survived only by his fiancée, Marja Kops.


title: Lauri Törni

text: The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross (Posthumously) to Major (Infantry), (then Captain) Larry Alan Thorne (ASN: 0-2287104), United States Army, for heroism while participating in aerial flight on 18 October 1965 in the Republic of Vietnam. Major Thorne was operations officer responsible for launching a small, combined reconnaissance patrol on an extremely hazardous mission into a suspected Viet Cong stronghold. Due to the extreme hazards attending this mission, including weather and enemy action, Major Thorne volunteered to accompany submission aircraft during the introduction of the patrol in place of the assigned individual. After delivering the patrol to the landing zone, Major Thorne remained with one aircraft in the immediate area to receive an initial report from the patrol on the ground. This report was mandatory since only the vaguest information was available about enemy disposition near the landing zone. If the patrol were immediately confronted by a superior force, Major Thorne would land and extricate the patrol under fire. This was done with total disregard for the inherent dangers and with selfless concern for the ground forces. In so doing, he exposed himself to extreme personal danger which ultimately led to his disappearance and the loss of his aircraft. He had, however, guaranteed the safe introduction of the patrol into the area, the successful accomplishment of this mission and had positioned himself to react to any immediate calls for assistance from the patrol. Due to Major Thorne's efforts, the mission was accomplished successfully and contributed significantly to the overall mission of interdicting Viet Cong activities within the area. Major Thorne's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.


title: Lauri Törni

text: In the 1965 book "The Green Berets" by Robin Moore, the "Sven Kornie" (or Captain Steve Kornie) main character in the first chapter was based on Thorne.


title: Lauri Törni

text: In the 1990s, Törni's name became better known as a war hero, with numerous books being written about him. He was named 52nd in the "Suuret Suomalaiset" listing of famous Finns; in the 2006 "" ("Soldier of Finland") magazine listing, he was elected most courageous of the Mannerheim Cross recipients.


title: Lauri Törni

text: In Finland, the survivors, friends, and families of Detachment Törni formed the Lauri Törni Tradition Guild. The Infantry Museum (Jalkaväkimuseo) in Mikkeli, Finland, has an exhibit dedicated to Törni, as does the Military Museum of Finland in Helsinki.


title: Lauri Törni

text: Even before his death, Thorne's name was legendary in US Special Forces. His US memorial is the Larry Thorne Headquarters Building, 10th SFG(A), Fort Carson, Colorado. 10th Group honors him yearly by presenting the Larry Thorne Award to the best Operational Detachment-Alpha in the command. The Special Forces Association Chapter 33 in Cleveland, Tennessee is named after him.


title: Lauri Törni

text: In 2010 he was named as the first Honorary Member of the United States Army Special Forces Regiment and in 2011 he was inducted into the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) Commando Hall of Honor.


title: Lauri Törni

text: In their 2013 book "Tuntematon Lauri Törni" ["Unknown Lauri Törni"], authors Juha Pohjonen and Oula Silvennoinen write that Törni's conviction for treason was justified because the SS training he received at the end of World War II was provided to help achieve a National Socialist coup in Finland. This view has been challenged by Törni Heritage Guild members Markku Moberg and Pasi Niittymäki, who acknowledge that Törni faced pressure from the war and alcohol consumption, but contend that he did not support Germany. Furthermore, Finnish historian and later Minister of Defence (2015–2019) Jussi Niinistö of the Finns Party argued that Törni's training was actually motivated by patriotism towards his native country, and accused Pohjonen and Silvennoinen of stirring up hatred in order to promote sales of their book while disregarding "the fact that in Finland there was a genuine fear that Russia would occupy Finland."


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Jamie Laura Chadwick (born 20 May 1998) is a British racing driver who races for Andretti Autosport in Indy NXT. She won the inaugural W Series season in 2019, before retaining her title in 2021 and 2022. She currently holds the records for the most wins, podiums, pole positions and points in the W Series. She has also competed in the Race of Champions for Great Britain alongside David Coulthard, as well as racing in Extreme E. She is a development driver for the Williams Formula One team.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Chadwick was born on 20 May 1998 in Bath and grew up on the Isle of Man. Her father Michael is a property developer, and her mother Jasmine is an Indian-born businesswoman. Chadwick was educated at Cheltenham College, a mixed boarding and day public school in the spa town of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. She currently resides in London and is in a relationship with racing driver Struan Moore.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Chadwick started her motorsports career in kart racing at the age of 11, following her brother Oliver into the sport. She started car racing in 2013 when she turned down a trial with the England under-18 hockey team to compete at the Ginetta Junior scholarship weekend, where she triumphed to win a scholarship for the 2013 Ginetta Junior Championship season. Chadwick raced alongside her brother for the JHR Developments team, finishing tenth in the championship, second-last of all full-time competitors and behind her teammate and brother Oliver. She remained in the series for 2014, taking five podium finishes during the year to finish eighth overall in the championship.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: In March 2015, Chadwick was announced as one of the drivers for Beechdean Motorsport in the 2015 British GT Championship, competing in the GT4 class. Chadwick and her co-driver, Ross Gunn, an Aston Martin factory driver, took two wins and five podiums during the season in their Aston Martin V8 Vantage, including a win in the Silverstone 24-Hour race. This made Chadwick the first female and youngest ever champion of the British GT Championship.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Going into 2016, Chadwick stayed in British GT Championship, driving in the GT4 pro class with Generation AMR SuperRacing for the first, second and sixth rounds, before returning to Beechdean Motorsport to race in the pro-am class with Paul Hollywood for the final three races of the season. Chadwick ultimately finished fifteenth in the championship.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Chadwick also competed in race 9 of the 2016 VLN season, driving the Nexcel AMR Aston Martin GT8 and finishing third in the SP8 class.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Chadwick moved into single-seater racing in 2017, joining Double R Racing to compete in the 2017 BRDC British Formula 3 Championship. She achieved her first and only podium of the season with a third place finish at Rockingham in the fifth round of the championship, ultimately finishing ninth overall for the season. For the 2018 season, Chadwick remained in the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship, moving to Douglas Motorsport. In August, she became the first ever woman to win a British F3 race by claiming victory in the reversed-grid race at Brands Hatch, and finished the season in eighth place.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Chadwick also entered the 2018 24 Hours of Nürburgring, driving the Aston Martin Vantage V8 GT4 in the SP8 class alongside Jonathan Adam, Alex Lynn and Pete Cate. The team finished fifth in class and sixty-third overall.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Chadwick proceeded to sign on for the 2018-19 MRF Challenge season in November 2018, and topped both initial practice sessions. Chadwick had success in the early rounds of the championship, finishing second in three of the five races in the opening weekend in Dubai. She followed this up with wins in six of the remaining ten races at Bahrain and Chennai to take the title, becoming the first ever woman to win the MRF Challenge. Chadwick also participated in two test drives with the NIO Formula E team in Riyadh and Marrakesh.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: In March 2019, Chadwick was announced as one of the entrants for the inaugural season of the W Series, and followed this by participating in the opening three races of the 2019 F3 Asian Championship. Chadwick was also announced as an official junior driver for Aston Martin Racing, extending an existing unofficial relationship that dated back to 2014. At the first W Series race at Hockenheim, Chadwick put in a dominant performance, leading both practice sessions and qualifying on pole. Despite briefly giving up the race lead to Alice Powell, Chadwick came from behind to take the first win in W Series history. Two weeks later at Zolder, Chadwick again started on pole, however lost the lead to Beitske Visser from the start, and had to fight off Powell after locking up and running wide later in the race, ultimately holding onto second place.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Two days after the race in Zolder, Chadwick became the second driver to join the Williams Driver Academy, signing on as a development driver for the team. In the next W Series race at Misano the following month, Chadwick qualified second behind Fabienne Wohlwend, but passed her on the start and held off pressure from Visser to take her second W Series win. Chadwick then finished in third place behind Marta García and Visser at Norisring, after a long battle with the latter that saw her lose second place on the start and make a late lunge in an attempt to regain the place towards the end of the race.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: At Assen, Chadwick started and finished in third, holding off late pressure from Visser. In the non-championship reverse grid race the following day, Chadwick fought through the field to finish eighth after starting from the back of the grid. Chadwick then entered the 2019 24 Hours of Nürburgring with Aston Martin, racing alongside Alex Brundle and Peter Cate in the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4, finishing first in the SP8 class and twenty-seventh overall. Chadwick entered the W Series championship decider at Brands Hatch with a 13 point lead on second placed Visser, and proceeded to start on pole for the third time. Despite defending the lead initially, she lacked race pace and lost positions to Powell, Emma Kimiläinen and finally Visser, however her eventual fourth placed finish was enough to hold off Visser and win the inaugural W Series title.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: In September 2019, Chadwick joined Double R Racing to test drive their Euroformula Open car in Silverstone, with a view to a competitive drive in the series in the future. The following week, Chadwick was announced as one of the competing drivers in the inaugural series of Extreme E in 2021.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: In 2020, Chadwick was awarded her first 10 of the 40 points (of the 25 points for free practice) needed to qualify for a FIA Super Licence, after finishing fourth overall in the 2019–20 F3 Asian Championship.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: On 16 June 2020, following the cancellation of the 2020 W Series season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that she had joined Italian outfit Prema Powerteam, to be one of the team's four drivers in the 2020 Formula Regional European Championship. Despite being the most experienced driver in the field, she only managed 9th in the standings, 263 points behind her nearest teammate and third-last of all drivers to complete the whole season.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: In March 2021, Williams announced that Chadwick would continue as a development driver for the 2021 season. Later that year she would reclaim her W Series title after a close, season-long battle with Alice Powell—thus adding 15 points to her Super Licence points tally and making her available for future free practice sessions in Formula One.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: On 22 February 2022, Chadwick was confirmed to stay in W Series for a 3rd season, driving for Jenner Racing. She qualified on pole position for the second race of the 2022 season, which was part of the double header at the Miami International Autodrome, as the drivers' second best qualifying times set the grid for the second race. She won the first race, overtaking Emma Kimiläinen on the final lap. She won the second race the next day, as well as the one at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, meaning she had won five consecutive W Series races, four of which were in America.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: In August of 2022, Andretti Autosport announced that it planned to test Chadwick in one of the team's Dallara IL-15 Indy Lights cars at Sebring International Raceway in September 2022. The test took place on 21 September and Chadwick covered over 120 laps of the circuit.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: On 1 December 2022, it was announced that Andretti Autosport had signed Chadwick to drive in the 2023 Indy NXT season.


title: Jamie Chadwick

text: Driver did not finish the race, but was classified as they completed more than 90% of the race distance.


title: Razer Inc.

text: Razer Inc. is an American-Singaporean multinational technology company that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, financial services, and gaming hardware. Founded by Min-Liang Tan and Robert "RazerGuy" Krakoff, it is dual headquartered in one-north, Singapore and Irvine, California, US.


title: Razer Inc.

text: Razer began as a San Diego, California-based subsidiary of kärna LLC in 1998, created to develop and market a high-end computer gaming mouse, the Boomslang, targeted to computer gamers. Kärna ceased operations in 2000 due to poor financial issues. The current iteration of Razer was founded in 2005 by Min-Liang Tan, a Singaporean NUS graduate, and Robert Krakoff after they procured the rights to the Razer brand following a large investment from Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing and Singaporean holding company Temasek Holdings.


title: Razer Inc.

text: Razer bought the software assets of the Android-based microconsole Ouya from its parent company Ouya Inc. on 27 July 2015, while the hardware was discontinued. Ouya's technical team joined Razer's team in developing their own microconsole, which was called the Forge TV. It was discontinued in 2016.


title: Razer Inc.

text: In January 2017, Razer bought manufacturer Nextbit, the startup behind the Robin smartphone. Shortly after in November that, Razer unveiled the Razer Phone, its first smartphone whose design is based on that of the Robin.


title: Razer Inc.

text: In July 2017, Razer filed to go public through an IPO in Hong Kong. In October, it was confirmed that Razer plans to offer 1,063,600,000 shares at a range of $0.38-$0.51. On 14 November, Razer was officially listed on Hong Kong stock exchange under the stock code 1337, a reference to leet speak commonly used by gamers. Razer's IPO closed 18% up on the first day of trading and was the 2nd most successful IPO of 2017 in Hong Kong.


title: Razer Inc.

text: In April 2018, Razer announced that it was planning to fully acquire the e-payments platform MOL for about $61 million. In July, Razer made its debut in Malaysia by launching an e-wallet service called Razer Pay. They also announced the Razer Phone 2 in October.


title: Razer Inc.

text: On 21 December 2018, Razer announced its new seven-storey South-east Asia headquarters in one-north. The building was expected to be ready by 2020, with Boustead Projects' joint venture firm constructing it. The exterior would be lit with LED strips representing a central processing unit in operation. Razer held its ground-breaking ceremony on 22 February 2019, with a new digital real estate start-up called Echo Base launched the same day. 600 more staff were planned over the next few years, adding to the 400 staff based then. The first smart city project in the region would be developed soon.


title: Razer Inc.

text: In February 2019, Razer announced it was closing its Razer Game Store as part of the company's realignment plans.


title: Razer Inc.

text: On 21 May 2019, Razer released a statement that announced that Ouya online accounts and services would be discontinued on 25 June 2019. According to Razer, most apps will become unusable on the platform, many relying on the user accounts to work. Razer suggests that users may be able to transfer purchases to other storefront platforms like Google Play if developers and publishers agree to such.