title: Infertility

text: Male infertility is defined as the inability of a male to make a fertile female pregnant, for a minimum of at least one year of unprotected intercourse. There are multiple causes for male infertility. These include endocrine disorders (usually due to hypogonadism) at an estimated 2% to 5%, sperm transport disorders (such as vasectomy) at 5%, primary testicular defects (which includes abnormal sperm parameters without any identifiable cause) at 65% to 80% and idiopathic (where an infertile male has normal sperm and semen parameters) at 10% to 20%.


title: Infertility

text: The main cause of male infertility is low semen quality. In men who have the necessary reproductive organs to procreate, infertility can be caused by low sperm count due to endocrine problems, drugs, radiation, or infection. There may be testicular malformations, hormone imbalance, or blockage of the man's duct system. Although many of these can be treated through surgery or hormonal substitutions, some may be indefinite.


title: Infertility

text: Infertility associated with viable, but immotile sperm may be caused by primary ciliary dyskinesia. The sperm must provide the zygote with DNA, centrioles, and activation factor for the embryo to develop. A defect in any of these sperm structures may result in infertility that will not be detected by semen analysis. Antisperm antibodies cause immune infertility. Cystic fibrosis can lead to infertility in men.


title: Infertility

text: In some cases, both the man and woman may be infertile or sub-fertile, and the couple's infertility arises from the combination of these conditions. In other cases, the cause is suspected to be immunological or genetic; it may be that each partner is independently fertile but the couple cannot conceive together without assistance.


title: Infertility

text: In the US, up to 20% of infertile couples have unexplained infertility. In these cases, abnormalities are likely to be present but not detected by current methods. Possible problems could be that the egg is not released at the optimum time for fertilization, that it may not enter the fallopian tube, sperm may not be able to reach the egg, fertilization may fail to occur, transport of the zygote may be disturbed, or implantation fails. It is increasingly recognized that egg quality is of critical importance and women of advanced maternal age have eggs of reduced capacity for normal and successful fertilization. Also, polymorphisms in folate pathway genes could be one reason for fertility complications in some women with unexplained infertility. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that epigenetic modifications in sperm may be partially responsible.


title: Infertility

text: If both partners are young and healthy and have been trying to conceive for one year without success, a visit to a physician or women's health nurse practitioner (WHNP) could help to highlight potential medical problems earlier rather than later. The doctor or WHNP may also be able to suggest lifestyle changes to increase the chances of conceiving.


title: Infertility

text: Women over the age of 35 should see their physician or WHNP after six months as fertility tests can take some time to complete, and age may affect the treatment options that are open in that case.


title: Infertility

text: A doctor or WHNP takes a medical history and gives a physical examination. They can also carry out some basic tests on both partners to see if there is an identifiable reason for not having achieved a pregnancy. If necessary, they refer patients to a fertility clinic or local hospital for more specialized tests. The results of these tests help determine the best fertility treatment.


title: Infertility

text: Treatment depends on the cause of infertility, but may include counselling, fertility treatments, which include in vitro fertilization. According to ESHRE recommendations, couples with an estimated live birth rate of 40% or higher per year are encouraged to continue aiming for a spontaneous pregnancy. Treatment methods for infertility may be grouped as medical or complementary and alternative treatments. Some methods may be used in concert with other methods. Drugs used for both women and men include clomiphene citrate, human menopausal gonadotropin (hMG), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues, aromatase inhibitors, and metformin.


title: Infertility

text: Medical treatment of infertility generally involves the use of fertility medication, medical device, surgery, or a combination of the following. If the sperm is of good quality and the mechanics of the woman's reproductive structures are good (patent fallopian tubes, no adhesions or scarring), a course of ovulation induction may be used. The physician or WHNP may also suggest using a conception cap cervical cap, which the patient uses at home by placing the sperm inside the cap and putting the conception device on the cervix, or intrauterine insemination (IUI), in which the doctor or WHNP introduces sperm into the uterus during ovulation, via a catheter. In these methods, fertilization occurs inside the body.


title: Infertility

text: If conservative medical treatments fail to achieve a full-term pregnancy, the physician or WHNP may suggest the patient to undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF). IVF and related techniques (ICSI, ZIFT, GIFT) are called assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques.


title: Infertility

text: ART techniques generally start with stimulating the ovaries to increase egg production. After stimulation, the physician surgically extracts one or more eggs from the ovary, and unites them with sperm in a laboratory setting, with the intent of producing one or more embryos. Fertilization takes place outside the body, and the fertilized egg is reinserted into the woman's reproductive tract, in a procedure called embryo transfer.


title: Infertility

text: Other medical techniques are e.g. tuboplasty, assisted hatching, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis.


title: Infertility

text: IVF is the most commonly used ART. It has been proven useful in overcoming infertility conditions, such as blocked or damaged tubes, endometriosis, repeated IUI failure, unexplained infertility, poor ovarian reserve, poor or even nil sperm count.


title: Infertility

text: ICSI technique is used in case of poor semen quality, low sperm count or failed fertilization attempts during prior IVF cycles. This technique involves an injection of a single healthy sperm directly injected into mature egg. The fertilized embryo is then transferred to womb.


title: Infertility

text: "Fertility tourism" is the practice of traveling to another country for fertility treatments. It may be regarded as a form of medical tourism. The main reasons for fertility tourism are legal regulation of the sought procedure in the home country, or lower price. In-vitro fertilization and donor insemination are major procedures involved.


title: Infertility

text: Nowadays, there are several treatments (still in experimentation) related to stem cell therapy. It is a new opportunity, not only for partners with lack of gametes, but also for same-sex couples and single people who want to have offspring. Theoretically, with this therapy, we can get artificial gametes "in vitro". There are different studies for both women and men.


title: Infertility

text: Stem cell therapy is really new, and everything is still under investigation. Additionally, it could be the future for the treatment of multiple diseases, including infertility. It will take time before these studies can be available for clinics and patients.


title: Infertility

text: Prevalence of infertility varies depending on the definition, i.e. on the time span involved in the failure to conceive.


title: Infertility

text: Perhaps except for infertility in science fiction, films and other fiction depicting emotional struggles of assisted reproductive technology have had an upswing first in the latter part of the 2000s decade, although the techniques have been available for decades. Yet, the number of people that can relate to it by personal experience in one way or another is ever-growing, and the variety of trials and struggles is huge.


title: Infertility

text: Pixar's "Up" contains a depiction of infertility in an extended life montage that lasts the first few minutes of the film.


title: Infertility

text: "Other individual examples are referred to individual sub-articles of assisted reproductive technology"


title: Infertility

text: Many countries have special frameworks for dealing with the ethical and social issues around fertility treatment.


title: Austrian German

text: Austrian German (), Austrian Standard German (ASG), Standard Austrian German (), or Austrian High German (), is the variety of Standard German written and spoken in Austria. It has the highest sociolinguistic prestige locally, as it is the variation used in the media and for other formal situations. In less formal situations, Austrians use Bavarian and Alemannic dialects, which are traditionally spoken but rarely written in Austria.


title: Austrian German

text: Austria German has its beginning in the mid-18th century, when Empress Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II introduced compulsory schooling in 1774, and several reforms of administration in their multilingual Habsburg Empire. At the time, the written standard was "Oberdeutsche Schreibsprache" (Upper German written language), which was highly influenced by the Bavarian and Alemannic dialects of Austria. Another option was to create a new standard based on the Southern German dialects, as proposed by the linguist Johann Siegmund Popowitsch. Instead they decided for pragmatic reasons to adopt the already-standardized chancellery language of Saxony ("Sächsische Kanzleisprache" or "Meißner Kanzleideutsch"), which was based on the administrative language of the non-Austrian area of Meißen and Dresden.


title: Austrian German

text: Austria High German ("Hochdeutsch in Österreich", not to be confused with the Bavarian Austria German dialects) has the same geographic origin as the Swiss High German ("Schweizer Hochdeutsch", not to be confused with the Alemannic Swiss German dialects).


title: Austrian German

text: Since 1951, the standardized form of Austrian German for official texts and schools has been defined by the "Österreichisches Wörterbuch" ("Austrian Dictionary"), published under the authority of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture.


title: Austrian German

text: The official Austrian dictionary, "Österreichisches Wörterbuch", prescribes grammatical and spelling rules that define the official language.


title: Austrian German

text: Austrian delegates participated in the international working group that drafted the German spelling reform of 1996 and several conferences leading up to the reform were hosted in Vienna at the invitation of the Austrian federal government. Austria adopted it as a signatory, along with Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, of an international memorandum of understanding () signed in Vienna in 1996.


title: Austrian German

text: Because of German's pluricentric nature, German dialects in Austria should not be confused with the variety of Standard Austrian German spoken by most Austrians, which is distinct from that of Germany or Switzerland.


title: Austrian German

text: Distinctions in vocabulary persist, for example, in culinary terms, for which communication with Germans is frequently difficult, and administrative and legal language because of Austria's exclusion from the development of a German nation-state in the late 19th century and its manifold particular traditions. A comprehensive collection of Austrian-German legal, administrative and economic terms is offered in "Markhardt, Heidemarie: Wörterbuch der österreichischen Rechts-, Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungsterminologie" (Peter Lang, 2006).


title: Austrian German

text: Until 1918, the spoken standard in Austria was the , a sociolect spoken by the imperial Habsburg family and the nobility of Austria-Hungary. The dialect was similar to Viennese German and other eastern dialects of German spoken in Austria but was slightly nasalized.


title: Austrian German

text: For many years, Austria had a special form of the language for official government documents that is known as , or "Austrian chancellery language". It is a very traditional form of the language, probably derived from medieval deeds and documents, and has a very complex structure and vocabulary generally reserved for such documents. For most speakers (even native speakers), this form of the language is generally difficult to understand, as it contains many highly-specialised terms for diplomatic, internal, official, and military matters. There are no regional variations because the special written form has been used mainly by a government that has now for centuries been based in Vienna.


title: Austrian German

text: When Austria became a member of the European Union, 23 food-related terms were listed in its accession agreement as having the same legal status as the equivalent terms used in Germany,


title: Austrian German

text: Austrian German is the only variety of a pluricentric language recognized under international law or EU primary law.


title: Austrian German

text: In Austria, as in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and in southern Germany, verbs that express a state tend to use as the auxiliary verb in the perfect, as well as verbs of movement. Verbs which fall into this category include "sitzen" (to sit), "liegen" (to lie) and, in parts of Carinthia, "schlafen" (to sleep). Therefore, the perfect of these verbs would be "ich bin gesessen", "ich bin gelegen" and "ich bin geschlafen", respectively.


title: Austrian German

text: In Germany, the words "stehen" (to stand) and "gestehen" (to confess) are identical in the present perfect: "habe gestanden". The Austrian variant avoids that potential ambiguity ("bin gestanden" from "stehen", "to stand"; and "habe gestanden" from "gestehen", "to confess": ""der Verbrecher ist vor dem Richter gestanden und hat gestanden"").


title: Austrian German

text: In addition, the preterite (simple past) is very rarely used in Austria, especially in the spoken language, with the exception of some modal verbs ("ich sollte", "ich wollte").


title: Austrian German

text: There are many official terms that differ in Austrian German from their usage in most parts of Germany. Words used in Austria are "Jänner" (January) rather than "Januar", "Feber" (seldom, February) along with "Februar", "heuer" (this year) along with "dieses Jahr", "Stiege" (stairs) along with "Treppen", "Rauchfang" (chimney) instead of "Schornstein", many administrative, legal and political terms, and many food terms, including the following:


title: Austrian German

text: In addition to the standard variety, in everyday life most Austrians speak one of a number of Upper German dialects.


title: Austrian German

text: While strong forms of the various dialects are not fully mutually intelligible to northern Germans, communication is much easier in Bavaria, especially rural areas, where the Bavarian dialect still predominates as the mother tongue. The Central Austro-Bavarian dialects are more intelligible to speakers of Standard German than the Southern Austro-Bavarian dialects of Tyrol.


title: Austrian German

text: Viennese, the Austro-Bavarian dialect of Vienna, is seen for many in Germany as quintessentially Austrian. The people of Graz, the capital of Styria, speak yet another dialect which is not very Styrian and more easily understood by people from other parts of Austria than other Styrian dialects, for example from western Styria.


title: Austrian German

text: Simple words in the various dialects are very similar, but pronunciation is distinct for each and, after listening to a few spoken words, it may be possible for an Austrian to realise which dialect is being spoken. However, in regard to the dialects of the deeper valleys of the Tyrol, other Tyroleans are often unable to understand them. Speakers from the different states of Austria can easily be distinguished from each other by their particular accents (probably more so than Bavarians), those of Carinthia, Styria, Vienna, Upper Austria, and the Tyrol being very characteristic. Speakers from those regions, even those speaking Standard German, can usually be easily identified by their accent, even by an untrained listener.


title: Austrian German

text: Several of the dialects have been influenced by contact with non-Germanic linguistic groups, such as the dialect of Carinthia, where, in the past, many speakers were bilingual (and, in the southeastern portions of the state, many still are even today) with Slovene, and the dialect of Vienna, which has been influenced by immigration during the Austro-Hungarian period, particularly from what is today the Czech Republic. The German dialects of South Tyrol have been influenced by local Romance languages, particularly noticeable with the many loanwords from Italian and Ladin.


title: Austrian German

text: The geographic borderlines between the different accents (isoglosses) coincide strongly with the borders of the states and also with the border with Bavaria, with Bavarians having a markedly different rhythm of speech in spite of the linguistic similarities.


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: Wolf is the second studio album by American rapper and record producer Tyler, the Creator. It was released on April 2, 2013, by Odd Future Records. The album features guest appearances from Mike G, Domo Genesis, Earl Sweatshirt, Left Brain, Hodgy Beats, Erykah Badu and Pharrell, among others.


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: "Wolf" was supported by its lead single, "Domo23". The album received generally positive reviews from critics and debuted at number three on the US "Billboard" 200, selling 89,000 copies in its first week.


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: Tyler's two prior projects, "Bastard" and "Goblin", contained lyrics and themes commonly used in the horrorcore subgenre, which Tyler claimed to not be part of. In November 2011, in an interview with "Spin", Tyler expressed wanting to shift away from the themes of his previous work, stating:


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: "Wolf" is a concept album that features a continuous story of characters Wolf, Sam and Salem. Therapist character Dr. TC makes his last appearance on a Tyler album on the final track "Lone". The story presented in "Wolf" has been said to link to Tyler's two previous projects, with debates occurring on whether "Wolf" comes chronologically before or after "Goblin".


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: The opening and title track, "Wolf", begins with piano chords and breathy vocals, and the character Sam appears at the end of the track. "Answer" features a simple guitar melody over heavy drums. On the song, Tyler proclaims his desire to get into contact with his estranged father and also mentions some problems that his friends are going through. "Slater" is a song devoted to Tyler's bike, which ends with Frank Ocean speaking the words "You're talking to a fucking bike. Loser". Kathy Iandoli of "Billboard" compared "Colossus" to Eminem's 2000 hit, "Stan", stating that Tyler "continuously switches the lyrics from being cutesy fanfare to sexually maniacal". Craig Jenkins of "Pitchfork" describes the track "IFHY" as "a bit of Neptunes worship so adroit that its plinking synths and jazzy chord changes give way to a falsettoed coda from Pharrell himself". Jenkins also compared the posse cut "Rusty" to the sound of Wu-Tang Clan, featuring "a lush reimagining of 1990s RZA production". "Trashwang" is a trap-influenced posse cut. Iandoli compared the sound of the song to the works of rapper Waka Flocka Flame. The album's final track, "Lone", features Tyler's last therapy session with Dr. TC. In the song, Tyler describes the events leading up to his grandmother's death.


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: On February 14, 2013, OFWGKTA posted a video to their YouTube account, which includes L-Boy skydiving and stating that "Wolf" will be released on April 2, 2013. On the same day, Tyler revealed three different album covers via his Instagram account. The deluxe version of the album features a fold-out poster of the full album cover artwork that was designed by Mark Ryden, a limited embroidered patch, a "Wolf" calendar and a 24-page booklet featuring lyrics and artwork. Four days after the album's release, Tyler released the whole album for free streaming services through his SoundCloud account.


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: From March 11, 2013 to April 11, 2013, Tyler toured North America and Europe on the "Wolf" tour. The tour was his first solo tour without his group Odd Future. His first stop was Boulder, Colorado and the "Wolf" release party took place in Los Angeles, California on the release day of the album. He announced he would extend the tour from April 30 to May 18, 2013. These shows took place on the west coast of the United States and it features his Odd Future cohort, Earl Sweatshirt. On September 9, 2013, Tyler released a trailer for a film based on "Wolf".


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: The album's lead single, "Domo23", was released on February 14, 2013, as well an accompanying music video which features cameo appearances from Odd Future members Domo Genesis, Earl Sweatshirt, Jasper Dolphin and Taco. The song peaked at number two on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles and at number 37 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. At the end of the video for "Domo23", it previewed the video for the reported second single, "Bimmer" featuring Odd Future member Frank Ocean.


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: On March 29, 2013, the music video was released for "IFHY" featuring Pharrell. At the end of the video, the song cuts into a snippet of the music video for "Jamba" featuring Odd Future member Hodgy Beats. In the music video, Tyler "plays a lovestruck doll, acting out scenes in a dollhouse with a plastic girlfriend. While the real-life Tyler later drives through a neighborhood with Hodgy Beats as his song "Jamba" blasts from the speakers". "IFHY" peaked at number 24 on the US Heatseekers Songs. On October 7, 2013, the music video was released for both "Tamale" and "Answer".


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: "Wolf" was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 70, based on 31 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 6.9 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: Craig Jenkins of "Pitchfork" said, "With "Wolf", Tyler, the Creator displays a radical growth as a producer, composer and arranger, even if, as a rapper, he's still up to some of the same antics. Still, the album contains a few of the best songs he's ever written". Jeremy D. Larson of "Consequence" said, "Tyler is his own worst enemy, of course. But the buoyancy of the production and the overall intrigue of hearing him struggle with his idle hands prevent the album from getting mired down in too much vanity". David Jeffries of AllMusic said, "It's a fun album for fanatics, but the willingness to shock feels too comfortable at this point, so those who found it tiresome before will likely find it devastating here". Chris Dart of "Exclaim!" felt that "While Tyler will almost certainly never outgrow life as a weird, hell-raising provocateur, "Wolf" shows that he's already growing into life as a smart, diverse artist".


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: "Slant Magazine"s Jesse Cataldo commenting "The production is routinely strong, but things are weighed down by Tyler himself, who forcefully refuses to provide a palatable anchor to over an hour's worth of material". Cataldo saw the album as "progress on some fronts", but felt that Tyler "needs to move beyond certain issues" to "prove himself a vital force". Martín Caballero of "The Boston Globe" said, "Despite careering from one alter ego to the next and touching on everything from his absent father on "Answer" to the art of making campfire s'mores on the seven-minute "PartyIsntOver  / Campfire  / Bimmer", there's a broad vision and deft execution that holds things together much better than on "Goblin"". Eric Diep of "XXL" said, ""Wolf" meets its own high expectations by creating an absorbing journey of Tyler's imagination. Everything from being his own therapist to poking fun at newfound fame is documented in captivating fashion, however juvenile it may be at times. There's still growing up to do, and maybe time will tame the fascinating artist we see on this album. Until then, there's no escaping his meteoric rise. And the diehard Odd Future fans will love every minute of it".


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: David Amidon of "PopMatters" said, "If "Wolf" is not "Goblin" is the most important statement I feel like I could make about this album, the second most important thing I can probably say about it is that nothing has actually changed about Tyler himself. All his flaws as a coherent lyricist and person are on full display throughout the album, and the charm or lack thereof of that fact goes a long way towards how enjoyable this album can be". Jessica Hopper of "Spin" magazine felt that ""Wolf"s most grievous misstep, and its one true spiritual connection to the superior "Bastard" and "Goblin": Tyler's defiant use of the word 'faggot'. As usual, he spends a ton of time here bragging about how little he cares about how the world sees him, but his reliance on the other f-bomb to keep our attention suggests otherwise". Chris Kelly of "Fact" said, "With "Wolf", Tyler, the Creator is exciting again: maybe not as the ringleader of the Odd Future empire, but as a producer who just turned 22 (did you forget how young he actually is?), has internalized a decade of Neptunes / Doom / Def Jux production, and has Pharrell, Erykah, and (most importantly) Frank Ocean on speed dial. The don't-give-a-fuck attitude might have run its course lyrically, but when applying it as a production ethos, Tyler is just getting started".


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: "XXL" ranked it number 18 on their list of the best albums of 2013. They commented saying, "The leader of the Odd Future crew's second album "Wolf" displayed radical maturity—both musically and lyrically; partnering with fellow Odd Future members Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt, alongside Pharrell Williams and even Erykah Badu on songs involving gripping narratives of personal frustrations and heartbreak. Coupled with vivid lyrics and stark synth production, Tyler's fascinatingly still weird but insightful and musically pleasing". "HipHopDX" named it one of the top 25 albums of 2013. They elaborated saying, ""Wolf" was Tyler's most grown up effort to date. Developing into a fully realized production mastermind, he somehow tied a summer camp story in with his usual themes of relationships and the struggles of fame, not to mention the ghetto's crack epidemic and bullying leading to school shootings".


title: Wolf (Tyler, the Creator album)

text: In the United States, "Wolf" debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200, selling 89,000 copies in the first week. In its second week, the album sold 18,000 more copies bringing its sales total to 107,000 in the United States.


title: Chicago Hope

text: Chicago Hope is an American medical drama television series, created by David E. Kelley. It originally aired on CBS from September 18, 1994, to May 4, 2000. The series is set in a fictional private charitable hospital in Chicago, Illinois.


title: Chicago Hope

text: The show starred Mandy Patinkin as Dr. Jeffrey Geiger, a hot-shot surgeon with emotional issues stemming from the psychiatric condition of his wife (played by Kim Greist), who drowned their infant son. Adam Arkin plays Dr. Aaron Shutt, a world-renowned neurosurgeon and Geiger's best friend. Thomas Gibson played Dr. Daniel Nyland, a promiscuous ER doctor and trauma surgeon who was later suspended due to his having an affair with a patient's family member and later was injured in a car crash. Dr. Keith Wilkes played by Rocky Carroll, often clashed with Nyland and was known for his back-to-basics and rough demeanor. He was good friends with Peter Berg's character, Dr. Billy Kronk. Kronk was known for his cowboyish demeanor and known to be very cocky, as showed in an episode where he cuts off a man's injured leg with a chainsaw in a scene where Kronk helps out at an accident site. Peter MacNicol, Alan Rosenberg, and Héctor Elizondo feature as the hospital's in-house attorneys and chief of staff, respectively. Christine Lahti joined in the second season as Dr. Kate Austin, a talented heart surgeon with a chip on her shoulder, vying with Geiger for the chief of surgery position. She was known fighting in a custody battle with her malicious ex-husband and businessman, Tommy Wilmette, played by Ron Silver. Mr. Wilmette did everything he could to get Austin to lose custody of their daughter. He purchased the hospital at the end of Season 2. Dr. Austin is suspended because she and her daughter go AWOL on a trip to New Zealand. Mr. Wilmette was upset because it took him three months to find his ex-wife and daughter. In Season 3, the doctors want Mr. Wilmette to sell the hospital and the doctors would run it. The doctors viewed that Wilmette didn't know how to run a hospital and cut too many costs that involved patient care. Mr. Wilmette later met with Senator Kennedy at the White House to talk about Healthcare Reform. In Season 2, Geiger resigns from Chicago Hope after trying to save Alan Birch from a deadly gunshot wound to his heart.


title: Chicago Hope

text: Geiger adopted Birch's baby daughter. Geiger later rejoins the doctors at the end of Season 5 when he becomes Chairman of the Board and fires half of the doctors. In Season 4, Dr. Shutt became a psychiatrist and temporarily loses his ability to operate after suffering from a brain aneurysm. In Season 6, Shutt returns to Neurosurgery and works alongside Carla Gugino's character, Dr. Gina Simon.


title: Chicago Hope

text: Fyvush Finkel and Kathy Baker appeared as their "Picket Fences" characters in the first season. Likewise, Mandy Patinkin and Héctor Elizondo brought their "Chicago Hope" characters to "Picket Fences" that year. Both Adam Arkin and Lauren Holly had previously appeared on "Picket Fences" as a lawyer and as a deputy sheriff, respectively.


title: Chicago Hope

text: Mandy Patinkin appears in an uncredited role as Geiger in a 1995 episode of NBC's "". "Chicago Hope" producer John Tinker shot this footage as a favor to his "St. Elsewhere" colleague Tom Fontana.


title: Chicago Hope

text: "Chicago Hope" characters crossed over to "Early Edition" early in that show's run. Rocky Carroll, Jayne Brook, and Héctor Elizondo all guest-starred in scenes taking place in the hospital.


title: Chicago Hope

text: With the exception of some infrequent on-location scenes, the vast majority of "Chicago Hope" was filmed on sound stages at the studios of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, located in the Century City area of Los Angeles.


title: Chicago Hope

text: The series broke a network television taboo by showing a teenager's breast after her character underwent reconstructive surgery. This was generally seen as relevant to the subject matter and went relatively uncriticized.


title: Chicago Hope

text: On November 18, 1998, "Chicago Hope" became the first regular series episode to be broadcast in HDTV. The episode was entitled "The Other Cheek".


title: Chicago Hope

text: Reruns of "Chicago Hope" aired on Pop from 2010 to 2012. OWN also aired reruns of Chicago Hope on a semi-regular basis.


title: Chicago Hope

text: In the UK, seasons 1 and 2 originally aired on BBC One. More recently, all seasons of the show have been shown on ITV3. Starting on September 3, 2007, it began airing on Zone Romantica in the UK and Ireland. It was also shown on Sky One in the UK and Ireland in its prime time slots. In Australia, the series originally aired on The Seven Network. In Germany the first seasons were shown in the 1990s. In Hungary, the series aired on Viasat3. In Indonesia, the series originally aired on RCTI, starting from October 1998 ended from July 2002. As of November 2013 it is airing on UK Freeview/Freesat/Sky/Eutelsat 28A/Virgin Media/WightFibre television channel True Entertainment.


title: Chicago Hope

text: Revelation Films has released all 6 seasons of "Chicago Hope" on DVD in Region 2 (UK) for the very first time.


title: Chicago Hope

text: The pilot episode of "Chicago Hope" was broadcast the day before NBC's "ER" in a special Sunday, 8p.m. time slot. After the first week, however, the two Chicago-based hospital dramas went "head to head" in their primetime 10p.m. Thursday night slot. "ER" was the victor: its first season proved a ratings winner. Despite receiving critical acclaim, "Chicago Hope" was shifted to 9p.m. Thursdays, and ultimately to Monday nights in 1995 in a bid for higher ratings, while "ER" remained in its time slot.


title: Chicago Hope

text: "Chicago Hope" remained in the Monday slot and performed well, with ratings peaking at 11.9, with a 20 share. In the second season, however, Kelley and Patinkin decided to leave the show. The show was moved to Wednesdays at 10p.m. in 1997 to make room for the Steven Bochco drama," Brooklyn South", on Mondays. In 1999, both Kelley and Patinkin returned, with a revamped cast now including Barbara Hershey and Lauren Holly, but excluding Lahti, Peter Berg, Jayne Brook, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Stacy Edwards. CBS also moved the show back to Thursday nights, against NBC's "Frasier" and ABC's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". The show was canceled in May 2000.


title: Chicago Hope

text: In 2007, former co-stars Rocky Carroll (Dr. Keith Wilkes); Mark Harmon (Dr. Jack McNeil) and Lauren Holly (Dr. Jeremy Hanlon) worked together on the series "NCIS". Holly left the show after three seasons, while Harmon and Carroll remain with the cast today. Harmon would depart in 2021. In addition, Carroll has a recurring role as his "NCIS" character, Director Leon Vance, on that series's spin off, "". Jayne Brook (Dr. Diane Grad) and Stacy Edwards have also guest starred on "NCIS" as well.


title: Chicago Hope

text: Thomas Gibson would later star alongside Patinkin in the highly successful "Criminal Minds", as well as Shemar Moore who was a guest star on "Chicago Hope" during Season 4. Patinkin later left the show early in its third season.


title: Chicago Hope

text: Note: "Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May Nielsen ratings."


title: Chicago Hope

text: Over its six seasons, "Chicago Hope" was nominated for many accolades and won several, including seven Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Awards.


title: Learjet 35

text: The Learjet Model 35 and Model 36 are a series of American multi-role business jets and military transport aircraft manufactured by Learjet. When used by the United States Air Force they carry the designation C-21A.


title: Learjet 35

text: The aircraft are powered by two Garrett TFE731-2 turbofan engines. Its cabin can be arranged for six to eight passengers. The longer-range Model 36 has a shortened passenger area to provide more space in the aft fuselage for fuel tanks.


title: Learjet 35

text: The engines are mounted in nacelles on the sides of the aft fuselage. The wings are equipped with single-slotted flaps. The wingtip fuel tanks distinguish the design from other aircraft having similar functions.


title: Learjet 35

text: The concept which became the LJ35 began as the Learjet 25BGF (with GF referring to "Garrett Fan"), a Learjet 25 with a then-new TFE731 turbofan engine mounted on the left side in place of the 25's General Electric CJ610 turbojet engine. This testbed aircraft first flew in May, 1971. As a result of the increased power and reduced noise of the new engine, Learjet further improved the design, and instead of being simply a variant of the 25, it became its own model, the 35.


title: Learjet 35

text: In 1976 American professional golfer Arnold Palmer used a Learjet 36 to establish a new round-the-world class record of 22,894 miles (36990 km) completed in 57 hours 25 minutes 42 seconds.


title: Learjet 35

text: Learjet 35s made the bulk of Escuadrón Fénix flights during the 1982 Falklands War mainly on diversion flights.


title: Learjet 35

text: , the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board database lists 25 fatal accidents for the 35/35A, and two for the 36/36A.


title: Learjet 35

text: The original Model 35 was powered by two TFE731-2-2A engines and was 13 inches longer than its predecessor, the Model 25. First flight of the prototype Model 35 was on 22 August 1973, and the aircraft was FAA certified in July, 1974. It could carry up to eight passengers. There were 64 base-model 35s built.


title: Learjet 35

text: The Model 35A is an upgraded Model 35 with TFE731-2-2B engines and a range of 2,789 miles, with a fuel capacity of 931 US gallons (3,524 L) with refueling accomplished at ground level through each wingtip tank. It was introduced in 1976, replacing the 35. Over 600 35As were built, with a production line that ended with serial number 677, in 1993.


title: Learjet 35

text: On February 12, 1996, a Learjet 35A, N10BD, owned by Cable Television Founder Bill Daniels and piloted by Mark E. Calkins, Charles Conrad, Jr., Paul Thayer, and D. Miller completed an around-the-world flight in a record 49 hrs, 21 min, and 8 sec. The record remains standing . This aircraft is now on display in Terminal C of Denver International Airport.


title: The Night Circus

text: The Night Circus is a 2011 fantasy novel by Erin Morgenstern. It was originally written for the annual writing competition National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) over the span of three competitions. The novel has a nonlinear narrative written from multiple viewpoints.


title: The Night Circus

text: "The Night Circus" is a phantasmagorical fairy tale set near an ahistorical Victorian London in a wandering magical circus that is open only from sunset to sunrise. "Le Cirque des Rêves" (The Circus of Dreams) features such wonders and "ethereal enigmas" as a blooming garden made all of ice, acrobats soaring without a net, and a vertical cloud maze where patrons who get lost simply step off and float gently to the floor. The circus has no set schedule, appearing without warning and leaving without notice; they travel in a train disguised as an ordinary coal transport. A network of devoted fans styling themselves ""rêveurs"" ("dreamers") develops around the circus; they identify to each other by adding a splash of red to garb that otherwise matches the characteristic black and white of the circus tents. The magical nature of the circus is disguised under the guise of legerdemain: the illusionist truly transforms her jacket into a raven and the fortune teller truly reads the uncertain future, and both are applauded for their ingenuity.


title: The Night Circus

text: The circus serves a darker purpose beyond entertainment and profit, however. Two powerful magicians, Prospero the Enchanter and the enigmatic Mr. A.H., groom their young proteges, Celia Bowen and Marco Alisdair, to proxy their rivalry with the exhibits as a stage. Prospero teaches his daughter to hone her innate talents by holding larger and more complex magical workings in her mind. Celia takes her position on the game board as the illusionist who makes true transformations, adding tents and maintaining wondrous aspects from the inside. Mr. A.H- trains his orphan ward with books in the ways of glyphs and sympathetic magic and illusory worlds that exist only in the mind of the beholder. Marco takes a position as an assistant to the producer of the circus—he works from the outside in, connected to the circus via a magical link to the central bonfire, but not a part of it. The two beguile the circus goers and each other with nightly wonders, soon falling in love despite being magically bound to a deadly competition with rules neither understands.


title: The Night Circus

text: As the competition continues, both competitors become strained with no sign of a conclusion in sight, nor inclination of how a winner will be determined. Others within the circus start to notice strange events connected to it: the blueprints disappear from the designers' offices, and the performers appear bound to the circus and can never fail, leave permanently, have accidents, or even age. Poppet and Widget, twins born to a performer on opening night, have developed magical powers. The producer of the circus has his memories erased, and one of the initial investors dies in dubious circumstances when they begin to discover the underlying truth of the circus. When the building tensions between Prospero and A.H- and the jealousy of Marco's ex-girlfriend spurned for Celia result in an innocent ""rêveur"" being accidentally stabbed in a circus tent, Celia begins to search for a way to end the game as quickly as possible while preserving the circus and those involved with it.


title: The Night Circus

text: Celia learns from Prospero that the game must continue until one of the participants is unable to go on, which usually means their death. She also learns the circus contortionist, Tsukiko, is not only a magician herself but the winner of a previous contest in which her opponent committed suicide. After Celia and Marco's negotiations with their mentors fail, Tsukiko believes the competition is putting the circus and its members at risk. She plans to magically kill Marco to end the contest, believing him to be less important than Celia because he was not part of the circus. At the last moment, Celia rushes to save him, resulting in the two being ripped from reality and becoming incorporeal spirits bound to the circus. With its magical keystones removed, the central bonfire goes out and the circus environment begins to break down. Celia and Marco preserve the circus by magically rebinding Poppet, Widget, and their new friend, a keen circusgoer called Bailey Clarke, back to the circus. They have Bailey relight the fire, bringing back the spirit of the circus.


title: The Night Circus

text: With Celia and Marco both existing only as ghosts, unable to compete but content to haunt the circus together forever, the contest is declared complete via stalemate with no winner. Poppet and Widget negotiate the release of the remaining circus properties from the former producer and Mr. A.H-, and the book ends with the revelation that Poppet, Widget, Bailey (the new proprietor) and the circus still exist in the modern day, preserved for a century and more.


title: The Night Circus

text: "The Night Circus" has been compared to "Harry Potter" and "Twilight", as well as to Neil Gaiman, "Something Wicked This Way Comes", and "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell". Ron Charles writing for "The Washington Post" compares Morgenstern's imagery to Steven Millhauser's, albeit with "more playful and more dramatic surrealism". Olivia Laing writing for "The Observer" compares the book to an "eminently intriguing cabinet of curiosities" with an intricate but unmoored setting and colorful but clockwork characters. Laura Miller writing for "Salon" likewise praises the "aesthetic fantasia with all the trimmings" but not the plot itself. Sarah Stegall writing for SFScope praises the vivid imagery, predicting that it should be nominated for literary awards. Richard Peabody writing for The Washington Independent Review of Books describes the narrative as nonlinear, with frequent shifts in points of view, tangential vignettes, and short almost cinematic chapters. Stacey D'Erasmo writing for "The New York Times Book Review" criticizes the lack of specificity of the imagery, describing the experience as being "continually told how magical the circus and its denizens are without ever being truly surprised, entranced or beguiled."


title: The Night Circus

text: "The Night Circus" was a candidate for the 2011 Guardian First Book Award. It won an Alex Award from the American Library Association in 2012. The novel spent seven weeks on "The New York Times" Best Seller list, reaching number two on the hardcover fiction list.


title: The Night Circus

text: The UK publisher, Harvill Secker, contracted Failbetter Games, creators of "Fallen London", to create a puzzle game to accompany the book. The site went live on September 1, 2011, two weeks before the book was published. The game has since been moved to the Storynexus site and modified to remove the aggressive social promotion that the original included.


title: The Night Circus

text: The film and TV rights to "The Night Circus" were optioned by Summit Entertainment, and a film is being produced by David Heyman and Jeff Clifford under Heyday Films. Moira Buffini was hired in February 2012 to write the screenplay. In February 2019, it was announced that Geremy Jasper would direct the film adaptation for Lionsgate.


title: Hever Castle

text: Hever Castle ( ) is located in the village of Hever, Kent, near Edenbridge, south-east of London, England. It began as a country house, built in the 13th century. From 1462 to 1539, it was the seat of the Boleyn (originally 'Bullen') family.


title: Hever Castle

text: Anne Boleyn, the second queen consort of King Henry VIII of England, spent her early youth there after her father, Thomas Boleyn, inherited it in 1505. The castle passed to him upon the death of his father, Sir William Boleyn. It later came into the possession of King Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.


title: Hever Castle

text: There have been three main periods in the construction of this historic castle. The oldest part of the castle dates to 1270 and consisted of the gatehouse and a walled bailey. It was then owned by James Fiennes, 1st Baron Saye and Sele. The second period was when the castle, then in need of repair, was converted into a manor in 1462 by Geoffrey Boleyn, younger brother of Thomas Boleyn, Master of Gonville Hall, Cambridge. He added a Tudor dwelling within the walls. The third period of repair and renovation was in the 20th century, when it was acquired by William Waldorf Astor.


title: Hever Castle

text: Geoffrey Boleyn's grandson, Thomas Boleyn, inherited the castle in 1505. He lived there with his wife Lady Elizabeth Howard and their children George, Mary and Anne (the future wife of Henry VIII). It is not known if Anne was born at Hever (the year of her birth is not certain), but she lived there until she was sent to the Netherlands in 1513 to receive an education at the court of the Archduchess Margaret. Henry VIII often used the nearby Bolebroke Castle to conduct his courtship with Anne.


title: Hever Castle

text: The property came into the possession of Henry VIII after the death of Anne's father, Thomas Boleyn, in 1539. He bestowed it upon Anne of Cleves in 1540 as part of the settlement following the annulment of their marriage. Hever Castle still has one of Henry VIII's private locks, taken with him on his various visits to noblemen's houses and fitted to every door for his security.


title: Hever Castle

text: The property subsequently passed through various owners, including the Waldegrave family from 1557 to 1715, the Humfreys family to 1749 and the Meade-Waldo family from 1749 to 1903. During this latter period of ownership, the castle fell into a poor state of repair, during which time it was leased to various private tenants.


title: Hever Castle

text: In 1903, it was acquired and restored by the American millionaire William Waldorf Astor, who used it as a family residence. He completed a restoration, added the Tudor village (also known as the Astor Wing) and also added the Italian Garden to display his collection of statuary and ornaments.


title: Hever Castle

text: The castle has been Grade I listed since 10 September 1954; that was after the addition of the Tudor village, "a picturesque cluster of guest cottages".


title: Hever Castle

text: In 1983, the Astor family sold the castle to John Guthrie (1906-1992), chairman of the family run business, Broadland Properties Limited.


title: Hever Castle

text: The castle was used as the location for a music video by Libera in 2006. The Loggia on the lake was used as the location for a peace conference in the comedy-drama "The Great". Other productions that have filmed on the property include "The Princess Bride" and "Inkheart".


title: Hever Castle

text: Hever Castle is now a tourist attraction, drawing on its links to Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, its mazes, gardens and lakes. There is an annual event programme with assorted events, including jousting tournaments and archery displays in the summer months and an annual patchwork and quilting exhibition in September. The castle has also become the venue for a triathlon and open water swimming. The castle offers three floors containing antique furniture, Anne Boleyn's prayer books, instruments of torture, and a large collection of Tudor's paintings. There is also a museum of the Kent and Sharpshooters Yeomanry.


title: Hever Castle

text: The remains of the original country house timbers can still be seen within the stone walls of the fortification, while the gatehouse is the only original part of the castle. It has the oldest working original portcullis in England. The grounds of the castle include a yew maze, planted in 1904. There is also a water maze, opened in 1999, the object of which is to reach the folly at the centre without getting wet, while in the children's adventure playground there is a tower maze (currently undergoing reconstruction). The castle gardens contain a wide range of features, including an Italianate garden (including Fernery), rose gardens, herb garden, and topiary.


title: Hever Castle

text: The castle can provide accommodations for visitors who wish to stay overnight, including 28 rooms that can be rented in a B&B format. Dining rooms for breakfasts are available in both the Astor wing and Anne Boleyn wing. The castle also operates three restaurants, located in the gardens.


title: Parallel Lives

text: Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, commonly called Parallel Lives or Plutarch's Lives, is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably written at the beginning of the second century AD. The surviving "Parallel Lives" (Greek: Βίοι Παράλληλοι, "Bíoi Parállēloi") comprises 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman of similar destiny, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, or Demosthenes and Cicero. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived.


title: Parallel Lives

text: "Parallel Lives" was Plutarch's second set of biographical works, following the Lives of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Vitellius. Of these, only the Lives of Galba and Otho survive.


title: Parallel Lives

text: As he explains in the first paragraph of his "Life of Alexander", Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, but with exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. He wished to prove that the more remote past of Greece could show its men of action and achievement as well as the nearer, and therefore more impressive, past of Rome. His interest was primarily ethical, although the "Lives" has significant historical value as well. The "Lives" was published by Plutarch late in his life after his return to Chaeronea and, if one may judge from the long lists of authorities given, it must have taken many years to compile.


title: Parallel Lives

text: Four of Plutarch's Parallels are supposed to be lost: Those of Themistocles and Camillus; Pyrrhus and Marius; Phocion and Cato; Alexander and Caesar.


title: Parallel Lives

text: The chief manuscripts of the "Lives" date from the 10th and 11th centuries, and the first printed edition appeared in Rome in 1470. Thomas North's 1579 English translation was an important source-material for Shakespeare. Jacob Tonson printed several editions of the "Lives" in English in the late 17th century, beginning with a five-volume set printed in 1688, with subsequent editions printed in 1693, 1702, 1716, and 1727. The most generally accepted text is that of the minor edition of Carl Sintenis in the "Bibliotheca Teubneriana" (five volumes, Leipzig 1852–1855; reissued without much change in 1873–1875). There are annotated editions by I. C. Held, E. H. G. Leopold, Otto Siefert and Friedrich Blass and Carl Sintenis, all in German; and by Holden, in English.


title: Parallel Lives

text: Two of the lives, those of Epaminondas and Scipio Africanus or Scipio Aemilianus, are lost, and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers.


title: Parallel Lives

text: Plutarch's "Life of Alexander" is one of the few surviving secondary or tertiary sources about Alexander the Great, and it includes anecdotes and descriptions of incidents that appear in no other source. Likewise, his portrait of Numa Pompilius, an early Roman king, contains unique information about the early Roman calendar. Plutarch has been praised for the liveliness and warmth of his portrayals, and his moral earnestness and enthusiasm, and the "Lives" have attracted a large circle of readers throughout the ages.


title: Parallel Lives

text: Plutarch structured his "Lives" by pairing lives of famous Greeks with those of famous Romans. After each pair of lives he generally writes out a comparison of the preceding biographies. The table below gives the list of the biographies. Its order follows the one found in the "Lamprias Catalogue", the list of Plutarch's works made by his hypothetical son Lamprias. The table also features links to several English translations of Plutarch's "Lives" available online. In addition to these 48 "Parallel Lives", Plutarch wrote an additional four unpaired biographies that although not considered part of "Parallel Lives", can be included in the term "Plutarch's Lives". The subjects of these four biographies are Artaxerxes, Aratus, Galba, and Otho.


title: Parallel Lives

text: Timeolon, Aemilus Paulus, Pelopidas, Marcellus, Aristides, Cato the elder, Philopemen, Flaminius, Pyrrus, Marius, Lysander, Sulla, Cimon, Lucullus,


title: Parallel Lives

text: Seutouris, Eumenes, Agesilaus, Pompey, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Phocion, Cato the Younger, Agis, Cleomones, Tiberius Graccus and Gaius Graccus, Demosthenes, Cicero, Demetrius, Mark Anthony, Dion, Marcus Brutus, Aratus Artaxerxes II, Galba, Otho.


title: Parallel Lives

text: Of the biographies in "Parallel Lives", that of Antonius has been cited by multiple scholars as one of the masterpieces of the series. In 1895, George Wyndham wrote that the first rank consists of the biographies of Themistocles, Alcibiades, Marius, Cato the Elder, Alexander, Demetrius, Antonius, and Pompey. Peter D'Epiro praised Plutarch's depiction of Alcibiades as "a masterpiece of characterization." Academic Philip A. Stadter singled out Pompey and Caesar as the greatest figures in the Roman biographies. In a review of the 1859 A. H. Clough translation, Plutarch’s depictions of Antony, Coriolanus, Alcibiades, and the Cato the Elder were praised as deeply drawn. The reviewer found the sayings of Themistocles to be “snowy and splendid”, those of Phocion to be “curt and sharp”, and those of Cato “grave and shrewdly humorous”. Carl Rollyson lauded the biography of Caesar as proof Plutarch is “loaded with perception” and stated that no biographer “has surpassed him in summing up the essence of a life – perhaps because no modern biographer has believed so intensely as Plutarch did in ‘the soul of men’.


title: Parallel Lives

text: John Langhorne, D.D. and William Langhorne, A.M.'s English translation, noted that Amiot, Abbe of Bellozane, published a French translation of the work during the reign of Henry the Second in the year 1558; and from that work it was translated into English, in the time of Queen Elizabeth. No other translation appeared till the time of Dryden.


title: Zackary Arthur

text: Zackary Arthur (born September 12, 2006) is an American actor, known for portraying the lead role of Jake Wheeler in "Chucky", a television continuation of the "Child's Play" film franchise, for which he was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor in a Network or Cable Television Series. He also played Sammy Sullivan in "The 5th Wave", and had a recurring role as a young Jeff Piccirillo on the Showtime series "Kidding".


title: Zackary Arthur

text: Arthur made his acting debut in 2014 playing Zack Novak in the Amazon Studios' comedy-drama series "Transparent" along with Jeffrey Tambor.


title: Zackary Arthur

text: Arthur played one of the lead roles, Sammy Sullivan, in the film "The 5th Wave" (2016), along with Chloë Grace Moretz and Nick Robinson, and directed by J Blakeson. He was one of hundreds of young actors who auditioned for the role. The film was released on January 22, 2016, by Columbia Pictures.


title: Zackary Arthur

text: He also played a role in the CBS comedy pilot "The Half of It" in 2015, and appeared in the "Grey's Anatomy" episode, "Trigger Happy", as a small boy possibly at fault for the paralysis of his friend in 2016.


title: Zackary Arthur

text: In 2017, he starred as Josh Ryan in the horror comedy film "Mom and Dad". In 2021, he was cast in the television series "Chucky" as the show's main protagonist, Jake Wheeler.


title: Passer rating

text: Passer rating (also known as passing efficiency in college football) is a measure of the performance of passers, primarily quarterbacks, in gridiron football. There are two formulas currently in use: one used by both the National Football League (NFL) and Canadian Football League (CFL), and the other used in NCAA football. Passer rating is calculated using a player's passing attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns, and interceptions. Passer rating in the NFL is on a scale from 0 to 158.3. Passing efficiency in college football is on a scale from −731.6 to 1261.6.


title: Passer rating

text: Since 1973, passer rating has been the official formula used by the NFL to determine its passing leader.


title: Passer rating

text: Passer rating is sometimes colloquially referred to as “quarterback rating” or “QB rating”, however the statistic applies only to passing (not to other contributions by a quarterback) and applies to any player at any position who throws a forward pass, not just to quarterbacks.


title: Passer rating

text: From 1932 to 1937, it was the quarterback with the most passing yardage, and from 1938 to 1940, it was the quarterback with the highest completion percentage. In 1941, a system was created that ranked the league's quarterbacks relative to their peers' performance. Over the next thirty years, the criteria used to crown a passing leader changed several times, however, the ranking system made it impossible to determine a quarterback's rank until all quarterbacks had completed their games that week, or to compare quarterback performances across multiple seasons.


title: Passer rating

text: With this in mind, in 1971, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle asked the league's statistical committee to develop a better system: this committee was headed by Don Smith of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Seymour Siwoff of the Elias Sports Bureau, and NFL executive Don Weiss. Smith and Siwoff established passing performance standards based on data from all qualified pro football passers between 1960 and 1970, and used those data to create the passer rating, with the formula being adopted by the NFL in 1973.


title: Passer rating

text: The NFL passer rating formula includes five variables: pass attempts, completions, passing yards, touchdown passes, and interceptions. Each of those variables is scaled to a value between 0 and 2.375, with 1.0 being statistically average (based on league data between 1960–1970). When the formula was first created, a 66.7 rating indicated an average performance, and a 100+ rating indicated an excellent performance. However, passing performance has improved steadily since then and in 2017 the league average rating was 88.6, and by 2020 it was 93.6.


title: Passer rating

text: If the result of any calculation is greater than 2.375, it is set to 2.375. If the result is a negative number, it is set to zero.


title: Passer rating

text: The NCAA passing efficiency formula is similar to that of the NFL passer rating, but does not impose limits on the four components:


title: Passer rating

text: The NCAA passer rating has an upper limit of 1,261.6 (every attempt is a 99-yard completion for a touchdown), and a lower limit of −731.6 (every attempt is completed, but results in a 99-yard loss). A passer who throws only interceptions will have a −200 rating, as would a passer who only throws completed passes losing an average of 35.714 yards.


title: Passer rating

text: In 2011, "Sports Illustrated" published an article by Kerry Byrne of "Cold Hard Football Facts" highlighting the importance of passer rating in determining a team's success. "Put most simply," the article states, "you cannot be a smart football analyst and dismiss passer rating. In fact, it's impossible to look at the incredible correlation of victory to passer rating and then dismiss it. You might as well dismiss the score of a game when determining a winner. [...] Few, if any, are more indicative of wins and losses than passer rating. Teams that posted a higher passer rating went 203–53 (.793) in 2010 and an incredible 151–29 (.839) after Week 5." Byrne made an expanded defense of the passer rating and its importance for the Pro Football Researchers Association in 2012. The study showed that all of the eight teams since 1940 that led the league in both offensive passer rating and defensive passer rating won championships.


title: Passer rating

text: The passer rating equation does not take into account sacks, fumbles, or a quarterback’s rushing production, although by definition it only measures passing statistics. Due to rule changes and improvement in quarterback play, league-wide passer rating has steadily risen by an average of 0.63 points per season since its introduction in 1973, from 61.72 that year to 91.87 in 2020, making it a poor statistic for comparing quarterbacks from different seasons or eras.


title: Passer rating

text: ESPN's Total Quarterback Rating is a proprietary statistic that was introduced in 2011 and is designed to measure the total effectiveness and performance of a quarterback. The metric takes into account all of a quarterback's contribution to a game, including passing, rushing, sacks, penalties, touchdowns, and turnovers. Moreover, each play is weighted based on its "difficulty", the context of the game, and the strength of the opposing defense. This means that statistics in garbage time of a blowout game hold less merit than statistics in a close game. Also, a quarterback who throws for four touchdowns and 300 yards against a strong defense will have a higher QBR than a quarterback who has the same stat line against the worst defense in the NFL.


title: Passer rating

text: QBR functions on a 0–100 scale, where an average NFL quarterback typically has around a 50 QBR, while a Pro Bowl caliber quarterback will have approximately a 75. This scale also represents a percentile of overall quarterback performances since 2006. This means that if a quarterback has a QBR of 90 their performance in that game is, on average, better than 90% of other quarterback performances.


title: Passer rating

text: It is also very common for there to be significant differences between QBR and passer rating leaders due to the additional variables and situational play context that contribute to the calculation of QBR. For example, in 2019 Lamar Jackson had a league leading QBR of 83.0 and earned MVP honors. However, Jackson finished 3rd in passer rating (113.3) behind Ryan Tannehill (117.5) and Drew Brees (116.3) who finished 9th and 3rd for QBR.


title: Passer rating

text: Pro Football Focus (PFF) is a football website that conducts in-depth analysis on NFL and NCAA games and players. Part of this analysis is assigning each football player in the NFL and NCAA teams in the Power Five a grade that indicates the performance of said player.


title: Passer rating

text: According to the PFF website, the group's algorithm analyzes every play for each individual player and measures the impact that said player has while on the field. A player's impact is then given a grade between −2 to +2 in 0.5 increments. Each position has a scale with a unique algorithm and rules. The scale also takes into account game context, so a strong play in the fourth quarter of a close matchup will be graded higher than one in the 2nd quarter of a blowout game.


title: Passer rating

text: A 0 player grade on any given play represents any position player performing at an expected level and in a manner that neither positively nor negatively impacts their team. An example of this is a running back taking a carry through the correct hole and picking up 3 – 4 yards on first and ten. Meanwhile, a +2 represents an incredible performance on a play that shifts the dynamic of a game in favor of the player's team. Brandon Graham's, a defensive end for the Philadelphia Eagles, strip sack on Tom Brady in Super Bowl LII would have easily been a +2 rating. On the other hand a −2 is a play that catastrophically hinders a team's chance of winning, such as a quarterback throwing a pick-six in the fourth quarter of a close game. Ambiguous plays where the outcome is unclear on how a player impacted their team are typically given a 0.


title: Passer rating

text: The sum of these plus-minuses are then converted on a 0–100 scale and produce a grade for a single game. However, a player's season grade is not the average of the 17 grades a player receives each game. Instead, PFF credits a player's entire body of work and longevity throughout the season. It is, therefore, possible for a player to have a higher season grade than any individual grade that a player received in any game he played in.


title: Passer rating

text: Wide receiver Antwaan Randle El, with a passer rating of 157.5 from 21 completed passes of a possible 26, has the highest career rating of any non-QB with more than twenty attempts. Ben Roethlisberger and Peyton Manning hold the record for the most games with a perfect passer rating (4). As of 2019, 74 NFL quarterbacks have completed a game with a perfect passer rating of 158.3, and seven have done so multiple times. Phil Simms holds the record for the highest passer rating in a Super Bowl, at 150.92 in Super Bowl XXI.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Thyroid disease is a medical condition that affects the function of the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland is located at the front of the neck and produces thyroid hormones that travel through the blood to help regulate many other organs, meaning that it is an endocrine organ. These hormones normally act in the body to regulate energy use, infant development, and childhood development.


title: Thyroid disease

text: There are five general types of thyroid disease, each with their own symptoms. A person may have one or several different types at the same time. The five groups are:


title: Thyroid disease

text: In some types, such as subacute thyroiditis or postpartum thyroiditis, symptoms may go away after a few months and laboratory tests may return to normal. However most types of thyroid disease do not resolve on their own. Common hypothyroid symptoms include fatigue, low energy, weight gain, inability to tolerate the cold, slow heart rate, dry skin and constipation. Common hyperthyroid symptoms include irritability, anxiety, weight loss, fast heartbeat, inability to tolerate the heat, diarrhea, and enlargement of the thyroid. Structural abnormalities may not produce symptoms, however some people may have hyperthyroid or hypothyroid symptoms related to the structural abnormality or notice swelling of the neck. Rarely goiters can cause compression of the airway, compression of the vessels in the neck, or difficulty swallowing. Tumors, often called thyroid nodules, can also have many different symptoms ranging from hyperthyroidism to hypothyroidism to swelling in the neck and compression of the structures in the neck.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Diagnosis starts with a history and physical examination. Screening for thyroid disease in patients without symptoms is a debated topic although commonly practiced in the United States. If dysfunction of the thyroid is suspected, laboratory tests can help support or rule out thyroid disease. Initial blood tests often include thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and free thyroxine (T4). Total and free triiodothyronine (T3) levels are less commonly used. If autoimmune disease of the thyroid is suspected, blood tests looking for Anti-thyroid autoantibodies can also be obtained. Procedures such as ultrasound, biopsy and a radioiodine scanning and uptake study may also be used to help with the diagnosis, particularly if a nodule is suspected.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Thyroid diseases are highly prevalent worldwide, and treatment varies based on the disorder. Levothyroxine is the mainstay of treatment for people with hypothyroidism, while people with hyperthyroidism caused by Graves' disease can be managed with iodine therapy, antithyroid medication, or surgical removal of the thyroid gland. Thyroid surgery may also be performed to remove a thyroid nodule or to reduce the size of a goiter if it obstructs nearby structures or for cosmetic reasons.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Symptoms of the condition vary with type: hypo- vs. hyperthyroidism, which are further described below.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Possible symptoms of hyperthyroidism are:Note: certain symptoms and physical changes can be seen in both hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism —fatigue, fine / thinning hair, menstrual cycle irregularities, muscle weakness / aches (myalgia), and different forms of myxedema.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Hypothyroidism is a state in which the body is not producing enough thyroid hormones, or is not able to respond to / utilize existing thyroid hormones properly. The main categories are:


title: Thyroid disease

text: Hyperthyroidism is a state in which the body is producing too much thyroid hormone. The main hyperthyroid conditions are:


title: Thyroid disease

text: Certain medications can have the unintended side effect of affecting thyroid function. While some medications can lead to significant hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism and those at risk will need to be carefully monitored, some medications may affect thyroid hormone lab tests without causing any symptoms or clinical changes, and may not require treatment. The following medications have been linked to various forms of thyroid disease:


title: Thyroid disease

text: Most thyroid disease in the United States stems from a condition where the body's immune system attacks itself. In other instances, thyroid disease comes from the body trying to adapt to environmental conditions like iodine deficiency or to new physiologic conditions like pregnancy.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Autoimmune thyroid disease is a general category of disease that occurs due to the immune system targeting its own body. It is not fully understood why this occurs, but it is thought to be partially genetic as these diseases tend to run in families. In one of the most common types, Grave's Disease, the body produces antibodies against the TSH receptor on thyroid cells. This causes the receptor to activate even without TSH being present and causes the thyroid to produce and release excess thyroid hormone (hyperthyroidism). Another common form of autoimmune thyroid disease is Hashimoto thyroiditis where the body produces antibodies against different normal components of the thyroid gland, most commonly thyroglobulin, thyroid peroxidase, and the TSH receptor. These antibodies cause the immune system to attack the thyroid cells and cause inflammation (lymphocytic infiltration) and destruction (fibrosis) of the gland.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Goiter is the general enlargement of the thyroid that can be associated with many thyroid diseases. The main reason this happens is because of increased signaling to the thyroid by way of TSH receptors to try to make it produce more thyroid hormone. This causes increased vascularity and increase in size (hypertrophy) of the gland. In hypothyroid states or iodine deficiency, the body recognizes that it is not producing enough thyroid hormone and starts to produce more TSH to help stimulate the thyroid to produce more thyroid hormone. This stimulation causes the gland to increase in size to increase production of thyroid hormone. In hyperthyroidism caused by Grave's Disease or toxic multinodular goiter, there is excess stimulation of the TSH receptor even when thyroid hormone levels are normal. In Grave's Disease this is because of an autoantibodies (Thyroid Stimulating Immunoglobulins) which bind to and activate the TSH receptors in place of TSH while in toxic multinodular goiter this is often because of a mutation in the TSH receptor that causes it to activate without receiving a signal from TSH. In more rare cases, the thyroid may become enlarged because it becomes filled with thyroid hormone or thyroid hormone precursors that it is unable to release or because of congential abnormalities or because of increased intake of iodine from supplementation or medication.


title: Thyroid disease

text: There are many changes to the body during pregnancy. One of the major changes to help with the development of the fetus is the production of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). This hormone, produced by the placenta, has similar structure to TSH and can bind to the maternal TSH receptor to produce thyroid hormone. During pregnancy, there is also an increase in estrogen which causes the mother to produce more thyroxine binding globulin, which is what carries most of the thyroid hormone in the blood. These normal hormonal changes often make pregnancy look like a hyperthyroid state but may be within the normal range for pregnancy, so it necessary to use trimester specific ranges for TSH and free T4. True hyperthyroidism in pregnancy is most often caused by an autoimmune mechanism from Grave's Disease. New diagnosis of hypothyroidism in pregnancy is rare because hypothyroidism often makes it difficult to become pregnant in the first place. When hypothyroidism is seen in pregnancy, it is often because an individual already has hypothyroidism and needs to increase their levothyroxine dose to account for the increased thyroxine binding globulin present in pregnancy.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Diagnosis of thyroid disease depends on symptoms and whether or not a thyroid nodule is present. Most patients will receive a blood test. Others might need an ultrasound, biopsy or a radioiodine scanning and uptake study.


title: Thyroid disease

text: There are several hormones that can be measured in the blood to determine how the thyroid gland is functioning. These include the thyroid hormones triiodothyronine (T3) and its precursor thyroxine (T4), which are produced by the thyroid gland. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is another important hormone that is secreted by the anterior pituitary cells in the brain. Its primary function is to increase the production of T3 and T4 by the thyroid gland.


title: Thyroid disease

text: The most useful marker of thyroid gland function is serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels. TSH levels are determined by a classic negative feedback system in which high levels of T3 and T4 suppress the production of TSH, and low levels of T3 and T4 increase the production of TSH. TSH levels are thus often used by doctors as a screening test, where the first approach is to determine whether TSH is elevated, suppressed, or normal.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Because a single abnormal TSH level can be misleading, T3 and T4 levels must be measured in the blood to further confirm the diagnosis. When circulating in the body, T3 and T4 are bound to transport proteins. Only a small fraction of the circulating thyroid hormones are unbound or free, and thus biologically active. T3 and T4 levels can thus be measured as free T3 and T4, or total T3 and T4, which takes into consideration the free hormones in addition to the protein-bound hormones. Free T3 and T4 measurements are important because certain drugs and illnesses can affect the concentrations of transport proteins, resulting in differing total and free thyroid hormone levels. There are differing guidelines for T3 and T4 measurements.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Autoantibodies to the thyroid gland may be detected in various disease states. There are several anti-thyroid antibodies, including anti-thyroglobulin antibodies (TgAb), anti-microsomal/anti-thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPOAb), and TSH receptor antibodies (TSHRAb).


title: Thyroid disease

text: Many people may develop a thyroid nodule at some point in their lives. Although many who experience this worry that it is thyroid cancer, there are many causes of nodules that are benign and not cancerous. If a possible nodule is present, a doctor may order thyroid function tests to determine if the thyroid gland's activity is being affected. If more information is needed after a clinical exam and lab tests, medical ultrasonography can help determine the nature of thyroid nodule(s). There are some notable differences in "typical" benign vs. cancerous thyroid nodules that can particularly be detected by the high-frequency sound waves in an ultrasound scan. The ultrasound may also locate nodules that are too small for a doctor to feel on a physical exam, and can demonstrate whether a nodule is primarily solid, liquid (cystic), or a mixture of both. It is an imaging process that can often be done in a doctor's office, is painless, and does not expose the individual to any radiation.


title: Thyroid disease

text: The main characteristics that can help distinguish a benign vs. malignant (cancerous) thyroid nodule on ultrasound are as follows:


title: Thyroid disease

text: Although ultrasonography is a very important diagnostic tool, this method is not always able to separate benign from malignant nodules with certainty. In suspicious cases, a tissue sample is often obtained by biopsy for microscopic examination.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Thyroid scintigraphy, in which the thyroid is imaged with the aid of radioactive iodine (usually iodine-123, which does not harm thyroid cells, or rarely, iodine-131), is performed in the nuclear medicine department of a hospital or clinic. Radioiodine collects in the thyroid gland before being excreted in the urine. While in the thyroid, the radioactive emissions can be detected by a camera, producing a rough image of the shape (a "radioiodine scan") and tissue activity (a "radioiodine uptake") of the thyroid gland.


title: Thyroid disease

text: A normal radioiodine scan shows even uptake and activity throughout the gland. Irregular uptake can reflect an abnormally shaped or abnormally located gland, or it can indicate that a portion of the gland is overactive or underactive. For example, a nodule that is overactive ("hot") -- to the point of suppressing the activity of the rest of the gland—is usually a thyrotoxic adenoma, a surgically curable form of hyperthyroidism that is rarely malignant. In contrast, finding that a substantial section of the thyroid is inactive ("cold") may indicate an area of non-functioning tissue, such as thyroid cancer.


title: Thyroid disease

text: The amount of radioactivity can be quantified and serves as an indicator of the metabolic activity of the gland. A normal quantitation of radioiodine uptake demonstrates that about 8-35% of the administered dose can be detected in the thyroid 24 hours later. Overactivity or underactivity of the gland, as may occur with hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism, is usually reflected in increased or decreased radioiodine uptake. Different patterns may occur with different causes of hypo- or hyperthyroidism.


title: Thyroid disease

text: A medical biopsy refers to the obtaining of a tissue sample for examination under the microscope or other testing, usually to distinguish cancer from noncancerous conditions. Thyroid tissue may be obtained for biopsy by fine needle aspiration (FNA) or by surgery.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Fine needle aspiration has the advantage of being a brief, safe, outpatient procedure that is safer and less expensive than surgery and does not leave a visible scar. Needle biopsies became widely used in the 1980s, but it was recognized that the accuracy of identification of cancer was good, but not perfect. The accuracy of the diagnosis depends on obtaining tissue from all of the suspicious areas of an abnormal thyroid gland. The reliability of fine needle aspiration is increased when sampling can be guided by ultrasound, and over the last 15 years, this has become the preferred method for thyroid biopsy in North America.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Levothyroxine is a stereoisomer of thyroxine (T4) which is degraded much more slowly and can be administered once daily in patients with hypothyroidism. Natural thyroid hormone from pigs is sometimes also used, especially for people who cannot tolerate the synthetic version. Hyperthyroidism caused by Graves' disease may be treated with the thioamide drugs propylthiouracil, carbimazole or methimazole, or rarely with Lugol's solution. Additionally, hyperthyroidism and thyroid tumors may be treated with radioactive iodine. Ethanol injections for the treatment of recurrent thyroid cysts and metastatic thyroid cancer in lymph nodes can also be an alternative to surgery.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Thyroid surgery is performed for a variety of reasons. A nodule or lobe of the thyroid is sometimes removed for biopsy or because of the presence of an autonomously functioning adenoma causing hyperthyroidism. A large majority of the thyroid may be removed ("subtotal thyroidectomy)" to treat the hyperthyroidism of Graves' disease, or to remove a goiter that is unsightly or impinges on vital structures.


title: Thyroid disease

text: A complete thyroidectomy of the entire thyroid, including associated lymph nodes, is the preferred treatment for thyroid cancer. Removal of the bulk of the thyroid gland usually produces hypothyroidism unless the person takes thyroid hormone replacement. Consequently, individuals who have undergone a total thyroidectomy are typically placed on thyroid hormone replacement (e.g. Levothyroxine) for the remainder of their lives. Higher than normal doses are often administered to prevent recurrence.


title: Thyroid disease

text: If the thyroid gland must be removed surgically, care must be taken to avoid damage to adjacent structures, the parathyroid glands and the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Both are susceptible to accidental removal and/or injury during thyroid surgery.


title: Thyroid disease

text: The parathyroid glands produce parathyroid hormone (PTH), a hormone needed to maintain adequate amounts of calcium in the blood. Removal results in hypoparathyroidism and a need for supplemental calcium and vitamin D each day. In the event that the blood supply to any one of the parathyroid glands is endangered through surgery, the parathyroid gland(s) involved may be re-implanted in surrounding muscle tissue.


title: Thyroid disease

text: The recurrent laryngeal nerves provide motor control for all external muscles of the larynx except for the cricothyroid muscle, which also runs along the posterior thyroid. Accidental laceration of either of the two or both recurrent laryngeal nerves may cause paralysis of the vocal cords and their associated muscles, changing the voice quality.


title: Thyroid disease

text: Radioiodine therapy with iodine-131 can be used to shrink the thyroid gland (for instance, in the case of large goiters that cause symptoms but do not harbor cancer—after evaluation and biopsy of suspicious nodules has been done), or to destroy hyperactive thyroid cells (for example, in cases of thyroid cancer). The iodine uptake can be high in countries with iodine deficiency, but low in iodine sufficient countries. To enhance iodine-131 uptake by the thyroid and allow for more successful treatment, TSH is raised prior to therapy in order to stimulate the existing thyroid cells. This is done either by withdrawal of thyroid hormone medication or injections of recombinant human TSH (Thyrogen), released in the United States in 1999. Thyrogen injections can reportedly boost uptake up to 50-60%. Radioiodine treatment can also cause hypothyroidism (which is sometimes the end goal of treatment) and, although rare, a pain syndrome (due to radiation thyroiditis).


title: Thyroid disease

text: In the United States, autoimmune inflammation is the most common form of thyroid disease while worldwide hypothyroidism and goiter due to dietary iodine deficiency is the most common. According to the American Thyroid Association in 2015, approximately 20 million people in the United States alone are affected by thyroid disease. Hypothyroidism affects 3-10% percent of adults, with a higher incidence in women and the elderly. An estimated one-third of the world's population currently lives in areas of low dietary iodine levels. In regions of severe iodine deficiency, the prevalence of goiter is as high as 80%. In areas where iodine-deficiency is not found, the most common type of hypothyroidism is an autoimmune subtype called Hashimoto's thyroiditis, with a prevalence of 1-2%. As for hyperthyroidism, Graves' disease, another autoimmune condition, is the most common type with a prevalence of 0.5% in males and 3% in females. Although thyroid nodules are common, thyroid cancer is rare. Thyroid cancer accounts for less than 1% of all cancer in the UK, though it is the most common endocrine tumor and makes up greater than 90% of all cancers of the endocrine glands.


title: Don't Start Now

text: "Don't Start Now" is a song by English-Albanian singer Dua Lipa. Lipa wrote the song with Caroline Ailin, Emily Warren, and its producer Ian Kirkpatrick. The song was released for digital download and streaming by Warner Records on 1 November 2019, as the lead single from her second studio album, "Future Nostalgia" (2020). A nu-disco song, it features a funk bassline, inspired by music by the Bee Gees, Daft Punk and Two Door Cinema Club. Elements used in the production include handclaps, a crowd noise, cowbells, synth bursts and accented strings. Lyrically, Lipa celebrates her independence and instructs a former lover to forget about their past relationship.


title: Don't Start Now

text: "Don't Start Now" received widespread critical acclaim upon its release, with many reviewers noting significant growth in Lipa's sound and vocals. Critics also praised the use of 1980s and disco sounds for standing out among other pop releases at the time. At the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, the song was nominated in three categories: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance. The song peaked at number two on both the UK Singles Chart and the US "Billboard" Hot 100, surpassing Lipa's 2017 song "New Rules" to become her highest-charting single on the latter. In the UK, the song registered the seventh-longest top 10 stay on the chart.


title: Don't Start Now

text: "Don't Start Now" is considered to be the beginning of a revival for disco music in 2020 as downtempo, urban-styled music previously dominated mainstream music. The music video was directed by Nabil Elderkin and filmed in Brooklyn. It features point-of-view and high-angle shots of Lipa dancing at a crowded nightclub and masquerade ball. To promote the song, Lipa performed it on many television programmes and awards shows, including the 2019 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2019 American Music Awards and the 2019 Mnet Asian Music Awards. Numerous remixes have accompanied the song, including an extended Live in L.A. Remix which features a 19-piece live band, for which an accompanying music video directed by Daniel Carberry was also released.


title: Don't Start Now

text: Dua Lipa wrote "Don't Start Now" with the same team who wrote her 2017 single "New Rules": Caroline Ailin, Emily Warren and Ian Kirkpatrick. The song came about after Joe Kentish, the A&R head at Lipa's label Warner Records, challenged Kirkpatrick in late 2018 to recreate the success of "New Rules". The first writing session took place after Warren invited Ailin and Kirkpatrick to her home in Wyoming to attend a disco night at a local dive bar where songs including Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" (1978) were played. Inspired by that night, they decided to write a disco song the next morning as "it's the most fun to dance to". The song's initial concept was based on Ailin's feelings of responsibility towards her ex following their relationship.


title: Don't Start Now

text: Kirkpatrick also worked with producer J Kash, inviting several writers to help find a sound for the song, which became a back-and-forth between 1980s and disco music. They contemplated emulating music by Madonna, and created more than 10 reference tracks for Lipa to sample and choose from. Ailin, Warren and Kirkpatrick eventually co-wrote the song with Lipa in January 2019. The cowbell used on the song was present on the first demo and inspired by Two Door Cinema Club's music. Kirkpatrick based it on Lipa's phrasing in the chorus. According to him, the strings are a combination of Kontakt Session Strings, "some weird Nexus 1970s string patch", and live strings. Although the bassline of "Don't Start Now" sounds live, Kirkpatrick created it with MIDI. It was influenced by similar basslines the Bee Gees and Daft Punk used in their music that he had listened to in his youth. Kirkpatrick used a Scarbee MM-Bass plug-in for the leading bass sound and played it on a keyboard before modifying it. He wanted to abstain from disco for a more 1990s sound in the bridge by adding sub-bass combined with thumb bass guitar and slaps in the drop from Trilian.


title: Don't Start Now

text: Lipa recorded most of her vocals with either a dynamic Shure SM7 or a Telefunken ELA M 251 tube microphone. Kirkpatrick said he understood the song better after Lipa sang it and was told by Kentish that the middle eight sounded like an "after-thought". He thus spent a further two weeks completing the song before sending stems to Josh Gudwin for mixing. To improve the middle eight, Kirkpatrick added a "vocal chop", and extra drums inspired by the Weeknd's song "Can't Feel My Face". He recalled, "The first version of the drums didn't sound as fat. I was worried that the song would sound too disco, too classic. It needed something new, to make it the perfect mix of old and new". Kirkpatrick had a separate project for the chord progression before the drop to help him decide which combination of piano and synths to use. For this section, he went through 25 different ideas and incorporated them into four versions. His final rough mix included nearly 100 tracks. Kirkpatrick sent the final version to Lipa when she was attending Glastonbury Festival in June 2019. "Don't Start Now" was recorded at Zenseven Studios in Los Angeles while the vocals were recorded at TaP Studio in London. Gudwin mixed the song at Henson Studios in Hollywood while Chris Gehringer mastered it at Sterling Sound in Edgewater, New Jersey.


title: Don't Start Now

text: Musically, "Don't Start Now" is a nu-disco song. It features elements of dance-pop, Eurodance and synth-pop while channeling modern disco antecedents such as French house and Italo disco. The song has a length of 3:03, and is composed in time and the key of B minor, with a tempo of 124 beats per minute. Constructed in verse-chorus form, the verses and first two choruses have an Em–Bm–G–D–A chord progression, and the bridges chorus follows a Bm–D–Em7–Fm7–Gmaj7 sequence. Several 1980s and disco tropes are included in the French bloghouse production, which also makes use of laser weapon sound effects, electro-violin stabs and handclaps. It additionally has a percolating funk bassline that interchanges with piano chords and the house beat.


title: Don't Start Now

text: The song opens with a three-chord piano intro from the first part of the chorus and a fuzz sound of a spinning record. Lipa eschews modulation in her vocals and build from a lower register to a natural use of melisma, spanning from the low note of A to the high note of D. It builds with the addition of accented disco strings, and bursts of disco synths. It has a strong kick and bass pattern that uses the low-end sparingly. After every fourth measure, a fill is used; for example, in the snare-kick sequence that precedes the second verse. A cowbell in appears in the anthemic, 1980s synth-pop chorus, which is backed by strings. The second verse adds a rhythm guitar loop and crowd noise is added in the second chorus. During the final chorus, chordal devices from the breakdown reappear for texture, and Lipa sings in call and response.


title: Don't Start Now

text: Various critics viewed the song as a sequel to "New Rules" as both have similar themes whereas "Don't Start Now" proves that the rules created to get over an ex in the former track actually work in a breakup. According to Lipa, the lyrics have a theme of empowerment and are about "moving on" from a past relationship and "not allowing anyone to get in the way of that", while also finding confidence and happiness. She celebrates her independence, and uses bullet point instructions to address a needy former lover directly, with lyrics including, "Don't show up, don't come out / Don't start caring about me now / Walk away, you know how / Don't start caring about me now". Music critic Maura Johnston interpreted the lyrics as "post-breakup rebirth".


title: Don't Start Now

text: Prior to the single's release, Lipa panicked, never having asked for feedback on the song. Her manager, Ben Mawson, was concerned that its disco sound was too different from music popular on American radio at the time. However, Mawson was assured by his radio promotion executive that it was "the kind of song that could change the radio". On 10 October 2019, "Variety" mentioned the single's release date in an article about Lipa's management but subsequently edited the release date to "soon". Fans of Lipa leaked the song's title and lyrics on Twitter on 14 October 2019. Later that month, the singer cleared her social media accounts to announce the release of "Don't Start Now". She first shared two teaser videos on social media featuring snippets of the song on 22 and 23 October 2019. YouTube Music promoted the release on billboards in London and Times Square. The song was also promoted with its own lens filter on Snapchat.


title: Don't Start Now

text: "Don't Start Now" was released for digital download and streaming on 31 October 2019 as the lead single from Lipa's second studio album, "Future Nostalgia" (2020). "The Radio 1 Breakfast Show" played the song exclusively to an eight-year-old fan of Lipa before its release. The song was sent for radio airplay in Italy the following day. It impacted contemporary hit radio formats in the United States on 5 November 2019. "Don't Start Now" has been promoted with several remixes. Ones by Dom Dolla, Purple Disco Machine, Zach Witness and Kungs were released throughout November and December 2019. A remix EP which includes all the aforementioned remixes along with one by Pink Panda was released 10 January 2020, followed by a remix by Kosovan DJ Regard on 24 January. A "Live in LA" remix that features Lipa performing with a 19-piece band was released on 21 February 2020. It was preceded by the release of a music video directed by Daniel Carberry on 10 January 2020, which includes dancers and rollerbladers in the background. The video was nominated for Best Live Video at the 2020 UK Music Video Awards.


title: Don't Start Now

text: "Don't Start Now" received widespread acclaim from music critics. In her review for "Rolling Stone", Brittany Spanos called the song "the peak of pop catharsis" and "a Studio 54 fantasy"; she said it evolved Lipa's sound and that she "finally finds her pop footing". Nick Malone of "PopMatters" wrote that the song displays significant growth in Lipa's sound and identity, and that she is "springing forth in full colour" with sharper and more distinguishable vocals. For "Under the Radar", Conrad Duncan observed the "fantastically sleek" song played to Lipa's strengths. "Los Angeles Times" pop critic Mikael Wood felt Lipa's vocals had grown more soulful and suited the "delightfully rubbery" song's retro sound. Similarly, "Pitchfork"s Matthew Strauss thought that the production suits Lipa and appreciated her non-modulated vocals, writing that "her voice sounds stronger than ever".


title: Don't Start Now

text: Laura Snapes of "The Guardian" cited Lipa's vocals as the song's best feature, writing that she distinguishes herself from her contemporaries with a classic style, rather than "the charts' predominant rap-influenced sound". Writing for "Variety", Chris Willman felt it brought "a certain kind of deep groove and attitudinal buoyancy back onto the radio at a time we needed it most, which is anytime at all". "Gigwise"s Jordan Emery complimented its "satisfyingly catchy hooks and interesting ideas", and "slick bassline that just breathes effortlessness and joy". Jolie Lash of "Spin" viewed the bassline as "pop's best in recent memory" and called the song "an 'I Will Survive' for an era when we really need the reassurance". Writing for "Exclaim!", Brad Garcia says "it wasn't until she released 'Don't Start Now' that Dua Lipa became a household name."