title: Lipid bilayer

text: Lipid bilayers are large enough structures to have some of the mechanical properties of liquids or solids. The area compression modulus K, bending modulus K, and edge energy formula_1, can be used to describe them. Solid lipid bilayers also have a shear modulus, but like any liquid, the shear modulus is zero for fluid bilayers. These mechanical properties affect how the membrane functions. K and K affect the ability of proteins and small molecules to insert into the bilayer, and bilayer mechanical properties have been shown to alter the function of mechanically activated ion channels. Bilayer mechanical properties also govern what types of stress a cell can withstand without tearing. Although lipid bilayers can easily bend, most cannot stretch more than a few percent before rupturing.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: As discussed in the Structure and organization section, the hydrophobic attraction of lipid tails in water is the primary force holding lipid bilayers together. Thus, the elastic modulus of the bilayer is primarily determined by how much extra area is exposed to water when the lipid molecules are stretched apart. It is not surprising given this understanding of the forces involved that studies have shown that K varies strongly with osmotic pressure but only weakly with tail length and unsaturation. Because the forces involved are so small, it is difficult to experimentally determine K. Most techniques require sophisticated microscopy and very sensitive measurement equipment.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: In contrast to K, which is a measure of how much energy is needed to stretch the bilayer, K is a measure of how much energy is needed to bend or flex the bilayer. Formally, bending modulus is defined as the energy required to deform a membrane from its intrinsic curvature to some other curvature. Intrinsic curvature is defined by the ratio of the diameter of the head group to that of the tail group. For two-tailed PC lipids, this ratio is nearly one so the intrinsic curvature is nearly zero. If a particular lipid has too large a deviation from zero intrinsic curvature it will not form a bilayer and will instead form other phases such as micelles or inverted micelles. Addition of "small hydrophilic molecules" like "sucrose" into mixed lipid "lamellar liposomes" made from galactolipid-rich thylakoid membranes destabilises bilayers into micellar phase. Typically, K is not measured experimentally but rather is calculated from measurements of K and bilayer thickness, since the three parameters are related.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: formula_1 is a measure of how much energy it takes to expose a bilayer edge to water by tearing the bilayer or creating a hole in it. The origin of this energy is the fact that creating such an interface exposes some of the lipid tails to water, but the exact orientation of these border lipids is unknown. There is some evidence that both hydrophobic (tails straight) and hydrophilic (heads curved around) pores can coexist.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: Fusion is the process by which two lipid bilayers merge, resulting in one connected structure. If this fusion proceeds completely through both leaflets of both bilayers, a water-filled bridge is formed and the solutions contained by the bilayers can mix. Alternatively, if only one leaflet from each bilayer is involved in the fusion process, the bilayers are said to be hemifused. Fusion is involved in many cellular processes, in particular in eukaryotes, since the eukaryotic cell is extensively sub-divided by lipid bilayer membranes. Exocytosis, fertilization of an egg by sperm activation, and transport of waste products to the lysozome are a few of the many eukaryotic processes that rely on some form of fusion. Even the entry of pathogens can be governed by fusion, as many bilayer-coated viruses have dedicated fusion proteins to gain entry into the host cell.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: There are four fundamental steps in the fusion process. First, the involved membranes must aggregate, approaching each other to within several nanometers. Second, the two bilayers must come into very close contact (within a few angstroms). To achieve this close contact, the two surfaces must become at least partially dehydrated, as the bound surface water normally present causes bilayers to strongly repel. The presence of ions, in particular divalent cations like magnesium and calcium, strongly affects this step. One of the critical roles of calcium in the body is regulating membrane fusion. Third, a destabilization must form at one point between the two bilayers, locally distorting their structures. The exact nature of this distortion is not known. One theory is that a highly curved "stalk" must form between the two bilayers. Proponents of this theory believe that it explains why phosphatidylethanolamine, a highly curved lipid, promotes fusion. Finally, in the last step of fusion, this point defect grows and the components of the two bilayers mix and diffuse away from the site of contact.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: The situation is further complicated when considering fusion "in vivo" since biological fusion is almost always regulated by the action of membrane-associated proteins. The first of these proteins to be studied were the viral fusion proteins, which allow an enveloped virus to insert its genetic material into the host cell (enveloped viruses are those surrounded by a lipid bilayer; some others have only a protein coat). Eukaryotic cells also use fusion proteins, the best-studied of which are the SNAREs. SNARE proteins are used to direct all vesicular intracellular trafficking. Despite years of study, much is still unknown about the function of this protein class. In fact, there is still an active debate regarding whether SNAREs are linked to early docking or participate later in the fusion process by facilitating hemifusion.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: In studies of molecular and cellular biology it is often desirable to artificially induce fusion. The addition of polyethylene glycol (PEG) causes fusion without significant aggregation or biochemical disruption. This procedure is now used extensively, for example by fusing B-cells with myeloma cells. The resulting “hybridoma” from this combination expresses a desired antibody as determined by the B-cell involved, but is immortalized due to the melanoma component. Fusion can also be artificially induced through electroporation in a process known as electrofusion. It is believed that this phenomenon results from the energetically active edges formed during electroporation, which can act as the local defect point to nucleate stalk growth between two bilayers.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: Lipid bilayers can be created artificially in the lab to allow researchers to perform experiments that cannot be done with natural bilayers. They can also be used in the field of Synthetic Biology, to define the boundaries of artificial cells. These synthetic systems are called model lipid bilayers. There are many different types of model bilayers, each having experimental advantages and disadvantages. They can be made with either synthetic or natural lipids. Among the most common model systems are:


title: Lipid bilayer

text: To date, the most successful commercial application of lipid bilayers has been the use of liposomes for drug delivery, especially for cancer treatment. (Note- the term “liposome” is in essence synonymous with “vesicle” except that vesicle is a general term for the structure whereas liposome refers to only artificial not natural vesicles) The basic idea of liposomal drug delivery is that the drug is encapsulated in solution inside the liposome then injected into the patient. These drug-loaded liposomes travel through the system until they bind at the target site and rupture, releasing the drug. In theory, liposomes should make an ideal drug delivery system since they can isolate nearly any hydrophilic drug, can be grafted with molecules to target specific tissues and can be relatively non-toxic since the body possesses biochemical pathways for degrading lipids.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: The first generation of drug delivery liposomes had a simple lipid composition and suffered from several limitations. Circulation in the bloodstream was extremely limited due to both renal clearing and phagocytosis. Refinement of the lipid composition to tune fluidity, surface charge density, and surface hydration resulted in vesicles that adsorb fewer proteins from serum and thus are less readily recognized by the immune system. The most significant advance in this area was the grafting of polyethylene glycol (PEG) onto the liposome surface to produce “stealth” vesicles, which circulate over long times without immune or renal clearing.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: The first stealth liposomes were passively targeted at tumor tissues. Because tumors induce rapid and uncontrolled angiogenesis they are especially “leaky” and allow liposomes to exit the bloodstream at a much higher rate than normal tissue would. More recently work has been undertaken to graft antibodies or other molecular markers onto the liposome surface in the hope of actively binding them to a specific cell or tissue type. Some examples of this approach are already in clinical trials.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: Another potential application of lipid bilayers is the field of biosensors. Since the lipid bilayer is the barrier between the interior and exterior of the cell, it is also the site of extensive signal transduction. Researchers over the years have tried to harness this potential to develop a bilayer-based device for clinical diagnosis or bioterrorism detection. Progress has been slow in this area and, although a few companies have developed automated lipid-based detection systems, they are still targeted at the research community. These include Biacore (now GE Healthcare Life Sciences), which offers a disposable chip for utilizing lipid bilayers in studies of binding kinetics and Nanion Inc., which has developed an automated patch clamping system. Other, more exotic applications are also being pursued such as the use of lipid bilayer membrane pores for DNA sequencing by Oxford Nanolabs. To date, this technology has not proven commercially viable.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: A supported lipid bilayer (SLB) as described above has achieved commercial success as a screening technique to measure the permeability of drugs. This parallel artificial membrane permeability assay PAMPA technique measures the permeability across specifically formulated lipid cocktail(s) found to be highly correlated with Caco-2 cultures, the gastrointestinal tract, blood–brain barrier and skin.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: By the early twentieth century scientists had come to believe that cells are surrounded by a thin oil-like barrier, but the structural nature of this membrane was not known. Two experiments in 1925 laid the groundwork to fill in this gap. By measuring the capacitance of erythrocyte solutions, Hugo Fricke determined that the cell membrane was 3.3 nm thick.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: Although the results of this experiment were accurate, Fricke misinterpreted the data to mean that the cell membrane is a single molecular layer. Prof. Dr. Evert Gorter (1881–1954) and F. Grendel of Leiden University approached the problem from a different perspective, spreading the erythrocyte lipids as a monolayer on a Langmuir-Blodgett trough. When they compared the area of the monolayer to the surface area of the cells, they found a ratio of two to one. Later analyses showed several errors and incorrect assumptions with this experiment but, serendipitously, these errors canceled out and from this flawed data Gorter and Grendel drew the correct conclusion- that the cell membrane is a lipid bilayer.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: This theory was confirmed through the use of electron microscopy in the late 1950s. Although he did not publish the first electron microscopy study of lipid bilayers J. David Robertson was the first to assert that the two dark electron-dense bands were the headgroups and associated proteins of two apposed lipid monolayers. In this body of work, Robertson put forward the concept of the “unit membrane.” This was the first time the bilayer structure had been universally assigned to all cell membranes as well as organelle membranes.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: Around the same time, the development of model membranes confirmed that the lipid bilayer is a stable structure that can exist independent of proteins. By “painting” a solution of lipid in organic solvent across an aperture, Mueller and Rudin were able to create an artificial bilayer and determine that this exhibited lateral fluidity, high electrical resistance and self-healing in response to puncture, all of which are properties of a natural cell membrane. A few years later, Alec Bangham showed that bilayers, in the form of lipid vesicles, could also be formed simply by exposing a dried lipid sample to water. This was an important advance, since it demonstrated that lipid bilayers form spontaneously via self assembly and do not require a patterned support structure.


title: Lipid bilayer

text: In 1977, a totally synthetic bilayer membrane was prepared by Kunitake and Okahata, from a single organic compound, didodecyldimethylammonium bromide. It clearly shows that the bilayer membrane was assembled by the van der Waals interaction.


title: Bre-X

text: Bre-X was a group of companies in Canada. Bre-X Minerals Ltd., a major part of Bre-X based in Calgary, was involved in a major gold mining scandal when it reported it was sitting on an enormous gold deposit at , East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Bre-X bought the Busang site in March 1993 and in October 1995 announced significant amounts of gold had been discovered, sending its stock price soaring. Originally a penny stock, its stock price reached a peak at CAD$286.50 (split adjusted) in May 1996 on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE), with a total capitalization of over CAD $6 billion. Bre-X Minerals collapsed in 1997 after the gold samples were found to be fraudulent.


title: Bre-X

text: Busang's gold resource was estimated by Bre-X's independent consulting company, Kilborn Engineering (a division of SNC-Lavalin of Montreal), to be approximately . Reports of resource estimates of up to were never made by Bre-X though the property was described as having this potential by , Bre-X's Vice-President for Exploration, in an interview with Richard Behar of ""Fortune" magazine.


title: Bre-X

text: Bre-X's gold resource at Busang was a massive fraud. Encouraging gold values were intersected in many drill-holes and the project received a positive technical assessment by Kilborn. Crushed core samples had been falsified by salting with gold that has a wide variety of characteristics that had been subjected to mineralogical examination by Bre-X's consultants. In fact in an old report, found in Bre-X files, a mineralogist had reported that some gold particles in Busang samples had the darker yellow skin compared to the interior and some had delicate morphologies composed of electrum. The yellow rims result from selective leaching of silver from the surface of gold particle during river transport or during supergene (in-situ) processes. Electrum is inconsistent with an alluvial origin. The mineralogy gave no indication that it was alluvial gold and was consistent with the assumed origin of the samples. None of the mineralogists who studied the gold grains gave any indication that the gold was not consistent with a hard rock origin. The salting of crushed core samples with gold constitutes the most elaborate fraud in the history of mining. In 1997, Bre-X collapsed and its shares became worthless in one of the biggest stock scandals in Canadian history, and the biggest mining scandal of all time.


title: Bre-X

text: David Walsh founded Bre-X Minerals Ltd. in 1989 as a subsidiary of Bresea Resources Ltd. The company did not make a significant profit before 1993, when Walsh followed the advice of geologist John Felderhof and bought a property in the middle of a jungle near the Busang River in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The first estimate of the site by its project manager (Filipino geologist Michael de Guzman) was approximately 2 million troy ounces.


title: Bre-X

text: The estimate of the site's worth increased over time; in 1995 it was 30 million ounces (850 metric tons); in 1996, 60 million (1,700 metric tons); finally, in 1997, 70 million ounces. The stock was originally listed on the Alberta Stock Exchange in 1989, and subsequently in 1996 on the Toronto Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. The stock price of Bre-X rose to CA$280 per share by 1997 (split adjusted) and at its peak it had a market capitalization equal to US$4.4 billion, equivalent to US$ billion in .


title: Bre-X

text: Some other mineral companies, including Placer Dome, organized failed takeovers, but the Indonesian government of President Suharto also got involved. Stating that a small company like Bre-X could not exploit the site by itself, the Indonesians initially suggested that Bre-X share the site with the large Canadian mining firm Barrick Gold, in association with Suharto's daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana. Bre-X hired Suharto's son Sigit Hardjojudanto to handle their side of the affair. Bob Hasan, another Suharto acquaintance, negotiated a deal whereby Bre-X would have a 45% share, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold would run the mine, and Hasan would get a cut as well. Bre-X would have the land rights for 30 years. The deal was announced February 17, 1997 and Freeport-McMoRan began their initial due diligence evaluation of the site.


title: Bre-X

text: The fraud began to unravel rapidly on March 19, 1997, when Filipino Bre-X geologist Michael de Guzman reportedly committed suicide by jumping from a helicopter in Indonesia.


title: Bre-X

text: A body was found four days later in the jungle, missing the hands and feet, "surgically removed". In addition, the body was reportedly mostly eaten by animals. (According to journalist John McBeth, a body had gone missing from the morgue of the town from which the helicopter flew. The remains of "de Guzman" were found only 400 metres from a logging road. No one saw the body except another Filipino geologist who claimed it was de Guzman. And one of the five women who considered themselves his wife was receiving monetary payments from somebody long after the supposed death of de Guzman.)


title: Bre-X

text: A week later, on March 26, 1997, the American firm Freeport-McMoRan, a prospective partner in developing Busang, announced that its own due-diligence core samples, led by Australian geologist Colin Jones, showed "insignificant amounts of gold". A frenzied sell-off of shares ensued and Suharto postponed signing the mining deal. Bre-X demanded more reviews and commissioned a review of the test drilling. Results were not favorable to them, and on April 1, 1997, Bre-X refused to comment. Canadian gold analyst Egizio Bianchini, of BMO Nesbitt Burns, considered the rumors "preposterous". A third-party independent company, Strathcona Minerals, was brought in to make its own analysis. They published their results on May 4, 1997: the Busang ore samples had been salted with gold dust. The lab's tests showed that gold in one hole had been shaved off gold jewelry though it has never been proved at what stage this gold had been added to those samples. This gold also occurred in quantities that did not support the actual original assays. Trading in Bre-X was soon suspended on the TSE and NASDAQ, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection.


title: Bre-X

text: By May, Bre-X faced a number of lawsuits and angry investors who had lost billions. Among the major losers were three Canadian public sector organizations: The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Board (loss of $45 million), the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Quebec Public Sector Pension fund ($70 million), and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan ($100 million). There was fallout in the Canadian financial sector also; the fraud proved a major embarrassment for Peter Munk, the head of Barrick Gold, as well as for the then-head of the Toronto Stock Exchange (resulting in his ousting by 1999), and began a tumultuous realignment of the Canadian stock exchanges.


title: Bre-X

text: Walsh moved to the Bahamas in 1998, still professing his innocence. Two masked gunmen broke into his home in Nassau, tying him up, and threatened to shoot him unless he turned over all his money. The incident ended peacefully but three weeks later, on June 4, 1998, Walsh died of a brain aneurysm.


title: Bre-X

text: In 1999 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced it was ending its investigation without laying criminal charges against anyone. Critics charged that the RCMP was underfunded and understaffed to handle complex criminal fraud cases, and also charged that Canadian laws in this area were inadequate. However, despite the dropping of criminal charges, civil class action suits against Bre-X directors, advising financial firms and Kilborn continued.


title: Bre-X

text: In May 1999, the Ontario Securities Commission charged Felderhof with insider trading. No other member of Bre-X's board of directors, or others associated with the Busang project, were charged by the OSC. The OSC admitted that there is no evidence that Felderhof was either involved in the fraud or was aware of the fraud. The trial was suspended in April 2001 when the OSC tried to have presiding judge Justice Peter Hryn removed for alleged bias against the prosecution. This was denied by an independent judge, and on December 10, 2003 the appeal was also denied by a panel of judges.


title: Bre-X

text: The trial resumed in 2005. Felderhof attended, without testifying, a number of the Court hearings as the six-year case made its way through the system. The basis of the OSC action as well as the civil class-action suits is the alleged existence of numerous and obvious "red flags", as detailed by Strathcona Minerals, which should have been recognized.


title: Bre-X

text: Begun in 2001, the trial of John Felderhof was concluded on Tuesday, July 31, 2007, with a not-guilty verdict of illegal insider trading. Days after the verdict, the OSC also decided not to appeal the decision, a landmark victory for Felderhof and his lawyer, Toronto-based Joseph Groia. A class-action lawsuit was discontinued by court order in early 2014; $3.5 million (CAN) damages were donated to charity and the University of Ottawa since funds were deemed too low to be meaningfully distributed amongst the large number of plaintiffs.


title: Bre-X

text: The Bre-X mining fraud convinced Canadians to regulate professional geology in Canada. The Securities regulation National Instrument 43-101 was created in the wake of the Bre-X fraud to protect investors from unsubstantiated mineral project disclosures.


title: Bre-X

text: The film "Gold", a dramatization derived from the Bre-X story, was released world-wide on January 27, 2017. For legal reasons, and to enhance the appeal of the film to American audiences, the film's producers denied that the film was in any way connected to the Canadian Bre-X story.


title: Stroke volume

text: In cardiovascular physiology, stroke volume (SV) is the volume of blood pumped from the left ventricle per beat. Stroke volume is calculated using measurements of ventricle volumes from an echocardiogram and subtracting the volume of the blood in the ventricle at the end of a beat (called end-systolic volume) from the volume of blood just prior to the beat (called end-diastolic volume). The term "stroke volume" can apply to each of the two ventricles of the heart, although it usually refers to the left ventricle. The stroke volumes for each ventricle are generally equal, both being approximately 70 mL in a healthy 70-kg man.


title: Stroke volume

text: Stroke volume is an important determinant of cardiac output, which is the product of stroke volume and heart rate, and is also used to calculate ejection fraction, which is stroke volume divided by end-diastolic volume. Because stroke volume decreases in certain conditions and disease states, stroke volume itself correlates with cardiac function.


title: Stroke volume

text: Its value is obtained by subtracting end-systolic volume (ESV) from end-diastolic volume (EDV) for a given ventricle.


title: Stroke volume

text: In a healthy 70-kg man, ESV is approximately 50 mL and EDV is approximately 120mL, giving a difference of 70 mL for the stroke volume.


title: Stroke volume

text: Men, on average, have higher stroke volumes than women due to the larger size of their hearts. However, stroke volume depends on several factors such as heart size, contractility, duration of contraction, preload (end-diastolic volume), and afterload. Corresponding to the oxygen uptake, women's need for blood flow does not decrease and a higher cardiac frequency makes up for their smaller stroke volume.


title: Stroke volume

text: Prolonged aerobic exercise training may also increase stroke volume, which frequently results in a lower (resting) heart rate. Reduced heart rate prolongs ventricular diastole (filling), increasing end-diastolic volume, and ultimately allowing more blood to be ejected.


title: Stroke volume

text: Stroke volume is intrinsically controlled by preload (the degree to which the ventricles are stretched prior to contracting). An increase in the volume or speed of venous return will increase preload and, through the Frank–Starling law of the heart, will increase stroke volume. Decreased venous return has the opposite effect, causing a reduction in stroke volume.


title: Stroke volume

text: Elevated afterload (commonly measured as the aortic pressure during systole) reduces stroke volume. It usually does not affect stroke volume in healthy individuals, but increased afterload will hinder the ventricles in ejecting blood, causing reduced stroke volume. Increased afterload may be found in aortic stenosis and arterial hypertension.


title: Stroke volume

text: Similar to cardiac index, stroke volume index is a method of relating the stroke volume (SV) to the size of the person body surface area (BSA).


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The Minnesota Starvation Experiment, also known as the Minnesota Semi-Starvation Experiment, the Minnesota Starvation-Recovery Experiment and the Starvation Study, was a clinical study performed at the University of Minnesota between November 19, 1944 and December 20, 1945. The investigation was designed to determine the physiological effects of severe and prolonged dietary restriction and the effectiveness of dietary rehabilitation strategies.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The purpose of the study was twofold: first, to produce a definitive treatise on the physical and psychological effects of prolonged, famine-like semi-starvation on healthy men, as well as subsequent effectiveness of dietary rehabilitation from this condition and, second, to use the scientific results produced to guide the Allied relief assistance to famine victims in Europe and Asia at the end of World War II. It was recognized early in 1944 that millions of people were in grave danger of mass famine as a result of the conflict, and information was needed regarding the effects of semi-starvation—and the impact of various rehabilitation strategies—if postwar relief efforts were to be effective.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The study was developed in coordination with the Civilian Public Service (CPS, 1941–1947) of conscientious objectors and the Selective Service System and used 36 men selected from a pool of over 200 CPS volunteers.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The study was divided into four phases: A twelve-week baseline control phase; a 24-week starvation phase, causing each participant to lose an average of 25% of his pre-starvation body weight; and 2 recovery phases, in which various rehabilitative diets were tried. The first rehabilitative stage was restricted by eating 2,000-3,000 calories a day. The second rehab phase was unrestricted letting the subjects eat as much food as they would like.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Preliminary pamphlets containing key results from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were used by aid workers in Europe and Asia in the months after WWII. In 1950, Ancel Keys and colleagues published the results in a two-volume, 1,385 page text entitled "The Biology of Human Starvation" (University of Minnesota Press).


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: This study was independent of the much broader Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study performed in 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto by 28 doctors of The Jewish Hospital in Warsaw. Their results were published in 1946.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Physiologist Ancel Keys was the lead investigator of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. He was directly responsible for the X-ray analysis and administrative work and the general supervision of the activities in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene which he had founded at the University of Minnesota in 1940 after leaving positions at Harvard's Fatigue Laboratory and the Mayo Clinic. Starting in 1941, he served as a special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of War and worked with the Army to develop rations for troops in combat, the K-rations. Keys was Director for the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene for 26 years, retired in 1972 and died in 2004 at the age of 100.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Olaf Mickelsen, a biochemist with a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1939, was responsible for the chemical analyses conducted in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene during the Starvation Study, and the daily dietary regime of the CPS subjects—including the supervision of the kitchen and its staff. During the study, he was an associate professor of biochemistry and physiological hygiene at the University of Minnesota.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Henry Longstreet Taylor, with a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1941, had the major responsibility of recruiting the 36 CPS volunteers and maintaining the morale of the participants and their involvement in the study. During the study he collaborated with Austin Henschel in conducting the physical performance, respiration and postural tests. He joined the faculty at the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene, where he held a joint appointment with the Department of Physiology. His research concentrated on problems in cardiovascular physiology, temperature regulation, metabolism, nutrition, aging, and cardiovascular epidemiology.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Austin Henschel shared the responsibility of screening the CPS volunteers with Taylor for selection, had charge of the blood morphology, and scheduling all the tests and measurements of the subjects during the course of the study. He was a member of the faculty in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Josef Brožek (1914–2004) was responsible for psychological studies during the Starvation Study, including the psychomotor tests, anthropometric measurements, and statistical analysis of the results. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1937 and emigrated to the United States in 1939. He joined the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota in 1941, where he served in a succession of positions over a 17-year period. His research concerned malnutrition and behavior, visual illumination and performance, and aging.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The experiment was planned in cooperation with the Civilian Public Service (CPS) and the Selective Service System, using volunteers selected from the ranks of conscientious objectors who had been inducted into public wartime service. Ancel Keys obtained approval from the War Department to select participants from the CPS. Availability of a sufficient number of healthy volunteers willing to subject themselves to the year-long invasion of privacy, nutritional deprivation, and physical and mental hardship was essential for the successful execution of the experiment.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: In early 1944, a recruitment brochure was drafted and distributed within the network of CPS work camps throughout the United States. Over 400 men volunteered to participate in the study as an alternative to military service; of these, about 100 were selected for examination. Drs. Taylor, Brožek, and Henschel from the Minnesota Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene traveled to the various CPS units to interview the potential candidates and administer physical and psychological tests to the volunteers. Thirty-six men were ultimately selected who demonstrated evidence of the required mental and physical health, the ability to get along reasonably well within a group while enduring deprivation and hardship, and sufficient commitment to the relief and rehabilitation objectives of the investigation to complete the study. All subjects were white males, with ages ranging from 22 to 33 years old.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Of the 36 volunteer subjects, 15 were members of the Historic Peace Churches (Mennonites, Church of the Brethren and Quakers). Others there included Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and one of each who was Jewish, Episcopalian, Evangelical & Reformed, Disciples of Christ, Congregational, and Evangelical Mission Covenant, along with two participants without a declared religion.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The 36 CPS participants in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were: William Anderson, Harold Blickenstaff, Wendell Burrous, Edward Cowles, George Ebeling, Carlyle Frederick, Jasper Garner, Lester Glick, James Graham, Earl Heckman, Roscoe Hinkle, Max Kampelman, Sam Legg, Phillip Liljengren, Howard Lutz, Robert McCullagh, William McReynolds, Dan Miller, L. Wesley Miller, Richard Mundy, Daniel Peacock, James Plaugher, Woodrow Rainwater, Donald Sanders, Cedric (Henry) Scholberg, Charles Smith, William Stanton, Raymond Summers, Marshall Sutton, Kenneth Tuttle, Robert Villwock, William Wallace, Franklin Watkins, W. Earl Weygandt, Robert Wiloughby, and Gerald Wilsnack.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The 12-month clinical study was performed at the University of Minnesota between November 19, 1944 and December 20, 1945.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Throughout the duration of the study each man was assigned specific work tasks, was expected to walk each week and required to keep a personal diary. An extensive battery of tests was periodically administered, including the collection of metabolic and physical measurements; X-ray examinations; treadmill performance; and intelligence and psychological evaluation.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: During the starvation period, the subjects received two meals per day designed to induce the same level of nutritional stress for each participant. Since each subject had distinct metabolic characteristics, the diet of each man was adjusted throughout the starvation period to produce roughly a 25% total weight loss over the 24-week period.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The researchers tracked each subject's weight as a function of time elapsed since the beginning of the starvation period. For each subject, the weight versus time plot was expected—as well as enforced—to form a particular curve, the "prediction weight-loss curve", whose characteristics were decided before the commencement of the experiment. The postulated curves turned out to be quite predictive for most subjects. If a subject did veer off his curve in any given week, his caloric intake for the next week would be adjusted, by varying the amount of bread and potatoes, to bring him back to the curve; however, the required adjustments were usually minor. The shapes of the curves were chosen "based on the concept that the rate of weight loss would progressively decrease and reach a relative plateau" at the final weight.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: For each subject, the weight vs. time curve was taken to be quadratic in time (in fact, an upward-opening parabola) with the minimum located at 24 weeks, at which point the weight is supposed to be equal to the final target body weight (the minimum is where the curve has zero slope; this corresponds to the "plateau" mentioned above). Mathematically, this means that the curve for each subject was given by


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: where formula_2 is the time (measured in weeks) elapsed since the beginning of the starvation period, formula_3 is the subject's weight at time formula_2, and formula_5 is the final weight that the subject was supposed to reach at the end of the 24-week period. The constant formula_6 is determined by the requirement that formula_7 be the initial weight formula_8, i.e. by solving


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Preliminary pamphlets containing key results from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were produced and used extensively by aid workers in Europe and Asia in the months after World War II.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The full report of results from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment was published 5 years later, in 1950 in a two-volume, 1,385-page text titled "The Biology of Human Starvation", University of Minnesota Press. The 50-chapter work contains an extensive analysis of the physiological and psychological data collected during the study, and a comprehensive literature review.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Two subjects were dismissed for failing to maintain the dietary restrictions imposed during the starvation phase of the experiment, and the data for two others were not used in the analysis of the results.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis as measured using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Indeed, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: The rehab phase proved to be psychologically the hardest phase for most of the men with extreme effects including self-mutilation, where one subject, Sam Legg, amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe, though the subject was unsure if he had done so intentionally or accidentally. Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation. The participants reported a decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities, although the standardized tests administered showed no actual signs of diminished capacity. There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject's basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest), reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate. Some of the subjects exhibited edema in their extremities, presumably due to decreased levels of plasma proteins given that the body's ability to construct key proteins like albumin is based on available energy sources.


title: Minnesota Starvation Experiment

text: One of the crucial observations of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment discussed by a number of researchers in the nutritional sciences—including Ancel Keys—is that the physical effects of the induced semi-starvation during the study closely approximate the conditions experienced by people with a range of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. As a result of the study it has been postulated that many of the profound social and psychological effects of these disorders may result from undernutrition, and recovery depends on physical re-nourishment as well as psychological treatment.


title: Emancipation

text: Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchised group, or more generally, in discussion of many matters.


title: Emancipation

text: Among others, Karl Marx discussed political emancipation in his 1844 essay "On the Jewish Question", although often in addition to (or in contrast with) the term "human emancipation". Marx's views of political emancipation in this work were summarized by one writer as entailing "equal status of individual citizens in relation to the state, equality before the law, regardless of religion, property, or other 'private' characteristics of individual people."


title: Emancipation

text: "Political emancipation" as a phrase is less common in modern usage, especially outside academic, foreign or activist contexts. However, similar concepts may be referred to by other terms. For instance, in the United States the Civil Rights Movement culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which can collectively be seen as further realization of events such as the Emancipation Proclamation and abolition of slavery a century earlier. In the current and former British West Indies islands the holiday Emancipation Day is celebrated to mark the end of the Atlantic slave trade.


title: Emancipation

text: The term "emancipation" derives from ēmancĭpo/ēmancĭpatio (the act of liberating a child from parental authority) which in turn stems from "ē manu capere" ('capture from someone else's hand').


title: Electrical reactance

text: In electrical circuits, reactance is the opposition presented to alternating current by inductance or capacitance. Greater reactance gives smaller current for the same applied voltage. Reactance is similar to resistance in this respect, but does not lead to dissipation of electrical energy as heat; instead, energy is momentarily stored in the reactance, and a quarter-cycle later returned to the circuit.


title: Electrical reactance

text: Reactance is used to compute amplitude and phase changes of sinusoidal alternating current going through a circuit element. Like resistance, reactance is measured in ohms, with positive values indicating "inductive" reactance and negative indicating "capacitive" reactance. It is denoted by the symbol formula_1. An ideal resistor has zero reactance, whereas ideal inductors and capacitors have zero resistance. As frequency increases, inductive reactance increases and capacitive reactance decreases.


title: Electrical reactance

text: Reactance is similar to resistance in that larger reactance leads to smaller currents for the same applied voltage. Further, a circuit made entirely of elements that have only reactance (and no resistance) can be treated the same way as a circuit made entirely of resistances. These same techniques can also be used to combine elements with reactance with elements with resistance but complex numbers are typically needed. This is treated below in the section on impedance.


title: Electrical reactance

text: There are several important differences between reactance and resistance, though. First, reactance changes the phase so that the current through the element is shifted by a quarter of a cycle relative to the phase of the voltage applied across the element. Second, power is not dissipated in a purely reactive element but is stored instead. Third, reactances can be negative so that they can 'cancel' each other out. Finally, the main circuit elements that have reactance (capacitors and inductors) have a frequency dependent reactance, unlike resistors which have the same resistance for all frequencies, at least in the ideal case.


title: Electrical reactance

text: The term "reactance" was first suggested by French engineer M. Hospitalier in "L'Industrie Electrique" on 10 May 1893. It was officially adopted by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in May 1894.


title: Electrical reactance

text: "Capacitive reactance" is an opposition to the change of voltage across an element. Capacitive reactance formula_2 is inversely proportional to the signal frequency formula_3 (or angular frequency formula_4) and the capacitance formula_5.


title: Electrical reactance

text: There are two choices in the literature for defining reactance for a capacitor. One is to use a uniform notion of reactance as the imaginary part of impedance, in which case the reactance of a capacitor is the negative number,


title: Electrical reactance

text: In this case however one needs to remember to add a negative sign for the impedance of a capacitor, i.e. formula_8.


title: Electrical reactance

text: At formula_9, the magnitude of the capacitor's reactance is infinite, behaving like an open circuit (preventing any current from flowing through the dielectric). As frequency increases, the magnitude of reactance decreases, allowing more current to flow. As formula_3 approaches formula_11, the capacitor's reactance approaches formula_12, behaving like a short circuit.


title: Electrical reactance

text: The application of a DC voltage across a capacitor causes positive charge to accumulate on one side and negative charge to accumulate on the other side; the electric field due to the accumulated charge is the source of the opposition to the current. When the potential associated with the charge exactly balances the applied voltage, the current goes to zero.


title: Electrical reactance

text: Driven by an AC supply (ideal AC current source), a capacitor will only accumulate a limited amount of charge before the potential difference changes polarity and the charge is returned to the source. The higher the frequency, the less charge will accumulate and the smaller the opposition to the current.


title: Electrical reactance

text: Inductive reactance is a property exhibited by an inductor, and inductive reactance exists based on the fact that an electric current produces a magnetic field around it. In the context of an AC circuit (although this concept applies any time current is changing), this magnetic field is constantly changing as a result of current that oscillates back and forth. It is this change in magnetic field that induces another electric current to flow in the same wire (counter-EMF), in a direction such as to oppose the flow of the current originally responsible for producing the magnetic field (known as Lenz's Law). Hence, "inductive reactance" is an opposition to the change of current through an element.


title: Electrical reactance

text: For an ideal inductor in an AC circuit, the inhibitive effect on change in current flow results in a delay, or a phase shift, of the alternating current with respect to alternating voltage. Specifically, an ideal inductor (with no resistance) will cause the current to lag the voltage by a quarter cycle, or 90°.


title: Electrical reactance

text: In electric power systems, inductive reactance (and capacitive reactance, however inductive reactance is more common) can limit the power capacity of an AC transmission line, because power is not completely transferred when voltage and current are out-of-phase (detailed above). That is, current will flow for an out-of-phase system, however real power at certain times will not be transferred, because there will be points during which instantaneous current is positive while instantaneous voltage is negative, or vice versa, implying negative power transfer. Hence, real work is not performed when power transfer is "negative". However, current still flows even when a system is out-of-phase, which causes transmission lines to heat up due to current flow. Consequently, transmission lines can only heat up so much (or else they would physically sag too much, due to the heat expanding the metal transmission lines), so transmission line operators have a "ceiling" on the amount of current that can flow through a given line, and excessive inductive reactance can limit the power capacity of a line. Power providers utilize capacitors to shift the phase and minimize the losses, based on usage patterns.


title: Electrical reactance

text: Inductive reactance formula_13 is proportional to the sinusoidal signal frequency formula_3 and the inductance formula_15, which depends on the physical shape of the inductor:


title: Electrical reactance

text: The average current flowing through an inductance formula_15 in series with a sinusoidal AC voltage source of RMS amplitude formula_18 and frequency formula_3 is equal to:


title: Electrical reactance

text: Because a square wave has multiple amplitudes at sinusoidal harmonics, the average current flowing through an inductance formula_15 in series with a square wave AC voltage source of RMS amplitude formula_18 and frequency formula_3 is equal to:


title: Electrical reactance

text: making it appear as if the inductive reactance to a square wave was about 19% smaller formula_25 than the reactance to the AC sine wave.


title: Electrical reactance

text: Any conductor of finite dimensions has inductance; the inductance is made larger by the multiple turns in an electromagnetic coil. Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction gives the counter-emf formula_26 (voltage opposing current) due to a rate-of-change of magnetic flux density formula_27 through a current loop.


title: Electrical reactance

text: When both a capacitor and an inductor are placed in series in a circuit, their contributions to the total circuit impedance are opposite. Capacitive reactance formula_2 and inductive reactance formula_13 contribute to the total reactance formula_1 as follows:


title: Electrical reactance

text: Note however that if formula_13 and formula_2 are assumed both positive by definition, then the intermediary formula changes to a difference:


title: Electrical reactance

text: The phase of the voltage across a purely reactive device (i.e. with zero parasitic resistance) "lags" the current by formula_53 radians for a capacitive reactance and "leads" the current by formula_53 radians for an inductive reactance. Without knowledge of both the resistance and reactance the relationship between voltage and current cannot be determined.


title: Electrical reactance

text: The origin of the different signs for capacitive and inductive reactance is the phase factor formula_55 in the impedance.


title: Electrical reactance

text: For a reactive component the sinusoidal voltage across the component is in quadrature (a formula_53 phase difference) with the sinusoidal current through the component. The component alternately absorbs energy from the circuit and then returns energy to the circuit, thus a pure reactance does not dissipate power.


title: Two Night Stand

text: Two Night Stand is a 2014 American romantic comedy film directed by Max Nichols, written by Mark Hammer, and starring Miles Teller, Lio Tipton, Jessica Szohr, Leven Rambin, and Scott Mescudi.


title: Two Night Stand

text: On November 10, 2013, it was announced that there were two offers for the rights of the film in the US. Entertainment One acquired the rights to distribute the film in the US on November 21, 2013, for a release in 2014.


title: Two Night Stand

text: Megan is unemployed and single, and one day she joins a dating website. Her roommates, who just want her to move out, invite her to a party at a club. After a bouncer refuses to let her into the club on the grounds that she looks too young and she did not have her ID, she runs into her ex-fiancé, Chris, and later decides to have a one-night stand with one of the men she found on the website, Alec.


title: Two Night Stand

text: The next morning, they are less than cordial to each other, but Megan is unable to leave because of a blizzard. Forced to spend more time together, the two end up telling each other what they did wrong the previous night, convinced that they will never see each other again, and Megan suggests that they "try again". The two have sex again, with far better results.


title: Two Night Stand

text: Afterwards, Megan discovers a closet full of women's clothes, and pictures of Alec with a girl. She finds out that Alec's girlfriend, Daisy, had written a note to him, saying that she wanted to break up, but had not given it to him, but he had found it accidentally. Alec wanted to have something to rub in her face when she broke up with him, and so he had joined the dating website. Angry, Megan leaves.


title: Two Night Stand

text: When Daisy returns, she finds a note that Megan had scribbled, and she and Alec exchange the notes that they had found, and they break up. At a New Year's Eve party, Megan is arrested because the same note was found in Alec's neighbor's apartment, which the two had broken into earlier. Alec arrives to the prison with flowers and balloons. He pays bail, but Megan refuses to see him or even leave the holding cell.


title: Two Night Stand

text: Later, when her roommates come to pay bail, Alec apologizes, saying that he did not know her last name and that this was the only way he thought he could see her again. He says that it might be something that the two of them would laugh about years later, but Megan is still angry because she had to spend time in jail. She makes him a deal, asking for his number and promising to call him the moment she laughed about it. She takes a closer look at the presents he gave her. Minutes later, she starts laughing upon seeing the balloon read "I'm sorry, I'm an asshole" and calls Alec. He meets her outside the police station and they kiss in the middle of the road, when it starts snowing again.


title: Two Night Stand

text: The plot would eventually mirror a natural disaster the production faced once it came time to shoot. "The script was one out of a hundred where I thought, 'I have to do this movie, Nichols said. "I was intrigued from the very premise. The characters are smart and funny, but the story digs much deeper ... It reminded me of coming-of-age stories from my youth." Nichols read the script, which appeared on The Black List in December 2011, and pitched his vision of the story to producers Beau Flynn, Ruben Fleischer and Adam Yoelin. "I was shooting a Willie Nelson video in Austin, TX in May [2012] and got a call that I [was on board]", said Nichols. "We immediately started casting the film and were lucky to have a lot of talented actors and actresses who were interested, but there was something about [Lio] Tipton's 'Megan' that caught my attention." Nichols said it was "essential" that her character's "date" Alec understand that "he's never met a girl like her and can't let her go." Miles Teller joined the cast soon afterward as Alec and the rest of casting was completed in late summer.


title: Two Night Stand

text: After the primary cast was in place, producers went off "to work their [financing] magic", said Nichols, and the shoot was scheduled for October 2012, which coincided with Hurricane Sandy. "Production had to go down for two days", Nichols said. "After it was over we had the challenge of a gas shortage which meant no power for our generators and trucks." The "Two Night Stand" shoot was only scheduled to take 19 days and some of the planned locations were without electricity post-storm. "[Lio] and Miles were staying downtown in an apartment and were stranded there without power", added Nichols, giving the actors a real-life parallel to their characters' own predicament. Production managed to recoup its time-loss and Nichols bunkered down with editor Matt Garner at Harbor Picture Company to edit.


title: Two Night Stand

text: "Two Night Stand" premiered at the American Film Market in early 2014 and distributor eOne came on board soon after its screening at The Grove. The film opened in limited release on September 26, 2014 before release on iTunes and video on demand a week later on October 3.


title: Two Night Stand

text: The film received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 38%, based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 4.89/10. The consensus reads: ""Two Night Stand" proves even a pair of well-matched leads isn't enough to take a rom-com all the way from interesting idea to watchable feature." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 45 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: The Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog, (), also called Maremmano, the Maremma Sheepdog or Abruzzese Sheepdog, and Cane da Pastore Abruzzese or Pastore Abruzzese ("Abruzzese Sheepdog" and "Abruzzese Shepherd", respectively) is an Italian breed of livestock guardian dog. It is frequently described as a “gentle giant” due to its large size and passive and gentle nature (and also due to its Abruzzese origin, as residents of Abruzzo are known stereotypically as “strong but kind”, a descriptor utilized by Primo Levi). It is indigenous to central Italy and northern areas of Southern Italy, particularly to Abruzzo and to the Maremma region of Tuscany and Lazio. It has been used for centuries by Italian shepherds to guard sheep from wolves. The literal English translation of the name is "shepherd dog of the Maremma and Abruzzo". The English name of the breed derives from that of the Maremma marshlands where, until recently, shepherds, dogs and hundreds of thousands of sheep over-wintered, and where the dogs are still abundant although sheep-farming has decreased substantially. It is widely employed in Abruzzo, where sheep herding remains vital to the rural economy and the wolf remains an active and protected predator.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: It may share a common ancestor with other breeds of similar appearance including the Pyrenean Mountain Dog, the Kuvasz of Hungary, the Polish Tatra Sheepdog, the Slovenský Cuvac of Slovakia, the Šarplaninac (although that is not white), and to the Akbash of Turkey.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: Descriptions of white flock guardian dogs are found in ancient Roman literature, in works such as those of Columella, Varro and Palladius. Similar dogs are depicted in numerous sculptures and paintings from Roman times to the present. Among the earliest is the series of large statues (two in Rome, one in Florence, one – the Duncombe Dog – in England) copied from a Hellenistic bronze from Pergamon.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: The first registration of the Maremmano in the Libro delle Origini Italiano of the Kennel Club Italiano, as it was then called, was of four dogs in 1898. There were no further registrations for many years. In 1940 there were 17 dogs registered. The first standard for the breed was drawn up in 1924 by Luigi Groppi and Giuseppe Solaro.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: Until 1958 the Pastore Maremmano, or shepherd dog of the Maremma, and the Pastore Abruzzese, or shepherd dog of the Abruzzi, were regarded as separate breeds. A breeder's society for the Pastore Abruzzese was formed in 1950, and one for the Maremmano in 1953. On 1 January 1958 the breeds were unified by the ENCI, the Ente Nazionale della Cinofilia Italiano, the national dog association of Italy. The explanation given is that a "natural fusion" of the two types had occurred as a result of movement of the dogs due to transhumance of sheep flocks from one region to another, particularly after the unification of Italy. Until 1860, the mountains of the Abruzzo and the plains of the Maremma lay in different countries. While some older publications refer to the Maremmano and Abruzzese as independent breeds combined to create the Maremmano-Abruzzese, it has been noted that the shorter-haired Maremmano was only ever observed during the winter months, when flocks were grazed on their winter pastures on the milder coastal Tuscany, whilst the supposedly longer-bodied Abruzzese was only observed in the summer months, when flocks were grazed in the Abruzzi mountains.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: As sheep farming developed into an annual trek or transhumance from mountain grasslands of Abruzzo and Molise (and other parts of central Italy) south to lower pasture land in Puglia, where sheep were over-wintered, the dogs came to play a central role in the centuries-old migration, an annual event vital to Abruzzese culture. Maremmano dogs continue to be widely used by Italian sheep farmers in areas where predation is common, such as the Apennines of central Italy and the open range land of national parks in Abruzzo. The dogs have also been used to guard animals in Australia, Canada and the United States.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: The Maremmano has a solid, muscular build, a thick white coat, a large head and a black nose. According to the breed standard, males should weigh and stand at the shoulder, while females weigh and stand . Some dogs may be considerably larger. The coat is long and thick; it is rough to the touch, and forms a thick collar around the neck. It should be solid white; some minor yellowing may be tolerated.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: Some divide the breed into various subtypes, largely based on small differences in physical attributes and with subtype names based on village and provincial names where the dogs may be found, e.g. the Maremmano, the Marsicano, the Aquilano, the Pescocostanzo, the Maiella, and the Peligno. However, biologists dispute this division, as well as over-reliance on minor physical differences, as the dogs were bred over the centuries for their behavioral characteristics as flock guardians.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: The traditional use of the Maremmano is as a guardian for the protection of sheep flocks against wolves. Columella, writing in the first century AD, recommends white dogs for this purpose, as the shepherd can easily distinguish them from the wolf, while Varro suggests that white dogs have a "lion-like aspect" in the dark. The dogs work in groups; three or four dogs are an adequate defense against wolves and stray dogs. Their function is mostly one of dissuasion, actual physical combat with the predator being relatively rare. Nevertheless, working dogs may be fitted with a "roccale" (or "vreccale"), a spiked iron collar which protects the neck in combat. The ears of working dogs are normally cropped.


title: Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog

text: Dogs used for flock protection are placed among the sheep as young puppies – no more than 40 days old – so that they bond with them; human contact is kept to the indispensable minimum. If there are already guardian dogs in the flock, the puppy imitates and learns from their behaviour. The traditional use of the Maremmano is with sheep, but the dogs can form a similar bond with cattle and have been used to protect them. A small number have been used since 2006 on Middle Island, off Warrnambool, in Victoria, Australia, to protect a small population of the little penguin ("Eudyptula minor") against foxes. In Patagonia they have been used to protect sheep from pumas.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Brendan Allen (born December 28, 1995) is an American mixed martial artist currently competing in the middleweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. A professional since 2015, he has also competed for the Legacy Fighting Alliance where he is the former Middleweight Champion.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allen was born to Michelle Allen and James Allen of Louisiana. Allen has an older brother, James Jr. Brendan started training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu when he was 13 after watching a jiu-jitsu class with his brother. In high school Allen started competing in Mississippi after had some training in wrestling and boxing. Allen attended university at Southeastern Louisiana University, majoring in criminal justice. He later joined Clementi's Gladiator Academy to train in mixed martial arts. After winning the IMMAF 2015 Amateur Middleweight Championship, Allen turned to compete in professional MMA.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allen started his professional MMA career in 2015 and fought under various promotions in the South. He was the Legacy Fighting Alliance middleweight champion twice, defeating Tim Hiley and Moses Murrietta at LFA 50 and LFA 61, respectively.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allen appeared in Dana White's Contender Series 20 on July 16, 2019 facing Aaron Jeffery. He won the fight via a submission in the first round. With this win, he was awarded a UFC contract.


title: Brendan Allen

text: In his UFC debut, Allen was scheduled to face Eric Spicely on October 18, 2019 at . However, Spicely was forced to withdraw from the event due to an undisclosed reason. Allen instead faced Kevin Holland. He won the fight via a submission in round two.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allen's next fight came on February 29, 2020, facing Tom Breese at . He won the fight by TKO in the first round.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allan was scheduled to face Ian Heinisch on June 27, 2020 at . However, Heinisch pulled out of the match up in mid-June citing an injury and was replaced by promotional newcomer Kyle Daukaus. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Brendan Allen

text: The bout between Heinisch and Allen was rescheduled again on November 7, 2020 at . On the day of the event, the UFC announced the bout was once again canceled due to Heinisch tested positive for COVID-19.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allen faced Karl Roberson on April 24, 2021 at UFC 261. He won the bout via ankle hook submission at the end of the first round.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Replacing injured Anthony Hernandez, Allen faced Punahele Soriano on July 24, 2021 at . Allen won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allen was scheduled to face Brad Tavares on December 4, 2021 at . Tavares pulled out in mid November and was replaced by Roman Dolidze. In turn Dolidze was forced to pull from the bout due to complications in his recovery from COVID-19 and he was replaced by Chris Curtis. Allen lost the fight via technical knockout in round two.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allen faced Sam Alvey, replacing Phil Hawes, on February 5, 2022 at UFC Fight Night 200. He won the fight via rear-naked choke submission in the second round.


title: Brendan Allen

text: Allen faced Krzysztof Jotko on October 1, 2022 at . He won the bout at the end of the first round, submitting Jotko via rear-naked choke. This win earned him the "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Very Bad Things

text: Very Bad Things is a 1998 American black comedy film written and directed by Peter Berg in his feature film directorial debut and starring Cameron Diaz, Jon Favreau, Daniel Stern, Jeremy Piven, Christian Slater, Leland Orser, Kobe Tai and Jeanne Tripplehorn.


title: Very Bad Things

text: Kyle Fisher organizes a bachelor party in a Las Vegas hotel with his friends: Charles, Robert, and brothers Adam and Michael. Tina, a stripper/prostitute, is accidentally killed by Michael in the bathroom. Soon after, a security guard comes to investigate the ruckus and discovers Tina's corpse. In desperation, Robert stabs the guard to death. He then convinces the group to dismember the bodies, bury them in the desert, and never speak of it again.


title: Very Bad Things

text: At the rehearsal dinner, Adam cracks under the pressure from guilt, leading to a confrontation with Michael outside, with Adam threatening to turn him over to the police. Michael is convinced to leave, however while leaving, he turns to ram Adam's beloved minivan. Adam runs in front of his van and is crushed in the collision. In the hospital, Adam whispers something to his wife Lois before dying, as Robert looks on through a glass window.


title: Very Bad Things

text: Lois demands answers about what happened in Las Vegas when she finds a written confession by Adam. Kyle makes up a story about Adam sleeping with a prostitute. Robert, suspecting she does not believe them, kills Lois, later framing Michael by luring him to Lois' house, where he kills him. He concocts a story about a Michael/Lois/Adam love triangle to answer any interrogation by police. After these events and being named beneficiary of Adam and Lois' estate, Kyle breaks down and confesses the story to his fiancée Laura, who demands that her dream wedding proceed as planned.


title: Very Bad Things

text: On the wedding day, Robert confronts Kyle, demanding the money from Adam's life insurance policy. He refuses and a fight ensues which ends with Laura bludgeoning Robert. During the ceremony, Kyle and Charles realize that Robert has the wedding rings. Charles goes to retrieve them, opening a door that knocks Robert down a stairwell where he dies. Laura demands Kyle bury his body in the desert and then ensure no loose ends remain by killing Charles. Ultimately, he cannot go through with it and as he drives home, he crashes into an oncoming car.


title: Very Bad Things

text: After the collision, Kyle's legs are amputated below the knee and Charles is a quadriplegic confined to a motorized wheelchair, leaving Laura to care for both of them, in addition to raising Adam and Lois's sons. As Laura watches Kyle with the two boys, it hits her that her life and dreams are totally ruined and has a nervous breakdown as she runs out of the house and collapses screaming in the street.


title: Very Bad Things

text: "Very Bad Things" was noted for having a very similar plot setup to "Stag", a film which originally aired on HBO in June 1997. Director Peter Berg told "The A.V. Club" in 1998, "See, the first time I'd ever heard about "Stag" was after I had finished writing the screenplay for "Very Bad Things". When we were at the point of getting the film financed, we had a lawyer look over the script and the film to make sure there weren't too many similarities. I mean, there were things we had to change; for example, one of the characters in the movie was a baker, and there was also a baker in our script, so we had to change some very minor things. But as far as I understand it, the two films take very different approaches to the material. I will say this: I think it would be interesting to get, like, three different directors—say, Soderbergh, Spielberg, and Coppola—and have them all tell the exact same story in a different way."


title: Very Bad Things

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 41% based on reviews from 58 critics, with the consensus, "Mean-spirited and empty". On Metacritic it has a score of 31% based on reviews from 24 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "D+" on scale of A to F.


title: Very Bad Things

text: Roger Ebert wrote that "Very Bad Things" is "not a bad movie, just a reprehensible one". Some critics appreciated the cold-blooded approach. Maitland McDonagh of "TV Guide" wrote, "In a world filled with crude movie sitcoms, Berg's bitter, worst-possible-case scenario really does stand alone".


title: Very Bad Things

text: Some critics have viewed the film more favorably in the years since its release. In a retrospective for Daily Grindhouse, Preston Fassel praised the film as a critique of bro culture, writing "it’s the perfect deconstruction of the responsibility-free bro-comedy, a movie that looks at the real-life consequences of so much 'innocent' bad behavior," comparing its philosophy to the Homer's Enemy episode of The Simpsons and calling it "the brilliant anti-comedy we need today."


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: In Egyptian history, the Upper and Lower Egypt period (also known as The Two Lands) was the final stage of prehistoric Egypt and directly preceded the unification of the realm. The conception of Egypt as the Two Lands was an example of the dualism in ancient Egyptian culture and frequently appeared in texts and imagery, including in the titles of Egyptian pharaohs.


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: The Egyptian title "zmꜣ-tꜣwj" (Egyptological pronunciation "sema-tawy") is usually translated as "Uniter of the Two Lands" and was depicted as a human trachea entwined with the papyrus and lily plant. The trachea stood for unification, while the papyrus and lily plant represent Lower and Upper Egypt.


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: Standard titles of the pharaoh included the prenomen, quite literally "Of the Sedge and Bee" (nswt-bjtj, the symbols of Upper and Lower Egypt) and "lord of the Two Lands" (written "nb-tꜣwj"). Queens regnant were addressed as pharaohs and male. Queens consort might use a feminine versions of the second title, "lady of The Two Lands" ("nbt-tꜣwj"), mistress of the Entire Two Lands ("hnwt-tꜣwy-tm"), and mistress of the Two Lands ("hnwt-tꜣwy").


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: Ancient Egypt was divided into two regions, namely Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. To the north was Lower Egypt, where the Nile stretched out with its several branches to form the Nile Delta. To the south was Upper Egypt, stretching to Aswan. The terminology "Upper" and "Lower" derives from the flow of the Nile from the highlands of East Africa northwards to the Mediterranean Sea.


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: The two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united c. 3000 BC, but each maintained its own regalia: the "hedjet" or White Crown for Upper Egypt and the "deshret" or Red Crown for Lower Egypt. Thus, the pharaohs were known as the rulers of the Two Lands, and wore the "pschent", a double crown, each half representing sovereignty of one of the kingdoms. Ancient Egyptian tradition credited Menes, now believed to be the same as Narmer, as the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt. On the Narmer Palette, the king is depicted wearing the Red Crown on one scene and the White crown in another, and thereby showing his rule over both Lands.


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: The union of Upper and Lower Egypt is depicted by knotted papyrus and reed plants. The binding motif represents both harmony through linkage and domination through containment. The duality is an important part of royal iconography. Sometimes, the duality is further extended by having the knotted plants extend and bind foreign foes (both from the North and the South) as well.


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: During the first dynasty, dualistic royal titles emerge, including the King of Upper and Lower Egypt ( "nswt bjtj") title which combines the plant representing Upper Egypt and a bee representing Lower Egypt. The other dualistic title is the Two Ladies name or Nebty name. The two ladies as Nekhbet, the vulture goddess associated with Nekhen in Upper Egypt, and Wadjet, the cobra goddess associated with Buto in Lower Egypt.


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: There are many depictions of the ritual unifications of the Two Lands. It is not known if this was perhaps a rite that would have been enacted at the beginning of a reign, or merely a symbolic representation. Many of the depictions of the unification show two gods binding the plants. Often the gods are Horus and Set, or on occasion Horus and Thoth. There are several examples of Barque stands from the reigns of Amenhotep III (Hermopolis), Taharqa (Jebel Barkal), and Atlanersa (Jebel Barkal) that show two river gods performing the rite. This matches a scene from the Temple at Abu Simbel from the time of Ramesses II.


title: Upper and Lower Egypt

text: There are only a handful of scenes that show the King himself performing the ritual. All of these are from barque stands and date to the reigns of Amenhotep III, Seti I and Ramesses III. The latter two may be copies of the first one.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: Legislative elections will be held in Austria by 2024 to elect the 28th National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: The 2019 legislative election was called after the Ibiza affair, which triggered the collapse of the coalition government between the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The coalition was ousted in a motion of no confidence and replaced by a non-partisan interim government. The election delivered a strong victory for the ÖVP, who rose to 37.5%, while the FPÖ declined to 16%, their worst result since 2006. With 21%, the opposition Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) recorded their worst performance in over a century. The Greens returned to the National Council after falling out in 2017, achieving their best-ever result with 14%. NEOS improved to 8%.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: The ÖVP formed a coalition with The Greens, a first on the federal level in Austria. The new government took office in January 2020, with Sebastian Kurz returning as Chancellor.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: Norbert Hofer announced his resignation as leader of the Freedom Party in June 2021. He was replaced by parliamentary group leader Herbert Kickl, whose dismissal as interior minister caused the collapse of the ÖVP–FPÖ government in 2019.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: On 6 October 2021, agents of the Central Prosecutorial Agency for Corruption and Economic Affairs (WKStA) raided the Federal Chancellery and the headquarters of the ÖVP as part of a corruption probe targeting Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his "inner circle". Prosecutors alleged that, in 2016, Kurz paid bribes to news outlets to publish coverage and opinion polling favourable to himself, the goal of the scheme being to undermine then-ÖVP leader Reinhold Mitterlehner so that Kurz could take his place. The Greens threatened to support a motion of no confidence if Kurz did not step down as Chancellor. He announced his resignation on 9 October and was replaced by foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg. However, he was quickly elected faction leader of the ÖVP in the National Council, and it was widely understood that he would remain "de facto" leader of the government.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: On 2 December, Kurz announced he would resign from all offices and retire from politics, citing a desire to focus on his family after becoming a father. Shortly after, Schallenberg announced he would resign as Chancellor in favour of the new ÖVP leader once one had been elected. On 3 December, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer was unanimously appointed as leader of the ÖVP by the federal party committee and proposed as Chancellor. He was sworn in by President Alexander Van der Bellen on 6 December.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: The 183 members of the National Council are elected by open list proportional representation at three levels; a single national constituency, nine constituencies based on the federal states, and 39 regional constituencies. Seats are apportioned to the regional constituencies based on the results of the most recent census. For parties to receive any representation in the National Council, they must either win at least one seat in a constituency directly, or clear a 4 percent national electoral threshold.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: Following the elections, seats are allocated to the candidates of successful parties and lists in a three-stage process, starting with the regional constituencies. Seats are distributed according to the Hare quota in the regional constituencies, and with unallocated seats distributed at the state constituency level. Any remaining seats are then allocated using the D'Hondt method at the federal level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's national vote share and its share of parliamentary seats.


title: Next Austrian legislative election

text: In addition to voting for a political party, voters may cast three preferential votes for specific candidates of that party, but are not required to do so. These additional votes do not affect the proportional allocation based on the vote for the party or list, but can change the rank order of candidates on a party's lists at the federal, state, and regional level. The threshold to increase the position of a candidate on a federal party list is 7 percent, compared to 10 percent at the state level, and 14 percent at the regional level. The names of candidates on regional party lists are printed on the ballot and can be marked with an "x" to indicate the voter's preference. Preference votes for candidates on party lists at the state and federal level, however, must be written in by the voter, either by writing the name or the rank number of the candidate in a blank spot provided for that purpose.


title: Jumping the broom

text: Jumping the broom (or jumping the besom) is a phrase and custom relating to a wedding ceremony where the couple jumps over a broom. It is now most widespread among African Americans and Black Canadians, popularized in the 1970s by the novel and miniseries "" but originating in the mid 19th century as a practice in antebellum slavery in the United States. The custom is also historically attested in some Irish weddings.


title: Jumping the broom

text: It has been suggested that the custom is based on an 18th-century idiomatic expression for "sham marriage" or "marriage of doubtful validity"; it was popularized in the context of the introduction of civil marriage in Britain with the Marriage Act 1836.


title: Jumping the broom

text: There have also been suggestions that the expression may derive from an actual custom of jumping over a "besom" (where "broom" refers to the plant "common broom" rather than the household implement) associated with the Romanichal Travellers of the United Kingdom, especially those in Wales.


title: Jumping the broom

text: References to "broomstick marriages" emerged in England in the mid-to-late 18th century, always to describe a wedding ceremony of doubtful validity. The earliest use of the phrase is in the 1764 English edition of a French work: the French text, describing an elopement, refers to the runaway couple hastily making "un mariage sur la croix de l'épée" (literally 'marriage on the cross of the sword'), an expression the English translator freely renders as 'performed the marriage ceremony by leaping over a broomstick'.


title: Jumping the broom

text: A 1774 usage in the "Westminster Magazine" also describes an elopement. A man who had taken his underage bride off to France discovered it was as hard to arrange a legal marriage there as in England, but declined a suggestion that a French sexton might simply read the marriage service through before the couple as "He had no inclination for a Broomstick-marriage". In 1789 the rumoured clandestine marriage between the Prince Regent and Maria Fitzherbert is similarly referred to in a satirical song in "The Times": "Their way to consummation was by hopping o'er a broom, sir".


title: Jumping the broom

text: Despite these allusions, research by the legal historian Professor R. Probert of Warwick University has failed to find any proof of an actual contemporary practice of jumping over a broomstick as a sign of informal union. Probert also points out that the word "broomstick" was used in the mid-18th century in several contexts to mean 'something ersatz, or lacking the authority its true equivalent might possess.' She therefore argues that because the expression "broomstick marriage", meaning 'sham marriage', was in circulation, folk etymology led to a belief that people must actually have once signified irregular marriage by jumping over a broom. American historian Tyler D. Parry contests the claim that no actual part of the British custom involved jumping. In his book "Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual", Parry argues that African-Americans and British-Americans engaged in numerous cultural exchanges during the 18th and 19th centuries. He shows many correlations between the ceremonies of enslaved African-Americans and those of the rural British, contending it is not simply coincidental that two groups, separated by an ocean, used similar matrimonial forms revolving around the broomstick. If British practitioners never used a physical leap, Parry wonders how European-Americans and enslaved African-Americans in the American South and rural North America learned of the custom.


title: Jumping the broom

text: There are later examples of the term "broomstick marriage" being used in Britain, always with a similar implication that the ceremony so performed did not create a legally binding union. This meaning survived into the early nineteenth century: during a case heard in London in 1824 regarding the legal validity of a marriage ceremony consisting of nothing more than the groom placing a ring on the bride's finger before witnesses, a court official commented that the ceremony "amounted to nothing more than a broomstick marriage, which the parties had it in their power to dissolve at will."


title: Jumping the broom

text: A decade later, the Marriage Act 1836, which introduced civil marriage, was contemptuously referred to as the 'Broomstick Marriage Act' by those who felt that a marriage outside the Anglican church did not deserve legal recognition. Some also began to use the phrase to refer to non-marital unions: a man interviewed in Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor" admitted: "I never had a wife, but I have had two or three broomstick matches, though they never turned out happy."


title: Jumping the broom

text: Tinkers were said to have a similar custom of marriage called "jumping the budget", with the bride and groom jumping over a string or other symbolic obstacle.


title: Jumping the broom

text: Charles Dickens' novel, "Great Expectations" (first published in serial form in the publication "All the Year Round" from 1 December 1860 to August 1861), contains a reference in chapter 48 to a couple having been married "over the broomstick." The ceremony is not portrayed, but the reference indicates that the readers would have recognized this as referring to an informal, not a legally valid, agreement.


title: Jumping the broom

text: It has often been assumed that, in England, jumping over the broom (or sometimes walking over a broom), always indicated an irregular or non-church union (as in the expressions "Married over the besom" and "living over the brush"), but there are examples of the phrase being used in the context of legal weddings, both religious and civil.


title: Jumping the broom

text: Other sources have stepping over a broom as a test of chastity, while putting out a broom was also said to be a sign "that the housewife's place is vacant" and a way, therefore, of advertising for a wife.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In America and Canada, the phrase could be used as slang describing the act of getting married legally, rather than as specifying an informal union not recognised by church or state.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In Wales, Romani couples would get married by eloping, when they would "jump the broom", or jump over a branch of flowering common broom or a besom made of broom. Welsh Kale and English Romanichals and Romanichal populations in Scotland practiced the ritual into the 1900s.


title: Jumping the broom

text: According to Alan Dundes (1996), the custom originated among Romani people in Wales (Welsh Kale) and England (Romanichal).


title: Jumping the broom

text: C.W. Sullivan III (1997) in a reply to Dundes argued that the custom originated among the Welsh people themselves, known as "priodas coes ysgub" ("besom wedding").


title: Jumping the broom

text: Sullivan's source is the Welsh folklorist Gwenith Gwynn (a.k.a. W. Rhys Jones), who assumed that the custom had once existed on the basis of conversations with elderly Welsh people during the 1920s, none of whom had ever seen such a practice. One had claimed that "It must have disappeared before I was born, and I am seventy-three".


title: Jumping the broom

text: Gwynn's dating of the custom to the 18th century rested on the assumption that it must have disappeared before these elderly interviewees were born, and on his misreading of the baptism register of the parish of Llansantffraid Glyn Ceiriog.


title: Jumping the broom

text: Local variations of the custom were developed in different parts of England and Wales. Instead of placing the broom on the ground and jumping together, the broom was placed in an angle by the doorway. The groom jumped first, followed by the bride. In southwest England, in Wales, and in the border areas between Scotland and England, "[while some] couples ... agreed to marry verbally, without exchanging legal contracts[,] ... [o]thers jumped over broomsticks placed across their thresholds to officialize their union and create new households", indicating that contractless weddings and jumping the broomstick were different kinds of marriage.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In some African-American and Black Canadian communities, marrying couples will end their ceremony by jumping over a broomstick, either together or separately. This practice is well attested for as a marriage ceremony for enslaved people in the Southern United States in the 1840s and 1850s who were often not permitted to wed legally.


title: Jumping the broom

text: Its revival in 20th century African American and Black Canadian culture is due to the novel and miniseries "" (1976, 1977).


title: Jumping the broom

text: Alan Dundes (1996) notes the unusual development of how "a custom which slaves were "forced" to observe by their white masters has been revived a century later by African Americans as a treasured tradition".


title: Jumping the broom

text: There have been occasional speculations to the effect that the custom may have origins in West Africa, but there is no direct evidence for this, although Dundes points to a custom of Ghana where brooms were waved above the heads of newlyweds and their parents.


title: Jumping the broom

text: Among southern Africans, who were largely not a part of the Atlantic slave trade, it represented the wife's commitment or willingness to clean the courtyard of the new home she had joined. As historian Tyler D. Parry argues in "Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual", the Ghanaian connection is a weak case for its origins, especially considering the ritual used by enslaved people bears far more similarities to the custom in the British Isles. Parry argues that, despite the racial animus that characterized the US South in the nineteenth century, poor white southerners (many of them descendants of people who used irregular forms of matrimony in Britain) and enslaved African-Americans exchanged their cultures between one another at far greater rates than commonly acknowledged.


title: Jumping the broom

text: Enslavers were faced with a dilemma regarding committed relationships between enslaved people. Although some family stability might be desirable as helping to keep enslaved people tractable and pacified, anything approaching a legal marriage was not. Marriage gave a couple rights over each other which conflicted with the enslavers' claims. Most marriages between enslaved black people were not legally recognized during American slavery, as in law marriage was held to be a civil contract, and civil contracts required the consent of free persons. In the absence of any legal recognition, the enslaved community developed its own methods of distinguishing between committed and casual unions.


title: Jumping the broom

text: The ceremonial jumping of the broom served as an open declaration of settling down in a marriage relationship. Jumping the broom was always done before witnesses as a public ceremonial announcement that a couple chose to become as close to married as was then allowed.


title: Jumping the broom

text: The practice did survive in some communities, and the phrase "jumping the broom" was synonymous with "getting married," even if the couple did not literally jump a broom. However, despite its smaller scale continuity in certain rural areas of the United States (among both black and white communities), it made a resurgence among African Americans after the publication of Alex Haley's "."


title: Jumping the broom

text: Danita Rountree Green describes the African American custom as it stood in the early 1990s in her book "Broom Jumping: A Celebration of Love" (1992).


title: Jumping the broom

text: American singer-songwriter Brenda Lee released the rockabilly song "Let's Jump the Broomstick" on Decca Records in 1959.


title: Jumping the broom

text: Via its association with Wales and the popular association of the broom with witches, the custom has also been adopted by some Wiccans.


title: Jumping the broom

text: A film titled "Jumping the Broom", starring Paula Patton and Laz Alonso and directed by Salim Akil, was released on 6 May 2011.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In the classic 1977 TV mini-series "Roots", Kunta Kinte/"Toby" (played by John Amos as adult Kunta Kinte) had a marriage ceremony where he and Belle (played by Madge Sinclair) jumped the broom. This also features in episode 2 of the 2016 miniseries remake, where Kunta Kinte questions whether it is a practice that genuinely originates from Africa.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In an episode of "The Originals" (Episode 13 "The Devil is Damned") the custom is used by the werewolf clans/families, giving Hayley and Jackson the opportunity to bed each other before the wedding if they just couldn't wait to consummate things.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In an episode of "" (Episode 21 "The Wedding"),1996 Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson) makes reference to this tradition to members of the homicide division.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In "The Best Man" (1999), Lance (Morris Chestnut) and Mia (Monica Calhoun) jump over the broom after they get married.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In an episode of "This Is Us" (Episode 16 "R & B"), the characters of Randal and Beth are shown to jump the broom while walking down the aisle after their wedding ceremony in a flashback.


title: Jumping the broom

text: In an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" (Episode 10 "Things We Said Today"), Miranda Bailey and Ben Warren jump over a broom at the conclusion of their wedding ceremony.


title: Jumping the broom

text: The custom has been referenced twice by rap duo Outkast: in "Call the Law" on their 2006 album "Idlewild" and in 2007 song "International Players Anthem (I Choose You)".


title: Jumping the broom

text: In a 2020 episode of "Married at First Sight", couple Amani and Woody jump the broom at the end of their wedding.


title: Jumping the broom

text: The Broadway play "The Piano Lesson" by August Wilson contains a reference in Act One in which a character, Doaker, pointing out a particular carvings of their family history during slavery on the eponymous piano of the title, says: "See that? That's when him and Mama Berniece got married. They called it jumping the broom. That's how you got married in them days."


title: Jumping the broom

text: In a 2022 episode of "Love Is Blind", couple Jarette and Iyanna jump the broom at the end of their wedding.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: Fletcher Cox (born December 13, 1990) is an American football defensive tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Mississippi State, and was drafted by the Eagles in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft. Cox is a Super Bowl champion and has been selected to the Pro Bowl six times.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: Cox attended Yazoo City High School in Yazoo City, Mississippi, where he played football and basketball and ran track. Cox played three seasons at Mississippi State University. In football, Cox was named an All-American by Pro Football Weekly as a junior in 2011, after totalling 103 total tackles, including 11 quarterback sacks and two interceptions, one of which he returned for a touchdown. As a senior, he had 104 total tackles, including 10 quarterback sacks, and also added one interception and a fumble recovery. He was selected to play in the Mississippi-Alabama High School All-Star game.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: He was also on the Yazoo High track & field team, where he competed in the high jump and in the relays. At the 2009 Division 3-4A Meet, he placed 8th in the high jump event, with a leap of 1.74 meters. In relays, he had personal-best times of 44.32 seconds in the 4 × 100m relay and 1:32.63 minutes in the 4 × 200m relay. He was also credited with a 4.47 time in the 40-yard dash, and benched 300 lb.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: Regarded as a four-star recruit by national recruiting web site "Rivals.com", he was rated as the No. 5 weak side defensive end in the country, and the No. 2 prospect in the state of Mississippi. He was also considered the No. 17 defensive end prospect in the country by "Scout.com". He chose to attend MSU over scholarship offers from LSU, Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: The Philadelphia Eagles traded up from the 15th selection to pick Cox 12th overall in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He is the highest selected Mississippi State Bulldog since Michael Haddix in 1983, and the highest selected Bulldog defensive lineman since Jimmy Webb in 1975. Cox was signed to a four-year contract on June 18, 2012.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: On October 14, 2012, Cox was ejected after throwing punches against Detroit Lions players, and was fined $21,000. During his rookie year in 2012, Cox played 15 games and finished with 39 tackles, 5.5 sacks, 4 passes defended, and 1 forced fumble.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: With the Eagles switching to a 3-4 type defense in 2013, Cox played defensive end. In 2013, Cox started all 16 games and finished with 44 tackles, three sacks, three passes defended, and one fumble recovery. The Eagles finished the season with a 10-6 record to clinch the NFC East, but lost to the New Orleans Saints in the wild card round by a score of 26-24.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: The 2014 season was a breakout year for Cox, acquiring 61 tackles, 4.0 sacks, one forced fumble, three fumble recoveries, and five run stuffs in 16 games. His presence along the Eagles defensive line led to league-wide recognition and Second-team All-Pro honors.


title: Fletcher Cox

text: On April 27, 2015, The Eagles picked up his 5th year option, keeping him with the team through the 2016 season. In a matchup against the New Orleans Saints in week 5 of the 2015 season, Cox recorded 3.0 sacks and 2 forced fumbles. These matched his season total from 2014 in sacks (4.0) and his career total from 2012-2014 in forced fumbles (2) within only 5 games.