title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Robots are mechanical systems that drive automation and perform chores that would seem difficult for humans. Efforts have been made to co-ordinate and control a group of robots to undertake collaborative work to complete a task. Centralized control is often based on a "star" approach, where robots take turns to talk to the controller station. However, with wireless ad hoc networks, robots can form a communication network on-the-fly, i.e., robots can now "talk" to each other and collaborate in a distributed fashion. With a network of robots, the robots can communicate among themselves, share local information, and distributively decide how to resolve a task in the most effective and efficient way.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Another civilian use of wireless ad hoc network is for public safety. At times of disasters (floods, storms, earthquakes, fires, etc.), a quick and instant wireless communication network is necessary. Especially at times of earthquakes when radio towers had collapsed or were destroyed, wireless ad hoc networks can be formed independently. Firefighters and rescue workers can use ad hoc networks to communicate and rescue those injured. Commercial radios with such capability are available on the market.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Wireless ad hoc networks allow sensors, videos, instruments, and other devices to be deployed and interconnected wirelessly for clinic and hospital patient monitoring, doctor and nurses alert notification, and also making senses of such data quickly at fusion points, so that lives can be saved.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: MANETS can be used for facilitating the collection of sensor data for data mining for a variety of applications such as air pollution monitoring and different types of architectures can be used for such applications. A key characteristic of such applications is that nearby sensor nodes monitoring an environmental feature typically register similar values. This kind of data redundancy due to the spatial correlation between sensor observations inspires the techniques for in-network data aggregation and mining. By measuring the spatial correlation between data sampled by different sensors, a wide class of specialized algorithms can be developed to develop more efficient spatial data mining algorithms as well as more efficient routing strategies. Also, researchers have developed performance models for MANET to apply queueing theory.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Several books and works have revealed the technical and research challenges facing wireless ad hoc networks or MANETs. The advantages for users, the technical difficulties in implementation, and the side effect on radio spectrum pollution can be briefly summarized below:


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: The obvious appeal of MANETs is that the network is decentralised and nodes/devices are mobile, that is to say there is no fixed infrastructure which provides the possibility for numerous applications in different areas such as environmental monitoring [1], [2], disaster relief [3]–[5] and military communications [3].


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Since the early 2000s interest in MANETs has greatly increased which, in part, is due to the fact mobility can improve network capacity, shown by Grossglauser and Tse along with the introduction of new technologies.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: One main advantage to a decentralised network is that they are typically more robust than centralised networks due to the multi-hop fashion in which information is relayed. For example, in the cellular network setting, a drop in coverage occurs if a base station stops working, however the chance of a single point of failure in a MANET is reduced significantly since the data can take multiple paths. Since the MANET architecture evolves with time it has the potential to resolve issues such as


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: isolation/disconnection from the network. Further advantages of MANETS over networks with a fixed topology include flexibility (an ad hoc network can be created anywhere with mobile devices), scalability (you can easily add more nodes to the network) and lower administration costs (no need to build an infrastructure first).


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: With a time evolving network it is clear we should expect variations in network performance due to no fixed architecture (no fixed connections). Furthermore, since network topology determines interference and thus connectivity, the mobility pattern of devices within the network will impact on network performance, possibly resulting in data having to be resent a lot of times (increased delay) and finally allocation of network resources such as power remains unclear.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Finally, finding a model that accurately represents human mobility whilst remaining mathematically tractable remains an open problem due to the large range of factors that influence it.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Wireless ad hoc networks can operate over different types of radios. All radios use modulation to move information over a certain bandwidth of radio frequencies. Given the need to move large amounts of information quickly over long distances, a MANET radio channel ideally has large bandwidth (e.g. amount of radio spectrum), lower frequencies, and higher power. Given the desire to communicate with many other nodes ideally simultaneously, many channels are needed. Given radio spectrum is shared and regulated, there is less bandwidth available at lower frequencies. Processing many radio channels requires many resources. Given the need for mobility, small size and lower power consumption are very important. Picking a MANET radio and modulation has many trade-offs; many start with the specific frequency and bandwidth they are allowed to use.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Radios can be UHF (300 – 3000 MHz), SHF (3 – 30 GHz), and EHF (30 – 300 GHz). Wi-Fi ad hoc uses the unlicensed ISM 2.4 GHz radios. They can also be used on 5.8 GHz radios.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: The higher the frequency, such as those of 300 GHz, absorption of the signal will be more predominant. Army tactical radios usually employ a variety of UHF and SHF radios, including those of VHF to provide a variety of communication modes. At the 800, 900, 1200, 1800 MHz range, cellular radios are predominant. Some cellular radios use ad hoc communications to extend cellular range to areas and devices not reachable by the cellular base station.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Next generation Wi-Fi known as 802.11ax provides low delay, high capacity (up to 10Gbit/s) and low packet loss rate, offering 12 streams – 8 streams at 5 GHz and 4 streams at 2.4 GHz. IEEE 802.11ax uses 8x8 MU-MIMO, OFDMA, and 80 MHz channels. Hence, 802.11ax has the ability to form high capacity Wi-Fi ad hoc networks.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: At 60 GHz, there is another form of Wi-Fi known as WiGi – wireless gigabit. This has the ability to offer up to 7Gbit/s throughput. Currently, WiGi is targeted to work with 5G cellular networks.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Circa 2020, the general consensus finds the 'best' modulation for moving information over higher frequency waves to be Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing, as used in 4G LTE, 5G, and Wi-Fi.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: The challenges affecting MANETs span from various layers of the OSI protocol stack. The media access layer (MAC) has to be improved to resolve collisions and hidden terminal problems. The network layer routing protocol has to be improved to resolve dynamically changing network topologies and broken routes. The transport layer protocol has to be improved to handle lost or broken connections. The session layer protocol has to deal with discovery of servers and services.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: A major limitation with mobile nodes is that they have high mobility, causing links to be frequently broken and reestablished. Moreover, the bandwidth of a wireless channel is also limited, and nodes operate on limited battery power, which will eventually be exhausted. These factors make the design of a mobile ad hoc network challenging.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: The cross-layer design deviates from the traditional network design approach in which each layer of the stack would be made to operate independently. The modified transmission power will help that node to dynamically vary its propagation range at the physical layer. This is because the propagation distance is always directly proportional to transmission power. This information is passed from the physical layer to the network layer so that it can take optimal decisions in routing protocols. A major advantage of this protocol is that it allows access of information between physical layer and top layers (MAC and network layer).


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Some elements of the software stack were developed to allow code updates "in situ", i.e., with the nodes embedded in their physical environment and without needing to bring the nodes back into the lab facility. Such software updating relied on epidemic mode of dissemination of information and had to be done both efficiently (few network transmissions) and fast.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Routing in wireless ad hoc networks or MANETs generally falls into three categories, namely: (a) proactive routing, (b) reacting routing, and (c) hybrid routing.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: This type of protocols maintains fresh lists of destinations and their routes by periodically distributing routing tables throughout the network. The main disadvantages of such algorithms are:


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: As in a fix net nodes maintain routing tables. Distance-vector protocols are based on calculating the direction and distance to any link in a network. "Direction" usually means the next hop address and the exit interface. "Distance" is a measure of the cost to reach a certain node. The least cost route between any two nodes is the route with minimum distance. Each node maintains a vector (table) of minimum distance to every node. The cost of reaching a destination is calculated using various route metrics. RIP uses the hop count of the destination whereas IGRP takes into account other information such as node delay and available bandwidth.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: This type of protocol finds a route based on user and traffic demand by flooding the network with Route Request or Discovery packets. The main disadvantages of such algorithms are:


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Is a simple routing algorithm in which every incoming packet is sent through every outgoing link except the one it arrived on.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Flooding is used in bridging and in systems such as Usenet and peer-to-peer file sharing and as part of some routing protocols, including OSPF, DVMRP, and those used in wireless ad hoc networks.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: This type of protocol combines the advantages of "proactive" and "reactive routing". The routing is initially established with some proactively prospected routes and then serves the demand from additionally activated nodes through reactive flooding. The choice of one or the other method requires predetermination for typical cases. The main disadvantages of such algorithms are:


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Position-based routing methods use information on the exact locations of the nodes. This information is obtained for example via a GPS receiver. Based on the exact location the best path between source and destination nodes can be determined.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Links are influenced by the node's resources (e.g., transmitter power, computing power and memory) and behavioral properties (e.g., reliability), as well as link properties (e.g. length-of-link and signal loss, interference and noise). Since links can be connected or disconnected at any time, a functioning network must be able to cope with this dynamic restructuring, preferably in a way that is timely, efficient, reliable, robust, and scalable.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: A "path" is a series of links that connects two nodes. Various routing methods use one or two paths between any two nodes; flooding methods use all or most of the available paths.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: In most wireless ad hoc networks, the nodes compete for access to shared wireless medium, often resulting in collisions (interference). Collisions can be handled using centralized scheduling or distributed contention access protocols. Using cooperative wireless communications improves immunity to interference by having the destination node combine self-interference and other-node interference to improve decoding of the desired signals.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: One key problem in wireless ad hoc networks is foreseeing the variety of possible situations that can occur. As a result, modeling and simulation (M&S) using extensive parameter sweeping and what-if analysis becomes an extremely important paradigm for use in ad hoc networks. One solution is the use of simulation tools like OPNET, NetSim or ns2. A comparative study of various simulators for VANETs reveal that factors such as constrained road topology, multi-path fading and roadside obstacles, traffic flow models, trip models, varying vehicular speed and mobility, traffic lights, traffic congestion, drivers' behavior, etc., have to be taken into consideration in the simulation process to reflect realistic conditions.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: In 2009, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed a Mobile Ad-Hoc Network emulation testbed, where algorithms and applications were subjected to representative wireless network conditions. The testbed was based on a version of the "MANE" (Mobile Ad hoc Network Emulator) software originally developed by NRL.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: The traditional model is the random geometric graph. Early work included simulating ad hoc mobile networks on sparse and densely connected topologies. Nodes are firstly scattered in a constrained physical space randomly. Each node then has a predefined fixed cell size (radio range). A node is said to be connected to another node if this neighbor is within its radio range. Nodes are then moved (migrated away) based on a random model, using random walk or brownian motion. Different mobility and number of nodes present yield different route length and hence different number of multi-hops.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: These are graphs consisting of a set of nodes placed according to a point process in some usually bounded subset of the n-dimensional plane, mutually coupled according to a boolean probability mass function of their spatial separation (see e.g. unit disk graphs).


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: The connections between nodes may have different weights to model the difference in channel attenuations.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: or the degree distribution) from a graph-theoretic perspective. One can further study network protocols and algorithms to improve network throughput and fairness.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Most wireless ad hoc networks do not implement any network access control, leaving these networks vulnerable to resource consumption attacks where a malicious node injects packets into the network with the goal of depleting the resources of the nodes relaying the packets.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: To thwart or prevent such attacks, it was necessary to employ authentication mechanisms that ensure that only authorized nodes can inject traffic into the network. Even with authentication, these networks are vulnerable to packet dropping or delaying attacks, whereby an intermediate node drops the packet or delays it, rather than promptly sending it to the next hop.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: In a multicast and dynamic environment, establishing temporary 1:1 secure 'sessions' using PKI with every other node is not feasible (like is done with HTTPS, most VPNs, etc. at the transport layer). Instead, a common solution is to use pre-shared keys for symmetric, authenticated encryption at the link layer, for example MACsec using AES-256-GCM. With this method, every properly formatted packet received is authenticated then passed along for decryption or dropped. It also means the key(s) in each node must be changed more often and simultaneously (e.g. to avoid reusing an IV).


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Trust establishment and management in MANETs face challenges due to resource constraints and the complex interdependency of networks. Managing trust in a MANET needs to consider the interactions between the composite cognitive, social, information and communication networks, and take into account the resource constraints (e.g., computing power, energy, bandwidth, time), and dynamics (e.g., topology changes, node mobility, node failure, propagation channel conditions).


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Researchers of trust management in MANET suggested that such complex interactions require a composite trust metric that captures aspects of communications and social networks, and corresponding trust measurement, trust distribution, and trust management schemes.


title: Wireless ad hoc network

text: Continuous monitoring of every node within a MANET is necessary for trust and reliability but difficult because it by definition is dis-continuous, 2) it requires input from the node itself and 3) from its 'nearby' peers.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Uli Jon Roth (born Ulrich Roth; 18 December 1954) is a German guitarist who became famous for his work with the hard rock band Scorpions and is one of the earliest contributors to the neoclassical metal genre. He is also the founder of Sky Academy and designer of the Sky Guitar. He is the older brother of fellow guitarist and artist Zeno Roth (1956–2018).


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth formed a band called Dawn Road in the early 1970s. When guitarist Michael Schenker left the Scorpions to join UFO in 1973, the two remaining Scorpions members Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine joined the four members of Dawn Road, but decided to use the name Scorpions rather than the less-well-known Dawn Road. Scorpions released four studio albums during his tenure as lead guitarist, main songwriter and occasional lead singer between 1974 and 1977.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth formed his own band named Electric Sun—releasing three albums: "Earthquake" (1979) dedicated to the spirit of Jimi Hendrix, "Fire Wind" (1981), dedicated to Anwar Sadat and featured a song called "Enola Gay (Hiroshima Today?)" about the atomic bombing of Japan by a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber of that name, and his third and final Electric Sun album "Beyond the Astral Skies" (1985), dedicated both to Martin Luther King Jr. and to Roth's fans. This final album featured ex-Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker, on drums and timpani.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth entered a new phase of creative work after Electric Sun, composing four symphonies and two concertos and sometimes performing with symphony orchestras throughout Europe. Roth used the name "Uli Jon Roth" for all subsequent album releases and concert appearances.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: The G3 European tour of 1998 featured Roth playing with Joe Satriani and Michael Schenker. The show at London Wembley Arena also featured a jam with Brian May.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth played at the outdoor rock festival at Castle Donington in 2001 (also featuring original Scorpions lead guitarist Michael Schenker on the bill). This was filmed and subsequently released on DVD.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth appeared in concert with Scorpions onstage at the Wacken Open Air Festival in 2006 along with two other former members of the band. Billed as "A Night to Remember; A Journey Through Time", the Scorpions played four songs from the Roth Era, most of which they had not played live since Roth had left in 1978. This concert was also filmed and released on DVD.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Although this was meant to be a "one night only" special event, its success meant that the format was repeated on several tours subsequently.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: At the Rock am Ring festival in Germany in June 2007, Roth joined The Smashing Pumpkins on-stage for their epic closing song "Gossamer." He made another appearance with the Pumpkins upon their return to Germany on 26 February 2008.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth had begun working on a new full-length studio album in 2007 which was to be released the following year. The title of the album would be: "Under A Dark Sky" and was going to be the first official release in the long-awaited series of Symphonic Legends (a cycle of music written by Uli for his all-encompassing Sky of Avalon project.)


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth debuted songs from "Under a Dark Sky" on 18 July 2008 in his headline set at the G-TARanaki Guitar Festival in New Zealand. This was his first concert in the country. Roth also took his "Sky Academy" tuition classes to Taranaki, Waitara, Inglewood and Ōpunake. Guests musicians included Vernon Reid and Gilby Clarke.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: "Under a Dark Sky" was released in Japan on 20 August 2008 via Marquee records. The European and USA releases followed a month later on 20 September 2008 on the SPV record label.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Uli Jon Roth released a two-CD studio album entitled "Scorpions Revisited", which was recorded in 2014 in Hanover in early 2015. Roth revisited his personal favourites from the early Scorpions period.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: A tour called The Ultimate Guitar Experience with fellow guitarists Jennifer Batten and Andy Timmons followed. Uli soon thereafter embarked on another world tour: this time playing "The Tokyo Tapes", songs from the Scorpions 1978 tour of Japan and ensuing live album.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: A double CD and Blu-ray/DVD were released in December 2016 of a concert Uli and his band played in Japan in 2015 commemorating the anniversary of "The Tokyo Tapes". Roth concluded a short North American tour in March 2017, highlighting songs from both "Scorpions Revisited" and "Tokyo Tapes".


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth participated a second time at the G3 European tour with Joe Satriani and John Petrucci in March 2017.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth contributed an afterword to the 2017 book "Shredders!: The Oral History of Speed Guitar (And More)" by Greg Prato.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth commissioned construction of custom guitars with additional frets from luthier Andreas Demetriou In the 1980s. Roth has had five of these "Sky" guitars made. To be able to emulate the high notes of a violin, all of the Sky Guitars have more frets than a typical electric guitar. The first Sky Guitar (used on the album "Beyond the Astral Skies") had 30 frets. Later versions of the Sky Guitar overcame the problem of the higher register frets becoming too narrow by widening the frets by whole steps for the highest notes. In an April 2001 "Guitar Player" magazine interview Roth reported that the guitars are either fretless above the 30th fret, or have whole step fret spacing above the 27th fret, with 35 effective (half step) frets. All of the Sky Guitars with frets have scalloped fretboards. The Sky Guitar's pickups are custom 4-coil humbuckers, made by John Oram, with one guitar having an Oram pickup hidden under the 24th fret. For a time, Roth used a Framus Dragon amplifier, although currently he promotes Blackstar Artisan 100 & Series One 200 Watt heads. He has also used a stalk mounted Vibesware guitar resonator (sustainer) to introduce infinite sustain as on the instrumental Benediction on his "Under A Dark Sky" album. Dean Guitars produced 25 Custom Sky Guitars based on Roth's custom models with six and seven strings in 2011.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Initially, Roth was inspired by The Beatles, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Eric Clapton's fretwork on John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and Cream. He would, later on, reveal his appreciation for fellow 1970 guitar heroes such as Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore and Jeff Beck, especially his fusion masterpiece "Blow by Blow". In 1971 he began studying piano and classical guitar. His influences broadened, now including spanish guitar virtuoso Andrés Segovia and violinist Yehudi Menuhin.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth's solo on Scorpion's "Sails of Charon" - off the "Taken by Force" album - is notable for impressive speed and precision. The solo displayed a number of classical techniques, weaving pedal point sequences, harmonic / "Middle Eastern" sounding scales and rapid-fire arpeggios. Of note, Metallica's Kirk Hammett famously quoted a portion of this solo on "Battery", the opening song of "Master of Puppets" (1986).


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: In Roth's early days with Scorpions, his soloing style was based primarily on the blues scale, occasionally incorporating notes from other modes. However, by the time the band recorded the "Virgin Killer" album, he began incorporating more advanced compositional elements from European classical music: such as pedal tone sequences and intricate arpeggios. Beginning with Electric Sun, the classical influence began to dominate his playing style- notable in songs like "Cast Away Your Chains" and "Still So Many Lives Away". His style eventually became a fusion of blues-based rock with European classical sensibilities. Roth employs major and minor pentatonic, the blues scale, phrygian, harmonic minor, diminished, and the whole tone scale.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth was romantically involved with artist Monika Dannemann who was with Jimi Hendrix when he died. Roth and Danneman collaborated on various songs including "We'll Burn the Sky" from Scorpions' "Taken by Force"


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Monika Dannemann was convicted of breaking a 1996 British High Court order not to repeat allegations that Kathy Etchingham was an "inveterate liar" for accusing her of playing a role in Jimi Hendrix's death. Although Etchingham asked the judge to jail Dannemann she was released. Monika Dannemann was found dead in a fume-filled Mercedes-Benz near her cottage in Seaford, East Sussex two days later—aged 50. Her death was ruled a suicide, but Roth publicly stated his opinion that her death was the result of foul play. He dedicated his later works to the memory of Dannemann.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth performed a charity concert of his interpretation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons at Saint Silin's Church in his home town on 21 June 2019. This was an effort to raise money for help the church.


title: Uli Jon Roth

text: Roth has been on the cover of many guitar magazines and has influenced many notable guitar players including: Billy Corgan, Kirk Hammett, Marty Friedman, Yngwie Malmsteen, Gus G, Andy DiGelsomina, Michael Romeo, Wolf Hoffman, Syu, Eric Peterson of Testament, Hank Shermann of Mercyful Fate, Joe Stump, and James Byrd.


title: DLA Piper

text: DLA Piper is a multinational law firm with offices in over 40 countries throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. In 2014, it had a total revenue of US$2.48 billion, an average profit per equity partner of US$1.490 million, and was the third largest law firm in the United States as measured by revenue.


title: DLA Piper

text: DLA Piper was formed in January 2005 by a merger between three law firms: San Diego-based "Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich LLP", Baltimore-based "Piper Rudnick LLP" and United Kingdom-based DLA LLP. It is composed of two partnerships, the United Kingdom-based DLA Piper International LLP and the United States-based DLA Piper LLP (US). The two partnerships share a single global board and are structured as a Swiss Verein.


title: DLA Piper

text: DLA Piper's origins can be traced back to Thomas Townend Dibb (1807–1875) and Sir Charles Lupton OBE (1855–1935).


title: DLA Piper

text: The founder of the firm was born in Leeds in 1807, the son of a physician. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School and qualified in 1829. He then became a partner of Atkinson Bolland & Atkinson, a well established practice at that time and with record of its existence from 1764. DLA can trace its Yorkshire roots back to 1764, when the firm of Barnard & Bolland was established in Leeds. The newly qualified Thomas Dibb became a partner at Barnard & Bolland and added his name in 1829.


title: DLA Piper

text: The three-letter abbreviation used by the firm today – DLA – conceals a complex history of consolidation and name changes. It picked up Lupton, from Nelson Eddison & Lupton in 1920. The firm merged with Broomhead of Sheffield in 1988.


title: DLA Piper

text: The name of the firm as Dibb Lupton & Co. survived intact until the merger with Broomheads of Sheffield in 1988. Following the link with Alsop Wilkinson in 1996, the firm was then known as Dibb Lupton Alsop until around the year 2000, when the name was shortened to DLA.


title: DLA Piper

text: Piper Rudnick was the result of a 1999 merger between the Baltimore-based Piper & Marbury and Chicago-based Rudnick & Wolfe. At the time, the merger was the largest law firm merger in history. The combined firm was known as Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe LLP until April 2002, when the firm shortened its name to Piper Rudnick LLP.


title: DLA Piper

text: Piper Rudnick acquired the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand in September 2002.


title: DLA Piper

text: In July 2004, UK-based law firm DLA LLP and Baltimore-based law firm Piper Rudnick announced their intention to merge on 1 January 2005. DLA had been the result of a mid-1990s merger between three UK firms, Dibb Lupton Broomhead, Alsop Stevens, and Wilkinson Kimbers.


title: DLA Piper

text: Piper Rudnick agreed to merge with San Diego-based law firm Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich LLP in October 2004, forming a firm with around 1,300 lawyers and 20 offices across the United States.


title: DLA Piper

text: In December 2004, DLA LLP, Gray Cary and Piper Rudnick, the latter two of which had yet to complete their merger, announced that the partners of each firm had approved a three-way merger. The merger became effective on 1 January 2005 and the new firm was named "DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary". The merger was structured in the form of two limited liability partnerships, DLA Piper International LLP, and DLA Piper US LLP (since renamed to DLA Piper LLP (US)), which share a single management board but are not financially integrated.


title: DLA Piper

text: In July 2005, DLA Piper acquired EY Law's 87 lawyer operation in the Commonwealth of Independent States, including offices in Moscow and St Petersburg. In December 2005 DLA Piper opened an office in Beijing, having recruited a team of lawyers from the Beijing office of Coudert Brothers.


title: DLA Piper

text: In January 2006, DLA Piper opened its first office in the Middle East, in Dubai. The firm has since opened offices in Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Doha, Kuwait City, Manama, Muscat, Riyadh and Jeddah. On 1 September 2006, the firm shortened its name to DLA Piper. DLA Piper merged with its Norway-based alliance firm DLA Nordic in the same month, and formed an alliance with the Australia-based law firm Phillips Fox in November 2006, with Phillips Fox rebranding as DLA Phillips Fox at that time.


title: DLA Piper

text: In February 2010, DLA Piper formed an alliance with the Turkish law firm Yüksel Karkın Küçük until 2014. In March 2010 DLA Piper formed an alliance with the Brazil-based law firm Campos Mello Advogados.


title: DLA Piper

text: In January 2011, DLA Piper and DLA Phillips Fox announced their intention to merge. The merger was approved by partners of both firms in February and was completed on 1 May, when DLA Phillips Fox become part of DLA Piper International LLP. Later in the same month DLA Phillips Fox's former New Zealand-based offices separated to form an independent firm. DLA Piper formed an alliance with Venezuela-based law firm InterJuris Abogados in February 2011, which subsequently renamed as DLA Interjuris. In 2016, the Venezuelan firm exited the alliance with DLA Piper and reverted to operating under the name of InterJuris Abogados.


title: DLA Piper

text: In February 2012, DLA Piper opened an office in Mexico City, having recruited a team from Thompson & Knight's office in the city.


title: DLA Piper

text: In January 2013, DLA Piper announced the closure of its Glasgow office and the sale of its Manchester- and Sheffield-based defendant insurance practices to Hill Dickinson.


title: DLA Piper

text: On 1 November 2016, DLA Piper (Canada) LLP combined with Dimock Stratton LLP and will operate under the DLA Piper name.


title: DLA Piper

text: The Danish firm LETT and the Portuguese firm ABBC joined DLA Piper in March 2017 which made DLA Piper the largest law firm in the Nordic region, with offices in Aarhus, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm (DLA Piper has no offices in Iceland).


title: DLA Piper

text: In late June 2017, "The New York Times" reported the firm had been hit in the ransomware cyberattack which infected their network. No information was compromised or lost. As of June 2017, the law firm was struggling to recover from "vicious computer attacks" from the week before.


title: DLA Piper

text: In July 2018, DLA Piper formed an alliance with the Argentine-based law firm Cabanellas Etchebarne Kelly, founded in 1997. The new local firm was named DLA Piper Argentina.


title: DLA Piper

text: DLA Piper is a polycentric firm with over 80 offices in more than 40 countries across the Americas, Asia Pacific, Australasia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East:


title: DLA Piper

text: DLA Piper New Zealand is the first global, business law firm operating in New Zealand. with offices in Auckland and Wellington, DLA Piper New Zealand provides counsel to a range of private and public companies, central and local government entities, charities and other organisations.


title: DLA Piper

text: DLA Piper was the twelfth-largest donor to President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. According to OpenSecrets, DLA Piper was one of the top law firms contributing to federal candidates during the 2012 election cycle, donating $2.19 million, 73% to Democrats. By comparison, during that same period Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld donated $2.56 million, 66% to Democrats, while oil conglomerate ExxonMobil donated $2.66 million, 88% to Republicans. Since 1990, DLA Piper has contributed $16.97 million to federal campaigns, and spent over $1 million on lobbying since 2002.


title: DLA Piper

text: In 2010, DLA Piper represented Paul Ceglia in his claim that he hired Mark Zuckerberg to create a website that became Facebook and that under the agreement, Ceglia was entitled to ownership of 84 percent of Facebook, then worth multiple billions of dollars. Zuckerberg and Facebook responded that Ceglia had hired Zuckerberg to work on an unrelated site, but Ceglia had fraudulently altered that contract to make it appear to cover Facebook. A DLA Piper attorney told the "Wall Street Journal" that although he had not seen the original document, he had "absolutely 100% confidence that [Mr. Ceglia's] agreement is authentic." Ceglia's document was later found to be fraudulent, and in 2014, Facebook and Zuckerberg sued DLA Piper and others, claiming Ceglia's lawyers "knew or should have known that the [initial] lawsuit was a fraud." The suit was later dismissed.


title: DLA Piper

text: In June 2020, Squire Patton Boggs filed "Ferrellgas Partners LP et al. v. DLA Piper LLP US" in Kansas, on behalf of former firm client Ferrellgas, for a breach of fiduciary duty.


title: A Band Apart

text: A Band Apart Films was a production company founded by Quentin Tarantino, Michael Bodnarchek, and Lawrence Bender that was active from 1991 to 2006. Its name is a play on the French New Wave classic film, "Bande à part" ("Band of Outsiders") by filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, whose work was highly influential on the work of the company's members. Thanks in part to the popularity of Quentin Tarantino's and Robert Rodriguez's films, the company quickly gained cult-like status within Hollywood.


title: A Band Apart

text: Tarantino formed A Band Apart in 1991, naming it after his favorite Godard film, "Bande à part". The company's logo was a stylized image of the robbers from "Reservoir Dogs", Tarantino's debut film. Subsequently, several legal entities within the company were named after the film's characters. Mr. Pink LLC was for music video production budgets, and Mr. Brown LLC was for commercials.


title: A Band Apart

text: In addition to Tarantino, members of the company included Robert Rodriguez, John Woo, Tim Burton, Steve Buscemi, Darren Aronofsky, John Landis, Joseph McGinty Nichol, Nigel Dick, Varl Hobe, Steve Carr, Cameron Casey, Marcel Langenegger, Wayne Isham, Terry Windell, Lisa Prisco, Phil Harder-Rick Fuller, Coodie & Chike, Osbert Parker, Luc Besson, Porker LeVance, Adam Christian Clark, André 3000, Christopher Morrison and Michael Palmieri, Andy Mornahan, Chash Brower, Steve Lowe, Loren Hill, Darren Grant, Charles Whittenmier, Geoff McGann, Olivier Venturini, The 405 Guys, and Craig Tanamoto.


title: A Band Apart

text: The company catapulted to fame with the 1994 release of Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction", which was considered by some critics to be the most influential American film of the decade. In the summer of 1995, the company added a division for commercials and later, for music video production, adding a third co-owner Michael Bodnarchek. Kristin Cruz (aka Kris Foster) and Heidi Santelli launched A Band Apart Music Videos as directors' rep and executive producer, respectively.


title: A Band Apart

text: Tarantino and Bender are no longer working together and Tarantino is the sole owner of A Band Apart Films. David Heyman ("Harry Potter", "Gravity") produced Tarantino's ninth film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood".


title: A Band Apart

text: While the company is listed as studio for Tarantino's 2009 "Inglourious Basterds" and 2012 "Django Unchained", and credited in the 2007 "Grindhouse" movies, it is unclear whether the company was reformed for the films or was credited for involvement in pre-2006 production of those films.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Gayle Marie LaJaunie Bird Benson (born January 26, 1947) is an American billionaire, businesswoman and sports franchise owner.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Following the death of her husband, Tom Benson, she became principal owner of the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL) and the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2018.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Benson is the first woman to be the majority shareholder of the voting stock in both an NFL and NBA franchise.


title: Gayle Benson

text: She was born Gayle Marie LaJaunie, the daughter of Francis J. LaJaunie (January 5, 1924 – July 18, 2010), and Marie Folse LaJaunie (1924 – May 30, 2010).


title: Gayle Benson

text: She grew up in Algiers, New Orleans, and attended St. Joseph, St. Anthony and Holy Name of Mary schools. She graduated from Martin Behrman High School in 1966.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Benson began her career in receptionist and secretarial positions while doing interior design before buying and renovating businesses with her second husband, Thomas "T-Bird" Bird. Following their divorce, Benson continued an interior decorating business called Gayle Bird Interiors, Ltd.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Benson is one of ten female NFL owners, including Sheila Ford Hamp (Detroit Lions), Kim Pegula (Buffalo Bills), Carol Davis (Oakland Raiders), Denise DeBartolo York (San Francisco 49ers), Amy Adams Strunk (Tennessee Titans), Virginia Halas McCaskey (Chicago Bears), Janice McNair (Houston Texans), Jody Allen (Seattle Seahawks), and Dee Haslam (Cleveland Browns).


title: Gayle Benson

text: Tom Benson had planned on bequeathing the voting stock shares of the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans to his daughter Renee Benson, grandson Ryan Benson LeBlanc, and granddaughter Rita Benson LeBlanc.


title: Gayle Benson

text: On December 27, 2014, Tom Benson wrote an e-mail to his daughter and two grandchildren stating he wanted "no further contact with any of you." Gayle Benson was named his heir.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Tom Benson's daughter and grandchildren filed lawsuits challenging his decision to name Gayle his heir, questioning his mental competency.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Tom Benson was determined to be mentally competent and was allowed to change his will to leave ownership of the New Orleans Saints and the New Orleans Pelicans to his wife.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Rodney Henry, former personal assistant to Tom Benson, filed a lawsuit accusing the New Orleans Saints and Gayle Benson of racism and violations of federal labor laws. The lawsuit claimed that Gayle Benson had treated him with disrespect because of his race. An NFL arbitrator ruled in favor of Henry and against the Saints on the labor complaint, awarding him overtime pay, a contractual payout for his dismissal, and attorney's fees; however, the same arbitrator ruled against Henry on the claims of racism.


title: Gayle Benson

text: In July 2017, it was announced that Tom and Gayle Benson had finalized an agreement to buy a majority share of Dixie Brewing Co. The company's brewery plant had been damaged and closed after Hurricane Katrina. On August 7, 2018, Benson announced, with New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, that Dixie Brewery would open a distribution center at the old MacFrugal's Distribution Center in New Orleans East.


title: Gayle Benson

text: G M B Racing is the thoroughbred racing stable of Gayle Benson, who owned 2016 Kentucky Derby starters Mo Tom and Tom's Ready and owned 2018 contender Lone Sailor. Tom's Ready was a fine sprinter in mid-2016, winning both the Grade 2 Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont Park and the Ack Ack Stakes at Churchill Downs.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Benson has been married three times. Her first marriage was to Nace Anthony Salomone, on April 8, 1967, which ended in a divorce and annulment in 1972. Her second marriage was to Thomas "T-Bird" Bird, on February 14, 1977, in South Pass, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, which ended in a divorce on June 25, 1987.


title: Gayle Benson

text: Gayle's third marriage was to Tom Benson, on October 29, 2004, in San Antonio, Texas. They met at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans at a mass. They were married until his death in 2018.


title: Gayle Benson

text: On October 22, 2014, Gayle Benson and her husband commemorated their tenth anniversary by renewing their wedding vows at St. Louis Cathedral.


title: Gayle Benson

text: While married, Gayle and Tom Benson funded the construction of the Gayle and Tom Benson Stadium at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, which opened on campus on September 1, 2008.


title: Gayle Benson

text: In January 2012, Benson and her husband were awarded the "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" for their service to Catholic Church by Pope Benedict XVI.


title: Gayle Benson

text: In November 2012, Gayle Benson and her husband, Tom, donated $7.5 million towards the construction of Tulane University's Yulman Stadium. The playing surface is known as Benson Field.


title: Gayle Benson

text: In February 2019, the Gayle and Tom Benson Charitable Trust donated $5 million to Jesuit High School.


title: Gayle Benson

text: In September 2019, the Gayle and Tom Benson Charitable Trust donated $1 million to the campaign of Children's of Mississippi to build a playground at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Byomkesh Bakshi is an Indian-Bengali fictional detective created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. Referring to himself as a "truth-seeker" or Satyanweshi in the stories, Bakshi is known for his proficiency with observation, logical reasoning, and forensic science which he uses to solve complicated cases, usually murders, occurring in Calcutta. One of the most popular sleuths of Bengali literature, Byomkesh Bakshi appeared for the first time in the story "Satyanweshi" — a story of murder dealing with illegal trafficking of opium. He appears in alias — under the pseudonym of Atul Chandra Mitra. It is here that Byomkesh meets Ajit Bandyopadhyay, a writer, who would become a constant companion of him and it is Ajit who narrates the Byomkesh stories.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Both of Byomkesh' names have since entered the Bengali language to describe someone who is both intelligent and observant. It is also used sarcastically to mean someone who states the obvious.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's most well known fictional character Byomkesh Bakshi first appeared as a character in the story "Satyanweshi " ("The Inquisitor"). The story is set in 1932 in the Chinabazar area of Kolkata where a 'non-government detective' Byomkesh Bakshi, owing to the permission from the police commissioner, starts living in a mess in that area under the pseudonym of Atul Chandra Mitra to probe a series of murders.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Most of the stories are written from Ajit Kumar Banerjee's perspective, who meets Byomkesh in the mess at Chinabazar. Byomkesh later asks Ajit to live with him at his three-story rented house at Harrison Road as his assistant and chronicler. The only other person in his household is his attendant Putiram.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: In the beginning of the stories, Byomkesh Bakshi is described as "a man of twenty-three or twenty-four years of age who looked well educated." Byomkesh is a Hindu and wears mostly a white shirt/kurta with a white dhoti, occasionally draping a shawl. He does not live in luxury but possesses numerous books. He travels frequently, and does not own a gun and does not consider himself to be an "expensive helper". He habitually smokes and drinks tea with milk. He is fluent in Bengali, Hindi, and English.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Byomkesh does not like being called a detective, and thinks the word 'investigator' even worse. Thus he fashions a new name for himself which he inscribes on a brass plate in front of his house. The plaque read "Byomkesh Bakshi: Satyanweshi" (The Inquisitor).


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Unlike other lead characters in similar detective fictional stories, Byomkesh Bakshi marries, ages, and also contemplates material things such as buying a car. Later, he also decides to buy land in Keyatala in South Kolkata and shifts to his new home. Byomkesh meets Satyabati, his future wife and the accused Sukumar's sister, in 'Arthamanartham'. The story 'Adim Ripu' provides some information about Byomkesh's early childhood. His father Mahadev Bakshi was a mathematics teacher at a school and practised Sankhya philosophy at home while his mother was the daughter of a Vaishnavite. When Byomkesh was seventeen years old, his parents died of tuberculosis. Later, Byomkesh passed University with scholarship. During the Second World War and after India's independence, Byomkesh, Satyabati and Ajit live in the mess house of Harrison Road. Byomkesh gradually ages through the series, and has a son called Khoka (Little Boy) in the series.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Saradindu Bandopadhyay penned 32 Byomkesh stories from 1932 to 1970 prior to his death. In his early stories, Ajit Kumar Banerjee is described as his companion, and chronicler of his stories. But in some cases Ajit also investigates in absence of Byomkesh (examples, "Makorshar" "Rosh", "Shoilo Rahasya"). The stories are all written in traditional formal Bengali language. However, later the stories shift to more colloquial language. The later stories (Room Nombor Dui, Chhlonar Chhondo, Shajarur Kanta, Benisonghaar and Lohar Biskut) are not penned by Ajit, who was engaged in his publication business.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: The stories are not very complicated but very engaging, with a long series of surprising events. The stories present a range of crimes from the first story, "Satyanweshi", where Byomkesh destroys an international drug racket, to household mysteries and crimes like "Arthamanartham" and "Makorshar Rosh".


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Sharadindu did not want to continue the Byomkesh stories, due to which he stopped writing from 1938 to 1951. During that time he busied himself writing scripts for films in Bombay. After his return to West Bengal, Byomkesh stories were still in demand so he wrote "Chitrachor" ("Picture Imperfect") in 1951 and other stories gradually on to 1970, when his last story "Bishupal Badh" ("Killing of Bishupal") was left incomplete owing to his untimely death.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: The Byomkesh Bakshi stories have been adapted into several television series, radio programs, audio dramas, films, and video games.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: "Chiriyakhana" (1967) is an Indian Bengali-language crime thriller film based on the story of the same name, directed by Satyajit Ray and written by Bandyopadhyay and Ray, it starred Uttam Kumar as Byomkesh Bakshi.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: The 1993-97 Byomkesh Bakshi television series, created by Basu Chatterjee, and starring Rajit Kapur as Bakshi, and K.K. Raina as Ajit respectively, became one of the most critically acclaimed and celebrated adaptation of the character.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: The Satyanweshi audio drama series created by actor Aneesh See Yay adapted nineteen Byomkesh Bakshi novels and seven original audio drama in the Malayalam language.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: In 2015, A Bollywood movie named "Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!" starring Sushant Singh Rajput in lead role was also released.


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: He was also referenced in The Big Bang Theory Season 7 Episode 18: The Mommy Observation where Sherlock Holmes is referred to as "English Byomkesh Bakshi".


title: Byomkesh Bakshi

text: Radio Mirchi has adapted several stories and novels of Byomkesh including- Satyanweshi, Pather Kanta, Durgo Rahasya etc. for their audio story programme Sunday Suspense starring RJ Mir as Byomkesh and RJ Deep as Ajit.


title: N26

text: N26 (known as "Number 26" until July 2016) is a German neobank headquartered in Berlin, Germany. N26 was founded in 2013 in a Rocket Internet Incubator and currently operates in various member states of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). It provides a free basic current account and a debit card, with overdraft and investment products and premium accounts available for a monthly fee.


title: N26

text: The company was founded as a financial technology startup in 2013 by Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal. According to Stalf, the name is derived from number of smaller cubes in a complete Rubik's Cube, since a 3x3x3 cube has 26 individual visible cubes (27 less 1 hidden). In April 2015, N26 received €10 million in a series A round by Valar Ventures.


title: N26

text: Initially, Number 26 started operations without holding a banking license; instead, it was provided an interface to a back end provided by Wirecard. In July 2016, it re-branded as N26 Bank, having received its own banking license from BaFin.


title: N26

text: In June 2016 N26 notified several customers that their accounts were going to be terminated. The company cited as main reasons that some customers were making too many ATM withdrawals, while others were suspected of money laundering.


title: N26

text: In November 2016, customers were asked to transfer their accounts to N26 Bank's infrastructure. As a result, they would have to get a new account IBAN number and accounts held by Wirecard would be terminated. During the transfer of its customer base to its own banking infrastructure, N26 customers reported various problems.


title: N26

text: In December 2016, N26 announced that its basic current account would be available to 17 Eurozone countries.


title: N26

text: In March 2018, N26 raised $160 million in a series C round by Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings and Allianz X (Allianz). On the same date, N26 claimed to have a customer base of 850,000, aiming to have 5,000,000 customers by 2020.


title: N26

text: In January 2019, N26 raised an additional $300 million in a series D round led by Insight Venture Partners with Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and a few existing investors also participating at a valuation of $2.7 billion. With its new valuation of $2.7 billion, N26 overtook Revolut as the most valuable mobile bank in Europe.


title: N26

text: On 11 July 2019, N26 soft launched in the United States, initially allowing customers to sign up for a waiting list. Due to differences in the U.S. market (particularly in regards to regulatory schemes for financial providers), N26 partnered with Axos Bank to serve as the provider of its services, insured under FDIC. Unlike in Europe, where they are provided by MasterCard, N26 used Visa cards for U.S. customers. The following week, the company extended its series D round with an additional $170 million investment, valuing the company at $3.5 billion. In May 2020, the company announced the extension of its recent Series D round with an additional $100M raised at the same valuation.


title: N26

text: On 11 February 2020, N26 announced that it would cease doing business in the United Kingdom and close all accounts effective 15 April, due to the UK withdrawal from the European Union. The company cited the fact that European financial institutions can no longer operate in the region without applying for a banking license in the UK (rather than being allowed to operate under its EU license), as well as "the timings and framework outlined in the EU Withdrawal Agreement".


title: N26

text: In November and December 2020, the subsidiaries N26 GmbH and N26 Operations GmbH elected works councils representing the employees of the Berlin offices.


title: N26

text: In January 2021, N26 announced the upcoming appointment of former ProSiebenSat.1 and Zalando executive Jan Kemper as the company’s Chief Financial Officer. In January 2022, the bank announced that Kemper will also be taking over the role of Chief Operating Officer in addition to his role as CFO.


title: N26

text: In October 2021, N26 raised $900 million in a Series E round led by Third Point Ventures and Coatue Management, and joined by Dragoneer Investment Group as well as existing N26 investors. The funding round valued the digital bank at $9 billion.


title: N26

text: In November 2021, N26 announced that it would be pulling out of the United States in January 2022, leading to the closure of approximately 500,000 accounts. American customers were no longer be able to use its app after January 11, 2022. The withdrawal was to focus on N26's core European business.


title: N26

text: In November 2022, N26 changed its legal form from a German Limited Liability Company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung – GmbH) to a German Stock Corporation (Aktiengesellschaft – AG). At the same time, a five-member board of directors was appointed, chaired by Marcus W. Mosen. Other members are Jörg Gerbig, Dr. Barbara Roth, Dr. Julian Deutz and Dr. Robert Killian.


title: N26

text: According to N26, it employs more than 1,500 people at its locations in Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, Belgrade, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Vienna, New York, Barcelona, and São Paulo.


title: N26

text: N26 provides a free basic current account and a Debit MasterCard card to all its customers, as well as a Maestro card for their customers in certain markets. Additionally, customers can request overdraft and investment products. N26 also offers premium accounts ("N26 Smart", "N26 You" and "N26 Metal") which offer additional features for a monthly fee.


title: N26

text: The account opening process can be completed via a video chat with N26's identity verification partner, IDnow. Only holders of certain passports and ID cards can verify their identity online; others will have to visit a German post office if it is supported by Postident.


title: N26

text: N26 offers its services in 24 European countries. In Austria, Germany and the Netherlands customers can additionally request a Maestro card.


title: N26

text: N26 closed its business in April 2020 in the UK. In November 2021, they also announced that they would pull out of the American market from January 2022 closing all (approx.) 500,000 accounts there


title: N26

text: Some parts of the website and customer service are provided in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish regardless of the customer's residency.


title: N26

text: N26 customers in several of its markets can use their smartphone for in-store purchases. N26 supports Google Pay in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and Sweden, while it supports Apple Pay in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Greece, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia, Estonia, Belgium, Poland, Norway, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland. Additional countries are added as both Google Pay and Apple Pay gradually expand throughout N26's markets.


title: N26

text: N26 has a basic account with no monthly fee and charges no fees for basic banking transactions or credit card payments in foreign currencies. In the Eurozone (except Austria and Italy) ATM withdrawals are limited to five per month for primary account holders and three per month for others. N26 charges a €2 fee for any additional withdrawal.


title: N26

text: ATM withdrawals in foreign currencies are also subject to a 1.70% fee for basic accounts and are free for N26 You and Metal account holders.


title: N26

text: German customers can also withdraw and deposit money at retail locations. While there is no fee for withdrawals up to €999, deposits are subject to a 1.5% fee.


title: N26

text: Customers can lock and unlock their MasterCard through the mobile app without having to contact N26 support. They can also enable and disable it for usage abroad or online usage and modify the daily limits for cash withdrawals and card payments. Funds held in N26 accounts are also covered by all the requisite statutory requirements of a licensed bank, and are protected up to 100,000€ under the German Deposit Protection scheme.


title: N26

text: The N26 app can scan the users' contacts in their smartphones and identify other N26 account holders. Using a service called Moneybeam an N26 customer can send funds to these contacts without having to fill in their IBAN. Moneybeam transfers are executed instantaneously at no cost.


title: N26

text: Following an inquiry made by several German medias reporting that it was possible to quickly open an N26 account with fake identity documents, the bank is in German financial regulatory authority BaFin's sight since 2018.


title: N26

text: In May 2021, BaFin demanded that N26 take actions to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing. And in June 2021, the bank was fined 4.25 million euros by BaFin for weaknesses in its anti-money laundering system. At least 50 transactions were suspicious and occurred between 2019 and 2020. The bank was too slow to report them to BaFin which prevented an efficient inquiry.


title: N26

text: In December 2016, Vincent Haupert, a research fellow in computer science from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, demonstrated how he could take advantage of security vulnerabilities in order to get access to N26 users' accounts.


title: N26

text: N26 acknowledged the issues and claimed that they had been fixed before they became public, adding that no user account had actually been compromised.


title: N26

text: In March 2019, German media reported that customers who had their account credentials stolen found it difficult to contact the bank and resolve the situation. Customer advocates reported that there was a growing number of complaints from phishing victims who were unable to access their accounts and found it difficult to contact the bank. In a widely reported case N26 took more than two weeks to restore access for a customer who had €80,000 stolen from his account. The reports raised the question if the rapid growth of the bank had left it ill-equipped to deal with the increasing number of support cases.


title: N26

text: In August 2020, N26 management drew public criticism for opposing the election of works councils for its Berlin-based subsidiaries N26 GmbH and N26 Operations GmbH. After employees announced a company-wide meeting to form an election committee, N26 obtained a temporary injunction to postpone the works council election, arguing that the hygiene concept did not meet the legal requirements.


title: N26

text: To protect the named employees from further legal action, the trade union Ver.di stepped in to host the meeting at an outside venue. After N26 filed another injunction targeting Ver.di, IG Metall, another trade union organizing workers in the tech sector, called for the meeting instead.


title: N26

text: On the day of the meeting, the police were called to the location but found no violations of the current safety measures, allowing the selection of an election committee to go forward. An N26 spokesperson said that they had no knowledge of anyone at the company calling the police on workers.


title: N26

text: After the works councils were established, CEO Valentin Stalf apologized in a blog post, stating that N26 supports the right of employees to formal representation.


title: N26

text: In May 2022, the employees elected a works council for the second time. According to a media report, members of the works council subsequently drew a positive balance.


title: Granger causality

text: The Granger causality test is a statistical hypothesis test for determining whether one time series is useful in forecasting another, first proposed in 1969. Ordinarily, regressions reflect "mere" correlations, but Clive Granger argued that causality in economics could be tested for by measuring the ability to predict the future values of a time series using prior values of another time series. Since the question of "true causality" is deeply philosophical, and because of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy of assuming that one thing preceding another can be used as a proof of causation, econometricians assert that the Granger test finds only "predictive causality". Using the term "causality" alone is a misnomer, as Granger-causality is better described as "precedence", or, as Granger himself later claimed in 1977, "temporally related". Rather than testing whether "X" "causes" Y, the Granger causality tests whether X "forecasts" "Y."


title: Granger causality

text: A time series "X" is said to Granger-cause "Y" if it can be shown, usually through a series of t-tests and F-tests on lagged values of "X" (and with lagged values of "Y" also included), that those "X" values provide statistically significant information about future values of "Y".


title: Granger causality

text: Granger also stressed that some studies using "Granger causality" testing in areas outside economics reached "ridiculous" conclusions. "Of course, many ridiculous papers appeared", he said in his Nobel lecture. However, it remains a popular method for causality analysis in time series due to its computational simplicity. The original definition of Granger causality does not account for latent confounding effects and does not capture instantaneous and non-linear causal relationships, though several extensions have been proposed to address these issues.


title: Granger causality

text: We say that a variable "X" that evolves over time "Granger-causes" another evolving variable "Y" if predictions of the value of "Y" based on its own past values "and" on the past values of "X" are better than predictions of "Y" based only on "Y"'s own past values.


title: Granger causality

text: Given these two assumptions about causality, Granger proposed to test the following hypothesis for identification of a causal effect of formula_1 on formula_2:


title: Granger causality

text: where formula_4 refers to probability, formula_5 is an arbitrary non-empty set, and formula_6 and formula_7 respectively denote the information available as of time formula_8 in the entire universe, and that in the modified universe in which formula_1 is excluded. If the above hypothesis is accepted, we say that formula_1 Granger-causes formula_2.


title: Granger causality

text: If a time series is a stationary process, the test is performed using the level values of two (or more) variables. If the variables are non-stationary, then the test is done using first (or higher) differences. The number of lags to be included is usually chosen using an information criterion, such as the Akaike information criterion or the Schwarz information criterion. Any particular lagged value of one of the variables is retained in the regression if (1) it is significant according to a t-test, and (2) it and the other lagged values of the variable jointly add explanatory power to the model according to an F-test. Then the null hypothesis of no Granger causality is not rejected if and only if no lagged values of an explanatory variable have been retained in the regression.


title: Granger causality

text: In practice it may be found that neither variable Granger-causes the other, or that each of the two variables Granger-causes the other.


title: Granger causality

text: Let "y" and "x" be stationary time series. To test the null hypothesis that "x" does not Granger-cause "y", one first finds the proper lagged values of "y" to include in an univariate autoregression of "y":


title: Granger causality

text: One retains in this regression all lagged values of "x" that are individually significant according to their t-statistics, provided that collectively they add explanatory power to the regression according to an F-test (whose null hypothesis is no explanatory power jointly added by the "x"'s). In the notation of the above augmented regression, "p" is the shortest, and "q" is the longest, lag length for which the lagged value of "x" is significant.


title: Granger causality

text: The null hypothesis that "x" does not Granger-cause "y" is accepted if and only if no lagged values of "x" are retained in the regression.


title: Granger causality

text: Multivariate Granger causality analysis is usually performed by fitting a vector autoregressive model (VAR) to the time series. In particular, let formula_14 for formula_15 be a formula_16-dimensional multivariate time series. Granger causality is performed by fitting a VAR model with formula_17 time lags as follows:


title: Granger causality

text: where formula_19 is a white Gaussian random vector, and formula_20 is a matrix for every formula_21. A time series formula_22 is called a Granger cause of another time series formula_23, if at least one of the elements formula_24 for formula_25 is significantly larger than zero (in absolute value).


title: Granger causality

text: The above linear methods are appropriate for testing Granger causality in the mean. However they are not able to detect Granger causality in higher moments, e.g., in the variance. Non-parametric tests for Granger causality are designed to address this problem. The definition of Granger causality in these tests is general and does not involve any modelling assumptions, such as a linear autoregressive model. The non-parametric tests for Granger causality can be used as diagnostic tools to build better parametric models including higher order moments and/or non-linearity.


title: Granger causality

text: As its name implies, Granger causality is not necessarily true causality. In fact, the Granger-causality tests fulfill only the Humean definition of causality that identifies the cause-effect relations with constant conjunctions. If both "X" and "Y" are driven by a common third process with different lags, one might still fail to reject the alternative hypothesis of Granger causality. Yet, manipulation of one of the variables would not change the other. Indeed, the Granger-causality tests are designed to handle pairs of variables, and may produce misleading results when the true relationship involves three or more variables. Having said this, it has been argued that given a probabilistic view of causation, Granger causality can be considered true causality in that sense, especially when Reichenbach's "screening off" notion of probabilistic causation is taken into account.


title: Granger causality

text: Other possible sources of misguiding test results are: (1) not frequent enough or too frequent sampling, (2) nonlinear causal relationship, (3) time series nonstationarity and nonlinearity and (4) existence of rational expectations. A similar test involving more variables can be applied with vector autoregression.


title: Granger causality

text: Recently a fundamental mathematical study of the mechanism underlying the Granger method has been provided. By making use exclusively of mathematical tools (Fourier transformation and differential calculus), it has been found that not even the most basic requirement underlying any possible definition of causality is met by the Granger causality test: any definition of causality should refer to the prediction of the future from the past; instead by inverting the time series it can be shown that Granger allows one to ”predict” the past from the future as well.


title: Granger causality

text: A method for Granger causality has been developed that is not sensitive to deviations from the assumption that the error term is normally distributed. This method is especially useful in financial economics, since many financial variables are non-normally distributed. Recently, asymmetric causality testing has been suggested in the literature in order to separate the causal impact of positive changes from the negative ones. An extension of Granger (non-)causality testing to panel data is also available. A modified Granger causality test based on the GARCH (generalized auto-regressive conditional heteroscedasticity) type of integer-valued time series models is available in many areas.


title: Granger causality

text: A long-held belief about neural function maintained that different areas of the brain were task specific; that the structural connectivity local to a certain area somehow dictated the function of that piece. Collecting work that has been performed over many years, there has been a move to a different, network-centric approach to describing information flow in the brain. Explanation of function is beginning to include the concept of networks existing at different levels and throughout different locations in the brain. The behavior of these networks can be described by non-deterministic processes that are evolving through time. That is to say that given the same input stimulus, you will not get the same output from the network. The dynamics of these networks are governed by probabilities so we treat them as stochastic (random) processes so that we can capture these kinds of dynamics between different areas of the brain.


title: Granger causality

text: Different methods of obtaining some measure of information flow from the firing activities of a neuron and its surrounding ensemble have been explored in the past, but they are limited in the kinds of conclusions that can be drawn and provide little insight into the directional flow of information, its effect size, and how it can change with time. Recently Granger causality has been applied to address some of these issues with great success. Put plainly, one examines how to best predict the future of a neuron: using either the entire ensemble or the entire ensemble except a certain target neuron. If the prediction is made worse by excluding the target neuron, then we say it has a “g-causal” relationship with the current neuron.


title: Granger causality

text: Previous Granger-causality methods could only operate on continuous-valued data so the analysis of neural spike train recordings involved transformations that ultimately altered the stochastic properties of the data, indirectly altering the validity of the conclusions that could be drawn from it. In 2011, however, a new general-purpose Granger-causality framework was proposed that could directly operate on any modality, including neural-spike trains.


title: Granger causality

text: Neural spike train data can be modeled as a point-process. A temporal point process is a stochastic time-series of binary events that occurs in continuous time. It can only take on two values at each point in time, indicating whether or not an event has actually occurred. This type of binary-valued representation of information suits the activity of neural populations because a single neuron's action potential has a typical waveform. In this way, what carries the actual information being output from a neuron is the occurrence of a “spike”, as well as the time between successive spikes. Using this approach one could abstract the flow of information in a neural-network to be simply the spiking times for each neuron through an observation period. A point-process can be represented either by the timing of the spikes themselves, the waiting times between spikes, using a counting process, or, if time is discretized enough to ensure that in each window only one event has the possibility of occurring, that is to say one time bin can only contain one event, as a set of 1s and 0s, very similar to binary.


title: Granger causality

text: One of the simplest types of neural-spiking models is the Poisson process. This however, is limited in that it is memory-less. It does not account for any spiking history when calculating the current probability of firing. Neurons, however, exhibit a fundamental (biophysical) history dependence by way of its relative and absolute refractory periods. To address this, a conditional intensity function is used to represent the probability of a neuron spiking, conditioned on its own history. The conditional intensity function expresses the instantaneous firing probability and implicitly defines a complete probability model for the point process. It defines a probability per unit time. So if this unit time is taken small enough to ensure that only one spike could occur in that time window, then our conditional intensity function completely specifies the probability that a given neuron will fire in a certain time.


title: Pyaasa

text: Pyaasa (; ) is a 1957 Indian Hindi drama film directed and produced by Guru Dutt, who stars alongside Mala Sinha, Waheeda Rehman, Rehman, and Johnny Walker. Set in Calcutta, it focuses on the disillusioned Urdu poet Vijay (Dutt), whose works are underestimated by publishers and panned for writing on social issues rather than romantic topics. The film follows his encounters with the golden-hearted prostitute Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman) and his former girlfriend Meena (Sinha), how the former helps him to get his poetry published, the success of his works, and his romantic relationship with Gulabo.


title: Pyaasa

text: The role of Vijay was initially offered to Dilip Kumar which he declined owing to the impact of doing intense films on his health. Later, in an interview, he also said that he found the character of Vijay in "Pyaasa" similar to that of Devdas and admitted "Pyaasa" was one of three movies he regretted turning down. Guru Dutt, later accepted the role himself and the film went on to become one of the most commercially successful movies of the year. "Pyaasa" is a classic and is considered one of the best films of Indian cinema. It was remade into the Telugu film "Mallepoovu" (1978).


title: Pyaasa

text: Vijay is an unsuccessful, idealistic Urdu poet in Calcutta whose works are not taken seriously by publishers. They condemn Vijay for writing on social problems such as unemployment and poverty, rather than those on conventional romantic topics. His brothers also dislike his occupation, trying to sell his poems as waste paper. Unable to bear their taunting, he stays away from home and, beside that, find the poems his brother has sold.


title: Pyaasa

text: Around this time, Vijay encounters a prostitute named Gulabo, who buys and is enamoured with his works and, consequently, fall for him, and his former girlfriend Meena; he finds out that the latter has married the publisher Ghosh due to financial security. Ghosh hires him as a servant to find out more about him and Meena. A dead beggar to whom Vijay gave his coat and whom he tries to save unsuccessfully from the path of a running train is mistaken for Vijay. Gulabo goes to Ghosh and gets his poems published. Ghosh does so feeling he can exploit the poems and make a killing. The poems are very successful. However, Vijay is alive and in the hospital after the train mishap.


title: Pyaasa

text: Ghosh and Shyam, Vijay's close friend, refuse to recognise him and he is committed to a mental asylum since he insists that he is Vijay and is thought to be mad. Vijay's brothers too are bought off by Ghosh not to recognise him and a memorial is held for the dead poet. Vijay, with the help of his friend Abdul Sattar escapes from the mental asylum and reaches the memorial service, where he denounces this corrupt and materialistic world. Seeing that Vijay is alive, his friend and brothers side with a rival publisher for more money and declare that this is Vijay. At a function to honour him, Vijay becomes sick of all the hypocrisy in the world around him and declares he is not Vijay. He then leaves with Gulabo to start a new life.


title: Pyaasa

text: "Pyaasa" was based on a story idea called Kashmakash, written by Guru Dutt sometime in 1947 or '48, when he was 22. The film's theme and philosophy was inspired by his life experiences in early struggling days of his life. It is also surmised that the story is based on the life of the film's lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi who had a failed affair with poet and writer Amrita Pritam.


title: Pyaasa

text: Till the project was started in 1956, several changes were made in the original story in assistance with Abrar Alvi like originally the protagonist was to be a painter. In the original ending, Guru Dutt wanted to show that Vijay left all alone, but on the distributors' insistence the ending was changed. There was a debate between writer Abrar Alvi and Dutt on film's ending. Abrar wanted the protagonist to accept and compromise with the prevailing material social reality; Guru Dutt insisted otherwise.


title: Pyaasa

text: The film was originally titled "Pyaas" (thirst), but Dutt later changed it to "Pyaasa" to better describe the film.


title: Pyaasa

text: Waheeda Rehman's character in "Pyaasa" was inspired from a real life character. Abrar Alvi and his friends were visiting Bombay and they decided to visit the red light area. Alvi got talking to a girl who called herself Gulabo. According to Alvi "As I left, she thanked me in a broken voice, saying that it was the first time that she had been treated with respect, in a place where she heard only abuses. I used her exact words in the film."


title: Pyaasa

text: Dutt wanted Dilip Kumar to play the leading role in the movie, which the 'tragedy king' declined. One major reason that is cited for the decline is the impact of doing intense films on Dilip Kumar's health. Reportedly, the doctors had advised him to take up lighter roles for sometime. Another possible reason that is cited is the alleged disagreement between him and Dutt over the film's distribution rights. Thus, Dutt himself played the role and movie went on to become one of the most commercially successful movies of the year.


title: Pyaasa

text: The role of Shyam was originally to be played by Dutt's real life friend, Johnny Walker, but was then also assigned to one of Dutt's assistant directors.


title: Pyaasa

text: "Pyaasa" was to be made with actresses Nargis Dutt and Madhubala in the roles Mala Sinha and Waheeda Rehman played eventually. But the two actresses couldn't decide which role they wanted to play and Dutt eventually opted for two, then new actresses, Mala and Waheeda.


title: Pyaasa

text: Guru Dutt wanted to film red light area scenes on locations in Calcutta (now Kolkata), but the crew was attacked by a group of pimps. Guru Dutt however, recreated sets in Bombay on the basis of photos taken at Kolkata.


title: Pyaasa

text: After a slow opening, "Pyaasa" went on to be a major commercial success of the year. This gave Guru Dutt the confidence to make a repeat on a grand scale. However, "Kaagaz Ke Phool" went on to be a commercial disaster. The movie picked up a cult following the world over in the 1980s, long after Guru Dutt died.


title: Pyaasa

text: The movie boasts one of the best performances of S.D. Burman, Sahir Ludhianvi, Geeta Dutt and Mohammed Rafi to produce one of the most lyrical Hindi musicals. Sahir's work in the film's music was particularly praised; As stated in "The Hindu", "While for Pyaasa, a film considered the brainchild of Guru Dutt, the soul behind the film was its lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi". "Pyaasa" marked the last collaboration of the long-lasting team of composer Burman and lyricist Ludhianvi.


title: Pyaasa

text: The popular song "Hum Aapki Aankhon Mein" was added to the movie on behest of distributors to bring some relief in rather pessimistic film. It was never planned in the original cut. The song "Sar Jo Tera Chakraye", actually composed by R.D. Burman, S. D. Burman's son was originally inspired from a tune from the British film "Harry Black", which was later released in India as "Harry Black and The Tiger". He later recreated it so well that when the producer of "Harry Black and the Tiger" visited India, he heard the song and not only failed to recognise the tune, but applauded him on it.


title: Pyaasa

text: In 2004, as part of "Sight & Sound's" feature "celebrating the relationship between cinema and music", "Pyaasa" was listed as one of The Best Music in Film and was named by Olivier Assayas as one of his favourites, who called its music as "possibly one of the most remarkable transpositions of poetry on screen."


title: Pyaasa

text: This film has been digitised and restored by Mumbai-based Ultra Media & Entertainment, thus becoming the first Indian film to be restored to its original. As per the report, the original camera negative had come to them from the archives completely melted, with parts damaged or lost. Their biggest challenge was the flickering. Every frame was at a different angle and there was no stability. After several clean-ups, they managed to retrieve the actual content from the original camera negative, but it lacked clarity and depth. 45 restoration experts worked for almost 4 months on over 2 lakh (200,000) frames. The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the 35 mm optical soundtrack. The company sent it to the 72nd Venice International Film Festival held in 2015, where it competed with 20 other restored classics and was selected to be screened as part of the Venice Classics section along with 11 other films from all over the world.


title: Pyaasa

text: "Pyaasa" is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. It frequently features on world cinema's greatest films lists. It was one of the earliest films to have achieved a healthy blend of artistic as well as commercial mainstream traits.


title: Pyaasa

text: Filmmakers in India, to this day cite "Pyaasa" as their inspiration. It is one of the most revered and respected films in India and remains a popular favourite among cinephiles and filmmakers of Hindi Cinema.


title: Pyaasa

text: It is, in particular, praised for its technical bravura, storytelling, theme and romantic idealism. Its soundtrack was the first major of its type in carrying the narrative forward– utilising songs which are a major part of Hindi Cinema's mainstream films and transposing poetry on screen. In 2004, it's soundtrack was listed by Sight and Sound magazine as one of The Best Music in Film.


title: Pyaasa

text: The film is considered to be ahead of its time. At the time of its release, the theme of the film was unconventional and hence wasn't widely admired by critics and its acceptance by audience was doubted. It didn't receive any award at the post year's Filmfare ceremony. Even though the film had an unconventional theme and no major actor or actress at the time it was made, "Pyaasa" managed to be the third highest grosser of the year.


title: Pyaasa

text: The film received international acclaim in 1980s when it was first released in Europe, subsequently becoming a big commercial success there, long after Guru Dutt died and is now considered a "seminal landmark" in the history of Indian cinema.


title: Pyaasa

text: Guru Dutt and his later movies, including "Pyaasa", have a large cult following, particularly in France, Germany, South Asia and parts of East Asia (Japan, Singapore, etc). It was a huge commercial success during its 1984 French Premiere, something Guru Dutt never witnessed during his lifetime. Since then, the movie has been screened to huge mass appeal the world over, like the recent screening at 72nd Venice International Film Festival held in Italy, in September 2015.


title: Pyaasa

text: With the commercial success of noirs: "Baazi" (Navketan Films)"," "Jaal" (Navketan Films), "Aar Paar"; thriller: "CID" (produced by Dutt), as well as comedy: "Mr. & Mrs. '55", Guru Dutt and his studio were financially secure and established. From 1957, he could now make movies he really wanted to make, including "Pyaasa."


title: Pyaasa

text: "Pyaasa" is often listed among greatest films ever made. In 2002, "Pyaasa" was ranked among "Top 160" on the Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll of "all-time greatest films". In 2005, "Pyaasa" was the only Hindi film to make it to the "100 Greatest Films of All Time" list by "Time" magazine, which called it "the soulfully romantic of the lot." In 2017, "Taste of Cinema" ranked it among "25 Most Influential Asian Movies of All Time".


title: Pyaasa

text: On the occasion of Valentine's Day 2011, "Time" declared it as one of the "Top 10 Romantic Movies". It was listed in "Taste of Cinema"'s "Top 30 Best Romantic Movies of All Time" list in 2016. It is frequently voted in "Time Reader's Choice" Top 10 movies.


title: Pyaasa

text: "Indiatimes" ranks it among "25 Must See Bollywood Movies". On the centenary of Indian cinema in 2013, CNN- IBN listed it among "100 Greatest Indian films of all time", calling it "The most soulful romantic Hindi film ever made". It was also included among NDTV's "20 Greatest Indian Films" citing, "the cinematic mastery on display in Pyaasa has rarely been replicated in mainstream Indian cinema"; British Film Institute's "Top 5 of India's Greatest Films" poll in 2002; "Time" "Top 3 of Bollywood's Best Classics"; "Esquire"'s '10 Best Bollywood Movies' calling it, "the ultimate posthumous dream"; "Outlook" 'Top 5 of Hindi Cinema's Greatest Films' poll of 25 leading Indian Directors in 2003; "Time-Out"'s 'Top 5 of Bollywood's Best Movies' poll in 2015 and numerous other polls of greatest films.


title: Pyaasa

text: In 2013, to celebrate the centenary year of Indian cinema by selecting one essential Indian film from each decade, "The Guardian" named "Pyaasa" as the 'Quintessential Indian Classic of 1950s' decade citing, "The 1950s is the hardest decade from which to pick a film. Guru Dutt's melodramatic "Pyaasa" or 'The desirous one' is 'extraordinary', a film that draws on all the features of a mainstream movie to achieve a high aesthetic, from the beautiful photography of the Christ-like tormented poet, the beauty of the streetgirl (Waheeda Rehman) and the wonderful music with some of the great Sahir Ludhianvi's best lyrics." In 2019, the British Film Institute named it the 'Greatest Musical of 1957', stating, "Until his tragic overdose in 1964, its director-producer-star Guru Dutt was one of Indian cinema's boldest talents and Pyaasa is his masterpiece." It was also part of "BFI Screen Guides' 100 Film Musical" book.


title: Pyaasa

text: In 2011, the British author Nasreen Munni Kabir published "The Dialogue of Pyaasa", which contains original dialogues for the film in Hindi and Urdu as well as its translation in English.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: Giardia duodenalis, also known as Giardia intestinalis and Giardia lamblia, is a flagellated parasitic microorganism of the genus "Giardia" that colonizes the small intestine, causing a diarrheal condition known as giardiasis. The parasite attaches to the epithelium by a ventral adhesive disc or sucker, and reproduces via binary fission. Giardiasis does not spread via the bloodstream, nor does it spread to other parts of the gastrointestinal tract, but remains confined to the lumen of the small intestine. Giardia has an outer membrane that makes it possible to retain life, even when outside of the host body, and which can make it tolerant to chlorine disinfection. "Giardia" trophozoites absorb their nutrients from the lumen, and are anaerobes. If the organism is split and stained, its characteristic pattern resembles the familiar "smiley face" symbol.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: Chief pathways of human infection include ingestion of untreated drinking water (which is the most common method of transmission for this parasite), food, and soil contaminated with human feces, as well as ingestion of sewage, a phenomenon particularly common in many developing countries. Contamination of natural waters also occurs in watersheds where intensive grazing occurs.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: "Giardia" infections occur worldwide. It is the most commonly identified intestinal parasite in the United States and Canada among children in day-care centers, hikers, family members, and immunocompromised adults. About 20,000 cases per year in the United States are reported.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: "G. duodenalis" takes on two morphologically distinct forms during its lifecycle. The replicative form is a motile, pear-shaped cell that survives only in host small intestines called a trophozoite. Trophozoites swim through the intestinal mucus until they eventually adhere to the host intestinal epithelium. Adhered trophozoites then divide by binary fission, forming either more trophozoites or the nonreplicative cyst stage. Cysts pass through the host's large intestine and are shed in the feces. "G. lamblia" cysts are resistant to environment stressors, and can survive in the environment for weeks to months if kept moist. Cysts remain dormant until ingested by a host animal. In the new host, environmental conditions trigger the cyst to produce two trophozoites, which then attach to epithelial cells, starting the cycle anew.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: The cyst can survive for weeks to months in cold water, so can be present in contaminated wells and water systems, especially stagnant water sources, such as naturally occurring ponds, storm-water storage systems, and even clean-looking mountain streams. Cysts can also be found on surfaces, soil, food, or water that have been contaminated with feces from infected humans or animals. They may also occur in city reservoirs and persist after water treatment, as the cysts are resistant to conventional water-treatment methods, such as chlorination and ozonolysis. Zoonotic transmission is also possible, so "Giardia" infection is a concern for people camping in the wilderness or swimming in contaminated streams or lakes, especially the artificial lakes formed by beaver dams (hence the popular name for giardiasis, "beaver fever").


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: In addition to waterborne sources, fecal–oral transmission can also occur, for example in day-care centers, where children may have poor hygiene practices. Those who work with children are also at risk of being infected, as are family members of infected individuals. Not all "Giardia" infections are symptomatic, and many people can unknowingly serve as carriers of the parasite.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: "Giardia" infects humans, but is also one of the most common parasites infecting cats, dogs, and birds. Mammalian hosts also include dozens of species, including cattle, sheep, and goats.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: Cats can be cured easily, and lambs usually simply lose weight, but in calves, the parasites can be fatal and often are not responsive to antibiotics or electrolytes. Carriers among calves can also be asymptomatic. This parasite is deadly for chinchillas, so extra care must be taken by providing them with safe water. Dogs have a high infection rate, as 30% of the population under one year old are known to be infected in kennels. The infection is more prevalent in puppies than in adult dogs. Infected dogs can be isolated and treated, or the entire pack at a kennel can be treated together regardless. Kennels should also be then cleaned with bleach or other cleaning disinfectants. The grass areas used for exercise should be considered contaminated for at least one month after dogs show signs of infection, as cysts can survive in the environment for long periods of time. Prevention can be achieved by quarantine of infected dogs for at least 20 days and careful management and maintenance of a clean water supply.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: "G. duodenalis" trophozoites are pear-shaped cells, 10 to 20 μm long, 7 to 10 μm across, and 2 to 4 μm thick. They are motile by way of four pairs of flagella, which propel the trophozoites through the intestine. Notably, each "G. duodenalis" cell has two nuclei, both of which actively transcribe genes. Adjacent to the nucleus, "G. duodenalis" cells have an endoplasmic reticulum that extends through much of the cell. Trophozoites about to differentiate into cysts also contain prominent vesicles termed encystation-specific vesicles that disappear once cyst wall construction begins. Unlike most other eukaryotes, "G. duodenalis" cells contain no visible mitochondria, but instead contains a substantially reduced metabolic organelle termed a mitosome. Additionally, cells appear to contain no Golgi bodies, and instead the secretory system consists entirely of the endoplasmic reticulum and numerous vesicles spread throughout the cell, termed peripheral vesicles. Peripheral vesicles are responsible both for taking up extracellular nutrients, and expelling waste outside the cell. Each cell also contains a pair of rigid structures called median bodies which make up part of the "G. lamblia" cytoskeleton. Trophozoites adhere to host epithelial cells via a specialized disk-shaped organelle called the ventral disk.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: Cysts are oval-shaped cells slightly smaller than trophozoites. They lack flagella, and are covered by a smooth, clear cyst wall. Each cyst contains the organelles for two trophzoites: four nuclei, two ventral disks, etc.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: "G. lamblia" primarily generates its energy by breaking down glucose via glycolysis, as well as the arginine dihydrolase pathway. It is unable to synthesize nucleotides on its own, instead salvaging them from its host. Synthesis of iron-sulfur clusters is done in a double-membrane-bound compartment called the mitosome, which is likely a remnant of mitochondria. Each cell contains 25 to 100 mitosomes divided into two categories - peripheral mitosomes, which are scattered throughout the cell, and central mitosomes, which gather at the center of the cell for unknown reasons. As in mitochondria, proteins with a certain peptide signal sequence are trafficked to and imported into the mitosome. Unlike mitochondria, mitosomes have no genome of their own. All mitosomal genes are encoded by the "Giardia" nuclear genome.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: "Giardia" and the other diplomonads are unique in their possession of two nuclei that are similar in appearance, DNA content, transcription, and time of replication. Five chromosomes occur per haploid genome.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: The genome has been sequenced and was published in 2007, although the sequence contains several gaps. The sequence is about 12 million base pairs and contains about 5000 protein-coding genes. The GC content is 46%. Trophozoites have a ploidy of four and the ploidy of cysts is eight, which in turn raises the question of how "Giardia" maintains homogeneity between the chromosomes of the same and opposite nuclei. Modern sequencing technologies have been used to resequence different strains.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: "Giardia" had been assumed to be primitively asexual and with no means of transferring DNA between nuclei. These assumptions made explaining the remarkably low level of allelic heterozygosity (< 0.01%) in the genome isolate, WB, very difficult, but all those assumptions of asexuality are now in doubt, with population genetics providing evidence for recombination and the identification of meiotic genes, evidence for recombination among isolates and the evidence for exchange of genetic material between nuclei during the process of encystation.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: These findings on sexuality in "Giardia", above, have important implications for understanding the origin of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes. Though sexual reproduction is widespread among extant eukaryotes, until recently, sex seemed unlikely to be a primordial and fundamental feature of eukaryotes. A probable reason for the view that sex may not be fundamental to eukaryotes was that sexual reproduction previously appeared to be lacking in certain human pathogenic single-celled eukaryotes (e.g. "Giardia") that diverged from early ancestors in the eukaryotic lineage.


title: Giardia duodenalis

text: In addition to the evidence cited above for recombination in "Giardia", Malik et al. reported that many meiosis specific genes occur in the "Giardia" genome, and further that homologs of these genes also occur in another unicellular eukaryote, "Trichomonas vaginalis". Because these two species are descendants of lineages that are highly divergent among eukaryotes, Malik et al. suggested that these meiotic genes were present in a common ancestor of all eukaryotes. Thus, on this view, the earliest ancestor of eukaryotes was likely capable of sexual reproduction. Furthermore, Dacks and Roger proposed, based on phylogenetic analysis, that facultative sex was present in the common ancestor of all eukaryotes. Bernstein et al. also reviewed evidence in support of this view.