title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The "Sojourner" rover had an Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), which was used to analyze the components of the rocks and soil. The rover also had two black-and-white cameras and a color one. These instruments could investigate the geology of the Martian surface from just a few millimeters to many hundreds of meters, the geochemistry and evolutionary history of the rocks and surface, the magnetic and mechanical properties of the land, as well as the magnetic properties of the dust, atmosphere and the rotational and orbital dynamics of the planet.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Three navigation cameras were on board the rover: Two black and white 0.3-megapixel cameras were located on the front (768 horizontal pixels × 484 vertical pixels configured in 4×4+100 pixel blocks), coupled with five laser stripe projectors, which enabled stereoscopic images to be taken along with measurements for hazard detection on the rover's path. A third camera with the same resolution but taking color images was located on the back, near the APXS, and rotated by 90°. It provided images of the APXS's target area and the rover's tracks on the ground. The pixels of this color camera were arranged in such a way, that out of the 16 pixel of a 4×4 pixel block, 12 pixel were sensitive to green, 2 pixel to red and 2 pixel were sensitive to infrared as well as blue. As all cameras had lenses made out of zinc selenide, which blocks light below a wavelength of 500 nm, no blue light actually reached these "blue/infrared" pixels, which therefore recorded only infrared.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: All three cameras were CCDs manufactured by Eastman Kodak Company, and were controlled by the rover's CPU. They all had auto-exposure and capabilities for handling bad pixels, and the image parameters (exposure time, compression used, etc.) were included in the transmitted images as part of the image header. The rover could compress the front cameras' images using the block truncation coding (BTC) algorithm, but it could only do the same for the back camera's images if the color information was discarded. The cameras' optical resolution was sufficient to resolve details across a range.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The landing site was an ancient flood plain in Mars's northern hemisphere called "Ares Vallis" ("the valley of Ares", the ancient Greek equivalent of the ancient Roman deity Mars) and is among the rockiest parts of Mars. Scientists chose it because they found it to be a relatively safe surface to land on and one that contained a wide variety of rocks deposited during a catastrophic flood. After the landing, at , succeeded, the lander received the name "The Carl Sagan Memorial Station" in honor of the astronomer. (See also List of extraterrestrial memorials)


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: "Mars Pathfinder" entered the Martian atmosphere and landed using an innovative system involving an entry capsule, a supersonic parachute, followed by solid rockets and large airbags to cushion the impact.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: "Mars Pathfinder" directly entered Mars atmosphere in a retrograde direction from a hyperbolic trajectory at using an atmospheric entry aeroshell (capsule) that was derived from the original Viking Mars lander design. The aeroshell consisted of a back shell and a specially designed ablative heatshield to slow to where a supersonic disk-gap-band parachute was inflated to slow its descent through the thin Martian atmosphere to . The lander's on-board computer used redundant on-board accelerometers to determine the timing of the parachute inflation. Twenty seconds later the heatshield was pyrotechnically released. Another twenty seconds later the lander was separated and lowered from the backshell on a bridle. When the lander reached above the surface, a radar was used by the on-board computer to determine altitude and descent velocity. This information was used by the computer to determine the precise timing of the landing events that followed.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Once the lander was above the ground, airbags were inflated in less than a second using three gas generators. The airbags were made of four inter-connected multi-layer vectran bags that surrounded the tetrahedron lander. They were designed and tested to accommodate grazing angle impacts as high as . However, as the airbags were designed for no more than about vertical impacts, three solid retrorockets were mounted above the lander in the backshell. These were fired at above the ground. The lander's on-board computer estimated the best time to fire the rockets and cut the bridle so that the lander velocity would be reduced to about zero between above the ground. After 2.3 seconds, while the rockets were still firing, the lander cut the bridle loose about above the ground and fell to the ground. The rockets flew up and away with the backshell and parachute (they have since been sighted by orbital images). The lander impacted at and limited the impact to only 18 G of deceleration. The first bounce was high and continued bouncing for at least 15 additional bounces (accelerometer data recording did not continue through all of the bounces).


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Once the lander stopped rolling, the airbags deflated and retracted toward the lander using four winches mounted on the lander "petals". Designed to right itself from any initial orientation, the lander happened to roll right side up onto its base petal. 87 minutes after landing, the petals were deployed with "Sojourner" rover and the solar panels attached on the inside.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The lander arrived at night at 2:56:55 Mars local solar time (16:56:55 UTC) on July 4, 1997. The lander had to wait until sunrise to send its first digital signals and images to Earth. The landing site was located at 19.30° north latitude and 33.52° west longitude in Ares Vallis, only southwest of the center of the wide landing site ellipse. During Sol 1, the first Martian solar day the lander spent on the planet, the lander took pictures and made some meteorologic measurements. Once the data was received, the engineers realized that one of the airbags hadn't fully deflated and could be a problem for the forthcoming traverse of "Sojourner"s descent ramp. To solve the problem, they sent commands to the lander to raise one of its petals and perform additional retraction to flatten the airbag. The procedure was a success and on Sol 2, "Sojourner" was released, stood up and backed down one of two ramps.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The "Sojourner" rover exit from the lander occurred on Sol 2, after its landing on July 4, 1997. As the next sols progressed it approached some rocks, which the scientists named "Barnacle Bill", "Yogi", and "Scooby-Doo", after famous cartoon characters. The rover made measurements of the elements found in those rocks and in the martian soil, while the lander took pictures of the "Sojourner" and the surrounding terrain, in addition to making climate observations.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The "Sojourner" is a six-wheeled, long vehicle, wide, tall and weighing . Its maximum speed reached . "Sojourner" travelled approximately in total, never more than from the "Pathfinder" station. During its 83 sols of operation, it sent 550 photographs to Earth and analyzed the chemical properties of 16 locations near the lander. (See also Space exploration rovers)


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The first analysis on a rock started on Sol 3 with Barnacle Bill. The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) was used to determine its composition, the spectrometer taking ten hours to make a full scan of the sample. It found all the elements except hydrogen, which constitutes just 0.1 percent of the rock's or soil's mass.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The APXS works by irradiating rocks and soil samples with alpha particles (helium nuclei, which consist of two protons and two neutrons). The results indicated that "Barnacle Bill" is much like Earth's andesites, confirming past volcanic activity. The discovery of andesites shows that some Martian rocks have been remelted and reprocessed. On Earth, andesite forms when magma sits in pockets of rock while some of the iron and magnesium settle out. Consequently, the final rock contains less iron and magnesiums and more silica. Volcanic rocks are usually classified by comparing the relative amount of alkalis (NaO and KO) with the amount of silica (SiO). Andesite is different from the rocks found in meteorites that have come from Mars.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Analysis of the Yogi rock again using the APXS showed that it was a basaltic rock, more primitive than Barnacle Bill. Yogi's shape and texture show that it was probably deposited there by a flood.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Another rock, named Moe, was found to have certain marks on its surface, demonstrating erosion caused by the wind. Most rocks analyzed showed a high content of silicon. In another region known as Rock Garden, "Sojourner" encountered crescent moon-shaped dunes, which are similar to crescentic dunes on Earth.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: By the time that final results of the mission were described in a series of articles in the journal "Science" (December 5, 1997), it was believed that the rock Yogi contained a coating of dust, but was similar to the rock Barnacle Bill. Calculations suggest that the two rocks contain mostly the minerals orthopyroxene (magnesium-iron silicate), feldspars (aluminum silicates of potassium, sodium, and calcium), and quartz (silicon dioxide), with smaller amounts of magnetite, ilmenite, iron sulfide, and calcium phosphate.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The embedded computer on board the "Sojourner" rover was based around the 2 MHz Intel 80C85 CPU with 512 KB of RAM and 176 KB of flash memory solid-state storage, running a cyclic executive.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The computer of the "Pathfinder" lander was a Radiation Hardened IBM Risc 6000 Single Chip (Rad6000 SC) CPU with 128 MB of RAM and 6 MB of EEPROM and its operating system was VxWorks.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The mission was jeopardised by a concurrent software bug in the lander, which had been found in preflight testing but was deemed a glitch and therefore given a low priority as it only occurred in certain unanticipated heavy-load conditions, and the focus was on verifying the entry and landing code. The problem, which was reproduced and corrected from Earth using a laboratory duplicate thanks to the logging and debugging functionality enabled in the flight software, was due to computer resets caused by priority inversion. No scientific or engineering data was lost after a computer reset, but all the following operations were interrupted until the next day. Four resets occurred (on July 5, 10, 11 and 14) during the mission, before patching the software on July 21 to enable priority inheritance.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The lander sent more than 2.3 billion bits (287.5 megabytes) of information including 16,500 pictures and made 8.5 million measurements of the atmospheric pressure, temperature and wind speed.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: By taking multiple images of the sky at different distances from the Sun, scientists were able to determine that the size of the particles in the pink haze was about one micrometre in radius. The color of some soils was similar to that of an iron oxyhydroxide phase which would support the theory of a warmer and wetter climate in the past. "Pathfinder" carried a series of magnets to examine the magnetic component of the dust. Eventually, all but one of the magnets developed a coating of dust. Since the weakest magnet did not attract any soil, it was concluded that the airborne dust did not contain pure magnetite or just one type of maghemite. The dust probably was an aggregate possibly cemented with ferric oxide (FeO). Using much more sophisticated instruments, Mars "Spirit" rover found that magnetite could explain the magnetic nature of the dust and soil on Mars. Magnetite was found in the soil and that the most magnetic part of the soil was dark. Magnetite is very dark.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Using Doppler tracking and two-way ranging, scientists added earlier measurements from the "Viking" landers to determine that the non-hydrostatic component of the polar moment of inertia is due to the Tharsis bulge and that the interior is not melted. The central metallic core is between in radius.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Although the mission was planned to last from a week to a month, the rover operated successfully for almost three months. Communication failed after October 7, with a final data transmission received from Pathfinder at 10:23 UTC on September 27, 1997. Mission managers tried to restore full communications during the following five months, but the mission was terminated on March 10, 1998. During the extended operation a high-resolution stereo panorama of the surrounding terrain was being made, and the Sojourner rover was to visit a distant ridge, but the panorama was only about one-third completed and the ridge visit had not begun when communication failed.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The on-board battery—designed to operate for one month—may have failed after repeated charging and discharging. The battery was used to heat the probe's electronics to slightly above the expected nighttime temperatures on Mars. With the failure of the battery, colder-than-normal temperatures may have caused vital parts to break, leading to loss of communications. The mission had exceeded its goals in the first month.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: The name "Sojourner" was chosen for the "Mars Pathfinder" rover when 12-year old Valerie Ambroise, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, won a year-long, worldwide competition in which students up to 18 years old were invited to select a heroine and submit an essay about her historical accomplishments. The students were asked to address in their essays how a planetary rover named for their heroine would translate these accomplishments to the Martian environment.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Initiated in March 1994 by The Planetary Society of Pasadena, California, in cooperation with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the contest got under way with an announcement in the January 1995 issue of the National Science Teachers Association's magazine "Science and Children", circulated to 20,000 teachers and schools across the nation.


title: Mars Pathfinder

text: Ambroise's winning essay, which suggested naming the rover for the 19th century women's rights activist Sojourner Truth, was selected from among 3,500 essays. First runner-up was Deepti Rohatgi, 18, of Rockville, Maryland, who suggested scientist Marie Curie. Second runner-up was Adam Sheedy, 15, of Round Rock, Texas, who submitted the name of the late astronaut Judith Resnik, who perished in the 1986 Space Shuttle "Challenger" explosion. Other popular suggestions included explorer and guide Sacajewea and aviator Amelia Earhart.


title: Alok (DJ)

text: Alok Achkar Peres Petrillo (; born 26 August 1991) is a Brazilian musician, DJ, and record producer. He is known for his single "Hear Me Now". In 2021 and 2022, Alok was ranked the 4th best DJ in the world by "DJ Mag", being the highest position occupied by a Brazilian.


title: Alok (DJ)

text: Alok has become one of the most prominent icons in the Brazilian electronic scene, with honors and awards, such as "Best DJ in Brazil" by House Mag in 2014 and 2015, and being the only Brazilian in the top 25 in the world the following year by "DJ Mag" magazine. In 2017, he was elected by "Forbes" Brasil as one of the most influential people under the age of 30 in the country.


title: Alok (DJ)

text: Petrillo was born in Goiânia, Brazil, the son of DJs' Swarup and Ekanta, who are also pioneers of psytrance in the country and creators of the Universo Paralello, electronic music festival in Bahia.


title: Alok (DJ)

text: His name came after his parents travelled to India, where they met with spiritual guru Osho, who indicated that the boy should be called Alok, which in the Sanskrit language means "light".


title: Alok (DJ)

text: He began his career at the age of 12 along with his fraternal twin brother Bhaskar Petrillo. At age 19 he pursued a solo career, becoming one of the most prominent icons in the Brazilian electronic scene, with honors and awards, such as "Best DJ in Brazil" awarded by House Mag for two consecutive times (in the years 2014 and 2015) and the only Brazilian in the top 25 world DJ ranking by DJ Magazine in 2016.


title: Alok (DJ)

text: At age 10 he began to learn to play, playing music with his fraternal twin brother Bhaskar. In 2004, he and his brother attended the rehearsal studio of their father Swarup's band, playing drums. According to Ekanta, they were interested in how the remixes were made and with the help of DJ's Zumbi and Pedrão, family friends, they taught the brothers to mix the songs, and each one learned a specialty, one on the keyboard and the other on the guitar. Shortly thereafter, Dick Trevor installed the Logic Pro music editing program on Swarup's computer, bringing the brothers closer to producing music.


title: Alok (DJ)

text: He and his brother attended the presentations that their parents made at parties psy trance, soon creating the project Logica.


title: Alok (DJ)

text: Petrillo is also the founder of UP Club Records, a record label specializing in discovering new inborn talent in electronic music.


title: Alok (DJ)

text: In November 2019, Alok Petrillo became a character of Garena Free Fire under his name Alok and Song released Vale Vale with Zafrir. in August 2021, according to in-game info from Garena Free Fire Alok is the most used character in game. Petrillo along with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike & KSHMR released Collaboration song for Free Fire's 4th anniversary.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Local elections in England and Wales were held on 6 May 2021 for more than 145 English local councils for around 5,000 seats (including by-elections), thirteen directly elected mayors in England, and 39 police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. There were also elections to the Scottish Parliament (129 seats), Senedd (Welsh Parliament) (60 seats) and London Assembly (25 seats), the last in conjunction with the London mayoral election. Also on the same day as these local elections, there was a UK Parliament by-election for the constituency of Hartlepool.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: In March 2020, the government announced that the elections scheduled for 7 May 2020 would be delayed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They were now held at the same time as the elections previously scheduled for 2021. The seats up for election were those last contested in 2016 and 2017. New unitary authorities to replace the county and district councils in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire held their inaugural elections this year.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: The Conservative Party made significant gains in the elections; despite initial predictions that the party would perform better in the seats last contested in 2016, but worse in the ones contested in 2017 (when the party benefited from the then-exceptionally high approval ratings of Theresa May's government in the run-up to that year's general election), they in fact performed even better in both sets of seats, with their performance being widely attributed to the successful rollout of the country's COVID-19 vaccination programme. By contrast, Labour's poor performance was generally ascribed to the party still being viewed by much of the working class as having been discredited by its prior opposition to Brexit, as well as party leader Keir Starmer's perceived opportunism in attacking Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the Downing Street refurbishment controversy. The Liberal Democrats made some minor gains despite a loss in their popular vote share, while the Green Party made more substantial gains.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: The local elections in May 2019 across a majority of councils in England saw the Conservative Party suffer significant losses to the Liberal Democrats, who regained councils they lost to the Conservatives in 2015. The Labour Party, despite making some gains, had a net loss of over eighty seats in areas that had traditionally voted for them, particularly to independent candidates. Local elections also took place at the same time in Northern Ireland, which saw a rise in the Alliance Party's representation across the region. At the 2019 European Parliament election, a few weeks later, the Conservatives had their lowest share of the vote in a nationwide election in their history, with the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats coming first and second, respectively.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: On 12 December 2019, the UK held a snap general election that led to the Conservatives winning a majority of eighty in the House of Commons, while Labour had their worst share of the seats since the 1935 general election. Following the election result, Jeremy Corbyn announced that he would step down as leader of the Labour Party; Keir Starmer was elected the new leader on 4 April 2020. The Liberal Democrats also held a leadership election after Jo Swinson lost her seat in the general election; in the interim, the party's deputy leader Ed Davey and party president Mark Pack acted as co-leaders, and in August Davey was elected as leader.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Prior to the elections, structural changes to local government in England merged some district and county councils into unitary authorities, which meant more power was consolidated; an example is Buckinghamshire Council, which replaced five councils in April 2020. In addition, new combined authorities (institutions which cover two or more local authorities) are being created, with the electorate of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority electing their mayor at this election. Intentions to reorganise councils in Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset caused elections in those areas to be rescheduled for 2022. More combined authorities and significant reorganisations were planned, but in 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the government's devolution program for England.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: A pandemic of a new strand of coronavirus spread across the world from February 2020. On 1 March, Health Secretary Matt Hancock issued a warning that "all options" were being considered if the virus spread further, including delaying the local elections, for the first time since the 2001 elections which were delayed by a month due to the foot-and-mouth outbreak. On 12 March, the Association of Electoral Administrators asked the government to consider postponing the elections should the situation in the UK deteriorate. The same day, the Electoral Commission recommended that the elections be delayed till the autumn.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: A day later, Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided to postpone the 2020 UK local elections until May 2021. This decision was legislated for in the Coronavirus Act 2020, which was enacted on 25 March. The bill gave the government the power to postpone any elections, including by-elections, which would otherwise have been held between the dates of 16 March 2020 and 5 May 2021. To preserve the four-year electoral cycle, those elected in 2021 would serve three-year terms.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: On 4 November 2020, the Cabinet Office ruled out any further delays to local elections, after suggestions from some local authorities to defer the elections by a couple of weeks, in order to allow enough time to get the electoral roll in order without having to knock on doors during the second wave of the pandemic. After the country went into a third national lockdown in January 2021, the County Councils Network called on Johnson to declare "as soon as possible" whether the elections would go ahead as planned. Suggestions had been put forward include delaying the elections until June or July; delaying them until the Autumn; and conducting them in May but entirely via postal voting. On 9 January election officials stated that the local elections will take place as planned. However Johnson said this remains "under review". It was confirmed in February by Chloe Smith and the Cabinet Office that the elections would in fact take place in line with the government's target to vaccinate all over 50s by the beginning of May.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: The Coronavirus Act 2020 also postponed by-elections to fill casual vacancies occurring because a sitting councillor resigned or died. On 15 March 2021, it was reported that more than 260 by-elections would take place alongside the planned council elections.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: In Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, by-elections were held in the wards of Canford Heath and Commons. Four by-elections in the London Borough of Lewisham were also held.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: In January 2021, government guidance on activity during the national lockdown was issued by the Minister of State for the Constitution and Devolution, Chloe Smith, stating that door-to-door campaigning or leafleting by individual political party activists was not possible under the restriction "You must not leave, or be outside of your home except where necessary". Labour suspended leafleting and urged other parties to do the same, but the Liberal Democrats' leader Ed Davey defended the party's leafleting activities, arguing that the party had taken legal advice and that leafleting was allowed under an exemption for volunteer organisations. Rights and democracy groups criticised the restrictions on campaigning, claiming that there was no leafleting ban in the coronavirus regulations and raising concerns it could interfere with the right to free expression and the functioning of democracy.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: On 26 February, the UK government said the restrictions in England would be changed to allow door-to-door campaigns from 8 March, and that similar guidance would be published by the Welsh and Scottish governments. Campaigners would be able to deliver leaflets and speak to electors on their doorsteps.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Going into the short campaign period, the Conservative Party started to develop a 6–7% poll lead on the Labour Party.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: On Thursday 11 March, Labour launched its local election campaign, with the party's leader Keir Starmer, deputy leader Angela Rayner, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and West Yorkshire metro-mayor candidate Tracy Brabin as speakers. The party focused its election priorities on giving nurses a pay rise.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Following the death of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, political parties halted campaigning for local and devolved elections for a period of mourning of a few days.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: In England, all residents of the areas covered who are 18 years or over and are a British or Irish citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen, or a citizen of the European Union were eligible to vote. A resident can be registered to vote in two local authorities, such as a student living away from home, and they may vote in both. In Wales, all residents who are 16 years or over and are registered to vote, regardless of citizenship, will be eligible to vote. The deadline to be registered to vote in the May 2021 elections is 11:59pm on 19 April 2021.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Because this wave of local elections incorporates different positions, voters used different voting systems to elect politicians. Councillors were elected using first-past-the-post, meaning that the candidate with the most votes in a ward was elected. Councils having "all-up" elections had block voting, where voters have a vote for each seat the ward represents and the top candidates are elected. All mayors of England and Police and Crime Commissioners of England and Wales were elected using the supplementary vote system, where voters select a first and second choice. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote, all except the top two are eliminated. If a voter's first choice candidate is eliminated, and their second choice is for one of the top two, then the second choice is counted.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: The Welsh and Scottish parliaments used the additional member system, or AMS. This means voters vote once in a single member constituency and once for party representation in their electoral region. London uses two systems: the Mayor of London is elected using the supplementary vote system while the London Assembly uses AMS.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: On 13 March 2020, the Government announced that the 2020 elections would be postponed until 2021 in response to growing concerns about the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: County councils are elected in full every four years, with the last election having been in 2017. County councils are the upper part of a two-tier system of local government, with the area each covers subdivided into district councils with different responsibilities. These are first-past-the-post elections with a mixture of single-member and multi-member electoral divisions.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: There were previously twenty-six county councils, but there will only be twenty-four by the time of the election. Buckinghamshire County Council was replaced with a unitary authority, Buckinghamshire Council, on 1 April 2020. Northamptonshire County Council "declared itself effectively bankrupt" in February 2018 and two new unitary authorities, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire replaced it on 1 April 2021.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: In late February 2021 the government confirmed that council elections in Cumbria, North Yorkshire, and Somerset were to be rescheduled for May 2022 because of plans to re-organise the structure of local government in those areas. This meant that council elections for Cumbria County Council, North Yorkshire County Council and Somerset County Council were postponed until the May 2022 local elections.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: There are thirty-six metropolitan boroughs, which are single-tier local authorities. Thirty-three of them elect a third of their councillors every year for three years, with no election in each fourth year. These councils hold their elections on the same timetable, and were due to hold an election in 2020 but not in 2021. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the May 2020 elections were postponed to May 2021. The remaining three metropolitan boroughs elect their councillors in full every four years. Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council was due to hold an election for all councillors in May 2020, but this was postponed to 2021. Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council was due to elect their councillors in 2021. Birmingham City Council holds its elections on a four-year cycle from 2018, so is not due to hold an election until 2022; there were, however, by-elections in 4 wards.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Due to boundary changes, Salford City Council also elected all of its councillors in 2021, and will now be returning to the thirds schedule. The remaining thirty-two metropolitan borough councils that elect their councillors in thirds did so as usual at this election.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: There were previously fifty-five unitary authorities, but three more were created by the May elections. Buckinghamshire County Council was replaced with a unitary authority, Buckinghamshire Council, on 1 April 2020; the first election to the new unitary authority was scheduled for May 2020, but due to the coronavirus pandemic was rescheduled for May 2021. Subsequent elections are due to be held every four years from 2025. Northamptonshire County Council was replaced with two unitary authorities, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire on 1 April 2021. The first elections to the shadow authorities (temporary council structures before the council formally begins) were planned to be held in May 2020, but due to the coronavirus pandemic have been rescheduled to May 2021. Subsequent elections will be held every four years from 2025.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Of the resulting fifty-eight unitary authorities, thirty elect all their councillors every four years on the cycle from 2019, so are not due to hold elections until 2023. Six elect their councillors every four years and were originally planning to elect in 2021. The three new unitary authorities were scheduled to hold their elections in 2020 and then every four years from 2025, before the 2020 local elections were postponed to 2021. Two unitary authorities were scheduled to elect all their councillors in 2020 but these have also been postponed to 2021. Seventeen unitary authorities elect a third of their councillors every year for three years including 2020 but not 2021, and these elections have been postponed to 2021. Two of these, Halton and Hartlepool, have had boundary changes that mean they are electing all of their councillors in 2021.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Seven district councils have all of their seats up for election. The seats for Gloucester and Stroud were last up for election in 2016. Basingstoke and Deane, Cambridge, Chorley, Oxford and Pendle have all seats up for election due to ward boundary changes.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Six councils have half of their seats up for election. These seats were last up for election in 2016, and were due to be contested in 2020.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Forty-six councils have one-third of their seats up for election. These seats were last up for election in 2016, and were due to be contested in 2020. Elections in Craven, Carlisle and South Lakeland have been postponed due to pending local government reorganisation. In July 2021 the government announced that these three district councils will be abolished in April 2023. The postponed elections will therefore not take place, and the councillors elected in 2016 will serve until 2023.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: The London Assembly consists of twenty-five elected members and acts as a scrutiny panel to the mayor. Members are elected using the additional member system, which elects members using both constituencies and a London-wide electoral region.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: The Court of Common Council is the main decision-making body of the City of London Corporation, which governs the City of London. The 100 councillors are elected across twenty-five wards. Elections were due on 18 March 2021, but as a result of the coronavirus pandemic were delayed to March 2022.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: The Council of the Isles of Scilly is the local government authority for the Isles of Scilly. It has sixteen seats, which in the previous 2017 election were all won by independent candidates.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: The Mayor of London is normally elected for four years, although due to the rescheduling of the 2020 election, the election in 2021 will be for a three-year term. The incumbent mayor Sadiq Khan, won re-election with 40.0% of first preference votes, and 55.2% of second preference votes. He will serve until 2024.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Thirty-five police and crime commissioners in England were up for election, together with four police, fire and crime commissioners.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: Elections took place to elect all 60 members of the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ), which changed its name from the National Assembly for Wales in 2020. Voting rights were extended to foreign nationals that live in Wales, and residents aged 16 or over.


title: 2021 United Kingdom local elections

text: All four police and crime commissioners in Wales were up for election, to represent the four police force areas of Dyfed-Powys, Gwent, North Wales and South Wales.


title: Life skills

text: Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. This concept is also termed as psychosocial competency. The subject varies greatly depending on social norms and community expectations but skills that function for well-being and aid individuals to develop into active and productive members of their communities are considered as life skills.


title: Life skills

text: nevertheless UNICEF enumerates psychosocial and interpersonal skills that are generally well-being oriented, and essential alongside literacy and numeracy skills. Since it changes its meaning from culture to culture and life positions, it is considered a concept that is elastic in nature. But UNICEF acknowledges social and emotional life skills identified by Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). Life skills are a product of synthesis: many skills are developed simultaneously through practice, like humor, which allows a person to feel in control of a situation and make it more manageable in perspective. It allows the person to release fears, anger, and stress & achieve a qualitative life.


title: Life skills

text: For example, decision-making often involves critical thinking ("what are my options?") and values clarification ("what is important to me?"), ("How do I "feel" about this?"). Ultimately, the interplay between the skills is what produces powerful behavioral outcomes, especially where this approach is supported by other strategies.


title: Life skills

text: Life skills can vary from financial literacy, through substance-abuse prevention, to therapeutic techniques to deal with disabilities such as autism.


title: Life skills

text: The World Health Organization in 1999 identified the following core cross-cultural areas of life skills:


title: Life skills

text: Life skills curricular designed for K-12 often emphasize communications and practical skills needed for successful independent living as well as for developmental-disabilities/special-education students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP).


title: Life skills

text: There are various courses being run based on WHO's list supported by UNFPA. In Madhya Pradesh, India, the programme is being run with Government to teach these through Government Schools.


title: Life skills

text: Skills for work and life, known as technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is comprising education, training and skills development relating to a wide range of occupational fields, production, services and livelihoods. TVET, as part of lifelong learning, can take place at secondary, post-secondary and tertiary levels, and includes work-based learning and continuing training and professional development which may lead to qualifications. TVET also includes a wide range of skills development opportunities attuned to national and local contexts. Learning to learn and the development of literacy and numeracy skills, transversal skills and citizenship skills are integral components of TVET.


title: Life skills

text: Life skills are often taught in the domain of parenting, either indirectly through the observation and experience of the child, or directly with the purpose of teaching a specific skill. Parenting itself can be considered as a set of life skills which can be taught or comes natural to a person. Educating a person in skills for dealing with pregnancy and parenting can also coincide with additional life skills development for the child and enable the parents to guide their children in adulthood.


title: Life skills

text: Many life skills programs are offered when traditional family structures and healthy relationships have broken down, whether due to parental lapses, divorce, psychological disorders or due to issues with the children (such as substance abuse or other risky behavior). For example, the International Labour Organization is teaching life skills to ex-child laborers and at-risk children in Indonesia to help them avoid and to recover from worst forms of child abuse.


title: Life skills

text: While certain life skills programs focus on teaching the prevention of certain behaviors, they can be relatively ineffective. Based upon their research, the Family and Youth Services Bureau, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advocates the theory of positive youth development (PYD) as a replacement for the less effective prevention programs. PYD focuses on the strengths of an individual as opposed to the older decrepit models which tend to focus on the "potential" weaknesses that have yet to be shown. "..life skills education, have found to be an effective psychosocial intervention strategy for promoting positive social, and mental health of adolescents which plays an important role in all aspects such as strengthening coping strategies and developing self-confidence and emotional intelligence..."


title: Submandibular gland

text: The paired submandibular glands (historically known as submaxillary glands) are major salivary glands located beneath the floor of the mouth. They each weigh about 15 grams and contribute some 60–67% of unstimulated saliva secretion; on stimulation their contribution decreases in proportion as the parotid secretion rises to 50%. The average length of the normal human submandibular salivary gland is approximately 27mm, while the average width is approximately 14.3mm.


title: Submandibular gland

text: Lying superior to the digastric muscles, each submandibular gland is divided into superficial and deep lobes, which are separated by the mylohyoid muscle:


title: Submandibular gland

text: Secretions are delivered into the submandibular duct on the deep portion after which they hook around the posterior edge of the mylohyoid muscle and proceed on the superior surface laterally. The excretory ducts are then crossed by the lingual nerve, and ultimately drain into the sublingual caruncles – small prominences on either side of the lingual frenulum along with the major sublingual duct. The gland can be bilaterally palpated (felt) inferior and posterior to the body of the mandible, moving inward from the inferior border of the mandible near its angle with the head tilted forwards.


title: Submandibular gland

text: Lobes contain smaller lobules, which contain adenomeres, the secretory units of the gland. Each adenomer contains one or more acini, or alveoli, which are small clusters of cells that secrete their products into a duct. The acini of each adenomere are composed of either serous or mucous cells, with serous adenomeres predominating. Some mucous adenomeres may also be capped with a serous demilune, a layer of lysozyme-secreting serous cells resembling a half moon.


title: Submandibular gland

text: Like other exocrine glands, the submandibular gland can be classified by the microscopic anatomy of its secretory cells and how they are arranged. Because the glands are branched, and because the tubules forming the branches contain secretory cells, submandibular glands are classified as branched tubuloacinar glands. Further, because the secretory cells are of both serous and mucous types, the submandibular gland is a mixed gland, and though most of the cells are serous, the exudate is chiefly mucous. It has long striated ducts and short intercalated ducts.


title: Submandibular gland

text: The secretory acinar cells of the submandibular gland have distinct functions. The mucous cells are the most active and therefore the major product of the submandibular glands is saliva which is mucoid in nature. Mucous cells secrete mucin which aids in the lubrication of the food bolus as it travels through the esophagus. In addition, the serous cells produce salivary amylase, which aids in the breakdown of starches in the mouth. The submandibular gland's highly active acini account for most of the salivary volume. The parotid and sublingual glands account for the remaining.


title: Submandibular gland

text: The gland receives its blood supply from the facial and lingual arteries. The gland is supplied by sublingual and submental arteries and drained by common facial and lingual veins.


title: Submandibular gland

text: The lymphatics from submandibular gland first drain into submandibular lymph nodes and subsequently into jugulo - digastric lymph nodes.


title: Submandibular gland

text: Their secretions, like the secretions of other salivary glands, are regulated "directly" by the parasympathetic nervous system and "indirectly" by the sympathetic nervous system.


title: Submandibular gland

text: The submandibular salivary glands develop later than the parotid glands and appear late in the sixth week of prenatal development. They develop bilaterally from epithelial buds in the sulcus surrounding the sublingual folds on the floor of the primitive mouth. Solid cords branch from the buds and grow posteriorly, lateral to the developing tongue. The cords of the submandibular gland later branch further and then become canalized to form the ductal part. The submandibular gland acini develop from the cords’ rounded terminal ends at 12 weeks, and secretory activity via the submandibular duct begins at 16 weeks. Growth of the submandibular gland continues after birth with the formation of more acini. Lateral to both sides of the tongue, a linear groove develops and closes over to form the submandibular duct.


title: Submandibular gland

text: The submandibular gland releases a host of factors which regulate systemic inflammatory responses and modulate systemic immune and inflammatory reactions. Early work in identifying factors that played a role in the cervical sympathetic trunk-submandibular gland (CST-SMG) axis lead to the discovery of a seven amino acid peptide, called the submandibular gland peptide-T. SGP-T was demonstrated to have biological activity and thermoregulatory properties related to endotoxin exposure. SGP-T, an isolate of the submandibular gland, demonstrated its immunoregulatory properties and potential role in modulating the CST-SMG axis, and subsequently was shown to play an important role in the control of inflammation.


title: Submandibular gland

text: The submandibular gland accounts for 80% of all salivary duct calculi (salivary stones or sialolith), possibly due to the different nature of the saliva that it produces and the tortuous travel of the submandibular duct to its ductal opening for a considerable upward distance. The submandibular gland is one of the major three glands that provide the mouth with saliva. The


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Enzyme kinetics is the study of the rates of enzyme-catalysed chemical reactions. In enzyme kinetics, the reaction rate is measured and the effects of varying the conditions of the reaction are investigated. Studying an enzyme's kinetics in this way can reveal the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme, its role in metabolism, how its activity is controlled, and how a drug or a modifier (inhibitor or activator) might affect the rate.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: An enzyme (E) is typically a protein molecule that promotes a reaction of another molecule, its substrate (S). This binds to the active site of the enzyme to produce an enzyme-substrate complex ES, and is transformed into an enzyme-product complex EP and from there to product P, via a transition state ES*. The series of steps is known as the mechanism:


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: This example assumes the simplest case of a reaction with one substrate and one product. Such cases exist: for example, a mutase such as phosphoglucomutase catalyses the transfer of a phospho group from one position to another, and isomerase is a more general term for an enzyme that catalyses any one-substrate one-product reaction, such as triosephosphate isomerase. However, such enzymes are not very common, and are heavily outnumbered by enzymes that catalyse two-substrate two-product reactions: these include, for example, the NAD-dependent dehydrogenases such as alcohol dehydrogenase, which catalyses the oxidation of ethanol by NAD. Reactions with three or four substrates or products are less common, but they exist. There is no necessity for the number of products to be equal to the number of substrates; for example, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase has three substrates and two products.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: When enzymes bind multiple substrates, such as dihydrofolate reductase (shown right), enzyme kinetics can also show the sequence in which these substrates bind and the sequence in which products are released. An example of enzymes that bind a single substrate and release multiple products are proteases, which cleave one protein substrate into two polypeptide products. Others join two substrates together, such as DNA polymerase linking a nucleotide to DNA. Although these mechanisms are often a complex series of steps, there is typically one "rate-determining step" that determines the overall kinetics. This rate-determining step may be a chemical reaction or a conformational change of the enzyme or substrates, such as those involved in the release of product(s) from the enzyme.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Knowledge of the enzyme's structure is helpful in interpreting kinetic data. For example, the structure can suggest how substrates and products bind during catalysis; what changes occur during the reaction; and even the role of particular amino acid residues in the mechanism. Some enzymes change shape significantly during the mechanism; in such cases, it is helpful to determine the enzyme structure with and without bound substrate analogues that do not undergo the enzymatic reaction.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Not all biological catalysts are protein enzymes: RNA-based catalysts such as ribozymes and ribosomes are essential to many cellular functions, such as RNA splicing and translation. The main difference between ribozymes and enzymes is that RNA catalysts are composed of nucleotides, whereas enzymes are composed of amino acids. Ribozymes also perform a more limited set of reactions, although their reaction mechanisms and kinetics can be analysed and classified by the same methods.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The reaction catalysed by an enzyme uses exactly the same reactants and produces exactly the same products as the uncatalysed reaction. Like other catalysts, enzymes do not alter the position of equilibrium between substrates and products. However, unlike uncatalysed chemical reactions, enzyme-catalysed reactions display saturation kinetics. For a given enzyme concentration and for relatively low substrate concentrations, the reaction rate increases linearly with substrate concentration; the enzyme molecules are largely free to catalyse the reaction, and increasing substrate concentration means an increasing rate at which the enzyme and substrate molecules encounter one another. However, at relatively high substrate concentrations, the reaction rate asymptotically approaches the theoretical maximum; the enzyme active sites are almost all occupied by substrates resulting in saturation, and the reaction rate is determined by the intrinsic turnover rate of the enzyme. The substrate concentration midway between these two limiting cases is denoted by "K". Thus, "K" is the substrate concentration at which the reaction velocity is half of the maximum velocity.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The two important properties of enzyme kinetics are how easily the enzyme can be saturated with a substrate, and the maximum rate it can achieve. Knowing these properties suggests what an enzyme might do in the cell and can show how the enzyme will respond to changes in these conditions.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Enzyme assays are laboratory procedures that measure the rate of enzyme reactions. Since enzymes are not consumed by the reactions they catalyse, enzyme assays usually follow changes in the concentration of either substrates or products to measure the rate of reaction. There are many methods of measurement. Spectrophotometric assays observe the change in the absorbance of light between products and reactants; radiometric assays involve the incorporation or release of radioactivity to measure the amount of product made over time. Spectrophotometric assays are most convenient since they allow the rate of the reaction to be measured continuously. Although radiometric assays require the removal and counting of samples (i.e., they are discontinuous assays) they are usually extremely sensitive and can measure very low levels of enzyme activity. An analogous approach is to use mass spectrometry to monitor the incorporation or release of stable isotopes as the substrate is converted into product. Occasionally, an assay fails and approaches are essential to resurrect a failed assay.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The most sensitive enzyme assays use lasers focused through a microscope to observe changes in single enzyme molecules as they catalyse their reactions. These measurements either use changes in the fluorescence of cofactors during an enzyme's reaction mechanism, or of fluorescent dyes added onto specific sites of the protein to report movements that occur during catalysis. These studies provide a new view of the kinetics and dynamics of single enzymes, as opposed to traditional enzyme kinetics, which observes the average behaviour of populations of millions of enzyme molecules.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: An example progress curve for an enzyme assay is shown above. The enzyme produces product at an initial rate that is approximately linear for a short period after the start of the reaction. As the reaction proceeds and substrate is consumed, the rate continuously slows (so long as the substrate is not still at saturating levels). To measure the initial (and maximal) rate, enzyme assays are typically carried out while the reaction has progressed only a few percent towards total completion. The length of the initial rate period depends on the assay conditions and can range from milliseconds to hours. However, equipment for rapidly mixing liquids allows fast kinetic measurements at initial rates of less than one second. These very rapid assays are essential for measuring pre-steady-state kinetics, which are discussed below.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Most enzyme kinetics studies concentrate on this initial, approximately linear part of enzyme reactions. However, it is also possible to measure the complete reaction curve and fit this data to a non-linear rate equation. This way of measuring enzyme reactions is called progress-curve analysis. This approach is useful as an alternative to rapid kinetics when the initial rate is too fast to measure accurately.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Enzymes with single-substrate mechanisms include isomerases such as triosephosphateisomerase or bisphosphoglycerate mutase, intramolecular lyases such as adenylate cyclase and the hammerhead ribozyme, an RNA lyase. However, some enzymes that only have a single substrate do not fall into this category of mechanisms. Catalase is an example of this, as the enzyme reacts with a first molecule of hydrogen peroxide substrate, becomes oxidised and is then reduced by a second molecule of substrate. Although a single substrate is involved, the existence of a modified enzyme intermediate means that the mechanism of catalase is actually a ping–pong mechanism, a type of mechanism that is discussed in the "Multi-substrate reactions" section below.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: As enzyme-catalysed reactions are saturable, their rate of catalysis does not show a linear response to increasing substrate. If the initial rate of the reaction is measured over a range of substrate concentrations (denoted as [S]), the initial reaction rate (formula_1) increases as [S] increases, as shown on the right. However, as [S] gets higher, the enzyme becomes saturated with substrate and the initial rate reaches "V", the enzyme's maximum rate.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The Michaelis–Menten kinetic model of a single-substrate reaction is shown on the right. There is an initial bimolecular reaction between the enzyme E and substrate S to form the enzyme–substrate complex ES. The rate of enzymatic reaction increases with the increase of the substrate concentration up to a certain level called V; at V, increase in substrate concentration does not cause any increase in reaction rate as there is no more enzyme (E) available for reacting with substrate (S). Here, the rate of reaction becomes dependent on the ES complex and the reaction becomes a unimolecular reaction with an order of zero. Though the enzymatic mechanism for the unimolecular reaction can be quite complex, there is typically one rate-determining enzymatic step that allows this reaction to be modelled as a single catalytic step with an apparent unimolecular rate constant "k".


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: If the reaction path proceeds over one or several intermediates, "k" will be a function of several elementary rate constants, whereas in the simplest case of a single elementary reaction (e.g. no intermediates) it will be identical to the elementary unimolecular rate constant "k". The apparent unimolecular rate constant "k" is also called turnover number, and denotes the maximum number of enzymatic reactions catalysed per second.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The Michaelis–Menten equation describes how the (initial) reaction rate "v" depends on the position of the substrate-binding equilibrium and the rate constant "k".


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: This Michaelis–Menten equation is the basis for most single-substrate enzyme kinetics. Two crucial assumptions underlie this equation (apart from the general assumption about the mechanism only involving no intermediate or product inhibition, and there is no allostericity or cooperativity). The first assumption is the so-called


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: quasi-steady-state assumption (or pseudo-steady-state hypothesis), namely that the concentration of the substrate-bound enzyme (and hence also the unbound enzyme) changes much more slowly than those of the product and substrate and thus the change over time of the complex can be set to zero


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: formula_4. The second assumption is that the total enzyme concentration does not change over time, thus formula_5.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The Michaelis constant "K" is experimentally defined as the concentration at which the rate of the enzyme reaction is half "V", which can be verified by substituting [S] = "K" into the Michaelis–Menten equation and can also be seen graphically. If the rate-determining enzymatic step is slow compared to substrate dissociation (formula_6), the Michaelis constant "K" is roughly the dissociation constant "K" of the ES complex.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: If <chem>[S]</chem> is small compared to formula_7 then the term formula_8 and also very little ES complex is formed, thus <chem>[E]_{\rm tot} \approx [E]</chem>. Therefore, the rate of product formation is


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Thus the product formation rate depends on the enzyme concentration as well as on the substrate concentration, the equation resembles a bimolecular reaction with a corresponding pseudo-second order rate constant formula_10. This constant is a measure of catalytic efficiency. The most efficient enzymes reach a formula_10 in the range of . These enzymes are so efficient they effectively catalyse a reaction each time they encounter a substrate molecule and have thus reached an upper theoretical limit for efficiency (diffusion limit); and are sometimes referred to as kinetically perfect enzymes. But most enzymes are far from perfect: the average values of formula_12 and formula_13 are about formula_14 and formula_15, respectively.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The observed velocities predicted by the Michaelis–Menten equation can be used to directly model the time course disappearance of substrate and the production of product through incorporation of the Michaelis–Menten equation into the equation for first order chemical kinetics. This can only be achieved however if one recognises the problem associated with the use of Euler's number in the description of first order chemical kinetics. i.e. "e" is a split constant that introduces a systematic error into calculations and can be rewritten as a single constant which represents the remaining substrate after each time period.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: In 1983 Stuart Beal (and also independently Santiago Schnell and Claudio Mendoza in 1997) derived a closed form solution for the time course kinetics analysis of the Michaelis-Menten mechanism. The solution, known as the Schnell-Mendoza equation, has the form:


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: This equation is encompassed by the equation below, obtained by Berberan-Santos, which is also valid when the initial substrate concentration is close to that of enzyme,


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The plot of "v" versus [S] above is not linear; although initially linear at low [S], it bends over to saturate at high [S]. Before the modern era of nonlinear curve-fitting on computers, this nonlinearity could make it difficult to estimate "K" and "V" accurately. Therefore, several researchers developed linearisations of the Michaelis–Menten equation, such as the Lineweaver–Burk plot, the Eadie–Hofstee diagram and the Hanes–Woolf plot. All of these linear representations can be useful for visualising data, but none should be used to determine kinetic parameters, as computer software is readily available that allows for more accurate determination by nonlinear regression methods.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The Lineweaver–Burk plot or double reciprocal plot is a common way of illustrating kinetic data. This is produced by taking the reciprocal of both sides of the Michaelis–Menten equation. As shown on the right, this is a linear form of the Michaelis–Menten equation and produces a straight line with the equation "y" = m"x" + c with a "y"-intercept equivalent to 1/"V" and an "x"-intercept of the graph representing −1/"K".


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Naturally, no experimental values can be taken at negative 1/[S]; the lower limiting value 1/[S] = 0 (the "y"-intercept) corresponds to an infinite substrate concentration, where "1/v=1/V" as shown at the right; thus, the "x"-intercept is an extrapolation of the experimental data taken at positive concentrations. More generally, the Lineweaver–Burk plot skews the importance of measurements taken at low substrate concentrations and, thus, can yield inaccurate estimates of "V" and "K". A more accurate linear plotting method is the Eadie–Hofstee plot. In this case, "v" is plotted against "v"/[S]. In the third common linear representation, the Hanes–Woolf plot, [S]/"v" is plotted against [S].


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: In general, data normalisation can help diminish the amount of experimental work and can increase the reliability of the output, and is suitable for both graphical and numerical analysis.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The study of enzyme kinetics is important for two basic reasons. Firstly, it helps explain how enzymes work, and secondly, it helps predict how enzymes behave in living organisms. The kinetic constants defined above, "K" and "V", are critical to attempts to understand how enzymes work together to control metabolism.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Making these predictions is not trivial, even for simple systems. For example, oxaloacetate is formed by malate dehydrogenase within the mitochondrion. Oxaloacetate can then be consumed by citrate synthase, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase or aspartate aminotransferase, feeding into the citric acid cycle, gluconeogenesis or aspartic acid biosynthesis, respectively. Being able to predict how much oxaloacetate goes into which pathway requires knowledge of the concentration of oxaloacetate as well as the concentration and kinetics of each of these enzymes. This aim of predicting the behaviour of metabolic pathways reaches its most complex expression in the synthesis of huge amounts of kinetic and gene expression data into mathematical models of entire organisms. Alternatively, one useful simplification of the metabolic modelling problem is to ignore the underlying enzyme kinetics and only rely on information about the reaction network's stoichiometry, a technique called flux balance analysis.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: where a complex with the enzyme and an intermediate exists and the intermediate is converted into product in a second step. In this case we have a very similar equation


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: We see that for the limiting case formula_25, thus when the last step from <chem>EI -> E + P</chem> is much faster than the previous step, we get again the original equation. Mathematically we have then formula_26 and formula_27.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Multi-substrate reactions follow complex rate equations that describe how the substrates bind and in what sequence. The analysis of these reactions is much simpler if the concentration of substrate A is kept constant and substrate B varied. Under these conditions, the enzyme behaves just like a single-substrate enzyme and a plot of "v" by [S] gives apparent "K" and "V" constants for substrate B. If a set of these measurements is performed at different fixed concentrations of A, these data can be used to work out what the mechanism of the reaction is. For an enzyme that takes two substrates A and B and turns them into two products P and Q, there are two types of mechanism: ternary complex and ping–pong.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: In these enzymes, both substrates bind to the enzyme at the same time to produce an EAB ternary complex. The order of binding can either be random (in a random mechanism) or substrates have to bind in a particular sequence (in an ordered mechanism). When a set of "v" by [S] curves (fixed A, varying B) from an enzyme with a ternary-complex mechanism are plotted in a Lineweaver–Burk plot, the set of lines produced will intersect.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Enzymes with ternary-complex mechanisms include glutathione "S"-transferase, dihydrofolate reductase and DNA polymerase. The following links show short animations of the ternary-complex mechanisms of the enzymes dihydrofolate reductase and DNA polymerase.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: As shown on the right, enzymes with a ping-pong mechanism can exist in two states, E and a chemically modified form of the enzyme E*; this modified enzyme is known as an intermediate. In such mechanisms, substrate A binds, changes the enzyme to E* by, for example, transferring a chemical group to the active site, and is then released. Only after the first substrate is released can substrate B bind and react with the modified enzyme, regenerating the unmodified E form. When a set of "v" by [S] curves (fixed A, varying B) from an enzyme with a ping–pong mechanism are plotted in a Lineweaver–Burk plot, a set of parallel lines will be produced. This is called a secondary plot.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Enzymes with ping–pong mechanisms include some oxidoreductases such as thioredoxin peroxidase, transferases such as acylneuraminate cytidylyltransferase and serine proteases such as trypsin and chymotrypsin. Serine proteases are a very common and diverse family of enzymes, including digestive enzymes (trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase), several enzymes of the blood clotting cascade and many others. In these serine proteases, the E* intermediate is an acyl-enzyme species formed by the attack of an active site serine residue on a peptide bond in a protein substrate. A short animation showing the mechanism of chymotrypsin is linked here.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: External factors may limit the ability of an enzyme to catalyse a reaction in both directions (whereas the nature of a catalyst in itself means that it cannot catalyse just one direction, according to the principle of microscopic reversibility). We consider the case of an enzyme that catalyses the reaction in both directions:


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: formula_1 is positive if the reaction proceed in the forward direction (formula_30) and negative otherwise.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The values of the forward and backward "maximal" rates, obtained for formula_33, formula_34, and formula_35, formula_36, respectively, are formula_37 and formula_38, respectively. Their ratio is not equal to the equilibrium constant, which implies that does not constrain the ratio of the maximal rates. This explains that enzymes can be much "better catalysts" ("in terms of maximal rates") in one particular direction of the reaction.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: On can also derive the two Michaelis constants formula_39and formula_40. The Haldane equation is the relation formula_41.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Therefore, constrains the ratio between the forward and backward formula_42 values, not the ratio of formula_43values.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Many different enzyme systems follow non Michaelis-Menten behavior. A select few examples include kinetics of self-catalytic enzymes, cooperative and allosteric enzymes, interfacial and intracellular enzymes, processive enzymes and so forth. Some enzymes produce a sigmoid "v" by [S] plot, which often indicates cooperative binding of substrate to the active site. This means that the binding of one substrate molecule affects the binding of subsequent substrate molecules. This behavior is most common in multimeric enzymes with several interacting active sites. Here, the mechanism of cooperation is similar to that of hemoglobin, with binding of substrate to one active site altering the affinity of the other active sites for substrate molecules. Positive cooperativity occurs when binding of the first substrate molecule "increases" the affinity of the other active sites for substrate. Negative cooperativity occurs when binding of the first substrate "decreases" the affinity of the enzyme for other substrate molecules.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Allosteric enzymes include mammalian tyrosyl tRNA-synthetase, which shows negative cooperativity, and bacterial aspartate transcarbamoylase and phosphofructokinase, which show positive cooperativity.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Cooperativity is surprisingly common and can help regulate the responses of enzymes to changes in the concentrations of their substrates. Positive cooperativity makes enzymes much more sensitive to [S] and their activities can show large changes over a narrow range of substrate concentration. Conversely, negative cooperativity makes enzymes insensitive to small changes in [S].


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The Hill equation is often used to describe the degree of cooperativity quantitatively in non-Michaelis–Menten kinetics. The derived Hill coefficient "n" measures how much the binding of substrate to one active site affects the binding of substrate to the other active sites. A Hill coefficient of <1 indicates negative cooperativity and a coefficient of >1 indicates positive cooperativity.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: In the first moment after an enzyme is mixed with substrate, no product has been formed and no intermediates exist. The study of the next few milliseconds of the reaction is called pre-steady-state kinetics. Pre-steady-state kinetics is therefore concerned with the formation and consumption of enzyme–substrate intermediates (such as ES or E*) until their steady-state concentrations are reached.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: This approach was first applied to the hydrolysis reaction catalysed by chymotrypsin. Often, the detection of an intermediate is a vital piece of evidence in investigations of what mechanism an enzyme follows. For example, in the ping–pong mechanisms that are shown above, rapid kinetic measurements can follow the release of product P and measure the formation of the modified enzyme intermediate E*. In the case of chymotrypsin, this intermediate is formed by an attack on the substrate by the nucleophilic serine in the active site and the formation of the acyl-enzyme intermediate.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: In the figure to the right, the enzyme produces E* rapidly in the first few seconds of the reaction. The rate then slows as steady state is reached. This rapid burst phase of the reaction measures a single turnover of the enzyme. Consequently, the amount of product released in this burst, shown as the intercept on the "y"-axis of the graph, also gives the amount of functional enzyme which is present in the assay.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: An important goal of measuring enzyme kinetics is to determine the chemical mechanism of an enzyme reaction, i.e., the sequence of chemical steps that transform substrate into product. The kinetic approaches discussed above will show at what rates intermediates are formed and inter-converted, but they cannot identify exactly what these intermediates are.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Kinetic measurements taken under various solution conditions or on slightly modified enzymes or substrates often shed light on this chemical mechanism, as they reveal the rate-determining step or intermediates in the reaction. For example, the breaking of a covalent bond to a hydrogen atom is a common rate-determining step. Which of the possible hydrogen transfers is rate determining can be shown by measuring the kinetic effects of substituting each hydrogen by deuterium, its stable isotope. The rate will change when the critical hydrogen is replaced, due to a primary kinetic isotope effect, which occurs because bonds to deuterium are harder to break than bonds to hydrogen. It is also possible to measure similar effects with other isotope substitutions, such as C/C and O/O, but these effects are more subtle.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Isotopes can also be used to reveal the fate of various parts of the substrate molecules in the final products. For example, it is sometimes difficult to discern the origin of an oxygen atom in the final product; since it may have come from water or from part of the substrate. This may be determined by systematically substituting oxygen's stable isotope O into the various molecules that participate in the reaction and checking for the isotope in the product. The chemical mechanism can also be elucidated by examining the kinetics and isotope effects under different pH conditions, by altering the metal ions or other bound cofactors, by site-directed mutagenesis of conserved amino acid residues, or by studying the behaviour of the enzyme in the presence of analogues of the substrate(s).


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Enzyme inhibitors are molecules that reduce or abolish enzyme activity, while enzyme activators are molecules that increase the catalytic rate of enzymes. These interactions can be either "reversible" (i.e., removal of the inhibitor restores enzyme activity) or "irreversible" (i.e., the inhibitor permanently inactivates the enzyme).


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Traditionally reversible enzyme inhibitors have been classified as competitive, uncompetitive, or non-competitive, according to their effects on "K" and "V". These different effects result from the inhibitor binding to the enzyme E, to the enzyme–substrate complex ES, or to both, respectively. The division of these classes arises from a problem in their derivation and results in the need to use two different binding constants for one binding event. The binding of an inhibitor and its effect on the enzymatic activity are two distinctly different things, another problem the traditional equations fail to acknowledge. In noncompetitive inhibition the binding of the inhibitor results in 100% inhibition of the enzyme only, and fails to consider the possibility of anything in between. In noncompetitive inhibition, the inhibitor will bind to an enzyme at its allosteric site; therefore, the binding affinity, or inverse of "K", of the substrate with the enzyme will remain the same. On the other hand, the V will decrease relative to an uninhibited enzyme. On a Lineweaver-Burk plot, the presence of a noncompetitive inhibitor is illustrated by a change in the y-intercept, defined as 1/V. The x-intercept, defined as −1/"K", will remain the same. In competitive inhibition, the inhibitor will bind to an enzyme at the active site, competing with the substrate. As a result, the "K" will increase and the V will remain the same. The common form of the inhibitory term also obscures the relationship between the inhibitor binding to the enzyme and its relationship to any other binding term be it the Michaelis–Menten equation or a dose response curve associated with ligand receptor binding. To demonstrate the relationship the following rearrangement can be made:


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: This notation demonstrates that similar to the Michaelis–Menten equation, where the rate of reaction depends on the percent of the enzyme population interacting with substrate, the effect of the inhibitor is a result of the percent of the enzyme population interacting with inhibitor. The only problem with this equation in its present form is that it assumes absolute inhibition of the enzyme with inhibitor binding, when in fact there can be a wide range of effects anywhere from 100% inhibition of substrate turn over to just >0%. To account for this the equation can be easily modified to allow for different degrees of inhibition by including a delta "V" term.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: This term can then define the residual enzymatic activity present when the inhibitor is interacting with individual enzymes in the population. However the inclusion of this term has the added value of allowing for the possibility of activation if the secondary "V" term turns out to be higher than the initial term. To account for the possibly of activation as well the notation can then be rewritten replacing the inhibitor "I" with a modifier term denoted here as "X".


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: While this terminology results in a simplified way of dealing with kinetic effects relating to the maximum velocity of the Michaelis–Menten equation, it highlights potential problems with the term used to describe effects relating to the "K". The "K" relating to the affinity of the enzyme for the substrate should in most cases relate to potential changes in the binding site of the enzyme which would directly result from enzyme inhibitor interactions. As such a term similar to the one proposed above to modulate "V" should be appropriate in most situations:


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: A few examples of reversible inhibition belonging to the competitive and uncompetitive models have been discussed in the following papers.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Enzyme inhibitors can also irreversibly inactivate enzymes, usually by covalently modifying active site residues. These reactions, which may be called suicide substrates, follow exponential decay functions and are usually saturable. Below saturation, they follow first order kinetics with respect to inhibitor. Irreversible inhibition could be classified into two distinct types. Affinity labelling is a type of irreversible inhibition where a functional group that is highly reactive modifies a catalytically critical residue on the protein of interest to bring about inhibition. Mechanism-based inhibition, on the other hand, involves binding of the inhibitor followed by enzyme mediated alterations that transform the latter into a reactive group that irreversibly modifies the enzyme.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Having discussed reversible inhibition and irreversible inhibition in the above two headings, it would have to be pointed out that the concept of reversibility (or irreversibility) is a purely theoretical construct exclusively dependent on the time-frame of the assay, i.e., a reversible assay involving association and dissociation of the inhibitor molecule in the minute timescales would seem irreversible if an assay assess the outcome in the seconds and vice versa. There is a continuum of inhibitor behaviors spanning reversibility and irreversibility at a given non-arbitrary assay time frame. There are inhibitors that show slow-onset behavior and most of these inhibitors, invariably, also show tight-binding to the protein target of interest.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The favoured model for the enzyme–substrate interaction is the induced fit model. This model proposes that the initial interaction between enzyme and substrate is relatively weak, but that these weak interactions rapidly induce conformational changes in the enzyme that strengthen binding. These conformational changes also bring catalytic residues in the active site close to the chemical bonds in the substrate that will be altered in the reaction. Conformational changes can be measured using circular dichroism or dual polarisation interferometry. After binding takes place, one or more mechanisms of catalysis lower the energy of the reaction's transition state by providing an alternative chemical pathway for the reaction. Mechanisms of catalysis include catalysis by bond strain; by proximity and orientation; by active-site proton donors or acceptors; covalent catalysis and quantum tunnelling.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: Enzyme kinetics cannot prove which modes of catalysis are used by an enzyme. However, some kinetic data can suggest possibilities to be examined by other techniques. For example, a ping–pong mechanism with burst-phase pre-steady-state kinetics would suggest covalent catalysis might be important in this enzyme's mechanism. Alternatively, the observation of a strong pH effect on "V" but not "K" might indicate that a residue in the active site needs to be in a particular ionisation state for catalysis to occur.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: In 1902 Victor Henri proposed a quantitative theory of enzyme kinetics, but at the time the experimental significance of the hydrogen ion concentration was not yet recognized. After Peter Lauritz Sørensen had defined the logarithmic pH-scale and introduced the concept of buffering in 1909 the German chemist Leonor Michaelis and Dr. Maud Leonora Menten (a postdoctoral researcher in Michaelis's lab at the time) repeated Henri's experiments and confirmed his equation, which is now generally referred to as Michaelis-Menten kinetics (sometimes also "Henri-Michaelis-Menten kinetics"). Their work was further developed by G. E. Briggs and J. B. S. Haldane, who derived kinetic equations that are still widely considered today a starting point in modeling enzymatic activity.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: The major contribution of the Henri-Michaelis-Menten approach was to think of enzyme reactions in two stages. In the first, the substrate binds reversibly to the enzyme, forming the enzyme-substrate complex. This is sometimes called the Michaelis complex. The enzyme then catalyzes the chemical step in the reaction and releases the product. The kinetics of many enzymes is adequately described by the simple Michaelis-Menten model, but all enzymes have internal motions that are not accounted for in the model and can have significant contributions to the overall reaction kinetics. This can be modeled by introducing several Michaelis-Menten pathways that are connected with fluctuating rates, which is a mathematical extension of the basic Michaelis Menten mechanism.


title: Enzyme kinetics

text: ENZO (Enzyme Kinetics) is a graphical interface tool for building kinetic models of enzyme catalyzed reactions. ENZO automatically generates the corresponding differential equations from a stipulated enzyme reaction scheme. These differential equations are processed by a numerical solver and a regression algorithm which fits the coefficients of differential equations to experimentally observed time course curves. ENZO allows rapid evaluation of rival reaction schemes and can be used for routine tests in enzyme kinetics.


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: Amo (stylised in lowercase) is the sixth studio album by British rock band Bring Me the Horizon. Originally scheduled for release on 11 January 2019, it was released on 25 January 2019. The album was announced on 22 August 2018, a day after the release of the lead single "Mantra". It was produced by vocalist Oliver Sykes and keyboardist Jordan Fish, and was written and recorded primarily in Los Angeles.


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: The album was preceded by five singles. The lead single, "Mantra", was released on 21 August 2018. The second single, "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth of Cradle of Filth, was released on 21 October 2018. The third single, "Medicine", was released on 3 January 2019. The fourth single, "Mother Tongue", was released on 22 January 2019. The fifth single, "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes, was released on 24 January 2019. "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" was released as the album's sixth single on 26 July 2019.


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: The band embarked on the First Love World Tour in 2019 in support of the album. In the 22 August 2018 issue of "Kerrang!", they described the album as "varied", "free", "weird" and "mental", with "NME" noting that "Mantra" continues the electronic and pop rock elements featured on the band's previous studio album, "That's the Spirit" (2015). "Mantra" subsequently debuted at number one on the UK Rock & Metal Chart, and its video was released on 24 August. Upon its release, the album was met with critical acclaim and was later nominated for a Kerrang! Award for Best Album as well as the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: The album, named after the Portuguese word for "I love", was first promoted by an advertising campaign of billboards across London and other cities worldwide with symbols used by the band in the past on them, along with the words "Do you wanna start a cult with me?", which are lyrics from "Mantra". A website titled joinmantra.org was also launched that stated "Salvation will return", and a phone number that when called featured various audio clips at different times, including one of a woman named Samantha stating "They're making me do this. I didn't know what I was getting myself into."


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: The song "Mantra" was subsequently premiered on BBC Radio 1, with Sykes saying to Annie Mac: "It's basically—we've gone off and recorded some stuff and this is the first thing we've wanted to show people of our return. It's quite different but it's got similarities—it's what we wanted to share with the world." Sykes stated that "Mantra" is "not really" representative of the sound of the whole album, also saying "every song on the record is completely different. It’s a lot more experimental than our last record."


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: On 21 October, the band released their second single "Wonderful Life" featuring Dani Filth, along with the tracklist for "Amo". That same day, the band announced that the album release date has been delayed to 25 January 2019.


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: On 3 January 2019, the band released the third single "Medicine" and its corresponding music video. On 22 January, the band released their fourth single "Mother Tongue". On 24 January, the band released their fifth single "Nihilist Blues" featuring Grimes. On 26 July, the band released the sixth single "Sugar Honey Ice & Tea" alongside an accompanying music video. On 21 October, the band released the seventh single "In the Dark" alongside an accompanying music video featuring Forest Whitaker.


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: Sykes stated about the album: ""amo" is a love album that explores every aspect of that most powerful emotion. [...] It deals with the good the bad and the ugly, and as a result we've created an album that's more experimental, more varied, weird, and wonderful than anything we've done before." He later commented that "Amo" is a concept album about love, as "Everything boils down to love in the end". Sykes also said that some of the lyrical content concerns his divorce. The genres of the album has been described as pop rock, electronic rock, electropop, synth-pop, EDM, alternative rock, electronica, hard rock, pop metal, and pop. The album also contains elements of hip hop, and trap.


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: "Amo" received critical acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 85 out of 100 based on 12 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". AllMusic gave the album a positive review saying, ""Amo" is a genre-bending thrill ride that marks a brave new era for the band." "The Independent" called the album "catchy and eclectic" but also said that ""amo" won't satisfy all of BMTH's fans...[but will] bring in some new ones." "NME" praised the album calling the interludes "dark and mechanical" and "exciting signposts to the future". In a positive review, "Substream Magazine" saying, "The way that Bring Me The Horizon weaves through genres and dives into them further is challenging."


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: "Wall of Sound" rated the album 7.5/10 and said: "Remember how frontman Oli Sykes trolled fans into thinking the band were going to be included on Justin Bieber's 2016 Purpose Tour through the UK? Well, it's kind of like he/they have taken that joke seriously and gone down the path to see what happens, but realistically, they've been progressing towards something like this since the "Sempiternal" album cycle finished." Dave Simpson at "The Guardian" compared it to Linkin Park's "A Thousand Suns," stating "the likes of 'Medicine', 'Mother Tongue' and 'In the Dark' are anodyne pop that is liable to alienate the band's fanbase and makes an uneasy fit with their desire to experiment. Other tracks lose their way in processed vocals and unfamiliar styles". Lukas Wojcicki of "Exclaim!" scored the album 7/10 stating: "conversely, the songs that dive head first into electronics, fully embracing this new territory, are some of the album's best and most memorable."


title: Amo (Bring Me the Horizon album)

text: In a positive review, "Consequence of Sound" wrote, "In U2 terms, "That's the Spirit" was BMTH's "Achtung Baby", where they introduced a new sound, and "amo" is their "Zooropa", where they've taken that sonic evolution one step further." "Kerrang!" praised the album saying, ""Amo"s ability to be so many things to so many people is what truly impresses throughout." "Metal Injection" gave the album a positive review, saying, "if you're open to electronic music and pop as well as rock and metal, you'll most likely enjoy "amo"."


The Bad Newz Kennels dog fighting investigation began in April 2007 with a search of property in Surry County, Virginia, owned by Michael Vick, who was at the time quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons football team, and the subsequent discovery of evidence of a dog fighting ring. Over seventy dogs, mostly pit bull terriers, with some said to be showing signs of injuries, were seized, along with physical evidence during several searches of Vick's property by local, state and federal authorities.


title: Bad Newz Kennels dog fighting investigation

text: The case drew widespread publicity to the issues of animal abuse and dog fighting. It also drew attention to unlawful gambling and drug activities which authorities claim often accompany dog fighting. Subsequently, Vick and three other principals were convicted of federal offense conspiracy charges and imprisoned. Vick was suspended by the NFL, was ordered to pay the Atlanta Falcons back a portion of his earnings, and lost endorsement deals worth millions more. With other creditors also attempting to collect millions of dollars in debts, in July 2008, he filed for Chapter 11 (reorganization) bankruptcy protection.


text: The Bad Newz dog fighting investigation began in April 2007 with a search of property in Surry County, Virginia, owned by Atlanta Falcons’ football quarterback Michael Vick, and the subsequent discovery of evidence of a dog fighting ring in Newport News, Virginia. Over 70 dogs, mostly pit bull terriers, with some said to be showing signs of injuries, were seized along with physical evidence during several searches of Vick's property by local, state and federal authorities.


text: In July 2007, Vick and three other men were indicted on federal offense and state felony charges relating to a six-year-long continuing criminal enterprise of an interstate dog fighting ring known as "Bad Newz Kennels", based upon a local nickname for Newport News, Vick's hometown. Allegations included Vick's direct involvement in dog fighting, high-stakes gambling, and brutal executions of dogs. Public outcry resulted from widespread news media publicity of the details which included hanging, drowning, electrocuting, "slamming", and shooting dogs. There were public demonstrations by both Vick supporters and animal rights activists. In consequence, many companies who had been paying for his endorsements withdrew Vick products from retail marketing when he was convicted.


text: By August 20, all the defendants on the initial federal charges including Vick had agreed to guilty pleas under plea bargain agreements, apparently avoiding facing the possibility of additional and more serious charges under the powerful Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was not bound by sentencing recommendations in plea agreements, had previously advised two of the defendants that the aggravated circumstances involving executing the dogs warranted an upward revision of the sentencing guidelines. The single felony charges carry a maximum sentence of five years.


text: On November 30, Peace and Phillips were sentenced by Judge Hudson to 18 and 21 months in federal prison respectively. The punishments were higher than recommended by federal prosecutors, and included three years of supervised probation following their release from prison. During the sentencing, an attorney for Quanis Phillips argued that his client came from a culture in which dog fighting was an accepted practice. He further claimed that Phillips grew up around it and that it was a proving ground for young men to demonstrate their strength, adding "Dogfighting was an accepted and acceptable activity in their world." They attended dogfights as youths. Then, after Vick signed his first NFL contract, "suddenly there's money for these young men to get dogs ... get involved in this world".


text: Judge Hudson responded that while they might have grown up seeing dogfighting as normal behavior, that did not temper guilt in this case. As he pronounced a sentence which exceeded the guidelines and plea agreement recommendations, he stated: "You may have thought this was sporting, but it was very callous and cruel ... I hope you understand that now."


text: At the time of the November 30 hearings for Peace and Phillips, Vick was being held at Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia where he had turned himself in early while awaiting sentencing on the federal convictions on December 10, 2007. Vick received a harsher sentence than Peace and Phillips after Hudson concluded that the suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback lied about his direct involvement in killing dogs and about his marijuana use, which was detected in a drug test, as well as his greater role in the criminal enterprise and lesser cooperation during the earlier investigation. Taylor, who is alleged to have had a greater role in the conspiracy than Peace and Phillips, was also due to be sentenced on December 10, but, like Peace and Phillips, had agreed to testify against Vick at trial before he also accepted a plea agreement.


text: In addition to federal actions, a parallel state investigation had also been underway since April 2007. Surry County prosecutor Gerald L. Poindexter later described the information contained in the federal plea agreements as "a road map to indictments in Surry County". Plea bargains with federal prosecutors would have no official standing in the local cases against any of the four federal co-defendants. (Double jeopardy concepts would not apply to state and federal overlapping cases.) In September 2007, all four men convicted in the federal case were also indicted by the Surry County Grand Jury on state felony charges relating to dog fighting under state laws after indictments were returned by a local grand jury in Surry County, Virginia. Vick faced two felony counts under state laws and his trial in Surry County Circuit Court was initially set for April 2, 2008. The maximum penalty if then convicted on the state charges was 10 years in a state penitentiary. On November 25, 2008, Vick pleaded guilty to a single count of dogfighting and was given a three year suspended sentence.


text: In December 2009, "Sports Illustrated" named Michael Vick and the dog fighting investigation as one of the top 10 sports news stories of the decade of the 2000s.


text: In the following several months, various media sources revealed that Vick has close ties and business relationships with three other men who are apparently not his relatives, but were involved with the Surry County property and/or his activities with pit bulls prior to April 25. These men were named as Tony Taylor, Quanis L. Phillips, and Charles W. Reamon, Jr. Both Taylor and Phillips have had drug-related brushes with the law; Reamon has had multiple firearms incidents.


text: Charles W. ("C.J.") Reamon, Jr., is the nephew of Vick's former high school coach, Tommy Reamon. It was reported that in January 2006 he paid the $50 fee to renew the Moonlight Road kennel license which is listed in Taylor's name with Surry County. Tommy Reamon described his nephew as "a good boy who works for Vick". Coach Reamon accused the news media of "trying to destroy" Vick in 2007, which Newport News "Daily Press" columnist David Teel described as a "tired, transparent and bogus claim".