title: Signalling theory

text: In 1975, Amotz Zahavi proposed a verbal model for how signal costs could constrain cheating and stabilize an "honest" correlation between observed signals and unobservable qualities, based on an analogy to sports handicapping systems. He called this idea the handicap principle. The purpose of a sports handicapping system is to reduce disparities in performance, making the contest more competitive. In a handicap race, intrinsically faster horses are given heavier weights to carry under their saddles. Similarly, in amateur golf, better golfers have fewer strokes subtracted from their raw scores. This creates correlations between the handicap and unhandicapped performance, if the handicaps work as they are supposed to, between the handicap imposed and the corresponding horse's handicapped performance. If nothing was known about two race horses or two amateur golfers except their handicaps, an observer could infer who is most likely to win: the horse with the bigger weight handicap, and the golfer with the smaller stroke handicap. By analogy, if peacock 'tails' (large tail covert feathers) act as a handicapping system, and a peahen knew nothing about two peacocks except the sizes of their tails, she could "infer" that the peacock with the bigger tail has greater unobservable intrinsic quality. Display costs can include extrinsic social costs, in the form of testing and punishment by rivals, as well as intrinsic production costs. Another example given in textbooks is the extinct Irish elk, "Megaloceros giganteus". The male Irish elk's enormous antlers could perhaps have evolved as displays of ability to overcome handicap, though biologists point out that if the handicap is inherited, its genes ought to be selected against.


title: Signalling theory

text: The essential idea here is intuitive and probably qualifies as folk wisdom. It was articulated by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1961 short story "Harrison Bergeron". In Vonnegut's futuristic dystopia, the Handicapper General uses a variety of handicapping mechanisms to reduce inequalities in performance. A spectator at a ballet comments: "it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two hundred pound men." Zahavi interpreted this analogy to mean that higher quality peacocks with bigger tails are signalling their ability to "waste" more of some resource by trading it off for a bigger tail. This resonates with Thorstein Veblen's idea that conspicuous consumption and extravagant status symbols can signal wealth.


title: Signalling theory

text: Zahavi's conclusions rest on his verbal interpretation of a metaphor, and initially the handicap principle was not well received by evolutionary biologists. However, in 1984, Nur and Hasson used life history theory to show how differences in signalling costs, in the form of survival-reproduction tradeoffs, could stabilize a signalling system roughly as Zahavi imagined. Genetic models also suggested this was possible. In 1990 Alan Grafen showed that a handicap-like signalling system was evolutionarily stable if higher quality signallers paid lower marginal survival costs for their signals.


title: Signalling theory

text: In 1982, W.D. Hamilton proposed a specific but widely applicable handicap mechanism, parasite-mediated sexual selection. He argued that in the never-ending co-evolutionary race between hosts and their parasites, sexually selected signals indicate health. This idea was tested in 1994 in barn swallows, a species where males have long tail streamers. Møller found that the males with longer tails, and their offspring, did have fewer bloodsucking mites, whereas fostered young did not. The effect was therefore genetic, confirming Hamilton's theory.


title: Signalling theory

text: Another example is Lozano's hypothesis that carotenoids have dual but mutually incompatible roles in immune function and signalling. Given that animals cannot synthesize carotenoids "de novo", these must be obtained from food. The hypothesis states that animals with carotenoid-depended sexual signals are demonstrating their ability to "waste" carotenoids on sexual signals at the expense of their immune system.


title: Signalling theory

text: The handicap principle has proven hard to test empirically, partly because of inconsistent interpretations of Zahavi's metaphor and Grafen's marginal fitness model, and partly because of conflicting empirical results: in some studies individuals with bigger signals seem to pay higher costs, in other studies they seem to be paying lower costs. A possible explanation for the inconsistent empirical results is given in a series of papers by Getty, who shows that Grafen's proof of the handicap principle is based on the critical simplifying assumption that signallers trade off costs for benefits in an additive fashion, the way humans invest money to increase income in the same currency. But the assumption that costs and benefits trade off in an additive fashion is true only on a logarithmic scale; for the survival cost – reproduction benefit tradeoff is assumed to mediate the evolution of sexually selected signals. Fitness depends on producing offspring, which is a multiplicative function of reproductive success given an individual is still alive times the probability of still being alive, given investment in signals.


title: Signalling theory

text: The effort to discover how costs can constrain an "honest" correlation between observable signals and unobservable qualities within signallers is built on strategic models of signalling games, with many simplifying assumptions. These models are most often applied to sexually selected signalling in diploid animals, but they rarely incorporate a fact about diploid sexual reproduction noted by the mathematical biologist Ronald Fisher in the early 20th century: if there are "preference genes" correlated with choosiness in females as well as "signal genes" correlated with display traits in males, choosier females should tend to mate with showier males. Over generations, showier sons should also carry genes associated with choosier daughters, and choosier daughters should also carry genes associated with showier sons. This can cause the evolutionary dynamic known as Fisherian runaway, in which males become ever showier. Russell Lande explored this with a quantitative genetic model, showing that Fisherian diploid dynamics are sensitive to signalling and search costs. Other models incorporate both costly signalling and Fisherian runaway. These models show that if fitness depends on both survival and reproduction, having sexy sons and choosy daughters (in the stereotypical model) can be adaptive, increasing fitness just as much as having healthy sons and daughters.


title: Signalling theory

text: Sam Brown and W. D. Hamilton, and Marco Archetti, proposed that autumn leaf colour is a signal from trees to aphids and other pest species that migrate in autumn to the trees. In their theory, bright autumn coloration with pinks and yellows is costly to trees because pigments require energy to synthesize, but the investment may help them to reduce their parasite load.


title: Signalling theory

text: Stotting, as in Thomson's gazelle, is cited as an example of signalling: the gazelles jump close to a predator instead of escaping, in what could be a signal of strength.


title: Signalling theory

text: Fecal chemical signaling in Hamiltons Frog is an example of honest signaling. The frog's feces signals to others their size and strength warding off predators and other potential competitors.


title: Signalling theory

text: Human behaviour may also provide examples of costly signals. In general, these signals provide information about a person's phenotypic quality or cooperative tendencies. Evidence for costly signalling has been found in many areas of human interaction including risk-taking, hunting, and religion.


title: Signalling theory

text: Large game hunting has been studied extensively as a signal of men's willingness to take physical risks, as well as showcase strength and coordination. Costly signalling theory is a useful tool for understanding food sharing among hunter gatherers because it can be applied to situations in which delayed reciprocity is not a viable explanation. Instances that are particularly inconsistent with the delayed reciprocity hypothesis are those in which a hunter shares his kill indiscriminately with all members of a large group. In these situations, the individuals sharing meat have no control over whether or not their generosity will be reciprocated, and free riding becomes an attractive strategy for those receiving meat. Free riders are people who reap the benefits of group-living without contributing to its maintenance. Costly signalling theory can fill some of the gaps left by the delayed reciprocity hypothesis. Hawkes has suggested that men target large game and publicly share meat to draw social attention or to show off. Such display and the resulting favorable attention can improve a hunter's reputation by providing information about his phenotypic quality. High quality signallers are more successful in acquiring mates and allies. Thus, costly signalling theory can explain apparently wasteful and altruistic behaviour.


title: Signalling theory

text: In order to be effective, costly signals must fulfill specific criteria. Firstly, signallers must incur different levels of cost and benefit for signalling behaviour. Secondly, costs and benefits must reflect the signallers' phenotypic quality. Thirdly, the information provided by a signal should be directed at and accessible to an audience. A receiver can be anyone who stands to benefit from information the signaller is sending, such as potential mates, allies, or competitors. Honesty is guaranteed when only individuals of high quality can pay the (high) costs of signalling. Hence, costly signals make it impossible for low-quality individuals to fake a signal and fool a receiver.


title: Signalling theory

text: Bliege Bird et al. observed turtle hunting and spear fishing patterns in a Meriam community in the Torres Strait of Australia, publishing their findings in 2001. Here, only some Meriam men were able to accumulate high caloric gains for the amount of time spent turtle hunting or spear fishing (reaching a threshold measured in kcal/h). Since a daily catch of fish is carried home by hand and turtles are frequently served at large feasts, members of the community know which men most reliably brought them turtle meat and fish. Thus, turtle hunting qualifies as a costly signal. Furthermore, turtle hunting and spear fishing are actually less productive (in kcal/h) than foraging for shellfish, where success depends only on the amount of time dedicated to searching, so shellfish foraging is a poor signal of skill or strength. This suggests that energetic gains are not the primary reason men take part in turtle hunting and spear fishing. A follow-up study found that successful Meriam hunters do experience greater social benefits and reproductive success than less skilled hunters.


title: Signalling theory

text: The Hadza people of Tanzania also share food, possibly to gain in reputation. Hunters cannot be sharing meat mainly to provision their families or to gain reciprocal benefits, as teenage boys often give away their meat even though they do not yet have wives or children, so costly signalling of their qualities is the likely explanation. These qualities include good eyesight, coordination, strength, knowledge, endurance, or bravery. Hadza hunters more often pair with highly fertile, hard-working wives than non-hunters. A woman benefits from mating with a man who possesses such qualities as her children will most likely inherit qualities that increase fitness and survivorship. She may also benefit from her husband's high social status. Thus, hunting is an honest and costly signal of phenotypic quality. Frank W. Marlowe’s "The Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania" showed that this data confirms that this is also true within the Hazda, based on the documentation on the !Kung, in Megan Biesele’s book about !Kung folklore called Women Like Meat.


title: Signalling theory

text: Among the men of Ifaluk atoll, costly signalling theory can also explain why men torch fish. Torch fishing is a ritualized method of fishing on Ifaluk whereby men use torches made from dried coconut fronds to catch large dog-toothed tuna. Preparation for torch fishing requires significant time investments and involves a great deal of organization. Due to the time and energetic costs of preparation, torch fishing results in net caloric losses for fishers. Therefore, torch fishing is a handicap that serves to signal men's productivity. Torch fishing is the most advertised fishing occupation on Ifaluk. Women and others usually spend time observing the canoes as they sail beyond the reef. Also, local rituals help to broadcast information about which fishers are successful and enhance fishers’ reputations during the torch fishing season. Several ritual behaviors and dietary constraints clearly distinguish torch fishers from other men. First, males are only permitted to torch fish if they participate on the first day of the fishing season. The community is well informed as to who participates on this day, and can easily identify the torch fishers. Second, torch fishers receive all of their meals at the canoe house and are prohibited from eating certain foods. People frequently discuss the qualities of torch fishermen. On Ifaluk, women claim that they are looking for hard-working mates. With the distinct sexual division of labor on Ifaluk, industriousness is a highly valued characteristic in males. Torch fishing thus provides women with reliable information on the work ethic of prospective mates, which makes it an honest costly signal.


title: Signalling theory

text: In many human cases, a strong reputation built through costly signalling enhances a man's social status over the statuses of men who signal less successfully. Among northern Kalahari foraging groups, traditional hunters usually capture a maximum of two or three antelopes per year. It was said of a particularly successful hunter:


title: Signalling theory

text: Although this hunter was sharing meat, he was not doing so in the framework of reciprocity. The general model of costly signalling is not reciprocal; rather, individuals who share acquire more mates and allies. Costly signalling applies to situations in Kalahari foraging groups where giving often goes to recipients who have little to offer in return. A young hunter is motivated to impress community members with daughters so that he can obtain his first wife. Older hunters may wish to attract women interested in an extramarital relationship, or to be a co-wife. In these northern Kalahari groups, the killing of a large animal indicates a man who has mastered the art of hunting and can support a family. Many women seek a man who is a good hunter, has an agreeable character, is generous, and has advantageous social ties. Since hunting ability is a prerequisite for marriage, men who are good hunters enter the marriage market earliest. Costly signalling theory explains seemingly wasteful foraging displays.


title: Signalling theory

text: Costly signalling can be applied to situations involving physical strain and risk of physical injury or death. Research on physical risk-taking is important because information regarding why people, especially young men, take part in high risk activities can help in the development of prevention programs. Reckless driving is a lethal problem among young men in western societies. A male who takes a physical risk is sending the message that he has enough strength and skill to survive extremely dangerous activities. This signal is directed at peers and potential mates. When those peers are criminals or gang members, sociologists Diego Gambetta and James Densley find that risk-taking signals can help expedite acceptance into the group.


title: Signalling theory

text: In a study of risk-taking, some types of risk, such as physical or heroic risk for others' benefit, are viewed more favorably than other types of risk, such as taking drugs. Males and females valued different degrees of heroic risk for mates and same-sex friends. Males valued heroic risk-taking by male friends, but preferred less of it in female mates. Females valued heroic risk-taking in male mates and less of it in female friends. Females may be attracted to males inclined to physically defend them and their children. Males may prefer heroic risk-taking by male friends as they could be good allies.


title: Signalling theory

text: In western societies, voluntary blood donation is a common, yet less extreme, form of risk-taking. Costs associated with these donations include pain and risk of infection. If blood donation is an opportunity to send costly signals, then donors will be perceived by others as generous and physically healthy. In a survey, both donors and non-donors attributed health, generosity, and ability to operate in stressful situations to blood donors.


title: Signalling theory

text: Costly religious rituals such as male and female circumcision, food and water deprivation, and snake handling look paradoxical in evolutionary terms. Devout religious beliefs wherein such traditions are practiced appear maladaptive. Religion may have arisen to increase and maintain intragroup cooperation. Cooperation leads to altruistic behaviour, and costly signalling could explain this. All religions may involve costly and elaborate rituals, performed publicly, to demonstrate loyalty to the religious group. In this way, group members increase their allegiance to the group by signalling their investment in group interests. However, as group size increases among humans, the threat of free riders grows. Costly signalling theory accounts for this by proposing that these religious rituals are costly enough to deter free riders.


title: Signalling theory

text: Irons proposed that costly signalling theory could explain costly religious behaviour. He argued that hard-to-fake religious displays enhanced trust and solidarity in a community, producing emotional and economic benefits. He showed that display signals among the Yomut Turkmen of northern Iran helped to secure trade agreements. These "ostentatious" displays signalled commitment to Islam to strangers and group members. Sosis demonstrated that people in religious communities are four times more likely to live longer than their secular counterparts, and that these longer lifespans were positively correlated with the number of costly requirements demanded from religious community members. However, confounding variables may not have been excluded. Wood found that religion offers a subjective feeling of well-being within a community, where costly signalling protects against free riders and helps to build self-control among committed members. Iannaccone studied the effects of costly signals on religious communities. In a self-reported survey, as the strictness of a church increased, the attendance and contributions to that church increased proportionally. In effect, people were more willing to participate in a church that has more stringent demands on its members. Despite this observation, costly donations and acts conducted in a religious context does not itself establish that membership in these clubs is actually worth the entry costs imposed.


title: Signalling theory

text: Despite the experimental support for this hypothesis, it remains controversial. A common critique is that devoutness is easy to fake, such as simply by attending a religious service. However, the hypothesis predicts that people are more likely to join and contribute to a religious group when its rituals are costly. Another critique specifically asks: why religion? There is no evolutionary advantage to evolving religion over other signals of commitment such as nationality, as Irons admits. However, the reinforcement of religious rites as well as the intrinsic reward and punishment system found in religion makes it an ideal candidate for increasing intragroup cooperation. Finally, there is insufficient evidence for increase in fitness as a result of religious cooperation. However, Sosis argues for benefits from religion itself, such as increased longevity, improved health, assistance during crises, and greater psychological well-being, although both the supposed benefits from religion and the costly-signaling mechanism have been contested.


title: Signalling theory

text: Some scholars view the emergence of language as the consequence of some kind of social transformation that, by generating unprecedented levels of public trust, liberated a genetic potential for linguistic creativity that had previously lain dormant. "Ritual/speech coevolution theory" views rituals as costly signals that ensures honesty and reliability of language communication. Scholars in this intellectual camp point to the fact that even chimpanzees and bonobos have latent symbolic capacities that they rarely—if ever—use in the wild. Objecting to the sudden mutation idea, these authors argue that even if a chance mutation were to install a language organ in an evolving bipedal primate, it would be adaptively useless under all known primate social conditions. A very specific social structure—one capable of upholding unusually high levels of public accountability and trust—must have evolved before or concurrently with language to make reliance on "cheap signals" (words) an evolutionarily stable strategy. The animistic nature of early humans language could serve as the handicap-like cost that helped to ensure the reliability of communication. The attribution of spiritual essence to everything surrounding early humans served as a built-in hard-to-fake mechanism that provided instant verification and ensured


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: Battlefield: Bad Company is a first-person shooter developed by DICE for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and part of the "Battlefield" series. It was released in North America on 23 June 2008, followed by a European release on 26 June. The game was hinted at just before the release of "Battlefield 2", and announced sixteen months later. A direct sequel, "", was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows on 2 March 2010. The player controls protagonist Private Preston Marlowe and his exploits to steal gold from mercenaries along with his squad, in the midst of a war between the United States and Russia.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: "Bad Company" is unique in the series in that it was developed for consoles and features a full single player campaign with characters, as opposed to previous titles which were mostly released for Windows and featured warfare focused on multiplayer with large numbers of players. The game also emphasises squad-based combat, while retaining the vehicular and large scale warfare of the series in multiplayer. The game applies some new features to the franchise, including a highly destructible environment such as blowing walls through houses. DICE debuted its studio developed Frostbite engine with the game which allows for the high destructibility, and the engine has since been updated to run later titles.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: "Bad Company" received mostly positive reviews from critics, who praised the story's humor and technical aspects such as sound, atmosphere and the game engine.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: In the game, players can hold one primary weapon which each has its own secondary, along with a combat knife, grenades and other picked up explosives and devices. Players start with 100 health, which is reduced by damage. Wounded players heal by using the LIFE-2 auto-injector. The environment is almost entirely destructible, but bullets cannot go through most walls. The ammunition system uses a bullet calculator, shown on the HUD, and players can endlessly repair vehicles with power tools unless they are completely destroyed. Airstrikes and Mortar Strikes can also be utilized.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: "Battlefield: Bad Company" has an assortment of military vehicles from each of the game's three factions that can be used by the player. Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored cars, attack helicopters, patrol boats, mobile anti-aircraft weapon system. Unlike some previous versions in the "Battlefield" series, fixed-wing aircraft such as fighter jets and bomber planes are not available in this game.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: The Frostbite game engine allows 90% of the environment to be destroyed, including buildings, vegetation (including trees, grass, and bushes), vehicles, other players and the ground itself. For gameplay purposes, the frames of some buildings and objects remain indestructible to prevent total destruction of key points and to prevent the map from being completely flat. Additionally, the game features dynamic lighting to correlate with the changing environment.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: Multiplayer supports up to 24 players. "Gold Rush" was the only multiplayer mode included in the initial release of "Battlefield: Bad Company". The setup of the game is an Attackers vs. Defenders scenario. The eight initial maps are Harvest Day, Over and Out, End of the Line, Ascension, Valley Run, Deconstruction, Oasis, and Final Ignition, each with destructible environments, certain atmospheres, and vehicles. One team must defend two crates filled with gold while the other team attempts to destroy the crates. Once the crates are destroyed, more of the map is available to fight on with new crates appearing, along with added reinforcement numbers. The attacking team has a limited amount of respawns to achieve their goal of capturing the 3-5 gold stashes either by setting charges or simply destroying the 2 crates of gold at each base. The defending team has an unlimited amount of respawns available, but their goal is to exhaust the attacking teams respawns.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: The "Conquest" game mode returned to "Bad Company" due to overwhelming requests from players during the beta testing. Conquest was the prevalent game-mode in many of the preceding Battlefield games, and involves reducing the opponents' "ticket" meter by scoring kills and capturing strategically placed flags. This mode was available as a free download post-launch, the release date was 7 August 2008. The Conquest pack included modified versions of the Ascension, End of the Line, Oasis and Harvest Day maps.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: A new map pack featuring more conquest maps, and trophies for both offline and online play on the PlayStation 3 version, was released on 30 October 2008, and the Xbox 360 version releasing on 31 October 2008. The maps included 4 modified singleplayer maps such as Acta non Verba, Ghost Town, Par for the Course, and Crossing Over.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: The game has 25 ranks, each from the U.S. Army (corporal, sergeant, colonel etc.). Unlock credits may be obtained by ranking up and then the aforementioned credits may be used to unlock weapons. However, the weapons included with the Find All Five program may not be unlocked using these credits. Unlock credits are not granted with every rank. A particular selection of five weapons may be unlocked only by ranking up to Rank 25 or by purchasing the Gold Edition.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: Players can earn different types of awards. "Trophies" are awarded for multiple kills in a certain class, kills to defend an objective and for other team-related actions. These can be awarded to the player multiple times during the game. "Patches" can be earned for gaining certain trophies and then completing certain criteria in an online match. Patches can only be awarded once to a player. "Wildcards" are awarded once to a player for a combination of many different criteria. These are harder than trophies and patches to unlock. In addition to these in-game awards, the game is compatible with achievements for the Xbox 360 and trophies for the PlayStation 3.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: In a move similar to "Battlefield 2142", the number of soldier classes is small compared to previous games in the series, resulting in a combination of the classic soldier classes. The classes in this game are:


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: Each class wields a main weapon of choice (maximum of five optional guns per class), three secondary weapons/gadgets, and a knife for quick kills. With a knife one can rank up faster than with any other weapon, since one receives both the standard points for a kill as well as the slain player's dog tags (which grant a hefty point bonus, depending on their level).


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: The game is set in the near future and focuses on the fictional First Russo-American War between the United States and Russian Federation, mainly in the fictional country of Serdaristan. It follows a four-man fireteam from "B" Company of the 222nd Army battalion, commonly called "Bad Company", composed of troublemakers whose use in the battlefield is limited to the role of cannon fodder. Private Preston Marlowe (David Menkin) is the game's protagonist, newly transferred to the company. The more intelligent but nervous Private Terrence Sweetwater (Richard Lynson) serves as a foil to Private George Gordon Haggard Jr. (Nigel Whitmey), a pyromaniac and the comic relief of the story. Sergeant Samuel D. Redford (Bruce Johnson) is the leader of the team. He is the first ever to volunteer for his position, in exchange for shortening his term of service and has only three days left to serve. The campaign takes place in the fictional Caucasian country of Serdaristan, and a fictional Middle Eastern city called Sadiz near the Caspian Sea.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: Preston Marlowe is a U.S. soldier transferred to Bad Company and embarks on his first mission with his new squad. After a rather informal introduction to fellow squadmates, Redford, Sweetwater and Haggard, they begin by seizing Russian artillery positions and turning the guns on advancing enemy armor. Proceeding to knock out several anti-air batteries, clearing the way for advancing armor and taking control of the city of Zabograd, the group stumble upon a Legionnaire encampment: mercenaries whose leader is The Legionnaire (Nathan Osgood), a ruthless commander. The Legionnaires are possibly the deadliest army in the world, according to Sweetwater, who also mentions how each is paid in solid gold bars. Transported to a dock farther away from the U.S. Army, they spot more Legionnaires loading a supply truck with gold. The truck ends up driving past the border into nearby Serdaristan, a neutral state in the conflict. Despite Redford ordering the squad to withdraw from the area, Haggard, excited over the prospect of getting gold, runs after the trucks, single-handedly invading a neutral country.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: The squad pursues Haggard to stop him from causing further damage. When they find him, mission coordinator Mike-One-Juliet (Jennifer Woodward) calls Redford, stating that he would be subject to a court martial for Haggard's offense, as well as raising his service time. Since they have no other choice but to run, Redford flippantly suggests that they pursue the gold even further to a harbor and a ship that is loaded with gold. The group fight their way there only to get caught by U.S. forces. The Army agrees that the squad will have their charges dropped if they investigate Serdaristan, since they are officially AWOL, removing U.S. liability. The squad's orders are to capture the eccentric dictator of Serdaristan, Zavomir Serdar (Stefan Ashton Frank). Soon Serdaristan is considered at war after shooting down the squad's UH-60 Black Hawk transport helicopter, and the group advance to the dictator's palace by way of his personal golf course, where he tells them that the Legionnaires had invaded in order to pay for his bill. As they attempt to escape, they are informed that the U.S. Army is severing all ties with them and they must find their own way out. The squad escapes with Serdar on his golden Mil Mi-24 helicopter, pursued by the Legionnaires.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: Serdar reluctantly directs them to Serdaristan's military nexus, where the helicopter is used to destroy an oil refinery and the country's internet service station. After a long flight, the helicopter is shot down by a black Ka-52 helicopter in Russia. Preston wakes up alone and, with help from Mike-One-Juliet, is reunited with his squad at a monastery. Serdar, however, was captured and the squad saves him from execution by the Legionnaires. Escaping in a boat, they leave Serdar on a small, isolated island as the exile he was seeking and arrive in Sadiz, a city under construction somewhere on the Caspian Sea. On the beach, the squad spots the ship they saw earlier in Serdaristan. Advancing past resistance, they learn that the U.S. Army is also mounting an offensive there and fear competition for the gold. They then make a deal to share some of the gold with Mike-One-Juliet in exchange for mission support.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: After slowing down the U.S. Army's offensive by blowing up two bridges, the squad reaches a gold-filled garage but is attacked by the Legionnaire leader in his personal Ka-52, the same helicopter from before. Preston manages to shoot down The Legionnaire and the squad returns to the gold, only to find the U.S. Army loading it into supply trucks. Presuming defeat, they are spotted by the commanding officer. Preston convinces him that they are Army operatives, and the officer orders them to take a truck of the gold and join the convoy. The squad happily obliges, but sneak out of the convoy with their truck. Meanwhile, at the Ka-52 crash site, The Legionnaire rises from the burning wreckage, seemingly unhurt, with a vengeful expression.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: Three trailers were released for "Bad Company", each parodying popular video game series. The first trailer parodied "" called "Snake Eyes", the second parodied "Gears of War" and the song "Mad World" called "Bad World" and the third parodied "Rainbow Six Vegas 2" called "Rainbow Sprinkles".


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: "Find All Five" is a way for players to unlock specific weapons. The game's official website includes promotional events that give the player codes for unlockable weapons. These "Find All Five" weapons include the F2000 Belgian assault rifle, USAS-12 automatic shotgun, M60 general purpose machine gun, QBU-88 sniper rifle and silenced Uzi sub-machine gun.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: The five events from EA's website instructed users to participate in the Battlefield Veteran's program, check the player's stats online after playing the game, register for the BF newsletter, pre-order the game through participating stores, and get to rank 4 in the demo.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: Upon learning about this system, many players were angered as it meant that a potential in-game advantage would be given to players willing to pay extra money for pre-orders, or share their personal information when signing up for the newsletter.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: On 11 September 2008, "Battlefield: Bad Company"'s website revealed that three of the Find All Five codes would be released due to lack of availability. These three guns were the QBU-88 Sniper Rifle, M60 Light Machine Gun and the Silenced Mini Uzi Sub-Machine Gun. The USAS12 Full-Automatic Shotgun code was leaked later. The F2000 Assault Rifle is being withheld as an exclusive weapon for veterans of the series.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: "Battlefield: Bad Company" received positive reviews. Professional reviews for the game have been very positive. A large portion of praise went to the game's realistically destructible environments, impressive weapons, variety of gameplay and vehicles, and its "extraordinary" multiplayer gameplay. Criticism was mainly on a sluggish opening and graphics.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: "IGN" noted several flaws in the game, but still gave the game a very positive score of 8.6. "Giant Bomb" gave it a 5/5 saying, "It looks great, has fun characters, a load of interesting weaponry, and works nicely whether you're playing alone or with a squad."


title: Battlefield: Bad Company

text: "Official PlayStation Magazine" gave 90 score noting "It's not the best-looking game, it's clunky in its controls, but it delivers where it counts with a fun experience that will keep you entertained through to its conclusion". "GameSpot" praised the game with a score of 8.5 "Great" noting "Battlefield Bad Company is the most fun, addictive shooter released so far this year". 1UP criticized the game's poor AI with an average score "75" saying "With a thumping sound and sudden cloud of dust, grenades erase whole sections of houses. Bullets, however, stop dead in the thinnest wood slat. But what Bad Company needs isn't a trip to a real-life firing range -- it's its inflexible A.I. that requires the lessons".


title: Craig Lamar Traylor

text: Craig Lamar Traylor (born March 19, 1989) is an American actor and artist. He made his acting debut in an episode of "ER" in 1996 and portrayed Stevie Kenarban, the asthmatic, one-lunged boy in a wheelchair and the title character's best friend, in the Fox sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle" from the show's start in January 2000 to its conclusion in May 2006. He has also had small roles in the films "Matilda" and "Get a Clue".


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s until 2011), she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 "Post-Painterly Abstraction" exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract painting that came to be known as color field. Born in Manhattan, she was influenced by Greenberg, Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock's paintings. Her work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including a 1989 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and been exhibited worldwide since the 1950s. In 2001, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Helen Frankenthaler was born on December 12, 1928, in New York City. Her father was Alfred Frankenthaler, a New York State Supreme Court judge. Her mother, Martha (Lowenstein), had emigrated with her family from Germany to the United States shortly after she was born. Her two sisters, Marjorie and Gloria, were six and five years older, respectively. Growing up on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Frankenthaler absorbed the privileged background of a cultured and progressive Jewish intellectual family that encouraged all three daughters to prepare themselves for professional careers. Her nephew is the artist/photographer Clifford Ross.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler studied at the Dalton School under muralist Rufino Tamayo and also at Bennington College in Vermont. While at Bennington College, Frankenthaler studied under the direction of Paul Feeley, who is credited with helping her understand pictorial composition, as well as influencing her early cubist-derived style. Upon her graduation in 1949, she studied privately with Australian-born painter Wallace Harrison, and with Hans Hofmann in 1950. She met Clement Greenberg in 1950 and had a five-year relationship with him. She later married Robert Motherwell, another painter, in 1958; the couple divorced in 1971. Both born of wealthy parents, they were known as "the golden couple" and for their lavish entertaining. She gained two stepdaughters from him, Jeannie Motherwell and Lise Motherwell. Jeannie Motherwell studied painting at Bard College and the Art Students League in New York. Continuing with her art after college, she became active in arts education at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, until relocating to Cambridge, MA, where she worked at Boston University for the graduate program in Arts Administration until 2015. She served on the Cambridge Arts Council Public Art Commission from 2004 - 2007 and is a member of the advisory board of "Provincetown Arts" magazine (since 2019). Jeannie Motherwell had a show at Rafius Fane Gallery, Boston, Mass. titled Pour, Push, Layer. She is currently represented by M Fine Arts Galerie in Boston, MA and The Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown, MA.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: In 1994, Frankenthaler married Stephen M. DuBrul, Jr., an investment banker who served the Gerald Ford administration. Frankenthaler had been on the faculty of Hunter College.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Active as a painter for nearly six decades, Frankenthaler passed through many phases and stylistic shifts. Initially associated with abstract expressionism because of her focus on forms latent in nature, Frankenthaler is identified with the use of fluid shapes, abstract masses, and lyrical gestures. She made use of large formats on which she painted, generally, simplified abstract compositions. Her style is notable in its emphasis on spontaneity, as Frankenthaler herself stated, "A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once."


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler's official artistic career was launched in 1952 with the exhibition of "Mountains and Sea". Throughout the 1950s, her works tended to be centered compositions, meaning the majority of the pictorial incident took place in the middle of the canvas itself, while the edges were of little consequence to the compositional whole. In 1957, Frankenthaler began to experiment with linear shapes and more organic, sun-like, rounded forms in her works. In the 1960s, her style shifted towards the exploration of symmetrical paintings, as she began to place strips of colors near the edges of her paintings, thus involving the edges as a part of the compositional whole. With this shift in composition came a general simplification of Frankenthaler's style. She began to make use of single stains and blots of solid color against white backgrounds, often in the form of geometric shapes. Beginning in 1963, Frankenthaler began to use acrylic paints rather than oil paints because they allowed for both opacity and sharpness when put on the canvas. By the 1970s, she had done away with the soak stain technique entirely, preferring thicker paint that allowed her to employ bright colors almost reminiscent of Fauvism. Throughout the 1970s, Frankenthaler explored the joining of areas of the canvas through the use of modulated hues, and experimented with large, abstract forms. Her work in the 1980s was characterized as much calmer, with its use of muted colors and relaxed brushwork. "Once one's true talent begins to emerge, one is freer in a way but less free in another way, since one is a captive of this necessity and deep urge".


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: In 1960, the term color field painting was used to describe the work of Frankenthaler. In general, this term refers to the application of large areas, or fields, of color to the canvas. This style was characterized by the use of hues that were similar in tone or intensity, as well as large formats and simplified compositions, all of which are qualities descriptive of Frankenthaler's work from the 1960s onward. The color field artists differed from abstract expressionists in their attempted erasure of emotional, mythic, and religious content.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler often painted onto unprimed canvas with oil paints that she heavily diluted with turpentine, a technique that she named "soak stain." This allowed for the colors to soak directly into the canvas, creating a liquefied, translucent effect that strongly resembled watercolor. Soak stain was also said to be the ultimate fusing of image and canvas, drawing attention to the flatness of the painting itself. The major disadvantage of this method, however, is that the oil in the paints will eventually cause the canvas to discolor and rot away. The technique was adopted by other artists, notably Morris Louis (1912–1962) and Kenneth Noland (1924–2010), and launched the second generation of the color field school of painting. Frankenthaler often worked by laying her canvas out on the floor, a technique inspired by Jackson Pollock.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler preferred to paint in privacy. If assistants were present, she preferred them to be inconspicuous when not needed.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: One of her most important influences was Clement Greenberg (1909–1994), an art and literary critic with whom she had a personal friendship and who included her in the "Post-Painterly Abstraction" exhibition that he curated in 1964. Through Greenberg she was introduced to the New York art scene. Under his guidance she spent the summer of 1950 studying with Hans Hofmann (1880–1966), catalyst of the Abstract Expressionist movement.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: The first Jackson Pollock show Frankenthaler saw was at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950. She had this to say about seeing Pollock's paintings "Autumn Rhythm, Number 30, 1950" (1950), "Number One,1950 (Lavender Mist)" (1950):


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: John Elderfield wrote that the watercolors of Paul Cézanne and John Marin were important early influences:


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: In "Mountains and Sea", her first professionally exhibited work, Frankenthaler made use of the soak stain technique. The work itself was painted after a trip to Nova Scotia, which partly questions the extant of its non-representational status. Although "Mountains and Sea" is not a direct depiction of the Nova Scotia coastline, elements of the work suggest a kind of seascape or landscape, like the strokes of blue that join with areas of green. Much like "Mountains and Sea", Frankenthaler's "Basque Landscape" (1958) seems to refer to a very specific, external environment, but it is also abstract. The same can be said for "Lorelei" (1956), a work based on a boat ride Frankenthaler took down the Rhine.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: In "Swan Lake #2" (1961), Frankenthaler begins to explore a more illustrative handling of paint. The work depicts a large area of blue paint on the canvas, with breaks in the color that are left white. These negative spaces resemble birds, perhaps swans, sitting on a body of water. There is a very rectilinear brown square that encompasses the blue, balancing both the cool tones of the blue with the warmth of the brown, and the gestural handling of the paint with the strong linearity of the square.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: "Eden", from 1956, is an interior landscape, meaning it depicts the images of the artist's imagination. "Eden" tells the story of an abstract, interior world, idealized in ways that a landscape never could be. The work is almost entirely gestural, save for the incorporation of the number "100" two times in the center of the image. When asked about the process of creating this work, Frankenthaler stated that she began by painting the numbers, and that a sort of symbolic, idealized garden grew out of that.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler recognized a need to continually challenge herself to develop as an artist. For this reason, in 1961, she began to experiment with printmaking at the Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), a lithographic workshop in West Islip, Long Island. Frankenthaler collaborated with Tatyana Grosman in 1961 to create her first prints.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: In 1976, Frankenthaler began to work within the medium of woodcuts. She collaborated with Kenneth E. Tyler. The first piece they created together was "Essence of Mulberry" (1977), a woodcut that used eight different colors. "Essence of Mulberry" was inspired by two sources: the first was an exhibition of fifteenth century woodcuts that Frankenthaler saw on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the second being a mulberry tree that grew outside of Tyler's studio. In 1995, the pair collaborated again, creating "The Tales of Genji", a series of six woodcut prints. To create woodcuts with a resonance similar to Frankenthaler's painterly style, she painted her plans onto the wood itself, making maquettes. "The Tales of Genji" took nearly three years to complete. Frankenthaler then went on to create "Madame Butterfly", a print that employed one hundred and two different colors and forty-six woodblocks. "Madame Butterfly" is seen as the ultimate translation of Frankenthaler's style into the medium of woodcuts, as it embodies her idea of creating an image that looks as if it happened all at once.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler received the National Medal of Arts in 2001. She served on the National Council on the Arts of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1985 to 1992. Her other awards include First Prize for Painting at the first Paris Biennial (1959); Temple Gold Medal, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1968); New York City Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture (1986); and Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, College Art Association (1994). In 1990, she was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1994.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler did not consider herself a feminist: "For me, being a 'lady painter' was never an issue. I don't resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint." "Art was an extremely macho business," Anne Temkin, chief curator at the Museum of Modern Art, told NPR. "For me, there's a great deal of admiration just in the courage and the vision that she brought to what she did." However, Mary Beth Edelson's feminist piece "Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper" (1972) appropriated Leonardo da Vinci’s "The Last Supper", with the heads of notable women artists including Frankenthaler collaged over the heads of Christ and his apostles. This image, addressing the role of religious and art historical iconography in the subordination of women, became "one of the most iconic images of the feminist art movement."


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: In 1953, Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis saw her "Mountains and Sea" which, Louis said later, was a "bridge between Pollock and what was possible." On the other hand, some critics called her work "merely beautiful." Grace Glueck's obituary in "The New York Times" summed up Frankenthaler's career:


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Critics have not unanimously praised Ms. Frankenthaler's art. Some have seen it as thin in substance, uncontrolled in method, too sweet in color and too "poetic." But it has been far more apt to garner admirers like the critic Barbara Rose, who wrote in 1972 of Ms. Frankenthaler's gift for "the freedom, spontaneity, openness and complexity of an image, not exclusively of the studio or the mind, but explicitly and intimately tied to nature and human emotions.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: The New York-based Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, established and endowed by the artist during her lifetime, is dedicated to promoting greater public interest in and understanding of the visual arts. In 2021 the foundation created "Frankenthaler Climate Initiative". In July 2021, the foundation award the first round of grants totaling $5.1 million. The recipients included the Museo de Arte de Ponce, the Santa Rosa Indian Museum and Cultural Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Yale University Arts Center.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler's first solo exhibition took place at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, in the fall of 1951. Her first major museum show, a retrospective of her 1950s work with a catalog by the critic and poet Frank O'Hara, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, was at the Jewish Museum in 1960. Subsequent solo exhibitions include "Helen Frankenthaler," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1969; traveled to Whitechapel Gallery, London; Orangerie Herrenhausen, Hanover; and Kongresshalle, Berlin), and "Helen Frankenthaler: a Painting Retrospective," The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (1989–90; traveled to the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Detroit Institute of Arts). Miles McEnery Gallery, a New York-based contemporary art gallery which exhibited Color-Field and Abstract Expressionist paintings, showcased a range of her work in 2009 "Helen Frankenthaler," December 10, 2019 – January 23, 2010). On October 6, 2019, Frankenthaler was included in Sparkling Amazons: Abstract Expressionist Women of the 9th St. Show at the Katonah Museum of Art in Westchester County, NY. which ran until January 26, 2020; *2019: "Postwar Women:alumnae of the Art Students League of New York 1945-1965", Phyllis Harriman Gallery, Art Students League of NY; curated by Will Corwin.; 2020: "9th Street Club", Gazelli Art House, London; curated by Will Corwin


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: In 2021, a decade after her death the New Britain Museum of American Art mounted an exhibition of her works on paper from the final stages of her opus titled "Helen Frankenthaler; Late Works 1990 - 2003". The exhibition is on from February 11 until May 23, 2021.


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: She was a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts, which advises the NEA's chairman. In "The New York Times" in 1989, she argued government funding for the arts was "not part of the democratic process" and was "beginning to spawn an art monster". According to the "Los Angeles Times", "Frankenthaler did take a highly public stance during the late 1980s "culture wars" that eventually led to deep budget cuts for the National Endowment for the Arts and a ban on grants to individual artists that still persists. In a 1989 commentary for "The New York Times", she wrote that, while "censorship and government interference in the directions and standards of art are dangerous and not part of the democratic process," controversial grants to Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, and others reflected a trend in which the NEA was supporting work "of increasingly dubious quality. Is the council, once a helping hand, now beginning to spawn an art monster? Do we lose art ... in the guise of endorsing experimentation?"


title: Helen Frankenthaler

text: Frankenthaler died on December 27, 2011, at the age of 83 in Darien, Connecticut, following a long and undisclosed illness.


title: Village Cooking Channel

text: Village Cooking Channel is an Indian YouTube Channel, popularly known as VCC. They are known for their videos on traditional village food cooking in open fields. As of July 2022, it had 17.2 million subscribers on YouTube and became the first Tamil YouTube channel to receive the first Diamond Creator Award. Several of their videos have more than 60 million views and 'Fruit Salad' video is the most popular one with 103 million views as on Nov 2021.


title: Village Cooking Channel

text: The channel is being run by family members , consisting of brothers V. Subramanian (the cameraman), V. Ayyanar, V. Murugesan, their cousin T. Muthumanickam, their brother-in-law G. Tamilselvan and are led by their grandfather and former chef M. Periyathambi. Periyathambi is a well-known caterer in the village of Chinnaveeramangalam, Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu.


title: Village Cooking Channel

text: The channel employs the use of traditional vessels and cauldrons to cook a variety of dishes, using traditional methods (no modern equipment is used). After filming the video, the team have their share of food and later , it is served at old-age homes and orphanages in their village.


title: Village Cooking Channel

text: In January 2021, Rahul Gandhi joined their outdoor cooking for mushroom biryani, which enhanced the channel's popularity even further. On 4 July 2021, the channel donated one million rupees to Tamilnadu Chief Minister Public Relief Fund for fight against COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Village Cooking Channel

text: Its unique style has won Black Sheep Digital Award for Best Food Programme in February 2021. They have also won The Behindwoods Gold Best Digital Content Creator award in 2021.


title: Village Cooking Channel

text: Owing to their popularity, the members were featured in cameo appearances in "Vikram" (2022), marking their film debut.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar (//) is a city in the north-eastern part of Karnataka state in India. It is the headquarters of Bidar district, which borders Maharashtra and Telangana. It is a rapidly urbanising city in the wider "Bidar Metropolitan area". The city is well known for its many sites of architectural, historical and religious importance.


title: Bidar

text: Being located at the farthest of around from the state capital Bangalore, it has been neglected by the state government for a long time. However, owing to its rich heritage, the city has a prominent place on the Archaeological Map of India. Picturesquely perched on the Deccan plateau, the Bidar fort is more than 500 years old and still standing strong. According to the book "Bidar Heritage" published by the state "Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage", of the 61 monuments listed by the department, about 30 are tombs located in and around Bidar city., explaining its nickname, "City of Whispering Monuments". The heritage sites in and around Bidar have become the major attraction for film shooting in recent years, with Bollywood making visits apart from Kannada film industry


title: Bidar

text: Bidar is home for the second biggest Indian Air Force training centre in the country. The IAF Station Bidar is used for advanced jet training of prospective fighter pilots on BAe Hawk aircraft.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar city is known for its Bidri handicraft products, and its rich history. Bidar is also considered one of the holiest place for Sikh pilgrimage. Unlike other places in the region, Bidar is the coldest and wettest place in north Karnataka. For the year 2009–10, Bidar was ranked 22nd among the cleanest cities in India, and 5th cleanest in Karnataka. SH4 passes through Bidar and the whole city is integrated with 4 lane road.


title: Bidar

text: Legend has associated Bidar with the ancient kingdom of Vidarbha, to which references are found in early Hindu literature like "Malavikagnimitra, Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, Bhagavata", and a few other "Puranas". Its association can be seen apparently on account of the similarity in names "Bidar" and "Vidarbha". This has been mentioned in Firishta's writings.


title: Bidar

text: The traditional tales reveal that Vidura lived here; hence the place was earlier called Viduranagara and also as the place where Nala and Damayanti (Daughter of "Raja Bhima", the King of Vidharba) were meeting.


title: Bidar

text: The recorded History of the city goes back to the third century B.C. when it was a part of the Mauryan Empire. After the Mauryas, Satavahanas, Kadambasand Chalukyas of Badami and later the Rashtrakutas reigned over Bidar territory. The Chalukyas of Kalyana and Kalachuris of Kalyanis also regained the area. For a short period after Kalyani Chalukyas the area of Bidar was under the Seunas of Devagiri and Kakatiyas of Warangal.


title: Bidar

text: The Delhi Sultanate invaded the area first by Allauddin Khilji, and later, Muhammed-bin-Tughluq took control of entire Deccan including Bidar. In the middle of the 14th century, the Sultan of Delhi's officers that were stationed in Deccan rebelled and this resulted in the establishment of Bahmanid Dynasty in 1347 A.D. at Gulbarga/Hasanabad (present Kalaburagi). There was frequent warfare between the Bahmanids and the Vijaynagar Kingdom.


title: Bidar

text: The history of the present fort at Bidar is attributed to the sultan Ahmed Shah Wali Bahmani, the sultan of the Bahmani dynasty till 1427, when he shifted his capital from Gulbarga to Bidar since it had better climatic conditions and was also a fertile and fruit-bearing land. The earliest recorded history of its existence as a small and strong fort is also traced to prince Ulugh Khan in 1322, whereafter it came under the reign of the Tughlaq dynasty.


title: Bidar

text: With the establishment of the Bahmanid dynasty (1347), Bidar was occupied by Sultan Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah Bahmani. During the rule of Ahmad Shah I (1422–1486), Bidar was made the capital city of Bahmani Kingdom. The old fort was rebuilt and madrasas, mosques, palaces, and gardens were raised. Mahmud Gawan, who became the prime minister in 1466, was a notable figure in the history of Bidar. Bidar remained under the Barid Shahi dynasty until conquest by the Bijapur Sultanate in 1619.


title: Bidar

text: Aurangzeb came to Bidar after his father, Padshah (emperor) Shah Jahan, appointed him the Prince of Deccan. He wrested the Bidar Fort from the Adil Shahis after a 21-day war in 1656. With this, Bidar became a part of the Mughal dynasty for the second time. Bidar was made a subah (imperial top-level province) in 1656, which Telangana Subah was merged into the next year.


title: Bidar

text: In 1724, Bidar became a part of the Asaf Jahi Kingdom of the Nizams. Third son of Asaf jah l ( Nizam l ) Mir Sa'id Muhammad Khan, Salabat Jang ruled from Bidar fort from 1751 to 1762, till his brother Mir Nizam Ali Khan Asaf Jah III imprisoned him in this fort, and was killed in Bidar fort on 16 September 1763. "Mohammedabad" old name of Bidar is also on his name. It was connected to Hyderabad by rail in the early 20th century. After India's independence, in 1956 all Kannada speaking areas were merged to form the Mysore State and Bidar became part of the new Mysore (now Karnataka) state.


title: Bidar

text: Ancient Karez System in the city have been recently discovered. The Karez (Qanat) is an underground network of aqueducts for water supply. The Bidar Karez, built in the 15th century, is more than long with 21 air vents. Underground canals, built to connect underground water streams, were meant to provide drinking water to civilian settlements and the garrison inside the Bidar fort. This was necessary in a city where the soil was rocky and drilling wells was difficult.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar is located at , lies at a central position in Deccan, a plateau at an elevation of 2300 ft from the sea level. It has common boundaries with Maharashtra and Telangana which is, with the districts of Nizamabad and Medak in Telangana on the East and the districts of Latur, Nanded and Osmanabad in Maharashtra on the west. On the south lies the district Gulbarga of Karnataka.


title: Bidar

text: The upper crust of the plateau is of laterite, a soft porous rock with limonitic surface. This crust varies in depth from to and rests on a bed of trap, which is of much harder texture and less pervious to water. The volume of water filtered during the monsoons through the laterite stratum is arrested by the trappean bed, and a nursery of springs is formed whose natural level of effluence is the line of contact of the two strata along the base of the cliffs of the plateau. The water in course of time frets out for itself an orifice and macerates and loosens portions of its rocky channel till a rift is produced. The rift gradually dilates into a ravine, and the ravine expands into a vale.


title: Bidar

text: The Karez System is built along a geological fracture. Such fractures are formed at the intersection of laterite and basalt rocks and form lineaments or springs that yield water.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar soils are deep (>100 cm), well-drained gravelly red clayey soils developed on plateaus of laterites. They are "slightly" acid to neutral (pH 6.6) in reaction with low cation exchange capacity. They are highly gravelly soils with gravel content (60 to 10%) that decrease with depth.


title: Bidar

text: The winter season is from November to middle of February. Bidar is one of the coldest cities (by southern standards) in Karnataka as the minimum temperature during winter nights regularly hovers around 11-12 during December, which is the coldest month with mean daily maximum temperature of 27.3 C and mean daily minimum of 13.4 C. From the middle of the February, both day and night temperatures begin to rise rapidly. May is the hottest month with mean daily maximum temperature of 38.8 C and mean daily minimum of 25.9 C. With the withdrawal of southwest monsoon in the first week of October, there is slight increase in day temperature but night temperature decreases steadily. After October, both day and night temperatures decreases progressively. The highest maximum temperature recorded at Bidar was on 8-5-1931(43.3-degree C) and the lowest minimum was on 5-1-1901(2.9-degree C, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Karnataka).


title: Bidar

text: Present day Bidar covers an expanse of 5448 square kilometres of land and lies between 17°35' and 18°25' North latitudes and 76°42' and 77°39' east longitudes.


title: Bidar

text: At the time of the 2011 census, Bidar had a population of 216,020. Bidar city has a sex ratio of 938 females to males and a literacy rate of 85.90%. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes made up 14.11% and 4.73% of the population respectively.


title: Bidar

text: At the time of the 2011 census, 52.23% of the population spoke Kannada, 33.32% Urdu, 5.54% Marathi, 3.67% Hindi and 3.33% Telugu as their first language.


title: Bidar

text: Once a home to many cottage industries, such as cotton and oil-ginning mills, there are now few industries that draw on local raw materials or skills. Even the well known form of local articrafts, bidri ware, is in a state of decline. Increasing prices of materials, especially silver, and declining sales have meant that many of the hereditary artisans are no longer employed in the production of such ware. Bidar city has a large industrial area known as Kolhar industrial area.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar is symbolically described as "City of Whispering Monuments". The mountaintop city that served as the capital of medieval Deccan, has 98 monuments of which four national monuments are protected by the Archaeological Survey of India and 14 by the State Archaeology Department, Karnataka.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar earned a place on the World Monument Watchlist 2014. Of the 741 proposals received from 166 countries, 67 sites from 41 countries were finally selected which were announced by WMF president Bonnie Burnham in New York on 8 October 2013. Along with "the historic city of Bidar", two other sites in India to figure in the list were the house of Sheikh Salim Chisti in Fatehpur Sikri and Juna Mahal in Rajasthan.


title: Bidar

text: The WMF in its "current watch site" for "the historic city of Bidar" says ″challenges to the site include a lack of integrated conservation and maintenance, environmental pollution, and the construction of new developments and roadways that encroach on the historic fabric. Current land use regulations also threaten the economic livelihood of many of the city's residents, and it is hoped that revised, context-specific planning policies would both protect Bidar's historic assets while also supporting the future of its local population. It is hoped that Watch-listing will spur documentation and analysis of the city's conditions, followed by policy development and applied conservation interventions that will reveal and maintain Bidar's rich heritage, as well as support a robust and sustainable tourist industry.″


title: Bidar

text: This grandiose madrasa was built by the prime-minister of the Bahmani empire, Mahmud Gawan in the late 15th century. Its only the most imposing building of the Bahmani period, but in its plan and in the general style of its architecture it is a unique monument of its kind in India. The Madrasa, a "multi-disciplinary university" he set up, which had a library of around 3,000 valuable manuscripts, was severely damaged when gunpowder stored inside the rooms went off during a 27-day siege of the city by Mughal king Aurangazeb in 1656. The Mahmud Gawan Madrasa is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar Fort is considered one of the most formidable forts of the country. Bidar city was distinctly planned and built. The main citadel complex housed the royal places. Mahals and Mosque. Adjoining to this on the southern side, the city was built for the people. Both the citadel complex and city had separate forts for protection the plan of the Bidar city fortification is pentagonal. There are five gateways for entry into the city fort. It is main citadel complex fort which is stronger.


title: Bidar

text: It is built on the brink of the plateau. Engineers and architecture of various countries were employed on its design and construction.


title: Bidar

text: Gurudwara Nanak Jhira Saheb is known to be one of Holiest Place For Sikh Devotees in India and is believed that first sikh Guru Shri Guru Nanak Dev ji visited the place during famine in this region.


title: Bidar

text: Bidriware, one of the rarest and most intricate art forms is now unique to the city. This native art form has obtained Geographical Indications (GI) registry. The various art forms created by artists from Bidar city centuries ago are now major attractions in museums such as Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the National Museum in New Delhi and Indian Museum in Kolkata.


title: Bidar

text: The Karnataka tableau at the 2011 Republic Day Parade at Rajpath in New Delhi featured Bidriware and Bidri artisans from Bidar.


title: Bidar

text: Rehaman Patel did an extensive research in Bidri Art from Gulbarga University. His book in Kannada version (2012) and English version (2017) also published on Bidri Art.


title: Bidar

text: All the dignitaries & guests of XIX Commonwealth Games 2010 were presented with mementos hand crafted in Bidri art. This art form is the Union government's choice for souvenirs at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Kingfisher company owner Vijay Mallya has a bidri dining table with floral designs made of nearly 3.5 kg silver.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar has connectivity with Bangalore, Hyderabad, Sainagar Shirdi, Parbhani Jn, Aurangabad, Latur, Nanded, Manmad, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam, Machilipatnam, Vijayawada and Renigunta (according to railway budget 2014-15) Construction of the Gulbarga-Bidar link is completed which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar-Hyderabad inter-city train service became operative in September 2012. A Bidar-Yeshwantpur (Daily) express train and Bidar-LTT Mumbai express train service has been started recently. Another train starting from Bidar through Latur to Mumbai started, which runs on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.


title: Bidar

text: Bidar Airport, also known as Bidar Air Force Station, is a military airbase cum Domestic Airport in Bidar, Karnataka, India.


title: Bidar

text: The city is home to an air force station. Star Air operates 3 days a week flight between Bidar (IXX) and Bangalore (BLR).


title: Bidar

text: Frequent KSRTC buses to Kalaburgi (Gulbarga), Hyderabad, Latur, Udgir, Nanded, Solapur. Also Volvo services to Bengaluru, Hubli, Belgavi, Davangere, Mumbai, Mangalore and Pune.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: The Fort Wayne Mad Ants are an American professional basketball team of the NBA G League based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and are affiliated with the Indiana Pacers. The team plays their home games at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. The Mad Ants won their first and only championship in 2014, when the G League was known as the NBA D-League. In September 2015, the Indiana Pacers purchased the Mad Ants.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: In April 2007, the NBA Development League (D-League) announced it was expanding to Fort Wayne for the 2007–08 season, with former AT&T President John Zeglis as the team's president and part owner. The team was poised to be the first minor league basketball franchise to play in Fort Wayne since the Fort Wayne Fury were disbanded after the folding of the Continental Basketball Association in 2001. The franchise held a team-naming contest on their website where fans could vote on one of the four finalists: "Lightning", "Fire", "Coyotes", and "Mad Ants", a salute to the city's namesake General "Mad" Anthony Wayne.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: At the team's inception, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants were affiliated with the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers. They finished the 2007-18 season, their first in the D-League, with a 17-33 record that put them in last place in the Central Division.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: The Mad Ants added the Milwaukee Bucks as their third affiliate for the 2008–09 season. They ended that season with a 19-31 record and posted three more under-.500 records in the next three years, failing to make the playoffs in their first five years of competition.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: The Mad Ants added the Charlotte Bobcats, now the Hornets, as their fourth NBA affiliate before in the 2012-13 season. They made the D-League playoffs for the first time in 2013, losing to the Santa Cruz Warriors in the first round after going 27-23 in the regular season.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: The next year, the Mad Ants won their division with a 34-16 record and made it to the D-League Finals for the first time after beating the Sioux Falls Skyforce in the semifinal series. The Mad Ants defeated the Santa Cruz Warriors 2–0 in the Finals to claim their first D-League title.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: In 2014, as most NBA teams began exclusively partnering with or acquiring their own D-League teams, the Mad Ants made affiliate partnerships with the rest of the teams that did not have exclusive affiliates: the Atlanta Hawks, the Chicago Bulls, the Brooklyn Nets, the Denver Nuggets, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Toronto Raptors, and the Washington Wizards. This put the Mad Ants' total number of NBA affiliates at 14 for the 2014-15 season. The Mad Ants made it to the D-League Finals again in 2015, but lost the championship series to the Santa Cruz Warriors in two games. By 2015, the Mad Ants were the only remaining independently owned team in the D-League, as the rest were owned and operated by an NBA team or a common parent organization.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: In September 2015, Pacers Sports & Entertainment (PS&E) purchased the Mad Ants from owner and president John Zeglis and made the team the Indiana Pacers' one-to-one D-League affiliate, dropping the rest of the Mad Ants' partnerships. Brian Levy was named general manager by PS&E.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: In 2017, the Mad Ants rebranded and changed their colors to the same colors as the Pacers: navy blue, gold, cool gray and white. This was the same year that the NBA Development League was rebranded as the NBA G League following a sponsorship deal with Gatorade and the NBA.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: After spending the 2020-21 season at the NBA G League single site in Orlando, Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mad Ants returned to their home court at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum on November 6, 2021, playing their first home game in the venue in 608 days against the Windy City Bulls. This game also marked the start of the Mad Ants' 15th Anniversary season.


title: Fort Wayne Mad Ants

text: The Mad Ants are one of the three G League teams not to not undergo a name change since the team's inception in 2007, the others being the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and the Sioux Falls Skyforce.


title: Variolation

text: Variolation was the method of inoculation first used to immunize individuals against smallpox ("Variola") with material taken from a patient or a recently variolated individual, in the hope that a mild, but protective, infection would result.


title: Variolation

text: The procedure was most commonly carried out by inserting/rubbing powdered smallpox scabs or fluid from pustules into superficial scratches made in the skin. The virus was normally spread through the air, infecting first the mouth, nose, or respiratory tract, before spreading throughout the body via the lymphatic system. In contrast, infection of the skin usually led to a milder, localized infection, but, crucially, still induced immunity to the virus. The patient would develop pustules like those caused by naturally acquired smallpox. Eventually, after about two to four weeks, these symptoms would subside, indicating successful recovery and immunity.


title: Variolation

text: The method was first used in China, India, parts of Africa and the Middle East before it was introduced into England and North America in the 1720s in the face of some opposition. The method is no longer used today. It was replaced by the smallpox vaccine, a safer alternative. This in turn led to the development of the many vaccines now available against other diseases.


title: Variolation

text: The terminology used to describe the prevention of smallpox can cause confusion. In 18th-century medical terminology, "inoculation" refers to "smallpox inoculation". Confusion is caused by writers who interchange "variolation" and "vaccination" through either mistranslation or misinterpretation. The term "variolation" refers solely to inoculation with smallpox virus and is related to but not interchangeable with "vaccination". The latter term was first used in 1800 soon after Edward Jenner introduced smallpox vaccine derived from cowpox, an animal disease distinct from smallpox. The term "variolation" was then used from the 19th century to avoid confusion with vaccination. Most modern writers tend to refer to smallpox inoculation as variolation throughout without regard for chronology, as is used here. Further confusion was caused when, in 1891, Louis Pasteur honoured Jenner by widening the terms "vaccine/vaccination" to refer to the artificial induction of immunity against any infectious disease. "Inoculation" refers to intentionally exposing an individual to a virus, bacterium, other pathogen, or artificial vaccine that may induce active immunity, and inoculation can be done by any suitable route of administration. Many familiar vaccines are injected intramuscularly or swallowed. The term "inoculation" entered medical English through horticultural usage meaning to graft a bud (or eye) from one plant into another. It is derived from the Latin "in + oculus" (eye).


title: Variolation

text: The Chinese practiced the oldest documented use of variolation, dating back to the fifteenth century. They implemented a method of "nasal insufflation" administered by blowing powdered smallpox material, usually scabs, up the nostrils. Various insufflation techniques have been recorded throughout the 16th and 17th centuries within China. According to such documentation, mild smallpox cases were selected as donors in order to prevent serious attack. The technique used scabs that had been left to dry out for some time. Fresh scabs were more likely to lead to a full-blown infection. Three or four scabs were ground into powder or mixed with a grain of musk and bound in cotton. Infected material was then packed into a pipe and puffed up the patient's nostril. The practice of variolation is believed to have been ritualized by the Chinese. The blowpipe used during the procedure was made of silver. The right nostril was used for boys and the left for girls. Variolated cases were treated as if they were as infectious as those who had acquired the disease naturally. These patients were subsequently kept apart from others until the rash had cleared. In the 18th century, the practice of using scabs from epidemic patients was seen as beneficial by some, but others were convinced of its danger; Emperor Kangxi, however, approved of it. Two reports on the Chinese practice were received by the Royal Society in London in 1700; one by Dr. Martin Lister who received a report by an employee of the East India Company stationed in China, and another by the physician Clopton Havers, but no action was taken.


title: Variolation

text: India has been suggested as another possible origin for the spread of variolation into Europe, particularly the Ottoman Empire and Wales. There are two accounts from the 18th century of inoculations being performed by itinerant Brahmins: Oliver Coult in 1731 wrote that it had been "first performed by Dununtary a physician of Champanagar" about 150 years before that time (Dhanvantari being the name of the Hindu God of medicine, and a common name among physicians), and John Zephaniah Holwell in 1768 wrote of its being practiced for many hundreds of years. Aspects of these accounts have been called into question, but reportedly, by 1768 inoculation was being practiced in Bengal. The doctors who performed this procedure were known as "Tikadars". The term "tika" is still in use now to mean 'vaccination' in many Indian languages.


title: Variolation

text: Similar methods were seen through the Middle East and Africa. Two similar methods were described in Sudan during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Both had been long established and stemmed from Arabic practices. "Tishteree el Jidderi" ('buying the smallpox') was a practice seen within the women of Sennar in central Sudan. A mother of an unprotected child would visit the house of a newly infected child and tie a cotton cloth around the ailing child's arm. She would then haggle with the child's mother over the cost of each pustule. When a bargain was struck, the woman would return home and tie the cloth around her own child's arm. Variations of this practice included bringing gifts to the donor. The second method was known as "Dak el Jedri" ('hitting the smallpox'), a method similar to that used in the Ottoman Empire and eventually transported into England. Fluid was collected from a smallpox pustule and rubbed into a cut made into the patient's skin. This practice spread more widely through Africa. It may have also traveled with merchants and pilgrims along the middle-eastern caravan routes into Turkey and Greece.


title: Variolation

text: Letters from physicians in Wales published in 1722 indicated the local use of variolation from as early as 1600 near the Welsh port of Haverfordwest. Another reference to variolation is by Thomas Bartholin in 1675.


title: Variolation

text: After coming across the practice in Constantinople, Emmanuel Timoni the Italian physician to Great Britain's ambassador to Turkey, wrote a letter describing the method in detail which was later published in the "Philosophical Transactions" in early 1714. His account would become the first medical account of variolation to appear in Europe. Although the article did not gain widespread notoriety, it caught the attention of two important figures in the variolation movement, Bostonian preacher Cotton Mather and the wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.


title: Variolation

text: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had lost her brother to smallpox in 1713. In 1715 she contracted the disease herself. Although she survived, she was left with severe facial scarring. While in Turkey she came across the process of variolation as it was introduced and published in Constantinople by two doctors, Emmanuel Timoni and Iacob Pylarino. She first mentioned variolation in the famous letter to her friend, Sarah Chiswell, in April 1717. in which she enthusiastically recounted the process, which in Constantinople was most commonly administered by experienced elderly women. In 1718, she had the procedure conducted on her five-year-old son, Edward Montagu. The procedure was supervised by the embassy doctor Charles Maitland. On her return to England, she had her four-year-old daughter variolated in the presence of physicians of the Royal Court in 1721. Both variolations proved successful. Later on that year Maitland conducted an experimental variolation of six prisoners in Newgate Prison in London. In the experiment, six condemned prisoners were variolated and later exposed to smallpox with the promise of freedom if they survived. The experiment was a success, and soon variolation was drawing attention from the royal family, who helped promote the procedure throughout England. However, variolation caused the death of Prince Octavius of Great Britain, eighth son and thirteenth child of King George III in 1783.


title: Variolation

text: Despite opposition, variolation established itself as a mainstream medical treatment in England. Part of its success was founded on statistical observation, which confirmed that variolation was a safer alternative to contracting smallpox naturally, strengthened by the assumption that it protected against the disease for life. The major faults of variolation lay in its simplicity. Doctors sought to monopolize the simple treatment by convincing the public that the procedure could only be done by a trained professional. The procedure was now preceded by a severe bloodletting, in which the patient was bled, often to faintness, in order to 'purify' the blood and prevent fever. Doctors also began to favour deep incisions, which also discouraged amateurs.


title: Variolation

text: The main proponents of the English variolation movement were the Suttons, a family of physicians who would revolutionize the practice. The patriarch, Robert Sutton, was a surgeon from Suffolk. In 1757 the procedure failed on one of his sons. He sought a new method in which the procedure would become as mild as possible. By 1762 he began advertising "A New Method of Inoculating for Small-Pox." Sutton kept his method a secret and shared it only with his three sons. The mystique and effectiveness behind this new method helped to promote their business, which soon became very successful. They established a network of variolation houses and clinics and offered franchises to other variolators for a share of the profits, on condition that the secret would not be revealed. By 1770, the Suttons had treated over 300,000 satisfied customers. Daniel, the eldest of the Sutton sons, eventually revealed the family secret in his book "The Inoculator", published in 1796. The success of their method lay in a shallow scratch, careful selection of only mildly affected donors, and no bleeding or extreme purging. Although the renown of the Suttons gradually faded after this revelation, the family's lasting impression would remain for generations.


title: Variolation

text: Other prominent English variolators included Thomas Dimsdale, who published accounts of his method in 1769 and 1781; William Woodville, appointed Director of the London Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital in 1791, who published a history of variolation in 1796; and John Haygarth, who published an ambitious plan to exterminate smallpox in 1783.


title: Variolation

text: John Williamson, more commonly known by the nickname Johnnie Notions, was a self-taught physician from Shetland, Scotland, who independently developed and successfully administered a variolation for smallpox to thousands of patients in Shetland during the late 18th century. Despite having only an elementary education and no formal medical background, the effectiveness of the treatment he devised yielded an extremely high success rate, resulting in the immunisation of approximately 3,000 people and the saving of many lives, which had a significant effect on the demographics of the Shetland population at the time. He is reputed to have not lost a single patient.


title: Variolation

text: Notions would first collect smallpox pus. He would then dry it using peat smoke (which was believed to lessen the virus's virulence), and bury it in the ground with camphor (which has anti-bacterial properties, preventing the matter from decomposing). Oral history indicates the matter was spread between sheets of glass before burial. It would be kept in this state for up to seven or eight years to reduce its virulence before being administered to a patient. By using a knife (which Notions made himself) he would incise into the patient's arm intradermally (without drawing blood), insert a small amount of the matter, and immediately cover the incision with the patient's skin, before using a cabbage leaf as a plaster. In contrast to contemporaneous quack doctors, Notions would not stipulate any particular resting conditions (such as "hot-treatment" – heating the ill patient in front of a fire, covering them with blankets and allowing them no fresh-air), nor would he administer any other medicines during the period of infection and recovery.


title: Variolation

text: Notions' variolation bears a strong similarity to the Suttonian method. How Notions became aware of this method of variolation is unclear – it may have been through written account, or through discussion with someone else aware of the technique, such as another physician or a member of the clergy.


title: Variolation

text: In 1738, variolation was added to the second edition of "Chambers' Cyclopædia", which in its time was an authority of knowledge for the literary class. Later in 1754, variolation received the sanction of the Royal College of Physicians. All of this made England the international center of variolation, attracting visitors from all over the world to explore this "new" method of prevention. The nation also acted as a magnet for those who sought to introduce the benefits of variolation to their own countries. A remarkable example of this is the introduction of variolation into Russia. Thomas Dimsdale, a prominent banker, politician, and physician, was invited to visit St Petersburg to variolate Catherine the Great. In 1769, he variolated Catherine, her 14-year-old son Grand Duke Paul, and over 140 prominent members of the Court. The results were successful. Dimsdale was created a baron of the Russian Empire, and awarded £10,000, with £2000 for expenses and an annuity of £500. His son, who accompanied him, was also rewarded. In case Dimsdale's variolations had ended badly, Catherine had arranged a relay of horses to carry them safely out of the country.


title: Variolation

text: France was the last European country to embrace variolation. It was not until an outbreak of smallpox in Paris in 1752 nearly killed the heir to the French throne that the public embraced the practice after seeing the prince variolated. Similarly in Japan, Chinese merchant Li Jen-Shan proposed the method of traditional Chinese intranasal variolation after a severe smallpox outbreak in Nagasaki in 1744. This led Japanese physician to variolate children using a human smallpox vaccination method during an outbreak in Chikuzen Province from 1789 to 1790. There were no deaths among the children, and they all appeared to be protected.


title: Variolation

text: By the end of the eighteenth century, variolation had gained widespread global respect and was thought to be one of the greatest medical successes of its time. It had become the subject of serious medical study, leading physicians like John Haygarth from Chester, England, to explore its application on a larger scale. In 1793 he published "A Sketch of a Plan to Exterminate the Small-Pox from Great Britain". This relied on rules summarised by Donald Hopkins; Its implementation at the time was impractical for logistical reasons and the risk that variolation would spread smallpox. However, with suitable modifications, such as the substitution of vaccination for variolation, it was remarkably similar to the strategy adopted during the World Health Organization's smallpox eradication campaign.


title: Variolation

text: Documentation of variolation in the Americas may be traced back to 1706 in Boston, where Puritan minister Cotton Mather learned of the technique from his West African slave Onesimus. Further research into the matter revealed to Mather that several other slaves had too been variolated. In 1714, he came across Timoni's article in "Philosophical Transactions", in which he described methods of variolation found in Turkey. Mather was able to implement this new method in 1721 when Boston suffered a smallpox outbreak, although others such as William Douglass strongly opposed the idea.


title: Variolation

text: The main arguments against variolation were on religious grounds. Because religion was never far from any aspect of life in eighteenth-century Boston, several wondered how this new method would coincide with religious teachings. The simplest debate argued that variolation was ungodly because it was not mentioned specifically in the Bible. Inoculation was also viewed by some as a direct affront to God's innate right to determine who was to die, and how and when death would occur. Several believed smallpox outbreaks were well-merited punishments for the sins of those who contracted the disease. Those who were empirically minded saw the notion of using the products of such a deadly disease to prevent said disease as being an insult to logic.


title: Variolation

text: Despite these persistent arguments, Mather also gained several supporters. Among this group of followers was surgeon Zabdiel Boylston, who urged Mather to further promote the procedure. With the support of Mather, Boylston went on to successfully variolate 300 patients, with only six of them dying. By contrast, 1,000 of the 6,000 people who acquired smallpox naturally died during the same period. Boylston traveled to London in 1724. There he published his results and was elected to the Royal Society in 1726.


title: Variolation

text: From Boston, the practice spread throughout the colonies. In 1775, George Washington ordered that the Continental Army be variolated. By the end of the American Revolutionary War, variolation had gained widespread acceptance in the larger cities and towns of the United States.


title: Variolation

text: The success of variolation led many, including medical professionals, to overlook its drawbacks. Variolation was practiced on the basis that it protected against smallpox for life, and was far less likely to kill than natural infection. In some cases however, natural smallpox or variolation failed to protect from a second attack. These cases were a result of a lapse of immune "memory", while others may have been misdiagnosed (experts often confused smallpox with chickenpox). Variolation also required a level of skill and attention to detail which some physicians lacked. Many physicians failed to take note of local redness and discharge to assure the variolation had taken, resulting in inadequate treatment. However, it was its great risk to others that led to the end of the practice. The collateral smallpox cases spread by variolated subjects shortly after variolation began to outweigh the benefits of the procedure.


title: Variolation

text: From the 1760s, a number of individuals, including John Fewster, Peter Plett, Benjamin Jesty, and particularly Edward Jenner, were interested in the use of material from cowpox, an animal infection, to protect against smallpox. In 1796, Jenner vaccinated James Phipps, did more vaccinations in 1798, and was the first to publish evidence that cowpox protected against smallpox, was safer than variolation, and that his vaccine could be maintained by arm-to-arm transfer. The use of variolation soon began to decline as the smallpox vaccine became widely used and its benefits appreciated. Various countries made variolation illegal, starting with Russia in 1805.


title: Variolation

text: Variolation served as a natural precursor to the discovery of vaccination. The major differences between the two were that in vaccination, material from cowpox, an animal disease, was used, but particularly that it was far safer to those vaccinated and was far more rarely transmitted to their contacts. Vaccination offered the public a less-harmful method of preventing smallpox. Vaccination would revolutionize the control of smallpox, leading to its eventual eradication. The extension of the principle of vaccination by Pasteur and his successors would lead to the development of vaccines for diseases such as diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, and influenza, and make the eradication of infectious diseases, particularly poliomyelitis, a realistic prospect.


title: Variolation

text: Although variolation eventually declined or was banned in some countries, it was still practiced in others. "Buying the smallpox" was still practiced in Sudan until the late nineteenth century. However, variolation survived longer elsewhere. During the World Health Organization's Smallpox Eradication Campaign, vaccination teams came across variolators in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan and their samples were confiscated. In the early stages of the campaign, live virus was detected in some, but as the campaign progressed variolators could not replenish their stocks, and although virus particles were detected in some samples, very few contained live virus. Our knowledge about the survival of smallpox virus suggests that passage of time makes it extremely unlikely that any infectious samples have survived.


title: Variolation

text: Although variolation has ceased, it has influenced the concept of other traditional practices, such as "pox parties", in which children are intentionally exposed to diseases like chickenpox, measles and rubella, in an attempt to gain immunity. Although strongly discouraged by public health officials, the practice persists.


title: Variolation

text: While intentional exposure has been rejected as a strategy to combat COVID-19 because of the risks involved, there is also a hypothesis that widespread to universal use of face coverings is associated with a higher proportion of asymptomatic or relatively mild infections because of the decreased dose of viral particles expelled or received by the wearer, as a welcome addition to their primary purpose of significantly reducing transmission by asymptomatic wearers.


title: José Callejón

text: José María Callejón Bueno (; born 11 February 1987) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a forward or winger for Granada.


title: José Callejón

text: He began his career with the reserve teams of Real Madrid, but made a name for himself at Espanyol. In 2011 he returned to his previous club and, two years later, left for Napoli, where he won two Coppa Italia tournaments and the 2014 Supercoppa Italiana while appearing in 349 competitive matches (82 goals scored).