title: Lacey Schwimmer

text: On November 25, 2008, Schwimmer and her celebrity partner, Lance Bass, finished in third place. Lacey was on the last DWTS tour with her partner Lance Bass. The tour ended on February 8, 2009. Lacey returned for season eight of DWTS, and she was partnered with reality television star Steve-O. On August 24, 2009, it was announced on "Good Morning America" that Schwimmer would be partnering with Mark Dacascos for season nine. Schwimmer was not paired with a celebrity partner in season ten, but was present in a few results show dances.


title: Lacey Schwimmer

text: In season 11, Schwimmer was partnered with Disney Channel star Kyle Massey. They made it to the finale and were the runners-up to Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough. For season 12, Lacey was partnered with radio personality Mike Catherwood. They were eliminated first on March 29, 2011. For season 13, Schwimmer was partnered with Chaz Bono. They were eliminated on October 25, 2011.


title: Lacey Schwimmer

text: Schwimmer was featured as a singer on the 2010 single "Red Cup (I Fly Solo)" by Cash Cash. In June 2011 she released her official single titled "Love Soundz" produced by The Monsters and The Strangerz. The song hit the airwaves on "On Air with Ryan Seacrest" on June 17, 2011 and was available on iTunes on June 21.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: The M141 Bunker Defeat Munition (BDM) is a disposable single-shot, shoulder-fired rocket launcher designed to defeat hardened structures. It is a modification of the United States Marine Corps Mk 153 Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon (SMAW) and is also called the SMAW-D (where 'D' is for 'Disposable'). It was designed to fill the void in the United States Army inventory of a "bunker buster" weapon.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: The SMAW-D operates on the principle that the recoil created by launching the rocket is counteracted by a "backblast" of gases fired from the rear of the weapon. This makes the SMAW-D inherently dangerous, especially in confined, urban areas, as is with all weapons of this design.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: The M141 has two configurations: a carry mode in which the launcher is long, and a ready to fire mode in which the launcher is extended to its full length of .


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: The warhead is the same High-explosive, dual-purpose (HEDP) as the USMC SMAW. It is effective against masonry and concrete bunkers and lightly armored vehicles. The projectile can penetrate up to of concrete, of brick, or of sandbags.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: The warhead is activated by a crush switch in its nose that can distinguish between hard and soft targets. On soft targets, such as sandbags, detonation is delayed until the projectile is buried in the target, producing a devastating effect. On hard targets, detonation occurs immediately on contact.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: The conferees of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 agreed that the US Army's BDM and the Marine Corps' Short-Range Assault Weapon (SRAW) were too similar to justify separate long-term projects, and that the Army should pursue an interim BDM program. Congress limited BDM procurement to 6,000 units.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: Two candidates were evaluated for the Army's BDM program. A candidate from McDonnell-Douglas (later Talley Defense Systems) used the same warhead as the Marine Corps SMAW, but with a rocket motor with a shorter burn time. A candidate developed by Sweden's FFV for Alliant Techsystems (later Honeywell) replaced the standard high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead of the M136 AT4 with the same dual purpose warhead used by the USMC SMAW.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: FFV designated the bunker buster version of the AT4 as the FFV AT8. In 1996 the McDonnell-Douglas candidate was chosen. In a unique move, the US Army ordered one batch of 1,500 then a second batch of 4,500 which were placed in contingency storage for expedited issue to units in combat. The SMAW-D was delivered to the Army in 1999.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: CNN news footage showed US Army Rangers firing M141s at various fortified caves during the Tora Bora operations against the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda, being mistaken by the CNN reporters for M136 AT4 projectiles.


title: M141 Bunker Defeat Munition

text: Quantities of M141s were sent to the Ukrainian armed forces by the U.S. before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. Since then, the missile has also been employed successfully against Russian vehicles.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: Matthias Josef Maurer (born 18 March 1970) is a German European Space Agency astronaut and Materials scientist, who was selected in 2015 to take part in space training.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: Maurer graduated from in Sankt Wendel, Saarland, in 1989.) He then began his compulsory civilian service as a paramedic with the Malteser Emergency Service. Afterwards he studied materials science and technology at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany, the EEIGM (École européenne d'ingénieurs en génie des matériaux, "European School for Materials Technology", part of the Université de Lorraine) in Nancy, France, the University of Leeds, UK, and at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) in Barcelona, Spain. From 1999 to 2004, Maurer completed his doctorate at the Institute of Materials Sciences of the RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where he received his engineering doctorate (Dr.-Ing.). His dissertation entitled "Lightweight composites made of aluminium foam with thermally sprayed coatings" won him several scientific prizes. After completing his doctorate, Maurer undertook a long-term trip around the world. In 2006, Maurer successfully completed an additional course of study in economics at the University of Hagen with a MBA management degree.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: Maurer holds several patents in the field of materials science and materials engineering. He is fluent in four languages (German, English, Spanish, French) and as part of his astronaut training, he is also taking intensive language training in Russian and Chinese.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: Maurer applied to the European Space Agency as an astronaut in 2008 with almost 8500 other candidates and was one of ten to pass the selection procedure, but was not initially appointed to the European Astronaut Corps. In 2010 he started working for the European Space Agency as a crew support engineer and eurocom for the Columbus flight control team at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. Before he formally joined the European Astronaut Corps in July 2015, Maurer took a lead role in ESA Astronaut Centre projects to prepare for future spaceflight and lunar operations with new international partners and extend the Agency's human exploration expertise beyond the International Space Station.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: In 2014, he took part in the ESA Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising Human Behaviour and Performance Skills program and in 2016 he was part of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 21 analog mission, an underwater training programme for future ISS crews in Florida. In March 2018, he gained certification to perform International Space Station-related spacewalks in the American spacesuit EMU. In 2018 he also successfully graduated from both basic astronaut training and pre-assignment training and thus became fully certified to go to space.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: On 12 May 2020 he arrived at the Johnson Space Center in Texas alongside ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov for training amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: On 14 December 2020, ESA announced a competition to name Maurer's mission; the winner would be announced in summer 2020 and will receive a signed mission patch flown to the ISS by Matthias. Prior to his mission assignment, Matthias was based at ESA’s Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany where he was project managing the development of a new ESA Moon simulation facility known as Luna.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: On 14 December 2020, Maurer was officially assigned to the SpaceX Crew-3 mission, which launched on 10 November 2021. A few hours before the announcement, Maurer revealed his second mission name as Cosmic Kiss, after the Nebra sky disk, the oldest known realistic illustration of the night sky. He traveled to the International Space Station alongside NASA astronauts Raja Chari, who commanded the Crew Dragon, Thomas Marshburn, as the pilot, and mission specialist Kayla Barron. Once on board the station, they joined Expedition 66. This mission made him the twelfth German astronaut after Alexander Gerst in 2018.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: As part of Expedition 66, Maurer and Chari installed ammonia jumpers on the P1 Truss and repositioned a radiator beam valve module which had been giving them trouble returning the unit to operation. The astronauts routed cables, installed cable clamps on the "Bartolomeo" platform, tied back thermal insulation on the "Kibo" Exposed Facility Berthing Mechanism, replaced Camera 8 on the truss which has a bad filter and light, outfitted the radiator grapple bars for a future spacewalk, and also did other maintenance task outside the station. Because of time the task to break torque on the P4 electronics boxes was moved to a later spacewalk along with the truss cable routing.


title: Matthias Maurer

text: Crew-3 landed in the Gulf of Mexico on 6 May 2022, after 176 days in space. For this expedition Maurer along with the other crewmembers were awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal and the Space Exploration Medal.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed and published by LucasArts for Microsoft Windows. It was later re-released on Steam in September 2009, and again in 2015 on GOG.com. It is the sequel to 1995's "", and the second installment in the "" series. The story, set in the fictional "Star Wars" expanded universe one year after the film , follows returning protagonist Kyle Katarn, a mercenary working for the New Republic, who discovers his connection to the Force and "The Valley of the Jedi", an ancient source of power. With his father having been murdered years prior by the Dark Jedi Jerec and his followers over the Valley's location, Katarn embarks on a quest to confront his father's killers and find the Valley before they do.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: "Jedi Knight" makes some technical and gameplay improvements over its predecessor. It uses a more powerful game engine, the Sith engine, which supports 3D acceleration using Direct3D 5.0. The story features branching paths and cutscenes recorded with live actors as full motion videos. The game introduces the lightsaber and the Force as prominent gameplay elements in the series, as well as a multiplayer mode that allows players to compete over the internet or a local area network.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: Upon release, "Jedi Knight" received critical acclaim for its gameplay additions, narrative, and improvements over "Dark Forces", and has been cited as one of the best video games of all time. An expansion pack, "", was released in 1998, and a sequel, "", in 2002.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: "Jedi Knight" is primarily a first-person shooter, although it does offer the choice of a third-person view. The game consists of twenty-one levels with objectives which the player must complete before being able to continue to the next level. There are weapons available in each level and after level three, the player has the use of a lightsaber, along with the Force. In addition to being an effective weapon, the lightsaber is also a useful tool for the player, providing light in dark areas, deflecting incoming blaster fire and cutting through some obstacles.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: There are three types of Force powers; light, dark and neutral. Light Force powers provide nonviolent advantages such as being able to restore health or persuade enemies to ignore the player. Dark Force powers are violent and give the ability to throw objects or choke enemies. Neutral powers enhance athletic abilities such as being able to jump higher or run faster. There are fourteen powers in total, four of each type and a bonus power in each light and dark if the Jedi stays true to that path. Players earn stars to allocate toward Force powers by completing specific levels. By finding all the secrets in a level, players can also gain one bonus star to use. Between levels, the player can choose which Force powers to enhance by allocating stars to that power. Stars cannot be reclaimed from powers later on.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: Some levels contain puzzles that may require use of the Force to overcome, or by locating certain objects in the level. There are a variety of hostile and non-hostile non-player characters (NPCs) within each level with whom the player can interact. Other enemies include monsters and vehicles. There are two endings to "Jedi Knight", depending on how the player plays the game. If the player does not harm non-hostile NPCs and focuses on collecting light Force powers, the player will get the light side ending. Conversely if the player harms non-hostile NPCs and collects dark Force powers, the game will end with the dark side ending.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: "Jedi Knight" includes a multiplayer mode that allows up to eight people to compete with one another on a local area network and up to thirty two people online. Online gaming was hosted by the MSN Gaming Zone. The player creates an avatar within "Jedi Knight" and selects a ranking, with higher rankings having access to more Force powers. The player can also edit their avatar's "skin" and lightsaber color. There are two types of game in "Jedi Knight"s multiplayer mode, "Capture the flag" and "Jedi Training", similar to deathmatch. The players can customize the settings to play a deathmatch the way they desire; for example, by limiting the use of Force powers or playing on teams.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: "Jedi Knight" takes place in the year 5 ABY, one year after "Return of the Jedi" and four years after "Dark Forces". In the game's prologue, the Dark Jedi Jerec (Christopher Neame) and his followers capture Jedi Master Qu Rahn (Bennet Guillory), whom they interrogate over the location of the sacred Valley of the Jedi. After learning that Rahn's old friend Morgan Katarn (Jacob Witkin) knew the Valley's location, Jerec executes Rahn.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: Meanwhile, Kyle Katarn (Jason Court), now working as a mercenary for the recently-established New Republic, meets with an information broker droid called 8t88 (Denny Delk) on Nar Shaddaa for information regarding his father's death. 8t88 explains that Jerec killed Morgan and plans to reform the Galactic Empire before double-crossing Kyle, revealing himself to be on Jerec's payroll. After questioning Kyle about a data disk from Morgan he can't decipher, 8t88 runs away, but Kyle chases him to his shuttle. Before 8t88 can escape, Kyle shoots off his right arm, sending it and the disk plummeting into Nar Shaddaa's lower levels. Kyle recovers the disk before reuniting with his partner Jan Ors (Angela Harry), who takes him to a medical frigate to recover. While asleep, Rahn's Force spirit visits Kyle and explains that the disk contains information to lead him to the Valley and on the path to become a Jedi.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: On Sulon, Jerec's Dark Jedi remove the map to the Valley from Morgan's workshop just as Kyle and Jan arrive. While exploring the workshop, Kyle finds his family's droid, WeeGee, who decodes the disk, unlocking a message from Morgan. He reveals that the map to the Valley was carved into the ceiling tiles of the workshop and that he has left Rahn's old lightsaber for Kyle to use. Traveling to the city of Barons Hed, now a stronghold for the Imperial Remnant, Kyle fights his way to 8t88's chambers, where he finds the droid sending the deciphered map to Jerec. Before he can retrieve the map, Kyle is attacked by Yun (Rafer Weigel), the youngest of Jerec's Dark Jedi. Kyle defeats Yun, but chooses to spare his life.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: Kyle and Jan follow 8t88 to Jerec's ship, the "Sulon Star", where the droid was told to come to collect his payment. With the ship docked at a refueling station, Kyle infiltrates it through the fuel lines, only to find that Jerec has double-crossed and destroyed 8t88. After defeating two of Jerec's Dark Jedi, Pic (Denny Delk) and Gorc, Kyle retrieves 8t88's head, which still contains the map to the Valley. After WeeGee deciphers it, Kyle and Jan head to the Valley, finding the "Sulon Star" docked above. Kyle boards the ship again and battles another Dark Jedi, Maw (Morgan Hunter), killing him in anger. Jerec then arrives, holding Jan hostage, and orders Kyle to kill her. If the player has followed the Light Side up until this point, Kyle refuses to do so; otherwise, he executes Jan and declares his intentions to absorb the Valley's power himself. Either way, an enraged Jerec uses the Force to incapacitate Kyle and disable the "Sulon Star". As the ship crashes into the canyon below and explodes, Kyle narrowly escapes in his ship, the "Moldy Crow".


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: If Kyle has followed the Dark Side, he is again confronted by Yun, whom he defeats and executes, before heading off to find Jerec. If Kyle has followed the Light Side, he is captured by Jerec's remaining Dark Jedi: Yun, Sariss (Valerie Wildman), and Boc Aseca (Time Winters). After Boc destroys Kyle's lightsaber, a redeemed Yun tries to protect him, only to be killed by Sariss. Using Yun's lightsaber, Kyle defeats both Sariss and Boc before confronting Jerec. Partially empowered by the Valley, Jerec battles Kyle, but is ultimately defeated.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: If Kyle has followed the Dark Side, he executes Jerec and takes over the new Empire with Sariss at his side. If Kyle has followed the Light Side, he spares Jerec, having overcome his desire for revenge, but the Dark Jedi tries to attack him from behind, forcing Kyle to kill him. He then reunites with Jan and builds monuments in the Valley to honour his father and Rahn.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: Development of "Jedi Knight" was led by Justin Chin, who had also worked on the previous game. The most significant developments for "Jedi Knight" are the use of the Force and the lightsaber. The Force plays an integral role in how the player plays the game and shapes the way the game is played. The method of allocating credits to Force powers was designed with a role-playing video game style in mind, allowing the player the choice of which powers to improve. Chin said in an early interview that progress in the game is based upon the abilities the player develops.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: "Jedi Knight" uses both 3D graphics and surround sound through the "Sith" game engine, replacing the Jedi game engine used in "". While the Jedi engine was a sector-based "2.5-D" engine similar to the Doom and Build engines, the Sith engine was a "true" 3D engine similar to the Quake and Unreal engines. It is one of the early games to adopt the use of 3D graphics hardware acceleration using Microsoft Direct3D. The 3D sound technology was tweaked extensively to give an immersive feel to the game. This was achieved by experimentation using many different sound effects and playback styles. Between levels "Jedi Knight" features full motion video cutscenes. The characters are represented by live actors while the backgrounds are pre-rendered graphics. The cutscenes included the first lightsaber footage filmed since "Return of the Jedi" in 1983.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: After the release of "Jedi Knight", LucasArts developed "" as an expansion pack. It was released on February 17, 1998 and received positive reviews from critics. The expansion includes a single-player mode and fifteen multiplayer maps. There are also technical improvements over "Jedi Knight", including colored lighting, new textures and models, and developments to the artificial intelligence.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: The single-player story in "Mysteries of the Sith" is set five years after the events of "Jedi Knight". The player once more takes control of Kyle Katarn, but later in the game is given control of Mara Jade, one of the most popular "Star Wars" expanded universe characters.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: In the United States, "Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II" debuted at #3 on PC Data's monthly computer game sales chart for October 1997. It secured sixth place in November; by the 30th, the game had sold 155,060 copies and earned $7.36 million in the United States alone. After a 14th-place finish in December, "Jedi Knight" reached lifetime sales of 247,036 units in the country and became its 21st-best-selling computer game of 1997.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: In 1998, "Jedi Knight" placed 20th in January and 16th in February. It was absent from March's top 20.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: "Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II" received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. The game holds an aggregate score of 91 out of 100. The combination of puzzles and action drew praise from the "New York Daily News", who indicated that the game builds upon the qualities found in "Dark Forces". Gary Whitta of "Next Generation" stated that "The game has little to no faults; one could nitpick about the overacting or the rushed look of the menu interface, but in the end, "Jedi Knight" is to first-person shooters what sliced bread is to wheat products." "GamePro" gave it a perfect 5 out of 5 in all four categories (graphics, sound, control, and fun factor), summarizing, "While "Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II" doesn't add much more to the corridor-shooter mix, it does once again infuse the genre with familiar "Star Wars" characters and lots of laser-blastin' excitement. The bottom line is that Jedi Knight is probably the most fun you'll have with a corridor shooter this season."


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: The user control of the game was praised in "GameSpot", and most critics were enthusiastic about the effectiveness of the lightsaber. Game Revolution's Calvin Hubble gushed, "The use of the lightsaber is just awesome. Not only is it the most powerful weapon, it can be used as a light source, to deflect blasts and to reveal secrets."


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: Tom Chick of IGN criticised the layout of the levels: "The levels can be awfully linear, throwing you up against some frustrating brick walls where you don't know where to go or what you're supposed to do next. There are some bald key hunts." The artificial intelligence of enemies received mixed reactions. "GameSpot"s Ron Dulin said that the AI is realistic, helping the suspension of disbelief. Chi Kong Lui of Gamecritics.com, however, gave the opposite view: "Enemy artificial intelligence is still pretty mindless and blasting them doesn't require much skill."


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: Some critics stated the game looks poor when played on computers without 3D acceleration. Hubble argued that the low detail is a necessary trade-off to maintain a high frame rate in the game's exceptionally wide-open levels, but noted that the difference a 3D card makes is high enough to strongly recommend its use. "GamePro" likewise held that the game should be commended for playing at a high speed even without 3D acceleration, while warning that "playing Jedi Knight without graphical enhancement is like watching "Star Wars" on a nine-inch black-and-white TV." "Next Generation" lauded not only the wide-open nature of the levels but their high level of functionality and organic feel. Dulin considered the character animations more detailed than similar games. The graphical presentation of the levels received specific praise from IGN: "No other first person shooter has come close to "Jedi Knight"s dizzying sense of scale and its vast levels." Several critics found the game's story interesting.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: The use of John Williams' soundtrack from the "Star Wars" films was met with praise, though Lui believed that the music is overused in "Star Wars" video games. The sound effects were also lauded, and seen as providing a good atmosphere.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: The addition of a multiplayer mode to "Jedi Knight" was met positively, though Dulin questioned why there are so few multiplayer maps and why single-player maps cannot be used in the multiplayer mode. Tom Chick of IGN believed this was corrected with the release of "Mysteries of the Sith". "Next Generation" said that the "Healing" and "Force Pull" powers added great depth to the multiplayer action, elevating it above the formulaic techniques used in most games of the genre.


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: The editors of "Computer Games Strategy Plus" named "Jedi Knight" the best first-person action game of 1997. "Jedi Knight" won "Computer Gaming World"s 1997 "Game of the Year" award. The editors wrote, "As did "Diablo" the year before, "Jedi" rose above the crowd in appealing to gamers across all genres. The Force was definitely with LucasArts when they made "Jedi Knight, Dark Forces II"." The magazine nominated "Jedi Knight" as the best action game of 1997, but it lost to "Quake II".


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: In 1998, "PC Gamer" declared it the best computer game ever released, and the editors called it "such a class act from start to finish that even people who know nothing about PC games can tell they're looking at greatness. It's a fantastic game, and one we never hesitate to recommend to any kind of gamer".


title: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

text: In 1999, "Next Generation" listed "Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II" as number 28 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that, "More than any other LucasArts game, "Jedi Knight" makes you feel like you are actually operating in the "Star Wars" universe."


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) also known as mesenchymal stromal cells or medicinal signaling cells are multipotent stromal cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types, including osteoblasts (bone cells), chondrocytes (cartilage cells), myocytes (muscle cells) and adipocytes (fat cells which give rise to marrow adipose tissue).


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: While the terms "mesenchymal stem cell" (MSC) and "marrow stromal cell" have been used interchangeably for many years, neither term is sufficiently descriptive:


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Mesenchymal stem cells are characterized morphologically by a small cell body with a few cell processes that are long and thin. The cell body contains a large, round nucleus with a prominent nucleolus, which is surrounded by finely dispersed chromatin particles, giving the nucleus a clear appearance. The remainder of the cell body contains a small amount of Golgi apparatus, rough endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria and polyribosomes. The cells, which are long and thin, are widely dispersed and the adjacent extracellular matrix is populated by a few reticular fibrils but is devoid of the other types of collagen fibrils. These distinctive morphological features of mesenchymal stem cells can be visualized label-free using live cell imaging.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Bone marrow was the original source of MSCs, and still is the most frequently utilized. These bone marrow stem cells do not contribute to the formation of blood cells and so do not express the hematopoietic stem cell marker CD34. They are sometimes referred to as "bone marrow stromal stem cells".


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: The youngest and most primitive MSCs may be obtained from umbilical cord tissue, namely Wharton's jelly and the umbilical cord blood. However MSCs are found in much higher concentration in the Wharton's jelly compared to cord blood, which is a rich source of hematopoietic stem cells. The umbilical cord is available after a birth. It is normally discarded and poses no risk for collection. These MSCs may prove to be a useful source of MSCs for clinical applications due to their primitive properties and fast growth rate.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: and these have several advantages over bone marrow-derived MSCs. Adipose tissue-derived MSCs (AdMSCs), in addition to being easier and safer to isolate than bone marrow-derived MSCs, can be obtained in larger quantities.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: The developing tooth bud of the mandibular third molar is a rich source of MSCs. While they are described as multipotent, it is possible that they are pluripotent. They eventually form enamel, dentin, blood vessels, dental pulp and nervous tissues. These stem cells are capable of differentiating into chondrocytes, cardiomyocytes, melanocytes, and hepatocyte‐like cells "in vitro".


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Stem cells are present in amniotic fluid. As many as 1 in 100 cells collected during amniocentesis are pluripotent mesenchymal stem cells.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: MSCs have a great capacity for self-renewal while maintaining their multipotency. Recent work suggests that β-catenin, via regulation of EZH2, is a central molecule in maintaining the "stemness" of MSC's. The standard test to confirm multipotency is differentiation of the cells into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes as well as myocytes.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: MSCs have been seen to even differentiate into neuron-like cells, but doubt remains about whether the MSC-derived neurons are functional. The degree to which the culture will differentiate varies among individuals and how differentiation is induced, e.g., chemical vs. mechanical; and it is not clear whether this variation is due to a different amount of "true" progenitor cells in the culture or variable differentiation capacities of individuals' progenitors. The capacity of cells to proliferate and differentiate is known to decrease with the age of the donor, as well as the time in culture. Likewise, whether this is due to a decrease in the number of MSCs or a change to the existing MSCs is not known.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: MSCs have an effect on innate and specific immune cells, and research has shown an ability to suppress tumor growth. MSCs produce many immunomodulatory molecules including prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), nitric oxide, indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), interleukin 6 (IL-6), and other surface markers such as FasL, PD-L1 and PD-L2.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: MSCs have an effect on macrophages, neutrophils, NK cells, mast cells and dendritic cells in innate immunity. MSCs are able to migrate to the site of injury, where they polarize through PGE2 macrophages in M2 phenotype which is characterized by an anti-inflammatory effect. Further, PGE2 inhibits the ability of mast cells to degranulate and produce TNF-α. Proliferation and cytotoxic activity of NK cells is inhibited by PGE2 and IDO. MSCs also reduce the expression of NK cell receptors - NKG2D, NKp44 and NKp30. MSCs inhibit respiratory flare and apoptosis of neutrophils by production of cytokines IL-6 and IL-8. Differentiation and expression of dendritic cell surface markers is inhibited by IL-6 and PGE2 of MSCs. The immunosuppressive effects of MSC also depend on IL-10, but it is not certain whether they produce it alone, or only stimulate other cells to produce it.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: MSC expresses the adhesion molecules VCAM-1 and ICAM-1, which allow T-lymphocytes to adhere to their surface. Then MSC can affect them by molecules which have a short half-life and their effect is in the immediate vicinity of the cell. These include nitric oxide, PGE2, HGF, and activation of receptor PD-1. MSCs reduce T cell proliferation between G0 and G1 cell cycle phases and decrease the expression of IFNγ of Th1 cells while increasing the expression of IL-4 of Th2 cells. MSCs also inhibit the proliferation of B-lymphocytes between G0 and G1 cell cycle phases.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: MSCs produce several antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) including human cathelicidin LL-37, β-defensins, lipocalin 2 and hepcidin. These peptides, together with the enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), are responsible for the broad-spectrum antibacterial activity of MSCs.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Mesenchymal stem cells can be activated and mobilized if needed but their efficiency, in the case of muscle repair for example, is currently quite low. Further studies into the mechanisms of MSC action may provide avenues for increasing their capacity for tissue repair.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Clinical studies investigating the efficacy of mesenchymal stem cells in treating diseases are in preliminary development, particularly for understanding autoimmune diseases, graft versus host disease, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus and systemic sclerosis. As of 2014, no high-quality clinical research provides evidence of efficacy, and numerous inconsistencies and problems exist in the research methods.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Many of the early clinical successes using intravenous transplantation came in systemic diseases such as graft versus host disease and sepsis. Direct injection or placement of cells into a site in need of repair may be the preferred method of treatment, as vascular delivery suffers from a "pulmonary first pass effect" where intravenous injected cells are sequestered in the lungs.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: The International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT) has proposed a set of standards to define MSCs. A cell can be classified as an MSC if it shows plastic adherent properties under normal culture conditions and has a fibroblast-like morphology. In fact, some argue that MSCs and fibroblasts are functionally identical. Furthermore, MSCs can undergo osteogenic, adipogenic and chondrogenic differentiation "ex vivo". The cultured MSCs also express on their surface CD73, CD90 and CD105, while lacking the expression of CD11b, CD14, CD19, CD34, CD45, CD79a and HLA-DR surface markers.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: The majority of modern culture techniques still take a colony-forming unit-fibroblasts (CFU-F) approach, where raw unpurified bone marrow or ficoll-purified bone marrow mononuclear cells are plated directly into cell culture plates or flasks. Mesenchymal stem cells, but not red blood cells or haematopoetic progenitors, are adherent to tissue culture plastic within 24 to 48 hours. However, at least one publication has identified a population of non-adherent MSCs that are not obtained by the direct-plating technique.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Other flow cytometry-based methods allow the sorting of bone marrow cells for specific surface markers, such as STRO-1. STRO-1+ cells are generally more homogenous and have higher rates of adherence and higher rates of proliferation, but the exact differences between STRO-1+ cells and MSCs are not clear.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Methods of immunodepletion using such techniques as MACS have also been used in the negative selection of MSCs.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: The supplementation of basal media with fetal bovine serum or human platelet lysate is common in MSC culture.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Prior to the use of platelet lysates for MSC culture, the pathogen inactivation process is recommended to prevent pathogen transmission.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: New research titled Transplantation of human ESC-derived mesenchymal stem cell spheroids ameliorates spontaneous osteoarthritis in rhesus macaques Various chemicals and methods including low level laser irradiation have been used to increase proliferation of stem cell.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: In 1924, Russian-born morphologist Alexander A. Maximov (); used extensive histological findings to identify a singular type of precursor cell within mesenchyme that develops into different types of blood cells.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Scientists Ernest A. McCulloch and James E. Till first revealed the clonal nature of marrow cells in the 1960s. An "ex vivo" assay for examining the clonogenic potential of multipotent marrow cells was later reported in the 1970s by Friedenstein and colleagues. In this assay system, stromal cells were referred to as colony-forming unit-fibroblasts (CFU-f).


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: The first clinical trials of MSCs were completed in 1995 when a group of 15 patients were injected with cultured MSCs to test the safety of the treatment. Since then, more than 200 clinical trials have been started. However, most are still in the safety stage of testing.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: Subsequent experimentation revealed the plasticity of marrow cells and how their fate is determined by environmental cues. Culturing marrow stromal cells in the presence of osteogenic stimuli such as ascorbic acid, inorganic phosphate and dexamethasone could promote their differentiation into osteoblasts. In contrast, the addition of transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-b) could induce chondrogenic markers.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: More recently, there has been some debate over the use of the term "mesenchymal stem cells" and what constitutes the most scientifically correct meaning for the MSC acronym. Most mesenchymal cell or "MSC" preps only contain a minority fraction of true multipotent stem cells, while most cells are instead stromal in nature. One of the pioneers in the MSC field, Dr. Arnold Caplan, has proposed re-naming MSCs to mean "medicinal signaling cells." Within the stem cell field MSC has most commonly now come to refer to "mesenchymal stromal/stem cells" because of the heterogeneous nature of the cellular preparations.


title: Mesenchymal stem cell

text: There is also growing concern about the marketing and injection of MSCs and mesenchymal stem cells into patients by for-profit clinics that lack rigorous data to back up these clinical uses.


title: La Blue Girl

text: An immensely successful series, "La Blue Girl" has inspired, over the years, several OVA series for a total of 14 episodes, a comic book adaptation, three live action movies, some PC games and some art books.


title: La Blue Girl

text: The story involves various ninja clans in a constant state of war with one another. The female protagonist is Miko Mido, a young ninja-in-training and the next leader of the Miroku ninja clan. This clan has control over the Shikima, a perverted race of sex-hungry demons led by Miko's father, the Shikima Lord. However, when thieves steal the magic compact that grants the clan this power, Miko has to fight the Shikima, utilizing her "sexcraft" ninjutsu in order to save the world. The Shikima live in a parallel dimension called the Shikima Realm, and one must perform specific sexual rituals in order to travel there.


title: La Blue Girl

text: Injū Gakuen / La Blue Girl (four episodes, 1992–93) is an adaptation of the original manga. Miko Mido is a teenage girl who is to be the next leader of the ancestral Miroku ninja clan. But the Suzuka clan steals the treasured compact that symbolizes the truce between the Miroku and the Shikima, a race of perverted otherworldly demons, and soon Miko has to use the sexual techniques of the Miroku to survive the assaults of the demons and protect her sister. After learning the truth behind her heritage and the identity of her true parents, she embarks on a journey to become a real Miroku ninja and would have to fight an ex-mistress-turned-traitor of the Miroku clan.


title: La Blue Girl

text: Shin Injū Gakuen / New La Blue Girl (two episodes, 1993) adapts the end of the manga, and as such is a follow-up and the conclusion to Miko's adventures in the first series. This time the enemies are Fubuki Kai, a rogue ninja who wants to defeat Miko and claim the title of best ninja, and the cybernetized survivors of the Suzuka clan.


title: La Blue Girl

text: La Blue Girl 6 was initially released on VHS in two 30-minute long semi-episodes, while later releases (including the licensed English one) combine them into an hour long episode.


title: La Blue Girl

text: a.k.a. "Lady Blue" (four episodes, 1994). Features an original story about two ghosts, Kyoshiro and Shanahime, harboring an old grudge against the Shikima and attacking several of Miko's friends, including her first love.


title: La Blue Girl

text: "Lady Blue" is about Miko's first love. Miko meets a young man named Hidemasa outside her apartment building and falls in love at first sight. Just when Miko thinks she can finally live like a normal girl and enjoy being in love, a mysterious female phantom appears in her school, sucking the life out of Miko's pretty young schoolmates. Fubuki reports that something is very wrong in the Shikima realm. Miko's parents are being tortured by the sound of flutes playing and no one knows why.


title: La Blue Girl

text: Miko and Fubuki investigate and find out that there is actually a love story behind it all, for the flutes belonged to a betrothed couple (Kyoshiro and Shanahime) 400 years ago, but treachery got in the way, so their love was never realized. The flutes are now cursed and Miko's dream guy, Hidemasa, is kidnapped by the vengeful phantom of Shanahime in order to resurrect her Kyoshiro.


title: La Blue Girl

text: The first was a 90 minute compilation video of the first 4 episodes titled 'Climax Taizen', a 60 minute compilation video of the 'Shin' series titled 'Ecstasy Taizen' and a 60 minute compilation video of the 'EX' series.


title: La Blue Girl

text: a.k.a. "La Blue Girl Returns" (four episodes, 2001) is an anime series that continues the adventures of Miko Mido. Another original story, this time about the legendary Shikima Brain, a place rumored to bring total power over the universe. It is coveted by the insectoid ninja clan of the Mahoroba and protected by a mysterious clan, who may have a relation with Miko's previous life.


title: La Blue Girl

text: The plot begins when a race of butterfly-like demons named the Mahoroba want to enslave Miko Mido and her sister to steal the seal case that controls the Shikima. Their ultimate goal is to conquer the Shikima Brain, a legendary place of the Shikima realm which is said to confer the power to rule the universe.


title: La Blue Girl

text: Censorship is practiced differently both in Japan and in the U.S. due to their different laws: Japanese law technically discourages showing of genital hair or explicit genitalia, while the United States is more concerned about forbidding the display of sexual acts involving people under 18. Hence, there are censoring mosaics in Japan and scene removals and different ages of characters in the U.S.


title: La Blue Girl

text: While not featuring the censoring mosaics of the original Japanese version, the U.S. release of "La Blue Girl" was edited during the initial VHS release and all scenes featuring Miko's companion Nin-Nin engaged in a sexual act were removed, probably to avoid the charge of hebephilia.


title: La Blue Girl

text: For similar reasons, the age of the heroine was also altered: initially stated to be a 16-year-old high-schooler in the original Japanese version, she is an 18-year-old college student in the U.S. version. The various U.S. DVD releases contain this edited version.


title: La Blue Girl

text: In the U.K., the British Board of Film Classification famously refused to give it a certificate; meaning it was banned from release in the region.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: Vengeance: Night of Champions was the seventh annual Vengeance as well as the inaugural Night of Champions professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW brand divisions. The event took place on June 24, 2007, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. It was the final Vengeance event until 2011, as Night of Champions continued in its place. Per the theme of the event, every match on the card was contested for one of WWE's nine then-active championships; two were won and seven were retained.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The main event featured the Raw brand. It saw John Cena defend the WWE Championship in a Five-Pack Challenge against Mick Foley, Bobby Lashley, Randy Orton, and King Booker. Cena won the match and retained the title after pinning Foley. The featured match from the SmackDown! brand was a "Last Chance match" for the World Heavyweight Championship between Edge and Batista, in which Edge emerged victorious via countout.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: Chris Benoit was originally booked to face (and defeat) CM Punk to win the vacant ECW World Championship. However, he did not show up, and was replaced by Johnny Nitro — who won by pinfall after performing a corkscrew neckbreaker from the middle rope. Following the event, however, it was revealed that Benoit had murdered his wife and son, and then committed suicide.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: Vengeance was an annual pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) since 2001. From that inaugural event until 2006, the event was promoted solely as Vengeance, but in 2007, WWE retitled the event as "Vengeance: Night of Champions". It was the seventh event under the Vengeance chronology. It took place on June 24, 2007, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. While the previous three Vengeance events were held exclusively for the Raw brand, the 2007 event featured wrestlers from Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW, as following WrestleMania 23 in April, brand-exclusive PPVs were discontinued.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: With the event's subtitle of "Night of Champions", the theme of the event was that every championship promoted by WWE at the time was contested. These included the four championships on Raw—the WWE Championship, the Intercontinental Championship, the World Tag Team Championship, and the WWE Women's Championship—the four championships on SmackDown!—the World Heavyweight Championship, the United States Championship, the WWE Tag Team Championship, and the WWE Cruiserweight Championship—and ECW's sole championship—the ECW World Championship.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The main feud on the Raw brand heading into the event was between WWE Champion John Cena, Bobby Lashley, King Booker, Mick Foley, and Randy Orton. The feud began when Lashley was drafted to Raw and stripped of the ECW World Championship. After being stripped of the title, Lashley began to pursue the WWE Championship. On the June 18 episode of "Raw", Foley, Orton, Booker, and Lashley all cut promos on why they deserve to be the number-one contender to the WWE Championship. Cena also cut a promo on who he believed deserved to be the number one contender to the championship. Following this, Interim General Manager Jonathan Coachman announced that all five men would compete for the title in a match billed as the "WWE Championship Challenge" at Vengeance.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The main feud heading into Vengeance on the SmackDown! brand was between World Heavyweight Champion Edge and Batista. Their match stemmed from their Steel cage match at One Night Stand, three weeks before Vengeance, where Edge won by escaping the cage. On the June 8 episode of "SmackDown!", WWE Chairman Vince McMahon announced that Edge would defend the World Heavyweight Championship against Batista in a "Last Chance" match at Vengeance. On the June 22 episode of "SmackDown!", Batista and Ric Flair defeated Edge and Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP). Midway through the match, Flair and MVP brawled outside the ring, leaving Edge on his own against Batista. Batista gained the pinfall after executing a Batista Bomb on Edge.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The feud between The Hardys (Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy) and Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch began at Backlash. At Backlash, The Hardys defeated Cade and Murdoch to retain the World Tag Team Championship. At the following event, Judgment Day, Matt and Jeff defeated Cade and Murdoch once again to retain the title.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The event began with a video package of the event and its theme, "Night of Champions," followed by opening pyrotechnics. The first match was between Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch and The Hardys (Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy) for the World Tag Team Championship. Cade and Matt started the match, with Matt in control. The two teams tagged in and out until Cade and Murdoch attempted to walk out of the match, but the Hardys went after them, and brought them back into the ring. Jeff attempted a Swanton Bomb onto Cade, but Murdoch interfered on Cade's behalf. Matt tried to interfere on Jeff's behalf, but was stopped by the referee. Murdoch used this as an advantage, and pushed Jeff off the turnbuckle, leading to Cade performing a powerbomb. Cade gained the pinfall on Jeff to win the match and retain the titles.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The second match was between Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Jimmy Wang Yang for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. The match began with Yang and Guerrero locking up, followed by Yang in control through most of the match. After Yang missed a moonsault, Guerrero executed a Gory Bomb. Shortly after, Guerrero performed a Frog Splash on Yang. Afterwards, Guerrero pinned Yang to win the match and retain the Cruiserweight Championship.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The third match was between CM Punk and Johnny Nitro (who replaced the absent Chris Benoit) for the ECW World Championship. The match started off with Punk attempting a crossbody on Nitro. Nitro countered, however, and executed an enzuigiri. Nitro delivered a corkscrew neckbreaker and pinned Punk to win the match to become the new ECW World Champion.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The fourth match was between Santino Marella and Umaga for the WWE Intercontinental Championship. The match began with Umaga in control, squashing Marella. Two minutes into the match, Umaga was punching Marella uncontrollably. The referee disqualified Umaga when he refused to stop after giving a five count, and Marella retained the title. Umaga, following the disqualification, delivered a splash and a Samoan Spike to Santino.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The fifth match was between Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP) and Ric Flair for the WWE United States Championship. The match started with Flair executing a series of backhand chops to MVP. Flair kept the advantage and applied the figure four leglock. MVP countered, by executing a low blow. MVP then performed the Playmaker and pinned Flair to retain the United States Championship.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The sixth match was an open challenge by Deuce 'n Domino to any tag team for the WWE Tag Team Championship, which was accepted by Jimmy Snuka, who just happens to be Deuce's real-life father and Sgt. Slaughter. Snuka and Slaughter controlled most of the match; however, Deuce 'n Domino got the win after Deuce pinned Snuka. After the match, Deuce 'n Domino attacked Snuka and Slaughter until Tony Garea and Rick Martel came into the ring to assist Snuka and Slaughter.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The seventh match was between Edge and Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship. This was a "Last Chance match", meaning if Batista lost, he could not get another shot at the World Heavyweight Championship as long as Edge was champion. Batista originally won the match by disqualification after Edge executed a low blow; however, SmackDown! General Manager Theodore Long restarted the match with the stipulation that Edge could lose the title by disqualification. Edge won the match after Batista was counted out, thus retaining the title, and with the match stipulation, Batista would be unable to challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship as long as Edge was the champion. After the match, in complete frustration, Batista attacked Edge and performed a Batista Bomb on him outside of the ring onto the ground before leaving him with the title.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The eighth match was Melina against Candice Michelle for the WWE Women's Championship. After a back and forth match, Michelle executed a spinning heel kick on Melina to win the Women's Championship.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The main event, billed as the "WWE Championship Challenge," saw John Cena defending the WWE Championship against King Booker, Bobby Lashley, Mick Foley and Randy Orton. Throughout the match, all five men gained an advantage over one-another at one or more spots. One spot in the match saw Lashley dive over the top rope onto the other four competitors. Towards the end of the match, Cena executed an FU on Lashley through an announce table. Cena won the match and retained the title after pinning Foley following an FU.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: The scheduled June 25 episode of "Raw" was going to be a three-hour memorial to "Mr. McMahon". However, due to the real-life death of Chris Benoit, the show opened with McMahon standing in an empty arena, acknowledging that his reported death was only of his character as part of a storyline. This was followed by a tribute to Benoit that filled the three-hour timeslot. Once the details of Benoit's actions became apparent, WWE made the decision to remove nearly all mentions of Benoit from their website, from future broadcasts and all publications.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: Chavo Guerrero Jr. went on to defend the WWE Cruiserweight Championship in a Cruiserweight Open at The Great American Bash against Jimmy Wang Yang, Jamie Noble, Funaki, and Shannon Moore. Hornswoggle also entered the match at the bell, but immediately escaped the ring and hid under it. With all of the cruiserweights down, with the exception of Noble, Hornswoggle came out from under the ring and delivered a Tadpole Splash to Noble. He pinned him afterwards to win the match and the Cruiserweight Championship. Candice Michelle and Melina continued to feud over the WWE Women's Championship. The two had a rematch at The Great American Bash for the title. Michelle pinned Melina after delivering a Candy Wrapper to retain the title.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: On the July 2 episode of "Raw", Umaga defeated Santino Marella in a rematch to capture the WWE Intercontinental Championship. Two weeks later, Jeff Hardy defeated William Regal, Shelton Benjamin, and Santino Marella in a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match to become the number one contender to the Intercontinental Championship. At The Great American Bash, Umaga defeated Hardy to retain the title after the Samoan Spike. That same night, Bobby Lashley won a "Beat the Clock" tournament to become the number-one contender to the WWE Championship. At The Great American Bash, Lashley faced John Cena for the WWE Championship in the main event. Cena retained the title after an FU from the top rope.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: On the June 26 episode of "ECW on Sci Fi", CM Punk defeated Elijah Burke in a two out of three falls match to become the number one contender to the ECW Championship. At The Great American Bash, Punk faced John Morrison (formerly known as Johnny Nitro) for the ECW Championship. Morrison retained the title after hitting Punk with both of his knees.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: On the July 6 episode of "SmackDown!", Kane was named the number one contender to the World Heavyweight Championship after he appeared as the special guest on Edge's "Cutting Edge" segment. Edge held a celebration for himself on the July 13 episode of "SmackDown!", and was attacked by Kane, who in the process legitimately injured Edge. On the July 20 episode of "SmackDown!", Edge was forced to vacate the World Heavyweight Championship as a result of his injury. The Great Khali went on to win a 20-man battle royal to become the new World Heavyweight Champion. At The Great American Bash, Khali defended the title successfully against Kane and Batista in a Triple Threat match.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: Vengeance: Night of Champions would be the final Vengeance until the event was reinstated in 2011, as WWE decided to drop Vengeance in 2008 in favor of continuing Night of Champions as its own PPV chronology. This 2007 event would also be the only Vengeance to feature the ECW brand, as it was disbanded in 2010, and it was the final Vengeance to occur during the first brand extension, which ended in August 2011, two months before the 2011 event; in April 2011, WWE ceased using its full name with the "WWE" abbreviation becoming an orphaned initialism. Additionally, this would be the only Night of Champions event, as well as the final Vengeance event, to feature the original Cruiserweight Championship, as the title was retired in September 2007, and it was the only Vengeance event to feature the ECW World Championship, and the final Vengeance event to feature the World Tag Team Championship and WWE Women's Championship, as the three titles were retired in February, August, and September 2010, respectively. Night of Champions continued as an annual PPV until its 2015 event, which was the final Night of Champions, as it was replaced by the similarly themed Clash of Champions in 2016.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: This was also the last Vengeance event and only Night of Champions event to be in 4:3 format, as in January 2008, all WWE shows went to high definition.


title: Vengeance: Night of Champions

text: (*) – Johnny Nitro was an impromptu replacement added by WWE due to the absence of Chris Benoit, explained on-air as being due to “personal issues". It was later discovered by local Georgia law enforcement officials that Benoit had murdered his wife and son, and then killed himself in their home.</onlyinclude>


title: FAB-500

text: The FAB-500 is a Soviet-designed general purpose air-dropped bomb with a high-explosive warhead, primarily used by the Russian Air Force, former Soviet republics and customer countries. The original M-54 model was rolled out in 1954, shaped for internal carriage by heavy bombers, a low-drag M-62 version in 1962 was intended for fighter bomber external hardpoint carriage. The bomb is unguided, features a single nose fuze, and is compatible with most models of Soviet aircraft.


title: FAB-500

text: The FAB-500 was largely employed over Afghanistan by Soviet and allied Afghan forces during the 1980s and saw use during the Syrian civil war where it was carried by both Russian and Syrian warplanes. The M62 variant of the FAB-500 was used by Russian military forces in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 13 March 2022 and 14 May 2022, FAB-500 bombs were found in Ukrainian cities Chernihiv and Odesa.


title: The Originals (season 5)

text: "The Originals", a one-hour American supernatural drama, was renewed for a fifth season by The CW on May 10, 2017. The 2016–17 United States television season debut of "The Originals" was pushed to midseason, as with the fourth-season premiere. On July 20, 2017, Julie Plec announced via Twitter that the upcoming season would be the series' last. The fifth season consists of 13 episodes and debuted on April 18, 2018. The series finale aired on August 1, 2018.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: In economics, nominal value is measured in terms of money, whereas real value is measured against goods or services. A real value is one which has been adjusted for inflation, enabling comparison of quantities as if the prices of goods had not changed on average; therefore, changes in real value exclude the effect of inflation. In contrast, a nominal value has not been adjusted for inflation, and so changes in nominal value reflect at least in part the effect of inflation but will not hold the same purchasing power.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: A commodity bundle is a sample of goods, which is used to represent the sum total of goods across the economy to which the goods belong, for the purpose of comparison across different times (or locations).


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: At a single point of time, a commodity bundle consists of a list of goods, and each good in the list has a market price and a quantity. The market value of the good is the market price times the quantity at that point of time. The nominal value of the commodity bundle at a point of time is the total market value of the commodity bundle, depending on the market price, and the quantity, of each good in the commodity bundle which are current at the time.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: A price index is the relative price of a commodity bundle. A price index can be measured over time, or at different locations or markets. If it is measured over time, it is a series of values formula_1 over time formula_2.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: A time series price index is calculated relative to a base or reference date. formula_3 is the value of the index at the base date. For example, if the base date is (the end of) 1992, formula_3 is the value of the index at (the end of) 1992. The price index is typically normalized to start at 100 at the base date, so formula_3 is set to 100.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: The length of time between each value of formula_2 and the next one, is normally constant regular time interval, such as a calendar year. formula_1 is the value of the price index at time formula_2 after the base date. formula_1 equals 100 times the value of the commodity bundle at time formula_2, divided by the value of the commodity bundle at the base date.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: If the price of the commodity bundle has increased by one percent over the first period after the base date, then "P" = 101.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: The inflation rate formula_11 between time formula_12 and time formula_2 is the change in the price index divided by the price index value at time formula_12:


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: The nominal value of a commodity bundle tends to change over time. In contrast, by definition, the real value of the commodity bundle in aggregate remains the same over time. The real values of individual goods or commodities may rise or fall against each other, in relative terms, but a representative commodity bundle as a whole retains its real value as a constant from one period to the next.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: Real values can for example be expressed in constant 1992 dollars, with the price level fixed 100 at the base date.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: The price index is applied to adjust the nominal value formula_17 of a quantity, such as wages or total production, to obtain its real value. The real value is the value expressed in terms of purchasing power in the base year.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: The index price divided by its base-year value formula_18 gives the growth factor of the price index.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: Real values can be found by dividing the nominal value by the growth factor of a price index. Using the price index growth factor as a divisor for converting a nominal value into a real value, the real value at time "t" relative to the base date is:


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: The real growth rate formula_20 is the change in a nominal quantity formula_21 in real terms since the previous date formula_12. It measures by how much the buying power of the quantity has changed over a single period.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: The bundle of goods used to measure the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is applicable to consumers. So for wage earners as consumers, an appropriate way to measure real wages (the buying power of wages) is to divide the nominal wage (after-tax) by the growth factor in the CPI.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of aggregate output. Nominal GDP in a particular period reflects prices that were current at the time, whereas real GDP compensates for inflation. Price indices and the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts are constructed from bundles of commodities and their respective prices. In the case of GDP, a suitable price index is the GDP price index. In the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts, nominal GDP is called "GDP in current dollars" (that is, in prices current for each designated year), and real GDP is called "GDP in [base-year] dollars" (that is, in dollars that can purchase the same quantity of commodities as in the base year).


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: In the case where the growing quantity is a financial asset, formula_27 is a nominal interest rate and formula_20 is the corresponding real interest rate; the first-order approximation formula_35 is known as the Fisher equation.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: Looking back into the past, the "ex post" real interest rate is approximately the historical nominal interest rate minus inflation. Looking forward into the future, the expected real interest rate is approximately the nominal interest rate minus the expected inflation rate.


title: Real versus nominal value (economics)

text: Not only time-series data, as above, but also cross-sectional data which depends on prices which may vary geographically for example, can be adjusted in a similar way. For example, the total value of a good produced in a region of a country depends on both the amount and the price. To compare the output of different regions, the nominal output in a region can be adjusted by repricing the goods at common or average prices.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese sentiment (also called Japanophobia, Nipponophobia and anti-Japanism) involves the hatred or fear of anything which is Japanese, be it its culture or its people. Its opposite is Japanophilia.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese sentiments range from animosity towards the Japanese government's actions and disdain for Japanese culture to racism against the Japanese people. Sentiments of dehumanization have been fueled by the anti-Japanese propaganda of the Allied governments in World War II; this propaganda was often of a racially disparaging character. Anti-Japanese sentiment may be strongest in Korea and China, due to atrocities committed by the Japanese military.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In the past, anti-Japanese sentiment contained innuendos of Japanese people as barbaric. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan was intent to adopt Western ways in an attempt to join the West as an industrialized imperial power, but a lack of acceptance of the Japanese in the West complicated integration and assimilation. One commonly held view was that the Japanese were "evolutionarily inferior" . Japanese culture was viewed with suspicion and even disdain.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: While passions have settled somewhat since Japan's surrender in World War II, tempers continue to flare on occasion over the widespread perception that the Japanese government has made insufficient penance for their past atrocities, or has sought to whitewash the history of these events. Today, though the Japanese government has effected some compensatory measures, anti-Japanese sentiment continues based on historical and nationalist animosities linked to Imperial Japanese military aggression and atrocities. Japan's delay in clearing more than 700,000 (according to the Japanese Government) pieces of life-threatening and environment contaminating chemical weapons buried in China at the end of World War II is another cause of anti-Japanese sentiment.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Periodically, individuals within Japan spur external criticism. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was heavily criticized by South Korea and China for annually paying his respects to the war dead at Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines all those who fought and died for Japan during World War II, including 1,068 convicted war criminals. Right-wing nationalist groups have produced history textbooks whitewashing Japanese atrocities, and the recurring controversies over these books occasionally attract hostile foreign attention.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Some anti-Japanese sentiment originates from business practices used by some Japanese companies, such as dumping.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In Australia, the White Australia policy was partly inspired by fears in the late 19th century that if large numbers of Asian immigrants were allowed, they would have a severe and adverse effect on wages, the earnings of small business people, and other elements of the standard of living. Nevertheless, a significant numbers of Japanese immigrants arrived in Australia prior to 1900, perhaps most significantly in the town of Broome. By the late 1930s, Australians feared that Japanese military strength might lead to expansion in Southeast Asia and the Pacific and perhaps even an invasion of Australia itself. That resulted in a ban on iron ore exports to the Empire of Japan, from 1938.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: During World War II, atrocities were frequently committed to Australians who surrendered (or attempted to surrender) to Japanese soldiers, most famously the ritual beheading of Leonard Siffleet, which was photographed, and incidents of cannibalism and the shooting down of ejected pilots' parachutes. Anti-Japanese feelings were particularly provoked by the sinking of the unarmed Hospital Ship "Centaur" (painted white and with Red Cross markings), with 268 dead. The treatment of Australians prisoners of war was also a factor, with over 2,800 Australian POWs dying on the Burma Railway alone.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Like the elites in Argentina and Uruguay, the Brazilian elite wanted to racially whiten the country's population during the 19th and 20th centuries. The country's governments always encouraged European immigration, but non-white immigration was always greeted with considerable opposition. The communities of Japanese immigrants were seen as an obstacle to the whitening of Brazil and they were also seen, among other concerns, as being particularly tendentious because they formed ghettos and they also practiced endogamy at a high rate. Oliveira Viana, a Brazilian jurist, historian, and sociologist, described the Japanese immigrants as follows: "They (Japanese) are like sulfur: insoluble." The Brazilian magazine "O Malho" in its edition of 5 December 1908, issued a charge of Japanese immigrants with the following legend: "The government of São Paulo is stubborn. After the failure of the first Japanese immigration, it contracted 3,000 yellow people. It insists on giving Brazil a race diametrically opposite to ours." On 22 October 1923, Representative Fidélis Reis produced a bill on the entry of immigrants, whose fifth article was as follows: "The entry of settlers from the black race into Brazil is prohibited. For Asian [immigrants] there will be allowed each year a number equal to 5% of those residing in the country..."


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Years before World War II, the government of President Getúlio Vargas initiated a process of forced assimilation of people of immigrant origin in Brazil. In 1933, a constitutional amendment was approved by a large majority and established immigration quotas without mentioning race or nationality and prohibited the population concentration of immigrants. According to the text, Brazil could not receive more than 2% of the total number of entrants of each nationality that had been received in the last 50 years. Only the Portuguese were excluded. The measures did not affect the immigration of Europeans such as Italians and Spaniards, who had already entered in large numbers and whose migratory flow was downward. However, immigration quotas, which remained in force until the 1980s, restricted Japanese immigration, as well as Korean and Chinese immigration.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: When Brazil sided with the Allies and declared war to Japan in 1942, all communication with Japan was cut off, the entry of new Japanese immigrants was forbidden, and many restrictions affected the Japanese Brazilians. Japanese newspapers and teaching the Japanese language in schools were banned, which left Portuguese as the only option for Japanese descendants. As many Japanese immigrants could not understand Portuguese, it became exceedingly difficult for them to obtain any extra-communal information. In 1939, research of Estrada de Ferro Noroeste do Brasil in São Paulo showed that 87.7% of Japanese Brazilians read newspapers in the Japanese language, a much higher literacy rate than the general populace at the time. Japanese Brazilians could not travel without safe conduct issued by the police, Japanese schools were closed, and radio receivers was confiscated to prevent transmissions on shortwave from Japan. The goods of Japanese companies were confiscated and several companies of Japanese origin had interventions by the government. Japanese Brazilians were prohibited from driving motor vehicles, and the drivers employed by Japanese had to have permission from the police. Thousands of Japanese immigrants were arrested or deported from Brazil on suspicion of espionage. On 10 July 1943, approximately 10,000 Japanese and German and Italian immigrants who lived in Santos had 24 hours to move away from the Brazilian coast. The police acted without any notice. About 90% of people displaced were Japanese. To reside in coastal areas, the Japanese had to have a safe conduct. In 1942, the Japanese community who introduced the cultivation of pepper in Tomé-Açu, in Pará, was virtually turned into a "concentration camp". his time, the Brazilian ambassador in Washington, DC, Carlos Martins Pereira e Sousa, encouraged the government of Brazil to transfer all Japanese Brazilians to "internment camps" without the need for legal support, just as was done with the Japanese residents in the United States. However, no suspicion of activities of Japanese against "national security" was ever confirmed.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Even after the war ended, anti-Japanese sentiment persisted in Brazil. After the war, Shindo Renmei, a terrorist organization formed by Japanese immigrants that murdered Japanese-Brazilians who believed in Japanese surrender, was founded. The violence acts committed by this organization increased anti-Japanese sentiment in Brazil and caused several violent conflicts between Brazilians and Japanese-Brazilians. During the National Constituent Assembly of 1946, the representative of Rio de Janeiro Miguel Couto Filho proposed an amendment to the Constitution saying "It is prohibited the entry of Japanese immigrants of any age and any origin in the country." In the final vote, a tie with 99 votes in favour and 99 against. Senator Fernando de Melo Viana, who chaired the session of the Constituent Assembly, had the casting vote and rejected the constitutional amendment. By only one vote, the immigration of Japanese people to Brazil was not prohibited by the Brazilian Constitution of 1946.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In the second half of the 2010s, a certain anti-Japanese feeling has grown in Brazil. The current Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, was accused of making statements considered discriminatory against Japanese people, which generated repercussions in the press and in the Japanese-Brazilian community, which is considered the largest in the world outside of Japan. In addition, in 2020, possibly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, some incidents of xenophobia and abuse were reported to Japanese-Brazilians in cities such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Like other countries which Japanese immigrated to in significant numbers, anti-Japanese sentiment in Canada was strongest during the 20th century, with the formation of anti-immigration organizations such as the Asiatic Exclusion League in response to Japanese and other Asian immigration. Anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese riots also frequently broke out. During World War II, Japanese Canadians were interned like their American counterparts. Financial compensation for surviving internees was finally paid in 1988 by the Brian Mulroney government.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese sentiment is felt very strongly in China and distrust, hostility and negative feelings towards Japan and the Japanese people and culture is widespread in China. Anti-Japanese sentiment is a phenomenon that mostly dates back to modern times (since 1868). Like many Western powers during the era of imperialism, Japan negotiated treaties that often resulted in the annexation of land from China towards the end of the Qing dynasty. Dissatisfaction with Japanese settlements and the Twenty-One Demands by the Japanese government led to a serious boycott of Japanese products in China.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Today, bitterness persists in China over the atrocities of the Second Sino-Japanese War and Japan's postwar actions, particularly the perceived lack of a straightforward acknowledgment of such atrocities, the Japanese government's employment of known war criminals, and Japanese historic revisionism in textbooks. In elementary school, children are taught about Japanese war crimes in detail. For example, thousands of children are brought to the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing by their elementary schools and required to view photos of war atrocities, such as exhibits of records of the Japanese military forcing Chinese workers into wartime labor, the Nanking Massacre, and the issues of comfort women. After viewing the museum, the children's hatred of the Japanese people was reported to significantly increase. Despite the time that has passed since the end of the war, discussions about Japanese conduct during it can still evoke powerful emotions today, partly because most Japanese are aware of what happened during it although their society has never engaged in the type of introspection which has been common in Germany after the Holocaust. Hence, the usage of Japanese military symbols are still controversial in China, such as the incident in which the Chinese pop singer Zhao Wei was seen wearing a Japanese war flag while she was dressed for a fashion magazine photo shoot in 2001. Huge responses were seen on the Internet, a public letter demanding a public apology was also circulated by a Nanking Massacre survivor, and the singer was even attacked. According to a 2017 BBC World Service Poll, only 22% of Chinese people view Japan's influence positively, and 75% express a negative view, making China the most anti-Japanese nation in the world.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In recent times, Chinese Japanophiles are often denounced by nationalists as Hanjian (traitors) or Jingri.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese sentiment can also be seen in war films which are currently being produced and broadcast in Mainland China. More than 200 anti-Japanese films were produced in China in 2012 alone. In one particular situation involving a more moderate anti-Japanese war film, the government of China banned the 2000 film, "Devils on the Doorstep" because it depicted a Japanese soldier being friendly with Chinese villagers.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Japan's public service broadcaster, NHK, provides a list of overseas safety risks for traveling, and in early 2020, it listed anti-Japanese discrimination as a safety risk on travel to France and some other European countries, possibly because of fears over the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors. Signs of rising anti-Japanese sentiment in France include an increase in anti-Japanese incidents reported by Japanese nationals, such as being mocked on the street and refused taxi service, and least one Japanese restaurant has been vandalized. A group of Japanese students on a study tour in Paris received abuse by locals. Another group of Japanese citizens was targeted by acid attacks, which prompted the Japanese embassy as well as the foreign ministry to issue a warning to Japanese nationals in France, urging caution. Due to rising discrimination, a Japanese TV announcer in Paris said it's best not to speak Japanese in public or wear a Japanese costume like a kimono. Japanese people are also subject to many stereotypes from the French Entertainment industry that has cemented a general image, often a negative one.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: According to the Japanese foreign ministry, anti-Japanese sentiment and discrimination has been rising in Germany, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic began affecting the country.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Media sources have reported a rise in anti-Japanese sentiment in Germany, with some Japanese residents saying suspicion and contempt towards them have increased noticeably. In line with those sentiments, there have been a rising number of anti-Japanese incidents such as at least one major football club kicking out all Japanese fans from their stadium over fears of the coronavirus, locals throwing raw eggs at Japanese people's homes and a general increase in the level of harassment toward Japanese residents.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In a press release, the embassy of Japan in Indonesia stated that incidents of discrimination and harassment of Japanese people had increased, and they were possibly partly related to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and it also announced that it had set up a help center in order to assist Japanese residents in dealing with those incidents. In general, there have been reports of widespread anti-Japanese discrimination and harassment in the country, with hotels, stores, restaurants, taxi services and more refusing Japanese customers and many Japanese people were no longer allowed in meetings and conferences. The embassy of Japan has also received at least a dozen reports of harassment toward Japanese people in just a few days. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan), anti-Japanese sentiment and discrimination has been rising in Indonesia.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The issue of anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea is complex and multifaceted. Anti-Japanese attitudes in the Korean Peninsula can be traced as far back as the Japanese pirate raids and the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), but they are largely a product of the Japanese occupation of Korea which lasted from 1910 to 1945 and the subsequent revisionism of history textbooks which have been used by Japan's educational system since World War II.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Today, issues of Japanese history textbook controversies, Japanese policy regarding the war, and geographic disputes between the two countries perpetuate that sentiment, and the issues often incur huge disputes between Japanese and South Korean Internet users. South Korea, together with Mainland China, may be considered as among the most intensely anti-Japanese societies in the world. Among all the countries that participated in BBC World Service Poll in 2007 and 2009, South Korea and the People's Republic of China were the only ones whose majorities rated Japan negatively.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Today, chinilpa is also associated with general anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea and is often used as a derogatory term for Japanophilic Koreans.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese sentiment can at times be seen in Korean media. One example is the widely popular web novel, Solo Leveling in which Japanese characters appear as antagonists who have malicious intent, and want to hurt the Korean protagonist. However, the Webtoon version significantly edits such depictions of Japanese characters out, though not completely, in order to avoid upsetting non-Korean readers.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese sentiment in the Philippines can be traced back to the Japanese occupation of the country during World War II and its aftermath. An estimated 1 million Filipinos out of a wartime population of 17 million were killed during the war, and many more Filipinos were injured. Nearly every Filipino family was affected by the war on some level. Most notably, in the city of Mapanique, survivors have recounted the Japanese occupation during which Filipino men were massacred and dozens of women were herded in order to be used as comfort women. Today the Philippines has peaceful relations with Japan. In addition, Filipinos are generally not as offended as Chinese or Koreans are by the claim from some quarters that the atrocities are given little, if any, attention in Japanese classrooms. This feeling exists as a result of the huge amount of Japanese aid which was sent to the country during the 1960s and 1970s.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The Davao Region, in Mindanao, had a large community of Japanese immigrants which acted as a fifth column by welcoming the Japanese invaders during the war. The Japanese were hated by the Moro Muslims and the Chinese. The Moro juramentadoss performed suicide attacks against the Japanese, and no Moro juramentado ever attacked the Chinese, who were not considered enemies of the Moro, unlike the Japanese.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: According to a 2011 BBC World Service Poll, 84% of Filipinos view Japan's influence positively, with 12% expressing a negative view, making Philippines one of the most pro-Japanese countries in the world.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The older generation of Singaporeans have some resentment towards Japan due to their experiences in World War II when Singapore was under Japanese Occupation but because of developing good economical ties with them, Singapore is currently having a positive relationship with Japan.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The Kuomintang (KMT), which took over Taiwan in the 1940s, held strong anti-Japanese sentiment and sought to eradicate traces of the Japanese culture in Taiwan.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: During the 2005 anti-Japanese demonstrations in East Asia, Taiwan remained noticeably quieter than the PRC or Korea, with Taiwan-Japan relations regarded at an all-time high. However, the KMT victory in 2008 was followed by a boating accident resulting in Taiwanese deaths, which caused recent tensions. Taiwanese officials began speaking out on the historical territory disputes regarding the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands, which resulted in an increase in at least perceived anti-Japanese sentiment.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese sentiment was widespread among Thai pro-democracy student protesters in the 1970s. Demonstrators viewed the entry of Japanese companies into the country, invited by the Thai military, as an economic invasion. Anti-Japanese sentiment in the country has since then simmered down.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In the Russian Empire, the Japanese victory during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 halted Russia's ambitions in the East and left it humiliated. During the later Russian Civil War, Japan was part of the Allied interventionist forces that helped to occupy Vladivostok until October 1922 with a puppet government under Grigorii Semenov. At the end of World War II, the Red Army accepted the surrender of nearly 600,000 Japanese POWs after Emperor Hirohito announced the Japanese surrender on 15 August; 473,000 of them were repatriated, 55,000 of them had died in Soviet captivity, and the fate of the others is unknown. Presumably, many of them were deported to China or North Korea and forced to serve as laborers and soldiers. The Kuril Islands dispute is a source of contemporary anti-Japanese sentiment in Russia.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In the 1902, the United Kingdom signed a formal military alliance with Japan. However, the alliance was especially discontinued in 1923, and by the 1930s, bilateral ties became strained when Britain opposed Japan's military expansion. During World War II, British anti-Japanese propaganda, much like its American counterpart, featured content that grotesquely exaggerated physical features of Japanese people, if not outright depicting them as animals such as spiders. Post-war, much anti-Japanese sentiment in Britain was focused on the appalling treatment of British POWs (See "The Bridge on the River Kwai").


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In the United States, anti-Japanese sentiment had its beginnings long before World War II. As early as the late 19th century, Asian immigrants were subjected to racial prejudice in the United States. Laws were passed which openly discriminated against Asians and sometimes, they particularly discriminated against Japanese. Many of these laws stated that Asians could not become US citizens and they also stated that Asians could not be granted basic rights such as the right to own land. These laws were greatly detrimental to the newly-arrived immigrants because they denied them the right to own land and forced many of them who were farmers to become migrant workers. Some cite the formation of the Asiatic Exclusion League as the start of the anti-Japanese movement in California.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese racism and the belief in the Yellow Peril in California intensified after the Japanese victory over the Russian Empire during the Russo-Japanese War. On 11 October 1906, the San Francisco, California Board of Education passed a regulation in which children of Japanese descent would be required to attend racially-segregated separate schools. Japanese immigrants then made up approximately 1% of the population of California, and many of them had come under the treaty in 1894 which had assured free immigration from Japan.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The Japanese invasion of Manchuria, China, in 1931 and was roundly criticized in the US. In addition, efforts by citizens outraged at Japanese atrocities, such as the Nanking Massacre, led to calls for American economic intervention to encourage Japan to leave China. The calls played a role in shaping American foreign policy. As more and more unfavorable reports of Japanese actions came to the attention of the American government, embargoes on oil and other supplies were placed on Japan out of concern for the Chinese people and for the American interests in the Pacific. Furthermore, European-Americans became very pro-China and anti-Japan, an example being a grassroots campaign for women to stop buying silk stockings because the material was procured from Japan through its colonies.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Western public opinion was decidedly pro-China, with eyewitness reports by Western journalists on atrocities committed against Chinese civilians further strengthening anti-Japanese sentiments. African-American sentiments could be quite different than the mainstream and included organizations like the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World (PMEW), which promised equality and land distribution under Japanese rule. The PMEW had thousands of members hopefully preparing for liberation from white supremacy with the arrival of the Japanese Imperial Army.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The most profound cause of anti-Japanese sentiment outside of Asia started by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which propelled the United States into World War II. The Americans were unified by the attack to fight the Empire of Japan and its allies: the German Reich and the Kingdom of Italy.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor without a declaration of war was commonly regarded as an act of treachery and cowardice. After the attack, many non-governmental "Jap hunting licenses" were circulated around the country. "Life" magazine published an article on how to tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese by describing the shapes of their noses and the statures of their bodies. Additionally, Japanese conduct during the war did little to quell anti-Japanese sentiment. The flames of outrage were fanned by the treatment of American and other prisoners-of-war (POWs). The Japanese military's outrages included the murder of POWs, the use of POWs as slave laborers by Japanese industries, the Bataan Death March, the kamikaze attacks on Allied ships, the atrocities which were committed on Wake Island, and other atrocities which were committed elsewhere.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The US historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in US POW compounds to two key factors: a Japanese reluctance to surrender and a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were 'animals' or 'subhuman' and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to POWs." The latter reasoning is supported by Niall Ferguson: "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians [sic] — as Untermenschen." Weingartner believed that to explain why merely 604 Japanese captives were alive in Allied POW camps by October 1944.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Ulrich Straus, a US Japanologist, wrote that frontline troops intensely hated Japanese military personnel and were "not easily persuaded" to take or protect prisoners, as they believed that Allied personnel who surrendered got "no mercy" from the Japanese.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Allied soldiers believed that Japanese soldiers were inclined to feign surrender in order to launch surprise attacks. Therefore, according to Straus, "[s]enior officers opposed the taking of prisoners[,] on the grounds that it needlessly exposed American troops to risks..."


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: An estimated 112,000 to 120,000 Japanese migrants and Japanese Americans from the West Coast were interned regardless of their attitude to the US or to Japan. They were held for the duration of the war in the Continental US. Only a few members of the large Japanese population of Hawaii were relocated in spite of the proximity to vital military areas.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: A 1944 opinion poll found that 13% of the US public supported the genocide of all Japanese. Daniel Goldhagen wrote in his book, "So it is no surprise that Americans perpetrated and supported mass slaughters - Tokyo's firebombing and then nuclear incinerations - in the name of saving American lives, and of giving the Japanese what they richly deserved."


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Weingartner argued that there was a common cause between the mutilation of Japanese war dead and the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to Weingartner, both of these decisions were partially the result of the dehumanization of the enemy: "The widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another justification for decisions which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands." Two days after the Nagasaki bomb, US President Harry Truman stated: "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true."


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In the 1970s and the 1980s, the waning fortunes of heavy industry in the United States prompted layoffs and hiring slowdowns just as counterpart businesses in Japan were making major inroads into US markets. That was most visible than in the automobile industry whose lethargic Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) watched as their former customers bought Japanese imports from Honda, Subaru, Mazda, and Nissan because of the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis. (When Japanese automakers were establishing their inroads into the US and Canada. Isuzu, Mazda, and Mitsubishi had joint partnerships with a Big Three manufacturer (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) in which its products were sold as captives). Anti-Japanese sentiment was reflected in opinion polling at the time as well as in media portrayals. Extreme manifestations of anti-Japanese sentiment were occasional public destruction of Japanese cars and in the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American who was beaten to death after he had been mistaken for being Japanese.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Anti-Japanese sentiments were intentionally incited by US politicians as part of partisan politics designed to attack the Reagan presidency.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Other highly-symbolic deals, including the sale of famous American commercial and cultural symbols such as Columbia Records, Columbia Pictures, 7-Eleven, and the Rockefeller Center building to Japanese firms, further fanned anti-Japanese sentiment.