title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Popular culture of the period reflected American's growing distrust of Japan. Futuristic period pieces such as "Back to the Future Part II" and "RoboCop 3" frequently showed Americans as working precariously under Japanese superiors. The film "Blade Runner" showed a futuristic Los Angeles clearly under Japanese domination, with a Japanese majority population and culture, perhaps a reference to the alternate world presented in the novel "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick, the same author on which the film was based in which Japan had won World War II. Criticism was also lobbied in many novels of the day. The author Michael Crichton wrote "Rising Sun", a murder mystery (later made into a feature film) involving Japanese businessmen in the US. Likewise, in Tom Clancy's book, "Debt of Honor", Clancy implies that Japan's prosperity was caused primarily to unequal trading terms and portrayed Japan's business leaders acting in a power-hungry cabal.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: As argued by Marie Thorsten, however, Japanophobia was mixed with Japanophilia during Japan's peak moments of economic dominance in the 1980s. The fear of Japan became a rallying point for technonationalism, the imperative to be first in the world in mathematics, science, and other quantifiable measures of national strength necessary to boost technological and economic supremacy. Notorious "Japan-bashing" took place alongside the image of Japan as superhuman, which mimicked in some ways the image of the Soviet Union after it launched the first Sputnik satellite in 1957, and both events turned the spotlight on American education.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: US bureaucrats purposely pushed that analogy. In 1982, Ernest Boyer, a former US Commissioner of Education, publicly declared, "What we need is another Sputnik" to reboot American education, and he said that "maybe what we should do is get the Japanese to put a Toyota into orbit." Japan was both a threat and a model for human resource development in education and the workforce, which merged with the image of Asian-Americans as the "model minority."


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: Both the animosity and the superhumanizing peaked in the 1980s, when the term "Japan bashing" became popular, but had largely faded by the late 1990s. Japan's waning economic fortunes in the 1990s, now known as the Lost Decade, coupled with an upsurge in the US economy as the Internet took off, largely crowded anti-Japanese sentiment out of the popular media.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: The Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Tokyo, Japan. It is the resting place of thousands of not only Japanese soldiers, but also Korean and Taiwanese soldiers killed in various wars, mostly in World War II. The shrine includes 13 Class A criminals such as Hideki Tojo and Kōki Hirota, who were convicted and executed for their roles in the Japanese invasions of China, Korea, and other parts of East Asia after the remission to them under the Treaty of San Francisco. A total of 1,068 convicted war criminals are enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: In recent years, the Yasukuni Shrine has become a sticking point in the relations of Japan and its neighbours. The enshrinement of war criminals has greatly angered the people of various countries invaded by Imperial Japan. In addition, the shrine published a pamphlet stating that "<nowiki>[war]</nowiki> was necessary in order for us to protect the independence of Japan and to prosper together with our Asian neighbors" and that the war criminals were "cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces". While it is true that the fairness of these trials is disputed among jurists and historians in the West as well as in Japan, the former Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, has visited the shrine five times; every visit caused immense uproar in China and South Korea. His successor, Shinzo Abe, was also a regular visitor of Yasukuni. Some Japanese politicians have responded by saying that the shrine, as well as visits to it, is protected by the constitutional right of freedom of religion. Yasuo Fukuda, chosen Prime Minister in September 2007, promised "not to visit" Yasukuni.


title: Anti-Japanese sentiment

text: There are a variety of derogatory terms referring to Japan. Many of these terms are viewed as racist. However, these terms do not necessarily refer to the Japanese race as a whole; they can also refer to specific policies, or specific time periods in history.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Joan Vollmer (February 4, 1923 – September 6, 1951) was an influential participant in the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College, she became the roommate of Edie Parker (later married to Jack Kerouac). Their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s, where Vollmer was often at the center of marathon, all-night discussions. In 1946, she began a relationship with William S. Burroughs, later becoming his common-law wife. In 1951, Burroughs killed Vollmer. He claimed, and shortly thereafter denied, the killing was a drunken attempt at playing William Tell.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Joan Vollmer was born in Ossining, New York and raised in Loudonville, New York. She graduated from St. Agnes School in 1939 and attended Barnard College in New York City on a scholarship. Vollmer met Edie Parker at the West End Bar and the two moved in together in the first of a series of apartments in New York's Upper West Side that they shared with the writers, hustlers, alcoholics and drug addicts that later became known as the Beats. These included: William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, Herbert Huncke, Vickie Russell (a prostitute and addict who appears as "Mary" in Burroughs' novel "Junkie"), and Hal Chase, a Columbia University graduate student from Denver. In "The Women of the Beat Generation", Brenda Knight wrote:


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs was seminal in the creation of the Beat revolution; indeed the fires that stoked the Beat engine were started with Joan as patron and muse. Her apartment in New York was a nucleus that attracted many of the characters who played a vital role in the formation of the Beat; ... Brilliant and well versed in philosophy and literature, Joan was the whetstone against which the main Beat writers — Allen, Jack, and Bill — sharpened their intellect. Widely considered one of the most perceptive people in the group, her strong mind and independent nature helped bulldoze the Beats toward a new sensibility.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Vollmer married Paul Adams, a law student, in 1944, and had her first child, Julie, in August 1944. In 1945, Vollmer asked Adams, who was in the military at the time, to consent to divorce. Paul Adams divorced Vollmer upon returning from military service, reportedly appalled by her drug use and group of friends. In 1945, Kerouac introduced her to Benzedrine, which she used heavily for a few years. Early in 1946, she began a long-term relationship with Burroughs. The match was initially set up and encouraged by Ginsberg, who much admired Burroughs’ intellect and considered Joan his female counterpart. Once, Vollmer and Burroughs were arrested for having sex in a parked vehicle.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: In 1946, Vollmer was admitted to Bellevue Hospital in New York City due to psychotic episodes as a result of excessive amphetamine use. After being released, she began calling herself Mrs. William Burroughs despite the fact that Vollmer and Burroughs were never formally married. Vollmer and Burroughs had a son, William Burroughs, Jr., in 1947. Due to charges of drug abuse, drug distribution and lewd behavior, they relocated several times, moving first to New Waverly, Texas, then to New Orleans, and eventually to Mexico City. While living in New Orleans, Burroughs was arrested for heroin possession, during which time police searched Vollmer's home, unearthing letters from Ginsberg discussing a possible shipment of marijuana. The resulting criminal charges were grave; upon conviction, Burroughs would have served two to five years in Louisiana's infamous Angola State Prison. To avoid prosecution, Burroughs fled to Mexico City. Once he was settled, Vollmer joined him, along with her children.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Vollmer was reportedly unhappy in Mexico City. Benzedrine, her usual drug of choice, was unavailable, and she wrote to Ginsberg that she was "somewhat drunk from 8:00am on... Bill is fine in himself, and so are we jointly. The boys are lovely, easy and cheap (3 pesos = 40 cents) but my patience is infinite." Ted Morgan describes her in "Literary Outlaw" as a woman suffering from serious drug and alcohol addictions which had aged her noticeably. Her face was swollen; she limped due to a recent bout of polio. Herbert Huncke, who had stayed with the couple in Texas, was struck by Burroughs' indifference to Joan, stating that Burroughs "didn't like to be annoyed with her too much." In a 1980s interview with Ted Morgan, Burroughs described a domestic violence incident which occurred shortly after his arrival in Mexico in January 1950, stating that he "slapped" Joan after she threw his heroin in the toilet and recalled how he immediately went out to buy more, stating "What could she do? [Go back to Upstate] New York?" The same scene was recounted in Burroughs' semi-autobiographical "Junkie".


title: Joan Vollmer

text: In August 1950, a petition for divorce was initiated in Mexico by Burroughs, Vollmer, or both. (Although their marriage was a common-law marriage, in Mexico it was considered legal.) However, the application was later withdrawn by their Mexican attorney. The divorce was likely required due to Burroughs' stated desire to take custody of their son upon dissolution.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: On September 6, 1951, Burroughs shot Vollmer in the head, allegedly while trying to shoot a glass he had asked her to balance on her head during a drunken William Tell act. Vollmer died several hours later at the age of 28. Burroughs said he had 8–10 drinks and could not remember much of that night, while witnesses claimed they had two small glasses. The couple's four-year-old son, William Burroughs Jr., was in the room when the incident occurred. Burroughs gave different accounts of the shooting, denying his original William Tell story after intervention by his attorney, Bernabé Jurado.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Burroughs' brother Mortimer arrived from St. Louis to help his brother, providing thousands of dollars for legal costs to Jurado. Jurado used part of the money to bribe the judge, ballistics experts, and others involved in the case. Burroughs was held on murder charges for thirteen days before being released on bail.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Burroughs claimed that he dropped the gun and it misfired, then changed his account again to say that he accidentally misfired the gun while trying to sell the weapon to an acquaintance, an account which was corroborated by two witnesses who had been coached by Jurado. Burroughs testified that he had not known that the gun was loaded because he had not used it in three months, and that while he had been checking the gun, the carriage had slipped and it had misfired at Vollmer. As a result, he was charged with criminal negligence, which carried a maximum sentence of five years.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: For a year, Burroughs reported every Monday morning to the jail in Mexico City while Jurado worked to resolve the case. However, Jurado fled to Brazil after shooting a youth who had accidentally damaged his Cadillac. Burroughs decided to follow Jurado's example and fled back to the United States, where he was fortunate that Louisiana had not issued a warrant for his arrest on the previous narcotics charge. "In absentia", Burroughs was convicted of manslaughter in Vollmer's death. He received a two-year suspended sentence.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Vollmer was buried in Mexico City, and her parents took her two children back to the United States. Her daughter Julie went to live with her maternal grandparents in Loudonville and assumed the surname Vollmer, while Vollmer's son was raised by her in-laws.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: Friends of the couple were divided in opinion on the case. Ginsberg and Carr defended Burroughs and believed that Vollmer might have encouraged the William Tell incident, stating she had seemed suicidal when they visited her in 1951. Haldon Chase, who had also visited Burroughs and Vollmer in 1951 in Mexico City, distanced himself from Burroughs after Vollmer's death. Chase believed that Vollmer "had wanted to die," but that Burroughs story was "a sham, a put-up thing to release Bill, to let him commit the ultimate crime." In interviews with Ted Morgan from 1983-1986, Burroughs said "Allen was always making it out as a suicide on her part, and I do not accept that cop-out."


title: Joan Vollmer

text: In a 1954 letter to Ginsberg, Burroughs wrote about his fears that he had subconsciously wanted to kill Joan: "May yet attempt a story or some account of Joan's death. I think I am afraid. Not exactly to discover unconscious intent, it's more complex, more basic, and more horrible, as if the brain drew the bullet toward it." In the introduction to "Queer", Burroughs describes how Joan's death exposed him to the risk of possession by a malevolent entity he called "the Ugly Spirit". Later in life, Burroughs described the Ugly Spirit as "Monopolistic, acquisitive evil. Ugly evil. The ugly American", and took part in a shamanic ceremony with the explicit aim of exorcising the Ugly Spirit.


title: Joan Vollmer

text: The film "Beat" (2000) is a biographical account of the relationship between Vollmer and Burroughs. Vollmer is portrayed by Courtney Love and Burroughs by Kiefer Sutherland. The film centers on Vollmer's death. Her death is also portrayed in the 1991 film "Naked Lunch".


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephant cognition is animal cognition as present in elephants. Most contemporary ethologists view the elephant as one of the world's most intelligent animals. With a mass of just over , an elephant's brain has more mass than that of any other land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twenty times those of a typical elephant, a whale's brain is barely twice the mass of an elephant's brain. In addition, elephants have around 257 billion neurons. Elephant brains are similar to humans' and many other mammals' in terms of general connectivity and functional areas, with several unique structural differences. Although initially estimated to have as many neurons as a human brain, the elephant's cortex has about one-third of the number of neurons as a human brain.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephants manifest a wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, mimicry, play, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory, and communication. Further evidence suggests elephants may understand pointing: the ability to nonverbally communicate an object by extending a finger, or equivalent. It is thought they are equal with cetaceans and primates in this regard. Due to such claims of high intelligence and due to strong family ties of elephants, some researchers argue it is morally wrong for humans to cull them. Aristotle described the elephant as "the animal that surpasses all others in wit and mind."


title: Elephant cognition

text: The elephant (both Asian and African) has a very large and highly complex neocortex, a trait also shared by humans, apes and certain dolphin species.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Asian elephants have the greatest volume of cerebral cortex available for cognitive processing of all existing land animals. It exceeds that of any primate species, with one study suggesting elephants be placed in the category of great apes in terms of cognitive abilities for tool use and tool making.


title: Elephant cognition

text: The elephant brain exhibits a gyral pattern more complex and with more numerous convolutions, or brain folds, than that of humans, other primates, or carnivores, but less complex than that of cetaceans. Elephants are believed to rank equal with dolphins in terms of problem-solving abilities, and many scientists tend to rank elephant intelligence at the same level as cetaceans; a 2011 article published by ABC Science suggests that, "elephants [are as] smart as chimps, [and] dolphins".


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephants also have a very large and highly convoluted hippocampus, a brain structure in the limbic system that is much bigger than that of any human, primate or cetacean. The hippocampus of an elephant takes up about 0.7% of the central structures of the brain, comparable to 0.5% for humans and with 0.1% in Risso's dolphins and 0.05% in bottlenose dolphins.


title: Elephant cognition

text: The hippocampus is linked to emotion through the processing of certain types of memory, especially spatial. This is thought to be possibly why elephants suffer from psychological flashbacks and the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).


title: Elephant cognition

text: The encephalization quotient (EQ) (the size of the brain relative to body size) of elephants ranges from 1.13 to 2.36. The average EQ is 2.14 for Asian elephants, and 1.67 for African, with the overall average being 1.88. In comparison to other animals, the La Plata dolphin has an EQ of 1.67; the Ganges river dolphin of 1.55; the orca of 2.57; the bottlenose dolphin of 4.14; and the tucuxi dolphin of 4.56; chimpanzees at 2.49; dogs at 1.17, cats at 1.00; and mice at 0.50. Humans have an EQ of 7.44.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Comparing brain size at birth to the size of a fully developed adult's brain is one way to estimate how much an animal relies on learning as opposed to instinct. The majority of mammals are born with a brain close to 90% of the adult weight, while humans are born with 28%, bottlenose dolphins with 42.5%, chimpanzees with 54%, and elephants with 35%. This may indicate that elephants require the second highest amount of learning while developing (next to humans), and that their behavior is less instinctual than taught. This is further supported by the elephant's long juvenile period and large temporal lobes, which are associated in the storage of memories.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Spindle cells appear to play a central role in the development of intelligent behavior. As well as in humans and the rest of the great apes, spindle neurons are also found in the brains of both Asian and African elephants, as well as humpback whales, fin whales, killer whales, sperm whales, bottlenose dolphins, Risso's dolphins, and beluga whales. The remarkable similarity between the elephant brain and the human brain supports the thesis of convergent evolution.


title: Elephant cognition

text: The elephant has one of the most closely knit societies of any living species. Elephant families can only be separated by death or capture. Cynthia Moss, an ethologist specialising in elephants, recalls an event involving a family of African elephants:


title: Elephant cognition

text: Because elephants are so closely knit and highly matriarchal, a family can be devastated by the death of another (especially a matriarch), and some groups never recover their organization. Cynthia Moss has observed a mother, after the death of her calf, walk sluggishly at the back of a family for many days.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Edward Topsell stated in his publication "The History of Four-Footed Beasts" in 1607, "There is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of almighty God as the elephant." Elephants are believed to be on par with chimpanzees with regard to their cooperative skills.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephants are thought to be highly altruistic animals that even aid other species, including humans, in distress. In India, an elephant was helping locals lift logs by following a truck and placing the logs in pre-dug holes upon instruction from the mahout (elephant trainer). At a certain hole, the elephant refused to lower the log. The mahout came to investigate the hold-up and noticed a dog sleeping in the hole. The elephant only lowered the log when the dog was gone. When an elephant is hurt, other elephants (even if they are unrelated) aid them.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Moss has often seen elephants going out of their way to avoid hurting or killing a human, even when it was difficult for them (such as having to walk backwards to avoid a person). Joyce Poole documented an encounter told to her by Colin Francombe on Kuki Gallman's Laikipia Ranch. A ranch herder was walking alongside camels when he came across a family of elephants. The matriarch charged at him and knocked him over with her trunk, breaking one of his legs. In the evening, when he did not return, a search party was sent in a truck to find him. When the party discovered him, he was being guarded by an elephant. The animal charged the truck, so they shot over her and scared her away. The herdsman later told them that when he could not stand up, the elephant used her trunk to lift him under the shade of a tree. She guarded him for the day and would gently touch him with her trunk.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephants in Africa self-medicate by chewing on the leaves of a tree from the family Boraginaceae, which induces labour. Kenyans also use this tree for the same purpose.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Scientists often debate the extent to which elephants feel emotion. Elephants have been one of few species of mammals other than "Homo sapiens sapiens" and Neanderthals known to have or have had any recognizable ritual around death. Elephants show a keen interest in the bones of their own kind (even unrelated elephants that have died long ago). They are often seen gently investigating the bones with their trunks and feet while remaining very quiet. Sometimes elephants that are completely unrelated to the deceased still visit their graves.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephant researcher Martin Meredith recalls in his book an occurrence of a typical elephant death ritual as witnessed by Anthony Hall-Martin, a South African biologist who had studied elephants in Addo, South Africa, for over eight years. The entire family of a dead matriarch, including her young calf, were all gently touching her body with their trunks, trying to lift her. The elephant herd were all rumbling loudly. The calf was observed to be weeping and made sounds that sounded like a scream, but then the entire herd fell silent. They then began to throw leaves and dirt over the body and broke off tree branches to cover her. They spent the next two days quietly standing over her body. They sometimes left to get water or food, but they would always return.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Occurrences of elephants' behaving this way around human beings are common throughout Africa. On many occasions, they have buried dead or sleeping humans or aided them when they were hurt.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Meredith also recalls an event told to him by George Adamson, a Kenyan game warden, regarding an old Turkana woman who fell asleep under a tree after losing her way home. When she woke up, there was an elephant standing over her, gently touching her. She kept very still because she was very frightened. As other elephants arrived, they began to scream loudly and buried her under branches. She was found the next morning by the local herdsmen, unharmed.


title: Elephant cognition

text: George Adamson also recalls when he shot a bull elephant from a herd that kept breaking into the government gardens of northern Kenya. George gave the elephant's meat to local Turkana tribesmen and then dragged the rest of the carcass half a mile (800 m) away. That night, the other elephants found the body and took the shoulder blade and leg bone and returned the bones to the exact spot the elephant was killed.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Poole has observed wild African elephants at play on many occasions. They apparently do things for their own and others' entertainment. Elephants have been seen sucking up water, holding their trunk high in the air, and then spraying the water like a fountain.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Recent studies have shown that elephants can also mimic sounds they hear. The discovery was found when Mlaika, an orphaned elephant, would copy the sound of trucks passing by. So far, the only other animals that are thought to mimic sounds are whales, dolphins, bats, primates and birds.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Calimero, an African elephant who was 23 years old, also exhibited a unique form of mimicry. He was in a Swiss zoo with some Asian elephants. Asian elephants use chirps that are different from African elephants' deep rumbling noises. Calimero also began to chirp and not make the deep calls that his species normally would.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Kosik, an Indian elephant at Everland Amusement Park, South Korea can imitate up to five Korean words, including "sit", "no", "yes" and "lie down". Kosik produces these human-like sounds by putting his trunk in his mouth and then shaking it while breathing out, similar to how people whistle with their fingers.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Ecologist O’Connell-Rodwell’s conducted research in 1997 which concluded that elephants create low-frequency vibrations (seismic signals) through their trunks and feet to communicate across long distances. Elephants use contact calls to stay in touch with one another when they are out of one another's sight. In 2004, Joseph Soltis conducted a study to understand the low-frequency vocalization elephants used to communicate across short-distances. The research found that closely allied female elephants were more likely to produce 'rumbles' to other members at twice the rate of those who had lesser integrated members. Female elephants are able to remember and distinguish the contact calls of female family and bond group members from those of females outside of their extended family network. They can also distinguish between the calls of family units depending upon how frequently they came across them.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Poole, who is part of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in Kenya, has demonstrated vocal learning and imitation in elephants of sounds made by each other and in the environment. She is beginning to research whether sounds made by elephants have dialects, a trait that is rare in the animal kingdom.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephants show a remarkable ability to use tools, using their trunks like arms. Elephants have been observed digging holes to drink water and then ripping bark from a tree, chewing it into the shape of a ball, filling in the hole and covering over it with sand to avoid evaporation, then later going back to drink from the same spot. They also often use branches to swat flies or scratch themselves. Asian elephants have also been known to drop large rocks onto an electric fence to break the fence or to cut off the electricity. Asian elephants in India have been known to break electric fences using logs and clear the surrounding wires using their tusks to provide a safe passageway.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Like several other species that are able to produce abstract art, elephants, using their trunks to hold brushes, create paintings which some have compared to the work of abstract expressionists. Elephant art is now commonly featured at zoos, and is shown in museums and galleries around the world. Ruby at the Phoenix Zoo is considered the original elephant art star, and her paintings have sold for as much as $25,000. Ruby chose her own colors and was said to have a keen sense of which color she wished to use. The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project, an "elephant art academy" in New York, teaches retired elephants to paint. For paintings that resemble identifiable objects, teachers give the elephants guidance. An example of this was shown in the TV program "Extraordinary Animals", in which elephants at a camp in Thailand were able to draw portraits with flowers. Although the images were drawn by the elephants, there was always a trainer assisting and guiding the movement.


title: Elephant cognition

text: A popular video showing an elephant painting a picture of another elephant became widespread on Internet news and video websites. The website Snopes.com, which specializes in debunking urban legends, lists the video as "partly true", in that the elephant produced the brush strokes, but notes that the similarity of the produced paintings is indicative of a learned sequence of strokes rather than a creative effort on the part of the elephant.


title: Elephant cognition

text: It was noted by ancient Romans and Asian elephant handlers (mahouts) that elephants can distinguish melodies. Performing circus elephants commonly follow musical cues, and Adam Forepaugh and Barnum & Bailey circuses even featured "elephant bands". German evolutionary biologist Bernhard Rensch studied an elephant's ability to distinguish music, and in 1957 published the results in "Scientific American". Rensch's test elephant could distinguish 12 tones in the music scale and could remember simple melodies. Even though played on varying instruments and at different pitches, timbres and meters, she recognized the tones a year and a half later. These results have been backed up by the Human-Elephant Learning Project which studies elephant intelligence.


title: Elephant cognition

text: An elephant named Shanthi at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. displayed the ability to play the harmonica and various horn instruments. She reportedly always ended her songs with a crescendo.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Recording group Thai Elephant Orchestra is an ensemble of elephants who improvise music on specially made instruments with minimal interaction from their handlers. The orchestra was co-founded by pachyderm expert Richard Lair, who works at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, and David Sulzer (artist name, Dave Soldier) who studies the role of dopaminergic synapses in memory consolidation, learning, and behavior at Columbia University. According to neurobiologist Aniruddh Patel, the orchestra's star drummer named Pratidah, exhibits musicality, stating: "Either when drumming alone or with the orchestra, Pratidah was remarkably steady". He also noted that she developed a swing-type rhythm pattern when playing with other elephants.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephants are able to spend substantial time working on problems. They are able to change their behavior radically to face new challenges, a hallmark of complex intelligence.


title: Elephant cognition

text: A 2010 experiment revealed that in order to reach food, "elephants can learn to coordinate with a partner in a task requiring two individuals to simultaneously pull two ends of the same rope to obtain a reward", putting them on an equal footing with chimpanzees in terms of their level of cooperative skills.


title: Elephant cognition

text: A study by Dr. Naoko Irie of Tokyo University has shown that elephants demonstrate skills at arithmetic. The experiment "consist[ed] of dropping varying numbers of apples into two buckets in front of the [Ueno Zoo] elephants and then recording how often they could correctly choose the bucket holding the most fruit." When more than one apple was being dropped into the bucket, this meant that the elephants had to "keep running totals in their heads to keep track of the count." The results showed that "Seventy-four percent of the time, the animals correctly picked the fullest bucket. An African elephant named Ashya scored the highest with an amazing eighty-seven percent … Humans in this same contest managed a success rate of just sixty-seven percent." The study was also filmed to ensure its accuracy.


title: Elephant cognition

text: A study on Discovery News found that elephants, during an intelligence test employing food rewards, had found shortcuts that not even the experiment's researchers had thought of.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Bandula worked out how to break open or unlock several of the pieces of equipment used to keep the shackles on her feet secure. The most complex device was a Brummel hook, a device that closes when two opposite points are slid together. Bandula used to fiddle with the hook until it slid apart when it was aligned. Once she had freed herself, she would help the other elephants escape.


title: Elephant cognition

text: In Bandula's case and certainly with other captive elephants, there was an element of deception involved during the escapes, such as the animals looking around making sure no one was watching.


title: Elephant cognition

text: In another case, a female elephant worked out how she could unscrew iron rods with an eye hole that was an inch (2.5 cm) thick. She used her trunk to create leverage and then untwisted the bolt.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Ruby, an Asian elephant at Phoenix Zoo would often eavesdrop on conversations keepers would have talking about her. When she heard the word "paint", she became very excitable. The colors she favored were green, yellow, blue and red. Once, a fire truck came and parked outside her enclosure where a man had just had a heart attack. The lights on the truck were flashing red, white and yellow. When Ruby painted later on in the day, she chose those colors. She also showed a preference for colors that the keepers wore.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Harry Peachey, an elephant trainer, developed a cooperative relationship with an elephant named Koko. Koko would help the keepers out, "prompting" them to encourage him with various commands and words that Koko would learn. Peachey stated that elephants are almost predisposed to cooperate and work with humans as long as they are treated with respect and sensitivity. Koko worked out when his keepers needed a bit of "elephant help" when they were transferring the females of the group to another zoo. When the keepers wanted to transfer a female, they would usually say her name, followed by the word "transfer" (e.g., "Connie transfer"). Koko soon figured out what this meant. If the keepers asked an elephant to transfer and it did not budge, they would say, "Koko, give me a hand." When he heard this, Koko would help. After 27 years of working with elephants, Peachey firmly believes that they can understand the semantics and syntax of some of the words they hear. This is something thought to be very rare in the animal kingdom.


title: Elephant cognition

text: According to one source, elephants can figure out how to retrieve distant objects that they cannot otherwise reach by using a stick.


title: Elephant cognition

text: In the wild, elephants display clever methods of finding resources. Elephants have keen memories, and when evaluating foraging locations, respond more strongly to long‐term patterns of productivity than to immediate forage conditions. In times of scarcity, they return to areas which have been reliable over many years rather than the last sites visited. They also favor travelling on dirt roads in the dry season, as easy walking terrain to conserve energy.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Although it is common for herbivores to find salt licks or to ingest inorganic matter for sodium, elephants in the Mount Elgon National Park, Kenya, have learned to venture deep into Kitum Cave to utilize its minerals in what has been described as 'quarrying' and 'salt mining'. Although the elephants clearly do not understand that they require salt in their diet, they show interest only in the cation-rich zeolite, tusking it into smaller edible fragments. This activity is performed in groups, and years of tusk marks indicate the knowledge of the cave has been passed down over generations. Poaching has caused the elephants to alter their behavior and avoid the more widely known caves.


title: Elephant cognition

text: In 1956, W. H. Thorpe explained: The ability to pull up food which is suspended by a thread, the pulled in loop being held by the foot while the bird reaches with its beak for the next pull, is doubtfully inborn and it has been subject to many experiments. The act appears at first sight to be a real and sudden solution of the problem from the start, and thus to qualify for inclusion under 'insight learning.' Successful performance in this task has been documented in well over ten bird species.More recently, Bernd Heinrich and Thomas Bugnyar concluded that ravens' "behaviour in accessing meat on a string is not only a product of rapid learning but may involve some understanding of cause–effect relation between string, food and certain body parts."


title: Elephant cognition

text: String-pulling behavior has been likewise studied in seven Asian elephants by presenting them with a retractable (bungee) cord. In this setup, the cord is tied to a heavy log a few meters away from the elephant. A sugarcane (a favorite elephant treat) is attached to the cord, and can only be retrieved by repeated, coordinated, action of the trunk and another body part. The results were clearcut:All seven logging elephants fully mastered the string-drawing sequence within 1–3 experimental sessions. In all cases of retractable rope pulling, the sequence involved pulling by the trunk, and then securing the rope by either foot or mouth. After 2–6 coordinated pulls, while still holding the rope with either mouth or foot, the elephants disengaged the sugarcane from the rope while still using mouth or forefoot as an anchor, and then consumed the sugarcane. All elephants seemed to be flexible about the use of anchor, interchangeably using mouth, foreleg, or both.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Elephants have joined a small group of animals, including great apes, bottlenose dolphins and Eurasian magpies, that exhibit self-awareness. The study was conducted with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) using elephants at the Bronx Zoo in New York. Although many animals respond to a mirror, very few show any evidence that they recognize it is in fact themselves in the mirror reflection.


title: Elephant cognition

text: The Asian elephants in the study also displayed this type of behavior when standing in front of a mirror – they inspected the mirror and brought food close to the mirror for consumption.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Evidence of elephant self-awareness was shown when the elephant Happy repeatedly touched a painted "X" on her head with her trunk, a mark which could only be seen in the mirror. Happy ignored another mark made with colorless paint that was also on her forehead to ensure she was not merely reacting to a smell or feeling.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Frans De Waal, who ran the study, stated, "These parallels between humans and elephants suggest a convergent cognitive evolution possibly related to complex society and cooperation."


title: Elephant cognition

text: There has been considerable debate over the issue of culling African elephants in South Africa's Kruger National Park as a means of controlling the population. Some scientists and environmentalists argue that it is "unnecessary and inhumane" to cull them since "elephants resemble humans in a number of ways, not least by having massive brains, social bonds that appear to be empathetic, long gestations, high intelligence, offspring that require an extended period of dependent care, and long life spans." A South African animal rights group asked in a statement anticipating the announcement, "How much like us do elephants have to be before killing them becomes murder?"


title: Elephant cognition

text: Others argue that culling is necessary when biodiversity is threatened. However, the protection of biodiversity argument has been questioned by some animal rights advocates who argue that the animal which most greatly threatens and damages biodiversity is humanity, so if we are not willing to cull our own species we cannot morally justify culling another.


title: Elephant cognition

text: This section summarizes experiments that cannot be readily reconciled with the view that elephants are highly intelligent. These experiments, in turn, rely on pioneering early work with dogs and cats.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Edward Thorndike argued that his cats and dogs escaped puzzle boxes through a mindless process of trial and error. Because understanding something as simple as pulling a loop to open a door must occur rapidly or not at all, it should have induced, at some point during the repeated introductions of his animals into the box, a sudden reduction in escape time. The actual, gradual, slope of the time-curve that he did observe suggested to him that his subjects failed to understand the cause-effect relationships between their actions and escape.


title: Elephant cognition

text: In 1957, researchers reported that a young Asian elephant needed 330 trials, over a period of several days, to consistently choose the reinforced response in her first discrimination task. In an experiment which employed another sense modality, an 8-year-old took 7.5 months to distinguish 12 tones.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Similarly, in discrimination experiments with Asian elephants in the logging camps of Myanmar, only 13 Burmese elephants mastered black/white or large/small visual discrimination tasks, while 7 elephants failed to master the task.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Like Thorndike's cats and dogs, the 13 elephants that did master a black/white or large/small discrimination task did so gradually, over several sessions. The slope of the time-curve again suggested the elephants failed to understand the cause-effect relationships between lid removal and food retrieval.


title: Elephant cognition

text: The pre-training that preceded these Myanmar discrimination experiments involved learning to remove a lid from a bucket or to displace a box to uncover a hole in the ground. On average, the 20 elephants required 3.4 sessions to master the pre-training task.


title: Elephant cognition

text: Thorndike's dogs and cats learned to escape a box by, for instance, pulling a loop attached to a string that opened the box. On subsequent introductions to an open box when string-pulling no longer served a purpose, the animal continued to pull a string before getting out of the box. Thorndike concluded that the animal solved the task mechanically, without understanding the causal link between string-pulling and escaping.


title: Elephant cognition

text: A conceptually similar experiment involved pre-training four logging Asian elephants to remove food from a cover-less bucket by inserting their trunk into the bucket. Next, a treat was placed at the bottom of a bucket and, at the same time, the bucket was covered with a lid. The elephants were then trained to obtain the treat by removing the lid. Once this behavioral sequence was established, a treat was placed inside the bucket and, at the same time, the lid was placed on the ground alongside the bucket, so that the lid no longer obstructed access to the food.


title: Elephant cognition

text: As in the Thorndike case, if the elephants understand the nature of the task, they should ignore the lid on the ground and retrieve the reward directly, as they used to do in pre-training sessions before the lid was introduced. But if they fail to understand the causal link between lid removal and food retrieval, they might continue to remove the lid before retrieving the food. The observations supported Thorndike's mechanical learning hypothesis.


title: Annette Charles

text: Annette Charles ( Cardona; March 5, 1948 – August 3, 2011) was an American actress, dancer, and educator best known for her role as Charlene "Cha-Cha" DiGregorio in the 1978 feature film "Grease". She made several appearances on television as well.


title: Annette Charles

text: Charles became an actress, and was best known for her role as Charlene "Cha Cha" DiGregorio in the 1978 feature film "Grease". She made several appearances on television as well.


title: Annette Charles

text: Charles later earned a bachelor's degree from Antioch University Los Angeles in psychology and theater, and a master's degree in social work from New York University before becoming a speech communication professor in the Chicano Studies department at California State University, Northridge.


title: Annette Charles

text: Charles died on August 3, 2011 in Los Angeles from lung cancer, aged 63. She had initially been hospitalized for pneumonia.


title: Gabrielle Miller

text: Gabrielle Sunshine Miller (born November 9, 1973) is a Canadian actress who, since the start of her career in 1993, has appeared in many television films and series episodes, including leading roles in two of Canada's most popular concurrently-running series, the sitcom "Corner Gas" (2004–09) and the comedy-drama "Robson Arms" (2005–08). She was also a regular or semi-regular on the TV series "Pasadena" (2002), "Alienated" (2003–04), "Call Me Fitz" (2012–13), "Mother Up!" (2013) and "Good Witch" (2015–16).


title: Gabrielle Miller

text: She was a cast member of the Canadian television series "Corner Gas", for which she won a shared Gemini Awards for Best Ensemble Performance in a Comedy Program or Series in 2007 and two Leo Awards for Best Performance or Host in a Music, Comedy, or Variety Program or Series (2005 and 2006).


title: Gabrielle Miller

text: She is also featured in the CTV series "Robson Arms" for which she won another Leo Award for Best Supporting Performance by a Female


title: Gabrielle Miller

text: in a Dramatic Series in 2007. The limited-length seasons of both programs allowed her to appear in both series simultaneously.


title: Gabrielle Miller

text: Miller also had a recurring role on the television series "Alienated" during 2004, giving her the rare distinction of starring in three ongoing series during the same calendar year.


title: Gabrielle Miller

text: Miller's TV and film career dates back to 1993, and she has appeared in a variety of Canadian and American productions, including "" (where she played two different roles), "The X-Files" (where she played two different roles), "Stargate SG-1", "", Outer Limits and "Frasier". In 2002, she was a cast member on the short-lived American drama series "Breaking News". She also made appearances on "Sliders" as Fling, and "NCIS" as Andrea Mavrey.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The Houthi insurgency in Yemen, also known as the Houthi rebellion, the Sa'dah War, or the Sa'dah conflict, was a military rebellion pitting Zaidi Shia Houthis (though the movement also includes Sunnis) against the Yemeni military that began in Northern Yemen and has since escalated into a full-scale civil war. The conflict was sparked in 2004 by the government's attempt to arrest Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, a Zaidi religious leader of the Houthis and a former parliamentarian on whose head the government had placed a $55,000 bounty.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Initially, most of the fighting took place in Sa'dah Governorate in northwestern Yemen, but some of the fighting spread to neighbouring governorates Hajjah, 'Amran, al-Jawf and the Saudi province of Jizan. After the Houthi takeover of the capital city Sanaa in late 2014, the insurgency became a full-blown civil war with a major Saudi-led intervention in Yemen beginning in March 2015.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In 1962, a revolution in North Yemen ended over 1,000 years of rule by Zaidi Imams, who claimed descent from the Hashemites. Sa'dah, in the north, was their main stronghold and since their fall from power the region was largely ignored economically and remains underdeveloped. The Yemeni government has little authority in Sa'dah.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: During Yemen's 1994 civil war, the Wahhabis, an Islamic group adhering to a strict version of Sunni Islam found in neighboring Saudi Arabia, helped the government in its fight against the secessionist south. Zaidis complain the government has subsequently allowed the Wahhabis too strong a voice in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, for its part, worries that strife instigated by the Zaidi sect so close to Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia could stir up groups in Saudi Arabia itself.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The conflict was sparked in 2004 by the government's attempt to arrest Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, a Zaidi religious leader of the Houthis and a former parliamentarian on whose head the government had placed a $55,000 bounty.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi movement accused Ali Abdullah Saleh of massive financial corruption and criticized him for being backed by Saudi Arabia and United States at the expense of the Yemeni people and Yemen's sovereignty.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: When armed conflict erupted between the Yemeni government and Houthis for the first time in 2004, the then Yemeni president accused Houthis and other Islamic opposition parties of trying to overthrow the government and the republican system. As such, the Yemeni government alleged that the Houthis were seeking to overthrow it and to implement Zaidi religious law.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Houthi leaders for their part rejected the accusation, stating that they had never rejected the president or the republican system but were only defending themselves against government attacks on their community. The Houthis said that they were "defending their community against discrimination" and government aggression. The Yemeni government has accused Iran of directing and financing the insurgency.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: According to a February 2015 "Newsweek" report, Houthis are fighting "for things that all Yemenis crave: government accountability, the end to corruption, regular utilities, fair fuel prices, job opportunities for ordinary Yemenis and the end of Western influence."


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In an interview with the "Yemen Times", Hussein Al-Bukhari, a Houthi insider, said that the Houthis' preferred political system is a republic with a system of elections where women can also hold political positions and furthering that they do not seek to form a cleric-led government after the model of the Islamic Republic of Iran for "we cannot apply this system in Yemen because the followers of the Shafi doctrine are bigger in number than the Zaydis."


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: From June to August 2004, government troops battled supporters of al-Houthi in the north. Estimates of the dead range from 500 to 1,000. On 10 September, Yemeni forces killed al-Houthi. Since then, the rebellion has been led by one of his brothers, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, while his father, Badr Eddin al-Houthi, became the group's spiritual leader.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Between March and April 2005, around 1,500 people were killed in a resurgence of fighting between government forces and supporters of the slain cleric, now rebranded as Houthis.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In May 2005, the rebels rejected an offer of a presidential pardon by President Ali Abdullah Saleh after their conditions for surrender were refused by the government, and minor clashes continued. On May 21, the government released estimates of the impact of the insurgency, announcing that the insurgency was responsible for 552 deaths, 2,708 injures, and over US$ 270 million in economic damages.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 23 June 2005, the Houthis' military commander Abdullah al-Ruzami surrendered to Yemeni authorities after tribal mediators worked out a deal with the government.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Fighting broke out again in November 2005 and continued until early 2006. The pro-government Hamdan tribe, led by Sheikh Abdullah al-Awjari, battled with pro-Houthi tribes and Houthis tried to assassinate a Ministry of Justice official in Dhamar. The fighting ended before the presidential elections that year and in March 2006, the Yemeni government freed more than 600 captured Shī'a fighters. There was no data with regards to casualties in 2006, but they were said to be significantly lower than those of the previous year.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Fighting broke out on 28 January 2007, when militants attacked a number of government installations in Saada Governorate, causing 26 casualties; with six soldiers killed and leaving a further 20 injured.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Further attacks on 31 January left six more soldiers dead and 10 wounded. A further ten soldiers died and 20 were wounded in an attack on an army roadblock near the Saudi Arabian border on 1 February. Though there was no official confirmation of militant casualties in the attacks, government sources claim three rebel fighters were killed in a security operation following the 31 January attacks.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In February, the government launched a major offensive against the rebels involving 30,000 troops. By 19 February, almost 200 members of the security forces and over 100 rebels had died in the fighting. A further 160 rebels were killed in the subsequent two weeks. A French student was also killed.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: A ceasefire agreement was reached on 16 June 2007. The rebel leaders agreed to lay down arms and go into exile in Qatar (by whom the agreement had been mediated), while the government agreed to release rebel prisoners, help pay for reconstruction and assist with IDPs returning home. In total some 1,500 people were killed by the conflict in 2007, including 800 government troops, 600 rebels and 100 civilians.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Armed incidents resumed in April 2008, when seven Yemeni soldiers died in a rebel ambush on 29 April. On 2 May, 15 worshippers were killed and 55 wounded in a bombing at the Bin Salman Mosque in Sa'dah as crowds of people left Friday prayers. The government blamed the rebels for the bombing, but the Houthis denied responsibility. Shortly after the attack, three soldiers and four rebels died in overnight skirmishes.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 12 May, clashes between Yemeni soldiers and rebels near the border with Saudi Arabia killed 13 soldiers and 26 rebels. During fighting in May 2008, a total of 1,000 government forces were killed and 3,000 injured. Some 70,000 people were displaced by the fighting. President Saleh declared an end to fighting in the northern Sa'dah governorate on 17 July 2008.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 11 August 2009, the government promised to use an "iron fist" against the rebels. The Yemeni troops, backed by tanks and fighter aircraft, launched a fresh offensive, code-named Operation Scorched Earth, against the Houthis in the northern Sa'ada province. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced by the fighting.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 17 September, more than 80 people were killed in an air raid on a camp for displaced people in northern Yemen.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The conflict took on an international dimension late in the month. Clashes were reported between the Houthis and Saudi security forces near the border. Also, Yemeni officials captured a boat in the Red Sea that was transporting anti-tank shells and, according to some reports, five Iranian "instructors" sent to help the Houthis. Various official Iranian sources responded, calling this claim a politically motivated fabrication, and stating that the ship was traveling for business activities carrying no consignment.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In early November the rebels stated that Saudi Arabia was permitting Yemeni army units to launch attacks from across the border at a base in Jabal al-Dukhan, charges which were denied by the Yemeni government. In late October, heavy clashes in the area of Razih led to the Houthis capturing two military headquarters and killing Yemeni General Amr Ali Mousa Al-Uuzali. In early November, General Ali Salem al-Ameri and regional security chief Ahmed Bawazeir were killed in a Houthi ambush as they were returning from Saudi Arabia.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The conflict took on an international dimension on 4 November 2009 when the Houthis attacked the Saudi border, killed one of the Saudi border guards, seized Al Khubah Village and other villages. The Houthis accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni government in attacks against them. It was not clear what type of support they meant. The Saudi government denied this. The rebels shot dead a Saudi security officer in a cross-border attack. The rebels took control of a mountainous section inside Saudi Arabia, in the border region of Jabal al-Dukhan and occupied two villages inside Saudi territory.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The houthis had entered Saudi territory and attacked patrols, and that a second soldier later died from wounds sustained in the same clash. On 5 November, Saudi Arabia responded by launching heavy air strikes on rebels in northern Yemen, and moved troops nearer the border. Saudi government officials said only that the air force had bombed Yemeni rebels who had seized a border area inside the kingdom, which they said had now been recaptured. The officials said at least 40 rebels had been killed in the fighting. The Saudi government adviser said no decision had yet been taken to send troops across the border, but made clear Riyadh was no longer prepared to tolerate the Yemeni rebels.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The Saudi assault continued the following day, as Saudi residents near the southern border of Jizan Province were evacuated. At the same time, a Houthi spokesman reported to the media that they had captured Saudi troops. On 18 November, Yemen forces killed two Houthi commanders, Abbas Aaida and Abu Haider. On 19 November, Yemeni forces took control of al-Malaheez, killing the local commander Ali al-Qatwani.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: U.S. President Barack Obama claimed he had authorised the strikes against al-Qaeda. On 20 December, Saudi air strike killed some civilians. According to a spokesman for the Houthis, a Saudi attack killed 54 people in the town of Al Nadheer in the northern province of Sa'dah. The group also claimed that Saudi forces were advancing on the nearby town of Zawa, also in Sa'dah, and had fired more than 200 shells.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 22 December, the Houthis stated that they managed to repulse Saudi Arabian forces trying to infiltrate into the province of Sa'dah, killing an unspecified number of Saudi soldiers in a battle in the border region.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The fighting between Yemeni and Saudi forces and Houthis killed at least 119 Yemeni government forces, 263 Houthis, 277 civilians and 7 foreign civilians. Saudi casualties were confirmed at 82 at the time. With more soldiers killed in subsequent clashes and missing soldiers being found dead, however, the casualties rose to 133 killed by 22 January 2010. The number of missing was put at six.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In early January 2010, the Houthis chose the Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to mediate in their political standoff with the Yemeni government and to find a solution to the conflict. Saudi cleric Mohamad al-Arefe criticized this choice, a preacher at Riyadh's central mosque, who dismissed al-Sistani as "an infidel and debauched." The remarks by the Saudi cleric were considered extremely insulting by Shi'as around the world, causing major outrage in some Shi'a dominant countries like Iraq, Iran and Lebanon.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 13 January 2010, Operation Blow to the Head was launched in an attempt by the government to capture the city of Sa'adah. Security forces claimed they killed 34 and arrested at least 25 Houthis and killed al-Qaeda in Yemen leader Abdullah al-Mehdar in the next two weeks of fighting.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 25 January 2010, the Houthis offered a truce. Houthi leader Abdul Malek al-Houthi said they would stop fighting to prevent further civilian casualties and the withdrawal was a gesture for peace, but warned that if the Saudis were to continue fighting the Houthis would go over into open warfare. A Saudi general announced that the Houthis had stopped fighting and were not on Saudi land anymore and that in response the Saudis also stopped fighting saying, "The battle has ended by God's will." But the Saudi king denied the Houthis had withdrawn saying they were forced out, and declared military victory for the end of their conflict with the Houthis. There have however been allegations that the Saudis launched new air raids on 29 January, thus breaking the truce.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 1 January the Yemeni government offered a conditional cease-fire. The cease-fire had five conditions: the re-establishment of safe passage on roads, the surrender of mountain strongholds, a full withdrawal from all local authority property, the return of all military and public equipment seized during hostilities and the release of all the detained civilians and soldiers. On 30 January, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi released a video wherein he blamed the government for the recent round of fighting but said that: "Nevertheless, and for the fourth time, I announce our acceptance of the [government's] five conditions [for an end to the conflict] after the aggression stops ... the ball is now in the other party's court."


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: After the truce was accepted on 30 January, there were still some clashes between the Houthis and both Saudi and Yemeni forces. Therefore, on 31 January the Yemeni government rejected the truce and launched a new round of attacks, killing 24 people.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In April, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam declared that rebels had captured the Manaba district in Sa'dah, with little government resistance. Government troops declared they had killed 30 Houthis who had tried to penetrate into Harf Sufyan District.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On July 17, 2010, the Houthis warned on their website that the government was preparing for another offensive against the Houthis. They said the government had been digging trenches from the Sanaʽa to Sa'ada. They claimed the army was trying to amass servicemen in villages and that soldiers in Amshia Bsfian region were creating an army stronghold on Mount Guide. The report came as the Yemeni government blamed Houthi fighters for recent ethnic clashes which had killed 11 people, including two soldiers, and for the kidnapping of two people in a market. The Houthis have denied these allegations and have claimed that it was the work of the government.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On July 20, 2010, clashes broke out between Houthis and members of an army-backed tribe, led by Sheikh Sagheer Aziz, in the region of Souffian. A Houthi commander declared that the clashes had broken out because of Yemeni Army attacks on Houthis and local pro-Houthi tribes. Forty-nine people were reported killed in the clashes, including 20 tribal and 10 Houthi fighters. The Houthis also managed to surround the Yemeni military bases in the region.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Over the following days the Yemeni army and pro-government Bin Aziz tribes continued to clash with the Houthis. The government claimed that in the following two days, 20 fighters were killed on each side. A Houthi spokesman denied these claims, stating only three Houthi fighters had been killed in the clashes. Both sides have blamed each other for starting the clashes. The UN expressed great concern about the situation in North Yemen.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On July 23, Houthi spokesman Vayf-Allah al-Shami said calm had returned to the region and that a government committee was trying to mediate a cease-fire between the Houthis and the Bin Aziz tribes in the Souffian region.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On July 27, Houthis seized a military post at al-Zaala in Harf Sufyan, capturing 200 soldiers of the army's Republican Guard. Tribal sources claimed they had inflicted 200 fatalities on the Houthis in al-Amsheya while suffering only 30 dead themselves. Houthi spokesman Abdul Salam denied the high number of killed and said the claims were highly exaggerated. Houthis said they recovered the bodies of 17 of their fighters, including that of rebel commander Abu Haidar, near the house of Sheikh Saghir Aziz in Al-Maqam, near Al-Zaala.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On July 29, the Houthis released the 200 soldiers they had captured as a goodwill gesture. In total some 70 people had died since the clashes started.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On November 22, one soldier was killed and two wounded in a roadside bombing. The next day 23 Houthi fighters and supporters were killed and 30 injured by a car bomb targeting a Shi'a religious procession in al-Jawf province. On November 26, two Shi'a mourners were killed and eight injured by a bomb while on their way to Sa'adah city to attend Badreddin al-Houthi's funeral.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In total, between 195 and 281 people were killed during this round violence, with the majority of the casualties on the Houthi side.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: A major demonstration by over 16,000 protestors took place in Sanaʽa on 27 January. On 2 February, President Saleh announced he would not run for reelection in 2013 and that he would not pass power to his son. On 3 February, 20,000 people protested against the government in Sanaʽa, and others in Aden, in a "Day of Rage" called for by Tawakel Karman. On the same day, soldiers, armed members of the General People's Congress and many others held a pro-government counter-demonstration in Sanaʽa.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On February 27, Abdul Malik al-Houthi announced support for the pro-democracy protests and the effort to effect regime change, as had happened in Tunisia and Egypt. Following these statements, large crowds of Houthis joined in protests across Northern Yemen.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Houthi fighters entered Sa'ada on March 19, engaging in a drawn out battle with the pro-government forces of Sheikh Uthman Mujalli. They seized control of the city on March 24, after destroying Sheikh Mujalli's house and forcing the local governor to flee. The Houthis established military checkpoints at the entrances to the city after police deserted their posts and were relocated to army camps elsewhere.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On March 26, Houthi rebels declared the creation of their own administration in Saada Governorate, independent from Yemeni authorities. A former arms dealer was appointed governor by the Houthis, the previous governor having fled to Sanaa.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On July 8, 23 people were killed in fighting between the Houthis and the opposition Islah party in al-Jawf governorate. The fighting erupted after the governor of al-Jawf fled, opposition tribes took control of the governorate, and the Houthis refused to hand over a Yemeni military base which they had seized several months earlier. Fighting continued until July 11, with more than 30 people killed. The Houthis claimed that some elements of the pro-Islah militias had links to al-Qaeda.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On July 28, over 120 people were killed as the Houthis launched an offensive to take over government buildings in al-Jawf. Fighting in Jawf lasted for four months, in which time Sunni tribes claimed to have killed 470 Houthis, while acknowledging 85 casualties of their own. The Houthis eventually took control of al-Jawf governorate.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On November 9, after several days of heavy fighting, the Houthis managed to break through defense lines of the pro-government Kashir and Aahm tribes in Hajjah Governorate, seizing control of the Kuhlan Ash Sharaf District and advancing towards the port of Midi, thereby gaining access to the sea. Through Hajjah, the Houthis would be able to launch an assault on the Yemeni capital Sanaʽa. By taking Kuhlan Ash Sharaf, the Houthis managed to gain control over a highway linking San'a to the sea.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On November 15, clashes between Houthis and Islah party militia restarted in al-Jawf, after an Islah party member tried to blow himself up during the al-Ghadeer festival, in Al Maton District but was captured and killed by the Houthis. A total of 10 people died in the ensuing fighting.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On December 19, Houthis stormed a Sunni Islamist school in the Shaharah District of 'Amran governorate, injuring one teacher and expelling all teachers and students from the school. Houthis then took up positions inside the school.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 23 November, Saleh signed a power-transfer agreement brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh, under which he would transfer his power to his Vice-President within 30 days and leave his post as president by February 2012, in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Although the GCC deal was accepted by the JMP, it was rejected by many of the protesters and the Houthis.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: A presidential election was held in Yemen on 21 February 2012. With a reported 65 percent turnout, Abdrabbuh Mansur al-Hadi won 99.8% of the vote, and took the oath of office in Yemen's parliament on 25 February 2012. Saleh returned home the same day to attend Hadi's presidential inauguration. After months of protests, Saleh had resigned from the presidency and formally transferred power to his successor, marking the end of his 33-year rule.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Throughout the year, some 200 people were killed in clashes between Houthis and Salafi militias in Sa'dah province.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On February 26, 2012, heavy fighting occurred in Hajjah governorate as Houthis fought Sunni tribesmen loyal to the Al-Islah party. At least seven fighters from the Hojjor tribe were killed and nine others injured, while in the Ahem area nine bodies were found, belonging to Houthi fighters. Houthis launched an assault backed by artillery on al-Jarabi area, al-Hazan village, al-Moshaba mountain, and Ahem police station to take control of the al-Moshaba mountain. Parts of the Kushar District were put under siege since clashes erupted in that province between Houthis and the al-Zakari tribe in November. In early February, over 55 people had been killed during sectarian violence in Kushar. During February and March some 27 people were killed and 36 injured due to mines in Hajjah. A total of 600 were killed in clashes in Hajjah between November 2011 and April 2012, mainly in Kushar and Mustaba Districts.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On March 8, a high-ranking military commander and six of his bodyguards were killed by Houthi gunmen in the northern province of Amran.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On March 23, a suicide bomber targeted a Houthi march in Sa'dah, no casualties were reported. On March 25, some 14 people were killed and three injured in a car bombing in al-Hazm of al-Jawf province, targeting a Shi'a gathering near a school. Another 8 Houthis were killed in an attack by Salafis on April 21. From June 2 to June 4, Houthis clashed with Salafi militias in Kataf district leaving several dead. Houthis claim to have taken over three Salafi positions and confiscated Saudi weapons during the clash.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On August 21, clashes broke out between Houthis and tribes in Ash Shahil District of Hajjah after Houthis allegedly shot two women in the district. As the fighting broke out, Houthis retreated from al-Amroor area and retreated to the mountains between Janeb al-Sham and Janeb al-Yemen. Houthis were said to control several mountains in the region including mount Azzan and the governorate center that overlooks al-Mahabishah, Qafl Shamer and Ku'aydinah Districts. A truce was signed between the two sides on August 30.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Clashes reignited on September 6 and Houthis managed to seize control of five schools, a medical center and a police station. Some 30 people were killed in the battles. Afterwards Houthis claimed civilian areas were being shelled by al-Islah, while MP Ali al-Ma'amari accused Houthis of killing a worker from Taiz.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In September and October, Houthis led many protests in Sanaʽa as part of the 2012 Anti-US protests caused by the release of Innocence of Muslims. Houthi slogans were hung all across the old city of Sanaʽa and Shi'a majority areas during the protests. This led to Houthis expanding their control in Sanaʽa Governorate and other areas around the capital, particularly Khwlan and Sanhan Districts and the town Shibam Kawkaban in al-Mahwit. Al-Juraf district was also named as a Houthi stronghold, where they had large numbers of weapons stationed. Sunni sources have alleged that Houthis have used the protests to smuggle weapons and fighters from areas surrounding Sanaʽa into Sanaʽa city itself, mainly in the old city.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: During one of the protests, in Raydah, Amran, clashes broke out between Houthis and Islahi gunmen after the Islahi gunmen interrupted a Houthi mass rally, denouncing Innocence of Muslims and the US government, on September 21. Two people were killed during the clash and three Islahi gunmen were captured. Fighting continued until September 23, leaving 16 fighters dead and 36 Islah men captured by the Houthis. After a cease-fire was agreed on, Houthis withdrew from the town and released the prisoners they had taken. A group of Houthis remained in Owaidan mosque.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On 18 August 2014, the Houthis began a series of demonstrations in Sanaʽa against increased fuel prices. The protests and their ensuing repression by government security forces led to violent clashes between the Houthis and the government starting 16 September. On 21 September, the Houthis took control of Sanaʽa, after which Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa resigned and the Houthis signed a deal for a new unity government with other political parties. The protests were marked by clashes between the Houthis and the government and also clashes between the Houthis and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: At least 340 people were killed on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital in one week of fighting between the Shiite rebels and Sunni militiamen before the city fell. The Battle of Sana'a and the following Houthi takeover in Yemen transformed the northern insurgency into a country-wide civil war.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: There have been a number of allegations that Iran, North Korea, Libya and Hezbollah have intervened to aid the Houthis, including:


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Saudi Arabia has led a major military intervention in Yemen, and organized a coalition of other nations to support its efforts, including Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, and Bahrain.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In December 2009, "The New York Times" reported that the United States has provided weapons and logistical support to Yemeni government strikes against suspected hide-outs of Al Qaeda within its borders. The officials said that the American support was approved by President Obama and came at the request of the Yemeni government.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On June 17, 2011, following Friday prayers, tens of thousands of protestors rallied in Sa'dah against US interference in Yemen.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: On February 4, 2021, the new US President Joe Biden announced an end to the U.S. support for Saudi-led operations in Yemen.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The Houthis blamed US intelligence forces of carrying out a bombing in August 2011 which killed 14 Houthi fighters.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: In April 2008, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that the conflict had created 77,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sa'dah Governorate. By order of then king Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the Saudis were to shelter and build 10,000 new homes for the war-displaced people of Saudi nationality in Jizan.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: UNICEF and the Islamic Relief were reported as condemning Houthi rebels for abusing children by forcing them to fight for their cause. In November 2009, over 400 children walked to the UNDP office in Sanaʽa, to protest against the alleged Houthi abuse of children's rights.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Allegations were made that both the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels exploited the use of child soldiers during the war. Human Rights Watch noted difficulty in citing the exact numbers of child soldiers on the Houthis' part. However, there existed a significant amount of evidence that the government itself employed child soldiers in the ranks of the armed forces, the result of the country's lack of birth certificates and further documentation of age. Where the Yemeni government was limited by restrictions, The Times reported on a fourteen-year-old boy who fought for a tribal militia sponsored by the government.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: A Sanaʽa-based human rights group, Seyaj Organization for Childhood Protection, noted that the Houthis were mainly responsible, stating that fifty-percent of the rebels were under the age of eighteen. It is estimated that anywhere between 400 and 500 children are killed every year in Yemen as the result of tribal conflict. The same organization eventually released a report claiming that 700 children were used as soldiers by the Houthis and pro-government militias during the war. The report concluded that 187 children were killed during the conflict, 71% as the result of the fighting.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: These allegations were supported by the story of "Akram," a nine-year-old boy who was duped by a cousin to deliver a bomb to an unspecified target in the Old City of Saada. Akram, unknowingly wired with an explosive, was apprehended by police and taken to safety in Sanaʽa, along with his father. A day after telling his story at a press conference Akram's home was bombed in Saada City. His younger brother suffered injuries in the retaliation.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: The Panel of Experts on Yemen was informed regarding Yemen's widespread exploitation of youngsters in hostility-related activities. In 2017 and 2018, it was able to document three examples of children aged 12 to 15 being employed by Houthi troops to combat. The youngsters were kidnapped from their homes or schools in two situations. The boy in the other case was enticed away from his house by Houthis who told him he was going to a three-day educational camp. The three children were transferred to a training camp for three to four months, where they were taught about ideology and jihad and given small-arms training.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Saudi Arabia has also been accused of using child soldiers from Darfur in the frontline of the Yemen war.


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: the UN has determined that both Houthi and coalition forces willfully assaulted civilian targets, in breach of international law. This covers the devastation of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in 2015. Other alleged war crimes committed by both sides include torture, arbitrary arrests, and forced disappearances. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/yemen-crisis#chapter-title-0-6


title: Houthi insurgency in Yemen

text: Moreover, in a letter dated 27 January 2020 from the Panel of Experts on Yemen addressed to the President of the Security Council, the Panel reports that it was informed of 14 cases involving the use of improvised explosive devices against civilians that were ascribed to the Houthis. The Panel was able to complete investigations in two of these situations, finding that the two cases resulted in the deaths of three civilians, two of whom were children, and the injuries of 16 others, all of whom were children. The deployment of unguided explosive ordnance in populated areas generated questions about whether the principles of international humanitarian law were being followed.


title: Vector autoregression

text: Vector autoregression (VAR) is a statistical model used to capture the relationship between multiple quantities as they change over time. VAR is a type of stochastic process model. VAR models generalize the single-variable (univariate) autoregressive model by allowing for multivariate time series. VAR models are often used in economics and the natural sciences.


title: Vector autoregression

text: Like the autoregressive model, each variable has an equation modelling its evolution over time. This equation includes the variable's lagged (past) values, the lagged values of the other variables in the model, and an error term. VAR models do not require as much knowledge about the forces influencing a variable as do structural models with simultaneous equations. The only prior knowledge required is a list of variables which can be hypothesized to affect each other over time.


title: Vector autoregression

text: A VAR model describes the evolution of a set of "k" variables, called "endogenous variables", over time. Each period of time is numbered, "t" = 1, ..., "T". The variables are collected in a vector, "y", which is of length "k." (Equivalently, this vector might be described as a ("k" × 1)-matrix.) The vector is modelled as a linear function of its previous value. The vector's components are referred to as "y", meaning the observation at time "t" of the "i" th variable. For example, if the first variable in the model measures the price of wheat over time, then "y" would indicate the price of wheat in the year 1998.


title: Vector autoregression

text: VAR models are characterized by their "order", which refers to the number of earlier time periods the model will use. Continuing the above example, a 5th-order VAR would model each year's wheat price as a linear combination of the last five years of wheat prices. A "lag" is the value of a variable in a previous time period. So in general a "p"th-order VAR refers to a VAR model which includes lags for the last "p" time periods. A "p"th-order VAR is denoted "VAR("p")" and sometimes called "a VAR with "p" lags". A "p"th-order VAR model is written as


title: Vector autoregression

text: The variables of the form "y" indicate that variable's value "i" time periods earlier and are called the "i"th" lag" of "y". The variable "c" is a "k"-vector of constants serving as the intercept of the model. "A" is a time-invariant ("k" × "k")-matrix and "e" is a "k"-vector of error terms. The error terms must satisfy three conditions:


title: Vector autoregression

text: The process of choosing the maximum lag "p" in the VAR model requires special attention because inference is dependent on correctness of the selected lag order.


title: Vector autoregression

text: Note that all variables have to be of the same order of integration. The following cases are distinct:


title: Vector autoregression

text: One can stack the vectors in order to write a VAR("p") as a stochastic matrix difference equation, with a concise matrix notation:


title: Vector autoregression

text: (in which only a single "A" matrix appears because this example has a maximum lag "p" equal to 1), or, equivalently, as the following system of two equations


title: Vector autoregression

text: Each variable in the model has one equation. The current (time "t") observation of each variable depends on its own lagged values as well as on the lagged values of each other variable in the VAR.


title: Vector autoregression

text: A VAR with "p" lags can always be equivalently rewritten as a VAR with only one lag by appropriately redefining the dependent variable. The transformation amounts to stacking the lags of the VAR("p") variable in the new VAR(1) dependent variable and appending identities to complete the number of equations.


title: Vector autoregression

text: The equivalent VAR(1) form is more convenient for analytical derivations and allows more compact statements.


title: Vector autoregression

text: where "c" is a "k" × 1 vector of constants, "B" is a "k" × "k" matrix (for every "i" = 0, ..., "p") and "ε" is a "k" × 1 vector of error terms. The main diagonal terms of the "B" matrix (the coefficients on the "i" variable in the "i" equation) are scaled to 1.


title: Vector autoregression

text: The error terms ε"" (structural shocks) satisfy the conditions (1) - (3) in the definition above, with the particularity that all the elements in the off diagonal of the covariance matrix formula_12 are zero. That is, the structural shocks are uncorrelated.


title: Vector autoregression

text: that is, the variances of the structural shocks are denoted formula_15 ("i" = 1, 2) and the covariance is formula_16.


title: Vector autoregression

text: Note that "y" can have a contemporaneous effect on "y" if "B" is not zero. This is different from the case when "B" is the identity matrix (all off-diagonal elements are zero — the case in the initial definition), when "y" can impact directly "y" and subsequent future values, but not "y".


title: Vector autoregression

text: Because of the parameter identification problem, ordinary least squares estimation of the structural VAR would yield inconsistent parameter estimates. This problem can be overcome by rewriting the VAR in reduced form.


title: Vector autoregression

text: From an economic point of view, if the joint dynamics of a set of variables can be represented by a VAR model, then the structural form is a depiction of the underlying, "structural", economic relationships. Two features of the structural form make it the preferred candidate to represent the underlying relations:


title: Vector autoregression

text: Note that in the reduced form all right hand side variables are predetermined at time "t". As there are no time "t" endogenous variables on the right hand side, no variable has a "direct" contemporaneous effect on other variables in the model.


title: Vector autoregression

text: However, the error terms in the reduced VAR are composites of the structural shocks "e" = "B""ε". Thus, the occurrence of one structural shock "ε" can potentially lead to the occurrence of shocks in all error terms "e", thus creating contemporaneous movement in all endogenous variables. Consequently, the covariance matrix of the reduced VAR


title: Vector autoregression

text: This estimator is consistent and asymptotically efficient. It is furthermore equal to the conditional maximum likelihood estimator.


title: Vector autoregression

text: As in the standard case, the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of the covariance matrix differs from the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator.


title: Vector autoregression

text: Vector autoregression models often involve the estimation of many parameters. For example, with seven variables and four lags, each matrix of coefficients for a given lag length is 7 by 7, and the vector of constants has 7 elements, so a total of 49×4 + 7 = 203 parameters are estimated, substantially lowering the degrees of freedom of the regression (the number of data points minus the number of parameters to be estimated). This can hurt the accuracy of the parameter estimates and hence of the forecasts given by the model.


title: Vector autoregression

text: Properties of the VAR model are usually summarized using structural analysis using Granger causality, impulse responses, and forecast error variance decompositions.


title: Vector autoregression

text: for evolving (state) vector formula_31 and vector formula_32 of shocks. To find, say, the effect of the "j"-th element of the vector of shocks upon the "i"-th element of the state vector 2 periods later, which is a particular impulse response, first write the above equation of evolution one period lagged:


title: Vector autoregression

text: From this, the effect of the "j"-th component of formula_36 upon the "i"-th component of formula_37 is the "i, j" element of the matrix formula_38


title: Vector autoregression

text: It can be seen from this induction process that any shock will have an effect on the elements of "y" infinitely far forward in time, although the effect will become smaller and smaller over time assuming that the AR process is stable — that is, that all the eigenvalues of the matrix "A" are less than 1 in absolute value.


title: Vector autoregression

text: An estimated VAR model can be used for forecasting, and the quality of the forecasts can be judged, in ways that are completely analogous to the methods used in univariate autoregressive modelling.


title: Vector autoregression

text: Christopher Sims has advocated VAR models, criticizing the claims and performance of earlier modeling in macroeconomic econometrics. He recommended VAR models, which had previously appeared in time series statistics and in system identification, a statistical specialty in control theory. Sims advocated VAR models as providing a theory-free method to estimate economic relationships, thus being an alternative to the "incredible identification restrictions" in structural models. VAR models are also increasingly used in health research for automatic analyses of diary data or sensor data.


title: The Next Doctor

text: "The Next Doctor" is the first of the 2008–2010 specials of the British science fiction television programme "Doctor Who" that was broadcast on 25 December 2008, as the fourth "Doctor Who" Christmas special of the revived series. During its original airing, the episode had an audience of 13.1 million viewers and was the second-most-watched programme of Christmas Day 2008.


title: The Next Doctor

text: David Tennant stars as the Tenth Doctor with companions Jackson Lake (David Morrissey) and Rosita Farisi (Velile Tshabalala).


title: The Next Doctor

text: The episode is set in 1851 London during Christmas. In the episode, the Doctor seems to meet another incarnation of himself with memory loss who apparently is the Doctor. The two of them discover a plot by the Cybermen to create a giant-sized Cyberman called a CyberKing which is controlled by the workhouse matron Miss Hartigan (Dervla Kirwan).


title: The Next Doctor

text: The Tenth Doctor lands his TARDIS in London on Christmas Eve, 1851. Overhearing cries for help, he encounters a man calling himself "the Doctor" and his companion Rosita, attempting and failing to capture a Cybershade. The Doctor believes the man, who is suffering from amnesia, may be a future incarnation of himself. The man, dubbed the Next Doctor, takes the Doctor to a nearby house of a recently deceased reverend, believing him tied to a series of disappearances around London and the Cybershade. Inside, they discover a pair of Cyberman data-storage infostamps, which the Next Doctor recalls holding the night that he lost his memories.


title: The Next Doctor

text: The two Doctors regroup with Rosita at the Next Doctor's base. The Doctor comes to realise that the Next Doctor is really a human, Jackson Lake, the supposed first missing person. The Doctor suspects that Jackson had encountered the Cybermen and used the infostamps, containing knowledge of the Doctor, to ward them off. Jackson's mind then entered a fugue state from the trauma of the Cybermen killing his wife, and as the infostamp had infused his mind with knowledge of the Doctor, he came to believe he was the Doctor. The Doctor and Rosita set off to try to find the source of the Cybermen.


title: The Next Doctor

text: The Doctor and Rosita find numerous children, pulled from workhouses around the city by Miss Mercy Hartigan, are being put to work at an underground facility under Cybermen guard. The Cybermen betray Miss Hartigan, and convert her into the controller for the "CyberKing", a giant mechanical Cyberman powered by the energy generated by the children. She also gains control over the Cybermen. Jackson remembers encountering the Cybermen on moving into his new home. The Doctor discovers another entrance to the Cybermen's base under Jackson's house. Within the complex, as the CyberKing starts to rise to the city, the three rescue the children, including Jackson's son, who was abducted in the initial attack that triggered Jackson's fugue state. The CyberKing starts to lay waste to the city. When Miss Hartigan refuses the Doctor's offer to leave the planet, the Doctor uses the infostamps to sever her connection to the CyberKing, exposing her to the raw emotion of what she has done. The emotional feedback destroys both the Cybermen and Miss Hartigan. As the CyberKing starts to topple, the Doctor draws it into the Time Vortex with technology from Jackson's cellar, saving London. The episode ends with the Doctor and Jackson heading off to attend Christmas dinner in remembrance of those they have lost.


title: The Next Doctor

text: According to Neil Gaiman, the Cybus Industries Cybermen "zapped off into time and space" by the Doctor at the end of this episode eventually encountered the Mondas Cybermen; their "cross-breeding and interchange of technology" resulted in the variety of Cybermen seen in "Nightmare in Silver".


title: The Next Doctor

text: Pre-broadcast publicity, based on excerpts from Davies' book "Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale", revealed that the Doctor would meet a man played by David Morrissey who also claims to be the Doctor. In further excerpts, Davies commented, "The best title for this episode would be "The Two Doctors"... but maybe not. "The New Doctor", perhaps? Or "The Next Doctor"? I quite like "The Next Doctor"." The book also contained two pictures from a scene cut from the end of the previous episode, intended to segue into the special echoing the previous two series. This scene was included on the series boxset.


title: The Next Doctor

text: Following the success of the previous year's Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned", which guest starred pop star Kylie Minogue as one-off companion Astrid Peth, Russell T Davies had initially felt tempted to copy this format with another high-profile guest star, but decided against it after jokingly offering up "Cheryl Cole on board the "Hindenburg"" as an example.


title: The Next Doctor

text: Regarding an unanswered question (from a child) of why a gigantic robot in London 1851 "isn't in the history books", Davies and Gardner jokingly offer several possibilities ranging from there being alternate history of "Doctor Who" England, pointing out "a spaceship didn't fly into the Big Ben in 2006 either" (in the episode "Aliens of London") or that perhaps "maybe everyone was retconned by the soon-to-be-born Torchwood, or something." A line in Steven Moffat's series 5 episode "Flesh and Stone" has the Doctor recall the Cyberking's rampage, attributing history's failure to record it to the cracks in time and space that are causing time to be unwritten.


title: The Next Doctor

text: Davies, from a writer's standpoint, was also unhappy with the final scene in the episode where the Doctor gets rid of the Cyberking with the convenient Dalek dimension vault but during the writing process he couldn't think of another way to stop London being crushed by a giant robot. Later, after the episode was produced, a different idea came to him. In this alternate ending Davies imagines, Miss Hartigan "should have destroyed the Cybermen when she screamed... but she's still in the chair", as the Cyberking falls to the Earth, the Doctor calls out to her saying "Save them." This version would have Hartigan redeem herself as she is the one to cause the Cyberking to disappear, with no need for what Davies calls "a silly Dalek continuum dimension vault". Julie Gardner felt this would have been a superior, "marvellous" ending and Davies says he "can't bear that there could have been a better ending than we actually transmitted".


title: The Next Doctor

text: Davies also feels he would like to write a BBC Books novel, set in the midst of that brief scene where Jackson Lake is in the Doctor's TARDIS in which the Doctor takes Jackson to another planet, ending with the "no no no" scene before Jackson invites the Doctor to spend Christmas dinner with him.


title: The Next Doctor

text: Davies claims that he attempted to make Jackson Lake's companion Rosita a combination of Rose and Martha so that she felt like a companion before she had done anything.


title: The Next Doctor

text: Filming for this episode was conducted in April 2008 at Gloucester Cathedral, St Woolos Cemetery in Newport and the streets of Gloucester, where shooting was hampered by up to 1,000 onlookers. The main setting of "Torchwood", their Torchwood Hub was also redesigned and used as the workshop for the children.


title: The Next Doctor

text: David Morrissey is the main guest star, playing "a character called The Doctor – a man who believes himself to be a Time Lord". He was influenced in his performance by previous Doctor actors William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, as he believed there was "a truth" to their performances because they "never saw ["Doctor Who"] as a genre show or a children's show". He is joined by Velile Tshabalala as Rosita, the companion to


title: The Next Doctor

text: Morrissey's "Doctor", whom Russell T Davies describes as "probably cleverer than the two of them [the Doctors] put together". For Tshabalala, the character came naturally because her "feisty cockney girl" characterisation was very "close to home" for her.