title: ObZen

text: "obZen" was acclaimed by critics and fans alike. On Metacritic, it has a score of 83 out of 100 based on 6 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: ObZen

text: The album was praised for its consistency, and the band for their continued musical evolution, with Nick Terry from "Decibel" saying, "Three years on, and we have a new reference point to chart Meshuggah's musical evolution. And yeah, things are evolving nicely".


title: ObZen

text: The album was also praised for the band revisiting their early thrash metal-oriented approach on tracks like "Combustion" and "Bleed", while still maintaining the experimentalism found on their last few albums. John Norby from "Zero Tolerance Magazine" described it as "The best of modern-Meshuggah meets the best of older-Meshuggah."


title: ObZen

text: Thom Jurek, in his review of the album on Allmusic, called "obZen" "sheer attack metal, played by a band that has run from simplicity to excess and incorporated them both into a record that is on a level with anything else they've done, even if not all the elements marry perfectly yet".


title: ObZen

text: Magazines such as "Terrorizer", "Decibel", "Revolver" and "Metal Hammer" named the album in their 2008 year's end list. Meshuggah was nominated for a Swedish Grammy for "obZen" in the category of Hard Rock, but lost to In Flames.


title: ObZen

text: Vinyl releases have tracks 1–3 on side A, tracks 4–6 on side B, tracks 7–8 on side C and track 9 on side D.


title: ObZen

text: "obZen" debuted at number 59 in the United States, with first week sales of 11,384 copies. In Sweden, the album entered the official album chart at number 16, and in the United Kingdom at number 151. By 19 September 2008 "obZen" had sold over 50,000 copies in the U.S.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bloodstream infections (BSIs), which include bacteremias when the infections are bacterial and fungemias when the infections are fungal, are infections present in the blood. Blood is normally a sterile environment, so the detection of microbes in the blood (most commonly accomplished by blood cultures) is always abnormal. A bloodstream infection is different from sepsis, which is the host response to bacteria.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteria can enter the bloodstream as a severe complication of infections (like pneumonia or meningitis), during surgery (especially when involving mucous membranes such as the gastrointestinal tract), or due to catheters and other foreign bodies entering the arteries or veins (including during intravenous drug abuse). Transient bacteremia can result after dental procedures or brushing of teeth.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteremia can have several important health consequences. The immune response to the bacteria can cause sepsis and septic shock, which has a high mortality rate. Bacteria can also spread via the blood to other parts of the body (which is called hematogenous spread), causing infections away from the original site of infection, such as endocarditis or osteomyelitis. Treatment for bacteremia is with antibiotics, and prevention with antibiotic prophylaxis can be given in high risk situations.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteremia frequently evokes a response from the immune system called sepsis, which consists of symptoms such as fever, chills, and hypotension. Severe immune responses to bacteremia may result in septic shock and "multiple organ dysfunction syndrome", which are potentially fatal.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteria can enter the bloodstream in a number of different ways. However, for each major classification of bacteria (gram negative, gram positive, or anaerobic) there are characteristic sources or routes of entry into the bloodstream that lead to bacteremia. Causes of bacteremia can additionally be divided into healthcare-associated (acquired during the process of receiving care in a healthcare facility) or community-acquired (acquired outside of a health facility, often prior to hospitalization).


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Gram positive bacteria are an increasingly important cause of bacteremia. Staphylococcus, streptococcus, and enterococcus species are the most important and most common species of gram-positive bacteria that can enter the bloodstream. These bacteria are normally found on the skin or in the gastrointestinal tract.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: "Staphylococcus aureus" is the most common cause of healthcare-associated bacteremia in North and South America and is also an important cause of community-acquired bacteremia. Skin ulceration or wounds, respiratory tract infections, and IV drug use are the most important causes of community-acquired staph aureus bacteremia. In healthcare settings, intravenous catheters, urinary tract catheters, and surgical procedures are the most common causes of staph aureus bacteremia.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: There are many different types of streptococcal species that can cause bacteremia. "Group A streptococcus" (GAS) typically causes bacteremia from skin and soft tissue infections. "Group B streptococcus" is an important cause of bacteremia in neonates, often immediately following birth. "Viridans streptococci" species are normal bacterial flora of the mouth. Viridans strep can cause temporary bacteremia after eating, toothbrushing, or flossing. More severe bacteremia can occur following dental procedures or in patients receiving chemotherapy. Finally, "Streptococcus bovis" is a common cause of bacteremia in patients with colon cancer.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: "Enterococci" are an important cause of healthcare-associated bacteremia. These bacteria commonly live in the gastrointestinal tract and female genital tract. Intravenous catheters, urinary tract infections and surgical wounds are all risk factors for developing bacteremia from enterococcal species. Resistant enterococcal species can cause bacteremia in patients who have had long hospital stays or frequent antibiotic use in the past (see antibiotic misuse).


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Gram negative bacterial species are responsible for approximately 24% of all cases of healthcare-associated bacteremia and 45% of all cases of community-acquired bacteremia. In general, gram negative bacteria enter the bloodstream from infections in the respiratory tract, genitourinary tract, gastrointestinal tract, or hepatobiliary system. Gram-negative bacteremia occurs more frequently in elderly populations (65 years or older) and is associated with higher morbidity and mortality in this population.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: "E.coli" is the most common cause of community-acquired bacteremia accounting for approximately 75% of cases. E.coli bacteremia is usually the result of a urinary tract infection. Other organisms that can cause community-acquired bacteremia include "Pseudomonas aeruginosa", "Klebsiella pneumoniae", and "Proteus mirabilis". "Salmonella" infection, despite mainly only resulting in gastroenteritis in the developed world, is a common cause of bacteremia in Africa. It principally affects children who lack antibodies to Salmonella and HIV+ patients of all ages.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Among healthcare-associated cases of bacteremia, gram negative organisms are an important cause of bacteremia in the ICU. Catheters in the veins, arteries, or urinary tract can all create a way for gram negative bacteria to enter the bloodstream. Surgical procedures of the genitourinary tract, intestinal tract, or hepatobiliary tract can also lead to gram negative bacteremia. "Pseudomonas" and "Enterobacter" species are the most important causes of gram negative bacteremia in the ICU.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: There are several risk factors that increase the likelihood of developing bacteremia from any type of bacteria. These include:


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteremia can travel through the blood stream to distant sites in the body and cause infection (hematogenous spread). Hematogenous spread of bacteria is part of the pathophysiology of certain infections of the heart (endocarditis), structures around the brain (meningitis), and tuberculosis of the spine (Pott's disease). Hematogenous spread of bacteria is responsible for many bone infections (osteomyelitis).


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Prosthetic cardiac implants (for example artificial heart valves) are especially vulnerable to infection from bacteremia. Prior to widespread use of vaccines, occult bacteremia was an important consideration in febrile children that appeared otherwise well.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteremia is most commonly diagnosed by blood culture, in which a sample of blood drawn from the vein by needle puncture is allowed to incubate with a medium that promotes bacterial growth. If bacteria are present in the bloodstream at the time the sample is obtained, the bacteria will multiply and can thereby be detected.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Any bacteria that incidentally find their way to the culture medium will also multiply. For example, if the skin is not adequately cleaned before needle puncture, contamination of the blood sample with normal bacteria that live on the surface of the skin can occur. For this reason, blood cultures must be drawn with great attention to sterile process. The presence of certain bacteria in the blood culture, such as S"taphylococcus aureus", "Streptococcus pneumoniae", and "Escherichia coli" almost never represent a contamination of the sample. On the other hand, contamination may be more highly suspected if organisms like "Staphylococcus epidermidis" or "Cutibacterium acnes" grow in the blood culture.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Two blood cultures drawn from separate sites of the body are often sufficient to diagnose bacteremia. Two out of two cultures growing the same type of bacteria usually represents a real bacteremia, particularly if the organism that grows is not a common contaminant. One out of two positive cultures will usually prompt a repeat set of blood cultures to be drawn to confirm whether a contaminant or a real bacteremia is present. The patient's skin is typically cleaned with an alcohol-based product prior to drawing blood to prevent contamination. Blood cultures may be repeated at intervals to determine if persistent — rather than transient — bacteremia is present.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Prior to drawing blood cultures, a thorough patient history should be taken with particular regard to presence of both fevers and chills, other focal signs of infection such as in the skin or soft tissue, a state of immunosuppression, or any recent invasive procedures.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Ultrasound of the heart is recommended in all those with bacteremia due to "Staphylococcus aureus" to rule out infectious endocarditis.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteremia is the presence of bacteria in the bloodstream that are alive and capable of reproducing. It is a type of bloodstream infection. Bacteremia is defined as either a primary or secondary process. In primary bacteremia, bacteria have been directly introduced into the bloodstream. Injection drug use may lead to primary bacteremia. In the hospital setting, use of blood vessel catheters contaminated with bacteria may also lead to primary bacteremia. Secondary bacteremia occurs when bacteria have entered the body at another site, such as the cuts in the skin, or the mucous membranes of the lungs (respiratory tract), mouth or intestines (gastrointestinal tract), bladder (urinary tract), or genitals. Bacteria that have infected the body at these sites may then spread into the lymphatic system and gain access to the bloodstream, where further spread can occur.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteremia may also be defined by the timing of bacteria presence in the bloodstream: transient, intermittent, or persistent. In transient bacteremia, bacteria are present in the bloodstream for minutes to a few hours before being cleared from the body, and the result is typically harmless in healthy people. This can occur after manipulation of parts of the body normally colonized by bacteria, such as the mucosal surfaces of the mouth during tooth brushing, flossing, or dental procedures, or instrumentation of the bladder or colon. Intermittent bacteremia is characterized by periodic seeding of the same bacteria into the bloodstream by an existing infection elsewhere in the body, such as an abscess, pneumonia, or bone infection, followed by clearing of that bacteria from the bloodstream. This cycle will often repeat until the existing infection is successfully treated. Persistent bacteremia is characterized by the continuous presence of bacteria in the bloodstream. It is usually the result of an infected heart valve, a central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI), an infected blood clot (suppurative thrombophlebitis), or an infected blood vessel graft. Persistent bacteremia can also occur as part of the infection process of typhoid fever, brucellosis, and bacterial meningitis. Left untreated, conditions causing persistent bacteremia can be potentially fatal.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: Bacteremia is clinically distinct from sepsis, which is a condition where the blood stream infection is associated with an inflammatory response from the body, often causing abnormalities in body temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, and white blood cell count.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: The presence of bacteria in the blood almost always requires treatment with antibiotics. This is because there are high mortality rates from progression to sepsis if antibiotics are delayed.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: The treatment of bacteremia should begin with empiric antibiotic coverage. Any patient presenting with signs or symptoms of bacteremia or a positive blood culture should be started on intravenous antibiotics. The choice of antibiotic is determined by the most likely source of infection and by the characteristic organisms that typically cause that infection. Other important considerations include the patient's history of antibiotic use, the severity of the presenting symptoms, and any allergies to antibiotics. Empiric antibiotics should be narrowed, preferably to a single antibiotic, once the blood culture returns with a particular bacteria that has been isolated.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: The Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) recommends treating uncomplicated methicillin resistant staph aureus (MRSA) bacteremia with a 14-day course of intravenous vancomycin. Uncomplicated bacteremia is defined as having positive blood cultures for MRSA, but having no evidence of endocarditis, no implanted prostheses, negative blood cultures after 2–4 days of treatment, and signs of clinical improvement after 72 hrs.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: The antibiotic treatment of choice for streptococcal and enteroccal infections differs by species. However, it is important to look at the antibiotic resistance pattern for each species from the blood culture to better treat infections caused by resistant organisms.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: The treatment of gram negative bacteremia is also highly dependent on the causative organism. Empiric antibiotic therapy should be guided by the most likely source of infection and the patient's past exposure to healthcare facilities. In particular, a recent history of exposure to a healthcare setting may necessitate the need for antibiotics with "pseudomonas aeruginosa" coverage or broader coverage for resistant organisms. Extended generation cephalosporins such as ceftriaxone or beta lactam/beta lactamase inhibitor antibiotics such as piperacillin-tazobactam are frequently used for the treatment of gram negative bacteremia.


title: Bloodstream infections

text: For healthcare-associated bacteremia due to intravenous catheters, the IDSA has published guidelines for catheter removal. Short term catheters (in place <14 days) should be removed if bacteremia is caused by any gram negative bacteria, staph aureus, enterococci or mycobacteria. Long term catheters (>14 days) should be removed if the patient is developing signs or symptoms of sepsis or endocarditis, or if blood cultures remain positive for more than 72 hours.


title: Jim Fixx

text: James Fuller Fixx (April 23, 1932 – July 20, 1984) was an American who wrote the 1977 best-selling book "The Complete Book of Running". He is credited with helping start America's fitness revolution by popularizing the sport of running and demonstrating the health benefits of regular jogging. He died of a heart attack while jogging at 52 years of age; his genetic predisposition for heart problems and other previous lifestyle factors may have caused his heart attack.


title: Jim Fixx

text: James Fixx was born on April 23, 1932, in New York City. He graduated from Trinity School in New York and Oberlin College in Ohio. His father, Calvin Fixx, was an editor at "Time" who worked with Robert Cantwell and Whittaker Chambers.


title: Jim Fixx

text: Fixx was a member of the high-IQ club, Mensa, and published three collections of puzzles: "Games for the Super-Intelligent", "More Games for the Super-Intelligent", and "Solve It!" The back flap of his first book says: "... He spent his time running on the roads and trails near his home, training for the Boston Marathon."


title: Jim Fixx

text: Fixx started running in 1967 at age 35. He weighed 214 pounds (97 kg) and smoked two packs of cigarettes per day. Ten years later, when his book, "The Complete Book of Running" (which spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on "The New York Times" Best Seller list) was published, he was 60 pounds (27 kg) lighter and smoke-free. In his books and on television talk shows, he extolled the benefits of physical exercise and how it considerably increased the average life expectancy.


title: Jim Fixx

text: The cover of his book "The Complete Book of Running" featured Fixx's muscular legs against a red cover. The book sold over a million copies. In 1980 Fixx wrote a follow-up book titled "Jim Fixx's Second Book of Running: The Companion Volume to The Complete Book of Running". In 1982 Fixx published "Jackpot!", the story of what happened after the publication of "The Complete Book of Running" when he experienced the "Great American Fame Machine", becoming richer and more celebrated than he could have imagined.


title: Jim Fixx

text: Fixx died on July 20, 1984, at age 52 of a heart attack, during his daily run on Vermont Route 15 in Hardwick. The autopsy, conducted by Vermont's chief medical examiner, Dr. Eleanor McQuillen, revealed that atherosclerosis had blocked one coronary artery 95%, a second 85%, and a third 70%.


title: Jim Fixx

text: In 1986 exercise physiologist Kenneth Cooper published an inventory of the risk factors that might have contributed to Fixx's death. Granted access to his medical records and autopsy, and after interviewing his friends and family, Cooper concluded that Fixx was genetically predisposed—his father died of a heart attack at 43 after a previous one at 35, and Fixx himself had a congenitally enlarged heart—and had an unhealthy life: Fixx was a heavy smoker before beginning running at age 36, had a stressful occupation, had undergone a second divorce, and gained weight up to 214 pounds (97 kg). Medical opinion continues to uphold the link between moderate exercise and longevity.


title: Jim Fixx

text: "Maximum Sports Performance", a book by Fixx published posthumously, discusses the physical and psychological benefits of running and other sports, including increased self-esteem, acquiring a "high" from running, and being able to cope better with pressure and tension.


title: Jim Fixx

text: A carved granite monument—a book with an inscription to Jim Fixx from the people of Northeast Scotland—now stands in Hardwick Memorial Park in Hardwick, Vermont.


title: Jim Fixx

text: Comedian Bill Hicks frequently made Fixx the subject of a stand-up routine, humorously suggesting that Fixx's death while jogging should be an argument against exercise. Portions of that routine were later plagiarized by Denis Leary. Australian band The Fauves referenced Hicks' material in the song "I'm Jim Fixx and I'm Dead Now", on their 2006 album "Nervous Flashlights".


title: Laissez les bons temps rouler

text: The expression Laissez les bons temps rouler (alternatively Laissez le bon temps rouler, ) is a Cajun French phrase. The phrase is a calque of the English phrase "let the good times roll"; that is a word for word translation of the English phrase into Cajun French.


title: Laissez les bons temps rouler

text: This phrase is often mentioned in Louisiana (especially New Orleans) and around the Gulf Coast where Mardi Gras is celebrated. It is well known touristically around the United States from television and radio.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Incarnate is a 2016 American supernatural horror film directed by Brad Peyton and written by Ronnie Christensen. It stars Aaron Eckhart, Carice van Houten, Catalina Sandino Moreno, David Mazouz, Keir O'Donnell, Matt Nable, and John Pirruccello.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: An 11-year-old boy named Cameron Sparrow is attacked by a hooded stranger who tries to kill him. However, Cameron kills her instead and looks at the camera with red eyes, revealing that he is actually possessed by a demon named "Maggie".


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Meanwhile, Dr. Seth Ember approaches a man named Henry in a club and makes him realize he is dreaming. Ember reveals that the woman Henry has been with is a demon who has possessed his body. The two escape and return to reality, and Henry is freed from the demon. In the waking world, Ember actually uses a wheelchair. Ember's assistant Oliver warns that the demons have started to adapt to Ember's efforts and that soon he may not be able to escape back to reality.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Ember is approached by Camilla, a representative from the Vatican, who asks him to exorcise Cameron. Ember refuses, stating that his methods are not "exorcisms," but Camilla reveals that she believes the demon is one Ember knows. Ember visits a priest named Felix to question whether the demon could indeed be Maggie, which Felix affirms. Felix offers him a vial of blood from a possessed man which, when injected, would allow Ember about ten seconds of lucidity - just enough time to commit suicide, but he refuses.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Ember meets the boy's mother Lindsay and explains that he does not exorcise demons but evicts them by entering their host's subconscious to make them realize they are dreaming. Demons do not have the power to truly control those they possess; instead, they lull their hosts into comforting dreams so they will be unaware while the demon uses their body. He visits the possessed Cameron and the demon recognizes him.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Ember, Oliver, and, the third member of their team, Riley prepare for the eviction. Riley explains that by entering a near-death state, Ember will be able to synchronize his brain frequencies to Cameron's and enter his subconscious. However in this state, Ember has only about eight minutes before his heart will give out. Ember enters Cameron's dream and sees him with his father, Dan, but has a seizure and has to be pulled out of the dream to be revived.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Ember demands that Dan be present to help evict the demon. Lindsay refuses, explaining that the couple separated after Dan broke Cameron's arm in a drunken rage, but she agrees when Ember insists that Cameron's father might be the only way to save Cameron. Dan's presence initially seems to help, but Maggie lashes out at him. Ember pleads with Maggie to release Dan since Ember is the one Maggie wants. The demon does so but Dan dies from his injuries. Lindsay, alarmed, demands to know Ember's history with the demon. Ember reveals he discovered that he had the power to perform astral projection and enter the dreams of possessed people, but hid his power to live a normal life. However, this made him a target for demons. One day, while driving with his wife and child, the three were hit by a car driven by a possessed driver. The attack left Ember's family dead and is the reason that he needs to use a wheelchair, and ever since, he's been hunting the demon "Maggie," whom he named after the woman it had possessed.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Ember visits Felix to acquire the blood vial but discovers that Felix has been possessed. Felix attacks Ember and commits suicide. Returning to Cameron's dream, Ember uses a ring Cameron had received as a gift from his real father to make the boy realize he is in an illusion. The pair flee from Maggie, and Ember helps Cameron escape. Ember and Cameron wake up, but Ember wakes up again in a hospital with his wife and son. He realizes he's now inside his own dream and begs Maggie to release Cameron and take him instead, to which the demon agrees. However, when Ember wakes up for real, Riley administers the blood and Ember uses his ten seconds to throw himself through the apartment window. As he dies, Riley warns everybody not to touch Ember's body.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Paramedics attempt to resuscitate Ember, joined by Camilla. They succeed in getting a heartbeat, allowing Maggie to possess Camilla, before Ember dies.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Brad Peyton was hired to direct & executive producer the film. Ronnie Christensen was hired to write the film. Blumhouse Productions and WWE Studios were hired to be the production companies.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Aaron Eckhart was cast in the film on September 17, 2013, followed by Mark Henry in November 25. Catalina Sandino Moreno, David Mazouz, George Anthony Anisimow and Karolina Wydra were cast later.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: "Incarnate" was released in the United States on December 2, 2016 and was expected to gross $2–4 million from 1,737 theaters in its opening weekend. It ended up grossing $2.5 million, finishing 9th at the box office.


title: Incarnate (film)

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 17% based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 3.5/10. The critic consensus reads: "Incarnate can't be accused of lack of ideas -- if only any of them made sense or coalesced in any meaningful or scary way". On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score 30 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: Fragmentation in multicellular or colonial organisms is a form of asexual reproduction or cloning, where an organism is split into fragments. Each of these fragments develops into mature, fully grown individuals that are clones of the original organism.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: The organism may develop specific organs or zones to shed or be easily broken off. If the splitting occurs without the prior preparation of the organism, both fragments must be able to regenerate the complete organism for it to function as reproduction.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: Fragmentation as a method of reproduction is seen in organisms such as filamentous cyanobacteria, molds, lichens, sponges, acoel flatworms, some annelid worms and sea stars.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: Molds, yeasts and mushrooms, all of which are part of the Fungi kingdom, produce tiny filaments called hyphae. These hyphae obtain food and nutrients from the body of other organisms to grow and fertilize. Then a piece of hyphae breaks off and grows into a new individual and the cycle continues.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: Many lichens produce specialized structures that can easily break away and disperse. These structures contain both hyphae of the mycobiont and the algae (phycobiont) (see soredia and isidia). Larger fragments of the thallus may break away when the lichen dries or due to mechanical disturbances (see the section on reproduction in lichens).


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: Fragmentation is a very common type of vegetative reproduction in plants. Many trees, shrubs, nonwoody perennials, and ferns form clonal colonies by producing new rooted shoots by rhizomes or stolons, which increases the diameter of the colony. If a rooted shoot becomes detached from the colony, then fragmentation has occurred. There are several other mechanisms of natural fragmentation in plants.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: People use fragmentation to artificially propagate many plants via division, layering, cuttings, grafting, micropropagation and storage organs, such as bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: Sponges and coral colonies naturally fragment and reproduce. Many species of annelids and flatworms produce by this method.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: When the splitting occurs due to specific developmental changes, the terms orchiectomy, laparotomy, and budding are used. In'architomy' the animal splits at a particular point and the two fragments regenerate the missing organs and tissues. The splitting is not preceded by the development of the tissues to be lost. Before splitting, the animal may develop furrows at the zone of splitting. The headless fragment must regenerate a completely new head.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: In 'paratomy', the split occurs perpendicular to the antero-posterior axis and the split is preceded by the "pregeneration" of the anterior structures in the posterior portion. The two organisms have their body axis aligned i.e. they develop in a head to tail fashion. Budding is similar to paratomy except that the body axes need not be aligned: the new head may grow toward the side or even point backward (e.g. "Convolutriloba retrogemma" an acoel flat worm).


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: Many types of coral colonies can increase in number by fragmentation occurring naturally or artificially. Reef aquarium enthusiasts fragment corals for various purposes including shape control; sharing with others; regrowth experiments; and minimizing damage to natural coral reefs. Both hard and soft corals can be fragmented. Genera highly tolerant of fragmentation include "Acropora", "Montipora", "Pocillopora", "Euphyllia", and "Caulastraea" among others. Most sea anemones reproduce through fragmentation via a variety of methods including longitudinal fission, where the original anemone splits across the middle forming two equal-sized anemones, and basal laceration, in which small parts of the animal split from the base to form new anemones.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: In echinoderms, the process is usually known as fissiparity (a term also used infrequently for biological fission in general). Some species can intentionally reproduce in this manner through autotomy. This method is more common during the larval editing stages.


title: Fragmentation (reproduction)

text: As this process is a form of asexual reproduction, it does not produce genetic diversity in the offspring. Therefore, these are more vulnerable to changing environments, parasites, and diseases.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The legacy of the Roman Empire has been varied and significant, comparable to that of other hegemonic polities of world history (e.g. Persian Empire, ancient Egypt or imperial China).


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The Roman Empire, itself built upon the legacy of other cultures, has had long-lasting influence with broad geographical reach on a great range of cultural aspects, including state institutions, law, cultural values, religious beliefs, technological advances, engineering and language.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: This legacy survived the demise of the empire itself (5th century AD in the West, and 15th century AD in the East) and went on to shape other civilisations, a process which continues to this day. The city of Rome was the "civitas" (reflected in the etymology of the word "civilisation") and connected with the actual western civilisation on which subsequent cultures built.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: One main legacy is the Latin language of ancient Rome, epitomized by the Classical Latin used in Latin literature, which evolved during the Middle Ages and remains in use in the Roman Catholic Church as Ecclesiastical Latin. Vulgar Latin, the common tongue used for regular social interactions, evolved simultaneously into the various Romance languages that exist today (notably Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Sardinian, etc.). Although the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century AD, the Eastern Roman Empire continued until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century AD and cemented the Greek language in many parts of the Eastern Mediterranean even after the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century AD. Although there has been a small modern revival of the Hellenistic religion with Hellenism, ancient Roman paganism was largely displaced by Roman Catholic Christianity after the 4th century AD and the Christian conversion of Roman emperor Constantine I (r. 306–337 AD). The Christian faith of the late Roman Empire continued to evolve during the Middle Ages and remains a major facet of the religion and the psyche of the modern Western world.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Ancient Roman architecture, largely indebted to ancient Greek architecture of the Hellenistic period, has influenced the architecture of the Western world, particularly during the Italian Renaissance of the 15th century. Roman law and republican politics (from the age of the Roman Republic) have left an enduring legacy, influencing the Italian city-state republics of the Medieval period as well as the early United States and other modern democratic republics. The Julian calendar of ancient Rome formed the basis of the standard modern Gregorian calendar, while Roman inventions and engineering, such as the construction of concrete domes, continued to influence various peoples after the fall of Rome. Roman models of colonialism and of warfare also became influential.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Latin became the lingua franca of the early Roman Empire and later of the Western Roman Empire, while – particularly in the Eastern Roman Empire – indigenous languages such as Greek and to a lesser degree Egyptian and Aramaic language continued in use. Despite the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Latin language continued to flourish in the very different social and economic environment of the Middle Ages, not least because it became the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Koine Greek, which served as a lingua franca in the Eastern Empire, remains in use today as a sacred language in some Eastern Orthodox churches.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: In Western and Central Europe and in parts of northern Africa, Latin retained its elevated status as the main vehicle of communication for the learned classes throughout the Middle Ages and subsequently; witness especially the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Books which had a revolutionary impact on science, such as Nicolaus Copernicus' "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (1543), were composed in Latin. This language was not supplanted for scientific purposes until the 18th century, and for formal descriptions in zoology as well as botany it survived to the later 20th century. The modern international binomial nomenclature holds to this day: taxonomists assign a Latin or Latinized name as the scientific name of each species.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: In the 21st century the Romance languages, which comprise all languages that descended from Latin, are spoken by more than 920 million people as their mother tongue, and by 300 million people as a second language, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. Romance languages are either official, co-official, or significantly used in 72 countries around the world. Of the United Nations' six official languages, two (French and Spanish) descend from Latin.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Additionally, Latin has had a great influence on the lexicon of West Germanic languages. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and Dutch vocabularies. Those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch. Of all the loanwords in Dutch, 32.2% come directly from some form of Latin (excluding loans from Romance languages). Over 60% of Albanian vocabulary consist of Latin roots, causing Albanian to once have been mistakenly identified as a Romance language.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: All three official scripts of the modern European Union—Latin, Greek and Cyrillic—descend from writing systems used in the Roman Empire. Today, the Latin script, the Latin alphabet spread by the Roman Empire to most of Europe, and derived from the Phoenician alphabet through an ancient form of the Greek alphabet adopted and modified by Etruscan, is the most widespread and commonly used script in the world. Spread by various colonies, trade routes, and political powers, the script has continued to grow in influence. The Greek alphabet, which had spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean region during the Hellenistic period, remained the primary script of the Eastern Roman Empire through the Byzantine Empire until its demise in the 15th century. Cyrillic scripts largely derive from the Greek.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The Carolingian Renaissance of the 8th century rescued many works in Latin from oblivion: manuscripts transcribed at that time are our only sources for some works that later fell into obscurity once more, only to be recovered during the Renaissance: Tacitus, Lucretius, Propertius and Catullus furnish examples.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Other Latin writers never went out of circulation: Virgil, reinterpreted as a prophet of Christianity by the 4th century, gained the reputation of a sorcerer in the 12th century.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Cicero, in a limited number of his works, remained a model of good style, mined for quotations. Medieval Christians read Ovid allegorically, or re-imagined Seneca as the correspondent of Saint Paul. Lucan, Persius, Juvenal, Horace, Terence, and Statius survived in the continuing canon and the historians Valerius Maximus and Livy continued to be read for the moral lessons history was expected to impart.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Through the Roman Empire, Greek literature also continued to make an impact in Europe long after the Empire's fall, especially after the recovery of Greek texts from the East during the high Middle Ages and the resurgence of Greek literacy during the Renaissance. Many educated Westerners from the Renaissance up to the 20th century, for instance, read Plutarch's "Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans", originally written in Greek. Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar" takes most of its material from Plutarch's biographies of Caesar, Cato, and Brutus, whose exploits were frequently discussed and debated by the literati of Shakespeare's time.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Martianus Capella developed the system of the seven liberal arts that structured medieval education. Although the liberal arts were already known in Ancient Greece, it was only after Martianus that the seven liberal arts took on canonical form.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: His single encyclopedic work, "De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii" "On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury", laid the standard formula of academic learning from the Christianized Roman Empire of the 5th century until the Renaissance of the 12th century.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The seven liberal arts were formed by the trivium, which included the skills of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, while arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy played part as the quadrivium.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The modern Western calendar is a refinement of the Julian calendar, which was introduced by Julius Caesar. The calendar of the Roman Empire began with the months Ianuarius (January), Februarius (February), and Martius (March). The common tradition to begin the year on 1 January was a convention established in ancient Rome. Throughout the medieval period, the year began on 25 March, the Catholic Solemnity of the Annunciation.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The 5th-century Roman monk Dionysius Exiguus devised the modern dating system of the Anno Domini (AD) era, which is based on the reckoned year of the birth of Jesus, with AD counting years from the start of this epoch, and BC denoting years before the start of the era.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The modern seven-day week follows the Greco-Roman system of planetary hours, in which one of the seven heavenly bodies of the Solar System that were known in ancient times—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon—is given "rulership" over each day. The Romance languages (with the exception of Portuguese, that assigns an ordinal number to five days of the week, from Monday to Friday, beginning with ', and ending with ') preserve the original Latin names of each day of the week, except for Sunday, which came to be called "" (Lord's Day) under Christianity.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The 12-hour clock is a time convention popularized by the Romans in which the 24 hours of the day are divided into two periods. The Romans divided the day into 12 equal hours, A.M. ("ante-meridiem", meaning before midday) and P.M. ("post-meridiem", meaning past midday). The Romans also started the practice used worldwide today of a new day beginning at midnight.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Roman numerals continued as the primary way of writing numbers in Europe until the 14th century, when they were largely replaced in common usage by Hindu–Arabic numerals. The Roman numeral system continues to be widely used, however, in certain formal and minor contexts, such as on clock faces, coins, in the year of construction on cornerstone inscriptions, and in generational suffixes (such as Louis XIV or William Howard Taft IV). Romance languages (and also other languages such as Russian, Polish and Basque) write centuries in Roman numbers; in Spanish, for example, "21st century" is written "siglo XXI".


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The Romans solidified the modern concept of the hour as one-24th part of a day and night. The English measurement system also retains features of the Ancient Roman foot (11.65 modern inches), which was used in England prior to the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. The inch itself derives from the Roman , meaning one-twelfth part.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Although the present archaeological system of the three main ages—stone, bronze and iron—originates with the Danish archaeologist Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, the concept of dividing pre-historical ages into systems based on metals extends to Ancient Rome, originated by the Roman Lucretius in the first century BC.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: While classical Roman and Hellenistic religion were ultimately superseded by Christianity, many key theological ideas and questions that are characteristic of Western religions originated with pre-Christian theology. The first cause argument for the existence of God, for instance, originates with Plato. Design arguments, which were introduced by Socrates and Aristotle and remain widely discussed to this day, formed an influential component of Stoic theology well into the late Roman period. The problem of evil was widely discussed among ancient philosophers, including the Roman writers such as Cicero and Seneca, and many of the answers they provided were later absorbed into Christian theodicy. In Christian moral theology, moreover, the field of natural law ethics draws heavily on the tradition established by Aristotle, the Stoics, and especially by Cicero's popular Latin work, De Legibus. Cicero's conception of natural law "found its way to later centuries notably through the writings of Saint Isidore of Seville and the Decretum of Gratian" and influenced the discussion of the topic up through the era of the American Revolution.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Christianity itself also spread through the Roman Empire; since emperor Theodosius I (AD 379–395), the official state church of the Roman Empire was Christianity. Subsequently, former Roman territories became Christian states which exported their religion to other parts of the world, through colonization and missionaries.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Christianity also served as a conduit for preserving and transmitting Greco-Roman literary culture. Classical educational tradition in the liberal arts was preserved after the fall of the empire by the medieval Christian university. Education in the Middle Ages relied heavily on Greco-Roman books such as Euclid's "Elements" and the influential quadrivium textbooks written in Latin by the Roman statesman Boethius (AD 480–524).


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Major works of Greek and Latin literature, moreover, were both read and written by Christians during the imperial era. Many of the most influential works of the early Christian tradition were written by Roman and Hellenized theologians who engaged heavily with the literary culture of the empire (see church fathers). St. Augustine's (AD 354–430) "City of God," for instance, draws extensively on Virgil, Cicero, Varro, Homer, Plato, and elements of Roman values and identity to criticize paganism and advocate for Christianity amidst a crumbling empire. The engagement of early Christians as both readers and writers of important Roman and Greek literature helped to ensure that the literary culture of Rome would persist after the fall of the empire. For thousands of years to follow, religious scholars in the Latin West from Bede to Thomas Aquinas and later renaissance figures such as Dante, Montaigne and Shakespeare would continue to read, reference and imitate both Christian and pagan literature from the Roman Empire. In the east, the empire's prolific tradition of Greek literature continued uninterrupted after the fall of the west, in part due to the works of the Greek fathers, who were widely read by Christians in medieval Byzantium and continue to influence religious thought to this day (see Byzantine literature).


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: While much of the most influential Greek science and philosophy was developed before the rise of the Empire, major innovations occurred under Roman rule that have had a lasting impact on the intellectual world. The traditions of Greek, Egyptian and Babylonian scholarship continued to flourish at great centers of learning such as Athens, Alexandria, and Pergamon.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Epicurean philosophy reached a literary apex in the long poem by Lucretius, who advocated an atomic theory of matter and revered the older teachings of the Greek Democritus. The works of the philosophers Seneca the Younger, Epictetus and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius were widely read during the revival of Stoic thought in the Renaissance, which synthesized Stoicism and Christianity. Fighter pilot James Stockdale famously credited the philosophy of Epictetus as being a major source of strength when he was shot down and held as prisoner during the Vietnam War. Plato's philosophy continued to be widely studied under the Empire, growing into the sophisticated neoplatonic system through the influence of Plotinus. Platonic philosophy was largely reconciled with Christianity by the Roman theologian Augustine of Hippo, who, while a staunch opponent of Roman paganism, viewed the Platonists as having more in common with Christians than the other pagan schools. To this day, Plato's "Republic" is considered the foundational work of Western philosophy, and is read by students around the globe.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The widespread "Lorem ipsum" text, which is widely used as a meaningless placeholder in modern typography and graphic design, is derived from the Latin text of Cicero's philosophical treatise "De finibus."


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Pagan philosophy was gradually supplanted by Christianity in the later years of the Empire, culminating in the closure of the Academy of Athens by Justinian I. Many Greek-speaking philosophers moved to the east, outside the borders of the Empire. Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism gained a stronghold in Persia, where they were a heavy influence on early Islamic philosophy. Thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroës) engaged deeply with Greek philosophy, and played a major role in saving works of Aristotle that had been lost to the Latin West. The influence of Greek philosophy on Islam was dramatically reduced In the 11th century when the views of Avicenna and Averroes were strongly criticized by Al-Ghazali. His "Incoherence of the Philosophers" is among the most influential books in Islamic history. In Western Europe, meanwhile, the recovery of Greek texts during the Scholastic period had a profound influence on Latin science and theology from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: In science, the theories of the Greco-Roman physician Galen dominated Western medical thought and practice for more than 1,300 years. Ptolemy produced the most thorough and sophisticated astronomical theory of antiquity, documented in the Almagest. The Ptolemaic model of the solar system would remain the dominant approach to astronomy across Europe and the Middle East for more than a thousand years. Forty-eight of the 88 constellations the IAU recognizes today are recorded in the seventh and eighth books of Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: At Alexandria, the engineer and experimenter Hero of Alexandria founded the study of mechanics and pneumatics. In modern geometry, Heron's formula bears his name. Roman Alexandria also saw the seeds of modern algebra arise in the works of Diophantus. Greek algebra continued to be studied in the east well after the fall of the Western Empire, where it matured into modern algebra in the hands of al-Khwārizmī (see the history of algebra). The study of Diophantine equations and Diophantine approximations are still important areas of mathematical research today.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: All of the planets in the Solar System, excluding Earth and Uranus, are named after Roman deities in the English language.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Although the law of the Roman Empire is not used today, modern law in many jurisdictions is based on principles of law used and developed during the Roman Empire. Some of the same Latin terminology is still used today. The general structure of jurisprudence used today, in many jurisdictions, is the same (trial with a judge, plaintiff, and defendant) as that established during the Roman Empire.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The modern concept of republican government is directly modeled on the Roman Republic. The republican institutions of Rome survived in many of the Italian city-states of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The form, function, and symbols of the United States Congress draw heavily on the Roman Senate and legislative assemblies, while the president holds a position similar to that of a Roman consul. Many European political thinkers of the Enlightenment were avid consumers of Latin literature. Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, and John Adams were all strongly influenced by Cicero, for instance. Adams recommended Cicero as a model for politicians to imitate, and once remarked that "the sweetness and grandeur of his sounds, and the harmony of his numbers give pleasure enough to reward the reading if one understood none of his meaning."


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Many Roman inventions were improved versions of other people's inventions and ranged from military organization, weapon improvements, armour, siege technology, naval innovation, architecture, medical instruments, irrigation, civil planning, construction, agriculture and many more areas of civic, governmental, military and engineering development.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: That said, the Romans also developed a huge array of new technologies and innovations. Many came from common themes but were vastly superior to what had come before, whilst others were totally new inventions developed by and for the needs of Empire and the Roman way of life.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Some of the more famous examples are the Roman aqueducts (some of which are still in use today), Roman roads, water powered milling machines, thermal heating systems (as employed in Roman baths, and also used in palaces and wealthy homes) sewage and pipe systems and the invention and widespread use of concrete.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Metallurgy and glass work (including the first widespread use of glass windows) and a wealth of architectural innovations including high rise buildings, dome construction, bridges, and floor construction (seen in the functionality of the Colosseum's arena and the underlying rooms/areas beneath it) are other examples of Roman innovations.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Military inventiveness was widespread and included tactical/strategic innovations, new methodologies in training, discipline and field medicine as well as inventions in all aspects of weaponry, from armor and shielding to siege engines and missile technology.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: This combination of new methodologies, technical innovation, and creative invention in the military gave Rome the edge against its adversaries for half a millennium, and with it, the ability to create an empire that even today, more than 2000 years later, continues to leave its legacy in many areas of modern life.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Rome left a legacy of founding many cities as "colonia". There were more than 500 Roman colonies spread through the Empire, most of them populated by veterans of the Roman legions. Some Roman colonies rose to become influential commercial and trade centers, transportation hubs and capitals of international empires, like Constantinople, London, Paris and Vienna.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: All those colonies were connected by another important legacy of the Roman Empire: the Roman roads. Indeed, the empire comprised more than of roads, of which over were stone-paved. The courses (and sometimes the surfaces) of many Roman roads survived for millennia and many are overlaid by modern roads, like the Via Emilia in northern Italy. The roads are closely linked to modern-day economies, with those that survived from the empire's territorial peak in 117 CE having more economic activity today. This is especially true in European areas, which kept wheeled vehicles in the latter half of the first millennium, whereas other regions preferred cheaper methods of transport such as camel caravans.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The Renaissance-era architectural style developed by Andrea Palladio, inspired by Greek and Roman architecture, became hugely influential throughout the Western world. In the mid-18th century, Roman architecture inspired Neoclassical architecture, part of the wider international movement of Neoclassicism. Though Neoclassical architecture employs the same classical vocabulary as late Baroque architecture, it tends to emphasize its planar qualities, rather than sculptural volumes. Projections and recessions and their effects of light and shade are flatter; sculptural bas-reliefs are flatter and tend to be framed in friezes, tablets or panels. Its clearly articulated individual features are isolated rather than interpenetrating, autonomous and complete in themselves.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: International Neoclassical architecture was exemplified in Karl Friedrich Schinkel's buildings, especially the Old Museum in Berlin; Sir John Soane's Bank of England in London; and the White House and Capitol in Washington, DC in the United States. The Scots architect Charles Cameron created palatial Italianate interiors for the German-born Catherine II the Great in St. Petersburg.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Italy clung to Rococo until the Napoleonic regimes brought the new archaeological classicism, which was embraced as a political statement by young, progressive, urban Italians with republican leanings.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: From a legal point of view, the Roman Empire, founded by Augustus in 27 BC and divided after the death of Theodosius I in 395 into two "parts" (or rather courts, as the empire continued to be considered as one), had survived only in the eastern part which, with the deposition of the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476, had also obtained the imperial regalia of the western part, reuniting from a formal point of view the Roman Empire.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The Roman line continued uninterrupted to rule the Eastern Roman Empire, whose main characteristics were Roman concept of state, medieval Greek culture and language, and Orthodox Christian faith. The Byzantines themselves never ceased to refer to themselves as "Romans" ("Rhomaioi") and to their state as the "Roman Empire", the "Empire of the Romans" (in Greek Βασιλεία των Ῥωμαίων, Basileía ton Rhōmaíōn) or "Romania" (Ῥωμανία, Rhōmanía). Likewise, they were called "Rûm" (Rome) by their eastern enemies to the point that competing neighbours even acquired its name, such as the Sultanate of Rûm.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The designation of the Empire as "Byzantine" is a retrospective idea: it began only in 1557, a century after the fall of Constantinople, when German historian Hieronymus Wolf published his work "Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ", a collection of Byzantine sources. The term did not come in general use in the Western world before the 19th century, when modern Greece was born. The end of the "continuous" tradition of the Roman Empire is open to debate: the final point may be viewed as coming as early as the sack of Constantinople in 1204, or the capture of Constantinople in 1453, or as late as the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 given the Ottoman sultans' adoption of the title of Emperor of the Romans ("Kayser-i Rum") for themselves.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: After the fall of Constantinople, Thomas Palaiologos, brother of the last Eastern Roman Emperor, Constantine XI, was elected emperor and tried to organize the remaining forces. His rule came to an end after the fall of the last major Byzantine city, Corinth. He then moved to Italy and continued to be recognized as Eastern emperor by the Christian powers. Other Byzantine rump states, including the Empire of Trebizond and the Principality of Theodoro, were soon conquered by the Ottomans as well.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: His son Andreas Palaiologos continued claims on the Byzantine throne until he sold the title to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile before his death in 1502. However, there is no evidence that any Spanish monarch used the Byzantine imperial titles.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: In Western Europe, the Roman concept of state was continued for almost a millennium by the Holy Roman Empire whose emperors, mostly of German tongue, viewed themselves as the legitimate successors to the ancient imperial tradition ("King of the Romans") and Rome as the capital of its Empire. The German title of "Kaiser" is derived from the Latin name "Caesar", which is pronounced in Classical Latin.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: The coronation of Charlemagne as "Roman" emperor by Pope Leo III in the year 800 happened at a time of unprecedented sole female imperial rule in Constantinople (by Empress Irene) which was interpreted by adversaries as tantamount to a vacancy. The imperial title in the West generated what historians have called the problem of two emperors. The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire sought in many ways to make themselves accepted by the Byzantines as their peers: with diplomatic relations, political marriages or threats. Sometimes, however, they did not obtain the expected results, because from Constantinople they were always called "King of the Germans", never "Emperor." The Holy Roman Empire survived Byzantium, but was eventually dissolved in 1806 owing to pressure by Napoleon I.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: In Eastern Europe, firstly the Bulgarian, then the Serbian, and ultimately the Russian czars ("Czar" derived from Caesar) proclaimed being Emperors. Muscovite Russia adopted the idea of being a Third Rome (with Constantinople being the second). Sentiments of being the heir of the fallen Eastern Roman Empire began during the reign of Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow, who had married Sophia Paleologina, the niece of Constantine XI (it is important to note that she was not the heiress of the Byzantine throne; rather, her brother Andreas was). Being the most powerful Orthodox Christian state, the Tsars were thought of in Russia as succeeding the Eastern Roman Empire as the rightful rulers of the Orthodox Christian world. The House of Romanov, being the rulers of the Russian Empire, were finally ended in the Russian Revolution of 1917. There were also competing Bulgarian and Wallachian claims for succession of the Roman Empire.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: In the early 20th century, the Italian fascists under their "Duce" Benito Mussolini dreamed of transforming Italy back into the Roman Empire again, encompassing the Mediterranean basin. Associated with Italian fascism also Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain connected their claims with Roman imperialism.


title: Legacy of the Roman Empire

text: Aside from the city of Rome itself, the Imperial Roman name has survived in a number of regions and was also adopted by some of the political regimes that ruled them. These include:


title: Overstock.com

text: Overstock.com, Inc. is an American internet retailer selling primarily furniture headquartered in Midvale, Utah, near Salt Lake City. Businessman Patrick M. Byrne founded Overstock.com in 1999. The company initially sold exclusively surplus and returned merchandise on an online e-commerce marketplace, liquidating the inventories of at least 18 failed dot-com companies at below-wholesale prices. The company continues to sell home decor, furniture, bedding, and many other goods that are closeout merchandise; however, it also sells new merchandise.


title: Overstock.com

text: In May 2002, Overstock held an IPO at a per-share price of $13; furthermore, after achieving significant growth and profits in some early quarters, the company achieved a profit of $7.7 million in 2009 and reported its first billion-dollar year in 2010. The business started rebranding in early 2011, as "O.co", to simplify and unify its international operations but interrupted this effort a few months later, citing consumer confusion over the new name, which utilized a Colombian country domain.


title: Overstock.com

text: Part of Overstock.com's merchandise is purchased by or manufactured specifically for the company. Among their products are handmade goods produced for Overstock by workers in developing nations. The company also manages the inventory supply for other retailers. In addition to its direct retail sales, Overstock.com began offering online auctions on its website in 2004, known as Overstock.com Marketplace and later O.co Marketplace. This service was retired in July 2011.


title: Overstock.com

text: After initially relying solely on word-of-mouth marketing from customers, the company turned to distinctive television advertisements starring German actress Sabine Ehrenfeld. Later, they would employ other advertising spokespersons.


title: Overstock.com

text: In July 2006, John J. Byrne, the father of Overstock's chief executive, resigned from the board of directors after a public airing of the elder Byrne's unhappiness with his son's actions against naked short-selling. In August 2008, Jack Byrne said that after "much initial skepticism" he believed his son was "right all along" about the battle and lawsuits with short-sellers and analysts. In 2010 the elder Byrne returned to the Overstock.com board of directors.


title: Overstock.com

text: In early 2007, John A. Fisher and Ray Groves resigned from the Overstock board of directors over disagreement with the company's prime broker suit.


title: Overstock.com

text: On January 2, 2008, Overstock announced that cofounder Jason Lindsey had resigned as president, COO, and as a director of Overstock effective from December 31, 2007. Byrne said Lindsey had "played a decisive role getting [Overstock] back on track" after "I screwed it up a couple years ago". Overstock stock dropped to a four-year low following the announcement, which an analyst for investment bank Broadpoint Capital described as a "key loss".


title: Overstock.com

text: In 2011, revenues dropped 5 percent over a two-month penalty period imposed by Google. According to the Associated Press, Overstock set up fake websites linking back to its own site. Overstock said it was penalized in part for a practice of encouraging college and university websites to post links to Overstock pages so that students and faculty could receive discounts. As a result of the Google penalty, search results for certain products dropped in Google rankings. During the same year, Overstock.com acquired naming rights to the former Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, renaming it Overstock.com Coliseum. The Coliseum was later rebranded O.co Coliseum, in keeping with Overstock's then-rebranding as O.co (in April 2016, the name O.co Coliseum was dropped in favor of Oakland-Alameda Coliseum).


title: Overstock.com

text: In 2013, Overstock began promoting increased immigration. Overstock president Jonathan Johnson told the "Los Angeles Times" that his firm had struggled to hire enough computer programmers and software developers to expand the business. "We pay more, and they are still hard to fill", he said. "We need to be more free in letting people in. That helps us solve our border problem. No one goes through the window of a house if they can ring the doorbell and come in the front door."


title: Overstock.com

text: In 2014, Overstock began developing software that would allow it to distribute corporate stock online instead of using traditional methods like the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.


title: Overstock.com

text: Byrne took an indefinite leave of absence in April 2016, because of hepatitis C complications. The general counsel, Mitch Edwards, was named acting CEO. In July 2016, Byrne returned as CEO.


title: Overstock.com

text: The company announced a digital dividend with a record date of September 23, 2019. For each 10 shares of traditional stock held, and investor will be entitled to 1 share of Digital Voting Series A-1 Preferred Stock. Initially the digital shares will only be tradable on the PRO Securities alternative trading system, which licenses its technology from tZero, an overstock subsidiary focused on blockchain technology.


title: Overstock.com

text: In 2001 Overstock set up the Worldstock division, to showcase the work of artisans from around the world. By 2006 there were approximately 6,000 producers contributing.


title: Overstock.com

text: On January 9, 2014, Overstock.com became the first major retailer to start accepting bitcoin as payments for its goods. In the first 22 hours, they received over 800 orders worth US$126,000 in bitcoin. This represents a 4.33% increase in sales from their normal income of $3 million per day.


title: Overstock.com

text: As of March 13, 2014, Overstock bitcoin income had shrunk to under 1% of their normal daily cash intake.


title: Overstock.com

text: In a community interview with social media site Reddit on May 3, 2014, in response to a question to the Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne about the percentage of revenue and transactions paid for in bitcoin, Byrne responded that the percentage was "Tiny. <.1%". In mid-2014 Overstock.com announced that bitcoin sales were averaging $300,000 per month and that the company expected bitcoin sales to add 4 cents to the company's 2014 earnings per share.


title: Overstock.com

text: Despite at least $175 million in bitcoin or other blockchain investments, the firm never recorded any profits from those investments.


title: Overstock.com

text: On August 22, 2019, CEO Patrick Byrne resigned his CEO and board seat at Overstock via a 1,600 word email. In the email he admitted to a romantic affair with Maria Butina, an unregistered foreign agent of Russia, but Byrne did not provide additional information on how this prompted his resignation. Shortly thereafter, Jonathan E. Johnson became CEO.


title: Overstock.com

text: The company has received attention stemming from CEO Patrick Byrne's battle against alleged naked short selling of his company's shares. Beginning in 2005, Byrne has contended that a number of companies, including Overstock.com, have been the targets of this practice, which involves selling a stock short but without the usual step of initially borrowing or locating the shares. Byrne alleges that the practice circumvents safeguards of conventional shorting, and has been used in large schemes devised to profit from driving down the prices of companies' shares, in many cases leading to these companies' failure. With Overstock, Byrne contends that the company's longstanding appearance on the Regulation SHO Threshold Security list, an SEC-mandated list showing companies with a high number of "fails to deliver", along with high trading volumes that sometimes surpass total quantity of the company's stock, establish that it has been targeted by this practice. Byrne's campaign has been controversial, including criticism in the financial press that Byrne is seeking to divert attention from Overstock's share price declines and failure to turn a profit. New York Times columnist Joseph Nocera has said in 2006 that, "Except for a few fellow-traveling Web sites, where Mr. Byrne is viewed as a heroic figure, most people who understand the issue or have looked into it think it's pretty bogus." Others have suggested that the problem is real, but that the SEC acts to prevent it and that it does not happen on any scale such as Byrne suggests. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox called abusive naked short selling "a fraud that the commission is bound to prevent and to punish."


title: Overstock.com

text: Overstock filed a lawsuit against the hedge fund Rocker Partners in 2005 for libel, unfair business practices and tortious interference, saying it colluded with a research firm, Gradient Analytics, in short-selling the company while paying Gradient Analytics to publish negative reports about Overstock.com and supplying pre-publication copies to Rocker. Naked short-selling was not alleged in that suit. In a conference call with analysts in August 2005, a day after the suit was filed, Byrne said that "there's been a plan since we were in our teens to destroy our stock, drive it down to $6–10 ... and even a plan for how the company would then get whacked up." He said that the conspirators were part of a "Miscreants Ball", headed by a "Sith Lord", who he refused to identify but said "he's one of the master criminals from the 1980s." Byrne said the conspiracy included hedge funds, journalists, investigators, trial lawyers, the SEC, and Eliot Spitzer." Gradient Analytics countersued, alleging Byrne waged a smear campaign.


title: Overstock.com

text: Rocker Partners, renamed Copper River Management, filed a counterclaim against Overstock in November 2007, alleging overstatement of profits, false projections, and misrepresentations about the company's ventures. Copper River also alleges that Byrne tried to silence critics by suing them. A portion of this suit was settled out of court on October 13, 2008 when Overstock.com and Gradient dropped the claims against each other after Gradient retracted allegations that Overstock's reporting methods did not comply with rules established by the FASB, stated they believed Overstock.com complied with GAAP standards, and that three directors were independent according to NASD standards, and apologized. Byrne has said the apology and settlement "represents a great step forward in our case", while Copper River's attorney stated that "If somehow this improved Overstock's case, then Gradient would admit to doing something wrong and they haven’t", and that he expected the settlement to help Copper River's case.


title: Overstock.com

text: On December 8, 2009, it was announced that Copper River had reached an out of court settlement with Overstock. As part of the agreement, Copper River, which closed in December 2008, agreed to pay Overstock $5 million. In a letter to his shareholders, Patrick Byrne said, "The good guys won". Copper River said in a statement that it continued to deny Overstock's allegations. Copper River managing general partner Marc Cohodes said "Although settlement deprives us of the ability to disprove Overstock's case and prosecute our counterclaims, we decided that the litigation costs did not justify passing up a practical way to end four-and-half years of meritless litigation by Overstock."


title: Overstock.com

text: In February 2007, Overstock.com launched a $3.5 billion lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and other large Wall Street firms, alleging a "massive illegal stock market manipulation scheme" involving naked short selling. Among its allegations, Overstock stated that since at least January 2005, naked short selling has accounted for large portions of Overstock stock, in some cases exceeding the 23.4 million total shares outstanding. The lawsuit alleged that this had created "immense downward pressure" on share prices over time. Kerry Fields, associate professor of law and business ethics at the University of Southern California, said, "Byrne may be able to help set new law if he handles this right." Fields said, Byrne's "best approach now is probably to persuade the SEC, which continues to wander around the issue, or the government to serve subpoenas and let them decide whether or not his company was wronged." John Coffee, director of the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia University Law School, described it as overly ambitious and "extremely unpromising." Two members of the Overstock.com board of directors, John Fisher and Ray Groves, resigned in disagreement over the lawsuit.


title: Overstock.com

text: In December 2010, all but two of the prime broker defendants settled out of court with Overstock for $4.4 million. That same month, the company filed a motion seeking to amend its lawsuit against the remaining defendants—Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch—to include claims of RICO violations. The enhanced claims were based on evidence gained through discovery in the case.


title: Overstock.com

text: The RICO claim was dismissed at trial, and this was affirmed on appeal. The claim against Goldman was dismissed but Goldman subsequently settled a refiled suit. Merrill finally settled for $20 million in 2016.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is an action-adventure game developed by Grezzo and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS handheld game console. The game was released in June 2011. A remake of the , it features updated graphics, stereoscopic 3D effects, and mirrored versions of the rearranged dungeons from "". The game was released in June 2011, with digital release via the Nintendo eShop arriving in 2012.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: "Ocarina of Time 3D" received critical acclaim, with some calling it one of the best video game remakes of all time. It was also a commercial success with over 6.4 million units sold worldwide as of December 2021, making it the thirteenth best-selling Nintendo 3DS game.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: The gameplay for the remaster is very similar to the original version, but it made some modifications to the game. One new feature is the use of the touchscreen to manage inventory items. Also, the touchscreen is used at times to play the Ocarina songs. The game uses the system's gyroscopic technology to look around and aim the player's bow, boomerang, hookshot, longshot, and slingshot in first-person mode, unless the player chooses to use the classic analog stick control to aim.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: The 3DS version has the modified "Master Quest" dungeons and mirrored overworld in addition to the original game, and a new "Boss Challenge" mode that allows the player to fight all of the bosses one at a time, or in sequential order, while the "Master Quest" has its own version of the "Boss Challenge" mode, where the boss arenas are mirrored and enemies will do twice the usual amount of damage.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: Another new addition is the inclusion of optional brief video clips called "Visions" that serve as hint videos in case some new players get lost or have trouble solving the game's numerous puzzles. These are accessed via Sheikah Stones, which are located at Link's house in the Kokiri Forest and inside the Temple of Time. Due to the 3DS having no equivalent to the Nintendo 64's Rumble Pak feature, the Stone of Agony from the original version of the game was replaced with the Shard of Agony which serves the same purpose, only with a sound signal to inform the players of secrets nearby.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: The player controls the series' trademark hero, Link, in the land of Hyrule. Link sets out on a quest to stop Ganondorf, King of the Gerudo tribe, from obtaining the Triforce, a sacred relic that grants the wishes of its holder. Link travels back and forth through time and navigates various dungeons to awaken sages who have the power to seal Ganondorf away. Music plays an important role—to progress, the player must learn to play and perform several songs on an ocarina.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: The existence of an "Ocarina of Time" remake for the Nintendo 3DS was first hinted at E3 2010, but at the time Shigeru Miyamoto maintained that it was merely a tech demo with the possibility of being developed into a full game. Nintendo of America officially announced its production on Twitter a few months later. Miyamoto commented that the remake's timing was important, as they did not want to remaster the game too soon. He wanted to wait so that the people who played "Ocarina of Time" when they were younger were now in their mid-20s. He also wanted players to experience the "majestic scenery of Hyrule in stereoscopic 3D" and provide a sense of immersion. "Ocarina of Time 3D" runs at 30 frames per second, which is an increase over the Nintendo 64 version's 20 frames per second.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D" was co-developed with Japanese developer Grezzo. According to Grezzo's Shun Moriya, some of the original game's bugs were intentionally untouched in the 3DS version, because they were so committed to deliver "Ocarina of Time" on 3DS in just the way the fans remembered: "As programmers, we wanted to get rid of bugs, but the staff members who had played the old game said the bugs were fun. It wouldn't be fun if your friends couldn't say, 'Do you know about this?' So we left them in if they didn't cause any trouble and were beneficial. If something simply could not be allowed to stand, we begrudgingly fixed it, so some bugs don't appear. But we left in as many as we could, so people will grin over that". Eiji Aonuma, producer of the original game, said that a desire to make "Ocarina of Time 3D" more "formidable" was behind the decision to include and adjust the "Master Quest" campaign.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: In Australia, anyone who pre-ordered the game from EB Games could receive the Ocarina Edition, which included a playable ocarina that sports the Triforce symbol, two music sheets featuring songs from the game, and a poster.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: In Greece, anyone who pre-ordered the game from Nintendo's online store could receive five bonus items. The items were an ocarina, a baseball hat, a keychain, a sleeve for the 3DS, and a can of Deku Tree seeds.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: In the UK, anyone who pre-ordered the game would get a free game case with a North American collectors' cover and a double-sided poster.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: Anyone who pre-ordered the game from Play.com got a bonus slip case for the 3DS console featuring the same artwork as the U.K. game box. In the Japan, U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand, anyone who registered the game through Nintendo's Club Nintendo service had received a free copy of the game's official soundtrack.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: In June 2011, actor and comedian Robin Williams starred in a commercial to promote the game along with his daughter Zelda Williams, whom he had named after the character from the series. In Japan, Nintendo utilized boy band Arashi to advertise the game in television and print spots. Nintendo ran TV advertisements around the release of "Ocarina of Time 3D", showcasing its new features. Online takeovers appeared on websites during release week, while a print campaign ran in specialist magazines. Advertisements ran again throughout the summer season.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: The retail cartridge of "Ocarina of Time 3D" was discontinued in early 2015 leading to high prices on the secondary market, though the eShop digital download remains available for consumers. In March 2016, "Ocarina of Time 3D" was re-released under the Nintendo Selects label.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: The music in "Ocarina of Time 3D" was adapted from the original for the 3DS hardware by Mahito Yokota and Takeshi Hama, with Koji Kondo supervising them. To coincide with the release of the game as well as the 25th anniversary of the release of "The Legend of Zelda", Nintendo freely released, via mail out redemption, an updated CD version of the original soundtrack through the Club Nintendo website.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: The 3DS version of the soundtrack contained fifty-one tracks, including all the original tracks from the U.S. version of the soundtrack, as well as several more tracks from the Japanese edition, and a bonus orchestral medley. Although it was available in all regions, the soundtrack was only available to owners of the 3DS version that registered their copy on Club Nintendo and was only available for a limited time.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D" received critical acclaim. As a remastering of a Nintendo 64 game widely considered the greatest game of all time, expectations were high for the new version. Reviewers praised the mirrored version of the rearranged dungeons from the "Master Quest" version of the original game, along with the updated graphics, visuals, controls, the new "Boss Challenge" mode and the added 3D effects. The game was available to the public at Nintendo's Nintendo World 2011 event; the title attracted significant amounts of attention, with longer wait times to play than any other featured title. "Ocarina of Time 3D" went on to receive perfect scores from at least 24 different publications.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: "Nintendo Power" gave it a rating of 9.5 out of 10, stating that the core gameplay held up impressively well, and that it never feels like a lesser game than what players have become accustomed to, but rather, it has a back-to-basics feel. "Game Informer" rated the game 9.25 stating that "with "Ocarina of Time 3D", one of the greatest games of all time looks and plays better than ever". They further stated that this was the perfect way to introduce it to a new generation of gamers. Eurogamer was very pleased with the title by awarding it with a perfect score, calling it one of the greatest games on 3DS. "Official Nintendo Magazine" scored the game 98%, the highest they have ever given, calling it "a life-changing game, an experience that defines the medium it inhabits and if you have the chance to experience it afresh, it will be even better". "Electronic Gaming Monthly" gave it 9.5 and stated the game is "still a transformative action-adventure after 13 years" and that ""Ocarina of Time 3D" is still a just as good as the original, though, and it's a must-play for any gamer who's somehow missed it up until now".


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: "Computer and Video Games" gave the game 9.4 and wrote that it is "still a classic, still an explosion of nostalgia. "Ocarina of Time 3D" is a blissful rediscovery for veterans and an unmissable opportunity for newcomers". Retro Gamer gave it a 98%, calling it a perfect example how to remake a video game classic. VideoGamer gave it a perfect score: "We knew then that Miyamoto and co had made a classic, but it's only now that we can see just how revolutionary "Ocarina of Time" actually was". GiantBomb also gave it a perfect score, and going so far to say that "it's almost as important as a historical record as it is a game that's still enjoyable today".


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: CNN ssaid that "this would be a great game for any gamer of any age". GameSpot gave the game 8.5, stating: "Though its roots show through from time to time, the improved visuals remove any barrier of entry that age may have posed. The new elements enhance the core adventure to create the definitive version of this classic game, making "Ocarina of Time 3D" the best way to embark on (or relive) this landmark adventure". 1UP was slightly more critical of the game, which gave the game B+: "As a portable gaming enthusiast, I love being able to play a game of this quality on the go. I just wish as much attention had been paid to the nuts-and-bolts of the game as was lavished on appearance".


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: In Japan, "Ocarina of Time 3D" helped the 3DS to take the top spot on the hardware chart after 12 weeks. "Ocarina of Time 3D" debuted at No. 2 with 164,110 units sold in its first week in Japan. Media-Create said this amounts to 90.02% of all copies of the game that were sent out to retail shops for selling. It was rumored that stock in "Zelda" was a bit low in Japan for the reporting period.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: In the UK, "Ocarina of Time 3D" debuted second on the charts in the country during its debut week. In North America, "Ocarina of Time 3D" led cross-platform sales upon its debut week and debuted first on the multiplatform chart.


title: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

text: In total, one million units had been sold worldwide , making it the third 3DS title to do so. 270,000 of those sales came from Japan. , 1.39 million copies had been sold in the United States.


title: Earlobe

text: The human earlobe ("lobulus auriculae"), the lower portion of the outer ear, is composed of tough areolar and adipose connective tissues, lacking the firmness and elasticity of the rest of the auricle (the external structure of the ear). In some cases the lower lobe is connected to the side of the face. Since the earlobe does not contain cartilage it has a large blood supply and may help to warm the ears and maintain balance. However, earlobes are not generally considered to have any major biological function. The earlobe contains many nerve endings, and for some people is an erogenous zone.


title: Earlobe

text: The zoologist Desmond Morris in his book "The Naked Ape" (1967) conjectured that the lobes developed as an additional erogenous zone to facilitate the extended sexuality necessary in the evolution of human monogamous pair bonding.


title: Earlobe

text: The earlobe, as a body part built of epithelium and connective tissue, might appear to be derived from dermatome. But this is not the case, as in the surrounding tissue there are no somites and thus no dermatome. In this area, the dermis is derived from cells of mesenchymal cells: the mesenchyme is derived from the sclerotome and splanchnopleura located in the nearby regions of the torso.


title: Earlobe

text: The earlobe as a body part arises and develops in the vicinity of auricular follicle, as a result of cascade induction:


title: Earlobe

text: Earlobes average about 2 centimeters long, and elongate slightly with age. Although the "free" vs. "attached" appearance of earlobes is often presented as an example of a simple "one gene – two alleles" Mendelian trait in humans, earlobes do not all fall neatly into either category; there is a continuous range from one extreme to the other, suggesting the influence of several genes.


title: Earlobe

text: Earlobes are normally smooth, but occasionally exhibit creases. Creased earlobes are sometimes associated with genetic disorders in children, including Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. In some early studies, earlobe creases were thought to be associated with an increased risk of heart attack and coronary heart disease. But more recent studies have concluded that, since earlobes become more creased with age, and older people are more likely to have heart disease than younger people, age rather than intrinsic factors may account for the findings linking heart attack to earlobe creases. The earlobe crease is also called Frank's Sign.


title: Earlobe

text: Piercing the earlobes is a commonplace activity in many cultures in many historical eras; no other location on the body is as commonly pierced. Consequently, injury to the earlobe due to the weight of heavy earrings is also common. Some cultures practice earlobe stretching for decorative effects, using piercing ornaments to stretch and enlarge the earlobes to accommodate plugs.


title: Earlobe

text: A noticeable relationship has been found by Polish scientists between the piercing of young girls' earlobes and their subsequently developing allergic skin reactions. In the view of Professor Ewa Czarnobilska, the manager of the research team, the primary reason for the allergies connected to earrings is the presence of nickel, which is a common component of the alloys used in jewelry production and leaches from the earrings. The symptom seen is generally eczema, and is often misdiagnosed as a food allergy, for instance to milk. The specific mechanism in allergies caused by earrings is the contact of nickel ions with the lymphatic system.


title: Earlobe

text: The study noted that children who stopped wearing earrings did not see the disappearance of the allergic symptoms. The immune system remembers the presence of the nickel ions in the person's blood and lymph, so the child can still react to:


title: Torasemide

text: Torasemide, also known as torsemide, is a diuretic medication used to treat fluid overload due to heart failure, kidney disease, and liver disease and high blood pressure. It is a less preferred treatment for high blood pressure. It is taken by mouth or by injection into a vein.


title: Torasemide

text: Common side effects include headache, increased urination, diarrhea, cough, and dizziness. Other side effects may include hearing loss and low blood potassium. Torasemide is a sulfonamide and loop diuretic. Use is not recommended in pregnancy or breastfeeding. It works by decreasing the reabsorption of sodium by the kidneys.


title: Torasemide

text: Torasemide was patented in 1974 and came into medical use in 1993. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 213th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 2million prescriptions.


title: Torasemide

text: It is used to treat fluid overload due to heart failure. It is sometimes used to treat high blood pressure. Compared with furosemide, torasemide is associated with a lower risk of rehospitalization for heart failure and an improvement in New York Heart Association class of heart failure. In heart failure it may be safer and more effective than furosemide. Long-term outcomes with torasemide may be better than with furosemide in patients with heart failure.


title: Torasemide

text: Loop diuretics, including torsemide, may decrease total body thiamine, particularly in people with poor thiamine intake, and this depletion may worsen heart failure. It is therefore reasonable to either also give thiamine supplements or to check blood thiamine levels in those being treated with chronic loop diuretics.


title: Torasemide

text: Compared with other loop diuretics, torasemide has a more prolonged diuretic effect than equipotent doses of furosemide and relatively decreased potassium loss.


title: Torasemide

text: Torasemide is the recommended name of the drug (rINN) according to the (INN), which is the drug naming system coordinated by the World Health Organization. Torsemide is the official name of the drug according to the (USAN), which is the drug naming system coordinated by the USAN Council, which is co-sponsored by the American Medical Association (AMA), the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA).


title: X-COM: UFO Defense

text: X-COM: UFO Defense (known as UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe) is a 1994 science fiction strategy video game developed by Mythos Games. It was published by MicroProse for DOS and Amiga computers, the Amiga CD32 console, and the PlayStation.


title: X-COM: UFO Defense

text: Originally planned by Julian Gollop as a sequel to Mythos Games' 1988 "Laser Squad", the game mixes real-time management simulation with turn-based tactics. The player takes the role of commander of X-COM – an international paramilitary organization secretly defending Earth from an alien invasion. Through the game, the player is tasked with issuing orders to individual X-COM troops in a series of turn-based tactical missions. At strategic scale, the player directs the research and development of new technologies, builds and expands X-COM's bases, manages the organization's finances and personnel, and monitors and responds to UFO activity.


title: X-COM: UFO Defense

text: The game received strong reviews and was commercially successful, acquiring a cult following among strategy fans; several publications have listed "X-COM: UFO Defense" as one of the best video games ever made, including IGN ranking it as the best PC game of all time in 2007. It was the first and best-received entry in the "X-COM" series and has directly inspired several similar games, including "", "" and "Xenonauts". An official remake of the game, "", was created by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games in 2012. Mythos Games' and Julian Gollop's own original spiritual successor project, "", was cancelled in 2001 and later partially turned into "" by another developer. Gollop's new "X-COM" spiritual successor project, "Phoenix Point", was released in 2019.


title: X-COM: UFO Defense

text: The story of "X-COM", set in the near-future at the time of the game's release, begins in the year 1998. The initial plot centers on increased reports of UFO sightings as tales of abductions and rumors of attacks by mysterious aliens become widespread. The nations of the world come to perceive this as a threat and attempt to form their own forces – such as Japan's Kiryu-Kai force – to deal with the crisis, but these efforts are unsuccessful. On December 11, 1998, representatives from some of the most powerful nations in the world secretly meet in Geneva to discuss the issue. From this meeting is born the clandestine defense and research organization Extraterrestrial Combat (X-COM), over which the player assumes control at the start of the game.


title: X-COM: UFO Defense

text: In the beginning, the player will only have access to conventional weapons, but as the game progresses, the player learns more about the enemy, their species, mutated creations, and technology. It is ultimately revealed that the "leaders" behind the alien invasion are a race known as Ethereals which possess powerful mind control abilities and enslave other races of aliens to perform their bidding and that their main base in the Solar System is located in Cydonia region of Mars. The player must then prepare the final assault team, attack Cydonia and destroy the mastermind behind the alien invasion, the biocomputer Alien Brain.


title: X-COM: UFO Defense

text: The game may end in several ways. If the player's performance is poor or worse for two consecutive months, the player runs a deep deficit for two consecutive months, all the player's bases are captured, or the player mounts an assault on the aliens' Mars base and loses, the game ends in defeat, where in the PlayStation version, the council of funding nations makes a futile attempt to negotiate with the aliens, who violently murder the negotiator. While in the MS-DOS version, the funding nations sign pacts with the aliens promising peace, but they instead destroy every city and poison the water and air to destroy any resistance, the remaining survivors are put in slave camps to help terraform Earth for future alien colonization. But If, however, the player is victorious in the final attack, the game ends in mankind's victory.


title: X-COM: UFO Defense

text: The game takes place within two distinct views, called the Geoscape and the Battlescape. According to GameSpy, "Playing it again in 2012, it comes off as both completely brilliant and slightly insane. In effect, "X-COM" melds an SSI Gold Box RPG with a highly detailed 4X game like "Master of Orion", making it in some ways two entirely different games."