title: Cuban crocodile

text: The Cuban crocodile is of interest to biologists, for its unique physical and behavioral traits. Long- and strong-legged, it is the most terrestrial of extant crocodiles. Its preferred habitat comprises freshwater environments such as marshes and rivers. There, the adults feed on fish, turtles and small mammals, while the young eat invertebrates and smaller fish. Mating occurs between May and July. Captive animals have displayed cooperative hunting behavior, and can be taught tricks, suggesting intelligence.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: The Cuban crocodile is listed as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Once spread across the Caribbean, its range has dwindled to including only the Zapata Swamp and Isla de la Juventud, due to hunting by humans. Captive breeding projects are in place to help the species recover.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: The species fossil record reveals it had at one point a greater range, with fossil remains being found in The Bahamas, Hispaniola (in the Dominican Republic), and the Cayman Islands.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: The genus "Crocodylus" likely originated in Africa and radiated outwards towards Southeast Asia and the Americas, although an Australia/Asia origin has also been considered. Phylogenetic evidence supports "Crocodylus" diverging from its closest recent relative, the extinct "Voay" of Madagascar, around 25 million years ago, near the Oligocene/Miocene boundary.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: Below is a cladogram based on a 2018 tip dating study by Lee & Yates simultaneously using morphological, molecular (DNA sequencing), and stratigraphic (fossil age) data, as revised by the 2021 Hekkala "et al." paleogenomics study using DNA extracted from the extinct "Voay".


title: Cuban crocodile

text: The Cuban crocodile has numerous characteristics that set it apart from other crocodilians, such as its brighter adult colors, rougher, more 'pebbled' scales, and long, strong legs.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: This is a small to mid-sized crocodilian. Typical adults were found to have measured in length and to have weighed . Large males can reach as much as in length and weigh or more. Three individuals measuring from in total length and ranging from in weight had a bite force of .


title: Cuban crocodile

text: Today, the Cuban crocodile can only be found in Cuba's Zapata Swamp and Isla de la Juventud, where it is highly endangered. It formerly ranged elsewhere in the Caribbean; fossils of this species have been found in the Cayman Islands, The Bahamas and Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic).


title: Cuban crocodile

text: The Cuban crocodile appears to favor freshwater habitat such as swamps, marshes, and rivers and rarely swims in saltwater.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: This species has been observed to display peculiar behavior not observed in other crocodilians. A colony of this species has exhibited what is strongly suspected to be pack-hunting behavior, which may explain the predation of prehistoric megafauna that coexisted with this species, such as giant Caribbean sloths and giant West Indian tortoises. The behavior has prompted much interest in the species, usually kept singly (especially so after such reports).


title: Cuban crocodile

text: This species is also the most terrestrial of the crocodiles, with reduced webbing between digits on the hind feet and no webbing on the front feet. "C. rhombifer" exhibits highly intelligent behaviour unusual for crocodilians.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: Small fish, arthropods, and crustaceans make up the diet of young Cuban crocodiles. Adults of the species feed mostly upon small mammals, fish, and turtles. They have blunt rear teeth, which aid in crushing the shells of their turtle prey. Cuban crocodiles also demonstrate the jumping feeding technique seen in other crocodilians, such as the American alligator. By thrusting with their powerful tails, they can leap from the water and snatch small animals from overhanging branches. The Cuban crocodile, while not a particularly large species, is often regarded as the most aggressive New World crocodile and is behaviorally dominant over the larger American crocodile in areas where the two species coexist. Data regarding attacks on humans are limited, but occurrences are likely rare given the species' very small distribution area and separation from human populations. Despite its reported aggression, there is only a single known fatal human attack by this species: an elderly man who was attacked and killed in 1995 while spearfishing in the Zapata Swamp.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: The mating season of the Cuban crocodile is between the months of May and July. This is thought to be related to environmental changes, such as rainfall and temperature. In the wild, crocodiles will nest in wet marshes; where they will create trenches and cover the eggs with organic material. In captivity, crocodiles will create mounds. During the nesting period, the Cuban crocodiles will lay between 30–40 eggs and the estimated incubation period is 58–70 days. Hatching can occur from late August to early September. Due to the predation of humans, raccoons, and other animals, many eggs will not hatch. At birth, hatchlings are approximately 2–3 inches in length, and are 1/4th of a pound in weight. As with other crocodilians the sex of the Cuban crocodile's offspring is determined by the temperature in the nest. In conservation, the eggs are kept in incubators that provide a constant environment of 32 degrees Celsius in order to produce males. Cuban crocodiles are an aggressive species and are known to have performed acts of cannibalism. This is a contributing cause for the majority of offspring not surviving to the juvenile stage. In 2012, two Cuban crocodile hatchlings were born in conservation at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. This was the first time in 25 years that the Cuban crocodile had been successfully bred at this zoo.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: The Cuban crocodile is a critically endangered species, listed on CITES appendix 1. Its restricted habitat and range make it very vulnerable. Humans have hunted this species to near extinction. Much research remains to be done on the remaining wild populations. The species is represented in captivity in Europe, the United States, and in at least one zoo in India, where breeding projects are taking place. Problems in the past with hybridisation have occurred, especially with the American crocodile, which limits the pure gene pool of this species.


title: Cuban crocodile

text: Two famous Cuban crocodiles reside in the Skansen Aquarium in Sweden. The crocodiles, named Castro and Hillary, were previously owned by the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, before giving them away to the cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov in 1978. When Shatalov could no longer take care of the crocodiles, they were given to the Moscow Zoo, which in turn gifted them to the Skansen aquarium in 1981. The crocodile couple has produced numerous children since 1984. One of the crocodiles was involved in an attack on a human in 2019 who held his arm over the enclosure during a crayfish party. The man survived but his arm was critically injured and had to be amputated.


title: Hanesbrands

text: Hanesbrands Inc. is an American multinational clothing company based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It employs 65,300 people internationally. On September 6, 2006, the company and several brands were spun off by the Sara Lee Corporation.


title: Hanesbrands

text: Hanesbrands owns several clothing brands, including Hanes, Champion, Playtex, Bali, L'eggs, Just My Size, Barely There, Wonderbra, Maidenform, Berlei, and Bonds.


title: Hanesbrands

text: The original Hanes outlet store was housed in a room adjacent to their factory. Hanesbrands currently operates and owns around 220 Hanesbrands, Maidenform and Champion retail stores across the US. The company's flagship store is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and opened in summer 2008. Stores range in size from 2,500 to 17,000 square feet Hanesbrands has companies in various parts of Europe and Eastern Europe, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France and Spain. Sales revenue for 2010 was $4.33 billion and gross profit was $1.41 billion.


title: Hanesbrands

text: In 2011, WikiLeaks revealed that the corporation had previously lobbied the State Department to prevent the raise of Haiti's minimum-wage to $0.61 an hour from $0.31 an hour.


title: Hanesbrands

text: On July 15, 2016, Hanes acquired the Australian-based clothing and underwear and clothing company Pacific Brands


title: Hanesbrands

text: In October 2017, Hanes announced a $60 million acquisition of Norcross, GA based Alternative Apparel.


title: Hanesbrands

text: In 2018, the company opened its first brick-and-mortar Champion brand retail store in Los Angeles. Currently there are 20 Champion stores open. Hanesbrands also has companies in United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France and Spain.


title: Hanesbrands

text: In November 2019, Chief Financial Officer Barry Hytinen left the company for a position at the storage and information management services company Iron Mountain.


title: Hanesbrands

text: Hanesbrands made a statement in April 2021 that Michael Dastugue will be assuming the role of chief financial officer on May 1. The company has not had a permanent CFO since the departure of Barry Hytinen in 2019, with chief accounting officer Scott Lewis serving as the interim CFO since January 2020. Mr. Dastugue, according to analyst David Swartz of Morningstar Research Services, will be leading the company in adapting to customer preference for online shopping.


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Martha Raddatz (; born February 14, 1953) is an American reporter with ABC News. She is the network's Chief Global Affairs Correspondent reporting for ABC's "World News Tonight with David Muir", "Nightline", and other network broadcasts. In addition to her work for ABC News, Raddatz has written for "The New Republic" and is a frequent guest on PBS's "Washington Week". Raddatz is the co-anchor and primary fill-in anchor on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos".


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Raddatz was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Her family later moved to Salt Lake City. She attended the University of Utah but dropped out to work at a local station.


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Prior to 1993, Raddatz was the chief correspondent at the ABC News Boston affiliate WCVB-TV. From 1993 to 1998, Raddatz covered the Pentagon for National Public Radio.


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Raddatz began her tenure at ABC News in 1999 as the network's State Department correspondent and became ABC's senior national security correspondent in May 2003, reporting extensively from Iraq. On June 8, 2006, Raddatz received a tip that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been located and killed. This tip allowed Raddatz and ABC News to become the first news organization in the world to break the news shortly after 2:30 a.m. EST.


title: Martha Raddatz

text: In a March 24, 2008, extended interview with Dick Cheney conducted in Ankara, Turkey, on the fifth anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Raddatz posed a question about public opinion polls showing that Americans had lost confidence in the war, a question to which Cheney responded by saying "So?" Raddatz appeared taken aback by the response, and Cheney's remark prompted widespread criticism, including a Washington Post op-ed by former Republican Congressman and Cheney friend Mickey Edwards.


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Raddatz is also the author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family", a book about the Siege of Sadr City, Iraq. A TV mini series based on the book aired on NatGeo in late 2017.


title: Martha Raddatz

text: After the national security beat, Raddatz became the network's chief White House correspondent for the last term of the George W. Bush administration. On January 9, 2007, Raddatz's mobile phone went off during a White House press briefing with Tony Snow. Of particular humor was her musical ring tone, Chamillionaire's "Ridin'." The press corps and Tony Snow enjoyed a few moments of laughter.


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Raddatz was appointed to her current position as ABC's Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent in November 2008.


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Raddatz served as the moderator of the Vice-Presidential debate on October 11, 2012, between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Raddatz also served alongside Anderson Cooper as co-moderator for the second presidential debate in 2016, between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at Washington University in St. Louis. Anderson and Raddatz were reviewed and some commentators noted their "no-nonsense approach" and "aggressive style", though Raddatz was criticized for a challenge to one of Trump's statements, which some journalists felt "fell outside of her mandate as moderator".


title: Martha Raddatz

text: "The Guardian" said in 2014 that Raddatz "is known for having well-cultivated sources inside the defense department."


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Raddatz appeared as a reporter interviewing the President-elect of the United States in the 2017 episode "Imminent Risk" of the Showtime series "Homeland".


title: Martha Raddatz

text: Raddatz resides in Arlington, Virginia, with her third husband, journalist Tom Gjelten. She has two children from two previous marriages: a daughter, Greta Bradlee, and a son, Jake Genachowski. Her first husband was Ben Bradlee Jr., a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor for "The Boston Globe", biographer, and son of former "Washington Post" executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee. Her second husband was Julius Genachowski, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration. President Barack Obama attended their wedding in 1991, when he and Genachowski were students at Harvard Law School.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Tariq Ramadan (, ; born 26 August 1962) is a Swiss Muslim academic, philosopher, and writer. He was a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at St Antony's College, Oxford and the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, but since 2018 has been taking an agreed leave of absence due to being held in prison following two rape allegations. He is a visiting professor at the Université Mundiapolis in Morocco. He is also a senior research fellow at Doshisha University in Japan. He was a visiting professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, and used to be the director of the Research Centre of Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE), based in Doha. He is a member of the UK Foreign Office Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief. He was elected by "Time" magazine in 2000 as one of the seven religious innovators of the 21st century and in 2004 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and by "Foreign Policy" readers (2005, 2006, 2008–2010, 2012–2015) as one of the top 100 most influential thinkers in the world and Global Thinkers. Ramadan describes himself as a "Salafi reformist".


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In November 2017, Tariq Ramadan took leave of absence from Oxford to contest allegations of rape and sexual misconduct. The university's statement noted that an "agreed leave of absence implies no acceptance or presumption of guilt". In February 2018, he was formally charged with raping two women: a disabled woman in 2009 and a feminist activist in 2012. In September 2019, the French authorities expanded the investigation against Ramadan, already charged with raping two women, to include evidence from two more alleged victims. On 5 December 2019, a Swiss woman who had accused him of rape in 2018, launched a new case against him for slander. The charges have not come to conclusion yet. In February 2020, Ramadan was formally charged with raping two more women and in October 2020, Ramadan was formally charged with raping a fifth woman.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Tariq Ramadan was born in Geneva, Switzerland on 26 August 1962 to an Egyptian Muslim family. He is the son of Said Ramadan and Wafa al-Banna, who was the eldest daughter of Hassan al Banna, who in 1928 founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Gamal al-Banna, the liberal Muslim reformer, was his great-uncle. His father was a prominent figure in the Muslim Brotherhood and was exiled by Gamal Abdel Nasser from Egypt to Switzerland, where Ramadan was born.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Tariq Ramadan holds an M.A. in French literature and a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Geneva. He also wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche, titled "Nietzsche as a Historian of Philosophy."


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In 1994, he addressed a French-speaking public audience, in Switzerland, with the help of Hassan Iquioussen and Malika Dif.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: He taught at the Collège de Saussure, a high school in Lancy, Switzerland, and claims to have held a lectureship in Religion and Philosophy at the University of Fribourg from 1996 to 2003, something the University publicly denied in 2018. He was appointed a professor at the University of Notre Dame in the United States in 2004 before his visa had been revoked by the Bush administration because of the Patriot Act. In October 2005 he began teaching at St Antony's College, Oxford on a visiting fellowship. In 2005 he was a senior research fellow at the Lokahi Foundation.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In 2007 he successfully applied for the professorship in Islamic studies at the University of Leiden. This led to severe criticism from both academics as well as politicians who deemed Ramadan a 'radical Islamist' and a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' Ramadan later turned down the appointment, stating that the criticism on his appointment played no role in this decision. He was also a guest professor of Identity and Citizenship at Erasmus University Rotterdam,


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: until August 2009 when both the City of Rotterdam and Erasmus University dismissed him from his positions as "integration adviser" and professor, stating that the program he hosted on Iran's Press TV, "Islam & Life", was "irreconcilable" with his duties in Rotterdam. Ramadan described this move as 'Islamophobic' and 'politically charged'. The Court of Rotterdam District ruled in 2012 in a civil law case that the Erasmus University acted "careless" by dismissing Ramadan on short notice. The dismissal by the municipality of Rotterdam, however, was not careless according to the Court.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Beginning September 2009, Ramadan was appointed to the chair in Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Ramadan established the "Mouvement des Musulmans Suisses" (Movement of Swiss Muslims), which engages in various interfaith seminars. He is an advisor to the EU on religious issues and was sought for advice by the EU on a commission on "Islam and Secularism". In September 2005 he was invited to join a task force by the government of the United Kingdom. He is also the founder and President of the European Muslim Network, a Brussels-based think-tank that gathers European Muslim intellectuals and activists.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: As of 2009, Tariq Ramadan was persona non grata in Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Syria, which he has said is because of his criticism of their "undemocratic regimes". He is also considered persona non grata in Israel.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Tariq Ramadan married in 1986 and is the father of four children. His wife was born in Bretagne, France. She converted from Catholicism to Islam and adopted the name Iman. The couple live separately.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In February 2004, Tariq Ramadan accepted the tenured position of Henry R. Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, at the University of Notre Dame. He was granted a nonimmigrant visa on 5 May; however, on 28 July, his H-1B visa was revoked by the State Department. In August 2004, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cited the "ideological exclusion provision" of the U.S. Patriot Act as the grounds for Ramadan's visa revocation. In October, the University of Notre Dame filed an H-1B petition on Ramadan's behalf. After hearing no response from the government by December, Ramadan resigned his position from the university.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In September 2005, Ramadan filed an application for a B Visa to allow him to participate at speaking arrangements with various organizations and universities. The government did not issue a decision on Ramadan's visa application, so the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on 25 January 2006 against the United States government on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center – three groups who had planned on meeting with Ramadan in the US – for revoking Ramadan's visa under the "ideological exclusion provision". The ACLU and NYCLU argued that the ideological exclusion provision was in violation of the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights of those three groups and that the government's actions violated the Administrative Procedures Act. After two months had passed without a decision being made, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. Pursuant to the injunction, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the government on 23 June 2006 to issue its decision on Ramadan's pending B Visa application within 90 days.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: On 19 September 2006, the government formally denied Ramadan's visa application. A State Department statement said: "A U.S. consular officer has denied Dr. Tariq Ramadan's visa application. The consular officer concluded that Dr. Ramadan was inadmissible based solely on his actions, which constituted providing material support to a terrorist organization." Between December 1998 and July 2002, Ramadan had given donations totalling $940 to two charity organizations, the Committee for Charity and Support for the Palestinians (CBSP) or "Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens" and the "Association de Secours Palestinien". The United States Treasury designated both the CBSP and ASP terrorist fundraising organizations for their alleged links to Hamas on 22 August 2003. The U.S. Embassy told Ramadan that he "reasonably should have known" that the charities provided money to Hamas. In an article in "The Washington Post", Ramadan asked: "How should I reasonably have known of their activities before the U.S. government itself knew?"


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: On 2 February 2007, the ACLU and NYCLU amended their complaint, arguing that the government's explanation for denying Ramadan's visa application was not "facially legitimate and bona fide" and that the ideological exclusion provision of the PATRIOT Act was in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. They also argued that Ramadan's denial violated the First Amendment rights of those who wanted to hear him speak. In his decision on 20 December 2007, District Judge Paul A. Crotty ruled that the government's justification for denying Ramadan's visa was "facially legitimate and bona fide" and noted that the Court "has no authority to override the Government's consular decision".


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In January 2008, the ACLU appealed Crotty's ruling. Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project and lead attorney in the case, stated:


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: "The government's shifting positions only underscore why meaningful judicial review – the kind of oversight that the district court failed to provide – is so important. In Professor Ramadan's case and many others, the government is using immigration laws to stigmatize and exclude its critics and to censor and control the ideas that Americans can hear. Censorship of this kind is completely inconsistent with the most basic principles of an open society."


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: "The U.S. government's actions in my case seem, at least to me, to have been arbitrary and myopic. But I am encouraged by the unwavering support I have received from ordinary Americans, civic groups and particularly from scholars, academic organizations, and the ACLU. I am heartened by the emerging debate in the U.S. about what has been happening to our countries and ideals in the past six years. And I am hopeful that eventually I will be allowed to enter the country so that I may contribute to the debate and be enriched by dialogue."


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: On 17 July 2009, the US federal appeals court reversed the ruling of the lower district court. The three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – composed of Judges Jon O. Newman, Wilfred Feinberg and Reena Raggi – ruled that the Court had "jurisdiction to consider the claim, despite the doctrine of consular nonreviewability". They stated that government was required by law to "confront Ramadan with the allegation against him and afford him the subsequent opportunity to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he did not know, and reasonably should not have known, that the recipient of his contributions was a terrorist organization." Under the limited review permitted by the 1972 Supreme Court ruling in "Kleindienst v. Mandel", the panel concluded that the "record does not establish that the consular officer who denied the visa confronted Ramadan with the allegation that he had knowingly rendered material support to a terrorist organization, thereby precluding an adequate opportunity for Ramadan to attempt to satisfy the provision that exempts a visa applicant from exclusion under the 'material support' subsection if he 'can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that [he] did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the organization was a terrorist organization.'" Additionally, the panel agreed with the plaintiffs' contention that their First Amendment rights had been violated. The panel remanded the case to a lower court to determine if the consular officer had confronted Ramadan with the "allegation that he knew that ASP provided funds to Hamas and then providing him with a reasonable opportunity to demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence, that he did not know, and should not have reasonably known, of that fact."


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Following the ruling, Ramadan stated, "I am very gratified with the court's decision. I am eager to engage once again with Americans in the kinds of face-to-face discussions that are central to academic exchange and crucial to bridging cultural divides." Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, issued a statement saying, "Given today's decision, we hope that the Obama administration will immediately end Professor Ramadan's exclusion. We also encourage the new administration to reconsider the exclusion of other foreign scholars, writers and artists who were barred from the country by the Bush administration on ideological grounds."


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: On 8 April 2010, Ramadan spoke as part of a panel discussion at the Great Hall of Cooper Union in New York City, his first public appearance since the State Department lifted the ban. The group debated the lengths to which Western nations should go to accommodate their Muslim populations.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Ramadan works primarily on Islamic theology and the position of Muslims in the West and within Muslim majority countries. Generally speaking, he prioritizes Qur'anic interpretation over simply reading the text, in order to understand its meaning and to practice the tenets of Islamic philosophy. Referring to himself, Ramadan has at times used the construction "Salafi Reformist" to illustrate his stance.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: He rejects a binary division of the world into "dar al-Islam" (the abode of Islam) and "dar al-harb" (the abode of war), on the grounds that such a division is not mentioned in the Qur'an. He has been also known to cite favourably the "dar al-da‘wah" (abode of preaching).


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: For him the "Islamic message" to which Muslims are expected to bear witness is not primarily the particularist, socially conservative code of traditionalist jurists, but a commitment to universalism and the welfare of non-Muslims; it is also an injunction not merely to make demands on un-Islamic societies but to express solidarity with them.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Ramadan has voiced his opposition to all forms of capital punishment but believes the Muslim world should remove such laws from within, without any Western pressure, as such would only further alienate Muslims, and instead bolster the position of those who support hudud punishments: "Muslim populations are convincing themselves of the Islamic character of these practices through a rejection of the west, on the basis of a simplistic reasoning that stipulates that 'the less western, the more Islamic'".


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: He has condemned suicide bombing and violence as a tactic. Additionally, he contends that terrorism is never justifiable, even though it can be understandable (in the sense of having a legitimate cause of resistance behind it).


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Ramadan wrote that the Muslim response to Pope Benedict XVI's speech on Islam was disproportionate, and was encouraged by reactionary Islamic regimes in order to distract their populations, and that it did not improve the position of Islam in the world.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Ramadan wrote an article, "Critique des (nouveaux) intellectuels communautaires", which French newspapers "Le Monde" and "Le Figaro" refused to publish. Oumma.com did eventually publish it. In the article he criticizes a number of French intellectuals and figures such as Alexandre Adler, Alain Finkielkraut, Bernard-Henri Lévy, André Glucksmann and Bernard Kouchner, for allegedly abandoning universal human rights, and giving special status to the defence of Israel. Ramadan was accused, in return, of having used inflammatory language. The underlying content of the essay was sharply criticized as well.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In a French television debate in 2003 with Nicolas Sarkozy, Sarkozy accused Ramadan of defending the stoning of adulterers, a punishment supposedly warranted by a section of the Islamic penal code known as hudud. Ramadan replied that Sarkozy was wrong. He said that he opposed corporal punishments, stoning and the death penalty and that he is in favor of a moratorium on these practices to open the debate among Islamic scholars in Muslim-majority countries that enforce them. Many people, including Sarkozy, were outraged. Ramadan later defended his position arguing that, because it involved religious texts that Muslims take seriously, the law would have to be properly understood and contextualized. Ramadan argued that in Muslim countries, the simple act to "condemn" won't change anything, but with a moratorium, it could open the way for further debate. He thinks that such a debate can only lead to an abolition of these rules.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In October 2007, Warraq participated in an Intelligence Squared debate "We Should Not Be Reluctant to Assert the Superiority of Western Values," where he argued for the opposition viewpoint, together with William Dalrymple, and Charles Glass.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: On 16 July 2016, Ramadan was denied entry to Mauritania at Nouakchott International Airport. He had been invited to give lectures in the country. He claimed the decision "came directly from the presidency". Local police confirmed he "was expelled". This is the eighth time a Muslim country has denied him entry.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Paul Donnelly in 2001 asked rhetorically: "Tariq Ramadan: The Muslim Martin Luther?" Similarly, an article at the self-described liberal "The American Prospect" praised Ramadan and his work in particular as an "entire corpus consists of a steady and unyielding assault on Muslim insularity, self-righteousness, and self-pity."


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In her book, "Frère Tariq", (Encounter Books), Caroline Fourest claimed to have analysed Tariq Ramadan's 15 books, 1,500 pages of interviews, and approximately 100 recordings, and concludes "Ramadan is a war leader", an "Islamist" and the "political heir of his grandfather", Hassan al-Banna, stating that his discourse is "often just a repetition of the discourse that Banna had at the beginning of the 20th century in Egypt", and that he "presents [al-Banna] as a model to be followed." She argues that "Tariq Ramadan is slippery. He says one thing to his faithful Muslim followers and something else entirely to his Western audience. His choice of words, the formulations he uses – even his tone of voice – vary, chameleon-like, according to his audience."


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: The former head of the French antiracism organization SOS Racisme, Malek Boutih, has been quoted as saying to Ramadan, after talking with him at length: "Mr. Ramadan, you are a fascist". In an interview with Europe 1, Malek Boutih also likened Ramadan to "a small Le Pen"; in another interview he accused him of having crossed the line of racism and antisemitism, thus not genuinely belonging to the alter-globalization movement. Bertrand Delanoë, mayor of Paris, declared Ramadan unfit to participate at the European Social Forum, as not even "a slight suspicion of anti-Semitism" would be tolerable. Talking to the Paris weekly "Marianne", Fadela Amara, president of "Ni Putes Ni Soumises" (Neither Whores Nor Submissive, a French feminist movement), Aurélie Filippetti, municipal counsellor for The Greens in Paris, Patrick Klugman, leading member of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France, and Dominique Sopo, head of SOS Racisme, accuse Ramadan of having misused the alter-globalization movement's ingenuousness to advance his "radicalism and anti-Semitism." Other criticisms have included allegations that an essay attacking French intellectuals was antisemitic and that Ramadan has shown excessive generosity in his rationalization of the motives behind acts of terrorism, such as in the case of Mohammed Merah.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Olivier Guitta, writing in "The Weekly Standard", welcomed the U.S. decision to refuse Ramadan a visa, based on Ramadan's supposed links to terrorist organizations, and claiming that his father was the likely author of "'The Project'... a roadmap for installing Islamic regimes in the West by propaganda, preaching, and if necessary war." Guitta also criticized Ramadan for his campaign against the performance of Voltaire's play "Mahomet" in Geneva. After the lifting of the visa revocation, an article in the "National Review" criticized the double standard of lifting the visa restriction on Ramadan, but not for Issam Abu Issa who was banned by the Bush Administration for being a whistleblower against the Palestinian Authority's corruption.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Ramadan denies contacts with terrorists or other Islamic fundamentalists and the charges of antisemitism and double talk, attributing the charges to misinterpretation and an unfamiliarity with his writings. He stated: "I have often been accused of this 'double discourse', and to those who say it, I say – bring the evidence. I am quite clear in what I say. The problem is that many people don't want to hear it, particularly in the media. Most of the stories about me are completely untrue: journalists simply repeat black propaganda from the internet without any corroboration, and it just confirms what they want to believe. Words are used out of context. There is double-talk, yes, but there is also double-hearing. That is what I want to challenge." In answer to criticism of his response to 11 September, Ramadan replied that two days after the attacks he had published an open letter, exhorting Muslims to condemn the attacks and the attackers, and not to "hide behind conspiracy theories." and that less than two weeks after the attacks he had stated that "The probability [of bin Laden's guilt] is large, but some questions remain unanswered. ... But whoever they are, Bin Laden or others, it is necessary to find them and that they be judged", and that the interview had been conducted before any evidence was publicly available.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In a free internet poll by "Foreign Policy" magazine, Ramadan was listed as one of the 100 top global thinkers in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In October 2017, secular activist Henda Ayari filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office of Rouen, stating that Ramadan had sexually assaulted her in a Paris hotel. Ayari had previously described the alleged incident in her 2016 book "J’ai choisi d’être libre" (in English "I Chose to be Free"), but had not revealed the real name of her attacker.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Ramadan's lawyer, Yassine Bouzrou, has said he would file a counter-suit for defamation. Bouzrou told the French paper "Le Parisien" that he denied the allegations and would file a complaint for defamation to Rouen prosecutors.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: A few days after Ayari, a second woman filed a complaint stating that Ramadan raped her. The disabled 45-year-old French convert to Islam, known in media reports as "Christelle", says Ramadan in 2009 lured her into his hotel room where he assaulted and raped her. A third woman claimed Ramadan had sent her "pornographic" messages and later tried to blackmail and manipulate her.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Four other Swiss women subsequently came forth in early November 2017 with allegations that Ramadan molested them when they were teenagers. The claimants include one woman who says that Ramadan made advances when she was 14 years old, and another who claims she had sexual relations with Ramadan when she was 15. Ramadan has denied the accusations.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: On 4 November 2017, the satirical French newspaper "Charlie Hebdo" published a cover story on the Ramadan affair. On 7 November 2017, the University of Oxford announced that, "by mutual agreement, and with immediate effect" Ramadan "has taken a leave of absence". The statement noted that an "agreed leave of absence implies no acceptance or presumption of guilt". On 9 November 2017, the French weekly news magazine "L'Obs" published a cover story covering the allegations. In January 2018, Ramadan was denied entry to Qatar as a consequence of the scandal.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: On 31 January 2018, Ramadan was taken into custody by French police. After two days of questioning, he was formally charged with two counts of rape and ordered to remain in custody. He was held in the Fleury-Mérogis prison, Essonne.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In March 2018, a third woman came forward alleging that she was raped by Ramadan on multiple occasions in France, Brussels and London between 2013 and 2014. Shortly thereafter, a fourth woman filed a police complaint alleging she had been raped by Ramadan. An American now living in Kuwait, she alleged that Ramadan had assaulted her in Washington DC in August 2013. No charges emerged from this complaint.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In April 2018, the Belgian judiciary reported that Ramadan had paid €27,000 three years earlier to a Belgian-Moroccan woman in exchange for the deletion of online posts revealing their affair. In the posts, she had detailed Ramadan's alleged "psychological grip" on her.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: On 13 April 2018, the Swiss newspaper "La Tribune de Genève" reported that a woman had come forward to the authorities in Geneva and accused Ramadan of a sexual assault involving aggravating cruelty in September 2008. "The National" reported that he allegedly "raped her and held her against her will for several hours in a Geneva hotel room".


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Later in April 2018, Ramadan admitted that he had been in a sexual relationship with the third rape complainant, who had presented to investigators a dress reportedly stained with his semen, but he insisted that it was always consensual.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In May 2018, Ayari modified aspects of her account, according to her based on her diary records, saying that the encounter took place in March 2012 at the Crown Plaza hotel in Paris' Place de la Republique.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In a newspaper blog, British journalist Peter Oborne criticized what he saw as failings in the French justice system and hypocrisy of prominent French public figures such as Manuel Valls pointing out that others accused of rape in France "await their fate in freedom". Regarding such sympathy for Ramadan over his detention, Henda Ayari, the first of his accusers, said that he is undeserving of sympathy. "It is for the courts to decide," she said. "Eventually, if French justice says he is guilty, those people may regret their support."


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In June, Ramadan admitted to having five extramarital affairs, saying that he sometimes acted in ways that were inconsistent with his principles. In that same month, the presiding judges also cleared him of the third accusation, because it had been a consensual extramarital affair, and he remains imprisoned for the first two.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In July, it was revealed that the first accuser, Henda Ayari, was at her younger brother's wedding on the date when she was allegedly raped.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In September 2019, Ramadan stated that the allegations from the women, the indictment for the rape, the jail custody, and the media coverage of the case against him were "state racism", and compared his own case with Dreyfus affair. He stated: "Is there not a similarity between Dreyfus affair and Ramadan affair? Nobody can deny the anti-Muslim racism that has grown in this country [France] and which is sustained daily by the politicians and the journalists. Dreyfus who was Jew yesterday is Muslim today". This comparison caused indignation among both French and also Muslim communities. Among other the editor Laurent Joffrin, in his Libération, labelled Ramadan's comparison as "ridiculous" and pointed out: "Dreyfus was innocently convicted by false evidence and sent to the prison house. Ramadan is prosecuted but not convicted, and if he gets convicted, then it would be because of the evidence, not because of his religion".


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Since his initial detention, Ramadan has been hospitalized several times for reported multiple sclerosis. His attorney reported that several doctors have said his condition is "incompatible with detention"; however, the court insisted on maintaining his detention after multiple hospital exams and medical consultations indicated that his condition was compatible with detention.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: In January 2014, Ramadan was nominated for the title of Religious Advocate of the Year at the British Muslim Awards.


title: Tariq Ramadan

text: Ramadan has authored around 30 books as well "several hundred articles" in French and English, some of which have been translated into other languages.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: Dominik Livaković (; born 9 January 1995) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Prva HNL club Dinamo Zagreb and the Croatia national team.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: Livaković became part of NK Zagreb's first team at the beginning of the 2012–13 season. Initially the club's second-choice goalkeeper, he made his league debut on 31 August 2012, playing the full match in a 1–0 defeat at home to HNK Cibalia. He soon became the club's number one and made a total of 104 league appearances over four seasons, including 90 in the Prva HNL.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: On 30 August 2015, he agreed to join Dinamo Zagreb at the beginning of the 2016–17 season. He made his league debut for the club on 2 October 2016 in a goalless draw at home to Hajduk Split. On 18 October 2016, he made his first appearance in the UEFA Champions League in a 1–0 defeat at home to Sevilla.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: On 30 July 2019, in a Champions League qualifying 3–0 victory over Saburtalo Tbilisi, Livaković broke Dražen Ladić's record for most minutes from the start of Dinamo's season without conceding a goal (413), set in 1995. He conceded his first goal of the season three days later, in a 3–1 league victory over Gorica, set the new record at 535.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: On 26 August 2020, in a Champions League qualifier against CFR Cluj, Livaković saved Ciprian Deac's penalty kick. The game went to extra time and ended as a 2–2 draw, resulting in a penalty shoot-out. Livaković saved Cătălin Golofca's attempt which would turn out crucial as Dinamo won the shootout 6–5 and progressed to the third qualifying round. In the 2020–21 Europa League group stage, Livaković was praised for his performances after he conceded only one goal in five games and led Dinamo to the first place in their group. He notably saved Steven Berghuis's penalty kick in Dinamo's 0–0 draw with Feyenoord on 22 October. On 18 March 2021, in the Europa League Round of 16 against Tottenham Hotspur, Livaković saved Harry Kane's sitter when the score was 3–0 for Dinamo, leading the club to a 3–2 aggregate victory and the first Europa League quarter-final in its history.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: Livaković received his first call-up to the Croatia national football team for their friendly against Moldova in May 2016. He made his debut against Chile in the 2017 China Cup where Croatia lost on penalties.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: In May 2018 Livaković was named to Croatia's preliminary 32-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, and was eventually part of the team that finished runners-up after losing the final against France. He made his competitive debut against England in the 2018–19 Nations League match held on 12 October 2018 at Stadion Rujevica in Rijeka, which ended in a scoreless draw.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: After disappointing performances by Lovre Kalinić, Livaković became Croatia's first-choice goalkeeper for the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying campaign, starting with matchday 3 against Wales, held on 8 June 2019.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: On 5 December 2022, in the 2022 FIFA World Cup round of 16 match against Japan, Livaković was named man of the match after saving three penalties in the shoot-out to help his side advance to the quarter-finals. He became the third goalkeeper to make three saves in a World Cup shoot-out, after Ricardo in 2006 and his fellow countryman Danijel Subašić in 2018. In the aforementioned quarter-finals, he saved another penalty in the shoot-out against Brazil, helping Croatia advance to the semi-finals. The performance earned him another man of the match award, as well as the rare 10/10 rating from "L'Équipe", making him the 15th player in the magazine's history to be awarded it.


title: Dominik Livaković

text: Livaković hails from a prominent family. His father Zdravko Livaković is a construction engineer and a former State Secretary in the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure during the mandate of Božidar Kalmeta. His paternal grandfather and grandmother were a radiologist and an English teacher, respectively. His mother Manuela Skoblar is Josip Skoblar's first cousin once removed.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: In topology, the Jordan curve theorem asserts that every "Jordan curve" (a plane simple closed curve) divides the plane into an "interior" region bounded by the curve and an "exterior" region containing all of the nearby and far away exterior points. Every continuous path connecting a point of one region to a point of the other intersects with the curve somewhere. While the theorem seems intuitively obvious, it takes some ingenuity to prove it by elementary means. ""Although the JCT is one of the best known topological theorems, there are many, even among professional mathematicians, who have never read a proof of it."" (). More transparent proofs rely on the mathematical machinery of algebraic topology, and these lead to generalizations to higher-dimensional spaces.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The Jordan curve theorem is named after the mathematician Camille Jordan (1838–1922), who found its first proof. For decades, mathematicians generally thought that this proof was flawed and that the first rigorous proof was carried out by Oswald Veblen. However, this notion has been overturned by Thomas C. Hales and others.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: A "Jordan curve" or a "simple closed curve" in the plane R is the image "C" of an injective continuous map of a circle into the plane, "φ": "S" → R. A Jordan arc in the plane is the image of an injective continuous map of a closed and bounded interval into the plane. It is a plane curve that is not necessarily smooth nor algebraic.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: Alternatively, a Jordan curve is the image of a continuous map "φ": [0,1] → R such that "φ"(0) = "φ"(1) and the restriction of "φ" to [0,1) is injective. The first two conditions say that "C" is a continuous loop, whereas the last condition stipulates that "C" has no self-intersection points.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The Jordan curve theorem was independently generalized to higher dimensions by H. Lebesgue and L.E.J. Brouwer in 1911, resulting in the Jordan–Brouwer separation theorem.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The proof uses homology theory. It is first established that, more generally, if "X" is homeomorphic to the "k"-sphere, then the reduced integral homology groups of "Y" = R \ "X" are as follows:


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: This is proved by induction in "k" using the Mayer–Vietoris sequence. When "n" = "k", the zeroth reduced homology of "Y" has rank 1, which means that "Y" has 2 connected components (which are, moreover, path connected), and with a bit of extra work, one shows that their common boundary is "X". A further generalization was found by J. W. Alexander, who established the Alexander duality between the reduced homology of a compact subset "X" of R and the reduced cohomology of its complement. If "X" is an "n"-dimensional compact connected submanifold of R (or S) without boundary, its complement has 2 connected components.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: There is a strengthening of the Jordan curve theorem, called the Jordan–Schönflies theorem, which states that the interior and the exterior planar regions determined by a Jordan curve in R are homeomorphic to the interior and exterior of the unit disk. In particular, for any point "P" in the interior region and a point "A" on the Jordan curve, there exists a Jordan arc connecting "P" with "A" and, with the exception of the endpoint "A", completely lying in the interior region. An alternative and equivalent formulation of the Jordan–Schönflies theorem asserts that any Jordan curve "φ": "S" → R, where "S" is viewed as the unit circle in the plane, can be extended to a homeomorphism "ψ": R → R of the plane. Unlike Lebesgue's and Brouwer's generalization of the Jordan curve theorem, this statement becomes "false" in higher dimensions: while the exterior of the unit ball in R is simply connected, because it retracts onto the unit sphere, the Alexander horned sphere is a subset of R homeomorphic to a sphere, but so twisted in space that the unbounded component of its complement in R is not simply connected, and hence not homeomorphic to the exterior of the unit ball.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The Jordan curve theorem can be proved from the Brouwer fixed point theorem (in 2 dimensions), and the Brouwer fixed point theorem can be proved from the Hex theorem: "every game of Hex has at least one winner", from which we obtain a logical implication: Hex theorem implies Brouwer fixed point theorem, which implies Jordan curve theorem.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: It is clear that Jordan curve theorem implies the "strong Hex theorem": "every game of Hex ends with exactly one winner, with no possibility of both sides losing or both sides winning", thus the Jordan curve theorem is equivalent to the strong Hex theorem, which is a purely discrete theorem.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The Bouwer fixed point theorem, by being sandwiched between the two equivalent theorems, is also equivalent to both.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: In reverse mathematics, and computer-formalized mathematics, the Jordan curve theorem is commonly proved by first converting it to an equivalent discrete version similar to the strong Hex theorem, then proving the discrete version.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: In image processing, a binary picture is a discrete square grid of 0 and 1, or equivalently, a compact subset of formula_2. Topological invariants on formula_3, such as number of components, might fail to be well-defined for formula_2 if formula_2 does not have an appropriately defined graph structure.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: Both graph structures fail to satisfy the strong Hex theorem. The 4-neighbor square grid allows a no-winner situation, and the 8-neighbor square grid allows a two-winner situation. Consequently, connectedness properties in formula_3, such as the Jordan curve theorem, do not generalize to formula_2 under either graph structure.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: If the "6-neighbor square grid" structure is imposed on formula_2, then it is the hexagonal grid, and thus satisfies the strong Hex theorem, allowing the Jordan curve theorem to generalize. For this reason, when computing connected components in a binary image, the 6-neighbor square grid is generally used.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The Steinhaus chessboard theorem in some sense shows that the 4-neighbor grid and the 8-neighbor grid "together" implies the Jordan curve theorem, and the 6-neighbor grid is a precise interpolation between them.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The theorem states that: suppose you put bombs on some squares on a formula_16 chessboard, so that a king cannot move from the bottom side to the top side without stepping on a bomb, then a rook can move from the left side to the right side stepping only on bombs.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The statement of the Jordan curve theorem may seem obvious at first, but it is a rather difficult theorem to prove. Bernard Bolzano was the first to formulate a precise conjecture, observing that it was not a self-evident statement, but that it required a proof.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: It is easy to establish this result for polygons, but the problem came in generalizing it to all kinds of badly behaved curves, which include nowhere differentiable curves, such as the Koch snowflake and other fractal curves, or even a Jordan curve of positive area constructed by .


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The first proof of this theorem was given by Camille Jordan in his lectures on real analysis, and was published in his book "Cours d'analyse de l'École Polytechnique". There is some controversy about whether Jordan's proof was complete: the majority of commenters on it have claimed that the first complete proof was given later by Oswald Veblen, who said the following about Jordan's proof:


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: His proof, however, is unsatisfactory to many mathematicians. It assumes the theorem without proof in the important special case of a simple polygon, and of the argument from that point on, one must admit at least that all details are not given.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: Nearly every modern citation that I have found agrees that the first correct proof is due to Veblen... In view of the heavy criticism of Jordan’s proof, I was surprised when I sat down to read his proof to find nothing objectionable about it. Since then, I have contacted a number of the authors who have criticized Jordan, and each case the author has admitted to having no direct knowledge of an error in Jordan’s proof.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: Hales also pointed out that the special case of simple polygons is not only an easy exercise, but was not really used by Jordan anyway, and quoted Michael Reeken as saying:


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: Jordan’s proof is essentially correct... Jordan’s proof does not present the details in a satisfactory way. But the idea is right, and with some polishing the proof would be impeccable.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: Earlier, Jordan's proof and another early proof by Charles Jean de la Vallée Poussin had already been critically analyzed and completed by Schoenflies (1924).


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: Due to the importance of the Jordan curve theorem in low-dimensional topology and complex analysis, it received much attention from prominent mathematicians of the first half of the 20th century. Various proofs of the theorem and its generalizations were constructed by J. W. Alexander, Louis Antoine, Ludwig Bieberbach, Luitzen Brouwer, Arnaud Denjoy, Friedrich Hartogs, Béla Kerékjártó, Alfred Pringsheim, and Arthur Moritz Schoenflies.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: New elementary proofs of the Jordan curve theorem, as well as simplifications of the earlier proofs, continue to be carried out.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The root of the difficulty is explained in as follows. It is relatively simple to prove that the Jordan curve theorem holds for every Jordan polygon (Lemma 1), and every Jordan curve can be approximated arbitrarily well by a Jordan polygon (Lemma 2). A Jordan polygon is a polygonal chain, the boundary of a bounded connected open set, call it the open polygon, and its closure, the closed polygon. Consider the diameter formula_17 of the largest disk contained in the closed polygon. Evidently, formula_17 is positive. Using a sequence of Jordan polygons (that converge to the given Jordan curve) we have a sequence formula_19 "presumably" converging to a positive number, the diameter formula_17 of the largest disk contained in the closed region bounded by the Jordan curve. However, we have to "prove" that the sequence formula_19 does not converge to zero, using only the given Jordan curve, not the region "presumably" bounded by the curve. This is the point of Tverberg's Lemma 3. Roughly, the closed polygons should not thin to zero everywhere. Moreover, they should not thin to zero somewhere, which is the point of Tverberg's Lemma 4.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: The first formal proof of the Jordan curve theorem was created by in the HOL Light system, in January 2005, and contained about 60,000 lines. Another rigorous 6,500-line formal proof was produced in 2005 by an international team of mathematicians using the Mizar system. Both the Mizar and the HOL Light proof rely on libraries of previously proved theorems, so these two sizes are not comparable. showed that in reverse mathematics the Jordan curve theorem is equivalent to weak König's lemma over the system formula_22.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: In computational geometry, the Jordan curve theorem can be used for testing whether a point lies inside or outside a simple polygon.


title: Jordan curve theorem

text: From a given point, trace a ray that does not pass through any vertex of the polygon (all rays but a finite number are convenient). Then, compute the number of intersections of the ray with an edge of the polygon. Jordan curve theorem proof implies that the point is inside the polygon if and only if is odd.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The water fluoridation controversy arises from political, ethical, economic, and health considerations regarding the fluoridation of public water supplies.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: For deprived groups in both maturing and matured countries, international and national agencies and dental associations across the world support the safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation. Proponents of water fluoridation see it as a question of public health policy and equate the issue to vaccination and food fortification, claiming significant benefits to dental health and minimal risks.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In contrast, opponents of water fluoridation view it as an infringement of individual rights, if not an outright violation of medical ethics, on the basis that individuals have no choice in the water that they drink, unless they drink more expensive bottled water. A small minority of scientists have challenged the medical consensus, variously claiming that water fluoridation has no or little cariostatic benefits, may cause serious health problems, is not effective enough to justify the costs, and is pharmacologically obsolete.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Opposition to fluoridation has existed since its initiation in the 1940s. During the 1950s and 1960s, conspiracy theorists claimed that fluoridation was a communist plot to undermine American public health. In recent years, water fluoridation has become a prevalent health and political issue in many countries, resulting in some countries and communities discontinuing its use while others have expanded it. The controversy is propelled by a significant public opposition supported by a minority of professionals, which include researchers, dental and medical professionals, alternative medical practitioners, health food enthusiasts, a few religious groups (mostly Christian Scientists in the U.S.), and occasionally consumer groups and environmentalists. Organized political opposition has come from libertarians, the John Birch Society, and from groups like the Green parties in the UK and New Zealand.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Proponents and adversaries have been both criticized for overstating the benefits or overstating the risks, and understating the other, respectively. Systematic reviews have cited the lack of high quality research for the benefits and risks of water fluoridation and questions that are still unsettled. Researchers who oppose the practice state this as well. According to a 2013 Congressional Research Service report on fluoride in drinking water, these gaps in the fluoridation scientific literature fuel the controversy.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Public water fluoridation was first practiced in 1945, in the US. As of 2012, 25 countries have supplemental water fluoridation to varying degrees, and 11 of them have more than 50% of their population drinking fluoridated water. A further 28 countries have water that is naturally fluoridated, though in many of them there are areas where fluoride is above the optimum level. As of 2012, about 435 million people worldwide received water fluoridated at the recommended level, of whom 57 million (13%) received naturally fluoridated water and 377 million (87%) received artificially fluoridated water. In 2014, three-quarters of the US population on the public water supply received fluoridated water, which represented two-thirds of the total US population.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: National and international health agencies and dental associations throughout the world have endorsed water fluoridation as safe and effective.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The views on the most effective method for community prevention of tooth decay are mixed. The Australian government states that water fluoridation is the most effective means of achieving fluoride exposure that is community-wide. The World Health Organization states water fluoridation, when feasible and culturally acceptable, has substantial advantages, especially for subgroups at high risk, while the European Commission finds no advantage to water fluoridation compared with topical use.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: FDI World Dental Federation supports water fluoridation as safe and effective. the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry, and the national dental associations of Australia, Canada, and the U.S. The American Dental Association calls water fluoridation "one of the safest and most beneficial, cost-effective public health measures for preventing, controlling, and in some cases reversing, tooth decay."


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In the English speaking nations—the United States, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, all of which practice water fluoridation—many medical associations and authorities have published position statements and endorsed water fluoridation.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The U.S. Surgeon General, the American Public Health Association, the Royal Commission on the National Health Service, Australian Medical Association, New Zealand Medical Association, and Health Canada support fluoridation, citing a number of international scientific reviews that indicate "there is no link between any adverse health effects and exposure to fluoride in drinking water at levels that are below the maximum acceptable concentration of 1.5 mg/L." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed water fluoridation as one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century in the U.S., along with vaccination, family planning, recognition of the dangers of smoking, and other achievements.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In Israel, the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians, the Israel Pediatric Association, and the Israel Dental Association, support fluoridation.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The World Health Organization, looking at global public health, identifies fluoride as one of a few chemicals for which the contribution from drinking-water to overall intake is an important factor in preventing disease. This is because there is clear evidence that optimal concentrations of fluoride provide protection against cavities, both in children and in adults.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The scientists or doctors who oppose water fluoridation argue that it has no or little cariostatic benefits, may cause serious health problems, is not effective enough to justify the costs, and is pharmacologically obsolete. Arvid Carlsson has argued that fluoridation violates modern pharmacological principles and does not take into account individual variations in response, which can be considerable even when the dosage is fixed. Paul Connett has stated "It's politics that is interfering with science in this issue ... It's a matter of political will, and you cannot change political will if you don't get the people. We must involve the people."


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Proponents and opponents have been both criticized for overstating the benefits or risks, and understating the other, respectively. Systematic reviews have cited the lack of high-quality research for the benefits and risks of water fluoridation and questions that are still unsettled. A 2007 Nuffield Council on Bioethics report concluded that good evidence for or against water fluoridation is lacking. Researchers who oppose the practice state this as well. According to a 2013 Congressional Research Service report on fluoride in drinking water, these gaps in the fluoridation scientific literature fuel the controversy. John Doull, chairman of the 2006 National Research Council committee report on fluoride in drinking water, has stated a similar conclusion regarding the source of the controversy: "In the scientific community, people tend to think this is settled. I mean, when the U.S. surgeon general comes out and says this is one of the 10 greatest achievements of the 20th century, that's a hard hurdle to get over. But when we looked at the studies that have been done, we found that many of these questions are unsettled and we have much less information than we should, considering how long this [fluoridation] has been going on. I think that's why fluoridation is still being challenged so many years after it began. In the face of ignorance, controversy is rampant."


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Fluoride can be present naturally in water at concentrations well above recommended levels, which can have several long-term adverse effects, including severe dental fluorosis, skeletal fluorosis, and weakened bones. In 1984 the World Health Organization recommended a guideline maximum fluoride value of 1.5 mg/L as a level at which fluorosis should be minimal, reaffirming it in 2006.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Fluoridation has little effect on risk of bone fracture (broken bones); it may result in slightly lower fracture risk than either excessively high levels of fluoridation or no fluoridation. There is no clear association between fluoridation and cancer or deaths due to cancer, both for cancer in general and also specifically for bone cancer and osteosarcoma.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In rare cases improper implementation of water fluoridation can result in overfluoridation that causes outbreaks of acute fluoride poisoning, with symptoms that include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Three such outbreaks were reported in the U.S. between 1991 and 1998, caused by fluoride concentrations as high as 220 mg/L; in the 1992 Alaska outbreak, 262 people became ill and one person died. In 2010, approximately 60 gallons of fluoride were released into the water supply in Asheboro, North Carolina, in 90 minutes—an amount that was intended to be released in a 24-hour period.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Like other common water additives such as chlorine, hydrofluosilicic acid and sodium silicofluoride decrease pH and cause a small increase of corrosivity, but this problem is easily addressed by increasing the pH. Although it has been hypothesized that hydrofluosilicic acid and sodium silicofluoride might increase human lead uptake from water, a 2006 statistical analysis did not support concerns that these chemicals cause higher blood lead concentrations in children. Trace levels of arsenic and lead may be present in fluoride compounds added to water; however, concentrations are below measurement limits.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The effect of water fluoridation on the natural environment has been investigated, and no adverse effects have been established. Issues studied have included fluoride concentrations in groundwater and downstream rivers; lawns, gardens, and plants; consumption of plants grown in fluoridated water; air emissions; and equipment noise.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Reviews have shown that water fluoridation reduces cavities in children. A conclusion for the efficacy in adults is less clear with some reviews finding benefit and others not. Studies in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s showed that water fluoridation reduced childhood cavities by fifty to sixty percent, while studies in 1989 and 1990 showed lower reductions (40% and 18% respectively), likely due to increasing use of fluoride from other sources, notably toothpaste, and also the "halo effect" of food and drink that is made in fluoridated areas and consumed in unfluoridated ones.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: A 2000 UK systematic review (York) found that water fluoridation was associated with a decreased proportion of children with cavities of 15% and with a decrease in decayed, missing, and filled primary teeth (average decreases was 2.25 teeth). The review found that the evidence was of moderate quality: few studies attempted to reduce observer bias, control for confounding factors, report variance measures, or use appropriate analysis. Although no major differences between natural and artificial fluoridation were apparent, the evidence was inadequate for a conclusion about any differences. A 2002 systematic review found strong evidence that water fluoridation is effective at reducing overall tooth decay in communities. A 2015 Cochrane review also found benefit in children.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Fluoride may also prevent cavities in adults of all ages. A 2007 meta-analysis by CDC researchers found that water fluoridation prevented an estimated 27% of cavities in adults, about the same fraction as prevented by exposure to any delivery method of fluoride (29% average). A 2011 European Commission review found that the benefits of water fluoridation for adult in terms of reductions in decay are limited. 2015 Cochrane review found no conclusive research in adults.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Most countries in Europe have experienced substantial declines in cavities without the use of water fluoridation. For example, in Finland and Germany, tooth decay rates remained stable or continued to decline after water fluoridation stopped. Fluoridation may be useful in the U.S. because unlike most European countries, the U.S. does not have school-based dental care, many children do not visit a dentist regularly, and for many U.S. children water fluoridation is the prime source of exposure to fluoride. The effectiveness of water fluoridation can vary according to circumstances such as whether preventive dental care is free to all children.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Water fluoridation pits the common good against individual rights. Some say the common good overrides individual rights, and equate it to vaccination and food fortification. Others say that individual rights override the common good, and say that individuals have no choice in the water that they drink, unless they drink more expensive bottled water, and some argue unequivocally that it does not stand up to scrutiny relative to the Nuremberg Code and other codes of medical ethics.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Those who emphasize the public good emphasize the medical consensus that appropriate levels of water fluoridation are safe and effective to prevent cavities and see it as a public health intervention, replicating the benefits of naturally fluoridated water, which can free people from the misery and expense of tooth decay and toothache, with the greatest benefit accruing to those least able to help themselves. This perspective suggests it would be unethical to withhold such treatment. In her book "50 Health Scares That Fizzled", Joan Callahan writes that, "For lower-income people with no insurance, fluoridated water (like enriched flour and fortified milk) looks more like a free preventative health measure that a few elitists are trying to take away."


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Those who emphasize individual or local choice, may view fluoridation as a violation of ethical or legal rules that prohibit medical treatment without medical supervision or informed consent or that prohibit administration of unlicensed medical substances, view it as "mass medication", or may even characterize it as a violation of the Nuremberg Code and the Council of Europe's Biomedical Convention of 1999. Another journal article suggested applying the precautionary principle to this controversy, which calls for public policy to reflect a conservative approach to minimize risk in the setting where harm is possible (but not necessarily confirmed) and where the science is not settled. Others have opposed it on the grounds of potential financial conflicts of interest driven by the chemical industry.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: A 2007 Nuffield Council on Bioethics report reached a conclusion mainly on three points, stating that :


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The report therefore concluded that local and regional democratic procedures are the most appropriate way to decide whether to fluoridate.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The controversy is propelled by a significant public opposition supported by a minority of professionals, including researchers, dental and medical professionals, alternative medical practitioners such as chiropractors, health food enthusiasts, a few religious groups (mostly Christian Scientists in the U.S.), and occasionally consumer groups and environmentalists. Organized political opposition has come from libertarians, the John Birch Society, and from groups like the Green parties in the UK and New Zealand.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Opposition campaigns involve newspaper articles, talk radio, and public forums. Media reporters are often poorly equipped to explain the scientific issues, and are motivated to present controversy regardless of the underlying scientific merits. Websites, which are increasingly used by the public for health information, contain a wide range of material about fluoridation ranging from factual to fraudulent, with a disproportionate percentage opposed to fluoridation. Antifluoridationist literature links fluoride exposure to a wide variety of effects, including AIDS, allergy, Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, cancer, and low IQ, along with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, kidney, pineal gland, and thyroid, though there is no scientific evidence linking fluoridation to these adverse health effects.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Many people do not know that fluoridation is meant to prevent tooth decay, or that natural or bottled water can contain fluoride. As fluoridation does not appear to be an important issue for the general public in the U.S., the debate may reflect an argument between two relatively small lobbies for and against fluoridation.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: A survey of Australians in 2009 found that 70% supported and 15% opposed fluoridation. Those opposed were much more likely to score higher on outrage factors such as "unclear benefits".


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: A study of focus groups from 16 European countries in 2003 found that fluoridation was opposed by a majority of focus group members in most of the countries, including France, Germany, and the UK.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: A survey in Sheffield, UK, performed in 1999 found that while a 62% majority favored water fluoridation in the city, the 31% who were opposed expressed their preference with greater intensity than supporters.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Every year in the U.S., pro- and anti-fluoridationists face off in referendums or other public decision-making processes: in most of them, fluoridation is rejected.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Despite support by public health organizations and dental authorities, the practice is controversial as a public health measure; some countries and communities have discontinued it, while others have expanded it.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In the U.S., rejection in state and local communities is more likely when the decision is made by a public referendum; in Europe, most decisions against fluoridation have been made administratively. Neither side of the dispute appears to be weakening or willing to concede.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Water fluoridation is used in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Israel, Hong Kong and a handful of other countries. Most countries failed to adopt fluoridation, yet experienced the same or greater decline in cavities as those countries that did fluoridate during the later half of the twentieth century. The following nations previously fluoridated their water, but stopped the practice, with the years when water fluoridation started and stopped in parentheses:


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In the United Kingdom a strategic health authority can direct a water company to fluoridate the water supply in an area if it is technically possible. The strategic health authority must consult with the local community and businesses in the affected area. The water company will act as a contractor in any new schemes and cannot refuse to fluoridate the supply.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In areas with complex water sources, water fluoridation is more difficult and more costly. Alternative fluoridation methods have been proposed, and implemented in some parts of the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently assessing the effects of fluoridated toothpaste, milk fluoridation and salt fluoridation in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The WHO supports fluoridation of water in some areas. In some other countries, sodium fluoride is added to table salt.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: As of 2012, 25 countries have artificial water fluoridation to varying degrees, 11 of them have more than 50% of their population drinking fluoridated water. A further 28 countries have water that is naturally fluoridated, though in many of them the fluoride is above the optimum level. As of 2012 about 435 million people worldwide received water fluoridated at the recommended level, about 211 million of them living in the United States.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Fluoridation began during a time of great optimism and faith in science and experts (the 1950s and 1960s), but even then, the public frequently objected. Opponents drew on distrust of experts and unease about medicine and science. Controversies include disputes over fluoridation's benefits and the strength of the evidence basis for these benefits, the difficulty of identifying harms, legal issues over whether water fluoride is a medicine, and the ethics of mass intervention.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The first large fluoridation controversy occurred in Wisconsin in 1950. Fluoridation opponents questioned the ethics, safety, and efficacy of fluoridation. New Zealand was the second country to fluoridate, and similar controversies arose there. Fears about fluoride were likely exacerbated by the reputation of fluoride compounds as insect poisons and by early literature which tended to use terms such as "toxic" and "low grade chronic fluoride poisoning" to describe mottling from consumption of 6 mg/L of fluoride prior to tooth eruption, a level of consumption not expected to occur under controlled fluoridation. When voted upon, the outcomes tend to be negative, and thus fluoridation has had a history of gaining through administrative orders in North America.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Conspiracy theories involving fluoridation are common, and include claims that fluoridation was motivated by protecting the U.S. atomic bomb program from litigation, that (as famously parodied in the film "Dr. Strangelove," where a deranged U.S. Air Force general claimed that it would "sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids") it is part of a Communist or New World Order plot to take over the world, that it was pioneered by a German chemical company to make people submissive to those in power, that behind the scenes it is promoted by the sugary food or phosphate fertilizer or aluminium industries, or that it is a smokescreen to cover failure to provide dental care to the poor. One such theory is that fluoridation was a public-relations ruse sponsored by fluoride polluters such as the aluminium maker Alcoa and the Manhattan Project, with conspirators that included industrialist Andrew Mellon and the Mellon Institute's researcher Gerald J. Cox, the Kettering Laboratory of the University of Cincinnati, the Federal Security Agency's administrator Oscar R. Ewing, and public-relations strategist Edward Bernays. Specific antifluoridation arguments change to match the spirit of the time.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Outside North America, water fluoridation was adopted in some European countries, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Denmark and Sweden banned fluoridation when government panels found insufficient evidence of safety, and the Netherlands banned water fluoridation when "a group of medical practitioners presented evidence" that it caused negative effects in a percentage of the population.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Water fluoridation has frequently been the subject of conspiracy theories. During the "Second Red Scare" in the United States during the late 1940s and 1950s, and to a lesser extent in the 1960s, activists on the far right of American politics routinely asserted that fluoridation was part of a far-reaching plot to impose a socialist or communist regime. These opponents believed it was "another aspect of President Truman's drive to socialize medicine." They also opposed other public health programs, notably mass vaccination and mental health services. Their views were influenced by opposition to a number of major social and political changes that had happened in recent years: the growth of internationalism, particularly the UN and its programs; the introduction of social welfare provisions, particularly the various programs established by the New Deal; and government efforts to reduce perceived inequalities in the social structure of the United States.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Others asserted the existence of "a Communist plot to deplete the brainpower and sap the strength of a generation of American children". Dr. Charles Betts, a prominent anti-fluoridationist, charged that fluoridation was "better than using the atom bomb because the atom bomb has to be made, has to be transported to the place it is to be set off while poisonous fluorine has been placed right beside the water supplies by the Americans themselves ready to be dumped into the water mains whenever a Communist desires!" Similarly, a right-wing newsletter, the "American Capsule News", claimed that "the Soviet General Staff is very happy about it. Anytime they get ready to strike, and their 5th column takes over, there are tons and tons of this poison "standing by" municipal and military water systems ready to be poured in within 15 minutes."


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: This controversy had a direct impact on local program during the 1950s and 1960s, where referendums on introducing fluoridation were defeated in over a thousand Florida communities. It was not until as late as the 1990s that fluoridated water was consumed by the majority of the population of the United States.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: The communist conspiracy argument declined in influence by the mid-1960s, becoming associated in the public mind with irrational fear and paranoia. It was portrayed in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film "Dr. Strangelove", in which the character General Jack D. Ripper initiates a nuclear war in the hope of thwarting a communist plot to "sap and impurify" the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people with fluoridated water. Another satire appeared in the 1967 movie "In Like Flint", in which a character's fear of fluoridation is used to indicate that he is insane.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Some anti-fluoridationists claimed that the conspiracy theories were damaging their goals; Dr. Frederick Exner, an anti-fluoridation campaigner in the early 1960s, told a conference: "most people are not prepared to believe that fluoridation is a communist plot, and if you say it is, you are successfully ridiculed by the promoters. It is being done, effectively, every day ... some of the people on our side are the fluoridators' 'fifth column'."


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In 1987, Ian E. Stephens authored a self-published booklet, an extract of which was published in the Australian New Age publication "Nexus" magazine in 1995. In it he claimed he was told by "Charles Elliot Perkins" that: "Repeated doses of infinitesimal amounts of fluoride will in time reduce an individual's power to resist domination by slowly poisoning and narcotising a certain area of the brain and will thus make him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him ... Both the Germans and the Russians added sodium fluoride to the drinking water of prisoners of war to make them stupid and docile." These statements have been dismissed by reputable Holocaust historians as untrue, but they are regularly repeated to the present day in conspiracy publications and websites.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: U.S. opponents of fluoridation were heartened by a 2006 National Research Council report about hazards of water naturally fluoridated to high levels; the report recommended lowering the U.S. maximum limit of 4 mg/L for fluoride in drinking water. The EPA did not act on that recommendation.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Water was fluoridated in large parts of the Netherlands from 1960 to 1973, at which point the Supreme Court of the Netherlands declared fluoridation of drinking water unauthorized. The Dutch Court decided that authorities had no legal basis for adding chemicals to drinking water if they did not also improve safety. It was also stated as support that consumers cannot choose a different tap water provider. Drinking water has not been fluoridated in any part of the Netherlands since 1973.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: In "Ryan v. Attorney General" (1965), the Supreme Court of Ireland held that water fluoridation did not infringe the plaintiff's right to bodily integrity. The court found that such a right to bodily integrity did exist, despite the fact that it was not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution of Ireland, thus establishing the doctrine of unenumerated rights in Irish constitutional law.


title: Water fluoridation controversy

text: Fluoridation has been the subject of many court cases wherein activists have sued municipalities, asserting that their rights to consent to medical treatment and due process are infringed by mandatory water fluoridation. Individuals have sued municipalities for a number of illnesses that they believe were caused by fluoridation of the city's water supply. In most of these cases, the courts have held in favor of cities, finding no or only a tenuous connection between health problems and widespread water fluoridation. To date, no federal appellate court or state court of last resort (i.e., state supreme court) has found water fluoridation to be unlawful.


title: Ninite

text: Ninite (; codenamed Volery during private beta stage) is a package management system offering that enables users to automatically install popular applications for their Windows operating system. It enables users to make a selection from a list of applications and bundles the selection into a single installer package. It is free for personal use. A paid version, Ninite Pro, is available for professional use. Alternatively, a cheaper albeit less robust version of Ninite Pro known as Ninite Updater is available for users who want the ability of one-click updates without the other features offered by Ninite Pro.


title: Ninite

text: Ninite works on Windows 7 and later. It presents the user with a list of programs and generates a custom installer executable based on the user's selection. When run, the installer downloads and installs the selected programs. Ninite's installer always downloads the latest version of the program. This is accomplished by downloading a regularly-updated list of applications and their download URLs from the Ninite servers each time the program is run. Benefits of using Ninite rather than the individual applications' installers themselves include: toolbar/adware free installations, the ability to update multiple applications at once, automatic selection of architecture (64-bit vs 32-bit), language selection based on operating system's language, and error reporting, should one of the installations fail.


title: Ninite

text: Austrian magazine Der Standard wrote, Ninite gets a good basic package of software on the computer. Computerwoche listed Ninite as number 11 of 28 reviewed freeware tools. PC Magazine listed it as a Batch-Installer for software installation at one.


title: Ninite

text: On the Ninite webpage, the user chooses software of own preference by activating checkboxes and continues with downloading the executable installer, which is preconfigured to the users custom selection. By executing the installer, the previously chosen software is unattended (without any requested user interaction) installed on the computer.


title: Ninite

text: The Ninite installer offers discontinued or unmaintained software, and in some cases will only install outdated versions of certain programs. In some cases this may mean that security issues related to that software will never be addressed.


title: Ninite

text: Microsoft Security Essentials is being discontinued in January 2020 at the same time as Windows 7. On newer versions of Windows, the same functionality is already installed with the operating system under the feature name of Windows Defender.


title: Loudness (band)

text: The band was started by guitarist Akira Takasaki, bassist Hiroyuki Tanaka and drummer Munetaka Higuchi, coming off the split-up of the rock band Lazy in Tokyo in February 1980. The three musicians, Takasaki in particular, were dissatisfied with the musical direction of their previous band and wanted to test their abilities in new areas. The rising movement of new Japanese heavy metal acts (Bow Wow, Anthem, etc.) fit the aspirations and musical tendencies of the young musicians. Nevertheless, bassist Tanaka soon renounced to be part of the new metal group, searching success in the anime soundtrack business with the band Neverland. Takasaki recruited his childhood friend Masayoshi Yamashita as bass player and, after a few auditions, the band found a singer in former Earthshaker member Minoru Niihara. He was a university student at the time.


title: Loudness (band)

text: With this line-up, Loudness signed for the major label Nippon Columbia and recorded their Japanese-language debut album, "The Birthday Eve". Despite the reduced presence of the heavy metal genre in the Japanese media at the time and the lack of a single to launch the album, "The Birthday Eve" and the concerts to support it were quite successful. The flashy shred guitar work of Takasaki and the solid musicianship of the other band members soon became a trademark of their performances in the studio and on stage. The band, excited by the good sales response in Japan, produced four studio albums in rapid succession, while guitarist Takasaki found the time to start his solo career, releasing the album "Tusk of Jaguar", which the other group members played in.


title: Loudness (band)

text: In 1983, after recording their third album "The Law of Devil's Land", they embarked on their first United States tour, followed by a tour in Europe. They moved to Europe to record their fourth album "Disillusion", performing several concerts there, as documented in their second video "Eurobounds". As an attempt to break in the international scene, the band re-recorded the vocal tracks of the album "Disillusion" in English language, releasing their first album outside Japan in 1984.


title: Loudness (band)

text: Finally in 1985, through the management of Twisted Sister co-manager Joe Gerber, they signed an international record deal with Atco Records. Such an achievement was the first in Japanese music history for a heavy metal band. Their fifth album, the Max Norman–produced "Thunder in the East", was recorded in the USA and was successful. It was their first American release and it peaked at No. 74 in the Billboard album chart, relying much on the strength of the single "Crazy Nights", whose video earned some rotation play on MTV.


title: Loudness (band)

text: Their sixth album, "Lightning Strikes", was once again produced by Max Norman and charted at No. 64, receiving very good reviews and making Loudness a worldwide attraction. The album was released in Japan in a different version, under the name "Shadows of War". Their success in the United States had pushed the group to write more commercial pop-metal tunes, like the single "Let It Go", which was quite different from what they had done in all their previous albums. Following this new and apparently chart-rewarding direction, the band lost some of their supportive Japanese fan base, which did not accept the homologation to the US glam metal sound.


title: Loudness (band)

text: Their seventh album "Hurricane Eyes" was released in 1987 worldwide with English lyrics. A Japanese version was subsequently released only in Japan later in the year with Niihara singing most of the lyrics in Japanese. The album was produced by the famous producer and sound engineer Eddie Kramer, who had worked with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Kiss. The song "So Lonely", a reworked version of "Ares Lament" from the 1984 album "Disillusion", was instead produced by Andy Johns, another world-famous producer. This was the last Loudness album to enter the US Billboard 200 chart, where it remained for 4 weeks, peaking at No. 190.


title: Loudness (band)

text: Following the "Jealousy" EP in 1988, singer Niihara left the band, after producer Max Norman's suggestion that an English speaking vocalist could help the band break through in the American market. The chosen American vocalist was former Obsession frontman Mike Vescera. Minoru Niihara continued his singing career in Japan as frontman of the metal bands Ded Chaplin, Sly and X.Y.Z.→A, besides releasing a solo album. The new Loudness line-up recorded two studio albums, "Soldier of Fortune" in 1989 and "On the Prowl" in 1991. The latter included only three new songs among remakes of older material translated and sung by Vescera. Despite extensive tours and strong support from their label, the new albums did not improve the band's status in America and, on the contrary, further diminished the Japanese fanbase of Loudness. After the release of the single "Slap in the Face", Vescera left Loudness during their 1991 American tour, to join Yngwie J. Malmsteen's band. He was replaced by former Ezo vocalist Masaki Yamada to finish the tour. The change of personnel did not influence the success of the band, because the sudden predilection of the American audience for the gritty and aggressive sound of grunge and alternative rock bands at the beginning of the 90s, had already de facto put an end to the American adventure of Loudness, as well as to the careers of many other bands from the glam and heavy metal scene.


title: Loudness (band)

text: Soon after their return to Japan, Yamashita also left the band and was replaced by former X bassist, Taiji Sawada. This line-up produced the self-titled album "Loudness" in 1992, which charted in Japan at No. 2, becoming their highest charting album in Japan, and the 1993 live album "Once and for All". The sound and the music presented in those works is heavier and more aggressive than in the albums produced in America and marks the beginning of a new phase in the career of Akira Takasaki, main composer of the band.