title: Critical period

text: The critical period hypothesis (CPH) states that the first few years of life constitute the time during which language develops readily and after which (sometime between age 5 and puberty) language acquisition is much more difficult and ultimately less successful. The hypothesis that language is acquired during a critical period was first proposed by neurologists Wilder Penfield and Lamar Roberts in 1959 and popularized by linguist Eric Lenneberg in 1967. Lenneberg argued for the hypothesis based on evidence that children who experience brain injury early in life develop far better language skills than adults with similar injuries.


title: Critical period

text: Dr. Maria Montessori was one of the earlier educators who brought attention to this phenomenon and called it "Sensitive Periods", which is one of the pillars of her philosophy of education.


title: Critical period

text: The two most famous cases of children who failed to acquire language after the critical period are Genie and the feral child Victor of Aveyron. However, the tragic circumstances of these cases and the moral and ethical impermissibility of replicating them make it difficult to draw conclusions about them. The children may have been cognitively disabled from infancy, or their inability to develop language may have resulted from the profound neglect and abuse they suffered.


title: Critical period

text: Many subsequent researchers have further developed the CPH, most notably Elissa Newport and Rachel Mayberry. Studies conducted by these researchers demonstrated that profoundly deaf individuals who are not exposed to a sign language as children never achieve full proficiency, even after 30 years of daily use. While the effect is most profound for individuals who receive no sign language input until after the age of 12, even those deaf people who began learning a sign language at age 5 were significantly less fluent than native deaf signers (whose exposure to a sign language began at birth). Early language exposure also affects the ability to learn a second language later in life: profoundly deaf individuals with early language exposure achieve comparable levels of proficiency in a second language to hearing individuals with early language exposure. In contrast, deaf individuals without early language exposure perform far worse.


title: Critical period

text: Other evidence comes from neuropsychology where it is known that adults well beyond the critical period are more likely to suffer permanent language impairment from brain damage than are children, believed to be due to youthful resiliency of neural reorganization.


title: Critical period

text: Steven Pinker discusses the CPH in his book, The Language Instinct. According to Pinker, language must be viewed as a concept rather than a specific language because the sounds, grammar, meaning, vocabulary, and social norms play an important role in the acquisition of language. Physiological changes in the brain are also conceivable causes for the terminus of the critical period for language acquisition. As language acquisition is crucial during this phase, similarly infant-parent attachment is crucial for social development of the infant. An infant learns to trust and feel safe with the parent, but there are cases in which the infant might be staying at an orphanage where it does not receive the same attachment with their caregiver. Research shows that infants who were unable to develop this attachment had major difficulty in keeping close relationships, and had maladaptive behaviors with adopted parents.


title: Critical period

text: The discussion of language critical period suffers from the lack of a commonly accepted definition of language. Some aspects of language, such as phoneme tuning, grammar processing, articulation control, and vocabulary acquisition can be significantly improved by training at any age and therefore have weak critical periods. Other aspects of language, such as Prefrontal Synthesis, have strong critical periods and cannot be acquired after the end of the critical period. Consequently, when language is discussed in general, without dissection into components, arguments can be constructed both in favor and against the strong critical period of L1 acquisition.


title: Critical period

text: The theory has often been extended to a critical period for second language acquisition (SLA), which has influenced researchers in the field on both sides of the spectrum, supportive and unsupportive of CPH, to explore. However, the nature of this phenomenon has been one of the most fiercely debated issues in psycholinguistics and cognitive science in general for decades.


title: Critical period

text: Certainly, older learners of a second language rarely achieve the native-like fluency that younger learners display, despite often progressing faster than children in the initial stages. This is generally accepted as evidence supporting the CPH. Incorporating the idea, "younger equals better" by Penfield, David Singleton (1995) states that in learning a second language there are many exceptions, noting that five percent of adult bilinguals master a second language even though they begin learning it when they are well into adulthood—long after any critical period has presumably come to a close. The critical period hypothesis holds that first language acquisition must occur before cerebral lateralization completes, at about the age of puberty. One prediction of this hypothesis is that second language acquisition is relatively fast, successful, and qualitatively similar to first language only if it occurs before the age of puberty. To grasp a better understanding of SLA, it is essential to consider linguistic, cognitive, and social factors rather than age alone, as they are all essential to the learner's language acquisition.


title: Critical period

text: Over the years, many experimenters have tried to find evidence in support of or against the critical periods for second language acquisition. Many have found evidence that young children acquire language more easily than adults, but there are also special cases of adults acquiring a second language with native-like proficiency. Thus it has been difficult for researchers to separate correlation from causation.


title: Critical period

text: In 1989, Jacqueline S. Johnson and Elissa L. Newport found support for the claim that second languages are more easily acquired before puberty, or more specifically before the age of seven. They tested second language learners of English who arrived in the United States at various ages ranging from three to thirty-nine, and found that there was a decline in grammatical correctness after the age of seven. Johnson and Newport attributed this claim to a decline in language learning ability with age. Opponents of the critical period argue that the difference in language ability found by Johnson and Newport could be due to the different types of input that children and adults receive; children received reduced input while adults receive more complicated structures.


title: Critical period

text: Additional evidence against a strict critical period is also found in the work of Pallier et al. (2003) who found that children adopted to France from Korea were able to become native-like in their performance of French even after the critical period for phonology. Their experiment may represent a special case where subjects must lose their first language in order to more perfectly acquire their second.


title: Critical period

text: There is also some debate as to how one can judge the native-like quality of the speech participants produce and what exactly it means to be a near-native speaker of a second language. White et al. found that it is possible for non-native speakers of a language to become native-like in some aspects, but those aspects are influenced by their first language.


title: Critical period

text: Recently, a connectionist model has been developed to explain the changes that take place in second language learning assuming that sensitive period affects lexical learning and syntactic learning parts of the system differently, which sheds further light on how first and second language acquisition changes over the course of learners development.


title: Critical period

text: In mammals, neurons in the brain that process vision actually develop after birth based on signals from the eyes. A landmark experiment by David H. Hubel and Torsten Wiesel (1963) showed that cats that had one eye sewn shut from birth to three months of age (monocular deprivation) only fully developed vision in the open eye. They showed that columns in the primary visual cortex receiving inputs from the other eye took over the areas that would normally receive input from the deprived eye. In general electrophysiological analyses of axons and neurons in the lateral geniculate nucleus showed that the visual receptive field properties was comparable to adult cats. However, the layers of cortex that were deprived had less activity and fewer responses were isolated. The kittens had abnormally small ocular dominance columns (part of the brain that processes sight) connected to the closed eye, and abnormally large, wide columns connected to the open eye. Because the critical period time had elapsed, it would be impossible for the kittens to alter and develop vision in the closed eye. This did not happen to adult cats even when one eye was sewn shut for a year because they had fully developed their vision during their critical period. Later experiments in monkeys found similar results consistent with the strong critical period.


title: Critical period

text: In a follow-up experiment, Hubel and Wiesel (1963) explored the cortical responses present in kittens after binocular deprivation; they found it difficult to find any active cells in the cortex, and the responses they did get were either slow-moving or fast-fatiguing. Furthermore, the cells that did respond selected for edges and bars with distinct orientation preferences. Nevertheless, these kittens developed normal binocularity. Hubel and Wiesel first explained the mechanism, known as orientation selectivity, in the mammalian visual cortex. Orientation tuning, a model that originated with their model, is a concept in which receptive fields of neurons in the LGN excite a cortical simple cell and are arranged in rows. This model was important because it was able to describe a strong critical period for the proper development of normal ocular dominance columns in the lateral geniculate nucleus, and thus able to explain the effects of monocular deprivation during this critical period. The critical period for cats is about three months and for monkeys, about six months.


title: Critical period

text: In a similar experiment, Antonini and Stryker (1993) examined the anatomical changes that can be observed after monocular deprivation. They compared geniculocortical axonal arbors in monocularly deprived animals in the long term (4- weeks) to short term (6–7 days) during the critical period established by Hubel and Wiesel (1993). They found that in the long term, monocular deprivation causes reduced branching at the end of neurons, while the amount of afferents allocated to the nondeprived eye increased. Even in the short term, Antonini and Stryker (1993) found that geniculocortical neurons were similarly affected. This supports the aforementioned concept of a critical period for proper neural development for vision in the cortex.


title: Critical period

text: Studies of people whose sight has been restored after a long blindness (whether from birth or a later point in life) reveal that they cannot necessarily recognize objects and faces (as opposed to color, motion, and simple geometric shapes). Some hypothesize that being blind during childhood prevents some part of the visual system necessary for these higher-level tasks from developing properly. The general belief that a critical period lasts until age 5 or 6 was challenged by a 2007 study that found that older patients could improve these abilities with years of exposure.


title: Critical period

text: Expression of the protein Lynx1 has been associated with the normal end of the critical period for synaptic plasticity in the visual system.


title: Critical period

text: In psychology, imprinting is any type of rapid learning that occurs in a particular life stage. While this rapid learning is independent of the behavioral outcome, it also establishes it and can affect behavioral responses to different stimuli. Konrad Lorenz is well known for his classic studies of filial imprinting in graylag geese. From 1935 to 1938, he presented himself to a group of newly hatched gosling and took note of how he was instantly accepted, followed, and called to as if he were the one who laid them himself. As the first moving object they encountered, Lorenz studied the phenomenon in how quickly the geese were able to form such an irreversible bond. Through his work he demonstrated that this only developed during a brief “critical period,” which was about a few hours after hatching, suggesting a strong critical period.


title: Critical period

text: Lorenz also discovered a long-lasting effect of his studies, and that was a shift in the species' sexual imprinting as a result from imprinting upon a foster mother of a second species. For certain species, when raised by a second one, they develop and retain imprinted preferences and approach the second species they were raised by rather than choose their own, if given a choice.


title: Critical period

text: Imprinting serves as the distinguishing factor between one's own mother and other mother figures. The mother and the infant both identify with each other, this is a strong bonding moment for humans. It provides a sort of model or guide to adult behaviors in addition to other factors such as nurture, protection in infancy, guidance, and nourishment. The imprinting process, Lorenz also found, brought about a sense of familiarity for the young animals. When such a strong bond is formed at such an early stage, it creates a sense of security and comfort for the subject and actually encourages the imprinting behavior.


title: Critical period

text: Pheromones play a key role in the imprinting process, they trigger a biochemical response in the recipient, leading to a confirmed identification in the other individual. If direct contact between mother and infant is not maintained during the critical imprinting period, then the mother goose may reject the infant because she is unfamiliar with her newborn's scent. If that does happen, then the infant's life would be in jeopardy unless it were claimed by a substitute mother, possibly leading to awkward social behavior in later life. In relation to humans, a newborn during the critical period identifies with its mother's and other peoples' scents since its scent is one of the most developed senses at that stage in life. The newborn uses this pheromone identification to seek the people it identifies with, when in times of distress, hunger, and discomfort as a survival skill. Inferences could be made for newborns based upon Lorenz's studies. When imprinting on their mothers, newborns look to them for nourishment, a sense of security, and comfort. Human newborns are among the most helpless known with orangutang newborns ranking second. Newborns of these species have a very limited array of innate survival abilities. Their most important and functional ability is to form bonds with close individuals who are able to keep them alive. Imprinting is a crucial factor of the critical period because it facilitates the newborn's abilities to form bonds with other individuals, from infancy to adulthood.


title: Critical period

text: Many studies have supported a correlation between the type of auditory stimuli present in the early postnatal environment and the development on the topographical and structural development of the auditory system.


title: Critical period

text: First reports on critical periods came from deaf children and animals that received a cochlear implant to restore hearing. Approximately at the same time, both an electroencephalographic study by Sharma, Dorman and Spahr and an in-vivo investigation of the cortical plasticity in deaf cats by Kral and colleagues demonstrated that the adaptation to the cochlear implant is subject to an early, developmental sensitive period. The closure of sensitive periods likely involves a multitude of processes that in their combination make it difficult to reopen these behaviorally. The understanding of the mechanisms behind critical periods has consequences for medical therapy of hearing loss. M. Merzenich and colleagues showed that during an early critical period, noise exposure can affect the frequency organization of the auditory cortex.


title: Critical period

text: Recent studies have examined the possibility of a critical period for thalamocortical connectivity in the auditory system. For example, Zhou and Merzenich (2008) studied the effects of noise on development in the primary auditory cortex in rats. In their study, rats were exposed to pulsed noise during the critical period and the effect on cortical processing was measured. Rats that were exposed to pulsed noise during the critical period had cortical neurons that were less able to respond to repeated stimuli; the early auditory environment interrupted normal structural organization during development.


title: Critical period

text: In a related study, Barkat, Polley and Hensch (2011) looked at how exposure to different sound frequencies influences the development of the tonotopic map in the primary auditory cortex and the ventral medical geniculate body. In this experiment, mice were reared either in normal environments or in the presence of 7 kHz tones during early postnatal days. They found that mice that were exposed to an abnormal auditory environment during a critical period P11- P15 had an atypical tonotopic map in the primary auditory cortex.


title: Critical period

text: These studies support the notion that exposure to certain sounds within the critical period can influence the development of tonotopic maps and the response properties of neurons. Critical periods are important for the development of the brain for the function from a pattern of connectivity. In general, the early auditory environment influences the structural development and response specificity of the primary auditory cortex.


title: Critical period

text: Absolute pitch manifests itself almost always before adolescence and rarely if ever among individuals who are first exposed to music after mid-childhood, suggesting that exposure to music or similar phenomena ("e.g.", tonal languages) in early to mid-childhood is a necessary condition for its development or refinement. Studies that ask musicians and non-musicians to sing or hum well-known popular songs that have definitive recordings (and hence are sung in standardized keys) show that—on average—participants sing within a semitone of the standardized key but that outside the small subset of participants with absolute pitch there is broad variation (the "bell curve" that reflects the degree of approximation to the standard key is broad and flat). These results suggest that almost all humans have some innate aptitude for absolute pitch recognition—though other factors may enhance or limit the level of that aptitude. Also, the results' conjunction with the aforementioned chronological observations suggests that early to mid-childhood exposure to environments whose interpretation depends on pitch is a developmental "trigger" for whatever aptitude an individual possesses.


title: Critical period

text: In our vestibular system, neurons are undeveloped at neuronal birth and mature during the critical period of the first 2-3 postnatal weeks. Hence, disruption of maturation during this period can cause changes in normal balance and movement through space. Animals with abnormal vestibular development tend to have irregular motor skills.


title: Critical period

text: Studies have consistently shown that animals with genetic vestibular deficiencies during this critical period have altered vestibular phenotypes, most likely as a result of insufficient input from the semicircular canals and dopaminergic abnormalities. Moreover, exposure to abnormal vestibular stimuli during the critical period is associated with irregular motor development. Children with hypofunctioning vestibular receptors frequently have delayed motor development. The results of the studies done on ferrets and rats reinforced the idea that the vestibular system is very important to motor development during the initial neonatal period. If the vestibular receptors are present during the initial six months to a year when the infant is learning to sit and stand, then the child may develop motor control and balance normally.


title: Critical period

text: The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is a reflex eye movement that stabilizes images on the retina during head movement. It produces an eye movement in the direction opposite to head movement, thus preserving the image on the center of the visual field. Studies in fish and amphibians revealed a sensitivity in their VOR. They launched into space flight for 9-10, some with developing VOR's and others with already developed reflexes. The fish with developing reflexes developed an upward bend in their tails. The altered gravity resulted in a shift of orientation. Those who were already matured with the reflex were insensitive to the microgravity exposure.


title: Critical period

text: Recent studies also support the possibility of a critical period for the development of neurons that mediate memory processing. Experimental evidence supports the notion that young neurons in the adult dentate gyrus have a critical period (about 1–3 weeks after neuronal birth) during which they are integral to memory formation. Although the exact reasoning behind this observation is uncertain, studies suggest that the functional properties of neurons at this age make them most appropriate for this purpose; these neurons: (1) Remain hyperactive during the formation of memories; (2) are more excitable; and (3) More easily depolarizable due to GABAergic effects. It is also possible that hyperplasticity makes the neurons more useful in memory formation. If these young neurons had more plasticity than adult neurons in the same context, they could be more influential in smaller numbers.


title: Critical period

text: The role of these neurons in the adult dentate gyrus in memory processing is further supported by the fact that behavioral experiments have shown that an intact dentate gyrus is integral to hippocampal memory formation. It is speculated that the dentate gyrus acts as a relay station for information relating to memory storage. The likelihood of a critical period could change the way we view memory processing because it would ultimately mean that the collection of neurons present is constantly being replenished as new neurons replace old ones. If a critical period does indeed exist, this could possibly mean that: (1) Diverse populations of neurons that represent events occurring soon after one another may connect those events temporally in the memory formation and processing; OR (2) These different populations of neurons may distinguish between similar events, independent of temporal position; OR (3) Separate populations may mediate the formation of new memories when the same events occur frequently.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Capacitors have many uses in electronic and electrical systems. They are so ubiquitous that it is rare that an electrical product does not include at least one for some purpose.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: A capacitor can store electric energy when it is connected to its charging circuit and when it is disconnected from its charging circuit, it can dissipate that stored energy, so it can be used like a temporary battery. Capacitors are commonly used in electronic devices to maintain power supply while batteries are being changed. (This prevents loss of information in volatile memory.)


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Conventional electrostatic capacitors provide less than 360 joules per kilogram of energy density, while capacitors using developing technology can provide more than 2.52 kilo joules per kilogram.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) can be equipped with maintenance-free capacitors to extend service life.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Groups of large, specially constructed, low-inductance high-voltage capacitors ("capacitor banks") are used to supply huge pulses of current for many pulsed power applications. These include electromagnetic forming, Marx generators, pulsed lasers (especially TEA lasers), pulse forming networks, fusion research, and particle accelerators.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Large capacitor banks (reservoirs) are used as energy sources for the exploding-bridgewire detonators or slapper detonators in nuclear weapons and other specialty weapons. Experimental work is under way using banks of capacitors as power sources for electromagnetic armour and electromagnetic railguns or coilguns.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Reservoir capacitors are used in power supplies where they smooth the output of a full or half wave rectifier. They can also be used in charge pump circuits as the energy storage element in the generation of higher voltages than the input voltage.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Capacitors are connected in parallel with the DC power circuits of most electronic devices to smooth current fluctuations for signal or control circuits. Audio equipment, for example, uses several capacitors in this way, to shunt away power line hum before it gets into the signal circuitry. The capacitors act as a local reserve for the DC power source, and bypass AC currents from the power supply. This is used in car audio applications, when a stiffening capacitor compensates for the inductance and resistance of the leads to the lead-acid car battery.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: In electric power distribution, capacitors are used for power factor correction. Such capacitors often come as three capacitors connected as a three phase Electrical load. Usually, the values of these capacitors are given not in farads but rather as a reactive power in volt-amperes reactive (VAr). The purpose is to counteract inductive loading from devices like Induction motor, electric motors and transmission lines to make the load appear to be mostly resistive. Individual motor or lamp loads may have capacitors for power factor correction, or larger sets of capacitors (usually with automatic switching devices) may be installed at a load center within a building or in a large utility electrical substation. In high-voltage direct current transmission systems, power factor correction capacitors may have tuning inductors to suppress harmonic currents that would otherwise be injected into the AC power system.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Capacitors used for suppressing undesirable frequencies are sometimes called filter capacitors. They are common in electrical and electronic equipment, and cover a number of applications, such as:


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Because capacitors pass AC but block DC signals (when charged up to the applied DC voltage), they are often used to separate the AC and DC components of a signal. This method is known as "AC coupling" or "capacitive coupling". Here, a large value of capacitance, whose value need not be accurately controlled, but whose reactance is small at the signal frequency, is employed.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: A decoupling capacitor is a capacitor used to decouple one part of a circuit from another. Noise caused by other circuit elements is shunted through the capacitor, reducing the effect they have on the rest of the circuit. It is most commonly used between the power supply and ground.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: For higher frequencies an alternative name is "bypass capacitor" as it is used to bypass the power supply or other high impedance component of a circuit.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: A high-pass filter (HPF) is an electronic filter that passes signals with a frequency higher than a certain cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies lower than the cutoff frequency. The amount of attenuation for each frequency depends on the filter design. A high-pass filter is usually modeled as a linear time-invariant system. It is sometimes called a low-cut filter or bass-cut filter.[1] High-pass filters have many uses, such as blocking DC from circuitry sensitive to non-zero average voltages or radio frequency devices. They can also be used in conjunction with a low-pass filter to produce a bandpass filter.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: A low-pass filter (LPF) is a filter that passes signals with a frequency lower than a selected cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The exact frequency response of the filter depends on the filter design. The filter is sometimes called a high-cut filter, or treble-cut filter in audio applications. A low-pass filter is the complement of a high-pass filter.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: When an inductive circuit is opened, the current through the inductance collapses quickly, creating a large voltage across the open circuit of the switch or relay. If the inductance is large enough, the energy will generate an electric spark, causing the contact points to oxidize, deteriorate, or sometimes weld together, or destroying a solid-state switch. A snubber capacitor across the newly opened circuit creates a path for this impulse to bypass the contact points, thereby preserving their life; these were commonly found in contact breaker ignition systems, for instance. Similarly, in smaller scale circuits, the spark may not be enough to damage the switch but will still radiate undesirable radio frequency interference (RFI), which a filter capacitor absorbs. Snubber capacitors are usually employed with a low-value resistor in series, to dissipate energy and minimize RFI. Such resistor-capacitor combinations are available in a single package.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Capacitors are also used in parallel to interrupt units of a high-voltage circuit breaker in order to equally distribute the voltage between these units. In this case they are called grading capacitors.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: In schematic diagrams, a capacitor used primarily for DC charge storage is often drawn vertically in circuit diagrams with the lower, more negative, plate drawn as an arc. The straight plate indicates the positive terminal of the device, if it is polarized (see electrolytic capacitor).


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Ceramic disc capacitors are usually used in snubber circuits for low voltage motors for their low inductance and low cost.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Low ESR (equivalent series resistance) electrolytics are often required to handle the high ripple current.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Mains filter capacitors are usually encapsulated wound-plastic-film types, since these deliver high voltage rating at low cost, and may be made self-healing and fusible. Mains filter capacitors are often ceramic RFI/EMI suppression capacitors. The additional safety requirements for mains filtering are:


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Electrolytic capacitors are usually used due to high capacity at low cost and low size. Smaller non-electrolytics may be paralleled with these to compensate for electrolytics' poor performance at high frequencies.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Computers use large numbers of filter capacitors, making size an important factor. Solid tantalum and wet tantalum capacitors offer some of the best CV (capacitance/voltage) performance in some of the most volumetrically efficient packaging available. High currents and low voltages also make low equivalent series resistance (ESR) important. Solid tantalum capacitors offer low ESR versions that can often meet ESR requirements but they are not the lowest ESR option among all capacitors. Solid tantalums have an additional issue which must be addressed during the design stage. Solid tantalum capacitors must be voltage derated in all applications. A 50% voltage derating is recommended and generally accepted as the industry standard; e.g. a 50V solid tantalum capacitor should never be exposed to an actual application voltage above 25V. Solid tantalum capacitors are very reliable components if the proper care is taken and all design guidelines are carefully followed. Unfortunately, the failure mechanism for a solid tantalum capacitor is a short which will result in a violent flaring up and smoking on a PCB capable of damaging other components in close proximity as well as completely destroying the capacitor. Fortunately, most solid tantalum capacitor failures will be immediate and very evident. Once in application solid tantalum capacitor performance will improve over time and the chances of a failure due to component mis-manufacturing decrease. Wet tantalums are a type of the electrolytic capacitor, using a tantalum pellet in an electrolytic material sealed in a hermetic package. This type of tantalum capacitor does not require the same derating that a solid tantalum does and its failure mechanism is open. A 10% to 20% voltage derating curve is recommended for wet tantalums when operating from 85C to 125C. Wet tantalums are not commonly referred to as just 'electrolytics' because usually 'electrolytic' refers to aluminium electrolytics.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: In single phase squirrel cage motors, the primary winding within the motor housing is not capable of starting a rotational motion on the rotor, but is capable of sustaining one. To start the motor, a secondary winding is used in series with a non-polarized "starting capacitor" to introduce a lag in the sinusoidal current through the starting winding. When the secondary winding is placed at an angle with respect to the primary winding, a rotating electric field is created. The force of the rotational field is not constant, but is sufficient to start the rotor spinning. When the rotor comes close to operating speed, a centrifugal switch (or current-sensitive relay in series with the main winding) disconnects the capacitor. The start capacitor is typically mounted to the side of the motor housing. These are called capacitor-start motors, and have relatively high starting torque.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: There are also capacitor-run induction motors which have a permanently connected phase-shifting capacitor in series with a second winding. The motor is much like a two-phase induction motor.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Motor-starting capacitors are typically non-polarized electrolytic types, while running capacitors are conventional paper or plastic film dielectric types.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: The energy stored in capacitor can be used to represent information, either in binary form, as in DRAMs, or in analogue form, as in analog sampled filters and Charge-coupled device CCDs. Capacitors can be used in analog circuits as components of integrators or more complex filters and in negative feedback loop stabilization. Signal processing circuits also use capacitors to integrate a current signal.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Capacitors and inductors are applied together in tuned circuits to select information in particular frequency bands. For example, radio receivers rely on variable capacitors to tune the station frequency. Speakers use passive analog crossovers, and analog equalizers use capacitors to select different audio bands.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Most capacitors are designed to maintain a fixed physical structure. However, various factors can change the structure of the capacitor; the resulting change in capacitance can be used to sense those factors.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: The effects of varying the characteristics of the dielectric can also be used for sensing and measurement. Capacitors with an exposed and porous dielectric can be used to measure humidity in air. Capacitors are used to accurately measure the fuel level in airplanes; as the fuel covers more of a pair of plates, the circuit capacitance increases.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Industrial pressure transmitters used for process control use pressure-sensing diaphragms, which form a capacitor plate of an oscillator circuit. Capacitors are used as the sensor in condenser microphones, where one plate is moved by air pressure, relative to the fixed position of the other plate. Some accelerometers use microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) capacitors etched on a chip to measure the magnitude and direction of the acceleration vector. They are used to detect changes in acceleration, e.g. as tilt sensors or to detect free fall, as sensors triggering airbag deployment, and in many other applications. Some fingerprint sensors use capacitors.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: A capacitor can possess spring-like qualities in an oscillator circuit. In the image example, a capacitor acts to influence the biasing voltage at the npn transistor's base. The resistance values of the voltage-divider resistors and the capacitance value of the capacitor together control the oscillatory frequency.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Capacitors may retain a charge long after power is removed from a circuit; this charge can cause dangerous or even potentially fatal shocks or damage connected equipment. For example, even a seemingly innocuous device such as a disposable camera flash unit powered by a 1.5 volt AA battery contains a capacitor which may be charged to over 300 volts. This is easily capable of delivering a shock. Service procedures for electronic devices usually include instructions to discharge large or high-voltage capacitors. Capacitors may also have built-in discharge resistors to dissipate stored energy to a safe level within a few seconds after power is removed. High-voltage capacitors are stored with the terminals shorted, as protection from potentially dangerous voltages due to dielectric absorption.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: Some old, large oil-filled capacitors contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). It is known that waste PCBs can leak into groundwater under landfills. Capacitors containing PCB were labelled as containing "Askarel" and several other trade names. PCB-filled capacitors are found in very old (pre 1975) fluorescent lamp ballasts, and other applications.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: High-voltage capacitors may catastrophically fail when subjected to voltages or currents beyond their rating, or as they reach their normal end of life. Dielectric or metal interconnection failures may create arcing that vaporizes dielectric fluid, resulting in case bulging, rupture, or even an explosion. Capacitors used in RF or sustained high-current applications can overheat, especially in the center of the capacitor rolls. Capacitors used within high-energy capacitor banks can violently explode when a short in one capacitor causes sudden dumping of energy stored in the rest of the bank into the failing unit. High voltage vacuum capacitors can generate soft X-rays even during normal operation. Proper containment, fusing, and preventive maintenance can help to minimize these hazards.


title: Applications of capacitors

text: High-voltage capacitors can benefit from a pre-charge to limit in-rush currents at power-up of high voltage direct current (HVDC) circuits. This will extend the life of the component and may mitigate high-voltage hazards.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: Okinawan Kobudō is a Japanese term that can be translated as ""old martial way of Okinawa"". It is a generic term coined in the twentieth century.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: Okinawan kobudō refers to the weapon systems of Okinawan martial arts. These systems can have from one to as many as a dozen weapons in their curriculum, among the kon (six foot staff), sai (three-pronged truncheon), tonfa (handled club), kama (sickle), and nunchaku (two rope- or chain-connected sticks), but also the tekko (knuckledusters), tinbe-rochin (shield and spear), and surujin (weighted chain). Less common Okinawan weapons include the tambo (short stick), the hanbō (middle length staff) and the eku (boat oar of traditional Okinawan design).


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: Okinawan kobudō is distinguished from the general term kobudō, which refers to all Japanese martial arts that predate the Meiji Restoration.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: It is a popular story and common belief that Okinawan farming tools evolved into weapons due to restrictions placed upon the peasants by the Satsuma samurai clan when the island was made a part of Japan, which forbade them from carrying arms. As a result, it is said, they were defenseless and developed a fighting system around their traditional farming implements. However, modern martial arts scholars have been unable to find historical backing for this story, and the evidence uncovered by various martial historians points to the Pechin Warrior caste in Okinawa as being those who practiced and studied various martial arts, rather than the Heimin, or commoner. It is true that Okinawans, under the rule of foreign powers, were prohibited from carrying weapons or practicing with them in public. But the weapons-based fighting that they secretly practiced (and the types of weapons they practiced with) had strong Chinese roots, and examples of similar weapons have been found in China, Thailand and Indonesia pre-dating the Okinawan adaptations.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: Okinawan kobudō systems were shaped by indigenous Okinawan techniques that arose within the Aji, or noble class, and by imported methods from China and Southeast Asia. The majority of Okinawan kobudō traditions that survived the difficult times during and following World War II were preserved and handed down by Taira Shinken (Ryūkyū Kobudō Hozon Shinkokai), Chogi Kishaba (Ryūkyū Bujustsu Kenkyu Doyukai), and Kenwa Mabuni (Shito-ryū). Practical systems were developed by Toshihiro Oshiro and Motokatsu Inoue in conjunction with these masters. Other noted masters who have Okinawan kobudō kata named after them include Chōtoku Kyan, Shigeru Nakamura, Kanga Sakukawa, and Shinko Matayoshi.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: Okinawan kobudō arts are thought by some to be the forerunner of the bare hand martial art of karate, and several styles of that art include some degree of Okinawan kobudō training as part of their curriculum. Similarly, it is not uncommon to see an occasional kick or other empty-hand technique in an Okinawan kobudō kata. The techniques of the two arts are closely related in some styles, evidenced by the empty-hand and weapon variants of certain kata: for example, Kankū-dai and Kankū-sai, and Gojūshiho and Gojūshiho-no-sai, although these are examples of Okinawan kobudō kata which have been developed from karate kata and are not traditional Okinawan kobudō forms. Other more authentic Okinawan kobudō kata demonstrate elements of empty hand techniques as is shown in older forms such as Soeishi No Dai, a bo form which is one of the few authentic Okinawan kobudō kata to make use of a kick as the penultimate technique. Some Okinawan kobudō kata have undergone less "modern development" than karate and still retain much more of the original elements, reflections of which can be seen in even more modern karate kata. The connection between empty hand and weapon methods can be directly related in systems such as that formulated in order to preserve both arts such as Inoue/Taira's Ryūkyū Kobujutsu Hozon Shinko Kai and Motokatsu Inoue's Yuishinkai Karate Jutsu. M. Inoue draws direct comparisons between the use of certain weapons and various elements of empty hand technique such as sai mirroring haito/shuto waza, tonfa reflecting that of uraken and hijiate, and kama of kurite and kakete, as examples. The footwork in both methods is interchangeable.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: Okinawan kobudō was at its peak some 100 years ago and of all the authentic Okinawan kobudō kata practiced at this time, only relatively few, by comparison, remain extant. In the early 20th century, a decline in the study of Ryūkyū kobujutsu (as it was known then) meant that the future of this martial tradition was in danger. During the Taishō period (1912–1926) some martial arts exponents such as Yabiku Moden made great inroads in securing the future of Ryūkyū kobujutsu. Many of the forms that are still known are due to the efforts of Taira Shinken who travelled around the Ryūkyū Islands in the early part of the 20th century and compiled 42 existing kata, covering eight types of Okinawan weapons. Whilst Taira Shinken may not have been able to collect all extant Okinawan kobudō kata, those he did manage to preserve are listed here. They do not include all those from the Matayoshi, Uhuchiku and Yamanni streams however.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "bō" is a six-foot long staff, sometimes tapered at either end. It was perhaps developed from a farming tool called a "tenbin": a stick placed across the shoulders with baskets or sacks hanging from either end. The bo was also possibly used as the handle to a rake or a shovel. The bo, along with shorter variations such as the "jo" and "hanbō" could also have been developed from walking sticks used by travelers, especially monks. The bo is considered the 'king' of the Okinawa weapons, as all others exploit its weaknesses in fighting it, whereas when it is fighting them it is using its strengths against them. The bo is the earliest of all Okinawan weapons (and effectively one of the earliest of all weapons in the form of a basic staff), and is traditionally made from red or white oak.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "sai" is a three-pronged hitting weapon designated as a truncheon, sometimes mistakenly believed to be a variation on a small, hand-held rake; a tool used to create furrows in the ground. This is highly unlikely as metal on Okinawa was in short supply at this time and a stick would have served this purpose more satisfactorily for a poor commoner, or "Heimin". The sai appears similar to a short sword, which is sharp at the end but is not bladed. The weapon is metal and of the truncheon class with its length dependent upon the forearm of the user. The two shorter prongs on either side of the main prong are used for trapping (and sometimes breaking) other weapons such as a sword or bo. A form known as nunti sai, sometimes called "manji" sai (due to its appearance resembling the swastika kanji) has the two shorter prongs pointed in opposite directions.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "tonfa" may have originated as the handle of a millstone used for grinding grain. It is traditionally made from red oak, and can be gripped by the short perpendicular handle or by the longer main shaft. As with all Okinawan weapons, many of the forms are reflective of "empty hand" techniques. The tonfa is more readily recognized by its modern development in the form of the side-handle police baton, but many traditional tonfa techniques differ from side-handle baton techniques. For example, tonfa are often used in pairs, while side-handle batons generally are not.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: A "nunchaku" is two sections of wood (or metal in modern incarnations) connected by a cord or chain. There is much controversy over its origins: some say it was originally a Chinese weapon, others say it evolved from a threshing flail, while one theory purports that it was developed from a horse's bit. Chinese nunchaku tend to be rounded, whereas Okinawan ones are octagonal, and they were originally linked by horse hair. There are many variations on the nunchaku, ranging from the three sectional staff ("san-setsu-kon", mentioned later in this article), to smaller multi-section nunchaku. The nunchaku was popularized by Bruce Lee in a number of films, made in both Hollywood and Hong Kong. This weapon is illegal in Canada, Australia (unless a permit is held) and parts of Europe.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "kama" is a traditional farming sickle, and considered one of the hardest to learn due to the inherent danger in practicing with such a weapon. The point at which the blade and handle join in the "weapon" model normally has a nook with which a bo can be trapped, although this joint proved to be a weak point in the design, and modern day examples tend to have a shorter handle with a blade that begins following the line of the handle and then bends, though to a lesser degree; this form of the kama is known as the "natagama". The edge of a traditional rice sickle, such as one would purchase from a Japanese hardware store, continues to the handle without a notch, as this is not needed for its intended use.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "tekko" or "tecchu" is a form of knuckleduster, and primarily takes its main form of usage from that of empty-hand technique, whilst also introducing slashing movements. The tekko is usually made to the width of the hand with anything between one and three protruding points on the knuckle front with protruding points at the top and the bottom of the knuckle. They can be made of any hard material but are predominantly found in aluminium, iron, steel, or wood.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "tinbe-rochin" consists of a shield and spear. It is one of the least known Okinawan weapons. The tinbe (shield) can be made of various materials but is commonly found in vine or cane, metal, or archetypically, from a turtle shell (historically, the Ryūkyū Islands' primary source of food, fishing, provided a reliable supply of turtle shells). The shield size is generally about 45 cm long and 38 cm wide. The rochin (short spear) is cut with the length of the shaft being the same distance as the forearm to the elbow if it is being held in the hand. The spearhead then protrudes from the shaft and can be found in many differing designs varying from spears to short swords and machete-style implements.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "surujin" consists of a weighted chain or leather cord and can be found in two kinds: 'tan surujin' (short) and 'naga surujin' (long). The lengths are about 150–152 cm and 230–240 cm respectively. It is a weapon which can be easily hidden prior to use, and due to this fact can be devastatingly effective. In the modern era, found with a bladed instrument at one end and a weight at the other, the surujin techniques are very similar to those of the nunchaku. Leather cords are used for practice or kumite, whereas chains are favored for demonstration, but rope (most commonly of hemp) was the original material used.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The Okinawan style of oar is called an "eku" (this actually refers to the local wood most commonly used for oars), "eiku", "iyeku", or "ieku". Noteworthy hallmarks are the slight point at the tip, curve to one side of the paddle and a roof-like ridge along the other. One of the basic moves for this weapon utilizes the fact that a fisherman fighting on the beach would be able to fling sand at an opponent. While not having the length, and therefore reach, of the bō, the rather sharp edges can inflict more penetrating damage when wielded properly.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "tambo", sometimes spelled "tanbo", is a short staff (compared to a bo, or a hambo) made of hardwood or bamboo. Its length is determined by measuring from the tip of the elbow to the wrist. Tambo can be used in pairs.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The hoe is common in all agrarian societies; in Okinawa, the "kuwa" has been also used as a weapon for as long as there have been farmers. Compared to garden-variety hoes, the handle tends to be thicker and usually shorter, both due to Okinawan stature, and the fact that much of the agriculture takes place on hillsides where long handles would be a hindrance. A classic shape of blade is a simple rectangle of steel with a sharp leading edge, but may also be forked with tines.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The hanbō is a middle length wood or bamboo stick, used for striking and joint locking techs. It measures about 90 cm, or can be made taking into account the length from the hip to the ankle.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The is similar to a spear, but typically composed of a bo with a manji-shaped sai mounted on the end. Similar to the trident and the trishula.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: The "sansetsukon" is similar to a nunchaku, but has three sections of wood (or metal in modern incarnations) connected by a cord or chain.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: This table compares styles of Okinawan kobudō. The weapons practiced by each style are listed. The styles listed below may practice strictly weapons, or may practice another martial arts (usually karate) as well.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: Generally, weapons systems are not automatically formalized as karate systems. Some karate systems include weapons standard in their curriculum, while others may offer weapons training optionally. Some individual schools may teach additional weapons not necessarily taught by others in their system.


title: Okinawan kobudō

text: Although many karate systems do not include weapons, individual schools may choose to teach Okinawan kobudō. These karate systems may or may not be listed here.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: Lake County is a county in the central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 383,956. Its county seat is Tavares, and its largest city is Clermont. Lake County is included in the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: Lake County was created in 1887 from portions of Sumter and Orange counties. It was named for the many lakes contained within its borders (250 named lakes and 1,735 other bodies of water).


title: Lake County, Florida

text: In the 1800s, the two main industries in the area were growing cotton and breeding cattle. In the latter part of the 19th century, people started to grow citrus trees. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, citrus production increased and grew into the area's leading industry. The December 1989 United States cold wave destroyed most of the citrus groves, dealing an economic blow from which many growers could not recover. Grove owners sold massive amounts of land to developers, resulting in increasing urban sprawl.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (18.9%) is water.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 383,956 people, 137,446 households, and 94,332 families residing in the county.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 297,047 people and 130,190 households residing in the county. The population density was . There were 163,586 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 83.4% White (68.7% non-Hispanic White), 11.5% Black or African American, 0.6% Native American, 2.3% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, and 2.1% from two or more races. 16.7% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: There were 88,413 households, out of which 23.40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.90% were married couples living together, 8.50% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.30% were non-families. 24.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.70% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34 and the average family size was 2.75.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: In the county, the population was spread out, with 20.30% under the age of 18, 5.80% from 18 to 24, 23.80% from 25 to 44, 23.80% from 45 to 64, and 26.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 45 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.70 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.10 males.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: The median income for a household in the county was $36,903, and the median income for a family was $42,577. Males had a median income of $31,475 versus $23,545 for females. The per capita income for the county was $20,199. About 6.90% of families and 9.60% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.80% of those under age 18 and 6.30% of those age 65 or over.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: Lake County is represented by U.S. Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, and U.S. Representatives Michael Waltz (R-FL6), Daniel Webster (R-FL11), and Scott Franklin (R-FL15).


title: Lake County, Florida

text: In the Florida Senate, Lake County is represented by Senators Dennis Baxley (R-FL12), and Kelli Stargel (R-FL22) . In the Florida House, Lake County is represented by Florida Representatives Keith Truenow (R-FL31), Anthony Sabatini (R-FL32), and Brett Hage (R-FL33).


title: Lake County, Florida

text: Lake County has five Constitutional Officers: Gary Cooney (Clerk of the Court and Comptroller), Peyton Grinnell (Sheriff), Cary Baker (Property Appraiser), David Jordan (Tax Collector), and Alan Hays (Supervisor of Elections), and five County Commissioners: Tim Sullivan (R-District 1), Sean Parks (R-District 2), Kirby Smith (R-District 3), Leslie Campione (R-District 4), and Josh Blake (R-District 5).


title: Lake County, Florida

text: The Florida Department of Corrections has Region III Correctional Facility Office on the grounds of the Lake Correctional Institution in an unincorporated area in Lake County.


title: Lake County, Florida

text: The Lake County Library System was established in 1975 following the establishment of the Lake County Library Planning Advisory Board. Today it is governed by the Lake County Board of County Commissioners. The library system is made up of 6 branch libraries and 10 municipal libraries:


title: Lake County, Florida

text: The Leesburg International Airport is a former Army Airfield and municipal airport along Lake Harris east of downtown Leesburg, Florida.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The monocled cobra (Naja kaouthia), also called monocellate cobra and Indian spitting cobra, is a venomous cobra species widespread across South and Southeast Asia and listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The scientific name "Naja kaouthia" was proposed by René Lesson in 1831, when he described the monocled cobra as a beautiful snake that is distinct from the spectacled cobra, with 188 ventral scales and 53 pairs of caudal scales.


title: Monocled cobra

text: Several varieties of monocled cobras were described under the binomial "Naja tripudians" between 1895 and 1913:


title: Monocled cobra

text: In 1940, Malcolm Arthur Smith classified the monocled cobra as a subspecies of the spectacled cobra under the trinomial "Naja naja kaouthia". Reclassification in the 1990s further distinguished "Naja kaouthia" from "Naja siamensis", a name commonly used in older toxinological research.


title: Monocled cobra

text: Phylogenetic studies of "Naja kaouthia" in Thailand have demonstrated surprising variation, with one population resulting in the species becoming paraphyletic with other Asiatic cobras.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The monocled cobra has an O-shaped, or monocellate hood pattern, unlike that of the Indian cobra, which has the "spectacle" pattern (two circular ocelli connected by a curved line) on the rear of its hood. The elongated nuchal ribs enable a cobra to expand the anterior of the neck into a “hood”. Coloration in the young is more constant. The dorsal surface may be yellow, brown, gray, or blackish, with or without ragged or clearly defined cross bands. It can be olivaceous or brownish to black above with or without a yellow or orange-colored, O-shaped mark on the hood. It has a black spot on the lower surface of the hood on either side, and one or two black cross-bars on the belly behind it. The rest of the belly is usually the same color as the back, but paler. As age advances, the snake becomes paler, wherein the adult is brownish or olivaceous. A pair of fixed anterior fangs is present. The largest fang recorded measured . Fangs are moderately adapted for spitting.


title: Monocled cobra

text: Adult monocled cobras reach a length of with a tail length of . Many larger specimens have been recorded, but they are rare. Adults can reach a maximum of in length.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The monocled cobra has 25 to 31 scales on the neck, 19 to 21 on the body, and 17 or 15 on the front of the vent. It has 164 to 197 ventral scales and 43 to 58 subcaudal scales.


title: Monocled cobra

text: It typically has more than one cuneate scale on each side. The shape of the frontal scale is short and square. Ventrals in males range from 170 to 192, in females from 178 to 197. Subcaudals in males range from 48 to 61, in females from 46 to 59.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The monocled cobra is distributed from India in the west through to China, Vietnam and Cambodia. It also occurs on the Malay Peninsula and is native to West Bengal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Nepal, and Thailand. It can adapt to a range of habitats, from natural to anthropogenically impacted environments. It prefer habitats associated with water, such as paddy fields, swamps and mangroves, but lives also in grasslands, shrublands, forests, agricultural land at elevations of up to and human settlements including cities.


title: Monocled cobra

text: Monocled cobras are terrestrial and most active at dusk. In rice-growing areas, they hide in rodent burrows in the dykes between fields and have become semi-aquatic in this type of habitat. Juveniles feed mostly on amphibians whereas adults prey on small mammals, snakes and fish. When disturbed they prefer to escape. However, when threatened they will raise the anterior portions of their bodies, spread their hood, usually hiss loudly, and strike in attempt to bite and defend themselves.


title: Monocled cobra

text: Some populations of the monocled cobra have the ability to spit venom, earning them the name "Indian spitting cobra".


title: Monocled cobra

text: This is an oviparous species. Females lay 16 to 33 eggs per clutch. Incubation periods range from 55 to 73 days. Egg-laying takes place January through March. The females usually stay with the eggs. Some collaboration between males and females has been reported in "Naja naja" x "Naja kaouthia" - hybrids.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The monocled cobra is listed on CITES Appendix II and has been assessed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List due to its large distribution, tolerance of a broad range of habitats including anthropogenically altered environments, and its reported abundance. No major threats have been reported, and it is not thought to be undergoing a significant population decline. Monocled cobras are harvested for the wildlife trade, however, collection from the wild is minimal and not likely to cause significant population declines.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The venom of the monocled cobra from three different localities were reported to exhibit different intravenous and subcutaneous median lethal dose: Thailand, 0.18-0.22 µg/g; Malaysia, 0.90-1.11 µg/g; and Vietnam, 0.90-1.00 µg/g, of mouse body weight. These results reflect the distinct difference in the lethal potency of the monocled cobra and response to antivenom neutralization.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The major toxic components in cobra venoms are postsynaptic neurotoxins, which block the nerve transmission by binding specifically to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, leading to flaccid paralysis and even death by respiratory failure. The major α-neurotoxin in the monocled cobra's venom is a long neurotoxin, α-cobratoxin; the minor α-neurotoxin is different from cobrotoxin in one residue. The neurotoxins of this particular species are weak. The venom of this species also contains myotoxins and cardiotoxins.


title: Monocled cobra

text: In case of intravenous injection the tested in mice is 0.373 mg/kg, and 0.225 mg/kg in case of intraperitoneal injection. The average venom yield per bite is approximately 263 mg dry weight.


title: Monocled cobra

text: The monocled cobra causes the highest fatality due to snake venom poisoning in Thailand. Envenomation usually presents predominantly with extensive local necrosis and systemic manifestations to a lesser degree. Drowsiness, neurological and neuromuscular symptoms will usually manifest earliest; hypotension, flushing of the face, warm skin, and pain around bite site typically manifest within one to four hours following the bite; paralysis, ventilatory failure or death could ensue rapidly, possibly as early as 60 minutes in very severe cases of envenomation. However, the presence of fang marks does not always imply that envenomation actually occurred.


title: Ancient university

text: The ancient universities are British and Irish medieval universities and early modern universities founded before the year 1600. Four of these are located in Scotland, two in England, and one in Ireland. The ancient universities in Britain and Ireland are amongst the oldest extant universities in the world.


title: Ancient university

text: These universities are often governed in a quite different fashion to more recent foundations. The ancient universities of Scotland also share several distinctive features and are governed by arrangements laid down by the "Universities (Scotland) Acts". In addition to these universities, some now-defunct institutions were founded during this period, including the University of Northampton (1261–1265), the university or college at Stamford, Lincolnshire (1331?–1335), the university or college at Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire (1592–1605), and the college in Durham (1657–1660) founded under Oliver Cromwell, for which a charter as a university was drawn up under Richard Cromwell but never sealed. There was also the medieval University of Dublin which was an early but largely unsuccessful attempt to establish a university in Dublin, the capital city of the Lordship of Ireland. Founded in 1320, it maintained an intermittent existence for the next two centuries, but it never flourished, and disappeared for good at the Reformation in Ireland (1534–41). It was located in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. It had no connection with the present University of Dublin, better known as Trinity College Dublin, which was founded in 1592


title: Ancient university

text: The ancient universities are distinctive in awarding the Magister Artium/Master of Arts (MA) as an undergraduate academic degree. This is commonly known as the Oxbridge MA, Trinity MA (Dublin), or the Scottish MA.


title: Ancient university

text: The ancient universities in Scotland confer the MA degree at graduation with honours and a final mark; in contrast, the ancient universities in England and Ireland award the MA purely after a period of good standing following graduation as Bachelor of Arts, usually around three years.


title: Ancient university

text: Because they award the MA as an undergraduate Arts degree, the ancient universities award differing titles for their postgraduate master's degrees in the Arts and Humanities, such as the taught Master of Letters ("MLitt (T)"). Some confusion can arise as to whether such degrees are taught degrees or the most established (and advanced) two-year research degrees, although this is often specified.


title: Ancient university

text: While both universities received grants of liberties and privileges by royal charter, the charters granted to Cambridge in 1231 and to Oxford in 1248 being the earliest recorded on the Privy Councils list of chartered bodies, neither university was created or incorporated by royal charter. After existing for the first few centuries of their existence as common law corporations, they were formally incorporated by the Oxford and Cambridge Act 1571, under Elizabeth I. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act 1859 repealed the parts of the 1571 act that required the mayor, aldermen, citizens or municipal officer of the City of Oxford to take any oath for the conservation of the liberties and privileges of the University of Oxford.


title: Ancient university

text: In the 19th century a series of acts and commissions reduced the powers of the universities to make their own statutes. A Royal Commission in 1850 looked into both universities and proposed major reforms to their constitutions. These were enacted by the Oxford University Act 1854 and the Cambridge University Act 1856. The Universities Tests Act 1871 removed almost all religious tests from both universities (and from Durham University). The Oxford and Cambridge Universities Act 1877 set up commissioners to look into further reform of the statutes of both universities and of their constituent colleges. Further Royal Commissions into both universities were established in 1919, resulting in the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Act 1923, setting up a commission to again make statutes and regulations for the universities and their colleges. This has resulted in there being two kind of statutes at these universities – those made by the universities themselves, which may be changed by them, and the "Queen-in-Council" statutes made under the 1923 act or the Education Reform Act 1988 that can only be changed with permission from the Privy Council.


title: Ancient university

text: As mentioned above, the Universities (Scotland) Acts created a distinctive system of governance for the ancient universities in Scotland, the process beginning with the 1858 Act and ending with the 1966 Act. Despite not being founded until after the first in these series of Acts, the University of Dundee shares all the features contained therein.


title: Ancient university

text: As a result of these Acts, each of these universities is governed by a tripartite system of General Council, University Court, and Academic Senate.


title: Ancient university

text: The chief executive and chief academic is the University Principal who also holds the title of Vice-Chancellor as an honorific. The Chancellor is a titular non-resident head to each university and is elected for life by the respective General Council, although in actuality a good number of Chancellors resign before the end of their 'term of office'.


title: Ancient university

text: Each also has a students' representative council as required by statute, although at the University of Aberdeen this has recently been renamed the "Students' Association Council".


title: Ancient university

text: Following the creation of the ancient universities, no more universities were created in Britain and Ireland until the 19th century, when a number of universities and colleges were established. Which of these 19th-century institutions should be considered the earliest post-ancient university is a matter of debate. The main university-level foundations up to the mid 19th century were:


title: Ancient university

text: Only Durham, London and the Queen's University of Ireland were recognised as universities at the time of their foundation, granting their first degrees in 1837, 1839 and 1851 respectively. Durham was a collegiate university, London was an examining board, and the Queen's University was a federal university. The other institutions, while teaching at university level, were colleges, some becoming universities later. In addition, many other universities trace their roots to institutions founded in this period, including the University of Strathclyde to the Andersonian Institute (1796), Heriot-Watt University to the School of Arts of Edinburgh (1821), Birkbeck, University of London to the London Mechanics' Institute (1823), and the University of Manchester (via UMIST) to the Manchester Mechanics Institute (1824). Many medical schools also date from the 18th century or earlier, including St Thomas's Hospital Medical School (now part of King's College London) between 1693 and 1709, St George's, University of London in 1733, Middlesex Hospital Medical School (now part of University College London) in 1746, London Hospital Medical College (now part of Queen Mary, University of London) in 1786.


title: Ancient university

text: The redbrick universities were established as university colleges in the latter half of the 19th century and mostly became universities in the early 20th century. The Royal University of Ireland (1881, as the successor of the Queen's University of Ireland), the Victoria University (1881), the University of Wales (1893) were the only other universities established in the 1800s, all as federal or examining universities. The first unitary university in the British Isles outside of Scotland was the University of Birmingham (1900).


title: Greg Pratt

text: Gregory Pratt, M.D. is a fictional character from the medical drama series "ER", portrayed by Mekhi Phifer. He first appears as a recurring character towards the end of the eight season, becoming the main character from the start of the ninth season until the start of the fifteenth season.


title: Greg Pratt

text: Pratt's first appearance as the main character was late in Season 8 in the episode "Orion in the Sky" (2002), as a smart but arrogant intern from VA hospital. He meets Dr. Mark Greene on Greene's last day at County and is initially dismissive of him, before becoming more measured when he learns of Mark's terminal cancer, and by day's end, he has learned a little about practicing medicine from Dr. Greene. Dr. Pratt wasn't present at Dr. Greene's funeral but in a flashback episode in Season 12 "Body & Soul", it revealed Dr. Pratt worked that day at the hospital since it was understaffed with most of the doctors at Dr. Greene's memorial. Pratt later inherits Dr. Greene's locker.


title: Greg Pratt

text: At the beginning of his residency, Pratt shows immediate leadership and quick precision. But his limited experience and cowboy antics often led Pratt to collide with his chief resident Dr. John Carter and other attendings on many occasions, including a procedure he was unqualified to do (though the patient survived) and resuscitating a patient who had been declared dead, and was brain-dead upon his "revival." He initially clashed with med student Michael Gallant as Michael's military background made him more by-the-book whereas Pratt liked to go around the rules, but they later became close friends. During the critical smallpox outbreak, Pratt proved his skills and courage as a swift physician by helping Dr. Luka Kovač and Dr. Jing-Mei Chen save Dr. Romano's life. The entire hospital is thrown into chaos during the evacuation gone awry, and he along with Dr. John Carter, Abby Lockhart, and Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen was forced to quarantine in the ER.


title: Greg Pratt

text: In Season 9, Pratt begins an off/on relationship with fellow physician, Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen. During the series, it was revealed that Pratt had a mentally disabled adopted brother named Leon living with him, a man who kept Pratt safe and focused on school during his childhood but was left with the reasoning ability of a small child after surviving a gunshot to the head. Due to his disability, Leon often got into trouble and would disrupt Pratt's professional and personal life, especially when he became involved with a group of thugs who stabbed him in the buttock over a confiscated gun, got him thrown in jail overnight, and then made him join them on a robbery that ended with one of the thugs dead and a cop badly injured. To help give Pratt a break, Carter suggested that Leon leave town for a while, leading Pratt to send his brother away to stay with other family members in Baltimore. Leon never returned to the show and was not mentioned again in future seasons. Pratt and medical student Michael Gallant were briefly held for questioning by the Chicago police after a robbery/homicide occurred at a diner across the street; Chen had said that she might have seen a black man fleeing the scene.


title: Greg Pratt

text: During the tenth season, Pratt was supposedly fired by the frustrated Dr. Romano, whom he had been bumping heads with ever since Romano took over the ER. This was based on bogus allegations that Romano was collecting because of his overall dislike of Dr. Pratt, planning to build them up until he had enough ammunition to get rid of Pratt for good. However, Romano never got to present these findings before the hospital director since he never showed up at the conference (unbeknownst to the others, he had been killed minutes earlier by a helicopter that crashed in the ambulance bay and crushed him). Dr. Anspaugh, correctly assuming that Romano was biased, told Pratt to keep up the good work.


title: Greg Pratt

text: Pratt and Chen's continuing relationship began to break down when Pratt's casual flirting with a new medical student Neela Rasgotra led to Pratt telling Chen he did not see them having a serious future together. Their relationship ended early in Season 10 and Chen was often curt and dismissive towards Pratt for a long while, but they eventually became friends again.


title: Greg Pratt

text: In Season 10's season finale "Drive", Pratt is involved in a road rage shooting while driving a recent patient, Elgin Gibbs, home en route to dinner with Dr. Chen. As Pratt tried to drive away from the shooter, his car was forced off a bridge and into the Chicago River, leading to Pratt sustaining serious head injuries, and Chen suffering a broken leg. Elgin died from his injuries. Their interactions became infrequent due to Chen's family problems, but Pratt went over to her house during Season 11's Christmas Eve episode when he learned she quit. Chen's father begged her to let him die so she injects him with a drug that kills him, and Pratt was aghast by this idea but ultimately supported Chen as she performed euthanasia, and then consoled her as she wept over the loss of her family. This ends his life and Pratt and Chen's relationship since Chen returns to China to bury her father's remains and is never heard from again.


title: Greg Pratt

text: For the Chief Resident post that came up in season 11, Pratt was backed at first by Dr. Luka Kovač and later by Dr. Susan Lewis, who had often been critical of his job performance in the past but told him she could see herself backing him for the job. However, he decided against applying for the position due to the extra workload, which was subsequently awarded to Dr. Archie Morris- who was goofy and awkward and had none of Pratt's natural leadership and communications skills.


title: Greg Pratt

text: Dr. Pratt came to terms with his clouded past at the end of Season 11, making contact with his estranged father, Charlie Pratt (portrayed by Danny Glover). But, following on in Season 12, Pratt was unable to forgive his father for their estrangement even though proof emerged that Charlie had been forced out of Greg's life by his mom, and ended any reconciliation efforts. Later, after much counsel, Pratt restored ties with his half-brother Chaz (portrayed by Sam Jones III).


title: Greg Pratt

text: In the episode, "Strange Bed Fellows," Dr. Luka Kovač instructs Pratt to go to Darfur, Africa to join Dr. John Carter in a Doctors Without Borders program after Pratt helped a friend avoid a DUI by sending a vial of his blood for the blood alcohol test, rather than his friend's; the friend later drove drunk and nearly killed a kid. To avoid legal repercussions and also to force him to think about the actions Dr. Kovač sends him away. When Pratt challenges Kovač and says he won't go, Kovač says he has two choices: leave for Darfur or have the DUI case info released and see his medical career come to an end. Pratt eventually decides to go, allowing him to move up to the position of attending physician, which Dr. Victor Clemente could not fulfill. Pratt becomes a better doctor for going to Darfur as he gets a sense of what it means to push himself under genuinely impossible and horrifying conditions. He sincerely thanks Luka for making him go, and the two doctors are back on good terms afterward.


title: Greg Pratt

text: At the start of season 13, Pratt achieved his new title as attending, while Chaz moves in with him after Charlie abuses him and he joins Greg in cutting all ties to his rotten dad. However, later on, Pratt discovers his brother in a compromising position with another man. After much denial and a talk with Dr. Kerry Weaver Pratt begins to understand and accept his brother's homosexuality. He also supports his brother's new job as an Emergency Medical Technician but clashes with Chaz's co-workers after they encourage him to drink near-fatal amounts of alcohol.


title: Greg Pratt

text: Later in the season, Pratt discovered a church holding an illegal prescription drugs exchange program between church members. Pratt tried to reason with the pastor to seek better alternatives. With no compromise being met, he decided to take part in the program to make it safer by donating some narcotics from the ER. However, when a member of the church died as a result of the drug exchange, an investigation was conducted by police and social workers. Pratt soon admitted to his chief, Dr. Kovač, that he was solely involved in the scheme, preventing any repercussions on the department. Pratt was arrested by the police (though Kovač helped bail him out) and was put before the review board at the hospital for an explanation of his actions. Surprisingly, Pastor Watkins of First Mission Baptist and his congregation showed up on Pratt's behalf and explained the entire story of his contribution. The board subsequently dismissed Pratt from any suspension, allowing him to retain his medical license and job. Near the end of the season, Kovač asked Pratt to be the best man at his wedding and Greg said yes.


title: Greg Pratt

text: After being overlooked for the position of Chief of the ER in favor of a new attending Dr. Skye Wexler, Pratt submitted his two weeks notice of resignation stating that the administration of the County General did not respect him; however, he soon changed his mind after meeting former Physician Assistant Jeanie Boulet. After this, Pratt pursued the ER Chief position and finally was able to have a serious adult relationship with the radiologist Dr. Bettina DeJesus.


title: Greg Pratt

text: At the end of the Season 14 finale, "The Chicago Way," Pratt entered an ambulance, which was transporting a patient (portrayed by Steve Buscemi), who revealed himself to be a government informant in Witness Protection. With a botched attempt made on the patient's life in the ER, the Turkish mob targeting Pratt's patient finally succeeded when they booby-trapped the ambulance Pratt rode in. A subsequent explosion resulted in a season-ending cliffhanger.


title: Greg Pratt

text: He died in the Season 15 premiere, "Life After Death," from injuries sustained in an explosion. Dr. Morris tried to save him, but unfortunately, Pratt was unable to make it. It was further revealed in the episode that Pratt was going to receive an offer to become the new Chief of the ER. Former doctors, such as Dr. Kerry Weaver from Florida and Dr. John Carter from Africa, sent their condolences and gifts in honor of Pratt.


title: Greg Pratt

text: In the end, Morris hands Bettina the engagement ring Pratt had intended to give her. Among the ER staff who came to him at Ike's bar were Dr. Abby Lockhart, Dr. Archie Morris, Dr. Neela Rasgotra, Dr. Tony Gates, Sam Taggart, Simon Brenner, Chuny Marquez, Haleh Adams, Malik McGrath, Frank Martin, Paramedic Dumars, and his brother Chaz, who had become a new med student about halfway through Season 15.


title: Greg Pratt

text: During the 15th and final season of "ER," at the end of the episode "The Book of Abby," long-serving nurse Haleh Adams shows the departing Dr. Abby Lockhart a closet wall where all the past doctors and employees have put their locker name tags. Amongst them, the tag "Pratt" can be seen.


title: Good Kill

text: Good Kill is a 2014 American drama film written and directed by Andrew Niccol. The film stars Ethan Hawke, Bruce Greenwood, Zoë Kravitz, Jake Abel, and January Jones. It competed for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. It was also screened in the Special Presentations section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Good Kill

text: Major Thomas Egan is an officer with the U.S. Air Force stationed at an Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a former F-16 Falcon pilot, married, with two children who live with him in a suburban house off-base. His current assignment involves flying armed MQ-9 Reaper drones in foreign air space in support of the U.S. War on Terror. He is admired by his commanding officer and support staff for his calm demeanor, precise flying, and adaptability. Privately, he is concerned about the assignment, which he took after being informed there was reduced call for and increased competition among fighter pilots in the Air Force. His previous CO informed him that a tour flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) would look good on his record and would increase his chances of being posted back to a flying assignment.


title: Good Kill

text: At first, the new assignment seems stressful but relatively benign. He is assigned to attack more clear-cut terrorist cells, vehicles, and facilities in Afghanistan. He flies these assignments during daylight hours over his targets, which is night-time in Las Vegas, leaving his days free for his sleep period, and to spend time with his wife and children. However, the high-tempo assignment – he is attacking targets on almost a daily basis – begins taking its toll. His wife notices the stress he's under and he begins drinking when off-duty.


title: Good Kill

text: Still, his performance is excellent and his crew is rated among the highest in the squadron, so, on the orders of his commanding officer, he is assigned to more challenging missions under the direction of CIA controllers. Many of these targets are in Yemen and Somalia, places where the U.S. has no acknowledged military mission. The targets themselves are increasingly morally ambiguous: crowds the CIA controller calls terrorist cells, public buildings the controller says are sleeping spots for high level terrorist leaders or factories for making explosives. Collateral damage goes from being a rare occurrence to a routine one. On several occasions, the CIA controller orders strikes on obvious civilian targets – including women and children – describing these casualties as unfortunate but necessitated by terrorist leaders using them as human shields.


title: Good Kill

text: Egan's performance declines and his drinking intensifies. He narrowly avoids being arrested for drunk driving, and starts avoiding home commitments, not wanting to inflict the stress he's under on his wife. He relishes a rare overwatch assignment protecting U.S. troops as they sleep, but must break a promise to his wife in order to perform the mission. On another overwatch mission, the troops are killed by an improvised explosive device that Egan could not protect them from. After a stress-induced violent episode at home, Egan's wife demands to know the details of Egan's work, and Egan tells her. She appears appalled. Soon after, she says she is leaving him and taking the children to Reno, Nevada, blaming his drinking and violent behavior.


title: Good Kill

text: Finally, Egan cracks. His CIA controller orders a strike on a small group of civilians responding to an explosion at a building Egan had previously destroyed. Rather than obey the order, Egan simulates a glitch in the UAV control system and the targets escape. His CO has no choice but to demote him away from the attack role into a surveillance one. While on a surveillance mission, Egan notices a man whom he had previously watched rape a woman several times approaching her home. His Mission Intelligence Coordinator had previously described this man as "a bad guy. But not "our" bad guy." Egan conspires to send his support staff on a break, then uses the surveillance UAV to attack and kill the rapist. He then leaves the base without orders and is seen driving away from Las Vegas toward Reno.


title: Good Kill

text: "Good Kill" received positive reviews. , the film holds a score of 63 out of 100 on review website Metacritic, based on and indicating "generally favorable reviews". The film holds a 75% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on with an average rating of 6.38 out of 10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Thought-provoking, timely, and anchored by a strong performance from Ethan Hawke, "Good Kill" is a modern war movie with a troubled conscience."


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: The Constitution of Mexico, formally the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States (), is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in the State of Querétaro, by a constituent convention, during the Mexican Revolution. It was approved by the Constituent Congress on 5 February 1917. It is the successor to the Constitution of 1857, and earlier Mexican constitutions. "The Constitution of 1917 is the legal triumph of the Mexican Revolution. To some it is the revolution."


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: The current Constitution of 1917 is the first such document in the world to set out social rights, serving as a model for the Weimar Constitution of 1919 and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Constitution of 1918. Some of the most important provisions are Articles 3, 27, and 123; adopted in response to the armed insurrection of popular classes during the Mexican Revolution, these articles display profound changes in Mexican politics that helped frame the political and social backdrop for Mexico in the twentieth century. Article 3 established the basis for a free, mandatory, and secular education; Article 27 laid the foundation for land reform in Mexico; and Article 123 was designed to empower the labor sector, which had emerged in the late nineteenth century and which supported the winning faction of the Mexican Revolution.


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: Articles 3, 5, 24, 27, and 130 seriously restricted the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, and attempts to enforce the articles strictly by President Plutarco Calles (1924–1928) in 1926 led to the violent conflict known as the Cristero War.


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: In 1992, under the administration of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, there were significant revisions of the constitution, modifying Article 27 to strengthen private property rights, allow privatization of ejidos and end redistribution of land—and the articles restricting the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico were largely repealed.


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: Constitution Day ("Día de la Constitución") is one of Mexico's annual Fiestas Patrias (public holidays), commemorating the promulgation of the Constitution on 5 February 1917. Although the official anniversary is on 5 February, the holiday takes place on the first Monday of February regardless of the date.


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: The Constitution is divided into "Titles" ("Títulos") which are series of articles related to the same overall theme. The Titles, of variable length, are:


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States is one of the major outcomes of the Mexican Revolution that started in 1910 and won by the Constitutionalist faction led by Venustiano Carranza. Carranza's Constitutionalist coalition invoked the liberal 1857 Constitution to unite Mexicans against the regime of General Victoriano Huerta, who had come to power by a coup in February 1913. The revolutionaries fought for causes that were beyond the political bounds of the 1857 Constitution. Various political plans articulated demands for socio-economic reform. Carranza's Constitutionalist faction emerged victorious in 1915, having defeated Huerta's regime and then the bloody civil war between the revolutionary faction of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Historian Alan Knight contends that the new constitution was "a means to confer legitimacy on a shaky regime."


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: Carranza initially envisioned revisions to the 1857 Constitution that would incorporate the demands for which revolutionaries fought. Carranza's 1913 Plan of Guadalupe and its subsequent updates did not include demands for a new constitution, but his advisors persuaded him that the best way forward was a new constitution rather than a piecemeal revision of the earlier Constitution. He had initially floated the idea of a constitutional convention in September 1913, but had not pursued the idea in the thick of revolutionary struggle, but once he had consolidated power, he formally and publicly articulated the idea. Writing in February 1915, he stated "When peace is established, I shall convoke a Congress duly elected by all people which shall have the character of a "congreso constituyente" for raising constitutional precepts the reforms dictated during the struggle." persuaded Carranza that a new constitution was the best way to return to rule of law, through a new governing document. Carranza agreed, allowing Palavicini to launch a press campaign to win over Mexicans, and especially the revolutionary army generals, to the idea.


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: Palavicini argued that incorporating revolutionary reforms into a new constitution would give them firm standing in the present and future that could be overturned easily. Once a new legislature was convened, legislators could more effect reforms efficiently since they were part of the constitution already. The Constitution of 1857 had subordinated the executive branch to the legislative, in an attempt to curtail the power of strong presidents. The liberal general Porfirio Díaz when president for more than three decades made the legislature and the courts subordinate to his executive power while the Constitution of 1857 remained in effect in theory, but not in practice. Palavicini argued that the process of amending the constitution would be time-consuming and piecemeal. Since the multiple major revolutionary reforms were not part of the 1857 Constitution, adding them would entail further complexity. A new constitution drafted by elected delegates would give legitimacy to the new charter, arguing for a constituent congress. Although there was some resistance to the idea, the revolutionaries recognized the "right of revolution", that having won the conflict, the victors could have their way in creating the new document.


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: Carranza convoked a congress specifically to revise the liberal constitution of 1857, but the process created a more sweeping, new document. The Constitution was drafted in Querétaro, not the capital. Carranza chose the site because it was where Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was executed, bringing to an end the Second French Intervention in 1867. Another view is that Mexico City was too conservative and Carranza chose the provincial capital of Querétaro because it was a quiet, peaceful place for such an important meeting. The congress formally opened in November 1916, with delegate elections and then a credentials fight preceding that; the final draft was approved on 5 February 1917.


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: Unlike the earlier congresses that produced the 1824 Mexican Constitution and the 1857 Constitution over a lengthy period, the Constituent Congress produced the final draft in a matter of a few months, between November 1916 and February 1917. According to Alan Knight, the immediacy with which the document was drafted and Carranza's acceptance of some radical provisions "suggests that what Carranza and his colleagues chiefly wanted was "a" Constitution, the hypothetical contents of which could be later reviewed, rewritten and ignored (all of which happened)." Another factor may have been that the forces of General Pancho Villa remained an active threat to the Constitutionalist regime. In December 1916, Villa captured the important city of Torreón, which historian Adolfo Gilly contends "revealed the still-hot embers of peasant war and mass discontent with the whole reactionary policy followed by Carranza in 1916."


title: Constitution of Mexico

text: Delegates to the congress were to be elected, with one per jurisdiction that had existed in 1912, when congressional elections had been held during the Francisco I. Madero presidency. Those who had been "hostile to the Constitutionalist Cause" were banned from participating, but voting was by universal manhood suffrage. Carranza was pressured to amnesty those who had been hostile as well as allow those who had gone into exile to return to Mexico, but he refused. Carranza excluded the villista and zapatista factions from this congress; however, the demands, and political pressure, of these factions pushed the delegates to adopt social demands not originally in Carranza's plan –i.e. articles 27 and 123 that spoke to the demands of peasants and workers who had fought for their rights.