title: Economy of Syria

text: In the 2000s, Syria started reforms in the financial sector, including the introduction of private banks and the opening of the Damascus Securities Exchange in March 2009. In 2001, Syria legalized private banks and the sector, while still nascent, has been growing. Foreign banks were given licenses in December 2002, under Law 28 March 2001 which allows the establishment of private and joint-venture banks. Foreigners are allowed up to 49% ownership of a bank, but may not hold a controlling stake. As of January 2010, 13 private banks had opened, including two Islamic banks.


title: Economy of Syria

text: Syria took gradual steps to loosen controls over foreign exchange. In 2003, the government canceled a law that criminalized private sector use of foreign currencies, and in 2005 it allowed licensed private banks to sell specific amounts of foreign currency to Syrian citizens under certain circumstances and to the private sector to finance imports. In October 2009, Syria further loosened its restrictions on currency transfers by allowing Syrians travelling abroad to withdraw the equivalent of up to US$10,000 from their Syrian pound accounts. In practice, the decision allows local banks to open accounts of a maximum of US$10,000 that their clients can use for their international payment cards. The holders of these accounts will be able to withdraw up to US$10,000 per month while travelling abroad.


title: Economy of Syria

text: To attract investment and to ease access to credit, the government allowed investors in 2007 to receive loans and other credit instruments from foreign banks, and to repay the loans and any accrued interest through local banks using project proceeds. In February 2008, the government permitted investors to receive loans in foreign currencies from local private banks to finance capital investments. Syria's exchange rate is fixed, and the government maintains two official rates—one rate on which the budget and the value of imports, customs, and other official transactions are based, and a second set by the Central Bank on a daily basis that covers all other financial transactions. The government passed a law in 2006 which permits the operation of private money exchange companies. However, there is still a small black market for foreign currency.


title: Economy of Syria

text: Since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, there has been a capital flight to nearby countries. Syria has been subject to sanctions by United States, Canada, European Union, Arab League and Turkey because of the civil war. The currency of Syria is the Syrian pound (SYP). The pound's official exchange rate has deteriorated significantly, falling from £S 47 for US$1 before the civil war to £S 1,256 as in June 2020. On another hand, while its exchange rate for money transfer is £S 1,250 for US$1, its non-official exchange rate (black market) plunged to around £S 4,000 for US$1 in March 2021.


title: Economy of Syria

text: Tourism in Syria has greatly reduced as a result of the Syrian Civil War and its associated refugee crisis. Tourism has been further impacted by the outbreak of COVID-19 that started in March 2020. The international economic sanctions imposed on Syria and the sharp drop in the value of the Syrian pound also adversely impact tourism in Syria.


title: Economy of Syria

text: Syria has a population of approximately 21 million people, and Syrian government figures place the population growth rate at 2.37%, with 65% of the population under the age of 35 and more than 40% under the age of 15. Each year more than 200,000 new job seekers enter the Syrian job market, but the economy has not been able to absorb them. In 2017, the Syrian labor force was estimated to total about 3.767 million people. An estimated 67 percent worked in the services sector including government, 17 percent in agriculture, and 16 percent in industry in 2008. Government and public sector employees constitute about 30% of the total labor force and are paid very low salaries and wages.


title: Economy of Syria

text: According to Syrian Government statistics, the unemployment rate in 2009 was 12.6%; however, more accurate independent sources place it closer to 20%. About 70 percent of Syria's workforce earns less than US$100 per month. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many more Syrians are seeking work over the border in Lebanon than official numbers indicate. In 2002 the Unemployment Commission (UC) was established, tasked with creating several hundred thousand jobs over a five-year period. As of June 2009 it was reported that some 700,000 households in Syria – about 3.5 million people – have no income. Government officials acknowledge that the economy is not growing at a pace sufficient to create enough new jobs annually to match population growth. The UN Development Program announced in 2005 that 30% of the Syrian population lives in poverty and 11.4% live below the subsistence level.


title: Economy of Syria

text: A report by Strategic Foresight Group, an India-based think tank, calculated the opportunity cost of conflict for the Middle East for 1991–2010 at US$12 trillion in 2006 dollars. Syria's share in this was US$152 billion, more than four times the projected 2010 GDP of US$36 billion.


title: Economy of Syria

text: The Syrian Center for Policy Research stated in March 2015 that, by then, nearly three million Syrians had lost their jobs because of the civil war, causing the loss of the primary source of income of more than 12 million people; unemployment levels "surged" from 14.9 percent in 2011 to 57.7 percent at the end of 2014. As a result, 4 in 5 Syrians were by then living in poverty, with 30 percent of the population living in "abject poverty" and frequently unable to meet basic household food needs. An estimate from 2014 estimated the population below the poverty threshold in Syria to be 82.5%.


title: Underground music

text: Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, mainstream popular music culture. Underground music is intimately tied to popular music culture as a whole, so there are important tensions within underground music because it appears to both assimilate and resist the forms and processes of popular music culture.


title: Underground music

text: Underground music may be perceived as expressing sincerity, intimacy, freedom of creative expression in opposition to those practices deemed formulaic or commercially driven. Notions of individuality non-conformity are also commonly deployed in extolling the virtue of underground music. There are examples of underground music that are particularly difficult to encounter, such as the underground rock scenes in the pre-Mikhail Gorbachev Soviet Union, in which has amassed a devoted following over the years (most notably for bands such as Kino). However, most underground music is readily accessible, although performances and recordings may be difficult for the uninitiated to find.


title: Underground music

text: Some underground styles eventually became mainstream, commercialized pop styles, such as the underground hip hop style of the early 1980s. In the 2000s, the increasing availability of the Internet and digital music technologies has made underground music easier to distribute using streaming audio and podcasts. Some experts in cultural studies now argue that "there is no underground" because the Internet has made what was underground music accessible to everyone at the click of a mouse. A current example of an underground internet music genre is Vaporwave. One expert, Martin Raymond, of London-based company The Future Laboratory, commented in an article in "The Independent", saying trends in music, art, and politics are:


title: Underground music

text: ... now transmitted laterally and collaboratively via the internet. You once had a series of gatekeepers in the adoption of a trend: the innovator, the early adopter, the late adopter, the early mainstream, the late mainstream, and finally the conservative. But now it goes straight from the innovator to the mainstream.


title: Underground music

text: In effect, this means a boy band (for instance) could be influenced by a (formerly) obscure 1960s garage rock, early 1980s post punk, noise rock or composers of avant-garde classical music while maintaining recognizability as a boy band.


title: Underground music

text: The term "underground music" has been applied to various artistic movements, for instance the psychedelic music movement of the mid-1960s, but the term has in more recent decades come to be defined by any musicians who tend to avoid the trappings of the mainstream commercial music industry. Frank Zappa attempted to define "underground" by noting that the "mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground." In the 1960s, the term "underground" was associated with the hippie counterculture and psychedelic drugs, and applied to journalism and film as well as music, as they sought to communicate psychedelic experiences and free love ideals. In modern popular music, the term "underground" refers to performers or bands ranging from artists that do DIY guerrilla concerts and self-recorded shows to those that are signed to small independent labels. In some musical styles, the term "underground" is used to assert that the content of the music is illegal or controversial, as in the case of early 1990s death metal bands in the US such as Cannibal Corpse for their gory cover art and lyrical themes. Black metal is also an underground form of music and its Norwegian scene are notorious for their association with church burnings, the occult, murders and their Anti-Christian views. All of extreme metal is considered underground music for its extreme nature. Gothic and Industrial are two other types of underground music originating in the late 1970s to mid 1990s with goth rock centering around vampires, black magic and the occult and Industrial using primarily computer generated sounds and hard driving beats.


title: Underground music

text: In a "CounterPunch" article, Twiin argues that "Underground music is free media", because by working "independently, you can say anything in your music" and be free of corporate censorship. The genre of post-punk is often considered a "catchall category for underground, indie, or lo-fi guitar rock" bands which "initially avoided major record labels in the pursuit of artistic freedom, and out of an 'us against them' stance towards the corporate rock world", spreading "west over college station airwaves, small clubs, fanzines, and independent record stores." Underground music of this type is often promoted through word-of-mouth or by community radio DJs. In the early underground scenes, such as the Grateful Dead jam band fan scenes or the 1970s punk scenes, crude home-made tapes were traded (in the case of Deadheads) or sold from the stage or from the trunk of a car (in the punk scene). In the 2000s, underground music became easier to distribute, using streaming audio and podcasts.


title: Underground music

text: A music underground can also refer to the culture of underground music in a city and its accompanying performance venues. The Kitchen is an example of what was an important New York City underground music venue in the 1960s and 1970s. CBGB is another famous New York City underground music venue claiming to be "Home of Underground Rock since 1973".


title: Cuju

text: Cuju or Ts'u-chü (蹴鞠) is an ancient Chinese football game. Cuju is the earliest known recorded game of football. It is a competitive game that involves kicking a ball through an opening into a net without the use of hands. Descriptions of the game date back to the Han dynasty, a Chinese military work from the 3rd–2nd century BC describes it as an exercise. It was also played in other Asian countries like Korea, Japan and Vietnam.


title: Cuju

text: The first mention of "Cuju" in a historical text is in the Warring States era "Zhan Guo Ce", in the section describing the state of Qi. It is also described in Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian" (under the Biography of Su Qin), written during the Han Dynasty. A competitive form of "cuju" was used as fitness training for military cavaliers, while other forms were played for entertainment in wealthy cities like Linzi.


title: Cuju

text: During the Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 220), the popularity of "cuju" spread from the army to the royal courts and upper classes. It is said that the Han emperor Wu Di enjoyed the sport. At the same time, "cuju" games were standardized and rules were established. "Cuju" matches were often held inside the imperial palace. A type of court called "ju chang (鞠場)" was built especially for "cuju" matches, which had six crescent-shaped goal posts at each end.


title: Cuju

text: The sport was improved during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). First of all, the feather-stuffed ball was replaced by an air-filled ball with a two-layered hull. Also, two different types of goal posts emerged: One was made by setting up posts with a net between them and the other consisted of just one goal post in the middle of the field. The Tang Dynasty capital of Chang'an was filled with "cuju" fields, in the backyards of large mansions, and some were even established in the grounds of the palaces. Soldiers who belonged to the imperial army and Gold Bird Guard often formed "cuju" teams for the delight of the emperor and his court. The level of female "cuju" teams also improved. "Cuju" even became popular amongst the scholars and intellectuals, and if a courtier lacked skill in the game, he could pardon himself by acting as a scorekeeper.


title: Cuju

text: "Cuju" flourished during the Song Dynasty (960–1279) due to social and economic development, extending its popularity to every class in society. At that time, professional "cuju" players were popular, and the sport began to take on a commercial edge. Professional "cuju" players fell into two groups: One was trained by and performed for the royal court (unearthed copper mirrors and brush pots from the Song often depict professional performances) and the other consisted of civilians who made a living as "cuju" players. During this period only one goal post was set up in the center of the field.


title: Cuju

text: It influenced the development in Japan of "kemari" (蹴鞠), which is still played today on special occasions. The "kanji" writing (蹴鞠) is the same as for "cuju".


title: Cuju

text: "Cuju" began to decline during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) due to neglect, and the 2,000-year-old sport slowly faded away.


title: Cuju

text: "Zhuqiu" was commonly performed at court feasts celebrating the emperor's birthday or during diplomatic events. A competitive "cuju" match of this type normally consisted of two teams with 12–16 players on each side.


title: Cuju

text: "Baida" became dominant during the Song Dynasty, a style that attached much importance to developing personal skills. Scoring goals became obsolete when using this method with the playing field enclosed using thread and players taking turns to kick the ball within these set limits. The number of fouls made by the players decided the winner. For example, if the ball was not passed far enough to reach other team members, points were deducted. If the ball was kicked too far out, a large deduction from the score would result. Kicking the ball too low or turning at the wrong moment all led to fewer points. Players could touch the balls of other players with any part of the body except their hands, whilst the number of players ranged anywhere from two to ten. In the end, the player with the highest score won.


title: Cuju

text: According to Dongjing Meng Hua Lu, in the 10th century, a "cuju" league, Qi Yun She (齊雲社) (or Yuan She), was developed in large Chinese cities. Local members were either "cuju" lovers or professional performers. Non-professional players had to formally appoint a professional as their teacher and pay a fee before becoming members. This process ensured an income for the professionals, unlike "cuju" of the Tang Dynasty. Qi Yun She organised annual national championships known as Shan Yue Zheng Sai (山岳正賽).


title: Cuju

text: The city of Linzi organized a game of cuju for foreigners and locals in period costumes. Brazilian player Kaká played cuju during his tour while visiting China.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hydro-Man (Morris "Morrie" Bench) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics as an enemy of the superhero Spider-Man. Once an ordinary crewman, Morris Bench was accidentally knocked overboard while stationed on his ship during a battle between Spider-Man and Namor, and fell into the ocean, where a powerful experimental generator was being tested. This led to his transformation into Hydro-Man who, blaming Spider-Man for what happened to him, turned to a life of crime while seeking revenge against the web-slinger.


title: Hydro-Man

text: The character has appeared in several media adaptations over the years, including animated series and video games.


title: Hydro-Man

text: The Morris Bench version of Hydro-Man made his first appearance in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #212 (January 1981) and was created by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist John Romita Jr.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Morris "Morrie" Bench gained his superpowers while working as a crewman on the cargo ship the U.S.S. "Bulldog", having been knocked overboard accidentally by Spider-Man (right after the hero finished a fight against Namor) while a powerful experimental generator is being tested in the ocean. The combination of unknown radiation and his immersion in a deep ocean-dwelling bacteria turns him into Hydro-Man. When he realized that he had become a man-of-water, he blamed Spider-Man for his accident and started to hunt him (through many showers, sewers and water valves), in order to get revenge on the hero, but was defeated in combat.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Soon after that in the story arc "Eye of the Beholder", he teams up with and briefly becomes merged with the Sandman into a composite mud monster called Mud-Thing. In this form, Hydro-Man and Sandman had limited intelligence and they did not have the ability to use their shape-shifting abilities as well as before. Although it was composed of the two aforementioned villains, it showed no indication of either villain's persona outside of an infatuation with Sadie Frickett, the current love interest of both villains. Soon after, a theater agent named Travis Rave proposed that Sadie and Mud-Thing be in a show, which Sadie gladly accepted at the prospect of stardom. Unfortunately, when the show proved to be a huge success, Sadie accidentally kissed Travis out of excitement, thereby enraging the jealous Mud-Thing. Mud-Thing ended up going on a rampage and carried Sadie with him to the top a sky-scraper. The creature was eventually defeated with a special gas that dried it out and caused it to crumble apart. Spider-Man managed to save Sadie from her plummet, but she ended up being genuinely upset over the loss of Mud-Thing, knowing that all it had ever done wrong was simply love her. After its defeat by Spider-Man and the police, Sandman and Hydro-Man separated from this form when the police were cleaning up Mud-Thing's remains.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hydro-Man joined supervillain teams such as the Sinister Syndicate, and the Frightful Four. While working with the Sinister Syndicate, Hydro-Man demonstrates a willingness to put up with just about anything in the name of financial gain. He ignores the constant politicking of the other members and looks past the Beetle's betrayal of the group to the Kingpin in the belief that the group was economically beneficial to him. Hydro Man was a member of Crimson Cowl's Masters of Evil, and battled the Thunderbolts. After the disintegration of the group, he began to cooperate with the Shocker. He was hired by the Green Goblin to be part of his Sinister Twelve to help kill Spider-Man, but he was defeated again. He was also recruited by the Wizard to be a member of a new Frightful Four, the Wizard enhancing his powers while also implanting various security protocols that would allow the Wizard to trap Hydro-Man in a liquid-but-conscious state if he did anything that the Wizard disapproved of.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Morris was one of the 46 villains to escape the Raft when Sauron was broken out by Electro. Before escaping, he attempts to drown Jessica Drew, Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, and Luke Cage. After the "Civil War" storyline, he is seen alongside Shocker and Boomerang. This group attempts to rob Baily's Auction House but are interrupted by Spider-Man and then members War Machine and . The latter are there to neutralize Spider-Man. The trio escapes, but they are later defeated by the Scarlet Spiders. When a member of Wizard's Frightful Five, Hydro-Man received a costume from Wizard that is made from the same material as the Human Torch's costume. In the Frightful Five's fight with the Fantastic Four, Hydro-Man was frozen in Titan's atmosphere. Hydro-Man is hired by the Hood to take advantage of the split in the superhero community caused by the Superhuman Registration Act.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hydro-Man appeared in "" as one of the villains in the Bar with No Name. During the "Spider-Island" storyline, Hydro-Man battles the Young Allies as Spider-Man shows up to help defeat him. When Spider-Man, his mind swapped with Doctor Octopus, sends a message to various supervillains to capture "Spider-Man" alive and bring him to "Doctor Octopus" in the Raft, Hydro Man is among the supervillains that receives the message. He is defeated and captured by employees of Horizon Labs. In a plot to drown New York City in its filth as part of a ransom demand, Hydro-Man absorbed the wastewater from the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant. His plan was thwarted by Spider-Man with the help of Deadpool, where Spider-Man threw Deadpool inside of him with active grenades.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hawkeye and a displaced version of Red Wolf from Earth-51920 later encounter Hydro-Man who is working for a group called Oasis Spring Water that has been draining the underground reservoir that's on the property of the Sweet Medicine Indian Reservation. He managed to defeat Hawkeye and Red Wolf. After getting themselves free, Hawkeye and Red Wolf fight Oasis Spring Water again. While Red Wolf fights against the militia, Hawkeye engages Hydro-Man in battle. As the Fireheart family joined the fight, Silas Fireheart used electricity to help Hawkeye defeat Hydro-Man.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hydro-Man later encounters a scientist named Dr. Rachna Koul who is working on "curing him". When Hercules arrived with Human Torch and Thing, Hydro-Man lashed out at them thinking it was a trap. Dr. Koul then activates a machine that electrocutes Hydro-Man enough for him to retreat. After resurfacing in a pond, Hydro-Man sees someone by the campfire and plans to rob him only to discover that the man was a somehow-revived Wolverine.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hydro-Man ran into Nakia whilst spelunking around an abandoned A.I.M. base in New York City, who enthralled him to her will using the jufeiro herb, leaving Bench to guard over the base to cover her tracks in the event her old colleges managed to follow her. When the rest of the Adored Ones accompanied by Spider-Man did infiltrate the undersea facility where a potential WMD of the wives in waiting's design was kept. Hydro immediately set about his preprogrammed task, but was quickly dispatched by Okoye's quick thinking and useful Wakandan Tech engineering.


title: Hydro-Man

text: At some point, Hydro-Man was captured and imprisoned in Atlantis. Somehow, Namor managed to siphon Hydro-Man's power over water into himself in order to aid Namor's latest war effort on the surface world. He was later freed by Captain America and Bucky Barnes.


title: Hydro-Man

text: At some point with his powers still intact, Hydro-Man joined Speed Demon and Shocker in robbing a bank.


title: Hydro-Man

text: During the "Sinister War" storyline, Hydro-Man was with Boomerang, Overdrive, Shocker, and Speed Demon when Kindred challenged them, the Sinister Six, the Savage Six, the Sinister Syndicate, and Foreigner's group on who will kill Spider-Man first. It was also noted that Hydro-Man was not a member of the Superior Foes. Hydro-Man assists Boomerang, Shocker, and Speed Demon in fighting Foreigner's group in order to buy Overdrive time to get Spider-Man away.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hydro-Man is able to bodily transform himself into a watery liquid substance. He can access secure areas and small openings with relative ease. When his bodily mass is dispersed in this form it simply reforms, albeit slowly depending on how far apart the mass was. All of Hydro-Man's cells remain fully under his control when he is in his liquid state. Hydro-Man can also merge with and manipulate larger bodies of water when he is in his liquid form. He can increase his mass and cause tidal waves and tsunamis. He can turn parts of his body to liquid while retaining the rest of his human form, allowing him to slip from a foe's grasp or have projectiles like bullets harmlessly pass through him. Through great mental exertion, Hydro-Man can also turn into steam. Other examples of manipulating his watery form include firing off small streams such as a fire hose, shaping parts of his body into 'solid-water' constructs, and mixing himself with other compounds for different effects.


title: Hydro-Man

text: The Wizard enhanced his powers, through the use of sophisticated equipment. These artificial enhancements granted him increased and more precise control over bodies of water and moisture near him, which he demonstrated by absorbing nearly all the moisture in the Trapster's body. His abilities were further augmented through the use of re-purposed super community technologies processed by Damage Control from the corrupt and deranged former CEO of the company, Walter Declun. However, Spider-Man teamed up with Iceman and used Iceman's powers to solidify him into ice. Hydro-Man claims that he has not aged since he gained his powers. Hydro-Man possesses a certain degree of superhuman strength, and has been shown to be an exceptionally skilled fighter, and adept at using his powers for that purpose.


title: Hydro-Man

text: In some incarnations, depending on the writer, Hydro-Man can form his forearms into weapons such as Sandman does, except that Bench's weapons are made of water. Bench has extensive experience in street-fighting techniques due to his experience as a criminal before his transformation. Though cunning, he has been consistently depicted by writers as a low tier henchman with little formal education and is often tricked into using his powers in ways that incapacitate him (as explained above). His normal attire consists of a black shirt and blue or green pants, as well as a costume invented by the Wizard.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hydro-Man appears in "" as a member of the Sinner Six. They are in the control of the tyrannical mayor of New York. Hydro-Man dies when he comes into contact with Electro during an attempt to kill Spider-Man.


title: Hydro-Man

text: A member of the Elementals inspired by Hydro-Man appears in the live-action film "". Director Jon Watts described his take for the creation: "There’s so many Spider-Man villains from the rogues gallery that I wanted to dig a little bit deeper than what anyone might be expecting... villains like Hydro-Man and Molten Man, who may not be on the highest list. But that opened up such amazing visual possibilities and poses really dangerous challenges for Spider-Man". Identified as the Water Elemental, it emerges from Venice's canals, where Peter Parker and Mysterio defeat it. It is later revealed that all of the Elementals were illusions created by Mysterio and his fellow ex-Stark Industries employees to obtain Tony Stark's technology and fraudulently establish Mysterio as a superhero.


title: Hydro-Man

text: Hydro-Man appears in "The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man" ride in the Marvel Super Hero Island section of the Islands of Adventure theme park, voiced by Bill Fagerbakke. This version is a member of the Sinister Syndicate. While attacking Spider-Man, he accidentally collides with Electro and is apparently killed.


title: Lockheed Martin Polecat

text: The Lockheed Martin Polecat (company designation P-175) was an unmanned aerial vehicle by Lockheed Martin. It was developed by the company's Advanced Development Programs division in Palmdale, California.


title: Lockheed Martin Polecat

text: Designated P-175, the Polecat was funded internally by Lockheed Martin (as opposed to using United States Government funds) at the beginning of 2005. The prototype was unveiled at the 2006 Farnborough Airshow. It was developed over a period of 18 months.


title: Lockheed Martin Polecat

text: On December 18, 2006, the aircraft crashed due to an "irreversible unintentional failure in the flight termination ground equipment, which caused the aircraft's automatic fail-safe flight termination mode to activate."


title: Scintillation counter

text: A scintillation counter is an instrument for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation by using the excitation effect of incident radiation on a scintillating material, and detecting the resultant light pulses.


title: Scintillation counter

text: It consists of a scintillator which generates photons in response to incident radiation, a sensitive photodetector (usually a photomultiplier tube (PMT), a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera, or a photodiode), which converts the light to an electrical signal and electronics to process this signal.


title: Scintillation counter

text: Scintillation counters are widely used in radiation protection, assay of radioactive materials and physics research because they can be made inexpensively yet with good quantum efficiency, and can measure both the intensity and the energy of incident radiation.


title: Scintillation counter

text: The first electronic scintillation counter was invented in 1944 by Sir Samuel Curran whilst he was working on the Manhattan Project at the University of California at Berkeley. There was a requirement to measure the radiation from small quantities of uranium and his innovation was to use one of the newly-available highly sensitive photomultiplier tubes made by the Radio Corporation of America to accurately count the flashes of light from a scintillator subjected to radiation.


title: Scintillation counter

text: This built upon the work of earlier researchers such as Antoine Henri Becquerel, who discovered radioactivity whilst working on the phosphorescence of uranium salts in 1896. Previously scintillation events had to be laboriously detected by eye using a spinthariscope which was a simple microscope to observe light flashes in the scintillator. The first commercial liquid scintillation counter was made by Lyle E. Packard and sold to Argonne Cancer Research Hospital at the University of Chicago in 1953. The production model was designed especially for tritium and 14C which were used in metabolic studies in vivo and in vitro. Shortly thereafter Packard Instrument Company began production of a Tri-Carb Liquid Scintillation Counter which incorporated an automatic sample changer. This advance greatly improved analysis in the field of molecular biology by allowing serial counts involving hundreds of samples unattended and overnight.


title: Scintillation counter

text: When an ionizing particle passes into the scintillator material, atoms are excited along a track. For charged particles the track is the path of the particle itself. For gamma rays (uncharged), their energy is converted to an energetic electron via either the photoelectric effect, Compton scattering or pair production.


title: Scintillation counter

text: The chemistry of atomic de-excitation in the scintillator produces a multitude of low-energy photons, typically near the blue end of the visible spectrum. The quantity is proportional to the energy deposited by the ionizing particle. These can be directed to the photocathode of a photomultiplier tube which emits at most one electron for each arriving photon due to the photoelectric effect. This group of primary electrons is electrostatically accelerated and focused by an electrical potential so that they strike the first dynode of the tube. The impact of a single electron on the dynode releases a number of secondary electrons which are in turn accelerated to strike the second dynode. Each subsequent dynode impact releases further electrons, and so there is a current amplifying effect at each dynode stage. Each stage is at a higher potential than the previous to provide the accelerating field.


title: Scintillation counter

text: The resultant output signal at the anode is a measurable pulse for each group of photons from an original ionizing event in the scintillator that arrived at the photocathode and carries information about the energy of the original incident radiation. When it is fed to a charge amplifier which integrates the energy information, an output pulse is obtained which is proportional to the energy of the particle exciting the scintillator.


title: Scintillation counter

text: The number of such pulses per unit time also gives information about the intensity of the radiation. In some applications individual pulses are not counted, but rather only the average current at the anode is used as a measure of radiation intensity.


title: Scintillation counter

text: The scintillator must be shielded from all ambient light so that external photons do not swamp the ionization events caused by incident radiation. To achieve this a thin opaque foil, such as aluminized mylar, is often used, though it must have a low enough mass to minimize undue attenuation of the incident radiation being measured.


title: Scintillation counter

text: The scintillator consists of a transparent crystal, usually a phosphor, plastic (usually containing anthracene) or organic liquid (see liquid scintillation counting) that fluoresces when struck by ionizing radiation.


title: Scintillation counter

text: Cesium iodide (CsI) in crystalline form is used as the scintillator for the detection of protons and alpha particles. Sodium iodide (NaI) containing a small amount of thallium is used as a scintillator for the detection of gamma waves and zinc sulfide (ZnS) is widely used as a detector of alpha particles. Zinc sulfide is the material Rutherford used to perform his scattering experiment. Lithium iodide (LiI) is used in neutron detectors.


title: Scintillation counter

text: The quantum efficiency of a gamma-ray detector (per unit volume) depends upon the density of electrons in the detector, and certain scintillating materials, such as sodium iodide and bismuth germanate, achieve high electron densities as a result of the high atomic numbers of some of the elements of which they are composed. However, detectors based on semiconductors, notably hyperpure germanium, have better intrinsic energy resolution than scintillators, and are preferred where feasible for gamma-ray spectrometry.


title: Scintillation counter

text: In the case of neutron detectors, high efficiency is gained through the use of scintillating materials rich in hydrogen that scatter neutrons efficiently. Liquid scintillation counters are an efficient and practical means of quantifying beta radiation.


title: Scintillation counter

text: Scintillation counters are used to measure radiation in a variety of applications including hand held radiation survey meters, personnel and environmental monitoring for radioactive contamination, medical imaging, radiometric assay, nuclear security and nuclear plant safety.


title: Scintillation counter

text: Several products have been introduced in the market utilising scintillation counters for detection of potentially dangerous gamma-emitting materials during transport. These include scintillation counters designed for freight terminals, border security, ports, weigh bridge applications, scrap metal yards and contamination monitoring of nuclear waste. There are variants of scintillation counters mounted on pick-up trucks and helicopters for rapid response in case of a security situation due to dirty bombs or radioactive waste. Hand-held units are also commonly used.


title: Scintillation counter

text: In the United Kingdom, the Health and Safety Executive, or HSE, has issued a user guidance note on selecting the correct radiation measurement instrument for the application concerned. This covers all radiation instrument technologies, and is a useful comparative guide to the use of scintillation detectors.


title: Scintillation counter

text: Radioactive contamination monitors, for area or personal surveys require a large detection area to ensure efficient and rapid coverage of monitored surfaces. For this a thin scintillator with a large area window and an integrated photomultiplier tube is ideally suited. They find wide application in the field of radioactive contamination monitoring of personnel and the environment. Detectors are designed to have one or two scintillation materials, depending on the application. "Single phosphor" detectors are used for either alpha or beta, and "Dual phosphor" detectors are used to detect both.


title: Scintillation counter

text: A scintillator such as zinc sulphide is used for alpha particle detection, whilst plastic scintillators are used for beta detection. The resultant scintillation energies can be discriminated so that alpha and beta counts can be measured separately with the same detector, This technique is used in both hand-held and fixed monitoring equipment, and such instruments are relatively inexpensive compared with the gas proportional detector.


title: Scintillation counter

text: Scintillation materials are used for ambient gamma dose measurement, though a different construction is used to detect contamination, as no thin window is required.


title: Scintillation counter

text: Scintillators often convert a single photon of high energy radiation into high number of lower-energy photons, where the number of photons per megaelectronvolt of input energy is fairly constant. By measuring the intensity of the flash (the number of the photons produced by the x-ray or gamma photon) it is therefore possible to discern the original photon's energy.


title: Scintillation counter

text: The spectrometer consists of a suitable scintillator crystal, a photomultiplier tube, and a circuit for measuring the height of the pulses produced by the photomultiplier. The pulses are counted and sorted by their height, producing a x-y plot of scintillator flash brightness vs number of the flashes, which approximates the energy spectrum of the incident radiation, with some additional artifacts. A monochromatic gamma radiation produces a photopeak at its energy. The detector also shows response at the lower energies, caused by Compton scattering, two smaller escape peaks at energies 0.511 and 1.022 MeV below the photopeak for the creation of electron-positron pairs when one or both annihilation photons escape, and a backscatter peak. Higher energies can be measured when two or more photons strike the detector almost simultaneously (pile-up, within the time resolution of the data acquisition chain), appearing as sum peaks with energies up to the value of two or more photopeaks added


title: Jeremy Miller

text: Jeremy James Miller (born October 21, 1976) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of Ben Seaver on "Growing Pains" and its two reunion movies. He also voiced Linus van Pelt in "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!".


title: Jeremy Miller

text: Miller was cast in a few commercials, then a 1984 guest role in "Punky Brewster" before landing the role of Ben Seaver, the younger son on "Growing Pains". After "Growing Pains," he appeared in the film "Milk and Fashion," in commercials for McDonald's "Dollar Menunaires" promotion shot as a parody of the VH1 series "Best Week Ever", and as the star of the 1990 Hanukah episode of "Shalom Sesame" (an Israeli version of "Sesame Street"). He has also been spotted in "Boys and Girls Guide To Getting Down." He appeared in a special celebrity team-up episode of "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" facing off against Mayim Bialik from Blossom, and Tatyana Ali from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air"; he and his partner got through to the bonus round in the end (but failed to win the big prize).


title: Jeremy Miller

text: He can be seen in four movies in 2009: "Ditching Party", "Never Have I Ever", "The Fish" and "Tar Beach."


title: Jeremy Miller

text: While promoting Start Fresh Recovery of Santa Ana, California in April 2014, Miller said he started drinking alcohol at age four. Miller states that he suffered from alcohol abuse for years, until he had an implant that released the drug Naltrexone into his system. In 2011, he became a spokesperson for Fresh Start Private Management Inc., the rehabilitation company that administered his treatment.


title: Jeremy Miller

text: At about age 14, Miller received numerous letters from an older male stalker during the run of "Growing Pains".


title: Jeremy Miller

text: Miller attended the University of Southern California for one year. He is married to Joanie Miller and has three stepsons.


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: The Mansion is a four-bedroom mansion owned by music producer Rick Rubin in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles. Originally built in 1918, the house is famous for the successful bands who have recorded music there. The house was owned by Errol Flynn in the late 1930s. Although many say that Harry Houdini lived at the mansion, no one has ever lived in the Mansion under the name "Houdini". There is confusion between The Mansion, at 2451 Laurel Canyon Blvd. and The Houdini Estate, at 2400 Laurel Canyon Blvd.


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: After recording the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" with considerable ease and comfort, Rubin decided to use the mansion to record many of the albums he has produced, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Stadium Arcadium", Audioslave's "Out of Exile", The Mars Volta's "De-Loused in the Comatorium", Slipknot's "", and Linkin Park's "Minutes to Midnight".


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: Since 1991, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have returned to the mansion on numerous occasions; the tracks "Fortune Faded" and "Save the Population" on 2003's "Greatest Hits" compilation, and more recently the group's 2006 album "Stadium Arcadium" were recorded there. The mansion can also be seen on the Chili Peppers' 1991 DVD "Funky Monks", Linkin Park's DVD "The Making of Minutes to Midnight", and in a series of eight clips uploaded to LCD Soundsystem's official YouTube channel documenting the creation of "This Is Happening".


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: In 1919, Houdini rented the cottage at 2435 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Los Angeles, while making movies for Lasky Pictures. His wife occupied it for a time after his death. It is said that Houdini did practice his tricks in the pool at 2400 Laurel Canyon Boulevard.


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: As of 2011 the site of the cottage was a vacant lot and up for sale. The main mansion building itself was rebuilt after it was destroyed in the 1959 Laurel Canyon fire, and is now a historic venue called The Mansion. While Houdini did not likely live at the "mansion," there is some probability that his widow did.


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: This "house" should not be confused with the "House of Houdini" which was a former Houdini home, purchased in 1908, at 278 West 113th Street, Harlem, now called Morningside Heights, New York City that also displays artifacts.


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: The nine-piece metal band Slipknot reported experiencing a number of unusual events while living there during the recording of their album "". Drummer Joey Jordison claimed to have had an unsettling experience where every night around 4:00 A.M. his bedroom door would open by itself. Also, singer Corey Taylor took pictures of two orbs hovering near the thermostat in his room that changed the temperature.


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: System of a Down guitarist, Daron Malakian, said that every day around four o'clock, his amp tubes would act strange.


title: The Mansion (recording studio)

text: Though it is rumored that the house has been haunted since 1918, when the son of a furniture store owner pushed his lover from the balcony, the present mansion is actually built on the grounds of the old mansion, which burned down in the late 1950s and wasn't rebuilt until years later to be used as a recording arts studio. Nevertheless, during the recording of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", more unusual things occurred. Consequently, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith chose to not live in the house during the recording, while guitarist John Frusciante considered the ghosts friendly. The BSSM album art also features a photograph of a strange orb captured during a group photograph, which the band suggests might have been a spirit at the mansion.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: In nuclear physics, the semi-empirical mass formula (SEMF) (sometimes also called the Weizsäcker formula, Bethe–Weizsäcker formula, or Bethe–Weizsäcker mass formula to distinguish it from the Bethe–Weizsäcker process) is used to approximate the mass and various other properties of an atomic nucleus from its number of protons and neutrons. As the name suggests, it is based partly on theory and partly on empirical measurements. The formula represents the liquid-drop model proposed by George Gamow, which can account for most of the terms in the formula and gives rough estimates for the values of the coefficients. It was first formulated in 1935 by German physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, and although refinements have been made to the coefficients over the years, the structure of the formula remains the same today.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The formula gives a good approximation for atomic masses and thereby other effects. However, it fails to explain the existence of lines of greater binding energy at certain numbers of protons and neutrons. These numbers, known as magic numbers, are the foundation of the nuclear shell model.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The liquid-drop model was first proposed by George Gamow and further developed by Niels Bohr and John Archibald Wheeler. It treats the nucleus as a drop of incompressible fluid of very high density, held together by the nuclear force (a residual effect of the strong force), there is a similarity to the structure of a spherical liquid drop. While a crude model, the liquid-drop model accounts for the spherical shape of most nuclei and makes a rough prediction of binding energy.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The corresponding mass formula is defined purely in terms of the numbers of protons and neutrons it contains. The original Weizsäcker formula defines five terms:


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The mass of an atomic nucleus, for formula_1 neutrons, formula_2 protons, and therefore formula_3 nucleons, is given by


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: where formula_5 and formula_6 are the rest mass of a proton and a neutron respectively, and formula_7 is the binding energy of the nucleus. The semi-empirical mass formula states the binding energy is


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The formula_9 term is either zero or formula_10, depending on the parity of formula_1 and formula_2, where formula_13 for some exponent formula_14. Note that as formula_3, the numerator of the formula_16 term can be rewritten as formula_17.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: Each of the terms in this formula has a theoretical basis. The coefficients formula_18, formula_19, formula_20, formula_16, and formula_22 are determined empirically; while they may be derived from experiment, they are typically derived from least-squares fit to contemporary data. While typically expressed by its basic five terms, further terms exist to explain additional phenomena. Akin to how changing a polynomial fit will change its coefficients, the interplay between these coefficients as new phenomena are introduced is complex; some terms influence each other, whereas the formula_22 term is largely independent.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The term formula_24 is known as the "volume term". The volume of the nucleus is proportional to "A", so this term is proportional to the volume, hence the name.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The basis for this term is the strong nuclear force. The strong force affects both protons and neutrons, and as expected, this term is independent of "Z". Because the number of pairs that can be taken from "A" particles is formula_25, one might expect a term proportional to formula_26. However, the strong force has a very limited range, and a given nucleon may only interact strongly with its nearest neighbors and next nearest neighbors. Therefore, the number of pairs of particles that actually interact is roughly proportional to "A", giving the volume term its form.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The coefficient formula_18 is smaller than the binding energy possessed by the nucleons with respect to their neighbors (formula_28), which is of order of 40 MeV. This is because the larger the number of nucleons in the nucleus, the larger their kinetic energy is, due to the Pauli exclusion principle. If one treats the nucleus as a Fermi ball of formula_29 nucleons, with equal numbers of protons and neutrons, then the total kinetic energy is formula_30, with formula_31 the Fermi energy, which is estimated as 38 MeV. Thus the expected value of formula_18 in this model is formula_33 not far from the measured value.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The term formula_34 is known as the "surface term". This term, also based on the strong force, is a correction to the volume term.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The volume term suggests that each nucleon interacts with a constant number of nucleons, independent of "A". While this is very nearly true for nucleons deep within the nucleus, those nucleons on the surface of the nucleus have fewer nearest neighbors, justifying this correction. This can also be thought of as a surface-tension term, and indeed a similar mechanism creates surface tension in liquids.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: If the volume of the nucleus is proportional to "A", then the radius should be proportional to formula_35 and the surface area to formula_36. This explains why the surface term is proportional to formula_36. It can also be deduced that formula_19 should have a similar order of magnitude to formula_18.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The basis for this term is the electrostatic repulsion between protons. To a very rough approximation, the nucleus can be considered a sphere of uniform charge density. The potential energy of such a charge distribution can be shown to be


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: where "Q" is the total charge, and "R" is the radius of the sphere. The value of formula_20 can be approximately calculated by using this equation to calculate the potential energy, using an empirical nuclear radius of formula_44 and "Q" = "Ze". However, because electrostatic repulsion will only exist for more than one proton, formula_45 becomes formula_46:


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: where formula_52 is the fine-structure constant, and formula_53 is the radius of a nucleus, giving formula_54 to be approximately 1.25 femtometers. formula_55 is the proton reduced Compton wavelength, and formula_5 is the proton mass. This gives formula_20 an approximate theoretical value of 0.691 MeV, not far from the measured value.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The theoretical justification for this term is more complex. The Pauli exclusion principle states that no two identical fermions can occupy exactly the same quantum state in an atom. At a given energy level, there are only finitely many quantum states available for particles. What this means in the nucleus is that as more particles are "added", these particles must occupy higher energy levels, increasing the total energy of the nucleus (and decreasing the binding energy). Note that this effect is not based on any of the fundamental forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, etc.), only the Pauli exclusion principle.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: Protons and neutrons, being distinct types of particles, occupy different quantum states. One can think of two different "pools" of states one for protons and one for neutrons. Now, for example, if there are significantly more neutrons than protons in a nucleus, some of the neutrons will be higher in energy than the available states in the proton pool. If we could move some particles from the neutron pool to the proton pool, in other words, change some neutrons into protons, we would significantly decrease the energy. The imbalance between the number of protons and neutrons causes the energy to be higher than it needs to be, "for a given number of nucleons". This is the basis for the asymmetry term.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The actual form of the asymmetry term can again be derived by modeling the nucleus as a Fermi ball of protons and neutrons. Its total kinetic energy is


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: where formula_60 and formula_61 are the Fermi energies of the protons and neutrons. Since these are proportional to formula_62 and formula_63 respectively, one gets


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: At the zeroth order in the expansion the kinetic energy is just the overall Fermi energy formula_67 multiplied by formula_68. Thus we get


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The first term contributes to the volume term in the semi-empirical mass formula, and the second term is minus the asymmetry term (remember, the kinetic energy contributes to the total binding energy with a "negative" sign).


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: formula_31 is 38 MeV, so calculating formula_16 from the equation above, we get only half the measured value. The discrepancy is explained by our model not being accurate: nucleons in fact interact with each other and are not spread evenly across the nucleus. For example, in the shell model, a proton and a neutron with overlapping wavefunctions will have a greater strong interaction between them and stronger binding energy. This makes it energetically favourable (i.e. having lower energy) for protons and neutrons to have the same quantum numbers (other than isospin), and thus increase the energy cost of asymmetry between them.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: One can also understand the asymmetry term intuitively as follows. It should be dependent on the absolute difference formula_72, and the form formula_73 is simple and differentiable, which is important for certain applications of the formula. In addition, small differences between "Z" and "N" do not have a high energy cost. The "A" in the denominator reflects the fact that a given difference formula_72 is less significant for larger values of "A".


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The term formula_75 is known as the "pairing term" (possibly also known as the pairwise interaction). This term captures the effect of spin coupling. It is given by


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: where formula_77 is found empirically to have a value of about 1000 keV, slowly decreasing with mass number "A". The binding energy may be increased by converting one of the odd protons or neutrons into a neutron or proton, so the odd nucleon can form a pair with its odd neighbour forming and even "Z", "N". The pair have overlapping wave functions and sit very close together with a bond stronger than any other configuration. When the pairing term is substituted into the binding energy equation, for even "Z", "N", the pairing term adds binding energy, and for odd "Z", "N" the pairing term removes binding energy.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The value of the exponent "k" is determined from experimental binding-energy data. In the past its value was often assumed to be −3/4, but modern experimental data indicate that a value of −1/2 is nearer the mark:


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: Due to the Pauli exclusion principle the nucleus would have a lower energy if the number of protons with spin up were equal to the number of protons with spin down. This is also true for neutrons. Only if both "Z" and "N" are even, can both protons and neutrons have equal numbers of spin-up and spin-down particles. This is a similar effect to the asymmetry term.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The factor formula_81 is not easily explained theoretically. The Fermi-ball calculation we have used above, based on the liquid-drop model but neglecting interactions, will give an formula_82 dependence, as in the asymmetry term. This means that the actual effect for large nuclei will be larger than expected by that model. This should be explained by the interactions between nucleons. For example, in the shell model, two protons with the same quantum numbers (other than spin) will have completely overlapping wavefunctions and will thus have greater strong interaction between them and stronger binding energy. This makes it energetically favourable (i.e. having lower energy) for protons to form pairs of opposite spin. The same is true for neutrons.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The coefficients are calculated by fitting to experimentally measured masses of nuclei. Their values can vary depending on how they are fitted to the data and which unit is used to express the mass. Several examples are as shown below.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The semi-empirical mass formula therefore provides a good fit to heavier nuclei, and a poor fit to very light nuclei, especially He. For light nuclei, it is usually better to use a model that takes this shell structure into account.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: By maximizing with respect to "Z", one would find the best neutron–proton ratio "N"/"Z" for a given atomic weight "A". We get


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: This is roughly 1 for light nuclei, but for heavy nuclei the ratio grows in good agreement with experiment.


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: By substituting the above value of "Z" back into , one obtains the binding energy as a function of the atomic weight, .


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: Maximizing with respect to "A" gives the nucleus which is most strongly bound, i.e. most stable. The value we get is "A" = 63 (copper), close to the measured values of "A" = 62 (nickel) and "A" = 58 (iron).


title: Semi-empirical mass formula

text: The liquid-drop model also allows the computation of fission barriers for nuclei, which determine the stability of a nucleus against spontaneous fission. It was originally speculated that elements beyond atomic number 104 could not exist, as they would undergo fission with very short half-lives, though this formula did not consider stabilizing effects of closed nuclear shells. A modified formula considering shell effects reproduces known data and the predicted island of stability (in which fission barriers and half-lives are expected to increase, reaching a maximum at the shell closures), though also suggests a possible limit to existence of superheavy nuclei beyond "Z" = 120 and "N" = 184.


title: Alphorn

text: The alphorn or alpenhorn or alpine horn is a labrophone, consisting of a straight several-meter-long wooden natural horn of conical bore, with a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece. Traditionally the Alphorn was made of one single piece, or two parts at most, and made from the wood of a red pine tree. Sometimes the trees would bend from the weight of snow during the wintertime, and this caused them to have the larger and bent mouthpiece at their ends. Modern Alphorns are sometimes made from three distinct parts that can be stuck together, this is to make them easier to transport via automobile, or even carried by hand, and today are more frequently made from the wood of a spruce tree or fir tree. It is used by mountain dwellers in the Swiss Alps. Similar wooden horns were used for communication in most mountainous regions of Europe, from the Alps to the Carpathians. Alphorns are today used as musical instruments.


title: Alphorn

text: For a long time, scholars believed that the alphorn had been derived from the Roman-Etruscan lituus, because of their resemblance in shape, and because of the word "liti", meaning Alphorn in the dialect of Obwalden. There is no documented evidence for this theory however, and also the word "liti" was probably borrowed from 16th–18th century writings in Latin, where the word "lituus" could describe various wind instruments, such as the horn, the crumhorn, or the cornett. Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner used the words "lituum alpinum" for the first known detailed description of the alphorn in his "De raris et admirandis herbis" in 1555. The oldest known document using the German word "Alphorn" is a page from a 1527 account book from the former Cistercian abbey St. Urban near Pfaffnau mentioning the payment of two Batzen for an itinerant alphorn player from the Valais.


title: Alphorn

text: 17th–19th century collections of alpine myths and legends suggest that alphorn-like instruments had frequently been used as signal instruments in village communities since old times or earlier, sometimes substituting for the lack of church bells. Surviving artifacts, dating back to as far as ca. AD 1400, include wooden labrophones in their stretched form, like the alphorn, or coiled versions, such as the "Büchel" and the "Allgäuisches Waldhorn" or "Ackerhorn". The alphorn's exact origins remain indeterminate, and the ubiquity of horn-like signal instruments in valleys throughout Europe may indicate a long history of cross influences regarding their construction and usage.


title: Alphorn

text: The alphorn is carved from solid softwood, generally spruce but sometimes pine. In former times, the alphorn maker would find a tree bent at the base in the shape of an alphorn, but modern makers piece the wood together at the base. A cup-shaped mouthpiece carved out of a block of hard wood is added and the instrument is complete.


title: Alphorn

text: An alphorn made at Rigi-Kulm, Schwyz, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, measures in length and has a straight tube. The Swiss alphorn varies in shape according to the locality, being curved near the bell in the Bernese Oberland. Michael Praetorius mentions an alphorn-like instrument under the name of Hölzern Trummet (wooden trumpet) in "Syntagma Musicum" (Wittenberg, 1615–1619; Pl. VIII).


title: Alphorn

text: The alphorn has no lateral openings and therefore gives the pure natural harmonic series of the open pipe. The notes of the natural harmonic series overlap, but do not exactly correspond, to notes found in the familiar chromatic scale in standard Western equal temperament. Most prominently within the alphorn's range, the 7th and 11th harmonics are particularly noticeable, because they fall between adjacent notes in the chromatic scale.


title: Alphorn

text: Accomplished alphornists often command a range of nearly three octaves, consisting of the 2nd through the 16th notes of the harmonic series. The availability of the higher tones is due in part to the relatively small diameter of the bore of the mouthpiece and tubing in relation to the overall length of the horn.


title: Alphorn

text: The well-known "Ranz des Vaches" (score; audio) is a traditional Swiss melody often heard on the alphorn. The song describes the time of bringing the cows to the high country at milk making time. Rossini introduced the "Ranz des Vaches" into his masterpiece "William Tell," along with many other delightful melodies scattered throughout the opera in vocal and instrumental parts that are well-suited to the alphorn. Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann that the inspiration for the dramatic entry of the horn in the introduction to the last movement of his First Symphony was an alphorn melody he heard while vacationing in the Rigi area of Switzerland. For Clara's birthday in 1868 Brahms sent her a greeting that was to be sung with the melody.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Jefferson County is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 782,969. It is the most populous county in the commonwealth (with more than twice the population of second ranked Fayette County).


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Since a city-county merger in 2003, the county's territory, population and government have been coextensive with the city of Louisville, which also serves as county seat. The administrative entity created by this merger is the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government, abbreviated to Louisville Metro.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Jefferson County is the anchor of the Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area, locally referred to as Kentuckiana.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Jefferson County—originally Jefferson County, Virginia—was established by the Virginia General Assembly in June 1780, when it abolished and partitioned Kentucky County into three counties: Fayette, Jefferson and Lincoln. Named for Thomas Jefferson, who was governor of Virginia at the time, it was one of Kentucky's nine original counties on June 1, 1792.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: In 1778, during the American Revolutionary War, George Rogers Clark's militia and 60 civilian settlers, established the first American settlement in the county on Corn Island in the Ohio River, at head of the Falls of the Ohio. They moved to the mainland the following year, establishing Louisville.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Richard Mentor Johnson, the 9th Vice President of the United States, was born in Jefferson County in 1780, while the family was living in a settlement along the Beargrass Creek.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: The last major American Indian raid in present-day Jefferson County was the Chenoweth Massacre on July 17, 1789.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Whenever possible, the metro government generally avoids any self-reference including the name "Jefferson County" and has even renamed the Jefferson County Courthouse as "Metro Hall".


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Prior to the 2003 merger, the head of local government was the County Judge/Executive, a post that still exists but now has few powers. The office is currently held by Queenie Averette.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (4.3%) is water. The Ohio River forms its northern boundary with the state of Indiana.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: The highest point is South Park Hill, elevation , located in the southern part of the county. The lowest point is along the Ohio River just north of West Point.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 693,604 people, 287,012 households, and 183,113 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 305,835 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 77.38% White, 18.88% Black or African American, 0.22% Native American, 1.39% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.68% from other races, and 1.42% from two or more races. 1.78% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: There were 287,012 households, out of which 29.60% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.20% were married couples living together, 14.70% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.20% were non-families. 30.50% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 2.97.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: In the county, the population was spread out, with 24.30% under the age of 18, 8.90% from 18 to 24, 30.40% from 25 to 44, 22.80% from 45 to 64, and 13.50% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.60 males.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: The median income for a household in the county was $54,357 (2018), and the median income for a family was $49,161 (2005). Males had a median income of $36,484 versus $26,255 for females (2005). The per capita income for the county was $31,980 (2018). About 14.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.1% of those under age 18 and 8.2% of those age 65 or over (2018).


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Since the formation of Louisville Metro on January 6, 2003, residents of the cities below also became citizens of the newly expanded Metro, but none of the incorporated places dissolved in the process. The functions formerly served by the county government for the towns were assumed by Louisville Metro. However, the former City of Louisville was effectively absorbed into the new city-county government.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: Jefferson County has voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992. In the 2019 gubernatorial election, it voted for Democrat Andy Beshear by a higher percentage than any other county in Kentucky, giving him 67% of the vote.


title: Jefferson County, Kentucky

text: The public school districts for the county are: Jefferson County School District (JCPS) and Anchorage Independent School District. The Anchorage district only covers grades K-8; Anchorage district residents may attend JCPS or Oldham County Schools.


title: Polycoria

text: Polycoria is a pathological condition of the eye characterized by more than one pupillary opening in the iris. It may be congenital or result from a disease affecting the iris. It results in decreased function of iris and pupil, affecting the physical eye and visualization.


title: Polycoria

text: In the early history of China, double pupils were seen as a sign that a child would become a great king or sage.


title: Polycoria

text: Polycoria is extremely rare, and other conditions are frequently mistaken for it. Polycoria is often congenital, however not diagnosed until adulthood. The general cause of polycoria is unknown, but there are some other eye conditions that are in association with polycoria. These include (although not often) polar cataracts, glaucoma, abnormally long eyelashes, abnormal eye development, and poor vision.


title: Polycoria

text: There have been cases diagnosed from age 3 to adulthood. The prevalence of true polycoria is minimal. The two kinds of polycoria are true polycoria and false pseudopolycoria.


title: Polycoria

text: There are no known or proposed trends in the occurrences of polycoria based on geographical location, age, gender, or season.


title: Polycoria

text: In cases of true polycoria, there is an extra pupil that tends to be reactive to light and medication. To be considered true polycoria the extra pupil and the principal pupil must dilate and contract simultaneously with triggers such as light and administered drugs. The extraneous pupil is c. 2.5mm away from the principal pupil. In cases of true polycoria there is an intact sphincter muscle, which contracts and dilates the pupils. In an eye without polycoria, the sphincter muscle is a part of the iris that functions to constrict and dilate the pupil. A patient with true polycoria experiences handicapped vision as well as stimulation of the retina in response to bright lights.


title: Polycoria

text: It is said that the term "true polycoria" is overused, and used correctly when addressing congenital deformations of the iris. Often "true polycoria" is used when it in fact is a case of pseudopolycoria.


title: Polycoria

text: Although less rare than true polycoria, pseudopolycoria is still very uncommon. In cases of pseudopolycoria there is a "passive constriction" that differentiates the extra pupil from the true pupil during constriction and dilation. The extra pupil in pseudopolycoria is different than the extra pupil in true polycoria because it shows defects that are independent of the sphincter muscles. Pseudopolycoria is often associated with Seckel syndrome, posterior polymorphous dystrophy, and juvenile glaucoma.


title: Polycoria

text: Pseudopolycoria consists of splitting of the iris that are not contingent with the sphincter muscles at the root of the iris.


title: Polycoria

text: When a patient is diagnosed with polycoria, the signs and symptoms shown are associated with ocular and adnexal growth abnormalities. The iris and the pupil become less effective. Signs can be present as a child; however, the patient may be diagnosed later in their life. This condition results in abnormal eye development affecting both eyes or just one.


title: Polycoria

text: Upon gross examination the patient will typically have excessively long eyelashes. The iris becomes hypoplastic, making abnormally shaped pupils with prominent crypts. The crypts are little squiggly lines that radiate out around the pupil; with this condition, thick round or oval openings can be seen.


title: Polycoria

text: On diagnosis, signs lead to symptoms where there is more than one set of iris muscles, which controls the amount of light being brought into the eye. When the iris becomes deformed, it will disarrange the control of light coming in leading to blurred vision and finding it hard to visually focus. Polar cataracts will also be present in this condition where a round, opaque malformation of distorted lens fibers is located in the central posterior part of the lens showing disformality. Blindness may also be caused due to damage of the optic nerve from glaucoma.


title: Polycoria

text: Polycoria has been linked to hereditary genetics, and also associated with polar cataracts, glaucoma, and retinal detachment. Not all cases are treated for this iris abnormality, but when cases are treated the only treatment is surgical procedure and life-long ocular monitoring that is highly recommended. Considerations for surgery are surgical correction, intraocular surgery, and/or reapproximation, as if it was being treated for glaucoma or retinal detachment. Children under the age of 3, who do not seek surgical surgery, have responded well with miotic drops that contained mydriatic/cycloplegic, allowing the separate eye sphincters to dilate and constrict together. This allows improved balance of uncorrected visual acuity. A 1-mm limbal incisions would be made, a spatula is inserted through the side to elevate the two pupils (avoiding contact with the lens), and the iris tissue would be cut using viscoelastic material. Finally, the limbal incisions were closed with stromal hydration, and intracameral cefuroxime is applied.


title: Polycoria

text: There have been cases where there are various techniques for surgical procedures and can be performed on children and adults. One of the techniques for repair is by using a double armed polypropylene suture, where the suture is left externally on the sclera with a knot buried in the scleral flap. This technique allows posterior fixation of intraocular lens implants in the absence of capsular support. Another technique for surgery is called pupilloplasty, where the patient would be placed under retrobulbar anesthesia with the pupils being dilated with 1% tropicamide.


title: Polycoria

text: Hypertonic saline solution used as eye drops may be used to reduce the corneal edema, the use of anti-glaucomatous topicals to help improve corneal edema, and aqueous suppressants that are accompanied by miotics, include topical beta blockers, alpha antagonists, and carbonic anhydrase inhibitors. Antibiotics and steroid drops for 4 weeks post surgery.


title: Polycoria

text: Complications of surgical procedures are possible suture erosion through the sclera, conjunctiva, or both. Minor intraocular inflammation during and after surgery. Improved distant and near visual acuity, little defects surrounding sphincter muscles, and normal pupillary margins.


title: Polycoria

text: There are no known preventive measures for polycoria, however genetic testing may be able to reveal genetic patterns of the disorder. Conditions such as reduced corneal thickness, are observed in people with cases of polycoria, as well as keratoconus (keratoconus is a corneal disease has the possibility of leading to blindness and/or astigmatism). However, there are some proposals that it is caused by a dissociation of the pupil margins, a partial coloboma which is a hole in the eye, or abnormal eye tissue composition.


title: Polycoria

text: There is not any known direct mechanisms involved in the development of true polycoria or pseudopolycoria. There are some proposed ideas, one being that after the sphincter muscle is fully formed and developed in the eye there is a severing of the pupillary margins leading to the distinction of the extra pupil and the principal pupil. Polycoria can also be caused any hole in one's iris to develop a sphincter muscle development. Another proposed theory about the cause of polycoria is intrauterine trauma, or postpartum iris trauma.


title: Polycoria

text: If the development of the iris is hindered, the ectoderm of the eye (which forms the lens and corneal epithelium) may split, which could lead to pseudopolycoria.


title: Polycoria

text: The gene that is the cause of this disorder is the PRDM5 gene. The PRDM5 gene has also been linked to Brittle Cornea syndrome, which is a tissue disorder of the eye, as well as Axenfeld syndome. PRDM5 plays crucial roles in the molecular composition of the eye, as well as the tissue thickness. Axenfeld syndrome occurs in the patient in a case of the mutation of the FOXC1 gene, which is a heterozygous mutation.


title: Polycoria

text: Since true polycoria and pseudopolycoria are so rare, there is not much history on the disorders in the tradition of modern western medicine. According to an article published in 2002, there have only been 2 cases of true polycoria since 1966.


title: Polycoria

text: Early Chinese history names multiple legendary figures as having double pupils, which as a result was led to a beliefs that a child born two double pupils were destined to be a great king or sage.


title: Polycoria

text: Xiang Yu, Hegemon of Chu, blood brother and later arch nemesis of Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han dynasty, was given great esteem due to his prowess in combat and auspicious double pupil.


title: Polycoria

text: After overthrowing the Qin dynasty together, he was named Hegemon of the loose series of kingdoms he created in its wake, while he gave Liu Bang the remote province of Han.


title: Polycoria

text: The Civil War that followed called the Chu-Han contention, ending with a Han victory and a legendary last stand by the Hegemon.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: In molecular biology and genetics, the sense of a nucleic acid molecule, particularly of a strand of DNA or RNA, refers to the nature of the roles of the strand and its complement in specifying a sequence of amino acids. Depending on the context, sense may have slightly different meanings. For example, negative-sense strand of DNA is equivalent to the template strand, whereas the positive-sense strand is the non-template strand whose nucleotide sequence is equivalent to the sequence of the mRNA transcript.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Because of the complementary nature of base-pairing between nucleic acid polymers, a double-stranded DNA molecule will be composed of two strands with sequences that are reverse complements of each other. To help molecular biologists specifically identify each strand individually, the two strands are usually differentiated as the "sense" strand and the "antisense" strand. An individual strand of DNA is referred to as positive-sense (also positive (+) or simply sense) if its nucleotide sequence corresponds directly to the sequence of an RNA transcript which is translated or translatable into a sequence of amino acids (provided that any thymine bases in the DNA sequence are replaced with uracil bases in the RNA sequence). The other strand of the double-stranded DNA molecule is referred to as negative-sense (also negative (−) or antisense), and is reverse complementary to both the positive-sense strand and the RNA transcript. It is actually the antisense strand that is used as the template from which RNA polymerases construct the RNA transcript, but the complementary base-pairing by which nucleic acid polymerization occurs means that the sequence of the RNA transcript will look identical to the positive-sense strand, apart from the RNA transcript's use of uracil instead of thymine.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Sometimes the phrases coding strand and template strand are encountered in place of sense and antisense, respectively, and in the context of a double-stranded DNA molecule the usage of these terms is essentially equivalent. However, the coding/sense strand need not always contain a code that is used to make a protein; both protein-coding and non-coding RNAs may be transcribed.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: The terms "sense" and "antisense" are relative only to the particular RNA transcript in question, and not to the DNA strand as a whole. In other words, either DNA strand can serve as the sense or antisense strand. Most organisms with sufficiently large genomes make use of both strands, with each strand functioning as the template strand for different RNA transcripts in different places along the same DNA molecule. In some cases, RNA transcripts can be transcribed in both directions (i.e. on either strand) from a common promoter region, or be transcribed from within introns on either strand (see "ambisense" below).


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: The DNA sense strand looks like the messenger RNA (mRNA) transcript, and can therefore be used to read the expected codon sequence that will ultimately be used during translation (protein synthesis) to build an amino acid sequence and then a protein. For example, the sequence "ATG" within a DNA sense strand corresponds to an "AUG" codon in the mRNA, which codes for the amino acid methionine. However, the DNA sense strand itself is not used as the template for the mRNA; it is the DNA antisense strand that serves as the source for the protein code, because, with bases complementary to the DNA sense strand, it is used as a template for the mRNA. Since transcription results in an RNA product complementary to the DNA template strand, the mRNA is complementary to the DNA antisense strand.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Hence, a base triplet 3′-TAC-5′ in the DNA antisense strand (complementary to the 5′-ATG-3′ of the DNA sense strand) is used as the template which results in a 5′-AUG-3′ base triplet in the mRNA. The DNA sense strand will have the triplet ATG, which looks similar to the mRNA triplet AUG but will not be used to make methionine because it will not be directly used to make mRNA. The DNA sense strand is called a "sense" strand not because it will be used to make protein (it won't be), but because it has a sequence that corresponds directly to the RNA codon sequence. By this logic, the RNA transcript itself is sometimes described as "sense".


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Some regions within a double-stranded DNA molecule code for genes, which are usually instructions specifying the order in which amino acids are assembled to make proteins, as well as regulatory sequences, splicing sites, non-coding introns, and other gene products. For a cell to use this information, one strand of the DNA serves as a template for the synthesis of a complementary strand of RNA. The transcribed DNA strand is called the template strand, with antisense sequence, and the mRNA transcript produced from it is said to be sense sequence (the complement of antisense). The untranscribed DNA strand, complementary to the transcribed strand, is also said to have sense sequence; it has the same sense sequence as the mRNA transcript (though T bases in DNA are substituted with U bases in RNA).


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: The names assigned to each strand actually depend on which direction you are writing the sequence that contains the information for proteins (the "sense" information), not on which strand is depicted as "on the top" or "on the bottom" (which is arbitrary). The only biological information that is important for labeling strands is the relative locations of the terminal 5′ phosphate group and the terminal 3′ hydroxyl group (at the ends of the strand or sequence in question), because these ends determine the direction of transcription and translation. A sequence written 5′-CGCTAT-3′ is equivalent to a sequence written 3′-TATCGC-5′ as long as the 5′ and 3′ ends are noted. If the ends are not labeled, convention is to assume that both sequences are written in the 5′-to-3′ direction. The "Watson strand" refers to 5′-to-3′ top strand (5′→3′), whereas the "Crick strand" refers to the 5′-to-3′ bottom strand (3′←5′). Both Watson and Crick strands can be either sense or antisense strands depending on the specific gene product made from them.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: For example, the notation "YEL021W", an alias of the URA3 gene used in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database, denotes that this gene is in the 21st open reading frame (ORF) from the centromere of the left arm (L) of Yeast (Y) chromosome number V (E), and that the expression coding strand is the Watson strand (W). "YKL074C" denotes the 74th ORF to the left of the centromere of chromosome XI and that the coding strand is the Crick strand (C). Another confusing term referring to "Plus" and "Minus" strand is also widely used. Whether the strand is sense (positive) or antisense (negative), the default query sequence in NCBI BLAST alignment is "Plus" strand.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: A single-stranded genome that is used in both positive-sense and negative-sense capacities is said to be ambisense. Some viruses have ambisense genomes. Bunyaviruses have three single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) fragments, some of them containing both positive-sense and negative-sense sections; arenaviruses are also ssRNA viruses with an ambisense genome, as they have three fragments that are mainly negative-sense except for part of the 5′ ends of the large and small segments of their genome.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: An RNA sequence that is complementary to an endogenous mRNA transcript is sometimes called "antisense RNA". In other words, it is a non-coding strand complementary to the coding sequence of RNA; this is similar to negative-sense viral RNA. When mRNA forms a duplex with a complementary antisense RNA sequence, translation is blocked. This process is related to RNA interference. Cells can produce antisense RNA molecules naturally, called microRNAs, which interact with complementary mRNA molecules and inhibit their expression. The concept has also been exploited as a molecular biology technique, by artificially introducing a transgene coding for antisense RNA in order to block the expression of a gene of interest. Radioactively or fluorescently labelled antisense RNA can be used to show the level of transcription of genes in various cell types.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Some alternative antisense structural types have been experimentally applied as antisense therapy. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the phosphorothioate antisense oligonucleotides fomivirsen (Vitravene) and mipomersen (Kynamro) for human therapeutic use.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: In virology, the term "sense" has a slightly different meaning. The genome of an RNA virus can be said to be either positive-sense, also known as a "plus-strand", or negative-sense, also known as a "minus-strand". In most cases, the terms "sense" and "strand" are used interchangeably, making terms such as "positive-strand" equivalent to "positive-sense", and "plus-strand" equivalent to "plus-sense". Whether a viral genome is positive-sense or negative-sense can be used as a basis for classifying viruses.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Positive-sense (5′-to-3′) viral RNA signifies that a particular viral RNA sequence may be directly translated into viral proteins (e.g., those needed for viral replication). Therefore, in positive-sense RNA viruses, the viral RNA genome can be considered viral mRNA, and can be immediately translated by the host cell. Unlike negative-sense RNA, positive-sense RNA is of the same sense as mRNA. Some viruses (e.g. Coronaviridae) have positive-sense genomes that can act as mRNA and be used directly to synthesize proteins without the help of a complementary RNA intermediate. Because of this, these viruses do not need to have an RNA polymerase packaged into the virion—the RNA polymerase will be one of the first proteins produced by the host cell, since it is needed in order for the virus's genome to be replicated.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Negative-sense (3′-to-5′) viral RNA is complementary to the viral mRNA, thus a positive-sense RNA must be produced by an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase from it prior to translation. Like DNA, negative-sense RNA has a nucleotide sequence complementary to the mRNA that it encodes; also like DNA, this RNA cannot be translated into protein directly. Instead, it must first be transcribed into a positive-sense RNA that acts as an mRNA. Some viruses (e.g. influenza viruses) have negative-sense genomes and so must carry an RNA polymerase inside the virion.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Gene silencing can be achieved by introducing into cells a short "antisense oligonucleotide" that is complementary to an RNA target. This experiment was first done by Zamecnik and Stephenson in 1978 and continues to be a useful approach, both for laboratory experiments and potentially for clinical applications (antisense therapy). Several viruses, such as influenza viruses Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), have been targeted using antisense oligonucleotides to inhibit their replication in host cells.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: If the antisense oligonucleotide contains a stretch of DNA or a DNA mimic (phosphorothioate DNA, 2′F-ANA, or others) it can recruit RNase H to degrade the target RNA. This makes the mechanism of gene silencing catalytic. Double-stranded RNA can also act as a catalytic, enzyme-dependent antisense agent through the RNAi/siRNA pathway, involving target mRNA recognition through sense-antisense strand pairing followed by target mRNA degradation by the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). The R1 plasmid hok/sok system provides yet another example of an enzyme-dependent antisense regulation process through enzymatic degradation of the resulting RNA duplex.


title: Sense (molecular biology)

text: Other antisense mechanisms are not enzyme-dependent, but involve steric blocking of their target RNA (e.g. to prevent translation or to induce alternative splicing). Steric blocking antisense mechanisms often use oligonucleotides that are heavily modified. Since there is no need for RNase H recognition, this can include chemistries such as 2′-O-alkyl, peptide nucleic acid (PNA), locked nucleic acid (LNA), and Morpholino oligomers.


title: Trimurti (1995 film)

text: Trimurti () is a 1995 Indian Hindi-language action drama film starring Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan, Anjali Jathar and Priya Tendulkar. It was the last completed film for director Mukul S. Anand, who died while filming "Dus" in 1997. It earned a record opening weekend of around net, and becoming the "first film to record a net opening day."


title: Trimurti (1995 film)

text: The notorious Kooka Singh entraps dedicated police inspector Satyadevi Singh (Priya Tendulkar). She has three extraordinary, powerful children Shakti (Jackie Shroff), Anand (Anil Kapoor) and Romi (Shah Rukh Khan), the last of whom was born while she was in jail. They are her Trimurti, who she hopes will assist her in avenging her humiliation. What she doesn't know is that Anand and Shakti had a fight when they were kids. Anand left the house, started working for Peter (One of the Kooka's Blackmarket businessman) and is assumed dead.


title: Trimurti (1995 film)

text: After 18 years, Shakti and Romi live together and think their mother is dead. Their uncle tells them she is hoping that the brothers will once again become their mother's Trimurti. Shakti works for the military. Romi is in love with a higher class girl named Radha. They love each other so much that they decide to die when they cannot get married. After pleading with his brother and almost drinking poison, he and Shakti go to Radha's house to ask for her hand, but Shakti is humiliated.


title: Trimurti (1995 film)

text: Romi runs away from home and becomes successful. He starts working for Kooka without knowing the issues between Kooka and his mother. Romi meets Sikander, a rich man working in the black market; he feels sympathy for Romi because he is a romantic at heart. He helps Romi become rich.


title: Trimurti (1995 film)

text: Sikander goes to Romi's village after hearing some religious music from there. He sees a picture of his mother — who is Shakti and Romi's mother. He slowly tries to rekindle his relationship with Shakti, but once again they have a fight and Shakti learns that he is Anand. After 18 long years, Satyadevi is released from jail due to good behavior. She learns from her brother, Bhanu, that all is not well with her sons. Shakti is an emotional wreck; Anand aka Sikander and Romi are working for Kooka, who has assigned him the task of abducting and killing Satyadevi. In the end, after a lot of hardship, the three brothers come together, kill Kooka Singh, and save their mother.


title: Trimurti (1995 film)

text: The film began production in early 1994 with a release set for December 1994 and originally the three main lead roles were set to be played by Jackie Shroff, Shahrukh Khan and Sanjay Dutt. Sanjay Dutt had shot some scenes for the film before being sentenced to a prison term. To avoid any delays, producer Subhash Ghai decided to recast his role with Anil Kapoor. The film was eventually completed for release in December 1995. The role of Sanjay Dutt was also offered to Aditya Pancholi and Sunny Deol before Subhash Ghai's frequent collaborator Anil Kapoor got the role.


title: Trimurti (1995 film)

text: "Trimurti" grossed in India and $375,000 (1.32 crore) in other countries, for a worldwide total of , against its budget. It had a worldwide opening weekend of , and grossed in its first week.


title: Trimurti (1995 film)

text: It opened on Friday, 22 December 1995, across 310 screens, and took a record opening of net, becoming the first film to record net on opening day. It grossed in its opening weekend, and had a first week of


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: TD Bank, N.A. is an American national bank and the United States subsidiary of the multinational TD Bank Group. It operates primarily across the East Coast, in fifteen U.S. states and Washington, D.C. TD Bank is the seventh-largest U.S. bank by deposits and the 11th largest bank in the United States by total assets, resulting from a series of several mergers and acquisitions. TD Bank, N.A. is headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. TD Bank is a federally chartered bank, thus its trading name bears "N.A." letters.


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: It is a successor to the Portland Savings Bank, which later became Banknorth after a series of mergers with various other New England banks. The Canada-based TD Bank Group then became majority owner in 2004 and renamed it "TD Banknorth, N.A." by adding the Canadian bank's popular "TD" initials. On May 31, 2008, TD Bank Group acquired Commerce Bank, and merged it with TD Banknorth to form "TD Bank, N.A.", what is now the United States subsidiary of its Canadian parent company.


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: In 2010, TD Bank, N.A. acquired the South Financial Group and its 172 branches across the Carolinas and Florida. South Financial was the parent company of Carolina First, with branch locations in North and South Carolina and Mercantile Bank, with branch locations in Florida, for about $191 million. South Financial's branches were converted to the TD Bank name.


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: In February 2016, TD Bank's consumer card division purchased the Nordstrom credit card unit for $2.2 billion. The acquisition added Nordstrom to TD's growing folio of private-label cards that includes Target, NordicTrack, and Tourneau.


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: On October, 29, 2021, TD Bank, N.A. announced Leo Salom would succeed Greg Braca as the bank’s U.S. President & CEO. Salom had been leading TD’s wealth management and insurance business. Salom’s role change became effective Jan. 1, 2022.


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: On February 28, 2022, TD Bank, N.A. announced plans to acquire Memphis, Tennessee-based First Horizon Corporation for $13.4 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023, pending approval by regulators in both the United States and Canada. The post-merger bank will have $600 billion in assets, potentially boosting its ranking to sixth-largest by deposits in the United States.


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: In October 2012, the Massachusetts attorney general announced that TD Bank misplaced unencrypted backup tapes with "extensive customer information, including Social Security numbers and bank account numbers." The bank initially refused to state how many customers were affected. After an inquiry by the attorney general, it stated 267,000 customers. The bank waited more than six months to notify customers.


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: In October 2015, a class action lawsuit was filed against TD Bank claiming that it violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. The lawsuit stated that the bank called consumers up to ten times per day.


title: TD Bank (United States)

text: As of July 3, 2017, all but one of the claims were dismissed by Judge Jerome B. Simandle, which casts doubt on the veracity of the claims.