title: Vera Renczi

text: Vera Renczi (dubbed the Black Widow, Mrs. Poison or Chatelaine of Berkerekul), was a Romanian serial killer who allegedly confessed to poisoning 35 individuals including her two husbands, multiple lovers, and her son with arsenic during the 1920s. The earliest report published by Otto Tolischus in the United States was in May, 1925. The article is based on letters from the readers without naming any reference. Renczi's story has surfaced repeatedly, but without traceable details such as specific dates of her birth, marriages, arrest, conviction, incarceration or death. Most sources place the murders at Berkerekul, Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia), or Bečkerek, which changed the name to Zrenjanin in 1946, although the spelling Berkerekul is unknown for this city. In 1972, the "Guinness Book of World Records" found no authoritative sources to support the claim that 35 people were killed by Renczi in early 20th-century Austro Hungarian Empire.


title: Vera Renczi

text: According to some accounts, Renczi was born in Bucharest in 1903, but in view of the dates of her alleged crimes, a date in the late 19th century would be more appropriate. The accounts of her life are lacking in verifiable documentary supporting evidence. Her mother died when she was 13 and she moved with her father to Nagybecskerek (today Zrenjanin, Serbia) where she attended a boarding school. By the age of fifteen, she had become increasingly unmanageable and had frequently run away from home with numerous boyfriends, many of whom were significantly older than she was. Early childhood friends described Renczi as having an almost pathological desire for constant male companionship and possessing a highly jealous and suspicious nature.


title: Vera Renczi

text: Shortly before the age of twenty, her first marriage was to a wealthy Austrian banker named Karl Schick, many years her senior. They had a son named Lorenzo. Left at home daily while her older husband worked, she began to suspect that her husband was being unfaithful. One evening, in a jealous rage, Renczi poisoned his dinner wine with arsenic and began to tell family, friends, and neighbors that he had abandoned her and their son. After approximately a year of "mourning", she then declared that she had heard word of her supposedly estranged husband's death in a car accident.


title: Vera Renczi

text: Shortly after allegedly hearing the news of her first husband's "automobile accident", Renczi remarried, this time to a man nearer her own age. However, the relationship was a tumultuous one and Renczi was again plagued by the suspicion that her new husband was involved in extramarital affairs. After only months of marriage the man vanished and Renczi then told friends and family that he had abandoned her. After a year had passed, she then claimed to have received a letter from her husband proclaiming his intentions of leaving her forever. This would be her last marriage.


title: Vera Renczi

text: Although Renczi did not remarry, she spent the next several years carrying out a number of affairs, some clandestine with married men, and others openly. The men came from an array of backgrounds and social positions. All would vanish within months, weeks, and in some cases, even days after becoming romantically involved with her. When connected to men she was openly having an affair with, she would invariably concoct stories of them being "unfaithful" and having "abandoned her".


title: Vera Renczi

text: She was caught after having poisoned her last lover, a bank officer named Milorad; his wife reported his disappearance to the Police, who ignored her. But she pursued her own investigation and rapidly found that Vera was her husband's mistress. She went back to the Police, who send two inspectors to the chateau. She admitted to them that Milorad had been her lover, but that he had quit her. Impressed by her beauty, wealth and excellent reputation, the Police abandoned their search. The wife went back to the Police and started to ask questions which should have been asked long time ago: where was her husband Joseph? Where was their son? What happen to the numerous other men who people knew they were her lover and had also disappeared? The Police went back to see her; not only she then denied that Milorad was her lover, which she had admitted before, but the Police had a proof, a love letter sent by her to her lover. The Police got a search warrant and discovered a locked round cellar underground. In it were 35 spaces, each with a zinc-lined coffin inside. In the middle of the cellar were a red armchair, a big church candle and an empty bottle of champagne. She told them that it was all family members, but they insisted in opening one coffin, in which was the decomposed body of a man ; they then opened all the others ones, in which they found the same thing. Arrested, she confessed that she had poisoned all of them with arsenic when she suspected they had been unfaithful to her or when she believed their interest in her was waning . She also confessed to the police that, on occasion, she liked to sit in the armchair, surrounded by the coffins of all her former lovers.


title: Vera Renczi

text: She was convicted of 35 murders and sentenced to death, but, at that time, Yugoslavia did not execute women. She was instead condemned to life in prison. During her trial, she had started showing signs of dementia. It became worse and worse in prison (she ended up talking to her victims and screaming obscenities). She died in 1960. Some have speculated that Renczi's story may have inspired Joseph Kesselring's play "Arsenic and Old Lace", yet this is incorrect. It was the Amy Archer-Gilligan case which the playwright used as his model.


title: Vera Renczi

text: In 2005, The Discovery Channel's three-part series "Deadly Women" recounted the history of Renczi, portrayed through reenactments and commentaries from FBI agents and criminal profiler Candice DeLong and a forensic pathologist. Renczi was featured in the series' first episode titled "Obsession", where she is described as having killed her victims in the "1930s in Bucharest, Romania". As for her motivation, the voice-over says that "modern analysis suggest she was simply looking for love".


title: Vera Renczi

text: On 17 March 2012, a depiction of Renczi appeared in the "Daily Mirror", but it was proved to be a misidentified 2004 photograph, and an apology was printed.


title: 1971 (2007 film)

text: 1971 is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language war drama film directed by Amrit Sagar, and written by Piyush Mishra and Amrit Sagar, based on a true story of prisoners of war after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. The film features an ensemble cast of Manoj Bajpayee, Ravi Kishan, Piyush Mishra, Deepak Dobriyal and others. At the 55th National Film Awards, it won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi The film is an account of the escape of six soldiers of the Indian Army taken as prisoners of war by the Pakistani Army, during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 that was preceded by rebellion of East Pakistan to separate itself from West Pakistan and create a new country.


title: 1971 (2007 film)

text: The story takes place in Pakistan in 1977, six years after the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Indian POWs from the 1971 war are kept in a prison camp along with several prisoners from the 1965 war. The 1971 POWs remain healthy, but the 1965 POWs have gone insane with despair. Major Suraj Singh of 18th Rajputana Rifles, Captain Kabir, Captain Jacob and Subedar Ahmed discuss the camp's good facilities. They have been moved into the camp out of several Pakistani jails. The next morning, an army truck is driving towards the camp with a few more Indian POWs. This group includes Flight Lieutenant Ram, Flight Lieutenant Gurtu and Colonel Puri. They steal a guard's wallet and get a Pakistani army ID card on the way. The POWs realize that they are in a place less than 200  km from the Indo-Pak border. The place, it is revealed later, is Chaklala. When Colonel Puri is told of this and the idea of an escape is put forward, he overrules it. His reasons are that perhaps they will finally be repatriated and that a failed attempt could result in all of them being killed. Pakistani Colonel Shakoor arrives at the Chaklala camp; he informs Colonel Puri and Major Singh that all the POWs will be repatriated. However Ahmed steals a newspaper and discovers that this is a lie made to cover up the existence of Indian prisoners to the Red Cross, and plans to escape are initiated. As a celebration for 14 August, a Ghazal singer is invited to the camp. The soldiers, having managed to forge fake IDs and obtain Pakistani uniforms, plan to use the event as a cover for their escape. Ahmed sacrifices himself to blow up both the ammunition room and the electrical room, and dies in the explosion. The other five escape with the singer, who they let go. The Pakistanis discover the escape. After forcibly moving all the Indian POWs back to the Pakistani jails, they begin a massive manhunt for the five prisoners, led by Shakoor. They hide the identity of the prisoners as Indian POWs and claim they are common criminals. The singer is actually part of a Pakistani human rights commission and reports to the commission's leader that their government is illegally holding Indian POWs. The leader is angry at the deception and promises to inform the Red Cross. Jacob shoots himself unable to take the pain after he is injured during their stay at a hideout. Ram shoots Shakoor then destroys many of the search party's vehicles by exploding a grenade on himself, helping his comrades to evade capture. The human rights leader and the Red Cross arrive and question the Pakistani military about the missing POWs, but they are blocked from finding any serious results. Kabir's leg is mangled while driving a captured motorcycle during their escape, then becomes frostbitten by accident. He dies peacefully in his sleep as they reach very close to the Indian border. Suraj is shot and killed by Pakistanis as he is about to cross to the Indian side and his body is taken away by the Pakistanis. Gurtu witnesses Suraj's death and is recaptured by the Pakistanis offscreen.


title: 1971 (2007 film)

text: It is now in 2007. The place is Multan Jail in Pakistan. We see an old man walking in the prison compound. He has made five little mounds of earth and he is putting a few flowers on them. He sits on the ground next to them and leafs through what was once Major Suraj Singh's prison diary. This old man is Gurtu. He says that it is impossible to live without hope, and that he is alive because of hope. It is revealed that there are still 54 Indian POWs from 1971 in Pakistani jails, and they were last seen alive in 1988.


title: Silver iodide

text: Silver iodide is an inorganic compound with the formula AgI. The compound is a bright yellow solid, but samples almost always contain impurities of metallic silver that give a gray coloration. The silver contamination arises because AgI is highly photosensitive. This property is exploited in silver-based photography. Silver iodide is also used as an antiseptic and in cloud seeding.


title: Silver iodide

text: Silver iodide is prepared by reaction of an iodide solution (e.g., potassium iodide) with a solution of silver ions (e.g., silver nitrate). A yellowish solid quickly precipitates. The solid is a mixture of the two principal phases. Dissolution of the AgI in hydroiodic acid, followed by dilution with water precipitates β-AgI. Alternatively, dissolution of AgI in a solution of concentrated silver nitrate followed by dilution affords α-AgI. Unless the preparation is conducted in dark conditions, the solid darkens rapidly, the light causing the reduction of ionic silver to metallic. The photosensitivity varies with sample purity.


title: Silver iodide

text: The crystalline structure of β-AgI is similar to that of ice, allowing it to induce freezing by the process known as heterogeneous nucleation. Approximately 50,000 kg are used for cloud seeding annually, each seeding experiment consuming 10–50 grams. (see also Project Stormfury, Operation Popeye)


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. ( ; December 24, 1910 – September 5, 1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theater and films, playwright, and chess expert. With writers such as Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery and coined the term.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Fritz Leiber was born December 24, 1910, in Chicago, Illinois, to the actors Fritz Leiber and Virginia Bronson Leiber. For a time, he seemed inclined to follow in his parents' footsteps; the theater and actors feature in his fiction. He spent 1928 touring with his parents' Shakespeare company (Fritz Leiber & Co.) before entering the University of Chicago, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received an undergraduate Ph.B. degree in psychology and physiology or biology with honors in 1932. From 1932 to 1933, he worked as a lay reader and studied as a candidate for the ministry, without taking a degree, at the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, Manhattan, an affiliate of the Episcopal Church.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: After pursuing graduate studies in philosophy at the University of Chicago from 1933 to 1934 and again not taking a degree, he remained in Chicago while touring under the stage name of "Francis Lathrop" intermittently with his parents' company and pursuing a literary career. Six short stories later included in the 2010 collection "Strange Wonders: A Collection of Rare Fritz Leiber Works" carry 1934 and 1935 dates. He also appeared alongside his father in uncredited parts in George Cukor's "Camille" (1936), James Whale's "The Great Garrick" (1937), and William Dieterle's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939).


title: Fritz Leiber

text: In 1936, he initiated a brief, intense correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft, who "encouraged and influenced [Leiber's] literary development" before Lovecraft died in March 1937. Leiber introduced Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in "Two Sought Adventure", his first professionally published short story in the August 1939 edition of "Unknown", edited by John W. Campbell.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber married Jonquil Stephens on January 16, 1936. Their only child, philosopher and science fiction writer Justin Leiber, was born in 1938. From 1937 to 1941, Fritz Leiber was employed by Consolidated Book Publishing as a staff writer for the "Standard American Encyclopedia". In 1941, the family moved to California, where Leiber served as a speech and drama instructor at Occidental College during the 1941–1942 academic year.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Unable to conceal his disdain for academic politics as the United States entered World War II, he decided that the struggle against fascism mattered more than his long-held pacifist convictions. He accepted a position with Douglas Aircraft in quality inspection, primarily working on the C-47 Skytrain. Throughout the war, he continued to regularly publish fiction.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Thereafter, the family returned to Chicago, where Leiber served as associate editor of "Science Digest" from 1945 to 1956. During this decade (forestalled by a fallow interregnum from 1954 to 1956), his output (including the 1947 Arkham House anthology "Night's Black Agents") was characterized by Poul Anderson as "a lot of the best science fiction and fantasy in the business". In 1958, the Leibers returned to Los Angeles. By then, he could afford to relinquish his journalistic career and support his family as a full-time fiction writer.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Jonquil's death in 1969 precipitated Leiber's permanent relocation to San Francisco and exacerbated his longstanding alcoholism after twelve years of fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. He gradually regained sobriety, an effort impeded by comorbid barbiturate abuse, over the next two decades. Perhaps as a result of his substance abuse, Leiber seems to have suffered periods of penury in the 1970s; Harlan Ellison wrote of his anger at finding that the much-awarded Leiber had to write his novels on a manual typewriter propped up over the sink in his apartment. Marc Laidlaw wrote that, when visiting Leiber as a fan in 1976, he "was shocked to find him occupying one small room of a seedy San Francisco residence hotel, its squalor relieved mainly by walls of books". Other reports suggest that Leiber preferred to live simply in the city, spending his money on dining, movies, and travel. In the last years of his life, royalty checks from TSR, Inc. (the makers of "Dungeons & Dragons", who had licensed the mythos of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series) were enough in themselves to ensure that he lived comfortably. In 1977, he returned to his original form with a fantasy novel set in modern-day San Francisco, "Our Lady of Darkness", which is about a writer of weird tales who must deal with the death of his wife and his recovery from alcoholism.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: In 1992, the last year of his life, Leiber married his second wife, Margo Skinner, a journalist and poet with whom he had been friends for years. Leiber died a few weeks after a physical collapse while traveling from a science fiction convention in London, Ontario, with Skinner. His cause of death was a stroke.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: He wrote a 100-page-plus memoir, "Not Much Disorder and Not So Early Sex", which can be found in "The Ghost Light" (1984).


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber's own literary criticism, including several essays on Lovecraft, was collected in the volume "Fafhrd and Me" (1990).


title: Fritz Leiber

text: As the child of two Shakespearean actors, Leiber was fascinated with the stage, describing itinerant Shakespearean companies in stories like "No Great Magic" and "Four Ghosts in Hamlet", and creating an actor/producer protagonist for his novel "A Specter is Haunting Texas".


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Although his "Change War" novel, "The Big Time", is about a war between two factions, the "Snakes" and the "Spiders", changing and rechanging history throughout the universe, all the action takes place in a small bubble of isolated space-time the size of a theatrical stage, and with only a handful of characters. Judith Merril (in the July 1969 issue of "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction") remarks on Leiber's acting skills when the writer won a science fiction convention costume ball. Leiber's costume consisted of a cardboard military collar over turned-up jacket lapels, cardboard insignia, an armband, and a spider pencilled large in black on his forehead, thus turning him into an officer of the Spiders, one of the combatants in his Change War stories. "The only other component," Merril writes, "was the Leiber instinct for theatre."


title: Fritz Leiber

text: The similarity of the names of the father and the son caused some filmographies to incorrectly attribute to Fritz Jr. roles which were in fact played by his father, Fritz Leiber Sr., who was the evil Inquisitor in the Errol Flynn adventure film "The Sea Hawk" (1940) and had played in many other movies from 1917 to the late 1950s. It is the elder Leiber, not the younger, who appears in the Vincent Price vehicle "The Web" (1947) and in Charlie Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux" (1947).


title: Fritz Leiber

text: The younger Leiber can be seen briefly as Valentin in the 1936 film version of "Camille" starring Greta Garbo, probably his most widely-seen film performance. In the cult horror film "Equinox" (1970) directed by Dennis Muren and Jack Woods, Leiber has a cameo appearance as a geologist, Dr. Watermann. In the edited second version of the movie, Leiber has no spoken dialogue but appears in a few scenes. The original version of the movie has a longer appearance by Leiber recounting the ancient book and a brief speaking role; all were cut from the re-release.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: He also appears as Chavez in the 1979 Schick Sunn Classics documentary "The Bermuda Triangle", based on the book by Charles Berlitz.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber was heavily influenced by H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Graves, John Webster, and Shakespeare in the first two decades of his career. Beginning in the late 1950s, he was increasingly influenced by the works of Carl Jung, particularly by the concepts of the anima and the shadow. In the mid-1960s, he began incorporating elements of Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". These concepts are often mentioned in his stories, especially the anima, which becomes a method of exploring his fascination with, but estrangement from, the female.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber liked cats, which are featured in many of his stories. Tigerishka, for example, is a cat-like alien who is sexually attractive to the human protagonist yet repelled by human customs in the novel "The Wanderer". Leiber's "Gummitch" stories feature a kitten with an I.Q. of 160, just waiting for his ritual cup of coffee so that he can become human, too.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: His first stories in the 1930s and 40s were inspired by Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. A notable critic and historian of the wider Mythos, S. T. Joshi, has singled out Leiber's "The Sunken Land" ("Unknown Worlds", February 1942) as the most accomplished of the early stories based on Lovecraft's Mythos. Leiber also later wrote several essays on Lovecraft the man, such as "A Literary Copernicus" (1949), the publication of which formed a key moment in the emergence of a serious critical appreciation of Lovecraft's life and work.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber's first professional sale was "Two Sought Adventure" ("Unknown", August 1939), which introduced his most famous characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. In 1943, his first two novels were serialized in "Unknown" (the supernatural horror-oriented "Conjure Wife", inspired by his experiences on the faculty of Occidental College) and "Astounding Science Fiction" ("Gather, Darkness").


title: Fritz Leiber

text: 1947 marked the publication of his first book, "Night's Black Agents", a short story collection containing seven stories grouped as 'Modern Horrors', one as a 'Transition', and two grouped as 'Ancient Adventures': "The Sunken Land" and "Adept's Gambit", which are both stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: The science fiction novel "Gather, Darkness" followed in 1950. It deals with a futuristic world that follows the Second Atomic Age which is ruled by scientists, until in the throes of a new Dark Age, the witches revolt.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: In 1951, Leiber was Guest of Honor at the World Science Fiction Convention in New Orleans. Further novels followed during the 1950s, and in 1958 "The Big Time" won the Hugo Award for Best Novel.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber continued to publish in the 1960s. His novel "The Wanderer" (1964) also won the Hugo for Best Novel. In the novel, an artificial planet nicknamed the Wanderer materializes from hyperspace within earth's orbit. The Wanderer's gravitational field captures the moon and shatters it into something like one of Saturn's rings. On Earth, the Wanderer's gravity well triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and tidal phenomena. The multi-threaded plot follows the exploits of an ensemble cast as they struggle to survive the global disaster.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: In the same period, Leiber published "Black Gondolier", a short story in which a protagonist uncovers a cosmic conspiracy in which oil from ancient fossils preys upon human beings and human civilizations. Leiber received the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1970 and 1971 for "Ship of Shadows" (1969) and "Ill Met in Lankhmar" (1970). "Gonna Roll the Bones" (1967), his contribution to Harlan Ellison's "Dangerous Visions" anthology, won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette and the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1968.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: "Our Lady of Darkness" (1977), originally serialized in short form in "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction" under the title "The Pale Brown Thing" (1977), featured cities as the breeding grounds for new types of elementals called paramentals, summonable by the dark art of megapolisomancy, with such activities centering on the Transamerica Pyramid. Its main characters include Franz Westen, Jaime Donaldus Byers, and the magician Thibault de Castries. "Our Lady of Darkness" won the World Fantasy Award—Novel.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber also wrote the 1966 novelization of the Clair Huffaker screenplay of "Tarzan and the Valley of Gold".


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Many of Leiber's most acclaimed works are short stories, especially in the horror genre. Owing to such stories as "The Smoke Ghost", "The Girl With the Hungry Eyes", and "You're All Alone" (later expanded as "The Sinful Ones"), he is one of the forerunners of the modern urban horror story. Leiber also challenged the conventions of science fiction through reflexive narratives such as "A Bad Day For Sales" (first published in "Galaxy Science Fiction", July 1953), in which the protagonist, Robie, "America’s only genuine mobile salesrobot", references the title character of Isaac Asimov's idealistic robot story, "Robbie". Questioning Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, Leiber imagines the futility of automatons in a post-apocalyptic New York City. In his later years, Leiber returned to short story horror in such works as "Horrible Imaginings", "Black Has Its Charms" and the award-winning "The Button Moulder".


title: Fritz Leiber

text: The short parallel worlds story "Catch That Zeppelin!" (1975) won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story and the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1976. It presents an alternate reality much better than our own, as opposed to the usual parallel universe story depicting a world worse than our own. "Belsen Express" (1975) won the World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction. Both stories reflect Leiber's uneasy fascination with Nazism, an uneasiness compounded by his mixed feelings about his German ancestry and his philosophical pacifism during World War II.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber was named the second Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy by participants in the 1975 World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), after the posthumous inaugural award to J. R. R. Tolkien. Next year he won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. He was Guest of Honor at the 1979 Worldcon in Brighton, England (1979). The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its fifth SFWA Grand Master in 1981; the Horror Writers Association made him an inaugural winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1988 (named in 1987); and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him in 2001, its sixth class of two deceased and two living writers.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Leiber was a founding member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic fantasy authors founded in the 1960s and led by Lin Carter. Some works by SAGA members were published in Lin Carter's "Flashing Swords!" anthologies. Leiber himself is credited with inventing the term sword and sorcery for the particular subgenre of epic fantasy exemplified by his Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: In an appreciation in the July 1969 "Special Fritz Leiber Issue" of "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction", Judith Merril writes of Leiber's connection with his readers: "That this kind of "personal" response...is shared by thousands of other readers, has been made clear on several occasions." The November 1959 issue of "Fantastic", for instance: Leiber had just come out of one of his recurrent dry spells, and editor Cele Lalli bought up all his new material until there was enough [five stories] to fill an issue; the magazine came out with a big black headline across its cover — "Leiber Is Back!"


title: Fritz Leiber

text: His legacy has been consolidated by his most famous creations, the "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" stories, written over a span of 50 years. The first, "Two Sought Adventure", appeared in "Unknown", August 1939. The stories are about an unlikely pair of heroes found in and around the city of Lankhmar. Fafhrd was based on Leiber himself and the Mouser on his friend Harry Otto Fischer, and the two characters were created in a series of letters exchanged by the two in the mid-1930s. These stories were among the progenitors of many of the tropes of sword and sorcery. They are also notable among sword and sorcery stories in that, over the course of the stories, his two heroes mature, take on more responsibilities, and eventually settle down into marriage.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Some Fafhrd and Mouser stories were recognized by annual genre awards: "Scylla's Daughter" (1961) was "Short Story" Hugo finalist, and "Ill Met in Lankhmar" (1970) won the "Best Novella" Hugo and Nebula Awards. Leiber's last major work, "The Knight and Knave of Swords" (1991), closed out the series while leaving room for possible sequels. In his last year, Leiber considered allowing other writers to continue the series, but his sudden death made this more difficult. One new Fafhrd and the Mouser novel, "Swords Against the Shadowland", by Robin Wayne Bailey, appeared in 1998.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: The stories influenced the shaping of sword and sorcery and other works. Joanna Russ' stories about thief-assassin Alyx (collected in 1976 in "The Adventures of Alyx") were in part inspired by Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and Alyx made guest appearances in two of Leiber's stories. Numerous writers have paid homage to the stories. For instance, Terry Pratchett's city of Ankh-Morpork bears something more than a passing resemblance to Lankhmar (acknowledged by Pratchett by the placing of the swordsman-thief "The Weasel" and his giant barbarian comrade "Bravd" in the opening scenes of the first Discworld novel). More recently, playing off the visit of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser to our world in "Adept's Gambit" (set in second century B.C. Tyre), Steven Saylor's short story "Ill Seen in Tyre" takes his Roma Sub Rosa series hero Gordianus to the city of Tyre a hundred years later, where the two visitors from Nehwon are remembered as local legends.


title: Fritz Leiber

text: "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" was filmed under that title by Kastenbaum Films in 1995. (This film is not to be confused with the 1967 William Rotsler film "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" which is entirely unrelated to Leiber's story).


title: Fritz Leiber

text: Two Leiber stories were filmed for TV for Rod Serling's "Night Gallery". These were "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" (1970) (adapted by Robert M. Young and directed by John Badham); and "The Dead Man" (adapted and directed by Douglas Heyes).


title: Protection Command

text: The Protection Command is one of the commands within the Specialist Operations directorate of London's Metropolitan Police Service. The command specialises in protective security and has two branches: Royalty and Specialist Protection (RaSP), providing protection to the royal family and close protection to government officials, and Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP), providing uniformed security to government buildings, officials and diplomats. In contrast with the vast majority of British police officers, many members of the Protection Command routinely carry firearms in the course of their duties and all are authorised firearms officers.


title: Protection Command

text: In April 2015, the branches of Protection Command and elements of Security Command were merged into two distinct branches under the control of Protection Command: Royalty and Specialist Protection (RaSP; a merger of Royalty Protection and Specialist Protection) and Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP; a merger of the Diplomatic Protection Group and the Palace of Westminster Division of Security Command).


title: Protection Command

text: The Royalty and Specialist Protection (RaSP) was formed following a merger of the Royalty Protection Command (SO14) with the Specialist Protection Command (SO1) in April 2015.


title: Protection Command

text: Prior to 1978, when the "Royalty Protection Branch" was formed as a separate non-divisional specialist unit, royalty protection officers were attached for administrative purposes to "A" Division, although they came directly under the command of Assistant Commissioner "A".


title: Protection Command

text: Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP) was formed following a merger of the Diplomatic Protection Group (SO6) with the Palace of Westminster Division (SO17) in April 2015.


title: Protection Command

text: PaDP provide armed and unarmed protection of embassies, missions and the Parliamentary Estate. They also provide residential protection for high-profile government ministers and are responsible for access control and security at Downing Street and New Scotland Yard.


title: Protection Command

text: PaDP was the command in which Police Constable Keith Palmer , who was killed in an attack at Westminster in 2017, worked, as did convicted kidnapper, murderer and rapist Wayne Couzens who used his status as a Police Officer to deceive his victim by falsely arresting her.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) is a high-level shading language with a syntax based on the C programming language. It was created by the OpenGL ARB (OpenGL Architecture Review Board) to give developers more direct control of the graphics pipeline without having to use ARB assembly language or hardware-specific languages.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: With advances in graphics cards, new features have been added to allow for increased flexibility in the rendering pipeline at the vertex and fragment level. Programmability at this level is achieved with the use of fragment and vertex shaders.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: Originally, this functionality was achieved by writing shaders in ARB assembly language – a complex and unintuitive task. The OpenGL ARB created the OpenGL Shading Language to provide a more intuitive method for programming the graphics processing unit while maintaining the open standards advantage that has driven OpenGL throughout its history.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: Originally introduced as an extension to OpenGL 1.4, GLSL was formally included into the OpenGL 2.0 core in 2004 by the OpenGL ARB. It was the first major revision to OpenGL since the creation of OpenGL 1.0 in 1992.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: GLSL versions have evolved alongside specific versions of the OpenGL API. It is only with OpenGL versions 3.3 and above that the GLSL and OpenGL major and minor version numbers match. These versions for GLSL and OpenGL are related in the following table:


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: The two languages are related but not directly compatible. They can be interconverted through SPIR-Cross.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: GLSL contains the same operators as the operators in C and C++, with the exception of pointers. Bitwise operators were added in version 1.30.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: Similar to the C programming language, GLSL supports loops and branching, for instance: if-else, for, switch, etc. Recursion is forbidden and checked for during compilation.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: User-defined functions are supported and built-in functions are provided. The graphics card manufacturer may optimize built-in functions at the hardware level. Many of these functions are similar to those in the math library of the C programming language while others are specific to graphics programming. Most of the built-in functions and operators, can operate both on scalars and vectors (up to 4 elements), for one or both operands. Common built-in functions that are provided and are commonly used for graphics purposes are: , , , , , , , , , , and vector and . Other functions like , , , etc, are provided but they can also all operate on vector quantities, i.e. . GLSL supports function overloading (for both built-in functions and operators, and user-defined functions), so there might be multiple function definitions with the same name, having different number of parameters or parameter types. Each of them can have own independent return type.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: GLSL defines a subset of the C preprocessor (CPP), combined with its own special directives for specifying versions and OpenGL extensions. The parts removed from CPP are those relating to file names such as and .


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: The extension (implemented for example in Nvidia drivers on Windows and Linux, and all Mesa 20.0.0 drivers on Linux, FreeBSD and Android) implements ability to use in source code, allowing easier sharing of code and definitions between many shaders without extra manual pre-processing. Similar extension and exist for using GLSL with Vulkan, and are supported in reference SPIR-V compiler ( aka glslangValidator).


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: GLSL shaders are not stand-alone applications; they require an application that utilizes the OpenGL API, which is available on many different platforms (e.g., Linux, macOS, Windows). There are language bindings for C, C++, C#, JavaScript, Delphi, Java, and many more.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: GLSL shaders themselves are simply a set of strings that are passed to the hardware vendor's driver for compilation from within an application using the OpenGL API's entry points. Shaders can be created from within an application, or read-in as text files, but must be sent to the driver in the form of a string.


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: The set of APIs used to compile, link, and pass parameters to GLSL programs are specified in three OpenGL extensions, and became part of core OpenGL as of OpenGL Version 2.0. The API was expanded with geometry shaders in OpenGL 3.2, tessellation shaders in OpenGL 4.0 and compute shaders in OpenGL 4.3. These OpenGL APIs are found in the extensions:


title: OpenGL Shading Language

text: GLSL shaders can also be used with Vulkan, and are a common way of using shaders in Vulkan. GLSL shaders are precompiled before use, or at runtime, into a binary bytecode format called SPIR-V, usually using offline compiler.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Cyclo-cross (cyclocross, CX, cyclo-X or cross) is a form of bicycle racing. Races typically take place in the autumn and winter (the international or "World Cup" season is October–February), and consist of many laps of a short (2.5–3.5 km or 1.5–2 mile) course featuring pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles requiring the rider to quickly dismount, carry the bike while navigating the obstruction and remount. Races for senior categories are generally between 40 minutes and an hour long, with the distance varying depending on the ground conditions. The sport is strongest in the traditional road cycling countries such as Belgium (Flanders in particular), France and the Netherlands.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Cyclo-cross has parallels with mountain bike racing, cross-country cycling and criterium racing. Many of the best cyclo-cross riders cross train in other cycling disciplines; however, cyclo-cross has reached such size and popularity that some racers are specialists, and many prioritize cyclo-cross races over other disciplines. Cyclo-cross bicycles are similar to road racing bicycles: lightweight, with somewhat narrow tires and drop handlebars. They are typically differentiated by their greater tire clearances, lower gearing, stronger frames, cantilever brakes or disc brakes and more upright riding position. They also share characteristics with mountain bicycles in that they use knobby tread tires for traction and, increasingly, disc brakes. They have to be lightweight because competitors need to carry their bicycle to overcome barriers or slopes too steep to climb in the saddle. The sight of competitors struggling up a muddy slope with bicycles on their shoulders is the classic image of the sport, although unridable sections are generally a very small fraction of the race distance.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Compared with many disciplines of road and track cycle racing, tactics are fairly straightforward, and the emphasis is on the rider's aerobic endurance and bike-handling skills. Drafting, where cyclists form a line with the lead cyclist pedaling harder while reducing the wind resistance for other riders, is of much less importance than in road racing where average speeds are much higher than in cyclo-cross.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: A cyclo-cross rider is allowed to change bicycles and receive mechanical assistance during a race. While the rider is on the course on one bike, their pit crew can clean, repair and oil a spare.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: There are many stories about the origins of cyclo-cross. One is that European road racers in the early 1900s would race each other to the next town over from them and that they were allowed to cut through farmers' fields or over fences, or take any other shortcuts, in order to make it to the next town first. This was sometimes called steeple chase as the only visible landmark in the next town was often the steeple. This was a way for them to stay in shape during the winter months and put a twist on road racing. In addition, riding off-road in more difficult conditions than smooth pavement increased the intensity at which the cyclists were riding and improved their on-the-road bike handling abilities. Forced running sections, or "portage", were incorporated to help deliver warm blood to the feet and toes, as well as exercise other groups of muscles. Daniel Gousseau of France is credited as having inspired the first cyclo-cross races and organized the first French National Championship in 1902. Géo Lefèvre, the originator of the idea for the Tour de France, also played a key role in the early days of the sport.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: After Octave Lapize attributed his win in the 1910 Tour de France to his off season training in cyclo-cross the sport began to spread to countries bordering France. Belgium organized its first National Championship in 1910, Switzerland did so in 1912, then Luxembourg in 1923, Spain in 1929 and Italy in 1930.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Cyclo-cross proved itself as a sport extending beyond the boundaries of France when in 1924 the first international race, Le Critérium International de Cross-Country Cyclo-Pédestre, was held in Paris.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Like many international cycle sports, cyclo-cross is administered by the Union Cycliste Internationale; although it was not until the 1940s, around 40 years after cyclo-cross' inception, that the UCI began its regulation and the first world championship was held in Paris in 1950.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: The first United States Cyclo-cross National Championships took place on 20 October 1963, in Palos Park, IL, near Chicago. These championships in the midwest continued until 1969. Cyclo-cross began to become popular in the United States in the 1970s, in New England and California. The Cyclo-cross National Championships restarted in 1975 in Berkeley, CA and have continued to be held every year at various locations throughout the United States. The Surf City race series held in Santa Cruz, CA has contributed to the history of cyclo-cross in the United States. The sport has experienced a growth in popularity in the United States since the mid-1990s. Cyclo-cross races are now regularly held in the fall and winter seasons throughout the United States and continue to grow in popularity.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Cyclocross is typically an autumn and winter sport, the northern hemisphere season running from September to February. The World Championships take place in late January. The Canada championships are held in November with the US and UK championships held in January. In the United States, there is little racing after that except in states with year-round warm climates such as Florida and California. The cyclocross racing season within southern hemisphere nations typically runs from May to August.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Riders' age categories for cyclocross under UCI rules are currently determined by their age on 1 January which lies in the middle of the international season, i.e. they compete in the same category that they would be in for the following road season.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Cyclo-cross bicycles generally resemble road racing bicycles. Cyclo-cross-specific frames differ with their wider tire clearances, knobby tires, cantilever or disc brakes, and lower gearing. Cables are generally routed on the upper side of the top tube, which allows the rider to carry the bike comfortably on the right shoulder through portage sections, and prevents cable contamination by dirt. Popular on many cyclocross bikes is routing the brakes so that the right brake is often the front brake. This is done to allow the left hand to control speed while approaching obstacles requiring the bike to be carried, while the right hand grips the frame ready to lift the bike onto the shoulder as soon as the rider's feet touch the ground. As a high-end bicycle purpose-built for a specific sport competition, they also differ from ordinary "hybrid or trekking" "cross bikes", which are general-purpose utility bikes fitted with slightly wider 700C tires for use on unpaved paths or trails.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Cyclo-cross bike design and frame geometry has evolved over the years. The first cyclo-cross bikes were touring-type road bikes, used for their cantilever bosses, slacker angles and wider tire clearance. Over time as the sport became more formalized, frame angles changed for quicker handling and bottom brackets heights were raised to clear broken ground. Most cyclo-cross frames have a non-compact (flat or near-flat top tube) frame design for easier shouldering. Some design features have recently begun to change, for example, a heightened bottom bracket was typical 10+ years ago; now many cyclo-cross-specific frames do not have elevated bottom brackets, in fact many have a "lower" bottom bracket than road racing bicycles; this is favorable since the lower seat height makes for easier remounting, and a lower center of gravity increases stability. Many cyclo-cross bicycles are now set up with a single chainring and chain "drop" guards. A single chainring setup simplifies mechanics and reduces the chance of the chain derailing on a bumpy course. People who do run a double chain-ring set up on their bicycles generally use a 36–46 gearing. Many professional-level cyclo-cross bikes are set up with deep-section carbon tubular wheels, not for the purpose of aerodynamics, but to keep the wheel from being entrapped in deep sand or mud sections. Tubular tires are used to avoid pinch flats, decrease rolling resistance and increase grip with lower tire pressures. In addition, single speed cyclo-cross bikes are becoming increasingly popular for a variety of reasons, including lower initial cost of setup, ease of use and maintenance, and decreased likelihood of mechanical failure on the course.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Clothing is similar to that of road racing. However, since cyclo-cross is a cold-weather sport there is an emphasis toward warmer clothing such as long sleeves, tights, knickers and arm and leg warmers. While many racers will use standard two-piece road kits, there is a very strong preference to wear one piece skinsuits to maximize freedom of movement. The other advantage of skinsuits is that they are tighter, preventing the jersey from getting caught on stray tree branches during some singletrack sections of the race course. The one piece construction of the skinsuit also prevents it from exposing the torso while the rider shoulders the bike. Mountain bike shoes are adopted, as they allow the competitors to run, unlike their road racing counterparts, and due to their degree of traction (compared to smooth bottoms found on road racing shoes). Toe spikes are used to aid in running up steep muddy slopes and in the adverse underfoot conditions. Full-finger gloves are optional but generally recommended for hand protection and for grip in muddy/wet situations. Experienced riders racing in dry conditions may eschew gloves, presumably for better tractional feedback though the handlebar, and more natural bike portage.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Races usually consist of many laps over a short course, ending when a time limit is reached, rather than after a specific number of laps or certain distance; the typical length for senior events is one hour, with 30 and 45 minute races for lower categories being the norm. Generally each lap is around 2.5–3.5 km and is 90% rideable. Races run under UCI rules must have courses that are always at least 3 m wide to encourage passing at any opportunity, but sections of singletrack are common for small races in the US and Great Britain. A variety of terrain is typical, ranging from roads to paths with short steep climbs, off camber sections, many corners and, a defining feature, sections where the rider may need, or would be best advised to dismount and run while carrying the bike. Under-tire conditions include asphalt, hardpack dirt, grass, mud and sand. In comparison to cross-country mountain bike events, terrain is smoother. Less emphasis is put on negotiating rough or even rocky ground with more stress on increased speed and negotiating different types of technical challenges. Drafting is of far less strategic importance than in road racing, though it can still be employed in paved sections or extremely windy conditions. Instead, tactics are chiefly focused on line choice, pacing strategy, passing technique, and racers' ability to identify and exploit sections of the course that are conducive to attacking or recovery.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Each section of the course typically lasts no longer than a handful of seconds. For example, long climbs are avoided in favour of short, sharp inclines. Sections are generally linked together, or long straights broken up, with tight corners. This not only allows a standard length course to fit in a relatively small area, but also forces competitors to constantly change speed and effort. Accelerating out of corners, then having to decelerate for the next before accelerating again is a common theme.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Obstacles that force a rider to dismount and run with their bike or to "bunny hop" include banks too steep to ride up, steps, sand pits and plank barriers. Besides the start/finish area, these obstacles may be placed anywhere on the course that the race director desires. Several race directors have tried to limit bunny hopping for safety reasons by placing barriers in pairs or in triple (although under UCI rule no more than two barriers can appear in succession). The regulation height for a barrier is 40 cm although this is treated as a maximum at smaller events. Plank barriers seem to be more common in the US than in Europe, and UCI regulations only permit one section of them on the course. Tree logs of maximum diameter 40 cm are sometimes used as barriers in North America.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Since outside assistance is allowed, pits are included to provide a consistent area for this to occur. A pit to the right of the course is normal since most riders dismount to their left. In larger events a separate pit lane is featured so only those wishing a new bike or other assistance need enter the lane (this type was debuted at the Zeddam, Netherlands World Cup of January 1999). In some cases pits are provided in two different parts of the course.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Long-format races, in which riders compete cross country also exist. Examples include the Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross, a 61 km race, Barry-Roubaix, and the American UltraCX Championship Series which consists of seven stages ranging from 80 to 115 km.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Although cyclo-cross courses are less technical than those of mountain biking, each particular obstacle requires specific technical abilities of competitors. For example, dirt single-track and streams (like in mountain biking) are also sometimes integrated into the course, depending on the location, both of which require rider experience and technique. Some course sections are extremely muddy, wet or even snowy in the winter, and others are dusty and sandy. Most of these conditions are usually considered too extreme to be ridden with the standard 32c tire, and so much of the challenge of cyclo-cross lies in maintaining traction through loose or slippery terrain at speed. The power of the rider is generally higher over the whole duration of a cross race to overcome greater amounts of rolling resistance from loose dirt or grass.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: Also common are steps, barriers, ditches, stairs, steep slopes and very deep mud or sand which all require running while carrying the bicycle. As a result, cyclocross is also known as the "steeplechase of cycling." This approach was invented by Octave Lapize and proven by Eugène Christophe who in 1913 had to carry his broken bike down the Tourmalet during the Tour de France. Although getting off and on a bike sounds simple, doing so in the middle of a quick-paced race is difficult. Being able to fluidly dismount at speed, pick up and carry the bike, then put it back down and remount smoothly without losing momentum requires practice and skill, as the competitor may do this dozens of times every race. A faulty or slow dismount/remount may cost valuable seconds, waste energy or cause the competitor to crash. Often, when sections are extremely technical or become impossible to ride due to erosion from repeated wear or inclement weather, the racer will carry the bike and jog for an extended time to save energy.


title: Cyclo-cross

text: A more recent development to overcome obstacles such as barriers and sometimes ditches is the bunnyhop, a technique which came to prominence in 1989 when Danny De Bie used it in his successful World Championship run. Bunny hopping has become less popular as a result of race directors seeking to prevent its use by setting up two or three barriers in a row. Skilled riders are still able to hop the obstacles, despite the back to back to back barriers. Many riders, such as Sven Nys, an ex-BMX racer, were known for their technical skill in bunny-hopping over various obstacles.


title: Coq

text: Coq is an interactive theorem prover first released in 1989. It allows for expressing mathematical assertions, mechanically checks proofs of these assertions, helps find formal proofs, and extracts a certified program from the constructive proof of its formal specification. Coq works within the theory of the calculus of inductive constructions, a derivative of the calculus of constructions. Coq is not an automated theorem prover but includes automatic theorem proving tactics (procedures) and various decision procedures.


title: Coq

text: The Association for Computing Machinery awarded Thierry Coquand, Gérard Huet, Christine Paulin-Mohring, Bruno Barras, Jean-Christophe Filliâtre, Hugo Herbelin, Chetan Murthy, Yves Bertot, and Pierre Castéran with the 2013 ACM Software System Award for Coq.


title: Coq

text: Coq is a wordplay on the name of Thierry Coquand, Calculus of Constructions or "CoC" and is following the French tradition to name tools after animals ("coq" in French meaning rooster).


title: Coq

text: When viewed as a programming language, Coq implements a dependently typed functional programming language; when viewed as a logical system, it implements a higher-order type theory. The development of Coq has been supported since 1984 by INRIA, now in collaboration with École Polytechnique, University of Paris-Sud, Paris Diderot University, and CNRS. In the 1990s, ENS Lyon was also part of the project. The development of Coq was initiated by Gérard Huet and Thierry Coquand, and more than 40 people, mainly researchers, have contributed features to the core system since its inception. The implementation team has successively been coordinated by Gérard Huet, Christine Paulin-Mohring, Hugo Herbelin, and Matthieu Sozeau. Coq is mainly implemented in OCaml with a bit of C. The core system can be extended by way of a plug-in mechanism.


title: Coq

text: The name means 'rooster' in French and stems from a French tradition of naming research development tools after animals. Up until 1991, Coquand was implementing a language called the Calculus of Constructions and it was simply called CoC at this time. In 1991, a new implementation based on the extended Calculus of Inductive Constructions was started and the name was changed from CoC to Coq in an indirect reference to Coquand, who developed the Calculus of Constructions along with Gérard Huet and contributed to the Calculus of Inductive Constructions with Christine Paulin-Mohring.


title: Coq

text: Programs written in Gallina have the weak normalization property, implying that they always terminate.


title: Coq

text: This is a distinctive property of the language, since infinite loops (non-terminating programs) are common in other programming languages,


title: Coq

text: Georges Gonthier of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, England and Benjamin Werner of INRIA used Coq to create a surveyable proof of the four color theorem, which was completed in 2002. Their work led to the development of the SSReflect ("Small Scale Reflection") package, which was a significant extension to Coq. Despite its name, most of the features added to Coq by SSReflect are general-purpose features and are not limited to the computational reflection style of proof. These features include:


title: Coq

text: SSReflect 1.11 is freely available, dual-licensed under the open source CeCILL-B or CeCILL-2.0 license, and compatible with Coq 8.11.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all input and output devices, and are controlled by a single operating system instance that treats all processors equally, reserving none for special purposes. Most multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture. In the case of multi-core processors, the SMP architecture applies to the cores, treating them as separate processors.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Professor John D. Kubiatowicz considers traditionally SMP systems to contain processors without caches. Culler and Pal-Singh in their 1998 book "Parallel Computer Architecture: A Hardware/Software Approach" mention: "The term SMP is widely used but causes a bit of confusion. [...] The more precise description of what is intended by SMP is a shared memory multiprocessor where the cost of accessing a memory location is the same for all processors; that is, it has uniform access costs when the access actually is to memory. If the location is cached, the access will be faster, but cache access times and memory access times are the same on all processors."


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: SMP systems are "tightly coupled multiprocessor systems" with a pool of homogeneous processors running independently of each other. Each processor, executing different programs and working on different sets of data, has the capability of sharing common resources (memory, I/O device, interrupt system and so on) that are connected using a system bus or a crossbar.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: SMP systems have centralized shared memory called "main memory" (MM) operating under a single operating system with two or more homogeneous processors. Usually each processor has an associated private high-speed memory known as cache memory (or cache) to speed up the main memory data access and to reduce the system bus traffic.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Processors may be interconnected using buses, crossbar switches or on-chip mesh networks. The bottleneck in the scalability of SMP using buses or crossbar switches is the bandwidth and power consumption of the interconnect among the various processors, the memory, and the disk arrays. Mesh architectures avoid these bottlenecks, and provide nearly linear scalability to much higher processor counts at the sacrifice of programmability:


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Serious programming challenges remain with this kind of architecture because it requires two distinct modes of programming; one for the CPUs themselves and one for the interconnect between the CPUs. A single programming language would have to be able to not only partition the workload, but also comprehend the memory locality, which is severe in a mesh-based architecture.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: SMP systems allow any processor to work on any task no matter where the data for that task is located in memory, provided that each task in the system is not in execution on two or more processors at the same time. With proper operating system support, SMP systems can easily move tasks between processors to balance the workload efficiently.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: The earliest production system with multiple identical processors was the Burroughs B5000, which was functional around 1961. However at run-time this was asymmetric, with one processor restricted to application programs while the other processor mainly handled the operating system and hardware interrupts. The Burroughs D825 first implemented SMP in 1962.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: IBM offered dual-processor computer systems based on its System/360 Model 65 and the closely related Model 67 and 67–2. The operating systems that ran on these machines were OS/360 M65MP and TSS/360. Other software developed at universities, notably the Michigan Terminal System (MTS), used both CPUs. Both processors could access data channels and initiate I/O. In OS/360 M65MP, peripherals could generally be attached to either processor since the operating system kernel ran on both processors (though with a "big lock" around the I/O handler). The MTS supervisor (UMMPS) has the ability to run on both CPUs of the IBM System/360 model 67–2. Supervisor locks were small and used to protect individual common data structures that might be accessed simultaneously from either CPU.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Other mainframes that supported SMP included the UNIVAC 1108 II, released in 1965, which supported up to three CPUs, and the GE-635 and GE-645, although GECOS on multiprocessor GE-635 systems ran in a master-slave asymmetric fashion, unlike Multics on multiprocessor GE-645 systems, which ran in a symmetric fashion.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Starting with its version 7.0 (1972), Digital Equipment Corporation's operating system TOPS-10 implemented the SMP feature, the earliest system running SMP was the DECSystem 1077 dual KI10 processor system. Later KL10 system could aggregate up to 8 CPUs in a SMP manner. In contrast, DECs first multi-processor VAX system, the VAX-11/782, was asymmetric, but later VAX multiprocessor systems were SMP.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Early commercial Unix SMP implementations included the Sequent Computer Systems Balance 8000 (released in 1984) and Balance 21000 (released in 1986). Both models were based on 10 MHz National Semiconductor NS32032 processors, each with a small write-through cache connected to a common memory to form a shared memory system. Another early commercial Unix SMP implementation was the NUMA based Honeywell Information Systems Italy XPS-100 designed by Dan Gielan of VAST Corporation in 1985. Its design supported up to 14 processors, but due to electrical limitations, the largest marketed version was a dual processor system. The operating system was derived and ported by VAST Corporation from AT&T 3B20 Unix SysVr3 code used internally within AT&T.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Earlier non-commercial multiprocessing UNIX ports existed, including a port named MUNIX created at the Naval Postgraduate School by 1975.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Time-sharing and server systems can often use SMP without changes to applications, as they may have multiple processes running in parallel, and a system with more than one process running can run different processes on different processors.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: On personal computers, SMP is less useful for applications that have not been modified. If the system rarely runs more than one process at a time, SMP is useful only for applications that have been modified for multithreaded (multitasked) processing. Custom-programmed software can be written or modified to use multiple threads, so that it can make use of multiple processors.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Multithreaded programs can also be used in time-sharing and server systems that support multithreading, allowing them to make more use of multiple processors.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: In current SMP systems, all of the processors are tightly coupled inside the same box with a bus or switch; on earlier SMP systems, a single CPU took an entire cabinet. Some of the components that are shared are global memory, disks, and I/O devices. Only one copy of an OS runs on all the processors, and the OS must be designed to take advantage of this architecture. Some of the basic advantages involves cost-effective ways to increase throughput. To solve different problems and tasks, SMP applies multiple processors to that one problem, known as parallel programming.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Uniprocessor and SMP systems require different programming methods to achieve maximum performance. Programs running on SMP systems may experience an increase in performance even when they have been written for uniprocessor systems. This is because hardware interrupts usually suspends program execution while the kernel that handles them can execute on an idle processor instead. The effect in most applications (e.g. games) is not so much a performance increase as the appearance that the program is running much more smoothly. Some applications, particularly building software and some distributed computing projects, run faster by a factor of (nearly) the number of additional processors. (Compilers by themselves are single threaded, but, when building a software project with multiple compilation units, if each compilation unit is handled independently, this creates an embarrassingly parallel situation across the entire multi-compilation-unit project, allowing near linear scaling of compilation time. Distributed computing projects are inherently parallel by design.)


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Systems programmers must build support for SMP into the operating system, otherwise, the additional processors remain idle and the system functions as a uniprocessor system.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: SMP systems can also lead to more complexity regarding instruction sets. A homogeneous processor system typically requires extra registers for "special instructions" such as SIMD (MMX, SSE, etc.), while a heterogeneous system can implement different types of hardware for different instructions/uses.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: When more than one program executes at the same time, an SMP system has considerably better performance than a uni-processor, because different programs can run on different CPUs simultaneously. Conversely, asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP) usually allows only one processor to run a program or task at a time. For example, AMP can be used in assigning specific tasks to CPU based to priority and importance of task completion. AMP was created well before SMP in terms of handling multiple CPUs, which explains the lack of performance based on the example provided.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: In cases where an SMP environment processes many jobs, administrators often experience a loss of hardware efficiency. Software programs have been developed to schedule jobs and other functions of the computer so that the processor utilization reaches its maximum potential. Good software packages can achieve this maximum potential by scheduling each CPU separately, as well as being able to integrate multiple SMP machines and clusters.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Access to RAM is serialized; this and cache coherency issues causes performance to lag slightly behind the number of additional processors in the system.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: SMP uses a single shared system bus that represents one of the earliest styles of multiprocessor machine architectures, typically used for building smaller computers with up to 8 processors.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Larger computer systems might use newer architectures such as NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access), which dedicates different memory banks to different processors. In a NUMA architecture, processors may access local memory quickly and remote memory more slowly. This can dramatically improve memory throughput as long as the data are localized to specific processes (and thus processors). On the downside, NUMA makes the cost of moving data from one processor to another, as in workload balancing, more expensive. The benefits of NUMA are limited to particular workloads, notably on servers where the data are often associated strongly with certain tasks or users.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Finally, there is computer clustered multiprocessing (such as Beowulf), in which not all memory is available to all processors. Clustering techniques are used fairly extensively to build very large supercomputers.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing (vSMP) is a specific mobile use case technology initiated by NVIDIA. This technology includes an extra fifth core in a quad-core device, called the Companion core, built specifically for executing tasks at a lower frequency during mobile active standby mode, video playback, and music playback.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Project Kal-El (Tegra 3), patented by NVIDIA, was the first SoC (System on Chip) to implement this new vSMP technology. This technology not only reduces mobile power consumption during active standby state, but also maximizes quad core performance during active usage for intensive mobile applications. Overall this technology addresses the need for increase in battery life performance during active and standby usage by reducing the power consumption in mobile processors.


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: Unlike current SMP architectures, the vSMP Companion core is OS transparent meaning that the operating system and the running applications are totally unaware of this extra core but are still able to take advantage of it. Some of the advantages of the vSMP architecture includes cache coherency, OS efficiency, and power optimization. The advantages for this architecture are explained below:


title: Symmetric multiprocessing

text: These advantages lead the vSMP architecture to considerably benefit over other architectures using asynchronous clocking technologies.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Diabetic nephropathy, also known as diabetic kidney disease, is the chronic loss of kidney function occurring in those with diabetes mellitus. Diabetic nephropathy is the leading causes of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) globally. The triad of protein leaking into the urine (proteinuria or albuminuria), rising blood pressure with hypertension and then falling renal function is common to many forms of CKD. Protein loss in the urine due to damage of the glomeruli may become massive, and cause a low serum albumin with resulting generalized body swelling (edema) so called nephrotic syndrome. Likewise, the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) may progressively fall from a normal of over 90 ml/min/1.73m to less than 15, at which point the patient is said to have end-stage renal disease. It usually is slowly progressive over years.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Pathophysiologic abnormalities in diabetic nephropathy usually begin with long-standing poorly controlled blood glucose levels. This is followed by multiple changes in the filtration units of the kidneys, the nephrons. (There are normally about 750,000–1.5 million nephrons in each adult kidney). Initially, there is constriction of the efferent arterioles and dilation of afferent arterioles, with resulting glomerular capillary hypertension and hyperfiltration particularly as nephrons become obsolescent and the adaption of hyperfiltration paradoxically causes further shear stress related damage to the delicate glomerular capillaries further proteinuria, rising blood pressure and a vicious circle of additional nephron damage and decline in overall renal function. Concurrently, there are changes within the glomerulus itself: these include a thickening of the basement membrane, a widening of the slit membranes of the podocytes, an increase in the number of mesangial cells, and an increase in mesangial matrix. This matrix invades the glomerular capillaries and produces deposits called Kimmelstiel-Wilson nodules. The mesangial cells and matrix can progressively expand and consume the entire glomerulus, shutting off filtration.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: The status of diabetic nephropathy may be monitored by measuring two values: the amount of protein in the urine - proteinuria; and a blood test called the serum creatinine. The amount of the proteinuria reflects the degree of damage to any still-functioning glomeruli. The value of the serum creatinine can be used to calculate the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), which reflects the percentage of glomeruli which are no longer filtering the blood. Treatment with an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker, which dilates the arteriole exiting the glomerulus, thus reducing the blood pressure within the glomerular capillaries, which may slow (but not stop) progression of the disease. Three classes of diabetes medications – GLP-1 agonists, DPP-4 inhibitors, and SGLT2 inhibitors– are also thought to slow the progression of diabetic nephropathy.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Diabetic nephropathy is the most common cause of end-stage renal disease and is a serious complication that affects approximately one quarter of adults with diabetes in the United States. Affected individuals with end-stage kidney disease often require hemodialysis and eventually kidney transplantation to replace the failed kidney function. Diabetic nephropathy is associated with an increased risk of death in general, particularly from cardiovascular disease.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: The onset of symptoms is 5 to 10 years after the disease begins. A usual first symptom is frequent urination at night: nocturia. Other symptoms include tiredness, headaches, a general feeling of illness, nausea, vomiting, frequent daytime urination, lack of appetite, itchy skin, and leg swelling. The clinical presentation of diabetic nephropathy (DN) is characterized by proteinuria (protein in the urine), hypertension and progressive loss of kidney function. The process may be initially indolent, making regular screening for diabetic nephropathy in patients with diabetes mellitus of great importance.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Not all patients with diabetes go on to develop diabetic nephropathy. The main risk factors that increase the likelihood of developing diabetic nephropathy are:


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: The disease progression of diabetic nephropathy involves various clinical stages: hyperfiltration, microalbuminuria, macroalbuminuria, nephrotic proteinuria to progressive chronic kidney disease leading to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The damage is exerted on all compartments of the kidney: the glomerulus, the renal tubules, the vasculature (afferent and efferent renal arterioles) and the interstitium. Renal fibrosis is the final common pathway of DN. This fibrosis is a product of multiple mechanisms including renal hemodynamic changes, glucose metabolism abnormalities associated with oxidative stress as well as inflammatory processes and an overactive renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS).


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: The pathophysiology of diabetic nephropathy is thought to involve an interaction between hemodynamic and metabolic factors.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Hemodynamic factors include an increase in systemic and intraglomerular pressure, as well as the over-activation of the RAAS. Studies have shown that in the setting of diabetes, various factors stimulate the RAAS, which is one of the most important pathways in diabetic nephropathy pathophysiology. Due to the higher load of filtered glucose, there is an up-regulation in the sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) in the proximal tubules, which cotransports sodium and glucose back into circulation. This leads to a decrease in the delivery of sodium chloride to the macula densa in the distal tubules, promoting the release of renin and over-activating RAAS. Hyperfiltration is one of the earliest features of DN. Several mechanisms have been proposed to cause hyperfiltration. One of these mechanisms is that as glomeruli becomes hypertrophied, filtration surface area initially increases. Another possible mechanism is that abnormal vascular control in diabetic nephropathy leads to a reduction in afferent glomerular arteriolar resistance and an increase in efferent glomerular arteriolar resistance, leading to a net increase in renal blood flow (RBF) and glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Glomerular hyperfiltration and an aberrant regulation of RAAS lead to increased intraglomerular pressure, causing stress on the endothelial cells, the mesangial cells and the podocytes. This exacerbates the dysfunction caused by the metabolic effects of hyperglycemia.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Metabolic factors include the formation of Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), which have a central role in the pathophysiology of many of the complications of diabetes mellitus, including cardiovascular complications. AGEs are chemical groups that form when a reducing sugar (glucose in this case) reacts non-enzymatically with an amine group, predominantly lysine and arginine, which are attached on proteins, lipids and nucleic acids. These glycation products accumulate on the proteins of vessel wall collagen, forming an irreversible complex of cross-linked AGEs. An important way AGEs exert their effect is through a receptor-mediated mechanism, most importantly by the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE). RAGE is a signal transduction receptor found on a number of cell types including macrophages, endothelial cells, renal mesangial cells and podocytes in the glomerulus. Bindings of AGEs to RAGE receptors enhances production of cytosolic Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) as well as stimulates intracellular molecules such as Protein Kinase C (PKC), NF-κB and the activation of growth factors TGF-B and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). These factors, along with the hemodynamic changes that occur, lead to podocyte injury, oxidative stress, inflammation and fibrosis. As injury worsens, kidney function decreases and glomerular basement membrane (GBM) become more permeable and less efficient at filtration. This is accompanied by a steady decline in kidney function.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Diagnosis is based on the measurement of abnormal levels of urinary albumin in a diabetic coupled with exclusion of other causes of albuminuria. Albumin measurements are defined as follows:


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: It is recommended that diabetics have their albumin levels checked annually, beginning immediately after a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and five years after a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Medical imaging of the kidneys, generally by ultrasonography, is recommended as part of a differential diagnosis if there is suspicion of urinary tract obstruction, urinary tract infection, kidney stones or polycystic kidney disease. Conformation kidney biopsy should only be performed if non-diabetic kidney disease is suspected.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Urine analysis in patients with diabetic kidney disease is often bland. In cases of severely increased microalbuminuria, hematuria might be present. fat bodies might be present in patients who develop nephrotic-range proteinuria.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: To clinically stage the degree of damage in this (and any) kidney disease, the serum creatinine is determined and used to calculate the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Normal eGFR is equal to or greater than 90ml/min/1.73 m.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Although albuminuria is the most frequently used marker of DN, it has a limited sensitivity as many patients with diabetic nephropathy experience GFR loss and glomerulosclerosis without immediate elevation in albuminuria. Many novel markers are currently being studied that potentially detect diabetic nephropathy at earlier stages and identify progression risk. Cystatin C is a protein that is freely filtered in the glomeruli before it is reabsorbed and catabolized in the renal tubular cells. Its serum level is independent of muscle mass, making more accurate at estimating GFR than creatinine serum levels.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: The goals of treatment are to slow the progression of kidney damage and control related complications. Management of diabetic nephropathy currently centers over four main areas: Cardiovascular risk reduction, glycemic control, blood pressure control as well as inhibition of the RAAS system.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Cardiovascular risk reduction: Patients with diabetes mellitus are at significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease, which is also an independent risk factor for kidney failure. Therefore, it is important to aggressively manage cardiovascular risk factors in patients with diabetes mellitus and in particular those with diabetic nephropathy. The main components of managing cardiovascular disease is with tobacco cessation, lipid-lowering therapies (e.g., statins) as well as regular exercise and healthy eating. In patients with kidney disease, atorvastatin is preferred over other statins as it does not require dose-adjustment based on GFR.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Glycemic control: Multiple studies have found a positive effect of improved glycemic control on clinical outcomes of patients with diabetic nephropathy. Intensive glycemic control also reduces the rate of other DM complications, such as retinopathy and neuropathy. Glycemic control is maintained mainly with insulin in patients with Type 1 DM and with hypoglycemic agents and/or insulin in patients with type 2 DM. Studies showed a decrease in microvascular complications of diabetic nephropathy with a target goal HbA1c concentration of 7%. Further reduction in the HbA1c did not correlate with better outcomes and is thus not recommended in most patients as it could increase the risk of hypoglycemic episodes.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Blood pressure control: Multiple randomized clinical trials have demonstrated a benefit of decreasing systolic blood pressure to <140 mmHg in patients with diabetic nephropathy. High blood pressure is associated with accelerated development of microalbuminuria, over proteinuria and declining kidney function. Angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors, as well as angiotensin II receptor blockers, are particularly helpful in patients with diabetes to lower blood pressure and slow the progression of nephropathy. More intensive blood pressure lower (125-130/<80) in patients with diabetic mellitus has been shown to decrease the risk of progression of diabetic nephropathy as well as other diabetic complications. Some patients might require dual therapy to adequately control pressure, in which case calcium channel blockers or diuretics are a good second-line option.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: RAAS inhibition: Inhibition can be achieved with multiple therapies, mainly ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, direct renin inhibitors, and mineralocorticoid antagonists. RAAS inhibition has been proven to be the most effective therapy to slow the progression of diabetic nephropathy in all stages. Although RAAS blockade using more than one agent may further reduce proteinuria, the risk of adverse events (such as hyperkalemia, acute kidney injury) outweigh the potential benefits. Therefore, it is recommended that only one agent is used in patients with DM who have hypertension or any signs of microalbuminuria or diabetic nephropathy.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: About half of insulin is metabolized and cleared by the kidneys. This means that as kidney function worsens in the setting of DN, some patients with insulin-dependent DM may find that their regular insulin doses are lasting longer than normal, or that they are experiencing an increasing frequency of hypoglycemic episodes. It is also crucial to closely monitor kidney function to properly dose medications that are cleared by the kidneys. Some of the most commonly used nephrotoxic medications are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: With worsening kidney function, it might also be necessary to follow a renal-diet to avoid complications such as hyperkalemia and metabolic acidosis. Some evidence suggests that limiting dietary protein could slow the progression of DN, but further evidence is needed to confirm this benefit. Patients with diabetic nephropathy might go on to develop end stage renal disease and require kidney transplantation or hemodialysis.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: A relatively new medication that has been approved for treatment for DM is sodium glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors. The mechanism of action of this drug is to the sodium-glucose uptake cotransporter in the proximal tubule, thereby generating naturesis and glucosuria. In multiple clinical trials, SGLT2 inhibitors showed improved cardiovascular outcomes in patients with DM as well a positive effect on kidney outcomes, mainly a reduction in albuminuria and progression of renal damage. Other classes of diabetic medications that have been shown to have a positive effect on the progression of diabetic nephropathy are GLP-1 agonists and DPP-4 inhibitors.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: The success of diabetic nephropathy management depends greatly upon the ability of individuals to self-manage this condition, encompassing glycaemic control, and the adoption of healthy lifestyles. Appropriate self-management often requires patient education and behavioural counselling. However, there is still insufficient evidence to draw conclusions regarding the effects, regarding both benefits and harms, of educational programmes for people with diabetic nephropathy. Further high-quality studies are warranted.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Diabetic nephropathy in type 2 diabetes can be more difficult to predict because the onset of diabetes is not usually well established. Without intervention, 20–40 percent of patients with type 2 diabetes/microalbuminuria, will evolve to macroalbuminuria. Diabetic nephropathy is the most common cause of end-stage kidney disease, which may require hemodialysis or even kidney transplantation. It is associated with an increased risk of death in general, particularly from cardiovascular disease.


title: Diabetic nephropathy

text: Diabetic nephropathy affects approximately a third of patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Diabetic nephropathy is responsible for about a third of cases of ESRD worldwide, and an even larger fraction in the developed countries. Worldwide, the prevalence of diabetes is projected to increase from 382 million in 2013, to over 592 million by 2035. This increase is projected to be sharpest in developed countries. The prevalence of type 2 DM is particularly increasing due to the rising prevalence of obesity worldwide. Diabetic kidney disease progression could lead to ESRD as well as an increased risk of cardiovascular complications, all of which cause a substantial economic burden. The estimated cost of management of patients with ESRD due to diabetic nephropathy in the US is US$39.35 billion in 2010. Within developed countries, certain ethnic groups such as African Americans and Native Americans are at higher risk of developing diabetic nephropathy and ESRD.


title: Michiel Vos

text: He is married to filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.


title: Michiel Vos

text: They met in Amsterdam when Vos was working for the broadcasting station VPRO, as a presenter for special film nights. The couple have two children.


title: Michiel Vos

text: Vos hosts a Dutch/Belgian TV series called "My America" about his experiences as a European living in America.


title: Michiel Vos

text: Vos worked as producer on the HBO films: "The Trials of Ted Haggard", "", and "". His wife Alexandra Pelosi is the sister-in-law of Peter Kaufman, who is the son of filmmaker Philip Kaufman.


title: Michiel Vos

text: In November 2006, they had their first son Paul, named after Alexandra Pelosi's father Paul Pelosi. They had their second son on December 7, 2007, named Thomas, after Alexandra Pelosi's grand-father Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. Vos' sons often appear in his television programs. His American family is featured throughout his show. The San Francisco Chronicle pointed out that when Vos has screenings "a healthy contingent of Pelosis" are always present.


title: Michiel Vos

text: They live in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York City. Vos wrote a book about his favorite places in New York City.


title: Guards! Guards!

text: Guards! Guards! is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the eighth in the "Discworld" series, first published in 1989. It is the first novel about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. The first "Discworld" point-and-click adventure game borrowed heavily from the plot of "Guards! Guards!"


title: Guards! Guards!

text: The story follows a plot by a secret brotherhood, the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, to overthrow the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and install a puppet king, under the control of the Supreme Grand Master. Using a stolen magic book, they summon a dragon to strike fear into the people of Ankh-Morpork.


title: Guards! Guards!

text: Once a suitable state of terror and panic has been created, the Supreme Grand Master proposes to put forth an "heir" to the throne, who will slay the dragon and rid the city of tyranny. It is the task of the Night Watch – Captain Vimes, Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs, and new volunteer Carrot Ironfoundersson – to stop them, with some help from the Librarian of the Unseen University, an orangutan trying to get the stolen book back.


title: Guards! Guards!

text: The Watch is generally regarded as a bunch of incompetents who walk around ringing their bells without accomplishing anything. Carrot's arrival changes this; Whereas the existing officers are either cynical, incompetent, mildly crooked or all three, Carrot is honest, straightforward and idealistic. Additionally, he is 6'6" (1.9812 meters) tall and enormously strong. Having memorized the Laws and Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork, on his first day he tries to arrest the head of the Thieves' Guild for theft (the Thieves' Guild is permitted a quota of legally licensed thieving, a concept that the book of ancient Laws does not take into account). Brought up as a dwarf – dwarves are a literal, dutiful people – Carrot has an absolute dedication and conscientiousness that unnerve his colleagues who view them as bordering on the suicidal in the face of the reality of Ankh-Morpork life. Carrot's policing style is reminiscent of traditional idealized portrayals of British police, but astoundingly, it actually seems to work.


title: Guards! Guards!

text: Carrot's enthusiasm strikes a chord with Vimes, who decides that the Watch should try to carry out its ostensible duties. Vimes begins investigating the dragon's appearances, which leads to an acquaintance with Sybil Ramkin, a breeder of swamp dragons. Ramkin gives an underdeveloped dragon, Errol, to the Watch as a mascot.


title: Guards! Guards!

text: The leader of the Elucidated Brethren is initially successful in controlling the dragon, but he has not accounted for the dragon's own abilities. The banished dragon returns, and makes itself king of Ankh-Morpork (keeping the head of the Elucidated Brethren as its mouthpiece) and demands that the people of Ankh-Morpork bring it gold and regular virgin sacrifices, whilst preparing for an "ambitious and vigorous" foreign policy, aimed at subjugating Ankh-Morpork's neighbours.


title: Guards! Guards!

text: Shortly after, Vimes is imprisoned in the same cell as the Patrician, who has been leading a relatively comfortable life with the help of the rats he uses as spies. The Librarian helps Vimes to escape and he runs to the aid of Sybil, who has been chosen as the first maiden to be sacrificed. The Watch's swamp dragon, Errol, reorganises his digestive system to form a supersonic propulsion system and fights the king, eventually knocking it out of the sky with a shock wave. As the assembled crowd closes in on the king for the kill, Sybil tries to plead for the dragon's life. Carrot instead places it under arrest, however Errol lets the dragon escape, revealing that the dragon is in fact female, the battle between the two being a courtship ritual.


title: Guards! Guards!

text: Sam Vimes proceeds to arrest the Supreme Grand Master (Lupine Wonse, the Patrician's secretary) but accidentally causes the man's death when he tells Carrot to "throw the book at him." The man was attempting to summon another dragon, and dies from falling off a broken floor after being hit by the "Laws and Ordinances of Ankh-Morpork".


title: Guards! Guards!

text: The Patrician is reinstated as ruler of Ankh-Morpork, and offers the Watch anything they want as a reward. They ask only for a modest pay raise, a new tea kettle, and a dartboard. However, the Watch House at Treacle Mine Road was destroyed by the dragon. Lady Ramkin donates her childhood home at Pseudopolis Yard as the new Watch House.


title: Guards! Guards!

text: John Clute, writing in 1990, noted that Pratchett's decision to address serious topics risked damaging the Discworld's potential for "(c)omedy, which Pratchett writes with something like genius", and particularly faulted Lord Vetinari's monologue on the nature of evil (which Clute described as Realpolitik and Weltschmerz): although Clute conceded that the monologue had been skilfully written, he felt that it "has all the ring of another sphere of discourse" and "comes close to shattering the comic pulse of the Discworld".


title: Nick Antosca

text: Nicholas J. Antosca (born January 23, 1983) is an American film and television writer, producer, and novelist. He is the creator and showrunner of the horror anthology television series "Channel Zero" (2016–2018). He also co-created and showran the Hulu true crime limited series "The Act" (2019) and the Netflix horror drama limited series "Brand New Cherry Flavor" (2021).


title: Nick Antosca

text: As a television writer, he created the Syfy horror anthology series "Channel Zero" and the Hulu crime anthology "The Act". He also co-produced 13 episodes of the horror series "Hannibal".


title: Nick Antosca

text: Antosca was in a screenwriting partnership for several years with novelist Ned Vizzini, who died in 2013.


title: Nick Antosca

text: In January 2020, Syfy greenlit "Chucky", a TV series continuation of the "Child's Play" franchise from creator Don Mancini, with Antosca set to executive produce.


title: Nick Antosca

text: In November 2019, it was announced that Antosca would be credited as a co-creator, writer, executive producer alongside Lenore Zion in the Netflix horror drama limited series, "Brand New Cherry Flavor". The series premiered on Friday August 13, 2021.


title: Nick Antosca

text: Antosca will serve as showrunner, writer, and executive producer on "A Friend of the Family" for Peacock.


title: Hairdresser

text: A hairdresser is a person whose occupation is to cut or style hair in order to change or maintain a person's image. This is achieved using a combination of hair coloring, haircutting, and hair texturing techniques. A Hairdresser may also be referred to as a 'barber' or 'hairstylist.'


title: Hairdresser

text: Hairdressing as an occupation dates back thousands of years. Ancient art drawings and paintings have been discovered depicting people working on another person's hair. Greek writers Aristophanes and Homer both mention hairdressing in their writings. In Africa, it was believed in some cultures that a person's spirit occupied his or her hair, giving hairdressers high status within these communities. The status of hairdressing encouraged many to develop their skills, and close relationships were built between hairdressers and their clients. Hours would be spent washing, combing, oiling, styling and ornamenting their hair. Men would work specifically on men, and women on other women. Before a master hairdresser died, they would give their combs and tools to a chosen successor during a special ceremony.


title: Hairdresser

text: In ancient Egypt, hairdressers had specially decorated cases to hold their tools, including lotions, scissors and styling materials. Barbers also worked as hairdressers, and wealthy men often had personal barbers within their home. With the standard of wig wearing within the culture, wigmakers were also trained as hairdressers. In ancient Rome and Greece household slaves and servants took on the role of hairdressers, including dyeing and shaving. Men who did not have their own private hair or shaving services would visit the local barbershop. Women had their hair maintained and groomed at their homes. Historical documentation is lacking regarding hairstylists from the 5th century until the 14th century. Hair care service grew in demand after a papal decree in 1092 demanded that all Roman Catholic clergymen remove their facial hair.