title: Donatus, Landgrave of Hesse

text: Founded in 1928, the Foundation of the House of Hesse is the successor institution of a family trust that had been established in 1830, confiscated by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866, and re-established after partial restitution in 1878. The foundation manages the family fortunes including forests, agricultural estates, castles, hotels and an art collection. The latter is mainly shown at Fasanerie Palace in Eichenzell, Hesse, a former summer palace of the Prince Abbots of Fulda that had been taken over by the Landgraves of Hesse after the secularization and mediatisation of the Prince-bishopric of Fulda in 1803. Schlosshotel Kronberg and Grandhotel Hessischer Hof in Frankfurt are hotels, the "Weingut Prinz von Hessen" a winery in Johannisberg which was purchased in 1957, while Schloß Wolfsgarten south of Frankfurt am Main and Panker estate are used as private seats of the family. Other castles have been sold, such as Schloss Philippsruhe in Hanau (in 1950), Schloss Rumpenheim in Offenbach am Main (in 1965) and Tarasp Castle in Switzerland (in 2016).


title: Adrienne Camp

text: Adrienn “Adie” Camp (née Liesching; born 12 July 1981) is a South African singer and songwriter, who is known as the lead singer of the Christian pop-rock band the Benjamin Gate before the group disbanded in 2003. She briefly contributed to other artist's albums, namely her duet with rapper John Reuben featured on his album "Professional Rapper" and her background vocals on husband Jeremy Camp's albums "Restored" and "Live Unplugged", after the Benjamin Gate disbanded.


title: Adrienne Camp

text: Under the name Adrienne Camp, she released her debut solo album "Don't Wait" on 26 September 2006 on Capitol CMG. The album was co-produced by her husband Jeremy Camp. Her song "Your Way" climbed into the Top 15 on "R&R" Magazine's Christian chart in May 2007. Her second album, "Just You and Me", was released on 9 March 2010.


title: Adrienne Camp

text: In December 2003, Liesching married American musician, Jeremy Camp. The couple met on a three-month-long tour in 2002. They have three children.


title: Adrienne Camp

text: Todd Hertz of "Christianity Today" described Camp's voice as "lovely and ferocious," a "strange combination of Bjork's quavering and the power of Shirley Manson." A reviewer writing for the "Daily Herald" of Arlington Heights, Illinois described Camp's voice as evocative of Gwen Stefani, Aimee Echo, Christina Aguilera, and Shakira, all the while "remaining very unique and distinctive."


title: Keratinocyte

text: Keratinocytes are the primary type of cell found in the epidermis, the outermost layer of the skin. In humans, they constitute 90% of epidermal skin cells.


title: Keratinocyte

text: Keratinocytes form a barrier against environmental damage by heat, UV radiation, water loss, pathogenic bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses.


title: Keratinocyte

text: A number of structural proteins, enzymes, lipids, and antimicrobial peptides contribute to maintain the important barrier function of the skin.


title: Keratinocyte

text: Keratinocytes differentiate from epidermal stem cells in the lower part of the epidermis and migrate towards the surface, finally becoming corneocytes and eventually be shed off, which happens every 40 to 56 days in humans.


title: Keratinocyte

text: The primary function of keratinocytes is the formation of a barrier against environmental damage by heat, UV radiation, water loss, pathogenic bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses.


title: Keratinocyte

text: Pathogens invading the upper layers of the epidermis can cause keratinocytes to produce proinflammatory mediators, particularly chemokines such as CXCL10 and CCL2 (MCP-1) which attract monocytes, natural killer cells, T-lymphocytes, and dendritic cells to the site of pathogen invasion.


title: Keratinocyte

text: A number of structural proteins (filaggrin, keratin), enzymes (proteases), lipids, and antimicrobial peptides (defensins) contribute to maintain the important barrier function of the skin. Keratinization is part of the physical barrier formation (cornification), in which the keratinocytes produce more and more keratin and undergo terminal differentiation. The fully cornified keratinocytes that form the outermost layer are constantly shed off and replaced by new cells.


title: Keratinocyte

text: Epidermal stem cells reside in the lower part of the epidermis (stratum basale) and are attached to the basement membrane through hemidesmosomes. Epidermal stem cells divide in a random manner yielding either more stem cells or transit amplifying cells. Some of the transit amplifying cells continue to proliferate then commit to differentiate and migrate towards the surface of the epidermis. Those stem cells and their differentiated progeny are organized into columns named epidermal proliferation units.


title: Keratinocyte

text: During this differentiation process, keratinocytes permanently withdraw from the cell cycle, initiate expression of epidermal differentiation markers, and move suprabasally as they become part of the stratum spinosum, stratum granulosum, and eventually corneocytes in the stratum corneum.


title: Keratinocyte

text: Corneocytes are keratinocytes that have completed their differentiation program and have lost their nucleus and cytoplasmic organelles. Corneocytes will eventually be shed off through desquamation as new ones come in.


title: Keratinocyte

text: At each stage of differentiation, keratinocytes express specific keratins, such as keratin 1, keratin 5, keratin 10, and keratin 14, but also other markers such as involucrin, loricrin, transglutaminase, filaggrin, and caspase 14.


title: Keratinocyte

text: In humans, it is estimated that keratinocytes turn over from stem cells to desquamation every 40–56 days, whereas in mice the estimated turnover time is 8–10 days.


title: Keratinocyte

text: Since keratinocyte differentiation inhibits keratinocyte proliferation, factors that promote keratinocyte proliferation should be considered as preventing differentiation. These factors include:


title: Keratinocyte

text: Within the epidermis keratinocytes are associated with other cell types such as melanocytes and Langerhans cells. Keratinocytes form tight junctions with the nerves of the skin and hold the Langerhans cells and intra-dermal lymphocytes in position within the epidermis. Keratinocytes also modulate the immune system: apart from the above-mentioned antimicrobial peptides and chemokines they are also potent producers of anti-inflammatory mediators such as IL-10 and TGF-β. When activated, they can stimulate cutaneous inflammation and Langerhans cell activation via TNFα and IL-1β secretion.


title: Keratinocyte

text: Keratinocytes contribute to protecting the body from ultraviolet radiation (UVR) by taking up melanosomes, vesicles containing the endogenous photoprotectant melanin, from epidermal melanocytes. Each melanocyte in the epidermis has several dendrites that stretch out to connect it with many keratinocytes. The melanin is then stored within keratinocytes and melanocytes in the perinuclear area as supranuclear “caps”, where it protects the DNA from UVR-induced damage.


title: Keratinocyte

text: Wounds to the skin will be repaired in part by the migration of keratinocytes to fill in the gap created by the wound. The first set of keratinocytes to participate in that repair come from the bulge region of the hair follicle and will only survive transiently. Within the healed epidermis they will be replaced by keratinocytes originating from the epidermis.


title: Keratinocyte

text: At the opposite, epidermal keratinocytes, can contribute to "de novo" hair follicle formation during the healing of large wounds.


title: Keratinocyte

text: A sunburn cell is a keratinocyte with a pyknotic nucleus and eosinophilic cytoplasm that appears after exposure to UVC or UVB radiation or UVA in the presence of psoralens. It shows premature and abnormal keratinization, and has been described as an example of apoptosis.


title: Keratinocyte

text: With age, tissue homeostasis declines partly because stem/progenitor cells fail to self-renew or differentiate. DNA damage caused by exposure of stem/progenitor cells to reactive oxygen species (ROS) may play a key role in epidermal stem cell aging. Mitochondrial superoxide dismutase (SOD2) ordinarily protects against ROS. Loss of SOD2 in mouse epidermal cells was observed to cause cellular senescence that irreversibly arrested proliferation in a fraction of keratinocytes. In older mice, SOD2 deficiency delayed wound closure and reduced epidermal thickness.


title: Keratinocyte

text: A Civatte body (named after the French dermatologist Achille Civatte, 1877–1956) is a damaged basal keratinocyte that has undergone apoptosis, and consist largely of keratin intermediate filaments, and are almost invariably covered with immunoglobulins, mainly IgM. Civatte bodies are characteristically found in skin lesions of various dermatoses, particularly lichen planus and discoid lupus erythematosus. They may also be found in graft-versus-host disease, adverse drug reactions, inflammatory keratosis (such as lichenoid actinic keratosis and lichen planus-like keratosis), erythema multiforme, bullous pemphigoid, eczema, lichen planopilaris, febrile neutrophilic dermatosis, toxic epidermal necrolysis, herpes simplex and varicella zoster lesions, dermatitis herpetiformis, porphyria cutanea tarda, sarcoidosis, subcorneal pustular dermatosis, transient acantholytic dermatosis and epidermolytic hyperkeratosis.


title: The Broads

text: The Broads (known for marketing purposes as The Broads National Park) is a network of mostly navigable rivers and lakes in the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Although the terms "Norfolk Broads" and "Suffolk Broads" are correctly used to identify specific areas within the two counties respectively, the whole area is frequently referred to as the Norfolk Broads.


title: The Broads

text: The lakes, known as broads, were formed by the flooding of peat workings. The Broads, and some surrounding land, were constituted as a special area with a level of protection similar to a national park by the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Act 1988. The Broads Authority, a special statutory authority responsible for managing the area, became operational in 1989.


title: The Broads

text: The area is , most of which is in Norfolk, with over of navigable waterways. There are seven rivers and 63 broads, mostly less than deep. Thirteen broads are generally open to navigation, with a further three having navigable channels. Some broads have navigation restrictions imposed on them in autumn and winter, although the legality of the restrictions is questionable.


title: The Broads

text: The Broads has similar status to the national parks in England and Wales; the Broads Authority has powers and duties akin to the National Parks but is also the third-largest inland navigation authority. Because of its navigation role the Broads Authority was established under its own legislation on 1 April 1989. The Broads Authority Act 2009, which was promoted through Parliament by the authority, is intended to improve public safety on the water.


title: The Broads

text: In January 2015 the Broads Authority approved a change in name of the area to the "Broads National Park", to recognise that the status of the area is equivalent to the English National Parks, that the Broads Authority shares the same two first purposes (relating to conservation and promoting enjoyment) as the English National Park Authorities, and receives a National Park grant.


title: The Broads

text: This followed a three-month consultation which resulted in support from 79% of consultees, including unanimous support from the 14 UK national parks and the Campaign for National Parks. Defra, the Government department responsible for the parks, also expressed it was content that the Authority would make its own decision on the matter.


title: The Broads

text: This is the subject of ongoing controversy among some Broads users who note that the Broads is not named in law as a National Park and claim the branding detracts from the Broads Authority's third purpose which is to protect the interests of navigation. In response to this, the Broads Authority has stated that its three purposes will remain in equal balance and that the branding is simply for marketing the National Park qualities of the Broads.


title: The Broads

text: The Broads are administered by the Broads Authority. Special legislation gives the navigation of the waterways equal status with the conservation and public enjoyment of the area.


title: The Broads

text: A specific project being considered under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan is the re-introduction of the large copper butterfly, whose habitat has been reduced by reduction of fens.


title: The Broads

text: The Broads, although administered by the Broads Authority, give their name to the Broadland local government district, while parts of the Broads also lie within other council areas: North Norfolk, South Norfolk, Norwich and Great Yarmouth (all in Norfolk) and Waveney district in Suffolk.


title: The Broads

text: For many years the lakes known as broads were regarded as natural features of the landscape. It was only in the 1960s that Dr Joyce Lambert proved that they were artificial features—flooded medieval peat excavations. In the Middle Ages the local monasteries began to excavate the peatlands as a turbary business, selling fuel to Norwich and Great Yarmouth. Norwich Cathedral took 320,000 tonnes of peat a year. Then the sea levels began to rise, and the pits began to flood. Despite the construction of windpumps and dykes, the flooding continued and resulted in the typical Broads landscape of today, with its reedbeds, grazing marshes and wet woodland.


title: The Broads

text: Various attempts were made to extend the navigable rivers. The longest-lasting was on the River Waveney, where an Act of Parliament passed on 17 March 1670 authorised improvements which included three locks, at Geldeston, Ellingham and Wainford. The head of navigation became a new staithe at Bungay. The new section was a private navigation which was not controlled by the Yarmouth Haven and Pier Commissioners, who had responsibility for the rest of the Broadland rivers. It remained in use until 1934 and, although the upper two locks have been replaced by sluices and Geldeston lock is derelict, the Environment Agency have negotiated with local landowners to allow use by canoes and unpowered vessels which can be portaged around the locks.


title: The Broads

text: The next attempt was to extend navigation on the River Bure from Coltishall to Aylsham, which was authorised by an Act of Parliament on 7 April 1773. Five locks were built, to bypass mills, at Coltishall, Oxnead Lamas, Oxnead, Burgh and Aylsham. There were financial difficulties during construction, but the works were eventually completed and opened in October 1779. At Aylsham, a cut was made from the river to a terminal basin, where several warehouses were constructed. Despite the arrival of the railways in 1879, goods continued to be carried to Aylsham by wherries until 1912, when major flooding badly damaged the locks. Unable to fund repairs, the Commissioners closed the section above Coltishall, although it was not formally abandoned until 1928. All of the locks are derelict, but the course can still be used by canoes and light craft, which can be portaged around the locks.


title: The Broads

text: The third attempt was to make the River Ant navigable from Dilham to Antingham. An Act of Parliament was retrieved on 5 May 1812, which authorised the North Walsham & Dilham Canal, but work on its construction did not start until April 1825. The canal was a true canal, as its route did not use the bed of the river, and its construction, including six locks, was completed in 1826. It was about long, and the locks raised the level by . In 1886 the canal was sold to a miller called Edward Press for £600, but the principal clerk absconded with most of the money and it was never recovered. In 1893 the section from Swafield locks to Antingham was abandoned, and the lower section was damaged by flooding in 1912. Some attempts were made to improve it in the 1920s, but the last commercial traffic used it in 1934, and it gradually became derelict after that. There is still a public right of navigation to Swafield, and there is a campaign to reopen it.


title: The Broads

text: In 1814 the merchants of Norwich first suggested a plan to improve the route between Norwich and the North Sea, as the shallowness of Breydon Water created difficulties for trading vessels, and there was organised theft of cargo during its transhipment at Great Yarmouth, for which 18 men were convicted of taking the goods and one of receiving it in 1820. The initial plan was to dredge a deeper channel along the southern edge of Breydon Water, but the scheme was opposed by the people of Yarmouth. A more expensive scheme, involving the construction of a new cut to link the River Yare to the River Waveney, together with a channel between Oulton Broad and Lake Lothing, where a sea lock was needed, was also opposed by Yarmouth but formed the basis of a Bill to Parliament. An Act of Parliament was passed on 28 May 1827, creating the Norwich and Lowestoft Navigation Company, and the work of construction and dredging of the River Yare and the Oulton Dyke was completed in 1833. The initial capital of £100,000 was inadequate and a further £50,000 was borrowed from the Exchequer Bill Loan Commission. The venture was not a commercial success and, with expenditure exceeding income, the Company was unable to repay its loan. The Haddiscoe Cut was taken over by the Commissioners in 1842 and sold to the railway developer Sir Samuel Morton Peto.


title: The Broads

text: The Broads have been a boating holiday destination since the late 19th century. In 1878 small yachts were available to hire from John Loynes and, with easy access to the area by rail from London, Harry Blake created an agency for yachting holidays in 1908. The first boats were owned by the boatbuilder Ernest Collins of Wroxham, but other boatyards were soon added to the business. The range of boats expanded to include powered cruisers in the 1930s, and the Hoseasons agency was founded soon after the Second World War. By the 1980s the number of cruisers available for hire was 2,400 but had decreased to around 1,700 by 2004. For conservation reasons there is a strict speed limit enforced on all vessels, to reduce waves eroding the riverbanks. These speed limits are hardwired onto most rental vessels.


title: The Broads

text: The Broads have also been an important centre for racing yachts since the late 19th century, and the design of the boats have included several innovative features, including shortfin keels and a separate rudder . The design was eventually used on seagoing yachts from the 1960s.


title: The Broads

text: The waterways are lock-free. There are five bridges under which only small cruisers and smaller boats can pass.


title: The Broads

text: The area attracts all kinds of visitors, including ramblers, artists, anglers, and birdwatchers as well as people "messing about in boats". There are a number of companies hiring boats for leisure use, including both yachts and motor launches. The Norfolk wherry, the traditional cargo craft of the area, can still be seen on the Broads as some specimens have been preserved and restored.


title: The Broads

text: Ted Ellis, a local naturalist, referred to the Broads as "the breathing space for the cure of souls".


title: The Broads

text: A great variety of boats can be found on the Broads, from Edwardian trading wherries to state-of-the-art electric or solar-powered boats. The Broads Authority is promoting sustainable boating, and the use of electric boats is being encouraged by the provision of charging points at a number of the mooring sites provided by the Authority.


title: The Broads

text: The Broads largely follows the line of the rivers and natural navigations of the area. There are seven navigable rivers: the River Yare and its (direct and indirect) tributaries plus the Rivers Bure, Thurne, Ant, Waveney, Chet and Wensum. There are no longer any operational locks on any of the rivers (except for Mutford Lock in Oulton Broad that links to the saltwater Lake Lothing in Lowestoft, Suffolk), and all of the waterways are subject to tidal influence. The tidal range decreases with distance from the sea, with highly tidal areas such as Breydon Water contrasting with effectively non-tidal reaches such as the River Ant upstream of Barton Broad.


title: The Broads

text: The broads themselves range in size from small pools to the large expanses of Hickling Broad, Barton Broad and Breydon Water. The broads are unevenly distributed, with far more broads in the northern half of Broadland (the Rivers Bure, Thurne and Ant) than in the central and southern portions (the Rivers Yare, Waveney, Chet and Wensum). Individual broads may lie directly on the river, or are more often situated to one side and connected to the river by an artificial channel or dyke.


title: The Broads

text: Besides the natural watercourses of the rivers, and the ancient but artificial broads, there is one more recent navigation canal, the lockless Haddiscoe Cut, which connects the Rivers Yare and Waveney while permitting boats to bypass Breydon Water.


title: The Broads

text: There is also a second navigable link to the sea, via the River Waveney and its link to Oulton Broad. Oulton Broad is part of the Broads' tidal system, but is immediately adjacent to Lake Lothing, which acts as a harbour for Lowestoft and connects to the North Sea. Oulton Broad and Lake Lothing are connected by Mutford Lock, the only lock on the broads, and which is necessary because of the different tidal ranges and cycles in the two lakes.


title: The Broads

text: The River Bure is a tributary of the River Yare which rises near Aylsham in Norfolk and joins the Yare just downstream of Breydon Water. On its way it flows through or passes:


title: The Broads

text: The River Thurne is a tributary of the River Bure. It rises near Martham Broad and flows for about to Thurne Mouth where it joins the Bure. It is wide open and windswept, and on its way it flows through or passes:


title: The Broads

text: The River Ant is a tributary of the River Bure. It rises at Antingham and joins the Bure at St. Benet's Abbey. It is winding and narrow, and on its way it flows through or passes:


title: The Broads

text: The River Yare rises south of Dereham and flows through the southern fringes of the city of Norwich, passes through Breydon Water and flows into the sea between Great Yarmouth and Gorleston. On its way it passes through:


title: The Broads

text: The River Waveney is a tributary of the River Yare, joining that river just upstream of Breydon Water. It flows through, or passes by:


title: The Broads

text: The River Wensum rises near Fakenham in northwest Norfolk and flows southeast and through the centre of the city of Norwich before joining the River Yare just to the east of the city. Although the Wensum is the larger of the two rivers at their confluence, it is regarded as a tributary of the River Yare. The navigable section of the river is entirely urban and runs from the centre of Norwich, past Norwich Cathedral to the confluence with the Yare.


title: The Broads

text: The Trinity Broads are an exception to the general rule, in that whilst they are connected to each other they have no navigable connection to the rest of the broads. The broads are:


title: The Broads

text: Eutrophication is an enormous problem in the Broads. Changes in farming practices and sewage disposal in the 1950s and 1960s released high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen into the Broads, causing eutrophication. Algal blooms can be toxic, posing a health risk to humans and wildlife. Mass decay of plant matter removes oxygen, damaging fish stocks, preventing recreational fishing. The loss of larger plants and reed fringes in eutrophic waters increases erosion of banks and the buildup of sediment on lake floors. This impedes navigation and requires costly dredging to remove. The beauty of the area is damaged by eutrophication, which is detrimental to the tourism industry. The Broads Authority and Environment Agency have been working to return the broads to a more natural state since the problem was identified in 1965.


title: The Broads

text: The first stage in reversing eutrophication in the Broads is to reduce phosphate input. Reducing nitrate input would have a similar effect, but due to the relatively higher solubility of nitrates, it is harder to control. The discharge of treated sewage was recognised as the main source of phosphates in the waters of the broads. Iron compounds have been used to precipitate phosphates out of treated sewage in all nine treatment plants upstream of Barton Broad, initially cutting phosphorus levels in sewage discharge by 90%. High levels of phosphate can remain present in the sediments at the bottom of waterways, preventing dissolved levels decreasing, even when the source is eliminated. Suction dredging has been used across the Broads to both deepen waterways and remove phosphate-rich sludge. Without stabilising the compacted peat beneath the sludge, the peat loosens and can release phosphorus at a similar rate. The growth of larger water plants, which stabilise the floor, is, therefore, necessary to complete the transformation.


title: The Broads

text: Even with reduced nutrient levels, algae tend to remain dominant, blocking light and preventing plants from growing on the floor of the waterway. By manipulating the food chain, a process called biomanipulation, algae can be removed. To allow zooplankton to thrive, planktivorous fish have been largely removed from some Broads, normally by electrofishing. Around 75% of such fish must be removed for successful treatment. The explosion of zooplankton that results eats almost all algae, creating clear waters. Plants are allowed to naturally recolonise the clearer waterways. The plant growth stabilises the floor, reducing the release of phosphorus. Their own nutrient uptake reduces nutrients available to algae. Larger plants also create a favourable environment for predatory fish such as pike, which eat planktivorous fish, continuing to control their numbers. These effects tend to create a stable ecosystem where low growing underwater plants dominate.


title: The Broads

text: The Broads are Britain's largest protected wetland and are home to a wealth of birdlife. Amongst the species seen are mallard, coot, moorhen, great crested grebe, greylag goose, Canada goose, Egyptian goose, grey heron, marsh harrier, cormorant, kestrel, sparrowhawk and bittern. The scarce Cetti's warbler breeds in the broads and breeding common cranes are found in the area.


title: The Broads

text: Among the rare insects are the Norfolk hawker, a species of dragonfly, and the Swallowtail butterfly ("Papilio machaon" subsp. "britannicus").


title: The Broads

text: Some of the broads are surrounded by fens, i.e. reed and sedge beds. Norfolk reed from the broads has been a traditional material for thatching houses.


title: Sports video game

text: A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (such as "FIFA", "Pro Evolution Soccer" and "Madden NFL"), whilst others emphasize strategy and sport management (such as "Football Manager" and "Out of the Park Baseball"). Some, such as "Need for Speed", "Arch Rivals" and "Punch-Out!!", satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes. The sports genre is one of the oldest genres in gaming history.


title: Sports video game

text: Sports games involve physical and tactical challenges, and test the player's precision and accuracy. Most sports games attempt to model the athletic characteristics required by that sport, including speed, strength, acceleration, accuracy, and so on. As with their respective sports, these games take place in a stadium or arena with clear boundaries. Sports games often provide play-by-play and color commentary through the use of recorded audio.


title: Sports video game

text: Sports games sometimes make use of different modes for different parts of the game. This is especially true in games about American football such as the Madden NFL series, where executing a pass play requires six different gameplay modes in the span of approximately 45 seconds. Sometimes, other sports games offer a menu where players may select a strategy while play is temporarily suspended. Association football video games sometimes shift gameplay modes when it is time for the player to attempt a penalty kick, a free shot at goal from the penalty spot, taken by a single player. Some sports games also require players to shift roles between the athletes and the coach or manager. These mode switches are more intuitive than other game genres because they reflect actual sports.


title: Sports video game

text: Older 2D sports games sometimes used an unrealistic graphical scale, where athletes appeared to be quite large in order to be visible to the player. As sports games have evolved, players have come to expect a realistic graphical scale with a high degree of verisimilitude. Sports games often simplify the game physics for ease of play, and ignore factors such as a player's inertia. Games typically take place with a highly accurate time-scale, although they usually allow players to play quick sessions with shorter game quarters or periods.


title: Sports video game

text: Sports games sometimes treat button-pushes as continuous signals rather than discrete moves, in order to initiate and end a continuous action. For example, football games may distinguish between short and the long passes based on how long the player holds a button. Golf games often initiate the backswing with one button-push, and the swing itself is initiated by a subsequent push.


title: Sports video game

text: Sports games have traditionally been very popular arcade games. The competitive nature of sports lends itself well to the arcades where the main objective is usually to obtain a high score. The arcade style of play is generally more unrealistic and focuses on a quicker gameplay experience. However the competitive nature of sports and being able to gain a high score while competing against friends for free online, has made online sports games very popular. Examples of this include the "NFL Blitz" and "NBA Jam" series.


title: Sports video game

text: Simulation games are more realistic than arcade games, with the emphasis being more on realism than on how fun the game is to pick up and play. The simulation-style tend to be slower and more accurate with normal rules while arcade games tend to be fast and can have all kinds of ad-hoc rules and ideas thrown in, especially pre-2000s. Examples of this include the "NBA 2K" and "Madden NFL" series.


title: Sports video game

text: A sports management game puts the player in the role of team manager. Whereas some games are played online against other players, management games usually pit the player against AI controlled teams in the same league. Players are expected to handle strategy, tactics, transfers, and financial issues. Various examples of these games can be found in the .


title: Sports video game

text: Since "Track & Field" (1983), various multi-sport video games have combined multiple sports into a single game. "Wii Sports" and "Wii Sports Resort" are recent examples. A popular sub-genre are Olympic video games, including "Track & Field" and other similar titles. Multi-sport tournaments are becoming the basis for computer games.


title: Sports video game

text: Sports-based fighting games are titles that fall firmly within the definitions of both the fighting game and sports game genres, such as boxing and wrestling video games. As such, they are usually put in their own separate subgenres. Often the fighting is far more realistic than in traditional fighting games (though the amount of realism can greatly vary), and many feature real-world franchises or fighters. Examples of this include the "Fight Night", "UFC 2009 Undisputed, EA Sports UFC" and "WWE 2K" series.


title: Sports video game

text: Sports video games have origins in sports electro-mechanical games (EM games), which were arcade games manufactured using a mixture of electrical and mechanical components, for amusement arcades between the 1940s and 1970s. Examples include boxing games such as International Mutoscope Reel Company's "K.O. Champ" (1955), bowling games such as Bally Manufacturing's "Bally Bowler" and Chicago Coin's "Corvette" from 1966, baseball games such as Midway Manufacturing's "Little League" (1966) and Chicago Coin's "All Stars Baseball" (1968), other team sport games such as Taito's "Crown Soccer Special" (1967) and "Crown Basketball" (1968), and air hockey type games such as Sega's "MotoPolo" (1968) and "Air Hockey" (1972) by Brunswick Billiards.


title: Sports video game

text: The earliest sports video game dates backs to 1958, when William Higinbotham created a game called "Tennis for Two", a competitive two-player tennis game played on an oscilloscope. The players would select the angle at which to put their racket, and pressed a button to return it. Although this game was incredibly simple, it demonstrated how an action game (rather than previous puzzles) could be played on a computer. Video games prior to the late 1970s were primarily played on university mainframe computers under timesharing systems that supported multiple computer terminals on school campuses. The two dominant systems in this era were Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-10 and Control Data Corporation's PLATO. Both could only display text, and not graphics, originally printed on teleprinters and line printers, but later printed on single-color CRT screens.


title: Sports video game

text: Ralph Baer developed "Table Tennis" for the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972. While the console had other sports-themed game cards, they required the use of television overlays while playing similarly to board games or card games. "Table Tennis" was the only Odyssey game that was entirely electronic and did not require an overlay, introducing a ball-and-paddle game design that showcased the potential of the new video game medium. This provided the basis for the first commercially successful video game, "Pong" (1972), released as an arcade video game by Atari, Inc.


title: Sports video game

text: Numerous ball-and-paddle games that were either clones or variants of "Pong" were released for arcades in 1973. Atari themselves released a four-player cooperative multiplayer variant, "Pong Doubles" (1973), based on tennis doubles. In the United States, the best-selling arcade video game of 1973 was "Pong", followed by several of its clones and variants, including "Pro Tennis" from Williams Electronics, "Winner" from Midway Manufacturing, "Super Soccer" and "Tennis Tourney" from Allied Leisure (later called Centuri), and "TV Tennis" from Chicago Coin.


title: Sports video game

text: In Japan, arcade manufacturers such as Taito initially avoided video games as they found "Pong" to be simplistic compared to more complex EM games, but after Sega successfully tested-marketed "Pong" in Japan, Sega and Taito released the clones "Pong Tron" and "Elepong", respectively, in July 1973, before the official Japanese release of "Pong" by Atari Japan (later part of Namco) in November 1973. Tomohiro Nishikado's four-player "Pong" variant "Soccer" was released by Taito in November 1973, with a green background to simulate an association football playfield along with a goal on each side. Another Taito variant, "Pro Hockey" (1973), set boundaries around the screen and only a small gap for the goal.


title: Sports video game

text: Tomohiro Nishikado wanted to move beyond simple rectangles to character graphics, resulting in his development of a basketball game, Taito's "TV Basketball", released in April 1974. It was the earliest use of character sprites to represent human characters in a video game. While the gameplay was similar to earlier ball-and-paddle games, it displayed images both for the players and the baskets, and attempted to simulate basketball. Each player controls two team members, a forward and a guard; the ball can be passed between team members before shooting, and the ball has to fall into the opposing team's basket to score a point. The game was released in North America by Midway as "TV Basketball", selling 1,400 arcade cabinets in the United States, a production record for Midway up until they released "Wheels" the following year. Ramtek later released "Baseball" in October 1974, similarly featuring the use of character graphics.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1975, Nintendo released "EVR-Race", a horse racing simulation game with support for up to six players. It was a mixture between a video game and an electro-mechanical game, and played back video footage from a video tape.


title: Sports video game

text: After the market became flooded with "Pong" clones, the "Pong" market crashed around the mid-1970s. Sports video games would not regain the same level of success until the 1980s.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1976, Sega released an early combat sport game, "Heavyweight Champ", based on boxing and now considered the first fighting game.


title: Sports video game

text: In March 1978, Sega released "World Cup", an association football game with a trackball controller. In October 1978, Atari released "Atari Football", which is considered to be the first video game to accurately emulate American football; it also popularized the use of a trackball, with the game's developers mentioning it was inspired by an earlier Japanese association football game that used a trackball. "Atari Football" was the second highest-earning arcade video game of 1979 in the United States, below only Taito's shoot 'em up blockbuster "Space Invaders" (1978), though "Atari Football" was the only sports game among the top ten highest-earners.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1980, Mattel's "Basketball" for the Intellivision was the first basketball video game to be licensed by the National Basketball Association (NBA). On home computers, Microsoft's "Olympic Decathlon" (1980) was one of the first sports-related programs to mix game and simulation elements, and was an early example of an Olympic track-and-field game. The first association football management simulation, "Football Manager", was released for the ZX Spectrum computer in 1982.


title: Sports video game

text: Between 1981 and 1983, the Atari's VCS (2600) and Mattel's Intellivision waged a series of high-stakes TV advertising campaigns promoting their respective systems, marking the start of the first console wars. Atari prevailed in arcade games and had a larger customer base due to its lower price, while Intellivision touted its visually superior sports games. Sports writer George Plimpton was featured in the Intellivision ads, which showed the parallel games side by side. Both Atari and Intellivision fielded at least one game for baseball, American football, hockey, basketball and association football. Atari's sports games included "Activision Tennis" (1981).


title: Sports video game

text: Sports video games experienced a resurgence from 1983. As the golden age of arcade video games came to an end, arcade manufacturers began looking for ways to reinvigorate the arcade video game industry, so they began turning to sports games. The arcade industry began producing sports games at levels not seen since the days of "Pong" and its clones, which played a role in the recovery of the arcade market by the mid-1980s. There were initially high expectations for laserdisc games to help revive the arcade industry in 1983, but it was instead non-laserdisc sports games that ended up being the most well-received hits at amusement arcade shows by late 1983.


title: Sports video game

text: In March 1983, Sega released Alpha Denshi's arcade game "Champion Baseball", which became a blockbuster success in Japanese arcades, with Sega comparing its impact on Japanese arcades to that of "Space Invaders". "Champion Baseball" was a departure from the "space games" and "cartoon" action games that had previously dominated the arcades, and subsequently served as the prototype for later baseball video games. It had a split-screen format, displaying the playfield from two camera angles, one from the outfield and another close-up shot of the player and batter, while also giving players the option of selecting relief pitchers or pinch hitters, while an umpire looks on attentively to make the game calls. The game also had digitized voices for the umpire, and individual player statistics.


title: Sports video game

text: Sports games became more popular across arcades worldwide with the arrival of Konami's "Track & Field", known as "Hyper Olympic" in Japan, introduced in September 1983. It was an Olympic-themed athletics game that had multiple Olympic track-and-field events (including the 100-meter dash, long jump, javelin throw, 110-meter hurdles, hammer throw, and high jump) and allowed up to four players to compete. It had a horizontal side-scrolling format, depicting one or two tracks at a time, a large scoreboard that displayed world records and current runs, and a packed audience in the background. Despite the industry's hype for laserdisc games at the time, "Track & Field" became the most well-received game at the Amusement Machine Show (AM Show) in Tokyo and the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) show in the United States. The game sold 38,000 arcade units in Japan, became one of the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1984 in the United States, and the top-grossing arcade game of 1984 in the United Kingdom. It was also the basis for an organized video game competition that drew more than a million players in 1984. The success of "Track & Field" spawned other similar Olympic video games.


title: Sports video game

text: Numerous sports video games were subsequently released in arcades after "Track & Field", including American football games such as "10-Yard Fight" (1983) by Irem and "Goal to Go" (1984) by Stern Electronics, boxing video games such as Nintendo's "Punch-Out" (1984), martial arts sports fighting games such as "Karate Champ" (1984), the Nintendo VS. System titles "Vs. Tennis" and "Vs. Baseball", Taito's golf game "Birdie King II", and Data East's "Tag Team Wrestling". "10-Yard Fight" in 1983 had a career mode, where the player progresses from high school, to college, professional, playoff, and Super Bowl, as the difficulty increases with each step. Irem's waterskiing game "Tropical Angel" had a female player character, and was one of the two most well-received games at the September 1983 AM Show (along with "Hyper Olympic") for its graphics and gameplay. Another sports game with female player characters was Taito's "Joshi Volleyball" ("Big Spikers"), which topped the Japanese table arcade cabinet chart in December 1983. Kaneko's "Roller Aces" was a roller skating game played from a third-person perspective, while Technōs Japan released the wrestling game "Tag Team Wrestling".


title: Sports video game

text: In the field of association football games, Alpha Denshi's "Exciting Soccer" (1983) featured digitized voices and a top-down overhead perspective, which was later popularized by "Tehkan World Cup" (1985) from Tehkan (later Tecmo). "Tehkan World Cup" was a multiplayer association football game with a trackball controller, where a button was used for kicking the ball and the trackball used for the direction and speed of the shot, with gameplay that was fairly realistic. It was a landmark title for association football games, considered revolutionary for its trackball control system, its top-down perspective that allows players to see more of the pitch, and its trackball-based game physics. It provided the basis for later association football games such as "MicroProse Soccer" (1988) and the "Sensible Soccer" series (1992 debut).


title: Sports video game

text: Several sports laserdisc games were released for arcades in 1984, including Universal's "Top Gear" which displayed 3D animated race car driving, while Sega's "GP World" and Taito's "Laser Grand Prix" displayed live-action footage. Sega also produced a bullfighting game, "Bull Fight", and a multiple-watersports game "Water Match" (published by Bally Midway), which included swimming, kayaking and boat racing; while Taito released a female sports game based on high-school track & field, "The Undoukai", and a dirt track racing game "Buggy Challenge", with a buggy. Other dirt racing games from that year were dirt bike games: Nintendo's "Excitebike" and SNK's motocross game "Jumping Cross". Nintendo also released a four-player racquet sport game, "Vs. Tennis" (the Nintendo Vs. System version of "Tennis").


title: Sports video game

text: That same year, ice hockey games were also released: Alpha Denshi's "Bull Fighter" and Data East's "Fighting Ice Hockey". Data East also released a lawn sports game "Haro Gate Ball", based on croquet, while Nichibutsu released a game based on roller derby, "Roller Jammer". Meanwhile, Technos Japan released a game based on sumo wrestling, "Syusse Oozumou", and the first martial arts combat-sport game, "Karate Champ", considered one of the most influential fighting games. In 1985, Nintendo released an arm wrestling game, "Arm Wrestling", while Konami released a table tennis game that attempted to accurately reflect the sport, "Konami's Ping Pong".


title: Sports video game

text: On home consoles, Mattel released "Intellivision World Series Baseball" ("IWSB"), designed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, in late 1983. It is considered the earliest sports video game to use multiple camera angles to show the action in a manner resembling a sports television broadcast. Earlier sports games prior to this had displayed the entire field on screen, or scrolled across static top-down fields to show the action. "IWSB" mimicked television baseball coverage by showing the batter from a modified "center field" camera, the baserunners in corner insets and defensive plays from a camera behind the batter. It was also one of the first sports video games to feature audibly-speaking digitized voices (as opposed to text), using the Mattel Intellivoice module. The game was sophisticated for its time, but was a commercial failure, released around the time of the video game crash of 1983 when the North American home video game market collapsed.


title: Sports video game

text: Nintendo released a series of highly successful sports games for the Nintendo Entertainment System console and the arcade Nintendo Vs. System, starting with "Baseball" (1983) and "Tennis" (1984). They played an important role in the history of the Nintendo Entertainment System, as they were the earliest NES games released in North America, initially in the arcades and then with the console's launch. Nintendo's arcade version "VS. Baseball" (1984) was competing with Sega's earlier hit "Champion Baseball" in the arcades.


title: Sports video game

text: On home computers, "Track & Field" spawned similar hit Olympic games for computer platforms, such as Ocean Software's "Daley Thompson's Decathlon" (1984). Electronic Arts (EA) produced their first sports game for home computers, the basketball title "" (1983), which was the first licensed sports game based on the names and likenesses of famous athletes; the inclusion of famous real world athletes would become one of the most important selling points for sports games. "One on One" became Electronic Arts' best-selling game, and the highest-selling computer sports game. having sold 400,000 copies by late 1988


title: Sports video game

text: In the late 1980s, basketball video games gained popularity in arcades. Konami's "Double Dribble" (1986) featured colorful graphics, five-on-five gameplay, cutaway animations for slam dunks, and a digitized version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" theme. It was considered the most realistic basketball game upon release, with fast-paced action, detailed players, a large side-scrolling court, innovative cinematic dunks, and detailed sound effects, beginning a trend where presentation would play an increasingly important role in sports games. "Magic Johnson's Fast Break" (1988) by Arcadia Systems had detailed characters and audio clips of Magic Johnson's voice. Midway, who had not released a basketball game in sixteen years since Taito's "TV Basketball" in 1974, released "Arch Rivals" (1989), a two-on-two game featuring large players with distinct looks, a basketball court, a crowd, cheeleaders, four periods, the ability to rough up an opponent, and big dunks capable of backboard shattering. Konami's "Punk Shot" (1990) is an arcade basketball game with an element of violence, allowing players to physically attack each other, which "CU Amiga" magazine compared to the film "Rollerball" (1975).


title: Sports video game

text: The success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America led to the platform becoming a major platform for American sports video games. Basketball games included a port of "Double Dribble", with a halo mechanic signifying the optimum release for shots, and "Tecmo NBA Basketball" (1992). American football video games included "Tecmo Bowl" (1987), which was ported to the NES with the NFL Players Association license, and "Tecmo Super Bowl" (1991), which introduced a season mode with nearly the entire NFL roster. "Tecmo Super Bowl" is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential games of all time, as it was the first mainstream sports video game with both the league and player association licenses, with ESPN ranking it the greatest sports video game of all time. Sega also developed American football games for their competing Master System console, "Great Football" in 1987 and "American Pro Football" ("Walter Payton Football") in 1989, the latter very well-received by critics at the time.


title: Sports video game

text: The late 1980s is considered the "Golden Age" of baseball video games. Namco's "" (1986) and the Atlus title "Major League Baseball" (1988) for the NES were the first fully licensed baseball video games. SNK's "Baseball Stars" (1989) was a popular arcade-style NES game, while Jaleco's NES title "Bases Loaded" (1987) was a simulation game with statistics. In 1988, EA released "Earl Weaver Baseball", developed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, which for the first time combined a highly accurate simulation game with high quality graphics. This was also the first game in which an actual baseball manager provided the computer AI. In 1996 "Computer Gaming World" named "EWB" the 25th of its Best 150 Games of All Time, the second highest ranking for any sports game in that 1981–1996 period (after "FPS Football").


title: Sports video game

text: The 1990s began in the 16-bit era, as a wave of fourth generation video game consoles were created to handle more complex games and graphics. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in particular became renowned for its sports video games, as it was more powerful than the NES and with Sega targeting an older audience than Nintendo's typically younger target demographic at the time. Basketball video games included EA's "Lakers versus Celtics and the NBA Playoffs" (1991), which launched the "NBA Live" series. "World Series Baseball" (1994) introduced the "catcher-cam" perspective, launching the "World Series Baseball" series and becoming the first game in the Sega Sports line.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1989, Electronic Arts producer Richard Hilleman hired GameStar's Scott Orr to re-design "John Madden Football" for the fast-growing Sega Genesis. In 1990, Orr and Hilleman released "Madden Football". They focused on producing a head-to-head two-player game with an intuitive interface and responsive controls. Electronic Arts had only expected to sell around 75,000 units, but instead the title sold around 400,000 units.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1990, Taito released "Football Champ", an association football game that allows up to four players in both competitive and cooperative gameplay. It also let players perform a number of actions, including a back heel, power kick, high kick, sliding tackle, super shot, and fouling other players (kicking, punching, and pulling shirts), which the player can get away with if the referee isn't looking, or get a yellow or red penalty card for if he is. In 1991, the American football game "Tecmo Super Bowl" was the first mainstream sports game to feature both the league and player association licenses of the sport it emulated; previous titles either had one license or the other, but "Tecmo Super Bowl" was the first to feature real NFL players on real teams.


title: Sports video game

text: Orr joined EA full-time in 1991 after the success of "Madden" on the Sega Genesis, and began a ten-year period of his career where he personally supervised the production of the "Madden Football" series. During this time EA formed EA Sports, a brand name used for sports games they produced. EA Sports created several ongoing series, with a new version released each year to reflect the changes in the sport and its teams since the previous release.


title: Sports video game

text: Sega launched its own competing "NFL" series on the Sega Genesis. The gameplay of Sega's earlier 1987 Master System title "Great Football" (1987) was the basis for "Joe Montana Football" (1991), developed by EA and published by Sega for the Genesis. Sega then released their own sequel without EA's involvement, "Joe Montana II: Sports Talk Football" (1991), which became the first American football game with audio commentary. After Sega acquired the NFL license, they shortened the title to "NFL Sports Talk Football Starring Joe Montana", which later became known as Sega's "NFL" series. Due to strong competition from "Madden", the series was cancelled in 1997.


title: Sports video game

text: Licensed basketball games began becoming more common by the early 1990s, including Sega's "Pat Riley Basketball" (1990) and Acme Interactive's "David Robinson's Supreme Court" (1992) for the Sega Genesis, and Hudson Soft's "Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball" (1991) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). EA followed "" (1988) with "Lakers versus Celtics and the NBA Playoffs" (1989), the latter ported to the Genesis in 1991, which added more simulation aspects to the subgenre. In the arcades, Midway followed "Arch Rivals" with "NBA Jam" (1993), which introduced digitized sprites similar to their fighting game "Mortal Kombat" (1992), combined with a gameplay formula similar to "Arch Rivals". In its first twelve months of release, "NBA Jam" generated over to become the highest-grossing arcade sports game of all time.


title: Sports video game

text: "FIFA International Soccer" (1993), the first game in EA's "FIFA" series of association football video games, released on the Sega Mega Drive and became the best-selling home video game of 1993 in the United Kingdom. In contrast to the top-down perspective of earlier association football games, "FIFA" introduced an isometric perspective to the genre. "International Superstar Soccer" (1994), the first game in Konami's "International Superstar Soccer" ("ISS") series, released for the SNES. A rivalry subsequently emerged between the "FIFA" and "ISS" franchises.


title: Sports video game

text: In the 1990s, 3D graphics were introduced in sports games. Early uses of flat-shaded polygons date back to 1991, with home computer games such as "4D Sports Boxing" and "Winter Challenge". However, it was not until the mid-1990s that 3D polygons were popularized in sports games.


title: Sports video game

text: Sega's arcade title "Virtua Striker" (1994) was the first association football game to use 3D graphics, and was also notable for its early use of texture mapping. Meanwhile, Sierra Online released American football title "Front Page Sports Football" in 1995 for the PC. The following year, "Computer Gaming World" named it twelfth of the Best 150 Games of All Time, the highest ranking sports game on the list.


title: Sports video game

text: "International Superstar Soccer Pro" ("ISS Pro"), released for the PlayStation in 1997, was considered a "game-changer" for association football games, which had been largely dominated by rival "FIFA" on home systems for the last several years. Developed by Konami Tokyo, "ISS Pro" introduced a new 3D engine capable of better graphics and more sophisticated gameplay than its rival. Whereas "FIFA" had a simpler "arcade-style" approach to its gameplay, "ISS Pro" introduced more complex simulation gameplay emphasizing tactics and improvisation, enabled by tactical variety such as nine in-match strategy options.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1997, "Electronic Gaming Monthly" reported that sports games accounted for roughly 50% of console software sales.


title: Sports video game

text: At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, extreme sport video games began to appear more frequently.


title: Sports video game

text: Namco's "Alpine Racer" (1994) was a skiing winter sports simulator that became a major success in arcades during the mid-1990s. This led to a wave of similar sports games capitalizing on its success during the late 1990s, from companies such as Sega, Namco, Konami and Innovative Concepts.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1996, two snowboarding video games were released: Namco's "Alpine Surfer" in the arcades, and the UEP Systems game "Cool Boarders" for the PlayStation console. The following year, Square's popular role-playing video game, "Final Fantasy VII", included a snowboarding minigame that was later released as an independent snowboarding game, "Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding", for mobile phones. In 2000, "SSX" was released. Based around boardercross, the game featured fast downhill races, avoiding various objects whilst using others to perform jumps and increase the player's speed.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1997, Sega released one of the first mainstream skateboarding games, "Top Skater", in the arcades, where it introduced a skateboard controller interface. "Top Skater" served as a basic foundation for later skateboarding games. The following year saw the release of the console skateboarding game "Street Sk8er", developed by Atelier Double and published by Electronic Arts. In 1999, the subgenre was further popularized by "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater", an arcade-like skateboarding game where players were challenged to execute elaborate tricks or collect a series of elements hidden throughout the level. "Tony Hawk's" went on to be one of the most popular sports game franchises.


title: Sports video game

text: Association football games became more popular in the 2000s. Konami's "ISS" series spawned the "Pro Evolution Soccer" ("PES") series in the early 2000s. A rivalry subsequently emerged between "FIFA" and "PES", considered the "greatest rivalry" in the history of sports video games. "PES" became known for having "faster-paced tactical play" and more varied emergent gameplay, while "FIFA" was known for having more licenses. The "FIFA" series had sold over units by 2000, while the "PES" series had sold more than units by 2002. The sales gap between the two franchises had narrowed by the mid-2000s.


title: Sports video game

text: On December 13, 2004, Electronic Arts began a string of deals that granted exclusive rights to several prominent sports organizations, starting with the NFL. This was quickly followed with two deals in January 2008 securing rights to the AFL and ESPN licenses. This was a particularly hard blow to Sega, the previous holder of the ESPN license, who had already been affected by EA's NFL deal. As the market for football brands was being quickly taken by EA, Take-Two Interactive responded by contacting the Major League Baseball Players Association and signing a deal that granted exclusive third-party major-league baseball rights; a deal not as restrictive, as first-party projects were still allowed. The NBA was then approached by several developers, but declined to enter into an exclusivity agreement, instead granting long-term licenses to Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Midway Games, Sony, and Atari. In April 2005, EA furthered its hold on American football licensing by securing rights to all NCAA brands.


title: Sports video game

text: In 1993, Sega released the Sega Activator, a motion detection game controller designed to respond to a player's body movements, for their Genesis console. The Activator was based on the Light Harp, a MIDI controller invented by Assaf Gurner. He was an Israeli musician and Kung Fu martial artist who researched inter disciplinarian concepts to create the experience of playing an instrument using the whole body's motion. It was released for the Mega Drive (Genesis) in 1993. It could read the player's physical movements and was the first controller to allow full-body motion sensing, The original invention related to a 3 octaves musical instrument that could interpret the user's gestures into musical notes via MIDI protocol. The invention was registered as patent initially in Israel on May 11, 1988 after 4 years of R&D. In 1992, the first complete Light Harp was created by Assaf Gurner and Oded Zur, and was presented to Sega of America.


title: Sports video game

text: Like the Light Harp, the Activator is an octagonal frame that lies on the floor. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on the frame vertically project thin, invisible beams of infrared light. When something, such as a player's arm or leg, interrupts a beam, the device reads the distance at which the interruption occurred, and interprets the signal as a command. The device can also interpret signals from multiple beams simultaneously (i.e., chords) as a distinct command.


title: Sports video game

text: Sega designed special Activator motions for a few of their own game releases. By tailoring motion signals specifically for a game, Sega attempted to provide a more intuitive gaming experience. A player could, for example, compete in "Greatest Heavyweights of the Ring" or "Eternal Champions" by miming punches.


title: Sports video game

text: Despite these efforts, the Activator was a commercial failure. Like the Power Glove of 1989, it was widely rejected for its "unwieldiness and inaccuracy".


title: Sports video game

text: In 2006, Nintendo released "Wii Sports", a sports game for the Wii console in which the player had to physically move their Wii Remote to move their avatar known as a Mii. The game contained five different sports—boxing, bowling, golf, tennis, and baseball—which could all be played individually or with multiple players. Players could also track their skill progress through the game, as they became more proficient at the different sports, and use the training mode to practice particular situations. As of 2013, "Wii Sports" became the second-highest selling video game of all time.


title: Sports video game

text: "Wii Sports" opened the way for other physically reactive sports-based video games, such as "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games", the first official title to feature both Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, in which players used the Wii Remote to simulate running, jumping and other Olympic sports. In 2008, Nintendo released "Wii Fit", which allowed players to do aerobic and fitness exercises using the Wii Balance Board. In a similar light, 2008 saw the release of "Mario Kart Wii", a racing game which allowed the player to use their remote with a Wii Wheel to act as a steering wheel, akin to those on traditional arcade racing games.


title: Sports video game

text: The most popular subgenre in Europe is association football games, which up until 2010 was dominated by EA Sports with the "FIFA" series and Konami with the "Pro Evolution Soccer" ("PES") series. While "FIFA" was commercially ahead, the sales gap between the two franchises had narrowed. "FIFA" responded by borrowing gameplay elements from "PES" to improve "FIFA", which eventually pulled ahead commercially by a significant margin in the 2010s and emerged as the world's most successful sports video game franchise.


title: Sports video game

text: In North America, the sports genre is currently dominated by EA Sports and 2K Sports, who hold licenses to produce games based on official leagues. EA's franchises include the "Madden NFL" series, the "NHL" series, the "FIFA" series, and the "NBA Live" series. 2K Sports' franchises include the NBA 2K and WWE 2K series. All of these games feature real leagues, competitions and players. These games continue to sell well today despite many of the product lines being over a decade old, and receive, for the most part, consistently good reviews.


title: Sports video game

text: With 2K & EA Sports' domination and many sports leagues carrying exclusive licences, the North American sports video game market has become very difficult to enter; competing games in any of the above genres, with the exception of racing games, tend to be unsuccessful. This has led to a sharp drop in sports-themed titles over recent years especially with arcade titles. One of the most notable exceptions is Konami's "Pro Evolution Soccer" series, which is often hailed as an alternative to the "FIFA" series, but does not contain as many licensed teams, players, kits, or competitions. Another deviation from the norm is Sony's "MLB The Show" series, which now has a monopoly on the baseball genre after the withdrawal of 2K after "MLB 2K13". Racing games, due to the variation that the sport can offer in terms of tracks, cars and styles, offer more room for competition and the selection of games on offer has been considerably greater (examples being F1 and the World Rally Championship, and many unlicensed games). Sports management games, while not as popular as they used to be, live on through small and independent software development houses. Management titles today have transitioned to the very popular fantasy sports leagues, which are available through many websites such as "Yahoo". Independent developers are also creating sports titles like Super Mega Baseball, The Golf Club, and Freestyle2: Street Basketball.


title: Sports video game

text: Nintendo has been able to make an impact upon the sports market by producing several Mario-themed titles, such as "Mario Sports Mix", "", "Mario Sports Superstars", "Mario Tennis Aces", and "". These titles sell respectfully, but are only available on Nintendo's video game consoles, for example GameCube, Nintendo 64, Nintendo 3DS, Wii, Wii U and Nintendo Switch.


title: Information technology consulting

text: In management, information technology consulting (also called IT consulting, computer consultancy, business and technology services, computing consultancy, technology consulting, and IT advisory) is a field of activity which focuses on advising organizations on how best to use information technology (IT) in achieving their business objectives, however it can also refer more generally to IT outsourcing.


title: Information technology consulting

text: Once a business owner defines the needs to take a business to the next level, a decision maker will define a scope, cost and a time frame of the project. The role of the IT consultancy company is to support and nurture the company from the very beginning of the project until the end, and deliver the project not only in the scope, time and cost but also with complete customer satisfaction.


title: Tony Williams (singer)

text: Tony Williams (born Samuel Edward Williams; April 5, 1928 – August 14, 1992), was an American singer who was the lead vocalist of the Platters from 1953 to 1960.


title: Tony Williams (singer)

text: Williams was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the son of Bertha and Edward Williams. He served in the United States Army Air Forces around the end of World War II, rising to the rank of sergeant, and after leaving military service moved to Los Angeles, where he joined his older sister Bertha, who was developing a successful singing career under the name Linda Hayes. He worked in menial jobs such as parking lot attendant, while competing in evening talent shows.


title: Tony Williams (singer)

text: Williams came to the attention of Ralph Bass of Federal Records, who linked him with an existing vocal group, the Flamingos, comprising Gaynel Hodge, David Lynch, Alex Hodge, and Herb Reed. When they became aware of another group of the same name, they renamed themselves the Platters and made their first recordings in September 1953, with Williams on lead vocal. Their initial recordings were unsuccessful, but Linda Hayes then introduced Williams to booking agent and aspiring songwriter Buck Ram. He was impressed by Williams' high tenor singing voice, and agreed to manage the group while also hoping to promote Williams as a solo performer.


title: Tony Williams (singer)

text: The group continued to record and perform locally, occasionally supporting Linda Hayes, until late 1955 when they were signed by Mercury Records. Their first recording on the label, Buck Ram's song "Only You (And You Alone)", with Williams on lead vocal, became a national hit, and was followed in early 1956 by "The Great Pretender", another Ram song with Williams as lead singer, which became successful on both the R&B and pop charts as well as internationally. Over the next three years, the group had a succession of hits, including "My Prayer", "Twilight Time", and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", all featuring Williams. The songs made the Platters one of the most successful doo-wop groups of the 1950s, and a British reviewer described Williams' voice as "unearthly".


title: Tony Williams (singer)

text: In a dispute over money, Williams left the Platters in 1959 to pursue a solo career, and continued to work with Ram as his manager. He recorded an LP, "A Girl Is A Girl Is A Girl", but his career faltered after he was arrested on a morals charge, of which he was later cleared. He continued to perform with the Platters intermittently until 1960, but then won a legal action against Ram which allowed him to formally leave the group. He signed as a solo singer for Reprise Records in 1961, recording "Tony Williams Sings His Greatest Hits", including re-recordings of some of the Platters' songs, but returned to Philips Records the following year. He released the album "The Magic Touch Of Tony" in 1962, and the same year overdubbed vocals for a Platters record, "Encore Of Broadway Golden Hits". However, by this time music buyers' tastes had changed, and Williams' voice had lost some of its appeal.


title: Tony Williams (singer)

text: He married Helen Williams in 1963. He later performed with his own, unauthorized version of the Platters, known as the International Platters, which also featured his wife. Musical Director William Gulino worked with Tony Williams and the Platters


title: Tony Williams (singer)

text: Williams was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Platters in 1990. He developed diabetes, and died in Manhattan of emphysema, in 1992.


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: Slums of Beverly Hills is a 1998 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Tamara Jenkins, and starring Natasha Lyonne, Alan Arkin, Marisa Tomei, David Krumholtz, Kevin Corrigan, Jessica Walter and Carl Reiner. The story follows a teenage girl (Lyonne) struggling to grow up in 1976 in a lower-middle-class nomadic Jewish family that relocates every few months.


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: Fourteen-year-old Vivian Abromowitz's family are penniless nomads, moving from one cheap apartment to another in 1976 Beverly Hills, so that Vivian and her brothers can attend the city's prestigious local schools. Their father, Murray, is a divorced 65-year-old who refuses to retire, working as an unsuccessful Oldsmobile salesman whose cars are selling poorly due in large part to the energy crisis of the time.


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: Vivian's wealthy uncle Mickey regularly sends the family money to help them survive. When Mickey's 29-year-old daughter Rita escapes from a rehab facility, Murray offers her shelter if Mickey will pay for a plush apartment. Vivian must babysit her adult cousin, ensuring that she attends nursing school and avoids pills and alcohol. However, Vivian has her own problems: she is curious about sex, likes an apparently-twenty-something neighbor, Eliot, has inherited her mother's ample breasts, and wants a family that does not embarrass her.


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: Vivian's older brother Ben aspires to a show business career, while her father aspires to female companionship but would not give in to wealthy lady-friend Doris Zimmerman's desire that he send his kids back East to live with his ex-wife. Vivian's younger brother Rickey simply aspires to obtain attention.


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: Vivian and Rita are close and sometimes speak in gibberish, or Pig Latin. Vivian learns that Rita has no wish to attend nursing school and also has no idea as to what to do with her life. Murray attempts to cover up Rita's lack of progress at nursing school when Mickey asks for progress reports. Eventually, Mickey, frustrated at having to support his brother's family and also learning of their deception concerning his daughter (who is pregnant), explodes during a meeting between the two families, telling Murray he is tired of sending them money. Vivian snaps and stabs Mickey in the leg with a fork. Rita gets on a plane with her now outraged parents. Depressed and dejected, Murray once again packs the kids into his car and they take off. In an attempt to cheer her father up, Vivian suggests that the family stop for a cheap steak at Sizzler for breakfast — a ritual regularly suggested by their father as a means of showing affection to his children, despite their indifference to it or him.


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: The film is loosely based on writer-director Tamara Jenkins' experiences as a youth moving around different apartments in the Beverly Hills area with her lower-middle-class family. Jenkins wrote the script at the Sundance Filmmakers' Lab, where Sundance founder Robert Redford got ahold of her screenplay and expressed interest in producing it. Redford said he related to Jenkins' experiences of having "grown up as an 'outsider'...not at all a member of the club but a sideline observer from the wrong side of the tracks." Redford is credited as an executive producer on the film.


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: "Slums of Beverly Hills" earned a total of $5,502,773 at the domestic box office. On its opening weekend, it garnered $125,561 from seven theaters in the United States.


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: On "Rotten Tomatoes", the film is certified "Fresh", with an 81% approval rating based on 62 reviews, for an average score of 7/10, with the site's consensus describing the film as "Warm, real, and hilarious." Reviewers have praised the 1970s production design, the humor, and the acting as "dead-on."


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: Roger Ebert awarded the film three stars out of four, and said of lead actress Natasha Lyonne, "[she] has the film's most important role, and is the key to the comedy. She does a good job of looking incredulous, and there's a lot in her life to be incredulous about. She also has a nice pragmatic approach to sexuality, as in a scene where she consults a plastic surgeon about on-the-spot breast reduction." He also stated, "...basically I enjoyed "Slums of Beverly Hills"—for the wisecracking, for the family squabbles, for the notion of squatters who stake a claim in a Beverly Hills where money, after all, is not the only currency."


title: Slums of Beverly Hills

text: "San Francisco Chronicle" reviewer Ruthe Stein stated, "While touching on serious issues such as loss, this coming-of-age story is first and foremost a comedy, and a hilarious one at that. It never strains to be funny. The humor derives from the deadpan responses of family members to circumstances beyond their control." She also wrote, "Set in the mid-'70s, "Slums" gets the period right, from the burnt orange shag carpet on the floor of the family's temporary digs to the dorky clothes and extreme hairstyles. Even the saleslady who sells Vivian her first bra has the overly made-up look of the time. The Abramowitzes' behavior when they go out to eat—complaining about the service and that there's too much salt in the food—may seem to border on a Jewish stereotype. But it's also dead-on."


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Hippophae rhamnoides, also known as sea-buckthorn, is a species of flowering plant in the family Elaeagnaceae, native to the cold-temperate regions of Europe and Asia. It is a spiny deciduous shrub. The plant is used in the food and cosmetics industries, in traditional medicine, as animal fodder, in horticulture, and for ecological purposes.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" is a hardy, deciduous shrub that can grow between 2 and 4 m high (between 7 and 13 ft). It has a rough, brown or black bark and a thick, grayish-green crown. The leaves are alternate, narrow and lanceolate, with silvery-green upper faces. It is dioecious, meaning that the male and female flowers grow on different shrubs. The sex of seedlings can only be determined at the first flowering, which mostly occurs after three years. The male inflorescence is built up of four to six apetalous flowers, while the female inflorescence normally consists of only one apetalous flower and contains one ovary and one ovule. Fertilization occurs solely via wind pollination, so male plants need to be close to female plants to allow for fertilization and fruit production.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The oval or lightly roundish fruits grow in compact grapes varying from pale yellow to dark orange. Individual fruits weigh between 270 and 480 mg and contain high amounts of vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids, flavonoids and health-beneficial fatty acids, as well as higher amounts of vitamin B12 than other fruits.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The plants have a very developed and extensive root system, and the roots live in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing "Frankia" bacteria. The roots also transform insoluble organic and mineral matters from the soil into more soluble states. Vegetative reproduction of the plants occurs rapidly via root suckers.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" is divided into eight subspecies: ssp. "carpatica, caucasia, fluviatilis, mongolica, rhamnoides, sinensis, turkestanica" and "yunnanensis". These subspecies vary in size, shape, number of main lateral veins in the leaves and quantity and color of stellate hairs. They also have different areas of distribution and specific uses.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The genus name "Hippophae" originates from the Greek words "hippo" = "horse" and "phaos" = "to shine" and is due to the ancient Greek use of sea buckthorn leaves as horse fodder to make their coats shine more. The species name "rhamnoides" means "resembling the "Rhamnus"", referring to the buckthorn plant.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" is native to the cold-temperate regions of Europe and Asia, between 27 and 69EN latitude and 7EW and 122EE longitude. These regions include the Baltic Coasts of Finland, Poland and Germany, the Gulf of Bothnia in Sweden, as well as coastal areas of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In Asia, "H. rhamnoides" can be found in the northern regions of China, throughout most of the Himalayan region, including India, Nepal and Bhutan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is found in a variety of locations: on hills and hillsides, valleys, riverbeds, along coastal regions, on islands, in small isolated or continuous pure stands, but also in mixed stands with other shrub and tree species. "H. rhamnoides" has also recently been planted in countries such as Canada, the United States, Bolivia, Chile, Japan and South Korea.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The current total acreage of "H. rhamnoides" is about 3.0 million ha worldwide. This number includes both wild and cultivated plants. Of these, approximately 2.5 million ha are situated in China (1.0 million ha of wild plants and 1.5 million ha in plantations), 20 000 ha in Mongolia, 12 000 ha in India and 3 000 ha in Pakistan. This makes China the largest agricultural producer of "H. rhamnoides". Approximately 10 000 acres of the plant are planted in China each year for berry production as well as eco-environmental improvement. As of 2003, approximately 100 km of field shelterbelts were planted in Canada each year, and over 250 000 mature fruit-producing plants were grown on the Canadian prairies with an estimated annual fruit supply of 750 000 kg. Other countries that grow "H. rhamnoides" as an agricultural plant include for example Germany and France.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Sea buckthorn fruit contains sugars, sugar alcohols, fruit acids, vitamins (C, E, and K), polyphenols, carotenoids, fiber, amino acids, minerals, and plant sterols. Species belonging to genus "Hippophae" accumulate oil both in soft parts and in seed of the fruit. Oil content in soft parts is 1.5–3.0%, while in seed this is 11% of the fresh weight. For the compositions of sea buckthorn oils, see article: sea buckthorn oil.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Major sugars in sea buckthorn fruits are fructose and glucose, with total sugar content of 2.7–5.3 g/100 ml of juice. Typical sourness of the fruits is due to high content of malic acid (0.8-3.2 g/100 ml of juice) while astringency is related to quinic acid (1.2-2.1 g/100 ml of juice). Major sugar alcohol in fruit is L-quebrachitol (0.15–0.24 g/100 ml of juice).


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The fruit of the plant has a high vitamin C content – approximately 400 mg per 100 grams, placing sea buckthorn fruit among the most enriched plant sources of vitamin C. Additionally, fruits have high concentrations of carotenoids, vitamin E and vitamin K.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The main carotenoids are beta-carotene, zeaxanthin and lycopene while alpha-tocopherol is the major vitamin E compound.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The most prevalent dietary minerals in sea buckthorn fruits are potassium (300–380 mg/100 g), manganese (0.28–0.32 mg/100 g), and copper (0.1 mg/100 g).


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The fruit is also rich in phytosterols (340–520 mg/kg), β-sitosterol being the major sterol compound as it constitutes 57–83% of total sterols.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Flavonols were found to be the predominating class of phenolic compounds, while phenolic acids and flavan-3-ols ("catechins") represent minor components.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" is a very versatile plant and the fruits as well as the leaves can be used. The fruits are processed and then used in the food industry, in traditional medicine, as part of drugs or in the cosmetic industry. The leaves can be used as feed, particularly for ruminants. Because of its tolerance against strongly eroded, nutrient-poor and sometimes salty soils, the plant is also used for land reclamation or as shelterbelt.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: In general, all parts of the "H. rhamnoides" contain diverse phytochemicals and nutrients. Particularly the fruit contains high vitamin C amounts, exceeding the levels seen in lemons and oranges. "H. rhamnoides" fruits are processed in the food industry to different products. Usually, the berries are first washed and then pressed, resulting in pomace and juice. The fruit pomace can be used to obtain oil, natural food color (yellow/orange) or jam, while the juice is further processed and packaged as a consumer product. "H. rhamnoides" oil may be used to produce cosmetics, such as hand cream, shampoo or massage oils. The leaves of the shrub can be air dried, eventually ground, and used for tea.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" is widely used in traditional medicine, particularly in Russia and Northeast Asia. The leaves are used as supposed herbal medicine for various disorders. "H. rhamnoides" fruits have also been used in the traditional Austrian medicine internally as tea, juice, or syrup for treatment of infections.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" is used for feeding livestock. The pomace from "H. rhamnoides" fruit processing can be used as animal feed, such as for poultry feeding.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The "H. rhamnoides" plant is particularly drought- and salt-tolerant and can thus be successfully used for land reclamation, against further soil erosion, as shelterbelt or in agroforestry. These characteristics are mainly due to the deep root system that the plant develops. For example, in eastern China, new agroforestry systems have been developed to reclaim land with high salinity contents and "H. rhamnoides" is included in the system as shelterbelt, providing a habitat to different birds and small mammals.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: In nature "H. rhamnoides" is found growing profusely on a wide range of soil types, but does better in soils with a light physical structure, rich in nutrient compounds and with a pH near neutral (pH 6.5–7.5). Best growth occurs in deep, well drained, sandy loam with ample organic matter. Very light, sandy soils have low water carrying capacity and are also low in nutrient mineral elements; so without the previous addition of organic matter, are not appropriate. Similarly inappropriate are clayey soils, with high density and water retention characteristics.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "H. rhamnoides" is considered drought resistant but it is a moisture sensitive plant especially in the spring when plants are flowering and young fruits are beginning to develop. Planting in arid or semiarid areas is possible, if water is supplied for establishment.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: It can bear fruits at altitudes up to 2000 m above sea level. The plant can withstand temperatures from −43 °C to + 40 °C. Vegetation begins at average daily air temperatures of 5 to 7 °C. It flowers at temperatures 10 to 15 °C and requires total effective temperatures, spring to harvest time, of 14.5 °C to 17.5 °C, depending on latitude, elevation and species. Frost hardiness is the highest in deep dormancy in November and December. During this period, negative temperatures of −50 °C may be tolerated. Whereas in the post-dormant period in January to March, the critical temperature drops in air temperature for the male to −30 °C to −35 °C and for the female, −40 °C to −45 °C. "H. rhamnoides" can only be grown in well-lit, unshaded areas. Starting from its very earliest stage of development, it can not tolerate shade.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: As for fertilization, phosphorus is indispensable for the normal life process of the nodules on the roots. The plant requires little nitrogen, due to its ability to fix nitrogen.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" needs a period of 4 to 5 years from the appearance of the first shoots from the seeds to the beginning of fruit and peaks at the 7–8th year of plant life, remaining productive for 30 years with intermittent pruning. Spring is the best time for planting "H. rhamnoides". An orchard planting can yield 10 tonnes of berries per hectare. A number of seeds per planting site is recommended at spacing of 1 m within the row and 4 m between the rows, south-east sloping terrain is recommended to facilitate the maximum sunlight exposure and rows should be oriented in a north– south direction to provide maximum light.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The purpose of pruning "H. rhamnoides" is to train branches, promote growth and facilitate harvesting. Moderate pruning will increase the yield and fruiting life of the plants. The crown should be pruned to remove overlapping branches, and long branches should be cut to encourage development of lateral shoots. Mature fruiting plants should be pruned to allow more light penetration. Pruning is also recommended to eliminate thorns on the mature wood to facilitate harvesting. Pruning should be started the year trees have been planted, late winter pruning is best time.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Seed propagation is not commonly used in orchards because the species is dioecious, therefore the sex cannot be determined in the seed, or prior to 3 to 4 years of growth. And male plants must be replaced. If seedlings of unknown sex are planted, it may result in an uneven distribution of male and female plants. To avoid this problem, excessive male plants are replaced with female plants, or vegetative propagation from mature plants of known sex is done.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: With vegetative propagation, the cuttings will bear fruit 1 to 2 years earlier than seed propagated trees and the genetics and sex are known from the mother plant. Sea buckthorn can be propagated using either hardwood or softwood cuttings, root cuttings, layering and suckers.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Cross-pollination is by wind action only. The ratio and distance of male to female plants is important, as the number of female trees in each planting directly affects the total yield. Recommendations for male and female ratio vary from 6 to 12%, while the distance within which the female plant can be pollinated is about 100m. It has been shown that as the distance from the female plant to the male plant (polliniser) increases (64m), the yield of the female plant decreases.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The large morphological diversity is a good indication for opportunities in selection of desired characteristics for a given region. Mass selection is still practiced in many areas, although it is gradually replaced by hybridization and polyploidy breeding. The most important characteristics that need improvement are: yield, fruit size, winter hardness, thornlessness, fruit and pollen quality and early maturity, long pedicel (to facilitate mechanical harvest) and nitrogen fixing ability.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: The fruits ripen in the fall and frequently cling on the shrub until the following March/April. Estimate of orchard planting with 2,500 trees per hectare. a 1:6–8 male and female ratio, and between rows with between plants should yield approximately 10 tonnes. Good plants will produce up to annually. In Asia the fruits are harvested by hand; this process requires about 1500 person-hours/ha. Fruit harvest is the most time consuming operation in growing "H. rhamnoides". The relatively small fruit size, short pedicel, force required to pull off each fruit, the density of fruit on the branch, and the thorniness of the plant, are the disadvantages during harvesting.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Difficulties in harvesting are the major barriers of orchard production and development of the plant's potential as a cash crop. Harvesting the fruit is problematic because the fruit does not easily release from the stem. Different mechanical harvest methods were developed in the late 20th century, such as shaking, vacuum and quick freezing, but with the disadvantages of fruit and bark damage and low efficiency, as of 1990. Except when frozen on the shrub, fresh fruit mechanical harvesting is still in the development stage during the early 21st century. This is mainly due to the difficulty in separating the stem (pedicel) from the berry (pericarp). Mechanical harvesting – with the sequence of cutting a branch from the tree, freezing it, then shaking the branch to release the berries – eliminates the necessity for maintenance pruning, leaving a hedge that has been uniformly cut back, with high-quality berries. A trunk clamp-on vibrator harvester may be used when the fruit is frozen on the shrub, but with this method leaf and wood contamination is high and an additional step of berry cleaning is necessary.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: In the United Kingdom, the cultivars 'Leikora' and 'Pollmix' have won the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. 'Leikora' is a dense-fruit cultivar, while 'Pollmix' is used as a pollinator for female clones. Cultivar "Sprite" has dense, compact vines growing to tall and wide, characteristics possibly making it useful as a low hedge near the sea.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" plants that are 1–2 years old develop root nodules containing actinobacteria of the genus "Frankia", which are capable of fixing nitrogen. As a result of this relationship, the soils in stands of "H. rhamnoides" are enriched in nitrogen. The nitrogen-fixing activity of the symbiotic bacteria is not constant, but depends on external factors such as the climate or whether additional nitrogen fertilization occurred.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Both in Asia and in Europe, sea buckthorn losses occur notably due to environmental stress, wilt disease and insect pests. It is estimated that more than 60,000 ha of natural and planted sea buckthorn stands have died in China since the year 2000 due to these three factors, and approximately 5,000 ha perish each year.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Wilt disease is a combination of fungal diseases that is sometimes also called "dried-shrink disease", "shrivelled disease", "dry rot" or "dry atrophy". In China, it causes fruit yield losses of 30–40% and annual losses of mature plantations of 4 000 ha. Several pathogens have been described as causing the sickness in sea buckthorn:


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Methods to control the disease include removing and burning infected branches, not replanting "H. rhamnoides" at the same site for 3–5 years, and avoiding to make cuttings from infected plants. Antagonistic fungi like "Trichoderma" sp. or "Penicillium" sp. can be used to combat wilt disease in plants infected by "Plowrightia hippophaes". Additionally, four strains of "Cladothrix actinomyces" were found to be usable as antagonistic fungi in "H. rhamnoides" plants infected by "Fusarium sporotrichioides". Cultivars of "H. rhamnoides" that were relatively resistant to wilt disease have also been identified.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" is affected by several insect pests, of which green aphids ("Capitophorus hippophaes") are one of the most damaging. They are usually found in the new growth on shoot tips where they stunt growth and cause yellowing of the leaves. This is then followed by shrinking of the leaves along their central vein, after which they drop prematurely.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Another serious pest is the seabuckthorn fruit fly ("Rhagoletis batava"), whose larvae feed on the fruit flesh, rendering the fruits unsuitable for use.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "H. rhamnoides" is also affected by the gall tick ("Vasates" spp.), which causes gall formation on the leaves and thereby leads to deformation of the leaf surface.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Both the leaf roller ("Archips rosana") and the gypsy moth ("Lymantria dispar") chew on "H. rhamnoides" leaves. The leaf roller occurs from May to July, while the gypsy moth occurs later in the summer.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Further insect pests include the commashaped scale ("Chionaspis salicis"), which sucks sap from the bark and can cause important damage by leading to the death of the plant, and the larvae of the sea buckthorn moth ("Gelechia hippophaella"), which penetrate into fresh buds and feed on them. Thrips, and occasionally earwigs have also been observed as affecting "H. rhamnoides".


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Insecticides such as gammaxene and dylox are used to control insect pests in the soil, and insecticide soap can be employed against green aphid infestations


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: "Hippophae rhamnoides" is also involved in interactions with various animals (birds, rodents, deer, livestock) that can lead to damage in plantations.


title: Hippophae rhamnoides

text: Weed control is important, especially during the early growth stages of "H. rhamnoides", since it grows slower than weeds due to its less vigorous root system. Weeds should be removed before planting by preparing the land adequately, and they should subsequently be controlled during the first four to five years, until the shrubs are high enough to shade out the weeds. Weed control is done both mechanically and manually. Weeding should however not be too deep so as not to damage the root system of "H. rhamnoides".


title: Hindupur

text: Hindupur is a city in Sri Sathya Sai district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located to the edge of the Andhra–Karnataka border and is the headquarters of Hindupur mandal. Hindupur is the biggest Parliamentary Constituency in the newly formed District Sri Sathya Sai. It is located about 67 km from district headquarters Puttaparthi, 100 km from Bengaluru the capital of Karnataka, 95 km From Kadiri.


title: Hindupur

text: , Hindupur municipality had a population of 151,835. It is an important local pilgrimage center with a number of temples in and around the city, including Sri Peta Venkata Ramana Swamy Temple, Sree Vasavi Kanyaka Parameshwari Temple, Guddam Sri Ranganath Swamy Temple, Sugur Sri Anjaneya Swamy Temple, and the historical Lepakshi Sri Veerabhadra Swamy Temple.