title: Velamentous cord insertion

text: The newborn may be delivered via normal vagina labor if there are no signs of fetal distress. Fetal heart rate is continuously monitored for slow or abnormal heart rate patterns which may indicate fetal distress during labor. If the exposed blood vessels are near the cervix or are at risk of rupturing, the newborn may be delivered via caesarean section as early as 35 weeks gestation.


title: Velamentous cord insertion

text: In twins, one or both of the fetuses may have velamentous cord insertion, which can lead to birth-weight discordance, where one twin weighs significantly more at birth than the other, and selective fetal growth restriction. These complications particularly arise in the case of monochorionic twins, where identical twins share the same placenta.


title: Velamentous cord insertion

text: Velamentous cord insertion occurs in between 0.1%-1.8% of all pregnancies, and is eight to ten times more frequent in multiple pregnancies. This risk is doubled in the case of monochorionic twins, and tripled in the case of fetal growth restriction. It is thought that sex may be a determinant of abnormal cord insertions, however there is conflicting evidence as to whether male or female fetuses are linked to greater risk of velamentous cord insertion.


title: The Wheels on the Bus

text: "The Wheels on the Bus" is an American folk song written by Verna Hills (1898–1990). The earliest known publishing of the lyrics is the December 1937 issue of "American Childhood", originally called "The Bus", with the lyrics being "The wheels "of" the bus", with each verse ending in lines relevant to what the verse spoke of, as opposed to the current standard "all through the town" (or "all day long" in some versions).


title: The Wheels on the Bus

text: It is a popular children's song in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Italy, and Denmark, and is often sung by children on bus trips to keep themselves amused. It has a repetitive rhythm, making the song easy for many people to sing, in a manner similar to the song "99 Bottles of Beer". It is based on the traditional British song "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush". The song is also sometimes sung to the tune of "Buffalo Gals", as in the version done by Raffi.


title: The Wheels on the Bus

text: Normally followed by "The wipers on the bus go swish swish swish" (with action), "the horn on the bus goes beep beep beep", and "the people on the bus go up and down" (with action). Some versions substitute "bounce up and down" for "go up and down", and some modern commercial recordings of the song in children's toys simplify the tune by copying notes 7 through 9 onto notes 13 through 15.


title: The Wheels on the Bus

text: Lyrics as they were originally found in the December 1937 issue of "American Childhood":<poem style="margin-left: 2em;">1. The wheels of the bus go round and round,


title: The Wheels on the Bus

text: Bouncing off their seats.</poem>Note that this version does not make any reference to the melody that is commonly attached to the song.


title: The Wheels on the Bus

text: In 2002, American Madonna impersonator Michelle Chappel, under the stage name "Mad Donna", released a single which sampled the nursery rhyme, featuring a version of Madonna's 1998 song "Ray of Light" over which the classic children's song was sung. The single reached No. 17 in the United Kingdom and also made the charts elsewhere in Europe.


title: The Wheels on the Bus

text: The song also has lyrics in Swedish, "Hjulen på bussen" ("The Wheels on the Bus"), and among the artists who have recorded it are Pernilla Wahlgren in 1996.


title: K. Asif

text: K. Asif (born Asif Karim; 14 June 1922 – 9 March 1971) was an Indian film director, film producer and screenwriter who is known for his epic film, "Mughal-e-Azam" (1960).


title: K. Asif

text: Asif was born in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, India to parents Dr. Fazal Karim and Bibi Ghulam Fatima. Asif went to Bombay and later took the name K. Asif. He became a successful director.


title: K. Asif

text: His directorial debut, "Phool" (1945), did very well at the box-office. In 1944, Asif planned to make a film called "Mughal-e-Azam" based on the life and times of Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great's court dancer, based on a Urdu novel 'Anarkali' written by Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj, with Chandramohan in the male lead and the then upcoming actress Nargis in the female lead. However, in 1946, before the production of the film could begin, the male lead, Chandramohan, died. At that time, Asif temporarily shelved the film until further notice. He produced the film "Hulchul" and released it in 1951.


title: K. Asif

text: At that time, Asif recast "Mughal-e-Azam" with Dilip Kumar in the male lead and Madhubala in the female lead and began the production of the film in the same year. In 1960, after twelve years in production, Mughal-e-Azam was released and became a huge hit at packed cinema houses across India.


title: K. Asif

text: After the release and success of "Mughal-e-Azam", Asif planned yet another motion picture called Love and God, his first directorial venture to be made completely in color, and began production. The film was to star Guru Dutt in the male lead and Nimmi in the female lead. However, in 1964, when lead actor Guru Dutt died, shooting came to a halt. Asif recast Sanjeev Kumar in the male lead and resumed production of the film. During the production of the film, K. Asif died on 9 March 1971 at the age of 48/49 and the film was abandoned. In 1986, Asif's senior widow, Akhtar Asif, (younger sister of Dilip Kumar) released the film in an incomplete form.


title: K. Asif

text: K. Asif married four times. His first wife was a lady who was approved of and welcomed by his family. She remained married to him until her death, despite his other marriages, and was the mother of six of Asif's children.


title: K. Asif

text: Asif's second wife was the singer and actress Sitara Devi. The marriage between them happened in unusual circumstances. Asif had a sister, Sikandar Begum, who was married to her first cousin, the actor Nazir Ahmed Khan (not to be confused with the actor Nasir Khan, brother of Dilip Kumar). Nazir Ahmed Khan fell in love with Sitara Devi and married her while still being married to Sikandar Begum; as a Muslim man in India, he could have up to four wives concurrently. Asif became enamoured of Sitara Devi, who was his sister's co-wife and his cousin's second wife. Nazir and Sitara were soon divorced, and shortly afterwards, Asif married Sitara, who thus became the wife, successively, of Sikandar Begum's husband and brother.


title: K. Asif

text: However, the marriage of Asif and Sitara lasted no more than a few months, and they were soon divorced. This happened because by then, Asif had fallen in love with the actress Nigar Sultana, who played the important role of Bahaar in Asif's magnum opus, Mughal-e-Azam. Asif divorced Sitara Devi, apparently at her insistence, and married Nigar Sultana. Born in Hyderabad in south India, Nigar Sultana had previously been married to the actor S.M. Yousuf. That marriage had been childless and had ended in divorce when Yousuf moved to Pakistan some years after the partition of India. Asif and Nigar Sultana became the parents of a daughter, the small-time actress Heena Kausar, who appeared in bit roles in a number of forgettable films. She finally attained fame in 1991, by becoming the second wife of dreaded underworld gangster Iqbal Mirchi, a close associate of India's most wanted criminal, Dawood Ibrahim. Among other crimes, Iqbal Mirchi is said to have been a drug-dealer and to have laundered Dawood Ibrahim's ill-gotten wealth through his "successful business ventures."


title: K. Asif

text: Asif's fourth and last wife was Akhtar, the younger sister of actor Dilip Kumar. Asif and Akhtar became acquainted with each other since Asif used to visit Dilip Kumar's house frequently during the making of Mughal-i-Azam. It is said that Dilip Kumar was extremely unhappy about his sister marrying Asif, and the consequent rift between Dilip Kumar and Asif never healed. Akhtar Begum and Asif remained married until his death in 1971. It was Akhtar Begum who ensured the completion and release of Asif's last movie, "Love and God," which was released in 1986, fifteen years after Asif's death.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Defence Intelligence (DI) is an organisation within the United Kingdom intelligence community which focuses on gathering and analysing military intelligence. It differs from the UK's intelligence agencies (MI6, GCHQ and MI5) in that it is an integral part of a government department – the Ministry of Defence (MoD) – rather than a stand-alone organisation. The organisation employs a mixture of civilian and military staff and is funded within the UK's defence budget. The organisation was formerly known as the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), but changed its name in 2009.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: The primary role of Defence Intelligence is that of 'all-source' intelligence analysis. This discipline draws information from a variety of overt and covert sources to provide the intelligence needed to support military operations, contingency planning, and to inform defence policy and procurement decisions. The maintenance of the ability to give timely strategic warning of politico-military and scientific and technical developments with the potential to affect UK interests is a vital part of the process. DI's assessments are used outside the MoD to support the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and to assist the work of other Government departments (OGDs) and international partners (such as NATO and the European Union). It is this 'all-source' function which distinguishes Defence Intelligence from other organisations such as SIS and GCHQ which focus on the collection of 'single-source' Human Intelligence (HUMINT) and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) respectively. As such Defence Intelligence occupies a unique position within the UK intelligence community.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Defence Intelligence is headed up by the Chief of Defence, currently Adrian Bird who replaced General James Hockenhull after his appointment as Commander, Strategic Command


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Defence Intelligence can trace its history back to 1873 with the formation of the Intelligence Branch of the British War Office, which, in 1888, became the Directorate of Military Intelligence. The Committee of Imperial Defence, established in 1902, had the task of co-ordinating the different armed services on issues of military strategy intelligence assessments and estimates.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: During World War I (1914–1918), "Military Intelligence" (MI) departments, such as MI1 for the secretariat of the Director of Military Intelligence (now GCHQ), were responsible for various intelligence gathering functions. Many of the original MI departments, such as MI4 (Aerial Photography) were renamed or eventually subsumed into Defence Intelligence.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Shortly after the 1945 end of the Second World War, the topographical department of the War Office was transformed into the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB), and its director, Sir Kenneth Strong, became a full member of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) in January 1947. The JIB was structured into a series of divisions: procurement (JIB 1), geographic (JIB 2 and JIB 3), defences, ports and beaches (JIB 4), airfields (JIB 5), key points (JIB 6), oil (JIB 7) and telecommunications (JIB 8).


title: Defence Intelligence

text: When the Ministry of Defence (MOD) formed in 1964, Naval Intelligence, Military Intelligence and Air Intelligence combined to form the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). Although the DIS focussed initially on Cold-War issues, more recently its attention has moved to support for overseas operations, to weapons of mass destruction and to international counter-terrorism activities.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Defence Intelligence has regularly released intelligence information, including information on the course of the war. The Russian government accuses the UK Government of a targeted disinformation campaign.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Defence Intelligence is headed by the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI) who is either a serving three-star military officer or a Senior Civil Servant and who, as the MOD's 'intelligence process owner', is also responsible for the overall co-ordination of intelligence activities throughout the Armed Forces and single Service Commands. He is supported by two deputies—one civilian and one military. The civilian Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence (DCDI) is responsible for Defence Intelligence analysis and production and the military Director of Cyber Intelligence and Information Integration (DCI3) is responsible for intelligence collection and capability.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: DCDI manages the intelligence analysis and production directorates of Defence Intelligence. These include directorates for:


title: Defence Intelligence

text: DCDI is responsible for intelligence analysis and production, providing global defence intelligence assessments and strategic warning on a wide range of issues including, intelligence support for operations; proliferation and arms control; conventional military capabilities; strategic warning and technical evaluations of weapons systems. These intelligence assessments draw upon classified information provided by GCHQ, SIS, the Security Service, Allied intelligence services and military collection assets, in addition to diplomatic reporting and a wide range of publicly available or ‘open source’ information such as media reporting and the internet.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: DCI3 is responsible for the provision of specialised intelligence, imagery and geographic support services, and for the intelligence and security training of the Armed Forces. In addition to a Head Office policy staff he is responsible for two major groupings within Defence Intelligence:


title: Defence Intelligence

text: The JFIG was established in 2012 under the new Joint Forces Command and superseded the Intelligence Collection Group (ICG). Making up the largest sub-element of Defence Intelligence, JFIG is responsible for the collection of signals, geospatial, imagery and measurement and signature intelligence and comprises:


title: Defence Intelligence

text: The National Centre for Geospatial Intelligence (NCGI) is based at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire (since moving from RAF Brampton in 2013) and provides specialist imagery intelligence to the armed forces and other UK government customers. They deliver this through the exploitation of satellite imaging systems, as well as airborne and ground-based collection systems. NCGI uses these sources, together with advanced technologies, to provide regional intelligence assessments and support to strategic intelligence projections.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: The Defence HUMINT Organisation (DHO) is a Tri-Service organisation that provides specialist support to military operations. The DHO manages strategic aspects of defence human intelligence and is under the command of a Colonel. It draws staff from across the three services.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: The Joint Services Signals Organisation (JSSO) conducts research into new communications systems and techniques in order to provide operational support to static and deployed units. The JSSO is based at RAF Digby in Lincolnshire under the command of a Group Captain with some 1,600 staff drawn from all three services.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: The Joint Intelligence Training Group (JITG), at Chicksands, Bedfordshire, provides a single defence focal point for intelligence, security, languages and photography training in the UK, though photography training is carried out at the Defence School of Photography (DSoP) at RAF Cosford. The organisation consists of a headquarters, the Defence College of Intelligence and a specialist operational intelligence capability. JITG is co-located with the headquarters of the British Army's Intelligence Corps.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Support to operations: DI plays an integral part in the planning process throughout all stages of military operations, by providing intelligence collection and analysis at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. Examples of the support DI has provided to operations are:


title: Defence Intelligence

text: DI has deployed intelligence analysts, linguists and reservists overseas, and provide geographic support by supplying both standard and specialised mapping to overseas theatres.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Support to contingency planning for operations: DI provides intelligence data and all source assessments that assist in preparations for future situations with the potential to require the commitment of UK Armed Forces. These products, which cover political and military developments, country and cultural information, critical infrastructure and internal security, all aid contingency planning.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Provision of early warning: A fundamental responsibility of Defence Intelligence is to alert ministers, chiefs of staff, senior officials and defence planners to impending crises around the world. Such warning is vital for short and medium term planning. DI meets this responsibility by focusing on current areas and topics of concern, highlighting the effects of changing circumstances, predicting security and stability trends, and assessing how these trends may develop. The assessments are distributed to decision-makers throughout the MOD, the Armed Forces, other government departments, allies, and UK Embassies and High Commissions.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Provision of longer-term analysis of emerging threats: Defence Intelligence provides longer-term assessments of likely scenarios around the world where UK Armed Forces might need to operate and of the equipment that they might face. It also provides technical support to the development of future military equipment and to the development of countermeasures against potentially hostile systems.


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Direction: The Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI) receives direction from the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and Permanent Under Secretary (PUS) on MOD's Intelligence needs and draws national guidance from the Cabinet Office Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC).


title: Defence Intelligence

text: Analysis and production: Intelligence assessments are written to meet the needs of customers and must be timely and relevant. The assessment process involves judging the authenticity and reliability of new information and its relevance to existing intelligence. Assessments focus on probable and possible outcomes, to provide the best available advice for developing a response or resolution. They are continually adjusted in light of new intelligence or events.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: Rehabilitation (, transliterated in English as "reabilitatsiya" or academically rendered as "reabilitacija") was a term used in the context of the former Soviet Union and the post-Soviet states. Beginning after the death of Stalin in 1953, the government undertook the political and social restoration, or political rehabilitation, of persons who had been repressed and criminally prosecuted without due basis. It restored the person to the state of acquittal. In many cases, rehabilitation was posthumous, as thousands of victims had been executed or died in labor camps.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: The government also rehabilitated several minority populations which it had relocated under Stalin, and allowed them to return to their former territories and in some cases restored their autonomy in those regions.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: The government started mass amnesty of the victims of Soviet repressions after the death of Joseph Stalin. In 1953, this did not entail any form of exoneration. The government released those who were granted amnesty into internal exile in remote areas, without any right to return to their original places of settlement.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: The amnesty was applied first for those who had been sentenced for a term of at most 5 years and had been prosecuted for non-political articles in the Soviet Criminal Code (for example, children of those repressed on political grounds were often prosecuted as "antisocial elements", i.e., on the same grounds as prostitutes). In 1954, the government began to release many political prisoners from Gulag labor camps.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, then in the position of First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, denounced Stalinism in his notable speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences". Afterward, the government accompanied release of political prisoners with rehabilitation, allowing them to return home and reclaim their lives.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: Several entire nationality groups had been deported to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia during population transfer; these were also rehabilitated in the late 1950s. The government allowed many of those groups to return to their former homelands and restored their former autonomous regions. It did not restore territory to the Volga Germans and Crimean Tatars.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: In most cases, the persons were released with the phrases "due to the lack of a criminal matter", "for lack of corpus delicti", "based on previously unavailable information", "due to the lack of a proof of guilt", etc. Many rehabilitations occurred posthumously, as thousands had been executed by Stalin's government or died in the harsh conditions of the labor camps.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: Many individuals were subject to amnesty only, but not to rehabilitation (in particular those who had been prosecuted for "belonging to Trotskyite Opposition").


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: Another wave of rehabilitations started about 1986 with emerging Soviet policy of "perestroika". Persons who were repressed extrajudicially were summarily rehabilitated. Also, Soviet civilian and military justice continued to rehabilitate victims of Stalin's purges (posthumously), as well as some people repressed after Stalin. After dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991, this trend continued in most post-Soviet states.. Leon Trotsky (murdered in 1940) was rehabilitated on June 16, 2001.


title: Rehabilitation (Soviet)

text: Both the modern Russian Federation and Ukraine have enacted laws "On the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repressions", which provide the basis for the continued post-Stalinist rehabilitation of victims.


title: Emma Wray

text: Emma Wray (born Gillian Elizabeth Wray, 22 March 1965 in Birkenhead (Cheshire, now Merseyside) is an English television actress. She attended the Merseyside Council-funded Glenda Jackson Theatre whilst still at Park High School in Birkenhead; she went on to study Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama from 1983 to 1986, and was given her first leading TV role two months after receiving her BA.


title: Emma Wray

text: She is best known for starring as Brenda Wilson in the Granada Television sitcom "Watching" between 1987 and 1993, for which she also sang the theme tune "What Does He See In Me?" She also played a major role in Yorkshire Television's "Stay Lucky" throughout the same period, along with roles in many TV series such as "Boon" and "Minder", and TV films including "Defrosting the Fridge". After several years away from television, she returned to primetime TV in 1996 with the lead role in the drama comedy "True Love", created by "Men Behaving Badly" writer Simon Nye. Nye adapted the drama into the series "My Wonderful Life", which co-starred Elizabeth Berrington and Tony Robinson and ran for three series from 1996 to 1999.


title: Giriraj Singh

text: Giriraj Singh (born 8 September 1952) is an Indian politician and the Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department in the 23rd Ministry of the Republic of India with a cabinet minister rank. He is the Member of Parliament from the Begusarai Loksabha constituency in the 17th Lok Sabha. He has also formerly served as Minister of Cooperative, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Resources Development in the Government of Bihar.


title: Giriraj Singh

text: Giriraj Singh was born in Barahiya town in Lakhisarai district of Bihar to Ramavtar Singh and Tara Devi. He graduated from Magadh University in 1971. He is married to Uma Sinha and has a daughter.


title: Giriraj Singh

text: Singh served in the government of Bihar as Co-Operative Minister from 2005 to 2010 and as Animal Husbandry minister from 2010 to 2013. He has been a staunch supporter of Narendra Modi from the beginning. He publicly supported Modi for Prime Minister for a long time. He was among the eleven BJP ministers who were dismissed by Nitish Kumar as a result of breaking the JDU-BJP alliance. He was a member of the Bihar State Bharatiya Janata Party's 16-member state election committee and a State Minister (independent charge) of the "Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises ", MP from Nawada Constituency (2014 Indian General Election).


title: Giriraj Singh

text: In May 2019, he became the Cabinet Minister of the newly formed Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries after defeating CPI candidate Kanhaiya Kumar in the 2019 Indian general election.


title: Giriraj Singh

text: In July 2021, he became Minister of Rural Development and Minister of Panchayati Raj in Second Modi ministry after the Cabinet reshuffle replacing Narendra Singh Tomar.


title: Tuborg Brewery

text: Tuborg is a Danish brewing company founded in 1873 on a harbour in Hellerup, an area North of Copenhagen, Denmark. Since 1970 it has been part of the Carlsberg Group. The brewery's flagship, the Tuborg pilsner, was brewed for the first time in 1880.


title: Tuborg Brewery

text: The name "Tuborg" comes from "Thuesborg" ("Thue's castle"), a Copenhagen inn from the 1690s situated in the area of the brewery. This evolved and was adopted into local placenames, such as "Lille Tuborg" and "Store Tuborg". "Tuborgvej" in Copenhagen is named after the site of the original Tuborg brewery.


title: Tuborg Brewery

text: Philip Heyman (5 November 1837 – 15 December 1893) was a Danish-Jewish industrialist who co-founded in 1873 the Tuborg Brewery, together with C. F. Tietgen, Gustav Brock [da] and Rudolph Puggaard. After Heyman's death, the Tuborg Brewery merged with "De Forenede Bryggerier" in 1894, which through this way entered into a profit-sharing agreement with Carlsberg in 1903. In the company, after the founder's death, the CEO was his Jewish son-in-law, Benny Dessau, and was then run by his widow and also his son Aage Philip Heyman.


title: Tuborg Brewery

text: Tuborg sells a variety of beers in over 31 countries. These varieties include Tuborg Green, Tuborg Lemon, Tuborg Christmas beer, Tuborg Gold, Tuborg Red, Tuborg Twist, Tuborg Black, and Tuborg Fine Festival.


title: Tuborg Brewery

text: Tuborg Red was the first beer brewed by the company, in 1875. Tuborg Red is not brewed regularly but is produced once each May to salute the company's birthday. The brewery has distributed Tuborg Squash since 1936.


title: Tuborg Brewery

text: In 1990 Tuborg launched their annual Christmas brew on the second Wednesday in November, with the marketing term "J-day"; "snestorm" (blizzard) and "snefald" (snowfall) are also used. 'J' stands for Jul (Christmas) or julebryg (Christmas brew). Similarly, there is a P-day for påskebryg (Easter brew). In 1999, J-day moved to the first Friday in November. Traffic police laid out an alcohol control plan for that evening. In 2009 J-day was moved again to the last Friday in October, but in 2010 it returned to the first Friday in November.


title: Tuborg Brewery

text: In 2008, Tuborg announced a sponsorship deal with Reading and Leeds music festivals to become their exclusive Official Beer Partner, a position held in previous years by Carling. In 2009, it also arranged an exclusive deal with The Download festival to be the official beer and have a dedicated stage named after the beer.


title: Tuborg Brewery

text: Tuborg also sponsors the Tuborg Image Awards, an annual music award presentation that takes place in Nepal.


title: 2017 UEFA Super Cup

text: The 2017 UEFA Super Cup was the 42nd edition of the UEFA Super Cup, an annual football match organised by UEFA and contested by the reigning champions of the two main European club competitions, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League. The match featured Spanish side Real Madrid, the title holders and winners of the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League, and English side Manchester United, the winners of the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League. The match was played at the Philip II Arena in Skopje, Macedonia, on 8 August 2017, and was the first UEFA final staged in the country.


title: 2017 UEFA Super Cup

text: While the two teams had never met in the Super Cup, they had met 10 times in the European Champion Clubs' Cup/UEFA Champions League; Real Madrid had the advantage in the teams' previous meetings, with four wins, four draws and two losses.


title: 2017 UEFA Super Cup

text: The Philip II Arena was announced as the final venue on 30 June 2015, following the decision of the UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Prague, Czech Republic.


title: 2017 UEFA Super Cup

text: With a stadium capacity of 30,500 for the match, a total number of 23,000 tickets were available to fans and the general public, being available for sale to fans worldwide via UEFA.com from 13 June to 4 July 2017 in three price categories: €50, €30, and €15. The remaining tickets were allocated to the local organising committee, UEFA and national associations, commercial partners and broadcasters.


title: 2017 UEFA Super Cup

text: In the 16th minute, Casemiro headed against the bar after a corner from the left-hand side by Toni Kroos, before opening the scoring eight minutes later with a left-footed strike after a pass into the box from Dani Carvajal. Isco made it 2–0 in the 52nd minute when he side-footed the ball into the bottom corner of the net from six yards after a pass from Gareth Bale. In the 61st minute, Bale hit the bar with a shot from the right of the penalty area. Romelu Lukaku pulled a goal back for Manchester United a minute later when he followed up on an initial shot from Nemanja Matić, which was parried back into his path by Keylor Navas.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Transplant rejection occurs when transplanted tissue is rejected by the recipient's immune system, which destroys the transplanted tissue. Transplant rejection can be lessened by determining the molecular similitude between donor and recipient and by use of immunosuppressant drugs after transplant.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Transplant rejection can be classified into three types: hyperacute, acute, and chronic. These types are differentiated by how quickly the recipient's immune system is activated and the specific aspect or aspects of immunity involved.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Hyperacute rejection is a form of rejection that manifests itself in the minutes to hours following transplantation. It is caused by the presence of pre-existing antibodies in the recipient that recognize antigens in the donor organ. These antigens are located on the endothelial lining of blood vessels within the transplanted organ and, once antibodies bind, will lead to the rapid activation of the complement system. Irreversible damage via thrombosis and subsequent graft necrosis is to be expected. Tissue left implanted will fail to work and could lead to high fever and malaise as immune system acts against foreign tissue.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Graft failure secondary to hyperacute rejection has significantly decreased in incidence as a result of improved pre-transplant screening for antibodies to donor tissues. While these antibodies preformed antibodies may result from prior transplants, prior blood transfusions, or pregnancy, hyperacute rejection is most commonly from antibodies to ABO blood group antigens. Consequently, transplants between individuals with differing ABO blood types is generally avoided though may be pursued in very young children (generally under 12 months, but often as old as 24 months who do not have fully developed immune systems. Shortages of organs and the morbidity and mortality associated with being on transplant waitlists has also increased interest in ABO-incompatible transplantation in older children and adults.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Acute rejection is a category of rejection that occurs on the timescale of weeks to months, with most episodes occurring within the first 3 months to 1 year after transplantation. Unlike hyperacute rejection, acute rejection is thought to arise from two distinct immunological mechanisms as lymphocytes, a subset of white blood cells, begin to recognize antigens on transplanted organ/graft. This recognition occurs due to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which are proteins on cell surface that are presented to the T-cell receptor found on T-cells. In humans, this is known as the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system and over 17,000 HLA alleles or genetic variants have been described such that it is extremely uncommon for any two people to have identical alleles. Other non-HLA proteins, known as minor histocompatibility antigens, do exist but generally are unable to cause acute rejection in and of themselves unless a multitude of non-HLA proteins are mismatched. As such, HLA matching (in addition to matching ABO groups) is critical in preventing acute rejection.


title: Transplant rejection

text: This process of recognition by T-cells can happen directly or indirectly and lead to acute cellular and acute humoral rejection respectively. Direct allorecognition is a phenomenon within transplant immunology where the dendritic cells, which are the body's antigen-presenting cells (APCs), migrate from "donor" tissue to lymphoid tissue (lymphoid follicles and lymph nodes) in the "recipient" and present their MHC peptides to recipient lymphocytes. In comparison, indirect allorecognition is more analogous to how foreign antigens are recognized by the immune system. Dendritic cells of the "recipient" come across peptides from donor tissue whether in circulation, lymphoid tissue, or in donor tissue itself. Since not the result of direct antigen presentation, these may not necessarily be intact MHC molecules but instead other proteins that are deemed different enough from recipient may engender a response. This process leads to the priming of T-cells to respond to the peptides secondarily going forward. A third semi-direct pathway has been described in which recipient APCs present fully intact donor MHCs, yet its relative contribution to acute rejection is not as well understood.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Acute cellular rejection occurs following direct allorecognition of mismatched donor MHC by cytotoxic T-cells that begin to secrete cytokines to recruit more lymphocytes as well as cause apoptosis or cell death directly. The greater the difference in MHC between donor and recipient, the more cytotoxic T-cells are recruited to damage the graft, which may be seen via biopsy in solid organ transplants, with increased lymphocyte infiltration indicative of more severe acute cellular rejection. Acute humoral rejection is a process usually initiated by indirect allorecognition arising from recipient helper T-cells. These helper T-cells have a crucial role in the development of B-cells that can create donor-specific antibodies. The antibodies deposit themselves within the donor graft and lead to activation of the complement cascade alongside antibody-mediated cytotoxicity with neutrophils, a type of white blood cell separate from lymphocytes, predominantly infiltrating into tissues.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Barring genetically identical twins, acute rejection is to be expected to some degree. Rates of clinically significant acute rejection that could endanger transplant have decreased significantly with the development of immunosuppressive regimens. Using kidney transplants as an example, rates of acute rejection have declined from >50% in the 1970s to 10-20%. Singular episodes of acute rejection, when promptly treated, should not compromise transplant; however, repeated episodes may lead to chronic rejection.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Chronic rejection is an insidious form of rejection that leads to graft destruction over the course of months, but most often years after tissue transplantation. The mechanism for chronic rejection is yet to be fully understood, but it is known that prior acute rejection episodes are the main clinical predictor for the development of chronic rejection. In particular, the incidence increases following severe or persistent acute rejection, whereas acute rejection episodes with return to function back to baseline do not have major effects on graft survival. Chronic rejection is generally thought of as being related to either vascular damage or parenchymal damage with subsequent fibrosis. While it is unknown the exact contribution of the immune system in these processes, the indirect pathway of allorecognition and the associated antibody formation seems to be especially involved.


title: Transplant rejection

text: When examining chronic rejection, it is important to note that it has widely varied effects on different organs. At 5 years post-transplant, 80% of lung transplants, 60% of heart transplants and 50% of kidney transplants are affected, while liver transplants are only affected 10% of the time. Therefore, chronic rejection explains long-term morbidity in most lung-transplant recipients, the median survival roughly 4.7 years, about half the span versus other major organ transplants. Airflow obstruction not ascribable to other cause is labeled bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS), confirmed by a persistent drop—three or more weeks—in "forced expiratory volume" (FEV) by at least 20%. First noted is infiltration by lymphocytes, followed by epithelial cell injury, then inflammatory lesions and recruitment of fibroblasts and myofibroblasts, which proliferate and secrete proteins forming scar tissue. A similar phenomenon can be seen with liver transplant wherein fibrosis leads to jaundice secondary to the destruction of bile ducts within the liver, also known as vanishing bile duct syndrome.


title: Transplant rejection

text: One principal reason for transplant rejection is non-adherence to prescribed immunosuppressant regimens. This is particularly the case with adolescent recipients, with non-adherence rates near 50% in some instances.


title: Transplant rejection

text: A pilot study conducted by Michael O. Killian PhD from Florida State University and Dr. Dipankar Gupta from University of Florida published in April 2022 in "Pediatric Transplantation" studied the acceptability and feasibility of an asynchronous directly observed therapy mobile health application among adolescent heart transplant recipients. Patients in the study utilized emocha Health's digital medication adherence program which included asynchronous video messages and chat messages exchanged with a care team. Patients completing the study achieved a 90.1% adherence rate. The researchers noted that further randomized trials are required to confirm the initial findings. However, the results were very promising considering few options exist to support pediatric patients in taking their medications.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Diagnosis of acute rejection relies on clinical data—patient signs and symptoms but also calls on laboratory data such as blood or even tissue biopsy. The laboratory pathologist generally seeks three main histological signs: (1) infiltrating T cells, perhaps accompanied by infiltrating eosinophils, plasma cells, and neutrophils, particularly in telltale ratios, (2) structural compromise of tissue anatomy, varying by tissue type transplanted, and (3) injury to blood vessels. Tissue biopsy is restricted, however, by sampling limitations and risks/complications of the invasive procedure. Cellular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of immune cells radiolabeled "in vivo" might—similarly to Gene Expression Profiling (GEP)—offer noninvasive testing.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Hyperacute rejection manifests severely and within minutes, and so treatment is immediate: removal of the tissue. Acute rejection is treated with one or several of a few strategies. Despite treatment, rejection remains a major cause of transplant failure. Chronic rejection is generally considered irreversible and poorly amenable to treatment—only retransplant generally indicated if feasible—though inhaled ciclosporin is being investigated to delay or prevent chronic rejection of lung transplants.


title: Transplant rejection

text: A short course of high-dose corticosteroids can be applied, and repeated. "Triple therapy" adds a calcineurin inhibitor and an anti-proliferative agent. Where calcineurin inhibitors or steroids are contraindicated, mTOR inhibitors are used.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Antibody specific to select immune components can be added to immunosuppressive therapy. The monoclonal anti-T cell antibody OKT3, once used to prevent rejection, and still occasionally used to treat severe acute rejection, has fallen into disfavor, as it commonly brings severe cytokine release syndrome and late post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder. (OKT3 is available in the United Kingdom for named-patient use only.)


title: Transplant rejection

text: Cases refractory to immunosuppressive or antibody therapy are sometimes treated with photopheresis, or extracorporeal photoimmune therapy (ECP), to remove antibody molecules specific to the transplanted tissue.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Bone marrow transplant can replace the transplant recipient's immune system with the donor's, and the recipient accepts the new organ without rejection. The marrow's hematopoietic stem cells—the reservoir of stem cells replenishing exhausted blood cells including white blood cells forming the immune system—must be of the individual who donated the organ or of an identical twin or a clone. There is a risk of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), however, whereby mature lymphocytes entering with marrow recognize the new host tissues as foreign and destroy them.


title: Transplant rejection

text: Gene therapy is another method that can be used. In this method, the genes that cause the body to reject transplants would be deactivated. Research is still being conducted, and no gene therapies are being used to date to treat patients. Current research tends to focus on Th1 and Th17 which mediate allograft rejection via the CD4 and CD8 T cells.


title: Shapur II

text: Shapur II ( ; New Persian: , "Šāpur", 309 – 379), also known as Shapur the Great, was the tenth Sasanian King of Kings (Shahanshah) of Iran. The longest-reigning monarch in Iranian history, he reigned for the entirety of his 70-year life, from 309 to 379. He was the son of Hormizd II (r. 302–309).


title: Shapur II

text: His reign saw the military resurgence of the country, and the expansion of its territory, which marked the start of the first Sasanian golden era. He is thus along with Shapur I, Kavad I and Khosrow I, regarded as one of the most illustrious Sasanian kings. His three direct successors, on the other hand, were less successful. At the age of 16, he launched enormously successful military campaigns against Arab insurrections and tribes who knew him as 'Dhū'l-Aktāf" ("he who pierces shoulders").


title: Shapur II

text: Shapur II pursued a harsh religious policy. Under his reign, the collection of the Avesta, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, was completed, heresy and apostasy were punished, and Christians were persecuted. The latter was a reaction against the Christianization of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great. Shapur II, like Shapur I, was amicable towards Jews, who lived in relative freedom and gained many advantages in his period ("see also Rava"). At the time of Shapur's death, the Sasanian Empire was stronger than ever, with its enemies to the east pacified and Armenia under Sasanian control.


title: Shapur II

text: "Shapur" was a popular name in Sasanian Iran, being used by three Sasanian monarchs and other notables of the Sasanian era and its later periods. Derived from Old Iranian "*xšayaθiya.puθra" ("son of a king"), it must initially have been a title, which became—at least in the late 2nd century AD—a personal name. It appears in the list of Arsacid kings in some Arabic-Persian sources, however, this is anachronistic. Shapur is transliterated in other languages as; Greek "Sapur", "Sabour" and "Sapuris"; Latin "Sapores" and "Sapor"; Arabic "Sābur" and "Šābur"; New Persian "Šāpur", "Šāhpur", "Šahfur".


title: Shapur II

text: When Hormizd II died in 309, he was succeeded by his son Adur Narseh, who, after a brief reign which lasted few months, was killed by some of the nobles of the empire. They then blinded the second, and imprisoned the third (Hormizd, who afterwards escaped to the Roman Empire). The throne was reserved for the unborn child of Hormizd II's wife Ifra Hormizd, which was Shapur II. It is said that Shapur II may have been the only king in history to be crowned "in utero", as the legend claims that the crown was placed upon his mother's womb while she was pregnant.


title: Shapur II

text: This story has been challenged: according to Alireza Shapour Shahbazi, it is unlikely that Shapur was crowned as king while still in his mother's womb, since the nobles could not have known of his sex at that time; however, Edward Gibbon relates that the Magi had prophesied that the child would be a boy. Shahbazi further states that Shapur was born forty days after his father's death, and that the nobles killed Adur Narseh and crowned Shapur II in order to gain greater control of the empire, which they were able to do until Shapur II reached his maturity at the age of 16.


title: Shapur II

text: During the childhood of Shapur II, Arab nomads raided the Sasanian homeland of Pars, particularly the district of Ardashir-Khwarrah and the shore of the Persian Gulf. At the age of 16, Shapur II led an expedition against the Arabs; primarily campaigning against the Iyad tribe in Asoristan and thereafter he crossed the Persian Gulf, reaching al-Khatt, modern Qatif, or present eastern Saudi Arabia. He then attacked the Banu Tamim in the Al Hajar Mountains. Shapur II reportedly killed a large number of the Arab population and destroyed their water supplies by stopping their wells with sand.


title: Shapur II

text: After having dealt with the Arabs of eastern Arabia, he continued his expedition into western Arabia and Syria, where he attacked several cities—he even went as far as Medina. Because of his cruel way of dealing with the Arabs, he was called "Dhū'l-Aktāf" ("he who pierces shoulders") by them. Not only did Shapur II pacify the Arabs of the Persian Gulf, but he also pushed many Arab tribes further deep into the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, he also deported some Arab tribes by force; the Taghlib to Bahrain and al-Khatt; the Banu Abdul Qays and Banu Tamim to Hajar; the Banu Bakr to Kirman, and the Banu Hanzalah to a place near Hormizd-Ardashir. Shapur II, in order to prevent the Arabs from making more raids into his country, ordered the construction of a wall near al-Hira, which became known as "war-i tāzigān" ("wall of the Arabs").


title: Shapur II

text: With Eastern Arabia more firmly under Sasanian control, and with the establishment of Sasanian garrison troops, the way for Zoroastrianism was opened. Pre-Islamic Arabian poets often makes mention of Zoroastrianism practices, which they must have either made contact with in Asoristan or Eastern Arabia. The Lakhmid ruler Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr, who was originally a vassal of the Sasanians, may have suffered from Shapur II's raids in Peninsula. He seemingly swore fealty to the Romans, possibly after the incident.


title: Shapur II

text: Ever since the "humilating" Peace of Nisibis concluded between Shapur's grandfather Narseh and the Roman emperor Diocletian in 299, the borders between the two empires had changed largely in favor of the Romans, who in the treaty received a handful of provinces in Mesopotamia, changing the border from the Euphrates to the Tigris, close to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon. The Romans also received control over the kingdoms of Iberia and Armenia, and gained control over parts of upper Media in Iran proper. Shapur's primary objective was thus to nullify the treaty, which he spent much of his reign in order to accomplish.


title: Shapur II

text: Another reason behind his motives to wage war against the Romans was due their attempts to meddle in the domestic affairs of the Sasanian Empire and hurt Shapur's kingship by supporting his brother Hormizd, who had been well received at the Roman court by Constantine the Great, who made him a cavalry commander. Shapur had made fruitless attempts to satisfy his brother, even having his wife sent to him, who had originally helped him escape imprisonment. However, Hormizd had already become an avid "philhellene" during his stay with the Romans, with whom he felt at home. Another reason was due to Constantine, who at his deathbed in 337, had declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. He had also selected himself as the defender of all the Christians in the world, including those living in the Sasanian realm.


title: Shapur II

text: In 337, just before the death of Constantine the Great (324–337), Shapur II, provoked by the Roman rulers' backing of Roman Armenia, broke the peace concluded in 297 between emperors Narseh (293–302) and Diocletian (284–305), which had been observed for forty years. This was the beginning of two long drawn-out wars (337–350 and 358-363) which were inadequately recorded.


title: Shapur II

text: After crushing a rebellion in the south, Shapur II invaded Roman Mesopotamia and captured Armenia. Apparently, nine major battles were fought. The most renowned was the inconclusive Battle of Singara (modern Sinjar, Iraq) in which Constantius II was at first successful, capturing the Persian camp, only to be driven out by a surprise night attack after Shapur had rallied his troops (344-or 348?). The most notable feature of this war was the consistently successful defence of the Roman fortress city of Nisibis in Mesopotamia. Shapur besieged the city thrice (in 338, 346, 350 CE), and was repulsed each time.


title: Shapur II

text: Although victorious in battle, Shapur II could make no further progress with Nisibis un-taken. At the same time he was attacked in the east by Scythian Massagetae and other Central Asia nomads. He had to break off the war with the Romans and arrange a hasty truce in order to pay attention to the east (350). Roughly around this time the Hunnic tribes, most likely the Kidarites, whose king was Grumbates, make an appearance as an encroaching threat upon Sasanian territory as well as a menace to the Gupta Empire (320-500 CE). After a prolonged struggle (353–358) they were forced to conclude a peace, and Grumbates agreed to enlist his light cavalrymen into the Persian army and accompany Shapur II in renewed war against the Romans, particularly participating in the Siege of Amida in 359.


title: Shapur II

text: In 358 Shapur II was ready for his second series of wars against Rome, which met with much more success. In 359, Shapur II invaded southern Armenia, but was held up by the valiant Roman defence of the fortress of Amida (now Diyarbakır, Turkey), which finally surrendered in 359 after a seventy-three-day siege in which the Persian army suffered great losses. The delay forced Shapur to halt operations for the winter. Early the following spring he continued his operations against the Roman fortresses, capturing Singara and Bezabde (Cizre?), again at a heavy cost. In the next year Constantius II launched a counterattack, having spent the winter making massive preparations in Constantinople; Shapur, who had meanwhile lost the aid of his Asianic allies, avoided battle, but left strong garrisons in all the fortresses which he had captured. Constantius laid siege to Bazabde, but proved incapable of taking it, and retired on the approach of winter to Antioch, where he died soon after.


title: Shapur II

text: Constantius was succeeded by his cousin, Julian the Apostate, who came to the throne determined to avenge the recent Roman reverses in the east. Though Shapur attempted an honorable reconciliation, warned of the capabilities which Julian had displayed in wars against the Alemans in Gaul, the emperor dismissed negotiation.


title: Shapur II

text: In 363 the Emperor Julian (361–363), at the head of a strong army, advanced to Shapur's capital city of Ctesiphon and defeated a presumably larger Sassanian force at the Battle of Ctesiphon; however, he was unable to take the fortified city, or engage with the main Persian army under Shapur II that was approaching. Julian was killed by the enemy in a skirmish during his retreat back to Roman territory. His successor Jovian (363–364) made an ignominious peace in which the districts beyond the Tigris which had been acquired in 298 were given to the Persians along with Nisibis and Singara, and the Romans promised to interfere no more in Armenia. The great success is represented in the rock-sculptures near the town Bishapur in Pars (Stolze, "Persepolis", p. 141); under the hooves of the king's horse lies the body of an enemy, probably Julian, and a supplicant Roman, the Emperor Jovian, asks for peace.


title: Shapur II

text: According to the peace treaty between Shapur and Jovian, Georgia and Armenia were to be ceded to Sasanian control, and the Romans forbidden from further involvement in the affairs of Armenia. Under this agreement Shapur assumed control over Armenia and took its King Arsaces II (Arshak II), the faithful ally of the Romans, as prisoner, and held him in the Castle of Oblivion (Fortress of Andməš in Armenian or Castle of Anyuš in Ḵuzestān). Supposedly, Arsaces then committed suicide during a visit by his eunuch Drastamat. Shapur attempted to introduce Zoroastrian orthodoxy into Armenia. However, the Armenian nobles resisted him successfully, secretly supported by the Romans, who sent King Papas (Pap), the son of Arsaces II, into Armenia. The war with Rome threatened to break out again, but the Roman emperor Valens sacrificed Pap, arranging for his assassination in Tarsus, where he had taken refuge (374).


title: Shapur II

text: In Georgia, then known as Iberia, where the Sasanians were also given control, Shapur II installed Aspacures II of Iberia in the east; however, in western Georgia, Valens also succeeded in setting up his own king, Sauromaces II of Iberia.


title: Shapur II

text: Shapur II had conducted great hosts of captives from the Roman territory into his dominions, most of whom were settled in Elam. Here he rebuilt Susa - after having killed the city's rebellious inhabitants.


title: Shapur II

text: In the east around 350 CE, Shapur II gained the upper hand against the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom and took control of large territories in areas now known as Afghanistan and Pakistan, possibly as a consequence of the destruction of the Kushano-Sasanians by the Chionites. The Kushano-Sasanian still ruled in the north. Important finds of Sasanian coinage beyond the Indus river in the city of Taxila only start with the reigns of Shapur II (r. 309-379) and Shapur III (r. 383-388), suggesting that the expansion of Sasanian control beyond the Indus was the result of the wars of Shapur II "with the Chionites and Kushans" from 350 to 358 CE as described by Ammianus Marcellinus. During the last phase of the reign of Shapur II, a Sasanian mint was established south of the Hindu Kush, the role of which was probably to pay local troops. The Sasanians probably maintained control until Bactria fell to the Kidarites under their ruler Kidara around 360 CE, and Kabulistan fell to the Alchon Huns circa 385 CE.


title: Shapur II

text: In the area of Sindh, from Multan to the mouth of the Indus river, an important series of gold coins started to be issued on the model of the coinage of Shapur II, and would continue down to Peroz I. The coins are not the usual Sasanian imperial type, and the legend around the portrait tends to be degraded Middle Persian in the Pahlavi script, but they have the Brahmi script character "Sri" (meaning "Lord") in front of the portrait of the King. The coins suggest some sort of Sasanian control of Sind from the time of Shapur II, and a recognition of Sasanian overlordship, but the precise extent of the Sasanian presence or influence is unknown.


title: Shapur II

text: Confrontations with nomadic tribes from Central Asia soon started to occur. Ammianus Marcellinus reports that in 356 CE, Shapur II was taking his winter quarters on his eastern borders, "repelling the hostilities of the bordering tribes" of the Chionites and the Euseni ("Euseni" is usually amended to "Cuseni", meaning the Kushans), finally making a treaty of alliance with the Chionites and the Gelani in 358 CE.


title: Shapur II

text: From around 360 CE however, during his reign, the Sasanids lost the control of Bactria to invaders from the north, first the Kidarites, then the Hephthalites and the Alchon Huns, who would follow up with the invasion of India. These invaders initially issued coins based on Sasanian designs. Various coins minted in Bactria and based on a Sasanian designs are known, often with busts imitating Sasanian kings Shapur II (r. 309 to 379 CE) and Shapur III (r. 383 to 388 CE), adding the Alchon Tamgha and the name "Alchono" in Bactrian script on the obverse, and with attendants to a fire altar on the reverse.


title: Shapur II

text: Shapur died in 379 and was succeeded by his slightly younger brother Ardashir II, who agreed to rule till Shapur's son Shapur III reached adulthood. By Shapur's death the Sasanian Empire was stronger than ever before, considerably larger than when he came to the throne, the eastern and western enemies were pacified and Persia had gained control over Armenia. He is regarded as one of the most important Sassanian kings along with Shapur I and Khosrow I, and could after a long period of instability regain the old strength of the Empire. His three successors, however, were less successful than he. Furthermore, his death marked the start of a 125-year-long conflict between the "wuzurgan", a powerful group of nobility, and the kings, who both struggled for power over Iran.


title: Shapur II

text: Initially, Shapur II was not hostile to his Christian subjects, who were led by Shemon Bar Sabbae, the Patriarch of the Church of the East, however, the conversion of Constantine the Great to Christianity caused Shapur to start distrusting his Christian subjects. He started seeing them as agents of a foreign enemy. The wars between the Sasanian and Roman empires turned Shapur's mistrust into hostility. After the death of Constantine, Shapur II, who had been preparing for a war against the Romans for several years, imposed a double tax on his Christian subjects to finance the conflict. Shemon, however, refused to pay the double tax. Shapur started pressuring Shemon and his clergy to convert to Zoroastrianism, which they refused to do. It was during this period the 'cycle of the martyrs' began during which 'many thousands of Christians' were put to death. During the following years, Shemon's successors, Shahdost and Barba'shmin, were also martyred.


title: Shapur II

text: Barbasceminus, bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon from 342, was executed on 14 January 346 with sixteen of his clergy.


title: Shapur II

text: A near-contemporary 5th century Christian work, the "Ecclesiastical History" of Sozomen, contains considerable detail on the Persian Christians martyred under Shapur II. Sozomen estimates the total number of Christians killed as follows:


title: Shapur II

text: According to Ammianus Marcellinus, Shapur II fought the Romans in order to "re-conquer what had belonged to his ancestor". It is not known who Shapur II thought his ancestor was, probably the Achaemenids or the legendary Kayanian dynasty. During the reign of Shapur II, the title of "the divine Mazda-worshipping, king of kings of the Iranians, whose image/seed is from the gods" disappears from the coins that were minted. He was also the last Sasanian king to claim lineage from the gods.


title: Shapur II

text: Under Shapur II, coins were minted in copper, silver and gold, however, a great amount of the copper coins were made on Roman planchet, which is most likely from the riches that the Sasanians took from the Romans. The weight of the coins also changed from 7.20 g to 4.20 g.


title: Shapur II

text: Besides the construction of the "war-i tāzigān" near al-Hira, Shapur II is also known to have created several other cities. He created a royal city called Eranshahr-Shapur, where he settled Roman prisoners of war. He also rebuilt and repopulated Nisibis in 363 with people from Istakhr and Spahan. In Asoristan, he founded Wuzurg-Shapur ("Great Shapur"), a city on the west side of the Tigris. He also rebuilt Susa after having destroyed it when suppressing a revolt, renaming it Eran-Khwarrah-Shapur ("Iran's glory [built by] Shapur").


title: Shapur II

text: Under Shapur II's reign the collection of the "Avesta" was completed, heresy and apostasy punished, and the Christians persecuted (see Abdecalas, Acepsimas of Hnaita and Abda of Kashkar). This was a reaction against the Christianization of the Roman Empire by Constantine.


title: Shapur II

text: According to Armenian and primary sources, the Sasanian shahs revered the sun and the moon, with Roman sources stating that Shapur II asserted to be the "brother of the Sun and the Moon" (Latin: "frater Solis et Lunae"). This is however not mentioned in Sasanian sources, which implies that there are two possibilities; one that it is regarding about the angelic divinity Mithra, whilst the other one being that it may be an Indo-Iranian characteristic where the shahs considered their ancestors descendants of Manuchehr (Indic Manu) and his father Wiwahvant (Indic Vivasvant), who were in India associated with the Moon and the Sun.


title: Shapur II

text: Shapur's own religious beliefs does not seem to have been very strict; he restored the family cult of Anahita in Istakhr and was possibly an adherent of Zurvanism as well as promoting the official orthodox variant of Zoroastrianism.


title: Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo

text: It is based on the manga "Itazura Na Kiss" written and illustrated by Tada Kaoru. The Japanese soap opera is the fifth television adaptation of the manga, following the Japanese live-action "Itazura na Kiss" in 1996, the Taiwanese "It Started with a Kiss" in 2005, its sequel "They Kiss Again" in 2007, Korean "Playful Kiss" in 2010, the Thai "kiss me" in 2015, and the Chinese "Miss in Kiss" in 2016.


title: Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo

text: Kotoko Aihara (Honoka Yahagi) isn't very intelligent and lacks ability in school. She is in class F, the least intelligent class in her grade. Despite this, she has been in love with the school's most handsome and most intelligent guy, Naoki Irie (Yuki Furukawa), ever since she saw him give a speech at the high school entrance ceremony.


title: Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo

text: In her third year of high school, she writes him a love letter but is rejected instantly. She is crushed to see her letter was not even looked at and decides to give up on the jerk who rejected her without even reading it. On the same day, Kotoko's house is hit by a shooting star and collapses. As it is being rebuilt, her dad gets a phone call from his longtime friend and is invited to stay with them. When she arrives, she is in shock to see that this is the house of Naoki Irie and his family. Although he shows a cold attitude, she realizes she can't help but love him. What will happen when fate takes over, and Kotoko's chance of winning Naoki's heart falls in her hands?


title: Oceanic crust

text: Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic cumulates. The crust overlies the rigid uppermost layer of the mantle. The crust and the rigid upper mantle layer together constitute oceanic lithosphere.


title: Oceanic crust

text: Oceanic crust is primarily composed of mafic rocks, or sima, which is rich in iron and magnesium. It is thinner than continental crust, or sial, generally less than 10 kilometers thick; however, it is denser, having a mean density of about 3.0 grams per cubic centimeter as opposed to continental crust which has a density of about 2.7 grams per cubic centimeter.


title: Oceanic crust

text: The crust uppermost is the result of the cooling of magma derived from mantle material below the plate. The magma is injected into the spreading center, which consists mainly of a partly solidified crystal mush derived from earlier injections, forming magma lenses that are the source of the sheeted dikes that feed the overlying pillow lavas. As the lavas cool they are, in most instances, modified chemically by seawater. These eruptions occur mostly at mid-ocean ridges, but also at scattered hotspots, and also in rare but powerful occurrences known as flood basalt eruptions. But most magma crystallises at depth, within the lower oceanic crust. There, newly intruded magma can mix and react with pre-existing crystal mush and rocks.


title: Oceanic crust

text: Although a complete section of oceanic crust has not yet been drilled, geologists have several pieces of evidence that help them understand the ocean floor. Estimations of composition are based on analyses of ophiolites (sections of oceanic crust that are thrust onto and preserved on the continents), comparisons of the seismic structure of the oceanic crust with laboratory determinations of seismic velocities in known rock types, and samples recovered from the ocean floor by submersibles, dredging (especially from ridge crests and fracture zones) and drilling. Oceanic crust is significantly simpler than continental crust and generally can be divided in three layers. According to mineral physics experiments, at lower mantle pressures, oceanic crust becomes denser than the surrounding mantle.


title: Oceanic crust

text: The most voluminous volcanic rocks of the ocean floor are the mid-oceanic ridge basalts, which are derived from low-potassium tholeiitic magmas. These rocks have low concentrations of large ion lithophile elements (LILE), light rare earth elements (LREE), volatile elements and other highly incompatible elements. There can be found basalts enriched with incompatible elements, but they are rare and associated with mid-ocean ridge hot spots such as surroundings of Galapagos Islands, the Azores and Iceland.


title: Oceanic crust

text: Prior to the Neoproterozoic Era 1000 Ma ago world's oceanic crust was more mafic than present-days'. The more mafic nature of the crust meant that higher amounts of water molecules (OH) could be stored the altered parts of the crust. At subduction zones this mafic crust was prone to metamorphose into greenschist instead of blueschist at ordinary blueschist facies.


title: Oceanic crust

text: Oceanic crust is continuously being created at mid-ocean ridges. As continental plates diverge at these ridges, magma rises into the upper mantle and crust. As the continental plates move away from the ridge, the newly formed rocks cool and start to erode with sediment gradually building up on top of them. The youngest oceanic rocks are at the oceanic ridges, and they get progressively older away from the ridges.


title: Oceanic crust

text: As the mantle rises it cools and melts, as the pressure decreases and it crosses the solidus. The amount of melt produced depends only on the temperature of the mantle as it rises. Hence most oceanic crust is the same thickness (7±1 km). Very slow spreading ridges (<1 cm·yr half-rate) produce thinner crust (4–5 km thick) as the mantle has a chance to cool on upwelling and so it crosses the solidus and melts at lesser depth, thereby producing less melt and thinner crust. An example of this is the Gakkel Ridge under the Arctic Ocean. Thicker than average crust is found above plumes as the mantle is hotter and hence it crosses the solidus and melts at a greater depth, creating more melt and a thicker crust. An example of this is Iceland which has crust of thickness ~20 km.


title: Oceanic crust

text: The age of the oceanic crust can be used to estimate the (thermal) thickness of the lithosphere, where young oceanic crust has not had enough time to cool the mantle beneath it, while older oceanic crust has thicker mantle lithosphere beneath it. The oceanic lithosphere subducts at what are known as convergent boundaries. These boundaries can exist between oceanic lithosphere on one plate and oceanic lithosphere on another, or between oceanic lithosphere on one plate and continental lithosphere on another. In the second situation, the oceanic lithosphere always subducts because the continental lithosphere is less dense. The subduction process consumes older oceanic lithosphere, so oceanic crust is seldom more than 200 million years old.


title: Oceanic crust

text: The process of super-continent formation and destruction via repeated cycles of creation and destruction of oceanic crust is known as the Wilson Cycle.


title: Oceanic crust

text: The oldest large-scale oceanic crust is in the west Pacific and north-west Atlantic — both are about up to 180-200 million years old. However, parts of the eastern Mediterranean Sea could be remnants of the much older Tethys Ocean, at about 270 and up to 340 million years old.


title: Oceanic crust

text: The oceanic crust displays a pattern of magnetic lines, parallel to the ocean ridges, frozen in the basalt. A symmetrical pattern of positive and negative magnetic lines emanates from the mid-ocean ridge. New rock is formed by magma at the mid-ocean ridges, and the ocean floor spreads out from this point. When the magma cools to form rock, its magnetic polarity is aligned with the then-current positions of the magnetic poles of the Earth. New magma then forces the older cooled magma away from the ridge. This process results in parallel sections of oceanic crust of alternating magnetic polarity.


title: General MIDI

text: General MIDI (also known as GM or GM 1) is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the American MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japan MIDI Standards Committee (JMSC) and first published in 1991. The official specification is available in English from the MMA, bound together with the MIDI 1.0 specification, and in Japanese from the Association of Musical Electronic Industry (AMEI).


title: General MIDI

text: GM imposes several requirements beyond the more abstract MIDI 1.0 specification. While MIDI 1.0 by itself provides a communications protocol which ensures that different instruments can interoperate at a fundamental level — for example, that pressing keys on a MIDI keyboard will cause an attached MIDI sound module to play musical notes — GM goes further in two ways. First, GM requires that all compliant MIDI instruments meet a certain minimal set of features, such as being able to play at least 24 notes simultaneously (polyphony). Second, GM attaches specific interpretations to many parameters and control messages which were left unspecified in the MIDI 1.0 specification. For example, assigning one of the 128 possible MIDI "Program Number"s selects an instrument. With MIDI 1.0, the assignment could be to an arbitrary instrument; but with GM, a program number assigns a specific "instrument name". This helps ensure that playback of MIDI files sounds more consistently between different devices compliant with the GM specification. However, it still leaves the actual "sounds" of each instrument up to the supplier to implement; one manufacturer's French horn, say, could be brighter, or more mellow, than another's.


title: General MIDI

text: The GM 1 specification was superseded by General MIDI 2 in 1999; however, GM 1 is still commonly used. General MIDI was widely supported by computer game developers in the 1990s.


title: General MIDI

text: To be GM 1 compatible, sound generating devices (keyboards, hardware or software synthesizers, sound cards) are required to meet the General MIDI System Level 1 performance specification:


title: General MIDI

text: In MIDI, the instrument sound or "program" for each of the 16 possible MIDI channels is selected with the Program Change message, which has a Program Number parameter. The following table shows which instrument sound corresponds to each of the 128 possible GM Program Numbers. There are 128 program numbers. The numbers can be displayed as values 1 to 128, or, alternatively, as 0 to 127. The 0 to 127 numbering is usually only used internally by the synthesizer; the vast majority of MIDI devices, digital audio workstations and professional MIDI sequencers display these Program Numbers as shown in the table (1–128).


title: General MIDI

text: In GM standard MIDI files, channel 10/17 is reserved for percussion instruments only. Notes recorded on channel 10/17 always produce percussion sounds when transmitted to a keyboard or synth module which uses the GM standard. Each distinct note number specifies a unique percussive instrument, rather than the sound's pitch.


title: General MIDI

text: If a MIDI file is programmed to the General MIDI protocol, then the results are predictable, but timbre and sound fidelity may vary depending on the quality of the GM synthesizer. The General MIDI standard includes 47 percussive sounds, using note numbers 35-81 (of the possible 132 numbers from 0-131), as follows:


title: General MIDI

text: In MIDI, adjustable parameters for each of the 16 possible MIDI channels may be set with the Control Change (CC) message, which has a Control Number parameter and a Control Value parameter (expressed in a range from 0 to 127). GM also specifies which operations should be performed by multiple Control Numbers.


title: General MIDI

text: GM defines several Registered Parameters, which act like Controllers but are addressed in a different way. In MIDI, every Registered Parameter is assigned a Registered Parameter Number or RPN. Registered Parameters are usually called RPNs for short.


title: General MIDI

text: The following global Registered Parameter Numbers (RPNs) are standardised (the parameter is specified by RPN LSB/MSB pair and the value is set by Data Entry LSB/MSB pair):


title: General MIDI

text: Two GM System Exclusive ("SysEx") messages are defined: one to enable and disable General MIDI compatibility mode (for synthesizers that also have non-GM modes); and the other to set the synthesizer's master volume.


title: General MIDI

text: Roland GS is a superset of the General MIDI standard that added several proprietary extensions. The most notable addition was the ability to address multiple banks of programs (instrument sounds) by using an additional pair of Bank Select controllers to specify up to 16384 "variation" sounds (cc#0 is Bank Select MSB, and cc#32 is Bank Select LSB). Other most notable features were 9 Drum kits with 14 additional drum sounds each, simultaneous Percussion Kits - up to 2 (Channels 10/11), Control Change messages for controlling the send level of sound effect blocks (cc#91-94), entering additional parameters (cc#98-101), portamento, sostenuto, soft pedal (cc#65-67), and model-specific SysEx messages for setting various parameters of the synth engine. The 14 additional drum sounds are numbered 27-34 and 82-87, bracketing the 47 General MIDI standard sounds numbered 35-81, and are as follows:


title: General MIDI

text: GS was introduced in 1991 with the Roland Sound Canvas line, which was also Roland's first General MIDI synth module.


title: General MIDI

text: Yamaha XG is a superset of the General MIDI standard that added several proprietary extensions. The most notable additions were the 600 instruments and 32 notes polyphony.


title: General MIDI

text: XG was introduced in 1994 with the Yamaha MU-series line of sound modules and PSR line of digital keyboards.


title: General MIDI

text: In 1999, the official GM standard was updated to include more controllers, patches, RPNs and SysEx messages, in an attempt to reconcile the conflicting and proprietary Roland GS and Yamaha XG additions. Here's a quick overview of the GM2 changes in comparison to GM/GS:


title: General MIDI

text: Additional melodic instruments can be accessed by setting CC#0 to 121 and then using CC#32 to select the bank before a Program Change.


title: Doug Benson

text: Douglas Steven Benson (born July 2, 1962) is an American comedian, marijuana rights advocate, television host and actor, best known for hosting the podcasts and TV series "Doug Loves Movies" (2006-present), "The Benson Interruption" (2010-2013), "Getting Doug with High" (2013-2019) and "The High Court with Doug Benson" (2017). As a comedian, he has released 10 comedy albums, starting with "Professional Humoredian" in 2008, and has regularly appeared on TV shows including "Comedy Central Presents", "Best Week Ever" and "@midnight". In 2007, he was a contestant on the 5th season of the reality competition show "Last Comic Standing".


title: Doug Benson

text: In 2007, he starred in the film "Super High Me", a documentary about marijuana usage. He has also acted in small roles in numerous TV shows, including "Trailer Park Boys" and "You're the Worst", as well as several films, including serving as the voice of Bane in "The Lego Batman Movie".


title: Doug Benson

text: Benson was born and raised in San Diego, California, to parents Wendy (Young), a pharmacy clerk, and Robert Matthew Benson, a former English teacher turned salesman. Doug attended Grossmont High School and was active in the drama department. He also collaborated with a friend on several 8 mm action/thriller short movies during his junior and senior years. After attending Grossmont College, a community college in El Cajon, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Benson was raised Methodist. As a child, Benson struggled with vertigo and poor depth perception as a result of his close-set eyes.


title: Doug Benson

text: While working as a stand-in on numerous movies in the 1980s, he had roles as an extra in films such as "Blade Runner", "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", "About Last Night" and a backup dancer in the Disney theme park attraction "Captain EO".


title: Doug Benson

text: While in Los Angeles, Benson began doing stand-up after he and two other friends dared each other to. One of them did not show up, and the other one signed up too late. Benson claimed that "I went in anyway and did my three minutes of whatever I could come with and people actually laughed." At the age of 22, Benson began performing regularly as a stand-up comedian. However, it wasn't until 28 that he became a stoner, after a week's worth of gigs smoking pot afterwards alongside Brian Posehn and Greg Proops.


title: Doug Benson

text: He made his earliest television appearances as a stand-up in the late 1980s and early 1990s on programs such as Comedy Central's "The A-List" and "Two Drink Minimum" and was one of the featured comedians in the cast of Joel Hodgson's sketch-comedy pilot "The TV Wheel" which aired on Comedy Central in 1995. One of Benson's earliest jobs in television was writing for the MTV game-show "Trashed" in 1994.


title: Doug Benson

text: Along with comedian friends Arj Barker and Tony Camin, Benson co-created and performed in the comedy stage-show "The Marijuana-Logues". He also hosted "High Times" ' 6th annual Stony Awards with rapper Redman.


title: Doug Benson

text: On August 4, 2009, Benson's second album, "Unbalanced Load", was released by Comedy Central Records. His third album, "Hypocritical Oaf" was released on August 31, 2010. Benson aims to record a new album every April 20 (with a subsequent summer release date) for as many consecutive years as possible. Benson's fourth album, "Potty Mouth," was released on August 29, 2011. The pattern continued with the release of his fifth album, "Smug Life", which was released on July 3, 2012, and "Gateway Doug", his sixth album, released on July 9, 2013. On July 8, 2014, Doug released a sequel to "Gateway Doug" entitled "Gateway Doug 2: Forced Fun". His latest album release is "Promotional Tool" which came out on June 9, 2015.


title: Doug Benson

text: In 2006, Benson began hosting a weekly comedy podcast, titled "Doug Loves Movies" (formerly "I Love Movies with Doug Benson"), which is recorded in front of a live audience at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. The show typically tapes weekly, and is later archived on iTunes for fans to listen to for free. Benson and guests talk about movies and comedy both.


title: Doug Benson

text: A regular feature of the podcast is the Leonard Maltin Game, which has been described as "Name That Tune" with movies instead of songs. The game consists of Benson reading excerpts from a Leonard Maltin review and guests wagering how many names, read from the bottom of the cast list up, it would take for them to identify the movie.


title: Doug Benson

text: Other regular features of the podcast include the segments "Tweet Relief: Tweets About Movies", "Watch This/Not That", "Not for Emetophobes", and "From the Corrections Department", as well as the games "Build a Title", "Name a Movie", "A-B-C-Deez Nuts", "How Much Did This Shit Make?", "Lincoln or Bane?", "Love, Like, Hate, Hate-Like", "Doing Lines with Mark Wahlberg", "Last Man Stanton", "Whose Tagline Is It Anyway", "Now Buscemi Now You Don't", "Tell The Truth!, Live Die Repeat, Alex and Jason and Deb's IMDB game," and "F Marry Kill: Movies".


title: Doug Benson

text: At the conclusion of many of the early podcasts, Doug would state "As always, Willem Dafoe is a Shithead," which resulted in so many people wondering about why, that Google searches began to automatically complete the phrase as a suggested match. The Willem Dafoe comment started as a joke based on the fact that it would seemingly be the only bad words ever uttered about Dafoe, but many people didn't catch on and, after explaining it a few times, Benson decided to let Dafoe rest. Until 2019, the runners up in the Leonard Maltin game are allowed to name one shithead as a consolation prize. Starting in early 2019, Benson now closes the show with "Positive Energy" in honor of his late friend, Brody Stevens


title: Doug Benson

text: In 2010, Benson started an annual, 2 hour Twelve Guests of Christmas special every holiday season. This episode features 12 guests (occasionally more) rather than the usual 3 guests and they play an elimination style Leonard Maltin Game. Scott Aukerman won the first year, while Graham Elwood dominated the next two years in a row. The 2013 champion was podcast fan and Pardcast-A-Thon auction winner, Sean Sakimae. Sakimae also qualified for the next Tournament of Champions for naming the film "Titanic" in negative names and winning the game. Riki Lindhome beat Jimmy Pardo in the finals of the 2014 edition when Pardo couldn't get the name Lori Singer when going negative three on "Footloose". Scott Aukerman bested Sarah Silverman for his second win in 2015.


title: Doug Benson

text: In addition to "Doug Loves Movies", Benson has begun recording "The Benson Interruption" and releasing it as a monthly podcast for $1.99 and has appeared on numerous other podcasts, including "Comedy Bang! Bang!", "The Joe Rogan Experience", "WTF with Marc Maron", "The Adam Carolla Show", "Nerdist" with Chris Hardwick, "Mohr Stories", "You Made It Weird" with Pete Holmes, "Never Not Funny", and "Who Charted" with Howard Kremer and Kulap Vilaysack.


title: Doug Benson

text: From 2013 to 2019, Benson hosted a weekly talk show on YouTube titled "Getting Doug with High", which generally aired live every Wednesday at 4:15 PM PST. Benson invited featured guests to recreationally smoke marijuana with him at . He asked them questions and discussed topics (usually related to marijuana), and at the end of the show, he made them watch a magic trick. Occasionally, the show was done in front of a live audience in Los Angeles, where the performers took turns inhaling from bags of vaporized cannabis.


title: Doug Benson

text: In 2008, Benson was the protagonist of the film "Super High Me" (a play on the name and concept of the film "Super Size Me"), released on DVD on June 10, 2008. In the movie, Benson compares the results of not smoking any marijuana at all for 30 days versus the effects of smoking as much marijuana as possible for the same amount of time. The film was produced by Red Envelope Entertainment. The results of the experiment were that it had little or no negative effects on Doug's health. In 2014, the film's other producers planned to release a sequel, "Super High Me Redux", which would have shown additional footage taken for the film; Doug sued them to stop the film from getting made.


title: Doug Benson

text: In 2010, Comedy Central aired "The Benson Interruption", hosted by Benson, which ran for one season. The show was based on the live stand-up comedy showcase of the same name that he had hosted in Los Angeles for many years.


title: Doug Benson

text: The show spun off into a monthly audio-only podcast in 2011, which took the TV show's format and altered it slightly by allowing the performances and conversations to play out in longer unedited episodes.


title: Doug Benson

text: Benson starred as the judge on "The High Court with Doug Benson", a comedic court show on Comedy Central. During each episode Benson was under the influence of cannabis. All of the cases featured were real and all of his rulings were real and legally binding. The series premiered on February 28, 2017. After hearing the case with his guest bailiff, Judge Doug and the bailiff retired to his chambers where they smoked marijuana while deciding the case. The series was produced by JASH and Propagate Content.


title: Doug Benson

text: In the mid to late 1990s, Benson had small roles on HBO's "Mr. Show with Bob and David", which was co-created by his friend David Cross. He also had small roles on "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "How I Met Your Mother", "The Sarah Silverman Program", "Yes, Dear", and "Friends".


title: Doug Benson

text: In 2007, Benson was a contestant on fifth season of the NBC reality show "Last Comic Standing". He was voted off the program during the ninth episode, earning him 6th place overall.


title: Doug Benson

text: In the 2000s, the comedian regularly appeared on the VH1 show "Best Week Ever" and taped several episodes of "Comedy Central Presents".


title: Doug Benson

text: On December 29, 2009, Benson had a documentary special called "The High Road with Doug Benson" air on the G4 network. The special followed Benson and comedian Graham Elwood on one of their stand-up comedy tours.


title: Doug Benson

text: Benson regularly appeared as a panelist/contestant on the Comedy Central game show "@midnight", which ran from 2013 to 2017. During the week of January 4–7, 2016, he was featured during a weeklong special titled the "Benson Bowl," featuring many marijuana-related games. Benson ranks first in number of appearances on the show, as well as victories.


title: Doug Benson

text: On March 17, 2009, the host of the Fox News comedy program "Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld" along with Benson as a panelist, joked about Canadian Lieutenant General Andrew Leslie's statement that the Canadian Armed Forces may require a one-year "synchronized break" once Canada's mission in Afghanistan ends in 2011. "Meaning, the Canadian military wants to take a breather to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white Capri pants," Gutfeld said. "I didn't even know they were in the war", added Benson, then continued, "I thought that's where you go if you "don't" want to fight. Go chill in Canada." Gutfeld also said: "Isn't this the perfect time to invade this ridiculous country? They have no army!"


title: Doug Benson

text: The segment drew wide attention and outrage in Canada after being posted on YouTube following the reported deaths of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan three days earlier. Canada, at the time, had been in command of the NATO mission in the Kandahar Province, the birthplace and former Taliban capital, for the past three years. Along with the Helmand Province, the two provinces were "home to some of the fiercest opposition to coalition forces" and reported to "have the highest casualty rates per province."


title: Doug Benson

text: Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay called on Fox to apologize for the satirical comments, describing the remarks as "despicable, hurtful and ignorant." Benson was scheduled to appear in Canada at Edmonton's "The Comic Strip" April 3–5, 2009, but the shows were canceled after the owner received threats of "bodily injury" toward the American comic. "Some were saying he wouldn't make it from the airport to the club. For everyone's safety, we decided it was best to avoid the scenario altogether," said manager Rick Bronson. Benson offered an apology following the incident on "CTV News" "Power Play with Tom Clark". The comedian stated that he was "ignorant about the situation in Afghanistan" and that the timing of the jokes were "completely out of line". "I honestly said things, in retrospect, I completely regret" said Benson and he has vowed to "never appear on the show again".


title: Sambhal

text: Sambhal is a city located in the Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh state in India. The city lies approximately 158 kilometres (98 mi) east of New Delhi and 355 kilometres (220 mi) north-west of state capital Lucknow.


title: Sambhal

text: Sambhal has been an urban center for hundreds of years. It was a prominent town during the medieval period. The painting shown here is a folio from the Baburnama, and depicts an award ceremony in Sultan Ibrahim Lodi's court before an expedition to Sambhal in the early 16th century.


title: Sambhal

text: Sambhal is said to have flourished under the rule of Akbar but subsequently deteriorated in popularity when Akbar's grandson Shah Jahan was made in charge of the city, and the capital of the province was shifted to Moradabad.


title: Sambhal

text: As per provisional reports of the 2011 Census of India, the population of Sambhal city in 2011 was 221,334, of which 116,008 were male and 105,326 were female. Total literates in Sambhal city are 92,608 of which 51,382 are males while 41,226 are females. The average literacy rate in Sambhal city is 49.51 percent, of which male literacy was 52.27 percent and female 46.45 percent. The sex ratio of Sambhal city is 908 per 1,000 males and the child sex ratio of girls is 936 per 1,000 boys. Total children (0-6) in Sambhal city were 34,279 as per the records of Census India 2011. There were 17,702 boys and 16,577 girls. The children form 15.49% of the total population of Sambhal City.


title: Sambhal

text: Sambhal is Muslim majority city in India with approximately 77.67 % of city population following Islam as their religion. Hinduism is second most common religion in city of Sambhal with approximately 22.00 % following it. In Sambhal city, Christianity is followed by 0.12 %, Jainism by 0.02 %, Buddhism by 0.03 % and Sikhism by 0.06 %. Around 0.00 % stated 'Other Religion', approximately 0.09 % stated 'No Particular Religion'.


title: Sambhal

text: Sambhal has many schools and Inter colleges for primary and secondary level education affiliated with CBCS, ICSE, UP Board and Madarsa Board.


title: Sambhal

text: Sambhal is well connected to the major cities like Delhi, Moradabad, Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Gajraula and Badaun.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: Hinduism is the main and largest religion of Nepal. In 2007, the country declared itself a secular country through democracy; still, some special privileges were given to Indic religions like "The Constitution of Nepal has established a call for the protection of this age-old religion referring to Sanatan Dharma throughout the country". According to the 2011 census, the Hindu population in Nepal is estimated to be around 21,551,492, which accounts for at least 81.34% of the country's population, the highest percentage of Hindus of any country in the world. The national calendar of Nepal, Vikram Samvat, is a solar Hindu calendar essentially the same to that widespread in North India as a religious calendar, and is based on Hindu units of time. Nepal remained the last Hindu country in the world until 2008, after the abolition of monarchy in the nation.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: The geographical distribution of religious groups revealed a preponderance of Hindus, accounting for at least 90% of the population in every region. Among the ethnic groups in Nepal, those most influenced by Hinduism are the Bahun, Chhetri, Madheshi, Newari and Thakuri people.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: Historians and local traditions say that a Hindu sage named "Ne" established himself in the valley of Kathmandu during prehistoric times, and that the word "Nepal" means "the place protected" ("pala" in Sanskrit) by the sage Ne. He performed religious ceremonies at Teku, the confluence of the Bagmati and Bishnumati rivers. According to legends, he selected a pious cowherd to be the first of the many kings of the Gopala dynasty. These rulers are said to have ruled Nepal for over 500 years. He selected Bhuktaman to be the first king in the line of the Gopal ("Cowherd") dynasty. The Gopala dynasty ruled for 621 years. Yakshya Gupta was the last king of this dynasty.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: According to "Skanda Purana", a rishi called "Ne" or "Nemuni" used to live in the Himalayas. In the "Pashupati Purana", he is mentioned as a saint and a protector. He is said to have practiced penance at the Bagmati and Kesavati rivers and to have taught his doctrines there too.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: In the mid-18th century, Prithvi Narayan Shah, a Gurkha king, set out to put together what would become present-day Nepal. He embarked on his mission by securing the neutrality of the bordering mountain kingdoms. After several bloody battles and sieges, notably the Battle of Kirtipur, he managed to conquer the Kathmandu Valley in 1769.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: The Gurkha control reached its height when the North Indian territories of the Kumaon and Garhwal Kingdoms in the west to Sikkim in the east came under Nepalese control. A dispute with Tibet over the control of mountain passes and inner Tingri valleys of Tibet forced the Qing Emperor of China to start the Sino-Nepali War, compelling the Nepali to retreat to their own borders in the north. The rivalry between the Kingdom of Nepal and the East India Company over the control of states bordering Nepal eventually led to the Anglo-Nepali War (1815–18116). At first, the British underestimated the Nepali and were soundly defeated until committing more military resources than they had anticipated needing. Thus began the reputation of Gurkhas as fierce and ruthless soldiers. The war ended in the Sugauli Treaty, under which Nepal ceded recently captured lands.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: Factionalism inside the royal family led to a period of instability. In 1846, a plot was discovered revealing that the reigning queen had planned to overthrow Bir Narsingh Kunwar, a fast-rising military leader. This led to the Kot massacre; armed clashes between military personnel and administrators loyal to the queen led to the execution of several hundred princes and chieftains around the country. Bir Narsingh Kunwar emerged victorious and founded the Rana dynasty, and came to be known as Jung Bahadur Rana. The king was made a titular figure, and the post of Prime Minister was made powerful and hereditary. The Ranas were staunchly pro-British and assisted them during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (and later in both World Wars). In 1860, some parts of the western Terai region were gifted to Nepal by the British as a friendly gesture because of their military support to sustain British control in India during the rebellion (known as Naya Muluk or "new country"). In 1923, the United Kingdom and Nepal formally signed an agreement of friendship that superseded the Sugauli Treaty of 1816.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: The Hindu practice of Sati, in which a widow sacrifices herself in the funeral pyre of her husband, was banned in 1919, and slavery was officially abolished in 1924. Rana rule was marked by tyranny, debauchery, economic exploitation, and religious persecution.


title: Hinduism in Nepal

text: In the time of early-modern era in Nepal, Hinduism was at the peak of its prominence. The Shah rulers focused on the Hinduization of Nepal; even then there were good relations of Nepalis Hindus with the Nepali Muslims and Buddhists. The Nepal rulers passed laws making conversion from Hinduism to Islam and Christianity illegal and enacting them as criminal offenses. These laws were enforced even after the revolution of 1951, and were reaffirmed in the legal code of 1963, which prohibited the preaching of Christianity or Islam and stipulated three years in jail for those who attempted to convert people, and six years for those who succeeded in converting others. For those who "attempt" to be converted, there was a fine of a hundred rupees, and for those who actually converted (that is, were baptized), there would be imprisonment of one year. The code stated that "when somebody becomes converted, the conversion is nullified, and he remains in the Hindu "dharma" [religion]".