title: Manosphere

text: Reddit has been a popular gathering place for manosphere supporters, and several forums on the site are geared toward its ideas. However, in the late 2010s and 2020s Reddit began to take steps to discourage more extreme manosphere subreddits. Some were banned, such as /r/incels (banned in 2017), its successor /r/braincels (banned in 2018), and /r/MGTOW (banned in August 2021); other subreddits such as /r/TheRedPill have been "quarantined", meaning that a warning is displayed to users about the content of the subreddit and users must sign in before they're allowed to enter. As a result, some of these communities have found new homes on websites that are more welcoming of extreme content, such as Gab.


title: Manosphere

text: The manosphere has received significant coverage in the media from its association with high-profile violent attacks including the 2014 Isla Vista killings in California, the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, and the 2018 Toronto van attack, as well as phenomena such as the sustained online abuse towards female members of the video game community that came to be known as GamerGate. Following the Isla Vista shooting, the killer Elliot Rodger was found to have been an active participant on the "PUAHate" manosphere forum. Following the attack, Dewey wrote that, while the manosphere was not to blame for Rodger's attack, "Rodger's misogynistic rhetoric seems undeniably influenced by the manosphere". The sociologist Michael Kimmel argued "it would be facile to argue the manosphere ... urged [Rodger] to do this. I think those places are kind of a solace ... They provide a kind of locker room, a place where guys can gripe about all the bad things that are being done to them by women".


title: Manosphere

text: Arthur Goldwag described the manosphere in the Spring 2012 edition of the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Intelligence Report" as an "underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations... [who are] devoted to attacking virtually all women (or, at least, Westernized ones)." He added a caveat later that year, saying, "It should be mentioned that the SPLC did not label MRAs as members of a hate movement; nor did our article claim that the grievances they air on their websites – false rape accusations, ruinous divorce settlements and the like – are all without merit. But we "did" call out specific examples of misogyny and the threat, overt or implicit, of violence." In 2018, the SPLC added male supremacy as a category they track on their list of hate groups. The British anti-extremism group Hope not Hate included the manosphere in its 2019 "State of Hate" report.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: A doctor, Goro Amemiya, is tasked with delivering famous Japanese idol Ai Hoshino's baby; however, before her children are born he is murdered by her stalker. In a twist of events, he reincarnates, with all of his memories, as her child along with a former patient, Sarina Tenjouji.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: After Ai's death at the hands of a stalker, Aquamarine (Goro) swears to avenge her by killing the person, assumably his mysterious father, who leaked her information. His sister, Ruby Hoshino (Sarina), follows her dream of becoming an idol, following in her mother's footsteps.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: "Oshi no Ko", written by Aka Akasaka and illustrated by Mengo Yokoyari, has been serialized in Shueisha's "seinen" manga magazine "Weekly Young Jump" since April 23, 2020. Shueisha has collected its chapters into individual "tankōbon" volumes. The first volume was released on July 17, 2020. As of October 19, 2022, nine volumes have been released.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: In April 2022, Shueisha began publishing the series in English on the "Manga Plus" website and mobile app. In July 2022, at Anime Expo, Yen Press announced that they licensed the series for an English release.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: The series has been licensed in Taiwan by Chingwin Publishing Group, in South Korea by Daewon C.I.; in Indonesia by M&C!; in Thailand by Luckpim, in France by ; in Germany by Altraverse; in Italy by ; in Argentina and Spain by Editorial Ivrea; and in Poland by Studio JG.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: An anime adaptation was announced in June 2022. The anime, later revealed to be a television series, will be produced by Doga Kobo and directed by Daisuke Hiramaki, with Chao Nekotomi serving as assistant director, Jin Tanaka writing the scripts, and Kanna Hirayama handling the character designs. It is set to premiere in April 2023, with an extended 90-minute version of the first episode set to be screened in advance at selected theaters in Japan on March 23 of the same year.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: At Anime NYC 2022, Sentai Filmworks announced that they licensed the series, and will be streaming it on Hidive.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: As of April 2021, the manga had over 1 million copies in circulation. As of October 2022, The manga had over 3 million copies in circulation.


title: Oshi no Ko

text: "Oshi no Ko" ranked #11 on Takarajimasha's "Kono Manga ga Sugoi!" list of best manga of 2021 for male readers; it ranked #7 on the 2022 list. The series ranked #4 on the "Nationwide Bookstore Employees' Recommended Comics of 2021" by the Honya Club website. The series ranked #13 on the 2021 "Book of the Year" list by "Da Vinci" magazine; it ranked #25 on the 2022 list. "Oshi no Ko" was nominated for the 14th Manga Taishō in 2021 and placed fifth with 59 points; it was nominated for the 15th edition in 2022 and placed eighth with 49 points. In August 2021, "Oshi no Ko" won the Next Manga Award in the print category. The manga was nominated for the 67th Shogakukan Manga Award in the general category in 2021, the 26th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2022, and the 46th Kodansha Manga Award in the general category in 2022. The series ranked #5 on AnimeJapan's 5th "Most Wanted Anime Adaptation" poll in 2022.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: The Belko Experiment is a 2016 American horror thriller film directed by Greg McLean and written by James Gunn, who also produced the film with Peter Safran. It stars John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona, John C. McGinley, Melonie Diaz, Josh Brener, and Michael Rooker. The film follows eighty Americans working abroad for a company named Belko Industries in Bogotá, Colombia. One day after they arrive at work, they are locked inside the building, and a mysterious voice announces that they have to start killing each other.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: Filming began on June 1, 2015, in Bogotá, Colombia, and concluded the following month. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2016, and was released in the United States on March 17, 2017, by Blumhouse Tilt and Orion Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and has grossed $11 million worldwide against its $5 million budget.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: Mike Milch, an employee of Belko Industries, while driving to work is stopped by street vendors selling "lucky" handmade dolls. Barry Norris, also of Belko Industries, arrives at the office building in Bogotá, Colombia, to find unfamiliar security guards turning away the local Colombian staff at the gate. New employee Dany Wilkins reports for her first day on the job and is told that a tracking device is implanted in the base of every Belko employee's skull in case something happens to them.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: Evan Smith, Belko's head security guard, does not know who the new security guards are. Once all the employees show up, a voice on the intercom instructs them to kill two of their co-workers, or else there will be consequences. Several staff attempt to flee the building, but steel shutters seal off the walls and doors, locking them all in. They ignore the announcement at first, believing it to be a sick prank, but after the set time ends and the two have not been killed, four employees die when explosives hidden in their trackers detonate and blow their heads apart. Mike attempts to remove his tracker with a box cutter, but gives up when the voice threatens to detonate his tracker explosive unless he stops.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: The group is told that unless thirty of them are dead within two hours, sixty will be killed. They split into two factions, one led by Mike, who believes that there should be no killing, and one led by Barry, who intends to follow the directions in order to save himself. Barry and his group, consisting of executive Wendell, as well as employees Terry, Antonio, and Bradley attempt to burn off the lock of the armory in order to gain access to its weapons. Mike and his group, including his girlfriend, Leandra Florez, Evan and employees Keith, Leota, Peggy, Vince and Roberto, try to hang banners from the roof as a call for help, but soldiers outside shoot at them. Barry, Wendell, and Terry ambush the group in the stairway, kill Evan and take his keys to the armory.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: With his group now armed, Barry and Wendell select thirty people, including Mike and Peggy, forcing them to kneel in a line. Barry begins executing them with a gunshot to the back of the head. Dany, who has been hiding in the basement, sees what is happening and shuts off the building's lights before Mike and several others can be killed. The employees immediately run for cover as Barry and his group start firing, killing several more people. However, Bradley and Antonio are ganged upon and killed by the employees. During this, Dany goes into the elevator shaft with Roberto.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: Barry and Wendell hunt down the fleeing employees as the voice informs them that only twenty-nine have been killed. Then the two-hour time limit runs out. The voice states that 31 more people will die, including Terry, Leota, Peggy, and Keith, leaving only 16 survivors. They are then informed by the voice that, as a final task, the employee who has killed the most people within an hour will be spared. Barry finds Dany and Roberto in the elevator shaft. Dany escapes while Roberto is crushed and killed in the elevator shaft. Leandra finds two employees, Marty and Chet, collecting the un-exploded trackers from the heads of people who have died by other methods. They tell her that they are planning to use them to blow up the wall. However, they are killed by Wendell. Leandra kills Wendell, leaving the final six survivors: Vince, Mike, Barry, Dany, Leandra, and cafeteria lady Liezle, who is killed shortly afterward. Barry shoots Vince and Dany, killing them, and also shoots Leandra. With her dying breath, she proclaims her love to Mike.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: In a rage, Mike has a brutal fight with Barry, in which Barry gets the better of him at first, however, Mike fends Barry off using a tape dispenser, which ends in Mike bludgeoning Barry to death. The building is then unsealed, as he is the last survivor, and the soldiers escort him to the hangar next door. There, he meets the owner of the Voice, who says that they're part of an international organisation studying human behaviour. As he and his colleagues begin to question Mike about his emotional and mental state, Mike notices a panel of switches that correspond to the eighty employees. Having planted the trackers that Marty collected on the soldiers and the Voice, he flips every remaining active switch except his own. The trackers explode, killing the soldiers and wounding the Voice, before Mike grabs a gun and kills the remaining scientists. The Voice attempts to reason with Mike and appeal to his moral beliefs, but Mike kills him. He then leaves the warehouse in a state of shock.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: It becomes apparent that Mike is one of many sole survivors from similar experiments, being watched by another group through security cameras. A new voice states, "End stage one, commence stage two."


title: The Belko Experiment

text: James Gunn began writing the film around 2007, after waking up from a dream of an office building being enclosed in metal walls and hearing a voice instruct employees to kill each other. The film was greenlit soon thereafter, and plans were made for it to be filmed in São Paulo, Brazil, with Gunn directing. However, Gunn turned down the opportunity, owing to getting a divorce around the same time. Gunn later said, "I just wanted to be around my friends and family. I didn't want to go shoot this thing that was about people who loved and cared about each other being forced into killing each other. It just didn't seem to be the way I wanted to spend the next few months of my life. So I backed out of it." Gunn moved on to other projects, including the 2010 film "Super", and had "kind of forgotten about it" until he received a call from Jon Glickman at MGM asking if he would still be interested in making it. Gunn did not have time to direct the film himself, due to his work on "Guardians of the Galaxy", but he agreed to produce it, provided that he was given full creative control.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: Much of the cast was announced in May 2015, including John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, and Melonie Diaz. More joined the cast in June, including David Del Rio, Stephen Blackehart, Josh Brener, and Rusty Schwimmer. Principal photography on the film began on June 1, 2015, in Bogotá, Colombia. and concluded on July 12, 2015.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2016. Shortly after, Blumhouse Tilt and Orion Pictures acquired U.S distribution rights to the film, and set it for a March 17, 2017, release. It was released to UK theaters on April 15, 2017.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: The film was promoted through a series of four claymation shorts directed by Lee Hardcastle which, according to website io9 (where they debuted), "features exaggerated versions of The Belko Experiment’s characters, and offers a taste of the level of violence and humor you’ll see when the actual movie opens". The movie was also promoted with a video game, "'Belko Experiment’ Escape Room in VR" released for virtual reality platforms.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: In the United States and Canada, "The Belko Experiment" was released alongside "Beauty and the Beast" and was projected to gross around $4 million in its opening weekend. It made $305,000 from Thursday night previews and $1.5 million on its first day. It went on to open to $4.1 million, finishing 7th at the box office.


title: The Belko Experiment

text: According to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 54% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 106 reviews and an average rating of 5.6/10. The site's critics consensus reads, ""The Belko Experiment" offers a few moments of lurid fun for genre enthusiasts, but lacks enough subversive smarts to consistently engage once the carnage kicks in." On Metacritic, the film has a score 44 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: General practitioner

text: In the medical profession, a general practitioner (GP) is a physician who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education to patients of all ages. Their duties are not confined to specific fields of medicine, and they have particular skills in treating people with multiple health issues. They are trained to treat patients to levels of complexity that vary between countries.


title: General practitioner

text: A core element in general practice is continuity that bridges episodes of various illnesses. Greater continuity with a general practitioner has been shown to reduce the need for out-of-hours services and acute hospital admittance. Furthermore, continuity by a general practitioner reduces mortality.


title: General practitioner

text: The role of a GP can vary greatly between (or even within) countries. In urban areas of developed countries, their roles tend to be narrower and focused on the care of chronic health problems; the treatment of acute non-life-threatening diseases; the early detection and referral to specialised care of patients with serious diseases; and preventive care including health education and immunisation. Meanwhile, in rural areas of developed countries or in developing countries, a GP may be routinely involved in pre-hospital emergency care, the delivery of babies, community hospital care and performing low-complexity surgical procedures. In some healthcare systems GPs work in primary care centers where they play a central role in the healthcare team, while in other models of care GPs can work as single-handed practitioners.


title: General practitioner

text: The term "general practitioner" or "GP" is common in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Australia, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth countries. In these countries, the word "physician" is largely reserved for certain other types of medical specialists, notably in internal medicine. While in these countries, the term GP has a clearly defined meaning, in North America the term has become somewhat ambiguous, and is sometimes synonymous with the terms "family doctor" or "primary care physician", as described below.


title: General practitioner

text: Historically, the role of a GP was once performed by any doctor with qualifications from a medical school and who works in the community. However, since the 1950s, general practice has become a specialty in its own right, with specific training requirements tailored to each country. The 1978 Alma Ata Declaration set the intellectual foundation of primary care and general practice.


title: General practitioner

text: The basic medical degree in India and Bangladesh is MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery). These generally consist of a four-and-a-half-year course followed by a year of compulsory rotatory internship in India. In Bangladesh it is a five-year course followed by a year of compulsory rotatory internship. The internship requires the candidate to work in all departments for a stipulated period of time, to undergo hands-on training in treating patients.


title: General practitioner

text: The registration of doctors is usually managed by state medical councils. A permanent registration as a Registered Medical Practitioner is granted only after satisfactory completion of the compulsory internship.


title: General practitioner

text: The Federation of Family Physicians' Associations of India (FFPAI) is an organization which has a connection with more than 8000 general practitioners through having affiliated membership.


title: General practitioner

text: In Pakistan, 5 years of MBBS is followed by one year of internship in different specialties. Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) then confers permanent registration, after which the candidate may choose to practice as a GP or opt for specialty training.


title: General practitioner

text: The first Family Medicine Training programme was approved by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan (CPSP) in 1992 and initiated in 1993 by the Family Medicine Division of the Department of Community Health


title: General practitioner

text: Family Medicine residency training programme of Ziauddin University is approved for Fellowship in Family Medicine.


title: General practitioner

text: In France, the médecin généraliste (commonly called "docteur") is responsible for the long-term care in a population. This implies prevention, education, care of the diseases and traumas that do not require a specialist, and orientation towards a specialist when necessary. They also follow the severe diseases day-to-day (between the acute crises that require the intervention of a specialist).


title: General practitioner

text: They have a role in the survey of epidemics, a legal role (constatation of traumas that can bring compensation, certificates for the practice of a sport, death certificate, certificate for hospitalisation without consent in case of mental incapacity), and a role in the emergency care (they can be called by the "samu", the French EMS). They often go to a patient's home when the patient cannot come to the consulting room (especially in case of children or old people), and have to contribute to a night and week-end duty (although this was contested in a strike in 2002).


title: General practitioner

text: The studies consist of six years in the university (common to all medical specialties), and three years as a junior practitioner ("interne") :


title: General practitioner

text: This ends with a doctorate, a research work which usually consist of a statistical study of cases to propose a care strategy for a specific condition (in an epidemiological, diagnostic, or therapeutic point of view).


title: General practitioner

text: General Practice was established as a medical specialty in Greece in 1986. To qualify as a General Practitioner (γενικός ιατρός, genikos iatros) doctors in Greece are required to complete four years of vocational training after medical school, including three years and two months in a hospital setting. General Practitioners in Greece may either work as private specialists or for the National Healthcare Service, ESY (Εθνικό Σύστημα Υγείας, ΕΣΥ).


title: General practitioner

text: General practice in the Netherlands and Belgium is considered advanced. The "huisarts" (literally: "home doctor") administers first line, primary care. In the Netherlands, patients usually cannot consult a hospital specialist without a required referral. Most GPs work in private practice although more medical centers with employed GPs are seen. Many GPs have a specialist interest, e.g. in palliative care.


title: General practitioner

text: In Belgium, one year of lectures and two years of residency are required. In the Netherlands, training consists of three years (full-time) of specialization after completion of internships of 3 years. First and third year of training takes place at a GP practice. The second year of training consists of six months training at an emergency room, or internal medicine, paediatrics or gynaecology, or a combination of a general or academic hospital, three months of training at a psychiatric hospital or outpatient clinic and three months at a nursing home (verpleeghuis) or clinical geriatrics ward/policlinic. During all three years, residents get one day of training at university while working in practice the other days. The first year, a lot of emphasis is placed on communications skills with video training. Furthermore, all aspects of working as a GP gets addressed including working with the medical standards from the Dutch GP association NHG (Nederlands Huisartsen Genootschap).


title: General practitioner

text: All residents must also take the national GP knowledge test (Landelijke Huisartsgeneeskundige Kennistoets (LHK-toets)) twice a year. In this test of 120 multiple choice questions, medical, ethical, scientific and legal matters of GP work are addressed.


title: General practitioner

text: In the Russian Federation, the General Practitioner's Regulation was put into effect in 1992, after which medical schools started training in the relevant specialty.


title: General practitioner

text: The right to practice as a general practitioner gives a certificate of appropriate qualifications. General medical practice can be carried out both individually and in a group, including with the participation of narrow specialists. The work of general practitioners is allowed, both in the medical institution and in private.


title: General practitioner

text: The general practitioner has broad legal rights. He can lead junior medical personnel, provide services under medical insurance contracts, conclude additional contracts to the main contract, and conduct an examination of the quality of medical services. For independent decisions, the general practitioner is responsible in accordance with the law.


title: General practitioner

text: In Spain GPs are officially especialistas en medicina familiar y comunitaria but are commonly called ""médico de cabecera"" or ""médico de familia"". Was established as a medical specialty in Spain in 1978.


title: General practitioner

text: Most Spanish GPs work for the state funded health services provided by the county's 17 regional governments ("comunidades autónomas"). They are in most cases salary-based healthcare workers.


title: General practitioner

text: For the provision of primary care, Spain is currently divided geographically in basic health care areas ("áreas básicas de salud"), each one containing a primary health care team ("Equipo de atención primaria"). Each team is multidisciplinary and typically includes GPs, community pediatricians, nurses, physiotherapists and social workers, together with ancillary staff. In urban areas all the services are concentrated in a single large building (Centro de salud) while in rural areas the main center is supported by smaller branches ("consultorios"), typically single-handled.


title: General practitioner

text: Becoming a GP in Spain involves studying medicine for 6 years, passing a competitive national exam called MIR ("Medico Interno Residente") and undergoing a 4 years training program. The training program includes core specialties as general medicine and general practice (around 12 months each), pediatrics, gynecology, orthopedics and psychiatry. Shorter and optional placements in ENT, ophthalmology, ED, infectious diseases, rheumathology or others add up to the 4 years curriculum. The assessment is work based and involves completing a logbook that ensures all the expected skills, abilities and aptitudes have been acquired by the end of the training period.


title: General practitioner

text: In the United Kingdom, physicians wishing to become GPs take at least five years training after medical school, which is usually an undergraduate course of five to six years (or a graduate course of four to six years) leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery.


title: General practitioner

text: Until 2005, those wishing to become a general practitioner of medicine had to do a minimum of the following postgraduate training:


title: General practitioner

text: This process changed under the programme Modernising Medical Careers. Medical practitioners graduating from 2005 onwards have to do a minimum of five years postgraduate training:


title: General practitioner

text: The postgraduate qualification Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners (MRCGP) was previously optional. In 2008, a requirement was introduced for physicians to succeed in the MRCGP assessments in order to be issued with a certificate of completion of their specialty training (CCT) in general practice. After passing the assessments, they are eligible to use the post-nominal letters MRCGP (so long as the physicians continued to pay membership fees to the RCGP, though many do not). During the GP specialty training programme, the medical practitioner must complete a variety of assessments in order to be allowed to practice independently as a GP. There is a knowledge-based exam with multiple choice questions called the Applied Knowledge Test (AKT). The practical examination takes the form of a "simulated surgery" in which the physicians is presented with thirteen clinical cases and assessment is made of data gathering, interpersonal skills and clinical management. This Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) is held on three or four occasions throughout the year and takes place at the renovated headquarters of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), at 30 Euston Square, London. Finally, throughout the year the physician must complete an electronic portfolio which is made up of case-based discussions, critique of videoed consultations and reflective entries into a "learning log".


title: General practitioner

text: In addition, many hold qualifications such as the DCH (Diploma in Child Health of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health) or the DRCOG (Diploma of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists), the DPD (Diploma in Practical Dermatology) or the DGH (Diploma in Geriatric Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians). Some General Practitioners also hold the MRCP (Member of the Royal College of Physicians) or other specialist qualifications, but generally only if they had a hospital career, or a career in another speciality, before training in General Practice.


title: General practitioner

text: There are many arrangements under which general practitioners can work in the UK. While the main career aim is becoming a principal or partner in a GP surgery, many become salaried or non-principal GPs, work in hospitals in GP-led acute care units, or perform locum work. Whichever of these roles they fill, the vast majority of GPs receive most of their income from the National Health Service (NHS). Principals and partners in GP surgeries are self-employed, but they have contractual arrangements with the NHS which give them considerable predictability of income.


title: General practitioner

text: Visits to GP surgeries are free in all countries of the United Kingdom, but charges for prescriptions are applied in England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have abolished all charges.


title: General practitioner

text: Recent reforms to the NHS have included changes to the GP contract. General practitioners are no longer required to work unsociable hours, and get paid to some extent according to their performance, (e.g. numbers of patients treated, what treatments were administered, and the health of their catchment area, through the Quality and Outcomes Framework). The IT system used for assessing their income based on these criteria is called QMAS. The amount that a GP can expect to earn does vary according to the location of their work and the health needs of the population that they serve. Within a couple of years of the new contract being introduced, it became apparent that there were a few examples where the arrangements were out step with what had been expected. A full-time self-employed GP, such as a GMS or PMS practice partner, might currently expect to earn a profit share of around £95,900 before tax while a GP employed by a CCG could expect to earn a salary in the range of £54,863 to £82,789. This can equate to an hourly rate of around £40 an hour for a GP partner.


title: General practitioner

text: A survey by Ipsos MORI released in 2011 reports that 88% of adults in the UK "trust doctors to tell the truth".


title: General practitioner

text: In May 2017, there was said to be a crisis in the UK with practices having difficulties recruiting GPs they need. Prof. Helen Stokes-Lampard of the Royal College of General Practitioners said, "At present, UK general practice does not have sufficient resources to deliver the care and services necessary to meet our patients' changing needs, meaning that GPs and our teams are working under intense pressures, which are simply unsustainable. Workload in general practice is escalating – it has increased 16% over the last seven years, according to the latest research – yet investment in our service has steadily declined over the last decade and the number of GPs has not risen in step with patient demand ... This must be addressed as a matter of urgency.".


title: General practitioner

text: In 2018 the average GP worked less than three and a half days a week because of the "intensity of working day".


title: General practitioner

text: There is an NHS England initiative to situate GPs in or near hospital emergency departments to divert minor cases away from A&E and reduce pressure on emergency services. 97 hospital trusts have been allocated money, mostly for premises alterations or development.


title: General practitioner

text: The population of this type of medical practitioner is declining, however. Currently, the Medical Departments of the US Air Force, Army and Navy have many of these general practitioners, known as General Medical Officers or GMOs, in active practice. The GMO is an inherent concept to all military medical branches. GMOs are the gatekeepers of medicine in that they hold the purse strings and decide upon the merit of specialist consultation. The US now holds a different definition for the term "general practitioner". The two terms "general practitioner" and "family practice" were synonymous prior to 1970. At that time both terms (if used within the US) referred to someone who completed medical school and the one-year required internship, and then worked as a general family doctor. Completion of a post-graduate specialty training program or residency in family medicine was, at that time, not a requirement. A physician who specializes in "family medicine" must now complete a residency in family medicine, and must be eligible for board certification, which is required by many hospitals and health plans for hospital privileges and remuneration, respectively. It was not until the 1970s that family medicine was recognized as a specialty in the US.


title: General practitioner

text: Many licensed family medical practitioners in the United States after this change began to use the term "general practitioner" to refer to those practitioners who previously did not complete a family medicine residency. Family physicians (after completing medical school) must then complete three to four years of additional residency in family medicine. Three hundred hours of medical education within the prior six years is also required to be eligible to sit for the board certification exam; these hours are largely acquired during residency training.


title: General practitioner

text: The existing general practitioners in the 1970s were given the choice to be grandfathered into the newly created specialty of Family Practice. In 1971 the American Academy of General Practice changed its name to the American Academy of Family Physicians. The prior system of graduating from medical school and completing one year of post-graduate training (rotating internship) was not abolished as 47 of the 50 states allow a physician to obtain a medical license without completion of residency. If one wanted to become a "house-call-making" type of physician, one still needs to only complete one or two years of a residency in either pediatrics, family medicine or internal medicine. This would make a physician a non-board eligible general practitioner able to qualify and obtain a license to practice medicine in 47 of the 50 United States of America. Since the establishment of the Board of Family Medicine, a family medicine physician is no longer the same as a general practitioner. What makes a Family Medicine Physician different than a General Practitioner/Physician is two-fold. First off a Family Medicine Physician has completed the three years of Family Medicine residency and is board eligible or board certified in Family Medicine; while a General Practitioner does not have any board certification and cannot sit for any board exam. Secondly, a Family Medicine Physician is able to practice obstetrics, the care of the pregnant woman from conception to delivery, while a general practitioner is not adequately trained in obstetrics.


title: General practitioner

text: Prior to recent history most postgraduate education in the United States was accomplished using the mentor system. A physician would finish a rotating internship and move to some town and be taught by the local physicians the skills needed for that particular town. This allowed each community's needs to be met by the teaching of the new general practitioner the skills needed in that community. This also allowed the new physician to start making a living and raising a family, etc. General practitioners would be the surgeons, the obstetricians, and the internists for their given communities. Changes in demographics and the growing complexities of the developing bodies of knowledge made it necessary to produce more highly trained surgeons and other specialists. For many physicians it was a natural desire to want to be considered "specialists".


title: General practitioner

text: What was not anticipated by many physicians is that an option to be a generalist would lose its prestige and be further degraded by a growing bureaucracy of insurance and hospitals requiring board certification. It has been shown that there is no statistically significant correlation between board certification and patient safety or quality of care which is why 47 states do not require board certification to practice medicine. Board certification agencies have been increasing their fees exponentially since establishment and the board examinations are known to not be clinically relevant and are at least 5 years out of date. Yet, there is still a misbelief that board certification is necessary to practice medicine and therefore it has made a non-board eligible general physician a rare breed of physician due to the lack of available job opportunities for them.


title: General practitioner

text: Certificates of Added Qualifications (CAQs) in adolescent medicine, geriatric medicine, sports medicine, sleep medicine, and hospice and palliative medicine are available for those board-certified family physicians with additional residency training requirements. Recently, new fellowships in International Family Medicine have emerged. These fellowships are designed to train family physicians working in resource-poor environments.


title: General practitioner

text: There is currently a shortage of primary care physicians (and also other primary care providers) due to several factors, notably the lesser prestige associated with the young specialty, the lower pay, and the increasingly frustrating practice environment. In the US physicians are increasingly forced to do more administrative work, and shoulder higher malpractice premiums.


title: General practitioner

text: The College of General Practice of Canada was founded in 1954 but in 1967 changed its name to College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC).


title: General practitioner

text: General Practice in Australia and New Zealand has undergone many changes in training requirements over the past decade. The basic medical degree in Australia is the MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery), which has traditionally been attained after completion of an undergraduate five or six-year course. Over the last few years, an ever-increasing number of post-graduate four-year medical programs (previous bachelor's degree required) have become more common and now account more than half of all Australian medical graduates. After graduating, a one-year internship is completed in a public and private hospitals prior to obtaining full registration. Many newly registered medical practitioners undergo one year or more of pre-vocational position as Resident Medical Officers (different titles depending on jurisdictions) before specialist training begins. For general practice training, the medical practitioner then applies to enter a three- or four-year program either through the "Australian General Practice Training Program", "Remote Vocational Training Scheme" or "Independent Pathway". The Australian Government has announced an expansion of the number of GP training places through the AGPT program- 1,500 places per year will be available by 2015.


title: General practitioner

text: A combination of coursework and apprenticeship type training leading to the awarding of the FRACGP (Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners) or FACRRM (Fellowship of Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine), if successful. Since 1996 this qualification or its equivalent has been required in order for new GPs to access Medicare rebates as a specialist general practitioner. Doctors who graduated prior to 1992 and who had worked in general practice for a specified period of time were recognized as "Vocationally Registered" or "VR" GPs, and given automatic and continuing eligibility for general practice Medicare rebates. There is a sizable group of doctors who have identical qualifications and experience, but who have been denied access to VR recognition. They are termed "Non-Vocationally Registered" or so-called "non-VR" GPs. The federal government of Australia recognizes the experience and competence of these doctors, by allowing them access to the "specialist" GP Medicare rebates for working in areas of government policy priority, such as areas of workforce shortage, and metropolitan after hours service. Some programs awarded permanent and unrestricted eligibility for VR rebate levels after 5 years of practice under the program. There is a community-based campaign in support of these so-called Non-VR doctors being granted full and permanent recognition of their experience and expertise, as fully identical with the previous generation of pre-1996 "grandfathered" GPs. This campaign is supported by the official policy of the Australian Medical Association (AMA).


title: General practitioner

text: Medicare is Australia's universal health insurance system, and without access to it, a practitioner cannot effectively work in private practice in Australia.


title: General practitioner

text: Procedural General Practice training in combination with General Practice Fellowship was first established by the "Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine" in 2004. This new fellowship was developed in aid to recognise the specialised skills required to work within a rural and remote context. In addition it was hoped to recognise the impending urgency of training Rural Procedural Practitioners to sustain Obstetric and Surgical services within rural Australia. Each training registrar select a speciality that can be used in a rural area from the Advanced Skills Training list and spends a minimum of 12 months completing this specialty, the most common of which are Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynaecology and Anaesthetics. Further choices of specialty include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Adult Internal Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Mental Health, Paediatrics, Population health and Remote Medicine. Shortly after the establishment of the FACRRM, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners introduced an additional training year (from the basic 3 years) to offer the "Fellowship in Advanced Rural General Practice". The additional year, or Advanced Rural Skills Training (ARST) can be conducted in various locations from Tertiary Hospitals to Small General Practice.


title: General practitioner

text: The competent authority pathway is a work-based place assessment process to support International Medical Graduates (IMGs) wishing to work in General Practice. Approval for the ACRRM to undertake these assessments was granted by the Australian Medical Council in August 2010 and the process is to be streamlined in July 2014.


title: General practitioner

text: In New Zealand, most GPs work in clinics and health centres usually as part of a Primary Health Organisation (PHO). These are funded at a population level, based on the characteristics of a practice's enrolled population (referred to as capitation-based funding). Fee-for-service arrangements still exist with other funders such as Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and Ministry of Social Development (MSD), as well as receiving co-payments from patients to top-up the capitation-based funding.


title: General practitioner

text: The basic medical degree in New Zealand is the MBChB degree (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery), which has traditionally been attained after completion of an undergraduate five or six-year course. In NZ new graduates must complete the GPEP (General Practice Education Program) Stages I and II in order to be granted the title Fellowship of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (FRNZCGP), which includes the PRIMEX assessment and further CME and Peer group learning sessions as directed by the RNZCGP. Holders of the award of FRNZCGP may apply for specialist recognition with the New Zealand Medical Council (MCNZ), after which they are considered specialists in General Practice by the council and the community. In 2009 the NZ Government increased the number of places available on the state-funded programme for GP training.


title: General practitioner

text: There is a shortage of GPs in rural areas and increasingly outer metropolitan areas of large cities, which has led to the use of overseas trained doctors (international medical graduates (IMGs)).


title: Poison ivy

text: Poison ivy is a type of allergenic plant in the genus "Toxicodendron" native to Asia and North America. Formerly considered a single species, "Toxicodendron radicans", poison ivies are now generally treated as a complex of three separate species: "Toxicodendron radicans", "Toxicodendron rydbergii", and "Toxicodendron orientale". They are well known for causing urushiol-induced contact dermatitis, an itchy, irritating, and sometimes painful rash, in most people who touch it. The rash is caused by urushiol, a clear liquid compound in the plant's sap. They are variable in appearance and habit, and despite its common name, it is not a "true" ivy ("Hedera"), but rather a member of the cashew and pistachio family (Anacardiaceae). "T. radicans" is commonly eaten by many animals, and the seeds are consumed by birds, but poison ivy is most often thought of as an unwelcome weed.


title: Poison ivy

text: Three species of poison ivy are generally recognised; they are sometimes considered subspecies of "Toxicodendron radicans":


title: Poison ivy

text: Poison ivies can grow as small plants, shrubs, or climbing vines. They are commonly characterized by clusters of leaves, each containing three leaflets, hence the common expression "leaves of three, let it be". These leaves can vary between an elliptic to egg shape and will have either smooth, lobed, or toothed margins. Additionally, the leaf clusters are alternate on the stem. Clusters of small, greenish flowers bloom from May to July and produce white berries in the fall a few millimeters in diameter.


title: Poison ivy

text: Urushiol-induced contact dermatitis is the allergic reaction caused by poison ivy. In extreme cases, a reaction can progress to anaphylaxis. Around 15 to 25 percent of people have no allergic reaction to urushiol, but most people have a greater reaction with repeated or more concentrated exposure.


title: Poison ivy

text: The oozing fluids released by scratching blisters do not spread the poison. The fluid in the blisters is produced by the body and it is not urushiol itself. The appearance of a spreading rash indicates that some areas received more of the poison and reacted sooner than other areas or that contamination is still occurring from contact with objects to which the original poison was spread.


title: Poison ivy

text: Those affected can unknowingly spread the urushiol inside the house, on phones, door knobs, couches, counters, desks, and so on, thus in fact repeatedly coming into contact with poison ivy and extending the length of time of the rash. If this has happened, wipe down the surfaces with bleach or a commercial urushiol removal agent. The blisters and oozing result from blood vessels that develop gaps and leak fluid through the skin; if the skin is cooled, the vessels constrict and leak less. If plant material with urushiol is burned and the smoke then inhaled, this rash will appear on the lining of the lungs, causing extreme pain and possibly fatal respiratory difficulty. If poison ivy is eaten, the mucus lining of the mouth and digestive tract can be damaged.


title: Poison ivy

text: Urushiol oil can remain active for several years, so handling dead leaves or vines can cause a reaction. In addition, oil transferred from the plant to other objects (such as pet fur) can cause the rash if it comes into contact with the skin. Clothing, tools, and other objects that have been exposed to oil should be washed to prevent further reactions.


title: Poison ivy

text: Immediate washing with soap and cold water or rubbing alcohol may help prevent a reaction. During a reaction, calamine lotion or diphenhydramine may help mitigate symptoms. Corticosteroids, either applied to the skin or taken by mouth, may be appropriate in extreme cases. An astringent containing aluminum acetate (such as Burow's solution) may also provide relief and soothe the uncomfortable symptoms of the rash.


title: Poison ivy

text: Urushiol binds to the skin on contact where it causes severe itching that develops into reddish inflammation or uncoloured bumps, and then blistering. These lesions may be treated with calamine lotion, Burow's solution compresses, dedicated commercial poison ivy itch creams, or baths to relieve discomfort, though recent studies have shown some traditional medicines to be ineffective. Over-the-counter products to ease itching—or simply oatmeal baths and baking soda—are now recommended by dermatologists for the treatment of poison ivy.


title: Poison ivy

text: A plant-based remedy cited to counter urushiol-induced contact dermatitis is jewelweed, though jewelweed extracts had no positive effect in clinical studies. Others argue that prevention of lesions is easy if one practices effective washing, using plain soap, scrubbing with a washcloth, and rinsing three times within 2–8 hours of exposure.


title: Poison ivy

text: The pentadecyl catechols of the oleoresin within the sap of poison ivy and related plants causes the allergic reaction; the plants produce a mixture of pentadecylcatechols, which collectively is called urushiol. After injury, the sap leaks to the surface of the plant where the urushiol becomes a blackish lacquer after contact with oxygen.


title: Poison ivy

text: Typically, the rash from the urushiol oil lasts about five to twelve days, but in extreme cases it can last a month or more. A urushiol rash usually develops within a week of exposure and can last 1–4 weeks, depending on severity and treatment. In rare cases, urushiol reactions may require hospitalization.


title: Poison ivy

text: People who are sensitive to urushiol can also experience a similar rash from mangoes. Mangoes are in the same family (Anacardiaceae) as poison ivy; the sap of the mango tree and skin of mangoes has a chemical compound similar to urushiol. A related allergenic compound is present in the raw shells of cashews. Similar reactions have been reported occasionally from contact with the related fragrant sumac ("Rhus aromatica") and Japanese lacquer tree. These other plants are also in the family Anacardiaceae.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXII Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Sochi 2014 (), was an international winter multi-sport event that was held from 7 to 23 February 2014 in Sochi, Russia. Opening rounds in certain events were held on 6 February 2014, the day before the opening ceremony.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: These were the first Olympic Games under the International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency of Thomas Bach. Both the Olympics and Paralympics were organized by the Sochi Organizing Committee (SOOC). Sochi was selected as the host city in July 2007, during the 119th IOC Session held in Guatemala City. It was the first Olympics to be held in a CIS state after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union was previously the host nation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: A record ninety-eight events in fifteen winter sport disciplines were held during the Games. A number of new competitions—a total of twelve accounting for gender—were held during the Games, including biathlon mixed relay, women's ski jumping, mixed-team figure skating, mixed-team luge, half-pipe skiing, ski and snowboard slopestyle, and snowboard parallel slalom. The events were held around two clusters of new venues: an Olympic Park constructed in Sochi's Imeretinsky Valley on the coast of the Black Sea, with Fisht Olympic Stadium, and the Games' indoor venues located within walking distance; and snow events in the resort settlement of Krasnaya Polyana.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The 2014 Winter Olympics were the most expensive Games in the history of the Olympics. While originally budgeted at US$12 billion, major cost overruns caused this figure to expand to US$51 billion, more than three times the cost of the 2012 London Olympics and even surpassing the estimated cost of US$44 billion for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The 2014 Games achieved a record broadcast audience of 2.1 billion people worldwide.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In 2016, an independent report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed allegations that the Russian Olympic team had been involved in a state-sponsored doping program, active from at least late-2011 through August 2015. The program was active during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, and athletes had benefited from the cover-up. The IOC stripped thirteen medals from Russian athletes in 2017, but nine were reinstated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. In December 2017, the IOC voted to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee, with an option for whitelisted athletes to compete independently during the 2018 Winter Olympics.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Sochi was elected on 4 July 2007 during the 119th International Olympic Committee (IOC) session held in Guatemala City, Guatemala, defeating bids from Salzburg, Austria; and Pyeongchang, South Korea. This is the first time that the Russian Federation has hosted the Winter Olympics. The Soviet Union was the host of the 1980 Summer Olympics held in and around Moscow.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: As of October 2013, the estimated combined cost of the 2014 Winter Olympics had topped US$51 billion. This amount included the cost for Olympic games themselves and cost of Sochi infrastructural projects (roads, railroads, power plants). This total is over four times the initial budget of $12 billion (compared to the $8 billion spent for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver), and made the Sochi games the most expensive Olympics in history, exceeding the estimated $44 billion cost of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, which hosted 3 times as many events. Dmitry Kozak was the main overseer for the events in Sochi.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In its final budget published in June 2014, Olimpstroy—the state corporation that oversaw the Sochi Olympics development—reported the total allocated funds for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics of 1,524 billion rubles (US$49.5 billion). However, only about a fifth of that budget ($10.8 billion) was directly related to the Olympic games, while the rest went into urban and regional regeneration and the conversion of the Sochi region into an all-year round sea and alpine resort. The breakdown table below is based on that has analyzed the distribution of Olimpstroy's $49.5 billion budget. Estimates also suggest that additional unrecoverable operational costs (including for security) could have added another $3 billion.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: With an average February temperature of and a humid subtropical climate, Sochi is the warmest city to host a Winter Olympic Games. Sochi 2014 is the 12th straight Olympics to outlaw smoking; all Sochi venues, Olympic Park bars and restaurants and public areas were smoke-free during the Games. It is also the first time that an Olympic Park has been built for hosting winter games.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The Sochi Olympic Park was built by the Black Sea coast in the Imeretinsky Valley, about 4 km (2.5 miles) from Russia's border with Abkhazia/Georgia. The venues were clustered around a central water basin on which the Medals Plaza is built, allowing all indoor venues to be within walking distance. It also features "The Waters of the Olympic Park" (designed by California-based company WET), a choreographed fountain which served as the backdrop in the medals awards and the opening and closing ceremonies of the event. The new venues include:


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: A street circuit known as the Sochi Autodrom was constructed in and around Olympic Park. Its primary use is to host the Formula One Russian Grand Prix, which held its inaugural edition in October 2014.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In January 2015, work began on adapting Fisht Olympic Stadium into an open-air football stadium to host matches during the 2018 FIFA World Cup.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: A new ice hockey team in the Kontinental Hockey League, HC Sochi Leopards, now plays in Bolshoy Arena.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The Olympic infrastructure was constructed according to a Federal Target Program (FTP). In June 2009, the Games' organizers reported they were one year ahead in building the main Olympic facilities as compared to recent Olympic Games. In November 2011, IOC President Jacques Rogge was in Sochi and concluded that the city had made significant progress since he last visited eighteen months earlier.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: According to the FTP, US$580 million would be spent on construction and modernization of telecommunications in the region. Avaya was named by the Sochi Organizing Committee as the official supplier of telecommunications equipment. Avaya provided the data network equipment, including switches, routers, security, telephones and contact-center systems. It provided engineers and technicians to design and test the systems, and worked with other technology partners to provide athletes, dignitaries and fans information about the Games.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The 2014 Olympics is the first "fabric-enabled" Games using Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) technology. The network is capable of handling up to 54 Tbit/s of traffic.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In January 2012, the newest equipment for the television coverage of the Games arrived in the port of Adler. Prepared specifically for the Games, a team of regional specialists and the latest technology provide a qualitatively new level of television production in the region.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The fiber-optic channel links Sochi between Adler and Krasnaya Polyana. The channel enables videoconferencing and news reporting from the Olympics.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In November 2013, it was reported that the fiber-optic cable that was built by the Federal Communications Agency, Rossvyaz, had no operator. With Rostelecom and Megafon both refusing to operate it, the line was transferred to the ownership of the state enterprise Center for Monitoring & Development of Infocommunication Technologies ().


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Russian mobile phone operator Megafon expanded and improved Sochi's telecom infrastructure with over 700 new 2G/3G/4G cell towers. Sochi was the first Games to offer 4G connectivity at a speed of 10 MB/sec.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In January 2014, Rostelecom reported that it had connected the Olympic media center in Sochi to the Internet and organized channels of communication with the main media center of the Olympic Games in the coastal cluster and press center in Moscow. The media center was built at total cost of 17 million rubles.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: A five-year strategy for increasing the power supply of the Sochi region was presented by Russian energy experts during a seminar on 29 May 2009, held by the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, and attended by International Olympic Committee (IOC) experts and officials from the Russian Ministry of Regional Development, the Russian Ministry of Energy, the State Corporation Olimpstroy and the Krasnodar Krai administration.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: According to the strategy, the capacity of the regional energy network would increase by two and a half times by 2014, guaranteeing a stable power supply during and after the Games.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The power demand of Sochi at the end of May 2009 was 424 MW. The power demand of the Olympic infrastructure was expected to be about 340 MW.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Earlier plans also include building combined cycle (steam and gas) power stations near the cities of Tuapse and Novorossiysk and construction of a cable-wire powerline, partially on the floor of the Black Sea.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The transport infrastructure prepared to support the Olympics includes many roads, tunnels, bridges, interchanges, railroads and stations in and around Sochi. Among others, 8 flyovers, 102 bridges, tens of tunnels and a bypass route for heavy trucks – of roads were paved.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The Sochi Light Metro is located between Adler and Krasnaya Polyana connecting the Olympic Park, Sochi International Airport, and the venues in Krasnaya Polyana.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The existing , Tuapse-to-Adler railroad was renovated to provide double track throughout, increasing capacity and enabling a reliable regional service to be provided and extending to the airport. In December 2009, Russian Railways ordered 38 Siemens Mobility Desiro trains for delivery in 2013 for use during the Olympics, with an option for a further 16 partly built in Russia.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: At Sochi International Airport, a new terminal was built along a runway extension, overlapping the Mzymta River. Backup airports were built in Gelendzhik, Mineralnye Vody and Krasnodar by 2009.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: At the Port of Sochi, a new offshore terminal from the shore allows docking for cruise ships with capacities of 3,000 passengers. The cargo terminal of the seaport would be moved from the centre of Sochi.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In May 2009, Russian Railways started the construction of tunnel complex No. 1 (the final total is six) on the combined road (automobile and railway) from Adler to Alpica Service Mountain Resort in the Krasnaya Polyana region. The tunnel complex No. 1 is located near Akhshtyr in Adlersky City District, and includes:


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin stated the road construction costed more than 200 billion rubles.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In addition, Sochi's railway stations were renovated. These are Dagomys, Sochi, Matsesta, Khosta, Lazarevskaya, and Loo railway stations. In Adler, a new railway station was built while the original building was preserved, and in the Olympic park cluster, a new station was built from scratch, the Olympic Park railway station. Another new railway station was built in Estosadok, close to Krasnaya Polyana.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Funds were spent on the construction of hotels for 10,300 guests. The first of the Olympic hotels, Zvezdny ("Stellar"), was rebuilt anew. Significant funds were spent on the construction of an advanced sewage treatment system in Sochi, designed by Olimpstroy. The system meets BREF standards and employs top available technologies for environment protection, including tertiary treatment with microfiltration.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Six post offices were opened at competition venues, two of them in the main media centre in Olympic Park and in the mountain village of Estosadok. In addition to standard services, customers had access to unique services including two new products, Fotomarka and Retropismo. Fotomarka presents an opportunity to get a stylized sheet of eight souvenir stamps with one's own photos, using the services of a photographer in the office. Retropismo service allows a customer to write with their own stylus or pen on antique paper with further letters, winding string and wax seal affixing. All the new sites and post offices in Sochi were opened during the Olympics until late night 7 days a week, and employees were trained to speak English.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: On 29 September 2013, the Olympic torch was lit in Ancient Olympia, beginning a seven-day journey across Greece and on to Russia, then the torch relay started at Moscow on 7 October 2013 before passing 83 Russian cities and arriving at Sochi on the day of the opening ceremony, 7 February 2014. It is the longest torch relay in Olympic history, a route that passes through all regions of the country, from Kaliningrad in the west to Chukotka in the east.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The Olympic torch reached the North Pole for first time via a nuclear-powered icebreaker "(50 Let Pobedy)". The torch was also passed for the first time in space, though not lit for the duration of the flight for safety reasons, on flight Soyuz TMA-11M to the International Space Station (ISS). The spacecraft itself was adorned with Olympic-themed livery including the Games' emblem. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky waved the torch on a spacewalk outside the ISS. The torch returned to Earth five days later on board Soyuz TMA-09M. The torch also reached Europe's highest mountain, Mount Elbrus, and Siberia's Lake Baikal.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics was held on 7 February 2014 at Fisht Olympic Stadium, an indoor arena built specifically for the ceremonies. The ceremony featured scenes based around aspects of Russian history and arts, including ballet, classical music, the Russian Revolution, and the age of the Soviet Union. The opening scene of the ceremony featured a notable technical error, where one of five snowflakes, which were to expand to form the Olympic rings, malfunctioned and did not expand (a mishap mocked by the organizers at the closing ceremony where one of the roundrelay dance groups symbolizing the Olympic rings "failed" to expand). The torch was taken into the stadium by Maria Sharapova, who then passed it to Yelena Isinbayeva who, in turn, passed it to wrestler Aleksandr Karelin. Karelin then passed the torch to gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Figure skater Irina Rodnina took the torch and was met by former ice hockey goalkeeper Vladislav Tretiak, who exited the stadium to jointly light the Olympic cauldron located near the center of Olympic Park.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: A record 88 nations qualified to compete, which beat the previous record of 82 set at the previous Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The number of athletes who qualified per country is listed in the table below (number of athletes shown in parentheses). Seven nations made their Winter Olympics debut: Dominica, Malta, Paraguay, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, and Zimbabwe. The Winter debut of Malta meant that for the first time ever, all of the current members of the European Olympic Committees participated at the Winter Olympics.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Kristina Krone qualified to compete in her second consecutive games for Puerto Rico, but the island's Olympic Committee once again chose not to send her to compete. Similarly, South Africa decided not to send alpine skier Sive Speelman to Sochi. Algeria also did not enter its only qualified athlete, Mehdi-Selim Khelifi.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: India's athletes originally competed as Independent Olympic Participants and marched under the Olympic flag during the opening ceremony, as India was originally suspended in December 2012 over the election process of the Indian Olympic Association. On 11 February, the Indian Olympic Association was reinstated and India's athletes were allowed the option to compete under their own flag from that time onward. Although Shiva Keshavan competed as an Independent athlete and is recorded as such, he was permitted to walk under the flag of India at the Closing Ceremony.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: During the Games some countries had a national house, a meeting place for supporters, athletes and other followers. Houses could be either free for visitors to access or have limited access by invitation only.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The 2014 Winter Olympics featured 98 events over 15 disciplines in 7 sports. A total of twelve new events were contested, making it the largest Winter Olympics to date.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: On 6 April 2011, the IOC accepted a number of events that were submitted by their respective sports federations to be considered for inclusion into the official program of these Olympic Games.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The events included a Figure skating team event, Women's ski jumping, Mixed relay biathlon, Ski half-pipe, and Team relay luge.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: On 4 July 2011, the IOC announced that three events would be added to the program. These events, which were officially declared by Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge on 4 July 2011, were: Ski slopestyle, Snowboard slopestyle, Snowboard parallel special slalom.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Team alpine skiing was also presented as a candidate for inclusion in the Olympic program but the Executive board of the IOC rejected this proposal. The International Ski Federation persisted with the nomination and this was considered. There were reports of bandy possibly being added to the sports program, but the IOC rejected this request. Subsequently, the international governing body, Federation of International Bandy, decided that Irkutsk and Shelekhov in Russia would host the 2014 Bandy World Championship just before the Olympics.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: On 28 November 2006, the Executive Board of the IOC decided not to include ski mountaineering, ski-orienteering, or winter triathlon in the review process of the program.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The closing ceremony was held on 23 February 2014 between 20:14 MSK () and 22:25 MSK () at the Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The ceremony was dedicated to Russian culture featuring world-renowned Russian stars like conductor and violinist Yuri Bashmet, conductor Valery Gergiev, pianist Denis Matsuev, singer Hibla Gerzmava and violinist Tatiana Samouil. These artists were joined by performers from the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Sochi's medal design was unveiled in May 2013. The design is intended to resemble Sochi's landscape, with a semi-translucent section containing a "patchwork quilt" of diamonds representing mountains; the diamonds themselves contain designs that reflect Russia's regions. Those who won gold medals on 15 February received special medals with fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteor, marking the one-year anniversary of the event where pieces of the cosmic body fell into the Chebarkul Lake in the Ural Mountains in central Russia.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The top ten listed NOCs by number of gold medals are listed below. The host nation, Russia, is highlighted.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Legkov and Vylegzhanin were initially disqualified by the IOC for doping offenses in November 2017, and their 2014 Olympic medals were stripped (gold and silver respectively). However, their results were restored on 1 February 2018 following a successful appeal.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Security during both the Olympics and Paralympics were handled by over 40,000 law enforcement officials, including police and the Russian Armed Forces. A presidential decree signed by President Vladimir Putin took effect on 7 January, requiring that any protests and demonstrations in Sochi and the surrounding area through 21 March (the end of the Paralympics) be approved by the Federal Security Service. For the duration of the decree, travel restrictions were also in effect in and around Sochi: "controlled" zones, dubbed the "ring of steel" by the media, covered the Coastal and Mountain clusters which encompass all of the Games' venues and infrastructure, including transport hubs such as railway stations. To enter controlled areas, visitors were required to pass through security checkpoints with X-ray machines, metal detectors and explosive material scanners. Several areas were designated as "forbidden", including Sochi National Park and the border with Abkhazia. An unmanned aerial vehicle squadron, along with S-400 and Pantsir-S1 air defense rockets were used to protect Olympic airspace. Four gunboats were also deployed on the Black Sea to protect the coastline.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: A number of security organizations and forces began stationing in and around Sochi in January 2014; Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) was stationed in Sochi for the Games beginning on 7 January 2014. A group of 10,000 Internal Troops of the Ministry of Interior also provided security services during the Games. In mid-January, 1,500 Siberian Regional Command troops were stationed in a military town near Krasnaya Polyana. A group of 400 Cossacks in traditional uniforms were also present to accompany police patrols. The 58th Army unit of the Russian Armed Forces were defending the Georgia–Russia border. The United States also supplied Navy ships and other assets for security purposes.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: All communication and Internet traffic by Sochi residents was captured and filtered through deep packet inspection systems at all mobile networks using the SORM system.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Former professional speed skater and current deputy of the Russian State Duma Svetlana Zhurova has stated that the 2014 Sochi Olympics were Vladimir Putin's personal project to showcase Russia to the world.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Organizers received several threats prior to the Games. In a July 2013 video release, Chechen Islamist commander Dokka Umarov called for attacks on the Games, stating that the Games were being staged "on the bones of many, many Muslims killed ... and buried on our lands extending to the Red Sea".


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Threats were received from the group Vilayat Dagestan, which had claimed responsibility for the Volgograd bombings under the demands of Umarov, and a number of National Olympic Committees had also received threats via e-mail, threatening that terrorists would kidnap or "blow up" athletes during the Games. However, while the IOC did state that the letters "[contained] no threat and appears to be a random message from a member of the public", the U.S. ski and snowboarding teams hired a private security agency to provide additional protection during the Games.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In most regions, broadcast rights to the 2014 Winter Olympics were packaged together with broadcast rights for the 2016 Summer Olympics, but some broadcasters obtained rights to further games as well. Domestic broadcast rights were sold by Sportfive to a consortium of three Russian broadcasters: Channel One, VGTRK, and NTV Plus.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In the United States, the 2014 Winter Olympics were the first in a new, US$4.38 billion contract with NBCUniversal, extending its broadcast rights to the Olympic Games through 2020.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In Canada, after losing the 2010 and 2012 Games to Bell Media and Rogers Media, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation re-gained broadcast rights to the Olympics for the first time since 2008, gaining rights to the 2014 and 2016 Games. Bell and Rogers sub-licensed pay-TV rights for their TSN, Sportsnet and Réseau des sports networks, as well as TVA Group's TVA Sports.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: In Australia, after all three major commercial networks pulled out of bidding on rights to both the 2014 and 2016 Games due to cost concerns, the IOC awarded broadcast rights to just the 2014 Winter Olympics to Network Ten for A$20 million.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Several broadcasters used the Games to trial the emerging ultra high definition television (UHDTV) standard. Both NTV Plus and Comcast filmed portions of the Games in 4K resolution; Comcast offered its content through smart TV apps, while NTV+ held public and cinema viewings of the content. NHK filmed portions of the Games in 8K resolution for public viewing. Olympic sponsor Panasonic filmed the opening ceremony in 4K.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: A variety of concerns over the Games, or Russia's hosting of the Games, had been expressed by various entities. Concerns were shown over Russia's policies surrounding the LGBT community, including the government's denial of a proposed Pride House for the Games on moral grounds, and a federal law passed in June 2013 which criminalized the distribution of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships" among minors. Severe cost overruns made the 2014 Winter Olympics the most expensive Olympics in history, with Russian politician Boris Nemtsov citing allegations of corruption among government officials, and Allison Stewart of the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford citing tight relationships between the government and construction firms. It was reported that Putin's annexation of Crimea may have been intended to distract local Russians from corruption stories related to the Games.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: U.S. broadcaster NBC largely avoided broadcasting material critical of Russia, although several segments deemed "overly friendly to Russia" were criticized by some commentators.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Some Circassian organizations objected to the Games being held on land their ancestors held until 1864, when most of them were vanquished at the end of the Russian-Circassian War (1763–1864), in the Circassian genocide The use of Krasnaya Polyana ("Red Hill" or "Red Glade") as an event site was considered insensitive, as it was named for a group of Circassians who were defeated in a bloody battle with Russians while attempting to return home over it in 1864. Some Circassian groups demanded that the Games be cancelled or moved unless Russia apologized for their actions. Other groups did not outright object to the Games, but suggested that symbols of Circassian history and culture be incorporated into the Games, as Australia, the United States and Canada did for their indigenous cultures in 2000, 2002, and 2010 respectively.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Following the Games, reports began to emerge that the Russian Olympic team had participated in a state-run doping program, which supplied their athletes with performance-enhancing drugs. These allegations first emerged in a December 2014 documentary by German public broadcaster ARD, and were detailed further in a May 2016 report by "The New York Times"—which published allegations by Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of Russia's anti-doping laboratory. Rodchenkov alleged that a conspiracy of corrupt anti-doping officials, FSB intelligence agents, and compliant Russian athletes used banned substances to gain an unfair advantage during the Games. Rodchenkov stated that the FSB tampered with over 100 urine samples as part of a cover-up, and that at least fifteen of the Russian medals won in Sochi were the result of doping.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commissioned an independent report by Richard McLaren, which corroborated claims that Russian authorities had been discreetly swapping out urine samples that tested positive for performance-enhancing substances. The report concluded that the program had been operating from "at least late 2011 to August 2015", and had covered up 643 positive samples across Olympic and non-Olympic sports. As a result, WADA considered the Russian Anti-Doping Agency to be non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code, and recommended that Russia be banned from competing in the 2016 Summer Olympics.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: Russia was not banned from the 2016 Olympics by the IOC, a decision that was widely criticized by both athletes and writers; the IOC only required Russia's athletes to be cleared by an internal panel and their respective sports federations. The IAAF had suspended Russia from international track and field events due to the scandal, but did allow Darya Klishina to participate in the Olympics because she was confirmed not to be a part of a doping program, despite claims that surfaced in her appeal that a sample of Klishina's that had been collected on 26 February 2014 had yielded an illegal testosterone/epitestosterone ratio of 8.5 had been subject


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: to a "SAVE" order by the Ministry of Sport on 3 March 2014. The International Paralympic Committee suspended the Russian Paralympic Committee and banned the team from the 2016 Summer Paralympics.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: On 5 December 2017, the IOC voted to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee, thus banning it from sending athletes under the Russian flag to the 2018 Winter Olympics. Cleared Russian athletes were allowed to participate as "Olympic Athletes from Russia" (OAR). Two of them – curler Alexander Krushelnitskiy, who won a bronze medal, and bobsledder Nadezhda Sergeeva – failed drug tests during the Games.


title: 2014 Winter Olympics

text: The IOC's Oswald Commission disqualified and banned 43 Russian athletes, and stripped thirteen medals they earned in Sochi. In December 2017, 42 of the 43 punished athletes appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). On 1 February 2018, the CAS found that the IOC provided insufficient evidence and cleared 28 athletes from IOC sanctions. In total, Russian athletes won back 9 of the 13 medals collected. For 11 other athletes, the CAS decided that there was sufficient evidence to uphold their Sochi sanctions, but reduced their lifetime bans to only the 2018 Winter Olympics. The IOC said in a statement that "the result of the CAS decision does not mean that athletes from the group of 28 will be invited to the [2018 Winter Olympic] Games. Not being sanctioned does not automatically confer the privilege of an invitation" and that "this [case] may have a serious impact on the future fight against doping". The IOC found it important to note that the CAS Secretary General "insisted that the CAS decision does not mean that these 28 athletes are innocent” and that they would consider an appeal against the court's decision. Later that month, the Russian Olympic Committee was reinstated by the IOC, despite failed doping tests during the 2018 Olympics, and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency was re-certified in September, despite the Russian officials not accepting the McLaren report.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Anthony Daniels ( ; born 21 February 1946) is an English actor and mime artist, best known for playing in 10 "Star Wars" films. He is the only actor to have either appeared in or been involved with all theatrical films in the series, and has been involved in many of their spin-offs, including television series, video games, and radio serials.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels was the voice of Legolas in the Ralph Bakshi animated adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" (1978). He has appeared intermittently on British television in various dramas, including playing a pathologist in "Prime Suspect" starring Helen Mirren. Daniels is currently an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, the son of a plastics company executive. He was educated at Giggleswick School and studied law for two years at university, then dropped out to participate in amateur dramatics and attend Rose Bruford College. After leaving the college in 1974, Daniels worked on BBC Radio and for the National Theatre of Great Britain at The Young Vic. Whilst working in the theatre, he was invited to meet director George Lucas, who was casting for "Star Wars". Daniels at first turned down the interview but was persuaded by his agent to meet Lucas.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels has said that before his role in "Star Wars", the only science fiction film he had ever seen in a theatre was "" in 1968; he was so displeased with the film that he walked out after 10 minutes and demanded his money back. After Daniels was cast as , Lucas recommended that he watch the film in its entirety to study HAL 9000's voice. In a 2011 interview, Daniels said that he now regards "2001" as a masterpiece and that he also enjoys post-apocalyptic films such as "Mad Max".


title: Anthony Daniels

text: After auditioning for the role of C-3PO, Daniels only became fully interested in it after seeing a concept design of the golden droid C-3PO by Ralph McQuarrie. Daniels did not see the final costume until after donning it for the shoot and being shown a Polaroid photograph. He struggled with delivering the character's lines until Lucas informed him that they would redub the dialogue in post-production. Daniels also portrayed a protocol droid with a "white pointy face" in one shot in the original film. Daniels was depressed with his lack of recognition after the film's successful release; he attributes this to Lucasfilm wanting audiences to believe that the droids were real.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels has played C-3PO in all of the "Star Wars" feature films (with the exception of "") from the original instalment in the series as the golden droid's body and voice. Kenny Baker, who played R2-D2 in the series until his death in 2016, said that he and Daniels did not get along.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels has reprised the role for various promotional work such as hosting "The Making of Star Wars", "Star Wars Connections" and "Science of Star Wars", appearances on "The Muppet Show", "Sesame Street", an anti-smoking public service announcement, "The Star Wars Holiday Special", and advertising for "Star Wars"-licensed products such as Kenner toys and a breakfast cereal based on the character.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels voiced C-3PO in the "Star Wars" radio serial based on the original trilogy. He is the only cast member of the original "Star Wars" trilogy to voice his character in all three parts of NPR's dramatisations of the trilogy. He voiced C-3PO for six animated series: "", "", "", "Rebels", "Forces of Destiny," and "Resistance". Other C-3PO voicework by Daniels includes: the Christmas-themed "Christmas in the Stars" album, Disney theme park attractions including "Star Tours" and "", and the Star Tours shutdown ceremony as a part of Disney's Hollywood Studios' "Last Tour to Endor" event at "Star Wars" Celebration V in Orlando, Florida. He also provided the narration and all character voices for the audio books "Dark Force Rising" and "The Last Command".


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels contributed the foreword to the collected scripts of the "Return of the Jedi" radio drama, as their author Brian Daley died while they were being recorded. Daniels' other "Star Wars"-related writings include the Wonder Column for "Star Wars Insider" magazine and a comic book adventure for and R2-D2 entitled "The Protocol Offensive", published by Dark Horse Comics.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: In "", Daniels only voiced the character, which a puppeteer played on set. Daniels attempted to puppeteer the character himself in the sequel, "", but after the script was changed, he returned to playing the droid in costume. In this film and 2005's "", he also performed the vocal tracks for scenes that featured a computer-generated C-3PO. Daniels is the only actor to act in all nine films, , and .


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels also makes cameo appearances as a humanoid in two scenes of the feature films. His character, Lieutenant Dannl Faytonni, is named as a tribute to his own name, albeit in modified form. The character appears in the nightclub scene early in "Attack of the Clones" as a man in blue uniform who can be seen in a cutaway reaction shot after Obi-Wan Kenobi disarms the bounty hunter Zam Wesell. Faytonni can also be seen at the Galaxies Opera House in "Revenge of the Sith".


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels reprised his role as C-3PO in the seventh "Star Wars" film, "The Force Awakens", which was released in December 2015. J. J. Abrams, the director of "The Force Awakens", told Daniels that he was only going to be the voice of C-3PO in the film, but changed his mind and decided Daniels would wear the suit in the film as well. Abrams made a new C-3PO suit for Daniels to wear during filming using 3D printing that allowed Daniels a great deal more mobility and comfort than the original suit. Daniels has stated his displeasure with the droid's red arm. Daniels also appeared as C-3PO in 2017's "The Last Jedi", and 2019's "The Rise of Skywalker".


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels appears in a cameo as C-3PO in 2016's "Rogue One", the first standalone film in the "Star Wars" anthology series. He also makes an appearance as Tak in the second anthology film, "",


title: Anthony Daniels

text: and voiced C-3PO's cameo appearance in "Ralph Breaks the Internet", and "The Lego Movie" alongside other crewmembers of the "Millennium Falcon".


title: Anthony Daniels

text: In March 2017, All Nippon Airways introduced a Boeing 777 modelled after C-3PO into service. Daniels attended the aircraft's unveiling.


title: Anthony Daniels

text: Daniels was the voice of Legolas in the Ralph Bakshi animated adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" (1978). He has appeared intermittently on British television in various dramas, notably in a recurring role in "Prime Suspect" starring Helen Mirren. He also played the priest in the British spoof horror film "I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle" (1990).


title: Anthony Daniels

text: His autobiography, "I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story", was released on 5 November 2019 by DK. He had previously considered using the title "Telling the Odds".


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is a technique used to obtain an infrared spectrum of absorption or emission of a solid, liquid, or gas. An FTIR spectrometer simultaneously collects high-resolution spectral data over a wide spectral range. This confers a significant advantage over a dispersive spectrometer, which measures intensity over a narrow range of wavelengths at a time.


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: The term "Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy" originates from the fact that a Fourier transform (a mathematical process) is required to convert the raw data into the actual spectrum.


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: The goal of absorption spectroscopy techniques (FTIR, ultraviolet-visible ("UV-vis") spectroscopy, etc.) is to measure how much light a sample absorbs at each wavelength. The most straightforward way to do this, the "dispersive spectroscopy" technique, is to shine a monochromatic light beam at a sample, measure how much of the light is absorbed, and repeat for each different wavelength. (This is how some UV–vis spectrometers work, for example.)


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: Fourier transform spectroscopy is a less intuitive way to obtain the same information. Rather than shining a monochromatic beam of light (a beam composed of only a single wavelength) at the sample, this technique shines a beam containing many frequencies of light at once and measures how much of that beam is absorbed by the sample. Next, the beam is modified to contain a different combination of frequencies, giving a second data point. This process is rapidly repeated many times over a short time span. Afterwards, a computer takes all this data and works backward to infer what the absorption is at each wavelength.


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: The beam described above is generated by starting with a broadband light source—one containing the full spectrum of wavelengths to be measured. The light shines into a Michelson interferometer—a certain configuration of mirrors, one of which is moved by a motor. As this mirror moves, each wavelength of light in the beam is periodically blocked, transmitted, blocked, transmitted, by the interferometer, due to wave interference. Different wavelengths are modulated at different rates, so that at each moment or mirror position the beam coming out of the interferometer has a different spectrum.


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: As mentioned, computer processing is required to turn the raw data (light absorption for each mirror position) into the desired result (light absorption for each wavelength). The processing required turns out to be a common algorithm called the Fourier transform. The Fourier transform converts one domain (in this case displacement of the mirror in cm) into its inverse domain (wavenumbers in cm). The raw data is called an "interferogram".


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: The first low-cost spectrophotometer capable of recording an infrared spectrum was the Perkin-Elmer Infracord produced in 1957. This instrument covered the wavelength range from 2.5 μm to 15 μm (wavenumber range 4,000 cm to 660 cm). The lower wavelength limit was chosen to encompass the highest known vibration frequency due to a fundamental molecular vibration. The upper limit was imposed by the fact that the dispersing element was a prism made from a single crystal of rock-salt (sodium chloride), which becomes opaque at wavelengths longer than about 15 μm; this spectral region became known as the rock-salt region. Later instruments used potassium bromide prisms to extend the range to 25 μm (400 cm) and caesium iodide 50 μm (200 cm). The region beyond 50 μm (200 cm) became known as the far-infrared region; at very long wavelengths it merges into the microwave region. Measurements in the far infrared needed the development of accurately ruled diffraction gratings to replace the prisms as dispersing elements, since salt crystals are opaque in this region. More sensitive detectors than the bolometer were required because of the low energy of the radiation. One such was the Golay detector. An additional issue is the need to exclude atmospheric water vapour because water vapour has an intense pure rotational spectrum in this region. Far-infrared spectrophotometers were cumbersome, slow and expensive. The advantages of the Michelson interferometer were well-known, but considerable technical difficulties had to be overcome before a commercial instrument could be built. Also an electronic computer was needed to perform the required Fourier transform, and this only became practicable with the advent of minicomputers, such as the PDP-8, which became available in 1965. Digilab pioneered the world's first commercial FTIR spectrometer (Model FTS-14) in 1969 (Digilab FTIRs are now a part of Agilent technologies's molecular product line after it acquired spectroscopy business from Varian).


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: In a Michelson interferometer adapted for FTIR, light from the polychromatic infrared source, approximately a black-body radiator, is collimated and directed to a beam splitter. Ideally 50% of the light is refracted towards the fixed mirror and 50% is transmitted towards the moving mirror. Light is reflected from the two mirrors back to the beam splitter and some fraction of the original light passes into the sample compartment. There, the light is focused on the sample. On leaving the sample compartment the light is refocused on to the detector. The difference in optical path length between the two arms to the interferometer is known as the "retardation" or "optical path difference" (OPD). An interferogram is obtained by varying the retardation and recording the signal from the detector for various values of the retardation. The form of the interferogram when no sample is present depends on factors such as the variation of source intensity and splitter efficiency with wavelength. This results in a maximum at zero retardation, when there is constructive interference at all wavelengths, followed by series of "wiggles". The position of zero retardation is determined accurately by finding the point of maximum intensity in the interferogram. When a sample is present the background interferogram is modulated by the presence of absorption bands in the sample.


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: Commercial spectrometers use Michelson interferometers with a variety of scanning mechanisms to generate the path difference. Common to all these arrangements is the need to ensure that the two beams recombine exactly as the system scans. The simplest systems have a plane mirror that moves linearly to vary the path of one beam. In this arrangement the moving mirror must not tilt or wobble as this would affect how the beams overlap as they recombine. Some systems incorporate a compensating mechanism that automatically adjusts the orientation of one mirror to maintain the alignment. Arrangements that avoid this problem include using cube corner reflectors instead of plane mirrors as these have the property of returning any incident beam in a parallel direction regardless of orientation.


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: Systems where the path difference is generated by a rotary movement have proved very successful. One common system incorporates a pair of parallel mirrors in one beam that can be rotated to vary the path without displacing the returning beam. Another is the double pendulum design where the path in one arm of the interferometer increases as the path in the other decreases.


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: A quite different approach involves moving a wedge of an IR-transparent material such as KBr into one of the beams. Increasing the thickness of KBr in the beam increases the optical path because the refractive index is higher than that of air. One limitation of this approach is that the variation of refractive index over the wavelength range limits the accuracy of the wavelength calibration.


title: Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

text: The interferogram has to be measured from zero path difference to a maximum length that depends on the resolution required. In practice the scan can be on either side of zero resulting in a double-sided interferogram. Mechanical design limitations may mean that for the highest resolution the scan runs to the maximum OPD on one side of zero only.