title: Great Turkish War

text: The relief army had to act quickly to save the city and so prevent another long siege. Despite the binational composition of the army and the short space of only six days, an effective leadership structure was established, centred on the King of Poland and his heavy cavalry (Polish Hussars). The Holy League settled the issues of payment by using all available funds from the government, loans from several wealthy bankers and noblemen and large sums of money from the Pope. Also, the Habsburgs and Poles agreed that the Polish government would pay for its own troops while still in Poland, but that they would be paid by the Emperor once they had crossed into Imperial territory. However, the Emperor had to recognise Sobieski's claim to first rights of plunder of the enemy camp in the event of a victory.


title: Great Turkish War

text: Kara Mustafa Pasha was less effective at ensuring his forces' motivation and loyalty, and preparing for the expected relief-army attack. He had entrusted defence of the rear to the Khan of Crimea and his cavalry force, which numbered about 30–40,000. There is doubt as to how far the Tatars participated in the final battle before Vienna.


title: Great Turkish War

text: The Ottomans could not rely on their Wallachian and Moldavian allies. George Ducas, Prince of Moldavia, was captured, while Șerban Cantacuzino's forces joined the retreat after Sobieski's cavalry charge.


title: Great Turkish War

text: The confederated troops signalled their arrival on the Kahlenberg above Vienna with bonfires. Before the battle a Mass was celebrated for the King of Poland and his nobles.


title: Great Turkish War

text: At around 6:00 pm, the Polish king ordered the cavalry to attack in four groups, three Polish and one from the Holy Roman Empire. Eighteen thousand horsemen charged down the hills, the largest cavalry charge in history. Sobieski led the charge at the head of 3,000 Polish heavy lancers, the famed "Winged Hussars". The Lipka Tatars who fought on the Polish side wore a sprig of straw in their helmets to distinguish themselves from the Tatars fighting on the Ottoman side. The charge easily broke the lines of the Ottomans, who were exhausted and demoralised and soon started to flee the battlefield. The cavalry headed straight for the Ottoman camps and Kara Mustafa's headquarters, while the remaining Viennese garrison sallied out of its defences to join in the assault.


title: Great Turkish War

text: The Ottoman troops were tired and dispirited following the failure of both the attempt at sapping and the assault on the city and the advance of the Holy League infantry on the Turkenschanz. The cavalry charge was one last deadly blow. Less than three hours after the cavalry attack, the Christian forces had won the battle and saved Vienna. The first Christian officer who entered Vienna was Margrave Ludwig of Baden, at the head of his dragoons.


title: Great Turkish War

text: Afterwards Sobieski paraphrased Julius Caesar's famous quotation ("Veni, vidi, vici") by saying ""Veni, vidi, Deus vicit"" – "I came, I saw, God conquered".


title: Great Turkish War

text: On September 11, 1697, the Battle of Zenta was fought just south of the Ottoman ruled city of Zenta. During the battle, Habsburg Imperial forces routed the Ottoman forces while the Ottomans were crossing the Tisa River (which is near the city). This resulted in the Habsburg forces killing over 30,000 Ottomans and dispersing the rest. This crippling defeat was the ultimate factor of the Ottoman Empire signing the Treaty of Karlowitz on January 22, 1699, ending the Great Turkish War. This treaty resulted in the transfer of most of Ottoman Hungary to the Habsburgs, and prompted the Ottomans to adopt a more defensive military policy in the following century.


title: November Rain

text: "November Rain" is a song by the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses. Written by the band's lead vocalist Axl Rose, it was released as a single in 1992 from their third studio album, "Use Your Illusion I" (1991).


title: November Rain

text: "November Rain" peaked at number three on the United States "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, and was the longest song to enter the top ten of that chart at the time of its release. Currently, the song is the fourth longest song to enter the Hot 100 chart. The song reached number two on the Portuguese Singles Chart, number four on the UK Singles Chart, and the top 10 on several other music charts around the world.


title: November Rain

text: Slash states in his autobiography that the band recorded in 1986 an 18-minute version of "November Rain" at a session with guitarist Manny Charlton (of rock band Nazareth) the year prior to beginning sessions for "Appetite for Destruction".


title: November Rain

text: According to a story Axl Rose reported during the 2006 leg of the Chinese Democracy Tour, no other band members wanted to participate in the production of this song (or the other notable ballad "Estranged"). Slash and Duff McKagan were opposed to the band's drift to symphonic ballads, feeling their choice of more direct rock songs were being overlooked by Rose. Eventually, Rose persuaded the others during work at Can-Am Studios (where some of the album was recorded and mixed). Slash disputed Axl's claims of harsh musical differences in his autobiography released the next year.


title: November Rain

text: Slash reported that his guitar solo in the song's album version developed directly from an improvisation.


title: November Rain

text: "November Rain" is the third-longest song by Guns N' Roses, behind "Coma" (10:14) from the same album, and "Estranged" (9:24) from "Use Your Illusion II". According to Slash, Axl wrote the song “about a time someone bent his fingers back like he was a little baby.” It was the longest song ever to reach the top 10 of the "Billboard" Hot 100 until November 2021, when surpassed by Taylor Swift's extended rerecording of "All Too Well". The song's composition was influenced by Elton John's 1973 opus “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”.


title: November Rain

text: Its distinct symphonic overtone owes to a sweeping string arrangement, orchestrated by Rose. "We call it 'the Layla song'," joked Slash, referencing a similarly-constructed rock song with a long, instrumental second part.


title: November Rain

text: In the United States, the song peaked at #3 for two weeks in 1992, making it their sixth and last top ten hit. It was in the top-10 for ten weeks, for a total of 30 weeks on the charts.


title: November Rain

text: In Australia, "November Rain" reached number two on the 1992 end-of-year chart despite only reaching number five on the ARIA Singles Chart. It was featured on ARIA's year-end charts in two consecutive years (1992 and 1993, when it appeared at 36). A similar situation took place in New Zealand, where the song peaked at number seven but stayed in the top 20 for 24 non-consecutive weeks, ending 1992 as New Zealand's second best-selling single.


title: November Rain

text: The music video, directed by Andy Morahan, was inspired by Del James's short story "Without You", for which he is credited in the long version of the video. The short story portrays a rock star struggling to come to terms with the loss of his girlfriend, who died by suicide (gunshot) after he repeatedly strayed from their relationship. "November Rain" is one of the most expensive music videos ever.


title: November Rain

text: The video tells a story reminiscent of "Without You", and features a live performance footage from Los Angeles' Orpheum Theater. First, in a black-and-white sequence, Rose's character is seen going to bed and taking pills; a bottle of whisky is also visible next to him. The scene, now in color, changes to the wedding of the main characters, played by Rose and his then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. The other band members are among the many guests.


title: November Rain

text: Slash's character realizes he forgot the wedding rings, when McKagan's character offers his rings as a substitute. After the wedding couple leaves the church, we see the wedding reception which is later interrupted by sudden, heavy rain, causing everyone to run for shelter.


title: November Rain

text: The next scene shows a funeral at the same church. Rose's character grieves at the death of his wife, now inside a casket. A heavy rain falls upon the cemetery.


title: November Rain

text: A final scene shows Seymour's character back at the wedding, tossing her white bouquet, which turns red in the air and lands on her coffin. Black and white scenes Rose's character's nightmares show a mix of wedding and funeral scenes.


title: November Rain

text: For the outside shots of Slash's first guitar solo, Rose had originally envisioned it taking place in a "cool field". However, since the video was shot in winter, there were no good-looking fields around, and the band decided to film in New Mexico, where they had a church building transported specifically for the shoot. The larger church, for the wedding scenes, is Los Angeles' St. Brendan Catholic Church.


title: November Rain

text: The music videos for "November Rain", "Don't Cry" and "Estranged" form an unofficial trilogy of sorts. While never specifically confirmed by the band, Del James' short story "Without You" served as inspiration for the video, and received recognition in the video's end credits.


title: November Rain

text: In July 2018, the music video became the first video created prior to YouTube to surpass one billion views.


title: November Rain

text: On November 4, 2022 the same performance as the original video is published on YouTube, but resynced with the newly recorded, with a real 50-piece orchestra, conducted and arranged by Christopher Lennertz. The track was mixed by Steven Wilson replacing the sampled sounds used on the original mix. This music video was released to promote the "Use Your Illusion (Super Deluxe Edition)" box set.


title: November Rain

text: The band performed a nearly nine-minute live version of the song with British musician Elton John on piano at the end of the 1992 VMAs ceremony.


title: November Rain

text: "November Rain" was voted number one on the Rock 1000 2006, an annual countdown of the top 1,000 rock songs by New Zealand radio listeners. It was voted number two on the 2007 version, beaten by "Back in Black" by AC/DC. The song topped the "album tracks" section of a 1993 readers' poll in GN'R fanzine "Controversy", beating "Coma". The top ten was completed by "Estranged", "Civil War", "Paradise City", "Sweet Child o' Mine", "Don't Cry", "Welcome to the Jungle", "Patience" and "Mr. Brownstone".


title: November Rain

text: The song placed number 140 on "Pitchfork"'s "Top 200 Tracks of the 90s". In Chile, the song placed at number 73 on Chilean radio Rock & Pop. In 2017, "Paste" ranked the song number nine on their list of the 15 greatest Guns N' Roses songs, and in 2020, "Kerrang" ranked the song number six on their list of the 20 greatest Guns N' Roses songs.


title: November Rain

text: NPR described the song as "one of the ultimate hard-rock power ballads", while VH1 added that the song "is the sprawling, cosmic-reaching, just-so-insane-it-works hard rock epic toward which every previous single-track hard rock epic had led and from which every subsequent single-track hard rock epic has emerged". "Glide Magazine" named the song at second in their list of "Favorite Hair-Metal Power Ballads".


title: Kirk Franklin

text: Kirk Dewayne Franklin (born January 26, 1970) is an American choir director, gospel singer, rapper, and songwriter. He is best known for leading urban contemporary gospel choirs such as The Family, God's Property, and One Nation Crew (1NC) among many others. He has won numerous awards, including 16 Grammy Awards. "Variety" dubbed Franklin as a "Reigning King of Urban Gospel", and is one of the inaugural inductees into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Franklin was raised by his aunt, Gertrude, having been abandoned as a baby by his mother. Gertrude recycled aluminum cans to raise money for Kirk to take piano lessons from the age of four. Kirk excelled and was able to read and write music while also playing by ear.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: At the age of seven, Franklin received his first contract which his aunt turned down. He did join the church choir and became music director of the Mt. Rose Baptist Church adult choir at 11 years of age.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In his teenage years, Franklin rebelled against his strict religious upbringing, and in an attempt to keep him out of trouble, his grandmother arranged an audition for him at a professional youth conservatory associated with a local university. He was accepted, but later he had to deal with a girlfriend's pregnancy and his eventual expulsion from school for bad behavior.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: Franklin studied music with Jewell Kelly and the Singing Chaparrals at Oscar Dean Wyatt High School. He continued under her tutelage and ultimately became the pianist for the choir.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: When he was aged 15 he witnessed the death of a friend by shooting, after which Franklin returned to the church, where he again directed the choir. He also co-founded a gospel group, "The Humble Hearts", which recorded one of Franklin's compositions and got the attention of gospel music legend Milton Biggham, musical director of the Georgia Mass Choir. Impressed, Biggham enlisted him to lead the DFW Mass Choir in a recording of Franklin's song "Every Day with Jesus". This led to Biggham hiring Franklin, just 20 years old at the time, to lead the choir at the 1990 Gospel Music Workshop of America Convention, an industry gathering.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In 1992, Franklin organized "The Family", which was a 17-voice choir, formed from neighborhood friends and associates. In 1992, Vicki Mack-Lataillade, the co-founder of fledgling GospoCentric Records label, heard one of their demo tapes and was so impressed she immediately signed up Kirk & The Family to a recording contract.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In 1993, the group, now known as "Kirk Franklin & The Family", released their debut album, "Kirk Franklin & The Family". It spent almost two years on the gospel music charts and charted on the R&B charts, eventually earning platinum sales status. It remained at No. 1 on the "Billboard" Top Gospel Albums chart for 42 weeks. It was only the third gospel music album to sell over a million units after Aretha Franklin's "Amazing Grace" and BeBe & CeCe Winans' "Addictive Love".


title: Kirk Franklin

text: Two years later, after releasing a 1995 Christmas album entitled "Kirk Franklin & the Family Christmas", the group released "Whatcha Lookin' 4" in 1996. The album was certified 2× platinum and earned Franklin his first Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album. 1997 brought another album, a collaboration with the vocal ensemble God's Property, aptly named "God's Property from Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation". The lead single, "Stomp", featuring Cheryl "Salt" James (of Salt-N-Pepa), was a big hit, enjoying heavy rotation on MTV and other music channels and charting at No. 1 on the R&B Singles Airplay chart for two weeks, even making it into the Top 40. "God's Property from Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation" was No. 1 on the R&B Albums chart for five weeks, No. 3 on the Pop charts, and would go on to be certified 3× platinum. It also brought Franklin another Grammy for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album, as well as three Grammy nominations.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In 1996, Franklin's song "Joy" was recorded by Whitney Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir. With production by Houston and Mervyn Warren, the composition was included on the best-selling gospel album of all time, soundtrack to "The Preacher's Wife."


title: Kirk Franklin

text: On November 2, 1998, God's Property sued Franklin. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Franklin induced God's Property founder Linda Searight into signing an "onerous and one-sided" contract with B-Rite Music.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: "The Nu Nation Project" was released in 1998. The first single, "Lean on Me", produced by Franklin and pop producer Dan Shea, featured several mainstream artists, including R. Kelly, Mary J. Blige and Bono of U2 together with Crystal Lewis and The Family. "Lean on Me" and the second single "Revolution" (featuring Rodney Jerkins) were considerable hits, and the album contained a version of a Bill Withers song "Gonna Be a Lovely Day". "The Nu Nation Project" went on to top the "Billboard" Contemporary Christian Albums chart for 23 weeks and the "Billboard" Gospel Albums chart for 49 weeks, and brought Franklin his third Grammy.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In 2000, members of The Family filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for royalties for their work on "The Nu Nation Project" against Franklin and GospoCentric Records. This saw the end of the "Kirk Franklin & The Family" records, as Franklin continued with his newer group One Nation Crew, releasing "Kirk Franklin Presents 1NC". The album was recorded prior to the lawsuit.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: On January 16, 2010, at the 25th Annual Stellar Awards show taping in Nashville, Tennessee, Kirk Franklin & The Family reunited briefly on stage to perform songs made popular by them in the 1990s.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In 2001, he produced the soundtrack for the film "Kingdom Come". The soundtrack included gospel artists Mary Mary, , Crystal Lewis, and Franklin's group 1NC, as well as mainstream artists Az Yet, Jill Scott, Tamar Braxton, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men and others.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: "The Rebirth of Kirk Franklin" was released in February 2002 after being delayed. It topped the Gospel Albums chart for 29 weeks, was No. 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and was certified Platinum. The album featured collaborations with Bishop T.D. Jakes, Shirley Caesar, Willie Neal Johnson, TobyMac, Crystal Lewis, Jaci Velasquez, Papa San, Alvin Slaughter, and Yolanda Adams.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: On October 4, 2005, "Hero" was released in the United States. The album was certified Gold on , and Platinum on , by the Recording Industry Association of America. It reached No. 1 on both the "Billboard" Top Christian and Top Gospel albums. The first single, "Looking for You", was a hit, as was the follow-up "Imagine Me", which made it onto the R&B charts. At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Franklin won two Grammys for "Hero". Additionally, "Hero" was the 2007 Stellar Awards CD of the Year.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: Franklin's 10th album, "The Fight of My Life", was released in the United States on . The album debuted on the "Billboard" 200 at No. 33 with 74,000 copies sold in the first week. It reached No. 1 on both the "Billboard" Top Gospel and Top Christian albums charts, and also peaked at No. 7 on the "Billboard" Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart. The first single, "Declaration (This is It)," was released on , and peaked at No. 35 on the "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Chart. The album features guest appearances from Rance Allen, Isaac Carree, TobyMac, Da' T.R.U.T.H., Doug Williams (singer) and Melvin Williams (singer).


title: Kirk Franklin

text: The song "Jesus" was released as the album's second single in 2008 and was sent to Urban AC radio on July 15, 2008. In January 2010, after Haiti had a devastating earthquake, Franklin got an ensemble of gospel artists together to sing the song he wrote, called "Are You Listening". They included Yolanda Adams, Jeremy Camp, Shirley Caesar, Dorinda Clark-Cole, Natalie Grant, Fred Hammond, Tamela Mann, David Mann, Mary Mary, Donnie McClurkin, Bishop Paul S. Morton, J. Moss, Smokie Norful, Marvin Sapp, Karen Clark-Sheard, Kierra Sheard, BeBe Winans, CeCe Winans, and Marvin Winans.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In 2005, Franklin appeared with his wife on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to discuss how he ended his pornography addiction. In 2010, he published "The Blueprint: A Plan for Living Above Life's Storms", a book in which he recounts the family difficulties experienced during his childhood, and how he got out of a sexually active life and an addiction to pornography.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: Franklin served as the host and co-executive producer of the BET original series "Sunday Best" and the musical co-host of GSN's "The American Bible Challenge" with Jeff Foxworthy. Franklin's 11th studio album called "Hello Fear" was released on March 22, 2011. The album features Marvin Sapp, Mali Music, Marvin Winans, John P. Kee, and Rance Allen. The first single, "I Smile", peaked at No. 85 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, making it his first appearance on that chart in six years.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In 2013, Franklin being signing artists onto his label, Fo Yo Soul Recordings, which became an imprint with RCA Records, and he has signed acts such as The Walls Group and artists like Tasha Page-Lockhart. These two artists received ten Stellar Award nominations at the 30th Stellar Awards. The Walls Group won seven awards, while Page-Lockhart won three of her own, and Franklin won two more for his label.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In September 2015, Franklin announced his 12th studio album, "Losing My Religion", and the album was released on November 13, 2015. The first single off the album, "Wanna Be Happy?", was released on August 28, 2015.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: It was at this point that Vinson Cunningham referred to him as a hype man when writing for the New Yorker.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: Franklin contributed to Tori Kelly's "Hiding Place" album, released September 14, 2018. They had intended to collaborate on one song, but it turned into a larger project.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: On January 25, 2019, Franklin released his single "Love Theory" and official music video for the song. "Love Theory" served the first single from his 13th studio album, "Long Live Love". Franklin released his second single, "Just for Me", in April 2019. His third single, "OK", was released in May 2019. "Long Live Love" was released on May 31.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In February 2019, it was announced that BET's gospel music reality singing competition, "Sunday Best" would return from a four-year hiatus. Franklin will reprise his role as host.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: After Trinity Broadcasting Network aired the 2019 GMA Dove Awards on October 20, 2019, Franklin commented that his acceptance speech was edited to remove comments he made in relation to the killing of Atatiana Jefferson by a police officer. He stated that he was boycotting the award show going forward as it was not the first time they had edited his acceptance speech to remove "reflections on police violence against Black Americans". GMA president, Jackie Patillo, apologized to Franklin and GMA made an unedited version of the speech available but stated that it was an unintentional action and that they were attempting to reduce the running time to meet a two-hour time-slot. Several other artists supported Franklin's boycott.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: On May 21, 2021, Franklin and American rapper Lil Baby released the song "We Win" for the to the 2021 film "".


title: Kirk Franklin

text: On January 20, 1996, Franklin married long-time friend Tammy Collins. When they wed, they each had one child from previous relationships. As a couple, they have two children together.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: In March 2021, Franklin's oldest son, Kerrion, released an audio recording of a private conversation between him and his father in which both can be heard using profanities. Franklin subsequently apologized to his fans and followers.


title: Kirk Franklin

text: Franklin has received many awards, including Grammy Awards, GMA Dove Awards, BET Awards, Soul Train Music Awards and Stellar Awards.


title: SQL injection

text: In computing, SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution (e.g. to dump the database contents to the attacker). SQL injection must exploit a security vulnerability in an application's software, for example, when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL statements or user input is not strongly typed and unexpectedly executed. SQL injection is mostly known as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database.


title: SQL injection

text: SQL injection attacks allow attackers to spoof identity, tamper with existing data, cause repudiation issues such as voiding transactions or changing balances, allow the complete disclosure of all data on the system, destroy the data or make it otherwise unavailable, and become administrators of the database server.


title: SQL injection

text: In a 2012 study, it was observed that the average web application received four attack campaigns per month, and retailers received twice as many attacks as other industries.


title: SQL injection

text: The first public discussions of SQL injection started appearing around 1998; for example, a 1998 article in Phrack Magazine.


title: SQL injection

text: SQL injection (SQLI) was considered one of the top 10 web application vulnerabilities of 2007 and 2010 by the Open Web Application Security Project. In 2013, SQLI was rated the number one attack on the OWASP top ten. There are four main sub-classes of SQL injection:


title: SQL injection

text: This classification represents the state of SQLI, respecting its evolution until 2010—further refinement is underway.


title: SQL injection

text: This form of injection relies on the fact that SQL statements consist of both data used by the SQL statement and commands that control how the SQL statement is executed. For example, in the SQL statement select * from person where name = 'susan' and age = 2 the string 'susan' is data and the fragment and age = 2 is an example of a command (the value 2 is also data in this example).


title: SQL injection

text: SQL injection occurs when specially crafted user input is processed by the receiving program in a way that allows the input to exit a data context and enter a command context. This allows the attacker to alter the structure of the SQL statement which is executed.


title: SQL injection

text: As a simple example, imagine that the data 'susan' in the above statement was provided by user input. The user entered the string 'susan' (without the apostrophes) in a web form text entry field, and the program used string concatenation statements to form the above SQL statement from the three fragments select * from person where name=', the user input of 'susan', and ' and age = 2.


title: SQL injection

text: The program will use the same string concatenation approach with the 3 fragments of select * from person where name=', the user input of ' or 1=1; --, and ' and age = 2 and construct the statement select * from person where name=" or 1=1; -- and age = 2. Many databases will ignore the text after the '--' string as this denotes a comment. The structure of the SQL command is now select * from person where name=" or 1=1; and this will select all person rows rather than just those named 'susan' whose age is 2. The attacker has managed to craft a data string which exits the data context and entered a command context.


title: SQL injection

text: This SQL code is designed to pull up the records of the specified username from its table of users. However, if the "userName" variable is crafted in a specific way by a malicious user, the SQL statement may do more than the code author intended. For example, setting the "userName" variable as:


title: SQL injection

text: or using comments to even block the rest of the query (there are three types of SQL comments). All three lines have a space at the end:


title: SQL injection

text: If this code were to be used in authentication procedure then this example could be used to force the selection of every data field (*) from "all" users rather than from one specific user name as the coder intended, because the evaluation of '1'='1' is always true.


title: SQL injection

text: The following value of "userName" in the statement below would cause the deletion of the "users" table as well as the selection of all data from the "userinfo" table (in essence revealing the information of every user), using an API that allows multiple statements:


title: SQL injection

text: While most SQL server implementations allow multiple statements to be executed with one call in this way, some SQL APIs such as PHP's codice_1 function do not allow this for security reasons. This prevents attackers from injecting entirely separate queries, but doesn't stop them from modifying queries.


title: SQL injection

text: Blind SQL injection is used when a web application is vulnerable to an SQL injection but the results of the injection are not visible to the attacker. The page with the vulnerability may not be one that displays data but will display differently depending on the results of a logical statement injected into the legitimate SQL statement called for that page.


title: SQL injection

text: This type of attack has traditionally been considered time-intensive because a new statement needed to be crafted for each bit recovered, and depending on its structure, the attack may consist of many unsuccessful requests. Recent advancements have allowed each request to recover multiple bits, with no unsuccessful requests, allowing for more consistent and efficient extraction. There are several tools that can automate these attacks once the location of the vulnerability and the target information has been established.


title: SQL injection

text: One type of blind SQL injection forces the database to evaluate a logical statement on an ordinary application screen. As an example, a book review website uses a query string to determine which book review to display. So the URL codice_2 would cause the server to run the query


title: SQL injection

text: from which it would populate the review page with data from the review with ID 5, stored in the table bookreviews. The query happens completely on the server; the user does not know the names of the database, table, or fields, nor does the user know the query string. The user only sees that the above URL returns a book review. A hacker can load the URLs codice_3 and codice_4, which may result in queries


title: SQL injection

text: respectively. If the original review loads with the "1=1" URL and a blank or error page is returned from the "1=2" URL, and the returned page has not been created to alert the user the input is invalid, or in other words, has been caught by an input test script, the site is likely vulnerable to an SQL injection attack as the query will likely have passed through successfully in both cases. The hacker may proceed with this query string designed to reveal the version number of MySQL running on the server: codice_5, which would show the book review on a server running MySQL 4 and a blank or error page otherwise. The hacker can continue to use code within query strings to achieve their goal directly, or to glean more information from the server in hopes of discovering another avenue of attack.


title: SQL injection

text: Second order SQL injection occurs when submitted values contain malicious commands that are stored rather than executed immediately. In some cases, the application may correctly encode an SQL statement and store it as valid SQL. Then, another part of that application without controls to protect against SQL injection might execute that stored SQL statement. This attack requires more knowledge of how submitted values are later used. Automated web application security scanners would not easily detect this type of SQL injection and may need to be manually instructed where to check for evidence that it is being attempted.


title: SQL injection

text: An SQL injection is a well known attack and easily prevented by simple measures. After an apparent SQL injection attack on TalkTalk in 2015, the BBC reported that security experts were stunned that such a large company would be vulnerable to it.


title: SQL injection

text: Developers can use ORM frameworks such as Hibernate to create database queries in a safe and developer-friendly way. Since database queries are no longer constructed as strings, there is no danger of an injection vulnerability.


title: SQL injection

text: While WAF products such as ModSecurity CRS cannot prevent SQL injection vulnerabilities from creeping into a codebase, they can make discovery and exploitation significantly more challenging to an attacker.


title: SQL injection

text: With most development platforms, parameterized statements that work with parameters can be used (sometimes called placeholders or bind variables) instead of embedding user input in the statement. A placeholder can only store a value of the given type and not an arbitrary SQL fragment. Hence the SQL injection would simply be treated as a strange (and probably invalid) parameter value. In many cases, the SQL statement is fixed, and each parameter is a scalar, not a table. The user input is then assigned (bound) to a parameter.


title: SQL injection

text: Easily put, using parameterized queries can definitely prevent SQL injection. This mainly means that your variables aren't query strings that would accept arbitrary SQL inputs, however, some parameters of given types are definitely necessary. Parameterized queries require the developer to define all the code. Therefore, without parameterized queries, anyone could put any kind of SQL code into the field, and have the database erased. But if the parameters were to set to '@username' then the person would only be able to put in a username without any kind of code.


title: SQL injection

text: Using object-relational mapping libraries avoids the need to write SQL code. The ORM library in effect will generate parameterized SQL statements from object-oriented code.


title: SQL injection

text: A popular, though error-prone, way to prevent injections is to attempt to escape all characters that have a special meaning in SQL. The manual for an SQL DBMS explains which characters have a special meaning, which allows creating a comprehensive blacklist of characters that need translation. For instance, every occurrence of a single quote (codice_6) in a parameter must be replaced by two single quotes (codice_7) to form a valid SQL string literal. For example, in PHP it is usual to escape parameters using the function codice_8 before sending the SQL query:


title: SQL injection

text: This function prepends backslashes to the following characters: codice_9, codice_10, codice_11, codice_12, codice_6, codice_14 and codice_15.


title: SQL injection

text: This function is normally used to make data safe before sending a query to MySQL. PHP has similar functions for other database systems such as pg_escape_string() for PostgreSQL. The function codice_16 works for escaping characters, and is used especially for querying on databases that do not have escaping functions in PHP. It returns a string with backslashes before characters that need to be escaped in database queries, etc. These characters are single quote ('), double quote ("), backslash (\) and NUL (the NULL byte).


title: SQL injection

text: Routinely passing escaped strings to SQL is error prone because it is easy to forget to escape a given string. Creating a transparent layer to secure the input can reduce this susceptibility to error, if not entirely eliminate it.


title: SQL injection

text: Integer, float or boolean, string parameters can be checked if their value is valid representation for the given type. Strings that must follow some strict pattern (date, UUID, alphanumeric only, etc.) can be checked if they match this pattern.


title: SQL injection

text: Limiting the permissions on the database login used by the web application to only what is needed may help reduce the effectiveness of any SQL injection attacks that exploit any bugs in the web application.


title: SQL injection

text: For example, on Microsoft SQL Server, a database logon could be restricted from selecting on some of the system tables which would limit exploits that try to insert JavaScript into all the text columns in the database.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attempt to collect samples that are representative of the population in question. Sampling has lower costs and faster data collection than measuring the entire population and can provide insights in cases where it is infeasible to measure an entire population.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Each observation measures one or more properties (such as weight, location, colour or mass) of independent objects or individuals. In survey sampling, weights can be applied to the data to adjust for the sample design, particularly in stratified sampling. Results from probability theory and statistical theory are employed to guide the practice. In business and medical research, sampling is widely used for gathering information about a population. Acceptance sampling is used to determine if a production lot of material meets the governing specifications.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Successful statistical practice is based on focused problem definition. In sampling, this includes defining the "population" from which our sample is drawn. A population can be defined as including all people or items with the characteristic one wishes to understand. Because there is very rarely enough time or money to gather information from everyone or everything in a population, the goal becomes finding a representative sample (or subset) of that population.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Sometimes what defines a population is obvious. For example, a manufacturer needs to decide whether a batch of material from production is of high enough quality to be released to the customer, or should be sentenced for scrap or rework due to poor quality. In this case, the batch is the population.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Although the population of interest often consists of physical objects, sometimes it is necessary to sample over time, space, or some combination of these dimensions. For instance, an investigation of supermarket staffing could examine checkout line length at various times, or a study on endangered penguins might aim to understand their usage of various hunting grounds over time. For the time dimension, the focus may be on periods or discrete occasions.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In other cases, the examined 'population' may be even less tangible. For example, Joseph Jagger studied the behaviour of roulette wheels at a casino in Monte Carlo, and used this to identify a biased wheel. In this case, the 'population' Jagger wanted to investigate was the overall behaviour of the wheel (i.e. the probability distribution of its results over infinitely many trials), while his 'sample' was formed from observed results from that wheel. Similar considerations arise when taking repeated measurements of some physical characteristic such as the electrical conductivity of copper.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: This situation often arises when seeking knowledge about the cause system of which the "observed" population is an outcome. In such cases, sampling theory may treat the observed population as a sample from a larger 'superpopulation'. For example, a researcher might study the success rate of a new 'quit smoking' program on a test group of 100 patients, in order to predict the effects of the program if it were made available nationwide. Here the superpopulation is "everybody in the country, given access to this treatment" – a group which does not yet exist, since the program isn't yet available to all.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: The population from which the sample is drawn may not be the same as the population about which information is desired. Often there is large but not complete overlap between these two groups due to frame issues etc. (see below). Sometimes they may be entirely separate – for instance, one might study rats in order to get a better understanding of human health, or one might study records from people born in 2008 in order to make predictions about people born in 2009.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Time spent in making the sampled population and population of concern precise is often well spent, because it raises many issues, ambiguities, and questions that would otherwise have been overlooked at this stage.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In the most straightforward case, such as the sampling of a batch of material from production (acceptance sampling by lots), it would be most desirable to identify and measure every single item in the population and to include any one of them in our sample. However, in the more general case this is not usually possible or practical. There is no way to identify all rats in the set of all rats. Where voting is not compulsory, there is no way to identify which people will vote at a forthcoming election (in advance of the election). These imprecise populations are not amenable to sampling in any of the ways below and to which we could apply statistical theory.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: As a remedy, we seek a sampling frame which has the property that we can identify every single element and include any in our sample. The most straightforward type of frame is a list of elements of the population (preferably the entire population) with appropriate contact information. For example, in an opinion poll, possible sampling frames include an electoral register and a telephone directory.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: A probability sample is a sample in which every unit in the population has a chance (greater than zero) of being selected in the sample, and this probability can be accurately determined. The combination of these traits makes it possible to produce unbiased estimates of population totals, by weighting sampled units according to their probability of selection.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: "Example: We want to estimate the total income of adults living in a given street. We visit each household in that street, identify all adults living there, and randomly select one adult from each household. (For example, we can allocate each person a random number, generated from a uniform distribution between 0 and 1, and select the person with the highest number in each household). We then interview the selected person and find their income."


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: "People living on their own are certain to be selected, so we simply add their income to our estimate of the total. But a person living in a household of two adults has only a one-in-two chance of selection. To reflect this, when we come to such a household, we would count the selected person's income twice towards the total. (The person who "is" selected from that household can be loosely viewed as also representing the person who "isn't" selected.)"


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In the above example, not everybody has the same probability of selection; what makes it a probability sample is the fact that each person's probability is known. When every element in the population "does" have the same probability of selection, this is known as an 'equal probability of selection' (EPS) design. Such designs are also referred to as 'self-weighting' because all sampled units are given the same weight.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Probability sampling includes: Simple Random Sampling, Systematic Sampling, Stratified Sampling, Probability Proportional to Size Sampling, and Cluster or Multistage Sampling. These various ways of probability sampling have two things in common:


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Nonprobability sampling is any sampling method where some elements of the population have "no" chance of selection (these are sometimes referred to as 'out of coverage'/'undercovered'), or where the probability of selection can't be accurately determined. It involves the selection of elements based on assumptions regarding the population of interest, which forms the criteria for selection. Hence, because the selection of elements is nonrandom, nonprobability sampling does not allow the estimation of sampling errors. These conditions give rise to exclusion bias, placing limits on how much information a sample can provide about the population. Information about the relationship between sample and population is limited, making it difficult to extrapolate from the sample to the population.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: "Example: We visit every household in a given street, and interview the first person to answer the door. In any household with more than one occupant, this is a nonprobability sample, because some people are more likely to answer the door (e.g. an unemployed person who spends most of their time at home is more likely to answer than an employed housemate who might be at work when the interviewer calls) and it's not practical to calculate these probabilities."


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Nonprobability sampling methods include convenience sampling, quota sampling, and purposive sampling. In addition, nonresponse effects may turn "any" probability design into a nonprobability design if the characteristics of nonresponse are not well understood, since nonresponse effectively modifies each element's probability of being sampled.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Within any of the types of frames identified above, a variety of sampling methods can be employed individually or in combination. Factors commonly influencing the choice between these designs include:


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In a simple random sample (SRS) of a given size, all subsets of a sampling frame have an equal probability of being selected. Each element of the frame thus has an equal probability of selection: the frame is not subdivided or partitioned. Furthermore, any given "pair" of elements has the same chance of selection as any other such pair (and similarly for triples, and so on). This minimizes bias and simplifies analysis of results. In particular, the variance between individual results within the sample is a good indicator of variance in the overall population, which makes it relatively easy to estimate the accuracy of results.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Simple random sampling can be vulnerable to sampling error because the randomness of the selection may result in a sample that doesn't reflect the makeup of the population. For instance, a simple random sample of ten people from a given country will "on average" produce five men and five women, but any given trial is likely to over represent one sex and underrepresent the other. Systematic and stratified techniques attempt to overcome this problem by "using information about the population" to choose a more "representative" sample.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Also, simple random sampling can be cumbersome and tedious when sampling from a large target population. In some cases, investigators are interested in research questions specific to subgroups of the population. For example, researchers might be interested in examining whether cognitive ability as a predictor of job performance is equally applicable across racial groups. Simple random sampling cannot accommodate the needs of researchers in this situation, because it does not provide subsamples of the population, and other sampling strategies, such as stratified sampling, can be used instead.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Systematic sampling (also known as interval sampling) relies on arranging the study population according to some ordering scheme and then selecting elements at regular intervals through that ordered list. Systematic sampling involves a random start and then proceeds with the selection of every "k"th element from then onwards. In this case, "k"=(population size/sample size). It is important that the starting point is not automatically the first in the list, but is instead randomly chosen from within the first to the "k"th element in the list. A simple example would be to select every 10th name from the telephone directory (an 'every 10th' sample, also referred to as 'sampling with a skip of 10').


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: As long as the starting point is randomized, systematic sampling is a type of probability sampling. It is easy to implement and the stratification induced can make it efficient, "if" the variable by which the list is ordered is correlated with the variable of interest. 'Every 10th' sampling is especially useful for efficient sampling from databases.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: For example, suppose we wish to sample people from a long street that starts in a poor area (house No. 1) and ends in an expensive district (house No. 1000). A simple random selection of addresses from this street could easily end up with too many from the high end and too few from the low end (or vice versa), leading to an unrepresentative sample. Selecting (e.g.) every 10th street number along the street ensures that the sample is spread evenly along the length of the street, representing all of these districts. (Note that if we always start at house #1 and end at #991, the sample is slightly biased towards the low end; by randomly selecting the start between #1 and #10, this bias is eliminated.)


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: However, systematic sampling is especially vulnerable to periodicities in the list. If periodicity is present and the period is a multiple or factor of the interval used, the sample is especially likely to be "un"representative of the overall population, making the scheme less accurate than simple random sampling.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: For example, consider a street where the odd-numbered houses are all on the north (expensive) side of the road, and the even-numbered houses are all on the south (cheap) side. Under the sampling scheme given above, it is impossible to get a representative sample; either the houses sampled will "all" be from the odd-numbered, expensive side, or they will "all" be from the even-numbered, cheap side, unless the researcher has previous knowledge of this bias and avoids it by a using a skip which ensures jumping between the two sides (any odd-numbered skip).


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Another drawback of systematic sampling is that even in scenarios where it is more accurate than SRS, its theoretical properties make it difficult to "quantify" that accuracy. (In the two examples of systematic sampling that are given above, much of the potential sampling error is due to variation between neighbouring houses – but because this method never selects two neighbouring houses, the sample will not give us any information on that variation.)


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: As described above, systematic sampling is an EPS method, because all elements have the same probability of selection (in the example given, one in ten). It is "not" 'simple random sampling' because different subsets of the same size have different selection probabilities – e.g. the set {4,14,24...,994} has a one-in-ten probability of selection, but the set {4,13,24,34...} has zero probability of selection.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Systematic sampling can also be adapted to a non-EPS approach; for an example, see discussion of PPS samples below.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: When the population embraces a number of distinct categories, the frame can be organized by these categories into separate "strata." Each stratum is then sampled as an independent sub-population, out of which individual elements can be randomly selected. The ratio of the size of this random selection (or sample) to the size of the population is called a sampling fraction. There are several potential benefits to stratified sampling.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: First, dividing the population into distinct, independent strata can enable researchers to draw inferences about specific subgroups that may be lost in a more generalized random sample.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Second, utilizing a stratified sampling method can lead to more efficient statistical estimates (provided that strata are selected based upon relevance to the criterion in question, instead of availability of the samples). Even if a stratified sampling approach does not lead to increased statistical efficiency, such a tactic will not result in less efficiency than would simple random sampling, provided that each stratum is proportional to the group's size in the population.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Third, it is sometimes the case that data are more readily available for individual, pre-existing strata within a population than for the overall population; in such cases, using a stratified sampling approach may be more convenient than aggregating data across groups (though this may potentially be at odds with the previously noted importance of utilizing criterion-relevant strata).


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Finally, since each stratum is treated as an independent population, different sampling approaches can be applied to different strata, potentially enabling researchers to use the approach best suited (or most cost-effective) for each identified subgroup within the population.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: There are, however, some potential drawbacks to using stratified sampling. First, identifying strata and implementing such an approach can increase the cost and complexity of sample selection, as well as leading to increased complexity of population estimates. Second, when examining multiple criteria, stratifying variables may be related to some, but not to others, further complicating the design, and potentially reducing the utility of the strata. Finally, in some cases (such as designs with a large number of strata, or those with a specified minimum sample size per group), stratified sampling can potentially require a larger sample than would other methods (although in most cases, the required sample size would be no larger than would be required for simple random sampling).


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Stratification is sometimes introduced after the sampling phase in a process called "poststratification". This approach is typically implemented due to a lack of prior knowledge of an appropriate stratifying variable or when the experimenter lacks the necessary information to create a stratifying variable during the sampling phase. Although the method is susceptible to the pitfalls of post hoc approaches, it can provide several benefits in the right situation. Implementation usually follows a simple random sample. In addition to allowing for stratification on an ancillary variable, poststratification can be used to implement weighting, which can improve the precision of a sample's estimates.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Choice-based sampling is one of the stratified sampling strategies. In choice-based sampling, the data are stratified on the target and a sample is taken from each stratum so that the rare target class will be more represented in the sample. The model is then built on this biased sample. The effects of the input variables on the target are often estimated with more precision with the choice-based sample even when a smaller overall sample size is taken, compared to a random sample. The results usually must be adjusted to correct for the oversampling.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In some cases the sample designer has access to an "auxiliary variable" or "size measure", believed to be correlated to the variable of interest, for each element in the population. These data can be used to improve accuracy in sample design. One option is to use the auxiliary variable as a basis for stratification, as discussed above.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Another option is probability proportional to size ('PPS') sampling, in which the selection probability for each element is set to be proportional to its size measure, up to a maximum of 1. In a simple PPS design, these selection probabilities can then be used as the basis for Poisson sampling. However, this has the drawback of variable sample size, and different portions of the population may still be over- or under-represented due to chance variation in selections.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Systematic sampling theory can be used to create a probability proportionate to size sample. This is done by treating each count within the size variable as a single sampling unit. Samples are then identified by selecting at even intervals among these counts within the size variable. This method is sometimes called PPS-sequential or monetary unit sampling in the case of audits or forensic sampling.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: "Example: Suppose we have six schools with populations of 150, 180, 200, 220, 260, and 490 students respectively (total 1500 students), and we want to use student population as the basis for a PPS sample of size three. To do this, we could allocate the first school numbers 1 to 150, the second school 151 to 330 (= 150 + 180), the third school 331 to 530, and so on to the last school (1011 to 1500). We then generate a random start between 1 and 500 (equal to 1500/3) and count through the school populations by multiples of 500. If our random start was 137, we would select the schools which have been allocated numbers 137, 637, and 1137, i.e. the first, fourth, and sixth schools."


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: The PPS approach can improve accuracy for a given sample size by concentrating sample on large elements that have the greatest impact on population estimates. PPS sampling is commonly used for surveys of businesses, where element size varies greatly and auxiliary information is often available – for instance, a survey attempting to measure the number of guest-nights spent in hotels might use each hotel's number of rooms as an auxiliary variable. In some cases, an older measurement of the variable of interest can be used as an auxiliary variable when attempting to produce more current estimates.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Sometimes it is more cost-effective to select respondents in groups ('clusters'). Sampling is often clustered by geography, or by time periods. (Nearly all samples are in some sense 'clustered' in time – although this is rarely taken into account in the analysis.) For instance, if surveying households within a city, we might choose to select 100 city blocks and then interview every household within the selected blocks.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Clustering can reduce travel and administrative costs. In the example above, an interviewer can make a single trip to visit several households in one block, rather than having to drive to a different block for each household.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: It also means that one does not need a sampling frame listing all elements in the target population. Instead, clusters can be chosen from a cluster-level frame, with an element-level frame created only for the selected clusters. In the example above, the sample only requires a block-level city map for initial selections, and then a household-level map of the 100 selected blocks, rather than a household-level map of the whole city.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Cluster sampling (also known as clustered sampling) generally increases the variability of sample estimates above that of simple random sampling, depending on how the clusters differ between one another as compared to the within-cluster variation. For this reason, cluster sampling requires a larger sample than SRS to achieve the same level of accuracy – but cost savings from clustering might still make this a cheaper option.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Cluster sampling is commonly implemented as multistage sampling. This is a complex form of cluster sampling in which two or more levels of units are embedded one in the other. The first stage consists of constructing the clusters that will be used to sample from. In the second stage, a sample of primary units is randomly selected from each cluster (rather than using all units contained in all selected clusters). In following stages, in each of those selected clusters, additional samples of units are selected, and so on. All ultimate units (individuals, for instance) selected at the last step of this procedure are then surveyed. This technique, thus, is essentially the process of taking random subsamples of preceding random samples.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Multistage sampling can substantially reduce sampling costs, where the complete population list would need to be constructed (before other sampling methods could be applied). By eliminating the work involved in describing clusters that are not selected, multistage sampling can reduce the large costs associated with traditional cluster sampling. However, each sample may not be a full representative of the whole population.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In quota sampling, the population is first segmented into mutually exclusive sub-groups, just as in stratified sampling. Then judgement is used to select the subjects or units from each segment based on a specified proportion. For example, an interviewer may be told to sample 200 females and 300 males between the age of 45 and 60.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: It is this second step which makes the technique one of non-probability sampling. In quota sampling the selection of the sample is non-random. For example, interviewers might be tempted to interview those who look most helpful. The problem is that these samples may be biased because not everyone gets a chance of selection. This random element is its greatest weakness and quota versus probability has been a matter of controversy for several years.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In imbalanced datasets, where the sampling ratio does not follow the population statistics, one can resample the dataset in a conservative manner called minimax sampling. The minimax sampling has its origin in Anderson minimax ratio whose value is proved to be 0.5: in a binary classification, the class-sample sizes should be chosen equally. This ratio can be proved to be minimax ratio only under the assumption of LDA classifier with Gaussian distributions. The notion of minimax sampling is recently developed for a general class of classification rules, called class-wise smart classifiers. In this case, the sampling ratio of classes is selected so that the worst case classifier error over all the possible population statistics for class prior probabilities, would be the best.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Accidental sampling (sometimes known as grab, convenience or opportunity sampling) is a type of nonprobability sampling which involves the sample being drawn from that part of the population which is close to hand. That is, a population is selected because it is readily available and convenient. It may be through meeting the person or including a person in the sample when one meets them or chosen by finding them through technological means such as the internet or through phone. The researcher using such a sample cannot scientifically make generalizations about the total population from this sample because it would not be representative enough. For example, if the interviewer were to conduct such a survey at a shopping center early in the morning on a given day, the people that they could interview would be limited to those given there at that given time, which would not represent the views of other members of society in such an area, if the survey were to be conducted at different times of day and several times per week. This type of sampling is most useful for pilot testing. Several important considerations for researchers using convenience samples include:


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In social science research, snowball sampling is a similar technique, where existing study subjects are used to recruit more subjects into the sample. Some variants of snowball sampling, such as respondent driven sampling, allow calculation of selection probabilities and are probability sampling methods under certain conditions.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: The voluntary sampling method is a type of non-probability sampling. Volunteers choose to complete a survey.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Volunteers may be invited through advertisements in social media. The target population for advertisements can be selected by characteristics like location, age, sex, income, occupation, education, or interests using tools provided by the social medium. The advertisement may include a message about the research and link to a survey. After following the link and completing the survey, the volunteer submits the data to be included in the sample population. This method can reach a global population but is limited by the campaign budget. Volunteers outside the invited population may also be included in the sample.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: It is difficult to make generalizations from this sample because it may not represent the total population. Often, volunteers have a strong interest in the main topic of the survey.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Line-intercept sampling is a method of sampling elements in a region whereby an element is sampled if a chosen line segment, called a "transect", intersects the element.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Panel sampling is the method of first selecting a group of participants through a random sampling method and then asking that group for (potentially the same) information several times over a period of time. Therefore, each participant is interviewed at two or more time points; each period of data collection is called a "wave". The method was developed by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld in 1938 as a means of studying political campaigns. This longitudinal sampling-method allows estimates of changes in the population, for example with regard to chronic illness to job stress to weekly food expenditures. Panel sampling can also be used to inform researchers about within-person health changes due to age or to help explain changes in continuous dependent variables such as spousal interaction. There have been several proposed methods of analyzing panel data, including MANOVA, growth curves, and structural equation modeling with lagged effects.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Snowball sampling involves finding a small group of initial respondents and using them to recruit more respondents. It is particularly useful in cases where the population is hidden or difficult to enumerate.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Theoretical sampling occurs when samples are selected on the basis of the results of the data collected so far with a goal of developing a deeper understanding of the area or develop theories. Extreme or very specific cases might be selected in order to maximize the likelihood a phenomenon will actually be observable.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Sampling schemes may be "without replacement" ('WOR' – no element can be selected more than once in the same sample) or "with replacement" ('WR' – an element may appear multiple times in the one sample). For example, if we catch fish, measure them, and immediately return them to the water before continuing with the sample, this is a WR design, because we might end up catching and measuring the same fish more than once. However, if we do not return the fish to the water or tag and release each fish after catching it, this becomes a WOR design.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Sampling enables the selection of right data points from within the larger data set to estimate the characteristics of the whole population. For example, there are about 600 million tweets produced every day. It is not necessary to look at all of them to determine the topics that are discussed during the day, nor is it necessary to look at all the tweets to determine the sentiment on each of the topics. A theoretical formulation for sampling Twitter data has been developed.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In manufacturing different types of sensory data such as acoustics, vibration, pressure, current, voltage, and controller data are available at short time intervals. To predict down-time it may not be necessary to look at all the data but a sample may be sufficient.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Survey results are typically subject to some error. Total errors can be classified into sampling errors and non-sampling errors. The term "error" here includes systematic biases as well as random errors.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Non-sampling errors are other errors which can impact final survey estimates, caused by problems in data collection, processing, or sample design. Such errors may include:


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: After sampling, a review should be held of the exact process followed in sampling, rather than that intended, in order to study any effects that any divergences might have on subsequent analysis.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In survey sampling, many of the individuals identified as part of the sample may be unwilling to participate, not have the time to participate (opportunity cost), or survey administrators may not have been able to contact them. In this case, there is a risk of differences between respondents and nonrespondents, leading to biased estimates of population parameters. This is often addressed by improving survey design, offering incentives, and conducting follow-up studies which make a repeated attempt to contact the unresponsive and to characterize their similarities and differences with the rest of the frame. The effects can also be mitigated by weighting the data (when population benchmarks are available) or by imputing data based on answers to other questions. Nonresponse is particularly a problem in internet sampling. Reasons for this problem may include improperly designed surveys, over-surveying (or survey fatigue),


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: and the fact that potential participants may have multiple e-mail addresses, which they don't use anymore or don't check regularly.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In many situations the sample fraction may be varied by stratum and data will have to be weighted to correctly represent the population. Thus for example, a simple random sample of individuals in the United Kingdom might not include some in remote Scottish islands who would be inordinately expensive to sample. A cheaper method would be to use a stratified sample with urban and rural strata. The rural sample could be under-represented in the sample, but weighted up appropriately in the analysis to compensate.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: More generally, data should usually be weighted if the sample design does not give each individual an equal chance of being selected. For instance, when households have equal selection probabilities but one person is interviewed from within each household, this gives people from large households a smaller chance of being interviewed. This can be accounted for using survey weights. Similarly, households with more than one telephone line have a greater chance of being selected in a random digit dialing sample, and weights can adjust for this.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: Random sampling by using lots is an old idea, mentioned several times in the Bible. In 1786 Pierre Simon Laplace estimated the population of France by using a sample, along with ratio estimator. He also computed probabilistic estimates of the error. These were not expressed as modern confidence intervals but as the sample size that would be needed to achieve a particular upper bound on the sampling error with probability 1000/1001. His estimates used Bayes' theorem with a uniform prior probability and assumed that his sample was random. Alexander Ivanovich Chuprov introduced sample surveys to Imperial Russia in the 1870s.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: In the US the 1936 "Literary Digest" prediction of a Republican win in the presidential election went badly awry, due to severe bias . More than two million people responded to the study with their names obtained through magazine subscription lists and telephone directories. It was not appreciated that these lists were heavily biased towards Republicans and the resulting sample, though very large, was deeply flawed.


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: The textbook by Groves et alia provides an overview of survey methodology, including recent literature on questionnaire development (informed by cognitive psychology) :


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: The other books focus on the statistical theory of survey sampling and require some knowledge of basic statistics, as discussed in the following textbooks:


title: Sampling (statistics)

text: The historically important books by Deming and Kish remain valuable for insights for social scientists (particularly about the U.S. census and the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan):


title: Abjad

text: An abjad (, ; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels. The term was introduced in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels. Other terms for the same concept include: partial phonemic script, segmentally linear defective phonographic script, consonantary, consonant writing, and consonantal alphabet.


title: Abjad

text: Impure abjads represent vowels with either optional diacritics, a limited number of distinct vowel glyphs, or both. The name "abjad" is based on the Arabic alphabet's first (in its original order) four letters — corresponding to a, b, j, d — to replace the more common terms "consonantary" and "consonantal alphabet", in describing the family of scripts classified as "West Semitic".


title: Abjad

text: The name "abjad" is derived from pronouncing the first letters of the Arabic alphabet order, in its original order. This ordering matches that of the older Phoenician, Hebrew and Semitic proto-alphabets: specifically, aleph, bet, gimel, dalet.


title: Abjad

text: According to the formulations of Peter T. Daniels, abjads differ from alphabets in that only consonants, not vowels, are represented among the basic graphemes. Abjads differ from abugidas, another category defined by Daniels, in that in abjads, the vowel sound is "implied" by phonology, and where vowel marks exist for the system, such as nikkud for Hebrew and ḥarakāt for Arabic, their use is optional and not the dominant (or literate) form. Abugidas mark all vowels (other than the "inherent" vowel) with a diacritic, a minor attachment to the letter, a standalone glyph, or (in Canadian Aboriginal syllabics) by rotation of the letter. Some abugidas use a special symbol to "suppress" the inherent vowel so that the consonant alone can be properly represented. In a syllabary, a grapheme denotes a complete syllable, that is, either a lone vowel sound or a combination of a vowel sound with one or more consonant sounds.


title: Abjad

text: The antagonism of abjad versus alphabet, as it was formulated by Daniels, has been rejected by some scholars because abjad is also used as a term not only for the Arabic numeral system but (most importantly in terms of historical grammatology) also as a term for the alphabetic device (i.e., letter order) of ancient Northwest Semitic scripts in opposition to the 'south Arabian' order. This caused fatal effects on terminology in general and especially in (ancient) Semitic philology. Also, it suggests that consonantal alphabets, in opposition to, for instance, the Greek alphabet, were not yet true alphabets and not yet entirely complete, lacking something important to be a fully working script system. It has also been objected that, as a set of letters, an alphabet is not the mirror of what should be there in a language from a phonological point of view; rather, it is the data stock of what provides maximum efficiency with least effort from a semantic point of view.


title: Abjad

text: The first abjad to gain widespread usage was the Phoenician abjad. Unlike other contemporary scripts, such as cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Phoenician script consisted of only a few dozen symbols. This made the script easy to learn, and seafaring Phoenician merchants took the script throughout the then-known world.


title: Abjad

text: The Phoenician abjad was a radical simplification of phonetic writing, since hieroglyphics required the writer to pick a hieroglyph starting with the same sound that the writer wanted to write in order to write phonetically, much as "man'yōgana" (kanji used solely for phonetic use) was used to represent Japanese phonetically before the invention of kana.


title: Abjad

text: Phoenician gave rise to a number of new writing systems, including the widely used Aramaic abjad and the Greek alphabet. The Greek alphabet evolved into the modern western alphabets, such as Latin and Cyrillic, while Aramaic became the ancestor of many modern abjads and abugidas of Asia.


title: Abjad

text: Impure abjads have characters for some vowels, optional vowel diacritics, or both. The term pure abjad refers to scripts entirely lacking in vowel indicators. However, most modern abjads, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Pahlavi, are "impure" abjadsthat is, they also contain symbols for some of the vowel phonemes, although the said non-diacritic vowel letters are also used to write certain consonants, particularly approximants that sound similar to long vowels. A "pure" abjad is exemplified (perhaps) by very early forms of ancient Phoenician, though at some point (at least by the 9th century BC) it and most of the contemporary Semitic abjads had begun to overload a few of the consonant symbols with a secondary function as vowel markers, called "matres lectionis". This practice was at first rare and limited in scope but became increasingly common and more developed in later times.


title: Abjad

text: In the 9th century BC the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script for use in their own language. The phonetic structure of the Greek language created too many ambiguities when vowels went unrepresented, so the script was modified. They did not need letters for the guttural sounds represented by "aleph", "he", "heth" or "ayin", so these symbols were assigned vocalic values. The letters "waw" and "yod" were also adapted into vowel signs; along with "he", these were already used as "matres lectionis" in Phoenician. The major innovation of Greek was to dedicate these symbols exclusively and unambiguously to vowel sounds that could be combined arbitrarily with consonants (as opposed to syllabaries such as Linear B which usually have vowel symbols but cannot combine them with consonants to form arbitrary syllables).


title: Abjad

text: Abugidas developed along a slightly different route. The basic consonantal symbol was considered to have an inherent "a" vowel sound. Hooks or short lines attached to various parts of the basic letter modify the vowel. In this way, the South Arabian abjad evolved into the Ge'ez abugida of Ethiopia between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD. Similarly, the Brāhmī abugida of the Indian subcontinent developed around the 3rd century BC (from the Aramaic abjad, it has been hypothesized).


title: Abjad

text: The other major family of abugidas, Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, was initially developed in the 1840s by missionary and linguist James Evans for the Cree and Ojibwe languages. Evans used features of Devanagari script and Pitman shorthand to create his initial abugida. Later in the 19th century, other missionaries adapted Evans's system to other Canadian aboriginal languages. Canadian syllabics differ from other abugidas in that the vowel is indicated by rotation of the consonantal symbol, with each vowel having a consistent orientation.


title: Abjad

text: The abjad form of writing is well-adapted to the morphological structure of the Semitic languages it was developed to write. This is because words in Semitic languages are formed from a root consisting of (usually) three consonants, the vowels being used to indicate inflectional or derived forms. For instance, according to Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic, from the Arabic root "Dh-B-Ḥ" (to slaughter) can be derived the forms ' (he slaughtered), ' (you (masculine singular) slaughtered), ' (he slaughters), and ' (slaughterhouse). In most cases, the absence of full glyphs for vowels makes the common root clearer, allowing readers to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from familiar roots (especially in conjunction with context clues) and improving word recognition while reading for practiced readers.


title: Abjad

text: By contrast, the Arabic and Hebrew scripts sometimes perform the role of true alphabets rather than abjads when used to write certain Indo-European languages, including Kurdish, Bosnian, and Yiddish.


title: Max Casella

text: Max Casella (born Maximilian Deitch; June 6, 1967) is an American actor. He is known for his roles on the television series "Doogie Howser, M.D.", "The Sopranos", "Boardwalk Empire", "Vinyl", "Cro" and the voice of Daxter in the "Jak and Daxter" video game series.


title: Max Casella

text: Casella was born in Washington, D.C., the son of David Deitch, a newspaper columnist, and Doris Casella, a social worker. His father is Jewish and his mother is of Italian descent. He grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where his classmates included Traci Bingham, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon. Max has Growth hormone deficiency, which accounted for his ability to play characters much younger than his actual age. His brother also shares the condition. Due to his growth hormone Deficiency, he didn't go through puberty until the age of 27 after medical intervention (which he still takes). His physical changes caused him to gain weight and he was dropped by his agents. He then had to completely reinvent himself as an actor.


title: Max Casella

text: Casella played Vincent "Vinnie" Delpino in the television series "Doogie Howser, M.D." from 1989 to 1993 with Neil Patrick Harris. In 1992, Casella played Racetrack Higgins in "Newsies", which was based upon true events in the 1899 newsboys strike against Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. He appeared in "WindRunner: A Spirited Journey", starring Margot Kidder and Russell Means as Jim Thorpe's ghost. In 1997, Casella played Timon in the original Broadway production of "The Lion King"; a performance for which he was awarded a Theatre World Award and received a Drama Desk Award nomination. From 2000 to 2001 he returned to Broadway as Marcellus Washburn in the revival of "The Music Man". Casella portrayed Pvt. Dino Paparelli in "Sgt. Bilko". He joined the cast of the HBO series "The Sopranos" during its third season, as Benny Fazio. Casella also starred in "Ed Wood" and "Analyze This". In 2007, Casella portrayed Dick Howser in the ESPN mini-series "The Bronx is Burning". He also voiced Tip in "", Zini in the CGI film "Dinosaur" and the titular character in ABC's "Cro". In 2008, Casella played Mack Steiner in "Leatherheads" and Dennis, one of the main characters in "Scaring the Fish". He also played Leo D'Alessio in season one of the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire".


title: Max Casella

text: Casella married Leona Robbins in 2002, and has two daughters, Mia and Gioia. They lived in New York City; and they separated in 2018.


title: Sarah Clarke

text: Sarah Clarke (born February 16, 1972) is an American actress, best known for her role as Nina Myers on "24", and also for her roles as Renée Dwyer, Bella Swan's mother, in the 2008 film "Twilight", Erin McGuire on the short-lived TV show "Trust Me", and CIA Officer Lena Smith on the USA Network show "Covert Affairs". She recently starred as Eleanor Wish in Amazon Studios' police procedural drama "Bosch".


title: Sarah Clarke

text: Clarke was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Ernest Clarke, an engineer, and Carolyn, a homemaker.


title: Sarah Clarke

text: She attended John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Missouri (along with "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm, her prom date), and Indiana University Bloomington studying Fine Arts and Italian. She dated fellow actor Paul Rudd for a short time. While a student at Indiana University, Clarke became a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She was initiated into the Beta chapter in 1990.


title: Sarah Clarke

text: Clarke became interested in acting while studying abroad during her senior year in Bologna, Italy. Upon returning to the United States, she began studying architectural photography. She received free acting lessons in return for taking photographs of a cultural arts center, and she studied acting at Circle in the Square Theatre School, Axis Theater Company, and The Willow Cabin Theatre Company.


title: Sarah Clarke

text: Clarke began her acting career with an appearance in a 1999 award-winning commercial for Volkswagen. She followed this with a role in the 2000 short film "Pas de deux" and received an Outstanding Performance award at the Brooklyn Film Festival. Clarke's career soon blossomed with minor roles, including films "All About George" in 2000 and "The Accident" in 2001, as well as television shows such as "Ed" and "Sex and the City".


title: Sarah Clarke

text: In 2001, Clarke auditioned for the role of Counter Terrorist Unit agent Nina Myers on "24". She won the role on the day that filming began. The wardrobe department did not have time to fit her, so she had to wear her own outfit for the entire season of filming. In her three seasons with the show, Clarke was featured in a total of 36 episodes. Clarke won a Golden Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Drama Series for this role. Clarke also lent her voice to "", as her "24" character, Nina Myers.


title: Sarah Clarke

text: She has guest-starred on "House" and "Life". She played Renée Dwyer, Bella Swan's mother, in "Twilight". She accepted a leading role on the TNT series "Trust Me", opposite Eric McCormack and Thomas Cavanagh. The series premiered on January 26, 2009 to positive reviews, though it was cancelled after one season due to declining ratings. In 2010, Clarke reprised her role as Renée Dwyer in "Eclipse", the third movie in the "Twilight series". In 2013, she was cast as Marla Jameson in the US version of "The Tomorrow People".


title: Sarah Clarke

text: Clarke met her husband, Xander Berkeley, while on the set of "24" (he played her supervisor, George Mason) and they were married in September 2002, a year after meeting. They have two daughters: Olwyn Harper (born in 2006) and Rowan (born in 2010).


title: The Book of Henry

text: The Book of Henry is a 2017 American drama thriller film directed by Colin Trevorrow and written by Gregg Hurwitz. The film stars Naomi Watts, Jaeden Martell (then known as Jaeden Lieberher), Jacob Tremblay, Sarah Silverman, Lee Pace, Maddie Ziegler, and Dean Norris. The story concerns a plan hatched by a young genius, dying of cancer, to save the girl next door from abuse.


title: The Book of Henry

text: The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 14, 2017. It was released in theaters by Focus Features on June 16, 2017, was unsuccessful at the box office, and received generally negative reviews from critics, mostly focused on the film's plot twists and tonal shifts, and Trevorrow's direction, although the cast and the film's ambition received some praise.


title: The Book of Henry

text: In a small suburban town in the Hudson Valley, eleven-year-old genius Henry Carpenter and his younger brother Peter are being raised by their single mother Susan, a waitress who is working on writing children's books. Henry has used his intellect to invest successfully in the stock market, building up a very substantial nest egg for his family. He also protects Peter from a school bully and builds Rube Goldberg machines in their tree house. Henry and Susan are both fond of their next-door neighbor and Henry's classmate, Christina Sickleman, who has recently become glum.


title: The Book of Henry

text: Henry believes he sees Christina being abused by her stepfather, Glenn, the local police commissioner. He reports the abuse to social services and the school principal, Janice Wilder, but Glenn has connections throughout the local government, and Wilder is reluctant to challenge the commissioner without "conclusive evidence". Henry is unable to get the authorities to launch a serious investigation that would protect Christina. Henry tells his mother that when someone is in trouble, those who can help must take action. He develops a detailed plan to rescue Christina that he details in a notebook. After a violent seizure, he is taken to the hospital, where he is diagnosed with a brain tumor and undergoes surgery. Anticipating his death, he tells Peter to give Susan the notebook. Days later, Henry dies.


title: The Book of Henry

text: Susan is distraught at Henry's death and has difficulty functioning, but when Peter gives her the notebook, she focuses on Henry's plan. She tries, unsuccessfully, to interest a nearby social services agency in opening an investigation. One night, from the boys' bedroom window, she sees Glenn in Christina's room and decides to carry out the plan. The notebook and an accompanying cassette tape describe Henry's step-by-step plan to kill Glenn with a sniper rifle while covering Susan's tracks so that it will be impossible to trace the murder back to her. Her alibi is to be provided by executing the murder while Christina and Peter are performing at the school talent show.


title: The Book of Henry

text: Susan slips away from the show, putting the plan into motion. As she is about to pull the trigger, she realizes that Henry's plan, though ingenious, is the construct of a child, and she must act as an adult. She immediately confronts Glenn and tells him that she is going to expose him for what he has done to Christina. He replies that everyone will believe him, not her, and tells her that he is going to call his police chief to come arrest her. At the same time, affected by Christina's dance performance at the talent show, Principal Wilder decides to follow through on the abuse accusation, contacting the authorities. Glenn returns home, calls his relative at Social Services, and learns that an investigation is being opened into his abuse of Christina. As the police arrive at his house, he kills himself. Susan legally adopts Christina as her daughter. She also finishes writing one of her children's books, as Henry had urged her to do.


title: The Book of Henry

text: Hurwitz wrote the first draft of the screenplay by 1998. The film was eventually optioned by Jenette Kahn, and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment joined as a producer. An executive at Kimmel Entertainment thought that Colin Trevorrow would be right to direct "The Book of Henry". Trevorrow and Hurwitz found each other to be congenial, but then Trevorrow was hired to direct "Jurassic World". Another director was considered. By early 2015, after Trevorrow finished "Jurassic World", he returned to "The Book of Henry". Kimmel Entertainment and Double Nickel Entertainment financed and co-produced the film; producers are Sidney Kimmel, Kahn and Adam Richman. Focus Features obtained worldwide distribution rights.


title: The Book of Henry

text: Principal photography on the film began in September 2015 in and around New York City, and concluded in November. The music was composed by Michael Giacchino. Stevie Nicks sang a new song in the film.


title: The Book of Henry

text: "The Book of Henry" was scheduled to be released on September 16, 2016, but Focus rescheduled the film's release to June 16, 2017, concluding that during the summer, the film release schedule would offer fewer adult-oriented films that might compete against "The Book of Henry" for older viewers. The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 14, 2017. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $1.4 million from 579 theaters (an average of $2,460 per theater), finishing 13th at the box office, making it "by far the biggest start among the new Specialties" opening that weekend. The film was, however, not a financial success.


title: The Book of Henry

text: The film was featured at the July 2017 Ischia Film Festival, where Trevorrow was honored with the Breakout Director award for the film.


title: The Book of Henry

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 22% based on 147 reviews, with an average rating of 4.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Book of Henry" deserves a few points for ambition, but its tonal juggling act – and a deeply maudlin twist – may leave viewers gaping in disbelief rather than choking back tears." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 31 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". PostTrak reported audiences gave the film an 86% overall positive score and a 65% "definite recommend". Caroline McVitty commented in "The Island Packet" that the film was one "that critics hate and audiences love."


title: The Book of Henry

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" wrote: "There’s the kind of bad movie that just sits there, unfolding with grimly predictable monotony. Then there’s the kind where the badness expands and metastasizes, taking on a jaw-dropping life of its own, pushing through to ever-higher levels of garishness. "The Book of Henry" ... is of the latter, you’ve-got-to-see-it-to-disbelieve-it variety." "The Guardian's" Peter Bradshaw, in a critical review, said that, "in its pure misjudged ickiness, bad-acting ropiness, and its quirksy, smirksy passive-aggressive tweeness, this insidiously terrible film could hardly get any more skin-crawling." Writing for "Vulture", Emily Yoshida opined, "It does not suffice to call "The Book of Henry" bad; it’s nonfunctional, so poorly conceived from the ground up as to slip out of the grasp of the usual standards one applies to narrative film. It might be admirable if it wasn’t such torture to watch."


title: The Book of Henry

text: Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of "The A.V. Club" wrote: "Director Colin Trevorrow ... lacks any of the eccentricities that might make this quirky and contrived material work, even at face value," though he added, "its above-average performances and insistence on following through on an off-beat premise give it a hint of battiness." Writing for "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers gave it 1.5 stars out of 4, saying: ""The Book of Henry" starts well, begins flirting with absurdity in the middle – and ends in crashing disaster. But the feeling persists that director Colin Treverrow believes every word in the shambles of a 20-year-old screenplay by crime novelist Gregg Hurwitz." Stephen Schaefer of the "Boston Herald" was one of the minority of critics who praised the film, as was Colin Covert of the "Chicago Tribune", who concluded: "This is a poignant, frequently funny film that moves into unexpected dark subjects."


title: Far from the Madding Crowd

text: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in "Cornhill Magazine", where it gained a wide readership.


title: Far from the Madding Crowd

text: The novel is set in Thomas Hardy's Wessex in rural southwest England, as had been his earlier "Under the Greenwood Tree". It deals in themes of love, honour and betrayal, against a backdrop of the seemingly idyllic, but often harsh, realities of a farming community in Victorian England. It describes the life and relationships of Bathsheba Everdene with her lonely neighbour William Boldwood, the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, and the thriftless soldier Sergeant Troy.


title: Far from the Madding Crowd

text: On publication, critical notices were plentiful and mostly positive. Hardy revised the text extensively for the 1895 edition and made further changes for the 1901 edition.


title: Far from the Madding Crowd

text: The novel has an enduring legacy. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 48 on the BBC's survey The Big Read, while in 2007, it was ranked 10th on "The Guardian"s list of greatest love stories of all time. The novel has also been dramatised several times, notably in the Oscar-nominated 1967 film directed by John Schlesinger.


title: Far from the Madding Crowd

text: Gabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life, and a loan, he has leased and stocked a farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt. Over time, Bathsheba and Gabriel grow to like each other well enough, and Bathsheba even saves his life once. However, when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little. After a few days, she moves to Weatherbury, a village some miles off.


title: Far from the Madding Crowd

text: When next they meet, their circumstances have changed drastically. An inexperienced new sheepdog has driven Gabriel's flock over a cliff, ruining him. After selling off everything of value, he manages to settle all his debts but emerges penniless. He seeks employment at a hiring fair in the town of Casterbridge. When he finds none, he heads to another such fair in Shottsford, a town about ten miles from Weatherbury. On the way, he happens upon a dangerous fire on a farm and leads the bystanders in putting it out. When the veiled owner comes to thank him, he asks if she needs a shepherd. She uncovers her face and reveals herself to be none other than Bathsheba. She has recently inherited her uncle's estate and is now wealthy. Though somewhat uncomfortable, she employs him.