title: Loneliness

text: There is a clear distinction between feeling lonely and being socially isolated (for example, a loner). In particular, one way of thinking about loneliness is as a discrepancy between one's necessary and achieved levels of social interaction, while solitude is simply the lack of contact with people. Loneliness is therefore a subjective yet multidimensional experience; if a person thinks they are lonely, then they are lonely. People can be lonely while in solitude, or in the middle of a crowd. What makes a person lonely is their perceived need for more social interaction or a certain type or quality of social interaction that is not currently available. A person can be in the middle of a party and feel lonely due to not talking to enough people. Conversely, one can be alone and not feel lonely; even though there is no one around, that person is not lonely because there is no desire for social interaction. There have also been suggestions that each person has their own optimal level of social interaction. If a person gets too little or too much social interaction, this could lead to feelings of loneliness or over-stimulation.


title: Loneliness

text: Solitude can have positive effects on individuals. One study found that, although time spent alone tended to depress a person's mood and increase feelings of loneliness, it also helped to improve their cognitive state, such as improving concentration. It can be argued some individuals seek solitude for discovering a more meaningful and vital existence. Furthermore, once the alone time was over, people's moods tended to increase significantly. Solitude is also associated with other positive growth experiences, religious experiences, and identity building such as solitary quests used in rites of passages for adolescents.


title: Loneliness

text: Another important typology of loneliness focuses on the time perspective. In this respect, loneliness can be viewed as either transient or chronic.


title: Loneliness

text: Transient loneliness is temporary in nature; generally it is easily relieved. Chronic loneliness is more permanent and not easily relieved. For example, when a person is sick and cannot socialize with friends, this would be a case of transient loneliness. Once the person got better it would be easy for them to alleviate their loneliness. A person with long term feelings of loneliness, regardless of if they are at a family gathering or with friends, is experiencing chronic loneliness.


title: Loneliness

text: The existentialist school of thought views individuality as the essence of being human. Each human being comes into the world alone, travels through life as a separate person, and ultimately dies alone. Coping with this, accepting it, and learning how to direct our own lives with some degree of grace and satisfaction is the human condition.


title: Loneliness

text: Some philosophers, such as Sartre, believe in an epistemic loneliness in which loneliness is a fundamental part of the human condition because of the paradox between people's consciousness desiring meaning in life and the isolation and nothingness of the universe. Conversely, other existentialist thinkers argue that human beings might be said to actively engage each other and the universe as they communicate and create, and loneliness is merely the feeling of being cut off from this process.


title: Loneliness

text: In his 2019 text, "Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence," Darius Bost draws from Heather Love's theorization of loneliness to delineate the ways in which loneliness structures black gay feeling and literary, cultural productions. Bost limns, "As a form of negative affect, loneliness shores up the alienation, isolation, and pathologization of black gay men during the 1980s and early 1990s. But loneliness is also a form of bodily desire, a yearning for an attachment to the social and for a future beyond the forces that create someone's alienation and isolation."


title: Loneliness

text: Thousands of studies and surveys have been undertaken to assess the prevalence of loneliness. Yet it remains challenging for scientists to make accurate generalisations and comparisons. Reasons for this include various loneliness measurement scales being used by different studies, differences in how even the same scale is implemented from study to study, and as cultural variations across time and space may impact how people report the largely subjective phenomena of loneliness.


title: Loneliness

text: One consistent finding has been that loneliness is not evenly distributed across a nation's population. It tends to be concentrated among vulnerable sub groups; for example the poor, the unemployed, and immigrants. Some of the most severe loneliness tends to be found among international students from countries in Asia with a collective culture, when they come to study in countries with a more individualist culture, such as Australia. In New Zealand, the fourteen surveyed groups with the highest prevalence of loneliness most/all of the time in descending order are: disabled people, recent migrants, low income households, unemployed, single parents, rural (rest of South Island), seniors aged 75+, not in the labour force, youth aged 15–24, no qualifications, not housing owner-occupier, not in a family nucleus, Māori, and low personal income.


title: Loneliness

text: Studies have found inconsistent results concerning the effect of age, gender and culture on loneliness.


title: Loneliness

text: Much 20th century and early 21st century writing on loneliness assumed it typically increases with age. In high-income countries, on average, one in four people over 60 and one in three over 75 feels lonely. Yet as of 2020, with some exceptions, recent studies have tended to find that it is young people who report the most loneliness (though loneliness is still found to be a severe problem for the very old).


title: Loneliness

text: There have been contradictory results concerning how the prevalence of loneliness varies with gender. A 2020 analysis based on a worldwide dataset gathered by the BBC found greater loneliness among men, though some earlier work had found the opposite, or that gender made no difference.


title: Loneliness

text: While cross-cultural comparisons are difficult to interpret with high confidence, the 2020 analyses based on the BBC dataset found the more individualist countries like the UK tended to have higher levels of loneliness. However, previous empirical work had often found that people living in more collectivist cultures tended to report greater loneliness, possibly due to less freedom to choose the sort of relationships that suit them best.


title: Loneliness

text: In the 21st century, loneliness has been widely reported as an increasing worldwide problem. In 2017, loneliness was labelled a growing "epidemic" by Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General of the United States. It has since been described as an epidemic thousands of times, by reporters, academics and other public officials. A 2010 systematic review and meta analyses had stated that the "modern way of life in industrialized countries" is greatly reducing the quality of social relationships, partly due to people no longer living in close proximity with their extended families. The review notes that from 1990 to 2010, the number of Americans reporting no close confidants has tripled. Worldwide though there is little historical data to conclusively demonstrate an increase in loneliness. Several reviews have found no clear evidence of an increase in loneliness even in the US. Professors such as Claude S. Fischer and Eric Klinenberg opined in 2018 that while the data doesn't support describing loneliness as an "epidemic" or even as a clearly growing problem, loneliness is indeed a serious issue, having a severe health impact on millions of people. However, a 2021 study found that adolescent loneliness in contemporary schools and depression increased substantially and consistently worldwide after 2012.


title: Loneliness

text: A comparative overview of the prevalence and determinants of loneliness and social isolation in Europe in the pre-COVID period was conducted by Joint Research Centre of the European Commission within the project Loneliness in Europe.


title: Loneliness

text: The empirical results indicate that 8.6% of the adult population in Europe experience frequent loneliness and 20.8% experience social isolation, with eastern Europe recording the highest prevalence of both phenomena.


title: Loneliness

text: While unpleasant, temporary feelings of loneliness are sometimes experienced by almost everyone, they are not thought to cause long term harm. Early 20th century work sometimes treated loneliness as a wholly negative phenomena. Yet transient loneliness is now generally considered beneficial. The capacity to feel it may have been evolutionarily selected for, a healthy aversive emotion that motivates individuals to strengthen social connections. Transient loneliness is sometimes compared to short-term hunger, which is unpleasant but ultimately useful as it motivates us to eat.


title: Loneliness

text: Long-term loneliness is widely considered a close to entirely harmful condition. Whereas transient loneliness typically motivates us to improve relationships with others, chronic loneliness can have the opposite effect. This is as long-term social isolation can cause hypervigilance. While enhanced vigilance may have been evolutionary adaptive for individuals who went long periods without others watching their backs, it can lead to excessive cynicism and suspicion of other people, which in turn can be detrimental to interpersonal relationships. So without intervention, chronic loneliness can be self-reinforcing.


title: Loneliness

text: Much has been written about the benefits of being alone, yet often, even when authors use the word "loneliness", they are referring to what could be more precisely described as voluntary solitude. Yet some assert that even long-term involuntary loneliness can have beneficial effects.


title: Loneliness

text: Chronic loneliness is often seen as a purely negative phenomena from the lens of social and medical science. Yet in spiritual and artistic traditions, it has been viewed as having mixed effects. Though even within these traditions, there can be warnings not to intentionally seek out chronic loneliness or other conditionsjust advise that if one falls into them, there can be benefits. In western arts, there is a long belief that psychological hardship, including loneliness, can be a source of creativity. In spiritual traditions, perhaps the most obvious benefit of loneliness is that it can increase the desire for a union with the divine. More esoterically, the psychic wound opened up by loneliness or other conditions has been said, e.g. by Simone Weil, to open up space for God to manifest within the soul. In Christianity, spiritual dryness has been seen as advantageous as part of the "dark night of the soul", an ordeal that while painful, can result in spiritual transformation. From a secular perspective, while the vast majority of empirical studies focus on the negative effects of long term loneliness, a few studies have found there can also be benefits, such as enhanced perceptiveness of social situations.


title: Loneliness

text: Studies have found mostly negative effects from chronic loneliness on brain functioning and structure. However, certain parts of the brain and specific functions, like the ability to detect social threat, appear to be strengthened. A 2020 population-genetics study looked for signatures of loneliness in grey matter morphology, intrinsic functional coupling, and fiber tract microstructure. The loneliness-linked neurobiological profiles converged on a collection of brain regions known as the default mode network. This higher associative network shows more consistent loneliness associations in grey matter volume than other cortical brain networks. Lonely individuals display stronger functional communication in the default network, and greater microstructural integrity of its fornix pathway. The findings fit with the possibility that the up-regulation of these neural circuits supports mentalizing, reminiscence and imagination to fill the social void.


title: Loneliness

text: Chronic loneliness can be a serious, life-threatening health condition. It has been found to be strongly associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, though direct causal links have yet to be firmly identified. People experiencing loneliness tend to have an increased incidence of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity.


title: Loneliness

text: Loneliness has been shown to increase the concentration of cortisol levels in the body and weaken the effects of dopamine, the hormone that makes people enjoy things. Prolonged, high cortisol levels can cause anxiety, depression, digestive problems, heart disease, sleep problems, and weight gain.


title: Loneliness

text: Associational studies on loneliness and the immune system have found mixed results, with lower natural killer (NK) cell activity or dampened antibody response to viruses such Epstein Barr, herpes, and influenza, but either slower or no change to the progression of AIDS.


title: Loneliness

text: Based on the ELSA, a study found that loneliness increased the risk of dementia by one-third. Not having a partner (being single, divorced, or widowed) doubled the risk of dementia. However, having two or three closer relationships reduced the risk by three-fifths.


title: Loneliness

text: A 2010 systematic review and meta- analyses found a significant association between loneliness and increased mortality. People with good social relationships were found to have a 50% greater chance of survival compared to lonely people ( odds ratio = 1.5). In other words, chronic loneliness seems to be a risk factor for death comparable to smoking, and greater than obesity or lack of exercise. A 2017 overview of systematic reviews found other meta-studies with similar findings. However, clear causative links between loneliness and early death have not been firmly established.


title: Loneliness

text: Loneliness has been linked with depression, and is thus a risk factor for suicide. A study based on more than 4,000 adults aged over 50 in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), looked at loneliness. Nearly one in five of those who reported being lonely had developed signs of depression within a year. Émile Durkheim has described loneliness, specifically the inability or unwillingness to live for others, i.e. for friendships or altruistic ideas, as the main reason for what he called "egoistic suicide". In adults, loneliness is a major precipitant of depression and alcoholism. People who are socially isolated may report poor sleep quality, and thus have diminished restorative processes. Loneliness has also been linked with a schizoid character type in which one may see the world differently and experience social alienation, described as "the self in exile".


title: Loneliness

text: While the long-term effects of extended periods of loneliness are little understood, it has been noted that people who are isolated or experience loneliness for a long period of time fall into a "ontological crisis" or "ontological insecurity," where they are not sure if they or their surroundings exist, and if they do, exactly who or what they are, creating torment, suffering, and despair to the point of palpability within the thoughts of the person.


title: Loneliness

text: In children, a lack of social connections is directly linked to several forms of antisocial and self-destructive behavior, most notably hostile and delinquent behavior. In both children and adults, loneliness often has a negative impact on learning and memory. Its disruption of sleep patterns can have a significant impact on the ability to function in everyday life.


title: Loneliness

text: Research from a large-scale study published in the journal Psychological Medicine, showed that "lonely millennials are more likely to have mental health problems, be out of work and feel pessimistic about their ability to succeed in life than their peers who feel connected to others, regardless of gender or wealth".


title: Loneliness

text: In 2004, the United States Department of Justice published a study indicating that loneliness increases suicide rates profoundly among juveniles, with 62% of all suicides that occurred within juvenile facilities being among those who either were, at the time of the suicide, in solitary confinement or among those with a history of being housed thereof.


title: Loneliness

text: Pain, depression, and fatigue function as a symptom cluster and thus may share common risk factors. Two longitudinal studies with different populations demonstrated that loneliness was a risk factor for the development of the pain, depression, and fatigue symptom cluster over time. These data also highlight the health risks of loneliness; pain, depression, and fatigue often accompany serious illness and place people at risk for poor health and mortality.


title: Loneliness

text: The psychiatrist George Vaillant and the director of longitudinal Study of Adult Development at Harvard University Robert J. Waldinger found that those who were happiest and healthier reported strong interpersonal relationships.


title: Loneliness

text: Loneliness can cause suicidal thoughts (suicidal ideation), attempts at suicide and actual suicide. The extent to which suicides result from loneliness are difficult to determine however, as there are typically several potential causes involved. In an article written for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Dr. Jeremy Noble writes, "You don't have to be a doctor to recognize the connection between loneliness and suicide". As feelings of loneliness intensify so do thoughts of suicide and attempts at suicide. The loneliness that triggers suicidal tendencies impacts all facets of society.


title: Loneliness

text: The Samaritans, a nonprofit charity in England, who work with people going through crisis says there is a definite correlation between feelings of loneliness and suicide for juveniles and those in their young adult years. The Office of National Statistics, in England, found one of the top ten reasons young people have suicidal idealizations and attempt suicide is because they are lonely. College students, lonely, away from home, living in new unfamiliar surroundings, away from friends feel isolated and without proper coping skills will turn to suicide as a way to fix the pain of loneliness. A common theme, among children and young adults dealing with feelings of loneliness is they didn't know help was available, or where to get help. Loneliness, to them, is a source of shame.


title: Loneliness

text: Older people can also struggle with feelings of severe loneliness which lead them to consider acting on thoughts of suicide or self-harm. In some countries, senior citizens appear to commit a high proportion of suicides, though in other countries there is a significantly higher rate for middle-aged men. Retirement, poor health, loss of a significant other or other family or friends, all contribute to loneliness. Suicides caused by loneliness in older people can be difficult to identify. Often they don't have anyone to disclose their feelings of loneliness and the despair it brings. They may stop eating, alter the doses of medications, or choose not to treat an illness as a way to help expedite death so they don't have to deal with feeling lonely.


title: Loneliness

text: Cultural influences can also cause loneliness leading to suicidal thoughts or actions. For example, Hispanic and Japanese cultures value interdependence. When a person from one of these cultures feels removed or feels like they can't sustain relationships in their families or society, they start to have negative behaviors, including negative thoughts or acting self-destructively. Other cultures, such as in Europe, are more independent. While the cause of loneliness in a person may stem from different circumstances or cultural norms, the impact lead to the same results – a desire to end life.


title: Loneliness

text: High levels of chronic loneliness can also have society wide effects. Noreena Hertz writes that Hannah Arendt was the first to discuss the link between loneliness and the politics of intolerance. In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism Arendt argues that loneliness is an essential prerequisite for a totalitarian movement to gain power. Hertz states that the link between an individual's loneliness and their likelihood to vote for a populist political party or candidate has since been supported by several empirical studies. In addition to increasing support for populist policies, Hertz argues that a society with high levels of loneliness risks eroding its ability to have effective mutually beneficial politics. Partly as loneliness tends to make people more suspicious about each other. And also as some of the ways individuals alleviate loneliness, such as technological or transactional substitutes for human companionship, can reduce peoples political and social skills, such as their ability to compromise and to see other points of view.


title: Loneliness

text: However, the link between loneliness and political attitudes remains underexplored and ambiguous. Studies investigating the relationship between loneliness and voter orientation directly found that lonely individuals tend to abstain from elections rather than support populist parties. This inconsistency might stem from differences in the definition and operationalization of loneliness. While Hertz applies a broader definition of loneliness, the empirical studies that contradict her point use self reported, directly measured loneliness as predictor for voting behavior.


title: Loneliness

text: There are a number of potential physiological mechanisms linking loneliness to poor health outcomes. In 2005, results from the American "Framingham Heart Study" demonstrated that lonely men had raised levels of Interleukin 6 (IL-6), a blood chemical linked to heart disease. A 2006 study conducted by the "Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience" at the University of Chicago found loneliness can add thirty points to a blood pressure reading for adults over the age of fifty. Another finding, from a survey conducted by John Cacioppo from the University of Chicago, is that doctors report providing better medical care to patients who have a strong network of family and friends than they do to patients who are alone. Cacioppo states that loneliness impairs cognition and willpower, alters DNA transcription in immune cells, and leads over time to high blood pressure. Lonelier people are more likely to show evidence of viral reactivation than less lonely people. Lonelier people also have stronger inflammatory responses to acute stress compared with less lonely people; inflammation is a well known risk factor for age-related diseases.


title: Loneliness

text: When someone feels left out of a situation, they feel excluded and one possible side effect is for their body temperature to decrease. When people feel excluded blood vessels at the periphery of the body may narrow, preserving core body heat. This class protective mechanism is known as vasoconstriction.


title: Loneliness

text: The reduction of loneliness in oneself and others has long been a motive for human activity and social organization. For some commentators, such as professor Ben Lazare Mijuskovic, ever since the dawn of civilization, it has been the single strongest motivator for human activity after essential physical needs are satisfied. Loneliness is the first negative condition identified in the Bible, with the Book of Genesis showing God creating a companion for man to relieve loneliness. Nevertheless, there is relatively little direct record of explicit loneliness relief efforts prior to the 20th century. Some commentators including professor Rubin Gotesky have argued the sense of aloneness was rarely felt until older communal ways of living began to be disrupted by the Enlightenment.


title: Loneliness

text: Starting in the 1900s, and especially in the 21st century, efforts explicitly aiming to alleviate loneliness became much more common. Loneliness reduction efforts occur across multiple disciplines, often by actors for whom loneliness relief is not their primary concern. For example, by commercial firms, civic planners, designers of new housing developments, and university administration. Across the world, many departments, NGOs and even umbrella groups entirely dedicated to loneliness relief have been established. For example, in the UK, the "Campaign to End Loneliness." With loneliness being a complex condition, there is no single method that can consistently alleviate it for different individuals; many different approaches are used.


title: Loneliness

text: Therapy is a common way of treating loneliness. For individuals whose loneliness is caused by factors that respond well to medical intervention, it is often successful. Short-term therapy, the most common form for lonely or depressed patients, typically occurs over a period of ten to twenty weeks. During therapy, emphasis is put on understanding the cause of the problem, reversing the negative thoughts, feelings, and attitudes resulting from the problem, and exploring ways to help the patient feel connected. Some doctors also recommend group therapy as a means to connect with other patients and establish a support system. Doctors also frequently prescribe anti-depressants to patients as a stand-alone treatment, or in conjunction with therapy. It may take several attempts before a suitable anti-depressant medication is found.


title: Loneliness

text: Doctors often see a high proportion of patients with loneliness; a UK survey found that three-quarters of Doctors believed that between 1–5 patients visited them each day mainly out of loneliness. There isn't always sufficient funds to pay for therapy, leading to the rise of "social prescription", where Doctors can refer patients to NGO and Community led solutions such as group activities. While preliminary findings suggest social prescription has good results for some people, the evidence to support its effectiveness is not strong, with commentators advising that for some people it is not a good alternative to medical therapy.


title: Loneliness

text: Along with growing awareness of the problem of loneliness, community led projects explicitly aiming for its relief became more common in the latter half of the 20th century, with still more starting up in the 21st. There have been many thousands of such projects across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some campaigns are run nationally under the control of charities dedicated to loneliness relief, while other efforts may be local projects, sometimes run by a group for which loneliness relief is not their primary objective. For example, housing associations that aim to ensure multi generational living, with social interaction between younger and older people encouraged, in some cases even contractually required. Projects range from befriending schemes that facilitate just two people meeting up, to large group activities, which will often have other objectives in addition to loneliness relief. Such as having fun, improving physical health with exercise, or participating in conservation efforts.


title: Loneliness

text: In the UK, the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness began pushing to make tackling loneliness a government priority from 2016. In 2018, this led to Great Britain becoming the first country in the world to appoint a ministerial lead for loneliness, and to publish an official loneliness reduction strategy. There have since been calls for other countries to appoint their own minister for loneliness, for example in Sweden and Germany. Various other countries had seen government led anti loneliness efforts even before 2018 however. For example, in 2017 the government of Singapore started a scheme to provide allotments to its citizens so they could socialise while working together on them, while the Netherlands government set up a telephone line for lonely older people. While governments sometimes directly control loneliness relief efforts, typically they fund or work in partnership with educational institutions, companies and NGOs.


title: Loneliness

text: Pet therapy, or animal-assisted therapy, can be used to treat both loneliness and depression. The presence of animal companions, especially dogs, but also others like cats, rabbits, and guinea pigs, can ease feelings of depression and loneliness among some patients. Beyond the companionship the animal itself provides there may also be increased opportunities for socializing with other pet owners. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention there are a number of other health benefits associated with pet ownership, including lowered blood pressure and decreased levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.


title: Loneliness

text: Technology companies have been advertising their products as helpful for reducing loneliness at least as far back as 1905; records exist of early telephones being presented as a way for isolated farmers to reduce loneliness. Technological solutions for loneliness have been suggested much more frequently since the development of the internet, and especially since loneliness became a more prominent public health issue at around 2017. Solutions have been proposed by existing tech companies, and by start-ups dedicated to loneliness reduction.


title: Loneliness

text: Solutions that have become available since 2017 tend to fall under 4 different approaches. 1) Mindfulness apps that aim to change an individual's attitude towards loneliness, emphasising possible benefits, and trying to shift towards an experience more similar to voluntary solitude. 2) Apps that warn users when they're starting to spend too much time online, which is based on research findings that moderate use of digital technology can be beneficial, but that excessive time online can increase loneliness. 3) Apps that help people connect with others, including to arrange real life meetups. 4) AI related technologies that provide digital companionship. Such companions can be conventionally virtual (having existence only when their application is switched on), can have an independent digital life (their program may run all the time in the cloud, allowing them to interact with the user across different platforms like Instagram & Twitter in similar ways to how a real human friend might behave), or can have a physical presence like a Pepper robot. As far back as the 1960s, some individuals had stated they prefer communicating with the ELIZA computer program rather than regular human beings. AI driven applications available in the 2020s are considerably more advanced, able to remember previous conversations, with some ability to sense emotional states, and to tailor their interaction accordingly. An example of a start-up working on such technology is Edward Saatchis "Fable studio". Inspired by the Joi character in "Blade Runner 2049", Saatchi seeks to create digital friends that can help alleviate loneliness. As they'll be in some senses beyond human, untainted by negative motivators like greed or envy, and with enhanced powers of attention, they may be able to help people be kinder and gentler to others. And so assist with loneliness relief on a society wide level, as well as directly with individuals.


title: Loneliness

text: A 2021 systematic review and meta-analysis on the effectiveness of digital technology interventions (DTIs) in reducing loneliness in older adults found no evidence supporting that DTIs reduce loneliness in older adults with an average age from 73 to 78 years (SD 6–11). DTIs studied included social internet-based activities, that is, social activities via social websites, videoconferencing, customized computer platforms with simplified touch-screen interfaces, personal reminder information and social management systems, WhatsApp groups, and video or voice networks.


title: Loneliness

text: Studies have found an association with religion and the reduction of loneliness, especially among the elderly. The studies sometimes include caveats, such as that religions with strong behavioural prescriptions can have isolating effects. In the 21st century, numerous religious organisations have begun to undertake efforts explicitly focusing on loneliness reduction. Religious figures have also played a role in raising awareness of the problem of loneliness; for example, Pope Francis said in 2013 that loneliness of the old (along with youth unemployment) were the most serious evils of the age.


title: Loneliness

text: Nostalgia has also been found to have a restorative effect, counteracting loneliness by increasing perceived social support. Vivek Murthy has stated that the most generally available cure for loneliness is human connection. Murthy argues that regular people have a vital role to play as individuals in reducing loneliness for themselves and others, in part by greater emphases on kindness and on nurturing relationships with others.


title: Loneliness

text: Professor Stella Mills has suggested that while social loneliness can be relatively easy to address with group activities and other measures that help build connections between people, effective intervention against emotional loneliness can be more challenging. Mills argues that such intervention is more likely to succeed for individuals who are in the early stages of loneliness, before the effects caused by chronic loneliness are deeply engrained.


title: Loneliness

text: A 2010 meta-study compared the effectiveness of four interventions: improving social skills, enhancing social support, increasing opportunities for social interaction, and addressing abnormal social cognition (faulty patterns of thoughts, such as the hyper-vigilance often caused by chronic loneliness). The results of the study indicated that all interventions were effective in reducing loneliness, possibly with the exception of social skill training. Results of the meta-analysis suggest that correcting maladaptive social cognition offers the best chance of reducing loneliness. A 2019 umbrella review of systematic reviews focussing on the effectiveness of loneliness relief efforts aimed just at older people, also found that those targeting social cognition were most effective.


title: Loneliness

text: A 2018 overview of systematic reviews concerning the effectiveness of loneliness interventions, found that generally, there is little solid evidence that intervention are effective. Though they also found no reason to believe the various types of intervention did any harm, except they cautioned against the excessive use of digital technology. The authors called for more rigorous, best practice compliant research in future studies, and with more attention to the cost of interventions.


title: Loneliness

text: Loneliness has been a theme in literature throughout the ages, as far back as Epic of Gilgamesh. Yet according to Fay Bound Alberti, it was only around the year 1800 that the word began to widely denote a negative condition. With some exceptions, earlier writings and dictionary definitions of loneliness tended to equate it with solitude – a state that was often seen as positive, unless taken to excess. From about 1800, the word loneliness began to acquire its modern definition as a painful subjective condition. This may be due to the economic and social changes arising out of the enlightenment. Such as alienation and increased interpersonal competition, along with a reduction in the proportion of people enjoying close and enduring connections with others living in close proximity, as may for example have been the case for modernising pastoral villages. Despite growing awareness of the problem of loneliness, widespread social recognition of the problem remained limited, and scientific study was sparse, until the last quarter of the twentieth century. One of the earliest studies of loneliness was published by Joseph Harold Sheldon in 1948. The 1950 book "The Lonely Crowd" helped further raise the profile of loneliness among academics. For the general public, awareness was raised by the 1966 Beatles song "Eleanor Rigby".


title: Loneliness

text: According to Eugene Garfield, it was Robert S. Weiss who brought the attention of scientists to the topic of loneliness, with his 1973 publication of "Loneliness: The experience of emotional and social isolation." Before Weiss's publication, what few studies of loneliness existed were mostly focussed on older adults. Following Weis's work, and especially after the 1978 publication of the UCLA Loneliness Scale, scientific interest in the topic has broadened and deepened considerably, with tens of thousands of academic studies having been carried to investigate loneliness just among students, with many more focussed on other subgroups, and on whole populations.


title: Loneliness

text: Concern among the general public over loneliness increased in the decades since "Eleanor Rigby"'s release; by 2018 government-backed anti-loneliness campaigns had been launched in countries including the UK, Denmark and Australia.


title: Firth of Forth

text: The Firth of Forth () is the estuary, or firth, of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south.


title: Firth of Forth

text: "Forth" stems from the name of the river; this is "*Vo-rit-ia" (slow running) in Proto-Celtic, yielding "" in Old Gaelic and "" in Welsh.


title: Firth of Forth

text: It was known as "Bodotria" in Roman times. In the Norse sagas it was known as the "Myrkvifiörd". An early Welsh name is "Merin Iodeo", or the "Sea of Iudeu".


title: Firth of Forth

text: Geologically, the Firth of Forth is a fjord, formed by the Forth Glacier in the last glacial period. The drainage basin for the Firth of Forth covers a wide geographic area including places as far from the shore as Ben Lomond, Cumbernauld, Harthill, Penicuik and the edges of Gleneagles Golf Course.


title: Firth of Forth

text: Many towns line the shores, as well as the petrochemical complexes at Grangemouth, commercial docks at Leith, former oil rig construction yards at Methil, the ship breaking facility at Inverkeithing and the former naval dockyard at Rosyth, along with numerous other industrial areas, including the Forth Bridgehead area, encompassing Rosyth, Inverkeithing and the southern edge of Dunfermline, Burntisland, Kirkcaldy, Bo'ness and Leven.


title: Firth of Forth

text: The firth is bridged in two places. The Kincardine Bridge and the Clackmannanshire Bridge cross it at Kincardine, while further east the Forth Bridge, the Forth Road Bridge and the Queensferry Crossing cross from North Queensferry to South Queensferry. The Romans reportedly made a bridge of around 900 boats, probably at South Queensferry.


title: Firth of Forth

text: From 1964 to 1982, a tunnel existed under the Firth of Forth, dug by coal miners to link the Kinneil colliery on the south side of the Forth with the Valleyfield colliery on the north side. This is shown in the 1968 educational film "Forth – Powerhouse for Industry". The shafts leading into the tunnel were filled and capped with concrete when the tunnel was closed, and it is believed to have filled with water or collapsed in places.


title: Firth of Forth

text: In July 2007, a hovercraft passenger service completed a two-week trial between Portobello, Edinburgh and Kirkcaldy, Fife. The trial of the service (marketed as "Forthfast") was hailed as a major operational success, with an average passenger load of 85 percent. It was estimated the service would decrease congestion for commuters on the Forth road and rail bridges by carrying about 870,000 passengers each year. Despite its initial success, the project was cancelled in December, 2011.


title: Firth of Forth

text: The inner firth, located between the Kincardine and Forth bridges, has lost about half of its former intertidal area as a result of land reclamation, partly for agriculture, but mainly for industry and the large ash lagoons built to deposit spoil from the coal-fired Longannet Power Station near Kincardine. Historic villages line the Fife shoreline; Limekilns, Charlestown and Culross, established in the 6th century, where Saint Kentigern was born.


title: Firth of Forth

text: The firth is important for nature conservation and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The Firth of Forth Islands SPA (Special Protection Area) is home to more than 90,000 breeding seabirds every year. There is a bird observatory on the Isle of May. A series of sand and gravel banks in the approaches to the firth have since 2014 been designated as a Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area under the name Firth of Forth Banks Complex.


title: Firth of Forth

text: The youngest person to swim across the Firth of Forth was 13-year-old Joseph Feeney, who accomplished the feat in 1933.


title: Firth of Forth

text: In 2008, a controversial bid to allow oil transfer between ships in the firth was refused by Forth Ports. SPT Marine Services had asked permission to transfer 7.8 million tonnes of crude oil per year between tankers, but the proposals were met with determined opposition from conservation groups.


title: Svetlana Krivonogikh

text: She attended Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance in the Department of International Economic Relations, receiving her diploma in 2000.


title: Svetlana Krivonogikh

text: Krivonogikh has a daughter, Elizaveta (also known as Luiza Rozova), born in March 2003. An investigation by "Proekt Media" published in November 2020 alleged that Elizaveta's father is Russian president Vladimir Putin.


title: Svetlana Krivonogikh

text: Krivonogikh's name became known with the 2020 "Proekt" investigation, which documented her connection to Putin as well as her financial assets and properties in Russia. Her name became more widely known in connection with the Pandora Papers published by ICIJ in October 2021, which revealed her assets overseas.


title: MAN SE

text: MAN SE (abbreviation of "Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg", ) was a manufacturing and engineering company based in Munich, Germany. Its primary output was commercial vehicles and diesel engines through its MAN Truck & Bus and MAN Latin America divisions, and participation in the manufacturer Sinotruk.


title: MAN SE

text: MAN SE was majority-owned by Traton, the heavy commercial vehicle subsidiary of automaker Volkswagen AG, until August 2021 when Traton completed a squeeze out of all remaining shareholders and formally merged MAN SE into Traton SE, meaning the former subsidiaries of MAN SE were now directly owned by Traton, and MAN SE ceased to exist.


title: MAN SE

text: MAN traces its origins back to 1758, when the "St. Antony" ironworks commenced operation in Oberhausen, as the first heavy-industry enterprise in the Ruhr region. In 1808, the three ironworks "St. Antony", "Gute Hoffnung" (English: "Good Hope"), and "Neue Essen" (English: "New Forges") merged, to form the Hüttengewerkschaft und Handlung Jacobi (English: "Jacobi Iron And Steel Works Union And Trading Company"), Oberhausen, which was later renamed Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH).


title: MAN SE

text: In 1840, German engineer Ludwig Sander founded in Augsburg the first predecessor enterprise of MAN in Southern Germany: the "Sander'sche Maschinenfabrik". It firstly became the "C. Reichenbach'sche Maschinenfabrik", which was named after the pioneer of printing machines Carl August Reichenbach, and later on the "Maschinenfabrik Augsburg".


title: MAN SE

text: The branch "Süddeutsche Brückenbau A.G." (MAN-Werk Gustavsburg) was founded when the company in 1859 was awarded the contract for the construction of the railway bridge over the Rhine at Mainz.


title: MAN SE

text: In 1898, the companies "Maschinenbau-AG Nürnberg" (founded 1841) and "Maschinenfabrik Augsburg AG" (founded 1840) merged to form "Vereinigte Maschinenfabrik Augsburg und Maschinenbaugesellschaft Nürnberg A.G., Augsburg" ("United Machine Works Augsburg and Nuremberg Ltd."). In 1908, the company was renamed "Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg AG", or in short, M·A·N.


title: MAN SE

text: While the focus initially remained on ore mining and iron production in the Ruhr region, mechanical engineering became the dominating branch of business in Augsburg and Nuremberg. Under the direction of Heinrich von Buz, "Maschinenfabrik Augsburg" grew from a medium-sized business of 400 employees into a major enterprise with a workforce of 12,000 by 1913.


title: MAN SE

text: Locomotion, propulsion, and steel building were the big components of this phase. The early predecessors of MAN were responsible for numerous technological innovations. The success of the early MAN entrepreneurs and engineers such as Heinrich Gerber, was based on a great openness towards new technologies. They constructed the Wuppertal monorail ("Wuppertaler Schwebebahn") and the first spectacular steel bridges such as the Großhesseloher Brücke in Munich in 1857 and the Müngsten railway bridge between 1893 and 1897.


title: MAN SE

text: The invention of the rotary printing press allowed the copious printing of books and newspapers, and since 1893, Rudolf Diesel puzzled for four years with future MAN engineers in a laboratory in Augsburg until his first diesel engine was completed and fully functional.


title: MAN SE

text: During 1921, the majority of MAN was taken over by the Gutehoffnungshütte Actienverein für Bergbau und Hüttenbetrieb, Sterkrade (GHH), (founded 1873).


title: MAN SE

text: Through well-directed equities and acquisitions of processing industries, e.g., Deutsche Werft (1918), Ferrostaal (1921), Deggendorfer Werft und Eisenbau (1924), MAN advanced to a nationwide operating enterprise, with a workforce of 52,000 by 1921. MAN also produced tractors by the name MAN Ackerdiesel (1938-1962). The decision for tractor production was made due to increasing demand from eastern Germany.


title: MAN SE

text: At the same time, the GHH's economic situation worsened. The causes for this were, among others, the reparations after World War I, the occupation of the Ruhr region and the world economic crisis. In only two years, the number of MAN employees sank from 14,000 in 1929/30 to 7,400 in 1931/32. While the civil business was largely collapsing, the military business increased with the armament under the National Socialist regime. GHH/MAN enterprises supplied finished tanks, diesel engines for submarines, and cylinders for projectiles and artillery of every description. Although MAN produced experimental diesel engines for tanks (Panzers), Maybach enjoyed a "de facto" monopoly on the design and manufacture of all tank and half-track engines, which were water-cooled, four-stroke motors. No diesel engines by any other manufacturer were installed in production armoured fighting vehicles during the war. MAN also produced gun parts, including Mauser Karabiner 98k rifle bolts. MAN's Waffenamt code was WaA53, and ordnance code was "coc".


title: MAN SE

text: The MAN works in Augsburg, which produced diesel engines for U-boats, and the MAN works in Nuremberg, which built 40% of Germany's Panther tanks, were often the target of massive Allied bombing attacks during World War II.


title: MAN SE

text: After the end of World War II, the allies split up the GHH group. A vertical integration, in which mining, iron, and steel production are consolidated, was not allowed anymore. The "Gutehoffnungshütte", together with the MAN firms of Southern Germany, therefore concentrated on engineering, plant construction, commercial vehicles, and printing machines.


title: MAN SE

text: This process has been supported by strategic acquisitions and dispositions; one of the most important was the take-over of the truck and bus division of the commercial vehicles manufacturer Büssing (1971), the disposition of the shares of the shipyard Deutsche Werft (1966/67), and the acquisition of the printing machine producer Faber&Schleicher, as well as its fusion to MAN Roland Druckmaschinen AG (1979).


title: MAN SE

text: In 1980, MAN took control of Burmeister & Wain, the Danish company that had been a world leader in design and construction of large diesel engines for large ships.


title: MAN SE

text: In 1982/83, the "Gutehoffnungshütte" plunged into a deep corporate crisis. The enterprise suffered from the late effects of the second oil crisis and a bad economic situation. This was particularly displayed by the dramatic downturn of the commercial vehicle sales figures. Besides external factors, the chief course of these problems was the obsolete company structure with extensive cross-subsidisation between the divisions. At this time, the former director of GHH presented a reclamation concept that envisioned a complete consolidation of the subsidiary with the holding company. This concept encountered great resistance with GHH's major shareholders Allianz AG and Commerzbank. The media speculated about a "Bavarian conspiracy" against the management in Oberhausen.


title: MAN SE

text: In 1986, with Klaus Götte, the group got a new company structure and became a contractual group with an economically independent division at several locations. This was also attended by the transferring of the MAN headquarters from Oberhausen to Munich, and by the new company name, MAN AG.


title: MAN SE

text: Rudolf Rupprecht repelled a takeover attempt in 2003. Furthermore, the disposition of the 50% share of the SMS Group and the strengthening of the turbomachinery division through the takeover of Sulzer Turbo induced MAN's focusing process.


title: MAN SE

text: In 2006, MAN entered into an agreement with Indian company Force Motors to establish a 50:50 joint venture for the production of trucks and buses in India for the domestic and export markets. The joint venture established a truck manufacturing plant in Pithampur, Madhya Pradesh, and launched its first truck for the Indian market in 2007. At the end of 2011, MAN bought out the stake of its Indian partner, and its operations in India became a wholly owned subsidiary of MAN in early 2012. MAN ended production and sales in India and sold the Pithampur plant back to Force Motors in 2018.


title: MAN SE

text: In September 2006, MAN produced an offer for the take-over of the Swedish competitor Scania AB. The European Commission approved the takeover on 14 December. Nevertheless, MAN voluntarily withdrew the offer on 23 January 2007, after Scania's major shareholders Volkswagen AG and the influential Wallenberg family had declined the offer. On 24 December 2008, MAN published to possess further stock options of Scania and to therefore maintain more than 20% of the voting rights. As of October 2019, MAN SE still owns 17.37% of the voting rights in Scania, with the remainder of Scania being directly owned by Volkswagen Group's heavy commercial vehicle subsidiary, Traton SE.


title: MAN SE

text: In 2008, the MAN group celebrated its 250th anniversary with numerous events, such as exhibitions in several museums, a vintage car tour with the motto "MAN on the road again", and a great anniversary gala. At the beginning of December 2008, MAN took over Volkswagen's Brazilian truck and bus operation, Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus, putting the division under the control of MAN Latin America. Therewith, MAN now is a market leader in Brazil, with a market share of 30%.


title: MAN SE

text: Since May 2009, the group is incorporated as European corporation MAN SE. In July 2009, MAN published to merge the two divisions, MAN Turbo and MAN Diesel, into one business area called Power Engineering. In addition, the group contracted a strategic partnership with Chinese truck manufacturer Sinotruk, purchasing 25% + 1 share of the company.


title: MAN SE

text: In 2009, investigators of the Munich Prosecutor's Office uncovered a corruption affair, in which MAN had been bribing business partners and governments in over 20 countries from 2001 to 2007, to get large orders for buses and trucks. MAN CEO Håkan Samuelsson and other board members had to resign. The board of directors appointed Dr.-Ing. Georg Pachta-Reyhofen, the former CEO of MAN Diesel, as successor. On 17 December 2009, Pachta-Reyhofen was assigned as speaker of the board and CEO of MAN SE by the board of directors.


title: MAN SE

text: In July 2011, Volkswagen AG acquired a 55.9% voting stake and 53.7% of the share capital in MAN SE. Pending regulatory approval, Volkswagen planned to merge MAN and Scania AB to create Europe's largest truck maker. The combined trucks group is planned to save about 400 million euros per year, mainly by bundling procurement. Regulatory approval was granted, and the takeover was completed in November 2011.


title: MAN SE

text: In April 2012, MAN SE announced that Volkswagen had increased its interest to a 73.0% voting stake and 71.08% of the share capital.


title: MAN SE

text: On 6 June 2012, Volkswagen AG announced that it had increased its share of voting rights in MAN SE to 75.03%, paving the way for a domination agreement to be put in place.


title: MAN SE

text: From January 2019, MAN's Power Engineering division, made up of MAN Energy Solutions (formerly MAN Diesel and Turbo) and MAN SE's 76% stake in RENK AG were sold to the Volkswagen Group, leaving MAN SE as the holding company for commercial vehicle units, MAN Truck & Bus, and MAN Latin America, under the responsibility of Volkswagen's subsidiary, Traton SE.


title: MAN SE

text: In February 2020, Traton announced that it intends to merge MAN SE with Traton to simplify the latter's overall structure. As a result of the merger, MAN Truck & Bus, Scania AB, and Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus will become wholly owned, direct subsidiaries of Traton.


title: MAN SE

text: In September 2020, the company announced that it will be cutting over 9,500 job positions at its MAN Truck & Bus division, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic economic effects. The company made the move to generate €1.8 billion of cost savings by 2023.


title: MAN SE

text: In 2011, a former manager in the company was charged with bribery of Turkmen state officials in exchange for project contracts in 2002. The trial began in Munich in 2019 after a delay of the initial trial set for 2016. The MAN manager was suspected in giving 8.4 million euros in bribes in 2002–2007 to the head of the state-owned Turkmennebit company, Saparmammet Veliev.


title: Intellectual

text: An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting or producing or extending an ideology, and by defending a system of values.


title: Intellectual

text: The term "man of letters" derives from the French term "belletrist" or "homme de lettres" but is not synonymous with "an academic". A "man of letters" was a literate man, able to read and write, as opposed to an illiterate man in a time when literacy was rare and thus highly valued in the upper strata of society. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term "Belletrist(s)" came to be applied to the "literati": the French participants in—sometimes referred to as "citizens" of—the Republic of Letters, which evolved into the salon, a social institution, usually run by a hostess, meant for the edification, education, and cultural refinement of the participants.


title: Intellectual

text: In the late 19th century, when literacy was relatively common in European countries such as the United Kingdom, the "Man of Letters" ("littérateur") denotation broadened to mean "specialized", a man who earned his living writing intellectually (not creatively) about literature: the essayist, the journalist, the critic, et al. Examples include Samuel Johnson, Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle. In the 20th century, such an approach was gradually superseded by the academic method, and the term "Man of Letters" became disused, replaced by the generic term "intellectual", describing the intellectual person.


title: Intellectual

text: The earliest record of the English noun "intellectual" is found in the 19th century, where in 1813, Byron reports that 'I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals'. Over the course of the 19th century, other variants of the already established adjective 'intellectual' as a noun appeared in English and in French, where in the 1890s the noun ('intellectuels') formed from the adjective 'intellectuel' appeared with higher frequency in the literature.


title: Intellectual

text: Collini writes about this time that "[a]mong this cluster of linguistic experiments there occurred ... the occasional usage of ‘intellectuals’ as a plural noun to refer, usually with a figurative or ironic intent, to a collection of people who might be identified in terms of their intellectual inclinations or pretensions."


title: Intellectual

text: In early 19th century Britain, Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term "clerisy", the intellectual class responsible for upholding and maintaining the national culture, the secular equivalent of the Anglican clergy. Likewise, in Tsarist Russia, there arose the "intelligentsia" (1860s–70s), who were the status class of white-collar workers.


title: Intellectual

text: For Germany, the theologian Alister McGrath said that "the emergence of a socially alienated, theologically literate, antiestablishment lay intelligentsia is one of the more significant phenomena of the social history of Germany in the 1830s". An intellectual class in Europe was socially important, especially to self-styled intellectuals, whose participation in society's arts, politics, journalism, and education—of either nationalist, internationalist, or ethnic sentiment—constitute "vocation of the intellectual". Moreover, some intellectuals were anti-academic, despite universities (the academy) being synonymous with intellectualism.


title: Intellectual

text: In France, the Dreyfus affair (1894–1906), an identity crisis of anti-semitic nationalism for the French Third Republic (1870–1940), marked the full emergence of the "intellectual in public life", especially Émile Zola, Octave Mirbeau and Anatole France directly addressing the matter of French antisemitism to the public; thenceforward, "intellectual" became common, yet initially derogatory, usage; its French noun usage is attributed to Georges Clemenceau in 1898. Nevertheless, by 1930 the term "intellectual" passed from its earlier pejorative associations and restricted usages to a widely accepted term and it was because of the Dreyfus Affair that the term also acquired generally accepted use in English.


title: Intellectual

text: In the 20th century, the term intellectual acquired positive connotations of social prestige, derived from possessing intellect and intelligence, especially when the intellectual's activities exerted positive consequences in the public sphere and so increased the intellectual understanding of the public, by means of moral responsibility, altruism, and solidarity, without resorting to the manipulations of demagoguery, paternalism and incivility (condescension). The sociologist Frank Furedi said that "Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the [social and political] values that they uphold.


title: Intellectual

text: According to Thomas Sowell, as a descriptive term of person, personality, and profession, the word "intellectual" identifies three traits:


title: Intellectual

text: In Latin language, at least starting from the Carolingian Empire, intellectuals could be called "litterati", a term which is sometimes applied today.


title: Intellectual

text: The word intellectual is found in Indian scripture Mahabharata in the Bachelorette meeting (Swayamvara Sava) of Draupadi. Immediately after Arjuna and Raja-Maharaja (kings-emperors) came to the meeting, "Nipuna Buddhijibina (perfect intellectuals)" appeared at the meeting.


title: Intellectual

text: In Imperial China in the period from 206 BC until AD 1912, the intellectuals were the "Scholar-officials" ("Scholar-gentlemen"), who were civil servants appointed by the Emperor of China to perform the tasks of daily governance. Such civil servants earned academic degrees by means of imperial examination, and were often also skilled calligraphers or Confucian philosophers. Historian Wing-Tsit Chan concludes that:


title: Intellectual

text: In Joseon Korea (1392–1910), the intellectuals were the "literati", who knew how to read and write, and had been designated, as the chungin (the "middle people"), in accordance with the Confucian system. Socially, they constituted the petite bourgeoisie, composed of scholar-bureaucrats (scholars, professionals, and technicians) who administered the dynastic rule of the Joseon dynasty.


title: Intellectual

text: The term public intellectual describes the intellectual participating in the public-affairs discourse of society, in addition to an academic career. Regardless of their academic field or the professional expertise, the public intellectual addresses and responds to the normative problems of society, and, as such, is expected to be an impartial critic who can "rise above the partial preoccupation of one's own profession—and engage with the global issues of truth, judgment, and taste of the time". In "Representations of the Intellectual" (1994), Edward Saïd said that the "true intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society". Public intellectuals usually arise from the educated élite of a society; although the North American usage of the term "intellectual" includes the university academics. The difference between "intellectual" and "academic" is participation in the realm of public affairs.


title: Intellectual

text: Jürgen Habermas' "Structural Transformation of Public Sphere" (1963) made significant contribution to the notion of public intellectual by historically and conceptually delineating the idea of private and public. Controversial, in the same year, was Ralf Dahrendorf's definition: “As the court-jesters of modern society, all intellectuals have the duty to doubt everything that is obvious, to make relative all authority, to ask all those questions that no one else dares to ask".


title: Intellectual

text: An intellectual usually is associated with an ideology or with a philosophy. The Czech intellectual Václav Havel said that politics and intellectuals can be linked, but that moral responsibility for the intellectual's ideas, even when advocated by a politician, remains with the intellectual. Therefore, it is best to avoid utopian intellectuals who offer 'universal insights' to resolve the problems of political economy with public policies that might harm and that have harmed civil society; that intellectuals be mindful of the social and cultural ties created with their words, insights and ideas; and should be heard as social critics of politics and power.


title: Intellectual

text: The determining factor for "a Thinker" (historian, philosopher, scientist, writer, artist) to be considered a public intellectual is the degree to which he or she is implicated and engaged with the vital reality of the contemporary world, i.e. participation in the public affairs of society. Consequently, being designated as a public intellectual is determined by the degree of influence of the designator's motivations, opinions, and options of action (social, political, ideological), and by affinity with the given thinker.


title: Intellectual

text: After the failure of the large-scale May 68 movement in France, intellectuals within the country were often maligned for having specific areas of expertise while discussing general subjects like democracy. Intellectuals increasingly claimed to be within marginalized groups rather than their spokespeople, and centered their activism on the social problems relevant to their areas of expertise (such as gender relations in the case of psychologists). A similar shift occurred in China after the Tiananmen Square Massacre from the "universal intellectual" (who plans better futures from within academia) to "minjian" ("grassroots") intellectuals, the latter group represented by such figures as Wang Xiaobo, social scientist Yu Jianrong, and "Yanhuang Chunqiu" editor Ding Dong.


title: Intellectual

text: In the matters of public policy, the public intellectual connects scholarly research to the practical matters of solving societal problems. The British sociologist Michael Burawoy, an exponent of public sociology, said that professional sociology has failed, by giving insufficient attention to resolving social problems, and that a dialogue between the academic and the layman would bridge the gap. An example is how Chilean intellectuals worked to reestablish democracy within the right-wing, neoliberal governments of the Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–90), the Pinochet régime allowed professional opportunities for some liberal and left-wing social scientists to work as politicians and as consultants in effort to realize the theoretical economics of the Chicago Boys, but their access to power was contingent upon political pragmatism, abandoning the political neutrality of the academic intellectual.


title: Intellectual

text: In "The Sociological Imagination" (1959), C. Wright Mills said that academics had become ill-equipped for participating in public discourse, and that journalists usually are "more politically alert and knowledgeable than sociologists, economists, and especially ... political scientists". That, because the universities of the U.S. are bureaucratic, private businesses, they "do not teach critical reasoning to the student", who then does not know "how to gauge what is going on in the general struggle for power in modern society". Likewise, Richard Rorty criticized the participation of intellectuals in public discourse as an example of the "civic irresponsibility of intellect, especially academic intellect".


title: Intellectual

text: Socially, intellectuals constitute the intelligentsia, a status class organised either by ideology (i.e. conservatism, fascism, socialism, liberal, reactionary, revolutionary, democratic, communism), or by nationality (American intellectuals, French intellectuals, Ibero–American intellectuals, "et al."). The term "intelligentsiya" originated from the of Tsarist Russia (–1870s), where it denotes the social stratum of those possessing intellectual formation (schooling, education), and who were Russian society's counterpart to the German "Bildungsbürgertum" and to the French "bourgeoisie éclairée", the enlightened middle classes of those realms.


title: Intellectual

text: In Marxist philosophy, the social class function of the intellectuals (the intelligentsia) is to be the source of progressive ideas for the transformation of society: providing advice and counsel to the political leaders, interpreting the country's politics to the mass of the population (urban workers and peasants). In the pamphlet "What Is to Be Done?" (1902), Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said that vanguard-party revolution required the participation of the intellectuals to explain the complexities of socialist ideology to the uneducated proletariat and the urban industrial workers in order to integrate them to the revolution because "the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness" and will settle for the limited, socio-economic gains so achieved. In Russia as in Continental Europe, socialist theory was the product of the "educated representatives of the propertied classes", of "revolutionary socialist intellectuals", such as were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.


title: Intellectual

text: The Hungarian Marxist philosopher György Lukács (1885–1971) identified the intelligentsia as the privileged social class who provide revolutionary leadership. By means of intelligible and accessible interpretation, the intellectuals explain to the workers and peasants the "Who?", the "How?" and the "Why?" of the social, economic and political "status quo"—the ideological totality of society—and its practical, revolutionary application to the transformation of their society.


title: Intellectual

text: The Italian communist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) developed Karl Marx's conception of the intelligentsia to include political leadership in the public sphere. That because "all knowledge is existentially-based", the intellectuals, who create and preserve knowledge, are "spokesmen for different social groups, and articulate particular social interests". That intellectuals occur in each social class and throughout the right-wing, the centre and the left-wing of the political spectrum and that as a social class the "intellectuals view themselves as autonomous from the ruling class" of their society.


title: Intellectual

text: Addressing their role as a social class, Jean-Paul Sartre said that intellectuals are the moral conscience of their age; that their moral and ethical responsibilities are to observe the socio-political moment, and to freely speak to their society, in accordance with their consciences.


title: Intellectual

text: The British historian Norman Stone said that the intellectual social class misunderstand the reality of society and so are doomed to the errors of logical fallacy, ideological stupidity, and poor planning hampered by ideology. In her memoirs, the Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher wrote that the anti-monarchical French Revolution (1789–1799) was "a utopian attempt to overthrow a traditional order [...] in the name of abstract ideas, formulated by vain intellectuals".


title: Intellectual

text: The American academic Peter H. Smith describes the intellectuals of Latin America as people from an identifiable social class, who have been conditioned by that common experience and thus are inclined to share a set of common assumptions (values and ethics); that ninety-four per cent of intellectuals come either from the middle class or from the upper class and that only six per cent come from the working class.


title: Intellectual

text: Philosopher Steven Fuller said that because cultural capital confers power and social status as a status group they must be autonomous in order to be credible as intellectuals:


title: Intellectual

text: The 19th-century U.S. Congregational theologian Edwards Amasa Park said: "We do wrong to our own minds, when we carry out scientific difficulties down to the arena of popular dissension". In his view, it was necessary for the sake of social, economic and political stability "to separate the serious, technical role of professionals from their responsibility [for] supplying usable philosophies for the general public". This expresses a dichotomy, derived from Plato, between public knowledge and private knowledge, "civic culture" and "professional culture", the intellectual sphere of life and the life of ordinary people in society.


title: Intellectual

text: In the United States, members of the intellectual status class have been demographically characterized as people who hold liberal-to-leftist political perspectives about guns-or-butter fiscal policy.


title: Intellectual

text: In "The Intellectuals and Socialism" (1949), Friedrich Hayek wrote that "journalists, teachers, ministers, lecturers, publicists, radio commentators, writers of fiction, cartoonists, and artists" form an intellectual social class whose function is to communicate the complex and specialized knowledge of the scientist to the general public. He argued that intellectuals were attracted to socialism or social democracy because the socialists offered "broad visions; the spacious comprehension of the social order, as a whole, which a planned system promises" and that such broad-vision philosophies "succeeded in inspiring the imagination of the intellectuals" to change and improve their societies. According to Hayek, intellectuals disproportionately support socialism for idealistic and utopian reasons that cannot be realized in practice.


title: Intellectual

text: Totalitarian governments manipulate and apply anti-intellectualism to repress political dissent. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the following dictatorship (1939–1975) of General Francisco Franco, the reactionary repression of the White Terror (1936–1945) was notably anti-intellectual, with most of the 200,000 civilians killed being the Spanish intelligentsia, the politically active teachers and academics, artists and writers of the deposed Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). Intellectuals were also targeted by the Nazis, the communist regime in China, in communist Romania by the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and the Securitate, the Khmer Rouge, the Young Turks, and in conflicts in Bangladesh, the former Yugoslavia, and Poland.


title: Intellectual

text: The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre noted that "the Intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern them" ("L'intellectuel est quelqu'un qui se mêle de ce qui ne le regarde pas").


title: Intellectual

text: Noam Chomsky expressed the view that "intellectuals are specialists in defamation, they are basically political commissars, they are the ideological administrators, the most threatened by dissidence." In the article "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", Chomsky analyzes the intellectual culture in the U.S., and argues that it is largely subservient to power. He is particularly critical of social scientists and technocrats, who provide a pseudo-scientific justification for the crimes of the state.


title: Intellectual

text: In "An Interview with Milton Friedman" (1974), the American economist Milton Friedman said that businessmen and intellectuals are enemies of capitalism: most intellectuals believed in socialism while businessmen expected economic privileges. In his essay "Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?" (1998), the American libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick of the Cato Institute argued that intellectuals become embittered leftists because their superior intellectual work, much rewarded at school and at university, are undervalued and underpaid in the capitalist market economy. Thus, intellectuals turn against capitalism despite enjoying more socioeconomic status than the average person.


title: Intellectual

text: The economist Thomas Sowell wrote in his book "Intellectuals and Society" (2010) that intellectuals, who are producers of knowledge, not material goods, tend to speak outside their own areas of expertise, and yet expect social and professional benefits from the halo effect derived from possessing professional expertise. In relation to other professions, public intellectuals are socially detached from the negative and unintended consequences of public policy derived from their ideas. Sowell gives the example of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), who advised the British government against national rearmament in the years before the Second World War.


title: Siobhan

text: Siobhán is a female given name of Irish origin. The most common anglicisations are Siobhan (identical to the Irish spelling but omitting the acute accent over the 'a'), Shevaun and Shivaun. A now uncommon spelling variant is Siubhán.


title: Siobhan

text: It is derived from the Anglo-Norman and (Modern French ), which were introduced into Ireland by the Anglo-Normans in the Middle Ages. The name first appears in the surviving Irish annals in the early fourteenth century.


title: Siobhan

text: The name is thus a cognate of the Welsh "Siân" and the English "Joan", derived from the Latin and (modern English "Joanna", "Joanne"), which are in turn from the Greek (). This Greek name is a feminine form of the Greek (), which is in turn a shortened form of the Hebrew


title: Siobhan

text: The popularity of the actress Siobhán McKenna (1923–1986) helped the resurgence of the name in the 20th century.


title: Siobhan

text: Siobhán has a corresponding diminutive form, (after French ). Examples of this name include singer Sinéad O'Connor.


title: Space suit

text: A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, and are necessary for extravehicular activity (EVA), work done outside spacecraft. Space suits have been worn for such work in Earth orbit, on the surface of the Moon, and en route back to Earth from the Moon. Modern space suits augment the basic pressure garment with a complex system of equipment and environmental systems designed to keep the wearer comfortable, and to minimize the effort required to bend the limbs, resisting a soft pressure garment's natural tendency to stiffen against the vacuum. A self-contained oxygen supply and environmental control system is frequently employed to allow complete freedom of movement, independent of the spacecraft.


title: Space suit

text: Three types of space suits exist for different purposes: IVA (intravehicular activity), EVA (extravehicular activity), and IEVA (intra/extravehicular activity). IVA suits are meant to be worn inside a pressurized spacecraft, and are therefore lighter and more comfortable. IEVA suits are meant for use inside and outside the spacecraft, such as the Gemini G4C suit. They include more protection from the harsh conditions of space, such as protection from micrometeoroids and extreme temperature change. EVA suits, such as the EMU, are used outside spacecraft, for either planetary exploration or spacewalks. They must protect the wearer against all conditions of space, as well as provide mobility and functionality.


title: Space suit

text: Some of these requirements also apply to pressure suits worn for other specialized tasks, such as high-altitude reconnaissance flight. At altitudes above the Armstrong limit, around , water boils at body temperature and pressurized suits are needed.


title: Space suit

text: The first full-pressure suits for use at extreme altitudes were designed by individual inventors as early as the 1930s. The first space suit worn by a human in space was the Soviet SK-1 suit worn by Yuri Gagarin in 1961.


title: Space suit

text: A space suit must perform several functions to allow its occupant to work safely and comfortably, inside or outside a spacecraft. It must provide:


title: Space suit

text: Advanced suits better regulate the astronaut's temperature with a Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG) in contact with the astronaut's skin, from which the heat is dumped into space through an external radiator in the PLSS.


title: Space suit

text: As part of astronautical hygiene control (i.e., protecting astronauts from extremes of temperature, radiation, etc.), a space suit is essential for extravehicular activity. The Apollo/Skylab A7L suit included eleven layers in all: an inner liner, a LCVG, a pressure bladder, a restraint layer, another liner, and a Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment consisting of five aluminized insulation layers and an external layer of white Ortho-Fabric. This space suit is capable of protecting the astronaut from temperatures ranging from to .


title: Space suit

text: During exploration of the Moon or Mars, there will be the potential for lunar or Martian dust to be retained on the space suit. When the space suit is removed on return to the spacecraft, there will be the potential for the dust to contaminate surfaces and increase the risks of inhalation and skin exposure. Astronautical hygienists are testing materials with reduced dust retention times and the potential to control the dust exposure risks during planetary exploration. Novel ingress and egress approaches, such as suitports, are being explored as well.


title: Space suit

text: In NASA space suits, communications are provided via a cap worn over the head, which includes earphones and a microphone. Due to the coloration of the version used for Apollo and Skylab, which resembled the coloration of the comic strip character Snoopy, these caps became known as "Snoopy caps".


title: Space suit

text: Generally, to supply enough oxygen for respiration, a space suit using pure oxygen must have a pressure of about , equal to the partial pressure of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere at sea level, plus and water vapor pressure, both of which must be subtracted from the alveolar pressure to get alveolar oxygen partial pressure in 100% oxygen atmospheres, by the alveolar gas equation. The latter two figures add to , which is why many modern space suits do not use , but (this is a slight overcorrection, as alveolar partial pressures at sea level are slightly less than the former). In space suits that use 20.7 kPa, the astronaut gets only 20.7 kPa − 11.6 kPa = of oxygen, which is about the alveolar oxygen partial pressure attained at an altitude of above sea level. This is about 42% of normal partial pressure of oxygen at sea level, about the same as pressure in a commercial passenger jet aircraft, and is the realistic lower limit for safe ordinary space suit pressurization which allows reasonable capacity for work.


title: Space suit

text: When space suits below a specific operating pressure are used from craft that are pressurized to normal atmospheric pressure (such as the Space Shuttle), this requires astronauts to "pre-breathe" (meaning pre-breathe pure oxygen for a period) before donning their suits and depressurizing in the air lock. This procedure purges the body of dissolved nitrogen, so as to avoid decompression sickness due to rapid depressurization from a nitrogen-containing atmosphere.


title: Space suit

text: The human body can briefly survive the hard vacuum of space unprotected, despite contrary depictions in some popular science fiction. Human flesh expands to about twice its size in such conditions, giving the visual effect of a body builder rather than an overfilled balloon. Consciousness is retained for up to 15 seconds as the effects of oxygen starvation set in. No snap freeze effect occurs because all heat must be lost through thermal radiation or the evaporation of liquids, and the blood does not boil because it remains pressurized within the body.


title: Space suit

text: In space, there are many different highly energized subatomic protons that will expose the body to extreme radiation. Although these compounds are minimal in amount, their high energy is liable to disrupt essential physical and chemical processes in the body, such as altering DNA or causing cancers. Exposure to radiation can create problems via two methods: the particles can react with water in the human body to produce free radicals that break DNA molecules apart, or by directly breaking the DNA molecules.


title: Space suit

text: Temperature in space can vary extremely depending on where the Sun is. Temperatures from solar radiation can reach up to and lower down to . Because of this, space suits must provide proper insulation and cooling.


title: Space suit

text: The vacuum in space creates zero pressure, causing the gases and processes in the body to expand. In order to prevent chemical processes in the body from overreacting, it is necessary to develop a suit that counteracts against the pressure in space. The greatest danger is in attempting to hold one's breath before exposure, as the subsequent explosive decompression can damage the lungs. These effects have been confirmed through various accidents (including in very-high-altitude conditions, outer space and training vacuum chambers). Human skin does not need to be protected from vacuum and is gas-tight by itself. Instead, it only needs to be mechanically compressed to retain its normal shape. This can be accomplished with a tight-fitting elastic body suit and a helmet for containing breathing gases, known as a space activity suit (SAS).


title: Space suit

text: A space suit should allow its user natural unencumbered movement. Nearly all designs try to maintain a constant volume no matter what movements the wearer makes. This is because mechanical work is needed to change the volume of a constant pressure system. If flexing a joint reduces the volume of the space suit, then the astronaut must do extra work every time they bend that joint, and they have to maintain a force to keep the joint bent. Even if this force is very small, it can be seriously fatiguing to constantly fight against one's suit. It also makes delicate movements very difficult. The work required to bend a joint is dictated by the formula


title: Space suit

text: where "V" and "V" are respectively the initial and final volume of the joint, "P" is the pressure in the suit, and "W" is the resultant work. It is generally true that all suits are more mobile at lower pressures. However, because a minimum internal pressure is dictated by life support requirements, the only means of further reducing work is to minimize the change in volume.


title: Space suit

text: All space suit designs try to minimize or eliminate this problem. The most common solution is to form the suit out of multiple layers. The bladder layer is a rubbery, airtight layer much like a balloon. The restraint layer goes outside the bladder, and provides a specific shape for the suit. Since the bladder layer is larger than the restraint layer, the restraint takes all of the stresses caused by the pressure inside the suit. Since the bladder is not under pressure, it will not "pop" like a balloon, even if punctured. The restraint layer is shaped in such a way that bending a joint causes pockets of fabric, called "gores", to open up on the outside of the joint, while folds called "convolutes" fold up on the inside of the joint. The gores make up for the volume lost on the inside of the joint, and keep the suit at a nearly constant volume. However, once the gores are opened all the way, the joint cannot be bent any further without a considerable amount of work.


title: Space suit

text: In some Russian space suits, strips of cloth were wrapped tightly around the cosmonaut's arms and legs outside the space suit to stop the space suit from ballooning when in space.


title: Space suit

text: The outermost layer of a space suit, the Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment, provides thermal insulation, protection from micrometeoroids, and shielding from harmful solar radiation.


title: Space suit

text: Soft suits typically are made mostly of fabrics. All soft suits have some hard parts; some even have hard joint bearings. Intra-vehicular activity and early EVA suits were soft suits.


title: Space suit

text: Hard-shell suits are usually made of metal or composite materials and do not use fabric for joints. Hard suits joints use ball bearings and wedge-ring segments similar to an adjustable elbow of a stove pipe to allow a wide range of movement with the arms and legs. The joints maintain a constant volume of air internally and do not have any counter-force. Therefore, the astronaut does not need to exert to hold the suit in any position. Hard suits can also operate at higher pressures which would eliminate the need for an astronaut to pre-breathe oxygen to use a space suit before an EVA from a spacecraft cabin. The joints may get into a restricted or locked position requiring the astronaut to manipulate or program the joint. The NASA Ames Research Center experimental AX-5 hard-shell space suit had a flexibility rating of 95%. The wearer could move into 95% of the positions they could without the suit on.


title: Space suit

text: Hybrid suits have hard-shell parts and fabric parts. NASA's Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) uses a fiberglass Hard Upper Torso (HUT) and fabric limbs. ILC Dover's I-Suit replaces the HUT with a fabric soft upper torso to save weight, restricting the use of hard components to the joint bearings, helmet, waist seal, and rear entry hatch. Virtually all workable space suit designs incorporate hard components, particularly at interfaces such as the waist seal, bearings, and in the case of rear-entry suits, the back hatch, where all-soft alternatives are not viable.


title: Space suit

text: Skintight suits, also known as mechanical counterpressure suits or space activity suits, are a proposed design which would use a heavy elastic body stocking to compress the body. The head is in a pressurized helmet, but the rest of the body is pressurized only by the elastic effect of the suit. This mitigates the constant volume problem, reduces the possibility of a space suit depressurization and gives a very lightweight suit. When not worn, the elastic garments may appear to be that of clothing for a small child. These suits may be very difficult to put on and face problems with providing a uniform pressure. Most proposals use the body's natural perspiration to keep cool. Sweat evaporates readily in vacuum and may desublime or deposit on objects nearby: optics, sensors, the astronaut's visor, and other surfaces. The icy film and sweat residue may contaminate sensitive surfaces and affect optical performance.


title: Space suit

text: Related preceding technologies include the gas mask used in World War II, the oxygen mask used by pilots of high-flying bombers in World War II, the high-altitude or vacuum suit required by pilots of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird, the diving suit, rebreather, scuba diving gear, and many others.


title: Space suit

text: Many space suit designs are taken from the U.S. Air Force suits, which are designed to work in "high-altitude aircraft pressure[s]", such as the Mercury IVA suit or the Gemini G4C, or the Advanced Crew Escape Suits.


title: Space suit

text: The Mercury IVA, the first U.S. space suit design, included lights at the tips of the gloves in order to provide visual aid. As the need for extravehicular activity grew, suits such as the Apollo A7L included gloves made of a metal fabric called Chromel-r in order to prevent punctures. In order to retain a better sense of touch for the astronauts, the fingertips of the gloves were made of silicone. With the shuttle program, it became necessary to be able to operate spacecraft modules, so the ACES suits featured gripping on the gloves. EMU gloves, which are used for spacewalks, are heated to keep the astronaut's hands warm. The Phase VI gloves, meant for use with the Mark III suit, are the first gloves to be designed with "laser scanning technology, 3D computer modeling, stereo lithography, laser cutting technology and CNC machining". This allows for cheaper, more accurate production, as well as increased detail in joint mobility and flexibility.


title: Space suit

text: Prior to the Apollo missions, life support in space suits was connected to the space capsule via an umbilical cord-like device. However, with the Apollo missions, life support was configured into a removable capsule called the Portable Life Support System that allowed the astronaut to explore the Moon without having to be attached to the space craft. The EMU space suit, used for spacewalks, allows the astronaut to manually control the internal environment of the suit. The Mark III suit has a backpack filled with about 12 pounds of liquid air, as well as pressurization and heat exchange.


title: Space suit

text: The development of the spheroidal dome helmet was key in balancing the need for field of view, pressure compensation, and low weight. One inconvenience with some space suits is the head being fixed facing forwards and being unable to turn to look sideways. Astronauts call this effect "alligator head".


title: Space suit

text: In February 2015, SpaceX began developing a space suit for astronauts to wear within the Dragon 2 space capsule. Its appearance was jointly designed by Jose Fernandez—a Hollywood costume designer known for his works for superhero and science fiction films—and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. The first images of the suit were revealed in September 2017. A mannequin, called "Starman" (after David Bowie's song of the same name), wore the SpaceX space suit during the maiden launch of the Falcon Heavy in February 2018. For this exhibition launch, the suit was not pressurized and carried no sensors.


title: Space suit

text: The suit, which is suitable for vacuum, offers protection against cabin depressurization through a single tether at the astronaut's thigh that feeds air and electronic connections. The helmets, which are 3D-printed, contain microphones and speakers. As the suits need the tether connection and do not offer protection against radiation, they are not used for extra-vehicular activities.


title: Space suit

text: In 2018, NASA commercial crew astronauts Bob Behnken, and Doug Hurley tested the spacesuit inside the Dragon 2 spacecraft in order to familiarize themselves with the suit. They wore it in the Crew Dragon Demo-2 flight launched on 30 May 2020. The suit is worn by astronauts involved in Commercial Crew Program missions involving SpaceX.


title: Space suit

text: On 1 June 2022, NASA announced it had selected competing Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to develop and provide astronauts with next generation spacesuit and spacewalk systems to first test and later use outside the International Space Station, as well as on the lunar surface for the crewed Artemis missions, and prepare for human missions to Mars.


title: Space suit

text: Several companies and universities are developing technologies and prototypes which represent improvements over current space suits.


title: Space suit

text: 3D printing (additive manufacturing) can be used to reduce the mass of hard-shell space suits while retaining the high mobility they provide. This fabrication method also allows for the potential for in-situ fabrication and repair of suits, a capability which is not currently available, but will likely be necessary for Martian exploration. The University of Maryland began development of a prototype 3D printed hard suit in 2016, based on the kinematics of the AX-5. The prototype arm segment is designed to be evaluated in the Space Systems Laboratory glovebox to compare mobility to traditional soft suits. Initial research has focused on the feasibility of printing rigid suit elements, bearing races, ball bearings, seals, and sealing surfaces.


title: Space suit

text: There are certain difficulties in designing a dexterous space suit glove and there are limitations to the current designs. For this reason, the Centennial Astronaut Glove Challenge was created to build a better glove. Competitions have been held in 2007 and 2009, and another is planned. The 2009 contest required the glove to be covered with a micro-meteorite layer.


title: Space suit

text: Since 2009, the Austrian Space Forum has been developing "Aouda.X", an experimental Mars analogue space suit focusing on an advanced human–machine interface and on-board computing network to increase situational awareness. The suit is designed to study contamination vectors in planetary exploration analogue environments and create limitations depending on the pressure regime chosen for a simulation.


title: Space suit

text: Since 2012, for the Mars2013 analogue mission by the Austrian Space Forum to Erfoud, Morocco, the Aouda.X analogue space suit has a sister in the form of Aouda.S. This is a slightly less sophisticated suit meant primarily to assist Aouda.X operations and be able to study the interactions between two (analogue) astronauts in similar suits.


title: Space suit

text: The Aouda.X and Aouda.S space suits have been named after the fictional princess from the Jules Verne's 1873 novel "Around the World in Eighty Days". A public display mock-up of Aouda.X (called Aouda.D) is currently on display at the Dachstein Ice Cave in Obertraun, Austria, after the experiments done there in 2012.


title: Space suit

text: Bio-Suit is a space activity suit under development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which consisted of several lower leg prototypes. Bio-suit is custom fit to each wearer, using laser body scanning.


title: Space suit

text: On August 2, 2006, NASA indicated plans to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the design, development, certification, production, and sustaining engineering of the Constellation Space Suit to meet the needs of the Constellation Program. NASA foresaw a single suit capable of supporting: survivability during launch, entry and abort; zero-gravity EVA; lunar surface EVA; and Mars surface EVA.


title: Space suit

text: On June 11, 2008, NASA awarded a US$745 million contract to Oceaneering International to create the new space suit.


title: Space suit

text: Final Frontier Design (FFD) is developing a commercial full IVA space suit, with their first suit completed in 2010. FFD's suits are intended as a light-weight, highly mobile, and inexpensive commercial space suits. Since 2011, FFD has upgraded IVA suit's designs, hardware, processes, and capabilities. FFD has built a total of 7 IVA space suit (2016) assemblies for various institutions and customers since founding, and has conducted high fidelity human testing in simulators, aircraft, microgravity, and hypobaric chambers. FFD has a Space Act Agreement with NASA's Commercial Space Capabilities Office to develop and execute a Human Rating Plan for FFD IVA suit. FFD categorizes their IVA suits according to their mission: Terra for Earth-based testing, Stratos for high altitude flights, and Exos for orbital space flights. Each suit category has different requirements for manufacturing controls, validations, and materials, but are of a similar architecture.


title: Space suit

text: The I-Suit is a space suit prototype also constructed by ILC Dover, which incorporates several design improvements over the EMU, including a weight-saving soft upper torso. Both the Mark III and the I-Suit have taken part in NASA's annual Desert Research and Technology Studies (D-RATS) field trials, during which suit occupants interact with one another, and with rovers and other equipment.