title: History of baseball

text: The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision. A French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly "la soule", with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as "thèque", "la balle au bâton", and "la balle empoisonnée" also appear to be related. Consensus once held that today's baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. "Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game" (2005), by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England; recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of each other, and that the game's most direct antecedents are the English games of stoolball and "tut-ball". It has long been believed that cricket also descended from such games, though evidence uncovered in early 2009 suggests that cricket may have been imported to England from Flanders.


title: History of baseball

text: The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British children's publication, "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book", by John Newbery. It contains a rhymed description of "base-ball" and a woodcut that shows a field set-up somewhat similar to the modern game—though in a triangular rather than diamond configuration, and with posts instead of ground-level bases. Block discovered that the first recorded game of "Bass-Ball" took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey. This early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants. Rounders was also brought to the United States by Canadians of both British and Irish ancestry. The first known American reference to baseball appears in a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts town bylaw prohibiting the playing of the game near the town's new meeting house. By 1796, a version of the game was well known enough to earn a mention in a German scholar's book on popular pastimes. As described by Johann Gutsmuths, ""englische Base-ball"" involved a contest between two teams, in which "the batter has three attempts to hit the ball while at the home plate." Only one out was required to retire a side.


title: History of baseball

text: In 1828, William Clarke in London published the second edition of "The Boy's Own Book", which included the rules of rounders and contained the first printed description in English of a bat and ball base-running game played on a diamond. The following year, the book was published in Boston, Massachusetts.


title: History of baseball

text: By the early 1830s, there were reports of a variety of uncodified bat-and-ball games recognizable as early forms of baseball being played around North America. These games were often referred to locally as "town ball", though other names such as "round-ball" and "base-ball" were also used. Among the earliest examples to receive a detailed description—albeit five decades after the fact, in a letter from an attendee to "Sporting Life" magazine—took place in Beachville, Ontario, in 1838. There were many similarities to modern baseball, and some crucial differences: five bases (or "byes"); first bye just from the home bye; batter out if a hit ball was caught after the first bounce. The once widely accepted story that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 has been conclusively debunked by sports historians. The Doubleday myth appeared after a dispute arose about the origins of baseball and whether it had been invented in the United States or developed as a variation of rounders. The theory that the sport was created in the U.S. was backed by Chicago Cubs president Albert Spalding and National League president Abraham G. Mills. In 1889, Mills gave a speech declaring that baseball was American, which he said was determined through "patriotism and research"; a crowd of about 300 people responding by chanting "No rounders!" The rounders theory was supported by prominent sportswriter Henry Chadwick, a native of Britain who noted common factors between rounders and baseball in a 1903 article. In 1905, Spalding called for an investigation into how the sport was invented. Chadwick supported the idea, and later in the year the Mills commission was formed. Spalding instructed the commission to decide between the American game of "Old Cat" and rounders as baseball's predecessor. Seven men served on the commission, including Mills. Spalding chose the committee's members, picking men who supported his theory and excluding supporters of the rounders claim, such as Chadwick.


title: History of baseball

text: In 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a member of New York City's Knickerbocker Club, produced a code of baseball rules now called the Knickerbocker Rules. The practice, common to bat-and-ball games of the day, of "soaking" or "plugging"—effecting a putout by hitting a runner with a thrown ball—was barred. The rules thus facilitated the use of a smaller, harder ball than had been common. Several other rules also brought the Knickerbockers' game close to the modern one, though a ball caught on the first bounce was, again, an out and only underhand pitching was allowed. While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest long recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the "New York Nine" defeated the Knickerbockers, 23–1, in four innings. With the Knickerbocker code as the basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century.


title: History of baseball

text: In the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area. By 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the "national pastime" or "national game." A year later, 16 area clubs formed the sport's first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players. In 1863, the organization disallowed putouts made by catching a fair ball on the first bounce. Four years later, it barred participation by African Americans. The game's commercial potential was developing: in 1869 the first fully professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed and went undefeated against a schedule of semipro and amateur teams. They still remain as baseball's only undefeated team during the regular season. The first professional league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, lasted from 1871 to 1875; scholars dispute its status as a major league.


title: History of baseball

text: The more formally structured National League was founded in 1876. As the oldest surviving major league, the National League is sometimes referred to as the "senior circuit." Several other major leagues formed and failed. In 1884, African American Moses Walker (and, briefly, his brother Welday) played in one of these, the American Association. An injury ended Walker's major league career, and by the early 1890s, a gentlemen's agreement in the form of the baseball color line effectively barred black players from the white-owned professional leagues, major and minor. Professional Negro leagues formed, but quickly folded. Several independent African American teams succeeded as barnstormers. Also in 1884, overhand pitching was legalized. In 1887, softball, under the name of indoor baseball or indoor-outdoor, was invented as a winter version of the parent game. Virtually all of the modern baseball rules were in place by 1893; the last major change—counting foul balls as strikes—was instituted in 1901. The National League's first successful counterpart, the American League, which evolved from the minor Western League, was established that year. The two leagues, each with eight teams, were rivals that fought for the best players, often disregarding each other's contracts and engaging in bitter legal disputes.


title: History of baseball

text: A modicum of peace was eventually established, leading to the National Agreement of 1903. The pact formalized relations both between the two major leagues and between them and the National Association of Professional Base Ball Leagues, representing most of the country's minor professional leagues. The National Baseball Commission was created to oversee Organized Baseball. The World Series, pitting the two major league champions against each other, was inaugurated that fall, albeit without express major league sanction: The Boston Americans of the American League defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League. The next year, the series was not held, as the National League champion New York Giants, under manager John McGraw, refused to recognize the major league status of the American League and its champion. In 1905, the Giants were National League champions again and team management relented, leading to the establishment of the World Series as the major leagues' annual championship event.


title: History of baseball

text: As professional baseball became increasingly profitable, players frequently raised grievances against owners over issues of control and equitable income distribution. During the major leagues' early decades, players on various teams occasionally attempted strikes, which routinely failed when their jobs were sufficiently threatened. In general, the strict rules of baseball contracts and the reserve clause, which bound players to their teams even when their contracts had ended, tended to keep the players in check. Motivated by dislike for particularly stingy owner Charles Comiskey and gamblers' payoffs, real and promised, members of the Chicago White Sox conspired to throw the 1919 World Series. The Black Sox Scandal led to the dissolution of the National Baseball Commission and the formation of the office of the Commissioner of Baseball. The first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was elected in 1920. That year also saw the founding of the Negro National League; the first significant Negro league, it would operate until 1931. For part of the 1920s, it was joined by the Eastern Colored League.


title: History of baseball

text: Compared with the present, professional baseball in the early 20th century was lower-scoring, and pitchers, including stars Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson, were more dominant. The "inside game", which demanded that players "scratch for runs", was played much more aggressively than it is today: the brilliant and often violent Ty Cobb epitomized this style. The so-called dead-ball era ended in the early 1920s with several changes in rule and circumstance that were advantageous to hitters. Strict new regulations governing the ball's size, shape and composition, along with a new rule officially banning the spitball and other pitches that depended on the ball being treated or roughed-up with foreign substances, followed the death of Ray Chapman after a pitch struck him in the head in August 1920. Coupled with superior materials available after World War I, this resulted in a ball that traveled farther when hit. The construction of additional seating to accommodate the rising popularity of the game often had the effect of reducing the distance to the outfield fences, making home runs more common. The rise of the legendary player Babe Ruth, the first great power hitter of the new era, helped permanently alter the nature of the game. The club with which Ruth set most of his slugging records, the New York Yankees, built a reputation as the majors' premier team. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey invested in several minor league clubs and developed the first modern "farm system". A new Negro National League was organized in 1933; four years later, it was joined by the Negro American League. The first elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame took place in 1936. In 1939 Little League Baseball was founded in Pennsylvania. By the late 1940s, it was the organizing body for children's baseball leagues across the United States.


title: History of baseball

text: With America's entry into World War II, many professional players had left to serve in the armed forces. A large number of minor league teams disbanded as a result and the major league game seemed under threat as well. Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley led the formation of a new professional league with women players to help keep the game in the public eye—the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League existed from 1943 to 1954. The inaugural College World Series was held in 1947, and the Babe Ruth League youth program was founded. This program soon became another important organizing body for children's baseball. The first crack in the unwritten rules barring blacks from white-controlled professional ball occurred the previous year: Jackie Robinson was signed by the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers—where Branch Rickey had become general manager—and began playing for their minor league team in Montreal. In 1947, Robinson broke the major leagues' color barrier when he debuted with the Dodgers; Larry Doby debuted with the American League's Cleveland Indians later the same year. Latin American players, largely overlooked before, also started entering the majors in greater numbers. In 1951, two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born Chico Carrasquel and black Cuban-born Minnie Miñoso, became the first Hispanic All-Stars.


title: History of baseball

text: Facing competition as varied as television and football, baseball attendance at all levels declined. While the majors rebounded by the mid-1950s, the minor leagues were gutted and hundreds of semipro and amateur teams dissolved. Integration proceeded slowly: by 1953, only six of the 16 major league teams had a black player on the roster. That year, the Major League Baseball Players Association was founded. It was the first professional baseball union to survive more than briefly, but it remained largely ineffective for years. No major league team had been located west of St. Louis until 1958, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively. The majors' final all-white bastion, the Boston Red Sox, added a black player in 1959. With the integration of the majors drying up the available pool of players, the last Negro league folded the following year. In 1961, the American League reached the West Coast with the Los Angeles Angels expansion team, and the major league season was extended from 154 games to 162. This coincidentally helped Roger Maris break Babe Ruth's long-standing single-season home run record, one of the most celebrated marks in baseball. Along with the Angels, three other new franchises were launched during 1961–62. With this, the first major league expansion in 60 years, each league now had ten teams.


title: History of baseball

text: The players' union became bolder under the leadership of former United Steelworkers chief economist and negotiator Marvin Miller, who was elected executive director in 1966. On the playing field, major league pitchers were becoming increasingly dominant again. After the 1968 season, in an effort to restore balance, the strike zone was reduced and the height of the pitcher's mound was lowered from 15 to 10 inches (38.1–25.4 cm). In 1969, both the National and American Leagues added two more expansion teams, the leagues were reorganized into two divisions each, and a post-season playoff system leading to the World Series was instituted. Also that same year, Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals made the first serious legal challenge to the reserve clause. The major leagues' first general players' strike took place in 1972, delaying the season's start for two weeks. In another effort to add more offense to the game, the American League adopted the designated hitter rule the following year. In 1975, the union's power—and players' salaries—began to increase greatly when the reserve clause was effectively struck down, leading to the free agency system. In 1977, two more expansion teams joined the American League. Significant work stoppages occurred again in 1981 and 1994, the latter forcing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Attendance had been growing steadily since the mid-1970s and in 1994, before the stoppage, the majors were setting their all-time record for per-game attendance.


title: History of baseball

text: The addition of two more expansion teams after the 1993 season had facilitated another restructuring of the major leagues, this time into three divisions each. Offensive production—the number of home runs in particular—had surged that year, and again in the abbreviated 1994 season. After play resumed in 1995, this trend continued and non-division-winning wild card teams became a permanent fixture of the post-season. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997 and the second-highest attendance mark for a full season was set. The next year, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both surpassed Maris's decades-old single-season home run record, and two more expansion franchises were added. In 2000, the National and American Leagues were dissolved as legal entities. While their identities were maintained for scheduling purposes (and the designated hitter distinction), the regulations and other functions—such as player discipline and umpire supervision—they had administered separately were consolidated under the rubric of Major League Baseball (MLB).


title: History of baseball

text: In 2001, Barry Bonds established the current record of 73 home runs in a single season. There had long been suspicions that the dramatic increase in power hitting was fueled in large part by the abuse of illegal steroids (as well as by the dilution of pitching talent due to expansion), but the issue only began attracting significant media attention in 2002 and there was no penalty for the use of performance-enhancing drugs before 2004. In 2007, Bonds became MLB's all-time home run leader, surpassing Hank Aaron, as total major league and minor league attendance both reached all-time highs. Even though McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds—as well as many other players, including storied pitcher Roger Clemens—have been implicated in the steroid abuse scandal, their feats and those of other sluggers had become the major leagues' defining attraction. In contrast to the professional game's resurgence in popularity after the 1994 interruption, Little League enrollment was in decline: after peaking in 1996, it dropped 1 percent a year over the following decade. With more rigorous testing and penalties for performance-enhancing drug use a possible factor, the balance between bat and ball swung markedly in 2010, which became known as the "Year of the Pitcher". Runs per game fell to their lowest level in 18 years, and the strikeout rate was higher than it had been in half a century.


title: History of baseball

text: Before the start of the 2012 season, MLB altered its rules to double the number of wild card teams admitted into the playoffs to two per league. The playoff expansion resulted in the addition of annual one-game playoffs between the wild card teams in each league.


title: History of baseball

text: Baseball, widely known as America's pastime, is well established in several other countries as well. The history of baseball in Canada has remained closely linked with that of the sport in the United States. As early as 1877, a professional league, the International Association, featured teams from both countries. While baseball is widely played in Canada and many minor league teams have been based in the country, the American major leagues did not include a Canadian club until 1969, when the Montreal Expos joined the National League as an expansion team. In 1977, the expansion Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League. The Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993, the first and still the only club from outside the United States to do so. After the 2004 season, Major League Baseball relocated the Expos to Washington, D.C., where the team is now known as the Nationals.


title: History of baseball

text: In 1847, American soldiers played what may have been the first baseball game in Mexico at Parque Los Berros in Xalapa, Veracruz. A few days after the Battle of Cerro Gordo, they used the "wooden leg captured (by the Fourth Illinois regiment) from General Santa Anna". The first formal baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was founded in 1878 in Cuba, which maintains a rich baseball tradition and whose national team has been one of the world's strongest since international play began in the late 1930s (all organized baseball in the country has officially been amateur since the Cuban Revolution). The Dominican Republic held its first islandwide championship tournament in 1912. Professional baseball tournaments and leagues began to form in other countries between the world wars, including the Netherlands (formed in 1922), Australia (1934), Japan (1936), Mexico (1937), and Puerto Rico (1938). The Japanese major leagues—the Central League and Pacific League—have long been considered the highest quality professional circuits outside of the United States. Japan has a professional minor league system as well, though it is much smaller than the American version—each team has only one farm club in contrast to MLB teams' four or five.


title: History of baseball

text: After World War II, professional leagues were founded in many Latin American countries, most prominently Venezuela (1946) and the Dominican Republic (1955). Since the early 1970s, the annual Caribbean Series has matched the championship clubs from the four leading Latin American winter leagues: the Dominican Professional Baseball League, Mexican Pacific League, Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League, and Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. In Asia, South Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990) and China (2003) all have professional leagues.


title: History of baseball

text: Many European countries have professional leagues as well, the most successful, other than the Dutch league, being the Italian league founded in 1948. Compared to those in Asia and Latin America, the various European leagues and the one in Australia historically have had no more than niche appeal. In 2004, Australia won a surprise silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. The Israel Baseball League, launched in 2007, folded after one season. The Confédération Européene de Baseball (European Baseball Confederation), founded in 1953, organizes a number of competitions between clubs from different countries, as well as national squads. Other competitions between national teams, such as the Baseball World Cup and the Olympic baseball tournament, were administered by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) from its formation in 1938 until its 2013 merger with the International Softball Federation to create the current joint governing body for both sports, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). By 2009, the IBAF had 117 member countries. Women's baseball is played on an organized amateur basis in numerous countries. Since 2004, the IBAF and now WBSC have sanctioned the Women's Baseball World Cup, featuring national teams.


title: History of baseball

text: After being admitted to the Olympics as a medal sport beginning at the 1992 Summer Olympics, baseball was dropped from the 2012 Summer Olympics at the 2005 International Olympic Committee meeting. It remained part of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The elimination of baseball, along with softball, from the 2012 Olympic program enabled the IOC to consider adding two different sports, but none received the votes required for inclusion. While the sport's lack of a following in much of the world was a factor, more important was Major League Baseball's reluctance to have a break during the Games to allow its players to participate, as the National Hockey League now does during the Winter Olympic Games. Such a break is more difficult for MLB to accommodate because it would force the playoffs deeper into cold weather. Seeking reinstatement for the 2016 Summer Olympics, the IBAF proposed an abbreviated competition designed to facilitate the participation of top players, but the effort failed. Major League Baseball initiated the World Baseball Classic, scheduled to precede the major league season, partly as a replacement, high-profile international tournament. The inaugural Classic, held in March 2006, was the first tournament involving national teams to feature a significant number of MLB participants. The Baseball World Cup was discontinued after its 2011 edition in favor of an expanded World Baseball Classic.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: Magnolia grandiflora, commonly known as the southern magnolia or bull bay, is a tree of the family Magnoliaceae native to the Southeastern United States, from Virginia to central Florida, and west to East Texas. Reaching in height, it is a large, striking evergreen tree, with large, dark-green leaves up to long and wide, and large, white, fragrant flowers up to in diameter.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: Although endemic to the evergreen lowland subtropical forests on the Gulf and South Atlantic coastal plain, "M. grandiflora" is widely cultivated in warmer areas around the world. The timber is hard and heavy, and has been used commercially to make furniture, pallets, and veneer.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: "Magnolia grandiflora" is a medium to large evergreen tree which may grow tall. It typically has a single stem (or trunk) and a pyramidal shape. The leaves are simple and broadly ovate, long and broad, with smooth margins. They are dark green, stiff, and leathery, and often scurfy underneath with yellow-brown pubescence.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: The large, showy, lemon citronella-scented flowers are white, up to across and fragrant, with six to 12 petals with a waxy texture, emerging from the tips of twigs on mature trees in late spring.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: Exceptionally large trees have been reported in the far Southern United States. The national champion is a specimen in Smith County, Mississippi, that stands . Another record includes a 35-m-high specimen from the Chickasawhay District, De Soto National Forest, in Mississippi, which measured 17.75 ft (5.4 m) in circumference at breast height, from 1961, and a 30-m-tall tree from Baton Rouge, which reached 18 ft in circumference at breast height.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: "M. grandiflora" was one of the many species first described by Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his "Systema Naturae" in 1759, basing his description on the earlier notes of Miller. He did not select a type specimen. Its specific epithet is derived from the Latin words "grandis" "big", and "flor-" "flower". The genus name "Magnolia" honors Pierre Magnol, a French botanist.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: "M. grandiflora" is most commonly known as southern magnolia, a name derived from its range in the Southern United States. Many broadleaved evergreen trees are known as bays for their resemblance to the leaves of the red bay ("Persea borbonia"), with this species known as the bull bay for its huge size or alternatively because cattle have been reported eating its leaves. Laurel magnolia, evergreen magnolia, large-flower magnolia or big laurel are alternative names. The timber is known simply as magnolia.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: Southern magnolias are native to the Southeastern United States, from Virginia south to central Florida, and then west to East Texas. It is found on the edges of bodies of water and swamps, in association with sweetgum ("Liquidambar styraciflua"), water oak ("Quercus nigra"), and black tupelo ("Nyssa sylvatica"). In more sheltered habitats, it grows as a large tree, but can be a low shrub when found on coastal dunes. It is killed by summer fires, and is missing from habitats that undergo regular burning.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: In Florida, it is found in a number of different ecological areas that are typically shady and have well-draining soils; it is also found in hummocks, along ravines, on slopes, and in wooded floodplains. Despite preferring sites with increased moisture, it does not tolerate inundation. It grows on sandhills in maritime forests, where it is found growing with live oaks and saw palmetto ("Serenoa repens"). In the eastern United States, it has become an escapee, and has become naturalized in the tidewater area of Virginia and locally in other areas outside of its historically natural range.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: "M. grandiflora" can produce seed by 10 years of age, although peak seed production is achieved closer to 25 years of age. Around 50% of seeds can germinate, and they are spread by birds and mammals. Squirrels, possums, quail, and turkey are known to eat the seeds.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: Plant collector Mark Catesby, the first in North America, brought "M. grandiflora" to Britain in 1726, where it entered cultivation and overshadowed "M. virginiana", which had been collected a few years earlier. It had also come to France, the French having collected it in the vicinity of the Mississippi River in Louisiana. It was glowingly described by Philip Miller in his 1731 work "The Gardeners' Dictionary". One of the earliest people to cultivate it in Europe was Sir John Colliton of Exeter in Devon; scaffolding and tubs surrounded his tree, where gardeners propagated its branches by layering, the daughter plants initially selling for five guineas each (but later falling to half a guinea).


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: It is often planted in university campuses and allowed to grow into a large tree, either with dependent branches, or with the lower branches removed to display the bare trunks. It is also espaliered against walls, which improves its frost hardiness.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: "M. grandiflora" is a very popular ornamental tree throughout its native range in the coastal plain of the Gulf/South Atlantic states. Grown for its attractive, shiny green leaves and fragrant flowers, it has a long history in the Southern United States. Many large and very old specimens can be found in the subtropical port cities such as Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, AL; Jacksonville, FL; Savannah, GA; Charleston, SC; and Wilmington, NC. "M. grandiflora" is the state tree of Mississippi and the state flower of Louisiana.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: The species is also cultivated as far north as coastal areas of New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island, NY, and Delaware, and in much of the Chesapeake Bay region in Maryland, and eastern Virginia. On the West Coast, it can be grown as far north as the Vancouver, BC, Canada area, though cooler summers on the West Coast slow growth compared to the East Coast. In the interior of the US, some of the cold-hardy cultivars have flourished as far north as Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio, where a sizable population exists. Farther north, few known long-term specimens are found due to the severe winters, and/or lack of sufficient summer heat.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: "M. grandiflora" is also grown in parts of Mexico, Central America, and South America, as well as parts of Asia.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: Until early 2018, an iconic southern magnolia planted by President Andrew Jackson nearly 200 years earlier grew near the South Portico of the White House. It was reputedly planted as a seedling taken from Jackson's plantation, The Hermitage in Tennessee. It was the oldest tree on the White House grounds and was so famous that it was for decades pictured on the back of the $20 bill as part of a view of the South Front. There was a tradition of giving cuttings or seedlings grown from the tree: Reagan gave a cutting to his Chief of Staff Howard Baker upon his retirement, and Michelle Obama donated a seedling to the "people's garden" of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since the 1940s, when the tree suffered a gash that caused a large section of its trunk to rot, the tree had been supported by metal poles and cables. In 2017, it was decided on the advice of the National Arboretum to cut down and remove the magnolia because the trunk was in an extremely fragile condition and the supports had been compromised. Offshoots from the Jackson magnolia have been saved, grown up to 10ft and one was planted at the place of the original tree.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: It is recommended for seashore plantings in areas that are windy but have little salt spray. The foliage will bronze, blotch, and burn in severe winters at the northern limits of cultivation, especially when grown in full winter sun, but most leaves remain until they are replaced by new foliage in the spring. In climates where the ground freezes, winter sun appears to do more damage than the cold. In the Northern Hemisphere, the south side of the tree experiences more leaf damage than the north side. Two extremes are known, with leaves white underneath and with leaves brown underneath. The brown varieties are claimed to be more cold hardy than the white varieties, but this does not appear to be proven as yet. Once established, the plants are drought tolerant, and the most drought tolerant of all the "Magnolia" species.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: The leaves are heavy and tend to fall year round from the interior of the crown and form a dense cover over the soil surface, and they have been used in decorative floral arrangements. The leaves have a waxy coating that makes them resistant to damage from salt and air pollution.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: In the United States, southern magnolia, along with sweetbay ("Magnolia virginiana") and cucumbertree ("Magnolia acuminata"), is commercially harvested. Lumber from all three species is simply called magnolia, which is used in the construction of furniture, boxes, pallets, venetian blinds, sashes, and doors, and used as veneers. Southern magnolia has yellowish-white sapwood and light to dark brown heartwood tinted yellow or green. The usually straight-grained wood has uniform texture with closely spaced rings. The wood is ranked moderate in heaviness, hardness, and stiffness, and moderately low in shrinkage, bending, and compression strength; it is ranked moderately high in shock resistance. Its use in the Southeastern United States has been supplanted by the availability of harder woods.


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: Over 150 cultivars have been developed and named, although only 30 to 40 of these still exist and still fewer are commercially propagated and sold. Most plants in nurseries are propagated by cuttings, resulting in more consistent form in the various varieties available. Many older cultivars have been superseded by newer ones and are no longer available. Some cultivars have been found to be more cold hardy, they include:


title: Magnolia grandiflora

text: "Magnolia grandiflora" contains phenolic constituents shown to possess significant antimicrobial activity. Magnolol, honokiol, and 3,5′-diallyl-2′-hydroxy-4-methoxybiphenyl exhibited significant activity against Gram-positive and acid-fast bacteria and fungi. The leaves contain coumarins and sesquiterpene lactones. The sesquiterpenes are known to be costunolide, parthenolide, costunolide diepoxide, santamarine, and reynosin.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Water fluoridation is the controlled adjustment of fluoride to a public water supply solely to reduce tooth decay. Fluoridated water contains fluoride at a level that is effective for preventing cavities; this can occur naturally or by adding fluoride. Fluoridated water operates on tooth surfaces: in the mouth, it creates low levels of fluoride in saliva, which reduces the rate at which tooth enamel demineralizes and increases the rate at which it remineralizes in the early stages of cavities. Typically a fluoridated compound is added to drinking water, a process that in the U.S. costs an average of about $ per person-year. Defluoridation is needed when the naturally occurring fluoride level exceeds recommended limits. In 2011, the World Health Organization suggested a level of fluoride from 0.5 to 1.5 mg/L (milligrams per litre), depending on climate, local environment, and other sources of fluoride. Bottled water typically has unknown fluoride levels.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Tooth decay remains a major public health concern in most industrialized countries, affecting 60–90% of schoolchildren and the vast majority of adults. Water fluoridation reduces cavities in children, while efficacy in adults is less clear. A Cochrane review estimates a reduction in cavities when water fluoridation was used by children who had no access to other sources of fluoride to be 35% in baby teeth and 26% in permanent teeth. However, this was based on older studies which failed to control for numerous variables, such as increasing sugar consumption as well as other dental strategies. Most European countries have experienced substantial declines in tooth decay, though milk and salt fluoridation is widespread in lieu of water fluoridation. Recent studies suggest that water fluoridation, particularly in industrialized nations, may be unnecessary because topical fluorides (such as in toothpaste) are widely used, and caries rates have become low.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Although fluoridation can cause dental fluorosis, which can alter the appearance of developing teeth or enamel fluorosis, the differences are mild and usually not an aesthetic or public health concern. There is no clear evidence of other side effects from water fluoridation. Fluoride's effects depend on the total daily intake of fluoride from all sources. Drinking water is typically the largest source; other methods of fluoride therapy include fluoridation of toothpaste, salt, and milk. The views on the most efficient method for community prevention of tooth decay are mixed. The Australian government states that water fluoridation is the most effective way to achieve fluoride exposure that is community-wide. The World Health Organization reports that water fluoridation, when feasible and culturally acceptable, has substantial advantages, especially for subgroups at high risk, while the European Commission finds no benefit to water fluoridation compared with topical use.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Public water fluoridation was first practiced in the U.S. As of 2012, 25 countries have artificial water fluoridation to varying degrees, 11 of them have more than 50% of their population drinking fluoridated water. A further 28 countries have water that is naturally fluoridated, though in many of them the fluoride is above the optimal level. As of 2012, about 435 million people worldwide received water fluoridated at the recommended level (i.e., about 5.4% of the global population). About 214 million of them live in the United States. Major health organizations such as the World Health Organization and FDI World Dental Federation supported water fluoridation as safe and effective. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists water fluoridation as one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century in the U.S. Despite this, the practice is controversial as a public health measure. Some countries and communities have discontinued fluoridation, while others have expanded it. Opponents of the practice argue that neither the benefits nor the risks have been studied adequately, and debate the conflict between what might be considered mass medication and individual liberties.


title: Water fluoridation

text: The goal of water fluoridation is to prevent tooth decay by adjusting the concentration of fluoride in public water supplies. Tooth decay (dental caries) is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases worldwide. Although it is rarely life-threatening, tooth decay can cause pain and impair eating, speaking, facial appearance, and acceptance into society, and it greatly affects the quality of life of children, particularly those of low socioeconomic status. In most industrialized countries, tooth decay affects 60–90% of schoolchildren and the vast majority of adults; although the problem appears to be less in Africa's developing countries, it is expected to increase in several countries there because of changing diet and inadequate fluoride exposure. In the U.S., minorities and the poor both have higher rates of decayed and missing teeth, and their children have less dental care. Once a cavity occurs, the tooth's fate is that of repeated restorations, with estimates for the median life of an amalgam tooth filling ranging from 9 to 14 years. Oral disease is the fourth most expensive disease to treat. The motivation for fluoridation of salt or water is similar to that of iodized salt for the prevention of congenital hypothyroidism and goiter.


title: Water fluoridation

text: The goal of water fluoridation is to prevent a chronic disease whose burdens particularly fall on children and the poor. Another of the goals was to bridge inequalities in dental health and dental care. Some studies suggest that fluoridation reduces oral health inequalities between the rich and poor, but the evidence is limited. There is anecdotal but not scientific evidence that fluoride allows more time for dental treatment by slowing the progression of tooth decay, and that it simplifies treatment by causing most cavities to occur in pits and fissures of teeth. Other reviews have found not enough evidence to determine if water fluoridation reduces oral-health social disparities.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Health and dental organizations worldwide have endorsed its safety and effectiveness. Its use began in 1945, following studies of children in a region where higher levels of fluoride occur naturally in the water. Further research showed that moderate fluoridation prevents tooth decay.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoridation does not affect the appearance, taste, or smell of drinking water. It is normally accomplished by adding one of three compounds to the water: sodium fluoride, fluorosilicic acid, or sodium fluorosilicate.


title: Water fluoridation

text: These compounds were chosen for their solubility, safety, availability, and low cost. A 1992 census found that, for U.S. public water supply systems reporting the type of compound used, 63% of the population received water fluoridated with fluorosilicic acid, 28% with sodium fluorosilicate, and 9% with sodium fluoride.


title: Water fluoridation

text: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed recommendations for water fluoridation that specify requirements for personnel, reporting, training, inspection, monitoring, surveillance, and actions in case of overfeed, along with technical requirements for each major compound used.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Although fluoride was once considered an essential nutrient, the U.S. National Research Council has since removed this designation due to the lack of studies showing it is essential for human growth, though still considering fluoride a "beneficial element" due to its positive impact on oral health. The European Food Safety Authority's Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) considers fluoride not to be an essential nutrient, yet, due to the beneficial effects of dietary fluoride on prevention of dental caries they have defined an Adequate Intake (AI) value for it. The AI of fluoride from all sources (including non-dietary sources) is 0.05 mg/kg body weight per day for both children and adults, including pregnant and lactating women.


title: Water fluoridation

text: In 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lowered the recommended level of fluoride to 0.7 mg/L. In 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), based on the recommendation of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) for fluoridation of community water systems, recommended that bottled water manufacturers limit fluoride in bottled water to no more than 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L)(milligrams per liter, equivalent to parts per million).


title: Water fluoridation

text: Previous recommendations were based on evaluations from 1962, when the U.S. specified the optimal level of fluoride to range from 0.7 to 1.2 mg/L (milligrams per liter, equivalent to parts per million), depending on the average maximum daily air temperature; the optimal level is lower in warmer climates, where people drink more water, and is higher in cooler climates.


title: Water fluoridation

text: These standards are not appropriate for all parts of the world, where fluoride levels might be excessive and fluoride should be removed from water, and is based on assumptions that have become obsolete with the rise of air conditioning and increased use of soft drinks, processed food, fluoridated toothpaste, and other sources of fluorides. In 2011, the World Health Organization stated that 1.5 mg/L should be an absolute upper bound and that 0.5 mg/L may be an appropriate lower limit. A 2007 Australian systematic review recommended a range from 0.6 to 1.1 mg/L.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoride naturally occurring in water can be above, at, or below recommended levels. Rivers and lakes generally contain fluoride levels less than 0.5 mg/L, but groundwater, particularly in volcanic or mountainous areas, can contain as much as 50 mg/L. Higher concentrations of fluorine are found in alkaline volcanic, hydrothermal, sedimentary, and other rocks derived from highly evolved magmas and hydrothermal solutions, and this fluorine dissolves into nearby water as fluoride. In most drinking waters, over 95% of total fluoride is the F ion, with the magnesium–fluoride complex (MgF) being the next most common. Because fluoride levels in water are usually controlled by the solubility of fluorite (CaF), high natural fluoride levels are associated with calcium-deficient, alkaline, and soft waters. Defluoridation is needed when the naturally occurring fluoride level exceeds recommended limits. It can be accomplished by percolating water through granular beds of activated alumina, bone meal, bone char, or tricalcium phosphate; by coagulation with alum; or by precipitation with lime.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Pitcher or faucet-mounted water filters do not alter fluoride content; the more-expensive reverse osmosis filters remove 65–95% of fluoride, and distillation removes all fluoride. Some bottled waters contain undeclared fluoride, which can be present naturally in source waters, or if water is sourced from a public supply which has been fluoridated. The FDA states that bottled water products labeled as de-ionized, purified, demineralized, or distilled have been treated in such a way that they contain no or only trace amounts of fluoride, unless they specifically list fluoride as an added ingredient.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Existing evidence suggests that water fluoridation reduces tooth decay. Consistent evidence also suggests that it causes dental fluorosis, most of which is mild and not usually of aesthetic concern. No clear evidence of other adverse effects exists, though almost all research thereof has been of poor quality.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Reviews have shown that water fluoridation reduces cavities in children. A conclusion for the efficacy in adults is less clear with some reviews finding benefit and others not. Studies in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s showed that water fluoridation reduced childhood cavities by fifty to sixty percent, while studies in 1989 and 1990 showed lower reductions (40% and 18% respectively), likely due to increasing use of fluoride from other sources, notably toothpaste, and also the 'halo effect' of food and drink that is made in fluoridated areas and consumed in unfluoridated ones.


title: Water fluoridation

text: A 2000 UK systematic review (York) found that water fluoridation was associated with a decreased proportion of children with cavities of 15% and with a decrease in decayed, missing, and filled primary teeth (average decreases was 2.25 teeth). The review found that the evidence was of moderate quality: few studies attempted to reduce observer bias, control for confounding factors, report variance measures, or use appropriate analysis. Although no major differences between natural and artificial fluoridation were apparent, the evidence was inadequate for a conclusion about any differences. A 2007 Australian systematic review used the same inclusion criteria as York's, plus one additional study. This did not affect the York conclusions. A 2011 European Commission systematic review based its efficacy on York's review conclusion. A 2015 Cochrane systematic review estimated a reduction in cavities when water fluoridation was used by children who had no access to other sources of fluoride to be 35% in baby teeth and 26% in permanent teeth. The evidence was of poor quality. A 2020 study in the "Journal of Political Economy" found that water fluoridation significantly improved dental health and labor market outcomes, but had non-significant effects on cognitive ability.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoride may also prevent cavities in adults of all ages. A 2007 meta-analysis by CDC researchers found that water fluoridation prevented an estimated 27% of cavities in adults, about the same fraction as prevented by exposure to any delivery method of fluoride (29% average). A 2011 European Commission review found that the benefits of water fluoridation for adult in terms of reductions in decay are limited. A 2015 Cochrane review found no conclusive research regarding the effectiveness of water fluoridation in adults. A 2016 review found variable quality evidence that, overall, stopping of community water fluoridation programs was typically followed by an increase in cavities.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Most countries in Europe have experienced substantial declines in cavities without the use of water fluoridation due to the introduction of fluoridated toothpaste and the large use of other fluoride-containing products, including mouthrinse, dietary supplements, and professionally applied or prescribed gel, foam, or varnish. For example, in Finland and Germany, tooth decay rates remained stable or continued to decline after water fluoridation stopped in communities with widespread fluoride exposure from other sources. Fluoridation is however still clearly necessary in the U.S. because unlike most European countries, the U.S. does not have school-based dental care, many children do not visit a dentist regularly, and for many U.S. children water fluoridation is the primary source of exposure to fluoride. The effectiveness of water fluoridation can vary according to circumstances such as whether preventive dental care is free to all children.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoride's adverse effects depend on total fluoride dosage from all sources. At the commonly recommended dosage, the only clear adverse effect is dental fluorosis, which can alter the appearance of children's teeth during tooth development; this is mostly mild and is unlikely to represent any real effect on aesthetic appearance or on public health. In April 2015, recommended fluoride levels in the United States were changed to 0.7 ppm from 0.7–1.2 ppm to reduce the risk of dental fluorosis. The 2015 Cochrane review estimated that for a fluoride level of 0.7 ppm the percentage of participants with fluorosis of aesthetic concern was approximately 12%. This increases to 40% when considering fluorosis of any level not of aesthetic concern. In the US mild or very mild dental fluorosis has been reported in 20% of the population, moderate fluorosis in 2% and severe fluorosis in less than 1%.


title: Water fluoridation

text: The critical period of exposure is between ages one and four years, with the risk ending around age eight. Fluorosis can be prevented by monitoring all sources of fluoride, with fluoridated water directly or indirectly responsible for an estimated 40% of risk and other sources, notably toothpaste, responsible for the remaining 60%. Compared to water naturally fluoridated at 0.4 mg/L, fluoridation to 1 mg/L is estimated to cause additional fluorosis in one of every 6 people (95% CI 4–21 people), and to cause additional fluorosis of aesthetic concern in one of every 22 people (95% CI 13.6–∞ people). Here, "aesthetic concern" is a term used in a standardized scale based on what adolescents would find unacceptable, as measured by a 1996 study of British 14-year-olds. In many industrialized countries the prevalence of fluorosis is increasing even in unfluoridated communities, mostly because of fluoride from swallowed toothpaste. A 2009 systematic review indicated that fluorosis is associated with consumption of infant formula or of water added to reconstitute the formula, that the evidence was distorted by publication bias, and that the evidence that the formula's fluoride caused the fluorosis was weak. In the U.S. the decline in tooth decay was accompanied by increased fluorosis in both fluoridated and unfluoridated communities; accordingly, fluoride has been reduced in various ways worldwide in infant formulas, children's toothpaste, water, and fluoride-supplement schedules.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoridation has little effect on risk of bone fracture (broken bones); it may result in slightly lower fracture risk than either excessively high levels of fluoridation or no fluoridation.


title: Water fluoridation

text: There is no clear association between water fluoridation and cancer or deaths due to cancer, both for cancer in general and also specifically for bone cancer and osteosarcoma. Series of research concluded that concentration of fluoride in water doesn't associate with osteosarcoma. The beliefs regarding association of fluoride exposure and osteosarcoma stem from a study of US National Toxicology program in 1990, which showed uncertain evidence of association of fluoride and osteosarcoma in male rats. But there is still no solid evidence of cancer-causing tendency of fluoride in mice. Fluoridation of water has been practiced around the world to improve citizens' dental health. It is also deemed as major health success. Fluoride concentration levels in water supplies are regulated, such as United States Environmental Protection Agency regulates fluoride levels to not be greater than 4 milligrams per liter. Actually, water supplies already have natural occurring fluoride, but many communities chose to add more fluoride to the point that it can reduce tooth decay. Fluoride is also known for its ability to cause new bone formation. Yet, further research shows no osteosarcoma risks from fluoridated water in humans. Most of the research involved counting number of osteosarcoma patients cases in particular areas which has difference concentrations of fluoride in drinking water. The statistic analysis of the data shows no significant difference in occurrences of osteosarcoma cases in different fluoridated regions. Another important research involved collecting bone samples from osteosarcoma patients to measure fluoride concentration and compare them to bone samples of newly diagnosed malignant bone tumors. The result is that the median fluoride concentrations in bone samples of osteosarcoma patients and tumor controls are not significantly different. Not only fluoride concentration in bones, Fluoride exposures of osteosarcoma patients are also proven to be not significantly different from healthy people. More recent studies have disputed any relationship to consumption of fluoridated drinking water during childhood.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoride can occur naturally in water in concentrations well above recommended levels, which can have several long-term adverse effects, including severe dental fluorosis, skeletal fluorosis, and weakened bones; water utilities in the developed world reduce fluoride levels to regulated maximum levels in regions where natural levels are high, and the WHO and other groups work with countries and regions in the developing world with naturally excessive fluoride levels to achieve safe levels. The World Health Organization recommends a guideline maximum fluoride value of 1.5 mg/L as a level at which fluorosis should be minimal.


title: Water fluoridation

text: In rare cases improper implementation of water fluoridation can result in overfluoridation that causes outbreaks of acute fluoride poisoning, with symptoms that include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Three such outbreaks were reported in the U.S. between 1991 and 1998, caused by fluoride concentrations as high as 220 mg/L; in the 1992 Alaska outbreak, 262 people became ill and one person died. In 2010, approximately 60 gallons of fluoride were released into the water supply in Asheboro, North Carolina in 90 minutes—an amount that was intended to be released in a 24-hour period.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Like other common water additives such as chlorine, hydrofluosilicic acid and sodium silicofluoride decrease pH and cause a small increase of corrosivity, but this problem is easily addressed by increasing the pH. Although it has been hypothesized that hydrofluosilicic acid and sodium silicofluoride might increase human lead uptake from water, a 2006 statistical analysis did not support concerns that these chemicals cause higher blood lead concentrations in children. Trace levels of arsenic and lead may be present in fluoride compounds added to water, but no credible evidence exists that their presence is of concern: concentrations are below measurement limits.


title: Water fluoridation

text: The effect of water fluoridation on the natural environment has been investigated, and no adverse effects have been established. Issues studied have included fluoride concentrations in groundwater and downstream rivers; lawns, gardens, and plants; consumption of plants grown in fluoridated water; air emissions; and equipment noise.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoride exerts its major effect by interfering with the demineralization mechanism of tooth decay. Tooth decay is an infectious disease, the key feature of which is an increase within dental plaque of bacteria such as "Streptococcus mutans" and "Lactobacillus". These produce organic acids when carbohydrates, especially sugar, are eaten. When enough acid is produced to lower the pH below 5.5, the acid dissolves carbonated hydroxyapatite, the main component of tooth enamel, in a process known as "demineralization". After the sugar is gone, some of the mineral loss can be recovered—or "remineralized"—from ions dissolved in the saliva. Cavities result when the rate of demineralization exceeds the rate of remineralization, typically in a process that requires many months or years.


title: Water fluoridation

text: All fluoridation methods, including water fluoridation, create low levels of fluoride ions in saliva and plaque fluid, thus exerting a topical or surface effect. A person living in an area with fluoridated water may experience rises of fluoride concentration in saliva to about 0.04 mg/L several times during a day. Technically, this fluoride does not prevent cavities but rather controls the rate at which they develop. When fluoride ions are present in plaque fluid along with dissolved hydroxyapatite, and the pH is higher than 4.5, a fluorapatite-like remineralized veneer is formed over the remaining surface of the enamel; this veneer is much more acid-resistant than the original hydroxyapatite, and is formed more quickly than ordinary remineralized enamel would be. The cavity-prevention effect of fluoride is mostly due to these surface effects, which occur during and after tooth eruption. Although some systemic (whole-body) fluoride returns to the saliva via blood plasma, and to unerupted teeth via plasma or crypt fluid, there is little data to determine what percentages of fluoride's anticavity effect comes from these systemic mechanisms. Also, although fluoride affects the physiology of dental bacteria, its effect on bacterial growth does not seem to be relevant to cavity prevention.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoride's effects depend on the total daily intake of fluoride from all sources. About 70–90% of ingested fluoride is absorbed into the blood, where it distributes throughout the body. In infants 80–90% of absorbed fluoride is retained, with the rest excreted, mostly via urine; in adults about 60% is retained. About 99% of retained fluoride is stored in bone, teeth, and other calcium-rich areas, where excess quantities can cause fluorosis. Drinking water is typically the largest source of fluoride. In many industrialized countries swallowed toothpaste is the main source of fluoride exposure in unfluoridated communities. Other sources include dental products other than toothpaste; air pollution from fluoride-containing coal or from phosphate fertilizers; trona, used to tenderize meat in Tanzania; and tea leaves, particularly the tea bricks favored in parts of China. High fluoride levels have been found in other foods, including barley, cassava, corn, rice, taro, yams, and fish protein concentrate. The U.S. Institute of Medicine has established Dietary Reference Intakes for fluoride: Adequate Intake values range from 0.01 mg/day for infants aged 6 months or less, to 4 mg/day for men aged 19 years and up; and the Tolerable Upper Intake Level is 0.10 mg/kg/day for infants and children through age 8 years, and 10 mg/day thereafter. A rough estimate is that an adult in a temperate climate consumes 0.6 mg/day of fluoride without fluoridation, and 2 mg/day with fluoridation. However, these values differ greatly among the world's regions: for example, in Sichuan, China the average daily fluoride intake is only 0.1 mg/day in drinking water but 8.9 mg/day in food and 0.7 mg/day directly from the air due to the use of high-fluoride soft coal for cooking and drying foodstuffs indoors.


title: Water fluoridation

text: The views on the most effective method for community prevention of tooth decay are mixed. The Australian government review states that water fluoridation is the most effective means of achieving fluoride exposure that is community-wide. The European Commission review states "No obvious advantage appears in favour of water fluoridation compared with topical prevention". Other fluoride therapies are also effective in preventing tooth decay; they include fluoride toothpaste, mouthwash, gel, and varnish, and fluoridation of salt and milk. Dental sealants are effective as well, with estimates of prevented cavities ranging from 33% to 86%, depending on age of sealant and type of study.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoride toothpaste is the most widely used and rigorously evaluated fluoride treatment. Its introduction is considered the main reason for the decline in tooth decay in industrialized countries, and toothpaste appears to be the single common factor in countries where tooth decay has declined. Toothpaste is the only realistic fluoride strategy in many low-income countries, where lack of infrastructure renders water or salt fluoridation infeasible. It relies on individual and family behavior, and its use is less likely among lower economic classes; in low-income countries it is unaffordable for the poor. Fluoride toothpaste prevents about 25% of cavities in young permanent teeth, and its effectiveness is improved if higher concentrations of fluoride are used, or if the toothbrushing is supervised. Fluoride mouthwash and gel are about as effective as fluoride toothpaste; fluoride varnish prevents about 45% of cavities. By comparison, brushing with a nonfluoride toothpaste has little effect on cavities.


title: Water fluoridation

text: The effectiveness of salt fluoridation is about the same as that of water fluoridation, if most salt for human consumption is fluoridated. Fluoridated salt reaches the consumer in salt at home, in meals at school and at large kitchens, and in bread. For example, Jamaica has just one salt producer, but a complex public water supply; it started fluoridating all salt in 1987, achieving a decline in cavities. Universal salt fluoridation is also practiced in Colombia and the Swiss Canton of Vaud; in Germany fluoridated salt is widely used in households but unfluoridated salt is also available, giving consumers a choice. Concentrations of fluoride in salt range from 90 to 350 mg/kg, with studies suggesting an optimal concentration of around 250 mg/kg.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Milk fluoridation is practiced by the Borrow Foundation in some parts of Bulgaria, Chile, Peru, Russia, Macedonia, Thailand and the UK. Depending on location, the fluoride is added to milk, to powdered milk, or to yogurt. For example, milk powder fluoridation is used in rural Chilean areas where water fluoridation is not technically feasible. These programs are aimed at children, and have neither targeted nor been evaluated for adults. A systematic review found low-quality evidence to support the practice, but also concluded that further studies were needed.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Other public-health strategies to control tooth decay, such as education to change behavior and diet, have lacked impressive results. Although fluoride is the only well-documented agent which controls the rate at which cavities develop, it has been suggested that adding calcium to the water would reduce cavities further. Other agents to prevent tooth decay include antibacterials such as chlorhexidine and sugar substitutes such as xylitol. Xylitol-sweetened chewing gum has been recommended as a supplement to fluoride and other conventional treatments if the gum is not too costly. Two proposed approaches, bacteria replacement therapy (probiotics) and caries vaccine, would share water fluoridation's advantage of requiring only minimal patient compliance, but have not been proven safe and effective. Other experimental approaches include fluoridated sugar, polyphenols, and casein phosphopeptide–amorphous calcium phosphate nanocomplexes.


title: Water fluoridation

text: A 2007 Australian review concluded that water fluoridation is the most effective and socially the most equitable way to expose entire communities to fluoride's cavity-prevention effects. A 2002 U.S. review estimated that sealants decreased cavities by about 60% overall, compared to about 18–50% for fluoride. A 2007 Italian review suggested that water fluoridation may not be needed, particularly in the industrialized countries where cavities have become rare, and concluded that toothpaste and other topical fluoride are the best way to prevent cavities worldwide. A 2004 World Health Organization review stated that water fluoridation, when it is culturally acceptable and technically feasible, has substantial advantages in preventing tooth decay, especially for subgroups at high risk.


title: Water fluoridation

text: As of November 2012, a total of about 378 million people worldwide received artificially fluoridated water. The majority of those were in the United States. About 40 million worldwide received water that was naturally fluoridated to recommended levels.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Much of the early work on establishing the connection between fluoride and dental health was performed by scientists in the U.S. during the early 20th century, and the U.S. was the first country to implement public water fluoridation on a wide scale. It has been introduced to varying degrees in many countries and territories outside the U.S., including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, the UK, and Vietnam. In 2004, an estimated 13.7 million people in western Europe and 194 million in the U.S. received artificially fluoridated water. In 2010, about 66% of the U.S. population was receiving fluoridated water.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Naturally fluoridated water is used by approximately 4% of the world's population, in countries including Argentina, France, Gabon, Libya, Mexico, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, the U.S., and Zimbabwe. In some locations, notably parts of Africa, China, and India, natural fluoridation exceeds recommended levels.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Communities have discontinued water fluoridation in some countries, including Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Changes have been motivated by political opposition to water fluoridation, but sometimes the need for water fluoridation was met by alternative strategies. The use of fluoride in its various forms is the foundation of tooth decay prevention throughout Europe; several countries have introduced fluoridated salt, with varying success: in Switzerland and Germany, fluoridated salt represents 65% to 70% of the domestic market, while in France the market share reached 60% in 1993 but dwindled to 14% in 2009; Spain, in 1986 the second West European country to introduce fluoridation of table salt, reported a market share in 2006 of only 10%. In three other West European countries, Greece, Austria and the Netherlands, the legal framework for production and marketing of fluoridated edible salt exists. At least six Central European countries (Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania) have shown some interest in salt fluoridation; however, significant usage of approximately 35% was only achieved in the Czech Republic. The Slovak Republic had the equipment to treat salt by 2005; in the other four countries attempts to introduce fluoridated salt were not successful. When Israel implemented the 2014 Dental Health Promotion Program, that includes education, medical followup and the use of fluoride-containing products and supplements, it evaluated that mandatory water fluoridation was no longer necessary, stating "supply of fluoridated water forces those who do not so wish to also consume water with added fluoride. This approach is therefore not accepted in most countries in the world.".


title: Water fluoridation

text: The history of water fluoridation can be divided into three periods. The first () was research into the cause of a form of mottled tooth enamel called the Colorado brown stain. The second (–1945) focused on the relationship between fluoride concentrations, fluorosis, and tooth decay, and established that moderate levels of fluoride prevent cavities. The third period, from 1945 on, focused on adding fluoride to community water supplies.


title: Water fluoridation

text: In the first half of the 19th century, investigators established that fluoride occurs with varying concentrations in teeth, bone, and drinking water. In the second half they speculated that fluoride would protect against tooth decay, proposed supplementing the diet with fluoride, and observed mottled enamel (now called severe dental fluorosis) without knowing the cause. In 1874, the German public health officer Carl Wilhelm Eugen Erhardt recommended potassium fluoride supplements to preserve teeth. In 1892 the British physician James Crichton-Browne noted in an address that fluoride's absence from diets had resulted in teeth that were "peculiarly liable to decay", and who proposed "the reintroduction into our diet ... of fluorine in some suitable natural form ... to fortify the teeth of the next generation".


title: Water fluoridation

text: The foundation of water fluoridation in the U.S. was the research of the dentist Frederick McKay (1874–1959). McKay spent thirty years investigating the cause of what was then known as the Colorado brown stain, which produced mottled but also cavity-free teeth; with the help of G.V. Black and other researchers, he established that the cause was fluoride. The first report of a statistical association between the stain and lack of tooth decay was made by UK dentist Norman Ainsworth in 1925. In 1931, an Alcoa chemist, H.V. Churchill, concerned about a possible link between aluminum and staining, analyzed water from several areas where the staining was common and found that fluoride was the common factor.


title: Water fluoridation

text: In the 1930s and early 1940s, H. Trendley Dean and colleagues at the newly created U.S. National Institutes of Health published several epidemiological studies suggesting that a fluoride concentration of about 1 mg/L was associated with substantially fewer cavities in temperate climates, and that it increased fluorosis but only to a level that was of no medical or aesthetic concern. Other studies found no other significant adverse effects even in areas with fluoride levels as high as 8 mg/L. To test the hypothesis that adding fluoride would prevent cavities, Dean and his colleagues conducted a controlled experiment by fluoridating the water in Grand Rapids, Michigan, starting 25 January 1945. The results, published in 1950, showed significant reduction of cavities. Significant reductions in tooth decay were also reported by important early studies outside the U.S., including the Brantford–Sarnia–Stratford study in Canada (1945–1962), the Tiel–Culemborg study in the Netherlands (1953–1969), the Hastings study in New Zealand (1954–1970), and the Department of Health study in the U.K. (1955–1960). By present-day standards these and other pioneering studies were crude, but the large reductions in cavities convinced public health professionals of the benefits of fluoridation.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoridation became an official policy of the U.S. Public Health Service by 1951, and by 1960 water fluoridation had become widely used in the U.S., reaching about 50 million people. By 2006, 69.2% of the U.S. population on public water systems were receiving fluoridated water, amounting to 61.5% of the total U.S. population; 3.0% of the population on public water systems were receiving naturally occurring fluoride. In some other countries the pattern was similar. New Zealand, which led the world in per-capita sugar consumption and had the world's worst teeth, began fluoridation in 1953, and by 1968 fluoridation was used by 65% of the population served by a piped water supply. Fluoridation was introduced into Brazil in 1953, was regulated by federal law starting in 1974, and by 2004 was used by 71% of the population. In the Republic of Ireland, fluoridation was legislated in 1960, and after a constitutional challenge the two major cities of Dublin and Cork began it in 1964; fluoridation became required for all sizeable public water systems and by 1996 reached 66% of the population. In other locations, fluoridation was used and then discontinued: in Kuopio, Finland, fluoridation was used for decades but was discontinued because the school dental service provided significant fluoride programs and the cavity risk was low, and in Basel, Switzerland, it was replaced with fluoridated salt.


title: Water fluoridation

text: McKay's work had established that fluorosis occurred before tooth eruption. Dean and his colleagues assumed that fluoride's protection against cavities was also pre-eruptive, and this incorrect assumption was accepted for years. By 2000, however, the topical effects of fluoride (in both water and toothpaste) were well understood, and it had become known that a constant low level of fluoride in the mouth works best to prevent cavities.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Fluoridation costs an estimated $ per person-year on the average (range: $–$; all costs in this paragraph are for the U.S. and are in dollars, inflation-adjusted from earlier estimates). Larger water systems have lower per capita cost, and the cost is also affected by the number of fluoride injection points in the water system, the type of feeder and monitoring equipment, the fluoride chemical and its transportation and storage, and water plant personnel expertise. In affluent countries the cost of salt fluoridation is also negligible; developing countries may find it prohibitively expensive to import the fluoride additive. By comparison, fluoride toothpaste costs an estimated $–$ per person-year, with the incremental cost being zero for people who already brush their teeth for other reasons; and dental cleaning and application of fluoride varnish or gel costs an estimated $ per person-year. Assuming the worst case, with the lowest estimated effectiveness and highest estimated operating costs for small cities, fluoridation costs an estimated $–$ per saved tooth-decay surface, which is lower than the estimated $ to restore the surface and the estimated $ average discounted lifetime cost of the decayed surface, which includes the cost to maintain the restored tooth surface. It is not known how much is spent in industrial countries to treat dental fluorosis, which is mostly due to fluoride from swallowed toothpaste.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Although a 1989 workshop on cost-effectiveness of cavity prevention concluded that water fluoridation is one of the few public health measures that save more money than they cost, little high-quality research has been done on the cost-effectiveness and solid data are scarce. Dental sealants are cost-effective only when applied to high-risk children and teeth. A 2002 U.S. review estimated that on average, sealing first permanent molars saves costs when they are decaying faster than 0.47 surfaces per person-year whereas water fluoridation saves costs when total decay incidence exceeds 0.06 surfaces per person-year. In the U.S., water fluoridation is more cost-effective than other methods to reduce tooth decay in children, and a 2008 review concluded that water fluoridation is the best tool for combating cavities in many countries, particularly among socially disadvantaged groups. A 2016 review of studies published between 1995 to 2013 found that water fluoridation in the U.S. was cost-effective, and that it was more so in larger communities.


title: Water fluoridation

text: U.S. data from 1974 to 1992 indicate that when water fluoridation is introduced into a community, there are significant decreases in the number of employees per dental firm and the number of dental firms. The data suggest that some dentists respond to the demand shock by moving to non-fluoridated areas and by retraining as specialists.


title: Water fluoridation

text: The water fluoridation controversy arises from political, moral, ethical, economic, and safety concerns regarding the water fluoridation of public water supplies. For deprived groups in both maturing and matured countries, international and national agencies and dental associations across the world support the safety and effectiveness of water fluoridation. Authorities' views on the most effective fluoride therapy for community prevention of tooth decay are mixed; some state water fluoridation is most effective, while others see no special advantage and prefer topical application strategies.


title: Water fluoridation

text: Those opposed argue that water fluoridation has no or little cariostatic benefits, may cause serious health problems, is not effective enough to justify the costs, is pharmacologically obsolete, and presents a moral conflict between the common good and individual rights.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is an American recording studio in Sheffield, Alabama, formed in 1969 by four session musicians known as The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. They had left nearby FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals to create their own recording facility.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: They attracted noted artists from across the United States and Great Britain. Over the years, artists who recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio included The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Duane Allman, George Michael, Wilson Pickett, Willie Nelson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Joe Cocker, Levon Helm, Paul Simon, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Tamiko Jones, Cher and Cat Stevens.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The four founders of the studio, Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson and David Hood, were session musicians at Rick Hall's "FAME Studios"; they were officially known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section but widely referred to as "The Swampers," who were recognized as having crafted the "Muscle Shoals sound" in conjunction with Hall.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The "Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section" was the first group of musicians to own a studio and to eventually run their own publishing and production companies. They provided musical backing and arrangements for many recordings, including major hits by Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and the Staple Singers; a wide range of artists in popular music also recorded hit songs and complete albums at the studio. They had first worked together in 1967 and initially played sessions in New York and Nashville before doing so at FAME. Their initial successes in soul and R&B led to more mainstream rock and pop performers who began coming to record at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, including the Rolling Stones, Duane Allman, Traffic, Bob Seger, Elton John, Boz Scaggs, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Dr. Hook, Elkie Brooks, Millie Jackson, Julian Lennon, and Glenn Frey.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The "Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section" partnered with Jerry Wexler, who provided start-up funding to found Muscle Shoals Sound Studio at 3614 Jackson Highway in Sheffield. The concrete block building, originally built around 1946, was previously a coffin showroom.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: Cher's sixth album was titled "3614 Jackson Highway" (1969) and this became the informal name for the studio in 1969.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The first hit to the studio's credit was R. B. Greaves' "Take a Letter Maria". By December 1969, the Rolling Stones were recording at this new location for three days.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The studio at 3614 Jackson Highway closed in April 1979, relocating to a larger updated facility in Sheffield located at 1000 Alabama Avenue. This location operated until it was closed and sold in 1985 to Malaco Records, Tommy Couch's Jackson, Mississippi-based soul and blues label, which also bought the publishing rights held by the Muscle Shoals Sound. Malaco used the Sheffield studios for its own artists, including Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland and Little Milton, as while continuing to operate its own facility in Jackson. The Rhythm Section, minus Beckett, worked with other studio musicians at Malaco Records and at other studios. In 2005, Couch decided to close the Malaco studio on Alabama Avenue because he was having difficulty competing with more technologically advanced studios.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: After the closure of the 1000 Alabama Avenue location, the building was taken over by a movie production company. In 2007, this location housed Cypress Moon Productions and the Cypress Moon Studio with functioning recording equipment, which was operating as a recording studio and was open for tours.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: Although it was no longer a working studio in 2009 and 2010, the Jackson Highway location was rented for recording some or all of two Grammy-nominated albums. Band of Horses's third CD, "Infinite Arms", recorded in part at that studio, was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category Best Alternative Album.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: Ten tracks of Black Keys's sixth album, "Brothers", were also recorded at 3614 Jackson Highway. The album was nominated for a 2011 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. Two songs from the album, "Tighten Up" and "Black Mud", were nominated for Grammys: "Tighten Up" for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Rock Song and "Black Mud" for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. "Rolling Stone" magazine placed the album at number-2 on its list of the Best Albums of 2010 and "Everlasting Light" at number 11 on its list of the Best Singles of 2010. The album was also featured on "Spin" magazine's Top 40 Albums of 2010.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: Chris Stapleton recorded his Grammy winning single, "Cold" at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in December 2018 and received the Grammy in 2022 thus making the studio one that produces Grammy winning hit records once again.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The original studio building on Jackson Highway, which had become an audio visual retailer and then an appliance store until 1999, changed ownership, the subsequent owner completing some renovations and retaining the old recording equipment, allowing for tours of the property. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in June 2006.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: In 2013, the documentary "Muscle Shoals" raised public interest in a major restoration of the studio, and in June that year, the owner sold the property (without the historic recording equipment) to the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation, an organization that had been formed earlier that year with the goal of establishing a music museum in the historic building. A large grant from Beats Electronics provided an essential $1 million. The state tourism director said that the 2013 Muscle Shoals film had significant influence. "The financial support from Beats is a direct result of their film." Additional donations were made by other groups and individuals.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The building closed when major restoration work began in September 2015, and reopened as a finished tourist attraction operated by the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation on January 9, 2017. The interior is reminiscent of the 1970s, with relevant recording equipment and paraphernalia. According to a journalist who was a recent visitor, the restored studio is impressive: "Muscle Shoals Sound's interior appears much as it did in its prime. ... Some guitars and amps. A Hammond organ, Wurlitzer electric piano and black baby grand. The control room with recording console and analog tape machine ... There are isolation booths, for vocals, percussion and such..."


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The Alabama Tourism Department named Muscle Shoals Sound Studio as the state's top attraction in 2017, even before the Jackson Highway studio reopened. Over 62,000 people from 50 countries and every state in the U.S. have visited since it opened for tours again in 2013.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: The studio is a working recording studio at night. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys recorded a solo project in March 2017. Grammy winning producer Dave Cobb of Nashville recorded rockers Rival Sons in April 2017. Actor Kiefer Sutherland recorded with Swamper David Hood in May 2017. In 2018, Bishop Gunn released the first recording from the studio after the restoration, "Shine" from their album, "Natchez". Donnie Fritts released tunes recorded at the studio on his "June" album, in conjunction with John Paul White and Single Lock Records.


title: Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

text: Filmmaker Greg Camalier premiered his documentary film "Muscle Shoals" at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013. It is about Muscle Shoals sound, and features Rick Hall, FAME Studios, and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (Swampers) who had founded the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. The film includes interviews with Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Steve Winwood, Bono, Alicia Keys and many others.


title: New Public Management

text: New Public Management (NPM) is an approach to running public service organizations that is used in government and public service institutions and agencies, at both sub-national and national levels. The term was first introduced by academics in the UK and Australia to describe approaches that were developed during the 1980s as part of an effort to make the public service more "businesslike" and to improve its efficiency by using private sector management models.


title: New Public Management

text: As with the private sector, which focuses on customer service, NPM reforms often focused on the "centrality of citizens who were the recipient of the services or customers to the public sector". NPM reformers experimented with using decentralized service delivery models, to give local agencies more freedom in how they delivered programs or services. In some cases, NPM reforms that used e-government consolidated a program or service to a central location to reduce costs. Some governments tried using quasi-market structures, so that the public sector would have to compete against the private sector (notably in the UK, in health care). Key themes in NPM were "financial control, value for money, increasing efficiency ..., identifying and setting targets and continuance monitoring of performance, handing over ... power to the senior management" executives. Performance was assessed with audits, benchmarks and performance evaluations. Some NPM reforms used private sector companies to deliver what were formerly public services.


title: New Public Management

text: NPM advocates in some countries worked to remove "collective agreements [in favour of] ... individual rewards packages at senior levels combined with short term contracts" and introduce private sector-style corporate governance, including using a Board of Directors approach to strategic guidance for public organizations. While NPM approaches have been used in many countries around the world, NPM is particularly associated with the most industrialized OECD nations such as the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America. NPM advocates focus on using approaches from the private sector – the corporate or business world–which can be successfully applied in the public sector and in a public administration context. NPM approaches have been used to reform the public sector, its policies and its programs. NPM advocates claim that it is a more efficient and effective means of attaining the same outcome.


title: New Public Management

text: In NPM, citizens are viewed as "customers" and public servants are viewed as public managers. NPM tries to realign the relationship between public service managers and their political superiors by making a parallel relationship between the two. Under NPM, public managers have incentive-based motivation such as pay-for-performance, and clear performance targets are often set, which are assessed by using performance evaluations. As well, managers in an NPM paradigm may have greater discretion and freedom as to how they go about achieving the goals set for them. This NPM approach is contrasted with the traditional public administration model, in which institutional decision-making, policy-making and public service delivery is guided by regulations, legislation and administrative procedures.


title: New Public Management

text: NPM reforms use approaches such as disaggregation, customer satisfaction initiatives, customer service efforts, applying an entrepreneurial spirit to public service, and introducing innovations. The NPM system allows "the expert manager to have a greater discretion". "Public Managers under the New Public Management reforms can provide a range of choices from which customers can choose, including the right to opt out of the service delivery system completely".


title: New Public Management

text: The first practices of New Public Management emerged in the United Kingdom under the leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher played the functional role of “policy entrepreneur" and the official role of prime minister. Thatcher drove changes in public management policy in such areas as organizational methods, civil service, labor relations, expenditure planning, financial management, audit, evaluation, and procurement.


title: New Public Management

text: Thatcher's successor, John Major, kept public management policy on the agenda of the Conservative government, leading to the implementation of the Next Steps Initiative. Major also launched the programs of the Citizens Charter Initiative, Competing for Quality, Resource Accounting and Budgeting, and the Private Finance Initiative.


title: New Public Management

text: A term was coined in the late 1980s to denote a new (or renewed) focus on the importance of management and 'production engineering' in public service delivery, which often linked to doctrines of economic rationalism (Hood 1989, Pollitt 1993). During this timeframe public management became an active area of policy-making in numerous other countries, notably in New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. At the same time, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) established its Public Management Committee and Secretariat (PUMA), conferring to public management the status normally accorded more conventional domains of policy. In the 1990s, public management was a major item on President Clinton's agenda. Early policy actions of the Clinton administration included launching the National Partnership and signing into law the Government Performance and Results Act. Currently there are few indications that public management issues will vanish from governmental policy agendas. A recent study showed that in Italy, municipal directors are aware of a public administration now being oriented toward new public management where they are assessed according to the results they produce.


title: New Public Management

text: The term New Public Management (NPM) expresses the idea that the cumulative flow of policy decisions over the past twenty years has amounted to a substantial shift in the governance and management of the “state sector” in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Scandinavia, North America, and Latin America. For instance, regional innovation agencies were created under NPM principles to support the innovation process. A benign interpretation is that these decisions have been a defensible, if imperfect, response to policy problems. Those problems as well as their solutions were formulated within the policy-making process. The agenda-setting process has been heavily influenced by electoral commitments to improve macro-economic performance and to contain growth in the public sector, as well as by a growing perception of public bureaucracies as being inefficient. The alternative-generation process has been heavily influenced by ideas coming from economics and from various quarters within the field of management.


title: New Public Management

text: The initial New Public Management (NPM) reforms implemented in Anglo-Saxon countries inspired reforms across the world. These reforms, which were triggered and motivated by a variety of factors and resulted in the development of various models, led to the emergence of a global NPM trend. Despite the global nature of the movement, the concepts and models of the reform were diverse and developed in accordance with each country's specific and unique context and in response to the distinct challenge that it was facing. Therefore, in spite of the common features of the reforms, their driving factors, objectives, extent, and areas of focus varied across countries.


title: New Public Management

text: While, in many countries, NPM reforms were inspired and influenced by the reforms implemented beyond their national boundaries, the driving factors of the reforms varied significantly across regions as well as across countries of the same region. In Europe, for instance, whereas the reforms in the Netherlands started in reaction to fiscal stringency, the driving factor for reform in Germany came from within the system as local government managers and politicians were dissatisfied with the traditional bureaucratic system and its shortcomings. Moreover, although the NPM reforms of Switzerland were influenced by the Netherlands' Tilburg model, their main motivator was dissatisfaction with the old public management system and its deficiencies. In Africa, on the other hand, the main motivating and driving factors of the NPM reforms were bureaucratic corruption, dysfunctional governance system, fiscal crises, and the success of the reforms in other countries. For developing nations and former communist countries, the motivation for reforms was benefiting from participation in a globalized economy and fulfilling the requirements of international donors.


title: New Public Management

text: Although NPM reforms mainly aimed at increasing efficiency and decreasing costs of the public sector, each country's reforms were focused on certain specific areas. In South Africa and Zambia, for instance, independent authorities were created for tax collection with the primary goal of promoting accountability. In Germany, the NPM reforms mainly focused on internal reforms. In France, the 1982 Act of Decentralization, which created autonomous local collectivities in the areas of budgeting and taxation, led to managerialism and privatization. The reforms also varied across time. For instance, while reorganization of responsibilities was the main focus area of the Tilburg model in the 1980s, the reform goals were reoriented from internal restructuring to the external environment focusing on the role of citizens in the 1990s.


title: New Public Management

text: Across countries, various actors played different roles in initiating, facilitating, and implementing NPM reforms. In the Netherlands and Germany, for instance, the reforms were initiated by local governments. However, the reforms in the Netherlands were supported by the central government while the New Steering model of Germany did not receive any support from the federal government. In Africa, most of the reforms were introduced and implemented by national governments. While national and local governments played a central role in initiating and implementing the reforms, some international organizations had a crucial role in facilitating and driving the reforms. For instance, OECD played a vital role in facilitating the transfer of reforms across its member countries by developing tools and guidelines. Moreover, it was the World Bank and IMF that pushed non-western and developing countries for public management reforms. In Africa, for example, the reforms were part of the “economic liberalization packages of structural adjustment.”


title: New Public Management

text: NPM was accepted as the "gold standard for administrative reform" in the 1990s. The idea for using this method for government reform was that if the government guided private-sector principles were used rather than rigid hierarchical bureaucracy, it would work more efficiently. NPM promotes a shift from bureaucratic administration to business-like professional management. NPM was cited as the solution for management ills in various organizational context and policy making in education and health care reform.