title: Epistasis

text: Proteins are held in their tertiary structure by a distributed, internal network of cooperative interactions (hydrophobic, polar and covalent). Epistatic interactions occur whenever one mutation alters the local environment of another residue (either by directly contacting it, or by inducing changes in the protein structure). For example, in a disulphide bridge, a single cysteine has no effect on protein stability until a second is present at the correct location at which point the two cysteines form a chemical bond which enhances the stability of the protein. This would be observed as positive epistasis where the double-cysteine variant had a much higher stability than either of the single-cysteine variants. Conversely, when deleterious mutations are introduced, proteins often exhibit mutational robustness whereby as stabilising interactions are destroyed the protein still functions until it reaches some stability threshold at which point further destabilising mutations have large, detrimental effects as the protein can no longer fold. This leads to negative epistasis whereby mutations that have little effect alone have a large, deleterious effect together.


title: Epistasis

text: In enzymes, the protein structure orients a few, key amino acids into precise geometries to form an active site to perform chemistry. Since these active site networks frequently require the cooperation of multiple components, mutating any one of these components massively compromises activity, and so mutating a second component has a relatively minor effect on the already inactivated enzyme. For example, removing any member of the catalytic triad of many enzymes will reduce activity to levels low enough that the organism is no longer viable.


title: Epistasis

text: Diploid organisms contain two copies of each gene. If these are different (heterozygous / heteroallelic), the two different copies of the allele may interact with each other to cause epistasis. This is sometimes called allelic complementation, or interallelic complementation. It may be caused by several mechanisms, for example transvection, where an enhancer from one allele acts in "trans" to activate transcription from the promoter of the second allele. Alternately, trans-splicing of two non-functional RNA molecules may produce a single, functional RNA.


title: Epistasis

text: Similarly, at the protein level, proteins that function as dimers may form a heterodimer composed of one protein from each alternate gene and may display different properties to the homodimer of one or both variants. Two bacteriophage T4 mutants defective at different locations in the same gene can undergo allelic complementation during a mixed infection. That is, each mutant alone upon infection cannot produce viable progeny, but upon mixed infection with two complementing mutants, viable phage are formed. Intragenic complementation was demonstrated for several genes that encode structural proteins of the bacteriophage indicating that such proteins function as dimers or even higher order multimers.


title: Epistasis

text: In evolutionary genetics, the sign of epistasis is usually more significant than the magnitude of epistasis. This is because magnitude epistasis (positive and negative) simply affects how beneficial mutations are together, however sign epistasis affects whether mutation combinations are beneficial or deleterious.


title: Epistasis

text: A fitness landscape is a representation of the fitness where all genotypes are arranged in 2D space and the fitness of each genotype is represented by height on a surface. It is frequently used as a visual metaphor for understanding evolution as the process of moving uphill from one genotype to the next, nearby, fitter genotype.


title: Epistasis

text: If all mutations are additive, they can be acquired in any order and still give a continuous uphill trajectory. The landscape is perfectly smooth, with only one peak (global maximum) and all sequences can evolve uphill to it by the accumulation of beneficial mutations "in any order". Conversely, if mutations interact with one another by epistasis, the fitness landscape becomes rugged as the effect of a mutation depends on the genetic background of other mutations. At its most extreme, interactions are so complex that the fitness is ‘uncorrelated’ with gene sequence and the topology of the landscape is random. This is referred to as a rugged fitness landscape and has profound implications for the evolutionary optimisation of organisms. If mutations are deleterious in one combination but beneficial in another, the fittest genotypes can only be accessed by accumulating mutations "in one specific order". This makes it more likely that organisms will get stuck at local maxima in the fitness landscape having acquired mutations in the 'wrong' order. For example, a variant of TEM1 β-lactamase with 5 mutations is able to cleave cefotaxime (a third generation antibiotic). However, of the 120 possible pathways to this 5-mutant variant, only 7% are accessible to evolution as the remainder passed through fitness valleys where the combination of mutations reduces activity. In contrast, changes in environment (and therefore the shape of the fitness landscape) have been shown to provide escape from local maxima. In this example, selection in changing antibiotic environments resulted in a "gateway mutation" which epistatically interacted in a positive manner with other mutations along an evolutionary pathway, effectively crossing a fitness valley. This gateway mutation alleviated the negative epistatic interactions of other individually beneficial mutations, allowing them to better function in concert. Complex environments or selections may therefore bypass local maxima found in models assuming simple positive selection.


title: Epistasis

text: High epistasis is usually considered a constraining factor on evolution, and improvements in a highly epistatic trait are considered to have lower evolvability. This is because, in any given genetic background, very few mutations will be beneficial, even though many mutations may need to occur to eventually improve the trait. The lack of a smooth landscape makes it harder for evolution to access fitness peaks. In highly rugged landscapes, fitness valleys block access to some genes, and even if ridges exist that allow access, these may be rare or prohibitively long. Moreover, adaptation can move proteins into more precarious or rugged regions of the fitness landscape. These shifting "fitness territories" may act to decelerate evolution and could represent tradeoffs for adaptive traits.


title: Epistasis

text: The frustration of adaptive evolution by rugged fitness landscapes was recognized as a potential force for the evolution of evolvability. Michael Conrad in 1972 was the first to propose a mechanism for the evolution of evolvability by noting that a mutation which smoothed the fitness landscape at other loci could facilitate the production of advantageous mutations and hitchhike along with them. Rupert Riedl in 1975 proposed that new genes which produced the same phenotypic effects with a single mutation as other loci with reciprocal sign epistasis would be a new means to attain a phenotype otherwise too unlikely to occur by mutation.


title: Epistasis

text: Rugged, epistatic fitness landscapes also affect the trajectories of evolution. When a mutation has a large number of epistatic effects, each accumulated mutation drastically changes the set of available beneficial mutations. Therefore, the evolutionary trajectory followed depends highly on which early mutations were accepted. Thus, repeats of evolution from the same starting point tend to diverge to different local maxima rather than converge on a single global maximum as they would in a smooth, additive landscape.


title: Epistasis

text: Negative epistasis and sex are thought to be intimately correlated. Experimentally, this idea has been tested in using digital simulations of asexual and sexual populations. Over time, sexual populations move towards more negative epistasis, or the lowering of fitness by two interacting alleles. It is thought that negative epistasis allows individuals carrying the interacting deleterious mutations to be removed from the populations efficiently. This removes those alleles from the population, resulting in an overall more fit population. This hypothesis was proposed by Alexey Kondrashov, and is sometimes known as the "deterministic mutation hypothesis"


title: Epistasis

text: However, the evidence for this hypothesis has not always been straightforward and the model proposed by Kondrashov has been criticized for assuming mutation parameters far from real world observations. In addition, in those tests which used artificial gene networks, negative epistasis is only found in more densely connected networks, whereas empirical evidence indicates that natural gene networks are sparsely connected, and theory shows that selection for robustness will favor more sparsely connected and minimally complex networks.


title: Epistasis

text: Quantitative genetics focuses on genetic variance due to genetic interactions. Any two locus interactions at a particular gene frequency can be decomposed into eight independent genetic effects using a weighted regression. In this regression, the observed two locus genetic effects are treated as dependent variables and the "pure" genetic effects are used as the independent variables. Because the regression is weighted, the partitioning among the variance components will change as a function of gene frequency. By analogy it is possible to expand this system to three or more loci, or to cytonuclear interactions


title: Epistasis

text: When assaying epistasis within a gene, site-directed mutagenesis can be used to generate the different genes, and their protein products can be assayed (e.g. for stability or catalytic activity). This is sometimes called a double mutant cycle and involves producing and assaying the wild type protein, the two single mutants and the double mutant. Epistasis is measured as the difference between the effects of the mutations together versus the sum of their individual effects. This can be expressed as a free energy of interaction.


title: Epistasis

text: The same methodology can be used to investigate the interactions between larger sets of mutations but all combinations have to be produced and assayed. For example, there are 120 different combinations of 5 mutations, some or all of which may show epistasis...


title: Epistasis

text: Numerous computational methods have been developed for the detection and characterization of epistasis. Many of these rely on machine learning to detect non-additive effects that might be missed by statistical approaches such as linear regression.


title: Epistasis

text: For example, multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) was designed specifically for nonparametric and model-free detection of combinations of genetic variants that are predictive of a phenotype such as disease status in human populations. Several of these approaches have been broadly reviewed in the literature. Even more recently, methods that utilize insights from theoretical computer science (the Hadamard transform and compressed sensing) or maximum-likelihood inference were shown to distinguish epistatic effects from overall non-linearity in genotype–phenotype map structure, while others used patient survival analysis to identify non-linearity.


title: Elongated labia

text: Elongated labia (also known as sinus pudoris or macronympha, and colloquially as khoikhoi apron or hottentot apron) is a feature of certain Khoikhoi and other African women who develop, whether naturally or though artificial stretching, relatively elongated labia minora, which may hang up to four inches outside the vulva when they are standing in an upright position.


title: Elongated labia

text: The "apron" designation was apparently gained from the tendency of early European descriptions to misidentify the pair of labia as a single, wide organ, which they called, in French, a "tablier", or "apron".


title: Elongated labia

text: The characteristics of this trait were known as early as the 1680s, the first European note on the subject being made by Anderson and Iverson, who visited the Cape of Good Hope in 1644, in relation to the "Hottentots" of that region, but became extensively documented in the late 18th and 19th century. The case of Sarah Baartman was significant. For many years, the identification of Baartman was questioned because she demonstrated this feature. Historically, elongated labia minora were said to be portrayed by a "Negro." So it is because of this trait that Baartman was considered to be part of the so-called "inferior race".


title: Elongated labia

text: When Captain James Cook reached Cape Town in 1771, towards the end of his first voyage, he acknowledged being "very desirous to determine the great question among natural historians, whether the women of this country have or have not that fleshy flap or apron which has been called the "sinus pudoris""; eventually a physician described treating patients with labia ranging from half an inch to three or four inches long.


title: Elongated labia

text: In Eastern Africa Monica Wilson recorded the custom through her fieldwork with the Nyakyusa people in the 1930s, and in Southern Africa Isaac Schapera worked with the Nama people, the largest group amongst the Khoikhoi, also discussed labia stretching in "The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa" (1930). According to Schapera, some females were observed to exhibit elongated labia minora which sometimes projected as much as 10 cm below the vulva when standing. There was debate among these early anthropologists as to whether and in what circumstances such instances of elongated labia should be considered a physiological feature or the result of artificial manipulation.


title: Elongated labia

text: Labia may be shaped by intentional labia stretching, a familial practice usually performed by an older aunt on girls beginning at the age of five. This practice formerly fell into the category of Type IV female genital mutilation, but in 2008 the World Health Organization reclassified the practice as a body modification procedure due to a perceived lack of harm and a reported positive perception of women's sexuality by those who practice it.


title: Rubus

text: Rubus is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae, with over 1,350 species.


title: Rubus

text: Raspberries, blackberries, and dewberries are common, widely distributed members of the genus. Most of these plants have woody stems with prickles like roses; spines, bristles, and gland-tipped hairs are also common in the genus. The "Rubus" fruit, sometimes called a bramble fruit, is an aggregate of drupelets. The term "cane fruit" or "cane berry" applies to any "Rubus" species or hybrid which is commonly grown with supports such as wires or canes, including raspberries, blackberries, and hybrids such as loganberry, boysenberry, marionberry and tayberry. The stems of such plants are also referred to as canes.


title: Rubus

text: "Rubus" species have a basic chromosome number of seven. Polyploidy from the diploid (14 chromosomes) to the tetradecaploid (98 chromosomes) is exhibited.


title: Rubus

text: "Rubus" is very complex, particularly within the blackberry/dewberry subgenus ("Rubus"), with polyploidy, hybridization, and facultative apomixis apparently all frequently occurring, making species classification of the great variation in the subgenus one of the grand challenges of systematic botany.


title: Rubus

text: Some treatments have recognized dozens of species each for what other, comparably qualified botanists have considered single, more variable species. On the other hand, species in the other "Rubus" subgenera (such as the raspberries) are generally distinct, or else involved in more routine one-or-a-few taxonomic debates, such as whether the European and American red raspberries are better treated as one species or two (in this case, the two-species view is followed here, with "R. idaeus" and "R. strigosus" both recognized; if these species are combined, then the older name "R. idaeus" has priority for the broader species).


title: Rubus

text: The classification presented below recognizes 13 subgenera within "Rubus", with the largest subgenus ("Rubus") in turn divided into 12 sections. Representative examples are presented, but many more species are not mentioned here. A comprehensive 2019 study found subgenera "Orobatus" and "Anoplobatus" to be monophyletic, while all other subgenera to be paraphyletic or polyphyletic.


title: Rubus

text: The genus has a likely North American origin, with fossils known from the Eocene-aged Florissant Formation of Colorado. "Rubus" expanded into Eurasia, South America, and Oceania during the Miocene. Fossil seeds from the early Miocene of "Rubus" have been found in the Czech part of the Zittau Basin. Many fossil fruits of †"Rubus laticostatus", †"Rubus microspermus" and †"Rubus semirotundatus" have been extracted from bore hole samples of the Middle Miocene fresh water deposits in Nowy Sacz Basin, West Carpathians, Poland.


title: Rubus

text: Molecular data have backed up classifications based on geography and chromosome number, but following morphological data, such as the structure of the leaves and stems, do not appear to produce a phylogenetic classification.


title: Rubus

text: The term "hybrid berry" is often used collectively for those fruits in the genus "Rubus" which have been developed mainly in the U.S. and U.K. in the last 130 years. As "Rubus" species readily interbreed and are apomicts (able to set seed without fertilisation), the parentage of these plants is often highly complex, but is generally agreed to include cultivars of blackberries ("R. ursinus", "R. fruticosus") and raspberries ("R. idaeus"). The British National Collection of "Rubus" stands at over 200 species and, although not within the scope of the National Collection, also hold many cultivars.


title: Rubus

text: The blackberries, as well as various other "Rubus" species with mounding or rambling growth habits, are often called brambles. However, this name is not used for those like the raspberry that grow as upright canes, or for trailing or prostrate species, such as most dewberries, or various low-growing boreal, arctic, or alpine species. The scientific study of brambles is known as "batology".


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The dissolution of Austria-Hungary was a major geopolitical event that occurred as a result of the growth of internal social contradictions and the separation of different parts of Austria-Hungary. The reason for the collapse of the state was World War I, the 1918 crop failure and the economic crisis. The 1917 October Revolution and the Wilsonian peace pronouncements from January 1918 onward encouraged socialism on the one hand, and nationalism on the other, or alternatively a combination of both tendencies, among all peoples of the Habsburg monarchy.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The remaining territories inhabited by divided peoples fell into the composition of existing or newly formed states. Legally, the collapse of the empire was formalized in the September 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye with Austria, which also acted as a peace treaty after the First World War, and in the June 1920 Treaty of Trianon with Hungary.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: By 1918, the economic situation had deteriorated. The government had failed badly on the homefront. Historian Alexander Watson reports:


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed with dramatic speed in the autumn of 1918. Leftist and pacifist political movements organized strikes in factories, and uprisings in the army had become commonplace. These leftist or left-liberal pro-Entente maverick parties opposed the monarchy as a form of government and considered themselves internationalist rather than patriotic. Eventually, the German defeat and the minor revolutions in Vienna and Budapest gave political power to the left/liberal political parties.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: As the war went on the ethnic unity declined; the Allies encouraged breakaway demands from minorities and the Empire faced disintegration. As it became apparent that the Allied powers would win World War I, nationalist movements, which had previously been calling for a greater degree of autonomy for various areas, started pressing for full independence. In the capital cities of Vienna and Budapest, the leftist and liberal movements and opposition parties strengthened and supported the separatism of ethnic minorities. The multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire started to disintegrate, leaving its army alone on the battlefields. The military breakdown of the Italian front marked the start of the rebellion for the numerous ethnicities who made up the multiethnic Empire, as they refused to keep on fighting for a cause that now appeared senseless. The Emperor had lost much of his power to rule, as his realm disintegrated.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: As one of his Fourteen Points, President Woodrow Wilson demanded that the nationalities of Austria–Hungary have the "freest opportunity to autonomous development". In response, Emperor Karl I agreed to reconvene the Imperial Parliament in 1917 and allow the creation of a confederation with each national group exercising self-governance. However, the leaders of these national groups rejected the idea; they deeply distrusted Vienna and were now determined to get independence.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: On 14 October 1918, Foreign Minister Baron István Burián von Rajecz asked for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points. In an apparent attempt to demonstrate good faith, Emperor Karl issued a proclamation ("Imperial Manifesto of 16 October 1918") two days later which would have significantly altered the structure of the Austrian half of the monarchy. The Polish majority regions of Lesser Poland and part of Galicia were to be granted the option of seceding from the empire to join the earlier established Polish proto-state, in order to reunite with their ethnic brethren in the Polish lands held by Russia and Germany, with the ultimate goal of resurrecting the sovereign Polish statehood. In fact, the Regency Council in Warsaw already adopted on 6 October Wilson's proposals as the basis for creating a Polish state. However, the imperial government attempted to curb the Polish ambitions by inciting the Polish-Ukrainian conflict through separating and retaining the remainder of Galicia and the entire Lodomeria, designated in the secret Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Ukraine–Central Powers) for the purpose of creating a Ukrainian polity, intended in the proclamation to constitute along the rest of Cisleithania a transformed federal union composed of four parts—German, Czech, South Slav and Ukrainian. Each of these was to be governed by a national council that would negotiate the future of the empire with Vienna. Trieste was to receive a special status. No such proclamation could be issued in Hungary, where Hungarian aristocrats still believed they could subdue other nationalities and maintain the "Holy Kingdom of St. Stephen".


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: It was a dead letter. Four days later, on 18 October, United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing replied that the Allies were now committed to the causes of the Czechs, Slovaks and South Slavs. Therefore, Lansing said, autonomy for the nationalities – the tenth of the Fourteen Points – was no longer enough and Washington could not deal on the basis of the Fourteen Points anymore. In fact, a Czechoslovak provisional government had joined the Allies on 14 October. The South Slavs in both halves of the monarchy had already declared in favor of uniting with Serbia in a large South Slav state by way of the 1917 Corfu Declaration signed by members of the Yugoslav Committee. Indeed, the Croatians had begun disregarding orders from Budapest earlier in October. The Lansing note was, in effect, the death certificate of Austria–Hungary.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The national councils had already begun acting more or less as provisional governments of independent countries. During the Italian battles, the Czechoslovaks and Southern Slavs declared their independence. With defeat in the war imminent after the Italian offensive in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto beginning on 24 October, Czech politicians peacefully took over command in Prague on 28 October (later declared the birthday of Czechoslovakia) and followed up in other major cities in the next few days. On 30 October, the Slovaks followed in Martin. On 29 October, the Slavs in both portions of what remained of Austria–Hungary proclaimed the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. They also declared that their ultimate intention was to unite with Serbia and Montenegro in a large South Slav state. On the same day, the Czechs and Slovaks formally proclaimed the establishment of Czechoslovakia as an independent state.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Alexander Watson argues that, "The Habsburg regime's doom was sealed when Wilson's response to the note, sent two and a half weeks earlier [by the foreign minister Baron István Burián von Rajecz on 14 October 1918 ], arrived on 20 October." Wilson rejected the continuation of the dual monarchy as a negotiable possibility.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: On 17 October 1918, the Hungarian Parliament voted in favour of terminating the union with Austria and declaring independence of the country. The most prominent opponent of continued union with Austria, Count Mihály Károlyi, seized power in the Aster Revolution on 31 October. Karl was all but forced to appoint Károlyi as his Hungarian prime minister. One of Károlyi's first acts was to repudiate the compromise agreement on 31 October, effectively terminating the personal union with Austria and thus officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and state.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: By the end of October, there was nothing left of the Habsburg realm but its majority-German Danubian and Alpine provinces, and Karl's authority was being challenged even there by the German-Austrian state council. Karl's last Austrian prime minister, Heinrich Lammasch, concluded that Karl was in an impossible situation, and persuaded Karl that the best course was to relinquish, at least temporarily, his right to exercise sovereign authority.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: On 11 November, Karl issued a carefully worded proclamation in which he recognized the Austrian people's right to determine the form of the state. He also renounced the right to participate in Austrian affairs of state. He also dismissed Lammasch and his government from office and released the officials in the Austrian half of the empire from their oath of loyalty to him. Two days later, he issued a similar proclamation for Hungary. However, he did not abdicate, remaining available in the event the people of either state should recall him. For all intents and purposes, this was the end of Habsburg rule.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Since my ascent to the throne, I have been constantly trying to lead my people out of the horrors of war, which I am not responsible for.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: I have not hesitated to restore constitutional life and have opened the way for peoples to develop their own state independently.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Still filled with unchangeable love for all My peoples, I do not want to oppose the free development of My Person as an obstacle.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: I recognize in advance the decision that German Austria will make regarding its future form of government.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The people took over the government through their representatives. I waive any share in state affairs.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: May the people of German Austria create and consolidate the reorganization in harmony and forgiveness. The happiness of my peoples has been the goal of my hottest wishes from the beginning.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Seit meiner Thronbesteigung war ich unablässig bemüht, Meine Volker aus den Schrecknissen des Krieges herauszuführen, an dessen Ausbruch ich keinerlei Schuld trage.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Ich habe nicht gezögert, das verfassungsmäßige Leben wieder herzustellen und haben den Völkern den Weg zu ihrer selbständigen staatlichen Entwicklung eröffnet.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Nach wie vor von unwandelbarer Liebe für alle Meine Völker erfüllt, will ich ihrer freien Entfaltung Meine Person nicht als Hindernis entgegenstellen.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Im voraus erkenne ich die Entscheidung an, die Deutschösterreich über seine künftige Staatsform trifft.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Das Volk hat durch seine Vertreter die Regierung übernommen. Ich verzichte auf jeden Anteil an den Staatsgeschäften.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Möge das Volk von Deutschösterreich in Eintracht und Versöhnlichkeit die Neuordnung schaffen und befestigen. Das Glück Meiner Völker war von Anbeginn das Ziel Meiner heißesten Wünsche.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Karl's refusal to abdicate was ultimately irrelevant. On the day after he announced his withdrawal from Austria's politics, the German-Austrian National Council proclaimed the Republic of German Austria. Károlyi followed suit on 16 November, proclaiming the Hungarian Democratic Republic.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (between the victors of World War I and Austria) and the Treaty of Trianon (between the victors and Hungary) regulated the new borders of Austria and Hungary, reducing them to small-sized and landlocked states. In regard to areas without a decisive national majority, the Entente powers ruled in many cases in favour of the newly-emancipated independent nation-states, enabling them to claim vast territories containing sizeable German- and Hungarian-speaking populations.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The decisions contained in the treaties had immense political and economic effects. The previously rapid economic growth of the imperial territories initially stalled because the new borders became major economic barriers. Many established industries and infrastructure elements were intended to satisfy the needs of an extensive realm. As a result, the emerging countries were often compelled to considerable sacrifices in order to transform their economies. A major political unease in the affected regions followed as a result of these economic difficulties, fueling in some cases extremist movements.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: As a result, the Republic of Austria lost roughly 60% of the old Austrian Empire's territory. It also had to drop its plans for union with Germany, as it was not allowed to unite with Germany without League approval.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The new Austrian state was, at least on paper, on shakier ground than Hungary. Unlike its former Hungarian partner, Austria had never been a nation in any real sense. While the Austrian state had existed in one form or another for 700 years, it was united only by loyalty to the Habsburgs. With the loss of 60% of the Austrian Empire's prewar territory, Vienna was now a lavish and oversized imperial capital lacking an empire to support it, thus being sarcastically referred to as the “national hydrocephalus”.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: However, after a brief period of upheaval and the Allies' refusal to consider a union with Germany, Austria established itself as a federal republic. Despite the temporary "Anschluss" with Nazi Germany, Austria never permanently unified with Germany.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: By comparison, Hungary had been a nation and a state for over 900 years. Hungary, however, was severely disrupted by the loss of 72% of its territory, 64% of its population and most of its natural resources. The Hungarian Democratic Republic was short-lived and was temporarily replaced by the communist Hungarian Soviet Republic. Romanian troops ousted Béla Kun and his communist government during the Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: In the summer of 1919, a Habsburg, Archduke Joseph August, became regent, but was forced to stand down after only two weeks when it became apparent the Allies would not recognise him. Finally, in March 1920, royal powers were entrusted to a regent, Miklós Horthy, who had been the last commanding admiral of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and had helped organize the counter-revolutionary forces. It was this government that signed the Treaty of Trianon under protest on 4 June 1920 at the Grand Trianon Palace in Versailles, France. The restored Kingdom of Hungary lost roughly 72% of the pre-war territory of the Kingdom of Hungary.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: Austria had passed the "Habsburg Law," which both dethroned the Habsburgs and banished all Habsburgs from Austrian territory. While Karl was banned from ever returning to Austria again, other Habsburgs could return if they gave up all claims to the defunct throne.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: In March and again in October 1921, ill-prepared attempts by Karl to regain the throne in Budapest collapsed. The initially wavering Horthy, after receiving threats of intervention from the Allied Powers and the Little Entente, refused his cooperation. Soon afterward, the Hungarian government nullified the Pragmatic Sanction, effectively dethroning the Habsburgs. Subsequently, the British took custody of Karl and removed him and his family to the Portuguese island of Madeira, where he died the following year.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The following states were formed, re-established or expanded at the dissolution of the former Austro–Hungarian monarchy:


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The Principality of Liechtenstein, which had formerly looked to Vienna for protection and whose ruling house held sizable real estate in Cisleithania, formed a customs and defense union with Switzerland, and adopted the Swiss currency instead of the Austrian. In April 1919, Vorarlberg – the westernmost province of Austria – voted by a large majority to join Switzerland; however, both the Swiss and the Allies disregarded this result.


title: Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

text: The following present-day countries and parts of countries were within the boundaries of Austria–Hungary when the empire was dissolved. Some other provinces of Europe had been part of the Habsburg monarchy at one time before 1867. Prominent examples are the regions of Lombardy and Veneto in Italy, Silesia in Poland, most of Belgium and Serbia, and parts of northern Switzerland and southwestern Germany.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The Louisville Cardinals men's basketball team is the men's college basketball program representing the University of Louisville (U of L) in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) of NCAA Division I. The Cardinals have officially won two NCAA championships in 1980 and 1986 (with the 2013 title being vacated); and have officially been to 8 Final Fours (with the 2012 and 2013 appearances being vacated) in 38 official NCAA tournament appearances while compiling 61 tournament wins.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Due to an FBI criminal investigation into illegal benefits and actions by college basketball coaches, financial advisers, and others, on September 27, 2017, head coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich were placed on administrative leave and were later fired. Two days later, assistant David Padgett, a former star player under Pitino at Louisville, was named as acting head coach. On February 20, 2018, the NCAA vacated the 2013 NCAA title. On March 18, 2022, it was announced that the University of Louisville signed Kenny Payne to a six-year contract as head coach.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Bernard "Peck" Hickman's 1944 team finished with a 16–3 record and started a string of 46 consecutive winning seasons, which was an NCAA record.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Hickman led Louisville to its first championship on a national level by winning the NAIB tournament in 1948. In 1956, led by All-American Charlie Tyra, the Cardinals won the NIT Championship. In 1956 his team was placed on two years probation, to include bans on postseason play, by the NCAA due to recruiting violations. In 1959, Louisville made its first NCAA Final Four appearance behind the play of All-American Don Goldstein.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The Cardinals never had a losing season in Hickman's 23 seasons as head coach. He coached 11 20-win teams, appeared in five NCAA tournaments, coached six NIT appearances and finished with a 443–183 overall record, a .708 winning percentage that ranks him in the top 45 all time.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: John Dromo was Hickman's assistant for 17 years and succeeded him at head coach in 1967. In four seasons as head coach, Dromo led the Cardinals to a 68–23 record (.747 winning percentage) and the 1967 Missouri Valley Conference title.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: A heart attack during the 1970–71 season forced Dromo to retire. His assistant, Howard Stacey, was named interim head coach for the final 20 games of the season.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Denny Crum was hired as head coach from his alma mater, UCLA, where he was the top assistant coach to John Wooden. It was under the guidance of Crum that Louisville became a college basketball power. In his first season, he guided the Cardinals to the NCAA Final Four, becoming the first coach ever to go to a Final Four in his first season as a head coach. Overall, Crum had six Final Fours with the Cardinals (1972, 1975, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1986). He is fifth all-time in Final Four appearances.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The Cardinals won the 1980 NCAA tournament championship by defeating UCLA 59–54. Six years later, Louisville would overcome Duke 72–69 for a second title. Crum is one of only 11 coaches to win two or more national championships. He was named National Coach of the Year in 1980, 1983 and 1986.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: He took the Cardinals to 23 NCAA tournaments, where they had an overall record of 43–21. While in the Metro Conference, the Cardinals won 12 regular season titles and 11 tournament championships. In its 19 years of naming a champion, the Metro had Louisville as first or second place 17 times. In 1993, Crum became the second fastest coach to reach 500 wins.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Crum was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1994. He retired in 2001 with a career record of 675–295 (.696 winning percentage) over 30 seasons. He was a member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame's inaugural class in 2006.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Rick Pitino was hired in 2001 after four years as head coach of the Boston Celtics, and previously as head coach of Louisville's in-state rival, Kentucky.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Pitino guided the Cardinals to the NCAA Tournament in 12 of 15 seasons, reaching the Elite Eight six times and the Final Four three times (2005, 2012, and 2013). His teams won six conference tournament championships and four regular season titles. The Cardinals won at least 20 games every season since Pitino's first season at Louisville. Through the 2015–16 season, Pitino amassed a record of 391–134 () during his time at Louisville.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Pitino was selected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013, and was under contract through the 2025–26 season.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The University of Louisville self-imposed a postseason ban for the 2015–16 season amid an ongoing NCAA investigation over an escort sex scandal involving recruits between 2010 and 2014. The ban included both the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: On June 15, 2017, the NCAA charged Rick Pitino for failure to monitor his basketball program which was involved in a sex-for-pay scandal. He was suspended for the first five games of the ACC season in 2017–18.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: On September 26, 2017, federal prosecutors in New York announced that the school was under investigation for an alleged "pay for play" scheme involving recruits at Louisville. The allegations state that an Adidas executive conspired to pay $100,000 to the family of a top-ranked national recruit to play at Louisville and to represent Adidas when he turned pro. The criminal complaint did not name Louisville specifically but appeared to involve the recruitment of Brian Bowen, a late, surprise commit to the school. On September 27, 2017, Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich were placed on administrative leave.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: On February 20, 2018, the NCAA ruled that Louisville must vacate its records from 2011 to 2015. This included 123 wins, the 2013 NCAA title, and a 2012 Final Four appearance.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: On March 27, 2018, Xavier head coach Chris Mack agreed to terms on a seven-year contract worth about $4 million annually to become the next head coach at Louisville. Louisville was the first ever school to hire away a head coach whose previous team was a 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Mack has had a notable start to his Louisville tenure, recruiting a top-5 2019 class that included a 5-star player, four 4-star players, and a three-star player. Picked to finish 11th in the 2018 preseason ACC poll, Mack led the Cardinals to a 20–14 season peaking at #15 in the AP polls and finishing in seventh place in the ACC standings with signature wins over #9 Michigan State, #12 North Carolina, and #11 Virginia Tech and tough losses to #5 Tennessee, Marquette, #22 Florida State, and #2 Duke.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: As of the end of the 2015–16 season, Louisville had an all-time 1778–892 record in 102 seasons of intercollegiate basketball ranking 10th in all-time victories and seventh in all-time winning percentage among NCAA Division I schools. From 1944 to 1990, Louisville had an NCAA-record 46 straight winning seasons, winning 20 or more games on 31 occasions during that period.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Louisville has made 42 NCAA Tournament appearances (5th all-time) and 15 NIT appearances. The Cardinals have reached the NCAA Tournament 32 of the last 40 years (12 of the last 15, 14 of the last 18 years, 20 of last 25). Since the NCAA began keeping Sweet Sixteen appearance records in 1975, Louisville's 21 Sweet Sixteens are 5th all-time behind North Carolina (26), Kentucky (25), Duke (24), and Kansas (22). The Cardinals have reached the Elite Eight on 14 occasions, including five of the past nine seasons. Louisville is sixth in tournament victories (75) with a 75–41 overall NCAA Tournament record, reaching the Final Four 10 times.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Louisville is the only school in the nation to have claimed the championship of three major national post-season tournaments including the 1948 NAIA championship, the 1956 NIT title and the 1980 1986 and 2013 NCAA championships. Simultaneously, Louisville is the only school in NCAA history to have a Men's Basketball National Championship vacated, along with 2 Final Four appearances.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The Cardinals have appeared in the NCAA tournament 39* (43) times. Their combined record is 61–44* (76–44).


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The Cardinals have appeared in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) 15 times. Their combined record is 16–15. They were the 1956 NIT Champions.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Since the 2014–15 season they have played in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Before that, they belonged to the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference from the 1925–26 to 1947–48 seasons, the Ohio Valley Conference for the 1948–49 season, the Missouri Valley Conference from 1964–65 to 1974–75, the Metro Conference from 1975–76 to 1994–95, Conference USA from 1995–96 to 2004–05, the Big East Conference from 2005–06 to 2012–13, and the American Athletic Conference in 2013–14.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: They played as an independent school from 1911–12 to 1924–25 and from 1949–50 to 1963–64 (29 total seasons).


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The Kentucky–Louisville rivalry has been ranked the 2nd best rivalry in college basketball by Bleacher Report and 3rd best rivalry in all of college sports by Basketball Hall of Fame contributor Dick Vitale. Kentucky and Louisville first played against each other in 1913 but stopped playing each other in the 1920s, playing only twelve times between 1913 and 1983. The rivalry was generally dormant with only occasional matchups until the teams met in the 1983 NCAA tournament. Since then, the two teams have met each year in late December or early January.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Much like the Iron Bowl, the Kentucky–Louisville rivalry is all the more intense because the two schools have consistently been among the nation's elite men's basketball teams for most of the last 50 years. Both schools are also two of the most victorious programs in NCAA men's basketball history; Kentucky is #1 on the list of all-time winningest programs in Division I Men's Basketball and Louisville #26 (#10 including vacated victories). Kentucky has eight national championships while Louisville has two (official)(3 including the vacated 2013 championship) national championships.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: While predominantly a football rivalry, the proximity and long-standing conference affiliation of Cincinnati and Louisville made this into a key rivalry, particularly in the days of the Metro and Big East conferences. This rivalry went on hiatus in 2014 when Louisville left the American Athletic Conference for the ACC.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Louisville basketball has honored five former players by retiring their numbers. Except as noted, these are the last players to wear these numbers for a Louisville men's squad:


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Louisville has three representatives in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame: Cardinal All-American and former Washington Bullets All-Star Wes Unseld, who was inducted in 1988, former coach Denny Crum, who was inducted in 1994, and coach Rick Pitino, who was inducted in 2013. Darrell Griffith, a national player of the year and consensus All-American at the University of Louisville, is part of the 2014 induction class for the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Twenty one Louisville players have earned 25 All American selections. 7 players received 8 consensus All-American selections.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The Cardinals have had 75 players taken in the NBA draft, the most recent being Ray Spalding, who was chosen in the 2018 NBA draft, and Donovan Mitchell, who was chosen in the 2017 NBA draft. 30 former Cardinal players are playing professional basketball, with six of those currently playing in the NBA.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Since the 2010–11 season the Cardinals have played their home games at the KFC Yum! Center located along the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Louisville. , Louisville has a 114–14 record () in 6 seasons in the KFC Yum! Center.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The facility has a seating capacity of 22,090 with 71 suites and 62 loge boxes. It is the third-largest in the nation (behind only Syracuse's Carrier Dome, Tennessee's Thompson Boling Arena, and Kentucky's Rupp Arena). Louisville ranked among the top 3 in attendance in the first three seasons at the KFC Yum! Center. The attendance record of 22,815 was set on March 9, 2013 against #24 Notre Dame.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The playing surface at the KFC Yum! Center is named Denny Crum Court in honor of Hall of Fame coach Denny Crum. The University of Louisville first renamed its home court after Crum in January 2007.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Since the opening of the KFC Yum Center, the University of Louisville has become the most valuable college basketball team in the nation. In 2012 the Cardinals were worth $36.1 million, up nearly 40% from two years earlier, before the Yum Center opened.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: From 1956 to the completion of the KFC Yum! Center in 2010, the Cardinals played their home games at Freedom Hall. Louisville had a 664–136 record in 54 seasons in Freedom Hall (.83 winning percentage). Freedom Hall has been the site of six NCAA Final Fours, four additional NCAA events and 10 conference tournaments. ESPN College Basketball magazine once named Freedom Hall as the nation's "Best Playing Floor."


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Louisville ranked among the top 10 nationally in average home attendance at Freedom Hall for 31 years, including the last 28 in the nation's top five (19,397 in 2009–10, third in the nation). In 2010, a new Freedom Hall attendance record was set when 20,135 fans witnessed the Cardinals defeat the #1 ranked Syracuse Orange in the final University of Louisville game in the arena.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Jefferson County Armory was the primary home of Louisville Cardinals basketball starting in 1945 when Bernard "Peck" Hickman was head coach until the 1957–58 season, when Freedom Hall became their primary home game site. The Cardinals played 10 of their home games in the Jefferson County Armory in 1956–57 and three games in Freedom Hall. Louisville played one game at the armory in 1958–59.In the 1960s the armory was renamed the Louisville Convention Center. The Cardinals played two games at the Convention Center in 1963–64 and three games in the Convention Center in 1964–65. The last game the Cardinals played there was November 30, 1972. Louisville was 153–23 all time at the Jefferson County Armory which is now named the Louisville Gardens.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: After playing home games at numerous venues in its early years, the Cardinals moved to the newly constructed Belknap Gymnasium in 1931. The gym housed 600 bleacher seats and the baskets were mounted directly to the wall. Louisville compiled a 56–35 (.615 winning percentage) before moving to the Jefferson County Armory. The gym was razed in 1993 to make way for Lutz Hall.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: Since 2007 the Cardinals have practiced at the $15.2 million, Planet Fitness-Kueber Center on campus. The Planet Fitness-Kueber Center houses the teams basketball offices, practice facilities, film room and training areas.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: The facility was named the Yum! Center, until December 2018 when local businessmen Rick and David Kueber donated $3 million to rename the facility.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: In 1956 the team was placed on probation for two years by the NCAA, including bans on postseason play, due to recruiting violations.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: A former Louisville player, and then Director of Basketball Operations, Andre McGee, arranged and paid for strippers and prostitutes to perform striptease dances and sexual acts for 17 prospective and former basketball players from 2010 to 2014. On October 3, 2015, the book publisher IBJ Custom Publishing released a book entitled "Breaking Cardinal Rules." Based on revelations provided by the local self-described escort, Katina Powell, the book detailed striptease dances and acts of prostitution that Powell and McGee arranged and organized in Minardi Hall over approximately a four-year period.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: During the investigation of the allegations, the university self-imposed a ban on the 2016 NCAA tournament. In June 2016, the NCAA announced that the university would lose four basketball scholarships over the course of four seasons, but there would be no further postseason ban. The NCAA suspended head coach Rick Pitino for five ACC games during the 2017–18 season. The NCAA also ordered the university to vacate all wins from 2011 to 2014 that include ineligible players. The vacated wins include a Final Four appearance in 2012 and an NCAA Tournament Championship in 2013. Luke Hancock's 2013 Final Four Most Valuable Player Award was reinstated by the NCAA because he was found to be innocent of any NCAA rule violations.


title: Louisville Cardinals men's basketball

text: As a result of a corruption scandal implicating various schools including Louisville, on September 27, 2017, Louisville placed head coach Rick Pitino on unpaid administrative leave and athletic director Tom Jurich on paid administrative leave. Rick Pitino and Tom Jurich would then be fired with cause by the University, David Padgett would be selected to replace Rick Pitino as the Interim Head Coach of the men's squad, and Vince Tyra would be selected as Interim Athletic Director.


title: Data acquisition

text: Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real-world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems, abbreviated by the acronyms "DAS," "DAQ," or "DAU," typically convert analog waveforms into digital values for processing. The components of data acquisition systems include:


title: Data acquisition

text: Data acquisition applications are usually controlled by software programs developed using various general purpose programming languages such as Assembly, BASIC, C, C++, C#, Fortran, Java, LabVIEW, Lisp, Pascal, etc. Stand-alone data acquisition systems are often called data loggers.


title: Data acquisition

text: There are also open-source software packages providing all the necessary tools to acquire data from different, typically specific, hardware equipment. These tools come from the scientific community where complex experiment requires fast, flexible, and adaptable software. Those packages are usually custom-fit but more general DAQ packages like the Maximum Integrated Data Acquisition System can be easily tailored and are used in several physics experiments.


title: Data acquisition

text: In 1963, IBM produced computers that specialized in data acquisition. These include the IBM 7700 Data Acquisition System, and its successor, the IBM 1800 Data Acquisition and Control System. These expensive specialized systems were surpassed in 1974 by general-purpose S-100 computers and data acquisition cards produced by Tecmar/Scientific Solutions Inc. In 1981 IBM introduced the IBM Personal Computer and Scientific Solutions introduced the first PC data acquisition products.


title: Data acquisition

text: Data acquisition begins with the physical phenomenon or physical property to be measured. Examples of this include temperature, vibration, light intensity, gas pressure, fluid flow, and force. Regardless of the type of physical property to be measured, the physical state that is to be measured must first be transformed into a unified form that can be sampled by a data acquisition system. The task of performing such transformations falls on devices called "sensors". A data acquisition system is a collection of software and hardware that allows one to measure or control the physical characteristics of something in the real world. A complete data acquisition system consists of DAQ hardware, sensors and actuators, signal conditioning hardware, and a computer running DAQ software. If timing is necessary (such as for event mode DAQ systems), a separate compensated distributed timing system is required.


title: Data acquisition

text: A sensor, which is a type of "transducer", is a device that converts a physical property into a corresponding electrical signal (e.g., strain gauge, thermistor). An acquisition system to measure different properties depends on the sensors that are suited to detect those properties. Signal conditioning may be necessary if the signal from the transducer is not suitable for the DAQ hardware being used. The signal may need to be filtered, shaped, or amplified in most cases. Various other examples of signal conditioning might be bridge completion, providing current or voltage excitation to the sensor, isolation, and linearization. For transmission purposes, single ended analog signals, which are more susceptible to noise can be converted to differential signals. Once digitized, the signal can be encoded to reduce and correct transmission errors.


title: Data acquisition

text: DAQ hardware is what usually interfaces between the signal and a PC. It could be in the form of modules that can be connected to the computer's ports (parallel, serial, USB, etc.) or cards connected to slots (S-100 bus, AppleBus, ISA, MCA, PCI, PCI-E, etc.) in a PC motherboard or in a modular crate (CAMAC, NIM, VME). Sometimes adapters are needed, in which case an external breakout box can be used.


title: Data acquisition

text: DAQ cards often contain multiple components (multiplexer, ADC, DAC, TTL-IO, high-speed timers, RAM). These are accessible via a bus by a microcontroller, which can run small programs. A controller is more flexible than a hard-wired logic, yet cheaper than a CPU so it is permissible to block it with simple polling loops. For example:


title: Data acquisition

text: Waiting for a trigger, starting the ADC, looking up the time, waiting for the ADC to finish, move value to RAM, switch multiplexer, get TTL input, let DAC proceed with voltage ramp.


title: Data acquisition

text: DAQ device drivers are needed for the DAQ hardware to work with a PC. The device driver performs low-level register writes and reads on the hardware while exposing API for developing user applications in a variety of programs.


title: Data acquisition

text: Specialized DAQ software may be delivered with the DAQ hardware. Software tools used for building large-scale data acquisition systems include EPICS. Other programming environments that are used to build DAQ applications include ladder logic, Visual C++, Visual Basic, LabVIEW, and MATLAB.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: John Francis McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith, (born 4 October 1944) is a Scottish politician, now the Lord Speaker having previously been Senior Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords from 1 September 2016 to 30 April 2021. He was previously a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010, first for Dumbarton and then from 2005 for West Dunbartonshire. He also served as Chairman of the House of Commons Treasury Committee.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: McFall went to a boys' school, St Patrick's Secondary School (since merged with Notre Dame High School to form Our Lady & St Patrick's High School), on Hawthornhill Road in Castlehill, Dumbarton, leaving without any qualifications at 15. His father was a school caretaker and his mother had a newsagents shop, which sparked his (later) interest in how to run businesses. He worked for the local Parks Department in Dumbarton and then in a factory.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: At the age of 24, he studied at Paisley College of Technology (now the University of the West of Scotland) receiving a BSc in Chemistry. In 1977, he wanted to widen his knowledge away from science and obtained a BA from the Open University in Education and Philosophy. He was a chemistry and maths teacher from 1974–1987 in Dumbarton, Kirkintilloch and Glasgow, becoming a deputy-head in Glasgow and Secretary of his Constituency Labour Party before he entered Parliament. Whilst a teacher he completed a part-time course over three years at the University of Strathclyde for an MBA. In 1994, he became a Visiting Professor at Strathclyde University Business School, and now is a member of the Strategic Advisory Board at the University of Glasgow Business School. He is a member of the GMB Union.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: He was first elected for the Dumbarton constituency, Scotland, at the 1987 general election, after the previous MP, Ian Campbell retired. His original majority was a little over 2,000. Dumbarton constituency was replaced with the new West Dunbartonshire constituency for the 2005 general election, which McFall won with a majority over 12,500.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: In 1995 he introduced a private member's bill, the Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill which, although unsuccessful, informed the Hunting Act 2004 outlawing the hunting of mammals by dogs in England and Wales.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: He was a whip and junior minister (for Education, Training and Employment, Health and Community Relations, then in 1999 for Economy and Education) at the Northern Ireland Office from 1998–99.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: In 2001 he was appointed Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, and reappointed for a second term in this position in 2005. The committee conducted inquiries into the banking crisis, producing evidence of the bonus culture, the lack of banking qualifications among many top bankers and poor oversight of the industry by the Financial Services Authority.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: On 29 January 2010, McFall announced his intention to stand down as an MP at the 2010 general election.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: On 17 June 2010, he was created a life peer as Baron McFall of Alcluith, of Dumbarton in the County of Dunbartonshire, and was introduced in the House of Lords on 6 July 2010.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: He is currently the Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Overseas Development (Apgood).


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: In July 2016, he was appointed as Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords with effect from 1 September 2016. He was known as Senior Deputy Speaker while holding the office.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: He is Chair of the Scotch Whisky and Spirits All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and of the Royal Navy APPG.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: He was Chairman of Strathleven Regeneration Company and of Clydebank re-built, two development companies based in his constituency.


title: John McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith

text: He gave his backing to Dumpster Kids, a not-for-profit organisation aimed at rescuing abandoned children, in January 2011.


title: Bothy

text: A bothy is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone to use free of charge. It was also a term for basic accommodation, usually for gardeners or other workers on an estate. Bothies are found in remote mountainous areas of Scotland, Northern England, Ulster and Wales. They are particularly common in the Scottish Highlands, but related buildings can be found around the world (for example, in the Nordic countries there are wilderness huts). A bothy was also a semi-legal drinking den in the Isle of Lewis. These, such as "Bothan Eòrapaidh", were used until recent years as gathering points for local men and were often situated in an old hut or caravan.


title: Bothy

text: Any such building is exempt from council tax and from legislation requiring registration for letting purposes.


title: Bothy

text: The etymology of the word "bothy" is uncertain. Suggestions include a relation to both "hut" as in Irish "bothán" and Scottish Gaelic "bothan" or "bothag"; a corruption of the Welsh term "bwthyn", also meaning small cottage; and a derivation from Norse "būð", cognate with English "booth" with a diminutive ending.


title: Bothy

text: Most bothies are ruined buildings which have been restored to a basic standard, providing a windproof and watertight shelter. They vary in size from little more than a large box up to two-storey cottages. They usually have designated sleeping areas, which commonly are either an upstairs room or a raised platform, thus allowing one to keep clear of cold air and draughts at floor height. No bedding, mattresses or blankets are provided. Public access to bothies is either on foot, by bicycle or boat. Most have a fireplace and are near a natural source of water. A spade may be provided to bury waste.


title: Bothy

text: There are thousands of examples to draw from. A typical Scottish bothy is the Salmon Fisherman's Bothy, Newtonhill, which is perched above the Burn of Elsick near its mouth at the North Sea. Another Scottish example from the peak of the salmon fishing in the 1890s is the fisherman's bothy at the mouth of the Burn of Muchalls. A further example is the Lairig Leacach Bothy in Lochaber, not far to the east of Fort William.


title: Bothy

text: Because they are freely available to all, the continued existence of bothies relies on users helping look after them.


title: Bothy

text: Over the years, the Mountain Bothies Association has developed a Bothy Code that sets out the main points users should respect:


title: Bothy

text: The Gardeners Chronicle of 1906 rather grandly defines a bothy as “the apartments in a garden allotted for the residence of under gardeners”. These came in variety of sizes. An advertisement from 1880 notes “two in bothy”. At the other end of the scale was “The Royal Bothy”at Frogmore (near Windsor castle) with accommodation for 24 gardeners, and of sufficient interest to be listed in Scientific American Building Monthly. A more recent summary mentions intermediate sized bothys housing three to six gardeners.


title: Bothy

text: Having local accommodation for gardening staff was not just a convenience but a necessity. The twelve gardeners in Baron Rothschild’s bothy in France not only worked the 6-till-6 day shift in 1880, but every day one of them was the “night guard” to look after the forty different fires. Another article notes that the gardeners had to be up every 4 hours at night to note the temperatures.


title: Bothy

text: Bothies are usually owned by the landowner of the estate on which they stand, although the actual owner is rarely involved in any way, other than by permitting their continued existence, and by helping with transport of materials. Many are maintained by volunteers from the Mountain Bothies Association (MBA), a charity that looks after 97 bothies in Scotland, the north of England, and Wales.


title: Bothy

text: The location of these bothies can be found on the Mountain Bothies Association (MBA) website, along with information on how people can help.


title: Gemini 8

text: Gemini 8 (officially Gemini VIII) was the sixth crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was launched on March 16, 1966, and was the 14th crewed American flight and the 22nd crewed spaceflight overall. The mission conducted the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit, but also suffered the first critical in-space system failure of a U.S. spacecraft which threatened the lives of the astronauts and required an immediate abort of the mission. The crew returned to Earth safely.


title: Gemini 8

text: Flown by pilot David Scott and command pilot Neil Armstrong, the flight marked the second time a U.S. civilian flew into space and the first time a U.S. civilian flew into orbit.


title: Gemini 8

text: Command pilot Neil Armstrong resigned his commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1960. His flight marked the second time a U.S. civilian flew into space (after Joe Walker on X-15 Flight 90), and the first time a U.S. civilian flew into orbit.


title: Gemini 8

text: Gemini VIII was planned to be a three-day mission. After being launched into an orbit, on the fourth revolution it was to rendezvous and dock with an Agena target vehicle, which had been earlier launched into a circular orbit. This was to be the first space docking in history. Four separate dockings were planned.


title: Gemini 8

text: During the first docking, Pilot David Scott planned to perform an ambitious, two-hour-and-10-minute extra-vehicular activity (EVA), which would have been the first since Ed White's June 1965 spacewalk on Gemini IV. On a tether for one and a half revolutions around the Earth, Scott would have retrieved a nuclear emulsion radiation experiment from the front of the Gemini's spacecraft adapter, then activate a micrometeoroid experiment on the Agena. Then he was to move back to the Gemini and test a minimum-reaction power tool by loosening and tightening bolts on a work panel.


title: Gemini 8

text: During the EVA, after Armstrong undocked from the Agena, Scott was to don and test an Extravehicular Support Pack (ESP) stored at the back of the spacecraft adapter. This was a backpack with a self-contained oxygen supply, extra Freon propellant for his Hand Held Maneuvering Unit, and a extension to his tether. He would practice several maneuvers in formation with the Gemini and Agena vehicles (separated at distances up to , in concert with Armstrong in the Gemini.


title: Gemini 8

text: The flight also carried an additional three scientific, four technological, and one medical experiment.


title: Gemini 8

text: Five months earlier, NASA had launched an Agena Target Vehicle for Gemini 6, but the Atlas-Agena launch failed when the Agena's engine exploded during orbital injection and the mission had to be rescheduled. The next attempt succeeded. Everything worked perfectly; the Agena put itself into a circular orbit and oriented itself to the correct attitude for the docking.


title: Gemini 8

text: The Gemini spacecraft was launched into an orbit by a modified Titan II on March 16, 1966 (coincidentally the 40th anniversary of the launch of the world's first liquid-fuelled rocket by Dr. Robert H. Goddard), at 10:41:02 a.m. EST. Gemini 8's launch was nominal and no significant anomalies occurred with either the Titan II or the spacecraft.


title: Gemini 8

text: Their first course adjustment was made at one hour and 34 minutes into the mission, when the astronauts lowered their apogee slightly with a five-second Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering System (OAMS) thruster burn. The second adjustment was made near apogee of the second orbit, and raised both the apogee and perigee by adding to their speed. The third adjustment was made over the Pacific Ocean, a southward orbital plane change, made with a sideways thruster burn. When they were over Mexico, Jim Lovell, the Houston capsule communicator, told them they needed one last correction, a speed addition.


title: Gemini 8

text: The rendezvous radar acquired the Agena Target Vehicle at a distance of . At 3 hours, 48 minutes and 10 seconds into the mission they performed another burn that put them in a circular orbit below the Agena. They first sighted it when they were away, and at they gave the computer automatic control.


title: Gemini 8

text: After several small burns they were away and with no relative velocity. After 30 minutes of visually inspecting the Agena to make sure that it had not been damaged by the launch, they were given the go for docking. Armstrong started to move towards the Agena at 3.15 inches (8 centimeters) per second. In a matter of minutes, the Agena's docking latches clicked and a green light indicated that the docking had been successfully completed. "Flight, we are docked! Yes, it's really a smoothie," Scott radioed to the ground.


title: Gemini 8

text: There was some suspicion on the ground that the Agena's attitude control system was malfunctioning and might not have the correct program stored in it. This suspicion was found to be incorrect. Shortly before radio blackout, Mission Control cautioned the astronauts to immediately abort the docking if any abnormalities occurred with the Agena.


title: Gemini 8

text: After the Agena began execution of its stored command program, which instructed the Agena to turn the combined spacecraft 90° to the right, Scott noticed that they were rolling. Armstrong used the Gemini's OAMS thrusters to stop the roll, but after it stopped, it immediately started again. Gemini 8 was out of range of ground communications at this time.


title: Gemini 8

text: Armstrong reported that the OAMS fuel had dropped to 30%, indicating that the problem could be on their own spacecraft. With concern that the high rate of rotation might damage one or both spacecraft or even cause the propellant-heavy Agena to rupture or explode, the crew decided to undock from the Agena so they could analyze the situation. Scott switched the Agena control back to ground command, while Armstrong struggled to stabilize the combined vehicle enough to permit undocking. Scott then hit the undock button, and Armstrong fired a long burst of translation thrusters to back away from the Agena. Without the added mass of the Agena, Gemini started rotating more rapidly. The astronauts realized that the problem was on the Gemini. By now the tumble rate had reached 296 degrees per second and Armstrong decided to shut down the OAMS and use the Reentry Control System (RCS) thrusters, located on the Gemini's nose, to stop the tumble. From start to finish the incident lasted nearly 30 minutes.


title: Gemini 8

text: NASA turned off the squawk box at Armstrong's home, alarming his wife. Scott later praised Armstrong's actions as their spacecraft spun: "The guy was brilliant. He knew the system so well. He found the solution, he activated the solution, under extreme circumstances ... it was my lucky day to be flying with him." The spacecraft came in range of the ground communications ship "Coastal Sentry Quebec". After steadying the spacecraft, the crew tested each OAMS thruster in turn and found that Number 8 had stuck on. Almost 75% of the reentry maneuvering fuel had been used to stop the tumble, and mission rules dictated that the flight be aborted once the Reentry Control System was fired for any reason. Gemini 8 immediately prepared for an emergency landing.


title: Gemini 8

text: It was decided to let the spacecraft reenter one orbit later so that it could land in a place that could be reached by secondary recovery forces. The original plan was for Gemini 8 to land in the Atlantic, but that was supposed to be three days later. started to steam towards the new landing site east of Okinawa and south of Yokosuka, Japan.


title: Gemini 8

text: Planes were also dispatched, and U.S. Air Force pilot Les Schneider spotted the spacecraft as it descended precisely on time and on target. Three pararescuers jumped from their C-54 and attached a flotation collar to the capsule.


title: Gemini 8

text: All of the pararescuers and astronauts suffered from seasickness. Three hours after splashdown, "Leonard F. Mason", had both men and the spacecraft on board. The astronauts were exhausted, but had otherwise survived the flight and their time on the water in good condition. They were briefly checked and slept for nine hours.


title: Gemini 8

text: The next morning, the ship docked at the port of Naha. Fellow astronaut Walter Schirra and other NASA officials flew in to greet them before the astronauts were summoned back to the ship for medical tests and debriefing. After release, they were brought by limousine to waiting helicopters where they flew to Kadena Air Base and then on to Florida on a C-135.


title: Gemini 8

text: Upon the return, the spacecraft was covered with a tarp. As part of the investigation into the mishap, ground controllers tested the Agena stage for the next several days by ordering it to perform various in-orbit maneuvers until exhausting its propellant and electrical power.


title: Gemini 8

text: Four months later, the crew of Gemini 10 rendezvoused with the inert Agena and astronaut Michael Collins retrieved its micrometeorite collector.


title: Gemini 8

text: No conclusive reason for the thruster malfunction was found. The most probable cause was determined to be an electrical short, most likely due to a static electricity discharge. Power still flowed to the thruster, even when it was switched off. To prevent recurrence of this problem, spacecraft designs were changed so each thruster would have an isolated circuit.


title: Gemini 8

text: The Deputy Administrator of NASA, Dr. Robert Seamans, was attending a celebratory dinner sponsored by the Goddard Space Flight Center, at which Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the guest speaker, when the problem arose. The incident inspired Seamans to review NASA's problem investigation procedures, modeled after military crash investigations, and on April 14, 1966, to formalize a new procedure in "Management Instruction 8621.1, Mission Failure Investigation Policy And Procedures". This gave the Deputy Administrator the option of performing independent investigations of major failures, beyond those failure investigations for which the various Program Office officials were normally responsible. It declared: "It is NASA policy to investigate and document the causes of all major mission failures which occur in the conduct of its space and aeronautical activities and to take appropriate corrective actions as a result of the findings and recommendations." Seamans first invoked this new procedure immediately following the fatal Apollo 1 spacecraft fire on January 27, 1967. It was also invoked after the next critical in-flight failure, which occurred on the Apollo 13 lunar mission in April 1970.


title: Gemini 8

text: McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, the Gemini spacecraft prime contractor, also changed its procedures. Prior to the accident, McDonnell's top engineers would be at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station for the launch, then fly to Mission Control in Houston, Texas for the rest of the mission. The problem occurred while they were en route, so it was decided to keep McDonnell engineers in Houston for the entire mission.


title: Gemini 8

text: The flight patch for the mission shows the whole spectrum of objectives that were hoped to have been accomplished on Gemini 8. The text at the bottom is composed of the zodiacal symbol for Gemini, , and the Roman numeral for eight, VIII. The two stars are Castor and Pollux, which are in the constellation of Gemini, and are refracted through a prism to provide the spectrum. Armstrong and Scott both designed the flight patch.


title: Gemini 8

text: The Gemini 8 mission was dramatized in episode 1 "Can We Do This?", of the 1998 HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon", and in the 2018 Armstrong biopic, "First Man". The story of the mission is told from the point of view of a fictional mission controller in "For All Mankind" (Season 2, Episode 8).


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: In the first Gulf of Sidra incident, 19 August 1981, two Libyan Su-22 Fitters fired upon two U.S. F-14 Tomcats and were subsequently shot down off the Libyan coast. Libya had claimed that the entire Gulf was their territory, at 32° 30′ N, with an exclusive fishing zone, which Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi asserted as "The Line of Death" in 1973. Two further incidents occurred in the area in 1986 and in 1989.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: In 1973, Libya claimed the Gulf of Sidra as a closed bay and part of its territorial waters. This prompted the United States to conduct Freedom of Navigation (FON) operations in the area since the claim did not meet the criteria established by international law. Libya often confronted U.S. forces in and near the gulf, and on two occasions its fighter jets opened fire on U.S. reconnaissance flights off the Libyan coast; once in early 1973 and again in late 1980. FON operations intensified when Ronald Reagan became president.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: In August 1981, Reagan authorized a large naval force led by a pair of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, and , to deploy to the disputed area. The two carriers had embarked a total of four interceptor squadrons: VF-74 "Be-Devilers" and VMFA-115 "Silver Eagles", flying F-4 Phantoms from "Forrestal", and the VF-41 "Black Aces" and VF-84 "Jolly Rogers", flying F-14 Tomcats from "Nimitz". The Libyan Air Force responded by deploying a high number of interceptors and fighter-bombers.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: Early in the morning of 18 August, when the U.S. exercise began, at least three MiG-25 'Foxbats' approached the U.S. carrier groups, and were escorted away by American interceptors. The Libyans tried to establish the exact location of the U.S. naval force. Thirty-five pairs of MiG-23 'Floggers', MiG-25s, Sukhoi Su-20 'Fitter-Cs', Su-22M 'Fitter-Js' and Mirage F1s flew into the area, and were soon intercepted by seven pairs of F-14s and F-4s. U.S. Naval Intelligence later assessed that a MiG-25 may have fired a missile from away at U.S. fighter aircraft that day.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: On the morning of 19 August, after having diverted a number of Libyan "mock" attacks on the battle group the previous day, two F-14s from VF-41 "Black Aces", "Fast Eagle 102" (CDR Henry 'Hank' Kleemann/LT David 'DJ' Venlet) (flying BuNo "160403") and "Fast Eagle 107" (LT Lawrence 'Music' Muczynski/LTJG James 'Luca' Anderson) (in BuNo "160390"), were flying a combat air patrol (CAP), ostensibly to cover aircraft engaged in a missile exercise. However, U.S. Navy Commander Thompson S. Sanders wrote in "Air & Space/Smithsonian" that his S-3A Viking's mission was the real precursor to this incident. Sanders was ordered to fly his Viking in a "racetrack" orbit (oval pattern) inside Gaddafi's claimed zone but outside the internationally recognized territorial water limit to try to provoke the Libyans to react. An E-2C Hawkeye alerted Sanders that two Sukhoi Su-22 fighters had taken off from Ghurdabiyah Air Base near the city of Sirte.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: The Hawkeye directed the F-14s to intercept. Sanders dove to an altitude of and flew north to evade the Libyan aircraft, an experience Sanders found stressful because the S-3A was not equipped with a threat warning receiver, nor with any countermeasures, a deficiency later remedied on the S-3B.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: The two F-14s set up for an intercept as the contacts headed north towards them. Only a few seconds before the crossing, at an estimated distance of 300 m, one of the Libyans fired an AA-2 "Atoll" at one of the F-14s, but missed.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: The two Su-22s split as they flew past the Americans, the leader turning to the northwest and the wingman turning southeast in the direction of the Libyan coast. The Tomcats evaded the missile and were cleared to return fire by their rules of engagement, which mandated self-defense on the initiation of hostile action. The Tomcats turned hard port and came behind the Libyan jets. The Americans fired AIM-9L Sidewinders; the first kill is credited to "Fast Eagle 102", the second to "Fast Eagle 107". Both Libyan pilots ejected.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: Prior to the ejections, a U.S. electronic surveillance plane monitoring the event recorded the lead Libyan pilot reporting to his ground controller that he had fired a missile at one of the U.S. fighters and gave no indication that the missile shot was unintended. The official U.S. Navy report states that both Libyan pilots ejected and were safely recovered, but in the official audio recording of the incident taken from , one of the F-14 pilots states that he saw a Libyan pilot eject, but his parachute failed to open.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: Less than an hour later, while the Libyans were conducting a search-and-rescue operation for their downed pilots, two MiG-25s entered the airspace over the Gulf. They headed towards the U.S. carriers at Mach 1.5 and conducted a mock attack in the direction of USS "Nimitz". Two VF-41 Tomcats headed towards the Libyans, which then turned around. The Tomcats turned home, but had to turn around again when the Libyans headed towards the U.S. carriers once more. After being tracked by the F-14s' radars, the MiGs finally headed home. One more Libyan formation ventured out into the Gulf towards the U.S. forces later that day.


title: Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

text: Fast Eagle 102 (BuNo "160403") is now on display at the Commemorative Air Force Museum in Midland, Texas. The restored F-14 was unveiled in a ceremony in August 2016. Vice Admiral Dave Venlet cut the first tape. Fast Eagle 107 (BuNo "160390") was destroyed in an accident on 25 October 1994.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: Icelandic Christmas folklore depicts mountain-dwelling characters and monsters who come to town during Christmas. The stories are directed at children and are used to scare them into good behavior. The folklore includes both mischievous pranksters who leave gifts during the night and monsters who eat disobedient children.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: These Christmas-related folktales first appeared around the 17th century and displayed some variation based on region and age. In modern times these characters have taken on slightly more benevolent roles.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: The first mention of the Yule Lads can be found in the 17th-century "Poem of Grýla". Grýla had appeared in older tales as a troll but had not been linked to Christmas before. She is described as a hideous being who is the mother of the gigantic Yule Lads, a menace to children.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: Early on, the number and depiction of the Yule Lads varied greatly depending on location. They were used to frighten children into good behaviour, similar to the bogeyman. The King of Denmark objected to their use as a disciplinary tool.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: In the late 18th century, a poem mentions 13 of them. In the mid-19th century, author Jón Árnason drew inspiration from the Brothers Grimm and began collecting folktales. His 1862 collection is the first mention of the names of the Yule Lads.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: In 1932, the poem "Yule Lads" was published as a part of the popular poetry book "Christmas is Coming (Jólin koma)" by Icelandic poet Jóhannes úr Kötlum. The poem was popular and established what is now considered the canonical 13 Yule Lads, their names, and their personalities.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: Grýla is a giantess, first mentioned in 13th-century texts such as "Íslendinga saga" and "Sverris saga", but not explicitly connected with Christmas until the 17th century. She is enormous and her appearance is repulsive.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: The oldest poems about Grýla describe her as a parasitic beggar. She walks around asking parents to give her their disobedient children. Her plans can be thwarted by giving her food or chasing her away. Originally, she lived in a small cottage, but in later poems, she appears to have been forced out of town and into a remote cave.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: Current-day Grýla can detect children who are misbehaving year-round. She comes from the mountains during Christmas time to search nearby towns for her meal. She leaves her cave, hunts children, and carries them home in her giant sack. She devours children as her favourite snack. Her favorite dish is a stew of naughty kids, for which she has an insatiable appetite. According to legend, there is never a shortage of food for Grýla.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: According to folklore, Grýla has been married three times. Her third husband Leppalúði is said to be living with her in their cave in the Dimmuborgir lava fields, with the big black Yule Cat and their sons. Leppalúði is lazy and mostly stays at home in their cave. Grýla supposedly has dozens of children with her previous husbands, but they are rarely mentioned nowadays.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: The Yule Cat, known as Jólakötturinn, a huge and vicious cat who is described as lurking about the snowy countryside during Christmas time and eating people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve. He is the house pet of Grýla and her sons.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: Though referred to as an ancient tradition, written accounts of the Yule Cat have only been located as recently as the 19th century. The threat of being eaten by the Yule Cat was used by farmers as an incentive for their workers to finish processing the autumn wool before Christmas. The ones who took part in the work would be rewarded with new clothes, but those who did not would get nothing and thus be preyed upon by the monstrous cat. The cat has alternatively been described as merely eating away the food of ones without new clothes during Christmas feasts. The perception of the Yule Cat as a man-eating beast was partly popularized by poems of Jóhannes úr Kötlum as with the rest of the folklore.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: The Yule Lads (sometimes named Yuletide-lads or Yulemen) are the sons of Grýla and Leppalúði. They are a group of 13 mischievous pranksters who steal from or otherwise harass the population. All have descriptive names that generally convey their favourite way of causing mischief. They arrive one by one over the final 13 nights leading up to Christmas (Yule). They leave small gifts in shoes that children place on window sills, but if the child has been disobedient, they leave a rotten potato in the shoe instead.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: In modern times the Yule Lads have also been depicted in a more benevolent role comparable to Santa Claus and other related figures. They are generally portrayed wearing late-medieval Icelandic clothing, but are sometimes shown in the costume traditionally worn by Santa Claus, especially at children's events.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: The Yule Lads arrive over the course of the last 13 nights before Christmas, beginning on 12 December. One then departs each day, beginning on Christmas Day, in the order that they arrived; thus each of them stays for 13 days. Below are the canonical 13 Yule Lads in the order they arrive (and depart):


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: Before these 13 Yule Lads became the most popular, their description varied between locations. Some were said to be sons of Grýla; others were her brothers. Some stories only describe nine Yule Lads, but every one of them had their own characteristic prank.


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: Most of the different Yule Lads can be classified into groups: those who steal food, those who like to play tricks or harass, and those who seem to be a delusion from nature (for example, Gully Gawk, who just hides in gullies).


title: Icelandic Christmas folklore

text: In the east of Iceland, there existed a folk tale of a specific group of Yule Lads. They did not come from the mountains but the ocean. One very obscure nursery rhyme mentions two female Yule pranksters who steal melted fat by either stuffing it up their noses or putting it in socks.


title: Sacrifice (Elton John song)

text: "Sacrifice" is a song by English musician Elton John, written by John and Bernie Taupin, from John's 22nd studio album, "Sleeping with the Past" (1989). It was first released in October 1989 as the second single from the album. It achieved success in 1990, particularly in France and the United Kingdom, becoming John's first solo chart-topper in both nations. The song describes how hard it is to stay faithful and devoted in a marriage, challenging the mantra that a successful union requires sacrifice. Due to the song's success, John has played this song in various locations in the years since it was released.


title: Sacrifice (Elton John song)

text: "Sacrifice" was initially released as a single in 1989 but stalled at number 55 in the UK and at number 18 in the US in March 1990. In mid-1990, English DJ Steve Wright began playing the song on BBC Radio 1, soon followed by many more radio DJs. The song was then re-released as a double A-side single, along with "Healing Hands", and reached number one in the UK in June 1990. Thus, it became John's first solo number-one single in the UK Singles Chart, remaining on the top spot for five weeks. With this re-release, Elton John also got his first number one in France and stayed on the chart for 26 weeks.


title: Sacrifice (Elton John song)

text: The accompanying music video for "Sacrifice" was directed by Alek Keshishian and starred supermodel Yasmeen Ghauri and singer-songwriter Chris Isaak. The video, which follows the song's lyrics, portrays a man and woman having problems in their relationship after being married and raising a daughter. After they go their separate ways, the man raises his daughter alone.


title: Double consciousness

text: Double consciousness is the internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society. The term and the idea were first published in W. E. B. Du Bois's autoethnographic work, "The Souls of Black Folk" in 1903, in which he described the African American experience of double consciousness, including his own.


title: Double consciousness

text: Originally, double consciousness was specifically the psychological challenge African Americans experienced of "always looking at one's self through the eyes" of a racist white society and "measuring oneself by the means of a nation that looked back in contempt". The term also referred to Du Bois's experiences of reconciling his African heritage with an upbringing in a European-dominated society.


title: Double consciousness

text: The idea of double consciousness is important because it illuminates the experiences of black people living in post-slavery America, and also because it sets a framework for understanding the position of oppressed people in an oppressive world. As a result, it became used to explain the dynamics of gender, colonialism, xenophobia and more alongside race. This theory laid a strong foundation for other critical theorists to expand upon.


title: Double consciousness

text: Du Bois first used the term in an article titled "Strivings of the Negro People", published in the August 1897 issue of the "Atlantic Monthly". It was later republished and slightly edited under the title "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" in his book, "The Souls of Black Folk". Du Bois describes double consciousness as follows:


title: Double consciousness

text: Paul Gilroy applied theories of culture and race to the study and construction of African American intellectual history. He is known especially for marking a turning point in the study of the African diasporas. His book "The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness" (1993) introduces the "Black Atlantic" as a source for cultural construction. Gilroy pioneers a shift in contemporary black studies by arguing for a rejection of the notion of a homogeneous nation-state based nationality in favor of analyzing "the Atlantic as one single, complex unit of analysis in their discussions of the modern world and use it to produce an explicitly transnational and intercultural perspective". He based this on the Atlantic slave trade and marked it as the foundation for the diaspora. He recognized the significance of European and African transnational travel as a foundation for double consciousness. Gilroy used Du Bois's theory of double consciousness to suggest there exists an internal struggle to reconcile being both European and Black, which was his main focus in his book. He even characterized the Black Atlantic by the influence of slave trade "routes" on black identity. He aimed to unify black culture with the connection to the homeland as well as the cultural exchanges that occurred afterward. Gilroy's work became popular with the Black diaspora in Europe, and his theories became the foundation for several black power movements throughout the continent.


title: Double consciousness

text: Gilroy argues that occupying the space between these two dialectal subjectivities is "viewed as a provocative and even oppositional act of political insubordination". This means that for black people across diaspora, thinking of the duality in their identity as one is almost paradoxical and conceptualizing and actualizing this is a move of symbolic resistance in modernity.


title: Double consciousness

text: Very similarly to Du Bois, Frantz Fanon touched upon the term of double consciousness in his life. In his first book, "Black Skin, White Masks", where he expressed his hopelessness at being neither white nor black. Fanon identifies the double consciousness that African Americans face and its source; he claimed the cultural and social confusions of African Americans were caused by European culture. He gave examples of things that he has encountered that demonstrate the double consciousness. He talks about people who preach about completely conforming to being white and says that they are wrong. He also says that the people who believe that complete rejection of whites are also wrong.


title: Double consciousness

text: He then proceeds to talk about why black people adopt cultures that are so strange to him. He talks about how when a Black Caribbean leaves for Europe, they come back speaking a language different from their own. He also talks about how Africans, mostly the wealthiest, tend to have insecurities of not being European enough because they are African. This manifests in buying European furniture and buying European clothes.