title: Consonance and dissonance

text: The strongest homophonic (harmonic) cadence, the authentic cadence, dominant to tonic (D-T, V-I or V-I), is in part created by the dissonant tritone created by the seventh, also dissonant, in the dominant seventh chord, which precedes the tonic.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Musical instruments like bells and xylophones, called Idiophones, are played such that their relatively stiff, non-trivial mass is excited to vibration by means of a blow. This contrasts with violins, flutes, or drums, where the vibrating medium is a light, supple string, column of air, or membrane. The overtones of the inharmonic series produced by such instruments may differ greatly from that of the rest of the orchestra, and the consonance or dissonance of the harmonic intervals as well.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Dissonance has been understood and heard differently in different musical traditions, cultures, styles, and time periods. Relaxation and tension have been used as analogy since the time of Aristotle till the present.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: The terms dissonance and consonance are often considered equivalent to tension and relaxation. A cadence is (among other things) a place where tension is resolved; hence the long tradition of thinking of a musical phrase as consisting of a cadence and a passage of gradually accumulating tension leading up to it.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Various psychological principles constructed through the audience's general conception of tonal fluidity determine how a listener will distinguish an instance of dissonance within a musical composition. Based on one's developed conception of the general tonal fusion within the piece, an unexpected tone played sightly variant to the overall schema will generate a psychological need for resolve. When the consonant is followed thereafter, the listener will encounter a sense of resolution. Within Western music, these particular instances and psychological effects within a composition have come to possess an ornate connotation.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: The application of consonance and dissonance "is sometimes regarded as a property of isolated sonorities that is independent of what precedes or follows them. In most Western music, however, dissonances are held to "resolve" onto following consonances, and the principle of resolution is tacitly considered integral to consonance and dissonance".


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: In Ancient Greece, "armonia" denoted the production of a unified complex, particularly one expressible in numerical ratios. Applied to music, the concept concerned how sounds in a scale or a melody fit together (in this sense, it could also concern the tuning of a scale). The term "symphonos" was used by Aristoxenus and others to describe the intervals of the fourth, the fifth, the octave and their doublings; other intervals were said "diaphonos". This terminology probably referred to the Pythagorean tuning, where fourths, fifths and octaves (ratios 4:3, 3:2 and 2:1) were directly tunable, while the other scale degrees (other 3-prime ratios) could only be tuned by combinations of the preceding. Until the advent of polyphony and even later, this remained the basis of the concept of consonance versus dissonance ("symphonia" versus "diaphonia") in Western music theory.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: In the early Middle Ages, the Latin term translated either "armonia" or "symphonia". Boethius (6th century) characterizes consonance by its sweetness, dissonance by its harshness: "Consonance () is the blending () of a high sound with a low one, sweetly and uniformly () arriving to the ears. Dissonance is the harsh and unhappy percussion () of two sounds mixed together ()". It remains unclear, however, whether this could refer to simultaneous sounds. The case becomes clear, however, with Hucbald of Saint Amand ("c." 900), who writes: "Consonance () is the measured and concordant blending () of two sounds, which will come about only when two simultaneous sounds from different sources combine into a single musical whole () ... There are six of these consonances, three simple and three composite, ... octave, fifth, fourth, and octave-plus-fifth, octave-plus-fourth and double octave".


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: One example of imperfect consonances previously considered dissonances in Guillaume de Machaut's "Je ne cuit pas qu'onques":


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: It is worth noting that "perfect" and "imperfect" and the notion of being () must be taken in their contemporaneous Latin meanings ("perfectum" , "imperfectum" ) to understand these terms, such that imperfect is "unfinished" or "incomplete" and thus an imperfect dissonance is "not quite manifestly dissonant" and perfect consonance is "done almost to the point of excess". Also, inversion of intervals (major second in some sense equivalent to minor seventh) and octave reduction (minor ninth in some sense equivalent to minor second) were yet unknown during the Middle Ages.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Due to the different tuning systems compared to modern times, the minor seventh and major ninth were "harmonic consonances", meaning that they correctly reproduced the interval ratios of the harmonic series which softened a bad effect. They were also often filled in by pairs of perfect fourths and perfect fifths respectively, forming resonant (blending) units characteristic of the musics of the time, where "resonance" forms a complementary trine with the categories of consonance and dissonance. Conversely, the thirds and sixths were tempered severely from pure ratios, and in practice usually treated as dissonances in the sense that they had to resolve to form complete perfect cadences and stable sonorities.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: In Renaissance music, the perfect fourth above the bass was considered a dissonance needing immediate resolution. The "regola delle terze e seste" ("rule of thirds and sixths") required that imperfect consonances should resolve to a perfect one by a half-step progression in one voice and a whole-step progression in another. The viewpoint concerning successions of imperfect consonances—perhaps more concerned by a desire to avoid monotony than by their dissonant or consonant character—has been variable. Anonymous XIII (13th century) allowed two or three, Johannes de Garlandia's "Optima introductio" (13th–14th century) three, four or more, and Anonymous XI (15th century) four or five successive imperfect consonances. Adam von Fulda wrote "Although the ancients formerly would forbid all sequences of more than three or four imperfect consonances, we more modern do not prohibit them."


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: In the common practice period, musical style required preparation for all dissonances, followed by a resolution to a consonance. There was also a distinction between melodic and harmonic dissonance. Dissonant melodic intervals included the tritone and all augmented and diminished intervals. Dissonant harmonic intervals included:


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Early in history, only intervals low in the overtone series were considered consonant. As time progressed, intervals ever higher on the overtone series were considered as such. The final result of this was the so-called "emancipation of the dissonance" by some 20th-century composers. Early-20th-century American composer Henry Cowell viewed tone clusters as the use of higher and higher overtones.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Bach uses dissonance to communicate religious ideas in his sacred cantatas and Passion settings. At the end of the "St Matthew Passion", where the agony of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion is portrayed, John Eliot Gardiner hears that "a final reminder of this comes in the unexpected and almost excruciating dissonance Bach inserts over the very last chord: the melody instruments insist on B natural—the jarring leading tone—before eventually melting in a C minor cadence."


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: In the opening aria of Cantata BWV 54, "Widerstehe doch der Sünde" ("upon sin oppose resistance"), nearly every strong beat carries a dissonance:


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Albert Schweitzer says that this aria "begins with an alarming chord of the seventh... It is meant to depict the horror of the curse upon sin that is threatened in the text". Gillies Whittaker points out that "The thirty-two continuo quavers of the initial four bars support four consonances only, all the rest are dissonances, twelve of them being chords containing five different notes. It is a remarkable picture of desperate and unflinching resistance to the Christian to the fell powers of evil."


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: According to H. C. Robbins Landon, the opening movement of Haydn's Symphony No. 82, "a brilliant C major work in the best tradition" contains "dissonances of barbaric strength that are succeeded by delicate passages of Mozartean grace":


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Mozart's music contains a number of quite radical experiments in dissonance. The following comes from his Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K. 546:


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Mozart's Quartet in C major, K465 opens with an adagio introduction that gave the work its nickname, the "Dissonance Quartet":


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: There are several passing dissonances in this adagio passage, for example on the first beat of bar 3. However the most striking effect here is implied, rather than sounded explicitly. The A flat in the first bar is contradicted by the high A natural in the second bar, but these notes do not sound together as a discord. (See also False relation.)


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: An even more famous example from Mozart comes in a magical passage from the slow movement of his popular "Elvira Madigan" Piano Concerto 21, K467, where the subtle, but quite explicit dissonances on the first beats of each bar are enhanced by exquisite orchestration:


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Philip Radcliffe speaks of this as “a remarkably poignant passage with surprisingly sharp dissonances." Radcliffe says that the dissonances here "have a vivid foretaste of Schumann and the way they gently melt into the major key is equally prophetic of Schubert." Eric Blom says that this movement must have "made Mozart's hearers sit up by its daring modernities... There is a suppressed feeling of discomfort about it."


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: The finale of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 opens with a startling discord, consisting of a B flat inserted into a D minor chord:


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Roger Scruton alludes to Wagner's description of this chord as introducing "a huge "Schreckensfanfare"—horror fanfare." When this passage returns later in the same movement (just before the voices enter) the sound is further complicated with the addition of a diminished seventh chord, creating, in Scruton's words "the most atrocious dissonance that Beethoven ever wrote, a first inversion D-minor triad containing all the notes of the D minor harmonic scale":


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Robert Schumann's song "Auf einer Burg" from his cycle "Liederkreis", Op. 39, climaxes on a striking dissonance in the fourteenth bar. As Nicholas Cook points out, this is "the only chord in the whole song that Schumann marks with an accent". Cook goes on to stress that what makes this chord so effective is Schumann's placing of it in its musical context: "in what leads up to it and what comes of it". Cook explains further how the interweaving of lines in both piano and voice parts in the bars leading up to this chord (bars 9–14) "are set on a kind of collision course; hence the feeling of tension rising steadily to a breaking point".


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Wagner made increasing use of dissonance for dramatic effect as his style developed, particularly in his later operas. In the scene known as "Hagen's Watch" from the first act of "Götterdämmerung", according to Scruton the music conveys a sense of "matchless brooding evil", and the excruciating dissonance in bars 9–10 below it constitute "a semitonal wail of desolation".


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Another example of a cumulative build-up of dissonance from the early 20th century (1910) can be found in the Adagio that opens Gustav Mahler's unfinished 10th Symphony:


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Richard Taruskin parsed this chord (in bars 206 and 208) as a "diminished nineteenth ... a searingly dissonant dominant harmony containing nine different pitches. Who knows what Guido Adler, for whom the second and Third Symphonies already contained 'unprecedented cacophonies', might have called it?"


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: One example of modernist dissonance comes from a work that received its first performance in 1913, three years after the Mahler:


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: The West's progressive embrace of increasingly dissonant intervals occurred almost entirely within the context of harmonic timbres, as produced by vibrating strings and columns of air, on which the West's dominant musical instruments are based. By generalizing Helmholtz's notion of consonance (described above as the "coincidence of partials") to embrace non-harmonic timbres and their related tunings, consonance has recently been "emancipated" from harmonic timbres and their related tunings. Using electronically controlled pseudo-harmonic timbres, rather than strictly harmonic acoustic timbres, provides tonality with new structural resources such as dynamic tonality. These new resources provide musicians with an alternative to pursuing the musical uses of ever-higher partials of harmonic timbres and, in some people's minds, may resolve what Arnold Schoenberg described as the "crisis of tonality".(


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: George Russell, in his 1953 "Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization", presents a slightly different view from classical practice, one widely taken up in Jazz. He regards the tritone over the tonic as a rather consonant interval due to its derivation from the Lydian dominant thirteenth chord.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: In effect, he returns to a Medieval consideration of "harmonic consonance": that intervals when not subject to octave equivalence (at least not by contraction) and correctly reproducing the mathematical ratios of the harmonic series are truly non-dissonant. Thus the harmonic minor seventh, natural major ninth, half-sharp (quarter tone) eleventh note (untempered tritone), half-flat thirteenth note, and half-flat fifteenth note must necessarily be consonant.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Note that most of these pitches exist only in a universe of microtones smaller than a halfstep; notice also that we already freely take the flat (minor) seventh note for the just seventh of the harmonic series in chords. Russell extends by approximation the virtual merits of harmonic consonance to the 12TET tuning system of Jazz and the 12-note octave of the piano, granting consonance to the sharp eleventh note (approximating the harmonic eleventh), that accidental being the sole pitch difference between the major scale and the Lydian mode.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Dan Haerle, in his 1980 "The Jazz Language", extends the same idea of harmonic consonance and intact octave displacement to alter Paul Hindemith's "Series 2" gradation table from "The Craft of Musical Composition". In contradistinction to Hindemith, whose scale of consonance and dissonance is currently the "de facto" standard, Haerle places the minor ninth as the most dissonant interval of all, more dissonant than the minor second to which it was once considered by all as octave-equivalent. He also promotes the tritone from most-dissonant position to one just a little less consonant than the perfect fourth and perfect fifth.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: For context: unstated in these theories is that musicians of the Romantic Era had effectively promoted the major ninth and minor seventh to a legitimacy of harmonic consonance as well, in their fabrics of 4-note chords.


title: Consonance and dissonance

text: Dynamic tonality offers a new perspective on consonance and dissonance by enabling a pseudo-just tuning and a pseudo-harmonic timbre to remain related despite real-time systematic changes to tuning, to timbre, or to both. This enables any musical interval in said tuning to be made more or less consonant in real time by aligning, more or less, the partials of said timbre with the notes of said tuning (or "vice versa").


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: Wilshire Grand Center is a skyscraper in the financial district of downtown Los Angeles, California, occupying the entire city block between Wilshire Boulevard and 7th, Figueroa, and Francisco streets. Completed in 2017, it is the tallest building west of Chicago. Its height surpasses L.A.'s U.S. Bank Tower by . The Skyscraper Center lists the Wilshire Grand Center as the 15th-tallest building in the U.S. and the 95th-tallest in the world. It won the Structural Engineering Award 2019 Award of Excellence from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: The building is part of a mixed-use hotel, retail, observation decks, shopping mall, and office complex. The development of the complex is estimated to cost $1.2 billion. The Wilshire Grand Center includes of retail, of Class A office space, and the 889-room InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. The hotel features a 70th floor Sky Lobby, state-of-the-art fitness center, expansive pool deck and several restaurants including a high-end steakhouse and Spire 73 – the tallest open-air bar in the Western Hemisphere.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: The original Wilshire Grand Hotel opened in 1952 as the Hotel Statler, on the site of the new Wilshire Grand. In 1950, the city of Los Angeles issued the largest single building permit at the time for the construction of the hotel, which cost over $15 million. The hotel quickly became a landmark of downtown Los Angeles, and over its 59-year lifespan attracted famous guests including President John F. Kennedy and Pope John Paul II.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: In 1954, two years after its opening, Hilton Hotels & Resorts purchased the Statler Hotels chain, renaming the hotel the Statler Hilton in 1958. In 1968 Hilton completed a $2.5 million renovation of the hotel and renamed it the Los Angeles Hilton, and later the Los Angeles Hilton and Towers. Reliance Group later purchased the hotel in 1983 and invested $30 million in renovations. Korean Air purchased the Los Angeles Hilton from Reliance in 1989. They changed the hotel's management and it became the Omni Los Angeles Hotel in 1995 and then later the Wilshire Grand Hotel in 1999. Among the major events hosted, this included the 1952 Emmy Awards, the HQ for the 2000 Democratic National Convention and the 2006 Miss Universe Pageant.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: Seeking to revive the Wilshire Grand as a landmark and icon of Los Angeles, chairman and CEO Cho Yang-ho of Hanjin Group conceived the idea of developing a new complex which would include the tallest building in Los Angeles, at . It is also part of an urban development effort to revitalize the Figueroa Street corridor of downtown Los Angeles as a vibrant light-and-sign district, similar to New York's Times Square.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: The original hotel closed on December 31, 2011. Demolition of the original building began on October 23, 2012, and continued for over a year until November 21, 2013, when a bottoming-out ceremony was held in the excavated for the towers.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: Originally envisioned as two towers, the taller of which would have been tall, the complex is now a single , 73-story tower consisting of the 889-room InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown hotel, retail, observation deck and office space. The Los Angeles–based architectural firm, A.C. Martin Partners, oversaw the project and prepared the current design. They took over from Thomas Properties, which managed the early proposals, but which was replaced when the owners became dissatisfied with their approach.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: A distinctive feature of the building is its sail-shaped crown which is illuminated with LED lighting at night. The tower will spearhead part of a new planned light and sign district that will extend along the Figueroa Corridor down to L.A. Live. According to recent renderings, it is unclear however to what extent LED lighting and advertising will be applied. Lead designer David C. Martin said that the spire and the entire exterior skin of the tower will be filled with programmable LED lighting. The spire weighs and adds in height to the building.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: The skyscraper is a distinctive part of the Los Angeles skyline, as it is the first building over 75 feet tall built since 1974 to not feature a "flat roof" design, an integral part of buildings in Los Angeles today. The pattern of buildings in Los Angeles to feature these "flat roofs" was the result of a 1974 fire ordinance which required all tall buildings in the city to include rooftop helipads in response to the devastating 1974 Joelma Fire in São Paulo, Brazil, in which helicopters could not be used to effect rescues from the rooftop of the building because of the lack of a landing spot, and could otherwise have prevented many deaths. The Wilshire Grand was granted an exception by the Los Angeles City Fire Department however, as the building includes advances in fire safety and building technology (such as a reinforced concrete central core) which exceeds the city's current fire code. The building nevertheless has a helipad, but it is smaller than the uniform standard used in the city, and, like all helipads, can only be used in emergencies. The helipad is still big enough for a smaller rescue or fire helicopter to land onto.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: The elevators in Wilshire Grand Center are supplied by Otis Elevator Company. The four double-deck express cars servicing the hotel's main lobby on the 70th floor travel at 1600 feet per minute.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: Turner Construction received the contracts for both the demolition of the former hotel and the construction of the new tower. The latter began on February 15, 2014, with a record pour of concrete in just 20 hours, creating an base for what would become the tallest building west of the Mississippi.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: The foundation is set on bedrock known as the Fernando Formation; this siltstone has been compressed by an ocean that formerly covered the area and is a good base for a building.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: More than 12,500 m of interior dimension stone and 8,500 m exterior stone cladding and paving were used on the project. The sourcing, production, QA/QC and expediting of the stone was carried out by Ramsey Stone Consultants on behalf of Turner Construction.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: On March 17, 2016, a construction worker died by suicide after jumping from the 53rd floor, landing on a vehicle below.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: On September 3, 2016, the Wilshire Grand became the tallest building in Los Angeles at 1,100 feet. The supertall building opened on June 23, 2017.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: The building, while recognized as "tallest" in the city by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, achieves this recognition through the height of its decorative sail and spire rather than highest occupiable floor space. From the ground, due to local topography, the Wilshire Grand sits visibly lower than other surrounding buildings. From the vantage of the building's 73rd floor observation deck, the US Bank Tower is markedly higher in elevation, and remains downtown Los Angeles' most prominent visual landmark.


title: Wilshire Grand Center

text: The building is owned by the Hanjin Group (through its subsidiary Hanjin International), a South Korean conglomerate that also owns Korean Air. In 2020, Hanjin negotiated a refinancing of the building's debt ($900 million), which came with the condition of paving the way to sell the building further down the road. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the value of the building dropped from $1.1 billion to $573 million. From 2011 to 2017, Hanjin got a 60-million tax break from the city of Los Angeles.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Milan Lucic (; born June 7, 1988) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player for the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League (NHL). He played major junior hockey with the Vancouver Giants in the Western Hockey League (WHL) for three seasons and captured the Memorial Cup, while being named tournament MVP in 2007. He was selected 50th overall in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft and made the Boston Bruins' roster as a 19-year-old in 2007–08. Three years later, he won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins. He spent the first eight seasons of his NHL career with Boston prior to being traded to the Los Angeles Kings in June 2015. After a single season in Los Angeles, Lucic signed as a free agent with the Edmonton Oilers in July 2016, playing three seasons for the Oilers before being traded to Calgary in July 2019.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Internationally, Lucic captained the Canadian national junior team at the 2007 Super Series. He plays physically in the style of a power forward.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Lucic was born in East Vancouver to Serbian couple Dobrivoje "Dobro" Lučić and Snežana Kesa. His father, Dobro, was a longshoreman in Vancouver who immigrated to North America from his native Serbia when he was 27. His mom, Snezana, came to Vancouver when her parents moved from Serbia when she was just 2. He has a younger brother named Nikola and an older brother named Jovan. His maternal uncle, Dan Kesa, is a retired NHL right winger who played for the Vancouver Canucks, Pittsburgh Penguins, Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Growing up, Lucic attended Killarney Secondary in Vancouver. He was a fan of the hometown Vancouver Canucks and has named forward Todd Bertuzzi as one of his favourite players when following the team. At age 15, Lucic was diagnosed with Scheuermann's disease, a condition that can cause the upper back to curve and has given him a hunched-over posture.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Lucic played minor hockey (VMHA) in Vancouver, but nearly quit the sport after being passed up in the 2003 WHL Bantam Draft. He was invited to play for the Coquitlam Express of the Junior A British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL), but was further demoralized when he initially failed to make the team out of rookie camp. He agreed to play, instead, for the Junior B Delta Ice Hawks, but later played his way onto the Express after five games.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Lucic began his junior career with the Coquitlam Express of the BCHL in 2004–05. In the same season, he made his major junior debut with the Vancouver Giants, his hometown Western Hockey League (WHL) team, playing in one regular-season game and two playoff games. He joined the Giants full-time in 2005–06, scoring 19 points in 62 games. He added seven points in 18 playoff games to help the Giants to a WHL title and an appearance in the 2006 Memorial Cup. In the off-season, he was selected 50th overall by the Boston Bruins in the second round of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. Bruins management had considered taking Lucic earlier in the second round with the 37th overall pick, but chose defenceman Yuri Alexandrov instead. Bruins Director of Scouting Scott Bradley admitted he did not expect Lucic to still be available with the 50th pick, adding, "We were fortunate to get him."


title: Milan Lucic

text: The following season, in 2006–07, Lucic emerged as one of the Giants' leaders, finishing first in team scoring with 68 points in 70 games. He added 19 points in 22 post-season games as the Giants lost the WHL Finals to the Medicine Hat Tigers in seven games. Despite losing the WHL title, Vancouver appeared in the 2007 Memorial Cup as tournament hosts. Lucic and the Giants met Medicine Hat once more in the tournament final, capturing the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) title by a 3–1 score. Lucic assisted on Michal Řepík's tournament-winning goal with five minutes to play in regulation. He finished the tournament tied for the lead in scoring with Řepík (with more goals, Řepík was awarded the Ed Chynoweth Trophy as leading scorer) and earned the Stafford Smythe Memorial Trophy as tournament MVP.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Nearly four years after his last junior game, Lucic was honoured by the Giants prior to a game against the Chilliwack Bruins on February 25, 2011. Dubbed "Milan Lucic Night," he was added to the club's Ring of Honour, showcasing the top Giants alumni of all-time. The first 500 game-attendees were also given free Lucic bobblehead dolls. As part of the team's ten-year anniversary, he was also voted by fans as the team's best player of all-time.


title: Milan Lucic

text: In the 2007 off-season, Lucic signed an entry-level contract with the Bruins on August 2. He had been chosen as the Giants' next team captain, but made the Bruins' 2007–08 opening roster out of training camp. He played in his first career NHL game on October 5, 2007, a 4–1 loss to the Dallas Stars, in which he fought opposing forward Brad Winchester. His first goal came a week later on October 12 against Jonathan Bernier, a game winner, in an 8–6 win against the Los Angeles Kings. By also fighting Kings forward Raitis Ivanāns and notching an assist, he recorded a Gordie Howe hat trick (an unofficial statistic constituting a goal, an assist and a fight in one game). Unsure of whether the Bruins would keep him or return him to junior, he stayed in a downtown hotel in Boston to start the season. However, Lucic made enough of an impression during his first set of games with the Bruins, showing grit and consistent willingness to fight (he recorded 13 fighting majors in his rookie season), that they decided to keep him in the lineup. Bruins management informed the Giants prior to Lucic's tenth game, accounting for the NHL's nine-game maximum for junior-eligible players to stay with their NHL club without initiating their contract. He was chosen to participate in the 2008 NHL YoungStars Game and finished his rookie campaign with eight goals and 27 points. Towards the end of the season, he was voted by Bruins fans for the team's Seventh Player Award for exceeding expectations. Matched up against the first-seeded Montreal Canadiens in the opening round, Lucic scored his first Stanley Cup playoff goal in Game 3 on April 13, 2008. He finished his first NHL post-season with two goals as the Bruins were eliminated by the Canadiens in seven games.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Early into the 2008–09 season, Lucic recorded his first career NHL hat-trick and added an assist in a 5–4 win against the Atlanta Thrashers on October 25, 2008. Later that week, Lucic made a much-publicized return to his hometown in a game against the Vancouver Canucks, which featured a picture of him as a baby on the back page of Vancouver's "The Province" newspaper. Earlier in the year, Lucic's 2007 Memorial Cup ring had been stolen from his home in East Vancouver on July 10, 2008. In a private ceremony before the game against the Canucks, he was presented a replacement ring by Vancouver Giants ownership.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Lucic was chosen to his second YoungStars Game in January 2009. However, he did not compete for the sophomores in Montreal due to an undisclosed upper-body injury. Near the end of the season, on April 4, 2009, Lucic was awarded the Bruins' Eddie Shore Award for hustle and determination. He finished his second NHL season improving to 17 goals and 42 points in 72 games, while playing predominantly on a line with the Bruins' top centre, Marc Savard.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Entering the 2009 playoffs with the Bruins as the first seed in the Eastern Conference, Lucic received a one-game suspension after delivering a cross-check to the head of Montreal Canadiens forward Maxim Lapierre in Game 2 of the first round. While the Bruins argued that Lucic used predominantly his glove, rather than his stick, the League held its decision. After serving his suspension, Lucic and the Bruins went on to eliminate the Canadiens, advancing to the second round against the Carolina Hurricanes, to whom the Bruins lost in seven games. Lucic added nine points in ten games in the playoffs.


title: Milan Lucic

text: With the 2009–10 season marking the final year of his original entry-level contract, it was announced on October 6, 2009, that Lucic had been signed to a three-year, US$12.25 million contract extension with the Bruins through to the 2012–13 season. The deal is structured at US$4 million for the first two seasons and US$4.25 million in the third, a raise from his US$685,000 base salary in 2009–10. Ten days later, on October 16, he suffered a broken finger requiring surgery in a game against the Dallas Stars while hitting defenceman Stéphane Robidas. Lucic returned to the Bruins lineup on November 19, but was injured again four games later, suffering a sprained ankle in a game against the Minnesota Wild on November 25. His left leg had buckled from underneath him while reaching behind him to receive a pass from teammate Dennis Wideman. Missing an additional 18 games, Lucic was limited to 50 contests in his third NHL season. His play was perceived by Head Coach Claude Julien to have suffered following the two injuries; he recorded nine goals and 20 points to finish the regular season. He added nine points in 13 playoff games as the Bruins were eliminated in the second round by the Philadelphia Flyers. They became the third team in NHL history to lose a playoff series after having led three games to none. All five goals Lucic scored in the playoffs were recorded in the second round, including two in the deciding seventh game, which the Bruins lost 4–3.


title: Milan Lucic

text: In the second month of the 2010–11 season, Lucic recorded a natural hat-trick on November 18, 2010, during a 4–0 win over the Florida Panthers. Later in the campaign, he was fined $3,500 by the NHL for his actions during a game against Atlanta on December 23. After Lucic was hit by opposing defenceman Freddy Meyer, teammate Andrew Ference engaged Meyer in a fight. In the ensuing scrum, Lucic punched Meyer as the two were being restrained by referees, resulting in a match penalty. Three days following the game, Lucic received a $2,500 fine for his punch and an additional $1,000 for an obscene gesture he had made to players on the Thrashers' bench immediately afterwards. In January 2011, he missed three games with a shoulder injury. Lucic completed the season with a career-high 30 goals, 32 assists and 62 points in 79 games. He led the Bruins in goal-scoring while tying for the points lead with centre David Krejčí. Entering the 2011 playoffs as the third seed in the East, the Bruins eliminated the Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning in the first three rounds, en route to the Stanley Cup Finals against Vancouver. Although Lucic scored below his regular-season pace during the post-season with 12 points (five goals and seven assists) in 25 games, he helped the Bruins to their first Stanley Cup since 1972, as the team defeated the Canucks in Game 7 of the Finals. It was later reported that Lucic was playing through a couple of injuries during the playoffs. During the Eastern Conference Finals, he suffered a broken toe after blocking a shot from teammate Tyler Seguin during practice. He also struggled with a sinus infection, which was part of a larger problem in his right nostril that traced back to the end of the 2009–10 season and caused improper breathing. Lucic underwent surgery in the off-season to repair the sinus.


title: Milan Lucic

text: In August 2011, Lucic had his customary day in possession of the Stanley Cup, which he spent in Vancouver. While it is traditional for players to host public celebrations with the trophy in their hometowns, Lucic chose to keep the day private, explaining that "I grew up a Canucks fan. I know how it is." Following the Canucks' defeat in the Finals, fans had staged an hours-long riot in Downtown Vancouver. More personally, posters of Lucic at a local cultural community centre were defaced. Also, an appearance by Lucic at a Greek festival in Vancouver sparked a public brawl; "The Vancouver Sun" reported that Lucic did not throw any punches. While Lucic's day with the Cup was private, many of his functions were held in public venues, which were reportedly well received by passers-by. He brought the trophy to his hometown church, St. Archangel Michael Serbian Orthodox Church in Burnaby, for a gathering of approximately 350 people and on a harbour cruise with friends and family. He finished the day atop Grouse Mountain, the same place where he and his Vancouver Giants teammates took the Memorial Cup after their CHL victory in 2007. Months later, in February 2012, the church he brought the trophy to was vandalized.


title: Milan Lucic

text: A month and a half into the 2011–12 season, Lucic received considerable attention for a hit against opposing goaltender Ryan Miller during a game against the Buffalo Sabres. Miller had come out of his net to play a puck that Lucic last touched midway between the centre line and the Sabres' blue line. As Miller shot the puck towards the end-boards, Lucic collided with him heavily, knocking him to the ice. Miller was diagnosed with a concussion and was sidelined for several games; he also heavily criticized Lucic for his actions and called him a "gutless piece of shit" in post-game comments. The day after the hit, the NHL held a hearing with Lucic and later announced that he would not be suspended for the play, citing that the minor penalty for charging that was assessed during the game was sufficient. A few weeks after this incident, he received a one-game suspension for an illegal hit on Philadelphia forward Zac Rinaldo. Lucic hit Rinaldo from behind during a battle for the puck along the boards, although he was not seriously injured on the play. A short time into the 2013–14 season, Lucic scored his first-ever NHL overtime goal to break a 2–2 tie game at home against the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets.


title: Milan Lucic

text: On June 26, 2015, Lucic was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for goaltender Martin Jones, Colin Miller and the 13th overall pick (used to select Jakub Zbořil) in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. Lucic excelled during his season with the Kings, playing a strong two-way game while recording 20 goals, 35 assists for 55 points during the regular season. Lucic also added three assists in five games in the 2016 playoffs.


title: Milan Lucic

text: As an unrestricted free agent, on the opening day of free agency, Lucic signed a seven-year, $42 million contract with the Edmonton Oilers on July 1, 2016. As his usual #17 is retired by the Oilers for Jari Kurri, he instead chose to wear #27, his number during his junior years.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Lucic enjoyed a successful first year with the Oilers, tallying 23 goals and 50 points to help lead the team to the playoffs for the first time since 2006. The Oilers defeated the San Jose Sharks in six games, but lost to the Anaheim Ducks in seven games. Following his first season in Edmonton, Lucic's production began to dramatically decline. A disappointing second season saw Lucic score just 10 goals and 34 points. This was followed up by scoring just 6 goals and 20 points in his third year with the Oilers, including a goal drought of over 40 games.


title: Milan Lucic

text: On July 19, 2019, Lucic waived his no-movement clause and was traded, along with a conditional 2020 third-round draft choice, to the Calgary Flames in exchange for James Neal. Both Neal and Lucic had struggled to live up to the expectations attached to their large salaries on their previous teams and the trade gave both players a chance for a fresh start. Lucic switched back to his familiar #17 with the Flames.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Lucic began his tenure with the Flames on a prolonged goal drought, made more notorious by Neal scoring seven goals (including a four-goal game) in his first seven games with the Oilers. On November 2, 2019, in the midst of his cold streak, Lucic received a 2 game suspension for roughing Kole Sherwood in a game the previous night against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Lucic's slow start, coupled with concerns about his role on the team and lack of playing time, led him to contemplate retirement early in the season.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Finally, in his 28th game of the 2019–20 season, Lucic scored his first goal as a Flame, converting on a pass by Derek Ryan in a 4–3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. Lucic followed that goal with two more in his next three games. By March, when the season was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lucic had eight goals, with only Elias Lindholm, Sean Monahan, and Johnny Gaudreau having recorded more than Lucic's five powerplay goals on the season.


title: Milan Lucic

text: At the time of the Lucic-for-Neal trade, the Flames and Oilers had agreed that, should Neal score at least 21 goals in the 2019–20 NHL season and Lucic score at least 10 fewer goals than Neal, the Oilers would owe the Flames a third-round draft choice in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. Due to the abrupt and incomplete finish to the 2019–20 season, the Flames and Oilers remained at an impasse over how to resolve the trade condition, given that Neal finished with 19 goals (two fewer than the required threshold) but was on pace to surpass 21 if the season played to its 82-game conclusion. On July 31, 2020, the NHL ruled that the Oilers owed the Flames a third-round draft choice in Edmonton's choice of either the 2020 or 2021 NHL Entry Drafts as a result of a trade condition the two teams had made as part of the Lucic/Neal swap.


title: Milan Lucic

text: On April 13, 2021, Lucic officially played his 1000th game in the National Hockey League. In doing so, he became the 352nd player to reach the 1000 game mark.


title: Milan Lucic

text: In the off-season following Lucic's MVP performance at the 2007 Memorial Cup, he was named team captain of Canada for the 2007 Super Series against Russia. The series, an eight-game competition between Canada and Russia's under-20 teams, commemorated the 35th anniversary of the historic 1972 Summit Series. He recorded three assists as Canada won the series with seven wins and a tie.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Two years later, Lucic was invited to Canada's summer orientation camp in Calgary for the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was not, however, chosen to the final roster. Lucic was also invited to the orientation camp for the 2014 Winter Olympics, but again did not make the final roster.


title: Milan Lucic

text: Lucic married his longtime girlfriend Brittany Carnegie in the summer of 2012. The couple have three children together, two daughters Valentina and Nikolina, and son Milan Jr.


title: Robert Hoffman (actor)

text: Robert James Hoffman III was born in Gainesville, Florida, the son of Charlotte and Robert Hoffman II, and moved with his family to Madison, Alabama when he was seven. He has one younger brother, Chris, and two younger sisters, Ashley and Lauren. He attended Bob Jones High School. He discovered his passion for dancing after seeing "Michael Jackson's Thriller". He briefly attended the Alabama School of Fine Arts.


title: Robert Hoffman (actor)

text: In 2004, Hoffman starred in the film "You Got Served" as Max, a lead dancer in the antagonist's crew. He also starred in Nick Cannon's sketch comedy television series "Wild 'n Out". In 2006, he co-starred alongside Amanda Bynes in the film "She's the Man".


title: Robert Hoffman (actor)

text: In 2007, Hoffman played the role of Bluto in the horror film "Shrooms". He also played the role of Clyde "Windmill" Wynorski in the comedy film "National Lampoon's Bag Boy". Hoffman has guest starred in many shows such as "American Dreams", "Quintuplets", "Vanished", "", "Campus Ladies", "Drop Dead Diva", and "Grey's Anatomy".


title: Robert Hoffman (actor)

text: In 2008, he starred in the film "" as Chase Collins, a talented dancer at the Maryland School of the Arts (M.S.A). In 2009, he guest starred in the ABC Family show "Greek" as Evan Chamber's older brother. On 1 June 2008, "Step Up 2: The Streets" earned Hoffman and co-star Briana Evigan an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss. In 2008, he and Evigan starred in Enrique Iglesias's music video for his single "Push", where they reprised their "Step Up" roles.


title: Robert Hoffman (actor)

text: Hoffman appeared in the 2009 film "Aliens in the Attic" as Ricky. In 2010, Hoffman played the role of Chad Bower in the comedy thriller film "Burning Palms". Hoffman featured as Garth in the musical comedy film "BoyBand". He played the role of Tyler "Dance Machine" Jones in the movie "Take Me Home Tonight".


title: Robert Hoffman (actor)

text: He was also featured in Garfunkel and Oates's music video for their song "Present Face". In late January 2012, Hoffman landed a recurring role in the fourth season of The CW's teen drama series "90210" as Caleb Walsh, a student at seminary school studying to become a priest.


title: Robert Hoffman (actor)

text: In 2014, Hoffman starred as Kevin Shepherd in the indie drama "Lap Dance" alongside Briana Evigan, Ali Cobrin, and Carmen Electra. Hoffman guest starred as Thad Callahan in the TV show "The Night Shift". In 2016, he had a role in the comedy film "Amateur Night" directed by Lisa Addario and Joe Syracus.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Mayhem is a 2017 American action-comedy film directed by Joe Lynch and written by Matias Caruso. The film was released at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2017, and The Sales art and poster was released at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2017. It was released in US cinemas and on VOD and digital HD on November 10, 2017, through RLJE Films.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Derek Cho tells the audience about the ID-7 "Red Eye" virus, that has been spreading throughout the world. It is not lethal, but infects neural pathways, removing all inhibition and moral integrity, resulting in people acting out their darkest impulses, which may include murder. Nevil Reed commits the first known case of murder driven by ID-7, but he was not deemed liable due to the virus' influence. Derek, a lawyer at Towers and Smythe Consulting (TSC), found the loophole that won Reed's case, earning him a corner office. Derek began his job full of optimism, but quickly lost his moral compass climbing the corporate ladder, even neglecting his family.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: One morning, Derek goes into work and meets with a desperate client - Melanie Cross - who needs more time on a loan. Derek thinks he cannot help and calls security on her. After discovering that a bungled legal case for massive company Vandacorp has been pinned on him by his superior Kara Powell ("The Siren", as she has the ear of company head John Towers), Derek confronts her. They plead their cases to Towers, who orders Derek fired. Human resource chief Lester "The Reaper" McGill offers a hefty severance package in return for Derek claiming responsibility. Derek, afraid of being disbarred and sued, rejects this, so security begins escorting Derek out.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Just then, the building is put under quarantine as the ID-7 virus has been detected in the ventilation system. A neutralizing agent was released into the building, with an estimated eight hours for the virus to be obliterated. However, everyone in the building is infected in the meantime, resulting in chaos, violence and sex.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Derek attempts to take the elevator upstairs to protest to Towers and the board of directors for his job back. Towers instead sends Derek to the basement to be beaten up by Towers' enforcer, Colton "The Bull" Snyder. Derek's friend Ewan arrives to help, but he is accidentally killed by the Bull, infuriating Derek further.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Derek is locked up along with Melanie, who had resisted security. They quarrel but eventually decide to work together. Derek calls Vandacorp, ensuring his innocence in the mishandled case, and costing TSC a payment from Vandacorp. Realizing they will not be liable for their actions, Derek and Melanie grab weapons, intending to hold the people on the top floor responsible for their respective bad situations, but they require the Reaper and Kara's key cards to get there. Derek takes out two security guards sent to attack them.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: En route to the Reaper, Derek incapacitates two more guards. The Reaper attacks them; Melanie kills him with a power saw. Derek and Melanie use his card to get up to Kara's office. They duel and brutalize five of Kara's coworkers. Kara offers her card for her safety, but her long-suffering assistant Meg has already destroyed it, having been offered a promotion to do it to protect those upstairs. Meg cuts out the Siren's tongue and kills her. Towers taunts Derek by urinating on Ewan's corpse. Melanie comforts Derek and they have sex.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Needing another method to get upstairs, Derek and Melanie convince the company's one IT worker to hack Irene Smythe's computer, getting her to come down. They offer Smythe's files in exchange for her card and a reversal of her original denial of Melanie's loan extension. Smythe refuses, stating that contracts signed during this period can be invalidated citing the virus. Melanie destroys Smythe's files. The Bull attacks Derek but is killed with a screwdriver. Smythe offers Derek top floor access in exchange for revenge on Melanie. Derek accepts, but sabotages Melanie's restraints. Melanie escapes and kills Smythe with a hammer.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: On the top floor, Towers offers Derek a full partnership, but Derek refuses. Derek fends off Towers' assistants and battles Towers. TSC's board give him permission to kill Towers, so Derek punches him off the building to his death just as the quarantine is lifted.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Derek accepts the board's offer of Towers' job. He extends Melanie's loan, then promptly quits the company, and is later seen painting with Melanie. He advises the audience to take control of their own lives before it's too late, accompanied by a shot of Towers hitting the ground.


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Mayhem was filmed in Belgrade, Serbia in March, 2016 over 25 days. Joe Lynch explained in an interview the decision came down to cost, saying "we had to find a place that would give us the most amount of days to shoot. We went first to Pittsburgh and they said 15 days. Then we went to New Orleans and they said 17 days. Then we tried Vancouver and they said 18 days. But it was not enough time." Serbia was also the filming location of his previous film, "Everly".


title: Mayhem (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 85%, based on reviews from 60 critics, with an average score of 7.22/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Mayhem" delivers stylish violence by the bloody bucketful — and grounds all the titular chaos in sharp humor and surprisingly effective real-world economic angst". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 62 out of 100, based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Joe Leydon of Variety called it "A smartly constructed and sardonically funny indie with attitude that somehow manages the tricky feat of being exuberantly over the top even as it remains consistently on target."


title: Mayhem (film)

text: Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Joe Lynch’s fantastically creative, subversive and Tarantino-esque Mayhem stands alone as an entertainingly bloody and dark and twisted social satire — but it’s even more satisfying for those of us who loved Steven Yeun's Glenn on The Walking Dead."


title: Bit numbering

text: In computing, the least significant bit (LSB) is the bit position in a binary integer representing the binary 1s place of the integer. Similarly, the most significant bit (MSB) represents the highest-order place of the binary integer. The LSB is sometimes referred to as the "low-order bit" or "right-most bit", due to the convention in positional notation of writing less significant digits further to the right. The MSB is similarly referred to as the "high-order bit" or "left-most bit". In both cases, the LSB and MSB correlate directly to the least significant digit and most significant digit of a decimal integer.


title: Bit numbering

text: Bit indexing correlates to the positional notation of the value in base 2. For this reason, bit index is not affected by how the value is stored on the device, such as the value's byte order. Rather, it is a property of the numeric value in binary itself. This is often utilized in programming via bit shifting: A value of codice_1 corresponds to the "n" bit of a binary integer (with a value of codice_2).


title: Bit numbering

text: In digital steganography, sensitive messages may be concealed by manipulating and storing information in the least significant bits of an image or a sound file. The user may later recover this information by extracting the least significant bits of the manipulated pixels to recover the original message. This allows the storage or transfer of digital information to remain concealed.


title: Bit numbering

text: This table illustrates an example of decimal value of 149 and the location of LSB. In this particular example, the position of unit value (decimal 1 or 0) is located in bit position 0 (n = 0). MSB stands for "most significant bit", while LSB stands for "least significant bit".


title: Bit numbering

text: The expressions "most significant bit first" and "least significant bit at last" are indications on the ordering of the sequence of the bits in the bytes sent over a wire in a serial transmission protocol or in a stream (e.g. an audio stream).


title: Bit numbering

text: "Most significant bit first" means that the most significant bit will arrive first: hence e.g. the hexadecimal number codice_3, codice_4 in binary representation, will arrive as the sequence codice_5 .


title: Bit numbering

text: "Least significant bit first" means that the least significant bit will arrive first: hence e.g. the same hexadecimal number codice_3, again codice_4 in binary representation, will arrive as the (reversed) sequence codice_8.


title: Bit numbering

text: When the bit numbering starts at zero for the least significant bit (LSB) the numbering scheme is called "LSB 0". This bit numbering method has the advantage that for any unsigned number the value of the number can be calculated by using exponentiation with the bit number and a base of 2. The value of an unsigned binary integer is therefore


title: Bit numbering

text: When the bit numbering starts at zero for the most significant bit (MSB) the numbering scheme is called "MSB 0".


title: Bit numbering

text: ALGOL 68's elem operator is effectively "MSB 1 bit numbering" as the bits are numbered from left to right, with the first bit (bits elem 1) being the "most significant bit", and the expression (bits elem bits width) giving the "least significant bit". Similarly, when bits are coerced (typecast) to an array of Boolean ([ ]bool bits), the first element of this array (bits[lwb bits]) is again the "most significant bit".


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: "Batman: No Man's Land" is an American comic book crossover storyline that ran for almost all of 1999 through the "Batman" comic book titles published by DC Comics. The story architecture for "No Man's Land" and the outline of all the Batman continuity titles for 1999 were written by cartoonist Jordan B. Gorfinkel.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: The lead-up story began with the "" story arc, which described a major earthquake hitting Gotham City. This was followed by the storylines "Aftershock" and then "Road to No Man's Land", which resulted in the U.S. government officially evacuating Gotham and then abandoning and isolating those who chose to remain in the city. "No Man's Land" covered, in detail, a period in the lives of the residents of the city, explaining all events from the time of isolation, until its time of re-opening and the beginning of rebuilding.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: The main storyline ran through the monthly Batman titles "Detective Comics", "Batman", "", and "" with other spin-offs serving as tie-ins. In all, "No Man's Land" encompassed 80 regular monthly issues, four specials, and the "Batman: Harley Quinn" graphic novel.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: The storyline is divided into several arcs. A part of the story would continue from one Batman title and then to the next Batman title that would come the following week, much like the same format that was being used in the "Superman" comics at that time. Unlike the "Superman" comics, where a creative team is maintained for one monthly title, the same creative team is maintained for the duration of the story arc.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: The core storyline was originally collected as trade paperbacks in five volumes. However, because of the large number of issues that were devoted to "No Man's Land", only 40 of them made it into the original collections. DC has since released a new collection of "No Man's Land" volumes that includes issues previously uncollected.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: A novelization of the story line was also written by Greg Rucka and released in hardcover in January 2000.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Gotham City suffers the results of a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in the "" storyline. In response, the US government evacuates most of the civilian population, then declares Gotham a "no man's land", destroys all bridges leading to the island, and sets up a military blockade to prevent people from entering or exiting. Gangs and various supervillains Batman had battled over the years swiftly carve up the city. The city's police's commissioner, James Gordon, and several members of his department, who dub their gang the Blue Boys stay behind to protect civilians. Oracle and Huntress also end up on the inside. Bruce Wayne leaves the city to lobby the government to continue aid to Gotham, but fails. Gordon and his men wait for Batman's return, but he disappears for months, leading the police to believe that he has abandoned Gotham. A bitterly disappointed Gordon denounces Batman and refuses to even speak his name. Huntress attempts to keep order, fashioning a Batgirl costume. She soon discovers that criminals fear her more as Batgirl than they do as Huntress and succeeds in holding territory of her own.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: As Penguin continues his trading operation, Joker takes control of an area of Gotham City and dubs it "Jokerville." Commissioner Gordon and three police officers enter the Street Demonz territory to deface their logo with the Lo Boyz logo, only to be caught leaving by three Street Demonz members.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Before the Street Demonz can kill Commissioner Gordon and the police officers with him, they are saved by SWAT Lieutenant William "Billy" Pettit. On Day 98, Oracle chronicles the gang war between the Street Demonz and the Lo Boyz. Batman returns and rescues Alfred Pennyworth from some thugs. One of them falls into the river and sets off some mines. On Day 102, the Blue Boys managed to take over the Street Demonz' territory. Batman finds Huntress operating as Batgirl and allows her to continue to use the costume.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Batman and Alfred activate satellite Batcaves to begin actions to protect the city. Then he takes over Ventriloquist's territory and drives him and Scarface away after briefly holding him captive. Then he tells Rhino and the rest of Ventriloquist's gang that they work for him now.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: When Huntress fails to hold off Two-Face and his army of men and loses Batman's territory, she abandons the Batgirl costume.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Batman and the police work separately to reclaim Gotham, piece by piece, by battling and subduing the gang leaders and then marking the reclaimed territory with graffiti. However, a schism erupts between Gordon and Lt. Pettit, whose militaristic, take-no-prisoners methods shock and outrage Gordon; the Blue Boys subsequently break into two separate factions, with most of Pettit's officers siding with him to form the Strong Men.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Poison Ivy takes up residence in Robinson Park, and Batman — after helping her defeat Clayface's attempts to control the park and thus Gotham's fresh fruit supply — allows her to remain there as long as she cares for various orphans who had retreated to the park, as well as distributing food to the rest of the city. Victor Zsasz claimed a territory in Gotham City as he contends with Leslie Thompkins. Mr. Freeze did the same thing where he even competed against Gearhead, whose armless and legless body was being carried around by the thuggish Tommy Mangles. Superman briefly visits the city to restore some degree of order, but quickly realizes that the city's current state of anarchy and 'might-makes-right' requires a greater effort than the 'quick-fix' he had been expecting and departs. He later returns as Clark Kent to visit Batman and advise locals on how to improve their burgeoning agriculture.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: A simultaneous story in "JLA" reveals that the Justice League keeps an eye on Gotham during this time by preventing various villains from claiming the territory for themselves. Robin's father, Jack, discovers that his son is in Gotham, and believing Tim entered the city for some sort of dare, petitions the government for a search and rescue for Tim, which inadvertently attracts media attention and further public support for the city's revival.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Gordon briefly allies himself with Two-Face to reclaim vital territory, but Two-Face betrays the alliance to claim a greater amount of land for himself. Two-Face also hires David Cain to kill Gordon, but his mute daughter Cassandra, who has become one of Oracle's agents, thwarts Cain. Cassandra later becomes the second Batgirl to help clean up No Man's Land. Later, Two-Face kidnaps Gordon and puts him on trial for breaking the alliance. Police officer Renee Montoya reaches out to Two-Face's Harvey Dent persona, whose defense leads to Gordon's acquittal. While cross-examining himself, Dent concludes that Two-Face had essentially blackmailed Gordon into the alliance; hence, any agreement between them is null and void.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Through the efforts of Lucius Fox, Batman succeeds in getting the attention of Lex Luthor, who arrives in Gotham with plans to completely rebuild the city. Attempts by the Joker to disrupt construction are thwarted by Bane, who has been hired by Luthor in exchange for his own private country. Bane, who has been causing trouble in No Man's Land before, is looking to get revenge on Batman, who convinces him to leave and claim his payment before Luthor reneges on their deal.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Bowing to intense pressure from the people and the media, the government reverses the No Man's Land order and allows Gotham to rejoin the United States. Gordon and his surviving officers are promoted. On Christmas Day, Joker attacks Pettit's compound. Pettit is killed and the Huntress barely survives a battle with the Joker's men.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: The Joker later kidnaps all of Gotham's babies, hiding them in the police station. When Sarah Essen Gordon stumbles upon the scene, the Joker shoots her in the head as she scrambles to catch a baby he dropped. Incredibly, the Joker finds no humor in Sarah's death and stoically surrenders to the police. Batman convinces a grief-stricken Gordon to refrain from killing the Joker, in order to prove that their city can still maintain its morale. When the Joker, who in the course of the Post-"Crisis" narrative has harmed Gordon's entire family, mockingly asks Gordon if he has a son, Gordon shoots the Joker through the kneecap instead; the Joker laments that he may never walk again, but then laughs hysterically upon realizing that . Gordon then breaks down as Batman comforts him.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Luthor's philanthropy is revealed to be a cover for his true intentions: to destroy the deeds to much of the property in Gotham and claim it for himself under false names. Lucius Fox, acting on a tip, discovers copies of the original documents and notifies Luthor. Luthor, feigning ignorance, attempts to kill Fox, but Batman intervenes and reveals that he is the one who anonymously tipped the Wayne Enterprises' CEO. He tells Luthor that Gotham is not for sale and warns him to leave while he still can.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Gordon, in mourning, is tending to the garden at his apartment when Batman comes to visit. Gordon vents about the many frustrations of working with Batman, who had at first disappeared and left Gordon to fight alone. To regain his trust, Batman removes his cowl, only to find Gordon has turned away, insisting that he put the mask back on.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: The story ends with the citizens of Gotham ringing in the New Year and fireworks exploded, while Gordon says his last goodbyes to his wife. Batman, placing roses at his parents' grave, prepares to spend another year as Gotham City's protector.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: Two of the storylines immediately following "No Man's Land" were collected as trade paperbacks with the subtitles "New Gotham 1" and "New Gotham 2", respectively, playing up the fact that they were set in the rebuilt Gotham City following "No Man's Land". These were "Batman: Evolution" from "Detective Comics" #743-750 and "Batman: Officer Down", collecting the story from "Batman" #587, "Robin" #86, "Birds of Prey" #27, "Catwoman" #90, "Nightwing" #53, "Detective Comics" #754, and "Gotham Knights" #13.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: In December 2011, DC started re-issuing the storyline in "complete" editions that will collect all of the comics involved. The four comprehensive volumes were followed in 2015 by two prequel "Road to" volumes.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: DC released the Omnibus version of Road to No Man's Land in November, 2020 (which expanded on the contents of the two trade collections), and followed up with the first volume of the full No Man's Land Omnibus in January 2022. The second comprehensive volume followed in September, 2022. Volume 1 collects all the comics previously collected in Volumes 1 and 2 of the 2011 "complete" editions, and additionally the "Batman: Harley Quinn" one-shot as well as "JLA" #32.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: The second act of the 2012 live-action film "The Dark Knight Rises" is inspired by "No Man's Land", which depicts Gotham City being cut off from the rest of the world and placed under criminal control due to the efforts of the League of Shadows, led by Bane and Talia al Ghul.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: In 2000, DC Comics published a novelization of "No Man's Land" written by Greg Rucka. The story features many of the same characters as the comic book arc. It also describes other members of the GCPD. The book omits the characters of Azrael and Superman, who were present throughout in the comics.


title: Batman: No Man's Land

text: GraphicAudio produced an audiobook of the novelization which spans two volumes and features a full cast, music and sound effects. The first part was released in October and the second part in November 2011.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Muslim Magomedovich Salikhov (born June 9, 1984), is a Russian mixed martial artist and Sanda fighter who currently competes in welterweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). A multiple time Wushu Sanda world champion, Salikhov occupies a place alongside Hossein Ojaghi as one of only two non-Chinese athletes to have won the Wushu Sanda King's Cup.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Muslim Salikhov was born in Buynaksk, Dagestan; his ethnicity is Kumyk. In 1995, he began to practice Wushu Sanda at the Five Directions of the World, a school famous for combining general and martial arts education.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Muslim is an alumnus of the famous Dagestani sports-dedicated boarding school Five Directions of the World.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov faced Liu Hailong who held the title "King of Sanda" at the 2003 World Wushu Championships in Macau. Both were evenly matched, with Liu Hailong declared the winner. Salikhov was the Sanshou champion at the 2004 European Wushu Championships held in Moscow and he became the World Champion in 2005. Muslim Salikhov is often acknowledged as one of the best Wushu Sanda competitors in history.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: In February 2006, he participated in the first international "King of Sanda" tournament in Chongqing and became the first non-Chinese to win the title. He again won the world title in 2007 and 2009. At the World Wushu Championships, he became one of the most decorated sanda athletes of all time and was the first sanda athlete to win five gold medals. He was also a gold medalist at the 2008 Beijing Wushu Tournament, and won medals at the 2009 World Games and the World Combat Games.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov made his professional MMA debut in July 2011. Over the next year and a half, he earned a record of two wins and one loss.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: By early 2013, Salikhov signed with M-1 Global, preparing with Phuket Top Team for his mixed martial arts debut. He fought three times for the promotion, going undefeated during this run.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Beginning in 2015, Salikhov fought for various regional promotions in China and Russia. He has fought seven times over the last two years, again remaining undefeated in this run with six of the sevens wins coming via knockout.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov notched his biggest win to date when he earned a victory over UFC and Bellator vet Melvin Guillard by spinning hook kick.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: In his debut for the promotion, Salikhov faced Alex Garcia on November 25, 2017 at . He lost the fight via submission in the second round.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov faced Abdul Razak Alhassan on April 14, 2018 on . However, Alhassan was pulled from the card, citing injury, and he was replaced by promotional newcomer Ricky Rainey. He won the fight via technical knock out in round two.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: On July 20, 2018, Salikhov was notified of a potential doping violation by USADA from an out-of-competition sample collected on June 7, 2018. On March 4, 2019 Salikhov was cleared of USADA suspension as USADA could not determine if Salikhov had ingested oral Turinabol a year before he was signed to the UFC and entered the USADA drug-testing program.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov faced Nordine Taleb on September 7, 2019 at UFC 242. He won the fight via knockout in the first round. This win earned him the "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov faced Laureano Staropoli on October 26, 2019 at UFC on ESPN+ 20. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov was expected to face Niko Price on April 11, 2020 at . However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was eventually postponed and pairing scrapped.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov faced Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos on July 11, 2020 at UFC 251. He won the fight via a split decision.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov was scheduled to face Cláudio Silva on October 18, 2020 at UFC Fight Night 180. However on October 4, it was announced that Salikhov pulled out due to undisclosed reasons and was replaced by James Krause.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov was scheduled to face Santiago Ponzinibbio on January 16, 2021 at UFC on ABC 1. However, Salikhov pulled out of the bout in mid-December citing health issues after contracting COVID-19.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov faced Francisco Trinaldo on June 5, 2021 at UFC Fight Night 189. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov was scheduled to face Michel Pereira on January 15, 2022 at UFC on ESPN 32. However, Salikhov withdrew from the bout for undisclosed reasons and the bout was cancelled.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov faced Li Jingliang on July 16, 2022, at UFC on ABC 3. He lost the fight via technical knockout in the second round.


title: Muslim Salikhov

text: Salikhov faced André Fialho on November 19, 2022, at UFC Fight Night 215. He won the fight via technical knockout in round three. With this win, Salikhov earned the "Performance of the Night" award.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: The Senate of the Republic (), or simply the Senate (), is the upper house of the bicameral Italian Parliament (the other being the Chamber of Deputies). The two houses together form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform identical functions, but do so separately. Pursuant to the Articles 57, 58, and 59 of the Italian Constitution, the Senate has 200 elective members, of which 196 are elected from Italian constituencies, and 4 from Italian citizens living abroad. Furthermore, there is a small number (currently 6) of senators for life ("senatori a vita"), either appointed or "ex officio". It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as "Senato del Regno" (Senate of the Kingdom), itself a continuation of the "Senato Subalpino" (Subalpine Senate) of Sardinia established on 8 May 1848. Members of the Senate are styled "Senator" or "The Honourable Senator" (Italian: "Onorevole Senatore") and they meet at Palazzo Madama, Rome.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: Article 57 of the Constitution of Italy originally established that the Senate of the Republic was to be elected on a regional basis by Italian citizens aged 25 or older (unlike the Chamber of the Deputies, which was elected on a national basis and by all Italian citizens aged 18 or older). No region could have less than 7 senators, except for the two smallest regions: Aosta Valley (1 senator) and Molise (2 senators). From 2006 to 2020, 6 out of 315 senators (and 12 out of 630 deputies) were elected by Italians residing abroad.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: After two constitutional amendments were passed respectively in 2020 (by constitutional referendum) and 2021, however, there have been changes. The Senate is still elected on a regional basis, but the number of senators was reduced from 315 to 200, who are now elected by all citizens aged 18 or older, just like deputies (themselves being reduced from 630 to 400). Italians residing abroad now elect 4 senators (and 8 deputies).


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: The remaining 196 senators are assigned to each region proportionally according to their population. The amended Article 57 of the Constitution provides that no region can have fewer than 3 senators representing it, barring Aosta Valley and Molise, which retained 1 and 2 senators respectively.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: The senators for life are composed of former presidents of the Italian Republic who hold office "ex officio", and up to five citizens who are appointed by Presidents of Italy "for outstanding merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". The current life senators are:


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: The current term of the Senate is five years, except for senators for life that hold their office for their lifetime. Until a Constitutional change on 9 February 1963, the Senate was elected for six-year terms. The Senate may be dissolved before the expiration of its normal term by the president of the Republic (e.g. when no government can obtain a majority).


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: According to article 58 of the Italian constitution, Italian citizens aged 18 onwards (until 2021 25 years) are enabled to vote for the Senate.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: The electoral system is a parallel voting system, with 37% of seats allocated using first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) and 63% using proportional representation, allocated with the largest remainder method, with one round of voting.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: For Italian residents, each house members are elected by single ballots, including the constituency candidate and his/her supporting party lists. In each single-member constituency the deputy/senator is elected on a plurality basis, while the seats in multi-member constituencies will be allocated nationally. In order to be calculated in single-member constituency results, parties need to obtain at least 1% of the national vote. In order to receive seats in multi-member constituencies, parties need to obtain at least 3% of the national vote. Elects from multi-member constituencies will come from closed lists. The single voting paper, containing both first-past-the-post candidates and the party lists, shows the names of the candidates to single-member constituencies and, in close conjunction with them, the symbols of the linked lists for the proportional part, each one with a list of the relative candidates.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: In 2016, the Italian Parliament passed a constitutional law that "effectively abolishes the Senate as an elected chamber and sharply restricts its ability to veto legislation". The law was rejected on 4 December 2016 by a referendum, leaving the Senate unchanged.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: Under the current Constitution, the Senate must hold its first sitting no later than 20 days after a general election. That session, presided by the oldest senator, proceeds to elect the president of the Senate for the following parliamentary period. On the first two attempts at voting, an absolute majority of all senators is needed; if a third round is needed, a candidate can be elected by an absolute majority of the senators present and voting. If this third round fails to produce a winner, a final ballot is held between the two senators with the highest votes in the previous ballot. In the case of a tie, the elder senator is deemed the winner.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: In addition to overseeing the business of the chamber, chairing and regulating debates, deciding whether motions and bills are admissible, representing the Senate, etc., the president of the Senate stands in for the president of the Republic when the latter is unable to perform the duties of the office; in this case the Senate is headed by a vice president.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: Since 1871, the Senate has met in Palazzo Madama in Rome, an old patrician palace completed in 1505 for the Medici family. The palace takes its name from "Madama" Margherita of Austria, daughter of Charles V and wife of Alessandro de' Medici. After the extinction of the Medici, the palace was handed over to the House of Lorraine. and, later, it was sold to Papal Government.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: Later, in 1755, Pope Benedict XIV (whose coat of arms still dominates the main entrance) ordered major restructuring, entrusting the work to Luigi Hostini. In the following years there were installed the court offices and police headquarters. In 1849, Pius IX moved the Ministries of Finances and of the Public Debt here, as well as the Papal Post Offices. After the conquest of Rome by the newly formed Kingdom of Italy, the palace was chosen to become the seat of the "Senato del Regno" (Senate of the Kingdom).


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: Palazzo Madama and the adjacent buildings underwent further restructuring and adaptation in the first decades of the 20th century. A radical transformation which involved, among other things, the modernization of the hemicycle, the full remaking of the prospectus on Via San Salvatore and Via Dogana Vecchia, and the establishment of a connection with the adjacent Palazzo Carpegna. The latter, owned by the Senate, was entirely rebuilt in an advanced position compared to its original position. The small church of San Salvatore in Thermis, dating to the 6th century, which stood in the street to the left of the palace, was first closed, expropriated and later razed for security reasons.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: The current façade was built in the mid-1650s by both Cigoli and Paolo Maruccelli. The latter added the ornate cornice and whimsical decorative urns on the roof. Among the rooms one of the most significant (and perhaps the most impressive from the political point of view) is the "Sala Maccari," which takes its name from Cesare Maccari, the artist who decorated it in 1880 and created the frescoes, among which stands out the one that depicts Cicero making his indictment of Catiline, who listens isolated.


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: The chamber where the Senate met for the first time on 27 November 1871 was designed by Luigi Gabet. A plaque on the wall behind the speaker's chair commemorates the king's address to Parliament when first convened in the new seat of government:


title: Senate of the Republic (Italy)

text: To the viewers' left stand the flags of the Italian Republic (with a ribbon embroidered with the words SENATO DELLA REPUBBLICA) and the European Union.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: A flare or decoy flare is an aerial infrared countermeasure used by a plane or helicopter to counter an infrared homing ("heat-seeking") surface-to-air missile or air-to-air missile. Flares are commonly composed of a pyrotechnic composition based on magnesium or another hot-burning metal, with burning temperature equal to or hotter than engine exhaust. The aim is to make the infrared-guided missile seek out the heat signature from the flare rather than the aircraft's engines.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: In contrast to radar-guided missiles, IR-guided missiles are very difficult to find as they approach aircraft. They do not emit detectable radar, and they are generally fired from behind, directly toward the engines. In most cases, pilots have to rely on their wingmen to spot the missile's smoke trail and alert of a launch. Since IR-guided missiles have a shorter range than their radar-guided counterparts, good situational awareness of altitude and potential threats continues to be an effective defense. More advanced electro-optical systems can detect missile launches automatically from the distinct thermal emissions of a missile's rocket motor.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Once the presence of a "live" IR missile is indicated, flares are released by the aircraft in an attempt to decoy the missile. Some systems are automatic, while others require manual jettisoning of the flares. The aircraft would then pull away at a sharp angle from the flare (and the terminal trajectory of the missile) and reduce engine power in attempt to cool the thermal signature. Ideally the missile's seeker head is then confused by this change in temperature and flurry of new heat signatures, and starts to follow one of the flares rather than the aircraft.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: More modern IR-guided missiles have sophisticated on-board electronics and secondary electro-optical sensors that help discriminate between flares and targets, reducing the effectiveness of flares as a reactionary countermeasure. A newer procedure involves preemptively deploying flares in anticipation of a missile launch, which distorts the expected image of the target should one be let loose. This "pre-flaring" increases the chances that the missile then follows the flares or the open sky in between, rather than a part of the actual defender.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: As non-state combatants such as insurgents and terrorists gain access to anti-air missiles, there is an increasing trend to equip slower-moving helicopters with flare countermeasures. Consequently, flare dispensers have become a regular feature on military helicopters. Almost all of the UK's helicopters, whether they are transport or attack models, are equipped with flare dispensers or missile approach warning systems. Similarly, the US armed forces have adopted active defenses with their helicopters.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Apart from military use, some civilian aircraft are also equipped with countermeasure flares, against terrorism: the Israeli airline El Al, having been the target of the failed 2002 airliner attack, in which shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles were fired at an airliner while taking off, began equipping its fleet with radar-based, automated flare release countermeasures from June 2004. This caused concerns in some European countries, which proceeded to ban such aircraft from landing at their airports.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Flares burn at thousands of degrees Celsius, which is much hotter than the exhaust of a jet engine. IR missiles seek out the hotter flame, believing it to be an aircraft in afterburner or the beginning of the engine's exhaust source.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: As the more modern infrared seekers tend to have spectral sensitivity tailored to more closely match the emissions of airplanes and reject other sources (the so-called CCM, or counter-countermeasures), the modernized decoy flares have their emission spectrum optimized to also match the radiation of the airplane (mainly its engines and engine exhaust). In addition to spectral discrimination, the CCMs can include trajectory discrimination and detection of size of the radiation source.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: The newest generation of the FIM-92 Stinger uses a dual IR and UV seeker head, which allows for a redundant tracking solution, effectively negating the effectiveness of modern decoy flares (according to the U.S. Department of Defense). While research and development in flare technology has produced an IR signature on the same wavelength as hot engine exhaust, modern flares still produce a notably (and immutably) different UV signature than an aircraft engine burning kerosene jet-fuel.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: For the infrared generating charge, two approaches are possible: pyrotechnic and pyrophoric as stored, chemical-energy-source IR-decoy flares contain pyrotechnic compositions, liquid or solid pyrophoric substances, or liquid or solid highly flammable substances.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Upon ignition of the decoy flare, a strongly exothermal reaction is started, releasing infrared energy and visible smoke and flame, emission being dependent on the chemical nature of the payload used.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: There is a wide variety of calibres and shapes available for aerial decoy flares. Due to volume storage restrictions on board platforms, many aircraft of American origin use square decoy flare cartridges. Nevertheless, cylindrical cartridges are also available on board American aircraft, such as MJU 23/B on the B-1 Lancer or MJU-8A/B on the F/A-18 Hornet; however, these are used mainly on board French aircraft and those of Russian origin (e.g. PPI-26 IW on the MiG 29).


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Pyrotechnic flares use a slow-burning fuel-oxidizer mixture that generates intense heat. Thermite-like mixtures, e.g. Magnesium/Teflon/Viton (MTV), are common. Other combinations include ammonium perchlorate/anthracene/magnesium, or can be based on red phosphorus.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: To adjust the emission characteristics to match closer the spectrum of jet engines, charges on the base of double base propellants. These compositions can avoid the metal content and achieve cleaner burning without the prominent smoke trail.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Certain pyrotechnic compositions, for example MTV, give a great flame emission upon combustion and yield a temperature-dependent signature and can be understood as gray bodies of high emissivity (formula_1~0.95). Such payloads are called blackbody payloads. Other payloads, like iron/potassium perchlorate pellets, only yield a low flame emission but also show temperature-dependent signature. Nevertheless, the lower combustion temperature as compared to MTV results in a lower amount of energy released in the short-wavelength IR range. Other blackbody payloads include ammonium perchlorate/anthracene/magnesium and hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) binder.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Other payloads provide large amounts of hot carbon dioxide upon combustion and thus provide a temperature-independent selective emission in the wavelength range between 3 and 5 μm. Typical pyrotechnic payloads of this type resemble whistling compositions and are often made up from potassium perchlorate and hydrogen lean organic fuels. Other spectrally balanced payloads are made up similarly as double base propellants and contain nitrocellulose (NC), and other esters of nitric acid or nitro compounds as oxidizers such as hexanitroethane and nitro compounds and nitramines as high-energy fuels.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Pyrophoric flares work on the principle of ejecting a special pyrophoric material out of an airtight cartridge, usually using a gas generator, e.g. a small pyrotechnic charge or pressurized gas. The material then self-ignites in contact with air. The materials can be solid, e.g. iron platelets coated with ultrafine aluminium, or liquid, often organometallic compounds; e.g. alkyl aluminium compounds, e.g. triethylaluminium. Pyrophoric flares may have reduced effectiveness at high altitudes, due to lower air temperature and lower availability of oxygen; however oxygen can be co-ejected with the pyrophoric fuel.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: The advantage of alkyl aluminium and similar compounds is the high content of carbon and hydrogen, resulting in bright emission lines similar to spectral signature of burning jet fuel. Controlled content of solid combustion products, generating continuous black-body radiation, allows further matching of emission characteristics to the net infrared emissions of fuel exhaust and hot engine components.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: The flames of pyrophoric fuels can also reach the size of several metres, in comparison with about less than one metre flame of MTV flares. The trajectory can be also influenced by tailoring the aerodynamic properties of the ejected containers.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: Solid pyrophoric payloads are based on iron platelets coated with a porous aluminium layer. Based on the very high specific surface area of aluminium those platelets instantaneously oxidize upon contact with air. In contrast to triethylaluminium combustion, these platelets yield a temperature-dependent signature.


title: Flare (countermeasure)

text: These payloads contain red phosphorus as an energetic filler. The red phosphorus is mixed with organic binders to give brushable pastes that can be coated on thin polyimide platelets. The combustion of those platelets yields a temperature-dependent signature. Endergonic additives such as highly dispersed silica or alkali halides may further lower the combustion temperature.


title: Boomika

text: Boomika also spelt as Bhoomika is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language eco action thriller horror film written and directed by Rathindran R. Prasad. The film is also touted as the first film with the genre of eco action thriller. The film stars Aishwarya Rajesh, Avantika Vandanapu, Madhuri Jain, Vidhu and Pavel Navageethan. The film resembles similar to the storyline of Karthik Subbaraj's directorial "Mercury". It was directly released via Star Vijay on 22 August 2021 and streamed internationally through Netflix, the following day (23 August 2021). The film opened to average reviews.


title: Boomika

text: In Nagapattinam, a man drives home to visit his pregnant wife. While talking to her on the phone about a recently concluded construction deal, his car collides with an oncoming truck, killing him.


title: Boomika

text: Meanwhile, Samyuktha "Sam" - a psychologist based in Ooty, is seeking medical therapy for her 4-year-old son - Siddhu, who suffers from speech impediment. Sam's husband, Gautham, is a rising architect, who has just concluded a deal for the refurbishment of a deserted compound, for a politician. To focus on the project, the couple invites Gautham's childhood-friend, Gayathri - a reputed architect, and Aditi - Gautham's sister, to live with them at the compound.


title: Boomika

text: While preparing to stay at the compound for the night, Gayathri begins texting with Krishna, an old-friend of hers. While sending a selfie of her and Aditi to him, he eerily replies that, he too, will be seen the picture - if they "begin to take things more seriously". However, Gautham reveals that Krishna, had died in a car accident the previous night, and that phones don't get satellite connectivity at the compound. Soon after, more paranormal activities begin to occur; Gayathri's phone begins to regularly beep with newer messages, despite her even having removed its battery. Concurrently, the power blacks out. Horrified with the recent events, the group attempts to flee, only to thwarted by their malfunctioning car.


title: Boomika

text: Having retreated back into the compound, Sam and Gayathri deduce that the recent texts weren't sent by "Krishna", given his premature demise, but that of a paranormal source. Gautham then divulges that the compound, was earlier a school, which had been deserted over ten-years ago, on account of paranormal activities in the aftermath of a girl's death - infamously known as the "Mount Roseyard School Mystery". While seeking to find clues about the school's history, the group discovers several magazines with articles relating to the mystery; the pages of the articles are missing. Concurrently, Aditi - petrified with the recent events, attempts to flee, only to be ambushed by a pack of wild dogs. Gautham and Dharman - the compound's security guard, manage to save her, despite all three getting injured. While treating Aditi, the group discovers the torn pages in the house of the school's former librarian.


title: Boomika

text: While reading the pages, the group learns that the girl in-question, Boomika - was the autistic daughter of the librarian, Ganesan. Boomika - an exceptionally-talented artist, and a nature lover, was well known for her astonishing works of art. She had spent most of her time, either painting in an abandoned flat, or leisuring in the nearby forest, despite Ganesan's wishes for her to pursue proper education. With a growing reputation - she was admitted into the school; however, she had died mysteriously afterwards. In the aftermath of her death, the entire school and the surrounding residents were reported to have migrated elsewhere, after reports of multiple murders in the area.


title: Boomika

text: Dharman bizarrely quips that Boomika and the Earth "are the same" - it will take revenge on anyone who dares to "desecrate it". Gayathri deduces his view as the Gaia Hypothesis - that the Earth itself is a single, self-regulating organism, while other living forms thrive in a sort of symbiotic relationship with it; any organism which threatens to destabilize the Earth's ecological balance with ruin, will be killed. Elsewhere, Gautham visits the abandoned flat where Boomika used to paint, and witnesses the wall-paintings moving. Simultaneously, a paranoid Aditi, manages to musters enough courage to destroy Gayathri's phone - which she believes is the root cause for the recent events. Gayathri follows her, only to stop dead in her tracks, when she sees a ghastly apparition - presumably Boomika's spirit, behind Aditi. "Boomika" knocks out Aditi and Gayathri, and begins to chase Sam, who attempts to flee. Dharman manages to create a distraction; he is knocked out instead. Sam reunites with Gautham; they rush back into the compound upon realizing than Siddhu was left behind. Sam finds Siddhu painting with "Boomika"; she leaves a few moments later, without harming him, but not before Siddhu utters "Thank You", indicating that he overcame his impediment.


title: Boomika

text: With "Boomika" presumably gone, the group vacates the house. In the aftermath of the night's events - Aditi is shown to be receiving therapy for trauma, Gayathri is recuperating from her injuries, Dharman has retreated to his hometown, Siddhu has regained his ability of speech, while Gautham remains in Ooty to focus on the refurbishment project; he cautiously conducts a "bhumi puja" (sacred rituals), in an attempt to prevent "Boomika" from returning. Elsewhere, Sam, who is visiting Gayathri in Bengaluru, is told by the latter about the true circumstances behind Boomika's death - Boomika had committed suicide, distraught with the then-ongoing infrastructure projects - which had threatened deforestation of the surrounding forests. Gayathri further reveals that Ganesan was intimidated to remain silent, and that the target of the murders which occurred in the aftermath of her death, were all people related to construction-activities. Gayathri realizes that Boomika's actions "matches" the Gaia Hypothesis - just as how the Earth would "kill" anyone which threatened to destroy its ecological sanctity, "Boomika" had murdered the construction workers, whose activities had threatened to cause ruin to her environment. Realizing that Gautham may be in danger, Sam rushes back to Ooty; it is shown that she had persuaded him to continue with the project, despite the paranormal events, and that Krishna was the one who had mediated the deal between Gautham and the politician - thus resulting in his death in the car crash (the politician was also murdered a while later).