title: Metal–organic framework

text: Another relevant MOF property is their low heat capacities. Monoethanolamine (MEA) solutions, the leading capture method, have a heat capacity between 3-4 J/g K since they are mostly water. This high heat capacity contributes to the energy penalty in the solvent regeneration step. I.e., when the adsorbed CO is removed from the MEA solution. MOF-177, a MOF designed for CO capture, has a heat capacity of 0.5 J/g K at ambient temperature.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: MOFs adsorb 90% of the CO using a vacuum pressure swing process. The MOF Mg(dobdc) has a 21.7 wt% CO loading capacity. Applied to a large scale power plant, the cost of energy would increase by 65%, while a U.S. NETL baseline amine-based system would cause an increase of 81% (goal is 35%). The capture cost would be $57 / ton, while for the amine system the cost is estimated to be $72 / ton. At that rate the capital required to implement such project in a 580 MW power plant would be $354 million.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: A MOF loaded with propylene oxide can act as a catalyst, converting into cyclic carbonates (ring-shaped molecules with many applications). They can also remove carbon from biogas. This MOF is based on lanthanides, which provide chemical stability. This is especially important because the gases the MOF will be exposed to are hot, high in humidity, and acidic. Triaminoguanidinium-based POFs and Zn/POFs are new multifunctional materials for environmental remediation and biomedical applications.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: MOF membranes can mimic substantial ion selectivity. This offers the potential for use in desalination and water treatment. As of 2018 reverse osmosis supplied more than half of global desalination capacity, and the last stage of most water treatment processes. Osmosis does not use dehydration of ions, or selective ion transport in biological channels and it is not energy efficient. The mining industry, uses membrane-based processes to reduce water pollution, and to recover metals. MOFs could be used to extract metals such as lithium from seawater and waste streams.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: MOF membranes such as ZIF-8 and UiO-66 membranes with uniform subnanometer pores consisting of angstrom-scale windows and nanometer-scale cavities displayed ultrafast selective transport of alkali metal ions. The windows acted as ion selectivity filters for alkali metal ions, while the cavities functioned as pores for transport. The ZIF-8 and UiO-66 membranes showed a LiCl/RbCl selectivity of ~4.6 and ~1.8, respectively, much higher than the 0.6 to 0.8 selectivity in traditional membranes. A 2020 study suggested that a new MOF called PSP-MIL-53 could be used along with sunlight to purify water in just half an hour.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: MOFs are also predicted to be very effective media to separate gases with low energy cost using computational high throughput screening from their adsorption or gas breakthrough/diffusions properties. One of the example is NbOFFIVE-1-Ni, also referred to as KAUST-7 which can separate propane and propylene via diffusion at nearly 100% selectivity. The specific molecule selectivity properties provided by Cu-BDC surface mounted metal organic framework (SURMOF-2) growth on alumina layer on top of back gated Graphene Field Effect Transistor (GFET) can provide a sensor that only sensitive to ethanol but not to methanol or isopropanol.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: MOFs have been demonstrated that capture water vapor from the air. In 2021 under humid conditions, a polymer-MOF lab prototype yielded 17 liters (4.5 gal) of water per kg per day without added energy.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: MOFs could also be used to increase energy efficiency in room temperature space cooling applications.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: When cooling outdoor air, a cooling unit must deal with both the air's sensible heat and latent heat. Typical vapor-compression-air-conditioning (VCAC) units manage the latent heat in air through cooling fins held below the dew point temperature of the moist air at the intake. These fins condense the water, dehydrating the air and thus substantially reducing the air's heat content. The cooler's energy usage is highly dependent on the cooling coil's temperature and would be improved greatly if the temperature of this coil could be raised above the dew point. This makes it desirable to handle dehumidification through means other than condensation. One such means is by adsorbing the water from the air into a desiccant coated onto the heat exchangers, using the waste heat exhausted from the unit to desorb the water from the sorbent and thus regenerate the desiccant for repeated usage. This is accomplished by having two condenser/evaporator units through which the flow of refrigerant can be reversed once the desiccant on the condenser is saturated, thus making the condenser the evaporator and vice versa.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: MOFs' extremely high surface areas and porosities have made them the subject of much research in water adsorption applications. Chemistry can help tune the optimal relative humidity for adsorption/desorption, and the sharpness of the water uptake.


title: Metal–organic framework

text: Some MOFs also exhibit spontaneous electric polarization, which occurs due to the ordering of electric dipoles (polar linkers or guest molecules) below a certain phase transition temperature. If this long-range dipolar order can be controlled by the external electric field, a MOF is called ferroelectric. Some ferroelectric MOFs also exhibit magnetic ordering making them single structural phase multiferroics. This material property is highly interesting for construction of memory devices with high information density. The coupling mechanism of type-I [(CH)NH][Ni(HCOO)] molecular multiferroic is spontaneous elastic strain mediated indirect coupling.


title: Muse Watson

text: Muse Watson (born July 20, 1948) is an American stage and screen actor. He became known for his roles as Ben Willis, the primary antagonist in the "I Know What You Did Last Summer" franchise, Charles Westmoreland on the Fox television series "Prison Break" and Mike Franks in CBS television series "NCIS".


title: Muse Watson

text: Watson was born on July 20, 1948, in Alexandria, Louisiana. He attended Louisiana Tech on a music stipend for two years before transferring to Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, where he performed for the first time on stage as Petruchio in a production of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew". During and after his years at Berea, he worked in outdoor dramas, dinner theaters, and small repertory groups.


title: Muse Watson

text: His theater credits include acting as Hamlet in "Hamlet", Stanley in "A Streetcar Named Desire", Pale in "Burn This", and Cervantes in "Man of La Mancha." He also directed a production of "Ain't Misbehavin'".


title: Muse Watson

text: In 1989, with a new transition to film, Watson began pursuing feature film roles. By 2005, he had appeared in 43 feature films such as "Sommersby", "Something to Talk About", "Assassins", "Dead Birds", "Rosewood", "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "From Dusk Till Dawn 2", "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer", "", and "Songcatcher". As of 2005, seven of the films he has appeared in, combined, have grossed over $850 million.


title: Muse Watson

text: His television credits include eight made-for-television movies including "Blind Vengeance" and "Justice in a Small Town"; and the television series, "American Gothic", "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", "Cold Case", "Matlock", "The Lazarus Man", "JAG", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Criminal Minds", and "Prison Break". He appeared on episodes of "Ghost Whisperer" ("Delia's First Ghost", April 2007), which reunited him with his I Know What You Did Last Summer co-star Jennifer Love Hewitt, and "" ("Who and What", November 2007). Watson also guest starred in an episode of "The Mentalist" ("Carnelian, Inc.", March 2009), and in the "Castle" episode "Punked" (October 2010). Since 2006, he has appeared as a recurring cast member on "NCIS" as Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs's mentor and former superior Mike Franks.


title: Muse Watson

text: Watson also gave a performance with Jennifer Love Hewitt as a special guest on "Saturday Night Live" (1998), parodying his role in "I Know What You Did Last Summer". He also joined the production company Shorris Film with Christopher Showerman and Clint Morris—their first film is the Western "Between the Sand and the Sky". In 2010, Watson filmed "A Christmas Snow", in which he played a character named Sam.


title: Muse Watson

text: Watson is an advocate for people with autism, and has taken an active role in educating people about autism. He is the honorary chairman of Stars for Autism, a nonprofit organization incorporated in Battlefield, Missouri. He is featured in the video promotion for that organization, www.Stars4Autism.com.


title: Muse Watson

text: He wrote the foreword to a book for parents and teachers, entitled "Stars in Her Eyes, Navigating the Maze of Childhood Autism", by Dr. Linda Barboa and Elizabeth Obrey.


title: Meher Ramesh

text: Meher Ramesh is an Indian film director and screenwriter who predominantly works for Telugu films. Ramesh debuted as a director with the Kannada film "Veera Kannadiga" (2004) which was simultaneously made in Telugu as "Andhrawala" (2004), and has made films like "Ajay" (2006), a Kannada film which was remake of "Okkadu" (2003). He then directed Telugu films "Kantri" (2008) and "Shakti" (2011) with NTR, "Billa" (2009) with Prabhas and "Shadow" (2013) with Venkatesh.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby; 13 November 1785 – 25 January 1828) was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and novelist, best known for "Glenarvon", a Gothic novel. In 1812 she had an affair with Lord Byron, whom she described as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Her husband was The Hon. William Lamb, who after her death became British prime minister.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: She was the only daughter of Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough, an Anglo-Irish peer, and Henrietta, Countess of Bessborough. She was known as the Honourable Caroline Ponsonby until her father succeeded to the earldom in 1793. While her brother, Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, was severely injured in the Battle of Waterloo, in the days after the battle she had an affair with the Duke of Wellington. She was related to other leading society ladies, being the niece of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and cousin (by marriage) of Annabella, Lady Byron. She was related to Sarah Ponsonby, one half of the Ladies of Llangollen, and Diana, Princess of Wales.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: As a small child she was considered delicate and for her health spent much time in the country. She travelled with her mother and other family to Italy, where she made an agonizing recovery from an illness caused by worms that nearly ended her life. After returning with her mother to England, she rejoined a lively menage of children who lived at Devonshire House and Roehampton, her cousins, the children of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire: by his first marriage, to Lady Georgiana Spencer, three children, Lady Georgiana ("Little G"), Lady Harriet Cavendish ("Hary-o"), and Lord Hartington ("Hart", later the 6th Duke of Devonshire); and by his mistress and second wife, Lady Elizabeth Foster, two children, Augustus Clifford and Caroline St Jules, later wife of George Lamb (politician and writer). During childhood, she became particularly close to Lady Harriet, who was only three months older. Her behaviour grew increasingly troublesome to her family, she experimented with sedatives like laudanum and had a special governess to control her.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Morgan reported in her memoirs that Lady Caroline told her that she had grown up as a tomboy, and was quite unable to read or write until adolescence.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: As a child Lady Caroline considered being able to wash a dog one of her most satisfying accomplishments. While many scholars have accepted this (and other melodramatic claims made by Lady Morgan) at face value, published works of correspondence about her family members make it extremely unlikely. The grandmother she shared with her Cavendish cousins, the formidable Dowager Lady Spencer, was zealously dedicated to promoting education, and later employed their governess as her own companion. This governess was Miss Selina Trimmer, the daughter of Mrs Sarah Trimmer, a well-known and respected author of moral tales for children. She taught them an extensive curriculum, considerably beyond mere literacy. There is a published letter Lady Caroline wrote on 31 October 1796 (just before her eleventh birthday) that not only demonstrates her literacy, but shows a merciless wit and talent for mimicry.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Caroline was exceptionally well educated at home. She also attended a school in Hans Place, Knightsbridge, London, the successor to Reading Abbey Girls' School, where she was taught by Frances Arabella Rowden. Rowden was not only a published poet, but, according to another pupil, Mary Russell Mitford, "she had a knack of making poetesses of her pupils".


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: In her early adult years, Lady Caroline not only wrote prose and poetry, but also took to sketching portraiture. These courtly skills stood her in good stead. She spoke French and Italian fluently, was skilled at Greek and Latin, and also enjoyed music and drama.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: In June 1805, at the age of nineteen, Lady Caroline Ponsonby married the Hon. William Lamb, an up-and-coming politician, and heir to the 1st Viscount Melbourne. Although their meeting had been shrewdly orchestrated by William Lamb's mother, theirs was a love match. The couple had become "mutually captivated" during a visit to Brocket Hall in 1802 and for many years the pair enjoyed a happy marriage. In 1809 his brother George married her namesake cousin Caroline St Jules.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Caroline gave birth to a stillborn child in January 1806, and then she and William produced a son, George Augustus Frederick, born on 11 August 1807, and a premature daughter, born in 1809 who died within 24 hours. Lady Caroline was physically ill-suited to childbirth and suffered long recovery periods after each one.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Her son was born with severe mental problems. Although most aristocratic families typically sent such relatives to institutions, the Lambs cared for their son at home until his eventual death in 1836, eight years after Lady Caroline's death. The stress of their son's ill health, combined with William Lamb's consuming career ambitions, drove a wedge between the couple. A further difficulty was that William's brothers and sister, a very close-knit clan, all detested Caroline, whom they called "the little beast", while she and her mother-in-law hated each other from the start, and their lifelong enmity was to be a great cause of unhappiness to Caroline.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: From March to August 1812, Lady Caroline embarked on a well-publicised affair with Lord Byron. He was 24, she 26. She spurned his attention on their first meeting, which was at a society event at Holland House. According to the memoirs of her friend Sydney, Lady Morgan, Lady Caroline claimed she coined the phrase "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" soon after meeting the poet. It became his lasting epitaph, but there is no contemporary evidence to prove that she coined the famous phrase at the time. She wrote him a fan letter; his response was to visit her because of her high social status, and then to pursue her passionately.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Caroline and Lord Byron publicly decried each other as they privately pledged their love over the following months. Byron referred to Lamb as "Caro", which she adopted as her public nickname. After Byron broke things off, her husband took the disgraced and desolated Lady Caroline to Ireland. The distance did not cool Lady Caroline's interest in the poet; she and Byron corresponded constantly during her exile. When Lady Caroline returned to London in 1813, however, Byron made it clear he had no intention of restarting their relationship. This spurred increasingly public attempts to reunite with her former lover. Matters came to a head at a ball in honour of the Duke of Wellington when Byron publicly insulted Lady Caroline, who responded by breaking a wine glass and trying to slash her wrists. She did not seriously injure herself and it is most unlikely that she had any suicidal intentions, but polite society was scandalised, and her mental stability was called into question. Byron himself referred to it as a theatrical performance: "Lady Caroline performed the dagger scene" (a reference to "Macbeth").


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Caroline's obsession with Byron would define much of her later life, as well as influencing both her and Byron's works. They would write poems in the style of each other, about each other, and even embed overt messages to one another in their verse. After a thwarted visit to Byron's home, Lady Caroline wrote "Remember Me!" into the flyleaf of one of Byron's books. He responded with the hate poem: ""Remember thee! Remember thee!; Till Lethe quench life's burning stream; Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream! Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not. Thy husband too shall think of thee! By neither shalt thou be forgot, Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!""


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Her cousin Harriet (by then Lady Granville), with whom Lady Caroline's relationship had deteriorated after childhood, visited her in December 1816 and was so incredulous at her unrepentant behaviour that she ended her description of the visit in a letter to her sister with: "I mean my visits to be annual."


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Caroline Lamb was noted to have been involved in a few different literary circles that met in the Holland House, Lady Charleville's, Lord Ward's, Lord Lansdowne's, and others of similar repute.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Caroline's most famous work is "Glenarvon", a Gothic novel that was released in 1816 just weeks after Byron's departure from England. Although published anonymously, Lady Caroline's authorship was an open secret. It featured a thinly disguised pen-picture of herself and her former lover, who was painted as a war hero who turns traitor against . The book was notable for featuring the first version of the Byronic hero outside of Byron's own work as well as a detailed scrutiny of the Romantic Period and, more specifically, the Ton. Lady Caroline included scathing caricatures of several of those prominent society members. One of them, the Countess of Jersey, cancelled Lady Caroline's vouchers to Almack's in retribution for her characterisations. This was the opening salvo in a backlash that found Lady Caroline blackballed from fashionable society: although her sister-in-law, Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper, got Lady Caroline readmitted to Almack's in 1819, her reputation never fully recovered.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Byron responded to the novel; "I read Glenarvon too by Caro Lamb….God damn!" The book was a financial success that sold out several editions but was dismissed by critics as pulp fiction. However, Goethe deemed it worthy of serious literary consideration.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: In 1819, Lady Caroline put her ability to mimic Byron to use in the narrative poem "A New Canto." Years before, Lady Caroline had impersonated Byron in a letter to his publishers to have them send her a portrait of Byron. It worked; the tone and substance of her request fooled them into sending the painting. She used that skill to respond to Byron's "Don Juan I and II". Lady Caroline was most concerned with those allusions Byron had made about her; for example, the line "Some play the devil—and then write a novel" from "Don Juan II". In "A New Canto", Lady Caroline wrote – as Byron – ""I'm sick of fame; I'm gorged with it; so full I almost could regret the happier hour; When northern oracles proclaimed me dull."" Byron never publicly responded to the poem. A reviewer of the time opined, in part; "The writer of this lively nonsense has evidently intended it as an imitation of Lord Byron. It is a rhapsody from beginning to end."


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Caroline published three additional novels during her lifetime: "Graham Hamilton" (1822), "Ada Reis" (1823), and "Penruddock" (1823).


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Byron's confidante and close friend was his wife's maternal aunt, William Lamb's own mother, the colourful Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne. Lady Melbourne had been instrumental in bringing about the politically advantageous marriage of her son to Lady Caroline, despite disliking both her and her mother.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: However, once Lady Caroline began her affair with Byron, her mother-in-law began a long and blatant campaign to rid her son of his wife; as Lord David Cecil remarks, she had long since concluded that Caroline deserved all her misfortunes. William Lamb refused to submit and regretted that his mother had conspired against his wife with Byron. Calling Byron treacherous, William Lamb was supportive of his wife to her death.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Ultimately, it was Lady Caroline who prevailed on her husband to agree to a formal separation in 1825. Both parties had had numerous extramarital affairs by that time and Lamb had long been known to eschew duplicity. She took up permanent residence at Brocket Hall. Her struggle with mental instability became more pronounced in her last years, complicated by her abuse of alcohol and laudanum. By 1827, she was under the care of a full-time physician as her body, which had always been frail, began to shut down and she retained fluids (a condition then known as dropsy, and now known as oedema). William Lamb was Chief Secretary for Ireland by that time and made a perilous crossing to be by her side when Lady Caroline died on 25 January 1828.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: Lady Caroline was buried in the graveyard of St Etheldreda's church in Hatfield; her husband was later buried within the church.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: In 1972, the film "Lady Caroline Lamb" was released to predominantly critical reviews with Sarah Miles in the lead role. In 2003, the BBC broadcast "Byron" with Jonny Lee Miller in the title role and Camilla Power as Lady Caroline Lamb.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: The 1905 novel "The Marriage of William Ashe" by Mary Augusta Ward was based on Lady Caroline and her husband.


title: Lady Caroline Lamb

text: In the 1971 novel "Flash for Freedom!" by George MacDonald Fraser, the lead character Harry Flashman names an African woman, taken as a slave, "Caroline Lamb."


title: Cucking stool

text: Cucking stools or ducking stools were chairs formerly used for punishment of disorderly women, scolds, and dishonest tradesmen in England, Scotland, and elsewhere. The cucking-stool was a form of or "women's punishment," as referred to in Langland's "Piers Plowman" (1378).


title: Cucking stool

text: They were instruments of public humiliation and censure both primarily for the offense of scolding or backbiting and less often for sexual offences like bearing an illegitimate child or prostitution.


title: Cucking stool

text: The stools were technical devices which formed part of the wider method of law enforcement through social humiliation. A common alternative was a court order to recite one’s crimes or sins after Mass or in the market place on market day or informal action such as a Skimmington ride. They were usually of local manufacture with no standard design. Most were simply chairs into which the offender could be tied and exposed at her door or the site of her offence. Some were on wheels like a tumbrel that could be dragged around the parish. Some were put on poles so that they could be plunged into water, hence "ducking" stool. Stocks or pillories were similarly used for the punishment of men or women by humiliation.


title: Cucking stool

text: The term "cucking-stool" is older, with written records dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Written records for the name "ducking stool" appear from 1597, and a statement in 1769 relates that "ducking-stool" is a corruption of the term "cucking-stool". Whereas a cucking-stool could be and was used for humiliation with or without dunking the person in water, the name "ducking-stool" came to be used more specifically for those cucking-stools on an oscillating plank which were used to duck the person into water.


title: Cucking stool

text: A ballad, dating from about 1615, called "The Cucking of a Scold", illustrates the punishment inflicted to women whose behaviour made them be identified as "a Scold":


title: Cucking stool

text: The cucking-stool, or "Stool of Repentance", has a long history, and was used by the Saxons, who called it the ' or "scolding stool". It is mentioned in "Domesday Book" as being in use at Chester, being called ', a name which seems to confirm the first of the derivations suggested in the footnote below. Tied to this stool the woman - her head and feet bare - was publicly exposed at her door or paraded through the streets amidst the jeers of the crowd.


title: Cucking stool

text: The term "cucking-stool" is known to have been in use from about 1215. It means literally "defecation chair", as its name is derived from the old verb "" and has not quite been rid of in many parts of the English speaking world as "to cack" (defecate) (akin to Dutch "kakken" and Latin "cacāre" [same meaning]; "cf." Greek "κακός/κακή" ["bad/evil, vile, ugly, worthless"]), rather than, as popularly believed, from the word "cuckold".


title: Cucking stool

text: Both seem to have become more common in the second half of the sixteenth century. It has been suggested this reflected developing strains in gender relations, but it may simply be a result of the differential survival of records. The cucking-stool appears to have still been in use as late as the mid-18th century, with "Poor Robin's Almanack" of 1746 observing:


title: Cucking stool

text: The ducking-stool was a strongly made wooden armchair (the surviving specimens are of oak) in which the offender was seated, an iron band being placed around her so that she should not fall out during her immersion. The earliest record of the use of such is towards the beginning of the 17th century, with the term being first attested in English in 1597. It was used both in Europe and in the English colonies of North America.


title: Cucking stool

text: Usually, the chair was fastened to a long wooden beam fixed as a seesaw on the edge of a pond or river. Sometimes, however, the ducking-stool was not a fixture but was mounted on a pair of wooden wheels so that it could be wheeled through the streets, and at the river-edge was hung by a chain from the end of a beam. In sentencing a woman the magistrates ordered the number of duckings she should have. Yet another type of ducking-stool was called a tumbrel. It was a chair on two wheels with two long shafts fixed to the axles. This was pushed into the pond and then the shafts released, thus tipping the chair up backwards. Sometimes the punishment proved fatal and the subject died.


title: Cucking stool

text: In medieval times until the early 18th century, ducking was a way used to establish whether a suspect was a witch. The ducking stools were first used for this purpose but ducking was later inflicted without the chair. In this instance the subject's right thumb was bound to her left big toe. A rope was tied around the waist of the accused and she was thrown into a river or deep pond. If she floated, it was deemed that she was in league with the devil, rejecting the baptismal water. If she sank, she was "cleared. And dead".


title: Cucking stool

text: The tumbrel of a ducking stool is in the crypt of the Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick. There is also a ducking chair in Canterbury, where the High Street meets the River Stour.


title: Cucking stool

text: A surviving ducking stool is on public display outside the Criminal Museum ("Kriminalmuseum") in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a well-preserved medieval town in Bavaria, Germany.


title: Cucking stool

text: A complete ducking stool is on public display in Leominster Priory, Herefordshire. The town clock, commissioned for the Millennium, features a moving ducking stool depiction.


title: Cucking stool

text: Christchurch, Dorset, continues to house a replica ducking stool, at the site where punishments were once carried out.


title: Cucking stool

text: In the Laurel and Hardy feature film "Babes in Toyland", Laurel and Hardy are sentenced to the ducking stool, followed by banishment to Boogeyland, for burgling Barnaby's house.


title: Cucking stool

text: The last recorded cases are those of a Mrs Ganble at Plymouth (1808); Jenny Pipes, a "notorious scold" (1809), and Sarah Leeke (1817), both of Leominster. In the last case, the water in the pond was so low that the offender was merely wheeled around the town in the chair. The common law offence of common scold was extant in New Jersey until struck down in 1972 by Circuit Judge McCann who found it had been subsumed in the provisions of the Disorderly Conduct Act of 1898, was bad for vagueness and offended the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution for sex discrimination. Long before this decision, the punishment of ducking, together with all other forms of corporal punishment, had become unlawful under the provisions of the New Jersey Constitution of 1844 or even as early as 1776.


title: Steering

text: Steering is a system of components, linkages, and other parts that allows a driver to control the direction of the vehicle.


title: Steering

text: The most conventional steering arrangement allows a driver to turn the front wheels of a vehicle using a hand–operated steering wheel positioned in front of the driver. The steering wheel is attached to a steering column, which is linked to rods, pivots and gears that allow the driver to change the direction of the front wheels. Other arrangements are sometimes found on different types of vehicles; for example, a tiller or rear-wheel steering. Tracked vehicles such as bulldozers and tanks usually employ differential steering, where the tracks are made to move at different speeds or even in opposite directions, using clutches and brakes, to achieve a change of direction.


title: Steering

text: The basic aim of steering is to ensure that the wheels are pointing in the desired directions to move the vehicle as required. This is typically achieved by a series of linkages, rods, pivots and gears. One of the fundamental concepts is that of caster angle. Each wheel is steered with a pivot point ahead of the wheel, which tends to make the steering self-centering towards the direction of travel.


title: Steering

text: The steering linkages connecting the steering box and the wheels usually conform to a variation of Ackermann steering geometry, to account for the fact that in a turn, the inner wheel travels a path of smaller radius than the outer wheel, so that the degree of toe suitable for driving in a straight path is not suitable for turns. The angle the wheels make with the vertical plane, known as camber angle, also influences steering dynamics as do the tires.


title: Steering

text: Many modern cars use rack and pinion steering mechanisms. When the steering wheel turns the pinion gear, the pinion moves the rack, converting circular motion into linear motion along the transverse axis of the car (side to side motion), kind of like a gear mechanism. This motion applies steering torque to the swivel pin ball joints (that replaced previously used kingpins) of the stub axle of the steered wheels via tie rods and a short lever arm called the steering arm.


title: Steering

text: BMW began to use rack and pinion steering systems in the 1930s with many other European manufacturers later adopting the technology. American automakers adopted rack and pinion steering beginning with the 1974 Ford Pinto.


title: Steering

text: Older designs use two main principles: the worm and sector design and the screw and nut. Both types were enhanced by reducing the friction; for screw and nut it is the recirculating ball mechanism, which is still found on trucks and utility vehicles. The steering column turns a large screw, which meshes with the nut by recirculating balls. The nut moves a sector of a gear, causing it to rotate about its axis as the screw is turned; an arm attached to the axis of the sector moves the Pitman arm, which is connected to the steering linkage and thus steers the wheels. The recirculating ball version of this apparatus reduces the considerable friction by placing large ball bearings between the screw and the nut; at either end of the apparatus the balls exit from between the two pieces into a channel internal to the box, which connects them with the other end of the apparatus; thus, they are "recirculated".


title: Steering

text: The recirculating ball mechanism has the advantage of a much greater mechanical advantage, so that it was found on larger, heavier vehicles while the rack and pinion was originally limited to smaller and lighter ones; due to the almost universal adoption of power steering, however, this is no longer an important advantage, leading to the increasing use of rack and pinion on newer cars. The recirculating ball design also has a perceptible lash, or "dead spot" on center, where a minute turn of the steering wheel in either direction does not move the steering apparatus; this is easily adjustable via a screw on the end of the steering box to account for wear, but it cannot be eliminated because it will produce excessive internal forces at other positions and the mechanism will wear very rapidly. This design is still in use in trucks and other large vehicles, where rapidity of steering and direct feel are less important than robustness, maintainability, and mechanical advantage.


title: Steering

text: The worm and sector was an older design, used for example in Willys and Chrysler vehicles, and the Ford Falcon (1960s). To reduce friction, the sector is replaced by a roller or rotating pins on the rocker shaft arm.


title: Steering

text: Generally, older vehicles use the recirculating ball mechanism, and only newer vehicles use rack-and-pinion steering. This division is not very strict, however, and rack-and-pinion steering systems can be found on British sports cars of the mid-1950s, and some German carmakers did not give up recirculating ball technology until the early 1990s.


title: Steering

text: Other systems for steering exist, but are uncommon on road vehicles. Children's toys and go-karts often use a very direct linkage in the form of a bellcrank (also commonly known as a Pitman arm) attached directly between the steering column and the steering arms, and the use of cable-operated steering linkages (e.g. the capstan and bowstring mechanism) is also found on some home-built vehicles such as soapbox cars and recumbent tricycles.


title: Steering

text: Power steering helps the driver of a vehicle to steer by directing some of its engine power to assist in swiveling the steered road wheels about their steering axes. As vehicles have become heavier and switched to front-wheel drive, particularly using negative offset geometry, along with increases in tire width and diameter, the effort needed to turn the wheels about their steering axis has increased, often to the point where major physical exertion would be needed were it not for power assistance. To alleviate this, auto makers have developed power steering systems, or more correctly power-assisted steering, since on road-going vehicles there has to be a mechanical linkage as a fail-safe. There are two types of power steering systems: hydraulic and electric/electronic. A hydraulic-electric hybrid system is also possible.


title: Steering

text: A hydraulic power steering (HPS) uses hydraulic pressure supplied by an engine-driven pump to assist the motion of turning the steering wheel. Electric power steering (EPS) is more efficient than hydraulic power-steering, since the electric power-steering motor only needs to provide assistance when the steering wheel is turned, whereas the hydraulic pump must run constantly. In EPS, the amount of assistance is easily tunable to the vehicle type, road speed, and driver preference. An added benefit is the elimination of the environmental hazard posed by leakage and disposal of hydraulic power-steering fluid. In addition, electrical assistance is not lost when the engine fails or stalls, whereas hydraulic assistance stops working if the engine stops, making the steering doubly heavy as the driver must now turn not only the very heavy steering—without any help—but also the power-assistance system itself.


title: Steering

text: A development of power steering is speed-sensitive steering, where the steering is heavily assisted at low speed and lightly assisted at high speed. Auto makers perceive that motorists might need to make large steering inputs while maneuvering for parking, but not while traveling at high speed. The first vehicle with this feature was the Citroën SM with its Diravi layout, although rather than altering the amount of assistance as in modern power steering systems, it altered the pressure on a centering cam which made the steering wheel try to "spring" back to the straight-ahead position. Modern speed-sensitive power steering systems reduce the mechanical or electrical assistance as the vehicle speed increases, giving a more direct feel. This feature is gradually becoming more common.


title: Steering

text: Four-wheel steering is a system employed by some vehicles to improve steering response, increase vehicle stability while maneuvering at high speed, or to decrease turning radius at low speed.


title: Steering

text: In an active four-wheel steering system, all four wheels turn at the same time when the driver steers. In most active four-wheel steering systems, the rear wheels are steered by a computer and actuators. The rear wheels generally cannot turn as far as the front wheels. There can be controls to switch off the rear steering and options to steer only the rear wheels independently of the front wheels. At low speed (e.g. parking) the rear wheels turn opposite to the front wheels, reducing the turning radius, sometimes critical for large trucks, tractors, vehicles with trailers and passenger cars with a large wheelbase, while at higher speeds both front and rear wheels turn alike (electronically controlled), so that the vehicle may change position with less yaw and improved build-up of the lateral acceleration, enhancing straight-line stability. The "snaking effect" experienced during motorway drives while towing a travel trailer is thus largely nullified.


title: Steering

text: Four-wheel steering found its most widespread use in monster trucks, where maneuverability in small arenas is critical, and it is also popular in large farm vehicles and trucks. Some of the modern European Intercity buses also utilize four-wheel steering to assist maneuverability in bus terminals, and also to improve road stability. Mazda were pioneers in applying four-wheel steering to automobiles, showing it on their 1984 Mazda MX-02 concept car, where the rear wheels counter-steered at low speeds. Mazda proceeded to offer a version of this electronic four-wheel steering system on the Mazda 626 and MX6 in 1988. The first rally vehicle to use the technology was the Peugeot 405 Turbo 16, which debuted at the 1988 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.


title: Steering

text: Previously, Honda had four-wheel steering as an option in their 1987–2001 Prelude and Honda Ascot Innova models (1992–1996). General Motors offered Delphi's Quadrasteer in their Silverado/Sierra and Suburban/Yukon. Due to low demand, GM discontinued the technology at the end of the 2005 model year. Nissan/Infiniti offer several versions of their HICAS system as standard or as an option in much of their line-up.


title: Steering

text: In the early 2000s, a new generation of four-wheel steering systems was introduced into the market. In 2001 BMW equipped the E65 7 series with an all-wheel steering system (optional, called 'Integral Active Steering'), which is available on the current 5, 6, and 7 series, as an option. Renault introduced an optional all-wheel steering called '4control' in 2009, at first on the Laguna GT, which is currently available on the Talisman, Mégane and Espace vehicle lines. In 2013, Porsche introduced a system on the 911 Turbo as standard equipment. Since 2016, the Panamera has been offered with optional all-wheel steering. The 2014 Audi Q7 was launched with an optional system. Also the Japanese OEMs offer luxury segment vehicles equipped with all-wheel steering, such as Infiniti on its QX70 model ('Rear Active Steering') and Lexus on the GS. Italian manufacturers have launched the technology in the model years 2016–17 with the Ferrari F12tdf, the Ferrari GTC4Lusso as well as the Lamborghini Aventador S Coupé.


title: Steering

text: Crab steering is a special type of active four-wheel steering. It operates by steering all wheels in the same direction and at the same angle. Crab steering is used when the vehicle needs to proceed in a straight line but at an angle: when changing lanes on a highway at speed, when moving loads with a reach truck, or during filming with a camera dolly.


title: Steering

text: Rear wheel steering can also be used when the rear wheels may not follow the path taken by the front wheel tracks (e.g. to reduce soil compaction when using rolling farm equipment).


title: Steering

text: Many modern vehicles have passive rear-wheel steering. On many vehicles, when cornering, the rear wheels tend to steer slightly to the outside of a turn, which can reduce stability. The passive steering system uses the lateral forces generated in a turn (through suspension geometry) and the bushings to correct this tendency and steer the wheels slightly to the inside of the corner. This improves the stability of the car through the turn. This effect is called compliance understeer; it, or its opposite, is present on all suspensions. Typical methods of achieving compliance understeer are to use a Watt's link on a live rear axle, or the use of toe control bushings on a twist beam suspension. On an independent rear suspension it is normally achieved by changing the rates of the rubber bushings in the suspension. Some suspensions typically have compliance oversteer due to geometry, such as Hotchkiss live axles, semi-trailing arm IRS, and rear twist beams, but may be mitigated by revisions to the pivot points of the leaf spring or trailing arm, or additional suspension links, or complex internal geometry of the bushings.


title: Steering

text: Passive rear-wheel steering is not a new concept, as it has been in use for many years, although not always recognised as such.


title: Steering

text: Articulated steering is a system by which a vehicle is split into front and rear halves which are connected by a vertical hinge. The front and rear halves are connected with one or more hydraulic cylinders that change the angle between the halves, including the front and rear axles and wheels, thus steering the vehicle. This system does not use steering arms, king pins, tie rods, etc. as does four-wheel steering. If the vertical hinge is placed equidistant between the two axles, it also eliminates the need for a central differential in four-wheel drive vehicles, as both front and rear axles will follow the same path, and thus rotate at the same speed. Articulated haulers have very good off-road performance.


title: Steering

text: Vehicle-trailer-combinations such as semi-trailers, road trains, articulated buses, and internal transport trolley trains can be regarded as passively-articulated vehicles.


title: Steering

text: A few types of vehicle use only rear-wheel steering, notably fork lift trucks, camera dollies, early pay loaders, Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion car, and the ThrustSSC.


title: Steering

text: In cars, rear-wheel steering tends to be unstable because, in turns, the steering geometry changes, hence decreasing the turn radius (oversteer), rather than increasing it (understeer). Rear-wheel steering is meant for slower vehicles that need high-maneuverability in tight spaces, e.g. fork lifts.


title: Steering

text: For heavy haulage or for increased manoeuvrability, some semi-trailers are fitted with rear-wheel steering, controlled electro-hydraulically. The wheels on all or some of the rear axles may be turned through different angles to enable tighter cornering, or through the same angle (crab steering) to move the rear of the trailer laterally.


title: Steering

text: The aim of steer-by-wire technology is to completely remove as many mechanical components (steering shaft, column, gear reduction mechanism, etc.) as possible. Completely replacing conventional steering system with steer-by-wire has several advantages, such as:


title: Steering

text: As of 2020 there are no production cars available that rely solely on steer-by-wire technology due to safety, reliability and economic concerns, but this technology has been demonstrated in numerous concept cars and the similar "fly-by-wire" technology is in use in both military and civilian aviation applications.


title: Steering

text: For safety reasons all modern cars feature a collapsible steering column (energy absorbing steering column) which will collapse in the event of a heavy frontal impact to avoid excessive injuries to the driver. Airbags are also generally fitted as standard. Non-collapsible steering columns fitted to older vehicles very often impaled drivers in frontal crashes, particularly when the steering box or rack was mounted in front of the front axle line, at the front of the crumple zone. This was particularly a problem on vehicles that had a rigid separate chassis frame with no crumple zone. Many modern vehicle steering boxes or racks are mounted behind the front axle on the front bulkhead, at the rear of the front crumple zone.


title: Steering

text: Collapsible steering columns were invented by Béla Barényi and were introduced in the 1959 Mercedes-Benz W111 Fintail, along with crumple zones. This safety feature first appeared on cars built by General Motors after an extensive and very public lobbying campaign enacted by Ralph Nader. Ford started to install collapsible steering columns in 1968.


title: Steering

text: Audi used a retractable steering wheel and seat belt tensioning system called procon-ten, but it has since been discontinued in favor of airbags and pyrotechnic seat belt pre-tensioners.


title: Steering

text: Differential steering is the primary means of steering tracked vehicles, such as tanks and bulldozers; it is also used in certain wheeled vehicles commonly known as skid-steers, and implemented in some automobiles, where it is called torque vectoring, to augment steering by changing wheel direction relative to the vehicle.


title: Steering

text: In the United States, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 203 and 204 are related to impact protection for the driver from the steering control system and steering control rearward displacement while 49 Code of Federal Regulations § 393.209 is related to steering wheel systems.


title: Steering

text: Ships and boats are usually steered with a rudder. Depending on the size of the vessel, rudders can be manually actuated, or operated using a servomechanism, or a trim tab or servo tab system. Boats using outboard motors steer by rotating the entire drive unit. Boats with inboard motors sometimes steer by rotating the propeller pod only (i.e. Volvo Penta IPS drive). Modern ships with diesel-electric drive use azimuth thrusters. Boats power by oars or paddles are steered by generating a higher propulsion force on the side of the boat opposite of the direction of turn. Jet skis are steered by weight-shift induced roll and water jet thrust vectoring.


title: Steering

text: The rudder of a vessel can steer the ship only when water is passing over it. Hence, when a ship is not moving relative to the water it is in or cannot move its rudder, it does not respond to the helm and is said to have "lost steerage". The motion of a ship through the water is known as "making way". When a vessel is moving fast enough through the water that it turns in response to the helm, it is said to have "steerage way". That is why boats on rivers must always be under propulsion, even when traveling downstream.


title: Steering

text: Airplanes are normally steered when airborne by the use of ailerons, spoilerons, or both to bank the aircraft into a turn; although the rudder can also be used to turn the aircraft, it is usually used to minimise adverse yaw, rather than as a means to directly cause the turn. On the ground, aircraft are generally steered at low speeds by turning the nosewheel or tailwheel (using a tiller or the rudder pedals) or through differential braking, and by the rudder at high speeds. Missiles, airships and large hovercraft are usually steered by a rudder, thrust vectoring, or both. Small sport hovercraft have similar rudders, but steer mostly by the pilot shifting their weight from side to side and unbalancing the more powerful lift forces beneath the skirt. Jet packs and flying platforms are steered by thrust vectoring only. Helicopters are steered by cyclic control, changing the thrust vector of the main rotor(s), and by anti-torque control, usually provided by a tail rotor.


title: Britney Jean

text: Britney Jean is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Britney Spears. It was released on November 29, 2013, by RCA Records. The album is Spears's second eponymous record after "Britney" (2001), though the album's name refers to both her first and middle names. It marks Spears's first major activity since the dissolution of her longtime record label, Jive Records, in 2011. The singer began recording material for "Britney Jean" in May 2013, eventually continuing into October of that year. On numerous occasions, Spears has described the album as the most personal record from her catalog. Having assumed an integral position in its production, she co-wrote each track and collaborated with songwriters and producers including Sia and will.i.am to achieve her desired sound. Furthermore, the record features guest vocals from Spears’s younger sister Jamie Lynn, T.I., and will.i.am. Musically, "Britney Jean" contains strong elements of EDM and pop.


title: Britney Jean

text: Upon its release, "Britney Jean" received mixed reviews from music critics, who felt the album was impersonal despite its marketing, and were ambivalent towards its dated production. The album drew controversy over the authenticity of some vocals. The record debuted at number four on the US "Billboard" 200 with first-week sales of 107,000 copies. In doing so, it became Spears' lowest-peaking and lowest-selling record in the United States. The same happened in the United Kingdom, where it debuted at number 34; worldwide, "Britney Jean" reached the top 20 and top 30 in most countries. The album was eventually certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined album-equivalent units of 500,000.


title: Britney Jean

text: "Work Bitch" was released as the lead single from "Britney Jean" on September 17, 2013. The track debuted and peaked at number 12 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and was a moderate success worldwide, later becoming one of her classic songs. "Perfume" was released as the second single from the album on November 3, 2013, and peaked at number 76 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Til It's Gone" impacted French radio on December 4, 2013, and "It Should Be Easy" impacted Italian radio on June 13, 2014, as the third and fourth single from the album, respectively. No further promotion was done for the record, a situation which was reported in the media. However, Spears appeared on "Good Morning America" on September 17, 2013, to announce a two-year (eventually extended to four years) residency show at Planet Hollywood Las Vegas, titled , which began on December 27, 2013, and concluded on December 31, 2017.


title: Britney Jean

text: In 2012, while serving as a judge on the second season of the American version of "The X Factor", Spears was spotted in the recording studio with producer Rodney Jerkins. Songwriter Elijah Blake commented that Spears was "definitely trying to push the envelope" by "playing with new textures and stomping on new grounds and genres." Their collaborations, however, were denied by Spears's representative, though he confirmed that producer Hit-Boy worked with Spears to create a "global sound" fusing elements of hip-hop and pop. Producer Scoop DeVille had also worked with Spears for the album's early stages. Additionally, Spears had also recorded an unused song titled "Police" with rapper Wiz Khalifa for the album. In an interview with "Shape", Spears described the album's initial concept as having a hip-hop feel, saying "the record is definitely going to be more hip-hop than pop this time around."


title: Britney Jean

text: In May 2013, Naughty Boy and William Orbit were announced to be working on the record; the former expressed his satisfaction with his collaborations with Spears, adding that he had wanted always wanted to "do something a bit different." He commented that he is "a big fan of pop music and that culture", and wanted to "keep that going [...] in [his] own kind of style." Later that month, will.i.am was confirmed as the executive producer of the project. He described that his recording process differed from his past experience with the Black Eyed Peas, elaborating that "[he and Spears] had these juicy sessions, where [they had] been bonding, building the trust and comfort." The album's associate executive producer was Anthony Preston for will.i.am music. In July 2013, Spears acknowledged through Twitter that she "wrote such a special song" with Sia, which was later revealed to be Spears's favorite track, the ballad "Perfume.” The following month, she reportedly traveled to Lake District in the United Kingdom to continue work with Naughty Boy and Orbit. Naughty Boy later stated he was not able to work on the material for the album with Orbit because he "wasn't able to come to L.A. at the time [as he] was promoting 'La La La' around the world." Charli XCX revealed in a 2022 interview that she wrote material for the album, but none of it made the cut.


title: Britney Jean

text: On numerous occasions, Spears has considered "Britney Jean" to be the most personal record from her catalog. She stated that her experiences in recent years, including her break-up with ex-fiancé Jason Trawick, encouraged her to "dig deeper and write songs that [she thinks] everyone can relate to." Spears added that the production of the record was an "amazing experience" and that her colleagues "helped [her] bring [her ideas] to life." Spears told Rudolph, "I want Will to be a central figure in the album; I don't want to have hundreds of songs sent over."


title: Britney Jean

text: "Britney Jean" has been described as a concept album about "the loneliness of pop life." The opening track "Alien" deems celebrity an isolating experience that Spears describes in terms of feeling like an extraterrestrial over synth bleaps, which according to some critics, "it echoes William Orbit work with Madonna on "Ray of Light"." The second track "Work Bitch" is an EDM song, where Spears sings about what it takes to be rich, famous and beautiful, repeatedly encouraging listeners to "get to work, bitch." The third track "Perfume" is a 1980s-influenced power ballad, which Spears described as "incredibly special to me because it hits close to home, and I think the story is relatable to everyone. Everyone's been through an insecure moment in a relationship that's left them vulnerable and I think this song captures that." The fourth track "It Should Be Easy", which features will.i.am, insists that love "shouldn't be complicated," with Spears imagining a bright-normal-future with a man who's stolen her heart, with "robotized" voice and EDM beats. The song was heavily criticized for the excessive use of Auto-Tune, credited by will.i.am. The album's fifth track "Tik Tik Boom" finds Spears begging a lover to make her "tik, tik, tik, tik, boom" over trap beats. It was described as a "club banger" and "the closest the album comes to bringing "Blackout" 2.0 to life," featuring a "sex-drenched" appearance from rapper T.I.


title: Britney Jean

text: "Body Ache" follows with its lyrical theme about dancing hard in a club, over shrieking sirens and EDM beats, whilst "Til It's Gone" gives value to the stability of a good relationship, albeit after it dissolves, with its electronic and EDM sounds. With the eighth track "Passenger,” which noodles around with some EDM impulses before imploding into "brooding" pop-rock, Spears emotes about finding happiness after being willing to cede control. "Chillin' with You" features Spears's younger sister Jamie Lynn into a song about grasping at happiness over lush trap, EDM and country pop sound. The album's closing track on the standard edition, "Don't Cry", opens with a spaghetti Western-esque whistle, and it finds Spears refusing to give in to post-relationship grief. Some critics labelled it "her best vocal performance on the album."


title: Britney Jean

text: On October 15, 2013, during an appearance on Capital London, she announced that the record would be titled "Britney Jean", a nickname used affectionately by her family and friends. On October 24, together with an open letter to her fans, Spears unveiled the album artwork. The black-and-white image depicts a close-up image of Spears with the term "Britney Jean" colored in blue lettering inside a pink heart near the bottom of the cover. A report from ABC News Radio likened the usage of Spears's middle name in the album's title to being inspired by Janet Jackson's eighth studio album "Damita Jo", saying "taking a page from Janet Jackson's 2004 album, "Damita Jo", Britney Spears has combined her first and middle names—Britney Jean—to come up with the title.” A writer for "The Huffington Post" later suggested that the neon-style typography was inspired by the cover of Miley Cyrus' fourth studio album "Bangerz" (2013), which itself depicts a blonde Cyrus wearing a short black coat with the title "Bangerz" stylized in fluorescent neon lighting in front of palm trees. While the typography was compared to that of "Bangerz" by a writer from "The Huffington Post ", "Britney Jean" marks the third album artwork from RCA Records to use a neon-style typography design, "Bangerz" from Miley Cyrus being one and the other being "Mechanical Bull" from Kings of Leon. Byron Flitsch of MTV News shared a similar sentiment, and added that the artwork was reminiscent of Spears’s fourth and seventh records "In the Zone" (2003) and "Femme Fatale" (2011). On November 4, a colorized version of the cover was unveiled as the primary visual for the standard edition, with the original cover becoming the primary visual for the deluxe edition.


title: Britney Jean

text: In May 2013, record producer Danja, who collaborated with Spears during its production, commented that he "[doesn't] know when the next ["Blackout"] is going to be, but [he believes] there's going to be another one." On August 20, 2013, Spears relaunched her website with a countdown ending on September 17, originally speculated to be the release date of her then-unannounced lead single. On September 17, Spears announced on "Good Morning America" that her album would be released on December 3, 2013, in the United States, the day after her 32nd birthday. On November 4, the album was made available for pre-order through the iTunes Store. Spears revealed the track listing for "Britney Jean" on November 12, which she implied was earlier than she planned after hackers "[tried] to ruin [her] surprises." On November 20, the album leaked online, prompting the singer to address the leaks by saying: "To those of you listening to the leaks... I hope you love... I made this album specifically for my diehard fans so I'm just hoping every song touches you because each one is a piece of me.” Five days later, "Britney Jean" was made available for streaming in full through the iTunes Store and iTunes Radio. The record is additionally marked with the Parental Advisory label, affixed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to identify explicit content.


title: Britney Jean

text: Unlike her previous records, excluding her fifth studio album "Blackout" (2007), Spears did not heavily promote "Britney Jean", and no promotional performances in support of the album took place. However, she appeared on "Good Morning America" to announce her two-year residency show at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, titled , on September 17. Spears then traveled to the United Kingdom to promote the lead single and the album on "". She also appeared for interviews on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "Entertainment Tonight", and "Surprise Surprise". "Britney Jean" was additionally promoted through the documentary "I Am Britney Jean", which premiered through E! on December 22; it covered the production and lead-up to its release and the launch of Britney: Piece of Me. The original airing of the special in the United States was viewed by 0.706 million viewers, garnering above-average Sunday ratings for the network, while it was viewed by 0.63 million viewers in the United Kingdom. Britney: Piece of Me began on December 27, with tickets having been first made available on September 20.


title: Britney Jean

text: "Work Bitch" was released as the lead single from "Britney Jean" on September 15, 2013, one day earlier than expected after a low-quality version was leaked by "one bad apple". A writer for MuuMuse described the track as a "massive return to form" and an "exciting way to kick off a brand new era". It debuted and peaked at number 12 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 with 174,000 first-week downloads, and charted moderately on national singles charts internationally. An accompanying music video for the track was premiered on October 1, where Spears is depicted as a dominatrix-like character. It received general acclaim from critics, with particular praise directed towards her dancing. However, Spears herself commented that she felt forced into maintaining her provocative image, elaborating that she "cut out half the video because I am a mother and because, you know, I have children, and it's just hard to play sexy mom while you're being a pop star as well".


title: Britney Jean

text: "Perfume" was released as the second single from "Britney Jean" on November 3, 2013. It received generally favorable reviews from music critics, and was compared to Spears's earlier song "Everytime", taken from her fourth studio album "In the Zone" (2003). The track debuted and peaked at number 76 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Britney Jean

text: Official remixes for "It Should Be Easy" were commissioned and serviced to clubs in January 2014. A spokesperson for Spears said that it would not see a release as a fourth single and that the remixes were "commissioned purely to be used in nightclubs". However, on June 13, 2014, "It Should Be Easy" was made available to Italian radio stations, according to EarOne. "It Should Be Easy" charted at number 121 in France, number 88 in Canada and number 71 in Switzerland due to digital downloads.


title: Britney Jean

text: Official remixes for "Tik Tik Boom" were also commissioned and serviced in February 2014. "Tik Tik Boom" charted at number 16 on South Korea's International Gaon Digital Chart.


title: Britney Jean

text: In the documentary "I Am Britney Jean", Spears mentions "Alien" becoming a single from the album at some point, but this never came to fruition. Despite not being released as a single, "Alien" charted at number eight on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100, and 147 on the French Singles Chart, organized by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique.


title: Britney Jean

text: "Britney Jean" received mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 50, which indicates "mixed or average reviews", based on 21 reviews. Jason Lipshutz from "Billboard" provided a favorable review, describing the project as a "transitional record [as] her first album released in her thirties", and felt it was reminiscent of Spears's third studio album "Britney" (2001). Nick Catucci of "Entertainment Weekly" shared a similar sentiment, stating that he "treasures" Spears for "[remaining] as enigmatic as the Disney-groomed, emotionally insulated teen who greeted us in the late '90s", and adding that will.i.am's production "happily indulges the fantasies of endorphin-seeking EDM festival goers." Writing for "Rolling Stone", Rob Sheffield described "Britney Jean" as a "concept album about the loneliness of pop life – with a high-profile broken engagement behind her, Brit gets personal and drops her most bummed-out music ever."


title: Britney Jean

text: Some critics felt the album was impersonal despite its marketing. "Chicago Tribune" compared the album's contents to its title, noting: "the hype about her most 'personal' album yet begins with the album title [...] which promotes a sense of intimacy that the songs never quite deliver." "The Atlantic" described the album as "her most disappointing release yet", calling it "dull" and criticized the album's content matter, noting that "glimpses into Britney Jean Spears, the artist, are, frankly, neither interesting nor informative." Neil McCormick of "The Daily Telegraph" stated that "Britney Jean" "continues the striptease of Britney's career", and felt that its production prevented the record from coming across as a genuinely personal effort. "Billboard" noted that the album did "not fully shed light on its author's current mindset", and "The New York Times" described the album as being "about as personal as an airline preboarding announcement."


title: Britney Jean

text: The production on the album was also pointed out by critics. Sal Cinquemani from "Slant Magazine" provided a mixed review, criticizing the album's "dated production and vocals that hark back to the days when Brit was selling 10 million [records]." Barry Walters from "Spin" criticized will.i.am's production on the album, claiming that the songs he produced "replace[d] melody with repetition and familiarity," but praised Spears's vocal delivery on "Don't Cry".


title: Britney Jean

text: Prior to its release in the United States, "Britney Jean" was initially predicted to sell 150–200,000 copies, with Hits Daily Double crediting the underwhelming numbers to "her very light promo schedule, with little or no TV around the release." However, the day following its release, potential sales figures were lowered to 115–120,000 units. The album debuted at number four with 107,000 units. It is Spears's lowest sales and chart debut for a studio set. Previously, her 1999 debut album, "...Baby One More Time", tallied her smallest start with 121,000. In its second week on the chart, the album fell from number four to number 22 on the "Billboard" 200, making it Spears's first album to only spend one week in the top ten. As of May 2020, "Britney Jean" has sold 280,000 copies in the United States.


title: Britney Jean

text: In Europe, "Britney Jean" debuted at number 34 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 12,959 copies in its first week. In doing so, it became Spears's lowest-charting album in the country; by comparison, her previous lowest-charting record "In the Zone" (2003) peaked at number 13. It dropped to number 87 the next week. Internationally, "Britney Jean" reached the top 20 and 30 in most countries. However, the album debuted at number one in China.


title: Britney Jean

text: Prior to the release of the album, allegations were made by critics and fans that the vocals on the track "Passenger", which leaked online ahead of the release, were not entirely Spears's. Claims were made that Myah Marie, a backing vocalist present on Spears's albums "Circus" and "Femme Fatale" sang lead vocals on a large portion of this song as well as other songs on the album. Spears's team claimed that the song leak was a demo version. Chelsea Handler later accused Spears of not singing the lead vocals on "Perfume", insisting, "It's obviously a new person singing. It's not her." Reps for Spears responded, "Myah Marie didn't do any background vocals on the song and doesn't have credit. [The] only backing vocals on 'Perfume' are from Sia. Britney absolutely sings on 'Perfume'." Following the release of the album, Marie was not included in the credits for "Passenger" or "Perfume", though she was credited as a backing vocalist on a number of other songs from the album. The following year, with the online leak of vocal stems from "Alien", it was revealed that Marie's lead vocals were featured in this song as well.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: The Commissioner of the NBA is the chief executive of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The current commissioner is Adam Silver, who succeeded David Stern on February 1, 2014.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Maurice Podoloff was the first president of the NBA. He served from the league's founding as the Basketball Association of America (BAA) in 1946 until 1947.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: After the BAA signed several of the top names in the National Basketball League (NBL) into the league, Podoloff negotiated a merger between the two groups to form the National Basketball Association in 1949. As a lawyer with no previous basketball experience, Podoloff's great organizational and administrative skills were later regarded as the key factor that kept the league alive in its often stormy formative years.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: In 17 years as president, Podoloff expanded the NBA to as many as 19 teams. He also briefly formed three divisions and scheduled 558 games.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: During his tenure, Podoloff introduced the collegiate draft in 1947, and in 1954 instituted the 24 second shot clock created by Dan Biasone, owner of the Syracuse Nationals which quickened the pace of games, and took the NBA from a slow plodding game to a fast-paced sport. In 1954, Podoloff also increased national recognition of the game immensely by securing its first television contract.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: As the commissioner of the NBA, he was the one who gave lifetime suspensions to Indianapolis Olympians players Ralph Beard and Alex Groza, not for what they did in the NBA but for point shaving in college at the University of Kentucky.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Maurice Podoloff stepped down as NBA Commissioner in 1963. During his period in office, he had helped increase fan interest during the NBA's formative years and improved the overall welfare of the sport of basketball through his foresight, wisdom, and leadership. In his honor, the NBA would name its annual league Most Valuable Player trophy the Maurice Podoloff Trophy.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Succeeding first president Maurice Podoloff, the likable, approachable J. Walter Kennedy became an iron-handed executive and let everyone know precisely where he stood on issues. Kennedy quickly exerted his authority, slapping Red Auerbach with a $500 fine for rowdy conduct during a pre-season 1963 game. At the time, it was the largest fine ever levied against a coach or player in the NBA.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: His title was changed to "commissioner" in 1967. Kennedy was also the commissioner who upheld the first protest ever in the NBA, which was the one filed by the Chicago Bulls for "the Phantom Buzzer Game" against the Atlanta Hawks in 1969.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: The new commissioner came into the NBA when the league was struggling with only nine teams, no television contract, sagging attendance and competition from the increasingly popular American Basketball Association. When Kennedy retired in 1975 as commissioner, the league had increased to 18 teams, landed a lucrative television contract and improved its financial standing considerably, experienced a 200 percent boost in income and attendance figures tripled during his tenure.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Walter Kennedy was also instrumental in bringing an annual NBA game to Springfield to benefit the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, where he served on Hall of Fame's Board of Trustees for 13 years, including two years as the Hall of Fame's President. Kennedy himself would be inducted into the Hall in 1981. The NBA's annual citizenship award recognizing "outstanding service and dedication to the community" is named in Kennedy's honor.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Larry O'Brien was appointed in 1975 by the National Basketball Association to serve nationally as its commissioner, where he directed the successful ABA–NBA merger. It brought the American Basketball Association into the NBA, negotiated television-broadcast agreements with CBS, and saw game attendance increase significantly. He continued this service through 1984. The NBA Championship Trophy was renamed in 1984 the Larry O'Brien NBA Championship Trophy in honor of his service to the sport of basketball.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: However, his league was troubled by public relations issues through his tenure, especially after the merger. He was generally pushed by his staff into many of his decisions, most notably by his successor as NBA commissioner, David Stern. Many consider Stern the driving force behind the television contracts with CBS and rise in game attendance, as well as several crucial issues that predicated the rise of the NBA in the early 1980s.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: O'Brien was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, located in his birthplace, Springfield, Massachusetts.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: On February 1, 1984, David Stern became the Commissioner of the NBA, succeeding Larry O'Brien. It was during that same year (1984–85) that four of the NBA's biggest superstars – Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and John Stockton—entered the league.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: The arrival of Michael Jordan, in particular, ushered in a new era of commercial bounty for the NBA. With him came his flair and talent for the game, and that brought in source contracts from Nike which helped to give the league even more national attention. Jordan and the two other premier basketball players of the 1980s, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, took the game to new heights of popularity and profit. By 2004, Stern oversaw the NBA's expansion from 10 to 30 franchises (since 1966), expansion into Canada, and televising games in countries around the world.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Stern also oversaw the creation of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), a professional women's basketball league. Stern has been credited for developing and broadening the NBA's audience, by setting up training camps, playing exhibition games around the world, and recruiting more international players.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: The NBA now has eleven offices in cities outside the United States, is televised in 215 countries around the world in 43 languages, and operates the WNBA and the National Basketball Development League under Stern's watch.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Following a Board of Governors meeting in October 2012, Stern announced that he would retire from the office of Commissioner by February 1, 2014. It was also announced that he would be succeeded by then-Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Adam Silver. Stern stepped down from the position at end of day on January 31, 2014, concluding a 30-year tenure to the day.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: On February 1, 2014, Adam Silver was unanimously approved to succeed David Stern as Commissioner of the NBA. Originally the Deputy Commissioner from 2006 through 2014, he was a protege of David Stern, who endorsed Silver to be his replacement in October 2013. Previously, Silver worked as senior vice president of NBA Entertainment, president of NBA Entertainment, a special assistant to the commissioner, NBA chief of staff, and Deputy Commissioner under Stern. Basketballs for games now contain Silver's signature, a first for the NBA. Silver hand-picked Mark Tatum as his Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer. Tatum is the first African-American Deputy Commissioner of the NBA in history.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Three months into Silver's tenure, he banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling from the league for life in response to racist comments made by Sterling, during a private telephone conversation with Sterling's girlfriend. Additionally, he fined Sterling US$2.5 million, the maximum allowed under the NBA Constitution, and urged owners to vote to expel Sterling from ownership of the Clippers, which they eventually did. Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO, became the new owner of the Clippers.


title: Commissioner of the NBA

text: Six years into Silver's tenure, he announced that the league would suspend operations as a result of Rudy Gobert testing positive for coronavirus disease 2019.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: Floyd Gerald "Jerry" Brisco (born September 19, 1946) is an American retired professional wrestler. Brisco is best known for his time in the wrestling promotion WWE, where he was a backstage producer, and, during the 1990s, an on-screen character, working alongside Pat Patterson as the "stooges" for the Mr. McMahon character (portrayed by former WWE CEO and Chairman Vince McMahon). He was most recently a WWE talent scout where he focused on exclusively recruiting amateur wrestlers into the company.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: Debuting in 1969, Brisco wrestled for multiple National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) territories throughout the 1970s and early-1980s, in particular Championship Wrestling from Florida and Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, winning dozens of championships. Throughout his career, he teamed with his elder brother Jack as The Brisco Brothers. After retiring in 1985, Brisco moved into a backstage role with the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE). He had a late career resurgence between 1997 and 2000 alongside fellow veteran wrestler Pat Patterson as the onscreen "stooge" of WWE chairman Vince McMahon. Both Briscos were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2008.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: Gerald Brisco grew up with five siblings and an absent father in Oklahoma. He followed his brother, Jack Brisco, into amateur wrestling, and was eventually awarded an athletic scholarship to Oklahoma State after winning two AAU tournaments and only losing two high school matches, placing second in Oklahoma States in his only two years of high school wrestling due to broken leg in football. He was a starter on the OSU freshman team winning several matches and tournaments. During the spring break of 1968, Brisco was in Missouri with Jack, and was asked to substitute for his brother's injured tag team partner despite his lack of professional training. After Brisco contracted hepatitis and injured his knee, he decided to drop out of college and become a full-time professional wrestler.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: Brisco was trained by his brother and debuted in 1967 as his tag team partner, using the name Gerald Brisco. The Brisco Brothers were a highly successful team, amassing over twenty tag team championships over the course of thirteen years. They arrived in Florida in 1970 (with Brisco becoming Jerry Brisco) and dominated the singles and tag divisions for several years thereafter. It was also in the late 1970s that the Brisco's discovered Terry Bollea, the future wrestling legend best known as Hulk Hogan, who they introduced to Hiro Matsuda for training. Jerry Brisco would amass a number of singles championships throughout the 1970s, including becoming the first holder of Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship. On June 20, 1981 he defeated Les Thornton for the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: In 1983, while teaming in the Mid-Atlantic territory, the brothers turned heel against the team of Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood, the NWA World Tag Team Champions. The two teams traded the belts back and forth until the feud culminated at the first Starrcade, with Steamboat and Youngblood regaining the championship. The brothers would hold the title one last time in 1984, ultimately losing to the team of Wahoo McDaniel and Mark Youngblood. They would leave the Mid-Atlantic area shortly after.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: The Briscos held minority interests in Georgia Championship Wrestling. In 1984, dissatisfied with the direction of the company and smaller than expected dividends, they convinced equally disgruntled majority shareholder Paul Jones to give them proxy voting of his shares. The three men and Jim Barnett sold their shares to Vince McMahon, enabling him to increase his dominance of the professional wrestling world.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: The brothers entered the World Wrestling Federation in the fall of 1984, once again assuming their familiar role as fan favorites. The Briscos unsuccessfully challenged the North-South Connection, Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch, for the WWF World Tag Team Championship. Both men would retire from the ring in early 1985. After retiring, Brisco began working backstage as a road agent and booker for McMahon.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: Following the 1997 Montreal Screwjob, Brisco capitalized on his notoriety by becoming an onscreen "stooge" of Vince McMahon along with Pat Patterson. The duo portrayed a pair of bumbling comic heels and joined The Corporation and the McMahon-Helmsley Faction. They lampooned Hulk Hogan (then working for World Championship Wrestling, the rival of WWF) by mimicking his trademark gestures and using "Real American", his old entrance theme.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: On the May 18, 2000 episode of "SmackDown!" Brisco won his first WWF championship when he pinned a sleeping Crash Holly to win the perpetually contested Hardcore Championship. Crash regained the title on June 12 but Brisco was intent on regaining. He pursued Holly around New York City but ran afoul of John Shaft, who had agreed to protect Holly. Brisco eventually regained the title the following week with the aid of Pat Patterson in the midst of a match between Crash and his cousin, Hardcore Holly.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: As Patterson and Brisco celebrated the victory, Patterson poured champagne in Brisco's eyes then broke a second bottle over his head. He then pinned the (kayfabe) unconscious Brisco to win the Hardcore Championship. Patterson hid from Brisco in drag in the women's locker room, and, after Brisco pursued him into the locker room, Vince McMahon booked them in a Hardcore Evening Gown Match at the King of the Ring. In the course of the match, Holly interfered and pinned Patterson, regaining the title once again.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: On July 15, 2005, Brisco was inducted into the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. He appeared at WrestleMania 23 in a party scene and also on the July 23, 2007 edition of "RAW". On March 29, 2008, Brisco and his brother were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame the night before WrestleMania XXIV in Orlando, Florida. In June 2009, Brisco suffered three strokes. Four months later, it was announced that Brisco would not be returning to his position as a road agent in WWE. In March 2010, Jerry Brisco did return to the WWE as a talent scout and recruiter for NXT. According to Jim Ross, on October 19, 2011, Brisco suffered another stroke, a minor one. During the "Raw Reunion" episode on July 22, 2019, Brisco pinned Pat Patterson off-screen backstage to win the WWE 24/7 Championship. He became the third person to win both the WWE Hardcore Championship and the WWE 24/7 Championship. He would soon after lose the title to Kelly Kelly. He was furloughed, along with many other WWE employees, on April 15, 2020 and was officially released on September 10.


title: Gerald Brisco

text: Brisco is married, he and his wife Barbara have two sons named Wesley (born 1983) who is also a professional wrestler, known as Wes Brisco, a former FCW Tag Team Champion and Joseph who is a grad student at USF Tampa. Brisco also co-owned a body shop with his brother Bill, and longtime partner Travis Allred, known as the Brisco Brothers Body Shop. Jack Brisco was also a partner in the business before his death in 2010. The Briscos were inducted into the Chickasaw Nation Hall Of Fame in June 2016. On August 11, 2018, Brisco was inducted into the NWHOF Florida Chapter as “Outstanding American.”


title: Utrecht University

text: Utrecht University (UU; , formerly "Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht") is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollment of 31,801 students, and employed 7,191 faculty and staff. In 2018, 525 PhD degrees were awarded and 6,948 scientific articles were published. The 2018 budget of the university was €857 million.


title: Utrecht University

text: Utrecht University counts a number of distinguished scholars among its alumni and faculty, including 12 Nobel Prize laureates and 13 Spinoza Prize laureates. Utrecht University has been placed consistently in the top 100 universities in the world by prominent international ranking tables. The university is ranked as the best university in the Netherlands by the Shanghai Ranking of World Universities 2022, ranked 14th in Europe and 54th in the world.


title: Utrecht University

text: The university's motto is "Sol Iustitiae Illustra Nos", which means "May the Sun of Righteousness Enlighten Us". This motto was gleaned from a literal Latin Bible translation of Malachi 4:2. Rutgers University, having historical connections with Utrecht University, uses a modified version of this motto.


title: Utrecht University

text: Utrecht University is led by the University Board, consisting of Henk Kummeling (Rector Magnificus), Anton Pijpers (chair), Margot van der Starre (Vice Chair) and Anneloes Krul (Student Assessor).


title: Utrecht University

text: Close ties are harboured with other institutions internationally through its membership in the Coimbra Group (CG), the League of European Research Universities (LERU), the Utrecht Network and the European University Association (EUA).


title: Utrecht University

text: Utrecht University was founded on 26 March 1636. It has its roots in the Illustrious School of Utrecht, which founded two years earlier in 1634 before being elevated to the status of university in 1636. The influential professor of theology Gisbertus Voetius delivered the inaugural speech, and Bernardus Schotanus (professor of law and mathematics) became the university's first rector magnificus. Anna Maria van Schurman, who became the university's first female student, was invited to write a Latin poem for the inauguration. Initially, only a few dozen students attended classes at the university. Seven professors worked in four faculties: philosophy, which offered all students an introductory education, and three higher-level faculties (theology, medicine and law).


title: Utrecht University

text: Utrecht University flourished in the seventeenth century, and contributed significantly to the Dutch Golden Age, despite competition with the older universities, such as Leiden (1575) and Groningen (1614). Leiden, in particular, proved a strong competitor and made further improvement necessary; a rivalry that persists to this day. A botanical garden was built on the grounds of the present Sonnenborgh Observatory, and three years later the added an astronomical observatory. The university attracted many students from abroad (especially from Germany, England and Scotland). They witnessed the intellectual and theological battle fought between proponents of the new philosophy (René Descartes lived for a few years in Utrecht) and proponents of the strict Reformed theologian Voetius. They also witnessed the teachings of renowned Dutch jurist, Johannes Voet, a university alumnus and professor of law, whose works remain highly authoritative in modern Roman-Dutch law.


title: Utrecht University

text: In 1806, the French occupying authorities of the Netherlands downgraded Utrecht University to an "école secondaire" (high school), but after the establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1813 it regained its former status. Leiden, Leuven, Groningen, Utrecht and Ghent were the five universities () of the new state. Two of the universities (Leuven and Ghent) became part of the new Belgian state after their respective provinces separated from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830. As a result, Utrecht University remained one of only three Dutch universities. During the French occupation, King Louis Napoleon ordered the construction of a palace in the centre of Utrecht, which eventually became the University Library City Centre.


title: Utrecht University

text: Utrecht University played a prominent role in the golden age of Dutch science. Around 1850 the "Utrechtian School" of science formed, with Pieter Harting, Gerardus J. Mulder, Christophorus H. D. Buys Ballot and Franciscus Donders among the leading scientists. They introduced the educational laboratory ("onderwijslaboratorium") as a practical learning place for their students. The National Veterinary School (Dutch:"Rijks Veeartsenijschool") became Utrecht University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 1918.


title: Utrecht University

text: As the university grew, the academic buildings in the historic city centre were unable to meet the university's increasing need for space. Therefore, starting from the 1960s, a significant part of the university moved to the De Uithof campus, which occupies the easternmost part of the city and is located south of De Bilt. However, the university continued to retain its academic buildings and presence in the historic city centre.


title: Utrecht University

text: The university is represented in the "Stichting Academisch Erfgoed", a foundation with the goal of preserving the university's heritage and collections.


title: Utrecht University

text: The two large faculties of Humanities and Law & Governance are situated in the inner city of Utrecht. The other five faculties and most of the administrative services are located in Utrecht Science Park De Uithof, a campus area on the outskirts of the city. University College Utrecht, along with the Utrecht School of Economics, are situated in the former Kromhout Kazerne, which used to be a Dutch military base. University College Roosevelt is located off-campus in the city of Middelburg in the south-west of the Netherlands.


title: Utrecht University

text: On the 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities list, the University of Utrecht was ranked 54th in the world and the highest in the Netherlands. Its ranking has declined slightly since 2003, when it was ranked 40th.


title: Utrecht University

text: Utrecht University is a member of the Coimbra Group (CG), League of European Research Universities (LERU), the Utrecht Network, the European University Association (EUA), the International Association of Universities (IAU) and the McDonnell International Scholars Academy (MISA).


title: Utrecht University

text: Utrecht University counts a number of distinguished scholars among its alumni and faculty, including 12 Nobel Prize laureates and 13 Spinoza Prize laureates.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: Ezgjan Alioski (; born 12 February 1992) is a Macedonian professional footballer who plays as a winger or wing-back for Turkish Süper Lig club Fenerbahçe on loan from Saudi club Al-Ahli and the North Macedonia national team. He is commonly known as 'Gjanni'.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: A versatile left-footed player, he predominantly plays on the left wing, and can also play as striker, attacking midfielder, right wing, left wing-back or as a left-back.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: Having joined their youth academy in 2003, Alioski began his career as a left-back in the second team of Young Boys from 2010 to 2013, where he scored four goals in 57 matches. In January 2013, he went to Schaffhausen on loan, before joining on a permanent transfer in October 2013, scoring four goals in 77 matches.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: He joined Lugano on loan in January 2016, and made his debut on 13 February in a 2–1 loss against Thun. Despite signing him as a left back, then Lugano manager Zdeněk Zeman converted Alioski into an attacking right winger and striker towards the end of the 2015–16 season. He scored his first goal for the club on 11 May 2016 in a 4–0 win to Zürich.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: In June 2016, his move was made permanent. New manager Andrea Manzo continued to play Alioski in the attacking roles once the season started. He scored his first goal of the campaign in his second game on 30 July 2016, in a 2–1 win over Young Boys. He scored seven goals in his first ten games at the club. On 19 April 2017, Alioski scored a hat-trick for Lugano in a 4–2 victory against Sion.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: He continued to impress during his first season and helped guide Lugano to a third-place finish in the Swiss Super League. He scored 16 goals in 34 games for Lugano and was the third top goalscorer in the league in the 2016–17 season, behind Seydou Doumbia (20) and Guillaume Hoarau (18). He was also the third highest in the division in terms of his assists, after making 14 in his 34 games, behind Yoric Ravet (17) and Matteo Tosetti (15).


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: Alioski was a part of Leeds United's return to the Premier League in 2019–20 after a sixteen-year wait, notwithstanding three seasons played in the second tier of English football. He scored important goals in the 2019–20 season.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: Alioski joined English club Leeds United on 13 July 2017. On 6 August 2017, he made his debut in a 3–2 victory against Bolton Wanderers and created the assist for teammate Chris Wood's goal. After gaining another assist, he received the man of the match award over Sunderland in a 2–0 win on 19 August. On 26 August, Alioski received the man of the match award and scored his first goal for Leeds in a 2–0 victory against Nottingham Forest. On 15 September, Alioski won the Championship Goal of the Month Award for August for his goal against Nottingham Forest. In November 2017, Alioski scored in all of Leeds United's four games, and was awarded with the club's award for Player of the Month.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: On 16 April 2018, Alioski was nominated as one of four players for Leeds United's Player of The Year award. On 21 April, Alioski scored the winner with his seventh goal of the season in a 2–1 victory for Leeds in the Yorkshire derby against Barnsley. He ended the season with seven goals and five assists.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: On 5 May, Alioski won the Goal of the Season award for his strike over Nottingham Forest at Leeds' annual award ceremony.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: He scored his first goal of the 2018–19 season with a goal on 11 August in a 4–1 victory of Derby County.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: Alioski started the season for Leeds as a winger playing on the right or left side, but after an injury to regular left-back Barry Douglas in 2019, Alioski was praised for his form playing at left-back, with his form keeping a returning Douglas out of the side. He continued to thrive in this wing-back position throughout 2019, producing marauding runs up the left flank and scoring against Stoke City, Bolton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion to bring his Championship tally for 2018–19 to seven, until, on 22 April, in Leeds' 2–0 defeat at Brentford, Alioski was substituted after twelve minutes with a torn meniscus and missed the remainder of the season, including play-offs.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: During the 2018–19 season, Alioski played 47 games in all competitions, netting seven goals, after Leeds finished the regular season in third place after dropping out of the automatic promotion places with three games left following a loss to Wigan Athletic on 19 April. Leeds United qualified for the play-offs versus sixth-placed Derby County, with Alioski's season already ended by injury. Leeds won the first leg of the play-offs in a 1–0 win at Pride Park to bring into a 1–0 aggregate lead into the home leg at Elland Road. However, they lost the second leg 2–4, with Gaetano Berardi being sent off. This setback resulted in Leeds losing 4–3 on aggregate.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: On 24 August, Alioski scored his first goal of the 2019–20 season in a 3–0 win over Stoke City. After the English professional football season was paused in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was resumed during June, where Alioski earned promotion with Leeds to the Premier League and also become the EFL Championship winners for the 2019–20 season in July following a successful resumption of the season. Alioski played an important part in the promotion, scoring important goals and changing games.


title: Ezgjan Alioski

text: Alioski played his first Premier League game on 19 September 2020, when he came on as a 70th-minute substitute for Patrick Bamford in the team's 4–3 home win over Fulham. Three days earlier, Alioski had been in the starting line-up, scoring the only goal — in added time — in Leeds's 1–1 League Cup second round tie with Hull City (Hull went on to win 9–8 on penalties with Alioski missing his spot kick). He made his first Premier League start on 5 October 2020 against Manchester City, coming into the first eleven in place of Jack Harrison, who was ineligible to play against his parent club. On 16 December 2020, he scored his first Premier League goal in the 5–2 home win against Newcastle United. Alioski scored his final goal of 2020 in a 5–0 away win over West Bromwich Albion. Alioski was offered a new contract at the end of the season, but was unable to reach an agreement with the club, thus departing the club after four years.