title: Doublelift

text: After CLG released a statement, Team SoloMid announced that Peng would be joining, replacing long tenured AD Carry WildTurtle. On his new team, Peng reached the finals of the spring split, and faced off against his old team, Counter Logic Gaming. TSM fell 3–2 to CLG, and took a second place finish, missing out on the Mid-Season Invitational. In summer, Team SoloMid added a new support to pair with Peng in the botlane, picking up Vincent "Biofrost" Wang. The team saw significant improvement in the summer split, improving their previous 9–9 record to a 17–1 standing at the end of the regular season, and earned a bye into playoffs. Peng also earned First Team All–Pro honors for his performance. Peng once again made it to the finals, and this time won, defeating Cloud9 3–1, to give Peng his second title.


title: Doublelift

text: Before the start of the 2017 season, Team SoloMid announced that Peng would be taking a hiatus from professional "League of Legends" during the spring split, saying "it's time for a small break." While he would remain contracted to the team, he would be streaming full-time until his return to professional play in the summer when, according to Team SoloMid owner Andy Dinh, he would have to compete with his replacement to return to the starting roster. In the past, Peng has spoken out about the never-ending competitive schedule for professional "League of Legends". After representing North America in the All-Star 2013 in Shanghai, Peng said in a Reddit AMA "I'm just tired of playing all day every day, and I want a goddamn break but it's not possible to get one." In a Reddit AMA in 2014, Peng said "Most people who look at pros think that we live the dream life when in reality you either practice 16 hours a day or lose and end up frustrated. Sometimes you practice 16 hours a day and still end up losing." One month later, Team SoloMid announced that WildTurtle would be Peng's replacement for the 2017 spring split. In an interview, teammate Bjergsen agreed with Dinh's initial announcement that Peng would need to compete with his replacement, saying "I want WildTurtle to succeed and I wasn't just sitting around waiting for Peter because I wanted someone who was committed, and like I said I was disappointed and I felt he wasn't very committed. I didn't feel like he should just have the luxury of going out and making a lot of money [streaming] and returning to the team... No matter how good of a friend they are to me, if someone decides he's just going to take six months off and he thinks he's can just reenter the team, that's just not okay with me because I think everyone has to earn their spot."


title: Doublelift

text: More than halfway through the spring season and threatened by relegation, Team Liquid announced that Peng would temporarily be joining the team and would be released back to Team SoloMid at the end of the spring split, sparking controversy due to concerns of a conflict of interest when Peng inevitably competed against Team SoloMid while signed to Team Liquid. Team Liquid owner Steve Arhancet responded that Riot Games approved the trade after the team demonstrated that no other player in that role would be suitable for the team.


title: Doublelift

text: Before the start of the 2018 NA LCS season, Team SoloMid announced they would be parting ways with Peng, citing a desire for a stronger shot-caller in the bottom lane. On the same day, Team Liquid announced Peng would be returning along with his ex-Counter Logic Gaming teammates Xmithie and Pobelter. The team finished 4th place in the Spring Split regular season, securing a spot in the playoffs with a 12–8 record behind his former team TSM. Team Liquid defeated Cloud9 3–0 in the quarterfinals and Echo Fox 3–1 in the semifinals to make it to the Team Liquid's first ever final.


title: Doublelift

text: A week before the final, Peng learned that his mother Wei Ping Shen was killed and his father Guojon Peng seriously injured after his older brother Yihong Peng allegedly stabbed them in their family home in San Juan Capistrano California. Peng posted on Twitlonger "I'm still processing this news and joining up with my dad and little brother to make sure they're ok and the proper arrangements are being made. I'll likely be quiet on social media while I work through this. I hope you all understand and support me as you always have in the past." In an interview with Machinima in 2013, Peng had said his older brother was the biggest influence on his life and career, and that he had regrets over his falling out with his parents and wished to make amends in the future, but with his busy career "right now I can't do that, I'm too busy." Despite the pressure faced during this event, Steve Arhancet, owner and co-CEO of Team Liquid, announced that Doublelift would not be taking time off and was determined to play in the final as planned. In the final, Team Liquid convincingly defeated 100 Thieves 3–0 and won its first league championship.


title: Doublelift

text: In the summer split of 2018, Doublelift and Team Liquid picked up where they left off in spring. A tightly contested regular season saw Team Liquid come out with the number one seed by only a single game over Cloud9, qualifying them for a bye in the first round and a guaranteed spot in the semi-finals. Matched up against 100 Thieves, Doublelift and Team liquid cruised to a 3–1 series victory to move on to a spot in the finals against Cloud9. On the eve of the NA LCS finals, Doublelift was awarded a long-awaited NA LCS MVP for the summer split. This was his first MVP award. Team Liquid easily defeated Cloud9 3–0 in the finals to capture back to back North American LCS titles and looked towards a strong showing at Worlds 2018. However, they were eliminated in the group stage by KT Rolster and Edward Gaming.


title: Doublelift

text: After their group stage exit at Worlds 2018, Team Liquid announced the signings of Jensen and former world champion CoreJJ to the mid lane and support positions respectively. With their newly revamped roster, Team Liquid finished 14–4 on the 2019 Spring Split advancing to the Spring finals to face Doublelift's former team TSM. Team Liquid dropped the first two games of the series, but won the final three games to reverse sweep TSM in the best of 5 series, thus earning Doublelift his 6th championship and 3rd straight title.


title: Doublelift

text: Despite coming off of a strong performance in the Spring playoffs, Team Liquid struggled initially in the group stage of MSI 2019, but with a strong finish to the group stage they secured the final spot in the knock–out stage. In the semifinals, the 4th seeded Team Liquid upset the defending world champions, Invictus Gaming, 3–1, and advanced to the finals, where they faced G2 Esports, and were ultimately defeated in a 3–0 sweep.


title: Doublelift

text: After MSI, Liquid started out the 2019 LCS Summer Split 2–2, tying them for 4th place. However, by the end of the split, they had once again accrued a 14–4 record, finishing first. In the summer playoffs, Team Liquid beat Clutch Gaming 3–2, and secured a spot at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. They advanced to the summer finals where they met the second seeded Cloud9. TL won the first game of the series, then dropped games 2 and 3, before winning the final two games to secure their 4th straight LCS trophy. This was Doublelift his 7th championship overall, and passing Xmithie to become the player with the most Championship titles in LCS history. At Worlds, Team Liquid were drawn into Group D, alongside DAMWON Gaming, Invictus Gaming, and ahq e-Sports Club. They went 3–3, placing third in their group, and were eliminated from the tournament.


title: Doublelift

text: With their premature exit from Worlds, Team Liquid parted ways with their jungler, Xmithie, and signed former Fnatic Jungler, Broxah. Prior to the start of the spring 2020 split, Broxah had visa issues preventing him from joining them for the start of the spring season, and Team Liquid performed very poorly. Midway through the split, Doublelift was benched in favor of Team Liquid Academy ADC Tactical. According to Doublelift, this decision stemmed from his apparent lack of motivation to begin the 2020 spring split. Doublelift publicly apologized to his teammates for his attitude, and promised to work harder to return to the LCS stage. Doublelift returned to the starting lineup the following week, but ultimately Liquid finished the split in 9th place and did not make 2020 Spring Playoffs. Doublelift and Team Liquid's failure to qualify for playoffs marked the first time in LCS history that the reigning champion not qualify for the following split's playoffs.


title: Doublelift

text: With a disappointing finish to Spring 2020, Team Liquid traded Doublelift to Team SoloMid for the 2020 Summer Split.


title: Doublelift

text: With his new team, Peng and TSM had a shaky start to the first half of the split, with a record of 6–3. Although they were third in LCS, critics deemed their wins unconvincing and some considered their record as not properly reflective of their actual skill level. In the middle of the split, Biofrost was replaced by TSM Academy support Treatz, with the team citing better communication and playmaking as the deciding factors. TSM finished the regular split in 4th place with a 12–6 record and qualified for playoffs. In playoffs, TSM faced the fifth-seeded Golden Guardians in the upper bracket of the double-elimination tournament. Although it was projected to be a close series, Golden Guardians unexpectedly swept TSM 3–0 with the TSM bot lane being perceived as the weak link in the loss. After the first-round defeat, the team subbed Biofrost back in place of Treatz. The move was in part cited to the existing synergy between Doublelift and Biofrost, especially for laning phase. TSM would drop to the bottom half of the elimination bracket to face the 8th seed, Team Dignitas. TSM swept Dignitas in a convincing fashion, as expected. With the Golden Guardians' loss to Team Liquid, TSM had to face them once again in the 2nd round of the lower bracket. Golden Guardians took the first two games of the series, but behind outstanding performances from Bjergsen, Spica, and Brokenblade, TSM managed to come back and reverse sweep the series. In the next round, TSM faced Cloud9 in order to determine the final seed for the 2020 World Championships. TSM won the series against Cloud9 3–1 and qualified for Worlds. With Team Liquid losing to FlyQuest in the upper bracket, Doublelift faced his old team in order to move on to the summer split finals. TSM defeated Team Liquid 3–2 after a grueling five-game series. Critics cited improved play by Doublelift as one of the main reasons behind the win. TSM faced FlyQuest in the finals, with TSM once again winning 3–2 after a tough five-game series. This win marked Doublelift's 8th NA LCS title.


title: Doublelift

text: Successfully completing their miraculous lower bracket run, Doublelift and TSM headed to Shanghai for the 2020 World Championships as the NA 1st seed. During the tournament, TSM was placed into Group C along with the LCK 3rd seed Gen.G, the LEC 2nd seed FNC, and the LPL 4th seed LGD. Doublelift was once again unable to advance past the group stage, after TSM went 0–6 in the group stage.


title: Doublelift

text: In November 2020, Doublelift announced on his Twitter account that he was retiring from professional League of Legends, thus concluding a storied career which spanned nearly a decade.


title: Doublelift

text: On March 11, 2021, TSM announced on their Twitter that Peng was returning to the organization as a full-time content creator and streamer. Several months after his retirement, Peng revealed a significant reason he walked away from the pro scene was due to discontent with Team SoloMid, even going so far as to say "I fucking hate TSM" as well as accusing the owner, Reginald, of abuse, and left the organization entirely in November.


title: Doublelift

text: In December 2022, Doublelift announced his return to professional play, signing a contract with 100 Thieves for the 2023 season.


title: Doublelift

text: Peng was born on July 19, 1993, and grew up in Mission Viejo, California. He has a younger and an older brother. In April 2018, his mother was killed and his father injured after an altercation outside of their family's home.


title: Doublelift

text: Peng is close friends with esports journalist Travis Gafford. In an interview with Team Dignitas, Gafford said they first met when Peng posted on Reddit that he was homeless and Gafford offered for him to live on his couch until he had money to pay rent. Peng said "Travis really helped me grow up as a person because when I'm playing games and focusing on my job you don't have basic social skills or an understanding of the world. When I go outside I'm like 'how much money am I supposed to spend on food? How do I do my taxes? How do I get a bank account?' I didn't have a credit card, all I had was my wallet with cash and a PayPal account. He helped me set up a bank account, he helped me set up my life."


title: Hematemesis

text: Hematemesis is the vomiting of blood. It is always an important sign. It can be confused with hemoptysis (coughing up blood) or epistaxis (nosebleed), which are more common. The source is generally the upper gastrointestinal tract, typically above the suspensory muscle of duodenum. It may be caused by ulcers, tumors of the stomach or esophagus, varices, prolonged and vigorous retching, gastroenteritis, ingested blood (from bleeding in the mouth, nose, or throat), or certain drugs.


title: Hematemesis

text: Hematemesis is treated as a medical emergency, with treatments based on the amount of blood loss. Investigations include endoscopy. Any blood loss may be corrected with intravenous fluids and blood transfusions. Patients may need to avoid taking anything by mouth.


title: Hematemesis

text: Hematemesis is the vomiting of blood. This is usually vomit that contains bright red blood. Coffee ground vomiting is similar to hematemesis, but is distinct in not involving bright red blood.


title: Hematemesis

text: Hematemesis is always an important sign. It must be differentiated from hemoptysis (coughing up blood) and epistaxis (nosebleed). Both of these are more common conditions. These may be difficult to distinguish.


title: Hematemesis

text: The source of vomited blood is usually from the upper gastrointestinal tract. This can include the esophagus, stomach, and parts of the small intestine. This may be the suspensory muscle of duodenum. Hematemesis tends to occur only after significant blood loss.


title: Hematemesis

text: Hematemesis may be investigated with endoscopy of the upper gastrointestinal tract. Barium meal may also be used.


title: Hematemesis

text: Hematemesis is treated as a medical emergency. The most vital distinction is whether there is blood loss sufficient to cause shock. Correct management is required in such conditions. It is required to perform all tests such as endoscopy before medication. A platelet test is also an important test in such conditions. Medicines such as painkillers or antibiotics, e.g. ciprofloxacin, could decrease platelet count which can lead to thrombocytopenia (when the body does not have sufficient platelets in the blood and cannot form clots). In such conditions wrong medication or management could be deadly. Blood transfusion is required in such conditions if the body loses more than 20 percent of body blood volume. Severe loss makes it impossible for the heart to pump a sufficient amount of blood to the body. In such conditions unmaintained blood volume could lead to hypovolemic shock (hypovolemic shock could lead to damage of body organs e.g. kidney, brain, or gangrene of arms or legs). An untreated patient could develop cerebral atrophy.


title: Hematemesis

text: In cases that do not involve shock, treatment may involve proton pump inhibitors (such as omeprazole) to treat stomach ulcers if they are present. This is given until endoscopy can be arranged. Blood transfusions may be given if the level of hemoglobin in the blood is extremely low, that is less than 8.0 g/dL or 4.5–5.0 mmol/L. A patient may be kept nothing by mouth (or no eating or drinking). Adequate venous access (such as with large-bore cannulas or a central venous catheter) is generally obtained in case the patient develops a further bleed and becomes unstable.


title: Hematemesis

text: In a "hemodynamically significant" case of hematemesis, there may be shock. Resuscitation is an immediate priority to prevent death. Intravenous fluids and blood transfusions can be given, preferably by large bore intravenous cannula. The patient is prepared for emergency endoscopy, which is typically done in a operating theatre. Surgical opinion is usually sought in case the source of bleeding cannot be identified endoscopically, and laparotomy is necessary. Securing the airway is a top priority in hematemesis patients, especially those with a disturbed conscious level (hepatic encephalopathy in esophageal varices patient). This may be achieved with a cuffed endotracheal tube. Octreotide may be used if bleeding may be caused by varices.


title: Hematemesis

text: Hematemesis, melena, and hematochezia are symptoms of acute gastrointestinal bleeding. Bleeding that brings the patient to the physician is a potential emergency and must be considered as such until its seriousness can be evaluated. The goals in managing a major acute gastrointestinal hemorrhage are to treat hypovolemia by restoring the blood volume to normal, to make a diagnosis of the bleeding site and its underlying cause, and to treat the cause of the bleeding as definitively as possible. The history should be directed toward (1) confirming the presence of bleeding; (2) estimating its amount and rapidity; (3) identifying the source and potential specific causes; and (4) eliciting the presence of serious associated diseases that might adversely affect the outcome. The information obtained is especially helpful in identifying situations that require aggressive management.


title: MAME

text: MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. Its intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. It does this by emulating the inner workings of the emulated arcade machines; the ability to actually play the games is considered "a nice side effect". "Joystiq" has listed MAME as an application that every Windows and Mac gamer should have.


title: MAME

text: The first public MAME release was by Nicola Salmoria on 5 February 1997. It now supports over 7,000 unique games and 10,000 actual ROM image sets, though not all of the games are playable. MESS, an emulator for many video game consoles and computer systems, based on the MAME core, was integrated into MAME in 2015.


title: MAME

text: The MAME project was started by Italian programmer Nicola Salmoria. It began as a project called Multi-Pac, intended to preserve games in the Pac-Man family, but the name was changed as more games were added to its framework. The first MAME version was released in 1996. In April 1997, Salmoria stepped down for his national service commitments, handing stewardship of the project to fellow Italian Mirko Buffoni for half a year. In May 2003, David Haywood took over as project coordinator; and from April 2005 to April 2011, the project was coordinated by Aaron Giles; then Angelo Salese stepped in as the coordinator; and in 2012, Miodrag Milanovic took over. The project is supported by hundreds of developers around the world and thousands of outside contributors.


title: MAME

text: At first, MAME was developed exclusively for MS-DOS, but was soon ported to Unix-like systems (X/MAME), Macintosh (MacMAME and later MAME OS X) and Windows (MAME32). Since 24 May 2001, with version 0.37b15, MAME's main development has occurred on the Windows platform, and most other platforms are supported through the SDLMAME project, which was integrated into the main development source tree in 2006. MAME has also been ported to other computers, game consoles, mobile phones and PDAs, and at one point even to digital cameras. In 2012, Google ported MAME to Native Client, which allows MAME to run inside Chrome.


title: MAME

text: Major releases of MAME occur approximately once a month. Windows executables in both 32-bit and 64-bit fashion are released on the development team's official website, along with the complete source code. Smaller, incremental "u" (for update) releases were released weekly (until version 0.149u1) as source diffs against the most recent major version, to keep code in synchronization among developers. MAME's source code is developed on a public GitHub repository, allowing those with the required expertise and tools to build the most up-to-date version and contribute enhancements as pull requests. Historical version numbers 0.32, and 0.38 through 0.52 inclusively, do not exist; the former was skipped due to similar naming of the GUI-equipped MAME32 variant (which itself has since been renamed MAMEUI due to the move to 64-bit builds), while the latter numbers were skipped due to the numerous releases in the 0.37 beta cycle (these version numbers have since been marked next to their equivalent 0.37 beta releases on the official MAMEdev website).


title: MAME

text: MAME's architecture has been extensively improved over the years. Support for both raster and vector displays, multiple CPUs, and sound chips were added in the project's first six months. A flexible timer system to coordinate synchronization between multiple emulated CPU cores was implemented, and ROM images started to be loaded according to their CRC32 hash in the ZIP files they were stored in. MAME has pioneered the reverse engineering of many undocumented system architectures, various CPUs (such as the M6809-derivative custom Konami CPU with new instructions) and sound chips (for example, Yamaha FM sound chips). MAME developers have been instrumental in reverse engineering many proprietary encryption algorithms utilized in arcade games, including Neo Geo, CP System II and CP System III.


title: MAME

text: MAME's popularity has gone mainstream, with enthusiasts building their own arcade game cabinets to replay old games, and even with some companies producing illegal MAME derivatives to be installed in arcades. Cabinets are built either from scratch or by taking apart and modifying an original arcade game cabinet. Cabinets inspired by classic games can also be purchased and assembled (with MAME optionally preinstalled).


title: MAME

text: Although MAME contains a rudimentary user interface, the use of MAME in arcade game cabinets and home theaters necessitates special launcher applications called "front ends" with more advanced features. They provide varying degrees of customization, allowing one to see images of games' cabinets, histories, playing tips, specialized logo artwork for games, and video of the game's play or "attract mode".


title: MAME

text: The information within MAME is free for reuse, and companies have been known to utilize MAME when recreating their old classics on modern systems. Some have even hired MAME developers to create emulators for their old properties. An example is the "Taito Legends" pack, with ROMs readable on select versions of MAME.


title: MAME

text: On 27 May 2015 (0.162), the games console and computer system emulator MESS was integrated with MAME (so the MESS User Manual is still the most important usage instruction for the non-arcade parts of MAME). This also lead to the removal of the acronym, as MAME can now emulate more than arcade machines. Since 2012, MAME has been maintained by former MESS project leader Miodrag Milanović.


title: MAME

text: In May 2015, it was announced that MAME's developers planned to re-license the software under a more common free and open-source license, away from the original MAME license. MAME developer Miodrag Milanovic explained that the change was to draw more developer interest, allow game manufacturers to distribute MAME to emulate their own games, and to make the software """a learning tool for developers working on development boards". The transition of MAME's licensing to BSD/GPL was completed in March 2016. Most of MAME's source code (90%+) is now available under the BSD-3-Clause license, and the complete project is under the GPL-2.0-or-later license.


title: MAME

text: On 24 February 2016 (0.171), MAME embedded the MEWUI front-end (and its developer joined the team), providing MAME with a flexible and more full-featured UI.


title: MAME

text: On 30 December 2021, exA-Arcadia, the Western copyright holders of the games Akai Katana and DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou had their lawyers filed a cease and desist notice to the MAME developers over those games being included in the emulator. MAME complied with the request a day later, making both unplayable on the emulator outside of command line, as of version 0.240.


title: MAME

text: The MAME core coordinates the emulation of several elements at the same time. These elements replicate the behavior of the hardware present in the original arcade machines. MAME can emulate many different central processing units (CPUs) and associated hardware. These elements are virtualized so MAME acts as a software layer between the original program of the game, and the platform MAME runs on. MAME supports arbitrary screen resolutions, refresh rates and display configurations. Multiple emulated monitors, as required by for example "Darius", are supported as well.


title: MAME

text: Individual arcade systems are specified by "drivers" which take the form of C preprocessor macros. These drivers specify the individual components to be emulated and how they communicate with each other. While MAME was originally written in C, the need for object oriented programming caused the development team to begin to compile all code as C++ for MAME 0.136, taking advantage of additional features of that language in the process.


title: MAME

text: Although a great majority of the CPU emulation cores are interpretive, MAME also supports dynamic recompilation through an intermediate language called the Universal Machine Language (UML) to increase the emulation speed. Back-end targets supported are x86 and x64. A C back end is also available to further aid verification of the correctness. CPUs emulated in this manner are SH-2, MIPS R3000 and PowerPC.


title: MAME

text: The original program code, graphics and sound data need to be present so that the system can be emulated. In most arcade machines, the data is stored in read-only memory chips (ROMs), although other devices such as cassette tapes, floppy disks, hard disks, laserdiscs, and compact discs are also used. The contents of most of these devices can be copied to computer files, in a process called "dumping". The resulting files are often generically called ROM images or ROMs regardless of the kind of storage they came from. A game usually consists of multiple ROM and PAL images; these are collectively stored inside a single ZIP file, constituting a "ROM set". In addition to the "parent" ROM set (usually chosen as the most recent "World" version of the game), games may have "clone" ROM sets with different program code, different language text intended for different markets etc. For example, "Street Fighter II Turbo" is considered a variant of "Street Fighter II Champion Edition". System boards like the Neo Geo that have ROMs shared between multiple games require the ROMs to be stored in "BIOS" ROM sets and named appropriately.


title: MAME

text: Hard disks, compact discs and laserdiscs are stored in a MAME-specific format called CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data). Some arcade machines use analog hardware, such as laserdiscs, to store and play back audio/video data such as soundtracks and cinematics. This data must be captured and encoded into digital files that can be read by MAME. MAME does not support the use of external analog devices, which (along with identical speaker and speaker enclosures) would be required for a 100% faithful reproduction of the arcade experience. A number of games use sound chips that have not yet been emulated successfully. These games require sound samples in WAV file format for sound emulation. MAME additionally supports artwork files in PNG format for bezel and overlay graphics. Furthermore, emulation of games with liquid-crystal displays such as Game & Watch or extra physical aspects such as slot machines usually require extra image files for backgrounds or other aspects of the games.


title: MAME

text: The stated aim of the project is to document hardware, and so MAME takes a somewhat purist view of emulation, prohibiting programming hacks that might make a game easier to run at the expense of emulation accuracy. Components such as CPUs are emulated at a low level (meaning individual instructions are emulated) whenever possible, and high-level emulation (HLE) is only used when a chip is completely undocumented and cannot be reverse-engineered in detail. Signal level emulation is used to emulate audio circuitry that consists of analog components.


title: MAME

text: MAME emulates well over a thousand different arcade system boards, a majority of which are completely undocumented and custom designed to run either a single game or a very small number of them. The approach MAME takes with regards to accuracy is an incremental one; systems are emulated as accurately as they reasonably can be. Bootleg copies of games are often the first to be emulated, with proper (and copy protected) versions emulated later. Besides encryption, arcade games were usually protected with custom microcontroller units (MCUs) that implemented a part of the game logic or some other important functions. Emulation of these chips is preferred even when they have little or no immediately visible effect on the game itself. For example, the monster behavior in Bubble Bobble was not perfected until the code and data contained with the custom MCU was dumped through the decapping of the chip. This results in the ROM set requirements changing as the games are emulated to a more and more accurate degree, causing older versions of the ROM set becoming unusable in newer versions of MAME.


title: MAME

text: Portability and generality are also important to MAME. Combined with the uncompromising stance on accuracy, this often results in high system requirements. Although a 2 GHz processor is enough to run almost all 2D games, more recent systems and particularly systems with 3D graphics can be unplayably slow, even on the fastest computers. MAME does not currently take advantage of hardware acceleration to speed up the rendering of 3D graphics, in part because of the lack of a stable cross-platform 3D API, and in part because software rendering can, in theory, be an exact reproduction of the various custom 3D rendering approaches that were used in the arcade games.


title: MAME

text: Owning and distributing MAME itself is legal in most countries, as it is merely an emulator. Companies such as Sony have attempted in court to prevent other software such as Virtual Game Station, a Sony PlayStation emulator from being sold, but they have been ultimately unsuccessful. MAME itself has thus far not been the subject of any court cases.


title: MAME

text: Most arcade games are still covered by copyright. Downloading or distributing copyrighted ROMs without permission from copyright holders is almost always a violation of copyright laws. However, some countries (including the US) allow the owner of a board to transfer data contained in its ROM chips to a personal computer or other device they own. Some copyright holders have explored making arcade game ROMs available to the public through licensing. For example, in 2003 Atari made MAME-compatible ROMs for 27 of its arcade games available on the Internet site "Star ROMs". However, by 2006 the ROMs were no longer being sold there. At one point, various Capcom games were sold with the HotRod arcade joystick manufactured by Hanaho, but this arrangement was discontinued as well. Other copyright holders have released games which are no longer commercially viable free of charge to the public under licenses that prohibit commercial use of the games. Many of these games may be downloaded legally from the official MAME web site. The Spanish arcade game developer Gaelco has also released "World Rally" for non-commercial use on their website.


title: MAME

text: The MAME community has distanced itself from other groups redistributing ROMs via the Internet or physical media, claiming they are blatantly infringing copyright and harm the project by potentially bringing it into disrepute. Despite this, illegal distributions of ROMs are widespread on the Internet, and many "Full Sets" also exist which contains a full collection of a specific version's ROMs. In addition, many bootleg game systems, such as arcade multi carts, often use versions of MAME to run their games.


title: MAME

text: MAME was formerly distributed under a custom self-written copyleft license, called the "MAME license" or the "MAME-like license", which was adopted also by other projects, e.g. Visual Pinball. This license ensures the availability of the licensed program's source code, whilst the redistribution of the program in commercial activities is prohibited. Due to this clause, the license is incompatible with the OSI's Open source definition and the FSF's Free software definition, and as such is not considered an open source, or free software license, respectively. The non-commercial clause was designed to prevent arcade operators from installing MAME cabinets and profiting from the works of the original manufacturers of the games. The ambiguity of the definition "commercial" lead to legal problems with the license.


title: MAME

text: Since March 2016 with version 0.172, MAME itself switched, by dual licensing, to common free software licenses, the BSD-3-Clause license, and the GPL-2.0-or-later license. However, old versions remain licensed under the original license.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Troms og Finnmark (; ; ; , lit. Troms and Finnmark in English), is a county in northern Norway that was established on 1 January 2020 as the result of a regional reform. Its lifespan as county is only temporary, as it was decided to cease to exist from January 1st 2024. It is the largest county by area in Norway, encompassing about . It was formed by the merger of the former Finnmark and Troms counties in addition to Tjeldsund Municipality from Nordland county.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The administrative centre of the county is split between two towns. The political and administrative offices are based in city of Tromsø (the seat of the old Troms county). The county governor is based in town of Vadsø (the seat of the old Finnmark county). The two towns are about apart, approximately a 10-hour drive by car.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: On 1 January 2024, the county will be demerged back to the counties Finnmark and Troms; parliament decided that on 15 June 2022; the Tjeldsund Municipality from Nordland county will belong to Troms county.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Troms og Finnmark is the northernmost and easternmost county in Norway (Svalbard is not considered a county). By area, it is Norway's largest county, and also one of the least populated of all Norwegian counties.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Knivskjellodden in Nordkapp Municipality (on the island of Magerøya) sometimes considered the northernmost point of Europe (on an island); Kinnarodden on Nordkinn Peninsula in Lebesby Municipality is the northernmost point on the European mainland. Honningsvåg in Finnmark claims to be the northernmost city of the world, and Vardø is the easternmost town in Norway and is farther east than Istanbul.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The coast is indented by large fjords, many of which (in a strict sense) are false fjords, as they are not carved out by glaciers. Some of Norway's largest sea bird colonies can be seen on the northern coast, the largest are "Hjelmsøystauran" on the island of Hjelmsøya in Måsøy Municipality and "Gjesværstappan" in Nordkapp Municipality. The highest point is located on the top of the glacier Øksfjordjøkelen, which has an area of , and it is located in Loppa Municipality. Both Øksfjordjøkelen and Seilandsjøkelen ("Seiland glacier") are located in the western part of Finnmark.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The Øksfjord plateau glacier calved directly into the sea ("Jøkelfjorden") until 1900, the last glacier in mainland Norway to do so. The central and eastern part of Finnmark is generally less mountainous, and has no glaciers. The land east of Nordkapp is mostly below .


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The geography varies from barren coastal areas facing the Barents Sea, to more sheltered fjord areas and river valleys with gullies and tree vegetation. About half of the county is above the tree line, and large parts of the other half is covered with small Downy birch.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The lushest areas are the Alta area and the Tana valleys, and in the east is the lowland area in the Pasvik valley in Sør-Varanger, where the pine and Siberian spruce forest is considered part of the Russian taiga vegetation. This valley has the highest density of Brown bears in Norway, and is the only location in the country with a population of musk-rats, resulting from their introduction from their native North America into Europe in the early 20th century which included their release in a total of 293 localities all over Finland from 1919 and onwards, and then of ca 1,000 muskrats on the Kola Peninsula during 1931–1936. The animal spread and the observations of first ‘possible’ muskrats in the river Alta area in Troms were made around 1960 (Vik 1963), though the first actual specimen was not recovered until 1969, when a muskrat was captured alive in at Tana, Norway (Lund & Wikan 1995). In 1970, another specimen was collected from Jarfjorden in the Sør-Varanger district in Finnmark (Pedersen 1970). Between 1980 and 1988 there were very few observations of muskrats in Norway (Lund & Wikan 1995), but since 1988 there has been a rapid population increase in Sör-Varanger, and the muskrat has spread to almost every part of the municipality. Lynx and moose are common in large parts of Finnmark, but rare on the coast.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The interior parts of the county include part of the great Finnmarksvidda plateau, with an elevation of , with numerous lakes and river valleys. The plateau is famous for its tens of thousands of reindeer owned by the Sami, and swarms of mosquitos in mid-summer. Finnmarksvidda makes up 36% of the county's area. Stabbursdalen National Park ensures protection for the world's most northern pine forest.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The Tana River, which partly defines the border with Finland, gives the largest catch of salmon of all rivers in Europe, and also has the world record for Atlantic salmon, . In the east, the Pasvikelva defines the border with Russia.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: There are mountains all over the county; the most alpine and striking are probably the Lyngen Alps ("Lyngsalpene"), with several small glaciers and the highest mountain in the county, Jiekkevarre with a height of . Several glaciers are located in Kvænangen, including parts of the Øksfjordjøkelen, the last glacier in mainland Norway to drop icebergs directly into the sea (in the Jøkelfjord). The largest river in Troms (waterflow) is Målselva (in Målselv), and the largest (not the highest) waterfall is Målselvfossen at long and high. Marble is present in parts of Troms, and thus numerous caves, as in Salangen and Skånland.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Troms og Finnmark has short and often cool summers, but sometimes warm continental air from southeast Europe or Russia can give surprisingly warm temperatures. The all-time high was recorded in Bardufoss July 2018, but a new record was set in Banak, Porsanger with July 5, 2021. The warmest night was at Makkaur in Båtsfjord with overnight low on July 19, 2018, the third warmest night recorded in Norway. The winters are fairly mild along the coast due to the temperate sea, but still cold enough for snow. Inland, winters are much colder and drier, especially east of the Lyngen Alps. The Finnmarksvidda plateau in the interior has a continental subarctic climate with the coldest winter temperatures in Norway: the coldest temperature ever recorded in Norway is in Karasjok on 1 January 1886. Karasjok has recorded in July, giving a possible year amplitude of (rare in Europe).


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Due to the proximity to the ice-free ocean, winters are much milder in coastal areas (and windier). Torsvåg Lighthouse in Karlsøy has coldest month (February) 24-hr average , and even Fruholmen near North Cape has coldest month mean . Thaws can occur along the coast even in mid-winter.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The year average temperature difference between Harstad on the coast in the south and Kautokeino inland northeast is (6 °C) comparable to the difference between Harstad and London.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: There is often snow in abundance and avalanches are not uncommon in winter in steep areas. With the prevailing westerlies, lowland areas east of mountain ranges have less precipitation than areas west of the mountains.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Skibotn in Storfjord is the location in Norway which has recorded the most days per year with clear skies (no clouds).


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: In the Köppen climate classification, most areas of below the treeline have a boreal climate (subarctic), while the coast west of North Cape mostly has a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc). Highlands and mountains above the treeline have alpine tundra climate (Et).


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Situated far north of the Arctic Circle, Troms og Finnmark has midnight sun from the middle of May until late July. Conversely, in two months of the winter, from late November to late January, the county experiences polar nights where the sun is always below the horizon. As a consequence, there is continuous daylight from early May to early August. At midwinter, there is only a bluish twilight for a couple of hours around noon, which can almost reach full daylight if there are clear skies to the south.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The county is situated in the Aurora Borealis zone, and because of the dry climate with frequent clear skies, Alta Municipality was early chosen as a location for the study of this strange light phenomenon. For this reason, Alta is sometimes referred to as the city of the northern lights.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: People have lived in this area for at least 10,000 years (since the early Stone Age), and there are prehistoric rock carvings at several locations (for instance Ibestad, Balsfjord, Komsa, Pit-Comb Ware culture and Rock carvings at Alta). These people made their living from hunting, fishing, and gathering. The destiny of these early cultures is unknown. Three ethnic groups have a long history in the area: the Sami people, the Norwegian people, and the Kven people. Of these, the Sami probably were the first people to explore what is now Troms og Finnmark. Ohthere of Hålogaland was an adventurous Norwegian (Norseman) from Hålogaland, the area roughly corresponding to today's Nordland county. Around 890 AD, he claimed, according to historical sources (see Ohthere of Hålogaland) that he lived "north-most of all the Northmen", and that "no one [lived] to the north of him." Later, Norwegians in the 14th century, and Kvens in the 16th century, settled along the coast. See the articles on Kven people and Vardøhus Fortress for more details.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Southern and mid-Troms was a Norwegian petty kingdom in the Viking Age, and considered part of Hålogaland. Ottar from Hålogaland met King Alfred the Great around 890. The Viking leader Tore Hund had his seat at Bjarkøy. According to the sagas, Tore Hund speared King Olav Haraldsson at the Battle of Stiklestad. He also traded and fought in Bjarmaland, today the area of Arkhangelsk in northern Russia . Trondenes (today's Harstad) was also a central Viking power centre.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The Sami are the indigenous people of the area, but Norwegians have lived for hundreds of years on the islands' outer parts, where they made up the majority. The Sami people still constitute the majority in Finnmark's interior parts, while the fjord areas have been ethnically mixed for a long time. This essentially holds true today.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The Sami were for many years victims of the Norwegianization policy, which in essence was an attempt by the government to make them "true" Norwegians and forget about their Sami way of life and religion, which was seen as inferior. As a result, the Sami living at the coast and in the fjords gradually lost much of their culture and often felt ashamed by their Sami inheritance. The Sami in the interior managed to preserve more of their culture. In the 1970s, instruction of the Sami language started in schools, and a new sense of consciousness started to grow among the Sami; today most are proud of their background and culture.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: In the midst of this awakening (1979), Norway's government decided to build a dam in Alta to produce hydropower, provoking many Sami and environmentalists to demonstrations and civil disobedience ("Altasaken"). In the end, the dam was built on a much smaller scale than originally intended and the Sami culture was on the government's agenda. The Sami parliament ("Sámediggi") was opened in Karasjok in 1989.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Gjesvær in Nordkapp is mentioned in the Sagas (Heimskringla) as a northern harbor in the Viking Age, especially used by Vikings on the way to Bjarmaland (see Ottar from Hålogaland), and probably also for gathering food in the nearby seabird colony. Coastal areas of Finnmark were colonized by Norwegians beginning in the 10th century, and there are stories describing clashes with the Karelians. Border skirmishes between the Norwegians and Novgorodians continued until 1326, when the Treaty of Novgorod settled the issue.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The first known fortification in Finnmark is Vardøhus festning, first erected in 1306 by King Haakon V Magnusson. This is the world's most northern fortress. In the 17th century, 88 young women were burned as witches in Vardø, an extremely high number compared to the total population in this area at the time. [appears to be a dead/nonsense link] However, the first person burned as witch in Vardø in the 17th century was not a woman, but a man. [Vardø archives]


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Finnmark first became subject to increased colonization in the 18th and 19th centuries. Norway, Sweden, and Russia all claimed control over this area. Finland was part of Russia at that time and had no independent representative. Finnmark was given the status of an "Amt" (county) in the 19th century. For a time, there was a vibrant trade with Russia (Pomor trade), and many Norwegians settled on the Kola Peninsula (see Kola Norwegians).


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The Finnic "Kven" residents of Finnmark are largely descendants of Finnish speaking immigrants who arrived in the area in the 18th century from Meänmaa, and later in the 19th century from Finland, suffering from famine and war.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: In 1576, the King of Norway established "Vardøhus len" as a new administrative unit for the kingdom. In 1660, it became "Vardøhus amt", a subordinate to the large "Trondhjems stiftamt", based in Trondheim. In 1787, the island of Senja and the Troms area were transferred from Nordlandenes amt to Vardøhus amt (an area similar to today's Troms og Finnmark county). In 1866, the island of Senja and the Troms area were separated from Vardøhus to form the new Tromsø amt. In 1919, the names were again changed to Finnmark fylke and Troms fylke.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Per Fugelli has said that World War II resulted in many persons acquiring psychiatric disorders ("psykiske senskadene") which could be from experiencing "bombing, accidents involving mines, burning down of homes, forcible evacuation, illness and starvation during the war and liberation. But it was maybe in particular the treatment of Russian prisoners that left marks on the local population."


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: Towards the end of World War II, with Operation Nordlicht, the Germans used the scorched earth tactic in Finnmark and northern Troms to halt the Red Army. As a consequence of this, few houses survived the war, and a large part of the population was forcefully evacuated further south (Tromsø was crowded), but many people avoided evacuation by hiding in caves and mountain huts and waiting until the Germans were gone, then inspected their burned homes. There were 11,000 houses, 4,700 cow sheds, 106 schools, 27 churches, and 21 hospitals burned. There were 22,000 communications lines destroyed, roads were blown up, boats destroyed, animals killed, and 1,000 children separated from their parents.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: However, after taking the town of Kirkenes on 25 October 1944 (as the first town in Norway), the Red Army did not attempt further offensives in Norway. Free Norwegian forces arrived from Britain and liberated the rest of the county. When the war was over, more than 70,000 people were left homeless in Finnmark. The government imposed a temporary ban on residents returning to Finnmark because of the danger of landmines. The ban lasted until the summer of 1945 when evacuees were told that they could finally return home.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The Cold War was a period with sometimes high tension in eastern Finnmark, at the long border with the Soviet Union. To keep tensions from getting too high, Norway declared that no NATO exercises would take place in Finnmark. There was, however, a lot of military intelligence activity, and Norwegian P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft were often the first to get pictures of newly built Soviet submarines and aircraft. A purpose-built ELINT vessel, "Marjata", was always stationed near the border, and the current "Marjata" (7500 t) is still operating out of the ports in eastern Finnmark.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The merger has not been popular, especially in the old Finnmark county. A county-wide non-binding referendum was held in which it was opposed by about 87% of Finnmark residents who voted, but the Storting did not reverse its decision to merge the county. Some political parties have since been campaigning to reverse the merger in the parliamentary term that starts in September 2021. On 28 October 2021, Minister of Local Government Bjørn Arild Gram sent a letter to the county confirming that it will be demerged.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: On 17 March 2021, organisations reported that the county council sent an application to Norway's government to have the county split back up.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: On 28 October 2021, the Norwegian government confirmed that Troms and Finnmark would become two separate counties again.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: A county "(fylke)" is the chief local administrative area in Norway. The whole country is divided into 11 counties. A county is also an election area, with popular votes taking place every 4 years.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: In Troms og Finnmark, the government of the county is the Troms og Finnmark County Municipality. It includes 57 members who are elected to form a county council "(Fylkesting)". Heading the "Fylkesting" is the county mayor "(fylkesordførar)", Ivar B. Prestbakmo (as of 2021).


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The county also has a "fylkesrådsleder", the top executive of the county's administration, Bjørn Inge Mo.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The county also has a County Governor "(statsforvalter)" who is the representative of the King and Government of Norway. Elisabeth Aspaker is the current County Governor of Troms og Finnmark.


title: Troms og Finnmark

text: The municipalities in Troms og Finnmark are divided among several district courts "(tingrett)": Alta District Court, Hammerfest District Court, Indre Finnmark District Court, Nord-Troms District Court, Senja District Court, Trondenes District Court, and Øst-Finnmark District Court. All of these courts are subordinate to the Hålogaland Court of Appeal district based in Tromsø.


title: Synod

text: A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word "synod" comes from the meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin word meaning "council". Originally, synods were meetings of bishops, and the word is still used in that sense in Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not. It is also sometimes used to refer to a church that is governed by a synod.


title: Synod

text: Sometimes the phrase "general synod" or "general council" refers to an ecumenical council. The word "synod" also refers to the standing council of high-ranking bishops governing some of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches. Similarly, the day-to-day governance of patriarchal and major archiepiscopal Eastern Catholic Churches is entrusted to a permanent synod.


title: Synod

text: In Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, synods of bishops are meetings of bishops within each autonomous Church and are the primary vehicle for the election of bishops and the establishment of inter-diocesan ecclesiastical laws.


title: Synod

text: A "sobor" (Church Slavonic: съборъ, "assembly") is a formal gathering or council of bishops together with other clerical and lay delegates representing the church to deal with matters of faith, morality, rite, and canonical and cultural life. The synod in the Western churches is similar, but it is distinguished by being usually limited to an assembly of bishops.


title: Synod

text: The term is found among those Eastern Orthodox Churches that use Slavic language (the Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian Orthodox Churches), along with the Romanian Orthodox Church.


title: Synod

text: The presence of clerical and lay delegates is for the purpose of discerning the consensus of the church on important matters; however, the bishops form an upper house of the sobor, and the laity cannot overrule their decisions.


title: Synod

text: Kievan Rus' chronicles record the first known East Slavic church sobor as having taken place in Kiev in 1051. Sobors were convened periodically from then on; one notable assembly held in 1415 formed a separate metropoly for the church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuanian lands.


title: Synod

text: A bishop may also call a sobor for his diocese, which again would have delegates from the clergy, monasteries and parishes of his diocese, to discuss important matters. Such diocesan sobors may be held annually or only occasionally.


title: Synod

text: In Roman Catholic usage, "synod" and "council" are theoretically synonymous as they are of Greek and Latin origins, respectively, both meaning an authoritative meeting of bishops for the purpose of church administration in the areas of teaching (faith and morals) or governance (church discipline or law). However, in modern use, synod and council are applied to specific categories of such meetings and so do not really overlap. A synod generally meets every three years and is thus designated an "Ordinary General Assembly." However, "Extraordinary" synods can be called to deal with specific situations. There are also "Special" synods for the Church in a specific geographic area such as the one held November 16-December 12, 1997, for the Church in America.


title: Synod

text: While the words "synod" and "council" usually refer to a transitory meeting, the term "Synod of Bishops" or "Synod of the Bishops", is also applied to a permanent body established in 1965 as an advisory body of the pope. It holds assemblies at which bishops and religious superiors, elected by bishops conferences or the Union of Superiors General or appointed by the Pope vote on proposals (""propositiones"") to present for the pope's consideration, and which in practice the pope uses as the basis of "post-synodal apostolic exhortations" on the themes discussed. While an assembly of the Synod of Bishops thus expresses its collective wishes, it does not issue decrees, unless in certain cases the pope authorizes it to do so, and even then an assembly's decision requires ratification by the pope. The pope serves as president of an assembly or appoints the president, determines the agenda, and summons, suspends, and dissolves the assembly.


title: Synod

text: Meetings of bishops in the Roman empire are known from the mid-third century and already numbered twenty by the time of the First Council of Nicaea (325). Thereafter they continued by the hundreds into the sixth century. Those authorized by an emperor and often attended by him came to be called ecumenical, meaning throughout the world (as the world was thought of in Western terms). Today, "Council" in Roman Catholic canon law typically refers to an irregular meeting of the entire episcopate of a nation, region, or the world for the purpose of legislation with binding force. Those contemplated in canon law are the following:


title: Synod

text: Plenary and provincial councils are categorized as particular councils. A particular council is composed of all the bishops of the territory (including coadjutors and auxiliaries) as well as other ecclesiastical ordinaries who head particular churches in the territory (such as territorial abbots and vicars apostolic). Each of these members has a vote on council legislation. Additionally, the following persons by law are part of particular councils but only participate in an advisory capacity: vicars general and episcopal, presidents of Catholic universities, deans of Catholic departments of theology and canon law, some major superiors elected by all the major superiors in the territory, some rectors of seminaries elected by the rectors of seminaries in the territory, and two members from each cathedral chapter, presbyterial council, or pastoral council in the territory (can. 443). The convoking authority can also select other members of the faithful (including the laity) to participate in the council in an advisory capacity.


title: Synod

text: Meetings of the entire episcopate of a supra-national region have historically been called councils as well, such as the various Councils of Carthage in which all the bishops of North Africa were to attend.


title: Synod

text: During the Middle Ages, some councils were legatine, called by a papal legate rather than the pope or bishop.


title: Synod

text: Synods in Eastern Catholic Churches are similar to synods in Orthodox churches in that they are the primary vehicle for election of bishops and establishment of inter-diocesan ecclesiastical laws. The term "synod" in Latin Church canon law, however, refers to meetings of a representative, thematic, non-legislative (advisory) or mixed nature or in some other way do not meet the qualifications of a "council." There are various types.


title: Synod

text: Diocesan synods are irregular meetings of the clergy and laity of a particular church summoned by the diocesan bishop (or other prelate if the particular church is not a diocese) to deliberate on legislative matters. Only the diocesan bishop holds legislative authority; the other members of the diocesan synod act only in an advisory capacity. Those who must be invited to a diocesan synod by law are any coadjutor or auxiliary bishops, the vicars general and episcopal, the "officialis", the vicars forane plus an additional priest from each vicariate forane, the presbyterial council, canons of the cathedral chapter (if there is one), the rector of the seminary, some of the superiors of religious houses in the diocese, and members of the laity chosen by the diocesan pastoral council, though the diocesan bishop can invite others to attend at his own initiative. (can. 463)


title: Synod

text: National Episcopal Conferences are another development of the Second Vatican Council. They are permanent bodies consisting of all the Latin rite bishops of a nation and those equivalent to diocesan bishops in law (i.e. territorial abbots). Bishops of other "sui juris" churches and papal nuncios are not members of episcopal conferences by law, though the conference itself may invite them in an advisory or voting capacity (can. 450).


title: Synod

text: While councils (can. 445) and diocesan synods (can. 391 & 466) have full legislative powers in their areas of competence, national episcopal conferences may only issue supplementary legislation when authorized to do so in canon law or by decree of the Holy See. Additionally, any such supplemental legislation requires a two-thirds vote of the conference and review by the Holy See (can. 455) to have the force of law. Without such authorization and review, episcopal conferences are deliberative only and exercise no authority over their member bishops or dioceses.


title: Synod

text: In the Anglican Communion, synods are elected by clergy and laity. In most Anglican churches, there is a geographical hierarchy of synods, with "General Synod" at the top; bishops, clergy and laity meet as "houses" within the synod.


title: Synod

text: "Diocesan synods" are convened by a bishop in his or her diocese, and consist of elected clergy and lay members.


title: Synod

text: "Deanery synods" are convened by the "Rural Dean" (or "Area Dean") and consist of all clergy licensed to a benefice within the deanery, plus elected lay members.


title: Synod

text: In the Presbyterian system of church governance the synod is a level of administration between the local presbytery and the national general assembly. Some denominations use the synod, such as the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Uniting Church in Australia, and the Presbyterian Church USA. However some other churches do not use the synod at all, and the Church of Scotland dissolved its synods in 1993, see List of Church of Scotland synods and presbyteries. The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church is considered a Synod since there is no national church in the United States. (see establishment principle)


title: Synod

text: In Swiss and southern German Reformed churches, where the Reformed churches are organized as regionally defined independent churches (such as Evangelical Reformed Church of Zurich or Reformed Church of Berne), the synod corresponds to the general assembly of Presbyterian churches. In Reformed churches, the synod can denote a regional meeting of representatives of various classes ("regional synod"), or the general denominational meeting of representatives from the regional synods ("general" or "national synod"). Some churches, especially the smaller denominations, do not have the regional synod tier (for example, the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS)). Historically, these were meetings such as the Synod of Homberg.


title: Synod

text: In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the vast majority of Protestant denominations have regrouped under a religious institution named the Church of Christ in Congo or CCC, often referred to – within the Congo – simply as The Protestant Church. In the CCC structure, the "national synod" is the general assembly of the various churches that constitutes the CCC. From the Synod is drawn an executive committee, and a secretariat. There are also synods of the CCC in every province of the Congo, known appropriately as "provincial synods". The CCC regroups 62 Protestant denominations.


title: Ingenium engine family

text: The Ingenium family is a range of modular engines produced by Jaguar Land Rover, in both petrol and diesel variants. It uses a modular architecture making it possible to be produced in three-, four- and six-cylinder versions (built around individual 500 cc cylinders), depending on demand and requirements. The engines sourced from Ford were replaced by engines from Jaguar Land Rover's new Ingenium engine line from late 2015.


title: Ingenium engine family

text: Ingenium's design is configurable and flexible for longitudinal and transverse architectures and for front, rear, and all-wheel drive, together with auto and manual transmissions. Hybrid variants are set to be released in the future. Both single- and twin-turbo boosting solutions from Mitsubishi and BorgWarner are used. Particular emphasis has been placed on achieving exceptionally low internal friction, which is described as being 17% less than a current 2.2-L diesel. "Other details include roller bearings on cam and balancer shafts instead of machined-in bearing surfaces, computer-controlled variable oil and water pumps, a split circuit cooling system enabling fast warm ups, a simplified cam drive system, crankshafts that are offset from the centre of the block and electronically controlled piston cooling jets to improve efficiency in the oil pumping circuit."


title: Ingenium engine family

text: In 2017 Jaguar Land Rover licensed the Multiair/UniAir electrohydraulic variable valve lift system from Schaeffler Group, which Schaeffler in turn licensed from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2001. The system, developed by Fiat Powertrain Technologies, is a hydraulically-actuated variable valve timing (VVT) technology enabling "cylinder by cylinder, stroke by stroke" control of intake air directly via a gasoline engine's inlet valves.


title: Ingenium engine family

text: In February 2019, Jaguar Land Rover announced their long-rumoured inline-6 engine. Instead of being a conventional engine, the new 3.0L petrol inline-6 motor combines with a 48 volt electric architecture to enable an electric supercharger, belt-starter generator and extended engine shut offs while coasting and/or while stopped in traffic. The new engine is initially being offered in the Range Rover Sport in two power outputs, and . Both are considered to be mild hybrid electric vehicles. The 48 volt electrical architecture JLR announced with this new engine is similar to Mercedes-Benz's "EQ Boost" and Audi's 48V systems available in 2019.


title: Bobby Witt Jr.

text: Robert Andrew Witt Jr. (born June 14, 2000) is an American professional baseball shortstop and third baseman for the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He was selected second overall by the Royals in the 2019 Major League Baseball draft.


title: Bobby Witt Jr.

text: Witt attended Colleyville Heritage High School in Colleyville, Texas. He committed to play college baseball at the University of Oklahoma. As a junior in 2018, he batted .446 with ten home runs. That summer, he won the High School Home Run Derby at Nationals Park. Later in the summer, he also played in the Under Armour All-America Baseball Game at Wrigley Field where he hit a home run and was named team MVP as well as the Perfect Game All-American Classic at Petco Park. In December, he played for Team USA in Panama City during the 2018 COPABE Pan-American Championships, helping Team USA win a gold medal. In 2019, his senior year, he was named the Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year after batting .515 with 15 home runs, 54 RBIs, and 17 stolen bases.


title: Bobby Witt Jr.

text: Witt was considered one of the top prospects for the 2019 Major League Baseball draft. He was selected by the Kansas City Royals with the second overall pick. He signed for $7.79 million and made his professional debut with the Rookie-level Arizona League Royals. Over 37 games, he batted .262/.317/.354 with one home run, 27 RBIs, and nine stolen bases in 10 attempts.


title: Bobby Witt Jr.

text: Witt did not play a minor league game in 2020 due to the cancellation of the minor league season caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To begin the 2021 season, he was assigned to the Northwest Arkansas Naturals of the Double-A Central. In June, he was selected to play in the All-Star Futures Game at Coors Field. After batting .292/.369/.570 with 16 home runs, fifty RBIs, and 14 stolen bases over sixty games, he was promoted to the Omaha Storm Chasers of the Triple-A East. Over 62 games with Omaha, Witt slashed .285/.352/.581 with 17 home runs, 46 RBIs, and 15 stolen bases. He was awarded both the "USA Today" Minor League Player of the Year Award and the "Baseball America" Minor League Player of the Year Award.


title: Bobby Witt Jr.

text: Witt began practicing at third base during 2022 spring training. On April 5, 2022, the Royals announced that Witt had made the Opening Day roster. He made his MLB debut on Opening Day on April 7 as the Royals' starting third baseman. Witt hit his first major league home run on May 3 against the St. Louis Cardinals. In a game against the Detroit Tigers on September 3, he hit his 20th home run of the season, making him the fifth player in MLB history to join the 20-20 club in their first season.


title: Bobby Witt Jr.

text: In 2022 he batted .254/.294/.428 in 591 at bats, with 82 runs, 6 triples (4th in the AL), 20 home runs, 80 RBIs, and 30 steals (4th) in 37 attempts, and was the 10th-youngest player in the AL. He had the fastest sprint speed in the majors, at 30.4 feet per second.


title: Bobby Witt Jr.

text: Witt's father, Bobby Witt, played parts of 16 seasons as a pitcher in MLB, and Bobby Sr.'s brother (and Bobby Jr.'s uncle), Mike, also pitched in MLB for 12 seasons. Bobby Sr. is a player agent with Octagon Baseball and is his son's advisor.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: On April 4, 2013, Rehtaeh Parsons (, ; December 9, 1995 – April 7, 2013), a 17-year-old former Cole Harbour District High School student, attempted suicide by hanging at her home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, leading to a coma and the decision to switch her life support machine off on April 7, 2013. Her death has been attributed to online distribution of photos of an alleged gang rape that occurred 17 months prior to her suicide, in November 2011. On a Facebook page set up in tribute to her daughter, Parsons' mother blamed the four boys who allegedly raped and released images of her, the subsequent constant "bullying and messaging and harassment", and the failure of the Canadian justice system, for her daughter's decision to commit suicide.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: In response to Parsons' suicide, Nova Scotia enacted a law in August 2013 allowing victims to seek protection from cyberbullying and to sue the perpetrator.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: In November 2011, Rehtaeh Parsons, then 15, allegedly went with a friend to a home in which she was reportedly raped by four teenage boys. The teenagers were drinking vodka at a small party. Parsons had little memory of the event, except that, at one point, she vomited while a boy was allegedly raping her. The incident was photographed and the photo became widespread in Parsons' school and town in three days. Afterwards, many in school called Parsons a "slut" and she received text messages and Facebook messages from people requesting to have sex with her. The alleged rape went unreported for several days until Parsons broke down and told her family, who contacted an emergency health team and the police.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: According to an RCMP report, in March 2013, six boys, including some of Parsons' alleged rapists, had an argument with three other boys. One of the three boys, who was a friend of Parsons, was stabbed and treated for a "non-life-threatening injury".


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: A year following the alleged rape, the RCMP concluded an investigation stating, "[an] investigation into an earlier sexual assault was completed, and in consultation with the Crown, there was insufficient evidence to lay charges". According to the family, the boys were not questioned and their phones were not reviewed for the photograph of the rape in progress.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Instead, the police called it a "he said, she said" case and also decided the photo was not criminal, in spite of Parsons being a minor. Likewise, there were no arrests for the March 2013 stabbing incident.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Following the suicide, the RCMP announced they were reviewing the case. On April 12, the RCMP announced the case was being reopened in light of "new and credible information" that they said did not come from the Internet.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: In September 2014, one of the boys, by then 20, pleaded guilty to a charge of making child pornography in relation to the photo of Parsons. Citing the offender's age at the time of the crime and Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Crown had advised the Judge that the only possible penalties in this case were either probation or a conditional discharge. In November 2014, the first defendant to plead guilty was sentenced to a conditional discharge with 12 months' probation. With a conditional discharge, his criminal record will not show a conviction in this case, unless he breaches the terms of his probation.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Also in November 2014, the second person charged, then 19, pleaded guilty to a charge of distributing child pornography, in relation to the photo of himself and Parsons. He was sentenced on January 15, 2015, to one year of probation and required to submit a sample to a DNA database. In an unusual move for a case involving minors convicted of a crime, the judge ruled that this conviction would be kept in his criminal record for a period of five years.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: On June 14, 2013, the 56-page report of Penny Milton and Debra Pepler, two education experts from Ontario, was released. The provincial government of Darrell Dexter requested the report, which is entitled "External Review of the Halifax Regional School Board’s Support of Rehtaeh Parsons". One conclusion of the report was that Nova Scotian schools "need to do a better job preventing harassment and sexual aggression".


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Significantly, the authors recommended an external review of the IWK Health Centre, the Halifax hospital where she was a patient for five weeks after she had a breakdown and became suicidal. Canning said that Parsons was strip-searched by two men while receiving treatment in 2012 at the IWK, while the IWK denied the allegations.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: The authors met with 111 people, including school board staff, Ministerial staff, school staff, youth, police, health-care workers and others. The authors received more than 150 submissions from the general public, but curiously failed to interview Parson's friends or her teachers. Among the 13 recommendations made by the authors were:


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: The report traced Parson's history through the school system. She was transferred from Cole Harbour District High School, to Dartmouth High School, to Prince Andrew High School to Citadel High School. It recommended that the Halifax Regional School Board clarify the transfer approval process between schools, in order to stamp out any inconsistencies between policy and practices. School boards need to share more information when kids transfer schools, as Parsons did to escape harassment. "The school to which Rehtaeh transferred received no information about these events and did not get to know Rehtaeh well," the report noted.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: The Parsons case also prompted an external inquiry into the conduct of the Crown Prosecutor's office. This inquiry, which was requested by the Dexter government in August 2013 and released on October 8, 2015, during the government of Stephen McNeil, was performed by Murray Segal, a former chief prosecutor in Ontario. The report was delayed until legal proceedings involving two men charged with child pornography offences in the case concluded. Segal made 17 recommendations, and found the system "failed" on just about every level; a series of improvements to policies, procedures and actions relating to cyberbullying, sexual violence, investigations and prosecutions was contained in the report, but significantly Segal wrote that it was reasonable of the Crown Prosecutor's office to conclude there was no realistic prospect that sexual assault charges would result in conviction, and thus "the decision not to lay charges of sexual assault was understandable."


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Significantly, the Segal report found that school board officials prevented a police investigator from talking to students at Parsons’ school. The police investigator "made an attempt to attend at the school to interview as many students as possible about the photo... This attempt was apparently thwarted by school authorities." Segal found that it was "important that either police or school authorities" speak to the students. Segal continued: "Some work has also been done to clarify how schools and police interact, (but) we were informed that there is a lot of mystique around police investigations from the schools’ perspective: school authorities are loath to act when they are aware of an active criminal investigation, because they do not want to influence the evidence or prejudice the investigation." Education Minister Karen Casey said one week after the report's release that "each of the province’s school boards has its own protocol when it comes to dealing with police investigations on school property."


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Segal made it clear that Parsons' complaint of sexual assault and cyberbullying was mishandled, and as early as one day later there were calls to implement his recommendations. "Simply making the report doesn't guarantee it happens. You need to have a number of people holding [the government] to account and seeing what's actually done", said Dalhousie law professor Wayne MacKay.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Following the suicide, Rehtaeh Parsons's mother, Leah Parsons, went public with the story and started a memorial Facebook page called "Angel Rehtaeh." The blog of Rehtaeh's father, Glen Canning, also went viral. The story drew international attention and sparked outrage on the Internet, with CBC reporting the phrase "Nova Scotia" was "trending on Twitter worldwide."


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper commented on the case, saying he was "sickened" by the story and that the online bullying was "simply criminal activity." Rehtaeh's funeral on April 13 was attended by 500 people, including Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter, who said he came "first and foremost as a father trying to imagine what kind of incredible, unfathomable grief could be visited upon a family."


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: There are reports that members of the hacker group Anonymous involved itself in tracing the alleged perpetrators of the incidents Parsons suffered. In its news release, Anonymous blamed the death on "school teachers, administrators, the police and prosecutors, those who should have been role models in the late Rehtaeh's life." Later, Anonymous announced it would not publicize the names of the individuals it believed to be the rapists, in respect of the Parsons family's wishes. Leah Parsons had called for the case to be settled legally rather than by vigilantes.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Parsons' suicide and the circumstances surrounding it have been compared to those of British Columbian Amanda Todd and with Audrie Pott, a fifteen-year-old girl from Saratoga, California, United States, and appear to show similar characteristics. New laws are being considered after these events. Parsons has been described as a "victim of sexting".


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: After her suicide, posters appeared locally in support of the boys who allegedly attacked Parsons. The RCMP expressed concern that the posters might lead to vigilantism, although they did not name the accused.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: On April 26, 2013, Christie Blatchford wrote in the "National Post" that a problem in the case was that one of Parsons' friends claimed Parsons was "flirtatious" on the night the photo was taken, was seen laughing in bed with two boys and also there were "accounts from Rehtaeh herself and independent evidence, including retrieved online messages, that supported the suggestion the sex that took place was consensual." Blatchford also wrote the photo did not show Parsons' face. In response, Parsons' father, Glen Canning, accused Blatchford of victim blaming and argued, "The two boys involved in taking and posing for the photograph stated Rehtaeh was throwing up when they had sex with her. That is not called consensual sex. That is called rape."


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: In August 2013, Nova Scotia enacted a law allowing victims of cyberbullying to seek protection, including help in identifying anonymous perpetrators, and to sue the individuals or the parents in the case of minors. The law was passed in response to Parsons' suicide.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: That law was quashed in 2015 by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court who ruled the law's definition of cyberbullying was too wide and infringed on Charter rights and freedom of expression.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: A replacement law, the "Intimate Images and Cyber-protection Act", was passed in 2017 and came into force in 2018.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: Canadian media reports about criminal trials involving child pornography are subject to a publication ban under the Criminal Code: they must omit any information that would identify any minor who was involved in or witness to the case, including the victim, or be subject to fines. In November 2014, the "Halifax Chronicle Herald" violated the ban by publishing the name and photo of Parsons on its front page and online; the story was accompanied by an editor's note, stating: "We've decided to publish the name of the victim in this story, despite a court-ordered ban. We believe it's in the public interest in this unique case, given the widespread recognition of [her] name, and given the good that can come, and has already come, from free public debate over sexual consent and the other elements of her story." Noting that her name and photo had been widely disseminated prior to the trial, both the victim's parents and the trial's judge objected to the ban. The "Chronicle Herald" became the subject of investigation for its actions following complaints by police, although other media outlets have been investigated in Halifax for violating the ban but have not been subject to any charges.


title: Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons

text: In December 2014, Nova Scotia's attorney general announced that she was directing the province's Public Prosecution Service to pursue breaches of the publication ban in Parsons' case only if the breach is derogatory of Rehtaeh Parsons. The ban remains technically in place but unbiased reports about the case will not be subject to prosecution.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: Onasemnogene abeparvovec, sold under the brand name Zolgensma, is a gene therapy medication used to treat spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). It is used as a one-time infusion into a vein.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: The treatment must be accompanied by a course of corticosteroids of at least two months. Common side effects include vomiting and increased liver enzymes.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: Onasemnogene abeparvovec was first approved for medical use in the United States in 2019 as a treatment for children less than two years old. It was later approved in other jurisdictions with similar scope. The approval scope in certain jurisdictions, including the European Union and Canada, is somewhat different.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: Onasemnogene abeparvovec has been developed to treat spinal muscular atrophy, a disease linked to a mutation in the "SMN1" gene on chromosome 5q and diagnosed predominantly in young children that causes progressive loss of muscle function and frequently death. The medication is administered as an intravenous infusion.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: The treatment is approved in the United States and certain other countries for use in children with spinal muscular atrophy up to the age of two, including at the presymptomatic stage of the disease. In the European Union and Canada, it is indicated for the treatment of patients with spinal muscular atrophy who either have a clinical diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy type 1 or have up to three copies of the "SMN2" gene.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: Common adverse reactions may include nausea and elevated liver enzymes. Serious adverse reactions may include liver problems and low platelets. Transient elevated levels of cardiac troponin‑I were observed in clinical trials; the clinical importance of these findings is not known. However, cardiac toxicity was seen in studies of other animals.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: As the medication may reduce the platelet count, platelets may need to be checked before the medication is started, then weekly for the first month and every two weeks for the next two months until the level is back to baseline. Liver function should be monitored for three months after administration.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: SMA is a neuromuscular disorder caused by a mutation in the "SMN1" gene, which leads to a decrease in SMN protein, a protein necessary for survival of motor neurons. Onasemnogene abeparvovec is a biologic drug consisting of AAV9 virus capsids that contains a "SMN1" transgene along with synthetic promoters. Upon administration, the AAV9 viral vector delivers the "SMN1" transgene to the affected motor neurons, where it leads to an increase in SMN protein.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: Onasemnogene abeparvovec was developed by the US biotechnology startup AveXis, which was acquired by Novartis in 2018, based on the work at the Institut de Myologie in France.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the application for onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi fast track, breakthrough therapy, priority review, and orphan drug designations. The FDA also awarded the manufacturer a rare pediatric disease priority review voucher, and granted the approval of Zolgensma to AveXis Inc.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: In June 2015, the European Commission granted orphan designation for the drug. In July 2019, the drug was removed from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) accelerated assessment program.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: In May 2019, onasemnogene abeparvovec received US FDA approval as a treatment for children less than two years old. Since 2019, the treatment has been reimbursed in Israel and Qatar. In March 2020, onasemnogene abeparvovec was granted regulatory approval in Japan with the label identical to the US one. Also in March 2020, the European Medicines Agency recommended a conditional marketing authorization for use in people with SMA type 1 or with any SMA type and having no more than three copies of the "SMN2" gene. In May 2020, Onasemnogene abeparvovec was conditionally approved in Europe.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: In August 2020, onasemnogene abeparvovec was granted regulatory approval in Brazil by the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA).


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: The drug carries a list price of per treatment, making it the most expensive medication in the world . In its first full quarter of sales of medication was sold.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: In Japan, the drug was made available through the public health care system on 20 May 2020, making it the most expensive drug covered by the Japanese public health care system. The , responsible for approving the universal drug fee schedule in Japan, has negotiated the price down to (approx. USD ) per patient.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: In the months leading up to the medication's approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a whistleblower informed Novartis that certain studies of the medication had been subject to data manipulation. Novartis fired two AveXis executives it determined responsible for the alleged data manipulation but informed the FDA of the data integrity issue only in June 2019, a month after the drug's approval. The delay drew strong condemnation from the FDA. In October 2019, the company admitted to not having informed the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for seven months about toxic effects of the intravenous formulation observed in laboratory animals. Due to data manipulation issue, the EMA withdrew their decision to allow an accelerated assessment of the medication.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: In December 2019, Novartis announced that it would donate 100 doses of onasemnogene abeparvovec per year to children outside the US through a global lottery. The decision, which has been claimed by Novartis to be based on a recommendation by unnamed bioethicists, was received with much criticism by the European Commission, some European healthcare regulators and patient groups who see it as emotionally burdening, suboptimal, and ethically questionable. Novartis did not consult with families or doctors before announcing the scheme.


title: Onasemnogene abeparvovec

text: Onasemnogene abeparvovec is the international nonproprietary name (INN) and the United States Adopted Name (USAN).


title: Worship

text: Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. It may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, and praying. For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recognition of a God or gods. An act of worship may be performed individually, in an informal or formal group, or by a designated leader. Such acts may involve honoring.


title: Worship

text: The word is derived from the Old English weorþscipe, meaning "to venerate "worship, honour shown to an object", which has been etymologised as ""worthiness" or "worth-ship""—to give, at its simplest, worth to something.


title: Worship

text: Worship in Buddhism may take innumerable forms given the doctrine of skillful means. Worship is evident in Buddhism in such forms as: guru yoga, mandala, thanka, yantra yoga, the discipline of the fighting monks of Shaolin, panchamrita, mantra recitation, tea ceremony, ganacakra, amongst others. Buddhist Devotion is an important part of the practice of most Buddhists. According to a spokesman of the Sasana Council of Burma, devotion to Buddhist spiritual practices inspires devotion to the Triple Gem. Most Buddhists use ritual in pursuit of their spiritual aspirations. In Buddhism, puja (Sanskrit & Pali: pūjā) are expressions of "honour, worship and devotional attention." Acts of puja include bowing, making offerings and chanting. These devotional acts are generally performed daily at home (either in the morning or evening or both) as well as during communal festivals and Uposatha days at a temple.


title: Worship

text: Meditation (samādhi) is a central form of worship in Buddhism. This practice is focused on the third step of the Eightfold Path that ultimately leads to self awakening, also known as enlightenment. Meditation promotes self-awareness and exploration of the mind and spirit. Traditionally, Buddhist meditation had combined samatha (the act of stopping and calming oneself) and vipasyana (seeing clearly within) to create a complete mind and body experience. By stopping one's everyday activities and focusing on something simple, the mind can open and expand enough to reach a spiritual level. By practicing the step of vipasyana, one does not achieve the final stage of awareness, but rather approaches one step closer. Mindful meditation teaches one to stop reacting quickly to thoughts and external objects that present themselves, but rather to peacefully hold the thought without immediately responding to it. Although in traditional Buddhist faith, enlightenment is the desired end goal of meditation, it is more of a cycle in a literal sense that helps individuals better understand their minds. For example, meditation leads to understanding, leading to kindness, leading to peace, etc.


title: Worship

text: In Christianity, a church service is a formalized period of communal worship, often but not exclusively occurring on Sunday (or on Saturday in the case of those churches practicing seventh-day Sabbatarianism). The church service is the gathering together of Christians to be taught the "Word of God" (the Holy Bible) and encouraged in their faith. Technically, the "church" in "church service" refers to the gathering of the faithful rather than to the building in which the event takes place. In Christianity, worship is reverent honor and homage paid to God. The New Testament uses various words to express the concept of worship. The word "proskuneo" - "to worship" - means to bow down (to Gods or to kings).


title: Worship

text: Mass is the central act of divine worship in the Catholic Church. The Congregation for Divine Worship at the Vatican publishes a "Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy". Roman Catholic devotions are "external practices of piety" which are not part of the official liturgy of the Catholic Church but are part of the popular spiritual practices of Catholics. They do not become part of liturgical worship, even if conducted in a Catholic church, in a group, in the presence of a priest.


title: Worship

text: Anglican devotions are private prayers and practices used by Anglican Christians to promote spiritual growth and communion with God. Among members of the Anglican Communion, private devotional habits vary widely, depending on personal preference and on affiliation with low-church or high-church parishes.


title: Worship

text: The New Testament uses various words translatable as "worship". The word "proskuneo" - "to worship" - means to bow down to Gods or kings.


title: Worship

text: Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Eastern Orthodoxy make a technical distinction between two different concepts:


title: Worship

text: The external acts of veneration resemble those of worship, but differ in their object and intent. Protestant Christians, who reject the veneration of saints, question whether Catholics always maintain such a distinction in actual devotional practice, especially at the level of folk religion.


title: Worship

text: According to Mark Miravalle the English word "worship" is equivocal, in that it has been used (in Catholic writing, at any rate) to denote both adoration/"latria" and veneration/"dulia", and in some cases even as a synonym for veneration as distinct from adoration:


title: Worship

text: As St. Thomas Aquinas explains, adoration, which is known as latria in classical theology, is the worship and homage that is rightly offered to God alone. It is the manifestation of submission, and acknowledgement of dependence, appropriately shown towards the excellence of an uncreated divine person and to his absolute Lordship. It is the worship of the Creator that God alone deserves. Although we see in English a broader usage of the word "adoration" which may not refer to a form of worship exclusive to God—for example, when a husband says that he "adores his wife"—in general it can be maintained that adoration is the best English denotation for the worship of latria.


title: Worship

text: Veneration, known as dulia in classical theology, is the honor and reverence appropriately due to the excellence of a created person. Excellence exhibited by created beings likewise deserves recognition and honor. We see a general example of veneration in events like the awarding of academic awards for excellence in school, or the awarding of olympic medals for excellence in sports. There is nothing contrary to the proper adoration of God when we offer the appropriate honor and recognition that created persons deserve based on achievement in excellence.


title: Worship

text: We must make a further clarification regarding the use of the term "worship" in relation to the categories of adoration and veneration. Historically, schools of theology have used the term "worship" as a general term which included both adoration and veneration. They would distinguish between "worship of adoration" and "worship of veneration." The word "worship" (in a similar way to how the liturgical term "cult" is traditionally used) was not synonymous with adoration, but could be used to introduce either adoration or veneration. Hence Catholic sources will sometimes use the term "worship" not to indicate adoration, but only the worship of veneration given to Mary and the saints.


title: Worship

text: Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Sunni Islam hold that for all practical purposes veneration should be considered the same as prayer; Orthodox Judaism (arguably with the exception of some Chasidic practices), orthodox Sunni Islam, and most kinds of Protestantism forbid veneration of saints or of angels, classifying these actions as akin to idolatry.


title: Worship

text: Similarly, Jehovah's Witnesses assert that many actions classified as patriotic by Protestant groups, such as saluting a flag, count as equivalent to worship and are therefore considered idolatrous as well.


title: Worship

text: "Quakers" (the Religious Society of Friends) have both unprogrammed and programmed Meetings for Worship. Unprogrammed worship is based on silence and inward listening to the Spirit, from which any participant may share a message. In unprogrammed meetings for worship, someone speaks when that person feels that God/Spirit/the universe has given them a message for others. Programmed worship includes many elements similar to Protestant services, such as a sermon and hymns. Many programmed meetings also include a time during the service for silent, expectant waiting and messages from the participants.