title: Ankle–brachial pressure index

text: A Doppler ultrasound blood flow detector, commonly called Doppler wand or Doppler probe, and a sphygmomanometer (blood pressure cuff) are usually needed. The blood pressure cuff is inflated proximal to the artery in question. Measured by the Doppler wand, the inflation continues until the pulse in the artery ceases. The blood pressure cuff is then slowly deflated. When the artery's pulse is re-detected through the Doppler probe the pressure in the cuff at that moment indicates the systolic pressure of that artery.


title: Ankle–brachial pressure index

text: The higher systolic reading of the left and right arm brachial artery is generally used in the assessment. The pressures in each foot's posterior tibial artery and dorsalis pedis artery are measured with the higher of the two values used as the ABI for that leg.


title: Ankle–brachial pressure index

text: The ABPI test is a popular tool for the non-invasive assessment of Peripheral vascular disease (PVD). Studies have shown the sensitivity of ABPI is 90% with a corresponding 98% specificity for detecting hemodynamically significant (stenosis of more than 50%) in major leg arteries, defined by angiogram.


title: Ankle–brachial pressure index

text: When performed in an accredited diagnostic laboratory, the ABI is a fast, accurate, and painless exam, however these issues have rendered ABI unpopular in primary care offices and symptomatic patients are often referred to specialty clinics due to the perceived difficulties. Technology is emerging that allows for the oscillometric calculation of ABI, in which simultaneous readings of blood pressure at the levels of the ankle and upper arm are taken using specially calibrated oscillometric machines.


title: Ankle–brachial pressure index

text: In a normal subject the pressure at the ankle is slightly higher than at the elbow (there is reflection of the pulse pressure from the vascular bed of the feet, whereas at the elbow the artery continues on some distance to the wrist).


title: Ankle–brachial pressure index

text: The ABPI is the ratio of the highest ankle to brachial artery pressure. An ABPI between and including 0.90 and 1.29 considered normal (free from significant PAD), while a lesser than 0.9 indicates arterial disease. An ABPI value of 1.3 or greater is also considered abnormal, and suggests calcification of the walls of the arteries and incompressible vessels, reflecting severe peripheral vascular disease.


title: Ankle–brachial pressure index

text: Provided that there are no other significant conditions affecting the arteries of the leg, the following ABPI ratios can be used to predict the severity of PAD as well as assess the nature and best management of various types of leg ulcers. Studies also indicate that the assessment of PAD in people with diabetes should use both ABPI ratios and Doppler waveforms.


title: Ankle–brachial pressure index

text: Studies in 2006 suggests that an abnormal ABPI may be an independent predictor of mortality, as it reflects the burden of atherosclerosis. It thus has potential for screening for coronary artery disease, although no evidence-based recommendations can be made about screening in low-risk patients because clinical trials are lacking. It is noteworthy that abnormal values of ABI predispose to development of the frailty syndrome.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: Youth in Revolt is a 2009 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Miguel Arteta and written by Gustin Nash. Based on C.D. Payne's epistolary novel of the same name, the film stars Michael Cera and Portia Doubleday, with Justin Long, Ray Liotta, and Steve Buscemi in supporting roles.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: The film follows shy and lonely teenager Nick (Cera) desperate to lose his virginity. While on a trailer park holiday with his mother and her boyfriend, he meets an attractive girl (Doubleday) and is immediately smitten. When the two are separated Nick must learn how to rebel in order to be with the girl he loves.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: Shy teenager Nick Twisp lives with his mother, Estelle, and her boyfriend, Jerry, in Oakland, California. After selling a faulty car to a group of sailors, Jerry takes Estelle and Nick to a trailer park in Clearlake where Nick meets Sheeni Saunders, a young woman his age, interested in French culture and sharing Nick's musical taste. Despite her boyfriend, Trent Preston, they become romantically involved. Nick gets a dog for her named Albert (after Albert Camus), but Albert rips up the family's property and Sheeni's parents ban it from the house.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: Before Nick returns to Oakland, Sheeni promises to arrange a job in Ukiah for Nick's father, George, while Nick agrees to get his mother to kick him out so he can return to Sheeni. In Oakland, Nick creates an alter-ego named François Dillinger, a suave, rebellious troublemaker. Immediately after, Jerry dies of a heart attack.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: Under François' influence, Nick mouths off to his mom and her new boyfriend, police officer Lance Wescott. Nick takes Jerry's Lincoln, and crashes into a restaurant, starting a fire. Lance agrees to lie and report the car stolen in return for living with his father. In Ukiah, Nick phones Sheeni and tells her he blew up "half of Berkeley" to return. Her mother overhears this and ships her to a French boarding school in Santa Cruz, forbidding Nick ever to see her again.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: Nick befriends Vijay Joshi, and they take Vijay's grandmother's car to visit Sheeni. They sneak into Sheeni's room, Nick meets Bernice in the bathroom, and he claims Trent said terrible things about her. Later, Bernice brings the matron to the room and the boys flee. On the way home, the car dies and Nick calls Mr. Ferguson, his father's idealist neighbor, to pick them up; telling Ferguson that Vijay is an illegal immigrant whom Nick is trying to "free from persecution".


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: When he returns home, Nick meets Sheeni's older brother, Paul, who tells him that she will be returning home at Thanksgiving and invites him. Nick sends Bernice letters asking her to slip sedatives into Sheeni's drinks to make her sleep in class, getting Sheeni expelled. Nick finds Lacey, George's 25-year-old girlfriend, Paul, and Ferguson, in his living room, high on mushrooms, and Nick joins them. When George finds them he punches Ferguson, and Paul punches George. Lacey leaves the house to live with Paul. On Thanksgiving Day, Nick receives a call from his mother explaining Lance left and will not cover for him anymore. Then, at Sheeni's, Trent unexpectedly arrives and tells them about Nick's letters to Bernice; Sheeni is horrified and Nick leaves.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: Nick steals his father's car to escape the police, then removes his clothes and drives the car into a shallow lake in front of the police station. He gets a wig and dress to impersonate one of Sheeni's "friends". He fools Mr. and Mrs. Saunders, going up to Sheeni's room. Upstairs, Nick tells Sheeni that he understands what loneliness is like, and that everything he has done (burning down Berkeley, destroying his parents' cars and having her sedated) was all so that they wouldn't have to be alone anymore. Sheeni forgives Nick, and they have sex, finally achieving Nick's dream of losing his virginity. Trent barges in, telling them he's brought the police. Nick and Trent fight until the police comes to arrest Nick. Nick asks Sheeni to wait for him; she reassures him that he will only be in juvenile detention for three months.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: The animated closing credits show Nick in jail with François helping him. When Nick is released, Sheeni shows up in a car and they drive away into the sky towards the Paris skyline, as various characters appear to make amends and give them their blessing.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: "Youth in Revolt" opened on January 8, 2010 in 1,873 theaters and grossed $6.9 million in its opening weekend, ranking #9 in the domestic box office. By the end of its run on March 25, the film had grossed $15.3 million domestically and $4.4 million overseas for a worldwide total of $19.7 million against an $18 million budget.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 66% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 172 reviews, with an average rating of 6.30/10. The consensus states: "It may not entirely do its source material justice, but Miguel Arteta's "Youth in Revolt" is a fun, funny comic romp that lets Michael Cera stretch a little and introduces filmgoers to a major find in Portia Doubleday." On Metacritic, based on 35 critics' reviews, the film has a 63/100 rating, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: "Youth in Revolt" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 15, 2010. Special features include deleted scenes, animated sequences, an audio commentary by Arteta and Cera, and audition footage.


title: Youth in Revolt (film)

text: Youth in Revolt: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on January 5, 2010 by Lakeshore Records. The film itself contained 19 songs, leaving 9 out of the official soundtrack. The score was composed by John Swihart who also did the score for "Napoleon Dynamite" and "The Brothers Solomon".


title: Raccoon eyes

text: Raccoon eyes (also known in the United Kingdom and Ireland as panda eyes) or periorbital ecchymosis is a sign of basal skull fracture or subgaleal hematoma, a craniotomy that ruptured the meninges, or (rarely) certain cancers. Bilateral hemorrhage occurs when damage at the time of a facial fracture tears the meninges and causes the venous sinuses to bleed into the arachnoid villi and the cranial sinuses. In lay terms, blood from skull fracture seeps into the soft tissue around the eyes. Raccoon eyes may be accompanied by Battle's sign, an ecchymosis behind the ear. These signs may be the only sign of a skull fracture, as it may not show on an X-ray. They normally appear between 48 and 72 hours after the injury. It is recommended that the patient not blow their nose, cough vigorously, or strain to prevent further tearing of the meninges.


title: Raccoon eyes

text: Raccoon eyes may be bilateral or unilateral. If unilateral, it is highly suggestive of basilar skull fracture, with a positive predictive value of 85%. They are most often associated with fractures of the anterior cranial fossa.


title: Raccoon eyes

text: Raccoon eyes may also be a sign of disseminated neuroblastoma or of amyloidosis (multiple myeloma). It also can be temporary result of rhinoplasty.


title: Raccoon eyes

text: Depending on cause, raccoon eyes always require urgent consultation and management, that is surgical (facial fracture or post-craniotomy) or medical (neuroblastoma or amyloidosis).


title: Baital Pachisi

text: Vetala Panchavimshati (, IAST: ) or Betaal Pachisi (""Twenty-five (tales) of Betaal""), is a collection of tales and legends within a frame story, from India. It is also known as internationally Vikram-Betaal. It was originally written in Sanskrit.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: One of its oldest recensions is found in the 12th Book of the "Kathasaritsagara" ("Ocean of the Streams of Story"), a work in Sanskrit compiled in the 11th century by Somadeva, but based on yet older materials, now lost. This recension comprises in fact twenty-four tales, the frame narrative itself being the twenty-fifth. The two other major recensions in Sanskrit are those by Śivadāsa and Jambhaladatta.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: The Vetala stories are popular in India and have been translated into many Indian vernaculars. Several English translations exist, based on Sanskrit recensions and on Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi versions. Probably the best-known English version is that of Sir Richard Francis Burton which is, however, not a translation but a very free adaptation.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: The legendary king Vikramāditya (Vikrama) promises a "vamachari" (a tantric sorcerer) that he will capture a "vetala" (or "Baital" or Betal), a celestial spirit Pishacha, celestial spirit or a Bhairava, who hangs upside-down from a tree and inhabits and animates dead bodies.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: King Vikrama faces many difficulties in bringing the vetala to the tantric. Each time Vikram tries to capture the vetala, it tells a story that ends with a riddle. If Vikrama cannot answer the question correctly, the vampire consents to remain in captivity. If the king knows the answer but still keeps quiet, then his head shall burst into thousand pieces. And if King Vikrama answers the question correctly, the vampire would escape and return to his tree. He knows the answer to every question; therefore the cycle of catching and releasing the vampire continues twenty-four times.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: On the twenty-fifth attempt, the Vetala tells the story of a father and a son in the aftermath of a devastating war. They find the queen and the princess alive in the chaos, and decide to take them home. In due time, the son marries the queen and the father marries the princess. Eventually, the son and the queen have a son, and the father and the princess have a daughter. The vetala asks what the relation between the two newborn children is. The question stumps Vikrama. Satisfied, the vetala allows himself to be taken to the tantric.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: On their way to the tantric, Vetala tells his story. His parents did not have a son and a tantric blessed them with twin sons on a condition that both be educated under him. Vetala was taught everything in the world but often ill-treated. Whereas his brother was taught just what was needed but always well treated. Vetala discovered that the tantric planned to return his brother to his parents and Vetala instead would be sacrificed as he was an " 'all-knowing kumara' " and by sacrificing him the tantric could be immortal and rule the world using his tantric powers. Vetal also reveals that now the tantric's plan is to sacrifice Vikram, beheading him as he bowed in front of the goddess. The tantric could then gain control over the vetala and sacrifice his soul, thus achieving his evil ambition. The vetala suggests that the king asks the tantric how to perform his obeisance, then take advantage of that moment to behead the sorcerer himself. Vikramāditya does exactly as told by the vetala and he is blessed by Lord Indra and Devi Kali. The vetala offers the king a boon, whereupon Vikram requests that the tantric's heart and mind be cleaned of all sins and his life be restored as a good living being and that the vetala would come to the king's aid when needed.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: A variation of this story replaces the vetal with a minor celestial who, in exchange for his own life, reveals the plot by two tradesmen (replacing the sorcerer) to assassinate Vikrama and advises Vikrama to trick them into positions of vulnerability as described above. Having killed them, Vikrama is offered a reward by the goddess, who grants him two spirits loyal to Her as his servants.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: It was adapted into 1951 Hindi film "Jai Maha Kali (Vikram Vaital)" by Dhirubhai Desai starring Lalita Pawar, Nirupa Roy, Shahu Modak, Raj Kumar, and S. N. Tripathi. It was remade in 1986 as "Vikram Vetal", by Shantilal Soni, starring Vikram Gokhale, Manhar Desai, and Deepika Chikhalia.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: The 2017 Tamil film "Vikram Vedha" was a modern-day adaptation of the story with the characterization of King Vikramadithyan and the celestial spirit Vedhalam derived from that plot. The title of the film was also derived from the two key characters from the folktale.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: In 1985, the story was developed by Sagar Films as a television serial titled "Vikram aur Betaal", starring Arun Govil as Vikrama and Sajjan Kumar as the Vetala. It was aired on Doordarshan, the public television broadcaster of India. A remake of that serial by the new generation of Sagar Films, titled "Kahaniyaan Vikram aur Betaal Ki", was aired on the Indian satellite channel Colors.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: Indian animator Rajiv Chilaka directed "Vikram Betal", a television film for Cartoon Network in 2004 which was produced by his Green Gold Animations. Another 2006 supernatural sitcom "Vicky & Vetaal" was inspired by the "Baital Pachisi". A web series titled "The Vetala" was released in 2009, written and directed by Damon Vignale. The series reveals a CGI vetala character in the final episode.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: 2018 Hindi TV adaptation "Vikram Betaal Ki Rahasya Gatha" was aired on &TV, where actors Aham Sharma and Makrand Deshpande as playing the role of King Vikramaditya and Betaal respectively.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: The children's "Chandamama", featured a serial story titled "New Tales of Vikram and Betal" for many years. As the title suggests, the original premise of the story is maintained, as new stories are told by Vetala to King Vikrama.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: In the novel, "Alif the Unseen", a character named Vikrama the Vampire appears as a jinn. He tells how thousands of years ago, King Vikrama had set off to defeat the Vetala, a vampire jinn terrorizing one of his villages. Vikrama won the Vetala's game of wits, but forfeited his life. The Vetala now inhabits his body.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: Both the Kṣemendra and Somadeva recensions derive from the unattested ""Northwestern" Bṛhatkathā", and include the Vetala Tales as a small part of their huge inventory. The recensions of Śivadāsa and Jambhaladatta contain only the Vetala Tales and have an unknown relationship to each other and to the other Sanskrit recensions.


title: Baital Pachisi

text: Some time between 1719 and 1749, Ṣūrat Kabīshwar translated Śivadāsa's Sanskrit recension into Braj Bhasha; this work was subsequently translated in 1805 under the direction of John Gilchrist into the closely related Hindustani language by Lallu Lal and others. This was a popular work that played an early role in the development of Literary Hindi and was selected as a Hindustani test-book for military service students in the East India Company. Thus it became the basis of several Hindi editions, and Indian vernacular and English translations; many of these frequently reprinted.


title: NFC West

text: The National Football Conference Western Division or NFC West is one of the four divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It currently has four members: the Arizona Cardinals, the Los Angeles Rams, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Seattle Seahawks.


title: NFC West

text: The division was formed in 1967 as the National Football League Coastal Division, keeping with the theme of having all of the league's divisions starting with the letter "C." The division was so named because its teams were fairly close to the coasts of the United States, although they were on opposite coasts, making for long travel between division rivals. The NFL Coastal Division had four members: Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Colts, Los Angeles Rams, and San Francisco 49ers. Los Angeles and San Francisco occupied the West Coast, while Baltimore maintained its dominance over the lesser teams that remained in the division. Atlanta was placed in the division instead of the expansion New Orleans Saints despite being farther east than five Eastern Conference teams (Cowboys, Cardinals, Saints, Browns and Steelers).


title: NFC West

text: After the AFL–NFL merger in 1970, the division was renamed the NFC West. The Baltimore Colts moved to the AFC East and were replaced by the Saints, who came from the Eastern Conference (the Saints played in the Capitol Division in 1967 and '69, and the Century Division in 1968). In 1976, the newly formed Seattle Seahawks spent one season in this division (Seattle did not play the other four members of the division home-and-home in 1976, playing each of the other 13 NFC teams and the other expansion team of 1976, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) before moving to the AFC West. Except for that one year, the division remained the same until 1995 with the addition of the new Carolina Panthers team. The Rams moved to St. Louis before that same season, making the division geographically inaccurate. Ten of the fifteen NFC teams were based west of Atlanta, and twelve of them were based west of Charlotte (all except the Redskins, Eagles and Giants).


title: NFC West

text: The 2002 re-alignment changed the entire look of the NFC West. The Falcons, Panthers, and Saints moved into the NFC South; while the Cardinals moved in from the NFC East and the Seahawks returned from the AFC West. The Rams remained in the West, preserving the historical rivalry with the 49ers that has existed since 1950, and thus had been the only team in the division that was located east of the Rocky Mountains until 2015; despite this, the re-alignment made the NFC West have all of its teams based west of the Mississippi River. With the Rams' return to Los Angeles in 2016, the entire NFC West is now located west of the Rockies for the first time in its history; all teams except for the Cardinals are based in the Pacific Time Zone (since most of Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the clocks are the same as Pacific Daylight Time from the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday of November, through at least 2027). The 2016 season marked the first time neither the 49ers nor Seahawks played a division game east of the Rocky Mountains.


title: NFC West

text: The NFC West became the second division since the 2002 realignment (the NFC South was the first) to have each of its teams make a conference championship game appearance: Los Angeles (2018 and 2021), Arizona (2008 and 2015), San Francisco (2011, 2012, 2013, 2019 and 2021), and Seattle (2005, 2013, and 2014). Also since 2002, each team has won at least three division titles, one of only two divisions in the league to do so. All of its teams have appeared in a Super Bowl at least once since the 2002 realignment (the only other division accomplishing this being the NFC South): Arizona (2008), Los Angeles Rams (2018, 2021), San Francisco (2012, 2019), and Seattle (2005, 2013, 2014). As of 2021, the NFC West is the only division in the NFC that has not seen at least one of its teams win a Super Bowl when entering that year's playoffs as a wild-card entry (the same historical fact holds true for both the AFC East and AFC South).


title: NFC West

text: In 2010, the NFC West became the first division in NFL history to have a champion with a losing record, after the Seattle Seahawks won the division title with a record of 7–9. They were joined in this distinction in 2014 by the Carolina Panthers, who won the NFC South with a record of 7–8–1, and in 2020 by the Washington Football Team, who won the NFC East also with a record of 7–9.


title: NFC West

text: Since the end of the 2020 NFL regular season, the 49ers lead the division with a record of 589–499–16 (137–166–1 since re-alignment) with five Super Bowl titles and an overall playoff record of 33–22. The Rams hold a record of 586–575–21 (130–173–1 since re-alignment) with five Super Bowl appearances and two wins to go with a 25–26 overall playoff record. The Cardinals hold a 135–167–2 record since joining the NFC West (566–770–41 overall) and a loss in Super Bowl XLIII, currently with a 7–9 playoff record, 5–4 as a member of the NFC West. The Seahawks hold a record of 179–124–1 since joining the NFC West (367–340–1 overall), with three Super Bowl appearances, winning Super Bowl XLVIII to go with a playoff record of 17–18; they are currently 14–13 in the playoffs as a member of the NFC West, having gone 3–5 while in the AFC West. Since re-alignment, the Seahawks have led the division in wins, division titles, and playoff appearances.


title: NFC West

text: Following 2001, the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, and New Orleans Saints left the NFC West to join the newly formed NFC South. The Arizona Cardinals joined the NFC West from the NFC East, and the Seattle Seahawks joined from the AFC West to combine with the San Francisco 49ers and the St. Louis Rams to create the new NFC West.


title: Cindy Sampson

text: Cindy Marie Sampson (born May 27, 1978) is a Canadian director and actress (film and television). She is known for her her role in the Canadian television series "Private Eyes".


title: Cindy Sampson

text: Sampson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on May 27, 1978. She attended Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts, training in dance and theatre.


title: Cindy Sampson

text: In February 2012 she traveled to Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, the most remote island on Earth, and climbed to the island's summit while filming the "docu-fiction" movie "Expedition for the Future".


title: Cindy Sampson

text: Sampson's biggest film role was as Zoe Ravena in "Live Once, Die Twice". For the film "The Shrine", Sampson was required to watch a specific list of horror films in preparation for the role. She also appeared in the crime thriller film "The Factory".


title: Cindy Sampson

text: Sampson appeared in Season 3 of "Supernatural" as the character Lisa Braedon, in the episode "The Kids Are Alright" in 2007. She reprised the role for the episode "Dream a Little Dream of Me" after showrunner Eric Kripke could not get the rights to use the character Jason Voorhees, the villain of the "Friday the 13th" horror film series. Sampson's character was brought back in the fifth-season episodes "99 Problems" and "Swan Song" as setup to season six, in which she appeared in 11 episodes. Her final appearance was in the episode "Let It Bleed" (season 6, episode 21).


title: Cindy Sampson

text: In 2015, Sampson appeared in three episodes of "Rookie Blue", a Canadian police drama television series starring Missy Peregrym and Gregory Smith, followed by eight episodes as Sophie Hale in the third season of the Canadian-British co-production "Rogue", which stars Thandie Newton and Cole Hauser.


title: Cindy Sampson

text: In 2016 the Global Television Network launched the TV series "Private Eyes", in which Sampson stars as Angie Everett, an experienced private investigator who takes on an ex-hockey player, Matt Shade (Jason Priestley), as a junior partner. She also directed one episode of the series.


title: Cindy Sampson

text: Sampson's other appearances include "Reaper", "The Last Kiss", "Being Human", "Footsteps", "Proof of Lies", "Pretty Dead Flowers", and "Swamp Devil". She also portrayed Sandra MacLaren in "Rumours" as well as the "Strong Brushing Arm" woman in a commercial spot for Listerine mouthwash.


title: Constituent assembly

text: A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected by popular vote, drawn by sortition, appointed, or some combination of these methods. Assemblies are typically considered distinct from a regular legislature, although members of the legislature may compose a significant number or all of its members. As the fundamental document constituting a state, a constitution cannot normally be modified or amended by the state's normal legislative procedures in some jurisdictions; instead a constitutional convention or a constituent assembly, the rules for which are normally laid down in the constitution, must be set up. A constituent assembly is usually set up for its specific purpose, which it carries out in a relatively short time, after which the assembly is dissolved. A constituent assembly is a form of representative democracy.


title: Constituent assembly

text: Unlike forms of constitution-making in which a constitution is unilaterally imposed by a sovereign lawmaker, the constituent assembly creates a constitution through "internally imposed" actions, in that members of the constituent assembly are themselves citizens, but not necessarily the political leaders, of the country for which they are creating a constitution. As described by Columbia University Social Sciences Professor Jon Elster:


title: Constituent assembly

text: "Constitutions arise in a number of different ways. At the non-democratic extreme of the spectrum, we may imagine a sovereign lawgiver laying down the constitution for all later generations. At the democratic extreme, we may imagine a constituent assembly elected by universal suffrage for the sole task of writing a new constitution. And there are all sorts of intermediate arrangements."


title: Constituent assembly

text: As of May 2021 Chile is the most recently elected constitutional assembly. The 155 members of this assembly were elected between 15 and 16 May 2021. The assembly has gender parity (50% females and 50% males) and has 17 seats reserved for people belonging to indigenous peoples. The assembly is granted 12 months to draft a new constitution, which has to be ratified by referendum once written, with compulsory voting.


title: Constituent assembly

text: Immediately after the 1948 Costa Rican Civil War that overthrew the Rafael Angel Calderón Government, the leaders of the victorious side called for the election of a Constituent Assembly in the same year. The Assembly successfully drafted and approved the current Costa Rican Constitution.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Danish Constituent Assembly (; lit. "The Constitution giving Assembly of the Realm") of 1848 established the Constitution of Denmark in 1849 (; lit. "The Constitutional Act of the Realm of Denmark") and formalized the transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy. The assembly consisted of members of which 114 were directly elected in October 1848, 38 were appointed by the king and the rest were government ministers. The constituent assembly met at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen and first met on 23 October 1848. The assembly was overall split in three different groupings: the National liberals, the Friends of Peasants, and the Conservatives. A key topic for discussion was the political system, and the rules governing elections. On 25 May 1849, the constituent assembly approved the new constitution, and on 5 June 1849 it was signed by King Frederick VII. For this reason, it is also known as the "June constitution". Today, 5 June is known as Constitution Day in Denmark.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The European Convention (2001) drafted the Constitution for Europe for approval by the European Council and ratification by the member states. This constitution was abandoned after being rejected in French and Dutch referendums, and was replaced by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007


title: Constituent assembly

text: During the French Revolution (from July 1789 to September 1791) a National Constituent Assembly () was formed when representatives assembled at the only location available – a tennis court – and swore the Tennis Court Oath on June 20, 1789, promising that they would not adjourn until they had drafted a new constitution for France. Louis XVI recognized the validity of the National Constituent Assembly on June 27, 1789.


title: Constituent assembly

text: Parlamentarischer Rat (Parliamentary Council) (1948) – Drafted the Basic Law of the Federal Republic for ratification by the "Länder". This council was not recognized as legitimate by Soviet-occupied East Germany, which drafted its own constitution in 1949 and would not accept the Basic Law until German reunification in 1990.


title: Constituent assembly

text: On 27 November 2010, Iceland held an election for a constitutional assembly, with 522 people competing for 25 delegate seats. The assembly, in session for four months from early April until late July 2011, drafted a new constitution and passed it unanimously with 25 votes and no abstentions. On 20 October 2012 the parliament put the bill to a national referendum, in which 67% of the voters supported the bill. Further, 67% of the voters supported equal voting rights (one person, one vote) and 83% supported national ownership of natural resources, two key provisions of the bill. Parliament has failed to ratify the bill, however, inviting accusations that the political class is trying to thwart the will of the people by disrespecting the result of the 2012 constitutional referendum.


title: Constituent assembly

text: In Ireland, the government elected in March 2011 has committed to establishing constitutional amendments on six specified issues and others it may consider; the government has separately promised amendments on five other issues.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Constituent Assembly of India was elected to write the Constitution of India, and served as its first Parliament as an independent nation. It was set up as a result of negotiations between the leaders of the Indian independence movement and members of the British Cabinet Mission. The constituent assembly was elected indirectly by the members of the Provincial legislative assembly, which existed under the British Raj. It first met on December 9, 1946, in Delhi. On August 15, 1947, India became an independent nation, and the Constituent Assembly started functioning as India's Parliament. B. R. Ambedkar drafted the Constitution of India in conjunction with the requisite deliberations and debates in the Constituent Assembly. The Assembly approved the Constitution on November 26, 1949 (celebrated as Constitution Day), and it took effect on January 26, 1950 — a day now commemorated as Republic Day in India. Once the Constitution took effect, the Constituent Assembly became the Provisional Parliament of India.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Constitutional Assembly of Indonesia was established to draw up a permanent constitution. Its membership was elected in November 1955, and it met for the first time in November 1956. After four sessions, it failed to agree on the fundamental basis for the state. It was dissolved in 1959, and the original constitution imposed by presidential decree.(OTP)


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Constituent Assembly of Italy was established in 1946 in the wake of Fascist Italy's defeat during World War II. It was elected with universal suffrage, simultaneously with a referendum about the adoption of Republic or the continuation of monarchy. Voters chose Republic, and the new assembly had the task to approve the new republic governments, as well as to write a new constitution. This was approved on 22 December 1947.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Viceroyalty of New Spain sent deputies to the Cortes of Cadiz, which enacted the 1812 Constitution. By the time this Constitution was enacted, an insurgency fighting for independence from Spain was already established.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The first Constituent Congress of independent Mexico, known as the Congress of Anahuac, was first gathered in Chilpancingo whilst the war of independence was still ongoing. During the opening of Congress, José María Morelos outlined its program in a document called "Sentimientos de la Nación" (Feelings of the Nation), which was the first antecedent of the various Constitutions of Mexico. Being persecuted by royalist troops, the Congress fled Chilpancingo and gathered in Apatzingán.


title: Constituent assembly

text: On October 22, 1814, the Congress enacted the Constitutional Decree for the Liberty of Mexican America ("Decreto Constitucional para la Libertad de la América Mexicana"), known as the Constitution of Apatzingán. The 1814 Constitution entered into force in the territories dominated by the insurgents, but as the war continued and the first insurgent leaders (like Morelos) were defeated, it was largely forgotten.


title: Constituent assembly

text: After independence was consummated on September 27, 1821, and based on the "Plan de Iguala" and the Treaty of Córdoba, the Provisional Governing Junta was stablished. The Junta proclaimed the Act of Independence of the Mexican Empire and acted as a "de facto" legislative assembly until February 24, 1822, when the Constituent Congress was gathered. On May 19, 1822, the Constituent Congress proclaimed Agustín de Iturbide as Emperor. The relations between Emperor and Congress were always problematic, a situation that led to the dissolution of Congress by Iturbide on October 31, 1822, without a formal Constitution being enacted.


title: Constituent assembly

text: After the dissolution of Congress, Iturbide created the National Instituent Junta, which enacted the Provisional Political Bylaws of the Mexican Empire on December 18, 1822. The dissolution of Congress had resulted in an armed revolution under the "Plan de Casa Mata", which called for the establishment of a Federal Republic and for the restoration of the Constituent Congress. Iturbide was forced to abdicate and he reinstalled the Constituent Congress.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Congress then created a provisional government, called the Triumvirate, and enacted the Constituent Act of the Mexican Federation, by which the former Provinces of Mexico were transformed into free and sovereign States. After this, a Constituent Congress was formed with the participation of the States and it enacted the 1824 Constitution.


title: Constituent assembly

text: Many disputes aroused between federalists and centralists, which resulted in political instability and in 1836 the "Siete Leyes" (Seven Laws) were enacted. The "Siete Leyes" dissolved the federation and created a unitary republic, but that ended in 1846 when the Constitutive and Reforms Act was enacted and the 1824 Constitution, and thus the federation, was restored.


title: Constituent assembly

text: On October 16, 1854, President Juan Álvarez, under the "Plan de Ayutla", decreed the formation of another Constituent Congress, which met in 1856. During the presidency of Ignacio Comonfort, the Constituent Congress enacted the 1857 Constitution, which was liberal in character. The Constitution was not well received by the church and Mexican conservatives, and the "Plan de Tacubaya" called for its derogation. This events led to the Reform War, which the liberals won, then restoring the 1857 Constitution and adding to it the Reform Laws.


title: Constituent assembly

text: After the Porfiriato, and whilst the Mexican Revolution was still being fought, President Venustiano Carranza formed a Constituent Congress, which met in Querétaro and enacted the still-current Political Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1917.


title: Constituent assembly

text: Nepal had two Constituent assemblies, the last one being elected after its predecessor failed to deliver a constitution, despite multiple extensions. It also served as the country's parliament.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Great Sejm (also known as "Four-Year Sejm") was held between 1788 and 1792. Its principal aim became to restore sovereignty to, and reform, the federative Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth politically and economically. These attempts were made by writing Constitution of 3 May 1791 that was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the Commonwealth and its system of Golden Liberties. The constitution lasted for merely a year because of the Polish-Russian War of 1792 and the Third Partition of Poland.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Russian Constituent Assembly was established in Russia in the wake of the October Revolution of 1917 to form a new constitution after the overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The Sri Lankan Parliament approved the creation of a Sri Lankan Constitutional Assembly on March 9, 2016, proposed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe. The assembly will draft a new constitution for Sri Lanka.


title: Constituent assembly

text: Constituent Assembly of Turkey was established in 1961 after the 1960 Turkish coup d'état to prepare a democratic constitution. The constitution was prepared and approved by the voters in a referendum of 1961.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The U.S. Constitutional Convention drafted the still-current United States Constitution in 1787. Its delegates were appointed by the states, not directly elected, and not all states sent delegates; moreover, the convention was originally charged with drafting amendments to the Articles of Confederation rather than a new constitution.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The US Constitution contains no provision for its own replacement (and because of the presence of entrenched clauses it cannot be revoked through an amendment). Article V of the Constitution does permit Congress to appoint a national constitutional convention to propose amendments but it has never done so. While Congress has the option to submit both its own proposals for amendments and those of a national convention to state conventions rather than the state legislatures for ratification; this process has been used only once (for the Twenty-first Amendment).


title: Constituent assembly

text: A long tradition in the use of constituent assemblies exists at the state level of Constitutionalism. In fact, constituent assemblies met in the states before the formation of the Federal Constitution in 1787 as well as after its ratification. Since 1776 nearly 150 state constitutional conventions have met to draft or revise state constitutions.


title: Constituent assembly

text: These early state constitutional conventions frequently did not use procedural steps like popular ratification that became commonplace in the mid-19th century. Yet they were considered to be constituent assemblies that exercised their authority as that of the people. As "American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War" by Christian G. Fritz notes:.


title: Constituent assembly

text: "A legitimate constitution depended on whether the sovereign people authorized it, not whether a particular procedure was used or whether revolutionary conventions were free of other responsibilities, such as passing ordinary legislation. It was the people as the sovereign who authorized drafting those first [state] constitutions that gave them their legitimacy, not whether they used procedures that matched what was later understood to be necessary to create fundamental law."


title: Constituent assembly

text: American state constituent assemblies in the 19th and 20th centuries reflected many qualities of a citizen's movement. From the start of state American constitution-making, delegates to constitutional conventions studied earlier state models of constitutions. They often self-consciously "borrow[ed]" constitutional text and provisions from other states. They often used in their drafting and debates compact and pocket-sized compilations of all the existing American constitutions, so that the constituent's assembly could draw upon the latest in constitutional design. The powers of these state constituent assemblies were also highly contested, with some claiming that they had unlimited legal power and others claiming that they must operate within the pre-existing legal landscape. In the end, a common law of constituent power emerged which held that elected constituent assemblies had limited powers.


title: Constituent assembly

text: Several U.S. states have held multiple conventions over the years to change their particular state's constitutions.


title: Constituent assembly

text: A few countries do not have an entrenched constitution which can be amended by normal legislative procedures; the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Israel are examples. In these countries there is no need to call constituent assemblies, and no provision to do so, as the legislature can effectively modify the constitution.


title: Constituent assembly

text: Although it lacks a written constitution, the United Kingdom has had several conventions at the subnational level including:


title: Constituent assembly

text: The constitution of New Zealand consists of a collection of statutes (Acts of Parliament), Treaties, Orders-in-Council, Letters Patent, decisions of the Courts and unwritten constitutional conventions. Because it is not supreme law, the constitution is comparatively easy to reform, requiring only a majority of Members of Parliament to amend it.


title: Constituent assembly

text: The constitutional law of Israel is determined by the Knesset which, since 1949, serves as the country's ongoing constituent assembly. The Knesset has the power to create Basic Laws of Israel, laws which are entrenched legislation and will become part of a "future" constitution of Israel, as well as "regular" statutory legislation.


title: Child of God

text: Child of God (1973) is the third novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. It depicts the life of a violent young outcast and serial killer in 1960s Appalachian Tennessee.


title: Child of God

text: Though the novel received critical praise, it was not a financial success. Like its predecessor "Outer Dark" (1968), "Child of God" established McCarthy's interest in using extreme isolation, perversity, and violence to represent human experience. McCarthy ignores literary conventions – for example, he does not use quotation marks – and switches between several styles of writing such as matter-of-fact descriptions, almost poetic prose, and colloquial first-person narration (with the speaker remaining unidentified).


title: Child of God

text: Set in mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee, in the 1960s, "Child of God" tells the story of Lester Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as "a child of God much like yourself perhaps". Ballard is violently evicted from his home, which is sold at auction to another Sevier County resident, John Greer. Now homeless, Ballard begins squatting in an abandoned two-room cabin and voyeuristically spying on young couples in their cars near the Frog Mountain turnaround. Ballard is falsely accused of rape by a woman he finds sleeping along the roadside, and is jailed for nine days. Interspersed among the narrator's story are townspeople's accounts of Ballard's early life, revealing his early violent behavior and the suicide of his father.


title: Child of God

text: While out squirrel hunting, Ballard comes across a dead couple in an idling car. He steals the couple's money, rapes the woman's corpse, and stores her body in the attic of his cabin. Ballard's cabin burns down with the corpse inside, and he moves his remaining possessions into a nearby cave. Ballard visits his friend's home, finding only the friend's daughter and a disabled child. When the daughter rejects his sexual advances, he kills her and sets the house ablaze, storing her body in the cave. Later, Ballard shoots a couple in their car. As he flees the scene with the woman's corpse, he sees that the man survived and drove away. Prompted by the string of murders, the county sheriff begins investigating Ballard. The county floods, and the sheriff recalls the county's history of vigilantism with the Whitecaps and Bluebills.


title: Child of God

text: Ballard unsuccessfully attempts to kill John Greer, the current owner of his former home, and is shot in the process. He wakes handcuffed to a guarded hospital bed. One night, a group of men appear in his hospital room demanding to know where he stored his victims' bodies. Ballard initially feigns innocence, but offers to lead the men to the bodies when they threaten to hang him. Ballard brings them to the cave, where he escapes through a crevice too small for the other men to fit through. For three days, Ballard deliriously roams the cave searching for an exit. He eventually chips through a small crack to the surface and returns himself to the hospital.


title: Child of God

text: Instead of facing trial, Ballard is sent to a mental hospital where he contracts pneumonia and dies soon after. His remains are dissected by medical students in Memphis for three months before he is buried. In the spring of the same year, a farmer's plow falls into a sinkhole in Sevier county, revealing a cavernous chamber containing the bodies of seven of Ballard's victims.


title: Child of God

text: Overarching themes of the novel are cruelty, isolation, and moral degradation of humans and the role of fate and society in it. In an interview with James Franco, director of the novel's movie adaptation, McCarthy remarked that "there are people like him [Ballard] all around us". One of the novel's main themes is sexual deviancy, specifically necrophilia. Ballard, who the novel makes clear is unable to have conventional romantic relationships, eventually descends into necrophilia after finding a dead couple in a car. After this "first love" is destroyed in a fire, he becomes proactive, creating dead female partners by shooting them with his rifle. Ballard also makes no distinction between adult women and young girls, at one point killing a girl whom he had previously asked "How come you wear them britches? You cain't see nothin." Another theme examined by the novel is survival. As society pushes Ballard further and further into a corner, he degenerates into a barbaric survivalist, living in a cave, stealing food, and deviously escaping after he is captured by a group of vengeful men. Much like McCarthy's later novel "Blood Meridian", the novel explores the nature of cruelty, depicting violence as an eternal driving force of humanity:He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?This passage bears a striking resemblance to the closing pages of "Blood Meridian", wherein Judge Holden declares that war is beautiful, comparing it to dance. That novel's main text ends with the judge in the center of a barroom, rallying the raucous men around him with a performance: "He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die."


title: Child of God

text: In a 1992 interview, McCarthy stated that the character Ballard was based on an unnamed historic figure. Despite its surreal focus, "Child of God" contains much unobtrusive historical detail about Sevier County, Tennessee, including references to local Ku Klux Klan-like vigilante groups of the 1890s known as White Caps and Bluebills. Ballard's grandfather is said to have been a White Cap.


title: Child of God

text: In October 2007, "Child of God" found itself at the center of a teaching controversy at Jim Ned High School in Tuscola, Texas. Kaleb Tierce, the Advanced Placement English teacher and coach at Jim Ned, assigned a book report for which a 14-year-old student selected this title. Tierce was placed on paid administrative leave when the mother of the student complained. The case was investigated, and Tierce was not charged, but his teaching contract was not renewed.


title: Child of God

text: In February 2012, James Franco began shooting a film adaptation of "Child of God" in Hillsboro, West Virginia. The film stars Scott Haze as Lester Ballard and Jim Parrack as the Sevier County lawman Deputy Cotton. The movie was selected to be screened in the official competition at the 70th Venice International Film Festival and was an official selection of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. The film received mixed to negative reviews, holding a rating of 42% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 4.90/10. The website's critical consensus states: "An obviously reverent adaptation that fails to make a case for the source material being turned into a movie, "Child of God" finds director James Franco outmatched by Cormac McCarthy's novel."


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: The murder of Michelle Martinko occurred in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on December 19, 1979. It was a cold case until 2018, when familial DNA identified a suspect 39 years after the crime who was charged, tried and convicted of her murder.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: Martinko, an 18-year-old high school student, was found stabbed to death in her family's car in the parking lot of a local mall, where she had gone to buy a new coat. The murder was closely followed within her community, and the police received more than 200 tips in the weeks following her killing. However, the case gradually grew cold as the investigation stretched on.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: In 2006, a cold case investigator discovered unidentified blood, presumably belonging to the killer, while he was reviewing case files. A DNA profile was developed from that evidence and entered into the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), but no matches were found. In 2017, a company specializing in DNA phenotyping was hired to produce a new approximation of the killer's appearance based solely off the DNA sample. In 2018, the company entered the DNA data from the case into the public genealogy website GEDmatch, where it found a familial DNA match.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: In October 2018, DNA was covertly collected from an Iowa man, Jerry Lynn Burns, and was found to match the sample discovered on Martinko's clothing. Burns was arrested and, on February 24, 2020, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Martinko. On August 7, 2020, Burns was sentenced to life in prison without parole.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: Michelle Marie Martinko (October 6, 1961 – December 19, 1979) was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Martinko was the younger of two daughters of Albert F. Martinko and Janet Martinko (née Zillig). She attended Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School, where she was an above average student and well regarded by school officials. She was also a talented performer, joined the twirling squad as a sophomore, and performed in choirs and theater productions. She did not have many close girlfriends or confidantes, which was speculated to be caused by jealousy from other students over her beauty and stylish clothes or conflict over a boy she had dated. Martinko, who was a senior in high school when she was killed, had plans to attend Iowa State University to study interior design.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: Jerry Lynn Burns (born December 23, 1953) was 25 years old when he killed Michelle Martinko in December 1979. He grew up in Manchester, Iowa, and graduated from West Delaware High School in 1972. He lived in Manchester at the time of his arrest in 2020 and owned a powder coating business in the city. He had worked for John Deere and co-owned a truck stop. Burns had previously been married to Patricia Burns, who died in 2008 from suicide. Burns's cousin, Brian Burns, went missing on December 19, 2013 and has not been found. Although Burns's arrest in the Martinko case raised questions about the two incidents, police do not believe Burns was involved in either one.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: On the evening of December 19, 1979, Martinko attended a banquet for the Kennedy Concert Choir at the Sheraton Inn in Cedar Rapids. She wore a black jersey dress and black scarf, black tights and heels, and a waist-length white and brown rabbit fur jacket, and she carried a brown leather purse. After the event, she asked her friend and twirling squad teammate if she wanted to join her on a shopping trip to the Westdale Mall, which had recently opened, and where Martinko worked. Her friend declined and so Martinko went alone carrying $180 and intending to purchase a new winter coat. Once there, she perused the stores and spoke with friends and other people she knew who worked there. She was last seen at 8 or 9p.m. outside of a jewelry store in the mall. At 2a.m., since Martinko had still not returned home, her father reported her missing. He began to search for her, as did the police. At 4a.m., police found the Martinko family's tan and green 1972 Buick Electra in the northeast corner of the mall parking lot by a JCPenney. Martinko was found inside collapsed over the passenger seat and stabbed to death.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: Martinko had been stabbed 29 times in her face, neck, and chest. Her hands bore defensive wounds, which police said to indicate that she had fought back against her killer. Police determined from the lack of blood outside the car that Martinko had been killed while in the car, and the medical examiner later estimated she had died between 8 and 10p.m. The murder weapon was "sharp-pointed" but not definitively a knife, and the medical examiner could not determine its size. The killer left no fingerprints, which led police to believe they had worn gloves. A police spokesman said that "everyone's instinct is to say it was a guy", but they were not sure of the sex of the killer. Based on cash found in Martinko's purse, police concluded that she had not been robbed. She was fully dressed, and the medical examiner determined she had not been sexually assaulted. Police considered the killing to be "personal in nature" based on the number and location of stab wounds.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: Police had few leads and appealed to the public for tips. A police spokesman estimated that in the week after Martinko's murder, more than 200 people responded to the detectives' appeals in the news for information concerning the case. Police interviewed numerous people, and several were cleared of suspicion through use of a polygraph. A juvenile found carrying a knife was interviewed and ruled out in her murder, as was a shopping center employee who had told police that he enjoyed following women and ogling store mannequins. Rumors began to circulate about the crime. Some thought that Martinko had received harassing phone calls before her death, but police stated that they did not think so. Another rumor emerged that a second stabbing had happened in the following days and that police were keeping it secret, which police denied.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: For some time, a prime suspect in Martinko's murder was a man who had, the month before, broken into a Cedar Rapids home, raped a woman at knifepoint, and threatened to kill her children. He was never charged with the Martinko murder, he denied the accusations, and DNA evidence, found later, did not match his DNA. In 2012, while serving a life sentence for an unrelated attack, the man died in prison from colon cancer.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: Controversy arose five months after the murder, after a woman who was driving by the mall parking lot in the early hours of December 20 came forward with information. She had looked into the parking lot as she drove by to check for her daughter's car because her daughter worked at the mall and had had car trouble before. She claimed to have seen two cars in the lot, one of which was Martinko's, and a man standing next to the open driver's side door of Martinko's car. She was unsure her information would be of any use because she had read that the murder happened between 10p.m. and midnight, and it was 2a.m. when she drove by. The woman communicated her information to the daughter of the secretary of the Public Safety Commissioner and believed that it would be passed on to police if it was important. The police never received the information, and the woman did not contact police until months later, when they reissued a call for any information connected to the murder. Detectives considered charging the Commissioner with failure to pass along the information to police, but no charges were pursued.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: On June 19, 1980, police released a composite sketch of a man believed to have killed Martinko, which they formed from descriptions provided by two witnesses under hypnosis. They described a white man in his late teens or early 20s, around six feet tall and weighing 165–175 pounds, with brown eyes and curly brown hair. In the year after the killing, the number of people interviewed by police reached the hundreds, and up to 30 people were interviewed under hypnosis. As the investigation dwindled, a $10,000 reward was offered for information that would lead police to the killer. Psychics were also consulted early on in the investigation.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: In the mid-1980s, Martinko's father filed a lawsuit against the owners of the Westdale Mall and claimed negligence in not providing "reasonable security" on the night of the murder. The case was appealed and was eventually decided by the Iowa Supreme Court in favor of the mall owners.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: In 2006, 27 years after Martinko's killing, a new cold case investigator working for the Cedar Rapids Police Department received a tip connected to the case. Although the tip did not lead to any suspects, the investigator discovered what he believed to be the killer's blood while he was reviewing the case files. From that, police were able to build a partial DNA profile. Documents concluded that fewer than one in 100 billion people would match the DNA profile. The results were entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the national DNA database, but no matches were found. Eventually, more than 125 people would have their DNA swabbed and compared against samples taken from the scene. Out of more than 80 potential suspects that had been identified over the years, more than 60 people were tested and cleared of suspicion.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: In 2017, a company specializing in DNA phenotyping was hired to create additional images of the killer based solely on DNA clues about facial appearance and ancestry. The images looked considerably different from the 1980 composite sketch and showed a man with blond hair and blue eyes. The company also produced approximations of how the man would have aged in the years since the crime. In a press conference during which the new image was shared, a former classmate of Martinko exclaimed that the face looked like another one of their classmates, but that classmate had been investigated and was cleared based on a DNA swab several years before. The police received more than 100 tips following the release of the new images.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: In 2018, the DNA phenotyping company took the data they had collected the year before and entered it into GEDmatch, a public genealogy website that has been used by law enforcement to solve other cold cases, most famously that of the Golden State Killer. GEDmatch returned one person who shared DNA markers with the suspect in Martinko's murder, and it determined her to be likely the killer's second cousin once removed. The company created a family tree starting with four sets of the woman's great-great-grandparents and reported that the killer was most likely descended from one of those couples. An investigator with the Cedar Rapids police department contacted DNA-tested members of two of the branches of the family tree, and eliminated those branches as containing the killer. He then contacted a member of a third branch, and a DNA test determined that they were first cousins with the killer. That narrowed the suspects down to a set of three brothers, who had grown up in Manchester, Iowa. The brothers were placed under surveillance, and investigators began to attempt to collect their DNA secretly.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: On October 29, 2018, an investigator observed one of the brothers, Jerry Lynn Burns, drink multiple sodas using a plastic straw. When Burns disposed of the straw, the investigator collected it and tested it for DNA. Tests eliminated the other two brothers as suspects, but the DNA from Burns' straw matched the blood found on Martinko's clothing. On December 19, 2018, investigators went to Burns' business in Manchester, Iowa, to interview him. He refused to voluntarily provide a sample of DNA, but was compelled to do so with a search warrant. His hands and arms were also examined for scars possibly left by the assumed cut sustained during the attack. Burns maintained that he did not know Martinko and was not there when she died, although an investigator later testified that Burns did not specifically deny killing Martinko. He was not able to provide an explanation for why his DNA would have been present at the crime scene. According to the investigator, "Burns showed almost no emotion during the interview, even when he was eventually told he was being arrested." When asked if he had killed someone that night in 1979, Burns repeatedly told investigators, "Test the DNA". When the DNA sample was tested, it matched the blood sample found at the crime scene.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: On December 19, 2018, exactly 39 years after Martinko's murder, Burns was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. He entered a plea of not guilty. His trial was originally scheduled for October 14, 2019, but in September the defense requested a delay in order to gather more evidence and interview witnesses. The defense also requested the trial be moved out of Linn County based on the amount of attention the case had received over the past four decades, as well as "pervasive and prejudicial pretrial publicity". The prosecution did not resist either request, and the trial was rescheduled for February 10, 2020 in Scott County.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: In pretrial hearings, Burns' attorneys claimed that police needed a search warrant to gather his DNA from the discarded straw, but the judge determined that discarded property cannot reasonably be considered private. The defense also requested that evidence pertaining to Burns' cell phone browser history be suppressed. Investigators had reviewed Burns' 2018 internet searches and found that he regularly visited websites showing blonde women being raped, stabbed, and strangled, and which depicted sexual intercourse with murder victims. The judge determined the search history was not usable in the trial due to the decades of time separating the murder and the searches.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: After two days of jury selection, the murder trial began on February 12, 2020. The prosecution emphasized the unlikelihood of the DNA evidence matching someone other than the person who left it at the scene. The doctor who performed Martinko's autopsy and investigators in the original case, all now retired, took the stand to testify to how the investigation was conducted, and to Martinko's cause of death. The defense argued that DNA evidence had been mishandled, and that different articles of clothing from the scene should not have been stored together in one evidence bag. Prosecutors also played a video of a police interview of Burns, in which he denied being at the crime scene on the night of Martinko's murder, and could not explain how his DNA had been found at the scene. They also played a later recording, after Burns' arrest, in which Burns questioned whether he could have blocked out the memory of committing the crime.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: The defense brought only one witness, a self-described forensic DNA consultant, who testified on the possibility that police could have mishandled the evidence. He stated that Burns' DNA could have been at the scene due to secondary transfer (such as skin cells transferring to an article of clothing when someone brushes up against another person), although he clarified that it was not his opinion that this was the case with Burns' DNA. Prosecutors called a criminalist to contradict the defense's witness; the criminalist said that the storage of Martinko's clothing was not unusual.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: Burns' defense team objected to the wording of one of the prosecution's questions, which they claimed implied unequivocally that Burns' blood had been at the scene. The defense requested the case be declared a mistrial as a result, but the judge denied the request and asked the prosecutor to rephrase the question.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: On February 24, 2020, after three hours of deliberation, the jury found Jerry Lynn Burns guilty of first degree murder of Michelle Martinko. Iowan law mandates a life sentence without the possibility of parole for first degree murder. On May 29, 2020, Burns' attorneys filed a motion asking for a new trial, claiming his constitutional and state rights were violated and that the court made a mistake in overruling the request for evidence to be suppressed.


title: Murder of Michelle Martinko

text: On August 7, 2020, Burns was sentenced to life in prison without parole. In September 2020, Burns filed a notice of appeal. Burns is currently imprisoned in the Anamosa State Penitentiary.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Sulfamic acid, also known as amidosulfonic acid, amidosulfuric acid, aminosulfonic acid, sulphamic acid and sulfamidic acid, is a molecular compound with the formula HNSO. This colourless, water-soluble compound finds many applications. Sulfamic acid melts at 205 °C before decomposing at higher temperatures to water, sulfur trioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Sulfamic acid (HNSO) may be considered an intermediate compound between sulfuric acid (HSO), and sulfamide (HNSO), effectively replacing a hydroxyl (–OH) group with an amine (–NH) group at each step. This pattern can extend no further in either direction without breaking down the sulfonyl (–SO–) moiety. Sulfamates are derivatives of sulfamic acid.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Sulfamic acid is produced industrially by treating urea with a mixture of sulfur trioxide and sulfuric acid (or oleum). The conversion is conducted in two stages, the first being sulfamation:


title: Sulfamic acid

text: The compound is well described by the formula HNSO, not the tautomer HNSO(OH). The relevant bond distances are 1.44 Å for the S=O and 1.77 Å for the S–N. The greater length of the S–N is consistent with a single bond. Furthermore, a neutron diffraction study located the hydrogen atoms, all three of which are 1.03 Å distant from the nitrogen. In the solid state, the molecule of sulfamic acid is well described by a zwitterionic form.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: The crystalline solid is indefinitely stable under ordinary storage conditions, however, aqueous solutions of sulfamic acid slowly hydrolyse to ammonium bisulfate, according to the following reaction:


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Its behaviour resembles that of urea, (HN)CO. Both feature amino groups linked to electron-withdrawing centres that can participate in delocalised bonding. Both liberate ammonia upon heating in water, with urea releasing CO while sulfamic acid releases sulfuric acid.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Sulfamic acid is a moderately strong acid, "K" = 0.101 (p"K" = 0.995). Because the solid is not hygroscopic, it is used as a standard in acidimetry (quantitative assays of acid content).


title: Sulfamic acid

text: The reaction of excess hypochlorite ions with sulfamic acid or a sulfamate salt gives rise reversibly to both "N"-chlorosulfamate and "N","N"-dichlorosulfamate ions.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Consequently, sulfamic acid is used as hypochlorite scavenger in the oxidation of aldehydes with chlorite such as the Pinnick oxidation.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Upon heating sulfamic acid will react with alcohols to form the corresponding organosulfates. It is more expensive than other reagents for doing this, such as chlorosulfonic acid or oleum, but is also significantly milder and will not sulfonate aromatic rings. Products are produced as their ammonium salts. Such reactions can be catalyzed by the presence of urea. Without the presence of any catalysts, sulfamic acid will not react with ethanol at temperatures below 100 °C.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: An example of this reaction is the production 2-ethylhexyl sulfate, a wetting agent used in the mercerisation of cotton, by combining sulfamic acid with 2-ethylhexanol.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Sulfamic acid is mainly a precursor to sweet-tasting compounds. Reaction with cyclohexylamine followed by addition of NaOH gives CHNHSONa, sodium cyclamate. Related compounds are also sweeteners, such as acesulfame potassium.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Sulfamates have been used in the design of many types of therapeutic agents such as antibiotics, nucleoside/nucleotide human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reverse transcriptase inhibitors, HIV protease inhibitors (PIs), anticancer drugs (steroid sulfatase and carbonic anhydrase inhibitors), antiepileptic drugs, and weight loss drugs.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Sulfamic acid is used as an acidic cleaning agent and descaling agent sometimes pure or as a component of proprietary mixtures, typically for metals and ceramics. For cleaning purposes, there are different grades based on application such as GP Grade, SR Grade and TM Grade. It is frequently used for removing rust and limescale, replacing the more volatile and irritating hydrochloric acid, which is cheaper. It is often a component of household descalant, for example, Lime-A-Way Thick Gel contains up to 8% sulfamic acid and has pH 2.0–2.2, or detergents used for removal of limescale. When compared to most of the common strong mineral acids, sulfamic acid has desirable water descaling properties, low volatility, and low toxicity. It forms water-soluble salts of calcium and ferric iron.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: Sulfamic acid is preferable to hydrochloric acid in household use, due to its intrinsic safety. If inadvertently mixed with hypochlorite based products such as bleach, it does not form chlorine gas, whereas the most common acids would; the reaction (neutralisation) with ammonia, produces a salt, as depicted in the section above.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: It also finds applications in the industrial cleaning of dairy and brewhouse equipment. Although it is considered less corrosive than hydrochloric acid, corrosion inhibitors are often added to the commercial cleansers of which it is a component. It can be used as a descalant for descaling home coffee and espresso machines and in denture cleaners.


title: Sulfamic acid

text: According to the label on the consumer product, the silver cleaning product TarnX contains thiourea, a detergent, and sulfamic acid.


title: Billboard

text: A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers. Typically brands use billboards to build their brands or to push for their new products.


title: Billboard

text: The largest ordinary-sized billboards are located primarily on major highways, expressways or principal arterials, and command high-density consumer exposure (mostly to vehicular traffic). These afford greatest visibility due not only to their size, but because they allow creative "customizing" through extensions and embellishments.


title: Billboard

text: Posters are the other common form of billboard advertising, located mostly along primary and secondary arterial roads. Posters are a smaller format and are viewed principally by residents and commuter traffic, with some pedestrian exposure.


title: Billboard

text: Billboard advertisements are designed to catch a person's attention and create a memorable impression very quickly, leaving the reader thinking about the advertisement after they have driven past it. They have to be readable in a very short time because they are usually read while being passed at high speeds. Thus there are usually only a few words, in large print, and a humorous or arresting image in brilliant color.


title: Billboard

text: Some billboard designs spill outside the actual space given to them by the billboard, with parts of figures hanging off the billboard edges or jutting out of the billboard in three dimensions. An example in the United States around the turn of the 21st century was the Chick-fil-A billboards (a chicken sandwich fast food chain), which had three-dimensional cow figures in the act of painting the billboards with misspelled anti-beef slogans such as "frendz don't let frendz eat beef."


title: Billboard

text: The first "scented billboard", an outdoor sign emitting the odors of black pepper and charcoal to suggest a grilled steak, was erected on NC 150 near Mooresville, North Carolina by the Bloom grocery chain. The sign depicted a giant cube of beef being pierced by a large fork that extended to the ground. The scents were emitted between 7–10 am and 4–7 pm from 28 May 2010 through 18 June 2010.


title: Billboard

text: Almost all these billboards were painted in large studios. The image was projected on the series of paper panels that made up the billboard. Line drawings were done, then traced with a pounce wheel that created perforated lines. The patterns were then "pounced" onto the board with a chalk filled pounce bag, marking the outlines of the figures or objects. Using oil paints, artists would use large brushes to paint the image. Once the panels were installed using hydraulic cranes, artists would go up on the installed billboard and touch up the edges between panels. These large, painted billboards were especially popular in Los Angeles where historic firms such as Foster & Kleiser and Pacific Outdoor Advertising dominated the industry. Eventually, these painted billboards gave way to graphic reproduction, but hand-painted billboards are still in use in some areas where only a single board or two is required. The "Sunset Strip" in Los Angeles is one area where hand-painted billboards can still be found, usually to advertise upcoming films or albums.


title: Billboard

text: Art exhibitions on a billboard or billboards are often referred to as artists' billboards or billboarding. These exhibitions are usually conducted by non-establishment Art curators, and feature non-establishment or emerging artists. Artists’ Billboards have been a key medium or vehicle to explore and express the ideas and strategies behind the most important art movements over the last fifty years: conceptualism, dematerialization, temporality, appropriation, authorship issues, socio-political critique, institutional critique, direct political engagement, such as defending the voices of minorities like women, gays, blacks, different ethnicities, etc., and postmodern concerns about the difference between reality and representation, among many others.


title: Billboard

text: Sometimes, the phrase "Look Up!" is used in press releases, by art news journalists, in the title of events, or informally, to describe these exhibitions that are literally in the sky.


title: Billboard

text: A digital billboard shows varying imagery and text created with computer programs and software. Digital billboards can be designed to display running text, have several different displays from the same company, or provide several companies a certain time slot during the day. Flexible and real-time scheduling can decrease traditional upkeep and maintenance costs, and some billboards may measure audiences or serve dynamic content. Using digital billboards dynamically has come to be known as programmatic out-of-home advertising. Billboard posters can play audio using conductive ink; when touched, the posters begin to play sounds.


title: Billboard

text: Outdoor advertising, such as a mobile billboard, is effective because it is difficult to ignore. According to a UK national survey, it is also memorable. Capitol Communications Group found that 81.7% of those polled recalled images they saw on a moving multi-image sign. This is compared to a 19% retention rate for static signs.


title: Billboard

text: Unlike a typical billboard, mobile billboards are able to go directly to their target audience. They can be placed wherever there is heavy foot traffic due to an event – including convention centers, train stations, airports and sports arenas. They can repeat routes, ensuring that an advertiser's message is not only noticed, but that information is retained through repetition.


title: Billboard

text: Billboards may be multi-purpose. An advertising sign can integrate its main purpose with telecommunications antenna or public lighting support. Usually the structure has a steel pole with a coupling flange on the above-fitted advertising billboard structure that can contain telecommunications antennas. The lighting, wiring, and any antennas are placed inside the structure.


title: Billboard

text: Common along highways are free-standing two-sided as well as three-sided billboards. Other types of billboards include the billboard bicycle attached to the back of a bicycle or the mobile billboard, a special advertising trailer to hoist big banners. Mechanical billboards display three different messages, with three advertisements attached to a conveyor inside the billboard. There are also three-dimensional billboards, such as the ones at Piccadilly Circus, London. Traditional billboards consist of a large format advertisement printed on a resistant material such as vinyl; this is placed on a large metal structure, which makes it one of the media with the most visibility and high impact within the advertising field.


title: Billboard

text: Some of the most prominent billboards are alongside highways; since passing drivers typically have little to occupy their attention, the impact of the billboard is greater. Billboards are often drivers' primary method of finding lodging, food, and fuel on unfamiliar highways. There were approximately 450,000 billboards on US highways in 1991. Somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 are erected each year. Current numbers are put at 368,263, according to the OAAA (outdoor Advertising Association of America). In Europe billboards are a major component and source of income in urban street furniture concepts.


title: Billboard

text: An interesting use of billboards unique to highways was the Burma-Shave advertisements between 1925 and 1963, which had 4- or 5-part messages on multiple signs, keeping the reader hooked by the promise of a punchline at the end. This example is in the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution:


title: Billboard

text: These sort of multi-sign advertisements are no longer common, though they are not extinct. One example, advertising for the NCAA, depicts a basketball player aiming a shot on one billboard; on the next one, 90 yards (82 meters) away, is the basket. Another example is the numerous billboards advertising the roadside attraction South of the Border near Dillon, SC, along I-95 in many states.


title: Billboard

text: Many cities have high densities of billboards, especially where there is dense pedestrian traffic—Times Square in New York City is a good example. Because of the lack of space in cities, these billboards are placed on the sides of buildings and sometimes are free-standing billboards hanging above buildings. Billboards on the sides of buildings create different stylistic opportunities, with artwork that incorporates features of the building into the design, such as using windows as eyes, or for gigantic frescoes that adorn the entire building.


title: Billboard

text: Many groups such as Scenic America have complained that billboards on highways cause excessive clearing of trees and intrude on the surrounding landscape, with billboards' bright colors, lights and large fonts making it difficult to focus on anything else, making them a form of visual pollution - a state of affairs evoked pithily in Ogden Nash's parody of Joyce Kilmer's oft-quoted poem "Trees":


title: Billboard

text: Other groups believe that billboards and advertising contribute negatively to the mental climate of a culture by promoting products as providing feelings of completeness, wellness and popularity to motivate purchase. B.U.G.A. U.P. was a movement which commenced in Australia and took direct action against primarily tobacco and alcohol billboards. Another focal point for this sentiment would be the magazine AdBusters, which will often showcase politically motivated billboard and other advertising vandalism, called culture jamming. Billboards have been criticized as an example of attention theft.


title: Billboard

text: In 2000, rooftops in Athens had grown so thick with billboards that it was difficult to see its famous architecture. In preparation for the 2004 Summer Olympics, the city embarked on a successful four-year project demolishing the majority of rooftop billboards to beautify the city, overcoming resistance from advertisers and building owners. Most of these billboards were illegal, but had been ignored until then.


title: Billboard

text: In 2007, São Paulo, Brazil instituted a billboard ban because there were no viable regulations of the billboard industry. Today, São Paulo is working with outdoor companies to rebuild the outdoor infrastructure in a way that will reflect the vibrant business climate of the city while adopting good regulations to control growth.


title: Billboard

text: The most comprehensive review of the literature to date by the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety-Queensland (CARRS-Q) found that crash risk increases by approximately 25-29% in the presence of digital roadside advertising signs compared to control areas. There is an emerging trend in the literature suggesting that roadside advertising signs can increase crash risk, particularly for those signs that have the capacity to frequently change (often referred to as digital billboards).


title: Billboard

text: In the US, many cities enacted laws banning billboards as early as 1909 (California Supreme Court, "Varney & Green vs. Williams") but the First Amendment has made this difficult. A San Diego law championed by Pete Wilson in 1971 cited traffic safety and driver distraction as the reason for the billboard ban, but was narrowly overturned by the Supreme Court in 1981, in part because it banned non-commercial as well as commercial billboards.


title: Billboard

text: Billboards have long been accused of distracting drivers and causing accidents. This may not necessarily be true, as a study by researchers at the University of North Carolina showed. Released in June 2001, the researchers prepared a thorough report on driver distraction for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. This study said: "The search appears to suggest that some items—such as CB radios, billboards, and temperature controls—are not significant distractions."


title: Billboard

text: Traffic safety experts have studied the relationship between outdoor advertising and traffic accidents since the 1950s, finding no authoritative or scientific evidence that billboards are linked to traffic accidents. However, many of these studies were funded by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, which has led to accusations of bias. The methodology used in certain studies is also questionable.


title: Billboard

text: The US Department of Transportation, State Department of Transportation and property/casualty insurance companies statistics on fatal accidents indicate no correlation between billboards and traffic accidents. A broad sampling of law enforcement agencies across the country found no evidence to suggest that motor vehicle accidents were caused by billboards. Property and casualty insurance companies have conducted detailed studies of traffic accident records and conclude no correlation between billboards and traffic accidents.


title: Billboard

text: However, studies based on correlations between traffic accidents and billboards face the problem of under-reporting: drivers are unwilling to admit responsibility for a crash, so will not admit to being distracted at a crucial moment. Even given this limitation, some studies have found higher crash rates in the vicinity of advertising using variable message signs or electronic billboards.


title: Billboard

text: It is possible that advertising signs in rural areas reduce driver boredom, which many believe is a contribution to highway safety. On the other hand, drivers may fixate on a billboard which unexpectedly appears in a monotonous landscape, and drive straight into it (a phenomenon known as "highway hypnosis").


title: Billboard

text: Surveys of road users show that the lighting provided by billboards provide security and visibility to many motorists. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) went on record (Federal Register, 5 March 1999) stating that the agency agrees that appropriately regulated billboards do not compromise highway safety. This statement was made before the release of the FHWA report "Research review of potential safety effects of electronic billboards on driver attention and distraction" in 2001. What level of regulation is appropriate for billboards in different areas is still under discussion by road safety experts around the world.


title: Billboard

text: Billboards are largely absent in Australia's capital city, Canberra, due to a 1937 ordinance which prohibited unauthorized signs on Commonwealth land. In 2017, the Australian Capital Territory considered relaxing this law to allow more outdoor advertising. An Inquiry into billboards received a record 166 submissions, with only 6 respondents supporting allowing more advertising in the Territory. The other submissions supported the current laws, or pointed to shortcomings and loopholes of the current laws, such as the allowance of mobile billboards, bus wrap advertising and political campaign signs, as well a failure to enforce existing laws.


title: Billboard

text: In 1964, the negative impact of the over-proliferation of signage was abundantly evident in Houston, Texas, USA, and it motivated Lady Bird Johnson to ask her husband to create a law. At the same time the outdoor advertising industry was becoming aware that excessive signs, some literally blocking another, was bad for business.


title: Billboard

text: In 1965, the Highway Beautification Act was signed into law. The act applied only to "Federal Aid Primary" and "Defense" highways and limited billboards to commercial and industrial zones created by states and municipalities. It required each state to set standards based on "customary use" for the size, lighting and spacing of billboards, and prohibited city and state governments from removing billboards without paying compensation to the owner. The act requires states to maintain "effective control" of billboards or lose 10% of their federal highway dollars.


title: Billboard

text: Around major holidays, volunteer groups erected highway signs offering free coffee at rest stops. These were specifically exempted in the act.


title: Billboard

text: Currently, four states—Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine—have prohibited billboards. Vermont's law went into effect in 1968, Hawaii's law went into effect in 1927, Maine's law went into effect in 1977, and Alaska's law went into effect upon its achievement of statehood in 1959.


title: Billboard

text: In the UK, billboards are controlled as adverts as part of the planning system. To display an illegal advert (that is, without planning permission) is a criminal offence with a fine of up to £2500 per offence (per poster). All of the large UK outdoor advertisers such as CBS Outdoor, JCDecaux, Clear Channel, Titan and Primesight have numerous convictions for such crimes.


title: Billboard

text: In São Paulo, a city of twelve million in Brazil, Billboards and advertising on vehicles have been banned since January 2007. It also restricted the dimensions of advertising on shop fronts.


title: Billboard

text: In British Columbia, a province of Canada, billboards are restricted to 300m away from roadways, the government also retains the right to remove any billboard it deems an unsafe distraction.


title: Billboard

text: In Toronto, a city of over 2 and a half million in Canada, a municipal tax on billboards was implemented in April 2010. A portion of the tax will help fund arts programs in the city.


title: Billboard

text: In Sweden there is a general ban against billboards within the road area (typically the road plus ditch), except for standardized signs such as gas station, restaurant or hotel. But there is no ban against them outside the road, if the landowner approves. Many farmers along major routes earn some money from such signs.


title: Billboard

text: Many signs advertise local restaurants and shops in the coming miles, and are crucial to drawing business in small towns. One example is Wall Drug, which in 1936 erected billboards advertising "free ice water". The town of Wall, South Dakota, was essentially built around the many thousands of customers per day those billboards brought in (20,000 in 1981). Some signs were placed at great distances, with slogans such as "only 827 miles to Wall Drug, with FREE ice water." In some areas the signs were so dense that one almost immediately followed the last. This situation changed after the Highway Beautification Act was passed; the proliferation of Wall Drug billboards is sometimes cited as one of the reasons the bill was passed. After the passage of the act, other states (such as Oregon) embarked on highway beautification efforts.


title: Billboard

text: Billboard advertising in underground stations, especially, is perhaps a place where they find a greater degree of acceptability and may assist in maintaining a neat, vibrant and safe atmosphere if not too distracting. Museum Station, Sydney has mounted restored 1940s billboard panels along the platforms that are in keeping with its heritage listing.


title: Billboard

text: Billboards are also used to advertise national or global brands, particularly in more densely populated urban areas. According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, the top billboard advertisers in the United States in 2017 were McDonald's, Apple and GEICO. A large number of wireless phone companies, movie companies, car manufacturers and banks are high on the list as well.


title: Billboard

text: Prior to 1999, billboards were a major venue of cigarette advertising; 10% of Michigan billboards advertise alcohol and tobacco, according to the Detroit Free Press. This is particularly true in countries where tobacco advertisements are not allowed in other media. For example, in the US, tobacco advertising was banned on radio and television in 1971, leaving billboards and magazines as some of the last places tobacco could be advertised. Billboards made the news in America when, in the tobacco settlement of 1999, all cigarette billboards were replaced with anti-smoking messages. In a parody of the Marlboro Man, some billboards depicted cowboys riding on ranches with slogans like "Bob, I miss my lung."


title: Billboard

text: Likely the best-known of the tobacco advertising boards were those for "Mail Pouch" chewing tobacco in the United States during the first half of the 20th century (pictured at left). The company agreed to paint two or three sides of a farmer's barn any color he chose in exchange for painting their advertisement on one or two sides of the structure facing the road. The company has long since abandoned this form of advertising, and none of these advertisements have been painted in many years, but some remain visible on rural highways.


title: Billboard

text: Not all billboards are used for advertising products and services—non-profit groups and government agencies use them to communicate with the public. In 1999 an anonymous person created the God Speaks billboard campaign in Florida "to get people thinking about God", with witty statements signed by God. "Don't make me come down there", "We need to talk" and "Tell the children that I love them" were parts of the campaign, which was picked up by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America and continues today on billboards across the country.


title: Billboard

text: South of Olympia, Washington is the privately owned Uncle Sam billboard. It features conservative, sometimes inflammatory messages, changed on a regular basis. Chehalis farmer Al Hamilton first started the board during the Johnson era, when the government was trying to make him remove his billboards along Interstate 5. He had erected the signs after he lost a legal battle to prevent the building of the freeway across his land. Numerous legal and illegal attempts to remove the Uncle Sam billboard have failed, and it is now in its third location. One message, attacking a nearby liberal arts college, was photographed, made into a postcard and is sold in the College Bookstore.


title: Billboard

text: The Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement Inc. (TAB) was established in 1933 as a non-profit organization whose historical mission has been to audit the circulation of out-of-home media in the United States. TAB's role has expanded to lead and support other major out of home industry research initiatives. Governed by a tripartite board composed of advertisers, agencies and media companies, the TAB acts as an independent auditor for traffic circulation in accordance with guidelines established by its board of directors.


title: Billboard

text: Similarly, in Canada, the Canadian Outdoor Measurement Bureau (COMB) was formed in 1965 as a non-profit organization independently operated by representatives composed of advertisers, advertising agencies and members of the Canadian out-of-home advertising industry. COMB is charged with the verification of traffic circulation for the benefit of the industry and its users.


title: Billboard

text: Early billboards were basically large posters on the sides of buildings, with limited but still appreciable commercial value. As roads and highways multiplied, the billboard business thrived.