title: Hefei

text: From the 8th to the 6th centuries BC, Hefei was the site of many small states, later a part of the Chu kingdom. Many archaeological finds dating from this period have been made. The name 'Hefei' was first given to the county set up in the area under the Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC.


title: Hefei

text: In the 3rd century AD, the Battle of Xiaoyao Ford was fought at Xiaoyao Ford () in Hefei. Zhang Liao, a general of the Wei state, led 800 picked cavalry to defeat the 200,000-strong army from Wei's rival state Wu. Several decades of warring in Hefei between Wu and Wei followed this battle.


title: Hefei

text: During the 4th to the 6th centuries AD, this crucial border region between northern and southern states was much fought over; its name and administrative status were consequently often changed. During the Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) periods, it became the seat of Lu prefecture—a title it kept until the 15th century, when it became a superior prefecture named Luzhou.


title: Hefei

text: The present city dates from the Song dynasty (960–1126), the earlier Hefei having been some distance farther north. In the 10th year of Xining (, 1077 AD), the taxes collected from the Luchow Prefecture were 50315 Guan, approximately 25 million today's Chinese Yuan, with a ranking of the amount of taxes was the 11th(following Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Qinzhou, Chuzhou, Chengdu, Zizhou, Xingyuan, Mianzhou, Zhenzhou, Suzhou) among all the prefectures of Song Dynasty. During the 10th century, it was for a while the capital of the independent Wu kingdom (902–938) and was an important center of the Southern Tang state (937–975).


title: Hefei

text: After 1127 it became a center of the defenses of the Southern Song dynasty (1126–1279) against the Jin (Jurchen) invaders in the Jin–Song wars, as well as a flourishing center of trade between the two states. When the Chinese Republic was founded in 1911, the superior prefecture was abolished, and the city took the name of Hefei. The city was known as Luchow or Liu-tcheou (, "Luzhou") during the Ming and Qing dynasties (after the 14th century to the 19th century). Hefei was the temporary capital for Anhui from 1853 to 1862. It was renamed as Hefei County in 1912. Following the Chinese victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, Hefei was made the capital of Anhui.


title: Hefei

text: Before World War II, Hefei remained essentially an administrative center and the regional market for the fertile plain to the south. It was a collecting center for grain, beans, cotton, and hemp, as well as a center for handicraft industries manufacturing cloth, leather, bamboo goods, and ironware.


title: Hefei

text: The construction in 1912 of the Tianjin–Pukou railway, farther east, for a while made Hefei a provincial backwater, and much of its importance passed to Bengbu. In 1932–36, however, a Chinese company built a railway linking Hefei with Yuxikou (on the Yangtze opposite Wuhu) to the southeast and with the Huai River at Huainan to the north. While this railway was built primarily to exploit the rich coalfield in northern Anhui, it also did much to revive the economy of the Hefei area by taking much of its produce to Wuhu and Nanjing.


title: Hefei

text: Although Hefei was a quiet market town of only about 30,000 in the mid-1930s, its population grew more than tenfold in the following 20 years. The city's administrative role was strengthened by the transfer of the provincial government from Anqing in 1945, but much of its new growth derived from its development as an industrial city. A cotton mill was opened in 1958, and a thermal generating plant, using coal from Huainan, was established in the early 1950s. It also became the seat of an industry producing industrial chemicals and chemical fertilizers. In the late 1950s an iron and steel complex was built. In addition to a machine-tool works and engineering and agricultural machinery factories, the city has developed an aluminum industry and a variety of light industries. There are several universities based in the city.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei is located west of Nanjing in south-central Anhui. Chao Lake, a lake southeast of the city, is one of the largest fresh water lakes in China. Though, the lake has unfortunately been polluted with nitrogen and phosphorus, in recent decades, the situation is improving due to efforts by both the government and the people.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei features a humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cfa") with four distinct seasons. Hefei's annual average temperature is . Its annual precipitation is just slightly over , being heavier from May through August. Winters are damp and cold, with January lows dipping just below freezing and January averaging . The city sees irregular snowfalls that rarely turn significant. Springs are generally relatively pleasant if somewhat erratic. Summers here are oppressively hot and humid, with a July average of . In the months of June, July, August, and often September, daily temperatures can reach or surpass with high humidity levels being the norm. Autumn in Hefei sees a gradual cooling and drying. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 35 percent in March to 50 percent in August, the city receives 1,868 hours of bright sunshine annually. Extremes since 1951 have ranged from on 6 January 1955 to on 27 July 2017.


title: Hefei

text: Air quality typically diminishes in May and June when the city is blanketed by smog caused by the smoke generated as farmers outside the city burn their fields in preparation for planting the next crop.


title: Hefei

text: The majority of the population in Hefei are Han Chinese. There are a comparatively small number of Hui Chinese living in the city, for whom a few mosques have been constructed. Of the more than five million people in the city, some are migrant workers from other parts of Anhui.


title: Hefei

text: The prefecture-level city of Hefei administers 9 county-level divisions, including 4 districts, 1 County-city and 4 counties.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei subdivisions area (km²), population (According to 2010 Census) and population density (per km²).


title: Hefei

text: The GDP was ¥1141.28 billion in 2021. The GDP per capita was ¥121187(ca.US$18784) in 2021.Ranked top 20 cities of China.


title: Hefei

text: Before the Chinese Civil War, Hefei's main industry was agriculture. After World War II, the capital of Anhui was moved from Anqing to Hefei. To assist the development of the city, many talented people were sent in from other parts of the country. Modern-day Hefei has machinery, electronics, chemistry, steel, textile, and cigarette industries, among others.


title: Hefei

text: In the summer of 2005, the municipal government implemented changes designed to beautify the city by demolishing thousands of illegally built structures, and clearing away long-established marketplaces in many parts of the city. While these actions removed many unlicensed, and often poorly-constructed food stalls which had been contributing to the spread of disease and which posed fire hazards, these changes also removed longstanding businesses that had lined many streets throughout the city overnight. The impact on the local economy was felt immediately as hundreds, if not thousands, of low paid workers no longer had employment.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei has been identified by the Economist Intelligence Unit in the November 2010 Access China White Paper as a member of the CHAMPS (Chongqing, Hefei, Anshan, Ma'anshan, Pingdingshan and Shenyang), an economic profile of the top 20 emerging cities in China.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei was identified by "The Economist" in December 2012 as the world's No.1 fastest growing metropolitan economy.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei has been the provincial capital since 1945 (before it was Lihuang, which is today's Jinzhai) and is a natural center of transportation, being situated to the north of Lake Chao and standing on a low saddle crossing the northeastern extension of the Dabie Mountains, which form the divide between the Huai and Yangtze rivers. From Hefei there is easy water transport via the lake to the Yangtze River opposite Wuhu.


title: Hefei

text: 1. G3 Beijing-Taipei Expressway (京台高速公路 From Beijing to Pingtan, and was designed to cross the Taiwan Strait to connect the highways in Taipei)


title: Hefei

text: There are two main train stations in Hefei. The newest one is Hefei South railway station (Hefeinan station, 合肥火车南站) where most high-speed trains pass through. Many city buses serve this station, for instance the 108 from the East gate of the University of Science and Technology's East campus on Susong road. It has a very comprehensive taxi rank with multiple queues to avoid a long wait. There are many fast food restaurants in the departure hall with seating. There are not so many options for arrivals, a small cafe and a takeaway kfc booth. There is an ATM in the ticket sales area next to the security gates for the departure hall.


title: Hefei

text: The alternative station is Hefei railway station () which is smaller and older. This has only one taxi queue, directly opposite the main exit. There is fast food, a post office and a China mobile store in the same courtyard next to the arrival gates.


title: Hefei

text: There are some small stations such as Feidong Station (), Feixi Station (), Shuijiahu Station (), Chaohu Station (), Chaohu East railway station (Chaohudong station; 巢湖火车东站), Hefeibeicheng Station (Hefei Northtown Station 合肥北城火车站), Lujiang Station () and so on. These stations are mostly located in small towns or played commuting roles.


title: Hefei

text: 4. Shangqiu-Hangzhou high-speed railway (商合杭高速铁路 The northern part, Shangqiu-Hefei High-Speed Railway will play as a part of Beijing-Hong Kong high-speed railway. Under Construction)


title: Hefei

text: 5. Hefei-Anqing-Jiujiang high-speed railway (合安九高速铁路 Play as a part of Beijing-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway.)


title: Hefei

text: In 2008 the thoroughfare Chang Jiang Road () is undergoing a renovation project to widen the roads and to create a bus route in the center of the road, with bus stations at islands that are connected to the sidewalks by skyways. The First Ring Road is also undergoing construction, with traffic lights being replaced by overpasses and ramps built to connect the First Ring Road and all major intersecting roads. Both projects are intended to ease the traffic Hefei now experiences at rush hour.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei Xinqiao International Airport replaced the old Hefei Luogang International Airport and started its operation on May 30, 2013 00:00. This new domestic aviation hub is located in Gaoliu Village situated in the northwestern part of Hefei City. The first arriving flight was China Eastern Airlines flight MU5172 from Beijing Capital International Airport. The first departing flight was China Eastern Airlines MU5468 to Shanghai Pudong International Airport.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei Xinqiao International Airport provides scheduled passenger service to major airports in China and other international cities. Destinations include Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Taipei (Taoyuan, Songshan), Kaohsiung, Taichung, Seoul, Cheongju, Yangyang, Jeju, Osaka, Nagoya, Shizuoka, Okayama, Boracay Island, Bali Island, Frankfurt, Siem Reap, Bangkok, Phuket Island and Krabi Island.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei Metro is a rapid transit rail network under construction that will eventually serve both urban and rural areas of Hefei. As planned, Line 1 covers a total distance of starting from Hefei Railway Station. It was inaugurated in December 2016.


title: Hefei

text: In February 2013, Metro Line 2 also began its construction. It is being built alongside the Changjiang Dong Road, Changjiang Zhong Road and Changjiang Xi Road, which is a major passenger corridor in the east–west direction. It will pass through the city center area and connect to a transit point where passengers will be able to take the shuttle bus to Hefei Xinqiao International Airport. The Line 2 was opened on December 26, 2017.


title: Hefei

text: In November 2015, Metro Line 3 construction began. Line 3 was opened on December 26, 2019. Line 3 connects the New Station Exploitative-experimental Zone and the Economic Technology Development District, from the vocational education town to the university town.


title: Hefei

text: In 2016, Metro Line 4 construction began. Line 4 was opened on December 26, 2021. Line 4 connects the New Station Exploitative-experimental Zone and the High Technology Development District.


title: Hefei

text: In 2017, Metro Line 5 construction began. The south part of Line 5 was opened on December 26, 2020. Line 5 connects Binhu New District and the Beicheng (North city) New District. The north part of Line 5 is expected to open at the end of 2022.


title: Hefei

text: Alongside Line 1, Line 2, Line 3, Line 4 and Line 5, Hefei is also planning to build other 12 metro lines, 4 lines of intra-metropolitan rail transit (to Lu'an, Huainan, Lujiang and Chaohu) and 3 lines of tram and hopefully accomplish the project by 2030.


title: Hefei

text: Normal buses included 1-33, 35–53, 56,57,59-68, 70, 72, 76, 78, 99, 101–141, 143, 145–150, 152, 154–159, 161–163, 166, 226, 232–235, 300–305, 350–359, 399, 401, 502–513, 516–519, 521, 522, 525–533, 535–539, 577, 601–606, 621, 622, 650–657, 665, 670, 681–683, 686, 690–699, 702–710, 801–805,809,810,901–903. And there are also several buses lines which severed for Feixi county(begins with X, such as X201), Feidong county(begins with D, such as D199), Changfeng county (begins with C, such as C131) and Chaohu city (begins with H, such as H105).


title: Hefei

text: Bus Rapid Transit Line 2 (B2): from Previous Research Institute of China University of Science and Technology to Wang Tong Bus Station (Along Wangjiang Rd. )


title: Hefei

text: Bus Rapid Transit Line 3 (B3): from No.2 buses company to Hefei No.2 Hospital New Area (Along Changjiang Rd. )


title: Hefei

text: Bus Rapid Transit Line 4 (B4): from Hefei Information Technology University to Binhu International Convention and Exhibition Center (Along Ziyun Rd. )


title: Hefei

text: Bus Rapid Transit Line 5 (B5): from Hefeinan Railway Station to Binhu Wanda Bus Station (Along Baohe Avenue. )


title: Hefei

text: Bus Rapid Transit Line 7 (B7): from Provincial Administrative Center to Xinghua Park (Along Baohe Avenue. )


title: Hefei

text: Bus Rapid Transit Line 11 (B11): from Feixi Railway Station to Nanqili Station (Along Jinzhai South Road. )


title: Hefei

text: And there are several commuter lines operating, which only run at designated time or having a large interval, including:


title: Hefei

text: T1 from West Bus Terminus () to No.7 High School New Campus (), T2 from Liushutang () to No.7 High School New Campus, T3 from North Square of Hefei Railway Station () to Hefei Economic and Trade Tourism School (), T5 from North Square of Hefei Railway Station to Gongda Vocational and Technical College (), T6 from North Square of Hefei Railway Station to Hefei Industrial School (), T7 from Hefeinan Railway Station () to University Park (), T8 from Gedadian () to E-Commerce Park of the Youth (), T9 from Public Transportation Group (No.2 Hospital) () to No.10 High School New Campus (), T10 from Shifu Square () to No.10 High School New Campus, T12 from Anjuyuan() to Provincial Administration Center (), T13 from CPPCC of Anhui Province () to Provincial Administration Center, T15 from Binhu Vanke City () to Provincial Administration Center, T16 from Wanghucheng () to Provincial Administration Center, T18 as a loop line of the CBD of Binhu New Area (), T19 as a loop line of the Promoting Zone of Binhu New Area (), T21 from Cuozhen () to Fuxing Community (), T22 from Shuidong Rd. () to Sanlian University Branch Campus (), T24 from Cuozhen to Qiaotouji (), T26 from Feihe () to Hefei International Port ().


title: Hefei

text: Hefei plays an important role in scientific research in China. It has seven national laboratories, second only to Beijing: The National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (), the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale (), both of which are under the University of Science and Technology of China. It also has the Institute of Solid State Physics, Institute of Plasma Physics, Institute of Intelligent Machines, High Magnetic Field Laboratory (founded in 2008), Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, all of which are under the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science which belongs to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei is the location of Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, an experimental superconducting tokamak magnetic fusion energy reactor.


title: Hefei

text: The No. 105 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army, located in Hefei, is reportedly the site of the first human trials using CRISPR genome editing, doing so in 2015.


title: Hefei

text: Yicheng Prison is located within the city. It was built during the 1983 "Strike Hard" campaign and was formerly Hefei Zhenxing Machine Parts Factory. On June 15, 1984, the Prov. Justice Dept. decided to change the name of the Machine Parts Factory's Internal Dept. to the Prov. Independent LRC. On March 17, 1986, the City's Party Committee and government agreed to the change. On April 26 more than 400 inmates were transferred to Hefei Shangzhangwei Farm and Baihu Farm. In February 1992 a secondary country level prison was created at the Shangzhangwei Farm. In August 1992 the Hefei City LRD level was upgraded by the government. June 1996 the prison was changed to its present name. It is currently controlled by Hefei city. It mainly houses prisoners with sentences of less than 5 years and houses up to 1000 prisoners a year. In the past 20 years, nearly 20,000 inmates have completed their sentences here. The prison mainly cultivates vegetables and rice but also cooperates with the Zhejiang Rongguang Group and produces soccer training shoes, soccer balls, tourism products, and other products.


title: Hefei

text: Hefei has its own football team called Anhui Jiufang, who in the 2007–08 season were promoted from the Chinese Football Association Yi League to the Chinese Football Association Jia League which is the second highest tier of Chinese football. It was acquired by Tianjin Runyulong in 2011.


title: Bartitsu

text: Bartitsu is an eclectic martial art and self-defence method originally developed in England in 1898–1902, combining elements of boxing, jujitsu, cane fighting and French kickboxing (savate). In 1903, it was immortalised (as "baritsu") by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories. Although dormant throughout most of the 20th century, Bartitsu has experienced a revival since 2002.


title: Bartitsu

text: In 1898, Edward William Barton-Wright, an English engineer who had spent the previous three years living in Japan, returned to England and announced the formation of a "New Art of Self Defence". This art, he claimed, combined the best elements of a range of fighting styles into a unified whole, which he had named Bartitsu. Barton-Wright had previously also studied "boxing, wrestling, fencing, savate and the use of the stiletto under recognised masters", reportedly testing his skills by "engaging toughs (street fighters) until (he) was satisfied in their application." He defined "Bartitsu" (ばちつ) as meaning "self defence in all its forms"; the word was a portmanteau of his own surname and of "Jujitsu".


title: Bartitsu

text: As detailed in a series of articles Barton-Wright produced for "Pearson's Magazine" between 1899 and 1901, Bartitsu was largely drawn from the Shinden Fudo Ryu jujutsu of Terajima Kunichiro (not to be confused with the SFR taijutsu associated with the Bujinkan lineage) and from Kodokan judo. As it became established in London, the art expanded to incorporate combat techniques from other jujutsu styles as well as from British boxing, Swiss schwingen, French savate and a defensive canne de combat (stick fighting) style that had been developed by Pierre Vigny of Switzerland. Bartitsu also included a comprehensive physical culture training system.


title: Bartitsu

text: Between 1899 and 1902, Barton-Wright set about publicising his art through magazine articles, interviews and a series of demonstrations or "assaults at arms" at various London venues. He established the Bartitsu Academy of Arms and Physical Culture, known as the Bartitsu Club, which was located at 67b Shaftesbury Avenue in Soho. In an article for "Sandow's Magazine of Physical Culture" vol. 6 (January 1901), journalist Mary Nugent described the Bartitsu Club as "...a huge subterranean hall, all glittering, white-tiled walls, and electric light, with 'champions' prowling around it like tigers."


title: Bartitsu

text: Via correspondence with Professor Jigoro Kano, the founder of Kodokan Judo, and other contacts in Japan, Barton-Wright arranged for Japanese jujutsu practitioners Kaneo Tani, Seizo Yamamoto and the nineteen-year-old Yukio Tani to travel to London and serve as instructors at the Bartitsu Club. Kaneo Tani and Yamamoto soon returned to Japan, but Yukio Tani stayed and was shortly joined by another young jujutsuka, Sadakazu Uyenishi. Swiss master-at-arms Pierre Vigny and wrestler Armand Cherpillod were also employed as teachers at the Club. As well as teaching well-to-do Londoners, their duties included performing demonstrations and competing in challenge matches against fighters representing other combat styles. In addition, the Club became the headquarters for a group of fencing antiquarians led by Captain Alfred Hutton and it served as their base for experimenting with historical fencing techniques, which they taught to members of London's acting elite for use in stage combat. It is likely that the actors Esme Beringer and Charles Sefton, as well as fencer Archibald Corble, were among Hutton's historical fencing students at the Bartitsu Club.


title: Bartitsu

text: In mid-1901, the curriculum of Bartitsu was further expanded to include breathing exercises under the tuition of Kate Behnke.


title: Bartitsu

text: As well as the combat gymnasium, the Bartitsu Club incorporated a well-appointed salon equipped with a wide range of electrotherapy machines.


title: Bartitsu

text: The club was organised on the model of the Victorian sporting club; prospective members submitted their applications to a committee, which at one time included both Captain Alfred Hutton and Colonel George Malcolm Fox, former Inspector-General of the British Army's Physical Training Corps. Promoters of the Club included politicians Herbert Gladstone and Lord Alwyne Compton.


title: Bartitsu

text: Bartitsu Club membership included Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, who was later one of the few adult male survivors of the sinking of the , as well as Captain F.C. Laing of the 12th Bengal Infantry, who subsequently wrote an article on Bartitsu stick fighting techniques which was published in the "Journal of the United Service Institution of India". Other members included expatriate French fencing master and journalist Anatole Paroissien and messrs. Marshall, Collard, Marchant, Roger Noel, Percy Rolt, Lieutenant Glossop and Captains Ernest George Stenson Cooke and Frank Herbert Whittow, both also members of the London Rifle Brigade School of Arms, under the direction of Captain Hutton; and William Henry Grenfell, the 1st Baron Desborough, who was named as the Club president.


title: Bartitsu

text: Barton-Wright later reported that, during this period, he had challenged and defeated seven larger men within three minutes as part of a Bartitsu demonstration he gave at St. James's Hall. He said this feat earned him a membership in the prestigious Bath Club and also a Royal Command to appear before Edward, Prince of Wales. Barton-Wright then suffered an injury to his hand, due either to a fight in a Kentish country lane or a bicycling accident, which prevented him from appearing before the Prince.


title: Bartitsu

text: Barton-Wright encouraged members of the Bartitsu Club to study each of the four major hand-to-hand combat styles taught at the club, each of which broadly corresponded to a different "range" of personal combat.


title: Bartitsu

text: The goal was to master each style well enough that they could be used against the others if needed. This process was similar to the modern concept of cross-training and it can be argued that Bartitsu itself was more in the nature of a cross-training system than a formal martial arts style.


title: Bartitsu

text: Based on Barton-Wright's writings upon this subject, it is evident that Bartitsu placed greatest emphasis upon the Vigny cane fighting system at the striking range and upon jujutsu (and, secondarily, the "all-in" style of European wrestling) at the grappling range. Savate and boxing methods were used to segue between these two ranges, or as a means of first response should the defender not be armed with a walking stick. These sports were also practised so that Bartitsu students could learn how to defend against them through the use of jujutsu and Vigny stick fighting.


title: Bartitsu

text: The stick fighting component was based on the two fundamental tactics of either feinting/striking pre-emptively or "baiting" the opponent's strike via a position of invitation. Fighting from the style's characteristic high- and double-handed guard positions, stick strikes and thrusts targeted the opponent's face and head, throat, elbows, hands and wrists, solar plexus, knees and shins. The Bartitsu stick fighter would often incorporate close combat techniques such as trips, throws and takedowns, which probably represent a fusion of the Vigny stick system with jujutsu.


title: Bartitsu

text: Barton-Wright spoke of having modified the techniques of boxing and savate for self-defence purposes, as distinct from academic and fitness training or sporting competition, referring to guards that would cause an attacking boxer to injure his own fists and to defences that would cause an attacking kicker to damage his own leg. Thus, the tactics of the unarmed Bartitsu practitioner were to mount an aggressive defence, employing damaging variations of standard boxing and savate guards, and then to finish the fight with jujutsu, which Barton-Wright evidently viewed as a type of secret weapon during an era in which his Shaftesbury Avenue academy was the only place in England where it could be learned.


title: Bartitsu

text: According to interviewer Mary Nugent, Barton-Wright instituted an unusual pedagogical system whereby students were first required to attend private training sessions before being allowed to join class groups. It is evident that Bartitsu classes included pre-arranged exercises, especially for use in rehearsing those techniques that were too dangerous to be performed at full speed or contact, as well as free-sparring and fencing bouts. According to an anonymous article published in "The Sketch" of April 10, 1901, these sessions may have involved a type of circuit training in which students would rotate between small group classes taught by each of the specialist instructors.


title: Bartitsu

text: Many Bartitsu self-defence techniques and training sequences were recorded by Barton-Wright himself in his series of articles for "Pearson's Magazine." The specific details of other Bartitsu stick fighting training drills were recorded in Captain Laing's article.


title: Bartitsu

text: By mid-1902, the Bartitsu Club was no longer active as a martial arts school. The precise reasons for the Club's closure are unknown, but jujutsu instructor William Garrud subsequently suggested that both the enrolment fees and tuition fees had been too high. It is likely that Barton-Wright had simply overestimated the number of wealthy Londoners who shared his interest in exotic self-defence systems.


title: Bartitsu

text: The last recorded activities of the Bartitsu Club as an entity involved a series of touring exhibitions and contests at venues including Cambridge University, the Oxford Town Hall, the Shorncliffe Army Camp base in Kent, the Mechanics Institute Hall in Nottingham and the Adelphi Theatre in Liverpool between January–April 1902.


title: Bartitsu

text: Subsequently, most of Barton-Wright's former employees, including jujutsuka Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi and Swiss self-defence expert Pierre Vigny, established their own self-defence and combat sports gymnasiums in London. After breaking with Barton-Wright, purportedly due to an argument and a fight, Tani also continued his work as a professional music-hall wrestler under the shrewd management of William Bankier, a strength performer and magazine publisher who went by the stage name of "Apollo". Bankier's promotional efforts helped to spur the international fad for jujutsu that Barton-Wright had begun, and which included the publication of numerous books and magazine articles as well as the establishment of jujutsu schools throughout the Western world. This fad lasted until the beginning of World War I and served to introduce Japanese martial arts into Western popular culture, but Bartitsu per se never again returned to prominence during Barton-Wright's lifetime.


title: Bartitsu

text: Bartitsu might have been completely forgotten if not for a cryptic reference by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in one of his Sherlock Holmes mystery stories. In 1903 Conan Doyle had revived Holmes for a further story, "The Adventure of the Empty House", in which Holmes explained his victory over Professor Moriarty in their struggle at Reichenbach Falls by the use of ""baritsu", or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me".


title: Bartitsu

text: The term "baritsu" did not exist outside the pages of the English editions of "The Adventure of the Empty House" and a 1901 "Times" report titled "Japanese Wrestling at the Tivoli", which covered a Bartitsu demonstration in London but misspelled the name as "baritsu". It is likely that Conan Doyle used the 1901 London "Times" article as source material, copying the "baritsu" misspelling verbatim, particularly in that he had Holmes define "baritsu" as "Japanese wrestling", which was the same phrase used in the newspaper headline.


title: Bartitsu

text: Given the popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories, the fact that Holmes credited his survival and victory against Moriarty to ""baritsu"", and the fact that E.W. Barton-Wright's martial art and, with it, its name's proper spelling had quickly faded from popular memory, the confusion of names persisted through much of the 20th century. In an article for "The Baker Street Journal" Christmas Annual of 1958, journalist Ralph Judson correctly identified baritsu with Bartitsu, but Judson's article eventually became obscured. During the 1980s, researchers Alan Fromm and Nicolas Soames re-affirmed the relationship between ""baritsu"" and Bartitsu and by the 1990s scholars including Yuichi Hirayama, John Hall, Richard Bowen, and James Webb were able to confidently identify and document the martial art of Sherlock Holmes.


title: Bartitsu

text: E.W. Barton-Wright spent the remainder of his career working as a physical therapist specialising in innovative (and sometimes controversial) forms of heat, light, and radiation therapy. He continued to use the name "Bartitsu" with reference to his various therapeutic businesses. In 1950, he was interviewed by Gunji Koizumi for an article appearing in the Budokwai newsletter, and later that year he was presented to the audience at a Budokwai gathering in London as "the pioneer of jiujitsu in Great Britain". He died in 1951, at the age of 90, and was buried in what the martial arts historian Richard Bowen described as "a pauper's grave."


title: Bartitsu

text: In many ways, E.W. Barton-Wright was a man ahead of his time. He was among the first Europeans known to have studied the Japanese martial arts, and was almost certainly the first to have taught them in Europe, the British Empire or the Americas.


title: Bartitsu

text: Bartitsu was the first martial art to have deliberately combined Asian and European fighting styles towards addressing the problems of civilian/urban self-defence in an "unarmed society". In this, Barton-Wright anticipated Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do approach by over seventy years. A similar philosophy of pragmatic eclecticism was taken up by other early 20th-century European self-defence specialists, including Percy Longhurst, William Garrud and Jean Joseph-Renaud, all of whom had studied with former Bartitsu Club instructors.


title: Bartitsu

text: In 1906, Renaud introduced a similar concept in France named "Défense Dans la Rue" in order to fight the increase of street violence at the time. This art was a mixture of boxing, savate and jiu-jitsu inherited from bartitsu, and was broadened by contemporary authors like Émile André and George Dubois, who had been influenced by master-at-arms Joseph Charlemont. In the 1920s, Brazilian physical culture teacher Mario Aleixo published an article for the "Eu Sei Tudo" magazine about his "Defesa Pessoal", which mixed capoeira, jiu-jitsu, boxing, Greco-Roman wrestling and jogo do pau.


title: Bartitsu

text: Barton-Wright's illustrated article series for "Pearson's Magazine" popularised self-defence features in newspapers and magazines, which had previously been rare but which became commonplace during the first decade of the 20th century.


title: Bartitsu

text: E.W. Barton-Wright is also remembered as a pioneering promoter of mixed martial arts or MMA contests, in which experts in different fighting styles compete under common rules. Barton-Wright's champions, including Yukio Tani, Sadakazu Uyenishi and Swiss "schwingen" wrestler Armand Cherpillod enjoyed considerable success in these contests, which anticipated the MMA phenomenon of the 1990s by a hundred years.


title: Bartitsu

text: The Bartitsu Club was among the first schools of its type in Europe to offer classes in women's self-defence, a practice taken up after the Club's demise by students of Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi including Edith Margaret Garrud and Emily Watts. Mrs. Garrud established her own jujutsu dojo (school) in London and also taught the art to members of the militant Suffragette movement, including the clandestine "Bodyguard" unit of the Women's Social and Political Union, establishing an early association between self-defence training and the political philosophy of feminism.


title: Bartitsu

text: In 2001, the "Electronic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences" (EJMAS) web site began to re-publish many of Barton-Wright's magazine articles that had been discovered in the British Library archives by Richard Bowen. Almost immediately, the "Self Defence with a Walking Stick" articles attracted a minor cult following and the illustrations were reproduced, often with humorous captions or other alterations, on a number of other sites. Also in that year, Bartitsu stick fighting demonstrations were added to the educational displays performed at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, U.K.


title: Bartitsu

text: In 2002, an international association of Bartitsu enthusiasts, known as the Bartitsu Society, was formed to research and then revive E.W. Barton-Wright's "New Art of Self Defence". The Society approaches Bartitsu research and training via two related fields, those of canonical Bartitsu (the self-defence sequences that were detailed by Barton-Wright and his associates 1899–1902) and neo-Bartitsu (modern, individualised interpretations drawing from the canon but reinforced by the training manuals produced by former Bartitsu Club instructors and their students between 1899 and the early 1920s).


title: Bartitsu

text: The modern revival aims to both preserve what is known of the canonical syllabus and to continue Barton-Wright's experiments in cross-training/testing between (kick)boxing, jiujitsu and stick fighting as they were practiced circa 1901, on the premise that these experiments were left as a work in progress when the original Bartitsu Club closed down. Thus, the revival is considered to be a deliberately anachronistic, collaborative, open-ended and open source project.


title: Bartitsu

text: Associated interests include the study of the martial arts as Victorian and Edwardian social history. Between 2002-2019 the Bartitsu Society communicated via an email group established by author Will Thomas.


title: Bartitsu

text: From 2003 onwards, members of the Bartitsu Society began to teach seminar courses in various aspects of the art at stage combat and martial arts conferences throughout the world. Inspired and guided by the Bartitsu Society and the two compendia, Bartitsu training programs have since been launched at the Cumann Bhata Dayton, the Vancouver-based Academie Duello, at the Alte Kampfkunst in Wuppertal, Germany, Briercrest College and Seminary in Caronport, Saskatchewan and at Forteza Fitness and Martial Arts (Ravenswood, Chicago) amongst numerous other locations.


title: Bartitsu

text: In August 2005, the Society published a book, "The Bartitsu Compendium", which was edited by Tony Wolf. The "Compendium" details the complete history of the art as well as a technical curriculum for canonical Bartitsu. The second volume (August 2008) comprises resources for neo-Bartitsu drawn both from Barton-Wright's own writings and from the self-defence manuals produced by his colleagues and their students, including Yukio Tani, William Garrud, H.G. Lang and Jean Joseph Renaud. Proceeds from the sales of the "Bartitsu Compendium", the "Bartitsu Compendium II", and the "Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes" DVD have been dedicated to creating a memorial for E.W. Barton-Wright and to furthering the revival of Bartitsu.


title: Bartitsu

text: A third volume of the "Bartitsu Compendium" was published in December of 2022, marking the 120th anniversary of the closing of the original Bartitsu Club and the 20th anniversary of the modern revival movement. Subheaded "What Bartitsu Was and What It Can Be", this volume includes an authoritative social history of Bartitsu and anthology of historical articles as well as a technical section highlighting the stylistically unique aspects of Bartitsu as a martial art.


title: Bartitsu

text: In September 2006, Bartitsu Society member Kirk Lawson released a DVD entitled "Bartitsu – the Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes", which is a presentation of Bartitsu techniques as demonstrated at the Spring '06 Cumann Bhata Western Martial Arts Seminar.


title: Bartitsu

text: In October 2006, the Bartitsu Society launched the Bartitsu.org website, which included information on the history, theory and practice of Barton-Wright's martial art, as well as current events relating to the Bartitsu revival. In 2019 the site suffered a catastrophic technical failure and it was revived in January of 2021 as BartitsuSociety.com.


title: Bartitsu

text: In 2010, a seminar tour was arranged to raise awareness of Bartitsu. Tony Wolf taught consecutive seminars on the West Coast of the US starting in California and moving to Northwest Fencing Academy and then Academia Duellatoria in Oregon. Seminars were then hosted by the School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts in Seattle, Washington and at Academie Duello in Vancouver, British Columbia.


title: Bartitsu

text: In August 2009, the Bartitsu Society announced the production of a full-length documentary on E.W. Barton-Wright and his self-defence arts, which was released in March 2011. The first international Bartitsu School of Arms seminar/conference event was held in London, U.K. between August 26–28, 2011 and the second event was held in Chicago, between 7–9 September 2012.


title: Bartitsu

text: In 2017, Bartitsu came to the attention of a martial arts instructor in Columbus, Georgia. After researching the combat laboratory methods used by the founder and his instructors to add more defence tactics and skills incorporating more ground defence, additional self-defence moves, and basic knife tactics and defences, he took on his first student. He then founded an academy, christened "Neo-Bartitsu Columbus", in 2019 and began offering weekly classes through Bishop's TaeKwonDo Plus.


title: Bartitsu

text: In the UK, Sensei Tommy Moore runs the Bartitsu Lab. This Bartitsu club aims to bring together the best of the combat sports and self defence focuses of Bartitsu as part of a modern holistic approach.


title: Bartitsu

text: Articles on various aspects of Bartitsu have been published in journals including "Classical Fighting Arts", "Western Martial Arts Illustrated", "The Journal of Asian Martial Arts", "SteamPunk Magazine", "Rugged Magazine", "Breaking Muscle", "The Wall Street Journal", "The Atlantic", the "Chicago Tribune", "The Chap", "History Today", "de Volkskrant", "New City", "His Vintage Life", the "Epoch Times", "Ozy Media" and "Clarkesworld Magazine". The art has also been showcased on British television in "The One Show", "Sunday Brunch" and in "Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: the Rise of the Martial Arts in Britain", an episode of the Timeshift documentary series on BBC Four.


title: Bartitsu

text: Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes (2011) is a feature-length documentary detailing the history, decline and modern revival of Bartitsu, with particular reference to its association with Sherlock Holmes.


title: Bartitsu

text: Host Tony Wolf travels between locations in Europe including the Swiss Reichenbach Falls and the adjacent town of Meiringen, London, Haltwhistle, Rome and Amantea, explaining the origins and heyday of Bartitsu via narration, animated graphics, re-enactments, archival photographs and interviews. Interviewees include authors Will Thomas and Neal Stephenson as well as martial arts historians Mark Donnelly, Emelyne Godfrey, Harry Cook and Graham Noble.


title: Bartitsu

text: Major themes include the development of Bartitsu as a confluence of Edwardian interests in Orientalism, physical culture and criminology; the use of jujitsu by the Bodyguards of the radical Suffragette movement in London and subsequent spread of Japanese martial arts through Western popular culture; personality profiles of Barton-Wright himself and the other principal figures of the original Bartitsu craze; and the connection between Bartitsu and Sherlock Holmes' baritsu.


title: Bartitsu

text: Additional footage shot in Italy and the United States illustrates the modern revival of Bartitsu as a recreational martial art.


title: Bartitsu

text: Conan Doyle's "baritsu" developed a life of its own during the latter 20th century, and it was duly recorded that fictional heroes including Doc Savage and The Shadow had been initiated into its mysteries; the latter two characters were established as knowing baritsu in a DC Comics crossover that spilled over into "The Shadow Strikes". Baritsu has been incorporated into numerous Sherlock Holmes-inspired pastiche novels and short stories and also into the rules of several role-playing games set during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.


title: Bartitsu

text: The manga and anime series Kuroshitsuji ("Black Butler"), Dantarian no Shoka ("The Mystic Archives of Dantalian") and "Kengan Ashura" all feature characters who are proficient in baritsu.


title: Bartitsu

text: Cyrus Barker, the protagonist of novelist Will Thomas' "Barker and Llewellyn" mystery series, is partly inspired by E.W. Barton-Wright, as is the villainous Sir Callum Fielding-Shaw in Adrienne Kress' young adult novel "The Friday Society".


title: Bartitsu

text: Richard Ryan, the fight choreographer for the 2009 movie "Sherlock Holmes", has described the "neo-Bartitsu" developed for that project as being a combination of "Chinese Boxing (Wing Chun), swordplay and elements of Brazilian Jujitsu." This "movie Bartitsu" was said to be a modern interpretation of the classic Victorian Bartitsu style. In a 23 December 2009 interview with "Vanity Fair" magazine, director Guy Ritchie described baritsu as "... a form of Jujitsu. This is way before martial arts took off anywhere in Europe. You can actually look it up on the Internet. You’ll see these little men hitting one another with walking sticks. The idea was that you use your opponent’s strengths against them. With the use of surprise. There’s all sorts of locks and chokes and various other techniques used to incapacitate someone. There’s lots of throwing hats at someone’s eyes, and then striking at them, if you can, with a walking stick." The movie fight choreography included several signature fighting techniques from Barton-Wright's articles, including double-handed thrusts with walking sticks and the use of an overcoat to distract and entangle an adversary.


title: Bartitsu

text: The fight choreography for the 2011 sequel, "" bore an even closer resemblance to historical Bartitsu.


title: Bartitsu

text: In the DVD commentary for "A Scandal in Belgravia" (episode one of the second season of the BBC TV series "Sherlock"), writer Mark Gatiss describes a framed glass sign above the title character's bed as showing "the rules of baritsu, the Japanese martial art which got Holmes out of the situation at the Reichenbach Falls in 'The Final Problem'." In fact, the prop sign is a framed Kodokan judo black belt certificate. In the first episode of the third season, Sherlock Holmes alludes to a "system of Japanese wrestling" as the second of thirteen scenarios that might have allowed him to survive his rooftop encounter with Moriarty.


title: Bartitsu

text: Aiden English and Simon Gotch, known collectively as The Vaudevillains, are professional wrestlers signed to NXT and WWE who incorporate Bartitsu, or "Victorian Era Martial Arts" as some announcers have described, into their wrestling style mainly with stances and selective attacks. They espouse a gimmick of wrestlers from the early 20th century such as Karl Gotch.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The Goldfinch () is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Carel Fabritius of a life-sized chained goldfinch. Signed and dated 1654, it is now in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Netherlands. The work is a trompe-l'œil oil on panel measuring that was once part of a larger structure, perhaps a window jamb or a protective cover. It is possible that the painting was in its creator's workshop in Delft at the time of the gunpowder explosion that killed him and destroyed much of the city.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: A common and colourful bird with a pleasant song, the goldfinch was a popular pet, and could be taught simple tricks including lifting a thimble-sized bucket of water. It was reputedly a bringer of good health, and was used in Italian Renaissance painting as a symbol of Christian redemption and the Passion of Jesus.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: "The Goldfinch" is unusual for the Dutch Golden Age painting period in the simplicity of its composition and use of illusionary techniques. Following the death of its creator, it was lost for more than two centuries before its rediscovery in Brussels. It plays a central role in the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt and its film adaptation.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: "The Goldfinch" is an oil painting on panel measuring , now in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Netherlands. Details of its physical structure emerged when it was restored in 2003. Because the lead-based paint limited the effectiveness of traditional X-rays and infrared, chief conservator Jorgen Wadum used a CT scanner to digitally eliminate the paint layer and see what was underneath.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The panel on which it is painted is thick, which is atypically deep for a small painting, and indicates that it may have formerly been part of a larger piece of wood. Evidence for this is the remains of a wooden pin, suggesting the original boards had been joined with dowels and glue. Before it was framed, the painting had a black border onto which a gilded frame was later fixed with ten equally spaced nails. The nails did not reach the back of the panel so there is no evidence of a backing to the picture. The frame was subsequently removed leaving only a residual line of a greenish copper compound. Fabritius then extended the white background pigment to the right edge, repainted his signature, and added the lower perch. Finally, the remaining black edges were overpainted with white.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The back of the panel has four nail holes and six other holes near the top, suggesting two different methods of suspension of the panel at various times. The art historian Linda Stone-Ferrier has suggested that the panel may have been either attached to the inner jamb of a window or have been a hinged protective cover for another wall-mounted painting.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: During conservation, it was realised that the surface of the painting had numerous small dents that must have been formed when the paint was still not fully dried, since there was no cracking. It is possible that the slight damage was caused by the explosion that killed its creator. The restoration removed the old yellow varnish and showed the original tones, described by the art critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger in 1859 as "mur blême" and "lumineuse couleur" ("pale wall" and "bright colour").


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The painting shows a life-size European goldfinch ("Carduelis carduelis") on top of a feeder—a blue container with a lid, enclosed by two wooden half-rings fixed to the wall. The bird is perched on the upper ring, to which its leg is attached by a fine chain. The painting is signed and dated "" at the bottom.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The goldfinch is a widespread and common seed-eating bird in Europe, North Africa, and western and central Asia. As a colourful species with a pleasant twittering song, and an associated belief that it brought health and good fortune, it had been domesticated for at least 2,000 years. Pliny recorded that it could be taught to do tricks, and in the 17th century, it became fashionable to train goldfinches to draw water from a bowl with a miniature bucket on a chain. The Dutch title of the painting is the bird's nickname "puttertje", which refers to this custom and is a diminutive equivalent to "draw-water", an old Norfolk name for the bird.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The goldfinch frequently appears in paintings, not just for its colourful appearance but also for its symbolic meanings. Pliny associated the bird with fertility, and the presence of a giant goldfinch next to a naked couple in "The Garden of Earthly Delights" triptych by the earlier Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch perhaps refers to this belief.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: Nearly 500 Renaissance religious paintings, mainly by Italian artists, show the bird, including Leonardo da Vinci's "Madonna Litta" (1490–1491), Raphael's "Madonna of the Goldfinch" (1506) and Piero della Francesca's "Nativity" (1470–1475) In Medieval Christianity, the goldfinch's association with health symbolises the Redemption, and its habit of feeding on the seeds of spiky thistles, together with its red face, presaged the crucifixion of Jesus, where the bird supposedly became splattered with blood while attempting to remove the crown of thorns. Many of these devotional paintings were created in the middle of the fourteenth century while the Black Death pandemic gripped Europe.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The symbolism persisted long after the time of Fabritius. A much later example of the goldfinch as a symbol of redemption is Hogarth’s 1742 painting "The Graham Children". Thomas, the youngest, had died by the time the painting was completed.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: "The Goldfinch" is a trompe-l'œil painting which uses artistic techniques to create the illusion of depth, notably through foreshortening of the head, but also by highlights on the rings and the bird's foot, and strong shadows on the plastered wall. Bold strokes of bright colours above and lighter touches of duller colours below also accentuate the visual effect. The viewpoint seems to be from slightly below the bird, suggesting it was intended to be mounted in an elevated position. The lack of a frame initially also suggests the painting may have been mounted to look realistic, and may have been part of a larger assemblage of illusionary paintings.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: Stone-Ferrier's supposition that it may at one time have been part of a window jamb relies in part on the painting giving the illusion of a real perched bird to passers-by, which is consistent with a raised location. She notes the importance of windows as picture settings during the Dutch Golden Age and the use of perspective boxes to create realistic interiors. Fabritius used a perspective box to create depth in other paintings including his "A View of Delft".


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: Fabritius used lead white paint as the base for the cream plaster of the walls, contrasting with the tan shadow of the bird. The art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon considered that the blend of colours in the diffuse shadow foreshadowed some of the techniques of the nineteenth-century French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The trompe-l'œil technique has been known since ancient times, Pliny telling the story of Zeuxis painting grapes so real that birds flew down to peck at them. Jacopo de' Barbari's "A Sparrowhawk" is a Renaissance example of a painting that seemed intended to be mounted to create an illusion of reality to people passing the window. Although several of Fabritius's contemporaries, including his master Rembrandt, used similar effects, the depiction of a single bird is a minimalist version of the genre, and the simplicity of the design combined with the perspective technique in "The Goldfinch" is unique among paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. Fabritius had previously experimented with trompe-l'œil with the realistic nail that appears to be protruding from his 1649 "Portrait of Abraham de Potter".


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The art historian Wilhelm Martin (1876–1954) considered that "The Goldfinch" could only be compared with the "Still-Life with Partridge and Gauntlets" painted by Jacopo de' Barbari in 1504, more than a hundred years earlier. The bird itself was created with broad brush strokes, with only minor later corrections to its outline, while details, including the chain, were added with more precision. Fabritius's style differs from Rembrandt's typical chiaroscuro in his use of cool daylight, complex perspective, and dark figures against a light background, although he retains some of his master's techniques such as using the handle end of the brush to scratch lines through thick paint.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: Carel Pietersz Fabritius was born in 1622 in Middenbeemster in the Dutch Republic. Initially he worked as a carpenter. His father and his brothers Barent and Johannes were painters and, although not formally trained in art, Fabritius's ability gained him a place at Rembrandt's studio in Amsterdam. The move to Amsterdam took place in 1641, the same year Fabritius married his first wife, who came from a well-to-do family. Following her death in 1643, he moved back to Middenbeemster, where he lived until the early 1650s, then to Delft, where he joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1652.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: Fabritius died aged 32, caught in the explosion of the Delft gunpowder magazine on October 12, 1654, which killed at least 100 people and destroyed a quarter of the city, including his studio and many of his paintings. Few of his works are known to have survived. According to his biographer, Arnold Houbraken, Fabritius's student Mattias Spoors and church deacon Simon Decker also died as a result of the explosion. "The Goldfinch" was painted in the year Fabritius died.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: Fabritius's works were well regarded by his contemporaries, and his style influenced other notable Dutch painters of the period, including Pieter de Hooch, Emanuel de Witte and Johannes Vermeer. Vermeer, who also lived in Delft, in particular used similar pale, worn walls lit by bright sunlight, and it has been suggested that he was Fabritius's student, although there is no real evidence for this claim.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: "The Goldfinch" was lost and unknown for more than two centuries before it first came to light in 1859. Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who had helped to restore the reputation of Vermeer, found it in the collection of former Dutch army officer and collector Chevalier Joseph-Guillaume-Jean Camberlyn in Brussels. It was subsequently given to Thoré-Bürger by the chevalier's heirs in 1865, and he in turn bequeathed it with the rest of his collection to his companion, Apolline Lacroix, in 1869, three years after its first public exhibition in Paris in 1866.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: It was sold to Étienne-François Haro, a painter, restorer and art dealer, for 5,500 francs at the Hôtel Drouot auction house in Paris on 5December 1892, and later purchased for the Mauritshuis by its curator and art collector Abraham Bredius for 6,200 francs at the sale of the Émile Martinet collection, also at Hôtel Drouot, on 27 February 1896. As well as "The Goldfinch", Martinet's collection included works attributed to other renowned artists such as Rembrandt, Goya, Steen, and Corot, and "La Pythonisse", a work tentatively attributed to Fabritius's brother, Barent.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: "The Goldfinch" plays a central role in the 2013 eponymous novel by American author Donna Tartt. The novel's protagonist, 13-year-old Theodore "Theo" Decker, survives a terrorist bombing at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in which his mother dies. He takes the Fabritius painting, part of a Dutch Golden Age exhibition, with him as he escapes the building, and much of the rest of the book is based around his attempts to hide the picture, its theft and eventual return.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The book won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and was a commercial success with sales reaching nearly 1.5 million soon after the award. The book's cover is itself a trompe l'oeil, the painting visible through an illusionary tear in the paper. In reality, the painting has never been displayed in the Metropolitan Museum, although coincidentally an exhibition including "The Goldfinch" opened at New York's Frick Collection on the day of the novel's publication. An estimated 200,000–235,000 people attended the Frick exhibition, despite freezing temperatures, and 13,000 people joined the museum, quadrupling its subscription base.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: The 2013–2014 Frick exhibition was part of a world tour of selected Golden Age paintings from the Mauritshuis during its two-year closure for a £25m renovation of the gallery, with previous showings in Tokyo, Kobe, San Francisco, Atlanta and New York, and finishing with a visit to Bologna. The Tokyo exhibition was attended by a million people, making it the most visited such event of the year. Prior to the publicity from the release of Donna Tartt's novel, Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" had typically been highlighted as the main attraction of the exhibition.


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: Tartt's book was adapted as a 2019 film produced by Warner Bros and Amazon Studios, directed by John Crowley, and starring Ansel Elgort and Nicole Kidman. Other cultural references to "The Goldfinch" include American artist Helen Frankenthaler's 1960 abstract expressionist interpretation of the 1654 painting titled the "Fabritius Bird", and US poet Morri Creech's 2010 poem "Goldfinch", which includes the line "You stare/ from a modest trompe l'oeil heaven we don't share".


title: The Goldfinch (painting)

text: "The Goldfinch" was one of eight Mauritshuis masterpieces depicted on a set of €1.00 stamps issued in 2014 by the Dutch postal service, PostNL, to mark the reopening of the museum. It also featured in a 2004 set of stamps showing works by Fabritius.


title: Blaque

text: Blaque is an American girl group that charted from 1999 to 2004. Outside of the United States, they are known as Blaque Ivory. Their self-titled debut album "Blaque" sold more than 1 million copies and was certified Platinum. The group's debut included the platinum-selling lead single "808", a second single, "I Do", and the international pop hit "Bring It All to Me". In 1999, "Billboard" named Blaque the 4th Best New Artist of the year, with "Bring It All to Me" landing at number 30 on the 2000 Year End Chart. In 2002 and 2003, the group released three less successful singles, "Can't Get It Back", "Ugly", and "I'm Good", the latter appearing in the film "Honey".


title: Blaque

text: Blaque worked on two unreleased albums in the mid-to-late 2000s before their disbandment in 2008. The group attempted a comeback in 2012, but it was cut short by Natina Reed's accidental death. In 2019, Blaque's intended third album "Torch" was released under the label Blaque/The Move Entertainment.


title: Blaque

text: Natina Reed and Shamari Fears both moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and met while in high school. Reed formed Blaque while Fears formed another group called Intrigue. Intrigue won a recording contract with Elektra Records, and Fears met up with Brandi Williams at a talent show while a member of that group. Fears left Intrigue to join up with Reed in Blaque and Williams joined the group shortly thereafter. Reed met Ronald Lopes while singing jingles to earn extra cash and he introduced her to his sister Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes of TLC. Lisa Lopes signed the group to her production company, Left Eye Productions.


title: Blaque

text: Blaque has said that their name means "Believing in Life and Achieving a Quest for Unity in Everything".


title: Blaque

text: Their self-titled debut debuted at number 23 on "Billboard"'s Top R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart, and at number 53 on the official "Billboard" 200 and was certified platinum by RIAA. The album's lead single "808" was a success in the U.S. reaching number 8 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart and earning Gold certification. The follow-up single "I Do" was not a success like the previous singles, reaching number 73 on the R&B/Hip-Hop single chart. The music video for "I Do" was nominated for a MTV Video Music Award for Best Editing. The last single "Bring It All To Me", which featured JC Chasez, was a hit song that made the number 5 position on the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart and topped the Rhythmic charts in late 1999 to early 2000 for six weeks.


title: Blaque

text: In mid-1999, Blaque toured as one of the opening acts for boy band 'N Sync. Blaque also performed as one of the opening acts for TLC's FanMail Tour later that year.


title: Blaque

text: In 2000, the group starred as cheerleaders in the film "Bring It On" and went to the studio and recorded the Shelly Peiken and Guy Roche song "As If" for the soundtrack that same year. A remixed version of the Blaque song "Bring It All To Me" appeared in the film, with added rapping by 50 Cent.


title: Blaque

text: While their self-titled debut album went platinum, the second album called "Blaque Out", which was set for release in 2001, was shelved as the group was dropped from Columbia Records for unknown reasons. The video for the first single "Can't Get It Back" was never released. The album was soon leaked on the Internet. After Lopes's death in a car crash in Honduras on April 25, 2002, the group signed with Elektra Records. They began work on their third album after Reed gave birth to a son. An alternate version of the shelved album was released to iTunes on May 22, 2007, but was later taken down. In December 2011, "Blaque Out" was released back onto iTunes.


title: Blaque

text: Fears was signed to Darkchild Records in 2005. Williams also signed a new record deal and started working on a solo album. She also provided vocals on the hook of Nelly's single "Grillz".


title: Blaque

text: In 2005, Blaque came back together to record their studio album "Private Show" (originally titled "Beauty"). They worked on the album sporadically from 2005 to 2009. Blaque agreed to film a show "Blaque In the House" set to air in the summer of 2008; however, the show was never picked up, and the album went unreleased. Blaque released four songs on YouTube: "Cut You Off", "All Nighter", "Blue Jeans" and "High Definition" before they decided to disband.


title: Blaque

text: On July 28, 2012, Blaque reunited for the Left Eye Music Festival in Decatur, Georgia. At the event, Blaque performed their single "808". Shortly after, the group contracted with artist manager Inga "Nandi" Willis, and started working on an album and a reality television show.


title: Blaque

text: On October 26, 2012, Reed died after being hit by a car near Atlanta, Georgia. The group broke up shortly after her death. Two days later, "Cut You Off", a song intended for the album, leaked via the internet.


title: Blaque

text: Blaque's intended third album, "Torch", featured Missy Elliott, songwriter Linda Perry, and producer Rodney Jerkins. The intended single "Blackout" was derided as a "rip-off" of 50 Cent's song "In da Club".


title: Blaque

text: "Torch" was scheduled to be released exclusively to iTunes in 2008, nearly five years after its completion by Music World Entertainment, but this was canceled. It has been confirmed that Mathew Knowles owns the rights to the albums "Torch" and "Blaque Out".


title: Blaque

text: In addition to their recording work, Reed, Fears, and Williams appeared in the 2000 film "Bring It On" as members of the East Compton Clovers cheerleading squad, fronted by Gabrielle Union. Williams also had a small role (playing herself) in the 2001 movie "On the Line". Blaque also appears on Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes's 2001 solo debut album, "Supernova", on the track titled "Head to the Sky", which was only released internationally. In 2005, two clips of Fears's solo songs titled "The One" and "NJ2" were leaked onto the internet.


title: Larnell Lewis

text: Larnell Lewis (born March 22, 1984) is a Canadian drummer, composer, producer, and educator. He is most well known for playing drums with the Brooklyn-based jazz fusion band Snarky Puppy.


title: Larnell Lewis

text: Born in Toronto, Ontario, Lewis started playing drums at age 2 and was first introduced to drums in church. This is where he began to learn to play a variety of styles including gospel music, soca, calypso, reggae, zouk and funk. He also studied electric bass and piano to further his knowledge of the melodic and harmonic aspects of music making. Lewis’ parents were originally from St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean.


title: Larnell Lewis

text: Lewis attended Humber College, where he was the 2004 recipient of the Oscar Peterson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music, the highest award given by the institution. Lewis was featured on the cover of the September 2016 issue of "Modern Drummer" magazine, alongside fellow Snarky Puppy drummers Robert “Sput” Searight and Jason “JT” Thomas. In 2017 Lewis was named one of the Top 35 artists under 35 by CBC Music, and also received the award for Emerging Jazz Artist from the Ontario Arts Foundation. Lewis served as musical director for a performance during the Toronto International Film Festival's premiere of the critically acclaimed documentary "Quincy", about famed producer Quincy Jones, where he led performances from the likes of Yebba Smith, Mark Ronson, and Chaka Khan.


title: Larnell Lewis

text: In 2018 Lewis released his first solo album, "In The Moment", on which he played bass, drums, guitar, keyboards, melodica, percussion, piano, synthesizer and vocals, in addition to writing and producing.


title: Larnell Lewis

text: In February 2021 Lewis recorded a video for the YouTube channel "Drumeo" in which he listened to the Metallica song "Enter Sandman" for the first time, then played the drum part of the entire song after having heard it just once. The video went viral, with over 11 million views as of July 2022.


title: Larnell Lewis

text: Lewis currently plays and has recorded with musical artists Snarky Puppy and Laila Biali. He has also played with Fred Hammond, Michael Brecker, Matt Dusk, Robi Botos, Molly Johnson, Elizabeth Shepherd, Emilie-Claire Barlow, Barbra Lica and Tia Brazda.


title: Larnell Lewis

text: Lewis's performance on Snarky Puppy's 2014 album "We Like It Here" was noted for his learning most of the songs on the airplane flight to the Netherlands, having only played two of them before the recording date. He also played on the group's 2016 albums Culcha Vulcha, which won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album and Family Dinner – Volume 2.


title: Larnell Lewis

text: Lewis has also played on the JUNO Award-winning albums "Clear Day" by jazz singer Emilie-Claire Barlow, and "Root Structure" by jazz bassist Mike Downes.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: The Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) is a unit of the British Armed Forces. The SFSG is the newest addition to the United Kingdom Special Forces. It was formed officially on 3 April 2006 to provide specialist infantry and other support to the Special Air Service, the Special Reconnaissance Regiment and the Special Boat Service on operations. A tri-service unit, the major element of the SFSG is 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment (1 PARA), reinforced with a company strength group of the Royal Marines. Specialists from the RAF Regiment also form part of the SFSG's strength. The SFSG may provide extra firepower from land or air to fulfil their mission.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: The SFSG also act as the hunter force during the SERE phase of the UKSF Selection; in addition, the SFSG also have a rotating company group trained in Counter Terrorism (CT) to support the on-call SAS or SBS squadrons on CT rotation.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: During the Iraq War, the SFSG was part of Task Force Black/Knight which was composed of a rotational British SAS sabre squadron and a platoon of paratroopers from the SFSG (also known as Task Force Maroon). During the Basra prison incident, a platoon of SFSG accompanied A Squadron 22 SAS to Basra to assist in recovering the two detained SAS operatives. Paratroopers from the SFSG supported SAS operations around Baghdad usually cordoning off areas where the SAS were carrying out their missions. In late 2005/early 2006, the SFSG took part in Operation Lightwater The SFSG platoon in Iraq supported B Squadron 22nd SAS during Operation Larchwood 4, killing one terrorist when he ran out of the target building and hid under a car. Members of the SFSG and the SAS often wore American Army Combat Uniform (ACU) or Desert Camouflage Uniform (DCU) to blend in when operating alongside American JSOC units.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: An SFSG company was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 to support the SBS and SRR as part of Operation Kindle, the UKSF deployment to Afghanistan (known as Task Force 42). On 9 September 2009, the Special Boat Service, supported by the SFSG, conducted a mission to rescue Stephen Farrell; a journalist captured and held at a Taliban safehouse in Char Dara District, Kunduz Province, by Taliban insurgents. The UKSF team was inserted by helicopters from the 160th SOAR, the SBS assaulted the safehouse whilst the SFSG set up a cordon. Farrell was rescued and a number of Taliban were killed, however one member of the SFSG was killed as well as Farrell's Afghan interpreter and two civilians. Between 18–29 December 2009, a company from the SFSG mentored two patrols from Afghan Task Force (ATF) 444-the Afghan special operations group for Helmand Province-during Operation Tor Shpa'h.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: The SFSG have been known to carry out operations in Helmand Province with the United States Marine Corps; they also often conduct unilateral raids (similar to the US Army Rangers), but typically act as both blocking and quick reaction forces for 'Tier 1' units. In August 2013, "The Daily Telegraph" reported that the SFSG, worked hand-in-hand with an elite unit of Afghan commandos, known as Task Force 444, throughout Helmand Province. The unit's A Company arrived in Afghanistan in January for a six-month tour and went on to mount relentless raids against the Taliban. The Ministry of Defence sources confirmed that the SFSG and Afghan strike forces led a series of raids on suspected Taliban bomb-makers in May after three British soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb at the end of April; the raids continued for two or three times a week afterwards. Also the unit targeted insurgent supply lines in the desert near the border with Pakistan, and Taliban bases in the centre of the province. In 2014, the SFSG maintained a high operational tempo months after the official end of offensive operations by UK forces.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: The unit's creation stems from the need to provide infantry support to the United Kingdom Special Forces, which became evident after the Battle of Tora Bora during which two Special Boat Service (SBS) squadrons assaulted the al-Qaeda cave complex.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: The Ministry of Defence does not comment on special forces matters, therefore little verifiable information exists in the public domain.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: During Operation Barras in Sierra Leone, soldiers from 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment were deployed alongside troops from the Special Boat Service (SBS) and D Squadron SAS. This was successful, as the SAS soldiers attacked the encampment containing the hostages while the soldiers from The Parachute Regiment attacked a second encampment.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: In December 2004, it was announced that a unit would be formalised for this role as part of the wider future army structure. It was initially conceived as a battalion of "Rangers", similar to the United States Army Rangers. The SFSG's formation was announced officially by the then Secretary of State for Defence John Reid in Parliament on 20 April 2006. It was established to support British special forces units in battle overseas and on domestic "counter-terrorist" operations. The unit comprises a battalion of Parachute Regiment soldiers, a company of Royal Marine commandos, and a small platoon of RAF Regiment gunners. All soldiers selected for the SFSG have passed either the P Company selection course run by the Parachute Regiment, the Royal Marines Commando course or the RAF Regiment Pre-Parachute selection course. Royal Marines and RAF Regiment gunners are sourced from across their respective Corps.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: The Royal Marines elements form approximately one platoon strength within each of A, B, and C Companies. The RAF Regiment also provide a platoon in B company and forward air controllers to direct close air support. The Support company comprises mortar, sniper, and patrol platoons. The Patrol platoon operates vehicles, including the Jackal.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: There is also a RAF Regiment CBRN unit assigned to the SFSG to provide specialised knowledge and capability to military and civilian agencies in detection and handling of chemical, biological, and radiological/nuclear weapons and materials.


title: Special Forces Support Group

text: Members of the SFSG wear the cap badge and beret of their parent unit, however the unit's DZ Flash—a lightning bolt superimposed on a downwards pointing Excalibur—is worn on the right-hand sleeve.


title: Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization

text: In mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is an ionization technique that uses a laser energy absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. It has been applied to the analysis of biomolecules (biopolymers such as DNA, proteins, peptides and carbohydrates) and various organic molecules (such as polymers, dendrimers and other macromolecules), which tend to be fragile and fragment when ionized by more conventional ionization methods. It is similar in character to electrospray ionization (ESI) in that both techniques are relatively soft (low fragmentation) ways of obtaining ions of large molecules in the gas phase, though MALDI typically produces far fewer multi-charged ions.


text: MALDI methodology is a three-step process. First, the sample is mixed with a suitable matrix material and applied to a metal plate. Second, a pulsed laser irradiates the sample, triggering ablation and desorption of the sample and matrix material. Finally, the analyte molecules are ionized by being protonated or deprotonated in the hot plume of ablated gases, and then they can be accelerated into whichever mass spectrometer is used to analyse them.


text: The term matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) was coined in 1985 by Franz Hillenkamp, Michael Karas and their colleagues. These researchers found that the amino acid alanine could be ionized more easily if it was mixed with the amino acid tryptophan and irradiated with a pulsed 266 nm laser. The tryptophan was absorbing the laser energy and helping to ionize the non-absorbing alanine. Peptides up to the 2843 Da peptide melittin could be ionized when mixed with this kind of "matrix". The breakthrough for large molecule laser desorption ionization came in 1987 when Koichi Tanaka of Shimadzu Corporation and his co-workers used what they called the "ultra fine metal plus liquid matrix method" that combined 30 nm cobalt particles in glycerol with a 337 nm nitrogen laser for ionization. Using this laser and matrix combination, Tanaka was able to ionize biomolecules as large as the 34,472 Da protein carboxypeptidase-A. Tanaka received one-quarter of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for demonstrating that, with the proper combination of laser wavelength and matrix, a protein can be ionized. Karas and Hillenkamp were subsequently able to ionize the 67 kDa protein albumin using a nicotinic acid matrix and a 266 nm laser. Further improvements were realized through the use of a 355 nm laser and the cinnamic acid derivatives ferulic acid, caffeic acid and sinapinic acid as the matrix. The availability of small and relatively inexpensive nitrogen lasers operating at 337 nm wavelength and the first commercial instruments introduced in the early 1990s brought MALDI to an increasing number of researchers. Today, mostly organic matrices are used for MALDI mass spectrometry.


text: The matrix consists of crystallized molecules, of which the three most commonly used are sinapinic acid, α-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamic acid (α-CHCA, alpha-cyano or alpha-matrix) and 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB). A solution of one of these molecules is made, often in a mixture of highly purified water and an organic solvent such as acetonitrile (ACN) or ethanol. A counter ion source such as trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is usually added to generate the [M+H] ions. A good example of a matrix-solution would be 20 mg/mL sinapinic acid in ACN:water:TFA (50:50:0.1).


text: The identification of suitable matrix compounds is determined to some extent by trial and error, but they are based on some specific molecular design considerations. They are of a fairly low molecular weight (to allow easy vaporization), but are large enough (with a low enough vapor pressure) not to evaporate during sample preparation or while standing in the mass spectrometer. They are often acidic, therefore act as a proton source to encourage ionization of the analyte. Basic matrices have also been reported. They have a strong optical absorption in either the UV or IR range, so that they rapidly and efficiently absorb the laser irradiation. This efficiency is commonly associated with chemical structures incorporating several conjugated double bonds, as seen in the structure of cinnamic acid. They are functionalized with polar groups, allowing their use in aqueous solutions. They typically contain a chromophore.


text: The matrix solution is mixed with the analyte (e.g. protein-sample). A mixture of water and organic solvent allows both hydrophobic and water-soluble (hydrophilic) molecules to dissolve into the solution. This solution is spotted onto a MALDI plate (usually a metal plate designed for this purpose). The solvents vaporize, leaving only the recrystallized matrix, but now with analyte molecules embedded into MALDI crystals. The matrix and the analyte are said to be co-crystallized. Co-crystallization is a key issue in selecting a proper matrix to obtain a good quality mass spectrum of the analyte of interest.


text: In analysis of biological systems, inorganic salts, which are also part of protein extracts, interfere with the ionization process. The salts can be removed by solid phase extraction or by washing the dried-droplet MALDI spots with cold water. Both methods can also remove other substances from the sample. The matrix-protein mixture is not homogeneous because the polarity difference leads to a separation of the two substances during co-crystallization. The spot diameter of the target is much larger than that of the laser, which makes it necessary to make many laser shots at different places of the target, to get the statistical average of the substance concentration within the target spot.


text: The matrix can be used to tune the instrument to ionize the sample in different ways. As mentioned above, acid-base like reactions are often utilized to ionize the sample, however, molecules with conjugated pi systems, such as naphthalene like compounds, can also serve as an electron acceptor and thus a matrix for MALDI/TOF. This is particularly useful in studying molecules that also possess conjugated pi systems. The most widely used application for these matrices is studying porphyrin-like compounds such as chlorophyll. These matrices have been shown to have better ionization patterns that do not result in odd fragmentation patterns or complete loss of side chains. It has also been suggested that conjugated porphyrin like molecules can serve as a matrix and cleave themselves eliminating the need for a separate matrix compound.


text: There are several variations of the MALDI technology and comparable instruments are today produced for very different purposes. From more academic and analytical, to more industrial and high throughput. The mass spectrometry field has expanded into requiring ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry such as the FT-ICR instruments as well as more high-throughput instruments. As many MALDI MS instruments can be bought with an interchangeable ionization source (electrospray ionization, MALDI, atmospheric pressure ionization, etc.) the technologies often overlap and many times any soft ionization method could potentially be used. For more variations of soft ionization methods see: Soft laser desorption or Ion source.


text: MALDI techniques typically employ the use of UV lasers such as nitrogen lasers (337 nm) and frequency-tripled and quadrupled (355 nm and 266 nm respectively).


text: Infrared laser wavelengths used for infrared MALDI include the 2.94 μm , mid-IR optical parametric oscillator, and 10.6 μm carbon dioxide laser. Although not as common, infrared lasers are used due to their softer mode of ionization. IR-MALDI also has the advantage of greater material removal (useful for biological samples), less low-mass interference, and compatibility with other matrix-free laser desorption mass spectrometry methods.


text: The type of a mass spectrometer most widely used with MALDI is the time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF), mainly due to its large mass range. The TOF measurement procedure is also ideally suited to the MALDI ionization process since the pulsed laser takes individual 'shots' rather than working in continuous operation. MALDI-TOF instruments are often equipped with a reflectron (an "ion mirror") that reflects ions using an electric field. This increases the ion flight path, thereby increasing time of flight between ions of different m/z and increasing resolution. Modern commercial reflectron TOF instruments reach a resolving power m/Δm of 50,000 FWHM (full-width half-maximum, Δm defined as the peak width at 50% of peak height) or more.


text: MALDI-FT-ICR MS has been demonstrated to be a useful technique where high resolution MALDI-MS measurements are desired.


text: Atmospheric pressure (AP) matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is an ionization technique (ion source) that in contrast to vacuum MALDI operates at normal atmospheric environment. The main difference between vacuum MALDI and AP-MALDI is the pressure in which the ions are created. In vacuum MALDI, ions are typically produced at 10 mTorr or less while in AP-MALDI ions are formed in atmospheric pressure. In the past the main disadvantage of the AP-MALDI technique compared to the conventional vacuum MALDI has been its limited sensitivity; however, ions can be transferred into the mass spectrometer with high efficiency and attomole detection limits have been reported. AP-MALDI is used in mass spectrometry (MS) in a variety of applications ranging from proteomics to drug discovery. Popular topics that are addressed by AP-MALDI mass spectrometry include: proteomics; mass analysis of DNA, RNA, PNA, lipids, oligosaccharides, phosphopeptides, bacteria, small molecules and synthetic polymers, similar applications as available also for vacuum MALDI instruments. The AP-MALDI ion source is easily coupled to an ion trap mass spectrometer or any other MS system equipped with electrospray ionization (ESI) or nanoESI source.


text: MALDI with ionization at reduced pressure is known to produce mainly singly-charged ions (see "Ionization mechanism" below). In contrast, ionization at atmopsheric pressure can generate highly-charged analytes as was first shown for infrared and later also for nitrogen lasers. Multiple charging of analytes is of great importance, because it allows to measure high-molecular-weight compounds like proteins in instruments, which provide only smaller "m/z" detection ranges such as quadrupoles. Besides the pressure, the composition of the matrix is important to achive this effect.


text: In aerosol mass spectrometry, one of the ionization techniques consists in firing a laser to individual droplets. These systems are called single particle mass spectrometers (SPMS). The sample may optionally be mixed with a MALDI matrix prior to aerosolization.


text: The laser is fired at the matrix crystals in the dried-droplet spot. The matrix absorbs the laser energy and it is thought that primarily the matrix is desorbed and ionized (by addition of a proton) by this event. The hot plume produced during ablation contains many species: neutral and ionized matrix molecules, protonated and deprotonated matrix molecules, matrix clusters and nanodroplets. Ablated species may participate in the ionization of analyte, though the mechanism of MALDI is still debated. The matrix is then thought to transfer protons to the analyte molecules (e.g., protein molecules), thus charging the analyte. An ion observed after this process will consist of the initial neutral molecule [M] with ions added or removed. This is called a quasimolecular ion, for example [M+H] in the case of an added proton, [M+Na] in the case of an added sodium ion, or [M-H] in the case of a removed proton. MALDI is capable of creating singly charged ions or multiply charged ions ([M+nH]) depending on the nature of the matrix, the laser intensity, and/or the voltage used. Note that these are all even-electron species. Ion signals of radical cations (photoionized molecules) can be observed, e.g., in the case of matrix molecules and other organic molecules.


text: The gas phase proton transfer model, implemented as the coupled physical and chemical dynamics (CPCD) model, of UV laser MALDI postulates primary and secondary processes leading to ionization. Primary processes involve initial charge separation through absorption of photons by the matrix and pooling of the energy to form matrix ion pairs. Primary ion formation occurs through absorption of a UV photon to create excited state molecules by


text: where S is the ground electronic state, S the first electronic excited state, and S is a higher electronic excited state. The product ions can be proton transfer or electron transfer ion pairs, indicated by M and M above. Secondary processes involve ion-molecule reactions to form analyte ions.


text: The lucky survivor model (cluster ionization mechanism) postulates that analyte molecules are incorporated in the matrix maintaining the charge state from solution. Ion formation occurs through charge separation upon fragmentation of laser ablated clusters. Ions that are not neutralized by recombination with photoelectrons or counter ions are the so-called lucky survivors.


text: The thermal model postulates that the high temperature facilitates the proton transfer between matrix and analyte in melted matrix liquid. Ion-to-neutral ratio is an important parameter to justify the theoretical model, and the mistaken citation of ion-to-neutral ratio could result in an erroneous determination of the ionization mechanism. The model quantitatively predicts the increase in total ion intensity as a function of the concentration and proton affinity of the analytes, and the ion-to-neutral ratio as a function of the laser fluences. This model also suggests that metal ion adducts (e.g., [M+Na] or [M+K]) are mainly generated from the thermally induced dissolution of salt.


text: The matrix-assisted ionization (MAI) method uses matrix preparation similar to MALDI but does not require laser ablation to produce analyte ions of volatile or nonvolatile compounds. Simply exposing the matrix with analyte to the vacuum of the mass spectrometer creates ions with nearly identical charge states to electrospray ionization. It is suggested that there are likely mechanistic commonality between this process and MALDI.


text: Ion yield is typically estimated to range from 10 to 10, with some experiments hinting to even lower yields of 10. The issue of low ion yields had been addressed, already shortly after introduction of MALDI by various attempts, including post-ionization utilizing a second laser. Most of these attempts showed only limited success, with low signal increases. This might be attributed to the fact, that axial time-of-flight instruments were used, which operate at pressures in the source region of 10 to 10, which results in rapid plume expansion with particle velocities of up to 1000 m/s. In 2015 successful laser post-ionization was reported, using a modified MALDI source operated at an elevated pressure of ~3 mbar coupled to an orthogonal time-of-flight mass analyzer, and employing a wavelength-tunable post-ionization laser, operated at wavelength from 260 nm to 280 nm, below the two-photon ionization threshold of the matrices used, which elevated ion yields of several lipids and small molecules by up to three orders of magnitude. This approach, called MALDI-2, due to the second laser, and the second MALDI-like ionization process, was afterwards adopted for other mass spectrometers, all equipped with sources operating in the low mbar range.


text: In proteomics, MALDI is used for the rapid identification of proteins isolated by using gel electrophoresis: SDS-PAGE, size exclusion chromatography, affinity chromatography, strong/weak ion exchange, isotope coded protein labeling (ICPL), and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Peptide mass fingerprinting is the most popular analytical application of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometers. MALDI TOF/TOF mass spectrometers are used to reveal amino acid sequence of peptides using post-source decay or high energy collision-induced dissociation (further use see mass spectrometry).


text: MALDI-TOF have been used to characterise post-translational modifications. For example, it has been widely applied to study protein methylation and demethylation. However, care must be taken when studying post-translational modifications by MALDI-TOF. For example, it has been reported that loss of sialic acid has been identified in papers when dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB) has been used as a matrix for MALDI MS analysis of glycosylated peptides. Using sinapinic acid, 4-HCCA and DHB as matrices, S. Martin studied loss of sialic acid in glycosylated peptides by metastable decay in MALDI/TOF in linear mode and reflector mode. A group at Shimadzu Corporation derivatized the sialic acid by an amidation reaction as a way to improve detection sensitivity and also demonstrated that ionic liquid matrix reduces a loss of sialic acid during MALDI/TOF MS analysis of sialylated oligosaccharides. THAP, DHAP, and a mixture of 2-aza-2-thiothymine and phenylhydrazine have been identified as matrices that could be used to minimize loss of sialic acid during MALDI MS analysis of glycosylated peptides. It has been reported that a reduction in loss of some post-translational modifications can be accomplished if IR MALDI is used instead of UV MALDI


text: Besides proteins, MALDI-TOF has also been applied to study lipids. For example, it has been applied to study the catalytic reactions of phospholipases. In addition to lipids, oligonucleotides have also been characterised by MALDI-TOF. For example, in molecular biology, a mixture of 5-methoxysalicylic acid and spermine can be used as a matrix for oligonucleotides analysis in MALDI mass spectrometry, for instance after oligonucleotide synthesis.


text: Some synthetic macromolecules, such as catenanes and rotaxanes, dendrimers and hyperbranched polymers, and other assemblies, have molecular weights extending into the thousands or tens of thousands, where most ionization techniques have difficulty producing molecular ions. MALDI is a simple and fast analytical method that can allow chemists to rapidly analyze the results of such syntheses and verify their results.


text: In polymer chemistry MALDI can be used to determine the molar mass distribution. Polymers with polydispersity greater than 1.2 are difficult to characterize with MALDI due to the signal intensity discrimination against higher mass oligomers.


text: A good matrix for polymers is dithranol or AgTFA. The sample must first be mixed with dithranol and the AgTFA added afterwards; otherwise the sample will precipitate out of solution.


text: MALDI-TOF spectra are often used for the identification of microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi. A portion of a colony of the microbe in question is placed onto the sample target and overlaid with matrix. The mass spectra of expressed proteins generated are analyzed by dedicated software and compared with stored profiles for species determination in what is known as biotyping. It offers benefits to other immunological or biochemical procedures and has become a common method for species identification in clinical microbiological laboratories. Benefits of high resolution MALDI-MS performed on a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (also known as FT-MS) have been demonstrated for typing and subtyping viruses though single ion detection known as proteotyping, with a particular focus on influenza viruses.


text: One main advantage over other microbiological identification methods is its ability to rapidly and reliably identify, at low cost, a wide variety of microorganisms directly from the selective medium used to isolate them. The absence of the need to purify the suspect or "presumptive" colony allows for a much faster turn-around times. For example, it has been demonstrated that MALDI-TOF can be used to detect bacteria directly from blood cultures.


text: Another advantage is the potential to predict antibiotic susceptibility of bacteria. A single mass spectral peak can predict methicillin resistance of "Staphylococcus aureus" MALDI can also detect carbapenemase of carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, including "Acinetobacter baumannii" and "Klebsiella pneumoniae". However, most proteins that mediate antibiotic resistance are larger than MALDI-TOF's 2000–20,000 Da range for protein peak interpretation and only occasionally, as in the 2011"Klebsiella pneumoniae" carbapenemase (KPC) outbreak at the NIH, a correlation between a peak and resistance conferring protein can be made.


text: MALDI-TOF spectra have been used for the detection and identification of various parasites such as trypanosomatids, "Leishmania" and "Plasmodium". In addition to these unicellular parasites, MALDI/TOF can be used for the identification of parasitic insects such as lice or cercariae, the free-swimming stage of trematodes.


text: MALDI-TOF spectra are often utilized in tandem with other analysis and spectroscopy techniques in the diagnosis of diseases. MALDI/TOF is a diagnostic tool with much potential because it allows for the rapid identification of proteins and changes to proteins without the cost or computing power of sequencing nor the skill or time needed to solve a crystal structure in X-ray crystallography.


text: One example of this is necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), which is a devastating disease that affects the bowels of premature infants. The symptoms of NEC are very similar to those of sepsis, and many infants die awaiting diagnosis and treatment. MALDI/TOF was used to identify bacteria present in the fecal matter of NEC positive infants. This study focused on characterization of the fecal microbiota associated with NEC and did not address the mechanism of disease. There is hope that a similar technique could be used as a quick, diagnostic tool that would not require sequencing.


text: Another example of the diagnostic power of MALDI/TOF is in the area of cancer. Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most deadly and difficult to diagnose cancers. Impaired cellular signaling due to mutations in membrane proteins has been long suspected to contribute to pancreatic cancer. MALDI/TOF has been used to identify a membrane protein associated with pancreatic cancer and at one point may even serve as an early detection technique.


text: MALDI/TOF can also potentially be used to dictate treatment as well as diagnosis. MALDI/TOF serves as a method for determining the drug resistance of bacteria, especially to β-lactams (Penicillin family). The MALDI/TOF detects the presence of carbapenemases, which indicates drug resistance to standard antibiotics. It is predicted that this could serve as a method for identifying a bacterium as drug resistant in as little as three hours. This technique could help physicians decide whether to prescribe more aggressive antibiotics initially.