title: Epidemic typhus

text: 55. ↑ Alice S. Chapman (2006). "Cluster of Sylvatic Epidemic Typhus Cases Associated with Flying Squirrels, 2004 - 2006" MedscapeCME Epidemic Typhus Associated with Flying Squirrels -- United States


title: Hardware (film)

text: Hardware is a 1990 British science fiction horror film starring Dylan McDermott and Stacey Travis. The film, which was written and directed by Richard Stanley (in his feature directorial debut), also features cameos from Carl McCoy, Iggy Pop and Lemmy. Since its release, it has become a cult film. The film is about a self-repairing robot that goes on a rampage in a post-apocalyptic slum. Fleetway Comics successfully sued the film-makers over the screenplay because it plagiarised a short story entitled "SHOK!" that appeared in 1980 in the "Judge Dredd Annual 1981", a spin-off publication of the popular British weekly anthology comic "2000 AD".


title: Hardware (film)

text: A nomad scavenger treks through an irradiated wasteland and discovers a buried robot. He collects the pieces and takes them to junk dealer Alvy, who is talking with 'Hard Mo' Baxter, a former soldier, and Mo's friend Shades. When Alvy steps away, Mo buys the robot parts from the nomad and sells all but the head to Alvy. Intrigued by the technology, Alvy begins to research its background. Mo and Shades visit Jill, Mo's reclusive girlfriend, and, after an initially distant welcome where Jill checks them with a Geiger counter, Mo presents the robot head as a Christmas gift. Jill, a metal sculptor, eagerly accepts the head. After Shades leaves, they have loud, passionate sex, while being unknowingly watched by their foul-mouthed, perverted, voyeuristic neighbour Lincoln Weinberg via telescope.


title: Hardware (film)

text: Later, Mo and Jill argue about a government sterilization plan and the morality of having children. Jill works the robot head into a sculpture, and Mo says that he likes the work, but he does not understand what it represents. Frustrated, Jill says it represents nothing and resents Mo's suggestion that she make more commercial art to sell. They are interrupted by Alvy, who urges Mo to return to the shop, as he has important news about the robot, which he says is a M.A.R.K. 13. Before he leaves, Mo checks his Bible, where he finds the phrase "No flesh shall be spared" under Mark 13:20, and he becomes suspicious that the robot is part of a government plot for human genocide to address the planet's severe overpopulation crisis. Mo finds Alvy dead of a cytotoxin and evidence that the robot is an experimental combat model capable of self-repair; Alvy's notes also indicate a defect, a weakness to humidity. Worried, Mo contacts Shades and asks him to check on Jill, but Shades is in the middle of a drug trip and barely coherent.


title: Hardware (film)

text: Back at the apartment, the robot has reassembled itself using pieces of Jill's metal sculptures and recharged by draining her apartment's power network. It attempts to kill Jill, but she traps it in a room after the apartment's doors lock. Lincoln sees the robot close the blinds while trying to peep on Jill, and, after he briefly manages to open the apartment door, makes crude sexual advances towards her, and offers to override the emergency lock that traps them in her apartment. Lincoln dismisses her warnings of a killer robot, and, when he attempts to open Jill's blinds so that he can more easily peep on her, the M.A.R.K. 13 brutally kills him. Jill flees into her kitchen, where she reasons that her refrigerator will hide her from the robot's infrared vision. She damages the robot before Mo, Shades, and the apartment's security team arrive and open fire on it, apparently destroying it.


title: Hardware (film)

text: As Jill and Mo embrace, the M.A.R.K. 13 drags her out a window, and she crashes into her neighbour's apartment. Jill races back upstairs to help Mo, who is alone with the M.A.R.K. 13. Overconfident, Mo engages the robot in battle, and it injects him with the same toxin that killed Alvy. Mo experiences euphoria and a series of hallucinations as he dies. After Jill re-enters her apartment, the M.A.R.K. 13 sets her apartment doors to rapidly open and close; the security team die when they attempt to enter, and Shades is trapped outside. Jill hacks into the M.A.R.K. 13's CPU and unsuccessfully attempts to communicate with it; however, she discovers the robot's weakness and lures the M.A.R.K. 13 into the bathroom. Shades, who has managed to quickly jump through the doors, gives her time to turn on the shower. The M.A.R.K. 13 short circuits and is finally deactivated. The next morning, a radio broadcast announces that the M.A.R.K. 13 has been approved by the government, and it will be mass manufactured.


title: Hardware (film)

text: The film's script was similar to a short "2000 AD" comic strip called "SHOK!" which had been published in 1980. Fleetway Comics brought a successful lawsuit that the film plagiarized the comic strip and so a notice was added to later releases, giving credits to the strip's publisher, Fleetway Publications and creators, Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill. Other influences include "Soylent Green", "Damnation Alley", and the works of Philip K. Dick.


title: Hardware (film)

text: Writer-director Richard Stanley had previously made a post-apocalyptic short film when he was a teenager, and "Hardware" grew out of that film and responses he got from other, unproduced scripts. By the late 1980s, Stanley had accompanied a guerrilla Muslim faction in the Soviet–Afghan War in order to shoot a documentary. He started pre-production of "Hardware" almost immediately after leaving Afghanistan. The opening scene was shot in Morocco, and the rest of the film was shot in east London. The film was originally more specifically British, but Miramax insisted on American leads. Stanley then added a multinational cast to muddy the setting. Stanley wanted to emphasize themes of fascism and passive acceptance of authoritarianism, as he had recently come from the apartheid regime of South Africa. Stanley says that the robot does not know that it is committing evil, and it only obeys its programming, which could be likened to a spiritual quest. Psychic TV was an inspiration for the exaggerated television broadcasts.


title: Hardware (film)

text: "Hardware" was originally rated "X" by the MPAA for its gore. It was later cut to avoid the stigma of a rating associated with pornography.


title: Hardware (film)

text: In the United States, the film debuted at number six. It grossed $2,381,285 in its opening weekend and had a total domestic gross of $5,728,953 in 695 theaters.


title: Hardware (film)

text: Due to its unexpected success, the film was caught up in continual legal issues that prevented its release on DVD for many years.


title: Hardware (film)

text: "Hardware" was released on Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray Disc on 22 June 2009. It was released on Region free DVD and Blu-ray Disc on 13 October 2009 by Severin Films.


title: Hardware (film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes shows that the film received positive reviews from 46% of 13 surveyed critics; the average rating was 5.7/10. On its original release, "Hardware" received mixed reviews from critics, who cited it as derivative of "Alien" and "The Terminator". Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" rated the film D+ and called it unoriginal, "as if someone had remade "Alien" with the monster played by a rusty erector set." "Variety" wrote, "A cacophonic, nightmarish variation on the postapocalyptic cautionary genre, "Hardware" has the makings of a punk cult film." Michael Wilmington of the "Los Angeles Times" called it a shallow splatter film whose exaggerated bleakness elevates it above the typical techno-thriller. Hardware has the "inherent blemishes of the techno-thriller genre", its bringing life in post-industrialism to the level of drones, and exaggerated high-tech bloodbaths. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" described it as a future midnight movie and wrote, "Watching "Hardware" is like being trapped inside a video game that talks dirty." Richard Harrington of "The Washington Post" called it "an MTV movie, a mad rush of hyperkinetic style and futuristic imagery with little concern for plot (much less substance)."


title: Hardware (film)

text: Despite mixed reviews during original release, "Hardware" managed to become a cult film. Ian Berriman of "SFX" wrote, "It's one of those lovingly crafted movies where ingenuity and enthusiasm overcome the budgetary limitations." Matt Serafini of Dread Central rated it 4/5 stars and wrote, ""Hardware" isn't "quite" the masterpiece that some its most ardent fans have claimed, but it's an excellent piece of low-budget filmmaking from an era when low-budget wasn't synonymous with camcorder crap." Bloody Disgusting rated it 3.5/5 stars and called it "an austere and trippy film" with a narrative that is "a disjointed mess"; however, the film's excesses make it a cult film. Todd Brown of Twitch Film called it "essentially a lower budget, more intentionally punk take on "The Terminator"" that has an "undeniable ... sense of style". At DVD Verdict, Daryl Loomis called it slow-paced but stylistic and atmospheric, and Gordon Sullivan called it "a hallucinatory and violent film" that has an overly detailed, slow-paced beginning. Writing for DVD Talk, Kurt Dahlke rated it 3/5 stars and called it a "forgotten gem" that "is overwhelmed by style and gore", and Brian Orndorf called it "an art-house, sci-fi gorefest" that is moody and atmospheric without buckling under its own weight. Michael Gingold of "Fangoria" rated it 3/4 stars and wrote, "If the ingredients of HARDWARE are familiar, Stanley cooks them to a boil with a relentless pace and imagery that makes his future a tactile place".


title: NEVER Openweight Championship

text: The is a professional wrestling championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. NEVER is an acronym of the terms "New Blood", "Evolution", "Valiantly", "Eternal", and "Radical" and was an NJPW-promoted series of events, which featured younger up-and-coming talent and outside wrestlers not signed to the promotion. The project was officially announced on July 12, 2010, and held its first event on August 24, 2010. On October 5, 2012, NJPW announced that NEVER was going to get its own championship, the NEVER Openweight Championship. The current champion is WWE Raw wrestler Karl Anderson, who is in his first reign.


title: NEVER Openweight Championship

text: The title was originally scheduled to be defended exclusively at NEVER events, but this plan was quickly changed and since its foundation, the title has been defended on the undercards of NJPW events. The original concept of having younger workers wrestle for the title has also not been realized with the first seven holders of the title having been in their thirties or forties. Instead, through the likes of Katsuyori Shibata, Togi Makabe, and Tomohiro Ishii, the NEVER Openweight Championship became known for its "gritty" title matches and "hard hitting" style. Though named an "openweight" championship, NJPW has also categorized the title as a heavyweight title. The title forms what has unofficially been called the "New Japan Triple Crown" (新日本トリプルクラウン, "Shin Nihon Toripuru Kuraun") along with the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and the IWGP Intercontinental Championship. The title's openweight nature means that both heavyweight and junior heavyweight wrestlers are eligible to challenge for it.


title: NEVER Openweight Championship

text: On October 5, 2012, over two years after the founding of NEVER, New Japan Pro-Wrestling announced the creation of the project's first championship, the NEVER Openweight Championship. The title was originally created with the idea of using it to "elevate younger wrestlers". The first champion was to be determined in a sixteen-man single-elimination tournament, which was set to take place November 15 and 19, 2012. The title and the tournament were announced by New Japan president Naoki Sugabayashi and NEVER regular Tetsuya Naito, who was scheduled to enter the tournament, but was forced to pull out after suffering a knee injury. Much like regular NEVER events, the tournament also featured wrestlers not signed to New Japan; freelancer Daisuke Sasaki, Hiro Tonai, Kengo Mashimo, Ryuichi Sekine, Shiori Asahi and Taishi Takizawa from Kaientai Dojo, and Masato Tanaka from Pro Wrestling Zero1. In the final of the tournament, Tanaka, the 39-year-old, who, despite officially being affiliated with Pro Wrestling Zero1, had worked for NJPW regularly since August 2009, defeated Karl Anderson to become the inaugural NEVER Openweight Champion. Though the title was originally designed to be defended at NEVER events, NJPW has not held a single NEVER event since the championship tournament.


title: NEVER Openweight Championship

text: There have been 37 reigns shared among 21 wrestlers with one vacancy. Masato Tanaka was the first champion in the title's history. He also holds the record for the longest reign at days during his only reign. Tomohiro Ishii has the most reigns with six. Michael Elgin's only reign of 8 days is the shortest in the title's history. Minoru Suzuki is the oldest champion when he won it at 52 years old, while Will Ospreay is the youngest champion at 25 years old.


title: NEVER Openweight Championship

text: Karl Anderson is the current champion in his first reign. He defeated Tama Tonga on June 12, 2022 at Dominion 6.12 in Osaka-jo Hall in Osaka, Japan.


title: John Redwood

text: Sir John Alan Redwood (born 15 June 1951) is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wokingham in Berkshire since 1987. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Secretary of State for Wales in the Major government and was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party in the 1990s. Redwood subsequently served in the Shadow Cabinets of William Hague and Michael Howard; he has remained a backbencher since then.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood is a veteran Eurosceptic who was described in 1993 as a "pragmatic Thatcherite". He was the co-chairman of the Conservative Party's Policy Review Group on Economic Competitiveness until 2010. He has the role of Chief Global Strategist of investment management company Charles Stanley & Co Ltd (part of Charles Stanley Group). Redwood is a long-term critic of the European Union and of the United Kingdom's former membership of it. He supported Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum, and is a member of the British Eurosceptic pressure group Leave Means Leave.


title: John Redwood

text: John Redwood was born in Dover, the second child of William Redwood (1925–2016), an accountant and company secretary, and his wife, Amy Emma ("née" Champion), the manager of a shoe shop. He had an elder sister, Jennifer, who died as a baby in 1949. He grew up in a council house, and describes his family buying their own house as a "big breakthrough" for the family.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood was educated at independent Kent College, Canterbury, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated BA in modern history in 1971. He was a postgraduate at St Antony's College, Oxford, from 1971 to 1972 and was elected an Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, from 1972 to 1979, which later led to a distinguished fellowship in 2007. At All Souls, he wrote a DPhil thesis which investigated the fear of atheism in England, from the Restoration to the publication of "Alciphron" by George Berkeley. He graduated DPhil in 1975.


title: John Redwood

text: He was an Oxfordshire county councillor between 1973 and 1977, the youngest ever at the age of 21 when elected, and stood in the Peckham by-election of October 1982 where he lost to Harriet Harman. From 1983 onwards, he headed Margaret Thatcher's policy unit, where he was one of the champions of privatisation.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood became MP for Wokingham in June 1987. Redwood was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in July 1989 for corporate affairs at the Department of Trade and Industry. In November 1990, he was promoted to Minister of State. Redwood became Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities following the 1992 general election, where he oversaw the abolition of the Community Charge, known as the "poll tax", and its replacement with the Council Tax.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood was opposed to attempts to reduce the age of consent for homosexuality in both 1994 and 1999, choosing to vote to keep Section 28 in November 2003. He has generally been opposed to same-sex marriage. He voted for the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1988, 1990 and 1994 and voiced support for the reintroducing of the death penalty when he launched his leadership bid on 26 June 1995. Redwood has stated since then: "I have never spoken or written against civil partnerships and gay marriage and am not proposing any change to current laws. I regard the debate about capital punishment as being over and do not support its reintroduction."


title: John Redwood

text: In the government reshuffle of May 1993, Redwood was appointed to the cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales. He deferred some road-widening schemes in Wales because of suggested harm to the environment.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood committed a gaffe in 1993, when he attempted to mime to the Welsh national anthem at the Welsh Conservative Party conference, when he did not know the words. Redwood subsequently learned the anthem but, in August 2007, an unconnected news story on Redwood was illustrated with the same clip. This resulted in Conservative activists filing complaints, and as a result the BBC apologised to Redwood for airing the dated footage.


title: John Redwood

text: In February 1995, he was at loggerheads with the Countryside Council for Wales, because he had decided to cut its grant by 16%. He also launched a scheme to provide more funding for popular schools with high numbers of applicants and concentrated extra expenditure on health and education services, away from administrative overheads.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood consequently gained a somewhat haughty reputation with apparent disregard for national feeling; this did not endear him further to some of the population, including when he returned £100 million of Wales's block grant to the Treasury unspent in 1995.


title: John Redwood

text: When John Major called upon his critics to "put up or shut up" and tendered his resignation to allow for a leadership challenge, Redwood resigned from the Cabinet, and stood against Major in the subsequent party leadership election on 26 June 1995. In the ballot held on 4 July 1995, Redwood received 89 votes, around a quarter of the then Parliamentary Party. Major received 218 votes, or two thirds of the parliamentary party vote. The newspaper "The Sun" had declared its support for Redwood in the run up to the leadership contest, running the front-page headline "Redwood versus Deadwood".


title: John Redwood

text: When Major resigned as party leader following the General Election defeat of May 1997, Redwood stood in the resulting election for the leadership, and was again defeated. After being defeated in the third round with 38 votes to Kenneth Clarke's 64 and William Hague's 62, Redwood backed Clarke against Hague.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood was subsequently appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry by the victorious William Hague. He was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions in June 1999, but was dropped in a mini reshuffle in February 2000, being succeeded by Archie Norman.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood is a veteran Eurosceptic. A critic of the Euro before its launch, in 2011 Redwood suggested that the Eurozone should "break up", and proposed that the United Kingdom should give up its Council voting rights in return for the ability to opt out of any EU legislation. There are no existing laws that would permit such an arrangement, as it would make European law not apply evenly across the Union as a whole. Later that year, he joined 81 rebel Conservative MPs in voting for an in-out referendum for leaving the European Union, saying afterwards "People used to call me an extreme Eurosceptic. Now I’m a moderate." Before the Brexit referendum, Redwood wrote that, to Conservative Eurosceptics like him, leaving the EU was "more important than which party wins the next election or who is the prime minister."


title: John Redwood

text: Since then, he has suggested the United Kingdom need not prioritise a post-Brexit deal with the EU, and received criticism for writing an investment advice column which recommended investors "look further afield" than the United Kingdom. Redwood denied this interpretation, saying that he simply advises investors of where international markets are heading and did not write an investment column "recommending investors pull their money out of the United Kingdom".


title: John Redwood

text: In statements to media and in the House of Commons, Redwood has consistently defended the position that the UK should not pay the so-called Brexit bill (amounting to around £39 billion). This is in line with a House of Lords EU financial affairs committee report, which itself is contested on its legal soundness since the financial settlement simply reflects commitments already entered into by the UK under the EU's multi-annual financial framework for the years 2014–2020 and therefore is not linked to the process of the UK leaving the European Union. In December 2019, Redwood voted in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement through which the UK accepts to pay its outstanding financial obligations to the EU.


title: John Redwood

text: In June 2021, Redwood criticised the composition of the G7 which includes the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council in addition to representatives from France, Germany and Italy. According to Redwood this hands a majority to the EU in the G7, even if the G7 does not take decisions through majority voting.


title: John Redwood

text: He has often been compared to a Vulcan, a comparison originally made by Matthew Parris, due to his physical appearance and intonation, a preference for making arguments with logic over passion and a perception for being cold and humourless. Redwood said that he does not like the description but "if you don't like the heat then get out of the kitchen". He continued, "I think people sometimes go for those kind of things because they haven't managed to trap me in the more normal way".


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood supports the establishment of a devolved English parliament. Following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Redwood called for radical reform involving the establishment of an English Parliament. His politicking prior to and succeeding the referendum placed him "front and centre" to any political gain due to the perceived power vacuum resulting from any possible changes to the status quo of the union.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood worked as an investment analyst, manager and director for Robert Fleming and for NM Rothschild in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2007 he co-founded Evercore Pan-Asset Capital Management Ltd, a financial management company, which was subsequently sold to Charles Stanley. He is currently Chief Global Strategist at Charles Stanley & Co Ltd. He was previously a non-executive chairman of Mabey Securities, an investment arm of the engineering firm Mabey.


title: John Redwood

text: He married Gail Felicity Chippington, a barrister, on 20 April 1974 in Chipping Norton; they had two children, Catherine (born 1978) and Richard (born 1982). The marriage broke down after 28 years, and they divorced a year later in July 2003.


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood was interviewed about the rise of Thatcherism for the BBC television documentary series of 2006, "Tory! Tory! Tory!", and has often appeared on television, including appearances on the BBC's "Question Time".


title: John Redwood

text: Redwood regularly updates a blog of political commentary which he has called "John Redwood's Diary". Printed and bound copies of this blog are housed at the British Library and can be accessed through the British Library catalogue.


title: Mono (software)

text: Mono is a free and open-source .NET Framework-compatible software framework. Originally by Ximian, it was later acquired by Novell, and is now being led by Xamarin, a subsidiary of Microsoft and the .NET Foundation. Mono can be run on many software systems.


title: Mono (software)

text: When Microsoft first announced their .NET Framework in June 2000 it was described as "a new platform based on Internet standards", and in December of that year the underlying Common Language Infrastructure was published as an open standard, "ECMA-335", opening up the potential for independent implementations. Miguel de Icaza of Ximian believed that .NET had the potential to increase programmer productivity and began investigating whether a Linux version was feasible. Recognizing that their small team could not expect to build and support a full product, they launched the Mono open-source project, on July 19, 2001 at the O'Reilly conference.


title: Mono (software)

text: After three years of development, Mono 1.0 was released on June 30, 2004. Mono evolved from its initial focus of a developer platform for Linux desktop applications to supporting a wide range of architectures and operating systems - including embedded systems.


title: Mono (software)

text: Novell acquired Ximian in 2003. After Novell was acquired by Attachmate in April 2011, Attachmate announced hundreds of layoffs for the Novell workforce, putting in question the future of Mono.


title: Mono (software)

text: On May 16, Miguel de Icaza announced in his blog that Mono would continue to be supported by Xamarin, a company he founded after being laid off from Novell. The original Mono team had also moved to the new company. Xamarin planned to keep working on Mono and had planned to rewrite the proprietary .NET stacks for iOS and Android from scratch, because Novell still owned MonoTouch and Mono for Android at the time. After this announcement, the future of the project was questioned, MonoTouch and Mono for Android being in direct competition with the existing commercial offerings now owned by Attachmate, and considering that the Xamarin team would have difficulties proving that they did not use technologies they formerly developed when they were employed by Novell for the same work. However, in July 2011, Novell, now a subsidiary of Attachmate, and Xamarin, announced that it granted a perpetual license to Xamarin for Mono, MonoTouch and Mono for Android, which officially took stewardship of the project.


title: Mono (software)

text: Mono's current version is 6.0.0 (). This version provides the core API of the .NET Framework and support for Visual Basic.NET and C# 7.0. LINQ to Objects, XML, and SQL are part of the distribution. Windows Forms 2.0 is also supported, but not actively developed, and as such its support on Mono is incomplete. Version 4.0 was the first version that incorporates Microsoft original source code that was released by Microsoft as part of the .NET Core project.


title: Mono (software)

text: As of January 14, 2021, Mono has full support for all the features in .NET 4.7 except Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) (which the Mono team do not plan to support due to the amount of work it would need) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), and with only limited support for Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and the ASP.NET async stack. However, System.Web and WCF are candidates for 'almost immediate' porting from the .NET reference source back to Mono. Some missing parts of the .NET Framework are under development in an experimental Mono subproject called "Olive".


title: Mono (software)

text: The Mono project has also created a Visual Basic .NET compiler and a runtime designed for running VB.NET applications. It is currently being developed by Rolf Bjarne Kvinge.


title: Mono (software)

text: An open-source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight, called Moonlight, has been included since Mono 1.9. Moonlight 1.0, which supports the Silverlight 1.0 APIs, was released January 20, 2009. Moonlight 2.0 supports Silverlight 2.0 and some features of Silverlight 3.0. A preview release of Moonlight 3.0 was announced in February 2010 and contains updates to Silverlight 3 support.


title: Mono (software)

text: The Moonlight project was abandoned on May 29, 2012. According to Miguel, two factors sealed the fate of the project: Microsoft added "artificial restrictions" that "made it useless for desktop programming", and the technology had not gained enough traction on the Web. In addition, Silverlight itself was deprecated by Microsoft by 2012.


title: Mono (software)

text: The "core components" include the C# compiler, the virtual machine for the Common Language Infrastructure and the core class libraries. These components are based on the Ecma-334 and Ecma-335 standards, allowing Mono to provide a standards compliant, free and open-source CLI virtual machine. Microsoft issued a statement that covers both standards under their Community Promise license.


title: Mono (software)

text: The "Mono/Linux/GNOME development stack" provide tools for application development while using the existing GNOME and free and open-source libraries. These include: Gtk# for graphical user interface (GUI) development, Mozilla libraries for working with the Gecko rendering engine, Unix integration libraries (Mono.Posix), database connectivity libraries, a security stack, and the XML schema language RelaxNG. Gtk# allows Mono applications to integrate into the Gnome desktop as native applications. The database libraries provide connectivity to the object-relational database db4o, Firebird, Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL), MySQL, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and many others. The Mono project tracks developing database components at its website.


title: Mono (software)

text: The "Microsoft compatibility stack" provides a pathway for porting Windows .NET applications to Linux. This group of components include ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and Windows Forms, among others. As these components are not covered by Ecma standards, some of them remain subject to patent fears and concerns.


title: Mono (software)

text: The Mono runtime contains a code execution engine that translates ECMA CIL byte codes into native code and supports a number of processors: ARM, MIPS (in 32-bit mode only), SPARC, PowerPC, S390 (in 64-bit mode), x86, x86-64 and IA-64 for 64-bit modes.


title: Mono (software)

text: Starting with Mono 2.6, it is possible to configure Mono to use the LLVM as the code generation engine instead of Mono's own code generation engine. This is useful for high performance computing loads and other situations where the execution performance is more important than the startup performance.


title: Mono (software)

text: Starting with the Mono 2.7 preview, it is no longer necessary to pick one engine over the other at configuration time. The code generation engine can be selected at startup by using the codice_1 or codice_2 command line arguments, and it defaults to the fast-starting Mono code generation engine.


title: Mono (software)

text: Starting with Mono 5.18, support for LLVM is a default configuration option. Previous versions required a special LLVM fork, but now mono can fall back to its own code generator when it encounters something not handled by LLVM.


title: Mono (software)

text: As of Mono 2.8, the Mono runtime ships with two garbage collectors: a generational collector and the "Boehm-Demers-Weiser Conservative Garbage Collector". The Boehm garbage collector could exhibit memory leaks on certain classes of applications, making it unsuitable for some long-running server applications. Mono switched to "Simple Generational GC" (SGen-GC) as the default collector in version 3.1.1.


title: Mono (software)

text: The SGen garbage collector has many advantages over a traditional conservative scanner. It uses generational garbage collection where new objects are allocated from a nursery, during the garbage collection cycle, all objects that survived are migrated to an older generation memory pool. The idea being that many objects are transient and can quickly be collected and only a handful of objects are long-term objects that live for the entire life of the application. To improve performance this collector assigns memory pools to each thread to let threads allocate new memory blocks without having to coordinate with other threads. Migration of objects from the nursery to the old generation is done by copying the data from the nursery to the old generation pool and updating any live pointers that point to the data to point to the new location. This can be expensive for large objects, so Mono's SGen uses a separate pool of memory for large objects (Large Object Section) and uses a mark-and-sweep algorithm for those objects.


title: Mono (software)

text: The "class library" provides a comprehensive set of facilities for application development. They are primarily written in C#, but due to the Common Language Specification they can be used by any .NET language. The class library is structured into namespaces, and deployed in shared libraries known as assemblies. Speaking of the .NET Framework is primarily referring to this class library.


title: Mono (software)

text: "Namespaces" are a mechanism for logically grouping similar classes into a hierarchical structure. This prevents naming conflicts. The structure is implemented using dot-separated words, where the most common top-level namespace is System, such as System.IO and System.Net. There are other top-level namespaces as well, such as Accessibility and Windows. A user can define a namespace by placing elements inside a namespace block.


title: Mono (software)

text: "Assemblies" are the physical packaging of the class libraries. These are .dll files, just like (but not to be confused with) Win32 shared libraries. Examples of assemblies are mscorlib.dll, System.dll, System.Data.dll and Accessibility.dll. Namespaces are often distributed among several assemblies and one assembly can be composed of several files.


title: Mono (software)

text: The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) as implemented by the Common Language Runtime (CLR), is implemented by the Mono executable. The runtime compiles and executes .NET applications. The common language infrastructure is defined by the ECMA standard. To run an application, you must invoke the runtime with the relevant parameters.


title: Mono (software)

text: The "Common Language Specification" (CLS) is specified in chapter 6 of ECMA-335 and defines the interface to the CLI, such as conventions like the underlying types for Enum. The Mono compiler generates an image that conforms to the CLS. This is the Common Intermediate Language. The Mono runtime takes this image and runs it. The ECMA standard formally defines a library that conforms to the CLS as a framework.


title: Mono (software)

text: Within a native .NET/Mono application, all code is managed; that is, it is governed by the CLI's style of memory management and thread safety. Other .NET or Mono applications can use legacy code, which is referred to as unmanaged, by using the System.Runtime.InteropServices libraries to create C# bindings. Many libraries which ship with Mono use this feature of the CLI, such as Gtk#.


title: Mono (software)

text: Several projects extend Mono and allow developers to use it in their development environment. These projects include:


title: Mono (software)

text: Microsoft has a version of .NET 2.0 now available only for Windows XP, called the Shared Source CLI (Rotor). Microsoft's shared source license may be insufficient for the needs of the community (it explicitly forbids commercial use).


title: Mono (software)

text: MonoDevelop is a free GNOME integrated development environment primarily designed for C# and other .NET languages such as Nemerle, Boo, and Java (via IKVM.NET), although it also supports languages such as C, C++, Python, and Vala. MonoDevelop was originally a port of SharpDevelop to Gtk#, but it has since evolved to meet the needs of Mono developers. The IDE includes class management, built-in help, code completion, Stetic (a GUI designer), project support, and an integrated debugger.


title: Mono (software)

text: The MonoDoc browser provides access to API documentation and code samples. The documentation browser uses wiki-style content management, allowing developers to edit and improve the documentation.


title: Mono (software)

text: Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android, both developed by Xamarin, are implementations of Mono for iPhone and Android-based smartphones. Previously available only for commercial licensing, after Microsoft's acquisition of Xamarin in 2016, the Mono runtime itself was relicensed under MIT license and both Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android are being made free and open-source.


title: Mono (software)

text: Xamarin.iOS (previously named MonoTouch) is a library that allows developers to create C# and .NET based applications that run on the iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. It is based on the Mono framework and developed in conjunction with Novell. Unlike Mono applications, Xamarin.iOS "Apps" are compiled down to machine code targeted specifically at the Apple iPhone and iPad. This is necessary because the iOS kernel prevents just-in-time compilers from executing on the device.


title: Mono (software)

text: Xamarin Studio is used as the primary IDE, however additional links to Xcode and the iOS simulator have been written.


title: Mono (software)

text: From April to early September 2010, the future of MonoTouch was put in doubt as Apple introduced new terms for iPhone developers that apparently prohibits them from developing in languages other than C, C++ and Objective-C, and the use of a middle layer between the iOS platform and iPhone applications. This made the future of MonoTouch, and other technologies such as Unity, uncertain. Then, in September 2010, Apple rescinded this restriction, stating that they were relaxing the language restrictions that they had put in place earlier that year.


title: Mono (software)

text: Xamarin.Android (formerly known as Mono for Android), initially developed by Novell and continued by Xamarin, is a proprietary implementation of Mono for Android-based smart-phones. It was first released on April 6, 2011. Mono for Android was developed to allow developers to more easily write cross-platform applications that will run on all mobile platforms. In an interview with H-Online, Miguel de Icaza stated, "Our vision is to allow developers to reuse their engine and business logic code across all mobile platforms and swapping out the user interface code for a platform-specific API."


title: Mono (software)

text: In August 2010, a Microsoft spokesman, Tom Hanrahan of Microsoft's Open Source Technology Centre, stated, in reference to the lawsuit filed by Oracle against Google over Android's use of Java, that "The type of action Oracle is taking against Google over Java is not going to happen. If a .NET port to Android was through Mono it would fall under the Microsoft Community Promise Agreement."


title: Mono (software)

text: Mono is dual licensed by Xamarin, similar to other products such as Qt and the Mozilla Application Suite. Mono's C# compiler and tools are released under the GNU General Public License (GPLv2 only) (starting with version 2.0 of Mono, the Mono C# compiler source code is also available under the MIT X11 License), the runtime libraries under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPLv2 only) and the class libraries under the MIT License. These are all free software and open-source licenses and hence Mono is free and open-source software.


title: Mono (software)

text: The license of the C# compiler was changed from the GPL to the MIT X11 license to allow the compiler code to be reused in a few instances where the GPL would have prevented such:


title: Mono (software)

text: On March 31, 2016, Microsoft announced at Microsoft Build that they'll completely re-license Mono under the MIT License even in scenarios where previously a commercial license was necessary, and Microsoft stated that they won't assert any "applicable patents" against parties that are "using, selling, offering for sale, importing, or distributing Mono." It was also announced that Xamarin had contributed the Mono Project to the .NET Foundation.


title: Mono (software)

text: Many programs covering a range of applications have been developed using the Mono application programming interface (API) and C#. Some programs written for the Linux Desktop include Banshee, Beagle, F-Spot, Gbrainy, Docky/GNOME Do, MonoTorrent, Pinta, and Tomboy. The program, Logos 5 Bible Study Software (OS X Version), was written for the MacOS.


title: Mono (software)

text: A number of video games, such as "The Sims 3" and" Second Life" (for their scripting languages), OpenSimulator virtual world server, or games built with the Unity or MonoGame game engines, also make use of Mono. OpenRA bundles its Apple Disk Image and Linux AppImages with Mono essentially removing almost all dependencies from the game.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva (born January 21, 1971), commonly referred to by his alias El Mochomo (The Desert Ant), is a Mexican convicted drug lord and former leader of the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel, a drug trafficking organization. He was one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords. Beltrán Leyva was responsible for smuggling multi-ton shipments of cocaine and methamphetamine to the United States from Mexico and South America between the 1990s and 2000s. He worked alongside his brothers Héctor, Carlos, and Arturo.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: In January 2008, Beltrán Leyva was arrested by the Mexican Army Special Forces in Culiacán, Sinaloa, and imprisoned at the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, Mexico's maximum-security prison. He was extradited to the U.S. in November 2014 for drug trafficking charges. In April 2017, he was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to forfeit US$529 million to the U.S. government.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: Alfredo Beltrán was born in La Palma, Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Mexico on January 21, 1971. According to the United States Department of the Treasury, he has an alternative date of birth, February 15, 1951. He was nicknamed "El Mochomo" (English: The Desert Ant). He formed the Beltrán Leyva Cartel along with his brothers Héctor, Carlos and Arturo. Alfredo and his brothers worked closely with Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: The Beltrán Leyva brothers trafficked narcotics to the U.S. since the 1990s with the help of the Sinaloa Cartel. In its heyday, the Beltrán Leyva Cartel dominated drug trafficking operations in western Mexico. Alfredo was responsible for managing multi-ton shipments of cocaine and methamphetamine from South America and Mexico to the U.S. from the 1990s to 2014, the year he was indicted. He obtained his cocaine supplies from South American groups and transported them to Mexico by air, land, and/or water. Once the drugs were in Mexico, the Beltrán Leyva Cartel distributed them to strategic points in Mexico before they reached the U.S. His criminal group often used violent means, including murders, kidnappings, and tortures, to continue their drug trafficking operations.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: In 2008, the Beltrán Leyva Cartel broke away from the Sinaloa Cartel. After Alfredo was arrested, the Beltrán Leyva brothers blamed "El Chapo" for his capture and retaliated by ordering the murder of Edgar Guzmán López, son of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera. This sparked a war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, which allied itself with Los Zetas.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: Beltrán Leyva was arrested by the Mexican Army in Culiacán, Sinaloa, with three members of his security circle on January 21, 2008, with two suitcases filled with $900,000 in cash and luxury watches. At the scene, the police discovered 20 fragmentation grenades, rifles, automatic weapons, and 40 bullet-resistant vest, eight which had a FEDA, the acronym of "Arturo's Special Forces" (Spanish: Fuerzas Especiales de Arturo). Authorities also found an unspecified amount of cash in one of his homes. He was then flown to Mexico City and imprisoned at the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 (also known as "Altiplano"), Mexico's maximum-security prison.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: Édgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, top commander of Mexico's national federal police and spokesman for the arrest, was murdered five months later. Mexican investigators believed that he was killed in retaliation for the capture of Alfredo.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: On October 14, 2014, a federal court rejected Alfredo's writ of "amparo" (effectively equivalent to an injunction) preventing his extradition to the United States. The court rejected it under the rationale that it believed that the former drug lord met all the legal requirements for his extradition.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: On December 3, 2009, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned Alfredo under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (sometimes referred to simply as the "Kingpin Act"), for his involvement in drug trafficking along with twenty-one other international criminals and ten foreign entities. The act prohibited U.S. citizens and companies from doing any kind of business activity with him, and virtually froze all his assets in the U.S.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: On November 15, 2014, Alfredo was extradited to the United States. He was appointed to make his court appearance in Washington, D.C. in a session direct by U.S. judge Alan Kay for his pending drug trafficking offenses. On November 17 through his lawyer, he pleaded not guilty for conspiracy to import large shipments of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine from Mexico to the U.S.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: Alfredo's trial was scheduled to begin on February 8, 2016. He was represented by prominent criminal defense attorney Angel Eduardo Balarezo of Washington, D.C. On February 23, Alfredo pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia to participating in international drug trafficking operations. On June 28, the prosecution issued a preliminary forfeit order and requested Alfredo to pay up to $US10 billion, which the government estimated he had generated through his drug trafficking schemes.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: He was sentenced to life in prison on April 5, 2017, and ordered to forfeit US$529 million. The amount was based on the proceeds he made for shipping at least 27.9 tons of narcotics between 2000 and 2012. Alfredo's defense asked the judge to reduce his sentence to 25 years because their client had accepted his role in providing assistance to his brother Arturo to sell cocaine in Culiacán knowing that the drugs would end up in the U.S. Alfredo denied being involved in drug shipments to the U.S. and told the plaintiff that his brother was the true leader of Beltrán Leyva Cartel. The judge denied the defense's request because he stated that Alfredo did not accept full responsibility of his actions. In June 2022, Beltran Leyva was transferred from United States Penitentiary, Hazleton to ADX Florence.


title: Alfredo Beltrán Leyva

text: A character loosely based on Beltran Leyva, named "El Arriero" ("The Wrangler" / "The Muleteer"), was briefly featured in the 2017 TV series "El Chapo".


title: Tara Newley

text: Newley is the daughter of actress Joan Collins and actor/composer/singer Anthony Newley. She is also the sister of Alexander Newley. She lived in Paris for two years to study at The American College in Paris, where her poetry and journalism was first publicised. She transferred to Boston University to study English, French, and Russian literature and poetry with Helen Vendler at Harvard.


title: Tara Newley

text: Newley was a television presenter and recording artist in the early 1990s. She was signed to Boy George's More Protein label with Virgin, and sang on the E-Zee Possee single "Breathing Is E-Zee", which went to No. 72 on the UK Singles Chart in 1991. She also released the single "Save Me from Myself" in 1993 on ZTT Records. Further recordings include a duet with her father on a version of "Why".


title: Tara Newley

text: Shows that she has presented include the music show "Juice" (Season 1 & 2), "Club Vegetarian", "The Style Guide", and "Celebrity".


title: Tara Newley

text: As a radio presenter, Newley worked as a presenter for Capital Radio with Neil Fox, Talk Radio, Radio 5, LBC, GLR, France Culture Radio, and Viva!


title: Tara Newley

text: As a columnist, she wrote for the "Daily Mail" and "Good Health Magazine", and had an online column titled "Sex in the Country". As a journalist, she has written for "OK!", the "Daily Express", and "The Sunday Times".


title: Tara Newley

text: She provided voice-over work for children's shows such as "The Cubeez" and "The Fimbles", as well as TV shows for Channel 5 and ITV.


title: Tara Newley

text: In 2007, Newley and producer John Dale founded Newley Dale Ltd, a content creation company whose clients include Comedy Box and Momedia. It gained the attention of BBC Three for the anarchic sitcom "Sso!"


title: Tara Newley

text: As a writer/producer, she has worked for Channel 4 and Baby Cow. The screenplay "Graffiti Boy <3 Guerrilla Girl" won first place at the Moondance International Film Festival and second place at the ReelHeART Film and Screenplay Festival in 2018.


title: Tara Newley

text: Her poetry has appeared under her married name Arkle at the Bristol Poetry Festival in 2014 and The Poetry Shed in 2018. She was long listed for the National Poetry Prize in 2019. She is currently poet in residence at Sidcot School, North Somerset.


title: Tara Newley

text: Newley was married to French composer Michael Adam, with whom she has a daughter, who was born in 1998. The couple later divorced. She later had a son, born in 2003.


title: Karyn White

text: Karyn Layvonne White (born October 14, 1965) is an American singer who was popular during the late 1980s and early 1990s. She is known for several hit singles including "Superwoman" (1988), "Secret Rendezvous" (1989), "The Way You Love Me" (1988), and the US Hot 100 No. 1 single "Romantic" (1991).


title: Karyn White

text: White was born in Los Angeles to Vivian and Clarence White. She is the youngest of five children. She sang in a church choir and worked as a backing singer, then sang on Jeff Lorber's 1986 "Private Passion" single "Facts of Love", "True Confessions" and "Back in Love" before signing to Warner Bros. Records.


title: Karyn White

text: White's self-titled debut album "Karyn White" was released in 1988. It was produced by L.A. Reid and Babyface and achieved platinum status in the US. The album contained the Hot 100 hit singles "The Way You Love Me", "Secret Rendezvous", and "Superwoman" as well as the No. 1 R&B hit "Love Saw It", a duet with Babyface himself. White was nominated in the Best R&B/Urban Contemporary New Artist category for the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards, which was won by Al B. Sure. She also received nominations for two Grammy Awards. She became the first female artist to have the first three solo releases from their debut album hit No. 1 on the R&B charts.


title: Karyn White

text: Her follow-up album was "Ritual of Love" in 1991. It had songs produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and featured the hit single "Romantic", which hit number one on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100. Other singles from the album include "The Way I Feel About You" (U.S. #12), "Walkin' the Dog", and "Do Unto Me" (the last two did not chart). The photographer and director Matthew Rolston directed the video for the hit single "Romantic". Michael Walls, who was credited as stylist on "Ritual of Love", worked with White on the look for the "Ritual of Love" album sleeve, and three of the music videos released for the album. Walls had the idea for the Chanel-inspired pearls and black dress used on the album cover, the French maid look and multiple wardrobe changes for video of "The Way I Feel About You", and the "Walkin' the Dog" video, which was based on a scene from the film "Sweet Charity".


title: Karyn White

text: Her next album was "Make Him Do Right" in 1994. The album did not sell well, although she did chart with the singles "Hungah" and the Babyface-penned "Can I Stay With You", which became her final U.S. R&B Top 10 hit in early 1995. "I'd Rather Be Alone", her last chart single to date, peaked at No. 50 on the same chart later that year. In 1995, White appeared with Mary J. Blige, Monica and others for the single "Freedom (Theme from Panther)" for the soundtrack to the Melvin Van Peebles film of the same name.


title: Karyn White

text: White left Warner Bros. Records in 1999, and dropped out of the music public eye for many years to start a family.


title: Karyn White

text: In 2006, she recorded a new album, titled "Sista Sista"; which was slated for release in 2006, but was shelved. Two tracks, "All I Do" and "Disconnected", were later released on the best of compilation album, "Superwoman: The Best of Karyn White". She was also slated to appear on the Soul Train Music Awards in 2009 as a tribute to Babyface Edmonds. However, this performance was canceled when Edmonds and Reid withdrew from the Soul Train ceremony, declining the honor. In 2011, she was slated to have shot a pilot for a reality series with R&B singers Shanice and Debelah Morgan.


title: Karyn White

text: White released her first album after a seventeen-year break, "Carpe Diem", in March 2012. The album featured the singles "Sista, Sista" and "Unbreakable," both of which received music videos.


title: Karyn White

text: In 2017, White landed a recurring role on the BET Centric television series "Beauty and the Baller" as trophy wife Kym Banks. She also returned with new music and her first feature film role, in "Gale and the Storm" directed by Derrick Muhammad. The soundtrack for the film was released on September 4 and included her latest single "Blind Man Walking". The film made its premiere on October 12, 2017.


title: Karyn White

text: She earned a 2017 UB Honors nomination for the "Gale and the Storm" soundtrack in the "Best Independent R&B Album Release" category.


title: Karyn White

text: White married Terry Lewis in 1992 and together they had a daughter, Ashley Nicole, and adopted their son Brandon. Lewis brought to the marriage his children Trey and Chloe. The couple eventually divorced in 1999. White was later married to producer/musician Bobby G from 2007–09. She then started a relationship with musician Al B. Sure! in 2012.


title: Karyn White

text: White resides in Rocklin, California, a suburb of Sacramento, and runs a successful interior design and real estate business.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Otosclerosis is a condition of the middle ear where portions of the dense enchondral layer of the bony labyrinth remodel into one or more lesions of irregularly-laid spongy bone. As the lesions reach the stapes the bone is resorbed, then hardened (sclerotized), which limits its movement and results in hearing loss, tinnitus, vertigo or a combination of symptoms. The term otosclerosis is something of a misnomer: much of the clinical course is characterized by lucent rather than sclerotic bony changes, so the disease is also known as otospongiosis.


title: Otosclerosis

text: The word "otosclerosis" derives from Greek ὠτός ("ōtos"), genitive of οὖς ("oûs") "ear" + σκλήρωσις ("sklērōsis"), "hardening".


title: Otosclerosis

text: The primary form of hearing loss in otosclerosis is conductive hearing loss (CHL) whereby sounds reach the ear drum but are incompletely transferred via the ossicular chain in the middle ear, and thus partly fail to reach the inner ear (cochlea). This can affect one ear or both ears. On audiometry, the hearing loss is characteristically low-frequency, with higher frequencies being affected later.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) has also been noted in patients with otosclerosis; this is usually a high-frequency loss, and usually manifests late in the disease. The causal link between otosclerosis and SNHL remains controversial. Over the past century, leading otologists and neurotologic researchers have argued whether the finding of SNHL late in the course of otosclerosis is due to otosclerosis or simply to typical presbycusis.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Most patients with otosclerosis notice tinnitus (head noise) to some degree. The amount of tinnitus is not necessarily related to the degree or type of hearing impairment. Tinnitus develops due to irritation of the delicate nerve endings in the inner ear. Since the nerve carries sound, this irritation is manifested as ringing, roaring or buzzing. It is usually worse when the patient is fatigued, nervous or in a quiet environment.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Otosclerosis can be caused by both genetic and environmental factors, such as a viral infection (like measles). Ribonucleic acid of the measles virus has been found in stapes footplate in most patients with otosclerosis. Populations that have been vaccinated against measles had a significant reduction in otosclerosis. While the disease is considered to be hereditary, its penetrance and the degree of expression is so highly variable that it may be difficult to detect an inheritance pattern. Most of the implicated genes are transmitted in an autosomal dominant fashion. One genome-wide analysis associates otosclerosis with variation in RELN gene.


title: Otosclerosis

text: The pathophysiology of otosclerosis is complex. The key lesions of otosclerosis are multifocal areas of sclerosis within the endochondral temporal bone. These lesions share some characteristics with Paget's Disease, but they are not thought to be otherwise related. Histopathological studies have all been done on cadaveric temporal bones, so only inferences can be made about progression of the disease histologically. It seems that the lesions go through an active "spongiotic" or hypervascular phase before developing into "sclerotic" phase lesions. There have been many genes and proteins identified that, when mutated, may lead to these lesions. Also there is mounting evidence that measles virus is present within the otosclerotic foci, implicating an infectious etiology (this has also been noted in Paget's Disease).


title: Otosclerosis

text: Conductive hearing loss (CHL) in otosclerosis is caused by two main sites of involvement of the sclerotic (or scar-like) lesions. The best understood mechanism is fixation of the stapes footplate to the oval window of the cochlea. This greatly impairs movement of the stapes and therefore transmission of sound into the inner ear ("ossicular coupling"). Additionally the cochlea's round window can also become sclerotic, and in a similar way impair movement of sound pressure waves through the inner ear ("acoustic coupling").


title: Otosclerosis

text: CHL is usually concomitant with impingement of abnormal bone on the stapes footplate. This involvement of the oval window forms the basis of the name fenestral otosclerosis. The most common location of involvement of otosclerosis is the bone just anterior to the oval window at a small cleft known as the fissula ante fenestram. The fissula is a thin fold of connective tissue extending through the endochondral layer, approximately between the oval window and the cochleariform process, where the tensor tympani tendon turns laterally toward the malleus.


title: Otosclerosis

text: from direct injury to the cochlea and spiral ligament from the lytic process or from release of proteolytic enzymes into the cochlea. There are certainly a few well documented instances of sclerotic lesions directly obliterating sensory structures within the cochlea and spiral ligament, which have been photographed and reported post-mortem. Other supporting data includes a consistent loss of cochlear hair cells in patients with otosclerosis; these cells being the chief sensory organs of sound reception. A suggested mechanism for this is the release of hydrolytic enzymes into the inner ear structures by the spongiotic lesions.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Otosclerosis is traditionally diagnosed by characteristic clinical findings, which include progressive conductive


title: Otosclerosis

text: hearing loss, a normal tympanic membrane, and no evidence of middle ear inflammation. The cochlear promontory may have a faint pink tinge reflecting the vascularity of the lesion, referred to as the Schwartz sign.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Approximately 0.5% of the population will eventually be diagnosed with otosclerosis. Post-mortem studies show that as many as 10% of people may have otosclerotic lesions of their temporal bone, but apparently never had symptoms warranting a diagnosis. Caucasians are the most affected race, with the prevalence in the Black and Asian populations being much lower. In clinical practice otosclerosis is encountered about twice as frequently in females as in males, but this does not reflect the true sex ratio. When families are investigated it is found that the condition is only slightly more common in women. Usually noticeable hearing loss begins at middle-age, but can start much sooner. The hearing loss was long believed to grow worse during pregnancy, but recent research does not support this belief.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Fixation of the stapes within the oval window causes a conductive hearing loss. In pure-tone audiometry, this manifests as air-bone gaps on the audiogram (i.e. a difference of more than 10 dB between the air-conduction and bone-conduction thresholds at a given test frequency). However, medial fixation of the ossicular chain impairs both the inertial and osseotympanic modes of bone conduction, increasing the bone-conduction thresholds between 500 Hz and 4 kHz, and reducing the size of air-bone gaps. As 2 kHz is the resonant frequency of the ossicular chain, the largest increase in bone-conduction threshold (around 15 dB) occurs at this frequency – the resultant notch is called "Carhart's notch" and is a useful clinical marker for medial ossicular-chain fixation.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Tympanometry measures the peak pressure (TPP) and peak-compensated static admittance ("Y") of the middle ear at the eardrum. As the stapes is ankylosed in otosclerosis, the lateral end of the ossicular chain may still be quite mobile. Therefore, otosclerosis may only slightly reduce the admittance, resulting in either a shallow tympanogram (type A), or a normal tympanogram (type A). Otosclerosis increases the stiffness of the middle-ear system, raising its resonant frequency. This can be quantified using multi-frequency tympanometry. Thus, a high resonant-frequency pathology such as otosclerosis can be differentiated from low resonant-frequency pathologies such as ossicular discontinuity.


title: Otosclerosis

text: In the absence of a pathology, a loud sound (generally greater than 70 dB above threshold) causes the stapedius muscle to contract, reducing the admittance of the middle ear and softening the perceived loudness of the sound. If the mobility of the stapes is reduced due to otosclerosis, then stapedius muscle contraction does not significantly decrease the admittance. When acoustic reflex testing is conducted, the acoustic reflex thresholds (ART) cannot be determined when attempting to measure on the affected side. Also, a conductive pathology will attenuate the test stimuli, resulting in either elevated reflex thresholds or absent reflexes when the stimulus is presented in the affected ear and measured in the other ear.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Imaging is usually not pursued in those with uncomplicated conductive hearing loss and characteristic clinical findings. Those with only conductive hearing loss are often treated medically or with surgery without imaging. The diagnosis may be unclear clinically in cases of sensorineural or mixed hearing loss and may become apparent only on imaging. Therefore, imaging is often performed when the hearing loss is sensorineural or mixed.


title: Otosclerosis

text: A high-resolution CT shows very subtle bone findings. However, CT is usually not needed prior to surgery.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Earlier workers suggested the use of calcium fluoride; now sodium fluoride is the preferred compound. Fluoride ions inhibit the rapid progression of disease. In the otosclerotic ear, there occurs formation of hydroxylapatite crystals which lead to stapes (or other) fixation. The administration of fluoride replaces the hydroxyl radical with fluoride leading to the formation of fluorapatite crystals. Hence, the progression of disease is considerably slowed down and active disease process is arrested.


title: Otosclerosis

text: This treatment cannot reverse conductive hearing loss, but may slow the progression of both the conductive and sensorineural components of the disease process. Otofluor, containing sodium fluoride, is one treatment. Recently, some success has been claimed with a second such treatment, bisphosphonate medications that inhibit bone destruction. However, these early reports are based on non-randomized case studies that do not meet standards of clinical trials. There are numerous side-effects to both pharmaceutical treatments, including occasional stomach upset, allergic itching, and increased joint pains which can lead to arthritis. In the worst case, bisphosphonates may lead to osteonecrosis of the auditory canal itself. Finally, neither approach has been proven to be beneficial after the commonly preferred method of surgery has been undertaken.


title: Otosclerosis

text: There are various methods to treat otosclerosis. However the method of choice is a procedure known as stapedectomy. Early attempts at hearing restoration via the simple freeing of the stapes from its sclerotic attachments to the oval window were met with temporary improvement in hearing, but the conductive hearing loss would almost always recur. A stapedectomy consists of removing a portion of the sclerotic stapes footplate and replacing it with a middle ear implant that is secured to the incus. This procedure restores continuity of ossicular movement and allows transmission of sound waves from the eardrum to the inner ear. A modern variant of this surgery called a stapedotomy, is performed by drilling a small hole in the stapes footplate with a micro-drill or a laser, and the insertion of a piston-like prothesis. The success rate of either surgery depends greatly on the skill and the familiarity with the procedure of the surgeon. However, comparisons have shown stapedotomy to yield results at least as good as stapedectomy, with fewer complications, and thus stapedotomy is preferred in normal circumstances. Recently, Endoscopic stapedotomy has been gaining popularity since its first description by Professor Tarabichi in 1999. The endsocope provides much better view of the stapes footplate without removal of bone to access that structure.


title: Otosclerosis

text: Although hearing aids cannot prevent, cure or inhibit the progression of otosclerosis, they can help treat the largest symptom, hearing loss. Hearing aids can be tuned to specific frequency losses. However, due to the progressive nature of this condition, use of a hearing aid is palliative at best. Without eventual surgery, deafness is likely to result.


title: Chamoy Thipyaso

text: Chamoy Thipayaso (; ; born 27 November 1940) is a former employee of the Petroleum Authority of Thailand. She is known for receiving the world's longest prison sentence of lifetime imprisonment or 141,078 years for her involvement in a pyramid scheme that defrauded more than 16,000 Thais and is estimated to have been worth between $200 million and $301 million.


title: Chamoy Thipyaso

text: In the late 1960s, Thipayaso started a chit fund called the Mae Chamoy Fund, which was made to look like an oil share with high returns. Due to Thipayaso's connections with the Air Force and Petroleum Authority, the fund was able to sustain itself for a remarkably long time. Her connections to the military were a huge factor in political and business power, and so its apparent military backing made the scheme seem legitimate.


title: Chamoy Thipyaso

text: The fund had a large number of politically powerful investors from the military and even the Royal Household and as such there were calls for the government to bail out the banks and the chit funds. After discussions with King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the nature of which were not made public, the Mae Chamoy Fund was shut down and Chamoy Thipayaso was arrested. She was held in secret by the air force for several days and her trial was not held until after the losses for the military and royal personnel involved had been recovered.


title: Chamoy Thipyaso

text: On 27 July 1989, Thipayaso and seven accomplices were convicted of corporate fraud. She was sentenced to a total of 141,078 years or life imprisonment sentence in prison but Thai law at the time stated that the maximum sentence that could be served for fraud was 20 years. In actuality, she only served about eight years of the sentence.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Birdman of Alcatraz is a 1962 American biographical drama film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Burt Lancaster. It is a largely fictionalized version of the life of Robert Stroud, who was sentenced to solitary confinement after having killed a prison guard. A federal prison inmate, he became known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz" because of his studies of birds, which had taken place when he was incarcerated at Leavenworth Prison. He was allowed to keep birds in jail. When moved to Alcatraz, Stroud was never allowed to keep any birds.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: The film was adapted by Guy Trosper from the 1955 book by Thomas E. Gaddis. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Burt Lancaster), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Telly Savalas), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Thelma Ritter), and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Robert Stroud is imprisoned as a young man for committing a murder in Alaska. He is shown as a rebellious inmate, fighting against a rigid prison system: while being transported with other prisoners by train, he breaks open the window to allow the suffocating inmates to breathe.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: While in jail, Stroud learns that his mother tried to visit him but was denied and told to return later in the week. Outraged, he attacks a guard, fatally stabbing him. Stroud is sentenced to death, but his mother runs a successful campaign to have his sentence commuted to life in prison. The sentence requires him to serve in solitary confinement for the rest of his life.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: While in the exercise yard during a heavy rainstorm, Stroud finds a downed nest holding an orphaned baby sparrow. He takes care of the bird, and starts a trend. He and other convicts acquire and care for birds, such as canaries, given from outside sources.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Stroud develops a collection of birds and cages. When the birds fall ill, he conducts experiments and comes up with a cure. As the years pass, Stroud becomes an expert on bird diseases and publishes a book on the subject. His writings are so impressive that a doctor describes him as a "genius".


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Stroud is later visited by bird-lover Stella Johnson and agrees to go into business, marketing his bird remedies. He and Stella later marry, but his mother disapproves. This causes a permanent rift between mother and son and further disowns him by refusing to support his release petition. He is abruptly transferred to the federal penitentiary at Alcatraz, a new maximum-security institution where he is not permitted to keep birds. Although growing elderly, he remains independent, writing a history of the U.S. penal system that is suppressed by Shoemaker, now warden of the Rock.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Still at odds with authority, Stroud helps end a prison rebellion in 1946 by throwing out the two firearms acquired by the convicts. He assures the authorities that they can now re-enter the premises without risk of being shot. Shoemaker acknowledges Stroud never lied to him and takes him at his word.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: After a petition campaign by admirers, Stroud is eventually transferred to another prison in Missouri. During the move, he meets several reporters and displays a range of knowledge on more than just birds, such as the technical details of a passing jet aircraft. He meets author Thomas E. Gaddis, who wrote a book based on his life.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: British director Charles Crichton was picked for this film and his United States debut, but he clashed with Lancaster and was replaced by Frankenheimer. According to actor Strother Martin, "I had a nice role in "Birdman of Alcatraz". They fired the original director, Charles Crichton, and I went out with him. I was replaced by Leo Penn who was eventually cut out of the picture entirely." Despite the title being the Birdman of Alcatraz, Stroud never kept any birds during his time in Alcatraz prison, but rather during his time incarcerated at Leavenworth Prison from 1912 to 1942.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: The film was made despite the protests of James V. Bennett, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. During a visit to Washington in July 1961, Gaddis was unsuccessful in trying to meet with Bennett, given Bennett's views on the film which he deplored because "it is simply not our policy to glamorize criminals". Bennett approached Twentieth-Century Fox, the studio which had optioned the book, and told them he did not want the film to be produced, in response to which the studio ended their involvement. Producers had to make changes to the script at the behest of the United States Navy and the United States Army in order to receive co-operation in producing the film. Producer Harold Hecht took little notice of the federal pressures, suggesting he would even ask for permission to film at Alcatraz.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Burt Lancaster was cast in the lead role of Robert Stroud. Maurie Siegel, who was responsible for the film's publicity, noted that Lancaster "gave up eight months of his life to the picture" and that he gave up a million dollars in lost opportunities from other engagements, to ensure the film was done how he wanted it. Lancaster's mild-mannered portrayal of Stroud was starkly different to the real life persona of Robert Stroud, who author Jolene Babyak compared to being more like Ted Bundy and suggested that cures he promoted for birds were actually potentially lethal.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: On being cast as Feto Gomez, Telly Savalas said he "was in awe" of Lancaster, despite saying he was never nervous when interviewing famous figures including Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. He recalled how "I couldn't catch my breath in the presence of Burt Lancaster", who he credited as launching his career and remained among Savalas' favorite performers.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Gaddis was originally tested to play himself in the film, though experts suggested that the illusion is lost if someone plays themself and the role ultimately went to Edmond O'Brien. O'Brien studied the mannerisms of Gaddis to try and replicate them and even reluctantly smoked the same cigarillos, although hoped that his scenes would not take too long so that he would be able to stop smoking. He worked in capacity of technical advisor on the film and attended set every day. He emphasized that "the film won't gloss over the facts of Stroud's criminal history", hoping that the film would get him released from prison, as the book got him transferred from Alcatraz prison.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: The movie began filming during the fall of 1960 under the working title of "The Man from Alcatraz". Lancaster began filming after concluding his previous movie "A Matter of Principle". The movie features many birds being friendly around Lancaster, to which he explained they had been specially trained by two men brought on to the set from Japan. Lancaster advised that on some days, they would "get a scene with the birds right off", yet other times it may take an entire day, suggesting that the short concentration span of the birds would mean they could entirely forget what they needed to do and therefore had to be retrained. Hollywood animal trainer Ray D. Berwick was among the bird trainers in the film.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Gaddis served as technical director for the filming of his book and spent all his time on the film set from September 1960. Unlike Lancaster, who requested that he remain on set at all times to ensure an accurate portrayal of his character, Gaddis was "eager to be released" after 6 months on set.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: In publicizing the film, Lancaster went on a cross-country tour. When in San Francisco at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, he invited questions from journalists about Robert Stroud. At the press conference, Lancaster made his views clear that he believed Stroud should be released, even offering to visit Washington to try and use his influence to help the cause. When asked by an interviewer if some of the film's profits would be used to help fund Stroud's release, Lancaster shouted at him, "You're nothing but a ****, a ****."


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Warden James F. Maroney declined United Artists' invitation to show the film in Alcatraz to inmates, after a special screening was set up for him and three of his staff. In explaining his reasons, Maroney said that "prison life is always fascinating to people who never have been confined in a prison." He went on to say that he and his staff "found the film interesting and occasionally, but not always, realistic", but suggested that the inmates would prefer to watch entertainment that distracts them from their environment, rather than one which reminds them of their current one.


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 91% of 23 surveyed critics, both contemporaneous and modern, gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 7.3/10. One of the first critic's reviews of the film by Philip K. Scheuer praised it as "one of the finest pieces of film-making to come out of Hollywood in many a disappointing day", describing Lancaster's performance as "an astonishing tour de force." In discussing the film's prison setting, "Variety" wrote, "Birdman reverses the formula and brings a new breadth and depth to the form." A. H. Weiler of "The New York Times" called it "a thoughtful yet powerful portrait that cleaves to the heart and mind despite its omissions".


title: Birdman of Alcatraz (film)

text: Some former inmates who knew Stroud criticized the film's portrayal of the man. Former Alcatraz inmate Glenn Williams said that Stroud "was not a sweetheart; he was a vicious killer. I think Burt Lancaster owes us all an apology". Another former convict, Jim Quillan, described the real Stroud as a "jerk", and as "a guy that liked chaos and turmoil and upheaval... Always at somebody else's expense".


title: Pat Musick

text: Patricia Anne Musick is an American voice actress, who has provided numerous voices in many television shows, films and video games. She and her husband, Jeff Whitman, a personal manager and set construction coordinator, are the parents of actress and singer Mae Whitman.


title: Pat Musick

text: Musick’s first role was in the 1981 film "The Loch Ness Horror". She played a number of cartoon characters, such as Snappy Smurf in "The Smurfs" and Harold Frumpkin in "Rugrats".


title: Pat Musick

text: While casting for Don Bluth’s film "An American Tail", Musick was one of the women chosen to play Tony Toponi, becoming one of her well-known works. She based his voice on a friend she knew from grade school. In the early 1990s, Musick was unable to recast as Tony following her then-current responsibility of her daughter Mae Whitman, who was just born in 1988, causing the use of her character to be limited in and completely unused in "Fievel's American Tails" until the direct-to-video sequels in the late 1990s.


title: Pat Musick

text: Musick married personal manager and set construction coordinator named Jeff Whitman in 1983. She gave birth to Mae Whitman in 1988.


title: Herpetic whitlow

text: A herpetic whitlow is a lesion (whitlow), typically on a finger or thumb, caused by the herpes simplex virus (HSV). Occasionally infection occurs on the toes or on the nail cuticle. Herpes whitlow can be caused by infection by HSV-1 or HSV-2. HSV-1 whitlow is often contracted by health care workers that come in contact with the virus; it is most commonly contracted by dental workers and medical workers exposed to oral secretions. It is also often observed in thumb-sucking children with primary HSV-1 oral infection (autoinoculation) prior to seroconversion, and in adults aged 20 to 30 following contact with HSV-2-infected genitals.


title: Herpetic whitlow

text: Symptoms of herpetic whitlow include swelling, reddening, and tenderness of the infected part. This may be accompanied by fever and swollen lymph nodes. Small, clear vesicles initially form individually, then merge and become cloudy, unlike in bacterial whitlow when there is pus. Associated pain often seems largely relative to the physical symptoms. The herpes whitlow lesion usually heals in two to three weeks. It may reside in axillary sensory ganglia to cause recurrent herpetic lesions on that arm or digits. Blistering can occur in severe cases.


title: Herpetic whitlow

text: In children the primary source of infection is the orofacial area, and it is commonly inferred that the virus (in this case commonly HSV-1) is transferred by the cutting, chewing or sucking of fingernail or thumbnail.


title: Herpetic whitlow

text: In adults, it is more common for the primary source to be the genital region, with a corresponding preponderance of HSV-2. It is also seen in adult health care workers such as dentists because of increased exposure to the herpes virus.


title: Herpetic whitlow

text: Although it is a self-limited illness, oral or intravenous antiviral treatments, particularly acyclovir, have been used in the management of immunocompromised or severely infected patients. It is usually given when the condition fails to improve on its own. Topical acyclovir has not been shown to be effective in management of herpetic whitlow. Famciclovir has been demonstrated to effectively treat and prevent recurrent episodes. Lancing or surgically debriding the lesion may make it worse by causing a superinfection or encephalitis.


title: Herpetic whitlow

text: Even though the disease is self-limiting, as with many herpes infections, the virus lies dormant in the peripheral nervous system. The disease recurs in about 20-50% of people. The most severe infection is usually the first one, with recurrences subsequently getting milder. The lesions the disease makes will either dry out, or burst, followed by healing. If the infected area is not touched, scars usually do not occur. The immunocompromised may have a hard time recovering, and have more frequent recurrences.


title: Tigrinya people

text: The Tigrinya people (, ), also known as Tigrigna, are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group native to Eritrea. They speak the Tigrinya language. There also exists a sizable Tigrinya community in the diaspora.


title: Tigrinya people

text: One view believes that the name comes from the word (), meaning "she ascended". The word () "they ascended" describes the ascension of the earliest indigenous people to the mountainous highlands of Eritrea as the plateau's first settlers. The Tigrinya tribe were first mentioned around the 8th to 10th centuries, in which period manuscripts preserving the inscriptions of Cosmas Indicopleustes (fl. 6th century) contain notes on his writings including the mention of a tribe called Tigretes.


title: Tigrinya people

text: In Eritrea the Tigrinya people are referred to as Biher-Tigrinya people or the "Kebessa" people, "kebessa" meaning Eritrean highlands.


title: Tigrinya people

text: Both the Tigrinya and Tigre tribes in Eritrea are very close kin to the ethnic group Tigrayans in Tigray, Ethiopia. All the Tigrinyas, Tigre, and Tigrayans peoples were supposedly from the same group until the 8th century, and shared the Aksumite Kingdom before its demise.


title: Tigrinya people

text: These people grew apart in lexical, societal construction and dialect from around the 9th century. Tigrayans in Tigray abandoned the declining Kingdom of Aksum and the Tigrinya people built the kingdom of Medri Bahri in Eritrea by Bahre Negasi (also known as Bahre Negash; "king of the sea" in English) with its Capital in Debarwa, Seraye. The Agaw people built the Zagwe Dynasty in Ethiopia by Morara Gebrekrstos of Hamassien.


title: Tigrinya people

text: It is believed that the first ancestors of the human race migrated to other parts of the world from this area. Bob Walter discovered the oldest evidence of stone tools near the coastal areas of Eritrea. The tools are believed to be 125,000 years old.


title: Tigrinya people

text: There were already people living on the Red Sea coast and Eritrean highlands from the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic ages.


title: Tigrinya people

text: Tigrinya is a North Ethiopic language. It is the most widely spoken language in Eritrea, and the fourth most spoken language in Ethiopia after Amharic.


title: Tigrinya people

text: The oldest settled pastoral and agricultural community lived in Ona (the villages and towns around Asmara) around 800 BC. It was the oldest known indigenous culture in the Horn Africa. Archaeologist Peter Schmidt compared the Asmara settlement to Athens and Rome. The language known as Tigre was believed to be spoken in the region around 1000 BC.


title: Tigrinya people

text: D'mt (Daamat) was believed to be home to a settled community in Southern Eritrean and Northern Ethiopia from around 8th century BC to 4th century BC. There is little archaeological evidence of the D'mt Kingdom.


title: Tigrinya people

text: Metera was a major city in the Dʿmt and Aksumite kingdoms. Since Eritrean independence, the National Museum of Eritrea has petitioned the Ethiopian government to return artifacts removed from the site, though their efforts have been rebuffed. Hawulti, a pre-Aksumite or early Aksumite era obelisk, is situated here.


title: Tigrinya people

text: Rock art near Qohaito appears to indicate habitation in the area since the fifth millennium BC, while the town is known to have survived until the sixth century. Mount Emba Soira, Eritrea's highest mountain, and a small successor village lies near the site.


title: Tigrinya people

text: Qohaito is often identified as the town "Koloe" described in the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", a Greco-Roman document dated to the end of the first century, which thrived as a stop on the trade route between Adulis and Aksum. It is thought that crops were interspersed with buildings in the town. Old edifices included the pre-Christian Temple of Mariam Wakino and the Sahira Dam, which might also be pre-Aksumite.


title: Tigrinya people

text: The ruins at Qohaito were first located in 1868, though they were erroneously identified as a "Greek depot" at the time. A related site outside of Senafe, Matara, lies about 15 kilometres to the south and was excavated in the 1960s.


title: Tigrinya people

text: After the decline of Aksum, the Eritrean highlands were under the domain of the Kingdom of Medri Bahrir, ruled by Bahr Negash. The area was then known as "Ma'ikele Bahri" ("between the seas/rivers", i.e. the land between the Red Sea and the Mareb River). Like Kingdom of Axum, Medri Bahri was also a Christian kingdom.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: Bruce Eric Bowen Jr. (born June 14, 1971) is an American former professional basketball player. Bowen played small forward and graduated from Edison High School and Cal State Fullerton. He went on to play for the National Basketball Association's Miami Heat, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, San Antonio Spurs and the Continental Basketball Association's Rockford Lightning, and also played abroad in France.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: One of the most feared perimeter "lockdown" defenders in NBA history, Bowen was elected to the NBA All-Defensive First and Second Teams eight times, and was a member of the Spurs teams that won the NBA championships in 2003, 2005, and 2007. At the same time, he was frequently accused of having a "dirty" playstyle and endangering other players. Off the court, Bowen became an informal ambassador for child obesity awareness.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: Bruce Bowen Jr. was born in Merced, California. He is the son of Bruce Bowen Sr. and Dietra Campbell. Bowen had a problematic childhood growing up in Merced. According to Bowen, his earnings from selling newspapers were taken from him by his father so that his father could buy alcohol. Bowen has also stated that he only saw his father "from time to time". He has asserted that his mother took drugs, and that she once sold the family television to feed her crack cocaine habit. Bowen has an uncle named Darryl who looked out for him as a child; he regards Darryl and his sons as brothers.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: Bruce Jr. spent his days playing basketball and eventually became a star at local West Fresno Edison High School. He then played four seasons at Cal State Fullerton, appearing in 101 games, and averaged 11.4 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. After averaging 16.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 36.6 minutes in 27 games as a senior in 1992–93, he was named to the All-Big West Conference First Team. Bowen ranks 12th on the Titans' all-time list in career points (1,155) and is seventh all-time in rebounds (559).


title: Bruce Bowen

text: After finishing his four-year college eligibility, Bowen was eligible for the 1993 NBA draft, but went undrafted. Between 1993 and 1997, Bowen played for five different teams, starting his professional career for the French team of Le Havre in 1993–94.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: Bowen made his NBA debut when he was signed to a ten-day contract by the Miami Heat in March 1997. His output consisted of 1 game, 1 minute and 1 block.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: In the 1997–98 NBA season, Bowen reappeared in the NBA, having been signed by the Boston Celtics. With the Celtics, Bowen slowly established himself in the NBA. In his first full year as an NBA player, he appeared in 61 games (nine of them as starter) with the Celtics, averaging 5.6 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.43 steals in 21.4 minutes per game, shooting .409 from the field, .339 from three-point land and .623 from the free throw line. The next year was a disappointment for him, as Bowen appeared in only 30 Celtics games, averaging 2.3 points and 1.7 rebounds in 16.5 minutes per game.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: Bowen was later traded to the Chicago Bulls and immediately waived, then picked up off waivers by the Miami Heat. In that season, he wore jersey #12 instead of #3 and appeared in 69 games, averaging 2.8 points and 1.4 rebounds in 12.7 minutes per game, and scored in double-figures six times. In the following year, Bowen was retained by the Heat. In that year, he had his breakout season. For the first time in his career, he played in all 82 regular-season games, averaged 7.6 points, 3.0 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.01 steals in 32.7 minutes per game and set new single-season career-highs in games, points, rebounds, assists, blocks, minutes, field goals made and attempted, three-point goals made and attempted and free throws made and attempted. Bowen logged more minutes (2,685 vs. 2,678), scored more points (623 vs. 606) and hit more threes (103 vs. 54) than he had in his first four seasons combined. Especially, Bowen earned himself a reputation as a defensive stopper. For his strong perimeter defense, he was voted into the All-Defensive Second Team.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: In the 2001–02 NBA season, Bowen was signed by the San Antonio Spurs. He joined a championship-caliber team, led by veteran Hall-of-Fame center David Robinson and young power forward Tim Duncan, complemented by talented role players like Steve Smith, Malik Rose, Antonio Daniels and point guards Terry Porter and Tony Parker. Bowen established himself as a starter, beginning in each of his 59 regular-season games. In that season, Bowen received his first of several fines: he had to pay $7,500 for kicking Wally Szczerbiak in the face during a March 1, 2002 game. In the 2002 NBA playoffs, Bowen started in all 10 Spurs playoffs games, where the team eventually succumbed to the Los Angeles Lakers. For his feats, Bowen earned himself his second All-Defensive Second Team nomination, although some peers and sports analysts accused him of being a "dirty" defender.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: In the next season, Bowen started in all 82 regular-season games for the second time in his career and averaged 7.1 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 31.3 minutes per game. Again, he was voted into the All-Defensive Second Team and was a member of the Spurs team which won the 2003 NBA Finals. At age 31, the one-time journeyman Bowen had won his first championship ring as a starter. In the following three seasons, Bowen established a reputation as one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA, earning three straight All-Defensive First Team elections and ending as runner-up in the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award votings twice, losing to post defender Ben Wallace.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: Having established himself as the premier defensive backcourt player, Bowen's effective, but hard-nosed style of play came under discussion. In particular, rival guards Vince Carter and Steve Francis accused him of encroaching into their landing space during their jumpshot. Inside Hoops columnist M.J. Darnell commented: "They're whining because Bruce Bowen has frustrated, upset, hurt or angered them in some way... He just plays tough, physical defense, does not play with any intent to injure, but isn't afraid to get in someone's grill". Bowen's defensive style failed to help this Spurs squad repeat in the 2004 NBA playoffs, as the team was eventually defeated 4–2 by the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Semi-Finals.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: Bowen and the Spurs bounced back and won the NBA title in 2005, defeating the Detroit Pistons. The Spurs could not win back-to-back titles, however, and bowed out 4–3 in a seven-game series against the Dallas Mavericks in the 2006 NBA playoffs. As a testament to his controversial style of play, Bowen picked up a $10,000 NBA fine for kicking Ray Allen in the back during a March 2006 game.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Spurs played against the Phoenix Suns, and Bowen became the center of controversy. His knee contacted Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash's groin, knocking Nash to the floor. Also in that series, forward–center Amar'e Stoudemire accused Bowen of kicking him during a game, but the NBA reviewed and dismissed the claim. ESPN columnist Bill Simmons commented that Bowen was "a cheap player who's going to seriously hurt someone someday", but Simmons also acknowledged that Bowen "ultimately makes his team better." The Spurs went on to beat the Suns, and Bowen's defense contributed to the Spurs winning their fourth championship in the 2007 NBA Finals.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: In the 2007–08 NBA season, the now 36-year-old veteran Bowen played and started in 81 of 82 regular season games, earning his fifth straight nomination in the NBA All-Defensive First Team. Ever controversial, Bowen was fined $7,000 and suspended for one game for kicking Chris Paul after Paul had fallen to the floor during a March 12, 2008 game. Bowen finished as the runner-up behind Marcus Camby for the league's defensive player of the year award. In the 2008 NBA playoffs, Bowen was unable to stop Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, who averaged 28.3 points and helped L.A. beat the Spurs in five games. Bowen started in every Spurs regular season and playoff game from 2001 to 2008.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: The 2008–09 NBA season was to be Bowen's last with the Spurs. Although he played in 80 regular-season games, he was no longer a starter as was the case in the previous seven San Antonio campaigns. His minutes were also greatly reduced (from 30+ to 18.9 per game), although his shooting numbers remained consistent. The Spurs went into the 2009 NBA playoffs with a 54–28 record and as the third seed. With influential shooting guard Manu Ginóbili out injured, the Spurs got off to a bad start to the series and eventually lost 4–1 against the Dallas Mavericks, bowing out of the playoffs in the first round for the first time since 2000.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: On June 23, 2009, Bowen was traded along with Kurt Thomas and Fabricio Oberto to the Milwaukee Bucks for Richard Jefferson. He was released on July 31, 2009 and retired on September 3, 2009.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: On March 21, 2012, the Spurs retired Bowen's #12 jersey. Bowen's jersey was the seventh retired by the Spurs. With Bowen's permission, the Spurs reissued the number 12 for free agent LaMarcus Aldridge in 2015.


title: Bruce Bowen

text: In 2006 U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski invited Bowen to join the United States men's national basketball team, which participated in the 2006 FIBA World Championships in Japan. At 35, he was the oldest player to participate; Krzyzewski said that the team needed a defensive player like Bowen. However, Bowen received little playing time, despite the injuries of fellow swingmen and guards Antawn Jamison, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade. Although he participated in several training sessions and training camps, Bowen was eventually cut from the team. He expressed disappointment and said he hoped to make the 2008 Olympics squad, but was not named to the team in the end.