title: Military robot

text: Some affixed fictitious medals to battle-hardened robots, and even held funerals for destroyed robots. An interview of 23 explosive ordnance detection members shows that while they feel it is better to lose a robot than a human, they also felt anger and a sense of loss if they were destroyed. A survey of 746 people in the military showed that 80% either 'liked' or 'loved' their military robots, with more affection being shown towards ground rather than aerial robots. Surviving dangerous combat situations together increased the level of bonding between soldier and robot, and current and future advances in artificial intelligence may further intensify the bond with the military robots.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: The common green bottle fly ("Lucilia sericata") is a blowfly found in most areas of the world and is the most well-known of the numerous green bottle fly species. Its body is in length – slightly larger than a house fly – and has brilliant, metallic, blue-green or golden coloration with black markings. It has short, sparse, black bristles (setae) and three cross-grooves on the thorax. The wings are clear with light brown veins, and the legs and antennae are black. The larvae of the fly may be used for maggot therapy, are commonly used in forensic entomology, and can be the cause of myiasis in livestock and pets. The common green bottle fly emerges in the spring for mating.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: The defining characteristic of "L. sericata" and the one most used when identifying the adult fly is the presence of three bristles on the dorsal mesothorax, located on the middle of the back of the fly. "L. sericata" is almost identical to its conspecific, "L. cuprina," and identification between them requires microscopic examination of two main distinguishing characteristics. "L. sericata" is blue-black, as opposed to "L. cuprina", which has a metallic green femoral joint in the first pair of legs. Also, when looking at the occipital setae," L. sericata" has one to nine bristles on each side, while "L. cuprina" has three or less. Additionally, the eyes of "L. sericata" are smaller, with the frontal stripe also being thinner than the ones of "L. cuprina".


title: Common green bottle fly

text: "Lucilia sericata" is common all over the temperate and tropical regions of the planet, including Europe, Africa, and Australia. It prefers warm and moist climates, so is especially common in coastal regions, but can also be found in arid areas. The female lays her eggs in carrion of all kinds, sometimes in the skin or hair of live animals, causing myiasis. The larvae feed on decaying organic tissue. The fly favours host species of the genus "Ovis", domestic sheep in particular, and sometimes lays eggs in the wet wool of living sheep. This can lead to blowfly strike, causing problems for sheep farmers. "L. sericata" has been known to prefer lower elevations relative to other Calliphoridae species, such as "Calliphora vomitoria."


title: Common green bottle fly

text: The lifecycle of "L. sericata" is typical of flies in the family Calliphoridae. After the female deposits the egg, it hatches into a larva that passes through three instars as it grows, then enters prepupal and pupal stages (which can eclose quickly or overwinter depending on temperature) before emerging into the adult stage or imago. To start, the female lays a mass of eggs in carrion. The eggs hatch between nine hours and three days after being deposited on the host, with eggs laid in warmer weather hatching more quickly than those in cooler weather. In this, they differ from the more opportunistic Sarcophagidae, which lay hatching eggs or completely hatched larvae into carrion and eliminate the time needed for the eggs to hatch. The flies are extremely prolific; a single female "L. sericata" typically lays 150−200 eggs per clutch and may produce 2,000 to 3,000 eggs in her lifetime. The pale yellow or grayish conical larvae, like those of most blow flies, have two posterior spiracles through which they respire. The larvae are moderately sized, ranging from 10 to 14 millimeters long.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: The larva feeds on dead or necrotic tissue for 3 to 10 days, depending on temperature and the quality of the food. During this period the larva passes through three larval instars. At a temperature of , the first larval instar lasts about 53 hours, the second about 42 hours and the third about 98 hours. At higher temperatures, say , the first larval instar lasts about 31 hours, the second about 12 hours, and the third about 40 hours. Third-instar larvae enter a "wandering" stage and drop off the host to find an appropriate location with soft enough soil, where they bury themselves to enter a pupal stage, which usually lasts from 6 to 14 days. Burial allows the pupa to more reliably avoid desiccation or predation. The larger the larva, the farther it is able to travel to find a suitable location to pupate; "L. sericata" is noted to be remarkably active and can travel over 100 feet before pupating. If the temperature is suitably low, however, a pupa might overwinter in the soil until the temperature rises. After emerging from the pupa, the adult feeds opportunistically on nectar, pollen, feces, or carrion while it matures. Adults usually lay eggs about 2 weeks after they emerge. Their complete lifecycle typically ranges from 2 to 3 weeks, but this varies with seasonal and other environmental circumstances. "L. sericata" usually completes three or four generations each year in cold, temperate climates, and more in warmer regions.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: The larvae of "L. sericata" feed exclusively on dead organic tissue; as the eggs are laid directly into carrion, they are able to feed on the corpse on which they hatch until they are ready to pupate. The adults are more varied in their diets, eating carrion and feces, as well as pollen and nectar, as they are important pollinators in their native range and important agents of decomposition. The pollen (which the flies can digest, perhaps with the assistance of bacteria in their digestive tracts) may be used as an alternative protein source, especially for gravid females who need large amounts of protein and cannot reliably find carrion. Notably, gravid flies are particularly attracted to sapromyophilous flowers that exude a carrion-like odor, such as the dead horse arum lily. These flowers are tricking the flies into pollinating them by mimicking the scent of a corpse, but the flies also frequently visit myophilous flowers such as the oxeye daisy, and are attracted to the color yellow, as well as to the scent of flowers. This indicates that the flies are attracted to flowers not only because they smell like carrion (in the case of the arum lily), but specifically for the pollen offered by the flower (in the case of myophilous flowers).


title: Common green bottle fly

text: "Lucilia sericata" females lay their eggs on fresh carrion, avoiding older carrion because it can be detrimental to offspring (possibly due to bacterial activity or other factors). Like many blowflies, females of "L. sericata" perform aggregated oviposition, laying their egg masses in carcasses in which other flies are also ovipositing. The presence of female flies eating or ovipositing on a carcass may attract other female flies to do the same, perhaps through chemical cues. Females exhibit preference for certain oviposition conditions over others; they attempt to maximize the survival potential of their offspring by laying eggs in only the best places. They often select natural orifices or wet fur, though they do not tend to oviposit in wounds, as is mistakenly thought by many. Gravid "L. sericata" females prefer warm temperatures for their offspring, since this decreases development time, so increases survival, and they oviposit faster and with more eggs in warmer carrion. Egg load peaks at 30 °C. Sulfur compounds and indole likely are the major factors attracting gravid flies to carrion, raising the possibility that these compounds could be used to attract flies to traps to control them in agricultural settings.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: The complex courtship process of "L. sericata" consists of several stages of display on the part of the male. First, the male identifies a potential mate and pushes her with his head; he then taps her with his fore leg multiple times. The male then mounts the female and attempts copulation, continuing to tap his fore leg on her body. If the female is receptive, copulation proceeds, genital contact is achieved, and when the process is over, both individuals move away. If she is not receptive, the female kicks at the male with her hind legs, but this is not usually successful at dismounting the male, and the mating proceeds, nevertheless. Some males are left-biased and some males are right-biased in their fore leg tapping, but this bias does not appear to have an effect on their mating success.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: Males are able to recognize potential mates by the frequency at which the light from their iridescent bodies glints through their wings, using the fast and precise visual processing that many flies rely upon for their manoeuvrability and agility in flight. They interpret these flashes to assess the age and sex of a potential mate. Under direct sunlight there is a reflected flash at each wingbeat. Males recognise fertile females by light flashing at the frequency at which they flap their wings - slower than young males or old flies of either sex. Eichorn et al. (2017) showed that male "L. sericata" show a strong preference for a diode flashing alternately on and off at 178 Hz over an immobilized female, 178 Hz being the characteristic wing-beat frequency of a young female "L. sericata", over constant light on the same female. This shows that, close up, sexually active males recognize a flash frequency rather than an attraction by sight or smell. Males preferred a diode flashing at 178 Hz to a diode flashing at other frequencies. "L. sericata" flies mate less frequently on cloudy days, suggesting that they rely on direct sunlight flashing through, off, or between their wings to recognize potential mates.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: The larvae of "L. sericata" are highly gregarious, to the point that their survival depends upon grouping. The aggregated oviposition behavior of gravid "L. sericata" females leads to large aggregates of same-age larvae, which have been shown to experience faster development and lower predation as opposed to smaller aggregates or aggregates of variously aged larvae. The resulting larval masses are able to thermoregulate, raising their own temperature and therefore decreasing their development time, leading to better survival. This thermoregulation may result from the way larvae forage; they are constantly moving and turning over, which could at least in part lead to the temperature rise experienced in larval masses. They also benefit from the digestive power of multiple other larvae. Each larva secretes digestive enzymes and then consumes the resulting dissolved meat around it. If more larvae are present, they secrete more digestive enzymes, which dissolve more meat and make food more accessible for the whole group. This easy access to food also contributes to a shorter development time.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: These benefits are present not only in single-species masses of larvae, but also in mixed-species groupings. Both groups of larvae have also been shown to have the ability to make collective decisions, perhaps using signals that are shared between species. In this manner, groups of larvae are able to collectively choose a preferred feeding spot, allowing them all to benefit from their collective digestive abilities and thermoregulation. Similarly, if a group of larvae becomes too large and overcrowding begins to cut into the benefits of heat and collective digestion, larval masses can "decide" to split in two and move to separate areas of a cadaver. These collective larval decisions (and indeed the formation of larval masses themselves) are the result of chemical cues that larvae leave behind them as they crawl along the carrion, which other larvae are predisposed to follow; the result is that the more larvae are in a particular area, the more other larvae will join them.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: "Lucilia sericata" is an important species to forensic entomologists. Like most calliphorids, "L. sericata" has been heavily studied and its lifecycle and habits are well documented. Accordingly, the stage of its development on a corpse is used to calculate a minimum "post mortem" interval, so that it can be used to aid in determining the time of death of the victim. The presence or absence of "L. sericata" can provide information about the conditions of the corpse. If the insects seem to be on the path of their normal development, the corpse likely has been undisturbed. Signs of a disturbed lifecycle, or their absence from a decaying body suggests "post mortem" tampering with the body. Because "L. sericata" is one of the first insects to colonize a corpse, it is preferred to many other species in determining an approximate time of colonization, thus time of death of the victim. Developmental progress is determined with relative accuracy by measuring the length and weight of larvae at various instars while taking into account the temperature, which can affect development time to a large extent.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: Many blow flies have an impact in veterinary science, and "L. sericata" is no exception. In places such as the UK and Australia, "L. sericata" is commonly referred to as the "sheep blowfly", since sheep are its primary host in those regions. Although it affects mainly sheep, "L. sericata" is not host-specific.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: In Northern Europe, the fly often lays its eggs in sheep wool. The larvae then migrate down the wool, where they feed directly on the skin surface in a process called myiasis. This can cause massive lesions and secondary bacterial infections, in turn causing serious problems for sheep farmers. In the UK, blowfly strike affects an estimated 1 million sheep, and 80% of sheep farms each year. This causes a huge economic impact in regions affected by blowfly strike. Not only does it cost money to treat infected animals, but measures also must be taken to control "L. sericata."


title: Common green bottle fly

text: A simple and effective way to reduce the incidence of such infection is to shear ewes regularly and to dock their tails, removing areas where thick wool can stay damp for long periods of time. Enacting simple sanitary measures can reduce blowfly strike. For example, timely and proper disposal of carcasses and proper removal of feces are effective measures. Moving sheep from warm, humid, and sheltered areas to more open areas can also help to reduce blowfly strike, for this eliminates conditions conducive to fly development. Trapping systems such as sticky paper may be used to control fly numbers. Treating a flock with chemical agents can be costly, but can aid greatly in maintaining the resistance of the flock to "L. sericata". For instance, plunge dipping in diazinon can directly kill the fly on contact. This method works from 3 to 8 weeks in controlling the fly. An alternative chemical method is a pyrethroid pour-on, which lasts 6 to 10 weeks depending on the type of pyrethroid used. Cryomazine and dicylanil, which are insect growth regulators, are also effective and last from 10 to 16 weeks. Chemical treatment is not ideal, though it can be very effective, because it is costly, tedious, and time consuming.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: "Lucilia sericata" has been of medical importance since 1826, when Meigen removed larvae from the eyes and facial cavities of a human patient. "L. sericata" has shown promise in three separate clinical approaches. First, larvae have been shown to debride wounds with extremely low probability of myiasis upon clinical application. Larval secretions have been shown to help in tissue regeneration. "L. sericata" has also been shown to lower bacteremia levels in patients infected with methicillin-resistant "Staphylococcus aureus" (MRSA). Essentially, "L. sericata" larvae can be used as biosurgery agents in cases where antibiotics and surgery are impractical.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: Larval secretions "in vitro" enhance fibroblast migration to the wound site, improving wound closure. Larval therapy of "L. sericata" is highly recommended for the treatment of wounds infected with Gram-positive bacteria, yet is not as effective for wounds infected with Gram-negative bacteria. Also, bacteria from the genus "Vagococcus" were resistant to the maggot excreta/secreta. Attempts are currently ongoing to extract or synthesize the chymotrypsins found in larval secretions to destroy MRSA without application of the larvae.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: Myiasis by "L. sericata" has been reported, including a case of a dual genital infestation of a married couple wherein the larvae were transmitted from the wife's vagina to the husband's penis through sexual intercourse.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: Due to this species' high forensic interest, extensive research on its lifecycle has been conducted. The ongoing medical research, however, centered around the secretions produced by "L. sericata" as an agent against MRSA and vancomycin-resistant "Staphylococcus aureus", and the larval applications for maggot therapy. A new antimicrobial agent isolated from "L. sericata" secretions was patented under the name Seraticin.


title: Common green bottle fly

text: Efforts are geared toward making medical professionals more familiar to the current techniques. Like many other ectoparasites, "L. sericata" has a huge economic impact on farmers, so many studies and research projects have been put in place since the late 1980s to help farmers reduce their impact. Research is also being conducted on less chemical-intensive measures to combat blowfly strike, since chemical dipping and pouring is not only expensive and time-consuming, but also toxic.


title: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

text: "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" is a song released by the Bee Gees in 1971. It was written by Barry and Robin Gibb and was the first single on the group's 1971 album "Trafalgar". It was their first US No. 1 single and also reached No. 1 in "Cashbox" magazine for two weeks.


title: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

text: In the US Atco Records issued both mono and stereo versions of the song on each side as a promo single. The B-side was a Maurice Gibb composition "Country Woman".


title: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

text: The song appears in the 2013 film "American Hustle" and on its soundtrack. It also provided the title to director Frank Marshall's 2020 documentary film "".


title: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

text: Barry and Robin Gibb wrote the song in August 1970 with "Lonely Days" when the Gibb brothers had reconvened following a period of break-up and alienation. "Robin came to my place," says Barry, "and that afternoon we wrote 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart' and that obviously was a link to us coming back together. We called Maurice, finished the song, went to the studio and once again, with only 'Broken Heart' as a basic structure, we went in to the studio with that and an idea for 'Lonely Days', and those two songs were recorded that night". They originally offered the song to Andy Williams, but ended up recording it themselves, although Williams did later cover the song on his album "You've Got a Friend". Barry also explains, "We might imitate a certain group, later on, the group will pick up on the song and say that suits us." Maurice Gibb possibly had a hand in the writing of "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" although the song is officially credited to Barry and Robin Gibb. The 2009 release "Ultimate Bee Gees" officially credited Maurice for the first time as co-writer of the song, for both the "Ultimate" CD and DVD, and it was credited to the moniker Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb.


title: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

text: The song was recorded on 28 January 1971 in London, the same day as "We Lost the Road", "When Do I", "If I Were the Sky", "Bring Out the Thoughts in Me" and "Ellan Vannin". The group's later song "My World" followed along the same musical ideas on this song. Robin Gibb's remarked on the song, "The whole thing took about an hour to complete. The song reached the number one spot, to our great satisfaction."


title: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

text: The song was sung live for the first time in 1971, in a performance that was notable as drummer Geoff Bridgford's first appearance with the band. Although failing to chart on the UK Singles Chart, the song became the Bee Gees' first US number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and also reached number four on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart. "Billboard" ranked it as the No. 5 song for 1971. "Cash Box" described the song as being "a slower, almost country-ballad styled performance which links an intricate melody segment with more powerful thrusts to give the track top forty impetus." In Spain, it was released under the title "Cómo Puedes Arreglar Un Corazón Destrozado".


title: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

text: Following the release of "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart", the song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo Or Group along with George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" and others. It was performed as part of a medley on "The Midnight Special" on 10 October 1975, in Japan on the Japanese TV special "Love Sounds", and on the "Mr. Natural" tour in 1974. A live version recorded on Nov 17th and 18th, 1989 at the National Tennis Centre, Melbourne, Australia was used for the benefit album "". In 1997-1999, the song was performed on the "One Night Only" tour as part of a medley. It was last performed by the Bee Gees in 2001.


title: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

text: Barry Gibb re-recorded the song as a duet with Sheryl Crow for his 2020 solo album "Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1."


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Claviceps purpurea is an ergot fungus that grows on the ears of rye and related cereal and forage plants. Consumption of grains or seeds contaminated with the survival structure of this fungus, the ergot sclerotium, can cause ergotism in humans and other mammals. "C. purpurea" most commonly affects outcrossing species such as rye (its most common host), as well as triticale, wheat and barley. It affects oats only rarely.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: An "ergot kernel" called "Sclerotium clavus" develops when a floret of flowering grass or cereal is infected by an ascospore of "C. purpurea". The infection process mimics a pollen grain growing into an ovary during fertilization. Because infection requires access of the fungal spore to the stigma, plants infected by "C. purpurea" are mainly outcrossing species with open flowers, such as rye ("Secale cereale") and Alopecurus.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: The proliferating fungal mycelium then destroys the plant ovary and connects with the vascular bundle originally intended for feeding the developing seed. The first stage of ergot infection manifests itself as a white soft tissue (known as "Sphacelia segetum") producing sugary honeydew, which often drops out of the infected grass florets. This honeydew contains millions of asexual spores (conidia) which are dispersed to other florets by insects or rain. Later, the "Sphacelia segetum" convert into a hard dry "Sclerotium clavus" inside the husk of the floret. At this stage, alkaloids and lipids (e.g. ricinoleic acid) accumulate in the Sclerotium.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: When a mature "Sclerotium" drops to the ground, the fungus remains dormant until proper conditions trigger its fruiting phase (onset of spring, rain period, need of fresh temperatures during winter, etc.). It germinates, forming one or several fruiting bodies with head and stipe, variously colored (resembling a tiny mushroom). In the head, threadlike sexual spores (ascospores) are formed in perithecia, which are ejected simultaneously, when suitable grass hosts are flowering. Ergot infection causes a reduction in the yield and quality of grain and hay produced, and if infected grain or hay is fed to livestock it may cause a disease called ergotism.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: "Polistes dorsalis", a species of social wasps, have been recorded as a vector of the spread of this particular fungus. During their foraging behavior, particles of the fungal conidia get bound to parts of this wasp's body. As "P. dorsalis" travels from source to source, it leaves the fungal infection behind. Insects, including flies and moths, have also been shown to carry conidia of "Claviceps" species, but if insects play a role in spreading the fungus from infected to healthy plants is unknown.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Early scientists have observed "Claviceps purpurea" on other Poaceae as "Secale cereale". 1855, Grandclement described ergot on "Triticum aestivum". During more than a century scientists aimed to describe specialized species or specialized varieties inside the species "Claviceps purpurea".


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Molecular biology has not confirmed this hypothesis but has distinguished three groups differing in their ecological specificity.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Morphological criteria to distinguish different groups: The shape and the size of sclerotia are not good indicators because they strongly depend on the size and shape of the host floret. The size of conidia can be an indication but it is weak and it is necessary to pay attention to that, due to osmotic pressure, it varies significantly if the spores are observed in honeydew or in water. The sclerotial density can be used as the groups G2 and G3 float in water.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: "Agrostis canina", "Alopecurus myosuroides" (G2), "Alopecurus arundinaceus" (G2), "Alopecurus pratensis", "Bromus arvensis", "Bromus commutatus", "Bromus hordeaceus" (G2), "Bromus inermis", "Bromus marginatus", "Elymus tsukushiense", "Festuca arundinacea", "Elymus repens" (G1), "Nardus stricta", "Poa annua" (G2), "Phleum pratense", "Phalaris arundinacea" (G2), "Poa pratensis" (G1), "Stipa".


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: "Claviceps purpurea" has been known to humankind for a long time, and its appearance has been linked to extremely cold winters that were followed by rainy springs.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: The sclerotial stage of "C. purpurea" conspicuous on the heads of ryes and other such grains is known as ergot. Sclerotia germinate in spring after a period of low temperature. A temperature of 0-5 °C for at least 25 days is required. Water before the cold period is also necessary. Favorable temperatures for stroma production are in the range of 10-25 °C. Favorable temperatures for mycelial growth are in the range of 20-30 °C with an optimum at 25 °C.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: The disease cycle of the ergot fungus was first described in 1853, but the connection with ergot and epidemics among people and animals was reported already in a scientific text in 1676.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: The ergot sclerotium contains high concentrations (up to 2% of dry mass) of the alkaloid ergotamine, a complex molecule consisting of a tripeptide-derived cyclol-lactam ring connected via amide linkage to a lysergic acid (ergoline) moiety, and other alkaloids of the ergoline group that are biosynthesized by the fungus. Ergot alkaloids have a wide range of biological activities including effects on circulation and neurotransmission.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Ergotism is the name for sometimes severe pathological syndromes affecting humans or animals that have ingested ergot alkaloid-containing plant material, such as ergot-contaminated grains. Monks of the order of St. Anthony the Great specialized in treating ergotism victims with balms containing tranquilizing and circulation-stimulating plant extracts; they were also skilled in amputations. The common name for ergotism is "St. Anthony's Fire", in reference to monks who cared for victims as well as symptoms, such as severe burning sensations in the limbs. These are caused by effects of ergot alkaloids on the vascular system due to vasoconstriction of blood vessels, sometimes leading to gangrene and loss of limbs due to severely restricted blood circulation.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: The neurotropic activities of the ergot alkaloids may also cause hallucinations and attendant irrational behaviour, convulsions, and even death. Other symptoms include strong uterine contractions, nausea, seizures, and unconsciousness. Since the Middle Ages, controlled doses of ergot were used to induce abortions and to stop maternal bleeding after childbirth. Ergot alkaloids are also used in products such as Cafergot (containing caffeine and ergotamine or ergoline) to treat migraine headaches. Ergot extract is no longer used as a pharmaceutical preparation.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Ergot contains no lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) but rather ergotamine, which is used to synthesize lysergic acid, an analog of and precursor for synthesis of LSD. Moreover, ergot sclerotia naturally contain some amounts of lysergic acid.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Potato dextrose agar, wheat seeds or oat flour are suitable substrates for growth of the fungus in the laboratory.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Agricultural production of Claviceps purpurea on rye is used to produce ergot alkaloids. Biological production of ergot alkaloids is also carried out by saprophytic cultivations.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: During the Middle Ages, human poisoning due to the consumption of rye bread made from ergot-infected grain was common in Europe. These epidemics were known as Saint Anthony's fire, or "ignis sacer".


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Gordon Wasson proposed that the psychedelic effects were the explanation behind the festival of Demeter at the Eleusinian Mysteries, where the initiates drank kykeon"."


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: Linnda R. Caporael posited in 1976 that the hysterical symptoms of young women that had spurred the Salem witch trials had been the result of consuming ergot-tainted rye. However, her conclusions were later disputed by Nicholas P. Spanos and Jack Gottlieb, after a review of the historical and medical evidence. Other authors have likewise cast doubt on ergotism having been the cause of the Salem witch trials.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: The Great Fear in France during the Revolution has also been linked by some historians to the influence of ergot.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: British author John Grigsby claims that the presence of ergot in the stomachs of some of the so-called 'bog-bodies' (Iron Age human remains from peat bogs N E Europe such as Tollund Man), reveals that ergot was once a ritual drink in a prehistoric fertility cult akin to the Eleusinian Mysteries cult of ancient Greece. In his book Beowulf and Grendel he argues that the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is based on a memory of the quelling of this fertility cult by followers of Odin. He states that Beowulf, which he translates as "barley-wolf", suggests a connection to ergot which in German was known as the 'tooth of the wolf'.


title: Claviceps purpurea

text: An outbreak of violent hallucinations among hundreds of residents of Pont St. Esprit in 1951 in the south of France has also been attributed to ergotism. Seven people died.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: The First Anglo-Mysore War (1766–1769) was a conflict in India between the Sultanate of Mysore and the East India Company. The war was instigated in part by the machinations of Asaf Jah II, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who sought to divert the company's resources from attempts to gain control over the Northern Circars.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: The eighteenth century was a period of great turmoil in Indian subcontinent. Although the century opened with much of the subcontinent under the control of the Mughal Empire, the death in 1707 of Emperor Aurangzeb resulted in the fracturing of the empire, and a struggle among viceroys and other local rulers for territory. In the 1740s and 1750s French and British colonial companies became more active in these local conflicts. By the Third Carnatic War (1757–1763) the British had gained somewhat solid footholds at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, and had also marginalised, although not eliminated, the influence of other colonial powers. Their eastern holdings at Madras were strongly influenced by treaties with the Nawab of Carnatic, Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, whose territory surrounded Madras. The other major powers in the east were the Nizam of Hyderabad, formerly a viceroyalty of the Mughal Empire but declared independent in the 1720s, held in the 1760s by Asaf Jah II, and the Sultanate of Mysore, which occupied the high plains between the Eastern and Western Ghats, the mountain ranges separating the coastal plains of India from the interior. Nominally ruled by the Wodeyar dynasty, Mysore had in 1761 come into the hands of Hyder Ali, a Muslim military leader. Each of these powers intrigued with and against the others, and sought to draw the power of the French and British colonial companies to serve their objectives. The colonial powers sought to influence the local powers to gain either direct control of territory, or the revenues from territory nominally controlled by a local ruler beholden to them for financial and military support. Since European military training was significantly better than local practices, the latter was particularly important; small numbers of disciplined European or European-trained forces could defeat larger Indian armies composed mainly of poorly trained infantry and cavalry.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: The British East India Company, seeking an overland connection between its holdings at Madras and Bengal, sought to gain access to the Northern Circars, a series of coastal territories held by the French until 1758, when they were ousted with British military support. They had applied to the nizam, offering to pay rent well above that he was currently receiving from the nawab of Arcot; the nizam rejected their offers. Lord Robert Clive next applied to Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, who in August 1765 issued a decree granting the company rights to that territory.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: At the same time, the nizam was involved in an alliance with the Marathas. Both he and the Marathas' ruling peshwa, Madhavrao I were concerned over the expansionist threat posed by Hyder Ali. After assisting the Marathas in dealing with one of their confederates 1765, the allies began developing plans to invade Mysore. When the British began occupying the Northern Circars in March 1766, the nizam objected, issuing threatening letters to company authorities in Madras. He considered going to war against the company, but his poor financial condition made this impossible. Instead he negotiated a treaty with the company in November 1766. Under its terms the company received four of the five circar immediately (Guntur, the fifth, having been granted to the nizam's son as a jaghir, was to be delivered upon the son's death) in exchange for 7 lakh rupees or military support to the nizam in his endeavours. One historian describes the nizam's agreement to the treaty as one of financial necessity, and that he was "resentful" of English power. Pursuant to this treaty, the company provided two battalions of troops to the nizam. Under the treaty, there were no limits placed on the number of troops the nizam could request, nor were there checks on the uses (offensive or defensive) to which he could put them.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: Conflict involving Madras authorities, Muhammed Jinnah and Tipu Sultan, was also simmering. Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, allied to the British, whose territory his surrounded, was upset that Hyder was harboring opponents of his, including his older brother Mahfuhz Khan, and Raja Saheb, the son of Chanda Saheb, a previous contender for the throne of the Carnatic. Hyder was annoyed that the British had established a fortified outpost at Vellore, and that the company had several times rebuffed his offers of alliance. An offer he made in late 1766 was rejected because the local company council viewed it as incompatible with the treaty signed with the nizam. The First Anglo-Mysore War saw Hyder Ali gain some measures of success against the British, almost capturing Madras.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: The war began in January 1767 when the Marathas, possibly anticipating movements by the nizam, invaded northern Mysore. They reached as far south as the Tunghabadhra River, before Haider entered into negotiations to end the invasion. In exchange for payments of 30 lakhs rupees the Marathas agreed to withdraw north of the Kistna River; by March, when the nizam began his invasion, they had already withdrawn. According to Mysore historian Mark Wilks, this action by the Marathas was a somewhat typical move to acquire wealth that might otherwise be claimed by other belligerents. The nizam advanced as far as Bangalore, accompanied by two battalions of company troops under Colonel Joseph Smith.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: In May, Smith discovered that the Haider and the nizam were negotiating an alliance, and consequently withdrew most of his troops to the Carnatic frontier. The deal struck between the two powers called for them to join against the British. Haider was to pay 18 lakhs rupees for the invasion to end, and the nizam was to recognise Haider's son Tipu Sultan as Nawab of the Carnatic once that territory was conquered. Despite the agreement the two sides exhibited little trust for one another; Haider was known to place spies in the nizam's camp.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: This diplomatic manoeuvring resulted in an attack against a company outpost at Changama by the combined Mysore-Hyderabad army under Hyder's command. Despite significantly outnumbering the British force (British estimates place the allied army size at 70,000 to the British 7,000), the allies were repulsed with heavy losses. Haider moved on to capture Kaveripattinam after two days of siege, while Colonel Smith, who commanded at Changama, eventually retreated to Tiruvannamalai for supplies and reinforcements. There Haider again attacked, and was decisively repulsed on 26 September 1767. With the onset of the monsoon season, Haider opted to continue campaigning rather than adopting the usual practice of suspending operations because of the difficult conditions the weather created for armies. After overrunning a few lesser outposts, he besieged Ambur in November 1767, forcing the British to resume campaigning. The British garrison commander refused large bribes offered by Haider in exchange for surrender, and the arrival of a relief column in early December forced Haider to lift the siege. He retreated northward, covering the movements of the nizam's forces, but was disheartened when an entire corps of European cavalry deserted to the British. The failures of this campaign, combined with successful British advances in the Northern Circars and secret negotiations between the British and the nizam, led to a split between Haider and the nizam. The latter withdrew back to Hyderabad and eventually negotiated a new treaty with the British company in 1768. Haider, apparently seeking an end to the conflict, made peace overtures to the British, but was rebuffed.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: In early 1768, company authorities in Bombay organised an expedition to Mysore's Malabar coast territories. Hyder had established a small fleet, based primarily in the port of Mangalore, in the mid-1760s. This fleet, which the British reported as numbering about ten ships, deserted en masse, apparently because the captains were unhappy with Lutf Ali Beg, a Mysorean cavalry officer, as fleet commander. Owing to a British deception, Lutf Ali Beg also withdrew much of the Mangalore garrison to move on what he perceived to be the British target, Onore. The British consequently occupied Mangalore against minimal opposition in February. This activity, combined with the loss of the nizam as an ally, prompted Hyder to withdraw from the Carnatic, and move with speed to the Malabar. Dispatching his son Tipu with an advance force, Haider followed, and eventually retook Mangalore and the other ports held by the over-extended British forces. He also levied additional taxes as punishment against rebellious Nair districts that had supported the British.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: During Haider's absence from the Carnatic, the British recovered many places that Hyder had taken and only weakly garrisoned, and advanced as far south as Dindigul. They also convinced the Marathas to enter the conflict, and a large force of theirs, under the command of Morari Rao, joined with Colonel Smith at Ooscota in early August 1768. This army then began preparations to besiege Bangalore, but Hyder returned to Bangalore from the Malabar on 9 August, in time to harass the allies before the siege could begin. On 22 August Hyder attacked the Maratha camp at Ooscota, but was repulsed with heavy losses. Hyder was then foiled in an attempt to prevent the arrival of a second British column at the allied camp; the strength of these combined forces convinced him to retreat from Bangalore toward Gurramkonda, where he was reinforced by his brother in law. He also attempted diplomatic measures to prevent a siege of Bangalore, offering to pay ten lakhs rupees and grant other land concessions in exchange for peace. The British countered with an aggressive list of demands that included payments of tribute to the nizam and larger land concessions to the British East India Company. Hyder specifically refused to deal with Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, whose lands were where much of the fighting had taken place, and a man Hyder intensely disliked. The negotiations failed to reach common ground.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: On 3 October, Hyder, while moving his army from Guuramkonda back toward Bangalore, surprised a small garrison of Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah's men at a rock fort called Mulabagilu, near Hosakote. British reinforcements were sent, and Colonel Wood was able to recover the lower fort but not the upper. The next day he went out with a few companies of men to investigate movements that might have been cover for enemy reinforcements. This small force, numbering four companies, was surrounded by Hyder's entire army. A stratagem by another officer, Colonel Brooks, prevented the loss of this detachment; Colonel Brooks and another two companies dragged two cannons to the top of a nearby rise, and Brooks called out "Smith! Smith!" while firing the cannons. Both sides interpreted this to mean that Colonel Smith was arriving in force, and Hyder's troops began to retreat. This enabled Colonel Wood to join with Brooks and other reinforcements from Mulwagal before Hyder realised he had been fooled. Hyder renewed his attack, but was eventually repulsed with heavy losses: he was estimated to lose 1,000 men while the British lost about 200. The severity of the conflict convinced Colonel Smith that he would be unable to effectively besiege Bangalore without first inflicting a major defeat on Hyder in open battle. Company officials blamed Smith for the failure to decisively defeat Hyder, and recalled him to Madras. Hyder took the opportunity to besiege Hosur, and Colonel Wood marched in relief of the town. As Wood approached, Hyder raised the siege, sneaked around Wood's column, and attacked his baggage train near Bagalur. Hyder successfully captured supplies and arms, and drove Wood in disgrace toward Venkatagiri. Wood was consequently recalled and replaced by Colonel Lang.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: Hyder then raised additional forces in Mysore and went on the offensive. In November 1768 he split his army into two, and crossed the ghats into the Carnatic, regaining control of many minor posts held by the British. En route to Erode Hyder overwhelmed one contingent of British, who were sent as prisoners to Seringapatam when it was established that one of its officers was fighting in violation of a parole agreement. After rapidly establishing control over much of the southern Carnatic, his march turned toward Madras. This prompted the British to send an envoy to discuss peace; because of Hyder's insistence that the nawab of the Carnatic be excluded from the negotiations, they went nowhere. Hyder then surprised company authorities by taking a picked force of 6,000 cavalry and a small number of infantry, and made a three-day forced march of to the gates of Madras.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: This show of force compelled the company to negotiate further, since Madras had been left nearly defenceless by military movements made to counter those of Hyder's main force. Hyder, who was seeking diplomatic leverage against the Marathas, wanted an alliance of mutual defence and offence. The company refused to accede to an offensive military treaty; the Treaty of Madras signed on 29 March 1769 had terms that each would support the other if attacked.


title: First Anglo-Mysore War

text: Hyder Ali, apparently emboldened by the agreement with the British, engaged in war with the Marathas in 1770, and asked the British support them if and when the Marathas penetrated Mysorean territory. The British refused to assist him, even though they were also drawn into conflict with the Marathas in the 1770s. Hyder's battles did not fully end until 1779, when the Marathas negotiated an alliance with him and the Nizam for united action against the British. This led to the beginning of the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1780. This conflict devastated much of the Carnatic, and also failed to decisively resolve differences between Mysore and the British. Resolution occurred in 1799 with the defeat and killing of Hyder's son Tipu Sultan, and the restoration of the Wodeyars as British clients.


title: Robert Clohessy

text: Robert Clohessy (born June 10, 1957) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Correctional Officer Sean Murphy on the HBO prison drama "Oz" from seasons 3–6, in addition to playing Officer Patrick Flaherty on the NBC police procedural "Hill Street Blues", Warden Boss James Neary on the HBO crime drama "Boardwalk Empire" for the first two seasons and Lieutenant Sid Gormley on the CBS police drama "Blue Bloods".


title: Robert Clohessy

text: Clohessy was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of John Clohessy, a police officer. He fought in the 1975 Golden Gloves in Madison Square Garden. He graduated from Pearl River High School in Pearl River, New York, and from SUNY Purchase where he studied under Walt Witcover.


title: Robert Clohessy

text: Clohessy has had recurring roles in daytime dramas "All My Children," "Boy Meets World", and "Guiding Light". In primetime, he has become known for his multiple regular turns as police officers and other law enforcement officials, creating parallels between his acting career and upbringing by his policeman father. The first of such roles was in the seventh and final season of "Hill Street Blues", as Officer Patrick Flaherty. The following season, Clohessy was cast as the new co-star of Pat Morita on the ABC detective series "Ohara", playing Lt. George Shaver. In 1995, he appeared in the episode "Hell's Angel" of the situation comedy "Double Rush".


title: Robert Clohessy

text: He later joined the cast of the HBO prison drama "Oz" as Correctional Officer Sean Murphy. However, in between these roles, Clohessy had a supporting role as Thomas Smaraldo on NBC's comedy/drama "Tattingers" (1988–89) and soon after appeared in a starring role on NBC's short-lived comedy "One of the Boys" (1989). Clohessy co-starred on the Neal Marlens/Carol Black ABC sitcom "Laurie Hill" in 1992, playing a stay-at-home freelance writer. In 2008, Clohessy had a regular role in the short-lived Fox show "New Amsterdam". He won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire".


title: Robert Clohessy

text: In feature films, Clohessy played a supporting role in "Across the Universe", playing the part of Jude's long-lost father. He played Jack Parker in "The Crimson Mask". His largest big budget film role was opposite Ryan Gosling in "The Place Beyond the Pines". Onstage, he played Mike in the Broadway Roundabout Theatre Company revival of "Pal Joey", from November, 2008 through February 2009. He played the bartender in "27 Dresses" (2008). From 2010 to the present (2021), he has had a supporting role as Sid Gormley, on the police drama "Blue Bloods". In January 2012, he played Jack Healy in Season 1/Episode 13 in "Unforgettable". In 2012, he portrayed Sergeant Silva in the film "The Avengers".


title: Comparison of United Kingdom and United States military ranks

text: Not listed are U.S. warrant officers. A warrant officer is an officer who can and does command, carry out military justice actions and sits on both selection and promotion boards. A US warrant officer is a single-track specialty officer, initially appointed by their respective service secretary; he/she receives a commission upon promotion to chief warrant officer two (CW2).


text: In the UK the separation between "other" ranks and "officer" ranks can, on occasion, become permeable. Within the British armed services, both Sir Fitzroy Maclean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career progression with the British army, both rising from the rank of private to brigadier during World War II. In the US military such advancement is not uncommon, all five services maintaining programs that select promising enlisted men and women for the commissioned ranks.


text: UK and US ranks are categorised in the NATO rank code system OR-1 to OR-9. Ranks with the same code are not necessarily equivalent however. Within the US military, however, "E-1" to "E-9" is the more common usage.


text: Addendum: In the US Army (but not the USMC) the term "trooper/(troop)" may be used informally for lower enlisted in cavalry, scout, airborne, air assault, Ranger, and Special Forces units, along with the occasional use for any soldier, particularly dismounted infantry. The specific definition of "troop" is a company-sized unit of cavalry, organizationally equivalent to "battery" in artillery units.


title: Santoor

text: The Indian santoor instrument is a trapezoid-shaped hammered dulcimer, and a variation of the Iranian santur. The instrument is generally made of walnut and has 25 bridges. Each bridge has 4 strings, making for a total of 100 strings. It is a traditional instrument in Jammu and Kashmir, and dates back to ancient times. It was called "Shatha Tantri Veena" in ancient Sanskrit texts.


title: Santoor

text: In ancient Sanskrit texts, it has been referred to as "shatatantri vina" (100-stringed vina). In Kashmir the santoor was used to accompany folk music. It is played in a style of music known as the "Sufiana Mausiqi". Some researchers slot it as an improvised version of a primitive instrument played in the Mesopotamian times (1600–900 B.C.) Sufi mystics used it as an accompaniment to their hymns. In Indian santoor playing, the specially-shaped mallets ("mezrab") are lightweight and are held between the index and middle fingers. A typical santoor has two sets of bridges, providing a range of three octaves. The Indian santoor is more rectangular and can have more strings than its Persian counterpart, which generally has 72 strings. Musical instruments very similar to the santoor are traditionally used all over the world.


title: Santoor

text: The trapezoid framework is generally made out of either walnut or maple wood. The top and bottom boards sometimes can be either plywood or veneer. On the top board, also known as the soundboard, wooden bridges are placed, in order to seat stretched metal strings across. The strings, grouped in units of 3 or 4, are tied on nails or pins on the left side of the instrument and are stretched over the sound board on top of the bridges to the right side. On the right side there are steel tuning pegs or tuning pins, as they are commonly known, that allows tuning each unit of strings to a desired musical note or a frequency or a pitch.


title: Santoor

text: The santoor is played while sitting in an "asana" called "ardha-padmasana" and placing it on the lap. While being played, the broad side is closer to the waist of the musician and the shorter side is away from the musician. It is played with a pair of light wooden mallets held with both hands. The santoor is a delicate instrument and sensitive to light strokes and glides. The strokes are played always on the strings either closer to the bridges or a little away from bridges: the styles result in different tones. Strokes by one hand can be muffled by the other hand by using the face of the palm to create variety.


title: I'll Never Fall in Love Again

text: "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" is a popular song by composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David that was written for the 1968 musical "Promises, Promises". Several recordings of the song were released in 1969; the most popular versions were by Dionne Warwick (released December 1969), who took it to number 6 on "Billboard" magazine's Hot 100 and spent three weeks topping the magazine's list of the most popular Easy Listening songs, and Bobbie Gentry (released July 1969), who topped the UK chart with her recording and also peaked at number 1 in Australia and Ireland, number 3 in South Africa and number 5 in Norway.


title: I'll Never Fall in Love Again

text: In the fall of 1968, Bacharach and David were in Boston for previews of "Promises, Promises", the new musical for which producer David Merrick had asked if they would write the score, and Merrick realized, "We're missing a song in the middle of the second act, and what we need is something the audience can whistle on their way out of the theater." But around this time, Bacharach was hospitalized with pneumonia and wasn't able to sit at a piano to write the music until after he was released. By that time "Hal had already come up with the lyrics to 'I'll Never Fall in Love Again,' and my hospital stay had inspired him to write, 'What do you get when you kiss a girl? / You get enough germs to catch pneumonia / After you do, she'll never phone you.'" When he finally sat with the lyrics in front of him, he recalls, "I wrote the melody for 'I'll Never Fall in Love Again' faster than I had ever written any song in my life." The surge of creativity paid off. "We came in with the song the next morning, and it went into the show a couple of nights later. 'I'll Never Fall in Love Again' became the outstanding hit from the score and pretty much stopped the show every night." "Promises, Promises" had its Broadway premiere on December 1 of that year, and the song was originally performed as a duet between the characters played by Jill O'Hara and Jerry Orbach as they ruminate on the various troubles that falling in love brings. They recorded it for the original Broadway cast album.


title: I'll Never Fall in Love Again

text: The first recording of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" to reach any of the charts in "Billboard" was by Johnny Mathis, whose cover debuted on the magazine's Easy Listening chart in the issue dated May 17, 1969, and reached number 35 over the course of three weeks there. Bacharach's own version, which was sung by a female chorus, overtook the Mathis release after a May 31 debut on that same chart and got as high as number 18 during its nine-week stay. It also peaked at number 93 on the Hot 100 during the two weeks it spent there in July. Bobbie Gentry entered the UK singles chart with the song the following month, on August 30, and enjoyed one of her 19 weeks there at number one. She also peaked at number one in Ireland, number three in South Africa, and number five in Norway.


title: I'll Never Fall in Love Again

text: The most successful version of the song to be released as a single in the US was by Bacharach-David protégée Dionne Warwick, whose recording made its first appearance on the Hot 100 in the issue dated December 27, 1969, to start an 11-week run that took it to number six. The January 3, 1970, issue marked its first of 11 weeks on the magazine's Easy Listening chart, where it enjoyed three weeks at number one, and a seven-week stay on their list of the 50 Best Selling Soul Singles in the US began in the next issue and included a peak position at number 17. Her version also spent four weeks at number one on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart and reached number three on the Canadian pop chart. The Dionne Warwick version is noted for Burt Bacharach playing a counterpoint melody on the piano, which is heard at the fading Coda section of the song.


title: I'll Never Fall in Love Again

text: In 1972, the Liz Anderson recording of the song peaked at number 56 on "Billboard"'s Hot Country Singles chart. In 1990 the Scottish pop rock band Deacon Blue opted for a slower arrangement on the duet between their vocalists Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh as part of the four-song EP "Four Bacharach & David Songs". The song was the main radio choice for the EP, which reached number two in the UK and became Deacon Blue's biggest hit in the UK (the EP was listed as the single rather than the song on UK chart). The song also reached number two in Ireland, and number 72 in the Netherlands.


title: I'll Never Fall in Love Again

text: At the 12th Annual Grammy Awards on March 11, 1970, Bacharach and David were the songwriting nominees of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" in the Song of the Year category but lost to Joe South for "Games People Play". Because the eligibility period ended on November 1, 1969, however, Warwick was not nominated until the following year, when she won in the category of Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Female.


title: Svaðilfari

text: In Norse mythology, Svaðilfari (Old Norse: ; perhaps "unlucky traveler") is a stallion that fathered the eight-legged horse Sleipnir with Loki (in the form of a mare). Svaðilfari was owned by the disguised and unnamed jötunn who built the walls of Asgard.


title: Svaðilfari

text: In chapter 42 of the "Prose Edda" book "Gylfaginning", High tells a story set "right at the beginning of the gods' settlement, when the gods had established Midgard and built Val-Hall" about an unnamed builder who offered to build a fortification for the gods that would keep out invaders in exchange for Freyja, the sun, and the moon. After some debate, the gods agreed to this but placed a number of restrictions on the builder, including that he complete the work within one season. The builder made a single request: that he could have help from his stallion Svaðilfari, and under Loki's influence, this was allowed. The stallion Svaðilfari performed twice the builder's deeds of strength and hauled enormous rocks, to the surprise of the gods. The builder, with Svaðilfari, made fast progress on the wall, and three days before the deadline of summer, the builder was nearly at the entrance to the fortification. The gods convene and unanimously agreed that, along with most trouble, Loki was to blame.


title: Svaðilfari

text: The gods declared that Loki would face severe repercussions if he did not come up with a scheme that would cause the builder to forfeit his payment. Loki, afraid, swore that he would devise a scheme to force the builder into a corner, whatever it would cost himself. That night, the builder drove out to fetch stones with Svaðilfari, and out from the woods, into the clearing, ran a beautiful mare who was, in fact, Loki in disguise. The mare approached and neighed at Svaðilfari, and Svaðilfari became frantic, neighed, tore apart his tack, and ran towards the mare. The mare suddenly turned and ran into the woods in a fast gallop, away from the stallion. Svaðilfari began to follow, and the builder chased after. The two horses ran around all night, causing the building work to be held up for the night. Seeing that the wall would not be finished in time, the builder went into a rage (), revealing he was a bergrisi.


title: Svaðilfari

text: When the Æsir realized that the builder was a jötunn, they disregarded their previous oaths with the builder and called for Thor who quickly arrived and killed the builder with Mjöllnir. Due to his night with Svaðilfari, Loki became pregnant and later gave birth to a grey foal with eight legs - the famed horse Sleipnir.


title: Glissando

text: In music, a glissando (; plural: "glissandi", abbreviated "gliss.") is a glide from one pitch to another (). It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French "glisser", "to glide". In some contexts, it is distinguished from the continuous portamento. Some colloquial equivalents are slide, sweep (referring to the "discrete glissando" effects on guitar and harp, respectively), bend, smear, rip (for a loud, violent gliss to the beginning of a note), lip (in jazz terminology, when executed by changing one's embouchure on a wind instrument), plop, or falling hail (a glissando on a harp using the back of the fingernails). On wind instruments, a scoop is a glissando ascending to the onset of a note achieved entirely with the embouchure.


title: Glissando

text: Prescriptive attempts to distinguish the glissando from the portamento by limiting the former to the filling in of discrete intermediate pitches on instruments like the piano, harp, and fretted stringed instruments have run up against established usage of instruments like the trombone and timpani. The latter could thus be thought of as capable of either "glissando" or "portamento", depending on whether the drum was rolled or not. The clarinet gesture that opens "Rhapsody in Blue" could likewise be thought of either way: it was originally planned as a glissando (Gershwin's score labels each individual note) but is in practice played as a portamento though described as a glissando.


title: Glissando

text: The glissando is indicated by following the initial note with a line, sometimes wavy, in the desired direction, often accompanied by the abbreviation "gliss.". Occasionally, the desired notes are notated in the standard method (i.e. semiquavers) accompanied by the word 'glissando'.


title: Glissando

text: On some instruments (e.g., piano, harp, xylophone), discrete tones are clearly audible when sliding. For example, on a keyboard, a player's fingernails can be made to slide across the white keys or over the black keys, producing either a C major scale or an F major pentatonic scale, or their relative modes; by performing both at once, it is possible to produce a full chromatic scale. Pianists can also complete a glissando of two pitches an octave apart. Maurice Ravel used glissandi in many of his piano compositions, and "Alborada del Gracioso" contains notable piano glissando passages in thirds executed by the right hand. Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Liszt and Gershwin have all used glissandi for piano in notable compositions.


title: Glissando

text: Organ players—particularly in contemporary music—sometimes employ an effect known as the palm glissando, where over the course of the glissando the flat of the hand is used to depress a wide area of keys simultaneously, resulting in a dramatic atonal sweep. A similar device on the piano are cluster-glissandos, used extensively by Karlheinz Stockhausen in "Klavierstück X", and which "more than anything else, lend the work its unique aural flavour". On a harp, the player can slide their finger across the strings, quickly playing the scale (or on pedal harp even arpeggios such as C-D-E-F-G-A-B). Wind, brass, and fretted-stringed-instrument players can perform an extremely rapid chromatic scale (e.g., sliding up or down a string quickly on a fretted instrument).


title: Glissando

text: Arpeggio effects (likewise named glissando) are also obtained by bowed strings (playing harmonics) and brass, especially the horn.


title: Glissando

text: Musical instruments with can effect a portamento over a substantial range. These include unfretted stringed instruments (such as the violin, viola, cello and double bass, and fretless guitars), stringed instruments with a way of stretching the strings (such as the guitar, veena, or sitar), a fretted guitar or lap steel guitar when accompanied with the use of a slide, wind instruments without valves or stops (such as the trombone or slide whistle), timpani (kettledrums), electronic instruments (such as the theremin, the ondes Martenot, synthesizers and keytars), the water organ, and the human voice.


title: Glissando

text: Other wind instruments can effect a similar limited slide by altering the lip pressure (on trumpet, for example) or a combination of embouchure and rolling the head joint (as on the flute), while others such as the clarinet can achieve this by slowly dragging fingers off tone holes or changing the oral cavity's resonance by manipulating tongue position, embouchure, and throat shaping.


title: Glissando

text: Many electric guitars are fitted with a tremolo arm which can produce either a portamento, a vibrato, or a combination of both (but not a true tremolo despite the name).


title: Glissando

text: A bent note is a musical note that is varied in pitch. With unfretted strings or other continuous-pitch instruments such as the trombone, or with the human voice, such variation is more properly described in terms of intonation. A note is commonly bent to a higher pitch on fretted instruments literally by bending the string with excess finger pressure, and to a lower pitch on harmonica (a free-reed aerophone) by altering the vocal tract to shift the resonance of the reed. On brass instruments such as the trumpet, the note is bent by using the lip. "Indeterminately pitched instruments [such as unpitched percussion instruments and friction drum rolls]...produce a pitch or pitch spectrum that becomes higher with an increase of dynamic and lower with a decrease of dynamic."


title: ABC (medicine)

text: ABC and its variations are initialism mnemonics for essential steps used by both medical professionals and lay persons (such as first aiders) when dealing with a patient. In its original form it stands for "Airway", "Breathing," and "Circulation". The protocol was originally developed as a memory aid for rescuers performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and the most widely known use of the initialism is in the care of the unconscious or unresponsive patient, although it is also used as a reminder of the priorities for assessment and treatment of patients in many acute medical and trauma situations, from first-aid to hospital medical treatment. Airway, breathing, and circulation are all vital for life, and each is required, in that order, for the next to be effective. Since its development, the mnemonic has been extended and modified to fit the different areas in which it is used, with different versions changing the meaning of letters (such as from the original 'Circulation' to 'Compressions') or adding other letters (such as an optional "D" step for "Disability" or "Defibrillation").


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In 2010, the American Heart Association and International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation changed the recommended order of CPR interventions for most cases of cardiac arrest to chest compressions, airway, and breathing, or CAB.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: At all levels of care, the ABC protocol exists to remind the person delivering treatment of the importance of airway, breathing, and circulation to the maintenance of a patient's life. These three issues are paramount in any treatment, in that the loss (or loss of control of) any one of these items will rapidly lead to the patient's death. The three objectives are so important to successful patient care that they form the foundation of training for not only first aid providers but also participants in many advanced medical training programs.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Hypoxia, the result of insufficient oxygen in the blood, is a potentially deadly condition and one of the leading causes of cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest is the ultimate cause of clinical death for all animals (although with advanced intervention, such as cardiopulmonary bypass a cardiac arrest may not necessarily lead to death), and it is linked to an absence of circulation in the body, for any one of a number of reasons. For this reason, maintaining circulation is vital to moving oxygen to the tissues and carbon dioxide out of the body.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Airway, breathing, and circulation, therefore work in a cascade; if the patient's airway is blocked, breathing will not be possible, and oxygen cannot reach the lungs and be transported around the body in the blood, which will result in hypoxia and cardiac arrest. Ensuring a clear airway is therefore the first step in treating any patient; once it is established that a patient's airway is clear, rescuers must evaluate a patient's breathing, as many other things besides a blockage of the airway could lead to an absence of breathing.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: The basic application of the ABC principle is in first aid, and is used in cases of unconscious patients to start treatment and assess the need for, and then potentially deliver, cardiopulmonary resuscitation.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In this simple usage, the rescuer is required to open the airway (using a technique such as ""head tilt - chin lift""), then check for normal breathing. These two steps should provide the initial assessment of whether the patient will require CPR or not.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In the event that the patient is not breathing normally, the current international guidelines (set by the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation or ILCOR) indicate that chest compressions should be started.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Previously, the guidelines indicated that a pulse check should be performed after the breathing was assessed, and this made up the 'circulation' part of the initialism, but this pulse check is no longer recommended for lay rescuers. Some trainers continue to use circulation as the label for the third step in the process, since performing chest compressions is effectively artificial circulation, and when assessing patients who are breathing, assessing 'circulation' is still important. However, some trainers now use the C to mean Compressions in their basic first aid training.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In the unconscious patient, the priority is airway management, to avoid a preventable cause of hypoxia. Common problems with the airway of patient with a seriously reduced level of consciousness involve blockage of the pharynx by the tongue, a foreign body, or vomit.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: At a basic level, opening of the airway is achieved through manual movement of the head using various techniques, with the most widely taught and used being the "head tilt — chin lift", although other methods such as the "modified jaw thrust" can be used, especially where spinal injury is suspected, although in some countries, its use is not recommended for lay rescuers for safety reasons.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Higher level practitioners such as emergency medical service personnel may use more advanced techniques, from oropharyngeal airways to intubation, as deemed necessary.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In the conscious patient, other signs of airway obstruction that may be considered by the rescuer include paradoxical chest movements, use of accessory muscles for breathing, tracheal deviation, noisy air entry or exit, and cyanosis.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In the unconscious patient, after the airway is opened the next area to assess is the patient's breathing, primarily to find if the patient is making normal respiratory efforts. Normal breathing rates are between 12 and 20 breaths per minute, and if a patient is breathing below the minimum rate, then in current ILCOR basic life support protocols, CPR should be considered, although professional rescuers may have their own protocols to follow, such as artificial respiration.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Rescuers are often warned against mistaking agonal breathing, which is a series of noisy gasps occurring in around 40% of cardiac arrest victims, for normal breathing.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: If a patient is breathing, then the rescuer will continue with the treatment indicated for an unconscious but breathing patient, which may include interventions such as the recovery position and summoning an ambulance.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In a conscious patient, or where a pulse and breathing are clearly present, the care provider will initially be looking to diagnose immediately life-threatening conditions such as severe asthma, pulmonary oedema or haemothorax. Depending on skill level of the rescuer, this may involve steps such as:


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Once oxygen can be delivered to the lungs by a clear airway and efficient breathing, there needs to be a circulation to deliver it to the rest of the body.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Circulation is the original meaning of the "C" as laid down by Jude, Knickerbocker & Safar, and was intended to suggest assessing the presence or absence of circulation, usually by taking a carotid pulse, before taking any further treatment steps.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In modern protocols for lay persons, this step is omitted as it has been proven that lay rescuers may have difficulty in accurately determining the presence or absence of a pulse, and that, in any case, there is less risk of harm by performing chest compressions on a beating heart than failing to perform them when the heart is not beating. For this reason, lay rescuers proceed directly to cardiopulmonary resuscitation, starting with chest compressions, which is effectively artificial circulation. In order to simplify the teaching of this to some groups, especially at a basic first aid level, the C for Circulation is changed for meaning CPR or Compressions.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: It should be remembered, however, that health care professionals will often still include a pulse check in their ABC check, and may involve additional steps such as an immediate ECG when cardiac arrest is suspected, in order to assess heart rhythm.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: In patients who are breathing, there is the opportunity to undertake further diagnosis and, depending on the skill level of the attending rescuer, a number of assessment options are available, including:


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Nearly all first aid organisations use "ABC" in some form, but some incorporate it as part of a larger initialism, ranging from the simple 'ABCD' (designed for training lay responders in defibrillation) to 'AcBCDEEEFG' (the UK ambulance service version for patient assessment).


title: ABC (medicine)

text: There are several protocols taught which add a D to the end of the simpler ABC (or DR ABC). This may stand for different things, depending on what the trainer is trying to teach, and at what level. The D can stand for:


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Additionally, some protocols call for an 'E' step to patient assessment. "All" protocols that use 'E' steps diverge from looking after basic life support at that point, and begin looking for underlying causes. In some protocols, there can be up to 3 E's used. E can stand for:


title: ABC (medicine)

text: Some trainers and protocols use an additional (small) 'c' in between the A and B, standing for 'cervical spine' or 'consider C-spine'. This is a reminder to be aware of potential neck injuries to a patient, as opening the airway may cause further damage unless a special technique is used.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: The military frequently use a CABC approach, where the first C stands for "catastrophic haemorrhage". Violent trauma cases indicate that major blood loss will kill a casualty before an airway obstruction, so measures to prevent hypovolemic shock should occur first. This is often accomplished by immediately applying a tourniquet to the affected limb.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: One of the most widely used adaptations is the addition of "DR" in front of "ABC", which stands for Danger and Response. This refers to the guiding principle in first aid to protect yourself before attempting to help others, and then ascertaining that the patient is unresponsive before attempting to treat them, using systems such as AVPU or the Glasgow Coma Score. As the original initialism was devised for in-hospital use, this was not part of the original protocol.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: A modification to DRABC is that when there is no response from the patient, the rescuer is told to "send (or shout) for help and to send some signal to your location"'


title: ABC (medicine)

text: An expansion on CABC that accounts for the significantly increased risk of hypothermia by a patient due to hypovolemia and the body's subsequent cold weather-like reaction.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: The 'ABC' method of remembering the correct protocol for CPR is almost as old as the procedure itself, and is an important part of the history of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Throughout history, a variety of differing methods of resuscitation had been attempted and documented, although most yielded very poor outcomes. In 1957, Peter Safar wrote the book ABC of Resuscitation, which established the basis for mass training of CPR. This new concept was distributed in a 1962 training video called "The Pulse of Life" created by James Jude, Guy Knickerbocker and Peter Safar. Jude and Knickerbocker, along with William Kouwenhouen developed the method of external chest compressions, while Safar worked with James Elam to prove the effectiveness of artificial respiration. Their combined findings were presented at annual Maryland Medical Society meeting on September 16, 1960, in Ocean City, and gained rapid and widespread acceptance over the following decade, helped by the video and speaking tour the men undertook. The ABC system for CPR training was later adopted by the American Heart Association, which promulgated standards for CPR in 1973.


title: ABC (medicine)

text: As of 2010, the American Heart Association chose to focus CPR on reducing interruptions to compressions, and has changed the order in its guidelines to Circulation, Airway, Breathing (CAB).


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: The 2011 Indian Premier League season, abbreviated as IPL 4 or the IPL 2011, was the fourth season of the Indian Premier League, the top Twenty20 cricket league in India. The tournament was hosted in India and the opening and closing ceremonies were held in M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, the home venue of the reigning champions Chennai Super Kings. The season ran from 8 April to 28 May 2011. This season the number of teams in the league went from eight to ten with the additions of the Pune Warriors India and the Kochi Tuskers Kerala. The tagline was "Dum laga ke mara re ! (hit with power !)"


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: The tournament was won by the Chennai Super Kings for the second successive season defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore by 58 runs in the final in Chennai, with the winning team's Murali Vijay being named Man of the Match. With this win CSK became the first, and till 2014 the only team to have won the IPL on more than one occasion. Despite Bangalore failing to win the title, one of the team's players, Chris Gayle was named as the tournament's best player. He scored 608 runs in twelve innings – the most in the tournament – as well as picking up eight wickets, having joined the team after the start of the season due to an injury to another overseas player, Dirk Nannes. Mumbai Indians' Lasith Malinga set a new record for most wickets taken within an Indian Premier League season, claiming 28 wickets during the campaign, but Mumbai had to settle for third place in the tournament, having lost to Bangalore in the second qualifier. Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai represented India in the Champions League 2011 tournament in September. The Fair Play Award was again won by the Chennai Super Kings for topping the fair-play table.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: With the introduction of 2 new teams, a new ten-team format was created. This new format consists of 74 matches and was introduced as retaining the previous format would result in 94 matches, significantly greater than the 60 matches from the previous season, where teams compete in a double round-robin tournament. The knockout stage was changed to a playoff format. If a match ends in a tie, a Super Over will be played to determine the winner.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: The ten teams are divided into two groups of five. In the group stage, each team plays 14 games: facing the other four teams in their group two times each (one home and one away game), four teams in the other group once, and the remaining team two times. A random draw was used to determine the groups and who plays whom across the groups once and twice.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: Each team plays the team in the same row and the same column twice, and all others once. For instance, Deccan chargers will play Chennai Super Kings and the other Group A teams twice but the other teams from Group B (Kolkata Knight Riders, Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals) only once. Similarly Kochi Tuskers Kerala will play Delhi Daredevils and the other Group B teams twice but all other teams from Group A only once.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: Team winning a match will be awarded 2 points. The losing team will not receive any points. In case of a draw or no result, both teams will be awarded 1 point.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: A four-game playoff stage following the Page playoff system is held after the group stage. Four games will be played in the playoffs:


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: The top three teams from the tournament qualify for the 2011 Champions League Twenty20 while the fourth team enters the qualifying stage of the tournament. Due to the playoff format, the qualifying teams will be the top two teams of the group stage and the winner of the Eliminator in the playoff stage.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: Each team can have a squad of at most 30 players with a maximum of US$9 million to spend on purchasing players. . Choosing to retain players would subject to a reduction in their salary cap, reducing the amount they may spend on other players. All other players were added to the auction held on 8 and 9 January 2011.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: The catchment areas of the eight existing teams were changed to account for the two new teams. Catchment areas are nominated areas to help each side select their local players. Each team must select four players from their area.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: A total of 12 players have been retained by all the franchises while the remaining go to the auction list. The retained players – who must have been part of the franchise's registered squads for the 2010 season – were valued at $1.8 million for the first player, $1.3 million for the second, $900,000 for the third and $500,000 for the fourth. Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings retained the maximum of four players while the Kings XI Punjab, Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders released all their players.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: The RCB franchise owners only retained one player (Virat Kohli), but let go few key players – Rahul Dravid, Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis. These players emerged very consistent subsequently in the years 2012, 2013.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: "("C" refers to the "Champions" of the Tournament. 'R'(2nd Position), '3' and '4' are the positions of the respective teams in the tournament.)"


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: Pune and Kochi are new to the league. The auction for these teams was held at Chennai on 22 March 2010. These two bids, worth a total of Rs 3,235 crore, were more than the Rs 2,853 crore collectively paid for the eight franchises in the first auction, on 24 January 2008.


title: 2011 Indian Premier League

text: The Rajasthan Royals, and the Kings XI Punjab were temporarily ejected from the league due to issues with their unreported ownership changes. The teams were reinstated with involvement from the High Court. Their owners were broken into several legal entities when the BCCI required the incorporation of the companies. Kochi was also at risk of ejection for the same reasons before BCCI cleared their new ownership pattern for the tournament.


title: Erotic comics

text: Erotic comics are adult comics which focus substantially on nudity and sexual activity, either for their own sake or as a major story element. As such they are usually not permitted to be sold to legal minors. Like other genres of comics, they can consist of single panels, short comic strips, comic books, or graphic novels/albums. Although never a mainstream genre, they have existed as a niche alongside but usually separate from other genres of comics.


title: Erotic comics

text: During the mid-20th century, most comics were produced for children, and in North America the contents of most comics were constrained by the Comics Code Authority to be suitable for children. Consequently, erotic comics have sometimes been subject to criticism and extra scrutiny compared to other forms of erotic art and storytelling. Additionally, the application of laws against child pornography to materials featuring fictional characters with no legal ages, have varied internationally.


title: Erotic comics

text: Erotica has been a feature of comics almost since the medium was developed. Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, and other aristocratic subjects were caricatured in sexually explicit pamphlets such as "The Royal Dildo" and "The Royal Orgy".


title: Erotic comics

text: In modern times, European countries have generally been liberal in allowing sexually explicit material in comics. In the 60s censorship in Italy led to comics for adults called fumetti neri that were filled with explicit pornographic scenes. Creators such as Milo Manara started as artists making those comics have produced a body of erotic comics since the 1970s. German cartoonist Ralf König began producing explicit gay-male comics in the 1980s. Belgian Tom Bouden has produced several albums featuring the sexual adventures of young gay men.


title: Erotic comics

text: Some of the earliest erotic comic books in North America were so-called Tijuana bibles, which first appeared in the 1920s. They were typically eight-page black-and-white pamphlets featuring artwork that ranged from very good to very crude. The subject matter was usually sexual adventures of well-known comics characters, political figures, and movie stars, produced without permission. Sold under the counter in places such as tobacco stores and burlesque houses, millions of Tijuana bibles were sold at the height of their popularity in the 1930s. They went into a steep decline after World War II and by the mid-1950s only a small trickle of new product was still appearing on the market.


title: Erotic comics

text: Men's magazines of the second half of the 20th century were common venues for erotic comics, particularly single-panel gags featuring naked women or couples in sexual situations. "Playboy magazine" debuted in 1953, and featured single panel cartoons by artists such as Alberto Vargas, Archie Comics artist Dan DeCarlo, Jack Cole, LeRoy Neiman, and later Olivia De Berardinis and Dean Yeagle. "Little Annie Fanny", a multi-page strip by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder, was a frequent feature through the 1980s. Annie had trouble keeping her clothes on, a trend seen also in the strips "The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist", Wally Wood's "Sally Forth", and "Penthouse"s "Oh Wicked Wanda!" by Ron Embleton. Penthouse would later put out a number of erotic comic magazines: "Penthouse Comix", "Penthouse Men's Adventure" and "Penthouse Max" with the likes of Adam Hughes contributing artwork.


title: Erotic comics

text: Early comics produced for gay and bisexual male readers often focused on sexual situations, such as "Kake" by Touko Laaksonen ("Tom of Finland") in the 1950s and "Harry Chess" by Al Shapiro ("A. Jay") in the 1960s. Comics by creators such as Michael Kirwan and Brad Parker were popular in magazines featuring pornographic photos. The "Meatmen" anthology series, published from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, featured a variety of gay erotic comics by creators such as Belasco, John Blackburn, Bill Schmeling ("The Hun"), Shapiro, Jon Macy, Dom Orejudos ("Stephen"), Laaksonen, Bill Ward, and Oliver Frey ("Zack"). Although gay comics have expanded to cover a variety of genres, erotica has continued to be popular, sometimes incorporated into other genres, such as the erotic superheroes by Patrick Fillion published by Class Comics, and the wordless graphic novels written by Dale Lazarov.


title: Erotic comics

text: Some erotic comics grew out of the underground comix scene, such as "Cherry" by Larry Welz, which parodied Archie Comics. The later rise of independent black and white comics publishers in the 1980s and 1990s include a number of erotic titles, such as "Omaha the Cat Dancer" by Kate Worley and Reed Waller, which combined sexually explicit material with a melodrama featuring anthropomorphic animals. Other so-called "furry" erotic comics emerging in this period were "Genus" and "Milk" published by Radio Comix. "XXXenophile" by Phil Foglio blended science fiction and fantasy scenarios with sexual situations, and the webcomic "Oglaf" by Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne combines humor and diverse sexuality with medieval fantasy tropes.


title: Erotic comics

text: In 1990, Fantagraphics established their Eros Comix imprint, reprinting titles by Wally Wood and Frank Thorne, Gilbert Hernandez' "Birdland", and dozens of other titles, eventually producing a backlist library of over 40 collected editions. The imprint was popular enough that it is credited with making the company otherwise known for its "artistic" and "literary" works financially solvent. By the late 1990s, the imprint was no longer profitable, and discontinued releasing new material.


title: Erotic comics

text: In 2012, Iron Circus Comics revived the indie title "Smut Peddler" as a brand of erotic comics created by and for women (with male co-creators allowed on female-led teams), publishing both paperback anthologies of short stories, and longer stand-alone features.


title: Erotic comics

text: Sexual images have long been a part of Japanese illustrated art, such as "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" which depicts a woman in sexual congress with two octopuses. Such works were largely suppressed by the government, however. As the Japanese manga ("comics") market developed after World War II, erotic dramas such as "Ero Mangatropa" (1973), "Erogenica" (1975), and "Alice" (1977) were produced. In 1979, manga artist Azuma Hideo produced "Cybele", which featured sexually explicit stories with characters drawn in a cute, "cartoony" style, which led to the rise of lolicon anthologies featuring precocious girls, such as "Lemon People" and "Petit Apple Pie". Shotacon, a corresponding genre of erotic comics featuring precocious boys also developed. Erotic manga aimed at men are referred to as "seijin-muke manga" (成人向け漫画) or "ero manga", and those aimed at women are called "ladies comics" (レーディーズ・コミック).


title: Erotic comics

text: In the 1970s, shōjo manga ("comics for girls") began featuring platonic relationship stories between boys, which developed into yaoi. This genre, created primarily by women for female readers, features stories of young men in romantic and sexual relationships, many of which are sexually explicit.


title: Erotic comics

text: In the 1980s, Gengoroh Tagame began producing erotic manga drawn from his own sexual interests, featuring large, masculine men engaging in sadomasochistic sex with each other. Around these works developed the genre of bara manga, which features men in stories written for gay and bisexual men.


title: Erotic comics

text: Although production and distribution of pornography is illegal in India, it remains popular, and a small industry of erotic comics has developed there in the early 21st century. The series "Savita Bhabhi", about the sexual adventures of a bored, emotionally neglected housewife, has challenged these legal restrictions. Kirtu, the publisher of the webcomic also publishes other erotic comics series online on its website. "Savita Bhabhi" was later adapted into an animated web film of the same name in 2013 by Kirtu.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: Ahmadu Ibrahim Bello , Sardauna of Sokoto (12 June 1910–15 January 1966), knighted as Sir Ahmadu Bello, was a conservative Nigerian statesman who masterminded Northern Nigeria through the independence of Nigeria in 1960 and served as its first and only premier from 1954 until his assassination in 1966, in which capacity he dominated national affairs for over a decade.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: He was also the leader of the Northern People's Congress, the ruling party at the time consisting of the Hausa–Fulani elite. He had previously been elected into the regional legislature and later became a government minister. A member of the Sokoto Caliphate dynasty, he made attempts at becoming Sultan of Sokoto before later joining politics.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: Bello was born in Rabah c. 1910 to the family of Mallam Ibrahim Bello. His father held the title of Sarkin Rabah. He is a descendant of Uthman dan Fodio founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, a great-grandson of Sultan Muhammad Bello and a grandson of Sultan Atiku na Raba. He is a descendant of a Toronkawa (Torodbe) family that are partly Arabs and partly Fulani as stated by Abdullahi dan Fodio, brother of Usman dan Fodio, the clan is claimed to descent from the Arabs through Uqba ibn Nafi who was an Arab Muslim of the Umayyad branch of the Quraysh, and hence, a member of the family of Muhammad, Uqba ibn Nafi allegedly married a Fulani woman called Bajjumangbu through which the Torodbe family of Usman dan Fodio descended. Caliph Muhammed Bello writing in his book Infaq al-Mansur claimed descent from Muhammad through his paternal grandmother's lineage called Hawwa (mother of Usman dan Fodio), Alhaji Muhammadu Junaidu, Wazirin Sokoto, a scholar of Fulani history, restated the claims of Shaykh Abdullahi bin Fodio in respect of the Danfodio family been part Arabs and part Fulani, while Ahmadu Bello in his autobiography written after independence replicated Caliph's Muhammadu Bello claim of descent from the Arabs through Usman Danfodio's mother, the historical account indicates that the family of Shehu dan Fodio are partly Arabs and partly Fulani who culturally assimilated with the Hausas and can be described as Hausa-Fulani Arabs. Prior to the beginning of the 1804 Jihad the category Fulani was not important for the Torankawa (Torodbe), their literature reveals the ambivalence they had defining Torodbe-Fulani relationships. They adopted the language of the Fulbe and much ethos while maintaining a separate identity. The Toronkawa clan at first recruited members from all levels of Sūdānī society, particularly the poorer people.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: However, they spoke the Fula language, married into Fulbe families, and became the Fulbe scholarly caste.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: He received Islamic education at home, where he learnt the Qur'an, Islamic jurisprudence and the traditions of Muhammad. He later attended Sokoto Provincial School and the Katsina Training College (now Barewa College). During his school days, he was known as Ahmadu Rabah. Some also called him Gamji growing up He finished school in 1931 and subsequently became the English teacher in Sokoto Middle School.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: In 1934, Bello was made the District Head of Rabah by Sultan Hassan dan Mu'azu, succeeding his brother. In 1938, he was promoted to the position of Divisional Head of Gusau (in present-day Zamfara State) and became a member of the Sultan's council. In 1938, at the age of just 28, he made attempts to become the Sultan of Sokoto but was not successful, losing to Sir Siddiq Abubakar III who reigned for 50 years until his death in 1988.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: The new Sultan immediately made Sir Ahmadu Bello the Sardauna (Crown Prince) of Sokoto, a chieftaincy title, and promoted him to the Sokoto Native Authority Council. These titles automatically made him the Chief Political Adviser to the Sultan. Later, he was put in charge of the Sokoto Province to oversee 47 districts and by 1944, he was back at the Sultan's Palace to work as the Chief Secretary of the State Native Administration.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: In the 1940s, he joined Jamiyya Mutanen Arewa which would later become the Northern People's Congress (NPC) in 1951. In 1948, he traveled to England on a government scholarship to study Local Government Administration, which broadened his understanding and knowledge of governance.


title: Ahmadu Bello

text: After returning from Britain, he was nominated to represent the province of Sokoto in the regional House of Assembly. As a member of the assembly, he was a notable voice for northern interests and embraced a style of consultation and consensus with the major representatives of the northern emirates namely Kano, Bornu and Sokoto. He was selected among with others as a member of a committee that redrafted the Richards Constitution and he also attended a general conference in Ibadan. His work at the assembly and in the constitution drafting committee brought him appreciation in the north and he was asked to take on leadership positions within Jamiyya Mutanen Arewa. In the first elections held in Northern Nigeria in 1952, Sir Ahmadu Bello won a seat in the Northern House of Assembly, and became a member of the regional executive council as minister of works. Bello was successfully minister of Works, of Local Government, and of Community Development in the Northern Region of Nigeria. In 1954, Bello became the first Premier of Northern Nigeria.