Album

An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a collection on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78-rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP records  played at  rpm. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format widely used alongside vinyl from the 1970s into the first decade of the 2000s.

An album may be recorded in a recording studio (fixed or mobile), in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. The time frame for completely recording an album varies between a few hours to several years. This process usually requires several takes with different parts recorded separately, and then brought or "mixed" together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live", even when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation, so as to assist in mixing different takes; other locations, such as concert venues and some "live rooms", have reverberation, which creates a "live" sound. Recordings, including live, may contain editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones; with each part recorded as a separate track.

Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, and lyrics or librettos. Historically, the term "album" was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of short pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums (one side of a 78 rpm record could hold only about 3.5 minutes of sound). When long-playing records were introduced, a collection of pieces on a single record was called an album; the word was extended to other recording media such as compact disc, MiniDisc, Compact audio cassette, and digital albums as they were introduced.

History
An album (Latin albus, white), in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees, edicts and other public notices were inscribed in black. It was from this that in medieval and modern times album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs and the like are collected. Which in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item.

In the  early nineteenth century "album" was occasionally used in the titles of some classical music sets, such as Schumann's Album for the Young Opus 68, a set of 43 short pieces.

When 78rpm records came out, the popular 10-inch disc could only hold about three minutes of sound per side, so almost all popular recordings were limited to around three minutes in length. Classical-music and spoken-word items generally were released on the longer 12-inch 78s, about 4–5 minutes per side. For example, in 1924, George Gershwin recorded a drastically shortened version of the seventeen-minute Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. It was released on two sides of Victor 55225 and ran for 8m 59s. Deutsche Grammophon had produced an album for its complete recording of the opera Carmen in 1908. German record company Odeon released the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky in 1909 on 4 double-sided discs in a specially designed package.  This practice of issuing albums does not seem to have been widely taken up by other record companies for many years; however, HMV provided an album, with a pictorial cover, for the 1917 recording of The Mikado (Gilbert & Sullivan).

By about 1910, bound collections of empty sleeves with a paperboard or leather cover, similar to a photograph album, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records (the term "record album" was printed on some covers). These albums came in both 10-inch and 12-inch sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than the records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, like a book, suspending the fragile records above the shelf and protecting them. In the 1930s, record companies began issuing collections of 78 rpm records by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums, typically with artwork on the front cover and liner notes on the back or inside cover. Most albums included three or four records, with two sides each, making six or eight compositions per album.

The 10-inch and 12-inch LP record (long play), or  rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. A single LP record often had the same or similar number of tunes as a typical album of 78s, and it was adopted by the record industry as a standard format for the "album". Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums.

The term "album" was extended to other recording media such as Compact audio cassette, compact disc, MiniDisc, and digital albums, as they were introduced. As part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some observers feel that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album.

Length
An album may contain as many or as few tracks as required. In the United States, The Recording Academy's rules for Grammy Awards state that an album must comprise a minimum total playing time of 15 minutes with at least five distinct tracks or a minimum total playing time of 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement. In the United Kingdom, the criteria for the UK Albums Chart is that a recording counts as an "album" if it either has more than four tracks or lasts more than 25 minutes. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as "mini-albums" or EPs. Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yes's Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks, but still surpass the 25-minute mark. There are no formal rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as "albums".

If an album becomes too long to fit onto a single vinyl record or CD, it may be released as a double album where two vinyl LPs or compact discs are packaged together in a single case, or a triple album containing three LPs or compact discs. Recording artists who have an extensive back catalogue may re-release several CDs in one single box with a unified design, often containing one or more albums (in this scenario, these releases can sometimes be referred to as a "two (or three)-fer"), or a compilation of previously unreleased recordings. These are known as box sets. Some musical artists have also released more than three compact discs or LP records of new recordings at once, in the form of boxed sets, although in that case the work is still usually considered to be an album.

Tracks

Material (music or sounds) is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track (often simply referred to as a track) is an individual song or instrumental recording. The term is particularly associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks; the term is also used for other formats such as EPs and singles. When vinyl records were the primary medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves and many album covers or sleeves included numbers for the tracks on each side. On a compact disc the track number is indexed so that a player can jump straight to the start of any track. On digital music stores such as iTunes the term song is often used interchangeably with track regardless of whether there is any vocal content.

Bonus tracks
A bonus track (also known as a bonus cut or bonus) is a piece of music which has been included as an extra. This may be done as a marketing promotion, or for other reasons. It is not uncommon to include singles as bonus tracks on re-issues of old albums, where those tracks weren't originally included. Online music stores allow buyers to create their own albums by selecting songs themselves; bonus tracks may be included if a customer buys a whole album rather than just one or two songs from the artist. The song is not necessarily free nor is it available as a stand-alone download, adding also to the incentive to buy the complete album. In contrast to hidden tracks, bonus tracks are included on track listings and usually do not have a gap of silence between other album tracks. Bonus tracks on CD or vinyl albums are common in Japan for releases by European and North American artists; since importing international copies of the album can be cheaper than buying a domestically-released version, Japanese releases often feature bonus tracks to incentivize domestic purchase.

Audio formats

Non-audio printed format

Commercial sheet music are published in conjunction with the release of a new album (studio, compilation, soundtrack, etc.). A matching folio songbook is a compilation of the music notation of all the songs included in that particular album. It typically has the album's artwork on its cover and, in addition to sheet music, it includes photos of the artist. Most pop and rock releases come in standard Piano/Vocal/Guitar notation format (and occasionally Easy Piano / E-Z Play Today). Rock-oriented releases may also come in Guitar Recorded Versions edition, which are note-for-note transcriptions written directly from artist recordings.

Vinyl records

Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one-half of the album. If a pop or rock album contained tracks released separately as commercial singles, they were conventionally placed in particular positions on the album. During the Sixties, particularly in the UK, singles were generally released separately from albums. Today, many commercial albums of music tracks feature one or more singles, which are released separately to radio, TV or the Internet as a way of promoting the album.  Albums have been issued that are compilations of older tracks not originally released together, such as singles not originally found on albums, b-sides of singles, or unfinished "demo" recordings.

Double albums during the Seventies were sometimes sequenced for record changers. In the case of a two-record set, for example, sides 1 and 4 would be stamped on one record, and sides 2 and 3 on the other. The user would stack the two records onto the spindle of an automatic record changer, with side 1 on the bottom and side 2 (on the other record) on top. Side 1 would automatically drop onto the turntable and be played. When finished, the tone arm's position would trigger a mechanism which moved the arm out of the way, dropped the record with side 2, and played it. When both records had been played, the user would pick up the stack, turn it over, and put them back on the spindle—sides 3 and 4 would then play in sequence. Record changers were used for many years of the LP era, but eventually fell out of use.

8-track tape

8-track tape (formally Stereo 8: commonly known as the eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, or simply eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology popular in the United States from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s when the Compact Cassette format took over. The format is regarded as an obsolete technology, and was relatively unknown outside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Stereo 8 was created in 1964 by a consortium led by Bill Lear of Lear Jet Corporation, along with Ampex, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Motorola, and RCA Victor Records (RCA). It was a further development of the similar Stereo-Pak four-track cartridge created by Earl "Madman" Muntz. A later quadraphonic version of the format was announced by RCA in April 1970 and first known as Quad-8, then later changed to just Q8.

Compact cassette

The Compact Cassette was a popular medium for distributing pre-recorded music from the early 1970s to the early 2000s. The very first "Compact Cassette" was introduced by Philips in August 1963 in the form of a prototype. Compact Cassettes became especially popular during the 1980s after the advent of the Sony Walkman, which allowed the person to  control what they listened to. The Walkman was convenient because of its size, the device could fit in most pockets and often came equipped with a clip for belts or pants. Compact cassettes also saw the creation of mixtapes, which are tapes containing a compilation of songs created by any average listener of music. The songs on a mixtape generally relate to one another in some way, whether it be a conceptual theme or an overall sound. The compact cassette used double-sided magnetic tape to distribute music for commercial sale. The music is recorded on both the "A" and "B" side of the tape, with cassette being "turned" to play the other side of the album. Compact Cassettes were also a popular way for musicians to record "Demos" or "Demo Tapes" of their music to distribute to various record labels, in the hopes of acquiring a recording contract. The sales of Compact Cassettes eventually began to decline in the 1990s, after the release and distribution Compact Discs. After the introduction of Compact discs, the term "Mixtape" began to apply to any personal compilation of songs on any given format. Recently there has been a revival of Compact Cassettes by independent record labels and DIY musicians who prefer the format because of its difficulty to share over the internet.

Compact disc

The compact disc format replaced both the vinyl record and the cassette as the standard for the commercial mass-market distribution of physical music albums. After the introduction of music downloading and MP3 players such as the iPod, US album sales dropped 54.6% from 2001 to 2009. The CD is a digital data storage device which permits digital recording technology to be used to record and play-back the recorded music.

MP3 albums, and similar

Most recently, the MP3 audio format has matured, revolutionizing the concept of digital storage.  Early MP3 albums were essentially CD-rips created by early CD-ripping software, and sometimes real-time rips from cassettes and vinyl.

The so-called "MP3 album" is not necessarily just in MP3 file format, in which higher quality formats such as FLAC and WAV can be used on storage media that MP3 albums reside on, such as CD-R-ROMs, hard drives, flash memory (e.g. thumbdrives, MP3 players, SD cards), etc.

Types of album

The contents of the album are usually recorded in a studio or live in concert, though may be recorded in other locations, such as at home (as with JJ Cale's Okie, Beck's Odelay, David Gray's White Ladder, and others), in the field - as with early Blues recordings, in prison, or with a mobile recording unit such as the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio.

Studio

Most albums are studio albums — that is, they are recorded in a recording studio with equipment meant to give those overseeing the recording as much control as possible over the sound of the album. They minimize external noises and reverberations and have highly sensitive microphones and sound mixing equipment. In some studios, each member of a band records their part in separate rooms (or even at separate times, while listening to the other parts of the track with headphones to keep the timing right). In recent years, with the advent of email, it has become possible for musicians to record their part of a song in another studio in another part of the world, and send their contribution over email to be included in the final product.

Live

An album may be recorded in a recording studio (fixed or mobile), in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. The recording process may occur within a few hours or may take several years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately, and then brought or "mixed" together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live", even when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation, so as to assist in mixing different takes; other locations, such as concert venues and some "live rooms", allow for reverberation, which creates a "live" sound.

Concert or stage performances are recorded using remote recording techniques. Live albums may be recorded at a single concert, or combine recordings made at multiple concerts. They may include applause and other noise from the audience, comments by the performers between pieces, improvisation,  and so on. They may use multitrack recording direct from the stage sound system (rather than microphones placed among the audience), and can employ additional manipulation and effects during post-production to enhance the quality of the recording. Comedy albums, in particular, are most often recorded live because the audience reaction is part of the cue that the comedian is succeeding.

Live double albums emerged during the 1970s. Appraising the concept in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said most "are profit-taking recaps marred by sound and format inappropriate to phonographic reproduction (you can't put sights, smells, or fellowship on audio tape). But for Joe Cocker and Bette Midler and Bob-Dylan-in-the-arena, the form makes a compelling kind of sense."

The best-selling live album worldwide is Garth Brooks' Double Live, which shipped over 10.5 million 2-CD sets in the United States alone as of November 2006. In Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 18 albums were live albums.

Solo

A solo album, in popular music, is an album recorded by a current or former member of a musical group which is released under that artist's name only, even though some or all other band members may be involved. The solo album appeared as early as the late 1940s. A 1947 Billboard magazine article heralded "Margaret Whiting huddling with Capitol execs over her first solo album on which she will be backed by Frank De Vol". There is no formal definition setting forth the amount of participation a band member can solicit from other members of his band, and still have the album referred to as a solo album. One reviewer wrote that Ringo Starr's third venture, Ringo, "[t]echnically... wasn't a solo album because all four Beatles appeared on it". Three of the four members of the Beatles released solo albums while the group was officially still together.

A performer may record a solo album for a number of reasons. A solo performer working with other members will typically have full creative control of the band, be able to hire and fire accompanists, and get the majority of the proceeds. The performer may be able to produce songs that differ widely from the sound of the band with which the performer has been associated, or that the group as a whole chose not to include in its own albums. Graham Nash of The Hollies described his experience in developing a solo album as follows: "The thing that I go through that results in a solo album is an interesting process of collecting songs that can't be done, for whatever reason, by a lot of people". A solo album may also represent the departure of the performer from the group.

Tribute or cover

A tribute or cover album is a collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may involve various artists covering the songs of a single artist, genre or period, a single artist covering the songs of various artists or a single artist, genre or period, or any variation of an album of cover songs which is marketed as a "tribute".

See also

 Album cover
 Album sales
 Album-equivalent unit
 Album-oriented rock
 Art release
 Box set
 Compilation album
 Concept album
 Double album
 Extended play
 List of albums
 Remix album
 Soundtrack album
 Split album

References

Category:Media formats


King's Leadership Academy

Kings Leadership Academy is a secondary school and sixth form in the free school sector, based in Woolston. It offers "Academic Excellence", a "Distinctive Curriculum", "Smaller class sizes" and focuses on leadership and character development for all students aged 11–18. Opened in 2012 after the closing of Woolston High School but was set up independently by Sir Iain Hall and 'Great+ Schools' and not as a replacement from the government . Won the National Character Award 2015. Headteacher - Shane Ierston. http://www.kingsleadershipacademy.com/

Category:Secondary schools in Warrington


Kosmos 143

Kosmos 143 ( meaning Cosmos 143) or Zenit-2 No.45 was a Soviet optical film-return reconnaissance satellite launched in 1967. A Zenit-2 spacecraft, Kosmos 143 was the forty-sixth of eighty-one such satellites to be launched and had a mass of .

Kosmos 143 was launched by a Vostok-2 rocket, serial number U15001-03, flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch took place at 08:45:01 UTC on 27 February 1967, and following its arrival in orbit the spacecraft received its Kosmos designation; along with the International Designator 1967-017A and the Satellite Catalog Number 2693. A minor anomaly during launch resulted in the satellite's orbit being slightly lower than had been planned, with its orbital period being 22.8 seconds shorter than the target orbit. Despite this the satellite performed its mission successfully.

Kosmos 143 was operated in a low Earth orbit; at an epoch of 1 March 1967 it had a perigee of , an apogee of  inclination of 64.9 degrees and an orbital period of 89.46 minutes. After eight days in orbit, Kosmos 143 was deorbited, with its return capsule descending under parachute and landing at 05:46 UTC on 7 March 1967.

References

Category:Kosmos satellites
Category:Spacecraft launched in 1967
Category:Spacecraft which reentered in 1967
Category:Zenit-2 satellites
Category:1967 in the Soviet Union


2008 Mogadishu bombing

The 2008 Mogadishu bombing occurred on August 3, 2008 in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. A roadside bombing killed 21 women who were cleaning rubbish from a southern Mogadishu street on Sunday morning, a hospital official said.  Mogadishu residents gathered around victims of the bomb attack along the city's Maka Al Mukarama Road.

The bomb blast wounded another 46 people, most of them Somali women who had gathered to clean Maka Al Mukarama Road in southern Mogadishu's Kilometer 4 district, according to Medina Hospital director Dr. Dahir Dhere.

Quotes
"It suddenly turned the area into a carnage, scattering body parts of the street cleaners into a large area," said witness Asha Ise Gedi. "There were pools of blood everywhere. I have never seen such mass killing."

"They were innocent poor mothers or sisters," Gedi said. "Why did they deserve this?"

Investigation
It is unclear who is behind the attack.

Mogadishu Mayor Mohamed Omar Habeb Dhere, who was recently fired by the country's prime minister, blamed the Islamic Courts Union for waging the attack. But the head of the Islamist insurgent group, Abid Rahim Ise Adow, denied any involvement and blamed Somalia's government for orchestrating the attack.

The victims were participating in a program that allows Somali women to work as street cleaners in exchange for food. The United Nations' World Food Program organized the program, which began last year and is administered by Mogadishu's regional authority.

References

Category:2008 murders in Africa
2008 bombing
Category:2000s murders in Somalia
Category:21st-century mass murder in Somalia
Category:August 2008 crimes
Category:Explosions in 2008
2008 bombing
Category:Improvised explosive device bombings in Somalia
Category:Mass murder in 2008
2008 bombing
Category:Massacres of women
Category:Somalia War (2006–2009)
2008 bombing
Category:Terrorist incidents in Somalia in 2008


Implantation (human embryo)

In humans, implantation is the stage of pregnancy at which the embryo adheres to the wall of the uterus. At this stage of prenatal development, the conceptus is called a blastocyst. It is by this adhesion that the embryo receives oxygen and nutrients from the mother to be able to grow.

In humans, implantation of a fertilized ovum is most likely to occur around nine days after ovulation; however, this can range between six and 12 days.

Implantation window
The reception-ready phase of the endometrium of the uterus is usually termed the "implantation window" and lasts about 4 days. The implantation window occurs around 6 days after the peak in luteinizing hormone levels. With some disparity between sources, it has been stated to occur from 7 days after ovulation until 9 days after ovulation, or days 6-10 postovulation. On average, it occurs during the 20th to the 23rd day after the last menstrual period.

The implantation window is characterized by changes to the endometrium cells, which aid in the absorption of the uterine fluid. These changes are collectively known as the plasma membrane transformation and bring the blastocyst nearer to the endometrium and immobilize it. During this stage the blastocyst can still be eliminated by being flushed out of the uterus. Scientists have hypothesized that the hormones cause a swelling that fills the flattened out uterine cavity just prior to this stage, which may also help press the blastocyst against the endometrium. The implantation window may also be initiated by other preparations in the endometrium of the uterus, both structurally and in the composition of its secretions.

Adaptation of uterus
To enable implantation, the uterus goes through changes in order to be able to receive the conceptus.

Predecidualization
The endometrium increases thickness, becomes vascularized and its glands grow to be tortuous and boosted in their secretions. These changes reach their maximum about 7 days after ovulation.

Furthermore, the surface of the endometrium produces a kind of rounded cells, which cover the whole area toward the uterine cavity. This happens about 9 to 10 days after ovulation. These cells are called decidual cells, which emphasises that the whole layer of them is shed off in every menstruation if no pregnancy occurs, just as leaves of deciduous trees. The uterine glands, on the other hand, decrease in activity and degenerate around 8 to 9 days after ovulation in absence of pregnancy.

The decidual cells originate from the stromal cells that are always present in the endometrium. However, the decidual cells make up a new layer, the decidua. The rest of the endometrium, in addition, expresses differences between the luminal and the basal sides. The luminal cells form the zona compacta of the endometrium, in contrast to the basalolateral zona spongiosa, which consists of the rather spongy stromal cells.

Decidualization
Decidualization succeeds predecidualization if pregnancy occurs. This is an expansion of it, further developing the uterine glands, the zona compacta and the epithelium of decidual cells lining it. The decidual cells become filled with lipids and glycogen and take the polyhedral shape characteristic for decidual cells.

Trigger
It is likely that the blastocyst itself makes the main contribution to this additional growing and sustaining of the decidua. An indication of this is that decidualization occurs at a higher degree in conception cycles than in nonconception cycles. Furthermore, similar changes are observed when giving stimuli mimicking the natural invasion of the embryo.

The embryo releases serine proteases which causes the epithelial cell membrane to depolarize and activates the epithelial Na+ channel. This triggers a Ca2+ influx and phosphorylation of CREB. Phosphorylation of CREB upregulates the expression of COX-2, which leads to the release of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) from epithelial cells. PGE2 acts on the stroma cells activating cAMP-related pathways in stromal cell leading to decidualization.

Parts of decidua
The decidua can be organized into separate sections, although they have the same composition.

Decidua basalis - This is the part of the decidua which is located basalolateral to the embryo after implantation.
Decidua capsularis - Decidua capsularis grows over the embryo on the luminal side, enclosing it into the endometrium. It surrounds the embryo together with decidua basalis.
Decidua parietalis - All other decidua on the uterine surface belongs to decidua parietalis.

Decidua throughout pregnancy
After implantation the decidua remains, at least through the first trimester. However, its most prominent time is during the early stages of pregnancy, during implantation. Its function as a surrounding tissue is replaced by the definitive placenta. However, some elements of the decidualization remain throughout pregnancy.

The compacta and spongiosa layers are still observable beneath the decidua in pregnancy. The glands of the spongiosa layer continue to secrete during the first trimester, when they degenerate. However, before that disappearance, some glands secrete unequally much. This phenomenon of hypersecretion is called the Arias-Stella phenomenon, after the pathologist Javier Arias-Stella.

Pinopodes

Pinopodes are small, finger-like protrusions from the endometrium. They appear between day 19 and day 21 of gestational age. This corresponds to a fertilization age of approximately five to seven days, which corresponds well with the time of implantation. They only persist for two to three days. The development of them is enhanced by progesterone but inhibited by estrogens.

Function in implantation
Pinopodes endocytose uterine fluid and macromolecules in it. By doing so, the volume of the uterus decreases, taking the walls closer to the embryoblast floating in it. Thus, the period of active pinocytes might also limit the implantation window.

Function during implantation
Pinopodes continue to absorb fluid, and removes most of it during the early stages of implantation.

Adaptation of secretions

Not only the lining of the uterus transforms, but in addition, the secretion from its epithelial glands changes. This change is induced by increased levels of progesterone from the corpus luteum. The target of the secretions is the embryoblast, and has several functions on it.

Nourishment
The embryoblast spends approximately 72 hours in the uterine cavity before implanting. In that time, it cannot receive nourishment directly from the blood of the mother, and must rely on secreted nutrients into the uterine cavity, e.g. iron and fat-soluble vitamins.

Growth and implantation
In addition to nourishment, the endometrium secretes several steroid-dependent proteins, important for growth and implantation. Cholesterol and steroids are also secreted. Implantation is further facilitated by synthesis of matrix substances, adhesion molecules and surface receptors for the matrix substances.

Mechanism
Implantation is initiated when the blastocyst comes into contact with the uterine wall.

Zona hatching

To be able to perform implantation, the blastocyst first needs to get rid of its zona pellucida. This process can be called "hatching".

Factors
Lytic factors in the uterine cavity, as well as factors from the blastocyst itself are essential for this process. Mechanisms in the latter are indicated by that the zona pellucida remains intact if an unfertilized egg is placed in the uterus under the same conditions. A substance probably involved is plasmin. Plasminogen, the plasmin precursor, is found in the uterine cavity, and blastocyst factors contribute to its conversion to active plasmin. This hypothesis is supported by lytic effects in vitro by plasmin. Furthermore, plasmin inhibitors also inhibit the entire zona hatching in rat experiments.

Apposition
The very first, albeit loose, connection between the blastocyst and the endometrium is called the apposition.

Location
On the endometrium, the apposition is usually made where there is a small crypt in it, perhaps because it increases the area of contact with the rather spherical blastocyst.

On the blastocyst, on the other hand, it occurs at a location where there has been enough lysis of the zona pellucida to have created a rupture to enable direct contact between the underlying trophoblast and the decidua of the endometrium. However, ultimately, the inner cell mass, inside the trophoblast layer, is aligned closest to the decidua. Nevertheless, the apposition on the blastocyst is not dependent on if it is on the same side of the blastocyst as the inner cell mass. Rather, the inner cell mass rotates inside the trophoblast to align to the apposition. In short, the entire surface of the blastocyst has a potential to form the apposition to the decidua.

Molecular Mechanism
The identity of the molecules on the trophoblast and the endometrial epithelia that mediate the initial interaction between the two remain unidentified. However, a number of research groups have proposed that MUC1, a member of the Mucin family of glycosylated proteins, is involved. MUC1 is a transmembrane glycoprotein expressed at the apical surface of endometrial epithelial cells during the window of implantation in humans and has been shown to be differentially expressed between fertile and infertile subjects during this time. MUC1 displays carbohydrate moieties on its extracellular domain that are ligands of L-selectin, a protein expressed on the surface of trophoblast cells. An in vitro model of implantation developed by Genbacev et al., gave evidence to support the hypothesis that L-selectin mediates apposition of the blastocyst to the uterine epithelium by interacting with its ligands.

Adhesion
Adhesion is a much stronger attachment to the endometrium than the loose apposition.

The trophoblasts adhere by penetrating the endometrium, with protrusions of trophoblast cells.

This adhering activity is by microvilli that are on the trophoblast. The trophoblast have binding fiber connections, laminin, collagen type IV, and integrins that assist in this adhesion process

MUC16 is a transmembrane mucin expressed at the apical surface of uterine epithelia. This mucin prevents the blastocyst from implanting in an undesired located on the epithelium. Thus, MUC16 inhibits cell-cell adhesion. “Removal of this mucin during formation of uterodomes (bulbous projections from the apical surface of the epithelium that are often found during the implantation period) facilitates trophoblast adhesion in vitro”.

Communication
There is massive communication between the blastocyst and the endometrium at this stage. The blastocyst signals to the endometrium to adapt further to its presence, e.g. by changes in the cytoskeleton of decidual cells. This, in turn, dislodges the decidual cells from their connection to the underlying basal lamina, which enables the blastocyst to perform the succeeding invasion.

This communication is conveyed by receptor-ligand-interactions, both integrin-matrix and proteoglycan ones.

Proteoglycan Receptors
Another ligand-receptor system involved in adhesion is proteoglycan receptors, found on the surface of the decidua of the uterus. Their counterparts, the proteoglycans, are found around the trophoblast cells of the blastocyst. This ligand-receptor system also is present just at the implantation window.

Invasion
Invasion is an even further establishment of the blastocyst in the endometrium.

Syncytiotrophoblasts
The protrusions of trophoblast cells that adhere into the endometrium continue to proliferate and penetrate into the endometrium. As these trophoblast cells penetrate, they differentiate to become a new type of cells, syncytiotrophoblast. The prefix syn- refers to the transformation that occurs as the boundaries between these cells disappear to form a single mass of many cell nuclei (a syncytium). The rest of the trophoblasts, surrounding the inner cell mass, are hereafter called cytotrophoblasts. Syncytiotrophoblast is not determined as a cell type, rather is a multinucleated tissue

Invasion continues with the syncytiotrophoblasts reaching the basal membrane beneath the decidual cells, penetrating it and further invading into the uterine stroma. Finally, the whole embryo is embedded in the endometrium. Eventually, the syncytiotrophoblasts come into contact with maternal blood and form chorionic villi. This is the initiation of forming the placenta.

The penetration of the trophoblast to the endometrium is demonstrated through metalloproteinase MMP-2 and MMP-9  Syncytiotrophoblast invade the uterus attempting to reach maternal blood supply, for setting up the foundation for fetal blood flow

Extravillous trophoblasts
Extravillous trophoblasts are cells from the invading villi that migrate into the myometrium of the mother’s uterus. These cells remodel the spiral arteries to improve and secure maternal blood flow to the growing embryo. There is also evidence that this process occurs with the uterine veins. Stabilizing them to improve drainage of fetal blood and metabolic wastes.  Trophoblasts have also been documented to migrate into the mother and have been found in various tissues. Due to this trophoblasts have been implicated in a phenomenon known as “Fetomaternal Microchimerism” where fetal cells establish cell lines in maternal tissues.

Secretions
The blastocyst secretes factors for a multitude of purposes during invasion. It secretes several autocrine factors, targeting itself and stimulating it to further invade the endometrium. Furthermore, secretions loosen decidual cells from each other, prevent the embryo from being rejected by the mother, trigger the final decidualization and prevent menstruation.

Autocrine
Human chorionic gonadotropin is an autocrine growth factor for the blastocyst. Insulin-like growth factor 2, on the other hand, stimulates the invasiveness of it.

Dislodging
The syncytiotrophoblasts dislodges decidual cells in their way, both by degradation of cell adhesion molecules linking the decidual cells together as well as degradation of the extracellular matrix between them.

Cell adhesion molecules are degraded by syncytiotrophoblast secretion of Tumor necrosis factor-alpha. This inhibits the expression of cadherins and beta-catenin. Cadherins are cell adhesion molecules, and beta-catenin helps to anchor them to the cell membrane. Inhibited expression of these molecules thus loosens the connection between decidual cells, permitting the syncytotrophoblasts and the whole embryo with them to invade into the endometrium.

The extracellular matrix is degraded by serine endopeptidases and metalloproteinases. Examples of such metalloproteinases are collagenases, gelatinases and stromelysins. These collagenases digest Type-I collagen, Type-II collagen, Type-III collagen, Type-VII collagen and Type-X collagen. The gelatinases exist in two forms; one digesting Type-IV collagen and one digesting gelatin.

Immunosuppressive
The embryo differs from the cells of the mother, and would be rejected as a parasite by the immune system of the mother if it didn't secrete immunosuppressive agents. Such agents are Platelet-activating factor, human chorionic gonadotropin, early pregnancy factor, immunosuppressive factor, Prostaglandin E2, Interleukin 1-alpha, Interleukin 6, interferon-alpha, leukemia inhibitory factor and Colony-Stimulating Factor.

Decidualization
Factors from the blastocyst also trigger the final formation of decidual cells into their proper form. In contrast, some decidual cells in the proximity of the blastocyst degenerate, providing nutrients for it.

Prevention of menstruation
Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) not only acts as an immunosuppressive, but also "notifies" the mother's body that she is pregnant, preventing menstruation by sustaining the function of the corpus luteum.

Other factors
Other factors secreted by the blastocyst are;
Embryo-derived histamine-releasing factor
Tissue plasminogen activator as well as its inhibitors
Estradiol
β1-integrins
Fibroblast growth factor
CYTL1
Transforming growth factor alpha
inhibin
Preimplantation factor

Failure
 is considered to be caused by inadequate uterine receptivity in two-thirds of cases, and by problems with the embryo itself in the other third.

Inadequate uterine receptivity may be caused by abnormal cytokine and hormonal signaling as well as epigenetic alterations. Recurrent implantation failure is a cause of female infertility. Therefore, pregnancy rates can be improved by optimizing endometrial receptivity for implantation. Evaluation of implantation markers may help to predict pregnancy outcome and detect occult implantation deficiency.

Luteal support is the administration of medication, generally progestins, for the purpose of increasing the success rate of implantation and early embryogenesis, thereby complementing the function of the corpus luteum.

In women with more than 3 implantation failures in assisted reproduction, a review of several small randomized controlled studies estimated that the use of adjunct low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) improves live birth rate by approximately 80%.

See also
 Embryonic diapause
 Blastocyst

References

Further reading
 "Implantation of the blastocyst..."

Category:Embryology
Category:Obstetrics
Category:Human reproduction
Category:Fertility
Category:Midwifery


Noah Buxton

Noah Buxton (6 November 1876 – 26 May 1967) was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Derbyshire between 1902 and 1911.

Buxton was born at Codnor, Derbyshire, the son of William Buxton, a coal miner, and his wife Mary. In 1881 the family was living at Kirkby in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. Buxton made his debut for Derbyshire in the 1902 season. In his opening match against Warwickshire in June, he achieved his best bowling performance of 2 for 14. He played four more matches for Derbyshire during the 1902 season. In 1905, he played for Staffordshire in a Minor Counties match and reappeared for Derbyshire for one match in the 1907 season. In 1909 he was playing minor counties cricket for Cheshire but put in two appearances for Derbyshire in the 1911 season.

Buxton was a right-hand batsman and played 14 innings in 7 first-class matches with an average of 3.33 and a top score of 7. He was a right-arm fast-medium bowler and took five first-class wickets at an average of 34.2 and a best performance of 2 for 14.

Buxton died at Pontefract, Yorkshire at the age of 90. His nephew Joseph Buxton played cricket for Nottinghamshire in 1937.

References

Category:1876 births
Category:1967 deaths
Category:English cricketers
Category:Derbyshire cricketers
Category:Cheshire cricketers
Category:People from Codnor


Heinrich Meibom (poet)

"Meibomius" redirects here. For the German classical scholar and music historian, see Marcus Meibomius.

Heinrich Meibom (4 December 1555 – 20 September 1625), German historian and poet, was born at Barntrup in Westphalia.

He held the chair of history and poetry at Helmstedt from 1583 until his death. He was a writer of Latin verses (Parodiarum horatianarum Libri III et sylvarum Libri II, 1588); and his talents in this direction were recognized by the emperor Rudolph II, who ennobled him; but his claim to be remembered rests on his services in elucidating the medieval history of Germany.

His Opuscula historica ad res Germanicus spectantia was edited and published in 1660 by his grandson, Heinrich Meibom (1638–1700), who was professor of medicine who wrote 57 medical treaties  and then of history and poetry at Helmstedt, and incorporated his grandfather's work with his own Rerum germanicarum scriptures (1688).

References

Category:1555 births
Category:1625 deaths
Category:People from Barntrup
Category:German poets
Category:People from the Principality of Lippe
Category:University of Helmstedt faculty
Category:German male poets


Vaclau Lastouski

Vacłaŭ Justynavič Łastoŭski (; , , ; 1883 – 1938) was a Belarusian critic, historian of literature, and politician.

He was a member of Council of the Belarusian Democratic Republic. He had published many books about Belarus, and recognized the right of the people of Belarus to self-determination. Such books as "History of Belarusian (Krivichian) book", and "Short history of Belarus" propagandized the idea.

In late 1918 Łastoŭski became a member of the Council of Lithuania.

From 1919 to 1923 he was the prime-minister of the BDR and initiator of a dissolution of its exiled government which, in turn, did not mean a dissolution of the Council of the BDR, its parliament in exile. Lastowski was also a member of the Academy of sciences of Belarus.

In 1938 he was arrested by the NKVD within the Case of the Union of Liberation of Belarus. He was sentenced to dispatch, but was seized and shot by the Soviets.

He was married to writer Marija Ivanauskaitė–Lastauskienė.

References

Category:1883 births
Category:1938 deaths
Category:People from Hlybokaye District
Category:People from Disnensky Uyezd
Category:Belarusian Socialist Assembly politicians
Category:Belarusian National Republic
Category:Members of the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic
Category:Members of the Council of Lithuania
Category:Lithuanian people of Belarusian descent
Category:Great Purge victims from Belarus
Category:Belarusian people executed by the Soviet Union
Category:Executed Belarusian people
Category:Independence activists


British 21-inch torpedo

There have been several British 21-inch (533 mm) diameter torpedoes used by the Royal Navy since their first development just before the First World War.

The 21-inch was the largest size of torpedo in common use in the RN. They were used by surface ships and submarines rather than aircraft which used smaller 18-inch torpedoes.

Mark I
The first British 21-inch torpedo came in two lengths, "Short"  at 17 ft 10.5 in (5.45 m), and "Long" at 23 ft 1.25 in (7.04 m). The explosive charge was 200 lb of gun cotton increased later to 225 lb.

Mark II

The Mark II, chiefly used by destroyers, entered service in 1914. Apart from some older British ships, it was used with the old US (destroyers for bases agreement) Town-class destroyers provided to the UK during the early part of the Second World War. The running speed was reduced from 45 knots (over 3,000 yards) for better reliability.

The Mark II*, an improved Mark II was used by battleships and battlecruisers. A wet heater design, it could run for  at .

Mark IV

From 1912, used by destroyers and other surface ships and was an important weapon in the first World War. In the Second World War they were carried on .

Mark V

The Mark V was used by the A and B-class destroyers and, with modification, by the Kent-class heavy cruisers.

Mark VII

The Mark VII was issued for use on the British heavy cruisers; i.e. cruisers with 8-inch guns. Designed in the mid-1920s the s were built at the same time in the post Washington Naval Treaty period.

The power came from the use of oxygen enriched air, though torpedo stocks were converted to run on normal air at the start of the Second World War.

Mark VIII
Specifications:

Mark VIII
 Entered Service: 1927
 Weight: 3,452 lb (1,566 kg)

 Length:  (6.58 m)
 Explosive Charge: 750 lb (340 kg) TNT
 Range & Speed: 5,000 yards (4,570 m) / 40 knots

Early Mark VIII**
 Range & Speed: 5,000 yards (4,570 m) / 45.6 knots
 Explosive Charge: 722 lb (327 kg) Torpex

Late Mark VIII**
 Range & Speed: 7,000 yards (6,400 m) / 41 knots
 Explosive Charge: 805 lb (365 kg) Torpex

The Mark VIII was designed around 1925 and was the first British burner-cycle design torpedo. It was used from 1927 on submarines of the O class onwards and motor torpedo boats. The principal World War II version was the improved Mark VIII**, 3,732 being fired by September 1944 (56.4% of the total number). The torpedo is still in service with the Royal Navy albeit in a limited role, and with the Royal Norwegian Navy (Coastal Artillery: Kaholmen torpedo battery at Oscarsborg Fortress) until 1993.

The Mark VIII** was used in two particularly notable incidents:

 On 9 February 1945 the Royal Navy submarine HMS Venturer sank the German submarine U-864 with four Mark VIII** torpedoes. This is the only intentional wartime sinking of one submarine by another while both were submerged.

 On 2 May 1982 the Royal Navy submarine  sank the Argentine cruiser   with three Mark VIII** torpedoes during the Falklands War. This is the only sinking of a surface ship by a nuclear-powered submarine in wartime (and only the second sinking of a surface ship by any submarine since the end of World War II).

Mark IX
First appeared in 1930 and was considerably improved by 1939. Used on
Leander and later cruisers, "A" and later destroyer classes.
Also replaced the old Mark VII in some 8" (20.3 cm) cruisers during the war.

Mark X
From 1939, used by submarines, motor torpedo boats and destroyers from other navies such as the Grom.

Mark XI
Electric battery powered torpedo with a  TNT warhead. Entering service during the Second World War it was used by destroyers.

Mark 12
At first codenamed Ferry, then Fancy, the Mark 12 never reached production. From 1952, it had a warhead of  Torpex.
Using high test peroxide fuel, it attained a top speed of  for .

There were accidents during testing caused by the unstable nature of high test peroxide. One such engine explosion, after loading aboard the submarine HMS Sidon, caused enough damage to have the submarine taken permanently out of service.

Mark 12 torpedoes were out of service in 1959 and the programme was cancelled.

Mark 20 Bidder

Developed under the codename "Bidder", the Mark 20 was a passive-seeker battery-powered torpedo for use by surface ships (the Mark 20E – for "Escort") and submarines (Mark 20S). The E variant was not long in service due to problems with its programming. This led to several of the frigates that were intended to have used them (Rothesay and Whitby classes) never being fitted with torpedo tubes or having them removed.

It was replaced in the submarine service in the 1980s by Tigerfish.

Mark 21 Pentane
A project for an autonomous active/passive sonar torpedo to be carried by the Short Sturgeon anti-submarine aircraft. It was cancelled after protracted work but the seeker development was used in Tigerfish.

Mark 22
A wire-guided version of the Mark 20 produced by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering (VSEL) as a private venture.

Mark 23 Grog
A wire-guided version of the Mark 20. Entered service in 1971 although already obsolescent, serving only as an interim before Tigerfish entered service.

The MK23 was fitted with a 10,000  m outboard dispenser that contains a control wire to guide the weapon, During 1973, all of the RN torpedoes had to be taken out of service as the control system was failing at extreme range.

After months of investigation, it was discovered that the fault lay in the Guidance Unit made by GEC. A germanium diode in the AGC circuit had been replaced by a silicon diode, following an instruction by RN stores that all germanium diodes had to be replaced by silicon diodes. Unfortunately, the silicon diode's different characteristics caused the automatic gain control circuit to fail. Once the mistake was found, replacing the diode with the original type cured the problem.

Mark 24 Tigerfish

The first Tigerfish (Mod 0) entered service in 1980. Tigerfish was removed from service in 2004.

There were several models of Tigerfish due to the modifications made to tackle deficiencies.
 Mark 24 Mod 0 Tigerfish
 Mark 24 Mod 1 Tigerfish
 Mark 24(N) Tigerfish
 Mark 24 Mod 2 Tigerfish

Spearfish

See also
 British 18-inch torpedo
 List of torpedoes

Notes

References

 https://web.archive.org/web/20100311033414/http://middle-watch.com/Torpedoes.htm

Category:Torpedoes of the United Kingdom


Marcelle Corday

Marcelle Corday (January 8, 1890 – June 25, 1971) was a Belgian-born American actress. She mostly played character parts in silent and sound films. Officially, her American film career began in 1925, but it is claimed she played a small role, uncredited, in Fred Niblo's 1924 film, The Red Lily being menaced by Dick Sutherland in a bar.

Partial filmography

Lost: A Wife (1925)
We Moderns (1925)
Jim, the Conqueror (1926)
The Splendid Crime (1926)
The Greater Glory (1926)
The Scarlet Letter (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
When a Man Loves (1927)
Quality Street (1927)
Dry Martini (1928)
 Lingerie (1928)
The Trespasser (1929)
They Had to See Paris (1929)
Midnight Mystery (1930)
Blonde Venus (1932)
The Barbarian (1933)
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Dead End (1937)
Swamp Fire (1946)

References

External links

Portrait (archived)

Category:1890 births
Category:1971 deaths
Category:People from Brussels
Category:20th-century American actresses
Category:Belgian emigrants to the United States
Category:American film actresses
Category:American silent film actresses


Hina Ki Khushboo

Hina Ki Khushboo was a 2017 Pakistani drama serial directed by Sami Sani, produced by Babar Javed and written by Shabnam Sani. The drama starred Shameen Khan, Babar Khan and Syed Arez in lead roles, and first aired on 29 November 2017 on Geo Entertainment, where it aired on three evenings weekly on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 9:00 P.M. The story revolved around the life of an innocent young woman named Hina who faces complications after her marriage.

Cast
Cast of the serial include;
Shameen Khan as Hina
Babar Khan as Adil
Farah Ali as Farah (Dead)
Syed Arez as Azlan
Nazli Nasr as Iffat
Aleezey Tahir as Pari
Hassan Khan as Khurram
Sajid Shah as Hashim
Farah Nadir as Zainab(Dead)
Sadaf Asham as Achi Phuphoo(Dead)
Anwar Iqbal as Samad

References

Category:Pakistani drama television series
Category:Urdu-language television programs
Category:2017 Pakistani television series debuts
Category:Geo TV series
Category:2010s Pakistani television series
Category:2018 Pakistani television series endings


Maurice Berkley

Maurice Berkley (6 September 1872 – 9 August 1947) was an English cricketer.  Berkley was a right-handed batsman who bowled right-arm slow.  He was born in Navestock, Essex and educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh, where he played for the college cricket team.

Berkley played for Essex twice in the 1894 County Championship against Yorkshire and Leicestershire.  In his two matches, he scored 6 runs at a batting average of 3.00, with a high score of 5.  More successful in the bowling department, Berkley took 7 wickets at a bowling average of 14.71.  6 of his wickets came in a single innings in his maiden first-class match against Yorkshire, claiming 6/50.

He died in Bangor, Caernarvonshire on 9 August 1947.

References

External links
Maurice Berkley at ESPNcricinfo
Maurice Berkley at CricketArchive

Category:1872 births
Category:1947 deaths
Category:People from the Borough of Brentwood
Category:People educated at Fettes College
Category:English cricketers
Category:Essex cricketers


Philip Jongeneel

Philip Hendrik Jan Jongeneel (1 July 1893 – 5 April 1985) was a Dutch rower. He competed in the men's eight event at the 1920 Summer Olympics.

References

Category:1893 births
Category:1985 deaths
Category:Dutch male rowers
Category:Olympic rowers of the Netherlands
Category:Rowers at the 1920 Summer Olympics
Category:Sportspeople from Rotterdam


Giygas

Giygas, also known as Giegue, and  in Japan, is a fictional alien character in the EarthBound video game series by Nintendo, created by Shigesato Itoi. The character serves as the main antagonist of Mother and its sequel, EarthBound. He invades Earth in an attempt to wipe out humanity in Mother, and returns in EarthBound where he conquers the world and sends his forces into the past to ensure that protagonist Ness could not defeat him. The battle against Giygas, which depicts him in turmoil, drew inspiration from a Japanese film which traumatized Itoi as a child. He has received positive reception with critics referring to his battle as one of the creepiest and most difficult in video games. He has been the subject of analysis and speculation, with an urban legend being spread about the final battle with him in EarthBound being a representation of an abortion, which staff denied.

Concept and creation
Giygas was designed and written by the creator of the EarthBound series,  Shigesato Itoi, and debuted in the original Mother. He is known as Gyiyg in Japanese and Giegue in the canceled English localization. In an interview on his website, Itoi describes how his inspiration for the final battle with Giygas in EarthBound resulted from a traumatic childhood event where he accidentally viewed the wrong movie at a theater, a Shintoho film entitled Kenpei to barabara shibijin. The film featured a murder scene near a river that Itoi mistook for a rape scene which affected him so much that his parents began to worry about his well-being. Years later, Itoi integrated the experience into Giygas' dialogue for the final battle. Itoi described Giygas as something that people cannot make sense of, but also as a living being who deserves love. He described the film scene as a combination of atrocity and eroticism, and that is what his lines are in the end. While designing this battle, Itoi spoke all of the text out loud while another staff member, Matchan Miura, wrote it down. He spoke each hiragana character one by one because he found it scarier. There has been a misunderstanding regarding the influence of the film on Giygas, with some believing that imagery, dialogue, or audio from that film were used here, when the only thing Itoi took from it was the ability to "manipulate an audience's emotional state." Music composer Hirokazu Tanaka described Giygas as the "embodiment of evil". As a result, he composed the music in a certain way based on the player's proximity to him. For example, in battles where Ness and company encounter someone or something under Giygas' control, the music and sound effects reflect this.

Before the release of EarthBound, the localization team had at one point considered localizing Giygas as his original name Giegue or Geek." It was speculated that the change from Giegue to Giygas was due to a change in localization staff. An urban legend exists that suggests that the final battle with Giygas in EarthBound was an "alien abortion." Marcus Lindblom, a member of the English localization team, acknowledged the urban legend, noting that he appreciated the speculation, but debunked the idea as an official interpretation.

Appearances
Giygas appears in the Family Computer video game, Mother. Giygas was raised by Maria, a woman abducted along with her husband George by Giygas' alien race from Earth in the early 1900s. George studied the aliens' PSI powers without permission and escaped back to Earth. Once he matured, Giygas was tasked by his people to make sure that PSI never spread onto Earth. However, Giygas did not want to betray those who raised him, particularly Maria. In the end, he forced himself to detach from Maria and began preparations for the aliens' invasion. Eighty years later, strange things start happening on Earth. These events are eventually revealed to be the work of Giygas. Maria, now a Queen in a magical world called Magicant, explains everything to the protagonists of Mother after her memories are restored. When the protagonists encounter Giygas, he explains his motives to them while attacking them with his PSI power. Maria urges protagonist Ninten to sing, which weakens Giygas. Ninten, Ana, and Lloyd sing together, forcing Giygas to surrender and flee.

Giygas also appears in the Super NES sequel EarthBound. Giygas is an unseen villain for most of the story, although he possesses humans, animals, and objects who unknowingly do his bidding. According to a character from the future named Buzz Buzz, Giygas destroys the universe ten years in the future. One of his key minions is Pokey Minch, a former friend of protagonist Ness. At first, Dr. Andonuts (the father of playable character Jeff) believes that Giygas is residing deep within the Earth, and transports himself and the party there using a machine called the Phase Distorter. When they arrive, they find that Giygas is attacking from that exact location, but from innumerable years in the past. The only way the protagonists can get to Giygas' time period is to alter the Phase Distorter to transport them back in time. When the group finally reaches Giygas, he initially resembles Ness while in the device called the "Devil's Machine." Porky eventually turns the Devil's Machine off, thereby destroying Giygas' body and mind by releasing his power and driving him mad. At this point, Giygas' words are nondescript and nonsensical. Giygas is eventually destroyed by Paula, who prays to the protagonists' friends and family for help. Her praying eventually reaches the player, and the combined prayers do enough damage to Giygas, killing him.

Reception
Since appearing in EarthBound, Giygas has received largely positive reception. His role and design was regarded as contrasting with the otherwise lighthearted tone of the rest of EarthBounds story by Brittany Vincent for G4TV. Cassandra Ramos for RPGamer identified him as one of her favorite villains, while 1UP.com staff listed the battle with Giygas as one of the 25 best boss battles, citing the audio and imagery of Giygas as well as the final portion of the battle. Jeremy Parish for 1UP.com used the battle as an example of how games subvert expectations, where the protagonists employ prayer instead of their most powerful attacks to win. IGN staff included the battle with Giygas in their list of the 10 most cinematic video game moments. NGamer UK  staff listed Giygas as one of the most iconic boss encounters in Nintendo history, stating that the defining moment was his design and the method of defeating him. GamesRadar+ staff named him one of the best video game antagonists, finding him creepy and a more imposing villain than Kefka Palazzo from Final Fantasy VI. Staff for Complex, GameSpot, and UGO Networks listed the fight against Giygas as one of the hardest in video games, with the latter and Chloi Rad for IGN calling him one of the most frightening video game characters. He was featured in a GameSpot user-voted poll of the greatest villains in video games, where he lost in the first round to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic antagonist Darth Malak.

Nadia Oxford for IGN listed the battle with Giygas as one of the most memorable moments in EarthBound and stated that its significance resonated with people who had not played the game, a sentiment that Cassandra Ramos of RPGamer shared. In a work for 1UP.com, Oxford claimed that Itoi took inspiration from Stephen King novels, including It. She suggested that Giygas was based on Its antagonist due to a similarly "borderline indescribable" form and the fact that they both succumb to "childlike qualities such as faith, friendship, and love." She discusses how the battle with Giygas in Mother deviates from traditional final boss battles, citing his deep motivations and music employed, which consists of a "shrill background noise" and a lullaby. She suggested that Giygas' degraded form in EarthBound was possibly the result of Giygas' longing for Maria's love. Patricia Hernandez for Nightmare Mode discussed how his Mother incarnation "echoes a motif" of children without parental guidance doing poorly for it. Colin Snyder for Vice felt similarly, stating that his story is about the loss of childhood. William Hughes for The A.V. Club argued that Giygas had an oedipal complex due to his infatuation with his surrogate mother and hatred for his surrogate father over him stealing information from the aliens.

References

Category:Cyborg characters in video games
Category:Extraterrestrial characters in video games
Category:Mother (video game series)
Category:Extraterrestrial supervillains
Category:Fictional mass murderers
Category:Internet memes
Category:Male characters in video games
Category:Nintendo antagonists
Category:Telepath characters in video games
Category:Video game bosses
Category:Video game characters introduced in 1989
Category:Video game characters who use magic


56th Grey Cup

56th Grey Cup was played November 30, 1968, and the Ottawa Rough Riders defeated the Calgary Stampeders 24–21 before 32,655 fans at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium. Vic Washington's 79-yard run is still a Grey Cup record, and he won the Grey Cup Most Valuable Player award. This was the final Grey Cup game to be played on a Saturday; beginning the next year and since then (except for 1970), all Grey Cup games have been played on a Sunday.

Box score
First Quarter

Ottawa – Single – Don Sutherin 00 yard kick

Second Quarter

Ottawa – FG – Don Sutherin 27-yard field goal
Calgary – TD – Peter Liske 1-yard run (Larry Robinson convert)
Calgary – TD – Terry Evanshen 21-yard pass from Peter Liske (Larry Robinson convert)

Third Quarter

Ottawa – TD – Russ Jackson 1-yard run (Don Sutherin convert)

Fourth Quarter

Ottawa – TD – Vic Washington 79-yard run (convert blocked)
Ottawa – TD – Margene Adkins 70-yard pass from Russ Jackson (Don Sutherin convert)
Calgary – TD – Terry Evanshen 4-yard pass from Peter Liske (Larry Robinson convert)

1968 Miss Grey Cup

Miss Edmonton Eskimos Barbara Casault was named Miss Grey Cup 1968, with Miss Toronto Argonauts Jacquie Perrin the first runner-up, and Miss Hamilton Tiger-Cats Kathy Cumming the second runner-up.  A second-year education student at the University of Alberta, she received a new 1969 convertible, a trip for two to Mexico, a mink stole, a movie camera and a diamond watch set.  Each contestant received $1,500 in prizes.  Casault's prizes were worth $15,000, with those for the first-runner up worth $2,700 and the second runner-up worth $2,200.
Miss Saskatchewan Roughriders Donna Hardy was chosen the inaugural Miss Personality Plus by the other contestants.
Selection of Miss Grey Cup was done on the basis of personality and poise (30 points), carriage and figure (15 points), make-up and grooming (10 points), speech and projection (10 points), cheerleader costume (10 points) and overall impression (10 points).

References

External links

Category:Grey Cup
Grey Cup
Grey Cup
Category:Grey Cups hosted in Toronto
Category:1968 in Ontario
Category:Calgary Stampeders
Category:Ottawa Rough Riders
Category:1960s in Toronto
Category:1968 in Canadian television
Category:November 1968 sports events


Contextual value added

Contextual value added (CVA) is a statistic that was used by the government of the United Kingdom to assess the performance of schools. It was superceeded by expected progress and then Progress 8

The statistic is intended to show the progress children have made whilst attending a particular school.  Unlike statistics such as exam performance, contextual value added attempts to take into account the circumstances of children attending the school that are beyond the school's control.

Description
The statistic works by comparing a child's performance with that of children with a similar prior performance and similar circumstances.  There are three levels; Level 1 measures performance of primary age children.  It measures the performance of pupils between the end of Key Stage 1 and the end of Key Stage 2.  It is based on a median score of 100. Level 2 CVA measures performance of secondary schools (i.e. between the end of Key Stage 2 and the end of Key Stage 4).  Unlike Level 1 CVA, Level 2 CVA is based on a median score of 1000.  Level 3 CVA measures performance of post 16 pupils from the end of Key Stage 4 to the end of Key Stage 5.  Like Level 2 CVA, it is measured on a median score of 1000

CVA takes into account nine factors that are known to affect the performance of children, but outside of the schools control   The factors are
 Gender
 Special Educational Needs
 Eligibility for free school meals.
 First language
 Whether pupils move between schools
 Ethnicity
 The age (i.e. the month they were born in) of different pupils within the year group
 Whether a pupil has been taken into care (e.g. Foster Care) at any stage
 The level of deprivation in the area the pupil lives (using the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index)

In 2009, there will additionally be bonuses provided for the inclusion of English and mathematics- these are based on a pilot which took place in 2008.

Criticisms
The statistic is not without questions as to its accuracy and its use.  For example, care needs to be taken when making comparisons between small differences.  In particular, CVA has a margin of error, and the degree of uncertainty in the score increases as the size of the cohort decreases.  For example, a different set of students at the same school will almost certainly produce differing CVA scores.  The nature of Contextual Value Added being averaged across the country also means that it is not possible to directly compare an individual school's score across a number of years.  Some schools have also claimed that contextual value added disadvantages schools with a record of high performance.

References

Category:Education in the United Kingdom
Category:Statistics of education


BeOS R5

BeOS R5 is the final version of BeOS from Be Inc. It was released in March 2000,  and came in two varieties: Professional and Personal.

R5 was the 4th major release of BeOS for a public audience, and the 6th since it left developer-only stages. It changed only slightly from the previous release, BeOS R4.5, and was even seeded to developers as "R4.6". Improved POSIX compliance, particularly in the area of networking, was provided.  The OS in general was moved towards the new modular media kit over the former audio-only sound subsystem. For end-users, new logos and some new icons were the only major differences.

R5 was the first release of BeOS for x86 to have a freely downloadable version which could be fully installed on a user's hard drive; previous versions had a free Live CD download, which could not be installed. R5 was also to be the last version to support the PowerPC architecture which BeOS had originated on, including the company's own BeBox hardware. According to Be's marketing, it was the first OS to ship with legal MP3 encoding and decoding support.

Versions

Personal Edition
Personal Edition, a 48MB download, was the most commonly used version of R5. Stripped of developer tools (though these were later made available as a separate download), mp3 and Indeo encoders, and RealPlayer, it was installed into a 500MB "hardfile" through Windows or Linux, and could be booted either directly from Windows 9x or DOS, or using a boot floppy. Once booted, it could be installed to a real hard drive or partition, and the Be Bootloader could be installed to allow dual-booting. This bootloader uses only the MBR of the hard disk, and will continue to function even if the BeOS is uninstalled.

Professional Edition
Professional Edition was only available commercially, and for the first time in BeOS's history, could not be purchased from the company unless you were a developer. Instead, a number of regional resellers sold it - Gobe Software in the United States, Apacabar and Koch Media in Europe, and Hitachi in Asia. These resellers were responsible for all packaging of the OS, from localisation to CD labelling and packaging. As a result, some variations exist between packaged R5 Professional discs, with some being slipstream updated to the newest patches, and most notably, the inclusion of commercial printer drivers with Gobe releases, and French translations of the user documentation on Apacabar.

The CD shipped with an ISO9660/HFS hybrid partition, containing documentation, GPL licensed source code, the Personal Edition installer (with the aim of you circulating the installer to friends), a copy of Partition Magic for Windows, and the Mac OS boot-loading code for the PowerPC version. Two separate BFS partitions existed, one for x86, one for PowerPC, and the x86 one is directly bootable from CD.

In addition to all the features of Personal Edition, Professional Edition includes the full developers tools, including a rebranded CodeWarrior, RealPlayer G2, Fraunhofer MP3 encoders, and support for both encoding Indeo video, and playback/encoding of Indeo Real Time. Additional media on the CD varied by supplier, but always included some sample multimedia files, including two songs composed by Be staff ("5038" and "virtual (void)") as well as a video of Be staff pushing computer monitors off the roof of their building in Menlo Park.

Updates
Three updates for R5 were released during 2000.

R5.01
R5.01 was mainly a stability fix for R5 Professional, fixing some deadlocks in drivers and critical servers. However, additional POSIX support was again added for networking, although the update neglected to include the newer headers to use some of these functions - they were only available in an updated Developer Tools for Personal Edition download.

R5.02
R5.02 (marked as R5.01 on personal) contained all of R5.01's updates, as well as some enhanced drivers, and more stability fixes.

R5.03
R5.03 was solely a security fix, and fixed a remote-access bug in the system's ftpd. The update, however, made a change to the core C library to do this, and in doing so, updated the version of glibc it was based on, again providing slightly more POSIX compatibility.

Succession
Following the failure of BeIA, Be's Internet Appliance venture, the company ceased operations, and R5 was the last official release. A widely leaked version of BeOS that had been seeded to developers, codenamed Dano, carried many new features, and a build ID indicating it was BeOS R5.1.0.

Another extremely widely leaked update is a new, fully POSIX compliant, kernel-land networking stack, known internally in Be as BONE. While officially alpha, this brings higher stability to R5, as well as opening up the application base available. The updater for BONE Alpha 7 increases the system version number to R5.04.

ZETA was accepted by some BeOS users as a successor to R5, however legal issues surrounding how Magnussoft obtain Be Inc's source code later lead to the discontinuation of the product.   However, at least during its protracted release candidate stage, it was dogged with problems that left some people using R5, and in some cases, looking to Haiku for the future of their OS.

Haiku OS, now on its beta release, is now the last surviving successor to BeOS. Although deemed by the developers as beta software, the stability, compatibility with BeOS binaries and feature-completeness make Haiku OS a viable option today. Haiku has even improved on BeOS, and includes features never implemented into BeOS, including: wifi support; the layout kit; a unique package manager; and support for x64 processors and modern hardware.

External links
 BeOS 5 Personal Edition

Category:BeOS


Upper Gundar River

Upper Gundar  is a river flowing in the Sivagangai district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

References

See also
List of rivers of Tamil Nadu

Category:Rivers of Tamil Nadu
Category:Sivaganga district
Category:Rivers of India


André Fontaine

André Fontaine (Paris, France; 30 March 1921 – ibidem, 17 March 2013) was a French historian and journalist. He started working at Temps Présent, and then was director at Le Monde in 1947, at the official beginning of the Cold War. He became the newspaper's editor from 1969 to 1985, and director from 1985 to 1991. As of February 2007 he was still contributing articles to the paper. André Fontaine is famous for his historical thesis according to which the Cold War in fact started as soon as 1917 with the cordon sanitaire policy.

Fontaine died in Paris on 17 March 2013, aged 91.

Bibliography

 L'Alliance atlantique à l'heure du dégel, Calmann-Lévy, 1960
 Histoire de la Guerre froide in two volumes (De la révolution d'octobre à la guerre de Corée and De la guerre de Corée à la crise des alliances), 1965 et 1966, Fayard
 La Guerre civile froide, 1969, Fayard
 Le Dernier Quart du siècle, 1976, Fayard
 La France au bois dormant, 1978, Fayard
 Histoire de la détente (Un seul lit pour deux rêves), 1981, Fayard
 Sortir de l'hexagonie, Stock 1984
 L'un sans l'autre, 1991, Fayard
 Après eux le déluge, de Kaboul à Sarajevo, 1995, La Martinière
 La Tache rouge, le roman de la Guerre froide, 2004, La Martinière ; re-edited with augmented chronology, Le Seuil, « Points »-histoire, 2006

References

Category:French journalists
Category:French historians
Category:Cold War historians
Category:1921 births
Category:2013 deaths
Category:French male non-fiction writers


Robert Dickinson (athlete)

Robert Dickinson (20 May 1901 – 5 March 1981) was a British athlete. He competed in the men's high jump at the 1924 Summer Olympics.

References

Category:1901 births
Category:1981 deaths
Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 1924 Summer Olympics
Category:British male high jumpers
Category:Olympic athletes of Great Britain
Category:Place of birth missing


Maksim Smirnov

Maksim Smirnov (born 28 December 1979 in Tallinn) is a retired Estonian professional footballer. He played the position of midfielder and is 1.80 m tall.

Club career
On 7 March 2010, he joined FC Narva Trans on loan for the first half of the season.

International career
He is also the former member of the Estonia national football team with 39 caps and 2 goal to his name.

Honours

Club
 JK Nõmme Kalju
 Estonian Cup
 Runners Up: 2008–09

References

External links
 Nõmme Kalju profile
 Profile, Jalgpall.ee

Category:1979 births
Category:Living people
Category:Sportspeople from Tallinn
Category:Estonian footballers
Category:Estonia international footballers
Category:Estonian people of Russian descent
Category:FCI Levadia Tallinn players
Category:FC TVMK players
Category:FC Flora players
Category:Viljandi JK Tulevik players
Category:FC Warrior Valga players
Category:FC Kuressaare players
Category:FK Ventspils players
Category:Nõmme Kalju FC players
Category:JK Narva Trans players
Category:Estonian expatriate footballers
Category:Estonian expatriate sportspeople in Latvia
Category:Expatriate footballers in Latvia
Category:FC Kiviõli Irbis players
Category:Association football wingers


Koanga

Koanga is an opera with music by Frederick Delius, his third opera, written between 1896 and 1897, and a libretto by Charles Francis Keary, inspired partly by the 1880 book The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life by George Washington Cable.  Inspiration also came from Delius's own experiences as a young man when his family sent him to work in Florida.  Delius himself thought well of the opera compared to its predecessors, Irmelin and The Magic Fountain, because of the incorporation of dance scenes and his treatment of the choruses. Koanga is reputed to be the first opera in the European tradition to base much of its melodic material on African-American music.

Performance history
Koanga was the first of Delius's operas to be performed.  It was also the most labor-intensive with regard to the libretto, which was continually being revised. The opera was posthumously published in 1935.

It was performed privately in March 1899 in Paris, at the residence of Adela Maddison. Gabriel Fauré was among the performers, and the audience included Prince Edmond de Polignac and the Princesse de Polignac. Selections from the opera were performed in London on 30 May 1899 at St James's Hall, in a concert of his own music organised by Delius.

The first public staging of the opera was in the Stadttheater Elberfeld, Germany, on 30 March 1904. It was sung in German, using a translation by Jelka Delius, and conducted by Fritz Cassirer.

Sir Thomas Beecham directed the British premiere for the full opera on 23 September 1935 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. John Brownlee sang the title role, with Oda Slobodskaya as Palmyra.

A later revival was in 1972 for the Camden Festival at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, conducted by Sir Charles Groves.  Douglas Craig and Andrew Page had worked extensively on revisions to a performing edition, which was used for the first complete commercial recording conducted by Groves.  Robert Threlfall has examined revisions to the text of Koanga in its various editions.  More recent revisions to the libretto have been by Olwen Wymark.

The single most famous musical passage from the opera contains the melody known as La Calinda, which is the only part of the score that has remained famous in the concert hall.

Eric Fenby, Delius's amanuensis, has spoken of the opera as follows:

"Koanga is one of those singular works that attract attention in Delius's development but which stand apart from the rest of his music.  Usually, once a work was written, Delius's interest in it would wane.  It would then be renewed and be relived temporarily every time he heard it again.  For Koanga, however, he showed concern as though it held some secret bond that bound him to his youth in Florida.  It was the one work he deplored in old age he was never likely to hear again.  And so it proved.  A dark grandeur pervades the score which, whilst yielding to hankerings after Wagner, recalls the tragic gusto of Verdi. The elements of time, place and plot allowed him a range of textures and moods wider than in his other operas."

The first US staging of Koanga, or of any Delius opera, was by the Opera Society of Washington in late 1970 and early 1971.

London's Pegasus Opera Company staged Koanga in April 2007 at Sadler's Wells Theatre,  and the Wexford Opera Festival in 2015 (broadcast by BBC Radio 3 in 2016).

William Randel has studied the relationship of the opera and its libretto to the original story of Cable.

Roles

Synopsis
Place: Mississippi River plantation in Louisiana
Time: Second half of the 18th century.

Prologue
Uncle Joe is about to tell the tale of Koanga and Palmyra, at the request of the planters’ daughters.

Act 1
Years earlier

Palmyra, the maid to Clotilda (the wife of the plantation owner Don José Martinez), watches Simon Perez, the plantation overseer, rouse up the slaves for their labours.  Perez declares his love for Palmyra, but she brushes aside such sentiments.  Martinez arrives, and Perez tells him of the arrival of a new slave.  The new slave is Koanga, a captured African prince.  Koanga invokes his gods to avenge his betrayal.  Perez states that Koanga would rather die than be a slave, but Martinez suggests that Palmyra can be used to change his sentiments.  Koanga and Palmyra are introduced, and become attracted to each other.  Perez becomes angry at this turn of events.  Clotilda is appalled at this herself, as Palmyra is her half-sister.

Act 2
Preparations for the wedding of Koanga and Palmyra are taking place.  Clotilda consults with Perez as to how to stop this wedding.  Perez tells Palmyra the truth about her birth, but she remains determined to marry Koanga.  Just as the wedding ceremony is about to occur, Perez kidnaps Palmyra.  Koanga then fights with Martinez and prevails in the man-to-man struggle.  Koanga escapes to the swamp and invokes magic to bring disease contagion to the plantation.  However, he has a vision of Palmyra’s suffering, which causes him to return to the plantation.  When he arrives, Perez is trying to embrace Palmyra.  Koanga kills Perez, but is in turn captured and executed.  Palmyra mourns for Koanga, and then takes her own life.

Epilogue
The planter's daughters respond to Uncle Joe’s story, as the sun rises.

Recording
 EMI Classics 585 142 2 (2003 reissue): Eugene Holmes, Claudia Lindsey, Raimund Herincx, Keith Erwen, Jean Allister, Simon Estes; John Alldis Choir; London Symphony Orchestra; Sir Charles Groves, conductor. Recorded Kingsway Hall 19-26 September, 1973.

References
Notes

External links
 "Koanga (1895-97",  Boosey & Hawkes
 Boosey & Hawkes page on Pegasus Opera production of Koanga
 KOANGA page with libretto, discography, reviews, sound files and more.

Category:Operas by Frederick Delius
Category:Operas
Category:1904 operas
Category:Operas set in the United States
Category:Operas based on novels
Delius


Barbary Shore

Barbary Shore is Norman Mailer's second published novel, written after Mailer's great success with his 1948 debut The Naked and the Dead. It concerns a protagonist who rents a room in a Brooklyn boarding house with the intention of writing a novel. Wounded during World War II, he is an amnesiac, and much of his past is a secret to himself. After Rinehart & Company published the novel in 1951, it received poor reviews and sold poorly. The failure of Barbary Shore and only moderate success of Mailer's next novel, The Deer Park (1955) triggered a decade-long hiatus from the novel by Mailer, which ended with the publication of An American Dream in 1965.

Reviews
"Last of the Leftists?", Time Magazine, May 28, 1951

Category:1951 American novels
Category:Rinehart & Company books
Category:Novels by Norman Mailer
Category:Novels set in New York City


Cornerstone Christian Academy (Ohio)

Cornerstone Christian Academy (CCA) is a coeducational, non-denominational, private Christian school serving grades K-12, in Willoughby Hills, Ohio.

Mission statement
To provide a quality education based on God's Truth, resulting in Christ-like students who will impact their world for the glory of God.

Education Philosophy
Cornerstone Christian Academy utilizes a living curriculum, through its teachers, in which the Word of God governs and informs every subject. CCA also provides a Godly example for each child, assisting parents in the fulfillment of the God-given mandate to “bring them (their children) up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4

Athletics
Soccer - Lower School and Middle School (coed), JV and Varsity teams for both boys and girls
Volleyball - Middle School, JV, and Varsity (girls)
Golf - Varsity (boys)
Basketball  -Lower School (Co-ed), Middle School, JV, and Varsity teams for boys and girls
Cheerleading - Varsity (girls)
Track and field - Middle School and Varsity (coed)
Baseball - Middle School and Varsity (boys)
Fastpitch softball - Middle School, JV, and Varsity (girls)

The high school boys varsity basketball team won the Division IV State Championship in 2016.  The final score was 72-54, against Van Wert Lincolnview.

Co-Curriculars
Spelling Bee
Math Olympics
Art Show
Speech Meet
Power of the Pen
Mock Trial
Ski Club

External links
 School Website

References

Category:Christian schools in Ohio
Category:High schools in Lake County, Ohio
Category:Private high schools in Ohio
Category:Private middle schools in Ohio
Category:Private elementary schools in Ohio
Category:Educational institutions established in 1999


List of Saturday Night Live episodes

Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a late-night sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels. It premiered on NBC, a terrestrial television network, on October 11, 1975, under the title NBC's Saturday Night. The show often satirizes contemporary American popular culture and politics. Saturday Night Live features a two-tiered cast: the repertory members, also known as the "Not Ready for Prime-Time Players," and newer cast members, known as "Featured Players." Each week, the show features a host, often a well-known celebrity, who delivers an opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast. A musical guest is also invited to perform several sets (usually two, occasionally more). Every so often a host or musical guest fills both roles. With the exception of season 7 and several other rare cases, the show begins with a cold open that ends with someone's breaking character and proclaiming "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!"

Saturday Night Live is one of the longest running network programs in American television history, with more than 800 episodes broadcast over five decades. A number of the show's sketches have been developed into feature films, including The Blues Brothers, Wayne's World, A Night at the Roxbury, Superstar, Coneheads, and MacGruber.

Seasons 1 through 5 are available on DVD in Region1. Various Saturday Night Live sketches are available in several new media formats, including streaming on Hulu and Netflix. Selected sketches and segments are also available for purchase at the iTunes Store to download and playback on home computers and certain iPod and iPhone models.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 31 (2005–06)

Season 32 (2006–07)

Season 33 (2007–08)

Season 34 (2008–09)

Season 35 (2009–10)

Season 36 (2010–11)

Season 37 (2011–12)

Season 38 (2012–13)

Season 39 (2013–14)

Season 40 (2014–15)

Season 41 (2015–16)

Season 42 (2016–17)

Season 43 (2017–18)

Season 44 (2018–19)

Season 45 (2019–20)

Specials

References

Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Episodes


Francie and Josie

{{Infobox television|
 | show_name = The Adventures of Francie and Josie
 | image =
 | caption =Stan Mars, Rikki Fulton and Jack Milroy as Francie and Josie
 | runtime = 25 minutes
 | creator = Rikki Fulton and Jack Milroy
 | starring = Clement AshbyGlen Michael Ethel Scott
 | country = Scotland
 | network = Scottish Television
 | first_aired =  26 October 1962
 | last_aired =  15 August 1965
 | num_episodes =  32
 | related =
 }}Francie and Josie was a double act performed by Scottish comedians Jack Milroy as Francie and Rikki Fulton (of Scotch and Wry) as Josie. from 1958 - 1990's.

History
The Francie and Josie concept first appeared on The Five Past Eight Show in the Alhambra Theatre Glasgow during the 1958 season, and was a brainwave of Stanley Baxter, Stan Mars and Rikki Fulton. Over the season the idea grew and they refined the concept. Often there would be a sketch from Francie alone and a sketch from Josie alone and then the two together at the end.

In 1962 Scottish Television gave them their own show, The Adventures of Francie and Josie which also starred Clement Ashby, Glen Michael, and Ethel Scott (first wife of Rikki Fulton).  The show became a hit, being broadcast by Anglia, Border Television, Grampian Television,  Tyne Tees and UTV, and resulted in the pair appearing at the opening of many British Relay TV rental shops. The first shop they opened, in Airdrie, caused such mayhem that crowds smashed the shop windows.

In 1965 the last series was produced, with the pair returning to The Five Past Eight Show the following year. Both Jack Milroy and Rikki Fulton were given their own show on Scottish Television.  The double act toured around Scotland and also created a Panto. During 1970 the pair did a successful tour around Northern Ireland.

In 1970 they released an LP called Francie & Josie on PYE Golden Guinea.

 Episodes
Over its course, 32 episodes were made between 1962 and 1965. There was no series made in 1964, due to a technicians' strike.

Series 1: 1962
The first series consisted of reworkings of the original stage scripts

 26/10/62 "The Errant Knights"
 02/11/62 "The TV Fans"
 09/11/62 "The Souvenir Hunters"
 16/11/62 "The Penpal"
 23/11/62 "The Donors"
 30/11/62 "The Patriots"

Series 2: 1963

 18/09/63 - "The Guinea Pigs"
 25/09/63 - "The Princess"
 02/10/63 - "The So'jers"
 09/10/63 - "The Holiday"
 16/10/63 - "The Rivals"
 23/10/63 - "The Nightclub"
 30/10/63 - "The Banditos"
 06/11/63 - "The Stamp Collectors"
 13/11/63 - "The Housewarming"
 20/11/63 - "The Matchmakers"
 27/11/63 - "The Wallet"
 11/12/63 - "The Glesca Gallants"
 31/12/63 - "The Odd Job" (Francie absent)

Series 3: 1965
 2 February 1965 - "The Good Deed"
 9 February 1965 - "The Decoy"
 16 February 1965 - "The Birds"
 23 February 1965 - "The Stowaways"
 2 March 1965 - "The Volunteers"
 9 March 1965 - "The Legacy"
 16 March 1965 - "The Toff"
 11 July 1965 - "The Luck o' the ...?"
 18 July 1965 - "The Meat in the Sandwich"
 25 July 1965 - "The Lovebirds"
 1 August 1965 - "Licence to Kill"
 8 August 1965 - "The Arty Crafty Brigade"
 15 August 1965 -  "Song Makers"

No copies of The Adventures of Francie and Josie are known to have survived. Much of Scottish Television's early output was wiped, and recorded over, a common practice in the television industry at the time.#.

Characters
 Francie McKenzie — Francie is seen as the less intelligent one of the pair but overrules Josie by telling jokes.  He's more interested in "birds". He would often burst into laughter in the middle of Josie telling a story at something Josie says.  The things he laughs at are usually not funny.  Example: Josie: "I couldnae get a hud o' that Chinese waiter, ye know, the one wi' the funny walk." (Walk/Wok)
 Josie Tierney — Josie is the more intelligent one of the pair.  He's interested in talking about culture and politics where Francie usually laughs at him. He would often muddle up his words to mean something utterly different.  Example: Josie: "There's no wonder that Glasgow has been decimated the city of architecture."
 Auntie Jessie — Auntie Jessie is the somewhat dumb woman who looked after Francie and Josie after both of their families left their homes.  She's usually mentioned a lot in the stage shows and has been played on stage by Mary Lee Milroy.
 Glen Michael — Glen Michael played many parts on the show, including Josie's cousin when Jack Milroy was ill.
 Pen-pal: - The original sketches would start with an appearance by Francie's unnamed American pen-pal (called "Teenager" in the scripts), who referred to the duo as "Francis and Joseph" and puzzled over the Glaswegian slang in his letters. She was played by Fulton's wife, Ethel Scott.

Revivals
After success of the television series, the duo returned to the stage. Fulton suggested that he take over as scriptwriter as Mars was moving on to America. The latter agreed and gave Fulton licence to write the scripts.

Two revival shows were recorded at the King's Theatre, Glasgow, reuniting Fulton and Milroy; Francie and Josie (1989), which was broadcast on BBC Scotland, and The Farewell Performance (1996), which was direct-to-video.

In 2015 a show called Francie & Josie: The Return'' toured Scotland starring Liam Dolan as Francie and Johnny Mac as Josie (credited as playing Milroy and Fulton, respectively).

References

Category:1962 British television series debuts
Category:1965 British television series endings
Category:1960s Scottish television series
Category:Scottish comedy duos
Category:Scottish male comedians
Category:Scottish television programmes
Category:Television programmes produced by Scottish Television
Category:English-language television programs
Category:1960s British comedy television series


Piz Arpschella

Piz Arpschella is a mountain of the Albula Alps, located west of Zernez in Graubünden. The mountain is situated between the Val Grialetsch and the Val Sarsura.

References

External links
 Piz Arpschella on Hikr

Category:Mountains of Switzerland
Category:Mountains of the Alps
Category:Alpine three-thousanders
Category:Mountains of Graubünden