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Box Tunnel

Box Tunnel passes through Box Hill on the Great Western Main Line (GWML) between Bath and Chippenham. The 1.83 mi tunnel was the world's longest railway tunnel when it was completed in 1841.

Built between December 1838 and June 1841 for the Great Western Railway (GWR) under the direction of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the straight tunnel descends on a 1 in 100 gradient from its eastern end. At the time the tunnel's construction was considered dangerous due to its length and the composition of the underlying strata. The west portal is Grade II* listed and the east portal is Grade II listed.

Ammunition was stored near the tunnel during World War II, reusing mine workings. During the 2010s, the tunnel was modified and the track lowered to prepare it for electrification.

Background
During the 1830s, Isambard Kingdom Brunel developed a plan for a railway running east–west between London and Bristol. The Great Western Main Line, would maintain either level ground or gentle gradients of no greater than 1 in 1000 along most of its route. Between Swindon and Bath, at the highest point of the line a tunnel was proposed through Box Hill, outside Corsham.

The tunnel would have a gradient of 1 in 100. At the time, the use of such a steep gradient inside the tunnel allegedly provoked criticism by some of Brunel's contemporaries. Box Tunnel would be the longest railway tunnel at almost 1+3/4 mi in length.

Geology
While a tunnel had been included in the 1835 Great Western Railway Act, contemporary engineers considered the construction of Box Tunnel to be an impossibility at worst and a dangerous undertaking at best. The challenge posed was not only its length but the difficult underlying strata it would have to pass through. The rocks through which it passes comprise Great Oolite overlying fuller's earth, and Inferior Oolite and Bridport Sand beneath, a combination with which tunnellers were familiar.

The Great Oolite limestone, known as Bath Stone, is easily worked and had been used for construction since Roman times. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was extracted by the room and pillar method and used for many buildings in Bath, Somerset. To assess the geology more accurately, between 1836 and 1837, Brunel sank eight shafts at intervals along the tunnel's projected alignment.

Construction
The GWR selected George Burge of Herne Bay as the major contractor, being responsible for undertaking 75 per cent of overall tunnel length, working from the western end. Burge appointed Samuel Yockney as his engineer and manager. Locally based Lewis and Brewer were responsible for the remainder, starting from the eastern side. One of Brunel's personal assistants, William Glennie, was in overall charge until completion.

In December 1838, construction started. Work was divided into six sections; access to each was via a 25 ft ventilation shaft, which ranged in depth from 70 ft at the eastern end to 300 ft towards the western end. The men, equipment, materials and 247000 cuyd of extract had to go in and come out of the shafts assisted by steam-powered winches. The shafts were the safety exits from the tunnel.

Candles provided the only lighting in the workings and were consumed at a rate of one tonne per week, which was equalled by the weekly consumption of explosives. Due to the considerable time required for men to enter and exit the workings, blasting took place while they were in the tunnel. This practice and water ingress exceeding the calculated volumes, has been attributed as causing most of the deaths that occurred. About 100 navvies were killed during the tunnel's construction. Additional pumping and drainage were required during and after its construction. Large amounts of water entering the tunnel in the winter months impeded progress.

Once the eastern section had been blasted out, it was cut to form a gothic arch and left unlined. The western section was excavated using picks and shovels and the walls were lined with brick. Over 30 million bricks were used which were manufactured in nearby Chippenham and transported in horse-drawn carts. Horses were used to remove much of the spoil.

The restrictions imposed by the site contributed to a delay in the tunnel's completion. By August 1839, only 40 per cent of the works had been finished. By summer 1840, the London Paddington to Faringdon Road section of the Great Western Main Line (GWML) had been completed, as was the track from Bath to Bristol Temple Meads. The Box Tunnel was the last section of the GWML to be finished, although not for lack of effort on the part of Brunel.

During January 1841 Brunel came to an agreement with Burge and Yockney to increase their workforce from 1,200 to 4,000, and the tunnel was completed in April 1841. The completed tunnel was 30 ft wide and capable of accommodating a pair of broad-gauge tracks. When the ends of the tunnel were joined, there was less than 2 in of error in their alignment. Brunel was so delighted that he reportedly removed a ring from his finger and gave it to the works foreman.

Opening
On 30 June 1841, the tunnel was opened to traffic with little in the way of ceremony. A special train departed London Paddington and traversed the whole of the GWR to complete the first rail journey to Temple Meads Station in Bristol in about four hours.

After the opening, for several months, work continued to finish the tunnel's western portal near Box, Wiltshire which Brunel had designed in a grand classical style - grander than the eastern portal as it is in full view of the London to Bath road. The height of the opening is far in excess of what was required (and indeed reduces once inside), but it gives the feel of a generous celebratory monument to a new form of travel. That height has been further accentuated with the 2015 lowering of the trackbed for electric catenary to be installed. The eastern portal at Corsham has a more modest brick face, with rusticated stone dressings.

Commentators and critics voiced concerns and disapproval about the unlined section of the tunnel; they believed that it lacked solidity and was a danger to traffic. The GWR responded to these complaints by building a brick arch underneath part of the unlined section close to the entrance which was prone to frost damage. Some areas of the tunnel remain unlined.

Brunel's birthday
GWR franchise rebutted the theory that the rising sun passed through the tunnel on Isambard Brunel's 9 April birthday, finding in 2017 that the sunrise did not shine fully through the tunnel. Librarian C.P. Atkins calculated in 1985 that full illumination through Box Tunnel would occur on 7 April in non-Leap years and on 6 April in Leap years. The Society of Genealogists in 2016 suggested the sun shone through the tunnel on 6 April, the birthday of Brunel's sister, Emma Joan Brunel, three years out of four during the 1830s.

Defence use
Starting in 1844, the hill surrounding the tunnel was subject to extensive quarrying to extract Bath stone for buildings. In the run-up towards the Second World War, the need to provide secure storage for munitions at distributed locations across the UK was recognised. During the 1930s, a proposal to create three Central Ammunition Depots (CADs) was submitted: one in the north (Longtown, Cumbria); one in the Midlands (Nesscliffe, Shropshire); and one in the South of England at Tunnel quarry, Monkton Farleigh and Eastlays Ridge.

During the 1930s, Tunnel Quarry was renovated by the Royal Engineers as one of the three major stockpiles. During November 1937, the GWR was contracted to build a 1,000 ft raised twin-loading platform at Shockerwick for Monkton Farleigh and two sidings branching from the Bristol–London mainline just outside the tunnel's eastern entrance at 51.40536°N, -2.28971°W. 30 ft below and at right angles to this point, the War Office had built a narrow-gauge wagon-sorting yard which accessed a 1.25 mi tunnel, built by the Cementation Company, descending at a rate of 1 in 8.5 to the Central Ammunition Depot in the former quarry workings. The logistics operation was designed to cope with a maximum of 1,000 tons of ammunition per day.

A Royal Air Force station, RAF Box, was established and used an area of the tunnels. In response to the Bristol Blitz, during 1940, Alfred McAlpine developed a fallback aircraft engine factory for use by the Bristol Aeroplane Company (BAC), although it never went into production. BAC used the facility to accommodate the company's experimental department, which was developing an engine to power bombers and the Bristol Beaufighter.

The CAD was closed at the end of the war but was maintained in operational condition until the 1950s. The sidings were cleared, and saw no further use until the mid-1980s when a museum was opened on the site for a short period. During the post-war years, portions of the ammunition depot were redeveloped for other facilities, including the Central Government War Headquarters, RAF No.1 Signal Unit, Controller Defence Communication Network and the Corsham Computer Centre.

As of the present day, the only element of the complex that remains is the former computer centre. The visible north end of the tunnel has been sealed by concrete and rubble. The former CAD has been reused as a secure commercial document storage facility.

Electrification
During the 2010s, overhead electrification infrastructure was installed so that electric locomotives could be used on the GWML. Box Tunnel was modified for the catenary and associated infrastructure. During the summer of 2015, the tunnel was closed for six weeks for preparatory work including lowering the track by roughly 600 mm and replacing 7 mi of cabling in advance of the catenary infrastructure being installed.

Geographical location

 * East portal: 51.42369°N, -2.20536°W
 * Ventilation shaft: 51.42277°N, -2.21303°W
 * Ventilation shaft: 51.42176°N, -2.22179°W
 * Centre of tunnel: 51.42128°N, -2.22617°W
 * Ventilation shaft: 51.42084°N, -2.2301°W
 * Ventilation shaft: 51.4197°N, -2.23982°W
 * West portal: 51.41888°N, -2.24698°W

Box Tunnel in fiction

 * The 2nd episode of the 2nd series of McDonald & Dodds, takes place in and around the Box Tunnel (although called Box Hill Tunnel). The legend of the sunrise at Brunel's birthday also has an important role for both the setting and the plot.

title: Box Tunnel


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Title IX

Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. This is Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235 (June 23, 1972), codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688.

Senator Birch Bayh wrote the 37 words of Title IX. Bayh first introduced an amendment to the Higher Education Act to ban discrimination on the basis of sex on August 6, 1971, and again on February 28, 1972, when it passed the Senate. Representative Edith Green, chair of the Subcommittee on Education, had held hearings on discrimination against women, and introduced legislation in the House on May 11, 1972. The full Congress passed Title IX on June 8, 1972. Representative Patsy Mink emerged in the House to lead efforts to protect Title IX against attempts to weaken it, and it was later renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act following Mink's death in 2002. When Title IX was passed in 1972, only 42 percent of the students enrolled in American colleges were female.

The purpose of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 was to update Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned several forms of discrimination in employment, but did not address or mention discrimination in education.

Text
The following is the opening of the text of Title IX, which is followed by several exceptions and clarifications:

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Foundations and hearings

Title IX was enacted as a follow-up to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The 1964 Act was passed to end discrimination in various fields based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in the areas of employment and public accommodation. The 1964 Act did not prohibit sex discrimination against people employed at educational institutions. A parallel law, Title VI, had also been enacted in 1964 to prohibit discrimination in federally funded private and public entities. It covered race, color, and national origin but excluded sex. Feminists during the early 1970s lobbied Congress to add sex as a protected class category. Title IX was enacted to fill this gap and prohibit discrimination in all federally funded education programs. Congressman John Tower then proposed an amendment to Title IX that would have exempted "revenue-generating" sports from Title IX.

The Tower Amendment was rejected, but it led to widespread misunderstanding of Title IX as a sports-equity law, rather than an anti-discrimination, civil rights law. While Title IX is best known for its impact on high school and collegiate athletics, the original statute made no explicit mention of sports. The United States Supreme Court also issued decisions in the 1980s and 1990s, making clear that sexual harassment and assault is a form of sex discrimination. In 2011, President Barack Obama issued guidance reminding schools of their obligation to redress sexual assaults as civil rights matters under Title IX. Obama also issued guidance clarifying Title IX protections for LGBT students through Dear Colleague letters.

The precursor to Title IX was an executive order, issued in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson, forbidding discrimination in federal contracts. Before these orders were issued, the National Organization for Women (NOW) had persuaded him to include the addition of women. Executive Order 11375 required all entities receiving federal contracts to end discrimination on the basis of sex in hiring and employment. In 1969, a notable example of its success was Bernice Sandler, who used the executive order to retain her job and tenure at the University of Maryland. She utilized university statistics to show how female employment at the university had plummeted as qualified women were replaced by men. Sandler then brought her complaints to the Department of Labor's Office for Federal Fair Contracts Compliance, where she was encouraged to file a formal complaint; later citing inequalities in pay, rank, and admissions, among others.

Sandler soon began to file complaints against the University of Maryland and other colleges while working with NOW and the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL). Sandler later filed 269 complaints against colleges and universities, which led to the events of 1970. In 1970, Sandler joined U.S. House Representative Edith Green's Subcommittee on Higher Education of the Education and Labor Committee, and observed corresponding congressional hearings relating to women's issues on employment and equal opportunity. In these hearings, Green and Sandler initially proposed the idea of Title IX. An early legislative draft aimed at amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was then authored by Representative Green. At the hearing, there were mentions of athletics. The idea behind the draft was a progressive one in instituting an affirmative action for women in all aspects of American education.

Steps from a draft to legislative act to public law
Title IX was formally introduced in Congress by Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana in 1971, who then was its chief Senate sponsor for congressional debate. At the time, Bayh was working on numerous constitutional issues related to women's employment and sex discrimination—including, but not limited to, the revised draft of the Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA attempted to build "a powerful constitutional base from which to move forward in abolishing discriminatory differential treatment based on sex". As Bayh was having partisan difficulty in later getting the ERA Amendment out of committee, the Higher Education Act of 1965 was on the Senate Floor for re-authorization; and on February 28, 1972, Bayh re-introduced a provision found in the original/revised ERA bill as an amendment which would become Title IX. In his remarks on the Senate Floor, Bayh stated, "we are all familiar with the stereotype [that] women [are] pretty things who go to college to find a husband, [and who] go on to graduate school because they want a more interesting husband, and finally marry, have children, and never work again. The desire of many schools not to waste a 'man's place' on a woman stems from such stereotyped notions. But the facts contradict these myths about the 'weaker sex' and it is time to change our operating assumptions." He continued: "While the impact of this amendment would be far-reaching, it is not a panacea. It is, however, an important first step in the effort to provide for the women of America something that is rightfully theirs—an equal chance to attend the schools of their choice, to develop the skills they want, and to apply those skills with the knowledge that they will have a fair chance to secure the jobs of their choice with equal pay for equal work". Title IX became public law on June 23, 1972. When U.S. President Nixon signed the bill, he spoke mostly about desegregation busing, and did not mention the expansion of educational access for women he had enacted.

Implementation
Each institution or organization that receives federal funding must designate at least one employee as Title IX coordinator. Their duty is to oversee that Title IX is not being violated and to answer all questions pertaining to Title IX. Everyone must have access to the Title IX coordinator's name, address, and telephone number. In order to ensure compliance with Title IX, programs of both male and females must display no discrimination. This applies to opportunities for athletic participation (in proportion to enrollment numbers), scholarships, and how athletes are treated (e.g., equitable locker room facilities, etc.). Title IX's statutory language is brief. U.S. President Nixon therefore directed the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) to publish regulations clarifying the law's application. In 1974, U.S. Senator John Tower introduced the Tower Amendment which would have exempted revenue-producing sports from Title IX compliance. Later that year, Congress rejected the Tower Amendment and passed an amendment proposed by U.S. Senator Jacob Javits directing HEW to include "reasonable provisions considering the nature of particular sports" adopted in its place. In June 1975, HEW published the final regulations detailing how Title IX would be enforced. These regulations were codified in the Federal Register in the Code of Federal Regulations Volume 34, Part 106. Since 1975, the federal government has issued guidance clarifying how it interprets and enforces those regulations.

Further legislation
The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 is tied to Title IX which was passed in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1984 ruling Grove City College v. Bell. The Court held that Title IX applied only to those programs receiving direct federal aid. This case was initially reached by the Supreme Court when Grove City College disagreed with the Department of Education's assertion that it was required to comply with Title IX. Grove City College was not a federally funded institution; however, they did accept students who were receiving Basic Educational Opportunity Grants through a Department of Education program. The Department of Education's stance was that because some of its students were receiving federal grants, the school was thus receiving federal assistance and Title IX applied to it. The Court decided that since Grove City College was only receiving federal funding through the grant program that only this program had to comply. This ruling was a major victory for those opposed to Title IX as it then made many athletic programs outside the purview of Title IX, and thus reduced its scope.

Grove City's court victory, however, was short-lived. The Civil Rights Restoration Act passed in 1988, which extended Title IX coverage to all programs of any educational institution that receives any federal assistance, both direct and indirect. In 1994, the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, sponsored by Congresswoman Cardiss Collins required that federally-assisted educational institutions disclose information on roster sizes for men's and women's athletic teams; as well as budgets for recruiting, scholarships, coaches' salaries, and other expenses, annually. In 1992, the Supreme Court decided monetary relief was available under Title IX in the case Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools. In October 2002, less than a month after the death of U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution to rename Title IX the "Patsy Takemoto Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act", which President George W. Bush signed into law. On November 24, 2006, Title IX regulations were amended to provide greater flexibility in the operation of single-sex classes or extracurricular activities at the primary or secondary school level; this was largely to introduce federal abstinence-only programs, which may have been a partial basis for the support of President Bush.

On May 15, 2020, the Department of Education issued a letter stating that the policy of the state of Connecticut which allows transgender girls to compete in high school sports as girls was a violation of the civil rights of female student-athletes and a violation of Title IX. It stated that Connecticut's policy "denied female student-athletes athletic benefits and opportunities, including advancing to the finals in events, higher-level competitions, awards, medals, recognition, and the possibility of greater visibility to colleges and other benefits."

On March 8, 2021, President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 14021 entitled "Guaranteeing an Educational Environment Free From Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Including Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity", reversing changes made by the Trump administration to limit the scope of Title IX to sex only, excluding gender identity and sexual orientation. The executive order also provided a timeline for the Secretary of Education and Attorney General to "review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions (collectively, agency actions) that are or may be inconsistent with the policy set forth" in the order.

On June 16, 2021, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued a Notice of Interpretation explaining that it will "enforce Title IX's prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex to include: (1) discrimination based on sexual orientation; and (2) discrimination based on gender identity." The review set out in E.O. 14021 is still ongoing as of April 2022.

Impact on American schools
The introduction of Title IX was followed by a considerable increase in the number of female students participating in organized sports within American academic institutions followed by growing interest in initiating and developing programs which would pursue feminist principles in relationship to concerns surrounding issues dealing with girls and women's equality and equity in sport.

Institutional requirements
Athletic equality requirements were later set by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, first in 1979 and later followed by several clarifications and amendments. In order to meet the requirements, schools must pass at least one of three tests measuring sex equality among athletics the school offers. These tests consist of proportional numbers of males and females participating, whether or not the school is making an effort to increase the number of the unrepresented sex, if the school has a certain history of one specific sex dominating the numbers of athletes in a given sport, and whether or not the school is showing an effort to expand the program to the other sex.

Challenges
There have been different interpretations regarding Title IX's application to high school athletics. The American Sports Council sued the Department of Education in 2011 seeking a declaratory judgment that its policy interpreting Title IX's requirement for equity in participation opportunities is limited to colleges and universities. The American Sports Council argued that "The three-part test and its encouragement of quotas, has no relevance to high schools or high-school sports, and no federal regulation or interpretation has ever said that high schools must abide by the three-part test". On the other hand, the Department of Education insists that Title IX is a "valuable tool" for ensuring a level playing field for all students" and "plays a critical role in ensuring a fundamental level of fairness in America's schools and universities".

Coaching and administration
Although Title IX has helped increase the participation rate of female student athletes, several challenges remain for girls and women, including for females who aspire to become involved in professional roles within sport. The growing exposure of female sports has led to an increasingly dominant representation of males in coaching positions and roles involving the governance of female athletics.

In regards to coaching roles, in spite of the fact that the legislation has helped create more and better opportunities for women, the number of women coaches has surprisingly decreased while the number of male coaches have subsequently increased. Men have also gained a larger role in directing female athletics. For example, the male-dominated National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which had been content to let the female-dominated Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) run female championships, decided to offer female championships themselves, leading to the eventual demise of the AIAW. The NCAA later tried to claim that Congress had not intended to include athletics under Title IX's coverage, but the record lacks any sustained discussion of the matter.

Increasing participation
Advocates of Title IX's current interpretation cite increases in female athletic participation, and attribute those increases to Title IX. One study, completed in 2006, pointed to a large increase in the number of women participating in athletics at both the high school and college level. The number of women in high school sports had increased by a factor of nine, while the number of women in college sports had increased by more than 450%. A 2008 study of intercollegiate athletics showed that women's collegiate sports have grown to 9,101 teams, or 8.65 per school. The five most frequently offered college sports for women are in order: (1) Basketball, 98.8% of schools have a team; (2) Volleyball, 95.7%; (3) Soccer, 92.0%; (4) Cross Country; 90.8%, and (5) Softball; 89.2%. The lowest rank for female sports teams is bowling. The exact percentage is not known; however, there are only around 600 students on women's bowling teams in all three divisions in the NCAA.

Impact on men's programs
There have been concerns and claims that the current interpretation of Title IX by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has resulted in the dismantling of men's programs, despite strong participation in those sports. Some believe that the increase in athletic opportunity for girls in high school has come at the expense of boys' athletics. Because teams vary widely in size, it is more common to compare the number of total participation opportunities between the sexes. Additionally, the total number of college participation opportunities has increased for both sexes in the Title IX era, though solely for women when increased enrollment is accounted for, as men's participation has remained static relative to university enrollment, and men's opportunities outnumber women's by a wide margin.

Between 1981 and 1999, university athletic departments cut 171 men's collegiate wrestling teams, 84 men's tennis teams, 56 men's gymnastics teams, 27 men's track teams, and 25 men's swimming teams. While some teams—both men's and women's—have been eliminated in the Title IX era, both sexes have seen a net increase in the number of athletic teams over that same period. When total enrollment (which had likewise increased) is controlled for however, only women had an increase in participation.

Though interest in the sport of wrestling has consistently increased at the high school level since 1990, scores of colleges have dropped their wrestling programs during that same period. The OCR's three-prong test for compliance with Title IX often is cited as the reason for these cuts. Wrestling historically was the most frequently dropped sport, but other men's sports later overtook the lead. According to the NCAA, the most-dropped men's sports between 1987 and 2002 were as follows:

 * 1) cross country (183)
 * 2) indoor track (180)
 * 3) golf (178)
 * 4) tennis (171)
 * 5) rowing (132)
 * 6) outdoor track (126)
 * 7) swimming (125)
 * 8) wrestling (121)

Additionally, eight NCAA sports—all men's sports—were sponsored by fewer Division I schools in 2020 than in 1990, despite the D-I membership having increased by nearly 60 schools during that period.

In 2011, the American Sports Council (formerly called the College Sports Council) stated, "Nationwide, there are currently 1.3 million more boys participating in high school sports than girls. Using a gender quota to enforce Title IX in high school sports would put those young athletes at risk of losing their opportunity to play." High school participation rates from the National Federation of High School associations report that in 2010–11, there were 4,494,406 boys and 3,173,549 girls participating in high school athletics.

In a 2007 study of athletic opportunities at NCAA institutions the Women's Sports Foundation reported that over 150,000 female athletic opportunities would need to be added to reach participation levels proportional to the female undergraduate population. The same study found that men's athletics also receives the lion's share of athletic department budgets for operating expenses, recruiting, scholarships, and coaches salaries.

Sexual harassment and sexual violence
Title IX applies to all educational programs and all aspects of a school's educational system. In the late 1970s, a group of students and one faculty member sued Yale University for its failure to curtail sexual harassment on campus, especially by male faculty. This case, Alexander v. Yale, was the first to use Title IX to argue and establish that the sexual harassment of female students can be considered illegal sex discrimination. The plaintiffs in the case alleged rape, fondling, and offers of higher grades for sex by several Yale faculty. Some of the cases were based on a 1977 report authored by plaintiff Ann Olivarius, now a feminist attorney known for fighting sexual harassment, "A report to the Yale Corporation from the Yale Undergraduate Women's Caucus." Several of the plaintiffs and lawyers have written accounts of the case.

Advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) likewise maintain that "when students suffer sexual assault and harassment, they are deprived of equal and free access to an education." Further, according to an April 2011 letter issued by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, "The sexual harassment of students, including sexual violence, interferes with students' right to receive an education free from discrimination and, in the case of sexual violence, is a crime."

The letter, referred to as the "Dear Colleague Letter", states that it is the responsibility of institutions of higher education "to take immediate and effective steps to end sexual harassment and sexual violence." The letter illustrates multiple examples of Title IX requirements as they relate to sexual violence and makes clear that, should an institution fail to fulfill its responsibilities under Title IX, the Department of Education can impose a fine and potentially deny further institutional access to federal funds. However, critics and later the Department of Education noted that this change was adopted without a rulemaking process to provide public notice and comment.

On March 15, 2011, Yale undergraduate student and alleged sexual violence survivor Alexandra Brodsky filed a Title IX complaint along with fifteen fellow students alleging Yale "has a sexually hostile environment and has failed to adequately respond to sexual harassment concerns."

In October 2012, an Amherst College student, Angie Epifano, wrote an explicit, personal account of her alleged sexual assault and the ensuing "appalling treatment" she received when coming forward to seek support from the college's administration. In the narrative, Epifano alleged that she was raped by a fellow Amherst student and described how her life was affected by the experience; she stated that the perpetrator harassed her at the only dining hall, that her academic performance was negatively affected, and that, when she sought support, the administration coerced her into taking the blame for her experience and ultimately institutionalized her and pressured her to drop out.

"The fact that such a prestigious institution could have such a noxious interior fills me with intense remorse mixed with sour distaste. I am sickened by the Administration's attempts to cover up survivors' stories, cook their books to discount rapes, pretend that withdrawals never occur, quell attempts at change, and sweep sexual assaults under a rug. When politicians cover up affairs or scandals the masses often rise in angry protestations and call for a more transparent government. What is the difference between a government and the Amherst College campus? Why can't we know what is happening on campus? Why should we be quiet about sexual assault?'"

When the Amherst case reached national attention, Annie E. Clark and Andrea Pino, two women who were allegedly sexually assaulted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill connected with Epifano, Brodsky, and Yale Law School student Dana Bolger to address the parallel concerns of hostility at their institution, filing Title IX and Clery Act complaints against the university in January 2013, both leading to investigations by the U.S. Department of Education.

Following the national prominence of the UNC Chapel Hill case, organizers Pino and Clark went on to coordinate with students at other schools; in 2013, complaints citing violations of Title IX were filed against Occidental College (on April 18), Swarthmore College and the University of Southern California (on May 22). These complaints, the resulting campaigns against sexual violence on college campuses, and the organizing of Bolger, Brodsky, Clark, Pino and other activists led to the formation of an informal national network of activists. Bolger and Brodsky also started Know Your IX, an organization of student activists focused on legal education and federal and state policy change.

Title IX has been interpreted as allowing private lawsuits against educational institutions as well as formal complaints submitted to the Department of Education. In 2006, a federal court found that there was sufficient evidence that the University of Colorado acted with "deliberate indifference" toward students Lisa Simpson and Anne Gilmore, who were sexually assaulted by student football players. The university settled the case by promising to change its policies and to pay $2.5 million in damages. In 2008, Arizona State University was the subject of a lawsuit that alleged violations of rights guaranteed by Title IX: the university expelled a football player for multiple instances of severe sexual harassment, but readmitted him; he went on to rape a fellow student in her dorm room. Despite its claim that it bore no responsibility, the school settled the lawsuit, agreeing to revise and improve its official response to sexual misconduct and to pay the plaintiff $850,000 in damages and fees.

The Trump administration made changes to guidelines that were implemented during the Obama administration. These changes shifted the standard of evidence used in Title IX investigations from "preponderance of the evidence" to a "clear and convincing" evidence standard, which is typically used for civil cases in which serious allegations are made (as opposed to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt in criminal cases). On September 22, 2017, US Department of Education Secretary Betsy Devos rescinded the Obama-era guidelines which had prodded colleges and universities to more aggressively investigate campus sexual assaults. On May 7, 2020, the U.S. Department of Education released final regulations governing campus sexual assault under Title IX, the first Title IX guidance published by the Office of Civil Rights to go through a formal notice-and-comment process since 1997. Some of the new regulations made in May 2020 involve defining sexual harassment to include “sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking,” as discrimination, as well as require schools to offer attainable options for anyone to report a sexual harassment case. Unlike guidance issued by the Obama administration in 2011 and 2014, they will have the force of law behind them. Colleges and universities will be required to comply with the regulations by Aug. 14. On June 22, 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Doe v. DeVos that schools must provide a fair and impartial grievance process to students who allege sexual harassment. This ruling clarifies that schools are legally obligated to respond promptly and effectively to allegations of sexual harassment. On February 10, 2022, the Department of Education issued guidance on how schools should implement the new Title IX regulations. This guidance includes specific information on how schools should prevent and respond to sexual harassment.

On June 23, 2022, the Biden administration issued a proposed rule to reverse the changes made by the final rule and to expand coverage regarding gender identity and pregnancy.

Transgender students
Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Education-issued guidance explained that transgender students are protected from sex-based discrimination under Title IX. In particular, Title IX of its Education Amendments of 1972 bars schools that receive financial aid assistance from sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities. It instructed public schools to treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity in academic life. A student who identifies as a transgender boy, for instance, is allowed entry to a boys-only class, and a student who identifies as a transgender girl is allowed entry to a girls-only class. This also applies to academic records if that student is over the age of eighteen at a university. The memo states in part that "[a]ll students, including transgender students, or students who do not conform to sex stereotypes, are protected from sex-based discrimination under Title IX. Under Title IX, a recipient generally must treat transgender, or gender non-conforming, consistent with their gender identity in all aspects of the planning, implementation, enrollment, operation, and evaluation of single-sex classes."

However, starting in 2017 with the Trump administration, several of these policies have been rolled back. In February 2017, the Departments of Justice and Education (headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, respectively) withdrew the guidance on gender identity. The Education Department announced on February 12, 2018, that Title IX did not allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their gender identities.

Dwayne Bensing, a lawyer for the Office of Civil Rights within the United States Department of Education and who was in its LGBTQ affinity group, had unsuccessfully asked DeVos not to withdraw the Obama administration guidance. Two years later, in the summer of 2019, Bensing discovered that the Education Department was fast-tracking the Alliance Defending Freedom's complaint against transgender student-athletes, even though the department's attorneys did not understand the legal basis for doing so and the department had to pressure other employees. Bensing leaked this information to the Washington Blade and was forced to resign in December 2019.

In October 2018, The New York Times obtained a memo issued by the Department of Health and Human Services that would propose a strict definition of gender for Title IX, using the person's sex as determined at birth and could not be changed, effectively limiting recognition of transgender students and potentially others. The memo stated that the government needed to define gender "on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable". The news brought immediate protests in several locations as well as online social media under the "#WontBeErased" hashtag.

In May 2020, the Trump administration's Department of Education contended that the rights of cisgender women are infringed upon by transgender women. The Education Department started to withhold federal funding to schools which affirm the identities of transgender athletes.

In August 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a 2018 lower court ruling in Adams v. The School Board of St. Johns County, Florida that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is discrimination "on the basis of sex" and is prohibited under Title IX (federal civil rights law) and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

In December 2020, the "Protect Women in Sports" Act was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives. It would block schools from receiving federal funding if transgender girls and nonbinary people are allowed to compete on girls' sports teams at those schools. It was sponsored by Representatives Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat, and Markwayne Mullin, a Republican.

In 2021, the Biden administration took steps to reinstate some of the protections for transgender students that had been rescinded under the Trump administration. These included two executive orders—13988 in January 2021 and 14021 in March 2021 —which were supported by the US Department of Education, though their ability to implement their guidance was limited in June 2022 within the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia.

OCR's test for Title IX compliance
Title IX has been a source of controversy in part due to claims that the OCR's current interpretation of Title IX, and specifically its three-prong test of compliance, is no longer faithful to the anti-discrimination language in Title IX's text, and instead discriminates against men and has contributed to the reduction of programs for male athletes.

Critics of the three-prong test contend that it operates as a "quota" in that it places undue emphasis on the first prong (known as the "proportionality" prong), which fails to take into account any differences in the genders' respective levels of interest in participating in athletics (despite the third prong, which focuses on any differences in the genders' respective levels of interest in participation). Instead, it requires that the genders' athletic participation be substantially proportionate to their enrollment, without regard to interest. Prong two is viewed as only a temporary fix for universities, as universities may only point to the past expansion of opportunities for female students for a limited time before compliance with another prong is necessary. Critics say that prong three likewise fails to consider male athletic interest despite its gender-neutral language, as it requires that the university fully and effectively accommodate the athletic interests of the "underrepresented sex", even though ED regulations expressly require that the OCR consider whether the institution "effectively accommodate[s] the interests and abilities of members of both sexes". As such, with a focus on increasing female athletic opportunities without any counterbalance to consider male athletic interest, critics maintain that the OCR's three-prong test operates to discriminate against men.

Defenders of the three-prong test counter that the genders' differing athletic interest levels are merely a product of past discrimination, and that Title IX should be interpreted to maximize female participation in athletics regardless of any existing disparity in interest. Thus while defenders argue that the three-prong test embodies the maxim that "opportunity drives interest", critics argue that the three-prong test goes beyond Title IX original purpose of preventing discrimination, and instead amounts to an exercise in which athletic opportunities are taken away from male students and given to female students, despite the comparatively lower interest levels of those female students. Author and self-described women's rights advocate John Irving opined in a New York Times column that on this topic, women's advocates were being "purely vindictive" in insisting that the current OCR interpretation of Title IX be maintained.

On March 17, 2005, OCR announced a clarification of prong three of the three-part test of Title IX compliance. The guidance concerned the use of web-based surveys to determine the level of interest in varsity athletics among the underrepresented sex. Opponents of the clarification – including the NCAA Executive Committee, which issued a resolution soon afterward asking Association members not to use the survey – claimed the survey was flawed in part because of the way it counted non-responses. On April 20, 2010, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights abandoned the 2005 clarification that allowed institutions to use only Internet or e‑mail surveys to meet the interests and abilities (third prong) option of the three-part test for Title IX compliance.

In February 2010, the United States Commission on Civil Rights weighed in on the OCR's three-prong test, offering several recommendations on Title IX policy to address what it termed "unnecessary reduction of men's athletic opportunities". The commission advocated use of surveys to measure interest, and specifically recommended that the Department of Education's regulations on interest and abilities be revised "to explicitly take into account the interest of both sexes rather than just the interest of the underrepresented sex", almost always females.

Legacy and recognition
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Title IX the National Women's Law Center lodged twenty-five complaints with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

After Title IX was implemented, there was controversy about the amount of athletic integration, especially among female education leaders who worried about girls being injured or bullied by rough boys in coeducational activities. While there were always some parents and administrators who did not like the idea of coed gym classes, that has in fact become the norm as a result of Title IX.

There were several events praising the 40th anniversary of Title IX in June 2012. For example, the White House Council on Women and Girls hosted a panel to discuss the life-altering nature of sports. Panelists included Billie Jean King, All‑American NCAA point guard Shoni Schimmel of the University of Louisville, and Aimee Mullins, the first double-amputee sprinter to compete in NCAA track and field for Georgetown University.

President Barack Obama wrote a pro–Title IX op-ed published in Newsweek magazine.

The Women's Sports Foundation honored over 40 female athletes.

On June 21, 2012, espnW projected a digital mosaic featuring the largest-ever collection of women and girls' sports images (all of which were submitted by the athletes themselves) onto the First Amendment tablet of the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The mosaic also included photos of espnW's Top 40 Athletes of the Past 40 Years.

ESPN The Magazine produced its first "Women in Sports" issue in June 2012, and in the same month ESPN Classic first showed the documentary Sporting Chance: The Lasting Legacy of Title IX, narrated by Holly Hunter. It also showed the documentary On the Basis of Sex: The Battle for Title IX in Sports, and other programming related to women's sports.

In 2013 ESPN Films broadcast Nine for IX, a series of documentaries about women in sports. Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts and Tribeca Productions co founder Jane Rosenthal are executive producers of the series.

The NCAA announced in April 2019 that it would hold its 2023 Division II and Division III women's basketball championship games at American Airlines Center in Dallas, which had previously been announced as the site for that season's Division I women's Final Four. In its announcement, the NCAA explicitly called the joint championship event "a 50th-year celebration of Title IX" (as that particular basketball season will begin in calendar 2022).

Criticism
Concern has been expressed that colleges have been overly aggressive in enforcing Title IX regulations, particularly about sexual matters. Laura Kipnis, author of How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2010), and others have argued that Title IX regulations have empowered investigators who routinely endanger academic freedom and fair process, presume the guilt of suspects, assign the man full responsibility for the outcome of any social interaction, and minutely regulate personal relationships.

Writing in The Atlantic, Emily Yoffe has criticized the Title IX process for being unfair to the accused, based on faulty science, and racially biased against students of color.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Title IX


text:
Chinese fire drill

"Chinese fire drill" is a slang term for a situation that is chaotic or confusing, possibly due to poor or misunderstood instructions.

Origins
The term goes back to the early 1900s, and is alleged to have originated when a ship run by British officers and a Chinese crew practiced a fire drill for a fire in the engine room. The bucket brigade were to draw water from the starboard side, pass it to the engine room, and pour it onto the simulated "fire". To prevent flooding, a separate crew was ordered to ferry the accumulated water from the engine room up to the main deck, and to heave the water over the port side. The drill had previously gone according to plan, until the orders were confused in interpretation. The bucket brigade began to draw the water from the starboard side, run directly over to the port side and then throw the water overboard, bypassing the engine room completely.

Additionally, the term is documented to have been used in the US Marine Corps during World War II, where it was often expressed in the phrase "as screwed up as a Chinese fire drill". It was also commonly used by Americans during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Historians trace Westerners' use of the word Chinese to denote "confusion" and "incomprehensibility" to the earliest contacts between Europeans and Chinese people in the 1600s, and attribute it to Europeans' inability to understand China's radically different culture and world view. In his 1989 Dictionary of Invective, British editor Hugh Rawson lists 16 phrases that use the word "Chinese" to denote "incompetence, fraud and disorganization".

Other examples of such use include:
 * "Chinese puzzle", a puzzle with a nonexistent or a hard-to-fathom solution.
 * "Chinese whispers", a children's game in which a straightforward statement is shared through a sequence of players, one player at a time, until it reaches the end, often getting comically transformed along the way into a completely different statement. This game is also known as "telephone" in North America and "wire-less telephone" in Brazil.
 * "Chinese ace", an inept pilot, derived from the term "one wing low" (which supposedly sounds like a Chinese name), an aeronautical maneuver.

Other uses
The term can also refer to a prank originating in the 1960s in which the occupants of an automobile jump out, run around the vehicle, and jump back in at a different door, usually at a red light or other form of traffic stoppage. This is sometimes also used to refer to a driver and passenger intentionally switching places in the middle of the road because the driver is having trouble with road conditions.

Offensiveness
Public use of the phrase has been considered to be offensive and racist. In 2017, a candidate for office in Nova Scotia, Matt Whitman, apologized for using the term in a video and subsequently removed the video. In 2020, Washington state Senator Patty Kuderer made an apology for using the term in a hearing; Linda Yang of Washington Asians for Equality stated that the term was racist and filed a complaint with the state. Kuderer apologized before any formal complaint was filed.

In popular culture
A Chinese Firedrill is the name of a music project by Armored Saint and Fates Warning bassist Joey Vera. It released an album, Circles, in 2007. The album uses different musical foundations in each song, such that it is "chaotic or confusing", like a Chinese fire drill.

In The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson, the first epsidode of The Simpsons season 9, a retailer in Manhattan's Chinatown shouts out "Chinese fire drill!" as Bart Simpson sets a firework at his shop.

title: Chinese fire drill


text:
Respiratory complex I

[[File:NADH Dehydrogenase Mechanism (Fixed).png|thumb|500px|NADH Dehydrogenase Mechanism: 1. The seven primary iron sulfur centers serve to carry electrons from the site of NADH dehydration to ubiquinone. Note that N7 is not found in eukaryotes.

2. There is a reduction of ubiquinone (CoQ) to ubiquinol (CoQH2).

3. The energy from the redox reaction results in conformational change allowing hydrogen ions to pass through four transmembrane helix channels. ]]

Respiratory complex I, (also known as NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase, Type I NADH dehydrogenase and mitochondrial complex I) is the first large protein complex of the respiratory chains of many organisms from bacteria to humans. It catalyzes the transfer of electrons from NADH to coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and translocates protons across the inner mitochondrial membrane in eukaryotes or the plasma membrane of bacteria.

This enzyme is essential for the normal functioning of cells, and mutations in its subunits lead to a wide range of inherited neuromuscular and metabolic disorders. Defects in this enzyme are responsible for the development of several pathological processes such as ischemia/reperfusion damage (stroke and cardiac infarction), Parkinson's disease and others.

Function

Complex I is the first enzyme of the mitochondrial electron transport chain. There are three energy-transducing enzymes in the electron transport chain - NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase (complex I), Coenzyme Q – cytochrome c reductase (complex III), and cytochrome c oxidase (complex IV). Complex I is the largest and most complicated enzyme of the electron transport chain.

The reaction catalyzed by complex I is:

 * NADH + H+ + CoQ + 4H+in→ NAD+ + CoQH2 + 4H+out

In this process, the complex translocates four protons across the inner membrane per molecule of oxidized NADH, helping to build the electrochemical potential difference used to produce ATP. Escherichia coli complex I (NADH dehydrogenase) is capable of proton translocation in the same direction to the established Δψ, showing that in the tested conditions, the coupling ion is H+. Na+ transport in the opposite direction was observed, and although Na+ was not necessary for the catalytic or proton transport activities, its presence increased the latter. H+ was translocated by the Paracoccus denitrificans complex I, but in this case, H+ transport was not influenced by Na+, and Na+ transport was not observed. Possibly, the E. coli complex I has two energy coupling sites (one Na+ independent and the other Na+dependent), as observed for the Rhodothermus marinus complex I, whereas the coupling mechanism of the P. denitrificans enzyme is completely Na+ independent. It is also possible that another transporter catalyzes the uptake of Na+. Complex I energy transduction by proton pumping may not be exclusive to the R. marinus enzyme. The Na+/H+ antiport activity seems not to be a general property of complex I. However, the existence of Na+-translocating activity of the complex I is still in question.

The reaction can be reversed – referred to as aerobic succinate-supported NAD+ reduction by ubiquinol – in the presence of a high membrane potential, but the exact catalytic mechanism remains unknown. Driving force of this reaction is a potential across the membrane which can be maintained either by ATP-hydrolysis or by complexes III and IV during succinate oxidation.

Complex I may have a role in triggering apoptosis. In fact, there has been shown to be a correlation between mitochondrial activities and programmed cell death (PCD) during somatic embryo development.

Complex I is not homologous to Na+-translocating NADH Dehydrogenase (NDH) Family (TC# 3.D.1), a member of the Na+ transporting Mrp superfamily.

As a result of a two NADH molecule being oxidized to NAD+, three molecules of ATP can be produced by Complex V (ATP synthase) downstream in the respiratory chain.

Overall mechanism
All redox reactions take place in the hydrophilic domain of complex I. NADH initially binds to complex I, and transfers two electrons to the flavin mononucleotide (FMN) prosthetic group of the enzyme, creating FMNH2. The electron acceptor – the isoalloxazine ring – of FMN is identical to that of FAD. The electrons are then transferred through the FMN via a series of iron-sulfur (Fe-S) clusters, and finally to coenzyme Q10 (ubiquinone). This electron flow changes the redox state of the protein, inducing conformational changes of the protein which alters the pK values of ionizable side chain, and causes four hydrogen ions to be pumped out of the mitochondrial matrix. Ubiquinone (CoQ) accepts two electrons to be reduced to ubiquinol (CoQH2).

Electron transfer mechanism
The proposed pathway for electron transport prior to ubiquinone reduction is as follows: NADH – FMN – N3 – N1b – N4 – N5 – N6a – N6b – N2 – Q, where Nx is a labelling convention for iron sulfur clusters. The high reduction potential of the N2 cluster and the relative proximity of the other clusters in the chain enable efficient electron transfer over long distance in the protein (with transfer rates from NADH to N2 iron-sulfur cluster of about 100 μs).

The equilibrium dynamics of Complex I are primarily driven by the quinone redox cycle. In conditions of high proton motive force (and accordingly, a ubiquinol-concentrated pool), the enzyme runs in the reverse direction. Ubiquinol is oxidized to ubiquinone, and the resulting released protons reduce the proton motive force.

Proton translocation mechanism
The coupling of proton translocation and electron transport in Complex I is currently proposed as being indirect (long range conformational changes) as opposed to direct (redox intermediates in the hydrogen pumps as in heme groups of Complexes III and IV). The architecture of the hydrophobic region of complex I shows multiple proton transporters that are mechanically interlinked. The three central components believed to contribute to this long-range conformational change event are the pH-coupled N2 iron-sulfur cluster, the quinone reduction, and the transmembrane helix subunits of the membrane arm. Transduction of conformational changes to drive the transmembrane transporters linked by a 'connecting rod' during the reduction of ubiquinone can account for two or three of the four protons pumped per NADH oxidized. The remaining proton must be pumped by direct coupling at the ubiquinone-binding site. It is proposed that direct and indirect coupling mechanisms account for the pumping of the four protons.

The N2 cluster's proximity to a nearby cysteine residue results in a conformational change upon reduction in the nearby helices, leading to small but important changes in the overall protein conformation. Further electron paramagnetic resonance studies of the electron transfer have demonstrated that most of the energy that is released during the subsequent CoQ reduction is on the final ubiquinol formation step from semiquinone, providing evidence for the "single stroke" H+ translocation mechanism (i.e. all four protons move across the membrane at the same time). Alternative theories suggest a "two stroke mechanism" where each reduction step (semiquinone and ubiquinol) results in a stroke of two protons entering the intermembrane space.

The resulting ubiquinol localized to the membrane domain interacts with negatively charged residues in the membrane arm, stabilizing conformational changes. An antiporter mechanism (Na+/H+ swap) has been proposed using evidence of conserved Asp residues in the membrane arm. The presence of Lys, Glu, and His residues enable for proton gating (a protonation followed by deprotonation event across the membrane) driven by the pKa of the residues.

Composition and structure
NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase is the largest of the respiratory complexes. In mammals, the enzyme contains 44 separate water-soluble peripheral membrane proteins, which are anchored to the integral membrane constituents. Of particular functional importance are the flavin prosthetic group (FMN) and eight iron-sulfur clusters (FeS). Of the 44 subunits, seven are encoded by the mitochondrial genome.

The structure is an "L" shape with a long membrane domain (with around 60 trans-membrane helices) and a hydrophilic (or peripheral) domain, which includes all the known redox centres and the NADH binding site. All thirteen of the E. coli proteins, which comprise NADH dehydrogenase I, are encoded within the nuo operon, and are homologous to mitochondrial complex I subunits. The antiporter-like subunits NuoL/M/N each contains 14 conserved transmembrane (TM) helices. Two of them are discontinuous, but subunit NuoL contains a 110 Å long amphipathic α-helix, spanning the entire length of the domain. The subunit, NuoL, is related to Na+/ H+ antiporters of TC# 2.A.63.1.1 (PhaA and PhaD).

Three of the conserved, membrane-bound subunits in NADH dehydrogenase are related to each other, and to Mrp sodium-proton antiporters. Structural analysis of two prokaryotic complexes I revealed that the three subunits each contain fourteen transmembrane helices that overlay in structural alignments: the translocation of three protons may be coordinated by a lateral helix connecting them.

Complex I contains a ubiquinone binding pocket at the interface of the 49-kDa and PSST subunits. Close to iron-sulfur cluster N2, the proposed immediate electron donor for ubiquinone, a highly conserved tyrosine constitutes a critical element of the quinone reduction site. A possible quinone exchange path leads from cluster N2 to the N-terminal beta-sheet of the 49-kDa subunit. All 45 subunits of the bovine NDHI have been sequenced. Each complex contains noncovalently bound FMN, coenzyme Q and several iron-sulfur centers. The bacterial NDHs have 8-9 iron-sulfur centers.

A recent study used electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra and double electron-electron resonance (DEER) to determine the path of electron transfer through the iron-sulfur complexes, which are located in the hydrophilic domain. Seven of these clusters form a chain from the flavin to the quinone binding sites; the eighth cluster is located on the other side of the flavin, and its function is unknown. The EPR and DEER results suggest an alternating or “roller-coaster” potential energy profile for the electron transfer between the active sites and along the iron-sulfur clusters, which can optimize the rate of electron travel and allow efficient energy conversion in complex I.

Notes:
 * a Found in all species except fungi
 * b May or may not be present in any species
 * c Found in fungal species such as Schizosaccharomyces pombe
 * d Recent research has described NDUFA4 to be a subunit of complex IV, and not of complex I

Inhibitors
Bullatacin (an acetogenin found in Asimina triloba fruit) is the most potent known inhibitor of NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) (=1.2 nM, stronger than rotenone). The best-known inhibitor of complex I is rotenone (commonly used as an organic pesticide). Rotenone and rotenoids are isoflavonoids occurring in several genera of tropical plants such as Antonia (Loganiaceae), Derris and Lonchocarpus (Faboideae, Fabaceae). There have been reports of the indigenous people of French Guiana using rotenone-containing plants to fish - due to its ichthyotoxic effect - as early as the 17th century. Rotenone binds to the ubiquinone binding site of complex I as well as piericidin A, another potent inhibitor with a close structural homologue to ubiquinone.

Acetogenins from Annonaceae are even more potent inhibitors of complex I. They cross-link to the ND2 subunit, which suggests that ND2 is essential for quinone-binding. Rolliniastatin-2, an acetogenin, is the first complex I inhibitor found that does not share the same binding site as rotenone.

Despite more than 50 years of study of complex I, no inhibitors blocking the electron flow inside the enzyme have been found. Hydrophobic inhibitors like rotenone or piericidin most likely disrupt the electron transfer between the terminal FeS cluster N2 and ubiquinone. It has been shown that long-term systemic inhibition of complex I by rotenone can induce selective degeneration of dopaminergic neurons.

Complex I is also blocked by adenosine diphosphate ribose – a reversible competitive inhibitor of NADH oxidation – by binding to the enzyme at the nucleotide binding site. Both hydrophilic NADH and hydrophobic ubiquinone analogs act at the beginning and the end of the internal electron-transport pathway, respectively.

The antidiabetic drug Metformin has been shown to induce a mild and transient inhibition of the mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I, and this inhibition appears to play a key role in its mechanism of action.

Inhibition of complex I has been implicated in hepatotoxicity associated with a variety of drugs, for instance flutamide and nefazodone. Further, complex I inhibition was shown to trigger NAD+-independent glucose catabolism.

Active/inactive transition
The catalytic properties of eukaryotic complex I are not simple. Two catalytically and structurally distinct forms exist in any given preparation of the enzyme: one is the fully competent, so-called “active” A-form and the other is the catalytically silent, dormant, “inactive”, D-form. After exposure of idle enzyme to elevated, but physiological temperatures (>30 °C) in the absence of substrate, the enzyme converts to the D-form. This form is catalytically incompetent but can be activated by the slow reaction (k~4 min−1) of NADH oxidation with subsequent ubiquinone reduction. After one or several turnovers the enzyme becomes active and can catalyse physiological NADH:ubiquinone reaction at a much higher rate (k~104 min−1). In the presence of divalent cations (Mg2+, Ca2+), or at alkaline pH the activation takes much longer.

The high activation energy (270 kJ/mol) of the deactivation process indicates the occurrence of major conformational changes in the organisation of the complex I. However, until now, the only conformational difference observed between these two forms is the number of cysteine residues exposed at the surface of the enzyme. Treatment of the D-form of complex I with the sulfhydryl reagents N-Ethylmaleimide or DTNB irreversibly blocks critical cysteine residues, abolishing the ability of the enzyme to respond to activation, thus inactivating it irreversibly. The A-form of complex I is insensitive to sulfhydryl reagents.

It was found that these conformational changes may have a very important physiological significance. The inactive, but not the active form of complex I was susceptible to inhibition by nitrosothiols and peroxynitrite. It is likely that transition from the active to the inactive form of complex I takes place during pathological conditions when the turnover of the enzyme is limited at physiological temperatures, such as during hypoxia, ischemia or when the tissue nitric oxide:oxygen ratio increases (i.e. metabolic hypoxia).

Production of superoxide
Recent investigations suggest that complex I is a potent source of reactive oxygen species. Complex I can produce superoxide (as well as hydrogen peroxide), through at least two different pathways. During forward electron transfer, only very small amounts of superoxide are produced (probably less than 0.1% of the overall electron flow).

During reverse electron transfer, complex I might be the most important site of superoxide production within mitochondria, with around 3-4% of electrons being diverted to superoxide formation. Reverse electron transfer, the process by which electrons from the reduced ubiquinol pool (supplied by succinate dehydrogenase, glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, electron-transferring flavoprotein or dihydroorotate dehydrogenase in mammalian mitochondria) pass through complex I to reduce NAD+ to NADH, driven by the inner mitochondrial membrane potential electric potential. Although it is not precisely known under what pathological conditions reverse-electron transfer would occur in vivo, in vitro experiments indicate that this process can be a very potent source of superoxide when succinate concentrations are high and oxaloacetate or malate concentrations are low. This can take place during tissue ischaemia, when oxygen delivery is blocked.

Superoxide is a reactive oxygen species that contributes to cellular oxidative stress and is linked to neuromuscular diseases and aging. NADH dehydrogenase produces superoxide by transferring one electron from FMNH2 (or semireduced flavin) to oxygen (O2). The radical flavin leftover is unstable, and transfers the remaining electron to the iron-sulfur centers. It is the ratio of NADH to NAD+ that determines the rate of superoxide formation.

Pathology
Mutations in the subunits of complex I can cause mitochondrial diseases, including Leigh syndrome. Point mutations in various complex I subunits derived from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) can also result in Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy.There is some evidence that complex I defects may play a role in the etiology of Parkinson's disease, perhaps because of reactive oxygen species (complex I can, like complex III, leak electrons to oxygen, forming highly toxic superoxide).

Although the exact etiology of Parkinson's disease is unclear, it is likely that mitochondrial dysfunction, along with proteasome inhibition and environmental toxins, may play a large role. In fact, the inhibition of complex I has been shown to cause the production of peroxides and a decrease in proteasome activity, which may lead to Parkinson's disease. Additionally, Esteves et al. (2010) found that cell lines with Parkinson's disease show increased proton leakage in complex I, which causes decreased maximum respiratory capacity.

Brain ischemia/reperfusion injury is mediated via complex I impairment. Recently it was found that oxygen deprivation leads to conditions in which mitochondrial complex I lose its natural cofactor, flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and become inactive. When oxygen is present the enzyme catalyzes a physiological reaction of NADH oxidation by ubiquinone, supplying electrons downstream of the respiratory chain (complexes III and IV). Ischemia leads to dramatic increase of succinate level. In the presence of succinate mitochondria catalyze reverse electron transfer so that fraction of electrons from succinate is directed upstream to FMN of complex I. Reverse electron transfer results in a reduction of complex I FMN, increased generation of ROS, followed by a loss of the reduced cofactor (FMNH2) and impairment of mitochondria energy production. The FMN loss by complex I and I/R injury can be alleviated by the administration of FMN precursor, riboflavin.

Recent studies have examined other roles of complex I activity in the brain. Andreazza et al. (2010) found that the level of complex I activity was significantly decreased in patients with bipolar disorder, but not in patients with depression or schizophrenia. They found that patients with bipolar disorder showed increased protein oxidation and nitration in their prefrontal cortex. These results suggest that future studies should target complex I for potential therapeutic studies for bipolar disorder. Similarly, Moran et al. (2010) found that patients with severe complex I deficiency showed decreased oxygen consumption rates and slower growth rates. However, they found that mutations in different genes in complex I lead to different phenotypes, thereby explaining the variations of pathophysiological manifestations of complex I deficiency.

Exposure to pesticides can also inhibit complex I and cause disease symptoms. For example, chronic exposure to low levels of dichlorvos, an organophosphate used as a pesticide, has been shown to cause liver dysfunction. This occurs because dichlorvos alters complex I and II activity levels, which leads to decreased mitochondrial electron transfer activities and decreased ATP synthesis.

In chloroplasts
A proton-pumping, ubiquinone-using NADH dehydrogenase complex, homologous to complex I, is found in the chloroplast genomes of most land plants under the name ndh. This complex is inherited from the original symbiosis from cyanobacteria, but has been lost in most eukaryotic algae, some gymnosperms (Pinus and gnetophytes), and some very young lineages of angiosperms. The purpose of this complex is originally cryptic as chloroplasts do not participate in respiration, but now it is known that ndh serves to maintain photosynthesis in stressful situations. This makes it at least partially dispensable in favorable conditions. It is evident that angiosperm lineages without ndh do not last long from their young ages, but how gymnosperms survive on land without ndh for so long is unknown.

Genes
The following is a list of humans genes that encode components of complex I:
 * NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex
 * NDUFA1 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 1, 7.5kDa
 * NDUFA2 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 2, 8kDa
 * NDUFA3 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 3, 9kDa
 * NDUFA4 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 4, 9kDa - recently described to be part of complex IV
 * NDUFA4L – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 4-like
 * NDUFA4L2 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 4-like 2
 * NDUFA5 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 5, 13kDa
 * NDUFA6 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 6, 14kDa
 * NDUFA7 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 7, 14.5kDa
 * NDUFA8 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 8, 19kDa
 * NDUFA9 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 9, 39kDa
 * NDUFA10 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 10, 42kDa
 * NDUFA11 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 11, 14.7kDa
 * NDUFA12 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 12
 * NDUFA13 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, 13
 * NDUFAB1 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1, alpha/beta subcomplex, 1, 8kDa
 * NDUFAF1 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, assembly factor 1
 * NDUFAF2 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, assembly factor 2
 * NDUFAF3 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, assembly factor 3
 * NDUFAF4 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 alpha subcomplex, assembly factor 4
 * NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex
 * NDUFB1 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 1, 7kDa
 * NDUFB2 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 2, 8kDa
 * NDUFB3 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 3, 12kDa
 * NDUFB4 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 4, 15kDa
 * NDUFB5 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 5, 16kDa
 * NDUFB6 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 6, 17kDa
 * NDUFB7 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 7, 18kDa
 * NDUFB8 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 8, 19kDa
 * NDUFB9 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 9, 22kDa
 * NDUFB10 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 10, 22kDa
 * NDUFB11 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1 beta subcomplex, 11, 17.3kDa
 * NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1, subcomplex unknown
 * NDUFC1 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1, subcomplex unknown, 1, 6kDa
 * NDUFC2 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) 1, subcomplex unknown, 2, 14.5kDa
 * NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein
 * NDUFS1 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein 1, 75kDa (NADH-coenzyme Q reductase)
 * NDUFS2 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein 2, 49kDa (NADH-coenzyme Q reductase)
 * NDUFS3 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein 3, 30kDa (NADH-coenzyme Q reductase)
 * NDUFS4 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein 4, 18kDa (NADH-coenzyme Q reductase)
 * NDUFS5 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein 5, 15kDa (NADH-coenzyme Q reductase)
 * NDUFS6 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein 6, 13kDa (NADH-coenzyme Q reductase)
 * NDUFS7 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein 7, 20kDa (NADH-coenzyme Q reductase)
 * NDUFS8 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) Fe-S protein 8, 23kDa (NADH-coenzyme Q reductase)
 * NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) flavoprotein 1
 * NDUFV1 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) flavoprotein 1, 51kDa
 * NDUFV2 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) flavoprotein 2, 24kDa
 * NDUFV3 – NADH dehydrogenase (ubiquinone) flavoprotein 3, 10kDa
 * mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenase subunit
 * MT-ND1 - mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1
 * MT-ND2 - mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2
 * MT-ND3 - mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenase subunit 3
 * MT-ND4 - mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4
 * MT-ND4L - mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4L
 * MT-ND5 - mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5
 * MT-ND6 - mitochondrially encoded NADH dehydrogenase subunit 6

title: Respiratory complex I


text:
Talk:Women's boxing

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Adav531, Bstrom3, Brycekinler, Dguari1. Peer reviewers: 4001alex.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2018 and 7 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shahada.Abdullah.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 September 2019 and 10 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mayagay.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments
I am doing some research on how women's boxing is different from men's boxin, the eras of women's boxing, and some examples of boxing from the movie Million Dollar Baby. I wanted to let you know because there may be some additions to your page within the next couple of weeks with those editorial topics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.163.91.118 (talk) 19:16, 21 October 2015 (UTC) recent treatments:

- (about the comment before this): Hmmnnn....okayyyyyyyy.....

Antonio Chupacabras Martin

-

Could we hear a bit more about women's boxing from around the world? Thanks Soapspoon 04:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

how about mentioning the women´s boxing movie that made best picture in 2004? (Million Dollar Baby, obviously)

- Clarissa Shields not mentioned on a page about women's boxing... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.77.213.151 (talk) 05:36, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

18th century
This blog: http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/blog/?p=7612 has documented material relating to the 1720s. Kdammers (talk) 10:06, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

19th century
For 19th-century women's boxing, http://www.womenboxing.com/History3.htm and A Fair Fight: An Illustrated Review of Boxing on British Fairgrounds by Vanessa Toulmin and Jane Couch.Kdammers (talk) 10:28, 29 June 2014 (UTC).

Potential Source
This article talks about current (2014) state of women's boxing in the USA: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/against-the-ropes-women-boxing-feminism

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Women's boxing. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060323014418/http://boxing.about.com/b/a/214299.htm to http://boxing.about.com/b/a/214299.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 13:51, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

In the US
Why would a section comprising 1/3rd of the article be solely about it in the US? Perhaps the Globalize/US template is needed here. Bataaf van Oranje (talk) 22:21, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

New editor
Talk: Women’s Boxing

Good evening fellow editors, my name is Abdullah Shahada, as part of an undergraduate program at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi. I am required to search for and edit topics, in which gender plays a major role. I’ve decided with Women’s Boxing and issues therein, my edits include first hand reports of women whom experienced gendered based harassments, promotional issues, and a quote from 2x Olympic Gold medalist Claressa Shields. Add on: content will be situated in fourth to last paragraph, I will also need to change/edit the following paragraph after my edit to create a more cohesive flow. In addition, possible links will have to be made for Psychological terms and prominent figures (e.g. Sex-based harassment and Claressa Shields)

Please feel free to contact me for further clarification, edit corrections, or additional information. Thank you for you-all’s time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahada.Abdullah (talk • contribs) 17:42, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

State particular countries rather than 'Africa'
The names of particular countries in Africa should be stated rather than mentioning the whole continent. This would provide more detail and consistency to the article, especially since the other places mentioned are specific countries not continents. GrayDoggerson (talk) 20:13, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed and done. 72.94.88.14 (talk) 18:55, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Long-term abuse by Dante8
Most of the accounts and IPs editing this article including the IP above are socks of Dante8. This article should be protected. The user is now using the account RoseForEmilyGrierson Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:25, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Women's boxing


text:
Pitch pipe

A pitch pipe is a small device used to provide a pitch reference for musicians. Although it may be described as a musical instrument, it is not typically used to play music as such.

Origins

The earliest pitch pipes were instruments similar to the recorder, but rather than finger holes, they had a plunger like a slide whistle's (also known as a swanee whistle) making it essentially a type of Slide Whistle. The pipe was generally made of wood with a square bore, and the plunger was leather-coated. On this plunger are marked the notes of either the chromatic scale or the diatonic scale, and by setting it to the correct position, the indicated note will be produced when the instrument is blown. Pitch pipes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

Pitch pipes of this sort were most often used in the 18th and 19th centuries in churches which had no organ to give the opening note of a hymn. They are now quite rare, and hardly ever used for what they were intended for, but may still be used as an alternative to a tuning fork. They are also useful for establishing what pitch standard was being used at a particular place and time.

Modern pitch pipes
Although few look like a pipe, the pitch pipe name is still applied to any device used as a pitch reference. The most common type is a circular free reed aerophone. These are discs with the holes for the reeds around the perimeter and with marked openings for each note, into which the user blows. Inside the pipe, the air flows through a hole in a plate past the selected rectangular metal reed (usually brass). The airflow is modulated by the oscillating reed, then it resonates in an outer sounding chamber. In recent years, electronic push-button devices simulating chromatic pitch pipes have become available which are small enough to fit on key chains.

Usage
Some pitch pipes are intended for tuning string instruments, and only provide reeds for notes appropriate to a particular instrument. Chromatic pitch pipes are favored by a cappella singers and timpanists. Chromatic pipes most often provide thirteen pitches, each a half step above the previous. By providing all of the notes of a single octave, a singer can start in any key called for in Western music. Different pipes are available for bass and treble voices due to variations in vocal range. Most male and female performers prefer to use F-F pipes and C-C pipes, respectively. However, it is particularly notable that the Men's pipe in F is pitched higher than the Women's C pipe. Pipes in other keys are available, but are much more rare.

The singers' normal use of the pipe is to play the initial key note or tonic of the piece to be sung. Less frequently the pipe will be used to play the first sung note of the song, especially where the song begins in unison or with a solo.

In Ethnomusicology, recording a short beep with pitch pipe in ethnographic recordings can be used in playback to determine the playback speed of the Gramophone record or Phonograph cylinder.

Problems
The brass reeds in common pitchpipes are subject to work hardening with use, so they gradually change pitch. Because of this, replacement reed plates are sold. Carried in a pocket, a pipe will occasionally pick up small bits of lint which works its way into the narrow space around a reed. This usually requires disassembly of the pipe in order to clean the lint off the reed. To avoid this eventuality many users will use a small holster to carry the pipe.

title: Pitch pipe