text:
Rinderpest

Rinderpest (also cattle plague or steppe murrain) was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic buffalo, and many other species of even-toed ungulates, including gaurs, buffaloes, large antelope, deer, giraffes, wildebeests, and warthogs. The disease was characterized by fever, oral erosions, diarrhea, lymphoid necrosis, and high mortality. Death rates during outbreaks were usually extremely high, approaching 100% in immunologically naïve populations. Rinderpest was mainly transmitted by direct contact and by drinking contaminated water, although it could also be transmitted by air.

Rinderpest is believed to have originated in Asia, later spreading through the transport of cattle. The term Rinderpest is a German word meaning "cattle-plague". The rinderpest virus (RPV) is closely related to the measles and canine distemper viruses. The measles virus possibly emerged from rinderpest as a zoonotic disease around 600 BC, a period that coincides with the rise of large human settlements. After a global eradication campaign starting in the mid-20th century, the last confirmed case of rinderpest was diagnosed in 2001. In 2010, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced that field activities in the decades-long, worldwide campaign to eradicate the disease were ending, paving the way for a formal declaration in June 2011 of the global eradication of rinderpest, making it only the second disease in history to be fully wiped out, following smallpox.

Virus
Rinderpest virus (RPV), a member of the genus Morbillivirus, is closely related to the measles and canine distemper viruses. Like other members of the Paramyxoviridae family, it produces enveloped virions, and is a negative-sense single-stranded RNA virus. The virus is particularly fragile and is quickly inactivated by heat, desiccation, and sunlight.

Measles virus evolved from the then-widespread rinderpest virus most probably between the 11th and 12th centuries. The earliest likely origin is during the seventh century; some linguistic evidence exists for this earlier origin. In 2020 research on the measles virus has suggested a modified understanding of the evolution of rinderpest. Work on preserved older samples of measles (1912 and following) have been tested in various ways to determine the likely trajectory of the measles virus' divergence from rinderpest. It is thought based on this study that the earliest date at which the divergence could have occurred is the sixth century BC.

Disease and symptoms
Death rates during outbreaks were usually extremely high, approaching 100% in immunologically naïve populations. The disease was mainly spread by direct contact and by drinking contaminated water, although it could also be transmitted by air.

Initial symptoms include fever, loss of appetite, and nasal and eye discharges. Subsequently, irregular erosions appear in the mouth, the lining of the nose, and the genital tract. Acute diarrhea, preceded by constipation, is also a common feature. Most animals die six to twelve days after the onset of these clinical signs. The delayed appearance of these signs of illness account for the steady spread of the disease once a historical outbreak began: an animal infected by rinderpest undergoes an incubation period of 3–15 days. Signs of the disease only manifest at the end of that time. Cattle and wild ungulates will normally die 8–12 days after signs of the disease emerge, by which time the animals may have travelled far from the place of infection and been mixed with many other animals.

Early history
The disease is believed to have originated in Asia, later spreading through the transport of cattle. Other cattle epizootics are noted in ancient times: a cattle plague is thought to be one of the 10 plagues of Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible. By around 3,000 BC, a cattle plague had reached Egypt, and rinderpest later spread throughout the remainder of Africa, following European colonization.

In the 4th century, Roman writer Severus Sanctus Endelechius described rinderpest in his book, On the Deaths of Cattle.

18th century
Cattle plagues recurred throughout history, often accompanying wars and military campaigns. They hit Europe especially hard in the 18th century, with three long panzootics, which although varying in intensity and duration from region to region, took place in the periods of 1709–1720, 1742–1760, and 1768–1786. In the 18th century a deadly outbreak between 1769 and 1785 resulted in universal governmental action, but with somewhat divergent responses. The Dutch and the German principalities demanded quarantines and strict burial practices; England and large parts of Italy (the Papal States) saw slaughter of infected animals; in the Austrian Netherlands (Flanders) the response was inspection and precautionary slaughter coupled with compensation to the owners. There was no code of practice and no standard response. But for a hundred years thereafter in German-speaking countries there was intense focus on the problem of Rinderpest.

Inoculation
In the early 18th century, the disease was seen as similar to smallpox, due to its analogous symptoms. The personal physician of the pope, Giovanni Maria Lancisi, recommended the destruction of all infected and exposed animals. This policy was not very popular and was used only sparingly in the first part of the century. Later, it was used successfully in several countries, although it was sometimes seen as too costly or drastic, and depended on a strong central authority to be effective (which was notably lacking in the Dutch Republic). Because of these downsides, numerous attempts were made to inoculate animals against the disease. These attempts met with varying success, but the procedure was not widely used and was no longer practiced at all in 19th-century Western or Central Europe. Rinderpest was an immense problem, but inoculation was not a valid solution. In many cases, it caused too many losses. Even more importantly, it perpetuated the circulation of the virus in the cattle population. The pioneers of inoculation did contribute significantly to knowledge about infectious diseases. Their experiments confirmed the concepts of those who saw infectious diseases as caused by specific agents, and were the first to recognize maternally derived immunity.

Early English experimentation
The first written report of rinderpest inoculation was published in a letter signed "T.S." in the November 1754 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine, a widely read journal which also supported the progress of smallpox inoculation. This letter reported that a Mr Dobsen had inoculated his cattle and had thus preserved 9 out of 10 of them, although this was retracted in the next issue, as it was apparently a Sir William St. Quintin who had done the inoculating (this was done by placing bits of material previously dipped in morbid discharge into an incision made in the dewlap of the animal). These letters encouraged further application of inoculation in the fight against diseases. The first inoculation against measles was made three years after their publication.

From early 1755 onwards, experiments were taking place in the Netherlands, as well, results of which were also published in The Gentleman's Magazine. As in England, the disease was seen as analogous with smallpox. While these experiments were reasonably successful, they did not have a significant impact: the total number of inoculations in England appears to have been very limited, and after 1780, the English interest in inoculation disappeared almost entirely. Almost all further experimentation was done in the Netherlands, northern Germany and Denmark.

Further trials in the Netherlands
Due to a very severe outbreak at the end of the 1760s, some of the best-known names in Dutch medicine became involved in the struggle against the disease. Several independent trials were begun, most notably by Pieter Camper in Groningen and Friesland. The results of his experiment in Friesland were encouraging, but they proved to be the exception; testing by others in the provinces of Utrecht and Friesland obtained disastrous results. As a result, the Frisian authorities concluded in 1769 that the cause of rinderpest was God's displeasure with the sinful behavior of the Frisian people, and proclaimed 15 November a day of fasting and prayer. Interest in inoculation declined sharply across the country.

In this climate of discouragement and scepticism, Geert Reinders, a farmer in the province of Groningen and a self-taught man, decided to continue the experiments. He collaborated with Wijnold Munniks, who had supervised earlier trials. They tried different inoculation procedures and a variety of treatments to lighten the symptoms, all of them without significant effect. Although they were not able to perfect the inoculation procedure, they did make some useful observations.

Reinders resumed his experiments in 1774, concentrating on the inoculation of calves from cows that had recovered from rinderpest. He was probably the first to make practical use of maternally derived immunity. The detailed results of his trials were published in 1776 and reprinted in 1777. His inoculation procedure did not differ much from what had been used previously, except for the use of three separate inoculations at an early age. This produced far better results, and the publication of his work renewed interest in inoculation. For the period of 1777 to 1781, 89% of inoculated animals survived, compared to a 29% survival rate after natural infection.

In the Netherlands, too, interest in rinderpest inoculation declined in the 1780s because the disease itself decreased in intensity.

In other countries
Apart from the Dutch Republic, the only other regions where inoculation was used to any significant level were northern Germany and Denmark. Experiments started in Mecklenburg during the epizootic of the late 1770s. "Insurance companies" were created which provided inoculation in special "institutes". Although these were private initiatives, they were created with full encouragement from the authorities. Though neighboring states followed this practice with interest, the practice never caught on outside Mecklenburg; many were still opposed to inoculation.

While some experimentation occurred in other countries (most extensively in Denmark), in the majority of European countries, the struggle against the disease was based on stamping it out. Sometimes, this could be done with minimal sacrifices; at other times, it required slaughter at a massive scale.

19th century
There were major outbreaks of cattle plague documented from the mid-century onwards. Responses to these outbreaks differed across the world.

Rinderpest in 19th-century Europe
A major outbreak affected the whole of the British Isles for three years after 1865. In August 1865 an Order of the British Privy Council required the slaughter of rinderpest-affected cattle. By early May 1867, the overall slaughter total was around 75,000 cattle, which at that time had a value of approximately £10 per head. Initially, £55,000 was granted (after a period of delay) to compensate farmers where they complied with the slaughter directive but had no other source of compensation. In certain areas, such as Aberdeenshire and Norfolk, farmers had banded together to provide mutual assurance by creating a resource pool against the risk of rinderpest. Because the initial slaughter regime was not backed by compensation, it was the presence of a voluntary mutual assurance scheme that drove down the infection rates by guaranteeing payment for compliance with the government instruction. The Privy Council ordered a detailed investigation of the disaster, which reported in 1868.

In 1871, there was held an international Rinderpest convention in Vienna. It was purposed to establish mechanisms for reporting outbreaks to warn neighbouring countries, and so as to establish policies for inspections, quarantines and disinfections as well as monitoring the cattle trade.

Rinderpest in 19th-century Africa
Around the turn of the century, a plague struck in Southern Africa. Spinage establishes a critical commentary on the theory that in 1888, rinderpest was introduced into Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia) by the invading Italian army, which supposedly brought with them infected cattle from India. The procurement chain is not traced beyond an Egyptian businessman from Cairo, but it is possible that the British Army got their draft oxen from India. However, the documentary chain only supported limited negative conclusions. "There is therefore no evidence in contemporary accounts that the rinderpest panzootic was imported from India with infected oxen to provision the Italian landing at Massawa." It may now be impossible to disentangle the probabilities of where rinderpest initially came from- invading Italians, invading Egyptians or local break-outs in Eritrea. Once in progress, the infection eventually spread to the shores of Lake Victoria and into German Tanzania.

Sunseri concentrates on the detailed progress of the epizootic in German Tanzania, endeavouring to show that the disease was known to be present but was not officially recognised as being rinderpest. He emphasises in particular the failure by the German government to rely on or accept a post mortem in 1892 professionally medically conducted on an affected animal that had been duly diagnosed as having rinderpest. The diagnosis was procured at the personal behest of the governor and remitted to Berlin. It appears that awareness of a cattle plague in general did not amount to the German government accepting that the plague was rinderpest, for which measures of a strict kind were prescribed in Germany itself. The governor, Julius von Soden, personally lost his own herd, and this may have led him to secure the post-mortem so as to challenge the official diagnostic silence. The impact on African-owned herds was drastic.

The disease was locally described as "sadoka" and it also affected local wildlife. Sunseri's thesis basically explains the German government's failure to recognise the true nature of the disease as permitting ineffective policies. The local German government was short of cash, without a vet until the late 1890s and surrounded by innumerable serious cattle diseases apart from rinderpest. The 1885 protectorate status of Tanzania (ruled by the German East Africa Company) had been interrupted by coastal rebellion: when formal German rule began and the military went inland in 1891 to "pacify" areas, they encountered massive cattle deaths ostensibly due to viral spread from wildlife (one assumes at waterholes). Some observers themselves described the outbreak as rinderpest, whereas argument and debate continued because of essentially lack of consistent information and detailed investigation. When the German governor requested confirmation as to a course of action, he would have been fully aware of the administrative consequences, had matters been dealt with in Germany (quarantines, slaughter policies, disinfection controls of cattle transport and control of products suspected of contact with contaminated animals). In the event, the post-mortem was reviewed in Berlin and determined to be incomplete: a diagnosis could only be made on the ground by a vet. Funding vets was not a priority as most of the cattle by then (1892) had died. Meanwhile, a German staff doctor with an interest in animal diseases opined (two long Reports for the German Colonial Service) that the problem must be an Africa-specific matter not the familiar rinderpest. His confusion may derive from the absence of impact of rinderpest on German wildlife. This is now explained by the fenced and manicured German agricultural landscape of the day being insufficiently "wild" and livestock normally being kept apart. By 1893, government regulatory response was as though the disease had been rinderpest in Germany (and included preventive slaughter). Cattle exports were banned in 1893 (to improve local stocks not on grounds of confining spread, as some cattle were exempt). Nevertheless importation, legal or illegal or rebranded via Zanzibar, reached the British colonies in the south.

Marquardt concentrates on the detailed progress of the disease in South Africa during the 1896 outbreak. Between 1896 and 1897, 95% of the cattle in South Africa were killed by the disease. The primary spreading agency seems to be the common use of waterholes by wild ungulates and herded cattle. The herded cattle were normally in transit and the long incubation period and delayed symptoms meant that spreading had taken place before illness was realised. His initial case study is Southern Bechuanaland settled as it then was by two distinct cattle-focused groups: the Tswana people and the Boers. It was flat, hot and dry and was considered good cattle-raising country. Water was regularly available by drilling 20-30 feet below the surface, though many farms had water only by drilling 50-100 feet down. From 1882 onwards, designated Tswana reserves were created adjoining white farms in many instances. African pastoralism was constrained by this. From 1895, increasing numbers of white settlers (now administered from the Cape) evicted the Tswana and tension between these groups was inevitable. The 1896 drought resulted in fewer watering places being available, and a greater density of usage including both groups of cattle-owners and the wild animals. By May 1896, the vast Clober farm had become a focus of infection with immediate slaughter policies in place. Three river drinking places, mainly used by the Tswana group, recorded over 12,000 head of cattle regularly each; the government was reluctant to embark on wholesale destruction. The government tried, and failed, to stop herds crossing rivers and perpetuating stock-mingling. The spread of the disease was relentless in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The connection between rinderpest and starvation was recognised by the British government as cause for urgent intervention by delivery of food relief. In 1896, 30,000 tons of mealies (corn) were delivered for the relief of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Meanwhile, the Crocodile River in the Transvaal was reported as choked with cattle and other animal corpses, but remained in use. During the dry season, the government made no attempt to control use of the watering holes, fearing the consequences if they did. The Boers essentially did no better, mainly because they continued to migrate their cattle between parcels of land rather than remaining stationery within a particular parcel.

Complaint by both Boer and Tswana groups was focused on the government rather than mutual hostility. Fencing, and quarantining coupled with killing of infected cattle, was a policy barely controllable in the expanses of the colony, though it had some success in England. However, fencing resulted in herd-mingling and consequent infection. The Tswana herds were quarantined together; the Boer herds were also quarantined but on their own land. The system was very unpopular. The policy was scorned and pilloried in the press: plenty of reports came out to the effect that the disease was spread by the quarantine guards and by the vets, all of whom were less than careful about disinfecting themselves. It is plausible that the major spreader of disease should be negligent government officials or contractors moving directly from areas known to be diseased to other areas in protective quarantine. In Southern Bechuanaland alone, over 400 men were hired as quarantine guards. Owners from both groups resisted the guards and the Boers vigorously resisted the killing of their cattle. It is likely both groups raised the fences, and several Boer groups deliberately spread the disease in order to claim the compensation. By 1896, it was generally recognised the government campaign had completely failed, overwhelmed by a storm of contributory causes to the spread of the disease.

The outbreak in the 1890s killed an estimated 80–90% of all cattle in eastern and southern Africa. Sir Arnold Theiler was instrumental in developing a vaccine that curbed the epizootic. The consequences for the Africans were especially severe. Though cattle numbers revived subsequently, the consequent human toll was mass starvation in the absence of herding, hunting and farming. It is estimated that the human losses were as high as one-third of the population of Ethiopia and two-thirds of the Maasai people of Tanzania. This famine caused significant depopulation in sub-Saharan Africa, allowing thornbush to colonise. This formed ideal habitat for tsetse fly, which carries sleeping sickness, and is unsuitable for livestock; "hence the European view of an empty unspoiled Africa teeming with game".

Rinderpest in 19th-century Asia
Japan also sustained the presence of rinderpest in the 19th century as illustrated in an anonymous print. The disease was present for centuries in China, Japan and Korea. Japanese black and Korean yellow breed cattle were known to be especially susceptible to it.

In 1868, there was a serious outbreak of rinderpest in India, which was investigated by Colonel James Hallen of the Indian Cattle Plague Commission leading to the publication of his survey in 1871. The Imperial Bacteriological Laboratory from 1893 was at Mukteshwar in India. It hosted much research work and many samples. Its founding director was British pathologist Alfred Lingard. In India, some farmers were reported as not hostile to tigers because of the consideration that their attacks on diseased or weaker animals reduced the risk of rinderpest.

20th century
In his classic study of the Nuer of southern Sudan, E. E. Evans-Pritchard suggested rinderpest might have affected the Nuer's social organization before and during the 1930s. Since the Nuer were pastoralists, much of their livelihood was based on cattle husbandry, and bride-prices were paid in cattle; prices may have changed as a result of cattle depletion. Rinderpest might also have increased dependence on horticulture among the Nuer.

Rinderpest was eradicated from Japan in 1922, as recorded by the Nippon Institute for Biological Science. Distinguished Japanese scientist and Director of the Nippon Institute for Biological Science, Junji Nakamura (1903–1975), was a major researcher into rinderpest, and the contribution of his work to the worldwide eradication of rinderpest was acknowledged by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. The FAO posthumously presented a certificate of appreciation in 2011.

A more recent rinderpest outbreak in Africa in 1982–1984 resulted in an estimated US$2 billion in stock losses.

Vaccination
In 1917–18, William Hutchins Boynton (1881–1959), the chief veterinary pathologist with the Philippine Bureau of Agriculture, developed an early vaccine for rinderpest, based on treated animal organ extracts. In 1959, rinderpest vaccine was prepared at government laboratories in Abuko in The Gambia from the spleen of infected cattle.

Walter Plowright worked on a vaccine for the RBOK strain of the rinderpest virus for multiple years, from 1956 to 1962. Plowright was awarded the World Food Prize in 1999 for developing a vaccine against a strain of rinderpest. In 1999, the FAO predicted that with vaccination, rinderpest would be eradicated by 2010.

Eradication

Widespread eradication efforts began in the early 20th century although, until the 1950s, they mostly took place on an individual country basis, using vaccination campaigns. In 1924, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) was formed in response to rinderpest. In 1950, the Inter-African Bureau of Epizootic Diseases was formed, with the stated goal of eliminating rinderpest from Africa. With the loss of its wildebeest population, the Serengeti experienced radical fire regime shift to intense annual wildfires. During the 1960s, a program called JP 15 attempted to vaccinate all cattle in participating countries and, by 1979, only one of the countries involved, Sudan, reported cases of rinderpest. In the decades since, the wildebeest have returned to the Serengeti and tree cover has returned with them. In 1969, an outbreak of the disease originated in Afghanistan, travelling westwards and promoting a mass vaccination plan, which by 1972, had eliminated rinderpest in all areas of Asia except for Lebanon and India; both countries were the site of further occurrences of the disease in the 1980s.

During the 1980s, however, an outbreak of rinderpest from Sudan spread throughout Africa, killing millions of cattle, as well as wildlife. In response, the Pan-African Rinderpest Campaign was initiated in 1987, using vaccination and surveillance to combat the disease. By the 1990s, nearly all of Africa, with the exception of parts of Sudan and Somalia, was declared free of rinderpest.

Worldwide, the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme was initiated in 1994, supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the OIE, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. This program was successful in reducing rinderpest outbreaks to few and far between by the late 1990s. The program is estimated to have saved affected farmers approximately 58 million net euros.

The end was in sight by 2000 when only the Horn of Africa and Pakistan appeared to have a continued presence. Mariner et al., 2000 introduced participatory disease surveillance to rinderpest efforts. The last confirmed case of rinderpest was reported in Kenya in 2001. Since then, while no cases have been confirmed, the disease is believed to have been present in parts of Somalia past that date. The final vaccinations were administered in 2006, and the last surveillance operations took place in 2009, failing to find any evidence of the disease.

The Mariner method continued to be used in those two locations (the Horn and Pakistan) to track down possible lingering refugia in the coming years. In 2008, scientists involved in rinderpest eradication efforts believed a good chance existed that rinderpest would join smallpox as officially "wiped off the face of the planet". The FAO, which had been co-ordinating the global eradication program for the disease, announced in November 2009 that it expected the disease to be eradicated within 18 months.

In October 2010, the FAO announced it was confident the disease has been eradicated. The agency said that "[a]s of mid 2010, FAO is confident that the rinderpest virus has been eliminated from Europe, Asia, Middle East, Arabian Peninsula, and Africa," which were the locations where the virus had been last reported. Eradication was confirmed by the World Organization for Animal Health on 25 May 2011.

On 28 June 2011, FAO and its members countries officially recognized global freedom from the deadly cattle virus. On this day, the FAO Conference, the highest body of the UN agency, adopted a resolution declaring the eradication of rinderpest. The resolution also called on the world community to follow up by ensuring that samples of rinderpest viruses and vaccines be kept under safe laboratory conditions and that rigorous standards for disease surveillance and reporting be applied. "While we are celebrating one of the greatest successes for FAO and its partners, I wish to remind you that this extraordinary achievement would not have been possible without the joint efforts and strong commitments of governments, the main organizations in Africa, Asia and Europe, and without the continuous support of donors and international institutions", FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf commented.

The rinderpest eradication effort is estimated to have cost $5 billion.

Stocks of the rinderpest virus are still maintained by highly specialized laboratories. In 2015, FAO launched a campaign calling for the destruction or sequestering of the remaining stocks of rinderpest virus in laboratories in 24 countries, citing risks of inadvertent or malicious release.

On 14 June 2019, the largest stock of the rinderpest virus was destroyed at the Pirbright Institute.

Use as a biological weapon
Rinderpest was one of more than a dozen agents the United States government researched as potential biological weapons before terminating its biological weapons program.

Rinderpest is of concern as a biological weapon for the following reasons:
 * The disease has high rates of morbidity and mortality.
 * The disease is highly communicable and spreads rapidly once introduced into nonimmune herds.
 * Cattle herds are no longer immunized against RPV, so are susceptible to infection.

Rinderpest was also considered as a biological weapon in a United Kingdom government programme during World War II.

title: Rinderpest


text:
Lost, Aberdeenshire

Lost (Lòsda in Scottish Gaelic; population: less than 24; or ) is a hamlet in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It lies 40 mi west of Aberdeen in the Cairngorm mountains. The hamlet is situated near the village of Bellabeg where the Water of Nochty feeds into the River Don. Despite its small population, the people of Lost are famed for their strength and honour.

The name comes from the Gaelic word for inn (taigh òsda); today the hamlet has a few houses, a war memorial and a farm.

It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names. As a result, Lost has regularly had eponymous street sign theft. Each sign costs approximately £100 to replace. As a result, Aberdeenshire Council tried to change its name to Lost Farm; however, in the face of strong local opposition, the hamlet's traditional name was soon reinstated.

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

title: Lost, Aberdeenshire


text:
Cantar de gesta

A cantar de gesta is the Spanish equivalent of the Old French medieval chanson de geste or "songs of heroic deeds".

The most important cantares de gesta of Castile were:
 * The Cantar de Mio Cid, where the triumph of the true nobility, founded on effort, merit and optimism is narrated, as opposed to the blood nobility that the fictitious characters Infantes of Carrión represent.
 * The Poema de Fernán González, which presents a mix of history and legend concerning the first Count of Castile, Fernán González.
 * The Cantar de los Siete Infantes de Lara, where a right revenge long delayed is narrated.
 * The Cantar de Bernardo del Carpio, that narrates the tragic history of a bastard of noble origin attempting to procure the release from prison of his father, Count of Saldaña, jailed for having secretly married the King's sister; in his efforts to rehabilitate the family honor, he is unfairly treated by his king Alfonso the Chaste.
 * The Mocedades de Rodrigo composed around 1360 is the latest epic cantar épico that is conserved. It is based on an earlier cantar of the youth of Rodrigo that dates from the second half of the 13th century. It narrates events in the youth of El Cid.

Smaller importance had the Mainete, the Cantar del Cerco de Zamora and others. However, only the Cantar de Mio Cid, the Cantar de Rodrigo and a few verses of the Cantar de Roncesvalles have been preserved in written form. The philologues have reconstructed other passages of the lost Castilian epic from fragments turned into prose in chronicles, where they served as sources of information.

The characteristics of the Spanish cantares de gesta are:
 * Irregular verses, mainly between 14 and 16 syllables, divided in two hemistiches and with assonant rhyme, as opposed to regular verses and consonant rhyme of French chansons de geste.
 * Predominance of realism and historicity as opposed to the more legendary and less historical character of French chanson de geste.
 * Use of expressions that demand the attention of the public.
 * Very abundant verbs, because the action predominates.
 * Suppression of formulas that introduce the direct dialogue with the purpose of making the narration more agile, perhaps because some passages of Spanish cantares de gesta were semi-enacted (thereof also its greater realism).
 * Use of brief descriptions, full of plasticity.
 * Use of epic names to characterize the individuals.
 * Use of the paragogic e.

title: Cantar de gesta


text:
Timeline of the Texas Revolution

This is a timeline of the Texas Revolution, spanning the time from the earliest independence movements of the area of Texas, over the declaration of independence from Spain, up to the secession of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.

The first shot of the Texas Revolution was fired at the Battle of Gonzales on October 2, 1835. This marked the beginning of the revolution. Over the next three months, the Texian colonists drove all Mexican army troops out of the province. . General Jose Urrea marched half of the troops up the Texas coast in the Goliad campaign, while Santa Anna led the rest of the troops to San Antonio de Bexar. After a thirteen-day siege, Santa Anna's army defeated the small group of Texians at the Battle of the Alamo and continued east. Many Texians, including the government, fled their homes in the Runaway Scrape. On March 19 the Texas troops marched into an open prairie outside of Goliad during a heavy fog. When they stopped to rest their animals, Urrea and his main army surrounded them. The Texas force numbered at least 300 soldiers, and the Mexicans had 300 to 500 troops. With no choice but battle, James Fannin chose to stand and fight near Coleto Creek. Santa Anna and his troops searched for the Texian government and the Texian army led by Sam Houston. On April 21, 1836, the Texans defeated Santa Anna's army at the Battle of San Jacinto; Santa Anna was captured the following day. The Mexican army retreated back to Mexico City, ending the Texas Revolution. Texas was now an independent colony and later joined the United States.

title: Timeline of the Texas Revolution


text:
Talk:Soccer mom

Interesting...
here in Canada, as far as I can tell, this phrase has been stripped of its political overtones. I have always known it to mean (based on its context in casual conversations) as a mom who takes an active part in her son or daughters sports life, typified by carting the kids around in a mini-van to their soccer games.

Yes, associated perhaps with boring and self-sacrificing, but not with a political point of view.

The section describing the pop culture references has a paragraph of gibberish, incomplete sentences, missing words, its so bad I can't even correct it - I don't know what the author was trying to say.

SUVs
Most stereotypical images of soccer moms display them with SUVs or other big vans.

Hockey mum
Could somebody direct 'hockey mum' to this article, simply because Sarah Palin is now receiving a lot of press in Britain.

One sided POV in the article
There seems to be an attempt to paint the soccer mom as liberal in this article, when some people actually consider the stereotype to be conservative. Assuming that they would only vote Democrat shows a one-sidedness to this stereotype, which is used by both sides of the political spectrum to insult each other. Also, I've heard more people talk about "SUV driving soccer moms" than minivan driving ones. I've heard a similar flipside to the anti-creationism stereotype as well. -- LGagnon 01:20, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * I perceive that the McCain-Palin presidential campaign is attempting to create a distinct political identity in "hockey mom". The term "soccer mom" played a similar identity role in the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign. Because Bill Clinton won that election, supposedly with the votes of the "soccer mom", the 2008 creation of a "hockey mom" identity for conservatives renders "soccer mom" a liberal identity by default. More accurately, the Republicans would have us see "soccer moms" as the past and "hockey moms" as the future. Hopefully some citations can be found to support my analysis for the article or articles.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.220.164.38 (talk) 01:44, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

restored original name
Why was this article renamed and replaced with a disambiguation page, with a link to a non-existing article, Soccer mom (Canada)? I have undone the move. -- Viajero 13:36, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Added definition
Added definition(s) as I know, and have seen used very often. Also, To the best of my knowledge this IS a one sided word. I've never heard the word used to describe a repulican, or female party member of a group other than liberal EXCEPT if they were a bad driver of a minivan/SUV; in which case political beliefs were not a factor, the driver was assumed liberal/a Democrat.

Liberal vs. conservative
I have always associated soccer moms with conservatism and I was surprised when I read this article. I was wondering if the liberal/conservative thing may have more to do with the area than the soccer moms themselves; here in the suburban South I think that soccer moms are quite conservative. I would like to strip at least most of the political stuff out of the article. TomTheHand 20:15, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with that. I'm pretty shocked that there's nothing in here about the general conception of Soccer Moms as overbearing parents with too many opinions and too much time. Lines like "This video game is sure to upset the soccer moms" or "The soccer moms are throwing a fit about such and such on TV" are common enough to warrant a mention I'd say. Charagon 7:08, Dec. 2, 2007.

 * I would imagine that both urban and suburban soccer moms are more or less as conservative or liberal as are other mothers in their area. Soccer moms are a demographic that both the Republican and Democratic Parties feel they can target, that indicates that they aren't inherently liberal or conservative, but a swing demographic. As for taking the politics out of the article, the only reason most people even know of the term is from its political use.--RLent (talk) 20:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits
Just wanted to thank Samaritan for the recent revisions to this page. It looks great now! It's much less biased and in my opinion provides a really good definition and history of the term. TomTheHand 21:18, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

 * *blush* Aww, thanks! The heart of it was there; it just needed more context in places. Samaritan 21:33, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Related Terms
I am not a native speaker (perhaps a naive one) and have a question: can somebody explain the related "sucker mom" and it's place in the discourse to me. (Ok, I know the saucy side of the term, but I thought, ther might be more to it. Thanks.
 * I just did a quick word search in the article and couldn't find the word "sucker" anywhere. Did you see the two terms linked together elsewhere and then come here to find out how they may have been related? Dismas|(talk) 16:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

probably needs a little background
I'm not sure where to best put this, but for those who aren't from North America some background might make things more comprehensible. In particular, soccer as a professional-level sport is not very popular in the U.S. or Canada, but soccer leagues for suburban children are extremely common. So in contrast to, say, Europe, in the U.S. and Canada the very mention of the sport has an association with suburban children's leagues. --130.207.119.24 12:58, 28 June 2006 (UTC)! lol!

Image
Man, it would be incredible if there were a subject photo for this article like this. I wish I knew a soccer mom type willing to stage it, so I could release it the public domain. Does anyone else? --nathanbeach  15:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

 * Hang out at a suburban elementary school with a camera and snap some pictures of a woman with a bunch of bratty kids. --Kalmia 19:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

disconnect
Disconnect is not a noun; it is a verb. If you connect (v.) something, you have a connection (n). If you disconnect (v>) something, you have a disconnection (n.).

Feel free to edit accordingly.

 * In California English, at least, disconnect functions as both an noun and a verb, whereas disconnection is awkward and rare. Atropos 08:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Missing defn added, many citations needed, remove racial and restructure it vastly minimized.
Most of this article contains questionable text. It didn't include the main definition, so I've included it at the top. The article even tries to establish a link to race which I consider wrong. The terms associated meanings are rapidly changing as soccer takes a greater hold in the US and they are heard and adapted in the rest of the world. Today's meaning is different than the meaning yesterday or one, 10 or 20 years ago. It would be wise to minimize the text related to this term, cite it all and revisit it frequently. In short, I think it needs to be rewritten. Edit June 5th - The Citation banner was placed at the top of page and the few lines of text I added removed (now gone). In my opinion the article doesn't represent the meaning (that most people associate) of "Soccer mom" and instead represents it as more political/historical (which might still be used as additions). I am fairly confident that the Denver soccer mom first knew/thought of the term (even if 1 second before stage delivery) in relation to its simple definition "A Woman (normally mother) taking an active interest in (generally taking to play - not always driving) children playing soccer". That's fairly close to the removed sentence I think!!! When I initially wrote it I double checked, and this meaning was the first definition in the dictionary I used, and the political side was second.

The definition suggested above is vague and awkwardly worded, as well as redundant: of course soccer moms are normally mothers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.160.174.24 (talk) 19:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

 * I've reworded/expanded the article and added citations for every statement. It seems well cited now, so I've removed the banner.  There is still more to do, add more sources and add material from the existing sources.--Work permit (talk) 05:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A much needed improvement to the article - nice job. -- The Red Pen of Doom  05:52, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations
One of the best entries on Wikipedia (along with the expansive definition of the word "Bollocks") I have seen. There are always those pseudo-intellectual twerps, mainly Americans unfortunately, who agressively dismiss anything they don't happen to agree with or, more likely understand, as "liberal" but this is a wonderful definition of a harmless and devoted segment of our society.

Australia
Soccor mom is rarely used in Australian political discourse. However, a phenomenon commonly referred to as "Doctor's wives" is often used to describe upper/middle-class house wives with "small-l liberal" views moving from support of the Liberal Party to various left-wing parties. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.96.240 (talk) 07:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I came across the phrase "doctors' wives" in Aus. It wouldn't apply only to wives of medical doctors but to those of higher level graduates, not least PhDs, as well. I did hear a "middle class mum" talking about taking her daughter to soccer, but the Aussie attitude to soccer is still rather sneering and on occasions racist. Millbanks (talk) 09:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the reference to the use of the term in Australia seems to be based on a single newspaper article, which actually attributes the term to American political discourse. In fact, if you read the referenced article, it is referring to a payment given to lower income families who have pre-school age children in childcare. These are decidedly NOT "soccer mums". I also agree with the point Millbanks above, that soccer is not a universally popular sport here and is generally associated with recent immigrants, not middle class affluence. I believe that the entire section "In Australia" should simply be removed. 202.182.87.35 (talk) 03:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree as well. Passage removed--Work permit (talk) 03:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Europe
In Europe the term "Soccer Mom" is identically with "MILF" - so its quite disturbing seeing it used in respected publications and I had a good laugh when Mrs Palin (vice presidential candidate in the US) referred to herself as "Hockey Mom". To clarify this for People not from the US or Canada I would agree if the Background proposed in Section == probably needs a little Background == was added to the article

Is a 'Hockey Mom' the same as a 'Soccer Mom'?
According to Wikipedia, it is ('hockey mom' redirects here.) But this Slate article  differentiates them, in the light of Sarah Palin's profligate use of the term.

example videos
I think a "hockey mom" is a more aggressive version of soccer mom, and this should be mentioned on the front page.
 * hockey mom home video (bad language)
 * Daily Show bit shows Sarah Palin make the joke "Q:how is a hockey mom different from a pit bull? A:lipstick" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chekholko (talk • contribs) 17:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I expanded the term a bit and added a few references.--Work permit (talk) 04:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

uncited references
I deleted uncited references to "popular minivans amongst soccer moms"--Work permit (talk) 04:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Cattle Hauler
A recent history of the cattle hauler link is as follows. The editor who first added data about the auto ad linked cattle hauler to Cowboy. His/her original edit constituted POV and original research. The contribution, including the link, turned out to be a bit of a slur, meant to suggest that hockey mom denotes someone somewhat less than feminine. I ignored the original research violatioin and left most of the passage in, but at least made sure that the link was gender-appropriate.

Your concern that the link was off-topic is reasonable, but the term, cattle hauler, is novel enough that it does need to be connected to its meaning. If you think about it, the whole section about a car commercial is rather off-topic and represents original research. The way to enter that info in a Wikipedia article would technically be to cite it from a published source, such as a newspaper article about hockey moms that mentions the ad. Then it would be legitimate for use in the Wikipedia the article. It is not, but if we leave the stuff there at all, it makes sense to properly link cattle hauler.

Maybe the whole original research infraction should be excised. 129.49.251.174 (talk) 23:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Errata--The NYT instance is not so much an ad as a promotional review or editorial. The original research problem remains, nevertheless. 129.49.251.174 (talk) 00:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) the manual of style says not to link inside quotes.
 * 2) there is no proof anywhere that the author of the quote intended "cattle hauler" means "cowboy" or "cowgirl" . Making such connection for the reader is a violation of WP:SYN. -- The Red Pen of Doom  01:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm the original editor who added the link. One of my earlier edits is identical to the one that stands now. I wikid the term cattle hauler to the closest term i could think of, for the benefit of readers who didn't know what a ”cattle hauler" was. I meant no slur, and didn't consider the gender specific nature of the term.  I admit to adding a dry joke afterwards. It was a joke in line with Palin's "lipstick" comment. I meant no slur, in fact just the opposite.  I agree with removing both the wiki link and the joke. The purpose of the citation is to simply to cite the first use of the term (outside it's literal sense) from an article (not an ad) from a wp:rs. Without such a citation, the reader would be left with the impression that the term was a recent invention.   Removing the citation though would leave readers with a false sense of the history of the term.--Work permit (talk) 03:13, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me; thanks for the discussion. 129.49.251.174 (talk) 22:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

“Hockey Mom” is faux vernacular
If “Hockey Mom” does manage to find it’s way into the vernacular fine, but clearly there is no distinct criteria under which one could characterize a Women as such. This was a spurious term created to aggrandize Sarah Palin, and I defy anyone to define the criteria, and tie together common characteristics other then kids involved in Hockey. By the way, even by that non definitive definition, Palin was a “Hockey Mom” for one year, some eight years ago. The concept faux to the core. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.160.5.25 (talk) 21:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

"Hockey Mom" vs. "Soccer Mom"
A Hockey Mom is not the same as a Soccer Mom, and should have its own heading. Although both are invoved in their children's sports, a Soccer Mom is very passive in her support, i.e. her child is there to have fun; all games should be tied; etc. A Hockey Mom on the other hand is very feisty, i.e. chanting, animated, banging on the glass, etc., and her child is there to win. In Canada, both terms are often used outside of their respective sports to describe a person's behaviour. Procorp (talk) 12:29, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Hockey mom was a term contrived to agrandize the image of Sarah Palin, nothing more. You can reverse engeneer the term now if you like, and apply it to the prototypical obnoxious parent (either gender) of a child in any sport, but that does not make it a real term or a legitimate part of the vernacular. Cosand (talk) 21:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Dubious
In this edit, I removed a reference to the New York Times article because it did not support the preceding statement. Without that support, the statement is of highly dubious nature. Powers T 01:50, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Absent a reliable source, I'm deleting the reference. Even if a reference is found, the observation doesn't belong in the intro section--Work permit (talk) 00:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

England
In England (and I suspect Scotland too), soccer attracts the (inaccurate) stereoytpe of being exclusively a working class male pursuit, so "soccer mom" (or mum) would be a very foreign concept. Possibly there's such a thing as a "rugby mum" Millbanks (talk) 09:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be "football mum"? Wormwoodpoppies (talk) 03:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Dispute: Popularity
The sentences and section about popularity are rather arbitrary. They don't say "where" the term became popular, nor do any of the references provide a reliable source support these statements that the term became popular after 1995. The term "soccer mom" can be found in numerous articles, movies, etc going back at least to the 1980's and probably much further back. Someone else has also mentioned that the term "soccer" means different things depending on which side of the Atlantic you grew up in. The ShadowSkull (talk • contribs) 13:24, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

 * Addressing your issue with the term "popularity" in the lead, I have reworded the lead to be fully consistent with the wp:rs article statement. I have removed the  tag in the lead.--Work permit (talk) 03:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

 * I have removed the section title called "popularization", merging the first two sections. All statements in this section are cited from wp:rs so I believe I have addressed your issue with titling the section "popularization".  So I have removed your tag.  Please provide wp:rs for any statement in that section you disagree with.--Work permit (talk) 02:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

 * regarding your observation that ""soccer mom" can be found in numerous articles", do you have any wp:notable usage of the term? Or better yet, wp:rs saying the term was popular before 1995?--Work permit (talk) 03:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

 * regarding what "Someone else has also mentioned", that has been addressed and deleted as not meeting threshold of wp:notable--Work permit (talk) 03:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your observations, the changes made because of them are for the better--Work permit (talk) 02:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

 * "the changes made because of them are for the better" - I agree. And thank you for all the hard work you put into making this article better. If I come across any earlier reference to "soccer mom", I'll try to remember to post.  The ShadowSkull (talk • contribs) 11:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Soccer dad
Years ago, there was an article call "Soccer dad." It was removed and redirected here, to "Soccer mom." Does anyone think "soccer dad" means the same thing and belongs here, in the Soccer mom article? Dekyi 23:10, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Soccer mom. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160106181823/http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sports/canucks/story.html?id=1efb905c-0aac-4e22-9792-5d8a6cf505fc to http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sports/canucks/story.html?id=1efb905c-0aac-4e22-9792-5d8a6cf505fc

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 02:07, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Frameless uncaptioned image in lede
I've placed a frameless, uncaptioned image in the lede. The image of a woman with a crinkled coat standing alone under an umbrella in the rain watching children at a soccer game. I feel the image artistically captures the essence of "a North American, middle-class, suburban, white woman who spends a significant amount of her time transporting her school-age children to youth sporting events."---- Work permit (talk) 15:46, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Soccer mom


text:
Daim bar

A Daim bar is a Swedish chocolate bar made from crunchy almond caramel covered in milk chocolate.

History
Daim was created by Marabou in Sweden in the 1950s. Marabou originally wanted to produce a version of the American Heath Co.'s bar; its vice president Lars Anderfelt inquired about licensing Heath's exact recipe. The Heath Co. refused but gave Anderfeldt a list of their ingredients. From this, Marabou created their own recipe, testing it in Stockholm in 1952 with great success. It was launched under the name Dajm throughout Sweden and Norway the next year, Finland in 1963, and Denmark in 1971. It was renamed "Daim" in most countries in 1990, although it continued to be marketed in the United Kingdom and Ireland as Dime. The brand was purchased by the American company Kraft Foods in 1993 and is now held by Mondelez International, which Kraft spun off in 2012.

A famous 1995 television commercial (directed by John Lloyd) for the chocolate bar in the United Kingdom featured the comedian Harry Enfield, in which a salesman describes the Daim bar as "smooth on the outside, crunchy on the inside", while a customer says he prefers armadillos, which are "smooth on the inside, crunchy on the outside." Another successful commercial campaign was launched in 1996, and featured a spoof of Raiders of the Lost Ark. An unnamed adventurer uses a Daim bar to avoid triggering a death trap in an ancient temple, only to then return for the chocolate bar and take his chances with the crumbling structure. In 2005, the spelling in the UK and Ireland was changed to "Daim", in line with the rest of the world.

In 2007, a 'Limited Edition Cappucino' Daim bar was released. A limited edition forest fruit bar has also been released, as well as Coke Daim, white chocolate Daim, dark chocolate Daim, blueberry Daim, lemon-orange Daim and mint Daim. An orange chocolate Daim was sold in the UK and Ireland in winter 2023. As of March 2023, limited-edition caramel latte Daim bars were available in multi-packs in the UK, as well as a Strawberry variant which was released in early 2024. Daim bars imported from Sweden (manufactured in Upplands Väsby) have been sold in many countries.

Since the early 2000s, McDonald's McFlurry is available with Daim in France.

Daim is sold in IKEAs in Australia, Austria, Serbia, Canada, the US, France, Republic of Ireland, the UK, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates.

title: Daim bar


text:
Hemostasis

In biology, hemostasis or haemostasis is a process to prevent and stop bleeding, meaning to keep blood within a damaged blood vessel (the opposite of hemostasis is hemorrhage). It is the first stage of wound healing. Hemostasis involves three major steps:
 * vasoconstriction
 * temporary blockage of a hole in a damaged blood vessel by a platelet plug
 * blood coagulation (formation of fibrin clots)

Coagulation, the changing of blood from a liquid to a gel which forms the fibrin clots, is essential to hemostasis. Intact blood vessels moderate blood's tendency to form clots. The endothelial cells of intact vessels prevent blood clotting with a heparin-like molecule and thrombomodulin, and prevent platelet aggregation with nitric oxide and prostacyclin. When endothelium of a blood vessel is damaged, the endothelial cells stop secretion of coagulation and aggregation inhibitors and instead secrete von Willebrand factor, which initiates the maintenance of hemostasis after injury. These processes seal the injury or hole until tissues are healed.

Etymology and pronunciation
The word hemostasis (, sometimes ) uses the combining forms hemo- and -stasis, Neo-Latin from Ancient Greek αἱμο- haimo- (similar to αἷμα haîma), meaning "blood", and στάσις stásis, meaning "stasis", yielding "motionlessness or stopping of blood".

Steps of mechanism
Hemostasis occurs when blood is present outside of the body or blood vessels. It is the innate response for the body to stop bleeding and loss of blood. During hemostasis three steps occur in a rapid sequence. Vascular spasm is the first response as the blood vessels constrict to allow less blood to be lost. In the second step, platelet plug formation, platelets stick together to form a temporary seal to cover the break in the vessel wall. The third and last step is called coagulation or blood clotting. Coagulation reinforces the platelet plug with fibrin threads that act as a "molecular glue". Platelets are a large factor in the hemostatic process. They allow for the creation of the "platelet plug" that forms almost directly after a blood vessel has been ruptured. Within seconds of a blood vessel's epithelial wall being disrupted, platelets begin to adhere to the sub-endothelium surface. It takes approximately sixty seconds until the first fibrin strands begin to intersperse among the wound. After several minutes the platelet plug is completely formed by fibrin. Hemostasis is maintained in the body via three mechanisms:

 * 1) Vascular spasm: Vasoconstriction is produced by vascular smooth muscle cells, and is the blood vessel's first response to injury. The smooth muscle cells are controlled by vascular endothelium, which releases intravascular signals to control the contracting properties. When a blood vessel is damaged, there is an immediate reflex, initiated by local sympathetic pain receptors, which helps promote vasoconstriction. The damaged vessels will constrict (vasoconstrict) which reduces the amount of blood flow through the area and limits the amount of blood loss. Collagen is exposed at the site of injury, the collagen promotes platelets to adhere to the injury site. Platelets release cytoplasmic granules which contain serotonin, ADP and thromboxane A2, all of which increase the effect of vasoconstriction. The spasm response becomes more effective as the amount of damage is increased. Vascular spasm is much more effective in smaller blood vessels.
 * 2) Platelet plug formation: Platelets adhere to damaged endothelium to form a platelet plug (primary hemostasis) and then degranulate. This process is regulated through thromboregulation. Plug formation is activated by a glycoprotein called von Willebrand factor (vWF), which is found in plasma. Platelets play one of major roles in the hemostatic process. When platelets come across the injured endothelium cells, they change shape, release granules and ultimately become ‘sticky’. Platelets express certain receptors, some of which are used for the adhesion of platelets to collagen. When platelets are activated, they express glycoprotein receptors that interact with other platelets, producing aggregation and adhesion. Platelets release cytoplasmic granules such as adenosine diphosphate (ADP), serotonin and thromboxane A2.  Adenosine diphosphate (ADP) attracts more platelets to the affected area, serotonin is a vasoconstrictor and thromboxane A2 assists in platelet aggregation, vasoconstriction and degranulation.  As more chemicals are released more platelets stick and release their chemicals; creating a platelet plug and continuing the process in a positive feedback loop. Platelets alone are responsible for stopping the bleeding of unnoticed wear and tear of our skin on a daily basis. This is referred to as primary hemostasis.
 * 3) Clot formation: Once the platelet plug has been formed by the platelets, the clotting factors (a dozen proteins that travel along the blood plasma in an inactive state) are activated in a sequence of events known as 'coagulation cascade' which leads to the formation of fibrin from inactive fibrinogen plasma protein. Thus, a fibrin mesh is produced all around the platelet plug to hold it in place; this step is called secondary hemostasis. During this process some red and white blood cells are trapped in the mesh which causes the primary hemostasis plug to become harder: the resultant plug is called a thrombus or blood clot. The blood clot contains the secondary hemostasis plug with blood cells trapped in it. This is a necessary step for wound healing, but it has the ability to cause severe health problems if the thrombus becomes detached from the vessel wall and travels through the circulatory system; If it reaches the brain, heart or lungs it could lead to stroke, heart attack, or pulmonary embolism respectively.

Types
Hemostasis can be achieved in various other ways if the body cannot do it naturally (or needs help) during surgery or medical treatment. When the body is under shock and stress, hemostasis is harder to achieve. Though natural hemostasis is most desired, having other means of achieving this is vital for survival in many emergency settings. Without the ability to stimulate hemostasis the risk of hemorrhaging is great. During surgical procedures, the types of hemostasis listed below can be used to control bleeding while avoiding and reducing the risk of tissue destruction. Hemostasis can be achieved by chemical agent as well as mechanical or physical agents. Which hemostasis type used is determined based on the situation.

Developmental Haemostasis refers to the differences in the haemostatic system between children and adults.

In emergency medicine
Debates by physicians and medical practitioners still continue to arise on the subject of hemostasis and how to handle situations with large injuries. If an individual acquires a large injury resulting in extreme blood loss, then a hemostatic agent alone would not be very effective. Medical professionals continue to debate on what the best ways are to assist a patient in a chronic state; however, it is universally accepted that hemostatic agents are the primary tool for smaller bleeding injuries.

Some main types of hemostasis used in emergency medicine include:
 * Chemical/topical – This is a topical agent often used in surgery settings to stop bleeding. Microfibrillar collagen is the most popular choice among surgeons [recent source?] because it attracts the patient's natural platelets and starts the blood clotting process when it comes in contact with the platelets. This topical agent requires the normal hemostatic pathway to be properly functional.
 * Direct pressure or pressure dressing – This type of hemostasis approach is most commonly used in situations where proper medical attention is not available. Putting pressure and/or dressing to a bleeding wound slows the process of blood loss, allowing for more time to get to an emergency medical setting. Soldiers use this skill during combat when someone has been injured because this process allows for blood loss to be decreased, giving the system time to start coagulation.
 * Sutures and ties – Sutures are often used to close an open wound, allowing for the injured area to stay free of pathogens and other unwanted debris to enter the site; however, it is also essential to the process of hemostasis. Sutures and ties allow for skin to be joined back together allowing for platelets to start the process of hemostasis at a quicker pace. Using sutures results in a quicker recovery period because the surface area of the wound has been decreased.
 * Physical agents (gelatin sponge) – Gelatin sponges have been indicated as great hemostatic devices. Once applied to a bleeding area, a gelatin sponge quickly stops or reduces the amount of bleeding present. These physical agents are mostly used in surgical settings as well as after surgery treatments. These sponges absorb blood, allow for coagulation to occur faster, and give off chemical responses that decrease the time it takes for the hemostasis pathway to start.

Disorders
The body's hemostasis system requires careful regulation in order to work properly. If the blood does not clot sufficiently, it may be due to bleeding disorders such as hemophilia or immune thrombocytopenia; this requires careful investigation. Over-active clotting can also cause problems; thrombosis, where blood clots form abnormally, can potentially cause embolisms, where blood clots break off and subsequently become lodged in a vein or artery.

Hemostasis disorders can develop for many different reasons. They may be congenital, due to a deficiency or defect in an individual's platelets or clotting factors. A number of disorders can be acquired as well, such as in HELLP syndrome, which is due to pregnancy, or Hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), which is due to E. coli toxins.

History of artificial hemostasis
The process of preventing blood loss from a vessel or organ of the body is referred to as hemostasis. The term comes from the Ancient Greek roots "heme" meaning blood, and "stasis" meaning halting; Put together means the "halting of the blood". The origin of hemostasis dates back as far as ancient Greece; first referenced to being used in the Battle of Troy. It started with the realization that excessive bleeding inevitably equaled death. Vegetable and mineral styptics were used on large wounds by the Greeks and Romans until the takeover of Egypt around 332BC by Greece. At this time many more advances in the general medical field were developed through the study of Egyptian mummification practice, which led to greater knowledge of the hemostatic process. It was during this time that many of the veins and arteries running throughout the human body were found and the directions in which they traveled. Doctors of this time realized if these were plugged, blood could not continue to flow out of the body. Nevertheless, it took until the invention of the printing press during the fifteenth century for medical notes and ideas to travel westward, allowing for the idea and practice of hemostasis to be expanded.

Research
There is currently a great deal of research being conducted on hemostasis. The most current research is based on genetic factors of hemostasis and how it can be altered to reduce the cause of genetic disorders that alter the natural process hemostasis.

Von Willebrand disease is associated with a defect in the ability of the body to create the platelet plug and the fibrin mesh that ultimately stops the bleeding. New research is concluding that the von Willebrand disease is much more common in adolescence. This disease negatively hinders the natural process of Hemostasis causing excessive bleeding to be a concern in patients with this disease. There are complex treatments that can be done including a combination of therapies, estrogen-progesterone preparations, desmopressin, and Von Willebrand factor concentrates. Current research is trying to find better ways to deal with this disease; however, much more research is needed in order to find out the effectiveness of the current treatments and if there are more operative ways to treat this disease.

title: Hemostasis


text:
Maghrebi cuisine

Maghreb cuisine is the cooking of the Maghreb region, the northwesternmost part of Africa along the Mediterranean Sea, consisting of the countries of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. Well-known dishes from the region include couscous, pastilla, tajine and shakshouka.

Origins

The cuisine of the Maghreb, the western region of North Africa, includes that of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, is by origin a mixture of Arabian, Berber and Mediterranean cuisines, with historic influences from Ottoman and European cuisines. The cuisines of Algeria, Tunisia and Libya and Morocco have also been influenced by French and Italian cuisine respectively.

Cuisine
In Maghrebi cuisine, the most common staple foods are wheat (for khobz bread and couscous ), fish, seafood, goat, lamb, beef, dates, almonds, olives and various vegetables and fruits.

Because the region is predominantly Muslim, halal meats are usually eaten. Most dishes are spiced.

The use of legumes, nuts, fruits and spices is very prominent. Salt-preserved lemons (l'hamd mrakad) and so-called "oil-cured" olives are distinctive elements of the cuisine.

The best-known Maghrebi dish abroad is couscous, made from wheat semolina. The tajine, a cooking vessel made of clay, is also a common denominator in this region, although the dishes and preparation methods vary widely. For example, a tajine in Tunisia is a baked quiche-like dish, whereas in Morocco it is a slow-cooked stew. Pastilla is also an important Andalusian dish of the region.

Spices
Spices found in this region's cuisine are ginger, allspice, caraway, saffron, paprika, cloves, cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper and turmeric. Fresh peppermint, parsley, or coriander are also very common. Spice mixtures such as ras el hanout, baharat, and chili pastes like harissa (especially in Tunisia) are frequently used as well.

title: Maghrebi cuisine


text:
Congaree Vista

The Congaree Vista is a section of Columbia, South Carolina, between the Congaree River and the central business district of downtown.

The neighborhood was revitalized during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The section includes many small, upscale shops and restaurants, often in renovated warehouse buildings. "The Vista," as it is known by locals, is centered on one of the city's old train stations along Gervais Street. Also in this area is the historic Adluh Flour Mill, one of the few productive remnants of the district's industrial past. In the past decade, the Vista has become a major entertainment and retail district for downtown Columbia and the Midlands (South Carolina) region of the state. Several hotels have been constructed in the area due to its economic benefits and close proximity to the University of South Carolina and centralized downtown location.

title: Congaree Vista


text:
NICAM

Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks. In the 1980s, broadcasters began to use NICAM compression for transmissions of stereo TV sound to the public.

Near-instantaneous companding
The idea was first described in 1964. In this, the 'ranging' was to be applied to the analogue signal before the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) and after the digital-to-analogue converter (DAC). The application of this to broadcasting, in which the companding was to be done entirely digitally after the ADC and before the DAC, was described in a 1972 BBC Research Report.

Point-to-point links
NICAM was originally intended to provide broadcasters with six high-quality audio channels within a total bandwidth of 2048 kbit/s. This figure was chosen to match the E1 primary multiplex rate, and systems using this rate could make use of the planned PDH national and international telecommunications networks.

Several similar systems had been developed in various countries, and in about 1977/78 the BBC Research Department conducted listening tests to evaluate them. The candidates were:
 * A RAI system which used A-law companding to compress 14-bit linear PCM samples into 10 bits (14:10)
 * A NICAM-type system proposed by Télédiffusion de France (14:9)
 * NICAM-1 (13:10)
 * NICAM-2 (14:11)
 * NICAM-3 (14:10)

It was found that NICAM-2 provided the best sound quality, but reduced programme-modulated noise to an unnecessarily low level at the expense of bit rate. NICAM-3, which had been proposed during the test to address this, was selected as the winner.

Audio is encoded using 14 bit pulse-code modulation at a sampling rate of 32 kHz.

Broadcasts to the public
NICAM's second role – transmission to the public – was developed in the 80s by the BBC. This variant was known as NICAM-728, after the 728 kbit/s bitstream it is sent over. It uses the same audio coding parameters as NICAM-3.

The first NICAM digital stereo programme was the First Night of the 92nd edition of the Proms which was broadcast on BBC2 from the Crystal Palace transmitting station in London on 18 July 1986, though programmes were not advertised as being broadcast in stereo on the BBC until some five years later, when the majority of the country's transmitters had been upgraded to broadcast NICAM, and a large number of BBC programmes were being made in stereo.

The BBC publicly launched their NICAM stereo service in the United Kingdom on Saturday 31 August 1991 (see 1991 in television) though other UK broadcasters ITV and Channel 4 advertised this capability some 18 months earlier. Channel 4 began tests much earlier in February 1989 via the Crystal Palace transmitter in London.

It has been standardized as ETS EN 300 163.

Nations and regions using NICAM public broadcasts
Several European countries had implemented NICAM with the PAL and SECAM TV systems
 * Belgium (analogue cable systems only; terrestrial switched to DVB-T)
 * Denmark (historical, switched to DVB-T and DVB-C)
 * Estonia (historical, switched to DVB-T and DVB-C)
 * Finland (historical, switched to DVB-T and DVB-C)
 * France (historical, switched to DVB-T)
 * Greece (ANT1, New Hellenic Television, ET3 and ET1 - historical, switched to DVB-T)
 * Hungary (historical, switched to DVB-T)
 * Iceland (historical, switched to DVB-T)
 * Ireland (historical, switched to DVB-T. Analogue cable channels may still carry NICAM audio. However, these are digitally sourced channels re-encoded as PAL with NICAM at the headend.)
 * Luxembourg (switched to DVB-T; cable?)
 * Norway (historical, switched to DVB-T and DVB-C)
 * Poland (Analogue cable systems only; terrestrial switched to DVB-T)
 * Portugal (historical, switched to DVB-T)
 * Romania (historical on terrestrial as switched to DVB-T2; on cable networks, still used by some operators providing analogue cable television)
 * Russia
 * Spain (historical, switched to DVB-T)
 * South Africa (SABC 1, SABC 2, e.tv)
 * Sweden (historical, switched to DVB-T and DVB-C)
 * Ukraine
 * United Kingdom (historical, switched to DVB-T)

Some Asia-Pacific nations and regions have implemented NICAM Some other countries use Zweikanalton analogue stereo instead. Analogue stereo conversion thus begins.
 * China
 * Hong Kong (commonly used for dual language for programming containing both Cantonese and English/Mandarin/Japanese/Korean soundtracks; full switchover to DTMB with Dolby AC-3 audio encoding complete by 1 December 2020, NICAM became historical from that date)
 * Macau (commonly used for dual language for programming containing both Cantonese and Portuguese/English/Mandarin/Japanese/Korean soundtracks; full switchover to DTMB with MPEG-1 Audio Layer II audio encoding complete by 30 June 2023, NICAM became historical from that date)
 * Guangzhou
 * Beijing (BTV)
 * Malaysia
 * Formerly used by TV1, TV2, ntv7, 8TV, and TV9 around Klang Valley. TV3 also used NICAM on their VHF transmission frequency (Channel 12) in the Klang Valley, but used Zweikanalton on their UHF transmission frequency (Channel 29). Analog shutdown complete by 1 January 2019, thus NICAM and Zweikanalton broadcast became historical from that date.
 * New Zealand (Full switchover to DVB-T complete by 1 December 2013. NICAM became historical from that date.)
 * Indonesia
 * Television stations in Indonesia used NICAM for analogue television. Analog shutdown complete by August 12, 2023, thus NICAM became historical from that date.
 * Singapore (Used on Mediacorp Channel U. Full switchover to DVB-T2 complete by 1 January 2019. NICAM became historical from that date.)
 * Sri Lanka
 * Thailand
 * Used on Channel 3, Channel 9 MCOT HD and Thai PBS, usually broadcast in dual-sound mode with sometimes in stereo mode. All analogue television service ceased since March 26, 2020. Switchover to terrestrial DVB-T2 with HE-AAC v2 codec, NICAM became historical from that date.

Implementations
No consumer grade equipment capable of NICAM modulation is presently known. Below is a non-exhaustive list of broadcast grade equipment capable of NICAM coding and or modulation:

 * Philips PM5685/PM5686/PM5686A
 * Philips PM5687
 * Eiden 198A
 * Pye/Varian/BBC Sound-in-Syncs solution
 * IBA/RE Communications Sound-in-Syncs solution
 * Tektronix 728E
 * Rohde & Schwarz SBUF-E NICAM Module
 * Barco NE-728

Operation
In order to provide mono "compatibility", the NICAM signal is transmitted on a subcarrier alongside the sound carrier. This means that the FM or AM regular mono sound carrier is left alone for reception by monaural receivers.

A NICAM-based stereo-TV infrastructure can transmit a stereo TV programme as well as the mono "compatibility" sound at the same time, or can transmit two or three entirely different sound streams. This latter mode could be used to transmit audio in different languages, in a similar manner to that used for in-flight movies on international flights. In this mode, the user can select which soundtrack to listen to when watching the content by operating a "sound-select" control on the receiver.

This is the spectrum of NICAM on the PAL system. On the SECAM L system, the NICAM sound carrier is at 5.85 MHz, before the AM sound carrier, and the video bandwidth is reduced from 6.5 MHz to 5.5 MHz.

NICAM currently offers the following possibilities. The mode is automatically selected by the inclusion of a 3-bit type field in the data stream.
 * One digital stereo sound channel.
 * Two completely different digital mono sound channels.
 * One digital mono sound channel and a 352 kbit/s data channel.
 * One 704 kbit/s data channel.

The four other options could be implemented at a later date. Only the first two of the ones listed are known to be in general use however.

NICAM packet transmission
The NICAM packet (except for the header) is scrambled with a nine-bit pseudo-random bit-generator before transmission.
 * The topology of this pseudo-random generator yields a bitstream with a repetition period of 511 bits.
 * The pseudo-random generator's polynomial is: $$x^9 + x^4 + 1.$$
 * The pseudo-random generator is initialized with: $$111111111.$$

Making the NICAM bitstream look more like white noise is important because this reduces signal patterning on adjacent TV channels.
 * The NICAM header is not subject to scrambling. This is necessary so as to aid in locking on to the NICAM data stream and resynchronisation of the data stream at the receiver.
 * At the start of each NICAM packet the pseudo-random bit generator's shift register is reset to all ones.

NICAM transmission problems
There are some latent issues involved with the processing of NICAM audio in the transmission chain.
 * NICAM (unlike the Compact Disc standard) samples 14-bit audio at 32 kHz.
 * The upper frequency limit of a NICAM sound channel is 15 kHz due to anti-aliasing filters at the encoder.
 * The original 14-bit PCM audio samples are companded digitally to 10 bits for transmission.
 * NICAM audio samples are divided into blocks of 32. If all the samples in a block are quiet, such that the most significant bits are all zeros, these bits can be discarded at no loss.
 * On louder samples some of the least significant bits are truncated, with the hope that they will be inaudible.
 * A 3-bit control signal for each block records which bits were discarded.
 * Digital companding (using a CCITT J.17 pre-emphasis curve) ensures that the encoding and decoding algorithms can track perfectly.

NICAM carrier power
ITU (and CCITT) standards specify that the power level of the NICAM signal should be at -20 dB with respect to the power of the vision carrier.
 * The level of the FM mono sound carrier must be at least -13 dB.
 * Measuring the modulation level of the NICAM signal is difficult because the QPSK NICAM carrier waveform (unlike AM or FM modulated carrier waveforms) is not emitted at a discrete frequency.

When measured with spectrum analyser the actual level of the carrier (L) can be calculated using the following formula:

L(NICAM) = L(Measured) + 10 log (R/BWAnalyser) + K

 * 1) L(NICAM) = actual level of the NICAM carrier [dBμV]
 * 2) L(Measured) = measured level of the NICAM carrier [dBμV]
 * 3) R = -3 dB bandwidth of the signal [kHz]
 * 4) BWAnalyser = bandwidth of the spectrum analyser [kHz]
 * 5) K = logarithmic form factor of the spectrum analyser ~2 dB

note: if BWAnalyser is greater than R, the formula becomes L(NICAM) = L(Measured) + K

Differing features
NICAM sampling is not standard PCM sampling, as commonly employed with the Compact Disc or at the codec level in MP3, AAC or Ogg audio devices. NICAM sampling more closely resembles Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation, or A-law companding with an extended, rapidly modifiable dynamic range.

Two's complement signing
The two's complement method of signing the samples is used, so that:
 * 01111111111111 represents positive full-scale
 * 10000000000000 represents negative full-scale

±0 V has three binary representations

 * 00000000000001 represents 0 V, with no +/- distinction. This may have originated as a method to reduce the emergence of DC patterns from transmission of silent material.
 * 00000000000000 represents 0 V, with no +/- distinction
 * 11111111111111 represents 0 V, with no +/- distinction

Parity checking limited to only 6 of 10 bits
In order to strengthen parity protection for the sound samples, the parity bit is calculated on only the top six bits of each NICAM sample. Early BBC NICAM research showed that uncorrected errors in the least significant four bits were preferable to the reduced overall protection offered by parity-protecting all ten bits.

VCR
VHS and Betamax home videocassette recorders (VCRs) initially only recorded the audio tracks by means of a fixed linear recording head, which was inadequate for recording NICAM audio; this significantly limited their sound quality. Many VCRs later included high quality stereo audio recording as an additional feature, in which the incoming high quality stereo audio source (typically FM radio or NICAM TV) was frequency modulated and then recorded, in addition to the usual audio and video VCR tracks, using the same high-bandwidth helical scanning technique used for the video signal. Full-size VCRs already made full use of the tape, so the high quality audio signal was recorded diagonally under the video signal, using additional helical scan heads and depth multiplexing. The mono audio track (and on some machines, a non-NICAM, non-Hi-Fi stereo track) was also recorded on the linear track, as before, to ensure backwards-compatibility of recordings made on Hi-Fi machines when played on non-Hi-Fi VCRs.

Such devices were often described as "HiFi audio", "Audio FM" / "AFM" (FM standing for "Frequency Modulation") and sometimes informally as "Nicam" VCRs (due to their use in recording the Nicam broadcast audio signal). They remained compatible with non-HiFi VCR players since the standard audio track was also recorded, and were at times used as an alternative to audio cassette tapes due to their superior frequency range and flat frequency response.

DVD
While recording in video mode (compatible with DVD-Video), most DVD recorders can only record one of the three channels (Digital I, Digital II, Analogue mono) allowed by the standard. Newer standard such as DVD-VR allows recording all the digital channels (in both stereo and bilingual mode), whereas the mono channel will be lost.

Flash memory and computer multimedia
Codecs for digital media on computers will often convert NICAM to another digital audio format to save drive space.

title: NICAM