title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Stoffel Vandoorne was born in Kortrijk, West Flanders. Vandoorne was introduced to motorsport at the age of six during a visit to the kart track of World Karts in Kortrijk in Flanders, Belgium, with his father. Vandoorne started karting after the owner of the track gave him a mini-kart.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Initially, lack of funding restricted Vandoorne to race 3 to 4 races per year. By age 16 he was Belgian KF2 Champion. In 2009 he finished as runner-up in the CIK-FIA World Cup in the KF2 category. The same year he won the 'steering wheel' competition held by the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium. The prize money of 45,000 euros helped him start his car racing career in F4 Eurocup 1.6.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In 2010, Vandoorne moved up to single-seater racing, joining the F4 Eurocup 1.6 series. He went on to win the series on his first attempt, finishing the season with six wins and three further podium finishes. The prize from winning the series helped him to move up to the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 the following year. He also earned a place in the FIA Driver Academy.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In 2011, he graduated to competing in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 with Kurt Mollekens' KTR team. He finished fifth overall, with one podium at the Hungaroring and another eight-point-scoring finishes throughout the season. He also participated in Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup, where he finished third in the series' standings with eight podiums.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: For the 2012 season Vandoorne remained in the Eurocup, but left KTR to join Josef Kaufmann Racing. He won the championship by ten points after a tight battle between himself and Red Bull-backed Daniil Kvyat. Between them they won 11 of the 14 races and finished over 100 points ahead of their nearest challenger. Vandoorne finished the season with four wins and six podiums to his name. He also contested selected events in the Northern European Cup, where he won five of the seven races that he started, and finished on the podium in a sixth race.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In 2013, Vandoorne raced in Formula Renault 3.5, where he replaced 2012 champion Robin Frijns at Fortec Motorsport. He finished runner-up to Kevin Magnussen with four wins and 10 podiums, including a victory at his home track of Spa-Francorchamps.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In January 2014, it was confirmed that Vandoorne would make his debut in GP2, racing with ART. In the opening race at Bahrain, Vandoorne claimed his first victory of the season in the feature race. He followed this up with four consecutive pole positions, three more wins at the Hungaroring, Monza and Yas Marina and six additional podiums. Despite being a rookie, he finished runner-up to 2014 champion Jolyon Palmer.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Vandoorne reunited with ART for 2015, as well as was considered the main title contender. He was partnered by 2014 Japanese Formula Three champion Nobuharu Matsushita. After five feature race wins, twelve podiums and four pole positions, Vandoorne took the title in Sochi, 108 points over his nearest rival Alexander Rossi.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Vandoorne holds the record for all-time most wins, most feature race wins, most pole positions and most consecutive pole positions, most podiums, most podiums in a season, most points and most points in a single season in GP2 history, with the series being rebranded as the FIA Formula 2 Championship at the end of the following year.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: On 12 February 2016, it was announced that Vandoorne would race a Honda in Super Formula for Dandelion Racing. He finished fourth overall, the highest ranking among Honda engine users, with two wins and one pole position at Fuji Speedway in wet conditions throughout the season.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In February 2013, Vandoorne joined McLaren's Young Driver Programme, under the tutelage of his then manager Richard Goddard, in collaboration with the team's sporting director Sam Michael and its head of communications Matt Bishop, to whom Vandoorne had been introduced in 2011 by Alex Wurz.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In January 2014, he was announced as a third driver for McLaren F1 also taking up driving duties in the GP2 Series for ART Grand Prix.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: On 31 March 2016, it was announced Vandoorne would be replacing regular driver Fernando Alonso at the Bahrain Grand Prix after the Spaniard was ruled unfit to drive following a major accident in the previous round. After qualifying 12th ahead of Jenson Button, Vandoorne finished 10th and became the first reserve driver to score points on debut since Sebastian Vettel at the 2007 United States Grand Prix.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: On 3 September 2016, ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, it was announced by McLaren that Jenson Button would not be racing in 2017, and that Vandoorne would be replacing him to partner Alonso for the season.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In his debut full season at McLaren, Vandoorne established himself as a considerable rookie next to veteran F1 Champion, Fernando Alonso. With the uncompetitive McLaren, Vandoorne racked up 13 points compared to Alonso's 17. The key issues lay in the reliability and performance of the car which resulted in 1 DNS and 5 DNFs throughout the 20 race season. Nevertheless, he managed to crack into the top 10 in Hungary, Malaysia and Singapore.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In the new McLaren Renault partnership, Vandoorne enjoyed a good start to the season with 3 points finishes in the first 4 races. However, as the season progressed, he struggled to maintain this momentum which left him with 8 points by the Japanese Grand Prix. Moreover, the lack of a competitive package in the McLaren resulted in a long drought in points finishes between the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix and the 2018 Mexican Grand Prix. Vandoorne ended the season in 16th ahead of 4 other drivers in the drivers' championship. However, the last few Grands Prix saw Vandoorne in some impressive battles, particularly in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with Esteban Ocon and Romain Grosjean, which led him to finish 8th on the Formula 1 Power Rankings.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: It was announced on 3 September 2018 that Vandoorne would leave McLaren at the end of the 2018 season.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Vandoorne was the simulator driver for the Mercedes team in 2019 and was named as one of the team's reserve drivers in 2020, but in the end was not chosen as the driver for the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix after Hamilton tested positive for COVID-19. Vandoorne drove for Mercedes in the season-ending 2020 Abu Dhabi Young Drivers Test alongside Formula E teammate Nyck de Vries.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Vandoorne was also made available as reserve driver for Racing Point in 2020 and McLaren from 2020 to 2022, as part of an agreement between Mercedes and both teams.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Vandoorne is announced to be joining Aston Martin for the 2023 Formula One World Championship as a reserve and simulator driver, sharing duties with 2022 Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich. Vandoorne is expected to drive the Red Bull Racing in the first pre-season test in Bahrain, in place Max Verstappen.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: It was confirmed on 15 October 2018 that Vandoorne would drive for HWA Racelab for the 2018–19 Formula E season. He would be joining Britain's Gary Paffett to complete the driver lineup for HWA Racelab. Vandoorne would go on and start his Formula E debut just 3 weeks after leaving Formula 1 and would come 17th in his first race. He has also achieved his first qualifying pole position in Formula E at a wet 2019 Hong Kong ePrix. He came third in the 2019 Rome ePrix and booked his first podium in Formula E.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In the 2019–20 season, Vandoorne drove for Mercedes-Benz EQ with 2019 Formula 2 Champion, Nyck de Vries. Vandoorne took 2 consecutive podiums in the two first races. The E-Prix of Mexico and Marrakesh saw a series of poor finishes, and at the time of the season's suspension due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, he sat 29 points below the championship leader, António Félix da Costa. Following the resumption of the season for six races in Berlin, he finished in the points in four of the six races, including his first win in the season finale. He ultimately finished 2nd in the standings, though behind Félix da Costa by 71 points.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Vandoorne continued to drive for the renamed Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team for the 2020–21 season, again partnering Nyck de Vries. Vandoorne achieved one win at the second race of 2021 Rome ePrix, and two third place finishes at 2021 Valencia ePrix and 2021 Berlin ePrix. de Vries secured his first Drivers' Championship, as Vandoorne finished ninth in the standings. Vandoorne and de Vries' total points haul allowed Mercedes to achieve their first Teams' Championship that season. Vandoorne and de Vries' partnership will continue for the 2021-22 season.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Vandoorne continued to race with the Mercedes-EQ team for the 2021-22 Season in Mercedes' final season in Formula E. With a win in the 2022 Monaco ePrix and seven other podiums, Vandoorne clinched the 2021–22 Formula E World Championship ahead of the New Zealand driver Mitch Evans by 33 points.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In October 2022, it was announced that Vandoorne would be joining the newly formed DS Penske outfit alongside fellow champion Jean-Éric Vergne for the 2023 season.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: In April 2019, it was announced that Stoffel Vandoorne would compete for two races in the WEC for 2018-2019 for SMP Racing. He will drive the Russian BR1 No.11 prototype along with Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Aleshin in the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, Vandoorne, alongside Petrov and Aleshin, finished 3rd place in the LMP1 Class. Vandoorne drove the first stint during weather conditions of snow, hail and rain. At the 24 hour of Le Mans he finished 3rd place.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: Vandoorne was set to test the 2023 Peugeot Hypercar at the Bahrain International Circuit during November 2022, but was not able to take part in it after contracting appendicitis.


title: Stoffel Vandoorne

text: On 17 November 2021, it was announced that Vandoorne will take part in an IndyCar Series test with Arrow McLaren SP at Sebring International Raceway on 6 December 2021.


title: Tyler Hynes

text: Hynes was born in Toronto, Ontario, but later grew up on a ranch outside Ottawa. He began acting professionally at the age of eight.


title: Tyler Hynes

text: Hynes got his professional start at the age of eight during a 72-performance run of the musical stage production of "A Christmas Carol" as Tiny Tim, followed by a Canadian tour of The Who's rock opera "Tommy", playing the role of 10-year-old Tommy. He followed this up with his first feature film, "Little Men", starring Mariel Hemingway.


title: Tyler Hynes

text: He portrayed Atreyu in 24 episodes of the TV series "Tales from the Neverending Story" and The Chosen One in the 24-episode run of "Peter Benchley's Amazon". Tyler was nominated "Fan Favourite" at Canada's Gemini Awards at age 15. He later starred in "Tagged: The Jonathan Wamback Story".


title: Cross-correlation

text: In signal processing, cross-correlation is a measure of similarity of two series as a function of the displacement of one relative to the other. This is also known as a "sliding dot product" or "sliding inner-product". It is commonly used for searching a long signal for a shorter, known feature. It has applications in pattern recognition, single particle analysis, electron tomography, averaging, cryptanalysis, and neurophysiology. The cross-correlation is similar in nature to the convolution of two functions. In an autocorrelation, which is the cross-correlation of a signal with itself, there will always be a peak at a lag of zero, and its size will be the signal energy.


title: Cross-correlation

text: In probability and statistics, the term "cross-correlations" refers to the correlations between the entries of two random vectors formula_1 and formula_2, while the "correlations" of a random vector formula_1 are the correlations between the entries of formula_1 itself, those forming the correlation matrix of formula_1. If each of formula_1 and formula_2 is a scalar random variable which is realized repeatedly in a time series, then the correlations of the various temporal instances of formula_1 are known as "autocorrelations" of formula_1, and the cross-correlations of formula_1 with formula_2 across time are temporal cross-correlations. In probability and statistics, the definition of correlation always includes a standardising factor in such a way that correlations have values between −1 and +1.


title: Cross-correlation

text: If formula_12 and formula_13 are two independent random variables with probability density functions formula_14 and formula_15, respectively, then the probability density of the difference formula_16 is formally given by the cross-correlation (in the signal-processing sense) formula_17; however, this terminology is not used in probability and statistics. In contrast, the convolution formula_18 (equivalent to the cross-correlation of formula_19 and formula_20) gives the probability density function of the sum formula_21.


title: Cross-correlation

text: For continuous functions formula_14 and formula_15, the cross-correlation is defined as:formula_24which is equivalent toformula_25where formula_26 denotes the complex conjugate of formula_19, and formula_28 is called "displacement" or "lag." For highly-correlated formula_14 and formula_15 which have a maximum cross-correlation at a particular formula_28, a feature in formula_14 at formula_33 also occurs later in formula_15 at formula_35, hence formula_15 could be described to "lag" formula_14 by formula_28.


title: Cross-correlation

text: If formula_14 and formula_15 are both continuous periodic functions of period formula_41, the integration from formula_42 to formula_43 is replaced by integration over any interval formula_44 of length formula_41:formula_46which is equivalent toformula_47Similarly, for discrete functions, the cross-correlation is defined as:formula_48which is equivalent to:formula_49For finite discrete functions formula_50, the (circular) cross-correlation is defined as:formula_51which is equivalent to:formula_52For finite discrete functions formula_53, formula_54, the kernel cross-correlation is defined as:formula_55where formula_56 is a vector of kernel functions formula_57 and formula_58 is an affine transform.


title: Cross-correlation

text: Specifically, formula_59 can be circular translation transform, rotation transform, or scale transform, etc. The kernel cross-correlation extends cross-correlation from linear space to kernel space. Cross-correlation is equivariant to translation; kernel cross-correlation is equivariant to any affine transforms, including translation, rotation, and scale, etc.


title: Cross-correlation

text: As an example, consider two real valued functions formula_14 and formula_15 differing only by an unknown shift along the x-axis. One can use the cross-correlation to find how much formula_15 must be shifted along the x-axis to make it identical to formula_14. The formula essentially slides the formula_15 function along the x-axis, calculating the integral of their product at each position. When the functions match, the value of formula_65 is maximized. This is because when peaks (positive areas) are aligned, they make a large contribution to the integral. Similarly, when troughs (negative areas) align, they also make a positive contribution to the integral because the product of two negative numbers is positive.


title: Cross-correlation

text: With complex-valued functions formula_14 and formula_15, taking the conjugate of formula_14 ensures that aligned peaks (or aligned troughs) with imaginary components will contribute positively to the integral.


title: Cross-correlation

text: where formula_69 denotes the Fourier transform, and an formula_70 again indicates the complex conjugate of formula_14, since formula_72. Coupled with fast Fourier transform algorithms, this property is often exploited for the efficient numerical computation of cross-correlations (see circular cross-correlation).


title: Cross-correlation

text: For random vectors formula_80 and formula_81, each containing random elements whose expected value and variance exist, the cross-correlation matrix of formula_1 and formula_2 is defined byformula_84and has dimensions formula_85. Written component-wise:formula_86The random vectors formula_1 and formula_2 need not have the same dimension, and either might be a scalar value.


title: Cross-correlation

text: For example, if formula_89 and formula_90 are random vectors, then formula_91 is a formula_92 matrix whose formula_93-th entry is formula_94.


title: Cross-correlation

text: If formula_95 and formula_96 are complex random vectors, each containing random variables whose expected value and variance exist, the cross-correlation matrix of formula_97 and formula_98 is defined byformula_99where formula_100 denotes Hermitian transposition.


title: Cross-correlation

text: In time series analysis and statistics, the cross-correlation of a pair of random process is the correlation between values of the processes at different times, as a function of the two times. Let formula_101 be a pair of random processes, and formula_33 be any point in time (formula_33 may be an integer for a discrete-time process or a real number for a continuous-time process). Then formula_104 is the value (or realization) produced by a given run of the process at time formula_33.


title: Cross-correlation

text: Suppose that the process has means formula_106 and formula_107 and variances formula_108 and formula_109 at time formula_33, for each formula_33. Then the definition of the cross-correlation between times formula_112 and formula_113 isformula_114where formula_115 is the expected value operator. Note that this expression may be not defined.


title: Cross-correlation

text: Subtracting the mean before multiplication yields the cross-covariance between times formula_112 and formula_113:formula_118Note that this expression is not well-defined for all time series or processes, because the mean or variance may not exist.


title: Cross-correlation

text: Let formula_101 represent a pair of stochastic processes that are jointly wide-sense stationary. Then the cross-covariance function and the cross-correlation function are given as follows.


title: Cross-correlation

text: or equivalentlyformula_123where formula_124 and formula_125 are the mean and standard deviation of the process formula_126, which are constant over time due to stationarity; and similarly for formula_127, respectively. formula_128 indicates the expected value. That the cross-covariance and cross-correlation are independent of formula_33 is precisely the additional information (beyond being individually wide-sense stationary) conveyed by the requirement that formula_101 are "jointly" wide-sense stationary.


title: Cross-correlation

text: The cross-correlation of a pair of jointly wide sense stationary stochastic processes can be estimated by averaging the product of samples measured from one process and samples measured from the other (and its time shifts). The samples included in the average can be an arbitrary subset of all the samples in the signal (e.g., samples within a finite time window or a sub-sampling of one of the signals). For a large number of samples, the average converges to the true cross-correlation.


title: Cross-correlation

text: It is common practice in some disciplines (e.g. statistics and time series analysis) to normalize the cross-correlation function to get a time-dependent Pearson correlation coefficient. However, in other disciplines (e.g. engineering) the normalization is usually dropped and the terms "cross-correlation" and "cross-covariance" are used interchangeably.


title: Cross-correlation

text: The definition of the normalized cross-correlation of a stochastic process isformula_131If the function formula_132 is well-defined, its value must lie in the range formula_133, with 1 indicating perfect correlation and −1 indicating perfect anti-correlation.


title: Cross-correlation

text: For jointly wide-sense stationary stochastic processes, the definition isformula_134The normalization is important both because the interpretation of the autocorrelation as a correlation provides a scale-free measure of the strength of statistical dependence, and because the normalization has an effect on the statistical properties of the estimated autocorrelations.


title: Cross-correlation

text: For jointly wide-sense stationary stochastic processes, the cross-correlation function has the following symmetry property:formula_135Respectively for jointly WSS processes:formula_136


title: Cross-correlation

text: Cross-correlations are useful for determining the time delay between two signals, e.g., for determining time delays for the propagation of acoustic signals across a microphone array. After calculating the cross-correlation between the two signals, the maximum (or minimum if the signals are negatively correlated) of the cross-correlation function indicates the point in time where the signals are best aligned; i.e., the time delay between the two signals is determined by the argument of the maximum, or arg max of the cross-correlation, as informula_137Terminology in image processing


title: Cross-correlation

text: For image-processing applications in which the brightness of the image and template can vary due to lighting and exposure conditions, the images can be first normalized. This is typically done at every step by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation. That is, the cross-correlation of a template formula_138 with a subimage formula_139 isformula_140where formula_141 is the number of pixels in formula_138 and formula_139,


title: Cross-correlation

text: In functional analysis terms, this can be thought of as the dot product of two normalized vectors. That is, ifformula_148andformula_149then the above sum is equal toformula_150where formula_151 is the inner product and formula_152 is the "L"² norm. Cauchy–Schwarz then implies that ZNCC has a range of formula_153.


title: Cross-correlation

text: Thus, if formula_14 and formula_33 are real matrices, their normalized cross-correlation equals the cosine of the angle between the unit vectors formula_156 and formula_41, being thus formula_158 if and only if formula_156 equals formula_41 multiplied by a positive scalar.


title: Cross-correlation

text: Normalized correlation is one of the methods used for template matching, a process used for finding instances of a pattern or object within an image. It is also the 2-dimensional version of Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.


title: Cross-correlation

text: NCC is similar to ZNCC with the only difference of not subtracting the local mean value of intensities:formula_161


title: Cross-correlation

text: Caution must be applied when using cross correlation for nonlinear systems. In certain circumstances, which depend on the properties of the input, cross correlation between the input and output of a system with nonlinear dynamics can be completely blind to certain nonlinear effects. This problem arises because some quadratic moments can equal zero and this can incorrectly suggest that there is little "correlation" (in the sense of statistical dependence) between two signals, when in fact the two signals are strongly related by nonlinear dynamics.


title: It ain't over till the fat lady sings

text: "It ain't over till ("or" until) the fat lady sings" is a colloquialism which is often used as a proverb. It means that one should not presume to know the outcome of an event which is still in progress. More specifically, the phrase is used when a situation is (or appears to be) nearing its conclusion. It cautions against assuming that the current state of an event is irreversible and clearly determines how or when the event will end. The phrase is most commonly used in association with organized competitions, particularly sports.


title: It ain't over till the fat lady sings

text: The phrase is generally understood to be a reference to opera sopranos, who were traditionally amply contoured. The imagery of Wagner's opera cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen" and its last part, "Götterdämmerung", is typically used in depictions accompanying uses of the phrase. The "fat lady" is thus the valkyrie Brünnhilde, who was traditionally presented as a very buxom lady. Her farewell scene lasts almost twenty minutes and leads directly to the finale of the whole Ring Cycle. As "Götterdämmerung" is about the end of the world (or at least the world of the Norse gods), in a very significant way "it is [all] over when the fat lady sings."


title: It ain't over till the fat lady sings

text: Despite his obvious allegiance to the Red Raiders, Texas Tech sports information director Ralph Carpenter was the picture of professional objectivity when the Aggies rallied for a 72–72 tie late in the SWC tournament finals. "Hey, Ralph," said Bill Morgan, "this... is going to be a tight one after all." "Right", said Ralph, "the opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings."


title: It ain't over till the fat lady sings

text: In the same newspaper on November 26, 2006, Steve Blow followed up the discovery by contacting Bill Morgan about the incident:


title: It ain't over till the fat lady sings

text: Bill vividly remembers the comment and the uproar it caused throughout the press box. He always assumed it was coined on the spot. "Oh, yeah, it was vintage Carpenter. He was one of the world’s funniest guys," said Bill, a contender for that title himself.


title: It ain't over till the fat lady sings

text: The 1976 use of the phrase was discovered by Fred R. Shapiro, who published it in "The Yale Book of Quotations". It had previously been attributed to sportswriter and broadcaster Dan Cook, who used the phrase after the first basketball game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Washington Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) during the 1978 NBA Playoffs. Cook used the line to illustrate that while the Spurs had won once, the series was not over yet. Shapiro called this a notable example of misattribution.


title: Omicron

text: Omicron (; uppercase Ο, lowercase ο, ) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. This letter is derived from the Phoenician letter ayin: . In classical Greek, omicron represented the close-mid back rounded vowel in contrast to "omega" which represented the open-mid back rounded vowel and the digraph "ου" which represented the long close-mid back rounded vowel . In modern Greek, both omicron and omega represent the mid back rounded vowel or . Letters that arose from omicron include Roman O and Cyrillic O. The word literally means "little O" ("o mikron") as opposed to "great O" ("ō mega"). In the system of Greek numerals, omicron has a value of 70.


title: Omicron

text: In addition to its use as an alphabetic letter, omicron is occasionally used in technical notation, but its use is limited since both upper case and lower case (Ο ο) are indistinguishable from the Latin letter "o" (O o) and difficult to distinguish from the Arabic numeral "zero" (0).


title: Omicron

text: The big-O symbol introduced by Paul Bachmann in 1894 and popularized by Edmund Landau in 1909, originally standing for "order of" ("Ordnung") and being thus a Latin letter, was apparently viewed by Donald Knuth in 1976 as a capital Omicron, probably in reference to his definition of the symbol (capital) Omega. Neither Bachmann nor Landau ever call it "Omicron", and the word "Omicron" appears just once in Knuth's paper: in the title.


title: Omicron

text: There were several systems for writing numbers in Greek; the most common form used in late classical era used omicron (either upper or lower case) to represent the value 70.


title: Omicron

text: More generally, the letter omicron is used to mark the fifteenth ordinal position in any Greek-alphabet marked list. So, for example, in Euclid's "Elements", when various points in a geometric diagram are marked with letters, it is effectively the same as marking them with numbers, each letter representing the number of its place in the standard alphabet.


title: Omicron

text: Omicron is used to designate the fifteenth star in a constellation group, its ordinal placement an irregular function of both magnitude and position. Such stars include Omicron Andromedae, Omicron Ceti, and Omicron Persei.


title: Omicron

text: In Claudius Ptolemy's () "Almagest", tables of sexagesimal numbers    are represented in the conventional manner for Greek numbers:


title: Omicron

text: . Since the letter omicron [which represents () in the standard system] is not used in sexagesimal, it is re-purposed to represent an empty number cell. In some copies, zero cells were just left blank (nothing there, value is zero), but to avoid copying errors, positively marking a zero cell with omicron was preferred, for the same reason that blank cells in modern tables are sometimes filled-in with a long dash (—). Both an omicron and a dash imply that ""this isn't a mistake, the cell is actually supposed to be empty"". By coincidence, the ancient zero-value omicron () resembles a modern Hindu-Arabic zero ().


title: Omicron

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the Greek alphabet to describe variants of concern of SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus which causes COVID-19. On November 26, 2021, Omicron was assigned to the B.1.1.529 variant of concern.


title: Omicron

text: In the earliest Greek inscriptions, only five vowel letters A E I O Y were used. Vowel length was undifferentiated, with O representing both the short vowel /o/ and the long vowels /o:/ and /ɔː/. Later, in classical Attic Greek orthography, the three vowels were represented differently, with O representing short /o/, the new letter Ω representing long /ɔː/, and the so-called "spurious diphthong" OY representing long /o:/.


title: Omicron

text: Although the Greeks took the character O from the Phoenician letter "`ayin", they did not borrow its Phoenician name. Instead, the name of the letter O in classical Attic times was simply the long version of its characteric sound: (pronounced /o:/) (that of Ω was likewise ).


title: Omicron

text: By the second and third centuries CE, distinctions between long and short vowels began to disappear in pronunciation, leading to confusion between O and Ω in spelling. It was at this time that the new names of ("small O") for O ("great O") for Ω were introduced.


title: Omicron

text: These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.


title: Bicolor cat

text: A bicolor cat or piebald cat is a cat with white fur combined with fur of some other color, for example black or tabby. There are various patterns of bicolor cat. These range from Turkish Van pattern (color on the crown of the head and the tail only) through to solid color with a throat locket.


title: Bicolor cat

text: Where there is low-to-medium grade white spotting limited to the face, paws, throat and chest of an otherwise black cat, they are known in the United States as a tuxedo cat. High-grade bicolor results in Van-pattern cats. There are many patterns between, such as "cap-and-saddle", "mask-and-mantle" and "magpie" (more randomly splashed). Bicolors are found in many cat breeds, as well as being common in domestic longhair and domestic shorthair cats.


title: Bicolor cat

text: Mostly-solid-color bicolor cats occur because there is a white spotting gene present along with a recessive allele of the agouti gene, which evens out the usual striped pattern of the colors of the coat. In contrast, "tabby" cats have an agouti gene that produces striping of the coat. The Abyssinian has agouti (ticked tabby) fur, giving the appearance of even color with color-banded hairs


title: Bicolor cat

text: White spotting can also occur with any of the tabby patterns, resulting in tabby and white bicolors. Colorpoint (Himalayan pattern) cats can have bicolor points, although this variation is not recognized for showing. The body markings of bicolor colorpoints become clearer with age, as the body fur of colorpoint cats darkens as the cats grow older and the white patches become more visible.


title: Bicolor cat

text: Bicolor cats that are black and white are sometimes called "magpies". The cream and white bicolor cat is the rarest of the bicolors, while the black and white or "blue" (grey) and white are the most common.


title: Bicolor cat

text: Bicoloration in cats is graded from one to ten with one being completely black and ten being completely white. There are also several patterns with their own names. The cat labelled "bicolor" is the preferred pattern in show-quality bicolor purebred cats. The Cat Registry Fédération Internationale Féline (FIFe) states that for a "standard" bicolor coat to compete in shows: “the color patches must be clearly separated from each other, even in color and harmoniously distributed. At least ½ should be colored, but not more than ⅞; the rest is white.” In comparison, The Cat Fancier Organization (CFA) says that “cats with no more than a locket and/or button [patch on chest] do not qualify for this color class.”


title: Bicolor cat

text: Another type of black-and-white bicolor cat is referred to as a "cow cat" or "moo cat" and includes the magpie, cap-and-saddle and mask-and-mantle patterns. A cat cow does not have the solid black "jacket" of the tuxedo cat. Instead, it has large black patches over a mostly white body, often with a black mask over the head. "Black-mask cats" are so called because they look like they are wearing a black mask over their head.


title: Bicolor cat

text: The Turkish Van (white and red) is one good example of a bicolor breed. Van pattern is known to animal geneticists as the Seychelles (Seychellois) pattern and is classified into three variants:


title: Bicolor cat

text: This coloration is not restricted to a specific breed of cat, as it can be found in many different types of pure-breed as well as mixed-breed domestic cats. However, some breeds are especially noted for having bicolor coats in their breed standards. These include the Turkish Van, American Shorthair, Manx, British Shorthair, and Turkish Angora.


title: Bicolor cat

text: In contrast, other common breeds of cat have specific coat patterns specified in their breed standards. Cats with such specific coat patterns include the Russian Blue, which has a coat of one solid color.


title: Bicolor cat

text: The basic colors and patterns of cat fur are defined by fewer than ten genes. Cats with white color in their coats are thought to have a mutant "white-spotting" gene that prevents the formation of coat color in patches over the cat's body. This gene has been investigated in several species, particularly mice, and is co-dominant to normal coat color as it prevents the migration of melanocytes into the developing hair follicles. The genetics of this pattern are not as well understood in cats but at least some of the genes involved in melanocyte migration and survival may play a role similar as in other animals.


title: Bicolor cat

text: Three genotypes possible with the "S" (white spotting) gene, with capital "S" standing for a wild-type copy and lower-case "s" standing for the mutant.


title: Bicolor cat

text: The lack of tabby striping in bicolor cats is controlled by the agouti protein, which inhibits the production of melanin and thus prevents the formation of dark hair colors. In agouti cats the gene is turned on and off as the hair grows, producing hairs with alternating stripes yellow and black. In domestic cats, inactivation of the agouti gene by a deletion mutation causes all-black coat color.


title: Bicolor cat

text: A tuxedo cat, or Felix cat or Julius cat is a bicolor cat with a white and black coat. They are called "tuxedo" cats because they appear to be wearing the type of black tie formal wear commonly known in the United States and Canada as a tuxedo. The tuxedo pattern is not limited to the color black, but the name is typically reserved for black and white cats. Most tuxedo cats are also black-mask cats, a common name for felines who, due to their facial coloration, look as if they are wearing a black mask over their eyes, and often over their entire head. To be considered a true tuxedo cat, the feline's coloring should consist of a solid black coat, with white fur limited to the paws, belly, chest, throat, and often the chin - sometimes the tail, although many tuxedo cats appear to sport goatees, due to the black coloration of their mandible: the lower jaw and chin. Bicolor may also appear in the skin color. Paw pads may be black or pink, often matching the coat in that area; if the color boundary crosses the underside of the paw, the pads on either side may be different colors or even bicolored. White muzzles or vertical stripes are a common attribute of tuxedo cats.


title: Bicolor cat

text: In the United Kingdom, the tuxedo cat became depicted as the "Jellicle cat" in the fictional tribe of nocturnal black and white cats described by T. S. Eliot in "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", which was first published in 1939. In its derivative musical ""Cats"," the tuxedo cat is exemplified by the character of the magical Mr. Mistoffelees, who is portrayed as a stage magician wearing a lacy ruff and bow tie, as well as the character Bustopher Jones whose outfit consists of a tuxedo and spats. The musical differed from the book in that the characters included cats with many different coat colors, rather than just bicolor cats, but it retains the repeated assertion that "Jellicle cats are black and white." Cats with these markings also played a starring role in the drawings illustrating "The Unadulterated Cat", a book written by Terry Pratchett, with cartoons by Gray Jolliffe.


title: Bicolor cat

text: Other well-known cartoon bicolor cats include Sylvester the Cat, Felix the Cat, Tom Cat from "Tom and Jerry", Oggy from "Oggy and the Cockroaches", Cat from "The Cat that Hated People" and "Ventriloquist Cat", Krazy Kat, Jess from "Postman Pat", Kitty Softpaws from the "Shrek" spin-off "Puss in Boots", Figaro, Beans and Sebastian the cat from "Josie and the Pussycats". A bicolor cat named Mittens is one of the main characters in the 2008 Disney animated film "Bolt". Aldwyn from "The Familiars" is a tuxedo cat, while Meowrice (voiced by Paul Frees) from "Gay Purr-ee" is a bicolor. A tuxedo cat is also the protagonist of the popular children's book "Tip-Top Cat", and another is one of the ten breeds of cats in the video game "Minecraft". Morgana, a playable character in the JRPG "Persona 5", is a bicolor cat. Bo, a character from the TV series "Abby Hatcher", is a Fuzzly who resembles a tuxedo cat.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: In psychology, attitude is a psychological construct that is a mental and emotional entity that inheres or characterizes a person, their attitude to approach to something, or their personal view on it. Attitude involves their mindset, outlook and feelings. Attitudes are complex and are an acquired state through life experience. Attitude is an individual's predisposed state of mind regarding a value and it is precipitated through a responsive expression towards oneself, a person, place, thing, or event (the attitude object) which in turn influences the individual's thought and action.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Most simply understood attitudes in psychology are the feelings individuals have about themselves and the world. Prominent psychologist Gordon Allport described this latent psychological construct as "the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology." Attitudes can be formed from a person's past and present. Key topics in the study of attitudes include attitude strength, attitude change, consumer behavior, and attitude-behavior relationships.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: In social psychology, an attitude is an evaluation of an object, ranging from extremely negative to extremely positive. An attitude can belong to both or either a conscious and unconscious mental state. Most contemporary perspectives on attitudes permit that people can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object by simultaneously holding both positive and negative attitudes toward the same object. This has led to some discussion of whether an individual can hold multiple attitudes toward the same object. Additionally, attitude can be defined as a set of emotions or beliefs towards a person, place or event. Attitude can have many different variations of characteristics each one unique in different ways. Researchers suggest that some attitudes are inherited via genetic transmission from our parents.Attitude can also be referred to evaluations in terms of a preference for or against an object. This is commonly in terms such as like, dislike, prefer or hate. When individuals express their attitudes such as "I like to go hiking," or "I hate bugs," individuals are expressing the relationship between the object and oneself and this can be identified as either positive or negative. Attitudes are an important part of how we perceive our behaviors and unique characteristics. Likewise, attitudes can have a profound effect on a person's behavior.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: An attitude can be a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, events, activities, and ideas. Several researchers agree that attitude can be described as a settled and unchanging way of thinking, feeling, or observing people, places, events, or objects. It can be about something which is concrete or abstract. However, there is a debate about precise definitions. "In psychotherapy and counseling, the client’s feeling of rejection or disapproval of the therapist or counselor."  When an individual chooses to respond positively to a situation, they tend to assess situations in a more positive manner and they recognize that they cannot change the past. However, decisions made in the future can impact what happens next. These individuals tend to pay attention to the good in situations rather than the bad. As for an individual with a negative attitude they are more likely to respond to a situation negatively and they tend to look back on a problem. They become so engulfed on the problem they cannot move forward from it. These individuals tend to have a hard time finding the good in situations or event, ignore the good, and focus on the bad in people and in situations. Eagly and Chaiken, for example, define an attitude as "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor." Though it is sometimes common to define an attitude as affect toward an object, affect (i.e., discrete emotions or overall arousal) is generally understood as an evaluative structure used to form an attitude object. Attitude may influence the attention to attitude objects, the use of categories for encoding information and the interpretation, judgement and recall of attitude-relevant information. These influences tend to be more powerful for strong attitudes which are accessible and based on elaborate supportive knowledge structure. The durability and impact of influence depend upon the strength formed from the consistency of heuristics. Attitudes can guide encoding information, attention and behaviors, even if the individual is pursuing unrelated goals.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Attitude is one of Carl Jung's 57 definitions in Chapter XI of "Psychological Types". Jung defines attitude as a "readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way". Attitudes often come in pairs, one conscious and the other unconscious. Within this broad definition, Jung defines several attitudes. The attitude-types, extroversion, and introversion are elementary to Jung's theory of types. He also described a duality of individual and social attitudes.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Jung "[conceived] reason as an attitude", and defined rational and irrational as another attitude duality. The rational attitude subdivides into the thinking and feeling psychological functions, each with its attitude. The irrational attitude subdivides into the sensing and intuition psychological functions, each with its attitude. Jung's attitude types are then expanded into four different types of function: Intuiting, Thinking, Sensing, and Feeling.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: In addition, Jung discusses the abstract attitude: "Abstraction is contrasted with concretism. By this I mean a peculiarity of thinking and feeling which is the antithesis of abstraction".


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: There are two opposing sides to Carl Jung's definition of attitude. Carl Jung believed that there were eight functions of attitude, and two attitude types: introversion and extroversion. People who belong to the introverted attitude type tend to focus inwardly. Oppositely, people with the extroverted attitude type feel more comfortable focusing outwardly. Other traits and characteristics of introversion may include a tendency towards more inner-reflection and enjoying being alone. Extroverted people have a tendency to draw their energy from other people and interact with the world at a much larger rate than introverts.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: The attitude of a person is determined by psychological factors like ideas, values, beliefs, perception, etc. All these have a complex role in contributing to a person's attitude. Values are ideals, guiding principles in one's life, or overarching goals that people strive to obtain. There are many factors that influence attitude such as social factors, family, personal experience, direction instruction, prejudices, media, religious and educational institutions, physical factors and economic factors and occupations. Social factors are influenced by individuals and how they are expected to behavior in social settings referring to societal norms. Family has a huge impact on an individual's attitude whether developing a positive or negative attitude this can be difficult to change. when direction instruction is given to an individual this influences attitude for example a dangerous animal is equivalent to being bad and to run away and fruit is equivalent to being good to eat. prejudices are attitudes that are unbiased opinions prejudged without knowing all of the facts, prejudices can be toward objects, people etc. Mass media plays a role in shaping individual's beliefs and opinions with the help of the radio, television, and social media. religious and educational institutions have a strong influence on shaping attitudes understanding and moral concepts are building blocks for these institutions. In terms of physical factors clinical psychologists have identified that all factors of health are important in attitude adjustment. such ailments such as malnutrition, diseases even accidents can seriously interfere with the disturbance of normal development. Lastly, economic status and occupations contribute to attitude formation this influences individual's attitudes towards unions and management, the belief that certain laws are considered good or bad.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Beliefs are cognitive states about the world—subjective probabilities that an object has a particular attribute or that an action will lead to a particular outcome. Beliefs can be patently and unequivocally false. For example, surveys show that a third of U.S. adults think that vaccines cause autism, despite the preponderance of scientific research to the contrary. It was found that beliefs like these are tenaciously held and are highly resistant to change. Another important factor that affects attitude is symbolic interactionism, these are rife with powerful symbols and charged with affect which can lead to a selective perception. Persuasion theories say that in politics, successful persuaders convince its message recipients into a selective perception or attitude polarization for turning against the opposite candidate through a repetitive process that they are in a noncommittal state and it is unacceptable and doesn't have any moral basis for it and for this they only require to chain the persuading message into a realm of plausibility.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: The classic, tripartite view offered by Rosenberg and Hovland is that an attitude contains cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. Empirical research, however, fails to support clear distinctions between thoughts, emotions, and behavioral intentions associated with a particular attitude. A criticism of the tripartite view of attitudes is that it requires cognitive, affective, and behavioral associations of an attitude to be consistent, but this may be implausible. Thus some views of attitude structure see the cognitive and behavioral components as derivative of affect or affect and behavior as derivative of underlying beliefs. "The cognitive component refers to the beliefs, thoughts, and attributes associated with an object". "The affective component refers to feelings or emotions linked to an attitude object". "The behavioral component refers to behaviors or experiences regarding an attitude object". An example of cognitive component would be people's beliefs in things such as "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", "love at first sight", religious beliefs and an attitude towards believing that snakes carry venom and are dangerous. an example of affective component is a newborn baby being laid is on its mother's chest for the first time for skin-to-skin contact or an attitude towards not liking insects. and finally, an example of the behavioral component would be when going hiking I try to avoid bears, if I see one I will start to scream.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Despite debate about the particular structure of attitudes, there is considerable evidence that attitudes reflect more than evaluations of a particular object that vary from positive to negative. Among numerous attitudes, one example is people's money attitudes which may help people understand their affective love of money motive, stewardship behavior, and money cognition. These ABC components of attitudes formulate, define, and contribute to an overall construct of Monetary Intelligence which, in turn, may be related to many theoretical work-related constructs.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: There is also considerable interest in intra-attitudinal and inter-attitudinal structure, which is how an attitude is made (expectancy and value) and how different attitudes relate to one another. Intra-attitudinal structures are how underlying attitudes are consistent with one another. This connects different attitudes to one another and to more underlying psychological structures, such as values or ideology. Unlike intra-attitudinal structures, inter-attitudinal structures involve the strength of relations of more than one attitude within a network.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: An influential model of attitude is the multi-component model, where attitudes are evaluations of an object that have affective (relating to moods and feelings), behavioral, and cognitive components (the ABC model). The affective component of attitudes refers to feelings or emotions linked to an attitude object. Affective responses influence attitudes in a number of ways. For example, many people are afraid or scared of spiders. So this negative affective response is likely to cause someone to have a negative attitude towards spiders. The behavioral component of attitudes refers to the way an attitude influences how a person acts or behaves. The cognitive component of attitudes refers to the beliefs, thoughts, and attributes that a person associates with an object. Many times a person's attitude might be based on the negative and positive attributes they associate with an object. As a result of assigning negative or positive attributes to a person, place, or object, individuals may behave negatively or positively towards them.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: The MODE (motivation and opportunity as determinants of the attitude-behavior relation) model was developed by Fazio. The MODE model, in short is a theory of attitude evaluation that attempts to predict and explain behavioral outcomes of attitudes. When both are present, behavior will be deliberate. When one is absent, impact on behavior will be spontaneous. A person's attitude can be measured explicitly and implicitly. The model suggests whether attitude activation occurs and, therefore, whether selective perception occurs depends on attitude accessibility. More accessible attitudes are more likely to be activated in a behavioral situation and, therefore, are more likely to influence perceptions and behavior


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Explicit measures are attitudes at the conscious level, that are deliberately formed and easy to self-report. Implicit measures are attitudes that are at an unconscious level, that are involuntarily formed and which a person is typically unaware of. Both explicit and implicit attitudes can shape an individual's behavior. Implicit attitudes, however, are most likely to affect behavior when the demands are steep and an individual feels stressed or distracted.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Another classic view of attitudes is that attitudes serve particular functions for individuals. That is, researchers have tried to understand why individuals hold particular attitudes or why they hold attitudes in general by considering how attitudes affect the individuals who hold them. Daniel Katz, for example, writes that attitudes can serve "instrumental, adjustive or utilitarian," "ego-defensive," "value-expressive," or "knowledge" functions. This functional attitude theory suggests that in order for attitudes to change (e.g., via persuasion), appeals must be made to the function(s) that a particular attitude serves for the individual. As an example, the ego-defensive function might be used to influence the racially prejudicial attitudes of an individual who sees themselves as open-minded and tolerant. By appealing to that individual's image of themselves as tolerant and open-minded, it may be possible to change their prejudicial attitudes to be more consistent with their self-concept. Similarly, a persuasive message that threatens self-image is much more likely to be rejected.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: People adopt attitudes that are rewarding and that help them avoid punishment. In other words, any attitude that is adopted in a person's own self-interest is considered to serve a utilitarian function. For example, a person who has a condo would pay property taxes. If that leads to an attitude that "increases in property taxes are bad", then the attitude is serving a utilitarian function.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Several studies have shown that knowledge increases are associated with heightened attitudes that influence behavior. The framework for knowledge is based on significant values and general principles. Attitudes achieve this goal by making things fit together and make sense. As a result, people can maintain a sense of stability and meaning within their worldview. For example:


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: When a person is relying on a single dimension of knowledge and that dimension isn't directly related to their behavior goal, that person might conclude that the attitude is wrong.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: This function involves psychoanalytic principles where people use defense mechanisms to protect themselves from psychological harm. Mechanisms include denial, repression, projection, and rationalization.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: The ego-defensive notion correlates with Downward Comparison Theory, which argues that derogating a less fortunate other increases a person's own subjective well-being. A person is more likely to use the ego-defensive function when they suffer a frustration or misfortune.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Identity and social approval are established by central values that reveal who we are and what we stand for. Individuals define and interpret situations based on their central values. An example would be attitudes toward a controversial political issue.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: According to Doob in 1947, learning can account for most of the attitudes a person holds. The study of attitude formation is the study of how people form evaluations of persons, places or things. Theories of classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning and social learning are mainly responsible for formation of attitude. Unlike personality, attitudes are expected to change as a function of experience. In addition, exposure to the 'attitude' objects may have an effect on how a person forms his or her attitude. This concept was seen as the mere-exposure effect. Robert Zajonc showed that people were more likely to have a positive attitude on 'attitude objects' when they were exposed to it frequently than if they were not. Mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attitude toward it. Tesser in 1993 argued that hereditary variables may affect attitudes - but believes that they do so indirectly. For example, consistency theories, which imply that beliefs and values must be consistent. As with any type of heritability, to determine if a particular trait has a basis in genetics, twin studies are used. The most famous example of such a theory is Dissonance-reduction theory, associated with Leon Festinger, which explains that when the components of an attitude (including belief and behavior) are at odds an individual may adjust one to match the other (for example, adjusting a belief to match a behavior). Other theories include balance theory, originally proposed by Heider in 1958, and the self-perception theory, originally proposed by Daryl Bem.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Attitudes can be changed through persuasion and an important domain of research on attitude change focuses on responses to communication. Experimental research into the factors that can affect the persuasiveness of a message include:


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Emotion is a common component in persuasion, social influence, and attitude change. Much of attitude research emphasized the importance of affective or emotion components. Emotion works hand-in-hand with the cognitive, or thought, process about an issue or situation. Emotional appeals are commonly found in advertising, health campaigns and political messages. Recent examples include no-smoking health campaigns and political campaign advertising emphasizing the fear of terrorism. Attitudes and attitude objects are functions of cognitive, affective and cognitive components. Attitudes are part of the brain's associative networks, the spider-like structures residing in long-term memory that consist of affective and cognitive nodes.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: By activating an affective or emotion node, attitude change may be possible, though affective and cognitive components tend to be intertwined. One may be able to change their attitudes with attitude correctness, which varies with the level of confidence they have in their attitude validity and accuracy. In general, the higher the confidence level, the more the person believes others around them should share the same attitude. As we learn other people share those attitudes and how socially acceptable, they are, the importance of attitude correctness becomes even more apparent. In primarily affective networks, it is more difficult to produce cognitive counterarguments in the resistance to persuasion and attitude change. The idea of attitude clarity refers to a feeling of security or uncertainty about a particular attitude, a feeling strengthened by the act of reporting one's particular attitude towards an issue or thing, which will make that attitude more crystallized.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Affective forecasting, otherwise known as intuition or the prediction of emotion, also impacts attitude change. Research suggests that predicting emotions is an important component of decision making, in addition to the cognitive processes. How a person feels about an outcome may override purely cognitive rationales.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: In terms of research methodology, the challenge for researchers is measuring emotion and subsequent impacts on attitude. Various models and measurement tools have been constructed to obtain emotion and attitude information. Measures may include the use of physiological cues like facial expressions, vocal changes, and other body rate measures. For instance, fear is associated with raised eyebrows, increased heart rate and increase body tension. Other methods include concept or network mapping and using primes or word cues in the era.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Any discrete emotion can be used in a persuasive appeal; this may include jealousy, disgust, indignation, fear, blue, disturbed, haunted, and anger. Fear is one of the most studied emotional appeals in communication and social influence research.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Important consequences of fear appeals and other emotional appeals include the possibility of reactance which may lead to either message rejections or source rejection and the absence of attitude change. As the EPPM suggests, there is an optimal emotion level in motivating attitude change. If there is not enough motivation, an attitude will not change; if the emotional appeal is overdone, the motivation can be paralyzed thereby preventing attitude change.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Emotions perceived as negative or containing threat are often studied more than perceived positive emotions like humor. Though the inner-workings of humor are not agreed upon, humor appeals may work by creating incongruities in the mind. Recent research has looked at the impact of humor on the processing of political messages. While evidence is inconclusive, there appears to be potential for targeted attitude change is receivers with low political message involvement.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Important factors that influence the impact of emotional appeals include self-efficacy, attitude accessibility, issue involvement, and message/source features. Self efficacy is a person's perception of their agency or ability to deal with a situation. It is an important variable in emotional appeal messages because it dictates a person's ability to deal with both the emotion and the situation. For example, if a person is not self-efficacious about their ability to impact the global environment, they are not likely to change their attitude or behavior about global warming.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Dillard in 1994 suggested that message features such as source non-verbal communication, message content, and receiver differences can impact the emotion impact of fear appeals. The characteristics of a message are important because one message can elicit different levels of emotion for different people. Thus, in terms of emotional appeals messages, one size does not fit all.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Attitude accessibility refers to the activation of an attitude from memory in other words, how readily available is an attitude about an object, issue, or situation. Issue involvement is the relevance and salience of an issue or situation to an individual. Issue involvement has been correlated with both attitude access and attitude strength. Past studies conclude accessible attitudes are more resistant to change.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: The effects of attitudes on behaviors is a growing research enterprise within psychology. Icek Ajzen has led research and helped develop two prominent theoretical approaches within this field: the theory of reasoned action and, its theoretical descendant, the theory of planned behavior. Both theories help explain the link between attitude and behavior as a controlled and deliberative process.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: The theory of reasoned action (TRA) is a model for the prediction of behavioral intention, spanning predictions of attitude and predictions of behavior. The subsequent separation of behavioral intention from behavior allows for explanation of limiting factors on attitudinal influence. The theory of reasoned action was developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen, derived from previous research that started out as the theory of attitude, which led to the study of attitude and behavior. The theory was "born largely out of frustration with traditional attitude–behavior research, much of which found weak correlations between attitude measures and performance of volitional behaviors".


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: The theory of planned behavior suggests that behaviors are primarily influenced by the attitude and other intentions. The theory of planned behavior was proposed by Icek Ajzen in 1985 through his article "From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior." The theory was developed from the theory of reasoned action, which was proposed by Martin Fishbein together with Icek Ajzen in 1975. The theory of reasoned action was in turn grounded in various theories of attitude such as learning theories, expectancy-value theories, consistency theories, and attribution theory. According to the theory of reasoned action, if people evaluate the suggested behavior as positive (attitude), and if they think their significant others want them to perform the behavior (subjective norm), this results in a higher intention (motivation) and they are more likely to do so. A high correlation of attitudes and subjective norms to behavioral intention, and subsequently to behavior, has been confirmed in many studies. The theory of planned behavior contains the same component as the theory of reasoned action, but adds the component of perceived behavioral control to account for barriers outside one's own control.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Russell H. Fazio proposed an alternative theory called "Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants" or MODE. Fazio believes that because there is deliberative process happening, individuals must be motivated to reflect on their attitudes and subsequent behaviors. Simply put, when an attitude is automatically activated, the individual must be motivated to avoid making an invalid judgement as well as have the opportunity to reflect on their attitude and behavior.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: A counter-argument against the high relationship between behavioral intention and actual behavior has also been proposed, as the results of some studies show that, because of circumstantial limitations, behavioral intention does not always lead to actual behavior. Namely, since behavioral intention cannot be the exclusive determinant of behavior where an individual's control over the behavior is incomplete, Ajzen introduced the theory of planned behavior by adding a new component, "perceived behavioral control." By this, he extended the theory of reasoned action to cover non-volitional behaviors for predicting behavioral intention and actual behavior.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: In 1928 Louis Leon Thurstone published an article titled "Attitudes Can Be Measured" in it he proposed an elaborate procedure to assess people's views on social issues. Attitudes can be difficult to measure because measurement is arbitrary, because attitudes are ultimately a hypothetical construct that cannot be observed directly.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: But many measurements and evidence proofed scales are used to examine attitudes. A Likert scale taps agreement or disagreement with a series of belief statements. The Guttman scale focuses on items that vary in their degree of psychological difficulty. The semantic differential uses bipolar adjectives to measure the meaning associated with attitude objects. Supplementing these are several indirect techniques such as unobtrusive, standard physiological, and neuroscientific measures. Following the explicit-implicit dichotomy, attitudes can be examined through direct and indirect measures.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Whether attitudes are explicit (i.e., deliberately formed) versus implicit (i.e., subconscious) has been a topic of considerable research. Research on implicit attitudes, which are generally unacknowledged or outside of awareness, uses sophisticated methods involving people's response times to stimuli to show that implicit attitudes exist (perhaps in tandem with explicit attitudes of the same object). Implicit and explicit attitudes seem to affect people's behavior, though in different ways. They tend not to be strongly associated with each other, although in some cases they are. The relationship between them is poorly understood.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Explicit measures tend to rely on self-reports or easily observed behaviors. These tend to involve bipolar scales (e.g., good-bad, favorable-unfavorable, support-oppose, etc.). Explicit measures can also be used by measuring the straightforward attribution of characteristics to nominate groups. Explicit attitudes that develop in response to recent information, automatic evaluation were thought to reflect mental associations through early socialization experiences. Once formed, these associations are highly robust and resistant to change, as well as stable across both context and time. Hence the impact of contextual influences was assumed to be obfuscate assessment of a person's "true" and enduring evaluative disposition as well as limit the capacity to predict subsequent behavior. Likert scales and other self-reports are also commonly used.


title: Attitude (psychology)

text: Implicit measures are not consciously directed and are assumed to be automatic, which may make implicit measures more valid and reliable than explicit measures (such as self-reports). For example, people can be motivated such that they find it socially desirable to appear to have certain attitudes. An example of this is that people can hold implicit prejudicial attitudes, but express explicit attitudes that report little prejudice. Implicit measures help account for these situations and look at attitudes that a person may not be aware of or want to show. Implicit measures therefore usually rely on an indirect measure of attitude. For example, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) examines the strength between the target concept and an attribute element by considering the latency in which a person can examine two response keys when each has two meanings. With little time to carefully examine what the participant is doing they respond according to internal keys. This priming can show attitudes the person has about a particular object. People are often unwilling to provide responses perceived as socially undesirable and therefore tend to report what they think their attitudes should be rather than what they know them to be. More complicated still, people may not even be consciously aware that they hold biased attitudes. Over the past few decades, scientists have developed new measures to identify these unconscious biases.


title: Spud Webb

text: Anthony Jerome "Spud" Webb (born July 13, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player. Webb, who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA), is known for winning a Slam Dunk Contest despite being one of the shortest players in NBA history, being listed at tall. He is currently the president of basketball operations for the Texas Legends, the NBA G League team for the Dallas Mavericks in Frisco, Texas.


title: Spud Webb

text: Webb was born into poverty in Dallas, Texas. He was raised in a small two-bedroom home and saw basketball as an inspiration. Webb was not tall, but he used his quickness and jumping ability to outplay bigger kids. Starting in the seventh grade, Webb was told that he was too short to play basketball. He got a chance to play on his junior high team only after two players did not complete physical exam requirements in time for the first game. Webb scored 22 points in his first game. He could dunk the ball when he was tall. At Wilmer-Hutchins High School, he played on the junior varsity team and made a large impact; when he made the varsity team, he averaged 26 points per game as a senior.


title: Spud Webb

text: Despite his impressive high school record, Webb attracted little interest from colleges. He was recruited by North Texas Basketball Coach Bill Blakeley (who would later become his agent throughout his NBA career) but received his first opportunity to play on a college basketball team at Midland College (in Midland, Texas), where he led the Chaparrals to the junior college national title in 1982. In the championship game, Midland defeated top-ranked and previously unbeaten Miami-Dade North of Florida, 93-88, in double overtime. Webb led all scorers in with 36 points, shooting 10-15 from the floor and 16-18 from the line. His performance at the tournament earned Webb a write-up in "Sports Illustrated" and national attention. In 1983, he was named an NJCAA All-American by the National Junior College Athletic Association.


title: Spud Webb

text: Webb was planning to transfer to North Texas to play for Bill Blakeley but Blakeley was fired in May 1983 and Spud prepared to go work with his Dad at Webb’s Soul Mart near Fair Park in Dallas. Coach Blakeley reached out to his friend, Tom Abatemarco, an assistant coach at North Carolina State University, and took him to watch Spud play in a summer league game at MLK Recreation Center. Abatemarco was impressed and arranged for Webb to meet head coach Jim Valvano, who offered Webb a scholarship. In college, his vertical leap was measured at . He played for NC State in the 1983–84 and 1984-85 seasons, averaging 10.4 points and 5.7 assists.


title: Spud Webb

text: Most scouts predicted that Webb would end up playing in either Europe or for the Harlem Globetrotters because of his height. However, Webb was drafted in the 4th round of the 1985 NBA draft by the Detroit Pistons. After the guard-loaded Pistons released Spud, his agent, Bill Blakeley arranged for a tryout with the Atlanta Hawks where Spud beat out several seasoned guards to make the opening roster.


title: Spud Webb

text: Webb played his first six seasons with the Atlanta Hawks before he was traded to the Sacramento Kings for Travis Mays, where he had his best years statistically and played as a starter from 1992–1995. Webb posted career highs of 16.0 points and 7.1 assists per game in his first season with the Kings. He also led the NBA in free throw shooting in his last season in Sacramento, shooting 93.4 percent in 1994-95 (after shooting 81.3 percent the previous season).


title: Spud Webb

text: Webb played half of the 1995-96 season with the Hawks before he was traded with Andrew Lang to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Christian Laettner and Sean Rooks.


title: Spud Webb

text: Webb finished his career after one season with the Orlando Magic, ultimately retiring from professional basketball in 1997.


title: Spud Webb

text: Webb had over 50 games with 20 points or more including a career high 34 points against the Golden State Warriors on April 21, 1993 and a career high 18 assists against the Detroit Pistons on April 19, 1986. Webb played 814 games in his NBA career, averaging 9.9 points per game, and registering 8,072 points and 4,342 assists in twelve seasons.


title: Spud Webb

text: Since Webb made his NBA debut, only two players have been shorter than he was: Muggsy Bogues and Earl Boykins.


title: Spud Webb

text: Webb was the shortest person to compete in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, winning the event in 1986 at Dallas' Reunion Arena. His participation surprised the media; including his teammate and defending dunk champion Dominique Wilkins, who had "never seen me dunk before", Webb said. His dunks included the elevator two-handed double pump dunk, the off-the-backboard one-handed jam, a 360-degree helicopter one-handed dunk, a reverse double-pump slam, and finally, the reverse two-handed strawberry jam from a lob bounce off the floor. He defeated Wilkins with two perfect 50-point scores in the final round. Atlanta coach Mike Fratello said, "Spud kind of duped him. He told Wilkins he never had anything prepared, didn't practice for it. So, Wilkins maybe thought his normal assortment would be good enough to get through". Twenty years after Webb's victory in the Slam Dunk contest, he trained New York Knicks point guard Nate Robinson (who stands at 5 feet 9 inches tall) to win the event. Webb tossed the ball to Robinson, who leaped over Webb and dunked, earning 50 points from the judges. Robinson went on to win, making him and Spud the only two people in NBA history under six feet tall to win a slam dunk contest.


title: Spud Webb

text: The 1986 Slam Dunk victory along with his play as a rookie and fan favorite helped Webb to garner dozens of national endorsements from companies such as Pony Shoes, Coca-Cola, Church’s Fried Chicken, Baden Basketball, Hardee’s Hamburgers, Sunkist Oranges, Southland Corp and Chips Ahoy!


title: Spud Webb

text: Webb was a judge for the 2010 Dunk contest in Dallas, at the American Airlines Center. It was the first time the event had been in Dallas since Webb's win in 1986.


title: Reema Sen

text: Reema Sen (born 29 October 1981) is an Indian actress and model who primarily appeared in Bengali theatre films, Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi films.


title: Reema Sen

text: Sen was born in Kolkata on 29 October 1981. She completed high school from St. Thomas Girls School in Kidderpore, Kolkata, after which her family moved to Mumbai.


title: Reema Sen

text: Reema Sen married businessman Shiv Karan Singh in 2012. She gave birth to their son, Rudraveer, on 22 February 2013.


title: Reema Sen

text: In Mumbai, she began her modelling career, appearing in a number of advertising campaigns. She then moved to films and made her acting debut with Telugu film "Chitram", in which she acted opposite Uday Kiran, whom she later paired with in "Manasantha Nuvve". She also appeared in the Tamil film "Minnale" alongside Madhavan, which was very successful. Her first Hindi film "Hum Ho Gaye Aapke" flopped, and she decided to continue working in Tamil cinema. Her appearance in the Tamil film "Rendu", again alongside Madhavan, was successful. Audience found her expressions in the film "Thimiru" cute. Her negative role in "Aayirathil Oruvan" and "Vallavan" was highly praised by viewers and critics.


title: Reema Sen

text: She ended her film career in 2012 after she got married. Her last Bollywood film was Gangs of Wasseypur alongside Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Richa Chadda.


title: Reema Sen

text: In April 2006, a Madurai court issued non-bailable warrants against Sen and Shilpa Shetty for "posing in an obscene manner" in photographs published by the Tamil newspaper "Dinakaran", owned by Sun Group. The report stated that the two actresses had failed to comply with earlier summons for the same reason, hence the issuance of the warrants. The petitioner submitted that the paper had published ""very sexy blow-ups and medium blow-ups"" in its December 2005 and January 2006 issues, and which allegedly violated the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act 1986, Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1956, and the Indian Penal Code Section 292 (Sale of Obscene Books). The petitioner further demanded that the images should be confiscated under the terms of the Press and Registration of Book Act 1867.


title: Reema Sen

text: In January 2007, outgoing Chief Justice Y. K. Sabharwal confirmed that Sen had written to him in order to enunciate guidelines against frivolous lawsuits against artists, but declined her plea on the grounds that she should have filed a formal petition instead of writing a letter.


title: Local 58

text: Local 58 is a horror web series created by cartoonist Kris Straub. The series is a spin off of Straub's "Candle Cove" creepypasta. Currently hosted on the YouTube channel LOCAL58TV, each video in the series is presented as footage of a fictional public access television channel located in Mason County, West Virginia named Local 58, with the call sign WCLV-TV, created in the late 1930s, which is continuously hijacked over a period of decades with a series of ominous and surreal broadcasts. While the series does not appear to have a continuous plot, nearly every episode seems to include cryptic references related to looking at the Moon or at the night sky, as well as references to the in-universe organization known as the Thought Research Initiative (TRI).


title: Local 58

text: The series makes use of video and audio degradation to add to the realism and unsettling nature of each video. The series describes itself as "analog horror", a term that has since been used as a name for a niche subgenre of similar VHS-themed found footage web series that were either inspired by "Local 58" or use a similar style and techniques to the series. The series was initially hosted on the now-defunct web domain local58.info in 2015 and was later uploaded onto YouTube in 2017 and 2018. The series has since gained a cult following.


title: Local 58

text: A website called local58.tv was created in September 2021 as an extension of the main storyline. The website features a "LookBack Web Archive" similar to the web archive service Wayback Machine, and features numerous Easter eggs and plot points for an associated alternate reality game that offers further detail on "Local 58"s continuity.


title: Local 58

text: "Local 58" consists of ten episodes. The first nine range from less than 1 minute to 5 minutes in run time, while the tenth is nearly 30 minutes long. The episodes were originally uploaded to a separate website, however, as of late 2018, all episodes are now uploaded to YouTube.


title: Local 58

text: A television station called "Channel 58" first appeared in Straub's creepypasta "Candle Cove", which took the form of an Internet forum thread about a bizarre children's program of the same name airing on the network. The show featured a human girl named Janice imagining to be friends with pirates played by string marionettes. The villain was a skeleton known as the "Skin-Taker" who wore clothing made from the human skin of dead children. Over the thread the details of the show grow more disturbing, until the users remember that it contained an episode of all of the pirates manically screaming as Janice inconsolably sobbed. The story concludes with a user stating that when he asked his mother in a nursing home about the show, she claimed that he would tune the television to static and watch the screen. Straub has confirmed on Reddit that the channel is the same one featured in the web series, and that the call sign WCLV is a reference to Candle Cove ("CLV = CandLe coVe").


title: Local 58

text: Themes from other pieces of Straub's work appear in "Local 58", such as the animated skeleton Cadavre, who appeared initially in Straub's webcomic Broodhollow and then in the "Local 58" episode "Show for Children."


title: Local 58

text: Straub has identified themes of the series as "stillness, distrust of safety warnings, misuse of mass perception, parallel science that arises from unexamined bad intent, dogmatic thought."


title: Local 58

text: Straub used iMovie to create the first two episodes of "Local 58" and Final Cut Pro X for the other episodes. All of the assets used in the series either come from public domain stock media (for example, the "2000's" Local 58 music, a stock track called "Entering Graciously") or created by Straub himself using Clip Studio, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash.


title: Local 58

text: Since its initial debut, "Local 58" has inspired the creation of other series with similar themes, including "Channel 7", "Analog Archives", "Eventide Media Center", and "Gemini Home Entertainment". It has been noted as definitive and arguably the first within its genre.


title: Local 58

text: As of July 5, 2022, the "Local 58" YouTube page has over 528,000 subscribers and more than 19,000,000 views with just nine videos.


title: Local 58

text: A subreddit dedicated to the series was created on August 8, 2016, and currently has 23,700 followers as of May 1, 2022. Many fans of the series have created theories as to the possible meanings or overarching narrative of the videos, both on the subreddit and on YouTube. Straub himself has answered some questions about the series on the subreddit.


title: Local 58

text: On July 4, 2022, YouTube marked one "Local 58" episode, "Show for Children," as "for kids", which disables user comments to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. After Straub appealed YouTube's decision via in-site and other social media support avenues, it was reverted back to its original settings on July 6. This has sparked renewed discussions about Elsagate and concerns regarding YouTube's moderation algorithms.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: Jagat Prakash Nadda (born 2 December 1960) is an Indian lawyer and politician serving as the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 20 January 2020. He was the BJP's working president from June 2019 to January 2020.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: Nadda is the former Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, and member of Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh and Parliamentary Board Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party. Earlier, he was a Minister in Himachal Pradesh Government.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: Nadda was born on 2 December 1960 in Patna, Bihar in the family of Narain Lall Nadda and Krishna Nadda, with roots in Himachal Pradesh. He has a brother named Jagat Bhushan Nadda.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: Nadda was educated at St. Xavier's School, Patna. Thereafter he did his B.A. from Patna College, Patna University and LL.B. from Faculty of Law, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla. As a child, he represented Bihar in the All India Junior Swimming Championship held at Delhi. Nadda married Mallika Nadda (née Banerjee) on 11 December 1991, with whom he has two sons. His mother-in-law Jayashree Banerjee was elected to Lok Sabha in 1999.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: Nadda was first elected to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly in the election of 1993 from Bilaspur. He was re-elected in 1998.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: During his first term, he served as the Leader of his party group in the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, from 1994 to 1998. He was the Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Parliamentary Affairs during his second term.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: Nadda was elected for another term in the 2007 elections. After Prem Kumar Dhumal formed a government, he inducted Nadda into his cabinet, as cabinet minister responsible for Forest, Environment, Science and Technology, from 2008 to 2010.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: Nadda did not seek re-election to the Legislative Assembly in 2012, and instead got elected to Rajya Sabha, Indian Parliament's upper chamber. In 2014, during a cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made Nadda, the Minister of Health.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: Nadda was appointed the national working president of the BJP in June 2019. On 20 January 2020, he was elected unanimously as the BJP National President, a role he took from Amit Shah.


title: J. P. Nadda

text: In January 2021 in Bardhaman, West Bengal, Nadda started a new scheme "Ek Muthi Chaawal Yojana". In September 2022 he got extension to be the party chief till 2024 Lok Sabha polls.


title: Samantha Smith

text: Samantha Reed Smith (June 29, 1972 – August 25, 1985) was an American peace activist and child actress from Manchester, Maine, who became famous for her anti-war outreaches during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1982, Smith wrote a letter to the newly appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov, and received a personal reply with an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, which she accepted.


title: Samantha Smith

text: Smith attracted extensive media attention in both countries as a "Goodwill Ambassador", becoming known as America's Youngest Ambassador and subsequently participating in peacemaking activities in Japan. With the assistance of her father, Arthur, (an academic), she wrote a book titled "Journey to the Soviet Union", which chronicled her visit to the country. She later became a child actress, hosting a child-oriented special on the 1984 United States presidential election for The Disney Channel and playing a co-starring role in the television series "Lime Street". Smith died at the age of 13 on August 25, 1985, onboard Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808, which crashed short of the runway on final approach to the Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport in Maine.


title: Samantha Smith

text: When Yuri Andropov succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the Soviet Union in November 1982, the mainstream Western newspapers and magazines ran numerous front-page photographs and articles about him. Most coverage was negative and tended to give a perception of a new threat to the stability of the Western world. Andropov had been the Soviet Ambassador to Hungary during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the Chairman of the KGB from 1967 to 1982; during his tenure, he was known in the West for crushing the Prague Spring and the brutal suppression of dissidents, such as Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He began his tenure as Soviet leader by strengthening the powers of the KGB, and by suppressing dissidents. According to Vasili Mitrokhin, Andropov saw the struggle for human rights as a part of a wide-ranging imperialist plot to undermine the foundation of the Soviet state. Much international tension surrounded both Soviet and American efforts to develop weapons capable of being launched from satellites in orbit. Both governments had extensive research and development programs to develop such technology. However, both nations were coming under increasing pressure to disband the project. In the United States, President Ronald Reagan came under pressure from a lobby of U.S. scientists and arms experts, while in the Soviet Union the government issued a statement that read, "To prevent the militarization of space is one of the most urgent tasks facing mankind".


title: Samantha Smith

text: At the time, large anti-nuclear protests were taking place across both Europe and North America, in the midst of which the November 20, 1983, screening of ABC's post-nuclear war dramatization "The Day After" became one of the most anticipated media events of the decade.


title: Samantha Smith

text: The two superpowers had by this point abandoned their strategy of "détente" and in response to the deployment of cruise and Pershing II missiles from Reagan in Europe, the Soviet Union deployed its SS-20s. The 1979–1989 Soviet–Afghan War was also into its third year. In this atmosphere, on November 22, 1982, "Time" magazine published an issue with Andropov on the cover. When Smith viewed the edition, she asked her mother: "If people are so afraid of him, why doesn't someone write a letter asking whether he wants to have a war or not?" Her mother replied, "Why don't you?"


title: Samantha Smith

text: Samantha Smith was born on June 29, 1972, in the small town of Houlton, Maine, on the Canada–United States border, to Jane Goshorn and Arthur Smith. At the age of five, she wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth II in order to express her admiration to the British monarch. When Smith had finished second grade in spring 1980, the family settled in Manchester, Maine, where she attended Manchester Elementary School. Her father served as an instructor at Ricker College in Houlton before teaching literature and writing at the University of Maine at Augusta while her mother worked as a social worker with the Maine Department of Human Services.


title: Samantha Smith

text: In November 1982, when Smith was 10 years old, she wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, seeking to understand why Soviet Union–United States relations were so tense:


title: Samantha Smith

text: Smith was happy to discover that her letter had been published; however, she had not received a reply. She then sent a letter to Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin asking if Andropov intended to respond. On April 26, 1983, she received a response from Andropov:


title: Samantha Smith

text: A media circus ensued, with Smith being interviewed by Ted Koppel and Johnny Carson, among others, and with nightly reports by the major American networks. On July 7, 1983, she flew to Moscow with her parents, and spent two weeks as Andropov's guest. During the trip she visited Moscow and Leningrad and spent time in Artek, the main Soviet pioneer camp, in the town of Gurzuf on the Crimean Peninsula. Smith wrote in her book that in Leningrad she and her parents were amazed by the friendliness of the people and by the presents many people made for them. Speaking at a Moscow press conference, she declared that the Russians were "just like us". In Artek, Smith chose to stay with the Soviet children rather than accept the privileged accommodations offered to her. For ease of communication, teachers and children who spoke fluent English were chosen to stay in the building where she was lodged. Smith shared a dormitory with nine other girls, and spent her time there swimming, talking and learning Russian songs and dances. While there, she made many friends, including Natasha Kashirina from Leningrad, a fluent English speaker.


title: Samantha Smith

text: Andropov, however, was unable to meet with her during her visit, although they did speak by telephone. It was later discovered that Andropov had become seriously ill and had withdrawn from the public eye during this time. Smith also received a phone call from Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to orbit the Earth. However, not realizing with whom she was speaking, Samantha mistakenly hung up after only a brief conversation. Media followed her every step—photographs and articles about her were published by the main Soviet newspapers and magazines throughout her trip and after it. Smith became widely known to Soviet citizens and was well regarded by many of them. In the United States, the event drew suspicion and some regarded it as an "American-style public relations stunt".


title: Samantha Smith

text: Smith's return to the U.S. on July 22, 1983, was celebrated by the people of Maine with roses, a red carpet, and a limousine and her popularity continued to grow in her native country. Some critics at the time remained skeptical, believing Smith was unwittingly serving as an instrument of Soviet propaganda. In December 1983, continuing in her role as "America's Youngest Ambassador", she was invited to Japan, where she met with the Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and attended the Children's International Symposium in Kobe. In her speech at the symposium, she suggested that Soviet and American leaders exchange granddaughters for two weeks every year, arguing that a president "wouldn't want to send a bomb to a country his granddaughter would be visiting". Her trip inspired other exchanges of child goodwill ambassadors, including a visit by the eleven-year-old Soviet child Katya Lycheva to the United States. Later, Smith wrote a book called "Journey to the Soviet Union" whose cover shows her at Artek, her favorite part of the Soviet trip.


title: Samantha Smith

text: Smith pursued her role as a media celebrity when in 1984, billed as a "Special Correspondent", she hosted a children's special for The Disney Channel entitled "Samantha Smith Goes To Washington... Campaign '84". The show covered politics, where Smith interviewed several candidates for the 1984 Democratic Party presidential primaries, including George McGovern, John Glenn and Jesse Jackson. That same year, she guest starred in "Charles in Charge" as Kim, alongside another celebrity guest star, Julianne McNamara. Her fame resulted in Smith becoming the subject of stalker Robert John Bardo, the man who would later go on to stalk and ultimately murder "My Sister Sam" actress Rebecca Schaeffer. Bardo traveled to Maine in an attempt to meet Smith, but was stopped by police and returned home.


title: Samantha Smith

text: In 1985, she played the co-starring role of the elder daughter to Robert Wagner's character in the television series "Lime Street".


title: Samantha Smith

text: On August 25, 1985, Smith and her father were returning home aboard Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 after filming a segment for "Lime Street". While attempting to land at Lewiston-Auburn Regional Airport in Auburn, Maine, the Beechcraft 99 commuter plane struck some trees short of the runway and crashed, killing all six passengers and two crew on board. Much speculation regarding the cause of the accident circulated afterwards. Accusations of foul play circulated widely in the Soviet Union. An investigation was undertaken in the United States and the official report—which did not show evidence of foul play—was made public. The report said the plane crashed one mile (1.6 km) south-west of the airport at 22:05 EDT, and concluded that "the relatively steep flight path angle and the attitude (the orientation of the aircraft relative to the horizon, direction of motion etc.) and speed of the airplane at ground impact precluded the occupants from surviving the accident." The report said it was a rainy night, that the pilots operating the aircraft were inexperienced, and an accidental, but not uncommon and not usually critical, ground radar failure occurred.


title: Samantha Smith

text: About 1,000 people attended Smith's funeral in Augusta, Maine, and she was eulogized in Moscow as a champion of peace. Attendees included Robert Wagner and Vladimir Kulagin of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., who read a personal message of condolence from Mikhail Gorbachev.


title: Samantha Smith

text: Everyone in the Soviet Union who has known Samantha Smith will forever remember the image of the American girl who, like millions of Soviet young men and women, dreamt about peace, and about friendship between the peoples of the United States and the Soviet Union.