title: Soviet war crimes

text: According to the United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the problem of Hungary (1957): "Soviet tanks fired indiscriminately at every building from which they believed themselves to be under fire." The UN commission received numerous reports of Soviet mortar and artillery fire into inhabited quarters in the Buda section of the city, despite no return fire, and of "haphazard shooting at defenseless passers-by."


title: Soviet war crimes

text: During the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 in Slovakia), 266 seriously wounded and another 436 lightly wounded.


title: Soviet war crimes

text: Scholars Mohammad Kakar, W. Michael Reisman and Charles Norchi believe that the Soviet Union was guilty of committing a genocide in Afghanistan. The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance. Up to 2 million Afghans were killed by the Soviet forces and their proxies. In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980. One notable war crime was the Laghman massacre in April 1985 in the villages of Kas-Aziz-Khan, Charbagh, Bala Bagh, Sabzabad, Mamdrawer, Haider Khan and Pul-i-Joghi in the Laghman Province. At least 500 civilians were killed. In the Kulchabat, Bala Karz and Mushkizi massacre on 12 October 1983 the Red Army gathered 360 people at the village square and shot them, including 20 girls and over a dozen older people. The Rauzdi massacre and Padkhwab-e Shana massacre were also documented.


title: Soviet war crimes

text: In order to separate the mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed and drove off civilians, and used scorched earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country. The Soviet army indiscriminately killed combatants and noncombatants to ensure submission by the local populations. The provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, Lagham, Kunar, Zabul, Qandahar, Badakhshan, Lowgar, Paktia and Paktika witnessed extensive depopulation programmes by the Soviet forces. The Soviet forces abducted Afghan women in helicopters while flying in the country in search of mujahideen. In November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. Soviet soldiers as well as KhAD agents kidnapped young women from the city of Kabul and the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons, to rape them. Women who were taken and raped by Russian soldiers were considered 'dishonoured' by their families if they returned home. Deserters from the Soviet Army in 1984 also confirmed the atrocities by the Soviet troops on Afghan women and children, stating that Afghan women were being raped. The rape of Afghan women by Soviet troops was common and 11.8 percent of the Soviet war criminals in Afghanistan were convicted for the offence of rape. There was an outcry against the press in the Soviet Union for depicting the Russian "war heroes" as "murderers", "aggressors", "rapists" and "junkies".


title: Soviet war crimes

text: Black January (), also known as Black Saturday or the January Massacre, was a violent crackdown in Baku on 19–20 January 1990, pursuant to a state of emergency during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.


title: Soviet war crimes

text: In a resolution of 22 January 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR declared that the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 19 January, used to impose emergency rule in Baku and military deployment, constituted an act of aggression. Black January is associated with the rebirth of the Azerbaijan Republic. It was one of the occasions during the "glasnost" and "perestroika" era in which the USSR used force against dissidents.


title: Soviet war crimes

text: In 1995, Latvian courts sentenced former KGB officer Alfons Noviks to a life in prison for genocide due to forced deportations in the 1940s.


title: Soviet war crimes

text: In 2003, August Kolk (born 1924), an Estonian national, and Petr Kislyiy (born 1921), a Russian national, were convicted of crimes against humanity by Estonian courts and each sentenced to eight years in prison. They were found guilty of deportations of Estonians in 1949. Kolk and Kislyiy lodged a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights, alleging that the Criminal Code of 1946 of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) was valid at the time, applicable also in Estonia, and that the said Code had not provided for punishment of crimes against humanity. Their appeal was rejected since the court found that Resolution 95 of the United Nations General Assembly, adopted on 11 December 1946, confirmed deportations of civilians as a crime against humanity under international law.


title: Soviet war crimes

text: In 2004, Vassili Kononov, a Soviet partisan during World War II, was convicted by Latvian supreme court as a war criminal for killing three women, one of whom was pregnant. He is the only former Soviet partisan convicted of crimes against humanity.


title: Soviet war crimes

text: On 27 March 2019, Lithuania convicted 67 former Soviet military and KGB officials who were given sentences of between four and 14 years for the crackdown against Lithuanian civilians in January 1991. Only two were present—Yuriy Mel, a former Soviet tank officer, and Gennady Ivanov, a former Soviet munitions officer—while the other were sentenced "in absentia" and are hiding in Russia.


title: Faiq Bolkiah

text: Faiq Jefri Bolkiah (born 9 May 1998) is a member of the Bruneian Royal Family and a Bruneian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Thai club Chonburi. He has served as the captain of the Brunei national team.


title: Faiq Bolkiah

text: In 2009, while as a member of A.F.C. Newbury, Bolkiah signed a one-year deal with the Southampton F.C. Academy. He was still with Southampton until at least December 2011. In 2014, Bolkiah signed a two-year youth contract with Chelsea of the Premier League after previously training with Reading and trialing with Arsenal. During his time with Arsenal, Bolkiah competed in the 2013 Lion City Cup against Corinthians, Eintracht Frankfurt, PSV Eindhoven, and a Singapore youth selection. He scored a goal in a 2–1 victory over the team from Singapore. With his contract with Chelsea set to expire in summer 2016, he left the team in December 2015. After a trial with Stoke City, he signed for Leicester City on a reported three-year professional contract in March 2016. He further signed a one-year extension to his deal in the summer of 2019.


title: Faiq Bolkiah

text: On 23 September 2020, Bolkiah signed on a free transfer to Marítimo of Portugal's Primeira Liga. Three months later, he made his debut with under-23 team in a 3–3 home draw against Sporting CP U23 after being named in the starting line-up. Forty-five days later, he was named as a Marítimo substitute for the first time in a league match against Sporting CP.


title: Faiq Bolkiah

text: On 11 April 2021, he made his senior debut for Marítimo B, coming on as a substitute in a 2–1 win over Gondomar.


title: Faiq Bolkiah

text: In December 2021, Bolkiah joined Thai League 1 outift, Chonburi ahead of the second half of the 2021-22 season. He became the first ever Bruneian to join a Thai club. He scored his first goal for the club in a 1–0 victory against Port F.C. on 25 November 2022.


title: Faiq Bolkiah

text: Bolkiah was eligible to represent the United States and Brunei. He was scouted for the youth teams of the United States but chose to represent Brunei, doing so at the U19 and U23 levels including at the 2015 Southeast Asian Games. In that tournament, he scored in a 1–2 defeat to Timor Leste. He was expected to make his senior international debut on 15 October 2016 in a 2016 AFF Championship qualification match against Timor-Leste. He debuted in the match, starting and playing the full 90 minutes of a 2–1 victory.


title: Faiq Bolkiah

text: Faiq is the son of Jefri Bolkiah, Prince of Brunei and nephew of Hassanal Bolkiah, the current Sultan of Brunei. He was born in Los Angeles and holds both Bruneian and American citizenship. He was educated in Great Britain at Bradfield College. Bolkiah has been described as "the richest footballer in the world", with an estimated net worth of US$20 billion.


title: Flynn effect

text: The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first; the average result is set to 100. When the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100.


title: Flynn effect

text: Test score increases have been continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to the present. For example, a study published in the year 2009 found that British children's average scores on the Raven's Progressive Matrices test rose by 14 IQ points from 1942 to 2008. Similar gains have been observed in many other countries in which IQ testing has long been widely used, including other Western European countries, as well as Japan and South Korea.


title: Flynn effect

text: There are numerous proposed explanations of the Flynn effect, such as the rise in efficiency of education, along with skepticism concerning its implications. Similar improvements have been reported for semantic and episodic memory. Some research suggests that there may be an ongoing reversed Flynn effect (i.e., a decline in IQ scores) in Norway, Denmark, Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, and German-speaking countries, a development which appears to have started in the 1990s, and is occurring despite the average performance of 15-year olds in those same countries and Germany consistently ranking above the international average on the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment in reading, mathematics, and science in 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2018. In certain cases, this apparent reversal may be due to cultural changes which render parts of intelligence tests obsolete. Meta-analyses indicate that, overall, the Flynn effect continues, either at the same rate, or at a slower rate in developed countries.


title: Flynn effect

text: The Flynn effect is named for James R. Flynn, who did much to document it and promote awareness of its implications. The term itself was coined by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in their 1994 book "The Bell Curve". Although the general term for the phenomenon—referring to no researcher in particular—continues to be "secular rise in IQ scores", many textbooks on psychology and IQ testing have now followed the lead of Herrnstein and Murray in calling the phenomenon the Flynn effect.


title: Flynn effect

text: IQ tests are updated periodically. For example, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), originally developed in 1949, was updated in 1974, 1991, 2003, and again in 2014. The revised versions are standardized based on the performance of test-takers in standardization samples. A standard score of IQ 100 is defined as the median performance of the standardization sample. Thus one way to see changes in norms over time is to conduct a study in which the same test-takers take both an old and new version of the same test. Doing so confirms IQ gains over time. Some IQ tests, for example, tests used for military draftees in NATO countries in Europe, report raw scores, and those also confirm a trend of rising scores over time. The average rate of increase seems to be about three IQ points per decade in the United States, as scaled by the Wechsler tests. The increasing test performance over time appears on every major test, in every age range, at every ability level, and in every modern industrialized country, although not necessarily at the same rate as in the United States. The increase was continuous and roughly linear from the earliest days of testing to the mid-1990s. Though the effect is most associated with IQ increases, a similar effect has been found with increases in attention and of semantic and episodic memory.


title: Flynn effect

text: Ulric Neisser estimated that using the IQ values of 1997, the average IQ of the United States in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80. Neisser states that "Hardly any of them would have scored 'very superior', but nearly one-quarter would have appeared to be 'deficient.'" He also wrote that "Test scores are certainly going up all over the world, but whether intelligence itself has risen remains controversial."


title: Flynn effect

text: Trahan et al. (2014) found that the effect was about 2.93 points per decade, based on both Stanford–Binet and Wechsler tests; they also found no evidence the effect was diminishing. In contrast, Pietschnig and Voracek (2015) reported, in their meta-analysis of studies involving nearly 4 million participants, that the Flynn effect had decreased in recent decades. They also reported that the magnitude of the effect was different for different types of intelligence ("0.41, 0.30, 0.28, and 0.21 IQ points annually for fluid, spatial, full-scale, and crystallized IQ test performance, respectively"), and that the effect was stronger for adults than for children.


title: Flynn effect

text: Raven (2000) found that, as Flynn suggested, data interpreted as showing a decrease in many abilities with increasing age must be re-interpreted as showing that there has been a dramatic increase of these abilities with the date of birth. On many tests this occurs at all levels of ability.


title: Flynn effect

text: Some studies have found the gains of the Flynn effect to be particularly concentrated at the lower end of the distribution. Teasdale and Owen (1989), for example, found the effect primarily reduced the number of low-end scores, resulting in an increased number of moderately high scores, with no increase in very high scores. In another study, two large samples of Spanish children were assessed with a 30-year gap. Comparison of the IQ distributions indicated that the mean IQ scores on the test had increased by 9.7 points (the Flynn effect), the gains were concentrated in the lower half of the distribution and negligible in the top half, and the gains gradually decreased as the IQ of the individuals increased. Some studies have found a reverse Flynn effect with declining scores for those with high IQ.


title: Flynn effect

text: In 1987, Flynn took the position that the very large increase indicates that IQ tests do not measure intelligence but only a minor sort of "abstract problem-solving ability" with little practical significance. He argued that if IQ gains did reflect intelligence increases, there would have been consequent changes of our society that have not been observed (a presumed non-occurrence of a "cultural renaissance"). By 2012 Flynn no longer endorsed this view of intelligence, having elaborated and refined his view of what rising IQ scores meant.


title: Flynn effect

text: Earlier investigators had discovered rises in raw IQ test scores in some study populations, but had not published general investigations of that issue in particular. Historian Daniel C. Calhoun cited earlier psychology literature on IQ score trends in his book "The Intelligence of a People" (1973). R. L. Thorndike drew attention to rises in Stanford-Binet scores in a 1975 review of the history of intelligence testing. In 1982, Richard Lynn recorded an increase in average IQ among the population of Japan.


title: Flynn effect

text: There is debate about whether the rise in IQ scores also corresponds to a rise in general intelligence, or only a rise in special skills related to taking IQ tests. Because children attend school longer now and have become much more familiar with the testing of school-related material, one might expect the greatest gains to occur on such school content-related tests as vocabulary, arithmetic or general information. Just the opposite is the case: abilities such as these have experienced relatively small gains and even occasional decreases over the years. Meta-analytic findings indicate that Flynn effects occur for tests assessing both fluid and crystallized abilities. For example, Dutch conscripts gained 21 points during only 30 years, or 7 points per decade, between 1952 and 1982. This rise in IQ test scores is not wholly explained by an increase in general intelligence. Studies have shown that while test scores have improved over time, the improvement is not fully correlated with latent factors related to intelligence. Other researchers argue that the IQ gains described by the Flynn effect are due in part to increasing intelligence, and in part to increases in test-specific skills.


title: Flynn effect

text: The duration of average schooling has increased steadily. One problem with this explanation is that if in the US comparing older and more recent subjects with similar educational levels, then the IQ gains appear almost undiminished in each such group considered individually.


title: Flynn effect

text: Many studies find that children who do not attend school score drastically lower on the tests than their regularly attending peers. During the 1960s, when some Virginia counties closed their public schools to avoid racial integration, compensatory private schooling was available only for Caucasian children. On average, the scores of African-American children who received no formal education during that period decreased at a rate of about six IQ points per year.


title: Flynn effect

text: Another explanation is an increased familiarity of the general population with tests and testing. For example, children who take the very same IQ test a second time usually gain five or six points. However, this seems to set an upper limit on the effects of test sophistication. One problem with this explanation and others related to schooling is that in the US, the groups with greater test familiarity show smaller IQ increases.


title: Flynn effect

text: Early intervention programs have shown mixed results. Some preschool (ages 3–4) intervention programs like "Head Start" do not produce lasting changes of IQ, although they may confer other benefits. The "Abecedarian Early Intervention Project", an all-day program that provided various forms of environmental enrichment to children from infancy onward, showed IQ gains that did not diminish over time. The IQ difference between the groups, although only five points, was still present at age 12. Not all such projects have been successful. Also, such IQ gains can diminish until age 18.


title: Flynn effect

text: Citing a high correlation between rising literacy rates and gains in IQ, David Marks has argued that the Flynn effect is caused by changes in literacy rates.


title: Flynn effect

text: Still another theory is that the general environment today is much more complex and stimulating. One of the most striking 20th-century changes in the human intellectual environment has come from the increase of exposure to many types of visual media. From pictures on the wall to movies to television to video games to computers, each successive generation has been exposed to richer optical displays than the one before and may have become more adept at visual analysis. This would explain why visual tests like the Raven's have shown the greatest increases. An increase only of particular forms of intelligence would explain why the Flynn effect has not caused a "cultural renaissance too great to be overlooked."


title: Flynn effect

text: In 2001, William Dickens and James Flynn presented a model for resolving several contradictory findings regarding IQ. They argue that the measure "heritability" includes both a direct effect of the genotype on IQ and also indirect effects such that the genotype changes the environment, thereby affecting IQ. That is, those with a greater IQ tend to seek stimulating environments that further increase IQ. These reciprocal effects result in gene environment correlation. The direct effect could initially have been very small, but feedback can create large differences in IQ. In their model, an environmental stimulus can have a very great effect on IQ, even for adults, but this effect also decays over time unless the stimulus continues (the model could be adapted to include possible factors, like nutrition during early childhood, that may cause permanent effects). The Flynn effect can be explained by a generally more stimulating environment for all people. The authors suggest that any program designed to increase IQ may produce long-term IQ gains if that program teaches children how to replicate the types of cognitively demanding experiences that produce IQ gains outside the program. To maximize lifetime IQ, the programs should also motivate them to continue searching for cognitively demanding experiences after they have left the program.


title: Flynn effect

text: Flynn in his 2007 book "What Is Intelligence?" further expanded on this theory. Environmental changes resulting from modernization—such as more intellectually demanding work, greater use of technology, and smaller families—have meant that a much larger proportion of people are more accustomed to manipulating abstract concepts such as hypotheses and categories than a century ago. Substantial portions of IQ tests deal with these abilities. Flynn gives, as an example, the question 'What do a dog and a rabbit have in common?' A modern respondent might say they are both mammals (an abstract, or "a priori" answer, which depends only on the meanings of the words "dog" and "rabbit"), whereas someone a century ago might have said that humans catch rabbits with dogs (a concrete, or "a posteriori" answer, which depended on what happened to be the case at that time).


title: Flynn effect

text: Improved nutrition is another possible explanation. Today's average adult from an industrialized nation is taller than a comparable adult of a century ago. That increase of stature, likely the result of general improvements in nutrition and health, has been at a rate of more than a centimeter per decade. Available data suggest that these gains have been accompanied by analogous increases in head size, and by an increase in the average size of the brain. This argument had been thought to suffer the difficulty that groups who tend to be of smaller overall body size (e.g. women, or people of Asian ancestry) do not have lower average IQs.


title: Flynn effect

text: A 2005 study presented data supporting the nutrition hypothesis, which predicts that gains will occur predominantly at the low end of the IQ distribution, where nutritional deprivation is probably most severe. An alternative interpretation of skewed IQ gains could be that improved education has been particularly important for this group.


title: Flynn effect

text: A century ago, nutritional deficiencies may have limited body and organ functionality, including skull volume. The first two years of life are a critical time for nutrition. The consequences of malnutrition can be irreversible and may include poor cognitive development, educability, and future economic productivity. On the other hand, Flynn has pointed to 20-point gains on Dutch military (Raven's type) IQ tests between 1952, 1962, 1972, and 1982. He observes that the Dutch 18-year-olds of 1962 had a major nutritional handicap. They were either in the womb or were recently born, during the great Dutch famine of 1944—when German troops monopolized food and 18,000 people died of starvation. Yet, concludes Flynn, "they do not show up even as a blip in the pattern of Dutch IQ gains. It is as if the famine had never occurred." It appears that the effects of diet are gradual, taking effect over decades (affecting mother as well as the child) rather than a few months.


title: Flynn effect

text: In support of the nutritional hypothesis, it is known that, in the United States, the average height before 1900 was about 10 cm (~4 inches) shorter than it is today. Possibly related to the Flynn effect is a similar change of skull size and shape during the last 150 years. A Norwegian study found that height gains were strongly correlated with intelligence gains until the cessation of height gains in military conscript cohorts towards the end of the 1980s.<ref name="doi10.1016/j.intell.2004.06.004"></ref> Both height and skull size increases probably result from a combination of phenotypic plasticity and genetic selection over this period. With only five or six human generations in 150 years, time for natural selection has been very limited, suggesting that increased skeletal size resulting from changes in population phenotypes is more likely than recent genetic evolution.


title: Flynn effect

text: It is well known that micronutrient deficiencies change the development of intelligence. For instance, one study has found that iodine deficiency causes a fall, on average, of 12 IQ points in China.


title: Flynn effect

text: Scientists James Feyrer, Dimitra Politi, and David N. Weil have found in the U.S. that the proliferation of iodized salt increased IQ by 15 points in some areas. Journalist Max Nisen has stated that with this type of salt becoming popular, that "the aggregate effect has been extremely positive."


title: Flynn effect

text: Daley et al. (2003) found a significant Flynn effect among children in rural Kenya, and concluded that nutrition was one of the hypothesized explanations that best explained their results (the others were parental literacy and family structure).


title: Flynn effect

text: Eppig, Fincher, and Thornhill (2009) argue that "From an energetics standpoint, a developing human will have difficulty building a brain and fighting off infectious diseases at the same time, as both are very metabolically costly tasks" and that "the Flynn effect may be caused in part by the decrease in the intensity of infectious diseases as nations develop." They suggest that improvements in gross domestic product (GDP), education, literacy, and nutrition may have an effect on IQ mainly through reducing the intensity of infectious diseases.


title: Flynn effect

text: Eppig, Fincher, and Thornhill (2011) in a similar study instead looking at different US states found that states with a higher prevalence of infectious diseases had lower average IQ. The effect remained after controlling for the effects of wealth and educational variation.


title: Flynn effect

text: Atheendar Venkataramani (2010) studied the effect of malaria on IQ in a sample of Mexicans. Malaria eradication during the birth year was associated with increases in IQ. It also increased the probability of employment in a skilled occupation. The author suggests that this may be one explanation for the Flynn effect and that this may be an important explanation for the link between national malaria burden and economic development. A literature review of 44 papers states that cognitive abilities and school performance were shown to be impaired in sub-groups of patients (with either cerebral malaria or uncomplicated malaria) when compared with healthy controls. Studies comparing cognitive functions before and after treatment for acute malarial illness continued to show significantly impaired school performance and cognitive abilities even after recovery. Malaria prophylaxis was shown to improve cognitive function and school performance in clinical trials when compared to placebo groups.


title: Flynn effect

text: Heterosis, or hybrid vigor associated with historical reductions of the levels of inbreeding, has been proposed by Michael Mingroni as an alternative explanation of the Flynn effect. However, James Flynn has pointed out that even if everyone mated with a sibling in 1900, subsequent increases in heterosis would not be a sufficient explanation of the observed IQ gains.


title: Flynn effect

text: One study found the drop in blood lead levels in the United States from the 1970s to 2007 correlated with a 4-5 point increase in IQ.


title: Flynn effect

text: Jon Martin Sundet and colleagues (2004) examined scores on intelligence tests given to Norwegian conscripts between the 1950s and 2002. They found that the increase of scores of general intelligence stopped after the mid-1990s and declined in numerical reasoning sub-tests.


title: Flynn effect

text: Teasdale and Owen (2005) examined the results of IQ tests given to Danish male conscripts. Between 1959 and 1979 the gains were 3 points per decade. Between 1979 and 1989 the increase approached 2 IQ points. Between 1989 and 1998 the gain was about 1.3 points. Between 1998 and 2004 IQ declined by about the same amount as it gained between 1989 and 1998. They speculate that "a contributing factor in this recent fall could be a simultaneous decline in proportions of students entering 3-year advanced-level school programs for 16–18-year-olds." The same authors in a more comprehensive 2008 study, again on Danish male conscripts, found that there was a 1.5-point increase between 1988 and 1998, but a 1.5-point decrease between 1998 and 2003/2004.


title: Flynn effect

text: In Australia, the IQ of 6–12 year olds as measured by the Colored Progressive Matrices has shown no increase from 1975 to 2003.


title: Flynn effect

text: In the United Kingdom, a study by Flynn (2009) found that tests carried out in 1980 and again in 2008 show that the IQ score of an average 14-year-old dropped by more than two points over the period. For the upper half of the results, the performance was even worse. Average IQ scores declined by six points. However, children aged between five and 10 saw their IQs increase by up to half a point a year over the three decades. Flynn argues that the abnormal drop in British teenage IQ could be due to youth culture having "stagnated" or even dumbed down. Researcher Richard House, commenting on the study, also mentions the computer culture diminishing reading books as well as a tendency towards teaching to the test.


title: Flynn effect

text: Bratsberg & Rogeberg (2018) present evidence that the Flynn effect in Norway has reversed, and that both the original rise in mean IQ scores and their subsequent decline was caused by environmental factors.


title: Flynn effect

text: One possible explanation of a worldwide decline in intelligence, suggested by the World Health Organization and the Forum of International Respiratory Societies' Environmental Committee, is an increase in air pollution, which now affects over 90% of the world's population.


title: Flynn effect

text: If the Flynn effect has ended in developed nations but continues in less developed ones, this would tend to diminish national differences in IQ scores.


title: Flynn effect

text: Also, if the Flynn effect has ended for the majority in developed nations, it may still continue for minorities, especially for groups like immigrants where many may have received poor nutrition during early childhood or have had other disadvantages. A study in the Netherlands found that children of non-Western immigrants had improvements for "g", educational achievements, and work proficiency compared to their parents, although there were still remaining differences compared to ethnic Dutch.


title: Flynn effect

text: In the United States, the IQ gap between black and white people was gradually closing over the last decades of the 20th century, as black test-takers increased their average scores relative to white test-takers. For instance, Vincent reported in 1991 that the black–white IQ gap was decreasing among children, but that it was remaining constant among adults. Similarly, a 2006 study by Dickens and Flynn estimated that the difference between mean scores of black people and white people closed by about 5 or 6 IQ points between 1972 and 2002, a reduction of about one-third. In the same period, the educational achievement disparity also diminished. Reviews by Flynn and Dickens, Mackintosh, and Nisbett et al. all concluded that the gradual closing of the gap was a real phenomenon.


title: Flynn effect

text: Flynn has commented that he never claimed that the Flynn effect has the same causes as observed differences in average IQ test performance between blacks and whites, but that it shows that environmental factors can create IQ differences of a magnitude similar to that gap. A meta-analysis which examined whether g factor and IQ gains from the Flynn effect are related found a small negative correlation between the two, which may indicate that group differences and the Flynn effect are possibly due to differing causes. Flynn also argued that his findings undermine the so-called Spearman's hypothesis, which hypothesized that differences in g factor are the major driver of the blacks-whites IQ gap.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Kaniehtiio Alexandra Jessie Horn ("née" Batt; ; born November 8, 1986), sometimes credited to as Tiio Horn, is a Canadian actress. She was nominated for a Gemini Award for her role in the television film "" and she has appeared in the films "The Trotsky", "Leslie, My Name Is Evil", and "The Wild Hunt", as well as the streaming television horror series "Hemlock Grove" and the sitcoms "18 to Life" and "Letterkenny".


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Horn was born in Ottawa and grew up in Ottawa and on the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve outside of Montreal. Her mother, Kahn-Tineta Horn, is a Mohawk former model and a political activist for the Kahnawake First Nation. Her father, who is of German and Scottish descent, is a lawyer. Horn, her mother and her older half-sister Waneek (later a broadcaster and co-captain of the Canadian women's water polo team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics) were notable participants in the 1990 Oka Crisis. Waneek was stabbed in the chest by a soldier wielding a bayonet while holding Horn, who was then aged four; a photograph of the incident, published on the front page of newspapers, symbolized the standoff between Mohawks and the Canadian government.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Horn decided to be an actress at a young age, but concentrated on swimming and water polo as a teenager. She graduated from Dawson College in 2005 for theatre arts, and appeared in a number of short films.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Horn's first film acting credit was in 2006 for the CBC television mini-series "Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis" (for which she had been present at the real-life event sixteen years earlier).


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Horn landed a role in the 2007 drama film "The Colony", directed by Jeff Barnaby. In 2008, she appeared in the TV film "Moccasin Flats: Redemption" and was nominated for a Gemini Award for her role. She also appeared in "Journey to the Center of the Earth" that year, also starring Brendan Fraser.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: In 2009, Horn starred in "The Trotsky", directed by Jacob Tierney, playing a Montreal high school student. In "Web of Lies", a TV movie about a cybersecurity specialist accused of fraud, she played a hacker named Spider. She appeared in "The Wild Hunt", directed by Alexandre Franchi and in Reginald Harkema's "Leslie, My Name Is Evil" as a member of Charles Manson's death cult. The three Canadian films were selected for the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. "The Trotsky" and "The Wild Hunt" made the Top 10 Canadian films list at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Horn starred in the CBC television sitcom "18 to Life" as Monica Bellow. The series was picked up by the CW network and it aired in the US in August 2010. Horn filmed a second season in Montreal in mid-2010.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Horn voiced several roles in "By the Rapids", an APTN cartoon which she had made in collaboration with Joseph Tekaroniake Lazare. She also shot an APTN television pilot, "Escape Hatch", with Mohawk writer-director Tracey Deer. In 2010, Horn again worked with Jacob Tierney in the film "Good Neighbours". She starred in the low-budget slasher film "A Flesh Offering", directed by Jeremy Torrie, playing an artist who gets lost in the woods.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: In 2011, Horn starred in the horror anthology film "The Theatre Bizarre", and played a priestess in "Immortals". She filmed "Penthouse North" with Michelle Monaghan and Michael Keaton and shot a CBC comedy pilot. In 2012, Horn joined the cast of the Netflix drama "Hemlock Grove" as Destiny Rumancek, a Romani witch. She starred opposite Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott, Bill Skarsgård, Landon Liboiron and Lili Taylor in the series.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Horn voiced the role of Kaniehtí:io, the Native American protagonist's (Ratohnhake:ton) Mohawk mother, in the 2012 video game "Assassin's Creed III", developed by Ubisoft. That same year, she wrote and directed her debut film, "The Smoke Shack", in association with the National Screen Institute. In 2013, Horn played Rynn, an Irathient Spirit Rider, on the Syfy TV series, "Defiance", and played Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" in "Slumber Party", an episode of the CW series "Supernatural". She also appeared in "Embrace of the Vampire" starring Sharon Hinnendael, a remake of the 1995 horror film of the same name, in the television special "Gavin Crawford's Wild West" and in the Amazon series "The Man in the High Castle (TV Series)".


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: Horn appears in a recurring role as Tanis in the CraveTV series "Letterkenny", for which she won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the 10th Canadian Screen Awards in 2022.


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: In 2020, Horn appeared as a panelist on "Canada Reads" advocating for Eden Robinson's novel "Son of a Trickster".


title: Kaniehtiio Horn

text: In 2022, Horn appeared in a recurring role as Feather Day in season 2 of the Peacock series, Rutherford Falls.


title: Arulnithi

text: Arulnithi Tamilarasu (born 21 July 1987) is an Indian actor best known for playing the lead roles in "Vamsam", directed by Pandiraj, Mouna Guru, and Demonte Colony.


title: Arulnithi

text: Arulnithi's grandfather is M. Karunanidhi, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. His father is M. K. Tamilarasu, brother of M. K. Stalin, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. His cousins include noted producers and distributors, Udhayanidhi Stalin and Dhayanidhi Alagiri.


title: Arulnithi

text: Arulnithi was educated at St. Michael's Academy in Chennai, before pursuing a degree at Loyola College. He then went on to Pondicherry University to undertake more qualifications. Arulnithi married Keerthana on 7 June 2015. Their first child was born in 2017, a son named Magizhan. Their second child, a baby girl, was born in November 2021.


title: Arulnithi

text: Arulnithi was offered the lead role in Pandiraj's "Vamsam" after his cousin, Udhayanidhi Stalin, had opted out. The film featured him as a young man shying away from the politics of his village, despite claims for him to avenge his father's death. The film, which featured him alongside Sunaina, was heavily promoted in Tamil Nadu, and became a profitable venture at the box-office, garnering positive reviews. His second film was "Udhayan" in which he played a dual role for the first time. The next film "Mouna Guru" directed by debutant Santhakumar was a sleeper hit which was also screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival 2013.


title: Arulnithi

text: In 2013, he starred in action drama film "Thagaraaru" was released to positive reviews. In 2014, his film "Oru Kanniyum Moonu Kalavaanikalum" is Chimbu Deven’s trademark style, filled with quirky characters, fantastical elements, and loads of comedy and satire. In 2015, his horror film "Demonte Colony", directed by R. Ajay Gnanamuthu, is inspired by real life events centred around a supposedly haunted colony in Chennai called "De Monte Colony". Thereafter, the comedy "Naalu Policeum Nalla Irundha Oorum" (2015) which was posted on negative reviews. His next film was the crime thriller "Aarathu Sinam" (2016), Jeethu Joseph's "Memories" that had Prithviraj playing the lead. In Radha Mohan's "Brindhavanam" (2017), Arulnithi plays a deaf and mute character and his relationship with actor Vivek. His next film was "Iravukku Aayiram Kangal" (2018). It was released to positive reviews. In 2019, the thriller "K-13 was released to positive reviews but became an average grosser at the box office".


title: Arulnithi

text: Arulnithi is popularly called as 'Thril'nidhi among thriller movie fans. His next movie was the drama "Kalathil Santhippom" (2021). In 2022, his thriller films have released with "D Block", "Dejavu" and "Diary all of them received positive reviews and became box office success's".


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Sivaji: The Boss is a 2007 Indian Tamil-language action masala film directed by S. Shankar and produced by AVM Productions. The film stars Rajinikanth and Shriya Saran, with Vivek, Suman, Manivannan and Raghuvaran playing significant roles. It revolves around a well-established software systems architect, Sivaji, who returns home to India after finishing work in the United States. On his return, he dreams of giving back to society with free medical treatment and education. However, his plans face a roadblock in the form of the influential political leader Adiseshan. When corruption also arises, Sivaji is left with no option but to fight the system in his own way.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: A R Rahman composed the soundtrack and background music (in his 100th milestone composition), while Thota Tharani and K. V. Anand were the film's art director and cinematographer respectively. The film, released on 15 June 2007 was positively received by critics and became a commercial success worldwide. It went on to win a National Film Award, three Filmfare Awards and two Vijay Awards. The film was converted into 3D and released on 12 December 2012 as "Sivaji 3D". The runtime of the 3D version was shorter than the original, cut to 155 minutes. It also became the first Indian film to use Dolby Atmos surround sound technology.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Sivaji Arumugam is a rich Indian software engineer, who returns to India after working for 10 years in the United States. He aims to establish a non-profit trust called "Sivaji Foundation", which is to include a network of quality hospitals and educational institutions that serve the poor free of charge. A highly influential political leader and industrialist, Adiseshan, who runs profit-making educational institutions and hospitals sees Sivaji as his deadly competitor.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: In the process of establishing the Sivaji Foundation, Sivaji is forced to pay bribes to several government officials and ministers to get basic approvals and sanctions done, and is eventually forced to mortgage his property and sell his belongings when the bribes demanded become very high. Sivaji is dragged by the State Government (under political influence of Adiseshan) to court when he starts sabotaging the Sivaji Foundation through his political influence, but at the court, he is forced to admit that he paid numerous bribes. The judge declares the verdict in favour of Adiseshan and shuts down Sivaji Foundation. Meanwhile, Sivaji falls in love with Tamizhselvi, a demure and traditional girl. Initially, Tamizhselvi and her family are scared of Sivaji's advances, but Sivaji soon manages to win Tamizhselvi's heart and her family's approval. However, when an astrologer checks Sivaji's and Tamizhselvi's horoscopes, he warns that their engagement will result in heavy financial ruin and further, their union will result in Sivaji's death.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Tamizhselvi initially refuses the proposal due to her concern for Sivaji, but he calms her fears and convinces her to marry him. Sivaji, reduced to utter poverty, decides to play the game his own way. With the help of his uncle Arivu, he acquires evidence of 2 billion worth of illegal earnings in Adiseshan's possession and uses the documents to blackmail Adiseshan into giving him half the money. Adhiseshan traps Sivaji with 50 goons, but Sivaji trashes them and leaves with both money and documents. Using the amount, he further obtains details on people who have illegal earnings across Tamil Nadu and blackmails them to give him half of their illegal wealth. He then transfers the money to New York, where he gives it to the bank accounts of his friends around the world by hawala forgery. They then deposit the money as donations to the "Sivaji Foundation", making the money usable and legitimate.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Sivaji informs the Income Tax Investigation and Vigilance Department about the details of the illegal money held by the tax evaders (including Adiseshan) and gets them arrested on the same day. He blackmails the minister and legally reopens the foundation and soon is able to provide free, good quality education, infrastructure, services and employment to people in every district of Tamil Nadu. Led by Adiseshan, those who were blackmailed by Sivaji exploit Tamizhselvi's innocence to silence him. Fearing for Sivaji's life, she hands over Sivaji's laptop to the CBI and Income Tax officers hired by Adiseshan with all the information regarding the illegal money transactions. With presentable evidence, Sivaji is arrested. Adiseshan and the police order Sivaji to unlock his laptop through the voice-detection program, which only opens on a particular command in Sivaji's voice.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: When Sivaji refuses, Adiseshan tortures him so badly that he is almost killed. To cover this up, Adiseshan and the police organise for mercenaries to shoot at the police van that will carry Sivaji's body, making it look like a murder by a third party. Sivaji, however, is faking; he was informed of the plans to kill him by a sympathetic police constable prior to the interrogation. Left alone in the room, he electrifies himself and loses consciousness. Sivaji's friend Dr Chezhian, Tamizhselvi and Arivu intercept the police van after being informed by Sivaji through a MMS and replace Sivaji's body with a dummy before the mercenaries open fire. While everyone thinks that Sivaji is dead, Chezhian revives him using a defibrillator.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Following Sivaji's "death", Adiseshan and the CBI still try to open Sivaji's laptop by trying to fool the voice-detection program; they fail and all the data in the laptop is erased. A few days later, while everyone wonders about the future of the "Sivaji Foundation", the revived Sivaji returns to take control of the foundation in the guise of an NRI friend, M. G. Ravichandran (MGR). Though Adiseshan immediately realises that Ravichandran is actually Sivaji, he is unable to prove this to the police due to the proof of Sivaji's "death" and Ravichandran's identity. Later, Sivaji confronts Adiseshan and the two fight atop the terrace of Adiseshan's medical college. During the fight, Adiseshan inadvertently strikes the campus's terrace roof causing money hidden in it to fly around the campus. The students spot the money and go after it, causing a stampede in which Adiseshan is trampled to death. "Sivaji Foundation" soon becomes a frontier for India's economic and industrial rise.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: In 1996, following the release of his "Indian", Shankar approached and pitched three storylines to Rajinikanth to consider for his next venture. This included scripts which would later become "Sivaji" (2007), "Enthiran" (2010) and "I" (2015). Rajinikanth was skeptical and refused all three scripts at the time.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: In August 2005, Rajinikanth signed up for his next film which was to be produced by Chennai's oldest operative studio, AVM Productions, which was run by M. S. Guhan and M. Saravanan. This time Shankar was confirmed to be the film's director. After consulting Sivaji Ganesan's family to avoid any issues with the film's name, the project was subsequently announced on 24 August 2005. The film was titled "Sivaji", after Rajinikanth's name at birth – Sivaji Rao Gaekwad. A tagline, "The Boss", which stands for "Bachelor of Social Service", was suffixed to the title.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: In addition to being AVM Productions' 168th film, "Sivaji" was also Rajinikanth's 154th film, his 100th Tamil film and his ninth film with AVM Productions. According to Rajinikanth's biographer Naman Ramachandran, the film was also made to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of the production company's founder, A. V. Meiyappan. "Sivaji" was also noted for its change in the traditional yellow coloured Rajinikanth introductory text which made its debut with "Annaamalai" (1992). Instead the text is displayed in Chrome.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: The first choice for the role of the female lead was Aishwarya Rai. However, in October 2005, Shankar and Rajinikanth announced that actress Shriya Saran would play the female lead role. Saran's voice was dubbed by actress Kanika, who was selected after a successful voice test, thereby collaborating for the second time with Shankar. Actor Vivek was signed up for the role of Sivaji's maternal uncle, Arivu, in November 2005. Actress Sunaina made her acting debut through this film in a special appearance; the scene however was later removed from the final cut. Nayanthara, who had earlier worked with Rajinikanth in "Chandramukhi", was signed up to perform alongside Rajinikanth in the song "Baleilakka".


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Suman was confirmed in March 2006 to play the role of Adiseshan after Amitabh Bachchan, Mohanlal and Prakash Raj were considered. Sathyaraj, who acted with Rajinikanth in "Mr. Bharath" (1986), said he declined the role because, "After a film of the calibre of "Mr. Bharath" with Rajnikanth, I couldn't settle for anything less. So I didn't accept "Sivaji"." For his role, Suman removed his moustache and used dentures to make his smile visible. Shankar instructed one of the costume designers to give the character a spotless white "dhoti", shirt, shoes, a Rolex watch and Ray-Ban sunglasses. Prior to this, Suman had acted with Rajinikanth in "Thee" (1981). Subbu Panchu dubbed for Suman. Debate speakers Solomon Pappaiah and Pattimandram Raja were selected to play supporting roles, with the latter making his cinematic acting debut. Vadivukkarasi and Manivannan were selected to play Sivaji's parents. Raghuvaran appeared in a small role as Dr. Chezhian.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Shankar, who also wrote the film's story and screenplay, was paid a then record salary of 100 million (Indian rupees) for the project. A. R. Rahman, who was selected to compose the film's soundtrack and background score, was also paid 30 million. Sujatha was assigned to write the dialogues for "Sivaji". Tha. Prabhu Raja Cholan, who would later direct the film "Karuppampatti" (2013), worked as an assistant director in this film. Rajinikanth's daughter Soundarya worked as a graphics designer, creating the title for this film; she had earlier worked in the same position on two of her father's films – "Baba" (2002) and "Chandramukhi" (2005). K. V. Anand was hired as the cinematographer in August 2005. Manish Malhotra was responsible for designing the film's costumes, while Anthony and Thota Tharani were the editor and art director respectively. Additional make-up for Rajinikanth was done by make-up artist Banu.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Principal photography commenced on 28 November 2005 with a puja at AVM Productions. The film's launch was a secret event, with only pivotal members of the cast and crew being called for the event's attendance. The first schedule of "Sivaji" began on 14 December 2005 with the song "Vaaji Vaaji" featuring Rajinikanth and Saran being shot at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. The idea of shooting at Ramoji Film City was suggested to Shankar by Tharani who felt that the place offered a lot of scope for him to utilise his skills and experience as an art director. "Vaaji Vaaji" was picturised with an intention to showcase a Babylonian palace setting when Shankar requested Tharani to show "a palace with lots of colour". Tharani created a four-storey Babylonian palace to accommodate 80 dancers and 100 junior artists for the number. Shooting of the number, which according to K. V. Anand was filmed in Super 35 motion picture film format, was completed in eight days. G. Dhananjayan mentions in his book "The Best of Tamil Cinema" that 35 million was spent on the song's making.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Tharani described the set designing for the song "Sahana", which was also shot at Ramoji Film City, as "extremely challenging". After listening to the lyrics of the song which speaks of the four traditional calendar seasons, Tharani thought of using a concept titled "Living in Seasons", which he used at a symposium held in Japan. For the set's design which depicted the four seasons, Tharani proposed three concepts – a traditional Japanese house, a contemporary house and a futuristic house. Shankar chose the futuristic house concept, which consisted of three domes in the shapes of a square, a circle and a pyramid adjacent to one another. The circular dome had a pathway around it and water falling from a 50 feet high rock, which would seep under the set. Tharani made use of acrylic glass and normal glass with the former being implemented on the floor to make the dance movements more easier to perform. Construction of the set for the number was completed in 30 days.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: In addition to these two songs, Tharani contributed to similar creations for the music store where Tamizhselvi works as a saleswoman, the street surrounding the music store, the warehouse behind the music store, the interior portions of Thamizhselvi's house and Adiseshan's office room. The music shop was designed in the Victorian architecture style, while the warehouse was constructed at AVM Productions with the fight sequence being filmed there as well. Filming of another action sequence in an open-air theatre, which was also designed by Tharani, took place for approximately 15–20 days. K. V. Anand used balloon lights brought from a French company Airstar Space Lighting for the sequence. The interior portions of Thamizhselvi's house was designed using clippings of flats constructed by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: The "Style" segment was filmed in May 2006 at the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, as well as the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia and the Kursaal in San Sebastian.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: The fair look of Rajinikanth's character in the segment was created using computer-generated imagery, which was performed by V. Srinivas Mohan, the head of the Chennai-based firm Indian Artists. K. V. Anand re-shot every single movement of Rajinikanth with a British woman named Jacky, who was also one of the song's background dancers. All the shots featuring Rajinikanth in the song and those featuring Jacky were scanned in 4K resolution to enhance their clarity after which Jacky's skin colour was digitally implemented onto Rajinikanth's skin. French hair-stylist Sandrin Veriar Seth designed two distinct hair-styles for the entire film and 13 hair-styles for the segment alone. To avoid disruptions that could occur at the shooting spot due to Rajinikanth's fan following in Tamil Nadu, Brinda choreographed "Balleilakka", Rajinikanth's introduction song sequence in Wai, a hill station near Pune with 500 people for eight days. To add more colour to the sequence, a 50-member team of Puli Kali artists from Thrissur were employed by Shankar as background dancers.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: In November 2006, sequences featuring Rajinkanth, Saran and Vivek were shot at the Pune Junction railway station. Filming of a key portion involving Rajinikanth and Vivek took place in the Victoria Public Hall building in Chennai. A fight sequence and the song "Athiradi" were filmed at Binny Mills. The sets for the song were made bearing resemblance to the city of Venice. For the climax scenes, which were filmed at the Magarpatta city SEZ towers, Rajinikanth tonsured his head. The scenes where Sivaji gets the money he transferred to his friends by forgery were filmed in New York City. The completion of those scenes in February 2007 marked the end of the principal photography. The climactic fight between Sivaji and Adiseshan was filmed at Vels University. K. V. Anand told Shobha Warrier of Rediff.com that the portions other than the songs and action sequences were completed in 65 days.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Many critics stated that the theme of "Sivaji" has been inspired from Shankar's previous films "Gentleman" (1993) and "Mudhalvan" (1999). The film deals with the concept of corruption and money laundering and how the film's protagonist employs methods to get rid of those elements. Gopinath Rajendran of "The New Indian Express" compared the film's title character to Robin Hood for being a hero "who takes from the rich and passes it on to the poor".


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Sivaji, who is a software engineer is frustrated with the corruption in India which is shown in the scene where he watches the pitiable condition of poor people stating that: "The rich get richer, the poor get poorer". Sivaji's love for his country is also illustrated in a scene where he is advised by his uncle to go back to abroad but he says "Where else will I go? This is home."


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: After some re-recording of the background score in Paraguay, A.R. Rahman had been to London for additional re-recording.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: A month and a half prior to the film's official soundtrack release, three songs from the soundtrack were leaked into the Internet. The songs, however, were only unofficial with low quality, where the official versions were composed slightly different and sung by different artists.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: The television rights of the film were sold to Kalaignar TV for 4 crore. The film's distribution rights, as distributed by AVM Productions to various companies are for the selling of rights to Kerala, for Andhra Pradesh and for the rights to Ayngaran, an international Tamil film distributor. The trailer was released by CNN-IBN on 30 May 2007 lasting for three minutes. The official trailer was released by AVM to "Galatta.com", the official online sponsor and Ayngaran International. The film was supposed to be released on the Tamil New Year's day, 14 April 2007, but due to post-production delays, the film was released worldwide on 15 June 2007. On 15 July 2007, AVM Productions, the producers of the film, announced their decision to dub the film into Hindi. That version was released on 8 January 2010.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: M. Satyamoorthy, on 9 July 2007, sought to stop the film being screened, claiming that it defamed the Indian National Congress, a political party, as well as its president, Sonia Gandhi, and the then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh. Satyamoorthy cited a scene in which portraits of Gandhi and Singh are visible behind Adiseshan's chair, implying that Adiseshan was a member of the Indian National Congress. Satyamoorthy also claimed in damages from the film's producer, director and lead actor to be paid to the Tamil Nadu section of the party. Jaya Rajadevan, one of the film's assistant directors, sought an injunction in civil court to stop screening of the film for alleged plagiarism. Rajadevan claimed that he had written the film's story and had discussed it with Shankar's manager in 2005. Although the court sent notices to Shankar, among others, the screening of the film was not stopped.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Rajinikanth used his political affiliations to screen the film for several politicians. He went to Hyderabad to showcase the film for the former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, on 14 June 2007. At the screening, Rajinikanth told the media that he would invite the Chief Minister, Rajasekhara Reddy, for a special viewing as well. Rajinikanth said that he had screened the film to current and former Tamil Nadu Chief Ministers, Dr. Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha, respectively, and that India's Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, was also keen to watch the film. A private screening was also shown to Amitabh Bachchan. Mammootty saw a special preview of the film at Shenoys theatre in Ernakulam. After the screening he says, "It is a very good commercial film. Rajnikant has a halo around him; the man is amazing, simple and straight forward with no starry airs."


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: A 2012 re-release, also known as "Sivaji 3D," was created by re-mastering the original to Dolby Atmos and post-converting to 3D format and cutting half an hour of running time. "Sivaji 3D" is the first Indian film to be launched with the new Dolby Atmos platform. The trailer of 3D version was launched on 13 August 2012 at Prasad Labs along with Rajinikanth. The 3D version released on 12 December 2012, coinciding with Rajinikanth's birthday. The runtime of 3D version was shorter than original, cut to two hours and thirty-five minutes.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: The theatrical rights of the film were sold for in Kerala and in Andhra Pradesh. Worldwide, the film was estimated to have been released in about 750 screens. The film opened to virtually full cinemas. "Sivaji" was released in 303 screens in Tamil Nadu, 300 screens in Andhra Pradesh; 12 screens in North India and 145 screens across the rest of the world. It was released in 16 screens in Chennai and grossed within the first four days, at that point a new record for Tamil cinema. The film also debuted well in Kerala and in Bangalore. Despite protests from pro-Kannada groups, the film debuted in 13 screens. In the national capital, New Delhi, the film debuted on 4 screens in PVR Cinemas. Based on what the distributors claim, there was "overwhelming response to the film", with the number of screens increasing to 12 by the second week. The film made a good debut in the nation's other metros as well such as Mumbai and Kolkata, as well as in other non-traditional markets for Tamil films such as Pune and Baroda. The film grossed 4.07 crore in two weeks; 8.5 crore in five weeks, and 10 crore in seven weeks in Chennai.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: "Sivaji" was also successful in international markets. The film had a wide release with over 145 prints and in 200 theatres (Tamil Version alone) in over 20 countries across South East Asia, Europe, North America, GCC and Australia and others, one of the widest release for an Indian film in the international markets. Internationally, "Sivaji" had good screenings in Malaysia. grossing over US$2 million in Malaysia, "Sivaji" made a debut with 150 shows in Singapore. In Sri Lanka, the film debuted across 70 screens with all 700 shows virtually sold out. In the Persian Gulf that contains a sizeably large Indian diaspora, the film opened to a good response. The film has collected over $8.5 Million from the overseas markets.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: In Canada, the film released in 10 screens in 3 major cities along with special screenings for the Tamil diaspora in the smaller cities. In United Kingdom, the film debuted on the box-office list at No.9 with earnings of about £14,000 per screen and was the first Tamil film to enter UK Top 10. In United States, "Sivaji" was released in 24 screens with subsequent additions of 19 screens for the Tamil version. The producers of the film claimed that the film was going to be dubbed in Chinese and Japanese by Ayngaran International, the holder of international rights of the film. The response in Cape Town was disappointing, while the box-office collections in Johannesburg and Durban allowed it to become the first Tamil film to feature in the South African box-office top 10. Singapore Airlines bought a 3-month exclusive in-flight screening rights to the film, a first for the airline for any Tamil film.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: In the UK, 13 seconds of the film was cut. The original film showed Rajinikanth throwing a firecracker into his mouth, lighting it and then spitting it out at Pattimanram Raja, which was removed to give the film a 12A rating, The Ayngaran UK DVD release was uncut and given an 18 rating by the BBFC. It was also the first Tamil film to be officially released on a 1080p High Definition Blu-ray disc.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: The overseas distributor Ayngaran International reported collections as follows: US$2,000,000, Canada $500,000, UK$750,000, Europe and Gulf $750,000, Malaysia $2,000,000, Singapore $750,000, Sri Lanka $1,250,000, Australia, New Zealand & Thailand $250,000. "Sivaji" was released in South Africa in late July 2007 after six weeks of its release by the leading South African distributor Ster Kinekor with four prints and released in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Malathi Rangarajan of "The Hindu", in a review about the story, said that the lead character carrying out a rebellion against corruption was something "not be true to life". She concluded by saying that "the story sags towards the end". She, however, appreciated the performances of the prominent actors, the soundtrack, art direction, photography and the animation. Ananth Krishnan, another review from "The Hindu", a month after the film's release, said that the film "... presents an effective diagnosis of entrenched corruption but the rather disturbing remedy it offers is, good old vigilantism." It concluded by saying that, though the film did well at the box-office, the message of rejecting the corrupt system instead of reforming it was troubling. T. S. V. Hari of "Hindustan Times" said that the director, Shankar, was not creative enough for the film and added this by saying ""Sivaji" turns out to be a rehash of all his previous jingoistic claptrap efforts". It appreciated the other technical departments and suggested a good response at the box office. "The Times of India" had a similar review about the story saying that "it had nothing new to offer" but promised it to be entertaining and gave it four stars.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: R G Vijayasarathy of Rediff.com summed the film by saying, "No logic, only Rajni's magic". About the story, he said, "Unfortunately, (the) message is lost in the maze of illogical and sometimes absurd sequences". The review, however, praised the performances of Rajinikanth, Shriya and Vivek and the technical crew. Sify wrote: "There is only one hero here, [..] – Rajni himself. Such is the overpowering screen presence of his cinematic charisma in every frame of the film. The film works big time as Shankar has made the film on a grand scale, [..] which is a visual treat with superbly choreographed action scenes. All this comes with top-of-the-line techno-finesse, perhaps the best ever in Tamil cinema" and also wrote that "Technically, [..] a revelation [..] there are stunning visuals, which is paisa vasool. K.V.Anand's cinematography is top class. Art director Thotta Tharani work is enticing, especially the sets in songs". "Ananda Vikatan" rated the film 41 out of 100.


title: Sivaji: The Boss

text: Sunil, M. S. Bhaskar, and Komal spoofed the character M. G. Ravichandran in "Kantri" (2008), "Maasilamani" (2009), and "Thipparalli Tharlegalu" (2010), respectively.


title: Screwdriver

text: A screwdriver is a tool, manual or powered, used for turning screws. A typical simple screwdriver has a handle and a shaft, ending in a tip the user puts into the screw head before turning the handle. This form of the screwdriver has been replaced in many workplaces and homes with a more modern and versatile tool, a power drill, as they are quicker, easier, and can also drill holes. The shaft is usually made of tough steel to resist bending or twisting. The tip may be hardened to resist wear, treated with a dark tip coating for improved visual contrast between tip and screw—or ridged or treated for additional 'grip'. Handles are typically wood, metal, or plastic and usually hexagonal, square, or oval in cross-section to improve grip and prevent the tool from rolling when set down. Some manual screwdrivers have interchangeable tips that fit into a socket on the end of the shaft and are held in mechanically or magnetically. These often have a hollow handle that contains various types and sizes of tips, and a reversible ratchet action that allows multiple full turns without repositioning the tip or the user's hand.


title: Screwdriver

text: A screwdriver is classified by its tip, which is shaped to fit the driving surfaces—slots, grooves, recesses, etc.—on the corresponding screw head. Proper use requires that the screwdriver's tip engage the head of a screw of the same size and type designation as the screwdriver tip. Screwdriver tips are available in a wide variety of types and sizes (List of screw drives). The two most common are the simple 'blade'-type for slotted screws, and Phillips, generically called "cross-recess", "cross-head", or "cross-point".


title: Screwdriver

text: A wide variety of power screwdrivers ranges from a simple 'stick'-type with batteries, a motor, and a tip holder all inline, to powerful "pistol" type VSR (variable-speed reversible) cordless drills that also function as screwdrivers. This is particularly useful as drilling a pilot hole before driving a screw is a common operation. Special combination drill-driver bits and adapters let an operator rapidly alternate between the two. Variations include impact drivers, which provide two types of 'hammering' force for improved performance in certain situations, and "right-angle" drivers for use in tight spaces. Many options and enhancements, such as built-in bubble levels, high/low gear selection, magnetic screw holders, adjustable-torque clutches, keyless chucks, 'gyroscopic' control, etc., are available.


title: Screwdriver

text: The earliest documented screwdrivers were used in the late Middle Ages. They were probably invented in the late 15th century, either in Germany or France. The tool's original names in German and French were "Schraubenzieher" (screwpuller) and "tournevis" (turnscrew), respectively. The first documentation of the tool is in the medieval , a manuscript written sometime between 1475 and 1490. These earliest screwdrivers had pear-shaped handles and were made for slotted screws (diversification of the many types of screwdrivers did not emerge until the Gilded Age). The screwdriver remained inconspicuous, however, as evidence of its existence throughout the next 300 years is based primarily on the presence of screws.


title: Screwdriver

text: Screws were used in the 15th century to construct screw-cutting lathes, for securing breastplates, backplates, and helmets on medieval jousting armor—and eventually for multiple parts of the emerging firearms, particularly the matchlock. Screws, hence screwdrivers, were not used in full combat armor, most likely to give the wearer freedom of movement.


title: Screwdriver

text: The jaws that hold the pyrites inside wheellock guns were secured with screws, and the need to constantly replace the pyrites resulted in a considerable refinement of the screwdriver. The tool is more documented in France, and took on many shapes and sizes, though all for slotted screws. There were large, heavy-duty screwdrivers for building and repairing large machines, and smaller screwdrivers for refined cabinet work.


title: Screwdriver

text: The screwdriver depended entirely on the screw, and it took several advances to make the screw easy enough to produce to become popular and widespread. The most popular door hinge at the time was the butt-hinge, but it was considered a luxury. The butt-hinge was handmade, and its constant motion required the security of a screw.


title: Screwdriver

text: Screws were very hard to produce before the First Industrial Revolution, requiring the manufacture of a conical helix. The brothers Job and William Wyatt found a way to produce a screw on a novel machine that first cut the slotted head, and then cut the helix. Though their business ultimately failed, their contribution to low-cost manufacturing of the screw ultimately led to a vast increase in the screw and the screwdriver's popularity. The increase in popularity gradually led to refinement and eventually diversification of the screwdriver. Refinement of the precision of screws also significantly contributed to the boom in production, mostly by increasing its efficiency and standardizing sizes, important precursors to industrial manufacture.


title: Screwdriver

text: Canadian P.L. Robertson, though he was not the first person to patent the idea of socket-head screws, was the first to successfully commercialize them, starting in 1908. Socket screws rapidly grew in popularity, and are still used for their resistance to wear and tear, compatibility with hex keys, and ability to stop a power tool when set. Though immensely popular, Robertson had trouble marketing his invention to the newly booming auto industry, for he was unwilling to relinquish his patents.


title: Screwdriver

text: Meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, Henry F. Phillips patented his own invention, an improved version of a deep socket with a cruciform slot, today known as the Phillips Screw. Phillips offered his screw to the American Screw Company, and after a successful trial on the 1936 Cadillac, it quickly swept through the American auto industry. With the Industrial Revival at the end of the Great Depression and the upheaval of World War II, the Phillips screw quickly became, and remains, the most popular screw in the world. A main attraction for the screw was that conventional slotted screwdrivers could also be used on them, which was not possible with the Robertson Screw.


title: Screwdriver

text: Gunsmiths still call a screwdriver a "turnscrew", under which name it is an important part of a set of pistols. The name was common in earlier centuries, used by cabinetmakers, shipwrights, and perhaps other trades. The cabinetmaker's screwdriver is one of the longest-established handle forms, somewhat oval or ellipsoid in cross-section. This is variously attributed to improving grip or preventing the tool rolling off the bench. The shape has been popular for a couple of hundred years. It is usually associated with a plain head for slotted screws, but has been used with many head forms. Modern plastic screwdrivers use a handle with a roughly hexagonal cross-section to achieve these same two goals, a far cry from the pear-shaped handle of the original 15th-century screwdriver.


title: Screwdriver

text: The handle and shaft of screwdrivers have changed considerably over time. The design is influenced by both purpose and manufacturing requirements. The "Perfect Pattern Handle" screwdriver was first manufactured by HD Smith & Company, which operated from 1850 to 1900. Many manufacturers adopted this handle design. At the time, the "flat bladed" screw type was prevalent and was the fastener with which they were designed to be used. Another popular design was composed of drop-forged steel with riveted wood handles.


title: Screwdriver

text: The shape and material of many modern screwdriver handles are designed to fit comfortably in the user's hand, for user comfort and to facilitate maximum control and torque. Designs include indentations for the user's fingers, and surfaces of a soft material such as thermoplastic elastomer to increase comfort and grip. Composite handles of rigid plastic and rubber are also common. Many screwdriver handles are not smooth and often not round, but have flats or other irregularities to improve grip and to prevent the tool from rolling when on a flat surface.


title: Screwdriver

text: Some screwdrivers have a short hexagonal section at the top of the blade, adjacent to the handle, so that a ring spanner or open wrench can be used to increase the applied torque. Another option are "cabinet" screwdrivers which are made of flat bar stock and while the shaft may be rounded, will have a large flat section adjacent to the handle which a wrench (often an adjustable) may be used on for additional leverage. The offset screwdriver has a handle set at right angles to the small blade, providing access to narrow spaces and giving extra torque.


title: Screwdriver

text: Screwdrivers come in a large range of sizes to accommodate various screws—from tiny jeweller's screwdrivers up. A screwdriver that is not the right size and type for the screw may damage the screw in the process of tightening it.


title: Screwdriver

text: Some screwdriver tips are magnetic, so that the screw (unless non-magnetic) remains attached to the screwdriver without requiring external force. This is particularly useful in small screws, which are otherwise very difficult to attempt to handle. Many screwdriver designs have a handle with a detachable tip (the part of the screwdriver that engages the screw), called "bits" as with drill bits. This provides a set of one handle and several bits that can drive a variety of screw sizes and types.


title: Screwdriver

text: The tool used to drive a slotted screw head is called a "standard", "common blade", "flat-blade", "slot-head", "straight", "flat", "flat-tip", or ""flat-head"" screwdriver. This last usage can be confusing, because the term "flat-head" also describes a screw with a flat top, designed to install in a countersunk hole. Furthermore, the term implies that a screwdriver has a "head"; it does not. Such a flat-headed screw may have a slotted, cross, square recessed, or combination head. Before the development of the newer bit types, the flat-blade was called the "Common-Blade", because it was the most common one. Depending on the application, the name of this screwdriver may differ. Within the automotive/heavy electric industries, it is known as a "flat head screwdriver"; within the avionics and mining industries, it is known as a "standard screwdriver". Though there are many names, the original device from 1908 was known as a "flat-head screw turner".


title: Screwdriver

text: Among slotted screwdrivers, variations at the blade or bit end involve the profile of the blade as viewed face-on (from the side of the tool). The more common type is sometimes called keystone, where the blade profile is slightly flared before tapering off at the end, which provides extra stiffness to the workface and makes it capable of withstanding more torque. To maximize access in space-restricted applications, the "cabinet" variant screwdriver blade sides are straight and parallel, reaching the end of the blade at a right angle. This design is also frequently used in jeweler's screwdrivers.


title: Screwdriver

text: Many textbooks and vocational schools instruct mechanics to grind down the tip of the blade, which, due to the taper, increases its thickness and consequently allows more precise engagement with the slot in the screw. This approach creates a set of graduated slotted screwdrivers that fit a particular screw for a tighter engagement and reduce screw head deformation. However, many better-quality screwdriver blades are already induction-hardened (surface heat-treated), and tip grinding after manufacture compromises their durability. Thus, it is best to select a tip made to fit precisely to begin with, and avoid weakening the factory heat-treatment.


title: Screwdriver

text: Phillips screwdrivers come in several standard sizes, ranging from tiny "jeweler's" to those used for automobile frame assembly—or #000 to #4 respectively. This size number is usually stamped onto the shank (shaft) or handle for identification. Each bit size fits a range of screw sizes, more or less well. Each Phillips screwdriver size also has a related shank diameter. The driver has a 57° point and tapered, unsharp (rounded) flutes. The #1 and smaller bits come to a blunt point, but the #2 and above have no point, but rather a nearly squared-off tip, making each size incompatible with the other.


title: Screwdriver

text: The design is often criticized for its tendency to cam out at lower torque levels than other "cross head" designs, an effect caused by the tapered profile of the flutes which makes them easier to insert into the screw than other similar styles. There has long been a popular belief that this was actually a "deliberate" feature of the design. Evidence is lacking for this specific narrative and the feature is not mentioned in the original patents. However, a subsequent refinement to the original design described in US Patent #2,474,994 describes this feature.


title: Screwdriver

text: Robertson, also known as a square, or Scrulox screw drive has a square-shaped socket in the screw head and a square protrusion on the tool. Both the tool and the socket have a taper, which makes inserting the tool easier, and also tends to help keep the screw on the tool tip without the user needing to hold it there. (The taper's earliest reason for being was to make the manufacture of the screws practical using cold forming of the heads, but its other advantages helped popularize the drive.) Robertson screws are commonplace in Canada, though they have been used elsewhere, and have become much more common in other countries in recent decades. Robertson screwdrivers are easy to use one-handed, because the tapered socket tends to retain the screw, even if it is shaken. They also allow for the use of angled screw drivers and trim head screws. The socket-headed Robertson screws are self-centering, reduce cam out, stop a power tool when set, and can be removed if painted over or old and rusty. In industry, they speed up production and reduce product damage. One of their first major industrial uses was the Ford Motor Company's Model A & Model T production. Henry Ford found them highly reliable and saved considerable production time, but he couldn't secure licensing for them in the United States, so he limited their use solely to his Canadian division. Robertson-head screwdrivers are available in a standard range of tip sizes, from 1.77mm to 4.85mm.


title: Screwdriver

text: Reed and Prince, also called Frearson, is another historic cross-head screw configuration. The cross in the screw head is sharper and less rounded than a Phillips, and the bit has 45° flukes and a sharper, pointed end. Also, the Phillips screw slot is not as deep as the Reed and Prince slot. In theory, different size R&P screws fit any R&P bit size.


title: Screwdriver

text: Pozidriv and the related Supadriv are widely used in Europe and most of the Far East. While Pozidriv screws have cross heads like Phillips and are sometimes thought effectively the same, the Pozidriv design allows higher torque application than Phillips. It is often claimed that they can apply more torque than any of the other commonly used cross-head screwdriver systems, due to a complex fluting (mating) configuration.


title: Screwdriver

text: Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) cross-head screwdrivers are still another standard, often inaccurately called "Japanese Phillips". Compatible screw heads are usually identifiable by a single depressed dot or an "X" to one side of the cross slot. This is a screw standard throughout the Asia market and Japanese imports. The driver has a 57° point with a flat tip.


title: Screwdriver

text: Many modern electrical appliances, if they contain screws, use screws with heads other than the typical slotted or Phillips styles. Torx is one such pattern that has become widespread. It is a spline tip with a corresponding recess in the screw head. The main cause of this trend is manufacturing efficiency: Torx screwdriver tips do not slip out of the fastener as easily as would a Phillips or slotted driver. (Slotted screws are rarely used in mass-produced devices, since the driver is not inherently centered on the fastener.)


title: Screwdriver

text: Non-typical fasteners are commonplace in consumer devices for their ability to make disassembly more difficult, which is seen as a benefit for manufacturers but is considered a disadvantage by users than if more common head types were used. In microwave ovens, such screws deny casual access to the high-power kilovolt electrical components, which are very dangerous.


title: Screwdriver

text: However, Torx and other drivers have become widely available to the consumer due to their increasing use in the industry. Some other styles fit a three-pointed star recess, and a five-lobed spline with rounded edges instead of the square edges of the Torx. This is called a Pentalobe.


title: Screwdriver

text: Specialized patterns of security screws are also used, such as the Line Head (LH) style by OSG System Products, Japan, as used in many Nintendo consoles, though drivers for the more common security heads are, again, readily available. Another type of security head has smooth curved surfaces instead of the slot edges that would permit loosening the screw; it is found in public rest room privacy partitions, and cannot be removed by conventional screwdrivers.


title: Screwdriver

text: Screwdrivers are available—manual, electric, and pneumatic—with a clutch that slips at a preset torque. This helps the user tighten screws to a specified torque without damage or over-tightening. Cordless drills designed to use as screwdrivers often have such a clutch.


title: Screwdriver

text: Interchangeable bits allow the use of powered screwdrivers, commonly using an electric or air motor to rotate the bit. Cordless drills with speed and torque control are commonly used as power screwdrivers.


title: Screwdriver

text: Some manual screwdrivers have a ratchet action whereby the screwdriver blade locks to the handle for clockwise rotation, but uncouples for counterclockwise rotation when set for tightening screws—and vice versa for loosening.


title: Screwdriver

text: Spiral ratchet screw drivers, often colloquially called "Yankee screwdrivers" (a brand name), provide a special mechanism that transforms linear motion into rotational motion. Originally the "Yankee" name was used on all tools sold by the North Brothers Manufacturing Company but later, after Stanley purchased the company, it became synonymous with only this type of screwdriver. The user pushes the handle toward the workpiece, causing a pawl in a spiral groove to rotate the shank and the removable bit. The ratchet can be set to rotate left or right with each push, or can be locked so that the tool can be used like a conventional screwdriver. One disadvantage of this design is that if the bit slips out of the screw, the resultant sudden extension of the spring may cause the bit to scratch or otherwise damage the workpiece.


title: Screwdriver

text: Once very popular, versions of these spiral ratchet drivers using proprietary bits have been largely discontinued by manufacturers such as Stanley. Some companies now offer a modernized version that uses standard -inch hex shank power tool bits. Since a wide variety of drill bits are available in this format, the tool can do double duty as a "push drill" or Persian drill.


title: Eva Birthistle

text: Eva Birthistle (born 1974) is an Irish actress and writer. She is best known for her role in "Ae Fond Kiss..." and since 2015 has starred in "The Last Kingdom". She won the London Film Critics Circle British or Irish Actress of the Year Award in 2004, and has twice won the IFTA Best Actress in a Leading Role (Film) award.


title: Eva Birthistle

text: Birthistle was born in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, but moved with her family to Derry, Northern Ireland when she was 14. She was raised Catholic but attended the non-denominational Foyle College. After her GCSEs, she studied acting at The Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin.


title: Eva Birthistle

text: In 1995, she got her first TV role as Regina Crosbie in the serial "Glenroe". She stayed for three years until 1998. She was offered her first feature film in 1997, "All Souls' Day" by Alan Gilsenan. She played a variety of roles in Irish films, including "Drinking Crude" (1997), co-starring Colin Farrell, and TV movie "Miracle at Midnight" (1998), with Mia Farrow. In 2002, Eva appeared in "Sunday", a dramatisation of the events of Bloody Sunday written by Jimmy McGovern.


title: Eva Birthistle

text: In 2003, she appeared in the TV series "Trust" before starring as Roisin Hanlon in the Ken Loach movie "Ae Fond Kiss..." (2003–04), which won her the 2005 London Critics Circle Film Award as "British Actress of the Year". She appeared in "Breakfast on Pluto", "Imagine Me & You" and "Save Angel Hope" (by Lukas Erni) in 2005, and in Brian Kirk's "Middletown" in 2006. She starred as human rights lawyer Jane Lavery in the TV conspiracy drama "The State Within", and played Rosaleen in the "Taken at the Flood" episode of "Agatha Christie's Poirot" in 2006. In late 2007, she featured as Rembrandt's wife Saskia van Uylenburg in the historical drama, "Nightwatching" by Peter Greenaway.


title: Eva Birthistle

text: She featured in the BBC drama "The Last Enemy" in early 2008, playing the role of Eleanor Brooke, a junior minister. In 2009, she portrayed Jenette in the last episode of the second season of the BBC hit series "Ashes to Ashes". She also appeared in two successful horror films "The Children" (2008) and "Wake Wood" (2011). In 2010, she won Best Actress at the Myrtle Beach International Film Festival for her acclaimed performance as a lovelorn paralegal in Curt Truninger's "The Rendezvous".


title: Eva Birthistle

text: She played "Annette Nicholls" in the 2010 three-part TV series "Five Daughters". She appeared as Detective Superintendent Sarah Cavendish in the ninth, and final, series of "Waking the Dead". In 2011, Birthistle appeared in the Sky1 TV series "" as Captain Kate Marshall. In 2013, Birthistle co-starred with Anna Friel in the Sky1 TV production "The Psychopath Next Door". In "Brooklyn" she played Georgina, the cabin-mate of Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), mentoring her in surviving the voyage to New York and dealing with immigration to the US. In 2014, she portrayed Sarah Bailey in the miniseries "Amber". Since 2015, she has starred in "The Last Kingdom" as Hild, a nun turned warrior and friend of Uhtred of Bebbanburg.


title: Eva Birthistle

text: Birthistle's husband, Ross, is an acupuncturist. They have a son, Jesse, born in 2013, and a daughter, Joni (named after Joni Mitchell) born in 2017.


title: Null Island

text: Null Island is the point on the Earth's surface at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude (), i.e., where the prime meridian and the equator intersect. Null Island is located in international waters in the Atlantic Ocean, roughly 600 km off the coast of West Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea. The exact point, using the WGS84 datum, is marked by the Soul buoy (named after the musical genre), a permanently-moored weather buoy.


title: Null Island

text: The term "Null Island" jokingly refers to a fictional place at that location, and to a common cartographic placeholder name to which coordinates erroneously set to 0,0 are assigned in placename databases in order to more easily find and fix them. The nearest land () is to the north – a small Ghanaian islet offshore from Achowa Point between Akwidaa and Dixcove. The depth of the seabed beneath the Soul buoy is around . Although Null Island started as a joke within the geospatial community, its existence has both technological and social implications that promote Null Island as a recurring issue in geographic information science.


title: Null Island

text: In terms of computing and placename databases, the coordinates for Null Island were added to the Natural Earth public domain map dataset –2011, after which the term came into wide use (although there is evidence of it being used previously). Since then, the "island" has through fiction been given a geography, history, and flag. Natural Earth describes the entity as a "1 meter square island" with "scale rank 100, indicating it should never be shown in mapping". The name "Null" refers to the two zero coordinates, as null values (indicating an absence of data) are often coerced to a value of 0 when converted to an integer context or "no-nulls allowed" context.


title: Null Island

text: The location is used by mapping systems to trap errors. Such errors arise, for example, where an image artifact is erroneously associated to the location by software which cannot attribute a geoposition, and instead associates a latitude and longitude of "Null,Null" or "0,0". As reported in January 2018 by Bellingcat, other data mapped to the location include activity events from the Strava fitness-tracking app, apparently mapped to the location due to users entering "0,0" coordinates to disguise their real locations.


title: Null Island

text: A weather and sea observation buoy is moored at the Null Island location. The buoy ("Station 13010 – Soul") is part of the PIRATA system, a set of 17 buoys installed in the tropical Atlantic Ocean since 1997 by the United States, France, and Brazil. Like the other buoys in the system, it is named after a musical genre. It is an ATLAS ("Autonomous Temperature Line Acquisition System") buoy, autonomous, conical-shaped and 3.8 m high. It is anchored by a cable to the seabed. It measures the following:


title: A. J. Green

text: Adriel Jeremiah Green (born July 31, 1988) is an American football wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Georgia and was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals fourth overall in the 2011 NFL Draft, where he spent ten seasons prior to joining the Cardinals.


title: A. J. Green

text: In his first season with the Bengals, Green made the 2012 Pro Bowl becoming the first rookie receiver to make a Pro Bowl appearance in eight years, and went on to accumulate a total of seven Pro Bowl appearances throughout his career. From 2011 to 2013, Green caught more passes (260) than any other player in NFL history during their first three seasons, a record that was later broken by Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. (288). He has had six seasons with 1,000 or more receiving yards.


title: A. J. Green

text: Green signed with the Cardinals in 2021, having finished his Bengals career ranked second in franchise history, behind only Chad Johnson, in receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, and receptions.


title: A. J. Green

text: Green is the son of Woodrow and Dora Green; Woodrow was a steelworker and truck driver and Dora, a clerk at a Walmart. When A. J. was age 4, his only sibling, older brother Avionce, died in a car wreck on the way to a school carnival; the wreck also left their aunt paralyzed. Green was on his elementary school's juggling team, telling "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" that he learned to juggle as early as second grade. Green said he could juggle as many as four items at once, and that the ability helped the development of his hand-eye coordination.


title: A. J. Green

text: Green attended Summerville High School in Summerville, South Carolina, where he was a three-sport athlete in football, basketball, and track. He played as a wide receiver for the Summerville Green Wave football team, under coach John McKissick. He was widely considered to be one of the top national football prospects of the Class of 2008 and was listed #1 by "Sports Illustrated". Green earned All-State honors four times and was the only junior nominated to the 2006 "USA Today" All-American first-team following 75 receptions for 1,422 yards and 16 touchdowns during his sophomore season. Green was also selected as a member of the Rivals.com Junior All-America team based on those stats. As a freshman, he had 57 receptions for 1,217 yards and eight touchdowns. As a sophomore, he had 60 catches for 1,203 yards and 14 touchdowns.


title: A. J. Green

text: Green's 5,373 career receiving yards rank second in the all-time career receiving records of the National Federation of High Schools. His 279 career receptions rank fourth. In June 2006, Green was profiled by "Sports Illustrated" as part of its “Where Will They Be?” stories documenting athletes with the potential of becoming a future great, alongside Peter Uihlein, John Tavares, Tyreke Evans, Elena Delle Donne, and others. "Sports Illustrated" compared him to the then-Oakland Raiders wideout Randy Moss and predicted Green will be in the NFL by 2011. Green was also on the school's track & field team, where he competed as a long jumper (top-jump of 19 ft 6 in) and triple jumper (40 ft 0 in).


title: A. J. Green

text: "Rivals.com" ranked Green as their No. 9 prospect for the high school class of 2008, while "Scout.com" named Green their No. 10 prospect nationally. He participated in the Under Armour All-America Game.


title: A. J. Green

text: Green was also on the Summerville High high school basketball team that claimed the 2007–2008 South Carolina state championship in a championship game against Spartanburg (S.C.) High. The game was played in memory of their fallen assistant coach, Captain Louis Mulkey of the Charleston Fire Department in South Carolina, who died responding to a fire with eight other firefighters on June 18, 2007.


title: A. J. Green

text: Green verbally committed to attend the University of Georgia in October 2006, and made his commitment official by signing a letter of intent to play at Georgia on February 6, 2008. He played for coach Mark Richt's Georgia Bulldogs football team from 2008 to 2010.


title: A. J. Green

text: Green had a solid freshman season for the 10–3 Georgia Bulldogs in 2008. He joined a wide receivers unit that contained Mohamed Massaquoi, Michael Moore, Kris Durham, and Demiko Goodman. In the fourth game of his college career, against Arizona State, Green had eight catches for 159 yards and a touchdown in the 27–10 victory. For this, he was named SEC Player of the Week. On October 18, against SEC East rival Vanderbilt, he had seven receptions for 132 receiving yards in the 24–14 victory.


title: A. J. Green

text: He finished the 2008 season with 56 catches for 963 yards and eight touchdowns, all Georgia freshman school records. He also led the SEC in receiving yards, with the third-highest total in UGA school history. He was named second-team All-SEC and Freshman of the Year by the SEC coaches, and was named to the Associated Press All-SEC first-team.