title: Muhammad bin Tughluq

text: In 1333, Muhammad Bin Tughlaq led the Qarachil expedition to the Kullu-Kangra region of modern-day Himachal Pradesh in India. Historians like Badauni and Ferishta wrote that Tughluq originally wanted to cross the Himalayas and invade China. However, he faced local resistance in Himachal. Prithvi Chand II of the Hindu Rajput kingdom of Katoch clan of Kangra defeated the army of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq which was not able to fight in the hills. Nearly all his 100,000 soldiers perished and were forced to retreat.


title: Muhammad bin Tughluq

text: Muhammad Bin Tughlaq died in 1351 on his way to Thatta, Sindh, while he was campaigning in Sindh against Taghi, a Turkic slave tribe. It was during his reign that the Sultanate of Delhi collapsed by twofold resistance. One was from Rajputs led by Hammir Singh of Mewar, and the other from Harihara and Bukka of South India. While Rana Hammir Singh liberated the strategic Rajputana following the victory in Battle of Singoli in 1336, Harihara and Bukka established a new empire called Vijayanagara Empire, by initially defeating and later ending Madurai Sultanate that was ruling a major part of South India on behalf of Delhi Sultanate. Several other south Indian rulers like Musunuri Kaapaaneedu, etc. also contributed to the downfall of the Islamic Sultanate of Delhi. To add to Tughluq's woes, his own generals rebelled against him. One of his generals would go on to form the Bahmani Sultanate in the Deccan.


title: Muhammad bin Tughluq

text: Historian Ishwari Prasad writes that different coins of different shapes and sizes were produced by his mints which lacked the artistic perfection of design and finish. In 1330, after his failed expedition to Deogiri, he issued token currency; that is coins of brass and copper were minted whose value was equal to that of gold and silver coins. Historian Ziauddin Barani felt that this step was taken by Tughluq as he wanted to annex all the inhabited areas of the world for which a treasury was required to pay the army. Barani had also written that the sultan's treasury had been exhausted by his action of giving rewards and gifts in gold. In the rural areas, officials like the "muqaddams" paid the revenue in brass and copper coins and also used the same coins to purchase arms and horses. As a result, the value of coins decreased, and, in the words of Satish Chandra, the coins became ""as worthless as stones"". This also disrupted trade and commerce. The token currency had inscriptions in Persian and Arabic marking the use of new coins instead of the royal seal and so the citizens could not distinguish between the official and the forged coins. Records show that the use of token currency had stopped by 1333 as Ibn Battuta who came to Delhi in 1334, wrote a journal which made no mention of this currency.


title: Muhammad bin Tughluq

text: There are conflicting views expressed by historians on his religious tolerance. While visitors Ibn Battuta, Nunez and Firistha mention that Muhammed Bin Tughlaq showed intolerance to other religions, on the contrary, Peter Jackson mentions that Muhammed was the only Sultan who participated in Hindu festivities. Ibn Battuta mentions that the king of China (the Yuan Emperor) had sent an embassy to Muhammad for reconstruction of a sacked temple at Sambhal. The envoys were however denied with the statement that only those living in a Muslim territory who paid the "jizya" could be permitted to restore a temple. Firuz Shah Tughlaq had claimed that before his rule, idol-temples had been permitted to be rebuilt contrary to the Sharia.


title: Muhammad bin Tughluq

text: The contemporaneous Jain authorities attests Muhammad cordial relations with the Jains and further showing favour to the Jain scholars.


title: Muhammad bin Tughluq

text: Tughluq was a strict Muslim, maintaining his five prayers during a day, used to fast in Ramadan. According to 19th century CE British historian Stanley Lane-Poole, apparently courtesans had hailed Tughluq as a "man of knowledge" and had an interest in subjects like philosophy, medicine, mathematics, religion, Persian and Urdu/Hindustani poetry. In his ""Medieval India"", "He was perfect in the humanities of his day, a keen student of Persian poetry... a master of style, supremely eloquent in an age of rhetoric, a philosopher trained in Logic and Greek metaphysics, with whom scholars feared to argue, a mathematician and lover of science." Barani has written that Tughluq wanted the traditions of the "nubuwwah" to be followed in his kingdom. Even though he did not believe in mysticism, Chandra states that he respected the Sufi saints, which is evident from the fact of his building of the mausoleum of the saint Nizamuddin Auliya at Nizamuddin Dargah. Critics have called him hasty in nature, owing to most of his experiments failing due to lack of preparation. Ibn Battuta has also written that he depended on his own judgment and rarely took advice from others and has also criticized him for his giving of excessive gifts and "harsh punishments". He was famous because whenever a gift was bestowed upon him, he would give gifts worth three times the value to show his stature.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: An evaporative cooler (also known as evaporative air conditioner, swamp cooler, swamp box, desert cooler and wet air cooler) is a device that cools air through the evaporation of water. Evaporative cooling differs from other air conditioning systems, which use vapor-compression or absorption refrigeration cycles. Evaporative cooling exploits the fact that water will absorb a relatively large amount of heat in order to evaporate (that is, it has a large enthalpy of vaporization). The temperature of dry air can be dropped significantly through the phase transition of liquid water to water vapor (evaporation). This can cool air using much less energy than refrigeration. In extremely dry climates, evaporative cooling of air has the added benefit of conditioning the air with more moisture for the comfort of building occupants.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: The cooling potential for evaporative cooling is dependent on the wet-bulb depression, the difference between dry-bulb temperature and wet-bulb temperature (see relative humidity). In arid climates, evaporative cooling can reduce energy consumption and total equipment for conditioning as an alternative to compressor-based cooling. In climates not considered arid, indirect evaporative cooling can still take advantage of the evaporative cooling process without increasing humidity. Passive evaporative cooling strategies can offer the same benefits of mechanical evaporative cooling systems without the complexity of equipment and ductwork.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: An earlier form of evaporative cooling, the windcatcher, was first used in ancient Egypt and Persia thousands of years ago in the form of wind shafts on the roof. They caught the wind, passed it over subterranean water in a "qanat" and discharged the cooled air into the building. Modern Iranians have widely adopted powered evaporative coolers ("").


title: Evaporative cooler

text: The evaporative cooler was the subject of numerous US patents in the 20th century; many of these, starting in 1906, suggested or assumed the use of excelsior (wood wool) pads as the elements to bring a large volume of water in contact with moving air to allow evaporation to occur. A typical design, as shown in a 1945 patent, includes a water reservoir (usually with level controlled by a float valve), a pump to circulate water over the excelsior pads and a centrifugal fan to draw air through the pads and into the house. This design and this material remain dominant in evaporative coolers in the American Southwest, where they are also used to increase humidity. In the United States, the use of the term "swamp cooler" may be due to the odor of algae produced by early units.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Externally mounted evaporative cooling devices (car coolers) were used in some automobiles to cool interior air—often as aftermarket accessories—until modern vapor-compression air conditioning became widely available.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Passive evaporative cooling techniques in buildings have been a feature of desert architecture for centuries, but Western acceptance, study, innovation, and commercial application is all relatively recent. In 1974, William H. Goettl noticed how evaporative cooling technology works in arid climates, speculated that a combination unit could be more effective, and invented the "High Efficiency Astro Air Piggyback System", a combination refrigeration and evaporative cooling air conditioner. In 1986, University of Arizona researchers W. Cunningham and T. Thompson built a passive evaporative cooling tower, and performance data from this experimental facility in Tucson, Arizona became the foundation of evaporative cooling tower design guidelines developed by Baruch Givoni.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Evaporative coolers lower the temperature of air using the principle of evaporative cooling, unlike typical air conditioning systems which use vapor-compression refrigeration or absorption refrigeration. Evaporative cooling is the conversion of liquid water into vapor using the thermal energy in the air, resulting in a lower air temperature. The energy needed to evaporate the water is taken from the air in the form of sensible heat, which affects the temperature of the air, and converted into latent heat, the energy present in the water vapor component of the air, whilst the air remains at a constant enthalpy value. This conversion of sensible heat to latent heat is known as an isenthalpic process because it occurs at a constant enthalpy value. Evaporative cooling therefore causes a drop in the temperature of air proportional to the sensible heat drop and an increase in humidity proportional to the latent heat gain. Evaporative cooling can be visualized using a psychrometric chart by finding the initial air condition and moving along a line of constant enthalpy toward a state of higher humidity.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: A simple example of natural evaporative cooling is perspiration, or sweat, secreted by the body, evaporation of which cools the body. The amount of heat transfer depends on the evaporation rate, however for each kilogram of water vaporized 2,257 kJ of energy (about 890 BTU per pound of pure water, at 95 °F (35 °C)) are transferred. The evaporation rate depends on the temperature and humidity of the air, which is why sweat accumulates more on humid days, as it does not evaporate fast enough.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Vapor-compression refrigeration uses evaporative cooling, but the evaporated vapor is within a sealed system, and is then compressed ready to evaporate again, using energy to do so. A simple


title: Evaporative cooler

text: evaporative cooler's water is evaporated into the environment, and not recovered. In an interior space cooling unit, the evaporated water is introduced into the space along with the now-cooled air; in an evaporative tower the evaporated water is carried off in the airflow exhaust.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: A closely related process, "sublimation cooling", differs from evaporative cooling in that a phase transition from solid to vapor, rather than liquid to vapor, occurs.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Sublimation cooling has been observed to operate on a planetary scale on the planetoid Pluto, where it has been called an anti-greenhouse effect.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Another application of a phase change to cooling is the "self-refrigerating" beverage can. A separate compartment inside the can contains a desiccant and a liquid. Just before drinking, a tab is pulled so that the desiccant comes into contact with the liquid and dissolves. As it does so, it absorbs an amount of heat energy called the latent heat of fusion. Evaporative cooling works with the phase change of liquid into vapor and the latent heat of vaporization, but the self-cooling can uses a change from solid to liquid, and the latent heat of fusion, to achieve the same result.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Before the advent of modern refrigeration, evaporative cooling was used for millennia, for instance in "qanats", windcatchers, and mashrabiyas. A porous earthenware vessel would cool water by evaporation through its walls; frescoes from about 2500 BCE show slaves fanning jars of water to cool rooms. Alternatively, a bowl filled with milk or butter could be placed in another bowl filled with water, all being covered with a wet cloth resting in the water, to keep the milk or butter as fresh as possible (see zeer, botijo and Coolgardie safe).


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Evaporative cooling is a common form of cooling buildings for thermal comfort since it is relatively cheap and requires less energy than other forms of cooling.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: The figure showing the Salt Lake City weather data represents the typical summer climate (June to September). The colored lines illustrate the potential of direct and indirect evaporative cooling strategies to expand the comfort range in summer time. It is mainly explained by the combination of a higher air speed on one hand and elevated indoor humidity when the region permits the direct evaporative cooling strategy on the other hand. Evaporative cooling strategies that involve the humidification of the air should be implemented in dry condition where the increase in moisture content stays below recommendations for occupant's comfort and indoor air quality. Passive cooling towers lack the control that traditional HVAC systems offer to occupants. However, the additional air movement provided into the space can improve occupant comfort.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Evaporative cooling is most effective when the relative humidity is on the low side, limiting its popularity to dry climates. Evaporative cooling raises the internal humidity level significantly, which desert inhabitants may appreciate as the moist air re-hydrates dry skin and sinuses. Therefore, assessing typical climate data is an essential procedure to determine the potential of evaporative cooling strategies for a building. The three most important climate considerations are dry-bulb temperature, wet-bulb temperature, and wet-bulb depression during a typical summer day. It is important to determine if the wet-bulb depression can provide sufficient cooling during the summer day. By subtracting the wet-bulb depression from the outside dry-bulb temperature, one can estimate the approximate air temperature leaving the evaporative cooler. It is important to consider that the ability for the exterior dry-bulb temperature to reach the wet-bulb temperature depends on the saturation efficiency. A general recommendation for applying direct evaporative cooling is to implement it in places where the wet-bulb temperature of the outdoor air does not exceed . However, in the example of Salt Lake City, the upper limit for the direct evaporative cooling on psychrometric chart is . Despite the lower temperature, evaporative cooling is suitable for similar climates to Salt Lake City.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Evaporative cooling is especially well suited for climates where the air is hot and humidity is low. In the United States, the western and mountain states are good locations, with evaporative coolers prevalent in cities like Albuquerque, Denver, El Paso, Fresno, Salt Lake City, and Tucson. Evaporative air conditioning is also popular and well-suited to the southern (temperate) part of Australia. In dry, arid climates, the installation and operating cost of an evaporative cooler can be much lower than that of refrigerative air conditioning, often by 80% or so. However, evaporative cooling and vapor-compression air conditioning are sometimes used in combination to yield optimal cooling results. Some evaporative coolers may also serve as humidifiers in the heating season. In regions that are mostly arid, short periods of high humidity may prevent evaporative cooling from being an effective cooling strategy. An example of this event is the monsoon season in New Mexico and central and southern Arizona in July and August.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: In locations with moderate humidity there are many cost-effective uses for evaporative cooling, in addition to their widespread use in dry climates. For example, industrial plants, commercial kitchens, laundries, dry cleaners, greenhouses, spot cooling (loading docks, warehouses, factories, construction sites, athletic events, workshops, garages, and kennels) and confinement farming (poultry ranches, hog, and dairy) often employ evaporative cooling. In highly humid climates, evaporative cooling may have little thermal comfort benefit beyond the increased ventilation and air movement it provides.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Trees transpire large amounts of water through pores in their leaves called stomata, and through this process of evaporative cooling, forests interact with climate at local and global scales.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Simple evaporative cooling devices such as evaporative cooling chambers (ECCs) and clay pot coolers, or pot-in-pot refrigerators, are simple and inexpensive ways to keep vegetables fresh without the use of electricity. Several hot and dry regions throughout the world could potentially benefit from evaporative cooling, including North Africa, the Sahel region of Africa, the Horn of Africa, southern Africa, the Middle East, arid regions of South Asia, and Australia. Benefits of evaporative cooling chambers for many rural communities in these regions include reduced post-harvest loss, less time spent traveling to the market, monetary savings, and increased availability of vegetables for consumption.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Evaporative cooling is commonly used in cryogenic applications. The vapor above a reservoir of cryogenic liquid is pumped away, and the liquid continuously evaporates as long as the liquid's vapor pressure is significant. Evaporative cooling of ordinary helium forms a 1-K pot, which can cool to at least 1.2 K. Evaporative cooling of helium-3 can provide temperatures below 300 mK. These techniques can be used to make cryocoolers, or as components of lower-temperature cryostats such as dilution refrigerators. As the temperature decreases, the vapor pressure of the liquid also falls, and cooling becomes less effective. This sets a lower limit to the temperature attainable with a given liquid.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Evaporative cooling is also the last cooling step in order to reach the ultra-low temperatures required for Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC). Here, so-called forced evaporative cooling is used to selectively remove high-energetic ("hot") atoms from an atom cloud until the remaining cloud is cooled below the BEC transition temperature. For a cloud of 1 million alkali atoms, this temperature is about 1μK.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Although robotic spacecraft use thermal radiation almost exclusively, many manned spacecraft have short missions that permit open-cycle evaporative cooling. Examples include the Space Shuttle, the Apollo command and service module (CSM), lunar module and portable life support system. The Apollo CSM and the Space Shuttle also had radiators, and the Shuttle could evaporate ammonia as well as water. The Apollo spacecraft used sublimators, compact and largely passive devices that dump waste heat in water vapor (steam) that is vented to space. When liquid water is exposed to vacuum it boils vigorously, carrying away enough heat to freeze the remainder to ice that covers the sublimator and automatically regulates the feedwater flow depending on the heat load. The water expended is often available in surplus from the fuel cells used by many manned spacecraft to produce electricity.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Most designs take advantage of the fact that water has one of the highest known enthalpy of vaporization (latent heat of vaporization) values of any common substance. Because of this, evaporative coolers use only a fraction of the energy of vapor-compression or absorption air conditioning systems. Unfortunately, except in very dry climates, the single-stage (direct) cooler can increase relative humidity (RH) to a level that makes occupants uncomfortable. Indirect and two-stage evaporative coolers keep the RH lower.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: "Direct evaporative cooling" (open circuit) is used to lower the temperature and increase the humidity of air by using latent heat of evaporation, changing liquid water to water vapor. In this process, the energy in the air does not change. Warm dry air is changed to cool moist air. The heat of the outside air is used to evaporate water. The RH increases to 70 to 90% which reduces the cooling effect of human perspiration. The moist air has to be continually released to outside or else the air becomes saturated and evaporation stops.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: A "mechanical" direct evaporative cooler unit uses a fan to draw air through a wetted membrane, or pad, which provides a large surface area for the evaporation of water into the air. Water is sprayed at the top of the pad so it can drip down into the membrane and continually keep the membrane saturated. Any excess water that drips out from the bottom of the membrane is collected in a pan and recirculated to the top. Single-stage direct evaporative coolers are typically small in size as they only consist of the membrane, water pump, and centrifugal fan. The mineral content of the municipal water supply will cause scaling on the membrane, which will lead to clogging over the life of the membrane. Depending on this mineral content and the evaporation rate, regular cleaning and maintenance is required to ensure optimal performance. Generally, supply air from the single-stage evaporative cooler will need to be exhausted directly (one-through flow) as with direct evaporative cooling. A few design solutions have been conceived to utilize the energy in the air, like directing the exhaust air through two sheets of double glazed windows, thus reducing the solar energy absorbed through the glazing. Compared to energy required to achieve the equivalent cooling load with a compressor, single stage evaporative coolers consume less energy.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: "Passive" direct evaporative cooling can occur anywhere that the evaporatively cooled water can cool a space without the assist of a fan. This can be achieved through use of fountains or more architectural designs such as the evaporative downdraft cooling tower, also called a "passive cooling tower". The passive cooling tower design allows outside air to flow in through the top of a tower that is constructed within or next to the building. The outside air comes in contact with water inside the tower either through a wetted membrane or a mister. As water evaporates in the outside air, the air becomes cooler and less buoyant and creates a downward flow in the tower. At the bottom of the tower, an outlet allows the cooler air into the interior. Similar to mechanical evaporative coolers, towers can be an attractive low-energy solution for hot and dry climate as they only require a water pump to raise water to the top of the tower.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Energy savings from using a passive direct evaporating cooling strategy depends on the climate and heat load. For arid climates with a great wet-bulb depression, cooling towers can provide enough cooling during summer design conditions to be net zero. For example, a 371 m (4,000 ft) retail store in Tucson, Arizona with a sensible heat gain of 29.3 kJ/h (100,000 Btu/h) can be cooled entirely by two passive cooling towers providing 11890 m/h (7,000 cfm) each.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: For the Zion National Park visitors' center, which uses two passive cooling towers, the cooling energy intensity was 14.5 MJ/m (1.28 kBtu/ft;), which was 77% less than a typical building in the western United States that uses 62.5 MJ/m (5.5 kBtu/ft). A study of field performance results in Kuwait revealed that power requirements for an evaporative cooler are approximately 75% less than the power requirements for a conventional packaged unit air-conditioner.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: "Indirect evaporative cooling" (closed circuit) is a cooling process that uses direct evaporative cooling in addition to some heat exchanger to transfer the cool energy to the supply air. The cooled moist air from the direct evaporative cooling process never comes in direct contact with the conditioned supply air. The moist air stream is released outside or used to cool other external devices such as solar cells which are more efficient if kept cool. This is done to avoid excess humidity in enclosed spaces, which is not appropriate for residential systems.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Indirect cooler manufacturer uses the Maisotsenko cycle (M-Cycle), named after inventor and Professor Dr. Valeriy Maisotsenko, employs an iterative (multi-step) heat exchanger made of a thin recyclable membrane that can reduce the temperature of product air to below the wet-bulb temperature, and can approach the dew point. Testing by the US Department of Energy found that a hybrid M-Cycle combined with a standard compression refrigeration system significantly improved efficiency by between 150 and 400% but was only capable of doing so in the dry western half of the US, and did not recommend being used in the much more humid eastern half of the US. The evaluation found that the system water consumption of 2–3 gallons per cooling ton (12,000 BTUs) was roughly equal in efficiency to the water consumption of new high efficiency power plants. This means the higher efficiency can be utilized to reduce load on the grid without requiring any additional water, and may actually reduce water usage if the source of the power does not have a high efficiency cooling system.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: An M-Cycle based system built by Coolerado is currently being used to cool the Data Center for NASA's National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The facility is air cooled below 70 degrees Fahrenheit and uses the Coolerado system above that temperature. This is possible because the air handler for the system uses fresh outside air, which allows it to automatically use cool outside ambient air when conditions allow. This avoids running the refrigeration system when unnecessary. It is powered by a solar panel array which also serves as secondary power in case of main power loss.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: The system has very high efficiency but, like other evaporative cooling systems, is constrained by the ambient humidity levels, which has limited its adoption for residential use. It may be used as supplementary cooling during times of extreme heat without placing significant additional burden on electrical infrastructure. If a location has excess water supplies or excess desalination capacity it can be used to reduce excessive electrical demand by utilizing water in affordable M-Cycle units. Due to high costs of conventional air conditioning units and extreme limitations of many electrical utility systems, M-Cycle units may be the only appropriate cooling systems suitable for impoverished areas during times of extremely high temperature and high electrical demand. In developed areas, they may serve as supplemental backup systems in case of electrical overload, and can be used to boost efficiency of existing conventional systems.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: The M-Cycle is not limited to cooling systems and can be applied to various technologies from Stirling engines to Atmospheric water generators. For cooling applications it can be used in both cross flow and counterflow configurations. Counterflow was found to obtain lower temperatures more suitable for home cooling, but cross flow was found to have a higher coefficient of performance (COP), and is therefore better for large industrial installations.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Unlike traditional refrigeration techniques, the COP of small systems remains high, as they do not require lift pumps or other equipment required for cooling towers. A 1.5 ton/4.4kW cooling system requires just 200 watts for operation of the fan, giving a COP of 26.4 and an EER rating of 90. This does not take into account the energy required to purify or deliver the water, and is strictly the power required to run the device once water is supplied. Though desalination of water also presents a cost, the latent heat of vaporization of water is nearly 100 times higher than the energy required to purify the water itself. Furthermore, the device has a maximum efficiency of 55%, so its actual COP is much lower than this calculated value. However, regardless of these losses, the effective COP is still significantly higher than a conventional cooling system, even if water must first be purified by desalination. In areas where water is not available in any form, it can be used with a desiccant to recover water using available heat sources, such as solar thermal energy.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: In the newer but yet-to-be-commercialized "cold-SNAP" design from Harvard's Wyss Institute, a 3D-printed ceramic conducts heat but is half-coated with a hydrophobic material that serves as a moisture barrier. While no moisture is added to the incoming air the relative humidity (RH) does rise a little according to the Temperature-RH formula. Still, the relatively dry air resulting from indirect evaporative cooling allows inhabitants' perspiration to evaporate more easily, increasing the relative effectiveness of this technique. Indirect Cooling is an effective strategy for hot-humid climates that cannot afford to increase the moisture content of the supply air due to indoor air quality and human thermal comfort concerns.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: "Passive" indirect evaporative cooling strategies are rare because this strategy involves an architectural element to act as a heat exchanger (for example a roof). This element can be sprayed with water and cooled through the evaporation of the water on this element. These strategies are rare due to the high use of water, which also introduces the risk of water intrusion and compromising building structure.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: In the first stage of a two-stage cooler, warm air is pre-cooled indirectly without adding humidity (by passing inside a heat exchanger that is cooled by evaporation on the outside). In the direct stage, the pre-cooled air passes through a water-soaked pad and picks up humidity as it cools. Since the air supply is pre-cooled in the first stage, less humidity is transferred in the direct stage, to reach the desired cooling temperatures. The result, according to manufacturers, is cooler air with a RH between 50 and 70%, depending on the climate, compared to a traditional system that produces about 70–80% relative humidity in the conditioned air.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: In another "hybrid" design, direct or indirect cooling has been combined with vapor-compression or absorption air conditioning to increase the overall efficiency and/or to reduce the temperature below the wet-bulb limit.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Evaporative cooling can be combined with passive daytime radiative cooling and thermal insulation to enhance cooling power with zero energy use, albeit with an occasional water "re-charge" depending on the climatic zone of the installation. The system, developed by Lu et al. "consists of a solar reflector, a water-rich and IR-emitting evaporative layer, and a vapor-permeable, IR-transparent, and solar-reflecting insulation layer," with the top layer enabling "heat removal through both evaporation and radiation while resisting environmental heating." The system demonstrated 300% higher ambient cooling power than stand-alone passive daytime radiative cooling and could extend the shelf life of food by 40% in cool humid climates and 200% in dry climates without refrigeration.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Traditionally, evaporative "cooler pads" consist of excelsior (aspen wood fiber) inside a containment net, but more modern materials, such as some plastics and melamine paper, are entering use as cooler-pad media. Modern rigid media, commonly 8" or 12" thick, adds more moisture, and thus cools air more than typically much thinner aspen media. Another material which is sometimes used is corrugated cardboard.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: In arid and semi-arid climates, the scarcity of water makes water consumption a concern in cooling system design. From the installed water meters, 420938 L (111,200 gal) of water were consumed during 2002 for the two passive cooling towers at the Zion National Park visitors' center. However, such concerns are addressed by experts who note that electricity generation usually requires a large amount of water, and evaporative coolers use far less electricity, and thus comparable water overall, and cost less overall, compared to chillers.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Allowing direct solar exposure to any surface which can transfer the extra heat to any part of the air flow through the unit will raise the temperature of the air. If the heat is transferred to the air prior to flowing through the pads, or if the sunlight warms the pads themselves, evaporation will increase, but the additional energy required to achieve this will not come from the energy contained in the ambient air, but will be supplied by the sun, and this will result not only in higher temperatures, but higher humidity as well, just as raising the inlet air temperature by any means, and heating the water prior to distribution over the pad by any means, would do. In addition, sunlight may degrade some media, and other components of the cooler. Therefore, shading is advisable in all circumstances, though the vertical aspect of the pads, and insulation between the exterior and interior horizontal (upwards facing) surfaces to minimise heat transfer will suffice.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Apart from fans used in mechanical evaporative cooling, pumps are the only other piece of mechanical equipment required for the evaporative cooling process in both mechanical and passive applications. Pumps can be used for either recirculating the water to the wet media pad or providing water at very high pressure to a mister system for a passive cooling tower. Pump specifications will vary depending on evaporation rates and media pad area. The Zion National Park visitors' center uses a 250 W (1/3 HP) pump.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Exhaust ducts and/or open windows must be used at all times to allow air to continually escape the air-conditioned area. Otherwise, pressure develops and the fan or blower in the system is unable to push much air through the media and into the air-conditioned area. The evaporative system cannot function without exhausting the continuous supply of air from the air-conditioned area to the outside. By optimizing the placement of the cooled-air inlet, along with the layout of the house passages, related doors, and room windows, the system can be used most effectively to direct the cooled air to the required areas. A well-designed layout can effectively scavenge and expel the hot air from desired areas without the need for an above-ceiling ducted venting system. Continuous airflow is essential, so the exhaust windows or vents must not restrict the volume and passage of air being introduced by the evaporative cooling machine. One must also be mindful of the outside wind direction, as, for example, a strong hot southerly wind will slow or restrict the exhausted air from a south-facing window. It is always best to have the downwind windows open, while the upwind windows are closed.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Typically, residential and industrial evaporative coolers use direct evaporation, and can be described as an enclosed metal or plastic box with vented sides. Air is moved by a centrifugal fan or blower (usually driven by an electric motor with pulleys known as "sheaves" in HVAC terminology, or a direct-driven axial fan), and a water pump is used to wet the evaporative cooling pads. The cooling units can be mounted on the roof (down draft, or downflow) or exterior walls or windows (side draft, or horizontal flow) of buildings. To cool, the fan draws ambient air through vents on the unit's sides and through the damp pads. Heat in the air evaporates water from the pads which are constantly re-dampened to continue the cooling process. Then cooled, moist air is delivered into the building via a vent in the roof or wall.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Because the cooling air originates outside the building, one or more large vents must exist to allow air to move from inside to outside. Air should only be allowed to pass once through the system, or the cooling effect will decrease. This is due to the air reaching the saturation point. Often 15 or so air changes per hour (ACHs) occur in spaces served by evaporative coolers, a relatively high rate of air exchange.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Cooling towers are structures for cooling water or other heat transfer media to near-ambient wet-bulb temperature. Wet cooling towers operate on the evaporative cooling principle, but are optimized to cool the water rather than the air. Cooling towers can often be found on large buildings or on industrial sites. They transfer heat to the environment from chillers, industrial processes, or the Rankine power cycle, for example.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Misting systems work by forcing water via a high pressure pump and tubing through a brass and stainless steel mist nozzle that has an orifice of about 5 micrometres, thereby producing a micro-fine mist. The water droplets that create the mist are so small that they instantly flash-evaporate. Flash evaporation can reduce the surrounding air temperature by as much as 35 °F (20 °C) in just seconds. For patio systems, it is ideal to mount the mist line approximately 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3.0 m) above the ground for optimum cooling. Misting is used for applications such as flowerbeds, pets, livestock, kennels, insect control, odor control, zoos, veterinary clinics, cooling of produce, and greenhouses.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: A misting fan is similar to a humidifier. A fan blows a fine mist of water into the air. If the air is not too humid, the water evaporates, absorbing heat from the air, allowing the misting fan to also work as an air cooler. A misting fan may be used outdoors, especially in a dry climate. It may also be used indoors.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Small portable battery-powered misting fans, consisting of an electric fan and a hand-operated water spray pump, are sold as novelty items. Their effectiveness in everyday use is unclear.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Understanding evaporative cooling performance requires an understanding of psychrometrics. Evaporative cooling performance is variable due to changes in external temperature and humidity level. A residential cooler should be able to decrease the temperature of air to within of the wet bulb temperature.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: It is simple to predict cooler performance from standard weather report information. Because weather reports usually contain the dewpoint and relative humidity, but not the wet-bulb temperature, a psychrometric chart or a simple computer program must be used to compute the wet bulb temperature. Once the wet bulb temperature and the dry bulb temperature are identified, the cooling performance or leaving air temperature of the cooler may be determined.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: For direct evaporative cooling, the direct saturation efficiency, formula_1, measures in what extent the temperature of the air leaving the direct evaporative cooler is close to the wet-bulb temperature of the entering air. The direct saturation efficiency can be determined as follows:


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Evaporative media efficiency usually runs between 80% to 90%. Most efficient systems can lower the dry air temperature to 95% of the wet-bulb temperature, the least efficient systems only achieve 50%. The evaporation efficiency drops very little over time.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Typical aspen pads used in residential evaporative coolers offer around 85% efficiency while CELdek type of evaporative media offer efficiencies of >90% depending on air velocity. The CELdek media is more often used in large commercial and industrial installations.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: As an example, in Las Vegas, with a typical summer design day of  dry bulb and  wet bulb temperature or about 8% relative humidity, the leaving air temperature of a residential cooler with 85% efficiency would be:


title: Evaporative cooler

text: Because evaporative coolers perform best in dry conditions, they are widely used and most effective in arid, desert regions such as the southwestern USA, northern Mexico, and Rajasthan.


title: Evaporative cooler

text: The same equation indicates why evaporative coolers are of limited use in highly humid environments: for example, a hot August day in Tokyo may be with 85% relative humidity, 1,005 hPa pressure. This gives a dew point of and a wet-bulb temperature of . According to the formula above, at 85% efficiency air may be cooled only down to which makes it quite impractical.


title: Pectoralis major

text: The pectoralis major () is a thick, fan-shaped or triangular convergent muscle, situated at the chest of the human body. It makes up the bulk of the chest muscles and lies under the breast. Beneath the pectoralis major is the pectoralis minor, a thin, triangular muscle. The pectoralis major's primary functions are flexion, adduction, and internal rotation of the humerus. The pectoral major may colloquially be referred to as "pecs", "pectoral muscle", or "chest muscle", because it is the largest and most superficial muscle in the chest area.


title: Pectoralis major

text: from breadth of the half of the anterior surface of the sternum, as low down as the attachment of the cartilage of the sixth or seventh rib; from the cartilages of all the true ribs, with the exception, frequently, of the first or seventh, and from the aponeurosis of the abdominal external oblique muscle.


title: Pectoralis major

text: From this extensive origin the fibers converge toward their insertion; those arising from the clavicle pass obliquely downward and outwards (laterally), and are usually separated from the rest by a slight interval; those from the lower part of the sternum, and the cartilages of the lower true ribs, run upward and laterally, while the middle fibers pass horizontally.


title: Pectoralis major

text: They all end in a flat tendon, about 5 cm in breadth, which is inserted into the lateral lip of the bicipital groove (intertubercular sulcus) of the humerus.


title: Pectoralis major

text: This tendon consists of two laminae, placed one in front of the other, and usually blended together below:


title: Pectoralis major

text: These deep fibers, and particularly those from the lower costal cartilages, ascend the humerus insertion higher, turning backward successively behind the superficial and upper ones, so that the tendon appears to be twisted. The posterior lamina reaches higher on the humerus than the anterior one, and from it an expansion is given off which covers the intertubercular groove of the humerus and blends with the capsule of the shoulder-joint.


title: Pectoralis major

text: From the deepest fibers of this lamina at its insertion an expansion is given off which lines the intertubercular groove, while from the lower border of the tendon a third expansion passes downward to the fascia of the arm.


title: Pectoralis major

text: The pectoralis major receives dual motor innervation by the medial pectoral nerve and the lateral pectoral nerve, also known as the lateral anterior thoracic nerve. The sternal head receives innervation from the C7, C8 and T1 nerve roots, via the lower trunk of the brachial plexus and the medial pectoral nerve. The clavicular head receives innervation from the C5 and C6 nerve roots via the upper trunk and lateral cord of the brachial plexus, which gives off the lateral pectoral nerve. The lateral pectoral nerve is distributed over the deep surface of the pectoralis major.


title: Pectoralis major

text: The sensory feedback from the pectoralis major follows the reverse path, returning via first-order neurons to the spinal nerves at C5, C6, C8, and T1 through the posterior rami. After the synapse in the posterior horn of the spinal cord, sensory information concerning movement of the muscle, proprioception, and pressure then travels through a second-order neuron in the dorsal column medial lemniscus tract to the medulla. There, the fibers decussate to form the medial lemniscus which carries the sensory information the rest of the way to the thalamus, the "gateway to the cortex". The thalamus diverts some sensory information to the cerebellum and the basal nuclei to complete the motor feedback loop while some sensory information ascends directly to the postcentral gyrus of the parietal lobe of the brain via third-order neurons. Sensory information for the pectoralis major is processed in the superior portion of the sensory homunculus, adjacent to the longitudinal fissure which divides the two hemispheres of the brain.


title: Pectoralis major

text: Electromyography suggests that it consists of at least six groups of muscle fibres that can be independently coordinated by the central nervous system.


title: Pectoralis major

text: The more frequent variations include greater or less extent of attachment to the ribs and sternum, varying size of the abdominal part or its absence, greater or less extent of separation of sternocostal and clavicular parts, fusion of clavicular part with deltoid, and decussation in front of the sternum. Deficiency or absence of the sternocostal part is not uncommon and more frequent than absence of the clavicular part. Poland syndrome is a rare congenital condition in which the whole muscle is missing, most commonly on one side of the body. This may accompany absence of the breast in females. The sternalis muscle may be a variant form of the pectoralis major or the rectus abdominis. [Submuscular and intramuscular surgical implants (similar to breast augmentation implants) may be available from plastic surgeons to modify aesthetic contours, mass, and asymmetry or variation in both males and females.]


title: Pectoralis major

text: The pectoralis major has four actions which are primarily responsible for movement of the shoulder joint. The first action is flexion of the humerus, as in throwing a ball underhand, and in lifting a child. Secondly, it adducts the humerus, as when flapping the arms. Thirdly, it rotates the humerus medially, as occurs when arm-wrestling. Fourthly the pectoralis major is also responsible for keeping the arm attached to the trunk of the body. It has two different parts which are responsible for different actions. The clavicular part is close to the deltoid muscle and contributes to flexion, horizontal adduction, and inward rotation of the humerus. When at an approximately 110 degree angle, it contributes to adduction of the humerus. The sternocostal part is antagonistic to the clavicular part contributing to downward and forward movement of the arm and inward rotation when accompanied by adduction. The sternal fibers can also contribute to extension, but not beyond anatomical position.


title: Pectoralis major

text: Hypertrophy of the pectoralis major increases functionality. Maximal activation of the pectoralis major occurs in the transverse plane through pressing motions. Both multi-joint and single-joint exercises induce pectoralis major hypertrophy. A combination of both single-joint and multi-joint exercises will result in a maximum hypertrophic response. [Aesthetic contours of regions in the muscle may be specifically-addressed (“targeted”) by specific exercises; for instance, “plating” or “stitching” of the pectoralis major —towards the center of the sternum —-may be targeted by a wider hand position.] The pectoralis major can be targeted from numerous training angles along the sternum and clavicle. Exercises that include horizontal adduction and elbow extensions such as the barbell bench press, dumbbell bench press, and machine bench press induce high activation of the pectoralis major in the sternocostal region. Heavy loads are strongly correlated with pectoralis major activation.


title: Pectoralis major

text: Tears of the pectoralis major are rare and typically affect otherwise healthy individuals. This type of injury is known to affect the athletic population, namely in high-impact contact sports such as powerlifting, and may result in pain, weakness, and disability. Most lesions are located at the musculotendinous junction and result from violent, eccentric contraction of the muscle, such as during bench press. A less frequent rupture site is the muscle belly, usually as a result of a direct blow. In developed countries, most lesions occur in male athletes, especially those practicing contact sports and weight-lifting (particularly during a bench press maneuver). Women are less susceptible to these tears because of larger tendon-to-muscle diameter, greater muscular elasticity, and less energetic injuries. The injury is characterized by sudden and acute pain in the chest wall and shoulder area, bruising and loss of strength of the muscle. High grade partial or full thickness tears warrant surgical repair as the preferred treatment if function is to be preserved, particularly in the athletic population.


title: Pectoralis major

text: Acting fast, obtaining the correct diagnoses, and getting the surgical repair as soon as possible is a key to successful recovery. Waiting can cause the acute injury to become chronic and chances of success is greatly diminished as a result. After surgery, the impacted arm is then immobilized with a sling for about six to eight weeks to minimize and avoid movement of the arm and potentially re-rupturing the surgery site. About two months after the surgery, physical therapy is typically introduced for about six months, after which point strengthening of the muscle is needed to achieve good results. Most patients are able to return to activity after six months to a year following surgery with high patient satisfaction and slightly reduced strength compared to pre-injury. Both US and MRI are useful to confirm the diagnosis, location and extent of a tear, though the first may be more cost-effective in experienced hands.


title: Pectoralis major

text: Poland syndrome is a congenital anomaly in which there is a malformation of the chest causing the pectoralis major on one side of the body to be absent. Other characteristics of this disease are "unilateral shortening of the index, long, and ring fingers, syndactyly of the affected digits, hypoplasia of the hand, and the absence of the sternocostal portion of the ipsilateral pectoralis major muscle". Although the absence of a pectoralis major is not life-threatening, it will have an effect on the person with Poland's syndrome. Adduction and medial rotation of the arm will be much harder to accomplish without the pectoralis major. The latissimus dorsi and teres major also aid in adduction and medial rotation of the arm, so they may be able to compensate for the lack of extra muscle. However, some patients with Poland's syndrome may also be lacking these muscles, which make these actions nearly impossible.


title: Pectoralis major

text: Researchers from the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, Korea reported a case of congenital absence of pectoralis major in 1990. According to Kakulas and Adams, pectoralis major is the most frequently congenitally absent muscle. The case involved a 22-year-old marine who had asymmetrical configuration of chest wall who had never experienced difficulties performing daily activities, but who experienced difficulties in the military camp. He had difficulty in some training activities especially those such as throwing a grenade or rope climbing. During a surgery performed to correct the sternal depression, it was found that the right pectoralis major was totally absent. However, previous physical exams did not show deficiencies in muscle strength as the right shoulder was good for flexion, adduction, horizontal adduction and internal rotation. Moreover, his pain and touch sensation were normal. X-rays were also performed and showed normal pictures of the chest's bones. The fact that the absence of pectoralis major did not cause functional loss in ordinary activities in this case of congenital absence showed that other surrounding muscles played a compensatory role.


title: Pectoralis major

text: Pectoralis major muscle in rare occasions may develop intramuscular lipomas. Such rare tumors may mimic malignant breast tumors as they look like enlargements of the breasts. They are well-encapsulated radiolucent tumours of fat density. Their location can be accurately identified through computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The treatment in these cases involves complete surgical excision because of the risk of liposarcoma they post especially large intramuscular liposomas. Partial excision is risky because recurrence may occur.


title: Valyrian languages

text: The Valyrian languages are a fictional language family in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, and in their television adaptation "Game of Thrones" and later "House of the Dragon".


title: Valyrian languages

text: In the novels, High Valyrian and its descendant languages are often mentioned but not developed beyond a few words. For the TV series, language creator David J. Peterson created the High Valyrian language, as well as the derivative languages Astapori and Meereenese Valyrian, based on fragments from the novels. Valyrian and Dothraki have been described as "the most convincing fictional tongues since Elvish".


title: Valyrian languages

text: To create the Dothraki and Valyrian languages to be spoken in "Game of Thrones", HBO selected the language creator David J. Peterson through a competition among conlangers. The producers gave Peterson a largely free hand in developing the languages, as, according to Peterson, George R. R. Martin himself was not very interested in the linguistic aspect of his works. The already published novels include only a few words of High Valyrian, including "valar morghulis" ("all men must die"), "valar dohaeris" ("all men must serve") and "dracarys" ("dragonfire"). For the forthcoming novel "The Winds of Winter", Peterson has supplied Martin with additional Valyrian translations.


title: Valyrian languages

text: Peterson commented that he considered Martin's choice of "dracarys" unfortunate because of its (presumably intended) similarity to the Latin word for dragon, . Because the Latin language does not exist in the fictional world of "A Song of Ice and Fire", Peterson chose to treat the similarity as coincidental and made "dracarys" an independent lexeme; his High Valyrian term for dragon is "zaldrīzes". The phrases "valar morghulis" and "valar dohaeris", on the other hand, became the foundation of the language's conjugation system. Another word, "trēsy", meaning "son", was coined in honour of Peterson's 3000th Twitter follower.


title: Valyrian languages

text: Since 2019, Peterson has been documenting the Valyrian languages (along with his other conlangs) in a Wiktionary-style repository on the website "The Languages of David J. Peterson", with some assistance from a couple curators.


title: Valyrian languages

text: In the world of "A Song of Ice and Fire", High Valyrian occupies a cultural niche similar to that of Classical Latin in medieval Europe. The novels describe it as no longer being used as a language of everyday communication, but rather as a language of learning and education among the nobility of Essos and Westeros, with much literature and song composed in Valyrian.


title: Valyrian languages

text: Vowels with a macron over them (ī, ȳ, ū, ē, ō and ā) are long, held for twice as long as short vowels. Some words are distinguished simply by their vowel length in High Valyrian. The rounded vowels and may not be pronounced in modern High Valyrian, as a non-native or prestige language and did not survive into the descendant languages. As a result, while Daenerys Targaryen's first name may generally be pronounced by characters in "Game of Thrones", in High Valyrian it would have been closer to , with a diphthong in the first syllable and a rounded vowel in the last. The long vowels have also been lost in some derived languages; in season 3 of "Game of Thrones", Astapori Valyrian is heard, from which all long vowels have been lost.


title: Valyrian languages

text: Syllable stress is penultimate unless the penultimate syllable is light and the antepenultimate syllable is heavy, in which case stress is on the antepenultimate. As a highly inflected language, word order is flexible (a feature lost in derived languages), but sentences with relative clauses are head-final.


title: Valyrian languages

text: There are four grammatical numbers in High Valyrian—singular, plural, paucal and collective. For example:


title: Valyrian languages

text: Nouns have eight cases—nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental, comitative and vocative, though the instrumental and comitative are not distinguished in all declensions, nor are the genitive, dative and locative always distinguished in the plural. Both prepositions and postpositions are used to form other cases; for example, the ablative is formed with the preposition "hen" + the locative (e.g. "hen lentot", "from a house") while the superessive is formed with the postposition "bē" following the genitive (e.g. "lento bē", "on top of a house").


title: Valyrian languages

text: There are four grammatical genders, which do not align with biological sex. The Valyrian names for the genders are:


title: Valyrian languages

text: Animate and individuatable nouns are generally in the lunar or solar classes, while other nouns are generally classified as terrestrial or aquatic. The names of the classes derive from the nouns themselves, which are prototypical members of each gender. Peterson describes Valyrian gender as being inherent but more predictable from phonology than gender in French, with some of the derivational properties of the noun classes of Bantu languages. As a result of the phonological predictability, many words for humans (which tend to end "-a" or "-ys") are lunar or solar; many foods and plants (often ending "-on") are terrestrial.


title: Valyrian languages

text: According to Peterson, "what defines declension classes in High Valyrian" can be divined by paying "close attention to the singular and plural numbers" and noting "where cases are conflated and where they aren't".


title: Valyrian languages

text: Verbs conjugate for seven tenses (present, aorist, future, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect and past habitual), two voices (active and passive) and three moods (indicative, subjunctive and imperative). Tenses in High Valyrian often convey information both about time and aspect.


title: Valyrian languages

text: Nouns have four grammatical numbers, but verb conjugations have only been described in the singular and the plural; paucals trigger plural agreement, and collectives trigger singular agreement.


title: Valyrian languages

text: Adjectives have three declension classes. Like verbs, adjectives only have two number forms—a singular, which is also used for the collective, and a plural, also used for paucal numbers. Adjectives may be both prepositive (e.g. "the "white" shoe") or post-positive (e.g. "the body "politic""); when prepositive some further rules apply.


title: Valyrian languages

text: Class I adjectives decline differently for each of the four noun classes. Adjective classes II and III both conflate rather more forms, failing to distinguish between solar and lunar nouns and failing to distinguish between terrestrial and aquatic nouns.


title: Valyrian languages

text: On October 31, 2016, a course in High Valyrian for English speakers began to be constructed in the Duolingo Language Incubator. David J. Peterson is one of the contributors to the course. The beta version was released on July 12, 2017. In April 2019, the course was updated in anticipation of Game of Thrones' eighth and final season. As a part of this update, Peterson created audio for the course's lessons and exercises.


title: Valyrian languages

text: In the world of the novel and TV series, the Nine Free Cities of Essos speak locally evolved variants of Valyrian known as Bastard Valyrian, described by the character Tyrion in "A Dance with Dragons" as "not so much a dialect as nine dialects on the way to becoming separate tongues".


title: Valyrian languages

text: Peterson described the relationship between High Valyrian and Bastard Valyrian as being similar to that between Classical Latin and the Romance languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, or more accurately between Classical Arabic and the modern varieties of Arabic, in that High Valyrian is intelligible, with some difficulty, to a speaker of a local Essoan language.


title: Valyrian languages

text: The slave cities of Slaver's Bay are lands of the ancient Ghiscari Empire that was conquered and annexed by Valyria, so they speak related languages descended from High Valyrian with the substrate of the local Ghiscari languages. Peterson noted that with regard to the vocabulary of the derived languages, "If it’s got a 'j' in an odd place, it’s probably Ghiscari in origin."


title: Valyrian languages

text: The first derivative Valyrian language to be featured in the series was Astapori Valyrian, a variety from the city of Astapor in Slaver's Bay. It appeared in the third-season premiere episode "Valar Dohaeris". Peterson created the Astapori dialogue by first writing the text in High Valyrian, then applying a series of regular grammar and sound changes to simulate the changes in natural languages over a long period of time.


title: Valyrian languages

text: For example, Astapori Valyrian has lost all long vowels (designated with a macron) and most diphthongs. Between vowels, [b, d, g] have become [v, ð, ɣ]; subsequently, [p, t, k] have become [b, d, g] in the same environment.


title: Valyrian languages

text: As a result, an "Unsullied" is rendered as "Dovaogēdy" in High Valyrian, but as "Dovoghedhy" in Astapori.


title: Valyrian languages

text: Similarly, Astapori Valyrian has lost the case system of High Valyrian, so the word order is more reliably subject–verb–object (SVO) and the four genders of High Valyrian have been reduced to two, with three definite articles: "ji" (animate singular, derived from High Valyrian "ziry" "him/her (accusative)"), "vi" (inanimate singular, derived from High Valyrian "ūī" "it (accusative)"), and "po" (plural, derived from High Valyrian "pōnte" "them (accusative)"). There is also an indefinite article, "me" , derived from High Valyrian "mēre" ("one"). Word stress is less predictable than in High Valyrian, but commands are stressed word-finally (for example: "ivetrá").


title: Valyrian languages

text: Like Astapori Valyrian, it lacked long vowels as well as the sound /y/. However, its phonology departs considerably more from High Valyrian. This decision was a response to the request that it not be mutually intelligible with High Valyrian, unlike Astapori Valyrian, which is. For example, the word "Unsullied":


title: Valyrian languages

text: Peterson did not create a High Valyrian writing system for "Game of Thrones", but he commented that he "was thinking something more like Egyptian's system of hieroglyphs—not in style, necessarily, but in their functionality. Egyptians had an alphabet, of sorts, a couple of phonetically-based systems, and a logography all layered on top of one another." In the third season's episode "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", Talisa is seen writing a Valyrian letter in the Latin alphabet, because according to Peterson, "it didn't seem worthwhile to create an entire writing system for what ultimately is kind of a throwaway shot".


title: Valyrian languages

text: A writing system was eventually created for "House of the Dragon". It's a mixed script, consisting of 3 types of glyphs:


title: Valyrian languages

text: High Valyrian was featured in detail in "Game of Thrones" only from season 3 onwards, spoken mostly by Daenerys Targaryen (played by Emilia Clark) on occasions with her scribe Missandei (played by Nathalie Emmanuel) and lieutenant Grey Worm (played by Jacob Anderson). The language has more prominence in the prequel "House of the Dragon", mainly between the lead character Rhaenyra Targaryen (played by Milly Alcock as teenager and Emma D'Arcy as adult) and her uncle Daemon Targaryen (played by Matt Smith).


title: Valyrian languages

text: Emma D'Arcy, who played the adult Rhaenyra in "House of the Dragon", reports enjoying learning it, saying, "I actually really enjoyed the process. It's like a fully functioning language — it's fully operational and so it's really gratifying to unpick." Their co-star Matt Smith, who played Daemon, initially found it daunting, saying, "I had pages of it. Reams. At first, I dreaded it. But when I got to it, I quite enjoyed learning it and quite enjoyed performing it."


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland is an American fantasy-drama series that aired on ABC from October 10, 2013, to April 3, 2014. It was created by Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, Zack Estrin, and Jane Espenson for ABC Studios. The program is a spin-off of the prior ABC series "Once Upon a Time" and aired on ABC at 8:00 pm Eastern/7:00 pm Central on Thursday nights in the 2013–14 television season beginning October 10, 2013.


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: The series is based on the Lewis Carroll novels "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865) and "Through the Looking-Glass" (1871) but with a different twist from the other adaptations, and takes place in the same universe as "Once Upon a Time" in present-day Wonderland, with flashbacks to Wonderland before it fell prey to a dark curse. It follows the same setting as the parent series, including the use of Disney and "Lost" allusions. In addition, the series features occasional crossover events with "Once Upon a Time" that involve connections with the characters that are trapped in Storybrooke, Maine.


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: The series received mixed to positive reviews from critics, who praised its cast, visuals, and narrative, but criticized the muddled plot. On March 27, 2014, it was revealed that the series would be ending after one season, with the series finale airing on April 3, 2014. In April 2014, Michael Socha was confirmed to reprise his role as Will Scarlet / Knave of Hearts as a series regular in the fourth season of "Once Upon a Time".


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: After the apparent death of her true love Cyrus, Alice returns home to Victorian England where she is placed in an asylum, and her doctors aim to cure her with a treatment that will make her forget everything about her tales in Wonderland. However, she is rescued by the Knave of Hearts and the White Rabbit and brought back to Wonderland to save Cyrus, who is spotted alive. Now back in Wonderland, Alice must evade the plots of Jafar and the Red Queen, all while dealing with the whimsical dangers of Wonderland, including the infamous Jabberwocky, and in a crazy and dangerous way to find her true love.


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: In February 2013, Kitsis and Horowitz, along with producers Zack Estrin and Jane Espenson, began development on a spin-off of "Once Upon a Time" which would focus on Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. It was initially reported that the show would recast Sebastian Stan's Mad Hatter due to his commitment to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Kitsis later revealed the next month that due to fan backlash and respect for Stan's performance, the character would not be recast and the series would proceed without the character.


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: The show includes new characters, such as "Amahl, described as exotic, soulful and optimistic; and The Knave, a sardonic adventurer, a man of action, a loner and a heart-breaker." On March 28, 2013, it was announced that Sophie Lowe would portray the lead role of Alice. It was also announced that Peter Gadiot would play her love interest, Cyrus, who has "a background". Michael Socha will portray the Knave of Hearts. Barbara Hershey, who has appeared as Cora, the Queen of Hearts, in the main series, may also appear in this spin-off reprising the same role in back stories . Also, during the month of April, Paul Reubens was cast as the voice of the White Rabbit and Emma Rigby was cast as the Red Queen.


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: On May 10, 2013, ABC announced that it had greenlit the spin-off, as well as also announcing that John Lithgow would replace Reubens as the voice of the White Rabbit. On May 14, 2013, ABC announced that the spin-off will air in the Thursday night timeslot instead of making it a fill-in for the parent series. "We really want to tell the story without having to worry about how to stretch it for five years," said Edward Kitsis. "This is not meant to be a 22-episode season. Whatever it ends up being, we'll have told a complete story ..." It was revealed in August at the TCA Summer Press Tour that, contrary to previous reports that more than 13 episodes were ordered straight out the gate, only the usual number of 13 episodes had been ordered. Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz commented "However many we wind up doing this season, what we're planning to do is tell a kind of complete tale with a beginning, middle and end" and added "If it does well [and] people like it, hopefully we'll come back and tell another adventure with this cast."


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: At Comic-Con 2013, it was announced that former "Lost" star, Naveen Andrews, would be joining the cast as the villain Jafar. It was announced in September that Keith David and Iggy Pop would also be included on the cast, as the Cheshire Cat and Caterpillar respectively. Iggy Pop will be a replacement for Roger Daltrey, who voiced the character originally as a guest star on "Once Upon a Time". Barbara Hershey reprised her role as the Queen of Hearts in one episode.


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: Rotten Tomatoes gave the series an approval rating of 59% based on 27 reviews, with an average rating of 6.03/10. The site's critical consensus reads ""Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" is attractive to the eye and pleasantly narrated, but it loses some luster due to a jumbled story and Wonderland's unlikable inhabitants." The series has a score of 59/100 on Metacritic based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: Common Sense Media rated the show 4 out of 5 stars, stating : "Parents need to know that, similar to its parent series, "Once Upon a Time", "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" extrapolates on familiar fairy tales and stories in creative and often mature ways. This one has its roots in Lewis Carroll's classic tale "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", but it incorporates other fantasy characters from unrelated stories as well. Despite its relationship to stories synonymous with childhood, this isn't a show for young kids, thanks to plenty of violence of both the traditional kind (knives, swordplay, and fistfights) and the magical kind. Danger lurks around every corner, and the characters' double-crossing and changing loyalties are part of the fun, but they will be confusing for some young viewers. Sex is less of an issue, although some female characters' attire –- the voluptuous Red Queen's in particular –- is designed to draw attention to certain curvy areas. The bottom line? Even though the cast of characters seems to contradict this dark show's target at an older audience, it's a tantalizing blend of action and drama with ties to stories you and your teens will have fun recalling from your own childhood".


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: Mary McNamara of the "Los Angeles Times" gave the show a positive review writing: "There is plenty of that—the good, the beautiful and the etc. Some of it is conjured by CG magic (the Red Queen's palace is splendid, and the White Rabbit's ears a masterwork), and some by just good storytelling and performer chemistry, which Lowe and Socha have in abundance. Add to that a smattering of witty dialogue, clever character twists and, of course, the Victo-goth steampunk look, and ABC has another shot at redefining the family hour." David Wiegand of the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote that while the plot was "a little overstuffed", "the special effects, crisp direction and high-octane performances keep us interested enough to follow Alice down the rabbit hole." Brian Lowry of "Variety" gave the show a mixed review: "Wonderland is equally handsome [as "Once Upon a Time"], but behind those virtual sets lurk many potential flaws. An appealing Alice certainly helps matters, but past performance reduces the likelihood of a fairy-tale ending."


title: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

text: Episodes were released for purchase through the iTunes Store, Vudu and Amazon Prime. It became available to stream on Disney+ on November 27, 2020.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: Zoran Milanović (; born 30 October 1966) is a Croatian politician serving as President of Croatia since 19 February 2020. Prior to assuming the presidency, he was prime minister from 2011 to 2016 and president of the Social Democratic Party from 2007 to 2016.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: After graduating from the Zagreb Faculty of Law, Milanović started working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as Advisor at the Croatian mission to the European Union and NATO in Brussels from 1996 to 1999. During the same year he joined the Social Democratic Party. In 1998 he earned his master's degree in European Union law at the Free University Brussels and was an assistant to the Croatian foreign minister for political multilateral affairs in 2003. In June 2007 he was elected president of the SDP, following the death of the long-time party leader and former prime minister Ivica Račan. Under Milanović's leadership the party finished in second place in the 2007 parliamentary election and was unable to form a governing majority. Despite losing the election, he was reelected party leader in 2008. In 2011 Milanović initiated the formation of the Kukuriku Coalition, uniting four centre to centre-left political parties. The coalition won an absolute majority in the 2011 parliamentary election, with the SDP itself becoming the largest party in Parliament. Milanović thus became Prime Minister on 23 December 2011, after the Parliament approved his cabinet.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The beginning of his prime ministership was marked by efforts to finalise the ratification process of Croatia's entry into the European Union and by the holding of a membership referendum. His cabinet introduced changes to the tax code, passed a fiscalisation law and started several large infrastructure projects. After the increase in the value of the Swiss franc, the government announced that all Swiss franc loans would be converted into euros. Milanović supported the expansion of same-sex couples' rights and introduced the Life Partnership Act. After the inconclusive 2015 election and more than two months of negotiations on forming a government, he was ultimately succeeded as prime minister by the nonpartisan technocrat Tihomir Orešković in January 2016. After Orešković's government fell, Milanović led the four-party People's Coalition in the subsequent snap parliamentary election in September 2016. In the election, his coalition suffered a surprise defeat to the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union and Milanović announced his withdrawal from politics. He then entered the consulting business and worked as an advisor to Albanian prime minister Edi Rama.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: On 17 June 2019, Milanović announced that he would be running for the office of president in the 2019–20 election as the candidate of the Social Democratic Party; he was officially nominated on 6 July. He received the most votes (29.55%) in the first round of the election on 22 December 2019, ahead of incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (26.65%) and was elected as the fifth president of Croatia in the runoff on 5 January 2020, with 52.66% of the vote. He became the first presidential candidate in Croatian history to receive more votes than an incumbent officeholder in the first round of an election, the second person in Croatia to defeat an incumbent running for reelection and the first (post-independence) prime minister of Croatia to be elected head of state.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: His father, Stipe Milanović (1937–2019), was an economist, and his mother, Đurđica "Gina" () Milanović, was a teacher of English and German.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: His maternal family Matasić is an old Senj bourgeois family, with some distant roots in Lika, Gacka valley. His maternal grandmother was Marija née Glavaš and his maternal grandfather Stjepan Matasić. Their daughter Đurđica, Milanović's mother, was born and raised in Senj with three other siblings. Stjepan Matasić was killed in 1943 when the Allies bombed German-occupied Senj. His widowed maternal grandmother Marija moved with her children to Sušak / Rijeka, where she met Petar Plišić, a blacksmith from Ličko Lešće, whom she married and moved together with him to Zagreb, where they raised Đurđica and the rest of her siblings.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: His paternal family hails from the Sinj environs. He stated that his father's family roots going back a century or two are from Livno, Bosnia and Herzegovina. His paternal grandfather and paternal great-uncle, Ante and Ivan Milanović, respectively, from , joined the Yugoslav Partisans in 1942, taking part later in the liberation of Trieste, while his maternal step-grandfather, Petar Plišić, was—as Milanović revealed in 2016—an Ustasha, a member of the paramilitary corps established by the Nazi-collaborationist government of the Independent State of Croatia. After WW2 he served two years in Stara Gradiška penitentiary before being released.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: Zoran's father was a member of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (SKJ). Milanović was baptized secretly by his maternal grandmother, Marija Matasić, at the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Zagreb, and given the baptismal name Marijan. He was brought up in the neighbourhoods of Knežija, and after 1970 in Trnje, a communist quarter. He had a brother, Krešimir, who died in 2019. Milanović attended the Center for Management and Judiciary from 1981.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: Milanović partook in sports, including football, basketball and boxing. He declared himself as a leftist. In 1985, he entered the University of Zagreb to study law, then finished his military service, and returned to study in 1986. After college, Milanović became an intern at the Zagreb Commercial Court, and in 1993 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, working under future political rival Ivo Sanader. A year later, he joined an OSCE peacekeeping mission in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, disputed between Armenian natives and Azerbaijan.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In 1994, he married his wife Sanja Musić, with whom he has two sons: Ante Jakov, and Marko. Apart from Croatian, he speaks English, French, and Russian.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In 1999, he joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) as he had not yet been an official member. Following SDP's win in the 2000 elections, he was given responsibility for liaison with NATO; three years later he became assistant to Foreign Minister Tonino Picula. He left his post after the 2003 elections when the conservative Croatian Democratic Union came to power.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: As an SDP member, in 2004 he renounced his position as an assistant minister of foreign affairs and became a member of the newly founded SDP's Executive Committee as well as the International Secretary in charge of contacts with other political parties. Two years later, he briefly became party spokesman, standing in for absent Gordana Grbić. In early September 2006 he became SDP's coordinator for the 4th constituency in the 2007 elections.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: An extraordinary party convention was held in Zagreb on 2 June 2007, due to 11 April resignation of the first party president and Croatia's former prime minister Ivica Račan. Milanović entered the contest, despite being considered an "outsider", because of his shorter term in the party, running against Željka Antunović (acting party president since Račan's resignation), Milan Bandić and Tonino Picula. On 29 September 2007, during the campaign for party president, he publicly promised to resign and never to seek presidency of the party again, if party did not win more seats than HDZ in next elections.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In the first round he led with 592, well ahead of his nearest rival, Željka Antunović. He won the second round, thereby becoming president of the party.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The 2007 parliamentary election turned out to be the closest election since independence with SDP winning 56 seats, only 10 mandates short of HDZ's 66. 5 seats that HDZ had won were from the eleventh district reserved for citizens living abroad, which was one of the main campaign issues of SDP which sought to decrease electoral significance of the so-called diaspora voters. The resulting close race left both sides in a position to form a government, provided they gather 77 of the 153 representatives. After the election, Sanader seemed to be in a better position to form a cabinet which caused Milanović to make himself the candidate for prime minister over the less popular Ljubo Jurčić, without first consulting the party's Main Committee. However, the Social Democrats remained in the Opposition, since Ivo Sanader managed to form a majority coalition.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: After losing the hotly contested general elections, Milanović did not resign as party president, despite promising before the election that he would, should the party lose. In the 2007 election, despite the loss, SDP emerged with the largest parliamentary caucus in their history and achieved their best result yet. Milanović seemed to be in a good position to remain party president and announced he would run for a first full term as party president. In the 2008 leadership election he faced Davorko Vidović and Dragan Kovačević, but emerged as the winner with almost 80 percent of the delegate vote.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: With 56 seats won SDP emerged from the 2007 election as the second largest party in Parliament and the largest party that is not a part of the governing majority. This made Milanović the unofficial leader of the opposition. Milanović was very critical of the Sanader administration, especially concerning their handling of the economy and the fight against corruption.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In September 2008, Milanović made a highly publicized visit to Bleiburg to commemorate the victims of the Yugoslav Communists. This made him the second leader of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia to visit the site, the first being Ivica Račan.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The 2009 local elections were held on 17 and 31 May and resulted with the Social Democrats making considerable gains in certain traditionally HDZ-leaning cities and constituencies, such as Dubrovnik, Šibenik, Trogir and Vukovar, as well as retaining such major traditionally SDP-leaning cities as Zagreb and Rijeka.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: On 1 July 2009, Ivo Sanader announced he was resigning the premiership and leaving his deputy Jadranka Kosor as prime minister. Parliament approved her and the new cabinet which made Kosor the first woman ever to be appointed prime minister. Since late 2008, the SDP had been leading the polls, however by a narrow margin. After the sudden resignation of Sanader HDZ plummeted in the polls to their lowest level since 1999 when corruption scandals were rocking the party establishment. Milanović insisted the resignation of the prime minister means that an early general election was necessary. The governing majority refused to dissolve Parliament and insisted that the Kosor cabinet would finish the remainder of its term.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In 2008 the country's accession to the European Union was deadlocked with the Slovenian blockade over a border dispute. Sanader and his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor were unable to settle their differences in the following months which meant Croatia's accession to the European Union was in a standstill. There was much speculation, since Sanader had not given a reason for his departure, whether the Slovenian blockade was the cause for his resignation. In the following months Kosor and Pahor met several times, trying to resolve the border dispute. The negotiations resulted in an agreement which led to the continuation of negotiations for the Croatian accession to the European Union. The solution was an Arbitration Agreement which was signed in Stockholm on 4 November 2009, by both countries' prime ministers and the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. The agreement required a two-thirds majority in Parliament for it to be approved. Milanović and most SDP MPs voted in favor of the agreement, however he criticized the Government and especially its former and present leaders, Sanader and Kosor, for wasting precious time since the arrangement with Slovenia could have been made a year earlier and Croatia would not have waited so long to continue with the accession process.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The financial crisis of 2007–2008 hit most European countries hard, as well as Croatia. The crisis continued throughout the following years. Industry shed tens of thousands of jobs, and unemployment soared. Consumer spending reduced drastically compared to record 2007 levels, causing widespread problems in the trade as well as transport industries. The continuing declining standard resulted in a quick fall in both the prime minister's as well as government's support. Milanović was very critical of the Government's supposed slow response and inadequate measures that did little to revive the economy. The recession and high unemployment continued throughout 2011 resulting in many anti-government protests around the country.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: On 28 October MPs voted to dissolve Parliament. President of the Republic Ivo Josipović agreed to a dissolution of Sabor on Monday, 31 October and scheduled the election, as previously suspected, for Sunday, 4 December 2011.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The 2011 parliamentary election saw SDP joining three other left-wing parties to create the media-dubbed Kukuriku coalition with Milanović at the helm. Kukuriku won the election with an absolute majority of 81 seats. The election was the first in which rival HDZ was not the leading individual party in Parliament.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: Milanović presented his cabinet to the Parliament on 23 December, 19 days after the election. The discussion resulted with 89 members, 81 Kukuriku and 8 national minority MPs, voting in favour of the Milanović cabinet. The transition to power occurred the following evening when Jadranka Kosor welcomed Milanović to the government's official meeting place, Banski dvori, opposite the Sabor building on St. Mark's Square and handed him the necessary papers and documents.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: Taking office at the age of 45, Milanović became one of the youngest prime ministers since Croatia's independence. In addition, his cabinet also became the youngest, with an average minister's age of 48. Cabinet members came from three out of four parties of the winning coalition, leaving only the single-issue Croatian Party of Pensioners (HSU) without representation. Milanović was reelected as president of the SDP in the 2012 leadership election as the only candidate.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The Milanović administration started its mandate by introducing several liberal reforms. During 2012 a Law on medically assisted fertilization was enacted, Health education was introduced in all elementary and high schools, and Milanović announced further expansion of rights for same-sex couples. During the 2011 elections the Kukuriku coalition promised to publish the registry of veterans of the Croatian War of Independence, which was done in December 2012.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In the Trial of Gotovina et al, following an initial guilty verdict in April 2011, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač were ultimately acquitted in November 2012. Milanović called the ruling "an important moment for Croatia", adding that "A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I say thank you to them for surviving so long for the sake of Croatia."


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In September 2013 anti-Cyrillic protests started against the introduction of bilingual signs with Serbian Cyrillic alphabet in Vukovar. Milanović condemned them as "chauvinist violence", saying he will not take down signs in Cyrillic in Vukovar as the "rule of law must prevail".


title: Zoran Milanović

text: On 1 December 2013, a constitutional referendum was held in Croatia, its third referendum since becoming independent. The referendum, organized by the citizen initiative "For the family", proposed an amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, thus creating a constitutional prohibition against same-sex marriage. Milanović opposed the proposal and told HRT that he would vote against it. The government advised citizens to vote against it, but the referendum passed with 65% votes in favour, however, with voter turnout at only 38%. Milanović was unhappy that the referendum had taken place at all, saying "I think it did not make us any better, smarter or prettier." He also said that the referendum does not change the existing definition of marriage according to Croatian laws. He further announced the upcoming enactment of the Law on Partnership, which will enable same-sex persons to form a "lifetime partnership" union, which would share the same rights as that of marriage proper, apart from the right of adoption. On 12 December 2013 the Government passed the proposed Bill, and the Parliament passed the Life Partnership Act in July 2014.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: A bad economic situation weakened the originally strong public support for the Milanović government, which was demonstrated in the 2013 local elections. In the first European Parliament elections in Croatia in 2013, SDP won 32% of the votes and five MEPs, one less than HDZ, the largest opposition party. The following year SDP won 29.9% in the 2014 European Parliament elections and four MEPs. Milanović and his party gave support to Ivo Josipović in the presidential elections, which were won by Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović from the HDZ. Josipović later formed his own party, Forward Croatia-Progressive Alliance, instead of returning to the SDP.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: Croatian war veterans started a protest in Zagreb in October 2014, calling for the resignation of Predrag Matić, war veterans minister, and a new constitutional law guaranteeing their rights. Milanović rejected their demands, saying that there is no reason to sack the minister and that he would not submit to ultimatums:


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The protest continued throughout 2015. In May 2015 it escalated when hundreds of veterans scuffled with the police in front of the government building. Milanović said that his government has not curbed their rights and that he is ready for talks, but will not be blackmailed. He accused the opposition party HDZ for manipulating with the veterans. Tomislav Karamarko, the president of HDZ, rejected the accusation. Milanović met with the representatives of the protesting veterans in June, but the protest continued.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: On 4 August 2015, on the insistence of Milanović and the Defence Minister Ante Kotromanović, a military parade of the Croatian Armed Forces was held in Zagreb in honour of the Victory Day, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Operation Storm. Milanović thanked everyone who sacrificed their lives for Croatia's freedom. He also expressed his gratitude to Franjo Tuđman, first Croatian president, who led Croatia during the war.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The Milanović administration adopted a number of reforms in taxation in order to cope with the difficult economic situation. It raised the standard Value-added tax from 23% to 25% and introduced new VAT rates for goods and services that were not previously taxed. It also cut social insurance contributions and public-sector wages. In October the Financial Operations and Pre-Bankruptcy Settlements Act was passed, which allowed firms that were unable to pay their bills to stay open during the bankruptcy proceedings and restructure their debts. Because of opposition by its coalition partner, HNS, property tax has not been expanded.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The government succeeded in reducing the budget deficit to 5.3% in 2012, but GDP contracted by 2.2% and public debt reached 69.2%. Milanović's time in office has been marked by several cuts to Croatia's credit rating. On 14 December 2012 S&P cut the country's long term rating to BB+ and the short term rating to B. On 1 February 2013, Moody's cut Croatia's credit rating from Baa3 to Ba1.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: Several major construction projects started in 2012, including a new passenger terminal on the Zagreb International Airport and a third block of the coal-fired Plomin Power Station. However, some projects have been suspended, including the Ombla hydroelectric power plant. The government said that construction of the Pelješac Bridge was to start in spring 2016. Milanović expressed his support for further oil and gas exploration and exploitation in the Adriatic Sea, which is opposed by the opposition parties and environmental organizations.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In November 2012 Minister of Economy and Deputy Prime Minister Radimir Čačić resigned and was replaced by Ivan Vrdoljak. In 2013 a new fiscalization law was introduced to control gray economy and minimize tax avoidance. The government put focus on the shipbuilding industry and privatized state-owned shipyards by May 2013. In order to service public debt, the government presented a project of monetization of Croatian highways in 2013 which would bring around 2.5 billion euros. Trade unions and civic associations rejected the proposal and called for a retraction of the decision. A civic initiative called "We Are Not Giving Our Highways" gathered signatures for a highway referendum. Although the constitutional court ruled that a referendum on the subject was unconstitutional, the government announced that it was withdrawing the decision. Instead of the initial plan to lease the country's highways to foreign investors, the government will instead offer shares in them to Croatian citizens and pension funds.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: The Pension Insurance Act of January 2014 raised the statutory retirement age from 65 to 67 and early retirement age from 60 to 62. The unemployment rate peaked in February 2014 at 22.7%, but has since been steadily declining and reached its lowest rate in two years in August. In May 2014 Milanović sacked the Finance Minister, Slavko Linić, over a property deal that he said had hurt the state budget and appointed Boris Lalovac on his place. Changes in Personal Income Tax were introduced in 2015, the non-taxable part of income was raised, which resulted in a net salary increase for around one million people.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: In January 2015 the government decided to freeze exchange rates for Swiss francs for a year, after a rise in the franc that caused increasingly expensive loans for borrowers in that currency. In August 2015 Milanović announced that Swiss franc loans will be converted into euro-denominated ones.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: GDP decreased in 2013 (-0.9%) and 2014 (-0,4%), but in the 4th quarter of 2014 real GDP growth reached 0.3% for the first time since 2011. It was announced on 28 August 2015 that the economy had grown by 1.2% for a third consecutive quarter which marked Croatia's exit from a six-year economic recession. The budget deficit decreased in 2015 to 3.2% of GDP, down from 5.5% in 2014, and public debt was at 86.7% of GDP, the lowest debt growth rate since the introduction of the ESA 2010 methodology.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: Milanović's foreign policy was initially concentrated on the accession of Croatia to the European Union. On 22 January 2012, an EU accession referendum was held, with 66.25% voting in favour and 33.13% against. About 47% of eligible voters took part in the referendum. On 11 March 2013, Milanović signed the Memorandum of Agreement with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša, regarding the issue of Ljubljanska Banka, which closed down in 1991 without reimbursing its Croatian depositors. Croatia agreed to suspend a lawsuit against the bank and its successor, while Slovenia pledged to ratify Croatia's EU Accession Treaty. Slovenia ratified Croatia's accession bid on 2 April 2013. After all 27 member states signed the EU accession treaty, on 1 July 2013, Croatia joined the European Union, becoming the 28th member state.


title: Zoran Milanović

text: On 27 February 2012 Milanović visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was his first travel to a foreign country since he became prime minister. On the following day he visited Široki Brijeg and Mostar, where he met with members of the Croatian National Assembly, a political organisation of the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milanović said that all he is asking for Croats in that country is a fair deal and added that Croatia will support the Accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union.