title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: In Eddic and skaldic sources, dwarfs are almost exclusively male, for example, in the Dvergatal, every dwarf named is male. Some scholars have proposed that female dwarfs were not believed to exist however they are likely attested in charms dating to the early medieval period and are explicitly described in later saga material. Dwarfs are also widely referenced in these sources as having family relations to others such as being brothers and sons. Pairs or groups of brothers are seen relatively abundantly in Eddic contexts, as with the sons of Ívaldi, and Fjalarr and Galarr.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: An explicit reference to a female dwarf has been proposed from the inscription on the 8th century Ribe skull fragment that references a ('female-dwarf') that is potentially causing harm to the user of the fragment, paralleled in Wið Dweorh XCIIIb (Against a Dwarf XCIIIb) in which a harmful dwarf's sister is called to preventing him from causing an afflicted person's illness.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: In Fáfnismál, the worm Fáfnir refers to some Norns as "Dvalinn's daughters" (), while in the Prose Edda, they are described as "of the dwarfs' kin" (). As Norns are also female, this could mean that dwarfs were conceived of by the author of the poem as able to be female, it is not clear whether either their mother (or mothers) are dwarfs, or if they themselves are considered dwarfs just because they are descended from dwarfs.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: It has been noted that it may not be that female dwarfs did not exist in the folklore of this period, only that no explicit references to them survive in preserved narratives. It has been proposed this may be because narratives typically centre on the gods rather than dwarfs and that female dwarfs were not conceived of as of great relevance to the gods, given their primary interest in obtaining goods from dwarfs, which does not depend on their gender. Humans, being of lower power and status, cannot control dwarfs as easily and require alternative strategies to obtain treasures from them, potentially explaining why female dwarfs are more prominent in saga literature.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: Female dwarfs feature in the late Gibbons saga, Bósa saga and Þjalar-Jóns saga, where they are referred to by the term "". In these cases, female dwarfs are only mentioned alongside males and are not independently important to the plot. Beyond Svama, the named in Þjalar-Jóns saga, the only other explicitly named dwarf woman in saga literature is the daughter of Sindri in Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar, Herríðr. In saga material, dwarf children are also seen. In Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar and Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana, central characters help these children and are rewarded in return by the father with treasures. Conversely, in Sigurðar saga þǫgla, the human Hálfdan is cursed after he throws a rock at a dwarf child, breaking its jaw and is subsequently visited by the child's father in a dream who curses him. Hálfdan's brother later gives the child a gold ring to atone for the harm and is rewarded by the father, once more in a dream. Together, this suggests that dwarfs could be conceived of as loving and protective of their children by the saga authors. In Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar, this family love is extended to the human Hálfdan who develops a fostering relation with the dwarf Litr, likely with Hálfdan as the foster son.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: In German heroic legend, male dwarfs are often portrayed as lusting after human women. In contrast, female dwarfs seek to possess the male hero in the legends.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: In Eddic sources dwarfs are attributed with creating magical treasures for the gods such as Mjölnir, Sif's hair, Draupnir, Gullinbursti, Skíðblaðnir, Gleipnir and Gungnir, while in Sörla þáttr they craft Brísingamen for Freyja. They further created the Mead of Poetry from the blood of Kvasir, which grants skill in poetry to those who drink from it. According to Skáldskaparmál, due to the role of dwarfs in crafting the drink, poetry can be referred to by kennings such as "the Billow of the Dwarf-Crag", "Thought's Drink of the Rock-Folk", "the Drink of Dvalinn", "the Dwarves' ship" and the "Ale of the Dwarves". John Lindow noted that stanza 10 of the "Poetic Edda" poem "Völuspá" can be read as describing the creation of human forms from the earth and follows a catalogue of dwarf names; he suggests that the poem may present Ask and Embla as having been created by dwarfs, with the three gods then giving them life.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: In Eddic and some saga sources, rather than being exchanged, items of value move from dwarfs to others, often through extortion. This has been suggested to be a key differentiator between dwarfs and elves in pre-Christian Germanic religion, who maintain reciprocal and positive relationships with gods and humans; Kormaks saga describes how food was to be shared with elves to heal sickness and Austrfararvísur records an álfablót being held around the early 11th century in Sweden. Dwarfs on the other hand according to these sources are asocial and there are no records of them receiving blóts or other gifts in this period.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: Dwarfs maintain their roles as reluctant donors of their possessions in some later Old Norse legends such as Volsunga saga and Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, where they are forced to give up Andvaranaut and Tyrfing respectively. Some legendary and romance sagas diverge from this, with dwarfs acting friendlily and helpfully, however, this is attributed to their lateness and likely do not represent perceptions that predate Christianisation. Typically in these later sagas, fighting dwarfs is considered dishonourable, in contrast to other beings such as dragons. Receiving help from a dwarf, however, such as being healed or given a treasure, was not seen as problematic; it has been proposed that the worldview of the saga writers was that a hero is not defined by achieving deeds alone, but by being able to both give and accept help.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: The Codex Regius version of Völuspá records that dwarfs were produced out of the earth, while in the Prose Edda they form like maggots in the flesh of Ymir, which became the earth. Beyond this, in early Old Norse sources, there is ambiguity between whether dwarfs live within stones or whether they are themselves stones. In Völuspá they are referred to as 'masters of the rocks' () and skaldic kennings for 'stone' include ('house of the dwarf') and ('the hall of Durnir's kinsman'). In Ynglingatal stanza 2 and the accompanying prose in the Ynglinga saga, a dwarf lures King Sveigðir into an open stone which closes behind them, whereupon he is never seen again. Ynglingasaga also describes this dwarf as being afraid of the sun (), akin to in Alvíssmál, where the poem's eponymous dwarf is turned to stone sunlight.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: In German legends, they typically live inside of hollow mountains, though in some cases, they may live above the ground, while in saga literature, such as Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar they commonly live in individual stones, which could also serve as workshops, such as in the forging of Brísingamen in Sörla þáttr. The presentation of dwarfs living within stones continued into modern folklore surrounding specific landscape features such as the Dwarfie Stane, a chambered tomb located on the island of Hoy, and the in Seyðisfjörður.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: It has been proposed by Lotte Motz that the inhabitation of mountains, stones and mounds by dwarfs may be derived from their earlier association with the dead who were frequently buried in mounds and around megaliths.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: The term " can be used in Old English texts to describe an illness; it is commonly used in medical texts derived from Greek or Latin sources, where it is used to gloss symptoms such as fever. The "Dictionary of Old English" divides the definition of into either "a dwarf or pygmy", or "a fever", however, it has been argued that the distinction between the two meanings may not have been prevalent among Germanic peoples in the Early Middle Ages, due to the close association between the beings and sickness in medicinal charms.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: The 8th century Ribe skull fragment, found in Jutland, bears an inscription that calls for help from three beings, including Odin, against either one or two harmful dwarfs. The item's function has been compared to the Sigtuna amulet I and Canterbury charm that seek to drive away a "lord of þursar" that is causing an infection, the latter explicitly with the help of Thor. A similar inscription dating between the 8th and 11th century is found on a lead plaque, discovered near Fakenham in Norfolk, which reads "dead is dwarf" (), and has been interpreted as another example of a written charm aiming to rid the ill person of the disease, identified as a dwarf. The Lacnunga contains the Anglo-Saxon charm XCIIIb ("Against a Dwarf XCIIIb") that refers to a sickness as a that is riding the afflicted person like a horse, similar to the harmful "mare" in the later folklore of the Germanic-speaking peoples. Despite the Christian elements in the charms, such as the saints called upon for help, their foundations likely lie in a shared North-Sea Germanic tradition that includes inscribed runic charms such as those found in Ribe and Norfolk.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: The conception of diseases as being caused by projectiles from supernatural beings is widespread in Germanic folklore through time, such as in the phenomenon of elfshot, in Wið færstice, where they are thrown by elves, Ēse and witches, and in the Canterbury charm in which an infection is caused by the 'wound-spear' () used by the "lord of þursar". In the case of dwarfs, this association has continued in places into the modern period such as in the Norweigian words or which refer to an 'animal disease' and translate literally as 'dwarfshot'.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: Dwarfs feature in modern tellings of folklore such as Walt Disney's 1937 film based on the folktale recorded by the Brothers Grimm.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: Most dwarfs in modern fantasy fiction closely follow those of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", where the dwarves (Tolkien's spelling) were distinguished from elves: most modern fantasy has continued this distinction. Dwarfs are also present in other fantasy literature such as C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" stories, Terry Pratchett's Discworld and the Artemis Fowl novels by Eoin Colfer.


title: Dwarf (folklore)

text: The emergence of fantasy video games has led to differing depictions and interpretations of dwarfs. In the universe of The Elder Scrolls, "dwarves" (or Dwemer) are presented as a race of subterranean elves, whose culture was centred around science and engineering, that differs from Tolkiens conceptualisation, in that they are not particularly short, and are extinct. Other games like Dragon Age and Warcraft present an image of dwarfs as stout, bearded mountain dwellers, separate from Elves. Warhammer retains the Dungeons & Dragons dichotomy between Dwarves and Dark Dwarves, referring to the latter as Chaos Dwarfs.


title: Chinese numerology

text: Some numbers are believed by some to be auspicious or lucky (吉利, ) or inauspicious or unlucky (不吉, ) based on the Chinese word that the number sounds similar to. The numbers 3, 6, and 8 are generally considered to be lucky, while 4 is considered unlucky. These traditions are not unique to Chinese culture, with other countries with a history of Han characters also having similar beliefs stemming from these concepts.


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 0 (零, ) is the beginning of all things and is generally considered a good number, because it sounds like 良 (pinyin: "liáng"), which means 'good'.


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 1 (一, ) is neither auspicious nor inauspicious. It is a number given to winners to indicate the first place. But it can also symbolize loneliness or being single. For example: November 11 is the Singles' Day in China, as the date has four ‘1’ which stand for singles.


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 2 (二, cardinal, or 兩, used with units, ) is most often considered a good number in Chinese culture. In Cantonese, 2 (二 or 兩, ) is homophonous with the characters for "easy" (易, ) and "bright" (亮, ), respectively. There is a Chinese saying: "good things come in pairs". It is common to repeat characters in product brand names, such as the character 喜 (), can be repeated to form the character 囍 ().


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 3 (三, ) sounds like 生 (), which means "to live" or "life" so it's considered a good number. It's significant since it is one of three important stages in a person's life (birth, marriage, and death).<br>On the other hand, number 3 (三,) sounds like 散 () which means "to split" or "to separate" or "to part ways" or "to break up with" so it is a bad number too.


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 4 (四, ) is considered an unlucky number in Chinese because it is nearly homophonous to the word "death" (死 ).


title: Chinese numerology

text: Thus, some buildings in East Asia omit floors and room numbers containing 4, similar to the Western practice of some buildings not having a 13th floor because 13 is considered unlucky.


title: Chinese numerology

text: Where East Asian and Western cultures blend, such as in Hong Kong, it is possible in some buildings that the thirteenth floor along with all the floors with 4s to be omitted. Thus a building whose top floor is numbered 100 would in fact have just eighty one floors. Similarly in Vietnamese, the number 4 (四) is called "tứ" in Sino-Vietnamese, which sounds like "tử" ("死") (death) in Vietnamese.


title: Chinese numerology

text: Five is also associated with the five elements (Water, Fire, Earth, Wood, and Metal) in Chinese philosophy, and in turn was historically associated with the Emperor of China. For example, the Tiananmen gate, being the main thoroughfare to the Forbidden City, has five arches.


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 6 (六, ) in Mandarin sounds like "slick" or "smooth" (溜, ). In Cantonese, 6 () sounds like "good fortune" or "happiness" (祿, 樂 ).


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 7 (七, ) in Mandarin sounds like "even" in Mandarin (齊, ), so it is a good number for relationships. It also sounds like "arise" (起, ) and "life essence" (氣, ) in Mandarin.


title: Chinese numerology

text: Seven can also be considered an unlucky number since the 7th month (July) is a "ghost month". It also sounds like "to deceive" (欺, ) in Mandarin.


title: Chinese numerology

text: There is also a visual resemblance between 88 and 囍 (), a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 ().


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 8 is viewed as such an auspicious number that even being assigned a number with several eights is considered very lucky.


title: Chinese numerology

text: The number 9 (九, ) was historically associated with the Emperor of China, and the number was frequently used in matters relating to the Emperor, before the establishment of the imperial examinations officials were organized in the nine-rank system, the nine bestowments were rewards the Emperor made for officials of extraordinary capacity and loyalty, while the nine familial exterminations was one of the harshest punishments the Emperor sentenced; the Emperor's robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese mythology held that the dragon has nine children.


title: Chinese numerology

text: In Cantonese, the number 9 is also a vulgar way of saying penis (𨳊, ), similar to 7 as well, with 9 referring to an erect penis instead.


title: Ishihara test

text: The Ishihara test is a color vision test for detection of red-green color deficiencies. It was named after its designer, Shinobu Ishihara, a professor at the University of Tokyo, who first published his tests in 1917.


title: Ishihara test

text: The test consists of a number of Ishihara plates, which are a type of pseudoisochromatic plate. Each plate depicts a solid circle of colored dots appearing randomized in color and size. Within the pattern are dots which form a number or shape clearly visible to those with normal color vision, and invisible, or difficult to see, to those with a red-green color vision defect. Other plates are intentionally designed to reveal numbers only to those with a red-green color vision deficiency, and be invisible to those with normal red-green color vision. The full test consists of 38 plates, but the existence of a severe deficiency is usually apparent after only a few plates. There are also Ishihara tests consisting of 10, 14 or 24 test plates, and plates in some versions ask the viewer to trace a line rather than read a number.


title: Ishihara test

text: The numbering and rotation of plates differs between the shortened diagnostic versions of the test and the full 38-plate test.


title: Ishihara test

text: Born in 1879 to a family in Tokyo, Shinobu Ishihara began his education at the Imperial University where he attended on a military scholarship. Ishihara had just completed his graduate studies in ophthalmology in Germany when war broke out in Europe and World War I had begun. While holding a military position related to his field, he was given the task of creating a color blindness test. Ishihara studied existing tests and combined elements of the Stilling test, named after the German ophthalmologist Jakob Stilling, with the concept of pseudo-isochromaticism to produce an improved, more accurate and easier to use test.


title: Ishihara test

text: Being a printed plate, the accuracy of the test depends on using the proper lighting to illuminate the page. A "daylight" bulb illuminator is required to give the most accurate results, of around 6000–7000 K temperature (ideal: 6500 K, Color Rendering Index (CRI) >90), and is required for military color vision screening policy. Fluorescent bulbs are often used in school testing, but the color of fluorescent bulbs and their CRI can vary widely. Fluorescent lighting showed better results and faster recognition speed compared to CFL and LED luminance in trichromats. Incandescent bulbs should not be used, as their low temperature (yellow-color) gives highly inaccurate results, allowing some color vision deficient persons to pass.


title: Ishihara test

text: Proper testing technique is to give only three seconds per plate for an answer, and not allow coaching, touching or tracing of the numbers by the subject. The test is best given in random sequence, if possible, to reduce the effectiveness of prior memorization of the answers by subjects. Some pseudo-isochromatic plate books have the pages in binders, so the plates may be rearranged periodically to give a random order to the test.


title: Ishihara test

text: Since its creation, the Ishihara Color Blindness Test has become commonly used worldwide because of its easy use and high accuracy. In recent years, the Ishihara test has become available online in addition to its original paper version. Though both media use the same plates, they require different methods for an accurate diagnosis.


title: Ishihara test

text: The United States Navy uses the Ishihara plates (and alternatives) for color vision screening. The current passing score is 12 correct of 14 red/green test plates (not including the demonstration plate). Research has shown that scores below twelve indicate color vision deficiency, and twelve or more correct indicate normal color vision, with 97% sensitivity and 100% specificity. The sensitivity of the Ishihara test varies by the number of plates allowed to pass, which can vary by institutional policy. Sensitivity also may be influenced by test administration (strength of lighting, time allowed to answer) and testing errors (coaching by administrators, smudges or marks made upon the plates).


title: Garum

text: Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was used as a condiment in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage and later Byzantium. Liquamen is a similar preparation, and at times they were synonymous. Although garum enjoyed its greatest popularity in the Western Mediterranean and the Roman world, it was earlier used by the Greeks.


title: Garum

text: Like modern fermented fish sauce and soy sauce, garum was a rich source of umami flavoring due to the presence of glutamates. It was used along with murri in medieval Byzantine and Arab cuisine to give a savory flavor to dishes. Murri may derive from garum.


title: Garum

text: Pliny the Elder and Isidore of Seville derive the Latin word from the Greek (), a food named by Aristophanes, Sophocles, and Aeschylus. Garos may have been a type of fish, or a fish sauce similar to garum. Pliny stated that garum was made from fish intestines, with salt, creating a liquor, the garum, and the fish paste named (h)allec or allex (similar to , this paste was a byproduct of fish sauce production). A concentrated garum evaporated down to a thick paste with salt crystals was called muria; it would have been used to salt and flavor foods.


title: Garum

text: Garum was produced in various grades consumed by all social classes. After the liquid was ladled off of the top of the mixture, the remains of the fish, called , was used by the poorest classes to flavour their staple porridge or farinata. The finished product—the of Martial's epigram—was apparently mild and subtle in flavor. The best garum fetched extraordinarily high prices, and salt could be substituted for it in a simpler dish. Garum appears in many recipes featured in the Roman cookbook . For example, Apicius (8.6.2–3) gives a recipe for lamb stew, calling for the meat to be cooked with onion and coriander, pepper, lovage, cumin, , oil, and wine, then thickened with flour. The same cookbook mentions garum being used as fish stock to flavor chopped mallow leaves fried in a skillet.


title: Garum

text: In the first century AD, "liquamen" was a sauce distinct from "garum", as indicated throughout the "Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum" IV. By the fifth century or earlier, however, "liquamen" had come to refer to "garum". The available evidence suggests that the sauce was typically made by crushing the innards of (fatty) pelagic fishes, particularly anchovies, but also sprats, sardines, mackerel, or tuna, and then fermenting them in brine. In most surviving "tituli picti" inscribed on amphorae, where the fish ingredient is shown, the fish is mackerel. Under the best conditions, the fermentation process took about 48 hours.


title: Garum

text: The manufacture and export of garum was an element of the prosperity of coastal Greek emporia from the Ligurian coast of Gaul to the coast of Hispania Baetica, and perhaps an impetus for Roman penetration of these coastal regions. Although garum was a staple of the Roman Empire's cuisine, few production sites are known to have existed in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2019 a small 1st-century factory was discovered near Ashkelon. A 2013 storm uncovered Neapolis, a major center of garum production, at Nabeul in Tunisia.


title: Garum

text: Pliny the Elder spoke of a type of garum that Roman Jews may have used, as normal garum may not have contained exclusively kosher seafood.


title: Garum

text: In the ruins of Pompeii, jars were found containing "kosher garum", suggesting an equal popularity among Jews there. Each port had its own traditional recipe, but by the time of Augustus, Romans considered the best to be garum from Cartagena and Gades in Baetica. This product was called "garum sociorum", "garum of the allies". The ruins of a garum factory remain at the Baetian site of Baelo Claudia (in present-day Tarifa) and Carteia (San Roque). Other sites are a large garum factory at Gades (Cadiz) and at Málaga under the Picasso museum.


title: Garum

text: Garum was a major export product from Hispania to Rome, and gained the towns a certain amount of prestige. The garum of Lusitania (in present-day Portugal) was also highly prized in Rome, and was shipped directly from the harbour of Lacobriga (Lagos). A former Roman garum factory can be visited in the Baixa area of central Lisbon. Fossae Marianae in southern Gaul, located on the southern tip of present-day France, served as a distribution hub for Western Europe, including Gaul, Germania, and Roman Britain. Garum factories were also located in the province of Mauretania Tingitana (modern Morocco), for example at Cotta and Lixus.


title: Garum

text: Umbricius Scaurus' production of garum was key to the economy of Pompeii. The factories where garum was produced in Pompeii have not been uncovered, perhaps indicating that they lay outside the walls of the city. The production of garum created such unpleasant smells that factories were generally relegated to the outskirts of cities. In 2008, archaeologists used the residue from garum found in containers in Pompeii to confirm the August date of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The garum had been made entirely of bogues, fish that congregate in the summer months.


title: Garum

text: When mixed with wine ("oenogarum", a popular Byzantine sauce), vinegar, black pepper, or oil, garum enhanced the flavor of a wide variety of dishes, including boiled veal and steamed mussels, even pear-and-honey soufflé. Diluted with water ("hydrogarum") it was distributed to Roman legions. Pliny (d. 79) remarked in his "Natural History" that it could be diluted to the colour of honey wine and drunk.


title: Garum

text: "Garum" had a social dimension that might be compared to that of garlic in some modern Western societies, or to the adoption of fish sauce in Vietnamese cuisine (called "nước mắm" there). Seneca, holding the old-fashioned line against the expensive craze, cautioned against it, even though his family was from Baetian Corduba:


title: Garum

text: A surviving fragment of Plato Comicus speaks of "putrid garum". Martial congratulates a friend on keeping up amorous advances to a girl who had indulged in six helpings of it.


title: Garum

text: The biological anthropologist Piers Mitchell suggests that garum may have helped spread fish tapeworms across Europe.


title: Garum

text: Garum was also employed as a medicine. It was thought to be one of the best cures for many ailments, including dog bites, dysentery, and ulcers, and to ease chronic diarrhea and treat constipation. Garum was even used as an ingredient in cosmetics and for removal of unwanted hair and freckles.


title: Garum

text: Garum remains of interest to food historians and chefs, and has been reintroduced into modern food preparation. In Southeast Asia, fish sauce is a distinctive element of that region's cuisine, used much as garum was in Rome. In Cádiz, Spain, in 2017, one chef used its flavors for a fish salad recipe, after Spanish archaeologists found evidence of garum in amphoras recovered in the ruins of Pompeii, dating to 79 AD.


title: Garum

text: Garum is believed to be the ancestor of the fermented anchovy sauce "colatura di alici", still produced in Campania, Italy.


title: Garum

text: Worcestershire sauce is a savory sauce based upon fermented anchovies and other ingredients. Ketchup, originally a savory fish sauce that contained neither sugar nor tomatoes, shared its basic ingredients, culinary functions and popularity with garum.


title: Phase (waves)

text: In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function formula_1 of some real variable formula_2 (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to formula_2. It is denoted formula_4 and expressed in such a scale that it varies by one full turn as the variable formula_2 goes through each period (and formula_6 goes through each complete cycle). It may be measured in any angular unit such as degrees or radians, thus increasing by 360° or formula_7 as the variable formula_2 completes a full period.


title: Phase (waves)

text: This convention is especially appropriate for a sinusoidal function, since its value at any argument formula_2 then can be expressed as formula_4, the sine of the phase, multiplied by some factor (the amplitude of the sinusoid). (The cosine may be used instead of sine, depending on where one considers each period to start.)


title: Phase (waves)

text: Usually, whole turns are ignored when expressing the phase; so that formula_4 is also a periodic function, with the same period as formula_1, that repeatedly scans the same range of angles as formula_2 goes through each period. Then, formula_1 is said to be "at the same phase" at two argument values formula_15 and formula_16 (that is, formula_17) if the difference between them is a whole number of periods.


title: Phase (waves)

text: The numeric value of the phase formula_4 depends on the arbitrary choice of the start of each period, and on the interval of angles that each period is to be mapped to.


title: Phase (waves)

text: The term "phase" is also used when comparing a periodic function formula_1 with a shifted version formula_20 of it. If the shift in formula_2 is expressed as a fraction of the period, and then scaled to an angle formula_22 spanning a whole turn, one gets the "phase shift", "phase offset", or "phase difference" of formula_20 relative to formula_1. If formula_1 is a "canonical" function for a class of signals, like formula_26 is for all sinusoidal signals, then formula_22 is called the "initial phase" of formula_20.


title: Phase (waves)

text: Let formula_1 be a periodic signal (that is, a function of one real variable), and formula_30 be its period (that is, the smallest positive real number such that formula_31 for all formula_2). Then the "phase of "formula_1 "at" any argument formula_2 is


title: Phase (waves)

text: Here formula_36 denotes the fractional part of a real number, discarding its integer part; that is, formula_37; and formula_38 is an arbitrary "origin" value of the argument, that one considers to be the beginning of a cycle.


title: Phase (waves)

text: This concept can be visualized by imagining a clock with a hand that turns at constant speed, making a full turn every formula_30 seconds, and is pointing straight up at time formula_38. The phase formula_4 is then the angle from the 12:00 position to the current position of the hand, at time formula_2, measured clockwise.


title: Phase (waves)

text: The phase concept is most useful when the origin formula_38 is chosen based on features of formula_1. For example, for a sinusoid, a convenient choice is any formula_2 where the function's value changes from zero to positive.


title: Phase (waves)

text: The formula above gives the phase as an angle in radians between 0 and formula_7. To get the phase as an angle between formula_47 and formula_48, one uses instead


title: Phase (waves)

text: The phase expressed in degrees (from 0° to 360°, or from −180° to +180°) is defined the same way, except with "360°" in place of "2π".


title: Phase (waves)

text: With any of the above definitions, the phase formula_4 of a periodic signal is periodic too, with the same period formula_30:


title: Phase (waves)

text: Moreover, for any given choice of the origin formula_38, the value of the signal formula_1 for any argument formula_2 depends only on its phase at formula_2. Namely, one can write formula_60, where formula_61 is a function of an angle, defined only for a single full turn, that describes the variation of formula_1 as formula_2 ranges over a single period.


title: Phase (waves)

text: 0 to 2π, that describes just one cycle of that waveform; and formula_67 is a scaling factor for the amplitude. (This claim assumes that the starting time formula_38 chosen to compute the phase of formula_1 corresponds to argument 0 of formula_66.)


title: Phase (waves)

text: Since phases are angles, any whole full turns should usually be ignored when performing arithmetic operations on them. That is, the sum and difference of two phases (in degrees) should be computed by the formulas


title: Phase (waves)

text: respectively. Thus, for example, the sum of phase angles is 30° (, minus one full turn), and subtracting 50° from 30° gives a phase of 340° (, plus one full turn).


title: Phase (waves)

text: The difference formula_74 between the phases of two periodic signals formula_1 and formula_20 is called the "phase difference" or "phase shift" of formula_20 relative to formula_1. At values of formula_2 when the difference is zero, the two signals are said to be "in phase", otherwise they are "out of phase" with each other.


title: Phase (waves)

text: In the clock analogy, each signal is represented by a hand (or pointer) of the same clock, both turning at constant but possibly different speeds. The phase difference is then the angle between the two hands, measured clockwise.


title: Phase (waves)

text: The phase difference is particularly important when two signals are added together by a physical process, such as two periodic sound waves emitted by two sources and recorded together by a microphone. This is usually the case in linear systems, when the superposition principle holds.


title: Phase (waves)

text: For arguments formula_2 when the phase difference is zero, the two signals will have the same sign and will be reinforcing each other. One says that constructive interference is occurring. At arguments formula_2 when the phases are different, the value of the sum depends on the waveform.


title: Phase (waves)

text: For sinusoidal signals, when the phase difference formula_82 is 180° (formula_83 radians), one says that the phases are "opposite", and that the signals are "in antiphase". Then the signals have opposite signs, and destructive interference occurs.


title: Phase (waves)

text: When the phase difference formula_82 is a quarter of turn (a right angle, or ), sinusoidal signals are sometimes said to be in "quadrature" (e.g., in-phase and quadrature components).


title: Phase (waves)

text: If the frequencies are different, the phase difference formula_82 increases linearly with the argument formula_2. The periodic changes from reinforcement and opposition cause a phenomenon called beating.


title: Phase (waves)

text: The phase difference is especially important when comparing a periodic signal formula_1 with a shifted and possibly scaled version formula_20 of it. That is, suppose that formula_89 for some constants formula_90 and all formula_2. Suppose also that the origin for computing the phase of formula_20 has been shifted too. In that case, the phase difference formula_22 is a constant (independent of formula_2), called the 'phase shift' or 'phase offset' of formula_20 relative to formula_1. In the clock analogy, this situation corresponds to the two hands turning at the same speed, so that the angle between them is constant.


title: Phase (waves)

text: In this case, the phase shift is simply the argument shift formula_97, expressed as a fraction of the common period formula_30 (in terms of the modulo operation) of the two signals and then scaled to a full turn:


title: Phase (waves)

text: If formula_1 is a "canonical" representative for a class of signals, like formula_26 is for all sinusoidal signals, then the phase shift formula_22 called simply the "initial phase" of formula_20.


title: Phase (waves)

text: Therefore, when two periodic signals have the same frequency, they are always in phase, or always out of phase. Physically, this situation commonly occurs, for many reasons. For example, the two signals may be a periodic soundwave recorded by two microphones at separate locations. Or, conversely, they may be periodic soundwaves created by two separate speakers from the same electrical signal, and recorded by a single microphone. They may be a radio signal that reaches the receiving antenna in a straight line, and a copy of it that was reflected off a large building nearby.


title: Phase (waves)

text: A well-known example of phase difference is the length of shadows seen at different points of Earth. To a first approximation, if formula_6 is the length seen at time formula_2 at one spot, and formula_20 is the length seen at the same time at a longitude 30° west of that point, then the phase difference between the two signals will be 30° (assuming that, in each signal, each period starts when the shadow is shortest).


title: Phase (waves)

text: For sinusoidal signals (and a few other waveforms, like square or symmetric triangular), a phase shift of 180° is equivalent to a phase shift of 0° with negation of the amplitude. When two signals with these waveforms, same period, and opposite phases are added together, the sum formula_107 is either identically zero, or is a sinusoidal signal with the same period and phase, whose amplitude is the difference of the original amplitudes.


title: Phase (waves)

text: The phase shift of the co-sine function relative to the sine function is +90°. It follows that, for two sinusoidal signals formula_1 and formula_20 with same frequency and amplitudes formula_67 and formula_111, and formula_20 has phase shift +90° relative to formula_1, the sum formula_107 is a sinusoidal signal with the same frequency, with amplitude formula_115 and phase shift formula_116 from formula_1, such that


title: Phase (waves)

text: A real-world example of a sonic phase difference occurs in the warble of a Native American flute. The amplitude of different harmonic components of same long-held note on the flute come into dominance at different points in the phase cycle. The phase difference between the different harmonics can be observed on a spectrogram of the sound of a warbling flute.


title: Phase (waves)

text: "Phase comparison" is a comparison of the phase of two waveforms, usually of the same nominal frequency. In time and frequency, the purpose of a phase comparison is generally to determine the frequency offset (difference between signal cycles) with respect to a reference.


title: Phase (waves)

text: A phase comparison can be made by connecting two signals to a two-channel oscilloscope. The oscilloscope will display two sine signals, as shown in the graphic to the right. In the adjacent image, the top sine signal is the test frequency, and the bottom sine signal represents a signal from the reference.


title: Phase (waves)

text: If the two frequencies were exactly the same, their phase relationship would not change and both would appear to be stationary on the oscilloscope display. Since the two frequencies are not exactly the same, the reference appears to be stationary and the test signal moves. By measuring the rate of motion of the test signal the offset between frequencies can be determined.


title: Phase (waves)

text: Vertical lines have been drawn through the points where each sine signal passes through zero. The bottom of the figure shows bars whose width represents the phase difference between the signals. In this case the phase difference is increasing, indicating that the test signal is lower in frequency than the reference.


title: Phase (waves)

text: where formula_121, formula_122, and formula_123 are constant parameters called the "amplitude", "frequency", and "phase" of the sinusoid. These signals are periodic with period formula_124, and they are identical except for a displacement of formula_125 along the formula_126 axis. The term "phase" can refer to several different things:


title: AMX-30

text: The AMX-30 is a main battle tank designed by Ateliers de construction d'Issy-les-Moulineaux (AMX, then GIAT) and first delivered to the French Army in August 1966. The first five tanks were issued to the 501st "Régiment de Chars de Combat" (Tank Regiment) in August of that year. The production version of the AMX-30B weighed , and sacrificed protection for increased mobility. The French believed that it would have required too much armour to protect against the latest anti-tank threats, thereby reducing the tank's maneuverability. Protection, instead, was provided by the speed and the compact dimensions of the vehicle, including a height of 2.28 metres. It had a 105 mm gun, firing a then advanced high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead known as the "Obus G". The "Obus G" used an outer shell, separated from the main charge by ball bearings, to allow the round to be spin stabilized by the gun without spinning the warhead inside which would disrupt jet formation. Mobility was provided by the HS-110 diesel engine, although the troublesome transmission adversely affected the tank's performance.


title: AMX-30

text: In 1979, due to issues caused by the transmission, the French Army began to modernize its fleet of tanks to AMX-30B2 standards, which included a new transmission, an improved engine and the introduction of a new OFL 105 F1 fin-stabilized kinetic energy penetrator. Production of the AMX-30 also extended to a number of variants, including the AMX-30D armored recovery vehicle, the AMX-30R anti-aircraft gun system, a bridge-layer, the Pluton tactical nuclear missile launcher and a surface-to-air missile launcher.


title: AMX-30

text: It was preceded by two post-war French medium tank designs. The first, the ARL 44, was an interim tank. Its replacement, the AMX 50, was cancelled in the mid-1950s in favor of adopting the M47 Patton tank. In 1956, the French government entered a cooperative development program with West Germany and Italy in an effort to design a standardized tank. Although the three nations agreed to a series of specific characteristics that the new tank should have, and both France and Germany began work on distinctive prototypes with the intent of testing them and combining the best of both, the program failed as Germany decided not to adopt the new French tank gun and France declared that it would postpone production until 1965. As a result, both nations decided to adopt tanks based on their own prototypes. The German tank became the Leopard 1, while the French prototype became the AMX-30.


title: AMX-30

text: As early as 1969, the AMX-30 and variants were ordered by Greece, soon followed by Spain (AMX-30E). In the coming years, the AMX-30 would be exported to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus and Chile. By the end of production, 3,571 units of AMX-30s and its variants had been manufactured. Both Spain and Venezuela later began extensive modernization programs to extend the life of their vehicles and to bring their tanks up to more modern standards. In the 1991 Gulf War, AMX-30s were deployed by both the French and Qatari armies. Qatari AMX-30s saw action against Iraqi forces at the Battle of Khafji. France and most other nations replaced their AMX-30s with more up-to-date equipment by the end of the 20th century.


title: AMX-30

text: Although the occupation of France during World War II temporarily interrupted French development of armoured fighting vehicles, clandestine research allowed the French to quickly recover lost ground after its liberation in mid-1944. During the occupation, the French had secretly worked on an armour program that was, in 1944, taken over by the state workshop "Atelier de Construction de Rueil" (ARL), resulting in the design and production of the ARL 44, which began production in 1946. The tank was powered by a Maybach HL-230 engine, and armed with a tank gun. Although the vehicle was comparable to contemporary battle tanks in firepower and engine power, it suffered from distinct disadvantages, including an antiquated track design. While 600 were planned, only 60 were ultimately produced by 1950. That year, these were issued to the French Army's 503rd Tank Regiment. Given that the ARL 44 had been considered only a stop-gap vehicle for the French Army's armoured forces since inception, work on a new tank had begun as early as March 1945.


title: AMX-30

text: Development of the new tank was offered to five separate manufacturers: "Atelier de Construction d'Issy-les-Moulineaux" (AMX), "Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée" (FCM), Renault, "Societe Lorraine de Dietrich" (SLD-Lorraine) and "Societé d'Outillage Mécanique et d'Usinage d'Artillerie" (SOMUA). The new vehicle was based on the new post-war requirement for a single battle tank. The new vehicle was designated the AMX 50. Its hull and suspension were similar to that of the German Panther tank, which had been used by the French Army in the immediate post-war. The French government's specifications for the new tank were strongly influenced by both the Panther tank and the heavier Tiger I; specifically, the French Army was looking for a tank with the protection of the former and the firepower of the latter. Although the design borrowed from German tanks, including the Maybach engine, based on an earlier model, and the torsion bar sprung road wheels, the AMX 50 also included a number of unique features. For example, it included an oscillating turret, mounted on trunnions, which was the first of its kind. The oscillating turret consisted of two parts, one of which was mounted on the trunnions of the lower part, attached to the turret ring. The main gun was attached to the upper part, facilitating gun elevation and depression, as well as simplifying the fire control equipment and the installation of the automatic loading system. Of the three contractors, Renault withdrew from the program, while in early 1946 the French government selected AMX and SOMUA to continue the development. The prototypes were designated M4s, and AMX completed its prototype in 1949, while SOMUA would not be finished until 1956. AMX's first prototype was armed with a cannon, although a second prototype was fitted with a larger gun in July 1950 Although it was intended to put the AMX 50 into production as the standard medium tank of the Western European Union, financial reasons and the arrival of military aid from the United States in the form of 856 M47 Patton tanks caused the original program to be abandoned. In 1951 it was decided to turn the program into a heavy tank project with an even larger tank gun; though three prototypes were built, this too was abandoned in 1956, mainly due to a failure to design a powerful enough engine.


title: AMX-30

text: With the demise of the AMX 50 program in 1951, France temporarily officially abandoned the thought of producing a medium tank. It was expected that West Germany would soon be allowed to rearm, and the Germans had appeared to entertain the concept of equipping their forces with a host of low-cost light, but relatively powerfully armed tanks, their quantity compensating for a lack of full armament parity with the latest medium tanks. The prospect of delivering many thousands of these to the Germans induced the French to adopt the idea and plan to create light tank "Type 67" armoured divisions, for which the AMX-13/105 was specially designed. A private enterprise design aimed at fulfilling the same requirement was the somewhat larger Char Batignolles-Châtillon. A derived medium tank prototype of the latter, made in 1955, proved that it was possible to produce a tank with a first-rate gun and frontally protected with steel equivalence within a weight constraint of . This revived interest in the medium tank concept.


title: AMX-30

text: In 1956, the WEU defence workgroup FINBEL (named after France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg), founded in 1953 and consisting of representatives of the various General Staffs, drafted a set of specifications for a new medium tank to eventually replace their American and British tanks. That same year, Germany joined the workgroup, turning it into FINABEL (the added "A" standing for "Allemagne", "Germany" in French) and on 27 October 1956 at Colomb-Béchar a bilateral agreement was concluded between France and Germany to collaborate in building a tank. Though the other FINABEL nations did not formally participate, the type was called "Europa-Panzer" to indicate its common European nature, and experts from all countries were involved in the design process. The specifications (FINABEL 3A5) for the new tank called for a lightweight and mobile battle tank, setting the weight limit to and compromising the ability to heavily armour the vehicle. French and German engineers, during a conference in Bonn on 12 February 1957, defined the requirements for the future tank. This included a maximum width of , a height of and a tank gun, to be developed by the Franco-German military research institute at Saint Louis. The new tank would have an air-cooled, petrol engine, a torsion bar suspension with hydraulic shocks, a power-to-weight ratio of at least /metric ton and a road range of at least . In May, Italy joined the project, though only nominally, without any material contribution, because after the war it had no tank design bureaus. That same year, on 28 November, the French and German ministries of defence in Paris agreed upon a contract which would allow both countries to produce two prototypes separately. The next year, however, the project suffered a first setback when Charles de Gaulle took power in France, creating the Fifth Republic: the Paris treaty had as its main point developing a common nuclear weapon and on 17 June 1958 de Gaulle decided to refuse Germany and Italy the atomic bomb, to avoid antagonizing the US and United Kingdom. This made Germany lose much interest in a common tank project also.


title: AMX-30

text: The French prototypes were developed and produced by the "Atelier de Construction d'Issy-les-Moulineaux", under the direction of General Joseph Molinié of the "Direction des Études et Fabrications d'Armements" (DEFA, the later "Direction Technique des Armements Terrestres") and AMX head engineer Heissler, The first prototype was completed in September 1960 and tested from February 1961; the second, with an improved range finder and track was tested in July 1961. These first vehicles had a very rounded turret, in a deliberate imitation of the Soviet T-54, and Sofam petrol engines. Another seven, with an improved sleeker turret cast, were manufactured between 1961 and 1963. Work on the German prototypes was carried out by two teams, including Team A composed of Porsche, Maschinenbau Kiel, Luther & Jordan and Jung-Jungenthal . Team B was made up by Ruhrstahl, Rheinstahl-HANOMAG and Henschel. Wood mock-ups were completed in 1959, while the first two prototypes were finished by 1961 (completed by Team A).


title: AMX-30

text: De Gaulle decided that France, though formally remaining a member, would no longer participate in the NATO military organization. This caused a rift between France and West Germany, which then started to emphasize standardization with American equipment, especially in armament, and to follow the new NATO policy to use multifuel diesel engines. German defence minister Franz Josef Strauss began to oppose the common tank project. In July 1963, the defence committee of the German Bundesrat decided to procure a purely national tank. In response, the same month the French government decided likewise.


title: AMX-30

text: Comparative trials were nevertheless held at Mailly-le-Camp, Meppen, Bourges and Satory between five French and five German prototypes between August and October 1963, under Italian, Dutch, Belgian and American supervision. The French type had received a separate national designation: "AMX 30". The trials indicated that the German type, on 1 October also getting its own name "Leopard", had a better mobility and acceleration. The French government decided that it could not procure a new tank until 1965, while the Germans refused to adopt the Franco-German tank gun, in lieu of the British Royal Ordnance L7, of which they had already ordered 1,500 in the autumn of 1962, their plan having failed for Rheinmetall to produce in Germany a common type of munition of sufficient quality. Suggestions to save the project by combining the French turret with the German chassis failed. As a result, the program was cancelled and the French and Germans definitely decided to adopt their two separate tanks.


title: AMX-30

text: The prototypes of the AMX-30 weighed , and were compact, with a width of , comparable only to the Swiss Panzer 61, and a height of , comparable only to the Soviet T-55. In contrast to the AMX-50, the AMX-30 was issued a conventional turret, because it was found that it was more difficult to seal oscillating turrets from radioactive dust and against water when the tank was submerged. Oscillating turrets also had a large ballistic weakness in the area of the skirt and turret ring. Originally, the first two prototypes were powered by a spark ignition engine, named the SOFAM 12 GSds. Later, a multi-fuel diesel engine was adopted, developed by Hispano-Suiza. The seven 1963 prototypes of the AMX-30 were later rebuilt with the new diesel engine. Two further prototypes, meant to be direct preproduction vehicles, were delivered in November 1965. Besides the diesel engines, they had changed hull and turret casts and different gun mantlets; the latter would again be changed in the production vehicles.


title: AMX-30

text: The first production versions of the AMX-30, named "AMX 30B" to distinguish them from the "AMX 30A" prototypes, were completed in June 1966, manufactured with a welded and cast hull and a fully cast turret. The production version of the tank had a combat weight of . The AMX-30's survivability was based on its mobility; French engineers believed that the tank's mobility would have been compromised had they added enough steel plating to protect against modern anti-tank threats, including high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warheads. As a result, the type had the thinnest armour of any main battle tank produced at the time. The turret has a maximum armour thickness of , the armour sloped at 70 degrees on the front plate and 23 degrees on the side, offering protection against armour piercing projectiles. The Line-of-Sight armour values are: for the front of the hull; for the forward sides of the hull; for the rear sides and rear of the hull; for the hull top and bottom; for the turret front; for the turret sides; for the turret rear and for the turret top. Further protection is offered by a nuclear, biological and chemical protection suit, including a ventilation system.


title: AMX-30

text: One of the unique features of the AMX-30 was the "Obus à Charge Creuse de 105 mm Modèle F1" (Obus G) HEAT projectile and its main gun, the Modèle F1, a monoblock steel cannon. HEAT warheads suffer when spin stabilized, a product of rifled barrels, causing the French to develop the Obus G, (Gresse). This projectile was composed of two major parts, including the outer shell and a suspended inner shell, separated by ball bearings. This allowed the projectile to be spin-stabilized, and therefore more accurate than a normal fin-stabilized HEAT round, while the inner shell did not spin, allowing the warhead to work at maximum efficiency. The warhead, containing 780 gram hexolite, could penetrate up to of steel armour and was effective against tanks at up to . As it combined a good accuracy with a penetration that was independent of range, it has been considered an "ideal round" for its day The AMX-30 was also designed to fire the OE F1 Mle.60 high explosive projectile, the SCC F1 training warhead and the OFUM PH-105 F1 smoke round. The main gun was coupled with a recoil brake, which had a maximum extension of , and could depress to −8 degrees or elevate to 20 degrees. The turret's firepower was augmented by a coaxial M2 Browning machine gun. The tank commander also made use of a anti-aircraft machine gun on the turret roof. The vehicle carried 50 projectiles, 748 rounds and 2,050 bullets. The tank commander was issued a cupola which offered ten all-around direct-vision episcopes, and a binocular telescope with 10x magnification. The commander was also given an optical full-field coincidence range finder. The gunner was given a telescoping gun sight and two observation periscopes.


title: AMX-30

text: The production version of the AMX-30 was fitted with Hispano-Suiza's HS-110 diesel engine, located in the rear of the hull. The engine could be replaced on the field in 45 minutes, and produced , offering the tank a maximum velocity of on roads. The fuel efficient engine, in conjunction with a total fuel capacity of , gave the AMX-30 a maximum road range of up to . The engine's drive is taken through a Gravina G.H.B.200C twin-plate centrifugal clutch. The gearbox was an AMX 5-SD-200D, with five forward gears and five reverse gears. This transmission was heavily influenced by that of the German Panther tank and was based on a project which had begun in 1938. The transmission was one of the AMX-30's major faults and caused a variety of mechanical problems, including that the driver would have to manually change gears at specific times, even if the tank was moving over rough terrain. The tank's weight is distributed over five double, aluminum-alloy, rubber-tyred road wheels on either side, propelled on wide tracks. The tank could ford deep water obstacles without preparation, up to with minor preparation, and up to with full preparation. Full preparation for water operations consisted of the addition of a snorkel tube, the installation of blanking plates, carried on the front of the hull, over the engine compartment's air intake louvers, and the installment of infrared driving equipment, including a searchlight. In 1969 a single special dive training vehicle was adapted, nicknamed the "AMX 30 Gloutte" (from French "faire glouglou", "gurgle"), without engine and tracks, that over a ramp could quickly be lowered into a reservoir by a winch; it was equipped with an escape tube.


title: AMX-30

text: During the production run, many improvements were implemented. These did not include gun stabilization from 1971, and from 1972 replacing the original coaxial heavy machine gun with a dual purpose autocannon against light armour and helicopters, with the ability to depress to −8 degrees and elevate to 40 degrees. All French army vehicles were eventually brought to this newer standard; the designation remained "AMX 30B".


title: AMX-30

text: Beginning as early as 1973, only seven years after the beginning of production, the French began a research program for a future modification of the tank. The project was to result in a "AMX 30 Valorisé" ("upgraded AMX-30"). In June 1979, the French Army decided to both build new and modernize existing AMX-30s with an improved fire control system and a new transmission, and designated them "AMX-30B2"s. The first new production vehicles were taken into service in January 1982. Improvements to the COTAC APX M-508 fire control system included the installation of a laser rangefinder and a low-light TV (LLTV). The main gun's lethality was improved with the introduction of a new armour piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS). The original engine was exchanged for an improved variant, known as the HS-110.2, producing . The poor transmission was replaced with the semi-automatic SESM ENC200 transmission (now RENK France), with a torque converter. The suspension was improved by adopting new torsion bars and shocks, which increased the vertical deflection range of the road wheels, thereby improving the tank's off-road mobility. From 1998, the French army started to replace the engines of its remaining AMX-30 tanks and variants with 500 Renault Mack E9 750 hp engines.


title: AMX-30

text: In the nineties, a reactive armour package, named "BRENUS" or Brennus, was developed for the AMX-30B2, but was issued only to two tank regiments, which in peacetime were combined into the "1er/ 2e Chasseurs", that were part of France's rapid reaction force; the other two regiments using the AMX-30, the "2e/5e Dragons", only had their tanks adapted for a possible relatively quick upgrade, in case of an emergency. The BRENUS system used 112 GIAT BS ("Brique de Surblindage") G2 explosive reactive boxes with a total weight of , offering a protection equivalent to of steel at 60° versus shaped charges and more than of steel versus kinetic energy projectiles such as APFSDS. During the 1990s, the AMX-30 has also been used as a testbed for several stealth technologies, including air cooling of hull surfaces and the use of visual camouflage. This prototype is known as the "Démonstrateur Furtif à Chenille". Its hull and turret are fully covered by a superstructure built of angled plates made of radar absorbent material.


title: AMX-30

text: In the late 1980s, a consortium of West German companies developed the "Super AMX-30" modernization package for AMX-30B. The consortium itself consisted of AEG, Krupp Atlas Elektronik, MTU, Wegmann & Co., Diehl, ZF Friedrichshafen, and GLS. The upgrades to the power packs were new MTU MB833 Ka501 diesel engine with 850 hp, ZF LSG-3000 automatic transmission, new engine cooling system, and increased fuel capacity up to 1,028 liters. The upgrades on mobility also includes upgraded torsion bars, hydraulic shock absorbers, new slightly larger road wheels, and Diehl Type 234 tracks. The fire control systems were upgraded with MOLF-30 modular laser FCS by Krupp Atlas Elektronik, gyro-stabilized gun and gunner's day/night sight, laser rangefinder, and fully electric turret drive. Optional additional armour on the turret also available per buyer request. A single prototype was made and were publicly unveiled and tested in Saudi Arabia. The upgrade failed to find a buyer.


title: AMX-30

text: The AMX-30 has a number of different variations, including a number of other armoured vehicles based on the same chassis. A simplified version of the tank, without the infrared searchlight and periscopes and a less complex commander's cupola was developed for export, known as the "basic AMX-30". This version also came devoid of the pressurized air filtering system, and moved the smaller machine gun into the coaxial position and the larger M2 to the turret roof. Another version was considered for the French Army, adopting a tank gun able to fire the supersonic ("Anti-Char Rapide Autopropulsé") anti-tank guided missile, as well as high explosive rounds. A prototype was finished in 1967 with a new cast turret, wide enough to hold the much larger armament. However, the high costs of the missiles forced the French Army to abandon the program in 1972. The vehicles based on the chassis include an armoured recovery vehicle, a bridgelayer, a self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicle, a tactical nuclear missile launcher and a self-propelled artillery piece.


title: AMX-30

text: The armoured recovery vehicle, known as the "AMX-30D" (AMX-30 "Dépanneur-Niveleur"), was designed to recuperate or help maintain vehicles in the field. Work on the AMX-30D began in 1966, as the French Army researched developing a recovery vehicle to be issued to units receiving the AMX-30 tank. A prototype was produced and delivered for experimentation in 1971, and in February 1973 the first of a pre-series of five vehicles was delivered. That same year, another 100 AMX-30Ds were ordered, and these began production in 1975. The recovery vehicle includes a winch powered by the vehicle's engine, with the ability to pull a maximum of of weight. The vehicle also has a heavy towing cable, while an auxiliary winch has another towing cable, able to tow up to when working over the front of the AMX-30D. In the latter case the vehicle must be supported by removable props, which are carried on the vehicle, and the bulldozer blade must be lowered on the ground. The crane can lift up the power pack and the turret. Instead of a turret, the AMX-30D is fitted with a superstructure, and weighs , although with the extra power pack it can weigh up to . The vehicle can protect itself with a machine gun. The driver's visibility is aided by the inclusion of three M-223 episcopes. The AMX-30D has a maximum on-road velocity of and a maximum road range of .


title: AMX-30

text: The "AMX-30H bridgelayer", or "Poseur de pont", consists of the AMX-30's chassis with a box-like superstructure, supporting a scissor-type folding bridge. The bridge can span gaps. The bridge has a width of , but can be increased to through the use of appliqué panels. It can support weighs of up to . Bridgelayer development began as early as 1963, although it was not until June 1967 that development began on a prototype. Although a prototype designated "AMX-30H" was finished in 1968, it was not until 1971 that the vehicle was evaluated. At the end of the evaluations in September 1971, a pre-series of five vehicles was ordered, resulting in a new period of evaluations beginning on 16 October 1972. In 1975, the AMX-30H was declared standard in the French Army, although none of these vehicles were ever ordered. 12 vehicles were purchased by the Saudi Arabian Army.


title: AMX-30

text: The self-propelled anti-aircraft gun began development in 1969 to provide this type of vehicle to the French Army and for export. Although ultimately none were ordered for France, in 1975 Saudi Arabia ordered an improved version (53 units,) denominated the "AMX-30SA" (first known as the "AMX-30 DCA", for "défense contre avion".) Developed to defend against low-altitude attacks, the system included two Hispano-Suiza 831 A automatic guns, coupled to an "Oeil-noir" fire control system. This system had already been installed on the AMX-13, in lieu of a heavier chassis, using a turret designated the S 401 A. Although this particular vehicle began production in 1962, the appearance of the AMX-30 offered a larger chassis to which the S 401 A turret could be mounted on, providing superior mobility. The heavier AMX-30 also provided a more stable platform for the guns, and allowed the system to carry much more ammunition (1,200 rounds, as compared to the 600 carried by the AMX-13 version). The guns were designed to fire in 5-round or 15-round bursts, with a cyclic rate of fire of 650 rounds per minute. They were controlled by an analogue computer, receiving information from a Doppler radar, which could be folded into an armoured box when not in use to protect from damage. The fire control depended on visual tracking, and so could only work in daylight and clear weather.


title: AMX-30

text: Three missile systems were developed to be mounted on the AMX-30 chassis. Recognizing the need for tactical nuclear missile mobile launchers, the French Army began developing the Pluton missile in 1963. In 1964, the program was suspended and instead the French Army opted for a missile with a longer range, able to be mounted on the AMX-30. A contract to develop the system was established in 1968. The first prototype was soon delivered and testing occurred between July and August 1970, followed by the production of a second prototype in 1971. Two more prototypes were fabricated in 1972. The next year, the vehicle was put into mass production and by 1 May 1974 four of these vehicles had been delivered to the 3rd Artillery Regiment. The missile itself weighs and is long. Using a simplified inertial guidance system and a solid propellant rocket motor, the Pluton has a maximum range of . The second missile system is the "AMX-30R" (Roland) surface-to-air missile launching system, which began development in 1974. Five vehicles of a pre-series were completed by 1977 and then evaluated, prompting the order of 183 vehicles that same year. The Roland includes a rectangular superstructure, taller than that of both the AMX-30D and the Pluton, which houses the radar system and mounts two launching tubes on either side, with an autoloading system feeding from an eight missile reserve inside the superstructure. The Roland's exploration radar has a detection range of . The third missile system, called the "AMX-30SA SAM", was developed in 1975 for Saudi Arabia, to fire the SA-10 "Shahine", developed and manufactured by Thomson-CSF; the launching vehicle was heavily based on the AMX-30R.


title: AMX-30

text: The "canon automoteur de 155 GCT" (for "Grande Cadence de Tir", fast rate of fire) was developed based on the AMX-30 chassis to provide tactical artillery support to units in the French Army, who refer to it as the "AMX 30 AuF1". The howitzer was 40 calibers long, and was autoloaded allowing it a rate of fire of eight rounds per minute, with a maximum range of with the LU211 round. The turret enables the gun to have an elevation of up to 66 degrees, and allows it to traverse a full 360 degrees. The vehicle carries 42 rounds of ammunition, with combustible cartridge cases. The origins of the decision to design a self-propelled howitzer can be traced back to 1969, with the first prototype completed in 1972. By 1979, seven prototypes had been produced, and six pre-series vehicles, followed by the production of 110 vehicles. This order was later increased to 190.


title: AMX-30

text: The first prototype of an improved AMX-30 for the export market, known as the "AMX-32", was unveiled in June 1979. Originally intended as an alternative for the AMX-30B2, and deliberately imitating the spaced armour concept the Germans had successfully implemented on the Leopard 1A3 and A4, the AMX-32 fielded greater armour protection to offer increased survivability against anti-tank guided missiles. A autocannon was included as the main gun's coaxial weapon, and a machine gun attached to the roof. However, no orders were ever placed.


title: AMX-30

text: AMX-30 production occurred at the "Atelier de Construction de Roanne" in the town of Roanne. This heavy manufacturing factory was built during World War I to produce artillery shells, although by 1952 the factory had begun producing armoured fighting vehicles. Before producing the AMX-30, for example, it had made 1,900 AMX-13s and variants. The Roanne factory was responsible for final assembly, most components were made elsewhere: the powerplant by the "Atelier de Construction de Limoges", the full armour set by the "Ateliers et Forges de la Loire", the turret by the "Atelier de Construction de Tarbes", the cannon by the "Atelier de Construction de Bourges", the cupola and machine-gun by the "Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Étienne" and the optics by the "Atelier de Construction de Puteaux"; all these again used many subcontractors. In a series of corporate mergers under state guidance, most of these firms would eventually be concentrated into GIAT.


title: AMX-30

text: Originally, 300 AMX-30s were ordered by the French Army, and by 1971 the order had been increased to 900, divided between eight batches, including all variants based on the chassis. Beginning in 1966, ten AMX-30s were assembled per month, and the first five were issued in August 1966 to the 501st "Régiment de Chars de Combat". Monthly production grew to 15–20 tanks as new factories began to manufacture components of the vehicle and existing factories increased their production potential. However, in April 1969, production was again reduced to ten per month. By 1971, about 180 vehicles were in service; in 1975 delivery began of the last 143 units of the final eighth batch of the original order. In 1985, the number of AMX-30s had risen to 1,173. By the end of production, France had accepted 1,355 AMX-30s into service, including 166 brand-new AMX-30B2s. Another 493 tanks were refitted and modernized to AMX-30B2 standards; originally 271 new and 820 refitted vehicles had been planned. The French Army also accepted a large number of variants, including 195 self-propelled howitzers, 44 AMX-30 Pluton tactical nuclear missile launchers, 183 AMX-30Rs, 134 AMX-30Ds and 48 engineer vehicles (AMX-30EBG). The last 35 new battle tanks were in 1989 ordered by Cyprus and the last new variant vehicles, a batch of twenty GCTs, in 1994 by France.


title: AMX-30

text: In the late 1990s, the French Army began to accept the new Leclerc main battle tank to replace the antiquated AMX-30. The first units to be outfitted with the new tank were the 501st and 503rd tank regiments, followed by the 6th and 12th Cuirassier Regiments.


title: AMX-30

text: Having in February 1964 decided to produce its own battle tank, Israel at first considered licence production of AMX-30 hulls, while importing the turrets from France. Favoring heavier armour over mobility, Major-General Israel Tal discontinued negotiations with France when the United Kingdom agreed to allow licensed production of the Chieftain tank, in 1966.


title: AMX-30

text: France eventually also failed to obtain orders from the remaining two FINABEL nations, Belgium and the Netherlands: the Dutch did not even test the type and the Belgians ordered the Leopard when France refused to allow partial component production of the AMX-30 in Belgium, fearing it would increase the unit cost.


title: AMX-30

text: Less costly and easier to maintain, the AMX-30 has been preferred over the Leopard 1 by less affluent or developed nations.


title: AMX-30

text: In 1969, the Greek military junta agreed to procure a total of 190 AMX-30s and 14 AMX-30Ds, making Greece the first foreign nation to purchase the French tank. Throughout the 1960s, Spain had considered both the AMX-30 and the Leopard 1 to complement their existing fleet of M47 and M48 Patton tanks. Ultimately, Spain opted for the AMX-30 for a variety of reasons, including British unwillingness to sell the L7 tank gun to a fascist regime and the French offer to allow the AMX-30 to be manufactured in Spain. Spain ordered 19 tanks in 1970, and later agreed to manufacture another 180 tanks in Spain. In 1979, Spain began the production of a second batch of 100 tanks, completing a total of 299 AMX-30s issued to the Spanish Army; these were designated AMX-30Es. Spain also procured 10 AMX-30Ds and 18 AMX-30Rs. As production of the AMX-30E ended in 1979, the Spanish Army was already looking for a modernization program to improve the quality of the tank's mobility. In 1987, the Spanish Army began a six-year modernization program which brought 150 tanks up to AMX-30EM2 standards and modified another 149 tanks to AMX-30EM1 standards. The former was a much more complete upgrade, which saw improvements to the tank's mobility through the adoption of a new engine and gearbox, as well as to the tank's firepower, with the development of a new kinetic energy penetrator and the introduction of a far more complex and accurate fire control system for the tank's gunner, amongst other things. The AMX-30EM1 was termed a "reconstruction" and only saw improvements to the tank's mobility by adopting a new transmission and renovating much of the vehicle's worn out systems, such as the brakes, indicators and controls. These rebuilt AMX-30s were soon replaced by M60 Patton tanks procured from the United States in the early 1990s, while its fleet of AMX-30EM2s was later replaced by the B1 Centauro anti-tank vehicle.


title: AMX-30

text: In 1972, France was able to gain a contract with Saudi Arabia over the purchase of 190 AMX-30S', designed for the desert environment of the Middle Eastern nation. Named the Palmier Contract, Saudi Arabia's tanks were delivered between 1973 and 1979, while 59 AMX-30Ds were exported between 1975 and 1979, 12 AMX-30Ps between 1977 and 1979, and finally 51 self-propelled howitzers, delivered between 1979 and 1980. Between 1979 and 1981, Saudi Arabia also received 52 AMX-30SAs and later 50 AMX-30C1 "Shanine-2"s delivered in two batches, between 1980 and 1989. By the 21st century, 50% of Saudi Arabia's AMX-30 fleet were in storage, given that the AMX-30 lacked the capabilities to deal with more modern threats, such as against Iraqi T-62s and T-72s, and Israeli Merkava tanks. These were largely displaced by an order for 315 M1A2 Abrams tanks in 1989, and the acquisition of 450 M60A3 Patton tanks. Although Saudi Arabia planned to procure more M1 tanks, it was unable to do so for financial reasons and the AMX-30 has still not been retired.


title: AMX-30

text: Venezuela originally placed an order for 142 tanks in 1972, although this was later reduced to 82 and four AMX-30Ds. In the mid-1980s, Venezuela adopted a modernization plan for its deprecated AMX-30s, opting to replace the original engine with a new Continental AVDS-1790-5A diesel engine, producing and exchanging the existing transmission with an Allison CD-850-6A. Venezuelan AMX-30s received new fuel tanks, increasing the tank's road range to , while firepower was improved through the adoption of a modern Lansadot MkI fire control system and Ballistic computer from Elbit Systems. In 1977, France and Qatar signed an agreement which garnered France another 24 AMX-30s sold, which would rise to 54 when Qatar ordered a further 30 AMX-30B2s in 1987. The United Arab Emirates placed an order in 1977 for 64 tanks and a single armoured recovery vehicle, to complete an armoured brigade, in 1977. Due to political issues between Chile and Argentina, the former placed an order for 46 tanks, although this was later cut short to 21 when the contract was canceled by the French government in 1981. In 1982, Cyprus acquired a total of 16 AMX-30B2s and a single AMX-30D, and later ordered another 36 AMX-30B2s. Total production of the AMX-30 and variants totaled 3,571 units.


title: AMX-30

text: Later many used vehicles were resold to other nations: in 2005 Cyprus had 102 AMX-30s (obtained from Greece) and 52 AMX-30B2s; Bosnia 32 AMX-30s (from the UAE). French strength had dwindled to about 250 AMX-30B2s.


title: AMX-30

text: Qatari AMX-30s saw combat during the Gulf War at the Battle of Khafji, where on 30 January 1991 they counter-attacked in an attempt to retake the city of Khafji from Iraqi forces which had occupied it the night before. During the action, Qatari AMX-30s knocked out three Iraqi T-55s and captured four more. Two Qatari AMX-30 were lost during the battle.


title: AMX-30

text: The French participation in the Persian Gulf War, codenamed "Opération Daguet", saw the deployment of the "6e Division Légère Blindée" ("6th Light Armoured Division"), referred to for the duration of the conflict as the "Division Daguet". Most of its armoured component was provided by the AMX-10RCs of the cavalry reconnaissance regiments, but a heavy armoured unit, the "4e Régiment de Dragons" ("4th Dragoon Regiment") was also sent to the region with a complement of 44 AMX-30B2s. Experimentally, a new regimental organisational structure was used, with three squadrons of thirteen tanks, a command tank and six reserve vehicles, instead of the then normal strength of 52 units. Also six older AMX-30Bs were deployed, fitted with Soviet mine rollers provided by Germany from East German stocks, and named "AMX 30 Demin". The vehicles were all manned by professional crews, without conscripts. The Daguet Division was positioned to the West of the Coalition forces, to protect the left flank of the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps. This disposition gave the French commander greater autonomy, and also lessened the likelihood of encountering Iraqi T-72s, which were superior both to the AMX-10RCs and the AMX-30B2s. With the beginning of the ground offensive of 24 February 1991, French forces moved to attack its first target, "Objective Rochambeau", which was defended by a brigade from the Iraqi 45th Infantry Division. A raid by Gazelle helicopters paved the way for an attack by the "4e Régiment de Dragons". Demoralized by heavy coalition bombardments, the Iraqi defenders rapidly surrendered. The following day, the "4e Dragons" moved on to their next objective, "Chambord", where they reported destroying ten tanks, three BMPs, fifteen trucks and five mortars with the assistance of USAF A-10s, and capturing numerous prisoners. The final objective was the As-Salman air base ("Objective White"), that was reported captured by 18:15, after a multi-pronged attack, with the "4e Dragons" attacking from the south. In all, the AMX-30s fired 270 main gun rounds.


title: AMX-30

text: In 2015, Saudi Arabia's AMX-30s and M1 Abrams tanks deployed along the border with Yemen. Two were lost.


title: Non-breaking space

text: In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, , also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space (though it is not of fixed width), is a space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In some formats, including HTML, it also prevents consecutive whitespace characters from collapsing into a single space.


title: Non-breaking space

text: Text-processing software typically assumes that an automatic line break may be inserted anywhere a space character occurs; a non-breaking space prevents this from happening (provided the software recognizes the character). For example, if the text "100 km" will not quite fit at the end of a line, the software may insert a line break between "100" and "km". An editor who finds this behavior undesirable may choose to use a non-breaking space between "100" and "km". This guarantees that the text "100 km" will not be broken: if it does not fit at the end of a line, it is moved in its entirety to the next line.


title: Non-breaking space

text: A second common application of non-breaking spaces is in plain text file formats such as SGML, HTML, TeX and LaTeX, whose rendering engines are programmed to treat sequences of whitespace characters (space, newline, tab, form feed, etc.) as if they were a single character (but this behavior can be overridden). Such "collapsing" of whitespace allows the author to neatly arrange the source text using line breaks, indentation and other forms of spacing without affecting the final typeset result.


title: Non-breaking space

text: In contrast, non-breaking spaces are not merged with neighboring whitespace characters when displayed and can therefore be used by an author to simply insert additional visible space in the resulting output without using spans styled with peculiar values of the CSS "white-space" property. Conversely, indiscriminate use (see the recommended use in style guides), in addition to a normal space, gives extraneous space in the output.


title: Non-breaking space

text: On browsers, resizing the window will demonstrate the effect of non-breaking spaces on the texts below.


title: Non-breaking space

text: To show the non-breaking effect of the non-breaking space, the following words have been separated with non-breaking spaces:


title: Non-breaking space

text: To show the non-collapsing behavior of the non-breaking space, the following words have been separated with an increasing number of non-breaking spaces:


title: Non-breaking space

text: In Unicode, the Byte order mark (BOM), U+FEFF, may be interpreted as a "zero width no-break space", but is a deprecated alternative to word joiner (U+2060).


title: Non-breaking space

text: It is rare for national or international standards on keyboard layouts to define an input method for the non-breaking space. An exception is the Finnish multilingual keyboard, accepted as the national standard SFS 5966 in 2008. According to the SFS setting, the non-breaking space can be entered with the key combination AltGr + Space.


title: Non-breaking space

text: Typically, authors of keyboard drivers and application programs (e.g., word processors) have devised their own keyboard shortcuts for the non-breaking space. For example:


title: Non-breaking space

text: Apart from this, applications and environments often have methods of entering unicode entities directly via their code point, e.g. via the Alt Numpad input method. (Non-breaking space has code point codice_9 decimal (codice_10 hex) in codepage 437 and codepage 850 and code point codice_11 decimal (codice_12 hex) in codepage 1252.)


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on January 26, 2020, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from October 1, 2018, to August 31, 2019. Alicia Keys hosted the ceremony, having hosted the previous year's ceremony as well.


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: Lizzo received the most nominations of any artist with eight, followed by Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X with six each. Finneas received the most awards with six. Eilish became the first artist to win the four major categories of Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist in the same year since Christopher Cross in 1981.


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: Ten days prior to the ceremony, Recording Academy president Deborah Dugan was relieved of her duties as president and CEO and placed on administrative leave from the organization. She sparked controversy by claiming that the organization engaged in corruption and favoritism; Champagne Billecart-Salmon responded by pulling their ads from the broadcast, and Megyn Kelly, Gabrielle Union, and others tweeted their support of Dugan. The ceremony was held on the same day as the death of basketball player Kobe Bryant, to whose memory Keys and Boyz II Men dedicated their performance of "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday".


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: After many years of being traditionally held in February (except during the years of the Winter Olympics), the 62nd Grammy Awards ceremony was moved to January the week before Super Bowl LIV, following the Academy Awards' decision to move their 2020 ceremony to the second Sunday of February. Nominations were announced in all 84 categories by Gayle King, Alicia Keys, and Bebe Rexha on the set of "CBS This Morning" on November 20, 2019.


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: This was set to be the first edition of the Grammy Awards that the new Recording Academy president Deborah Dugan would have presided over; however, she was relieved of her duties as president and CEO and placed on administrative leave from the organization ten days before the ceremony. The Academy launched an investigation into allegations that Dugan bullied an assistant. After her dismissal, Dugan sparked controversy by claiming that the Recording Academy engaged in favoritism and corruption during the Grammy nomination process. Taylor Swift reportedly cancelled a planned surprise performance of her song "The Man" at the ceremony in solidarity with Dugan, although both Swift and Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich denied this. Recording Academy Chairman Harvey Mason Jr. took over as interim president and chief executive officer and presided over the ceremony instead of Dugan.


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: The ceremony was held at the Staples Center on the same day as the death of basketball player Kobe Bryant, who played for the Los Angeles Lakers — the arena is the team's home venue. Several tributes to Bryant were included in the ceremony, including a performance of "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" by host Alicia Keys and Boyz II Men, while Lil Nas X, Lizzo and DJ Khaled all incorporated tributes to Bryant into their performances.


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: American singer Lizzo received the most nominations, with a total of eight. She was followed by Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X, who both received six nominations each. The following received multiple nominations:


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas received the most awards for their work on Eilish's debut album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?", with five wins for Billie Eilish and six wins for Finneas. Upon this, Eilish became the first artist to win the major four categories of Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist in the same year since Christopher Cross in 1981 as well as the youngest artist to do so at the age of 18. The following received multiple awards:


title: 62nd Annual Grammy Awards

text: A memorial reel featuring the names of musical artists and industry personnel who had died since the previous year's Grammy ceremony was shown during the telecast. The Recording Academy was criticized for omitting notable artists such as David Berman, Mark Hollis, Keith Flint, Bushwick Bill, Scott Walker, Ranking Roger and Robert Hunter during the telecast, but all were mentioned in a longer list of deceased artists on the Grammys website. Ric Ocasek and Camilo Sesto's names were also misspelled in the reel shown during the broadcast.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: Ignazio Daniele Giovanni Cassis (; born 13 April 1961) is a Swiss physician and politician who has served as President of the Swiss Confederation since 1 January 2022. A member of FDP. The Liberals, he has been a Member of the Swiss Federal Council since 1 November 2017. Cassis was elected to the Federal Council on 20 September 2017 following the resignation of Didier Burkhalter. He has headed the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs since he took office. On 8 December 2021, Cassis was elected President of the Swiss Confederation for 2022.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: Cassis was born to Italian parents in Sessa, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino. He studied medicine at the University of Zurich until 1987. He subsequently specialised in internal medicine and public health; he received his master in public health in 1996. Cassis was awarded a doctorate in medicine ("Dr. med.", MD) from the University of Lausanne in 1998. He was a cantonal doctor in Ticino from 1996 to 2008 and vice president of the Foederatio Medicorum Helveticorum (FMH, literally "Swiss Medical Association") from 2008 to 2012.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: Residing in the canton of Ticino, Cassis served in the National Council from 4 June 2007 to 30 October 2017 where he was affiliated with FDP.The Liberals.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: When Federal Councillor Didier Burkhalter announced his retirement in 2017, Cassis was one of the three candidates the FDP chose to replace him, the other two being Isabelle Moret (a National Councillor from Vaud) and Pierre Maudet (a cantonal official from Geneva and former Mayor of Geneva). Cassis was considered the favourite to succeed Burkhalter.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: In the election, held on 20 September 2017, the Federal Assembly elected Cassis to the Federal Council in the second round by taking 125 of 244 valid votes, becoming the 117th Federal Councillor since 1848. He was supported by the centre-right and right-wing parties in the Assembly. Cassis became the first Federal Councillor from Ticino since 1999. The Swiss press generally commented positively on Cassis's election.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: Cassis took office on 1 November 2017 as head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, succeeding Didier Burkhalter. He caused some controversy shortly after his election when the media reported that he addressed and joined ProTell, a gun rights advocacy group, nine days before his election, something that might have made his relationship with the EU difficult as Foreign Minister due to discussions over joint gun policy. Cassis ended his membership in ProTell and other gun rights organisations shortly afterward.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: In 2021 Cassis served as Vice President of Switzerland. On 8 December 2021, he was elected President of Switzerland for the year 2022. He assumed the office on 1 January 2022 succeeding Guy Parmelin.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: In 2022, as president of the Swiss confederation, Cassis took a leading role to redefine Swiss neutrality in light of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. In a delicate balance between a failed agreement towards the EU proposed framework accord and Swiss national interests, he has taken sides with the EU with regard to international sanctions during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 20 October, Cassis made an official visit to Ukraine, meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.


title: Ignazio Cassis

text: Cassis was born to Mariarosa and Gino at the Malcantonese Hospital of Castelrotto, Ticino. He has three sisters, two older and one younger than himself. Born in Sessa, Ticino, he is a citizen of Biasca. Cassis entered late into politics, as an outsider in his forties. In the Swiss military, he was a battalion physician in the staff of the Ticino mountain troopers and later a member of the chief field physician's staff. Cassis is married to Paola Cassis and lives in Montagnola. At birth, Cassis was an Italian citizen. In 1976 he was naturalised in Switzerland and had to give up his Italian passport. In 1991 he became a dual citizen of Switzerland and Italy. During his Federal Council candidacy in 2017, Cassis renounced his Italian citizenship.


title: Nine Inch Nails discography

text: American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails have released 11 studio albums, one live album, three remix albums, two compilation albums, six extended plays, 20 singles, 10 promotional singles, four video albums and 31 music videos. Nine Inch Nails has also contributed to numerous film soundtracks as well as the soundtrack to the video game "Quake".


title: Nine Inch Nails discography

text: Initial ambitions for Nine Inch Nails in 1988 were to release one 12-inch single on a small European label. With the addition of future singles "Head Like a Hole" and "Sin", many of these demo tracks would later appear in revised form on the band's debut studio album, "Pretty Hate Machine". The album was released in October 1989 and peaked at number 75 on the "Billboard" 200 the following year. In response to pressures from TVT Records for a follow-up to Nine Inch Nails' commercially successful debut, Reznor began recording the "Broken" extended play in secret. The EP was released in September 1992 and reached number seven on the "Billboard" 200. Nine Inch Nails' second studio album, "The Downward Spiral" (1994), reached number two on the "Billboard" 200 and has sold over 3.7 million copies in the United States, remaining the band's highest-selling release in the US.


title: Nine Inch Nails discography

text: Five years elapsed before Nine Inch Nails' next major album, "The Fragile", a double album that debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200, selling 228,000 copies in its first week, but dropped from the top 10 afterward. Another six years elapsed before Nine Inch Nails' next studio album, "With Teeth", which also debuted atop the "Billboard" 200. In 2007, the band released their fifth studio album, "Year Zero", alongside an accompanying alternate reality game. Reznor announced in late 2007 that Nine Inch Nails had fulfilled its contractual obligations with Interscope Records, and would distribute its next major album independently.


title: Nine Inch Nails discography

text: The band's final Interscope release was a remix album based on material from "Year Zero". The first Nine Inch Nails album released independently was the instrumental "Ghosts I–IV" in March 2008, followed two months later by "The Slip". "Hesitation Marks", the band's eighth studio album, was released in August 2013 through Columbia Records, reaching number three on the "Billboard" 200. After teasing a release in early 2016, Nine Inch Nails began releasing a trilogy of new releases: the EPs "Not the Actual Events" in December 2016 and "Add Violence" in July 2017, followed by the band's ninth studio album, "Bad Witch", in June 2018. On March 26, 2020, the band released the albums "" and "".


title: Nine Inch Nails discography

text: Each official Nine Inch Nails release is chronologically ordered with a sequential number prefixed by the word "Halo". These numbers are sometimes modified for alternate versions of a release, such as the multiple releases of "The Downward Spiral". Promotional-only releases do not have their own numbers, although the promotional singles for "Piggy" and "Hurt" were both labeled as "Halo Ten", a title later officially used for "Further Down the Spiral". A US promo for "Into the Void" is mislabeled as Halo 16 because this number actually belongs to the "Things Falling Apart" remix album.


title: Nine Inch Nails discography

text: "Broken", the unreleased short film directed by Peter Christopherson, contains the videos for "Pinion", "Wish", and "Happiness in Slavery" as well as a video for "Help Me I am in Hell" and a different video for "Gave Up" from the one on "Closure". The short film contains graphic depictions of a seemingly helpless victim being tortured and forced to watch Nine Inch Nails videos.


title: Honor (brand)

text: Honor (stylized and marketed as HONOR) is a smartphone brand majority owned by a state-owned enterprise controlled by the municipal government of Shenzhen. It was formerly owned by Huawei Technologies. Honor provides smartphone handsets primarily targeting young consumers but has also released tablet computers and wearable technology.


title: Honor (brand)

text: As of 2016, George Zhao was global president of Honor. In November 2020, Honor was acquired by Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co. Ltd.


title: Honor (brand)

text: Honor was founded in 2013 as a Huawei sub-brand with the aim of offering lower-cost products and targeting a younger audience than the parent company. Honor's line of smartphones allowed Huawei to compete with mid-range online smartphone brands in China and globally. Honor primarily sells products online, but some Honor products are also available at stores in select markets.


title: Honor (brand)

text: In November 2020, the Honor brand was sold to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology, a majority state-owned company controlled by the Shenzhen municipal government, to "ensure" its then-parent company, Huawei's survival, due to US sanctions against them. U.S. sanctions restricted the sale of hardware components to Huawei by American firms.


title: Honor (brand)

text: Honor began to offer its products internationally in 2014, launching the Honor 3C in April in Malaysia, followed by the Honor 6 in Europe in October. By June 2015, the brand was available in 74 countries. In October that year, announced its goal to increase revenue to $5 billion (double the previous year) with plans to focus on India.


title: Honor (brand)

text: In 2015, Honor's Vmall online store, previously available only in China, launched in Europe and the United Kingdom, enabling direct purchases from the manufacturer.


title: Honor (brand)

text: Honor made its debut in the United States with the release of the Huawei Honor 5X at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2016. Initially available for online purchase only, the Huawei Honor 5X was later made available at select brick and mortar stores. Also this year Honor started to sell the first fitness-trackers.


title: Honor (brand)

text: In August 2016, "Recode" reported that Honor had sold over 60 million products, generating over $8.4 billion in revenue.


title: Honor (brand)

text: In January 2017 at CES, Honor announced that the Honor 6X, previously available only in China, would be available in thirteen new markets, including the United States. The phone earned "best of CES 2017" accolades from several technology publications, including Android Authority, "Digital Trends", "Slash Gear", and "Talk Android".