title: Flame

text: In the year 2000, experiments by NASA confirmed that gravity plays an indirect role in flame formation and composition. The common distribution of a flame under normal gravity conditions depends on convection, as soot tends to rise to the top of a flame (such as in a candle in normal gravity conditions), making it yellow. In microgravity or zero gravity environment, such as in orbit, natural convection no longer occurs and the flame becomes spherical, with a tendency to become bluer and more efficient. There are several possible explanations for this difference, of which the most likely is the hypothesis that the temperature is sufficiently evenly distributed that soot is not formed and complete combustion occurs. Experiments by NASA reveal that diffusion flames in microgravity allow more soot to be completely oxidized after they are produced than do diffusion flames on Earth, because of a series of mechanisms that behave differently in microgravity when compared to normal gravity conditions. These discoveries have potential applications in applied science and private industry, especially concerning fuel efficiency.


title: Flame

text: Flames do not need to be driven only by chemical energy release. In stars, subsonic burning fronts driven by burning light nuclei (like carbon or helium) to heavy nuclei (up to iron group) propagate as flames. This is important in some models of Type Ia supernovae. In thermonuclear flames, thermal conduction dominates over species diffusion, so the flame speed and thickness is determined by the thermonuclear energy release and thermal conductivity (often in the form of degenerate electrons).


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: The Sd.Kfz. 251 ("Sonderkraftfahrzeug 251") half-track was a World War II German armored personnel carrier designed by the Hanomag company, based on its earlier, unarmored Sd.Kfz. 11 vehicle. The Sd.Kfz. 251 was designed to transport the "Panzergrenadier" (German mechanized infantry) into battle. Sd.Kfz. 251s were the most widely produced German half-tracks of the war, with at least 15,252 vehicles and variants produced by seven manufacturers. Some sources state that the Sd.Kfz. 251 was commonly referred to simply as "Hanomags" by both German and Allied soldiers after the manufacturer of the vehicle; this has been questioned, and may have been only a postwar label. German officers referred to them as "SPW" ("Schützenpanzerwagen", or armored infantry vehicle) in their daily orders and memoirs.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: There were four main model modifications (Ausführung A through D), which formed the basis for at least 22 variants. The initial idea was for a vehicle that could be used to transport a single squad of 10 panzergrenadiers to the battlefield protected from enemy small arms fire, and with some protection from artillery fire. In addition, the standard mounting of at least one MG 34 or MG 42 machine gun allowed the vehicle to provide suppressive fire for the rifle squad both while they dismounted and in combat.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: The armour plates were designed to provide protection against standard rifle/ machine gun bullets (like the 7.92×57mm Mauser bullet). The front-facing plates were 14.5mm thick; the sides were steeply angled, V-shape 8mm thick plates. This level of armour provided protection against normal (non-tungsten) rifle AP round, which could pierce about 8mm of vertical armour.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: Positive aspects of the open top included greater situational awareness and faster egress by the infantry, as well as the ability to throw grenades and fire over the top of the fighting compartment as necessary while remaining under good horizontal cover. The downside, as with all armored personnel carriers of the era, was a major vulnerability to all types of plunging fire; this included indirect fire from mortars and field artillery, as well as small arms fire from higher elevated positions, lobbed hand grenades, Molotov cocktails, and strafing by enemy aircraft.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: The first two models (Ausf. A and B) were produced in small numbers from 1939. Ausf. A and B models can be identified by the structure of the nose armor, which comprised two trapezoidal armor panels - the lower of which had an engine cooling vent. The B model, which began production in 1940, eliminated the fighting compartment's side vision slits. The C model, which started production in mid-1942, featured a simplified hexagonal-shaped forward armored plate for the engine. Models A through C had rear doors that bulged out. The C model had a large production run, but was quite complex to build, involving many angled plates. From early 1943, the D model was developed with the purpose of halving the number of angled body plates, simplifying the design and thus speeding up the production. D models can be easily recognized by their single piece sloping rear, with flat doors.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: The standard personnel carrier version was equipped with a 7.92 mm MG 34 or MG 42 machine gun mounted at the front of the open compartment, above and behind the driver. A second machine gun could be mounted at the rear on an anti-aircraft mount.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: Variants were produced for specialized purposes, including with anti-aircraft guns, light howitzers, anti-tank guns and mortars or even large unguided artillery rockets, as well as a version with an infrared search light used to spot potential targets for associated Panther tanks equipped with infrared detectors.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: A strong design feature of the Sd.Kfz. 251 was the large track area, with the characteristic "slack track" design with no return rollers for the upper run of track. The Sd.Kfz. 251 also had the "Schachtellaufwerk" system of overlapping and interleaved main road wheels common to virtually all German halftracks of the period. This lowered the ground pressure and provided better traction, at the cost of much greater complexity in maintenance. The Sd.Kfz. 251 also had tank steering, whereby the normal steering wheel moved the front wheels, but after more turning of the steering wheel, the tracks are braked to cause turning, like on a tank. However, the interleaved and overlapping main road wheels shared a major problem with the Tiger I and Panther tanks that also used such roadwheel configurations - in muddy or winter weather conditions, such as those during a mud season (rasputitsa) or the winter conditions, accumulated mud and snow could freeze solid between the road wheels, immobilizing the vehicle.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: The early production models of this vehicle were issued to the 1st Panzer Division in 1939 as the 'Ausf.A' or 'A-version'. There were 232 estimated Ausf.A units produced, which took place in Hannover's Hanomag, Büssing-NAG of Berlin Oberschoeneweide, Weserhuette of Bad Oeynhause, Wumag of Goerlitz, and F. Schchau of Elbing facilities.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: These vehicles were meant to enable "Panzergrenadiere" to accompany panzers and provide infantry support as required. In practice, there were never enough of them to go around, and most "Panzergrenadier" units had to make do with trucks for transport.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: In August 1943, Romania acquired a total of 27 armored half-tracks, of both the "251" and "250" types followed in 1944 by 251 type and other types of armored cars to convert two cavalry divisions into armored or mechanized divisions. Sd.Kfz. 251s were known as "SPW mijlociu" ("medium SPW") in Romanian service, while Sd.Kfz. 250s were referred to as "SPW ușor" ("light SPW").


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: The Army of the Independent State of Croatia received 15 Sd.Kfz. 251 in spring 1944 and the Ustashe Militia received 12 in autumn 1944.


title: Sd.Kfz. 251

text: There were 23 official variants, and sundry unofficial variants. Each variant is identified by a suffix to the model number; however, there was some overlap in the variant numbers.


title: International relations theory

text: International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain causal and constitutive effects in international politics. Ole Holsti describes international relations theories as acting like pairs of coloured sunglasses that allow the wearer to see only salient events relevant to the theory; e.g., an adherent of realism may completely disregard an event that a constructivist might pounce upon as crucial, and vice versa. The three most prominent schools of thought are realism, liberalism, and constructivism.


title: International relations theory

text: The modern study of international relations, as theory, has sometimes been traced to realist works such as E. H. Carr's "The Twenty Years' Crisis" (1939) and Hans Morgenthau's "Politics Among Nations" (1948). The most influential IR theory work of the post-World War II era was Kenneth Waltz's "Theory of International Politics" (1979), which pioneered neorealism. Neoliberalism (or Liberal Institutionalism) became a prominent competitive framework to neorealism, with prominent proponents such as Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye. During the late 1980s and 1990s, constructivism emerged as a prominent third IR theoretical framework, in addition to existing realist and liberal approaches. IR theorists such as Alexander Wendt, John Ruggie, Martha Finnemore, and Michael N. Barnett helped pioneer constructivism.


title: International relations theory

text: Aside from realism, liberalism and constructivism, there are prominent rational choice approaches to international relations, such as the bargaining model of war framework introduced by James Fearon. There are also "post-positivist/reflectivist" IR theories (which stand in contrast to the aforementioned "positivist/rationalist" theories), such as critical theory. In recent decades, positivist and post-positivist variants of feminism have grown more prominent in IR theory scholarship.


title: International relations theory

text: International relations, as a discipline, is believed to have emerged after the First World War with the establishment of a Chair of International Relations, the Woodrow Wilson Chair held by Alfred Eckhard Zimmern at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.


title: International relations theory

text: Early international relations scholarship in the interwar years focused on the need for the balance of power system to be replaced with a system of collective security. These thinkers were later described as "Idealists". The leading critique of this school of thinking was the "realist" analysis offered by Carr.


title: International relations theory

text: However, a more recent study, by David Long and Brian Schmidt in 2005, offers a revisionist account of the origins of the field of international relations. They claim that the history of the field can be traced back to late 19th century imperialism and internationalism. The fact that the history of the field is presented by "great debates", such as the realist-idealist debate, does not correspond with the historic evidence found in earlier works: "We should once and for all dispense with the outdated anachronistic artifice of the debate between the idealists and realists as the dominant framework for and understanding the history of the field". Their revisionist account claims that, up until 1918, international relations already existed in the form of colonial administration, race science, and race development.


title: International relations theory

text: Realism or political realism has been the dominant theory of international relations since the conception of the discipline. The theory claims to rely upon an ancient tradition of thought which includes writers such as Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. Early realism can be characterized as a reaction against interwar idealist thinking. The outbreak of World War II was seen by realists as evidence of the deficiencies of idealist thinking. There are various strands of modern-day realist thinking. However, the main tenets of the theory have been identified as statism, survival, and self-help.


title: International relations theory

text: Realism makes several key assumptions. It assumes that nation-states are unitary, geographically based actors in an anarchic international system with no authority above capable of regulating interactions between states as no true authoritative world government exists. Secondly, it assumes that sovereign states, rather than intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, or multinational corporations, are the primary actors in international affairs. Thus, states, as the highest order, are in competition with one another. As such, a state acts as a rational autonomous actor in pursuit of its own self-interest with a primary goal to maintain and ensure its own security—and thus its sovereignty and survival. Realism holds that in pursuit of their interests, states will attempt to amass resources, and that relations between states are determined by their relative levels of power. That level of power is in turn determined by the state's military, economic, and political capabilities.


title: International relations theory

text: Some realists, known as human nature realists or classical realists, believe that states are inherently aggressive, that territorial expansion is constrained only by opposing powers, while others, known as offensive/defensive realists, believe that states are obsessed with the security and continuation of the state's existence. The defensive view can lead to a security dilemma, where increasing one's own security can bring along greater instability as the opponent(s) builds up its own arms, making security a zero-sum game where only "relative gains" can be made.


title: International relations theory

text: Neorealism or structural realism is a development of realism advanced by Kenneth Waltz in "Theory of International Politics". It is, however, only one strand of neorealism. Joseph Grieco has combined neo-realist thinking with more traditional realists. This strand of theory is sometimes called "modern realism".


title: International relations theory

text: Waltz's neorealism contends that the effect of structure must be taken into account in explaining state behavior. It shapes all foreign policy choices of states in the international arena. For instance, any disagreement between states derives from lack of a common power (central authority) to enforce rules and maintain them constantly. Thus there is constant anarchy in international system that makes it necessary for states the obtainment of strong weapons in order to guarantee their survival. Additionally, in an anarchic system, states with greater power have tendency to increase its influence further. According to neo-realists, structure is considered extremely important element in IR and defined twofold as: a) the ordering principle of the international system which is anarchy, and b) the distribution of capabilities across units. Waltz also challenges traditional realism's emphasis on traditional military power, instead characterizing power in terms of the combined capabilities of the state.


title: International relations theory

text: Waltz's version of neorealism has frequently been characterized as "Defensive Realism", whereas John Mearsheimer is a proponent of a different version of neorealism characterized as "Offensive Realism."


title: International relations theory

text: The precursor to liberal international relations theory was "idealism". Idealism (or utopianism) was viewed critically by those who saw themselves as "realists", for instance E. H. Carr. In international relations, idealism (also called "Wilsonianism" because of its association with Woodrow Wilson) is a school of thought that holds that a state should make its internal political philosophy the goal of its foreign policy. For example, an idealist might believe that ending poverty at home should be coupled with tackling poverty abroad. Wilson's idealism was a precursor to liberal international relations theory, which would arise amongst the "institution-builders" after World War I.


title: International relations theory

text: Liberalism holds that state preferences, rather than state capabilities, are the primary determinant of state behavior. Unlike realism, where the state is seen as a unitary actor, liberalism allows for plurality in state actions. Thus, preferences will vary from state to state, depending on factors such as culture, economic system or government type. Liberalism also holds that interaction between states is not limited to the political/security ("high politics"), but also economic/cultural ("low politics") whether through commercial firms, organizations or individuals. Thus, instead of an anarchic international system, there are plenty of opportunities for cooperation and broader notions of power, such as cultural capital (for example, the influence of films leading to the popularity of the country's culture and creating a market for its exports worldwide). Another assumption is that absolute gains can be made through co-operation and interdependence—thus peace can be achieved.


title: International relations theory

text: The democratic peace theory argues that liberal democracies have almost never made war on one another and have fewer conflicts among themselves. This is seen as contradicting especially the realist theories and this empirical claim is now one of the great disputes in political science. Numerous explanations have been proposed for the democratic peace. It has also been argued, as in the book "Never at War", that democracies conduct diplomacy in general very differently from non-democracies. (Neo)realists disagree with Liberals over the theory, often citing structural reasons for the peace, as opposed to the state's government. Sebastian Rosato, a critic of democratic peace theory, points to America's behavior towards left-leaning democracies in Latin America during the Cold War to challenge democratic peace. One argument is that economic interdependence makes war between trading partners less likely. In contrast realists claim that economic interdependence increases rather than decreases the likelihood of conflict. While the democratic peace theory claims that democracy causes peace, the territorial peace theory claims that the direction of causality is opposite. In other words, peace leads to democracy. The latter theory is supported by the historical observation that peace almost always comes before democracy.


title: International relations theory

text: Neoliberalism, liberal institutionalism or neo-liberal institutionalism is a more recent branch of liberal international relations theory. Unlike traditional liberal theories of international politics, which focus on individual-level or domestic-level explanations, liberal institutionalism emphasizes the influence of systemic factors. Its proponents focus on the role of international institutions in allowing nations to successfully cooperate in an anarchic international system.


title: International relations theory

text: Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, in response to neorealism, develop an opposing theory they dub "complex interdependence." Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye explain, "... complex interdependence sometimes comes closer to reality than does realism." In explaining this, Keohane and Nye cover the three assumptions in realist thought: First, states are coherent units and are the dominant actors in international relations; second, force is a usable and effective instrument of policy; and finally, the assumption that there is a hierarchy in international politics.


title: International relations theory

text: The heart of Keohane and Nye's argument is that in international politics there are, in fact, multiple channels that connect societies exceeding the conventional Westphalian system of states. This manifests itself in many forms ranging from informal governmental ties to multinational corporations and organizations. Here they define their terminology; interstate relations are those channels assumed by realists; transgovernmental relations occur when one relaxes the realist assumption that states act coherently as units; transnational applies when one removes the assumption that states are the only units. It is through these channels that political exchange occurs, not through the limited interstate channel as championed by realists.


title: International relations theory

text: Secondly, Keohane and Nye argue that there is not, in fact, a hierarchy among issues, meaning that not only is the martial arm of foreign policy not the supreme tool by which to carry out a state's agenda, but that there are a multitude of different agendas that come to the forefront. The line between domestic and foreign policy becomes blurred in this case, as realistically there is no clear agenda in interstate relations.


title: International relations theory

text: Finally, the use of military force is not exercised when complex interdependence prevails. The idea is developed that between countries in which a complex interdependence exists, the role of the military in resolving disputes is negated. However, Keohane and Nye go on to state that the role of the military is in fact important in that "alliance's political and military relations with a rival bloc."


title: International relations theory

text: One version of post-liberal theory argues that within the modern, globalized world, states in fact are driven to cooperate in order to ensure security and sovereign interests. The departure from classical liberal theory is most notably felt in the re-interpretation of the concepts of sovereignty and autonomy. Autonomy becomes a problematic concept in shifting away from a notion of freedom, self-determination, and agency to a heavily responsible and duty laden concept. Importantly, autonomy is linked to a capacity for good governance. Similarly, sovereignty also experiences a shift from a right to a duty. In the global economy, international organizations hold sovereign states to account, leading to a situation where sovereignty is co-produced among "sovereign" states. The concept becomes a variable capacity of good governance and can no longer be accepted as an absolute right. One possible way to interpret this theory, is the idea that in order to maintain global stability and security and solve the problem of the anarchic world system in International Relations, no overarching, global, sovereign authority is created. Instead, states collectively abandon some rights for full autonomy and sovereignty.


title: International relations theory

text: Another version of post-liberalism, drawing on work in political philosophy after the end of the Cold War, as well as on democratic transitions in particular in Latin America, argues that social forces from below are essential in understanding the nature of the state and the international system. Without understanding their contribution to political order and its progressive possibilities, particularly in the area of peace in local and international frameworks, the weaknesses of the state, the failings of the liberal peace, and challenges to global governance cannot be realised or properly understood. Furthermore, the impact of social forces on political and economic power, structures, and institutions, provides some empirical evidence of the complex shifts currently underway in IR.


title: International relations theory

text: Constructivism or social constructivism has been described as a challenge to the dominance of neo-liberal and neo-realist international relations theories. Michael Barnett describes constructivist international relations theories as being concerned with how ideas define international structure, how this structure defines the interests and identities of states and how states and non-state actors reproduce this structure. The key element of constructivism is the belief that "International politics is shaped by persuasive ideas, collective values, culture, and social identities." Constructivism argues that international reality is socially constructed by cognitive structures which give meaning to the material world. Whereas rational choice approaches assume that actors follow a "logic of consequences", constructivist perspectives suggest that they adhere to a "logic of appropriateness". The theory emerged from debates concerning the scientific method of international relations theories and theories role in the production of international power. Emanuel Adler states that constructivism occupies a middle ground between rationalist and interpretative theories of international relations.


title: International relations theory

text: Constructivist theory criticises the static assumptions of traditional international relations theory and emphasizes that international relations is a social construction. Constructivism is a theory that is critical of the ontological basis of rationalist theories of international relations. Whereas realism deals mainly with security and material power, and liberalism looks primarily at economic interdependence and domestic-level factors, constructivism most concerns itself with the role of ideas in shaping the international system; indeed it is possible there is some overlap between constructivism and realism or liberalism, but they remain separate schools of thought. By "ideas" constructivists refer to the goals, threats, fears, identities, and other elements of perceived reality that influence states and non-state actors within the international system. Constructivists believe that these ideational factors can often have far-reaching effects, and that they can trump materialistic power concerns.


title: International relations theory

text: For example, constructivists note that an increase in the size of the U.S. military is likely to be viewed with much greater concern in Cuba, a traditional antagonist of the United States, than in Canada, a close U.S. ally. Therefore, there must be perceptions at work in shaping international outcomes. As such, constructivists do not see anarchy as the invariable foundation of the international system, but rather argue, in the words of Alexander Wendt, that "anarchy is what states make of it". Constructivists also believe that social norms shape and change foreign policy over time rather than security which realists cite.


title: International relations theory

text: Marxist and Neo-Marxist international relations theories are structuralist paradigms which reject the realist/liberal view of state conflict or cooperation; instead focusing on the economic and material aspects. Marxist approaches argue the position of historical materialism and make the assumption that the economic concerns transcend others; allowing for the elevation of "class" as the focus of study. Marxists view the international system as an integrated capitalist system in pursuit of capital accumulation. A sub-discipline of Marxist IR is Critical Security Studies. Gramscian approaches rely on the ideas of Italian Antonio Gramsci whose writings concerned the hegemony that capitalism holds as an ideology. Marxist approaches have also inspired Critical Theorists such as Robert W. Cox who argues that "Theory is always for someone and for some purpose".


title: International relations theory

text: One notable Marxist approach to international relations theory is Immanuel Wallerstein's World-system theory which can be traced back to the ideas expressed by Lenin in "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism". World-system theory argues that globalized capitalism has created a core of modern industrialized countries which exploit a periphery of exploited "Third World" countries. These ideas were developed by the Latin American Dependency School. "Neo-Marxist" or "New Marxist" approaches have returned to the writings of Karl Marx for their inspiration. Key "New Marxists" include Justin Rosenberg and Benno Teschke. Marxist approaches have enjoyed a renaissance since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.


title: International relations theory

text: Criticisms of Marxists approaches to international relations theory include the narrow focus on material and economic aspects of life, as well as assuming that the interests pursued by actors are derived from class.


title: International relations theory

text: The "English School" of international relations theory, also known as International Society, Liberal Realism, Rationalism or the British institutionalists, maintains that there is a 'society of states' at the international level, despite the condition of "anarchy", i.e., the lack of a ruler or world state. Despite being called the English School many of the academics from this school were neither English nor from the United Kingdom.


title: International relations theory

text: A great deal of the work of the English School concerns the examination of traditions of past international theory, casting it, as Martin Wight did in his 1950s-era lectures at the London School of Economics, into three divisions:


title: International relations theory

text: In broad terms, the English School itself has supported the rationalist or Grotian tradition, seeking a middle way (or via media) between the power politics of realism and the "utopianism" of revolutionism. The English School rejects behavioralist approaches to international relations theory.


title: International relations theory

text: One way to think about the English School is that, while some theories identify with just one of the three historical traditions (Classical Realism and Neorealism owe a debt to the Realist or Hobbesian tradition; Marxism to the Revolutionist tradition, for example), English School looks to combine all of them. While there is great diversity within the 'school', much of it involves either examining when and how the different traditions combine or dominate, or focusing on the Rationalist tradition, especially the concept of International Society (which is the concept most associated with English School thinking). The English School maintains that "the most distinguished theories of international politics can be divided into three basic categories: realism, which emphasises the concept of 'international anarchy'; revolutionism, which concentrates on the aspect of the 'moral unity' of the international society, and rationalism, which is based on the aspect of 'international dialogue and intercourse." Therefore, the English School highlights the assiduous interaction between the main strands of IR theory in the understanding of interstate relations.


title: International relations theory

text: In Hedley Bull's "The Anarchical Society," a seminal work of the school, he begins by looking at the concept of order, arguing that states across time and space have come together to overcome some of the danger and uncertainty of the Hobbesian international system to create an international society of states that share certain interests and ways of thinking about the world. By doing so, they make the world more ordered, and can eventually change international relations to become significantly more peaceful and beneficial to their shared interests.


title: International relations theory

text: Functionalism is a theory of international relations that arose principally from the experience of European integration. Rather than the self-interest that realists see as a motivating factor, functionalists focus on common interests shared by states. Integration develops its own internal dynamic: as states integrate in limited functional or technical areas, they increasingly find that momentum for further rounds of integration in related areas. This "invisible hand" of integration phenomenon is termed "spillover". Although integration can be resisted, it becomes harder to stop integration's reach as it progresses. This usage, and the usage in functionalism in international relations, is the less common meaning of "functionalism".


title: International relations theory

text: More commonly, however, functionalism is an argument that explains phenomena as functions of a system rather than an actor or actors. Immanuel Wallerstein employed a functionalist theory when he argued that the Westphalian international political system arose to secure and protect the developing international capitalist system. His theory is called "functionalist" because it says that an event was a function of the preferences of a system and not the preferences of an agent. Functionalism is different from structural or realist arguments in that while both look to broader, structural causes, realists (and structuralists more broadly) say that the structure gives incentives to agents, while functionalists attribute causal power to the system itself, bypassing agents entirely.


title: International relations theory

text: Post-structuralism differs from most other approaches to international politics because it does not see itself as a theory, school or paradigm which produces a single account of the subject matter. Instead, post-structuralism is an approach, attitude, or ethos that pursues critique in particular way. Post-structuralism sees critique as an inherently positive exercise that establishes the conditions of possibility for pursuing alternatives. It states that "Every understanding of international politics depends upon abstraction, representation and interpretation". Scholars associated with post-structuralism in international relations include Richard K. Ashley, James Der Derian, Michael J. Shapiro, R. B. J. Walker, and Lene Hansen.


title: International relations theory

text: Post-modernist approaches to international relations are critical of metanarratives and denounces traditional IR's claims to truth and neutrality.


title: International relations theory

text: Postcolonial International relations scholarship posits a critical theory approach to International relations (IR), and is a non-mainstream area of international relations scholarship. Post-colonialism focuses on the persistence of colonial forms of power and the continuing existence of racism in world politics.


title: International relations theory

text: Feminist international relations theory applies a gender perspective to topics and themes in international relations such as war, peace, security, and trade. In particular, feminist international relations scholars use gender to analyze how power exists within different international political systems. Historically, feminist international relations theorists have struggled to find a place within international relations theory, either having their work ignored or discredited. Feminist international relations also analyzes how the social and the political interact, often pointing to the ways in which international relations affect individuals and vice versa. Generally, feminist international relations scholars tend to be critical of the realist school of thought for their strong positivist and state-centered approach to international relations, although feminist international scholars who are also realists exist. Feminist International Relations borrows from a number of methodologies and theories such as post-positivism, constructivism, postmodernism, and post-colonialism.


title: International relations theory

text: Jean Bethke Elshtain is a key contributor to feminist international relations theory. In her seminal book, "Women and War", Elshtain criticizes gender roles inherent in mainstream international relations theory. Particularly, Elshtain decries international relations for perpetuating a tradition of armed civic culture that automatically excludes women/wives. Instead, Elshatin challenges the trope of women as solely passive peacekeepers, using drawing parallels between wartime experiences and her personal experiences from her childhood and later as a mother. Thus, Elshtain has been lauded by some feminist international relations theorists as one of the first theorists to blend personal experience with international relations, thus challenging international relation's traditional preference for positivism.


title: International relations theory

text: Cynthia Enloe is another influential scholar in the field of feminist international relations. Her influential feminist international relations text, "Bananas, Beaches, and Bases," considers where women fit into the international political system. Similar to Jean Bethke Elshtain, Enloe looks at how the everyday lives of women are influenced by international relations. For example, Enloe uses banana plantations to illustrate how different women are affected by international politics depending on their geographical location, race, or ethnicity. Women, Enloe argues, play a role in international relations whether this work is recognized or not, working as labourers, wives, sex workers, and mothers, sometimes within army bases.


title: International relations theory

text: J. Ann Tickner is a prominent feminist international relations theorist with many notable written pieces. For example, her piece "You Just Don't Understand: Troubled Engagements Between Feminists and IR Theorists" examines the misunderstandings that occur between feminist scholars and international relations theorists. Specifically, Tickner argues that feminist international relations theory sometimes works outside of traditional ontological and epistemological international relations structures, instead analyzing international relations from a more humanistic perspective. Thus, Tickner was critical of the ways in which the study of international relations itself excludes women from participating in international relations theorizing. This piece of Tickner's was met with criticism from multiple scholars, such as Robert Keohane, who wrote "Beyond Dichotomy: Conversations Between International Relations and Feminist Theory" and Marianne Marchand, who criticized Tickner's assumption that feminist international relations scholars worked in the same ontological reality and epistemological tradition in her piece "Different Communities/Different Realities/Different Encounters".


title: International relations theory

text: Psychological approaches to international relations focus on the impact of cognition and emotion on world politics. Through the analysis of political decision making, scholars have examined a broad spectrum of issues ranging from nuclear strategy and nuclear proliferation to deterrence, reassurance, signaling, and bargaining, as well as conflict management and conflict resolution.


title: International relations theory

text: In the 1970s, scholars of world politics started drawing on new research in cognitive psychology to explain decisions to cooperate or compete in international relations. Cognitive psychology had assigned cognition a central role in the explanation of human decision-making. It found that people's behavior often deviates from the expectations of the traditional rational choice model. To explain these deviations, cognitive psychologists developed several concepts and theories. These include theories of misperception, the importance of beliefs and schemas in information processing, and the use of analogies and heuristics in interpreting information, among others.


title: International relations theory

text: Scholars of international relations took up these insights and applied them to issues in world politics. For example, Robert Jervis identified patterns of leaders' misperception in historical cases that led to unwanted escalation, failures of deterrence, and the outbreak of war. Deborah Welch Larson and Rose McDermott have referred to belief systems and schemas as central drivers of information processing and foreign policy decision-making. Keren Yarhi-Milo has investigated how policy-makers rely on cognitive shortcuts called "heuristics" when they assess the intentions of their adversaries.


title: International relations theory

text: In addition to cognitive psychology, social psychology has long inspired research in international relations. Social psychologists have identified a fundamental human need for identity – the way in which a person or a group is, or wishes to be known by others. The resulting identity formation dynamics can contribute to conflicts between and among groups. Scholars of international relations have drawn on insights in social psychology to explore the dynamics of conflict among and between groups as well as processes of conflict management and resolution.


title: International relations theory

text: More recently, scholars of international relations have started drawing on emotion research in psychology to shed light on issues in world politics. Research in psychology suggests that affect and emotions are core drivers in decision making and behavior. This has significant consequences for our understanding of foreign policy, escalation to war, conflict resolution, and numerous other issues in world politics. For example, Rose McDermott and Jonathan Mercer were among the first to use these new findings to argue that affective experience can have adaptive functions by facilitating quick and effective decision-making. Thomas Dolan has drawn on affective intelligence theory to show that some emotional responses leaders may have to new events during wartime, such as joy or anxiety, tend to bring about change in their approaches to war, while others, like contentment or frustration, are prone to produce resistance to change. Combining insights from experimental psychology and the sociology of emotions, Robin Markwica has developed "emotional choice theory" as an alternative model to rational choice theory and constructivist perspectives.


title: International relations theory

text: Evolutionary perspectives, such as from evolutionary psychology, have been argued to help explain many features of international relations. Humans in the ancestral environment did not live in states and likely rarely had interactions with groups outside of a very local area. However, a variety of evolved psychological mechanisms, in particular those for dealing with inter group interactions, are argued to influence current international relations. These include evolved mechanisms for social exchange, cheating and detecting cheating, status conflicts, leadership, ingroup and outgroup distinction and biases, coalitions, and violence.


title: International relations theory

text: In a 1955 article, Kenneth W. Thompson characterized IR theory as a recent phenomena in political science scholarship. Thompson distinguished between "normative" IR theory, "general" IR theory, and IR theory as the "basis of action."


title: International relations theory

text: In recent years, several IR scholars have remarked on what they see as a trend away from IR theory in IR scholarship. The September 2013 issue of "European Journal of International Relations" and the June 2015 issue of "Perspectives on Politics" debated the state of IR theory. A 2016 study showed that while theoretical innovations and qualitative analyses are a large part of graduate training, journals favor middle-range theory, quantitative hypothesis testing and methodology for publishing.


title: International relations theory

text: Several alternative approaches have been developed based on foundationalism, anti-foundationalism, positivism, behaviouralism, structuralism and post-structuralism.


title: International relations theory

text: Behaviouralism in international relations theory is an approach to international relations theory which believes in the unity of science, the idea that the social sciences are not fundamentally different from the natural sciences. Accordingly, behavioural scholars reject isms (ideological approaches) because their adherents believe the maxims of their isms are self-evidently true. Instead of testing maxims systematically to determine whether they are true, behaviouralists view proponents of ideological isms as spreading propaganda in the guise of scholarship to guide policy-makers.


title: International relations theory

text: The latest formulation of the behavioural approach involves macro-theories or paradigms. That is, theories that can be applied at several levels of analysis. Theories previously developed in economics and sociology are applied to international affairs, while the major isms, such as realism, are reconstituted into a form that can be tested systematically with comprehensive databases. The major international relations paradigms are identified as the Marxian (not ideological Marxism), mass society, community building, and rational actor paradigms, each of which are homes to alternative variants. Behavioural scholars seek to retrofit isms identified above into variants of existing paradigms that can be tested empirically, whereupon the future of international relations theory will move beyond untested maxims to a solid foundation of knowledge.


title: Professional

text: A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skills necessary to perform their specific role within that profession. In addition, most professionals are subject to strict codes of conduct, enshrining rigorous ethical and moral obligations. Professional standards of practice and ethics for a particular field are typically agreed upon and maintained through widely recognized professional associations, such as the IEEE. Some definitions of "professional" limit this term to those professions that serve some important aspect of public interest and the general good of society.


title: Professional

text: In some cultures, the term is used as shorthand to describe a particular social stratum of well-educated workers who enjoy considerable work autonomy and who are commonly engaged in creative and intellectually challenging work.


title: Professional

text: In narrow usage, not all expertise is considered a profession. Occupations such as skilled construction and maintenance work are more generally thought of as trades or crafts. The completion of an apprenticeship is generally associated with skilled labour, or trades such as carpenter, electrician, mason, painter, plumber and other similar occupations.


title: Professional

text: In his study "The Rise of Professional Society" historian Harold Perkin characterizes professional society; "Where pre-industrial society was based on passive property in land and industrial society on actively managed capital, professional society is based on human capital created by education and enhanced by strategies of closure, that is, the exclusion of the unqualified." Specifically, it is the management of human capital, and not just specialized skill which Perkin argues is a mark of the professional classes, at one point going so far as to compare it to a modern form of feudalism.


title: Professional

text: Although professional training appears to be ideologically neutral, it may be biased towards those with higher class backgrounds and a formal education. In his 2000 book, "Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives", Jeff Schmidt observes that qualified professionals are less creative and diverse in their opinions and habits than non-professionals, which he attributes to the subtle indoctrination and filtering which accompanies the process of professional training. His evidence is both qualitative and quantitative, including professional examinations, industry statistics and personal accounts of trainees and professionals.


title: Professional

text: A key theoretical dispute arises from the observation that established professions (e.g. lawyers, medical doctors, architects, civil engineers, surveyors) are subject to strict codes of conduct. Some have thus argued that these codes of conduct, agreed upon and maintained through widely recognized professional associations, are a key element of what constitutes any profession. Others have argued that strict codes of conduct and the professional associations that maintain them are merely a consequence of 'successful' professionalization, rather than an intrinsic element of the definition of professional (ism); this implies that a profession arises from the alignment between a shared purpose (connected to a 'greater good'), a body of knowledge, actual behavior in terms of actions and decisions, and expectations held by societal stakeholders.


title: Professional

text: The etymology and historical meaning of the term professional is from Middle English, from "profes", adjective, having professed one's vows, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin "professus", from Latin, past participle of "profitēri" to profess, confess, from pro- before + "fatēri" to acknowledge; in other senses, from Latin "professus", past participle. Thus, as people became more and more specialized in their trade, they began to 'profess' their skill to others, and 'vow' to perform their trade to the highest known standard. With a reputation to uphold, trusted workers of a society who have a specific trade are considered professionals. Ironically, the usage of the word 'profess' declined from the late 1800s to the 1950s, just as the term 'professional' was gaining popularity from 1900 to 2010. Notably, in American English the rise in popularity of the term 'professional' started at the beginning of the 20th century whereas in British English it started in the 1930s and grew fastest in the 1960s and 70s.


title: Professional

text: The notion of a professional can be traced to medieval European guilds, most of which died off by the middle of the nineteenth century, the exception being the scholars guild, or university.


title: Professional

text: With most guilds formally abolished outside of the realm of academia, establishing exclusivity and standards in a trade (i.e. the successful professionalization of a trade) had to be achieved via other means such as licensing practices, of which might begin as an informal process established by voluntary professional associations, but then eventually become law due to lobbying efforts. Paralleling or soon after the fall of guilds professional associations began to form in Britain and the US. In the US a number of interested parties sought to emulate the model of apprenticeship which European guilds of the Middle Ages had honed to achieve their ends of establishing exclusivity in trades as well as the English concept of a gentleman which had come to be associated with higher income and craftsmanship. Examples are the Lazzaroni who lobbied to create the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and professional associations who lobbied to create the American Medical Association (AMA). According to Miller et al., "Lazzaroni opposed reforms for no apparent reason other than that they were proposed by scientists outside of their tight knit group.". In his seminal work "The Transformation of American Medicine" (1982) Paull starr argues that a significant motivation in the development of the AMA was to gain authority over unlicensed practitioners so as to minimize competition among medical practitioners, thereby enhancing the earning power and prestige of medical professionals. The licensing process Starr argues, was unnecessarily prolonged and the costs were artificially enhanced with the specific aim of deterring potential practitioners from entering the field. As noted by Ronald Hamowy on this subject,"The American Medical Association (AMA) was established as a permanent national organization at Philadelphia in 1847 at a convention attended by some 230 delegates representing more than forty medical societies and twenty-eight schools. From its inception, one of its primary aims was the upgrading of medical education and a concomitant reduction in the number of physicians. Its committee on raising medical standards reported at its first meeting that "the large number of Medical Colleges throughout the country, and the facility with which the degree is obtained, have exerted a most pernicious influence" on the profession. With the object of ameliorating this situation, recommendations were carried calling for a specified minimum preliminary education as a prerequisite for admission to a medical college, a lengthening of the period of study for graduation from a medical school, including compulsory clinical instruction at a hospital prior to the issuance of a diploma, and professional participation in some licensing scheme for physicians. Indeed, so important was the issue of education considered by the AMA that one of its first acts was the establishment of a Committee on Medical Education..."


title: Professional

text: - Ronald Hamowy, "The Early Development of Medical Licensing Laws in the United States, 1875–1900*" As technology progressed throughout the twentieth century, the successful professionalization of a given field was increasingly made possible through the idea of specialization.


title: Professional

text: As was the case with guilds who claimed to establish exclusivity in a trade in the name of serving the public good, there are often subtle dichotomies present in the idea professionalizing a field, whether in the name of serving some notion of the public good or as a result of specialization. For example, while defenders of guilds have argued that they allowed markets to function by ensuring quality standards, Sheliah Olgelvic has instead argued that markets of the Middle Ages flourished when guilds were abolished and that there is much evidence to support the notion that individuals prefer a wide variety of products of varying quality and price to being granted protections which they did not ask for, and which artificially constrain consumer options. With regard to modern forms of professional specialization, does specialization which accompanies advances in technology naturally result in exclusivity, or have our licensing systems and laws been artificially engineered with the intention of limiting the number of individuals who reach the point of specialization?


title: Professional

text: In certain cases the want to specialize can have adverse and bias effects on an industry. In his seminal work "From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America" (1994) Walter Trattner argues that social workers began to emphasize individualized casework at the expense of alternative methods which utilize holistic methods to address social issues.


title: Professional

text: The granting of degrees through universities in many cases serves as one major component of licensing practices, but there are numerous legal stipulations and in some cases even informal social norms which also act in this capacity. Nevertheless, the university system constitutes one of the last remaining widely spread guild (or quasi-guild) and continues to serve as an indispensable means for the professionalization of fields of work. While it is true that most guilds disappeared by the middle of the nineteenth century, the scholars guild persisted due to its peripheral standing in an industrialized economy. In the words of Elliot Krause, "The university and scholars' guilds held onto their power over membership, training, and workplace because early capitalism was not interested in it...".


title: Auto clicker

text: An auto clicker is a type of software or macro that can be used to automate the clicking of a mouse on a computer screen element and click faster than intended. Clickers can be triggered to repeat input that was recorded earlier, or generated from various current settings.


title: Auto clicker

text: Auto clickers can be as simple as a program that simulates mouse clicking. This type of auto clicker is fairly generic and will often work alongside any other computer program running at the time and acting as though a physical mouse button is pressed.


title: Auto clicker

text: More complex auto clickers can similarly be as general, but often are custom-made for use with one particular program and involve memory reading. Such auto clickers may allow the user to automate most or all mouse functions, as well as simulate a full set of keyboard inputs. Custom-made auto clickers may have a narrower scope than a generic auto clicker. Sometimes, an auto clicker may not deliver the amount of clicks as entered because of the limitations of the software it is being used on.


title: Auto clicker

text: Auto clickers are also called automation software programs, and may have features enabling response conditional reactions, as well as a keyboard.


title: Auto clicker

text: An auto clicker has different applications depending upon the type of task required to be automated. Following are a few examples where auto clickers are used.


title: Auto clicker

text: Whilst an auto clicker is software that is emulating mouse clicks, there is hardware that can do this for itself. Any computer mouse marketed as a 'gaming mouse' will typically have with an auto click function which can be set to auto click at a user-specified rate. Similarly, some computer joysticks come with an auto-fire function which can usually be adjusted by a further control which sets the rate of fire and also will improve your clicking speed.


title: Kestrel

text: The term kestrel (from , derivative from , i.e. ratchet) is the common name given to several species of predatory birds from the falcon genus "Falco". Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviour which is to hover at a height of around over open country and swoop down on ground prey, usually small mammals, lizards or large insects, while other falcons are more adapted for active hunting during flight. Kestrels are notable for usually having mostly brown in their plumage.


title: Kestrel

text: Most species termed kestrels appear to form a distinct clade among the falcons, as suggested by comparison of mtDNA cytochrome "b" sequence data and morphology. This seems to have diverged from other "Falco" around the Miocene–Pliocene boundary (Messinian to Zanclean, or about 7–3.5 mya). The most basal "true" kestrels are three species from Africa and its surroundings which lack a malar stripe, and in one case have—like other falcons but unlike other true kestrels—large areas of grey in their wings.


title: Kestrel

text: Approximately during the Gelasian age (Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene, around 2.5–2 mya), the main lineage of true kestrels emerged; this contains the species characterized by a malar stripe. This too seems to have evolved in Africa and subsequently spread across the Old World until they reached Australia some time during the Middle Pleistocene, less than one million years ago. This group contains several taxa found on Indian Ocean islands. A group of three predominantly grey species from Africa and Madagascar are usually considered kestrels due to their general shape and habits, but are probably distinct from the true kestrels as outlined above.


title: Kestrel

text: The American kestrel is the only New World species termed "kestrel". The molecular data of Groombridge as well as morphological peculiarities (like grey wings in males and a black ear-spot) and biogeography, strongly support the view that this species, among the "Falco" falcons, is not a kestrel at all in the phylogenetic sense but perhaps closer to the hobbies. Other recent DNA analysis takes a similar view that the American kestrel is not a true kestrel, but rather than being linked to the hobbies is more likely genetically more closely related to the larger American falcons such as the aplomado falcon, the peregrine falcon, and prairie falcon. Though the species has not been renamed as a result of these genetic analyses, it is thus likely a descendant of archaic larger falcon ancestors evolved through a process of convergent evolution to fit a similar small prey niche in the ecosystem as the true kestrels.


title: Escapism

text: Escapism is mental diversion from unpleasant or boring aspects of daily life, typically through activities involving imagination or entertainment. Escapism may be used to occupy one's self away from persistent feelings of depression or general sadness.


title: Escapism

text: Entire industries have sprung up to foster a growing tendency of people to remove themselves from the rigors of daily life – especially into the digital world. Many activities that are normal parts of a healthy existence (e.g., eating, sleeping, exercise, sexual activity) can also become avenues of escapism when taken to extremes or out of proper context; and as a result the word "escapism" often carries a negative connotation, suggesting that escapists are unhappy, with an inability or unwillingness to connect meaningfully with the world and to take necessary action. Indeed, the "Oxford English Dictionary" defined escapism as "The tendency to seek, or the practice of seeking, distraction from what normally has to be endured".


title: Escapism

text: However, many challenge the idea that escapism is fundamentally and exclusively negative. C. S. Lewis was fond of humorously remarking that the usual enemies of escape were jailers and considered that used in moderation escapism could serve both to refresh and to expand the imaginative powers. Similarly J. R. R. Tolkien argued for escapism in fantasy literature as the creative expression of reality within a secondary (imaginative) world (but also emphasised that they required an element of horror in them, if they were not to be 'mere escapism'). Terry Pratchett considered that the twentieth century had seen the development over time of a more positive view of escapist literature. Apart from literature, music and video games have been seen and valued as artistic media of escape, too.


title: Escapism

text: Freud considers a quota of escapist fantasy a necessary element in the life of humans: "[T]hey cannot subsist on the scanty satisfaction they can extort from reality. 'We simply cannot do without auxiliary constructions', Theodor Fontane once said, "His followers saw rest and wish fulfilment (in small measures) as useful tools in adjusting to traumatic upset"; while later psychologists have highlighted the role of vicarious distractions in shifting unwanted moods, especially anger and sadness.


title: Escapism

text: However, if permanent residence is taken up in some such psychic retreats, the results will often be negative and even pathological. Drugs cause some forms of escapism which can occur when certain mind-altering drugs are taken which make the participant forget the reality of where they are or what they are meant to be doing.


title: Escapism

text: Some social critics warn of attempts by the powers that control society to provide means of escapism instead of bettering the condition of the people – what Juvenal called "bread and the games".


title: Escapism

text: Social philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote that utopias and images of fulfillment, however regressive they might be, also included an impetus for a radical social change. According to Bloch, social justice could not be realized without seeing things fundamentally differently. Something that is mere "daydreaming" or "escapism" from the viewpoint of a technological-rational society might be a seed for a new and more humane social order, as it can be seen as an "immature, but honest substitute for revolution".


title: Escapism

text: Escapist societies appear often in literature. "The Time Machine" depicts the Eloi, a lackadaisical, insouciant race of the future, and the horror of their happy lifestyle beliefs. The novel subtly criticizes capitalism, or at least classism, as a means of escape. Escapist societies are common in dystopian novels; for example, in the "Fahrenheit 451" society, television and "seashell radios" are used to escape a life with strict regulations and the threat of a forthcoming war. In science fiction media escapism is often depicted as an extension of social evolution, as society becomes detached from physical reality and processing into a virtual one, examples include the virtual world of Oz in the 2009 Japanese animated science fiction film "Summer Wars" and the game "Society" in the 2009 American science fiction film "Gamer", a play on the real-life MMO game "Second Life". Other escapist societies in literature include "The Reality Bug" by D. J. McHale, where an entire civilization leaves their world in ruin while they 'jump' into their perfect realities. The aim of the anti-hero becomes a quest to make their realities seemingly less perfect to regain control over their dying planet.


title: Escapism

text: The Norwegian psychologist Frode Stenseng has presented a dualistic model of escapism in relation to different types of activity engagements. He discusses the paradox that the flow state (Csikszentmihalyi) resembles psychological states obtainable through actions such as drug abuse, sexual masochism, and suicide ideation (Baumeister). Accordingly, he deduces that the state of escape can have both positive and negative meanings and outcomes. Stenseng argues that there exist two forms of escapism with different affective outcomes dependent on the motivational focus that lies behind the immersion in the activity. Escapism in the form of self-suppression stems from motives to run away from unpleasant thoughts, self-perceptions, and emotions, whereas self-expansion stems from motives to gain positive experiences through the activity and to discover new aspects of self. Stenseng has developed the "escape scale" to measure self-suppression and self-expansion in people's favorite activities, such as sports, arts, and gaming. Empirical investigations of the model have shown that:


title: Escapism

text: Alan Brinkley, author of "Culture and Politics in the Great Depression", presents how escapism became the new trend for dealing with the hardships created by the stock market crash in 1929: magazines, radio and movies, all were aimed to help people mentally escape from the mass poverty and economic downturn. "Life" magazine, which became hugely popular during the 1930s, was said to have pictures that give "no indication that there was such a thing as depression; most of the pictures are of bathing beauties and ship launchings and building projects and sports heroes – of almost anything but poverty and unemployment". Famous director Preston Sturges aimed to validate this notion by creating a film called "Sullivan's Travels". The film ends with a group of poor destitute men in jail watching a comedic Mickey Mouse cartoon that ultimately lifts their spirits. Sturges aims to point out how "foolish and vain and self-indulgent" it would be to make a film about suffering. Therefore, movies of the time more often than not focused on comedic plot lines that distanced people emotionally from the horrors that were occurring all around them. These films "consciously, deliberately set out to divert people from their problems", but it also diverted them from the problems of those around them.


title: XLR connector

text: The XLR connector is a type of electrical connector primarily used in professional audio, video, and stage lighting equipment. XLR connectors are cylindical in design, and have three to seven connector pins, and are often employed for analog balanced audio interconnections, AES3 digital audio, portable intercom, DMX512 lighting control, and for low-voltage power supply. XLR connectors are included to the international standard for dimensions, IEC 61076-2-103. The XLR connector is superficially similar to the smaller DIN connector, with which it is physically incompatible.


title: XLR connector

text: The XLR connector (also Cannon plug and Cannon connector) was invented by James H. Cannon, founder of the Cannon Electric company, Los Angeles, California. The XLR connector originated from the "Cannon X" series of connectors in 1915; by 1950, a latching mechanism was added to the connector, which produced the "Cannon XL" model of connector, and by 1955, the female connector featured synthetic-rubber insulation polychloroprene (neoprene), identified with the part-number prefix "XLR". There was also the "XLP" series of connectors with hard plastic insulation, but the XLR model name is commonly used for all of the variants.


title: XLR connector

text: Originally, the ITT Cannon company manufactured XLR connectors in two locations: Kanagawa, Japan, and Melbourne, Australia. The Australian factory was sold to Alcatel Components in 1992 and then acquired by Amphenol in 1998. Later, the Switchcraft corporation manufactured compatible connectors, followed by the Neutrik company, which made improvements to the connector, and produced a second-generation design (the X-series) that had only four parts for the cable connector, and eliminated the small screws used in the models of XLR connectors made by Cannon and Switchcraft.


title: XLR connector

text: XLR connectors are available in male and female versions in both cable and chassis mounting designs, a total of four styles. This is slightly unusual as many other connector designs omit one of the styles (typically a chassis mounting male connector).


title: XLR connector

text: The female XLR connectors are designed with a longer metal sleeve to first connect pin 1 (the earth pin), before the other pins make contact, when a male XLR connector is inserted. With the ground connection established before the signal lines are connected, the insertion (and removal) of XLR connectors in live equipment is possible without hearing an annoying static pop (as usually happens with, for example, RCA connectors).


title: XLR connector

text: The number of pins varies. As of 2016, XLR connectors are available with up to 10 pins, and mini XLR connectors with up to eight. XLR connectors from different manufacturers will intermate, with the exception of six-pin models, which are available in two incompatible designs. The older Switchcraft six-pin design adds a center pin to the standard five-pin design, whereas the newer Neutrik design is a different pattern. The Switchcraft six-pin female will accept a standard five-pin male plug whereas the Neutrik six-pin design will not. Neutrik offers connectors in both six-pin designs.


title: XLR connector

text: The terminology for labeling the corresponding members of a pair of mating connectors follows the usual rules for the gender of connectors: a 'male' connector is the one with pins on the "smallest" element, 'female' has corresponding receptacles. A 'plug' connector enters the 'socket' connector, judged by the largest element. For most XLR, plugs are male and sockets are female. XLR are unusual as, at least in audio applications, all four combinations of male and female, plugs and sockets are equally common. A common misnomer is that 'plugs' are free connectors and 'sockets' are panel-mounted, but XLR uses many free female sockets and panel-mounted male plugs. There is a loose convention for audio work that signals are generated by equipment with male pins and transmitted to those with female receptacles. The circumference of an XLR connector at the widest point is .


title: XLR connector

text: Three-pin XLR connectors are by far the most common style, and are an industry standard for balanced audio signals. The great majority of professional microphones use the XLR connector. In previous years, they were used for loudspeaker connections, for instance by Trace Elliot in its bass enclosures. The XLR could accept 14 AWG () wire with a current-carrying capacity of 15 amps, suitable for most loudspeakers, but they have been superseded by the Speakon connector for professional loudspeakers. The Speakon connector accepts larger wire and carries more current, and it provides a better shield for the contacts, which may carry dangerous voltages when connected to an amplifier.


title: XLR connector

text: Three-pin XLR connectors are used to interconnect powered speakers with line-level signals used for PA system applications.


title: XLR connector

text: Rechargeable devices exist that use three-pin XLR connectors. These can be found on electric powered mobility wheelchairs and scooters. The connectors carry from 2 to 10 amps at 24 volts.


title: XLR connector

text: An obsolete use for three-pin XLR connectors was for MIDI data on some Octave-Plateau synthesizers including the Voyetra-8.


title: XLR connector

text: The three-pin XLR connector is commonly used for DMX512, on lighting and related control equipment, particularly at the budget / DJ end of the market. However, using three-pin XLR connectors for DMX512 is specifically prohibited by section 7.1.2 of the DMX512 standard. Use of the three-pin XLR in this context firstly presents a risk of damage to the lighting equipment should an audio cable carrying 48-volt phantom power be accidentally connected.


title: XLR connector

text: They are the standard connector for intercom headsets, such as systems made by Clear-Com and Telex. Two pins are used for the mono headphone signal and two pins for the unbalanced microphone signal.


title: XLR connector

text: Another common use is for DC power connections for professional film and video cameras and related equipment. Some desk microphones with LEDs use them. The fourth pin is used to power the LED indicating that the microphone is on.


title: XLR connector

text: Other uses for the four-pin XLR include some scrollers (colour-changing devices for stage lighting), AMX analog lighting control (now obsolete) and some pyrotechnic equipment.


title: XLR connector

text: Four-pin XLR is used for balanced headphone connections, from a balanced amplifier, where there is no common earth between the two channels. Connection diagram: 1 - left channel + phase; 2 - left channel - phase; 3 - right channel + phase; 4 - right channel - phase.


title: XLR connector

text: Other common uses are for dual-element or stereo microphones (two balanced audio signals with a common ground) and stereo intercom headset (three pins for the stereo headphone signal - left, right, and ground, and two pins for the unbalanced microphone signal).


title: XLR connector

text: Six-pin XLR connectors are used for dual channel intercom systems and stage lighting control applications. Another common use is professional stereo headset with balanced microphone (headphone left-pin 4, headphone right-pin 5, headphone common-pin 3, mic high-pin 2, mic low-pin 1, mic ground-pin 6).


title: XLR connector

text: Seven-pin XLR connectors are used to connect some valve (tube) condenser microphones to their power supplies (carrying signal, polarisation voltage, heater and HT).


title: XLR connector

text: An obsolete use for seven-pin XLR connectors was analogue lighting control signals, as well as for wired intercom in broadcast studios, specifically with Ward-Beck intercoms.


title: XLR connector

text: The "loudspeaker Cannon" (known as a "PDN" connector) had blue or white insulation (depending on its gender), and was intended for connections between audio power amplifiers and loudspeakers. These are manufactured by Amphenol (formerly by Alcatel Components and ITT Cannon Australia).


title: XLR connector

text: Many other types of connectors using the XLR type shell exist, with various pin configurations. One is the now obsolete three-pin power pattern connector manufactured by ITT Cannon.


title: XLR connector

text: The "power Cannon" (also called the "XLR-LNE" connector) had shrouded pins and red insulation; it was intended as a mains power plug, alternative to the IEC 60320 series of connectors, but was only used on a few pieces of equipment.


title: XLR connector

text: A two-pin variant was used as the DC power input socket on Yamaha's 1970s CP-series 'Electric Grand' pianos (CP-60, CP-70 and CP-80).


title: XLR connector

text: This section contains more technical information relating the most common applications of XLR connectors.


title: XLR connector

text: EIA Standard RS-297-A describes the use of the three-pin XLR - known as XLR3 - for balanced audio signal level applications:


title: XLR connector

text: Prior to the introduction of this standard, the wiring of pins 2 and 3 varied. The pin 2 "hot" and pin 3 "cold" convention was typically used by European and Japanese equipment manufacturers, but American companies used pin 3 "hot" and pin 2 "cold". This caused problems when interconnecting equipment with unbalanced connections. The pin 3 "hot" convention is now obsolete but is still found on vintage equipment. Pin 1 has always been ground and/or shield if the cable is shielded, and many connectors connect it internally to the connector shell or case.


title: XLR connector

text: Although covered in industry technical standards, there is still some disagreement on the best way to handle the use of pin 1 for grounding (earthing). The main controversy is whether the shell of the connector should be connected to pin 1 or the shield, or left floating. AES standards mentioned above recommend that shells of cable-mounted connectors should never be connected to pin 1 or the shield, because inadvertent contact of the shell with another grounded surface while in use can create unwanted current paths for fault current, potentially causing hum and other noise. On the other hand, equipment containing active circuitry should always have pin 1 connected to the conductive enclosure of the equipment as close as possible to the point where the signal enters the enclosure. The argument centers on the radio frequency shielding provided by the shell of the connector, which may be reduced if it is left floating. An alternative solution is to connect the shell to pin 1 and the shield through a small value capacitor, providing RF shielding but allowing very little audio-frequency current to flow. This capability can be built into a fixed jack or a cable terminated with XLR connectors.


title: XLR connector

text: The standard signal flow for audio in XLR connectors is that the output is a male connector and the input is female. In other words, the pins on the plug point in the direction of signal flow. This is the opposite of power connector standards which normally use female connectors for outputs, a convention influenced by the need to prevent accidental contact with dangerous voltages. However, the voltages of microphone and line level audio signals are not hazardous. The male XLR is usually incorporated in the body of a microphone.


title: XLR connector

text: Since equipment often requires an input on a TRS phone jack or an XLR connector, Neutrik and Amphenol offer several models of combination connector that accept both XLR and TS or TRS phone plugs.


title: XLR connector

text: The most common standard is for pin 1 to be ground and pin 4 to be 12 volts (nominal), with pins 2 and 3 unused. This configuration is used on most professional video cameras and is also common on audio equipment designed for location use. There are other non-standard arrangements, particularly found on older equipment.


title: XLR connector

text: Clear-Com, Telex, RTS and many other production intercom systems use four-pin XLR connectors for attaching monaural intercom headsets or handsets. The standard pinout for four-pin XLR headsets is: Pin 1 = Microphone ground (screen/shield); Pin 2 = Microphone signal ("hot") input; Pin 3 = Headphone ground (return); Pin 4 = Headphone signal ("hot") output.


title: XLR connector

text: The five-pin XLR is the standard connector for DMX512, the most common protocol for controlling professional lighting and related equipment. Three-pin XLR connectors are increasingly common instead. These are electrically compatible with a simple jumpering 1–1, 2–2, 3–3 between them. However, using three-pin XLR connectors for DMX512 is specifically prohibited by section 7.1.2 of the DMX512 standard.


title: XLR connector

text: Five-pin XLR is also a common power connector in modular professional audio systems, such as the Automated Processes, Inc.'s (API) Lunchbox format. This format is becoming increasingly popular and five-pin XLR for DC power is used by many third-party module and chassis developers such as BAE Audio and JLM Audio. It is also used by Slate Digital for the VMS1 microphone preamp. Typically the pin configuration is:


title: XLR connector

text: Where XLR connectors are used for DC power, the genders are reversed with respect to their standard use for line-level and mic-level audio. Typically, audio signals on XLR connectors "follow the pin," such that a male connector is an output and a female connector is an input. In most power applications (not just XLR connectors) the female connector is the output and the male connector is the input. This makes accidental contact with live parts less likely. In audio devices it also prevents accidental application of DC power to signal inputs.


title: XLR connector

text: At one time three-pin XLR connectors were also used extensively on loudspeaker cables, as when first introduced they represented a new standard of ruggedness, and economical alternatives were not readily available. Often, two-conductor loudspeaker cable had three-pin female connectors on both ends, to distinguish it from a three-conductor shielded signal-level cable, which has a female connector at one end and a male at the other. Either pin 2 or 3 was live, depending on the manufacturer, with pin 1 always the 'earthy' return. This usage is now both obsolete and dangerous to equipment but is still sometimes encountered, especially on older equipment. For example, some loudspeakers have a built-in male connector as an "input" connector for speaker-level signal. This use was superseded in professional audio applications by the Neutrik Speakon connector.


title: XLR connector

text: Three pin XLR connectors are now popular power connectors for charging ebike batteries (24V, 36v and 48v).


title: XLR connector

text: Some microphones such as condenser microphones require power. An alternative to battery power is phantom power, which consists of direct current applied equally through the two signal lines of a balanced audio connector, usually a three-pin XLR connector. The supply voltage is referenced to the ground pin of the connector (pin 1 of an XLR), which normally is connected to the cable shield or a ground wire in the cable or both. Phantom power is usually supplied at a nominal 48 volts DC, although lower voltages are permissible and modern microphones will often operate over a wide range.


title: XLR connector

text: It is common for modern mixers to have a built-in switch-operated 48-volt power supply which supplies all mic inputs with phantom power, thus eliminating the need for bulky external supplies on individual mics.


title: XLR connector

text: The XLD connector is a proposed keyed variant of the XLR connector. The keys prevent accidental mixing of XLR and XLD connectors. XLD plugs and sockets are used mostly in professional audio and video electronics cabling applications.


title: XLR connector

text: The XLD connector is proposed by the Audio Engineering Society AES42 digital microphone interface standard.


title: XLR connector

text: The connectors are similar to XLR but with an extra coding key and groove that allows control over the intermating of XLD plugs and XLR sockets. A connector with the coding key installed will not mate with a connector that does not have the matching groove. By suitably keying connectors, analog microphones can be protected from damage by the high current digital phantom power supply provided for digital microphones.


title: XLR connector

text: The "Mini XLR Connector", also known as the "TQG" or "TA3"/"TA4" connector (number depending on number of poles), is used on compact items such as UHF wireless microphone beltpacks, some studio and field recording headphones, as well as Audio Technica condenser microphones, but is not in general use on major items such as mixing desks. The Mini XLR Connector was first devised by Switchcraft and is also available from Rean, and various other sources. As yet, the Mini XLR connectors do not appear to be covered by any ISO or national standard.


title: Max Wright

text: George Edward Maxwell Wright (August 2, 1943 – June 26, 2019) was an American actor, known for his role as Willie Tanner on the sitcom "ALF" (1986–1990).


title: Max Wright

text: He moved to the suburb of Southfield as a child, graduating from Southfield Senior High School in 1961. While a student at Southfield, he was very active in the theatre program and had leads in two different musical productions.


title: Max Wright

text: Wright made supporting appearances on television shows such as "WKRP in Cincinnati," and was a regular cast member on "Misfits of Science", "AfterMASH", "Buffalo Bill", and "The Norm Show", and the made-for-TV adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand". He appeared in the first and second seasons of the sitcom "Friends" as Terry, the manager of Central Perk. He played Günter Wendt in the 1998 HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" and Dr. Josef Mengele in "Playing for Time".


title: Max Wright

text: From 1986 to 1990, Wright appeared in the sitcom "ALF" as Willie Tanner, a typical father of a middle-class family, who finds an alien who has crash-landed on Earth. Despite becoming his best-known performance, the actor despised the role due to its huge technical demands and the fact that he, a human, played a supporting character for an "inanimate object". "It was hard work and very grim", he stated in a 2000 interview to "People". He was also, reportedly, very happy when the show was canceled in 1990. "I was hugely eager to have it over with", he said in the same interview. According to his co-star in the show, Anne Schedeen, "there was one take, and Max walked off the set, went to his dressing room, got his bags, went to his car, and disappeared. Nobody had to say, 'Wrap,' and there were no goodbyes". However, Wright later admitted that as the years passed he looked back at "ALF" with less animosity and conceded that "It doesn't matter what I felt or what the days were like, "ALF" brought people a lot of joy."


title: Max Wright

text: Wright also had a stage career. In 1968, he appeared in the original production of "The Great White Hope" at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. In 1998, he appeared on Broadway in "Ivanov", which garnered him a Tony nomination, and played Sir Andrew in "Twelfth Night" at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In 2007, he acted at the JET (Jewish Ensemble Theatre) in Detroit and in the production of "No Man's Land" at the American Repertory Theater. He also appeared in The Public Theater's 2010 production of "The Winter's Tale" and "The Merchant of Venice" at Shakespeare in the Park festivals.


title: Max Wright

text: Wright was married to Linda Ybarrondo from 1965 until her death from breast cancer in 2017. The couple had two children.


title: Max Wright

text: In 1995, he was diagnosed with lymphoma, which was successfully treated and remained in remission until 2019. He died from the disease on June 26, 2019, at the age of 75 at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a software project that is behind schedule delays it even longer. This idea is known as Brooks's law, and is presented along with the second-system effect and advocacy of prototyping.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Brooks's observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. He had added more programmers to a project falling behind schedule, a decision that he would later conclude had, counter-intuitively, delayed the project even further. He also made the mistake of asserting that one project—involved in writing an ALGOL compiler—would require six months, regardless of the number of workers involved (it required longer). The tendency for managers to repeat such errors in project development led Brooks to quip that his book is called "The Bible of Software Engineering", because "everybody quotes it, some people read it, and a few people go by it".


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: The work was first published in 1975 (),<ref name="eecs.umich.edu/~weimerw"></ref> reprinted with corrections in 1982, and republished in an anniversary edition with four extra chapters in 1995 (), including a reprint of the essay "No Silver Bullet" with commentary by the author.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Brooks discusses several causes of scheduling failures. The most enduring is his discussion of Brooks's law:


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". Man-month is a hypothetical unit of work representing the work done by one person in one month; Brooks's law says that the possibility of measuring useful work in man-months is a myth, and is hence the centerpiece of the book.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Complex programming projects cannot be perfectly partitioned into discrete tasks that can be worked on without communication between the workers and without establishing a set of complex interrelationships between tasks and the workers performing them.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Therefore, assigning more programmers to a project running behind schedule will make it even later. This is because the time required for the new programmers to learn about the project and the increased communication overhead will consume an ever-increasing quantity of the calendar time available. When "n" people have to communicate among themselves, as "n" increases, their output decreases and when it becomes negative the project is delayed further with every person added.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Brooks added the chapter "No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accidents in Software Engineering" and further reflections on it in the chapter "'No Silver Bullet' Refired" to the anniversary edition of "The Mythical Man-Month".


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Brooks insists that there is no one silver bullet: "there is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude [tenfold] improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity."


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: The argument relies on the distinction between accidental complexity and essential complexity, similar to the way Amdahl's law relies on the distinction between "parallelizable" and "strictly serial".


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: The second-system effect proposes that, when an architect designs a second system, it is the most dangerous system they will ever design, because they will tend to incorporate all of the additions they originally did not add to the first system due to inherent time constraints. Thus, when embarking on a second system, an engineer should be mindful that they are susceptible to over-engineering it.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: The author makes the observation that in a suitably complex system there is a certain irreducible number of errors. Any attempt to fix observed errors tends to result in the introduction of other errors.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Brooks wrote "Question: How does a large software project get to be one year late? Answer: One day at a time!" Incremental slippages on many fronts eventually accumulate to produce a large overall delay. Continued attention to meeting small individual milestones is required at each level of management.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: To make a user-friendly system, the system must have conceptual integrity, which can only be achieved by separating architecture from implementation. A single chief architect (or a small number of architects), acting on the user's behalf, decides what goes in the system and what stays out. The architect or team of architects should develop an idea of what the system should do and make sure that this vision is understood by the rest of the team. A novel idea by someone may not be included if it does not fit seamlessly with the overall system design. In fact, to ensure a user-friendly system, a system may deliberately provide "fewer" features than it is capable of. The point being, if a system is too complicated to use, many features will go unused because no one has time to learn them.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: The chief architect produces a manual of system specifications. It should describe the external specifications of the system in detail, that is everything that the user sees. The manual should be altered as feedback comes in from the implementation teams and the users.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: When designing a new kind of system, a team "will" design a throw-away system (whether it intends to or not). This system acts as a "pilot plan" that reveals techniques that will subsequently cause a complete redesign of the system. This second, "smarter" system should be the one delivered to the customer, since delivery of the pilot system would cause nothing but agony to the customer, and possibly ruin the system's reputation and maybe even the company.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Every project manager should create a small core set of formal documents defining the project objectives, how they are to be achieved, who is going to achieve them, when they are going to be achieved, and how much they are going to cost. These documents may also reveal inconsistencies that are otherwise hard to see.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: When estimating project times, it should be remembered that programming products (which can be sold to paying customers) and programming systems are both three times as hard to write as simple independent in-house programs. It should be kept in mind how much of the work week will actually be spent on technical issues, as opposed to administrative or other non-technical tasks, such as meetings, and especially "stand-up" or "all-hands" meetings.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: To avoid disaster, all the teams working on a project should remain in contact with each other in as many ways as possible (e-mail, phone, meetings, memos, etc.). Instead of assuming something, implementers should ask the architect(s) to clarify their intent on a feature they are implementing, before proceeding with an assumption that might very well be completely incorrect. The architect(s) are responsible for formulating a group picture of the project and communicating it to others.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Much as a surgical team during surgery is led by one surgeon performing the most critical work, while directing the team to assist with less critical parts, it seems reasonable to have a "good" programmer develop critical system components while the rest of a team provides what is needed at the right time. Additionally, Brooks muses that "good" programmers are generally five to ten times as productive as mediocre ones.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Software is invisible. Therefore, many things only become apparent once a certain amount of work has been done on a new system, allowing a user to experience it. This experience will yield insights, which will change a user's needs or the perception of the user's needs. The system should, therefore, be changed to fulfill the changed requirements of the user. This can only occur up to a certain point, otherwise the system may never be completed. At a certain date, no more changes should be allowed to the system and the code should be frozen. All requests for changes should be delayed until the "next" version of the system.


title: The Mythical Man-Month

text: Instead of every programmer having their own special set of tools, each team should have a designated tool-maker who may create tools that are highly customized for the job that team is doing (e.g. a code generator tool that creates code based on a specification). In addition, system-wide tools should be built by a common tools team, overseen by the project manager.


title: Dieselpunk

text: Dieselpunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction similar to steampunk or cyberpunk that combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmodern sensibilities. Coined in 2001 by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe his tabletop role-playing game "Children of the Sun", the term has since been applied to a variety of visual art, music, motion pictures, fiction, and engineering.


title: Dieselpunk

text: The name "dieselpunk" is a derivative of the science fiction subgenre cyberpunk, and represents the time period from World War I until the 1950s, when diesel-based locomotion was the main technological focus of Western culture. The "-punk" suffix attached to the name is representative of the counterculture nature of the genre with regard to its opposition to contemporary aesthetics. The term also refers to the tongue-in-cheek name given to a similar cyberpunk derivative, "steampunk", which focuses on science fiction based on industrial steam power and which is often set within the Victorian era.


title: Dieselpunk

text: Author Scott Westerfeld addresses the question of where to draw the line between steampunk and dieselpunk, arguing that his novel "Leviathan" (2009) qualifies as steampunk despite the fact that the technology it depicts includes diesel engines:


title: Dieselpunk

text: I like the word "dieselpunk" if you are doing something like 'Weird World War II'. I think that makes perfect sense. But to me, World War I is the dividing point where modernity goes from being optimistic to being pessimistic. Because when you put the words "machine" and "gun" together, they both change. At that point, war is no longer about a sense of adventure and chivalry and a way of testing your nation's level of manhood; it's become industrial, and horrible. So playing around with that border between optimistic steampunk and a much more pessimistic dieselpunk, which is more about Nazis, was kind of interesting to me because early in the war we were definitely kind of on the steampunk side of that.


title: Dieselpunk

text: Jennifer McStotts, another author, considers the two genres to be close cousins. She defines steampunk as concerned with the Victorian era, and the shift in technology and energy generation that came with industrialization, and dieselpunk as combining the aesthetic and genre influences of the period of both world wars.


title: Dieselpunk

text: Science fiction editor and critic Gary K. Wolfe defines steampunk as primarily set in the Victorian era and dieselpunk as set in the interwar period.