title: Vlachs

text: Historically, the term was used primarily for the Romanians. Testimonies from the 13th to 14th centuries show that, although in Europe (and beyond) they were called "Vlachs" or "Wallachians" ("oláh" in Hungarian, "Vláchoi" (Βλάχοι) in Greek, "Volóxi" (Воло́хи) in Russian, "Walachen" in German, "Valacchi" in Italian, "Valaques" in French, "Valacos" in Spanish), the Romanians used for themselves the endonym "Rumân/Român", from the Latin "Romanus" (in memory of Rome). Vlachs are referred in late Byzantine documents as Bulgaro-Albano-Vlachs ("Bulgaralbanitoblahos"), or Serbo-Albano-Bulgaro-VlachsVia both Germanic and Latin, the term started to signify "stranger, foreigner" also in the Balkans, where it in its early form was used for Romance-speakers, but the term eventually took on the meaning of "shepherd, nomad". The Romance-speaking communities themselves, however, used the endonym "Romans". Term Vlach can denote various ethnic elements: ""Slovak, Hungarian, Balkan, Transylvanian, Romanian, or even Albanian"." According to historian Sima Ćirković, the name "Vlach" in medieval sources has the same rank as the name "Greek", "Serb" or "Latin".During the early history of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, there was a military class of Vlachs in Serbia and Ottoman Macedonia, made up of Christians who served as auxiliary forces and had the same rights as Muslims, but their origin is not entirely clear. Some Greeks used "vlachos" as a pejorative term. In Žumberak members of the Greek Catholic Church were called Vlachs, in Carniola residents of Žumberak in general were Vlachs. In Posavina and Bihać area Muslims called Vlachs as Christians (both Orthodox and Catholics) while Catholics under that name consider Orthodox Christians. For residents of the Dalmatian islands population of immigrants (either Croats or Serbs) were called as Vlachs. The name Vlach in Dalmatia also has negative connotations as "newcomer", "peasant", "ignorant" while in Istria the ethnonym Vlach is used to make a distinction between the native Croats and newly settled Istro-Romanian old catholic Vlachs and Slavic population which was coming in the 15th and 16th century.


title: Vlachs

text: Romanian scholars have suggested that the term "Vlach" appeared for the first time in the Eastern Roman Empire and was subsequently spread to the Germanic- and then Slavic-speaking worlds through the Norsemen (possibly by Varangians), who were in trade and military contact with Byzantium during the early Middle Ages (see also Blakumen).


title: Vlachs

text: Nowadays, the term "Vlachs" (also known under other names, such as "Koutsovlachs", "Tsintsars", "Karagouni", "Chobani", "Vlasi", etc.) is used in scholarship for the Romance-speaking communities in the Balkans, especially those in Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. In Serbia the term "Vlach" (Serbian "Vlah", plural "Vlasi") is also used to refer to Romanian speakers, especially those living in eastern Serbia. Aromanians themselves use the endonym "Armãn" (plural "Armãni") or "Rãmãn" (plural "Rãmãni"), etymologically from "Romanus", meaning "Roman". Megleno-Romanians designate themselves with the Macedonian form "Vla" (plural "Vlaš") in their own language.


title: Vlachs

text: The "Hellenic chronicle" could possibly qualify to the first testimony of Vlachs in Pannonia and Eastern Europe during the time of Attila.


title: Vlachs

text: What might be the earliest reference to the term “Vlach” comes from the 7th century Byzantine historiographer Theophylact Simocatta, who mentions Blachernae in connection with some historical data of the 6th century, during the reign of Byzantine emperor Maurice.


title: Vlachs

text: First precise data about Vlachs are in connection with the Vlachs of the Rynchos river; the original document containing the information is from the Konstamonitou monastery.


title: Vlachs

text: During the late 9th century the Hungarians invaded the Carpathian Basin, where the province of Pannonia was inhabited by the "Slavs [Sclavi], Bulgarians [Bulgarii] and Vlachs [Blachii], and the shepherds of the Romans [pastores Romanorum]" ("sclauij, Bulgarij et Blachij, ac pastores romanorum" —according to the "Gesta Hungarorum", written around 1200 by the anonymous chancellor of King Béla III of Hungary.


title: Vlachs

text: Chroniclers John Skylitzes and George Kedrenos wrote that in 971, during battles between Romans (Byzantines) and Rus' people led by Sveinald (Sviatoslav I), the dwellers of the north side of Danube came to Emperor John I Tzimiskes and they handed over their fortresses and the Emperor sent troops to guard the fortresses. During those times, Northern part of Danube were dwelled by sedentary Vlachs and tribes of nomad Pechenegs who lived in tents.


title: Vlachs

text: George Kedrenos mentioned about Vlachs in 976. The Vlachs were guides and guards of Roman (Byzantine) caravans in Balkans. Between Prespa and Kastoria they met and fought with a Bulgarian rebel named David. The Vlachs killed David in their first documented battle.


title: Vlachs

text: Mutahhar al-Maqdisi, "They say that in the Turkic neighbourhood there are the Khazars, Russians, Slavs, "Waladj", Alans, Greeks and many other peoples".


title: Vlachs

text: Ibn al-Nadīm published in 938 the work "Kitāb al-Fihrist" mentioning "Turks, Bulgars and Vlahs" (using "Blagha" for Vlachs)


title: Vlachs

text: Byzantine writer Kekaumenos, author of the "Strategikon" (1078), described a 1066 revolt against the emperor in Northern Greece led by Nicolitzas Delphinas and other Vlachs.


title: Vlachs

text: The names "Blakumen" or "Blökumenn" is mentioned in Nordic sagas dating between the 11th–13th centuries, with respect to events that took place in either 1018 or 1019 somewhere at the northwestern part of the Black Sea and believed by some to be related to the "Vlachs".


title: Vlachs

text: In the Bulgarian state of the 11th and 12th century, Vlachs live in large numbers, and they were equals to the Bulgarian population.


title: Vlachs

text: The Russian Primary Chronicle, written ca. 1113, wrote when the Volochi (Vlachs) attacked the Slavs of the Danube and settled among them and oppressed them, the Slavs departed and settled on the Vistula, under the name of Leshi. The Hungarians drove away the Vlachs and took the land and settled there.


title: Vlachs

text: Traveler Benjamin of Tudela (1130–1173) of the Kingdom of Navarre was one of the first writers to use the word "Vlachs" for a Romance-speaking population.


title: Vlachs

text: Byzantine historian John Kinnamos described Leon Vatatzes' military expedition along the northern Danube, where Vatatzes mentioned the participation of Vlachs in battles with the Magyars (Hungarians) in 1166.


title: Vlachs

text: The uprising of brothers Asen and Peter was a revolt of Bulgarians and Vlachs living in the theme of Paristrion of the Byzantine Empire, caused by a tax increase. It began on 26 October 1185, the feast day of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki, and ended with the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire, also known in its early history as the Empire of Bulgarians and Vlachs.


title: Vlachs

text: In 1213 an army of Romans (Vlachs), Transylvanian Saxons, and Pechenegs, led by Ioachim of Sibiu, attacked the Bulgars and Cumans from Vidin. After this, all Hungarian battles in the Carpathian region were supported by Romance-speaking soldiers from Transylvania.


title: Vlachs

text: At the end of the 13th century, during the reign of Ladislaus the Cuman, Simon of Kéza wrote about the "Blacki people" and placed them in Pannonia with the Huns. Archaeological discoveries indicate that Transylvania was gradually settled by the Magyars, and the last region defended by the Vlachs and Pechenegs (until 1200) was between the Olt River and the Carpathians.


title: Vlachs

text: Shortly after the fall of the Olt region, a church was built at the Cârța Monastery and Catholic German-speaking settlers from Rhineland and Mosel Valley (known as Transylvanian Saxons) began to settle in the Orthodox region. In the "Diploma Andreanum" issued by King Andrew II of Hungary in 1224, ""silva blacorum et bissenorum"" was given to the settlers. The Orthodox Vlachs spread further northward along the Carpathians to Poland, Slovakia, and Moravia and were granted autonomy under "Ius Vlachonicum" (Walachian law).


title: Vlachs

text: In 1285 Ladislaus the Cuman fought the Tatars and Cumans, arriving with his troops at the Moldova River. A town, Baia (near the said river), was documented in 1300 as settled by the Transylvanian Saxons (see also Foundation of Moldavia). In 1290 Ladislaus the Cuman was assassinated; the new Hungarian king allegedly drove voivode Radu Negru and his people across the Carpathians, where they formed Wallachia along with its first capital Câmpulung (see also Foundation of Wallachia).


title: Vlachs

text: The biggest caravan shipment between Podvisoki in Bosnia and Republic of Ragusa was recorded on 9 August 1428, where Vlachs transported 1500 modius of salt with 600 horses. In the 14th century royal charters include and some segregation policies declaring that ""a Serb shall not marry a Vlach."" Although this could be related to the term of the same origin, used for dependent shepherds of that time, like in the Dušan's Code, since the dependent population was encouraged to switch to agriculture, it being of more worth to the crown.


title: Vlachs

text: In addition to the ethnic groups of Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Istro-Romanians who emerged during the Migration Period, other Vlachs could be found as far north as Poland, as far west as Moravia and Dalmatia. In search of better pasture, they were called "Vlasi" or "Valaši" by the Slavs.


title: Vlachs

text: As national states appeared in the area of the former Ottoman Empire, new state borders were developed that divided the summer and winter habitats of many of the transhumance groups. During the Middle Ages, many Vlachs were shepherds who drove their flocks through the mountains of Central and Eastern Europe. Vlach shepherds may be found as far north as southern Poland (Podhale) and the eastern Czech Republic (Moravia) by following the Carpathians, the Dinaric Alps in the west, the Pindus Mountains in the south, and the Caucasus Mountains in the east.


title: Vlachs

text: Some researchers, like Bogumil Hrabak and Marian Wenzel, theorized that the origins of Stećci tombstones, which appeared in medieval Bosnia between 12th and 16th century, could be attributed to Vlach burial culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina of that times.


title: Vlachs

text: According to Ilona Czamańska ""for several recent centuries the investigation of the Vlachian ethnogenesis was so much dominated by political issues that any progress in this respect was incredibly difficult."" The transhumance of Vlachs, the heirs of Roman citizens, may be a key for solving the problem of ethnogenesis, but the problem is that many migrations were in multiple directions during the same time. These migrations were not just part of the Balkans and the Carpathians, they exist and in the Caucasus, the Adriatic islands and possibly over the entire region of the Mediterranean Sea. Because of this, our knowledge concerning primary migrations of the Vlachs and the ethnogenesis is more than modest.


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosophy of abstention from violence. It may be based on moral, religious or spiritual principles, or the reasons for it may be strategic or pragmatic. Failure to distinguish between the two types of nonviolent approaches can lead to distortion in the concept's meaning and effectiveness, which can subsequently result in confusion among the audience. Although both principled and pragmatic nonviolent approaches preach for nonviolence, they may have distinct motives, goals, philosophies, and techniques. However, rather than debating the best practice between the two approaches, both can indicate alternative paths for those who do not want to use violence. These forms of nonviolence approaches (pragmatic and principled) will be discussed in the later section of this article.


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolence has "active" or "activist" elements, in that believers generally accept the need for nonviolence as a means to achieve political and social change. Thus, for example, Tolstoyan and Gandhism nonviolence is both a philosophy and strategy for social change that rejects the use of violence, but at the same time it sees nonviolent action (also called civil resistance) as an alternative to passive acceptance of oppression or armed struggle against it. In general, advocates of an activist philosophy of nonviolence use diverse methods in their campaigns for social change, including critical forms of education and persuasion, mass noncooperation, civil disobedience, nonviolent direct action, constructive program, and social, political, cultural and economic forms of intervention.


title: Nonviolence

text: In modern times, nonviolent methods have been a powerful tool for social protest and revolutionary social and political change. There are many examples of their use. Fuller surveys may be found in the entries on civil resistance, nonviolent resistance and nonviolent revolution. Certain movements which were particularly influenced by a philosophy of nonviolence have included Mahatma Gandhi's leadership of a successful decades-long nonviolent struggle for Indian independence, Martin Luther King Jr.'s and James Bevel's adoption of Gandhi's nonviolent methods in their campaigns to win civil rights for African Americans, and César Chávez's campaigns of nonviolence in the 1960s to protest the treatment of Mexican farm workers in California. The 1989 "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government is considered one of the most important of the largely nonviolent Revolutions of 1989. Most recently the nonviolent campaigns of Leymah Gbowee and the women of Liberia were able to achieve peace after a 14-year civil war. This story is captured in a 2008 documentary film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell".


title: Nonviolence

text: The term "nonviolence" is often linked with peace or it is used as a synonym for it, and despite the fact that it is frequently equated with pacifism, this equation is rejected by nonviolent advocates and activists. Nonviolence specifically refers to the absence of violence and it is always the choice to do no harm or the choice to do the least amount of harm, and passivity is the choice to do nothing. Sometimes nonviolence is passive, and other times it isn't. For example, if a house is burning down with mice or insects in it, the most harmless appropriate action is to put the fire out, not to sit by and passively let the fire burn. At times there is confusion and contradiction about nonviolence, harmlessness and passivity. A confused person may advocate nonviolence in a specific context while advocating violence in other contexts. For example, someone who passionately opposes abortion or meat eating may concurrently advocate violence to kill an abortion care provider or attack a slaughterhouse, which makes that person a violent person.


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolence or "ahimsa" is one of the cardinal virtues and an important tenet of Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. It is a multidimensional concept, inspired by the premise that all living beings have the spark of the divine spiritual energy; therefore, to hurt another being is to hurt oneself. It has also been related to the notion that any violence has karmic consequences. While ancient scholars of Hinduism pioneered and over time perfected the principles of "ahimsa", the concept reached an extraordinary status in the ethical philosophy of Jainism.


title: Nonviolence

text: Advocates of nonviolent action believe cooperation and consent are the roots of civil or political power: all regimes, including bureaucratic institutions, financial institutions, and the armed segments of society (such as the military and police); depend on compliance from citizens. On a national level, the strategy of nonviolent action seeks to undermine the power of rulers by encouraging people to withdraw their consent and cooperation. The forms of nonviolence draw inspiration from both religious or ethical beliefs and political analysis. Religious or ethically based nonviolence is sometimes referred to as "principled," "philosophical," or "ethical" nonviolence, while nonviolence based on political analysis is often referred to as "tactical," "strategic," or "pragmatic" nonviolent action. Commonly, both of these dimensions may be present within the thinking of particular movements or individuals.


title: Nonviolence

text: The fundamental concept of "pragmatic" ("tactical" or "strategic") nonviolent action is to create a social dynamic or political movement that can project a national or international dialogue that affects social change without necessarily winning over those who wish to maintain the status quo. Gene Sharp promoted the pragmatic nonviolence approach. Sharp was an American political scientist known for his nonviolent struggle work. Those who follow Sharp's pragmatic nonviolence approach believe in practicality rather than the moral aspect of the struggle. They believe that violence is too costly to engage in. The goals are to change their opponent's behavior; end a specific injustice or violent situation; and seek a win for themselves, while opponents they perceive as enemies with conflicting interests should lose. Conflict is seen as inevitable, and the rejection of violence is an effective way to challenge power. Those who follow pragmatic nonviolence ideology are willing to engage in nonviolent coercion, and they try to avoid suffering.


title: Nonviolence

text: Nicolas Walter noted the idea that nonviolence might work "runs under the surface of Western political thought without ever quite disappearing". Walter noted Étienne de La Boétie's "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude" (sixteenth century) and P.B. Shelley's "The Masque of Anarchy" (1819) contain arguments for resisting tyranny without using violence. In 1838, William Lloyd Garrison helped


title: Nonviolence

text: found the New England Non-Resistance Society, a society devoted to achieving racial and gender equality through the rejection of all violent actions.


title: Nonviolence

text: In modern industrial democracies, nonviolent action has been used extensively by political sectors without mainstream political power such as labor, peace, environment and women's movements. Lesser known is the role that nonviolent action has played and continues to play in undermining the power of repressive political regimes in the developing world and the former eastern bloc. Susan Ives emphasizes this point by quoting Walter Wink:


title: Nonviolence

text: As a technique for social struggle, nonviolent action has been described as "the politics of ordinary people", reflecting its historically mass-based use by populations throughout the world and history.


title: Nonviolence

text: Movements most often associated with nonviolence are the non-cooperation campaign for Indian independence led by Mahatma Gandhi, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.


title: Nonviolence

text: Also of primary significance is the notion that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends. When Gandhi said that "the means may be likened to the seed, the end to a tree," he expressed the philosophical kernel of what some refer to as "prefigurative politics". Martin Luther King Jr., a student of Gandhian nonviolent resistance, concurred with this tenet, concluding that "nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek." Proponents of nonviolence reason that the actions taken in the present inevitably re-shape the social order in like form. They would argue, for instance, that it is fundamentally irrational to use violence to achieve a peaceful society.


title: Nonviolence

text: Respect or love for opponents also has a pragmatic justification, in that the technique of separating the deeds from the doers allows for the possibility of the doers changing their behaviour, and perhaps their beliefs. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "Nonviolent resistance... avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he also refuses to hate him."


title: Nonviolence

text: Finally, the notion of "Satya", or Truth, is central to the Gandhian conception of nonviolence. Gandhi saw Truth as something that is multifaceted and unable to be grasped in its entirety by any one individual. All carry pieces of the Truth, he believed, but all need the pieces of others' truths in order to pursue the greater Truth. This led him to believe in the inherent worth of dialogue with opponents, in order to understand motivations. On a practical level, the willingness to listen to another's point of view is largely dependent on reciprocity. In order to be heard by one's opponents, one must also be prepared to listen.


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolence has obtained a level of institutional recognition and endorsement at the global level. On November 10, 1998, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century and the third millennium, the years 2001 to 2010, as the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.


title: Nonviolence

text: Mahatma Gandhi promotes principled nonviolence. The nonviolence approach involves accepting that violence is wrong and nonviolence is the best ethical response to any conflict. The followers of this nonviolent approach believe in human harmony and a moral rejection of violence and coercion. They accept the total commitment to nonviolence and encourage those who want to use nonviolent actions to reject all forms of violence and coercion. Principled nonviolence has a religious or ideological basis. This type of nonviolence aims to change the opponent's heart and mind by showing love to them rather than hatred, partnering with the opponents to bring about social change by ending all violence and social injustices, and seeking a solution whereby all parties win. The techniques they use include persuasion while trying to avoid coercion, and they accept that suffering is part of the means to transform themselves and others.


title: Nonviolence

text: For many, practicing nonviolence goes deeper than abstaining from violent behavior or words. It means overriding the impulse to be hateful and holding love for everyone, even those with whom one strongly disagrees. In this view, because violence is learned, it is necessary to unlearn violence by practicing love and compassion at every possible opportunity. For some, the commitment to non-violence entails a belief in restorative or transformative justice, an abolition of the death penalty and other harsh punishments. This may involve the necessity of caring for those who are violent.


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolence, for many, involves a respect and reverence for all sentient, and perhaps even non-sentient, beings. This might include abolitionism against animals as property, the practice of not eating animal products or by-products (vegetarianism or veganism), spiritual practices of non-harm to all beings, and caring for the rights of all beings. Mahatma Gandhi, James Bevel, and other nonviolent proponents advocated vegetarianism as part of their nonviolent philosophy. Buddhists extend this respect for life to animals and plants, while Jainism extend this respect for life to animals, plants and even small organisms such as insects. The classical Indian text of the Tirukkuṛaḷ, which is believed to be of Hindu or Jain origin, decrees ahimsa and moral vegetarianism as the most fundamental of all personal virtues. These ideas can also be found in Western mystical and Neoplatonic traditions.


title: Nonviolence

text: The Semai ethnic group living in the center of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia are known for their nonviolence. The Semai punan ethical or religious principle strongly pressures members of the culture towards nonviolent, non-coercive, and non-competitive behaviour. It has been suggested that the Semai's non-violence is a response to historic threats from slaving states; as the Semai were constantly defeated by slavers and Malaysian immigrants, they preferred to flee rather than fight and thus evolved into a general norm of non-violence. This does not mean the Semai are incapable of violence however; during the Malayan Emergency, the British enlisted some Semai to fight against MNLA insurgents and according to Robert Knox Dentan the Semai believe that as Malaysia industrialises, it will be harder for the Semai to use their strategy of fleeing and they will have to fight instead.


title: Nonviolence

text: Professor of Religious Studies Ira Chernus writes that "Christian nonviolence began with the beginnings of Christianity" as the Book of Matthew in the Bible records Jesus teaching: "Do not resist an evildoer. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer him your left.…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.…You shall be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." As such, in the early Church, many Christians chose not serve in the Roman army. Saint Maximilian of Tebessa was executed by the order of the proconsul Dion for his refusal to serve in the Roman army as he thought killing was evil; he became recognized as a Christian martyr.


title: Nonviolence

text: Anabaptist Christianity (inclusive of the Mennonite, Amish, Hutterite, Bruderhof, Schwarzenau Brethren, River Brethren and Apostolic Christian denominations) practices nonviolence as an imitation of Christ and to "manifest their total rejection of the world and its status quo."


title: Nonviolence

text: Ahimsa as an ethical concept evolved in Vedic texts. The oldest scripts, along with discussing ritual animal sacrifices, indirectly mention Ahimsa, but do not emphasise it. Over time, the Hindu scripts revise ritual practices and the concept of Ahimsa is increasingly refined and emphasised, ultimately Ahimsa becomes the highest virtue by the late Vedic era (about 500 BC). For example, hymn 10.22.25 in the Rig Veda uses the words Satya (truthfulness) and Ahimsa in a prayer to deity Indra; later, the Yajur Veda dated to be between 1000 BC and 600 BC, states, "may all beings look at me with a friendly eye, may I do likewise, and may we look at each other with the eyes of a friend".


title: Nonviolence

text: The term "Ahimsa" appears in the text Taittiriya Shakha of the Yajurveda (TS 5.2.8.7), where it refers to non-injury to the sacrificer himself. It occurs several times in the "Shatapatha Brahmana" in the sense of "non-injury". The Ahimsa doctrine is a late Vedic era development in Brahmanical culture. The earliest reference to the idea of non-violence to animals ("pashu-Ahimsa"), apparently in a moral sense, is in the Kapisthala Katha Samhita of the Yajurveda (KapS 31.11), which may have been written in about the 8th century BCE.


title: Nonviolence

text: Bowker states the word appears but is uncommon in the principal Upanishads. Kaneda gives examples of the word "Ahimsa" in these Upanishads. Other scholars suggest "Ahimsa" as an ethical concept that started evolving in the Vedas, becoming an increasingly central concept in Upanishads.


title: Nonviolence

text: The Chāndogya Upaniṣad, dated to the 8th or 7th century BCE, one of the oldest Upanishads, has the earliest evidence for the Vedic era use of the word "Ahimsa" in the sense familiar in Hinduism (a code of conduct). It bars violence against "all creatures" ("sarvabhuta") and the practitioner of Ahimsa is said to escape from the cycle of rebirths (CU 8.15.1). Some scholars state that this 8th or 7th-century BCE mention may have been an influence of Jainism on Vedic Hinduism. Others scholar state that this relationship is speculative, and though Jainism is an ancient tradition the oldest traceable texts of Jainism tradition are from many centuries after the Vedic era ended.


title: Nonviolence

text: Chāndogya Upaniṣad also names Ahimsa, along with Satyavacanam (truthfulness), Arjavam (sincerity), Danam (charity), Tapo (penance/meditation), as one of five essential virtues (CU 3.17.4).


title: Nonviolence

text: The Sandilya Upanishad lists ten forbearances: Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Brahmacharya, Daya, Arjava, Kshama, Dhriti, Mitahara and Saucha. According to Kaneda, the term Ahimsa is an important spiritual doctrine shared by Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It literally means 'non-injury' and 'non-killing'. It implies the total avoidance of harming of any kind of living creatures not only by deeds, but also by words and in thoughts.


title: Nonviolence

text: The "Mahabharata", one of the epics of Hinduism, has multiple mentions of the phrase "Ahimsa Paramo Dharma" (अहिंसा परमॊ धर्मः), which literally means: non-violence is the highest moral virtue. For example, Mahaprasthanika Parva has the verse:


title: Nonviolence

text: The above passage from "Mahabharata" emphasises the cardinal importance of Ahimsa in Hinduism, and literally means: Ahimsa is the highest virtue, Ahimsa is the highest self-control, Ahimsa is the greatest gift, Ahimsa is the best suffering, Ahimsa is the highest sacrifice, Ahimsa is the finest strength, Ahimsa is the greatest friend, Ahimsa is the greatest happiness, Ahimsa is the highest truth, and Ahimsa is the greatest teaching. Some other examples where the phrase "Ahimsa Paramo Dharma" are discussed include Adi Parva, Vana Parva and Anushasana Parva. The Bhagavad Gita, among other things, discusses the doubts and questions about appropriate response when one faces systematic violence or war. These verses develop the concepts of lawful violence in self-defence and the theories of just war. However, there is no consensus on this interpretation. Gandhi, for example, considers this debate about nonviolence and lawful violence as a mere metaphor for the internal war within each human being, when he or she faces moral questions.


title: Nonviolence

text: The classical texts of Hinduism devote numerous chapters discussing what people who practice the virtue of Ahimsa, can and must do when they are faced with war, violent threat or need to sentence someone convicted of a crime. These discussions have led to theories of just war, theories of reasonable self-defence and theories of proportionate punishment. Arthashastra discusses, among other things, why and what constitutes proportionate response and punishment.


title: Nonviolence

text: The precepts of Ahimsa under Hinduism require that war must be avoided, with sincere and truthful dialogue. Force must be the last resort. If war becomes necessary, its cause must be just, its purpose virtuous, its objective to restrain the wicked, its aim peace, its method lawful. War can only be started and stopped by a legitimate authority. Weapons used must be proportionate to the opponent and the aim of war, not indiscriminate tools of destruction. All strategies and weapons used in the war must be to defeat the opponent, not designed to cause misery to the opponent; for example, use of arrows is allowed, but use of arrows smeared with painful poison is not allowed. Warriors must use judgment in the battlefield. Cruelty to the opponent during war is forbidden. Wounded, unarmed opponent warriors must not be attacked or killed, they must be brought to your realm and given medical treatment. Children, women and civilians must not be injured. While the war is in progress, sincere dialogue for peace must continue.


title: Nonviolence

text: In matters of self-defence, different interpretations of ancient Hindu texts have been offered. For example, Tähtinen suggests self-defence is appropriate, criminals are not protected by the rule of Ahimsa, and Hindu scriptures support the use of violence against an armed attacker. Ahimsa is not meant to imply pacifism.


title: Nonviolence

text: Alternate theories of self-defence, inspired by Ahimsa, build principles similar to theories of just war. Aikido, pioneered in Japan, illustrates one such principles of self-defence. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, described his inspiration as Ahimsa. According to this interpretation of Ahimsa in self-defence, one must not assume that the world is free of aggression. One must presume that some people will, out of ignorance, error or fear, attack other persons or intrude into their space, physically or verbally. The aim of self-defence, suggested Ueshiba, must be to neutralise the aggression of the attacker, and avoid the conflict. The best defence is one where the victim is protected, as well as the attacker is respected and not injured if possible. Under Ahimsa and Aikido, there are no enemies, and appropriate self-defence focuses on neutralising the immaturity, assumptions and aggressive strivings of the attacker.


title: Nonviolence

text: Tähtinen concludes that Hindus have no misgivings about death penalty; their position is that evil-doers who deserve death should be killed, and that a king in particular is obliged to punish criminals and should not hesitate to kill them, even if they happen to be his own brothers and sons.


title: Nonviolence

text: Other scholars conclude that the scriptures of Hinduism suggest sentences for any crime must be fair, proportional and not cruel.


title: Nonviolence

text: The Hindu precept of 'cause no injury' applies to animals and all life forms. This precept isn't found in the oldest verses of Vedas, but increasingly becomes one of the central ideas between 500 BC and 400 AD. In the oldest texts, numerous ritual sacrifices of animals, including cows and horses, are highlighted and hardly any mention is made of Ahimsa to non-human life.


title: Nonviolence

text: Hindu scriptures, dated to between 5th century and 1st century BC, while discussing human diet, initially suggest "kosher" meat may be eaten, evolving it with the suggestion that only meat obtained through ritual sacrifice can be eaten, then that one should eat no meat because it hurts animals, with verses describing the noble life as one that lives on flowers, roots and fruits alone.


title: Nonviolence

text: Later texts of Hinduism declare Ahimsa one of the primary virtues, declare any killing or harming any life as against "dharma" (moral life). Finally, the discussion in Upanishads and Hindu Epics shifts to whether a human being can ever live his or her life without harming animal and plant life in some way; which and when plants or animal meat may be eaten, whether violence against animals causes human beings to become less compassionate, and if and how one may exert least harm to non-human life consistent with ahimsa precept, given the constraints of life and human needs. The Mahabharata permits hunting by warriors, but opposes it in the case of hermits who must be strictly non-violent. Sushruta Samhita, a Hindu text written in the 3rd or 4th century, in Chapter XLVI suggests proper diet as a means of treating certain illnesses, and recommends various fishes and meats for different ailments and for pregnant women, and the Charaka Samhita describes meat as superior to all other kinds of food for convalescents.


title: Nonviolence

text: Across the texts of Hinduism, there is a profusion of ideas about the virtue of Ahimsa when applied to non-human life, but without a universal consensus. Alsdorf claims the debate and disagreements between supporters of vegetarian lifestyle and meat eaters was significant. Even suggested exceptions – ritual slaughter and hunting – were challenged by advocates of Ahimsa. In the Mahabharata both sides present various arguments to substantiate their viewpoints. Moreover, a hunter defends his profession in a long discourse.


title: Nonviolence

text: Many of the arguments proposed in favor of non-violence to animals refer to the bliss one feels, the rewards it entails before or after death, the danger and harm it prevents, as well as to the karmic consequences of violence.


title: Nonviolence

text: The ancient Hindu texts discuss Ahimsa and non-animal life. They discourage wanton destruction of nature including of wild and cultivated plants. Hermits (sannyasins) were urged to live on a fruitarian diet so as to avoid the destruction of plants. Scholars claim the principles of ecological non-violence is innate in the Hindu tradition, and its conceptual fountain has been Ahimsa as their cardinal virtue.


title: Nonviolence

text: The dharmic philosophy of ancient India exists in all Indian languages and culture. For example, the "Tirukkuṛaḷ," written between 200 BCE and 500 CE, and sometimes called the Tamil Veda, is one of the most cherished classics written in a South Indian language. The "Tirukkuṛaḷ" dedicates Chapters 26, 32 and 33 of Book 1 to the virtue of ahimsa, namely, moral vegetarianism, non-harming, and non-killing, respectively. The "Tirukkuṛaḷ" says that ahimsa applies to all life forms.


title: Nonviolence

text: In Jainism, the understanding and implementation of "Ahimsā" is more radical, scrupulous, and comprehensive than in any other religion. Killing any living being out of passions is considered "hiṃsā" (to injure) and abstaining from such an act is "ahimsā" (noninjury). The vow of ahimsā is considered the foremost among the 'five vows of Jainism'. Other vows like truth (Satya) are meant for safeguarding the vow of ahimsā. In the practice of Ahimsa, the requirements are less strict for the lay persons (sravakas) who have undertaken "anuvrata" (Smaller Vows) than for the Jain monastics who are bound by the Mahavrata "Great Vows". The statement "" is often found inscribed on the walls of the Jain temples. Like in Hinduism, the aim is to prevent the accumulation of harmful karma. When lord Mahaviraswami revived and reorganized the Jain faith in the 6th or 5th century BCE, Rishabhanatha (Ādinātha), the first Jain Tirthankara, whom modern Western historians consider to be a historical figure, followed by Parshvanatha (Pārśvanātha) the twenty-third Tirthankara lived in about the 8th century BCE. He founded the community to which Mahavira's parents belonged. Ahimsa was already part of the "Fourfold Restraint" ("Caujjama"), the vows taken by Parshva's followers. In the times of Mahavira and in the following centuries, Jains were at odds with both Buddhists and followers of the Vedic religion or Hindus, whom they accused of negligence and inconsistency in the implementation of Ahimsa. According to the Jain tradition either lacto vegetarianism or veganism is mandatory.


title: Nonviolence

text: The Jain concept of Ahimsa is characterised by several aspects. It does not make any exception for ritual sacrificers and professional warrior-hunters. Killing of animals for food is absolutely ruled out. Jains also make considerable efforts not to injure plants in everyday life as far as possible. Though they admit that plants must be destroyed for the sake of food, they accept such violence only inasmuch as it is indispensable for human survival, and there are special instructions for preventing unnecessary violence against plants. Jains go out of their way so as not to hurt even small insects and other minuscule animals. For example, Jains often do not go out at night, when they are more likely to step upon an insect. In their view, injury caused by carelessness is like injury caused by deliberate action. Eating honey is strictly outlawed, as it would amount to violence against the bees. Some Jains abstain from farming because it inevitably entails unintentional killing or injuring of many small animals, such as worms and insects, but agriculture is not forbidden in general and there are Jain farmers.


title: Nonviolence

text: Theoretically, all life forms are said to deserve full protection from all kinds of injury, but Jains recognise a hierarchy of life. Mobile beings are given higher protection than immobile ones. For the mobile beings, they distinguish between one-sensed, two-sensed, three-sensed, four-sensed and five-sensed ones; a one-sensed animal has touch as its only sensory modality. The more senses a being has, the more they care about non-injuring it. Among the five-sensed beings, the precept of non-injury and non-violence to the rational ones (humans) is strongest in Jain Ahimsa.


title: Nonviolence

text: Jains agree with Hindus that violence in self-defence can be justified, and they agree that a soldier who kills enemies in combat is performing a legitimate duty. Jain communities accepted the use of military power for their defence, there were Jain monarchs, military commanders, and soldiers.


title: Nonviolence

text: In Buddhist texts "Ahimsa" (or its Pāli cognate ) is part of the Five Precepts (), the first of which has been to abstain from killing. This precept of Ahimsa is applicable to both the Buddhist layperson and the monk community.


title: Nonviolence

text: The Ahimsa precept is not a commandment and transgressions did not invite religious sanctions for layperson, but their power has been in the Buddhist belief in karmic consequences and their impact in afterlife during rebirth. Killing, in Buddhist belief, could lead to rebirth in the hellish realm, and for a longer time in more severe conditions if the murder victim was a monk. Saving animals from slaughter for meat, is believed to be a way to acquire merit for better rebirth. These moral precepts have been voluntarily self-enforced in lay Buddhist culture through the associated belief in karma and rebirth. The Buddhist texts not only recommended Ahimsa, but suggest avoiding trading goods that contribute to or are a result of violence:


title: Nonviolence

text: Unlike lay Buddhists, transgressions by monks do invite sanctions. Full expulsion of a monk from "sangha" follows instances of killing, just like any other serious offense against the monastic "nikaya" code of conduct.


title: Nonviolence

text: Violent ways of punishing criminals and prisoners of war was not explicitly condemned in Buddhism, but peaceful ways of conflict resolution and punishment with the least amount of injury were encouraged. The early texts condemn the mental states that lead to violent behavior.


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolence is an overriding theme within the Pali Canon. While the early texts condemn killing in the strongest terms, and portray the ideal king as a pacifist, such a king is nonetheless flanked by an army. It seems that the Buddha's teaching on nonviolence was not interpreted or put into practice in an uncompromisingly pacifist or anti-military-service way by early Buddhists. The early texts assume war to be a fact of life, and well-skilled warriors are viewed as necessary for defensive warfare. In Pali texts, injunctions to abstain from violence and involvement with military affairs are directed at members of the sangha; later Mahayana texts, which often generalise monastic norms to laity, require this of lay people as well.


title: Nonviolence

text: The early texts do not contain just-war ideology as such. Some argue that a sutta in the "Gamani Samyuttam" rules out all military service. In this passage, a soldier asks the Buddha if it is true that, as he has been told, soldiers slain in battle are reborn in a heavenly realm. The Buddha reluctantly replies that if he is killed in battle while his mind is seized with the intention to kill, he will undergo an unpleasant rebirth. In the early texts, a person's mental state at the time of death is generally viewed as having a great impact on the next birth.


title: Nonviolence

text: Some Buddhists point to other early texts as justifying defensive war. One example is the "Kosala Samyutta", in which King Pasenadi, a righteous king favored by the Buddha, learns of an impending attack on his kingdom. He arms himself in defence, and leads his army into battle to protect his kingdom from attack. He lost this battle but won the war. King Pasenadi eventually defeated King Ajatashatru and captured him alive. He thought that, although this King of Magadha has transgressed against his kingdom, he had not transgressed against him personally, and Ajatashatru was still his nephew. He released Ajatashatru and did not harm him. Upon his return, the Buddha said (among other things) that Pasenadi "is a friend of virtue, acquainted with virtue, intimate with virtue", while the opposite is said of the aggressor, King Ajatashatru.


title: Nonviolence

text: According to Theravada commentaries, there are five requisite factors that must all be fulfilled for an act to be both an act of killing and to be karmically negative. These are: (1) the presence of a living being, human or animal; (2) the knowledge that the being is a living being; (3) the intent to kill; (4) the act of killing by some means; and (5) the resulting death. Some Buddhists have argued on this basis that the act of killing is complicated, and its ethicization is predicated upon intent. Some have argued that in defensive postures, for example, the primary intention of a soldier is not to kill, but to defend against aggression, and the act of killing in that situation would have minimal negative karmic repercussions.


title: Nonviolence

text: According to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, there is circumstantial evidence encouraging Ahimsa, from the Buddha's doctrine, ""Love all, so that you may not wish to kill any."" Gautama Buddha distinguished between a principle and a rule. He did not make Ahimsa a matter of rule, but suggested it as a matter of principle. This gives Buddhists freedom to act.


title: Nonviolence

text: The emperors of Sui dynasty, Tang dynasty and early Song dynasty banned killing in Lunar calendar 1st, 5th, and 9th month. Empress Wu Tse-Tien banned killing for more than half a year in 692. Some also banned fishing for some time each year.


title: Nonviolence

text: There were bans after death of emperors, Buddhist and Taoist prayers, and natural disasters such as after a drought in 1926 summer Shanghai and an 8 days ban from August 12, 1959, after the August 7 flood (), the last big flood before the 88 Taiwan Flood.


title: Nonviolence

text: People avoid killing during some festivals, like the Taoist Ghost Festival, the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, the Vegetarian Festival and many others.


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolent action generally comprises three categories: "Acts of Protest and Persuasion", "Noncooperation", and "Nonviolent Intervention".


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolent acts of protest and persuasion are symbolic actions performed by a group of people to show their support or disapproval of something. The goal of this kind of action is to bring public awareness to an issue, persuade or influence a particular group of people, or to facilitate future nonviolent action. The message can be directed toward the public, opponents, or people affected by the issue. Methods of protest and persuasion include speeches, public communications, petitions, symbolic acts, art, processions (marches), and other public assemblies.


title: Nonviolence

text: Noncooperation involves the purposeful withholding of cooperation or the unwillingness to initiate in cooperation with an opponent. The goal of noncooperation is to halt or hinder an industry, political system, or economic process. Methods of noncooperation include labour strikes, economic boycotts, civil disobedience, sex strike, tax refusal, and general disobedience.


title: Nonviolence

text: Compared with protest and noncooperation, nonviolent intervention is a more direct method of nonviolent action. Nonviolent intervention can be used defensively—for example to maintain an institution or independent initiative—or offensively- for example, to drastically forward a nonviolent struggle into the opponent's territory. Intervention is often more immediate and effective than the other two methods, but is also harder to maintain and more taxing to the participants involved.


title: Nonviolence

text: Gene Sharp, a political scientist who sought to advance the worldwide study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflict, wrote extensively about the methods of nonviolent action. In his 1973 book "Waging Nonviolent Struggle" he described 198 methods of nonviolent action, and in it places several examples of constructive program in this category. In early Greece, Aristophanes' Lysistrata gives the fictional example of women withholding sexual favors from their husbands until war was abandoned (a sex strike). A modern work of fiction inspired by Gene Sharp and by Aristophanes is the 1986 novel "A Door into Ocean" by Joan Slonczewski, depicting an ocean world inhabited by women who use nonviolent means to repel armed space invaders. Other methods of nonviolent intervention include occupations (sit-ins), fasting (hunger strikes), truck cavalcades, and dual sovereignty/parallel government.


title: Nonviolence

text: Tactics must be carefully chosen, taking into account political and cultural circumstances, and form part of a larger plan or strategy.


title: Nonviolence

text: Successful nonviolent cross-border intervention projects include the Guatemala Accompaniment Project, Peace Brigades International and Christian Peacemaker Teams. Developed in the early 1980s, and originally inspired by the Gandhian Shanti Sena, the primary tools of these organisations have been nonviolent protective accompaniment, backed up by a global support network which can respond to threats, local and regional grassroots diplomatic and peacebuilding efforts, human rights observation and witnessing, and reporting. In extreme cases, most of these groups are also prepared to do interpositioning: placing themselves between parties who are engaged or threatening to engage in outright attacks in one or both directions. Individual and large group cases of interpositioning, when called for, have been remarkably effective in dampening conflict and saving lives.


title: Nonviolence

text: Another powerful tactic of nonviolent intervention invokes public scrutiny of the perceived oppressors as a result of the resisters remaining nonviolent in the face of violent repression. If the military or police attempt to repress nonviolent resisters violently, the power to act shifts from the hands of the oppressors to those of the resisters. If the resisters are persistent, the military or police will be forced to accept the fact that they no longer have any power over the resisters. Often, the willingness of the resisters to suffer has a profound effect on the mind and emotions of the oppressor, leaving them unable to commit such a violent act again.


title: Nonviolence

text: Certain individuals (Barbara Deming, Danilo Dolci, Devere Allen etc.) and party groups (e.g. Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, Pacifist Socialist Party or War Resisters League) have advocated nonviolent revolution as an alternative to violence as well as elitist reformism. This perspective is usually connected to militant anti-capitalism.


title: Nonviolence

text: Many leftist and socialist movements have hoped to mount a "peaceful revolution" by organising enough strikers to completely paralyse the state and corporate apparatus, allowing workers to re-organise society along radically different lines. Some have argued that a relatively nonviolent revolution would require fraternisation with military forces.


title: Nonviolence

text: Ernesto Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, Frantz Fanon and Subhas Chandra Bose were fervent critics of nonviolence, arguing variously that nonviolence and pacifism are an attempt to impose the morals of the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat, that violence is a necessary accompaniment to revolutionary change or that the right to self-defense is fundamental.


title: Nonviolence

text: In the essay "Reflections on Gandhi", George Orwell argued that the nonviolent resistance strategy of Gandhi could be effective in countries with "a free press and the right of assembly", which could make it possible "not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary"; but he was skeptical of Gandhi's approach being effective in the opposite sort of circumstances.


title: Nonviolence

text: Reinhold Niebuhr similarly affirmed Gandhi's approach while criticising aspects of it. He argued, "The advantage of non-violence as a method of expressing moral goodwill lies in the fact that it protects the agent against the resentments which violent conflict always creates in both parties to a conflict, and it proves this freedom of resentment and ill-will to the contending party in the dispute by enduring more suffering than it causes." However, Niebuhr also held, "The differences between violent and non-violent methods of coercion and resistance are not so absolute that it would be possible to regard violence as a morally impossible instrument of social change."


title: Nonviolence

text: In the midst of repression of radical African American groups in the United States during the 1960s, Black Panther member George Jackson said of the nonviolent tactics of Martin Luther King Jr.:


title: Nonviolence

text: "The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative."


title: Nonviolence

text: Malcolm X also clashed with civil rights leaders over the issue of nonviolence, arguing that violence should not be ruled out if no option remained. He noted that: "I believe it's a crime for anyone being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself."


title: Nonviolence

text: In his book "How Nonviolence Protects the State", anarchist Peter Gelderloos criticises nonviolence as being ineffective, racist, statist, patriarchal, tactically and strategically inferior to militant activism, and deluded. Gelderloos claims that traditional histories whitewash the impact of nonviolence, ignoring the involvement of militants in such movements as the Indian independence movement and the Civil Rights Movement and falsely showing Gandhi and King as being their respective movement's most successful activists. He further argues that nonviolence is generally advocated by privileged white people who expect "oppressed people, many of whom are people of color, to suffer patiently under an inconceivably greater violence, until such time as the Great White Father is swayed by the movement's demands or the pacifists achieve that legendary 'critical mass.'" On the other hand, anarchism also includes a section committed to nonviolence called anarcho-pacifism. The main early influences were the thought of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy while later the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi gained importance. It developed "mostly in Holland, Britain, and the United States, before and during the Second World War".


title: Nonviolence

text: The efficacy of nonviolence was also challenged by some anti-capitalist protesters advocating a "diversity of tactics" during street demonstrations across Europe and the US following the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, Washington in 1999. American feminist writer D. A. Clarke, in her essay "A Woman With A Sword," suggests that for nonviolence to be effective, it must be "practiced by those who could easily resort to force if they chose."


title: Nonviolence

text: Nonviolence advocates see some truth in this argument: Gandhi himself said often that he could teach nonviolence to a violent person but not to a coward and that true nonviolence came from renouncing violence, not by not having any to renounce. This is the meaning of his quote "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."


title: Nonviolence

text: Advocates responding to criticisms of the efficacy of nonviolence point to the limited success of non-violent struggles even against the Nazi regimes in Denmark and even in Berlin. A study by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan found that nonviolent revolutions are twice as effective as violent ones and lead to much greater degrees of democratic freedom.


title: Nonviolence

text: A 2016 study finds that "increasing levels of globalization are positively associated with the emergence of nonviolent campaigns, while negatively influencing the probability of violent campaigns. Integration into the world increases the popularity of peaceful alternatives to achieve political goals." A 2020 study found that nonviolent campaigns were more likely to succeed when there was not an ethnic division between actors in the campaign and in the government. According to a 2020 study in the "American Political Science Review", nonviolent civil rights protests boosted vote shares for the Democratic party in presidential elections in nearby counties, but violent protests substantially boosted white support for Republicans in counties near to the violent protests.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: Deep learning super sampling (DLSS) is a family of real-time deep learning image enhancement and upscaling technologies developed by Nvidia that are exclusive to its RTX line of graphics cards, and available in a number of video games. The goal of these technologies is to allow the majority of the graphics pipeline to run at a lower resolution for increased performance, and then infer a higher resolution image from this that contains the same level of detail as if the image had been rendered at this higher resolution. This allows for higher graphical settings and/or frame rates for a given output resolution, depending on user preference.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: As of September 2022, the 1st and 2nd generation of DLSS is available on all RTX branded cards from Nvidia in supported titles, while the 3rd generation unveiled at Nvidia's GTC 2022 event is exclusive to Ada Lovelace generation RTX 4000 series graphics cards. Nvidia has also introduced Deep learning dynamic super resolution (DLDSR), a related and opposite technology where the graphics are rendered at a higher resolution, then downsampled to the native display resolution using an AI-assisted downsampling algorithm to achieve higher image quality than rendering at native resolution.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: Nvidia advertised DLSS as a key feature of the GeForce RTX 20 series cards when they launched in September 2018. At that time, the results were limited to a few video games (namely Battlefield V and Metro Exodus) because the algorithm had to be trained specifically on each game on which it was applied and the results were usually not as good as simple resolution upscaling.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: In 2019, the video game "Control" shipped with ray tracing and an improved version of DLSS, which did not use the Tensor Cores.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: In April 2020, Nvidia advertised and shipped an improved version of DLSS named DLSS 2.0 with driver version 445.75. DLSS 2.0 was available for a few existing games including "Control" and "", and would later be added to many newly released games and game engines such as Unreal Engine and Unity. This time Nvidia said that it used the Tensor Cores again, and that the AI did not need to be trained specifically on each game. Despite sharing the DLSS branding, the two iterations of DLSS differ significantly and are not backwards-compatible.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: The first iteration of DLSS is a predominantly spatial image upscaler with two stages, both relying on convolutional auto-encoder neural networks. The first step is an image enhancement network which uses the current frame and motion vectors to perform edge enhancement, and spatial anti-aliasing. The second stage is an image upscaling step which uses the single raw, low-resolution frame to upscale the image to the desired output resolution. Using just a single frame for upscaling means the neural network itself must generate a large amount of new information to produce the high resolution output, this can result in slight hallucinations such as leaves that differ in style to the source content.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: The neural networks are trained on a per-game basis by generating a "perfect frame" using traditional supersampling to 64 samples per pixel, as well as the motion vectors for each frame. The data collected must be as comprehensive as possible, including as many levels, times of day, graphical settings, resolutions etc. as possible. This data is also augmented using common augmentations such as rotations, colour changes, and random noise to help generalize the test data. Training is performed on Nvidia's Saturn V supercomputer.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: This first iteration received a mixed response, with many criticizing the often soft appearance and artifacting in certain situations; likely a side effect of the limited data from only using a single frame input to the neural networks which could not be trained to perform optimally in all scenarios and edge-cases.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: Nvidia also demonstrated the ability for the auto-encoder networks to learn the ability to recreate depth-of-field and motion blur, although this functionality has never been included in a publicly released product.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: DLSS 2.0 is a temporal anti-aliasing upsampling (TAAU) implementation, using data from previous frames extensively through sub-pixel jittering to resolve fine detail and reduce aliasing. The data DLSS 2.0 collects includes: the raw low-resolution input, motion vectors, depth buffers, and exposure / brightness information. It can also be used as a simpler TAA implementation where the image is rendered at 100% resolution, rather than being upsampled by DLSS, Nvidia brands this as DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing).


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: TAA(U) is used in many modern video games and game engines, however all previous implementations have used some form of manually written heuristics to prevent temporal artifacts such as ghosting and flickering. One example of this is neighborhood clamping which forcefully prevents samples collected in previous frames from deviating too much compared to nearby pixels in newer frames. This helps to identify and fix many temporal artifacts, but deliberately removing fine details in this way is analogous to applying a blur filter, and thus the final image can appear blurry when using this method.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: DLSS 2.0 uses a convolutional auto-encoder neural network trained to identify and fix temporal artifacts, instead of manually programmed heuristics as mentioned above. Because of this, DLSS 2.0 can generally resolve detail better than other TAA and TAAU implementations, while also removing most temporal artifacts. This is why DLSS 2.0 can sometimes produce a sharper image than rendering at higher, or even native resolutions using traditional TAA. However, no temporal solution is perfect, and artifacts (ghosting in particular) are still visible in some scenarios when using DLSS 2.0.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: Because temporal artifacts occur in most art styles and environments in broadly the same way, the neural network that powers DLSS 2.0 does not need to be retrained when being used in different games. Despite this, Nvidia does frequently ship new minor revisions of DLSS 2.0 with new titles, so this could suggest some minor training optimizations may be performed as games are released, although Nvidia does not provide changelogs for these minor revisions to confirm this.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: The main advancements compared to DLSS 1.0 include: Significantly improved detail retention, a generalized neural network that does not need to be re-trained per-game, and ~2x less overhead (~1-2 ms vs ~2-4 ms).


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: It should also be noted that forms of TAAU such as DLSS 2.0 are not upscalers in the same sense as techniques such as ESRGAN or DLSS 1.0, which attempt to create new information from a low-resolution source; instead TAAU works to recover data from previous frames, rather than creating new data. In practice, this means low resolution textures in games will still appear low-resolution when using current TAAU techniques. This is why Nvidia recommends game developers use higher resolution textures than they would normally for a given rendering resolution by applying a mip-map bias when DLSS 2.0 is enabled.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: Augments DLSS 2.0 by making use of an optical-flow frame generation technique. The DLSS frame generation algorithm takes two rendered frames from the rendering pipeline, and generates a new frame that smoothly transitions between them. So for every frame rendered, one additional frame is generated.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: DLSS 3.0 makes use of a new generation Optical Flow Accelerator (OFA) included in Ada Lovelace generation RTX GPUs. The new OFA is faster and more accurate than the OFA already available in previous Turing and Ampere RTX GPUs. This results in DLSS 3.0 being exclusive for the RTX 4000 Series.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: It operates on similar principles to TAA. Like TAA, it uses information from past frames to produce the current frame. Unlike TAA, DLSS does not sample every pixel in every frame. Instead, it samples different pixels in different frames and uses pixels sampled in past frames to fill in the unsampled pixels in the current frame. DLSS uses machine learning to combine samples in the current frame and past frames, and it can be thought of as an advanced and superior TAA implementation made possible by the available tensor cores.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: Nvidia offers deep learning anti-aliasing (DLAA). DLAA provides the same AI-driven anti-aliasing DLSS uses, but without any upscaling or downscaling functionality.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: With the exception of the shader-core version implemented in "Control", DLSS is only available on GeForce RTX 20, GeForce RTX 30, GeForce RTX 40, and Quadro RTX series of video cards, using dedicated AI accelerators called Tensor Cores. Tensor Cores are available since the Nvidia Volta GPU microarchitecture, which was first used on the Tesla V100 line of products. They are used for doing fused multiply-add (FMA) operations that are used extensively in neural network calculations for applying a large series of multiplications on weights, followed by the addition of a bias. Tensor cores can operate on FP16, INT8, INT4, and INT1 data types. Each core can do 1024 bits of FMA operations per clock, so 1024 INT1, 256 INT4, 128 INT8, and 64 FP16 operations per clock per tensor core, and most Turing GPUs have a few hundred tensor cores.


title: Deep learning super sampling

text: The Tensor Cores use CUDA Warp-Level Primitives on 32 parallel threads to take advantage of their parallel architecture. A Warp is a set of 32 threads which are configured to execute the same instruction.


title: Ninja Theory

text: Ninja Theory Limited is a first-party British video game development studio based in Cambridge, England. Notable games it has developed include "Kung Fu Chaos", "Heavenly Sword", "", "" and "".


title: Ninja Theory

text: Founded by Tameem Antoniades, Nina Kristensen and Mike Ball in March 2000, the company operated under the name Just Add Monsters. It was acquired by Argonaut Games soon after its founding and released "Kung Fu Chaos" for the original Xbox console. The company purchased itself from administrators after Argonaut Games was liquidated but suffered from financial troubles. Sony Computer Entertainment saved the team from bankruptcy by funding the development of "Heavenly Sword", which was an expensive project. The game's poor sales resulted in Ninja Theory losing all their in-house technologies because of contractual agreements with Sony. The team then moved on to develop "", an underperforming project in collaboration with writer Alex Garland, and "", a well-received title whose design was highly controversial, resulting in the team receiving death threats.


title: Ninja Theory

text: The team began diversifying its portfolio of games and taking on contract work for publishers after finishing the development of "DmC". It also entrusted a small team to develop their first self-published title, "". The team developed a business model they called "Independent AAA", where the game would have a small budget while retaining high production values. Exploring the theme of psychosis, the game was a commercial and critical success. In June 2018, it was officially announced that Ninja Theory had entered into an agreement to be acquired by Microsoft and became part of Microsoft Studios (now known as Xbox Game Studios). Several new projects, including virtual reality games, are under development.


title: Ninja Theory

text: Tameem Antoniades, Nina Kristensen and Mike Ball founded Just Add Monsters in March 2000 in Cambridge, England, with . At the time, the company had three staff but no money, equipment, or technology. Antoniades had ideas for a kung fu game and brainstormed them for a hack and slash multiplayer game called "Kung Fu Chaos" in his bedroom. As the team settled on the idea, they began actively looking for investment from major video game publishers, but none of them showed any interest in funding the game. Instead, they offered to buy the small company. As the team began to run out of money, they agreed to be acquired by Argonaut Games in September 2000.


title: Ninja Theory

text: With Argonaut's support and funding, the team was able to move into a proper office, hire 17 more staff and buy the technologies needed to make a video game. The development team assembled a gameplay demo of "Kung Fu Chaos" and presented it to Microsoft Games Studios. They were willing to provide funding for the game's development in order to have a strong line-up for their then-upcoming console, the Xbox. The publishing team at Microsoft was described as "helpful", assisting the team in refining the game during its production. Yet Microsoft failed to market the game properly. For example, no advertisements were prepared for the launch. While the game was critically praised, "Kung Fu Chaos" sales were hugely disappointing, and the game was a financial failure for the firm. At the time, Antoniades was disappointed and shocked that Microsoft would "send [the game] out to die," but understood Microsoft's decision to put their resources into other more profitable projects.


title: Ninja Theory

text: Before the release of "Kung Fu Chaos", the team were already actively developing a sequel titled "Kung Fu Chaos 2". The team used feedback from "Kung Fu Chaos" players to make the sequel a more mature game. While the team expected the publishing relationship with Microsoft would continue, they declined to fund the sequel since the first game was not warmly welcomed by its audience. As Microsoft retained the intellectual property (IP) rights to "Kung Fu Chaos", and the team did not have sufficient resources to start from scratch, and could not use the Xbox codes they had programmed, the company ceased development of "Kung Fu Chaos 2". Instead, they began working on a new IP, "Kung Fu Story", which was also themed around kung fu and Chinese martial arts.


title: Ninja Theory

text: While developing "Kung Fu Story", the team closely monitored the games market and realised that both the audience and publishers wanted games based on realism with high production values rather than those that have highly stylised visuals. Recognizing that "Kung Fu Story" would not fare well with the audience, the team decided to greatly expand the game's scope to satisfy players' demands. The team renamed the game "Heavenly Sword", and assembled a demo using personal computers in an effort to guess the possible capabilities of the unannounced seventh generation of video game consoles. Publishers were interested in funding the game, but they were reluctant to do so due to Argonaut's financial troubles, of which the team at Just Add Monsters was unaware. In October 2004, Argonaut entered administration. The team remortgaged their apartments and Argonaut's CEO, Jez San provided investment to help the team to buy Just Add Monsters from the administrators. In November 2004, the team reestablished themselves as Ninja Theory, and the development of "Heavenly Sword" continued. Kristensen became the head of development, Antoniades led the design department, while Ball became the leader of the technology team. San joined as a member of the firm's board of directors.


title: Ninja Theory

text: After the company was reestablished, it had very limited capital and could only sustain its operations for three months. At the time, the company employed more than 50 people. The team continued to present "Heavenly Sword" to various publishers, but their responses were unenthusiastic. Publishers questioned the team's ability to make a technology-intensive game because of their relatively small size. With few options remaining, the team signed a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment in May 2005. This saved the company from bankruptcy at the cost of IP and technology rights. The title would now become a PlayStation 3 exclusive. According to Antoniades, negotiating the deal with Sony was "soul-destroyingly difficult".


title: Ninja Theory

text: Fueled by the ambition to be "a top studio in the world", Ninja Theory had lofty goals for "Heavenly Sword". With an estimated budget of $10 million to $20 million, Ninja Theory had a plan to develop the title into a multimedia franchise, ranging from a PlayStation Portable version to a film based on the game's story. The team also invested a lot in performance capture, working with Weta Digital and Andy Serkis, who became the title's "dramatic director". The company employed more than 100 people to work on the game, which took four-and-a-half years to develop. Sony actively interfered with the game's development, diminishing the team's creative freedom. It pressured them to produce a game that "fit in more with what a standard action-adventure video game should be". Many features were removed from the game during the final production stages to meet project deadlines. The game received generally positive reviews from critics when it was released in September 2007, and subsequently gained a cult following. However, sales did not meet expectations, and the title did not break even.


title: Ninja Theory

text: Ninja Theory then began working on a sequel, but they had employed so many people to work on the title it did not fit with the "cost-analysis model of AAA production". Once the team engaged in the development of the sequel, it would become their only project; the company could not seek other opportunities. Not wanting to dissolve the entire team to work on the sequel, Ninja Theory decided to leave "Heavenly Sword" and all the technologies built for it to Sony and seek external funding from another publisher for their next project. According to Antoniades, it was a "heart-breaking moment".


title: Ninja Theory

text: While researching "Heavenly Sword"s "wuxia" theme Antoniades read "Journey to the West", which inspired the company's next game, "". However, the team wanted to try something new, thus many of the fantasy and "wuxia" elements were shifted to sci-fi. Without their own technology, the team used Epic Games' Unreal Engine. Because "Heavenly Sword" had been unprofitable, Ninja Theory needed to present the new game to publishers as fast as possible since they did not have much reserve cash. Initially, they signed a deal with Green Screen, which dissolved a month later. Namco Bandai Games agreed to publish the game. Using only two-thirds of the budget of "Heavenly Sword", the team hired Alex Garland to write the game's story. Antoniades found Garland "intimidating" to work with, though Garland found the team "friendly". Garland often argued with Antoniades over the inclusion of boss fights, and became involved with the game's design. Andy Serkis returned to do motion capture, and Nitin Sawhney, composer for "Heavenly Sword," returned to write "Enslaved"s music.


title: Ninja Theory

text: "Enslaved" was positively reviewed by critics when it was released in October 2010. However, like previous Ninja Theory projects, the market responded unenthusiastically, and it was a commercial failure. While Ninja Theory developed a piece of single-player downloadable content (DLC), titled "Pigsy's Perfect 10", the multiplayer DLC that was in development was cancelled after the lukewarm reception.


title: Ninja Theory

text: Immediately after the completion of "Enslaved: Odyssey to the West", publisher Capcom chose Ninja Theory to develop the next entry in the "Devil May Cry" series, as it was impressed by the company's past work, especially on "Heavenly Sword". Capcom intentionally selected a western developer so that they could "add western flair to a traditionally Japanese-styled game", and granted the company plenty of creative freedom. Hideaki Itsuno supervised the entire project. The team came up with a new design for series' protagonist Dante, which generated backlash and some criticism. Some fans sent Ninja Theory death threats, of which some were sent in the form of comics and death metal songs. Antoniades responded to fan displeasure over the redesign by saying that "The essence of Devil May Cry is all about 'cool'" and that the design from the PS2 era "isn't cool anymore." Despite being a controversial project, "" received critical acclaim when it was released in January 2013. It was a commercial success for Ninja Theory. The title reached the top of the United Kingdom, United States, European and Japanese retail software sales charts. For the first time, the team received royalties from a project. "Heavenly Sword", "Enslaved: Odyssey to the West" and "DmC: Devil May Cry" collectively sold approximately 4.5 million units.


title: Ninja Theory

text: With the introduction of the eighth generation of video game consoles, Ninja Theory predicted there would be a rise in development costs, and publishers would become even more conservative when funding projects. As a result, the team decided to diversify its portfolio of games and split into smaller teams, working on various projects. The company collaborated with Chillingo to release a free-to-play mobile game named "Fightback". According to Antoniades, "Fightback" was a learning experience for the studio as they explored the "games as a service" models, mobile technology, touch screen controls and realised the competitive nature of the mobile games market.


title: Ninja Theory

text: The company began experimenting with smaller titles, unsuccessfully pitching them to publishers. They pitched a horror game to Garland. Publishers asked for the addition of melee combat and then informed the team that neither horror nor melee combat was popular in the games market. Ninja Theory and Garland pitched another four-player cooperative gameplay experience set in the real world featuring real characters, but publishers insisted that sci-fi or fantasy elements be added to it so the game would sell. The company also experimented with a multiplayer-based melee-combat game. Publishers were reluctant to fund it as the project did not have a single-player component, the team was inexperienced and an action melee game was unlikely to be profitable.


title: Ninja Theory

text: In early 2013, the company tried to develop a game that suited publishers' requirements, while also remaining creative. The project, known as "Razor", is a multiplayer game that mixes gunplay and melee combat. It features an extensive story and a boss that would have thousands of players fighting for months. It also has mobile control integration and missions that are procedurally generated. Publishers were initially keen on signing the project, but a game of a similar nature, "Destiny" from Bungie was announced, and most publishers opted not to compete with it directly. The team then partnered with a publisher to develop a project based on the "Razor" assets, but both sides terminated their agreement as the publisher interfered with Ninja Theory's creative freedom. The company partnered with Disney Interactive from 2014–2015, providing additional development and combat elements for "" and "Disney Infinity 3.0". This helped sustain the company's operations.


title: Ninja Theory

text: The failure of "Razor", and questions from Garland about why the gaming development scene did not have many independent projects similar to the independent film industry prompted the team to begin to evaluate the idea of "independent AAA", where the team would own the intellectual property and publish the game themselves without mainstream game publishers. The game would still have high production values but would be sold at a lower price. The team firmly believed that there was "a middle ground between the low budget pure indie development and AAA [projects]". The team opted not to use Kickstarter having decided to fund it themselves. This led to the creation of "", which had a team of only 15 people working on it. Since the game had a small budget, the studio did not promote the game heavily with advertisements instead creating numerous developer diaries for players who were interested in it. The team collaborated with several technology companies like 3Lateral, Cubic Motion and Xsens to help with motion capture, which allowed the actors to preview their performance while acting. In September 2016, Ninja Theory announced their Senua Studio division, which would work on real-time virtual character technology. As the game explored mental illness and psychosis, the company consulted professional neuroscientists and obtained financial backing from the Wellcome Trust. After a three-year development cycle "Hellblade" was a critical success when it launched in August 2017, with praise for its depiction of mental illnesses. The game was also a commercial success, becoming profitable within three months of its release, generating more than $13 million with sales of more than 500,000 units. The game was nominated for nine awards and won five at the 14th British Academy Games Awards. Antoniades considered the critical acclaim validation that the independent AAA business model worked.


title: Ninja Theory

text: The company has several titles in development, both traditional and virtual reality projects. As for the future, Antoniades shared: "We've got other projects on the go, led by different team members who have their own personal slant on what they want to do, and they're not serious subjects, they are much more fun, traditional games if you like."


title: Ninja Theory

text: On 10 June 2018, during E3 2018, Microsoft announced that they had entered into an agreement to acquire Ninja Theory alongside three other studios as part of Microsoft Studios. Studio creative director Tameem Antoniades said that they opted for the acquisition as "We want to be free from the AAA machine and make games focused on the experience, not around monetization", and would allow them to continue building smaller, risky games with creative independence. For Microsoft, Ninja Theory was seen as a studio that would produce good content that fits with the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, according to head of Microsoft Studios Matt Booty.


title: Ninja Theory

text: In October 2019, Ninja Theory announced the establishment of a research and development effort dealing with mental health, dubbed The Insight Project. The Insight Project builds upon and continues the co-operation between Ninja Theory and Paul Fletcher, a University of Cambridge psychiatrist and professor of health neuroscience who had consulted the studio on "Hellblade". With The Insight Project, Ninja Theory plans to build smaller games to "help people identify and control negative emotions". At The Game Awards 2019, Ninja Theory announced "" for Xbox Series X.


title: Ninja Theory

text: The studio teased a new experimental game, "Project: Mara" in January 2020. Antoniades said that "Project: Mara" "will be a real-world and grounded representation of true mental terror" and "will be based heavily on research, interviews, and firsthand accounts to recreate the horrors of the mind as accurately and believably as possible."


title: The Family Business (American TV series)

text: The Family Business is an American crime family drama created by Carl Weber and based on his bestselling crime drama book series. Originally developed as an independent film franchise, BET produced it as an eight-episode limited series in 2018.


text: The series follows the Duncans, an upstanding family that owns and operates an exotic car dealership in New York. It stars Ernie Hudson, Valarie Pettiford and Armand Assante.


text: Christian Keyes, Brely Evans, Eva LaRue, Robert Picardo, Eric Lee Huffman, Anthony Montgomery, Katie Callaway, Franky G and Treach have appeared in guest starring roles.


text: On December 19, 2019, the series was renewed for a 12-episode second season to air on the network's streaming service BET+. On December 4, 2020, the series was renewed for a third season On January 28, 2022, the series was renewed for a fourth season.


text: The first season premiered on November 13, 2018. The second season premiered on July 2, 2020. The third season premiered on October 14, 2021. The fourth season was originally premiered on July 28, 2022. However, the fourth season premiered on September, 1, 2022


title: Power Rangers Dino Charge

text: Power Rangers Dino Charge is the twenty-second season of the long-running television program "Power Rangers". Using footage, costumes and props from Japanese 37th Super Sentai Series "Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger", it is the first season to be distributed by Saban Brands Entertainment Group, after the formation of two new units within the company called Saban Brands Lifestyle Group and Saban Brands Entertainment Group on December 11, 2014. The show is produced by SCG Power Rangers and began airing on Nickelodeon on February 7, 2015, ending on December 12. It also went broadcast on Pop in 2018.


title: Power Rangers Dino Charge

text: The second season, and twenty-third overall, is called Power Rangers Dino Super Charge and premiered on January 30, 2016, ending on December 12, 2016.


title: Power Rangers Dino Charge

text: Sixty-five million years ago, a dinosauroid alien named Keeper was pursued through the galaxy by Sledge, an intergalactic bounty hunter bent on acquiring ten magical stones called the Energems in Keeper's care and using them to conquer the universe. Keeper crash landed on prehistoric Earth, entrusting the gems to many dinosaurs for safe-keeping and crippled Sledge's ship with a bomb that left the bounty hunter stranded in deep space. Unfortunately, Sledge's collection of asteroids held in a tractor beam accidentally rained down on prehistoric Earth and ultimately caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.


title: Power Rangers Dino Charge

text: In the present day, Keeper is found by paleontologist Kendall Morgan and they set up a base under the Amber Beach Dinosaur Museum in the city of Amber Beach. They begin a mission to find the Energems, but five have already been found by teenagers, who use them to morph into the Dino Charge Power Rangers. The group consists of the Red Ranger, Tyler Navarro, the adventurous leader of the group who is searching for his father who disappeared ten years ago on a geological dig; the Pink Ranger, Shelby Watkins, a waitress with a vast knowledge of dinosaurs; the Blue Ranger, Koda, a Cave man living in modern times as he found his Energem in his tribe's cave, and was kept in suspended animation until the present day; the Green Ranger, Riley Griffin, the youngest of the group who is a skilled fencing swordsman; and the Black Ranger, Chase Randall, the suave and laid-back New Zealander. With these powers, the Dino Charge Power Rangers fight against Sledge, Poisandra, Fury, Wrench, Curio, and their prison full of monsters in order to find the remaining Energems and protect Earth.


title: Power Rangers Dino Charge

text: As time goes by, the Rangers are joined by additional teammates with additional Dino Zords: the Gold Ranger, Sir Ivan, an eight-hundred-year-old knight from Zandar who was trapped in the body of Sledge's minion Fury and the Graphite Ranger Prince Phillip III of Zandar, the modern day crown prince of Ivan's home country. Kendall takes over the position of the Purple Ranger from Albert Smith who abandons the position due to his fears of Fury's minions. New threats also emerge, including the human-like villain, Heckyl.


title: Power Rangers Dino Charge

text: The Ranger team gets two new members: the Aqua Ranger, who is revealed to be Tyler's long lost father James and the Silver Ranger, who is revealed to be Zenowing, a follower and apprentice of Keeper. However, with new powers come new enemies in the form of Singe, a mysterious warrior who arrives on Earth and quickly steps in as Heckyl's number two, much to Fury's anger. However, Heckyl starts to get curious when he realizes that Singe knows more about the Energems than he admits. After the Rangers discover the location of the Titano Zord, Heckyl demands to know how Singe knew its location, only for Singe to flee and return to Earth with the person who hired him named Lord Arcanon, who holds the evil Dark Energem. It was Lord Arcanon who hired Sledge to bring him the galaxy's most dangerous monsters to make an army out of them. Arcanon's reign ends with the return of Sledge who destroys his former employer with Snide (who was split from Heckyl) before Sledge betrays him and let the Rangers destroyed Snide too and takes back leadership of his crew. At that time, Heckyl regains all of his memories as a good person, which he lost from the Dark Energem. The Rangers went back in time and destroyed Sledge and his crew in the past.


title: Power Rangers Dino Charge

text: After their enemies' destruction, the Rangers go their separate ways as Koda and Ivan finally go back to their own times, Heckyl becomes the guardian of the Dark Energem as he and Zenowing return to Sentai 6, and Keeper returns to his home planet. The present day Rangers arrive back to their own time and find that it is a zoo and there are live dinosaurs since Sledge's asteroids never hit Earth and the extinction of the dinosaurs never came to pass.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: I Feel Pretty is a 2018 American comedy film written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. The film stars Amy Schumer, Michelle Williams, Emily Ratajkowski, Rory Scovel, Aidy Bryant, Busy Philipps, Tom Hopper, Naomi Campbell, and Lauren Hutton. The plot involves an insecure woman who, after suffering a head injury, gains extreme self-confidence in her appearance.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: The film was released in the United States on April 20, 2018, by STX Entertainment, and grossed over $94 million worldwide. It received mixed reviews from critics, with some saying it did not fully commit to its premise or tone, although the performances of both Schumer and Williams were praised.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: Renee Bennett struggles with low self-esteem and manages the website for cosmetics firm Lily LeClaire. She decides not to apply for a receptionist position at the corporate headquarters, her dream job, after reading the job description's emphasis on being beautiful. She wishes at a fountain to be beautiful and the next day she falls, hitting her head. Waking up with the belief that her appearance has magically changed, Renee approaches the world with newfound confidence. When a man named Ethan speaks to her innocuously, she insists that they exchange numbers. She applies for the receptionist position and is hired by CEO Avery LeClaire. Renee asks Ethan out and enters a "bikini body" contest. She wins over the crowd but loses the competition, and tells Ethan that she doesn't need external validation to know she's beautiful. Ethan praises her self-knowledge, and she appreciates his openness over not yet knowing himself. They meet again for a picnic, after which they spend the night together.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: Renee earns her coworkers' respect with her insight into the company's new diffusion line. Avery confides in Renee her insecurity over her high-pitched voice, feeling that she is not taken seriously. Avery invites Renee and Ethan to a dinner meeting with her brother Grant and their grandmother, company founder Lily LeClaire. Renee builds rapport with Lily, and Avery invites Renee to an important business meeting in Boston to give a key presentation. Renee becomes superficial in her treatment of people. She is judgmental of LeClaire visitors who are not fashionable or glamorous, and ditches her friends Vivian and Jane to attend an exclusive party with her coworkers. In Boston, she nearly gives in to Grant's romantic overtures, avoiding a kiss when she receives a message from Ethan. She locks herself in the bathroom to avoid Grant, and while questioning her sense of self and her recent behavior, she suffers a new head injury in a fall in the shower. When she awakens, she perceives her real physical appearance.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: Devastated, she leaves the hotel alone for New York, missing the presentation. She isolates herself in her apartment, avoiding Ethan and Avery's calls, binge drinking, and eating junk food. Drunk and miserable, she turns up at her friends' apartment and apologizes for her behavior. They reject her apology. Assuming that Ethan will no longer be attracted to her, she breaks up with him over the phone, moments after speaking to him in person believing he does not recognize her. Ethan is brokenhearted by Renee's rejection, blaming himself for having come on too strong. Renee tries but fails to recreate her original injury that she believes made her beautiful. She encounters her beautiful acquaintance, Mallory, who is devastated over being dumped. Mallory says that she suffers from low self-esteem and feels people assume her beauty means she is unintelligent.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: When Renee hears that Mallory is auditioning to model for the LeClaire diffusion line, she realizes that LeClaire is out of touch with everyday women. She crashes the product launch and, in the course of a presentation where she displays her own before-and-after photos, she realizes that she was never transformed. She gives an impassioned speech about women accepting themselves as they are, presenting a collage of diverse real women, including Vivian and Jane, who appreciate the gesture. Grant and Lily praise Avery for having the acumen to hire Renee; together, they are key to the success of the new line of products. Renee goes to Ethan's apartment and apologizes, explaining that her insecurities were related to her feelings about herself and not to her feelings for him. Ethan tells her that she has always been the most beautiful woman in the world in his eyes, and they reconcile, confident and happy.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: On April 17, 2017, it was announced that Amy Schumer was signed on to star in "I Feel Pretty", written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, and set to commence principal production on the East Coast, particularly in Boston, Massachusetts, in July 2017.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: In May 2017, STX Entertainment acquired the UK and domestic distribution rights for approximately $15 million at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. By May 31, 2017, Michelle Williams had joined the cast. In June 2017, Emily Ratajkowski and Rafe Spall also joined. By July 28, 2017, Rory Scovel had replaced Spall, due to a "travel issue" that couldn't be resolved before the shoot, and the film had commenced principal production, with New York City added to the scheduled locations. On August 30, 2017, the supporting cast was announced.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: "I Feel Pretty" was initially scheduled to be released on June 29, 2018, by STX Entertainment, but in February 2018 was moved up to April 27, 2018, due to strong test screening results. The release date was later changed again to April 20, 2018, a week earlier, to avoid competition with "", which after "I Feel Pretty"s initial move, had itself moved from its May 4, 2018 date to April 27.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: "I Feel Pretty" grossed $48.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $45.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $94.5 million, against a production budget of $32 million.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "I Feel Pretty" was released alongside "Traffik" and "Super Troopers 2", and was projected to gross $13–15 million from 3,440 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $6.3 million on its first day, including $1 million from Thursday night previews which was better than the $650,000 made by Schumer's "Snatched" the year before. It went on to open to $16.1 million, finishing third behind "A Quiet Place" and "Rampage". The opening was lower than both of Schumer's previous two films, "Trainwreck" ($30 million) and "Snatched" ($19.5 million). In its second weekend the film dropped 49% to $8.1 million, remaining in third. It dropped another 40% in its third week, making $4.9 million and coming in fourth.


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""I Feel Pretty" has a charming star and the outline of a worthwhile comedy – but unlike its suddenly confident central character, it suffers from a fundamental lack of conviction." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."


title: I Feel Pretty (film)

text: Audiences polled by CinemaScore on opening weekend gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ through F scale, with females under 18 giving it an "A+" and females under 25 grading it an "A."