title: Sea lamprey

text: Two genes important to immune function - CDA1 and CDA2 - were first discovered in "P. marinus" and then found to be conserved across lampreys. See Immunology above.


title: Sea lamprey

text: Sea lampreys are considered a pest in the Great Lakes region. The species is native to the inland Finger Lakes and Lake Champlain in New York and Vermont. Whether it is native to Lake Ontario, where it was first noticed in the 1830s, or whether it was introduced through the Erie Canal which opened in 1825 is not clear. Improvements to the Welland Canal in 1919 are thought to have allowed its spread from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, and while it was never abundant in either lake, it soon spread to Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior, where it decimated indigenous fish populations in the 1930s and 1940s.


title: Sea lamprey

text: In its original habitats, the sea lamprey coevolved with its hosts, and those hosts evolved a measure of resistance to the sea lampreys. However, in the Great Lakes, the sea lamprey attacks native fish such as lake trout, lake whitefish, chub, and lake herring, which historically did not face sea lampreys. Elimination of these predators allowed the alewife, another invasive species, to explode in population, with adverse effects on many native fish species.


title: Sea lamprey

text: The lake trout plays a vital role in the Lake Superior ecosystem. The lake trout has traditionally been considered an apex predator, which means that it has no predators. The sea lamprey is an aggressive predator by nature, which gives it a competitive advantage in a lake system where it has no predators and its prey lacks defenses against it. The sea lamprey played a large role in the destruction of the Lake Superior trout population. Lamprey introduction along with poor, unsustainable fishing practices caused the lake trout populations to decline drastically. The relationship between predators and prey in the Great Lakes' ecosystem then became unbalanced. Each individual sea lamprey has the potential of killing 40 pounds of fish through its 12–18 month feeding period.


title: Sea lamprey

text: Control efforts, including electric current and chemical lampricides have met with varied success. The control programs are carried out under the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, a joint Canada–U.S. body, specifically by the agents of the Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.


title: Sea lamprey

text: Genetic researchers have mapped the sea lamprey's genome in the hope of finding out more about evolution; scientists trying to eliminate the Great Lakes problem are coordinating with these genetic scientists, hoping to find out more about its immune system and fitting it into its place in the phylogenetic tree.


title: Sea lamprey

text: Researchers from Michigan State University have teamed up with others from the Universities of Minnesota, Guelph, and Wisconsin, and others in a research effort into newly synthesized pheromones. These are believed to have independent influences on the sea lamprey behavior. One group of pheromones serves a migratory function in that when they are made by larvae, they are thought to lure maturing adults into streams with suitable spawning habitat. Sex pheromones emitted from males are capable of luring females long distances to specific locations. These pheromones are both several different compounds thought to elicit different behaviors that collectively influence the lampreys to exhibit migratory or spawning behaviors. Scientists are trying to characterize the function of each pheromone, and each part of the molecules, to determine if they can be used in a targeted effort at environmentally friendly lamprey control. However, as of 2017, the most effective control measures still involve the application of (3-trifluoromethyl-4-nitrophenol), or TFM, a selective pesticide, into rivers. no lampricide resistance has been detected in the Great Lakes. Further research and combined use of multiple control methods are needed to forestall future development of resistance.


title: Sea lamprey

text: Another technique used in the prevention of lamprey population growth is the use of barriers in major reproduction streams of high value to the lamprey. The purpose of the barriers is to block their upstream migration to reduce reproduction. The issue with these barriers is that other aquatic species are also inhibited by this barrier. Fish that use tributaries are impeded from traveling upstream to spawn. To account for this, barriers have been altered and designed to allow the passage of most fish species, but still impede others.


title: Sea lamprey

text: The intent of lamprey control programs is a safer habitat and a healthier population growth for vulnerable native fish species such as lake trout. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) has taken a different path to this same goal by introducing sea lampreys to freshwater rivers and lakes of the Connecticut River watershed, and providing easier access around dams and other barriers for the lampreys to reach spawning sites high upstream. After preying on larger fish at sea, the adult lampreys migrate up the rivers to spawn, whereupon they quickly die of natural causes and decompose, thus providing a food source for the native freshwater fish species.


title: Ant-Man

text: Ant-Man is the name of several superheroes appearing in books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby, Ant-Man's first appearance was in "Tales to Astonish" #27 (January 1962) but first appeared in costume in "Tales to Astonish" #35 (September 1962). The persona was originally the brilliant scientist Hank Pym's superhero alias after inventing a substance that can change size, but reformed thieves Scott Lang and Eric O'Grady also took on the mantle after the original changed his superhero identity to various other aliases, such as Giant-Man, Goliath, and Yellowjacket. Pym's Ant-Man is also a founding member of the super hero team known as the Avengers. The character has appeared in several films based on the Marvel character, such as "Ant-Man" (2015), "" (2016), "Ant-Man and the Wasp" (2018), "" (2019) and upcoming "".


title: Ant-Man

text: Over the years a number of different characters have assumed the title of Ant-Man, most of whom have been connected with the Avengers.


title: Ant-Man

text: The original Ant-Man was Biophysicist and Security Operations Center expert Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym; who decided to become a superhero after the death of his first wife Maria Trovaya who had been a political dissident in Hungary. Falling in love with him and believing that his American citizenship would protect her, Maria traveled with Hank to Hungary shortly after their marriage to start their new life together. Unfortunately they were confronted by corrupt agents of the secret police. Hank was knocked unconscious and Maria was murdered. Pym was greatly distraught by his wife's death, and decided to do whatever he could in the future to battle injustice. After discovering a chemical substance, which he called Pym Particles, that would allow the user to alter his size, he armed himself with a helmet that could control ants. After that, Pym would shrink down to the size of an insect to become the mystery-solving Ant-Man, solving crimes and stopping criminals. He soon shared his discovery with his new girlfriend Janet van Dyne, who became his crime-fighting partner Wasp, when he helped her avenge the death of her scientist father Vernon van Dyne who was killed by an alien unleashed by one of Vernon's own experiments. The duo would become founding members of the Avengers, fighting recurring enemies such as the mad scientist Egghead, the mutant Whirlwind, and Pym's own robotic creation Ultron. While Pym is the original Ant-Man, he has adopted other aliases over the years including Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, and Wasp after Janet's presumed death in "Secret Invasion". Leaving his original persona vacant, his successors have taken up the Ant-Man role while Pym explored these other identities.


title: Ant-Man

text: Scott Lang was a thief who became Ant-Man after stealing the Ant-Man suit to save his daughter Cassandra "Cassie" Lang from a heart condition. Reforming from his life of crime, Lang soon took on a full-time career as Ant-Man with the encouragement of Hank Pym. He became an affiliate of the Fantastic Four, and later became a full-time member of the Avengers. For a period of time he dated Jessica Jones. He was killed by the Scarlet Witch along with the Vision and Hawkeye in "Avengers Disassembled", and his daughter took up his heroic mantle as Stature in the book "Young Avengers". He returned to life in 2011 in the mini series, "The Children's Crusade", but lost his daughter when she heroically sacrificed herself to stop a super charged Doctor Doom, who would later revive her during the AXIS.


title: Ant-Man

text: Eric O'Grady is the third character to take up the Ant-Man title. O'Grady is a low-level agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who stumbles upon the Ant-Man suit in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters. A man of few morals and willing to lie, cheat, steal and manipulate in order to get ahead in life, Eric stole the armor for his own selfish plans, which included using his status as a "super-hero" to seduce women and humiliate and torment others. He had his own short-lived title before being part of other teams such as joining "Avengers: The Initiative" as his first team and then joining "The Thunderbolts" but more recently "Secret Avengers", where the character perished heroically while defending a child against the villain known as Father.


title: Ant-Man

text: Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas portray Scott Lang and Hank Pym respectively in films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Both have appeared in the films "Ant-Man" (2015), "Ant-Man and the Wasp" (2018), and "" (2019), and are set to appear in the upcoming film "" (2023). Additionally, Rudd appeared in "" (2016).


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: "The Hidden Fortress" was the fourth highest-grossing film of the year in Japan, and Kurosawa's most successful film up to that point. It was a significant influence on the 1977 American film "Star Wars".


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Two bedraggled peasants, Tahei and Matashichi, sell their homes and leave to join the feudal Yamana clan, hoping to make their fortunes as soldiers. Instead, they are mistaken for soldiers of the defeated Akizuki clan, have their weapons confiscated, and are forced to help dig graves before being sent away without any food. After quarreling and splitting up, the two are both captured again and reunite when they are forced alongside dozens of other prisoners to dig through the ruins of the Akizuki castle for the clan's secret reserve of gold. After a prisoner uprising, Tahei and Matashichi go on the run, steal some rice, and make camp near a river.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: While building a fire, they find a piece of gold marked with the crescent of the Akizuki clan. The peasants are then discovered by a mysterious man who takes them to a secret camp in the mountains. Unbeknownst to them, the man is a famous Akizuki general, Makabe Rokurōta. Although Rokurōta initially plans to kill the peasants, he changes his mind when they explain how they intend to escape Yamana territory: They will travel to Yamana itself and then pass into the neighboring state of Hayakawa through a different border. Rokurōta decides, without revealing anything to the peasants, to take Princess Yuki of the Akizuki clan to Hayakawa, whose lord has promised to protect them.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Rokurōta escorts Princess Yuki and what remains of her family's gold (hidden in hollowed-out logs of wood) to Hayakawa, with Matashichi and Tahei traveling with them. To protect Yuki, he has her pretend to be a deaf-mute and has a body double (who is Rokurōta's younger sister) sent to the Yamana to be executed so they will believe that she is dead. During their travels, Tahei and Matashichi get the group into dangerous situations several times due to their cowardice and greed. During a stop for the night at an inn, Yuki forces Rokurōta to buy the freedom of a young prostitute, who decides to follow them.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: After losing their horses and obtaining a cart to move the gold, the group is spotted by a Yamana patrol, and Rokurōta is forced to kill them. While pursuing two stragglers, he accidentally rides into a Yamana camp, where the commanding officer, Rokurōta's old rival Hyoe Tadokoro, recognizes him.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Tadokoro states that he is sorry he didn't get to face Rokurōta in battle and challenges him to a lance duel. Rokurōta wins, but spares Tadokoro's life before stealing a horse and riding back to the group. Eventually, they are surrounded and captured by Yamana soldiers and detained at an outpost on the Hayakawa border. In the confusion, Matashichi and Tahei manage to hide. They decide to report Yuki for a reward, but the soldiers laugh at them and they leave with nothing.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Tadokoro comes to identify the prisoners the night before their execution. Tadokoro's face is now disfigured by a large scar and explains it as the result of a beating ordered by the lord of the Yamana clan as punishment for letting Rokurōta escape. Yuki proclaims that she has no fear of death and thanks Rokurōta for letting her see humanity's ugliness and beauty from a new perspective. The next day, as the soldiers start marching the prisoners to be executed, Tadokoro suddenly defects to the Akizuki side and frees Yuki, Rokurōta, and the prostitute before distracting the guards so they can ride off. The group manages to escape along with the horses carrying the gold, which wind up running in a different direction.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Matashichi and Tahei, both hungry and tired, stumble across the lost gold carried by the horses before being arrested by Hayakawa soldiers as thieves. The peasants are brought before a heavily armored samurai, who reveals that he is Rokurōta and the well-dressed noblewoman with him is Yuki. Thanking them for saving the gold (which will be used to restore her clan), the princess rewards Matashichi and Tahei with a single ryō on the condition that they share it. As the two men walk back to their village, they begin to laugh upon realizing that they have finally made their fortunes.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: This was Kurosawa's first feature filmed in a widescreen format, Tohoscope, which he continued to use for the next decade. "The Hidden Fortress" was originally presented with Perspecta directional sound, which was re-created for the Criterion Blu-ray release.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Key parts of the film were shot in Hōrai Valley in Hyōgo and on the slopes of Mt. Fuji, where bad weather from the record-breaking Kanagawa typhoon delayed the production. Toho's frustration with Kurosawa's slow pace of shooting led to the director forming his own production company the following year, though he continued to distribute through Toho.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: "The Hidden Fortress" was released theatrically in Japan on December 28, 1958. The film was the highest-grossing film for Toho in 1958, ranking as the fourth highest-grossing film overall in Japan that year. In box-office terms, "The Hidden Fortress" was Kurosawa’s most successful film, until the 1961 release of "Yojimbo".


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: The film was released theatrically in the United States by Toho International Col. with English subtitles. It was screened in San Francisco on November 1959 and received a wider release on October 6, 1960 with a 126-minute running time. The film was re-issued in the United States in 1962 with a 90-minute running time. The film was compared unfavorably to "Rashomon" (1950) and "Seven Samurai" (1954), and performed poorly at the U.S. box office.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: An article published in "The New York Times" on January 24, 1962, had the film's review by prominent journalist Bosley Crowther who called "The Hidden Fortess" a superficial film. He said


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Writing for The Criterion Collection in 1987, David Ehrenstein called it "one of the greatest action-adventure films ever made" and a "fast-paced, witty and visually stunning" samurai film. According to Ehrenstein:


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: The battle on the steps in Chapter 2 (anticipating the climax of "Ran") is as visually overwhelming as any of the similar scenes in Griffith's "Intolerance". The use of composition in depth in the fortress scene in Chapter 4 is likewise as arresting as the best of Eisenstein or David Lean. Toshiro Mifune's muscular demonstrations of heroic derring-do in the horse-charge scene (Chapter 11) and the scrupulously choreographed spear duel that follows it (Chapter 12) is in the finest tradition of Douglas Fairbanks. Overall, there’s a sense of sheer "movieness" to "The Hidden Fortress" that places it plainly in the ranks of such grand adventure entertainments as "Gunga Din", "The Thief of Baghdad", and Fritz Lang's celebrated diptych "The Tiger of Eschnapur" and "The Hindu Tomb".


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: David Parkinson of the "Empire" on a review posted on January 1, 2000, gave the film four out of five stars and wrote "Somewhat overshadowed by the likes of Seven Samurai, this is a vigorously placed, meticulously staged adventure. It's not top drawer, but still ranks among the best of Kurosawa's minor masterpieces."


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Writing for The Criterion Collection in 2001, Armond White said ""The Hidden Fortress" holds a place in cinema history comparable to John Ford's "Stagecoach": It lays out the plot and characters of an on-the-road epic of self-discovery and heroic action. In a now-familiar fashion, Rokurōta and Princess Yuki fight their way to allied territory, accompanied by a scheming, greedy comic duo who get surprised by their own good fortune. Kurosawa always balances valor and greed, seriousness and humor, while depicting the misfortunes of war."


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Upon the film's UK re-release in 2002, Jamie Russell, reviewing the film for the BBC, said it "effortlessly intertwines action, drama, and comedy", calling it "both cracking entertainment and a wonderful piece of cinema."


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" made a review on February 1, 2002. According to him:Revered now as an inspiration for George Lucas, Kurosawa's amiable, forthright epic romance happens on a scorched, rugged landscape which looks quite a lot like an alien planet. At other times, the movie plays like nothing so much as a roistering comedy western. But it has a cleverly contrived relationship between the principals, including a fantastically brash and virile Toshiro Mifune. The comedy co-exists with a dark view of life's brevity, and Kurosawa devises exhilarating setpieces and captivating images. Arthouse classics aren't usually as welcoming and entertaining as this.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: "Variety" called it "a long, interesting, humour-laden picture in medieval Japan". Performances of the lead actors, Kurosawa's direction and Ichio Yamazaki's camerawork were praised.


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: The film won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 9th Berlin International Film Festival in 1959. "Kinema Junpo" awarded Shinobu Hashimoto the award for Best Screenwriter for his work on the film and for Tadashi Imai's "Night Drum" and Yoshitaro Nomura's "Harikomi".


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: American director George Lucas has acknowledged the heavy influence of "The Hidden Fortress" on his 1977 film "Star Wars", particularly in the technique of telling the story from the perspective of the film's lowliest characters, C-3PO and R2-D2. Almost all of the major characters from "Star Wars" have clear analogues in "The Hidden Fortress", including C-3PO and R2-D2 being based on Tahei and Matashichi, Obi-Wan Kenobi on Rokurota Makabe, Princess Leia on Princess Yuki, and Darth Vader on Hyoe Tadokoro; the only notable major characters who were not drawn from Kurosawa's film are Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, whose character arcs were inspired by academic writer Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Chewbacca, who was based on Lucas's own Alaskan Malamute dog, Indiana. Lucas's original plot outline for "Star Wars" bore an even greater resemblance to the plot of "The Hidden Fortress" (and notably lacked any characters resembling Luke or Han); this draft would subsequently be reused as the basis for "". The movie is referenced in "", where during a cutscene for the first level of "Return of the Jedi", there is a flag written in Aurebesh, which translates to "Hidden Fortress".


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: A number of plot elements from "The Hidden Fortress" are used in the 2006 video game "Final Fantasy XII".


title: The Hidden Fortress

text: A loose remake entitled "Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess" was directed by Shinji Higuchi and released on May 10, 2008.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Thambi () is a 2019 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film directed by Jeethu Joseph. Co-written by Rensil D'Silva, Sameer Arora, Jeethu Joseph and K. Manikandan, it was jointly produced by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Parallel Mind Productions. Starring Karthi, Jyothika and Sathyaraj, the film follows a young man who is believed to be a local politician's long-lost son but has his identity questioned by the politician's daughter. The film also stars Nikhila Vimal, Anson Paul, Bala, Sowcar Janaki, and Seetha in other important roles. The music for the film was composed by Govind Vasantha.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: "Thambi" was released on 20 December 2019, receiving praise for the performances, action sequences and writing. Upon release it received positive responses, and the film became a commercial success at Box office.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: A fight erupts between teenagers Saravanan and Manimaran, where Saravanan is hit on the head by Manimaran and faints. Manimaran is forced to escape, leaving the fainted Saravanan on top of a lorry.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: 15 years later: Gnanamoorthy is a politician in Mettupalayam, Coimbatore District, who lives with his wife Padma, daughter Parvathy and wheelchair-bound mother. Parvathy spends her days in sorrow, hoping that her aggressive younger brother Saravanan, who had left home 15 years ago, will return. Her family, too believes that the miracle may happen. One day, Moorthy receives a call from Jeevanand, who tells him that his long-lost son is found. "Saravanan" is really Vicky, a trickster and tourist guide in Goa. Moorthy brings Vicky to his house, where Padma is overjoyed at seeing her son. However, Parvathy keeps shunning Vicky. Saravanan's childhood friend and lover Sanjana is also elated to reunite with "Saravanan".


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Jeeva and Vicky had secretly planned for Vicky to act as Saravanan for a while before stealing money from the house and escaping, after which they would share the bounty. Saravanan's friend Karan, who is a cop, doubts whether Vicky is actually Saravanan, which grows stronger when he asks Vicky about their childhood and he flounders. However, Parvathy stops Karan from trying to disprove Vicky/Saravanan since the joy in her family has come back upon his arrival anyway.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Meanwhile, it is revealed that Moorthy had in fact arranged for Jeeva to make Vicky pose as Saravanan. When Jeeva blackmails Moorthy for , Moorthy kills him and pins the murder on Manimaaran, who is now a local politician where he wants to build a resort in the nearby village. Karan suspects Vicky is involved in the murder since he shows up at Jeeva's house trying remove evidence that he is a fraud. However, Karan doesn't find any proof tying Moorthy or Vicky to Jeeva's death and arrests Manimaaran. Moorthy had already entered the house once again and removed all the evidence.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: While Vicky is driving, he is hit by a truck and narrowly escapes death. Another attack in the house confirms his suspicions that someone is trying to kill Saravanan and sets out to find what really happened to him. After tracing Saravanan's steps that night, he finds the truck that hit him, and on interrogating the driver, learns that the perpetrator is Moorthy's right-hand man Sudhakar, who was angry that Saravanan had come back as he would lose the position of MLA to him.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Finally, after a clue from a clue by Sanjana, Vicky deduces that Saravanan had returned home the night of his disappearance - he was a drug addict, who had fought with his family and was the reason for his grandmother's condition. He believes that out of anger over Saravanan causing his grandmother’s paralysis, Moorthy had killed his son accidentally and used the sympathy to earn votes. On confronting him, Moorthy offers Vicky money to keep the matter quiet, but Vicky tells Padma, who is already aware of it. Suddenly, Parvathy holds Vicky at gunpoint and reveals what happened that night.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: 15 years back: After Saravanan had fought with Padma and Parvathy and pushed his grandmother down the stairs, they took his grandmother to the hospital. Meanwhile, Saravanan managed to escape after his fight with Manimaran and returned home on his bike. Moorthy and Parvathy came back to the house and found Saravanan getting high. In a fit of rage, Moorthy beat his son, but when Saravanan hit him back in a drug-fueled rage, Moorthy broke down. Parvathy tried to console her father and threw away her brother's drugs. Saravanan began choking her and in desperation, Parvathy grabbed a nearby showpiece and accidentally slit his throat. In order to save his family's reputation, Moorthy fabricated a story where Saravanan had run away. Saravanan's body was interred in the forest area where the resort is now proposed to be built.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Present: Shocked at the revelation, Vicky decides to leave the house. At the train station, Parvathy admits that she had come to accept Vicky as her brother. The film ends with Vicky/Saravanan and Parvathy driving back home.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: In February 2019, it was announced that Karthi and Jyothika would be sharing screen space together for the first time under the direction of Jeethu Joseph. Later, Govind Vasantha and R. D. Rajasekhar were confirmed to be the film's music director and cinematographer respectively.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Principal photography began in mid April 2019. The film was completed in a single schedule. It was shot extensively in Palakkad, Goa, Coimbatore, and Ooty. The film's title revealed to be "Thambi" on 15 November 2019.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: The soundtrack is composed by Govind Vasantha, and the audio rights of the film were acquired by Lahari Music. The audio launch of this film was held at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai on 30 November 2019, in the presence of Jyothika, Karthi and Suriya, who attended the event as the chief guest, along with the film's cast and crew. The album features four tracks with an instrumental theme music, and the lyrics for the songs were written by Vivek and Karthik Netha.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: "The Times of India", reviewed it as "the album is a treat to ears, with each song having a refreshing musical touch."


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: "Thambi" was released on 20 December 2019. The theatrical rights of the film were acquired by Sakthi Film Factory. while Ravuri V. Srinivas, acquired the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana distribution rights under their Harshitha Movies banner. The film was also dubbed and released in Hindi as "My Brother Vicky" on YouTube by Goldmines Telefilms on 29 November 2020.


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Sify rated 3.5 out of 5 stars stating, "Thambi is an engaging watch for the solid performances of the lead actors and very unlike most thrillers you’ve seen recently." "The Times of India" rated 3 out of 5 stars stating "The movie manages to entertain with ample suspense and family moments, which keep us guessing till the end – there’s an interesting twist towards the end of the first half and another appealing one in the climax, too. But the slow screenplay should have had more moments to make it a proper edge-of-the-seat film. Though the entire plot revolves around sister-brother bonding, we get only a few emotional moments between Karthi and Jyotika. A tighter screenplay with more emotional connect would have done wonders."


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Firstpost rated 3 out of 5 stars stating, "An impressive performance by Karthi powers Jeetu Joseph's engaging thriller." The Indian Express rated 2.5 out of 5 stars stating "This Karthi and Jyotika starrer could have been so much more but settles for much less." India Today rated 3 out of 5 stars stating "Thambi’s runtime seems to be a little longer and a taut screenplay would have made wonders to the overall film. Yet, the film has brilliant twists that will have you engrossed in it."


title: Thambi (2019 film)

text: Behindwoods rated 2.5 out of 5 stars stating, "The twists, an engaging second half and powerful lead performances make Thambi a watchable suspense thriller." Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote "It’s easy — actually, not so easy, but at least, it’s the lesser of the evils — to ignore the badly shot songs, the badly staged action scenes, the badly executed tone shifts, or even the all-round badness of the performances. The director encourages everyone to mug madly — every reaction shot from Karthi is like a wink to the audience. But what else can the poor man do, when given impossible scenes like the ones that have him talking to his conscience in various mirrors?"


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: The Spirit of Ecstasy is the bonnet ornament sculpture on Rolls-Royce cars. It is in the form of a woman leaning forwards with her arms outstretched behind and above her. Billowing cloth runs from her arms to her back, resembling wings.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: The first Rolls-Royce motorcars did not feature radiator mascots; they simply carried the Rolls-Royce emblem. When John, 2nd Baron Montagu commissioned his friend, sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes, who worked in London under the nobleman's patronage, to sculpt a personal mascot for the bonnet of his 1909 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, Sykes chose Eleanor Velasco Thornton as his model. Sykes originally crafted a figurine of her in fluttering robes, having placed one forefinger against her lips – to symbolize the secret of the love affair between Thornton and Montagu. The figurine was consequently named The Whisper and is on display at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu along with other "Spirit of Ecstasy" figurines.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: The "Spirit of Ecstasy", also called "Eleanor", "Silver Lady", or "Flying Lady", was designed by Sykes, a graduate of London's Royal College of Art, and carries with it a story about secret passion between Montagu, second Baron Montagu of Beaulieu after 1905, a pioneer of the automobile movement, and editor of "The Car Illustrated" magazine from 1902, and the model for the emblem, Eleanor Velasco Thornton.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Eleanor (also known as Thorn) was the secretary of John Walter, who fell in love with her in 1902 when she worked for him on the aforesaid motoring magazine. Their secret love was to remain hidden, limited to their circle of friends, for more than a decade. The reason for the secrecy was Eleanor's impoverished social and economic status, which was an obstacle to their love. On the other hand, Montagu had been married to Lady Cecil Victoria Constance Kerr since 1889.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: By 1910 personal mascots had become the fashion of the day. Rolls-Royce were concerned to note that some owners were affixing "inappropriate" ornaments to their cars. Claude Johnson, then managing director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, was asked to commission a more dignified and graceful mascot.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: He turned to Sykes to produce a mascot which would adorn all future Rolls-Royce cars and become generic to the marque, with the specifications that it should convey "the spirit of the Rolls-Royce, namely, speed with silence, absence of vibration, the mysterious harnessing of great energy and a beautiful living organism of superb grace..."


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Sykes' brief from Claude Johnson had been to evoke the spirit of mythical beauty, Nike, whose graceful image was admired in The Louvre, but Sykes was not impressed. He felt that a more feminine representation might be apt.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: It was again Miss Thornton whom he had in mind. Sykes chose to modify "The Whisper" into a version similar to today's "Spirit of Ecstasy". He called this first model The Spirit of Speed. Later, Charles Sykes called it "A graceful little goddess, the Spirit of Ecstasy, who has selected road travel as her supreme delight and alighted on the prow of a Rolls-Royce motor car to revel in the freshness of the air and the musical sound of her fluttering draperies."


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Claude Johnson devised the description of the "Spirit of Ecstasy", he described how Sykes had sought to convey the image of "the spirit of ecstasy, who has selected road travel as her supreme delight... she is expressing her keen enjoyment, with her arms outstretched and her sight fixed upon the distance."


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Royce was ill during the commissioning of the flying lady. He did not believe the figurine enhanced the cars, asserting that it impaired the driver's view, and was rarely seen driving one of his company's vehicles adorned with the mascot.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: In February 1911 Sykes presented to Rolls-Royce the "Spirit of Ecstasy", which was easily recognisable as being a variation on the theme of "The Whisper". The similarity was hardly coincidental because the model for both had been Miss Thornton. The sculptor's signature appeared on the plinth and were either signed "Charles Sykes, February 1911" or "Feb 6, 1911" or "6.2.11". Even after Rolls-Royce took over the casting of the figures in 1948 each "Spirit of Ecstasy" continued to receive this inscription until 1951.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: The "Spirit of Ecstasy" was also manufactured by the British firm Louis Lejeune Ltd. for a number of years.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Eleanor died on 30 December 1915 when the SS "Persia" was torpedoed by a U-boat south of Crete. She had been accompanying Lord Montagu who had been directed to assume a command in India. He was thought to have been killed too, but survived and was saved after several days adrift in a life raft.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Royce made sure it was officially listed as an optional extra, but in practice it was fitted to almost all cars after that year, becoming a standard fitting in the early 1920s. It was silver plated from 1911 until 1914 when the mascot was made with nickel or chrome alloy to dissuade theft. The only departure from this came in Paris at the competition for the most apposite mascot of 1920, where a gold-plated version won first place. Gold-plated versions were subsequently available at additional cost. The design of the mascot has had eleven main variations in its life. Lowered height of coachwork forced subsequent reductions in the mascot size. Consequently, several alterations in the original design were made.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Sykes was once again commissioned by Rolls-Royce in the 1930s to make a lower version of the mascot to suit the needs of the new sports saloons by providing their drivers with a clearer view of the road ahead.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: The kneeling lady mascot was unveiled on 26 January 1934 and was as undeniably a reflection of Eleanor as it was a symbol of the Rolls-Royce. It also bore on the plinth the inscription "C. Sykes, 26.1.34", the date when the first piece was finished. This version was, however, discontinued after the Silver Dawn, Phantom IV and Silver Wraith models, in favour of a smaller version of the original standing mascot, and so it remains to date. The last Phantom IV delivered and the final 4 or 5 years of the Silver Wraith carried this standing version.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Today's "Spirit of Ecstasy", from the 2003 Phantom model onward, stands at and, for the safety of any person being accidentally hit, is mounted on a spring-loaded mechanism designed to retract instantly into the radiator shell if struck from any direction. There is a button within the vehicle which can raise/lower the emblem when pressed. She can be made from highly polished stainless steel, stainless with 24-carat gold plating, or from illuminated frosted crystal – the latter two being optional extras. Aftermarket customized versions are also available, including those covered in a matte black paint or studded in diamonds. The company created one as a Fabergé Egg.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: A new design was specially made for the all-new-electric Spectre, after it was first registered as intellectual property, in 1911. The figurine has been remodelled with a lower, more dynamic stance that brings her much closer to the original drawings made in the early years of the 20th century. The new version created for the Spectre will appear on all future models.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: The new Spirit of Ecstasy stands 82.73mm tall, compared to her predecessor's 100.01mm. Her robes have been subtly reshaped to make them more aerodynamic and realistic.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: The figurine is now braced for the wind, one leg forward, body tucked low, eyes focused eagerly ahead, ""a true goddess of speed"". Her new shape has been digitally sculpted, adding an authentically contemporary aura to her dynamism and commanding presence, including elegant facial features and expression, combining focus and serenity. She has, previously, stood with her feet together, legs straight and tilting at the waist.


title: Spirit of Ecstasy

text: Earliest prototypes showed a drag coefficient of just 0.26, making it the most aerodynamic Rolls-Royce ever created. The drag coefficient is expected to improve during the product's testing protocols undertaken in 2022. The Rolls-Royce Spectre is expected to debut in 2023.


title: Daimler Truck

text: Daimler Truck AG (holding company legal name Daimler Truck Holding AG) is one of the world's largest commercial vehicle manufacturers, with over 35 main locations worldwide and approximately 100,000 employees. Daimler Truck AG is headquartered in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany. It was part of Daimler AG from November 2019 to December 2021.


title: Daimler Truck

text: Daimler Truck was established in 2019 as a subsidiary of Daimler AG. In February 2021, Daimler said it planned to spin off Daimler Truck into a separate listed company. The spin-off was approved by its shareholders on 1 October 2021. Following this, Daimler Truck Holding AG was incorporated to manage assets owned by Daimler Truck AG, and Daimler AG retained 35% of shares in a new company, with 5% being transferred to its pension trust. A separate website of Daimler Truck company was launched on 1 December, and the company went public on 10 December.


title: Daimler Truck

text: Of the Daimler Group's total workforce of 298,683 at the end of 2018 (2017: 289,321), 82,953 (2016: 79,483) worked at the Daimler Trucks division, of which 30,447 (2017: 30,424) were employed in Germany and 16,647 in the U.S. (2017: 15,002). In 2019, revenue amounted to €40.2 billion at Daimler Trucks and €4.7 billion at Daimler Buses. Daimler Buses is a leading brand in its core markets of Europe, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, selling 30,888 vehicles worldwide in 2019.


title: Daimler Truck

text: In 2018, the most important sales market was the NAFTA countries with 37% followed by Asia with 32%, Western Europe (EU plus Norway and Switzerland) with 17%, and Latin America (excluding the NAFTA country of Mexico) with 7%.


title: Daimler Truck

text: Daimler Truck has a worldwide network of production plants and research centers. The following list is a description of all locations worldwide that include a Daimler Truck plant, including plants for the subsidiaries EvoBus, Daimler Trucks North America, Detroit Diesel, Freightliner Trucks and Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Liber AL vel Legis (), commonly known as The Book of the Law, is the central sacred text of Thelema. Aleister Crowley said that it was dictated to him by a beyond-human being who called himself 'Aiwass'. Rose Edith Kelly, Crowley's wife, wrote two phrases in the manuscript. The three chapters of the book are spoken by the deities Nuit, Hadit, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Through the reception of the "Book", Crowley proclaimed the arrival of a new stage in the spiritual evolution of humanity, to be known as the "Æon of Horus". The primary precept of this new aeon is the charge, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."


title: The Book of the Law

text: The book contains three chapters, each of which was alleged to be written down in one hour, beginning at noon, on 8 April, 9 April, and 10 April in Cairo, Egypt, in the year 1904. Crowley says that the author was an entity named Aiwass, whom he later referred to as his personal Holy Guardian Angel. Biographer Lawrence Sutin quotes private diaries that fit this story and writes that "if ever Crowley uttered the truth of his relation to the "Book"," his public account accurately describes what he remembered on this point.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley himself wrote "Certain very serious questions have arisen with regard to the method by which this Book was obtained. I do not refer to those doubts—real or pretended—which hostility engenders, for all such are dispelled by study of the text; no forger could have prepared so complex a set of numerical and literal puzzles[...]"


title: The Book of the Law

text: The book is often referred to simply as Liber AL, "Liber Legis" or just "AL", though technically the latter two refer only to the manuscript.


title: The Book of the Law

text: The technical title of the book is "Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI", although this title never occurs in the Book itself, which refers to itself as "the Book of the Law" and "the threefold Book of Law" (chapters 1:35, 3:75). CCXX is 220 in Roman figures, representing The Tree of Life (10 numbers times 22 paths), and is the number of verses of the Book in typescript. XCIII is 93, the enumeration of both "The word of the law" Thelema and Aiwass. DCLXVI is 666, the number of Crowley as Great Beast both as Adept and Magus. This is a way of saying that the book was delivered by Aiwass (whose number is both 93 and 418) to Crowley, who is The Beast 666.


title: The Book of the Law

text: The facsimile manuscript of the Book is not, however, numbered 220, but XXXI (31) as the first chapter's verses are unnumbered in the original manuscript: that is, no verse numbers were dictated to Crowley for chapter one. Both editions were titled by Crowley AL, pronounced "El", value 31, so therefore Liber 31 is the manuscript of "The Book of the Law" called AL (not be confused with Liber 31 by C. S. Jones (Frater Achad), which is an exegesis of some of the qabalistic symbolism of the "Book"), whereas Liber 220 is the edited (strictly according to the editing instructions dictated as part of the text of the Book itself), printed form of the text: see "The Equinox of The Gods" for a full account by Crowley of the reception and publishing of the "Book" according to these internal instructions.


title: The Book of the Law

text: The original title of the book was "Liber L vel Legis". Crowley retitled it "Liber AL vel Legis" in 1921, when he also gave the handwritten manuscript its own title.


title: The Book of the Law

text: According to Crowley, the story began on 16 March 1904, when he tried to "shew the Sylphs" by use of the Bornless Ritual to his wife, Rose Edith Kelly, while spending the night in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Although she could see nothing, she did seem to enter into a light trance and repeatedly said, "They're waiting for you!" Since Rose had no interest in magic or mysticism, she took little interest. However, on the 18th, after he invoked Thoth (the god of knowledge), she mentioned Horus by name as the one waiting for him. Crowley, still skeptical, asked her numerous questions about Horus, which she answered accurately supposedly without having any prior study of the subject:


title: The Book of the Law

text: Calculate the odds! We cannot find a mathematical expression for tests 1,2,4,5, or 6, but the other 7 tests give us: 1/10 x 1/84 x 1/4 x 1/6 x 1/7 x 1/10 x 1/15 = 1/21,168,000


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley also gives a different chronology, in which an invocation of Horus preceded the questioning. Lawrence Sutin says this ritual described Horus in detail, and could have given Rose the answers to her husband's questions.


title: The Book of the Law

text: As part of his 'test' for Rose, Crowley wrote that they visited the Bulaq Museum where Crowley asked her to point out an image of Horus. Much to Crowley's initial amusement, she passed by several common images of the god, and went upstairs. From across the room Rose identified Horus on the stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, then housed under inventory number 666 (since moved to the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, number A 9422). The stela would subsequently be known to Thelemites (adherents of Thelema) as the "Stele of Revealing."


title: The Book of the Law

text: On 20 March, Crowley invoked Horus, "with great success". Between 23 March and 8 April, Crowley had the hieroglyphs on the stele translated. Also, Rose revealed that her "informant" was not Horus himself, but his messenger, Aiwass.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Finally, on 7 April, Rose gave Crowley his instructions—for three days he was to enter the "temple" and write down what he heard between noon and 1:00 P.M.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Although the "messenger" of "Liber AL" was Aiwass, each chapter is presented as an expression of one of three god-forms: Nuit, Hadit, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit.


title: The Book of the Law

text: The first chapter is spoken by Nuit, the Egyptian goddess of the night sky, called the Queen of Space. Crowley calls her the "Lady of the Starry Heaven, who is also Matter in its deepest metaphysical sense, who is the infinite in whom all we live and move and have our being."


title: The Book of the Law

text: The second chapter is spoken by Hadit, who refers to himself as the "complement of Nu," i.e., his bride. As such, he is the infinitely condensed point, the center of her infinite circumference. Crowley says of him, "He is eternal energy, the Infinite Motion of Things, the central core of all being. The manifested Universe comes from the marriage of Nuit and Hadit; without this could no thing be. This eternal, this perpetual marriage-feast is then the nature of things themselves; and therefore, everything that exists is a "crystallisation of divine ecstasy", and "He sees the expansion and the development of the soul through joy."


title: The Book of the Law

text: The third chapter is spoken by Ra-Hoor-Khuit, "a god of War and of Vengeance", also identified as Hoor-paar-kraat, the Crowned and Conquering Child.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley sums up the speakers of the three chapters thus, "we have Nuit, Space, Hadit, the point of view; these experience congress, and so produce Heru-Ra-Ha, who combines the ideas of Ra-Hoor-Khuit and Hoor-paar-kraat."


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley said he wrote "The Book of the Law" on 8, 9 and 10 April 1904, between the hours of noon and 1:00 pm, in the flat where he and his new wife were staying for their honeymoon, which he described as being near the Boulak Museum in a fashionable European quarter of Cairo, let by the firm Congdon & Co. The apartment was on the ground floor, and the "temple" was the drawing room.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley described the encounter in detail in "The Equinox of the Gods", saying that as he sat at his desk in Cairo, the voice of Aiwass came from over his left shoulder in the furthest corner of the room. This voice is described as passionate and hurried, and was "of deep timbre, musical and expressive, its tones solemn, voluptuous, tender, fierce or aught else as suited the moods of the message. Not bass—perhaps a rich tenor or baritone." Further, the voice was devoid of "native or foreign accent."


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley also got a "strong impression" of the speaker's general appearance. Aiwass had a body composed of "fine matter," which had a gauze-like transparency. Further, he "seemed to be a tall, dark man in his thirties, well-knit, active and strong, with the face of a savage king, and eyes veiled lest their gaze should destroy what they saw. The dress was not Arab; it suggested Assyria or Persia, but very vaguely.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Despite initially writing that it was an "excellent example of automatic writing," Crowley later insisted that it was not just automatic writing (though the writing included aspects of this, since when Crowley tried to stop writing he was compelled to continue. The writing also recorded Crowley's own thoughts). Rather he said that the experience was exactly like an actual voice speaking to him. This resulted in a few transcription errors, about which the scribe had to later inquire.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Note, moreover, with what greedy vanity I claim authorship even of all the other A∴A∴ Books in Class A, though I wrote them inspired beyond all I know to be I. Yet in these Books did Aleister Crowley, the master of English both in prose and in verse, partake insofar as he was That. Compare those Books with The Book of the Law! The style [of the former] is simple and sublime; the imagery is gorgeous and faultless; the rhythm is subtle and intoxicating; the theme is interpreted in faultless symphony. There are no errors of grammar, no infelicities of phrase. Each Book is perfect in its kind.


title: The Book of the Law

text: I, daring to snatch credit for these [...] dared nowise to lay claim to have touched The Book of the Law, not with my littlest finger-tip.


title: The Book of the Law

text: He also admits to the possibility that Aiwass may be identified with his own subconscious, although he thought this was unlikely:


title: The Book of the Law

text: Of course I wrote them, ink on paper, in the material sense; but they are not My words, unless Aiwaz be taken to be no more than my subconscious self, or some part of it: in that case, my conscious self being ignorant of the Truth in the Book and hostile to most of the ethics and philosophy of the Book, Aiwaz is a severely suppressed part of me.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley himself was initially opposed to the book and its message. "I was trying to forget the whole business."


title: The Book of the Law

text: The fact of the matter was that I resented "The Book of the Law" with my whole soul. For one thing, it knocked my Buddhism completely on the head. ... I was bitterly opposed to the principles of the Book on almost every point of morality. The third chapter seemed to me gratuitously atrocious.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Shortly after making a few copies for evaluation by close friends, the manuscript was misplaced and forgotten about. It would be several years before it was found, and the first official publication occurred in 1909.


title: The Book of the Law

text: "The Book of the Law" annoyed me; I was still obsessed by the idea that secrecy was necessary to a magical document, that publication would destroy its importance. I determined, in a mood which I can only describe as a fit of ill temper, to publish "The Book of the Law", and then get rid of it for ever.


title: The Book of the Law

text: A facsimile of the original handwritten manuscript was published in "The Equinox", Volume I, Number VII, in 1912. In 1921, Crowley gave the manuscript its own title, "AL (Liber Legis), The Book of the Law, sub figura XXXI", to distinguish it from the typeset version. It is now sometimes referred to as simply "Liber XXXI".


title: The Book of the Law

text: The original manuscript was sent on Crowley's death to Karl Germer, the executor of his will and head of the "Ordo Templi Orientis" (O.T.O.). On Germer's death no trace of it could be found in his papers. There matters rested until 1984, when Tom Whitmore, the new owner of a house in Berkeley, California, began searching through the junk left in the basement by the previous owner. Among the used mattresses, lumber, and outdated high school textbooks were two boxes of assorted papers and newspaper clippings dealing with Germer's affairs, the charter of the O.T.O. and an envelope containing the manuscript of "The Book of the Law". Whitmore donated the papers to the O.T.O.


title: The Book of the Law

text: The final version of "Liber Legis" includes text that did not appear in the original writing, including many small changes to spelling. In several cases, stanzas from the Stele of Revealing were inserted within the text.


title: The Book of the Law

text: For example, chapter 1, page 2, line 9 was written as "V.1. of Spell called the Song" and was replaced with:


title: The Book of the Law

text: And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the unfragmentary non-atomic fact of my universality." along with a note: "Write this in whiter words But go forth on.


title: The Book of the Law

text: And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my body. (AL I:26)


title: The Book of the Law

text: Again in chapter 1, on page 19, Crowley writes, "(Lost 1 phrase) The shape of my star is—". Later, it was Rose who filled in the lost phrase:


title: The Book of the Law

text: The last chapter contains a few spelling changes, and includes large chunks inserted from Crowley's paraphrase of The Stele of Revealing.


title: The Book of the Law

text: The phrase "Force of Coph Nia", which is found in chapter 3, on page 64 (verse 72), was filled in by Rose Kelly because that place in the manuscript had been left incomplete as not having been properly heard by Crowley during the supposed dictation. Israel Regardie proposed that Coph Nia could have been intended to represent Ain Soph, the Cabalistic phrase for Infinity, and that Rose might not have known that Hebrew letters are written from right to left or their meaning


title: The Book of the Law

text: Based on several passages, including: "My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he shall comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit" (AL I:36), Crowley felt compelled to interpret "AL" in writing. He wrote two large sets of commentaries where he attempted to decipher each line.


title: The Book of the Law

text: In 1912, he prepared "AL" and his current comments on it for publication in "The Equinox, I(7)". However, he was not satisfied with this initial attempt. He recalls in his confessions () that he thought the existing commentary was "shamefully meagre and incomplete." He later explains, "I had stupidly supposed this Comment to be a scholarly exposition of the Book, an elucidation of its obscurities and a demonstration of its praeterhuman origin. I understand at last that this idea is nonsense. The Comment must be an interpretation of the Book intelligible to the simplest minds, and as practical as the Ten Commandments." Moreover, this Comment should be arrived at "inspirationally," as the Book itself had been.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Years later in 1925 while in Tunis, Tunisia, Crowley received his inspiration. He published his second commentary, often called simply "The Comment", in the Tunis edition of "AL", of which only 11 copies were printed, and signed it as Ankh-f-n-khonsu (lit. "He Lives in Khonsu"—a historical priest who lived in Thebes in the 26th dynasty, associated with the Stele of Revealing). Crowley later tasked his friend and fellow O.T.O. member Louis Wilkinson with preparing an edited version of Crowley's commentaries which was published some time after Crowley's death as "The Law is for All".


title: The Book of the Law

text: Thanks in large part to "The Comment", interpretation of the often cryptic text is generally considered by Thelemites a matter for the individual reader. Crowley wrote about Liber AL in great detail throughout the remainder of his life, apparently attempting to decipher its mysteries.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Aiwass, uttering the word Thelema (with all its implications), destroys completely the formula of the Dying God. Thelema implies not merely a new religion, but a new cosmology, a new philosophy, a new ethics. It co-ordinates the disconnected discoveries of science, from physics to psychology, into a coherent and consistent system.


title: The Book of the Law

text: The general method that Crowley used to interpret the obscurities of "Liber AL" was qabalah, especially its numerological method of gematria. He writes, "Many such cases of double entendre, paronomasia in one language or another, sometimes two at once, numerical-literal puzzles, and even (on one occasion) an illuminating connexion of letters in various lines by a slashing scratch, will be found in the Qabalistic section of the Commentary." In "Magick Without Tears" he wrote:


title: The Book of the Law

text: Now there was enough comprehensible at the time to assure me that the Author of the Book knew at least as much Qabalah as I did: I discovered subsequently more than enough to make it certain without error that he knew a very great deal more, and that of an altogether higher order, than I knew; finally, such glimmerings of light as time and desperate study have thrown on many other obscure passages, to leave no doubt whatever in my mind that he is indeed the supreme Qabalist of all time.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley would later consider the subsequent events of his life, and the apparent fulfilment of certain 'predictions' of the book, as further proof:


title: The Book of the Law

text: The author of "The Book of the Law" foresaw and provided against all such difficulties by inserting in the text discoveries which I did not merely not make for years afterwards, but did not even possess the machinery for making. Some, in fact, depend upon events which I had no part in bringing about.


title: The Book of the Law

text: One such key event was Charles Stansfeld Jones claiming the grade of Magister Templi, which Crowley saw as the birth of his 'Magical Son'. Crowley believed that Jones later went on to "discover the Key of it all" as foretold in the book (II:76, III:47).


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley believed that Jones' discovery of the critical value of 31 gave Crowley further insight into his qabalistic understanding and interpretation of the book. Upon receiving notification of this discovery, Crowley replied:


title: The Book of the Law

text: \ = 418. "Thou knowest not." Your key opens Palace. CCXX has unfolded like a flower. All solved, even II.76 & III.47. Did you know Π = 3.141593? And oh! lots more!


title: The Book of the Law

text: "English Qaballa" (EQ) is an English-based Hermetic Qabalah supported by a system of arithmancy that interprets the letters of the English alphabet via an assigned set of values, discovered by James Lees in 1976. It is the result of an intent to understand, interpret, and elaborate on the mysteries of Aleister Crowley's received text, "Liber AL vel Legis, the Book of the Law". According to Jake Stratton-Kent, "the English Qaballa is a qabalah and not a system of numerology. A qabalah is specifically related to three factors: one, a language; two, a 'holy' text or texts; three, mathematical laws at work in these two."


title: The Book of the Law

text: The "order & value" discovered by James Lees lays the letters out on the grid superimposed on the page of manuscript of "Liber AL" on which this verse (III:47) appears (sheet 16 of Chapter III). Also appearing on this page are a diagonal line and a circled cross. "The Book of the Law" states that the book should only be printed with Crowley's hand-written version included, suggesting that there are mysteries in the "chance shape of the letters and their position to one another" of Crowley's handwriting. Whichever top-left to bottom-right diagonal is read the magickal order of the letters is obtained.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Crowley's former secretary Israel Regardie argued in his biography of Crowley, "The Eye in the Triangle", that Aiwass was an unconscious expression of Crowley's personality. Regardie stated that although Crowley initially regarded Aiwass as one of the secret chiefs, years later he came to believe that Aiwass was his own Holy Guardian Angel.


title: The Book of the Law

text: It can safely be said that current psychological theory would agree that any one person is possessed of all sorts of knowledge and power of which he is totally unconscious... Both Freudian and Jungian theory are on the side of such an assumption..


title: The Book of the Law

text: Regardie also argued that Rose's ability to answer Crowley's questions about Horus and the Qabala was not as remarkable as Crowley thought. Rose had been married to Crowley for eight months at this point and Regardie stated that Crowley may well have used Rose as a 'sounding board' for many of his own ideas. Therefore, she may not have been as ignorant of magick and mysticism as Crowley made out.


title: The Book of the Law

text: It really makes little difference in the long run whether "The Book of the Law" was dictated to [Crowley] by a preterhuman intelligence named Aiwass or whether it stemmed from the creative deeps of Aleister Crowley. The book was written. And he became the mouthpiece for the Zeitgeist, accurately expressing the intrinsic nature of our time as no one else has done to date.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Charles R. Cammell, author of "Aleister Crowley: The Man, the Mage, the Poet" also believed the Book was an expression of Crowley's personality:


title: The Book of the Law

text: The mind behind the maxims is cold, cruel and relentless. Mercy there is none, nor consolation; nor hope save in the service of this dread messenger of the gods of Egypt. Such is "Liber Legis" in letter and spirit; and as such, and in consideration of its manner of reception, it is a document of curious interest. That it is in part (but in part only) an emanation from Crowley's unconscious mind I can believe; for it bears a likeness to his own Daemonic personality.


title: The Book of the Law

text: Scholar Joshua Gunn also argued that the stylistic similarities between the Book and Crowley's poetic writings were too great for it to be anything other than Crowley's work:


title: The Book of the Law

text: Although Crowley seemed to believe sincerely that "The Book of the Law" was inspired by superhuman intelligences, its clichéd imagery, overwrought style, and overdone ecophonetic displays are too similar to Crowley's other poetic writings to be the product of something supernatural.


title: The Book of the Law

text: "The Book of the Law" was first published in 1909 as part of ΘΕΛΗΜΑ, a collection of the holy books of Thelema. ΘΕΛΗΜΑ was privately published in London by the A∴A∴ as a three volume set, with "The Book of the Law" appearing in Volume III. It was next published in 1913 as part of "The Equinox", Volume I, Number X. In both of these early editions it is titled "Liber L vel Legis". Subsequent published editions include:


title: Premier League Player of the Season

text: The Premier League Player of the Season is an annual association football award presented to players in England, which recognises the most outstanding player in the Premier League each season. The recipient is chosen by a panel assembled by the league's sponsors consisting of members of "football's governing bodies, the media and fans", and is announced in the second or third week of May. For sponsorship purposes, from 1994 to 2001 it was called the Carling Player of the Year; from 2001 to 2004 as the Barclaycard Player of the Year; and from 2004 to 2016 as the Barclays Player of the Season. Since the 2016–17 season, it is called the EA Sports Player of the Season.


title: Premier League Player of the Season

text: The Premier League was founded in 1992, when the clubs of the First Division left the Football League and established a new commercially independent league that negotiated its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements. The newly formed league had no sponsor for its inaugural season until Carling agreed to a four-year £12 million deal that started the following season. That same season, Carling introduced individual awards for players, such as the Golden Boot. However, the Player of the Month and Player of the Season awards were only first bestowed during the 1994–95 season. The first Player of the Season award was given to Blackburn Rovers striker Alan Shearer, who won the Premier League title with his team and the Golden Boot that season.


title: Premier League Player of the Season

text: Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nemanja Vidić and Kevin De Bruyne have been Player of the Season on two occasions each and are the only players to have won the award more than once, with Ronaldo having achieved this in consecutive years (2007 and 2008). Eight players were the Premier League's leading goalscorer and won the Golden Boot alongside the Player of the Season award. Four of these players – Kevin Phillips, Henry, Ronaldo and Luis Suárez – went on to win the European Golden Shoe in the same season. 11 players have won the Premier League trophy with their respective clubs in the same year they received the award, with Ronaldo and Vidić each accomplishing the feat on two occasions with Manchester United. Ronaldo is the only player to be named Player of the Season and win the FIFA World Player of the Year; when he accomplished this in 2008, he became the first player from the Premier League to be voted the world's top footballer.


title: State Council of the People's Republic of China

text: The State Council, constitutionally synonymous with the Central People's Government since 1954 (particularly in relation to local governments), is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the premier and includes each cabinet-level executive department's executive chief. Currently, the council has 35 members: the premier, one executive vice premier, three other vice premiers, five state councilors (of whom three are also ministers and one is also the secretary-general), and 26 in charge of the Council's constituent departments. The State Council directly oversees provincial-level People's Governments, and in practice maintains membership with the top levels of the CCP. Aside from very few non-CCP ministers, members of the State Council are also members of the CCP's Central Committee.


text: The State Council meets every six months. Between meetings it is guided by a (Executive Meeting) that meets weekly. The standing committee includes the premier, one executive vice premier, three vice premiers, and five other state councillors (normally one of whom serves as Secretary-General of the State Council, and two of whom concurrently serve as ministers).


text: The vice-premiers and state councillors are nominated by the premier, and appointed by the president with National People's Congress' (NPC) approval. Incumbents may serve two successive five-year terms.


text: Each vice premier oversees certain areas of administration. Each State Councillor performs duties as designated by the Premier. The secretary-general heads the General Office which handles the day-to-day work of the State Council. The secretary-general has relatively little power and should not be confused with the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.


text: Each ministry supervises one sector. Commissions outrank ministries and set policies for and coordinate the related activities of different administrative organs. Offices deal with matters of ongoing concern. Bureaus and administrations rank below ministries.


text: In addition to the 25 ministries, there are 38 centrally administered government organizations that report directly to the state council. The heads of these organizations attend full meetings of the state committee on an irregular basis.


text: In practice, the vice premiers and State Councillors assume responsibility for one or more sectors or issues, and remain in contact with the various bodies responsible for policy related to that area. This allows the Standing Committee to oversee a wide range of government functions.


text: The State Council, like all other governmental bodies, is nominally responsible to the NPC and its Standing Committee in conducting a wide range of government functions both at the national and at the local levels, and nominally acts by virtue of the NPC's authority. In practice, however, the NPC had historically done little more than ratify decisions already made by the State Council. More recently, however, the NPC has taken on a more independent role. There has been at least one case where the NPC has outright rejected an initiative of the State Council and a few cases where the State Council has withdrawn or greatly modified a proposal in response to NPC opposition.


text: The State Council and the CCP are also tightly interlocked. With rare exceptions, State Councillors are high-ranking members of the CCP. Although, as Party members, they are supposed to follow Party instructions, because they tend to be senior members of the Party they also have substantial influence over what those instructions are. This results in a system which is unlike the Soviet practice in which the Party effectively controlled the State. Rather, the Party and State are fused at this level of government. The members of the State Council derive their authority from being members of the state, while as members of the Party they coordinate their activities and determine key decisions such as the naming of personnel.


text: There were attempts to separate the party and state in the late 1980s under Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang and have the Party in charge of formulating policy and the State Council executing policy, but these efforts were largely abandoned in the early 1990s.


text: As the chief administrative organ of government, its main functions are to formulate administrative measures, issue decisions and orders, and monitor their implementation; draft legislative bills for submission to the NPC or its Standing Committee; and prepare the economic plan and the state budget for deliberation and approval by the NPC. The State Council is the functional center of state power and clearinghouse for government initiatives at all levels. With the government's emphasis on economic modernization, the State Council clearly acquired additional importance and influence.


text: The State Council controls the Ministry for National Defense but does not control the People's Liberation Army, which is instead controlled by the Central Military Commission.


text: The Plenary Meeting of State Council is hosted by the Premier, joined by Vice Premiers, State Councillors, Ministers in charge of Ministries and Commissions, the Governor of the People's Bank, the Auditor-General, and the Secretary General. It usually runs bi-annually and when necessary, non-members can be invited to participate.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system. Symptoms may include a lump in the testicle, or swelling or pain in the scrotum. Treatment may result in infertility.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Risk factors include an undescended testis, family history of the disease, and previous history of testicular cancer. More than 95% are germ cell tumors which are divided into seminomas and nonseminomas. Other types include sex-cord stromal tumors and lymphomas. Diagnosis is typically based on a physical exam, ultrasound, and blood tests. Surgical removal of the testicle with examination under a microscope is then done to determine the type.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Testicular cancer is highly treatable and usually curable. Treatment options may include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or stem cell transplantation. Even in cases in which cancer has spread widely, chemotherapy offers a cure rate greater than 80%.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Globally testicular cancer affected about 686,000 people in 2015. That year it resulted in 9,400 deaths up from 7,000 deaths in 1990. Rates are lower in the developing than the developed world. Onset most commonly occurs in males 20 to 34 years old, rarely before 15 years old. The five-year survival rate in the United States is about 95%. Outcomes are better when the disease remains localized.


title: Testicular cancer

text: One of the first signs of testicular cancer is often a lump or swelling in the testes. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends against routine screening for testicular cancer in asymptomatic adolescent and adults including routine testicular self-exams. However, the American Cancer Society suggests that some men should examine their testicles monthly, especially if they have a family history of cancer, and the American Urological Association recommends monthly testicular self-examinations for all young men.


title: Testicular cancer

text: It is not very common for testicular cancer to spread to other organs, apart from the lungs. If it has, however, the following symptoms may be present:


title: Testicular cancer

text: Testicular cancer, cryptorchidism, hypospadias, and poor semen quality make up the syndrome known as testicular dysgenesis syndrome.


title: Testicular cancer

text: A major risk factor for the development of testis cancer is cryptorchidism (undescended testicles). It is generally believed that the presence of a tumor contributes to cryptorchidism; when cryptorchidism occurs in conjunction with a tumor then the tumor tends to be large. Other risk factors include inguinal hernias, Klinefelter syndrome, and mumps orchitis. Physical activity is associated with decreased risk and sedentary lifestyle is associated with increased risk. Early onset of male characteristics is associated with increased risk. These may reflect endogenous or environmental hormones.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Most testicular germ cell tumors have too many chromosomes, and most often they are triploid to tetraploid. An isochromosome 12p (the short arm of chromosome 12 on both sides of the same centromere) is present in about 80% of the testicular cancers, and also the other cancers usually have extra material from this chromosome arm through other mechanisms of genomic amplification.


title: Testicular cancer

text: The main way testicular cancer is diagnosed is via a lump or mass inside a testis. More generally, if a young adult or adolescent has a single enlarged testicle, which may or may not be painful, this should give doctors reason to suspect testicular cancer.


title: Testicular cancer

text: The nature of any palpated lump in the scrotum is often evaluated by scrotal ultrasound, which can determine exact location, size, and some characteristics of the lump, such as cystic vs solid, uniform vs heterogeneous, sharply circumscribed or poorly defined. The extent of the disease is evaluated by CT scans, which are used to locate metastases.


title: Testicular cancer

text: The differential diagnosis of testicular cancer requires examining the histology of tissue obtained from an inguinal orchiectomy - that is, surgical excision of the entire testis along with attached structures (epididymis and spermatic cord). A biopsy should not be performed, as it raises the risk of spreading cancer cells into the scrotum.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Inguinal orchiectomy is the preferred method because it lowers the risk of cancer cells escaping. This is because the lymphatic system of the scrotum, through which white blood cells (and, potentially, cancer cells) flow in and out, links to the lower extremities, while that of the testicle links to the back of the abdominal cavity (the retroperitoneum). A transscrotal biopsy or orchiectomy will potentially leave cancer cells in the scrotum and create two routes for cancer cells to spread, while in an inguinal orchiectomy only the retroperitoneal route exists.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Blood tests are also used to identify and measure tumor markers (usually proteins present in the bloodstream) that are specific to testicular cancer. Alpha-fetoprotein, human chorionic gonadotropin (the "pregnancy hormone"), and LDH-1 are the typical tumor markers used to spot testicular germ cell tumors.


title: Testicular cancer

text: A pregnancy test may be used to detect high levels of chorionic gonadotropin; however, the first sign of testicular cancer is usually a painless lump. Note that only about 25% of seminomas have elevated chorionic gonadotropin, so a pregnancy test is not very sensitive for making out testicular cancer.


title: Testicular cancer

text: The American Academy of Family Physicians recommends against screening males without symptoms for testicular cancer.


title: Testicular cancer

text: After removal, the testicle is fixed with Bouin's solution because it better conserves some morphological details such as nuclear conformation. Then the testicular tumor is staged by a pathologist according to the TNM Classification of Malignant Tumors as published in the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual. Testicular cancer is categorized as being in one of three stages (which have subclassifications). The size of the tumor in the testis is irrelevant to staging. In broad terms, testicular cancer is staged as follows:


title: Testicular cancer

text: Further information on the detailed staging system is available on the website of the American Cancer Society.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Although testicular cancer can be derived from any cell type found in the testicles, more than 95% of testicular cancers are germ cell tumors (GCTs). Most of the remaining 5% are sex cord–gonadal stromal tumours derived from Leydig cells or Sertoli cells. Correct diagnosis is necessary to ensure the most effective and appropriate treatment. To some extent, this can be done via blood tests for tumor markers, but definitive diagnosis requires examination of the histology of a specimen by a pathologist.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Surgery is performed by urologists; radiation therapy is administered by radiation oncologists; and chemotherapy is the work of medical oncologists. In most patients with testicular cancer, the disease is cured readily with minimal long-term morbidity. While treatment success depends on the stage, the average survival rate after five years is around 95%, and stage 1 cancer cases, if monitored properly, have essentially a 100% survival rate.


title: Testicular cancer

text: The initial treatment for testicular cancer is surgery to remove the affected testicle (orchiectomy). While it may be possible, in some cases, to remove testicular cancer tumors from a testis while leaving the testis functional, this is almost never done, as the affected testicle usually contains pre-cancerous cells spread throughout the entire testicle. Thus removing the tumor alone without additional treatment greatly increases the risk that another cancer will form in that testicle.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Since only one testis is typically required to maintain fertility, hormone production, and other male functions, the affected testis is almost always removed completely in a procedure called inguinal orchiectomy. (The testicle is almost never removed through the scrotum; an incision is made beneath the belt line in the inguinal area.) In the UK, the procedure is known as a radical orchidectomy.


title: Testicular cancer

text: In the case of nonseminomas that appear to be stage I, surgery may be done on the retroperitoneal/paraaortic lymph nodes (in a separate operation) to accurately determine whether the cancer is in stage I or stage II and to reduce the risk that malignant testicular cancer cells that may have metastasized to lymph nodes in the lower abdomen. This surgery is called retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND). However, this approach, while standard in many places, especially the United States, is out of favor due to costs and the high level of expertise required to perform successful surgery. Sperm banking is frequently carried out prior to the procedure (as with chemotherapy), as there is a risk that RPLND may damage the nerves involved in ejaculation, causing ejaculation to occur internally into the bladder rather than externally.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Many patients are instead choosing surveillance, where no further surgery is performed unless tests indicate that the cancer has returned. This approach maintains a high cure rate because of the growing accuracy of surveillance techniques.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Since testicular cancers can spread, patients are usually offered adjuvant treatment - in the form of chemotherapy or radiotherapy - to kill any cancerous cells that may exist outside of the affected testicle. The type of adjuvant therapy depends largely on the histology of the tumor (i.e. the size and shape of its cells under the microscope) and the stage of progression at the time of surgery (i.e. how far cells have 'escaped' from the testicle, invaded the surrounding tissue, or spread to the rest of the body). If the cancer is not particularly advanced, patients may be offered careful surveillance by periodic CT scans and blood tests, in place of adjuvant treatment.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Before 1970, survival rates from testicular cancer were low. Since the introduction of adjuvant chemotherapy, chiefly platinum-based drugs like cisplatin and carboplatin, the outlook has improved substantially. Although 7000 to 8000 new cases of testicular cancer occur in the United States yearly, only 400 men are expected to die of the disease.


title: Testicular cancer

text: In the UK, a similar trend has emerged: since improvements in treatment, survival rates have risen rapidly to cure rates of over 95%.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Radiation may be used to treat stage II seminoma cancers, or as adjuvant (preventative) therapy in the case of stage I seminomas, to minimize the likelihood that tiny, non-detectable tumors exist and will spread (in the inguinal and para-aortic lymph nodes). Radiation is ineffective against and is therefore never used as a primary therapy for nonseminoma.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Chemotherapy is the standard treatment for non-seminoma when the cancer has spread to other parts of the body (that is, stage 2B or 3). The standard chemotherapy protocol is three, or sometimes four, rounds of Bleomycin-Etoposide-Cisplatin (BEP). BEP as a first-line treatment was first reported by Professor Michael Peckham in 1983. The landmark trial published in 1987 which established BEP as the optimum treatment was conducted by Dr. Lawrence Einhorn at Indiana University. An alternative, equally effective treatment involves the use of four cycles of Etoposide-Cisplatin (EP).


title: Testicular cancer

text: Lymph node surgery may also be performed after chemotherapy to remove masses left behind (stage 2B or more advanced), particularly in the cases of large nonseminomas.


title: Testicular cancer

text: As an adjuvant treatment, use of chemotherapy as an alternative to radiation therapy in the treatment of seminoma is increasing, because radiation therapy appears to have more significant long-term side effects (for example, internal scarring, increased risks of secondary malignancies, etc.). Two doses, or occasionally a single dose of carboplatin, typically delivered three weeks apart, is proving to be a successful adjuvant treatment, with recurrence rates in the same ranges as those of radiotherapy. The concept of carboplatin as a single-dose therapy was developed by Tim Oliver, Professor of Medical Oncology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. However, very long-term data on the efficacy of adjuvant carboplatin in this setting do not exist.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Since seminoma can recur decades after the primary tumor is removed, patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy should remain vigilant and not assume they are cured 5 years after treatment.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Treatment of testicular cancer is one of the success stories of modern medicine, with sustained response to treatment in more than 90% of cases, regardless of stage. In 2011 overall cure rates of more than 95% were reported, and 80% for metastatic disease—the best response by any solid tumor, with improved survival being attributed primarily to effective chemotherapy. By 2013 more than 96 per cent of the 2,300 men diagnosed each year in the U.K. were deemed cured, a rise by almost a third since the 1970s, the improvement attributed substantially to the chemotherapy drug cisplatin. In the United States, when the disease is treated while it is still localized, more than 99% of people survive 5 years.


title: Testicular cancer

text: For many patients with stage I cancer, adjuvant (preventative) therapy following surgery may not be appropriate and patients will undergo surveillance instead. The form this surveillance takes, e.g. the type and frequency of investigations and the length time it should continue, will depend on the type of cancer (non-seminoma or seminoma), but the aim is to avoid unnecessary treatments in the many patients who are cured by their surgery, and ensure that any relapses with metastases (secondary cancers) are detected early and cured. This approach ensures that chemotherapy and or radiotherapy is only given to the patients that need it. The number of patients ultimately cured is the same using surveillance as post-operative "adjuvant" treatments, but the patients have to be prepared to follow a prolonged series of visits and tests.


title: Testicular cancer

text: For both non-seminomas and seminomas, surveillance tests generally include physical examination, blood tests for tumor markers, chest x-rays and CT scanning. However, the requirements of a surveillance program differ according to the type of disease since, for seminoma patients, relapses can occur later and blood tests are not as good at indicating relapse.


title: Testicular cancer

text: CT scans are performed on the abdomen (and sometimes the pelvis) and also the chest in some hospitals. Chest x-rays are increasingly preferred for the lungs as they give sufficient detail combined with a lower false-positive rate and significantly smaller radiation dose than CT.


title: Testicular cancer

text: The frequency of CT scans during surveillance should ensure that relapses are detected at an early stage while minimizing the radiation exposure.


title: Testicular cancer

text: For patients treated for stage I non-seminoma, a randomised trial (Medical Research Council TE08) showed that, when combined with the standard surveillance tests described above, 2 CT scans at 3 and 12 months were as good as 5 over 2 years in detecting relapse at an early stage.


title: Testicular cancer

text: For patients treated for stage I seminoma who choose surveillance rather than undergoing adjuvant therapy, there have been no randomized trials to determine the optimum frequency of scans and visits, and the schedules vary very widely across the world, and within individual countries. In the UK there is an ongoing clinical trial called TRISST. This is assessing how often scans should take place and whether magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used instead of CT scans. MRI is being investigated because it does not expose the patient to radiation and so, if it is shown to be as good at detecting relapses, it may be preferable to CT.


title: Testicular cancer

text: For more advanced stages of testicular cancer, and for those cases in which radiation therapy or chemotherapy was administered, the extent of monitoring (tests) after treatment will vary on the basis of the circumstances, but normally should be done for five years in uncomplicated cases and for longer in those with higher risks of relapse.


title: Testicular cancer

text: A man with one remaining testis may maintain fertile. However, sperm banking may be appropriate for men who still plan to have children, since fertility may be adversely affected by chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. A man who loses both testicles will be infertile after the procedure, though he may elect to bank viable, cancer-free sperm prior to the procedure.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Globally testicular cancer resulted in 8,300 deaths in 2013 up from 7,000 deaths in 1990. Testicular cancer has the highest prevalence in the U.S. and Europe, and is uncommon in Asia and Africa. Worldwide incidence has doubled since the 1960s, with the highest rates of prevalence in Scandinavia, Germany, and New Zealand.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Although testicular cancer is most common among men aged 15–40 years, it has three peaks: infancy through the age of four as teratomas and yolk sac tumors, ages 25–40 years as post-pubertal seminomas and nonseminomas, and from age 60 as spermatocytic tumors.


title: Testicular cancer

text: Germ cell tumors of the testis are the most common cancer in young men between the ages of 15 and 35 years.


title: Testicular cancer

text: In the United States, about 8,900 cases are diagnosed a year. The risk of testicular cancer in white men is approximately 4-5 times the risk in black men, and more than three times that of Asian American men. The risk of testicular cancer in Latinos and American Indians is between that of white and Asian men. The cause of these differences is unknown.


title: Testicular cancer

text: In the UK, approximately 2,000 people are diagnosed a year. Over a lifetime, the risk is roughly 1 in 200 (0.5%). It is the 16th most common cancer in men. It accounts for less than 1% of cancer deaths in men (around 60 men died in 2012).


title: Testicular cancer

text: Testicular tumors occur also in other animals. In horses, these include interstitial cell tumors and teratomas. Typically, the former are found in older stallions (affected stallions may become extremely vicious, suggesting excessive production of androgen), and the latter are found in young horses and are large.


title: Parthia

text: Parthia ( "Parθava"; "Parθaw"; "Pahlaw") is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC, and formed part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire following the 4th-century-BC conquests of Alexander the Great. The region later served as the political and cultural base of the Eastern Iranian Parni people and Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD). The Sasanian Empire, the last state of pre-Islamic Iran, also held the region and maintained the seven Parthian clans as part of their feudal aristocracy.


title: Parthia

text: The name "Parthia" is a continuation from Latin ', from Old Persian ', which was the Parthian language self-designator signifying "of the Parthians" who were an Iranian people. In context to its Hellenistic period, "Parthia" also appears as "Parthyaea".


title: Parthia

text: Parthia was known as "Pahlaw" in the Middle Persian sources of the Sasanian period, and "Pahla" or "Fahla" by later Islamic authors.


title: Parthia

text: The original location of Parthia roughly corresponds to a region in northeastern Iran, though part is in southern Turkmenistan. It was bordered by the Kopet Dag mountain range in the north, and the Dasht-e-Kavir desert in the south. It bordered Media on the west, Hyrcania on the north west, Margiana on the northeast, and Aria on the east.


title: Parthia

text: During Arsacid times, Parthia was united with Hyrcania as one administrative unit, and that region is therefore often (subject to context) considered a part of Parthia proper.


title: Parthia

text: By the early Sasanian period, Parthia was located in the central part of the Iranian plateau, neighboring Pars to the south, Khuzistan to the south-west, Media to the north-west, the Alborz Mountains to the north, Abarshahr to the north-east, and Kirman to the east. In the late Sasanian era, Parthia came to embrace not only central and north-central Iran, but extended to the western parts of the plateau as well.


title: Parthia

text: In the Islamic era, Parthia was believed to be located in central and western Iran. Ibn al-Muqaffa considered Parthia as encompassing the regions of Isfahan, Ray, Hamadan, Mah-i Nihawand and Azerbaijan. The same definition is found in the works of al-Khawazmi and Hamza al-Isfahani. Al-Dinawari, while not using the word Parthia, considered Jibal to be the realm of the last Parthian king, Artabanus IV.


title: Parthia

text: As the region inhabited by Parthians, Parthia first appears as a political entity in Achaemenid lists of governorates ("satrapies") under their dominion. Prior to this, the people of the region seem to have been subjects of the Medes, and 7th century BC Assyrian texts mention a country named Partakka or Partukka (though this "need not have coincided topographically with the later Parthia").


title: Parthia

text: A year after Cyrus the Great's defeat of the Median Astyages, Parthia became one of the first provinces to acknowledge Cyrus as their ruler, "and this allegiance secured Cyrus' eastern flanks and enabled him to conduct the first of his imperial campaigns – against Sardis." According to Greek sources, following the seizure of the Achaemenid throne by Darius I, the Parthians united with the Median king Phraortes to revolt against him. Hystaspes, the Achaemenid governor of the province (said to be father of Darius I), managed to suppress the revolt, which seems to have occurred around 522–521 BC.


title: Parthia

text: The first indigenous Iranian mention of Parthia is in the Behistun inscription of Darius I, where Parthia is listed (in the typical Iranian clockwise order) among the governorates in the vicinity of Drangiana. The inscription dates to c. 520 BC. The center of the administration "may have been at [what would later be known as] Hecatompylus". The Parthians also appear in Herodotus' list of peoples subject to the Achaemenids; the historiographer treats the Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians and Areioi as peoples of a single satrapy (the 16th), whose annual tribute to the king he states to be only 300 talents of silver. This "has rightly caused disquiet to modern scholars."


title: Parthia

text: At the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC between the forces of Darius III and those of Alexander the Great, one such Parthian unit was commanded by Phrataphernes, who was at the time Achaemenid governor of Parthia. Following the defeat of Darius III, Phrataphernes surrendered his governorate to Alexander when the Macedonian arrived there in the summer of 330 BC. Phrataphernes was reappointed governor by Alexander.


title: Parthia

text: Following the death of Alexander, in the Partition of Babylon in 323 BC, Parthia became a Seleucid governorate under Nicanor. Phrataphernes, the former governor, became governor of Hyrcania. In 320 BC, at the Partition of Triparadisus, Parthia was reassigned to Philip, former governor of Sogdiana. A few years later, the province was invaded by Peithon, governor of Media Magna, who then attempted to make his brother Eudamus governor. Peithon and Eudamus were driven back, and Parthia remained a governorate in its own right.


title: Parthia

text: In 316 BC, Stasander, a vassal of Seleucus I Nicator and governor of Bactria (and, it seems, also of Aria and Margiana) was appointed governor of Parthia. For the next 60 years, various Seleucids would be appointed governors of the province.


title: Parthia

text: In 247 BC, following the death of Antiochus II, Ptolemy III seized control of the Seleucid capital at Antioch, and "so left the future of the Seleucid dynasty for a moment in question." Taking advantage of the uncertain political situation, Andragoras, the Seleucid governor of Parthia, proclaimed his independence and began minting his own coins.


title: Parthia

text: Meanwhile, "a man called Arsaces, of Scythian or Bactrian origin, [was] elected leader of the Parni", an eastern-Iranian peoples from the Tajen/Tajend River valley, south-east of the Caspian Sea. Following the secession of Parthia from the Seleucid Empire and the resultant loss of Seleucid military support, Andragoras had difficulty in maintaining his borders, and about 238 BC – under the command of "Arsaces and his brother Tiridates" – the Parni invaded Parthia and seized control of Astabene (Astawa), the northern region of that territory, the administrative capital of which was Kabuchan (Kuchan in the vulgate).


title: Parthia

text: A short while later the Parni seized the rest of Parthia from Andragoras, killing him in the process. Although an initial punitive expedition by the Seleucids under Seleucus II was not successful, the Seleucids under Antiochus III recaptured Arsacid controlled territory in 209 BC from Arsaces' (or Tiridates') successor, Arsaces II. Arsaces II sued for peace and accepted vassal status, and it was not until Arsaces II's grandson (or grand-nephew) Phraates I, that the Arsacids/Parni would again begin to assert their independence.