title: Ground-glass opacity

text: The differential diagnosis for ground-glass opacities is broad. General etiologies include infections, interstitial lung diseases, pulmonary edema, pulmonary hemorrhage, and neoplasm. A correlation of imaging with a patient's clinical features is useful in narrowing the diagnosis. GGOs can be seen in normal lungs. Upon expiration there is less air in the lungs, leading to a relative increase in density of the tissue, and thus increased attenuation on CT. Furthermore, when a patient lays supine for a CT scan, the posterior lungs are in a dependent position, causing partial collapse of the posterior alveoli. This leads to an increase in density of the tissue, resulting increased attenuation and a possible ground-glass appearance on CT.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: In the setting of pneumonia, the presence of GGO (as opposed to consolidation) is a useful diagnostic clue. Most bacterial infections lead to lobar consolidation, while atypical pneumonias may cause GGOs. It is important to note that while many of the pulmonary infections listed below may lead to GGOs, this does not occur in every case.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: There are seven general patterns of ground-glass opacities. When combined with a patient's clinical signs and symptoms, the GGO pattern seen on imaging is useful in narrowing the differential diagnosis. It is important to note that while some disease processes present as only one pattern, many can present with a mixture of GGO patterns.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: The diffuse pattern typically refers to GGOs in multiple lobes of one or both lungs. Broadly, a diffuse pattern of GGO can be caused by displacement of air with fluid, inflammatory debris, or fibrosis. Cardiogenic pulmonary edema and ARDS are common causes of a fluid-filled lung. Diffuse alveolar hemorrhage is a rarer cause of diffuse GGO seen in some types of vasculitis, autoimmune conditions, and bleeding disorders.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: Inflammation and fibrosis can also cause diffuse GGOs. Pneumocystis pneumonia, an infection typically seen in immunocompromised (e.g. patients with AIDS) or immunosuppressed individuals, is a classic cause of diffuse GGOs. Many viral pneumonias and idiopathic interstitial pneumonias can also lead to a diffuse GGO pattern. Radiation pneumonitis, a side effect of pulmonary radiation therapy, can lead to pulmonary fibrosis and diffuse GGOs.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: There are numerous potential causes of nodular GGOs which can be broadly separated into benign and malignant conditions. Benign conditions potentially leading to the formation of nodular GGOs include aspergillosis, acute eosinophilic pneumonia, focal interstitial fibrosis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, IgA vasculitis, organizing pneumonia, pulmonary contusion, pulmonary cryptococcus, and thoracic endometriosis. Focal interstitial fibrosis presents a unique challenge when differentiating from malignant nodular GGOs on CT imaging. It is typically persistent over long-term imaging follow-up and shares a similar appearance to malignant nodular GGOs.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: Pre-malignant or malignant causes of nodular GGOs include adenocarcinoma, adenocarcinoma in situ, and atypical adenomatous hyperplasia (AAH). One large review study found that 80% of nodular GGOs which were present on repeated CT imaging represented either pre-malignant or malignant growths. Differentiating between pre-malignancy and malignancy on the basis of CT alone can pose a challenge to radiologists; however, there are several features that are indicative of pre-malignant nodules. AAH is a pre-malignant cause of nodular GGO and is more commonly associated with lower attenuation on CT and smaller nodule size (<10 mm) compared to adenocarcinoma. In addition, AAH often lacks the solid features and spiculated appearance that are often associated with malignant growths. In contrast, as adenocarcinoma becomes invasive it will more often cause retraction of adjacent pleura and may show an increase in vascular markings. Nodules >15 mm almost always represent an invasive adenocarcinoma.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: Centrilobular GGOs refer to opacities occurring within one or multiple secondary lobules of the lung, which consist of a respiratory bronchiole, small pulmonary artery, and the surrounding tissue. A defining feature of these GGOs is the lack of involvement of the interlobular septum. Potential causes of centrilobular GGOs include pulmonary calcifications from metastatic disease, some types of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, aspiration pneumonitis, cholesterol granulomas, and pulmonary capillary hemangiomastosis.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: A mosaic pattern of GGO refers to multiple irregular areas of both increased attenuation and decreased attenuation on CT. It is often the result of occlusion of small pulmonary arteries or obstruction of small airways leading to air trapping. Sarcoidosis is an additional cause of a mosaic GGOs due to the formation of granulomas in interstitial areas. This may coexist with granulomatosis with polyangiitis, leading to diffuse areas of increased attenuation with ground-glass appearance.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: The crazy paving pattern may occur when there is both interlobular and intralobular widening. This sometimes resembles a road paved with irregular bricks or tiles. It is typically diffuse, involving larger areas of one or multiple lobes. There are a variety of potential causes, including Pneumocystis pneumonia, late-stage adenocarcinoma, pulmonary edema, some types of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias, diffuse alveolar hemorrhage, sarcoidosis, and pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. COVID-19 has also been shown to occasionally cause GGOs with a crazy paving pattern.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: A halo sign refers to a GGO that fills the area around a consolidation or nodule. This is a most commonly seen in various types of pulmonary infections, including CMV pneumonia, tuberculosis, nocardia infection, some fungal pneumonias, and septic emboli. Schistosomiasis, a parasitic infection, also commonly presents with the halo sign. Important non-infectious causes include granulomatosis with polyangiitis, metastatic disease with pulmonary hemorrhage, and some types of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: A reversed halo sign is a central ground-glass opacity surrounded by denser consolidation. According to published criteria, the consolidation should form more than three-fourths of a circle and be at least 2 mm thick. It is often suggestive of organizing pneumonia, but is only seen in about 20% of individuals with this condition. It can also be present in lung infarction where the halo consists of hemorrhage, as well as in infectious diseases such as paracoccidioidomycosis, tuberculosis, and aspergillosis, as well as in granulomatosis with polyangiitis, lymphomatoid granulomatosis, and sarcoidosis.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: Ground-glass opacity is among the most common imaging findings in patients with confirmed COVID-19. One systematic review found that among patients with COVID-19 and abnormal lung findings on CT, greater than 80% had GGOs, with greater than 50% having mixed GGOs and consolidation. GGOs with mixed consolidation has most often been found in elderly populations.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: Several studies have described a pattern among initial, intermediate, and hospital discharge imaging findings in the disease course of COVID-19. Most commonly, initial CT imaging reveals bilateral GGOs at the periphery of the lungs. During initial stages, this is most often found in the lower lobes, although involvement of the upper lobes and right middle lobe has also been reported early in the disease course. This is in contrast to the two similar coronaviruses, SARS and MERS, which more commonly involve only one lung on initial imaging. As the COVID-19 infection progresses, GGOs typically become more diffuse and often progress to consolidation. This is sometimes accompanied by the development of a crazy paving pattern and interlobular septal thickening. In many cases the most severe pulmonary CT abnormalities occurred within 2 weeks after symptoms began. At this point, many individuals begin showing resolution of consolidation and GGOs as symptoms improve. However, some patients have worsening symptoms and imaging findings, with further increase in septal thickening, GGOs, and consolidation. These patients may develop lung "white-out" with progression to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) requiring treatment escalation.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: Preliminary reports have shown many patients have residual GGOs at time of discharge from the hospital. Due to the novelty of COVID-19, large studies investigating the long-term pulmonary CT changes have yet to be completed. However, long-term pulmonary changes have been seen in patients after recovery from SARS and MERS, suggesting the possibility of similar long-term complications in patients who have recovered from acute COVID-19 infection.


title: Ground-glass opacity

text: The first usage of "ground-glass opacity" by a major radiological society occurred in a 1984 publication of the "American Journal of Roentgenology." It was published as part of a glossary of recommended nomenclature from the Fleischner Society, a group of thoracic imaging radiologists. The original published definition read as: "Any extended, finely granular pattern of pulmonary opacity within which normal anatomic details are partly obscured; from a fancied resemblance to etched or abraded glass." It was again included in an updated glossary by the Fleischner Society in 2008 with a more detailed definition.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Abigail Eaton (born 2 January 1992) is a British racing driver from the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. She starred as the test driver for the second and third series of "The Grand Tour", an Amazon Prime Video-exclusive motoring series.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Eaton is a qualified racing instructor and a performance driving coach. In October 2021, Eaton broke her back in an accident during a W Series race at the Circuit of the Americas, requiring rehabilitation and a break from racing.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Eaton began kart racing at the age of ten in the Comer cadet class, gaining invaluable track craft along with numerous podiums and wins. She then resumed kart racing for three more years, moving up into Minimax and then Junior Max, competing in the series.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Eaton completed her first season racing cars in 2007, in the SAXMAX Championship at various tracks around the United Kingdom with a highest position of fourth place. In 2008, Eaton returned to the SAXMAX championship and led for most of the year but ended in fourth place, with three podiums and two fastest laps.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: In 2009, Eaton moved into her first year of adult car racing in the Production Touring Car Championship, driving a Vauxhall Corsa SRi-R. She won the class B championship outright with 9/18 wins, sixteen podium positions, and seven fastest laps, finishing second overall in the championship.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: In 2010, Eaton was without a team when her British GT debut fell through a few weeks before the season was due to start. However, she did manage to make one race in the Mazda MX-5 Mk1 championship, finishing third out of over 90 entries.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: In 2011, Eaton raced a rear wheel drive Mazda MX-5 Cup car. After a tough season where she missed several rounds due to a lack of budget, Eaton managed to achieve eleven top-ten finishes and a third place qualifying position.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Eaton competed in a handful of races in the 2012 Mazda MX-5 Cup, but had to withdraw owing to family circumstances.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: In 2013, Eaton raced in the last three races of the Mazda MX-5 SuperCup with a win, two second places, one third and one fourth. She also raced in the Autumn Challenge and achieved two second places.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: In 2014, Eaton returned to the British Racing and Sports Car Club (BRSCC) Mazda MX-5 Supercup Championship for the last time. Despite car troubles early in the season, Eaton went on to achieve five wins, seven podium finishes, six fastest laps, two pole positions, and a new lap record. She was crowned the 2014 Mazda MX-5 Supercup Champion. During a race at the Anglesey Circuit, she qualified on pole position eight-tenths of a second ahead of second placed position, and went on to win, set the fastest lap, and then set a new lap record, all within three races.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Eaton entered GT Racing via the UK based championship GT Cup. She competed for part of season in a BMW E46 M3 GTR run by Geoff Steel Racing. Eaton achieved one win, eight podium finishes, and three fastest laps.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: In 2016, Eaton moved to the British GT Championship in a Maserati Granturismo MC GT4, the first time that Maserati had been in the British GT for over 20 years. She shared driving duties with Marcus Hoggarth, and their team placed second in the Pro/Am Championship and fourth overall.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: In 2017, Eaton began with a year out, and was then offered a one off drive for the 2017 Blancpain GT Series in a Ferrari 488 GT3 run by AF Corse. This was Eaton's first time in a GT3 specification car and first time at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza circuit in Italy. Following ten laps of practice, Eaton entered the race as one of the 52 cars starting, and finished in first position in the Am cup, making her the first female driver ever to win a class in the series. The car was number 961, driven by Eaton, Alex Demirdjian, and Davide Rizzo.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Eaton appeared on ITV's "Drive" in 2015, coaching rapper Professor Green in various racing car challenges over a five-week period. This included mud buggy, stock car, and sports car races. Eaton and Professor Green were the most successful pairing, staying out of the eliminator night race and making it through to the final round. Eaton and Professor Green were crowned champions in the last episode.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Eaton also stars as the test driver from the second series onwards of the British motoring show "The Grand Tour", replacing the previous first series test driver Mike Skinner. James May stated in November 2017 that a large number of drivers had been tested, and that "she was the fastest and the best". Eaton was later introduced to the show in the second episode of the second series, on 15 December 2017, when she was shown testing a green Mercedes-AMG GT R around the Eboladrome test track. In the Mercedes, Eaton says "Right, here we go" to herself, before starting the lap and completing the test drive silently. Eaton did not have her name mentioned at all throughout the episode, only being referred to as "she", and her name was only shown in the credits at the end of the episode, credited as "driver".


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Motor1.com speculated that "The Grand Tour" would likely be under legal restrictions, and needing to provide differentiation between "The Grand Tour" test driver and anonymous drivers such as the Stig. A spokesperson for Amazon suggested to Jalopnik of a compromise between the explicitly named "the American" test driver portrayed by Skinner, and being unable to use a completely anonymous driver like on "Top Gear". During the first episode of the third series, Jeremy Clarkson referred to her simply as, "Abbie", suggesting that Amazon may have finally made a decision in this matter. During the fifth episode of the third season, Clarkson presents her at the beginning of a race by noting that the car "is being driven by The Grand Tour's racing driver, Abbie Eaton."


title: Abbie Eaton

text: Eaton lives in Northampton, England, along with her pets. Her father, Paul Eaton, is also a racing driver.


title: Abbie Eaton

text: She came out as a lesbian at the age of 17, and is in a relationship with fellow British racecar driver Jessica Hawkins. She is a Driver Ambassador for Racing Pride, an LGBT rights charity working in the motorsport industry to promote inclusivity across the sport, and amongst its technological and commercial partners.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: Lucky Blue Smith (born June 4, 1998) is an American fashion model, actor and musician. He was scouted at the age of 10 and signed to an international modeling agency by the age of 12.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: Smith grew up in the small city of Spanish Fork, Utah. He is the youngest of four siblings and the only male. Smith was scouted with his three sisters in Utah when he was 10 and began his modeling career when he was 12. Upon being signed with Next Management, he and the entire Smith family moved to Los Angeles where the younger children were homeschooled. Shortly after their arrival, Smith and his siblings were photographed by Hedi Slimane for "Vogue Homme Japan" which generated immediate attention.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: Smith's modeling career especially took off after he dyed his hair platinum blond at his agent's advice, which became his signature look for some time. By 2015, he had shot a dozen magazine covers and fronted fashion campaigns for Philipp Plein and Tom Ford. He and several other models appeared in Tom Ford's fashion video with Lady Gaga for SS16.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: He has appeared in editorials for American, French, Spanish, and Ukrainian "Vogue", "GQ", British "Elle", "Marie Claire", "V", "Numéro", "i-D", "LOVE", and "W".


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: Smith has walked the runways for Fendi, Chanel, Roberto Cavalli, Moschino, Emporio Armani, DSquared2, Salvatore Ferragamo, Philipp Plein, Ralph Lauren, Balmain, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Ermanno Scervino, Versace, Jeremy Scott, Michael Kors, John Varvatos, Etro and Bottega Veneta.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: He has appeared in advertising campaigns for Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, Moncler, Tommy Hilfiger, Philipp Plein, Mavi, Penshoppe, H&M, Gap, Big C and L'Oreal.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: In 2009, Smith and his three sisters formed a surf-rock band called The Atomics. Smith is the drummer and has stated that music is his real passion. The band is also represented by Next.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: He was raised in Utah by a family who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Smith's mother, Sheridan Smith, is a former model. His father, Dallon Smith, is a hobbyist musician who started a guitar-string company. His three older sisters are Cheyenne Starlie Smith (born 1993), Daisy Clementine Smith (born 1996), and Pyper America Smith (born 1997), who are all models and social media personalities. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: On February 21, 2020, Smith married model Nara Pellman. Smith has two children with Pellman, a daughter named Rumble Honey, born October 7, 2020, and a son named Slim Easy, born January 6, 2022.


title: Lucky Blue Smith

text: In 2015, "Teen Vogue" named Smith the "Model of the Moment". A relative newcomer, he was named to Models.com's "Top 50 Male Models" for 2015 and had the second highest number of social media followers of all male models in the industry. Many in the fashion industry acknowledge that Smith's popularity (especially among teenage girls and boys) on social media is a deciding factor for brands and editors who have hired him.


title: Porphyrin

text: Porphyrins ( ) are a group of heterocyclic macrocycle organic compounds, composed of four modified pyrrole subunits interconnected at their α carbon atoms via methine bridges (=CH−). The parent of porphyrin is porphine, a rare chemical compound of exclusively theoretical interest. Substituted porphines are called porphyrins. With a total of 26 π-electrons, of which 18 π-electrons form a planar, continuous cycle, the porphyrin ring structure is often described as aromatic. One result of the large conjugated system is that porphyrins typically absorb strongly in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, i.e. they are deeply colored. The name "porphyrin" derives from the Greek word πορφύρα ("porphyra"), meaning "purple".


title: Porphyrin

text: Concomitant with the displacement of two N-"H" protons, porphyrins bind metal ions in the N4 "pocket". The metal ion usually has a charge of 2+ or 3+. A schematic equation for these syntheses is shown:


title: Porphyrin

text: The insertion of the metal center is slow in the absence of catalysts. In nature, these catalysts (enzymes) are called chelatases. When there is no metal ion (or atom) bound to the nitrogens in the center, then the compounds are called "free porphine" or "free porphyrin". If they are bonded to a metal in the center, then they are "bound". A porphyrin with an iron atom of the type found in myoglobin, hemoglobin, or certain cytochromes is called heme.


title: Porphyrin

text: Metal complexes derived from porphyrins, often called metalloporphyins, occur naturally. One of the best-known families of porphyrin complexes is heme, the pigment in red blood cells, a cofactor of the protein hemoglobin. Porphin is the simplest porphyrin, a rare compound of theoretical interest.


title: Porphyrin

text: A geoporphyrin, also known as a petroporphyrin, is a porphyrin of geologic origin. They can occur in crude oil, oil shale, coal, or sedimentary rocks. Abelsonite is possibly the only geoporphyrin mineral, as it is rare for porphyrins to occur in isolation and form crystals.


title: Porphyrin

text: The field of organic geochemistry had its origins in the isolation of porphyrins from petroleum. This finding helped establish the biological origins of petroleum. Petroleum is sometimes "fingerprinted" by analysis of trace amounts of nickel and vanadyl porphyrins.


title: Porphyrin

text: In non-photosynthetic eukaryotes such as animals, insects, fungi, and protozoa, as well as the α-proteobacteria group of bacteria, the committed step for porphyrin biosynthesis is the formation of δ-aminolevulinic acid (δ-ALA, 5-ALA or dALA) by the reaction of the amino acid glycine with succinyl-CoA from the citric acid cycle. In plants, algae, bacteria (except for the α-proteobacteria group) and archaea, it is produced from glutamic acid via glutamyl-tRNA and glutamate-1-semialdehyde. The enzymes involved in this pathway are glutamyl-tRNA synthetase, glutamyl-tRNA reductase, and glutamate-1-semialdehyde 2,1-aminomutase. This pathway is known as the C5 or Beale pathway.


title: Porphyrin

text: Two molecules of dALA are then combined by porphobilinogen synthase to give porphobilinogen (PBG), which contains a pyrrole ring. Four PBGs are then combined through deamination into hydroxymethyl bilane (HMB), which is hydrolysed to form the circular tetrapyrrole uroporphyrinogen III. This molecule undergoes a number of further modifications. Intermediates are used in different species to form particular substances, but, in humans, the main end-product protoporphyrin IX is combined with iron to form heme. Bile pigments are the breakdown products of heme.


title: Porphyrin

text: The following scheme summarizes the biosynthesis of porphyrins, with references by EC number and the OMIM database. The porphyria associated with the deficiency of each enzyme is also shown:


title: Porphyrin

text: A common synthesis for porphyrins is the Rothemund reaction, first reported in 1936, which is also the basis for more recent methods described by Adler and Longo. The general scheme is a condensation and oxidation process starting with pyrrole and an aldehyde.


title: Porphyrin

text: Porphyrins have been evaluated in the context of photodynamic therapy (PDT) since they strongly absorb light, which is then converted to heat in the illuminated areas. This technique has been applied in macular degeneration using verteporfin.


title: Porphyrin

text: PDT is considered a noninvasive cancer treatment, involving the interaction between light of a determined frequency, a photo-sensitizer, and oxygen. This interaction produces the formation of a highly reactive oxygen species (ROS), usually singlet oxygen, as well as superoxide anion, free hydroxyl radical, or hydrogen peroxide. These high reactive oxygen species react with susceptible cellular organic biomolecules such as; lipids, aromatic amino acids, and nucleic acid heterocyclic bases, to produce oxidative radicals that damage the cell, possibly inducing apoptosis or even necrosis.


title: Porphyrin

text: Heme biosynthesis is used as biomarker in environmental toxicology studies. While excess production of porphyrins indicate organochlorine exposure, lead inhibits ALA dehydratase enzyme.


title: Porphyrin

text: Porphyrins have been investigated as possible anti-inflammatory agents and evaluated on their anti-cancer and anti-oxidant activity. Several porphyrin-peptide conjugates were found to have antiviral activity against HIV "in vitro".


title: Porphyrin

text: Although not commercialized, metalloporphyrin complexes are widely studied as catalysts for the oxidation of organic compounds. Particularly popular for such laboratory research are complexes of "meso"-tetraphenylporphyrin and octaethylporphyrin. Complexes with Mn, Fe, and Co catalyze a variety of reactions of potential interest in organic synthesis. Some complexes emulate the action of various heme enzymes such as cytochrome P450, lignin peroxidase. Metalloporphyrins are also studied as catalysts for water splitting, with the purpose of generating molecular hydrogen and oxygen for fuel cells.


title: Porphyrin

text: Porphyrin-based compounds are of interest as possible components of molecular electronics and photonics. Synthetic porphyrin dyes have been incorporated in prototype dye-sensitized solar cells.


title: Porphyrin

text: Phthalocyanines, which are structurally related to porphyrins, are used in commerce as dyes and catalysts, but porphyrins are not.


title: Porphyrin

text: Porphyrins are often used to construct structures in supramolecular chemistry. These systems take advantage of the Lewis acidity of the metal, typically zinc. An example of a host–guest complex that was constructed from a macrocycle composed of four porphyrins. A guest-free base porphyrin is bound to the center by coordination with its four-pyridine substituents.


title: Porphyrin

text: Porphyrinoid macrocycles can show variable aromaticity. An Hückel aromatic porphyrin is porphycene. antiaromatic, Mobius aromatic, and non aromatic porphyrinoid macrocycles are known.


title: Porphyrin

text: Several heterocycles related to porphyrins are found in nature, almost always bound to metal ions. These include


title: Porphyrin

text: A benzoporphyrin is a porphyrin with a benzene ring fused to one of the pyrrole units. e.g. verteporfin is a benzoporphyrin derivative.


title: Porphyrin

text: The first synthetic porphyrin isomer was reported by Emanual Vogel and coworkers in 1986. This isomer [18]porphyrin-(2.0.2.0) is named as porphycene, and the central N Cavity forms a rectangle shape as shown in figure. Porphycenes showed interesting photophysical behavior and found versatile compound towards the photodynamic therapy. This inspired Vogel and Sessler to took up the challenge of preparing [18]porphyrin-(2.1.0.1) and named it as Corrphycene or Porphycerin. The third porphyrin that is [18]porphyrin-(2.1.1.0), was reported by Callot and Vogel-Sessler. Vogel and coworkers reported successful isolation of [18]Porphyrin-(3.0.1.0) or Isoporphycene. The Japanese scientist Furuta and Polish scientist Latos-Grażyński almost simultaneously reported the N-Confused porphyrins. The inversion of one of the pyrrolic subunits in the macrocyclic ring resulted to face one of the nitrogen atom outside of the core of the macrocycle.


title: Communist party

text: A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term "communist party" was popularized by the title of "The Manifesto of the Communist Party" (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As a vanguard party, the communist party guides the political education and development of the working class (proletariat). As a ruling party, the communist party exercises power through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Vladimir Lenin developed the idea of the communist party as the revolutionary vanguard, when the socialist movement in Imperial Russia was divided into ideologically opposed factions, the Bolshevik faction ("of the majority") and the Menshevik faction ("of the minority"). To be politically effective, Lenin proposed a small vanguard party managed with democratic centralism which allowed centralized command of a disciplined cadre of professional revolutionaries. Once a policy was agreed upon, realizing political goals required every Bolshevik's total commitment to the agreed-upon policy.


title: Communist party

text: In contrast, the Menshevik faction, which initially included Leon Trotsky, emphasized that the party should not neglect the importance of mass populations in realizing a communist revolution. In the course of the revolution, the Bolshevik party which became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) assumed government power in Russia after the October Revolution in 1917. With the creation of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919, the concept of communist party leadership was adopted by many revolutionary parties, worldwide. In an effort to standardize the international communist movement ideologically and maintain central control of the member parties, the Comintern required that its members use the term "communist party" in their names.


title: Communist party

text: Under the leadership of the CPSU, the interpretations of orthodox Marxism were applied to Russia and led to the emergence of Leninist and Marxist–Leninist political parties throughout the world. After the death of Lenin, the Comintern's official interpretation of Leninism was the book "Foundations of Leninism" (1924) by Joseph Stalin.


title: Communist party

text: As the membership of a communist party was to be limited to active cadres in Lenin's theory, there was a need for networks of separate organizations to mobilize mass support for the party. Typically, communist parties built up various front organizations whose membership was often open to non-communists. In many countries, the single most important front organization of the communist parties was its youth wing. During the time of the Communist International, the youth leagues were explicit communist organizations, using the name 'Young Communist League'. Later the youth league concept was broadened in many countries, and names like 'Democratic Youth League' were adopted.


title: Communist party

text: Some trade unions and students', women's, peasants', and cultural organizations have been connected to communist parties. Traditionally, these mass organizations were often politically subordinated to the political leadership of the party. After the fall of communist party regimes in the 1990s, mass organizations sometimes outlived their communist party founders.


title: Communist party

text: At the international level, the Communist International organized various international front organizations (linking national mass organizations with each other), such as the Young Communist International, Profintern, Krestintern, International Red Aid, Sportintern, etc. Many of these organizations were disbanded after the dissolution of the Communist International. After the Second World War new international coordination bodies were created, such as the World Federation of Democratic Youth, International Union of Students, World Federation of Trade Unions, Women's International Democratic Federation and the World Peace Council. The Soviet Union unified many of the Comintern's original goals among its East European allies under the aegis of a new organization, the Cominform.


title: Communist party

text: Historically, in countries where communist parties were struggling to attain state power, the formation of wartime alliances with non-communist parties and wartime groups was enacted (such as the National Liberation Front of Albania). Upon attaining state power these Fronts were often transformed into nominal (and usually electoral) "National" or "Fatherland" Fronts in which non-communist parties and organizations were given token representation (a practice known as "Blockpartei"), the most popular examples of these being the National Front of East Germany (as a historical example) and the United Front of the People's Republic of China (as a modern-day example). Other times the formation of such Fronts were undertaken without the participation of other parties, such as the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia and the National Front of Afghanistan, though the purpose was the same: to promote the communist party line to generally non-communist audiences and to mobilize them to carry out tasks within the country under the aegis of the Front.


title: Communist party

text: Recent scholarship has developed the comparative political study of global communist parties by examining similarities and differences across historical geographies. In particular, the rise of revolutionary parties, their spread internationally, the appearance of charismatic revolutionary leaders and their ultimate demise during the decline and fall of communist parties worldwide have all been the subject of investigation.


title: Communist party

text: A uniform naming scheme for communist parties was adopted by the Communist International. All parties were required to use the name 'Communist Party of ("name of the country")', resulting in separate communist parties in some countries operating using (largely) homonymous party names (e.g. in India). Today, there are a few cases where the original sections of the Communist International have retained those names. But throughout the twentieth century, many parties changed their names. Common causes for these shifts in naming were either moves to avoid state repression or as measures to generate greater acceptance by local populations.


title: Communist party

text: An important example of the latter was the renaming of many East European communist parties after the Second World War, sometimes as a result of mergers with the local social democratic and democratic socialist parties. New names in the post-war era included "Socialist Party", "Socialist Unity Party", "People's (or Popular) Party", "Workers' Party" and "Party of Labour".


title: Communist party

text: The naming conventions of communist parties became more diverse as the international communist movement was fragmented due to the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. Those who sided with China and Albania in their criticism of the Soviet leadership, often added words like 'Revolutionary' or 'Marxist-Leninist' to distinguish themselves from the pro-Soviet parties.


title: Communist party

text: In 1985, approximately 38 percent of the world's population lived under "communist" governments (1.67billion out of 4.4billion). The CPSU's International Department officially recognized 95 ruling and nonruling communist parties. Overall, if one includes the 107 parties with significant memberships, there were approximately 82 million communist party members worldwide. Given its worldwide representation, the communist party may be counted as the principal challenger to the influence of liberal-democratic, catch-all parties in the twentieth century.


title: Communist party

text: In the capitalist counter-revolutions of 1989–1991 in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, most of these parties either disappeared or were renamed and adopted different goals than their predecessors. In the 21st century, only four ruling parties on the national level still described themselves as Marxist-Leninist parties: the Chinese Communist Party, the Cuban Communist Party, the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (North Korea has abandoned Marxism-Leninism from its 2009 constitution but its ideology (Juche) is still considered a variant of Marxism-Leninism). As of 2017, the Communist Party of China was the world's second largest political party (until now), holding nearly 89.45 million (2017).


title: Communist party

text: Although the historical importance of communist parties is widely accepted, their activities and functions have been interpreted in different ways. One approach, sometimes known as the totalitarian school of communist studies, has implicitly treated all communist parties as the same types of organizations. Scholars such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Francois Furet have relied upon conceptions of the party emphasizing centralized control, a top-down hierarchical structure, ideological rigidity, and strict party discipline. In contrast, other studies have emphasized the differences among communist parties. Multi-party studies, such as those by Robert C. Tucker and A. James McAdams, have emphasized the differences in both these parties' organizational structure and their use of Marxist and Leninist ideas to justify their policies.


title: Communist party

text: Another important question is why communist parties were able to rule for as long as they did. Some scholars have depicted these parties as fatally flawed from their inception and argue they only remained in power because their leaders were willing to use their monopoly of power to crush all forms of opposition. In contrast, other studies have emphasized these parties’ ability to adapt their policies to changing times and circumstances.


title: Directorate-General for External Security

text: The General Directorate for External Security (, DGSE) is France's foreign intelligence agency, equivalent to the British MI6 and the American CIA, established on 2 April 1982. The DGSE safeguards French national security through intelligence gathering and conducting paramilitary and counterintelligence operations abroad, as well as economic espionage. It is headquartered in the 20th arrondissement of Paris.


text: The DGSE operates under the direction of the French Ministry of Armed Forces and works alongside its domestic counterpart, the DGSI (General Directorate for Internal Security). As with most other intelligence agencies, details of its operations and organization are highly classified and not made public.


text: The DGSE follows a system which it refers to as LEDA. L for loyalty (loyauté), E for expectations (exigence), D for discretion (discrétion) and A for adaptation (adaptabilité). These are essential components of activities related to ethics and the management of intelligence work and in collaboration with agents, authorities and partners.


text: The DGSE can trace its roots back to 27 November 1943, when a central external intelligence agency, known as the "DGSS" ("Direction générale des services spéciaux"), was founded by politician Jacques Soustelle. The name of the agency was changed on 26 October 1944, to DGER ("Direction générale des études et recherches"). As the organisation was characterised by numerous cases of nepotism, abuses and political feuds, Soustelle was removed from his position as Director.


text: Former free-fighter André Dewavrin, aka "Colonel Passy", was tasked to reform the DGER; he fired more than 8,300 of the 10,000 full-time intelligence workers Soustelle had hired, and the agency was renamed SDECE ("Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage") on 28 December 1945. The SDECE also brought under one head a variety of separate agencies – some, such as the well-known "Deuxième Bureau", aka "2e Bureau", created by the military circa 1871–1873 in the wake of the birth of the French Third Republic. Another was the BRCA ("Bureau central de renseignements et d'action"), formed during WWII, from July 1940 to November 27, 1943, with André Dewavrin as its head.


text: On 2 April 1982, the new socialist government of François Mitterrand extensively reformed the SDECE and renamed it DGSE. The SDECE had remained independent until the mid-1960s, when it was discovered to have been involved in the kidnapping and presumed murder of Mehdi Ben Barka, a Moroccan revolutionary living in Paris. Following this scandal, it was announced that the agency was placed under the control of the French Ministry of Defence. In reality, foreign intelligence activities in France have always been supervised by the military since 1871, for political reasons mainly relating to anti-Bonapartism and the rise of Socialism. Exceptions related to telecommunications interception and cyphering and code-breaking, which were also conducted by the police in territorial France, and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs abroad, and economic and financial intelligence, which were also carried out initially by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, from 1915 onwards, by the Ministry of Commerce until the aftermath of WWII, when the SDECE of the Ministry of Defence took over the specialty in partnership with the Ministry for the Economy and Finance.


text: In 1992, most of the defence responsibilities of the DGSE, no longer relevant to the post-Cold War context, were transferred to the Military Intelligence Directorate (DRM), a new military agency. Combining the skills and knowledge of five military groups, the DRM was created to close the intelligence gaps of the 1991 Gulf War.


text: The SDECE and DGSE have been shaken by numerous scandals. In 1968, for example, Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli, who had been an important officer in the French intelligence system for 20 years, asserted in published memoirs that the SDECE had been deeply penetrated by the Soviet KGB in the 1950s. He also indicated that there had been periods of intense rivalry between the French and U.S. intelligence systems. In the early 1990s a senior French intelligence officer created another major scandal by revealing that the DGSE had conducted economic intelligence operations against American businessmen in France.


text: A major scandal for the service in the late Cold War was the sinking of the "Rainbow Warrior" in 1985. The "Rainbow Warrior" was sunk by DGSE operatives, unintentionally killing one of the crew. They had set two time-separated explosive charges to encourage evacuation, but photographer Fernando Pereira stayed inside the boat to rescue his expensive cameras and drowned following the second explosion. (See below in this article for more details). The operation was ordered by the French President, François Mitterrand. New Zealand was outraged that its sovereignty was violated by an ally, as was the Netherlands since the killed Greenpeace activist was a Dutch citizen and the ship had Amsterdam as its port of origin.


text: The agency was conventionally run by French military personnel until 1999, when former diplomat Jean-Claude Cousseran was appointed its head. Cousseran had served as an ambassador to Turkey and Syria, as well as a strategist in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Cousseran reorganized the agency to improve the flow of information, following a series of reforms drafted by Bruno Joubert, the agency's director of strategy at that time.


text: This came during a period when the French government was formed as a cohabitation between left and right parties. Cousseran, linked to the Socialist Party, was therefore obliged to appoint Jean-Pierre Pochon of the Gaullist RPR as head of the Intelligence Directorate. Being conscious of the political nature of the appointment, and wanting to steer around Pochon, Cousseron placed one of his friends in a top job under Pochon. Alain Chouet, a specialist in terrorism, especially Algerian and Iranian networks, took over as chief of the Security Intelligence Service. He had been on post in Damascus at a time when Cousseran was France's ambassador to Syria. Chouet began writing reports to Cousseran that by-passed his immediate superior, Pochon.


text: Politics eventually took precedence over DGSE's intelligence function. Instead of informing the president's staff of reports directly concerning President Chirac, Cousseran informed only Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, who was going to run against Chirac in the 2002 presidential election. Pochon learned of the maneuvers only in March 2002 and informed Chirac's circle of the episode. He then had a furious argument with Cousseran and was informally told he wasn't wanted around the agency anymore. Pochon nonetheless remained Director of Intelligence, though he no longer turned up for work. He remained "ostracized" until the arrival of a new DGSE director, Pierre Brochand, in August 2002.


text: In partnership with the Direction du renseignement militaire, DRM (Directorate of Military Intelligence) and with considerable support from the Army in particular, and from the Air Force and the Navy to lesser extent, the DGSE is responsible for electronic spying abroad. Historically the Ministry of Defence in general has always been much interested in telecommunications interception.


text: In the early 1880s a partnership between the Post Office (also in charge of all national telegraphic communications) and the Army gave birth to an important military telegraphy unit of more than 600 men; it settled in the Fort of the Mont Valérien near Paris. In 1888, the military settled the first service of telecommunications interception and deciphering in the Hôtel des Invalides, Paris—where it is still active today as an independent intelligence agency secretly created in 1959 under the name "Groupement Interministériel de Contrôle" or GIC (Inter-ministerial Control Group).


text: In 1910, the military unit of the Mont Valérien grew up with the creation of a wireless telecommunication station, and three years later it transformed into a regiment of about 1000 men. Anecdotally, government domestic Internet tapping and its best specialists are still located in the same area today (in underground facilities in Taverny and surroundings), though unofficially and not only. At about the same time, the Army and the Navy created several "listening stations" in the region of the Mediterranean Sea, and they began to intercept the coded wireless communications of the British and Spanish navies. It was the first joint use of wireless telegraphy and Cryptanalysis in the search for intelligence of military interest.


text: In the 1970s, the SDECE considerably developed its technical capacities in code-breaking, notably with the acquisition of a supercomputer from Cray.


text: In the 1980s, the DGSE heavily invested in satellite telecommunications interception, and created several satellite listening stations in France and overseas. The department of this agency responsible for telecommunications interception was anonymously called "Direction Technique" (Technical Directorate).


text: But in the early 1990s the DGSE was alarmed by a steady and important decrease of its foreign telecommunication interception and gathering, as telecommunication by submarine cables was supplanting satellites. At that time the DGSE was using Silicon Graphics computers for code-breaking while simultaneously asking Groupe Bull computers to develop French-made supercomputers. Until then, the DGSE had been sheltering its computers and was carrying code-breaking 100 feet underground its headquarters of Boulevard Mortier, lest of foreign electronic spying and possible jamming. But this underground facility quickly became too small and poorly practical. That is why from 1987 to 1990 important works were carried on in the underground of the Taverny Air Base, whose goal was to secretly build a large communication deciphering and computer analysis center then called "Centre de Transmission et de Traitement de l'Information", CTTI (Transmission and Information Processing Center). The CTTI was the direct ancestor of the Pôle National de Cryptanalyse et de Décryptement–PNCD (National Branch of Cryptanalysis and Decryption), launched to fit a new policy of intelligence sharing between agencies called "Mutualisation du Renseignement" (Intelligence Pooling). Once the work was finished, the huge underground of the former Taverny Air base, located in Taverny a few miles northeast of Paris, sheltered the largest Faraday cage in Europe (for protection against leaks of radio electric waves (see also Tempest (codename) for technical explanations) and possible EMP, attacks (see Nuclear electromagnetic pulse for technical explanations), with supercomputers working 24/7 on processing submarine cable telecommunications interception and signal deciphering. The Taverny underground facility also has a sister base located in Mutzig, also settled underground, which officially is sheltering the 44e Régiment de Transmissions, 44e RT (44th Signal Regiment). For today more than ever, signal regiments of the French Army still carries on civilian telecommunication interceptions under the pretense of training and military exercises in electronic warfare in peacetime. The DGSE otherwise enjoys the technical cooperation of the French companies Orange S.A. (which also provides cover activities to the staff of the Technical Directorate of the DGSE), and Alcatel-Lucent for its know-how in optical cable interception.


text: Allegedly, in 2007–2008 State Councilor Jean-Claude Mallet advised newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy to invest urgently in submarine cable tapping, and in computer capacities to automatically collect and decipher optical data. This was undertaken in the early 2000s. Mallet planned the installation of a new computer system to break codes. Officially, this enormous foreign intelligence program began in 2008, and it was all set in 2013. Its cost would have amounted 700 million euros, and resulted in a first hiring of about 600 new DGSE employees, all highly skilled specialists in related fields. Since then the DGSE is constantly expending its staff of specialists in cryptanalysis, decryption and signal and computer engineers. For in 2018 about 90% of world trade is no longer going through satellites, but submarine fiber-optic cables drawn between continents. And the Technical Directorate of the DGSE mainly targets intelligence of financial and economic natures.


text: Remarkably, the DGSE, along with the DRM with which it works closely, have established together a partnership in telecommunication interception with its German counterpart the BND (the "Technische Aufklärung", or Technical Directorate of this agency more particularly), and with an important support from the French Army with regard to infrastructures and means and staff. Thanks to its close partnership with the DRM, the DGSE also enjoys the service of the large spy ship French ship Dupuy de Lôme (A759), which entered the service of the French Navy in April 2006. The DGSE and the DRM since long also have a special agreement in intelligence with the United Arab Emirates, thanks to which these agencies share with the German BND a COMINT station located in the Al Dhafra Air Base 101. The DGSE also enjoys a partnership in intelligence activities with the National Intelligence Agency (South Africa).


text: Today the French intelligence community would rank second in the world behind the U.S. National Security Agency in capacities of telecommunication interceptions worldwide.


text: The action division ("Division Action") is responsible for planning and performing clandestine operations. It also performs other security-related operations such as testing the security of nuclear power plants (as it was revealed in "Le Canard Enchaîné" in 1990) and military facilities such as the submarine base of the Île Longue, Bretagne. The division's headquarters are located at the fort of Noisy-le-Sec. As the DGSE has a close partnership with the """" of the Army or COS (Special Operations Command), the Action Division selects most of its men from regiments of this military organization, the "1er Régiment de Parachutistes d'Infanterie de Marine", 1er R.P.I.Ma (1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment) and the "13e Régiment de Dragons Parachutistes", 13e RDP (13th Parachute Dragoon Regiment) in particular. But, in general, a large number of DGSE executives and staff members under military statuses, and also of operatives first enlisted in one of these two last regiments, and also in the past in the "11e régiment parachutiste de choc", 11e RPC (11th Shock Parachute Regiment), colloquially called "11e Choc," and in the "", 1er BPC (1st Shock Parachute Battalion), colloquially called "1er Choc."


text: The DGSE headquarters, codenamed CAT ("Centre Administratif des Tourelles"), are located at 141 Boulevard Mortier in the 20th arrondissement in Paris, approximately 1 km northeast of the Père Lachaise Cemetery. The building is often referred to as "La piscine" ("the swimming pool") because of the nearby Piscine des Tourelles of the French Swimming Federation.


text: A project named "Fort 2000" was supposed to allow the DGSE headquarters to be moved to the fort of Noisy-le-Sec, where the Action Division and the "Service Technique d'Appui" or "STA" (Technical and Support Service) were already stationed. However, the project was often disturbed and interrupted due to lacking funds, which were not granted until the 1994 and 1995 defence budgets. The allowed budget passed from 2 billion francs to one billion, and as the local workers and inhabitants started opposing the project, it was eventually canceled in 1996. The DGSE instead received additional premises located in front of the "Piscine des Tourelles", and a new policy called ""Privatisation des Services"" (Privatization of the Services) was set. Roughly speaking, the Privatization of the Services consists for the DGSE in creating on the French territory numerous private companies of varied sizes, each being used as cover activity for specialized intelligence cells and units. This policy allows to turn round the problem of heavily investing in the building of large and highly secured facilities, and also of public and parliamentary scrutinies. This method is not entirely new however, since in 1945 the DGER, ancestor of the DGSE, owned 123 anonymous buildings, houses and apartments in addition to the military barracks of Boulevard Mortier serving already as headquarters. And this dispersion of premises began very early at the time of the "Deuxième Bureau", and more particularly from the 1910s on, when intelligence activities carried on under the responsibility of the military knew a strong and steady rise in France.


text: The DGSE's budget is entirely official (it is voted upon and accepted by the French parliament). It generally consists of about €500M, in addition to which are added special funds from the Prime Minister (often used in order to finance certain operations of the Action Division). How these special funds are spent has always been kept secret.


text: According to Claude Silberzahn, one of its former directors, the agency's budget is divided in the following manner:


text: As of 18 July 2012 the organisation had inaugurated its current logo. The bird of prey represents the sovereignty, operational capacities, international operational nature, and the efficiency of the DGSE. France is depicted as a sanctuary in the logo. The lines depict the networks utilized by the DGSE.


title: Omah Lay

text: Stanley Omah Didia, known professionally as Omah Lay, is a Nigerian singer and songwriter. He gained widespread recognition in early 2020 after his self-produced single, "Bad Influence", went viral on social media. He is also known for being featured alongside Alpha P on the official Masterkraft's remix of Justin Bieber's 2021 single, "Peaches", as well as another collaboration with the latter on "Attention" in 2022. Lay won the Next Rated award at the 2020 Headies Awards.


title: Omah Lay

text: Stanley Omah Didia was raised in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt. He hails from Ikwerre, Rivers Local Government Area in Rivers State. He attended Comprehensive High School in Rivers State before proceeding to the University of Port Harcourt. He comes from a musical family and his grandfather played instruments for the singer Celestine Ukwu before he died in 1977. Lay's father played the drums.


title: Omah Lay

text: Lay started out in a rap group under the stage name "Lil King." He later moved on to songwriting and music producing, which went largely uncredited, and as a result of that, he released "Do Not Disturb" in April 2019. "Hello Brother" was released a month after.


title: Omah Lay

text: He signed to a record label named KeyQaad in June 2019, and took a seven month break. During the break, he worked on his debut EP, "Get Layd." He told OkayAfrica, "I started working on it August [of 2019]. At some point I had to go off social media, stay away from a lot of things and keep my head straight to get the project right. The first song I'd recorded on "Get Layd" was 'Bad Influence.' I'd done that way before the songs we had to put on the project." Following the break, he released "Bad Influence," which became the most streamed Nigerian song on Apple Music at the end of 2020.


title: Omah Lay

text: On 14 February 2020, Lay released "You," his first official single. He released his five-track debut EP, "Get Layd" on 22 May 2020. The EP peaked at number one on the Nigerian Apple Music charts. All five songs from the EP reached the top 15 of the Apple Music charts for Nigeria, with "You" peaking at number one.


title: Omah Lay

text: In October, Lay appeared on Olamide's album "Carpe Diem", on the track "Infinity", which topped the Apple Music charts for Nigeria.


title: Omah Lay

text: On 20 November, Lay released his second five-track EP, "What Have We Done". All five tracks reached the top 12 of the Apple Music charts for Nigeria, with "Godly" reaching number one.


title: Omah Lay

text: On 3 July 2020, Lay was the first artist highlighted for Apple's Africa Rising Campaign to spotlight African talent. In December 2020, he was included in BBC Radio 1Xtra's annual "Hot for 2021" list. He was the first African artist featured on Audiomack's #Up Now program for emerging artists; was included in Montreux Jazz Festival's "20 artists to watch in 2021"; and was named BET's Amplified International Artist of the Month for November 2020. He is currently signed to Dvpper Music Distribution in Nigeria, and Sire Records for international distribution. He was nominated in four categories at the 2020 Headies Awards, winning the Next Rated award.


title: Omah Lay

text: On 25 June 2021, Lay was featured alongside fellow Nigerian singer Alpha P on Nigerian producer Masterkraft's official remix of Canadian singer Justin Bieber's single, "Peaches". On 8 July 2021, Lay released a new single, "Understand". On 3 March 2022, he released a collaboration with Bieber, "Attention", which serves as the second collaboration between the two artists.


title: Omah Lay

text: On 14 December 2020, Lay was arrested alongside Tems after they performed in a show in Uganda. The Ugandan Police authority identified violation of COVID-19 lockdown protocols as the reason for their arrests. The artists felt they were set up. Two days later, the Ugandan government released the two, apologised for the arrests and cleared them of wrongdoing.


title: Omah Lay

text: Lay has expressed his support for the #EndSARS campaign in Nigeria. He told "Harper's Bazaar", "People need to know these protests are purely about the people, with no political undertone whatsoever. Police harass, extort, beat, and kill us just for being young and trendy, with no consequences. This has gone on long enough, and we are saying enough is enough and demanding government action."


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: Signals is the ninth studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released on September 9, 1982 by Anthem Records. After the release of their previous album, "Moving Pictures", the band started to prepare material for a follow-up during soundchecks on their 1981 concert tour and during the mixing of their subsequent live album "Exit...Stage Left". "Signals" demonstrates the group's continuing use of synthesizers, sequencers, and other electronic instrumentation. It is the last album produced by their longtime associate Terry Brown, who had worked with them since 1974.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: The album peaked at No. 1 in Canada, No. 3 in the United Kingdom, and No. 10 in the United States. In November 1982, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling one million copies in the United States. Rush released three singles from the album: "New World Man", which became the band's highest charting single in the United States and a number-one hit in Canada, as well as "Subdivisions", and "Countdown". The group supported "Signals" with a concert tour from April 1982 to May 1983. "Signals" has been reissued several times, including a remaster with a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mix in 2011.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: In July 1981, Rush ended their tour in support of their previous album "Moving Pictures". The album became their most commercially successful of their history, granting them their first No. 1 album in Canada and selling over one million copies in the United States at the tour's conclusion. Rush then took a three-month break, during which they oversaw the production and mixing of their second live release, "Exit...Stage Left", at Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec. In one of drummer and lyricist Neil Peart's diary entries written during this time, he had been cleaning a Hayman drum kit that was housed in the studio and, in September 1981, began working out a song with two members of the band's road crew, the unreleased "Tough Break". Peart was also working on lyrics, in particular a set which included "Subdivisions", a track the group would later record for "Signals".


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: Having arranged some material for their next studio album, Rush toured North America and Europe from October to December 1981 with a setlist that contained "Subdivisions". The group had their sound man capture their soundchecks on tape which provided a method of developing new songs, which was particularly the case for "Chemistry". The majority of "Signals" was written and rehearsed in early 1982. Geddy Lee has said that the group were aware of how easy it would have been to "[play] it safe" and produce another "Moving Pictures", a mindset the band was entirely against. The album displays the band continuing to incorporate the synthesizer into their songs with less emphasis on guitar-oriented riffs which had been the focus of their sound in the 1970s. Lee considered "Signals" as the beginning of a new era for the band. In hindsight, he said it was considerably difficult to make because it took longer than usual for the band to achieve the right feel for each song. Some ideas that Alex Lifeson and Lee had initially saved for potential solo albums were used on "Signals". Writer and journalist Greg Quill noticed a "cyclical framework" in "Signals", specifically the album opening in suburbia followed by contemplating escape in "The Analog Kid". Then, "universal human imponderables" are explored through humanity, sex, religion, and ageing, which ends in an actual escape in "Countdown". Quill spoke to Peart about this theory, to which the drummer replied: "You noticed that. We were hoping no one would. It's so unfashionable these days to construct grand concepts. We're being closed mouthed about it".


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: Recording began at Le Studio in April 1982, and ended on July 15. It is Rush's last album co-produced by their longtime associate Terry Brown, who had worked with them since 1974. He was joined by engineer Paul Northfield with assistance from Robbie Whelan. Rush intended to finish the album in June, but had to spend additional time in the studio which led to a month's reduction in their planned vacation time. Upon completion, the album was mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: "Subdivisions" was one of the first songs Rush had arranged for "Signals". After Peart devised a set of lyrics, Lifeson and Lee wrote a collection of musical ideas to fit Peart's words. Peart recalled that his bandmates interrupted him as he was cleaning his car and set up a portable cassette player on the driveway outside the studio, and played him what they had come up with. Peart added: "I listened closely, picking up the variations on 7/8 and 3/4, the way the guitar adopts the role of rhythm section while the keyboards take the melody, returning to bass with guitar leading in the chorus, then the Mini-moog taking over again for the instrumental bridge", and told Lifeson and Lee that he liked it.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: "The Analog Kid" originated during the group's stay at Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands in January 1982, travelling on a yacht named Orianda. Peart had written the words to the song initially as a companion piece to "Digital Man", which Rush had started working on in late 1981, and presented it to Lee. The two discussed what could be done with the lyrics in a musical sense, deciding on the opposite on what the words may suggest, with Peart describing the track as "a very up-tempo rocker, with some kind of a dynamic contrast for the choruses".


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: "Chemistry" was developed during soundchecks on the "Moving Pictures" tour in 1981. It was during one particular session during the United States leg whereby, after each member checking each of their instruments separately, "a little spontaneous creation" came about which produced a song without the group realising it. Each member played a different part; Lee played what became the keyboard section for the bridge, Lifeson the guitar riffs heard in the verses, and Peart the drum pattern for the chorus. Upon listening to the soundcheck tapes, Lifeson and Lee took each section and arranged it into a complete track before they produced a demo which almost matched the version recorded for the album. "Chemistry" marked the first time that each member collaborated on the lyrics to a song, with Lifeson and Lee devising its title, concept, and several phrases that they wished for it to include. Peart then took their ideas and developed a set of complete lyrics. He named "Chemistry" as the easiest song to write for "Signals".


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: "Digital Man" was one of the songs worked on during the late 1981 writing sessions at Le Studio, during which the music and lyrics for its verses, plus the ska-influenced bridge, was worked out. The song was also heavily influenced by funk, with Lee's bass line described as "so funky and fluid its almost laughable". Its instrumental break has been compared with "Walking on the Moon" by The Police. The song developed further in March 1982 during the band's one month stay at The Grange in Muskoka Lakes, Ontario. Peart wrote the remaining lyrics by an open fire in his chalet while Lifeson and Lee worked on the music in the adjacent barn. After numerous attempts they devised a combination of suitable words and music for the chorus, and Peart wrote: "We were all very pleased with the dynamic and unusual nature of the part, it was so different for us". However, Brown expressed a lack of enthusiasm to record the song and remained so until the group had continually talked about why it worked "until he got tired of hearing about it". "The Analog Kid" and "Digital Man" served as the inspiration for comic book writer Troy Hickman to create heroes of the same names in his 2004 comic "Common Grounds".


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: "The Weapon" is the second part of Rush's "Fear" song series. During a writing session at a northern Ontario manor home in 1981, Lee and his friend Oscar devised what Peart described as the foundation of "a highly mysterious and bizarre drum pattern" with his drum machine. At a subsequent rehearsal, Peart learned to play the part on his own drum kit which required him to alter his usual technique, but took the experience as an enjoyable challenge.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: "New World Man" was put together in May 1982 when the backing tracks for the album's other seven tracks were completed, and there was enough space on the vinyl for a song under four minutes. Had the track become too long, the band would have put it down and used it for a subsequent release. "New World Man" began with Peart writing lyrics that tied in themes from other songs on the album, "and came up with a straightforward, concise set of lyrics consisting of the two verses and the two choruses". The group adopted a "fast and loose" approach for its corresponding music and worked swiftly, with the song fully arranged in one day and recorded in the course of the next.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: "Losing It" originated from a theme Lifeson had come up with which was used in subsequent rehearsal sessions to produce a demo with keyboards and drums. In June 1982, when the band revisited the song in the studio, they discussed the possibility of Ben Mink of the band FM playing the electric violin somewhere on "Signals", and decided that "Losing It" was the best track for his contribution. To cater for the part, Rush put down the basic track for a jazz-oriented solo section and invited Mink to the studio which included him multi-tracking various notes to resemble a complete string section. The lyrics include references to the latter years of writer Ernest Hemingway–"For you the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for thee". It was not played live until 2015 when Rush performed it at five concerts on their R40 Live Tour.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: "Countdown" was inspired by the band attending the launch of the STS-1 "Columbia" space shuttle in April 1981, the first of NASA's Space Shuttle program. They had been invited to the launch and observed it from a VIP area at an air base in Cape Kennedy, Florida. The song features samples of radio communications recorded before and during the flight.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: The sleeve was designed by Hugh Syme, who is credited with its concept, direction, and graphics, with photography from Deborah Samuel. Syme based his design upon receiving merely the album's title, and recalled a "great deal of trouble" in a cover that he and the group were satisfied with. "I decided that, with such a phenomenally important word with the kind of potency it potentially had, to go with something really dumb, really inane". He noted, however, that the cover still tied into the meaning of some of the songs on the album, in particular "Chemistry". The final concept came out from the result of several failed ideas, including one that Syme devised which would have involved Rush hooked up to electroencephalography machines as they played in the studio and a snapshot of their heartbeats and brain waves taken during a performance.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: The front photograph depicts a Dalmatian dog sniffing a red fire hydrant on a green lawn. Samuel shot the image on the rooftop of her studio. The lawn is a piece of AstroTurf, and the hydrant was rented from Toronto and repainted the desired colour for the cover. She recalled a search to find a Dalmatian who could sniff on command, and placed dog biscuits underneath the hydrant multiple times to get the final shot. The back cover is a pretend blueprint of a neighbourhood with what Lee described as "make believe subdivisions", detailing Warren Cromartie Secondary School, a fictional school named after Canadian baseball player Warren Cromartie. He and the Montreal Expos are thanked in the album's liner notes. Syme considered the back cover "a little subtle, perhaps over-indulgent".


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: The album was released in September 1982. The album peaked at No. 1 in Canada, No. 3 in the United Kingdom, and No. 10 in the United States. In November 1982, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling one million copies in the United States.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: Rush released five singles from "Signals". "New World Man" reached No. 21 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart for three weeks in October and November 1982. It is the band's highest charting single in the US, and the only one to have reached the top 40.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: At the time of release, "Rolling Stone" criticised the band's choice of "emphasizing synthesizers at the expense of Alex Lifeson's guitar," calling the album "mostly a wasted effort."


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: AllMusic retrospectively praised the album, complimenting the band for not simply making "Moving Pictures, Pt. II", continuing their exploration of the synthesizer and introducing more contemporary themes into the lyrics.


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: Ultimate Classic Rock placed "Signals" seventh in their list of "Top 10 Rush Albums," while "Stereogum" placed the album third (behind "Moving Pictures" and "2112") in their list of "Rush Albums From Worst to Best," labelling it "the most audacious album of the band's career."


title: Signals (Rush album)

text: In the 2010 documentary film "", Trent Reznor cited "Signals" as an influence for incorporating keyboards into hard rock. Canadian music journalist Martin Popoff stated that "Signals" was his favorite Rush album because of the "creamy production."


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: Military aircraft insignia are insignia applied to military aircraft to identify the nation or branch of military service to which the aircraft belong. Many insignia are in the form of a circular roundel or modified roundel; other shapes such as stars, crosses, squares, or triangles are also used. Insignia are often displayed on the sides of the fuselage, the upper and lower surfaces of the wings, as well as on the fin or rudder of an aircraft, although considerable variation can be found amongst different air arms and within specific air arms over time.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: The first use of national insignia on military aircraft was before the First World War by the French "Aéronautique Militaire", which mandated the application of roundels in 1912. The chosen design was the French national cockade, which consisted of a blue-white-red emblem, going outwards from center to rim, mirroring the colours of the French flag. In addition, aircraft rudders were painted the same colours in vertical stripes, with the blue vertical stripe of the tricolors forwardmost. Similar national cockades were designed and adopted for use as aircraft roundels by the air forces of other countries, including the U.S. Army Air Service.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: Of all the early operators of military aircraft, Germany was unusual in not using "round" roundels. After evaluating several possible markings, including a black, red and white checkerboard, a similarly coloured roundel, and black stripes, it chose a black "iron" cross on a square white field, as it was already in use on various flags and reflected Germany's heritage as the Holy Roman Empire. The Imperial German Army's mobilization led to orders in September 1914 to paint all-black "Eisernes Kreuz" (iron cross) insignia with wide-flared arms over a white field — usually square in shape — on the wings and tails of all aircraft flown by its air arm, then known as the "Fliegertruppe des Deutschen Kaiserreiches". The fuselage was also usually marked with a cross on each side, but this was optional. The form and location of the initial cross was largely up to the painter, which led to considerable variation, and even to the white portion being omitted. An iron cross with explicit proportions superseded the first cross in July 1916. Initially, this second cross was also painted on a white field, but in October it was reduced to a 5 cm border completely surrounding the cross, even the ends of the flared arms. That same month, the Army's air arm was renamed "Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte". In March 1918, a straight black cross with narrow white borders on all sides of the cross was ordered, but proportions were not set until April, resulting in many of those repainted in the field having non-standard proportions. This was then replaced in May by a narrower, straight-armed cross that extended the full chord of wings, with the white border restricted to the sides of the cross's bars. In June, it ceased to be used full chord, with the bars all being the same length. The white on any of these could be omitted when used on a white background, and sometimes on the rudder or on night bombers.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: Much like the French roundel, variations of the cross would be used on countries allied with Germany, including the Austro-Hungary (combined with red-white-red stripes on the wings until 1916), Bulgaria, Croatia (stylized as a leaf), Hungary (reversed colors), Romania (a blue-rimmed yellow cross with the tricolor roundel in the middle; the shape was also the stylized monogram of the monarch), and Slovakia (blue cross with a red dot in the middle).


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: With the dissolution of the German Army's Luftstreitkräfte in May 1920, military insignia would disappear until the rise of the Nazi Party, which imposed new rules on aircraft in 1937, starting with the use of the German red/white/black flag on the tails' starboard side of all aircraft, with the port side showing a Nazi Party flag. When the Luftwaffe's re-establishment was made official, these markings were used by military aircraft, while the 1918 "Balkenkreuz" crosses were reintroduced. Two standardized proportions of the crosses were introduced by July 1939, with differing widths for the quartet of white "flanks" on each insignia. When camouflage was introduced prior to the invasion of Poland, the flags were dispensed with, replacing them with a black and white swastika on both sides of the tail. During the ensuing war, the crosses would be further simplified, leaving only the borders in a contrasting colour.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: After the Second World War, West Germany reverted to using a variation of the 1916 iron cross, using the white "flanks" of the "Balkenkreuz" following the now-curved sides of each arm, while East Germany used a diamond marking based on their flag, with the coat of arms from the flag. The reunification of Germany in 1990 resulted in the West German iron cross replacing the East German insignia for German military aircraft.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: The British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) abandoned their original painted Union Flags because, from a distance, they looked too much like the "Eisernes Kreuz" (Iron Cross) used on German aircraft. The Royal Naval Air Service used either a plain red ring (with the clear-doped linen covering forming the light coloured centre), or a red-rimmed white circle on their wings for a short period — almost exactly resembling those in simultaneous use by the neutral predecessors of today's Royal Danish Air Force — before both British air arms adopted a roundel resembling the French one, but with the colours reversed, (red-white-blue from centre to rim). The two separate air arms joined to form the Royal Air Force on April 1, 1918.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: The British roundel design, with variations in proportions and shades, has existed in one form or another to this very day. The RCAF roundel was based on the RAF roundel used previously on Canadian military aircraft. From World War I onwards, a variant of the British red-white-blue roundel with the white omitted has been used on camouflaged aircraft, which between the wars meant night bombers. During the Second World War, the colours were toned down and the proportions adjusted to reduce the brightness of the roundel, with the white being reduced to a thin line, or eliminated. In the Asia-Pacific region, the red inner circle of roundels was painted white or light blue to avoid confusion with "Hinomaru" markings on Japanese aircraft (still used by the Japan Self-Defense Forces to this day), much as the United States roundel omitted the red for the same reason.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: After the Second World War, the RAF roundel design was modified by Commonwealth air forces, with the central red disc replaced with a red maple leaf (Royal Canadian Air Force), red kangaroo (Royal Australian Air Force), red kiwi (Royal New Zealand Air Force), and an orange (South African Air Force); the South African version of the RAF roundel existed until 1958.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: In the later stages of the World War I, the British Royal Flying Corps started using roundels without conspicuous white circles on night-flying aircraft, such as the Handley Page O/400. As early as 1942-43, and again in recent decades, "low-visibility" insignia have increasingly been used on camouflaged aircraft. These have subdued, low-contrast colours (often shades of grey or black) and frequently take the form of stenciled outlines. Previously, low-visibility markings were used to increase ambiguity as to whose aircraft it was, and to avoid compromising the camouflage, all while still complying with international norms governing recognition markings.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: The World War II German Luftwaffe often used such "low-visibility" versions of their national "Balkenkreuz" insignia from the mid-war period through to V-E Day, omitting the central black "core" cross and only using the "flanks" of the cross instead, in either black or white versions, which was often done (as an outline only) to the vertical fin or rudder's swastika as well.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: In addition to insignia displayed on military aircraft wings and fuselages, usually in the form of roundels, a fin flash may also be displayed on the fin or rudder. A fin flash often takes the form of vertical, horizontal or slanted stripes in the same colours as the main insignia, and may be referred to as "rudder stripes" if they appear on the rudder instead of the fin, as with the French Armée de l'Air. Alternatively, a national flag or a roundel may be used.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: Images shown in the following sections are as they appear on the left side of the aircraft (i.e. with the left side of the fin flash leading). In cases where there are no asymmetrical details, such as coats of arms or text that cannot be reversed, the image may be reversed for the right side (such as with the Royal Air Force fin flash) to keep the same side forward, much as with a flag. When a national flag is used, the left side of the aircraft often displays the back side of the flag as it is normally flown. Exceptions include the German Third Reich's ostensibly "civilian" aircraft in the 1930s, which used the old black-white-red German flag on the right side of the fin and rudder and the Nazi Party flag on the left side.


title: Military aircraft insignia

text: For some countries, a low-visibility variant is also used to avoid compromising aircraft camouflage, and in some cases, to avoid producing a hot spot visible to infrared sensors, such as those used on air-to-air missiles.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: The Return of the King (also known as The Return of the King: A Story of the Hobbits) is a 1980 animated musical fantasy television film created by Rankin/Bass and Topcraft. It is an adaptation of the 1955 high fantasy novel Lord of the Rings, taking its name from "The Return of the King", the third and final volume of "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien and is a sequel to the 1977 film "The Hobbit".


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: The special aired on ABC on Sunday, May 11, 1980 after a legal challenge filed by the Tolkien Estate and Fantasy Films was settled. Critical and fan reaction to "The Return of the King" was lukewarm.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: At Bilbo Baggins's 129th birthday party in Rivendell, his nephew Frodo explains why he is missing a finger from his hand while the Minstrel of Gondor sings a ballad that tells the story of the quest to destroy the One Ring and defeat the Dark Lord Sauron.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: In Mordor, Frodo's friend and companion Samwise Gamgee bears the Ring in Frodo's absence as he ventures to rescue Frodo from the Orc fortress of Cirith Ungol. During his journey, Sam is tempted to claim the Ring for himself, but ultimately resists its power. He rescues Frodo, and the two Hobbits head out for Mount Doom to destroy the Ring.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: Meanwhile, the wizard Gandalf the White and the Hobbit Pippin arrive at Minas Tirith to warn Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, about the upcoming war—only to discover that the Steward has gone insane and means to take his own life. Frodo and Samwise continue toward Mount Doom (eluding Ringwraiths and infiltrating a battalion of Orcs in the process) only to be attacked by Gollum, the creature from whom Bilbo took the Ring decades before. Frodo casts Gollum down, however, and goes to the Crack of Doom. Sam prepares to kill Gollum, but is overcome with pity and allows him to flee.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: At the same time, Gondor's neighbouring country, Rohan, battles Sauron's forces in the Battle of Pelennor Fields, but its King, Theoden, is killed by the Witch-king of Angmar. Theoden's niece Eowyn, who had disguised herself as a man to take part in the battle, kills the Witch-king with help from Pippin, momentarily defeating Sauron's armies. Those forces momentarily rally upon the arrival of the black fleet coming from the west, the despairing vision of which drove Denethor to his suicide, but their morale shatters upon realizing that fleet is under the command of Prince Aragorn of Gondor. Upon his own arrival, Aragorn, heir to the throne of Gondor, plans to confront Sauron at the Black Gate. Here, he quarrels with the Mouth of Sauron and the two armies prepare for battle.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: On Mount Doom, Frodo succumbs to the Ring's power and puts it on, becoming invisible. Sam discovers Gollum and Frodo fighting over the Ring, which results in Gollum's biting off Frodo's finger to claim it. While dancing with joy at the retrieval of his "precious", Gollum falls into the lava of Mount Doom, taking the Ring with him. The Ring is destroyed, and Sauron perishes. Sam and Frodo are rescued by the Eagles from the erupting Mount Doom. A few months later, Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor. The story concludes with Frodo accompanying Bilbo, Gandalf, and Elrond as they leave Middle-earth. He gives the "Red Book of Westmarch" (consisting of Bilbo's memoirs with some spare pages) to Sam, assuring him that a good life is still in store for him. Gandalf assures them that Hobbits will someday have descendants among humans, to preserve their own existence; and the film ends in Frodo's departure from the Grey Havens.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: After the 1977 broadcast of "The Hobbit" on NBC, development and production began on "The Return of the King" at Rankin/Bass Productions in New York City under supervision of Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass. The film's original working title was Frodo, The Hobbit II. It was written by Romeo Muller with Rankin doing the script, designs for the characters and storyboards. The original cast from the previous film returned to reprise the voices of the characters with new actors joining them.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: Orson Bean returned as the voice of the older Bilbo Baggins, as well as that of the story's hero, Frodo Baggins. John Huston came back as well, as the wizard Gandalf, and co-starring with them were: William Conrad as Denethor, Roddy McDowall as Samwise Gamgee, Theodore Bikel as Aragorn, and reprising his role of Gollum, Brother Theodore. Rankin/Bass stalwart Paul Frees replaced the late Cyril Ritchard as the voice of Elrond; Casey Kasem was Merry, with Sonny Melendrez as Pippin; Nellie Bellflower as Éowyn; and Glenn Yarbrough returned as principal vocalist, billed here as simply "the Minstrel of Gondor". Thurl Ravenscroft served in the chorus. Once the character voices were recorded, along with background music by Maury Laws, with Jules Bass writing songs and lyrics for the film, the animation production was done by Topcraft in Japan under supervision of Toru Hara, Tsuguyuki Kubo, Kazuyuki Kobayashi and others.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: The release was threatened by a lawsuit filed by the Tolkien Estate and Fantasy Films on the basis that Rankin/Bass had not secured the U.S. and Canadian television rights to the book. The lawsuit was settled "amicably", allowing it to proceed with a May 1980 release.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: The film is often mistaken for a sequel to Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film "The Lord of the Rings". After Rankin/Bass became defunct in 1987, Warner Bros. acquired the rights to the special for home video distribution and chose to market the film, along with "The Hobbit", as instalments of an animated Tolkien trilogy, with Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings" (by then also owned by Warner Bros., from United Artists) acting as the middle chapter. This false promotion led to rumours that Rankin/Bass had originally decided to produce "The Return of the King" upon hearing that Bakshi's sequel to "The Lord of the Rings" had been cancelled. However, Rankin/Bass had always planned on making "The Return of the King" as a follow-up to their production of "The Hobbit", even before the release of Bakshi's film. Nonetheless, the plot of the TV production begins roughly where the Bakshi film ends.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: The film has garnered mixed reviews from modern sources. Charles Cassidy of Common Sense Media gave it a score of 3/5, and said, "Cartoon tale is darker, more complex than others in series". Steven D. Greydanus of Decent Films Guide gave it a C, and said, "Works even less well than "The Hobbit", which really is a children's story… overbearing folk-ballad soundtrack doesn't even gesture lyrically to Tolkien's poetry". It currently holds a score of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes.


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: Director Arthur Rankin Jr. later stated, "We tried to do "Return of the King"... but it is an awful lot to put into it. I think [Peter] Jackson is having the same problem in his films. You can't deviate from these books, or somebody'll wait on the street for you! ...[In] "The Return of the King", we had to summarize what had happened before, and then put it all together in 2 hours. It's not a very good film." Asked why he chose only to make "The Return of the King", instead of making the entire "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Rankin admitted, "I didn't know that the audience would sit still for it. I was wrong."


title: The Return of the King (1980 film)

text: "The Return of the King" was first released on VHS by Warner Home Video in 1991, and for the second time as part of the "Warner Bros. Classic Tales" video collection in 1996. The film has been available on DVD since 2001, both individually and as a "boxed trilogy" with Rankin/Bass's "The Hobbit" and Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings".


title: Arch bridge

text: An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side. A viaduct (a long bridge) may be made from a series of arches, although other more economical structures are typically used today.


title: Arch bridge

text: Possibly the oldest existing arch bridge is the Mycenaean Arkadiko Bridge in Greece from about 1300 BC. The stone corbel arch bridge is still used by the local populace. The well-preserved Hellenistic Eleutherna Bridge has a triangular corbel arch. The 4th century BC Rhodes Footbridge rests on an early voussoir arch.


title: Arch bridge

text: Although true arches were already known by the Etruscans and ancient Greeks, the Romans were – as with the vault and the dome – the first to fully realize the potential of arches for bridge construction. A list of Roman bridges compiled by the engineer Colin O'Connor features 330 Roman stone bridges for traffic, 34 Roman timber bridges and 54 Roman aqueduct bridges, a substantial part still standing and even used to carry vehicles. A more complete survey by the Italian scholar Vittorio Galliazzo found 931 Roman bridges, mostly of stone, in as many as 26 countries (including former Yugoslavia).


title: Arch bridge

text: Roman arch bridges were usually semicircular, although a number were segmental arch bridges (such as Alconétar Bridge), a bridge which has a curved arch that is less than a semicircle. The advantages of the segmental arch bridge were that it allowed great amounts of flood water to pass under it, which would prevent the bridge from being swept away during floods and the bridge itself could be more lightweight. Generally, Roman bridges featured wedge-shaped primary arch stones (voussoirs) of the same in size and shape. The Romans built both single spans and lengthy multiple arch aqueducts, such as the Pont du Gard and Segovia Aqueduct. Their bridges featured from an early time onwards flood openings in the piers, e.g. in the Pons Fabricius in Rome (62 BC), one of the world's oldest major bridges still standing.


title: Arch bridge

text: Roman engineers were the first and until the industrial revolution the only ones to construct bridges with concrete, which they called Opus caementicium. The outside was usually covered with brick or ashlar, as in the Alcántara bridge.


title: Arch bridge

text: The Romans also introduced segmental arch bridges into bridge construction. The Limyra Bridge in southwestern Turkey features 26 segmental arches with an average span-to-rise ratio of 5.3:1, giving the bridge an unusually flat profile unsurpassed for more than a millennium. Trajan's bridge over the Danube featured open-spandrel segmental arches made of wood (standing on concrete piers). This was to be the longest arch bridge for a thousand years both in terms of overall and individual span length, while the longest extant Roman bridge is the long Puente Romano at Mérida. The late Roman Karamagara Bridge in Cappadocia may represent the earliest surviving bridge featuring a pointed arch.


title: Arch bridge

text: In medieval Europe, bridge builders improved on the Roman structures by using narrower piers, thinner arch barrels and higher span-to-rise ratios on bridges. Gothic pointed arches were also introduced, reducing lateral thrust, and spans increased as with the eccentric Puente del Diablo (1282).


title: Arch bridge

text: The 14th century in particular saw bridge building reaching new heights. Span lengths of , previously unheard of in the history of masonry arch construction, were now reached in places as diverse as Spain (Puente de San Martín), Italy (Castelvecchio Bridge) and France (Devil's bridge and Pont Grand) and with arch types as different as semi-circular, pointed and segmental arches. The bridge at Trezzo sull'Adda, destroyed in the 15th century, even featured a span length of , not matched until 1796.


title: Arch bridge

text: Constructions such as the acclaimed Florentine segmental arch bridge Ponte Vecchio (1345) combined sound engineering (span-to-rise ratio of over 5.3 to 1) with aesthetical appeal. The three elegant arches of the Renaissance Ponte Santa Trinita (1569) constitute the oldest elliptic arch bridge worldwide. Such low rising structures required massive abutments, which at the Venetian Rialto bridge and the Fleischbrücke in Nuremberg (span-to-rise ratio 6.4:1) were founded on thousands of wooden piles, partly rammed obliquely into the grounds to counteract more effectively the lateral thrust.


title: Arch bridge

text: In China, the oldest existing arch bridge is the Zhaozhou Bridge of 605 AD, which combined a very low span-to-rise ratio of 5.2:1, with the use of spandrel arches (buttressed with iron brackets). The Zhaozhou Bridge, with a length of and span of , is the world's first wholly stone open-spandrel segmental arch bridge, allowing a greater passage for flood waters. Bridges with perforated spandrels can be found worldwide, such as in China (Zhaozhou Bridge, 7th century). Greece (Bridge of Arta, 17th century) and Wales (Cenarth Bridge, 18th century).


title: Arch bridge

text: In more modern times, stone and brick arches continued to be built by many civil engineers, including Thomas Telford, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and John Rennie. A key pioneer was Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, who used much narrower piers, revised calculation methods and exceptionally low span-to-rise ratios. Different materials, such as cast iron, steel and concrete have been increasingly used in the construction of arch bridges.


title: Arch bridge

text: Stone, brick and other such materials are strong in compression and somewhat so in shear, but cannot resist much force in tension. As a result, masonry arch bridges are designed to be constantly under compression, so far as is possible. Each arch is constructed over a temporary falsework frame, known as a centring. In the first compression arch bridges, a keystone in the middle of the bridge bore the weight of the rest of the bridge. The more weight that was put onto the bridge, the stronger its structure became. Masonry arch bridges use a quantity of fill material (typically compacted rubble) above the arch in order to increase this dead-weight on the bridge and prevent tension from occurring in the arch ring as loads move across the bridge. Other materials that were used to build this type of bridge were brick and unreinforced concrete. When masonry (cut stone) is used the angles of the faces are cut to minimize shear forces. Where random masonry (uncut and unprepared stones) is used they are mortared together and the mortar is allowed to set before the falsework is removed.


title: Arch bridge

text: Traditional masonry arches are generally durable, and somewhat resistant to settlement or undermining. However, relative to modern alternatives, such bridges are very heavy, requiring extensive foundations. They are also expensive to build wherever labor costs are high.