title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The median income for a household in the city was $76,161, and the median income for a family was $103,032. The per capita income for the city was $43,303. About 5.7% of families and 8.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.2% of those under age 18 and 8.2% of those age 65 or over.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk has voted Democratic for president since 1992, when the city voted for Bill Clinton. However, between 1928 and 1992, the city only voted Democratic twice: 1936 and 1964.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The City of Norwalk currently has six taxing districts. The First, Second, Third and Sixth taxing districts are political entities with their respective voters electing officers, holding annual business meetings, approving budgets and to consider other matters, as specified in each of their charters. Election of Taxing District Commissioners and Treasurers by voters from the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th districts take place in odd numbered years.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The Fourth and Fifth districts are not counted as separate governments as they constitute the city proper. Each taxing district has its own property tax rate reflecting the mix of services each receives from the city.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Secondly, municipal elections of Mayor, Common Council, Board of Education and other positions are also held in odd numbered years at thirteen polling places within five voting districts around the city.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Voting districts are not the same for state and federal elections which are held on even numbered years at twelve polling locations.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk's municipal government is a weak-mayor form of a mayor-council government with the mayor of Norwalk elected by its voters. The city's charter gives certain administrative powers exclusively to the council and others jointly to the Council and Mayor. The Common Council is the law-writing body of the City of Norwalk. Norwalk's common council consists of fifteen council members, five elected at-large and ten elected by district, two from each district.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk is represented in the Connecticut General Assembly by five House Representatives corresponding to five Connecticut legislative districts and one senator from one Connecticut Senate district.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk, which lies within Connecticut's 4th congressional district, is represented in the United States Congress by one congressional representative (Democrat Jim Himes) in the United States House of Representatives and, along with the rest of Connecticut, by two U.S. Senators (Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy) in the United States Senate.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk Public Schools operates public schools, while the community also has various private schools.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk was granted a town charter by the Connecticut General Court in 1651. On May 29, 1678, town records mention the establishment of community-supported teaching activities with a passage that reads:


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: "'At a town meeting... voted and agreed to hier a scole master to teach all the children in ye town to lerne to Rede and write; and that Mr. Cornish shall be hierd for that service and the townsmen are to hier him upon as reasonable terms as they can."


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The school that was established in the 1670s was located near the Ludlow Square area of East Norwalk (near the former Roger Ludlow Junior High School).


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Baseball and softball are popular amateur sports with active leagues across many age groups in Norwalk. There are four baseball fields and 16 Little League fields in the city. Several of the fields, including Calf Pasture Beach are illuminated for nighttime play. The fields at The Norwalk Little League team won the Little League World Series in 1952.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: In 2010, the 12-year-old Norwalk all-star team made it to the Cal Ripken league World Series and placed third in the country. In 2011, the Norwalk American Senior Legion baseball team won the Connecticut State Championship. This had not been accomplished by any other Norwalk Legion team in the storied 83-year history. The team defeated Branford, Connecticut in the championship game. The girls' Norwalk Pride fast pitch softball team won the Connecticut State Championship in 2005, 2006, and 2007.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The Norwalk Biddy Basketball All-Star team Won the State and Regional titles and then went on to the World Championships in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1986 and placed 7th in the world.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Being a coastal city Norwalk is home to a great many water sports including competitive swimming, recreational boating and fishing, sailing, windsurfing, and kayaking. The Norwalk River and inner Norwalk Harbor host rowing events and organizations.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: There are three golf courses in the city of Norwalk: the Shorehaven Golf Club is a private club in East Norwalk, the Silvermine Golf Club is a private club in Silvermine (part of the course lies in the town of Wilton), and the Oak Hills Park golf course is a public course in West Norwalk.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The cross-town rivalry between the city's two largest high schools, Norwalk High School and Brien McMahon High School, is fierce, particularly for the football, basketball, soccer and field hockey teams in the fall; as well as lacrosse, baseball, and softball teams in the spring. Brien McMahon High School's football


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: team won the FCIAC (Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference) and Class M State Football championship in 1994. McMahon High School's boys' lacrosse team won the state division 2 lacrosse championship in 2000.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk used to be the home of the Connecticut Wildcats, part of the American National Rugby League, from 2003 to 2015.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: News sources in Norwalk include News 12 Connecticut, a regional news channel for southwestern Connecticut and based in Norwalk. "The Hour" was an independent daily newspaper based in Norwalk and founded in 1871, which was purchased by Hearst Communications on April 12, 2016. NancyonNorwalk.com is a self-published, nonprofit news site founded in 2010 that covers local issues.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Interstate 95 and the Merritt Parkway lead through Norwalk, and there are several exits within the Norwalk city limits, and are the major thoroughfare through the city. U.S. Route 1 goes through the center of the city, mostly following local streets. The major north–south corridor in Norwalk is U.S. Route 7, which is an expressway throughout most of the route in the city. The expressway section ends at Grist Mill Road in Norwalk from where Route 7 resumes northbound along Main Ave. Other state routes include Route 53, Route 123, and Route 136.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Public transport bus service within Norwalk is provided by Norwalk Transit District. Norwalk Transit District operates fixed route public bus service in Norwalk and Westport with evening and Sunday shuttles (serving South Norwalk, Main Avenue and Connecticut Avenue) and commuter shuttles. Access to other cities through bus services Milford, Danbury, and Stamford. All fixed route buses meet at the Transportation Hub.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line runs through and stops in Norwalk. The train goes West and East with Grand Central Terminal and New Haven Union Station being the final stops. The Danbury Branch runs from South Norwalk to Danbury, CT. There are four stations in Norwalk, three of them on the main line which is: Rowayton, South Norwalk and East Norwalk. The fourth station, Merritt 7, is on the Danbury Branch. Metro-North provides commuter service for all four stations.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The structure at 47 Wall Street was formerly the Wall Street station of the Danbury Branch, which operated from 1896 to 1936. The city's trolley system barn also operated on Wall Street.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk is within reasonable distance of 11 airports: four general aviation, two regional, five international.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: The districts purchase wholesale power and arrange for its delivery to, and distribution within, their respective districts. Power lines and meters in East Norwalk, South Norwalk, and parts of Rowayton are maintained by the districts. Both the second (SNEW) and third (TTD) district electric departments belong to the six member Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative which pools their wholesale power purchasing to obtain lower rates for their customers.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Connecticut Light and Power (now Eversource Energy) operated a power plant, Norwalk Harbor Station on Manresa Island, from 1960 to 1999 when it was acquired by NRG Energy, which then began its deactivation in 2013.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: In 2004 the Third Taxing District installed 3 diesel powered generators at the Norden complex on Norden Place that were initially licensed only for emergency power supply. By summer 2008 the generators, with a combined capacity of 6 Megawatts, had been upgraded to allow licensed operation as regular power providers for the grid (not just emergency power).


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: In 2007 and 2008 the construction of the Middletown-Norwalk transmission line disrupted traffic along the Boston Post Road, but the completion of the line is hoped to help provide additional power to lower Fairfield County. In addition a high-voltage undersea line runs from Manressa Island to Long Island to help provide electric power to Long Island Power Authority customers. In 2008 the city government of Norwalk started initial investigations of whether the city might resume generating power for sale to electricity customers in the city.


title: Norwalk, Connecticut

text: Norwalk Police Department serves as the city's police department, and Norwalk Fire Department serves Norwalk's fire protection district. Norwalk is served 24/7 by Norwalk Hospital and Norwalk Hospital EMS, a 911 paramedic service. The service consists of hospital-based paramedics and EMT-Is who serve Norwalk as well as New Canaan, Wilton, Weston, and Westport.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: Announced at the 1999 Paris Air Show, it made its maiden flight on 14 August 2001, received its Canadian type approval on 31 May 2003 and was introduced on 8 January 2004.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: The Challenger 350 is a slightly improved range variant which first flew on 2 March 2013 and was approved on 11 June 2014.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: The baseline Challenger 300 was launched at the 1999 Paris Air Show as the Bombardier Continental. An all-new design, it received Transport Canada type approval on 31 May 2003, followed on 4 June by US FAR 25 certification and on 31 July by European JAR 25 approval. Assembled in Wichita, Kansas, it entered commercial service on 8 January 2004 with Flexjet. The new design is not developed from the Challenger 600 or its variants.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: Its supercritical wings have a fixed leading-edge and a 27% sweep angle, its winglets reduce cruise lift-induced drag by 17%.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: It climbs to FL410 in 18 min with a fuel burn at MTOW/ISA, where at a weight it burns /h at Mach 0.8/ tas, /h at Mach 0.83/ tas.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: Outboard ailerons are manually actuated, elevators and rudder are hydraulic with a mechanical backup, fly-by-wire spoilers augment roll control, act as speedbrakes and dump lift on the ground, hydraulic single-slotted fowler flap have four positions: 0/10/20/30°.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: The Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics include four LCD displays, an EICAS and Maintenance Diagnostics Computer, an EGPWS, a TCAS II and an ELT.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: The improved variant first flew on March 2, 2013, was unveiled at the next May EBACE and was due to enter service in May 2014. Combined with a more luxurious interior and 20% taller cabin windows, it costs $1 million more at $25.9 million. Its launch customer, NetJets, ordered 75 firm and 125 options.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: It received its type certification from Transport Canada on June 11, 2014, from the FAA on June 25 and from the EASA on September 2.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: In 2018, 60 Challenger 350s were delivered as Bombardier claims a 58% market share of the super mid-size segment, and the 300th delivery was reached in July 2019, after five years of service.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: Hot-section modifications and a FADEC push gave the Honeywell HTF7350 7.3% more takeoff thrust at with the same flat rating, durability and reliability.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: Canted winglets have a less acute angle that reduces transonic drag and enlarge the span by , increasing wing area and aspect ratio.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: The avionics include four Adaptive LCD Displays, Dual FMS with LPV and RNP approaches capability, SVS, a MultiScan, Weather Radar, Dual IRS, dual SBAS GPS, integrated EFIS and dual VHF and HF radios.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: It is able to carry eight passengers over a 3,200 nmi / 5,926 km range at a Mach 0.80 (459 kn, 849 km/h) long-range cruise. It is manufactured in Canada.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: Bombardier unveiled the Challenger 3500 at an event in Montreal on September 14, 2021 which builds on the Challenger 300/350. The 3500 will feature improvements such as auto- throttles, and an upgraded cabin. The new name will also bring the Challenger 3500 inline with Bombardier's Global nomenclature. Bombardier anticipates deliveries of the Challenger 3500 the second half of 2022 and will carry a price tag of $26.7 million, which is the same as the current Challenger 350.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: In November 2014, for nearly one million hours of operations, the 448 Challenger 300 in service had a 99.79% dispatch reliability rate; five-year-old aircraft retain 64% of their original value. At the end of 2015, 550 Challenger 300/350 were in service: 402 in North America, 75 in Western Europe, 37 in Latin America, 12 in Eastern Europe, seven in India, six in Africa and China, four in Asia Pacific and one in the Middle East; the largest operator was Flexjet with 30 Challenger 300s and seven 350s, then Netjets with 26 delivered, including four to Netjets Europe.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: In 2017, facing competition, Bombardier discounted the price of the Challenger 300/350 by $7 million to match the Embraer Legacy 500's $20 million price.


title: Bombardier Challenger 300

text: Over 200 Challenger 350 were delivered by December 2017, adding to around 450 Challenger 300 deliveries.


title: Abigail Thaw

text: Abigail Thaw was born in London to actor John Thaw and his first wife, Sally Alexander, an academic/feminist activist who taught modern history at Goldsmiths College. Her parents divorced in 1968. On her mother's side she has a half-brother (Daniel), and on her father's side she has an elder stepsister (Melanie Jane) and a half-sister (Joanna). Her stepmother is actress Sheila Hancock.


title: Abigail Thaw

text: After her parents' divorce in 1968, Abigail was brought up in Pimlico by her mother and her mother's boyfriend, Gareth Stedman Jones. Her father also kept in regular contact. Abigail attended Pimlico Comprehensive. Her mother was involved in the flour-bombing of the 1970 Miss World contest, the story of which is the subject of the 2020 film "Misbehaviour".


title: Abigail Thaw

text: After school she spent a year in Italy, where she was in a car accident. Returning to England, she decided to attend RADA, where she met her future husband, actor Nigel Whitmey.


title: Abigail Thaw

text: Abigail Thaw began her career working in rep at Cheltenham, York, and Salisbury, then performed with the RSC and the Royal Exchange Theatre and Library in Manchester, Chichester, The Tricycle, The Gate, Theatre503, The Orange Tree, Battersea Arts Centre, New End, The Finborough, Birmingham, Theatr Clwyd, Watford and extensive touring in "Whipping It Up", "Ladies in Lavender" and "Entertaining Angels". She played Ms Capulet in Tom Morris' "Juliet and her Romeo" at the Bristol Old Vic, and acted in "Cymbeline" with Mark Rylance at The Globe Theatre and Brooklyn Academy of Music. She also spent a year working with Mike Alfred's company, "Method and Madness", performing in "Private Lives", "Jude the Obscure" and "Flesh and Blood". She was nominated for the Best Actress Off West End award in 2011 for "The Firewatchers" at the Old Red Lion. In early 2015, she participated in the world premiere of Michael Hastings' "The Cutting of the Cloth".


title: Abigail Thaw

text: Thaw has also worked in television since 1990, including in "The Bill", "Casualty", "Pie in the Sky", "Peak Practice", "Spywatch", "Big Bad World", "Vanity Fair", "Love Soup" and "Trust". In 2009 she appeared in the "Midsomer Murders" episode “Small Mercies” as Annabel Johnson; and the "Agatha Christie's Poirot" episode “The Clocks”. She also performed in the 2016 BBC comedy series "I Want My Wife Back".


title: Abigail Thaw

text: She played a newspaper editor in the ITV1 2011 Christmas special edition of the "Inspector Morse" prequel, "Endeavour", a role she continued in Series 1, and in subsequent series.


title: Abigail Thaw

text: Thaw met Nigel Whitmey at RADA in the mid-1980s, and they married in 1986. In 1997 she gave birth to a daughter, Molly-Mae Whitmey, and in 2003 to her second daughter, Talia. The family live in Muswell Hill, North London.Her daughter Molly had a cameo as the younger version of her grandmother Sally Alexander in the "Endeavour" episode "Oracle" (series 7, episode 1, broadcast February 1, 2020).


title: Buzz Sawyer

text: Bruce Alan Woyan (June 14, 1959 – February 7, 1992) was an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Buzz Sawyer.


title: Buzz Sawyer

text: Sawyer started wrestling in 1978 (other sources state 1979) in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) affiliate Jim Crockett Promotions. He stayed there with some stints in Georgia Championship Wrestling until 1984. He mainly teamed with his brother, Brett Sawyer. Buzz had a feud with The Road Warriors after he left their manager Paul Ellering's Legion of Doom. Pez Whatley was the first wrestler to pin Sawyer on live television. He also had an epic feud with Tommy Rich that led to many bloody matches, the greatest of which occurred on was billed as the "Last Battle of Atlanta" and for the first time featured a completely enclosed cage; Rich won the match. It also featured manager Paul Ellering suspended 20 feet above the ring in a smaller cage. This is the match that Shawn Michaels credits for inspiring the Hell in the Cell concept used by WWE. The stipulation for this match was that Sawyer and Rich would never wrestle one another again. Tommy Rich lost a match to Ted DiBiase in which the stipulation was a loser leaves town match. Rich appeared the next week on TV under a mask and calling himself the mysterious Mr. R. WWE released the entire match on the WWE Network on September 5, 2016.


title: Buzz Sawyer

text: Sawyer had a short World Wrestling Federation (WWF) run in 1984 as "Bulldog" Buzz Sawyer (since the moniker Mad Dog was being used by Maurice Vachon) with Captain Lou Albano as his manager. Sawyer's gimmicks included a dog chain, a lot of barking, and a new bulldog finisher. After his WWF stint, he surfaced in the NWA territory Championship Wrestling from Florida, under the mind control of Kevin Sullivan. He feuded with Mike Graham, Dusty Rhodes, and Adrian Street. In 1985, Buzz went to Mid-South Wrestling (which became the Universal Wrestling Federation in 1986) and became a protégé of Dick Slater's. After Slater won the North American title, he gave the Mid-South TV title to Sawyer to defend for him. The promotion tricked Slater into letting Sawyer defend the North American title (which he promptly lost), and Sawyer then refused to give the TV belt back to Slater.


title: Buzz Sawyer

text: In 1986, Sawyer left the UWF for World Class Championship Wrestling. He formed a team with Matt Borne and they won the WCWA Tag Team Championship. He also won the WCWA Television Championship and the WCWA Texas Heavyweight Championship and feuded with Brian Adias while there. He got into a feud with Dingo Warrior and he lost his tag team titles, with Master Gee substituting for him, to Warrior and Lance Von Erich before reportedly being fired after failing a drug test. He returned to WCW in 1989 as part of Gary Hart's J-Tex Corporation that was feuding with the Four Horsemen, and he had several matches against Arn Anderson. He then joined Kevin Sullivan's "Slaughterhouse" stable in 1990. At the Wrestle War event in 1990, he was victorious in a tag team match where he and Sullivan defeated The Dynamic Dudes (Shane Douglas and Johnny Ace), but also fractured his wrist. He left WCW in 1991. Buzz is credited, erroneously, with training many talents, including WWE Hall of Famer legend "The Undertaker".


title: Buzz Sawyer

text: Sawyer was a graduate from Dixie M. Hollins High School, where he was a state champion in the 191.5 pound weight class. In 1976, he placed third nationally, losing in the semifinal to eventual champion Dan Severn. He would use his amateur skills, while in New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 1989, against the Soviet amateurs Salman Hashimikov, Victor Zangiev, Vladimir Berkovich and Wahka Evloev, that joined the promotion.


title: Buzz Sawyer

text: Sawyer was known for his antics both in and out of the ring, including his drug abuse and fighting with police outside a bar. Most notably, he was known for scamming aspiring wrestlers who wanted to be trained by him (Sawyer would often take their money, beat them senseless, then skip town). Jim Cornette has stated his reason for breaking Buzz's nose with a tennis racket during a spot was due to him taking liberties with other talent (Cornette included as Sawyer threw a shoot punch at Cornette during a match).


title: Buzz Sawyer

text: Sawyer died at his Sacramento, California apartment from heart failure due to a drug overdose on February 7, 1992.


title: Crunchyroll Anime Awards

text: The Crunchyroll Anime Awards are awards given annually by the anime streaming service Crunchyroll to recognize the best anime of the previous year. Announced in December 2016, the awards were first presented in January 2017. Crunchyroll describes it as a "global event [that] recognizes the anime shows, characters, and artists that fans around the world love most."


title: Crunchyroll Anime Awards

text: The winners of the 6th Crunchyroll Anime Awards were announced on February 9, 2022 without a ceremony. "Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 1" won the Anime of the Year award.


title: Crunchyroll Anime Awards

text: The nominees are selected by a panel of judges via a two-round voting process to produce the final list. Categories can be added or removed depending on fan popularity over the past years, as well as on fan feedback.


title: Crunchyroll Anime Awards

text: The voting period is announced days prior. Announcement of nominees vary in each editions; the latest edition announced it on the first day. Voting is usually open for a week, where the public can vote once per day for each categories.


title: Crunchyroll Anime Awards

text: Winners from each category are the ones that received the most votes. 70% of the votes will come from the judges while public voting represents the remaining 30%.


title: Crunchyroll Anime Awards

text: Hero of the Year and Villain of the Year awards were renamed as "Best Hero" and "Best Villain" respectively in 2018. However, they were renamed again in 2019 as "Best Protagonist" and "Best Antagonist" respectively. On the same edition, "Best Opening" and "Best Ending" were renamed as "Best Opening Sequence" and "Best Ending Sequence" as well.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The cardiac action potential is a brief change in voltage (membrane potential) across the cell membrane of heart cells. This is caused by the movement of charged atoms (called ions) between the inside and outside of the cell, through proteins called ion channels. The cardiac action potential differs from action potentials found in other types of electrically excitable cells, such as nerves. Action potentials also vary within the heart; this is due to the presence of different ion channels in different cells.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Unlike the action potential in skeletal muscle cells, the cardiac action potential is not initiated by nervous activity. Instead, it arises from a group of specialized cells known as pacemaker cells, that have automatic action potential generation capability. In healthy hearts, these cells form the cardiac pacemaker and are found in the sinoatrial node in the right atrium. They produce roughly 60–100 action potentials every minute. The action potential passes along the cell membrane causing the cell to contract, therefore the activity of the sinoatrial node results in a resting heart rate of roughly 60–100 beats per minute. All cardiac muscle cells are electrically linked to one another, by intercalated discs which allow the action potential to pass from one cell to the next. This means that all atrial cells can contract together, and then all ventricular cells.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Rate dependence of the action potential is a fundamental property of cardiac cells and alterations can lead to severe cardiac diseases including cardiac arrhythmia and sometimes sudden death.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Action potential activity within the heart can be recorded to produce an electrocardiogram (ECG). This is a series of upward and downward spikes (labelled P, Q, R, S and T) that represent the depolarization (voltage becoming more positive) and repolarization (voltage becoming more negative) of the action potential in the atria and ventricles.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Similar to skeletal muscle, the resting membrane potential (voltage when the cell is not electrically excited) of ventricular cells is around −90 millivolts (mV; 1 mV = 0.001 V), i.e. the inside of the membrane is more negative than the outside. The main ions found outside the cell at rest are sodium (Na), and chloride (Cl), whereas inside the cell it is mainly potassium (K).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The action potential begins with the voltage becoming more positive; this is known as depolarization and is mainly due to the opening of sodium channels that allow Na to flow into the cell. After a delay (known as the absolute refractory period), the action potential terminates as potassium channels open, allowing K to leave the cell and causing the membrane potential to return to negative, this is known as repolarization. Another important ion is calcium (Ca), which can be found inside the cell in the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) where calcium is stored, and is also found outside of the cell. Release of Ca from the SR, via a process called calcium-induced calcium release, is vital for the plateau phase of the action potential (see phase 2, below) and is a fundamental step in cardiac excitation-contraction coupling.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: There are important physiological differences between the pacemaker cells of the sinoatrial node, that spontaneously generate the cardiac action potential and those non-pacemaker cells that simply conduct it, such as ventricular myocytes). The specific differences in the types of ion channels expressed and mechanisms by which they are activated results in differences in the configuration of the action potential waveform, as shown in figure 2.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Cardiac automaticity also known as autorhythmicity, is the property of the specialized conductive muscle cells of the heart to generate spontaneous cardiac action potentials. Automaticity can be normal or abnormal, caused by temporary ion channel characteristic changes such as certain medication usage, or in the case of abnormal automaticity the changes are in electrotonic environment, caused, for example, by myocardial infarction.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The standard model used to understand the cardiac action potential is that of the ventricular myocyte. Outlined below are the five phases of the ventricular myocyte action potential, with reference also to the SAN action potential.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: In the ventricular myocyte, phase 4 occurs when the cell is at rest, in a period known as diastole. In the standard non-pacemaker cell the voltage during this phase is more or less constant, at roughly -90 mV. The resting membrane potential results from the flux of ions having flowed into the cell (e.g. sodium and calcium), the flux of ions having flowed out of the cell (e.g. potassium, chloride and bicarbonate), as well as the flux of ions generated by the different membrane pumps, being perfectly balanced.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The activity of these pumps serve two purposes. The first is to maintain the existence of the resting membrane potential by countering the depolarisation due to the leakage of ions not at the electrochemichal equilibrium (e.g. sodium and calcium). These ions not being at the equilibrium is the reason for the existence of an electrical gradient, for they represent a net displacement of charges across the membrane, which are unable to immediately re-enter the cell to restore the electrical equilibrium. Therefore, their slow re-entrance in the cell needs to be counterbalanced or the cell would slowly lose its membrane potential.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The second purpose, intrically linked to the first, is to keep the intracellular concentration more or less constant, and in this case to reestablish the original chemical gradients, that is to force the sodium and calcium which previously flowed into the cell out of it, and the potassium which previously flowed out of the cell back into it (though as the potassium is mostly at the electrochemical equilibrium, its chemical gradient will naturally reequilibrate itself opposite to the electrical gradient, without the need for an active transport mechanism).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: For example, the sodium (Na) and potassium (K) ions are maintained by the sodium-potassium pump which uses energy (in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)) to move three Na out of the cell and two K into the cell. Another example is the sodium-calcium exchanger which removes one Ca from the cell for three Na into the cell.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: During this phase the membrane is most permeable to K, which can travel into or out of cell through leak channels, including the inwardly rectifying potassium channel. Therefore, the resting membrane potential is mostly equal to K equilibrium potential and can be calculated using the Goldman-Hodgkin-Katz voltage equation.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: However, pacemaker cells are never at rest. In these cells, phase 4 is also known as the pacemaker potential. During this phase, the membrane potential slowly becomes more positive, until it reaches a set value (around -40 mV; known as the threshold potential) or until it is depolarized by another action potential, coming from a neighboring cell.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The pacemaker potential is thought to be due to a group of channels, referred to as HCN channels (Hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated). These channels open at very negative voltages (i.e. immediately after phase 3 of the previous action potential; see below) and allow the passage of both K and Na into the cell. Due to their unusual property of being activated by very negative membrane potentials, the movement of ions through the HCN channels is referred to as the funny current (see below).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Another hypothesis regarding the pacemaker potential is the 'calcium clock'. Calcium is released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum within the cell. This calcium then increases activation of the sodium-calcium exchanger resulting in the increase in membrane potential (as a +3 charge is being brought into the cell (by the 3Na) but only a +2 charge is leaving the cell (by the Ca) therefore there is a net charge of +1 entering the cell). This calcium is then pumped back into the cell and back into the SR via calcium pumps (including the SERCA).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: This phase consists of a rapid, positive change in voltage across the cell membrane (depolarization) lasting less than 2 ms in ventricular cells and 10–20 ms in SAN cells. This occurs due to a net flow of positive charge into the cell.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: In non-pacemaker cells (i.e. ventricular cells), this is produced predominantly by the activation of Na channels, which increases the membrane conductance (flow) of Na (g). These channels are activated when an action potential arrives from a neighbouring cell, through gap junctions. When this happens, the voltage within the cell increases slightly. If this increased voltage reaches the threshold potential (approximately −70 mV) it causes the Na channels to open. This produces a larger influx of sodium into the cell, rapidly increasing the voltage further to around +50 mV, i.e. towards the Na equilibrium potential. However, if the initial stimulus is not strong enough, and the threshold potential is not reached, the rapid sodium channels will not be activated and an action potential will not be produced; this is known as the all-or-none law. The influx of calcium ions (Ca) through L-type calcium channels also constitutes a minor part of the depolarisation effect. The slope of phase 0 on the action potential waveform (see figure 2) represents the maximum rate of voltage change of the cardiac action potential and is known as dV/dt.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: In pacemaker cells (e.g. sinoatrial node cells), however, the increase in membrane voltage is mainly due to activation of L-type calcium channels. These channels are also activated by an increase in voltage, however this time it is either due to the pacemaker potential (phase 4) or an oncoming action potential. The L-type calcium channels are activated more slowly than the sodium channels, therefore, the depolarization slope in the pacemaker action potential waveform is less steep than that in the non-pacemaker action potential waveform.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: This phase begins with the rapid inactivation of the Na channels by the inner gate (inactivation gate), reducing the movement of sodium into the cell. At the same time potassium channels (called I) open and close rapidly, allowing for a brief flow of potassium ions out of the cell, making the membrane potential slightly more negative. This is referred to as a 'notch' on the action potential waveform.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: This phase is also known as the "plateau" phase due to the membrane potential remaining almost constant, as the membrane slowly begins to repolarize. This is due to the near balance of charge moving into and out of the cell. During this phase delayed rectifier potassium channels (I) allow potassium to leave the cell while L-type calcium channels (activated by the influx of sodium during phase 0) allow the movement of calcium ions into the cell. These calcium ions bind to and open more calcium channels (called ryanodine receptors) located on the sarcoplasmic reticulum within the cell, allowing the flow of calcium out of the SR. These calcium ions are responsible for the contraction of the heart.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Calcium also activates chloride channels called I, which allow Cl to enter the cell. Increased calcium concentration in the cell also increases activity of the sodium-calcium exchangers, while increased sodium concentration (from the depolarisation of phase 0) increases activity of the sodium-potassium pumps. The movement of all these ions results in the membrane potential remaining relatively constant, with K outflux, Cl influx as well as Na/K pumps contributing to repolarisation and Ca influx as well as Na/Ca exchangers contributing to depolarisation. This phase is responsible for the large duration of the action potential and is important in preventing irregular heartbeat (cardiac arrhythmia).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: During phase 3 (the "rapid repolarization" phase) of the action potential, the L-type Ca channels close, while the slow delayed rectifier (I) K channels remain open as more potassium leak channels open. This ensures a net outward positive current, corresponding to negative change in membrane potential, thus allowing more types of K channels to open. These are primarily the rapid delayed rectifier K channels (I) and the inwardly rectifying K current, I.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: This net outward, positive current (equal to loss of positive charge from the cell) causes the cell to repolarize. The delayed rectifier K channels close when the membrane potential is restored to about -85 to -90 mV, while I remains conducting throughout phase 4, which helps to set the resting membrane potential


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Ionic pumps as discussed above, like the sodium-calcium exchanger and the sodium-potassium pump restore ion concentrations back to balanced states pre-action potential. This means that the intracellular calcium is pumped out, which was responsible for cardiac myocyte contraction. Once this is lost, the contraction stops and the heart muscles relax.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: In the sinoatrial node, this phase is also due to the closure of the L-type calcium channels, preventing inward flux of Ca and the opening of the rapid delayed rectifier potassium channels (I).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Cardiac cells have two refractory periods, the first from the beginning of phase 0 until part way through phase 3; this is known as the absolute refractory period during which it is impossible for the cell to produce another action potential. This is immediately followed, until the end of phase 3, by a relative refractory period, during which a stronger-than-usual stimulus is required to produce another action potential.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: These two refractory periods are caused by changes in the states of sodium and potassium channels. The rapid depolarization of the cell, during phase 0, causes the membrane potential to approach sodium's equilibrium potential (i.e. the membrane potential at which sodium is no longer drawn into or out of the cell). As the membrane potential becomes more positive, the sodium channels then close and lock, this is known as the "inactivated" state. During this state the channels cannot be opened regardless of the strength of the excitatory stimulus—this gives rise to the absolute refractory period.The relative refractory period is due to the leaking of potassium ions, which makes the membrane potential more negative (i.e. it is hyperpolarised), this resets the sodium channels; opening the inactivation gate, but still leaving the channel closed. Because some of the voltage-gated sodium ion channels have recovered and the voltage-gated potassium ion channels remain open, it is possible to initiate another action potential if the stimulus is stronger than a stimulus which can fire an action potential when the membrane is at rest.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Gap junctions allow the action potential to be transferred from one cell to the next (they are said to "electrically couple" neighbouring cardiac cells). They are made from the connexin family of proteins, that form a pore through which ions (including Na, Ca and K) can pass. As potassium is highest within the cell, it is mainly potassium that passes through. This increased potassium in the neighbour cell causes the membrane potential to increase slightly, activating the sodium channels and initiating an action potential in this cell. (A brief chemical gradient driven efflux of Na+ through the connexon at peak depolarization causes the conduction of cell to cell depolarization, not potassium.) These connections allow for the rapid conduction of the action potential throughout the heart and are responsible for allowing all of the cells in the atria to contract together as well as all of the cells in the ventricles. Uncoordinated contraction of heart muscles is the basis for arrhythmia and heart failure.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Ion channels are proteins that change shape in response to different stimuli to either allow or prevent the movement of specific ions across a membrane. They are said to be selectively permeable. Stimuli, which can either come from outside the cell or from within the cell, can include the binding of a specific molecule to a receptor on the channel (also known as ligand-gated ion channels) or a change in membrane potential around the channel, detected by a sensor (also known as voltage-gated ion channels) and can act to open or close the channel. The pore formed by an ion channel is aqueous (water-filled) and allows the ion to rapidly travel across the membrane. Ion channels can be selective for specific ions, so there are Na, K, Ca, and Cl specific channels. They can also be specific for a certain charge of ions (i.e. positive or negative).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Each channel is coded by a set of DNA instructions that tell the cell how to make it. These instructions are known as a gene. Figure 3 shows the important ion channels involved in the cardiac action potential, the current (ions) that flows through the channels, their main protein subunits (building blocks of the channel), some of their controlling genes that code for their structure, and the phases that are active during the cardiac action potential. Some of the most important ion channels involved in the cardiac action potential are described briefly below.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated channels (HCN channels) are located mainly in pacemaker cells, these channels become active at very negative membrane potentials and allow for the passage of both Na and K into the cell (which is a movement is known as a funny current, I). These poorly selective, cation (positively charged ions) channels conduct more current as the membrane potential becomes more negative (hyperpolarised). The activity of these channels in the SAN cells causes the membrane potential to depolarise slowly and so they are thought to be responsible for the pacemaker potential. Sympathetic nerves directly affect these channels, resulting in an increased heart rate (see below).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: These sodium channels are voltage-dependent, opening rapidly due to depolarization of the membrane, which usually occurs from neighboring cells, through gap junctions. They allow for a rapid flow of sodium into the cell, depolarizing the membrane completely and initiating an action potential. As the membrane potential increases, these channels then close and lock (become inactive). Due to the rapid influx sodium ions (steep phase 0 in action potential waveform) activation and inactivation of these channels happens almost at exactly the same time. During the inactivation state, Na cannot pass through (absolute refractory period). However they begin to recover from inactivation as the membrane potential becomes more negative (relative refractory period).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The two main types of potassium channels in cardiac cells are inward rectifiers and voltage-gated potassium channels.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Inwardly rectifying potassium channels (K favour the flow of K into the cell. This influx of potassium, however, is larger when the membrane potential is more negative than the equilibrium potential for K (~-90 mV). As the membrane potential becomes more positive (i.e. during cell stimulation from a neighbouring cell), the flow of potassium into the cell via the K decreases. Therefore, K is responsible for maintaining the resting membrane potential and initiating the depolarization phase. However, as the membrane potential continues to become more positive, the channel begins to allow the passage of K "out" of the cell. This outward flow of potassium ions at the more positive membrane potentials means that the K can also aid the final stages of repolarisation.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The voltage-gated potassium channels (K) are activated by depolarization. The currents produced by these channels include the transient out potassium current "I". This current has two components. Both components activate rapidly, but "I" inactivates more rapidly than "I". These currents contribute to the early repolarization phase (phase 1) of the action potential.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Another form of voltage-gated potassium channels are the delayed rectifier potassium channels. These channels carry potassium currents which are responsible for the plateau phase of the action potential, and are named based on the speed at which they activate: slowly activating "I", rapidly activating "I" and ultra-rapidly activating "I".


title: Cardiac action potential

text: There are two voltage-gated calcium channels within cardiac muscle: L-type calcium channels ('L' for Long-lasting) and T-type calcium channels ('T' for Transient, i.e. short). L-type channels are more common and are most densely populated within the t-tubule membrane of ventricular cells, whereas the T-type channels are found mainly within atrial and pacemaker cells, but still to a lesser degree than L-type channels.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: These channels respond to voltage changes across the membrane differently: L-type channels are activated by more positive membrane potentials, take longer to open and remain open longer than T-type channels. This means that the T-type channels contribute more to depolarization (phase 0) whereas L-type channels contribute to the plateau (phase 2).


title: Cardiac action potential

text: In the heart's conduction system electrical activity that originates from the sinoatrial node is propagated via the His-Purkinje network, the fastest conduction pathway within the heart. The electrical signal travels from the sinoatrial node (SAN), which stimulates the atria to contract, to the atrioventricular node (AVN) which slows down conduction of the action potential, from the atria to the ventricles. This delay allows the ventricles to fully fill with blood before contraction. The signal then passes down through a bundle of fibres called the bundle of His, located between the ventricles, and then to the purkinje fibers at the bottom (apex) of the heart, causing ventricular contraction.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Other than the SAN, the AVN and purkinje fibres also have pacemaker activity and can therefore spontaneously generate an action potential. However, these cells usually do not depolarize spontaneously, simply because, action potential production in the SAN is faster. This means that before the AVN or purkinje fibres reach the threshold potential for an action potential, they are depolarized by the oncoming impulse from the SAN This is called "overdrive suppression". Pacemaker activity of these cells is vital, as it means that if the SAN were to fail, then the heart could continue to beat, albeit at a lower rate (AVN= 40-60 beats per minute, purkinje fibres = 20-40 beats per minute). These pacemakers will keep a patient alive until the emergency team arrives.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: An example of premature ventricular contraction, is the classic athletic heart syndrome. Sustained training of athletes causes a cardiac adaptation where the resting SAN rate is lower (sometimes around 40 beats per minute). This can lead to atrioventricular block, where the signal from the SAN is impaired in its path to the ventricles. This leads to uncoordinated contractions between the atria and ventricles, without the correct delay in between and in severe cases can result in sudden death.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The speed of action potential production in pacemaker cells is affected, but not controlled by the autonomic nervous system.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The sympathetic nervous system (nerves dominant during the body's fight-or-flight response) increase heart rate (positive chronotropy), by decreasing the time to produce an action potential in the SAN. Nerves from the spinal cord release a molecule called noradrenaline, which binds to and activates receptors on the pacemaker cell membrane called β1 adrenoceptors. This activates a protein, called a G-protein (s for stimulatory). Activation of this G-protein leads to increased levels of cAMP in the cell (via the cAMP pathway). cAMP binds to the HCN channels (see above), increasing the funny current and therefore increasing the rate of depolarization, during the pacemaker potential. The increased cAMP also increases the opening time of L -type calcium channels, increasing the Ca current through the channel, speeding up phase 0.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: The parasympathetic nervous system (nerves dominant while the body is resting and digesting) decreases heart rate (negative chronotropy), by increasing the time taken to produce an action potential in the SAN. A nerve called the vagus nerve, that begins in the brain and travels to the sinoatrial node, releases a molecule called acetylcholine (ACh) which binds to a receptor located on the outside of the pacemaker cell, called an M2 muscarinic receptor. This activates a G-protein (I for inhibitory), which is made up of 3 subunits (α, β and γ) which, when activated, separate from the receptor. The β and γ subunits activate a special set of potassium channels, increasing potassium flow out of the cell and decreasing membrane potential, meaning that the pacemaker cells take longer to reach their threshold value. The G-protein also inhibits the cAMP pathway therefore reducing the sympathetic effects caused by the spinal nerves.


title: Cardiac action potential

text: Antiarrhythmic drugs are used to regulate heart rhythms that are too fast. Other drugs used to influence the cardiac action potential include sodium channel blockers, beta blockers, potassium channel blockers, and calcium channel blockers.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: Six Minutes to Midnight is a 2020 British war drama film directed by Andy Goddard from a screenplay (loosely based on a true story) by Goddard, Celyn Jones and Eddie Izzard, starring Izzard, Judi Dench, Carla Juri, James D'Arcy and Jim Broadbent.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: "Six Minutes to Midnight" was released in the United Kingdom on 26 March 2021, by Sky Cinema. The film received mixed reviews from critics.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the Augusta-Victoria College is a finishing school for daughters of the Nazi elite, located in the English coastal town of Bexhill-on-Sea. The school is under surveillance by the British secret service and the English teacher Wheatley is a government agent. Realising his cover has been blown, he flees to town to meet his superior Colonel Smith, but disappears before he can. Soon afterwards, another agent, Captain Thomas Miller, who is half-German and speaks the language fluently, arrives to replace him. When the girls head to the beach to swim, they find Wheatley's body washed into the shallows.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: Miller looks for clues and during a party he overhears a German diplomat tell PT instructor Ilse Keller, herself a former pupil, of plans to secretly repatriate the students to Germany. Miller rushes to town to tell Smith the news, but Keller follows him, shoots Smith and frames Miller for it. Now wanted for murder and unable to prove his credentials, Miller attempts to hide from the police.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: Despite disguising himself as a bandsman in a stolen uniform and joining a parade, he is caught and incarcerated in the local police cells, from which he is extracted by government agents Captain Drey and Corporal Willis. Miller reveals his identity as a British agent to Drey, offering a microfilm stashed at the school as evidence of his role. They take the handcuffed Miller back to the school to recover the film cassette containing a copy of Keller's list of British undercover operatives in Germany. At the school, Drey is revealed to be a Nazi sympathiser, but Miller overpowers him and goes on the run again. Local bus driver Charlie sees him along the road, and drives him to his farm, where, believing his story, he uses a hacksaw to remove the cuffs. Miller finds a phone box miles from anywhere and has just enough time to pass on the code phrase "Six Minutes to Midnight" to his superiors before Drey and Willis arrive. Miller, realising that Willis is unaware of Drey's pro-Nazi sympathies, starts talking. Drey turns and shoots Willis as his cover has been blown; Miller runs for it, and Drey takes his time casually shooting at Miller before sighting for the kill. Before Drey can fire at Miller again, the dying Willis shoots his superior.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: Miller returns to the school, where headmistress Miss Rocholl finds her charges all gone. They have been led, some reluctantly, by Keller to a clifftop where they form two lines to mark out a landing strip as the sun begins to set. A Luftwaffe Junkers Ju-52 arrives and the "mädchen" light their flares and hold them aloft, but a following RAF Spitfire forces the plane to turn away just as Miller and Rocholl pull up in Willis' car. Keller pulls a gun, intending to shoot rebellious student Gretel, but Miller, Rocholl and Gretel convince her not to; the girls run to Rocholl, and Keller surrenders to Miller.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: A few days later, Miller says goodbye to Rocholl in her office at the school, and the girls sing a parting chorus of "It's a Long Way to Tipperary". From a radio comes Neville Chamberlain's voice announcing that Britain is at war with Germany.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: Eddie Izzard first wrote the script with Celyn Jones, having acted together in the BBC wartime drama Castles In The Sky. The story takes place in Bexhill-on-Sea where Izzard grew up. Izzard's former girlfriend, Sarah Townsend, was originally set to direct the film following previous collaborations on documentaries with Izzard. Andy Goddard, who is known for his work on "Downton Abbey" was later announced as director. The same day, Judi Dench was cast as the headmistress. Lionsgate distributed the film domestically, with the international distribution rights currently up for sale.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: Principal photography began on July 3, 2018 and ran for six weeks, shooting in Wales and various locations around the UK.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: The film was released in the United Kingdom on 26 March 2021 by Sky Cinema. It was previously scheduled to be released on 29 May 2020, by Lionsgate, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. IFC Films distributed the film in the United States, where it was also released on 26 March 2021.


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: In a review for RogerEbert.com, critic Nell Minow writes: "The issues of individual, cultural, and national loyalty—and when and how to respond to aggressive actions by other nations—are relegated to the background of some weak chase scenes and plot twists."


title: Six Minutes to Midnight

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: ""Six Minutes to Midnight" has a fascinating fact-based WWII-era story to tell, but largely loses it in muddled spy shenanigans." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100 based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Diamond Life

text: Diamond Life is the debut studio album by English band Sade, released in the United Kingdom on 16 July 1984 by Epic Records and in the United States on 27 February 1985 by Portrait Records. After studying fashion design, and later modelling, Sade Adu began backup-singing with British band Pride. During this time Adu and three of the original members of "Pride"—Paul Anthony Cook, Paul Denman and Stuart Matthewman—left the group to form their own band called Sade. After various demos and performances, Sade received interest from record labels and signed to Epic.


title: Diamond Life

text: Recording for the album began in 1983 at Power Plant Studios in London and took six weeks to complete. The album's content was written by the group Sade and the production was handled by Robin Millar. Fifteen songs were recorded. The album contained a variety of musical elements including soul, jazz and sophisti-pop, mostly with love lyrics. The album spawned four singles, including "Your Love Is King" and "Smooth Operator".


title: Diamond Life

text: "Diamond Life" received widespread acclaim from music critics and it was also a commercial success, winning the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Album. The album reached number two on the UK Albums Chart and number five on the US "Billboard" 200, and has been certified multi-platinum in both countries. "Diamond Life" sold over 10 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the top-selling debut recordings of the era and the best-selling debut album by a British female vocalist, a record that stood for 24 years.


title: Diamond Life

text: After studying fashion design, and later modeling briefly, Sade began backup singing with British band Pride, during this time she formed a songwriting partnership with Pride's guitarist/saxophonist Stewart Matthewman; together, backed by Pride's rhythm section Paul Anthony Cook and Paul Denman, they began doing their own sets at Pride gigs. Her solo performances of the song "Smooth Operator" attracted the attention of record companies, and in 1983, Adu and Matthewman, split from Pride, along with bassist Paul Denman and drummer Paul Anthony Cook to form the band Sade. In May 1983, Sade performed for the first time in the United States, at Danceteria Club in New York. On 18 October 1983 Sade Adu signed with Epic Records, while the rest of the band signed to her as contractors in 1984.


title: Diamond Life

text: Prior to signing the record deal, the group recorded "Diamond Life" in six weeks. It was recorded at Power Plant Studios in London. After cutting the proposed singles "Smooth Operator" and "Your Love Is King", the first album track recorded was "Sally", a song about the Salvation Army. During recording the band worked collectively on the musical direction, rehearsing each song in detail and then recording it. The song "When Am I Going to Make a Living" was started by Sade on the back of a cleaning ticket after she picked her clothes up from the cleaners. She had no money and she wrote down, "When Am I Going to Make a Living".


title: Diamond Life

text: Producer Robin Millar met the band in 1983, and the band members had never worked in a professional studio and only had demos and recordings from the BBC studios and EMI publishing studios. Millar booked a week's worth of studio time and noted that the limitations of recording before computers had an impact upon the sound. "We used a real piano and a Fender Rhodes piano, painstakingly synching them up." They recorded 15 songs, all written by Adu and members of the group, except "Smooth Operator" written exclusively by Adu and Ray St. John. They also recorded a cover version of "Why Can't We Live Together" (1972) by Timmy Thomas.


title: Diamond Life

text: For the recording of "Cherry Pie", the band had no mixing desks with automation; each member had their job of putting a bit of echo, delay, or changing a level. Millar would then edit between the different mixes. Speaking about this Stuart Matthewman said, "Very often, we would have six people at the mixing desk at the same time."


title: Diamond Life

text: Lyrically, the album revolves around themes of love, discussing both the positives and the negatives of relationships; the music features jazzy textures, built over prominent basslines, smooth drums and subtle guitar. The album also features heavy use of brass instruments and keyboards.


title: Diamond Life

text: According to Paul Lester of BBC Music, the album is "sufficiently soulful and jazzy yet poppy, funky and easy listening", Lester described the album is being predominantly a quiet storm album with elements of mellifluous R&B. Sade's vocals on the album were described as "deliberately icy, her delivery and voice aloof, deadpan, and cold" while Ron Wynn of AllMusic stated that the album contained "slick production and quasi-jazz backing".


title: Diamond Life

text: In a contemporary review, Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" said "Diamond Life" "eschews the synthesizers that dominate British pop to make music that resembles a cross between the rock-jazz of Steely Dan and the West Indian-flavored folk-pop of Joan Armatrading. Smoldering Brazilian rhythms blend with terse pop-soul melodies and jazzy harmonies to create a sultry, timeless nightclub ambiance." "Rolling Stone" called it soul music with "self-possessed sophistication", and described Sade's vocal as "thick and rich".


title: Diamond Life

text: The album opens with the single "Smooth Operator", musically song cross between R&B, jazz, adult contemporary, pop and dance music over a light production. The song contains a Latin-style percussion and lusty saxophone and features lyrics about an "international playboy".


title: Diamond Life

text: "Your Love Is King" is a dynamic smooth ballad, that contains wrenching vocals performed by Sade and saxophone solo by Stuart Matthewman. The following song on the album is the uptempo track "Hang On to Your Love", which contains a thumping groove and lyrics that revolve around someone holding on to a relationship when things are going bad. "Sally" is a haunting laid-back, bluesy ballad that was compared to the work of Billie Holiday. The album closes with cover version of Timmy Thomas' 1972 song "Why Can't We Live Together".


title: Diamond Life

text: "Your Love Is King" was released as the album's lead single on 25 February 1984, the song was a success in European territories charting at number seven in Ireland and number six on the UK Singles Chart. The song was less successful in the United States, where it peaked at number 54 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Diamond Life

text: "When Am I Going to Make a Living" was released as the album's second single in the UK on 26 May 1984, the single was less successful than its predecessor charting at number 28 on the Irish Singles Chart and number 36 on the UK Singles Chart. However, the song did fare well elsewhere peaking at number 12 on the Dutch Top 40.


title: Diamond Life

text: "Smooth Operator" was released on 15 September 1984 as the album's third single. It peaked at number 19 in the UK, while reaching the top 20 in Austria, Switzerland, France and Germany. In the United States, the song peaked at number five on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and "Billboard" Hot Black Singles chart, as well as topping the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart.


title: Diamond Life

text: In a contemporary review for "The Village Voice", Robert Christgau applauded Sade's "taste, concept, sound", and avoidance of indulgent musicianship, arguing that these qualities enhanced the "humanitarian" themed songs. The range of both the singer's "grainy voice" and "well-meaning songwriting" was questioned by Christgau, who found "Hang On to Your Love" and "Smooth Operator" more "warming" than "seductive" and incapable of sustaining the rest of the album. Lynn Van Matre from the "Chicago Tribune" deemed the record "casual cocktail-lounge elegance", performed "with far more style than substance". Connie Johnson of the "Los Angeles Times" said "there's an earthy substance to some of the cuts—not much substance, but enough to draw you back for another listen", while crediting Sade for knowing how to "clamp personal style onto recycled R&B idioms and make it all look invitingly new". Paul Lester was more enthusiastic in a retrospective review for BBC Music, crediting Sade for her ability to write "songs that were sufficiently soulful and jazzy yet poppy, funky yet easy listening, to appeal to fans of all those genres". Paul Evans called "Diamond Life" a "victory of attitude" in "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (1992), writing that Sade "projects a wised-up sensuality, and the record neither creaks with the revivalism of Harry Connick nor the sterility of Simply Red, to name but two of Sade's neo-cocktail rivals."


title: Diamond Life

text: The album won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Album. It was also among 10 albums nominated for British Album of 30 Years at the 2010 Brit Awards, losing to "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" by Oasis. The music video for "Smooth Operator", directed by Julien Temple, was nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards in 1985, Best Female Video and Best New Artist. "Diamond Life" was voted the 14th best album of the year in the 1985 Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics, published by "The Village Voice"; "Smooth Operator" was voted 25th in the singles poll. "Pitchfork" placed the album at number 10 on its list of "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s". In 2020, "Rolling Stone" ranked the album number 200 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and, in 2022, number 66 on its list of "100 Best Debut Albums of All Time".


title: Diamond Life

text: "Diamond Life" reached number two in the UK Album Chart and was certified quadruple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 2 March 1987, denoting shipments in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it peaked at number five on the "Billboard" 200, and on 2 February 1995, it was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments in excess of four million copies. Additionally, the album topped the charts in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. By May 1985, "Diamond Life" had international sales of over one million copies in the United Kingdom, and four million copies sold worldwide. As of November 1997, worldwide sales stand at 10 million copies.


title: Diamond Life

text: Sade and the band were credited as being influential to neo soul. The band achieved success in the 1980s with music that featured a sophisti-pop style, incorporating elements of soul, pop, smooth jazz, and quiet storm. Lester credited the album with giving quiet storm music a "wide, even international audience". The band was part of a new wave of British R&B-oriented artists during the late 1980s and early 1990s that also included Soul II Soul, Caron Wheeler, The Brand New Heavies, Simply Red, Jamiroquai, and Lisa Stansfield. AllMusic's Alex Henderson wrote, "Many of the British artists who emerged during that period had a neo-soul outlook and were able to blend influences from different eras". Following the coining of the term "quiet storm" by Smokey Robinson, Sade was credited for helping give the genre a worldwide audience.


title: Diamond Life

text: Some cassette editions, like the initial US and Canadian editions, use the above standard track listing. Others used the track listing below, which included "Smooth Operator"/"Snake Bite" and "Love Affair with Life" from the single for "Your Love Is King".


title: Kuban

text: Kuban (Russian and Ukrainian: Кубань; ) is a historical and geographical region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe, the Volga Delta and the Caucasus, and separated from the Crimean Peninsula to the west by the Kerch Strait. Krasnodar Krai is often referred to as "Kuban", both officially and unofficially, although the term is not exclusive to the krai and accommodates the republics of Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, and parts of Stavropol Krai.


title: Kuban

text: The Cossack settlement of Kuban and of the adjacent Black Sea region occurred gradually for over a century, and was heavily influenced by the outcomes of the conflicts between Russia and Ottoman Empire. In the mid-18th century, the area was predominantly settled by the mountainous Adyghe tribes. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, the population of the area started to show more pro-Russian tendencies.


title: Kuban

text: In order to stop Turkish ambitions to use Kuban region to facilitate the return of the Crimea, Russia started to establish a network of fortifications along the Kuban River in the 1770s. After the Russian annexation of the Crimea, right-bank Kuban, and Taman in 1783, the Kuban River became the border of the Russian Empire. New fortresses were built on the Kuban in the 1780s–1790s.


title: Kuban

text: Until the 1790s, these fortresses and the abandoned Cossack settlements on the Laba River and in Taman remained the only indication of Russian presence in the area. More intensive settlement started in 1792–1794, when Black Sea Cossack Host and Don Cossacks were re-settled to this area by the Russian government in order to strengthen the southern borders.


title: Kuban

text: At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, the right bank of the Kuban River was settled. At the same time, first settlements appear on the coast of the Black Sea and on the plain between the Kuban and Bolshaya Laba Rivers. During the second half of the 19th century, the settlement rate intensified, and the territory was administratively organized into Kuban Oblast and Black Sea Okrug (which later became Black Sea Governorate).


title: Kuban

text: The location of the territory along the border had a significant effect on its administrative division, which incorporated the elements of civil and military governments.


title: Metamodernism

text: Metamodernism is a term that refers to a range of developments observed in many areas of art, culture and philosophy, emerging in the aftermath of postmodernism, roughly at the turn of the 21st century. To many, it is characterized as mediations between aspects of modernism and postmodernism; for others the term suggests an integration of those sensibilities with premodern (indigenous and traditional) cultural codes as well. Metamodernism is one of a number of attempts to describe post-postmodernism.


title: Metamodernism

text: In 1995, Canadian literary theorist Linda Hutcheon stated that a new label for what was coming after postmodernism was necessary.


title: Metamodernism

text: The term appeared as early as 1975, when scholar Mas'ud Zavarzadeh used it to describe a cluster of aesthetics or attitudes which had been emerging in American literary narratives since the mid-1950s. In 1999, Moyo Okediji utilized the term "metamodern" applying it to contemporary African-American art that issues an "extension of and challenge to modernism and postmodernism." In 2002, Andre Furlani, analyzing the literary works of Guy Davenport, defined metamodernism as an aesthetic that is ""after" yet "by means of" modernism... a departure as well as a perpetuation." The relationship between metamodernism and modernism was seen as going "far beyond homage, toward a reengagement with modernist method in order to address subject matter well outside the range or interest of the modernists themselves." In 2007, Alexandra Dumitrescu described metamodernism as partly a concurrence with, partly an emergence from, and partly a reaction to, postmodernism, "champion[ing] the idea that only in their interconnection and continuous revision lie the possibility of grasping the nature of contemporary cultural and literary phenomena."


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2010, cultural theorists Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker contributed significantly to the theorization of post-postmodernism, using the term metamodernism. In their essay "Notes on Metamodernism", they asserted that the 2000s were characterized by the return of typically modern positions that nevertheless did not forfeit the postmodern mindsets of the 1980s and 1990s. According to them, the metamodern sensibility "can be conceived of as a kind of informed naivety, a pragmatic idealism", characteristic of cultural responses to recent global events such as climate change, the financial crisis, political instability, and the digital revolution. They asserted that “the postmodern culture of relativism, irony, and pastiche" is over, having been replaced by a post-ideological condition that stresses engagement, affect, and storytelling through "ironic sincerity."


title: Metamodernism

text: The prefix "meta-" refers to a reflective stance and repeated rumination, as opposed to Plato's metaxy, which denotes a movement "between" (meta) opposite poles as well as "beyond" (meta) them. Vermeulen and van den Akker described metamodernism as a "structure of feeling" that oscillates between modernism and postmodernism like "a pendulum swinging between...innumerable poles".


title: Metamodernism

text: This oscillation has more recently been identified with hypermodernity. Metamodernity is the move beyond. According to Kim Levin, writing in "ARTnews", this oscillation "must embrace doubt, as well as hope and melancholy, sincerity and irony, affect and apathy, the personal and the political, and technology and techne." For the metamodern generation, according to Vermeulen, "grand narratives are as necessary as they are problematic, hope is not simply something to distrust, love not necessarily something to be ridiculed."


title: Metamodernism

text: Vermeulen asserted that "metamodernism is not so much a philosophy—which implies a closed ontology—as it is an attempt at a vernacular, or...a sort of open source document, that might contextualise and explain what is going on around us, in political economy as much as in the arts." The return of a Romantic sensibility has been posited as a key characteristic of metamodernism, observed by Vermeulen and van den Akker in the architecture of Herzog & de Meuron, and the work of artists such as Bas Jan Ader, Peter Doig, Olafur Eliasson, Kaye Donachie, Charles Avery, and Ragnar Kjartansson.


title: Metamodernism

text: James MacDowell, in his formulation of the "quirky" cinematic sensibility, described the works of Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Miranda July, and Charlie Kaufman as building upon the "New Sincerity", and embodying the metamodern structure of feeling in their balancing of "ironic detachment with sincere engagement".


title: Metamodernism

text: The 2013 issue of the "American Book Review" dedicated to metamodernism included a series of essays identifying authors such as Roberto Bolaño, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen, Haruki Murakami, Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace as metamodernists.


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2013, Linda C. Ceriello proposed a theorization of metamodernism for the field of religious studies, connecting the contemporary phenomenon of secular spirituality to the emergence of a metamodern episteme. Her analysis of contemporary religious/spiritual movements and ontologies posits a shift that is consonant with the metamodern cultural sensibilities identified by others such as Vermeulen and van den Akker, and which has given rise to a distinct metamodern soteriology.


title: Metamodernism

text: Linda Ceriello's work with Greg Dember on popular cultural products such as Joss Whedon's seminal television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and on Whedon and Goddard's 2012 film "The Cabin in the Woods" proposed an epistemic taxonomy of the monstrous/paranormal to distinguish the character of metamodern monsters from those which could be read as postmodern, modern or pre-modern.


title: Metamodernism

text: In a 2014 article in "PMLA", literary scholars David James and Urmila Seshagiri argued that "metamodernist writing incorporates and adapts, reactivates and complicates the aesthetic prerogatives of an earlier cultural moment", in discussing twenty-first century writers such as Tom McCarthy.


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2014, Professor Stephen Knudsen, writing in "ArtPulse", noted that metamodernism "allows the possibility of staying sympathetic to the poststructuralist deconstruction of subjectivity and the self—Lyotard’s teasing of everything into intertextual fragments—and yet it still encourages genuine protagonists and creators and the recouping of some of modernism's virtues."


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2017, Vermeulen and van den Akker, with Allison Gibbons, published "Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect and Depth After Postmodernism", an edited collection of essays exploring the notion of metamodernism across a variety of fields in the arts and culture. Individual chapters cover metamodernism in areas such as film, literary fiction, crafts, television, photography and politics. Contributors include the three editors, James McDowell, Josh Toth, Jöog Heiser, Sjoerd van Tuinen, Lee Konstantinou, Nicole Timmer, Gry C. Rustad, Kuy Hanno Schwind, Irmtraud Huber, Wolfgang Funk, Sam Browse, Raoul Eshelman, and James Elkins. In the introductory chapter, van den Akker and Vermeulen update and consolidate their original 2010 proposal, while addressing the divergent usages of the term “metamodernism” by other thinkers.


title: Metamodernism

text: In a 2017 essay on metamodernism in literary fiction, Fabio Vittorini stated that since the late 1980s, memetic strategies of the modern have been combined with the meta-literary strategies of the postmodern, performing "a pendulum-like motion between the naive and/or fanatic idealism of the former and the skeptical and/or apathetic pragmatism of the latter."


title: Metamodernism

text: The first peer-reviewed article applying metamodern theory to the study of religions was published in 2017 by Michel Clasquin-Johnson,


title: Metamodernism

text: Starting 2018 the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has funded a Metamodernism Research Network. The Network has hosted several international symposia and conferences.


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2021, American philosopher Jason Josephson Storm published "," a foundational theoretical text in metamodernist philosophy, social science, and politics. In this book, Storm establishes a novel method for critical scholarly research in the social sciences and humanities, disciplines which he refers to using the umbrella term "human sciences". The metamodernist mode of analysis involves metarealism, process social ontology, hylosemiotics, Zeteticism and a "revaluation of values", each of which is developed progressively in parts I-IV of the text. Storm's philosophy of metamodernism builds on and critiques both modernism and postmodernism, arguing that those two preceding movements are not as disparate as they have been made out to be. Ultimately, while incorporating modernist and postmodernist elements, "Metamodernism" foregrounds the importance of reflective, self-analytical, interdisciplinary scholarship. Storm asserts the need for a humble, positively and progressively oriented academy in which a collaborative and compassionate ethics serve openly as the motivation behind research and development of thought.


title: Metamodernism

text: Drawing upon the work of Vermeulen and van den Akker, Luke Turner published "The Metamodernist Manifesto" in 2011 as "an exercise in simultaneously defining and embodying the metamodern spirit," describing it as "a romantic reaction to our crisis-ridden moment." The manifesto recognized "oscillation to be the natural order of the world," and called for an end to "the inertia resulting from a century of modernist ideological naivety and the cynical insincerity of its antonymous bastard child." Instead, Turner proposed metamodernism as "the mercurial condition between and beyond irony and sincerity, naivety and knowingness, relativism and truth, optimism and doubt, in pursuit of a plurality of disparate and elusive horizons," and concluded with a call to "go forth and oscillate!" In 2014, the manifesto became the impetus for LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner's collaborative art practice, after Shia LaBeouf reached out to Turner after encountering the text, with the trio embarking on a series of metamodern performance projects exploring connection, empathy, and community across digital and physical platforms.


title: Metamodernism

text: A number of exhibitions devoted to metamodernism have been staged. In November 2011, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York staged an exhibition entitled "No More Modern: Notes on Metamodernism", featuring the work of Pilvi Takala, Guido van der Werve, Benjamin Martin, and Mariechen Danz. In March 2012, Galerie Tanja Wagner in Berlin curated "Discussing Metamodernism" in collaboration with Vermeulen and van den Akker. The show featured the work of , Yael Bartana, Monica Bonvicini, Mariechen Danz, Annabel Daou, Paula Doepfner, Olafur Eliasson, Mona Hatoum, Andy Holden, Sejla Kameric, Ragnar Kjartansson, Kris Lemsalu, Issa Sant, David Thorpe, Angelika J. Trojnarski, Luke Turner, and Nastja Säde Rönkkö. In 2013 Andy Holden staged the exhibition "Maximum Irony! Maximum Sincerity 1999-2003: Towards a Unified Theory of M!MS". The exhibition examined the manifesto he had written in 2003 that called for art to be simultaneously ironic and sincere. The exhibition told the history of the writing of the manifesto and subsequently M!MS it now often cited as a precursor to Metamodernism as a ‘structure of feeling’.


title: Metamodernism

text: In his fourth novel, "More Deaths than One", published in 2014, the New Zealand writer and singer-songwriter Gary Jeshel Forrester examined metamodernism by way of a search for the Central Illinois roots of David Foster Wallace during a picaresque journey to America. In it, Forrester wrote that "[m]etamodernist theory proposes to fill the postmodernist void with a rough synthesis of the two predecessors from the twentieth century [modernism and post-modernism]. In the new paradigm, metaphysics, epistemology, and ontology all have their places, but the overriding concern is with yet another division of philosophy – ethics. It's okay to search for values and meaning, even as we continue to be skeptical."


title: Metamodernism

text: In May 2014, country music artist Sturgill Simpson told "CMT" that his album "Metamodern Sounds in Country Music" had been inspired in part by an essay by Seth Abramson, who writes about metamodernism on his "Huffington Post" blog. Simpson stated that "Abramson homes in on the way everybody is obsessed with nostalgia, even though technology is moving faster than ever." According to J.T. Welsch, "Abramson sees the 'meta-' prefix as a means to transcend the burden of modernism and postmodernism's allegedly polarised intellectual heritage."


title: Metamodernism

text: A strand of metamodernism can be identified in Sci-Fi, taking the place of Postmodernism. Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival" is seen by Pappis as an example, "in that it explores an oscillation in and transcendence of time".


title: Metamodernism

text: Bo Burnham's and Eighth Grade have been described as metamodern reactions to growing up with social media.


title: Metamodernism

text: Other authors have utilized the term metamodernism in a sense that is partly related but divergent from the general academic conception and employment of the term as a cultural sensibility. These authors treat the concept as an aspirational stage in human development. Some have also related this conceptualization of metamodernism to Integral theory-- an earlier developmental paradigm with a spiritual emphasis.


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2017, sociologist Daniel Görtz and theory artist Emil Ejner Friis, writing under the pen name Hanzi Freinacht, published the first volume in their 'Metamodern Guide to Politics' Series, "The Listening Society." Employing metamodernism as their "philosophical engine," they construe metamodernism as an active intellectual, social, and political movement emerging to meet the crises arising from globalization.


title: Metamodernism

text: "Freinacht" articulates a progressive political program heavily informed by developmental psychology, particularly the Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC), a neo-Piagetian framework developed by Michael Commons. In this context, metamodernism is best understood not merely as a cultural "phase", but as a developmental "stage", which is manifested at both the individual and the collective levels. The distinct stages of the MHC thus correspond to cultural expressions of these stages and their associated worldviews, or "effective value memes."


title: Metamodernism

text: In September 2018, Görtz conducted a TEDx talk in Berlin outlining the development of "value memes" (influenced by the work of Clare W. Graves and Don Beck) claiming that the metamodern value meme constitutes the highest form yet.


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2019, the second volume of the Series, "Nordic Ideology", was published, providing Freinacht's detailed vision for a political metamodernism.


title: Metamodernism

text: Jim Rutt brought metamodernism to the notice of the so-called "GameB" community through various interviews with Freinacht (Görtz), Stein, Cooper, and others on "The Jim Rutt Show". On November 16, 2018, the topic of political metamodernism was broached on "Revolutionary Left Radio" hosted by Breht Ó Séaghdha, interviewing Austin Hayden Smidt, where they discuss the paradigmatic backdrops of modernity and postmodernity, and the need for leftist reform and unification which they suggest political metamodernism could guide. Douglas Lain of "Zero Books" has also explored the topic of political metamodernism on his podcast with Luke Turner.


title: Metamodernism

text: Swedish political party Initiativet is based on metamodern principles. It is a sister-party of Danish political party Alternativet.


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2019, Lene Rachel Anderson published the book "Metamodernity: Meaning and Hope in a Complex World," in which she claims: "Metamodernity provides us with a framework for understanding ourselves and our societies in a much more complex way. It contains both indigenous, premodern, modern, and postmodern cultural elements and thus provides social norms and a moral fabric for intimacy, spirituality, religion, science, and self-exploration, all at the same time."


title: Metamodernism

text: 2019 also saw the publication of "The World We Create: From God to Market" by Tomas Björkman, a work exploring the complex origins of our precarious situation today, along with a set of proposed solutions utilizing a metamodern framework.


title: Metamodernism

text: In 2021, Perspectiva Press published "Metamodernity: Dispatches from a Time Between Worlds", an anthology of essays on metamodernism and society by Jonathan Rowson and others.


title: Black Standard

text: The Black Banner or Black Standard (, also known as (, "banner of the eagle" or simply as , , "the banner") is one of the flags flown by the Islamic prophet Muhammad according to Muslim tradition. It was historically used by Abu Muslim in his uprising leading to the Abbasid Revolution in 747 and is therefore associated with the Abbasid Caliphate in particular. It is also a symbol in Islamic eschatology (heralding the advent of the Mahdi).


title: Black Standard

text: The Black Banner, which is distinct from the ISIS flag, has been used by some jihadist and other militant groups since the 1990s, including some Chechen groups. Scholars have interpreted IS's use of a similar black flag as representing their claim to re-establishing a Caliphate. Similar black flags have been used throughout Islamic history, including in Afghanistan during the early 20th century.


title: Black Standard

text: The Roman army used visible standards, Eagles, to identify the core of its legions. By the mid-600s, Arab armies were using standards for the same purpose. Among these forces the was a square banner; not to be confused with the or , an identifying mark like a red turban.


title: Black Standard

text: Islamic tradition states that the Quraysh had a black and a white-and-black . It further states that Muhammad had an in white nicknamed "the Young Eagle" (, ); and a in black, said to be made from his wife Aisha's head-cloth. This larger flag was known as Eagle.


title: Black Standard

text: The hadith reports Muhammad said that the advent of the Mahdi would be signalled by Black Standards proceeding from Khorasan and that it will be the flag of the army that will fight the Masih ad-Dajjal. At the Battle of Siffin, according to tradition, Ali used the of the Prophet, which was white while those who fought against him instead used black banners.


title: Rune Factory

text: "Rune Factory" retains the farming and social simulation portions of the "Story of Seasons" games, but integrates it into a fantasy setting and introduces dungeon crawling elements into the core gameplay. The basic premise of most "Rune Factory" games is to play as a hero who has lost their memory, but must save the land from peril at the hands of an evil enemy, while uncovering their memories. The title of the series refers to the recurring game mechanic of "rune points" and runes that can be earned by completing a variety of tasks, such as growing crops, crafting items and leveling up skills.


title: Rune Factory

text: The games in the franchise have seen both critical and commercial success, with Xseed Games, the North American publisher of the series, declaring it as their best performing franchise in 2020.


title: Rune Factory

text: "Rune Factory" spans seven different games set in the same shared universe. Despite the loose connections between each entry, they each feature their own cast of characters, setting, and story, so the numbers mostly refer to episodes rather than to sequels. As of 2021, there are five numbered main entries to the franchise, as well as one enhanced port and two spin-offs, including a direct sequel to the first game.


title: Rune Factory

text: Several titles in the series have received their own manga adaptations. A 64-page manga was included as part of the pre-order for the first mainline game. An anthology manga series published by DNA Media Comics, was later released on November 1, 2006 to promote the game. It features an ensemble of writers, including Natsuna Morita, Hitoshi Tatsumi, Minato Tonami, Aimi Igarashi, Enya Uraki, and Hiromi Miura. Multiple manga titles based on "Rune Factory 2" and "Rune Factory Frontier" have been serialized and featured in several magazines, including "A-Station", "Dengeki Maoh", "Dengeki Nintendo DS", and "Monthly Wings". Further manga adaptations have been serialized and published in "Nintendo Dream" magazine, coinciding with the Japanese releases of "Rune Factory 3", "Rune Factory 4" and "Rune Factory 5".


title: Rune Factory

text: The gameplay of the "Rune Factory" series is similar to that of "Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons". For every one real-world second, one in-game minute passes. The player can grow crops, using upgradeable farm equipment. However, the "Harvest Moon" game mechanic of purchasing animals has been replaced by defeating and befriending monsters in dungeons. If a monster is tamed, it can help the player in battle, produce goods, or help to tend the crops. The game's combat is in the action role-playing game style.


title: Rune Factory

text: Like most "Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons" games, the player is given a limited amount of stamina, in the form of "Rune Points", or "RP". Rune Points get depleted as the player performs tasks at the farm or fights using a weapon or skills. The player is given hit points as well. The player can attack with no RP by sacrificing HP. The player can replenish RP by using Runes created by fully-grown crops or potions, while HP can be restored using medicine or healing abilities. The town bathhouse restores both HP and RP. If the player runs out of HP while working on their farm, they will collapse and be rescued; however, in "Rune Factory" and "Rune Factory 2", dying outside the town causes game over. In all other games, the player will not die while fighting in the caves or ruins.


title: Rune Factory

text: Crops can be planted in different areas to sell for gold; other activities include mining for metal and minerals, fishing, or collecting food such as milk and eggs from befriended monsters. The player can then spend money and material to buy a variety of upgrades for their house, weapons, and tools.


title: Rune Factory

text: In addition to their open-ended gameplay, the games possess a linear storyline, which can be furthered by exploring dungeons and defeating certain monsters. Just like in the "Harvest Moon" series, the main character's relationship with the other villagers increase by talking to them or performing actions that please them, like giving items they like as presents for example. Some of them can even be married if their relationship improves enough. Some games of the series require the protagonist to get married as part of the storyline.


title: Rune Factory

text: It is described by Yoshifumi Hashimoto, producer of the "Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons" series, as ""Harvest Moon" where you wield a sword." According to Marvelous' managing director and "Harvest Moon"'s creator, Yasuhiro Wada, "" does not borrow the "Harvest Moon(Bokujō Monogatari)" name for the Japanese release. This was done in order to grow "Rune Factory" as an independent series and Marvelous will continue to do this with all future installments including "Rune Factory Frontier". Despite this, Natsume applied the subtitle "A Fantasy Harvest Moon" to "Rune Factory 2" and "Rune Factory 3".


title: Rune Factory

text: "Rune Factory Frontier" was announced during an interview between Cubed3 and Yasuhiro Wada on June 6, 2007, and was fully revealed on June 4, 2008 in the Japanese video game magazine Famitsu. On July 11, 2008, Marvelous Entertainment USA and Xseed Games announced that they were both bringing "Rune Factory Frontier" to North America. "Rune Factory Frontier" released in the North America region on March 17, 2009.


title: Rune Factory

text: "Rune Factory 5" was said to be expected at "some point in time", according to series producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto. In November 2013, Neverland Co. filed for bankruptcy, leaving the future of the series in question at the time. However, in February 2014 it was revealed that the Rune Factory development team had been hired by Marvelous AQL, and that they were developing the Nintendo 3DS simulation role-playing video game "". In February 2019, during the 13.02.19 Nintendo Direct, Rune Factory 5 was once again confirmed to be in development by Hakama, a new studio founded by Hashimoto. In September 2020, during a Nintendo Direct Mini presentation the game's release date was slated for Spring 2021 in Japan and later in the same year worldwide. Another trailer was released in a Japanese-exclusive Nintendo Direct mini in October, revealing a limited edition "Premium Box" and an expected release date of May 20, 2021 in Japan.


title: Rune Factory

text: "Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon" received an 8.4 rating from IGN's Mark Bozon. Bozon commented that the art style was "amazing", and that it was "the "Harvest Moon" you've been waiting for". 7/10 from "Nintendo Power", and 4/5 from X-Play.


title: Rune Factory

text: IGN rated "Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon" at 8.4/10, commenting on its similarity to the original.


title: Fiji Airways

text: Fiji Airways (trading as and formerly known as Air Pacific) is the flag carrier airline of Fiji and operates international services from its hubs in Fiji to 13 countries and 26 cities including, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands (Oceania), Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Canada and the United States. It has an extended network of 108 international destinations through its codeshare partners. The Fiji Airways Group brings in 64 percent of all visitors who fly to Fiji, employs over 1000 employees, and earns revenues of over FJD$815 million (US$390m).


title: Fiji Airways

text: The first commercial flight as Fiji Airways was made in 1951 but the airline's origins date back to Katafaga Estates Ltd. formed in 1947. After being acquired by Qantas in 1958, Katafaga Estates was retooled as a regional airline and renamed Air Pacific. In May 2012, MD/CEO David Pflieger announced that as the final part of the airline's successful turnaround, the airline would be returning to its former name of Fiji Airways to reinforce its role as the national airline of Fiji. The Fiji government owns 52% of the airline and Qantas 46%, with the governments of several Pacific island nations holding the remainder.


title: Fiji Airways

text: The airline plans to replace five of its older Boeing 737s with Boeing's new 737 MAX 8s, at a list price of about US$110 million each. Two of the new aircraft arrived in 2018, and the remainder in 2019. The airline is also currently leasing two Airbus A350-900 aircraft. The 737 MAX 8s are intended for Fiji Airways' regional services to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu, while the Airbus A350-900s, A330-200s and A330-300s are intended for longer services such as the United States, Canada and Singapore.


title: Fiji Airways

text: The airline was founded by Australian aviator Harold Gatty who in 1931 had been the navigator on a record-breaking round-the-world flight with Wiley Post. Gatty moved to Fiji after World War II and registered the airline in 1947 as Katafaga Estates Ltd., after the coconut estate Gatty had established on Fiji's eastern island group. Gatty renamed the airline as Fiji Airways in September 1951. The New Zealander Fred Ladd was Fiji Airways' first Chief Pilot.